All Greek To Me
I. C. Springman
Copyright © 2013 I. C. Springman
DEDICATION
To Edward Snowden,
Chelsea Manning,
and all those who risked so much
to give us a snowball’s chance…
CONTENTS
BEFORE - Came Back Haunted
1 Song of the Dispossessed
2 Somewhere Near Texas (I Lost My Man)
3 You Are a Tourist
4 Lately
5 The Glory of Economy
6 Roses for the Dead
7 This Charming Man
8 Hard to Explain
9 Breaking Into Cars
10 Bizness
11 Via Con Me
12 People Like Us
13 Trust
14 Hidden Systems
15 Ghost in the Machine
16 Reboot the Mission
17 You Can Leave Your Hat On
18 Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
19 A Mansion and a Yacht
20 Serve Them Well
21 London Calling
22 The Palace Guards
23 Step Into My Office, Baby
24 Of All the Gin Joints
25 The Killing Type
26 Riding Shotgun Down the Avalanche
27 Lost in Hollywood
AFTER - If I Didn’t Care
“It turns out that 730 top shareholders are able to control 80% of the operating revenue of all TNCs (transnational corporations). Furthermore, combining the knowledge of the topology with the ranking of shareholders, it is revealed that the 1,300 nodes in the core are comprised of the most powerful nodes in the network: the top economic agents are interconnected and do not carry out their business in isolation.”
- James Glattfelder, “The Network of Global Corporate Control”
“I think it’s fine to talk about those things - in quiet rooms…”
- Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, January 2012
BEFORE - Came Back Haunted
February 2011. Fort Meade, MD. Deep inside a boxlike office building that mirrors the world darkly. The door whooshed open, then whooshed shut behind the man in the impeccable suit. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. To the left, the glass-enclosed conference room was coldly lit by a blue-white radiance that bled into the rest of the shadowy chamber. A video wall to the right, bright with data and livestream feeds from all corners of the globe, provided the only other illumination.
“That you, Steele?” The question, dry and clipped, came from the center of the room.
“Yes, sir.” The hour was late. Even the general’s private secretary had long since joined the slow snake of headlamps bound for suburbia and the few hours of unconsciousness that did double duty as sleep and free time.
“You know why you’re here?” An overhead light flicked on, beaming crassly down upon the back of a balding head, shoulders broadened by epaulettes and military braid, and a stainless steel swivel-chair with leather upholstery that was an exact copy of the captain’s chair familiar to all Star Trek aficionados (original series).
“I have an idea, sir.” James remained by the door, having been warned the interview would be brief.
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, that’s why. Somebody up there likes you. It isn’t me. Despite your reputation, I’m not convinced you’re all that sharp. This woman for instance.” He fell silent a minute, then crooked a finger. James slowly descended the few steps into the command center, stopping when the general signaled halt.
“They’re officially dead, Jim. The US Defense Department says so. We told the papers and the families today. So that’s that. I’m under orders to say that your two-year probation is up and you’re being reassigned. Being kicked upstairs and across the pond with a fancy new title: Global Counterintelligence Liaison.”
“Thank you, sir.” The face of the man in the impeccable suit reflected neither joy nor relief and his tone was dead even. The general swiveled to confront him, cold piggy eyes avid for some expression or response out of place.
“We’re almost there, Steele. Forty years we’ve been building this thing. Brick by brick. And nobody on the outside the wiser, aside from a few crackpots and radicals nobody listens to.” He paused, as if waiting.
“Yes, sir.” James gazed stonily at the various monitors. A drone strike obliterating a wedding party in Afghanistan. Detainees in Guantanamo, heavily shackled, shuffling past a guard tower. Armed camel riders smashing into a fevered crowd in downtown Cairo.
“There are no third chances, Steele. Not at this level.”
“I understand, sir.” In obedience to a dismissive flick of the general’s wrist, he pivoted and marched for the doors.
”One more thing.”
James stopped short.
“I want heads. On platters. Assange, Brown, Swartz, Hastings. It’s them or us, boyo. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Got it?”
James contemplated the ghost of his reflection in the polished metal portal.
“Got it, sir.”
1 Song of the Dispossessed
Being dead comes with its own set of problems. Signing a lease for instance. Even if the landlord isn’t too picky about references and likes the idea of a cash transaction, particularly if you shell out for six months in advance, you might find yourself in the middle of a global financial crisis where banks fail, mortgages foreclose, and the landlord apologetically comes home to roost. With his entire extended family in tow. And without any mention of a refund.
“How can I put this,” Jane said, standing on the threshold and pretending to think deeply. “What’s Greek for ‘No’?”
“Όχι.” It sounded like “Okay.”
“Okay,” Jane echoed. And shut the door.
When the knocking persisted, she simply ignored it. Until she couldn’t. This time there were two men on the doorstep. The landlord and a police officer. A number of children had broken containment and were shrieking up and down the garden path. The inevitable spidery grandmother sat huddled beneath the pergola, like an elderly oracle retired from Delphi in her head-shawl and winter coat. Mrs. Landlord looked benumbed and anxious standing beside a van, hugging a quilt. Further down the rocky hill, in the narrow street, a knot of teens and twenty-somethings leaned against cars or mopeds, glancing up at the cottage and muttering, their breath and cigarette smoke fogging the February air.
“We signed a lease,” Jane objected.
“I sent an eviction notice.”
“I never got it. This can’t be legal.”
The policeman spoke for the first time. Jane cursed herself for slacking off on her Pimsleur. Then she cursed John, who spoke Greek like a native. Or like an Albanian at any rate. She glanced at the landlord.
“έτσι μου μηνύσει,” the landlord repeated. He coughed a little before translating. “So sue me.”
Which was of course out of the question. Dead people - or at any rate people who are presumed and/or pretending to be dead - don’t go to court in the best of times. And these were not that, as the landlord and his merry band could attest. For Jane it was something of a bad joke, with a punch line that was getting old. Before this, in Ireland, it was a tweedy registrar who had come knocking at the rented door, with a tale of investor default, receivership, and trickle-down consequences. Perhaps because eviction was his business, he wasted no time on guilt or remorse. “It’s under six months on yehr lease yeh are, so out yeh go, no warnin’, no recourse, yeh’re done here. And I’ll be taking none of the lip off the two of yehs, as it’s yehr own Mr. Geithner yeh can be thanking, with his bailouts
for some and not for t’others, so ‘tis.”
OK. Jane mentally tossed in the towel. It was just one of those things. Another one of those things (they were piling up). Without another word, she walked away from the open door and into the bedroom. John had pretty much cleared out his things when he left, so she had only her own belongings to gather and she was travelling light, as the dead tend to do. She swept clothes, cosmetics, computer, a slim coil of piano wire into a single suitcase and in less than ten minutes she was done. The tiny bureau was empty, the cupboard built into the whitewashed wall was bare. She gave the room one last sweeping glance. Aside from fingerprints and DNA, you’d never know they’d been there.
She emerged to find that the Greek legions had already established a beachhead in the tiny living room. Under the direction of noisy, pushy elders, a bucket brigade of younger family members was conveying an escalating jumble of boxes, bags, and naked piles of anything and everything from the cars to the cottage floor. The spartan space was quickly occupied and overrun. The police officer had gone. Someone had switched on the radio:
Έκαψα το χθες νύχτες μου παλιές
όνειρα και εφιάλτες ρίχνω στις φωτιές
Δάκρυα καυτά ψέμματα πολλά…
[I burnt the past, my old nights
Dreams and nightmares I cast into the fire
Burning tears, too many lies…]
When they got to the chorus, everyone sang, “OPA!” Until they saw her standing there and fell silent. From a chair in the kitchen, one little girl and the grandmother continued to sing, an oddly pure and