Solitaire is the much beloved choice for killing time in the office or at the home computer. The three most popular solitaire card games are
Klondike,
Spider, and
FreeCell, and these enjoy dizzying heights of popularity as a result of being included as part of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s (for more on this, see
this article). What these three games have in common is that they all fit the "builder" genre. That means that they follow the basic formula of many solitaire games, where the overall objective is to arrange cards in ascending order from Ace through to King, for each of the four separate suits. Typically this is done by placing and moving cards within a tableau of rows and columns of cards, where the cards are often arranged in descending order, sometimes with an additional requirement of alternating colours.
Klondike, Spider, and FreeCell are by no means unique in this regard, and the genre of "building" games is the most popular archetype within the larger world of solitaire card games. Not all solitaire card games are builder games, but builder games are the most common and arguably the most loved. So which other solitaire games of this type should you know about and should you try first? I've explored the world of solitaire card games extensively myself, and also examined numerous lists about the most popular ones, to help you begin your experience with the best of the best, rather than waste your time with mediocre or obscure games. The six builder games covered in this article are time-tested classics that are most well-known and loved, and represent the best "next step" for anyone wanting to branch out after enjoying Klondike, Spider, or FreeCell.
Each of the builder games discussed here represents a small category of its own, because there are many popular variations and related games for each, which I will cover as well. As with my previous articles on solitaire games games, the accompanying links go to
Solitaired.com, which is a website where you can play these games for free. But because these games are so common and well known, you'll find that they are included in most software and websites that offer collections of solitaire card games.
== Games With One Deck ==
BAKER'S DOZEN Overview:
Baker's Dozen also represents a family of games that plays much like Forty Thieves (see below), but with a single deck. While some variations have a stock, in Baker's Dozen and its most closely related games all the cards are face up, so you have complete information to work with.
Game-play: The tableau consists of thirteen columns of four overlapping and face-up cards each, while the four foundations begin empty. To ensure that the tableau doesn't lock up too quickly, Kings are automatically placed to the bottom of each column when they are turned up. Just like in Forty Thieves, only the single top card of each column may be moved, and columns are built downwards, in any colour and suit. Empty spaces in the tableau may not be filled. As you'd expect, the aim is to get the entire deck onto the four foundations, building up each from Ace to King, with each being built upwards by value.
Variations:
Portuguese Solitaire makes Baker's Dozen slightly easier by allowing empty spaces in the tableau to be filled with Kings, while
Spanish Patience allows building on the foundations regardless of suit.
Baker's Two Deck is effectively the same as Baker's Dozen but using two decks, with eight foundations and a tableau consisting of ten columns with 10 or 11 cards each.
My thoughts: Because this only involves a single deck, Baker's Dozen is much quicker to play than Forty Thieves, and the chances of success are also significantly higher, with as many as 2 of 3 games being easily winnable. The fact that Kings begin at the bottom of the tableau ensures that you don't get stuck too quickly, and being able to build down in the tableau independent of suit ensures a great amount of flexibility. At the same time managing the tableau carefully is still important, especially in cases where empty spaces don't get filled. This makes Baker's Dozen a quicker, simpler, and more accessible game than Forty Thieves and its many variants, while still remaining rewarding and satisfying to play.
https://preview.redd.it/uzpzp0dtend61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28ee57dfe129f73475b95e4b1c12d2910b9a0284 Related games:
Castles in Spain requires building down in the tableau to be with alternate colours, and in most versions of this game all but the top card of each column in the tableau begins face-down. Quite similar is
Martha and its harder sibling
Stewart, where every second card in the tableau begins face-down.
Good Measure is a more difficult variation of Baker's Dozen, since it uses ten columns of five cards each, and has more strict rules for building on the foundations;
Canister has only eight columns with even more cards on each.
Bisley: Special mention can be made of
Bisley, which is a classic but more difficult game in this family. In Bisley you use a tableau of thirteen columns of four cards each to build upwards on the four Aces, and simultaneously build downwards on the Kings whenever they become available.
CANFIELD Overview:
Canfield is one of the all time greats among solitaire games, and is a genuine classic. Also known under names like Demon, Fascination, or Thirteen, you'll find that it appears in almost every book with solitaire card games. According to legend, the game owes its origin and name to Richard A. Canfield, a 19th century gambler. For an initial outlay of $52, Canfield offered gamblers a reward of $5 for every card successfully played to the foundations, with a $500 pot for successfully playing all 52 cards to the foundations. Anything more than 10 cards played to the foundations would get you out of the red, but in most cases the game favoured the casino, indicating how hard the game can be to play.
Game-play: Game-play is much like Klondike, with the aim of building up all four suits in order. The key difference is the starting set-up, because there is a single face-down reserve of 13 cards (sometimes called the "demon"), with a 14th card turned up as the first foundation card. The foundations begin with the cards corresponding to the rank of this initially turned up card (rather than the usual Ace), and the idea is to build upwards from there, if necessary "turning the corner" from King through to Ace. Also different from Klondike is the starting tableau, which consists of just four face up cards alongside the reserve. The stock is turned up three cards at a time as in standard Klondike, with as many re-deals as necessary. Any space that appears in the tableau is immediately filled by the top card of the reserve pile, which is always kept face-up.
Variations: Given how challenging it can take to win a standard game of Canfield, a number of variants exist that simplify the game slightly, increasing your chances of playing cards to the foundations. Canfield's gambling house is said to have given players the option of going through the stock three times when dealing three cards at a time, or just a single time when dealing one card at a time, and it has been estimated that most games would only see 5 or 6 cards played. The game becomes slightly easier with
Canfield Rush, where the cards are first dealt three at a time, then two at a time, and then individually in a final deal of the stock.
My thoughts: Canfield does have a strong connection to Klondike, but has a smaller tableau to work with, while also providing a much smaller number of cards (only 13) that are face-down in the tableau at the start of the game. The real key is finding a way to make these cards available and get these into the game. Given how hard the original game is, I prefer playing with the rule that allows dealing of cards individually, and cycling through the stock as often as necessary. Some of the related games discussed below, such as Rainbow and Storehouse, significantly improve your winning chances, and can be very satisfying to play. Certainly if you enjoy Klondike, this game is a great next step to try.
https://preview.redd.it/u62f87euend61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=073fd04a2eea40447c0b030072ece279293ffca5 Related games: In
Rainbow (also called Rainbow Canfield), cards may be built downwards in the tableau regardless of suit (some versions still require alternating colour), making it much easier to manipulate cards and work your way through the stock and the reserve. Additionally, cards from the reserve aren't automatically added to the tableau, giving you more control and adding strategic options. In most versions of
Storehouse (also called Thirteen-Up), you get an additional head-start by placing your initial four cards on the foundations at the outset, while cards from the stock are turned up one at a time. The big difference in this game is that you must build down by suit in the tableau, which really changes how the game feels, because playing from the tableau to the foundation usually involves a whole string of cards at once.
Eagle Wing (also called Thirteen-Down) is somewhat similar to Storehouse, and has a uniquely shaped tableau.
Dutchess (sometimes spelled Duchess), is a Canfield style game that adds a reserve of four fans, while
American Toad is an easy-to-win version of Canfield with two decks.
Two Players: Canfield has been adapted for a multi-player game under the common name
Pounce, and is also known as Nerts or Racing Demon. A commercial version exists under the name
Solitaire Frenzy, and the published game
Dutch Blitz is also a close relative. In Pounce, each player uses his own deck and tableau, playing simultaneously and real time onto shared foundations, with the goal is to be the first to get rid of your reserve pile. You can play with as many as half a dozen players or more, and the frenzied action typically proves to be enormous fun!
FAN GAMES (La Belle Lucie)
Overview:
La Belle Lucie, also called in English "Lovely Lucy" or "Beautiful Lutecia", is a classic representative of the family of games typically described as Fan games. It's one of the more difficult games in the genre to win, and thus some of its variants and closely related games have arguably become more popular than Lovely Lucy itself. But this classic game of French origin is a good archetype of the genre, and you'll find it included in most books with patience games, and on most solitaire websites and software. Effectively this game is just a tableau of 17 columns of three cards each (plus a column with a single card), but the fan-style arrangement with horizontally overlapping cards that is traditionally associated with this game is a signature feature.
Game-play: A single deck is dealt face-up into 17 "fans", each consisting of three overlapping cards, plus an 18th column with just one card. Only one card can be transferred within the tableau at a time, so sequences can't be moved, and building happens downwards according to suit. Empty spaces in the tableau may not be filled. The aim is to build up four foundations by suit from Ace to King. Under the most commonly played rules, once you are unable to place or move any more cards, you take all the cards from the tableau and redeal them into fans with three cards each; there are two such re-deals.
Variations:
Three Shuffles and a Draw (also called Lovely Lucy With a Draw) adds a
merci play, where you can move a single blocked card once during the course of the game. While La Belle Lucie is sometimes called
The Fan, this is also the name of a popular variation which allows exposed Kings to be played to empty spaces in the tableau, making the game less frustrating and far more achievable.
Trefoil is identical to La Belle Lucie except that the Aces begin on the foundations, resulting in an initial tableau of just 16 fans.
My thoughts: This is a terrific single-deck game, because you have perfect information given that all the cards are face-up, and the large number of columns/fans means that buried cards have at most only a couple of cards blocking them. La Belle Lucie is very difficult to win under the original and strict rules, especially because empty fans may not be refilled, and cards beneath an unplayable exposed card (e.g. a King) are permanently inaccessible. The
merci rule that lets you unblock one card is virtually essential, and usually a standard way of playing, but even after two redeals the game can still be hard to finish, depending on the draw. Some of the variants and related games that simplify things slightly are more satisfying. This is one of my favourite solitaire games to play with a single deck, since it is less luck-dependent than many other popular single-deck games like Klondike.
https://preview.redd.it/wbkhlyawend61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=062ced3c363b906d2a0145ac742cccd257092c30 Related games: One of the more popular games in this family is
Super Flower Garden, where building downward is permitted regardless of suit; with good play under these rules the game can be completed almost every single time.
Shamrocks takes the essence of La Belle Lucie, but implements several other changes to make the game much easier: Kings are moved to the bottom of the fan during the deal, and you may build up as well as down on the fans (which are limited in size to 3 cards) and can ignore suits; to prevent it being too easy there are no redeals.
Similar games: Games in the
Baker's Dozen family (covered previously above) are sometimes classified as Fan games as well, because the game-play is quite similar, with 13 columns/fans of four cards each, but the absence of re-deals gives them a different feel.
Bristol is often played with a tableau consisting of fans as well, but there are only eight fans of three cards each, while the rest of the deck functions as a stock that you deal onto three waste or reserve piles. Despite some hidden information, those who appreciate Fan games are likely to appreciate Bristol as well.
Intelligence is a two-deck game in the style of La Belle Lucie, while the relatively easy two-deck game
Buffalo Bill relies on reserve cells rather than tableau building.
CASTLE GAMES (Beleaguered Castle)
Overview:
Beleaguered Castle is the most famous member of what can be called the "Castle" family of solitaire games, and is a classic game that you'll find in most books of Patience. This game sometimes also goes under the alternative names of Laying Siege and Sham Battle. It is an excellent example of an
open solitaire game, because all the cards are dealt face-up at the start, so you begin with perfect information.
Game-play: With the four Aces placed in a vertical column as foundations, the rest of the cards are dealt face-up into four rows of six overlapping cards each on either side, forming a tableau consisting of two "wings". As expected, the goal is to build all four foundations in order from Ace through King. Cards may only be moved within the tableau one at a time, rather than in stacks, so only the end card of each row within the tableau may be moved, either to the foundations, to another row in descending sequence regardless of suit, or to an empty space in the tableau.
Variations: In
Streets and Alleys, the Aces don't begin in the starting foundations at all, but are included in the initial tableau of dealt cards, so that the four rows on the left side of the foundations each consist of seven cards each rather than six. Thomas Warfield's
Stronghold adds a storage cell to Streets and Alleys, to give more strategic options for movement.
Citadel improves Beleaguered Castle's initial position slightly by allowing you to build straight to the foundations during the deal, while
Selective Castle lets you choose the rank of the foundation cards after the deal. Some solitaire sites offer a Beleaguered Cities variant (sometimes simply called Castle), which makes the game much easier by allowing you to build in ascending or descending sequence (still regardless of suit), and this ensures that you can nearly always complete the game successfully.
My thoughts: Despite the unusual signature "wing" setup, strictly speaking the mechanics of Beleagured Castle are like most other solitaire games (especially Forty Thieves, see below), but with a single deck, eight columns of six cards each, and no stock. The strict rules for movement and building within the tableau make this a very difficult game to complete successfully. Ideally you want to be able to get one of the rows entirely clear, to give you more options for manipulation within the tableau. Even so, being only able to move the outside card on each row is quite limiting, and as a result you will often be thwarted by the luck of the draw early on, especially if high cards bury some lower cards, and so this classic game can be somewhat frustrating. You'll often find yourself quickly redealing and starting over, hoping for better luck the next time around; one advantage of a digital version is that you can keep redealing until you get a deal that seems like a reasonable starting draw. The simpler variant Castle is a good place to start with this game, since it increases your chances of success drastically.
https://preview.redd.it/6bc5x6zwend61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c46244357066a57635272d995c07235c72b3103f Related games:
Fortress operates on a similar concept, but there are five rows on each side of the foundations instead of four. In addition, you are restricted to building on the same suit, but you may build in ascending or descending sequence. Aces start within the tableau (thus two rows have six instead of five cards). The variant
Chessboard applies the same principle as Selective Castle, by letting you choose the rank of the foundation cards after the deal (building around the corner on the foundations as required), in order to take better advantage of the cards you have been dealt.
Zerline is a German game where Queens are high, and helps by adding a four-card storage area.
SIR TOMMY GAMES Overview:
Sir Tommy (Old Patience, Try Again, Numerica) is also known as Old Patience, which reflects its origin as the oldest known patience game, and possible ancestor of all others. The average person may not have heard of it, but it deserves a place on this list because this is a game from which so many other solitaire games are derived, including many more familiar ones. It is at the head of a family of games where cards in the tableau can't be moved after being placed, and that's a unique quality that also makes it quite challenging to win.
Game-play: Suits are irrelevant in this game, and the aim is to build four foundations from Ace to King. You deal the deck face-up one at a time, and the tableau has four columns (or waste piles); dealt cards can be played on any column but cannot be moved from one to another. So while it's still technically a building game because you are building up the foundations, there is no packing in the tableau to assist you with this.
Variations: Some variants (e.g.
Auld Lang Syne,
Tam O'Shanter) turn Sir Tommy into even an simpler luck-based game nearly impossible to win, while others are extremely strategic like the well-known Calculation.
Amazons is an interesting version played with a smaller deck that has the goal of building to the Queens (= Amazons), and is best played digitally given the amount of redealing. Other variants make the game easier (and for me, more enjoyable) by increasing the number of tableaus (
Strategy,
Lady Betty, and
Last Chance) or redeals (
Acquaintance), or make it more interesting by requiring building by colours (
Puss in the Corner, and
Colours,
Alternate).
My thoughts: Good players can win as many as 20% of their games, and storing cards in the right order on the four columns is critical, because you want to avoid having low valued cards blocked by higher ones, or having too many cards of the same number in one column. Reserving a pile for Kings and another for high cards is often a good strategy. Even so, it's a hard game to win and can be frustrating. I recommend trying some of the easier variants as a way to enjoy this game; there's a good reason so many variants have evolved from the original over time. It's a large family that includes many solitaire variants, and these are well worth trying and exploring.
https://preview.redd.it/1hydbd93fnd61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=588e8636d70c42b2b914e70a77581629b3edc8be Related games: Several two-deck games are in the Sir Tommy family, including Fanny,
Frog (also called Toad),
Fly, and
Grand Duchess, most of which involve using a reserve. Several two-deck games use similar mechanics but operate with a larger 20 card tableau in the style of the simple game
Carpet, but involve building both up and down on the foundations; for me personally these are the most fun of all Sir Tommy variants, and include
Twenty (also called Sly Fox),
Colorado, Grandmother's Patience (also called Grandmamma's Game), and
Grandfather's Patience - all excellent games.
Calculation:
Calculation deserves special mention, and has become a classic in its own right. What makes it unique is that the foundations are built up by one, two, three, and four respectively, and it requires a lot of skill. The variant
Betsy Ross is more luck-dependent but is also easier to complete successfully.
YUKON Overview:
Yukon first appeared in a 1949 book on solitaire games, and has since exploded in popularity. This single deck solitaire game was partly inspired by Klondike, which is of course the most popular solitaire card game of all time. But because Yukon has no stock and more flexible rules for movement of stacks within the tableau, it allows a lot more scope for thinking.
Game-play: While inspired and indebted to Klondike, Yukon creates a game with a very different feel by removing the requirement that stacks of cards must be in alternating sequence in order to be moved. In other words, you can move any stack to a legal card within the tableau, regardless of the sequence of the cards in that stack. While this makes the game easier, another significant change makes it harder: there is no stock that you deal. So all the cards are in the tableau at the outset, and you'll have to manipulate the tableau cleverly to uncover face-down cards and build all four suits onto the four foundations from Ace through King.
Variations: To make Yukon slightly easier, a couple of variants alter things slightly to simplify the gameplay, such as removing the requirement that only Kings can be placed in an empty space in the tableau (this variation is sometimes called Great River). Some digital implementations give the option of reducing the number of suits used, such as in
Yukon One Suit, which you can nearly always win, while still having to think carefully.
My thoughts: The rules for manipulating the tableau give you more options than Klondike, and thus more to consider and think about. Both Yukon and Russian Solitaire (mentioned under "related games" below) are extremely popular solitaire games, because they are simultaneously more challenging and more rewarding than Klondike style games. Skill plays more of a role, and there are players so dedicated to Yukon that they have played it thousands of times. In regular Yukon you can expect to win as much as 1 in 4 games, but the added level of difficulty in Russian Solitaire reduces that to as little as once in 20 games. The key is to bring the face-down cards into play as soon as possible.
https://preview.redd.it/650mlj93fnd61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=683c006a12bdf74ad8921bd619fed40a8fb14405 Related games:
Russian Solitaire makes Yukon harder by only allowing you to build down in the tableau with cards of the same suit, instead of in alternating colours, and it is an extremely popular game in its own right. This requirement is also in place with
Alaska, but may build in ascending or descending order in the tableau, which makes it easier to win than Russian Solitaire.
Australian Patience is another popular spin-off from Yukon, and adds a stock which is dealt one at a time, while the entire 7x4 tableau starts face up; however this can feel like it's more about careful observation than decision making. Many other Yukon inspired games exist, including games which add things like a reserve, storage cells, or extra decks.
Scorpion: Special mention should be made of popular game
Scorpion, which some categorize as part of the Yukon family, and the rules for moving unarranged stacks in Yukon may even originate in Scorpion. However, Scorpion uses Spider's requirement that stacks from Ace to King of the same suit must be assembled within the tableau before being discarded. Scorpion variants include
Wasp,
Three Blind Mice,
Chinese Solitaire, and others.
== Games With Two Decks ==
FORTY THIEVES (Napoleon at St Helena)
Overview:
Forty Thieves is a popular and classic game played with two decks, and is also included in most books with patience games. It also goes under the alternate name Napoleon at St Helena (not to be confused with a different solitaire game called "Saint Helena" or "Napoleon's Favorite"), and tradition says that this is the solitaire game Napoleon played while in exile on the island of St Helena. The game also goes under other names, including Roosevelt at San Juan. Its simple rules means that many variations exist, many of which are among the more strategic and satisfying versions of solitaire games that you'll find anywhere. Carefully working through the stock pile and manipulating the discard pile are a big element of successful play.
Game-play: A tableau is dealt with ten columns, each with four overlapping and face-up cards. Strict tableau building rules apply, because only the single top card of each column may be moved, and only onto a card that is the next highest rank of the same suit; any card can be placed into a space that becomes available in the tableau. The remaining stock of 64 cards is turned up one card at a time, with no redeals. The goal is to get all the cards onto the eight foundations from Ace through King in each suit.
Variations: In its strict and classic form, even with good play Forty Thieves is difficult to win, so many variants exist that seek to make the game easier. In some of these, the Aces begin as starting foundations (
San Juan Hill). In others, the tableau is not built down by cards of the same suit but by alternating colours (e.g.
Streets), or by any suit other than its matching one (
Indian). Some variations allow entire sequences of cards to be moved (
Josephine,
Forty Bandits,
Ali Baba), or combine this with having tableau building in alternating colours (
Number Ten,
Rank and File,
Emperor) or tableau building in any suit (
Little Forty). In other variations, multiple redeals of the stock are permitted.
My thoughts: Game-play is very tight in the strict form of the game. It's not always a good idea to play a card just because you can, because you may block cards within the tableau that you need. You also need to pay close attention to duplicates, since two decks are in play. As a result, careful planning and consideration is needed. Unused stock typically ends up into an increasingly large face-up discard pile, but in the latter parts of the game skilful play often makes it possible to dig back through this and complete the game. This usually proves most satisfying when playing with one of the variants that makes the game slightly easier, to increase your chances of pulling out a win. Even with these variants, you'll have to play skillfully, making the Forty Thieves family of solitaire games one of the more popular choices for those who like a longer experience that is thoughtful, challenging, and yet solvable, and where skill plays even more of a role than luck.
https://preview.redd.it/p251re93fnd61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9521b0ca4458c88d6cd679fdcaf37b4a151a5479 More variations: Instead of 10 tableau piles, some variations increase this to 12 piles (
Blockade,
Napoleon's Square,
Corona) or 13 piles (
Lucas,
Waning Moon); or decrease it to 9 piles (
Maria) or 8 piles (
Forty and Eight,
Congress,
Parliament,
Diplomat,
Red and Black), each with different combinations of rules for tableau building. Games with just 6 piles (
Blind Alleys,
Pas Seul) or 5 piles (
Double Rail) begin to feel much like Klondike.
Related games: Many other games take the Forty Thieves style concept and adjust it in more significant ways. In
Interchange (more difficult),
Breakwater, and
Alternations, the initial tableau includes face-down and face-up cards. The very popular
Thieves of Egypt begins with a pyramid shaped tableau.
Busy Aces is a straight forward game in the style of Forty Thieves that is at the head of its own family, which includes the much simpler
Fortune's Favor, a simple game ideal for beginners. For a terrific overview of all the Forty Thieves related games and their different nuances, consult Thomas Warfield's excellent
complete guide to Forty Thieves types games.
CONCLUSION This is by no means a comprehensive list that includes all builder-style solitaire games. But along with Klondike, Spider, and FreeCell, these seven additional games - Baker's Dozen, Beleaguered Castle,Canfield, Forty Thieves, La Belle Lucie, Sir Tommy, Yukon, and Forty Thieves - and the many related games that belong to their families, are the most common and popular forms of solitaire games that involve building. They have inspired many solitaire games like them, and have stood the test of time well.
If you enjoy Klondike, which is the most popular version of solitaire in the world, then Canfield and Yukon are natural games to explore next. Beleaguered Castle can be a little frustrating due to the strict rules and dependency on the luck of the draw, and even the other games in its family can be quite challenging. I'd recommend it only for more experienced and dedicated players, and would instead suggest next exploring Baker's Dozen and the games in the "Fan" family inspired by La Belle Lucie.
Their style of play is somewhat similar to Forty Thieves and its many siblings, which double the number of cards in the game by adding a second deck, and also adds a stock pile and discard pile you must manage. Forty Thieves type games are among the best you'll find for those who like a more challenging, thoughtful, and longer solitaire experience.
Author's note: I first published this article at PlayingCardDecks here. Below is a rundown of letters J-L of Epstein's contacts. Last year, I wrote about letters A-C. You can check that out here (
https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/cpis3n/a_brief_rundown_of_the_first_ten_pages_of_jeffrey/).
I also wrote about letters D-F on July 5, 2020. You can check that out here (
https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/hlrba8/a_notsobrief_rundown_of_letters_df_in_jeffrey/).
I posted letters G-I on July 13, 2020. You can check that out here (
https://www.reddit.com/conspiracy/comments/hqko0y/a_notsobrief_rundown_of_letters_gi_in_jeffrey/). There are some misspelled names. Epstein entered their names like this.
I have bolded some of the more interesting connections and information, but there could be much more that I overlooked. I hope something here strikes an interest in someone and maybe we can get more investigations out of this. Please, if you know anything more about any of these people than what is presented here, post below. I am working off of the unredacted black book found here:
https://www.coreysdigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Jeffrey-Epsteins-Little-Black-Book-unredacted.pdf J-L Jackson, Michael (Samuel Gen): Yes, this is a reference to MJ the singer. However, the numbers listed are not MJ’s. They belong to Samuel Gen, a lawyer for a financial advisor (Jerry Seinfeld’s brother-in-law) who worked for MJ for a while. This one was a reach for Epstein.
Jacobson, Julian: Likely a reference to a Managing Director at several London-based investment firms.
Jagger, Mick: World-famous lead singer of the Rolling Stones. Has been seen in photographs with Ghislaine Maxwell. Actress Rae Dawn Chong claims she slept with Jagger when she was 15 years old.
Jagger, Hatti: Former fashion director for Vogue, Harper’s, and Tatler. Also works as a celebrity stylist and at fashion shows.
jake: Not enough info.
Jameel, Mohammed: Saudi Arabian businessman. CEO of Abdul Latif Jameel, a collective of family-owned businesses that specialize in transportation, investing, and real estate. Royal pervert Prince Andrew infamously partied on Jameel’s yacht during the 2011 London riots (source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-andrew-frolicks-on-yacht-with-mystery-147496). James, Susie: Founder and owner of 123 Send Ltd, a company that provides payment terminals.
Janklow, Linda: Literary agent and wife of Mort Janklow, the primary owner of Janklow & Nesbit Associates, the largest literary agency in the world. Attended a party hosted by Sony Pictures with Epstein, although they are not pictured together (source: https://www.patrickmcmullan.com/search/?event=5b3ef4fb9f92906676446c21). In 2007, Ghislaine Maxwell threw an exclusive party (80 carefully selected guests) at her NYC townhouse to celebrate the opening of a new shop by designer Allegra Hicks (granddaughter-in-law of Earl Mountbatten, who you can read more about in my G-I Epstein thread under India Hicks’s name). One of the eighty guests was Julie Landlow, daughter of Linda and Mort. Jarecki, Nancy & Andrew: Andrew is a filmmaker, co-founder of Moviefone, and was a producer on Catfish, the documentary that launched the popular MTV show. Andrew’s family was reportedly friends with Jeffrey Epstein. There is an EXCELLENT thread on the connections between the Jarecki family (especially Andrew and Nick’s father, Henry) and Epstein here (source: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1200044576947556352.html). Quick summary: Henry was born in Nazi Germany; flew on the Lolita Express; is an expert in psychotropic drugs; owns two islands in the British Virgin Islands; founded the first youth center in the British Virgin Islands; lived 2 miles from Epstein in NYC; owns and donates to many sketchy foundations, schools, and organizations; has donated at least $1 million to leftist organizations). Andrew’s wife Nancy created bettybeauty, a company that specializes in hair dye for your nether regions (not kidding). Jarecki, Nick: The movie director brother of Andrew and son of Henry Jarecki (see link under Andrew & Nancy Jarecki for more info). Reportedly dated Courtney Love (also in Epstein’s ‘Black Book’) in 2015. Photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell at a Gucci party (source: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ghislaine-maxwell-and-nick-jarecki-attend-gucci-hosts-a-news-photo/591605562). Jason (canada): Not enough info. Could be artist Jason Wasserman based out of Canada. The second number listed traces back to Station 16 Gallery in Montreal.
Javier: Javier Banon is former Co-head of Merchant Banking at Lehman Brothers and current Founding Partner of Trilantic Europe.
Jeffries, Tim: Ownedirector of Hamiltons Gallery in London. Best known for dating models Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, Kylie Minogue and Sophie Dahl (also in Epstein’s ‘Black Book’). Jefferies has attended fundraisers for ARK Academy and the NSPCC. He truly cares about children. Johnson, Richard & Nadine: Nadine is a millionaire public relations guru. Nadine is a good friend of Ghislaine Maxwell’s. Some clients of Nadine Johnson include spirit cooking extraordinaire Marina Abramovic and hotelier Andre Balazs, good friend of Ghislaine. Richard is one of the most well-known gossip columnists and was the editor of Page Six for twenty-five years. There is a great thread detailing the Johnsons’ ties to the Clintons, Balazs, and others here (source: https://threader.app/thread/1162148078981394432). Basically, Richard Johnson is friendly with the Clintons and, as Page Six Editor, purposely did not report or downplayed stories on the Clintons and Nadine’s clients. He also took bribes. Considering Nadine is a good friend of Ghislaine, it would not be a stretch to assume that Richard could have buried stories on Maxwell and Epstein. I could spend 10 pages on the shady connections these two have. Johnson, Lucy: Not enough info.
Jones, Ann & Mick: Mick is the guitarist of Foreigner, an immensely popular rock band in the ‘70s and ‘80s. His wife, Ann, is a jewelry designer, and friend of Ghislaine. Ann Jones was photographed at a party with Ghislaine and Donald Trump in 1997 (source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/85818/epstein-madam-ghislaine-maxwell-milked-billionaire-dad-and-threw-lavish-parties-with-beautiful-women/) Josephson, Barry & Jackie: Barry is a producer and the former President of Production for Columbia Pictures. Jackie is his ex-wife and also a producer.
Karella, Kalliope: Wife of Prince Pierre d’Arenberg. Kalliope is a good friend of Ghislaine Maxwell.
Kastner, Ron: No info found.
Katz, Anton & Robin Plant: Anton is CEO and co-founder of Talos Trading, which specializes in cryptocurrency. Anton and Robin are friends of and have been photographed with Ghislaine (source:
https://www.patrickmcmullan.com/search/?person=5b3ef50c9f929066764df255).
Katzeneilenbogen, Mark: Long-time investment banker who used to be based out of South Africa.
Keeling, Sarah: There is a Sarah Keeling in London who is a former British government official with 20 years of experience in national security and intelligence experience, however, the phone number listed has a 410 area code, which leads back to eastern Maryland. Inconclusive.
Kegan, Rory: A nightclub designer and creator. Co-founder of the exclusive, celebrity-filled London nightclub, Chinawhite. Prince Andrew (source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9818190/prince-andrew-pictures-cast-doubt-epstein-sex-slave/) and Prince Albert of Monaco are regulars. Chelsea Clinton has been there, as well (source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/bright-night-for-china-white-6299739.html). Other patrons include: Prince Andrew, Kate Middleton, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, and more. Keidan, Amanda: Owner of Keidan Jewelry.
Keidan, Jon: An entertainment executive-turned-venture capitalist. As an entertainment exec, Keidan worked with John Legend, Dave Matthews Band, and Nappy Roots. Keidan serves on the Council of Foreign Relations, a powerful group that some believe determines foreign policy. Former and current members include former presidents, current and former politicians, business magnates, and celebrities (https://www.cfr.org/membership/roster). Keller, Georgie: Interior designer.
Kellette Frayse, Caroline: Fashion editor at Vogue and Tatler (both magazines constantly come up in Epstein’s contacts). Former girlfriend of Imran Khan, whose name has come up frequently. Passed away in 2014. Her husband, Jean-Marc Fraysse, is a French investment banker.
Kelmenson, Leo-Arthur & Gayl: Leo was an advertising and marketing guru who has been credited with saving Chrysler. Friend and advisor to Lee Iacocca, former President of Chrysler. He worked as Special Project Officer for the U.S. Department of State under President John F. Kennedy and AG Robert F. Kennedy. He had tons of connections. His former maid accused him of sexual harassment in 2010 (source: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/maid-harassment-suit-claims-ad-exec-leo-arthur-kelmenson-madman-pervy-mad-men-wannabe-article-1.156915). Kelmenson died less than two months after the story came out. Kennedy Cuomo, Andrew & Kerry: Andrew is the current governor of New York. It’s no secret that Cuomo is willing to look the other way on sexual deviancy as long as he receives a payoff. Cuomo halted a probe into the handling of Harvey Weinstein’s case in New York after receiving $25,000 from Weinstein’s law firm (source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbqg4/andrew-cuomo-received-dollar25000-donation-from-harvey-weinsteins-law-firm). Andrew’s brother, CNN Host Chris Cuomo famously told viewers “not to get caught up in the intrigue of who Epstein’s friends are” (source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/07/11/cnn_cuomo_lets_not_get_caught_up_in_the_intrigue_of_who_was_friends_with_jeffrey_epstein.html). Perhaps, he was covering for his brother. Kerry Kennedy is Cuomo’s ex-wife of fifteen years, the daughter of RFK, and a close friend of Ghislaine Maxwell. Supposedly, Kennedy provided Ghislaine with informal illegal advice (source: https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-nth-word-and-m-theory). Kennedy Jr. Ted: Son of Ted Kennedy and nephew of JFK and RFK. Ted Jr. dabbled in politics and currently works as a lawyer. His father, Ted, was a notorious sexual abuser (allegedly). Kennedy, Bobby & Mary: Bobby is the son of RFK and nephew of JFK. Bobby is a known drug abuser and philanderer. Bobby kept a sex journal detailing his conquests while he was married (source: https://nypost.com/2013/09/08/rfk-jr-s-sex-diary-of-adultery/). His ex-wife, Mary, committed “suicide” two years after their divorce. Before committing suicide, Mary told a friend that she “feared for her life” and Bobby told her that she “would be better off dead” (source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3231043/How-serial-cheater-Bobby-Kennedy-Jr-strutted-family-home-exposing-private-parts-demanded-m-nage-trois-wife-Mary-went-public-Cheryl-Hines-telling-Mary-things-easier-killed-herself.html). Kennedy, Ethel: Widow of RFK Sr. and mother of eleven, including Bobby Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, and Joseph Kennedy II. Kennedy, Jo: Joseph Kennedy II is the son of RFK Sr. and Ethel. Served in the House of Representatives from 1987-1999. In 1973, Joseph was convicted of negligent driving after paralyzing a young woman. He was fined $100. Kennedy, Senator Edward: Brother of JFK and RFK, Ted Kennedy served as U.S. Senator of Massachusetts for 47 years. Besides politics, Ted is best known for the Chappaquiddick incident in which a young female speechwriter for RFK drowned to death when he lost control of his vehicle while driving across a bridge. He was charged with leaving the scene of an incident and given a two month suspended sentence. Ted was also notorious for his extramarital affairs. Senator Kennedy once hosted a party at his house attended by Bill Clinton and Lynn Forester de Rothschild. Rothschild wrote a letter to Clinton afterwards in which she mentions that they spoke about Epstein (source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7283825/Jeffrey-Epstein-injured-jail-cell-following-possible-suicide-assault.html). It is unclear what was said or what Rothschild’s connection could possibly be. Kersner, Sol: South African accountant and hotel and casino magnate who died of cancer in 2020. Kerzner was a close friend of Donald Trump. They even worked together to create The Palm, a man-made island off the coast of Dubai (source: https://www.ft.com/content/46393280-d9f9-11da-b7de-0000779e2340). Kerzner was also close friends with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sarah-ferguson-the-duchess-of-york-sol-kerzner-chairman-and-news-photo/83768272), Naomi Campbell (https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/naomi-campbell-and-sol-kerzner-pose-backstage-during-the-news-photo/82869744), and Bill Clinton (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8144647/As-Sol-Kerzner-dies-aged-84-RICHARD-KAY-looks-riotously-louche-life.html). Kerzner was very good friends with Nelson Mandela and built his casino resorts with Gerard Inzerillo, who you can read about in my G-I ‘Black Book’ thread. Khayat, Antoine, Jana, & George: Jana is an heiress and businesswoman. Jana is the niece of Galen Weston, a close friend of Prince Charles. George is her brother and CEO of Associated British Foods. Jana’s husband, Antoine, is a former banker and currently runs their vineyard. Kidd, Jemma: Kidd is a British makeup artist, fashion model, and aristocrat. Married to Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, the son of the Duke and Duchess of Wellington, making her a Countess. Kidd is an interesting figure with elite connections. From 2005-2012, Ghislaine Maxwell served as Director of Jemma Kidd Make-Up Limited, a U.K. makeup company, which was founded by Kidd. Not only did Ghislaine serve as Director, but she was also a shareholder, along with the Rothschild family (source: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/in-hiding-for-years-epstein-accomplice-ghislaine-maxwell-spotted-in-l-a-burger-shop). If you click around the PDFs on this website (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05340072/filing-history), you can see everything. The 16 JUN 2006 PDF on page 3 shows you a list of Officers and shareholders of the company. Jemma Kidd has also attended charity events for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) (https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-beckham-nspcc-party-jemma-kidd-106882170.html). Her sister, Jodie, is also a huge supportefundraiser of the NSPCC, as well as the Help a London Child and Monsoon Accessorize Trust charities, both of which help out disadvantaged children (source: https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/jodie-kidd). King, Abby: No info found.
Kirwin Taylor, Charlie & Helen: Charles is an investment banker. He was former CEO of Credit Suisse in Switzerland, an investment firm which shows up a few times through Epstein’s contacts. His wife, Helen, is a journalist.
Kirwin Taylor, Peter: British financier. Was a member of the Pilgrims Society (
https://isgp-studies.com/pilgrims-society-membership-list), a group that has included the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and other elites amongst its ranks.
Kissinger, Dr. Henry A: Former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Nixon. Kissinger has long been accused of committing war crimes (ex: carpet bombing Cambodia, installing fascist governments in Chile and Argentina, genocide, extending our stay in Vietnam, etc) yet somehow managed to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Kissinger once said, “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.” Kissinger served with Epstein on the Trilateral Commission. Kissinger has also been a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute, and Bohemian Grove. Long thought to be an advocate for a globalist New World Order, Kissinger is a scumbag of the highest order. His connections with Gates, the Clintons, Bush Sr. and Jr., the Rockefellers, and the Rothschilds are well-documented. If anyone here has ever done any research regarding the NWO, you have undoubtedly seen Kissinger’s name several times. Klee, Rupert & Charlotte de: Rupert is a Director with Oakridge Group, a property development and investment company. His wife, Charlotte, is the producer of the religious plays at Wintershall.
Klesch, Johnathan: Former Director of Klesch Trading, which specializes in industrial commodities. It has offices in Russia, Malta, Surrey, and in London, down the block from Buckingham Palace.
Koch, David: Co-founder of Koch Industries, a diversified manufacturing conglomerate. Koch Industries has stolen oil from Indian reservations, committed hundreds of polluting, labor, and workplace safety violations. When he ran on the Libertarian ticket as the vice presidential nominee in 1980, Koch aimed to abolish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare benefits, and minimum wage. Koch and Epstein were friends. Epstein even attended a party at Koch’s Southampton home (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7270735/Jeffrey-Epstein-Trumps-closest-advisers-Wilbur-Ross-Rudy-Giuliani-Steve-Mnunchin.html). Koch has also been photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell (https://www.reddit.com/KochWatch/comments/dcjth3/david_koch_ghislaine_maxwell_getty_images/). Thankfully, Koch died last year. Kohl, Astrid: A businesswoman involved in pharmaceuticals. Married to Prince Alexander of Liechtenstein. Daughter-in-law of Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein. Niece of former German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl.
Kotic, Boby: CEO of Activision Blizzard, a video game holding company. Used to run several electronic companies. From 2003-2008, he was a director at Yahoo! In 2012, he became a non-executive director of Coca-Cola.
Kotze, Alex Von: British businessman involved in the tech industry.
Kravetz, Anna: Not much info found. Has a degree in finance from Wharton School and used to live on Park Avenue in NYC.
Krooth, Caryn: A successful real estate agent based out of Los Angeles
Kudrow, Alistar: No info found.
Lal, Dalamal: Director of Akron Corp. & Akron (Nig.) Ltd., a food and beverage import company based out of Nigeria.
Lalaunis, Demetra: Daughter of Ilias Lalaounis, a pioneer in Greek jewelry and a world renowned goldsmith.
Lambert, Christopher: Well-known actor.
Lambert, David: Former partner, managing director, and VP at Goldman Sachs.
Lambert, Edward: Lampert is a billionaire hedge fund manager and former CEO of Sears. Lampert graduated from Yale University in 1984 where he was a member of Skull and Bones. Rumored pedophile David Geffen gave Lampert $200 million to invest in 1992, when Lampert was just 29 years old. Lampert made Geffen $1 billion. Lambos Duff & John: Karen “Duff” Duffy is an actress, model, and TV personality. She has had memorable roles as the love interest in “Blank Check” and as JP Shay in “Dumb and Dumber.” Duffy has battled with sarcoidosis, a deadly central nervous system disease, since the mid-’90s. She credits Harvey Weinstein with saving her life (https://nypost.com/2000/10/03/coping-with-class-this-model-patient-suffers-in-style/). John is a former banker with Morgan Stanley and current President of GCA-US, an investment banking company. Lang, Caroline: An art expert and Chairman at Sotheby’s Switzerland.
Lange, Dieter: Former Partner at WilliamHare, an international law firm with offices in London, Berlin, the U.S., Beijing, and Brussels. Passed away in 2010.
Larsen Janet: The only one I can find is a Business Psychologist based out of London.
Laurie, Jonathan: Founder and CEO of Cheyne Capital Management, an alternate investment fund firm.
Lavlada, Laura D.B. de: Laura Diez Barroso is a Mexican businesswoman. She sold her stock in Televisa for $726 million in 1993. Since then, she has been the head of several other companies.
Lawford Christopher & Jean: Christopher was an actor and relative of the Kennedys. His uncles were JFK, RFK, and Ted Kennedy. Many of his relatives appear in Epstein’s ‘Black Book’. His first wife, Jeannie, was an ad-sales associate for New York Magazine. Lawton Paul: Two British businessmen with the same name come up. Both have extensive resumes. Could be either one.
Lazar, Christopher & Marie: Christophe seems to be a realtor in Paris, but I am not completely sure.
Le Bon, Simon & Jasmine: Simon is the lead singer of Duran Duran. His wife, Yasmin, is/was a fashion model. Yasmin is represented by Models1 in London. Models1 also represents Epstein and Ghislaine’s friend, Naomi Campbell. Le Bon has been accused of sexual assault in the past (https://www.freep.com/story/news/2018/07/12/simon-le-bons-accuser-sex-assault-claim-speaks-out-awful/777106002/). Le Fur, Jean-Yves: French businessman and magazine creator. He was once Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s ex-fiance. More notably, Le Fur was the one who discovered supermodel Karen Mulder (his girlfriend at the time) on the floor after she attempted suciide. Mulder blew the lid off the rampant rape and sexual abuse that she and her modeling colleagues had suffered at the hands of businessmen, royalty, celebrities, and government officials. She was even the protege of Epstein collaborator (allegedly), Jean Luc Brunel (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article238351108.html). Le Marg Willie: No info found.
Lea, Piers: CEO of Learning Technologies Group, a workplace digital learning company.
Leeds, Jeffrey: Co-founder and Managing Partner of Leeds Equity. One of Leeds Equity’s partner companies is Endeavor Schools, which runs private preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools in Florida and 11 other states (https://www.leedsequity.com/news/articles/leeds-equity-partners-completes-investment-in-endeavor-schools). They are also partners with Fusion Educational Group (now Fusion Academy), which runs a chain of private secondary schools (https://www.leedsequity.com/news/articles/leeds-equity-partners-completes-investment-in-fusion-education-group). Former teacher Kris White, now the head of Fusion Academy in Palo Alto, allegedly told a student that he was in love with her and wrote her a note saying he was “obsessed” with her. (https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/12/teachers-named-in-presentation-high-sex-investigation-kept-working-as-bay-area-educators-for-years/). This story was just published on July 12, 2020. Hypothetically, if one wanted to procure underage children, it would certainly help if the head of the school was on board and possibly a pedophile himself. According to this former teacher at Fusion Academy, “many students struggle with learning differences, behavioral issues, and/or addictions” (https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Fusion-Academy-RVW21260629.htm). In other words, the downtrodden and vulnerable. Fusion Academy refers to itself as a non-traditional school that focuses on individual students. Seems like a great opportunity. Leeds was also good friends with Epstein (https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_7912/) and has close ties to Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani (https://nypost.com/2016/09/14/colin-powell-wont-vote-for-her-because-of-bill-clinton/). Lefcourt, Jerry: Famous lawyer who defended Epstein in 2007. That same year, Epstein donated $250,000 to the Washington-based Foundation for Criminal Justice, where Lefcourt was a board member.
Lester, Dominick: Founder and owner of MortgageFlex Systems, a mortgage lending company.
Levine, Phillip: Ex-Miami Beach mayor and close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He claims that he doesn’t know how Epstein got his contact information… all 13 phone numbers, including those of his driver and housekeepers (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/ex-miami-beach-mayor-philip-levine-listed-13-times-in-jeffrey-epsteins-black-book-11242116)! Liman, Doug: Popular Hollywood director and producer. He directed Swingers, The Bourne Identity, and a couple of Tom Cruise movies.
Lindeman-Barnet, Sloan & Roger: Sloan has been a New York Times bestseller and an on-air and print reporter for NBC, ABC, and Reuters. Sloan and Roger also sit on the board of the Spence School in New York City, a private K-12 all-girls school (https://www.spenceschool.org/2017---news-detail?pk=999120). Her husband, Roger, is the founder of beauty.com and Chairman and CEO of Shaklee, a highly successful nutrition company. Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and Ghislaine Maxwell all attended the publication party for Sloan’s book in 2008 (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ghislaine-maxwell-anton-katz-and-robin-katz-attend-sloan-news-photo/619921016 ; https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/donald-trump-melania-trump-sloan-barnett-and-roger-barnett-news-photo/619921180).Other guests included Steve Mnuchin, Epstein and Maxwell chum Carol Mack, and a bunch of others also featured in Epstein’s ‘Black Book’ (Colin Cowie, Anton and Robin Katz, and Vittorio Assaf). Lindemann, Adam & Elizabeth: Adam is a billionaire investor and art gallery owner. Brother of Sloan (mentioned just above). Elizabeth is his ex-wife. She is often photographed with many other people mentioned in Epstein’s ‘Black Book.’
Lindemann, George(Sr.) & Freida: Now-deceased billionaire father of Sloan and Adam. George was the CEO and Chairman of Southern Union, a pipeline company and served as Vice President of the Metropolitan Opera Association of NYC. His wife, Frayda, is the President and CEO of the Metropolitan Opera.
Lindsay, Alex & Jaclyn: Alex is a war documentary maker who rents out his loft at the address Epstein has listed (
https://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/property/spheres-of-influence-72014.html).
Lindsey, Ludovic: Racecar driver.
Lindsley, Blake: Actress who was in two movies directed by Doug Liman (also in Epstein’s book) - “Swingers” and “Getting In.”
Linley, David: Princess Margaret’s son, Queen Elizabeth II’s nephew, and first cousin of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. Linley is a furniture maker and the 2nd Earl of Snowdon. He used to be the Chairman of Christie’s auction house in the UK.
Liogos, Babis: No info found, but one of the numbers traces back to Thylan Associates, a real estate and investment firm.
Lister, Paul: Likely the director of legal services and company secretary for Associated British Foods, or it could be a conservationist. Not sure which.
Livanos, Arriette: I believe this Arietta Livanos, wife of Greek shipping magnate, Stavros Livanos. Arietta passed away in 1986.
Lo Cascio, Robert: Founder and CEO of LivePerson, a tech company that develops conversational commerce. LoCascio was photographed with Ghislaine at an after party in 2012 (
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ghislaine-maxwell-and-robert-locascio-attend-osklen-spring-news-photo/1169681572).
Loeb, Alex: Alexandra is the daughter of John Loeb, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark under Reagan and former Delegate to the United Nations. John Loeb was also a special advisor to Nelson Rockefeller. Alexandra is also a descendant of the Lehman family (Lehman Brothers). Alexandra graduated from Spence Day School for Girls (mentioned earlier under Sloan and Roger Lindemann-Barnett). Lonsdale, Richard: British investment banker.
Lorenzoti, Eva Vivre: Founder of luxury online retailer, Vivre.com and is a TV spokesperson/personality. Good friend of Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell and a couple of Rockefellers were guests at her house for a dinner party in 2010 (
https://hauteliving.com/2010/11/doris-world-eva-lorenzottis-dinner-party/105102/).
Lorimer, John & Lottie: John works as a private investor and as a realtor. His wife, Lottie, is an interior designer.
Louthan Guy J: Prolific British film producer and former boyfriend of actress Liz Hurley (also in Epstein’s book).
Love, Courtney: Famous drug addict, musician, and actress who likely killed her husband, Kurt Cobain. Courtney famously claimed that Prince Andrew showed up to her house late one night in 2000 looking for sex. She has since retracted this claim. The entries under Love’s name all say ‘Dana’ next to them. This is Courtney’s ex-boyfriend, Dana Giacchetto. Giacchetto was considered to be the “stockbroker to the stars” and was friends with JFK Jr, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and many others. He ripped his clients off of millions. Even more telling, Giacchetto was involved in a sex abuse case against X-Men director Bryan Singer (https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/news/leonardo-dicaprios-convicted-ex-money-manager-denies-bryan-050000120.html). He died in 2016 after he partied too hard and overdosed (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dana-giacchetto-dead-stockbroker-stars-902383). Lowell, Ivana: Guinness heiress who wrote about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse while she worked at Miramax in her book back in 2010 (
https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/guinness-heiress-spoke-out-about-predator-harvey-weinstein-7-years-ago). She also dated Harvey’s younger brother, Bob.
Loyd Mark: No info found.
Lucas, Colin: The godfather of Boris Johnson, England’s current Prime Minister. Lucas is a British historian and university administrator. Served as Vice Chancellor of Oxford University from 1997-2004.
Continuing Well, when the props fouled the third time, I suggested we call it a day, as we’d already made some 32 sea-kilometers. We were out on the fringes of the worst of the kelp forest beds, and after a good night’s sleep, we’d be ready to deploy bright and early and get some seismic data acquired and recorded.
But, first, there was the first night aboard ship. In a rusty old tin-can with few creature comforts, as the annual winter monsoon winds wane and the seas actually begin to settle slightly.
I took that as both good omens. The bitching and kvetching I head from the locals about the ‘abominable weather they had to endure’, even from the Coast Guard types, really struck me as uproariously funny.
I just chalked it up to being sequestered from the rest of the world for so long. Put these characters in the path of a Midwestern tornado, East Indian summer monsoon, or Siberian blizzard, and they’d shit themselves blind. I didn’t really think too much of it, although it became somewhat of a game when the imperialistic foreigners tried to one-up each other with horror stories from excursions past.
“No shit”, Dax said, “We were snowed in for a full fortnight.”
“No!” several of us recoiled in mock horror.
“Oh, yah, hey.” Dax continued, “It’s just great when blizzards snap the power lines, and all the toilets freeze. The house cat didn't die until we burned up all our wood. Considering we ate her raw, she tasted pretty good…”
Several of our handlers, a few in the Coast Guard and most of the Korean scientists reacted rather badly to Dax’s story; especially when it had been gorily translated.
Seeing this, Dax stood up, got the soju bottle, and asked if anyone needed a top-up. I asked while puffing away on a large Jamaican cigar if anyone needed a smoke.
At this point, Dax was winning. He had seven of the assembled crowd run to the rail to relieve themselves of our canned Chinese dinner.
Not ever one to shrink from a challenge, I related my second-hand story of my Brother-in-law, who was in the US Coast Guard for years and years. I waited for the green crowd to re-join us and regain what remained of their composure. I figured the quasi-military national Coast Guarders here would appreciate the tale.
Mine wasn’t a gory or shocking tale, just one of the incredible water conditions off the coast of California.
I waited until everyone was settled, drink in hand, and smokin’ ‘em if you got ‘em.
“Well”, I said, “It was on board a ship much like the one we’re currently on,” I said as a rascal wave broke over the railing in counterpoint. “About the same size as this vessel, but with smaller wheels. You know these Coast Guard shallow-water boys”, I chuckled. Always meaning to jab one group or another in the place where I know it stings.
Yeah, I’m a real bastard that way sometimes.
The Korean Coast Guarders sneered hardly at me; but not too hard. They liked my cigars, cigarettes, and open disbursement policy too much.
“Yeah, anyways”, I continued, “He was offshore California in one of the US Coast Guard cutters. It was a boat about 26 meters or so in length. They were out doing search and rescue after a mega-nasty storm blew in from the west and scuttled a sailing regatta race.”
I was drawing them in with my ‘just so’ story, nice and easy, until…
“Yeah, there were several capsized monohulls, catamarans and trimarans. Damn, these things were fucking yachts. Owned by rich idiots that almost knew how to sail but didn’t know enough to get out of the way of a fucking severe storm…”
I really had their attention with ‘soaking the rich’.
“Well, the waves grew and grew, but my Brother-in-laws's boat was built to handle severe weather. These patrol and rescue boat has the capability to roll over 360 degrees and self-right within 30 seconds. Like right now, you’d never even notice this degree rock and roll”, I said as I demonstrated with my cigar, tracing out tighter and tighter rolls, and higher degrees of rocking and rolling.
“They were approaching a capsized trimaran, but the waves kept growing and growing…” I said, leading by example and having them watch me with unblinking attention.
“The waves grew and grew, and normally you’d take these head-on. But that was impossible, because when afternoon came it was slashin' rain, in the face of a hurricane west wind. The boat rolled to the left, heeled, almost keeled, a then rolled the other way just as quickly.” I noted.
They followed me as I timed it with the heavings of our own boat, to the left…to the right…
“Then, just as they were about to reach upon the trimaran, a rogue wave! Out of nowhere”, I said, rocking and rolling along with our own little boat, “
BAM! Hit amidships! It didn’t roll once, it rolled twice!” I made great and magniloquent gestures of a tiny boat being savaged by a monstrous rogue sea wave.
I stood up, blew a great blue cloud of smoke towards the poop deck, and said, loudly, “Rolled over once. A full 360! Then rolled right over again. A full 720 degrees!” as I demonstrated what happened with my cigar and drink.
The eyes following me rolled and rolled as well. Some straight back into the owner’s head and some to the left, some to the right…it was like ‘Loose Slots’ night in Vegas, they were rolling and rolling.
And then racing for the rails. Topside to deliver the remains of their hearty canned dinners.
“Beat you, Dax!” I smiled as I sat back down, “I got nine with that at one. And two of them were Coasties!”
“Did that really happen?” Ivan asked.
“According to my Brother-in-law. But he’s an engineer if you know what I mean…” I smiled.
We concluded story night as we had drifted free of the kelp forest and the Captain of the boat decided he’d risk an anchorage for the night. The weather was ameliorating, the seas calming themselves down, and the wind dropping a couple of notches on the Beaufort Scale.
“Well, gents”, I said, “I need some air. The aroma down here of Chinese Aplo™ for dinner, those who didn’t make it to the rails, and the solitary head for the entire crew has lost its charm. If you’ll excuse me”, I said as I grabbed a bottle of ersatz vodka, and several cans of Taedonggang beer, “I’ll be on the aft deck; in my comfy chair and contemplating the wonder of it all.”
With that, I ventured up the stairs and out onto the aft deck.
Dax naturally followed and he found his own not-bolted-down deck chair. We had a constant flow of visitors, foreign and nationals alike. It was shaping up to be a fine night for being out under the stars, there was no light pollution at all. We sat in our chairs, drank our drinks, smoked our smokes, and argued the finer points of astronomy as seen from this part of the world.
I had several side chats with the scientists and academicians from the Korean side. They all had one thing on their minds. Well, one thing after cigars and cigarettes. They wanted Western scientific journals. They were actually trying to bribe me to get those copies, any age, any subject; of Science, AAPG Explorer, and SEPM Proceedings, anything of Western science as it is today. I said they were welcome to a couple of copies of Science and SPE journals I had brought with as an afterthought, for free. With 900 won to the dollar, they needed every won they could get. I wasn’t about to take anything for the free dissemination of knowledge.
However, if they saw it fit to buy me a drink or seven, I wouldn’t object.
In reality, I’d buy those as well.
We made secret pacts to meet at the hotel-casino the night before we left, whenever the fuck that would be. We had a lot of work before us as it stands. It won’t be for a few weeks, I reminded them.
They had no problem. If I could ask the other in the team if they’d do likewise, the appreciation would be palpable.
Great. Now I have to go get my field notebooks and make some more new entries.
Dax cratered around 0100. I elected to stay the night and sleep under the stars as the boat slowly rocked one way and rolled the other. It was quiet, dark as a tomb, and brilliantly lit up by the stellar backbone of the night once the clouds fumbled out. Tomorrow looked as if it were to be bright and sunny if the gentle westerlies had anything to say about the next day’s conditions.
The next day dawned early, bright, and ridiculously sunny as it usually does when the monsoons have departed and it had stopped raining.
“OK.”, I thought, “Time for a hearty breakfast. For someone else. I wonder what’s available here.”
I ventured down to the cold galley and there were several boxes of dry Chinese breakfast cereal, “Shredded Tweet” and the like, some sort of obviously aged bakery, and a case of Taedonggang beer.
“Hmmm”, I mused out loud, “Beer and rice crispies. Breakfast of champions.”
Dax walks in, rubbing his eyes. He sees me drowning my rice cereal in foamy ersatz milk.
“Reminds me of field camp!” I smiled as I chowed on the morning’s offerings.
After our ‘hearty’ breakfast, all the scientific parties gathered in the main stateroom. It was cramped, but the walls were magnetic and we could hang maps, well, charts actually since we’re well offshore now, and plots the day’s course.
Out in the Yellow Sea, we were supposedly over a subsurface, and by dint of being offshore, submarine, dome. Salt dome? Unlikely. Probably more of a
shale dome, which isn’t a bad thing when hunting for oil and gas.
Looking at the charts, I ask the locals what our current position was relative to the domal uplift.
After several long moments of silence, I asked again.
“Umm, guys”, I said, “If you’re not going to be forthcoming with something as simple as positional data, then turn this boat 180
0’s and take us back to shore. I am fed up, as are my team, with this tight-holing of the simplest of data when you are the knotheads that asked us here for help. We get paid either way, and I for one wouldn’t mind being paid triple to sit in the hotel’s basement and drink”
After telling the translator to translate that last part literally, I sat back, pulled out a really nasty cigar, and went through all the threatening moves of firing it up in the enclosed cabin.
“You will have to excuse us”, came the reply from one of the elders, “We are not used to dealing with
oegugseon [foreigners].”
“Are you used to following orders?” I asked brusquely.
“Of course!” came the near-unanimous reply.
“Great. Then consider this an order: You will relay the appropriate information when asked by any Westerner on this cruise. Consider it as coming from the Supreme Leader of this expedition.” I noted.
Using the term ‘Supreme Leader’ was both a bow to their current bad-hair-cut in charge and my desire to let them know I was serious as a kick to the scrotum about the whole fucking deal.
There were a couple of gasps and some consternatious talk, but eventually, one brave soul got up, walked over to the chart, and pointed to our relative location.
“There”, I added, “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Didn’t hurt in the least, did it?”
There were a few chuckles amongst our national colleagues, so I figured that was at least a little progress.
“OK, then”, I continued, “Volna? Ack? You’re up to bat.”
I turned the proceedings over to the geophysicists. They would devise the configuration of the towed array, our speed, direction, charge size, which was based on depth, and all the other geophysical flips and twists one has to do in order to acquire the best data.
This shit doesn’t come cheap. The Mesozoic-Paleozoic marine residual basin in the South Yellow Sea where these domes live is a potentially significant deep potential hydrocarbon reservoir. However, the imaging of the deep prospecting target is quite challenging due to the specific seismic-geological conditions. In the Central and Wunansha Uplifts, the penetration of the seismic wavefield is limited by the shallow high-velocity layers (HVLs) and the weak reflections in the deep carbonate rocks. With the conventional marine seismic acquisition technique, the deep weak reflection is difficult to image and identify. We confirm through numerical simulation that the combination of multi-level impulse source (i.e., explosive) array and extended cable used in the seismic acquisition is crucial for improving the imaging quality.
With that, we’re going to be recording a minimum of four stacks, with a receiver interval of 25 meters. The array will have a shot interval of 50 meters, with a 25 meter near offset, and a 2500 meter far offset. We will attempt to record 180 channels, off-end, with a sampling period of 0.5 seconds, and a record length of 5 seconds. We’ll sail the same course 4 times to verify previous records and attempt to add ‘fold’, i.e., extra data from the same point, to the overall records.
That’s the plan, at least.
Loads of preparation, logistics, and execution.
After a half an hour or so, both Volna and Ack are finished with the national scientists.
They set down their notebooks, pens, notes, and pointers; walk out of the meeting room and directly over to the galley.
“Hungry, fellas?” I inquire.
“Rock?”, Ack asks, “You have explosives here, right? Sink us. Just fucking sink us right now.” As he pours himself and Volna a stiff shot of real vodka.
“Uh, oh. Problems in Dreamland?” I ask, utilizing the derogatory name for the geophysical domain of exploration data.
“Un-be-fucking-believable.”, Volna adds.
“Your colloquial American is coming along well, Volna.” I snickered a bit.
“I learn from you”, he spat, “Cannot believe this. They don’t record while underway. They tow single array and stop. Then drop dynamite over side. They record. Then they do it again. Claim this gives them good fold. This is bullshit. You said devise program. HA! Take us to shore and let me teach them the fucking basics of geophysical acquisition. Then in a few years, we come back and do it right.”
“Oh, fuck”, I reply, wincing, “That bad?”
“Oh, no”, Ack continues, “It’s worse.” As he down 100 milliliters of booze in one draught and pours another for Volna and is own self, “No on-board demultiplexing. No on-board pre-processing. No-onboard QA/QC. No on-board anything. It’s fucking hopeless. Sink us, I’d rather take my chances with the sharks.”
“They
can’t do all that stuff or they
won’t do all that stuff,” I asked, expecting the worst.
“Oh, it
might be possible, with this museum-grade crap they call a computer they have on-board. It’s just time-consuming, tricky, and will need constant attention. But with this raft of sad-sacks, flub-a-dubs and third rate hobbyists?” Ack and Volna agree as one.
“Consider it job security”, I replied, “How about this? One test loop and we use that data to do what’s necessary; just once. Then we can say we’ve shown them the way. After that, I’ll leave it up to the National scientists.”
“Good thing we have 2 full days, Rock”, Volna said, “Because we do a single AC (acquisition) run, it’ll take the rest of the time to show these buggers how it’s done.”
“Ack? You agree?” I asked.
Ack agreed, in spades.
“OK, gentlemen”, I said, “Let’s make it so. About time, too. I haven’t blown anything up in a couple of weeks. I’m getting antsy. Let’s go tell them the good news.”
“NO! WE REFUSE!” was the cheery response from the nationals when Ack, Volna, and I laid out the rather lengthy program for the next couple of days.
“OK. Someone tell the Captain to head for home. We’re done here.” I calmly told our handlers and the translators.
Panic in Pyongyang.
Immediately, there is this hue and cry about how this was not supposed to be how this trip was going to work. This was to be an acquisition trip only. This was to be a one-off to show Best Korea geophysical prowess. This was supposed to be data gathering trip
on the Western scientists…
Oops.
That last one was a bit of a mistake.
I turn to one of the translators and ask them to re-translate that last part, just in case I was hearing imaginary things.
“Oh, yes”, he replied, “He said they were here to gather data on the Western Scientists as well as offshore data.”
“Is that a fact?” I reacted. “Please tell them I need to see all my team members on the fantail immediately if you would. Sorry, translators and nationals not included in this little meeting.”
We reconvene on the fantail a few minutes later. I walk in on this little conclave with cigar and drink in hand.
“OK, gents”, I say, puffing a huge blue cloud, swigging a tot, “Here’s what I think we, as responsible international scientists, should do in this regrettable situation. We were asked to come here, with provisions that we would not be under cynosure, observation, or surveillance. Given ‘Open and Free Access’, no questions asked. We were to be treated as “esteemed guests”. This is obviously a load of dingo’s kidneys. I think we need to get as creative as possible and do whatever we can to provide as much deliberate misinformation to these characters to annoy, amaze, or disgust them as much as possible. Comments?”
There’s a general buzz, but no real dissention. After a few moment's discussion, Dax suggests we get a load of XXXXL condoms, and leave them around packaged as “Texas Medium”.
“That’s the spirit”, I reply. “Anyone one else up for a little Psychological Operations on our not-so-clever-nor-truthful hosts?”
We all agree that we will, in our own little way, start a campaign of deliberate misinformation, misdirection, and general petty bullshit nastiness for our hosts to discover and by which be dismayed.
Everyone’s in agreement. This trip has been a rotund bale of jeers from the get-go.
Promises made, promises broken. Itineraries approved then inexplicably disapproved. We make requests, they accede; and then nothing ever happens. It’s most frustrating.
We’re tolerating a lot of horse, bull, cow, and assorted other farmyard excrements; all in the name of international harmony and scientific goodwill. This has been an outgoing one-way street for too long. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
“Hellfire and Dalmatians!” I growl, growing angrier every minute I think about the subject, “We need to take the high, low, and middle ground on this offensive. Nothing too overt or obvious; however we need to jank these bastards good. But they can’t realize they’re being janked…!”
Ack cuts in.
“The esteemed Dr. Rock is right. Psychotic...but absolutely right. We got to take these bastards. We could fight them with conventional weapons. That could take years...cost millions of lives. In this case... I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires...a really futile and stupid gesture... be done on somebody's part.”
There’s a general buzz among the assembled.
“And we're just the guys to do it.”
Shouts and catcalls of deep agreement.
“Operation ‘Confound-a-Korean’” is now enacted.
“About fucking time!”
“Let’s do it!”
“Dissen gonna be bery messy! Me no watchin!”
“OK, I think, “Who’s the prequel-series wiseass?”
“OK, gentlemen”, I continue, “We continue with our scientific duties. No fucking around there. But, when it comes to…interpretation…opinion…or personal viewpoint; let’s go full impede. Dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullshit.”
We all agree and after a couple of quick rounds of old thought provoker, we realize this trip has just taken a hard left into Wackyland. We will have to let our comrades onshore know of this, but that can wait until we return. Right now, we all have jobs to do. Real jobs, serious jobs, covert and sneaky jobs…
So, it’s back to the recording shack as we lay out the plans for the next couple of days.
Volna begins: “OK, listen up you primitive screwheads. We’re going to assemble and layout a recording array that’s called a Meisenheimer Triplet. You do know what a simple Meisenheimer Triplet is, don’t you?”
There’s a slight murmur from our national friends, but in the end, they all plead ignorance.
“Right. Thought so. A Meisenheimer Triplet is a central towed array flanked by two shorter, subparallel flanking sub-frammitz arrays. We will assemble this array on-board, even though it’s probably going to take every ounce of silver solder and electrician’s tape you’ve got. The amount of data received is orders of magnitude greater than any single Sheriff-sonde array, like the ones you been using.”
Suddenly, there are nods and murmurs of agreement.
“Right”, Volna smiles sinisterly to me, “With that, we’ll need to devise an explosive package, well, actually, a series of explosive packages based on the harmonia of the pre-bottom fore-sets, water depth, tow vehicle velocity, water column density, and decomposition coefficients of the said water column. Oh, yeah. Fish too.”
Volna is really getting into the spirit of the affair.
“Who is your explosives engineer?” Ack asks, “He’s going to have to do some serious number-crunching with all the pre-blast data we’ll need to supply. “
One quick translation and there’s nothing but long faces and querulous looks from our national crowd.
“We have no explosives engineer”, the head Best Korean geophysicist laments. “Explosives are very, very heavily regulated by the government. That’s why we have several Government Observers on board. They handle the explosives.”
“Oh?” Ack remarks, “Are they fully up to speed on the Barnard-Reichmann equations for hydro-displacement of serial charges? Which subset of the marine rarefication coefficients do they employ?”
“Ummm, don’t know.” was the answer.
“Don’t know? Well”, Volna continues, “Then, they must be pretty good with the Langefors-Kihlström formulae, right?”
“No. Not as such.” Came the response.
“I see”, Ack sighs, “Well, then, I guess they must utilize the Il’yushin algorithms then. OK, it’s a bit old school, but they should still work.”
“Ah. Well. No.” was the rejoinder they offered.
“Well, then what the fuck do they use?” Volna explodes, “A modified Ambraseys-Hendorn model? Ghosh-Damen 1? Ghosh-Damen 2? Indian Fargin Standard? Prejaculated Rai-Singh protocols, fer’ chrissake? Which?”
Nothing but shaking heads and wringing hands.
“They take a case of dynamite, wire it up, and throw it overboard with a long fuse.” Was the eventual answer. “That’s why we stop to record.”
Long, exasperated sigh later, “Jesus Q. Tapdancing Christ on a crème cracker. No wonder you never get anything done.” Volna continues, “You characters are in luck. You just happen to be so lucky to have an internationally-renowned Master Blaster right here on board ship today.”
Volna turns the crowd over to me, “Doctor? Do your damnedest. And good luck.”
“Thanks, Volna”, I say, cigar in one hand, stalwart drink in the other, “OK, guys. Here’s the deal. When it comes to explosives and explosive design, I’m the hookin’ bull.
No one has authority over me. Not the Captain. Not the boson’s mate. Not the Captain’s Consort even. Nor the guys in the cheap shiny suits. What I say, goes. No exceptions. No hesitation. We
green or are we going back to shore?”
“
Cholog?” they ask.
“Yes. ‘
Cholog’. Green. Are we understanding one another? Are we all in agreement?
Are you fuckin’ diggin’ me, Beaumont?”
There’s some quick back and forth in Korean, a lot of seeming bad noise. Even the shiny suit squad and Coasties join in the fun.
“Grudgingly, we agree.
Green as you say, Doctor Rock. You are the one in charge.” Came the head national’s reply.
“Splendid. I’m in charge of the charges.” I chuckle, puffing an enormous cloud of expensive Oscuro smoke, “Volna, Ack; please get me the required parameters. I’ll be in the ordnance locker to see what we’re working with here. C’mon fellas, chop-chop!”
Volna and Ack take their select set of geophysical wishers and wannabes while I get the rest of the locals, the shiny suit squad in reserve, but in tow.
I head off to the ordinance locker.
Dax runs behind “Hey! Wait for me.”
“We have to”, I snigger a reply, “We’re going to need a drinks runner.”
“Marvelous…” was the one-word response.
We get to the locked ordinance locker. It’s one of the few original structures remaining on the ship. The boat was torn down almost to the waterline and re-built for seismic acquisition, but they had enough brains to realize that the source of the seismic signals was usually explosive in nature. Dinoseis and Mini-Sossie were closed books to them.
Therefore, the locker remained intact, however grudgingly.
“Whew! And what a locker.” I whewed. “And what a lock. OK, who’s got the keys?”
There are general hemming and hawing and no one seems to know where the keys for the ordinance locker are kept.
“Well, gents”, I say, pointedly, “I would suggest that one or more of you toddle off and fucking find the goddamn keys or this will turn out to be a very short and unproductive trip, indeed.”
A while later, a bit longer than I personally care for, the boat’s Captain wanders up, all a-scowl and generally pissed-off looking.
“Who here needs the key to the explosives locker?” He asks in his Captainly, no-nonsense manner.
There’s more muttering and murmuring, but eventually, all fingers point toward me.
The Captain looks at me.
“Hello.”
He’s giving me the once over with a LASER stink eye. I don’t know which irritated him the most; the lit cigar, the drink, the Stetson, Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, Scottish knee socks or field boots.
“And who the hell are you”? He asks, oh, so wrongly, through an interpreter.
I stand up, fully puffed to full mammalian threat posture and say in a loud steady voice;
“I’m THE Doctor Rocknocker, the
MOTHERFUCKING PRO FROM DOVER!, that’s who.”
Since I had a good 6 inches and way too many kilos on him; my loud, American and very un-oriental answer took him completely by surprise.
His eyes got as big as dinner plates and he shakily held out the ring of keys for the explosives locker.
“Why thank you very much”, I said, bowing in his direction ever so slightly. Wasn’t his fault he wasn’t totally clued in on
all the recent goings-on aboard his vessel.
I toss the keys to Dax, “Here, earn your keep.” I snickered.
Dax deftly fields the keys, chuckles back, and begins the game of ‘which key for which lock’?
I thank the Captain and explain that I’m the
de facto leader of this special education class, and make some pointed, mild epitaphs about landlubbers, national scientists, and the cargo of the totally clueless on board.
He sees I’m not a total boor and relaxes some. We haven’t really had a real introduction, so I grab a translator and engage the Captain in a short, though insightful conversation.
Cigars were exchanged. Handshakes were as well.
Seems he’s just as aggravated by these know-it-alls who really know-fuck-all. We see eye to eye and part friends once Dax finally figures out the combination to the weapons locker.
“Holy fuck!” I exclaim, “Now
that’s a door.” I say looking at the slowly-opening covering of the weapon’s portico. Fully five solid inches of solid steel. Triple reinforced hinges. Deadman's latches. Bringles-jams and solid, non-decabulated cast-steel cross-members.
Just the thing to contain an errant blast and send all that excess energy skyward instead of into the bowels of the boat.
OK, bonus points for that design feature.
I look inside, but it’s dark and fragrant as the inside of an irritated oyster in the bottom of the Tonga-Kermadec Trench.
Dax fumbles around and finds the light switch.
FLIP
“Hmmm.” I hmmed. “Well, we’re all set for dynamite, I see.”
Case after case after case of leaking, cheap-ass Chinese knock-off sort-of Du Pont-style 50% dynamite. Box after box of Pseudo-Dyno-Nobel blasting caps. Delaminating, unwinding spools after spool of “PrimUcord”. Sticky “Korea” brand silk-woven coated Demolition Wire.
“Gads.” I sigh. “What a nightmare. Either this stuff goes off when you give it a dirty look or it doesn’t go off at all.”
Dax looks to me, “So, the trip’s a bust. Is that what you’re saying?”
“If we don’t find something that’ll work, probably,” I reply. “This shit’s worthless.”
We continue to search after I shoo everyone but Dax out of the locker. It’s damp and musty in here, smelling disconcertingly of kerosene, gherkins, and old sardines. That’s one sure sign of dynamite going bad. I warn Dax to be extra careful, that this stuff hasn’t had the best of handling. We could be in for an unexpected surprise.
So, we redouble our efforts and are much more circumspect.
Knock-off this and fake-ass that.
All Chinese in origin. It might have worked one day; but after sitting in here, unattended, unturned, and uncared for? I’m ready to both literally and figuratively pull the plug on this whole fiasco.
Dax is all smiles.
“Doctor?” Dax asks, “What is it that would make you happy?”
“A nice fishing boat, a huge never-emptying bank account, endless cigars, and a comfy chair back in the north of Baja Canada in a tavern on a good fishing lake,” I replied.
“Well”, Dax smiles, “I can’t do that, but how about this?” as he opens a cleverly hidden door.
I look in, let my eyes adjust to the low-light scenario to see no lakes, no huge bank accounts, nor fishing boats; but what I do see makes me smile wide.
It’s a sub-locker full of familiar Made-in-the-USA, True Blue, American-manufacture
cyclo-trimethylene-tri-nitramine, or Good Ol’ C-4 explosive. Block after lovely hexahedral block of the stuff.
“Dax”, I say, “Take a gold star out of petty cash. You’ve just saved the mission.”
“I’ll settle for a tall vodka and one of your cigars”, Dax smiles.
“Later”, I say, “We now have a little job which to attend.”
With C-4, designing the impulse charges is seriously a walk in the park. They’re already waterproof, so all I need is water depth and the number of seconds to which they want to record data. I can bundle a series of blocks of the stuff, charge them with a couple-three or four, just in case, blasting caps, and connect them with stout lengths of demolition wire. These will be dragged, with a ‘Herring Dodger’, to control depth, behind the boat as
we are underway.
It’s a novel idea, I know. One that’s only been in use in the west for about 60 years.
We’ll drag a daisy chain of C-4 packets. One after another, individual charges in the packets will detonate milliseconds apart. I can bundle the packets so that we can run a charge string of up to 12 discrete packets which will attenuate the amplification of the arrhythmic flux, I tell one of my Korean onlookers.
With this set-up, we can record data for literally sea-miles.
First, we will
moosh the C-4 into a flattened, semi-hydrodynamically stable pancake or airfoil, OK, hydrofoil, shape; wire three or five of them together, charge them, then repeat.
Depending on what parameters Volna and Ack supply, the chain will just be a number of similar packets, trailing one after the other, detonating from back to front; down below the hydrophones, but well above the seafloor.
We know that the hydrophones will be at or very near the surface, but we need to know, explicitly, the basal bathymetry of the area we're about to shoot. Wouldn’t do anyone any good if we drove over a seafloor hump and dragged the C-4 over it to have it detonate prematurely.
Or not at all.
So, we need to plot our course and sail it today while we get the hydrophone arrays built and we image the seafloor where we’re going to do some blasting. After that, it’ll probably be an all-nighter to create the blasting strings so we can spend the next day recording, and then head for home as we’re nearly out of victuals and potables.
At least, that’s the plan.
I convene a quick meeting and we plot a course on the latest charts. 30 kilometers of recording.
Shit, that’s going to be a lot of explosives. Doable, but a pain.
Remembering the quality of the recording equipment, I suggest we do a test run in the morning of just 5 kilometers. If that works, and we can up it in increments.
Dax, Sagong the head Korean geophysicist, and I go to visit the Captain.
We visit the Captain and lay out our plans. He has no objections, as were in Best Korean waters and there are no obstacles out here like sunken wrecks, kelp forests, American aircraft carriers, or other impediments.
With that, we tell him to align the ship and let us know when he can begin doing the recon sortie.
He says that he can do that immediately, and before we're out of the pilothouse, we’re recording bathymetric, i.e., depth, data. The technology’s not much different, nor advanced, than a standard Lake Winnebago fish finder, so that’s one disaster sorted.
We are sailing along in a series of parallel straight lines, which when the data are played back and deconvoluted, will give us a good idea of the bathymetry which we’ve been motoring over. It’ll basically give us both a depth map and a surface, ok, bottom, map of the seafloor above which we’re sailing. A little basic submarine hyperbolic quantum trigonometry and well, we have the data we need to plug into the various equations to see what we’ll require when we want to record seismic data to 5000 milliseconds.
With that, there’s not much else to do until we have the survey map. I dragoon Dax and Cliff into helping me inventory the explosives bunker.
“The hell with the dynamite, PrimUcord, and other Oriental-Knockoff Horseshit”, I instruct my helpers, “Let’s just count up the C-4, and see what our tally is. Oh, yeah, give me a tally of the blasting caps. Gotta use those ratty bastards, they’re the only actuators here I sort of, kind of, trust.”
With Dax, myself, and Cliff, we’re done in less than an hour. I decide that I’ll be the keeper of the keys and take them back to the Captain my own self. Rules of engagements, chain of command and all that hogwash.
I hand the keys over to the Captain and instruct the co-pilot to make an entry in the logbook that I returned the key to the Captain, this date, this time.
“By the book. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.” I muse.
To be continued…
submitted by Casinos are NOT built on water. This is the desert, the Mojave Desert. Several have water features in front or back. The Federal Goverment has NO control over where the casino is built in Nevada.... There are two typical venues for casinos in the United States – Indian reservations and commercial casinos. Each comes in varying sizes among the groups. There are also differences within the class inside certain states that have different rules for reservations and casinos on state land. Where to Find Indian and Commercial Casinos. Indian casinos are always located on reservation land. The State taxes are often part of the agreements for large scale casinos. 8. There are 562 recognized tribes in the United States, only about 200 operate full scale casinos. There are approximately As the name would indicate, Indian reservation casinos are always located on lands set aside by the government for the use of specific Native American tribes. Regular casinos, meanwhile, can exist on any other property. The total geographical area of reservation land equals 2.3% of the total area of the United States. Some tribes have multiple reservations allotted to them, while around 200 of the nation’s 550+ recognized Indian tribes have no land at all. Indian casinos are big in the United States. No matter where you are in the country, you’re probably no more than 3 hours away from an Indian casino. And more Indian casinos are popping up or expanding every single year. But why? It all started with the tax man. The history of Indian gaming in the US dates back to a couple named Russell and Helen Bryan. Almost 50 years ago, the County of In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act which recognized the right of Indian tribes in the United States to establish gambling and gaming facilities on their reservations as long as the states in which they are located have some form of legalized gambling. Two cases in the 1980's led up to this act: Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Butterworth All tribally-owned casinos that operate under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would be on tribal lands. Some casinos might be technically outside of reservation boundaries, but they would be on tribal trust lands. This represents lands that have been put into trust status by the federal government, on behalf of the tribes. With more and more casinos appearing on Native American land, there’s a casino in almost every state. Here are 10 things you need to know about Indian casinos. 1. They get more gambling revenue Not all casinos are on Indian reservations, but there are many across the country that are established based on Federal Law which recognizes Indian Reservations as Sovereign states within our... TEXAS INDIAN CASINOS. Texas Indian Casinos. Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas 571 State Park Road 56, Livingston TX 77351 Phone Number: (936) 563-1100 Fax Number: (936) 563-3184. Naskila Gaming 540 State Park Road 56 Livingston, TX 77351 . Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas HCR 1 Box 9700, Eagle Pass TX 78852. Phone Number: (830) 773-2105 Fax Number: (830) 752-1123. Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino
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