Turks & Caicos

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Johnny Worricker — 2

& Natalie: Only two kinds of job on the island, hotel or bank. Give rich people their lunch, or give rich people their money.

& Colin: That’s the way of things now. I used to be able to open the bonnet, take out a wrench and fix my car. Now I’d need a degree in electronics. Even easy things are difficult now.

& Natalie: If I were a detective, I’d say the way there’s nothing suspicious is very suspicious.

& Margot: Johnny used to always say that life was about trust. Trust isn’t always rewarded, but on the other hand, if you make decisions based on trust, then they’ll have a sort of rightness to them.

& Pelissier: Look, this is Turks and Caicos, nobody’s who they claim to be. It’s a home for dirty money, which, as TS Eliot would observe, is a tautology, because there isn’t any other kind these days.

& Pelissier: Nowadays, people will go anywhere to avoid paying tax. A quick visit to Liechtenstein, Monaco, maybe Jersey, empty the vaults of private wealth and you could write off the world’s debt in a day. In an hour. In a minute. Three quarters of the world’s cash is hidden away in places exactly like this. Turks and Caicos? 21 trillion dollars.

& Johnny: Whatever happened to the idea of shame?
    Pelissier: «Shame»? Went the way of honour, didn’t it?

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& Pelissier: I mean, Johnny, I don’t want to blow smoke up your ass but in my opinion you’re the only man who comes well out of the war on terror.

& Pelissier: It’s been a fascinating few years, you could say, since 9/11. Do you know how many Americans now work in intelligence?
    Johnny: I don’t know.
    Pelissier: Over 200,000. In 16 different agencies. With 30,000 private contractors in 170 countries at a grand cost to the taxpayer of $75 billion a year. And they still call it the intelligence community... I don’t think so.

& Rogers: Silly, isn’t it? You work with people, you like them — and you so easily forget they’re as complicated as you are.
    Margot: Yes, you do.

& Melanie: One thing I’ve noticed about rich people is they’re angry most of the time. Maybe they’re frightened someone’s going to come and take their money away.

& Melanie: I have an idea how we might all get out of this thing alive. But there’s a problem.
    Johnny: What’s the problem?
    Melanie: You’re going to have to trust me.

& Rogers: We can hang out on the islands.
    Margot: Islands?
    Rogers: Turks and Caicos.
    Margot: Remind me?
    Rogers: An hour away from Miami by air, and a universe away in spirit.

& Jim: Did you know Turks and Caicos is a Crown Protectorate?
    Johnny: I think I do, yes.
    Jim: And the currency is American but the jurisdiction is British. We trade in the dollar and kneel to the Crown.
    Johnny: Yeah. What you might call the worst of both worlds.

& Jim: Consider yourself fortunate. I happen to like you. Personally, I mean.

& Melanie: I like lying on the bed. I can see everyone else’s lives. It’s so much more fun to watch other peoples’, don’t you think? Anything’s better than living your own.

& Pelissier: Use the words «national security», you can get away with anything.

& Jim: Show me your passports?.. «Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.» These are British islands. And you’re holding British passports. You’re free to go.

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