The Apocalypse Watch

  “What’s going on, Larry?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know. When I find out, I’ll call you.”

  Franklyn Wagner, anchorman for MBC News, the most-watched evening news program in the country, sat in his dressing room rewriting much of the copy he would recite in front of the cameras in forty-five minutes. There was a knock on his door and he casually called out, “Come in.”

  “Hi there, Mr. Sincere,” said Emmanuel Chernov, chief producer of network news, walking inside and shutting the door; he crossed to a chair and sat down. “You got problems with the words again? I hate to repeat myself, but it’s probably too late to change the TelePrompTers.”

  “And to repeat myself, that won’t be necessary. None of this would be necessary if you hired writers who could spell the word journalism, or even knew its basic precepts.”

  “You print-types, or should I say, you refugees from print who can now afford joints in the Hamptons with swimming pools, always complain.”

  “I went to the Hamptons once, Manny,” said the handsome, silver-haired Wagner while continuing to edit the sheets of copy, “and I’ll tell you why I won’t go there again. Do you want to hear?”

  “Sure.”

  “The beaches are filled with people of both sexes, either very thin or very fat, who walk up and down the sand carrying galleys to prove that they’re writers. Then at night they gather together in candlelit cafés to extol their unprintable scribblings and exercise their egos at the expense of unwashed publishers.”

  “That’s pretty heavy, Frank.”

  “It’s pretty damned accurate. I grew up on a farm in Vancouver where, if the Pacific winds brought in sand, it meant the crops wouldn’t grow.”

  “That’s kind of a leap, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps, but I can’t stand writers, on television or otherwise, who let the sand pile up between the words.… There, I’m finished. If there aren’t any newsbreaks, we’ll have a relatively literate broadcast.”

  “Nobody can say you’re humble, Mr. Sincere.”

  “I don’t pretend to be. And, speaking of humility, to which you’re uniquely entitled, why are you here, Manny? I thought you delegated all criticisms and network objections to our executive producer.”

  “This goes beyond that, Frank,” said Chernov, his eyes heavy-lidded, sad. “I had a visitor today, this afternoon, a fellow from the FBI, who, God knows, I couldn’t ignore, am I right?”

  “So far. What did he want?”

  “Your head, I think.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re Canadian, right?”

  “I am, indeed, and proud of it.”

  “When you were in that university, the … the …”

  “University of British Columbia.”

  “Yeah, that one. Did you protest the Vietnam War?”

  “It was a United Nations ‘action,’ and, yes, I opposed it vociferously.”

  “You refused to serve?”

  “We were not obligated to serve, Manny.”

  “But you didn’t go.”

  “I wasn’t asked to and if I had been, I wouldn’t have.”

  “You were a member of the Universal Peace Movement, is that correct?”

  “Yes, I was. Most of us, not all, of course, were.”

  “Did you know that Germany was one of the sponsors?”

  “The young people of Germany, student organizations, certainly not the government. Bonn is prohibited from engaging in armed conflicts or even parliamentary discussions of the issues. Their surrender codified neutrality. Good God, despite your title, don’t you know anything?”

  “I know that a lot of Germans were part of the Universal Peace Movement, and you were a member in pretty obvious good standing. ‘Universal Peace’ could have another meaning, like Hitler’s ‘Peace Through Universal Might and Moral Strength.’ ”

  “Are you playing paranoid Hebrew, Manny? If so, I should remind you that my wife’s mother was Jewish, which is apparently more important than if her father were. Therefore, my children, by extension, are hardly Aryan. Beyond that irrefutable fact, which disqualifies me from being part of the Wehrmacht, the German government had nothing to do with the U.P.M.”

  “Still, the German influence was pretty damned apparent.”

  “Guilt, Manny, profound guilt was the reason. What the hell are you trying to say?”

  “This FBI man, he wanted to know if you had any ties with the new political movements in Germany. After all, Wagner is a German name.”

  “I don’t believe this!”

  Clarence “Clarr” Ogilvie, retired chairman of the board of Global Electronics, drove his restored Duesenberg off the Merritt Parkway at the Greenwich, Connecticut, exit nearest his home, or estate, as the press sarcastically called it. In his family’s wealthier days, before the ’29 crash, three acres of land with a normal-size pool and no tennis court or stables would have hardly constituted an estate. However, because he had ‘come from money,’ he was somehow an object of scorn, as if he had chosen to be born rich, and his accomplishments were therefore deemed meaningless, merely the products of high-priced public relations which he obviously could afford.

  Forgotten, or, to be less charitable, purposefully overlooked, were the years he had spent, twelve to fifteen hours a day, turning an only marginally profitable family company into one of the most successful electronics firms in the country. He had graduated from M.I.T. in the late forties, an advocate of the new technologies, and when he came into the family business, he had instantly recognized that it was a decade behind the times. He let go virtually the entire executive hierarchy, providing all with pensions he hoped he could afford, and replaced them with like-minded, computer-oriented young bulls—and cows—for he hired by talent, not gender.

  By the middle fifties the technological advances his teams of long-haired, jean-clad, pot-smoking innovators came up with had caught the attention of the Pentagon—with a shock and a thud. The patience of the sharply pressed “uniforms” was sorely tried by the despised, ill-kempt “beards” and “miniskirts” who casually placed their feet on polished tables or buffed their fingernails during conferences while they patiently explained the new technology. But their products were irresistible and the nation’s armed might was substantially increased; the family business went global.

  All that was yesterday, thought Clarr Ogilvie as he threaded through the backcountry roads that led to his house. Today was a day he never in his wildest nightmares had thought could come to pass. He realized that he had never been the most popular player in the so-called military-industrial complex but this was beyond the pale.

  In short words, he had been labeled a potential enemy of his country, a closet zealot who supported the aims of a growing Fascist—Nazi—movement in Germany!

  He had driven into New York to see his attorney and good friend, John Saxe, who said over the phone that it was an emergency.

  “Did you supply a German firm called Oberfeld with electronic equipment that involved satellite transmissions?”

  “Yes, we did. Cleared by F.T.C., the export boys, and the State Department. No end-user contract was necessary.”

  “Did you know who Oberfeld was, Clarr?”

  “Only that they paid their bills promptly. I just told you, they were cleared.”

  “You never examined their, let’s say, their industrial base, their business objectives?”

  “We understood their desire to expand electronically, their specifications. Anything else was up to Washington’s export controls.”

  “That’s our out, naturally.”

  “What are you talking about, John?”

  “They’re Nazis, Clarr, the new generation of Nazis.”

  “How the hell would we know that if Washington didn’t?”

  “That’s our defense, of course.”

  “Defense against what?”

  “Some may claim that you knew what Washington didn’t know. That you willfully, k
nowingly, supplied a bunch of Nazi revolutionaries with the latest technological communications equipment.”

  “That’s insane!”

  “It may be the case we have to fight.”

  “For Christ’s sake, why?”

  “Because you’re on a list, Clarr, that’s what I’ve been told. Also, you’re not universally loved. Frankly, I’d get rid of that Duesenberg of yours.”

  “What? It’s a classic!”

  “It’s a German car.”

  “The hell it is! The Duesenbergs were American, built mostly in Virginia!”

  “Well, the name, you understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand a goddamned thing!”

  Clarence “Clarr” Ogilvie pulled into his driveway, wondering what he could possibly say to his wife.

  * * *

  The elderly man with the shaved head and the thick tortoiseshell glasses that magnified his eyes stood thirty feet from the line of passengers validating their departures on Lufthansa Flight 7000 to Stuttgart, Germany. As each produced his or her passport, along with an airline ticket, the only pause in the procedure came when the clerks checked passports against an unseen computer screen on the left side of the counter. The bald man had been processed, his boarding pass in his pocket. He watched anxiously as a gray-haired woman approached a clerk and presented her credentials. Moments later he sighed audibly in relief; his wife walked away from the counter. They met three minutes later at a newspaper stand, both studying the displays of magazines, but neither acknowledging the other, except in whispers.

  “That’s over with,” said the man in German. “We board in twenty minutes. I’ll be among the last, you be there among the first.”

  “Aren’t you being overly cautious, Rudi? Our passports and the photographs show two people completely different from our true selves, if, indeed, anybody is remotely interested in us.”

  “I prefer excessive caution to indifference in these matters. I’ll be missed in the morning at the laboratory—I may have been missed already if one of my colleagues has tried to reach me. We are approaching breakneck speed refining the fiber optics that will intercept international satellite transmissions regardless of frequencies.”

  “You know I don’t understand such talk—”

  “Not talk, dear wife, but hard, solid research. We’re working in shifts, twenty-four hours a day, and at any moment an associate may wish to check the research in our computers.”

  “So let them, dear husband.”

  “You are an unscientific fool! I have the software, and I’ve spread a virus throughout the system.”

  “You know, your bald head is far less attractive than your waves of full white hair, Rudi. And if I ever permit this much gray in my hair, I’ll forgive you if you seek a mistress.”

  “You are also impossible, my adorable young wife.”

  “Ach, so why do we go through this nonsense?”

  “I’ve told you time and time again. The Brüderschaft, there is only the Brüderschaft!”

  “Politics so bore me.”

  “We’ll see each other in Stuttgart. By the way, I bought you the diamond necklace you saw at Tiffany’s.”

  “You’re a darling! I shall be the envy of every woman in Munich!”

  “Vaclabruck, my dear. Munich only on weekends.”

  “Boring!”

  Arnold Argossy, radio and television impresario of the hysteria-prone ultraconservative wing of American political thought, squeezed his enormous frame into the inadequate chair at the studio table. He put on his earphones and looked over at the tinted glass panel, beyond which were his producer and the various technicians who caused the familiar high-pitched, grating voice, so beloved of his constituency, to be heard across the land. The once-staggering number of his listeners had begun to fall off, insulted, perhaps, by his singularly vicious attacks on anything and everything he considered liberal! without his offering any coherent alternatives to the programs he attacked. The gradual decline in his ratings had done nothing to diminish his ego; instead, he held on to his decreasing audience by ever-increasing assaults on Libbo-Commies, Female-Fascists, Embryo-Killers, Homeless-Suckers, and assorted labels that eventually had to turn off even the vast “patient, stable majority” who began to question his diatribes.

  The red light flashed, ON AIR.

  “Hello, America, you true, red-blooded sons and daughters of giants who carved a nation out of a land of savages and made it sweet. It’s A.A. talking, and this afternoon I want to hear from you! The honest, hardworking people of this great land that’s been soiled and spoiled by the sex-ridden, religion-bashing, morality-blasting, sick sycophants who run our government while running away with your money. Hear the latest, my friends! There’s a bill before Congress that would permit our taxes to pay for obligatory sex education, specifically targeting inner-city youths. Can you believe it? Our cold cash squandered away on a hot topic, our dollars to fund, at the least, a million condoms a day so the rootless offspring of the lazy and the indolent can fornicate at the drop of a—no, I can’t say it, for this is a family program. We spread the morality of our God; we do not pander to the base, savage hungers of Lucifer, the archangel of hell.… What is the solution to this promiscuous madness? It’s so obvious, I can hear you shouting the answer. Sterilization, my friends! Benign denial of procreation by lust, for lust is not married love. Lust is the nonselective appetite of animals, and no amount of so-called sexual education can cure it, it can only cause it to proliferate!… Now, you know and I know who we’re talking about, don’t we? Oh, yes? I can hear the liberal chorus shouting racism! But I ask you, my friends, is it racist to inaugurate programs that without the slightest doubt can benefit the very people who are being debased by their promiscuity? I think not. What do you think?”

  “Whippo!” cried the first caller. “I got nuthin’ against nobody, but I betcha if we paid every black person on welfare twenty-five thousand bucks to go back to Africa and start his own tribe, they’d grab it in a shot. I even figured it out. It’d be cheaper, right?”

  “We cannot condone migration through bribery, sir, it’s unconstitutional. But in a word, yowsah! Next, please.”

  “I’m calling from New York City, A.A., lower West Side, and let me tell you, the Cuban-Spic cooking’s stinking up the whole apartment house, and I can’t read the signs on the stores no more. Can’t we get rid of Castro and send ’em back where they belong?”

  “We also can’t condone ethnic slurs, sir, but disregarding the unfortunate epithet you attached to a nationality, you do have a point. Write your senators and congressmen and ask why we haven’t sent in a hit team to assassinate the Commie dictator. What else is left?”

  “Double whippo, A.A.! The senators and congressmen, they gotta listen to us, don’t they?”

  “They certainly do, my friend.”

  “Great!… Who are they?”

  “The post office has that information. Next caller for the Argossy Argonaut, please.”

  “Good evening, mein Herr, I’m calling from Munich, Germany, where it is evening. We listen to you on the Religion of the World Broadcast, and we thank God they bring you to us. Also, we thank you for everything you’ve done for us!”

  “Who the hell is this?” said Argossy, covering the microphone and looking over at the tinted glass panel.

  “The RWB is a hell of a good market for us, Arnie,” answered the producer over the earphones. “We’re reaching into Europe on shortwave. Be nice, and listen to the guy, it’s his nickel and it’s a lot of nickels.”

  “So how are things in Munich, my new friend?”

  “Much better for hearing your voice, Herr Argossy.”

  “That’s nice to know. I went to your fair city about a year ago and had the best sausage and sauerkraut I ever tasted. They mixed it all together with mashed potatoes and mustard. Terrific.”

  “It is you who are terrific, mein Herr! You are obviously one of us, one of the new Germany.”

  ?
??I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Natürlich, of course you do! We will build the new Reich, the Fourth Reich, and you will be our Minister of Propaganda. You will be far more effective than Goebbels ever was. You are far more persuasive!”

  “Who the fuck is this?” roared Arnold Argossy.

  “Cut the mikes and stop the tape!” yelled the producer. “Christ, how many stations did this go over live?”

  “Two hundred and twelve,” replied an uninterested technician.

  “Holy shit,” said the producer, falling into a chair.

  THE WASHINGTON POST

  Quiet Investigations Alarming Hill

  FBI Agents Roaming Around Asking Questions

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Friday - The Post has learned that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been traveling across the country seeking information about prominent figures of the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as members of the administration. The nature of these inquiries is not clear and Justice will not elaborate on or even confirm the existence of such interrogations. The rumors, however, persist, given substance by an angry Senator Lawrence Roote of Colorado, whose staff admitted he had demanded an immediate meeting with the Attorney General. After their conference, Roote, too, refused to comment, stating only that there had been a misunderstanding.

  Hints that other “misunderstandings” have spread beyond the nation’s capital came last night when the popular and respected anchor of MBC’s evening news program, Franklyn Wagner, set aside two minutes for what he called a “personal essay.” In his normally well-modulated tones there was an obvious bitterness, if not a controlled fury. He struck out at what he termed “the hyenas of vigilantism who pounce on long-past but totally legitimate political positions, even names and their origins, to smear the objects of their disaffections.” He recalled the “mass hysteria of the McCarthy years, when decent men and women were ruined by innuendo and baseless guilt by association,” ending his essay by saying he was “a grateful guest in this magnificent country”—Wagner is Canadian—but would grab the next plane back to Toronto should he and his family “be pilloried.”