Trajectory

By Billy Whitehead

Brad Soames (or is it Brod Sloan?) completes twenty years in the infantry, serving in every US overseas adventure. He returns home to retire; angry, bitter, suffering from PTSD.
The wars have changed Brad. He begins assassinating those he regards as criminals: Wall Street CEOs, former government officials and lobbyists, and other prominent people he sees as evil and unpatriotic. He believes that their pursuit of money and power is destroying the nation.
Against the odds, he keeps succeeding in his murder spree. Can there be a happy ending?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491818343

Billy Whitehead

The Author is a retired teacher, sixth grade through Junior College, primarily in American and Modern World History. His main interests are stewardship at a major prairie restoration, reading and writing.

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© 2013 Billy Whitehead. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/14/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1835-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1833-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1834-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917279

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

1 Nowiki

2 Bobo Nowicki Dies in Hospital

3 John How

John How Murdered

4 Former Senator Gramley Shot

5 Checking Reactions

6 While Coming Home

7 Financial Genius Litphonie Murdered

8 Darby Addledby Murdered

9 Who Was Darby Addledby?

10 Retired CEO of Fannie Mae Murdered

11 Yuh Never Know What the Day Will Hold

12 Ehrlich Pinzs, Darkwater Founder, Assassinated

13 Who Will Miss Paul Lupowitz?

14 Aunt Missy

15 Tommy Flannery

Tommy Flannery Murdered

16 Somewhere in Washington–

17 The Latest Rant From the Curmudgeon

18 Daff Feckless Murdered

19 Hecklesby’s List of Seven

20 Julie Goes To Family

21 Clippings

22 Mine Shaft

23 Head of Mussie Coal Found Dead In Mine Shaft Bottom

24 In a Well-run Country–

25 Arbitrage Gunned Down At Airport

26 Change of Course

27 AFTER TWELVE ASSASSINATIONS

28 Julie Comes to Stay

29 In a Sweat

30 Zircon’s Mysterious Death

31 People! These Are Murders! But Some of You Are Treating Them Like a Reality Show!

32 I Want to Kill Someone.

33 Hecklesby’s Data ??

34 A Janitor and Brad Meet

35 Dickson Feldt Shot

36 Parking Attendant

37 Avast!

38 More Mail from Aunt Missy

39 Two-Fer

40 The River Rat

41 Unfailing’s Contest: Predict the Victims

42 While You Were Gone

43 Unfailing’s Poll Results

44 Getting to Know Each Other

45 Tony Haywain Murdered

46 Some Readers Got It Right

47 Sniper, I Wish You Hadn’t Done This Just Now

48 Playing Hearts

49 On the Road

50 Mortgage-Lending Crooks

51 You’re On Your Own.

52 Sniper Victim’s First: A Woman CEO

53 Hecklesby on his own

54 I Just Got Off the Phone With My Boss

55 Finally

56 Two Steps Away From Timothy McVeigh

57 Helper in the men’s room

58 Lonnie Blanknoggen, Goldberg-Sack CEO, Assassinated

59 In the Basement?

60 At Camp Ugla-Uga

61 Allahu Akbar

62 Hawk Therapy

63 Aunt Missy

64 Bird Shot

65 Three Ways of Being Mad

66 Britt, José’s Widow

67 Richard Garnett Shot

68 Donnie & Dave

69 While Leaning on the Shopping Cart

70 Meeting Over the Phone

71 Brod & Brad

72 Why Do I Love You So?

73 Talking with Ginnie

74 In the Desert

75 Khali Mistrey

76 Sniper, Are You Mixed Up?

77 Brad Agrees to be Best Man

78 I can’t stay any longer.

79 Alan Greedmould

80 Sada & Aunt Missy

81 Bachelor Party

82 Greedmould before Congress

83 At the Wedding

84 Charles Koenig Murdered

85 Forth and Back

86 Repair work goes badly

87 On Assassination

88 Onan Chickory MurderedLed Lentago to Invade Iraq

89 The Serbian Soldier

90 He’s Acting For US

91 Alexi Chuckles

92 . . . In the Course of Human Events…

93 Brad & Sada Go To Julie

94 Intruder

95 Louisa Leaves

96 Back To Indiana

97 Free Enterprise At Its Best

98 Ten of Eleven Dead

99 Rollo Yawl Sniped

100 People, We’ve Been Here Before.

101 Tephallus Murdered: Ex-EXrun CEO

102 Comic Book

103 Bernie Coach Ebenezer Murdered in Prison.

104 Nickledby Suffocated to Death

105 Massacre of Serbs

106 Byegold Brothers: One Dead, One Alive

107 DeLayGuardia Stabbed to Death

108 She Isn’t Taking It Anymore

109 Lewis Kant

110 Bernard Craven

111 J. Allen Stumbleferd

112 Louisa to Julie

113 Two Crooked Judges Murdered In Tax Day Rampage

114 Ricardo Squishy Poisoned ?

115 Danny Koz Lavish Lifestyle Ends in Prison Stabbing

116 Stop-loss Nightmare

117 Julie to Louisa

118 Coldrod Bleask, Former UK Leader, Drowned in Scrub Water

119 Mopovitz Stabbed, Survives

120 Andre Fatcow

121 Rascalle Coffee, Mothley Tanner Murdered in Prison

122 C’mon, Sniper! Go After the Really Big Fish

123 Robby Duck Cullinghusk Strangled in Prison

124 Donald Letterhead Fired From His Late-night TV Show for Moral Turpitude

125 Julie in the Big Apple

126 How Times Change

127 Joe Jilly Nacho’s Neck Broken in Prison

128 The total is In

129 Perspective Suspended

130 Luncheon At Gitmo

131 Brad’s in a Pickle

132 Wake Up, You Two

133 Hecklesby Finds Employment

134 Sada and Missy Share

135 Seven Tobacco CEOs murdered

136 Surprise

137 Alexei! ? ? ? ?

138 The Seven Liars

139 Badges?

140 Richard Barkhard

141 Jonny Ego Murdered by Pistol

142 Conversation on AMTRAK

143 Bertie

144 Scum Also Rises

145 Democratize the Death Penalty!!!

146 Sada Mulls Things Over

147 Ernie & Yount Execs Murdered—Sniper’s Work?

148 To Tell The Truth

149 Now I’m Shooting Someone Who Deserves It.

150 Chicko Garza

151 Where Is That Money River?

152 Only a Matter of Time

153 ExtolMuddle Energy CEO Murdered

154 The Cabin

155 Daybreak at the Motel

156 Chuck Waggoner Dead

157 But Now I want to Live

158 Class Warfare in the Classless Society

159 Hecklesby Is Finished

160 Scribbler’s MacCraw Murdered

161 Gracie

162 Billy Faye Humdinger

163 Julie Tells the Gang

164 Kal Stove–Not ‘Fair Game’

165 The Crawdad King

166 Bodyguards Attack Innocent Man He Dies No Murder Charges Contemplated

167 Brad Confesses

168 Towelheads

169 Boss Bruskie Again

170 If This is Class Warfare, Who’s Committing Treason?

171 Home

172 Unfailing’s Latest

173 Conference Call

174 Cannolli

175 Death-bed J’Accuse

176 Guy Fawkes Day

177 Visitor

178 The Power Was Out

179 Yanosh Stumpy ‘Sniped’

180 Intervention

181 Choice

182 He’s Gone

183 We’ve Covered Our Asses

184 Can’t Stop

185 Bodyguards Murder Innocent Bum

186 Hiccup

187 The Sniper Is Ex-military

188 Brushes With Church

189 Who’s / What’s Missing From This Picture?

190 Trajectory

191 Editor,

192 It’s Been More Than Thirteen Months

193 Getting Close

194 Thinking It Through

195 No More Delay

196 My Defenses

197 On the Move

198 Sunrise Over the Smokies

199 Rentor, Former Head of CIA ‘Sniped’ Has the Sniper Returned?

200 Near the French Alps

1 Nowiki

He got out the box of fake noses; liked the bulbous one, worked to get it attached, and finally pronounced it satisfactory. He took putty and enlarged his chin, putting in a definite cleft. He reduced the prominence of his eyebrows and sideburns, and sprayed his face and neck with a subtle suntan color; water-based, so he could remove it easily.

He put on a white jacket, duplicate of a hospital worker’s. Into the breast pocket went the flap of the ID badge he’d stolen from an orderly while they were drinking at a local bar.

When he got into the hospital he put on the jacket with badge in a men’s room.

He’d been to Nowicki’s room several times while in different disguises, so he was comfortable in the knowledge that this crew of nurses would stay close to the desk during this time.

Nowicki was awake. White Coat spoke cheerfully to him while he took the syringe to his IV.

Well, Mr. Nowicki, how are we doing?

Faintly, Ok.

White Coat inserted a syringe into the IV. He leaned down and hissed, You traitorous bastard. You slimy sonofabitch. I hope this is painful.

Nowicki’s eyes widened. He reached out and clutched White Coat, trying to do something, but soon collapsed due to weakness.

White Coat punched the right buttons on the monitor to shut it down. The nurses didn’t hurry in because it was common for the monitor to falsely give alarm. He held his hand over Nowicki’s mouth while he weakly writhed and flailed. With his other hand the killer pushed the syringe to empty the contents into the IV.

While he murdered Nowicki he was staring at the Bronze Star and Purple Heart pinned to the corner of the sheet. He wanted to put them on the floor and stomp on them, but he knew he had no time for indulging his anger.

The Guy with the Suntan passed the preoccupied nurses, went to the men’s locker room, put the jacket in the hamper, pocketed the badge and removed the disguise, and finished by washing off the suntan.

He went back to the bar where he had lifted the badge, made sure it had none of his prints, and left it in the wastebasket of the men’s room.

When Nowicki was found his eyes were still open very wide.

It was a week before it was determined that he had died from unnatural causes

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2 Bobo Nowicki Dies in Hospital

Leading Conservative Columnist

Roberto Bobo Nowicki, noted columnist for the Chicago Sun-World, died unexpectedly yesterday in his hospital bed. He was there for treatment for colon cancer, and was holding his own, relatives said.

Nowicki had been a leading light as the Washington columnist for the paper, and was a noted spokesman for the conservative movement. He achieved national prominence in the Eighties by forcefully arguing the conservative point of view on the television shows The Capitol Mess and Crossed-Up.

Nowicki, in his mid-70s, was discussing retirement, ending a career that began at the Sun-World in 1963. He was an army veteran, having served with honor in Korea.

Recently he had been in the news as the one who had leaked the identity of Bonita Flaime as a CIA operative. This was seen as part of a campaign to discredit her husband, former US Ambassador Joseph Woolsey, who, on a trip to Niger had found that the Lentago Administration’s claims were false: that fissionable material in question had no connection to Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program. Flaime asserted that two of her operatives were murdered as a result of her outing.

Nowicki escaped prosecution for the leak, but Isador Chuck Waggoner, Vice President Chumyle’s Chief of Staff, has been convicted for lying to investigators relating to the leak.

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3 John How

He was a very popular professor. He had left the Justice Department after his creation of the torture memos surfaced and became big news. He sometimes thought he’d have been happier if he’d never taken the government job. He’d tweaked the law, as he thought of it to himself, and become the target of a storm of personal attacks that were brutal, evil, and wrong. He had done nothing wrong; his patriotism, his humanity: he’d put them up against anyone’s. Now his almost-plan of becoming a high-powered Washington Insider looked ridiculous. Becoming a real player in Academe? Well, that was a possibility.

He was a very popular professor. He taught a one-hundred course, for the hoi-poloi, and courses up through Doctoral seminars. He had the knack, the combination of qualities that clicked at any level. Unlike the ideologues of the Lentago administration that some students and profs expected him to be like, How examined all sides of a question of law or politics and gave each its due. His colleagues, most of whom were well on the Left, had been apoplectic about the Iraq War, and it’s selling to the American Public and the world as a necessary preemption. Then the disclosures of torture, both in Abu Garib and in Extreme Rendition sites, raised these Profs’ temperatures near to boiling. But over the first six months most leftists had been defanged by How’s manner and warmth. Just a few still refused to speak to him.

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Brad had a problem choosing where to kill How. The campus was teeming with potential witnesses. However, that might play into his not being noticed.

Would early-twenties folk spot him as the old guy, even though he was a young fortyish? In the end he looked for any place to strike where the traffic would be minimal. Did he want to strike How down in the middle of campus traffic, or find a time when he was relatively alone? He decided to make it in a parking lot late in the day. Following How for some time, after getting his schedule off the internet, Brad determined that there was one time when he was apt to go home close to dinner time. How’s spot was near the end of a row, and usually the cars blocking the shot were gone by then.

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Brad left the bus, entered the campus and approached the law building. He sat on a bench near the entrance, surveying the traffic as classes were changing. He took out a book and started reading. This was his fourth straight day at this spot, at this time, but today he knew that his man would be in the building, and that his lecture was just now beginning. He’d given up the idea of assassinating How in the parking lot, since there were so many people around.

After ninety minutes the students’ exit prompted him to enter the building. He had been here before, and had observed his target teaching. He had seen him enter the staff washroom afterward, and waited to see whether he did today. The teacher came out of the classroom and did enter the washroom. As Brad followed him in he readied the hypodermic needle and made sure that his skin did not touch the door. Professor How was at the sink, bent over. Without preliminary, Brad stuck the needle into How’s butt and How collapsed.

He dragged How to a toilet and forced his head into the water, holding it there until he was sure he was dead.

How’dya like water up your nose, shit-head?

He stuffed the body between the side panel and the toilet. He tried to put How’s head into the toilet to stay, but couldn’t.

He made sure he left no prints, went to the door, and with a tiny mirror on a stick he was able to check the hallway, and then make his exit unseen.

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John How Murdered

Professor John How, a chief architect of President Lentago’s terrorist torture policy, was found dead in a washroom yesterday at his school, Cal State Anaheim.

Security personnel said they found How on the floor by a toilet, his head wet, presumably having been drowned there. There was no sign of a struggle, they said.

How was the point man in the Lentago administration’s attempt to legalize torture. He wrote the famous legal brief for the administration in 2001, days after September 11, which opened the way for more robust interrogation methods, euphemistically called enhanced interrogation techniques. of detainees from the war on terror. Most prominent in the debate was the use of waterboarding, sometimes called simulated drowning. This raised a controversy when photos and testimony surfaced of the American mistreatment of detainees at Abu Garib.

How’s memo declared that the President had inherent constitutional power to take whatever military action he deemed necessary, including the prevention of any future attacks from any terrorist groups, not just Al Qaeda and those groups linked to it. This is the origin of the phrase The war on terror. How argued that because the Constitution assigns the President to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, he can do whatever he considers to be necessary, and laws passed by Congress do not limit him as he exercises this power.

How’s view of the President’s power to eavesdrop on Americans is as daring and far-reaching as his view on torture. This is from one memo written by him: Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.

How once debated Professor Doug Cassel, who asked How, If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

How responded, No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress—that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

How: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

How didn’t share what circumstance would require the legal crushing of an innocent boy’s testicles.

In a 2008 House hearing on torture Rep. John Conyers had limited success when he grilled How, in an attempt to get him to explain fully his assertions on the presidential power to authorize torture:

Chairman Conyers: I didn’t ask you if you ever gave him advice, I asked you, do you think the President could order a suspect buried alive?

How: Mr. Chairman, my view right now is I don’t think a president would. No American president would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that.

Chairman Conyers: I think we understand the games that are being played . . .

Police had no comment on How’s murder other than to say that there were no witnesses.

A Spanish Court has an arrest warrant for How and five others of the former Lentago administration seeking to indict them for crimes involving the torture of prisoners at American prisons. Five Spanish citizens are being held at Guantanamo.

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4 Former Senator Gramley Shot

Former US Senator Phil Cracker Gramley was shot yesterday as he prepared to enter his car outside a restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. His wife, Wendy, was at his side. No information has been released by police authorities. The shooting doesn’t appear to have been a drive-by or robbery-related. No witnesses have come forward.

Gramley, 66, served Texas in Washington for most of three decades. An economist, he began as an instructor at Abilene Methodist Evangelical Bible College, in Dalhart, and got into politics when challenged to clean up the mess in Austin, as he liked to relate.

He became a leader of the Republican Party in the US Senate, and rose to become chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, where he led in pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street. Soon after, he got exempted from regulation over-the-counter derivatives, chiefly the so-called credit-default swaps. Credit-default swaps, a kind of phony insurance, are not properly backed with cash reserves, thanks to Gramley and his cohorts. These side bets are at the heart of the financial crisis which has cost the U.S. a conservatively-estimated half-a trillion dollars at this writing. Because of Gramley-Liota Law, the Federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission could not touch what was going on.

Gramley had begun his political life as a Democrat, which in Texas meant that his switch to the Republican Party in 1983 was easily accomplished as part of the so-called Raygun Revolution. The switch of White southerners was the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy, begun in President Nixton’ time in response to Democrats enacting civil rights laws to aid Blacks.

Gramley worked to enact the Raygun combination of tax cuts for the rich and increased military spending, partially offset by cuts in social programs, especially for the poor. A trillion dollars of debt was soon added to the trillion there when Reagan took office, and the debt kept climbing until the end of the millennium. Then it was closer to four trillion total. This did not bother Senator Gramley.

An economist of the Milton Friedman stripe, like Alan Greedmould, Gramley never saw a market that wouldn’t be better unregulated by any government. Markets get it right over time, was a favorite quote of his. He never specified how much time.

Gramley became Senator McCloud’s chief economic advisor in the campaign of 2008. When pressed in an interview then about the financial crisis and the recession, Gramley explained the nation was not in a recession, stating, You’ve heard of mental depression; This is a mental recession. We have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness—America in decline." When asked a year later about these remarks, he declined to comment.

Paul Krugee, Nobel Prize holder in economics, described Gramley during the 2008 presidential race as the high priest of deregulation, and listed him as the number two person responsible for the economic crisis of 2008, behind Alan Greedmould. On October 14, 2008, CNN ranked Gramley number seven in its list of the 10 individuals most responsible for the current economic crisis.

In January 2009 Guardian City editor Julia Goldfinch identified Gramley as one of twenty-five people who were at the heart of the financial meltdown. Time magazine included Gramley in its list of the top 25 people to blame for the economic debacle.

A true westerner in his love for guns—though he was raised in Georgia—he is quoted: I have as many guns as I need, but I don’t have as many guns as I want.

In typical fashion he often bragged thus:

I wrote the first Raygun budget, the Gramley-Liota Budget that rebuilt national defense and that laid the foundation for a program of ‘peace through strength,’ the Raygun program that tore down the Berlin Wall, that liberated Eastern Europe, that transformed the Soviet Union and that changed the world.

These claims, while good political bragging, have no real support in fact, however.

A leading Conservative, he was unapologetic, and even aggressive in supporting the growing gap between the top one per cent and the mass of workers. He once commented:

"In economics, we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value product. I recently told Ed Baldfacci, former CEO of BUT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package, that he was probably the most exploited worker in American history because he took SF&GBUT, which was the smallest of the former BUT companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His severance package should have been billions.

This murder of former Senator Gramley follows close-on the drowning in a toilet of John How, the legal brain behind President Lentago’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

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5 Checking Reactions

He put the paper down, went to the microwave and reheated his coffee. He’d just finished the drive from Cincinnati and was glad to be home.

He’d go get the dogs from the sitter in a while. Snooty had already greeted him, as much as he ever did. He wanted his special food, so he rubbed against Brad’s leg and purred while the process went on with his dish. Once that was done and Snooty ate, he disappeared. Brad preferred dogs for that reason: they were always around to interact with. Snooty had just started hanging around the back door a few months ago; that’s how he became a member of the household.

He sat down to watch the news on the various cable channels. They all ran the same half-dozen stories over and over, but changed up the look enough so that you might watch for more than one hour. Occasionally there’d be a story slipped in that wasn’t in the loop, so Brad wanted to follow closely to see whether three assassinations might be seen as a pattern.

Spent the morning on this. Well, it isn’t any more than I’d expect after three kills. As expected, the Coyote Channel is the closest to figuring out what’s going on.

Then his mind wandered back over the kill. He went back over his preparations: finding Gramley’s favorite restaurant, checking—while in disguise—the Maître D’s reservations to find out when his prey was coming. He’d already found the right spot to set up. He changed his disguise in the used car he’d bought with phony documents; then he set up in the spot he’d found, and took the easy shot from about two hundred yards. He drove the car to a suburb; abandoned it in an out-of-the-way spot after making sure he’d left no prints or other evidence. He walked two miles to a bus stop, went back to the city, and in another disguise took the train to Cincinnati. Then he got out of his disguise and took the bus to his own car, which was parked at a friend’s house.

Brad walked to the sitter, Mrs. Zachery, in the next block. She loved all animals, especially dogs, and made up for a skimpy Social Security check by boarding and providing day care for lots of dogs, a few cats, and even an occasional bird, lizard, hamster, or other furry critter.

Hi, Mrs. Zachery. I’m back—without a scratch.

Ever since Brad had been off to war, Mrs. Zachery worried about any wounds he might recently have gotten, whether he was still in uniform or not. So he tried to head off any discussion about that.

Hello, Brad! Hey guys, look who’s here!

Of course a menagerie of more than an dozen dogs was already crowding the entrance, with about an equal number in sight in adjoining rooms. Beebee and Nanny worked their way to Brad, yelping and trying to spin around, nudging Brad in his crotch, and otherwise were demanding his full attention.

Aw, guys, I’m sooo glad to see ya! The greeting went on for a couple of minutes. Brad couldn’t wag his tail, but shared kisses in his way along with hugs and rubs.

Well, do you still have Liz?

Liz, the three-foot Iguana that liked to hang onto the drapes in the sunny dining room, was the talk of the neighborhood. The kids especially liked him/her. (No one knew how to determine the gender of a lizard.) Mrs. Zachery would invite them in, and get almost all of them to overcome their fear of Liz, finally getting them to stroke her. Liz was always calm through it all. If she so much as blinked, that was reason for exclamations and squeals, or even jumping for joy. Brad had seen all this, so he knew how much Mrs. Zachery was getting from these visits. Better to get her thinking about her life than inquiring about his.

Oh, yes. Come see. They walked to the dining room, through a pool of waving curled tails. Now his Guys bracketed him.

Liz received Brad’s obeisance properly: blinking once.

After ten minutes about how some dogs got along and some didn’t, Brad got away by telling the Guys that they were going to the country for a run. He paid Mrs. Zachery, and increased it half again as a tip. She took it, gladly, after insisting she wouldn’t.

He drove to the sixty acres he had out east of town. It was mostly woods, with a creek meandering through it. He loved it, and so decided against putting any buildings or structures on it. He knew every square foot of it, as did Nanny and Beebee. He spent much time here cutting and splitting wood for the fireplace. After the dogs had chased their friends the squirrels for an hour and sniffed out the secrets of their world, they were ready to go home and eat.

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6 While Coming Home

On the last flight home from Afghanistan he thought over what he’d been through months before—

We’re moving over a mountain ridge, and there’s a village of about fifteen houses and sheds.

Ah, music.

Dancing.

Probably a wedding.

Wouldn’t it be something if we just walked in and joined the party?

Yeah. I’m goin’ tuh brush up on my Dari.

Unless they speak Hazaragi. They’ll not be so welcoming around here.

Or Uzbek.

We’re not dressed for success. If we’d washed our stuff we might not smell so bad.

I don’t know what they think about cleanliness and B.O.

They’re dressed up for a big celebration. Come on!

We lay on our backs, listening, looking up at the icy blue sky; glad to be alive within sound and sight of normal human happiness.

After a little while—a drone.

Couldn’t see it.

Oh, shit. They aren’t goin’ after the party!

The explosion seemed to shake the mountains, but of course it could not.

In a moment: screams.

Neither of us could speak.

We could see the fire, and the people hurrying—or crawling—to escape it.

Neither of us wanted to use our scopes to get a close look.

We both cried.

In a minute: Do we go down and see if we can help?

I don’t know. We’re told to stay out of settlements, whatever we do. What would we say to present ourselves? How do we account for being there? They might just turn on us.

We do know enough to maybe save a life or two.

Maybe.

God, it’s awful.

We turned, and went back the way we came.

He’d been over this many times. His anger and shame and frustration stayed at the simmer.

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7 Financial Genius Litphonie Murdered

Allie Litphonie was shot to death at close range early yesterday morning as he emerged from Lake Michigan near his mansion in a toney north shore suburb of Chicago. He was preparing for a triathlon.

Litphonie was a wunderkind of the investment world, having made two hedge funds, Dungjon and Majicstarr, huge forces in the financial world. Some credit—or charge—Litphonie with making the housing bubble much bigger; thus worse, thus adding greatly to the Recession which began in 2008.

Majicstarr created subprime bundles of house mortgages: a thousand in a bundle. These were sold as one entity. Litphomie’s hedge funds made side bets that the bad mortgages in these bundles would cause failure in the system. Billions of dollars worth of these securitized mortgage bundles were created, and soon the crash came and nearly all of these securities became worthless; an estimated $40 billion at this writing. Investors, investment banks, and American workers and taxpayers paid, and are paying the price. Some hedge funds, Majicstarr especially, bet against the bubble and wound up big winners. Litphonie was the genius behind it all—from a business profit perspective.

The murkiest part of the matter revolves around the question of whether Litphonie/ Majicstarr, tried to hasten the day when the bubble would burst by knowingly rigging the market by placing the worst financial deals in the toxic mortgage bundles in such a manner as to cause a steep drop in value. Majicstarr of course denies all this.

Police say they have a number of promising leads.

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8 Darby Addledby Murdered

Darby Addledby was shot by a rifle bullet fired from some distance while crossing a bridge walking to work. Police say that they have no leads yet, but are following through on a number of promising areas.

He was a dominant voice in the debates about the treatment of prisoners taken in Iraq and Afghanistan. He insisted they be called enemy combatants and that they be denied due process.

Addledby had a distinguished career as a lawyer, serving in the Central Intelligence Agency from 1981 to 1984. He then was counsel for the House committees on intelligence and foreign affairs, which led to his tenure aa staff attorney on the joint U.S. House-Senate committee investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal. Contrary to many reports, Addledby was not an author of a minority report defending insofar as possible the Iran-Contra affair. Addledby then served in the Raygun administration, becoming Special Assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Chumlye. He headed a PAC which funded and supported right-wing Republicans. Then he was in private practice before coming into Vice President Chumyle’s service.

Though the picture is far from clear, there have been repeated allegations that Addledby was deeply involved in creating an opinion from the Justice Department that said torture might be justified in some cases.

A Spanish court has a warrant out for Addledby’s arrest on charges of causing the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantanamo without due process of law. Five other former Lentago officials are also charged, including John How, President Lentago’s lawyer, who was murdered last month in a men’s room of Cal Luis Obispo, where he taught. Addledby and 15 other current and former U.S. government officials had been brought before the German Federal Supreme Court in absentia on a complaint alleging war crimes. It went nowhere.

Addledby was one of the strongest, most outspoken advocates of the position that the Constitution grants the President virtually unlimited power as commander-in-chief during wartime.

As well, Addledby in effect authored over 750 signing statements that President Lentago issued when signing bills passed by Congress. These statements challenge Congressional authority and/or fudge his obligations under the law. They may best be understood as a form of crossing your fingers to indicate that you are not going to do what you seem to agree to. This is many times more than other Presidents have done.

As Counsel to the Vice President Chumlye, Addledby vigorously advanced the interests of the institution of the Vice Presidency. Soon he became Chief of Staff, the driving force in both extending the power of the executive branch and in promoting foreign military involvement and an aggressive foreign policy.

He worked to shield those who might get into legal trouble for carrying out orders to perform "enhanced interrogation techniques—a euphemism for torture, critics say.

He led the defense against lawsuits in order to prevent exposure of the inner workings of the Office of the Vice President, either by the Government Accountability Office or private organizations.

Isador Chuck Waggoner’s indictment on felony charges regarding the outing of Bonita Flaime mentioned Addledby. He had said he would testify at the trial, were it to go forward.

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9 Who Was Darby Addledby?

By Clark Kant

Darby Addledby, assassinated yesterday, had been a dominant voice in the Lentago Administration debates about the treatment of prisoners taken in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted they be categorized as enemy combatants and thus be denied due process and the protections afforded prisoners of war.

An unopposable force, a colleague called him. Addledby was apparently the person most familiar with National Security law when meetings were held right after the September eleven disasters. He was sure what should be done, and put down any opposing views that were presented. His superior, Alberto Garza, was, in the words of another, an empty suit. He’s weak, and doesn’t know shit about the Geneva Conventions.

Addledby was the one who persuaded President Lentago to use signing statements as a way to deny Congress’s constitutional authority. (Signing statements are seen by some as a harmless kind of addendum to a law passed by Congress.) Lentago issued more than 750, more than all other Presidents put together. Opponents assert that these statements undermine the rule of law and our doctrine of separation of powers. Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman as he left the Constitutional Convention, Doctor Franklin, what have you given us: a Monarchy, or a Republic? He responded, A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it. When the President does not have to work within the limits set by Congress, we no longer have a republic, but an Imperial Presidency.

Enemy combatant, was a fiction created by Addledby because they would be put into a new category of prisoner, a detainee, an attempt to cut the prisoner off from the protections of the Geneva Convention. This led to forcing someone to stand in an awkward position for hours, depriving him of sleep, bright lights shining on him, as he lived in his own excrement. The centerpiece of this was