The Hammer of God

In a way, she stole Joey’s thunder and rage, and he took on the role of objective mentor. He looked at the woman agent, who appeared not much older than a teenager, and as American as apple pie. ‘Corn Flake!’ That’s what the guys in the Bronx would call a person from Iowa or the midwest, a corn flake. Then he remembered this one had frosted a terrorist in a parking lot in New Jersey on the way to foiling a chemical attack on the New York area that would have brought unimaginable death. This was one tough corn flake and if her sixth sense was tingling, there was probably something to it.

“Whoa. Agent Burrell, we’re the good guys remember?”

“He just…”

Then Joey saw a flash of something he missed before, subtle and quickly dissolved, but there nonetheless. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

As she looked at him, Joey could see the two opposing forces waging battle in her head. The deep breath she then took was the surrender flag of one side. “He scares the bejesus out of me, sir.”

“You are in fear for your safety?”

“Not just me, although yes, me too, but he thinks… no, strike that, he knows, he’s getting out. He doesn’t have to play ball with me or give up any info. He just has to wait it out because one day he won’t be there.”

“He’s manacled, right?”

“24/7 and anchored at night and at meals.”

“Ten bucks!”

“What?”

“Go to the bank; get a roll of quarters…” What Joey then described was in no agent’s field manual ever printed by the FBI.

CHAPTER SIX

Makin’ Copies

In late December 1968, twenty-five people attended the traditional Christmas dinner in Kasiko’s apartment in Jackson Heights. Peter noticed a shelf above the fireplace where there were more than 40 finely etched and brilliantly colored eggs. All beautifully displayed on gold stands. Of the people there, many of the men were scientists. Peter actually recognized many of them from TV shows on Channel 13 and the Sunday morning shows that featured scientists who talked about everything Sputnik, Gemini, Teflon, and beyond. The men were very engaging; most spoke with thick foreign accents, but Peter was able to have deep discussions with most of them. They spoke of things that Peter had never heard of, Global Warming, Nanotechnology, Large Scale Integration, Cold Fusion, and Supercomputing. None of which at the time could be read about or was even mentioned in Scientific American. When Peter left, he felt he had met some really smart guys. What he didn’t know was they had all agreed later, in a small impromptu meeting, that they had met a really smart kid. So Kasiko got their permission to bring the kid into the fold. His first assignment would come Saturday night.

Before “Saturday Night Live” began its reign, NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was deader than a doornail on a Saturday night. In fact, aside from master control and a few videotape guys, the news was the only department with even half a staff. After the torrent of activity getting the “Weekend Huntley Brinkley Report” on the air at 6:30 (it aired off tape in New York at 7:00 p.m.) things settled down to a constant drip of non-events. Every 30 minutes or so, Peter, often working alone on weekends, would make the rounds in the room and spike copy. Spiking was the process of distributing the five impact copies of teletype paper from each newswire machine to the various on-air talent, producers, writers, or directors whose names were above spikes running all the way around the room. During the day the spikes were cleaned every 15 minutes or so. But on weekends, only the news manager, domestic and international film desks, and a few local writers across the hall doing the “11th Hour New York” local news came to gather their copy. So once every thirty minutes was all it took to do a fine job keeping up with the slow moving stories.

Peter was surprised when Kasiko came through the door. With the exception of the Christmas party the other night, he had actually not seen him, in or out of the office for months, because during the school year, Peter only worked weekends.

Kasiko didn’t waste time with small talk. “Peter, you know some of the people at the party were very impressed with you. They agreed to ask you to join them as my assistant.”

“You mean the scientists?”

“Yes, they are doing some important work for the United Nations and I handle the security for the committee.”

“What’s the committee?”

“First you have to sign this and swear not to divulge the work that you may be called upon to do.”

“Sign what?”

“This it’s a non-disclosure agreement.”

Peter read the paper, then signed and dated it.

Kasiko knew this was more for effect since Peter was way under the age of consent, but he felt it would make the desired impression. “The first thing I need you to do is tonight, when no one is around, make five copies of this.” Kasiko handed Peter an envelope and dangled a key on a chain. “Here’s the key to my desk. Leave the copies in the bottom drawer and put the key under my phone.”