(SCI-FI) Even Cops get snagged trying to investigate data they’re “firewalled” out of accessing. Security Clearances and levels of “Need to Know” present insurmountable roadblocks – if you carry a badge or not. Snooping like this all goes through the NSA – “No Such Agency” – and sometimes results in suits coming to ask you questions. Cop or not. The Feds always call the shots.
EPILOGUE
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot of Berkeley Heights HQ they were on me. Two guys in matching dark suits, worn shoes, white shirts and pattern-less dark ties from about ten years ago approached me as I walked to the building’s front door. FBI for sure.
“Lt. Kovacs?”
I turned around to face them. They were frick and frack – right out of central casting. G-men extraordinare. One with a particularly bad crew cut grabbed my left arm and the other fashion-plate took my right.
“Lieutenant, we’re going to insist that you come with us….” They directed me towards their Ford Crown Vic and opened the back door for me. I was going for a ride in the part of the car without door handles.
Never a good sign.
I didn’t talk until we were turned off Plainfield Avenue onto Route 78 East. We were clearly heading to FBI Headquarters at the Gateway Building in Newark. I figured I’d break the ice.
“So, fellas…..what’s this all about?” I asked in a purposely distracted tone.
“You’ll be briefed at Headquarters, Lieutenant” Came a curt reply from the geek in the passenger seat. Both stared straight ahead as we drove East, rarely glancing right or left like people in a car usually do.
Their signals that they didn’t want to make small talk were duly noted. I was content to let the moments pass in silence for the time being. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get to Newark – but another twenty just to get to Penn Station and the Gateway Building. Traffic, as usual, was awful.
Finally we parked in the secure, third level underground lot reserved for G-men deep under the Gateway Building. Everything was key-card swipe activated, even the elevator. At floor twenty we all got out. I was led to a conference room containing some cheap wire-frame chairs, a formica-topped table and two walls with windows of obviously one-way mirror glass. They closed the door behind me and I heard a familiar “snick” of the lock. I was being observed and probably recorded. Pretty standard stuff – for criminals. But I was a cop. This just kept getting better and better.
Somehow, I got a vague feeling that the Amulet hanging around my neck was getting heavier and heavier – if only in the metaphorical sense. All roads seemed to lead back to the mysterious object. It was the thread connecting the whole narrative I’d pieced together. If I expected answers, now was the time for me to play whatever cards I was holding. I needed an edge. But what?
Fifteen minutes passed. A fresh Geek came in. Amazing how they all dressed and looked alike. I had already taken the seat behind the interrogation table and was trying my best to look bored.
“Lieutenant Kovacs, I’m Special Agent Harker” he anounced, calmly positioning himself in the chair across from me. He dropped a folder on the table with “Department of Defense” embossed on its front and observed me taking note of it. A head-game to get me scared. A juvenile, TV cop move.
“Lieutenant, you recently – through connections – accessed the NCIC Washington Database about a number of old license plates and a murder file….somebody named Jock Merton. A NJ homicide from the early seventies, I believe. The man was killed and his remains burned in his car in the parking area of a bar in Neshanic Station, NJ…..
Why were you interested in this man?
It isn’t a cold case – the matter was thoroughly investigated and later solved by the Somerset County Prosecutors’ Office. They arrested a felon that’d done hard time in Rahway Prison and got a confession out of him. He died a few years later. Cancer, I believe….”
No way was I sharing anything of value until I knew what was going on.
“Jock Merton worked at Bell Labs. My dad worked at Bell Labs – and was killed in a hit and run there in the early fifties. I thought the Merton file might shed some light on my Dad’s case. See if anybody asked him about Bell Labs in the fifties….. just wanted to see the paperwork. It was a long shot, ok?”
Special Agent Harker didn’t even try to hide his skeptical look. He actually shook his head from side to side and grinned.
“You’re gonna’ have to do way better than that, Lieutenant!!!”
I wasn’t impressed with this lard-complexioned bureaucrat, his wrinkled off-the-rack suit, boring tie or absurd loafers. It was time I threw down a marker of my own.
“I’m a New Jersey Cop, Special Agent Harker. I investigate New Jersey cases – even cold ones. It’s what I do. Nothing you’ve said to me even hints at Federal Jurisdiction – so why don’t you just walk your side of the street and let me walk mine. When I see some reason to call in the FBI – I’ll give you a ringy-dingy-doo”.
I sat back and smiled, enjoying watching his pasty-face drain even more color.
“Alright, Lieutenant” He sighed. “If that’s the way you want to play it”. Harker got up off his chair, collected his “Department of Defense” festooned file folder and walked out of the room.
I looked at my cell phone. No service – no surprise there. The room I was being detained in was probably outfitted like some kind of Faraday Cage. Federal Offices had all the bells and whistles. Nothing to do but wait.
Finally, there was a “knock” on the door. After a few seconds a older, dignified gentleman came in, probably in his early sixties. Thick glasses, tweed sportcoat and very British-looking duck-patterned green tie. He looked more professorial than the geeks that drove me here. At least he had a genuine smile.
“Lieutenant!” He announced good naturedly as he settled himself into the same chair my previous interrogator had occupied.
“I’m sorry we’ve been a bit….. abstemious with our information….. perhaps I can shed some light on why you’re here…….”
“You see, Federal computers collate commonalities inherent in lines of inquiry – it’s one way we combat hackers and maintain firewalls to preserve secure information. Levels of security clearances literally chain-off government secrets from prying eyes. But sometimes, we encounter inquiries in government systems that overlap in troubling…..coincidences, let’s say…”
“Oh! Dear me!” The man suddenly chortled. His right hand was raised in a kind a gesture of apology. “I’m Doctor James Winston…..and I’m going to level with you…”
“In the early Ninties, the FBI received – quite by surprise – a manilla envlope mailed from Phoenix, Arizona, containing something that looked to be an official briefing document that was presented to then President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower dated 18 November, 1952.
It was stamped “Top Secret” and contained absolutely every cryptic-stylistic requirement that the US Military would have included in an official brief of Executive importance. Placements of commas, combined letter and number configurations, page break symbols – every official manuscript print custom and layout was duly observed. Printing arrangements and positionings were precisely incorporated – things that only an official source preparing Presidential and Army Chief of Staff briefing documents would know.
The FBIs’ receipt of this particular Top Secret briefing document was bad enough – but the subject that it addressed was even more bizarre…..
According to this chronicle or record, President-Elect Dwight David Eisenhower was, on November 18, 1952, presented “Eyes Only” and official memorialization of the existance of Operation Majestic 12. Operation Majestic 12 was a Committee of Twelve extremely talented scientists, military leaders and engineers who were tasked with explaining to the incoming President the origins and details surrounding the crash of a flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico on July 7, 1947.
Let’s review the names of who were the alleged Majestic 12 Committee, shall we?
Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Dr. Vannevar Bush, Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, General Nathan Twining, General Hoyt Vandenberg, Dr. Dentlev Bronk, Dr. Jerome Hunsaker, Mr. Sidney W. Souers, Mr. Gordon Gray, Dr. Donald Menzel, General Robert M. Montague and Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner.
We at the FBI call them the MAJIC 12!
Now, Lieutenant, if I were to assemble the highest-powered, most qualified committee of post-World War II talent to brief an incoming President about an extra-terrestrial space crash, I’d include precisely every name on that list!
The FBI needs to know if a) the document is real, and b) if it is real, how the Hell did it get mailed to us from Phoenix, Arizona? Who took it – and who is behind its return? This would have been the very highest security document of its time – possibly even a higher national security secret than nuclear bombs….if a document like that goes missing from government archives – it’s a crime. And the FBI has to investigate”.
I looked at Dr. Winston dumbfounded.
“You’re asking me if this Majestic 12 Briefing Document is real and if I know who took it??? How the Hell should I know???”
“Listen to me, Lieutenant….” Dr. Winston now looked perturbed, as if I was holding back. He paused, looking like a disappointed parent.
“Let’s cut the Bullshit, shall we?”
“Those license plates you accessed through NCIC – for the year 1948….the people you learned were driving those vehicles to New Providence, New Jersey, were……Majestic 12. You know – or at least have some idea why – those Majestic 12 people were at Bell Labs. Don’t you?”
I responded short and not-so sweet.
“No.”
Dr. Winston shook his head.
“I know you’re searching for who killed your father……but anyone who knew about Jock Merton’s death would also know his connection to Bell Labs – and the Shopkeepers’ Notebook. It’s about the Transistor, Lieutenant. You know it. We know it. And more importantly, Dr. Pierce knows it. He reported you, just like he was supposed to. He isn’t going to risk his enhanced pension….”
“So Jock Merton was murdered…..and the Eisenhower Briefing Document was real …….” I muttered.
Winston was blunt.
“The flunky Somerset County arrested for killing Merton got a few years off his sentence for taking the fall for a government assassin. Who really did it?
Some Special Operations goon strangled Merton and burned his body in his Volvo in Neshanic Station. Merton had documentary proof of the provenance of the Transistor – the lab notes about where it originated. He’d lifted it from the Bell Labs vault. Why?
That Lab book was going to be his ticket to a golden retirement. A tell-all expose’ and speaking tour, television interviews, notoriety….He could prove Bell Labs didn’t invent the Transistor…that they reverse-engineered it from something the government gave them. From a spooky, mysterious source beyond the stars, Lieutenant! It was MAJIC – pun intended.
The FBI can say – window dressing only – they’re “still investigating” where some strange Presidential Briefing Document circa 1952 came from. That it’s still considered an active a security breach – blah, blah, blah……..But we really don’t give two shits about who said what to President Eisenhower in 1952!
We’re more concerned with keeping the lid on the mother of all secrets!
Guys like your Dad – and to a certain extent, Merton – were heroes! They couldn’t live with the Big Lie, as your friend Mr. Stickel called it……….Yes! We spoke to him, too. Surprised? Don’t be. By the way – you drive a car like a man possessed. Slow it down……”
Dr. Winston was looking more FBI(ish) by the minute. The tweedy Professor was now just talked like another goon. His urbane, intellectual mask had melted. He was now an errand-boy delivering a message. His polished voice notwithstanding, I got his point: I was up shit’s creek.
All pretense of US government plausible deniability was now gone. They weren’t even trying to lie. Dr. Winston was the FBI’s scientific damage control Czar. And damn soon he was going to present his bill for the secrets he was sharing with me.
“Bell Labs and the Majestic 12 crew thought all the do-gooders who wanted to reveal the truth about where the Transistor really came from had been eliminated in the fifties – then Merton reared his ugly head and they had to deal with him, too.
When you tried to access Merton’s Department of Defense-sequestered murder file (they’d classified all the Somerset County Prosecutor’s evidence the day Merton’s body was discovered in Neshanic Station) alarm bells started to clang all over again. Somebody was digging up bodies and waking up all those sleeping dogs…..
The progress of mankind has been inexorably changed by the Transistor, Lieutenant. Fortunes have been made. Transistors led to solid-state electronics, microchips, computers… an information revolution! Our world has never been the same. Everybody involved knew the stakes were out of this world. Unfortunately, your father was a casualty in this struggle. It’s time to end your quest…….”.
Dr. Winston held out his hand, palm up.
“Please…..Lieutenant Kovacs. Hand it over. It’s classified material you are not authorized to possess. We can charge you with a Federal felony and make sure you do time. Play ball and you can go on with your life. Of course, we’ll deny anything we’ve disclosed to you. Push us and we’ll label you a conspiracy theory nut-case and make sure your career in law enforcement is over forever. But – just so we understand each other – you are not leaving here with that piece of metal…”
Slowly I pulled the Amulet up from under my shirt for the last time, gently pressed it to my lips – and handed it to him. They had me over a barrel. The one thing that bound me to my father’s righteous soul was gone. That little piece of him I kept close to my heart. Winston saw my eyes tearing and just looked away.
We left the room together and he directed me to a computer terminal. I agreed to write a report stating that I’d recently found the Amulet amoung some personal effects my mother had left me. I didn’t know what it was or where it came from. Being a cop I know how to write a “convincing” report. But convincing is one thing. Truthful is another.
THE END
Copyright, Jon Croft 2020
