Part 30 (2/2)
Three weeks after J Edgar Hoover died, Tyrone Duncan was promot- ed to Section Chief in the New York City office A prestigious position This was his first promotion in 8 years at the bureau
It was one that leaped over 4 inter up the phone with Bob Bernsen, Tyrone sat behind his desk going over hisrings and nary a kidnapping What dogged hih was the flurry of blackested version put out by Washi+ngton headquarters that was faxed to him in the early hours, ready for his AM perusal
The apparent facts confounded his years of experience Over 100 people, hly placed leaders of Aional FBI offices for help A call into the FBI is handled in a procedural ent who takes the call can identify the source of the call with a readout on his special phone; a service that the FBI had had for years but was only recently beconificant inforent had a reliable method to track down the call- er Very few people who called the FBI realized that a phone inquiry to an FBI office triggered a sequence of automatic events that was complete before the call was over
The phone call was of course monitored and taped And the phone nued in the coent Then the nuainst files from the phone company What was the exact location of the caller?
To as the phone registered? A calling and billing history was inated froistered to an individual, his social security number was retrieved and within seconds of the receipt of the call, the agent knew a plethora of information about the caller Criminal activities, bad credit records; the type of data that would pere the validity of the call For business phones, a cross check deterht be valuable in such a detered from the vast number of callers who intimated blackmail activities created a ponderous situation
They all, to a call, originated from the office or home of major corporate movers and shakers Top American businessmen hile not beyond the reach of the laere fro citizens Not pristine, but certainly notoutlandish capricious clai attention to theton, was the sudden influx of such calls Normally the Bureau handles a handful of diversified cases of blackitiue threats do not materialize into prosecutable cases Tyrone Duncan sat back thoughtfully
What is the coo or on April Fools Day? Do these guys all play golf together? Is it a joke? Not likely, but a remote possibility What enemies have they made? Undoubtedly they haven't befriended everyone hom they have had contact, but what's the connection? Tyrone's h a maze of unlikelihoods Until, the only coht in the face There was a single dimension of commonality between all of the callers They had, to a coanization for years The US Governht alone caused a spasm to his system His body liter- ally leapt froovern, surely This is crazy Or is it? Doesn't the IRS have records on everyone? Then the ultiht hit him square in the cerebellu the connection
Soeerminated that he could sell to another overworked, underpaid civil servant; his boss
The G-9 says, 'I got a way to make sure the tax evaders pay their share, and it won't cost Uncle Sa today, I'm too busy Do some re- search and let me see a report'
So this overzealous tax collector prowls around other government computers and determines that the co on the up and up What better way to get the We, Big Brother know, and they'd better shape up
He calls a few of them, after all he knohere the skeletons and the phone nu Brother is listening and he doesn't like what he hears' And he says, 'we'll call you back soon, real soon, so get your ducks in a row' and that scares the shi+t out of the corporate muckity- mucks
Tyrone smiled to himself What an outlandish theory Absurd, he admitted, but it was the only one he could say fit the facts
Still, is it possible? The governs He recalled the Phoenix progra and innocent civilians were tossed out of helicopters at 2000 feet to their deaths in the distorted hope of overnets of CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President And the Aquarius project used psychics to locate Soviet Boo soldiers to see if they could function adequately under the influence? The horror stories swirled through his mind And they became more and more unbelievable, yet they were all true Maybe it was possible The United States governram of anonymous blackmail in order to increase tax revenues Christ, I hope I' But, I'm probably not
The buzzer on the intercom of his phone jarred Tyrone from his daydream speculations
”Yes?” He answered into space
”Mr Duncan, a Franklin Dobbs is here for his 10 o'clock appoint- ment Saunderson is out and so you're elected” Duncan's secre- tary was too daive it to someone else He pushed his intercootta priraduate from speculative forensics and return to Earth to deal with real life probleed him In exactly 3 minutes, his door opened
”Mr Duncan, this is Franklin Dobbs, Chairional director” She waited for the two e each other before she shut the door behind her
”Mr Duncan?” Dobbs held his hand out to the huge FBI agent
Duncan accepted and pointed at a vacant chair Dobbs sat obedi- ently
”How can I help you, Mr Dobbs?”
”I aht into Duncan's coal black eyes