With the company’s blessing, the two old spies met once a week for a five mile stroll around Georgetown. He and the Old Man. He was called The Old Man, behind his back, because it was how the Old Man referred to virtually everyone “Now listen here, Old Man”
The Old Man knew about the title and didn’t dislike it. The moniker appealed to the large streak of snob in him. Snob was why the Company and Georgetown, both preserves for the rarified tribe, appealed to him.
The Company is what agency is called, although the newer breed referred to it as the farm, a reference to the Virginia apple orchard that once occupied the massive plot of land on the banks of Potomac where the company’s headquarter is.
The Old Man ran been a major power there once. He fell from grace because of operation Corrective Vision. Leonidas Trujillo, AKA El Jefe, the president for life of the Dominican Republic was insane. Truly a madman. It was agreed by the powers that be that El Jefe would die in a coup.
On the day of the coup, the Old Man had authorized a press release through a company man on the staff at the Washington Post that Trujillo, AKA El Jefe, had been assassinated by his own military at 4:30 in Afternoon on May 30, a Tuesday, as he was driven from the capital in a sky blue Chevy Bel Air. Junior officers had shot him twice through the head. That was how the story ran.
Unfortunately for the Old Man, the assassination actually took place four hours later. El Jefe’s son, Ramfis had been executed and his death was misinterpreted by ground agents as El Jefe’s death and that was how the relayed the news to the Company. The Junior Officer’s then killed El Jefe exactly the way they had been ordered to and exactly the way the Post had said they did.
The world demanded to know how the newspaper Post was able to predict the assassination four in advance with such stunning accuracy. One investigation led to another and the Old Man was quietly was drummed from the company.
As a courtesy, for there were many in company who felt the Old Man had done no wrong, the company keep him in the loop which was why the admiral was taking the five mile stroll around Georgetown. He wasn’t an admiral, not yet anyway. But I his days at the Academy in Annapolis, the most holiest of holy recruiting grounds for the company, he had bragged that he would leave the navy in twenty years’ time as an admiral. He was a Commander but the assignment of strolling Georgetown with the Old Man meant he was on his way to an admiralty.
So once or twice a month, it depended on many outside factors, they met on the corner of M and 28th Street and walked west up 28th, stopping at the corner market P and 28th for a carry out coffee for him and a tea for The Old Man. Of course the Old Man drank tea. It was what he liked to think that British drank.
His dislike for The Old Man. H disliked his boorish behavior and his subtle bullying was beginning to overshadow his ability to make small talk with him which was the only thing that masked his growing contempt of him so they usually walked along in silence.
“So,” the old man began “What’s the word from the front lines?”
“Sven Carlson?” the Admiral said
“One of ours?” the Old Mana sked
“No” he answered quickly. He always answered quickly “A civilian.”
“So what of Mister Carlson?” the Old Man asked
“Mr. Carlson” the Admiral began slowly “made a fortune. Three times. And with every fortune he made the less interested he became in being wealthy. We took care of his money concerns. We spent it for him.
“Background?” The Old Man asked without looking at him.
“He was 64 years old when he came onto our radar.” The Admiral answered “Native of Edina, Minnesota. Episcopalian. Private school education. He referred to himself as "an imperfectly socialized person" and he was right, he was. Stood 6-feet-2 and walked with a lean forward tilt. Had a light, nasally voice. Brilliant in many ways but his train of thought was lost on regular basis. Wore his hair long, giving him that aging-hippie-with money look. His shirt pockets were always stuffed with pens, most of which did not work. When he wore ties, they were distinct in their ugliness.”
They passed under a leafy elm towards the top of the hill.
“Political leanings?” The Old Man asked.
“We know that had served for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua when he was an undergraduate”
“Left of center” The Old Man dismissively said “Where did he study?”
“MIT.” The Admiral answered. The Old Man stuck out his lower lip and tilted his head. MIT was safe. The company recruited from MIT. The company funds MIT projects.
“His area?” The Old Man asked.
“R and D” he answered “He held several well-paying jobs as an engineer, but had a habit of getting himself fired from each place he ever worked. Then he struck it rich, about 50 million dollars. The first fortune came from inventing an early word-processing system and then made an even bigger bundle, about 100 million from the stock he got for selling his software company, which had developed a system for connecting phone networks to the Internet. He formed an investment firm called Paperboy Investments”
“Significance?”
“So named because he delivered newspapers while growing up poor in the Midwest” he answered was they topped the hill and looked past the high black Victorian style fence in to the Oak Hill cemetery where the city’s leading citizen were laid to rest.
“He made his third fortune on a company called Aimlin Pharmaceuticals” as he tried to make out the name on a worn white marble tombstone “It was a tiny, struggling firm that caught his eye while he evaluating drug treatments for his wife who has diabetes. Aimlin had been dong innovative diabetes research. Carlson poured $6.2 million into Aimlin’s research office, patented several new drugs and made two hundred million in two years”
“Net worth?” The Old Man asked.
“At that point, $300 million. Almost all of it available cash” he answered “His money and willingness to foot the bill for far left causes allowed him to globetrot with celebrities, although he was, truly, oblivious to pop culture. He just wasn’t in the universe with the rest of us. He didn’t care. He drove, badly, a 15-year-old black Honda Accord with the coat hanger for an antenna. He never owned a television.”
They continued their stroll up R Street, both of them paying a nod to the Dumbarton Oaks Mansion that sat gracefully on a finely manicured lawn.
“Our ambassador at the time is what motivated this”
“Who was he, remind me” The Old Man asked curtly.
“White” he answered “Nathan White”
“Oh God help us all” The Old Man sighed.
“Carlson met him and said, essentially, 'I'm immensely rich, and I want to spend money bringing democracy to Central America”
“And of course that idiot White encouraged him.” The Old Man grumbled.
“He did. He kept saying, 'Think big. Spend, spend, spend. "
“Did we have an ear on him?”
“Yes. Eventually” the Admiral answered “He poured tens of millions into building libraries and underwriting reading programs for the poor throughout the country. The Pope wrote him letters of encouragement. The UN named a day in his honor. There was talk of building a statue to him in the capitol city. The whole world was rooting for him. Hell, I was rooting for him. He decided he could do truly revolutionary things in Central America., as he put it, though philanthropy on a massive scale.
“Well that’s not good” The Old Man injected “We can’t have that. Can’t have that at all”
“Of course you’re correct “he answered.
“What motivated this action on his part?” The Old Man asked as they crossed 32nd Street and approached Wisconsin Avenue.
“Didn’t we own a man down there?” The Old Man asked.
“We did” he answered “Pepe. Remember Pepe?
“Ah yes” he said with a smile “Pepe Lobo”
“Right” the Admiral replied “Pepe the wolf. In fact he was our main man in Central America. Reliably corrupt, wonderfully greedy, brutal and completely ignorant. Basically everything the company needs in a dictator. Sven Carlson’s problem with Pepe the wolf was that Sven was a tree hugger and Pepe, beng Pepe, had raped the country’s precious hardwood mahogany forest through illegal logging operators who handed him a ten percent cut of everything. In process, the chopping decimated indigenous communities and when the locals rose up, he used the military to put them back down. Pepe denied it all; of course. In the meantime, the well meaning Sven Carlson, with all his millions was searching the country to find a candidate to run against our man Pepe the Wolf.
“Did he find one?” The Old Man asked as they stood on the corner of R and Wisconsin. The Old Man pointed his black umbrella to the left side of the street and they cross. A light drizzle was starting.
“He did” he answered “actually , the meddeling Ambassador White found him. A man named Zela, Manny Zela. A longtime member of the otherwise docile but blue blooded National Senate. Zela billed himself “A man of the people”
“Oh God help us.” The Old Man said “Not another man of the people”
“He had taken on the multinational corporations that ruled over the country. He, promise to do away with a class based educational system, raise the minimum wage, promised that if elected that he would crack down on illegal logging and to improve human rights and generally, as they say, spoke with their voice. Even those who didn’t agree with his politics liked him because he said things they knew were true but that no other presidential candidate had said before.”
The rain increased and both men opened their identical black umbrella with maple handles and continued their walk.
“Carlson was everywhere during the election.” He said “He didn't trust the local media because he said it was almost completely controlled by various oligarchs, which is true enough of course. So, he took over a small newspaper, El Libertador, and encouraged the reporters to write tough stories about Lobo the Wolf.”
An attractive young woman in a black business suit and trench coat approached them and he stopped talking. When she passed, he continued speaking “Then he hired a U.S. polling firm, Cassidy and Quinlan, to conduct surveys about Lobo’s unpopularity and then ran those results in his little newspaper. He also funded an investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international organization that had ferreted out illegal loggers in Asia and other places.
“Let me stop you here and ask the obvious” The Old Man said stopping to ask “why do we, the company, why do we give a damn about this?”
“We were partners with Pepe the Wolf in the logging operation. The money from that funds the pesant revolt in Tibet. I think it’s Tibet”
They crossed at R Street and cross over 34th and then 35th Street as the rain increased.
“This watchdog group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, the EIA” he continued “has one of its investigator posing as a lumber buyer secretly videotaped a meeting in Miami with a Honduran congressional candidate, Maria Noriega, and her father Jesus Noriega, a lumber dealer. He records Maria Noriega bragging about arranging higher pay off amounts to government officials to ensure the steady flow of lumber, and brags that their business will be protected if her father's best friend, Pepe the Wolf, is reelected and says that if the investigator wants to make friend sin Honduras, he should contribute to Pepe the Wolf’s campaign.
They turned right onto 38th Street.
"Word about the tape got back to Sven Carlson who was ecstatic according to his driver”
“We owned the driver?” The Old Man asked.
“We owned the driver” he answered. “This tape, he tells his people, this will be the smoking gun that will bring down Pepe the Wolf.
Carlson got the tape and pounded the illegal logging story on the front pages of his newspaper and booked $200,000 of advertising time on the Nicaraguan television networks; he saturated the air waves with the tape, and even had operatives show it on screens set up in parks and other public places. By the time the ballots were counted, Carlson estimated he had spent $2 million trying to influence the outcome. His boy Zela won, by a squeak, but he won and our boy Lobo the wolf was out.
They turned left on Left on S Street and he continued “As you know, Zela alienated the Hondorian elite by cultivating leftist allies not only in Central and South America but in Asia and Europe. Although I didn’t think was possible the country became even more profoundly polarized and divided between two diametrically opposed sides. The haves and the Have not’s. There was tension in the air. Then he made a speech in which he called for "An insurrection." A poor choice of words in a nation where seven of 10 people live in poverty. He also said "The coffee exporters have congressmen, the bankers have congressmen, the fast-food interests have congressmen and that is why y the country has been in these difficult conditions . . . because there is not a congress that permits people to participate." Well that sealed it for him. Just before his fall his drift to the left had alarmed the conglomerates that own hydroelectric plants, coffee interests and the influential fast-food market people but that speech was the final straw. The problem was that Zela still had Carlson’s mountain of cash behind him and they were using it to popularize their programs. So we had no choice but to drain his bank accounts.
They turned left on 39 Street
“How much?” The Old Man asked with interest.
“250 million”
“Where was it reinvested?”
They turned right on to Reservoir Road.
“That is out of my area but I understand the company put the bulk of it in an oil drilling project in Iran, I think, I don’t know for sure, or maybe it was a shoe factory in China. You hear things. Anyway, in a wonderful little bloodless coup the Hondorian Army ousted Zela -- in his pajamas -- we had our boy Pepe the Wolf back in office the next day.”
“And the well menaing Mr. Carlson?” The Old Man asked “What of him?”
“The Army took him as well. He was living in his own suit in the Presidential palace. Apparently he slept in the nude. They took them both out to the jungle and executed them, buried them under a rubber tree or a cocnut tree or something.”
“Our involvement?” The Old Man asked.
“Minimal” he said “We handled the PR on Zela being alive and well and living in Miami on the fortunes he stole from the people of Honduras”
“And Carlson?”
“No one asked about Carlson. He had no family. No friends. He was an odd duck. Almost no one knew about the role he played in the national election and how he almost single handedly elected Manny Zela President”
“Well good” The Old Man said “let’s keep it that way”
At 35th Street they took a right and the rain started to fall harder. They fell into silence for a few seconds.
“It’s a shame really.” The Admiral said.
“Shame?” The Old Man asked as he turned to look at him for the first time.
“The whole mess” the Admiral answered
The Old Man stopped walking, looked at him and asked “Why?”
“Well, were Carlson not planted under a coconut tree he would have spent a fortune for higher causes like making the world a better place.”
“It’s not a shame “the Old Man said in a chastising way “We had to make it evaporate. We had no choice. It was the right thing to do. What if Zela had succeeded in his plans?”
“The Honduran poor would have a slightly better life and the Honduran rich would be slightly less rich” he countered.
“And the fast food chains in the first world would up the price of a hamburger by 10% or a penny more for a cup of coffee because the cost of making the Honduran rich would have to be passed on someplace.” The Old Man stared at him hard and added “Frankly, I’m very surprised to hear you say these things”
“You’re a mean old man”
“No.”the old man replied “I am a patriot sir, and you, are a fool”
The walked along in silence for a moment and the Old Man spoke “It’s human nature, old man, the oppression of the poor. I don’t like it any more than you do but it’s a tradition as old the earth. It’s wrong of course but for the time being in the way the world is now, at this moment, it is often in our interests to stand on the side of the oppressor. As for this well meaning
This Sven Carlson fellow, yes, he could have changed things if only he had stayed out of it. But he had to be a kingmaker. All you see is a man without greed and all I see is a man drunk with power. Saint Carlon killed himself. He doesn’t make kings. We do. That is our job in the world. That’s what we do when we must do it. Because if we don’t others, far worse than your beloved Sven Carlson, will. Of course, we don’t mind if other people in world try to become kingmakers, we expect it, in fact, we encourage it. The problem was that Mr. Carlson actually succeeded at it and he succeeded at it without us. And as I said, we just can’t have that Old Man. “