THE OVERTON WINDOW (21 page)

Molly stared at him in astonishment. “Did you say ten
trillion
a year?”

“Uh-huh. And the backing for it goes right up to the top, internationally. So here’s a little pop quiz: What do you get when you combine corporate greed with political corruption and sprinkle a few trillion on top?”

“I don’t know … fascism?”

Noah shook his head. “You get Doyle & Merchant’s newest client.”

The hourglass on the screen had disappeared moments before, and was replaced by a dialog box with two buttons, one labeled
HALT
and the other
PROCEED
.

“Now I know what I’m looking at,” Molly said. “So let’s see what’s next.”

Noah clicked the remote, and the screens all began to change. The slides that had been incomplete filled in with callouts, numbers, names, legends, and dates to illustrate the long-term agendas within each area of American government and society at large. Some of these agendas spanned only a few years, others more than a century.

Pointers along the time lines began to move; text formed and then faded as significant events in recent history were reached and passed by. Milestones appeared, enclosed in the Overton Window of each screen as it moved slowly from left to right.

It was far too much ever-changing information to absorb, like watching all the movies in a multiplex simultaneously. But as they turned and took it all in at the center of the circle of screens, Molly suddenly touched his hand, and gripped it. It seemed the same realization had come over them both, at the same instant: This wasn’t eight separate agendas at all. It was only one.

Along the bottom, the steady advance of time. Through the middle, the slow, sporadic movement of the Overton Window—usually pushing forward, but sometimes pulling back, as though the public might have rebelled briefly against the relentless pressure before giving in to it again.

To the far right of each screen a final goal was listed. As Noah looked to each of them he realized something else that all these endpoints had in common. They weren’t written and presented as though they were unthinkable extremes, but rather as achievable goals in some new, unified
framework of command and control, ready to come forth on the day the old existing structure failed.

•    Consolidate all media assets behind core concepts of
a new internationalism

•    Gather and centralize powers in the Executive Branch

•    Education: Deemphasize the individual,
reinforce dependence and collectivism,
social justice, and “the common good”

•    Set
beneficial globalization
against isolationism/sovereignty: climate change, debt crises, finance/currency, free trade, immigration, food/water/energy, security/terrorism, human rights vs. property rights, UN Agenda 21

•    Associate resistance and “constitutional” advocacy with a
backward, extremist worldview:
gun rights a key

•    Quell debate and
force consensus
: Identify, isolate, surveil opposition leadership/threaten with sedition—criminalize dissent

•    Expand malleable voter base and agenda support by
granting voting rights
to prison inmates, undocumented migrants, and select U.S. territories, e.g., Puerto Rico. Image as a civil rights issue; label dissenters as racist—invoke reliable analogies: slavery, Nazism, segregation, isolationism.

•    Thrust
national security to the forefront
of the public consciousness

•    Finalize the decline and abandonment of the dollar:
new international reserve currency

•    
Synchronize and fully integrate local law enforcement
with state, federal, and contract military forces, prepare collection/relocation/internment contingencies, systems, and personnel

According to the progress shown, many of these initiatives were already well under way. The slide devoted to Finance showed a time line beginning in 1913, and its Window had moved nearly to the end.
The screen for Education began at a point even earlier and was also well along. Advances in one, concerning surveillance, security, and the militarization of law enforcement, had accelerated radically in the years since 9/11.

There’s a difference between suspecting a thing and finally knowing it for certain. Noah felt that difference twisting into his stomach. You can hold on to the smallest doubt and take comfort in it, stay in denial and go on with your carefree life, until one day you’re finally cornered by a truth that can no longer be ignored.

“Look over there,” Molly said.

But he’d already seen it. While every other slide had shown advancement and slow progress over its individual time span, one hadn’t moved at all, as though its role in all this was simply to be ready and awaiting activation. Also unlike the others, its time line didn’t measure years or decades, but only three final days.

Unlike the others, this slide had no Overton Window. EXIGENT was the legend at the far end of the line, and it seemed there would be no question of public acceptance, no need to rally opinion on this front. Whatever it was, it would bring its own consensus.

“Casus Belli,” the heading said, and Molly’s translation was still fresh in his mind.

An incident used to justify a war.

CHAPTER 20
 

Outside the skies were still threatening, and to accompany the frigid light rain a wicked crosstown breeze had begun to blow. In that sort of weather almost everyone on the street is looking for a ride, so it took a few blocks of trying before Noah and Molly were able to hail an empty cab headed downtown.

When they’d closed the door the driver turned and asked where they were going.

“Ninth Street and Avenue B, by Tompkins Square Park,” Noah said. “And do us a favor,” he added, passing through enough of a tip to make his point. “We’re not in a rush, so just take it really, really easy, understand?”

The man in front took the money, gave a nod in the rearview mirror, and then signaled and pulled away from the curb with exaggerated care, hands on the wheel at ten and two o’clock, driving as if an inspector from the Taxi & Limousine Commission were watching from the shotgun seat.

Molly kept to her side of the car, looking out the window in silence
as the ride got under way, but after a minute she reached across and found Noah’s hand to hold.

“There were no dates on those screens at the end,” Noah said. “There’s nothing to say that this thing is happening tomorrow, or next week, or next year.”

She shook her head. “It’s happening now.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I can see it. The economy is crashing, Noah. There’s no net underneath it this time. That’s why they’re rushing through all this stimulus nonsense, both parties. All the cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork to grab what they still can. It’s a heist in broad daylight, and they don’t care who sees it anymore. That’s how I know.

“They’ve doubled the national debt since 2000, and now with these bailouts, all those trillions of dollars more—that’s our future they just stole, right in front of our eyes. They didn’t even pretend to use that money to pay for anything real, most of it went offshore. They didn’t help any real people; they just paid themselves and covered their gambling debts on Wall Street.” She looked at him. “You asked how I know it’s happening now? Because the last official act of any government is to loot their own treasury.”

He couldn’t think of a thing to counter that, at least nothing that either one of them would believe.

“We’ll be okay,” Noah said.

“Who’ll be okay?”

“The two of us. And look, I’m not talking about any commitment you have to make, or a relationship, or whatever, I know we just met so let’s take all that out of the picture and not worry about it right now. I’m just telling you that I’ll help you, you and your mom, no strings attached.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Just give it some thought. I know, it would probably feel like some
pact with the devil. I feel the same thing, but it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?

“Whatever happens, it isn’t going to hit everyone equally. A lot of people I know probably won’t feel a thing, and I’m set up to be okay through just about anything. So I’m just saying that we can fix it so you and your mother are okay, too.”

“You’re wrong—you won’t be okay. No one will. If they accomplish half of what we saw on those screens then money won’t protect you. Nothing will.”

She turned her attention back to the window and the dark, blustery night beyond the glass.

After a time her clasp on his hand tightened for a few seconds, but it didn’t really feel like affection. It was more like the grip a person might take on the arm of the dentist’s chair, or the gesture of unspoken things an old love might extend at the end of a long good-bye.

CHAPTER 21
 

When the cab pulled to a stop Molly opened the door and turned back to him as he paid the fare.

“Come on up,” she said. “See how the other half lives.”

The path to the entrance began with a forbidding metal gate at the sidewalk. The lock took quite a bit of finesse to operate. It looked as though it had been jimmied open more often than unlocked with a key. A dismal courtyard lay beyond the gate, and at the entrance a triple-bolted fire door opened to a sad little front hall lit by a single hanging lightbulb.

He followed as she started up three narrow, creaking flights; he took her occasional cues to avoid a splintery patch on the railing or a weak spot in the stairs. On the second floor the entrance from the landing was secured with a heavy chain and padlock. His first thought was that the door was blocked to discourage squatters, but considering the run-down, gray-market condition of the place, it was probably as much for the safety of the trespassers as a protection for the property itself.

Though the walls and windows showed signs of spotty maintenance
the construction was haphazard and incomplete. None of the repair work seemed up to code, but little of the older, existing carpentry did, either. As they continued up the stairs, he saw sheets of plywood over broken windows, and bare studs without plaster here and there. Long, jagged cracks in the remaining walls warned of some structural weakness that might run all the way to the foundation. Random drafts swept up the dim stairwell, accompanied by ominous settling sounds and the distant clank and hiss of old steam heat.

When they arrived at the third floor Molly had her keys ready, and she set about unlocking several dead bolts on the unnumbered apartment door.

“How long have you lived here?” Noah asked.

“Not that long.” She tried the door, and had to put a shoulder to it to bump it free from its swollen frame. “It’s a little nicer inside.”

And she was right. In fact, across that threshold it seemed like they’d entered a whole different world. As she relocked the door he took a few steps in, stood there, and looked around.

Great effort had obviously been taken to transform this space into a sort of self-contained hideaway, far removed from the city outside. What had probably once been a huge, cold industrial floor had been renovated and brought alive with simple ingenuity and hard work. The result was one large area divided with movable partitions to form an impressively cool, livable loft. From where he was he could see a spacious multipurpose room off the entryway, a kitchen and laundry to the side, and what seemed to be a series of guest rooms toward the back.

Molly hung her keys on a hook by the door. “What do you think?”

“How many people live here?” Noah asked.

“I don’t know, eight or ten, so don’t be surprised if you see someone. They come and go; none of us lives here permanently. We have places like this all around the country so we can have somewhere safe to stay when we have to travel. That’s my room over there for now, but hardly any of this stuff is mine.” She stepped into the kitchen, still talking to
him. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some iced tea. Or would you rather have a beer?”