The sun was setting over Capitol Hill as we took up our positions. All entrances were covered: those were the orders coming down from on high, and who were we – mere pawns in the game – to question why, or (heaven forfend!) disobey? We did what we were told. And we had a list of those who were to be detained: the troublemakers, our captain called them: a list with names and photographs, although we all knew by sight who they were. There weren’t many of them, to be sure: there weren’t all that many troublemakers on Capitol Hill these days. Go along to get along: that was the unspoken rule, and most obeyed. So the list was short. But there was that noxious minority – from both parties – who could conceivably give us a bit of trouble.
Evil loves the night, which is why most crimes occur under cover of darkness, and this one was no exception. The plan was to quickly take out the Secret Service – those who weren’t in on the plan, that is – and move the President to an Undisclosed Location. Lop off the head and the body would be paralyzed. Although I was just a drone – a mere sergeant at the time – and not in on the big boys’ plans, it was clear to me what they were doing. In a highly centralized apparatus such as Washington, all we had to do was go after a few vulnerable locus points and the bloated body of the bureaucracy would be immobilized while we ran rampant over the prostrate body of the republic.
Nobody expected President Paul – or his guards – to put up much resistance: of the Secret Service agents who were guarding him, two were in on the plot. He did resist, however, although that didn’t come out until much later: we had the media on our side, or at least the major players, and they could be counted on for discretion – and, if not, we had ways of dealing with them. Even as the CIA paramilitaries were moving in on the White House that night, so were smaller groups of urban commandos moving through the streets of New York City’s “media district,” securing the major networks. All stations would broadcast the message from the chairman of the joint chiefs the next morning, at 9 am sharp, and we frankly didn’t expect much trouble from those quarters. Those guys hated the new President, the Kentucky Hick as they called him: although it’s verboten to diss the commander-in-chief, when my company commander called him the Poor White Trash President in the company of several officers, everybody laughed.
Rumors of the coup had been rife in the weeks: you can’t keep a secret in Washington, and especially not this kind. But the guys upstairs had that one all figured out way in advance: anticipating leaks, they had started spreading the rumors themselves, and then had their pet pundits debunk them as “wild conspiracy theories” spread by “extremist” supporters of the President-elect. Yet more evidence that the Paulians – or Paulbots, as the media dubbed them – are dangerous hotheads who see a conspiracy hiding behind every bush. What kooks! And as for their Kook-in-chief, who had somehow snuck into the White House when no one was looking – a leader is defined by his supporters. The election of 2014 had all been one huge mistake. Can we roll back the tape?
I chuckled to myself as I moved through the darkness. Get ready, folks, because this is one “urban myth” that’s about to come true, like those alligators in the New York City sewers my buddy from Brooklyn told me about: he grew up in that hood and had actually seen one. Or so he said. But you never know, do you?
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