Episode #1
Call To Action
My office was small. I was new with the company, the Central Intelligence Agency. I had wanted to work for the Post Office, but my scores weren't high enough. I was asked by a disheveled man over the telephone if I was available to travel....
He sounded disheveled.
"Sure, I can travel", I muttered, eyeing my Greyhound ticket back to Cleveland.
"Do you have any moral standards?" inquired the disheveled voice.
Who is this?" I demanded, tired of calls from sleazy members of Congress who'd gotten their corn-pone hands on my civil service application.
"I'm afraid you don't have the need to know, but if you want to ride the gravy train, meet me on elevator three in the Alcohal Tobacco and Firearms building in fifteen minutes."
I didn't even think once. I split my room at the "Y" like a lobbyist in heat.I sprinted past the Smithsonian institute and scrambled up the steps of the ATF building. I burst through the revolving doors and ran for the elevators. I wanted to work for the United States government. I was willing to hustle.
Elevator #3 was jammed with people from Virginia and North Carolina. They all got off on the fifth floor coughing like crazy. That left me and a very neat man in a suit and shades. I wondered if I was early, or if you just plain didn't start a federal career this way.
"Just keep lookin' at the door, Smith"
I wondered how a disheveled voice could look so kempt. I wondered how he knew my name. Dolan Smith, Cleveland...
"Ohio. This is our floor."
The tweed suit and Italian sunglasses led me down the dusty hall to a door marked "NOT IN USE". He slipped a credit card out of his wallet and deftly foiled the lock. This guy was a professional. Inside, under a naked bulb, he pulled up two seedy chairs and sat on one backwards like Bogie in Dark Passage. I took the other one. The floor was littered with maps, fast food wrappers, and paperback mysteries. Suddenly, I saw a brace of large bills laying with the other garbage.
"Smith, ya wanna work for Uncle Sam, don't ya?"
"Yeah, sure, but..."
"There isn't much time, you're hired."
I sat stunned. There was nothing like this in the job pamphlets I'd looked through.
"Who do I work for?" I didn't want to play hard to get. Besides I figured he knew about me flunking out of the Post Office.
"The Central Intelligence Agency. This is your office, I 'm your boss, call me Aqueduct. Your salary is GS-1, your expenses are unlimited."
To drive home the last point he pulled out an American Express Money Card with my name on it. I was starting to become ecstatic that I hadn't joined the Army like my brother.
Aqueduct coolly lit a Benson and Hedges Menthol 100.
"Smith, people are destroying this country, not from without but from within. Its from the welfare system. It's got to stop and you're going to stop it."
"ME?", I gulped. I couldn't help thinking that my sister was on AFDC in Omaha.
"You're going to infiltrate and destroy the welfare system before it destroys us. You'll be needing this."
I flinched back as he reached inside his jacket expecting him to produce some fancy spy pistol. Instead, he handed me a thick wad of food stamps. Then, glancing at a watch that looked like it could cook breakfast, he started out the door.
"Remember, Smith, the security of the United States is in your hands."
I looked down I at the food stamps, and he was gone.
So here I was in my office. Like I said, it was small, but I wouldn't be here much. I'd be riding the dole express through America, desperately seeking to wipe out Meals on Wheels and SSI before they brought a great democracy to it's knees. I'd do what had to be done. I sat counting the meal tickets and the U.S. Grants on the floor and wondered which enemy soup line I'd be sneaking into first.
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