previously:

It’s nearly a week before I see all twenty-five men and hear their cover stories. This is a lot harder than deducing assignments given to Randolf. I’m going to be lucky if I get my roses. They take my deductions and don’t tell me if I’m right or wrong.

They just go off with my answers each time.

I’ve continued to pester Daddy to find out what happened to the TacPzlSolGp but he tells me he’s come up against a stone wall. I still carry that ID and crest in my purse, but I haven’t heard anything about them for some time now.

---

Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf by T D Aldoennetti on Sun, 2008/11/23 - 9:58am, Air Force Sweetheart -- TacPzlSolGp Chapter 27 is revised and reposted on Tue, 2009/12/29 - 01:57 PM. ~Sephrena

---

 

Biased Information:

 

Chapter 27

 

Before Randolf is due to return, Daddy and I arrive at work and I continue working at wrapping up the report I’ve been preparing. Half an hour later, he calls me into his office. His voice sounds concerned. I’m immediately afraid that something’s happened to Randolf. The roses he gave me faded and died a few days before, despite all my efforts to prolong their freshness. I put my papers in the safe, then charge down to enter Daddy’s reception area, where I receive the high sign from Kathy.

“They’re all in there again.”

‘Have we heard from Randolf?’ I flash her with a look.

“Not a thing,” she says.

My concern must have surfaced.

“Lucy, I’m sure he’ll be all right. Don’t worry yet.”

I try to smile but my heart is doing kettle drum rolls, “He should be back soon.”

She gets on the intercom. “Your daughter is here, Sir.”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t say come in. A moment later the three of them come out of the office and Daddy tells me to get my things, we’re going out for a couple of hours. I rush back to my office and grab everything. I’m putting on my jacket and placing my cap as I hurry back. They see me coming and start for the elevators. I catch up just as the elevator doors open. In the elevator, Daddy’s boss hands Daddy something, “Will you help the Colonel with these, Phillip?”

As I’m buttoning up my jacket, I feel him begin to remove my Major’s insignia and see he has full colonel’s wings in his hand. I look around in surprise.

Daddy’s boss says, “No questions yet. We’re going somewhere and, after the briefing, you may ask me all the questions you want.”

We go down to two cars. Daddy and the Air Force General get into the second one as Daddy’s boss has me get into the first before he enters. He can see I’m bursting with concern. I haven’t even been looking at my new insignia.

“Is this about Randolf? Is he okay? Please talk to me.”

“You’ll just have to wait, young lady. After we have the briefing, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I sit back again, not certain if I want to be furious or to start to cry. We finally reach our destination and we all pile out and enter the building. By now I’m furious. Daddy is going to get a lecture from me when we get back to his office.

We go through a security check point, where I show my ID and they question the rank shown on my ID versus the insignia I am wearing. The general tells them I simply haven’t had time to get new ID, since the promotion occurred very recently and they’ve had me extremely busy. They have me sign in and we all proceed to the elevator with a Marine escorting us.

We take the elevator down and down and down until it stops maybe six or seven floors below. The air smells damp despite the flow whistling through the hallway.

We exit the elevator and walk to the end of the corridor, ignoring the doors set into the walls on each side. Just before reaching the end, I can see that the corridor turns. We continue to follow it until we stop outside one of the doors. The Marine opens the door for us and we go in, “Ladies first,” one of them says and stands aside.

“Thank you.”

There is a large screen at one end of the room and five men are standing around the table as though waiting for us. Daddy’s boss pulls a chair out and asks me to sit down, then Daddy waits for his boss to sit before he sits beside me and then everyone begins to find places at the table except two who remain up by a podium and the screen. The lights dim as one of the men begins to describe a series of events and the screen illuminates with images.

I have no idea what this has to do with me, but watch and listen anyway. The briefing continues for about forty or fifty minutes. Then additional information is delivered, as though it’s more recent. This continues for about another twenty minutes. Finally it’s finished and Daddy’s boss looks at me, “What do you think about all this, Colonel?”

I give it a little more time to digest, “The information is heavily biased as it stands. It’s not like raw material, from which I could draw more meaningful conclusions. Someone has already made up their mind and has taken the time to lean the presentation toward that conclusion. Could I see the raw data? I could probably make a better decision based on that.”

A couple of the men are rather put out at my suggestion that they’re biasing the information and they say so. The general quiets them down with a wave of his hand.

“I want to see the raw footage and the actual updates. Not something filtered through your agency.”

Again there are arguments.

“Gentlemen. Gentlemen! The President said I make the decisions on this. Not you. Now if you don’t want to show us the raw data, then I’ll just take it to him and tell him you’re not coöperating as you promised. Anything else?”

The arguments start again and the General just gets up, with the three of us in tow, and we walk out.

After we ride up the elevator and are back in the cars, he asks me, “How could you tell the data was biased? It seemed good enough to me.”

“Well, Sir, there were several things. Raw data doesn’t all lean in one direction. It’s kind of like a pool of water which has just had ten or twenty stones thrown into it at the same time but in very diverse locations. The effects of the stones overlap and cause other secondary and even tertiary ripples to occur. There are at least as many directions involved as there were stones to begin with. The place where the most interaction occurs is the place to start looking, even though it’s the most difficult to find, and the hardest to sift through.

The interactions never lean in one direction, but from the way they interact, you can decide where the original stones landed, give or take, and what’s causing the interactions. This information all leaned in one direction, or away from one stone, even though it was supposed to be from half a dozen or more separate sources.

Either some of the information is missing from the presentation and was left out because it did not support someone’s prior conclusions, or the information was fabricated in some manner, or heavily biased, which amounts to the same thing. The questions are which, who and why? The other thing which jangled my nerves was the fact that the person giving the presentation was lying for almost a quarter of the presentation. I could tell this because of the way he emphasized certain words, the way he stood and held himself when he told the lies, and the change in his voice during those particular portions of the presentation. He wouldn’t fool a good analyst. Is that what you wanted to know, Sir?”

“Your Father is right, you’re good at this. Bill get me General Pendleton in the other car and change my destination to my offices.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Hello, Phillip? I’m borrowing your daughter for the rest of the day and perhaps tomorrow as well. Go on back and I’ll call you later. Oh, Phillip? Thanks. You’re right, she is good at it. … Yes, I’ll see she gets a car home. Talk with you later.”

“Sir. You said you would answer my questions after the briefing….”

“I did, didn’t I? Okay, shoot.”

“Question one: Is Randolf okay? He’s due back and I haven’t heard from him.”

“Question two: Are these insignia the result of my answers? If so, then maybe I should only be a Lieutenant Colonel because Randolf may not want to date me if I outrank him.”

“Question three: What was that briefing all about? It looked like someone went to a lot of trouble to create it.”

He turns to me. “First, as far as I know, he’s just fine.”

He sees me visibly relax as I hear this.

He smiles at me. “You like him don’t you?”

“Yes, Sir. As far as it’s possible for me to like a man. I’m doing better though.”

He doesn’t understand and has me tell him all about it as we’re driving to his offices. I give him the short version, starting with my assignment, the creep and on, omitting the slightly unimportant details such as my rather confused change of gender. After I finish, he continues his answers to my questions.

“The insignia are a result of twenty-four out of twenty-five first line correct conclusions and one second line correct conclusion. As for reverting you to Lieutenant Colonel, I’m not going to do it. We’ll just need to bring Lieutenant Colonel Scott up to your rank so that you can continue to see him.”

“He should be going up for review in a few months, Sir, and might make it onto the waiting list then, Sir. Maybe that could just be hurried a little?” I say hopefully.

“On one condition, Colonel Jackson. If the two of you do decide to get married, then he continues his work with us and you continue yours. You’ll still be together most of the time. But you might need to accompany him once in a while for the mission’s sake. Agreed?”

“Agreed, Sir. If we are legally and really married.”

Lucy, you stupid girl, you just did it again…. When will you ever learn?

“Here we are.”

We exit the vehicle. Upon entering the building I again go through a security checkpoint with armed Marine guards present. I’m logged in and ID-checked and the same questions and answers are exchanged. The General says he’s going on up to his offices while they make me a permanent unescorted badge which I’ll wear each time I come here. An MP will escort me to his offices this time, and until I learn my way on my own. Twenty minutes later, I’m in his offices and his secretary lets him know that I’ve arrived.

He comes out of his office, “This is Jenny, my secretary. Jenny, this is Colonel Jackson. She will be with us today and maybe tomorrow. Perhaps sometimes in the future as well.”

We greet each other and I tell her to call me Lucy.

Next we enter a conference room, “This will be your ‘office’ for the day, Colonel. If we begin using your talents more heavily, you’ll be assigned a permanent office nearby. For this assignment, I’ll assign Staff Sergeant Joi to assist you in getting anything you need and to show you around for lunch and the location of the rest rooms and so on. She’ll also be responsible for obtaining documents and returning them to their proper places.”

The basics taken care of, he came to the point immediately. “Now, as to what I need from you: Staff Sergeant Joi will bring you a pile of papers to read. I need you to prepare a good set of conclusions based on those papers. They’re not related to the briefing earlier, so don’t confuse the two. Supposedly, this information is the rough or raw data, which was used for the second set of papers, which will be brought in for you to read later. I need to know several things: First, is the raw data really raw data, or has it been biased in the direction of a preselected conclusion?” He looked at me so see if I had any questions.

I didn’t, so I just nodded my understanding.

“Second, draft your own set of conclusions from the raw data, if that’s what it is, and prepare that set of conclusions for presentation. Staff Sergeant Joi may be able to help you there; she has a Top Secret clearance.”

We exchange another glance and nod.

“Third, compare the conclusions given to us against the ‘raw’ data which was supplied to us, and prepare a report telling me if the conclusions are valid or, again, are biased in a particular direction.”

This time, he barely pauses before he continues, “Fourth, determine if any of the raw data appear to be intentionally misleading, in what manner do they appear to be biased, and if possible, who would be most likely to benefit by manipulation of that data, that is, what country.”

“You don’t want much in one day, do you, Sir?” I grin.

“You’re playing in the big leagues now, Colonel. Put up or shut up,” he says with a smile and a wink, “We don’t have the luxury of time. Staff Sergeant Joi will be right in. You might want to break now for lunch. That way we don’t waste time putting the papers away and getting them out again.”

“Good idea, Sir. I could also use a ladies room.”

“Just tell Sergeant Joi. She’ll be here in a minute or two.”

The Staff Sergeant comes in and I waste no time getting us on a first name basis.

I tell her I need a ladies room and then we’ll take lunch, as we’re likely to be very busy after lunch.

After telling me she will need to put some papers away and lock the safe before lunch, she leads me to the ladies room saying she’ll be right back. I do my business and hear her return.

“Lucy?” she calls out to me.

I start gathering myself together. “Nearly finished, you were faster than I expected.”

I exit the stall, wash my hands, and make sure my uniform is neatly arranged. Nora has just finished drying her own hands, so she leads me to the Senior Officer’s Lounge, where she assumes that I will take my meal alone. This will never do. I ask her where she’s going to eat and she tells me that she’ll eat downstairs in the cafeteria. I want some time with her before we start working, so I tell her that I’ll go down with her, so we can talk.

Down in the cafeteria, we make our selections from the coolers and serving tables, which are constantly being replenished by three enlisted personnel. Then we go to the register and I tell the girl running it that I’m paying for both of us. As I’m putting the change in my purse, Nora’s finding us a table. About the time I walk up, two Majors are trying to get her to leave the table by pulling rank. I interrupt them. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I think we were here first.”

“Yeah? Well you can…,” his jaw drops open when he sees my wings. “Have the table, Ma’am. We’ll eat over there. The abrupt about face taken by his friend causes the other Major to glance at me and he too beats a hasty retreat.

Nora says, “Thank you. Those two have been pulling that on me these past two days.”

I make a point of looking in their direction repeatedly, like I’m thinking of something for them to do in their spare time. They rush their lunches and depart in about ten minutes flat, trying not to look over their shoulders. Well, what’s rank for if you can’t help out one of the girls?

We chat and get to know each other a bit as we eat lunch. For prepackaged sandwiches, ladle soup, and mass-produced coffee, the meal is pretty good. A little heavy on the carbohydrates, and no salads available that I could find, but not bad.

Nora has been eating as fast as she can. I suppose she is accustomed to being needed upstairs so she has little time for lunch, “Slow down. The world won’t go away.”

She looks at her tray and then at mine and makes an effort to slow her consumption of her meal.

“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m just accustomed to having little time to eat and needing to be back up at my job in case someone needs something in a hurry.”

“Well, the General said he assigned you to me both today and, if I am here, tomorrow. I don’t want to rush my meal and don’t expect you to do so either.”

Nora smiles and relaxes a little, “Lucy, you’re the kind of officer every enlisted person wishes they had. You have a relaxed attitude, which I think makes the work more enjoyable. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Nora. After we finish eating, I think I’ll grab a cup of coffee to take upstairs.”

“You don’t need to do that.” she says. “We have an office pot. I’ll show you. You just drop a dime in for each cup and Jenny takes the money at the end of each week and purchases more coffee and sugar, cups, and so on.”

After we dump the remnants off our trays and place them to be collected, we head up to get cups of coffee, where I drop a dollar into the kitty, taking my cup to the conference room.

Nora tells me that she’s going to open the safe and bring the first sets of papers in for me to examine. I tell her that I want her to remain with me as I read them, because I may have her search through other documents for particular items that interest me as I’m reading. Her presence will speed things up considerably, since I won’t be the only pair of eyes searching.

She’s gone about three minutes, then returns with a criss-crossed stack of papers about eight inches thick.

When she places them on the table, she breaks them out into separate piles, explaining what each pile represents and what time interval elapsed between them.

She says, “There are other files back in the safe which update these. I didn’t bring them because I wasn’t certain if you want everything at once.”

“Would you mind? Sometimes having it all makes it easier in the long run. We’ll arrange the stacks a little differently too. The row nearest this edge will be those from the earliest time period and each stack will be a separate source of information. The next row will be material that is more recent but from the same sources or new sources for that approximate time. We’ll continue this scheme until we have all of our resource stacks in place in a grid we can follow through time and down each trail of supposed sources, then we’ll begin to read.”

She quickly places everything she has ready, so I can begin reading while she goes back for the rest. When she returns, she places the new stacks and I see a pattern emerging, which is not a good sign. One for each source, a total of seven. Five of the sources are in the first row. Six are in the second row, five in the third and six in the fourth. The same five in the first and third rows and the same six in the second and fourth rows. Only four occur in all four rows. Patterns don’t occur like that naturally.

I would have expected the piles and sources to be scattered randomly, with new sources appearing as old sources dried up at random intervals, and with some sources contradicting others. That would be the normal pattern and flow of real intelligence coming in from the field, less tightly traceable to a relative handful of sources, more unpredictable in time, and much more likely to be untainted. That this intelligence is so closely bound in time and source for each row tends to indicate that some or all of the information was planted. I begin to check the dates the supposed intelligence has been obtained.

Again, it’s something I don’t like. The information in each row has only a two day spread, like someone has prepared a press release and disseminated it to the seven intelligence collection groups over a two day period. This is maintained throughout the columns and rows. Now I’m certain that this is either tainted or biased information, representing either honest collection of data foisted on the analysts by untruthful agents, or a dishonest assemblage of facts ‘cherry-picked’ from a much larger sample. The problem now is to try to discover the truth from this collection of misleading material.

I begin reading through the first piles, making notes on the many tablets Nora brought in for me, one tablet for each of the seven columns of information. I finish my first row and review my notes as it approaches 1430. I don’t like what I see. Flipping the sheets over to the second page, even on the tablets which have no notes, because there was no useful first row information, I begin again with row two.

At 1540 we have completed that row. My tablets again have information which tends to indicate some unseen hand orchestrating the information. I give Nora a new set of instructions as we begin on row three. The row goes faster as the updates have less new information. We start new pages again, and we start on the last row. At 1700, we finish and turn the completed pages over, leaving a blank sheet showing.

I ask her to fetch a black marker pen, fifty large rubber bands, some sticky tape, and two dozen folders as I proceed to tear a blank page from each tablet. When she returns I take the marker and write on each quadrant of the blank sheets S-1, T-A; S-1, T-B and so on to S-1, T-D then start again at S-2, T-A through D. I explain what it means as I go (source one through seven and time A through D), she understands and takes over the marker finishing the labels as I begin reviewing my notes.

We tear our new identification sheets into something resembling squares, then place a stack of information into each folder with the appropriate square taped to the outside of the folder, bundling everything in place with rubber bands. Finally we have seven stacks of two to four folders sorted by source and time.

The unused labels go into the shredder and then into the burn bag. Since it’s getting to be late in the day, I ask her to put everything back into the safe for us, so we can start fresh tomorrow.

By the time she returns, it’s already 1730, so I ask her if she’ll be able to make it back for mess in time. She says she’ll just pick something up in the cafeteria, so I ask if we could eat together again. I want to make three sets of copies of my notes, and then they’ll go into the safe until tomorrow. She goes off with my notes and returns ten minutes later with her jacket, cap and purse, the notes safely tucked away and ready for tomorrow. We go out to see if the General is still in his office before we go down for supper.

He’s still there, working late, if not burning the midnight oil yet. I knock and catch his attention.

“Come in, Lucy. How are you doing so far.”

“I think I can answer the first question for you, Sir. The ‘raw’ data isn’t raw. It’s been carefully prepared to look reliable on the surface, but it’s definitely been orchestrated by someone. I can’t tell you more than that just yet. I have the flavor of the individual or group behind it and will know more after going through my initial notes again. I have a number of theories building in my mind, but would prefer to delay revealing them until they’re ready to go in my full report.”

The General says, “So you’re suggesting that, as it stands at the moment, we don’t know if our agents were fed bad Intel by an unknown entity in the field, or if someone over here altered it to suit their own purpose.”

“Not to mince words, that’s correct, Sir. After I see the conclusions made from these field reports, I’ll be able to tell you more. Right now, everything is conjecture.”

“Good. Thanks. It’s pretty late. Ready to go home yet?”

Nora and I are going down to have supper in the cafeteria, then she’ll go home and I’ll be ready to leave at your convenience, Sir.”

He looks at his watch and says, “Mind a little company? We’ll eat in the Senior officer’s lounge. I just need a few minutes.”

“May Staff Sergeant Joi eat with us, Sir? If not, then I think I’ll go down with her to the cafeteria.”

“See those, Colonel?” he indicates the two stars on his coat, “I think they allow me to bring whomever I want into the lounge for supper.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Just tell Staff Sergeant Joi not to get accustomed to it,” he says, raising his voice enough that she could probably hear him from the other room.

“I’ll wait in the outer office with her, General.”

“Fine. I’ll be along shortly.”

I go out and tell Nora that we’re eating in the Senior Officer’s Lounge and she looks a little hurt and begins to get up.

“Where are you going?”

“To the cafeteria.”

“Don’t you want to eat in the lounge?”

She looks at me strangely, “I’m invited too?”

“I wouldn’t go if you weren’t.”

“Wow. Thanks.”

We start chatting, telling each other tidbits about ourselves and some of the others working with us, until finally the General comes out of his office.

“Finished, finally. Let’s go, ladies, I‘m starving.”

We exit the offices and proceed to the elevator, taking it down to the second floor and then walk to the lounge. The enlisted men working there look at Nora a little strangely but they don’t want to argue with a General and a Colonel. We’re seated like it’s a restaurant and soon have someone delivering menus.

After ordering, the coffee and tea arrives, and appetizers are placed on the table. I take a small sample of everything and find it’s not bad. Not as good as the last few days I was in the hospital after my transition, but not bad. Nora looks like she is nervous and continues to look around at the lithographs on the walls and the tables covered with tablecloths with silverware instead of flatware, and china cups, saucers and plates.

I ask, “Just a little ostentatious, isn’t it, General?”

He looks a little apologetic, but explains, “We frequently have congressmen here, or out of country leaders of one kind or another. It wouldn’t do to take them down to the cafeteria. Then too, this room is shielded and swept for bugs and it has jamming equipment built in to prevent electronic eavesdropping, so we can discuss classified material here.”

He gestures to what looks like small air-conditioning ducts or hi-fi speakers above each table. “Each table has it’s own sonic generator above the table throwing a curtain of white noise around the table and its occupants. It isn’t 100% effective, probably closer to 20% or 30% for each table, but by the time the conversation makes its way out through one and in through another it tends to muddy up the conversations enough that nearby diners inside their generator’s influence can’t understand conversations next to them which occur at normal levels. Of course if one were to yell then that would overpower the measures taken. We just learn to talk quietly in here, so the odds are much more in the favor of secrecy.”

“Impressive, Sir.” Now that I’m concentrating, I can hear a slight whooshing sound, like the sound made by the air nozzles above the passenger seats on a commercial airliner, or maybe a radio tuned between stations — pure static. Hmmm.

---

 

To Be Continued….       © 2008, 2009 by T D Aldoennetti & Rénae Dúmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder) or her assigned representative. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. An Aldoennetti Original.