“So?” His feeble insults didn’t merit any more elaborate reply.
“So,” Wilson continued, “they’re pretty traditional back where you come from. Bet your friends and the folks back home would be mighty surprised at what you let that Holy See Bank buffoon stick up your ass.”
“Yeah? Well, you do what you gotta do to get ahead, you know?”
“Exactly, Peter,” Wilson said triumphantly. “Everyone’s going to find out, unless you cooperate and do exactly what I say. You got that?”
I had to be careful not to get overconfident. “Ok.”
“See, we know all about you,” he bragged, looking through a file. “How you like to lead girls on and stand them up.”
He must have been talking to Jessica.
“Your long, intimate showers with your good ‘friend,’ Amit Patel.”
What? Oh… They were monitoring us after all. Well, embarrassing as that conclusion was, it beat them realizing Amit and I had been busy watching the video of the Inner Circle’s meeting.
“Your disorderly conduct charge at that brothel in Atlanta?”
Oh, right. That little misunderstanding in my very first meeting with the Red Flower Tong where I called on the police to help rescue me. I kept an impassive face.
“And we know exactly what you did to Ashley.”
Who? The only Ashley I knew… oh. One of Amit’s girlfriends. After he broke up with her, she tried to get even with him by seducing me, and when I told her she was moving too quickly, she ran off in a fury and told her roommate…
“You raped her,” Wilson said smugly – incongruously satisfied at his ability to pin a heinous crime on me. “We know all about it. They’ll not just throw you out of school. They’ll throw you in jail. Those inmates will make what that banker did to you seem like a five-star resort. Rapist and boy toy to whatever banker takes a liking to your ass. You’re a real piece of work, Burdell, and now, your ass belongs to the Civic Circle. We own you. You need to appreciate that.”
I hadn’t realized I’d acquired such a remarkable track record for debauchery – at least in their eyes. I did my best to look way more intimidated than I actually felt. “So, what do you want?”
“What did you tell that bank whore about the Thirteen?”
“Nothing,” I snorted. “I didn’t have to. She knew all about my seeing them. When we were in bed together, she wanted to know about something called TARP. I kept telling her I couldn’t tell her about it. That just made her more convinced that the Thirteen must have told me all about it somehow. She said what we did together was just a sample, and if I wanted more, I was going to have to find out and tell her.”
We went round and round like that for a while. It was my turn to wear him down. Wilson shifted back to Amit, wanting to get me to turn on him somehow – to rat him out as a traitor to the Circle.
Then Wilson began asking me about Larry Tolliver.
“Pretty remarkable coincidence your uncle being considered for admission to Team 500,” Wilson tried to lead me on. “You working for him?”
“Indirectly,” I acknowledged. “I got stuck way off in Huntsville, working for TAGS this summer.”
“Have you seen your uncle?”
“I see him at my Grandmother’s house occasionally,” I offered in a non-committal way.
“You’ve been working for him, though?”
“I understand Travis Tolliver, the CEO of TAGS, reports ultimately to him, somehow.”
We went round and around. I finally let Wilson pull from me that I’d discussed Gomulka with Uncle Larry.
“What did you tell him?”
“I already told the Inner Circle that.”
“You can tell me again,” Wilson insisted.
“No, I can’t,” I insisted. “I was specifically instructed not to discuss it.”
“As a senior member of Team 500, I am authorized to know any business brought before the Inner Circle.”
“If you were really privy to that information, you’d already know what I said and you’d know I swore an oath to keep everything I said secret.”
He finally gave up that line of questioning. I was confident and relaxed. I was sure his readings told him I was being truthful. The questions seemed to be winding down.
Wilson revisited his questions about Amit. Around and around we went again, with me calmly denying any knowledge of any hacking or manipulation of Gomulka. His partner continued to glower at me.
“I’m going to be late to catch the flight to Pleasure Island,” I protested.
“You don’t need to go to Pleasure Island,” Wilson smiled. “We already have everything we need from you to ensure your loyalty.” Wilson took one long last look at his notes, then he looked up at me. “We have plans for Georgia Tech this fall,” he said ominously. “You’re a big part of them.”
He unfastened me from the polygraph and released my bonds.
“We’ll be in touch,” Wilson declared. “Now, get out of here.”
I was genuinely relieved not to be leaving the room through the back door to the warehouse. I went up to my third floor room. Amit’s stuff was gone. There wasn’t enough time to get to the airport, and they probably wouldn’t let me see him anyway. Maybe a text could catch him. “Not going to Pleasure Island,” I sent. “Stay safe. We’ll have pizza when you get back.” The code word for ‘you are in danger’ was ‘safe,’ and ‘pizza’ meant I am fine. We’d been leaning a lot on our text codes lately, and we’d need to work out a new code set soon to avoid leaving any obvious patterns.
I wondered what kind of corruption Amit would find himself in. Then, I realized I had nowhere to go, and a week before the G-8 Summit. I packed my bag and caught a shuttle bus to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel.
Security was tight. My TAGS badge got me through the police line, but only after my bag had been thoroughly searched. They even made me turn on my laptop, and ran a check on it to confirm all the security settings were intact. “You’re with the IT contractors?” the security guard stopped me in the lobby.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then, get down there,” he gestured to the guards at the stairs.
The basement was a scene of orderly devastation. The ventilation had failed to clear the air of the acrid smell of gunpowder, and it was hot from more people than the designed occupancy. Forensic technicians were busy cataloging the pock marks in the walls from small arms fire. Spent brass littered the floor, each shiny cylinder surrounded by a chalk mark. Two larger chalked outlines of bodies showed obvious blood stains.
The Fidei Defensor strike team must have tried to hold off the reaction team right here, then tried to fall back and defend from behind the door. I was standing at the high-water mark of their attack. If they made it all the way here, they had to have mostly secured the Inner Sanctum, first.
The remains of an obviously blown-in door showed how their defensive position had been penetrated. I tried to look into the Inner Sanctum, but the corridor twisted just inside the blown door, blocking the view. The Fidei Defensor made it all the way here, but then lost? How?
Somehow the balance of forces suddenly changed. Somehow they got ambushed from some unexpected direction. I began to understand what happened. Backed into a corner, the Inner Sanctum overrun, the surviving members of the Thirteen unleashed their secret weapon, Spring-Heeled Jack.
Unless…
Occam’s Razor.
Start with the simplest explanation that fits the facts.
Not Xueshu Quan, the rest of the Thirteen, AND Spring-Heeled Jack.
What if Xueshu Quan WAS Spring-Heeled Jack?
His minions in the Thirteen wiped out or nearly so, his own existence threatened, he launched a desperate attack on the Fidei Defensor strike team. Taken by surprise from behind, the Fidei Defensor faltered and were overcome by the Civic Circle’s Response Team attacking the Inner Sanctum from the basement of the hotel. Then what?
For some reason, Xueshu Quan must have fled. Cut of
f from a refuge within the Inner Sanctum? Afraid his identity might be revealed? No way to tell for sure. He tried to exit down the tunnel to the Holy See Bank Cottage, and ran into the other half of the attack force blocking his exit. From what I saw of the fight with Bulldog, Xueshu Quan was virtually immune from small-arms fire. He’d have plowed right through the Fidei Defensor strike team. No way would they have any 50 cals or something heavy enough to stop him in the tunnel.
Then what? Not sure how he’d been betrayed and unwilling to take a chance with his own security teams? He’d have looked for a refuge. A place to hide out, lick his wounds, and plan his next move: the old refuge on the north end of the island under the Horton House. Xueshu Quan would have needed to reconnect and reassert power in the wake of…
“Burdell!” Mr. Humphreys interrupted my speculations, frowning. “Get your ass over here.”
Humphreys and a man in an FBI jacket stood among the shattered glass and ruined IT hardware in the Network Operations Center surveying the damage. Johnny stood beside them taking notes on a clipboard.
“It’s a near total loss,” Humphreys was explaining. “We might be able to salvage some hardware and cables, but nothing more.”
“We need you to segregate the servers,” the FBI Agent explained, “particularly the hard drives, in one pile – that will go to forensics for analysis. The rest of the junk goes in another pile for disposal.”
“Yes, sir,” Humphreys acknowledged the order.
The FBI agent moved aside to confer with a colleague.
“Burdell!” Humphreys turned back to me. “You’re just in time to help Johnny here. You heard him. Servers and drives over here, everything else over there.”
I worked diligently with Johnny, yanking servers out of the pock-holed racks. Mr. Humphreys stood back and supervised.
“What’s this?” Johnny pointed to an innocuous looking switch. The switch with the network tap. I wondered.
“Just a switch,” I answered before Mr. Humphreys could reply. “Throw it in the junk pile.”
By mid-morning, we’d made a substantial dent on the mess. A sharp-dressed caterer showed up.
“May I take your orders for lunch? Compliments of the management,” he explained. It was Rob. I’d been pretty sure he and the team got away, but it was nice to have the confirmation he was OK.
“We might need take-away,” I told Rob when he got to me, my hand resting on the bulky rack mounted switch that included our network tap.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
“In your dreams, Burdell,” Mr. Humphreys said. “You and Johnny are staying here until the job is done. Then, you’re driving the van back to Huntsville.”
* * *
There was no way Rob could get his catering cart through the debris and into the ruined Network Operations Center for a pick-up. What’s more, between the size of the unit and all the security, I couldn’t slip the network tap into the lunch debris for Rob to cart off. That gave me an idea.
“Mr. Humphreys, can we clear out some of the clutter here?”
He looked around, conferred with one of the FBI agents, and came back. “After lunch.”
Soon, Rob came with our food. When he got to us in the ruined Network Operations Center, I took the initiative. “Excuse me sir,” I said, “Does the hotel have a cart we could use to clear out these ruined racks?”
“Yes, sir,” Rob replied. “I’ll bring one down for you.”
As everyone was finishing lunch, Rob showed up with the cart. Johnny and I started grabbing the carcasses of destroyed network equipment to move them onto the cart.
“Hold on there!” The FBI agent went to confer with their superior while Johnny and I stood and waited. Rob stood by the cart. Eventually, they decided on a procedure. Johnny handed a piece of hardware to Mr. Humphreys. He handed it to the agent, the agent handed it to me, and I placed it on Rob’s cart.
Mr. Humphreys and the FBI agent carefully examined each unit. I held my breath as they got to the network tap. “Another switch,” Humphreys declared. The FBI guy grunted, looking it over and handing it to me.
“Dusty,” I coughed to get Rob’s attention. My eyes met Rob’s. He got the message.
He stuck the network tap at the end of the cart where he’d be able to retrieve it easily. A few minutes later, he wheeled the cart off and was gone.
Soon, there wasn’t much left for a couple of grunts like Johnny and me to do. The FBI refused to even let us near the pile of servers, for fear we might somehow compromise the data that might be on one of them.
“That’s all we need from you guys,” the FBI agent told us. I was a bit amused he lumped Mr. Humphreys in with the rest of us grunts.
Humphreys checked his watch. I’m going to try to catch a flight. You two,” he gestured toward Johnny and me, “drive the van back to Huntsville.”
* * *
I thought we’d never get through security at the hotel, but finally we were back on the road.
“I'm so glad you're going to be joining me,” Johnny offered. “I’d been hoping for a chance to speak with you.”
“Oh?” I had no idea what I was in for. “I thought you didn't approve of my enlightened progressivism.”
“I don't approve,” he confirmed boldly. “Kirin seems to like it just fine, though. She’s gone off to Pleasure Island with Travis Tolliver and the rest of the Civic Youth wannabes.”
Ouch! She dumped him in favor of hanging out with the Civic Circle crowd. I tried to come up with a way to console him that wouldn’t tip my hand.
Johnny broke the long silence. “I’m glad we finally have this wonderful opportunity to talk about your ideology.” I could see a hint of a predatory smile on his face.
“What's there to talk about?” The last thing I wanted was to spend eight hours as Johnny’s punching bag. I had to shut this down, so I could brood in peace and figure out how to salvage something from the wreckage of my plans. “Surely you’re not against social justice?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Johnny spoke confidently. “Do you know what social justice is?”
“Social justice is a noble ideal,” I countered, pausing to collect my thoughts. “Social justice is merely running society in a fair and just manner that ensures everyone is treated equally.”
“No,” Johnny disagreed. “It’s a profoundly evil idea. You just have to look past the sugar coating to see the poison pill inside. Justice is treating everyone fairly, according to what is right, and doing unto them as they deserve. Now that’s a good idea, a noble idea. That’s all you need, really. You activists add ‘social’ to justice. When you add ‘social’ to ‘justice’ you negate the very concept of justice. Your concept of social justice involves treating some people unfairly, unjustly, so as to bestow benefits and favors on your friends and allies with the goal of securing political power. Social justice is a crude and barbaric form of tribalism that pits group against group with the explicit goal of tearing down the out group for the benefit of the in group.”
I was impressed. That was easily one of the best definitions I’d ever heard. Of course, I couldn’t tell Johnny that and maintain my cover as a leading student activist. I decided to counterattack. “Jonathan D. Rice the Third? You're merely a hopelessly retrogressive traditionalist conditioned by your privileged background to preserve and protect the very social system that created you.”
Johnny snorted. “I just have to say that's mighty presumptuous of you to dismiss me as a person and disregard my positions based on your assumptions of a background that, in truth, you know nothing about. I mean, is the person who's suffered the most always the one who’s right in every argument? Don’t you see that's a ridiculous position to hold? Here we both are hanging out with the Civic Circle, the most elite people on the planet. If anything you're more in with them than I am. How does that make me the privileged one and you the victim of oppression whose opinions trump anything I have to say in an argument? It seems to me we’re both fortunate to
be where we are.”
He was right, of course, but I had a front to maintain as a tireless crusader for social justice. Furthermore, I had my own anger and frustration to vent. “Every competent intellectual understands that logic and reason are merely the tools by which the reactionary white hetero-patriarchy seeks to defend its privileged position against those it oppresses,” I attacked. Let him chew on that.
“My, that's a whole lot of fallacies to unpack!” he exclaimed cheerfully. “You know the 'no-true Scotsman' fallacy? That's when you dismiss evidence that would falsify your conclusion by erroneously reclassifying it. It's a form of circular reasoning in which the conclusion is assumed true, and used to refute any evidence, however relevant, to the contrary. If you claim no Scotsman likes sugar on his porridge, and I point out a counterexample of a Scotsman who does like it, you counter that he must be ‘no true Scotsman.’ You see, when you claim ‘every competent intellectual’ agrees with your position, and I point out any number of examples of respected, competent intellectuals who disagree, you're going to argue that they aren't ‘competent intellectuals.’ That's just circular reasoning, though. If competency is defined as agreement with your position, the fact that all competent intellectuals agree with you is a tautology, a claim that by its structure is impossible to refute. You see?”
“You're acknowledging my arguments are impossible to refute?” I countered with a smile. “We may finally be making some progress.”
“The point is that an unfalsifiable argument isn't a valid argument at all,” Johnny replied enthusiastically. His systematic destruction of my sophistries ended only when the security guard at the causeway checkpoint stopped us. We had to step out while they searched the TAGS van. Looking for the missing agents? I didn't know, but they were certainly thorough. My bag was rifled through yet again, and they patted down Johnny and me.
Johnny began again as soon as we started moving along the causeway once more. “You see,” he confided, “I get the feeling you're really a decent sort at heart. You’re not an NPC just echoing the SJW talking points. You’ve actually got a brain. If a couple of guys like us can just sit down and talk through our disagreements, we can reach a common ground of understanding. Maybe we won't agree, but at least we'll come away with a better appreciation for each other's positions.”
The Brave and the Bold Page 33
