Dean Ing - Silent Thunder

by Silent Thunder(lit)

  But they won't be voting on those, Harry said.

  Kalvin took a long breath, looked away, took a sip of his watered bourbon. Then, slowly and carefully, he said, Harry, you won't get those programs enacted as long as the media is free to say absolutely anything that comes into its head, including things that amount to sedition. What have I been saying for the last twenty minutes?

  For the last twenty minutes, Harry Rand had been thinking about many things: which negligee Bea was wearing tonight, which talk show might have the most interesting guests, whether he should have liposuction in the fall-things like that. Surely a man who was devoting twelve hours a day to promoting a more decent Godfearing America ought to be allowed to let his brain rest before bedtime.

  But no-o-o. Still, there was absolutely no question that his career depended on listening to Walter Kalvin. Walt even saw to such final details as microphone checks for press conferences, which irked Evan Showers, the Presidential Press Secretary, no end. And every time, every blessed time, Harry publicly proposed some program that Walt had warned him against, the response was lackluster at best. At worst, it was hostile. Lord, Lord, how your flock can jostle you at times! You've been saying you want to control the media, Harry sighed.

  Kalvin's hand went up quickly, like that of a cop directing traffic. No, no; one word you never use about media is 'control,' Harry. I mean, everybody loves you, that's what I realized fifteen years ago, that's how we got here; but by everybody, I don't mean everybody. Think how a Jew reacts to a swastika, and you'll get some idea how a newspaper editor or a TV commentator reacts to the idea of control. And unless I'm very much mistaken, the kind of person who tends not to love you is a cynic, and that's exactly the sort of person the media is full of.

  Don't you mean, 'are full of'? Media is plural, isn't it?

  Another long pause. Are full of, Harry. I don't care, Harry. Harry, can we just.just focus on the problem here? The only grammar rule I'm interested in right now is that you never use the word 'control' in a sentence dealing with media. What you talk about instead is responsibility. We've had responsible media during wartime, more or less. And we've had temporary commissions, federal bodies with the teeth to chew ass, during those times.

  What you want, Harry, is teeth that aren't temporary.

  We don't call it a task force or a commission, that sounds too much like, ah-

  Mustn't say it, said the President, smiling, reaching for his own highball.

  Right. You call it a council. The image of a deliberative body, one that mulls things over and recommends things. Only this one can levy a fine-pick a number-or jerk a broadcasting license. That, Harry, is how you get a bunch of uncontr-unGodly media liberals to go easy on the criticism.

  Harry Rand took a sip. Then we sweep pornography from the shelves, he said.

  Yes.

  A larger sip. Then we cast out the coat hangers.

  Wha-ah, the abortionist's coat hanger; sometimes you come up with unexpected connections, Harry. But yes; out with the coat hangers.

  Harry drained his glass. It sounds good, Walt, I'll get back to you on it.

  Or I can call you.

  I was sure you would, said the President. But I don't see why the urgency.

  Kalvin swirled his drink and took his time answering. It gets a little complicated. Call it a window of opportunity. I thought it would stay open, but it won't.

  Don't go cryptic on me, said the President.

  All right: I know how you worry about people and I didn't want to bother you. And he would be very upset if he knew I'd told you, so this doesn't go out of the room.

  Harry drew a cross-my-heart on his vest. Who'd be upset?

  Terence Unruh. He has an inoperable cancer, Harry. He'll be dead in six weeks.

  Harry Rand frowned his way to a connection. Oh; that CIA deputy you're so chummy with. Family man?

  Yes, but they're taking it well. And the Director of

  Central Intelligence will pick the next man. And whoever he is, he won't be as, um, friendly as Terry Unruh. We have a month, Harry. After that, if we've lost our unofficial friendly provider and we can't make sure the media are responsible to us, I couldn't guarantee anything.

  Harry Rand knew that Walt's definition of 'friendly' leaned toward the willing and useful; the manageable of whatever Walter Kalvin wanted managed. Don't look so glum, Walt. Pointing at his breast, smiling: This is still where all the bucks stop.

  Walter Kalvin's glance was almost dismissive. I wouldn't guarantee even that, Harry, he said. You never know what ridiculous charges might get ballyhooed into an issue by some gonzo newsman. But with a Federal Media Council, you can stop the ballyhoo before it gains momentum.

  Harry Rand could feel himself flushing with irritation because, while he bowed to no man in his basic goodness, this council idea was the sort of thing that might work for men whose supply of goodness was severely limited. He stood up, walked to the ritzy rosewood panel and waved a hand where the capacitance switch would sense it, so that the panel slid aside to reveal the ice and the bourbon. I've always wondered if cancer was God's justice. Is Terence Unruh an evil man, Walt?

  Speaking to the President's back, Kalvin said, He's one of your most ardent supporters. But no man's closet is entirely without its skeletons. You wouldn't deny that, you of all people.

  Harry Rand wheeled, ignoring the slosh of Wild Turkey on his fingers. No, but I can sincerely regret it. God has forgiven my youthful sins, Walter. Why can't you?

  The use of the full name, 'Walter,' was not lost on Kalvin. Harry did not use it often. I forgave you. Bea wouldn't, but I did. I've even pulled a few strings to help the, um, vessel of your sin in her career. You didn't know that, did you?

  Harry started on the fresh drink, no longer feeling so fresh himself. No. But now that I do, I bet you could reach her any time you wanted to.

  A shrug. She's somewhere around, I think.

  In Washington? With the sensation of ants chewing their way up the back of his neck, Harry was definitely feeling wilted.

  I think so, Kalvin said as though it were of no importance. Can't expect a pretty Albuquerque girl to stay there forever. Besides, this is where the jobs are. And she thinks too highly of you to ever be a problem, Harry.

  Harry Rand made a silent prayer, not for absolution but for deliverance. The girl had been his only stray step from the straight and narrow, but try telling that to Bea! And somewhere around the District of Columbia tonight, that pretty little time bomb was ticking away.... Who does she work for?

  Walt Kalvin rarely smiled, and when he did, it made him look sly. He was looking sly now. Interested in her again?

  No! Not the way you mean. I could always ask someone else, said the President, knowing full well his old friend Walt would rather be his only channel of information.

  She works for a man named Tate.

  Who's he?

  Standing up, speaking quickly now: Who does consulting for us through Showers, but Tate's made it plain she should listen to a man named Lathrop, who works for Terry Unruh at Langley.

  You're telling me that sweet little creature is a CIA employee, said the President.

  She doesn't know it but indirectly, yes. She does know that she works for you.

  Loyal little thing, murmured Harry Rand, thinking, If I'd been single and twenty years younger.... Well, I'm glad you saw to her welfare, Walt, though I wonder what you were thinking of, getting her a job in this town. And I repeat, I don't want to face that temptation again, so you just see to it that I don't. He knew that Kalvin was sensitive enough to his moods that, when his soul was uneasy, even Walter Kalvin trod with care. I'm going to bed now.

  Kalvin stood up, drained his glass. Just keep in mind that we'd better have a media council before Unruh starts sipping morphine cocktails. When we can nail a reporter for sedition, we won't need a replacement for Unruh. If we can't-because Unruh could be your Ollie North to an irresponsible press-consider packing your bags a couple of
months from now.''

  Tugging at his vest, preparing for the walk from the West Wing back to the White House proper, the President paused at the door. I suppose you've given some thought to the people I might appoint to that council.

  Some, Walt Kalvin agreed. And to chair it, why, as it happens I have a little spare time I might devote to it. Any problem with that?

  No, said the President moodily. I was just hoping you might surprise me.

  FIVE

  Ramsay awoke with a possible solution foremost in his mind, the perch his sleep had clung to, a springboard for a Friday morning scrubbed clean by the rain; and its name was T. Broeck Wintoon. Ramsay made it out Connecticut Avenue to the studios before nine, not driving hard but with a sense of urgency. One day NBN would abandon this sprawl of offices across the second story of a suburban shopping center; go for status like ABC. And then Alan Ramsay would really have something to bitch about: parking, congestion, formality.

  No need for a guard at the back entrance because his key-card was his pass through the steel-faced door, and Ramsay took the stairs three at a time. A cheery greeting to Ellen at the reception desk, a quick scan of the big board in the middle of the 'bullpen,' a room larger and noisier than it should be for professionals sweating deadlines. He was in time for the early conference session for the evening news-here in the studios they called it the nice capades because several tough prima donnas managed to put broadcasts together every day by simply nicing like hell, being objective about the length and placement of their stories. That, like working in an atmosphere of simulated chaos, was also part of professionalism.

  His next piece wasn't scheduled until Monday. He even had time for the call to old Wintoon, so Ramsay swung into his glassed-in cubicle and punched the information number for Georgetown University. Professor Wintoon, with only two classes to meet and a penchant for popping in on fellow academics, was seldom in his office. That's why the old man carried a pager on his belt, calling Ramsay back from the faculty lounge.

  Thought we could have lunch, Ramsay found himself saying after mutual greetings. Jesus, he couldn't just blurt this kind of thing out without preamble! I'm researching a piece on the laser-boost cargo system -that much was true enough- and wanted to tap your head on the international relations angle.

  Wintoon had done a CIA tour back in the sixties. An old family friend, Broeck Wintoon had developed wisdom with his caution and he had more solid gold contacts than Bell Labs. The familiar gravel-dry voice was vibrant as ever. The view of an unimpeachable, low-tech source, Alan? I'm no engineer.

  Ramsay agreed, chuckling, mat he needed something from a generalist with credibility, and mentioned their last talk six months previous without referring to its substance. Wintoon would realize instantly that the intelligence community was again, somehow, part of the topic. Wintoon was booked for lunch, sorry, but would be in the Med School library after that. Until cocktail time, the old fellow added. If you'd care to join me at my club?

  Booze breath is a no-no when I'm on deadline, Ramsay said lightly, though his own deadline was very personal, promising to drop by the campus in midafternoon.

  He put the phone down feeling better, then hurried to collect his materials for the nice capades. Irv, the producer, would forgive anything but lack of preparation.

  Ramsay's upcoming piece would deal with the fleet of laser-boosted pilotless cargo vessels now in development in central California. Dubbed 'Highjump,' the system featured a fleet of small orbital vehicles that would soon be delivering half-ton cargoes to America's half-assembled space station on an hourly basis. A National Public Radio feature had already hinted that, while Highjump's laser-boost was nonpolluting and many times cheaper than chemical propulsion, it could also become the basis for an orbital bombardment scheme.

  Ramsay thought Highjump no more warlike than the Sov and Japanese spaceplanes, yet he was far from any conclusions. That's what research and videotaped interviews were for.

  He fidgeted throughout the session with Irv, unable to concentrate, remembering the letter in his jacket pocket. He carried the session off, though, with promises and memocomp notes. One of those notes, on a line by itself, was simply BIO. As if he could forget.

  Despite the handy terminals, Ramsay went straight to the station's wall-length array of file cabinets. NBN had found that some people simply worked better from paper than from a screen, and let the obsolete file system remain. There, he found several updates to the bio on Kalvin, Walter Franz, beginning with the Missouri primary back during the eighties.

  Instead of letting an aide do the photocopy work, Ramsay made inferior copies in Irv's spare office using his pocket copier. The problem with pocket copiers was that they either made reduced copies that only a kid could read without squinting, or they required that your pocket be the size of an attache case. Ramsay chose to squint rather than carry a purse. He took the copies with him to lunch, gnawing an order of barbecued ribs while parked in the Zoological Gardens with the Genie's top retracted.

  He knew most of the Kalvin bio already from the Martin letter, though he was both excited and frightened to find Martin's details confirmed. Foreign-born but naturalized, degree from NYU. Enlisted in the Air Force, served in Germany, fluent in German. Later a master's from Cornell in electronic engineering, a totally different discipline from his NYU bachelor's, but military training sometimes broadened a young man's horizons and educated him in the process. Postgrad work at Stanford, experimental psychology and psychoacoustics, but no doctorate. Several years in Southern California in the recording industry. Then a staff member in the political machine that had elected a dark horse latino as mayor of Los Angeles. The mayor had later been recalled.

  Kalvin seemed to have had no work for the next two years but surfaced next in Kansas City-in the retinue of a crusading preacher who ran, successfully, for the Senate, then captured the Republican nomination and the White House itself. Walter Franz Kalvin, White House Chief of Staff, was now enjoying the perks of an indispensable man. Pundits had joked for nearly two centuries about the informal Presidential advisory groups that functioned parallel with official cabinets, but in Kalvin's case some wag had dubbed him Rand's entire pantry.

  Ramsay rechecked his notes; yes, Kalvin had switched from Demo to GOP-but so what? He'd also switched from rhetoric to Air Force intelligence to electronics to experimental psychology to recording studios, and finally to politics. It seemed to make no sensible pattern. Unless you plugged in the wildest tale imaginable, a man who somehow recovered an electronic device a half-century old with the potential to persuade people-a hell of a lot of people.

  A man with a master's in electronics could have miniaturized a breadbox-sized rig of the thirties, especially with the facilities of a recording studio at his disposal. He could also have tried his stuff out with the speeches of a mayoral candidate; evidently with success. And after that, what? Took your time, didn't you, looking for a likeable cuss who had the right background, the right voice, and a willingness to be led.

  Ramsay drove back to the studios with more care than usual, viewing himself objectively as a man who must not come to harm before passing on what he had. Then he managed somehow to channel his mind toward the High-jump piece, taking one telephoned interview and making two appointments.

  But midafternoon found him nosing the yellow Genie off Reservoir Road toward the Med School library. As promised, Wintoon was waiting. The very image of an erect, tweedy old lecturer, Broeck Wintoon kept his white hair cut short, almost military, and Ramsay envied his tan. Wintoon's long legs easily outpaced Ramsay up a long stair to an enclosed carrel, both men chatting about family ties as they went. Once inside the air-conditioned room they moved on to a brief interchange about uses to which the Pentagon might put the Highjump program, and the reactions of other nations to the system. Ramsay unlimbered his little videotaper, got Wintoon to expand on a few points before a wide-angle lens, the Georgetown U. hospital building a sturdy background prop through the
carrel window.

  The most common response is a waiting line among small nations to piggyback their own experiments on High-jump vehicles, Wintoon finished, except for Canada. She's building the orbital dock facility for the system, so the Canadians are, shall we say, high on the concept. The gray eyes twinkled with his double entendre, and Ramsay grinned as he reviewed what he had by fast monitor through the auxiliary eyepiece.

  Perfect, Ramsay murmured, and slipped the recorder into a pocket. So much for reality. There's something else, though. Maybe I should've worn a straitjacket.

  Might cause talk, Wintoon smiled, studying the younger man with the patient alertness of an old falcon. He stood up and flexed his arms, then folded them, still looking into Ramsay's eyes. Old business, or new business? he prompted. The lines around his pale eyes crinkled in lively curiosity.

  New to me, and goddamned disturbing, Ramsay admitted, and took a deep breath. Is there any question of, um, domestic political intrigue so potent that you wouldn't want to hear it?''