A Day of Discovery

"Now will you listen to my plan?"  It was Condoleezza Rice, who had used the Columbus Day holiday break to fly into Washington for a Heurich Society meeting.  "Obama's got them eating out of the palm of his hand!"  She was referring, of course, to the Nobel Peace Prize committee and all it stood for.  "We cannot lose sight of what's really important, even if naive people around the world do!"  She had been campaigning for twenty minutes for the Heurich Society to cancel the Ming Dung Plan (secretly authored by Charles Wu) and institute her new plan:  the Eliminati.  "Governmental ministers from countries all over the world--including the U.S. and China--are meeting in Singapore as we speak to unite Interpol intelligence with United Nations peacekeeper manpower to form the first truly global police force."  Henry Samuelson was clenching and unclenching both fists, partially upset by what she was saying and partially upset that "Frank" had forgotten it was his turn to bring the doughnuts.  "It has come to this:  the spies of the world will be controlling an international army of mercenaries."  The Chair was salivating with anticipation as Rice continued.  "The mercenaries will do what the spies dictate, all in the name of United Nations peacekeeping."

"Isn't this mostly about drug and slave trafficking?"asked a former Undersecretary of State.

"Wrong!"  Rice's nostrils flared in contempt.  "That's what they want us to believe!  But we know better.  We already have three men in Interpol, so we are well on our way."  She was, in fact, counting Charles Wu as one of her men in Singapore, though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also counting him as one of her men in Singapore-- as were the British Foreign Secretary, several smugglers in Hong Kong, and Wu's official handler inside the Chinese Communist Party.  "Will somebody second my motion to cancel the Ming Dung Plan and institute Project Eliminati?"  Rice was intoxicated with the brilliance of her own plan...and that sweet something she felt every time she was back in Washington.

A couple of miles away, Ardua of the Potomac had been mutually energized by the visit from Condoleezza Rice until Golden Fawn and Marcos Vasquez had appeared on the water.  Columbus Day was Golden Fawn's least favorite holiday, and Vasquez had whisked her off to kayak to Theodore Roosevelt Island as soon as his Coast Guard shift had ended.  It was a chilly day, but Golden Fawn had lit a fire and burned seven different sticks of incense against Ardua in it; she felt warm and hopeful with Vasquez's arms wrapped around her, and Vasquez knew it.  He pulled her face towards him and asked if they could stop the insane wedding planning and simply elope.  After a brief conversation and several kisses, the happy couple decided to elope to Cape Lookout in North Carolina.  They huddled closer and blissfully awaited the sunset.

Back at Golden Fawn's apartment at Southwest Plaza, the building management team was making an unannounced visit to check that her unit (along with all the other units on her floor) was ready for the "surprise" federal inspection starting tomorrow.  (Southwest Plaza management had been tipped off by their inside man.)  What the team had discovered was an ungrounded electrical outlet, a malfunctioning smoke alarm, mouse droppings inside the brand new cabinets (which had been installed in a manner that had ripped out most of the walls behind them), fissures in the balcony (which had been completely demolished and rebuilt the year before), and four leaks.  Then they had discovered Golden Fawn's medicine bag, which they were now suspiciously sniffing.  "I dunno," said one dullard.  "She's an Indian chick, ain't she?"  "What will the Feds say if it's weed or hashish?"  "I dunno--what's hashish?"  

"Shut up, both of you!"  The assistant property manager had long suspected that Golden Fawn and her boy scout boyfriend Vasquez were the ones egging on the Feds.  "Just paint over those leaks--hurry up!"  The assistant property manager carefully pulled out a bag of marijuana she kept in a lead container inside a hidden pocket of her briefcase and dropped it into the medicine bag.  "Game on," she whispered to herself.

A few miles away, Sebastian L'Arche was in the White House attending one of many birthday parties thrown for Bo, who had just turned one.  The White House ghosts were in a mellow mood--partly because of the Nobel Peace Prize, and partly because the long stay of The Gipper and Lucky Charm with White House butler Clio had worked wonders in teaching Bo how to show those ghosts who was boss.  But Bo still would not swim, and for a Portuguese water dog not to swim was simply embarrassing.  L'Arche had often contemplated telling President Obama that it was precisely Bo's extraordinary water senses that kept him out of the local water because he could feel the demonic taint caused by Ardua of the Potomac, but L'Arche was uncertain how to get Obama to believe it.  L'Arche had also thought about telling the First Lady or the girls, but he suspected this would result in lifelong surveillance from the Secret Service.  He was certain he could have told Clio the truth, but she was suffering enough in her life as it was.  As for the twins--who were currently smearing birthday cake frosting onto the wall--he actually suspected that they knew all about it.  "Some might say they're bad to the bone," said Bridge as he sidled up to L'Arche and nodded over to Ferguson and Regina, "but it's not their fault.  They were born here, and they just feel it all."  L'Arche, who had never seen a dog that liked Fergie or Reggie, nodded slowly.  "They feel it all, hear it all, smell it all--but they don't really know nothin' about evil....But it knows them."  A shiver went down L'Arche's back as he watched the twin toddlers whisper to each other and point conspiratorially at Bo.  In a dark corner, one of the Shackled watched in silence.