A Case of Strange Alliances

By mcreed

A Case of Strange Alliances is the first book of a trilogy. The story takes place in the 1980s. We meet Mariam Al Saffat, a 1960s activist who has gone mainstream but still has radical underpinnings. A divorced mother of three, she has earned an undergraduate degree and a masters degree; she is CEO of her own very successful company. She expresses her radicalism and altruism through sponsoring and managing a home for unwed mothers in Harlem. Terry Maskonov is her business partner and friend. He is an ex-KGB agent who has relocated to the United States. The two met during the 1970s while both were involved with a left-wing newspaper that was funded by the Soviet Union. Their consulting firm deals primarily in industrial espionage. Both believe that the new cold war will be fought on the business front and with computer technology instead of nuclear weapons.
The book opens with a prologue in which Mariam finds one of her sixties radical pals, Addy, who was stuck in the past, dead on his bathroom floor. She calls her best friend, Ralphie, who was also a part of the sixties radical group and is now a beat cop. The death was originally deemed due to natural causes, but Ralphies unauthorized investigation resulted in two men confessing that they killed Addy for a $100 drug debt. Ralphie doesnt believe it and vows to continue the investigation. Mariam cautions against her doing this due to the fact that she has been given a gold shield, made a detective, due to her work on the case (even though this work was against police policy and procedure). Ralphie feels that she was given the gold shield to shut her up and stop her from further investigation.
The story begins three years after the prologue. Ralphie has taken the money and run. She retired at the salary of detective, after a year, with a lot of overtime, resulting in a big pension. She has become an investigative reporter for a daily newspaper and won two Pulitzer Prizes. She is currently working on something big but has gone missing. Her editor, a powerful and cunning Latino, contacts Mariam first because of her relationship with Ralphie and second, because of her investigative and industrial espionage background.
The story takes off from this point. In the search for Ralphie, we are taken into the dark and evil world of a hate group; we meet its insane leader. We learn of a clever scheme to infiltrate every level of corporate America and government bureaucracy and of a diabolical plan to pit African Americans and Jews against each other. The goal is to destroy the relationship forged during the Civil Rights era. The ultimate plan is to destroy American society as we know it and replace it with the one aspired to by the Third Reich.
The subplot deals with a very sexy and complex relationship between Mariam and Terry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466937291

mcreed

It began in the mid-1980s; it was like the “invasion of the body snatchers.” They infiltrated the bureaucracies: city, state, and federal as well as private corporations, like Enron. Under the guise of people qualified to make organizations more efficient and effective, these acronym-spewing suits set about dismantling the infrastructure of our society. They used words like reengineering; they very slyly changed reward systems to force workers to comply with their agenda. The compliant ones were transformed into acronym-spewing robots. Those who resisted were considered to be “not a team player” and were sidelined, eventually to be removed from their positions. I was there; I watched and wondered what on earth these people were up to. I would tell them that certain procedures existed to ensure internal control. Redundancies, redundancies, the head would shout at me. Well, I would calmly say, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. This novel was cooked in the cauldron of chaos that simmered, boiled, and burned during a twenty-year period in which our institutions were gutted. It is my imagination of what is possible under such conditions. When the bottom fell out of our economy in 2008, I expected it; I’d seen these people create an environment in which this could occur. I’m a certified organizational development specialist. I have the traditional training—BA in public administration, MS in human resource management—as well as the nontraditional training, landmark education.

Book preview

A CASE

OF

STRANGE ALLIANCES

mcreed

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© Copyright 1993, 2012 mcreed.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

isbn: 978-1-4669-3728-4 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-3729-1 (e)

Trafford rev. 09/05/2012

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Three years later: The odyssey begins…

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

The Puppet Masters

Chapter Five

The odyssey continues…

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Puppet Masters

Chapter Thirteen

The odyssey continues…

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

KEIZER

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

The odyssey continues…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

KEIZER

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

The odyssey continues: A Stop at ECA…

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

KEIZER

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

The odyssey continues…

Chapter Forty-Four

The Puppet

Masters

Chapter Forty-Five

The odyssey continues…

Chapter Forty-Six

The odyssey continues: Another stop at ECA

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Prologue

Chapter One

Addy Manhoff had such beautiful brown eyes. His dark curly lashes and thick arched eyebrows still made them haunting, even though they were now lifeless, staring unseeingly at the peeling, yellowed, paint on the ceiling. Mariam, looked down at him, his pallid face encircled with dark brown ringlets that were tinged, ever so slightly, with gray and remembered how his eyes used to flash and dance mischievously when the two of them were flirting, back in the 60s; those were the good old days. They spoke without him having uttered a sound, expressing rage, softness, disdain, affection; the emotions of the universe resided in those deep brown eyes. Last week, they’d shown fear.

Mariam, its true. I can’t believe it, but it’s true. He’d told her in hushed panic

You’re paranoid, Addy. This simply can’t happen. Do you know how many people would have to be involved? It would have to be a conspiracy of international proportions; no group is that powerful. People talk; they can’t keep their mouths shut. Someone would talk…

Only a few people would have to know, the rest are just mindless drones. We were trying to turn it around, trying to infiltrate the system. Well they did a double turn and they’re killing us.

And who are THEY? Mariam asked trying to get him to focus—if he had to identify the mysterious they, which didn’t exist, this might to get him to see that this was fantasy.

Who they always were, he shot back. They’re even playing on words. There’s no such thing as free radicals that are racing throughout your body, causing disease—and if you take this little pill it will combine with them to create health. He said in a whiny, nasal voice, mimicking the mysterious THEY. They’re who they always were! The only free radicals are us and the body we’re in is society’s body. You got that? And the motherfuckers ain’t interested in creating health; they interested in creating wealth, money to fund their evil plan to kill and take over the world!!! Addy shouted, close to her face, his head rocking in a side to side motion in a typical 60s hip gesture.

"Mariam think! Think! THINK! An-n-n-n-n-d, tell me why all of the packing plants are in the middle of Mormon land, U-u-u-u-u-tah-h-h-h-h!!!!? A-n-n-n-d, who are the FBI?

Who, Addy? Mariam asked warily, nervously rubbing her hand on the plastic, red and black checkered tablecloth that covered the wobbling wooden dining room table.

Thaaa FUCKING MORMANS!! He ranted, waving his arms above his head. Mariam think! Think! THINK!"

Mariam looked around the small East 9th Street studio apartment. She hadn’t seen a lava lamp in years, but there it was, sitting on top of a dilapidated dresser. A beaded curtain separated the kitchen area from the cluttered living room/bedroom area. On the wall facing the kitchen, that looked as if it hadn’t been painted since the 60s, hung a tattered, velveteen picture of Martian Luther King. The raspy sound of Dylan’s ‘The Times, They are a Changin’ was a scratchy, skipping blare from the album that turned on the old HI-IF system, which sat on the thread-bare, faded orange carpet.

Addy, it’s just too bizarre, she said, looking nervously at the door, wondering if she could make a quick exit if he got too weird.

Okay Mariam, he said, looking very tired and dejected, but I’m on to something here and I’ve got to make a move. I wasn’t sick until I started taking those damn vitamins. When I found out how they were processed and distributed, I had them analyzed. There was something there that Jules couldn’t identify…

Jules? Jules? Mariam gasped in utter disbelief. Addy, he’s still on fuckin’ acid!

Yeah! Addy shouted, stretching his eyes until they bulged from their sockets, but he’s a fuckin’ genius! Okay!? I’ve spoken to Larry, he continued, calming down a bit, I can’t believe my main man has turned into an establishment pig. We started Windmills together and now he’s on Wall Street and pushing vitamin pills, calling it his own business. What a fucking idiot, sell-out. He’s fuckin’ delusional.

Larry is delusional, Mariam thought.

I’m going to the press. If anything happens to me, you know I’m not suicidal and I’m not sick enough to die. If you find me, one day soon, dead, remember what I’m telling you. It’s death by direct mail.

Mariam left Addy’s apartment that day, amused but in the back of her mind, she wondered about his rambling. If they had your credit card number and automatically filled your orders, monthly, actually it was possible that they could have a separate batch of pills for certain groups; and, that quality assurance statement that they could trace each lot of pills back to the source from which the herbs were grown and harvested could have ulterior purposes; and what about the fact that they buy all the land surrounding their farms to avoid air pollution and contamination. Yeah, it’s certainly a controlled system and that could be for good or bad aims. Hmmm, she thought. What about the way the damn vitamins were marketed. It was word of mouth; you only bought them because your friends or family were selling them and who would 60s radicals sell to; other 60s radicals of course… No, Mariam thought, snapping her head back, now that crazy ass has me thinking this paranoid shit. Boy, he’s really stuck in time. It’s been almost 30 years, he’s back in 1965; but in the gray, moonscape like reverie of her subconscious, she continued the what if he’s right conversation.

The cool shower: the hypnotic sound of the water, the pulsating pattering on her skin had almost silenced the noise in her head. The sheets felt like soft, soothing hands against her tingling skin as she slid into bed and reached for the phone. She just had to call her best girlfriend, Ralphie, for what she called a reality check—an, I know this sounds crazy but what do you think, session.

Damn, I haven’t seen him since the good old days. Did you tell him I became a cop? Ralphie asked.

Are you kidding? He was already paranoid. He would have thought I was the man and I was alone in that apartment and I did not want that nut to go off with me in there, okay?

They laughed, hysterically.

Is he still smoking that shit? Ralphie asked through gales of laughter.

Girl you know he is.

And now, here he was, Addy 60s hippie radical out of Columbia University; Addy who started the radical Windmill movement comprised of neighborhood black kids and wealthy white kids attending the ivy league paradox, in the middle of Harlem, naked and dead on his bathroom floor.

Miriam turned on her heels as she heard the faint sound of sirens. She couldn’t risk letting the cops find her in the apartment-too many questions to answer. Her bulky frame rumbled and stumbled down the flights of stairs to the second floor as the homicide detectives busted through the lobby door. They rushed up the stairs, pushing her aside, having no idea that she’d just left the apartment. Mariam made it to the street and headed east, toward the subway station.

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Ralphie was just coming on the evening tour when the information about Addy’s death came into the precinct. She got the details, ran to the locker room and called Mariam.

I was there, Mariam heaved, I’ve just got in. I saw him dead on the bathroom floor.

Do you think it had anything to do with what the two of you talked about?

I don’t know, Ralphie, I’d been thinking about it since I saw him last month and I stopped by today to talk to him. I met the super on the stairs and he was rushing down stairs saying something was wrong. I went up to the apartment and kicked the door in…

You kicked the door in? Are you fuckin’ insane… How did you do it with your arthritic knees?

I panicked. I just did it. Maybe I thought I could save him but the smell—I knew…

They’re saying it’s everything from a drug overdose, to suicide, to a hit.

Of course that’s what they’re going to say. That’s what he said they would say but he warned me and it’s just too weird to be a coincident; I don’t believe in coincidence.

Neither do I. If Addy went to the press he must have triggered something.

Yep, he was afraid but he said he was going forward in spite of the fear like we all did in the old days.

Got to go now. My partner is giving me the evil eye. I’ll call you in a couple of days. I’m going to nosy around to see if I come up with anything.

After a week, Ralphie was more disillusioned than ever about her chosen profession. The last thing she ever thought she’d be was a cop. The dark skinned, Cuban beauty had been raised in east Harlem. She’d been a brilliant student, placed in rapid advanced classes and was college bound when she met handsome, fast talking Martin. The one good thing she’d gotten out of that relationship was her beautiful daughter Mickey but it put her dreams of an ivy league school on hold. She’d started at the Department as an administrator, which didn’t pay enough and soon asked herself, why not be a cop. After all she could make a difference. She wouldn’t be like the ones in the neighborhood, the PIGS that she used to throw rocks at while she, Mariam and Addy were protesting.

If you want to know a man, walk a mile in his moccasins; well, they weren’t moccasins, they were black oxfords and those were some rough shoes. She found it was a lot harder to be on the other side of the badge and called a TRAITOR PIG. The hopelessness of the street at first depressed her. Then, she got angry, and wondered why these people couldn’t change their circumstances. My God she’d come from the same background and she wasn’t stealing or using drugs. She’d gotten pregnant but she wasn’t on welfare. She began to hate them. On a particularly bad day, she shared her feelings with Mariam, fully expecting to be put down or called a sell-out. To her surprise, Mariam understood.

When I won my scholarship to college my mother was so proud that she told all the mothers in the neighborhood. They weren’t proud, they were envious. Kids that were my friends began to hate me, saying that I thought I was better than them. They began to fight me and I hated them because I knew that if they studied like I did, they would get scholarships too. I went to the library while they played hop scotch and double Dutch. I began to hate them and think that they were everything that the white man said there were.

What changed your feelings?

Well, there was this program on the radio called, The Greatest Story Ever Told: it aired on Sunday. Well, one Easter Sunday I was listening and it was the story of Jesus’s betrayal and crucifixion. When Jesus said, forgive them lord for the know not what they do, I understood and I stopped hating and starting doing things to teach people and tried to help them change their circumstances.

Ralphie was shocked, she’d known Mariam all of her life and she knew that Mariam was a Muslim. She’d never heard her speak a word about Jesus. Wonders never cease; but suddenly she got it and her life on the street got a lot easier. It didn’t, however, help her with the other side of the coin; the racist, insane crew that she worked with, the thin blue line.

37734.jpg

They should have been called the thin white line for most were predominantly lower middle class white males from Queens or Staten Island and simply hated minorities: Black, Puerto Rican, Chinese—anything that wasn’t white. She had a double whammy, being a Black Hispanic and female. At first none of the officers wanted to work with her. The minority officers didn’t want to work with her because she was a woman. They felt the physical requirements had been relaxed to get females on the job and that they were at risk in the street if she couldn’t perform like a man. The white officers felt the same and also, they didn’t want a Black partner. Then, there was her haunting beauty; cognitive dissonance caused their need to rationalize their attraction to her. She was bright and beautiful, therefore, she had to be a whore because they couldn’t accept the fact that they wanted a black woman. Unable to deal with their feelings, the vulgarity and sexual harassment was unfathomable and she couldn’t complain because then she wouldn’t have been one of the guys. The only saving grace of the job was that it paid well and she could raise her daughter in the manner in which she desired.

She’d taken a lot on the job but the way they were handling Addy’s death stuck in her craw. To her, he was crazy Addy who had marched in Selma and risked his life doing voter registration and marching for civil rights in Mississippi. He was better than these fucking blue uniformed pussies from the outer boroughs. She considered quitting but knew she couldn’t and again she conformed to the group, to be considered a part of the team, and laughed at the jokes but she had to do something because they were doing nothing.

The straw that broke the camel’s back happened three months after Addy’s death. The day was cold for October. She rushed in the door and went, unnoticed to her locker. She heard Sal, a bigot from Queens speaking in a low tone.

I’m simply going through the motions. The guy was a pig, he called us pigs; he was a nigger lover.

Ralphie coughed and walked around to the next bank of lockers where Sal and three of his friends stood. He looked coyly at Ralphie and said,

Oops I mean Negro lover.

That night Ralphie called Mariam,

Let’s get busy, she said.

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I’m a fucking beat cop not a Homicide Detective for God’s sake, Ralphie said, having second thoughts about the whole thing. She looked over at Mariam, wobbling down the street next to her, mouth breathing and wondered how in the hell she’d gotten so fat. This was ludicrous; they were no longer 17 years old. Why am I going to interview people in Addy’s building with no authority. My career is at risk.

We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do; we’re doing it for Addy.

Addy is dead Ralphie thought but she dare not say that to Mariam.

They arrived at the dilapidated building, and went down the steps to the Super’s basement apartment. Rubin Garcia looked cautiously at the two women and didn’t wait for them to whip out copies of Awake and Watchtower magazines.

I’m a Catholic, he said and began to close the door.

No, no, Ralphie laughed, as she fished in her pocket for her badge.

He glanced at Mariam, and thought that she was a bit out of shape to be a cop.

What do you want? He asked, beefing up his Puerto Rican accent, getting ready to claim he didn’t understand English.

Ralphie, anticipating his move, spoke in perfect Spanish,

Por favor, tenemos algunas preguntas con respecto al causa de muerte de Addy Manhoff.

Rubin relaxed and moved to the side for them to enter. He motioned for them to sit on a sky blue sectional, covered in 10 gauge plastic. The small living room was immaculate but cheaply furnished. A picture of the Sacred Heart Madonna hung on the wall facing them, giving Mariam a warm sense of comfort.

On the day of Addy’s death, did you see anyone go up to his apartment? Ralphie asked in Spanish.

Look, I don’t want to get involved. The guy, he was a nice guy, you know? I wouldn’t say nothing to the other cops because you know, you don’t know who is who. The cops didn’t like that guy but he was very cool. You know he was with the people. He was a white dude but he knew what time it was; he knew what was happening.

I know. Ralphie said, lowering her eyes.

The street wise Rubin picked up Ralphie’s body language and asked,

So this guy was your friend right? He asked quietly

Surprised, Ralphie looked deep into his eyes and answered yes.

Rubin leaned back in the navy blue velvet arm chair and crossed his legs.

So me and my old lady, we saw two white guys go up to the apartment around 10 A.M. Thing is, they looked like cops and my old lady said to me that Addy was getting busted. I told her to go to her sister’s house cause she don’t have no papers and with the cops around you never know what they’re going to do, you know.

Did you see them leave? Ralphie asked.

That’s the thing. They came down but not out of this building; they went across the roof and came out of the building next door. I thought it was strange but I forgot about it; but you know, when Addy didn’t come down to buy his smoke from Tito, cause he buys a $10.00 bag of Columbian Red everyday, and I didn’t hear him playing that awful record, I figured something was wrong. So, when I didn’t see him the next day, I went up there and I could smell him. I was in Vietnam so I know the smell of death and I called the cops.

Mariam shifted in her seat and heaved a sigh of relief; she was right Addy had been murdered.

They left the basement apartment and walked toward 1st Avenue. Ralphie looked at Mariams face and decided that they needed a drink.

Let’s have a drink, she suggested.

I don’t want a drink; a drink will mellow me out. I want to keep this anger and rage. I’ll do something about it if I keep it.

The first thing we have to do is figure out how to proceed. We really don’t know what’s going on but we do know that fuckin’ Sal is not investigating it. I’m not going to take this to the precinct; we need someone like us—a reformed radical but one with the power to help us. I know someone in the DA’s Office. Let’s see what I can do.

And do she did and when she was through, they didn’t take Sal’s gold shield for fucking up the investigation but they gave Ralphie one for solving the murder and she was hated for it; no surprise about that. Ralphie, however, was not satisfied with a gold shield; she felt is was a way to shut her up and stop the investigation. It came too easy.

Something is wrong, she’d said to Mariam. You don’t get killed because you owe someone $100.00 for weed. They’ll whip your ass until they get their money but they won’t kill you.

I know, Mariam said. Something is not right. Why were these guys so willing to confess? Why did they want to avoid a trial? It was almost as if they wanted to go to jail. Then, look at the time they got, the son-of-bitches will be out in 18 months, with good behavior.

Ralphie leaned forward and whispered to Mariam,

I wonder was Addy right? Suppose there is some great conspiracy.

Mariam looked at Ralphie. She had that look, like she was ready to pounce. She could be like a pit-bull when she got a hold of something.

"I don’t know what happened but everybody wants to put this baby to bed and you’d better let it rest. Addy’s dead and nothing we do can bring him back. We want you to keep that shield. You pushed to get it but if you push too hard, you’ll lose it. Let it lay. We have to be sell-outs sometime.

"We’re not sell-outs, we’re realist. Those who aren’t fight windmills, get frustrated, live in the past and sometimes end up dead. I’d rather be Sancho Panza than Don Quixote, so would you; but you can bet that I’m not going to stop looking at this. I’ll be careful. I’ll take my time.

Three years later: The odyssey begins…

Chapter Two

The sound of a ringing phone awaken Miriam from a deep sleep. Feeling for it on the nightstand she knocked over a plastic cup that had held water the night before.

Shit, she growled, groggily, into the receiver.

And shit morning to you too, Ralphie replied, amused, on the other end of the line.

No not shit to you—I knocked a cup on the floor trying to get the phone…

Look, lazy bones, you should be up; I have to get to work; can we meet for lunch today?

What time?

Lets say about 1:00PM. Let’s do Chinese at the usual place.

You bet.

Good its important that we talk

About what?

"I’ll