The Benghazi Affair: A Parody Novel

by Ward Salud

  She sighed heavily and then went back to the kitchen towards the pantry, the size of a walk-in closet. Grabbing a loaf of bread and a jug of water, she headed back to the living room, in an out of the way corner under the staircase.

  Alessandra pulled on a railing known only to her and a secret door opened to a set of stairs that descended down into darkness. A moan came from deep in the basement.

  Ignoring the sound, Alessandra held the items in hand and went down the stairs. This wasn’t her most favorite thing to do, but it had to be done.

  At the bottom of the stairs, darkness pervaded the basement with only the barest hint of light from a single fluorescent bulb that was too small for such a large room. She had to cover her nose at the unsanitary smells that came from here.

  She looked around at the place. Yup, they’re still here, she thought, feeling slightly disappointed.

  In her basement, seemingly a world away from the luxury of her house above, three people in chains, one on the floor, the other against the wall, and the other sitting down, his back against the wall, were imprisoned in her basement. The one on the floor coughed slightly.

  Having had enough, Alessandra threw the loaf of organic bread, sourced locally, onto the floor, followed by the jug of water that thudded on the ground.

  They don’t deserve this, she thought, disgusted that these people lived in her house. Brushing her hands from a job well done, Alessandra headed back up the stairs. Oh all the good that she does, she thought leaving the darkness of the basement behind and into the light where she belonged.

  •••

  WALDORF ASTORIA

  NEW YORK CITY

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

  Up on the twenty-fourth floor of the Waldorf, the machinery of the State whirled. Every department and sub-department of State held an outpost converted from each of the luxury rooms of the hotel, of which the staff helpfully removed the furniture most prominent of which was the bed where only the headstand, bolted onto the wall remained.

  All throughout the twenty-fourth floor, called the secure floor from Hillary and the DSS’s judgment because it had been cleared of any danger, the men and women of the Foreign Service worked diligently in preparation for the UN General Assembly. The whole world was coming to New York, and State was there.

  Hillary was in her makeshift office, sitting at a desk, supplied generously by the Waldorf staff, and reading the briefings sent from all over the State Department both here in New York and back in “The Building,” the colloquial name for the Harry S. Truman State Department Building back in Washington.

  Jake, with tablet computers in hand, stood before Hillary as she read reports on her desk. A picture of Bill as well as Chelsea and her husband Mark graced her makeshift workspace. Unlike other hotel rooms, the Waldorf’s rooms were more like residences with a living room, kitchen, and master suite included, which they used to a great extent to convert into a working office.

  “Any progress, Jake?” she asked, looking up.

  Jake Sullivan shook his head, disappointed. “Not yet,” he said. With his slightly ill-fitting suit, he looked younger than his thirty-something years. “It’s encrypted,” he added. “I sent it to DSS, but I haven’t gotten anything back yet, though I’ve been trying to break it myself.” His shoulders sagged a bit. “Not much luck either.”

  Hillary thought as much. If anyone can break the code, though, it would be the people in the DSS back in “The Building.” “Well, keep me updated,” she said as she closed the Book, which was actually more like a binder, filled with classified material on world leaders, this time on Libyan President Mohammed Magariaf.

  The door to her makeshift office opened and Cheryl, wearing a black coat, stepped in. “Capricia says they’re ready,” her African American chief of staff said huskily, referring to the Chief of Protocol, Capricia Miller. Capricia was once her Social Secretary when she was First Lady and now served the State Department making sure the right amount of detail welcomed their foreign guests to the Waldorf and elsewhere. “The Libyan delegation will be at the bi-lat room any minute,” Cheryl added.

  The bi-lat room was where Hillary, in her official position and cover as Secretary of State, hosted foreign heads of state while they were in New York. It was of course, another converted hotel room the Waldorf generously provided for them.

  Hillary acknowledged Cheryl and rose from her desk.

  “Wait,” Jake said. “What about my tech briefing?”

  Hillary stopped. She had forgotten about it. They were already running late, an unfortunate trait of hers and Bill’s so much so that her detractors called her time “Clinton Standard Time.” Never an opportunity wasted for criticism, she thought bitterly. Some days the criticism could really get to her.

  “We don’t have time,” Cheryl said.

  Hillary held up her hand at Cheryl. She supposed she could squeeze this in. Besides, she wasn’t looking forward to meeting the Libyan president anyways, who, of course, knew nothing about the clandestine nature of the Benghazi incident. They’ve only fed him the official cover story that they’ve unfortunately told the American people.

  Jake beamed a bit; pulled out a tablet, with the initials “HRC” in gold lettering on the dark synthetic leather cover; and handed it to her.

  Hillary took the device, and upon opening the cover, the screen displayed a pantsuit. The words “EVERGREEN CLASS BATTLE PANTSUIT” was scrawled at the top, while off to the right side, the Hillary 2008 campaign logo was emblazoned on it. “As you can see,” he said. “We’ve added some new enhancements to your wardrobe.”

  Hillary rather liked the design with its stylish lapels, but she focused, knowing that in her line of work, her pantsuit had to be functional as well as fashionable. “Magnetic shoes,” Jake said, pressing on his own tablet. The screen zoomed in to the shoes of the pantsuit, and as the shoes became prominent, several pointers appeared detailing the various features of the low-heeled pumps. “For scaling walls or sneaking into buildings.”

  She wondered when she would ever use it, but it was nice knowing.

  Jake tapped on the screen, which went to a close-up of the cuffs of the pantsuit, both front and back view, as another set of pointers detailed its features. “Your cuffs come equipped with GPS sleeve buttons to track your location anywhere on the globe,” he said. “As well as a built-in grappling hook. Just press down on the bottom of the right cuff and fire away.” Then, the screen zoomed back to the pantsuit, which turned to a backwards view of the whole pantsuit and to her surprise a focus on the backside with accompanying pointers. “And um,” Jake said, slightly embarrassed. “Extra padding in the hindquarters area—ahem—to, um, hide the contours of your gun should the, ah, need arise.”

  It took for a moment to realize what that entailed, but it was a good idea. A visible gun bulge would be hard to explain. Still, she cringed at the words extra padding on her backside. She wasn’t in her twenties anymore!

  Looking as if he was glad to be moving on, Jake tapped on his screen, which caused her screen to darken. “Great,” Hillary said, putting her own tablet down on the desk. Off to her side, Cheryl looked relieved the briefing was over.

  Hillary took a step towards Cheryl, but Jake spoke up again. “One last thing,” he said. Quickly, he reached back, pulled out a gun from the back waistline of his trousers, and held it, barrel up, in the air. Hillary noticed it was the standard issue model for all DSS agents.

  “A new SIG Sauer smart gun model,” Jake said, almost proud, and then gave it over to her. “With new gun safety measures.”

  Hillary took it in her hand and proceeded to point and test her new weapon, feeling the grip and the trigger in hand. It felt right, not too heavy and not too light either.

  Jake stepped off to the side, seeing the weapon in his boss’s hands. “It’s tailored to your handprint using the latest in biometric technology.”

  Hillary looked at her gun and then back at Jake.
“Meaning?”

  “Only you can fire the gun,” Jake explained. “It responds only to your handprint.”

  Impressed, Hillary peered at her new gun. As a supporter of common sense gun legislation, she supported such measures to make guns safer and away from the hands of those who could misuse it, especially children. Deciding to keep it, she put it away into her shoulder holster. “Alright, everyone,” she said to her aides. “Let’s move.”

  Both Jake and Cheryl nodded and Hillary followed them out the door to head up to the thirty-fourth floor of the Waldorf and meet with the newly-elected Libyan president, Mohammed Magariaf.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PARK AVENUE, MANHATTAN

  NEW YORK CITY

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

  The taxi wound its way down Park Avenue, passing by the dark skyscraper canyon of Manhattan. Huma sat in the back of the cab staring out the window. New York at night always had a mystical quality about it. At night, it seemed New York was a wholly different city.

  She had just left the Waldorf Astoria, another workday having ended, and now, she headed home to her infant son and her husband, Anthony . . .

  Huma sank deeper into the leather seating of the cab. The digital taximeter on the dashboard quietly upped her fare, while the cab driver, a Pakistani man, kept to himself, focused only on the road. The taxi cab itself was quiet and smooth, part of the new fleet of hybrid vehicles that Mayor Bloomberg instituted in the city. The humming, almost soothing, drone of the engine didn’t quiet her mind however.

  She should have told Hillary, she chided herself. It was at the tip of her tongue back at the Sheraton, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell of what was supposed to be her secret mission. The President ordered not to tell anyone of her task but to not tell her boss? It seemed like a betrayal.

  A mole, though? Huma asked herself. In Hillaryland? That sounded crazy. No one in their team would willingly help out terrorists. Republicans were one thing. They could be useful at times but not terrorists. Not America’s enemies.

  Yet, the President had his orders.

  Grand Central Station, the classical Beaux Arts building with its Corinthian columns and limestone edifice, passed by as the taxi drove on, this time on the elevated Park Avenue Viaduct.

  Might as well get started, Huma thought. She’d been putting it off long enough. Huma took out her BlackBerry from her Prada handbag. The tiny LED screen lit up, and she pressed on Cheryl’s name.

  The screen dinged back. “Hey Huma,” the message read.

  Typing on the QWERTY keyboard, she wrote, “Got a minute?”

  “Sure :),”

  Huma breathed in. She wasn’t quite sure what to ask, but before she could type back, Cheryl sent another text message.

  “Capricia was a mad woman today, haha. You should have seen her run around the bi-lat room before the meeting with Hamid Karzai. She noticed we had the wrong flag!”

  Normally, Huma would find that anecdote about Capricia Marshall, the US Chief of Protocol, funny, but the pressure of her mission weighed her down.

  “Yeah, that was funny,” she typed back, but she wasn’t laughing when she sent the message back from the taxi. A honk sounded from a passing car by her taxi.

  “Hey,” she quickly texted before Cheryl could send out another message. “Have you,”she stopped typing for a moment before she continued, “seen any suspicious activity lately?”

  For a moment, there was no reply, only the blinking cursor line on the LED screen. Then, it dinged again.

  “What do you mean?”

  Huma decided she didn’t have the heart for this. This was even harder than fighting terrorists. “Never mind,” she wrote back. “Just too tired, I think. Hey, I’m at my apartment building. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She shut off the phone before Cheryl could reply. Out the taxi window, skyscrapers passed by, not at all close to her home. Huma sighed. Not exactly crack spy work, she thought. Against her will, a trickle of doubt pressed into her thoughts.

  Maybe Cheryl’s the mole . . .

  She shook her head as a flood of guilt came to her. That’s crazy, she thought, and a little part of herself was mad that she could think of such a thing. This business could make anyone paranoid.

  Huma looked back at the back window of the cab towards the Waldorf Astoria she had just left. President Obama, himself, was staying in the presidential suite in preparation for the yearly General Assembly at the UN.

  There’s no mole, she thought, as the cab slowly rode away from the famed hotel. There must be some sort of mistake. No one at Hillaryland would do such a thing, no one is a traitor.

  “Almost there, miss,” the cab driver said, his bushy eyes looking at the rear-view mirror of the vehicle.

  Huma turned back around, and sure enough, her apartment building in Park Avenue South, a limestone pre-war building, rose into view in the distance, the streetlamps casting its light on the stately building.

  “Thank you,” she said to the Pakistani cabbie, and she situated herself once more in the seat. As the taxi cab came closer and closer, however, her BlackBerry vibrated, signaling a call.

  Bzzzt Bzzzt

  Huma picked up the phone and tapped the LED screen. It wasn’t a call, however. It was a text message . . . from someone she didn’t know.

  1 TEXT MESSAGE FROM nwoguy771, it read.

  Something about the message didn’t feel right, but she pressed on the screen anyways.

  “U looking for the mole? I have information. Txt me back if interested.”

  As Huma held the BlackBerry, the screen lit up the dark cabbie inside as the vehicle continued to move towards her apartment building.

  •••

  CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

  In her stately suburban home of Chappaqua, Hillary read by lamplight at her desk. She was in the third floor study of her home, furnished with bookcases and an antique mahogany desk where she’d spent many nights reading and studying the issues and mission briefings of the day. Outside, the rolling fields and hills of her estate, cordoned off by a whitewashed wooden gate, lay quiet, not at all unusual in the quaint community of Chappaqua in Westchester County just outside of New York.

  A delicately woven rug, brought over from Arkansas, rested at her feet as “The Book,” a spiral-bound binder, spread open on her desk. The various departments and sub-departments of State sent her these reports every day detailing the most minute of details regarding the foreign relations of the United States. This time, the pages spoke of Greece and a profile of that country’s foreign minister, Dimitri Avramopoulos. A picture of an elderly silver-haired gentlemen looked back at her from the pages of the document as it read:

  . . . Greece, still reeling from the Euro crisis and subsequent bailout by the European powers, “The Book” read, is sensitive to her position in the EU and the world stage, and the Secretary should be mindful of Greek pride in this situation. While the crisis in Europe is lessening, Greece still shares—

  Hillary pushed the Book away from her and pinched the bridge of her nose. Sometimes, when she’s read too much, she can get a condition sort of like vertigo putting her in danger of headaches. An occupational hazard for a Secretary of State where reports never seem to cease from “The Building” back in Washington or in case of this week, the mini-State Department at the Waldorf.

  That wasn’t the only source of her worries, though. The ongoing mission on Benghazi was never far from her mind. There hadn’t been much progress the last few days, and the implications of failure was stark. A HAARP weather array, she thought, in the hands of terrorists and madmen . . .

  Bzzzt Bzzzt

  Hillary turned to the BlackBerry resting beside “The Book.” It rumbled on the desk as it continued to vibrate.

  Bzzzt Bzzzt

  She quickly picked it up, and Jake answered on the other end of the phone. “Sorry for
the interruption,” he said, a bit winded as though by excitement. “We’ve cracked it.”

  Hillary stood up with the phone at her ear. “What’d you find?” The past weekend and all this past day, she’d asked about the encrypted files pilfered from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo, and now, she was going to get her answer.

  “Not much, really,” Jake said as she made her way to the window nook, revealing a view of the manicured grounds of Chappaqua including a swimming pool and forested trails. Much to her disappointment, it had not received much use these past few years where she’d longed to do swimming exercises. She hadn’t done much exercise at all if she was honest . . . to disastrous consequences.

  “Mostly correspondences between the various parts of the party machinery in Egypt,” Jake continued. “Mundane stuff,”

  “Oh,” Hillary said, sounding slightly disappointed. Jake wouldn’t be calling her, she told herself, if he didn’t have any news to share with her.

  Picking up on her disappointment, Jake spoke quickly. “We did find a databank of aliases, mainly of #2.” She pressed her ear closer to the phone, as though that would make the information come quicker.

  “Get this,” he added. “He’s used these aliases in passports to enter the United States. We already have copies of them.”

  Hillary wasn’t sure she heard right. “What?” she said incredulously. Questions whirred in her mind not the least of which was how one of the world’s most wanted terrorists visited the US under their noses and his reasons for doing so.

  “The odd thing was,” Jake said, “he didn’t visit many parts of the US or several for that matter . . . #2 only visited Washington, DC, well actually in the DC area.”

  She didn’t quite get what Jake was leading up to. It seemed odd a terrorist mastermind would focus on the DC suburbs as opposed to the city itself unless, of course, he planned to target the Pentagon or the CIA in Langley.

  “His itinerary stated he came to visit just one place, a single address in Chevy Chase,” Jake said.

  Chevy Chase? she asked herself. Not exactly a haven for terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. It was a small town, highly affluent in the Maryland side of DC. “Who are these people?”