Robert Smith - The Planner

“So you are doing something bad? For them?” she said.

“I really can’t say anything. It started off just as an extension of my normal… job. Doing something good for my country,” said Planner, struggling with his inner dilemmas.

“It’s Black Ops, isn’t it? I don’t know what that means exactly but its clandestine stuff,” she said.

“We’re getting into twenty questions here. It’s not fair on either of us to discuss this. This isn’t supposed to be about me. It’s not good subject to discuss. I’m worried about you. And Enron.”

“Do you realise just how crazy this all sounds?”

“I know. I know. At least, I think I do. Crazy or not… And even if we never speak again, I really came here just to ask one small, albeit, strange favour from you?” said Planner, back in control of his emotions.

“Is this going to be sexual?” she said in a nasal voice, holding a handkerchief to her nose.

Planner laughed, “No.”

Katherine pocketed her handkerchief and looked back attentive but unsmiling.

Planner inhaled and said, “Could you just do this one thing and honestly, if you don’t want to see or speak to me again then I perfectly understand. Can you make sure that you don’t go into the office unless your CEO is there?”

Katherine was surprised. “But the CEO isn’t my boss,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. It has to be the CEO,” said Planner.

“Can you tell me why?”

“No, I can’t do that,” he said trapped by his oath of secrecy and fear of not being believed. “Just check your CEO’s calendar and confirm that he’ll be in the office. Make any excuse if he’s not. Just for the next month.”

“Ok. I think we have now established that you are cracking up,” she joked. “You seriously can’t tell me what this is about. How do you know all this?”

“As you said, it is a small community in Wall Street. Your work may have kicked up quite a bit of a storm.”

“My work?” exclaimed Katherine.

“And it is soon going to be thrown into a whirlwind. I just couldn’t bear to see you hurt,” said Planner nervously.

“Some sort of raid? On Marsh McLennan?” Katherine continued to exclaim.

“Twenty questions again. Sorry, I’ve said too much as it is,” said Planner averting his eyes.

In the distance, further down the slope, Katherine could see the baseball game, breaking up. “Can we talk again? Say next week? This isn’t a great place to talk.”

“I’m afraid I’m in Washington next week then on a training course for the next couple of weeks after. In Oklahoma.”

“Training course? Hey, and I was worried about your stress levels.”

“It’s going to be quite a course.”

Katherine sighed, “You’ve set me quite a puzzle here. And you seemed like a nice guy.”

Planner said, “I think I may have a superman-complex; trying to save the world. But finding out I’ve been working for the lizards of Krypton.”

Katherine tapped her teeth for a few seconds, “I think I have the answer to your problem though.”

“Oh?”

“Do your job,” she said. “If you have to… and no I don’t approve… But do it badly! It seems to work for the SEC.”

Planner smiled and nodded, “That sounds like some decent kryptonite!”

At that point a blonde, ten year old girl came running up the slope carrying a heavy bag.

“Mummy, Mummy, did you see how I hit the ball? First stroke!” she said.

“I missed it! Ohhhh Nooo! Well done, though. Well done,” Katherine replied maternally.

Katherine introduced her daughter to Planner, the first of her man friends she had ever introduced to her. The three of them threw the baseball around and laughed and chatted, like their previous conversation had never happened. Once it seemed like the right time to leave, Planner said goodbye, waving from a distance and walked back to his car.

The ground felt springy, the air was light, the sun was warm. Planner smiled and started to hatch a plan.

Planner and Bates were surrounded by many formally dressed men sitting behind a set of desks arranged in a horseshoe. These were generals and commanders of high rank if the number of badges and flashes attached to their uniforms were anything to go by. Only three men were not in uniform. One of them, at the head of the horseshoe, was the Lodge Master that Planner had to refer to as “Senator” in this meeting.

Unusually for a meeting of this type no names were used, each person introduced themselves only by post names and role in the operation.

The Lodge Master, aka Senator, introduced himself as “CoG-3a” even though most people there knew his name, and explained himself as the main political stakeholder for the operation. The others introduced themselves as “CinC-1a Air Force”, “NG-1a National Guard”, “Psyop-7 Media” and so on. There were 15 stakeholders there. Planner did not take notes in case anyone felt they were being “recorded”.

Planner introduced himself as “Rainbow 1a Planner” and Bates as “Rainbow 1b Deputy”.

The Senator read out the progress report including the underestimation of the number of hijackers, lack of indoctrinated flight crew, uncertainty with achievement of all objectives, particularly the impact on the Pentagon, and included Planner’s concerns on plausibility of the building “collapses”.

One of the Generals snorted, “You can fool most of the people some of the time!”

Another said, “Regarding the towers, we need an academic, independent of NIST, to provide a suitable explanation. 110 111”

Another of the non-uniformed persons, a mid-thirties man, that introduced himself as Psyop-7 Media, nodded, “We will introduce our story early. The public’s mind is very receptive to authority messages when there is apparent chaos.”

“We have talking heads positioned in all the major news channels,” volunteered Planner.

“No,” mused Psyop-7 airily, “No, it needs to come from an ordinary Joe in the street. It needs to be self evident to a man-in-the-street what has happened; he’d be our own man, of course. And only then, would the story be repeated up by the talking heads. And then backed up by academics, as the General said.”

Bates said, “Point noted. I’ll get on to the ground teams.”

Psyop-7 smiled a little.

The meeting continued with a simple animation of the day’s events, projected on the screen.

Planner gave a forty five minute presentation on the state of each individual operation, finishing with a slide showing a timeline: the preparation state for each Operation’s Stage A team and lead times required for the Stage B and C teams. There were no interruptions. Planner sat down, and picked out a mint from a conveniently placed bowl.

“Thank you very much, Planner,” assured the Senator. “It’s good to see everything on track and going to plan. I see the critical path is dependent upon the drones.”

“Yes, we’re flying out later this week to perform rehearsals,” stated Planner.

“I was just wondering whether you have entertained any cost saving measures?” said the Senator.

“We have looked at using military drones rather than 767 airliners. However this only makes sense for the crash into the North Tower since all other crashes would be highly visible or pose problems for the Stage C teams, with the clear up and air crash investigations. I understand a high quality animation of the first crash is under construction to provide cover for the drone,” said Planner.

“Suppose there were no air crash investigations?” said the Senator.

“Not something I had considered,” shrugged Planner. “Every air crash on US soil has been investigated by the NTSB. They are after all, er… my speciality.”