Operation Mockingbird (23 page)

Patty whimpered. One man pointed toward the woman and then toward the door. Matt hesitated for a moment, and it was enough. Patty pulled her arm out of Matt’s grasp and raced past the two men and out of the room. One of the men followed her.

“Alex, I commend you,” Rabin continued smoothly. “You’ve brought this much further along than we’d planned.”

“What?” Matt said dumbly. He looked from Alex to Rabin and then back to Alex. “What’s he talking about, Alex?”

Alex was standing slightly ahead of Matt and to his right. She didn’t acknowledge the question or even look in Matt’s direction. She was staring straight ahead at Rabin.

“Alex?” The word hung in the air as she continued to avoid looking in his direction.

“What the hell’s going on?” Matt demanded as he reached over and grabbed Alex’s left wrist.

Suddenly, Alex turned and grabbed the back of Matt’s hand, twisting her left hand and wrenching her wrist free. With her right hand, she squeezed his right thumb into his palm while at the same time pressing his fingers toward his elbow. Pain shot through Matt’s wrist and down his arm. Alex turned and began pushing Matt’s elbow toward his face. Matt fell to his knees.

After a moment, Matt caught his breath and slowly rose. Massaging his wrist, Matt turned back toward Rabin. Alex was now standing to the left of Rabin and staring at Matt, her face devoid of emotion. Rabin nodded to the two men standing on either side of Matt. Each man quickly grabbed one of Matt’s arms, dragged him over to one side of the room and shoved him into a chair facing Harrison.

Alex began to walk toward the door.

“Alex!” he shouted.

She never turned or even slowed down as she left the room.

Matt started to rise from the chair, but one man shoved him back as the other took out a roll of duct tape. The two men strapped him in with well-choreographed precision. Although his legs were free, both his arms were stuck to the arm rests.

“Rabin, what the hell is going on?” Matt raged. “Who the hell are you people?”

Rabin didn’t respond. Instead, he turned to follow Alex out the door.

“Where the hell are you going?” Matt yelled after them.

“Rabin!” Matt shouted when the man didn’t respond. He pulled against the restraints pinning him to the chair.

As the door closed, Cole Harrison’s smiling mug came into view. Using the butt of his gun, he delivered a blow to the side of Matt’s head.

“Well, I must say, Matt,” Rabin began after Matt came to. “You’ve been very busy the last couple of days.”

Matt had no idea how much time had elapsed between when Harrison knocked him out and Matt had regained consciousness. Shortly after he had regained consciousness Rabin re-entered the room. Rabin was dressed in khakis and a black T-shirt. No jacket this time so Matt couldn’t miss how the T-shirt stretched tightly against his chest and biceps. He had a gun strapped to his belt, a 9-millimeter
Beretta M9Z, standard issue for the U.S. military Special Operations Units.

Rabin sat down in the sleek black ergonomic chair situated behind the desk directly in front of Matt. He leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him, casually crossing his feet at the ankles. With his elbows on the armrests and his interlocking fingers resting lightly on his midsection, Rabin was the picture of calm.

Harrison moved to one side of Rabin, never taking his eyes off Matt, and sat down on the corner of the desk. One leg rested on the floor in front of him; the other hung loosely in the air. A semiautomatic weapon rested casually across his thighs. The muzzle of the gun was pointing away from Matt, but Harrison held the grip firmly and his finger tapped the trigger.

“You’re a long way from home, Matt,” Rabin said in that congenial manner he had previously adopted with Matt. “What brings you out this way?”

“A story,” Matt finally said. “And you?”

Rabin paused while he contemplated the fingernails on his left hand. If Matt’s sarcasm irritated him, he didn’t let it show. “We came here to find you,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding us and we had some questions for you.”

“I’ve been busy,” Matt finally replied, deciding two could play Rabin’s game.

“Yes, we know. Which reminds me,” Rabin continued, “my condolences to you for the loss of your friend Patrick Mullarky. I hear he died quite tragically.”

“What do you know about that?” Matt asked quickly.

“Well, for starters, I know that you are wanted for questioning in connection with his murder and the murder of some bartender,” Rabin looked across the room at Harrison. “What was his name, Harrison? It seems to have slipped my mind.”

“No fuckin’ clue,” the younger man responded quickly, never taking his eyes off Matt.

“I had nothing to do with that,” Matt said through clenched teeth.

“Well, unfortunately, Matt,” Rabin continued, “the authorities think otherwise. They know you were there. You left the scene of the crime and now you’ve disappeared.” Rabin clucked in disapproval. “The police aren’t looking very favorably upon you right now.”

Rabin picked up a pen from the desk and began twirling it.

Matt still didn’t respond.

“That was one ugly crime scene, Matt,” Rabin continued. “And your friend Patrick ... Well, it looked like he really suffered.”

Rabin didn’t take his eyes off Matt, even as his fingers continued to twirl the pen.

Images of the crime scene at Keg South flashed briefly before Matt. Dan with a bullet between his eyes. Patrick gutted like an animal. He looked again at Rabin and it was as if he was seeing the man for the first time. His dark shiny eyes watched Matt intently but revealed little. Matt looked over at Harrison. His face was lit up with what looked like excitement as he watched realization slowly creep up on Matt. Confusion turned to shock and then rage. It was clear
now that Rabin and Harrison had been behind the murders of Patrick and Dan.

“You sick sons of bitches!” Matt shouted.

He strained against the duct tape, pressed his feet against the floor and lifted the chair up.

Harrison jumped off the desk and strode toward Matt, the butt of his rifle raised high. Just as he reached Matt and as the weapon began its downward descent toward his head, Rabin barked a short “No!”

Harrison stopped, the weapon within inches of Matt’s head.

Harrison took a step back. Matt fell backward and the chair hit the floor with a loud thud.

“You have only yourself to blame for this, Matt,” Rabin said impassively. “You and Stephen are responsible for what happened to Patrick and that bartender. You were both warned.”

The pieces were slowly falling into place. The call from Harrison after Matt had made contact with Stephen. Rabin’s seemingly casual question about Stephen’s whereabouts at the end of their first meeting. The break-in at Stephen’s apartment. Then, hearing from these guys again after Matt met with Marie, Bob’s widow, in Maryland.

These guys had been involved from the beginning. Worse. They were likely behind the murders of Bob, Stephen, Patrick and Dan. But why? To simply control the spin cycle surrounding what was going on in the Middle East? To what end?

“Warned by whom?” Matt finally asked.

Rabin didn’t respond immediately. He got up and began pacing slowly in front of Matt. Now he twirled the pen with his left hand as he moved across the room.

“Your editor, among others,” Rabin finally answered.

“Dave Kagan?” Matt scoffed. “He can’t possibly be involved in this.”

Rabin clucked softly.

“Matt, you have no idea who’s involved or even what ‘this’ is.”

“I know IMS has been manipulating information on the Internet,” Matt said sounding more defensive than he wanted to.

“Well, that’s a good start, Matt.” Rabin said in a patronizing tone. “But that’s only a very small piece of the elaborate mosaic we have gone to great lengths to construct.”

“You mean the lies created by the PR firm about what’s going on in the Middle East.”

Rabin continued to pace in front of Matt. “Sure that’s right, Matt. But did you ever ask yourself how a PR firm could control the media so completely?”

“I know about the computer program.”

“Of course you do,” Rabin nodded. “Patrick would have explained that to you. He’d been playing with that program for weeks. It didn’t take us long to figure that out. Then it was just a question of letting him think we hadn’t caught on to him. And the whole time we were tracking him.” Rabin laughed. “He thought he was so fucking smart. Stoned off his own so-called brilliance, he continued to toy with that program while we watched him, discovered what
he was up to and who he was working with. He led us straight to Stephen. And then Bob.”

“If Patrick could figure out what you were doing, Rabin, I’m sure others will too. You must have stolen that technology from the Department of Defense, and it won’t be long before they figure it out and come after you.”

Rabin laughed. “Matt, for a journalist who has been through as much as you have, you are still quite naïve.”

“Well, why don’t you fill in the details?” Matt asked.

Rabin hesitated for a moment before replying.

“Well, for starters, Protegere didn’t steal that technology from the U.S. government. The government gave it to them.” Rabin smiled when he saw the shocked look on Matt’s face. “You see, Matt, the government really saw the benefits of that program, even when the bleeding-heart liberals couldn’t and tried to shut it down. The government knew it could get a lot of valuable intelligence using it and didn’t want some inconsequential thing like civil liberties to get in the way. So, when Congress said they cut off funding for the program, they really just transferred the technology to the private sector. The government continued funding the research and development efforts and, with that funding, the private sector improved the technology.”

“And IMS has been using this technology to destroy information that ran counter to its media message about the Middle East,” Matt interrupted.

Rabin nodded. “But IMS couldn’t have controlled the news so beautifully, with just some fancy computer program that tracks Internet activity. In addition to identifying
information they didn’t like, IMS had to get the producers of the information to work with them and develop the messages they wanted.”

“But no media company with any real credibility would go along with that.”

“Of course, they would,” Rabin replied. He must have seen the skepticism on Matt’s face. “Come on, Matt. Is it really so unbelievable?” Rabin asked. “I know it was before your time, but does Operation Mockingbird ring a bell?”

It did ring a bell.

Matt had learned about the secret CIA operation when he was studying journalism in college. Starting in the early days of the Cold War, the CIA began a campaign to influence the news by recruiting journalists and other members of the major media outlets. The program had been a stunning success.

At the height of the program’s success, it was speculated that the CIA “owned” as many as 3,000 salaried and contract employees who had all been paid to promote the views of the CIA. Some were respected journalists and others were employees of major media companies like the Associated Press,
The New York Times
and all the major networks. Tactics included so-called expert opinions to echo the company line. Reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA were written by well-known reporters. Once published, these reports were reprinted or cited throughout the media wire services and in various publications. Other tactics included misdirection and smears for those reports that ran counter to the message promoted by the CIA.

The government project was named Operation Mockingbird after mockingbirds, which are best known for their habit of mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of other insects, often loudly and in rapid succession. The false reports promoted by the CIA were turned into articles that were then repeated over and over again. Repeated often enough, the statements made in these false reports -- no matter how outrageous -- became fact.

“Operation Mockingbird happened more than 50 years ago,” Matt said.

“Operation Mockingbird never stopped happening,” Rabin responded. “It’s continued to attract some of the most distinguished journalists and writers in the world.”

Matt considered this for several seconds. “Even if you’ve got a few rogue journalists on the payroll of some of the local or even national news organizations, you couldn’t get too many to go along with this. News organizations aren’t going to let the journalists print bullshit or ignore a good story.”

Rabin’s smirk was pure condescension.

“It’s not as hard as you might think,” he responded. “Media consolidation over the last several years has actually made it quite simple. In the interest of lowering expenses and increasing profit, media companies have been laying off employees and becoming less selective about where they get their content.”

“The government on the other hand,” Rabin continued, “has at least 20 different federal agencies capable of producing content that has been broadcast in local stations across the country without any mention of the
government’s role in their production. Think tanks which used to be a place for intellectuals outside the government to weigh in on important policy issues, are now paid fees by the government to help sell the government’s policies to the general public. As newspapers are closing foreign bureaus and shrinking newsrooms, these think tanks have moved in to fill the void.”

Matt hated to admit it, but Rabin was right. He knew from what was going on at
The Chronicle
that newsrooms were relying more and more on the public sector to assist them in providing news stories. News stories now originate from PR firms, think tanks, even blogs on the Internet.

“This may be hard for you to accept, Matt,” Rabin continued. “But news -- like advertising -- has become just another form of self-promotion and the media outlets just another platform for content delivery.”

“Maybe. But the public is smarter than that,” Matt said. “Even with the media’s help, you couldn’t manipulate the public for very long.”