Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
[The William Moreau series was redacted and incorporated courtesy of www.blackbudgetinsider.com.]
PART 3
OPERATION PATRIOT
CHAPTER 9
The vanilla milkshake Ren Miller consumed at lunch had passed through his lactose intolerant digestive system and began a flatulent attack on the tight confines of his office. Ren didn’t care. Coworkers might, but they rarely ventured below ground. Ren enjoyed the solitude accompanying his office, tucked at the end of a dim corridor in the basement of the National Archives Annex in College Park, Maryland.
Must, dust and milkshake farts — not the proper atmospheric conditions for America’s largest filing cabinet. Few people, however, worried about the millions of government documents in storage, as long as they stayed there.
Before 1974, the public never saw the documents Ren handled, but the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) set standards for classification and allowed the public access to federal documents. The National Archives and other storage facilities became inundated with requests that had to be fulfilled.
Ren reviewed documents pulled from storage and determined their level of classification. With a large marker, he blacked out names, sentences and paragraphs from certain documents or sometimes returned the entire document to the issuing agency without declassifying it. He searched for key words and phrases depending on the topic. Words and phrases that someone, somewhere, deemed unsuitable for public dissemination.
Not anyone could be assigned Ren’s job. They selected him. He fit the profile: passive, quiet, few friends, small family and a career employee not willing to jeopardize his pension by concerning himself with what he saw on the documents. Ren’s supervisor, however, fit a different profile, a Clinton/Gore school of government profile: Do more with less; Serve the people. That innovative style took Ren’s work to a level below toleration. He had planned on leaving, but waited, hoping to announce his retirement at a time when he could stick it to his supervisor.
The phone on Ren’s desk chimed a faint ring. “Hello,” Ren said.
“That’s not how I told you to answer the phone!” his supervisor replied.
Clearing his throat, Ren amended grudgingly, “Freedom of Information Act Processing Department, Ren Miller speaking, how may I help you?”
“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm. Tell me you’re done.”
Ren looked over his shoulder. Two boxes of documents still waited his attention. “I’m almost finished.”
“Almost. What’s that mean? Five docs? Ten? One box? You’d better not have more than a box left.”
Ren continued to stare at the remaining boxes. With an exhausted monotone voice, he lied, “I’m on the last box.”
“Hurry up. I’ve got another request just approved.”
Ren laughed. “There are hundreds of approved requests waiting attention. Someone will get to the latest one in a year or two.”
“What have I told you, Ren? Whether you like it or not, there is an increase of FOIA requests, and that’s not going to change. I want to keep pace with the requests, not get buried in a backlog.”
“You keep talking like that and soon you’ll meet the people who really run this process,” Ren said, hanging up the phone. His supervisor didn’t understand; fast service complicated matters. Nothing could be gained by distributing information.
Today is a good day to retire, Ren thought. Returning the documents on his desk to their box, he phoned the copy center and arranged a pickup. He checked “completed” on the work order, then signed his name, skewing his signature. If anyone ever asked Ren why he fulfilled the request without declassifying all the documents, he would deny it and accuse his punk supervisor of forging the signature on the work order. And with that, Ren freed his final bit of information for Uncle Sam.
CHAPTER 10
Professor Bertrand Eldred had lived the first seventy-years of his life the way they wanted. As a young aspiring engineer in the 1950s, they had forced him to alter his career by blacklisting him, denying the security clearances he needed to work for the government or its military contractors.
Beware of the military-industrial complex — a statement President Eisenhower once made, and a statement that Professor Eldred would never forget. His own ordeal taught him about the power accompanying military technology and the manipulation used to control it. They made him an outcast to limit the researchers in his field. They brought in fresh minds. Minds they compartmentalized. Minds that didn’t know the origins of the theories and formulas being analyzed in the government’s anti-gravity research program. A program that removed a new realm of possibilities from public domain. A program that tapped the clean and abundant natural resource of gravity, and remained classified for nearly fifty years.
In 1956, the professor had met his wife-to-be, who helped him forget his early, short-lived first career and tamed his animosity against the government. In time, he accepted his fate and made a success of his altered career path by finishing his Ph.D. and devoting his life to teaching. Realizing he couldn’t beat Big Brother, he did his best to avoid the government and keep his life and family secure.
Professor Eldred and his wife worked hard. They raised two bright children and saved money every month for forty years. Their retirement looked bright. A nice house in Malibu. Nice cars. Nice clothes. And time. Time to travel. Time to enjoy each other’s company. They planned for everything — everything except death. Life again robbed the professor’s future by taking his wife a year into their retirement. He felt bitter, the same bitterness he felt when they robbed him of his career many years earlier. Having lost the spark in his life, he had no desire to continue, no reason … until the idea came to him: he would revive his early career. What could they do now if he began working with anti-gravity again?
In the past they controlled him using a stranglehold on his future, but age placed that trump card in his hand now. The one possible roadblock in his path: death. That didn’t deter him, however. His kids were grown and living stable lives. They stood to gain a healthy inheritance. Plus, he knew that Constance, his wife and soulmate, waited for him in heaven. Professor Eldred had nothing to lose, and the world had everything to gain.
The professor suspected his renewed interest wouldn’t go unnoticed. Especially after he submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for anti-gravity related government documents.
The promptness by which the government provided the FOIA documents surprised the professor; some requests took many years, but his was fulfilled in shortly over a year. What didn’t surprise the professor was a phone call that followed soon after his documents arrived, before he’d even opened the boxes. They wanted to meet with him.