S I X O C C U P Y

> "The real challenge lies with the immense wealth and influence concentrated in the hands of a few unscrupulous individuals who control capital. Numerous laws crafted by Congress and state legislatures serve these individuals while undermining the interests of the working class. This is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; it has become a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations." > — Rutherford B. Hayes

L. Hays: Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hays, Nineteenth President of the United States. Kessinger Publishing, 2010

1 THAT OCTOBER, after our meeting with the President, we activists, driven to protect a forest we considered sacred, found ourselves increasingly agitated. We had no choice but to intensify our pressure on the university, fully aware of the risks involved. Two unexpected revelations propelled our campaign forward. The first stemmed from my interview with President Redlaw nearly three decades prior, and the second, thankfully, was documented in a hard copy.

Helen Flintwinch set down her phone, staring blankly at her office door. It was 7:30 AM on a Friday, the most chaotic weekend of the fall semester, when every staff member, police officer, and university executive at Gilligan University of Ohio would be on high alert to manage Halloween antics. However, the information just relayed by her colleague, Grace Battersby, the Vice-President for University Advancement, had nothing to do with Halloween; it answered long-standing questions while raising a flood of new ones.

The provost dialed President Redlaw, who was en route to his Lake Erie cottage for what he described as a well-deserved break. "Not the best timing for the sixth consecutive year," she commented.

"Go ahead, I'm on speaker," he cheerfully replied. "Guess who just called me with some news I think you might already know?"

Driving along the freeway, the president smirked. He knew the answer but, feeling playful that morning, decided to tease his provost. "No idea, Helen."

"Well, it's one of your vice-presidents, and what I heard completely stumped me. While I'm covering for you this weekend, I have little time to delve into issues unrelated to Halloween."

"Vice-President, huh? Was it Harry Phillips complaining about the boilers again?"

"Enough with the jokes, Mitch. I'm not in the mood for what you consider humor. What am I supposed to do about Tulkinghorn's Chair?"

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. Who in the world is behind Larnaca Venture Capital? And why have they donated twelve million for a Chair in petroleum and innovative fossil fuel sciences? What does that even mean? And how do they know Dr. Truman Tulkinghorn, who they say will be the first holder of this Chair?"

The President interrupted, "Hold on a second, Helen. Let me take another call."

She suspected this was a ploy to evade her question, but he indeed received another call. After a long five minutes, he returned with what sounded like a genuine apology.

"Lottie is here," he said, referring to the Director of Legal Affairs. "She’s been talking with Payne Orlick. Payne is thrilled about the donation because two million dollars are earmarked for upgrading lab facilities and equipment in his college. He claims that living with Tulkinghorn is a small price to pay for those improvements, which will bring notoriety to the School of Conservation and Natural Resource Development as a center dedicated to making shale oil and gas more environmentally acceptable. Lottie has found no legal obstacles to the appointment, not even in the faculty handbook. Most of our named Chairs have been decided by donors. And regarding Larnaca Venture Capital, I genuinely know nothing about them. Lottie is verifying their legitimacy."

"Great!" the provost exclaimed. "There’s no way shale oil and gas will ever be deemed environmentally acceptable by the protesters, and that man Tulkinghorn is my greatest adversary. Half his faculty loathe him." Good grief! The provost just articulated our primary objection to fracking beneath the forest and our suspicions regarding Dr. T.

"These are lean times, Helen."

"So, the bottom line is? Big money outweighs reason, and Tulkinghorn gets the last laugh. For what it’s worth, I recommend rejecting this gift along with its strings. This firm, or whatever it is, has no ties to Gilligan."

"While I can’t ignore your recommendation, you know my job is to raise funds for this university. Consider my position. This is the easiest opportunity I’ve ever encountered. We move forward with it. Unless Lottie raises any red flags, it's a done deal."

"Well, I hope I’m out of here long before this horse gets caught fixing a race."

"Me too. Bye, Helen."

Mitchell Redlaw switched off his phone and inserted a disc into his car's player. He loved old technology, not owning an iPod or MP3 player, hardly even knowing what they were. Old technology, new technology: all irrelevant now, except for the typewriter beneath my fingers. For someone so sporty, his musical taste surprised me. That day, he chose St. Martin-in-the-Field’s rendition of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. As if in a concert hall, he tapped his hands on the steering wheel and occasionally swirled his right hand in arcs as if conducting the orchestra. Off on his annual autumn escape, unplugged and relaxed, he claimed his spirits soared.

2 "YOU TALKIN' ABOUT SHIT?" José asked Astrid.

"No way," she replied, vigorously shaking her head, tangling the wire for her earbuds in her mass of dreadlocks. She fished out the offending wire. "My colleagues and I are completely confident about the source, just not the extent of the income from this web of enterprises. And the current revenue-generating activities all point to one of his ventures as well."

"Current? That means now?" José asked, straight-faced. "Yes."

The rest of us seemed too stunned to laugh or comment, as if Astrid had just revealed irrefutable proof of both Sasquatch and aliens at Area 51. Her insights prompted complex decisions we had never foreseen when we had chased Dr. Tulkinghorn around southern Ohio three weeks prior.

Nick finally spoke up. "Astrid, I don’t understand why you and your hacker friends are so confident when, if what you’re saying is accurate, the NSA, FBI, CIA, and Europol should have apprehended the man long ago and sent him off to some black site in Slovakia."

"We’re smarter than they are, as Kevin Mitnick and Alberto Gonzalez have clearly demonstrated."

"Are those guys in the hacking hall of fame or something?"

"Yeah, and now they’re joined by Edward Snowden and dozens, if not hundreds, of unsung heroes, many of them brave women like me."

"Interesting," said Nick, cautiously navigating her self-description. "So, what do we do with this?"

Lara added a note of caution. "We have to be extremely careful here."

"No kidding!" Astrid replied, devoid of humor. "If not, I’m in deep trouble."

"Don’t want that," José interjected, his tone possibly seen as sarcastic but genuinely earnest. I noticed he had developed genuine respect for his Canadian classmate, the high priestess of intellect.

Katherine then calmly sought to clarify our predicament. "Right. Based on Astrid’s findings, we know Morse is linked to, if not orchestrating, a widespread operation called Gruppo Crogiolo. We've heard that his dealings rank his assets comparably to David Koch."

"Koch is a massive exaggeration," Astrid frowned. "Actually, by orders of magnitude."

Who else could articulate ideas like these?

"Okay, I concede that," Katherine replied. "My point is, his wealth is phenomenally greater than one would derive from a small firm mining coal and exploring for oil and gas."

"That’s for sure," Astrid agreed.

Katherine continued, "We know nothing about partners, but you believe he must have them. And now you tell us this expanding entity was largely built on trading Iranian oil during the long embargo!"

"This is what frightens me more than anything," Sean interrupted. "If Morse has been doing this right under the noses of the State and Justice Departments, revealing it to the press could lead to incredible scrutiny. And yeah, Nick, we might end up in a much worse situation than being sent to one of those black sites, possibly ending up in a sausage factory."

"Sean!" Astrid exclaimed. "Aren’t you the one who got queasy in the human anatomy lab? How could you even imagine such a disgusting outcome?"

"You can’t fathom the depravity of my imagination," Sean retorted. "But what about Morse’s blatant disregard for the law? Is this man completely untouchable?"

"Seems so," Astrid replied.

"Alright, if I may continue," Katherine said. "Astrid also revealed that Morse’s organization is transitioning to, or is being supplemented by, hacking into international banks. How astonishing is that? Then, José and Nick informed us that over the years, Morse has evaded federal prosecution for violations that have resulted in deaths and injuries in his mines, and that his grudge against Gilligan may have stemmed from a failed sophomore geology class followed by a dispute with a professor that made it into The Press in May 1967."

"Yes, and to add insult to injury, the grievance was denied by the university," Nick added.

"Finally," Katherine stated, "we read on Gilligan’s website this morning that Larnaca Venture Capital, a shale oil and gas investment firm, is funding a Chair in the School of Conservation and Natural Resource Development. Isn’t Larnaca where Gruppo Crogiolo is registered?"

"It is," confirmed Astrid. "But I couldn’t find any connection between Larnaca Venture Capital and Gruppo Crogiolo."

"Dr. Tulkinghorn wasn’t mentioned in the announcement," Katherine continued. "But he’s the only petroleum professor in our school, so this must be the result of a deal struck between Tulkinghorn and Morse in Henry Falls."

Our group fell silent again, overwhelmed by the facts and speculations Katherine had just laid out: a narrative more fitting for a Le Carré thriller than what was unfolding in the backwaters of southern Ohio. The room felt smaller. The picture emerging was staggering. If Morse discovered what we knew about him, his wrath could be just as terrifying as that of the NSA. As I pondered this, I gazed through the sheer curtains covering the windows of the meeting room in the Josiah Brownlow Library: pale light spilling across the table where my twelve conspirators sat, bewildered and frightened. It was late Friday afternoon of the Halloween weekend. A warm, hazy autumn day waned into a mini-skirt-sheer-blouse kind of evening, ready to launch the festivities that would transform uptown Argolis into a southern Ohio version of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

Rubbing his neck and rolling his head, Nick said, "Making the best use of our intelligence is going to be challenging. If we’re too vague, we won’t be taken seriously. If we’re too specific, we’ll have the law seizing us and our computers before you can say 'current,' especially if people in high places also know what we know — the governor, for example. Yeah, we probably would be sequestered for years in some dark prison in Bratislava."

"Man, you really have Slovakia on the brain today," Astrid remarked. "But that’s a better outcome than a sausage factory."

"Leave it to Astrid to know where Bratislava is," José teased. "And Nick, aren’t you bordering on paranoia here?"

"Okay, some paranoia, yeah. But, bro, this situation is a tricky minefield."

"Minefield, sausage factory, what next?" Sean inquired without a hint of irony.

"Les énigmes!" Em suddenly exclaimed. "What?" Zachary asked.

"A minefield of enigmas," Nick clarified.

"And there are others, I hate to say," added Lara, who had patiently waited to reveal the letter she found in her mailbox that morning. "Remember I mentioned that I thought I had recruited Adrienne to implant some misinformation during her next meeting with Morse? Well, I received a letter from her this morning, postmarked October 17th from Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands; two days after we saw her at that unruly meeting eight days ago. Let me read it to you."

> Lara Hedlund > School of Conservation > & Natural Resource Development > Gilligan University of Ohio > Argolis, Ohio 45810 USA

> Dear Lara, > > I’m writing from somewhere in the Caribbean, probably the U.S. Virgin Islands. The man unexpectedly took me the night of the meeting — a three-plus-hour trip on his corporate jet from Parkersburg. So far, so good, but I’m anxious about what might happen next. Just in case something beyond my control occurs, know that I did relay info regarding the PCSA/ClimateThrong meeting. He says, “students are clueless,” and he intends to proceed with drilling under Blackwood. That’s not news to you.

> I uncovered something about possible motives. Look into Morse’s history with the Barstow family; something happened in 1964. There’s revenge in that story. Also, I’m witnessing how little I knew about how incredibly wealthy the man is. His isolated mansion on high cliffs here must have cost ten million, maybe much more. He has a big yacht, complete with crew. Talk about the .0001%.

> Now my challenge is to secretly pass this to one of his servants to mail from Charlotte Amalie. She and her daughter, the chambermaid, have been kind to me, and she seems reliable. Can she know about his perverted hobbies?

> Your anxious friend, Adrienne

After she finished reading, Zachary exclaimed, "Holy fuck! Was Adrienne sleeping with that old man for information?"

"Yeah, if one were to put it bluntly," Lara replied.

"It seems like Adrienne directed us to investigate Morse’s history and motivations," Sean calmly observed. "Perhaps that could yield something significant."

"I agree," Lara responded. "So, I called Malcolm Barstow. You remember him?"

"Yeah, the caretaker of Blackwood," I replied.

"Right. Malcolm and I have shared many cups of coffee in his kitchen. He’s always been kind to me. He once told me he didn’t care for Morse. He said that Morse is not a good person. In my call this morning, I asked him directly what happened in 1964. With great hesitation, he revealed that Morse had a crush on his younger sister, Belinda, but another 'suitor,' as he described it, entered the picture. Belinda and this other man ended up marrying, leaving Morse jilted. That was the gist of it. Malcolm believes Morse still harbors a grudge against the family, which now consists only of him and his daughter and granddaughter in San Diego."

"Is Belinda still alive?" Sean inquired.

"No. She passed away a few years ago due to complications from open-heart surgery."

"Too bad," Katherine remarked. "Okay, this, combined with his failed course, might explain his obsession with Blackwood. It's a human-interest aspect of the story, let's say, not something legal, right?"

"Yes, that’s correct," Lara agreed. "But I need to share something else. I’ve had a chilling feeling since Adrienne and I spoke outside The Jenny. I sensed that night she might be in over her head with Morse. She mentioned something sinister driving him; that he’s a serious head case. I asked if she felt in danger. She assured me she could handle him."

"Has she reached out since the seventeenth?" Katherine queried.

"No, and that’s what worries me, although she’s never been reliable in her communication."

"Have you tried contacting someone who knows her?"

"I would, but I have no idea about her family or friends. I don’t even know where she grew up."

Astrid quietly jumped onto Google, scurrying from site to site, opening and stacking them one over the other. "Aha!" she squealed. "Lara, check this out." She rushed around the table, laptop in hand, to show Lara the Virgin Islands Police Department blotter.

> October 21: 09:16 — MISSING PERSON > A missing person, Ms. A. Foster, was reported to the desk sergeant by Mr. J. Morse, of Bartley Bay Road. Ms. Foster had been a guest of Mr. Morse. Detective Wesley Rollins has been assigned to the case.

"Was Adrienne’s last name Foster?" Astrid asked.

"Yes," Lara replied, burying her face in both hands.

3 THE ROOM GREW QUIET. Katherine wrapped her arm around Lara’s shoulders. Lara emitted soft, almost inaudible breaths. I found a tissue and passed it across. Frank tried to relieve the tension in a room that felt like a tomb. "Are we in some kind of Masterpiece Mystery episode?" he asked. Few at the table could understand that, typical of Frank’s references.

José smirked and asked, "What galaxy gave birth to you, Frank?"

"Check it out. Great BBC mystery dramas, every Sunday night."

"Sunday nights, every night, in fact, I’m rehearsing," José said. "Back to basics," Nick interjected, still gazing at Katherine and Lara, perplexed by the open-heartedness of the women, a state of being foreign to him and driven by motivations he lacked. "Alright," he stammered, "we’ve got powerful information here, and since the permits for drilling have been granted, it’s time to use it. Astrid, would it be better to focus on the banking hacks, thus avoiding Iran, international boycotts, shadowy shell games with oil revenues, and organized crime?"

"I doubt it," she responded.

"Why?" Nick pressed.

"First, the pathways to hacking into accounts in large banks are convoluted and hard to justify. Secondly, my expert colleagues who might understand how that works are reluctant to speak about it."

"They're involved in this kind of hacking, then?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Why do you suspect Gruppo Crogiolo is involved in this?"

"I can’t say."

"Is it because you know and it’s a trade secret or because you just don’t know?"

"Both, actually. I wasn’t informed how my colleagues arrived at that conclusion. I assume it’s proprietary information."

"So, what’s the point of this intelligence if we can’t use it?"

"Good question," Astrid pursed her lips and nodded repeatedly, her left hand cradling her chin. The naive excitement of her early discoveries three weeks earlier had gradually faded. Now, the current reality checks trapped us in a harsh paradox: we had evidence of serious wrongdoing that wouldn’t hold in court and couldn’t indict Morse in time to save Blackwood. Furthermore, if revealed, such evidence could send Astrid and likely everyone else straight to jail.

Taking in Astrid’s gloomy demeanor, the rest of us fell into confusion once more. After some anxious moments, Em said, "I’m not an expert in this area, but I think our best option is to contact the detective in the Virgin Islands."

"I agree," Astrid added. "If I had a few more days, I think I could devise a way to frighten Morse. But right now, he can deny everything, and although I’m fairly certain about the components of his empire, I’m not yet at a point where I can penetrate it."

"Let’s call the detective now," suggested Julianna, the woman of action who would oversee the occupation of Centennial Quad in just a few hours.

"Let me try," Lara volunteered. She left the room.

Fifteen minutes later, she returned. "I managed to reach Detective Rollins just as he was leaving the office," she reported. "He took my details and asked numerous questions. I read him the letter and informed him that I had reason to believe Adrienne was in danger. He said the letter seemed to justify that. He inquired what 'perverse hobbies' in the letter referred to. I told him I couldn’t answer, but that I knew Morse had previously paid for her services. 'Is she a professional prostitute?' he asked. I told him not that I knew of."

"What about Adrienne?" Katherine asked.

"He said there’s no trace of her whatsoever."

"Has he interviewed Morse?"

"Yes. The investigation is ongoing, but Morse has apparently left the island, and so far, Rollins hasn’t been able to reach him. I took a picture of the letter and sent it to his phone."

"Morse is on the run," José noted.

"Probably," Lara replied. "And if so, one might be tempted to assume guilt. Oh God …" she whispered.

"That could be too simplistic," Zachary suggested. "Maybe he’s gone to The Caymans to move some money or is in Europe or North Dakota, doing whatever he does."

"That too is possible," Katherine admitted. "What’s next?"

"I have something, Katherine," I said. "A couple of weeks ago, on the day of the president’s press conference, Dr. Tulkinghorn came into the office with an express mail package. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but later I found the empty envelope in the recycling bin. Like Sydney Fitzpatrick, I inspected it carefully and noted the return address."

"Sydney Fitzpatrick?" Katherine asked.

"My favorite FBI special agent. Just read The Bone Chamber. You’ll get hooked."

"What was the address, and why do you think this is significant?"

I read from my journal. "It was from an Ibrahim al-Nazer at Amerabic Corporation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When I brought Dr. T. coffee that morning, I found him deeply engrossed in the document."

"It may just be academic correspondence or related to Tulkinghorn’s consulting," Zachary argued.

"Is there any way you could find out?" Nick asked.

"Let me try." I excused myself.

"Ibrahim al-Nazer," Astrid interjected, reading from her laptop. "Former Minister of Petroleum for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Currently, he’s the assistant to the CEO of Amerabic Petroleum, Ltd., the fourth largest oil company in the world, wholly owned by the Kingdom."

Nick asked, "Katherine, have you made that call to President Redlaw?"

"No, I wanted to wait until after this meeting."

"I suggest you make the call soon. Inform him of our plans for the weekend: the march and rally tonight, the occupation of Centennial Quad, our presence at the Halloween block party, and the teach-in on Monday. Also tell him that the police in the Virgin Islands are investigating the disappearance of a friend of ours who was with Jasper Morse on October 17th, and provide the name and contact number for the detective."

"So, we’re holding back on Gruppo Crogiolo?" Astrid inquired.

"That would be my recommendation," Katherine replied. "At least until you reach the level of penetration you mentioned."

"Should I keep working on that?"

"Absolutely. That’s just my opinion."

I returned to the room, bringing discussions to a halt. "Anything?" Nick asked.

"Not quite, but maybe soon."

When my phone rang, everyone turned their attention. I stepped out again.

4 BREAKING AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS, I dashed toward McWhorter. It was after five. I hated to keep Greta late. When I arrived at the CNRD office, I found it locked. I knocked gently on the door. Greta cautiously opened it. The office was dark, save for a desk lamp casting a small circle at the work-study carrel. Greta led me there.

"Here’s the document from the Saudi oil executive. It was in a locked drawer in his desk. Read it here. If you want to take notes, that’s fine. I can’t make a copy. When you’re done, I’ll take it back. Before you touch it, put on these gloves."

"You too?" I remarked, noticing Greta’s hands. "We can’t be too careful."

I began reading the single-spaced pages. As I progressed, my mouth occasionally emitted "Ewww," "Ohhh," and "Yuk." In my diary, I scribbled a few phrases with arrows linking one to another.

"This completely disgusts me. Until one of my roommates introduced me to BDSM last year, I was clueless. She forced me to read Fifty Shades of Grey. It made me sick, not aroused. In Morse’s operation, the women appear to have been sex slaves."

"It’s not for the faint-hearted. Nor for women with a strong sense of self, like you."

"Strong sense of self, Greta? Not exactly. But I’m strong enough to be utterly disgusted by sex trafficking, bondage, and assault. What I don’t grasp is: Isn’t Saudi Arabia one of the most conservative and repressive cou