| 01 December 2006 Plan B I had a pal who was a Special Agent for the Bureau. He was a great guy, filled with humor and irony about his trade. He liked the image of his job, and the fact that he got to carry a gun everywhere, even in the Capitol, since he was at least theoretically always on duty. He had been on all the missions, and had great stories about stakeouts, which are pretty romantic on the television, and security details for the important, self evaluated and otherwise. I asked him about what it was like to be part of the entourages that roar around town, or waiting to collect damaging evidence on some well-connected dirt-bag. He said they had a lot in common. For security, imagine putting on your best suit, and then standing in your front yard. At lunchtime, walk around the house and stay in the back yard until dinner. Maintain constant vigilance. For the stake-out, it is completely different. You don't have to dress up. I thought that was a pretty good model for my current situation. I have eschewed neckties altogether. I am not conducting surveillance on the front yard, but rather use the venue near the bus stop to compile sensitive databases on the next move. Plan B, so to speak. I am not going to do anything bold today, not like the Pope, who seems to intend on swinging for the fence despite his advanced age. My hat, if I wore one, would be off to him for his four-day trip to Istanbul. I would leave it off in tribute to the President, who is back after a leaked memo from his national security advisor Steve Hadley about how insular the Iraqi Prime Minister was, with a limited number of advisors and a limited world view. Everyone got a laugh about that, since it seems to apply just as well to Steve's boss. The winds tousled my hair, a gentle indication of what is going to come later. They are supposed to gust to 50 mph, the temperature is going to soar into the 70s, and the rains will come with the collision of all that warm energy with the Canadian chill in the heavens. This is an excellent day to hunker down, and take stock. I have constructed an elaborate matrix on a steno pad. I work on it at my dinner table. I am lucky to have a table, I know, and luckier still to have a little time to think. Best of all, I have some options on what to do next. I'm not going to go into the details, since that bores even me. Unfortunately, it is all details. One of my other pals left the madness in the capital, and was in the job market in a place so far away that no one would even care that Rep. Alcee Hastings was passed over for Chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee, or be aware of the consequences for the new Speaker in her relationship with the Black Caucus. Imagine! Anyhow, I got a chilling note from out-of-state about the agony and frustration of job searches for “mature” males. I had to swallow hard, realizing that this is it, the last confluence of middle age and the need for my specialized skills. The Times was bearish this morning on the Economy, and the War is going to cause some painful realignment in national affairs and budget, regardless of how it goes. Whatever. This is going to be the last job, I thought, or at least the last one in this artificial town. After this, the neckties go to the Goodwill, and I will investigate a line of completely synthetic clothing and shoes that have convenient Velcro closures. Maybe some of those really large sunglasses that fit right over my normal spectacles. I had moved around to the front of the building to consider things. I took a lawn chair and a cooler, the better to watch the weather wreak havoc on the commuters. Plan A had been a good bet when I executed it. The money was great. It was no one's fault that the company got bought by the French. It was a grand old institution, and they were generous right to the end. Maybe they were too nice to survive in the new world. Plan B is more problematic, and I furrowed my brow in concentration. Security? Compensation? Commute? What if the bottom falls out of the government business? I arranged all the factors in one column on the pad I brought down from the apartment, and moistened the tip of a stubby pencil with my tongue. Than I assigned weights to them, based on relative importance in percentages the amounted to one hundred. These are all important factors in decision-making, but the more data I got the less I knew. Was it only a year ago that the terrorist threat would have been on the list? Where did that go? I entered the words “Polonium 210 Contamination” in a separate column, down in the “post attack survivability” category. I assigned them low weights, since the Russians, to the best of my knowledge, are not after me at the moment. It was actually sort of charming to have to worry about the Russians again. I have missed them. I reached in the cooler, and fished out a frosty malt beverage and fitted it into a foam sleeve to preserve the coolness. The wind was starting to rise, the storm approaching from the West, right down the axis of Route 50. I could see the drivers hunch their shoulders in concentration for the frustrations of the drive ahead. I looked at the label on the bottle and smiled. There are some things on which you can always count. Lawn chairs. Beer. It is not just for breakfast any more. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |