“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I really want to know.”
“All you PR people do is lie for a living,” she said. “The truth is just another story to you.”
He felt an automatic impulse to mount a defense, but then swallowed it before he could speak. In a way she was absolutely right. In fact, what she’d just said was an almost perfect layman’s translation of the company’s mission statement, all weasel words aside.
Seemed like an excellent time to change the subject.
“I’m Noah,” he said.
“I know. I sort your mail.” The following details were blithely enumerated, thumb to fingertips, summing him up neatly on the digits of a single hand. “Noah Gardner. Twenty-first floor, northwest corner office. Vice president as of last Thursday. And a son of a… big shot.”
“Wow. For a second I wasn’t sure where you were going with that last one.”
“Your dad owns the place, doesn’t he?”
“He owns a lot of it, I guess. Hey, I have to confess something.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“You haven’t told me your name yet,” Noah said, “and I’ve been trying to read it off your name tag, but I’m worried that you’ll get the wrong idea about where I’m looking.”
“Go for it. I’m not shy.”
On their way down, his eyes wandered only twice, and only briefly. He caught a glimpse of a small tattoo, finely drawn and not quite hidden by the neckline of her top. All that was visible was an edge of the outstretched wing of a bird, or maybe it was an angel. And a necklace lay against her smooth pale skin, a little silver cross threaded on a delicate wheat chain.
Her ID was clipped low along the V of her pullover sweater, which fit as though it had been lovingly crocheted in place that very morning. The badge itself was a temporary worker’s tag, only one notch above a guest pass. She was smiling in the photo, but a real smile, the kind that made you want to do something worthy just so you could see it again.
“Molly Ross,” he said.
She tipped his chin back up with a knuckle.
“This is fascinating and all, Mr. Gardner, but I need to go and service the postage meter.”
“Just wait a second. Will you be at this meeting tonight?”
“Yeah, I sure will.”
“Good. Because I’m going to try to make it there myself”.
She looked at him evenly. “Why?”
“Why do you think? I’m very patriotic.”
“Really.”
“Yes, I am. Very patriotic.”
“That reminds me of a joke,” Molly said. “Noah comes home-Noah from the Bible, you know?”
He nodded.
“So Noah comes home after he finally got all the animals into the ark, and his wife asks him what he’s been doing all week. Do you know what he said to her?”
“No, tell me.”
Molly patted him on the cheek, pulled his face a little closer.
“He said, ‘Honey, now I herd everything.’”
She stepped down to the floor, scooted the stool back to where it had been, and headed for the hallway.
“Don’t forget your candy bar,” she added, over a shoulder.
Despite his normally ready wit, the door to the break room had hissed closed and clicked behind her long before a single sparkling comeback came to mind.
CHAPTER 3
Classified: TS-CCO//ORCON
“Constitutionalists,” Extremism, the Militia Movement, and the Growing Threat of Domestic Terrorism
Executive Summary
As the Administration continues to be tested by economic, social, and political challenges unprecedented in our country’s history, the rise of radical/reactionary organizations and the accompanying dangers of “patriotic rebellion,” virulent hate-speech, and homegrown terrorism must now be acknowledged as a major threat to national security.
With this clear and present danger in mind, it is our recommendation that contingency plans be developed (using data from previous exploratory actions [e.g., Ops. REX-84] and in accordance with HSPD-20 / NSPD-51) with the following objectives:
1. Identification
Educate law enforcement and enlist the populace in a program designed to profile, identify, and report individuals and groups engaging in suspect behaviors, protests/advocacy, distribution of inciting literature, and/or evidencing support of issues that are known “red flags”: [1]
– Militant anti-abortion or “pro-life” organizers / “Army of God” / home-schoolers
– Anti-immigration / “border defenders” / NAU alarmists / Minutemen / “Tea Parties”
– Militia organizations / military reenactors / disenfranchised veterans / survivalists
– Earth First / Earth Liberation Front / “green anarchists” / seed-bankers
– Tax resisters / “End the Fed” proponents / IRS/WTO/IMF/ World Bank protesters
– Anti-Semitic rhetoric: Bilderberg Group / CFR / Trilateral Comm. / “New World Order”
– Third-party political campaigns / secessionists / state sovereignty proponents
– Libertarian Party / Constitution Party / “patriot movement” / gun rights activists
– “9/11 Truth” / conspiracy theorists / Holocaust deniers / hate radio/TV/Web/print
– Christian Identity / White Nationalists / American Nazi Party / “free speech” umbrella
2. Classification / isolation / aggressive watchlisting
Classify identified individuals and groups based on updated DHS threat-level criteria. [2] Aggressively deploy surveillance, law enforcement tactics (e.g., “knock-and- talk” “sneak & peek,” checkpoints, exigent search & seizure), and other available preventive and punitive measures / resources (e.g., No-Fly / No-Buy list) as appropriate to scale.
3. Detention / rendition / interrogation / prosecution
The extralegal practice of indefinite preventive detention / enhanced interrogation / rendition of nonmilitary enemy combatants has been normalized in the public perception, at least to a serviceable extent. The precedent has been established and remains supported by a neutral-to-positive portrayal in the mainstream media. However, with U.S. citizens suddenly in the news in the place of al-Qaeda terrorists, some level of psychological resistance must be anticipated and then defused when it arises. It is the opinion of the committee that such a reflexive populist reaction would prove to be a major obstacle to progress. In fact, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event (on the order of a Pearl Harbor / 9/11 attack), there is a potential that the government’s reasonable actions in this critical area may be met with significant public outrage and even active sympathy and misguided support for these treasonous/seditious elements and their hate-based objectives.
“I think I’ve read quite enough.”
Arthur Isaiah Gardner closed his copy of the new client’s binder, placed it carefully on the conference room table, and then slid it a precise few inches forward, to a spot just outside his circle of things that mattered.
Noah had grown up with a healthy dread of this gesture but, in more recent years, he’d come to appreciate its
