his left pocket. In a firm voice, he ordered Maggie to turn off her radio and asked for her press credentials. He then vanished into a nearby military-style tent while two other NSF agents holding rifles and sidearms stood staring intently at her car. Quite suddenly, Maggie felt extremely uncomfortable. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was definitely wrong with this situation. She self-consciously ran her fingers over the buttons of her blouse making sure nothing was exposed. She continued to wait, getting more nervous as time went by, feeling like she might have diarrhea or even throw up, as the NSF agents continued to stare at her. Finally, the first man reappeared from the tent. He pointed a finger down the street. “Do you see those lights?” Maggie turned her head and saw a scene of flashing light bars and flickering road flares further down the street. Maggie thought it looked like a ten-car pileup accident scene.
“Drive toward those flashing lights and park where you are directed,” he ordered, stepping away from her car.
“Mad cow disease? Bullshit! I was definitely dreaming when I thought that,” Maggie whispered to herself, shifting the car into gear and driving toward the chaos ahead.
A block down the street a pattern of burning road flares on the ground forced Maggie into a single lane. She wondered how many people had suffered convulsions or migraines from the flashing strobe lights as she slowed her car to a crawl. Finally, a soldier waving two orange-coned flashlights similar to someone directing an airplane to the gate, guided her toward a line of parked cars. To Maggie it seemed like a bizarre street carnival. Glancing around, she realized that all the streets near the White House were barricaded and filled with military, police, and the black-clad NSF troops. Immediately after lowering herself down from the driver’s side of her Jeep, a soldier directed her toward an immense green military tent erected in the street outside the fence that surrounded the White House. A line of people were snaking their way toward the tent entrance, a cordon of armed troops on either side. She began to recognize faces from the various media organizations like CNN, NBC, FOX and ABC.
As she got in line Maggie looked up ahead and saw it was barely moving. A reporter she recognized from another network was in a heated argument with two men in dark business suits. The reporter was demanding to find out why no electronic devices or cameras were allowed in the press conference. He wasn’t getting an answer. In response, the two men shoved past him, seized his camera equipment, and added it to a stack of others.
As the line began to slowly shuffle forward, Maggie could feel a tension building in the air. She glanced over her shoulder at the reporter who was now screaming in protest, as his camera operator stood silent with a confused look on his face. “Since when are cameras not allowed in a press conference?” Maggie asked herself.
The tent was huge and dark, not like any press conference she had attended in the past. She could barely see. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she noticed the room was filled with rows of folding chairs, and a small podium stood on a stage at the front of the tent. Behind it hung a huge smiling image of President Marcus Barakat. The first three rows of seats were already filling up with reporters. As she looked around, a hand suddenly grabbed her elbow. Maggie, who had attended a self-defense class, jerked her arm away and began to assume a defensive position. Looking up, she recognized her assailant as Charlie Ashman. Charlie was Maggie’s close friend, who worked as a political events blogger. Maggie smiled and gave Charlie a big hug.
“I almost kicked you in the nuts, dude,” Maggie said with a laugh. “Never sneak up on me.”
“I was just trying to get your attention before you sat down with some other good looking guy.”
“What the hell are we doing here, Maggie? We should be playing darts and drinking beer,” Charlie said, flashing a flawless smile and a playful wink. Maggie liked Charlie . . . and the way he looked. He was a “man’s man.” He had dark hair, cut in a short military fashion. A “battle cut,” he once said it was called. He wore khaki colored cargo pants that had more pockets than Maggie could count and a blue denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up so high she could see the Army Ranger tattoo on his muscular bicep.
Charlie was an incredible writer who preferred the freedom of working for himself. His freelance articles were engaging to his large audience and backed by some wealthy advertisers. Charlie had built himself a good relationship with the Washington media. He and Maggie, while not officially dating, spent many hours at their favorite bar or coffee shop. They could talk about anything from the most mundane topic to items of great seriousness.
“Follow me,” Charlie said to Maggie, taking her hand and leading them to a pair of seats at the end of a row. They were close to, yet just behind, the big-name media faces who occupied the area of importance within throwing range of the podium. Charlie looked toward the front row and then turned and gave Maggie a comical, pouty face. He began to march in his chair, swinging his arms and raising and lowering his feet. “I want to sit up front and be a macher,” he said, using a Yiddish term for a big shot or someone of importance. Maggie laughed whenever Charlie said something in Yiddish, even though she understood very little of it herself. At one point in Charlie’s life, he had been dating a beautiful Jewish woman whose strict Orthodox father hated any guy his daughter brought home, especially goys, or non-Jewish men. So, to win his approval, Charlie came up with a plan. For two weeks he had studied the Yiddish language, memorizing hundreds of the old Jewish words. Finally, ready and confident, Charlie launched his stunt at the height of a Shabbat dinner at the house of his girlfriend’s parents. “I just love shtuping with your daughter,” Charlie said smiling from one parent to another. Charlie would later relate that the first sign of trouble was the sudden silence that seized the room. Slowly raising his eyes from his plate, a fork full of food balanced at his open mouth, Charlie realized that both parents and a younger brother were staring at him as though lobsters were suddenly crawling out of his head. For a moment, Charlie had considered slicing his wrists with the butter knife, but he didn’t want to ruin the beautiful white lace tablecloth. Dinner was cut short, and Charlie did not get to enjoy the mother’s wonderful challah bread. He was personally escorted to the door by the father, who offered up some new Yiddish words for Charlie.
“You’re a schlemiel and a nudnik. Now you go look those words up, mister smart ass,” the father said, glaring and slamming the door in Charlie’s face. The following day Charlie received an angry phone call from his now ex-girlfriend demanding to know why he had so proudly told her parents he liked screwing their daughter. A quick check of his Yiddish dictionary revealed that Charlie had mistakenly used the word for sex when he meant to say shmooze, or to talk or chat. Charlie Ashman’s attempt at speaking the Yiddish language to impress the girlfriend’s father had ended in disaster.
Charlie stopped his mimicking and leaned close to Maggie. “Something’s going on here, Maggie,” he whispered quietly to her. “Just before I left home, I got a phone call from Sarah Palmer. Her husband, Andy, is the managing editor at CNBC. Some government-looking guys in a black SUV showed up and demanded he go with them. They said he was needed at some important meeting, but wouldn’t say anything else. They just took him and left. Then on my drive over here, I get a text message from someone I know at FOX. Same story about his boss being summoned to a private audience. Now we’re here. I don’t know what’s up, but I have a bad feeling.”
Maggie began to respond when a rustling of movement brought everyone’s attention to the front. Four men in suits and sporting earpieces had come into the tent. To Maggie, they looked like Secret Service agents on steroids. With their arms at their sides, they stood in a line, their eyes darting over everyone in the audience. Charlie squeezed Maggie’s hand and nodded his head, indicating she should look behind them. Slowly and calmly, Maggie glanced over her shoulder and spotted a half dozen dark-suited men standing at the rear of the tent. As Maggie began to whisper into Charlie’s ear, a woman stepped onto the stage.
Maggie recognized her from television. She held some minor role in President Barakat’s cabinet. Small in stature,
