The Tamarack Conspiracy

By Pat Slattery

The elites in government have gone too far. They taxed, spent, regulated, and redistributed until the once great American economy started to implode. They vilified businesses and business owners in an effort to shift blame for the damage their policies had done. A group of freedom loving entrepreneurs refuse to live in the wreckage of the economy, or under the thumb of the political elite, so they conspire to defy the government. Sean Murphy suddenly finds himself in the middle of the conspiracy, and at odds with a thug from the newly created Office of Economic Realignment, when he discovers that his philosophically inclined father is not only a part of the conspiracy, he’s the leader.
While working to protect his father and keep the plan from being discovered, Sean tries to figure out what went wrong with the elites’ plans when they had all seemed so good to so many people in the beginning. How did all of their wonderful plans result in a crashing economy and bureaucratic thugs dominating people’s lives? He is also fascinated to learn about the philosophy that is driving his father and his fellow conspirators to defy the government when many people in their position are willing to sell-out and become government cronies, while many others are simply in despair.

"The Tamarack Conspiracy" honors entrepreneurs and working people. It holds freedom sacred and explores the philosophical and spiritual value of America to the world. Written in the spirit of "Atlas Shrugged", but with more of a sense of humor (and a more accessible length), "The Tamarack Conspiracy" will resonate with those who understand that free people, working creatively, will generate far more progress and better solutions to problems than government elites can possibly provide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pat Slattery
• Release date: Jan 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466141056

Pat Slattery

Pat came from an entrepreneurial family, and became an entrepreneur himself, starting several businesses and inventing several products. Writing has always been his first love. Politics is also a passion, although his outlook changed over the years. When not working, he enjoys the outdoors, particularly mountain biking. He has recently become a Crossfit enthusiast and has always had a keen interest in health and fitness. The most important thing in his life is being a good father (he's a single father with full custody of his son). He coaches baseball and basketball and generally tries to be a good dad.

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The Tamarack Conspiracy

By Pat Slattery

© 2012 Pat Slattery

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For my father, whose lessons and example have never left me, and my mother, whose love and support light the way.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

It was supposed to be a beautiful dream. It was supposed to be the kind of wonderful experience that doesn’t start fast, but eventually you get there and you realize you’ve reached paradise. Like a trip to Hawaii from Minneapolis in mid-winter. I can’t believe how naïve I was when I believed in that dream.

I’d stopped downtown on my way to work to grab a cup of coffee from a neighborhood bakery and coffee shop that made the best cinnamon rolls in town and brewed a hearty medium roast coffee. A stop at Palm’s Bakery generally woke me up and brightened my day. The coffee shop was in a typical row of brick fronted buildings with big, wood framed windows with the business name painted on them and a sampling of their wares on display. It had big old wooden doors that still existed in the older part of town. When I got to the storefront there was a closed sign. This was bad. Palm’s Bakery was never closed in the morning. On the door was a note saying, Out of business. Sorry. Thank you for your past patronage. I felt myself slump, not because I wouldn’t get my cinnamon roll and coffee (which I desperately needed), and not because I’d become friendly with the very nice couple that owned the business, but because yet another business was gone.

A stranger passing by asked me for a light. I’m sorry. I don’t smoke, I replied. I couldn’t afford to smoke. I couldn’t figure out how that guy could afford to smoke.

I hope they have the answer, he said with a forced smile, and he walked away.

It was something people said a lot: I hope they have the answer.

I walked to my car. Why did everything seem so grey? It wasn’t just the clouds, it was the mood. The mood emanated from the buildings and the cars. Was it a reflection of my own depression? The missing smiles from people I passed told me it wasn’t only me.

I turned as I heard the sound of a car speeding around the corner. The streets were mostly clear of traffic and the driver was clearly a self-important jerk trying to get somewhere in a hurry. He seemed to be making a show of it, which was pretty easy in a late model black Audi with dark tinted windows. As the driver squealed around the corner, taking no notice of which lane he was in, he nearly hit a middle-aged businessman crossing the street. The man saw the car coming at him and leapt out of the way, landing, unfortunately, with one foot in a pothole full of dirty water. His ankle twisted and he fell to the street. The car kept going. People continued walking. I didn’t even hear a gasp of fear you’d expect to hear when people witness a close call, or even a stifled laugh that often accompanies a pratfall. I noticed the black Audi had a government license plate.

I walked over to the prostrate man and held out my hand to help him up. You okay?

He tested his ankle, and shook the muddy water from his shoes and pants. He looked at me through now crooked glasses and said, I hope they have the answer. He limped slightly as he walked away and I heard him mutter, They don’t have the answer for shit.

Now, one would think that shit was not the most difficult thing to figure out. As I looked around and saw the number of closed businesses on the block, I had to agree with my friend with the limp.

I went to my car and headed for work. I could get a mediocre cup of coffee there.

I worked with my father. Dad is an old school entrepreneur. He’s the typical person who had an idea for a product and developed it, despite not really having the skill or knowledge to do so when he began. He educated himself about how to build what he envisioned while he worked as a salesman for a different product in the same industry. Sitting in the basement, he soldered and banged, swore like a sailor, and electrocuted himself multiple times. Eventually he had a working prototype. We all thought he should name the product This fucking thing! given that’s what he’d called the prototype. Fortunately, Dad had more marketing skill than the rest of the family, so he called it a speed switch because it protected a machine’s speed from getting too high or too low (this was before computers controlled machine speed).

He continued development into a final product, doing everything himself including testing, getting the product into a form that he could sell, and writing the manual and the marketing materials. Things he couldn’t do himself he paid to have done using money he got by selling the first house he and Mom had purchased, and also, apparently, with money that would’ve bought me a bicycle.

Dad finally quit his job as a salesman for the other company and tried to sell his own product. When he sold one, he manufactured it, then delivered and installed it. If there was a problem, he fixed it. Sales were slow because the product was new and there was the usual education process to go through to get customer to understand the benefit of a new product, so he started selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door to make ends meet for the family.

Once, a bill collector from one of his parts vendors came to the house threatening to take my dad’s inventory as payment. Dad picked up a wrench and chased him away. He’d rather have gone to jail than give up his business. The odd thing was, the guy who owned the company Dad owed money to heard the story from the bill collector and called Dad to assure him that he had all the credit he needed, because the guy understood Dad’s commitment. Apparently, before he became successful at selling the part my dad needed for his invention, he’d had to drive the proverbial wolf from the door a few times as well.

Eventually my dad’s company became fairly successful. He was able to hire employees to manufacture and sell his product. As time went on, he kept coming up with great ideas, expanding the product line, adapting to innovations in the industry, and adding a few innovations of his own.

My dad loved his employees. He became a father figure to many of them. He made sure they had health insurance and got bonuses when the company did well. He knew there was a big difference between where the company would’ve been if he continued doing everything himself and where it had gone because of the talented people who worked with and for him. He was a guest of honor at weddings, was one of the first to hold a lot of babies, and gave the eulogy at more than a few funerals.

My father is just a normal guy in a lot of ways, but he remained the colorful fellow who should’ve named his first product that fucking thing. In fact, through the years I’d ask how sales were going for that fucking thing.

Sales are down, he’d say with a smile, but we’re selling the hell out of the new damnable device.

When I arrived at the office that day, Dad met me at the door. Something was off. The lights were out in the building, there wasn’t a car in the parking lot except my father’s, and there wasn’t another soul in the place.

What’s going on? I asked. It was unusual to see him looking down. Mad, occasionally, but mostly happy and upbeat, always moving forward to meet life’s challenges.

It’s over, he said. They took it all away.

Took the company? I asked.

One corner of his mouth turned up in an ironic smirk. I guess you could say they took its will to live.

Through the years my father and I had been at odds at times about the direction of the country. After all, I had gone to college! I was enthralled with my Marxist political science and economics professor. He had this wild black curly hair, often looking like he’d come to class with a bad case of bed head. He probably had, given that his suit looked like it had been picked up off of the floor of his bedroom and donned just prior to his running out the door with a cup of coffee in one hand and Das Kapital in the other. I guessed it was because he’d either been debating long into the night about the best way to overthrow the capitalist system, or had been rereading and underlining his Marx or Lenin. In truth, he’d probably just fallen asleep in a cloud of pot smoke with a glass of bourbon in his hand watching re-runs of Get Smart on TV. Still, that wasn’t the point. This man with the wild hair and the rumpled suit, who never could get his socks to match and was occasionally unable to get his shoes to match, was talking about ideas I’d never heard before. And I was learning.

I remember one time during college when I was sitting with Dad in our boat fishing. In my late teens his business had finally gotten successful enough that he bought the family a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. It was an Upper Midwest dream-come-true. My father and I spent a lot of time on the dock or in our boat fishing and talking.

As we sat there, discussing how the weather and time of day would affect the feeding pattern of the elusive walleye, I was thinking of my professor. I asked my dad, What do you think of Marxism?

He looked at me with a slight grin on his face. He had this way of smiling where his lips turned up only slightly, but his eyes opened wider in amusement and expectancy. "What do you think of Marxism?" he volleyed the question.

I thought for a minute, because I was not going to be sucked into any game where I didn’t get an answer before I gave one. What I’m asking, I guess… I tried to frame the question in as mild a manner as I could muster. I didn’t want to seem like I was attacking the capitalist sitting in the boat with me (particularly since he owned the boat and had bought the bait), You’re a capitalist, exploiting the labor of the workers. How do you feel about that?

It came out a little more confrontational than I’d hoped.

He laughed. I thought he’d want to hit me with a fish. Fortunately, we had not caught any fish yet.

First, he said, putting down his rod and reaching for a cigarette, "you need to know that your premise is completely full of shit.

You know Mike, right?

While still in college I’d started working in the business part-time. That’s how I could afford to buy the rod I was using. It was the only thing in the boat that didn’t belong to Dad. Mike was one of Dad’s employees and he had become a friend of mine.

"Mike came to me straight out of tech school. He applied for a job after educating himself so he had a skill that would be valuable to an employer. I hired him for the going wage for someone with his skills and experience. He came freely and sold me his services for an agreed price. As time went on, he demonstrated that he was much more than just an ordinary technician.