PATIENT EVIL
An R.J. Godlewski and Right Truth Blog Exclusive eBook
Chapter Nine
June, 20xx
The Pentagon
Jonas Prinkler had been eying the
newcomer pacing the corridor outside his office with a mixture of curiosity and
suspicion. After several minutes, he decided to break the ice. “Lost?”
The tall stranger sighed. “I’ve been
lost ever since I got involved with this sorry-assed organization.”
Jonas smiled over the bluntness of
the newcomer. “Yeah, I can relate. I’ve just been assigned to this office and I
haven’t a clue as to why.”
“That makes two of us.” Drawing
closer towards the office door, the newcomer’s face appeared a little less
confused. “Somewhere in my past one of my forefathers must’ve spit in the face
of the village witch.”
Jonas smiled. “Nah, my wife would’ve
mentioned it.”
Both men laughed.
“My name is Jonas Prinkler.”
The other man accepted the handshake
and returned it with a bit more force. “Seth Carmassi. Glad to meet you.”
“So how did you end up down here in
this dungeon?” asked Jonas as he guided Carmassi into what existed of his
office.
“Damn, if I know. I just think that
this place is getting a bit too politically-correct for someone like me.”
Jonas nodded, more so for he
suspected that the other man was less of an analyst than someone whose function
wasn’t discussed within polite company.
“I’d been in operations.” continued Carmassi. “Doing a bang-up job getting rid of the thugs hell-bent on destroying our way of life and all of a sudden – poof!—I’m down here trying to make sense of it all. I just can’t figure it out.”
Jonas
shrugged with a low grumble. “I’m still trying to figure out the impotency
commercial where the guys are all together singing in
Carmassi laughed; he was beginning to like his new friend. “You’ve got me there! No doubt the television commercial was produced by someone upstairs in Public Affairs!”
Now Jonas laughed. “And probably funded by the Saudis or someone…”
Carmassi held up his hand abruptly as if to cut off Jonas’ train of thought. “Funny you should mention the Saudis. I was just reading a file on one of their charities petitioning the government for the donation of the ex-sub tender Samuel Maxwell McCaide.”
Jonas scratched the bridge of his wide nose. “Oh? I only mentioned them because I was just reading a file on their massive investments in this country of recent.”
“I wonder…” Carmassi took a brief glance down the hallway towards his own office and discovered that, though quite far from one another, neither had any intervening compartments. That was, Carmassi and Jonas were neighbors of a sort and represented the entire ‘function’ of the floor. “I wonder if there’s some method to their madness.”
Jonas nodded even though he had no clue as to the line of Carmassi’s reasoning. “You suspect that there might be some connection between the funding of the ship and their other investments? Probably just a coincidence.”
“Eh,
who knows?” grumbled Carmassi. “I’m just used to doing things on my own and now
I’m supposed to ‘organize a new effort to evaluate ‘future’ threats against the
Jonas accepted the highly wrinkled document, read its words, then handed it back to Carmassi without saying a word.
“Double-speak is what I call it.” lambasted Carmassi. “They send me down to that ridiculous office of mine without anything to work with and I’m supposed to fight terrorism, how?”
“Perhaps this could work to your advantage?” offered Jonas politely. “In all of the years that I’ve been working in this building, the one thing that I do know is that if you don’t take the initiative then they’ll leave you rotting around until your retirement.”
“Yeah.” Carmassi swiped the remnants of a dead cockroach with his toes. “I’m just used to being in the field where you have to think on your feet. Here, there’s too many Suits for my comfort.”
“Down here I expect to find coveralls.”
“No doubt. If I know anything about our government and that’s that they won’t do anything unless it takes too long and costs too much. So, we’ll probably be exiled down here for a few years until they decide what we’re really supposed to be doing. I feel like the damn Phantom of the Opera or something.”
Jonas calmly removed his eyeglasses, retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and began to haphazardly clean the lenses. “So, lacking any further instructions as to our purpose, are we not then permitted to do as we please?”
Carmassi scrutinized the expression offered by his friend; thoughts of flirting with redheads quickly dissipating from his mind. “You intrigue me, friend. What’s on your mind?”
“For
starters, I don’t believe that the Saudis do a dang thing without some ulterior
motive.” He replaced his eyeglasses so as to look more serious in his
reasoning. “I know that the Saudis are building a new amusement park in
“Yeah, why?” Carmassi returned to his old habit of lip chewing whenever a problem presented itself. “Would it offend you if I said that I don’t trust those bastards one square inch?”
Jonas chuckled. “Personally? No. I don’t like anyone who doesn’t support my nation one hundred percent. I don’t necessarily care about their race, their religion, or their homeland. I just view mine as the best – bar none – and I take exception to anyone who tries to manipulate our policies here or abroad.”
Carmassi smiled broadly. The fat guy has courage of a sort. “Good; because I think that the bastards should be nuked off the earth, myself. They don’t need all of that oil – they just use it to fund our enemies – so that makes them our enemies and America always takes what it needs from our enemies.”
Jonas
nodded softly as if he was being watched from above. Yep. No wonder why they sent us down here to the basement. “So you
think that there’s a connection between their involvement in
Carmassi threw up his shoulders. “Damn if I know. On the one hand, if we find a connection; a sinister one at that, then someone has to do something about it. On the other hand; if we don’t find anything, what were we supposed to be doing down here anyway?”
At the Patient Evil Homepage the Synopsis, Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six , Chapter Seven, and each chapter will be available in pdf after they are published here at Right Truth.
Synopsis at Right Truth Chapter Seven
Prologue and Chapter One at Right Truth, Chapter Two , Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six,
Now available: Patient Evil t-shirts for men and women at CafePress Available in Black, two shades of Blue, and Charcoal
This article is posted at Real Clear Politics, your votes are appreciated.
Comments