Dick Cheney was surprised about how little leg room there was in the front passenger seat of a Hummer. Lots of arm room. But the right front wheel well cut off significant floor space that Cheney had to move his right knee to the left. Cheney glanced to the driver. A good three feet separated Cheney from the female Marine officer. He could not touch her if he wanted. She was wearing dark sunglasses, and she had blond hair cut to the shoulders. Marine officers were getting better looking. It made Cheney proud. She was driving on a dirt road along the southern rim of the hills that formed much of the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. Cheney was on the South Korean side, of course, and this was a trip he had hoped to take before his tenure as Vice President came to an end in January of 2009.
In the back seat sat Park Jin Woo.Park was 77 years old and lived in the northern suburbs of Seoul. park owned several auto dealerships throughout South Korea and was also a partner with Cheney in various real estate investments in the United States. In the year 2000, just after George W. Bush was elected President of the United States, Cheney contacted park about the possibility of buying options on land in the Civilian Control Zone, an area extending about ten miles south of the Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ itself inside the South Korean border was about 2.5 miles wide and was off limits and heavily burdened with land mines. This was also true of the Civilian Control Zone, but less so.
As the Hummer drove from village to village, Cheney noticed that all the buildings were low and made of very cheap plywood. This was purposeful, structures made to collapse easily so they could become obstructions to an invading North Korean army. The green pristine hills behind the villages had been untouched by the military standoff between north and south. Well, this was all going to change, and very soon.
Cheney remembered coming up with the idea of buying options on land in the Civilian Control Zone as well as the Demilitarized zone, land that was essentially free. No one wanted it. Back in 2000, Cheney, though the assistance of Park Jin Woo, acquired options on 125,000 acres of land, land mostly in the Civilian Control Zone, but also about 30,000 acres in the Demilitarized Zone. The beautiful green hills, replete with land mines, were starting to attract speculation. Cheney had decided to exercise his options, which meant that he would acquire his 125,000 acres for less than $200,000.
“What about the land mines?” asked Park Jin Woo in the back seat of the Hummer. The female marine officer, wearing dark sunglasses on this bright clear sky day, showed no interest in the conversation.
“Not a problem,” said Cheney. Cheney did not wish to reveal to Park Jin Woo that a small company purchased by Halliburton back in 1994 was the subcontractor that layed ninety percent of the land mines and created detailed maps of their location. Cheney estimated that the expense of removing the mines with the assistance of these maps, maps unknown to the South Korean government, would be about a million and half dollars, about a hundredth of the cost without the maps. So to Cheney, he was purchasing 125,000 acres for nearly perfect real estate a days drivbe from Seoul for 1.7 million dollars. Pocket change. The cost of a two bedroom condo in Manhattan.
Cheney surveyed the hills as the Marine officer picked up her speed since the Hummer hit pavement. Cheney smiled. Make war with Iraq for the oil. Make peace with the North Koreans for the real estate. It all makes sense.
The Ford family was against the idea. The medical profession did not think it could be done. But the Governor of Michigan signed into law the exhumation order which had the gravediggers remove Henry Ford’s body from his grave at the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. The casket was shipped to the Chemistry Department of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where something very secret was performed on the body of Henry Ford. The Board of Directors of the Ford Motor Company were in one of the lecture halls in the same building waiting nervously, including Henry Ford’s grandson, who was the current CEO of the Ford Motor Company.
When Henry Ford walked into the lecture hall, he appeared almost green and very frail. His hair was grey and he walked with the help of two assistants. They brought him to the podium which was off to the side. Mr. Ford grabbed the side lips of the podium to steady himself. One of the assistants positioned the microphone near Henry Ford’s mouth. The audience was in shock. How could this be? They were told that Henry Ford could be raised from the dead for only an hour, and that during that time he could probably muster some kind of speech. But the chemists and biologists who had worked on the body were as startled as the audience at how vital the old man was. Afterall, he had died back in 1947 at the age of 83, almost sixty years ago.
Old Henry Ford tapped the mike and it made a loud clack throughout the lecture hall. The Ford family, including all the cousins and great grandchildren, as well as the Board members, were all there. The old man smiled at the thundering clack he made with the tap on the mike. The audience jumped from the noise.
Henry Ford, with his dry cracked lips that had the color of eggplant, leaned into the micorphone. His voice was raspy but bellowed with a deep pitch, stronger than one would expect from a man temporarily raised from the dead. “I am told I do not have much time. So let me keep this short and sweet. You people are idiots. Every goddamn one of you. You have no guts. You have no foresight. You have no vision. You have taken this great company that I built with every bead of sweat in my body and turned it into shit. You have let events control the company rather than the company control events. Why the fuck do my cars still run on gasoline? You are still using the internal combustion engine? That piece of shit is a hundred years old. Do you have a research and development department? Or do you assholes have stock in the oil companies? What? Oh, are you scared of the oil companies? Or are you just fucking lazy? And why the fuck did you turdheads bend over every three years and let the UAW ram anything they wanted up your asses? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame my workers. But you know what you jerks taught them? You taught them if they asked for it, you would give it to them. So as far as I am concerned, the UAW was smart. The UAW took care of their members. But you half-brains just sat on your fat asses and let the dividend checks come in without thinking of the future. So I am here to tell you to all go to hell. I am ashamed of what you did to this great company. I am ashamed that you people come from the same gene pool as me.”
At that moment Henry Ford started to cough. The assistants came over to help. Henry Ford pushed them away, holding his index finger up with a gesture that he had one more thing to say.
“Maybe you have one last shot at saving this great company. Maybe. But you are going to have to break some balls and piss a lot of people off and spend a lot of money to do it. Good luck. And try to make me smile when I am lying in my casket. Because recently all I’ve been doing is getting pissed off.”
With that, he turned and walked out slowly with the aide of the two assistants. Everyone in the lecture hall was silent. As silent as a Ford assembyline.
Mariane Pearl sat in the back of the candle-lit restaurant in West Los Angeles. She had walked in and was immediately ushered to a hidden table for six around a tiled partition, clearly set up for private meals and meetings. She though was sitting at the table for fifteen minutes, all alone, sipping a green tea and wondering if this was going to be one of those typical Hollywood meetings where the movie stars are late and everyone waits, sitting on their hands, having small talk simply to fill the dead space until the stars arrive. Mariane, though, had no one to try out small talk with. Alone, is what she was, very much alone since her husband, Daniel Pearl, was brutally kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan. She had written her book, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl to keep herself busy, to diminish the feeling of loneliness, an attempt to bring back Danny if just in her mind as she reconstructed her husband’s life. (more…)
Katie Couric swung the door open to the penthouse suite at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, California. The door slammed on the wall making a very loud boom and bounced back almost hitting Sean McManus as he entered from behind. It was 7:34 PM, but the early evening sun hung over the distant Pasadena hills, cutting through the smog and the 106 degree heat. Katie through her bag down on the couch and walked up to the window looking at the palm trees that were drooping in the oven-like air. Sean McManus closed the door to the hotel room gently. (more…)
Kenneth Lay opened his eyes. He grabbed his chest because of the thud of pain that burned like a hot bass. He was lying next to his wife Linda who was breathing heavily and in a deep sleep. Linda had been taking sleeping pills lately due to all the events in their recent lives, and the pills always seemed to do the trick. Linda slept through the night, snoring as if she was drowning out bad dreams. Kenneth turned to the digital clock that sat on the night stand to his right. It was 1:07 AM. (more…)
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