Chapter 24

Sitting in his hotel room, Mike watched the Wolf News Channel. President Archer had kept his campaign promise and closed the American border. No one who was not an American citizen was allowed to enter the country. All entry visas had been canceled. International airports had thousands of stranded passengers who couldn’t gain entry into the country. It appeared that the airlines hadn’t believed the notice not to accept passengers traveling to the United States who were not American citizens.

Mike didn’t understand why people even boarded the planes to come to the country knowing that they wouldn’t be allowed to enter. Despite attempts to sue for entry, there was no law stating that a person had to be granted entry. People wanting into the country pointed to pictures of the Statue of Liberty shouting that it proclaimed to the world that they were welcome to enter. Their shouts fell on the kinds of deaf ears that only a bureaucracy could produce.

The reaction overseas was one of shock. Two of the most vocal countries were France and Germany. They felt that it was a violation of an international principle to stop honoring visas. It was particularly galling to the President of France that French citizens, who didn’t need visas, weren’t allowed into the country. He appeared to have been insulted by President Archer when he had called to protest. France was demanding an apology.

Cartoons appeared overseas declaring Archer to be Bush’s evil twin with Bush presented as the Devil. It was stupid, but it reflected the attitude of a certain sector of Europe towards America protecting itself. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. European countries were facing their own problems with terrorists. Bombs were going off on subways, trains, and in stores. It seemed to Mike that everyone blamed America for their problems.

The reaction in the Middle East depended upon who was telling the story. The common person on the streets of Middle Eastern countries believed that America was terrified of the Islamic Jihad. They reveled in their power to bring it to its knees. People flocked to join Jihad and help bring down the superpower. Angered by what he was seeing, Mike watched the broadcasts of crowds burning the American flag and stomping on it.

The rulers of those same countries felt that America was abandoning its support of their regimes. They were doubly worried. The Jihadists were becoming increasingly more aggressive in replacing regimes that they viewed as being supported by America. The huge pools of oil that had been the basis for their wealth were starting to dry up. For years they had been lying about how much oil they had. The lies were starting to catch up to them.

In an attempt to show that it wasn’t an American puppet regime, Saudi Arabia threatened an oil embargo against America if it didn’t honor the visas previously issued. The threat didn’t work. The world was shocked when President Archer announced that trade agreements for oil had been signed with Russia. He also had Congress pass an emergency oil production bill that opened up offshore areas for drilling. Most of the areas had long been blocked as a result of lawsuits by ecologists. The first license in decades for the construction of a Nuclear Power Plant was granted.

It was hard watching the news without having access to the intelligence data that gave a true picture of what was going on in the world, but the break was doing Mike some good. He had slept the first three days; waking only to get something to eat, and take care of his bodily functions.

On the fourth day, he left the hotel and walked to a park in town. Sitting on a bench, he watched his surroundings. Life there was so normal. People greeted each other and chatted on the street. They went into stores without fearing for their life. He enjoyed the atmosphere of an America that seemed to be disappearing.

In what was a major departure from how he normally vacationed, the fifth day of his vacation was spent doing touristy kinds of things. He spent a nice afternoon wandering around the Boot Hill Museum. It was clearly a tourist attraction, but he liked it. The place was nearly deserted and he wasted hours talking to the folks that worked there. They weren’t trying to get people through as fast as possible.

On the sixth day of his stay, Mike went for another walk in the town. After wandering aimlessly for an hour, he found that he was again at the park and relaxed on a park bench. He was considering what to do about lunch when there was a lot of shouting in the streets.

He stopped a woman who was rushing past and asked, “What’s going on?”

“They attacked the White House,” the woman answered and then took off for home.

Mike looked around and spotted an appliance store. He went in and joined the crowd watching the news. There had been a major attack on the White House. To the people gathered in that store, the White House was the symbol of government. It was an important symbol and the attempt to desecrate it angered them.

It had been a massive attack. The terrorists had driven a stolen sanitation truck filled with explosives through the fence. Security barriers managed to stop it well away from the White House. Other than breaking glass, there was only a little damage to the building when the truck exploded.

The bigger problem was that additional terrorists raced into the breach with guns. The gunfight ultimately involved over two hundred police, Secret Service, and Marines. The President’s helicopter that had been parked on the lawn had been an early casualty of the attack.

The reactions of the people in the store to the news as the story unfolded at the hands of a very speculative press were honest and heartfelt. There was outrage over the attack, anger at the attackers, and concern for their fellow citizens. They didn’t try to hide their feelings behind facades of sophistication. Mike stood in the midst of them feeling like he belonged. This was heartland America where flying the flag was commonplace. A tear ran down his face.

A woman tapped him on the arm and asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed by the moment,” Mike answered.

“This is a good country. We shall win this war,” the woman said with the calm assurance of someone with total confidence in the future. The others in the room nodded their heads in agreement.

“I know,” Mike said. Seeing the heartland of America had restored his faith that things would work out. He spent the rest of his vacation in a chair by the pool.

Cathy brought over a cup of coffee and put it on the corner of his workstation. Putting on her best and friendliest smile, she said, “You seem a lot more relaxed after your vacation.”

“I am,” Mike said.

She stood there a moment fidgeting while trying to decide what to say to him. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry that I used to think of you as Pervert John.”

“Huh?” Mike replied rather confused by her apology.

“You know -- when you used to come here and any time I came to your workstation there was a dirty picture on your computer. I didn’t know that you were really doing something pretty important,” Cathy said knowing that she wasn’t making much sense.

Mike laughed and said, “Oh, you’re talking about the old pornographic security feature. I couldn’t blame you for thinking I was a pervert. The fact of the matter is that there were a few pictures that popped up that I did like. Maybe I am a pervert.”

Cathy put a hand on his shoulder and leaned over. She whispered in his ear, “There were a few that I liked, too.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” Mike said changing the topic to a safer subject.

“I’ve got to go to the shrink now,” Cathy said.

There were times when she didn’t understand what had happened to her in terms of her career. One day she’s making minimum wage working in an Internet Café and the next day she’s pulling a real salary from the CIA. It didn’t seem that her job had changed that much. The biggest change was that she had a security clearance that had her checking under the bed for FBI agents.

Mike winked and said, “So far we’ve managed to fool them. They don’t realize that we’re all paranoid.”

“Being paranoid is our job and we’re good at our work,” Cathy said playing her role in an exchange that was common when someone was leaving to see the shrink.

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, someone is liable to be listening,” Mike said with a laugh.

Cathy laughed and asked, “I’ll make the lunch run after my appointment. What do you want?”

“I’ll have my usual Wednesday Roast Beef sandwich with the works,” Mike answered.

The deli up the street had a daily special that Mike usually ordered. Wednesday had roast beef sandwiches with Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on a hard roll.

“Okay,” Cathy said.

She went around the room and got everyone else’s orders. Some of the analysts preferred to go out for lunch finding that they needed the break from what was often bad news.

After Cathy left the office, Joe came over to Mike and said, “She likes you.”

“I like her, too,” Mike said absently while studying the screen full of data on his computer.

“I mean she really likes you,” Joe said stressing the word ‘really.’

Realizing what Joe meant, Mike looked up and said, “I’m a married man.”

Joe looked at the wedding ring that was on Mike’s middle finger of his left hand. Shaking his head, he said, “You’re not married any more. You’re a widower.”

“It’s too early,” Mike replied.

The sweep of foreign scientists and engineers working on American projects with direct ties back to foreign governments was in full operation. Mike watched with a huge grin, as the names of arrested individuals scrolled past on the status board.

Looking over at him, Shirley Holbrook asked, “Why are you so happy?”

Mike sat back and said, “For the past two decades I’ve been hearing about how foreign scientists have been essential to American progress. My experience has always been the opposite. They’ve fought progress tooth and nail. They’ve been keeping us back. I think that the next year we are going to see some progress like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Really?” Shirley asked.

“Yes. I’ve watched too many projects that were nearly at completion get canceled by managers who are foreigners. I’ve heard of too many projects that died long miserable deaths when sent overseas. Those kinds of projects have consumed a tremendous amount of our resources with nothing to show for it. I bet we’ve wasted well over a trillion dollars and half of our scientists and engineers,” Mike said.

“You’re just xenophobic,” Shirley said with a frown.

Mike turned to his computer and typed a few commands. A minute later Shirley had an e-mail with links to a number of intelligence reports concerning the Chinese interference in high energy weapons development. She wasn’t very happy by the time she had finished reading them.

She looked up and said, “I can’t believe they would actually do that. Isn’t China supposed to be our friend?”

“They did and they aren’t,” Mike said, “Just wait until you hear their reaction to the news that their scientists have all been arrested for espionage.”

“They’re going to be angry if this report is accurate,” Shirley said.

Jim said, “Oh, it’s accurate. I did a similar study on outsourcing. The more I dug into it, the more I realized that outsourcing was actually holding back projects and costing companies more money.”

“Can you give me an example?” Shirley asked.

“I’ll give you one of the more extreme examples that I ran into. It was a case where an Indian working on a project for an American company talked the company into outsourcing some of their work to a company in India. Even before the contract was let, he was feeding back all of their results to the team in India. The team here kept saying that they weren’t making progress. It turned out that the guy was sabotaging the project. The team in India ended up selling the solution back to the company here. Not only did the company lose their initial investment, but they also lost their competitive edge when the Indians sold the solution to their competitors,” Jim answered.

Mike looked over at Jim and said, “I wasn’t aware of that one.”