The Drumbeat of War

Former John Boehner bodyguard Solomon Kane got out of the taxi on 37th Street and looked at the imposing Georgetown University campus.  He had on a black trench coat and black fedora, causing more than a few observers to think for a moment that the Exorcist had again been summoned.  He consulted his note on where to find the Jesuit professor who had summoned him here, then started walking across the campus.  He had been hired by a host of unsavory people over the years, and had done plenty of things to make him feel nervous at the sight of any type of priest, let alone an entire Catholic community, but he had been promised $5,000 for a "simple job".  Nobody would offer that low of a sum for a hit, and he was quite curious to find out what the gig actually was.

As instructed, Kane sat down on a bench outside of Maguire Hall and unfolded a newspaper to read.  The air smelled slightly moldy from the maple leaves which had already fallen, but there was a crisp, cool breeze at the same time.  He caught a whiff of a freshly peeled orange, and a fragment of passing conversation about an upcoming history test.  He was a handsome man, and regretted the scowl he felt forced to give a couple different women who smilingly thought of sitting down next to him, but he had to keep the seat open.

Finally, a man with a priest's collar peeping through a tan overcoat sat down next to him.  "Thank you for coming," began the leader of the Seekers.  "One of my parishioners needs you to kidnap her husband."

A few miles to the east, Justice Department attorney Atticus Hawk was sitting nervously in Attorney General Loretta Lynch's office for a private meeting. Hawk was desperately hoping this was going to be about praise for his progress with the Guantanamo dossier, and not his lack of progress with the Panama Papers, but he was wildly off base.

"I need you to write up a contingency plan for civil war," she began.

"What?!"

"The FBI really screwed up big time.  No matter what they do now, one side or the other is going to cry foul.  FBI analysts have privately brought me information on the threat of armed insurrection after the Election.  The current assessment is that the people prepared to take up arms are small in number, but there is no way of predicting what kind of reaction there would be.  We absolutely cannot let things escalate."  She paused for a moment to let him take this in.  "Naturally we cannot interfere with the Election itself, but we have a duty to maintain the rule of law and public safety.  President Obama has Executive Orders already prepared to activate the National Guard as needed.  What I need from you is a plan to deploy additional U.S. Attorneys to battleground states in anticipation of the need for arrest warrants and arraignments, as well as keeping a close eye on law enforcement officers and soldiers who might be tempted to stray from their duties.  This is an absolute priority, and you can set aside everything else until you complete this plan."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, though he had no clue how to do this.

Down in the secret CIA bunker beneath the "Washington Times" headquarters, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was briefing his handlers about his attempts to hypnotize his way to the top of the Trump organization.

"So, basically, you're failing?"

"Well, I've persuaded a few campaign workers to switch allegiances," replied the shrink.

"You've had no perceptible effect on Donald Trump's speeches, nor have you turned any of his KGB moles."

"I did get one operative to post embarrassing Trump videos and documents on the Internet, but it's hard to drum up interest when there is already so much denigration of the candidate out there already."

"I think we need to move to Plan B," said the female handler, looking at the male handler, who nodded his head in agreement.  "We've created a cover to send you in as a fashion designer.  Your targets are now the Trump women.  This is Operation Barbie Doll."

"I see," said Dr. Esse, who thought he might be losing his mind.

Over in Foggy Bottom, Luciano Talaverdi rapped his knuckles on the Federal Reserve Board library round table to begin an emergency meeting of the Camelot Society.

"We should wait until after hours!" protested Obi Wan Woman.  "This is supposed to be a secret society!"

"That's why I told you all to bring your lunches and look casual," said Talaverdi (who, since getting married, no longer scheduled evening or weekend meetings--both to please his wife and to avoid the temptation of table-top sex with the booted, tunic-clad woman).  He signaled an aide to Janet Yellen that she could begin.

"The Board had a secret teleconference off the record," she said.  "I've been tasked with writing up a banking contingency plan in case the country erupts in civil war after the Election."

"That's absurd!" said a housing sector analyst.  "Fringe elements cannot ignite a civil war!"

"Maybe, maybe not," she replied, "but they can certainly spook Wall Street and cause a run on the banks."

"So this is about the banks, then, not bloodshed?" asked a labor economist, sarcastically.

"This is about fulfilling our duties in the event of possible financial disruptions," she answered.  "Other people in the government will be occupied with riots and violence, but our job is to protect the liquidity.  The Board is counting on us."  She placed her right hand on her heart and used her left hand to raise a knife like a sword.  "We are the Knights of the Camelot Society!"

Back downtown, Judge Sowell Ame was also in a lunch meeting to discuss post-Election contingency plans.  "Oh, Hell no!" he reacted, as soon as the Chief Judge of the Superior Court told the group of associate judges they should be prepared to work extra hours after the Election.

"Excuse me?!" exclaimed the Chief Judge, who knew Ame was the laziest judge on the bench, even in a sea of lazy judges.  (Ame opened his mouth to say something, then decided instead to stick a sandwich in it.)  "We could have riots in the streets of this city, including armed militiamen driving in from Virginia to assault the White House, the Capitol, or the Supreme Court.  We need to be prepared to issue bench warrants and do arraignments."

"With all due respect," began one of the older judges, seated near the front of the court room in which they were gathered, "if what you're saying is true, we might be under martial law.  It sounds dangerous."

"Of course it sounds dangerous!" retorted the Chief Judge.  "Freedom is not free!  We are here to defend the Constitution!"

"Well, I only do family court," said a woman in the back, who quickly ducked her head after speaking to avoid attribution.

"Well, I imagine anybody getting arrested had a mother at some point!" replied the Chief Judge, sarcastically.  "I have prepared contingency assignments for all of you, which are now being distributed by my clerks.  We will have additional security officers and a stockpile of food and water.  I suggest you put some clean changes of clothes in your chambers.  All vacation plans for the Election week are canceled, and anybody who calls in sick without actually being hospitalized can expect to be demoted to traffic court magistrate."

"You can't do that!" cried Judge Sowell Ame.

"Sure I can!" retorted the Chief Judge.  "And you can try to impeach me!"

Back in Georgetown, the leader of the Seekers had finished explaining their recent endeavors to de-program members of the Trump cult, whom they believed capable of perpetrating great evils, even murders.  But one of the Jesuit's own parishioners had been unsuccessful in isolating her often traveling businessman husband in order to conduct the Trumpist de-programming.  After various consultations and inquiries, they had identified Solomon Kane and come up with the plan to have him kidnap her husband.

Kane pretended to continue reading his newspaper for a few more minutes.  He had always thought the oddest thing he would ever do professionally was submitting to daily full-body muscle inspections by the palpitating hands of the former Speaker of the House.  Now he was being asked by religious people to kidnap a Trump supporter for what he assumed was as close to an exorcism as he would ever see.

"I'll do it one condition," Kane finally said.  "I want to watch."

A cool breeze suddenly stirred up a pile of leaves, a catbird began imitating the sound of a squeaky wheel rolling down a sidewalk, and one of the Shackled floated above Solomon Kane, contemplating the sight of a priest hiring a hitman.

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COMING UP:  Adventures in early voting!

Speak up!

Prince and Prowling junior partner Felix Cigemeier was sitting through the first criminal deposition of his legal career.  The government attorney was deposing the Trump International Hotel's head of housekeeping, who had been summoned to clean up the pig shit dropped by the drone illegally operated by Cigemeier's (and the ACLU's) client, defendant Glenn Michael Beckmann, onto the Old Post Office Pavilion Bell Tower as a political protest on 9/11.  So far she had testified (with the aid of a Spanish interpreter) that: (1) the drone had frightened a few employees, (2) it had taken seventy-five minutes to clean up the manure, (3) she was expected to keep everything 100% clean all the time under threat of deportation, (4) Donald Trump had never been in the Bell Tower, (5) Ivanka Trump had never been in the Bell Tower, and (6) about three guests visited the Bell Tower each day.

Now it was Cigemeier's turn to question the witness.

Q:  "Were there employees who enjoyed seeing that drone dump pig manure there?"
A:  "Yes, most of the employees were delighted!"

(The prosecutor objected this was irrelevant to the illegality of the drone operation.)

Q:  "Don't you have to clean the Bell Tower every day, anyway?"
A:  "Yes, pigeons are always pooping there."

Q:  "How many undocumented workers are on the cleaning staff?"
A:  "All of us, but that nice man gave me immunity to testify!"  (She was pointing to the prosecutor.)

Q:  "Are you absolutely certain that Donald Trump has never been in the Bell Tower?"
A:  "Oh, yes!  Too windy for his hair.  But Eric Trump has gone up many times with a silent gun to shoot pigeons."

Q:  "And you're absolutely certain that Ivanka Trump has never been in the Bell Tower, either?"
A:  "Oh, yes!  But the nanny takes Ivanka's baby up frequently for fresh air and to dangle the baby."
Q:  "Dangle the baby?!"
A:  "Oh, yes!  Like Michael Jackson--this is how celebrity baby likes it."

Q:  "Are you surprised how few guests enjoy the Bell Tower?  It was a very popular attraction for tourists and locals before getting privatized.  Only a few a day?"
A:  "Guests are angry that tower visit costs extra $500.  But I go up for free every day to clean!"  (She was smiling.)

Q:  "Did Donald Trump ever grope you?"

The prosecutor interjected hotly to put an objection on the record, but the head of housekeeping was then directed to answer the question.

A:  "No, I'm too short and ugly.  He likes groping Magali, Juanita, Rosa, Carolina, Victoria--"

"Stop!" exclaimed the prosecutor, jumping to his feet.

"You can't stop her!" retorted Cigemeier.

"I can if I'm dropping the charges!"

With that, the prosecutor directed the videographer to close up shop, and they all started filing out of the Prince and Prowling conference room.  Cigemeier stopped the head of hotel housekeeping before she left to ask her if she wanted to sue Trump, but she declined after he told her he could not offer her immunity.

Not far away, another Trump-related dispute was underway in the upper floor conference room of the Brewmaster's Castle, where the Heurich Society was in its third session in two weeks.

"You went too far, Condi!" exclaimed Chairman Dick Cheney, glowering at the speaker phone.  "Donald Trump is the Republican nominee--"

"Donald Trump is a piece of shit who would probably be poisoned his first day in office by the kitchen staff!" retorted Condoleezza Rice.

"We can control him!  If HRC is in there--"

"You CANNOT control him!  Your male ego is even more delusional than his is!"

As the argument continued, the ghost of Henry Samuelson would have died of shock if he had not already been dead.  He got more pleasure listening to those two screaming at each other than in anything else that had happened since his death!

"He will put fossil fuels back where they belong--as the centerpiece of domestic and foreign policy!" barked Cheney.

"He will make abject disgust the centerpiece of domestic and foreign policy!" snarled Rice.

"Since when do you care about how popular an American President is?"

"Since when did you decide that only people with dicks have balls?"

"What?!"

By now, Ghost Henry was laughing his head off, even as the other members of the Heurich Society were taking a dim view of the proceedings.

"Look," said the investment banker, standing up.  "Several of us took an emergency vote and decided it's time for you to step down, Dick."  (He had really only discussed this with two other people, but he was gambling that nobody would risk any accountability by speaking up one way or another.)

"How dare you?!" screamed Cheney (who had actually murdered the previous Chair to get this position).  "Who do you think you're dealing with?!"

"After your last heart incident," said the member of the CIA, "we had a special modification put into your pacemaker.  At this point, you need to do what we are asking, which is go quietly."

Cheney's eyes bulged out of his sockets.  "You wouldn't dare!"  He looked around the table, but was met with only icy stares.

"You'll all regret this!" Cheney said, overturning his coffee cup and grabbing his satchel to leave.

That's what he said the first time we kicked him out! thought Ghost Henry.  (But would Ghost Henry think it enough vengeance for Cheney's assassination of his daughter?)

Further north, triple agent Charles Wu was generously tipping his (highly informative) Nigerian taxi driver before returning home for an early family dinner.  He frowned at the giant, somewhat dilapidated octopus stuck to the front of his roof.  "What the--?"

"Daddy!" squealed his daughter, Buffy Cordelia, racing out the front door to greet him.  "We made it into a spider for Halloween!"

Little Delia was clearly still high from yesterday's spectacular fifth birthday party.  "Did you?"  He looked into the doorway to glare at his English nanny, but she was wisely staying out of view.  "When I agreed to bring it home, I didn't agree to displaying it on the roof!"

She gave him her best little-girl-sad face and started cooing at him in Chinese, which she knew made him melt.

"Alright, alright!" he said, afraid of what he might find indoors.  It was the first--and last--time he would ever agree to a joint kiddie party for his little girl.  When little Delia had first made friends with a young Chinese girl, Charles had thought it fantastic for her!  Then when he discovered they shared an October birthday, he had agreed to a joint party.  That's when he discovered that the Chinese-Brazilian-now-American mother was a psycho who would take his $300 party supply contribution and use it to make the most garish, over the top, hideous display of handmade "ocean dream" paraphernalia ever taped, stapled, and glue-gunned to a Rock Creek Park pavilion in the history of the National Park Service.

("Not Momzilla!" neighbor Liv Cigemeier had cried in dismay yesterday, upon arriving at the party site to find her loathed coworker was the one who had actually put together the party.  "Oh, Charles!  I would have warned you if I had known!")

"We're changing my mermaid costume to a death-ray worm costume!" Delia suddenly said, pulling her father forward by the hand.

"That sounds disgusting!"  He looked at Mrs. Prudence Higgety-Cheshire to see if some type of early senility was setting in, but she was serenely sitting on the family room sofa sewing.

"It was my idea," said Angela de la Paz, sitting on the other side of the room with a paintbrush in her hand.  "Delia had a d-r-o-w-n-i-n-g d-r-e-a-m at nap time."

"What did I have?" asked Delia.

"And how is this an improvement?" asked Charles.

"It will scare monsters away on Halloween!" said Angela.  "I would have thought that obvious!"

"No, not obvious!  What souvenir did you take home?" asked Charles to Angela, who had turned 22 this month and always joined in for the October birthday party.

"I would like to say that I took home the d-e-m-o-n that I extracted from that crazy woman, but, unfortunately, it's all her."  She smiled and looked at Delia, who was now sitting on the sofa inspecting her nanny's costume stitches.  "If you want, I can make an act of persuasion for Momzilla to avoid socializing with your--"

"Yes, do it! smiled Charles.  "I'll give you another birthday bonus!  Still, I'd rather have you dealing with Trump," he added, hopefully, but she shook her head.  He still did not understand exactly how and when his prized agent chose to use her supernatural gift.  If Donald Trump were not pure evil, who was?

"I think democracy will work out just fine," smiled Angela.

Back at Prince and Prowling, Felix Cigemeier was being chewed out by client Glenn Michael Beckmann, who was devastated he would not be able to testify at trial about all his reasons for using a drone to dump pig shit on Trump's local tower.  "It was my free speech!" wailed Beckmann, who was almost in tears.

"Mr. Beckmann, this is a good result!  You could have gone to prison!"

"It's a terrible result!" exclaimed the ACLU lawyer who had hired Prince and Prowling's drone expert to take Beckmann's case.  "Donald Trump said today he would curtail the First amendment--that there's already too much free speech!"

"Well, there's certainly an excess coming from his mouth," replied Cigemeier.

"This is not funny!" she cried, patting Beckmann on the hand.  "The First Amendment is under assault!  We wanted to make a stand!"

"First of all, he's not going to win the election.  Secondly, the President of the United States is not the President of Russia."

"Russia probably killed my Darja!" wailed Beckmann.

"What?" asked Cigemeier.

"Never mind!" huffed the ACLU attorney, who would have been thrilled out of her mind to get the publicity a Beckmann trial would have received.  "We will pursue other options!"

"Other options for getting Mr. Beckmann arrested?" Cigemeier asked incredulously, as the two sailed out of his office.

Across the street, Ghost Dennis was whispering Lame Duck ideas into the ear of President Obama, who was humming loudly to try not to hear that creepy voice.

****************************************************
COMING UP:   
Contingency plans for civil war!

Too Ugly to be Assaulted by Mr. Trump--

--but not too ugly to get out of working all weekend, Washington Water Woman hopes to get back to blogging soon!

Digging In

"He's a rapist!"

"You're a rapist!"

"We don't even talk like that in West Virginia!" insisted Ernest Ironman, sick of his Nazi lover's support for Donald Trump.

"You chained me up!" retorted Barbara Hellmeister, who was obsessed that Trump shared a common ancestor with Adolf Hitler.

"How many times do I have to apologize for that?!"

"Apologize to our child!"

"What?!"

"I wanted Eichmann genes, and you passed on hillbilly swill!" snarled Barbara.

"Are you two even registered to vote?" asked Kevin ("Monkey") Mundy, walking cautiously past them to retrieve another beer.  (Monkey had recently married a 14-year-old, but that was not statutory rape in Virginia.)

The two (who were not registered to vote) ignored him and continued arguing.

Monkey went into the bunker baby room (secretly constructed thirty feet below the 9th green at Trump National Golf Club) to check on his young bride, who had volunteered to change the baby's diaper just to get away from the bickering.  He found her standing four feet away from the diaper table.  "Brittani, what are you doing?"

"I'm hoping the freak will roll off, hit its head, and die," she said without looking up at him.

"Brittani!"

"He has a green face and a scaly tail!"

"I told you, there was a bunch of in-breeding in West Virginia, and sometimes these birth defects just happen!  We have to act like we don't notice!"

"It's not human!"

"Sure it is!"

"I don't wanna come here anymore!  You can't even pan for gold in the pond when the golfers are out on a nice day like this!"

"But I love coming here!"  The DC Water employee scratched his wrist under the cursed Rolex which had first given him the crazed obsession to pan for gold and diamonds.  There was no place more exciting for him than the Trump pond (inhabited by the demon Ardua).

"We never hang out with my friends!"

"Your friends are in high school!  Are you gonna change that diaper or what?"

"You change it!  I want a divorce!"

Hidden in one of the exit tunnels, Angela de la Paz and the Warrior had been listening in on bunker conversations for hours.  As the sun began to set, they headed back out to inspect the fugitive demon.

"What do you think?" asked The Warrior, who was over 300 years old but did not possess Angela's supernatural gift for fighting evil.

"It doesn't have a soul," she said.  She had already known this from looking for the baby in the DreamTime before even coming out here, but the Warrior's careful monitoring of the people here under the influence of Ardua had convinced her it was time to pay a visit.

"Will you kill it?" he asked.

She sighed.  "I'm worried what effect that would have on the parents."

The Warrior contemplated this for a few minutes as they drew closer to Ardua's presence.  "The demon is growing large again," he said.  "I think it is feeding on their hatreds and pouring evil into that baby."

Angela sat down to take her shoes off and stick her feet in the pond.  The old Prophecy had predicted she would kill Ardua one day, but she had not been able to do it yet.  The new Prophecy was elusive.  "It was feeding on the Trump poison before they even arrived.  Now they are all feeding on each other."

"What will you do?" asked the Warrior again.

"Wait for the Election," Angela said, much to his surprise.

Several miles away, triple agent Charles Wu was trying really hard to understand what was going on with this election, but his SuperPAC strategist, Bridezilla, was constantly distracted by her new boyfriend and their mutual hobby.  "In China, saving face is extremely important," said Wu.  "My business colleagues are shocked at how many scandals Trump survived, and yet his ship is now sinking because of vulgar comments he made over ten years ago!?"

"I told you if we dangled enough money out there, somebody would come up with a good video!" she said, smiling as she watched Ed expertly installing miniature sconces to adorn the windows of the dollhouse living room where her conjoined guinea pigs slept.

"You sure did!" nodded Wu, wondering how much longer he had to watch this before she would serve dinner.  When he had introduced "Esperantu Edward" to Bridezilla as a special thank-you for how hard she had been working the past few weeks, it was with the idea that the miniaturist would simply offer her some ideas for Thelma and Louise's (and the human dolls' on the second floor) home, but he had been shocked that one of the espionage world's most amusing spies would spark her romantic interest.  "But why would Republicans abandon him now?  You can't tell me that John McCain is more concerned about this than the nuclear football!"

"No political cover," said Bridezilla, rubbing her hand on Ed's lower back.

"Mike Pence thinks raped women can't get pregnant, but Republicans--"

"Pence never used vulgar words."

"Trump's been vulgar for decades!"

"He crossed a line in that video.  It can't be defended."

"I don't understand where the line is," pleaded the man who had once considered himself one of the politically savviest foreigners in Washington.

"That's what you have me for!" smiled Bridezilla.  Then Ed said something to her in Esperantu, and they both laughed as Charles Wu shook his head in bewilderment.

Across the Potomac in Georgetown, the Seekers were eating delivery pizza after another grueling session of deprogramming a Trump cultist--the third this week.

"Why isn't this getting easier?" asked the Methodist minister.

"They're digging in their heels," said the Jewish rabbi.

"Our work is more important than ever," said the Jesuit theologian.

"He's right," said the Muslim iman.  "It's when people lose hope that they are most easily swayed into violence."

"But nobody has killed for Trump yet," said the Hindu guru.

"Not that we know of," said the Greek Orthodox priest, crossing himself.

"We have five more requests for this week," said the Jesuit.  "I think we should divide into two or three groups.  We all know what we're doing now."

"Do we?" asked the Unitarian minister, biting her lip.

A mile away, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was working into the night at his State Department office, tearing his hair out that domestic political chaos was encouraging nuclear saber-rattling in Russia and North Korea, and even more violence in the Middle East.  The U.S. was nobody's sheriff now.

Undercover Trump Adventures

"I see," said psychiatrist Ermann Esse, listening carefully to a Virginia campaign headquarters volunteer talk about how important it was for Donald Trump to win the Presidency.

"He stands up for the little people who have been ignored by Washington!" he said.

"So he says," replied Dr. Esse.

"He supports the troops!"

"So he says," replied Dr. Esse.

"He exposes all the liars and hypocrites!"

"So he says," replied Dr. Esse.

"Why do you keep saying that?!"

"I am affirming what you have perceived," said the shrink.

The campaign volunteer looked at Dr. Esse, puzzled.  "Are you going to volunteer, or what?"

"Immediately," said the shrink, slowly tilting his head from left to right to see if the volunteer would follow the light reflecting off his eyeglass lenses.  "Please relax:  I am here to help."

"Please relax," said the Thai masseuse, several miles away in Dupont Circle.  She pressed her knees into Congressman Paul Ryan's tense buttocks, and he let out his customary grunt.  She dug her thumbs into his lower back, which had actually gotten tighter since she started working on him months ago.  "Deep breath."

"How am I supposed to know the Saudi Arabia 9/11 litigation bill might cause retaliatory litigation against our troops overseas?  GA!"

"How?" parroted the masseuse, pressing her thumbs into his adrenal glands.

"I'm not a lawyer!  The lawyers didn't warn me that the White House lawyers warned them!  OOF!"

"Lawyers," parroted the masseuse, digging in under his shoulder blades.

"And what about Senator McConnell?  He has more experienced, higher-paid lawyers, doesn't he?  AARGH!"

"Higher pay," parroted the masseuse, holding his spine down with her right heel as she pulled both his arms backwards, away from their sockets.

The Speaker of the House cried with relief that her knees had finally come out of his buttocks.  "And now the people complaining about another Continuing Resolution say I'm incapable of delivering a real budget!" he sobbed.  "MAN ALIVE!"

"Budget," parroted the masseuse, who had roughly rolled him over onto his back and was pressing his legs up against his chest.

"How can anything change when the wealthiest people in the country avoid paying taxes?  What am I supposed to do?  How can I explain to people why Donald Trump won't release his tax returns?!  CRIKEY!"

"Tell him Trump work for CIA," she said, trying to be helpful while she forcibly lifted him into a yoga pose which put his body weight on the vertebrae between his shoulder blades.

"CIA?" parroted the Speaker of the House, growing pale in spite of the blood rushing to his head.

A couple miles to the south, Angela de la Paz was taking advantage of the sunshine to sit on the deck of Dulles Samuelson's houseboat, Singapore Surprise.  "How's FBI training going?" she asked.

"I can't talk about it!" he smiled.

"Right, right," she said, smiling back.  "I have ways of making your talk!"

"I know you do!" he laughed.  "Shooting guns, learning about terrorism, that sort of thing."

"Do they still do other stuff?  Mafia?  Bank fraud?"

"Oh, sure!  We covered all the other stuff the first week."

"They do realize that terrorists aren't the only ones killing innocent people?"

"Uh, some of them do.  Honestly, I think they just give us more training on terrorism because they still don't know what really works--so we need to learn how to use every single tool in the toolbox."

"Weapon in the weapon box," she retorted.

"It's not all about weapons," he smiled.  "And, hey, some of us don't have mojo like you do!"  (She smiled sadly, uncomfortable talking about her supernatural ability to kill telekinetically.)  "Speaking of which, I have to admire your restraint not going after Donald Trump.  I mean, there's a new reason almost daily."

"Hijole," she said softly.  "Charles was trying to convince me that Trump might, in fact, be evil enough to warrant the special treatment."

"You could check it out, couldn't you?"

Angela looked out on the Potomac River from their Southwest mooring.  "I finally decided to look for him in the Dreamtime," she said.  "I told Charles I thought Trump was just a reprehensible human being, not a demon or anything."  She hesitated.

"Well?" asked Dulles impatiently.

"I couldn't find him in the Dreamtime," she said.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"I'm not sure.  I think it might mean he has no soul."  They were both silent for a minute.  "I've been praying about it."

"But if he has no soul, then you can--"

"I'm not sure," she said uneasily.  "I just don't understand why I haven't been given a vision about him.  I tried to ask abuela and other people in the Dreamtime, but nobody had an answer to give me.  Then last night I had a dream that Trump was Judas.  I woke up really freaked out.  Because nobody was supposed to stop Judas, right?  Because he had a purpose?"

Dulles stared at her for a moment.  "God help us." 

Back at Trump's Virginia campaign headquarters, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was trying to hypnotize his way to the top.  So far he had ended one man's cigarette addiction, convinced one woman to end her affair with a married GOP pollster, and convinced a slightly plump teenager that The Wall was really about keeping Alicia Machado and other chubby Latinas out of the country.  Unfortunately, none of this was helping him hypnotize his way to the top, per CIA orders.

"How can I help you?" asked a volunteer, as the shrink approached a different table, holding a "Make America Great" baseball cap in his hand.  (Dr. Esse had rejected the National Rifle Association t-shirt provided by his CIA handler.)

"No, sir!" said Esse, sitting down,  "I'm here to help you!"  Esse didn't bother with any conversation beyond that, quickly jumping right to the hypnotic effect of tilting his head back and forth.  He saw the man immediately start watching the swaying light reflected off Esse's eyeglasses.  "I need you to gather all your friends at my hotel room this evening," he began, and was gratified to see the volunteer nod his head yes.  "You're going to tell them that you have a tape of Trump admitting he's a child molester."

"Everybody knows that," said the volunteer flatly.  "But Hillary has molested more."

 Dr. Esse took a deep breath.  Maybe I should just hypnotize them into not voting? he thought to himself.

Ten feet below him, the real estate demons inhabiting the basement of Trump's Virginia headquarters frowned in displeasure.

******************************************************************
COMING UP:  
The Ardua-Aryan baby at Trump National Golf Club!