by Ward Salud
“Well, busy girl,” she said, scooting out of her seat.
“Don’t let her leave,” Hillary said inside Huma’s earpiece. “I repeat, do not let her leave.”
“Wait,” Huma said, reaching forwards. Alessandra, who had already gotten up from the corner booth seating and looked set to leave with her purse on her forearm, turned back to her. “How about we go shopping?” Huma added, trying to give the most sincere smile she could. It was the only thing, she could come up with. “My treat.”
“Good thinking, Huma,” Hillary said in the earpiece. “Cheryl, get what they need.”
Alessandra tilted her head up as though thinking about it for a moment before turning her attention back to Huma. “Sure,” she said, agreeing to her request. “Sounds like fun.”
Huma breathed a sigh of relief. Now she had to improvise more, she decided.
They paid, and she followed Alessandra out of the restaurant. “Are you sure you can afford this?” the socialite asked as they passed through Bistro Capitale’s patrons happily conversing and dining on their fare. “Anthony’s not exactly employed, is he?”
She tried to keep her temper in check. “We do fine,” she said back even as she opened the door to exit the restaurant.
They made it out to the sidewalk on famous Pennsylvania Avenue. Pedestrians strolled by the midrise buildings, and right next door, the concrete FBI Building loomed. Nearby, she knew the green lawns of the National Mall were close by.
Cheryl’s husky voice came in through her earpiece. “A vehicle’s coming shortly . . .”
As if on cue, a black sedan pulled up to the sidewalk. Alessandra seemed curious. “What year?” she asked.
Huma glanced at her, not knowing what she was talking about.
“The vehicle,” Alessandra added. “What year?”
She thought for a moment. “2009?” she said, not entirely sure, causing Alessandra to sigh.
“I suppose,” she said.
They entered the vehicle and both of them situated themselves in the comfortable leather seating. Dark-tinted windows obscured their forms from the outside world.
“There’s a new plan,” Hillary said once more in the earpiece. Huma smiled back at Alessandra.
“Downtown,” she said to the driver, whom she knew was an undercover DSS agent.
Beside her, Alessandra took her iPhone from her purse and began texting.
“Your vehicle will be involved in a car crash on F Street,” Hillary continued. “In the tumult, undercover DSS agents posing as paramedics will load her into our ambulance and take her away. Brace yourself.”
The message cut off, and Huma readied herself even as the sedan pulled up off the road and began its trek up Pennsylvania Avenue.
They had turned and soon passed E Street, and she knew they only had another block to go.
“Look at that,” Alessandra said. She had been drawn away from her texting and pointed to a storefront on her side of the rear window.
Huma looked over and saw a storefront. Mannequins stood frozen, and one of them held a handbag in the crook of its arm. Chanel by the looks of it, she thought.
“Oh my God, I have to have that purse,” Alessandra squealed and to Huma’s horror, the socialite opened the car door and jumped onto the street.
“No, wait. Don’t leave the—” Alessandra didn’t listen and continued to head to the storefront. Huma quickly followed her out of the car and carefully crossed the busy street, watching out for oncoming vehicles. One came dangerously close and honked at her, but she soon joined the socialite on the sidewalk before the store where Alessandra gawked at the Chanel purse.
“That purse is too cute!” she said and then dragged Huma towards the store. “Come on! We’ll shop till the morning comes!”
Huma let herself be dragged even while farther ahead, on F Street, a car slammed into the vehicle they had just left.
CHAPTER TEN
SOMEWHERE IN THE PERUVIAN JUNGLE
OCTOBER 12, 2012
The airstrip was carved out of the Peruvian jungle, and along with the converted air control tower, the complex was now commandeered as a CIA black site prison, where America’s enemies came to be forgotten. Once a clandestine drug cartel narco-airport, the Peruvian government allowed its use for the Americans whenever certain . . . matters had to be taken care of.
It was afternoon in the CIA black site prison. From the air, the surrounding jungle surrounded the converted airstrip as macaws and squalls squawked in the distance. The sun blazed in the sky, and on the runway, an American Boeing C-17 Globemaster cargo plane sat idle, having delivered a particularly sensitive prisoner earlier in the day.
Hillary Clinton led a group of guards through the dank concrete lined hallways of the converted airport control terminal. As water dripped into a puddle somewhere close by, her guards, Peruvian government agents in jungle fatigues, dragged their prisoner through the hallway, a burlap bag over her head. The prisoner was Alessandra James.
After Huma’s unsuccessful mission, they commiserated amongst themselves back at the State Department. After a prolonged debate, they settled on a simple snatching job. In the middle of the night, she and Huma snatched Alessandra in a parking lot while she was out on the town in Chevy Chase.
A cell door opened, and Hillary went inside followed shortly by the two Peruvian guards and their prisoner. The interrogation room, a spartan concrete block, quickly filled with people, and as Hillary looked on, the guards forcibly sat Alessandra down onto a bare chair. A barrelful of water sat on the side of the room, while only the sparest sheaths of sunlight came from two barred windows.
Hillary’s blond brows sweated, par for the course in Peru’s merciless jungle.
“All is set, Señora Clinton,” one of the guards said to her as soon as they finished their task. On the chair, Alessandra lolled about, no doubt still disoriented from the trip over. She’s not in Chevy Chase anymore, Hillary thought with dark satisfaction, paraphrasing one of her favorite movies, The Wizard of Oz.
She nodded to her guards, alerting them that they could leave.
“Si se puede!” the two guards said aloud.
“Si se puede!” Hillary said back. One of the guards looked back on their prisoner, a sneer on his face, even as they left the dank chamber.
At last, she was alone with Alessandra. Hillary stepped slowly forward towards her seated prisoner, bent down, and removed the burlap bag from the socialite’s head, causing her to gasp after finally having some air to breathe.
“Welcome to Peru,” Hillary said coldly.
“You psycho bitch!” Alessandra cried out. “What did you do to me?!”
Hillary wasn’t fazed. “We know all about you,” she said. “We know what you’ve done, and we know about your affair.”
Alessandra didn’t reply. She only looked back coldly, dried streaks of blood on her lips.
“You’ll tell us everything you know,” Hillary said as though it was a given, as though all resistance was irrelevant. Alessandra only scoffed back and looked away from her.
She knew this would happen. Prisoners were rarely cooperative . . . at least in the beginning. “I’ve gotten authorization . . . to do what’s necessary in order for you to comply.” She glanced over to the rusted barrel, filled to the brim with water.
Alessandra once more didn’t reply. She continued to look away, refusing to make eye contact.
Hillary gazed down, disappointed. It would be a lot easier, she thought with resignation, if they would just cooperate. “I was hoping it didn’t come to this . . .”
Making one last glance at the barrel of water, she went towards Alessandra, but something happened, causing her to stumble to the side.
BOOM
Somewhere far away, in another part of the complex, an explosion suddenly rocked the prison, and righting herself, Hillary gazed around, confused. What was that? she thought.
Seated on the chair, Alessandra had a malicious smile on her face.
> The complex shook again. There was another explosion far away.
Worried, she made her way to the intercom and pressed on the call button. “Pedro,” she scolded. “What’s going on?!”
“I do not know, Señora Clinton,” Pedro said back, panicked. “The prisoners, they’ve— AGHHHHH!” On the other end, another explosion sounded, no doubt claiming the life of her loyal guard. Hillary gazed back, stricken eyes on the intercom panel.
Just then, laughter sounded in the dank cell, a malicious laughter like that of someone reveling in another’s misfortune. Hillary turned. It was Alessandra, and seated in the chair, she continued her macabre laugher. “Wasn’t expecting that, were you, Hillary!” she screeched.
She gulped. For the first time in quite some time, she didn’t know what would happen next. The dank cell shook again, forcing her to fall back onto the wall and hang onto the intercom panel for support. Her eyes careened around the cell, looking for any sign of the cause for the explosions. Were they under attack? she thought wildly. That was impossible, they were in—
“There’s more surprises where that came from,” Alessandra said, and Hillary caught her breath at what she saw before her.
Alessandra rose from her chair and then turned menacingly towards Hillary.
With a piercing scream, Alessandra charged at her, spraying mace the entire way.
•••
LINCOLN MEMORIAL
WASHINGTON, DC
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OCTOBER 15, 2012
The solitary figure of Abraham Lincoln, seated on its marble seat, gazed out onto the National Mall where in the distance, the sun shone down on the Washington Monument, rising its obelisk form into the skyline of the nation’s capital.
Huma Abedin, in a Nordstrom coat, stayed near the shadows in the far corner of the Lincoln Memorial, a marble neoclassical structure, away from the Doric columns. She crossed her arms as she awaited someone even as a few tourists gawked at the marble statue of America’s sixteenth president.
I shouldn’t have come, Huma thought, but she knew her curiosity got the best of her. Today was the day she was supposed to meet her mysterious informant, the one who texted her a few weeks ago in New York. She eyed the area, at first finding no one that matched his description, and then off by the entrance, she saw him.
The man, pudgy and with brown hair wearing a simple coat, shirt, and shorts, came in a bit nervous, and he too looked around as though looking for someone. She stepped towards the light as his head turned and noticed her.
Huma waited for the man to come towards her. “You nwoguy771?” she asked.
The informant nodded and then eyed his surroundings nervously “I know you’re looking for a mole,” he said, stepping deeper into the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial.
“What do you have?” Huma asked. She didn’t know why, but her heart beat faster. The guy seemed a bit out of it, but she thought maybe it wasn’t the situation rather the possibility that one of her friends might be the culprit.
The informant made his voice low. “Real weird shit, lady. Like New World Order type of shit.”
At the mention of the New World Order, Huma’s heart fell. “What did you say?”
“You don’t know about the New World Order?” the informant asked, somewhat surprised. “I thought you worked for them, but when you answered my text, I knew you were one of the—”
“I made a mistake,” Huma said, quickly walking past him and bumping against his shoulder. She clearly just made a meeting with an internet crank, the New World Order, of course, supposedly being a shadow world government in conspiracy theories widely disseminated online and on YouTube.
“Wait,” he said panicked, grabbing hold of her shoulder. “The mole, it’s the President,” he continued, his eyes wide. “Alex Jones told me himself.”
Ugh, Huma thought. Now, she knew she just wasted her time. Alex Jones was the proprietor of the conspiracy theory website, infowars.com. Huma moved her elbow away and began to head towards the steps of the Memorial.
“You have to believe me,” he said. “Don’t be a narc!”
Huma ignored him and headed down the stone steps convinced she had wasted a few hours of her life.
•••
In the Peruvian interrogation cell, Hillary clawed at her eyes. The mace had taken its effect, and the only thing she could see was the blurry image of the dank chamber even as the chemical stung and burned her eyes. She could only close her eyes most of the time, and the stickiness and irritation made it hard to see anything.
Alessandra was somewhere over her continuing to spray the mace into her eyes. “Aaaahhhhhhhh,” Hillary cried out with even more of the mace burning her eye sockets. She fell back onto the concrete floor and tried to drag herself away from the marauding socialite. How did she smuggle that damn mace? she thought frantically.
“You had no idea, did you?” Alessandra sneered, spraying the mace again for added measure. Hillary tried to shield her face with her arm as best as she could. “I wanted to be captured. “The prisoners you supposedly ‘caught,’” she made air quotes around the word caught, “Two made sure they had something nice in their blood to make them go Boom.”
Hillary still tried to drag herself away from the mace-wielding socialite. Whatever Alessandra was talking about, it must be about some sort of bloodstream bomb. Al Qaeda bomb makers had increasingly become more sophisticated. A bloodstream bomb using a chemical like PETN wasn’t out of the question.
At any rate, she had to fight back. Her DSS training taught her to fight blind using blindfolds. If only the mace didn’t burn so much, but she had to try.
Fighting through her burned vision, she tried to pick herself up, but Alessandra had other ideas
The socialite screamed aloud making Hillary’s ears hurt along with her eyes and then grabbed onto her hair. Hillary winced as Alessandra pulled on the roots of her hair and forcibly began to drag her.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Alessandra said. From what she could see, she was being dragged to the water barrel.
“Drink this, BITCH!” Alessandra cried out, having dragged Hillary just before the barrel filled with water. She wasn’t going to like this, Hillary thought even as her head went on a trajectory towards the barrel.
Her head plunged into the water, and soon, her whole head was immersed in the warm, dank water. Hillary tried to cry out from the sudden attack, but her voice was muffled inside the water barrel.
Alessandra held tight on her hair and pushed her deeper into the water even as Hillary’s air supply quickly dwindled. Her lungs felt like they were on fire. Can’t breathe, she thought. Can’t breathe.
Then, the hand pulled her out of the barrel, spraying water everywhere. Hillary gasped aloud, trying to breathe back the air into her lungs.
“Two said to kill you,” Alessandra said to her. “It’ll be my pleasure!”
She dunked her head back into the water, and Hillary’s head once more swam in the water barrel. It was remarkable how quickly her lungs lost air, and soon, she gasped for it. Dank water filled her throat as Alessandra kept her head in the barrel.
There was no denying it, Hillary thought. She was going to die if she didn’t think of something fast. Her head gradually became more lightheaded as images and sounds whirred in her brain.
Have to fight back, she chided herself, and one particular memory flashed before her. The boisterous crowd cheered before her as she made her way to the podium. It was Ohio 2008, and the campaign lights at the Franklin, Ohio high school burned down on her.
“For everyone here in Ohio and across America,” she saw herself saying in an orange pantsuit. “Who’s ever been counted out but refused to be counted out,” The crowd cheered aloud as they held up their Hillary signs. “For everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up. And for everyone—” Her words momentarily drowned in the audience’s cheers. “Who works hard and never gives up. This one’s for you!”
Th
e memory ended but not before she saw herself pointing to the crowd exuberantly.
Somehow, she found the strength. She screamed a primal scream so much so the water gurgled around her, and then, with what remained of her strength, she pushed herself to the side, toppling the water barrel over. The water barrel spilled its contents to the concrete floor, while she and Alessandra, who cried out, also fell to the ground.
On the floor, Hillary gasped, her chest heaving up and down. There was something else as well. She could finally see again. As water dripped all over her face, the ceiling came clear to her now. She even saw the ceiling fan that spun lackadaisically above. The water from the barrel, she thought, it must have cleared her eyesight. Her eyes no longer burned, it no longer hurt.
“NO!”
Hillary looked over. Alessandra scrambled on the floor towards the mace bottle, which had apparently rolled off away from her when she fell.
She quickly picked herself up and pounced on Alessandra. “Not on my watch,” she said to her, putting the socialite in a headlock around her neck.
Alessandra struggled to breathe. “I’d never vote for you,” she said, and then, she elbowed Hillary on the face.
She wasn’t expecting it, and the blow sailed through right on her nose. Crying out, she felt her face pierce with pain even as Alessandra scrambled up and ran away from her.
Having apparently given up on the mace spray bottle, she headed straight for the door. Hillary fought through the pain and picked herself up.
It was too late.
She saw her fleeting form, and the cell door slammed shut behind the socialite.
Hillary ran after her. She opened the door and onto the corridor where they had led Alessandra into the interrogation cell. She scanned quickly and not finding her, she ran once more, but at the end of the corridor, when she arrived at the prison ward, she came to a stop.
The whole prison was in chaos. The prison cells had been opened, and everywhere, patrol guards fought with the escaped prisoners. Several prisoners, terrorists caught in conflicts such as Yemen and Iraq, ganged up on a single guard, kicking him as the guard shielded their blows with his arms and legs. Around them, the bloody remains of suicide bombers spread out on the ground. Arms and legs lay scattered and everywhere splatters of blood on the walls and floors. Fire licked where a suicide bomber had blown himself up.