Dark Coup (22 page)

…

“Put the President on,” Olsen said.

“I told you last time,” the voice on the other end said, “that isn’t going to happen.”

“I don’t care about last time,” Olsen said.  “This is now, and you’re putting him on.”

“Much better,” the voice said.  “No room for misunderstanding, taking charge of the situation.  Not at all like last time…”

“Put,” Olsen said, cutting off the other side, “the. President. on.”

“No,” was the response.

Olsen was taken aback by the icy venom in the tone.

“Don’t ever interrupt me again,” the voice said.  “I have been as patient with you as I am willing to be, but even that has an end.  You may deal with your underlings and your peers however you wish, but I am neither.  I am your Better and you will
never
forget it.”

Olsen didn’t dare respond.

“Better,” the voice said.  “Now, what is the meaning of this call?  We weren’t scheduled to speak again for another week.”

“I may still have…issues with some of my own people,” Olsen said.  “Just putting a face on the enemy, giving them someone to finally fight, isn’t going to be enough.  Like you said last time, this threat has been out there for so long that they’re going to need a reason to attack, they’re going to need something specific to defend.”

The voice laughed.  “This,” he said, “should
not
be a problem.  There will always be dissention, skepticism, those that won’t be completely on-board.  There’s nothing you can do about that.  What you
can
do is mold the perceptions of those that
want
to believe.”

“I know that, but
how
,” Olsen asked.

“The same way we have been doing it for decades,” the voice said.  “You’ve already determined that you control what remains of the media, in all its forms.  Propaganda is a tool that comes in many shapes and sizes.”

Olsen was silent and considering what should be obvious, but still wasn’t.

“You have men and women under your command with families,” the voice asked.

“Of course,” Olsen said.

“There are schools,” the voice said.  “Use them.  A child’s mind is a fertile field; sow it with the seeds of
your
choosing.”

Olsen nodded, not conscious of the fact that he couldn’t be seen by the person on the other end.

“And should all else fail,” the voice said, “have them do it for the children.  They are, after all, our one true hope for a better world, a shining tomorrow, the future.”

The voice had said the last with such passion, such conviction; Olsen was asking his question before he realized he was speaking.

“Do you have any children,” Olsen asked.

“Absolutely not,” the voice said.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  They are an utter waste of time and money.”

Olsen was shocked back to reality and realized how quickly he’d been lulled, simply by the right words at the right time.

“I see,” Olsen said.

“Yes,” the voice said.  “I believe you do.”

“What happens if I can’t get things under control in time,” Olsen asked.

“You don’t want to know,” the voice said.  Something about the way he said it bothered Olsen.  It sounded like a cross between eagerness to tell and disgust at having to contemplate it.

“I think I need to know,” Olsen said.

The voice was silent for several seconds before responding.

“We have a contingency plan for our contingency plan,” the voice said.  “We refer to it as The Outbreak.”

Olsen could hear the capital letters, even over the radio, and it gave him the chills.

“I will not go into details right now,” the voice said, “but suffice it to say, you don’t want to fail.  Even
we
would prefer that you not fail, but we will do what we must.”

“I understand,” Olsen said.

…

Sanford was rubbing his temples.  “Can the man not think for himself,” he asked.  “He didn’t even wait twenty-four hours before parroting back what his handler said to West and I when he ordered us to begin a propaganda campaign.  He even used the exact same words as his handler when he did it.”

“As disconcerting as that is,” Hodges said, “I’m more concerned with their alternate contingency plan.”

Sanford looked up at Hodges.  “You don’t think that was just a threat,” he asked.

“No,” Hodges said.  “Not given the history of the CDC.”

Sanford closed his eyes.  “I have a feeling I don’t want to know,” he said.  “On a scale of one to ten, where ten is little
grey
men,” Sanford looked at Tuttle who made a show of looking anywhere in the truck but at Sanford, “where does this one sit for unbelievability?”

“Probably a six,” Hodges said, “unless you’re willing to believe the worst of humanity, then it’s more like a three.”

“Go ahead,” Sanford said.

“First, you need some additional background on the CDC,” Hodges said.  “It was originally called the Communicable Disease Center and was founded in 1946.  Initially, its sole purpose was the eradication of malaria and it was based in Atlanta due to the prevalence of malaria in the Southeast.”

Hodges leaned forward and looked back and forth between Sanford and Tuttle as he got into his lecture.  “Over the first several years,” he continued, “the CDC, as a branch of the U.S. Public Health Service, which would later become the Department of Health and Human Services–which is important–sprayed as many as six-and-a-half-million homes with chemicals–including DDT–in an effort to kill mosquitos that
might
have been carriers of malaria.”

“Wasn’t DDT considered safe for use in the 40’s,” Sanford asked.

“Yes and no,” Hodges said.  “By the early 40’s, scientists were already questioning its safety, but when the CDC was started, only seven of the 369 employees were medical officers.  Even if one of the doctors had had questions about the use of DDT around people, it wouldn’t have gotten any traction because the bulk of the employees were entomologists and engineers.”

Sanford cocked his head to the side as though to ask a question.

“Yeah,” Hodges said, “but remember, when they started they were only tasked with eradicating malaria.”

“It didn’t take long for them to take over a lot more though,” Hodges said.  “After less than a year, the CDC ‘bought’ fifteen acres of land from Emory University for a new headquarters.  Supposedly, employees of the CDC collected the money to make the purchase, which was for ten dollars, but the real benefactor was the chairman of the board of one of the largest soft drink manufacturers on the planet.”

“And that’s bad because,” Sanford prompted, gently reminding Hodges that he wasn’t nearly as steeped in this conspiracy stuff as Hodges was.

Hodges paused for a few seconds to, once again, prepare a short history lesson.  “Okay, more background.  How many companies, would you say, controlled the majority of the food production in the United States,” he asked.

Sanford shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said, “a couple dozen?”

Hodges shook his head.  “Less,” he said.

“Fifteen,” Sanford asked.

“Ten,” Hodges said.  “Ten parent companies, including said soda manufacturer, controlled over ninety percent of
all
prepared food and ‘health’ products manufactured and distributed in the U.S. before the power went out.”

“What about organic foods,” Sanford asked.

Hodges couldn’t help but bark a short laugh.  “That’s either almost as bad or far worse, depending on how you look at it,” he said.  “As of 2009, seven of the top-twelve distributors of organic food were the same companies that owned ninety percent of the prepared food industry.”

Sanford rolled his eyes.

“The point is,” Hodges continued, “that over the course of the last hundred years or so, more and more aspects of our everyday life were being managed and controlled by a smaller and smaller group of individuals.  Sure they owned companies, but those companies were run by people.  The same ‘power elite’, if you will, that funded virtually all of the SuperPACs, lobbied Congress for more restrictions on our rights, and ultimately were waiting for an event just like this to put their final plans in motion.”

“I’m not making this up,” Hodges said.  “It’s for real.  But back to the CDC, the reason for the new digs was because the director of the CDC had pushed to extend their responsibilities, which was really their control, to a bunch of other communicable diseases, including STDs, Tuberculosis, and eventually immunizations.”

“Most people would think that was a good thing,” Sanford said.

“Most people don’t see it for what it is,” Hodges said.  “While I can grant you that having some entity try to eradicate as many diseases as possible
would
be a good thing, that isn’t what happened.  The chicken pox virus, which causes shingles in adults and can
kill
you if you get it for the first time as an adult, has been around how long?”

Sanford shrugged.

“The
fourteenth century
,” Hodges said.  “Five. hundred. years–and we still haven’t eradicated it.  The first vaccine didn’t show up until 1974 and wasn’t available in the U.S. until 1995. 
Why
?”

Sanford had no response.

“Now,” Hodges continued, “the CDC, which most recently had its name changed in 1992 by Congress to include ‘and Prevention’, has broadened its scope to include threats to environmental health, chronic diseases, disabilities–which are many times neither the result of a disease, nor are they preventable–and, of all things…terrorism preparedness.  Can you explain to me, again
why
?  What possible reason could there be for this agency, the Center for
Disease
Control and Prevention, to take on
Terrorism Preparedness
?”

“That can’t be right,” Sanford said.

“It’s right there on their website,” Hodges said.  “Or, at least it was.  When you really stop to think about it, even their name gives away their true ulterior motive, Disease Control.  You don’t
control
a disease–at least not the ones they’ve taken on–you eradicate it, you destroy it utterly and completely.”

Hodges took a breath to calm himself down.  “That’s the history,” he went on, “now for the meat.  There are very few Biosafety Level 4 labs in the US–somewhere between ten and fourteen.  The CDC, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, or the military are involved with almost all of them in one way or another.  The location in Atlanta also holds one of only two ‘official’ samples of smallpox in the world.”

Sanford raised an eyebrow.  “Who has the other one,” he asked.

“Russia,” Tuttle chimed in.

Sanford looked at her in disbelief.  “How did we let that happen,” he asked.

“Like we could have stopped it,” Hodges said.  “They had smallpox over there.  We’re lucky that nobody else has it, assuming they don’t.  That’s not really my point, although it makes my point.  What else do they have in there that they aren’t telling us?  Ebola or the Marburg virus, probably; AIDS, definitely; smallpox we already know the answer to.”

“Yellow fever, bubonic plague, hantavirus,” Tuttle added.

Hodges nodded.  “And again, that’s just the ones we know about,” he said.  “What if they’ve concocted something new, something we haven’t seen before by mixing a couple of things together?”

“But
why
would they do something like that,” Sanford asked.  “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention,” Hodges asked.  “Did you miss the part about spraying millions of people with poison in the form of DDT? Or how about encouraging people to just accept being injected with barely tested and generally useless immunizations?  Sir, smallpox was certified as
eradicated
in 1980.  Why in the
world
would
anybody
still have samples of it when what they really ought to have, if they had anything at all, would be millions of doses of one of the few vaccines that actually
worked
?”

“What do you mean the few vaccines that actually worked,” Sanford said.  “You mentioned immunizations before.”

“Two things,” Hodges said.  “First, why does the CDC say we need a new flu vaccine every year?”

“Because seasonal flus don’t respond to the vaccine of previous years,” Sanford said.

“And when did we have the swine flu seasonal-flu scare,” Hodges asked.

“Um…2009 I think,” Sanford said.

“Exactly,” Hodges said with a sly smile.  “So why has every
seasonal
flu vaccine since 2009 had the H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine included in it if the 2009 swine-flu ‘pandemic’ was seasonal in nature?  What did they put in that specific vaccine that they want to keep putting into people year after year?”

“Second,” Hodges continued, “how effective is the annual seasonal-flu vaccine?”

“I have no idea,” Sanford said, trying not to roll his eyes again.

“How about 1.5%,” Hodges said.

But,” Sanford said.  “That can’t be right.  Tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year.”

“No,” Hodges shook his head, “they don’t.  That ‘tens of thousands’ number is for ‘influenza and pneumonia’ combined.  When they break it down, the number of reported flu deaths is usually under two hundred.”

Hodges stopped Sanford from interrupting.  “They report the two together to
massively
inflate the numbers to scare more and more people into getting the shots,” Hodges said.  “In fact, of the couple-hundred deaths each year, less than ten percent are
confirmed
through lab testing.  They literally assume that the other ninety percent are from the flu because that’s how they were reported…by family members or doctors that never ran tests in the first place, simply diagnosed it as flu based on vague symptoms.”

“I would normally ask how anyone could justify claiming flu deaths without even
testing
, but we’re talking about the CDC so…”  Hodges shrugged.

Sanford shook his head.  “Ok, but now that the power is out,” Sanford said, “how are they even still a threat?”