What in tarnation?!

"This isn't happenin' fast enough, son!"

"Yes, sir, General Sessions!" said Justice Department attorney Atticus Hawk, saluting.  "You're referring to--?"

"Dagnammit, I need you on the same page!" exclaimed the Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.  "This is sinkin' faster than a Florida gator in a Georgia swamp!"

"It sure is, General Sessions!" replied Hawk, rifling aimlessly through the papers piled up on his desk.

"That smart-ass Jew-boy son-in-law with his moronic back-channel to Moscow!  What was he in such a wallopin' hurry for that couldn't wait until Inauguration day?"

"Beats me," said Hawk.

"Money!  These people are the most piss-poor rich folks I've ever met in my life!  They got gold-plated toilets and Moscow bankers on speed-dial?  What in tarnation?!"

"In tarnation, General Sessions!"

"We gotta get these sentencing guidelines out there:  all them drug offenders need to be locked up before the mid-term elections, and the ones already in prison need to be indicted on more offenses so we can keep them locked up forever.  Get them snitchin' on each other.  I want at least ten million more prison sentences, preferably thirty million."

"I've been examining the studies and guidelines we have at DOJ, and--"

"Never mind that!  Crack and marijuana, you go to prison.  Unless you're a marijuana grower--I mean real farmers, not city folk with purple lamps in their living room.  Farmers don't go to jail, and nobody in trailer parks."

"Sometimes meth labs--"

"Nobody in trailer parks!  We all know the bad apples are in the cities," declared Sessions.

"Actually--"

"The cities!  And the prisons.  Lock 'em up, lock 'em up longer, get it done before mid-terms."

"It might leave more children on food stamps," said Hawk.

"Oprah can feed 'em.  Anyway, that's not our bailiwick!  That's the black fellow."

"Ben Carson?  No, he's at--"

"Yep, that's the one.  Let him worry about hungry pickaninnies."

"We could have race riots," said Hawk.

"Bring it on!  That's what the National Guard is for!  That reminds me:  ease up on the sentencing for illegal gun possession except for gang members."

"Is the NRA a gang?"

"You're a real comedian," said the Attorney General without smiling.  "And find the leakers!" he barked on his way out of Hawk's office.

Besides me? he thought.  Hawk had been willing to cross many lines over his years at the Justice Department, but after the scrutiny he had received for dating a woman on the FBI's Most Wanted List, he knew which side of an FBI investigation he wanted to be on.

Meanwhile, Chloe Cleavage was growing increasingly worried as to which side of the FBI investigation she was going to end up on.  The Prince and Prowling staff attorney had turned dozens of tricks at Trump International Hotel by now, and many of the secrets she was learning from Sergei were ending up splashed across the Washington Post.  There were clearly so many leakers in the Administration right now that she was unworried the hotel's Russian entourage would finger her directly, but how could she be certain about any of this?  She still knew nothing about the British agents she was reporting to, except that she doubted they or their government were bankrolling her fees for this espionage.  She was also starting to wonder if Sergei was feeding her Trump stories on purpose.  This whole enterprise had her drinking vodka on a regular basis, wondering why she was in love with a man who might be setting her up for a huge fall--or worse.  She walked out the servants' entrance, as was now her custom, and quickly hailed a taxi next to the hotel Starbucks.  She had spent three whole days in the Russian suite and had not seen one of the young Bulgarian girls ("Lola") at all.  Deported?  Dead?  Chloe stared out the cab window at the gray sky, wondering when she would ever see sunshine again.

Over at Prince and Prowling, the Russian resistance had just enjoyed another Russia Practice reception hosted by junior partner Bridezilla and her (spy) boyfriend, "Esperantu Edward".  Though Bridezilla did have a couple of deals for actual clients to sign, mostly the Russians were mingling among themselves.  She had learned a few Russian words over the past couple of months, but it did not take much Russian for her to understand there was a lot of heated discussion going on concerning Trump, Putin, and Jared Kushner.  Edward, for his part, was whispering alternatively in Esperantu and Russian with people he knew, and Bridezilla was starting to wonder if her fellow enthusiast for all things miniature was going to prove to be another spy, like her last--she caught herself, about to think the word "boyfriend".  Husband!  The annulment was final, and she tried not to think about that crazy whirlwind romance, but her mandate to develop a Prince and Prowling Russia Practice to rival Morgan Lewis and Bockius had somehow morphed into whatever this was:  Edward hosting a dozen or two Russian "entrepreneurs" in this meeting room while she wore silk or taffeta, velvet gloves, and diamonds.  Is this happening all over Washington? she wondered.  Which side are we on?  Are these people plotting for or against Putin?  Are they FBI moles?  Am I making the firm enough money to risk FBI wiretaps?  Edward caught her eye across the room, and she smiled with a hoist of her vodka glass.  I miss John Boehner, she thought.  It was a simpler time.

"It was a simpler time," said Condoleezza Rice, addressing an impatient Heurich Society over the videoconferencing screen set up in the upper floor meeting room of the Brewmaster's Castle.

"This has become untenable!" barked the treasurer.  "The underground market for rare minerals is through the roof!  Half the world is expecting the democratic collapse of the United States, followed by decades of economic turmoil!  Don't even get me started on how much it now costs to purchase an aquifer!"

"This sort of hysteria is unhelpful," retorted Rice, the embattled Chair.

"That's easy for you to say!" grumbled the NSA officer.  "Just because I have a well-stocked underground bunker for my kids and grand-kids doesn't mean I actually want anybody to have to live in it!"

"I just need a little more time," said Captain Tyler Glockmann, their mole at the Defense Intelligence Agency.  "You know I've leaked some excellent material."

"It doesn't matter what gets leaked!" exclaimed the international arms dealer.  "Trump's not resigning, the GOP is not impeaching, and I can't make money on small regional wars if we're heading towards a nuclear meltdown!"

"Kennedy was assassinated for far less," sneered the retired FBI officer.  "The kids today think Tweeting is the answer!"

"For crying out loud!" exclaimed Rice.  "The Russia problem will be taken care of."

"By whom?  The Easter bunny?" cried the State Department Middle East desk officer.  "If Obama had shoved aside the president of Montenegro to get to the front of a NATO photo shoot, it would be showing in a non-stop Fox News loop!  Nothing Trump does matters!  Putin is probably marching into Poland by now!  NATO is going to invoke Article Five against the U.S.!  I'm shocked they didn't shoot Air Force One out of the sky, frankly."

"You need to put a little more faith in our military officers," said the wheelchair-bound Captain Glockmann, who had never before served until taking on the identity of his twin brother at Rice's request.  "We can keep the U.S. safe."

At that moment, the ghost of former CIA agent Henry Samuelson had the equivalent of a spectral heart attack and had to be carried off by one of the Shackled to be revived in the murky ether hovering over the haunted town.

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