Cardinale pulled up a map on his computer. The NAR agents gathered around. “Three teams. June Bug, Frankie G., Rudolph, and Williamson are Red Team. You guys take the blue van. Tricia, Duke, and Little John are Gold Team. You get the SUV, the Mountaineer. Betsy, you ride with me in the red Dodge. The obvious problem is that we don’t yet know where they’re planning the ambush, whether it’s in the Green Zone itself or somewhere on the Virginia side. I’m gonna take an educated guess that it will be in the D.C. ESMA, because our intel indicates they plan to use some unmasked white shooters whom they will then photoshop with the faces of some of our own people back Home, in order to try and claim that we whacked Mammy Kanesha. This means that they will need to do it in some place they know is covered by CCTV, and surveillance over here isn’t nearly as comprehensive as it is in the ESMA. I’m guessing again, when I assume it will be at her house, which is at this address here, in Anacostia. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot of guesswork, and we need to be ready to change plans quick.
“We go over into the District across the Fourteenth Street bridge at five-minute intervals so we don’t all go through the checkpoint at once. We drive to Anacostia, and then we run a parallel patrol through a twelve-block radius around her house, with one double back and one lateral slide per circuit. If you were absent that day at SoI on Whidbey Island, then get somebody who remembers the course to drive. It will fool whatever dozy cop or affirmative action nigger is monitoring the street cameras tonight, at least for a while. We’ll have to assess the tactical situation on the fly, and guys, if it looks like we have to just waste these bastards without playing my merry little jest, then that’s the way we roll. Psychological warfare is all very well and good, but I don’t want anybody killed because I feel in a waggish mood tonight.”
After more planning and going through projected possible scenarios, Cardinale issued his crew their uniform for the evening’s festivities, black nylon jumpsuits and full motorcycle helmets with black-tinted face visors and rows of blinking green and yellow LED lights over the visor and around the back of the helmets. He also issued two of his men with special weapons, concussion and stun grenades and hand-held laser pistols of an experimental prototype the NDF’s Technical Warfare Division had come up with and shipped to them, to see if the things were any good in the field. So far, Cardinale had found no practical opportunity to use them for anything. Betsy came back into the room wearing her costume for the evening, a long flowing white dress with a lot of sheer muslin drapery. “You look like Princess Leia,” said June Bug, a scarred and tattooed 200-pound man with a grizzled beard.
“She’s supposed to, up to a point,” said Cardinale. “Remember, the idea is to leave CIA director Kanesha Knight alive but confused, and convinced she was rescued from an assassination attempt by space aliens.” Cardinale’s phone rang, and he flipped it open. “Yeah?”
“Monkoid on the move,” said Bob Campbell on the other end.
“Okay,” said Cardinale. “That’s good, because we’re ready to roll here. Let me know if he crosses into Virginia.”
“You got it,” said Bob. “I’ll get back to you in a bit.”
“Last-minute potty trips and then we mount up, people,” called Cardinale. “The game is afoot, as Sherlock Holmes said. Follow me down to Rosslyn, then we circle for a while until we hear whether or not we go into the Green Zone. Everybody keep their phone headsets on conference with full encrypt. We’ll probably have to say some things in the clear tonight we really shouldn’t. Let’s just hope DHS’s techs haven’t caught up to Birdie’s genius yet.” A few WPB agents hit the john, then they went down to their assigned vehicles, fired up the engines, and headed down Wilson Boulevard toward the Potomac. Betsy was driving the Dodge. Just as they rolled under the gleaming skyscrapers of Rosslyn, Cardinale got another call.
“He’s stopped, looks like he’s on foot, moving back and forth short distances,” said Campbell.
“Setting up his ambush,” said Cardinale. “Where?”
“Thirty Fifty-One Massachusetts Avenue Northwest,” said Bob. “The South African Embassy. Our feathered friend here was able to zero in on Mammy’s card as well. Apparently, the Company’s FLEC encryption is out of date. They forgot to do their bimonthly switchover, or they just couldn’t be bothered.”
“Can he confirm she’s on the premises?” asked Cardinale.
“Affirmative. Maybe she’s attending some kind of cocktail party or reception celebrating the end of apartheid all those years ago, or something.”
“No, I remember now, she’s banging the nigger ambassador. Discovering her roots and all that crap. His root, anyway. Can our friend let us know when Aunt Jemima departs from the embassy?”
“He can,” Bob assured him. “He’s trying to hack into the DC Metro surveillance room now so he can access the cameras around and inside the embassy, so we can get an actual visual and not just the blip from her card.”
“Okay, we’re on our way, and let’s hope we don’t get there too damned late. Keep me posted.” Cardinale hung up and clicked conference. “Listen up, boys and girls. Looks like they’re going to hit the target as she leaves the South African Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. Mammy’s limo will be either parked on the street or more likely in the embassy courtyard, which is accessed off Massachusetts through an electronically controlled iron gate. I figure our main monkoid will have at least three other shooters, so we’ll extrapolate two hostile vehicles, both parked on either side of the embassy to box the limo in when they leave, and some kind of anti-tank weapon or explosive device to blow up or disable the limo and force Mammy out. This will be tricky, people, a firefight in the dark. We have night vision goggles and sights in our helmets, but so will they. We’ll approach via Rock Creek Parkway, park our own vehicles on Thirtieth Street and Whitehaven Street, and enter the fire zone on foot. This is Embassy Row, people, more cameras per square foot than anywhere else in the District, so from the moment we park, we will be on camera and the clock will be ticking. Remember your E&E procedures we went over back at the house.”
Thirty minutes later, at a little past eleven o’clock, the WPB vehicles were in place just off Massachusetts Avenue. “Don’t get out until I say so, but be ready, helmets on, weapons locked and loaded,” Cardinale told them on the phone. He himself pulled on his own mask, that of an extraterrestrial “Gray” from countless science fiction movies over the past half century.
Several minutes later, he got another call from Bob Campbell. “We’re into the embassy visual feed to the DC cops. They’re leaving now. She’s in the courtyard and the driver’s holding the door open for her.”
“Can you cut the feed and blind the cops?” asked Cardinale.
Bob spoke briefly with Birdie on his end, then came back. “Yes.”
“Do it, now.” There was a brief pause.
“Done,” said Bob. “They’ll notice the outage, but you’ve got a few minutes before they react.”
Cardinale got onto his conference. “Move out, now, stay low, and watch for the enemy shooters.” He and Betsy exited their car. The whole WPB squad began moving northward across the well-trimmed embassy lawns of Britain, Brazil, and Bolivia. Ahead on the right side of the street, they could see and hear the iron gate to the inner courtyard of the South African embassy clattering open, and a long stretch limousine containing the CIA director and her driver slid out into the street. Simultaneously the doors to a car on the right side of the street opened and two white men in jeans and sweatshirts, unmasked, got out. Beneath the streetlights Cardinale could see that they were hefting Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns under their arms, ironically the same weapons that most of the Circus crew were packing.
Cardinale ran forward on tiptoe; the two Secret Service agents were so intent on their target in the limo that they didn’t hear him until he was ten feet behind them. He shot one of them in the back of the head with the odd-looking laser gun from TWD, which resembled an LED flashlight with a pistol grip. The weapon
zapped and smoked, and the federal agent dropped like a sack of potatoes. The second agent had quick reflexes: he whirled and gaped at what appeared to be a space alien in a suit aiming a ray gun at him, but managed to squeeze off a three-round burst from the submachine gun before Cardinale shot him in the chest three times, noting with pleased approval that the laser cut through the man’s Kevlar vest like it was cardboard. But the gunfire gave the game away. “Now! Hit ’em!” he shouted.
There was an explosion up ahead; the second Secret Service team had expertly rolled incendiary grenades under the limousine as it reached the head of the embassy driveway, and the vehicle was enveloped in flames. It probably would have been safe to stay inside, since the limo in addition to being armored was fireproof, but instead of hitting the gas and getting the hell out of there like personal protection SOP dictated, the two negro occupants bailed out of the car in a wild panic. Cardinale could see his own men wearing the blinking motorcycle helmets, running toward the flaming car. In the poor light, they did indeed resemble weird interstellar robots of some kind. “Can you see the hostiles?” he shouted into his phone. “I got two of ’em down on this side!”
“Three standing this side!” shouted back Duke. Kanesha Knight and her black guard were running for the embassy front doors.
“Grenades!” yelled Cardinale, but it was unnecessary. The concussion and stun grenades were already flying through the air and landed at the feet of Kanesha and the driver. The grenades flashed and thumped the whole street, and the two of them collapsed on the embassy’s broad front steps. Machine gun fire erupted up and down the street, muzzle flashes flickering like sheet lightning. Windows were lighting up in the embassy and black faces were peering outside. Cardinale turned around. “Bets, you still with me?”
“Yeah, but only because I talked you out of making me wear high heels,” she said from behind him.
“Get those peeping coons away from the windows,” he ordered. “We don’t want anybody coming outside trying to drag our targets indoors.” Betsy braced herself on the hood of a parked car, raised her own MP5 and methodically sprayed the windows along the front of the embassy with bullets, striking sparks and screaming ricochets off the stately stone façade. “Duke, how are we doing?” he said into the phone.
“Two white assholes down, sir,” reported Duke. “The guy in the mask ran off. That must have been the nigger.”
“You and Tricia take perimeter, everybody else close around like we talked about,” ordered Cardinale. The WPB team appeared on the embassy lawn in the hot and muggy night, eerie figures in black, with weapons at the ready, cylindrical helmets blinking green and yellow, looking alien indeed in the pale light from the street lamps. One of the figures was walking slowly, leaning and cursing under his breath. “Who’s that hurt?” demanded Cardinale.
“Me, sir,” said June Bug. “Took a couple on the vest, bashed the shit out of my innards, but I’ll live.”
“You sure the other hostiles are all down? We don’t want to be interrupted.”
“Yes, sir, except for the nigger who ran like a bunny,” replied June Bug. “One fool wasn’t wearing a vest, and I damn near cut him in half.”
Kanesha Knight and her CIA bodyguard, Arnold “Two Toes” Jefferson, were moaning and beginning to crawl to their feet. Jefferson was clawing inside his jacket for his gun. Cardinale walked over and zapped a laser beam through his nappy head; the monkoid collapsed and Cardinale kicked the gun away into the bushes. “Those things work, sir?” asked Williamson.
“Yeah, at close range,” said Cardinale. “Wouldn’t trust it much beyond forty feet or so, and the beam is about the width of a pin, so you really have to hit a vital spot. You ready, Bets?”
“Gimme a sec,” she said. She handed her submachine gun to Williamson, and then pulled a thin latex mask out of her bra that she put on, another alien mask. Kanesha Knight rose shakily to her knees, shaking her head to clear her vision from the stun grenade. “Haul her ass up,” ordered Cardinale. “She needs to pay attention to this.” Two of the Office ops stepped forward, grabbed Kanesha’s arms, and jerked her to her feet like a drunken Oprah. Cardinale gave her a good slap on her rubbery black jowls
“Okay,” said Betsy.
“Showtime,” said Cardinale. He drew an automotive flare from his back pocket and popped it, then Betsy stepped in front of it. The stunned and disoriented Kanesha Knight looked around, shaking her head trying to focus. She saw herself surrounded by what appeared to be robots with blinking lights on their heads, and an alien white woman with the face of an E.T. wearing some kind of toga or Greek goddess outfit, who was outlined in a bright and shimmering light.
“Huh?” said Kanesha.
Betsy raised her arms. “Hearken unto me, Kanesha Knight. I am the Princess Ha-Tonna, ruler of Alpha Centauri and emissary from the Quantum Lords of the Galactic Council,” she intoned. “I bring you greetings from the Quantum Lords and a communiqué of great importance to your world. The individual known among men as Hunter Wallace is an evil being in the service of the Dark Potentates of the Crab Nebula. He has been sent to this planet to sow conflict and suffering among humankind, by starting a wicked and unnecessary war against the nation you call the Northwest Republic. It is the will of the Quantum Lords that this war must be prevented, and you, Kanesha Knight, must bear witness to all the world as a messenger of peace and love and reconciliation. Go now, Kanesha Knight, bear our witness to Planet Earth, and impart to all of humanity the universal gesture of peace and perfect understanding.”
“Say whut?” said Kanesha.
“I give it to you now, Kanesha Knight!” Betsy lifted her thumbs to her ears, extended her palms, and waved them. “In this sign shall you triumph, Kanesha Knight! End communication.” Cardinale stepped forward and kicked Kanesha brutally in the solar plexus, knocking her to the ground, then threw the flare up onto the roof of the embassy.
“Alright, we’re outta here,” he told his crew. “Get to your E&E points, dispose of the vehicles and gear like I told you, and work your way back over the river by noon tomorrow. Let’s go.”
Back in the Dodge, Cardinale pulled off his alien mask, as did Betsy. “What the hell was that universal gesture of peace and understanding crap?” he asked. “That wasn’t in the script.”
“I just threw that in there,” said Betsy. “I want to see if I can make her give herself monkey ears and flap them in public.”
* * *
Hunter Wallace was not a happy president when he arrived back in Washington on Air Force One that night. Special Agent Lee Lyons met him at Andrews Air Force Base and informed the president that five Secret Servicemen were dead, four of them in the botched attempt on Kanesha Knight at the South African embassy, and one more, Victor Chan, had been found dead in an alley off L Street with a single small-caliber bullet in the back of his head, fired at close range. “Chan was robbed,” said Lyons as they rode into the city in the presidential motorcade. His rage at the loss of his men was barely under control. “His wallet, his gun and his badge and his phone were gone, but I’m not buying it, sir. This was some kind of professional hit; my guess is by the same crew that came to Kanesha Knight’s rescue at the embassy later.”
“What the hell was Chan doing in the alley to begin with?” asked Wallace.
“He was checking up on FWOTUS—I mean your personal services assistant, sir,” Lyons told him. “It was routine. She went out for supper and she stopped in a notorious deadfall on L Street, Shel Silverstein’s Garden of Delights.”
“Yeah, I know it,” said Wallace. “I used to eat there a lot as a Congressman. Great doner kebabs.”
“Kind of an odd coincidence, don’t you think, Mr. President?” asked Lyons. “Ms. Halberstam drops off the grid for an hour, the man I send to check on her ends up dead in a hit that reeks of a pro job, and then a few hours later we get this fuckup on Massachusetts Avenue, with a full-armed squad of very proficient gunmen rising up from the earth just in time to shoot our men all
to hell, save the target’s ass, and then disappear?”
“You think Georgia Halberstam tipped off somebody on the Knight termination?” asked Wallace skeptically. “And how would she know about it? I know what you’re thinking, Lee, but I don’t talk business with Georgia or any of my PSAs, not before, during, or after. I’m not that stupid. You clock all her movements around the White House every minute she’s there. Has she ever done anything suspicious? Listened at the keyhole in the Situation Room? She’s never even been down there, and her access card won’t let her into the Cabinet Room or anywhere else important. Any hard grounds for suspicion, other than the fact that she was born in Montana?”
“No, sir,” conceded Lyons sullenly.
“You handled her vetting. You find anything besides a lot of drunk and stoned wild-child crap in school? Anything political or racial at all?”
“No, sir,” said Lyons.
“The existing system was designed to make sure that even if somebody ever did slip a Mata Hari on me, she couldn’t learn anything important.”
“I know, sir,” said Lyons. “But I’ve got a job to do…”
“I know, Lee,” said Wallace. “Look, the fact is, I really like this girl, and I’d like to get her to extend her contract. I’m not saying don’t do your job, just don’t get sidetracked unless you have some real evidence against Georgia. Keep on the Chan thing, by all means, but you know, it could be a simple street robbery after all. A well-dressed man in an alley might present a tempting target for some hufflepuff looking for money to buy a pack of smokes. I’m not downplaying the loss of one of your guys, Lee, but this mess at the embassy is the important thing to concentrate on. You say Jimbo survived?”
“He took the better part of valor, sir,” replied Lyons dryly.
“And so he should have done, or we’d have no fucking idea at all what happened,” said Wallace. “What does Jimbo say happened?”
“He said he and his team were attacked by space aliens, Mr. President,” said Lyons through tight lips.
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