Cold Warriors

Corporate downsizing is a fact of life for millions of workers worldwide. Job security is history. No one is immune to trading their job for a place in the unemployment line. Fact-based COLD WARRIORS begins when the incoming Director of the CIA cuts the Company's workforce by 2000 agents. Caught in this unprecedented downsizing sweep are five seasoned veterans, one of whom, Brian Hibson, commits suicide rather than face early retirement. Brought together by their friend's funeral, the remaining members of the group mourn the tragic loss of a life needlessly cut short. Chief among the mourners is Winston Long, a fit black man whose commensurate skill enabled him to survive more than thirty years of covert fieldwork at the expense of two failed marriages and a solitary existence. The remaining CIA vets include Ellen Reid, Benjamin Bernard, and Dwight Michelson, all equally talented as Winston, with decades of espionage experience behind them. Winston and his friends are summoned to CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where they are confronted by Richard Taylor, a mid-level bureaucrat who takes great pleasure in issuing an ultimatum: Either accept desk jobs for the rest of their time with the Agency, or they each get pink-slipped. If they won't accept desk jobs, Taylor tells them, they should all consider taking the same easy way out as Brian Hibson, a comment that nearly gets him killed as an infuriated Dwight Michelson pins Taylor against the wall, Michelson's mighty fist clamped around Taylor's throat. Dwight releases his stranglehold, and the meeting ends. All of the veteran agents choose pink slips over laboring at a desk under Taylor's unwelcome scrutiny. Winston and the others make their exit. A bully magnet when he was a kid, Taylor isn't about to let Dwight Michelson's assault go unpunished, not when he has a man like Alan Jenkins at his disposal. A hard case eagerly supporting Taylor's climb up the CIA's corporate ladder, Jenkins readily agrees to take two of his pals to give Dwight Michelson an overdue dose of his own medicine. Only something goes wrong, and in the ensuing confrontation at Michelson's condo, Dwight and his wife are killed, including the pair of freelancers Jenkins brought along for the ride. Realizing that Dwight's friends will rightly suspect that he had something to do with Dwight's murder, Taylor cites National Security to his superiors for his protection and gets the green light for a cunning plan that escalates into a war pitting seasoned professionals Winston Long, Ellen Reid, and Benjamin Bernard against the superior numbers of their younger counterparts.