Dismissal

As far as Joshua Cowen was concerned, the very shape of Europe could be blotted out from any globe he owned. However, he knew that is where business was done for arms purchases, sales and dispatching his own mechanized response for hire service. From Joshua's biased mind, Europe was only good for one thing; his bank account.

Corporal Cowen was a young man of twenty five when the Great Desert Dash took place in February, 1991. After a few years in college, earning a degree in business finance and thanks in part to a leadership vacuum in the upper ranks, Major Cowen would return to the desert in March, 2003. He believed that destiny had ear marked him for a professional military career until the grave.

Then, he was introduced to private military companies. The shock and awe of his life long hard work to earn enough to just support his family vs seeing highly trained civilians make more money than their families could spend. Not quite the reality, but that was how Joshua had perceived things. The temptation was too strong and resigned his commission at the start of the Battle of Tal Afar in September, 2005.

Retired Maj. Cowen managed to round up a small group of Gung Ho young men and put them to work in Iraq immediately. Slowly, but surely, building the business off the hard work and backs of others. The contracts were almost rolling in. However, Joshua discovered he was starting to hate....people. The complaints, whining and overall presence of them were starting to get on his nerves. Then, when they went and got themselves killed, things started to get really expensive in both time and money. He hired somebody to take care of that aspect of things.

Joshua Cowen shifted his attention to the woman sitting across his desk from him. This young African-American had his blood boiling on the inside, while maintaining a facade of calm and composure on the outside. She had committed one of the few acts that could anger him into a fury, destroying one of his machines.

There was no way Joshua could escape the human element, but there were ways he could reduce his exposure to....them, as much as possible. First, he would hire his oldest daughters as assistants, he could at least tolerate family. Second, he would conduct most of the business requiring his attention by phone, email or any other human disconnected means.

However, because he shifted his attention from man-of-war to machine-of-war element, new problems were created. His solutions were very simple, a two tiered approach. Tier one were called owner operators. They would bring their own vehicles, be responsible for the maintenance and repairs and pay a modest dispatch fee for some action.

Tier two were called lease operators. They would use Cowen's equipment, but only after signing a very confusing to read, even more difficult to understand contract. These people would make less money than owners, since Cowen was on the hook for everything. Loss of said vehicles, depending on the circumstances, could cost the operator full replacement prices. However, most tier two operators would move up to tier one, encouraged to buy units from Cowen, after a modest markup, of course.

Joshua was staring hard at this woman. Because of her, he was woken up, had to drag himself out of bed and to the airport, board the company jet and fly to the office in Berlin. This...he looked down at the dossier jacket in front of him....Sabrina Washington not only destroyed a company asset, but was  costing him precious personal time and more corporate money. Now, she could even afford him the decency to look at him, distracting herself by....reading the equipment loss contract addendum.

Joshua cleared his throat, "So, Miss Washington, as you can see, we have offered you two payment options for the loss of operational assets. First, we will gladly accept the full payment of  $640,000 at your earliest convenience."

Sabrina looked up from reading, an expression of shock and disgust started to form.

Joshua continued, "The second option, contract deduction is a....less painful 30% per, however, you will be restricted from any mechanized operations in an active theater, therefore, making less money and taking longer to....satisfy the addendum," he paused, giving her time to comprehend his best, simple English, "So, Miss Washington, which option will you exercise?"

Sabrina Washington shed her face of all emotional expression, slowly raised up the contract addendum to just in front of her face, then tore it in half with both hands.

"Go to hell, old man," she replied in a very taunting tone.