CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
December 19, 2012 AD – 8:39 PM,
Aboard the Moondance
23:39 GMT
• • • • •
The cigar smoke was palpable now.
So was the testosterone.
Marshall was leaning back in his captain’s chair with his cigar between his two fingers like a thick cigarette.
“Unless there’s a chemical, biological or nuclear attack on the United States proper… well… let’s just say they better send more than the obligatory two men to pick me up for reactivation. A lot more than two men. And they better show up unannounced. ‘Cause they won't like the greeting I give ‘em if I know they're dropping by. I’ve done my time in the military. The American government doesn’t make the calls any more. I do. And only me. I spent the best part of my life protecting this country and defending the Constitution, only to have it called a ‘Goddamn piece of paper’ by the man who was supposed to be telling me who to shoot. Well, fuck him. And fuck his fat-ass Vice President, too. That motherfucker is evil… just plain evil.”
The Scotch and cigars were having an effect. Marshall could feel the warmth in his belly becoming a fire in his heart. Dwayne just sat there. He’d spent enough time as an attorney to know when to listen, or to know when to ask just the right question; like now.
“Why?” he said between puffs.
Marshall calmed down with a very un-gentleman-like swig of Scotch followed by his own puff on the Cuban before he answered. He sounded perfectly calm and coherent, now.
“Because he’s a war profiteer. That’s why. The fuckhead makes profit from war. His company makes or provides everything we need to keep wars going. All the logistical shit that we used to use soldiers for, his company now provides. That means we need fewer soldiers, and it’s easier to operate the conflict if we can keep the total number of soldiers below a certain threshold. If we ran wars the way we did in every war since World War II, we’d need three or four times as many soldiers. That many soldiers are not politically supportable any more. But if you outsource all of the logistics of war to private companies, then you can cover up the actual size of any military action you wanna take. And the logistical expenses of going and staying at war are immense and far reaching. And as long as you stay at war, you can’t live without the logistics to keep it running. It’s a government contract that never stops, as long as the wars never stop. War should not be a business, and no one should profit from war. His company has turned our military into one of the most profitable industries in the world. Profiting from war is as close to evil as I can imagine. That makes him the fucking king of evil.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have anything to do with the company any more, right? He had to give up all his stock and his position in the firm before he took office. And I heard the Army stopped doing business with BHI back in 2006.”
“Oh, come on… You’re an attorney from the Big Easy, and you don’t believe he’s still got a stake in the financial future of that monopoly. These are the same people who invented Golden-Parachutes for Christ sake… Trust me. He’s still making money. His company made over fifteen billion in profit… PROFIT… before Congress pulled the plug on the money train. And the official story may be that the DOD isn’t doing business with them, but everyone I know says all the same people are still doing the work. It’s a lot easier to change names than it is to give up on a lucrative inside government contract. If you count secret research and the black-ops war budget, we blew almost three trillion dollars on those piece of shit wars he thought up… and then talked that lamebrain puppet President into following through with.”
“Don’t forget the next guy… He kept ‘em going.”
Dwayne wasn’t sure what Marshall would say to this. The conversation up to this point had only concerned the last President and his beloved Vice President; not the one who took office right after.
“Oh, there’s a piece of work.” Marshall slumped back into his chair at that. Then he slowly added, “Out of the frying pan…”
“… and into the fire.” Dwayne joined in and finished the proverbial warning with him. Then they both chuckled out loud.
Marshall felt good. Not just because of the Scotch or the company. He had that unique feeling that came after a brush with death. He’d felt it plenty of times before. But almost all of those memories of the afterglow of survival hormone overdose were tempered with the realities of battle. This time was different in that respect. No one was dead. ‘Thankfully, no one was even seriously wounded,’ Marshall thought to himself as he remembered Dwayne’s two kids downstairs in the hyperbaric chamber in the bowels of his boat. His mind slowly drifted back to the present, but he looked over at Dwayne before he continued.
“I left the military before he took office… I’ve never met the man.”
Marshall looked him straight in the eye as he lied to his face. ‘Not the first time I’ve had to do that,’ he thought to himself as Dwayne nodded. Marshall had long since gotten over any issue with need-to-know information loops. But he changed the direction of the subject just to be safe.
“What about you… did you meet the next POTUS?” Marshall used the official designator for the President.
“Oh yeah… I met him once. My old firm is leading the class action on the Gulf oil spill… The deal he made with BP is central to the claims that have come up since then. I’m glad I’m not gonna be involved, though. I just don’t have another big fight against the government in me.”
Dwayne took a sip and realized his glass was empty. He handed it to Marshall, who poured him a double shot and handed it back. Then Dwayne relaxed into the chair, again. His Cajun accent started to come out when he started talking around people he was comfortable with, or when he was drunk; like right now.
“We have a saying back in Nyu Awlins. ‘Our politicians are da best money can buy…’ It’s an inside joke when ya consider how many of our elected officials been indicted over the years… includin’ our Guvenuzz…”
Marshall smiled at this. So did Dwayne. Then he continued.
“After meetin’ da POTUS from Illinois… I realized dat saying must be true in Chicago, too. You said it a while ago. Dat man izza piece of work.”
Marshall laughed out loud at this. ‘I really like this guy,’ he thought to himself as he raised his glass in another toast.
“To a piece of work…”
They clinked their glasses together over the quickly depleting bottle of Scotch.
Dwayne drank to the toast and thought to himself, for the second time that day, that he was the luckiest man on the planet. Outside the military, it was rare for someone to get the opportunity to spend time with a person who has just saved their life. The nature of emergency situations didn’t usually allow that sort of interaction to work out. However, bonding over post fight-or-flight hormone highs went back as far as humans sitting around a fire eating the bounty of a hunt. It was enjoyable and cathartic to share the moment with those who went through the ordeal.
‘It’s even better when you really like that person,’ Dwayne concluded to himself.
Even after everything he’d been through today, he smiled.
Outside the boat, the moon rose behind them.
The Moondance sparkled as her namesake shone down over the Atlantic ocean screaming by at 125 knots.