Author’s note: I promise there will be at least one more story for Blessed By the Algorithm. But I also mentioned an upcoming book. And . . . here’s a sneak peek.
Chapter 2 of Domestic Threats
Navy checked Meredith’s handwritten note again. 1400. US National Arboretum. Holly and Magnolia section. 38.9, -76.9. I’ll bring chairs! If not for the cheery ending and the latitude/longitude numbers, Navy might have felt like she was doing a drill for an undercover op.
She picked the path closest to Meredith’s coordinates and entered the grove of trees. Spring in Washington, DC was one of the few pleasant times. Today, the park was nearly empty. It was a weekday, after all. And the cherry blossoms were blooming late this year. The normal swarm of tourists had not yet descended on the National Mall.
Navy hadn’t been walking long when she spotted the small clearing, occupied by a woman with long, graying hair. She matched the description Navy had been given. Woman in her sixties, fit, long face, and blue eyes. After you meet her, a coworker had told Navy, you’ll wish she was your grandmother.
As promised, Meredith had brought camp chairs.
Meredith spotted Navy, waved, and then she held a finger up to her lips. Navy slowed her steps to be quieter while Meredith raised a pair of binoculars to her eyes and focused somewhere on the treetops.
Navy didn’t mind waiting. She listened to the noisy chatter of the birds, the rustle of the wind, and the squirrels and chipmunks skittering through the leaves on the forest floor.
After several minutes, Meredith lowered her binoculars. She gestured to the empty chair next to her. “Sit. It’s an honor, you know.”
“An honor?” Navy asked.
“To meet you. I was cheering you on. When you exposed CRYSTAL and went on the run.”
Navy had not expected this conversation to start this way. “You’ve worked at the agency for your entire career and you still feel that way?”
Meredith laughed. “It’s been a long marriage. As they say, some good years, some bad years.”
Navy wondered if Meredith had conflicting feelings about working for the agency, just as Navy did. She had seen some of the good the CIA could do. She also knew, and had been the target of, some of the CIA’s less benevolent operations. “Thank you, for being willing to meet with me.”
“Of course,” Meredith said. “I read the report on how we tried to catch you. And failed. I sensed a kindred soul.”
Navy had been warned Meredith was a hippy. Though, most hippies probably don’t know how to forage for poisonous plants almost anywhere in the world.
“You used their own tactics against them. Let them think you didn’t know you were being tracked. Lay in wait. Then, confuse and misdirect. Let them find you again but leave a bunch of old scent trails to keep the dogs busy. Very clever, really.”
Navy hadn’t felt clever. Desperate and cornered, maybe. “I made a bet,” she said. “Happened to work, that’s all.”
“Don’t we all?” Meredith smiled. “I remember one operation in the jungles of Panama where I escaped using a poisonous snake that crept into my cell. I tamed it by feeding it rats I caught. Could easily have killed me instead, but I like to think we were friends.”
Navy added animals to the list of things Meredith knew how to kill with. “I didn’t mean for you to go to all this trouble. We could have met closer to the office.”
“Oh, I’m multitasking.” Meredith pointed at where she had focused the binoculars. “There’s a pair of nesting Rusty Blackbirds there. I like to check on them. Also, your questions.” She glanced around the clearing. “I wanted to talk where I didn’t have to worry about giving you both opinions and facts.”
“You’re afraid someone might overhear you saying you don’t agree with COVID-19 5G conspiracy theories?”
“You wanted to know if your friend—what did you say her name was?”
Navy smiled. “I didn’t.” She didn’t want Carrie to appear in some CIA file. Not yet, anyway.
“I had to try, anyway. You got my name because you wanted an analyst who understood online conspiracy theories,” Meredith continued. “You wanted to know what kind of things your friend might believe. So you can bring her back to reality. I think you should appreciate how dangerous she might be.”
“Should I be worried about something other than getting COVID from her?”
“Possibly. Did you browse her social media posts, like I asked?”
Navy had. And felt uncomfortable the whole time. She picked the facts she thought she could share without identifying Carrie. “The posts have almost stopped now. But before she stopped posting . . . her taste in music has changed. She’s into a bunch of metal bands with Norse-sounding names. And she got this job at a gun range. Or had a job there? And some of her language, it sounds almost religious. I don’t know. Like I said, she hasn’t posted much recently.”
Meredith’s expression sobered. “Anything else?”
“She lost some close family members a couple years ago. Her posts changed after that. I can’t explain it exactly.” Like she’s still grieving, Navy thought. “I mean, of course she’s still grieving. But it’s like she hasn’t recovered.”
“We should start with a history lesson.”
Navy wondered if she should have brought a notebook.
“Conspiracy theories have always been a joke for most people. UFOs! Little green men! 5G viruses! Look at how crazy people can be! But they’re more dangerous than people appreciate.” Meredith pressed her hands into her lap. “Here’s the thing. We make fun of people who believe in conspiracy theories, but we don’t pay attention to the emotional weight behind them. We don’t appreciate how they soften people up to believe in more and more ridiculous things. Especially if that person is vulnerable.”
“I—uh—”
“Right, I should slow down.”
“Yes, please.”
“Grifters use conspiracy theories that reflect the social anxieties of the time. Why did Alex Jones scream about chemicals in the water turning frogs gay? Because changing gender roles make people nervous. He was capitalizing on people’s fears to sell water filtration units and nutritional supplements.”
Navy tried to follow Meredith’s logic. “You mean that we should be paying attention to what the conspiracy theories say because they tell us what anxieties are motivating the believers?”
“Exactly! Take UFO conspiracy theories. The fifties. Height of the Cold War. What are the ufologists saying? Extraterrestrials have come to warn us about the threat of nuclear weapons. Or maybe to help the communists infiltrate the United States using mind control. Reflecting both sides. The sixties. An interracial couple comes out with their alien abduction story featuring an alien who looks like Hitler, but also aliens of different races mixing. What’s also happening? The Supreme Court is about to rule on the Loving case. But on the other side you have these ufologists in the 1970s and onward developing racial taxonomies for the aliens they’ve seen. What’s the most ‘evolved’ race of aliens? The most Aryan looking ones. Clearly some racial anxieties getting mixed in there.”
Navy was trying to put together the jumble of historical events as Meredith talked. Clearly, Meredith was passionate about her work. And a little hard to follow.
“But what do UFO conspiracy theories have to do with my friend? And the COVID stuff?”
“I don’t mean she’s into UFO conspiracy theories. I just mean . . . my friends tell me I get too stuck in the details. I’m just trying to explain—” Meredith stopped herself. “You said she had some posts about 5G cell towers causing COVID.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“Read between the lines. She’s saying she believes that there’s a mass government coverup hiding widespread evidence of how harmful 5G is. She’s saying she doesn’t trust the government. She doesn’t trust any establishment authorities like the valid science showing COVID is a respiratory disease.”
Navy frowned. “I mean, does anyone really trust the government?”
“You’re confusing skepticism and distrust. You and I, we know the government can lie. We know government conspiracies are possible. But we don’t automatically disbelieve everything any establishment figure says, right?”
“Sure. I just—”
Meredith either didn’t hear Navy or ignored her. “To understand her, you have to follow the emotional truth. If the government can’t be trusted, if the scientific establishment can’t be trusted, then who is she listening to? What community is she trusting? What kind of leaders are in those communities? Who’s profiting off these communities? Who’s power base is growing?”
Suddenly Carrie’s wild suspicions seemed more dangerous. “You’re saying I can’t consider the COVID conspiracy stuff in isolation.”
“Exactly! These communities overlap. They feed on each other. Compete with each other. You have natural health and wellness leaders spreading COVID misinformation and anti-vaccine content rubbing elbows with anti-government elements pushing the idea that COVID is just an excuse for expanded government control. The toxic conspiracy pool seems to be more right-wing than left-wing these days, but it’s never completely one or the other.”
“That’s why you were worried about being overheard. You don’t want someone in the office to accuse you of being biased against conservatives in your analysis.”
“January 6 was . . .” Meredith let her sentence trail off into the sounds of the birds around them. “We didn’t know the scale of the threat because a lot of the FBI’s resources to track domestic extremism were cut.”
Navy remembered watching the news that day. Her apartment was a twenty-minute drive from where the Capitol Police were being attacked. “If the rioters had succeeded—”
“Not rioters,” Meredith said. “Insurrectionists. They were trying to prevent the certification of the election.”
“There’s been lots of talk around the office about how many paramilitary groups were there,” Navy said. “The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 1AP. Even some news about the groups ‘herding normies’ at the protest to get cover for moving around in the crowd.”
Meredith snorted. “As if anyone there was normal.”
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Navy would have said Carrie was normal until a few days ago. “Half the people there were normal. The kind of people you meet every day.” The newspaper profiles were terrifying in their blandness. A teacher. A veteran. A salon owner. A real estate agent. “They were caught up in a movement.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Meredith sighed. “This is why I get myself in trouble. But you wanted advice for dealing with your friend.”
“I want to—” What did Navy want? To protect Sara. And if Sara was determined to help Carrie, that meant helping Carrie. “Can you get me inside my friend’s head? How do you get from normal—whatever that means—to believing that 5G cell towers cause COVID and that vaccines contain microchips and then to preparing for a righteous war against the New World Order?”
Meredith frowned and tapped her fingers against the binoculars. “You said righteous war. And New World Order.”
“Yeah?”
“Another history lesson then.”
Oh great, Navy thought.
“Nineteen forty-five. End of World War II. J.B. Stoner starts his white supremacist Stoner Christian Anti-Jewish Party. The agenda’s right in the name. But Stoner and his followers are getting kicked out of KKK meetings.”
“But I thought the KKK was anti-Semitic?” Navy couldn’t help being curious.
“They are now,” Meredith said. “But 1945, remember? The Allies had just fought the Nazis. The KKK doesn’t want to be associated with anti-Semitism and Nazis. It would be un-American.” Her words rushed on. “So Stoner and his allies try a new tactic. They join groups like the KKK, but they don’t talk about being anti-Jewish. Now we’re in the 1950s.”
At this pace, Navy worried she wouldn’t get home until dinner.
“Wesley Albert Swift moves to southern California and starts preaching his white supremacist sermons. He becomes so popular his taped sermons are sent by mail all over the United States—”
“Wait, southern California? Land of hippies?” Navy asked.
“You thought racism was only south of the Mason-Dixon line?” Meredith countered.
“Of course not, just . . .” Just not that out in the open, Navy finished the thought.
“Swift was born in New Jersey. Even Canada has its own fascist and nationalist groups. Anyway.” Meredith refilled her lungs for her next torrent of words. “Fifties, sixties, Swift’s sermons are going out all over the United States. Some people are hosting Swift parties to share the word. Assholes like Burris Dunn are forcing their wife and children to kneel while listening to them.”
Navy knew the history of the United States included violent, racist movements. But she didn’t know how recent the history was.
“Meanwhile, the government is getting scared. The FBI is actively using COINTELPRO to infiltrate and discredit these organizations.”
Another fact that set Navy’s head spinning. “I thought COINTELPRO was used to disrupt civil rights organizations.”
“Oh, it was. But it was also used against these right-wing groups. And pretty soon, everyone’s paranoid. We get to the mid-to-late 1960s. The big white supremacist groups are splintering. The Voting Rights Act has been around for a few years. Some racists saw the writing on the wall. They lost the war for hearts and minds.”
“You mean the less committed racists just gave up,” Navy said.
“Right, so who’s left in the movement?”
Meredith waited for Navy to answer.
Navy tried to sort through all the groups and names Meredith had thrown at her for the past ten minutes. She tried to imagine them not just as hateful, but as pieces in a game where there were rules and motivations and a goal. “The hardcore supporters and the infiltrators.”
“Bingo!” Meredith threw up her hands, nearly dropping her binoculars on the ground. “Swift, Stoner, and all of their friends spent years infiltrating these orgs and pushing them just a little bit further along. They always agreed about the hating non-white people thing, but now they can talk about anti-Semitism openly. Now they can talk about Jews running the world. They can revive the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that fell out of favor.”
By Navy’s count, they had fifty more years of history to get through. Why was Meredith taking so long to get to the point?
“Nineteen eighty-two. Louis Beam, a former KKK Grand Dragon, visits the Covenant on a remote farm in Texas. He has a Commodore 64 in his car. And an idea.”
“The Commodore 64 was one of the first personal computers,” Navy said. “They’re museum pieces now. But who are the Covenant?”
“A white supremacist group. They call themselves Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord.”
More religious influences. Navy had an unsettling feeling. “This isn’t just a history lesson. You’re being evasive.”
Meredith pressed her lips together. “I’m trying to prepare you. So you understand the context.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Navy knew she should be grateful. But this tour of the worst moments in US history was exhausting.
“So Beam’s idea is this,” Meredith continued. “Organizing in large groups is dangerous. The government will get eyes on us. So let’s use this Internet thing. I mean, it wasn’t called the Internet then.”
“You’re talking about dial-up Bulletin Board Systems,” Navy said.
“White supremacists were one of the first groups to see how useful online misinformation and hate speech could be. Beam proposed building up a network of small cells of believers all over the US. Decentralized domestic terror cells. Harder to track.”
“So people could host their racist bullshit on their own personal computer at home,” Navy said. “And other people in the movement could log in to their friends’ bulletin boards and download the content and maybe post it on their own bulletin boards.”
“And later they evolve, right? BBSes aren’t a thing anymore. Now it’s Gab, 4chan, 8kun, Parler, YouTube videos, X or Twitter posts, groups on Telegram or Facebook. Wherever these movements can get around platform moderation rules to spread their ideas, they will. This shit has been around on the Internet since day zero. Just waiting for whoever is vulnerable to it.”
Navy felt her stomach drop. “What do you mean, whoever is vulnerable to it?”
“You asked how a person could get from normal to believing in any of this. We call it a cognitive opening. There’s a personal crisis of some sort. Or maybe a few bad years. And hopefully, the person suffering finds a good community of people who help them through. But sometimes . . . sometimes instead, they find a group who takes advantage of them. These hate groups, they offer people community and purpose.”
“I don’t understand.”
“One more story?” Meredith asked. “Last one. I promise.”
“Sure.” Navy wished Meredith would get to the point. She was still being evasive.
“Say you’re a struggling farmer in the 1940s and a member of the Stoner Anti-Jewish Christian Party wants to recruit you. The recruiter doesn’t start out talking about Satanic Jews. They talk about how hard it is to be a farmer. How the banks don’t treat you right. How the government screws you over. They earn your trust. Build an emotional connection. Then, when the recruiter thinks you’re ready to be radicalized they say they’re going to let you in on a secret. There’s a reason why you’re miserable and everything seems stacked against you. And, oh by the way, guess who runs the banks and the government.”
“You’re talking a lot about anti-Semitism. Why?”
Meredith looked away. “I—that phrase you used. New World Order. It’s often associated with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And you said she was into heavy metal now. We keep an eye on the heavy metal genre because there’s a persistent subculture of white supremacy. Not everyone. But enough. Particularly bands with Norse-sounding names. Some of those bands overlap with the extremists in the Odinism community.”
“Odinism . . .” Navy remembered the prison guard Kevin had framed last year. Innocent? Hardly. He’s part of a racist offshoot of Odinism. “You’re saying my friend is involved with these assholes.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I’m saying it’s a possibility. The religious language, the idea of a righteous war, the genetic superiority of white people, it’s right out of Swift’s sermons. These groups don’t just commit violent acts. They use violence to provoke conflict. They have a goal. Researchers call it provocative violence.”
Navy was afraid to ask. “What goal?”
“They have this idea of the end times, not a rapture as Christianity typically understands it. They think the end times will be a holy race war, where righteous men will be called to be soldiers in the Army of God.”
“Jesus,” Navy said. Then realized the irony. “I mean—that’s fucked up.”
“So your friend. Maybe she went through a hard time and this community found her and she doesn’t know what the movement leaders really stand for.”
“What if she does?” Navy realized she had asked the question out loud.
“Don’t be too loyal.”
“Too loyal?” An odd description to jump to. That’s how Kevin had described her last year. As if the two of them had read the same file on her. “That must be in a psychological profile the company has on me.”
Meredith smiled. “They have several. Are you really surprised?”
“I guess not.” Navy shouldn’t be. “And what’s wrong with being loyal to a friend?”
“Look, if you can reach her, great. But these movements—” Meredith closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m a peace, love, and understanding sort. I’m a Christian and at my church we preach respect and tolerance. But we can’t tolerate everything. These movements kill people.”
Navy shook her head. She knew what Meredith meant and she didn’t want to think about it. Would Navy be willing to turn Carrie in? Could Navy hurt Carrie if she had to?
“The Oklahoma City bombing, the Tree of Life shooting, all the other attacks that have happened in the name of hate. We call them lone wolf attacks, but that’s bullshit. This is the plan Beam and his contemporaries had all along. Stochastic violence. Create the environment for these ideas to thrive. Inspire people to fight violence with violence.”
“I can’t imagine she would ever . . .” Navy shook her head again. “She’s my friend. We grew up together.”
“You were also described as introverted and principled. That’s what I’m betting on.”
In her own work, Navy had read several psychological profiles. They were clinical yet intimate at the same time. Each element of a person’s psyche laid out for examination, like the viscera of a dissected animal. Meredith’s casual treatment of Navy’s own dissection was unsettling. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Navy asked.
“You are motivated by your own internal compass, and you try very hard to do the right thing.” Meredith shifted in her chair. “I’ve made you angry. Of course. Introverts don’t like feeling exposed.”
Navy got up to leave. “Does anyone?”
“No one warned you, I suppose. You didn’t come into your job the normal way.” A storm of chattering and churring erupted from the treetops. Meredith closed her eyes to listen. A large reddish bird flew over their heads. “The mating pair just drove off a hawk.”
Navy wasn’t interested in any more bird facts. Or any more facts from Meredith, really. “Thank you for your time.”
“Wait—” Meredith held up a hand. “I was going to say, no one warned you about the sacrifice you make when you join the company. The CIA will keep lots of secrets from you, but you don’t get to keep any secrets from them.”
Jackson hadn’t warned her. But when Navy had been offered the job, the company had already built a file on her and everyone she knew.
“I think that’s why I like blackbirds so much.” Meredith raised her binoculars again.
Navy tried to imagine what Meredith was seeing. A nest shifting in and out of view as the wind stirred the leaves. Navy could hear the parents calling out defiantly in case the hawk considered returning.
“Blackbirds mean so many things to so many different cultures,” Meredith said. “Contradictory things. Death. Rebirth. Lust. A shape-shifter. A protector.”
What did this weird woman want from her?
“Of course what I said about you being principled is a compliment. The agency might know everything about you, but only you know who you are.”
Thanks for the fortune cookie, Navy thought.
“A bit of advice, if you don’t mind.” Meredith continued looking through her binoculars. “Having a conscience makes working in this business hard, but not having one will make it harder to sleep after you leave. Take it from someone who’s close to retirement.”
Meredith sounded very much like the grandmother Navy’s coworker had promised. Navy wavered between resentment and curiosity. No one had offered her a survival strategy before. No one else at work had referred to her ethics as anything but a roadblock.
“I know you’ll do the right thing.” But Meredith’s tone didn’t sound like praise.
Her tone reminded Navy of the woman who could look a poisonous snake in the eye and charm it into attacking her enemies. What Meredith meant was I expect you’ll do the right thing. And I’ll be watching.
“Oh, and Navy?”
“Yes?”
“You have my number. Call me if you need to.”
Navy escaped to the wooded trail. Involving Meredith in Carrie’s rescue operation would be a double-edged sword. Any opportunity to help was also an opportunity to control. Would Meredith be keeping tabs on Navy too now? Would Meredith find the social media accounts Navy had created just to see Carrie’s timeline? Could Meredith find Carrie through Navy? Had Navy already done the wrong thing?
p.s. You don’t have to read the previous novels to pick up this one, but if this piques your interest in the previous novels they’re here.