Free Masquerade by Gayle Lynds Page A

guarantees we’ll stay there. But everything seems to work against us. Foreign intelligence agencies plant moles in our companies. They photograph and steal the papers and high-tech samples of our businessmen when they travel abroad. French espionage even bugs Air France’s business class. Look at all the American consultants here in Washington on the Japanese, British, Russian, German, and Chinese payrolls. No wonder our businesses want us to recruit agents in the finance ministries of foreign countries. If we’re in danger of falling behind, why not?”
    â€œBut when we steal a foreign business secret, how do we choose whom to give it to—IBM or Apple? Delco or G.E.?”
    â€œMaybe we just publish it in the
Wall Street Journal
and give everyone a shot.”
    â€œIf the bill goes through, we’ll end up spying on our allies. And you know our corporations will try to bribe our agents every chance they get. Each one wants information first, so they’ll have a competitive edge not only over other nations’ corporations, but their U.S. competitors as well. Then there’s the problem of the world’s multinationals. How do we figure out which are even U.S. corporations?”
    â€œTrade talks are more important these days to national security than arms talks, Les.”
    â€œWe’re a democracy, goddammit.” She shook her blond head angrily. “Democracy mandates separation of private corporations from government, just as it does church from government. We’d need basic changes in our culture and laws to hand over CIA-acquired economic intelligence to businesses. Actually, if you take the idea of the feds mucking around in private industry to its logical conclusion, we could end up where the government and industry were one, a totalitarian, Communist state. Now that’d be a severe shock for knee-jerk right-wingers.”
    Maynard chewed thoughtfully. “Americans have always had a hard time resolving the conflict between an open democracy and the secrecy that gathering intelligence requires. I go along with George Washington. He thought intelligence was vital, but only to stop violence against our nation and our people. No matter how you slice it, making money isn’t violent. It
causes
violence when one greedy son of a bitch goes after another greedy son of a bitch, or the bastard tries to take food from starving people. But in itself, financial competition isn’t violent. So I figure Langley’s got no business doing industrial spying.”
    Leslee put down her fork. “You’re serious? I’ve made a dent in that stubborn skull of yours?”
    â€œA near-fatal dent that’s caused a rebirth of sorts. You’re right. Our political system—democracy—has been polluted by our economic system—capitalism. In fact, we run the United States as if capitalism
were
our political system. Profit is everything. The only real measure of success is money.”
    She nodded. “When people ask what you do, they’re really asking how much you make.”
    â€œLangley wasn’t intended for that,” he said. “Its mission is simply to give useful intelligence in a timely manner to government policy makers so they can make decisions. That’s all, and that’s critical. That’s what our new DCI wants, and she’s been working to put in reforms that’ll stop other activities. But it’s hard. Langley’s gone off half-cocked for fifty years. Now if we bow to pressure and start spying on foreign companies, we’ll be turning our backs on what democracy stands for again, and thatmeans we weaken our nation’s ethical base even more.”
    Her smile was radiant. “May I quote you?”
    â€œYou can quote me as an unidentified government source.” He frowned. “But soon, Les, very soon, I’ll go public.”

Chapter 9
    â€œGordon, do I have family in Santa Barbara, real