Free Running Dog by Don DeLillo Page B

gain power contrary to the interests of U.S. corporations abroad. It was responsible for channeling and laundering funds for unlisted station personnel, indigenous agents, terrorist operations, defector recruitment, political contributions, penetration of foreign communications networks and postal agencies.
    So on, so on, so on.
    “If you study the history of reform,” Percival said, “you’ll see there’s always a counteraction built in. A low-lying surly passion. Always people ready to invent new secrets, new bureaucracies of terror.”
    “Don’t get carried away on my behalf.”
    “It’s only fair to point out that these PAC/ORD activities are fairly small-scale, as far as I can tell, compared to the CIA extravaganzas that brought on the thirst for reform in the first place, and of course they’re being run by some of the same people. My point is that these activities satisfy the historical counterfunction. They fill those small dark places. Andthey’re illegal. Run counter to the spirit and letter of every law, every intelligence directive, that pertains to such matters.”
    One of the marvels of all this, the Senator continued, was that Radial Matrix, strictly as a business enterprise, was enjoying such enormous success. Surely this was an unexpected development to the folks at PAC/ORD, who couldn’t have expected their modest creation to become such a world-beater.
    Moll told the Senator she didn’t think any of this was very startling, considering past developments and revelations. Percival had an answer for that.
    One final level of operations.
    Radial Matrix was currently run by a man named Earl Mudger. Handpicked by PAC/ORD, he was former commander of a fighter-bomber squadron (Korea) and long-term contract employee (Saigon desk, Air America) of the CIA. He’d had civilian experience, briefly, in the late fifties, with a firm specializing in production flow systems and automation.
    Mudger turned out to be the right man for the job—too much so, it seemed. He fell in love with profits. The profit motive became more interesting to him at this stage of his career than pay records or secret bank accounts or whatever fancy paperwork is necessary to maintain agents in the field and deliver money into the hands of favored political leaders in this or that country.
    The Senator poured himself another drink and put his feet up on the cocktail table. First traces of slurred speech.
    “What’s happened is that PAC/ORD has lost control of its own operation. Radial Matrix has become a breakaway unit of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Nobody knows what to do about it. Mudger’s completely autonomous. They’re afraid to move against him. Public scrutiny of the funding mechanism is unacceptable. And it could happen if they try to remove him. Anything could happen. Including disclosures of how Radial Matrix has managed to be so successful.”
    “I’d like to hear.”
    “Mudger hasn’t forgotten his field training. He uses the same methods in business he used in espionage activities. In actual combat. That’s why the firm’s a whopping success. The man’s made his own set of rules and won’t allow anyone else to use them. He’s got all kinds of links, organized crime and so on. And he’s just sitting out there in the countryside running up profits. Recent scheme is diversification. Systems planning has apparently begun to seem dull. He wants to diversify.”
    There was a silence as they pondered this.
    “What you have in Mudger,” the Senator said, “is the combination of business drives and lusts and impulses with police techniques, with ultrasophisticated skills of detection, surveillance, extortion, terror and the rest of it.”
    “It’s like what Chaplin said in connection with
Monsieur Verdoux
. The logical extension of business is murder.”
    Percival shuddered, a bit theatrically, to indicate his feelings on the subject. He leaned forward to freshen her drink. She waved him off, smiling