Meeting Adjourned

 205.

By the time we sit opposite Senator Hartaugh it felt as if I had already been through a battle. Just getting up, showered, dressed, fed and assisted to the meeting site, his palatial executive suite, I am muscularly fatigued and mentally drained.

Something inside me jumps as I sat and notice the Senator's prized possession, the double barrel over and under 12 gauge shotgun neatly encased inside an oiled walnut museum-quality box. I recall our last meeting here when TOM pointed out the gold plated inscription on the trophy, which ominously hangs behind the Senator's matching desk. It had been presented to him 'for services rendered and battles fought' by someone or something known by the initials MBI. My heart skips another beat as I reconnect the levels of corruption connecting those dots. Julie notices my temporary distraction and slides an icy glare of warning in my direction, the stare that unmistakably says, 'keep it here and don't go there.' She knows that I know what lurks behind those three italicized letters.

From left to right I sit alongside Julie and Harlan. I am choreographed far left to lessen the impact of my left side hanging loosely, out of commission, a tactic I consider cheap, but not worthy of resistance. Hartaugh's assistant offers us tea or lemonade, Harlan ordering for all with a polite request for three glasses of water, please. By the time our refreshments arrive, Hartaugh has covered, again, the entire lurid history of his family, their plantation, the Civil War, neo-con politics in the modern age and his unique influence on our operation. His superficial condolences for TOM took less than two seconds, sandwiched between his blatantly racist take on the rhetorical use of the word 'systemic' and his self-serving vow to keep America safe from terrorism, both foreign and domestic.

His opening monologue is a star-spangled segue from the ramparts to the vanguard finishing with "which brings us to you." I find it telling that he splits the pronunciation of you and y'all to a more professionally acceptable degree of phonetics.

Julie opens with a recapitulation of the initial understanding of our team's charter and mission, its funding and primary directive. Hartaugh sits with his hands clasped, as if in prayer, beneath his chin, wordless. I watch as his eyes unblinkingly fix on hers. He gives no outward signs of either approval or disapproval, neither agreement nor disagreement.

Harlan follows Julie with the liabilities, terms, conditions and potentialities included in our contract, one which will again remain invisible on any budgetary line in the DoD budget, as overseen by the Senator and his committee on Homeland Security.

All apparently needing little discussion by quick decree from the Senator from South Carolina as he nods his head slightly and turns his gaze on me, twisting his head as a 125 mil canon atop a turret.

"It is my understanding that you have some interesting news to relay to us, sir, an update that might shed some light on the dark areas of your failed attempt to satisfy our desired outcome."

Nonplussed and unbristled by his intentional bombast, I gently place my crystal water glass on its desktop coaster and address him directly, mano a mano, eyeball to eyeball.

"Hardly a failure, sir, we have spent the requisite time to quell a pair of terrorist attacks and have managed the coup of infiltration on those responsible with eyes and ears, giving us the rare opportunity to both know of current nefarious activity and monitor future ones. This is a full-time, 24/7 operation upon which the safety and security of the American people, guaranteed by our constitution, are protected. In any war there are casualties, in our short existence we have witnessed the reality of this, but the progress we have made, our ingress and current status is of great value to the American people, we would be remiss in stopping now. This is a critical juncture, we can quit and go home, failed, as you say, defeated and humiliated by radical fringe groups who's only victories come from the terror of the total disregard of democratic rules they spit upon, or…"

"We can fight fire with fire," he says emphatically finishing my speech for me.

"Yes sir, we can."

"It is a courageous soldier who volunteers a return to the battlefield after suffering at the hands of an enemy," he commends, "I sense a degree of retribution in your voice Commander, one that leads me to believe that there is a modicum of unfinished business at the heart of your - our - agenda. I trust that you will see to it that our needs are satisfied as well as those of the good people we serve."

I fill the pause in his layered response with a compilation of bullet points I failed to deliver, having gone off-script about as far as one can.

"Life, liberty and the relentless pursuit of all that oppose it," I say, riffing on the emotional flow of conversation.

"Then get to work and good luck."

Hartaugh stands, the meeting adjourned.