Greenies

Corban Hayes was a man who looked ten years older than he had just a few months before. The stress of trying to keep a handle on the Laura Whiting situation while forcing his underlings to participate in a crackdown of citizens not seen since the beginning of World War III were taking their toll on him. He had already been treated by his private physician for a bleeding ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome, afflictions he had never been bothered with before. His face was now gaunt and drawn, streaked with age lines that had not been there at the beginning of this miserable year. And now one of the worst fears of all had just come to pass. A general strike had occurred on the planet, a strike that had shut down everything and everyone and had come on his watch. And that bitch Whiting was already trying to arrange another, even longer one. He could almost feel his head rolling across the table.

The door to his office slid open late Tuesday afternoon to reveal Don Mitchell, one of his senior field agents, the man who had led the New Pittsburgh portion of the crackdown. Mitchell was not a very bright person and certainly was not the best-qualified agent for the position that he held. But, in the world of the FLEB bureaucracy, which was WestHem politics at its finest, that factor was not often considered when promotions and assignments were handed out. Walker was well-connected and had the ear of Director Clinton himself since he was married to Clinton's daughter, thus he would more than likely be the man to replace Hayes when he (Hayes) was eventually reassigned to some shithole office management job in South America or Greenland.

'You called for me, Corban?' Mitchell asked him, using Hayes' first name when hardly anyone else would dare to.

Hayes let it slide, as he almost always did. 'Yes, Don,' he told him, waving him to a seat. 'It's about the Laura Whiting investigation.'

Mitchell smiled predatorily. The Whiting case had of course been handed to him once the Eden crackdown got up and rolling. He and a team of fourteen agents had been working twelve-hour days on it ever since the order from Clinton had come in. 'We're pretty close to having an airtight case file drawn up,' he said. 'It's a lot easier to build a case when you don't have to worry about things like real evidence.' He seemed to find this deliciously funny.

Hayes on the other hand, did not. He had at first been unable to believe his ears when the order to draw up false charges against Whiting had come across his terminal on the secure link. Though he had bent the law to his liking many, many times in his career, he had never been asked before to actually make up charges and back them up with falsified evidence. And in such an important, potentially explosive case at that! He strongly suspected that Clinton and those controlling him were forcing him to pull the pin on a hand grenade. Nevertheless he had followed orders. It was all that he knew how to do. 'I've just received a communiqué from Director Clinton himself,' he told Mitchell.

'Ah, my good father in law,' Mitchell said affectionately. 'What did he have to say?'

'Nothing very good,' he said. 'It seems that the various business interests of Earth and the executive council are rather upset about the little strike we just had. They are even more upset at the prospect of another, even longer one. The picking of the grand jury in Denver is being fast-tracked even faster and they are quite eager to have the complete case file against Whiting so they can get her out before she has a chance to get another strike organized. How close to finished are you?'

'We're just drawing up the final documents now,' he said. 'You know? Making them look all nice and official, cross-referencing a few of our sources. We could probably have it done in another three days if we rushed.'

'Rush even faster,' Hayes told him. 'Even if it means that it's not quite as pretty looking or complete. Clinton wants the entire file transmitted to him within twenty-four hours.'

'Twenty-four hours?' Mitchell said doubtfully.

'That's what your father in law tells me,' he confirmed. 'And as you know, what he says goes. So get your people together, get some coffee brewing, hell, go buy some dust from one of the vermin if you need to, but have that report finished by 0900 tomorrow.'

'We will,' he said.

Two days later, in Denver, Nora Hathaway, the WestHem attorney general, was reviewing the Whiting file from her office atop the Department of Justice building. She was a portly woman of sixty-two years, an appointee of the last administration that had managed to hang on due to her astute political savvy. She scanned through the hundreds of pages of evidentiary documents, getting a thorough read on just what the charges against Whiting were going to consist of and how good of a job the FLEB agents had done 'gathering' the evidence. Once she had the basics of it down she put in a call to FLEB director Clinton on her terminal.

'What do you think?' he asked her once his face appeared. 'I've been going over the file since I received it on this end and it looks pretty solid to me.'

'I like it,' Hathaway said. 'The charges themselves are beyond reproach. Solicitation of bribery from corporate officials, incitement of terrorism, trafficking in explosives. It couldn't get much better, especially after all of the media publicity that Whiting's been getting here on Earth.'

'My feelings exactly,' Clinton replied. 'For once this year my agents on Mars actually did something right.'

'It would seem so,' she said. 'But I do foresee some future problems with this.'

'Such as?'

'Such as the trial,' she replied. 'This file will be enough to get her indicted on the charges, but once we put her on trial we'll have to come up with some corroborating witnesses for these statements in here. How are you going to do that?'

'Several of the corporations involved have volunteered their services in that regard,' he told her. 'For instance Smith at Agricorp will have a few of his lobbyists testify on our behalf that Whiting asked for bribes from them and threatened them if they did not produce them. The names on the statements are of the actual people involved. And as for the terrorism charges, well, those statements are from... non-people I guess we could say.'

'You mean they're completely fabricated by your agents,' said Hathaway, who did not enjoy mincing words when she did not have to.

'Well... yes,' he admitted. 'But in any case, our contacts at InfoServe, the biggest of the big three, have promised to supply us with actors who will pretend to be these people we interviewed at the trial. We'll make a big production out of them, tell the solar system how they'd been caught red-handed and gave up Whiting for a plea bargain, have them testify, and then we'll pretend to sentence them to prison. The pay-off for them will be a billion dollars apiece and new identities when its over.'

'A lot of money,' she observed. 'Who's paying for it?'

'The coalition of corporations that are fighting against Whiting will pay for half,' he told her. 'The federal government will pick up the other half. Of course its possible that some accidents might be arranged for these people instead. It is awfully dangerous to let them walk around after a production like that.'

'That would seem the wiser course,' she said.

'In any case, the important thing is the now. We need to get Whiting out of office and on a ship to Earth before the next general strike. We'll have plenty of time to worry about the trial later. I'm sure we'll be able to delay and put off the proceedings for at least four years. You know how our justice system works.'

'Yes, God love it,' she agreed. 'I have more good news for you as well. Our grand jury selection is now complete.'

'Is it?' he asked, delighted. Of course the grand jury did not know that it was being convened to investigate the Laura Whiting matter, they thought they were just another routine body being pulled together to serve for a year and investigate whatever federal matters came up in the course of that time. 'How's the composition?'

'We have twelve of the biggest morons in Denver sitting on that panel,' she told him. 'Each one of them has been following the Whiting story on the big three and have only received input from those sources. Not one of them has any contact with anyone who lives on Mars or ever has. They'll believe anything our prosecutor tells them.'

'Beautiful,' Clinton said, pleased with this news.

'I've already called my two top prosecutors up here. They'll be going over the file in less than an hour. It's Thursday now so I'll have them work the entire weekend on it. The grand jury will convene for the first time this Monday morning. We'll zip them through an abbreviated orientation in the morning and then start hitting them with the Whiting matter after lunch.'