Chapter 72 – Agents at The Hall
The phone rang in the office of Hilary Clinton’s Chief of Staff. The voice identified itself as the Chief of Staff of the Russian Ambassador, and inquired if Madam Secretary had a minute to speak to the Ambassador. Of course she did. The Ambassador explained to her about the little problem he was having with some Russian citizens in Charleston, South Carolina. He said he had dispatched some staff members and investigators from the Embassy to Charleston, but he wanted to alert the Secretary to this serious matter. The Secretary thanked him for the professional courtesy, and asked what the problem was. The Ambassador didn’t use the word kidnapping; but he did say that forty-six Russian citizens had been lured onto a plane in Saint Petersburg and flown directly to Charleston, South Carolina, against their will. He said he would appreciate any attention to the matter and assistance the Secretary could provide.
“Mr. Ambassador, I will give the matter my closest attention, of course. You say forty-six Russian people were lured onto a plane in one of your major airports. That is, umm, interesting, to say the least.” She didn’t ask how that could have happened; she was, after all, a diplomat; but certainly she wanted to ask. She said, “Do you know where in Charleston your people are? What they are doing? Do you know who it was that….assisted them onto the plane, and took them to Charleston? That would help me with my investigation.”
“These people all are dancers with our ballet company in Saint Petersburg. Great dancers, great artists, great citizens of Russia. We don’t know how they were assisted onto the plane, but we do have the name of an American who may have been involved.”
She thought, forty-five ballet dancers going to Charleston, South Carolina. What the hell would they go there for?
“Yes, Mr. Ambassador?”
“June. Gwenny June.”
She wrote the name down on a notepad. A notepad with the United States Department of State logo at the top. Gwenny June.
“Mr. Ambassador, I’ll look into this immediately.” Which she did, by telling her Chief of Staff to find out what the hell was going on in Charleston with a bunch of Russian ballet dancers, and who the hell this person named Gwenny June is.
Thirty minutes after Hillary issued the order, an FBI agent from the Charleston office drove past the front of the June’s house in the historic district. Forty-five minutes after the order, the June’s phone had a tap on it, as did Gwen’s and Roger’s cellphones. An hour after the order, an FBI agent stood across the street from The Hall, sipping on a double cappuccino from Starbucks. An hour and a half after the order, three agents entered the theater on John Street and stood in the back, looking at a lot of people on the stage, several of whom appeared to be naked, but upon closer inspection, were found to be wearing tiny little pieces of cloth covering their privates; one a miniature golden fleece, one a ruby red fig leaf, two a twirling comet, and one a reproduction of the Mona Lisa’s smile. The agents looked at each other.
One agent stayed at the rear of the theater, while one walked down the left aisle and the other down the right aisle. This was a standard FBI tactic when dealing with an unknown and potentially dangerous situation. The Ps, on stage, doing their gopher thing, in their element, loving their lives in Charleston, noticed the two guys coming down the aisles, and went out to meet them, dressed in leotards, naked from the waist up, smelling strongly of scents halfway between perfume and cologne. The FBI guys each put a hand under their coats to the rear of their hips. This stopped the Ps in their tracks, because this movement is exactly what Gwen does just before she pulls out her gun; something the Ps had witnessed several times in the year they had known her. They froze.
The agent at stage left said to Peter, “Is there a Gwenny June here?”
Peter looked directly at Gwen, sitting on the bench with The Whosey, talking about the tempo of a section in Act II. Looking back at the agent, who now was looking at Gwen, he said, “Um, I don’t think so.”
The agent looked Peter up and down, from bare feet to leotard to bare chest, climbed the stairs, and walked through the crowd of dancers, who now were wondering who the suit was. He motioned the other agent to come up on the stage from the other side. Having walked through a group of beautiful women dressed in tight clothes, and standing now looking down at an incredibly beautiful woman sitting on a bench next to an older guy with a big nose, the two agents both hoped they got to work this case for some time to come. Not as exciting as chasing bank robbers, but the scenery was lots nicer.
“You Gwenny June?” asked one of the agents.
The Whosey knew cops when he saw them, him having had more than a few run-ins with them during his wilder days with The Who. He figured this might be entertaining, them not knowing who they were dealing with in Gwen.
“Who’s asking?” she said.
“FBI, Ma’am.”
“Really? I thought it would be State. I thought they did political stuff involving foreign countries.”
“State, who, Ma’am?”
Townshend looked at Gwen and said, “Our boys in England are not this polite. This is really nice. I think America’s getting a bum rap over in Europe, thinking you all are just a bunch of crazy aggressive warmongering bastards. They should hear this guy talk.”
Gwen said, “They’re not all this polite. Like, up in New York City, they wouldn’t be talking this way. This is a southern boy; you hear the accent? Mississippi.” She looked up at the Mississippi boy and gave him a smile that melted two of the bullets in his gun. “Department of State. I thought it would be them that came down here, checking on our project. I’ve been waiting for ya’ll.”
“Ma’am, Ms. June, actually it is the Department of State that’s investigating the kidnapping. We’re sort of working with them. For them.”
“What kidnapping?”
“Umm, kidnapping of the dancers, Ma’am. Are these, by any chance, them, Ma’am, Ms June?”
“Yes, Agent, these are them. Bound, abused, and soon to be executed, if Putin doesn’t agree to send us three cases of good quality Russian vodka. We can’t get the really good stuff over here.”
The agents weren’t exactly paying close attention to what Gwen was saying, as they were paying attention to the beauty of her face. Townshend was smirking at them, having forgotten he had acted similarly the first ten times he had been around her.
The boy from Mississippi recovered enough to say, “Would you mind very much making a call up to Washington, DC, Ma’am? I have a number here, someone who would like to speak with you.”
Gwen got up and walked towards the office, the two boys in tow. Sitting down in the woman’s chair, she dialed the number. “Chief of Staff’s office, may I help you?”
“June here.”
There was a slight wait, then the Secretary’s Chief of Staff picked up the line. “Ms. June? Ms. Gwenny June, of Charleston?”
“Yes.”
“Would you wait a moment for the Secretary of State, please?”
Gwen smiled at the boys, motioning to them to sit down. While she waited, she asked, “What kind of guns you boys carry?”
The agents looked at each other, then the one who hadn’t spoken yet said, “Sig Sauers, Ma’am, standard issue.”
Gwen shook her head, conveying a combination of disbelief and disapproval. Then a voice came on the line. “Ms. June, this is Secretary of State Clinton. How are you today?”
“Fine, Madam Secretary, how are you?”
“I’m so so today, Ms. June. Would you confirm you are Gwenny June, please?”
“Well, I’m Gwen June. Some of the locals here call me Gwenny. My husband calls me Gwenny once in a while when we’re in bed. You know. He has a tendency to get informal then.”
“May I call you Gwen?”
“Sure, if I can call you Hillary.”
There was a pause, then, “Ms. June, the Russian ambassador contacted me today and said some Russian citizen
s had been lured onto a plane in Saint Petersburg and flown to Charleston. Against their will. Although he didn’t actually say it, he implied they were kidnapped. This is a very serious affair. It is an incident. A diplomatic incident. Can you tell me anything about it?”
Gwen put her feet up on the desk, took the phone away from her ear, and asked one of the FBI agents if he would get her a cup of coffee. Extra cream, please, if you would be so kind. “Well, we have some Russians here, yes. Business associates. Cultural partners. Employees. Not sure if the idea of them being lured onto the plane is exactly accurate, though I find the word interesting. Has a poetic quality to it.”
“These people are employees of yours?”
“Well, not mine, exactly. They’re employees of business partners of mine, Gromstov Enterprises and Productions.”
Clinton was scribbling this down even though the conversation was being recorded. “Are these people all right? Are you holding them against their will?”
“No, Madam Secretary. And yes, they are all right. They’re right here with me, now. Would you like to speak to some of them?”
“Are there FBI agents there?”
“Yes, two hunks, one from Mississippi, the other from Iowa.”
“Would you put the one from Mississippi on the line for a moment, please?”
“She wants to talk with you,” she said, handing the agent the phone.
He said, “Yes Ma’am. Yes Ma’am. Yes Ma’am.”
He handed the phone back to Gwen and left the office.
“Ms. June, this is serious. The Russians are not happy about whatever it is you have done. Not to put too fine a point on it, and I know Charleston’s reputation for courtesy and politeness, so I don’t mean to offend you, but they are PISSED.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that, Madam Secretary, I surely am.”
“They want the entire group on the first plane back to Saint Petersburg. Today. Is that possible?”
“Madam Secretary, it’s possible, but not likely. They are working hard, and seem to be quite happy. I don’t think they are going to want to get on a plane and go back there. Like I said, you can talk with them if you want.”
“Gwenny, I have a meeting with a North Korean political defector in half an hour who has information about their nuclear arsenal. And later tonight I am attending a dinner at the White House that honors all the Nobel Prize winners. And tomorrow I have a business breakfast with a representative of Hamas.” She paused for effect. “Can you help me out with this, Gwenny? Can you get those people back on a plane tonight, to Russia? I’ll send a Department of State 747 down there to pick them up. Is that possible, Gwenny? Can we close out this little incident, move on to bigger and better things?”
“Hillary, do you ever get together with your predecessors, shoot the shit with Madeline or Colin, maybe Condoleezza?”
The Secretary was taken aback, but answered, yes.
“I assume you are aware of one of our sons here in Charleston, pretty famous in some legal circles. The guy who cracked the tobacco industry, who now represents some of the 911 families, and is going after the Saudi government. You’re aware of him, I would guess?”
“I am aware of him.”
“By any chance, did Powell tell you the story of when he called up this guy and tried to get him to cease and desist? Stop investigating the Saudis.”
Again the Secretary was taken aback, but again answered, “Yes, he did. He told me that story.”
“Oh, good, your memory of that story will save time. Hillary, please, fuck off.”
The Lost Ballet Page 72