Rules Violations

Rules Violations

By J. J. MacLeod

Copyright 2018 J. J. MacLeod

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual incidents,

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Cover design by Cameron Nutter

Prologue

Greed and deception are never far apart. Adam and Eve knew they were not allowed to eat fruit from the forbidden tree, yet they were overcome with temptation and blamed others for their own disobedience. Their punishment and subsequent eviction from the Garden of Eden changed the course of human development for all the generations that followed. It’s no wonder that some people can casually disregard the rules and deny the facts when they think they can get away with it. Throughout the annals of civilization, every code of conduct has contained specific prohibitions against lying, cheating and stealing - inseparable offenses that the FBI refers to as white-collar crime in a nutshell.

The term white-collar crime was coined by Dr. Edwin Sutherland at the 1939 Convention of the American Sociological Society as follows: a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. Since then, technology has leveled the playing field, eliminating distinctions having to do with occupation, social position and even the once revered white collar. Anyone with a smart phone and access to the Internet has the means to violate the law. Cybercrime is now feasible from anywhere in the world.

Blue-collar offenses typically involve the threat or use of force, but white-collar crimes can be just as devastating. Fraudulent schemes such as those perpetrated by the Enron Corporation and financier Bernie Madoff caused thousands of stakeholders and their heirs to forfeit billions of dollars. The typical economic impact is estimated to be at least an order of magnitude greater than all monetary losses from blue-collar crime. Sensational violence may command more headlines, yet white-collar crimes occur every day in the neighborhoods in which we live and work. Right and wrong are no longer the standards of personal morality. Conduct is now judged in relation to the behavior of other offenders.

Any driver who exceeds the posted limit is technically guilty of speeding. Yet rigorous enforcement is impractical, and most jurisdictions won’t issue tickets unless the violations are flagrant. The same logic applies to white-collar crime. Lesser offenses are often overlooked in the pursuit of more egregious acts. In many cases the challenge is to know that a crime has been committed in the first place. Every session of Congress for the past twenty years has churned out an average of seven thousand pages of new laws, resulting in a torrent of new rules and regulations.

Frequently infractions are treated as administrative matters and never reported to law enforcement agencies. Some of this may be due to a lack of awareness, but far more often those involved prefer to avoid the embarrassment of a criminal investigation. The desire to avoid adverse publicity is understandable, but it defeats the purpose of having statutory deterrents and denies justice to the victims. Public shaming can have a powerful effect, and even the most mundane misdeeds can be used to advantage in a court of law.

Consider the fact that while notorious mob boss Al Capone once ruled Chicago with a bloody hand, he was never convicted of a violent crime. He successfully evaded prosecution in the state and local courts through concerted acts of bribery, perjury, extortion and physical intimidation. The one thing he failed to do was report the income from his ill-gotten gains. That omission ended his criminal career with when he was sentenced to a five-by-nine cell at Alcatraz for federal tax evasion - a white-collar crime.

####

Marine One slowly circled the perimeter before settling down on the restricted helipad at Camp David. The routine security precaution gave the First Family a panoramic view of the iconic country retreat on what was to be one of their last weekends in the Catoctin Mountains. Too engrossed in his own thoughts to really enjoy the emerging signs of spring, the President was preoccupied with wrapping up his second term. He had been brimming with enthusiasm and a clear vision when he was first elected, but his efforts had been blunted by vigorous and unrelenting opposition. Now there were too few days left with too much to do, and his focus had narrowed to the reasons for this visit.

As soon as the VH-60N rotors slowed to a halt, the forward door opened, and the ground team signaled that is was safe to depart from the aircraft. Then the President emerged with his signature smile, rapidly descending the steps to share a few words with the detail leader while his family gathered up their coats, phones and tablets. Distinctly grayer after nearly eight years in office, he still exuded youthful energy and athletic grace. The family was especially grateful for one particular perk of the office - never being out of signal range. While they were constantly tethered to the net, special precautions had to be taken to maintain their anonymity and prevent hackers from intruding on their privacy.

The Presidential party was driven to the spacious main lodge for refreshments as their luggage was unloaded and taken directly to their residence. The rustic appearance of widely spaced cabins belied the many modern conveniences and security provisions hidden within their interior spaces. After the family enjoyed a light snack together, POTUS changed into his sweats and sneakers and slipped out a side door for his daily jog. Originally built by WPA labor in 1935, Camp David was now part of the Naval Support Facility in Thurmont, MD, forty flying minutes northwest of the White House. Heavily wooded and interlaced with miles of hiking trails, the secluded setting provided unrivaled privacy for those who were privileged enough to be staying here.

Every President since FDR had used the facility to host friends, foreign dignitaries and U.S. officials in the pristine wilderness. International visitors had included such luminaries as Sir Winston Churchill, Menachem Begin, Margaret Thatcher, Nikita Khrushchev and Vladimir Putin, not to mention the principals who attended the G8 summit meeting in 2012. There had also been cabinet meetings and extended working sessions with senior advisors, as well as family reunions, weddings and informal get-togethers with close friends and supporters. Famous faces from around the world had either landed at the secure helipad or been admitted through the heavily fortified entry gates.

The solitary individual who patiently awaited the President’s arrival on this occasion carried no such distinctions. Identified only as a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, he was very ordinary in appearance and casually dressed for his clandestine appointment with the leader of the free world. Having arrived alone in an unmarked car earlier in the day, he was precleared for admission by the Secret Service. The exact location of their meeting, accessible only by foot path, had been carefully prearranged and was known only to the detail leader. The start time was somewhat flexible, but not far off from the moment that the President jogged into view and signaled his security escort to remain behind at a discrete distance.

Morning Mr. Smith, the President said as slowed his measured pace to a walk. Glad to see you made it. I trust you had no problems getting in. For a man with so little time for regular exercise, he was in excellent physical condition, breathing normally after jogging for more than a mile. The heavy responsibilities of the office had taken their toll on his physical appearance, just as it had with all his predecessors. His laugh lines were more pronounced, as were the wrinkles around his eyes, the consequences of being awakened at all hours to deal with emergencies somewhere on the globe. He kept telling himself that there would be more time to rest and catch up on lost sleep after his term ended.

Morning, sir, the man replied respectfully. He smiled out of social custom, but his eyes remained impassive as he took in every detail of their encounter. Neither man made any move to shake hands or close the distance between them. Been here many times and I always look forward to the drive. Knowing that the President had little time for small talk, he launched directly into his oral report. Everything is proceeding according to schedule. Stage I should be completed before the conventions. We’re confident that the two candidates you preferred will be nominated by their respective parties.

That’s excellent news. I wish I could commend your team for their good work, but I can’t be seen having a hand in this. The American people would never stand for anyone manipulating their election for any reason. Democracies are supposed to work without outside intervention, presuming their elected officials respect the underlying institutions. I have to say that ya’ll have done an amazing job of keeping the media distracted. What else do you have planned for them?

The man hesitated, considering several different responses before answering his Commander in Chief. If you don’t mind, sir, it’s better if I don’t give you the specific details. Let’s just say that we have a series of planned revelations and we’ve left fingerprints leading back to the Russians and WikiLeaks. Your staff can see to it that you are appropriately outraged whenever anything breaks.

You expect it will all come out eventually?

We’ve targeted the leaks to come out during Stage II if they aren’t discovered earlier. The timing is important to maximize the impact.

What are you giving them? the President asked. And don’t worry about plausible deniability. I do know a thing or two about the law. A product of the nation’s premier law school, the former Constitutional Law professor graduated at the top of his class and was named the editor of their prestigious law journal.

Yes sir. We let the Russian hackers find dummy voter registration records and ersatz emails from the national committees. WikiLeaks thinks they’ve been given access to thousands of pages from various campaign officials. We added enough choice tidbits to make them look authentic.

Anything that could backfire on our candidate?

It’ll only confirm some of the charges leveled during the primaries. The impact should have been absorbed in previous news cycles. The public pretty much assumes they were true anyway. Things like the national committee favoring one candidate over another and getting previews of the questions before the primary debates.

Those shouldn’t draw too much blood. If it’s a slow news day, the media will do its best to stretch them out of proportion. Still, they should blow over quickly. What about oppo research on the candidates?

Completing the opposition research will be fairly simple. Both candidates craved the spotlight and they weren’t always careful about everything they did. Tower loves being seen with beautiful women and Belle was a little too casual with her private email server. We’ll have appropriate video clips cued up to feed to the media whenever they’re needed. Our biggest challenge will be sorting out the best quotes from the past thirty years.

Tell me about it. Both parties have been a pain in my neck for two terms and I’m all too familiar with the crazy stuff they’ve said about me. Just don’t go too far overboard. We want to pin this on the party leadership as well, so you must be subtle about it. If you make either candidate too toxic the parties will just walk away. I want them on the record so we can paint their whole ticket with one brush. Do you hear what I’m telling you?

Don’t bury the candidates right away. Make them defend their positions and keep the party leaders in the game as long as possible.

Exactly. I want them owning every word right up to election day. Then they’ll have to defend them up and down the ticket. That way every one of their candidates will be dragged along with the popular vote.

Sweet revenge, if you pardon me for saying so.

This isn’t about me, the President explained. The American people have been shortchanged for the past eight years and they’re losing faith in their government. We talk about noble goals and fixing the ills of the nation, but then everything grinds to a halt because we’re bogged down in partisan gridlock. Congress opposes everything I send them, whether they agree with it or not, and all for the sake of scoring political points.

But the Republican candidate claims to be a complete outsider. His whole mantra is that he’s never been tainted by official corruption.

Look, he’s spouting the same rhetoric they’ve been using for the past thirty years. He can’t be an outsider while he’s doing the insiders’ bidding. Once he dons the party mantle at the convention, he’s no different than the rest of them.

Do we need to shine more light in that direction?

No, the campaign teams are smart enough to keep making the point without our help. We’ll just let things ride and see what happens after the conventions. My biggest worry is what could happen in the final weeks. We’re playing a high-stakes game and it could still backfire on us.

Why do you say that? Smith blurted without thinking. If you don’t mind me asking.

There’s nothing wrong with our fundamentals. The Constitution has been firmly grounded for two-hundred and forty years. We’ll have more than enough to build on once we get rid of the kudzu that’s strangling our ability to govern. Surgery is a messy process, Smith, and can be very traumatic on the body. If you can’t control the blood loss, the patient could die on the table.

Doesn’t the blood-letting happen every four years to some degree?

There’s never been anything like this, the President said sadly. There’s not one word in the Constitution about political parties. George Washington warned us about them in his farewell address, but they sprouted like weeds after he left office and have been with us ever since. This time the losing party will be taking massive hits right along with their candidate. There is no way they can distance themselves from the coming revelations. It’ll shake the party faithful to the core.

I must be missing something, Smith confessed. What makes you so pessimistic about the outcome? All the odds appear to be stacked in one direction.

All in good time, Smith. All in good time.

****

Millie’s middle name should have been Integrity. Regardless of what it said on her birth certificate, she exemplified unconditional honesty and expected no less from everyone else. She was part of a vanishing breed who worked hard, spoke plainly and felt honored to be in public service. Born at a time before neurologic processing dysfunctions were recognized as barriers to learning, Millie rose above her undiagnosed dyslexia and eventually earned her PhD in organizational management. She never made excuses about her disability nor her humble beginnings in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania. Instead, she stuck with the values she had been taught and bootstrapped herself into competition with some of the best and brightest minds of her era.

Dr. Mildred McCluskey was already a legend by the time I was promoted to a headquarters assignment at Langley. She began her career at a time when women were selected for entry level positions based on their typing skills, eventually breaking through the glass ceiling to become one of the first female managers in the CIA’s history. Rising steadily through the ranks until she was named Chief of Document Services, Millie literally controlled the flow of critical information inside the sprawling central complex. Access to confidential data was enforced on a strict need to know basis. Pity the poor fool who violated any of her rules for handling restricted information.

As far as I know, in all the years we worked together at the Company she never made a single exception. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons that she lived and died an old maid. I’m hardly in a position to second guess another person’s life choices, but I know from personal experience that there are times when it is better not to tell someone you care about that certain clothing choices make them look fat. In my book, there is a time and place for every evasion. That argument wouldn’t have influenced Millie in the slightest. She said whatever was on her mind and accepted the consequences. Even so, I grew to admire and then love the only woman who ever threatened me the first time we met.

You may have been a hot-shot case officer in Eastern Europe, Mr. Wilson, she said while staring me down with a withering look, but if you violate even one of my rules your career will be history. This is not some baseball game where you get three strikes. We are very serious about the work that we do here and there are no second chances or ‘do-overs’ in my playbook. Get it right the first time or get out. Any misuse of classified information could literally put someone’s life at risk, so I am deadly serious about holding you personally accountable. Am I making myself perfectly clear to you?

I had been warned that Millie was a holy terror. Seeing her up close and experiencing the piercing stare and rising vehemence in her voice was something I will never forget. Every large organization has some system for keeping track of proprietary information, but we weren’t peddling life insurance policies or manufacturing widgets at the Central Intelligence Agency. Our worldwide acquisition and interpretation of foreign secrets informed the policies and shaped the actions of the most fearsome nuclear arsenal on the planet. Divulging what we actually knew could have catastrophic consequences for our countrymen and allies alike.

Even though her empire had literally been founded on mountains of paper, Millie was one of the first to embrace new technologies and ended up leading the charge to convert the entire records system to computerization. She argued tirelessly that physical documents were inhibiting the Agency’s ability to quickly disseminate perishable information, and, therefore, they needed to invest heavily in new hardware and software. The budget battles must have been fierce, but she won out in the end and bullied the management into implementing a paperless system that would ensure rapid and secure access for authorized individuals anywhere in the world.

It was a massive undertaking that went on for years, and during that time she was the only one who could bridge between the two different systems. That fact alone gave her almost unlimited power within the Company. No one wanted to risk losing control of the Agency’s data base in order to win an argument with Millie. No amount of money could have made up for such a loss. Even so, she never used her unofficial status for personal gain. She was a true patriot at heart, one who believed deeply in the CIA’s mission to safeguard the nation and its secrets. Once I began to lose some of my fear of her legendary wrath, I was one of the few who realized that she also had a wonderfully wicked sense of humor.

One unsubstantiated rumor has it that the Director accidently left a briefing book behind in his conference room and didn’t realize his error until much later. Little did he know that Millie found it and locked it in her office safe without telling anyone. She let him stew for the next two weeks while his aides frantically searched for the missing papers. Just as he was about to confess his carelessness to the entire management team, she took him aside and admonished him like a wayward schoolboy in her grammar class. No one knows what actually transpired between them, but her star rose within the ranks and he never misplaced another document.

She bristled whenever I teased her, but she enjoyed the bantering and often gave as good as she got. Millie became one of the mentors who helped me curb my impetuous nature and avoid serious trouble in the politically-charged halls of power. You may think you’re getting away with something, Harry, she cautioned me with her beady eye, but they have long memories and revenge is a dish that is best served cold. Just think about that and watch your back. When the knives come out, you’ll need a friend like me in your corner to protect you. They can’t touch me because I know where all the bodies are buried.

Nevertheless, my unwillingness to play their silly headquarters games eventually caught up with me. I did my job well and contributed my share to the success of the organization, but I also let it be known that some of it was tantamount to busy work. The real victories were being won in the field, not in some windowless conference room. When budgets got tight and cuts came down from on high, I was among the first to make the forced march into early retirement. I left before Millie retired from the Agency on her own terms some years later. We stayed in touch and I even visited her in the continuing care community she had selected as her final earthly home. There she could move from independent living to round-the-clock nursing care as needed without ever leaving the facility.

This place was OK when I first moved in, she once told me. I had my own apartment with cleaning and meal service, but what made it special were the friends I made who enjoyed getting out and seeing the sights. Any place can get to be boring when all you do is look at the same four walls every day. We took in ball games, plays and concerts and had lots of laughs tooling around in the community van. That was until my companions all got older and started dropping like flies. Now they’re all gone, and my world has shrunk down to one small room and a wheelchair. I even need a hoist to lift me up when I have to use the commode. And they still have the nerve to charge me a fortune for this dump.

The final chapter of her life ended peacefully when her worn out organs shut down and she passed away in her sleep. Praised as often for her invaluable contributions as she was cursed for her unyielding positions, she was honest to a fault and honest to the end. As Millie had outlived her relatives and many of her close friends, my girlfriend Brenda and I were just about her only visitors after she was confined to the nursing wing. I had readily agreed to act as the executor of her estate, but it was Millie who made all the final arrangements ahead of time and left me a detailed list of instructions to ensure that her last wishes were carried out to the letter.

As she had directed, there was no funeral service. Instead, Brenda and I were invited to a simple memorial the nursing home hosted in early June to give caregivers and residents a measure of closure. While the nursing staff was sadly accustomed to saying goodbye, Millie had become one of their favorite patients and it was hard for all of them to see her go. She had been the first to complain when things weren’t being done correctly, but she was also the first to commend individuals for their exceptional kindnesses. The country owed her a debt of gratitude for her years of dedicated service, but her unfailing honesty was what the nursing staff most appreciated in celebrating the time they shared together.

****

For Pete’s sake Harry, Brenda scolded me from the kitchen. Stop arguing with the television and just change the channel. I had stepped out of the shower after finishing my outside chores and turned on the TV while she was preparing a special dinner. Cleaning and waxing the exterior of my fifth-wheel home is a springtime event that I try to put off for as long as possible. Atlantic Seaboard winters take their toll on exposed surfaces and I have too much invested in my humble abode to skimp on maintenance. Brenda’s generous offer to help with the cleaning and fix a home-cooked meal was simply too good to pass up.

It’s practically the same nonsense on every channel, I countered, and I’m not arguing. I’d missed the first part of the cable news program, but I heard just enough to know that the person speaking was full of crap.

You have five more months of this drivel before the election, she reminded me. Why get yourself so worked up? Brenda has only so much patience when it comes to politics. She approaches things logically and methodically, ignoring the personalities and delving into the issues that are most important to her. Unlike most of us, she discounts the speeches and punditry in favor of reading policy positions on the candidates’ web sites.

It’s no worse than me complaining when the ump makes a bad call, I mumbled. My approach to the election is much more visceral. I try to get beyond the soundbites and listen to what each side is actually saying. But fair is fair, and mud-slinging turns me off in a heartbeat. Why should I vote for candidates who spend most of the time berating their opponents? Tell me what you intend to do and don’t worry about the other guy. Give me enough credit