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The Principal's Office
A few minutes later the van started rolling, and one of the goons in black fatigues got up from the front seat and blindfolded them both.
"Pretty amateurish," Cardinal said, smartly. "You should have blindfolded us before we left the interrogation room."
The goon whacked him in the side of the head, also smartly. "You shut up," he said.
"Hey! Your boss wants my brains for something. If you don't deliver them to him intact, he's not going to be happy."
He smacked him again. After a while (Cardinal tried to count the seconds; roughly 27 minutes) the van stopped. Cardinal felt a goon hand seize him by the shoulder. Rights-deprived, he stumbled out of the van and up a few steps. The sudden breath of climate control told them he was in an office building. Down a long corridor, then a door closed behind them, then another corridor, then another door. The blindfold came off, and he found himself facing Marsha in an elegantly furnished office.
"Nice carpet," Cardinal said, looking around. "Better than your typical federal issue. I'm guessing this guy is either pretty high up, or not really a fed. Or on the take."
One of the goons raised his hand. "No, Dryfus. Don't hit him. I'll take it from here." A very professional looking man had just entered a side door, and took his place behind a broad mahogany desk. "Name's Rove. Just call me Rove, nothing else. I am the bureau chief here."
"You might offer me a drink. Rove."
"I don't drink. I'm a Quaker. But let's not get into that. I brought you here for a reason. Actually, just you --" he looked at Cardinal "-- but I see you picked up an appendage. Well, we can make use of her. She seems to possess certain abilities, not the least of which is getting you out of awkward situations."
Marsha said, "I suppose I have to come along for the ride, or be killed."
"Don't be silly," Rove said. "We are the U.S. government. We don't kill citizens. On the other hand, if someone in our custody should happen to slip from our grasp into the hands of experienced torturers, well, we can't be held responsible for that."
"I would be more honest to just kill people and be done with it."
"No, no," Rove said, his voice rising casually but emphatically. "That would make for bad press. We have a nation of millions to lead, and we don't need bad press. When it comes to controlling the masses, lies are cheaper than soldiers. The trick is to offend many different groups and force them into the same foxhole where they can tear each other to pieces." He laughed. "You would think people in the same foxhole would join forces against a common enemy, but they never do. Why go for your enemy's supplies when you can eat your own neighbor?"
"Is this one of those moments in the spy novels where the bad guy spills it before he leaves the good guys to die?" Marsha asked.
"No, no. Well, maybe yes. I'll tell you the great secret. 'Rosebud' is a sled! Ha, ha, ha! But seriously folks, I will tell you a few truths. I don't care. Our enemies think we are a secretive group. Actually, most of the time we do our worst in the open, and people forget. Remember Katrina? Me neither. Ha, ha, ha!"
"All right, we get it," Cardinal said. "Can we cut to the chase? Explain what you want with us."
"Yes, John Cardinal, I heard that you disdain frivolities," Rove said. "I also. I have a mission for you. A brief junket to Damascus."
"Damascus? You expect me to go to one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East?"
"Or we can revoke your pardon, get you back on the electric chair, and send your girlfriend to jail for hijacking a commercial airplane."
"You tempt me."
Rove paced out a wide arc around the room, and then returned to his place behind the desk. "Since 9/11 -- "
"Now you sound like every political speech in the last six years," Cardinal broke in. "Cut the crap."
"Yes. Since 9/11, there has been a lot of, oh, how shall I say it, competition among the various federal departments to distinguish themselves in the war against terrorism. Occasionally a department has overreached in its zeal, bringing about absurd situations. Well, some would call them absurd, but in the Bush administration we call it trying hard.
"At any rate, the Department of the Interior -- the department that runs the national park system -- got itself into a situation. From what we can tell, they were trying to bribe their way into a weapons cartel in Damascus. Since federal money is traceable, they decided to use a private resource -- baby seal pelts harvested from federal parks in Alaska. It was going good for awhile, but a reporter got ahold of the story -- not a very credible one, an online muckraker, in fact -- but it is only a matter of time before a reporter with better credentials picks up on it. Paying off reporters to keep a story quiet only works for so long. Since I have explained to you already how dimly we view bad publicity, you may perhaps anticipate where I am going with this. We need someone to bust up the operation. Interior can't extricate itself from the deals without being blackmailed. But if an unrecognized party came in and blew up a seal skin drop off, they could get out of it."
"So that's it? I go to Damascus and shoot the place up, and you let us off? There must be a catch."
"Just a little one. I need you to bring enough seal skins back with you to make a full length coat. Vice President Cheney is holding a fund raiser next month, and I want my wife to finally show up Mrs. Cheney's vaunted leopard skin ensemble."
Next Episode: A Night in Damascus