The Benghazi Affair: A Parody Novel

by Ward Salud

  Finally, Hillary went into the Oval Office. It had been a normal sight now to her, first when she lived as First Lady with Bill and now as Secretary of State to Barack. Though much had remained the same, the view of the Rose Garden, the monumental architecture, slight changes had been made since then. The furniture, couches and chairs around a coffee table that sat across from the Resolute desk, had been updated. The flooring changed from her husband’s blue rug to Barack’s cream one, but the Presidential Seal, an American bald eagle clutching an olive branch in one talon and thirteen arrows in another, as always, lay prominent at its center.

  President Obama, in a tight-fitting navy blue suit, sat behind the Resolute Desk, so named as it was made from sturdy English Oak from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. The handsome African American president, sitting back from the desk on his leather executive chair, did not look pleased. Two flags, one of the United States and the other of the Presidential Seal, flanked him.

  Hillary gravely crossed into the Oval Office and stood before her President. She didn’t know what to say, though she knew she had to say something. “Huma,” she said quietly.

  “I heard,” President Obama said. He raised his chin up at her, the way he does when he’s nervous. “Hillary, I sent for you today—”

  “Aren’t you worried?” Hillary sputtered out. “She’s been captured by the—”

  “Hillary,” Obama interrupted. “This concerns Huma,” he continued patiently. It always amazed her how Barack would always keep his calm in grave matters such as this. It was something she came to admire from the young president, who beat her for the Democratic nomination. “There’s something I hadn’t told you about Huma’s mission to Cairo.”

  Her head shot up upon hearing the news. “What?”

  Carefully, he opened the drawer from his desk and pulled out a tablet computer. “It relates to what happened in Benghazi,” he said, placing the tablet on the desk towards her. The tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab®, its Wi-Fi disabled for security purposes, held an image of a globe with a blinking icon over Benghazi, Libya in the tumultuous Maghreb of North Africa. She knew the intelligence community had been trying to build a propriety single mobile device or SMB tablet or smartphones, for the President’s use, but for now, this would have to do.

  Hillary picked up the Samsung Galaxy Tab®, and she noted how comfortable it felt in her hand as well as its ease of use.

  Obama got his own Samsung Galaxy Tab® from the drawer of the presidential desk and swiped on the touch screen. “I know you’re well aware of the events in Benghazi,” he said, pressing on his own tablet touch screen.

  On her touch screen, the globe zoomed onto the city of Benghazi to reveal a burning compound in the dark of night. Indeed, it had been a week ago since that incident where the Ambassador and three other Americans had been killed. Even now, it’d been hard to piece together what had happened, and the Republicans in Congress spent no time in attacking her and Barack on this issue. The cover story about the anti-Muslim video on YouTube inciting violence was not enough for them. On the touch screen, the flickering flames over the compound continued to lick the air.

  “What I didn’t tell you was the real reason behind the terrorist attack,” Obama explained. He pressed down on his touch screen again, and on her screen, the image shifted from the burning compound of the US consulate in Benghazi to a tundra field where an array of antennas stood side by side covering a large area. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance.

  “HAARP,” Obama said. “Our High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska. You can’t see it but—” He swiped once more on his touch screen. It caused her screen to turn to a graphic where the antenna arrays produced sound waves up into the atmosphere. The sound waves seemed to be pushing against the stratosphere and then, bulging the ionosphere outward into space.

  “Our military has been working on a weather control system,”

  “Weather control?” Hillary said, slightly shocked at what she’d been told. It was the first time she’d heard of this military program. She still wondered how this related to Huma, but she couldn’t help herself from being curious as to what she’d been told.

  “Yes, Hillary, weather control,” Obama answered. “The Chinese had been working on their own version with some success during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.” He closed the cover on his tablet, but her screen remained the same with the same sound waves pressing up on the earth’s atmosphere. She made a mental note to read more about this technology in the classified archives when she returned to the State Department. “But ours is more advanced,” Obama said. “Our scientists in Alaska have developed a miniature version of HAARP. A week ago, one of our agents stole it. We tracked it to Benghazi, and we were about to retrieve it but . . .” Obama clenched his teeth slightly. “Somehow the terrorists knew.”

  She let the information seep into her. Weather manipulation? she asked herself. She didn’t realize how far advanced their military technology had become, but then again, she shouldn’t be surprised. A weapon like that with its enormous power could tilt the battlefield in anyone’s favor.

  A darker thought entered her mind as well. And with a weapon like that, they could attack America’s enemies leaving no trace of their involvement. The scenario played out in her mind, but the implications didn’t bother her as much now compared to her youth. She had after all, become a foreign policy hawk in her years in Washington placing her to the right on security issues of many of her Democratic colleagues.

  Already, Joe’s skeptical words sounded in her head, and she laughed mirthfully a little bit inside. Joe Biden had always been more dovish than her.

  “Huma was sent to Cairo to find out more about the theft of our device and its possible whereabouts,” Obama finished.

  She was suddenly reminded of Huma and what just happened. “We have to—I have to get her,” she said to Barack. “She’s in danger,”

  Obama pressed his lips together and shook his head. “You’re not going, Hillary.”

  The news hit her hard, and for a moment, she thought she didn’t hear right. “I have to go,” she said finally. “I’m the best agent you got.”

  “I know that,” Obama replied, still with the same amount of coolness. “I’ve already ordered the CIA to send a team to Cairo.”

  Hillary tried again to get through to Barack. “This is Huma we’re talking—”

  “And I have complete faith in the CIA to complete this mission,” Obama finished. He leaned forwards towards his desk and looked into her eyes. “Hillary, I’ve noticed your performance lately. You’ve been tired, overworked, and . . . careless. I need you to take a break especially on a matter as sensitive as Huma,” His eyes probed her trying to find a connection. “This is a marathon not a sprint.”

  “Barack,” she urged. She couldn’t believe what she was being told. While she had confidence in the CIA, it didn’t feel right that they were out there in the field and not her.

  “No, Hillary,” he said, leaning back on his leather executive chair once more. “My decision is final.”

  She looked away, careful not to show emotion. A woman in Washington had to be extra careful with emotions as she well knew. “Am I excused?”

  Obama nodded, though he gulped slightly, no doubt feeling a pang of empathy for his unlikely friend. Hillary left the Oval Office, the sun casting a shadow over the President seated on his desk.

  •••

  EMBASSY ROW

  WASHINGTON, DC

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

  Tucked in the northeastern corner of the nation’s capital was the Embassy Row neighborhood of Washington, DC. So named for the many embassies that call the neighborhood home, it was once the province of the well-to-do of DC’s Victorian and Gilded Age set populating the neighborhood with mansions, townhouses, and other imposing homes that was a far cry from the modern apartment buildings and the midrise office buildings of downtown. Its seclusion and acces
s to DC’s center made it ideal for the ambassadors and diplomats who daily went about the needs of their home governments.

  And in one corner of this neighborhood, across from the Danish Embassy, there stood a brick colonial house . . .

  The door opened into Whitehaven and Hillary set foot into the entranceway of her second home. Purse in hand, she trudged into the living room, the issue of Huma not far from her mind.

  A beige couch was situated at the back half of the living room along with padded chairs, end tables, with tasteful looking lamps atop it, and a glass coffee table. A large flat panel television inside a TV cabinet sat across from the furniture, while family photographs, some going all the way back to her years in Arkansas, hung on the walls. Hillary dropped the purse on the floor, and sat down on the couch, thinking and thinking about Huma.

  It should have been her, she thought. She should have been the one sent on that mission not Huma. Not for the first time did she feel guilt for enrolling her into the DSS in the first place. If there was anything the years as a DSS agent taught her is that this line of work was dangerous. The issue should have been studied more, searched all its angles and pitfalls, but she did none of that.

  Huma had found out about her clandestine work for the State Department by accident. Being the diligent aide that Huma was, she located files concerning a mission during Operation Iraqi Freedom that she had carelessly stuffed in some boxes of her Senate office not unlike the missing Rose Law Firm billing records during her White House and Whitewater years.

  Huma had begged, even pleaded to join, but she, at first, refused to let her into the DSS.

  “It’s too dangerous,” she had said quietly in her Senate office.

  “I can do it,” Huma pleaded. “You said yourself women and girls should never set limits for themselves . . .”

  Now look at what that decision had cost, she thought. Huma was out there possibly tortured and possibly . . .

  Hillary breathed in, trying not to think about what may be happening. She herself had been recruited into the DSS by her mentor, the Secretary of State under her husband, Madeleine Albright.

  Madeleine had found her one day crying in the East Wing of the White House. It was only a few days after Bill told her about Monica, about his affair.

  “Let me show you something,” Madeleine Albright said to her in the Garden Room, a pin of an opened eye was emblazoned on the blouse of her skirtsuit. She had held out her hand towards the younger Hillary.

  Her younger self looked up at Madeleine. Tears stained the sleeves of her pink skirtsuit jacket.

  “It’s alright,” Albright continued. “Everything will be alright . . .”

  “Hey, Hillary,” a voice said, a voice with a distinctive Southern twang.

  Hillary looked up and her heart lifted immediately when she saw Bill peeking from the hallway into the living room. He wore a nicely pressed suit, and though the years brought lines to his face, he was still as handsome as the day they met.

  “I didn’t know you were home,” she said finally.

  “I was in town,” he said as he made his way into the living room. Usually, Bill spent his time in Chappaqua close to the Clinton Foundation in Harlem while she stayed in Whitehaven because of her work at State and the DSS. “I wish I was always home,” he said, sitting down beside her and giving her an affectionate pat on her leg.

  Hillary couldn’t help but smile when she was around him. “Oh, Bill,” she said, but her momentary joy was short-lived. She was reminded of Huma again, and she frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking deeply into her with his big puppy dog eyes.

  She couldn’t look at him. In her line of work, she couldn’t tell him everything, the hardest time being when she couldn’t tell him about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and it pained her every time.

  Bill bit his lower lip. “Well, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s alright,” he said. He gave her a momentary glance. “But if you do want to tell me, that’s alright too.”

  One look and she knew she would tell him. She’d been wanting to get this matter off her chest. “Huma,” she said. “She’s been captured.”

  Upon hearing the news, Bill narrowed his eyes, and then he nodded. “If you need me, I’ll go,” he offered. Hillary remembered the last time, he said those words to bring back journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling from the clutches of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Il.

  “Barack already sent a team. They’re en route to Cairo now,” she said.

  Bill nodded in affirmation. “Obama’s a smart man,” he said. Hillary cast a sidelong glance at him, he wasn’t as good of friends with Barack as she was, though the two Presidents always treated each other with respect. “But more importantly, he’s a good man.”

  “He could have sent me,” Hillary said, slightly hurt that he took Barack’s side. “He’s been choosing other people for missions more and more lately.”

  “When you’re President—”

  Hillary shot him a look, he said the “P” word. I’m talking about my presidency,” he said with a mischievous smile. “When you’re President, you have to make choices, choices that not everyone will like.”

  He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. “I trust him, I trust his judgment. After all,” he bent over and flicked her up by the chin. “He chose you for Secretary of State and the Gaddafi mission, didn’t he?”

  She smiled at that, even as he playfully hit the couch and stood up. “How’d you like some supper?” he asked. “I got some Chinese from Meiwah.”

  Meiwah was Bill’s favorite Chinese place in DC, and although their Chinese food was indeed delicious, she didn’t feel at all hungry, not after what happened today. “I’m fine,” she said to him.

  A slight frown crossed Bill’s distinguished face, but he nodded anyways. “Well, it’s on the table if you’re ever hungry,” Bill said, sounding a tad disappointed, and then, he wandered off into the kitchen.

  Hillary sighed. She knew Bill was just trying to make her feel better, but it wasn’t working. The thought of Huma being out there weighed down on her like the prospects of her DC bar exam.

  If only Barack would let her rescue Huma, she told herself angrily. She’d always been a doer, and if she thought there was something out there that needed to be fixed, well, by golly, she’d go out there and fix it. Had she won in 2008 rather than him, she’d already—

  The thought screeched to a halt in her mind. She did it again, she thought as she closed her eyes. Thinking about what could have been. It didn’t work out, that’s all. She tried her best, but it didn’t work out.

  Her BlackBerry suddenly vibrated inside her handbag. Slightly startled, she reached down, dug it out, and then, looked at the screen, which read “Chels.”

  She pressed on the screen and put the phone up to her ear.

  Chelsea’s chipper voice came loud and clear. “Oh hi, Mom!” she said excitedly. “Mark and I just got back from Pennsylvania. We went out to the country, and it’s really pretty out there.”

  “Oh hi, Chels,” she said, hoping that her moroseness wasn’t coming through. Chelsea didn’t know about her espionage work. Ever since she was a child, she’d always shielded her initially from the media and now from the darker aspects of what she had to do for the nation’s security. She always wanted her daughter to live as normal a life as possible given the extraordinary circumstances they had thrust upon her.

  “I’ll be back for the Foundation soon,” Chelsea continued. “What’s this I hear about Benghazi?” she added worriedly.

  She wanted to tell her about Huma. Chelsea had always considered Huma like family and for her not to know . . . she knew she couldn’t, though. “The President has it under control,” she said. It was all she could say.

  “Oh ok,” she said with a trace of concern. “I’ll see you then.” The call ended, and Hillary put the phone onto the arm of the couch, its screen darkening once more.

  What she wouldn’t do for Ch
elsea, she thought. It was for her that she risked her life to defend this country. Huma was probably doing the same for her son. Mothers and their children, there was no stronger bond . . .

  Hillary stood up, the idea striking her much like the late surge in the polls for her during the 2008 New Hampshire primary. If Chelsea had been captured, there was no force on Earth that would stop her from trying to get her back. Not even Barack.

  That’s it, she thought, deciding then and there. She’ll rescue Huma. Quickly, she picked up the phone and pressed on one of her contacts.

  A voice answered on the other end.

  “Cheryl,” she said. “I need something done.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  BELT PARKWAY, BROOKLYN

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

  With the flags of the United States and the State Department flapping on the front sides of its hood, the Cadillac DTS sped along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. They headed towards JFK International, the closest airport with nonstop flights to Egypt. Seated in the backseat, Hillary looked out of the car’s tinted window, watching the blur of landscaped trees that obscured the city of New York behind it as the voice of Jake Sullivan, her Director of Policy Planning at State, spoke on the satellite speakerphone beside her. She could already imagine her boyish-looking aide sitting in his State Department office with the thick policy binder colloquially referred to as “The Book.”

  “Cairo consists of many neighborhoods,” Jake said, his voice blaring on the loudspeaker of Hillary’s satellite phone. “Central Cairo is its downtown while Islamic Cairo holds the old city. If you can imagine 1001 Nights, that’s Islamic Cairo.” Around the Secretary of State, the luxury car contained leather trim seats, and on the back headrest of the driver’s seat, a small viewscreen, installed on the headrest itself, remained turned off. “Funny, because there’s also a section of the city called Old Cairo where—”