Voices Behind the Curtain

by Gordon Zuckerman

  A small, motionless lump lay curled in the fetal position on the opposite side of the bed, jet-black hair splayed over the white pillow. Filled with panic, Mike wondered if she was all right. To make certain she was, he reached down and gently touched her neck.

  Feeling his touch, Cecelia turned over, opened her eyes, stared around, and asked, “Did John and Gordon really ask us to join their club?”

  * * *

  LATER THAT SAME AFTERNOON, THE STONES WERE PROWLING AROUND the old town of Monterey when they discovered the Army Language School. Once Mike explained its purpose, Cecelia was having a difficult time comprehending why every branch of the armed services, from bases all over the world, would send personnel to learn so many different languages at one location.

  The teachers, Mike explained, were foreign nationals recruited for their expertise in official written languages as well as their command of numerous local dialects.

  As they stood debating what they should do next, a group of students streamed out of the language school. They were intent on making their way across the street and into an unremarkable-looking local tavern. Grabbing Mike as they streamed out, Cecelia said, “Let’s follow them. I need to talk to them.”

  Never surprised by his wife’s insatiable curiosity, he replied, “Why not,” before he extended his arm and offered to lead her across the street. Inside, Mike settled onto a bar stool at the far end of the bar. He planned to spend the time mindlessly crunching on pretzels and sipping a cold beer.

  Cecelia was truly in her element. She walked straight up to a kind-faced man and, in no time, she had been asked to join him and his friends for a friendly beer.

  Mike smiled as he watched her begin to ask questions. When two of the students responded, she learned they would be assigned positions in two different provinces in China. Immediately, she began to speak in her privileged Hong Kong dialect. Responding, the two students began to speak flawless Chinese but in the dialects of the provinces where they would be assigned.

  * * *

  FLATTERED BY HER INTEREST IN THEM, THEY LISTENED AS SHE ASKED, “Where do you come from? Where have you attended college? What language are you here to study? Why are you interested in government work? Where are you hoping to be assigned? What are you planning to do when your service commitment is complete?”

  * * *

  MIKE WAS FINISHING THE LAST OF HIS SECOND BEER WHEN CECELIA walked up behind him and announced, “This Army Language School is one big melting pot of people from different backgrounds who have come together to study languages. Why couldn’t the same concept be applied to the study of international political science and commerce—kind of an expanded version of the program we attended at Berkeley?”

  Mike chuckled, amused by the earnestness of her question, and asked, “What are you planning to do, start a school for future Six Sentinels?”

  Not taking Cecelia seriously had always been a serious mistake. One look at her standing defiantly in front of him, her hands firmly placed on her hips, the emerald-green eyes flashing, and the square set of her delicate facial features, Mike immediately realized he had just said the wrong thing.

  Clearly upset by his careless statement, Cecelia, not above expressing how she felt, said, “Listen, Mr. Banker, there are two undeniable facts of life that even you would recognize. One, we aren’t getting any younger, and two, these abuses of free enterprise are beginning to appear with alarming regularity. If we expect to perpetuate what we have started, please explain to me why you don’t think it is necessary for us to create a new kind of school, one where students from all over the world could study our Power-Cycle concept? Who knows, we might hatch a new generation of Sentinels.”

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS LATER AS THEY DROVE THE RENTED CONVERTIBLE BACK to the airport, Cecelia aroused herself from a long stretch of silent introspection before turning toward Mike. “How would you feel about continuing on to New York without me? The language school has given me an idea. I want to take advantage of my being on the West Coast to check out a few ideas.”

  Mike knew better than protest. To argue would be futile. Could this be the start of the idea for Cecelia’s special mission like we discussed on the beach?

  * * *

  ARRIVING AT THE AIRPORT WAS TURNING INTO A STRANGE EXPERIENCE. Instead of returning the rental car and proceeding together to the gate, Mike arranged for its further use by Cecelia. Standing curbside at the busy airport, Cecelia and Mike were trying to decide how to say good-by. It seemed like a very strange thing for them to be doing. Finally, he reached out to her and with both arms, he drew her in to his warmest hug before whispering into her ear, “I’ve been thinking about your new idea. With all of us so busily focusing on the immediacy of the problem directly in front of us, none of us have had the time to think further ahead. I have to think the probability of what you are suggesting may be much bigger than any of us suspect. At the very minimum, we should at least attempt to discover if what you are suggesting is a realistic alternative.

  “As much as I will miss you, I understand its importance. Take as much time as you need to find out whatever it is you need to learn, providing you call me every night.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Who is Marco Tancredi?

  NEW YORK, MAY 1948

  Arriving home in New York to an empty house without Cecelia only served to make worse the feelings Mike had been experiencing on his long plane ride from San Francisco. By this time, after all she has done on her own, I will never be able to forget how she looked when they carried her off the plane following her last trip to China and Southeast Asia.

  As he emptied his pockets on the captain’s table near the front door he noticed a letter with the seal of the federal government embossed in the upperleft corner. He tore into it and found a handwritten note: We need to meet privately. Don.

  It was late in the afternoon of the first day after he had returned to work. The office staff had departed. He was sitting in his office talking with one of his oldest and most trusted friends, Don Cerreta, a rising star in the U.S. Attorney General’s office They were savoring the 12-year-old McCallan single malt Scotch whisky Mike faithfully stocked in his bar when he broke the silence. “Just before I left for California, I received a very strange call from Jacques. He has been hearing rumors that the American military-industrial complex may be cooking up some kind of scheme to resurrect military spending. During the conversation, he requested Cecelia and me to meet with an old friend, Mary Wheeler Clarke.”

  Interrupting, Don asked, “Are you talking about the woman who worked with the OSS office in Bern, Switzerland, during the war, the same woman who lives here in New York, the same woman who has been receiving phone calls from former postwar high-ranking military officers?”

  Stunned by Don’s unexpected comment, Mike asked, “Receiving phone calls from high-security clearance government employees? Have you been monitoring Mary’s calls?”

  “Listen, ole friend, no one with the kind of security clearances she enjoyed is ever allowed to retire from the OSS. They are placed on inactive status and allowed to pursue a private life, but they never leave our employ. As a precaution, for the next 3 years, we regularly monitor their communications. Until approximately 3 months ago, nothing of consequence appeared to be happening. It was after it was reported that she began to receive more than an occasional call from retired high-ranking military officers that we started to pay closer attention. Tapes recorded of those conversations only revealed they would be visiting New York and they were interested in visiting their old friend. We have no knowledge of what they talked about or why, so suddenly, so many of them wanted to talk to Mary.”

  “Don, I think I may be able to shed some light on what all those calls and invitations may have been about. Why don’t I mix us another drink, before I tell you about what Mary told Cecelia and me over dinner in the privacy of our home.”

  After explaining the essence of what Mary had told them, Mike said, “Let’s n
ot forget she was considered a top-notch newspaper reporter, highly regarded for the accuracy of her stories. According to what she said, her military friends are anxious to learn if she can be of assistance in communicating their suspicions to people who will know what to do with their information. If she hadn’t known of Cecelia’s and my association with the Sentinels, I doubt if she would have called us.”

  “Mike, call it coincidence or whatever, but I think I may have stumbled onto a new angle that may help you solve Mary’s problem. Over the years, you have heard me talk about my friend Marco Tancredi, or ‘MT,’ as he is called by his friends. Marco is the person who cleaned up and sold an old ‘family-owned’ New York garbage collection company to a publicly listed waste removal company. Prior to his retirement, MT used part of his personal savings to invest in a start-up building maintenance company. Today, it is responsible for cleaning the offices of some very large East Coast industrial companies.

  “Last week, while you were in California, he called, seeking my advice. Apparently, he and his partner Armando were presented with a batch of executive notes retrieved from the waste baskets of certain senior executives of industrial companies that employ the services of his company. It appears they have deciphered the information on those notes, and it describes the same subject Mary wanted to discuss with you.”

  “Wait a minute, are you suggesting that scraps of notes removed from tons of office garbage are capable of describing a multicorporation scheme to manipulate the U.S. congressional appropriation process?”

  “No, I’m dead serious. Armando deciphered all the notes, plotted them out, and cross-referenced them. He and Marco have reason to believe that proceeds secured from a Mexican political war chest have been contributed to the campaign funds of the same congressmen who serve on the House Un- American Activities Committee. It would appear fanning the public’s fears of Communism is a major consideration supporting these hearings. According to their interpretation of the information contained in these notes, it’s all part of a plan to accelerate the restoration of Defense appropriations. It sounds precisely like what you were just telling me about.”

  “And this Marco is a reliable source? A friend, you say?”

  “Not just any friend—Marco is my oldest and best friend. He could very well be one of the most unusual people you will ever meet, and I trust him completely.

  “Both of us are the firstborn of parents who emigrated from Sicily. We grew up together on the streets of one of New York’s toughest Italian neighborhoods. For as long as I can remember, we were taught, ‘If you expect to participate in the American Dream, you can’t afford to surrender to the temptations of the neighborhood.’ Every day, Marco and I had to make difficult choices. All through grade school and high school we were being hardened in the crucible of the streets. When we refused to participate in many of the activities of our street friends, we were constantly bullied, badgered, and criticized. If someone picked on one of us, they quickly learned they were picking on both of us. It was a rare day when we returned home without scratches, bruises, and new tears in our much-mended, washed, and pressed shirts.

  “Once we graduated, I was off to college, but college was never an option for Marco. On the first Monday following graduation, he went to work for the local garbage company. The following Monday, he started his night job at the local fire department.

  “Marco was always a hard worker. Following along behind those slowmoving big trucks, hoisting the heavily laden garbage cans up and over the high top of the sides of the moving truck was not so easy, but Marco never complained. The whole time he’s hauling and lifting those big, heavy cans, he’s keeping up a running conversation with the residents, street to street, block to block, neighborhood to neighborhood. Marco had a way of turning trash day into a neighborhood social event.”

  “So how’d he go from being the beloved trash man to becoming a senior executive of a garbage collection company?” Mike asked.

  “Another thing about Marco, he has insatiable energy, curiosity, and imagination. He doesn’t read newspapers—he attacks them. Maybe it’s to compensate for his not going to college. It didn’t take long before the owners recognized his personal skills, his work ethic, and his ability to be a quick learner. Hoping to develop him as a manager, they began to cycle him through assignments in each of the company’s operating components.

  “Progressing up the ladder was testing Marco’s ability to resist the temptations of the street. You have to understand, in New York, the garbage companies in each of the boroughs are owned by different crime-connected families. The company Marco worked for was no exception. As his role in the company improved, a growing conflict between his new responsibilities and his personal values was beginning to surface.

  “Concerned, he decided to talk to one of the owners. He needed to learn, if he respected their position, would they respect his. The owner told Marco they’d been aware of his misgivings for quite some time, and if his services weren’t so valuable, they would’ve let him go a long time ago. He was assured they wouldn’t ask him to do anything that violated his principles as long as he respected their need for confidentiality.

  “All those conversations occurred prior to 3 years ago. Shortly thereafter, everything changed when the owners of the garbage company were arrested and charged with money laundering and extortion. That was when Marco was placed in charge of running the business on a day-to-day basis. Thanks in no small part to Marco’s penchant for straight talk and his detailed experience in managing each part of the business, he was the only person who was acceptable to the federal administrators and the incarcerated owners.

  “On Tuesdays, he’d meet with the federal officials. He was expected to explain the prior week’s events, describe the coming week’s agenda, and answer any questions they might ask. No matter how hard he tried to provide the federal administrators with complete and accurate answers, he could sense they were having a difficult time believing him. After all, how could they be expected to completely trust someone who grew up on the streets with so many well established members of one of New York’s major crime families, and who’d spent all of his adult life working for a crime-connected company?

  “On Wednesdays when he traveled to Sing Sing prison, the incarcerated owners suspected he was being asked about more than what the feds needed to know about his daily operations. It was becoming increasingly apparent they were having trouble trusting someone who regularly met with the feds.

  “The burden of cleaning up and managing a company and being caught between two sets of supervisors, neither of which trusted him, or each other, was taking its toll on Marco. He was no longer the talkative, caring friend. He was becoming increasingly quiet and seemingly preoccupied by something other than what people were interested in discussing. He was missing Thursday night poker games and was not regularly attending church on Sunday. At the family dinners, he no longer occupied the center of attention. He would sit, pick at his favorite foods, and leave his glass of wine unfinished. Out of respect for his privacy, his family would watch as he sat quietly.

  “His friends, his family, his owners, and the federal administration officials couldn’t understand why he insisted on spending time trying to meet executives of large, publicly traded corporations. When he tried to explain that he was attempting to accomplish the same kind of exit strategy he had been reading about in the Wall Street Journal, they failed to understand the brilliance of his plan.

  “On the rare occasion when he had a late-night dinner with his best and oldest friend, Don Cerreta, Marco frequently used the opportunity to explain his plan. When Don would question why publicly listed New York Stock Exchange companies would be interested in acquiring a family-owned, low-status garbage company, Marco would customarily say, ‘Don, for a college boy, I would have thought you would understand that I’m creating a cleanly run, growth-oriented operating company with unlimited growth potential!’

  “For the next couple of years, we all
watched as he began to prepare the company for being sold. First, he reduced operating expenses by eliminating the bribes the owners had historically paid to the ‘guys on the arm.’ That was when Marco hired his first bodyguard and started sitting with his back to the wall.

  “He either fired or replaced family members who were not ‘pulling their weight.’ He replaced the aging moving vehicles with larger, more efficient units. He retooled his processing equipment with more modern, high-capacity machines.

  “At the same time, he started to expand his customer base—and by reaching out to potential customers in the other boroughs, he was poaching on another family’s territory. It was considered to be a very dangerous business practice.

  “Not surprisingly, Marco’s actions caught the attention of the crime lords who oversaw all the different ‘family-operated businesses’ in the New York boroughs. The family leaders were both alarmed and curious. Normally, they strictly enforced their rule that no borough-oriented business of theirs was to be allowed to poach on a neighboring business.

  “Technically, Marco had never enjoyed an ownership position in a familyrun company; he was expected to observe the ‘rules of the street.’ While he understood the unspoken laws of the neighborhood, Marco reasoned that any rule could be changed if he had a good enough reason. I still remember the day when he explained why, if he was allowed to complete his plan, the sale of the company would open the door to big money for all the other family garbage companies.

  “Everyone stopped questioning his judgment on the day he showed them the acquisition offer he had received from a big publicly traded company. They became even more curious about how the government might react, when on Tuesday he showed the offer to the administrators at the Federal Building. At first, they refused to consider approving the consummation of a transaction that would enable convicted felons still serving their sentence from prospering while their business was under control of a federal receiver.