Program for a Puppet (33 page)

“I can only guess at that….”

“Go ahead, go ahead …

“Well, Brogan Senior may well have convinced the KGB that Mineva would be a better bet for their aims than, with respect, ‘bogeyman' Rickard. Lasercomp cooperated with the KGB in trying to make Mineva look like a statesman, and you a warmonger. You're a common enemy to both…”

Rickard leaned back and rubbed his eyes again. “I think you're right … they have formed the unholiest of alliances.” He sighed deeply. “The worst excesses of Soviet Marxism and American capitalism gone haywire.…”

“They have a lot in common, if I may say so, Mr. President,” Revel chipped in. “They both want absolute power in their respective domains. The computer is the common denominator for both.”

Rickard looked hard at Revel and nodded slowly. Then turning to Graham he said, “That's all I wanted to know and thank
you for your replies.” He stood up and moved around to them. Graham and Revel got up and shook hands. “When I'm under a little less pressure early next year, I want to have a longer chat with you,” he said to Graham.

“I look forward to that….”

“On one condition.”

“It's off the record….”

Rickard nodded and smiled as a marine came in to escort them out.

Graham and Revel followed him in silence to a waiting limousine. They were driven back to Graham's hotel.

“Damn it!” Graham exclaimed as he got out. “I forgot to ask him if I could write anything …”

“Don't worry, I've already spoken to him about that. He says you have the exclusive as long as—”

“—the source is a high government official.”

“You got it … oh, I almost forgot…” Revel said, winding down the window to speak more softly, “Gordon phoned me last night in a real sweat. Someone tried to kill him. He wants to talk now….”

“When can we meet him?”

“I've said we'll drive out to his home Monday.”

“Good. That gives me the weekend to write a piece on the arrests for the press in London and here.…”

“See you Monday night, better make it about nine.”

Graham nodded and Revel signaled the driver. The Australian watched the limousine slip away and then turned for the hotel entrance. There was one week until the election and he had a story to write.

 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27

The normally cool, clinical efficiency of Lasercomp's HQ executive offices looked like a hospital casualty ward on October 27. Young emissaries were sent scurrying from floor to floor with scribbled memos, while small groups of grim-faced executives met briefly along the plush-carpeted corridors.

The problem, which caused more than the usual flurry at photocopying machines, was a
New York Times
article written by
“a special correspondent.” It was Graham's article but not attributed to him. At the weekend he had used contacts at the paper to get the exclusive published. The report was headed:
“Lasercomp Link in Scientists' Arrests.”
It ran on page one and on to page three.

By midmorning, the corporation's management committee had convened hurriedly in the war room. Brogan Junior, in the chair, got quickly to the heart of the problem. “We have to cover two points as quickly as possible,” he said, putting on spectacles to look at the article. “One is obviously where it says that all those arrested had a direct link with us.” He looked up at Huntsman, whose chubby fingers were working overtime taking notes. “You'll have to get something into a release dissociating us or any of our subsidiaries in Europe, from the scientists', shall we say, ‘regrettable' actions.” He added vehemently, “Sacrifice the bastards! Express our shock that any of our middle managers on assignment could ever get involved in breaking NATO regulations.” He looked at the article again.

“The second priority is where the report says, ‘The men arrested might be involved in a wider effort to illegally feed the KGB with vital computers.' All we have to do there is restate our policy on selling to the communist countries.”

“What about action against those arrested?” Huntsman asked.

Brogan nodded. “I suppose you'd better mention something. Keep it fairly low-key. ‘Action will be taken internally if necessary, following our own inquiry.' Say something about a plan to tighten up our internal security, and the movement of Lasercomp personnel into communist countries.” He took off his spectacles. “We must find out who wrote this. Any ideas?”

Huntsman sighed and nodded. “It could only have been Graham.”

Brogan Junior grimaced. “Has Znorel been in contact with the Director?”

“Yes, but he wants double—”

“I don't care what he wants,” Brogan Junior interjected in a rare show of emotion more in keeping with the Old Man, “pay him. Just get rid of that problem!”

Graham and Revel drove in the lawyer's early model brown Ford Mustang coupé along Route 50 out of Washington and joined
301 coming from Richmond on the road to Annapolis. Route 301 took them to the little town of Canterville and Gordon's home. They arrived just after 11:00
P.M
.

When Revel announced himself over an intercom at the front, a huge iron gate automatically swung in. He drove to the front door, where the now skeletal-thin Gordon greeted them. He was dressed in a red turtleneck sweater and baggy trousers, and looked dour and nervous as Revel introduced Graham to him. He ushered the two visitors down to the basement. Gordon left them in his library and went up to a kitchen on the first floor to fix drinks. Two walls of books, ranging from the highly technical on computer design to the political works of Hegel and Marx, gave a hint of the scientist's considerable intellect. A small log fire crackled in one corner. On a mantelpiece above it was a framed picture of the word
Cogitate
—Lasercomp's motto.

Gordon returned after a minute and handed Graham and Revel drinks. He sat down with them in easy chairs, and began to speak of his brief past working association with Revel at Lasercomp. The two had on a few occasions worked together on special computer designs.

Graham began by quizzing the scientist about his contact with Jane Ryder. He explained that she had telephoned him twice in Paris.

“Did you see her?” Graham asked.

Gordon hesitated. “Yes. I lied to French Intelligence.”

“Why did you see her?”

“She was very persistent and I was scared Lasercomp was going to do something to me after my Paris lectures. I told her some incriminating facts about the corporation. I thought it might stop them.”

“So they murdered her.”

Gordon nodded. “They apparently bugged my hotel room in Paris and found out what I had told her.”

“And now you think they're after you?” Revel asked.

“Yes.”

“What did you tell Jane?” Graham asked.

“Why I split with the corporation. I objected strongly to the Brogan marketing plans.”

“What were they?”

“Huge sales to the KGB for a start. Cheetahs in their hands
were, in my opinion, a definite blow to human rights inside the Soviet Union and potentially dangerous to the West.”

“Was it just marketing plans that upset you?”

“No. There were also my own secret designs for Cheetah. Or perhaps I should say my technical refinement of a Brogan design idea. You see, the Brogans had this all-pervasive motto—‘What the mind can perceive, the mind controlling the computer can achieve.' I had to make or program their ideas in practice.”

“What was it he forced you to design, that you objected to?”

“The main one was a tapping device. This could extract information electronically from any Cheetah installed anywhere in the world. The Old Man wanted to be able to sit in his war room and call up any data, at any time, from anywhere. So Lasercomp scientists spent years perfecting it. Finally, all he would have to do would be to activate a code, get into a computer and steal any information he wanted. If it was on the other side of the world, he could still do it via a satellite.”

The implication hit Revel. “That would certainly give him colossal power!”

“When you think of it—ultimate power. Most information is stored on Cheetah equipment, and he can get his hands on it.”

“How many people know about this secret device?” Graham asked.

“Perhaps ten or twelve. About one hundred and fifty scientists helped in parts of the design. Another five hundred workers put the programs together.”

“If the attempt on your life was ordered by the Old Man, he must believe he has the means of neutralizing the information you have about Cheetah.”

“That's why I've decided to speak to you. They may just call off the dogs if I fight back.… I don't see any other possible way out.”

“Is there anything else you told Jane?”

“Yes. I told her about Lasercomp's secret programs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ten years ago, some of my Lasercomp colleagues and I were asked by the Brogans to prepare a PPP, or Program for a Potential President. The aim was to design a computerized path to show how to get someone into the White House.”

Gordon paused to sip his drink.

“It seemed like a management plaything at first. Using computers to work out a presidential candidate's campaign strategy was not new. But soon we found ourselves building far more complex programs than had ever been thought of before. Every imaginable factor was to be incorporated. We became intrigued as we were all soon ordered full-time on to the assignment. Within weeks it had become very sophisticated. About three hundred programmers were working on it. Within eight months, we had a model covering every contingency for a ten-year run at the presidency.”

The scientist got up slowly from his chair and moved to the fire.

Graham asked, “What kind of things did you feed into the model?”

“Well, the simple, early programs were based on those for past campaigns, and covered a wide range—people for a candidate to see, people to be seen with, analysis of all previous winning and losing campaigns. We even threw in analysis of what made some Presidents appear strong and popular. There were also the mundane things, like being seen in a particular state a certain number of times in the actual presidential election year. It wasn't until new concepts became important that I wanted to cut out of the whole damned assignment.”

“What were they?” Revel asked.

“Brogan Junior added a guy to the PPP team I'd never met before. He was a psychiatrist. He wanted us to build emotional factors into the program. They were to be quantified like everything else.”

“Such as?” Graham asked.

“We were supposed to do extensive surveys to see how people reacted to certain words in a candidate's speech. Statements like ‘Trust me' or ‘I would never lie to you' were measured in every state. This allowed the PPP to instruct speech writers how many times these words should be used, depending on where the candidate was to say them.”

Gordon laughed joylessly. “We even measured how different people reacted to knowing a candidate was religious, or sexually permissive. They were known as the ‘God factor,' and the ‘sex
factor.”' The scientist swallowed the rest of his drink. “Anyway, that was it for me. I wanted out.”

“You kept in touch with it?” Revel asked.

“Yes. Colleagues would often brief me. I guess it was morbid curiosity on my part.”

“How would the PPP account for the unexpected over those eight years?” Revel asked. “Say, for instance, a President was impeached. Wouldn't that throw the PPP out of kilter?”

“Not at all. In fact, this was its strength. The programs were ongoing, and automatically changeable. New information was continually fed into the PPP at one end and instructions and calculations kept coming out the other. One new factor like that would immediately change the calculations for millions of others.”

“What about the emergence of rivals to a candidate?” Graham asked.

“They were also catered for. I want to come back to that later. But first, let me tell you how the PPP was initially used.” He moved across to a cabinet and poured himself another bourbon. “When the model was finished, several ‘guests' were individually invited to meet Lasercomp's senior executives—the Brogans, Huntsman and Strasburg. These guests were mainly bright young senators and budding governors. The meetings were to see if one of them might fit the PPP. Only one was told that the corporation would be willing to help, if he wanted to be President of the United States. Lasercomp offered to help plan his long-term strategy and campaigns.”

Gordon took a hefty swig of his drink. “He really took on the PPP idea wholeheartedly.”

“Who was it?” Revel asked.

But Gordon was taking his time. “He had worked on the Apollo program at NASA before going into politics. He was very experienced in computers.”

“Mineva was a computer engineer at NASA at one time, wasn't he?” Graham asked.

Gordon hesitated, but finally nodded his head. “You're right, Mineva.”

“You believe Mineva has followed the PPP for ten years?” Revel asked disbelievingly.”

“Yes, perfectly. Right down the line. And I can show you
the most important aspects of the original PPP. You can check the step-by-step Mineva campaign, right from when he ran for Nevada governorship to chalk up a record in government.”

“But how do you account for MacGregor?” Revel asked.

“That was virtually Mr. Graham's question about rivals before, and this is what I hope will worry Lasercomp.”

“You mean assassination was in the PPP if an unbeatable rival appeared?” Graham asked.

“Exactly.”

“But it would not have specified Ronald MacGregor ten years ago as the target.”

“Not then, of course, but elimination by assassination was a built-in contingency. MacGregor's name would have come up fast in the instructions and calculations when he started winning the primaries.”