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[ A paperback of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged turned up at the library in the used book section. Browsing my way through Ayn’s turgid prose, I searched for the exciting parts I remembered from my youth. I found them. Atlas Shrugged is a stupid book, infantile in its perceptions, but none-the-less a major achievement: It’s impressive to see how much verbiage can be packaged as declarative sentences, written back in the 1950’s when both writing and typing required lots of manual labor. So, in celebration of 57 years of Atlas Shrugged, here’s the parody. Enjoy! – Kevin ]

*****               *****               *****               *****               ***** 

“What about Pluto Kratz?”

The bum, smelling of whisky and bad breath mints, shambled towards him in a suit that barely maintained a semblance of JoS. A. Bank. The result of years spent sleeping in alleyways atop plastic bags of other people’s garbage, the cloth was now a mosaic of black tar stains and brown blotches of congealed fat. Encircled by a miasma of putrid odors capable of turning away a rabid dog at 50 feet. Whatever designer label it came from, the apparel now hung lifelessly upon the bum’s emaciated frame.

“Why Charles Atlas?” asked the bum. “Who is the Coney Island bully who kicked sand in the face of a 97-pound weakling?”

So unnerved was Skylar McDonald, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his billfold and handed the bum a $10 banknote and two food coupons.

“It would be nice,” smiled the bum with teeth so gnarled and ugly, Skylar was forced to look away, “if your charitable contribution could take the form of a  cash-only transaction.” Stoically, the bum returned the pink coupons to Skylar’s trembling fingers. Giving the bum another tenner, Skylar hurried down the sidewalk. The blinding yellow rays of the sun fought valiantly to penetrate the smog immersing the city, but alas, to no avail. Everything was bathed in a sickly orange light.

A quadricopter book company delivery drone caromed off an office building and crashed on the sidewalk in front of him. Nabokov’s Lolita spilled onto the pavement.

Looking upward, Skylar shuddered at the ten story high banner hanging from a skyscraper on the opposite corner. With her brutal likeness staring down at Skylar in grim satisfaction, the leader of the free world smirked above the legend Big Kahuna Is Watching U.

Soot was both the natural smell and ambience of the city, the cracked walls of pigeon-crazed office tenements sprouting like mushrooms from the earth, fecund, multi-faceted, virtually indescribable in their 40-story diversity. Needless to say, Skylar felt dread. Irreproachably. Irrevocably. Like, totally, man.

Had it always been this way? mused Skylar. He couldn’t remember. You elect a Socialist mayor and things go from bad to worse. That much Skylar was sure of. Thinking no more of global warming engulfing the planet, the frightening visage of the bum who had accosted him this morning, drought conditions in the midwest, colony collapse among the bees, Muslim terrorists, Palestinian intransigence or his own precarious financial situation, Skylar pushed his way through the revolving door at the street entrance to the Mercury Mercantile Association Building. Everyone knew bee die-off was due to Communist agitation. Clutching his briefcase across his chest in both hands, nowhere near the start of his work day, Skylar was already bathed in sweat.

 

Chestnut Hill sat in the 11th floor conference room facing the East River and vaped on a trad peppermint e-cig. Out of politeness, she extended the elegantly inlaid mahogany box of e-cigarettes across the table to the little man with the bristly hair-do and thick glasses.

“What?” he asked. “No. I don’t smoke.”

Both of them absent-mindedly folded yellow cash register tape into 6-inch loops that could be squashed flat and stored. Even an employment interview required a bare minimum of blue-collar labor. That was the law. The Railroad Administration produced tons of cash register receipts every day. A semi-permanent record, each tape needed to be unwound from its plastic spool, neatly folded in 6-inch lengths and pressed flat.

“We got the contract for the D.C. Purple Line,” Chestnut explained didactically. A millennial, she had graduated from Harvard and become one of the first to grab the brass ring under the black president. That was ten years ago. Now she was head of the Railroad Administration: railroads, light rail, metro and streetcar systems. According to the new federal program, they all came under her jurisdiction. “This is what happens,” she always commented ruefully, “when you elect a Socialist president.” The press, of course, christened her “the rail czar” and made her sound like a bull dyke in heat. There was good reason for them to call her “cynical Chestnut Hill.” There was no room in her world view for Latinos marching down Broadway shouting “Help!” in Spanish. Even though she had put on 20 pounds, with her rosy Irish milkmaid complexion, high cheekbones and pointy English nose, Chestnut was still an attractive woman. And only in her late 30’s. “Attractive and brilliant,” people said about her, sneering. Bank vice presidents listened to Chestnut Hill.

“I’m offering you the anchor position,” she now emphasized for King Whitlow’s elucidation. “Manager of the Bethesda, Maryland station, right at the base of the Purple Line. I repeat. Position: Manager. There are people who would kill for this job.”

“I don’t want it,” replied Whitlow nasally. He reached for another roll of cash register tape.

Chestnut’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re a little young to retire at 50,” she surmised. “You’re the best we’ve got. Why not take the job?”

“I… don’t… want… it,” Whitlow replied evenly, looking half asleep, fingers busily making loops in the yellow paper.

“Why? What are you gonna do instead?” jeered Chestnut, blowing clouds of vapor in frustration. “How much is SNCF offering you? Are you going to work for DB, Deutsche Bundesbahn? Really, however much they’re offering you, I’m authorized to meet it.”

“It’s not the money,” the older man said petulantly. Stacked by his right elbow, there was already a mound of folded paper half a foot high.

“Okay, what’s the fucking secret?” Chestnut asked, out of patience.

“It’s not secret,” Whitlow replied bitterly. “What about Pluto Kratz?”

 

They met in the room with the clocks on all four walls, showing the current time in 20 different capitals of the world. A railroad runs on time. Chestnut pulled her most trusted lieutenants around her— Russ Wayne, Pyötr Taggert, Rolls Royce, Sven Polson, Skylar McDonald, Bruce Ogilvie. The night shift left nothing to chance: Heaps and heaps of yellow paper graced the conference table, waiting to be folded. “That little twerp Millwot— ”

“King Whitlow,” corrected Russ Wayne and then shut up.

“Yeah, well. Whatever. He has refused my offer,” Chestnut announced grimly, hands clasped to the armrests of her chair to keep from reaching for an e-cigarette. “He may be the best, but he said ‘no.’ ”

“Why?” ventured Skylar, shocked at the news. Shocked. “How much are the Germans offering him?”

“It’s not that,” Pyötr Taggert chimed in helpfully. “He refused our offer in protest over the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Once again, the Jewish occupier—”

“What?! That can’t be right!” Wayne and Royce both tch’ed.

“I have the floor! May I please finish?” Pyötr asked petulantly.

“I’m not Finnish,” remarked Polson. “I’m Swedish.”

Everyone ignored Polson.

“The Israeli occupier has once again blocked statehood for the poor little Palestinian people,” Pyötr exclaimed. “No wonder Walnut refused our offer. BDS— ”

“King Whitlow is his name, if anyone’s interested,” said Russ Wayne.

“BDS— as I was saying. Boycott, divestment, sanctions.”

“Be that as it may,” Chestnut replied icily, “there will be action this day!”

 

Turning from the surly cashier behind the counter of the lunch line, Ogilvie spotted his friend. She sat at a near-by table, a young, blond woman in a drab white blouse, her blue eyes staring at him like pointy little daggers. Suddenly, her face dissolved into a mask of total merriment. Wrinkling her nose, her bow mouth formed a cute little O. “Ha ha ha ha ha! ” spit her ruby lips.

Feeling himself floating, floating, Ogilvie approached her table. “M-May I s-sit h-here?” he stammered like a schoolboy.

“Sit down, silly,” she giggled in that strangely nagging voice of hers. Nailing him with her 1,000 watt blue-eyed stare. Ogilvie stumbled into the seat opposite her. Sometimes, delirious with pleasure, he felt like he was dealing with a 12-year-old. “How are you?” she quietly sang, kicking off her high-heeled shoes under the table. She had already finished folding seven yellow rolls of cash register tape. “Such strange weather we’re having. It’s so hot,” she suggested. Immediately, her right foot shot up to Ogilvie’s crotch and her little toes began pressing… pressing… pressing at the fabric of his trousers. Her eyes grew larger. Larger. “How are things at the office?” she whined.

“We’re replacing Hendricks as manager of the Metro station in Bethesda, Maryland. On the Purple Line, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. With Zim Bobway from Syracuse!” he blurted, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. He reached for a roll of cash register receipts on its black plastic spindle.

“That’s nice,” his friend frowned, a sweet furrow materializing between her sky-blue eyes. Munching on lettuce with a white plastic fork, she commanded Ogilvie to please continue.

“Zim’s being flown in tomorrow. By management. On board a secret flight into La Guardia. Nobody knows about it!” Ogilvie babbled, folding the yellow paper into 6-inch lengths, grateful that his little friend let him prattle away without recourse, his penis engorged like a watermelon, her sweet toes kneading his swollen, aching crotch. Those toes! Those pearly digits painted with pink nail polish. Kneading, squirming, pulling, pressing. Satiated, he had never felt so secure, so loved, so alive!

He stared at her helplessly. She gazed at the ceiling, at the walls, pressing his crotch under the table with her right foot. She was so sweet, so angelic. Ogilvie couldn’t remember when he’d first met her. It seemed to him that she had always been there lurking in the background of his life. All he knew was how much he loved talking with her in this otherwise antiseptic, noisy, inhospitable lunch room of the Railroad Administration. Even while folding cash register receipts, he felt joy. Being with her meant he was no longer alone.

 

After dinner with his 73-year-old mom, Skylar spent a half hour folding cash register receipts and then texted his younger brother Maurice, a Major in the U.S. Air Force: * Regards from supper club Pericles. The lambchops & seafood stew exquisite. Tartufo for dessert. Mom suggested I text & torture U re what U R missing. LLBK *

LLBK. Long Live Big Kahuna. The only way to make sure that the NSA let a text message go through was to include some super-patriotic reference. As for the supper club, prescient to the coming shortfall of foodstuffs and potable water, ten years ago Skylar’s mom had insisted that he take out a lifetime membership. Skylar and his mom were now among the few people in the city who managed to eat well.

Maurice replied almost instantly: * U 2 R truly evil! I am just now on my way home after flying Reaper drones in formation. Tricky. I look forward 2 leftovers and anything else I can forage. In summary U, & especially mom, R EVIL! Enjoy! I miss U both. *

Selecting erotic software manufactured privately for use on the Xbox 880, Skylar turned down the lights, settled onto the couch and reached for the dildo-shaped joystick. Stroking the flesh-colored, rubberized surface with his fingertips, sensors set the built-in motor to vibrating. A programmable virtual memory chip simulated actual learning, as the joystick recorded user preferences and constantly sought new ways to please. “Mein liebchen,” crooned the sound system, as naked, nubile German fraulein avatars popped three-dimensionally from the screen and began serenading Skylar’s supine body.

 

“Well?” Chestnut demanded, slapping an old-fashion slide rule against her thigh rhythmically.

“He wasn’t on the plane,” Russ Wayne reported. “Nor was he on the flight manifest. I called Syracuse. Looks like somebody shanghai’d old Zim on the way to the airport!”

“Nobody knew we were bringing him down here. I need to fill that Metro station manager slot in Bethesda pronto. It’s as if somebody knows our every move. So the bastards kid-napid Zim,” she concluded, using the popular new pronunciation. “I’m always amazed how politicians find ways NOT TO DO what they wish to avoid.” Blushing in frustration, she stared out the window at the East River. “We’ll see how much the bastards want for poor old Zim.”

 

A thought-control agent under contract to the city, basically a gun for hire, blond, 23-year-old Lisbet was sick of this job that entailed folding paper. She got amusement, exercising her power over poor Ogilvie, but anything would be better than the mind-deadening paper chase included in this assignment. Cash register receipts? Pul-lease! Printed in hard copy on paper? Get real! How primitive can you get? Trolling the back alleyways for drug dealers, prowling the strip joints, illicit clubs and after-hour speakeasies of the city, was a good bit more dangerous, but AT LEAST IT WASN’T BORING. A technology from the 1800’s, Lisbet found the Railroad Administration extremely boring.

“And then this expatriate Russian bitch writes novels portraying individual entrepreneurs as supermen! According to her, Socialism is the root of all evil,” groused Ricky Smith, sitting at a sidewalk table in front of Joe’s Coffee House in The Village. Normally, Lisbet wouldn’t tolerate Ricky’s facile opinions. The fact that what he was saying, sitting there in his black leather jacket, struck Lisbet as trenchant, showed just how innately empty her life had become.

“What’s the problem, Ricky?” she asked, taking a seat. Imagine, a whole day without any goddam yellow paper to fold! Amazing!

“This bitch authoress is attacking Socialism,” Ricky exclaimed in that innocent, naive way of his. “Control of the economy provides the proletariat with security and long-term advancement. Anything short of that is treason!”

“Ricky,” Lisbet sighed, getting up and turning to go. “Give it a rest!”

 

Zim Bobway, a railroad executive and all-around fixer, awoke lying on his back inside a pine box. It was pitch black, but Zim had no problem smelling the pine only an inch or two from his face. When he tried to move, Zim found he was bound head to foot. Gradually, he realized that the stench of urine was quickly becoming overpowering. He had wet himself. Forcing himself to stay calm and think rationally, he wondered when they would come for him. But what if nobody came?

 

Vacillating between righteous indignation and abject terror, Skylar answered a federal subpoena, logging onto the Ethernet to give Congressional testimony in the case of The Find and Kill Cult. Mercifully, at least one committee member sensed Skylar’s predicament and gave him some breathing room by soliciting an overview of the national situation by a fuddy-dud sociology professor from Harvard. The professor’s description: Since only half of one percent of the population had accrued any real wealth— houses, condos, stocks and bonds, boats, planes, horses, jet skis, island retreats— the vast majority of the great unwashed had to devise entertainment free of undesirable overhead. Abandoning low-cost pursuits, people found and created their own so-called    no-cost activities.

Then it was Skylar’s turn to elucidate on the attitudes and mores specifically related to Find and Kill: “Paintball without the guns!” he began. A stony silence greeted this revelation. Clearing his throat, Skylar decided to avoid all analogies in the future. “Donning inconspicuous clothing,” he explained, “participants stalk one another through the cavernous canyons of the Financial District between    2 a.m. and dawn.” Members had created all kinds of rankings for themselves. Anyone who repeatedly avoided getting tagged before sunrise while still managing to sign in and leave a thumbprint at each “station” in Lower Manhattan moved up from beginner to novice to skulk, leopard, stealth and, finally, grand master.

A leopard, Skylar tried to define the finer points of the game to this group of elected officials who apparently feared that any activity this unregulated represented a clear danger to public order and morality. The Socialist chairman said as much: “I am appalled! What you are describing is barbarous. What you’re doing goes against the very grain of American society. This is thoroughly disgusting! It’s reprehensible!”

As the cult’s oldest practitioner, the other participants had asked Skylar to be their spokesperson. “It’s just a game!” he found himself pleading. “We don’t hurt anybody,” he claimed. Without appreciable success. The Congressmen asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to initiate an investigation.

“Anyone having this much fun in secret,” declared the committee chairman ponderously, his bushy eyebrows furrowed in censure, “must be breaking the law!”

 

And what of the phantom creature Pluto Kratz? Everyone participating in the hearing felt his presence. Strange, disquieting rumors placed him in Altoona, Pennsylvania one day. Then Oilville, Virginia the next. Beijing. Stockholm, Sweden. Tibet. Even living over a garage on Euclid Street in Washington, D.C. Unable to nail him, the government went after the small fry instead.

“They seek him here, they seek him there, but where the Hell is he?” late night TV talk show hosts joked in their monologues.

To no avail. The man was a mystery wrapped inside a riddle placed inside an enigma.

And the clock was ticking. Loudly.

 

“Nicht vergessen.”

A gnarly old Jew with a hairy mole on his chin the size of a chancre belched raw garlic at Skylar McDonald, seated under the canopy at Shangri-La. Skylar decided to ignore him.

“Lampshades the Nazis made, out of human skin,” nagged the Jew.

“Leave me alone! ” swore Skylar, banging his fist on the table, bringing the young, pretty waitress who promptly asked him if he wanted another Tuborg.

“You mistake my meaning,” said the Jew. Seated at the adjoining table, he bent almost to the floor in a two-minute coughing fit. “The point is, they never caught on as industrial production, not the soap, not the lampshades. The manufacturing process proved entirely too labor intensive.”

Handing the waitress a blue food coupon, Skylar fled the Shangri-La. Only to succumb to the realization that the old man’s explanation was now seared into Skylar’s consciousness for all eternity. What a fool he’d been to think he could seat himself— unescorted— at a public watering hole without being badgered by some malcontent! Never again! Tomorrow, he’d buy one of those green and white buttons from the Manhattan Holocaust Museum that said “Never again!” He’d do it first thing in the morning.

 

“Nicht vergessen.”

Where had Ogilvie heard that? it seemed to come at him from out of the woodwork. At work, at home. A whisper. A thought. Half formed. What did it mean, anyway, “don’t forget”? Never forget what? Ogilvie wasn’t sure. He wished he had someone to talk to about it. Lisbet. He needed to consult Lisbet. He missed staring into her Carolina blue eyes. He missed exploding into his underpants like a geyser. But she had moved and left no forwarding address. She was gone. Who knew where? Ogilvie didn’t even know if she still lived in the city.

“Nicht vergessen.” Don’t forget. Everybody was an authority these days regarding World War Two… in Europe. Hitler, the Nazi war machine, the Reichstag fire, the Vilna ghetto, the camps: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka… Hermann Göring. Nuremberg. Enough! Instead, Ogilvie made himself into an expert on the war in Asia. Pearl Harbor. The rape of Nanking. The occupation of Manchuria, which the Japs called “Manchukuo.” The Bataan Death March. Iwo Jima. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima. “Fat Man,” the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Allied occupation of Japan after the war. Occupational currency in Peso denominations.

“Hitler’s most intimate friends called Eva Braun ‘the Angel of Death,’ ” Stuart Clarke would say, quaffing a microbrew at the bar in the Birdland nightclub. Disco balls hanging from the ceiling bathed the patrons in a shifting kaleidoscope of colored light.

“One thousand five hundred Japanese soldiers had their heads cut off by the Sea Dayak headhunters of Borneo,” Ogilvie shot back, smug in his encyclopedic brilliance. “The natives prized Japanese skulls for their roundness, straight black hair and gold teeth.”

“Militarily, the firebombing of Dresden did not hasten the end of the war by a single day,” claimed Stuart Clarke.

“The hulks of sunken Japanese warships still litter the roadway at Subic Bay,” Ogilvie informed him.

Life was good.

 

The body was never recovered, but intuiting what had befallen Zim Bobway, Chestnut Hill arranged for the burial of an empty casket with full military honors. She had “Died in the Line of Duty” chiseled on his headstone. Forty New York City policemen attended the funeral, although the Socialist mayor complained “He was no cop! I thought he worked on the railroad.”

“All the live long day, chief,” answered the mayor’s executive assistant, a dapper fellow who may or may not have been gay.

Zim’s ghost, transparent as a shroud, haunted the grave, murmuring the epitaph Zim would have preferred:

*****          *****      I WAITED BUT NOBODY CAME      *****          *****

 

Skylar found Lisbet so easy to talk to. She was such a good listener! Just sitting there staring into his eyes. Listening. He found he could tell her anything. “I remember what it was like in the old days,” he reminisced. “When I was young… er, younger… We used to march in the streets chanting ‘Ask yer dad, ask yer mama! What d’we want? Get rid of Obama!’ We never actually accomplished anything, but IT SURE FELT GOOD!” Blushing, he laughed.

“You can feel good now,” Lisbet suggested, kicking off her shoes.

” ‘Scuse me?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Move your chair, silly! ”

Skylar moved his chair.

 

“You putrid piece of gefilte fish!” Chestnut ranted, stamping her right foot impotently. Skirting the wreckage of a U.S. Army MQ-5B Hunter drone splayed across the tracks, she wiped her forehead with a tissue and reached for an e-cig. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??? I don’t have time for this. I have to get to a Senate confirmation hearing for the person nominated to become the new manager of the Metro station in Bethesda!” The GPS on her smartphone watch indicated they were stranded somewhere on the Purple Line, adjacent to East West Highway, whatever that was.

Once upon a time, she simply would have called the White House and gotten choppered out of there. Ha! What a joke that had become. Even when Congress budgeted for the presidential helicopter fleet to maintain stand-by status, Chestnut had taken her fair share of abuse from exasperated air traffic controllers, thank you very much. “Ma’am, I can slot you in for 7 p.m. tonight,” they always claimed. And that was on a good day! Restricted air space, priority was given to ambulance helicopters, the presidential entourage, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, drones belonging to foreign embassies and whatever else the NSA decided to cast aloft at any given moment. Since Washington, D.C.’s traffic congestion was now ranked # 1 in the nation, automobiles were out. Chestnut was reduced, like 60% of the folks, to riding the Metro. When it ran.

Climbing laboriously around the front car of the train after tapping the metal wheels with a tire iron, clank, clank, clank, clank, Sol the white train driver said, “Madam, I do find your attitude somewhat offensive. Perhaps others are putrid pieces of gefilte fish, but not I! If you cut me, do I not bleed? No man is an island, cut off from the main. A bird in the hand can feed a family of five. Mankind is creative, but only God can make a Metro station. Better to be proud and right than not to be right at all.”

“Okay, already,” seethed Chestnut. As of this moment, Sol was still the only white Metro employee she had ever met. “Just fix the damn train!”

 

Wearing Giorgio Armani and working for an airline in the business of leasing executive jets, Ogilvie introduced Skylar to his wife. The cocktail party was a little stuffy, but everyone pretended to be having a good time, so as not to insult the host, who, after all, was the Sultan of Dubai. Ogilvie had wanted a little Asian beauty with whom he could cuddle. Someone to adore. Instead he found himself married to a female Hirohito. Within a week, she had gotten him to parley his railroad career into a lateral transfer to the airline industry. Sporting Vandyke facial hair, a shaved head and padded shoulders, this new Ogilvie was on the up escalator.

 

Sometimes people are their own worst enemy. Just ask the folks in what used to be Iraq or Syria. So when Skylar got a text message from his brother Maurice    * FYI – YR NEIGHBORHOOD UNDER ATTACK BY JIHADIS INVADING HOUSE BY HOUSE. EVACUATE! M. * Skylar was inclined to listen and obey. Less so his mom.

“I don’t hear any gunfire,” she groused.

“Don’t worry,” Skylar assured her. “You will!!!”

“This is my home. I have a right to live and die in my own apartment, not get shipped off to some refugee camp run by UNHCR.”

“Oh, you’ll die in your home, all right,” Skylar promised, rushing around like a madman, grabbing essentials: five gallon jugs of water, flashlights, batteries, blankets, sheets, plastic utensils, paper plates, canned goods, toiletries. His smart phone. His tablet. Identity papers. “GET PACKING!” her shouted at his mom. Who dawdled. Until she really did hear gunfire. One street away.

“They should get the local police or the National Guard to protect this part of Manhattan,” she suggested crabbily. “We pay our taxes!”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

“Using profanity doesn’t make your case any stronger,” she insisted, even as Skylar dragged her to the SUV. “You elect a Socialist president,” she bitched, “and look what happens! Anarchy.”

“Please, please, please move your ass!” Skylar pleaded, pulling on her arm.

They drove three blocks before getting caught in traffic. “We’re going for a walk,” Skylar declared, breaking out the backpacks.

“I’m too old for hiking. I’ll sit here until the traffic clears. There! Look. The cars are moving again already.”

“No, they’re not. Now come on!” Skylar raged. Pedestrians were hitting each other with their fists, others were screaming along the sidewalks, someone waved a handgun, there was a shot, and people started running in a wild-eyed panic. The noise grew deafening, the dust choking. Hmm, thought Skylar, this must be The Big Apple! He pressed his mom against a soot-covered building, shielding her with his body. White-faced and trembling, she looked every one of her 73 years. “We should have voted Republican,” she observed.

The populace wasn’t totally defenseless. Every few blocks, there were stormtroopers from PayPal— paid by the bullet to fight— who engaged the jihadis in bloody little skirmishes that were no less deadly for being limited in scope.

Drones filled the sky, chattering like lawnmowers, eyeing everyone with spooky turret cameras.

Suddenly, Skylar and his mom were surrounded by jihadi rebels wearing camo and green headscarves. The rebels carried a mixture of captured M-16’s and AK-47’s. Amazingly, some semblance of order re-established itself. At gunpoint, people stopped in their tracks, silently staring. Including Skylar. A flamboyant, bearded fellow— shades of Che Guevara— a little older and paunchier than the rest, eventually came marching down the sidewalk. Accosting Skylar, he demanded, “Nu, bro? Who are you???”

“Skylar McDonald,” croaked our hero, desperately pulling out his wallet. Which almost got him shot dead by the nervous young militiamen.

“Man,” sighed their commander. “Don’t ever make any sudden moves. Man!”

“Yeah, um, sorry,” Skylar acknowledged sheepishly.

Ignoring Skylar’s proffered documents, the bearded rebel commander pulled out his handgun and marched up the sidewalk, shooting people in the head. “Free enterprise!” he announced. “We’re letting the market decide!”

“Oh, hey, what d’ya want?” called a Wall Street type in a dark blue suit, white shirt, silk tie and brown Gucci casuals, carrying a briefcase. “Are we talkin’ money here? If ya let us all go, I got a caseful. It’s all yours, brother… Sir.”

“Please!” said the commander, gesturing. “Approach.”

As soon as the broker got within ten feet, the rebel leader raised his gun and shot him between the eyes. Disillusioned, people began running for the nearest street corner. Amidst the ensuing carnage, the commander returned to Skylar and his mom. “How old are you, granny?” he asked.

“I’m 73!”

“To what do you attribute your longevity, madam?”

“Clean living and pure thoughts!” insisted Mrs. McDonald.

“This is true?” the commander asked Skylar incredulously.

“It makes it fucking Hell to live with her,” Skylar conceded.

Greatly amused, the rebel leader appointed a three-man detail to escort Skylar and Mrs. McDonald to a U.N. assembly point two blocks away. As soon as they were out of earshot, the three young men robbed Skylar and his mom of all their valuables. They let them keep their food, water and papers. Reaching the corner of 47th Street and First Avenue, they said, “Okay, you go!”

“Here?” asked Skylar, pointing. “There?”

“Yeah! Move ass! U.N. There!” replied the young men, losing patience.

Skylar and his mom rounded the corner and joined the throngs of people approaching the olive green trucks, khaki uniforms and blue helmets of the United Nations forces.

 

Getting acclimated to the camp, a tent city built on mud flats by the municipal dump, Skylar couldn’t believe how beautiful some of the young refugee girls were. They struck him as dumb as blocks of wood, but Skylar still wanted to fuck the daylights out of them. I must be traumatized by the war, he decided, resolved to get as much poontang as humanly possible. He wasn’t alone. Eating him up with their stares, some of the young ladies seemed to share his passion.

It took forever, but eventually, order was restored. Skylar and his mom got to return home to their apartment. All the food in the refrigerator was rancid, of course, due to power outages, but mercifully, their place hadn’t even been pillaged by marauders.

 

With palsied hand, Skylar wipes the sweat from his forehead and fingers the remote. This is it! No going back now, boy. Pluto Kratz is about to speak. On national television. From the suburbs north of Richmond, Virginia. “The end of the age of mysteries” as the pundits call it. All of it about to come to an end. Skylar pushes the red “power” button on the remote. An ad for cornflakes is followed by an ad for robotic lawnmowers. Skylar realizes he has the wrong channel. Eventually, he finds the infinitely pleasing, benign, kindly avatar of Pluto Kratz, beaming beatifically at him from the enormous screen. The use of enhanced imagery and pulse modification fills Skylar with an almost celestial sense of warmth and well-being. Sighing contentedly, he sinks into an armchair to listen, an idiotic grin puckering the corners of his mouth.

“My fellow Americans! I speak to you today about our common destiny. That which joins our great nation, rather than those petty issues which divide us. I am not concerned about myself. For me, a bowl of gruel, a copy of the Koran and maybe a bottle of vodka a day and I am good to go. I’m liberal that way. I’m not Hugh Hefner, I grant you, but Allah made both alcohol and virgins. We shouldn’t be afraid to enjoy our share of worldly pleasures.

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about America! What plagues us now is chiefly a lack of vision. In the midst of street fighting with rampaging jihadists, war atrocities, starvation and a host of other human foibles, we need focus. Yes, it’s good to have water to drink, but you also have to know to what purpose the drinking of that water is to be put! Not all of life consists of quenching one’s thirst, I can assure you!

“Which brings me to the union of our military-industrial complex and civilian life. A streetcar, here in Goochland County, linking the Arthur C. Clarke Industrial Park in the northwest to the Goochland Civic Center in the south. Symbolizing, as it does, progress in human affairs. Technologically as well as culturally. This billion dollar project will create new jobs in the entire greater Richmond area! It will pave the way for growth at almost cancerous levels. It will attract commerce from every corner of our glorious planet! It will generate revenue for schools, old folks’ homes, public restrooms and other amenities previously unheard of here in Goochland. The last true oasis of human progress!

“By the year 2040, this project will have paid for itself twice over! Florida and California will lie under four feet of water, Arabia will be one endless desert, Asia will be an equatorial flood plain. The good news is, Goochland will experience economic growth and a favorable tax structure. I, Pluto Kratz, would sooner quit my job as a leader of men than burden the taxpayers of this great state with some underhanded, money-grubbing boondoggle. That I would never do!!! For me, the grandeur of the enterprise is way sufficient. Envision what we’re talking here: A 42-mile inter-county streetcar line along Route 250, linking Zion Crossroads in Louisa County to Short Pump in Henrico. With a 28-mile branch line north along Route 522 from Gum Spring to Cuckoo. IT CAN BE DONE!

“Commitments I have made to contractors in America and steel companies in Germany are wholly separate from this phenomenal undertaking. In scope. In character. In total. Those signed documents of economic responsibility have only a peripheral relationship to the monumental concept of the Goochland-Louisa-Henrico Counties Commercial Streetcar Public Transportation System.

“Wow! Double wow! Long may it thrive!

” ‘What does he want? What is he doing?’ I hear them whispering behind the scenes. THIS IS WHAT I WANT. The disarming of America’s Armed Forces, the dismantling of our school system, the dismemberment of our university education have all led inexorably toward this exemplary goal. Ein Volkstram, a people’s streetcar, a mode of transport as pleasing, fulfilling and unique as it is worthwhile. That’s all I want! The best for everyone! Until such later time as I get some other bee in my bonnet and propose something else.

“Thank you and goodnight.”

 

*****                    *****                    The End                    *****                    *****

 

Chapter 1

 

            Varieties of hummus are spread around the table with care, in hopes that the Palestinian delegation will at least show up. Anno 2013 doesn’t promise to be a good year in the nation’s capital. Suffering illusions of competency, our dear president harbors the conviction that if he holds a grand gala for Israelis and Palestinians together, he can head off a right wing sweep in the upcoming Israeli elections. Where’s the big money riding? The ruling Likud party under Benjamin Netanyahu. Also, the Yisraeli Beiteinu party representing the Russian immigrants. A throwback to the Cold War, they are arch conservatives. Shas, under Eli Yishai, represents the Mizrachim, the Jews from Arab countries. Even the Sbarro pizza chain is threatening to run a candidate. Each more doubtful than the other about a two-state solution with the Palestinians. All poised to win many seats in the Israeli Knesset.

“It’s important that we sit down together,” explains Lickety Split, the White House Press Secretary. A total stooge, his is one thankless task. He’s, like, the fourth dude to hold the job in as many years. “That way, Israelis and Palestinians can freely converse,” proposes Lickety sincerely. Converse. Not negotiate. Not, God forbid, hold peace talks!

Under Obama, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

“Why meet in person?” joked the Israeli ambassador during our planning session. “If the Obama White House wants us to chat, we and the Palestinians can choose between Skype, Facebook and Twitter. We can text each other!” Tonight, he doesn’t attend in person, but sends an attractive Israeli woman named Galit from the Public Affairs Division of the Israeli Embassy. She’s accompanied by two able-bodied non-entities.

“Don’t judge us too harshly,” Galit requests. “Israeli society still struggles with issues of inequality, but things are getting better!”

“Fine,” I tell her, “I believe you. I give you the benefit of the doubt.” Lord help me, at this shindig, I’m in charge of security!

“Relax,” laughs shaggy-haired Shlomo from Tel Aviv. “We Israelis always supply our own security. We’ve had years of practice.” He gives me a wolfish grin.

As for the Palestinians, who can we expect?  Maybe noisy negotiator Saeb Erekat who always has something to complain about. Or, for example, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Hey, they’re both no-shows! al-Qaeda in Occupied Palestine (not to be confused with al-Qaeda in Gaza, Jund Ansar Allah) tweets

Still again the Israeli aggressor uses the jackal America

to fool the neutrals!

            An example of what Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, calls “twitter courage.” When people unload piles of crap on Mark’s doorstep, he retweets, showing a million and a half followers what flamers those jerks are. Feisty, he gives back as good as he gets! Or so I’m told. I’m not exactly sure about “retweets.” Isn’t Twitter the same as Angry Birds?

On this side, ladies and gentlemen, for the Palestinians, intransigent but impeccably dressed, Messieurs Mahdi and Abu Saleh. On the Israeli side, juicing up at the bar, cranking up their Dutch courage by the mouthful, innumerable diplos led by top negotiator Yitzhak Roitman. “You know,” announces Roitman, “we have put everything on the table. Anything and everything is up for negotiation! Just don’t come up with that pre-conditions nonsense.”

“WITHOUT PRE-CONDITIONS,” rants Abu Saleh, “NEGOTIATIONS ARE MEANINGLESS!”

“This is like a sump pump in the Negev, it’s a non-starter,” Mr. Roitman jocularly informs the American reps.

BAM! My mouth is hanging open. Just like that, Mr. Mahdi has thrown a punch at one of the Israeli security detail! Who neatly folds him up like a used envelope.

“YOU SEE? YOU SEE!” screams Abu Saleh. “This is how we are treated! Always the Israeli aggressor uses superior force to obliterate the hopes and dreams of the Palestinian people.”

“Your guy threw the first punch,” I quietly intercede.

“WHO ARE YOU???” seethes Abu Saleh.

“Sergeant At Arms. Representing the hotel,” I explain.

“Palestinian anger knows no bounds! I shall not sit still for this provocation.”

“I don’t get it,” I admit. “We have security cameras. Everything is being video recorded. We’ll replay the tape.” Even as I speak, the Israelis are helping Mr. Mahdi to his feet, brushing off his tuxedo, yada yada yada.

“You, sir,” I am told by Mr. Abu Saleh, “are a provocateur! A colonial sock-puppet of the world-wide Zionist conspiracy. WE ARE LEAVING!”

Kind of makes for a short evening.

At this point, dressed in a nicer tuxedo than mine, the president’s Second Assistant Vice Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Smith marches up to me. Me. What did I do? Scott is wearing spit-shined shoes. He demonstratively exclaims in front of everybody, “Pack up your Glock 21, mister, and go home. You are so fired!”

“You can’t fire me,” I remind him. “I’m a contract employee!” One of the perks of working in the private sector. Since Smith looks like he’s about to hemorrhage, I get myself a drink at the wet bar, thank the Israelis for a fun evening and skedaddle.

It doesn’t help that only a week ago, I went to the Off-Broadway play “Rich, Creamy, Delicious,” a laugh out loud musical based on the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres solve the Middle East dilemma by getting totally stoned. “We should have done this a long time ago,” says Rabin, passing a doobie. “I see everything so clearly now!” Arafat uses his awards plaque to massage his genitals. Listen, when even J Streeters consider the Palestinians comical, something’s gotta give.

Driving to my meager lodging across the river in Arlington, Virginia, I am forced to pull over. Four text messages and a voice mail are making my cell phone scream bloody murder. I start with the voice mail:

“Hello, this is Sergei, calling on behalf of the Russian

mafia. We have discovered, disturbingly, that owner of

this cell phone is not paying Russian mafia for proteksia.

We are hoping you will be wise and press ‘1’ now for

protection against— among other things— annoying

and threatening phone call. Like this one. Otherwise,

who knows what might happen…?”

            I press “5” for more options.

Three of the text messages are from an ex-girlfriend who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. The fourth is from Helmutt Security.

“Due 2 nonperformance,” texts my boss, “U R fired. H.”

Win some, lose some. Such is life at the uppermost pinnacle of power.

 

            Beached, I figure I might as well go to Brazil. Local travel agents are offering cut-rate accommodations and Colfax is in Brazil, a punk banshee FBI agent with a steel-trap mind. My own Lisbeth Salander. I reminisce, remembering our azure night together by the side of a motel swimming pool. A dead body in a tuxedo floating face-up. [Publisher’s Note: Cheap Shot, 2013] Wild sex. Wild. Still thinking about her, I use a desktop with Internet connection at the local library (“Please Sign In Here!”) to google her. Too much information. I go to the White Pages website, always a source of useful trivia. There are two dozen Colfax’s listed in the U.S., but only one named Lisa. And she is 54 years old. “Do you want to see the telephone number and address?” Well, d’oh. No, I don’t want to see the telephone number and address! My Lisa isn’t 54 years old.

Last I knew, Colfax was transferred to the DEA, policing the border between Brazil and Bolivia. To stop the flood of cocaine. I google “DEA+Brazil.”

THIS IS A RESTRICTED WEBSITE. DRUG ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL ARE DIRECTED TO IMMEDIATELY CONTACT… yada, yada, yada.

I google the Federales do Brasil instead.

From: JPreacher  To: FdB  Query: Do you know a Lisa Colfax with the DEA?

From: FdB  To: JPreacher  Resposta:  Fuck you! Who asking?

From: JPreacher  To: FdB  Response:  An old friend in criminal justice.

From: FdB  To: JPreacher  Resp: Fuck off!

From: JPreacher  To: Fdb  Resp:  Her former fiancé.

From: FdB  To: JPreacher  Resp: Hey, amigo! She hot!

 

So although I’m not in touch with Colfax, I feel it worth my while to fly south. For the winter, if nothing else. I fly to Mexico and transfer to Aero Brasil. A prop jet, we take turns winding up the rubber band. These old de Havillands remind us what flying used to be like. At Sao Paulo, the pilot corkscrews into a perfect three-point landing. The stewardesses, tall and pretty as fashion models, crank open the doors. Heat like a furnace. Sitting on cracked, wicker seats in the rickety bus, riding across the pitted concrete from the airplane to the terminal, I look out the half-open window. A big black crow perches on a fence, cawing “¡Cojones! ” in Portuguese. I take a taxi into megalopolis Sao Paulo. Population, 12 million. Predicted to become the largest metropolitan area in all of the Americas. Counting the slums, it looks to me like it already has that distinction.

After the Kiss nightclub fire in Santa Maria, a university town, where over 230 college students died, street musicians have been quick to pay homage.

“Bola, bola to me! Bola, bola to you!

Santa Maria, Brazilian town.

Burned up corpses, lying around…”

                                                                                    (A. C. Neiva)

they sing. One complaint was that the security guards wouldn’t let people leave the club, afraid they were running out on their tab. Of course, I can understand that bossa nova isn’t for everyone. Beats, lyrics, the music tends to be in-your-face-señor jubilant. After-dinner fare. If I had taken Colfax ballroom dancing, I wouldn’t be in this mess!

I head for the fortress-like Federales do Brasil main office in S.P. Three blocks long. Gated. Sentry boxes. Latest electronics. I’m reduced to parlez-vous’ing with a squawk box. Eventually a thin, mustached gent named Antonio comes out, gazing at me resentfully. “I direct you to the zoo,” he suggests through the black metal bars. “We don’  take gorillas here!”

I’ve beaten up 11-year-olds for less!

“I’m looking for Lisa Colfax.”

“Ho ho ho,” he bursts out, holding his sides. “That was you, amigo? She hot!”

“What are the chances of me seeing her?”

“We already text her. She say ‘Anytime after Hell freeze over.’ Not so good, amigo. Hey, you wanna do a drug bust?” he asks, like he’s asking me if I want to go for a beer.

Sure! I live for this shit.

 

Coming off the assembly line in her drab blue overalls, Maria is the most sullen human being on Earth. Tan skin. A miniature Aztec goddess, her jet black hair frames a long, tapered face ending in a tiny round chin. Her nose is brown and sharp enough to cut cheese. Smoldering, volcanic mocha eyes. And the body of an 18-year-old, her hips and breasts almost non-existent.

“How old are you, Maria?” I ask.

“Eighteen.”

Antonio has been leaning on her for so long, resentment is the only emotion she has left.

Flashing dollars, I take Maria, Antonio and his crew of buccaneers to a casa de pasto for din-din. Dining on steak, everyone is in good spirit. Even Maria cracks a wan smile that seems to say “Girls never get a break.” We drink a funky Chilean malbec shiraz with aromatic notes of wild cherry, vanilla, baked apple, honey, cedar, monkey dung, pine and coconut. Complemented by tangy, rather sweet flavors of cinnamon, drying walnuts, toasted toffee, wallpaper paste, root beer and licorice. Chilean wines have a bold presence somewhere between heartburn and coronary thrombosis. Our server assures us that this is the same wine once enjoyed by the military junta under Augusto Pinochet. 12% abv.

From Sao Paulo, Antonio drives us south down the coast. I thought nights were dark Stateside. Here, the blackness is as thick as a tar pit. “This is a very dangerous situation for Maria,” explains my host. “We got her brother Guido in prison for cocaine smuggling. If we spring Guido, Maria deliver a boatload of cocaine to us Federales.” Antonio pulls onto a dirt track so forlorn, even I fear for my continued good health. “It’s a sea turtle habitat,” he explains, Duran Duran’s “Rio” blaring on the car radio. “Perfect place for smugglers. Nobody wants to disturb the turtles. While everyone is out west policing the border with Bolivia, these suckers sneak the stuff in by inflatable raft from Uruguay.” Seven hundred miles up the Atlantic coast by inflatable raft. Boy, some people do things the hard way! “Maria is their local contact. She guides the boat to shore.”

Breaking out the shovels, throwing sand, we dig our observation pit to specifications. No sooner do we hunker down with our binoculars, then we get joined by a 600-pound sea turtle. A she. They trudge up the beach at night to dig pits and lay their eggs. “Tell her to take a powder!” hisses Antonio. I make appropriate noises and gestures, but to no avail. Mrs. Turtle isn’t the least bit impressed, not even when we four rancheros try to lift her bodily out of the sand. Eyeing us crabbily with a look of “Is that the best you got?,” she doesn’t budge an inch. Stake-outs! We don’t want to hurt the sea turtle, we just want her to leave our observation post. I mean, how lazy can she get? Let her dig her own pit to lay her eggs! We take turns ejaculating in the she-turtle’s face. She finds this sufficiently irritating to waddle off and let us get on with our drug bust. See! Multi-culturalism wins every time!

As soon as the raft appears on the tide, we charge down the beach brandishing pistolos. Unhappy, bone-tired and seasick, the smugglers acquiesce quietly.  A real caballero, Antonio walks across the sand and backhands raven-haired Maria, sending her sprawling into the surf. “Listen, amigos,” she proposes, climbing out of the foam like Aphrodite, “I give you quick fuck, you let me go!” Her black eyes flash in the darkness.

“Ah, no, Maria,” the three Federales burst out laughing. “You give us quick-fuck an’ then we gonna arrest you. The fucking got nothin’ t’ do with the arresting.”

An international observer, I watch closely, observing.

 

I get called back to Washington and issued a desk job at the Pentagon. Well, military liaison. Not actually in, you know, the building. But a Pentagon assignment. I try to avoid the big boys at the top, people like Gates, Panetta, Petraeus, Clinton. With them, everything is political. My desk is in the sub-basement parking garage of an office complex in Crystal City. Surveillance. In case any Arab terrorist sheiks show up in their Mercedes to plot the overthrow of our democratically elected government. Hallowed be thy name. Undercover, I sit in a glass-enclosed booth, stamping tickets and collecting parking fees. Even my dark blue uniform perpetuates this subterfuge, “Ace Parking LLC” embroidered on the breast pocket. That right there should tell anyone who is the least bit savvy, “Oh, this dude isn’t a lowly parking attendant! He’s really a government spy!” My contact is a toilet roll dispenser located in the second floor men’s room of The Spy Museum. Sitting on the toilet, I deliver oral reports on Tuesdays and Thursdays, carefully modulating my voice.

Vigilance can never be overstated.

Eventually, my Ace Parking LLC supervisor Harold lets me go. My X-ray vision freaked out the tenants.

 

In her Congressional testimony, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton mentioned the dude who was out walking his dog one night in Benghazi and decided he’d go shoot some Americans. I have found him! We’ll call him “Mustafa.” He’s a real fanatic, unbendable in his convictions. Un-persuadable. Parochial, narrow-minded, he knows what he knows. He prefers Wendy’s to McDonald’s. Walmart to Target. For his hamburgers (which as a Muslim, yada, yada, yada… “all beef paddies”), he prefers Checker’s to Red Robin. T.G.I.F. to Olive Garden. Google to Yahoo and Bing. Scruffy, a very basic terrorist in a kaffiyeh, in need of a shave, he spends our time together spouting the Koran. He also happens to hate Americans. Go figure. This upsets me, until I encounter some Americans who hate Libyans! See, what goes around, comes around! It all evens out in the wash. Why should A-rabs be better haters than us Americans? We can hate, too, y’know!

Vigilant, I sit in the john at The Spy Museum, writing memos on the toilet paper and flushing them down the toilet. The Tea Party people have it right: government bureaucracy is a bitch. After two whole weeks, still nothing has happened! Finally, I call an old friend and arrange a secret meeting. Behind the 120-ton white marble statue of Abraham Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial.

“For God’s sake, Josh, what is it now?” FBI agent Eric Weiss asks testily, testing me. The sky is gray, the color of slate.

I know his game! Refusing to be put off, stamping my feet in the cold, I charge ahead, telling him “I know who masterminded the attack on Wendy’s in Benghazi!”

“You mean the consulate compound?” he asks, straightening the sleeves on his Eddie Bauer trench coat. Spies the world over know that looking good is half the battle.

“Sure! What else, but…?”

“You said— Never mind! Give me a name.”

“Ahmed bin Suleiman al-Tikriti.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” insists Weiss, leading me down to the Reflecting Pool, out of earshot of a group of Soviet spies disguised as school children.

“So you know him!”

“Fine. Give me whatever documentation you have and then stop playing the Cold Warrior, Josh!” insists Eric. “Jesus Christ!”

I hand over my brown, manila envelope, wishing it was thicker. At least my report is typed on onion skin bond, mind you, not toilet paper.

One is never a prophet in one’s own homeland! In clandestine operations, there is always the risk of being misunderstood.  As soon as the State Department tracks me visiting white supremacist websites, they blacklist me for foreign postings. I see the cable! My entreaties and explanations fall on deaf ears. Finally, my professor at the Military War College writes a letter clarifying that he has assigned me to monitor white supremacists as part of my research paper “Rush Limbaugh and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Are Two Sides of the Same Coin.”

 

I served under General Mooseburger in the B-L-T War. Boynton and Lizard Town. The war spread as far south as the city of Boynton before everyone ran out of steam. Visiting a military reunion website on a desktop at the local library (“SIGN IN HERE!!!”), I see that the general is back at the Pentagon. I telephone his office. We meet at a sidewalk café, the first harbingers of Spring peeking out from the bushes.

Small green buds. Snow flurries blow by, both of us hunched deep in our winter coats. Shoppers hasten past carrying silver and red shopping bags from retail outlets along the block. My suggestion of an indoor venue was, for security reasons, denied.

“Well, well, well! Josh Alan Preacher,” chuckles the General, munching on an unlit cigar. “Long time no see.”

This is a warmer greeting than I got from Mr. Weiss. “Sir! It was a pleasure serving under you, sir!”

“You understand, Preacher, you’re a Maverick. Not too many slots you can fill without upsetting the apple cart.”

“Sir! I understand, sir.”

“Calm down. I’ve got a position for you. On a taskforce. The real deal. Not a parking lot attendant.”

“Sir, that was military intelligence, ” I bark, feeling my face go red.

“The woman who heads it is a total firecracker. But good. Known my family for years. Years.” Discreetly, he slips me a business card and a laminated red, white and blue badge on a green lanyard. “The address is on the card,” he instructs. “You can go right now. They’re expecting you.”

I take the Metro to Farragut North and hike the two blocks to what appears to be a single impenetrable Hadrian’s Wall of red brick. Eventually, I find a doorway adorned with a brass plaque. Ways and Means Subcommittee. I push the button, aware of the long-nosed surveillance camera all but poking me in the eye. “Yes?” squawks the intercom.

“Josh Alan Preacher reporting for duty!”

The door flies open in my face. A florid, bewhiskered gentleman in brown riding breeches, calf-high black leather boots and a Tartan vest huffs at me and commands, “Get the Hell in here, Preacher! Stop making a spectacle on a public thoroughfare!” I march inside. “Name’s Hennessy. Yes, yes, like the cognac. Same family, different branch.” The interior furnishings look  more like a dentist’s office than military liaison. “Our lady the commissar will see you now.” He shows me to a rich brown leather-padded door and retires to his desk in the anteroom. I shrug. Knocking on muffled leather, acutely aware of my role as James Bond, I go in.

“Hi, Joshy!” declares Jimmie Sue Cadillac, coming from behind her desk in a severe little number from Chloé. Cerulean blue. Jimmie Sue’s a buttery blond Gidget— 5′ 2″ tall, with startling blue eyes. A round Irish chin and a sweet pointy nose. Pale white skin, her rose petal mouth cries out to be kissed. The lady is built like a brick shithouse. Black leather boots seem to be in, emphasizing Jimmie Sue’s lovely dimpled knees and curvaceous thighs. No wonder everyone finds her a handful. “How’s tricks?” she asks, sashaying around the room, showing off her tight little derrière. “Yeah,” she admits forthrightly. “I had liposuction.”

“I’m going to be working for you?!” I stammer. One time, she turned me into a mass murderer, for cryin’ out loud. [Publisher’s Note: Cheap Shot, 2013]

“It’s Washington, baby. It’s all a question of who you know and who is screwing whom. Right now, I’m dropping the dime on two Russian diplos, each unaware of the other!” Wrinkling her nose, she laughs, the sound of tinkling bells. “It’s so good to see you,” she breathes, marching up to me. She kisses me open-mouthed. I taste brandy, cigarettes and breath mints. “Welcome aboard! Henry, too.”

Stiff as a rod, Henry has come to full attention, ballooning my pants comically. Military etiquette. I feel like machine-gunning everything in sight. The chintz wallpaper, the knick-knacks and doodads on the marble mantels over the faux fireplaces. Failing that, I let Jimmie Sue lead me to a cubicle, seat me at a gun metal desk and load me down with a heap of files on the foreign diplomatic corps of Washington, D.C.

“Find us some targets, Josh. Use that razor-sharp intuition of yours,” she twinkles, running a perfectly manicured red finger nail down the bridge of my nose. Twice. “Just like old times,” she giggles. “Not!”

 

Two days in, I begin to understand Hennessy. Having hacked into the files of a commercial school photog, he has thousands of color snaps of pre-pubescent girls on his hard drive. Sitting at his desk, slowly clicking through them, he fondles himself energetically. Like Obama, he’s a terrible poseur. Other than that, Hennessy is a good case officer.

Jimmie Sue lets me bunk with her in a ramshackle rental in Chevy Chase. Somebody let home maintenance get away from them. Her wheels consist of a red Saab from Zumbach’s in Manhattan. A blue bumper sticker announces “War Isn’t Working.” To mislead, she’s pasted an oval “GB” on the rear right bumper. When she runs the windshield washer, it sprays the road two cars back. “I want you to get a crew together and prepare to carry out a raid on the Russian Embassy,” she tells me.

“Huh? No way, José. That is so yesterday! What’s the target?”

“You don’t have a need to know, Wolfie,” she snaps in a business-like fashion. “Get your people together, Sherlock. Until then, I don’t want to talk about it.”

When Jimmie Sue gets her period, I know better than to argue. I make some calls, locating soldiers of fortune who are having as hard a time finding work as I am. With rebel forces running their own ops all over the map, it’s tough being a professional soldier. Amateur hour trumps battle-proven ability and a five star rating on amazon.com. My guys love the idea that we’re butting heads with the Russians. “Right-a-Rooney, that’s what I’ve trained for my whole life,” Jerry Nelson exclaims. My three other operatives are no less enthusiastic.

Five fellas and a girl, we dress up in fleece jackets and hoodies. Plastic badges on lanyards around our necks. In Washington, this screams “contractor drones” in spades. We blend blandly into the urban landscape. As long as people can categorize you, they remain unafraid. We carry name brand nylon sports bags over our shoulders. Either we’re into volleyball or basketball. “Swedish 9 mm machine pistols” lies way down the list. Bengt, our supplier, has given us stacks of green-painted  wooden crates containing ammo. Neatly packed at the factory, 36 shots to a cardboard carton. Leave it to the Scandinavians, even armaments are handled in an orderly fashion. The guns themselves are painted green to forestall corrosion. Folding stock. They weigh, like, 10 pounds each, next to nothing. 36-shot magazines. Moderate firepower in a convenient package. I have read that the political activists “Purple Nation” seek the political center on gun control. That ain’t us! Swedish K’s. When you got it, flaunt it!

The downside is, no taking the Metro, no entering government buildings. Magnetometers don’t lie.

Jimmie Sue has dyed her hair cherry red for the occasion. Not a wig. The Russkie residentura is on Foxhall Road up by American University. A tony part of town. Whitebread. We drive two jet black SUV’s into the surprisingly large parking lot and hit the pavement running. Feels like the attack on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. Hut! Hut! Hut! We charge headlong, all six of us, into the foyer. Deploy. Stunned white ladies in pearls and twinsets ask us in Midwestern accents if they can be of assistance. Trying not to panic over our black ski masks and heavy weapons.

Shit.

Wrong address. We’ve landed in the Kreeger Museum, a privately-owned high end art house. Still another discreet residence hidden behind a gray wooden palisade. I mean, fuck, all this classy architecture looks the same! Individual dwellings designed by pricey, name architects. We mumble our apologies and get the Hell out of there. Even now, the ladies are desperately scrabbling after their cell phones. Tough titty, bitches! Why do you think we hit the cell phone towers first? Huh? Welcome to my world! You wanna make a call, use a fucking landline.

Time is now of the essence. We hit the Soviet compound… sorry, Russian. My turn to play badger. Pulling the pin on an old-fashioned smoke canister, I lob it into the open doorway. Just as some schleppy tourist types are coming out clutching their precious passports. “Visa Section open Mon – Wed, 9 – 11 a.m.” it says on an enormous white sign by the door. In English and Russian. Entering the building, our boots drumming on the faux gray stonework— actually linoleum— we run down the hallway to the Consular Section and yank Dmitri from his office.

“What do you want?!” he shouts. “God help me, you’re not Syrian rebels???”

“We’re Americans,” whines Jimmie Sue from beneath her pink, knitted ski mask. Decorated with little bunny rabbits.

Recognizing her voice, Dmitri laughs with relief. Putting on a brave face and a lot of bravado for the clerks, he shouts in Russian, “Help! Help! I am being kidnapped!” Before throwing himself into our arms.  We hustle out of the building in a mighty phalanx. Like the Cox Cable guy on TV, I run around like a madman. The security guards, two real gorillas, stop us dead on the grass. Staring down the barrels of their Makarovs.

“Let heem go,” commands the more fluent of the two. A blond Russian. The worst kind. I screw the muzzle of my Glock into Dmitri’s neck and grunt something unintelligible.

“He’ll shoot me!” shouts Dmitri in Russian, right on cue. “These are Chechen terrorists. Let’s avoid a bloodbath, shall we? Dagestan is one thing. This is Washington, DC. Why give the capitalists reason to gloat?!” This last argument gets us into our vehicles. We tear out of there. As soon as we hit Mass Avenue, Dmitri explodes in laughter. Overcome. Hugging and kissing Jimmie Sue through her ski mask, he says, “Chekhov would be proud. Such staging! Such theatrics! Such drama. Long live the Revolution!”

See. This way Dmitri doesn’t have to defect and have the Putin regime take out their anger and frustration on his family back in dear old Moskva.

 

*

 

Chapter 2 

 

            The Law Enforcement Convention in Miami consists of too much speechifying and too many workshops, but the judo instruction is good. Firing all the newest hardware on a range is also exciting. I flash my green NRA Range Card. The proprietor eyes me over the counter and says, “Yeah? This is a private facility. That card won’t even get you coffee!” I have to stay mum about some of this new Israeli stuff, it’s so advanced. Suffice to say that when you come running out of a convenience store, your pockets stuffed with ill-gotten gains, you won’t know what hit you.

How can you tell it’s a police convention? Everyone is lined up ten deep at the coffee urns. Always on the lookout for pretty women, they ain’t here!

I stay at The Seawater, billed as the premier ecological hotel. Here in Miami, they consider a 20-story building mid-size. When you enter your room in the evening, you have 10 minutes of battery-powered illumination. During that time, you are expected to mount the exercycle and pump additional wattage to last you through the night. In practice, this means taking a break once an hour and riding the stationary bike another ten minutes. Go figure. The roof and awnings are all photo-voltaic cells, powering the TV and microwave in each suite. Even the leaves of toilet paper are half the normal width. These dudes think of everything. I suppose it’s better than the Soviet Union, where a hotel bathroom came equipped with an empty cardboard tube. You were expected to take this tube to the maid at the end of the hall. She had an industrial size roll of toilet paper and doled out two meters per hotel guest and 24-hour stay. Although half-size leaves of toilet paper take some getting used to.

The big deal is, of course, the water. Management is justly proud of using seawater in the toilets, showers and unheated outdoor pool. “Our biggest hurdle was salt corrosion,” assistant manager Dennis O’Neil tells me excitedly in a thick Brooklyn accent. His ubiquitous tan, snazzy duds, Panama hat, open-toed sandals and wraparound sunglasses belie his New Yawk heritage. “We got the pipes just right. We got filters in the system at precise intervals, in accessible locations, to combat salt build-up.” Hey, what do I know? I’m no hydraulic engineer. Showering in salt water is a tingly experience. “What’s the problem?” asks Dennis, always keeping the counter between him and the guests. “The Lapps in Swedish Norrland do it all the time! ‘Course, they only bathe once a year.” The single time I run into Dennis out in public, at a Publix grocery store, he almost has a heart attack. Unprotected. Out in the open.

Forget Starbucks, the eco coffee in foil packages provided with the room has the oily viscosity and gut-wrenching effect of Brazilian beans. Less authentic is the non-dairy creamer. Besides corn syrup, it contains hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium caseinate (milk derived, but not a source of lactose), dipotassium phosphate, mono and diglycerides, sodium silicoaluminate, sodium tripolyphosphate, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono and diglycerides, artificial flavor (no, really?), beta carotene, riboflavin and titanium dioxide (to make it nice and white). We’re ingesting this stuff??? I give it a pass and drink my Joe black. At least the Vertex black plastic coffee-maker is up to specifications. Even if half the equipment is manufactured in China, the further south you get, the more Latino the influence. Sure that it adds tropical panache, Dennis has calypso music blasting 24-7. It also gives him an excuse not to hear the complaints of his customers.

The ebony black cleaning staff are all from Dominica. They converse in a pidgin dialect. When I tip the lady $2 at the breakfast nook, she turns the bills over comically with her thumbs and mutters, “White mastah ain’ no plantation owner!”

She got that right. Sitting in the art deco lobby, I read an article in Fashion Quarterly, “Dressing bin Laden & Obama: Tall Men Rule!” Where are you now, oh great leader? The pundits are having a field day dissecting Oblama’s second term. It ain’t that hard. The guy is a wimpy poseur blabbermouth. Motivational speaker, my ass! I recognize him because my dad was also a total coward and about as real as a $3 bill. When you’ve grown up with one, the smell is unmistakable.

Here at the hotel, shades of Hemingway, patrons sit at the Tiki Bar at one o’clock in the afternoon getting drunk. It is here that I finally find the tanned, oiled bodies of bodacious beauties, whose idle chatter focuses on which restaurant offers the best Early Bird Special. What is wrong with these people? They’re in Florida.

Returning to the convention center, I’m in time to hear Johnson, Jonasson & Johansson announce their latest product. Showing us a power point presentation sans physical specimen, they tell us, “We are very excited about this innovation. We will be describing details, features, availability, quality, quantities, marketing strategy and price point at a later date. We’re also open for suggestions, especially regarding a name. Like us on Facebook!”

Like what on Facebook?

Ignoring big city crime and drug busts, the featured speaker takes us through the interesting case of 37-year-old rapper Rick Ross. He was driving a Rolls-Royce on Las Olas Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale at 5 o’clock in the morning when assailants in another vehicle fired at least 18 bullets at him in a mad chase stretching three city blocks. Without once hitting the Rolls. No word on whether the rapper, a local resident, returned fire. The early morning incident ended with the Rolls— get ready for it! — crashing into an apartment building.

Although the attackers’ “suspect vehicle” remains at large, police recovered 18 shell casings in front of the Floridian restaurant . The rapper, whose real name is William L. Roberts, owns a $1 million property in a gated community in Davie. He has also been spotted at a $4.7 million property in Ft. Lauderdale’s Seven Isles. Ross is a Grammy Awards nominee in the category Best Rap Album. The Grammys are scheduled for Feb. 10. The rapper’s record “God Forgives, I Don’t” went gold, selling over 500,000 copies within six weeks of its release in the summer of 2012. Internet speculation centers on the rapper staging this event to garner publicity.

Las Olas Boulevard, we are told, isn’t just any street. With over 30 outdoor cafés, 10 international art galleries, two museums, a hotel and 65 shops, it’s the Broadway of Lauderdale. Bang, bang there affects business.

“Were the cartridges rim fire or center fire?” asks Sheriff Winfield Jeffries of Tacoma, Washington. Hey, everybody likes a sojourn in Miami.

“We’d rather not give out more forensic detail at this time,” the guest speaker continues, adding, “The word from the Congressional gun control hearings is that the senior Republican on the panel, Chuck Grassley from Iowa, doesn’t want the Newtown tragedy to blow new life into, what he calls, ‘every gun control measure that has been floating around for years.’ Somebody’s gotta talk some sense into his thick skull.”

Since law enforcement is our business, we ain’t too happy when every Tom, Dick and Harry can buy himself a cannon.

I take the other twelve members of the Modern Strike Force Workshop to dinner at Les Misérables. It’s actually an Italian restaurant in Little Havana. Every mouthful of the chicken parmagiana is so delicious, I chew endlessly, never wanting to swallow. Gloria, our foxy waitress, is also a surprise. I cannot believe my eyes and ears: An enthusiastic waitress! We soldiers are a total pushover for waitresses. It’s primeval.  A beautiful woman brings me food. That fulfills two of my most basic needs, right there. What’s not to love? Spying it on adjacent tables, we have Gloria bring us Tartufa for dessert, vanilla ice cream encased in a dark chocolate shell. A $5 portion of heaven. Already stuffed, we eat through the pain. When I try to make time with her, Gloria laughs in my face, turning her attention to the Japanese at the next table. Many possibilities there, even with the yen in free fall.

We go to see Miami filmmaker Billy Corben’s 2006 film “Cocaine Cowboys.” Not to be confused with the 1979 Andy Warhol / Ulli Lommel creation of the same name. The A/C in the theater sends shivers down our spines.

All day long, little green lizards slither into the palm fronds. Yellow lizards crawl across the window screens at night. At 6’5″ and 250 pounds with a two-day growth of beard, speaking colloquial Spanish, it doesn’t take me 15 minutes to get hugger-mugger with the local Cubanos. Like every minority under Obama, their disappointment knows no bounds. Fortunately, the construction and hotel trades continue at a boil. With so much legitimate business, the locals find it annoying to get busted for anything between an eight-pound bag and three tons of marijuana. “Times are hard,” José, a cabby and all-around fixer, tells me, ferrying me around in a classic Chevy hardtop. In a world of subtleties, he takes over like Robocop. The electronic pay pad in his cab shows the same travelogue every four minutes: City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, the archipelago, cruise ships lined up in the harbor, The Globe sports arena (“Globen“), Old Town, prostitutes strutting their stuff on Government Street. I’m in Miami watching a video of Sweden, how fucked is that? José only goes through the motions of driving taxi. His real income derives from a diversity of other sources. “I got an ‘in’ supplying fresh linen to the condo trade,” he explains. “Even the smallest motels insist on laundering in-house, but the rich New York snowbirds who come down for the winter will pay you to drive up in a truck, bringing them a load of freshly-washed towels. Capitalismo, gracias a Dios, there are still people who put money before labor!” He seems happy.

“When I grew up,” I tell him, “it cost 10¢ to use the pay toilet in the bus station. We stood around with our legs pressed together, waiting for someone to show up with a dime.”

“Really?” he marvels. “You want a 13-year-old virgin?”

At 70°, it’s not exactly beach weather, so José takes me sightseeing instead. At the ritzy, exclusive (read: expensive) Bal Harbour Yacht Club, he points out which 30-foot yachts and three-story houseboats were bought with what kind of drug money. He takes me to Peacock Park in Coconut Grove, where— if you can read the signals— destitute señoritas in short black skirts and revealingly open blouses will service you in the backrooms of bistros, the bedrooms of shabby rooming houses or, worst case scenario, in the hibiscus bushes among the geckos. Multi-culturalism in a semi-tropical climate.

Traditional Miami, coifed and bearded meso-American businessmen with million dollar tans and ivory death’s head rings on their fingers— who won’t reveal their sources of income— drive their leggy Brazilian super-model girlfriends around in Lamborghinis. “¡Cabrón! ” scoffs José. “Anybody can drive a Lamborghini. $500 down and installments for 72 months.”

 

Bored, José makes some phone calls before taking me up I-95 North and U.S. 27 to the Everglades. Entering the Sawgrass Recreational Park, he rents a Jon boat and fishing tackle for two days.

“Ya can pay for two consecutive days,” says the clerk, looking about 13-years-old, “but you gotta return the boat to the rental facility overnight. Tha’s to discourage gator-baitin’.”

“What is gator-baiting?” I ask. José rolls his eyes.

“Poaching alligators. They’re active at night and some bad hombres like to steal the babies and nab adults for their skins. The entire Everglades is classified as a nature preserve. No poaching allowed.”

“Not even poaching eggs?”

“We gonna go night fishing,” insists José. “I promise my amigo here to get him up close and personal with a Florida panther.”

“Well, I don’t know…” says the clerk, reaching for the phone. José heads him off with a $50 bill, discreetly folded and slid across the counter.

We get joined soon enough in the parking area by a sullen Greek named Stelios. Holding a cell phone. “You called me, José? We got work?” he asks.

“Yeah, we’re goin’ out on a Jon boat. Bring the gear.”

This consists of two bulging, black canvas bags, a fine-mesh net on a long aluminum pole, two poles with hooks on the end, bales of yellow and orange plastic rope and a large, topless wooden crate. We spend the day fishing, the smell of the swamp all-encompassing. By evening, we’re spraying one another with DEET every 15 minutes to ward off the mosquitos.

As soon as it gets dark, José and Stelios break out the searchlights. Eyes shining devilishly red, skin a mottled brown, an alligator glides menacingly close to the boat. José unveils his secret weapon: an uncooked chicken! He jams it onto a hooked pole. Swinging it before an alligator’s snout, he calls “Come get ya din-din, ya prehistoric motherflusher!” The female alligator opens her jaws, dumping six of her young, and rips the dripping chicken off the pole. Stelios, meanwhile, nets the youngsters, placing them in the wooden box. No sooner do they leave the water, they begin to cry. A high-pitched keening, heart-rending to hear. Even for mama alligator, who proceeds to gnaw at the prow of the aluminum boat with her massive teeth. Stelios, no slacker, pulls out a Glock 21 and expertly shoots the gator through its right eye. Using their hooked poles, shouting instructions quietly to me, we maneuver the dead alligator close enough to begin enmeshing it in plastic rope before it sinks out of reach. It’s a panicky five minutes’ work, but at last we have the body tethered to the boat and vice versa. Starting the outboard motor, we chug through the Everglades, the cawing, grunting and croaking of a thousand swamp critters filling the night air.

Reaching a secluded spot at the very edge of the park where a service road meets the water, José blinks his lantern several times. The headlights of two rusty old pickup trucks blink back, as six burly Latinos come to meet us. Stelios hands the crate of babies into a Latino’s waiting hands. As soon as we untruss the gator, the other five grab hold of it and drag her onto dry land. José holds the boat while the six Latinos, Stelios and I lift the dead reptile onto the bed of one of the pickups. Slamming shut the back panel and throwing a tarp over their catch, the Latinos wordlessly get in their vehicles and depart. We return the Jon boat to the marina at 4 a.m., drive to the middle of nowhere and sleep in José’s cab. To allay suspicions, we return the next morning to the rental facility and spend the entire next day innocently fishing.

Having murdered an 800-pound alligator and turned the carcass over to professional poachers, Stelios feels like celebrating. He takes José and me to a white Acropolis of a Greek taverna off N E 34th Street in Fort Lauderdale. Considering our attire, I actually ask the parking attendants if we’ll be served. This makes Stelios laugh, like the sound of an ax chopping wood. Totally high end, not only are all the servers Greek, so are 99% of the patrons. Anyone who has been to Greece can tell you that it isn’t easy being Greek, your glory days situated 3,000 years in the past. Tonight, forget eating, just smelling the Moussaka is a journey into bliss. I’ve noticed that servers at high end restaurants think they are doing you a favor when they come up with pricey suggestions that run up the bill.  They assume we’re there to flash cash, Mr. Rich Bitch style. Stelios tells our server in no uncertain Greek that a cheap red wine will suffice, sas efcharistό, thank you very much. Stelios and he seem to make a connection. When we order baklava for dessert, our server brings us two-pound chunks of the stuff. “See,” says Stelios. “I told you this would be an astounding experience!” What truly astounds is the temperament of the Greek community. Delighted to be in America and not over there suffering through the total collapse of their homeland’s economy, Greeks here are laughing and joking like no tomorrow. Pinch me, I must be dreaming! A laughing, happy Greek. Who woulda thunk it?

 

Mats, Anders and Jens, two Swedes and a Dane, offer to have me tag along on their chartered flight to Aruba. Since the U.S. government now allows cultural exchange with Cuba, however, I decide that nothing could be more cultural than asking Raúl Castro to release American Alan Gross. This Jewish gentleman, working for USAID, imported PC equipment to the island to connect the Cuban Jewish community with the Internet. Not exactly what you would call subterfuge. The Cuban government feels otherwise, sentencing Gross to 15 years behind bars.

A feature of cultural exchanges with a country 90 miles from Miami is that all the paperwork must go through Washington, DC. Go figure. I seek out the U.S. Passport Agency on Biscayne Boulevard. “You’re Cuban?” the young lady in the Visa Section asks incredulously. Living in Miami, perched behind a glass partition, she’s the palest gringo in Florida. It’s like talking to the vice principal of an elementary school.

“I didn’t say I was Cuban. I said I wanted a cultural visa.”

“You have in-laws who live on the island? Your wife’s family? They can’t get out, so you want to go pay them the courtesy of a visit,” she hypothesizes. “This would be a lot easier if you brought your wife here. Or at least someone who looks Cuban.”

“It’s not a familial reunion.”

“Then why do you want to go? And don’t say you’re a jazz musician! Everybody and his brother has vacationed in Cuba under the pretense of studying Afro-Cuban jazz. We’re no longer issuing musical visas,” she tells me resentfully.

“What if I’m Catholic and wish to confer with the head of the Cuban archdiocese?”

“I’m Catholic and I resent that,” she pouts. There’s no pleasing some people! “You can go illegally. Just catch a fishing boat,” she mentions, distracted, looking at the Miami Herald. “Only don’t get caught coming back. The fine is currently $10,000.”

“No visa?”

“Well,” she sighs, looking honestly perplexed. “Unless you represent some political action committee or an international NGO, I frankly don’t see why you’re wasting both your time and mine?!”

America, sí, Cuba, no.

*

 

Chapter 3

   

            José takes me to Port Everglades to see the cruise ships slated for the Caribbean. Since he’s the taxi and I’m the fare, security lets us through with only a perfunctory check of our I.D.’s. It’s not like I need a ticket to ride. The pneumatic ramps that press against the sides of the ships are manufactured by FMT of Trelleborg, Sweden. The black shore crews, dressed in short sleeves, hustle in the heat of the afternoon. The smell of boiled hot dogs fills the air. I like hot dogs. The security personnel are all blacks. If you want to be safe in America, take a cruise! “All the blacks live in Inverrary,” grunts José. “A brown man can’t go in there ‘cept maybe to do gardening. Jews out, blacks in. Times have changed.”

Looking across the channel, I see delicate white cranes roosting among the cypress trees. Whenever a ship leaves, horn blasting, the passengers stand on their balconies, madly waving.

“I’m the only driver you gonna find who’s not from Haiti,” José is telling me. “They got the lock on the cabs. Local government is in on the deal. And Haitians don’t suffer no competition.” José means well, but he’s becoming something of a complainer. “Half the time, I’m driving off the meter just to avoid the hassle. How’s an hombre supposed to earn his 40 Social Security credits for Medicare at age 65 if the system won’t let me make an honest living?!”

I walk over to converse with the crew of a white, two-masted schooner. I count a 10-man crew of college students in black dickeys. Coed. They act about as friendly as scorpions. “Can I help you?” asks their professor of nautical science, called from below deck. His name is Thord Bakken. He smokes a pipe and wears a pompadour. “Michael J. Fox is my cousin,” he claims grandly by way of introduction. Later, I’ll discover that when he strums guitar, it’s tunes by Elvis he croaks out. “Come aboard. We’re takin’ her for a spin,” he suggests.

I pay José a wad of bills and we say our “goodbyes.” I can’t expect him to wait around all afternoon. He tells me to stay in touch.

 

We cast off. As we get underway, U.S. Coast Guard boat 125 in orange and black, three enormous outboard motors churning, puts on a show for us. Racing up and down the channel, a crewman in a black helmet mans the .50-caliber machine gun in the bow. America naval prowess.

“He shows wideo of himself on his smartphone in all the bars. With that giant piece of equipment sticking up between his legs,” Thord declares diffidently. “He gets more action than he can handle.”

I take his word for it. This is gonna be a long trip. We sail under overcast skies, bands of golden sunlight dancing on the water, always tantalizingly out of reach. The proud homeowner, Thord shows off the wheelhouse. I can’t help noticing the Cyrillic lettering on all the instruments. “Bought your gear in Russia?”

“Bulgaria! Eastern Europe’s finest. One of the best-kept secrets of the computer industry. Bulgaria rules! Of course, it helps having a Scandinavian passport. We Norwegian seafarers can travel anywhere.”

I don’t know about Norwegians, but I can tell you about Swedes: In the middle of the Baltic, halfway between Sweden and Russia, lies the Swedish island of Gotland. Basically agricultural, it’s a big tourist destination for the population of Stockholm every summer. A farmer on Gotland comes equipped with a reputation: If he grows potatoes, he makes vodka. Apples become brandy. Grapes become wine. Grain he turns into grain alcohol. Sugar beets he distills into pure alcohol. Barley and hops he uses to make mead or, if not that, beer. “There is nothing a Gotland farmer cannot turn into alcohol,” brag the Swedes.

Looking over Thord’s rig, I ask, “Software from Bulgaria, too?” That seems convenient.

“Of course not!” he huffs. “All our software is downloaded from BitTorrent.”

It takes practice to walk on a shifting deck. Evening, we glide under sail by tankers lit up like small cities. The two girls on board, both brunettes, treat me like a leper. One looks like Hillary Swank, the other CNN’s Monita Rajpal. “They’re radical feminists,” explains Thord, demonstrating how to use the ship’s toilet. “They just hate men.”

“When do we head back to shore?” I ask, as the sun plummets into the west and we are enveloped in darkness.

“In awhile. Maybe a day or two.”

Huh? “Okay,” I say, realizing I am in for an adventure.

Fishing for marlin the next day, Thord asks me, “You know the movie ‘Seven Years In Tibet’ with Brad Pitt? That was me! Then I went back to university and took a degree in nautical science. I prefer the sea to the mountains.”

“You spent seven years in Tibet?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

“The marlin is a fighting fish,” he explains, clumsily changing topic. “Of the family Istiophoridae, order Perciformes. They grow to be seven feet long. You’ll note the high-standing dorsal fins. Makaira nigricans is the kind we know best, the blue marlin.”

“I never caught the name of this ship.”

“The good ship Schicklgruber. It was Hitler’s family name.”

Huh?

“Force de frappe. When confronted by a mostly superior enemy, find small ways to harass him and new ways to inflict damage. Dirigibles and U-boats confounded the Englishmen!”

“You’re a student of military history.”

“Of course, it wasn’t always called that,” Thord announces, ignoring my remark entirely. “When the ship came off the slip in Gdansk, its name was Mewa, Polish for ‘seagull.’ I am very proud that our schooner features WiFi. Not since Jonah and the whale have we offered such a complete home away from home on the sea.”

Black and white gulls race the ship, eyeing us for a handout. Failing that, they kamikazi into the water, then bob to the surface clutching silver fish in their beaks. They think we’re the intruders, although several deign to converse with us in what sounds like Japanese.

When I take a walk to stretch my legs, I get the once-over from a sulky redheaded kid named Ollie. He’s hosing down the deck. “Hey, man, what are you doin’ on our fuckin’ boat? You a narc or somethin’?” he asks.

“You’re going where I’m going,” I tell him. A generation gap as deep as the Grand Canyon, this doesn’t work at all.

Determined to do my share, I end up assisting the two ladies in the galley. My elbows are meat cleavers.

Din-din, the main meal of the day, is at 4 p.m. I forgot how mundane dinner table conversation can be. The boys argue basketball, baseball and football. They have hundreds of stats at their fingertips. The girls compare, endlessly, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Ke$ha and, God help me, Kerli. I feel like I’m on the good ship ms / Nutjob. Thord Baaken, the professor, ignores all this, steadfastly lecturing on the Wehrmacht, U-boat commanders he admires and the economic basis of Portuguese exploration of the New World. “Why name America after Amerigo Vespucci? All he ever did was invent the Vespa motor scooter. While Ponce de León found the Fountain of Youth in the Florida Everglades. Your country should, by rights, be named Leónoville.”

“Whatever!” chorus the kids, unimpressed, lighting up after-dinner joints to the beat of Bob Marley. Skip, the first mate, demonstrates his claim to fame, giving us letter-perfect imitations of rapper Jay-Z. Catching him in the act, Thord has apoplexy.

“I think you’d better kiss my right foot,” Kelly announces that night, cornering me outside the toilet. She’s the Hillary Swank look-alike.

“Why would I want to do that?”

But she’s serious. Kelly and Margot have narrow bunks crowded into the fo’c’sle. Since there’s obviously not enough room for me to join them there, they take turns riding me with frenetic abandon under the red cover on one of the two lifeboats. Lying nude on my back on the bare planks in the bottom of the boat, my knees jammed under the center seat, their little sex slave, I begin to experience Jimmie Sue Cadillac’s dislike for bondage. [Publisher’s Note: Cheap Shot, 2013] Between the pitching of the schooner, the rocking of the lifeboat on its divots and the enthusiasm of my two college girlfriends, there are far too many moments when poor Henry feels as if he’s being torn out at the root. Win some, lose some. Such is life at the pinnacle of ecstasy. Not only do the girls use me as a boy-toy, they add insult to injury, expecting me to tip them $2 every time we complete a tryst. “I’m out of singles,” I claim.

“Oh. So give me a fiver,” suggests Margot, more than doubling the price of my mortification. She has a pix of the ubiquitous Justin Bieber printed on her smartphone case in startlingly gaudy colors. Kelly has many different uses for glycerin hand soap. Most of them painful. I can’t wait to reach land!

When I crawl into my bunk at night, the boys pal around by stuffing wet towels down my throat, college style. It’s like getting blackballed by a fraternity.

 

We start every morning with rubbery eggs and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. A sailing vessel, the sea air has coated most metal surfaces with salt. We spend a lot of time scrubbing.

On the long wave radio, we hear a blow by blow of the golf tournament in Dubai.  The only reminders of a Teutonic heritage are the rigid morning roll-call on deck, Thord’s daily harangues and the way the crew tightly winds the silverware inside the white linen napkins.

One afternoon, a boy named Larry puts on a show. The girls think he’s breakdancing, but we guys can see he’s going through the motions you use when wielding nunchucks.

When the others find out Kelly’s parents are Mormon farmers, they ask “Are they polygamous?”

“No,” she answers, “but their chickens are.”

I don’t know what religious affiliation Margot maintains. She tells me, “When I’ve finished sowing my wild oats, I’m going to open my heart to Jesus. He’ll cleanse it and polish it and give it back, so I can live as a good Christian.”

“Open heart surgery?”

Margot begins to cry.

“You’re a cruel man,” Kelly informs me angrily.

To amuse us, the boys hold mock performances of Wagnerian opera every evening. This always comes down to chopping up babies with a wooden ax. The evening repast consists of sea biscuit and French onion soup.

On the Sunday night of Super Bowl 47, we hold a tailgate party on deck, eating sliders and drinking beer. This is something of a joke, since the only thing we can pick up on the shipboard TV is Russia Today. Nevertheless, Ravens fans end up in fistfights with San Francisco 49ers fans. Many black eyes and bloody noses leave the crew resembling pirates. The girls take me to the lifeboat and seem irrational in their frenzy. I finally realize they are terrified.

Historians and weather forecasters may not speak of it as “The Storm of 2013,” but the squall that hits us on Day 4 turns the sky to lead, the sea to chop and dredges up a ton of brown algae. The kids get the sails down and we putter along, using the motor to keep us facing into the waves. Which grow higher and higher as the afternoon wends toward night. By evening, we’re getting pounded. Half the crew has taken to their bunks. Water slams into us from every side. The Seagull ain’t makin’ it. The biggest hulk on board, I take over the wheel. A life of its own, the thing kicks like a mule. “Don’t worry,” Captain Bakken assures me, looking as complacent as a troll, arms crossed, legs braced, shouting to be heard. Good old Thord, always with a ready answer.

“Tell mama I went down with the ship!” I shout back. By 3 a.m., I no longer care. Handing the wheel to Thord and his first mate Skip, I trudge down to my bunk and collapse. Hey, I’m just a free-loading passenger. Let these students of nautical science work it out. Within minutes, Kelly and Margot join me, whimpering softly. Embracing one with each arm, I’m out like a light.

 

Morning breaks fresh and pristine. The ocean is once again blue, the cloudbank heading toward Cuba. The island in the center of the Caribbean, everything heads to Cuba eventually. We’ve got a spit of land coming up to starboard and a following wind, which is good, considering that our Bulgarian hardware has fritzed.  No one knows quite where we are. We pull into a key that looks like a goddam tourist brochure. Horseshoe-shaped with startling azure water and a tidy beach, it includes riderless horses standing at the headland, sniffing the wind.

“It’s inhabited,” I point out, drinking steaming black coffee in an enamel mug of World War Two vintage. Some things never go out of style.

“Ridiculous!” counters Thord. His hair looks like he slept upside down, hung from a yardarm. “Don’t jump to conclusions! Apply the scientific method. First gather your facts, then hypothesize.”

We drop anchor by the beach and wade ashore amidst thatched-roof cabanas. “See!” Thord declares professorially. “No one in sight. Clearly abandoned.”

Ready to punch him one, I bite my lip and keep my peace. We scout the entire island, mostly scrub, but with enough infrastructure to accommodate a battleship. Everywhere we go, the professor shakes his head knowingly and declares, “See! Clearly abandoned!”

A chintzy replica of a pirate ship lists in the sand, tattered flags rippling. An unusually large hand-lettered sign, black paint on white board, faces out to sea. it says

Paragliding $35

Beer $3.00

Water/Soda $2.00

Local Food

“This fucking burg ain’t abandoned,” I fume, affectionately slapping the flank of one of the sturdy dark brown horses. The girls have been busy herding them down the beach from the headland. “Somebody owns it and they’ll be back.”

Unheeding, the professor calls a gathering on the beach, clears his throat theatrically and declares, “In the long tradition of seafaring, many a brave explorer has been blown off course in a gale. Ours is an exalted past going back to the Pinto, the Panto and the Santa Maria. I christen this— our new home— Bakkenland.”

I expect the kids to raise a ruckus, but no, they’re too tired to complain. Shaking their heads resignedly, they mutter “Oh, yeah!” and “Straight at ya!” and “Fuck all!” We spend the next hour bringing supplies ashore in the lifeboats.

“What’s with the green boxes?” I ask.

“Oh,” says Skip. “Ballast.”

“Boxes full of stones?”

“No,” Skip insists. “Ballast.” Eventually, he and Thord begin prying them open with a crowbar, unwrapping AR-15’s in oil cloth. Everybody gets one, including Kelly and Margot. Everybody except me.

When I complain, Skip’s Number Two, Larry, answers with all the finesse of a truck driver. “We have a right to defend ourselves! Even the President of the United States has taken up skeet shooting at Camp David. Some people shoot off their mouths, some shoot with their dicks and some of us use semi-automatic weapons. As the surgeon told the patient after a reverse vasectomy, ‘You ain’t shootin’ blanks any longer, pardner.’ “

Fuck.   

“You all know how to use these,” Thord declares, his voice ringing hollowly across the water. “Rifle proficiency was a requirement for this voyage. You all had a B+ or better in Seamanship 101. Nevertheless, I want Skip and Larry to set up a rifle range and run drills to refresh you on the basics! You, passenger! Set up the camp stove and prepare breakfast.”

Me, passenger, I work alone to the volley of rifle shots. Not wanting to get another towel down my throat, I pull the professor aside and speak softly. “Look, Thord, with all due respect. We’ve got three huts in a row here in the main square, one labeled ‘Tiki Bar,’ another ‘Gift Shop” and a third ‘Post Office.’ There’s a men’s room and a ladies’ room. Running showers. There may not be anyone here at the moment— “

“WE’LL DEAL WITH ANY CONTINGENCY!!!” shouts Thord. Looking in his eyes, I am confronted by a madman in the grip of some weird delusion.

“Is there a problem?” asks Skip. He and Larry proceed to batter me with the stocks of their rifles. At 6′ 5″ and 250 pounds of sheer muscle, I refuse to flinch.

Two motor launches pull into the channel at the eastern side of the key. Under orders, the girls hustle me at gunpoint out of range, but I see six black-skinned natives in dreadlocks, khaki work clothes and brown leather sandals arguing with Skip and the professor. Who march them down to the beach and call another gathering. Six laborers, angry, obstinate and uncertain. “Mon, you got to get yo’ head together!” shouts one. Larry knocks him to the sand with a rifle blow.

“My countrymen! Comrades! Fellow denizens of Bakkenland,” lectures Thord. “Throughout history, the stronger have conquered and subjugated the weaker. This is the law of Darwinian selection. Some races are simply superior in heritage, intelligence and ability. We cannot help our superiority. It is in our genes, the white man’s burden. When confronted by the barbarity of an inferior race, it is our responsibility to maintain discipline. To maintain racial purity. Therefore, I am declaring a Court of Reconciliation, judging the fate of these unlawful trespassers. Since they are clearly guilty— “

“Hey, mon, we get paid, come work here, settin’ up de tables, unlockin’ de equipments, ” shouts the same dude as before. Having risen from the sand, he stares belligerently at the armed students in their white cotton ducks and black dickeys.

“Git you a life! ” shouts another.

“Attention! In line volley, march!” yells Skip in a shrill voice. I don’t know if they have the guts to shoot anyone, but the youngsters form a raggedy skirmish line along the beach, backs to the water. Not wanting to be left behind, both Skip and Larry don suicide vests rigged with canisters of C-4 explosive.

We killed so many A-habs in Iraq, it wasn’t even funny. But as soon as you line up a firing squad, I do get nervous. In Somalia, things came unstuck very fast. A number of warlords divided up the country. Driving around in Jeeps with .50-caliber machine guns on their turrets, so-called “Mechanicals,” they tore the place apart, fighting among themselves. Basic necessities like food, water and electricity became disrupted, turning half the population into refugees. Trying to bring order out of so much chaos rapidly became a “no-can-do.” Smartest thing we ever did was to leave. Things may not be that mad here on the island, but standing to one side, next to Thord the professor, I angrily intervene. “Hello-o! What the fuck are you doing?! These dudes here are straightening up and prepping the island for— ” But I get an old-fashion German Luger shoved in my mouth for my trouble. “Yo sho’ th’nk o’ wha’ yo’ doin’,” I say. Teeth clicking on gun metal. Good old Thord, always full of surprises!

“READY!” shouts Skip. The college kids raise their rifles and take aim at the laborers. I watch, amazed, as one after another, they release the safety on their weapons. What are they thinking? “AIM!” Leaning slightly forward to absorb the recoil, each young white kid takes a bead. This ain’t no fair ground. You don’t get a stuffed animal as—

            BLA-A-A-A-A-AT! A ship’s horn shatters the tension, comically, as an entire enormous cruise ship holding 1,500 passengers sluggishly but unstoppably pulls into the key. “Tha’s whot I been tryin’ t’ tell you!” swears the only black man who seems inclined to argue. “This is a Bahamian island owned by a cruise line! Get used to it, mon.“

“NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!” roars the professor, waving his Luger. “Deutschland über Alles!!! ” Giving the Nazi salute, he clicks his heels together in the sand. Another unrepentant Nazi.

“Uh, stand down,” commands Skip, looking slightly sick. Slowly, he unhooks and peels off his explosive vest.

Beachcombers, young families with beach balls and aquatic camp counselors come ashore, making we buccaneers feel a little foolish with our automatic rifles and military discipline. A ship’s doctor comes in on a motor launch. He gives Thord a full sedative, since the man’s incessant railing about “Jewish betrayal of the Fatherland” is definitely starting to get on everyone’s nerves. The Bahamian authorities impound the rifles and explosives. They also impound the schooner for gun-running, which Skip admits was their actual occupation. Dupes, the other students are allowed to call home and arrange passage back to the mainland.

“Blame it on global warming,” Kelly suggests, wrapping an arm around my waist. Apparently, my two lady friends have decided “any port in a storm.”

“Are you guys gonna be all right?” I ask.

“You mean, like, headin’ for the funny farm?” suggests Margo. “Naw, we thought this gig sucked from the very beginning, we just couldn’t figure out how.”

Young people!

*

 

 Chapter 4

 

            The Boston Marathon. April 15, superlative running weather, temps in the mid-50’s. Crystalline skies, this is what sporting events are supposed to be like! I’m here to cheer on Jessica Reed, a Kim Carnes look-alike with the body of a Marine Corps officer. Hooray! I am in a straight heterosexual relationship with someone who is neither a prostitute nor a weirdo. Jesse works as an executive V. P. at the Raytheon Company in Waltham, Massachusetts. Defense contracts. You can’t get straighter than that, unless you go to work for FedEx in Tennessee. Amazingly, Jesse actually finds me funny! In a good way. So there’s hope. She’s a good one. Walking around Boston, I am proud to be seen with her. I mean, finally somebody worth the candle.

When she runs, Jesse sports pro running shoes, tight black pants, blue tees and a green day-glo vest that says on the front “Move over, Rover!” and on the back “There I go again!” She wears an all-purpose armband that monitors her heart rate. It also gives pedometer readouts, GPS location and traffic updates. Jesse is one serious sportswoman.

Joining the crowd gaily waiting at the finish line, I— Ka-blam! An ear-splitting explosion and a shock wave that punches us like a fist in the face. What’s goin’ on??? I’m looking in seven different directions at once. People screaming. The crowd running. Onlookers stumbling around in a daze.

When others start sprinting like maniacs, I go into a low crouch and assess the situation. The first thing I notice is the number of injured spectators and participants. Next, the pedestrians vacating the shops and restaurants around the site of the detonation. Ka-blam! A second explosion! And now I really can’t hear anything but the ringing in my ears. Fuck! This place is starting to resemble a battlefield. I feel more determined than ever to ferry people out of the war zone. I rush out into the street and help a runner, whose legs are perforated with shrapnel, get to his feet. I march him over to the sidewalk farthest from the blast radius. I don’t know if this helps, but ferrying people out of harm’s way seems the right thing to do.

The official report will speak of “carnage.” Read: body parts. Streams of sticky red blood. Tatters of clothing, smelling of explosives. Shattered glass, crunch, crunch!

I can’t believe how hungry I am! Seeing abandoned luncheon plates under the parasols of sidewalk cafés, I march around among the tables, helping myself to a half-eaten hamburger. I bite into the USDA-approved 100% beef patty dripping in natural juices, char-broiled to perfection over an open grill. Luke-warm fries with ketchup. Fistfuls of lettuce with Bermuda onion. Rivulets of burger grease cascade from my chin. I wash it all down with sodas that are still cold and fizzy. Yum!

“What the fug are you doin’?” a police officer asks in a thick Boston accent. “Get the Hell away from there, ya fuggin’ scavenger! Let me see some I.D.”

“Waxworth Security,” I mumble, my mouth full of hamburger bun. Pulling out my wallet, I show him my credentials.

“Ya wanna be a help? Walk back along the marathon route and direct runners to get off Boylston and turn onto Newbury or Commonwealth. Tell ’em to go to Boston Common. Who knows what’s gonna blow up next? We gotta keep this area clear!”

So that’s how I first get involved in the so-called official end of the ensuing investigation.

A thousand runners, drop-dead tired, come pounding down the road. “Right! Go right! Take a right!” I instruct, pointing with my whole arm like a mechanical soldier.

“Hi-eye-eye-eye!” chants a chalk-white young lady. Oodles of blond hair held behind a sky-blue sweatband, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a fleshy nose, chapped lips over a dimpled chin. “Wassup?!” she breathes, sidling up to me, dripping sweat. I’m amazed at the whiteness of her skin. Most of her blood must have migrated to those bulging muscles of hers. She’s so short, I feel like I could lift her up and put her in my breast pocket. “Wassa matter?” she drawls, smiling, her arms snaking around my neck. What’s this? Her face comes looming up at me, tongue licking lips. An inch away, I can smell her minty breath. Hanging on like a pendulum, she locks lips with mine, her tongue thrashing around inside my cheeks. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s with the libido?” I complain. “I thought runners got their endorphin fix from overcoming lactose acid cramps and were good to go…?”

“Ah’m jus’ celebrating mah victory,” she guffaws, still swinging from my neck merrily. “This was mah first marathon an’ I com…pleted it!”

We’re in the midst of another of her strange, dynamite, masher kisses when a familiar voice calls, “Josh? Hey, Josh! What’s goin’ on?”

“Oh, um… Jesus! I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lucy. Mah name’s Lucy.”

I keep trying to detach myself. Lucy, dear girl, won’t let go. “Oh, uh, hi, Jesse!” I stammer. “Listen, how was the race? Look, everybody has to turn right here onto Newbury after some kind of explosion up ahead on Boylston.”

“WHO’S YOUR FRIEND, JOSH?!” Jessica asks, barreling past me up Exeter without a backward glance.

Win some, lose some. Such is life at the uppermost pinnacle of… whatever! And Lucy, don’t you know, is bi-sexual and sharing a loft in Cambridge with her BFF Jennifer. Both participated in the marathon and, together, they take me home to their place. Demanding equal time and attention in the shower, in bed and on the floor. In the kitchen, entirely naked, spread-eagle across the kitchen table, Lucy declares, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” I eat her blond bush like it’s a cupcake. She falls asleep, as rung out as a ragdoll.

Oh, and did I mention how exciting the race was? The Ethiopians had it wrapped!

I stay a whole day. I admit it. Fucking my brains out, their pale young bodies a total turn-on. Even their sweat tastes good!

We watch late night cable TV: “It’s The Nacht und Nebel Show,” the announcer excitedly tells us. “With Friedrich’s special guest, Holocaust-denier David Irving!”

Only in America, right?

“Listen— ” I say.

“Wait,” Lucy warns me, leaning against me on the couch. “I want to hear this!”

Eventually, I clean myself up and get my sorry ass out of there, returning to the scene of the crime. The final tally is three dead and over 250 wounded. Spotting FBI agent Eric Weiss, I walk on over. “No! No! No! God dammit!” Eric exclaims upon seeing me. What a card!

“Available for duty, sir!”

Turning away, Eric tells the uniformed patrolmen, “You guys gotta deal with this. I can’t!”

That’s how I get teamed up with patrolman first class Raymond O’Donnell, walking the neighborhoods ringing doorbells, asking if anyone has seen or heard anything. Armed with Asus 7″ Jelly Bean tablets, we take notes and photograph everything even vaguely interesting. Officer O’Donnell keeps a stiff upper lip, but over coffee, it becomes blatantly obvious from his monologues that, given his druthers, he’d like to round up and corral the entire Asian population of Boston. “They’s no damn trustworthy,” he explains earnestly. “There’s no sense of the lahjer community. They’s on’y interested in ’emselves!” When we get into their part of town, I see what Ray means. The Asians turn us away brusquely, unwilling to share any details at all with the Boston Police Department. Very weird.

Aware that the entire world is watching, the coppers play their cards very close to their chests. The Internet is buzzing, accusing anything that moves:

“OMG! My cousin’s neighbor saw a strange man walking w/ black plastic garbage bag SECONDS B4 the SECOND explosion! He is #terrorist!”

            Having learned from past disasters, the local authorities double-check everything, waiting three days before releasing both video and stills of the Tsarnaev brothers.

This pair of amateurs, using instructions from Al Qaeda’s Internet magazine Inspire, combine fireworks with pressure cookers, creating their very own homemade explosive devices. They transport these to the marathon in backpacks.

During the ensuing police manhunt, officers engage in a Gunfight at the O.K. Corral type shoot-out with the boys on Laurel Street in Watertown, Massachusetts. Driving a carjacked SUV, Dzhokhar accidently runs over his wounded brother Tamerlan. Dzhokhar then disappears. He’s discovered 12 hours later, through a local tip and some infrared photography, hiding inside a boat stored in a backyard in Watertown. Badly wounded, he surrenders.

His brother Tamerlan dies of gunshot wounds at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston at 1:35 a.m. on April 19.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Officer O’Donnell tells me, sitting across from me at a local coffee bistro. “The Russians are not taking this investigation seriously enough! We’ve explained that the brothers are Chechens. They are kids, really. The parents are back in Chee-Chee Land. When we ask Ivan to check up on the parents, they say they have their hands full with their own home-grown terrorism. Apparently, as soon as anyone leaves Russia, he’s considered a traitor. Period. They expunge expatriates from the rolls. Nobody’s going to check up on the Tsarnaev parents.”

“I’ll go check.”

“Well, I don’t know,” O’Donnell answers nervously. “Maybe I’m talkin’ out of school here. So far, your participation and mine has been three steps below entry level.”

“If that’s your attitude,” I tell him, finishing my coffee and leaving him to pay the bill, “I’ll make my own arrangements.”

Eric Weiss at the FBI says “No.”

“No way,” says Sir Richard Waxworth at Waxworth Security. “We’d have to be crazy to get involved in the Bostonians’ investigation. We’d be stepping on people’s toes. Forget about it. Stop playing Sir Galahad! Get your sorry ass back to the office.”

“Is your passport up to date?” asks Jimmie Sue Cadillac.

 

Like retirement, it’s a hard job but somebody has to do it. I fly to Grozny. Right at the airport, the porters and taxi drivers start playing tricks and pulling punches. I mean, thank God I don’t have any checked luggage! Anything like that would disappear without a trace. I’m met at Customs by the rep for the FSB, the Russian Intelligence Service. Formerly the KGB. His name is Vladimir Kravchenko. Squat as a bulldog, a round face, bad teeth and a very Russian wart upside his nose. In the good old days, an entire delegation of agents would have been assigned to dog my every step. Vlad’s solitary status and bored demeanor indicate the government’s officially mundane view of my current mission.

“I got you the address where these Chechens lived,” he explains in ponderous English, visibly wincing.

I haven’t even said “hello” and Vlad is in pain! Seated next to him in an ancient Zhiguli sedan, I get a clearer profile: Kravchenko in his rumpled suit, ring-around-the-collar starched white shirt and Navy blue tie is apparently recovering from the effects of a monumental hangover.

I try not to judge people on physical beauty, but these Chechens are sure ugly. Even in Bulgaria, the unrelenting thugishness is periodically relieved by the appearance of a red-haired, green-eyed Greek goddess. Here in the Chechen crapital, no such luck.

We drive into Grozny. Bombed into rubble in 1999 by the newly-enthroned Vladimir Putin— even the cows were considered legitimate targets— the city is a contrast between old wreckage and new construction. The cement mixers never stop grinding, a sure sign of progress, if not recovery. The entire city resembles a junkyard. Mired in mud. Stray dogs trot through the streets, wheezing asthmatically. This is a place where even the tufted ear squirrels pack heat. Discretion being the better part of valor, at the apartment house, Vlad sits resolutely in the car, leaving me to go it alone. “The door marked 3/C,” he advises. “If they shoot you, don’t bother coming back.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I heartily agree. When Vlad looks confused, I realize that the man is serious! Good grief. If I get bitten by a rabid dog, my staunch companion is prepared to tut-tut all the way to the cemetery.

“Tsarnaev,” I ask, standing tiredly in the doorway of 3/C. My jet lag has finally caught up with me, cutting me off at the knees: I cannot feel my feet.

“Not here,” the squat woman tells me in local dialect. Her 10-year-old son, perched at my right elbow, happily translates. “Fuck you, Stallone!” he says. “I shoot you ’till I kill you! How you like them parakeets, motherfucker?”

What movies has this kid been watching?

“Where are the Tsarnaevs?” I ask him.

He confers with his mom. “Dagestan. They move to Dagestan!  One move and I blow you testicles off, motherfucker!”

“Yeah, okay, I got it,” I tell him, laughing in spite of myself. Compulsively— I mean, they are so broke— I pull out my wallet and give him a $10 bill.  “This is ten dollars,” I insist, pointing at the number on the bill. “Make sure you get your money’s worth.”

“Fuck you, Jack! Who you calling monkey?” asks the boy rhetorically.

I trudge back up the crumbling walkway to Vlad in his dented Zhiguli. “They’re in Dagestan,” I tell him, waves of blackness clouding my vision.

“Are you crazy?!” Vladimir complains. “I am not driving you to Dagestan!”

Sitting next to him, I pass out.

I sleep 24 hours straight in a one-star flophouse that passes for a hotel. The black Bakelite telephone weighs five pounds. It rings so shrilly, I’m sure they can hear it outside on the street. “Guess what?” says Kravchenko. “Somebody’s been busy in the archives. As a favor to the Iranians [Publisher’s Note: Cheap Shot, 2013], your visa has been revoked!”

 

Returning Stateside, I am outraged over the turn of events! If ever I decide to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center of Stockholm, Sweden or blow up the New Boston Mini Mart located halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor in Michigan, at least I hope to have the support of my aunts and uncles. Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, holds an impromptu press conference outside his home in Montgomery Village, Maryland days after the bombing and declares both his nephews “losers.”

Ever helpful, at a memorial service for the MIT police officer slain by the Tsarnaevs, Veep Joe Biden labels them “perverted, cowardly knockoff jihadis.”

Knockoff jihadis? Ouch!  That hurts!

The hospitalized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now talking. He tells us that he and his older bro’ Tamerlan became angry with America over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Listen, Dzhokhar, you ain’t exactly alone! Lots of people are sore, yet we don’t all go around making bombs. Hey, Mr.G-man, there’s more to this than meets the eye! I say, law enforcement should focus on classic detective work à la Sam Spade: Cherchez la femme! What atavistic need to play tonsil hockey with giggling, young, blue-eyed blond American schoolgirls drove these two frustrated, swarthy immigrant boys from Chechnya to attack America in the name of radical Islam? Don’t forget, Marilyn Monroe was an American invention! (My YouTube playlist features pop videos by Lady Gaga, Kerli and Ke$ha, all young, all blond.) Young girls flirt. Rejection hurts. Life is a series of disappointments. Zero in on the Tsarnaev brothers’ lonely frustration.

When confronted by an in-your-face topless Ukrainian women’s rights protester at the Hanover Industrial Fair in Germany, Vladimir Putin didn’t get mad, he got even: Ogling the young lady lasciviously, he told fair officials, “You should be grateful to the girls, they are helping you make the fair more popular.” This is one of the perks of being dictator of Russia. Alas, not all of us can react with such aplomb. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan blew up the Boston Marathon.

            Give the boys credit, unlike you or me, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan have left their mark in history! Their names will figure prominently in databases, which is more than you or I can brag about.

            Payback is a bitch. Like rock-throwing Palestinians, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar probably saw detonating explosives as a form of personal expression. After all, we do have the First Amendment right to free speech. These boys are following a long, worldwide tradition of anarchist protest. The Kristallnacht pogrom was unleashed in Germany when Herschel Grynszpan assassinated diplomat Ernst von Rath over the plight of the Jews. Making IEDs and blowing up the Boston Marathon was a way for Tamerlan and Dzhokhar to express themselves. A day after the bombing, Dzhokhar told fellow classmate Zach Bettencourt at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, “Tragedies like this happen all the time.” Two days later, the FBI released photos of the Tsarnaev brothers to the world. Class was over.

You wonder how the brothers could concentrate on making bombs amid the hustle and bustle of modern Bostonian life. It wasn’t easy. Tip: One advantage of the slower tempo in Moombahton dance music (108 beats per minute) is the extra time it gives you to gather your thoughts.

Chechens aren’t like the rest of us: Most of them come from Chechnya. Despite the pitfalls of generalizing, I’m willing to state that Chechens are an emotional people often prone to violence. Joseph Stalin deported the entire Chechen nation to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1944. Although allowed to return home after 1956, between a quarter and half the Chechen population perished. No wonder they have a chip on their shoulders! Tamerlan and Dzhokhar’s parents claim from their home in Dagestan that their boys were set up. They cannot believe their progeny would ever commit acts of violence. Of course, the parents no longer live in America, a land of 314 million personal agendas, road rage, the Tea Party, West Virginia snake handlers, asinine sci-fi television shows, zombie movies, vampire films, income inequality, Draconian state marital laws still on the books from two centuries ago and the proliferation of megachurches. The Mormon hymnbook ends with The Star-Spangled Banner and God Save the King. Where, may I ask, are Hatikvah and Allahu Akbar?

As always during an economic downturn, partisanship and extremism sound the death knell of civility. Perhaps in the panorama of Sufis, Salafist jihadists and adherents of Salvador Dali, these young men chose one from column A and another from column B. Whatever their nihilistic philosophy, armed struggle prevailed. Ask any chemist or political consultant: Free radicals in the body politic can result in a deadly outcome.

Ours is a violent nation. Think of Tamerlan and  Dzhokhar as military humor, ha ha, laughing in the shambles. Django has been unchained: The NRA blocks any attempt at gun control while the U.S. Senate requires 60% to vote “aye” for any legislation to pass. Our prez is a feckless blabbermouth. When the institutions in power fail to rule, anarchy reigns.

I side with the National Rifle Association’s chief executive Wayne LaPierre: In a country of 314 million people, any attempt to run background checks on all purchasers of backpacks, pressure cookers and fireworks will prove totally unmanageable.

Are the bumbling Tsarnaev bros the Sacco and Vanzetti of our time? Some college students become terrorists. Are we going to run background checks on all college students? Better to put an armed police officer on every street corner. This solution will also eradicate unemployment.

To the jihadis of the world, I throw down the gauntlet of challenge: Blowing up people and buildings is easy! Anyone can do that. Lets see you hit America where it really hurts. Beat us in golf, ping pong or tennis! Becoming a pro golfer, ping pong or tennis player takes talent, stamina, an iron will, dedication and years of practice. Bomb-making is a short-term walk in the park, in comparison. Seriously, show us what you got! Be sportsmanlike about it. Allahu Akbar? Before declaring a worldwide caliphate, at least win gold at the Olympics!

*