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A.R.Yngve
PARRY'S PROTOCOL
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Chapter 29
When Abram had returned and re-sealed the air intake, he abruptly raised his hand in a stop signal.
"Wait -- don't say anything. I've been thinking about what you said of Ne... my superior, and I think there is a logical explanation. If he thought the Mecca Doctrine was an important suggestion, he would of course not want to have it revealed at once, to avoid the spreading of rumors..."
Irritated, Parry broke him off: "Ergo: he won't trust you. He might even believe that you've got secret information from a leak in the CIA or the Pentagon. You know a few people there, don't you? Intelligence people are a paranoid bunch... they need to talk to a trusted shrink sometimes. Someone like you."
Abram gave him a baffled stare.
"Let us for a moment forget where we are right now," Abram said with great self-control, "and ask ourselves how likely it would be... that you, by the aid of a handful of books, would have stumbled upon a well-guarded military secret."
Parry made a superior grin, caressing Joyce's head.
"Simple, Doc. I just have to look for a field which is strangely empty of writing and speculation, a logical empty space where people like you seem to be afraid of going. For instance, it recently struck me that logically speaking, the CIA shouldn't exist..."
Abram touched his forehead as if he suddenly had a migraine, shielding his eyes.
"What," he half-whispered, "are you saying?"
Parry lowered his voice more, leaning forward secretively: "The CIA is the only so-called spy network and 'intelligence' agency I know, that once published comic-books to advertise itself -- after World War Two, you know.
"It was the first intelligence agency that made its secret files public when the politicians ordered so, long before the STASI was forced to do the same. The only secret organization that openly leaked about assassination attempts on political enemies like Castro, and even bragged about it. An organization that seemed to be powerless, while one particular President formed his own private intelligence agency.
"Even when George Bush, a former head of CIA, was President, nothing was made to clean up 'The Company's' messy and pointless Latin American operations -- operations which only helped one druglord or another, like Noriega for instance. The so-called 'War On Drugs' was a joke."
Abram was looking before himself with unseeing eyes, slowly shaking his head like a sleepwalker. It appeared he tried to say something, and his mouth moved.
"And you who are supposed to so be smart, Doc!" Parry's nose touched the plexiglass. "Have you never even wondered why such a malfunctioning organization as the CIA even exists? Who benefits from its existence? The Pentagon, with its own intelligence branches that always have looked upon the CIA as a rival? The Russians? The President?
"Why did it take several years after the war, before an eccentric officer by the name 'Wild Bill' Donovan was assigned to revive a stone-dead wartime organization called the OSS? Why has the CIA never accomplished anything useful, except showing photos of Cuban missile bases -- taken with the military's hardware? Think, Doc!"
Abram answered tonelessly, as if to himself: "I can't answer those questions... I'm just a consultant hired to write futurology studies, an academic... I don't know the head of the CIA, or any Joint Chiefs of Staff, haven't even seen the President. To question the existence of the CIA like that, is... is --"
"Madness?" Parry was slightly amused. He bent his knees and let the cat down on the floor. "Wasn't it the imagination of a madman you needed? Or are you getting scared now, when the monkey in the cage is laughing back at you?"
He began to laugh, loudly and sharply. He rested his palms on his knees, bending over so that his ruddy head bumped lightly against the glass wall; then again and again, while he rocked with laughter. His eyes watered, and he closed his eyes with his face distorted by something not quite like joy.
Abram stood looking at the laughing, doubled-up figure for half a minute... then he grabbed his briefcase and rushed out of the room without opening the air vent.