Project Reunion (2 page)

“Close enough,” I agreed, with a sunny smile. He scowled back. I’d never seen him without a scowl, so that was fine. “Anyway, Emmett plans to present an overall proposal for the relief of New York –”

“
Overall
proposal?” Leland cut in. That surprised me. Our Canadian intelligence representative rarely said a word during our meetings. Judging from his video feed, he was suddenly and intently researching something on his own computer.

“Yeah, it’s pretty ambitious,” I agreed. “Especially with only two weeks to prepare. He calls it a ‘framework.’ So, Emmett’s asked for our help to pull that together, to do the research and present it effectively. I think a couple other, um, ‘military marshals’, have agreed to help, too.

“But second,
I’ve
also been invited to present. So, I want to showcase what Amenac has done for the world so far, and what we can do to support and coordinate on the civilian side, if we go forward with helping New York. Like the missing persons lost-and-found database you guys threw together after the quakes and tsunami on the west coast last winter. That was an outstanding contribution to the world. Based on that, we can do a lot to support the New York effort. An online clearing house for people to volunteer. We need an inventory of skills, food, housing, Ebola vaccine doses, you name it. There’s just a lot of data and communications to pull together. And we’ve got the framework and track record to do that on the public side. Without getting shut down for violating the Calm Act, like everyone else does.”

Belatedly I clicked up my presentation for today onto the big screen, and flipped forward to a staffing sketch labeled ‘Dream Team.’ “Now obviously, guys, who does what, depends on who
wants
to do what. But I mean it when I say ‘Dream Team.’ We’ve got the people to perform miracles here, if you’re willing to come on board. If I get all my wishes, this is a suggested division of labor.”

I let them digest the list for a minute. I had four columns – the New York relief plan, the Amenac show and tell, both, and neither. The ‘neither’ column was necessary, because we had to keep our existing operations up and running. On the content end, we had legions of volunteer moderators minding the shop. But keeping the servers up, and thwarting the Federal watchdogs trying to shut us down, kept Popeye busy full-time. He led a remote server team that didn’t attend our steering committee meetings. I didn’t need to know who or where they were, but the Canadian Leland probably represented several of them.

Mangal and I could also pull in about a half dozen more UNC alumni from outside this steering group. How many Amen1 hackers were represented by the six attending this meeting, was something we were not invited to know. So the names on my list were just the principals present at the meeting, not the full number of people who might be deployed.

I considered and discarded several more sales pitches. This wasn’t a group who responded well to cheerleader nonsense. “So that’s the ask, and those are the stakes. Of course, I’m all in. Emmett is loaning me back Shelley from the barricades for a couple weeks. Mangal? Thanks! I knew I could count on you. So – discussion?”

Popeye jumped in first. “I can’t believe this fucking shit, whore!” Actually, that’s a cleaned up version of what he said. There was more in that vein, involving my choice of boyfriends and what I did with them, followed by, “No fucking way you’ll use Amen1 to back the evil empire!”

My mouth was hanging open.

Our host Dave, the Amen1 public spokesman, interjected calmly, “Popeye, I think we’d all feel more comfortable in these meetings if you could dial down the profanity.”

The Amen1 white-hat hackers were a motley crew, but Dave looked and acted like a successful 50-something real estate agent, in a casual but oh-so-very-expensive grey suit and cashmere pullover. Much as I wished he was the leader – and he acted like it – Dave insisted that he wasn’t. My Stamford UNC alumni contingent didn’t know who Amen1’s leader was. What Leland of Canadian intelligence knew, I wouldn’t hazard a guess.

Mangal, Leland, and Will nodded emphatically to the proposal of cutting the profanity. The other Amen1 hackers nodded more in resignation. Like me, I suspect they weren’t sure Popeye knew how to speak politely.

“Fucking whore!” repeated Popeye. “Whore to the evil empire!”

“Excuse me, Popeye,” I attempted, “but what exactly do you mean by the ‘evil empire?’”

“Fucking U.S. of A. Especially the
pigs
.”

“The ‘pigs’ being...the U.S. Army?” I hazarded faintly.
Or Emmett?

“With respect, Popeye, I’d like to re-frame this,” said Dave. Unlike Mangal and I, Dave hadn’t lost his cool in the slightest. “Dee, I think several in Amen1 have a certain, ah, commitment to anarchy. Bypassing the Federal government to liberate information that ought to be free – that’s a natural fit for us. I think what Popeye is saying, is that assisting a military operation is, um, an unnatural fit.”

“Fucking A!” agreed Popeye. He rose, intentionally throwing his folding chair backward to clatter on the floor. He looked to another hacker, Mel, as though expecting Mel to get up and storm out with him. Mel shrugged. Popeye slammed his way out of the loft.

Damn, I didn’t know that about Mel, that he was so ideologically close to Popeye. A few years older than Mangal and me, Mel was another mild-mannered corporate refugee, a computer engineer out of Boston. I wouldn’t have hesitated to invite Mel, and his somewhat intense wife Jeannie, over to my house for dinner with Emmett and my foster-teen Alex.

I must have stared at Mel for a moment. In the quiet pause after Popeye’s slamming door, Mel offered with a smile, “Count me in. That assignment looks good to me.” I had him penciled in on ‘both’ projects.

“Thank you, Mel,” I said faintly. I smiled, but I suspect it came out crooked.

“Excellent re-framing, Dave,” said the middle-aged black guy under Leland on the video display. He went by ‘Genghis.’ I’d never met him except by video. “I think that focuses on a key issue for me. Why does this need to be a military operation. Dee?”

“Thank you, great question,” I replied. “I guess it has to be, because it already is? New York is surrounded by armed borders, just like we are. To allow millions out of New York, or major relief personnel and supplies in, and set up quarantine zones for safety, we need at least the tolerance of the border forces. And Niedermeyer is inviting proposals that go way beyond that. To throw the resources of all the regional armed forces – Army, National Guard, Coast Guard, Navy, and so on – into solving New York. Or at least, that’s what Emmett’s framework proposal will involve. Whether Niedermeyer and the other powers-that-be will go for it, remains to be seen.

“To get back to that ‘evil empire’ thing... Whether or not you agree with what the U.S. military has been used for in the past – they’re damned good at logistics. When we’re talking about controlled movement of millions of people, without letting loose an Ebola epidemic on the rest of the Northeast – we’re talking major logistics here.”

Genghis nodded thoughtfully. “Thank you.” Above him on the screen, the Canadian Leland nodded impatiently, as though all that were obvious. Fair enough. I thought so, too, but many people had a hard time thinking with large numbers.

“Does that require Washington’s...tolerance...as well?” asked Dave.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I would know more after the summit meeting. But, I may not have a need to know. I suspect Niedermeyer’s going out on a limb. For what it’s worth.”

Will couldn’t bottle it up anymore. “I hope Washington flattens the guy. Come on! The Ebola risk
isn’t worth it.
Yeah, I’m sorry they’re all gonna die in New York. And the Calm Act sucks. And Congress had no fucking right to do that, to pen us all up like cattle inside borders. But they did it. And the stupid plan has advantages. Like, we’re not gonna die of Ebola on this side of the border. No one has the right to risk our survival here by letting them out of New York.”

“That’s the concern,” I agreed quietly. “That’s Emmett’s challenge, to come up with a framework of a plan that allows us to carry out the humanitarian mission, saving lives, without risking lives. Or rather, not risking lives beyond the military ones. Acceptable risks, as he put it.” I swallowed. By that yardstick, Emmett counted his own life as an acceptable risk.

I continued, “New uncontrollable epidemics, are not acceptable risks. But we’ve done a pilot program out on Long Island. And Emmett and Niedermeyer have epidemiologists to draw on. Maybe even the CDC if they can get a little more than Washington’s ‘tolerance.’ If we can’t allay those concerns, the proposal is dead in the water.”

My best friend Mangal chimed in. “But to condemn millions to die –
further
millions, because millions have already died – without even trying to construct a feasible plan to help them, is...unforgivable. Will, I agree with you that the risk is terrifying. And Dee, I hate to think what Emmett did to deserve this assignment –”

“His choice,” I supplied, with a shrug.

“Well, bless him,” Mangal continued. “It’s only a proposal, Will. Unless and until it proves itself viable, and sells to these military leaders at the summit meeting. Unless the proposal can convince people it’s safe to relieve New York. The lives at stake deserve our best shot at building a proposal that can do that, I say. If it’s really unsafe, or really against the will of the people, then due diligence in our research should make that clear.”

“Well put, Mangal,” said Dave. “Is Emmett’s proposal the only one, Dee?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Emmett wants to propose to clear people through quarantine, and then resettle them throughout the Northeast. Probably not all of them. But there are other possibilities. Like just inserting supplies and medical teams across the border. But that isn’t sustainable. So Emmett wants what Mangal just said. New York deserves at least one earnest attempt to save their lives, and sustainably solve the problem. Not just charity. Charity won’t solve this.”

There was a lot more discussion. But in the end, I got my ‘Dream Team’ for the proposals. Even Popeye. All I’d asked was that he continue what he was already doing – keep the servers running. The rest of us got down to work, brainstorming how to research the proposals as best we could.

Chapter 2

Interesting fact: In the stock market crash of 2008, over $10 trillion were lost. When the U.S. defaulted on its national debt, $20 trillion vanished. Soon after, the dollar lost all value, and the U.S. Gross National Product went from $16 trillion a year, to nothing at all, because there was no yardstick with which to measure it.

“Hey! What are you doing in my office?” I asked Emmett. I’d come in from the garden the following afternoon to find him seated at my desk, busy at my computer. Emmett was at my house almost every night for dinner. He was welcome to use my Internet and big display in the living room, and he frequently did. But like everyone else in our four-household extended family, I expected him to stay out of my office unless invited. Even Mangal had to ask permission, and we worked together in there all the time.

“Have a seat, Ms. Baker,” Emmett replied, after a few moments. He continued typing, face set in stony lines. He was wearing his blue dress Army uniform today, not my favorite look on him. His usual civilian button-down jeans and dark jewel-toned shirts showed off his wiry buffed physique, his best feature. His more common workaday combat fatigues at least looked casual. Today’s dress blues looked stuffy and intimidating. The outfit’s beret sat squashed on the desk at his elbow.

“Emmett? What the hell?”

“For this interview, I prefer to be addressed as Major MacLaren. Sit down, Ms. Baker.”

Now he was scaring me. And I don’t like being scared. I dragged Mangal’s usual chair around, and sat back in it, crossing my legs and arms, facing the wrong side of my desk. “Major MacLaren,” I bit out. “What the hell?”

He turned and steepled his fingers before his chin, elbows on the desk, and finally deigned to look at me. Emmett was usually the embodiment of cheerfully amused sarcasm. I’d never seen him furious at me before.

“Ms. Baker, there is an aspect of our relationship I haven’t mentioned, until now. You’ll recall that Homeland Security released you into my custody last winter. As a resource and asset to my command.”

“How could I forget,” I replied, eyes narrowed at him. “My knight in shining armor.”

“Uh-huh. That was not a get-out-of-jail-free card, Ms. Baker. You, and the Amen1 hackers, and the Amenac websites, are not free. You were made my responsibility. In effect, I am your parole officer.” He unbent slightly to add, “Among other things.”

Oh, shit.
“I see,” I replied.

“I just spent several hours with HomeSec. Not what I hoped to do today.”

“They’re back?” We’d blown up the local HomeSec offices. “Where?”

Emmett scowled at me. “They showed me a recording of your meeting yesterday with the Amen1 hackers. The discussion that included bringing down the ‘evil empire.’” Yes, no doubt about it – Emmett was furious at me.