Viral

“Sometimes, deception is necessary,” Franklin said. “You wouldn’t be in the business you’re in if you didn’t grasp that. If people were aware of everything that went on in the world—of the tragedies and injustices occurring every day, right this minute—what would happen? Could they function? How could they justify their own lives?

“This goes beyond you and me, Charlie. Look, I’m going to tell you something now that I’m not supposed to. It doesn’t matter because you can’t do anything with it. It’s just a fact. Maybe it’ll help you understand and make the right decision.”

Make the right decision.

“Please,” he said. “Tell me.”

“This isn’t about the government, Charlie. It’s about an idea.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes, deception—as you’re using the word—is warranted because of what it brings about. Every time a politician or a business leader gives a speech, there’s a degree of deception going on, at some level. When it inspires people to live better lives, then that isn’t a bad thing. When it brings out our better natures, deception can be a good thing.”

Franklin was still playing his role as mentor, to see if Charles Mallory would assume his role as student. Charlie nodded.

“What about when it doesn’t?”

“Then the public sees through the deception and eventually it’s replaced with something else.”

“Give me an example.”

“A president saying we can win a war in Southeast Asia that can’t be won. Another president who breaks the law and insists he’s not a crook. Okay? I could go on.”

Mallory blinked.

“The public eventually saw through those because they were imperfect deceptions. What I’m talking about is something different.”

“Imperfect, in what sense?”

“Imperfect because they were human deceptions, self-deceptions. Fallibilities. When we saw through them, they did bring out our better natures. They helped us redefine who we are. But there is also something else, which is what I’m really talking about.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s something that’s built into the fabric of this country, and makes it different from any other country. You can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s not a government, it’s not the people. It’s an idea.” He set his glasses down on the sofa, watching Charlie. “And it’s too important, too valuable to ever be endangered again.

“That’s why we keep a military that’s almost double the size of every other military in the world combined,” he continued. “It’s there to defend and protect an idea.”

“That’s the Covenant.”

“It’s not something that people are meant to understand or think about. Any more than they’re meant to think about how their hamburgers are made.” He seemed about to grin, but didn’t. “With more than three hundred million people, it just wouldn’t be practical. How it works doesn’t matter to the average person, and it shouldn’t. That’s okay. What matters is that it does work, and that it takes care of its people. If it’s a deception, it’s a necessary deception.”

Where had he heard this idea before? He thought of something else, then, something John Ramesh had said to him as he drove to the mouth of the plague pit. If eight million poor Africans go to sleep one night and don’t wake up the next morning, do you think anybody’s really going to care?

“Covenant Division goes back years, doesn’t it?”

“In name, it goes back to World War II. Originally, it was called the Covenant Project. It was designed, in a nutshell, to make sure we are never vulnerable again, and to look out for allies that are. Our nuclear program was part of Covenant originally.”

“Was it Covenant Division that decided to invade Iraq? To take out Saddam?”

“I can’t comment, Charlie.”

“It failed to stop the attacks of 9/11. It didn’t do so well there.”

He shrugged. “But it’s stopped much worse. There are bigger threats right now than al Qaeda. Much bigger. If someone develops a technology that trumps what the United States government has, then the whole idea can be jeopardized, can’t it? There are a lot of technologies and unorthodox means of warfare that are very problematic right now, Charlie, that the public doesn’t have a clue about. We have to respond.”

Yes. He had heard the same words from Thomas Trent: If someone develops a technology more sophisticated than what the government has, and chooses not to sell it to the government, then the government can be undermined and rendered obsolete.

That’s what Gardner was part of. That was Gardner’s war. An invisible war to prevent the United States from losing its dominance to shifting demographics. Or shifting technologies. He had launched what was in effect a hostile takeover of the Covenant Group. Of the U.S. government. His was a businessman’s war, the only kind he knew. Run by remote control. That could have taken out eight million people in a single night. But Landon Pine was different. Pine had been a real soldier. A Navy SEAL. He saw the flaws in Gardner’s war. The fatal mistakes.

“The reason Covenant continues and the reason it works is because it’s larger than any individual,” Franklin went on, as if he was beginning to convince Charlie. “This country takes care of its people. But you can’t mess with it. You can’t challenge it. No individual is strong enough or important enough to do that.”

Franklin sat up straighter. He placed his glasses in the pocket of his polo shirt. “Okay? It really has little to do with me, or any of the people who are involved with it right now. It’s written in the DNA of this country. But it’s something even our leaders don’t understand. Our visible leaders. That’s why they choose to become leaders. Our brand of democracy fosters imperfect deceptions. And a lot of gridlock, pettiness, and inefficiency. In truth, it doesn’t work. You can see what happens with Congress. It’s a system that by nature is ineffectual. As you once said, there’s weakness in numbers. And that’s okay. But the steering wheel of the country is something else, something that can’t be seen.”

“And right now it’s focused on Africa, isn’t it?” Charlie said. “That’s the next battleground. The jihadists want it. Chinese industry wants it. And we’re having a hard time making inroads.”

He nodded, wouldn’t say “yes.”

But what was really going to happen? Wasn’t the infrastructure all in place to do what they were planning to do? What Isaak Priest had set up. Would the government shut it down, or simply take over and operate it, spreading the idea, the Covenant, to a new continent? Was that the perfect deception? Was that why they didn’t want any of this publicized?

Questions he knew he would answer later, or let his brother answer. There was no point in asking them here, now. Because the questions would be perceived as challenges.

Charlie tucked the gun in his pants. “Okay,” he said. He turned, ready to walk away from Richard Franklin and the Watergate. Knowing that killing him wouldn’t fix anything. And, besides, he had just video-recorded their entire conversation.

“Anyway, it’s over now,” Franklin said.

“Yes. It is.”

Charlie nodded, extended his hand. Franklin stood. The two men shook.

“What are you going to do, Charlie? You ought to take some time off. Think about things.”

“Probably will, yes. Learn to relax a little.”

“Take care.”

“I will.”

FIFTY-TWO

CHARLIE HAILED A YELLOW Cab two blocks from the Watergate, asking the driver to take him to 950 Pennsylvania Avenue. As they rode through the afternoon shadows of the federal buildings, he wondered how long