A Thousand Ways To Run

Chapter 9

What Warren was suggesting was a crazy and downright stupid idea. And also really pointless. It wasn’t a mission. It was an outing purely planned for breaking the rules and breathing some fresh air and maybe lighting a fire under the CIA’s metaphorical ass, because they really suck at their job if they couldn’t find me in a crowd of people who were listening to the President’s public address in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

It was the challenge of something I didn’t know that I could get away with.

And the promise that I might piss a lot of people off.

And there was a rumor that the ham they were serving was coming all the way from Jerusalem. And who doesn't love a good Israeli pig?

Warren didn’t even have to beg me to come to the speech and then to the after party that celebrated everyone’s greatness (because, according to him, that’s all they really are – great.) I agreed because I actually wanted to come, and I knew he wanted me there. I might as well be paprika for how much I can spice a situation up. Or maybe I’m just hooked on adrenaline—like a drug-addict addicted to cocaine. Either way, there weren't enough reasons to stay cooped up in my fourteen-by-fifteen foot room and translate my copy of 101 Ways to Defuse the Common Time Bomb into Arabic.

This Thursday was the announcement of Vice-President Becker’s campaign for the presidential election in less than two years. President Edley was a big supporter of Becker becoming the next commander and chief. He was in the same party and had kindly sat right under his wing for the last six years. He was set to announce his official running for the position on Thursday with a short speech by the Lincoln Memorial and then a banquet in celebration. Warren was obliged to tag along, and smile, and be in the background, and suffer through hours of politic talks and the lazy drawls of congressman tipsy on the house wine.

Almost all of the secret service and government agents in the city were going to be within one square mile of each other. And all Porter did was give me a two second lecture before putting a chain lock on my door.

He could have at least made my escape challenging.

From the visitor’s center, it was just over a mile walk to the memorial. Warren and I never saw each other after Wednesday. It was so amusing how much ‘research’ he’d done. I let him tell me all about the plans and times of departure. It was cute how much fun he was having. I agreed to go by the outline he had laid out.

// At exactly one in the afternoon, I set out from my room, wearing warm clothing with layers, and arrived at the nearly empty visitor’s center ten minutes later.

The wind outside was colder than the February air. My legs felt like they had lengthened. I wanted to run the distance, it felt that good. Puffs of white air emerged from my mouth, and my mind wandered to Warren; I wondered if he used smoking the same way I used adrenaline.

I arrived at exactly 1:37, which was only three minutes different to Warren’s estimated time. The speech was supposed to start at two o’clock, but he assured me they always put it off for at least fifteen minutes to ‘build suspense’. Half an hour was more than enough time to squeeze through the mass of people huddled to witness their own slice of history. I might need forty minutes though, for how angry they were getting as I pushed my way closer to Honest Abe. My only excuse was “I had to pee. I’ve been waiting here since seven, and I couldn’t hold in my orange juice any longer!” That seemed to quiet a lot of people, as their angry faces were replaced with mixtures of disgust and second hand embarrassment.  

As I squeezed through, I also observed all around me and studied the surveillance method the agents were using for the day. I secretly wanted to find Penny and Porter, maybe even pass right under their nose. The agents amidst the crowd probably blended in very well to an untrained operative. But someone with wide-rimmed glasses should really not stand with their hand folded in front of  them– it’s a standard defence position. Way too obvious.