SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

I nodded. “Right as rain, Gomer. Thanks for clearing that up.” To Harold, I added, “If you insist on talking to me, I just wanted to make sure that you use my rank. It’s not ceremonial. It’s not something I bought from the back of a comic book. It’s something I earned.”

Harold nodded, but never let his smile slip. “It’s just that since you’re not in uniform it’s easy to forget.”

Now it was my turn to smile as I turned slightly and pointed at a picture displayed behind me. “You can see me there in uniform. That fellow with the pipe standing beside me is…” I paused as if I forgot. I turned to Gomer. “What’s his name?”

“That there’s General Douglas MacArthur.”

“Ah, that’s right. You might recognize the man yourself, isn’t that right, Harold?”

“Major,” he said, his smile finally faltering.

I shook my head. “No, colonel. Now what was it you want us to do?”

“Cease and desist,” he said, pausing intentionally before he added, “Colonel.”

“You want us to stop what we’re doing with regards to…”

“The Bohemian Grove.”

I nodded and pretended thoughtfulness. I looked out one of the glass windows of the office. I had eight men assigned to me, but only five of the ten desks were currently occupied. Gomer was in front of me and the other two were monitoring the Transamerica construction project. Doris Morgan sat at the reception desk in front of the stairwell. She was our own personal Cerberus, able to immediately determine if someone meant the other person harm. Not the same as the Cerberus agents from the NSA program, but she did her job well just the same. She’d come in handy several times, using signals to let the others know that trouble was at the door. But she was also the wife of a retired Air Force colonel, which might dictate loyalty. I’d never thought that there was a problem before, but the fact that Harold was sitting in front of me indicated he had a way of knowing things that he shouldn’t. The only other person who knew we’d gone to track down and meet Enrique was Doris, who filed the meeting report. Of course, Enrique could have been under surveillance, but then that should have been the NSA or the FBI, not the Air Force.

“So let me get this straight,” I began, my gaze returning to Pretty Boy Floyd — that was it! “We have a valid connection from an East German Ministry of State Security official to a local catering company that deals directly with The Bohemian Grove. You want us to leave that alone? And again, tell me why the Air Force has jurisdiction over this?”

Pretty Boy Floyd sighed. He found an imaginary piece of lint on the arm of his uniform, picked it off and flicked it onto the floor. “First of all, Colonel, your mission statement refers to the defense of American interests from supernatural attempts to acquire technology. There was no link to supernatural in your description of the problem. Secondly, Travis Air Force base has the security mission for the area. We’ve detected nothing suspicious about the annual gathering at The Bohemian Grove nor have we been asked to assist.”

“Nothing suspicious. Interesting.” I turned to the gunnery sergeant. “Gomer, please describe for me The Cremation of Care Ceremony.”

“Yes, sir. The Cremation of Care Ceremony is what marks the beginning of the yearly meeting at The Bohemian Grove. This meeting is attended by many of the richest and most influential men from around the globe. Previous members include founding member Ambrose Bierce, William Randolph Hearst, Eddie Rickenbacker, Teddy Roosevelt, Jack London, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Herbert Hoover, Edward J. Pauly and our current governor, Ronald Reagan, along with our current president, Richard Nixon.”

I nodded. “Impressive list, but tell us about the ceremony.”

Gomer grinned like his namesake. “Sorry. So they describe it as a ritualistic shedding of conscience and empathy and abuses of power. It might be that, but what they actually do is ritualistically sacrifice a mock child before a giant statue of the Canaanite god Moloch, shrouded in the figure of an owl.”

I turned to Pretty Boy Floyd and matched his smile with my own and said, “Ritualistically.”

He stood and shook his head. “Old men dressed up in robes and pretending to pray to false idols is not illegal. You have no connection or jurisdiction.” He pulled his hat from the leg pocket of his flight suit. “Cease. And. Desist. Colonel,” he said, enunciating every word.

Then he saluted, turned and left.

Gomer waited until he left the room to say, “I never mentioned robes, sir.”

“No,” I said realizing the truth of it. “No you did not.”

“So what’s next?” Gomer asked, his excitement barely contained.

I shrugged. “Nothing really. We have to begin desisting, I suppose.”

SAN FRANCISCO

July 8, 1970

Early Morning