MI5: What is your latest information on Al Qaeda?
CIA: Uhh, yeah. We’ve decided that it’s not in our national interest to tell you.
MI5: You what?
CIA: Yeah, see, we’re not sure who we can trust…
MI5: Are you mad? The fight against international terrorism is an international fight. We need to cooperate!
CIA: You’ll just have to trust that we know what we’re do –
FBI: Hey! Where’s that intelligence estimate you said we would be getting last week?
CIA: We can’t talk now.
FBI: How are we supposed to do our jobs if you don’t share what you know with us?
CIA: We’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it.
FBI: That’s not how intelligence works!
DIA: You’re just wasting your breath. You’ll get nothing out of the CIA.
CIA: You’re a one to talk! You’ve been stiffing us on vital intel since Rumsfeld first started stalking the halls of the Pentagon!
DIA: Yeah, well, at least we don’t demand everybody else share their intel with us when we have no intention of sharing our intel with them.
CIA: What? You think that gives you some kind of integrity?
FBI: Look, we need all the information we can get on threats within America’s borders – can you give us anything?
DIA: You’ll be lucky to get a redacted cover sheet from the CIA.
I&A: You’re a one to talk! We’ve been begging you for months to warn us about looming threats, and what have you given us? Bupkes!
DIA: We don’t have to give anything to the Department of Homeland Defense! Christ, Military Intelligence has been around since this country started having a military. You’ve been around less than a decade. You’re just old enough to start dealing with acne. You probably think Hannah Montana is cool. You have a nine o’clock curfew, for Chrissake! No, we’ll start sharing information with you when you grow up!
CIA: By that argument, you should be sharing everything you’ve got with me.
DIA: You’re just assholes!
I&A: Oh, like you’re so helpful.
DIA: Bite me!
FBI: Come on! Can’t we work together, sharing our intel for the good of the country?
CIA: Shut up!
DIA: Fuck off!
I&A: Go to hell!
MI5: I think I see what the problem here is…
“Psst. Hey. Friend.”
“Yeah?”
“Got any Vicodin?”
“No. Why would I ha -“
“Hardcore painkillers are the currency in here.”
“Oh.”
“You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did they catch you with?”
“Brain tumour. You?”
“Pancreatic cancer. What’s your sentence?”
“Six months…maybe a year if the tumour behaves good.”
“I’m lucky – could get up to three years.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
“How’d they nab you?”
“I collapsed in a board meeting. I guess ignoring those headaches for all those years caught up with me. They took me into an emergency room and it was game over.”
“Tough break.”
“Aah, it woulda caught up with me sooner or later. You?”
“You know how they finally put Al Capone behind bars?”
“Taxes?”
“Taxes. IRS noticed that I didn’t deduct health insurance on the form, and that was all she wrote.”
“Why didn’t you get a black market health insurance number?”
“There’s so much demand, it costs almost as much as a real policy.”
“I got mine years ago.”
“For all the good it did you.”
“For all the good it did me.”
Pause.
“What’s it like? In here?”
“You know. The food sucks, but it’s better than the food on airplanes.”
“Or in hospitals?”
“Funny man. They let us out in the yard for exercise for an hour every day.”
“That’s good.”
“Not if you’re on a lung machine, it ain’t. Oh, and you don’t want your illness acting up, or you get thrown in isolation.”
“That sounds bad.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I’ve seen good men, strong men go into isolation and come out a week later babbling wrecks. There’s something about isolation that breaks a man’s spirit. Trust me, friend, you don’t ever want to find out what goes on in there.”
“Good god. How did it come to this?”
“You got sick in America, friend. You got sick in America…”