She looked Stenson directly in the eyes. “I would never betray your trust.”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if we thought you would.” He handed her a plain manila folder that contained a copy of every performance-related issue from her employment records. “Before we have these items expunged, we need to know if there is anything else we should be aware of.”
Flipping through the documents, her hands trembled. Gloria had trouble speaking. “These records are supposed to be confidential.”
Stenson studied her without expression. Within seconds, he would know how well he’d selected.
She turned back to the items from her file. “You know, most of these weren’t my fault.”
“We do know.” He said it like it should have been obvious.
While concerned, Gloria would later remember that she was also somewhat excited. “You can really have my record cleaned?”
He nodded without blinking. “As long as we know everything.”
She flipped through the documents once more, then handed them back. “This is all of it.” She would never learn that this man and his associates were the reason Cornell had not received any offers from the many scholarships he had applied for. Unbeknownst to Gloria, Cornell’s applications had all been withdrawn. The rejection letters she’d received certainly seemed legitimate. And what reason could she have possibly had to think that someone was forging the documents, forcing her to desperately need the one and only scholarship still available to her son?
She nodded. “So while I will technically be working for other people, I will actually be working for you.”
“In the strictest of confidence.” He glanced around the offices, which would be broken down later that day. Within twenty-four hours, there would be no sign he or his associates were ever there. Commonwealth Equal Opportunity Trust did not appear on the short-term lease, or on any other legal document or registry anywhere. For all intents and purposes, it did not exist.
“How will this work?”
He handed her the phone. He explained that their communication would primarily be via text. They would notify her when and where she was to fill a new placement. She would go through the application process like every other potential hire, only with the knowledge that she alone had a perfect record. Her placement would be guaranteed. Her first position would be in the home of retired New York governor Terence Townsend, who had recently suffered a traumatic brain injury. The elder Townsend was also the father of New York City congressman and tabloid favorite Henry Townsend.
At the conclusion of each shift, Gloria was to report the names of any visitors the retired governor received. If there were none, her text message was to read: NONE. All messages were to be kept as brief as possible. She was never to use the phone for any other purpose, even in a life-threatening emergency. She was not to let anyone know of the phone’s existence, any message she ever transmitted on it, or the true nature of her son’s scholarship. Any deviation from these instructions would result in the immediate termination of his scholarship and her employment.
Of course, the true repercussions would be far more serious, but those were not discussed. For the next three years, Gloria performed her duties in the Townsend residence exactly as instructed. In fact, she was utterly vigilant. But little of interest occurred during that time, leading Stenson to believe that Gloria’s talents might be better utilized elsewhere. It wasn’t long after that Bob Stenson learned of Harmony House, and the echo box in particular. With his help, she sailed through the application process, even with the overly zealous background check performed by Fenton’s security team. The other job applicants had all failed the test. Since 2008, Gloria had been dutifully reporting on the progress, or lack thereof, of Edward Parks’s echo box.
The longer Gloria was in their employ, the more Bob Stenson and his American Heritage Foundation associates were convinced the real value of this particular hire might not be in the pipe dream of the echo box, but in the fine young man Cornell Pruitt was turning out to be. After Georgetown, they paid for him to attend Yale Law School. Then facilitated his hiring at the New York District Attorney’s Office. They were now certain he was capable of becoming someone of political import. A senator in the making, for sure. Possibly even more.
All they needed to decide was what they wanted him to be.
CHAPTER 23
American Heritage Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, May 23, 7:18 p.m.
Gloria’s text message arrived at the American Heritage Foundation within seconds via one of its many sophisticated satellite antennae well hidden atop its roof. There wasn’t another private-sector company in the world with any of this technology. Even the FBI didn’t have some of this stuff. By the time they did acquire it, the AHF would most certainly have already installed the next generation of systems, if not the one after that.
The building itself was another story. The structure was a drab, two-story cinder-block box in an office park on the outskirts of Alexandria, Virginia, whose other tenants included a web-design firm, a fledgling toy manufacturer, and a financial-consulting group. None of them would ever suspect one of the most influential political entities in the world was housed next door. Which was precisely the idea.
The notion of the American Heritage Foundation had been born shortly after the Kennedy assassination and cemented during Watergate. American politics was out of control. The system had run amok. The Great American Experiment of democracy was on the verge of collapsing under its own weight, and somebody had to do something.
Even if it meant undermining the entire system.
That was when seven like-minded midlevel officers from several of the government’s intelligence agencies decided the only way to effectively play the game was off the field. Completely. No official ties. No official funding. No official anything.
While the Church and Pike Committees were busy conducting their official investigations into the CIA and the other intelligence agencies in 1975, these men quietly left their government positions and opened the doors to the American Heritage Foundation. Their seed money was entirely private and under no one else’s scrutiny. The funds were received on a handshake for future consideration.
Each of their wealthy patrons would go on to state that this investment was the single smartest thing they had ever done with their money. They all grew even more rich as strategically selected policies and rulings were granted in their favor, courtesy of the American Heritage Foundation’s influence and reach. Even then, there were few politicians, judges, or intelligence or law-enforcement personnel they couldn’t get to.
The financial resources of the Foundation grew impressively. After thirty-six years of remarkable growth, the Foundation’s endowment hovered around the $5.2 billion mark. That was enough money to do anything they thought was necessary, whenever they wanted.
It was enough to start a war.
The AHF initially had only nine full-time employees. They were a tight-knit group who were evangelical in their zeal. They believed in what they were doing. They were the ones keeping America on track, and there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do to ensure it stayed that way.
Over the years, their employee numbers had grown to twenty-seven—still a small group, in part because their standards were so rigorous and the application process so involved that few worthy candidates ever stayed the course long enough for serious consideration.
You can find twenty-six other people you could trust with your life. You cannot find two hundred and twenty-six. At least, not in the civilian world.
The other reason they had been able to maintain such a small payroll was the ever-increasing efficiency of technology. One man with $10,000 of technology today could do what one hundred men with $50 million of equipment back in 1975 often couldn’t. What used to require an army now simply required the right person, the right technology, and the financial resources to hire whatever independent contractors were necessary to execute any particular job.
The American Heritage Foundation had all three.
They had used hundreds of independent contractors over the years for a variety of tasks, but even this group was kept to a bare minimum to ensure that the Foundation’s very existence remained off the grid.