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Privateers - A Blog Novel (Ch.2)

Chapter 2: The Potters Wheel

Sunday Morning

Baltimore-Washington D.C.

Commuter trains on the weekends are desperate, haunted places. They have none of the natural rhythm or timing that makes up its natural environment on the weekdays. You just know you’re not supposed to be on a commuter train on the weekend. It’s like wearing a business suit on Saturday afternoon or a pair of shorts to the office on Monday, there’s nothing technically wrong with it; it just feels wrong.

Despite the fact that it was Sunday morning, David Hastings sat in his usual seat on the train. It felt odd, but it was as if he was required to sit in the same regular spot among all the suburbanite tourists on their way to visit the museums in the Capital as he did Monday through Friday with all the other commuters on their way to the cubicle farms in that same city.

David Hastings woke every day at 5:00 am, even on Saturday and Sunday. He never used an alarm clock; he simply willed it to be. Monday through Friday, his pattern was the same. Wake, shower, shave, eat, work out for 45 minutes either by running or the elliptical trainer in the converted garage of his Condo; read the email that had arrived from his contacts in Europe from the night before and by 7:00am be out the door to catch the train. Even though today was Sunday, the routine was the same.

Like his father before him, at 17 years of age, David Hastings had joined the Marines to get away from life at home. His father, Sam Hastings had been in the Marines for only 5 years before an unfortunate accident that occurred while on duty had stripped him of the one thing he loved; the service. The shame of how Sgt. Sam Hastings was removed from the service would feed a lifetime addiction to alcohol and violence.

The eldest of five bothers and sisters, Dave has been the default parent in a dysfunctional household for far too many of his very young years. One too many fights with the old man, one too many arguments over trivial things that ended up with either himself or his siblings in the hospital or cowering in fear in the corner of their rooms had finally brought Dave to the decision point.

After an argument over whether Dave should surrender his earnings from his after school job to the family, Dave decided it was time to go. He cut school that day and went to the Marine Recruiting office. Afterwards, he went to the bank and took out all of the savings he had accrued over the years lawn mowing and other work that he had performed since the age of 12. For all that work for all those years, it was just 150 dollars.

He placed the money on the kitchen table, and told his father to sign the papers that would allow him to join the Marines. He could have the one if he could have the other. Sam Hastings laughed out loud. Slovenly, unshaven with a beer in hand, took the money and signed the paperwork. He looked at Dave, pointed smiling with his unfilled hand and said “The will eat you alive you little punk. I loved the Corp, and they screwed me for it, they’ll screw you too, just you wait and see.”

Dave had stared his father down many times before; he had lost his sons natural fear of his father long ago. Rage had long replaced the parts of his mind where the fear used to live.

After that day, Dave never again sat face to face with his father. When he left for boot camp, he avoided his father, never looking him in the eye or shaking his hand as left for the airport. He said his goodbyes to his mother and siblings and never returned to his home.

His father would drop dead of a heart attack, while sitting at a barstool just two weeks after Dave completed boot camp. Yet, while his father was long since gone, the image of that day with his father mocking him at the kitchen table would live in his mind for the rest of his life.

Unlike his father, David Hastings made a home of the Marines. He made a fetish of the discipline it provided to his life. The irrational uncertainty of living as the child in the household of an alcoholic had toughened him for the very worst deprivations of military life and rather than be shocked and beaten down by it as most normal men were, he reveled in it.

He became an NCO and moved on quickly to become an Officer. He was the very definition of a “Maverick”. His work as a Battalion level intelligence officer in Lebanon brought him the notice of his current boss, Hugh Teale.

In those days, Hugh Teale worked as the Section Chief in Beirut, but later Hugh Teale would go on to be the Deputy Director of the CIA.

As Beirut Section Chief, Hugh Teale found a Marine intelligence officer that was always informed, inventive, good with a bribe, actually bothered to get to know the local language and customs, and knew more about how to get around in the alleys than his own men did.

After crossing his path many times in Lebanon, Hugh Teale made David Hastings an offer that would change both of their lives. David Hastings would leave his beloved Marines and come to work in the CIA.

That Sunday morning, David Hastings would ride the train to meet with his friend and mentor for the last time.

Hugh Teale

Hugh Teale was old money, old world and old school. Raised overseas at embassy postings around the world, Hugh Teale was very much his fathers’ son. His father came from the intelligence community before the CIA, before the OSS, back when serious people actually said “Gentleman don’t read other Gentlemen’s mail”. Hugh Teales’ father William Teale, actually did read other “Gentleman’s mail” long before it became fashionable and a regular part of government policy to do so.

Hugh Teale was the sort of man that could walk in his underwear across a crowded ballroom in the middle of a waltz and no one would take notice. He was by his nature and style, invisible. He rarely spoke just above a whisper, always wore a hat and overcoat, always leaned forward to talk to you and looked directly into your eyes and poked you with his long dangling, nicotine covered, claw like fingers while he did it. He was the sort of person you always think you see out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look, is always someone else instead.

He was in every sense of the word, “spooky”.

Au Bon Pain – Grand Central Washington D.C.

He sat at the edge of the platform at a table furthest from the customers, a pile of the Sunday paper laid out in front a cup of coffee in the old fashioned style sitting before him. Dave caught site of him as he left the train station below. He knew that the only reason he saw his friend is that in this case at this time, he simply wished to be seen.

As Dave approached, Hugh arose from his seat and delivered in his continental accent a quiet whisper that said; “Good morning David, it’s good to see you again”. He smiled and shook his Dave’s hand and motioned for him to sit down.

Dave smiled and sat down opposite.

“This couldn’t wait for Monday, Hugh”?

Teale Smiled and leaned forward. “By this time tomorrow David, I suspect that you will be very busy indeed. I read your plan. I was very impressed David. I’ve read it half a dozen times since you delivered it two weeks ago. Frankly, I haven’t though about much since I first read it. You’ve outdone yourself, you really did” He laughed and nodded his head and then looked up.

“There are plans that are created to mark time, there are plans designed to make their bosses look good. There are plans that exist to give cover to the fact that the author wasted government money for a year just to repeddle the already known facts as new facts, and then there are plans like this one.

This is the kind of plan that is immediately fed into the shredder.

Why? Because this is the one sort of plan that this town absolutely hates and cannot tolerate. This town hates two types of things more than any other, Failure and Success. Failure gets hunted down because everyone wants to be the big scalp hunter that removed the scourge of failure from the land. It’s an easy kill and it’s easier to hunt down a failure than it is to make something work of your own. But by far the most hated thing in this town is what looks to be a shot at success. Success changes the game, once the people of this country find that its possible to actually “do something” they will start to clamor for it more often, and we cant have that now can we, Dave”?

Dave smiled and wondered where this was all going.

“So good plans, I mean really good plans are smothered in their cribs before they can do any harm to the bureaucracy at large, which as you know must be protected at all costs. I immediately fed your plan into the shredder the first time I read it Dave, It is truly that good”. Hugh sat back in his chair as Dave sat across from him flummoxed, not quite knowing where to go next.

“Hugh, the thing is, after 20 years of working with you, I can never tell if you are insulting me or praising me from one moment to the next”

“Occupational hazard dear boy. My apologies” Hugh said, grasping Dave’s upper arm.

Hugh started again “ I discussed the basic theory of this, ahem, plan of yours with a couple of friends from college who are staying over the weekend in Camp David”, he said with a wink.

And? Dave said askance with a wave of the hand.

“The plan that you have created, to say the least my friend, was received with great interest. David. This is a plan that will change the game. Plans that are actually going to change things cannot be executed from within the company. The company is rotten with corruption from stem to stern. This plan, if it is to survive, must be done from the outside if it is to have any chance of success at all. That’s why I’m meeting with you now, here on a Sunday”.

David, your lovely, plan has been “approved” and that my boy is why I’m going to have to ask you to resign. You see, you’re the only one who can see how this plan will work and I will need you on the outside to do it, and you need to start right away. The longer this thing sits around the bigger the chance that someone will come to see that it never sees the light of day".

Hugh Teale, leaned back and looked at his protoge and friend David Hastings right in the eye. He leaned over to the table took his cup of coffee and said “ Here’s to 'privateer' my boy"” and tipped his Styrofoam cup with a small salute.

Dave Hastings had put it all on the line with one simple plan. Before the plan had started, it had already cost him his career with the CIA; but it would be worth it if the plan worked.

It was, as Hugh said; "a game changer".

(Note: Chapter 3 will appear on Sunday, Feb 25th)

Posted @ February 22, 2007 10:05 PM | Blog-novel | Comments (6)

Privateers - A Blog Novel

Chapter 1: Mud.

Rain in the desert has the effect of being both welcome by the inhabitants and particularly cleansing for the surroundings and yet totally disruptive to both things at the same time. A host of things that may have survived intact for a thousand years or more in the dryness of the desert can be washed away into total obscurity with just a few moments in the rain. Once those small seemingly insignificant drops of water join together, the force can move the mountains and redefine the borders of countries. Rain, it has been said, by its absence or abundance can change the history of man.

Rain, and its ability to hide and obscure the actions of man would serve once again as the process by which change would come to the deserts of the Middle East.

The Iranian City of Ilam

For six days, a slow moving warm front had lingered across the mountains that span the western provinces of Iran, turning the ground of the desert into a literal quagmire. Mountain streams, creek beds, and finally the rivers had their fill of the rain and began to overflow. The populace as well, had more than had its fill of the most unseasonable rain. Because of the rain, because of the number of washed out bridges that occurred through the region, because of the mud making mire where once was once a road; ground travel in the western part of the Islamic Republic had come to a stand still at the worst possible time of the year.

The rain and its after effects on the desert were making the annual pilgrimage to the shrines of Samarra more difficult for the Shiite inhabitants of Iran than it had been for many, many years. Throughout the western provinces, the followers of the Shia sect of Islam had found themselves delayed on their spiritual journey not by politics, war, pestilence or disease, but by of all things, the unlikely abundance of water in the desert.

The monotonous thumping drumbeat of the helicopters of the Iranian Revolutionary Army moving about the countryside around the city of Ilam replaced sounds of trucks on the highway, reminding the local inhabitants of all the small towns of the western provinces that not everything in the world had come to a complete standstill because of the rain. The Islamic Revolutionary Army was still on duty, defending the faithful from the infidel, both at home and abroad. The thumping sound on the horizon was a constant reminder.

Each time the blades of the helicopters bit into the air with the characteristic “THWAP-THWAP-THWAP” as they moved about, the sound was to the man in the streets of Iran a reminder of their place in the world much like the bark of dogs to an intruder. Police dogs, prison dogs, military helicopters; the impact on the psyche of the populace at large was the same, and as such largely ignored except when noted by their absence.

In the pre-dawn hours just after a passing line of thunderstorms that precipitated out of the unseasonable warm front, the population of Iranian city of Ilam heard and all but ignored the sound of helicopters as they moved across the city and into the mountains just east of town. Like a great magic trick where all is in clear view to the audience and yet no one sees a thing, the inhabitants of Ilam had all failed to take any notice of this act of deception that was cloaking the actions of people who were working behind the scenes to disrupt their lives.

What the inhabitants did take notice of occurred an hour later when the electrical power that fed into the city of over 30,000 suddenly ceased to be. When the authorities noticed this and tried to call other parts of the Islamic Republic to find out why such a thing had occurred; they also noticed that the telephone exchange for their region was also no longer functioning.

It was going to be a long day in halls of government of the city of Ilam, and yet, the sun was not even completely above the horizon. When the helicopters returned from the mountains just east of the city and passed directly overhead and turned south, no one on the ground in Ilam made the connection that the two events might somehow be connected.

There was no reason to take notice of the helicopters. The military commander of the local garrison watched as they flew low over the garrison compound and half-heartedly waved at them as he had done a hundred times before. The pilot of the lead aircraft looked down, smiled and half-heartedly waved back, just has a hundred other pilots had also done before. And why not, they were just five helicopters of the Iranian Revolutionary Air Force, clearly marked and of the same 1960’s vintage American Bell 204 “Hueys” that had made up the core of the Iranian Armed Forces Helicopter ranks. They flew over the garrison fortress on the edge of town as per standard procedure and then along the highway going south along the border with Iran and Iraq, just as they always did hundreds of times before.

The garrison commander should’ve looked closer at the helicopters, but he had no reason to. That was the whole idea; only he didn’t know it at the time.

After six days of rain turning the region into an impassable mess, the city of Ilam was full of Shia pilgrims on their way to Samarra, trying to cross the border into Iraq to travel to the shrines of the Shia Imams. Now to complicate matters, the power was out, as well as the phones. The Islamic revolutionaries of Iran had often touted themselves as a way to return the faithful to a world much like the glory days for Islam of the 9th Century. It was at times such as this that the populace was reminded of just how easy it was to accomplish this so called “revolutionary” goal.

Military helicopters, their comings and goings, simply didn’t raise an eyebrow by anyone in this part of the country, in this time of year, in this type of emergency.

Morning prayers would have to come first. The military governor would have to be advised in person of the situation with the power and the loss of phone connections to headquarters. The inhabitants of the town could only prepare to survive yet another humid day that was now matched with the monotony of listening to their neighbors gas powered generators as they all conspired to rattle the plaster off the walls of their homes, desperately trying to keep their refrigerators and televisions working. The clatter and the exhaust from all of these individual machines in all the homes around the city would make life in the city unbearable in a very short time.

Yet by noon, an entirely different set of helicopters would visit the garrison compound in the city of Ilam. The agenda of the men who would arrive that afternoon by helicopter would be along an entirely different course than that set in motion by the almost entirely unnoticed, yet very significant helicopters that were last seen moving south along the highway from the city.

(Note: Chapter 2 will appear on this site Feb 21th.)

Posted @ February 18, 2007 06:15 PM | Blog-novel | Comments (1)

Announcement

Ok,

As we all know, I've been suffering from a big bout of 'blog-block' over the past month.

It's been very frustrating, but I think I've found what the problem is and I'm going to make a small change in direction for a bit.

From here on out, from time to time I may make a quick comment about something in the "world o' politics", but for the most part, I'm finished with that whole process. It's just not that interesting to me anymore. I've made the same arguments for the past three years, over and over and frankly you either get it or you dont. If you don't get it, one more deeply linked essay from me isnt going change your mind.

If you do get it, then you dont really need to hear it again, now do you?

So just to sum it all up -

(The condensed cream of three years of blogging) -

- It's way to early for me to talk about 2008, I really cant get up the steam to go on about that considering the last election just happened. All I can really think about is how old I feel compared to the way I felt in 2000. It seems like a billion years ago that we were arguing about 'dimpled chads' and 'talking down the economy'.

- Yes, everytime I think the Democrats have reached bottom, they get out the backhoe and continue to dig a new basement.

- Yes, whats left of the Republican party seems as out of place and hard to fathom as a man dressed in a 1940's grey pinstripe suit, with belts and suspenders wearing a pair of brown shoes with white socks and highwater pants at an elegant black tie dinner at the Playboy mansion. You wonder who let him out of the house dressed like that and if he knows that his zipper is down and that that there is a big piece of spinach stuck in his teeth.

- Yes, John Kerry made blogging easy and now that he's gone theres hardly any sport in it at all. The minute he opened his mouth it was as if you could hear carnival music and your vision was filled with the sight of a line of target ducks that would walk right in front of you. You Blogging BB-Gun would begin to plink almost out of instinct rather than thought.

"John Kerry reporting for duty"
Ker-plink
"I voted against it before I voted for it"
Ker-plink
"I still have the hat"
Ker-plink, ker-plink, ker-plink...
Ok, I wont run for president.
Ker-Ah man! I can't shooot a defenseless animal...!"

- Yes, European Governments (for the most part) really arent our friends. I dont think I need a post a week to make this clear to you after all that weve been through.

- No, I dont want to laugh at the crazy female astronaut. Mental illness, the real kind - is not terribly funny to me. This woman was a professional of the highest order and there is no second act in her life. This is a tragedy, nothing more, nothing less. I wish someone would look at that, but the fact that she "wore Depends" seems far more interesting to most people.

- The New York Times is not interested in truth, its only interested in ratings. The only thing thats really surprising is that they have managed to create conditions at that newspaper that ensure that they can deliver neither of those things, despite having a near monopoly in their market.

- No, I dont want to make fun of Anna Nicole Smith, dead or alive. She just doesnt seem funny to me, her life or her death. Although I have to notice that once the HUGE fortune that was beqeathed to her began to finally come into being; people all around her who would be in line to get the forture if, something 'bad' were to happen to her, seem to have started dying fairly quickly soon after. Shades of Shakespeares Richard III?

- Yes, I still think Bush is a great President. I think that now more than ever. Most of what people say they know about President Bush usually hasnt happened. I spent an hour last week arguing with a friend over the "Bush wont let the Park Service say how old the Grand Canyon is" canard. Even when I pulled the article for Michael Shermer ( who both started and ended the baseless controversy ) as evidence that it simply wasnt true, it didnt matter. The narrative was there, and that was all that mattered. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere. It's not what you actually do in history that matters, its what people who fake the history later for their own purposes want you to do to fit their biases and bigotry that really matters the most. (Funny? isnt this exactly the sort of thing that they accuse the President of doing? Its like a 'hall of mirrors' or something, The Bush Presidency is sort of like the end of 'Lady From Shanghai' or something. Help! I'm caught in an endless loop of BDS...aarrrrggghh!)

- Yes, I think that invading Iraq was 'worth it'. I sometimes feel like an abolitionist arguing against slavery in the south before the civil war, but I do think that liberty, freedom and democracy are worth fighting for and are noble causes and the pursuit of such things for the world serves the nation well. I also think the aberrant, Jihadist Islam is worth fighting against whenever and wherever possible. We are in Iraq if not for any other reason than thats where the war is at the moment. If it were to move, I would hope that we would move as well, but as of late, I have my doubts. We seem to be a society thats moved to the next shiny object in our line of vision.

- Whats the biggest surprise since 2001? That most of the war against the terror would actually be in political wars against my own countrymen. Should we fight or not, should we use our intelligence services or not, should we interrogate or not should we bother to do anything with them at all or not, all those battles - and in a political sense they were very messy indeed - were fought at home. In 2001, I would never have guessed that what has happened would have happened. It was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. Al-queda, the actual object of our righteous anger, seems to have been smashed to bits, something I doubt that anyone on the left wants to admit had everything to do with the way that President Bush so steadfastly brought the war to them.

And that about wraps it up. It took 813 posts to say that and less than a paragraph to sum it all up. That says everything there is to say about the self-absorbed world of blogging.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, starting tommorow I will begin posting something new. I call it a "blog novel". I started this blog simply as a way to teach myself to write, and there is a great deal of speculative things that I want to think about and write about. Simply providing links and essays on the subject only goes so far. So, write is what I set out to do, and thats what I'm going to do now.

I've written the first 15 posts for the first of these 'blog novels'. The first post of this new form will be online tommorow evening. I will post a new entry each Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. I will use the narrative form to explain some portion of the 'war on terror' or some other subject, rather than write an essay, I will use this new form to illustrate my point.

I hope its both instructive and entertaining.

We will just have to see how it goes.

(And thanks for everything...)

Posted @ February 17, 2007 11:15 PM | Blog-novel | Comments (5)

calling all cars!

Calling all cars, calling all cars! Be on the lookout for a Kasper Gutman and his associate, a Mr. Joel Cairo(pictured above), they are wanted for questioning in the theft of the Maltese Falcon from Johns Grill on Ellis street.

Contact Lt. Dundy or Detective Polhaus if you have any information as to the whereabouts of these two characters.

Posted @ February 12, 2007 08:15 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

North Korean prison break?

Interesting news from North Korea:

"...About 120 North Korean prisoners have escaped a political concentration camp in the northeast of the country and security officials in the area are on high alert, said news reports.

The prisoners escaped the concentration camp in Hamgyong, a province close to Chinese and Russian borders, in December, reported the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper on Wednesday..."

First off, no information gets out of North Korea that Noth Korea doesnt want to let out.

Second, this apparently happened in December but is just making heads turn in the south today.

Third, that old devil 'logistics'. 120 people, who need 1,000 calories a day just to stay upright are on the move in the countryside and on the run from the authorities. You might manage to break out of prison by yourself and manage to scrounge enough to eat to stay alive and still manage to stay hidden from the guards, the army, the police and the local gentry; but if you and your group gets bigger than, oh, lets say five people, you are going to be found rather quickly. 120 people going anywhere on any terrain in any conditions will tend to leave a hell of alot of material behind, so they tend to be easy to track.

So what happened? Did the camp authority just collapse, and this is not so much an organized escape as a case of something more attune to a group of escaped farm animals walking away from a farm by leaving out the front gate?

Did they get help from outsiders? if so, from where and by whom?

Very interesting. I'll be watching for more...

UPDATE: ohhh. its the guards!

Now, this is even more interesting!

"...The Hwasong prison camp -- located deep inside a mountain and encircled by high wire fences -- holds about 10,000 prisoners, Daily NK said. The escape seemed to have been carefully planned with outside help since the escapees drove off in a vehicle waiting outside the prison, according to the report.

Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are believed to be held in prison camps in the communist North for political reasons, according to U.S. government data.

Separately, Daily NK reported Sunday that 20 North Korean guards along the border with China had fled the country to avoid arrest for allegedly helping North Korean defectors cross the border..." (allegedly? does CNN really need to say 'allegedly'?)

Bribes? Organized resistance to authority? In the socialist peoples paradise of North Korea? my worldview is shattered...

UPDATE II: More details here.

Posted @ February 07, 2007 04:58 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

agony

I have the worst case of 'bloggers block' that I have ever faced.

This is the 16th striaght night that I've written a post just to scratch the damn thing and start over at the end.

blech...

Posted @ February 06, 2007 11:25 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (5)

astronaut love triangle

Well theres something you dont see every day. A NASA astronaut who goes off the handle in an attempt to keep her boyfriend.

My first thought when I read this is that at Mess Halls around the world and in the galleys of Aircraft Carriers are men and women who were turned down by NASA, who after reading this story realize that their slot into space was taken, not by a better pilot or aviator, but by a crazy woman. You will be able to tell who they are because they will be rather animated in their speech patterns and perhaps a little more honest than usual about their assessment of other pilots. I'd stay away from them today if I were you. They are likely to be a very bad mood.

My second thoughts on this are not for general publication.

Posted @ February 06, 2007 07:39 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)

Rudy, Dont fail

I'm just telling you now so as to rapidly 'cut to the chase' on the endless sillyness that surrounds the blogosphere on "who supports who", I'm for Rudy.

The man who broke the back of the mafia, the man who cleaned up 42nd street, the only candidate at ground zero on 9/11. He's an inspiration, He's upbeat and he's all smiles. He's a happy guy. The rest of the candidates are like 'proctologists on parade'.

Edwards? - Kerry, without all the natural advantages that come from years of Swiss schooling, a French accent and a beret.

Obama? - Replaces the word 'gossamer' in the english language as metaphor for 'lightweight'.

Hillary? - Oy, there isnt a man in the western hemisphere who doesnt involuntarily cross his legs when she appears on TV. She'll be out by super Tuesday... Chorus of 'where's bill' grows everyday and goes unanswered. The first time he shows up on the hustings, her campaign ends within 14 days.

Biden? - 'Bidencide': The inability to shut the hell up when talking about any subject, causing all in earshot to seek relief by slitting their wrists involuntarily.

Romney? - Theres a guy like him in every class I ever taught. Shows up on time, dresses nice, does his work and does it well, doesnt distract from the material being taught and often helps the other students in his free time. I always find myself wondering "what's wrong with his guy?, why can't he just be, you know, normal? Whys he got to throw off the curve for everyone else"? When you see someone without obvious flaws, it just makes you suspicious of deeper, more dangerous flaws. For example, axe murdering homocidal maniacs are always described (after the fact ) as "quiet and nice,always said hello but kept to himself didnt bother anyone".

Keep an eye on this guy, he's up to something I just know it.

McCain? - The family great uncle, who everyone dreads being sat next to at thanksgiving dinner, because for the entire dinner you will get to hear about his most recent bowel surgery, even if you heard about it last year, you get to hear about it again, in between the yams and the stuffing, you get to hear in great detail about the pain and indignity of having a bowel resection and how colostomy bag technology has really come along since they gave him his version (just look...)

President Giuliani - its just got a nice ring to it.

Roger is for him too, which just about wraps it up for 2008. Why even hold an election?

(Yeah, its a 'clash' song for the 80's and I've dated myself again...)

Posted @ February 05, 2007 12:23 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)