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Chapter Four
May, 20xxRoom LL35-35, The Pentagon
Washington, D.C.
Jonas Prinkler hated cockroaches; particularly the big, juicy specimens that reminded him of his ex-wife. Still, he amused; at least the filthy insect scurrying around his misplaced trash can did remain near him for more than a day so perhaps his comparison was a bit unfair – to the cockroach. After all, it had been a difficult year; twelve months since his wife left him for some kid barely out of college and since he was nearing retirement age himself, he didn’t have the guts to return to the dating scene.Part of the problem rested with his being an analyst – he tended to analyze things far too much for his comfort. Why Florence “night in a gale” would leave him after forty-seven years of marriage was quite beyond his powers of perception. He just came home early one day and found a Dear Jonas letter on the fireplace mantel explaining that she had had enough. The problem was, was that he didn’t know what it was that she had had enough of.
Jonas Merriwhether Prinkler was not a catch, even he acknowledged that much. Of average height and above average weight – way above average – he resembled a plump turkey, stuffed and primed for Thanksgiving dinner. Where he had lacked in a long flabby neck, Flo had more than made up for so how she had snagged a gullible young student seemed quite impossible indeed.
He pushed back his squeaky chair and spun slightly towards the right so that he could crush the irritant bug with the sole of his shoe. If only I had done the same with Florence.
Jonas quickly returned to his desk, itself buried under an impenetrable stack of books, documents, and CD cases. Only his antiquated desktop computer rose above the clutter and its monitor proved of no more use to his assignment than had the material that swamped his basement office. He was given the task of isolating an incident for which nobody else could decipher. In other words, his supervisor plopped the material down upon his desk and said something to the effect of “Intel says that something is going down. Find out what it might be.”
He knew what the problem really entailed; those occupying the roomier offices high above him had too much data to work with and instead of shelving it for the duration they sent it down below into his cramped little office. This way, he realized, they could inform their own bosses that ‘someone’ was working on the intelligence. Jonas would’ve never minded the indignities if he could purport some value to his position but the information often included nothing of value and so he quietly assumed that he was waiting out his retirement like any other gelding set out to pasture.
Experience no longer seemed to make up for a college degree and therein Jonas knew that the new kids high above his cramped metal desk were who was ‘in’ in the new age of fighting terrorism through computers, satellites, and high-speed communications. Gone was the valuable street smarts that he brought into the Pentagon so many years before; if it couldn’t be qualified, it had no place within today’s Defense Department. At least that was the impression that he developed.
Jonas quietly glanced around the former janitor’s closet. Damn, even the floor sweeper got a bigger office. He glanced up towards the large calendar that hung lopsided on the far wall. Eighteen months, two days.
The overweight analyst looked at the crushed insect lying quite dead upon the floor. “Lucky bastard.” Pulling his chair tighter against the desk, he haphazardly grasped a stack of manila folders and pulled them onto what was exposed of his lap. When presented with such chaos, he continued to think, there could be no obvious starting point and so he had decided to begin with whatever file was easiest to grab. His normal area of operations included Europe, the Middle East, and Africa – quite a chunk of real estate – but was mildly surprised to find his fingers flipping through a file on Saudi Arabia. At least the Oil Kingdom posed a bit of intrigue, unlike his previous example which covered Andorra.
The Saudis always sent his spine tingling. He knew enough about the country to question whether they were really America’s allies or the West’s worst foe. He chuckled over the thought of a nation bloated with $130 per barrel oil but where no one seemed able to afford a razor and a decent pair of men’s pants. Jonas, politically correct you ain’t.
Jonas could really care less what the world thought of him. A pug-nosed, spectacled analyst fueled almost exclusively on fast food and exiled to the basement of a huge complex couldn’t be much of a threat to anyone and he governed his actions accordingly. If he stepped on a few toes in his mannerisms, then so bet it; his thoughts would never cost him his pension – nobody else would be so dumb as to do his work.
As for the Saudis; well, if they were America’s allies then he would consider them as such. On the other hand, if they were deceitful, malignant, and just plain evil then he wouldn’t worry about offending them just the same. For all of the things that he wasn’t, Jonas was a patriot first and foremost. Devotion to his country and its culture manifested itself in his job and devotion to his job apparently cost him his marriage. With such a price being paid, he was not about to dwell on international courtesies.
Much of the information contained within the worn manila folder presented a strong example of Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of the American economy. It categorized their investments in real estate, retail stores, sports teams, and a dozen other industries that most citizens of the United States frequently assumed to be in the control of their fellow countrymen. Somehow, Jonas just couldn’t understand the irony – that America’s obsession with Saudi oil provided them with the money to come over here and partake of his nation’s hard-earned treasures.
Whether or not the Saudi royal family owned one of America’s greatest and most famous amusement parks never seemed to bother him. With his life thrown about this way and that, he had long since outgrown the desire for his body to experience the same gyrations. In this way, the Saudis would never get rich from his pocketbook. What bothered him, however, was that the Saudis seemed bent on controlling Americana – the uniquely American features that made his nation great.
Jonas also felt uneasy about their involvement in things that, because of their nature, swelled with people; investments that appeared tailored to congregate his fellow countrymen in large and vulnerable numbers. His natural suspicions over the Saudis’ intent focused his mind more on probable impact than possible intrigue. He imagined that there might be something sinister contained within all of the numbers detailing the desert kingdom’s investments and he decided to see if he was cruising down the correct boulevard or not in his analysis.
At the Patient Evil Homepage the Synopsis, Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, and each chapter will be available in pdf after they are published here at Right Truth.
Synopsis at Right Truth
Prologue and Chapter One at Right Truth, Chapter Two , Chapter Three,
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