The Global War on Morris (3 page)

NICK

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2004

S
cooter Libby would do almost anything for his boss, the Vice President. Anything. He would fabricate and obfuscate. He would offer half-truths and untruths. He'd even go to jail, for God's sake (though he knew the prospects of such a thing was unlikely as Cheney would always have his back). But sitting in the rear seat of a White House pool car with Karl Rove for a long drive on the foliage-lined Baltimore–­Washington Parkway, winding through the Maryland suburbs, was really testing the limits of his patience. The air conditioner fought against the heat outside, and Rove had just asked, for what seemed like the tenth time, “Where are we going?”

“I told you, Karl. An undisclosed location.”

“I know that. But where?”

“If I told you where, it would be a disclosed location.”

“I'm Senior Advisor to the President,” said Rove. “You can tell me.”

“I'm Chief of Staff to the Vice President. I can't.”

“I've told you before, Scooter, Senior Advisor to the President outranks Chief of Staff to the Vice President. Technically.”

“Maybe in the Office of Management and Budget flowcharts. But not in the Vice President's mind.”

That was the big debate in the Administration. In the labyrinthine staffing structure that Cheney built, who outranked whom?

“You might as well tell me now. I'll know when we get there.”

“Then why keep asking?”

Rove grumbled then mustered a smile, a malicious, settling-of-the-score smile. Libby wondered whether Rove was planning his demise behind that smile, right there next to him, right there in the backseat of the White House pool car. The roadkill of individuals who had gotten in Rove's way littered America's political landscape. Congressmen, senators, governors. Enemies real and imagined. Past, present, and future. Direct threats and potential threats. Libby shifted his body toward the backseat window, staring as the car passed communities named Landover and Greenbelt and Laurel.

Rove realized their destination: the National Security Agency. In Fort Meade.

(He could tell by the road sign that read:
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY. FORT MEADE
. For terrorists and traitors who felt awkward pulling off and asking for directions to the place where America's most vital secrets were hidden, the road signs were helpful.)

After producing their IDs at several checkpoints, they pulled into a remote underground garage tucked into the massive black-glass complex. The tires squealed as they turned from one level to the next, descending deeper and deeper into the concrete bowels. Libby thought of the parking garage scene in
All The President's Men
, when Deep Throat leaked Nixon Administration abuses to the
Washington Post
. Deep Throat. Nixon. Watergate. Those were the days. When a two-bit break-in could turn into a constitutional crisis. Iran–Contra.
Abscam. Child's play. Christ, if only the
Post
knew about this! They could all go to jail!

In a far corner of the lowest level, the car came to a stop, only a few feet from an elevator.

“Follow me,” Libby ordered.

They approached the doors, and Libby pressed a button. “Fingerprint scan,” he said. The doors parted. Once inside, the elevator rattled through a short descent. The doors hissed open, and Rove found himself face-to-face with a group of uniformed NSA Police nodding politely at Libby.

“Welcome to COG,” Libby said.

“What?”

“Welcome to COG.”

They were in one of the underground, undisclosed, undercover outposts of a Cheney-inspired project called COG (Continuity of Government).

Here is where the Vice President would be whisked to ensure the survival of the government if the White House fell under attack.

On the other hand, his boss, the President,would stay at home. At the White House. Under attack.

It was a small suite with all the essentials of a standard bunker: sleeping quarters, food rations, and emergency communications equipment. Knowing he might need to spend weeks or months riding out the survival of the United States, Cheney added a few personal comforts: the entire works of Rush Limbaugh (propped on a small coffee table), his favorite hunting rifle, and a list of major Republican National Committee donors who would be prioritized in any search and rescue operations as the nation emerged from its apocalypse.

Libby led Rove through a narrow corridor that led to another locked door posted with a sign that read:
RESTRICTED. COG LVL 1
.

“This is what the Vice President wanted you to see,” Libby said,
fishing through his pocket for a plastic card, which he waved in front of the door to the sound of a soft buzzing.

They entered a massive room, brilliantly lit and frigidly air-conditioned. Rove saw endless rows of giant cubes, encased in glass and metal. Glittering black walls of computers whirred and blinked red and green lights. Technicians dressed in black uniforms strolled casually down narrow aisles, stopping occasionally to inspect a cube, as if price checking at the supermarket. Rove thought he wasn't in the top-secret, undisclosed location of the Vice President in 2004, but on the mother ship of some alien fleet.

“What is this?” Rove asked.

“The Vice President's reorganization of the intelligence community. His name is NICK. Stands for the Network Centric Total Information Collection, Integration, Synthesis, Assessment, Dissemination, and Deployment System.”

Right there, deep in the bowels of the NSA, where no one would notice, NICK noticed everyone's business. So clandestine that even President Bush could not be briefed on it. You couldn't find NICK in any federal budget (unless you had the fortitude and the magnifying glass to find a three-point italicized typeface entry within the “Supporting Projections Tabs” of the Department of Agriculture, Office of the Deputy Secretary for Public Nutrition, Office of the Assistant Deputy Secretary for National School Lunch Programs, Division of Compliance, Assistance to State and Local Governments, Education, and Outreach, Misc.). The leadership of Congress was vaguely informed about NICK—just enough of a dose so they would feel as if they were in the know without knowing anything at all. The last thing the country needed was one of those pesky federal judges deciding that the constitutional right to privacy was more important than the nation's need for security.

NICK was one of the most potent defenses in America's anti-­terrorist arsenal. Programmed to follow tens of millions of lives in real-time, assessing patterns of behavior, and predicting threats against
the nation. NICK was the ultimate voyeur, with an insatiable curiosity and a ravenous appetite for data. He would hunt it, sniff it, taste it, chew it, swirl it around his hard drive, and digest it. And if it left a bad taste, creating the slightest irritation, indigestion, or queasiness, NICK would spit it right out in an alert to dozens of law enforcement agencies.

NICK performed investigative triage in a country on threat overload. Everyone was either suspicious or a suspect, a patriot or a Democrat. America was a population of tipsters, snitches, and informants. The limitless American vision that had built a continent, forged a democracy, defeated the Nazis, peered through the blackness of space, and landed a man on the moon was now reduced to peaking through window shades and checking over shoulders for Muslims in our midst.

Enter Professor Roger Dierker from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his theory of “graduated threat probability patterns.” Dierker, a consultant to the NSA, programmed NICK to dig through the infinite streams of information coursing through cyberspace and then pan it, sift it, sluice it. Separating nuggets of information from worthless muck. NICK channeled information through an elaborate series of constantly updated filters. He could process billions of reports, accounts, files, and records, and recognize any one of eighteen hundred (and growing) separate “terrorist behavioral indicators.” He knew the hundreds of word patterns most likely to be used in a terrorist e-mail or phone call, as well as the hundreds of code words to mask those communications. He knew the nearly two thousand favorite terrorist training camps, neighborhoods, and vacation spots, as well as the terrorists' “fifty preferred hedge funds.” NICK even knew the top twenty songs most likely to be downloaded to the My Favorites category of a terrorist's iPod.

NICK was a high-tech police profiler. He didn't pull people off the highway based on how they looked; he pulled them from the information superhighway based on what they did. It didn't
matter whether data was fed directly to him, or just happened to be passing by on its way to a Google Search. NICK saw it all. Police reports filed, arrests made, and tip lines called; passports presented, countries visited and miles traveled; Internet sites viewed and music downloaded; DVDs rented, books bought and books borrowed. Reservations for planes, trains, cars, hotels, motels; certain magazine subscriptions ordered, certain organizations joined, certain petitions signed, certain donations sent; applications for drivers' licenses, pilots' licenses, or licenses in any one of one hundred and sixty-five “occupations of elevated threat”; purchases of guns, uniforms, fertilizer, or any of over two thousand substances that didn't mix well; credit reports with balances that spiked or slumped, as well as charges made, charges paid, cards applied for, and cards declined, cards reported lost, stolen, damaged; bank accounts opened, bank accounts closed, transfers in and transfers out; suspicious deposits or unusual withdrawals; birth certificates, death certificates, changes of address, visas, and passports; tax forms, immigration forms. Any form of information that could be useful to NICK.

Scanning, checking, comparing, contrasting, and cross-referencing in a ceaseless search for patterns. Reaching across innumerable bytes of information and making them all add up.

If someone blew a stop sign and received a ticket, NICK knew it. If they had a foreign birth certificate and blew a stop sign near an apartment on the federal terror watch list, NICK noted it. If they also used certain word patterns in their e-mails, NICK wouldn't like the taste of that. He would try to wash it down with phone records, bank statements, travel information, and plenty more. He would gorge on private details. And after sucking it all in, if NICK learned of some unusual fluctuations in a savings account and some wire transfers from certain places, he would exhale a well-nourished, satisfied breath, and transmit a threat-pattern advisory. It could be a Level 5, meaning NICK wanted to keep his eternal eyes on you and your records. Or it could be a Level 1, which meant that you were about
to hear a knock on your door. A few people in suits and sunglasses would ask you some questions. You've been nailed by NICK.

R
ove blew a long whistle from his lips and asked: “What's to stop this from spying on innocent Americans? Accidentally, I mean?”

Libby exhaled impatiently. “We take privacy rights very seriously, Karl. We have checks and balances. Safeguards. This government does not spy on the American people.”

MORNINGS WITH MORRIS

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2004

J
ust as on every morning for the past thirty-four years, Rona's alarm clock that Wednesday was the sound of Morris awakening at precisely seven fifteen she heard him stirring beside her in bed. He lifted himself with a resigned sigh, and shuffled toward the bathroom. Rona knew that Morris would pee at seven eighteen, gargle his mouthwash and brush his teeth by seven twenty, and shave, shower, and dress by exactly seven forty. Then the slightest breeze of Calvin Klein aftershave would pass over Rona as he left the bedroom. By seven forty-five
AM
he would be sitting in the kitchen sipping his coffee, chewing on a toasted bagel with two slices of Swiss, and turning the pages of the newspaper that he retrieved from the curb. That scent of coffee and a toasted bagel was Rona's signal. At eight fifteen she would join Morris in the kitchen for a good-bye kiss. At eight thirty he would close the door
with a soft thud and go to work. That was Morris's morning. Every morning. As precise and predictable as an atomic clock.

Rona pulled the blankets to her cheeks, blinked at Morris as he dragged his feet to the bathroom, and thought,
God forbid the man should sleep late one day. Or go really crazy and have his bagel before getting dressed. God forbid he changes his routine.

There was a time when Rona tried to change Morris's routine. To coax him from his seat in front of Turner Classic Movies by changing the scenery of their marriage. Once, she enrolled them in the adult lecture series at Long Island University. The course was American History. Morris never made it any further than the Pilgrims. She tried to accommodate his love of old movies by joining the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. But Morris said he didn't like movies with subtitles or post-film discussion groups.

So she gave up on trying to change Morris and kept trying to change the world. Which seemed easier. She joined the Great Neck Democratic Committee and the Hadassah Social Action Committee and the North Shore Breast Cancer Action League. She volunteered for local political campaigns. She conducted on-line debates. Not on computers, but on lines at supermarkets and bakeries and the women's apparel department at Bloomingdale's. She reconciled to her and Morris's uneasy truce. Morris survived by not making waves. Rona survived by acting like one of those wave machines at the science fair.

Which is how their marriage survived.

Plus, she thought,
With all the
mishagas
in the world—this one divorcing that one, almost half of Great Neck having affairs with the other half—I should count my blessings.

She knew one thing about Morris: A man who won't take chances by attending adult education wasn't a high risk for adultery.

Of that much she was certain.