Gotcha
Two days later, bright and early in the morning, I answered a knock on my door, and sure enough, there stood Sheldon, looking casual and relaxed in jeans and a light jacket. He had aged well. He had lost some hair in the preceding fifteen years, which made him look a little older, but he had also lost some weight, which made him look a little younger. I shook his hand and invited him in, although he was already halfway through the door before I had a chance to say anything. He noticed that my TV was on, tuned to CNN, and he cocked an inquiring eyebrow at me.
"Yes," I said. "I saw it."
As you may recall, an Algerian national by the name of Ahmed Ressam was arrested on December 14th, 1999, as he tried to enter the United States from Canada.[4] We've since learned that he was involved in a plot to trigger some kind of explosion at Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve. He was captured as he tried to disembark a ferry in a small tourist town in Washington by the name of Port Angeles. According to CNN, an INS inspector decided to question Ressam because there was "something strange about his mannerisms." Personally, I had reason to believe that the INS inspector had been tipped off.
After we watched the news for a few minutes, Sheldon told me that, given the dramatic confirmation of the accuracy of Dr. Malenkov's information, he wanted to station a small team of agents at my house, was that OK with me? He said that they needed more bandwidth, would I mind if they ran a T-3 line to my home? He asked again for the encryption key, and he seemed to be at least mildly exasperated when I again refused. I told him not to worry, I had made arrangements for the key to be delivered to him if something happened to me. I think he knew I was lying. I wondered if my spur-of-the-moment prevarication had been such a good idea, because it implied that all he had to do to get the key was to bump me off. Maybe it was good that he didn't believe me.
His "small team" turned out to be about a dozen people, which is about half a dozen more than my house can comfortably accommodate. But they were unfailingly polite, and they cleaned up after themselves, so I didn't really have any reason to complain. They actually cooked for me while they were encamped in my home, a definite plus in my book. One of them even made a tasty chicken cacciatore dinner a few times. "My mother's recipe," she said proudly. "From the old country."
I asked the crew not to smoke in my house, and they were good about it at first. But as the days and weeks wore on, and as the New Year began to loom ever closer, I occasionally caught a whiff of cigarette smoke in the air. When I complained about it, their denials seemed a little surly.
I guess that not being able to account for all of your nuclear weapons can make you a little edgy.
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©2007 Henry Charles Mishkoff