by Reed Sprague
“All of this would give me the invisible tools necessary to make this thing work out. I believe in my plan. I believe that when difficulties arise, plans that might seem ridiculous at first will work. Think of lessons from military invasions that seemed ill–conceived at first, but were easy to recognize as military successes afterwards, for one reason and one reason only: They were successful.
“Many times when we analyze a plan of action before it succeeds, we will see only failure. But if we are told of the plan after we are told of the success of the plan, reasons for the prediction for failure evaporate.
“My plan will work. It will work because it is the only realistic way to handle the situation. It will work because, if I actually had to carry it out, I would not allow it to fail. I would be there to walk it through.”
The instructor asked for more input from the group. There was none. River received a grade of 82%, a good grade for the test, though far from a 92%, the highest grade given to date for this test. The instructor addressed the class. “River is receiving this relatively high grade because he was realistic. I have no idea whether River’s plan would actually work, but that is not the issue. I remind you that there are no right answers. This is about analytical thinking, leadership, confidence, working well under pressure and thinking clearly during very difficult challenges. River’s explanation stood out on all counts.” River received a B- for his final grade in the class.
Graduation at the Sentinel was different from that at any other institution of higher learning. There was no single student who would shine on graduation night, no valedictorian, no genius—no Superman or Wonder Woman. The entire graduating class acted as one and was treated as one. Still, River stood out, but far less so than he would have at most any other graduate school.
The president of the school addressed the graduating class. She alone shined on this night. This was a demonstration to the students that their achievement was valued, but the USFIA’s future leaders were to be present–day soldiers, obedient to leaders and respectful of authority. Their respect for leadership would be honored far more than their intelligence and achievements.
Major Alexandria Romez, president of the academy, rose to the podium to deliver the only speech that would be given on this night.
“Tonight you celebrate the culmination of three years of graduate studies at this institution, an institution that was formed exclusively to produce the agents needed to be the investigators and watchdogs of this nation’s most precious asset: the freedom of its citizens. Your graduating class began with enrollment of five hundred twenty. Three hundred eighty–seven of you are graduating tonight. You beat the odds.
“There is nothing wrong with the other one hundred thirty–three who did not finish this journey with you. And there is nothing special about you because you finished this race. I say this not to downplay your achievement. I say it to let you know the truth. The truth is that you are destined to serve. To understand true service is to understand that ‘academic achievement’ is better phrased ‘academic preparation for service.’
“I expect you to serve. I expect you to fully comprehend that this nation, the United States, is special. You are special because you have chosen, and you have been chosen, to defend this great nation against lawlessness and corruption. I expect you to fully understand that it is a privilege to serve a nation so special. It is a privilege even to be an everyday citizen of the U.S. Therefore, serving this great nation at the level you have been selected should be the highest honor you can hope for.
“Let there be no mistake about it, even at a most basic level, you will be on the front lines fighting those who would dare to strip us of our freedoms through their crimes, their corruption, or both.
“I am concerned that you might go from here believing that you are entitled. Entitlement thinking is a belief system that has become a dangerous extreme in our nation today. It is a cancer. Corruption abounds because greedy people in all professions, and from all walks of life, have been led to believe that they are special and that that special standing is to bring them material possessions and, of course, lots of money—huge sums of money.
“Honor, duty and service cancel out this cancer. Honor, duty and service are the medicines of prevention and treatment for this disease afflicting this nation today. I will not stand here today and tell you that you will be financially prosperous during your life because of what you learned here at this academy. Again, I say that I will tell you the truth, which is that you will enjoy a middle class existence in this great nation. Honor, duty and service many times do not produce riches. It’s as simple as that.
“It sounds as if I am encouraging you to accept less than you deserve, and that you should be happy about it nonetheless. I am not telling you any such thing. I am telling you, instead, that you deserve to serve. That is what we all deserve. Those who take and take without regard for an ethical standard will one day leave a pile of money for someone—but not for themselves. Under that pile of money will be dirt, barren soil that will not produce crops. The soil will have been choked. Its fresh oxygen and water will have been absorbed by the dry dollars that piled up on top of it for years. At the bottom of the pile there will be only rot.
“The servant will leave this world far better off than it was when he was born into it. The soil trod by the servant will be as fresh on the day the servant leaves this world as it was on the day he came into this world. People will enjoy freedom because of your work. The bad guys will be locked up because of your work. You are privileged, truly privileged. Because of your responsible cultivation, society will be able to reap the ripe and nutritious fruit of the seed you sowed.
“And your professional standards will be your ladder rungs. You will be advanced in your careers and in your opportunities because you ascended the ladder that was specifically designed and built to climb to the heights of outstanding personal and professional achievement. The climb will be lonely and it will be ethical. Except for you and a few others, the ladder will be empty. The summit will be worth it, though. Satisfaction at the top will exceed all expectation. Unlike the ladders of compromise and corruption, the ladder you climb will be sturdy, safe and secure when the winds change. You will be secure, no matter the heights you conquer.
“Adherence to the rules will pay off. Faith in the system will prove worthy. Dishonesty, manipulative behavior, even small compromises of standards will not work in your profession. You are headed up, to a much higher calling. To get there you must climb the ladder. You must climb the right ladder, you must climb it the right way. And you must begin the climb right away. You can and you will do it. I have faith in each of you. I know that you are up to the task.
“Do not leave here with the belief that you must find ways to ascend the ladder by knocking off your colleague. Do not leave here believing that you must skip as many rungs as possible, as often as possible. Do not leave here believing that you may allow your peer to fall down the ladder in order that you might ascend faster, stepping on his back as he falls down—instead of reaching for him and lifting him so he can continue his ascension. These plots will not work on the ladder you’ve chosen. Hard work, solid ethics, continued learning, mutual support for one another—these are your opportunities. Excellence will pay off. You will reach the summit, but only on the path chosen for you, and not on the path you might choose for yourself.
“You will be challenged and tempted before you step on each rung. The opportunity to rise alone, like a messiah, will be tempting. The opportunity to rise on top of others, instead of along side of others, will present itself most appealing. The opportunity to lift yourself instead of others will present itself daily, if not hourly, but you must resist. These opportunities are not real; they’re mirages. And if you attempt to ascend using any one of them, you will find as you attempt to step on the rung that your foot will pass through the false image of the rung and land a rung or two beneath the one you aimed for.
“Honor, duty an
d service. The order of these words is not important. They are not to be ranked. Don’t fall into that trap. To do so is to end up in childish discussion as to which is most important, which must come first and which could be left out in a pinch, and so on—complete nonsense. All three are critically important.
“And don’t split hairs about the precise meaning and context of each of the three. ‘It is an honor to serve,’ is just as important a statement as, ‘I will serve with honor.’ Two slightly different meanings to the word honor, but both equally important. Honor means honor. I expect you to live out in your careers all meanings of that word.
“Duty is an interesting word. It is your duty to serve. It is your duty to serve in a way that will bring honor to your country. It is your duty to hold to a high ethical standard. It is your duty to help your neighbor. It is your duty to change your baby’s diaper. Even you men!” The male students laughed hilariously. The female students didn’t even smile.
“And how about this one: It is an honor to have a duty to perform. Or, it is my duty to change a flat tire.
“Here it is in summary: It is your duty to do what is right. That sums it up well.
“Service might be the most difficult word of the three to deal with. The word is, far more often than not, elevated above what it really means. The ‘lesser meanings’ are downplayed, and many times they are ignored. To do service out of deep, abiding humility, is toughest of all for us to accept. When we interpret the word service to mean that we are to serve as the top dog, we all would be willing to manipulate to get to that level of service. Service that calls for us to be good assistants is service we will find it easy to forego.
“Service professions often attract narcissists. The service profession you have chosen comes prepackaged with the respect, power and authority desired by the narcissist. These are attributes he wants so much but can’t have. They have to be earned through humble, professional service. The narcissist wants the shortcut. He wants to be considered a servant, worthy of the trust necessary to be handed the inherent respect, power and authority. But he can’t serve. He is not a servant. He’s a fake. He’ll never possess the servant’s powers. They are unattainable by him. He can have the counterfeits, but he can’t have the real thing.
“You are not the narcissist. You are a true servant. You are empathetic. You are to serve others, and your receipt of these attributes will be real. Make absolutely certain you don’t abuse them because if you do you will be assured of failure in this line of work.
“Just as I do with the word honor, I expect you to apply the word service to your personal and professional lives with the full depth of all of its meanings. Service means service. It means serving as the boss. It means serving as the assistant. It means serving as the spouse, the student, the professor, the servant. It means all of that and more.
“A word of caution about this word, though. A good servant is not a doormat. A good servant is wise. She understands and is sensitive to those who do not believe as she does. This word can get you into trouble if you understand its humbler meanings too well. You are called to serve, and you were taught the depth of that word’s full meaning here.
“You were also taught that a servant can bring on compromise to her ethics if she is too passive. Passivity and service have two entirely different meanings, and they lead to two entirely different results. One is inaction, perhaps to avoid conflict needed to stop an aggressor from taking advantage of your servant spirit. The other is action taken to benefit others. One is cowardice; the other is courageous. One has no purpose; the other is indispensable.
“You have a purpose. You are indispensable, not because of who you were and are in your natural state, but because you have allowed the person you used to be to be trained to become the person your country needs at this most critical time of challenge in our nation’s history.
“So I challenge you today to seize your future. Yours is a future of honor, duty and service. Yours is a future with a summit. Yours is a future with a ladder to climb, work to be done, lives to be saved and a nation and world to clean up.
“I expect you to do nothing less than meet these challenges and to achieve all of your career goals. I expect you to be all that you are destined to be. I expect you to help others at great sacrifice to yourself. I expect you to believe in this great nation of ours, in our Constitution, and in the laws you are sworn to protect.
“Go forward without compromise, without giving in, without the possibility of failure. Your expectation must be that you will achieve one hundred percent success in all you do. Nothing less. Yet, when reality shows you that there will be setbacks — when you are knocked down a rung or two — catch yourself so you don’t fall all the way down. Regroup and head on up. Keep going. That is to be your definition of one hundred percent success. You will succeed one hundred percent if and only if you understand that when you are knocked down a few percentage points, you must move back up that amount or more with each challenge.
“Thank you for your hard work during these past three years. God bless you as you go on from here. Good night.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
OCTOBER 2023
The idealism of schooling gave way without delay to the reality of the grind of everyday work. River wasn’t sure he liked reality. Reality had always been confusing to him. After nearly four years working in the USFIA — the first eighteen months spent observing, writing, researching, fetching coffee and running errands, all as an intern — River was bored with the banality. He longed for the exciting work of the intelligence agents he and his fellow agents spoke of often, dreamed about, read about in novels and watched on television and the big screen.
River was experiencing endless long meetings and never–ending continuing education. And petty politics, and long hours, and excruciatingly careful investigative work that had little to do with proper investigative procedures and everything to do with avoiding negative press or lawsuits. These were the realities of River’s work so far. It was all a far cry from the challenges presented to him by Alexandria Romez in her graduation speech. The USFIA had quickly become a bureaucratic mess even though it was supposed to be the replacement organization for a bureaucratic mess.
River hung in there. Though they did not talk much about it, River and Eddy held a deep love for their country. A tidal wave of change had swept over the U.S. and the world, though. The tsunami threatened to drown the proud independent nations of the past and form a murky soup of barely visible unity that masked an undercurrent of chaos and seething resentment. It was a recipe made in hell presented as a taste of heaven, and America was burning as the recipe’s toxic ingredients ignited one fire after another. All–out hell was nearby.
It was always difficult for River to allow idealism to fade. And yet it was fading as reality was coming into sharp focus. While reality often supplants idealism, River believed that reality offered the opportunity to apply idealism. He and Eddy kept their ideals alive.
River Norman Warwick, Jr., and Jennifer Edward Warwick, Jr., were born in the middle of the afternoon, 21 October 2023. Though it was uncommon, to say the least, to name one’s daughter with the designation “Junior,” River and Eddy wanted the pride associated with being second in line to a unique family name passed on to their daughter. Their little girl would be raised with that distinction.
Eddy Sr. had been nicknamed by her grandfather who wanted his daughter to bear a son, who was to be named Edward, with the nickname Eddie. He had more fun than should be allowed teasing his daughter and her husband by calling his granddaughter by the name Eddy. Jon and Cynthia agreed to go along with Cynthia’s father, so they gave Eddy the middle name of Edward.
Due to the nature of River’s current training and his future work, news of the twins’ birth was muted. There were no grand announcements and there was no big celebration. Just a few family members and a few of River and Eddy’s closest friends celebrated. Even those few had to pass the extensive background checks require
d by the USFIA for people who associated closely with their agents.
The twins were adorable, and they were every parent’s dream. After only a few weeks, they slept through the night each night. They ate on time, they were healthy, and there was very little screaming from them. There were only a few stomach aches here and there to deal with. Eddy Jr. seemed to study her world intently; River Jr. enjoyed his sleep. Life was good for River and Eddy.
Tuesday, 21 November 2023. Today’s case presented a problem that had become all too familiar. It was another case of a corrupt FBI agent, an FBI supervisor protecting his corrupt agent, the top FBI brass protecting the agent’s supervisor, politicians protecting the FBI brass, and the USFIA reacting far too late to the problem. It was all the same and all too common. This time, however, River was placed in charge of the investigation, his first “real job” since being assigned to keep an eye on Tyler Peterson.
“This guy’s bad. He’s rotten to the core. He’s brazen. I’ve never seen anything like this,” River’s boss, Sydney Albert, said. Albert was a careful, calculating agent who did not allow failure. He and River were going over the basics of the developing case against FBI agent Frederic Hernandez. Hernandez had been with the Houston office of the FBI for twenty years. He had never been suspected of any wrongdoing. He had apparently been loyal, well beyond the loyalty of even the most dedicated agents. Apparently, but not really.
“Move very carefully on this guy. He’s deceptive. He knows exactly how to execute wiles like the one he pulled off. He undoubtedly will know how to thwart your investigation of him. He must not find out that you’re investigating him. He must not even know that he’s under suspicion. This will be a tough case for you. You will bounce everything off of me each morning. You and I will meet at nine o’clock each morning to go over your previous day’s work on the case, and you will let me know your plans for that day,” Albert said, with absolute clarity. Albert’s agents at the USFIA usually understood their charge after only one meeting with him. Albert gave clear instructions.