He let go virtually the entire executive hierarchy, providing all with pensions he hoped he could afford, and replaced them with like minded computer-oriented young bulls-and cows-for he hired by talent, not gender.
By the middle fifties the technological advances his teams of long-haired, jean-clad, pot-smoking innovators came up with had caught the attention of the Pentagonwith a shock and a thud. The patience of the sharply pressed "uniforms" was sorely tried by the despised, ill kempt "beards" and "miniskirts" who casually placed their feet on polished tables or buffed their fingernails during conferences while they patiently explained the new technology. But their products were irresistible and the nation's armed might was substantially increased; the y family business went global.
All that was yesterday, thought Clarr Ogilvie as he threaded through the backcountry roads that led to his house. Today was a day he never in his wildest nightmares had thought could come to pass. He realized that he had never been the most popular player in the so-called military-industrial complex but this was beyond the pale.
In short words, he had been labeled a potential enemy of his country, a closet zealot who supported the aims of a growing Fascist-Nazi-movement in Germany!
He had driven into New York to see his attorney and good friend, John Saxe, who said over the phone that it was an emergency.
"Did you supply a German firm called Oberfeld with electronic equipment that involved satellite transmissions?"
"Yes, we did. Cleared by F.T.C." the export boys, and the State Department. No end-user contract was necessary."
"Did you know who Oberfeld was, Clarr?"
"Only that they paid their bills promptly. I just told you, they were cleared."
"You never examined their, let's say, their industrial base, their business objectives?"
"We understood their desire to expand electronically, their specifications. Anything else was up to Washington's export controls."
"That's our out, naturally."
'What are you talking about, John?"
"They're Nazis, Clarr, the new generation of Nazis."
"How the hell would we know that if Washington didn't?"
"That's our defense, of course."
"Defense against what?"
"Some may claim that you knew what Washington didn't know.
That you willfully, knowingly, supplied a bunch of Nazi revolutionaries with the latest technological communications equipment."
"That's insane!"
"It may be the case we have to fight."
"For Christ's sake, why?"
"Because you're on a list, Clarr, that's what I've been told. Also, you're not universally loved. Frankly, I'd get rid of that Duesenberg of yours."
"What? It's a classic!"
"It's a German car."
"The bell it is! The Duesenbergs were American, built mostly in Virginia!"
"Well, the name, you understand."
"No, I don't understand a goddamned thing!"
Clarence "Clarr" Ogilvie pulled into his driveway, wondering what he could possibly say to his wife.
The elderly man with the shaved head and the thick tortoiseshell glasses that magnified his eyes stood thirty feet from the line of passengers validating their departures on Lufthansa Flight 7000 to Stuttgart, Germany. As each produced his or her passport, along with an airline ticket, the only pause in the procedure came when the clerks checked passports against an unseen computer screen on the left side of the counter. The bald man had been processed, his boarding pass in his pocket. He watched anxiously as a grayhaired woman approached a clerk and presented her credentials.
Moments later he sighed audibly in relief; his wife walked away from the counter. They met three minutes later at a newspaper stand, both studying the displays of magazines, but neither acknowledging the other, except in whispers.
"That's over with," said the man in German.
"We board in twenty minutes. I'll be among the last, you be there among the first."
"Aren't you being overly cautious, Rudi? Our passports and the photographs show two people completely different from our true selves, if, indeed, anybody is remotely interested in us."
"I prefer excessive caution to indifference in these matters. I'll be missed in the morning at the laboratory-I may have been missed already if one of my colleagues has tried to reach me. We are approaching breakneck speed refining the fiber optics that will intercept international satellite transmissions regardless of frequencies."
"You know I don't understand such talk-"
"Not talk, dear wife, but hard, solid research. We're working in shifts, twenty-four hours a day, and at any moment an associate may wish to check the research in our computers."
"So let them, dear husband."
"You are an unscientific fool! I have the software, and I've spread a virus throughout the system."
"You know, your bald head is far less attractive than your waves of full white hair, Rudi. And if I ever permit this much gray in my hair, I'll forgive you if