The Death Trust

FORTY-SIX

I flashed back to the moment when Bishop cracked open the final Dungeon level, and then back further to my own experiences with Radakov at The Bump, in Riga. I remembered the way Radakov treated those frightened young girls he bought like cattle. I also remembered the way he killed Russians.

“The general befriended one of the dancers at Radakov’s sideline business, a strip club. I think you might be familiar with her name, at least: Varvara. She managed to get a photocopy of Radakov’s passport and passed it to Abraham Scott. Now it was your son-in-law’s turn to make a mistake. He told you about it, didn’t he? He said he was writing a report on the smuggling operation and sending it to Congress. In terms of a scandal, it would have made Watergate seem like an honest mistake.” While I’d taken a number of leaps in my Perry Mason monologue, they were nothing compared with the one I was about to take. But I had nothing to lose. If I was wrong, I’d get laughed at. If I was right, well, maybe that’s why Cutter had that gun on the desk. So much for nothing to lose. I took a breath and plowed on. “That’s when you tried to recruit him. It’s also why you’ve brought me here. To see if I can be recruited.” I was going to say corrupted, as in this instance they were one and the same thing.

Cutter sat hunched over his brandy, his gray eyes increasingly bloodshot with booze and, I hoped, stress. He was deliberating, silently running through the options. I wondered if I’d be able to dive the seven feet across his desk and get to that gun before he could move his hands the six inches required to grab it, lift it, and exert the two pounds of pressure needed to fire a bullet into my head. This case had left my thirty-four-year-old body feeling sixty-four. I probably wouldn’t even get to spill his cognac.

“You might find this hard to believe, Special Agent Cooper, but I’m pleased that you proved to be every bit as agile an investigator as your record suggests. We need men like you.” He cleared his throat and stood without swaying. He might have been drinking for America, but he apparently had the constitution to handle it. For a second I almost admired him, but the second passed.

“Vincent, the First World War ended the old European empires and began a new one: the empire of the United States. We found ourselves the one superpower in a world exhausted by war. And so the roaring Twenties roared for us like no other nation on earth. Our industrial base, already vast, expanded exponentially. Then the Great Depression struck and brought us to our knees, along with every other industrialized country.”

Cutter pocketed the Beretta and began to pace as he talked, not at me but at the floor and the ceiling, like he was giving an oration to Congress. I kept my eyes on that pocket while he droned on. “Why did it happen, the Great Depression? More specifically, how did it get a hold of our economy so quickly and strangle it so completely? There are many theories, of course, but there’s a widely held but little discussed belief that a significant cause was simply this: The United States, along with most of the rest of the world, had eschewed the manufacture of armaments after the carnage of World War One. In so doing, a sizeable portion of the international community’s stabilizing economic activity was wiped out. Since then, a number of private-sector as well as government studies have put the very nature of war and the military complex under the microscope. And do you know what these studies have consistently revealed about war, Special Agent?”

“That it’s a great way to kill a bunch of folks?” I said. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about either the question or the answer, but the truth was that I was very interested in hearing what Cutter had to say. He was giving me The Speech, the same one he’d no doubt given to Abraham Scott shortly before the general told his father-in-law he didn’t give a rat’s ass either and, as a result, unwittingly sealed the fate of his son, Cutter’s own step-grandson, with a Barrett gun’s bullet.

Jefferson Cutter dismissed my comment by not acknowledging it. He continued with his spiel. “They found war essential to a nation’s economic well-being and even, perversely, to its political stability. They also found that if a war itself is not available, then the threat of war will do if the threat is big enough. Either one will stimulate investment in new technologies, manufacturing and, through it, employment. Why was this type of investment so vital?”

I shrugged.

“Because the investment in war is made independently of any other economic activity. In short, Vincent, the economic stimulus that results from war is not a windfall bonus; it’s the very foundation of any strong economy. And governments know all about these findings. They simply choose not to say anything about them.”

And it was not hard to imagine why, I thought. No government in its right mind would come out and say, Hey, everyone, war is good fer yew!

Cutter picked out a book from the shelf, inspected the cover, and waggled it at me. “In 1967, during the height of the Cold War and the blossoming conflict in Indochina, a book purporting to be the leaked findings of a secret Washington think-tank examination of the social and political implications of an outbreak of peace was published. It was called Report from Iron Mountain. Among the conclusions reached by this think tank was that human sacrifice, organized population culling, and other substitutes for war will need to be found if armed conflict between nations is abandoned. At the time, before the so-called leak was revealed to be a hoax, there was intense media pressure on Washington to reveal whether the book was genuine and whether such a think tank actually existed. President Lyndon Johnson refused to either confirm or deny that existence, because, in fact, a top-secret committee had been formed decades before to examine this very question. Like the fictitious group in Report from Iron Mountain, the real one had a similar makeup: academics, industrialists, scientists, politicians, historians, sociologists. Its mandate, though, was radically different. It was charged to examine, isolate, and even engineer triggers for potential wars. This group called itself The Establishment. Its greatest achievement was Pearl Harbor.”

There it was. The Establishment. It existed. And its greatest achievement was Pearl Harbor! I let it sink in and tried not to let the rush of emotions boiling through me show. A group such as The Establishment would be by far the most powerful single body in the world.

“So, what…? You…this Establishment. You start wars for us, for the U.S.?” All the research Scott had been doing on our oil and steel sent to Imperial Japan…the sudden ban on these exports. Abraham Scott had simply been trying to verify what I’d just been told: that the organization calling itself The Establishment had willfully planned America’s entry into WWII, actually setting us on that particular collision course years before it happened.

“No, you weren’t listening, Vincent. The Establishment doesn’t start wars. Occasionally, however, if the need arises, we might manipulate some factors to set the whole thing in motion. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“So America’s exports to Japan during the 1930s…That was your idea?”

“Not mine, Vincent. May I call you Vince? I wasn’t even born at the time.”

I let the misunderstanding go. I needed a few minutes to get my head around this notion, reminding myself that I’d just heard about it from the man who was just one step away from being the commander in chief of the most powerful armed force on the planet. “So, The Establishment…you’re what? Like some kind of death trust, looking for opportunities to keep our military-industrial complex chugging along?”

“The death trust,” he said, nodding. “Catchy, Vincent. You definitely should be a writer, when you’re through with the air force, that is. Right now, though, your country needs you. These are trying times.”

“So I join or you shoot me? Is that what’s happening here?”

“The gun. Does it make you nervous?” He opened a desk drawer, removed the weapon from his pocket, and dropped it in. “There. Better?”

I was right about the recruiting thing as, I had no doubt, I’d been right about what happened to Abraham Scott, and why. “Are you the chairman of the board of this little group?” I asked.

Cutter almost chuckled. “No. I’m just one of many contributors, although I have particular roles, responsibilities, and…projects.”

I nodded, still somewhat dazed by the implications of what I’d just learned.

“You must understand that what I’m talking about here is national interest. It’s one of the great scams that war and the military-industrial complex that supplies it are merely tools of diplomacy. In fact, the reverse is true. Drink?” he asked as he sat and reached for the XO.

I indicated no with my hand. If Cutter was prepared to tell me everything, I needed a clear head with which to remember it.

“Suit yourself. This is exquisite brandy, by the way. Over a hundred years old. These grapes were picked before the outbreak of World War One. Imagine that. Horrendously expensive stuff. Evaporates when it hits your tongue.” He waggled his fingers in front of his mouth and nose to demonstrate the effect. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “like most people, you probably think that there is some kind of grand conspiracy operating at the highest level. The belief is actually nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century, another book with an international conspiracy theme was written. This one was titled The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was an anti-Semitic tome written to frighten us gentiles into believing that there was a Jewish conspiracy in place to enslave Europe. The Nazis used it as one of the justifications for their Final Solution. Of course, The Protocols was another hoax, but the underlying notion of an unidentified someone or something out there pulling the strings has persisted. The true nature of this identity has yet to be fully grasped by the wider community, but our own research tells us that most people generally think they’re not being told the whole truth about how our society — and the economy that keeps it fed, clothed, and housed — is really structured. The truth of it is as simple as this: Society is a parasite on the military-industrial complex. Civilian society exists purely to support the military — a symbiotic relationship, if you like. Put another way, and quoting the author of Report from Iron Mountain, ‘War is the principal organizational basis of the nation state.’”

I stared at him. My personal reality is that I’ve never given any thought whatsoever to the whole conspiracy thing. At least, not until I took this case. Actually, that’s not a hundred percent accurate. I do subscribe to the belief that the alcohol companies are trying to get us all permanently drunk and that, with me, they’d largely succeeded, at least over the past year. Looking at Jefferson Cutter, whose face was now rapidly becoming the color of a distance runner’s at the end of a long race, they had him by the scrotum, too. As if reading my mind, the Vice President poured himself another tumbler before continuing.

“The evidence of this relationship is all around us,” he said, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. “In this country — in fact, in most countries — the military has its own infrastructure operating with very little assistance, if any, from civilian organizations. It is completely autonomous, with its own cities and towns where civilians are forbidden entry. It has its own legal system and law-enforcement agencies — your OSI is a prime example. The military has its own health system, educational institutions, administration and government. A world within a world. Look at any list of jobs for which the military recruits and you will see cleaners, bakers, electricians, mechanics, plumbers—”

“So, the First Convention. That’s another triumph of The Establishment, isn’t it?” I said, cutting him off.

He seemed surprised. “You know about that?”

The JPEG contained in the last level of Scott’s Dungeon was burned into my brain. It was the record of a secret meeting I now believed included elements of the government, the military, and key industrialists. Without a doubt, something so sensitive would have been top-secret and therefore headed for the shredder, pronto. I knew the words by heart, and quoted: “‘Insofar as no arm of the U.S. military shall purchase by government tender any part, artifact, or system, or parts thereof, utilizing new technology or new combinations of existing technology untested in combat…’ and so on, et cetera.” The First Convention, the so-called “quality clause.” It meant that only items tested in war could be bought for wholesale use by the U.S. military. It was a bombshell, a cynical ploy that kept billions of dollars flushing through the military-industrial complex so that our armed forces could be equipped with new hardware. God only knew how Scott had come into possession of the information, given its ultrasensitivity. And then I realized there was only one possible source. Cutter was shaking his head.

I said, “General Scott secretly photographed the minutes you showed him, didn’t he?”

“I believed Abraham was on our side, that he could see the convention’s necessity.”

“And why is it necessary?” I asked, enthralled and horrified at the same time.

“As I’ve explained, both the military and civilian societies require conflict to remain healthy. The military-industrial complex is the point of crossover. It’s where the civilian and military realms connect and feed off each other. The First Convention is merely a tool to facilitate that interaction.”

Cutter drained his glass and poured another before continuing. “Like any technology, military hardware has a life span. Roughly fifteen years. It’s no mistake that our conflicts — at least since the Korean War, when we were caught napping — have enjoyed roughly the same interval.”

“So today’s war is the proving ground for technology to be used in tomorrow’s? And we need it proved every fifteen years?”

“Yes,” said Cutter bluntly. “In recent years, however, because of the exponential rise in technological breakthroughs, and the concomitant redundancy attendant with the race to maintain our military edge, we can expect that generational life span to be reduced to ten years.”

He paused to collect his thoughts. I had nothing to say. I was struck dumb.

“Moreover,” he continued, “the First Convention guarantees that the military-industrial complex will supply many test items to the armed forces free of charge if a conflict arises. It ensures that our military is constantly being supplied with new and — please excuse the pun — groundbreaking technology, which it is, of course, tempted to put to practical test. The Patriot Missile is a prime example. An unknown quantity prior to Gulf War One, prime export item after it. The postwar international sales of that missile, let alone the contracts to our own forces, more than made up for the millions of dollars spent on free samples to the U.S. Army.”

“A war every ten years. Parents of potential robo-cannon fodder can rejoice in their usefulness,” I said.

“As I said, Vince, we are not monsters. New ways are being developed all the time to wage war at a distance, reducing American and allied casualties. I personally have had a hand in promoting many of these in my capacity as leader of the Senate.”

I shook my head to clear out the crap Cutter was depositing in it. I’d read about those ultratech weapons and the billions spent in their development. All the clues to this nightmare were there, in Abraham Scott’s Dungeon. Had I been half the investigator I thought I was, I’d have been able to put them together sooner and, just maybe, Anna would still be breathing. And, as for that bit about not being a monster, if Cutter had hollow fangs, lived in a coffin during the day, and sucked the juices from the veins of virgins during the night, he wouldn’t have been half the monster he was in reality.

The disappointment in my professional abilities notwithstanding, I was fed up listening to the history of the world according to Jefferson Cutter. I said, “You had Peyton shot dead as a warning to Abraham to back off and not interfere with von Koeppen’s people-smuggling activities.”

“My son-in-law was a great disappointment. He—”

“Yeah, we’ve already talked about that,” I interrupted. “And you brought your own daughter into the loop when you discovered that she and von Koeppen were banging each other’s doors.”

“It was time,” said Cutter with an almost imperceptible shrug.

It was fucking time? Cutter had been manipulating his own daughter from the day she was born. “Through your contacts in the Department of Defense, you had Peyton’s autopsy and death certificate deleted. You had new information logged in the system but sent the original certificate to General von Koeppen. He passed it to Harmony when the time was right. Through von Koeppen, you had her show it to Abraham so that he’d know the truth about his son’s murder. The only way Scott could verify the truth was to compare his son’s corpse with the paperwork. You made sure he opened Peyton’s body bag. But you miscalculated.”

It dawned on me that Jefferson Cutter appeared to be mighty relaxed — almost jaunty — about admitting to being a killer, a conspirator, and a traitor to the American people, my people, the people I had sworn to protect against people like him. Cutter had to be certain I wouldn’t be passing on the details of this conversation to anyone.

“We are not going to make the mistake of underestimating you,” he said. “There’s far too much at stake.”

On the basis that a best defense is a good offense, I said, “It’s all over for you, Jefferson. You’re heading for a lethal injection. Von Koeppen is dead — another killing I suspect you ordered, along with the men Peyton served with, the medical officer who performed the first autopsy on Peyton’s headless corpse, the journalist from The Washington Post…”

Cutter shrugged. I took that as a yes, which meant he was also personally responsible for the death of Anna Masters.

“Vince,” he said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “A few insignificant and inconsequential deaths is not what this is all about.”

The complete absence of any remorse for his actions, specifically what was obviously Anna’s collateral killing, held the sting of a slap. I felt my eyes go hot and moist, but the pain helped me complete the picture. Cutter was right. It wasn’t just about the murders. This organization, The Establishment, had been set up by some unnamed government department to isolate and exploit potential threats to our national security for the benefit of our bottom line. When it all came out into the open, I had the feeling that no one would be putting their hand up to claim this nasty little child. Sometimes, it — The Establishment — went further. Cutter said it himself: “Occasionally, however, if the need arises, we might manipulate some factors…It’s rare, but it happens.” In the last century, we had the Nazis and then the communists. Now we have the evil genius who controls the world from a dirt-floor cave in the mountains of Pakistan. Thanks to him — and Cutter no doubt believed the master terrorist deserved a big pat on the back for it — we were spending billions more on war than we ever had during the Cold War.

If I was reading Cutter right, The Establishment was now looking beyond Muslim extremism, the current dominant threat to our national security, to find the necessary grist for the military-industrial complex’s mill. And, at our current rate of expenditure of more than two trillion dollars over the next five years, it had to be a hell of a lot of grist.

And I knew what it was.

“Abraham Scott nailed Alu Radakov’s true identity,” I said. “If his merry band of killers had known it, too, they would’ve turned Radakov into a worm farm.”

“Yes, I do believe you’re onto it, but would you mind explaining the details, just so I can be sure you’ve got it right?”

It didn’t look like I had much of a choice. Cutter was holding all the cards, but I’d have told him anyway, shoved it down his chickenshit throat, even if just to watch him choke on it. I took a deep breath. “Abraham Scott recognized Radakov from his time serving at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Maybe Scott had been unsure at first because that was a long time ago and people look different with an extra twenty years hanging off their faces. But then he got a look at Radakov’s passport, his Russian passport. Petrov Andreiovic, alias Alu Radakov. Back when Scott first met Radakov, the Russian was KGB. So Scott knew Radakov’s secret: He wasn’t Chechen at all. He was Moscow’s man. And the fact that he knew made everyone nervous, especially the Kremlin.

“Scott figured that with Radakov, and probably others like him, Moscow had infiltrated the Chechen leadership. So what about the massacre in Beslan’s School Number One a few years back, the one where all those children were killed. Was that really a Chechen operation? Or was it a Russian job just made to look like the separatists’ work?”

Cutter sat behind his enormous desk, the seal of the Vice President of the United States of America on the wall behind his head. He was nodding. The Beretta, I noticed, had made a reappearance. I’d hit a nerve. It was motionless, aimed at the middle of my chest.

“As you’ve deduced,” said Cutter, “we are helping the Kremlin and the Kremlin is helping us. As I said, a grave threat to a state’s security is actually a politically stabilizing factor. The ongoing fight with the Chechens allows the Russian president to be strong, to centralize power and hold the Federation together. That’s in our interest. We don’t want a collection of autonomous independent states in that part of the world, running amok with their own agendas and foreign policies. And then there’s the important factor of economic stability. As I’ve explained, the military-industrial complex requires a threat equal to its output, and Russia’s needs in this vital area are the same as ours. Properly directed, the Chechen separatist movement is the one stone that kills both birds.”

I didn’t care who he was or what organizations he belonged to. Jefferson Cutter was operating way outside the law — civilian and/or military. At least, the laws of my country.

I thought about the players. Radakov needed to show his rebel buddies that the cash for their fight was coming from somewhere other than Moscow. That’s where von Koeppen came in. The people-smuggling was the perfect front, until Scott came along and threatened to put an end to it. So they — they being Cutter and von Koeppen — murdered Scott’s son as a warning. And, when they discovered that he’d refused to heed it, they killed him.

Radakov wasn’t in on it. Scott had come to some kind of arrangement with him. Radakov wanted out of the deal with Cutter and von Koeppen, and Scott wanted Varvara. It was a fair trade, quid pro quo. This deal forced cracks between Cutter, von Koeppen, and Radakov that killing Scott couldn’t smooth over, and each realized his vulnerability. The sick bond holding them together was broken. Von Koeppen thought he could protect himself from Cutter by getting close to the VP’s daughter. Wrong. Cutter thought he could remove the threat to himself by having a washed-up investigator put on the case of his son-in-law’s death. Wrong. What about Radakov? He had to believe that Cutter would get to him sooner rather than later, especially after von Koeppen was removed from the picture. Now I knew why the Russian had allowed me to leave Chechnya when he could so easily have wasted me. I was his attack dog. Radakov couldn’t get to Cutter, but he knew I could. Wrong again. I looked down the black eye of Cutter’s Beretta. Something told me my attack-dog days were over.

Other things fell into place. I thought about the men who’d brought me here from Germany, the same bunch who’d hit Masters and me in Baghdad and subsequently mugged me outside my hotel. I’d pegged them as Special Forces and they were. Only they weren’t ours. They had to be Spetsnatz, or maybe FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service, the current incarnation of the KGB. That also explained why they’d said not one word to me on the plane trip across the Atlantic, ignoring all my attempts to while away the flight with witty conversation. They couldn’t understand a word I was saying.

I continued. “So your son-in-law threatened to bring everything down on your head. Then he demonstrated his determination to do just that by photographing the lineup of body bags from Iraq and leaking the photo to the media.”

“Yes, right again, Vincent. Congratulations.” Cutter’s aim wavered slightly as his thumb searched for the handgun’s safety. “I should never have enlightened Scott about the First Convention. Up till that moment, he believed our troops in Iraq were there for reasons that had nothing to do with the reality — the necessity—of testing new weapons systems so that they could be sold to our armed forces and hence to other nations and, of course, NATO. He threatened to do whatever it took to get our people back home. As you said, we miscalculated with Abraham. Have you any idea what damage a man in his position, a serving four-star general, could do to America’s notion of itself if he revealed the truth?”

“The miscalculation was yours,” I said. “You killed his son, the only thing in this world he truly loved. You sent General Scott to war.”

I had one question outstanding, but it wasn’t one that Cutter could or would answer. Our time was up. I brightened and said, “So, where do I sign?”

“Sign what?” Cutter stood and took half a step back to steady himself.

“You know, the membership papers? The Establishment? You’ve sold me. I’d love to join. With all that money, you guys must have great resort facilities, member housing loans, that sort of thing.”

Cutter informed me that I wouldn’t be joining. “There’ll be two gunshot wounds. One here,” he said, grabbing a handful of fat on the side of his belly. “The second shot will be fatal. For you. You threatened me, I pulled my gun to defend myself, there was a struggle. You had the upper hand at first and shot me, but you lost your balance and I got lucky.”

Cutter had worked it all out. He could so easily concoct a believable story about why he had granted me this late-night interview. Special Agent Cooper had been investigating the death of my beloved son-in-law before mysteriously going AWOL. Then he suddenly turned up here in D.C. and claimed to have news…At the very least, I owed it to my daughter to hear him out and, of course, to keep a weapon handy just in case things turned sour… After all, I was, as everyone knew, “unpredictable.”

“You had me brought here to kill me.” I tried to appear relaxed about stating the obvious and put my feet up on the edge of his desk to demonstrate it.

“Well, you know, if you want something done right…” He displayed his expensive bridgework. Or was it a smile? I wasn’t sure.

“I have a copy of Scott’s hard drive. If you kill me, I’ve left instructions for it to be forwarded to the media.” It was an oldie but a goodie.

“I didn’t give you enough time to make those arrangements. I expected more from you, Vincent. You really think I’d fall for that old ploy?”

Shit! “Believe what you want.”

Cutter raised the Beretta. I’d already assessed the distances, the angles, and the potential force required. I was waiting for the opening, but it was clear Cutter wasn’t going to give me one. I had half a second left. I shoved the desk toward him with my legs as hard as I could. The damn thing was heavier than I expected. My chair shot backward, but not before his precious hundred-year-old bottle of XO teetered.

Cutter wavered as he watched the bottle fall, his concentration on me breaking for the briefest instant while he considered catching it. I launched myself at him, flying over his laptop as the bottle smashed on the marble floor. I drove into his gut with the point of my shoulder and he slammed into the wall with an animal grunt. We both dropped to the deck, rolling into the puddle of XO and smashed glass. He had the gun, but I had his wrist pinned to the floor. Blood was everywhere. The Beretta went off. Whatever the slug hit, it wasn’t me. The gun fired a second time. Plaster dust drifted down from the small hole in the ceiling. Cutter was a strong fuck, despite his age. Our hands were interlocked and we both shook with effort as we battled each other’s grip. He was attempting to turn the weapon on me. I was trying to prevent that from happening.

I drove my head down into his face. I missed his nose and instead heard his cheekbone crack like a Styrofoam coffee cup underfoot. Cutter released the Beretta as his bloody hands flew to his face.

I stood over him, swaying, blood pumping from deep cuts to my lower legs and arms, but I had the gun, which meant I’d won. Then the door burst open. The Secret Service guys rushed in, Glocks raised. It all happened in slow motion. It was like an out-of-body experience, and I knew how it was going to end: badly — for me. Here I was, standing over the Vice President of the United States, a man these two Secret Service types had sworn to protect with their lives if need be. Their boss was down, there was blood spattered on the floor, the walls, his desk. The weapon in my hand had discharged — I noticed the neat bullet hole in the door for the first time. That first shot. It must have been what had brought them in. Their training took over. They had no choice but to do what they had sworn to do. I swung away, bringing my hands up in front of my face as I turned. “No!” I yelled as they fired into me at point-blank range.