by Ward Salud
•••
“AAAAHHHHH!” the imposter screamed fanatically as he plunged the knife straight at Hillary, but she managed to block the knife with the lamp she held. She pushed back with the lamp, forcing him back, and then threw it. If the tabloids could see her now, she thought . . .
The imposter Bill Clinton deflected the lamp easily with his arm, sending it shattering to the floor.
Hillary saw her chance and ran for the door, only to hear the imposter scream again. He threw the knife, sending it straight for her.
She ran past as the knife arced and impaled itself in the partition wall. She didn’t have time to think about it. Making it out to the foyer, the door was in her sights, but she winced as a pain seared in her head.
“Gotcha,” the imposter said, grabbing onto her hair.
He began to drag her back into the living room. “Nuh uh, Heeellarry,” he said, but she already had her counterattack ready.
Ignoring the pain, she grabbed his hand on top of her head, turned her body into his side, wrenching his arm inwards into him, and then, with his grip loose, she grabbed his jaw from behind and pulled him down, causing him to fall back and thud onto the floor.
She has to escape now, she thought. The Secret Service was just outside . . .
She had made it a few steps forward only to have the imposter grab onto her foot. Uh oh, she thought. The attack made her lose her balance, sending her crashing to the floor.
Her arms and body screamed in pain, absorbing the fall, and there was something else as well. The imposter, grabbing onto her foot, made her lose her shoe. Definitely not a Nicholas Sarkozy, she thought as she continued to reel from the pain, referring to the chivalrous President of France.
The imposter caught up to her and grabbed onto her hair once more.
She winced again as he picked her up almost with ease. “Now you will die, Hillary,” he said, his gaze centering maliciously on the coffee table. “By my hand.”
His hand still grasping at her hair, he took her over to the coffee table. Then, he slammed her head against the glass table, her head violently thudding against its side.
“Die, Hillary, Die!” he cried out. He slammed her head again, this time drawing blood. It oozed down her face and she could taste the irony tang of it in her mouth.
Again and again, he slammed her head on the coffee table with Hillary increasingly dazed and seeing only a blur.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The taxi pulled up on a brick colonial house on Embassy Row. As Huma well knew, it was called Whitehaven, Mrs. Clinton’s Washington, DC home. She’d traveled on this dead end street, home after handsome home of the embassies of foreign nations, been here many times before but not like this.
Two Secret Service agents, in black suits and sunglasses, already held out their hands in front of them even before Huma could get to the door.
“Whoa, whoa,” the Secret Service agent said as she got out of the taxi. He had a buzz cut, and he was none too happy to see here. Like usual, their black security van was parked right outside of Whitehaven with the Danish Embassy, a sleek modernist structure of glass and steel, across from Hillary’s house.
“Let me in,” Huma said hurriedly. “It’s an emerge—”
“The President doesn’t want any visitors,” the bald and fit African American secret service agent said back, a frown on his face.
“The Secretary,” Huma replied as urgently as she could. She took a step forward, but the agents blocked her path. “She’s in grave danger,” she continued, becoming more and more flustered.
The agents both exchanged a glance. “We’ve been here the whole day,” the agent with the buzz cut said back. “Trust us, we’d know if something was up.” He placed a hand on Huma’s elbow and led her out. “Go on now.”
Huma looked over her shoulders to Whitehaven, its door closed and window curtains drawn, as they led her away from the house.
She can’t waste any more time, she thought. Her boss was in danger, she just knew it. She had to act.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Huma immediately struck the abdomen of the secret service agent, causing him to double over, and then threw him over her shoulder. His body crashed to the ground in an oomph, and Huma followed it up by striking him in the chest, injuring him even more.
Not expecting the attack, the African American agent only widened his eyes at what he saw, but Huma immediately attacked before he could react. She grabbed his arm and threw him over her shoulder, followed by a strike to the side of his neck.
She didn’t give herself time to feel guilty. Instead, Huma left the injured agents and ran to the front door.
Locked.
She tried again, but the knob still wouldn’t open. Grabbing her standard issue SIG Sauer from the back waistband of her suit trousers, she pointed the gun at the doorknob.
Mrs. Clinton is going to kill me for this, she thought, but she fired anyway. The doorknob and wooden door splintered, and with a kick, Huma gained entry to Whitehaven.
Inside, the cream-colored walls and handsome furnishings bespoke of domestic tranquility. In the entrance passageway, a staircase led upward, and at first, Huma thought she was mistaken, but one glance at the living room and her fears came true.
She looked around panicked. It looked like a fight had occurred in the room. The beige couch and seats were all askew, while the glass coffee table lay shattered. An overturned lamp littered the floor, and most ominously, blood stained the rug. Huma gulped at the wreckage, but one thing was missing, her boss was still nowhere to be found.
She ran into the sunroom. It was her boss’s favorite room, an addition that Mrs. Clinton and President Clinton added in the mid 2000’s, close to the pool out back and the nature of the backyard. She knew the agents could come in any second, but she ran to the sunroom anyway. There, the trail of destruction continued. The world got to see the sunroom during the “I’m in” YouTube video announcing Clinton’s entry into the White House race in 2007, but now the peaceful tranquility of the room: the seats, the deer stand lamp in the corner, President Clinton’s Chihuly glass keepsakes on the mantle tops were all upended. Her thoughts raced wildly. What happened here?
A trudging sound snapped her attention to the adjoining hall where it led to the kitchen, which like the rest of the house was tastefully decorated with white borders on the kitchen cabinetry and flowers on the window sill above the sink. Huma instantly raised her SIG Sauer in front of her.
She took a step towards the kitchen, but she stopped. Someone had appeared.
It was Hillary, and she was a mess.
She was glassy eyed as she trudged forward. A gash marked her forehead, dripping blood down on the side of her head. Her long blond hair was matted and untidy, and her pantsuit was frayed and torn in spots. Hillary didn’t seem to notice anyone else in the room, only staring blankly ahead, but she trudged forwards step by step until a moment later, she collapsed on the floor.
“Mrs. Clinton!” Huma cried out. She tried to catch her, but her boss’s body thudded to the wooden floor before she could get to her. Quickly, she hurried to her side and propped her head on her lap.
Huma wiped the matted hair off of her boss’s face, but there was nothing she could do. Her boss was out cold.
Panic started to set in, but then something caught her eye. In the kitchen, by the center island, a man lay dead on the floor. For a moment, she thought he was an older white man, but she noticed at his head and neck, the remnants of a torn latex mask revealing a Middle Eastern face.
The man’s eyes lay open with a dead stare, and on his neck were welts including nail marks around the sides of the esophagus.
The man was choked to death.
•••
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OCTOBER 11, 2012
Seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, President Obama read the report in his hand. General Dempsey and
Admiral McRaven, both in their respective military uniforms, stood in front of the desk. They had just placed the classified documents on the President’s desk, documents that Obama was now reading.
“As you can see, Mr. President,” the general said, “We may have found #2’s whereabouts.” Beside him, Admiral McRaven’s grave expression denoted the gravity of the situation; that it was likely troops would be sent in harm’s way.
The manila folder lay open in Obama’s hands, and he leafed through the documents one by one. The current page revealed a black and white overhead satellite image of a rugged, almost barren land. A mountain stood prominently in the center, but roads ringed the mountain and some inexplicably led into the mountain itself at various points. At the bottom, a caption read “Fordow Nuclear Enrichment Facility.”
Obama already recognized the name. The CIA had revealed this clandestine facility in 2009, and with then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and then French President Nicholas Sarkozy, they announced the existence of the nuclear enrichment facility, much to the world’s shock. Now, he wondered why #2 would choose this place as a hiding spot.
He looked at both military men in front of him. “Iran?” he asked.
•••
NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL
NEW YORK CITY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DECEMBER 13, 2012
Hillary lay on the hospital bed, eyes closed and a white blanket up to her waist. Huma, Cheryl, Jake, Dan, and Philippe waited by her side. Huma sat in a chair right beside the hospital bed reading a magazine next to a table filled with well wishes and gifts including a teddy bear as Cheryl and Jake waited by the door, absently checking on their BlackBerry’s. Jake himself leaned his back against the wall as he did so. Dan and Philippe sat on a couch blankly watching the small LCD television screen propped up against the wall. It seemed the noise of the city outside didn’t reach the confines of Hillary’s single occupancy hospital room. All was quiet, almost funereal.
At last, Hillary, in a hospital gown, stirred. It was a blur at first, but carefully, she opened her eyes.
Huma noticed first, and she put down her magazine and reached Hillary’s side. The rest noticed Huma, and they too stood up to see what was going on.
Hillary couldn’t see anything, and then, as her vision cleared, she saw a familiar face. “Huma?” she asked. She spoke too soon. Other faces appeared, Cheryl, Jake, everybody all looking down worried.
“We’re here,” Huma replied. “You need rest.”
“What . . .” She was about to ask what had happened, but her train of thought grew hazy, mercurial. She remembered an assassin in Whitehaven, a fight . . .
Her head swam. Jake and Dan helped prop her up against the bed, but that seemed to make it worse.
“Don’t worry about your cover story,” Philippe said. The faint voice of a television reporter echoed in the background.
“Hillary Clinton has been admitted to New York Presbyterian suffering from a concussion caused by a stomach virus . . .”
“A few Republicans came close to breaking our cover,” he added. “But I threw them off the scent.” He beamed proudly at that only to be met by a frown from Cheryl. Philippe quieted down, though he had a slightly annoyed look at Hillary’s Chief of Staff.
“Look,” Dan said. He picked up a few cards from the small table and waved them in front of her. “Your predecessors sent get well wishes. This one’s from Condi,” he continued, rifling through the various get well soon cards. “And this one’s from Albright. Kissinger sent the best one.” He gestured to the teddy bear sitting adorably in the middle of all the cards. It held a rose in its hand, and on its tummy, it read "Hope You’re OK!"
Huma and Cheryl glanced to see who would speak first, and Cheryl took it up. “We’re looking into the security breach,” she informed her.
Security breach? Hillary thought. Then, she remembered. Bill!
There was an imposter. He had attacked her. Now she didn’t know where he was. “Where’s Bill?” she asked groggily. She faintly remembered him by her side holding her hand . . .
Everyone in the room quieted down, and some glanced to the floor at the mention of the former President’s name.
“President Clinton has been taken by the Iranians,” Huma explained. “They’ve been working with #2 and Al Qaeda.”
Hillary couldn’t believe what she heard. “But he was . . . here,” she said.
“The CIA already sent his body double here to keep up appearances with the press,” Huma added, her eyes crestfallen. “The President has already ordered a rescue plan. We should get a briefing soon.”
“But this operation will require more planning,” Cheryl added. “Iran is a much tougher country to infiltrate.”
Hillary heard their explanations, but she didn’t want to believe it. All she knew was that Bill needed her. She tried to get out of her bed, but Huma and Dan held her back.
“What are you doing?” Huma asked, holding Hillary’s shoulders back.
“I’m going,” she said. “Bill needs me.”
“You can’t,” Huma said back. “You need your rest.”
“I can’t let you guys go without me. It’s Bill,” she said. Already, so many nightmares pervaded her thoughts. He was out there all alone in enemy hands. What were they doing to him? Torture? Was he even alive? His heart, she thought. It’s the most fragile thing about him. “It’s Bill,” she repeated, though in her weakened state, she couldn’t fight off both Huma and Dan’s determination to keep her in bed. Their combined strength gradually forced her back.
“I already asked,” Huma explained, gently pushing Hillary to the hospital bed. “The President gave his permission. We won’t leave without you. He said he needed his best agent on the job.”
That admission calmed her. It meant, though, she had to recuperate as fast as possible. “Thank you,” she said.
The room quieted down. There was nothing left to say. Oh, Bill, Hillary thought as she slid back to bed. With his busy schedule and her twin jobs, they could only see each other in spare moments the past few years, but there was always a connection there. Now, the connection wasn’t there anymore. Bill, she thought, pining for him again. It had always been the case. She had always needed him more than he needed her.
•••
HARRY S. TRUMAN FEDERAL BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
JANUARY 19, 2013
“She’s late,” Dan Schwerin asked, standing by the worktable close to the center aisle of Hillaryland Ops on the seventh floor of the State Department. With the screens that lined the walls and the main viewscreen at the front of the chamber turned off, the room was dark with only the faintest light emanating from the computer monitors on both sides of the center aisle.
“What else is new?” Philippe said sarcastically, sitting tiredly at the computer worktable.
“She’ll come,” Cheryl said. She and Huma were side by side at the front of the room by the viewscreen, while Jake was on the opposite side, stacks of reports already in hand like a dutiful student. “She always does.”
“She’s really late,” Jake piped up.
“You’re pretty new to Hillaryland,” Philippe said. “You should have been there during—”
Behind them, in the corner of the room, the door into Hillaryland Ops began to open. Slowly at first, the door finally opened to its full extent, bathing the room with so much light from the hallway that it seemed to be almost blinding. A figure stood amongst the light, a shadowy silhouette of a woman with long blond locks and wearing a pantsuit.
Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped foot into her namesake Ops. Much remained the same except now, Fresnel Prism glasses framed her eyes. Everyone stood up, all eyes on her.
“I had a concussion guys,” she said with a smile. “I didn’t come back from the dead.”
That seemed to lighten the mood.
Hillary made her way towards her aides, but
not before Dan Schwerin came up to her discreetly. “I’ve written your farewell speech,” Dan whispered.
“Not now, Dan,” she whispered back.
“Well, I just felt kind of left out lately . . . a secret agent doesn’t have much use for,” Dan stopped himself. “Oh never mind.”
Dan left her side and went back to the computer worktable.
Hillary continued on and joined up with her top aides. “Glad to have you back,” Cheryl said. Huma nodded alongside Cheryl. She smiled back at them warmly.
“Beginning mission briefing,” Philippe said, pressing a button on the keyboard, causing the viewscreen at the front of the room to flicker on.
President Obama appeared on the screen. Hands folded in front of him, he sat behind the Resolute Desk, the stars and stripes of the United States of America behind him.
“Good evening, everyone,” he said. He glanced around. “Hillary, Huma,” he continued, nodding at the both of them.
Hillary stood up a little straighter to face her Commander in Chief . . . and the man who beat her for the Democratic nomination.
Obama began his briefing. “Intelligence has tracked #2 to this remote location in Iran.” The President pressed a button on the speakerphone, which caused his image to minimize to make room for a larger satellite image. “The Fordow Enrichment Facility,” he explained. The satellite image didn’t reveal much, merely a rugged land of mountains and sparse land. “As you know, the actual facility is buried deep inside this mountain,” the voiceover of Obama said as a reticule targeted a prominent mountain at the center of the satellite image. Active arrows pointed to three tunnel entrances that seemed to lead deep into the mountain.
“Our intelligence also indicated the former President . . . Bill is held at this facility.”
Hillary gulped at hearing the name of her husband. The two men had a contentious relationship that was just now healing.
The viewscreen returned to the full image of the President behind the Resolute Desk. “Your mission is to rescue the former President as well as to stop the—” He paused for a moment, the gravity of what he was about to say evident on his face.