The Global War on Morris Read Online Free PDF Page A

routine. To coax him from his seat in front of Turner Classic Movies by changing the scenery of their marriage. Once, she enrolled them in the adult lecture series at Long Island University. The course was American History. Morris never made it any further than the Pilgrims. She tried to accommodate his love of old movies by joining the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. But Morris said he didn’t like movies with subtitles or post-film discussion groups.
    So she gave up on trying to change Morris and kept trying to change the world. Which seemed easier. She joined the Great Neck Democratic Committee and the Hadassah Social Action Committee and the North Shore Breast Cancer Action League. She volunteered for local political campaigns. She conducted on-line debates. Not on computers, but on lines at supermarkets and bakeries and the women’s apparel department at Bloomingdale’s. She reconciled to her and Morris’s uneasy truce. Morris survived by not making waves. Rona survived by acting like one of those wave machines at the science fair.
    Which is how their marriage survived.
    Plus, she thought, With all the mishagas in the world—this one divorcing that one, almost half of Great Neck having affairs with the other half—I should count my blessings.
    She knew one thing about Morris: A man who won’t take chances by attending adult education wasn’t a high risk for adultery.
    Of that much she was certain.

THE TYPE-A G-MAN
    THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 2004
    I t was in parking lot section L-5 that Agent Fairbanks’s infamous temper erupted for the first time that morning.
    He stomped on the brake pedal. His car screeched to a stop. He grabbed the steering wheel as if he were strangling it, and emitted a “Jeeeeeeeezuuuz H” so long and loud that it rattled his car windows, carried clear across the parking lot.
    In the Department of Homeland Security Employee Assistance Program, Fairbanks would angrily insist that all mistakes didn’t make him angry—only mistakes caused by laziness made him angry. And right there, sitting for the entire world to see in Section L, Row 5, Space 8 of 285 Melville Corporate Center, Quadrangle 1, was a lazy mistake. A lazy mistake that could result in an elevated threat to the United States of America.
    Fairbanks poked hard at his cell phone.
    â€œMay I help you,” Marie’s voice answered, in a bureaucratic tone that sounded as if she meant to say, “Only a few months to my retirement, must I help you?”
    â€œIt’s me. Get me Agent Russell.”
    A few seconds passed, and Russell’s voice trembled into the phone.
    â€œAgent Russell. I’m curious. Do you by any chance recall where you parked your vehicle today?” Fairbanks felt his throat constrict around his words, chafing his voice.
    â€œUuuuhhhh—”
    â€œBecause I do. I know where you parked today. And yesterday. In space L-five-eight.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œNow, Agent Russell. Tell me. Why does parking your vehicle in this particular location violate my DHS Subagency Parking Directive NYM-PD-three?”
    â€œSir,” Russell quivered. “NYM-PD-three states that employees using the parking lot should avoid parking in the same parking space every day. Sir, I was going—”
    â€œAnd why should we avoid parking in the same location, Agent Russell?”
    â€œSir, because if a terrorist cell is conducting surveillance, we self-identify our vehicles to them.”
    â€œAnd why don’t we want to self-identify our vehicles to them?”
    â€œSir, to avoid anything that may compromise homeland security or cause potentially life-threatening actions against our persons or property.”
    â€œWhich is why our vehicles are what, Agent Russell?”
    â€œUnmarked vehicles, sir.”
    â€œAnd when you park in the same location, on two consecutive mornings, in a building publicly known as the site of a DHS office, what