Patriots

It was a lovely day in Arlington, and I dug out from a week on the road. Bills and official letters, magazines and catalogs, pieces of plastic, and admonitions to consolidate my debt. It is quite overwhelming to have a week all at once dumped into a bag with handles, since it would not all fit in my mailbox.

There were a few troubling issues that remained when I worked through the stack. One was a threatening letter from one of the credit card companies. I called to complain of their abusive treatment, and they were suitably contrite. Everything was fine, they said, just a mistake and my check had cleared and they wished to keep me as a valued customer.

I looked at the other problem, under the corporate logo of a company that employed me last year.

It was helpful letter that informed me that a forensic examination of a stolen computer indicated that direct deposit information from the corporate stock program had been compromised. Personal employee information was possibly in the hands of persons unknown, including name, address, social security number and bank account information.

They advised me to be careful.

I tried to comply. When the bills were done, I check the Times. Insurgents attacked a police station south of Baghdad under cover of darkness, killing a couple dozen Iraqi police and soldiers. Gunmen seized four Egyptians technicians in Baghdad, A Communist Columnist for an Italian publication was in the hands of the murderers. An American soldier was also killed by one of those damnable improvised explosive devices on the roadside, and two injured.

I put in a load of laundry once it was late enough to comply with the Association’s rules on weekend noise, and glanced at an article about the FBI expanding its authority over intelligence operations. It was a curious thing. It was the FBI that had failed to ”connect the dots” prior to the terror attacks. Yet they seemed to have skated past the Intelligence Reform legislation, largely unscathed, and egos unbounded.

It appears that FBI Special Agents are now running around the federal government trying to take over all investigations dealing with “counter-terrorism.” They have taken over the Green Quest task force, an inter-agency operation which harnessed financial specialists to trace terrorist money. Word is that the Bureau does not have a clue as to what they are doing, but it is just part of a major range-war with the other agencies.

CIA is also a target on the scope for Director Mueller, who apparently sees weakness in the lame-duck status of CIA Director Porter Goss. There is still no national Intelligence Director to play the referee in the power struggle. With the Defense Department taking some of the clandestine mission from CIA, and the FBI trying to snatch new domestic authority and expand overseas, the Agency appears to be on the ropes.

I ran a load through the dryer, unsettled. This was not the intent of intelligence reform. The idea that the Bureau, the worst institution for sharing information, should be in charge of it was almost too terrifying to contemplate. They had just wasted a couple hundred million dollars to upgrade their computers, and had produced absolutely nothing.

I don’t know how they do it. They wrack up disaster after disaster and are never held to account. Maybe it is the fact that they have badges and guns and can tap your phone. Perhaps I should be more circumspect. I glanced up and down the hall before leaving the safety of the laundry-room.

We need to be careful, I thought. This latest development cannot be helpful, although it would be nice if someone could find my bank account information and give it back to me.

I got most of my gear stowed away and made a run to the Commissary. I had an invite to go out to the wilds of Fairfax County to view the game, and I took it, cursing the management of the NFL. Football is supposed to be played at one o’clock in the afternoon, right? There is no college competition to protect, so they could have played it on Saturday, right?

But noooooo. There is the West Coast market to consider and presently I found myself in a traffic jam on I-66 on Sunday night, with no moon. Not so bad in the City, but as I passed across the old District Line and into Fairfax County the night expanded its dark power. Whatever ravages of age have wreaked its havoc on me has stolen the acuity of my night vision. The blackness is near total as I get off the Toll Road out near the Wolf Trap concert facility.

I have been warned about that, and I fumble with the overhead light to check directions. This has been a problematic feature of my convertible since it was new; sometimes the lights work, and sometimes they do not. It appears entirely at the whim on the onboard computer. I think they have a propensity to work during daylight hours only, a mystery, and I recall a road trip once that ended in darkness, attempting to navigate through the dim light of the glove compartment.

The lights did not work on this night as I progressively left the broader boulevards and turned onto twisty blacktop that had once been farm lanes. I was able to read the directions only when a car would approach my rear bumper, and its headlights flooded the interior.

Thankfully I had written on a yellow sticky pad, and I posted the note on my rear-view mirror and got helpful updates when I was about to be rammed from behind.

The subdivision where I was headed is a nice one, and once I was in it, I proceeded from intersection to intersection with my brights on, peering at the street signs, I felt my way along and ultimately found the residence of the Acting Administrator. It is a nice solid house on a nice big lot.

The Administrator and I go back a ways, to a marvelous year spent getting our Masters degrees at Government expense. He is still serving, and I have retired. He handed me a drink and we talked about politics and retirement and a little about the game. He is surrounded by the legacy of a career in Africa, and he has some marvelous curiosities and souvenirs.

He gave me a tour during the defensive standoff of the first half, the Eagles looking pretty determined against the Patriots, and Tyrell Owens running remarkably well on his bad ankle.

We ate some splendid Mexican food, and I bid farewell as the second half started.

The cops will be watching the roads like eagles when the game is done, I said. The Administrator agreed, reluctantly. I would have prefered to stay, but it was already late, and it seemed  prudent to get home during the third quarter. That way I could avoid law enforcement and watch the end of the game from the privacy and comfort of my brown chair.

The roads were deserted, and I was careful on the way home. The Patriots turned things around as I drove with caution, the football team anyway, and I made it with plenty of time to watch Tom Brady seal the deal. There are some things you can control.

But I get the feeling they are fewer and fewer.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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