By Basta

Part One: The Scent of the Hippopotamus

“Are you missing a hippopotamus?” Iris asked. She spoke quietly into her earbud as she multi-tasked, flipping through her list of sources for her actual assignment. Working the metro desk for The Washington Hourly Observer was an exercise in paying one’s dues in journalism. Outhustling other reporters in this town was tough, and she was young but no longer the college kid who would pull all nighters without skipping a beat. “If you hear I’m doing keg stands, Mom, feel free to stage an intervention,” she’d said with a wry smile the night before. Her family never tired of making fun of her employer, especially the name.  “WHO’s covering it?” became a regular question.

Iris had a knack for investigative journalism, the kind people say they like but don’t click on much. Her boss, Lou Gold saw this quality and quietly cultivated it. He’d been fired from a mainstream paper after being accused of being too liberal, then breaking down and allowing a Republican Senator’s Op-Ed to run that advocated violence against peaceful American protestors and caging children. “We should show the country who they really are!” he’d bellowed. “Jonathan Fucking Swift without the satire.”  Iris liked Lou. His high standards, his idealism, his support of her even though she suspected he knew she was up to other work. Beneath that gruff exterior he was all mush—but very few saw that. She’d learned to get drinks but not food with the guy, though. He really would tell the waitress he wanted a side of “Irish babies”.

“Yes, I’ll repeat myself,” she said, faking patience. “Are you missing a hippo? And if nobody’s reported anything in all caps in your inbox, no need to check. Not a subtle animal.” Iris had noticed an odd trend since the beginning of the new administration. To be sure, everything was odd.  DC had been turned on its head, but in some ways it had been more revealing than transformative. And the torrent of news was disorienting. Purposively so, she thought. But these animal stories—nobody had connected the threads. Nobody was even following the story, to her knowledge. But the difference between being first and being late could be vanishingly small. And being first while having multiple sources and standards? Drudge had destroyed that with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Drudge looked quaint now.

It had all began with some odd congressional hearings flying beneath the radar. For all the preening of Members of Congress, she was convinced that few besides lobbyists paid much attention to the hearings—them, and the poor 23-year-old communications director who’d have to splice together a few seconds of manufactured outrage into a clip to send supporters. Washington really was its own kind of Hollywood. Method actors, the lot of them, she thought. But she’d seen some strange things lately. Bad actors bowing unexpectedly to congressional oversight. Sometimes they arrived looking injured. But there was so much other news that no attention was paid to such things.

“Hey Moore, write less,” Lou growled at her. She hadn’t heard him approach.

“Where did those skills come from, old man?” she parried. “Sneak around a lot of empty parking garages back in the day? You the real Deep Throat?”

He chuckled quietly. “The glory days! When I could beat the beat reporters!” Iris groaned at the Dad joke. “Finish up with the Zoo. There’s been a tweet. Here—some real journalism. For inspiration.” He shoved a worn copy of The Economist her way, with a story circled. She resisted raising an eyebrow. She faux-saluted and started hurtling copy at a Word document.

Journalism had changed drastically with the new administration. Media and real estate mogul David Ace had seen a weakened Republican party establishment, a rise in populism and nativism, and perhaps only initially wanted to expand his media empire—but was now living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His campaign had suffered a series of missteps that would normally have proven fatal for any other candidate at any other time. He was caught sexually harassing NFL cheerleaders and a furry mascot—on a jumbotron. One of his business ventures, Ace’s Pies, had come under fire for hiring undocumented workers, paying for the cheapest ingredients that were dangerously expired, and then poisoning an entire nunnery with a shipment of apple pies. His sons had gone on a hunting trip and killed a family of bald eagles. George Will had called him “comprehensively unpleasant”, and once in office “comprehensively incompetent”. The Party no longer cared what George Will thought.

What with the constant assault on national pastimes, nuns, bald eagles, and apple pie, there was a lot that people missed. Like the immediate about-face on price-gouging by pharmaceutical CEO Marvin Pale. Nick-named “Pharma bro” by the press, Mr. Pale had raised the price of emergency inhalers for people with severe asthma by 5000%. An attack could be fatal, but preventing them could also bankrupt families. Given that the Federal Reserve estimates that about 40% of families would have to borrow to cover a $400 expense, this hit poor families hard. In a high-profile case, a child from a poor background had died playing soccer. But then a few days ago Mr. Pale’s lawyer had shown up to a congressional hearing in Pale’s stead, with a statement that the price of inhalers would be lowered to its original cost, before Pale had bought the company. If this was strange, what was stranger was that the lawyer’s expensive bespoke suit was badly ripped—and the Members in the hearing room were holding their noses, as if he smelled strongly. The congressional staffers seated behind their bosses remained expressionless, though. They were trained well, and had seen far worse.

Iris sighed, pressed send, and opened The Economist. She felt stumped and she didn’t like the feeling. There’d been strange reports of a large animal breaking into the Pale compound, waterfront property on the Potomac River. Marvin Pale was eccentric, and that’s how gossip sites had spun it—an expensive toy, gone wrong. A toyger, perhaps? She’d seen some telltale hints in the grainy footage that others’d missed, though. And spent a good chunk of the morning asking nearby zoos a question. Were they, perhaps, missing a hippopotamus? But no dice—all hippopotami were present and accounted for. She flipped through the magazine. A story was circled. Pablo Escobar, the drug kingpin of Colombia, had collected an expensive assortment of exotic animals when he was alive. Some had been taken by zoos, some had returned to the wild, some had simply died off. But the hippopotami. They continued to breed, they were very aggressive, and nobody knew what to do with them. The article noted that one had just been sold, but additional buyers were elusive. If these dots connected the way she thought they did, someone had mixed a punny sense of poetic justice with a willingness to take the gloves off. Drug lord smacks down Pharma Bro? You couldn’t make this shit up. Iris still had a lot to do on the story. How the animal got here, who was involved. She couldn’t make unsubstantiated claims. She wasn’t elected.

Iris walked out of the office with her boss Lou—as usual, the last ones to leave. “You know, I wasn’t assigned a story on the Zoo,” she said. Might as well air it.

Lou paused. “I like your style, kid—” he coughed, forgetting himself with the compliment. “I mean, I like what your style could be, if you keep putting in the work. But you’ve gotta keep this passion project quieter. It’s a fucking newsroom. People listen. I’ve let a few comments slip about you being a raging environmentalist, just to not raise any eyebrows. But if you continue to not be careful I will assign you a story on walrus artifacts in the district, and I will require that you go to Congressman Don Young’s office for an in-person interview.”

Don Young was odd even by Washington standards: he’d once pulled a knife on Speaker John Boehner, who later acted as his best man at his wedding. He had also threatened an Interior Department official with a walrus penis bone (an oosik) in the 1990s after the passage of a restrictive regulation on walrus hunting that he opposed. He and his staff continue to have less threatening, but no more mature, fun with the walrus appendage.

“Thanks for the article, and I hear you. I never want to conduct an interview that includes the line ‘step away from the oosik’”, Iris deadpanned.

“Step away from the oosik,” Lou laughed. “That’s a good line. Don’t tempt me.”

Part Two: Bad Guy 101

[Earlier that week.]

The hippo was hungry. The large compound was quiet as the sun set along the Potomac, and an unmarked barge made its way towards the private property. The lumbering creature plunged into the water and made a beeline for the mansion. The fountain with the copy of Giambologna’s Florence statue was the first to feel the wrath of the mighty tusks. The floor to ceiling windows looking out on the veranda gave little resistance to the three-ton animal. It had been cooped up for days and fed little since leaving Colombia. The level of destruction levied upon the interior looked almost vindictive. The décor—dripping with gold details, resplendent with mirrors in the style of dictators, a real Saddam Hussein-chic—was demolished. The self-portraits, the photos with the famous and powerful, including Bill Clinton, David Ace, and Jeffrey Epstein, the objets d’art, were smashed with an aplomb that became almost gleeful as the animal turned its attention to the long grasses in the indoor koi pond.

Meanwhile, a shadowy figure had disembarked as well, and had disabled sensors and cameras, quietly climbing trees and finally a trellis. Strong arms and powerful hands moved quickly, opening an upstairs window, giving the sole occupant sleeping a stronger dose to keep the owner safely away from the animal’s manic phase. And then, scarred hands removing several thumb drives from a military-style vest, the interloper started downloading documents. Lots of documents.

Marvin Pale awoke in a haze—but this fugue state did not last long as his scream pierced the early morning quiet of his gated community. He attempted to go downstairs, only to narrowly miss being gored to death by the hippo emerging from his koi pond. A hurried call was put into a private investigator recommended by friends.

The knock came quickly. The front door was the only one left standing, but then you had to observe the formalities. Sam doffed his hat at the man who opened a second-floor window to whisper demandingly at him. “Get in fast! Only the help is inside and I need to keep this quiet.  You have a lot of work and very little time to do it!” Sam nodded with a practiced smile that didn’t extend to his eyes. This guy seemed a lot like some of his other clients. Too much like them.

Once inside, he surveyed the wreckage, administered some well-placed tranquilizer darts, and made some phone calls. A maid was already there, trying desperately to clean up broken glass. “When does your shift start?” a surprised Sam asked the woman.

“Oh, six a.m., sir, Mr. Pale has very high standards.”

“Question her! Has she seen anyone unusual around here?” Pale asked, sneering.

“Ma’am, I realize this scene is a lot to take in, but if you’ve seen anyone unusual in the neighborhood that would be very helpful,” Sam said quietly. It was best when he did the questioning. She paused, a flash of unmistakable intelligence across her eyes that Pale missed but Sam caught.

“She HAS seen something!  Out with it!” cried Pale, incensed.

“Um, Señor, I could be wrong, it was still dark out, but I think I saw someone I haven’t seen before.”

Placing himself between Pale and the maid, Sam quietly asked, “any description you give could be useful.  Just the facts, ma’am.”

Looking at the ground, the maid mumbled, “a little shorter than 6 feet tall, maybe 5’10”, dark hair, possibly dark eyes, light brown skin, strong, moved fast…” her voice trailed off. Sam’s eyes widened.

“Find him!” Pale screeched, his voice cracking with the effort.

“Mr. Pale, sir, the discreet animal control team and clean up teams are on their way. I’m going to do one more sweep of the area but then I’ll be off to chase down some leads. I see that your computer is on but your big safe isn’t tampered with. Anything else you’d like to report? I think I’ll take your maid home, or at least to some accessible public transportation, if that’s all right.”

Pale slumped into a battered chair, stunned by the scene and exhausted by his yelling. “All right,” he mumbled.

Sam offered the woman a ride home, but she insisted on being dropped off at a metro. After he put the car in gear, Sam paused, telling the 5’10” Latina with the powerful arms that she should be wary of Mr. Pale. “He may not be bright, but he’s not a good person, and you should be very careful. That was a risky stunt, describing yourself, assuming he’d be looking for a man, laughing at him for not being able to see what’s in front of him.”

“If you think he’s a bad person, why are you working for him? Also, you’ve got a little bit of a Sam Spade schtick going on with this fedora and the ‘just the facts’ language,” the maid said, suddenly accentless.

Sam relaxed, and smiled.  “I don’t think I’m the only one code-switching, here.”

“Eres Señor WEB Dubois, pero blanco? No creo que sí,” she muttered playfully. He caught some of the Spanish. (“You’re WEB Dubois, but white?  I don’t think so.”)

“Nice double-consciousness reference—I’m sure you know a lot more about that than I do.”

“Crees que yo tengo solamente los dos?” the maid said, eyebrow raised. (“You think I have only two?”)

“Easy on the Spanish,” Sam laughed. “I’m working with some very rusty high school memories, here.” He noticed that where a ring would normally be on a left hand, she had a deep scar, but said nothing. “You know, I’m happy to drive you home if that’s easier,” he said, enjoying the conversation.

“That’s kind, but with DC traffic, you’d need a pandemic to get anywhere on time,” she noted.

As they neared the Huntington metro station, Sam paused. “I have a hunch that I should give this to you,” he said, reaching into the backseat to get a card out of his briefcase. In a split-second, fluid moment, the maid placed a small tracking device underneath her seat. “Here,” Sam said, handing her his FBI card.

“More than just a private investigator, then,” her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise.

“I’m trusting you. Trust me,” he said slowly.

Moments after she left, Sam got a phone call. Another one of Pale’s unsavory group of friends had another run-in with an angry animal. “I think the Russians are coming after us all!” the voice whined, hysterical. “If you really think that’s who it is, we should be having this conversation offline,” Sam cautioned. After he hung up, Sam wondered how a group that acted like mafiosos never seemed to manage having a conversation under a bridge. It seemed like Bad Guy 101.

But these days the class of bad guys had gotten seriously downgraded. Enough of David Ace’s motley associates seemed to be from the D list of criminals that the press was openly wondering if any of them had seen “The Wire” or understood some basics, like character Stringer Bell’s admonition against “taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy”. The e-mails orchestrating election interference were cartoonish. Sam, like the rest of the city, had been gobsmacked when Ace had hired people who worked for dictatorships and other bad actors for his campaign—and in prominent positions, to boot. “Who hires Snidely Whiplash—as a frontman?!” Sam had said at the time. The same was true of the foreign associates. This was no stylish spy story or film noir, to Sam’s chagrin. He much preferred James Bond over Hannah Arendt.

Part Three: Hog Heaven

Philippa walked cautiously into the State Department, glad to be out of the maid’s uniform but even more on her guard. The Ace administration had hollowed the place out, leaving major positions empty and ambassadorships with no nominee, while the decision-making circle narrowed and employees were purged for political reasons. “I laughed at the wrong campaign GIF online,” one of Philippa’s friends said as she cleared out her desk months earlier. “It was a private account that didn’t identify my name but they found it. I lol-ed at Ace trying to fuck a bald eagle and then getting attacked.”  She cracked a smile. “I just wish they’d spend half as much effort trying to nominate an ambassador to Mexico as spying on their own employees.  But I stand behind that joke. Don’t be an eagle fucker. That eagle fucks back.”

She kept her head down and avoided the cafeteria. The seventh floor, reserved for agency leadership, was largely empty, while the cafeteria was always full. Civil servants, suddenly with few meetings, directions, or even a complete chain of command had a lot more time. They were buying a stupid amount of coffee. Philippa’s office was undisturbed. She’d taken a personal leave of absence early in the administration and avoided the level of scrutiny others had faced.  But she was still working, on one mission only her immediate boss knew about. It’d been the last thing on her plate before she left. Her boss thought it was low priority, and that it might be a good distraction if she needed one. But then the threads she pulled on kept turning up more and more disturbing things. Things that she was uniquely qualified to go after. It might be best that she was in work-from-home mode anyway. She had one hell of a reason for stepping away from her old life.

What a different life it was. A year ago she’d been a full-time foreign linguist at the State Department’s intelligence agency, had a large circle of friends, had an implausible resume that read like a female Jack Ryan. Special Ops Navy Seal, history PhD, multi-lingual, occasionally placed very lucky stock trades, and had friends in unexpected places. She had a righteous streak and a dry sense of humor. Once, when asked about her career path, she’d summed it up like this: “I like hurting bad guys, I like understanding bad guys, I like talking to bad guys so that I understand them and then hurt them.” It was a little more complicated than that, of course. A year ago she’d also been married. And then everything had blown up.

She shook her head. Not here, she thought. Mind on the mission. She had to meet her boss and update her. She put a hair elastic around her door handle, closed it, and got to work. A few minutes later her boss turned the handle and entered soundlessly.

“Look at you, Nancy, with the quiet shoes. No more stilettos going clack-clack!” Philippa noted, a teasing lilt in her voice.

“Looks like you can teach an old dog new tricks. That and I almost got the heels with the secret compartment confiscated. They were vintage!  Give me 48 hours with those babies and I’ll make Cuba libre for you, motherfuckers,” Nancy shook her head.

“So they’re more interested in spying on your footwear than, say, confirming an assistant secretary for the region that includes BFFs India and Pakistan,” Philippa groaned.

“Same old same old. Ace hasn’t served them hamburgers yet, so we’re chalking it up as a win. So—we can shoot the shit later. What you got for me, Phil?” Nancy’s knuckles pressed into the desk. She inspired a fierce loyalty in her subordinates, which surprised outsiders who took her impassive face and bland outward presentation as evidence of an empty suit. She used her establishment credentials and long tenure to shield her people and did any sorting out herself. But these days were a challenge even for the most experienced hands, and Nancy had seen a lot of friends she respected simply resign. And Philippa was different: not always by the book, even before losing her husband.

Phil turned on some music and lowered her voice. “The more I look for the buyers jockeying for the Master Key, the more I think a lot of them are connected. Obviously the Russians are after it, and that remains our worst-case scenario. But I think a bunch of these greedy yahoos are working together. I’ve seen a lot of communication between them, and when I scare one of them, they all act scared—but not enough to stop pursuing the Master Key.”

“It seems like you’re having a wild time scaring the pants off these guys,” Nancy noted. “But really—a hippo?!”

Philippa faked exasperation. “She has a name.”

Nancy snorted her coffee through her nose.

“La Colombiana is a valued team member. Besides, if we want these greedy dumbasses to think the Russians are trying to dissuade them from buying the Master Key, we need to target them the way the Russians would, which is without subtlety,” Philippa reasoned.

“Fine—and I accepted that you had more flexibility on this job. I honestly don’t know how you’re pulling this off, but that may be for the best. Obviously, everything official needs to be above board. What I worry about is your white knight routine—you’re trying to get justice for all the other bad things these guys are doing and help out the little guy. Congressional oversight just got suspiciously effective. These assholes are fixing their abusive business practices, which would be great, if we had all the time in the world. But we don’t. That is not the mission. You take your eye off the ball on this one, and we all lose big. Doesn’t matter if you did it for the right reasons. And all of the poetic justice with animal threats is funny, but don’t seriously hurt anyone. We’re better than that.”

“We used to be,” Philippa sighed.  “But: message received.”

“This Department has seen us through wars and assassinations with some of the finest public servants in the world. We will survive this onslaught of cartoonishly craven bad actors. The world is a darker place absent American leadership. I’ve got a whole speech. Clear eyes, full hearts, the whole thing.  But I believe that shit.” Nancy looked tired. Philippa often forgot how old she was.

“I hear you,” Philippa said, measuring her words. “And I’m not spending any more time on these things, not more than it takes to download a few files. But so many things, from institutions to industries, are broken and corrupt enough that they’ve enabled our politics. There is no Ace without the Swamp. We’ve got a bigger job here. I’ll stop there. Message received. No extra time. Here’s my real concern: I’ve seen more communication recently between the prospective buyers. They may be moving towards a sale faster than I thought. I’m going to try to scare off the dumbfuck club and pose as one of them. But this could be dicey. Might need some more toys from you. Particularly: the decoy Master Keys that I mentioned. Things can get off script in these negotiations.”

Nancy chuckled. “Off script is one way of putting some of your missions. But I can’t argue with your success rate, Phil. I’ve got your decoys and all the toys you need.”

Philippa’s face brightened. “Christmas came early?” Nancy cracked a rueful smile and handed her the decoys, making arrangements for more equipment.

As she was about to leave, Philippa paused and said, “If you need a pick-me-up, there is a greedy little piggy that’ll be in the news soon. Schadenfreude is pretty therapeutic.”

As Philippa left the building, her phone pinged a notification at her. Someone had hacked the Pale compound’s security system—that plucky young reporter, Iris Moore. Philippa’s zoologist friend Susan had alerted her that Iris was on her tail. The kid was asking questions nobody else was.

Philippa thought this was a potential opportunity, though. As wary as she was of reporters and the havoc that the news could wreak on her day job, Philippa liked most of them. They worked long hours in a difficult and volatile business. She had little time for the yelly types on cable or various outlets mainly designed to deliver a dopamine hit to their consumers, or the stable of overpaid commentators ready to be in a New York studio at a moment’s notice, hundreds of miles away from the action. A lot of the DC press spent their days in the tunnels connecting congressional office buildings, talking to actual sources. Maybe this Iris lady could be useful. Philippa was digging up more dirt than the oversight subcommittees could handle, anyway.

Miles away, Steve Jared, the real estate developer and bank owner with close family ties to the Ace administration, was in for a surprise. He had been warned, of course. His widespread and heavily documented policies of both tenant abuse and illegal foreclosure practices drew attention even before he started leveraging the Ace administration to get government loans and broker deals abroad. Both the banking and real estate industries have significant problems with corruption and bad actors, but Steve Jared was a particularly unsavory character even among a checkered bunch. And recently, his office had received a series of notes telling him to change his ways. There was a long list of suggested reforms—but also that his new apartment complex, Section Great, for low-income renters had been built on the site of a toxic spill, and should not be opened. They also noted that he needed to not pursue the Master Key, and frequently omitted both definite and indefinite articles. These notes started coming with packets of bacon.

The next morning, a ribbon cutting ceremony for Section Great would feature Steve Jared himself. But as the camera crew set up and the handlers and press arrived, a low rumbling could be heard that perplexed everyone, coming from the other side of the building. As the cameras rolled, a giant pack of feral hogs broke through the floor to ceiling windows that offered a view of the courtyard, some covered in toxic sludge from the other side. Reporters screamed, and people scattered. Steve Jared was just opening his speech, complaining about the fake news that the place was toxic or otherwise unsafe, and promising a fresh start for a vulnerable community.  But the hogs had other plans. Steve Jared’s handlers had locked him out of the van they had come in, one man caught on camera saying “you do not pay me enough for this shit”. Steve Jared, somehow still within the camera frame, climbed a nearby tree and started crying, the blue ribbon still in his hands. Pig puns proliferated. The press was in hog heaven.

Part 4: Ways and Means

“Mindless, I tell you, totally mindless!” the conversation at the Kalorama Heights gala for news reporting had turned mischievous. Glasses and silverware clinked, and waiters circulated with hors d’oeuvres among the well-dressed crowd, many of whom knew each other, despite being in different lines of work and institutional settings. DC could be a small place. The mischief this evening was not that a media figure was being criticized for their inaccuracies and politics—that wasn’t remarkable. But normally the target of such criticism is not personally within earshot.

Mike Power was a nationally syndicated talk radio host in attendance. His brand of hard-charging conspiratorial political commentary weighed in on many different issues. He liked trying to sway close elections and referenda, pushing Republicans further to the right in primaries where few voted, or trying to affect state and local issues that didn’t normally attract national press. While many questioned the track record of success he claimed, he had attracted other like-minded news outlets and personalities to his cause, calling them “difference makers”. In Senator McCain’s final speech on the Senate floor, where he cautioned his colleagues to “stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the internet…they don’t want anything done for the public good” staff said that the Senator considered going after him by name but didn’t want to elevate him. Philippa respected McCain; while she wouldn’t have made all of his choices, he conducted himself with honor.

Mike Power had a new favorite target: the various state referenda on the Medicaid expansion.  After a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, states’ governors had the ability to reject the expansion offered through the Affordable Care Act: federal money to cover those making up to 138% of the poverty line by Medicaid, of which the federal government would pay 90%. Fourteen states had in fact rejected the money, keeping more of their citizens without this medical access. The state of disinformation was such that these governors didn’t pay an electoral price—these same voters did not realize that those with pre-existing conditions were also at real risk. Ohio Governor John Kasich (R), who’d made a career pursing very conservative fiscal policies, showed that this didn’t have to be a partisan issue, decrying those who refused the money for harming their constituents. A NBER report released in 2019 estimated that 15,600 deaths could have been averted if every state had taken the expansion. In response, citizen groups started putting forth referenda to overrule governors’ decisions. A close election was coming up for Oklahoma’s referendum, especially since they needed a higher threshold to pass a referendum for a constitutional amendment.

The gossip continued. Mike Power seemed to enjoy it. At the edge of the outdoor garden a tall woman in a backless dress and flats was taking stock of the place, unobtrusively, while chatting with a group of friends.  Philippa had gotten some of her old Navy buddies to invite her, but they knew she had other business. Phil had made a lot of friends helping people over the years who didn’t question her motives after they saw her in action. It was fun to reminisce with the guys before the evening really got started. Shared military experience made people family in ways that those outside the services rarely understood.

Philippa’s phone pinged an alert. The tracker she’d placed in the FBI agent’s car was—unexpectedly very, very close by. She extricated herself from her conversation. Best to be unidentifiable, and with no known associates. But maybe Sam represented an opportunity. This mission would be easier with two people.

Sam did a double-take when he saw Philippa. He approached her cautiously, making sure to check for the scars he’d seen before feeling sure of himself. She really could blend in just about anywhere.

“Well, this is a surprise. I had a hunch I’d see you again, but didn’t expect it to be here.” Sam said, cautiously. He didn’t want to spook her, and had waited until he wouldn’t be easily overheard.

Philippa turned her back on the party, facing him. “You took the words out of my mouth. I was just about to ask you what a boy like you was doing in a place like this.”

Sam chuckled. “So what are you, ‘deep state’?”

“Do you know the secret handshake,” Philippa asked.

“No,” Sam stumbled, unsure of himself, holding out his hand nonetheless.

Philippa reached out, giving him a standard handshake, to a look of confusion on his face. “You know what that means, don’t you?” She stepped in close to him to speak directly into his ear.  “We’re EVERYWHERE,” she said in a fake whisper.

Sam laughed. “Don’t tell that joke to your clients. Their heads might explode,” Philippa cautioned. “I’m actually here to drive home a media figure who has a habit of, ah, incapacitating himself at these sorts of events. Call it a concierge service outside the scope of my regular job. You know what that’s like,” Philippa said pointedly. “I could do this myself, but it’s really a two-person job, and requires discretion.”

Sam paused. He considered that he didn’t know what he’d really be helping with, and that he had no way of actually identifying this woman if she was up to no good. But he could handle himself, and besides, he could always call for some kind of backup. “Is this a tryout? OK. But on the condition that you actually brief me on what we’re doing.”

“It’s a long car ride. Deal.”  Philippa said. What happened next felt orchestrated. Mike Power started to slur his speech and wobble. He was difficult enough to handle sober, so when Philippa showed up claiming that his company had her on retainer to escort him home if needed it felt like a welcome relief to all. Designating Sam as the driver, she got Power’s keys from the valet and the two of them muscled him into the back seat. Power seemed delirious; Sam had never seen anyone get drunk that fast.

“You promised to fill me in,” Sam said, gripping the wheel.

“I’m dealing with some very sensitive business and time is running out faster than I’d foreseen. There’s a group of dangerous idiots running around, and it seems like both of us have our eyes on them. A lot of them are your clients for your private eye side hustle. I need to know one thing before I say more. Have you heard anyone talking about a Master Key?” Philippa said, words measured. Sometimes it’s riskier to not trust someone.

Sam couldn’t hide his alarm. “Yes, but I haven’t been able to figure out what the damn thing is. They’re obsessed with it. They think the Russians are trying to scare them away from buying it. They won’t say more to me about it, but they lack enough discretion to have mentioned it in my presence multiple times. What are we dealing with here? These guys are a very dangerous combination of ambitious and stupid, with some serious resources.”

Philippa sighed. “Your read of them is spot-on. The Master Key began as an attempt to have a failsafe if bad actors hacked Ace’s phone and started tweeting for him. The damn thing’s unsecured, and his tweets are volatile enough that someone could easily impersonate him and do some real damage. Financial reporters have already looked at how his tweeting has negatively affected publicly-traded companies—the “Ace Target Index” they’ve studied. And of course twitter hackers have already done small time jobs scamming people for Bitcoin. So you could make some money—or you could be far more malicious and announce aggressive foreign policy actions.”

Sam blanched, then recovered. “So there’s a tool to regain control of Ace’s twitter account. Smart. But it sounds like it got out of responsible hands and now people are trying to steal it or sell it. You realize that millions of dollars and the most sinister forces on the planet may be trying to buy a password that’s the word “boobies”, right?”

Philippa snorted. “So–a few things. The National Security Council is not as secure as it used to be. So yes, it got lost—or more likely, stolen by someone within the White House that’s just as greedy and stupid as some of the jackasses chasing this thing. But you have to realize that it’s more complicated than just his password, though that very well may be “boobies”. The idea was that a hacker might also go after other accounts, responsible actors who would oppose any dangerous or irresponsible tweeting. That’s why it’s called the Master Key—it’s not just Ace’s password, it’s the passwords for major government agencies, the military, and some of the more respected Republican Members of Congress.”

Sam blinked. “What’s that Burke quote—all is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing? But he’s already received so little opposition from people who should know better.”

Philippa paused. “It’s misattributed—J.S. Mill, actually—but yes. The fact that he’s shifted the overton window for what’s normal in politics makes the Master Key more dangerous, not less. A very wide range of damaging tweets are now completely believable.  The most dangerous buyer is the Russians. These dummies you have as clients—they’re part of a larger group that wants to make money off of Ace’s unpredictability.”

“So they’re covfefe profiteers?” Sam nodded with a growing realization. It didn’t surprise him. The system that enabled Ace, the rot in our institutions, the Swamp—this was the real problem. Ace had a transactional view of the world, but so did every major interest or political actor thinking that massive tax cuts, deregulation, continued reelection, or other boons were worth all of his other actions. Lobbyists in town had never been busier than after his inauguration. It seemed old fashioned to refer to them as “K Street”—advocacy offices had moved closer, to just a stone’s throw from Congress. Yet Ace was so ham-handed with some of his regulatory slashing that some industries found themselves missing some of the old rules. Car companies didn’t want to make two sets of models for foreign markets and a new high-emission American market, for example.

“Yup,” Philippa sighed. “The kind of assholes who read Liar’s Poker as an instruction manual, not a cautionary tale.”

“Sounds like the ‘basic bitches’ of finance bros to me,” Sam agreed.

Philippa chuckled. “The pumpkin spice lattes of finance bros. As disgusting as they are ubiquitous. Seems like there’s a few different industries and institutions in this collection of baddies, but yeah. Which brings us to the man drooling in the backseat. We’re going to have to get him home safely, and I need to do a few things at his place.”

Philippa and Sam got Mike Power inside his large mansion and safely to bed. Philippa downloaded documents from the computers she found, and left a doggy bag prominently on the kitchen counter, cautioning Sam not to touch it. She made a few phone calls just as they were leaving, including to an esoteric-sounding animal control agency.

One of Philippa’s friends had dropped off a car just outside the mansion for her to drive home. On the way back she made a phone call with an unused burner phone. Sam’s eyebrows shot up as she spoke Russian quickly into the receiver, but stumbled on the word Kiev, pronouncing it two different ways.

“That can’t possibly be an accident,” Sam noted.

“Nope. Made a call asking ham-handed questions to a Russian source connected to the effort to get the Master Key. Pretended to be a Ukrainian pretending to be a Russian—they pronounce Kiev differently. Now the Russians’ll think more heat is on. Either our seller gets spooked and tries to sell to a safer buyer, or our Russians act more erratically, and are easier to track.”

“So you’re an American pretending to be a Ukrainian pretending to be a Russian? Jesus.”

“I’m running out of time. A sale will happen soon. I’ve got Mike Power’s phone, and he’s going to be seriously out of commission for a while. I’m going to pose as one of the jackass club and try to buy this thing. Can I count on your help? If I don’t narrow down the location of the sale everything’s lost. This phone’ll only be so useful; you’ve also got contacts with these guys.”

“Yes. But—how is he going to be out of commission?”

“That doggie bag includes a mind-eating fungus, and a few insects that are about to have a very, very bad night. It’s perfectly safe for humans, but I’ve made a few phone calls to animal control authorities and he’s about to have some very strange, but perfectly safe, symptoms. So he’ll be under observation for a while, and we should get some press stories wondering how long his brain has been rotting.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll get the popcorn. And jeesh with any luck that referendum in Oklahoma might pass, now that he’s not spewing his bile in those media markets. So this is why they all think the Russians are after them…”

“The Russians have no chill,” they said in unison, both giggling.

“I mean, I haven’t used a poison umbrella or radioactive sushi, and of course nobody’s actually getting hurt, so I think I’m using a lot of restraint here,” Philippa said, a gleam in her eye.

“If this is your idea of restraint, I’d hate to see you take the gloves off,” Sam said.

“You have no idea,” Philippa murmured, more to herself. “But we’ve got a clear mission now: find the time and place the sale will occur. I suspect it’ll be close by. And if the Russians are there we may be looking for a symbolic location. Use this phone to call me; I’ve got a pre-programmed number in there,” Philippa said, handing Sam a cell phone.

“Do I get your name at some point?” Sam asked.

“First things first,” Philippa said.

Part 5: The Seriousness Gap

Iris’s notes on the pun-laden animal justice were pretty extensive by now. Marvin Pale had stopped his inhaler price gouging, helping thousands. For Steve Jared, the feral hogs coated in toxic slime had made their way into a more exclusive neighborhood, and an activist PTA had shut down Section Great. They were arranging for low-income housing to be built in a safer place with a different developer, while Congress was investigating Jared’s other business practices. Mike Power’s radio show was being scoured for clips showing earlier brain rot, with each new find getting coverage that felt like it came from The Onion. Meanwhile, actual experts were talking about the Medicaid expansion, with Oklahoma’s referendum narrowly passing.

There were more, too. Iris’s favorite, after the hippo, was that a cassowary had intimidated a political action campaign founder opposing women’s rights and funneling PAC money to candidates like Roy Moore, also weighing in heavily on judicial nominations. Rex Oldman had been called a “dinosaur” for his behavior—and now a living dinosaur, one of the oldest animals on the planet, had scared the bejesus out of him. The press write up had been pretty funny—given that cassowary males protect their young, the bird was being called more progressive than Oldman. The animals were native to Australia and were big, strong, and very aggressive. It surprised no one that an exotic pet shop from Florida was somehow involved.

It occurred to Iris that there was a subtle indictment of the system going on. These bad actors represented the rot in a wide range of institutions and industries. The poetic justice was funny but it was also so crazy that she suspected these bad actors were connected. It looked like the same person or group was going after them—someone with a deep sense of justice for the little guy and a desire for systemic reform. Someone who was also completely out of fucks. This administration did seem to have that effect on people, though.

She was deep in thought, when Lou broke her out of her reverie the usual way. “There’s been a tweet!” She knew he hated this news cycle. They all did.

#

Philippa was trying to focus. She was tracking communications between the confederacy of dunces and the Russians. But reading all of these communications, while necessary for the operation, was wearing on her. She wanted a sophisticated villain. These guys misspelled words like “bribe”.  Sam had been a big help. They were close to getting a location from the seller, and Philippa was going to pose as Mike Power’s assistant, which was easy to arrange with his cell phone, while Power was going through extensive medical examinations. The rest of the corrupt cabal seemed cagey but happy to have her take the risk. But the contrast between serious consequences being on the line and the yahoos involved was one that had been crazymaking from the beginning.

She called it a “seriousness gap”. For Phil, this applied both to the gap between those in charge and the seriousness of what they handled, but also what she imagined from everyday Americans dealing with something serious in their own lives, then turning on the TV to see Ace acting asinine or worse. The struggling farmer opening the paper to see details of a gratuitous trade war with China. The veteran community having their service disrespected. As a military commander herself Ace’s comments on McCain’s time in the Hanoi Hilton made her blood boil. People with loved ones with pre-existing conditions watching as the Affordable Care Act faced potentially being dismantled, as it hobbled on, saved only because the firing squad it faced didn’t seem to be able to shoot straight.

She knew what her moment was, her “seriousness gap”. Her mind kept wandering as she read these ridiculous messages. Her husband in a hospital bed, surgeons filling the room, saying there was nothing they could do at this point. The cancer was back. CNN playing silently in the background, the chyron noting how that day Ace had characterized Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” that he didn’t want more immigrants from. In the larger scope of things it seemed small, a moment forgotten amid a maelstrom of similar sentiments and worse actions.  But it was a detail she couldn’t forget.

Shortly thereafter she’d gotten tasked to a difficult but short assignment abroad. She knew it could go sideways but it’d be better to have someone with military experience in charge, so she said yes. Sure enough, her crew was attacked after she’d tried and failed to revise the schedule. But she’d put them all in bulletproof vests and brought a stupid amount of ammo. She’d fought their way out, taking shrapnel and fire herself. Wasn’t going to fail to save anyone else. That’s where the scars came from. They’d flown her to Germany and the doctors had done well. But they wanted to remove her wedding ring to stitch her up, and that would not do. She’d refused anesthesia and howled at them. It had festered, the most obvious remainder of the day.

Focus, Phil, focus, she said to herself. She wondered who the seller was. Someone high up in the administration, probably working in the White House, with a lot of access. Someone highly motivated by money. There was a rumor going around that Greg Marsh, one of the members of the President’s inner circle, had gotten the job by accident. In the process of retiring from Congress and seeking a lucrative lobbying job, he’d mentioned that he was up for consideration for this plum administration spot—which he wasn’t, but he was hoping to negotiate his way to a higher salary. Ace heard the rumor Marsh had started and given him the position. That was the sort of profile that would fit a job like this, Phil thought.

Phil’s cell phone pinged—a text from Sam. The sale was on. Everything would go down after hours, at one of the Smithsonian Museums, to be revealed the day of the exchange, in three days. They had no time to lose.

Part Six: Rocketman

Phil and Sam had been bugging Smithsonians with various recording devices at breakneck speed. Phil was starting to resent how extensive these beautiful collections were. She seriously considered taking a nap in one of those big cushions in the Portrait Gallery. The things seemed like they were just there to tease her. “You can sleep after the mission,” Sam said. “Hell, you can sleep in the damn Portrait Gallery. I’ll bring snacks and we can watch a spy movie. Breaking into this place will be child’s play after what we’re about to do.”

She’d picked up a lot of chatter. Her boss Nancy was pretty cautious about trusting people across the administration, and the sixteen intelligence agencies were not impervious to coordination problems even in better times, but it was time to call in more intel. The Russians were acting very excitable, like they knew what was happening. And if the insider seller was as clumsy as she thought he was, he could either be unaware that the Russians were going to crash the party, or have overestimated his own abilities to play one bidder off against the other, or even collect from both.

Phil had a hunch, though. She suspected the Russians were in on things, and if she was going to think like a Russian, she’d want the sale to happen in the Air and Space Museum. The museum was under construction, with scaffolding along the whole structure, providing a place to escape to, or hide additional people or weapons. Apparently, Congress had skimped when building it fifty years ago, saving a few million that would now take nearly a billion to fix—classic. But what really fit the Russian psychological profile was that the museum had some Soviet spacecraft, as well as mentions of Sputnik. They think they’re turning the tables on us, she mused. Another sputnik moment, in a new technological age. She and Sam bugged the Air and Space Museum more extensively than any other location.

The day came. Sam was off in a nearby van, tracking Phil. But between the scaffolding and her suspicion that they weren’t the only ones with eyes on the museum, she had to go it alone. I’d never send a shipmate into this, she thought. She hadn’t even gotten through the front doors when she heard Sam in her ear. “There’s a lot more traffic than you’re expecting. Be very, very careful. I think you were right that the other knuckleheads didn’t fully trust Mike Power—looks like they’ve sent a lot of redundant security. Redundant and not particularly skilled, by the looks of them.” Phil groaned internally. Amateurs were dangerous.

She’d been right about the seller, though that gave her little pleasure. Greg Marsh stepped out from behind the Nazi V-2 rocket. “Lady and gentlemen, let the bidding start at $10 million,” he said with a flourish.

“That is not what we agreed to and you know it,” Philippa said, as looks of shock registered on the others gathered. Marsh wasn’t going to look smug for long, she knew. She inched closer to him, watching the exit and considering the smoke bombs she’d brought. “But I did think the price you asked for was a little low. Why don’t you consider what I have today as a down payment—if we can continue the negotiations just between us,” she said in a low voice.  She was wearing a bulletproof vest, but the thing didn’t exactly do much for her head.

It took about five seconds for a dozen little red dots to start dancing on Marsh’s chest. “Gah!” he exclaimed, then moved to grab Philippa’s suitcase of cash, trying to make a getaway.

Phil hit the ground, touching off the first of her smoke bombs. She wrested the Master Key from Marsh’s hands, then threw the decoys towards the others. Bullets started flying. “Nyet, nyet! Don’t shoot our spacecraft! Mother Russia we are so sorry!” Russian voices exclaimed.

Phil knocked Marsh out cold for his own protection, and ran for the exit, throwing smoke bombs behind her. Some of the others scrambled towards the decoys, while some followed Philippa. She lost some of them in the scaffolding, trying to remain covered for as long as possible before making a dash for the van. “Coming in hot, with company!” she told Sam through her earpiece.

She didn’t see the punch coming. A Russian flunkie had been hiding out in the scaffolding, lying in wait. Rattled but not out, she stumbled, and then jumped over some equipment, cutting a deep gash in her leg as she did so. She heard more footsteps coming fast, and considered swallowing the damn thing. But it was Sam. He blocked her from the Russian, kneecapping the guy. “Are you okay?” he said, turning towards her.

“Look out!” she warned, as a second Russian came around the corner and knocked Sam in the head with a two-by-four. Recovered, she made short work of the second Russian, and carried a woozy Sam in a fireman’s carry to the van, dropping the rest of her smoke bombs along the way.

#

The next morning, Sam awoke in a haze, on Philippa’s couch. “So. Did we get it? Did we save the day? And where am I?” he asked.

“We saved the day. There’s still a lot to do, loose ends and all that, though Mike Power’s doctors may never know what’s wrong with his brain,” she mused.

Sam laughed. “Are we at the point in this unconventional partnership where I get to know your name? And are these your digs? I’m getting the sense that you might have some extra resources. I hope that suitcase of money wasn’t yours.”

Phil smiled. “It’s Philippa Rosa, though my friends call me Phil. And you’re in my house. I don’t leave people behind. And I may have spent some of my resources on this mission, but not where you’d guess. They paid me to take the hippo, for example. Besides, getting to ride that thing saying “mush” checked off something on my bucket list, so I’m feeling psychologically enriched as well as patriotic.”

Sam shook his head. “So, Phil, now that you have all of this power in your hands, what will you do? You’re not tempted? Nobody would know if you tried to get back some of your funds.” He tried to sit up, still in pain.

“You know, you don’t have to go so soon. And I didn’t go into public service to make money, but I’m sure I could give federal workers a day off with this thing.”

Slowly, a broad grin spread across Sam’s face.

#

Congressional staffers started getting reams and reams of documents. These investigations finally started getting the press they deserved, with the news openly questioning a congressional resurgence. The place was still badly in need of reform in many ways, but Philippa had always liked the staffers. Congress drew a lot of people with talent who wanted to make the country a better place, it just didn’t pay enough. Committee staff directors started getting anonymously paid open tabs across town. Burning the midnight oil became easier over steak from Le Diplomat.

Iris got a package in the mail with no return address. She was shocked to open it and find her manuscript on all the bizarre animal-based poetic justice incidents thoroughly marked-up. Some of the details were changed, some new information was added. A note at the top cautioned her that composite characters were better, and far less likely to get her sued. After all, the problem with these institutions and industries was that there were many bad actors and patterns of corruption. She was struggling with a title, though. The working title was “Tragic Farce”, which the anonymous reviewer thought was too fussy. Iris agreed. She could overthink things.

Lou Gold waited until the end of the day, when everyone else had left, to approach Iris. “Don’t tell me there’s been another tweet,” she said, exhausted after another news cycle.

“Actually, kid, I wanted to speak to you about something. I know about your passion project and I want to help. I’ve got friends in more serious publishing that would love to look at your work.  On the condition that I get to suggest a title,” he said, a sparkle in his eyes.

Iris’s face broke into a smile. “This better be good, old man. What’s the title?”

“Swamp Animals.”

###