Nation to Nation

"What do you think would have happened to the U.K. if Scotland had voted to secede?" asked Camisole Silk, adjusting the sail again on the boat Charles Wu had rented them for this sunset cruise caper.

"Never would have happened!" declared British special agent Nigel "Prickly" Blackthorne, smiling at the Chinese beauty he was fairly certain was a spy (but he didn't mind).

"I don't know!" said Apricot Lily.  "That vote was pretty close!"

"Listen, girls," said British special agent Richard "The Third" Mollington (also on guard, mostly), "even if the vote to secede had gone through, it would have all gotten mucked up later, and they would have changed their minds, right?"

"As soon as their taxes went up when they realized they had to build an entire government bureaucracy, national army, and embassies all over the world," said Prickly.

"Not to mention renegotiate all the damned trade treaties!" said The Third.

"And do you think the Chinese, Brazilians, Mexicans or Saudis even have anybody that can understand that ridiculous Scottish brogue?!  The Scots would have to be dragging around bloody British interpreters with 'em!" laughed Prickly.

"Well, I like Englishmen!" declared Silk.  "Handsomer than Scots!"

"But Prince Harry better find a Scottish princess to marry!" exclaimed Lily.

"Why do girls always think marriage is the solution?" whispered Prickly to The Third.

Meanwhile, Charles Wu was having dinner with "C. Coe Phant" at District of Pi, pumping his State Department mole for more information on Islamic State counter-measures.

"The A.D.A.f.H. is in over his head," said Phant.  (Wu's puzzled expression indicated that he had forgotten the acronym.)  "The Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope:  it's impossible for him to keep the peace between John Kerry and Chuck Hagel."

"Some people think Hagel wants to drop the neutron bomb on the Levant," said Wu, fiddling with his beer bottle.

"Hilarious!" deadpanned Phant.  "But you should know better than me! You're the one with the Project R.O.D.H.A.M. agents over there."

Wu shook his head.  "Hagel found out about them and ordered them out--said he wasn't gonna take the risk of even one female agent's being decapitated on YouTube."

"How gallant of him," said Phant.  "Take out the most dangerous female soldiers in the world, and leave the unarmed civilian women defenseless."

"What Arab nations are actually going to send in ground troops?" asked Wu.  "What is the coalition?"

Phant shrugged.  "Well, you know the Saudis ain't gonna get their hands dirty--but they'll find some poor yokels to send in.  Probably hire them from Asia, just like everybody else they bring in to do all the dirty jobs they don't wanna do."

"Indonesians?  Afghans?"

"All of the above," said Phant.  "The actual commitments are not really commitments at all, except for some cash--but probably not enough cash to counter what their damned private citizens are sending to ISIS."

Wu smiled in relief at the arrival of the deep-dish pizzas.  He really knows nothing!  I hope Silk and Lily are having a more productive evening.

Over at the National Museum of the American Indian, Golden Fawn was back in her office, tired but happy after the grand opening of their special exhibit, Nation to Nation:  Treaties between the United States and American Indian Nations.  The turnout had been large, the crowds subdued but enthusiastic, and the social media coverage encouraging.  She had lobbied hard for a much harsher exhibit title, but too many others were adamant about not putting "broken treaties" or "broken promises" anywhere in the title exhibit.  She wrote down a few notes to herself about changes she wanted to make in the morning, then headed out to meet Marcos and Joey for the sponsors' dinner they were attending that night.  "Are you going to wear real clothes," Joey had asked her this morning, "or one of those black cocktail dresses like on TV?"  "Real clothes," Marcos had answered for his wife, smiling.  "The same ones she'll be wearing all day."  She stopped in the ladies' room to smooth her braids and adjust her beads, which told complicated stories interwoven from the Cheyenne, Cree, and Delaware ... including the legend of Ardua of the Potomac.  Sometimes she thought about putting those beads out on display to see if anybody would come along, read them, and understand...but she still barely understood it, herself.

A few blocks away, Glenn Michael Beckmann was returning from that very exhibit to blog about what a huge hoax and conspiracy the whole thing was--how there were actually no human beings at Plymouth Rock at all when Christopher Columbus landed there, only Yeti (which, of course, were eventually driven to near extinction, though a few bands are still hiding out in the Rocky Mountains).  All the people pretending to be Indians now are just Jews who don't want to live in Israel!  Except for the Japanese ones pretending to be Indians in Alaska.  He turned the key, entered his Southwest Plaza apartment, and was stunned to find his Russian/Ukrainian mail-order bride cooking soup for him in the kitchen.

"Who are you?" he asked, reaching half-heartedly for the block of butcher knives.

"Ms. Samuelson brought me here just for you!" said the young woman in heavily accented English.

"You sound like some kind of Commie!" exclaimed Beckmann, inching a little closer to the block of butcher knives.

"No, me nice Ukranian girl!  I hate those damned Russians!"

"Oh, great!" said, Beckmann, relaxing.  "That smells really good!"

Back at the Waterfront, the ghost of Condoleezza Rice's recently deceased cat, Pippin, had watched in anger as Camisole Silk distracted Prickly and The Third while Apricot Lily placed a 12th-generation Chinese listening device in the British agents' car.  It looked a lot like the listening device Charles Wu had inserted in Pippin's body years before, and, two hours later, Ghost Pippin was still going ballistic trying to tear the listening device out of the car.

"Come on!  Get out of there!" yelled Sebastian L'Arche at Ghost Pippin, but Ghost Pippin just hissed at him.  L'Arche rarely had trouble communicating with any animals at all, but he wasn't used to ghost pets.

"Here, kitty, kitty!" whispered his partner, Becky Hartley, who could not see Ghost Pippin herself, but knew he must be there if the Dog Whisperer said so.  Ghost Pippin lifted her leg in a ridiculous attempt to urinate on the girl.

"Oh, forget it!" said L'Arche, pulling all his leashes around.  "Cats are stupid!"

"Seb!" exclaimed Hartley.  "If you can't help him, nobody can!"

"Maybe he doesn't need help?  I mean, there gotta be more important things to do than help that bratty shit-for-brains!"

Hartley said nothing, but she didn't like the effect Pippin was having on L'Arche one bit.

Back on the Potomac, Camisole Silk and Apricot Lily tacked the sails to head back to port, their drunken dates' having spilled nothing at all.  Whatever Wu was hoping to find, Prickly and The Third needed to spill later to that listening device.  

Ardua watched as their sailboat receded in the distance, then the demon glided back to the Tidal Basin to haunt the last few couples smooching on the Jefferson Memorial steps.  Late September was a transition time for Ardua--who needed to shift her priorities away from President Obama, the CIA, and tourist season, back to the Supreme Court, Prince and Prowling, the Pentagon, and the State Department.  There was no rest for the wicked, and sometimes she really wished she had a deputy..or even that child Eeteebsse, she had spawned all those years ago.  She sighed, not in a sentimental way, just in the demonic way--which was enough to prompt dozens of infected ducks to take flight out of the Tidal Basin and into the city.

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COMING UP:   There’s a nap for that!