When I set
out to write thrillers, I wanted to create a suspenseful narrative, with excitement,
tension and anticipation in the best traditions of the genre. But like most
authors, there is also a theme running through my books. A theme is a thread
which is woven through the story. Love. Death. Solitude. Revenge. Redemption.
Maybe all of the above.
The
themes, which I draw on have evolved from my reading over the years. I start
with the premise of the story, and almost subconsciously a conspiratorial theme
emerges, underpinning the plot and narrative. It gives the story a force, if
you like
The phrase
which best describes the theme of my new American Ghost series of books in 2018
is the “deep state”.
So what exactly is the
“deep state’?
According to Mike
Lofgren, a former Republican U.S. congressional aide, he described the deep
state as "a hybrid association of elements of government and parts
of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United
States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through
the formal political process."
In my book, ROGUE, the first in the American Ghost series, the
shadowy deep state organisation is called The Commission. It is made up of
former CIA Directors, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other
senior military officials who have drawn up a kill list of people they believe
are a danger to American interests, including a popular libertarian leaning US
Senator. My protagonist, Nathan Stone, is tasked with killing the senator
during a high-level security conference in Scotland.
And the Commission are backed, financially by a mysterious
billionaire who they report to.
But does the deep state
even exist? Some believe it is simply a convenient bogeyman catch all phrase to
describe an axis of unelected bureaucrats, military types and banks. But if the
deep state does exist, why should we care about it?
In The Concealment of
the State, Professor Jason Royce Lindsey argues that even without a conspiratorial
agenda, the term deep state is useful for understanding aspects of
the national security establishment in developed countries, with emphasis on
the United States. Lindsey writes that the deep state draws its power from the
national security and intelligence communities, a realm where secrecy is all
encompassing.
It was the brilliant English author George Orwell who warned of the all-encompassing
intrusive secret powers of the state in his masterpiece dystopian vision of the
future, 1984.
It portrays a nightmarish
future where the people are subjected to omnipresent government surveillance
and public manipulation, amongst other things.
These concerns are real,
not imagined.
According to the American Civil Liberties
Union: “The government’s surveillance programs have infiltrated most of the
communications technologies we have come to rely on.”
Alfred W. McCoy said the increase in the power of the U.S. intelligence
community since the 9/11 attacks “has built a fourth branch of the U.S. government"
that is "in many ways autonomous from the executive, and increasingly so.”
The espionage writer, John Le Carre, in his 2013
A Delicate Truth, portrayed the “deep
state” as a wealthy elite; the “non-governmental insiders from banking,
industry, and commerce”. And it is within these shadowy elites, privy to
information, which enables this cabal to rule in secret.
Ultimately, the deep state is perceived by some to be all
about a shadow government pulling the strings, out of sight.
Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law professor and senior fellow at
the Hoover Institution, in a Guardian article adapted from his essay Paradoxes of the Deep State, alleges
there have been attempts by the “deep state” to undermine the current US
President, no less, said:
“ . . . even if we
focus narrowly on the intelligence bureaucracies that conduct and use
information collected secretly in the homeland, including the FBI, National
Security Agency (NSA) and National Security Council, there is significant
evidence that the deep state has used secretly collected information
opportunistically and illegally to sabotage the president and his senior
officials – either as part of a concerted movement or via individuals acting
more or less independently.”
These are extraordinary allegations.
Whether the deep state actually exists in reality, or only
in the fevered imagination of a thriller writer, it is probably true that there
are forces at work of which we know not what they do.
Thomas & Mercer (7 Jun. 2018)
