Wanted

Michael Ampersant is around since barely 4 months, having been invented as the author of our Green Eyes, but his star is rising fast, and the FBI (Fbi) is already in hot pursuit:

Screen shot of the StatsCounter page following this blog (Dec. 14, 2012)

The spy who trusted Gmail? That's so yesterday, folks, now it's the Agency that trusted Bing.



It wouldn't be us if we wouldn't have a fitting quote from our prodigious literary production, this time not from the Green Eyes, but from the Freedom Fries, our first, and so far unfinished novel. Here it is, from Chapter 5 of said novel (we are at Chapel Hill Farm, George W. Bush's country seat in Texas):


The buzzer rings, and then the cell-phone. Somebody at the gate and this new agent on the line. “Sure, we always expect FedEx parcels, that’s what you do when you are…when everybody knows you,” Laura explains, not for the first time — really, the security upgrade isn’t an untrammeled success. Sixteen agents around the clock, the counter-sniper support unit in ballistic gear on the roof of the guest house, the tactical perimeter alert unit with new barbed-wire fences around the property, be-suited agents in matching ties elsewhere — except for the pond with the secret frogman and his matching snorkel. Lukacs had spent 150 Million out of his own pocket in 2004. A rendition would be cheaper. Very helpful, Bill Smith, to bring this up. Three different Al Qaida branches, apparently unaware of each other, have already filed threats, one from Wasilla, Alaska. Lukacs has sent no threats, but his spokesperson has pointedly refused to comment. Perhaps he’ll come through the pond and render us in a submarine to landlocked Hungary. Ludicrous. Doubya had acted as head of state, the strongest diplomatic immunity in the world, nobody could touch him. The service has to do their job, obviously, a rendition would be cheaper...

We're here to protect ex-president George W. Bush against a "rendition" to a country where he might face prosecution for committing crimes against humanity (such as torture)

The FedEx van arrives with this new head agent mounted to the passenger seat; Bobby Battista, a rung up from the last guy. How can a sensible person call himself Bobby? Battista grabs the parcel from the FedEx man: “It’s from Amazon, M’am, did you order this?” How is she to know? “What does it say the content is?”
-“It says ‘Printed Material.’ We x-rayed it, it’s printed material. No bomb. Addressed to the President.” -“No kidnapping gear under remote control?” she jokes. Battista hesitates.
-“Well, perhaps my husband ordered it…” she tries, “…the kidnapping gear,” but her joke has already stumbled and is lying flat on the ground. She studies the dry, Texan soil.
-“Shall I open it for you, in case, you know…” Battista says, while the FedEx man pushes his signature pad against her breast and waves his pen.

A bookwork appears in Battista’s hands, with two Tyrannosaurus Rexes squatting on its front cover. Darwin’s Origin of Species. Laura snatches the tome, but Battista has already noticed.
-“Mr. Battista,” she changes the subject quickly, “I’d like to block incoming calls from a specific person on my mobile, how am I to do this?”
-“Never done it before?”
-“I didn’t have to,” she says, slipping Darwin onto the porch and handing her Motorola Razr to Battista — she can’t remember who gave it to her, wasn’t it Jack Abramoff, before he went to prison?
-“Who gave you this phone,” Battista says, pausing, as if he knows. “It’s outdated. Why don’t you get yourself a new one? The new Windows Seven phone from Microsoft, that’s cool.”
-“We would have the same problem with the new Windows Seven phone from Microsoft, wouldn’t we?” “That’s a fact,” Battista comes back a split second too late. But he gets to work on the Razr. He pushes some buttons, then some more buttons.
-“How can you block a person if you don’t know his number,” Laura asks, suspicious now.
-“The phone is locked. It’s locked. It won’t unlock,” Battista admits. Laura takes the phone, unlocks it, and hands it back. Battista pushes some more buttons.

“It’s the Darwin, isn’t it,” Doubya’s voice interrupts them from behind. He has appeared on the porch and puts his hand on her shoulder.
-“Why didn’t you go get it yourself, be a man,” she quips, pointing to the tome on ground, “Battista handed me this book as if it was my fault.”
-“I should have known,” Doubya says, picks up the Darwin and disappears inside. Her ploy has failed, but she has to keep up appearances, so she turns to Battista and blinks at the phone. Battista pushes its buttons again. 15 seconds have elapsed in the meantime. She can read faces, especially Secret Service faces.
-“It’s locked again, right?” she tries to say.

Ever so gently, she removes the phone from Battista’s hand and makes her way across the porch back into the house. Doubya, already immersed in his Darwin, has curled up on the sateen slouch chair in the living room. She makes it to the next chair and plunks down. The cuckoo clock is ticking on the wall. An angel stumbles through the room. The landline rings. I can’t handle this any longer she thinks, but the phone knows better. Doubya ignores her thoughts. She gets up again.
-“I have the president on the line for you,” the blithe voice of Katie Johnson, Obama’s secretary, chimes on the other end, as the President’s voice blends in.