12. Meeting with a Madman
"...American woman...!"

April 26, 2007
11:00 AM
Bunker #462
Corridor 36-C
Chamber of the Most Prodigious Great Crusader.

Kim slowly hinged the door open, keeping her body glued to the surface. As she pivoted into the room, she let the gun fall from "standby" to "kill a beeeyotch," pointed hard and deadly in front of her. She now understood why she hadn't become Swiss cheese from the noise earlier. The narrow side of the door was hacksawed off and planed smooth, with layers of pale yellow soundproofing stuffed crudely into the door hollow.

Her picture of the room widened with the door. She blinked as her eyes narrowed – the light was much stronger and brighter in here. Four bare bulbs dangled by their cords from the ceiling, their cast glaring off the austere walls of the metal-sheathed box. An opened cot ran along the right wall. A small, portable television sat on top of it, sagging into the faded canvas, the power cord wrapped neatly around its body. Prayer rugs were folded neatly in a pile at the head of the cot. An expensive network camcorder lay on the floor at its foot, leaning against the cot's aluminum supports. Even from across the room, Kim could see "Daniel Pearl" etched into the camera's side.

Heads decayed. That trophy could last forever.

Kim snapped to center. A sturdy wooden desk stood before her. At least, the desk had been sturdy when new. Now, its edges were rounded, uneven, and splintering. The legs were pitted and shaved. One was deeply cracked, held together with coils of gray duct tape. The desk's turquoise paint was chipped and bubbling. Paint on the sides and top hung off in fissures and flakes, like barren ground cracking open in a drought. In the work area, the paint was worn through to the bare wood. Kim let her eyes drift upward. The slender, unmistakable form of a Kalashnikov, an AK-74, identical twin to the venerable AK-47, leaned casually against the right side of the desk. Tracking higher, she finally beheld the terminus of her long, bloody, exhausting trek.

He sat hunched intently over a typed paper, judiciously scratching out phrases with a red pen and scribbling edits. His short, circular turban, white as ever, perched over thick, scraggy black hair that was intermixed with gray. Bushy and tangled, the beard trailed out of sight below the lip of the desk. Streaks of strain-induced gray ran through it. An army jacket draped loosely around the shoulders his off-white robes like a blanket. His long, pointed face looked weary; the hook nose and high cheeks were sunken, pocked, and faintly discolored. His tangle with typhoid in mid-2006 must have drained him. But his eyes, his piercing, black, beetle-like eyes, twinkled and danced with life and vigor. Something good, something very good, within the last few days had given his spirits a tremendous boost.

Kim pressed the tip of her tongue hard against her top row of teeth in contempt. Flattening her aim on the figure seated in the chair, she wrapped her grip tighter around her pistol. There was no sweat; no wavering; no hesitation.

She did not use the standard front-forward Weaver stance. She took the supple classic, the slim profile, body a single flowing line from backwards-extending left hand to the muzzle in her outstretched right. She glared down her shoulder, eyes hardened into emeralds, facets sharpened to deadly razor edges. With a flick of the wrist, she swung the door closed behind her. The bolt clicked faintly as it locked.

Osama pricked his ears forward slightly at the snap of the catch but did not look up.

"Ah, Zawahiri," he said in Arabic, still absorbed in his work. He gave the papers a final, hasty scribble before roving over a sheaf of other papers in front of him, arching his eyebrows expectantly. "…I wanted to make a few suggestions about your proposal to use tifla in our jihad." He pulled out a second sheet and continued. "All-in-all, the plan to use children as suicide bombers is complementary. At such a young age, they are much easier to mold and brainwash. No trouble at all to persuade them, no trouble at all… You have the logistical benefit, too... You get many more of them at a lower price, they don't eat as much, take up as much space, or need as much training, and if one stupid idiot gets himself gutted by the Americans, then, well, there's twelve more of them eagerly waiting to avenge his 'martyrdom.' …Let's see…" He paused, reading. "No problem with getting them close to their targets… The infidels have this odd soft spot for small children. Consider them innocent. Or at least out-of bounds, to use the American jargon… How quaint… How very quaint indeed…"
"But one criticism… Ten-year-olds should be able to carry enough explosives to cause moderate damage – we could stuff their school backpacks with IEDs –, but I'm unsure about our how to use six-year-olds. They might not be strong enough yet to carry the required pay…," his eyes flickered upward for a fraction of a second, "…pay… pay...... load…"

He looked up fully to find one -very- displeased Kimberly Ann Possible staring at him from across the room.

Bin Laden gasped and dropped his pen to the desk with a clatter. He pressed his hands to the desk to steady himself as he gaped at her, mouth open. Kim studied his reaction with an air of detached objectivity, as if he were a bug she was about to crush on the sidewalk. A long moment of silence passed. Osama stared at her, mounting horror in his eyes. She coolly returned the gaze, unblinking, over the sight of her semiautomatic. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes as he reached a conclusion. "You – you're not Zawahiri," he dimly said at last.

"And Bingo was his name-o," Kim snarled, icicles hanging from her teeth like fangs.

They contemplated each other for another silent moment before bin Laden abruptly lunged for his AK-74. Looking almost bored, Kim fired. The automatic skittered away across the floor. With her gaze still locked on bin Laden, her arm independently tracked the assault rifle. Two more direct hits to the action destroyed it. The cracking report, muzzle flare, and jerking recoil had no effect on her stonecold expression. But her frigid exterior was just a shell. Behind it, ice vaporized into steam, turning her into an overclocked pressure cooker. The strain would eventually, inevitably find a weak spot.

She smoothly swung the gun back to center and sent a round screaming in Osama's direction. The terrorist leader flinched as the slug careened a millimeter past his temple and slammed into the wall intercom behind him, wrecking its innards. Discovering he wasn't dead yet, bin Laden stood shakily. He looked from the shiny green motherboards dangling from the speaker box to Kim's smoking pistol, relieved and somewhat confused at still being alive.

Kim smiled a tight-lipped smile and waggled the gun to the left. The message was clear: Move.

Osama hesitated, mentally picturing the cyanide capsules stashed in the desk drawer. They had been designed for this exact purpose. Do not be taken alive, his credo said.

Kim guessed his thoughts and her mouth hardened into a thin line. The gun stopped encouraging him to move, and now demanded it, zeroing for his chest. Do it. Now.

Osama took the hint. Cautiously he raised his hands halfway and shuffled from behind the desk to the left, looking at Kim edgewise. He mentally prepared himself for a sudden, painful death while simultaneously trying to figure a way out of it, mind racing like a rat in a trap.

To his great surprise, the redhead slipped the gun back into its holster and advanced a step toward him. He retreated half a pace and fell into a weak fighting stance. Kim's mouth twitched faintly in an are-you-kidding-me-with-this smile as she raised an eyebrow.

"Oh… I'm sorry," she said in sarcastic apology, "Should have knocked, shouldn't have I? My apologies… It's always been a bad habit of mine… Hmm, and now that I think about it, I don't believe we were ever properly introduced…" She extended her hand slightly with a wide grin. "I'm Kim Possible."

Osama glared and ignored her prompt. "You're… supposed to be dead," he said blankly.

Kim looked over her exposed lower torso in fake shock. "Wow, I thought I would've noticed!"

"You… speak Arabic. Fluently. How…?"

"Brain chip," she replied in Arabic, tapping her head. "Not important right now… We should communicate in your native tongue, eh? Don't want any miscommunications, do we? 'Cause a miscommunication might lead to, you know…" she hesitated significantly, "…Violence… …And besides, we have to be considerate of other cultures, no?" She spat the last words out in a caustic bite. Taking a few deep breaths, she regained control. Grinning again, she opened her arms wide.

"Hit me."

"What!"

"Hit me. Fight me," she said lightly. "I barge right in, unannounced, shoot up your room; assassinate most of your peeps, not before blowing the shit out of your fortress downstairs with my Spec. Ops. friends, while happily, I might note, wiping out a good chunk of your way-twisted buddies…" – bin Laden hissed angrily at her – "So, all in all, I'd say that in the spirit of fairness, you get the first shot free."

Bin Laden narrowed his eyes at her, his forehead furrowing and folding into his eyebrows, scrutinizing her like she was insane.

Maybe I am, thought Kim. She wasn't so sure herself.

"No," he finally murmured.

"Excuse me?"

He puffed up self-righteously. "No… I said no… I will not lower myself to do battle with such a… a… dirty, unchaste whore of an infidel!" He smirked.

"Well tough shit, buddy," said Kim, finally dropping the act. "'Cause it's my way and the highway ain't an option...... …So …You want to fight America, right?" she said, falling into a low, deadly tone.

He considered the question and then nodded nastily.

"You wanna fight America…" she said quietly, half to herself, then rapidly built in volume. "You wanna fight America?! You wanna hijack our airplanes; you wanna bomb our buildings; you wanna kill our citizens; you wanna dismember, torture, behead our soldiers, reporters?! You wanna dominate us, murder us, and force us to your will…? You want to take nearly 5,000 American lives?! You want to drive a fuckin' PLANE into my fuckin' HOUSE and nearly kill MY MOTHER?!!" Kim screamed, losing control, "So you wanna fight AMERICA?! Then you're gonna… fight… ME!!!" She stood there, arms held wide, throat sore, willing herself not to cry from pent-up anger and frustration. "Go on, hit me!"

Looking positively alarmed by now, Osama tentatively pulled back his fist, and looking as if this was really against his better judgment, delivered a relatively weak punch to her right shoulder. Unfortunately, it landed right on the bullet slice from the druggie encounter.

Reacting as if it were a starting bell, Kim hauled back and flat-out slugged him. He flew across the room and hit the wall with a dull thud.

She followed through on the blow and straightened, shaking away the sudden pain of a split knuckle beneath the glove. Osama half-staggered on the opposite wall, cradling a purpling jaw. She nonchalantly strode across the room, a mixture of adrenaline and white-hot hate pumping through her veins like adder venom.

Dang... That felt good.

Bin Laden saw her coming and rolled into a sitting position, looking up defiantly as she stood over him, her vision shaking slightly from fury.

Kim extended a hand. "Get up," she said quietly, tightly, dangerously, straining to keep her practical fighting window clear of the emotional one.

Osama did not take it, and merely stared up at her.

"Get up!" she repeated in a voice of steel, outstretched arm stiffening, the clear window fogging.

He still did not move, his thin mouth cracking painfully past a puce lump into an indolent leer.

All at once, the steam in Kim's chest found a weak point her thick, reinforced dams and six years of simmering anger toward the man folded before her boiled over.

"I SAID 'GET UP', DAMMIT!" she roared, grabbing his long beard like greased lighting and hauling him upright so his nose was an inch from hers, ignoring his yell of pain and indignation. The smirk slid from the terrorist leader's face, replaced by a look of awed fear. "Look, buddy... I did not come across three continents, take out people with sniper ri-I-fles—" she yelled, shimmering liquid burning the edges of her vision as her voice cracked. "—and–and pistol m-M-ore people at the–three-foot range, violate my own sense of humanity, just to end it with some one-finger, half-ass BULLET TO THE BRAIN!" She released him roughly and he stumbled back a step. "I've said it before - FIGHT ME!"

The terrorist took another step back to gain tactical distance and this time braced into a strong fighting stance. Kim did the same.

"Yes, Ms. Possible... American might always decides when and where to do battle. May the best..." he stopped, sneering, "...man... win..."

A war scream ripped from the redhead's throat; she hurled forward, a living scythe in a whipping roundhouse sweep. Osama sidestepped, dived, and kicked out her unbalanced leg, sending Kim crashing flat on her back. He moved in on her, foot raised; Kim wrapped her legs around the free leg and wrenched, executing the same move on him that he had done on her. And so he too smashed to the ground, his back taking the brunt of impact.

Kim staggered up and away as waves of pain pulsed through her spine. Her legs were shaking. She felt like she had been punched in the kidneys. Panting, she wiped a trickle of blood from her lip and fell into an on-guard stance.

Bin Laden slowly brought himself to his feet, also breathing heavily, holding his back. He smiled painfully. "You are a fast learner, young kalb," he wheezed, "but you are so naive..... You are handing me weapons, little már'a," he taunted. "Attempting to give me a hand up; waiting for me to rise just now when you could have finished me – you are showing me you are honorable, that you are sentimental, that you play by the rules! I know well of your infidel Western notion of chivalry... and it is worthless here. I have thrown away your outdated rulebooks! Here we play on my terms, as the Koran has dictated to me... Have you forgotten that I was once an expert fighter in the Soviet War, funded and trained by your government itself? That I drove off waves of your infidel kind from our Sacred Lands? I do not play by your codes! I have more tricks up my sleeve than you can even imagine!"

Uhhhh-oooohhh...

As her confidence flickered, all the aches and pains Kim had been holding back collapsed on her. The horizontal bruises across her back flared. Her pain in her cut shoulder and forearm suddenly fired back to life, followed by other small cuts across her face, stomach, and exposed arms. To top it off, the puncture in her thigh started to ache again.

"Furthermore," Osama continued, "Your yelling, your empty threats, your punch just now - they tell me what sets you off... I had expected better, knowing of your reputation. But I now know you are rash, emotional, weak, apt to fly into a passion... just like the woman you are!"

The throbbing in Kim's leg vanished as surging angry fire licked through her veins. "Let's see how your theory holds up after I'm done, shall we?" she said through gritted teeth.

"As you wish..." said Osama, bringing his hands down to combat position. "Talking is not the way of the Mujahedeen... Let us quickly end this banter - we lose the tempo of the Dance of Death..."

He paused.

"Allah is waiting," he said quietly. "He calls for one of our souls to sup at His table tonight..." His face bent into an ugly snarl. "May it be yours!"

With a last battle cry, they charged.

Great Hall
11:08 AM

Ron threw himself flat against the rummage pile as a new flurry of bullets whined overhead. He huddled tighter against the barricade, ignoring an ammunition box poking him in the ear. After fighting off the near-overrun almost a half-hour ago, he felt completely drained. His legs shivered uncontrollably. Rounds screamed by, six inches over his head. He forced himself to keep his eyes wide open. Each time a shell tore itself into the shelter, his breathing caught raggedly. Detonations and yells echoed softly around. By this stage in the battle, he felt nearly deaf from the overpowering, schizophrenic noise.

…And you thought war was cool, huh, boy? But all your fancy little computer games never showed you this. Never showed you the fear. Never showed you the pain. The blood. The noise. The stink. The dirt… Ohhh, they never showed the dirt…!

The haze of cordite and smoke and kicked-up dust needled at his parched eyes, up his nose, down his throat. He hacked involuntarily, almost jerking his head into the firing line. The ropy spit mingled with grime on his lips and came out whitish-brown. Straining his eyes upward, he beheld the square end of the M249 stock.

KP and I have been around the world, and now it's a challenge just to raise my fingers a few inches…?

Fighting with his dwindling nerve, Ron grunted himself forward slightly on the tips of his elbows. He was surprised his weapon hadn't been taken out yet, since it was turning the swath in front of it into a killing field. His movement pumped his body slightly higher; now the bullets seemed to be coming right at him. Tracers crackled around his ears, face, and hair. He screamed and flattened his face to the pile. Hesitatingly he tilted his head up again and wriggled his fingers to the trigger grip. After trying his best to hide behind the slim profile of the machine gun, he bit his lip and started spraying. The bark of the weapon deadened his hearing even further. From his low position, hot disintegrator links from the bullet belts rained down on him, bouncing off the hill to hit him in the chin.

His eyes narrowed as al-Qaeda fighters, trying to go "over the top" of their own emplacements, folded like paper as the bullets hit them.

Emboldened, he crouched higher, giving himself greater leverage and view. Clenching his tongue halfway out between his teeth, he let loose a short, determined cackle and wrenched the gun side-to-side like Rambo. The corners of his mouth flexed slightly in masochistic grin. An arcing bullet reflected off the flat top of the SAW's action, slammed into the bottom of his jaw, and came to a halt when it hit the top of his skull. His brown eyes widened in surprise. No bubbling "errk!" issued from his blood-filled mouth; his throat had been destroyed. His back suddenly felt unable to support his weight. He toppled backwards and slid limply to the bottom of the pile. Dead.

Bumping back to reality, Ron gave himself a shake to clear the morbid scenario from his mind. Finding himself still flat behind the gun, he quickly decided not to raise himself up any higher. An RPG rippled over his head. Before he could even turn to track it, it slammed into the rear wall with a tremendous roar. The overpressure blast flung his legs and rear up, nearly sending him tumbling face first over the pile's edge. His forehead cracked painfully into the M249's stock butt, leaving a bleeding gash across his brow. He ignored it as he scrabbled for the machine gun, which, knocked forward by his impact, threatened to fall down the front of manmade berm. Exposing his arm to the bullet-ridden face, he caught the heavy rifle by the stock and dragged it back up one-handed. Yanking it clumsily back into position, his pride was no match for his exhausted nerve, and he scrambled back down into safe cover just as another sheet of tracers ripped overhead.

Sliding on his butt, he tumbled to the ground and rolled over to Mr. Barkin. MHS's burly administrative aid sat propped rigidly against the junk hill. Eyes slammed closed. Teeth bared in spite of a mouth disciplined not to let the pain show. Breathing slow, heavy, deliberate, strained. He had his hand clamped over one arm, just below the ball of his shoulder.

The former lieutenant opened his eyes a sliver and glared down at the blonde teen. "Don't give me any of that positive crap, Stoppable," he growled tightly to Ron's worried look. "Duty first. How'd you do?"

"Sorta good, sir."

"Whatever. At least you didn't get yourself killed," he snapped. He sighed and resettled into the pile, closing his eyes. As he shifted his hand slightly, Ron could see red, slick, corded muscle between his bloodstained fingers. Through the muscle, he saw a pale, slimy, yellowish-white glint of bone intermingling with the heavy gray of a lead slug. He reached his hand forward to loosen Mr. Barkin's arm.

"Don't touch it!" he yelped, whacking the imploring fingers away.

"Look," retorted Ron, growing impatient, "You've been sitting here ever since you got shot, holding your arm. Good for you, taking it like a man, stiff upper lip and all that bull. Probably'll leave a nice big scar that you can show all the femininás. Now at least let me plug it up so you feel better!"

Surprised by the strength of Ron's reply, Barkin let his fingers drop to expose the hole in his arm. Ron mentally thanked himself for watching a lot of gory war movies.

Riffling through his backpack, he yanked out a red medic pouch, zippered it open, and unspooled an armslength of fluffy white gauze. After using Rufus's teeth to cut it, he rocked back on his heels, trying to decide how to tie the thing. At last, he decided to screw form and haphazardly wrapped the whole mass around Mr. Barkin's arm. That didn't work, and it half-unraveled, clinging to the wound by the blood. Frazzling slightly, he latched onto a maxim not to remove bandaging if bleeding didn't stop, yanked out another yard of gauze, and began to wrap it around Mr. Barkin's arm. He did it right this time, and soon he was left with two dangling ends in each hand. He stared blankly at them, racking his brains to remember the proper knot.

::…While *you* made wallets!

And lanyards. I ruled at lanyards!::

Yeah, but never at first aid!

Mr. Barkin's eyes flickered open. He looked down at Ron's frantic attempts to tie a cravat bandage and smiled faintly through half-closed eyelids. "Stoppable…" he mumbled, his speech slurring slightly.

"What!?" he shot, frustrated and desperate.

"About… about… that look… in 9th grade…"

Ron froze, unsure of what he was hearing. He looked up at his ex-teacher, quizzically cocking his head to one side.

"Yeah… maybe…" Barkin paused, as if it were painful to spit out. "…Maybe… it was nothing…. Maybe… I… overreacted…."

Taken aback, Ron stared at him, ignoring Jonathan as he dived by, hurling grenades. His face broke into an overjoyed grin before he checked it, blinking. Then he redoubled his efforts on the bandage, pounding Mr. Barkin supportively on the back.

"Don't-don't say that, Mr. B! It's not that bad yet! Hang on with me, OK? Just hang on! You're not gonna die here; you're not gonna die! We're gonna get you home, so you can grade that whiny kid's English paper!"

"I can't wait…" Mr. Barkin said with a low chuckle. For the first time in Ron's memory, the squash-nosed teacher smiled at him. "You're a piece of work, Stoppable."

Relieved that he wasn't about to lose his patient, Ron laughingly fired back, "I try to, sir!"

A rifle crack echoed to their left. With a stifled grunt, an al-Qaeda fighter, who had been attempting to throw a knife at the pair while their backs were turned, toppled out of sight behind the barricade rim, clutching his chest. Jonathan came over to them at a crouched run, the barrel of his M4 smoking. Simms, Dr. Director, Ben, and the rest regrouped around them, gunning down anything that moved as they came over. Everyone bled in some way.

At that moment, a grenade airbursted above them, flinging them to the floor and blasting down a cone of metal rain. Dr. Director shrieked and began writhing on the ground, a hand clamped over her right eye. Simms immediately jumped on her, administering first aid.

Ben and Jonathan exchanged glances.

"I don't know what it is, Leigh," said Ben, wincing as he adjusted his bandage, "We're killing 'em and killing 'em, fast as we can reload, but they just… keep… coming!"

Jonathan hissed in frustration like a snake. His blonde hair shone darkly with sweat and dirt. "Damn… This is getting nasty…" He raised his eyes briefly to see how Simms and Director were fairing. "…And we're running low on ammo, too. Thank God one of those piles we found was a weapons cache." His jaw flexed slightly as he listened to bullets ping into their refuge. "…Hey, Stoppable, got Kim's binoculars?"

"Yessir."

"Good, then. You follow me."

He led him back up the mound. They huddled into the wreckage as they reached the top and stared across at enemy lines.

"Gimmie the scopes."

Ron handed the demolitions expert the high-quality binoculars. He began scanning the opposition, searching for weaknesses. Ron did his own searching of the war wall. His eyes, accustomed to reacting to split-second videogame cues, picked up on a slight, repetitive movement centered around the large blast door in the rear. "Mr. Leigh........?" he said, pointing. The officer swiveled the binoculars to follow the line of his arm.

"Nice catch, Stoppable," he muttered while he focused. "Sunnavabe-yotch," he spat suddenly, passing the scopes to Ron. "Will you look at that? The mothers are coming through the entrance we hit earlier with a Javelin. No wonder we're getting shot to pieces – they keep getting reinforced! We'll *really* be in trouble if that isn't plugged within the next five-ten minutes… Matt!" he finished with a yell, twisting around.

"Yeah!" came the reply from below.

"Can you hit the rear door with another Javelin?"

"Sorry Jonathan, I just used the last one to take out a machine gun nest!"

"Dammit!" he swore as he turned back. "…Dammit!" He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index, thinking hard. Absentmindedly, he thumbed bundles of C4 on his belt. His finger came slowly to a halt, and he lifted a beige brick of the explosive before his eyes. "Maybe…" he said pensively, "…But it would have to be right…" He jammed the C4 back in the belt pocket and squinted, lasering the door with his eyes. He remained absolutely motionless, blocking out the gunfire streaking around him. After a few more seconds, he bowed his head, crushing his eyes shut in deep, quick thought. His face creased with strain and his teeth gritted. Ron glanced at him nonplussed as Jonathan mouthed silently, writing invisible numbers and equation signs into his palm with a finger. He paled slightly as the scribbles on his palm became faster and more complicated-looking. "Oh-kaay," he said at last, opening his blue eyes. Without a word, he whipped around and slid down the pile, gesturing Ron to follow.

After waiting for Simms to finish tending Dr. Director, he waggled him, Matt, and Oliver over. Ron hung around within earshot.

"OK guys, here's the sitch, to borrow Kim's phrase," Jonathan said, "We've got a band of shocked quartz running around the perimeter of the door, roughly three feet out from the frame. All my heat put together couldn't hope to bring that down. However, there's a weaker sandstone-shale aggregate sandwiched between the quartz and the door. If I bomb the quartz with enough power and a properly shaped charge, the quartz, because it is denser, will refract the shock all the way around the door. At the proper resonate, the aggregate will collapse, taking the opening along with it." He paused, studying the men's faces. "…Oliver, I'd like you to place the charge, because between you and Matt, you have the most experience."

Oliver's jaw bulged slightly as he clenched his teeth. Wordlessly, he tilted his head forward an inch.

"Once in position, place the bomb I'm going to make flat against the rock band on the left side of the door. It's rosy quartz; can't miss it. The other junk's a sorta gray-brown. Make sure the arrow is pointing toward the wall…OK, now," said Jonathan, scrounging through his pack, "This is the detonator." The detonator was a small, black, plastic rectangle roughly two by three inches. A circular red pushbutton rose out of the lower third. Two screw-adjust wire terminals projected from the far edge. Digging in a chest pocket, Jonathan pulled out two six-foot wires, one red and one blue, that intertwined with each other. Roughly a foot from each end, they separated. At one end the plastic coating was stripped off, simply exposing the brass, and at the other each wire connected to a thick, three-inch-long metal needle. "Setup is easy. All you have to do is plug the needles – which are blasting caps, by the way – in as far as they can go and then wrap the red wire around the red-coated terminal and the blue wire onto the blue-coated terminal." He broke off, grinning. "Whatever you do, don't cut the red wire."

Oliver chuckled.

"Anyway, once you've got it fused, all you have to do is press the red button. There's a ten-second delay. I highly recommend that you take advantage of the opportunity," he said airily, purposely overusing euphemisms. "Do you got all that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good man," butted in Simms. "We'll give you as much fire support as we can afford."

"Thank you, sir."

The little discussion broke apart. While Simms arranged defensive positions, Jonathan immediately set to work constructing the charge. Gathering together twelve bricks of C4, he ripped off the red paper wrappers to expose the pasty plastique beneath. Squashing and massaging the explosive until it reached a doughy consistency, he formed the blob into a steep right triangle, the longest leg extending upward. Using a Sharpie, he scrawled a crude, upward-pointed arrow on the hypotenuse, indicating that the tall side was to go against the wall. Finally, he swirled two dots on the thickest part of the bomb with the permanent marker.

"That's where the detonators go," he explained, "There's a small bit of gunpowder in the needles, which when ignited by the electric surge, sets off the primary explosive… Oliver, you know what a tamped charge is, right?"

"I grew up in a West Virginia mining town, sir!"

"Ah, no problems then," Jonathan said jovially, over the sound of Wilson blasting away at an attempted enemy charge.

Simms hurried over to them. "Quick's the words and sharp's the action; this would be the time for him to go."

"You ready?"

Oliver swallowed hard and nodded.

"OK," said Ben, "Go out the left of our position and stick to cover. As you get to the rear, angle toward the center, keeping your head down. There's a bunch of shell holes and tossed-up rubble near the door and their center has weakened. If we give 'em enough heat, you should be able to get behind their lines long enough to set the charge."

Jonathan handed Oliver the bomb. The stocky man went to the left edge of their protection and tensed, ready to spring. Those that were able took positions along the top of the mound. Simms manned the M249; Ron, toting an M4, joined Jonathan as a spotter; and Wilson, Michaels and Matt fanned out. Ben, because of his leg, stayed near the bottom and aimed from the right edge. Barkin cared for Director at the center.

Simms sucked in a deep breath and waited for a lull in the firing. Finding one, he roared, "Give them hell, boys! Oooo-raaaahhhh!!!" and commenced spraying the machine gun. Instantly, the American lines erupted in muzzle flashes, broken at intervals by bright flares as Wilson and Michaels belched off grenades.

Mesmerized, Ron watched as Oliver took off like a football player attempting a record 40, holding the C4 triangle under his arm like a linebacker. Rolling and scrambling between shell craters, using them like foxholes, he crossed the main expanse of the floor quickly. Finding a rough sort of passageway formed by parallel wreckage lines, he dashed toward the rear, avoiding friendly fire and pistolling terrorists as he came to them with his service .45. Pausing, he waited for fire support to eliminate fighters attempting to guard the door. After the SAW chewed apart a fire team attempting to bar the door and a grenade zoomed straight down the wide opening and detonated, resulting in screams issuing from the passageway, he turned and quickly gave his friends a thankful thumbs-up.

Breaking off from firing, Ron pressed the binoculars to his face. He watched eagerly as Oliver skidded to a halt beside the door and rammed the charge against the wall. Once in position, he started grabbing sandbags, rocks, boards, pretty much any heavy object he could find, and piling them on top of the C4.

"That's tamping," Jonathan explained, "By placing dense stuff on top of the charge, he's making it so the outward charge has a path of more resistance, which means that the main force of the blast will follow the path of least resistance, into the rock."

As Ron focused, he saw Oliver kneel, plunge the detonators into the block, and prepare to press the detonation button. "Hey, guys!" he yelled excitedly, "He's make it! He's really gonna –"

Ron's ears picked up a screaming noise, like a fired rocket, as he saw Oliver whip around on his heels and his eyes widened as his mouth opened and then the binocular's viewing screen evaporated in a solid blaze of white light.

Blinded, Ron tore the lenses away from his eyes and blinked desperately, trying to restore his vision. As he did, he crammed his eyes back through the binoculars.

His stomach turned over.

Oliver's body no longer existed above the waist. The legs and lower torso remained upright for a moment as the huge mesenteric artery surged twice, spraying blood into the air like geyser, before falling limply to the floor.

"Oh. my. GAWD!" Ron ripped the binoculars away from his face as his brain fogged over. He retched.

"NOOOOOO!" Matt attempting to break forward, desperately extending his arm toward his fallen brother. He was cut down a second later by a barrage of gunfire; Wilson and Michaels jumped on him as he fell, yelling, attempting to plug the gushing bullet holes. With a roar, Simms annihilated the cheering al-Qaeda RPG crew.

Jonathan grabbed Ron's dropped binoculars. His mouth twitched into a clenched hiss of grief and revulsion as he focused on the body. Ron himself had slumped halfway down the pile, where his was now doubled over in dry heaves.

Now I know why Kim looked so haunted as she came over the berm.

Now I know why I didn't have any breakfast.

"It looks like – It looks like –" Jonathan choked, "It looks like…like… his body… absorbed all the force… of the explosion," he stopped to gag, "The… the bomb's… intact. Detonator's… Detonator's lying there on the floor next to," he hiccupped, "to him." He rubbed his forehead in restless thought. "What now...?"

Panicked cries rippled down the line. Below them, Ron heard Ben yelling, "He what?! He WHAT?!"

Ron slid to the floor and stood wobbly, clutching his stomach. Jonathan followed and started pacing, murmuring, "An answer… I need an answer... Give me an answer!" He walked with his head slightly bent, fist cupped under his nose, aimlessly questing with his eyes. As he turned around and looked back at Ron, he froze.

What… XYZ? Ron thought. He followed Jonathan's line of sight, to his pant leg. As he slowly looked down, he beheld Rufus sticking his head our of his thigh pocket, the rodent questing the air sleepily with his nose.

It took Ron a moment to connect. As he did, he snatched the mole rat from his pocket and cupped him in his hands. "NO… NO! YOU'RE NOT HAVING RUFUS! NOT RUFUS!" he screamed, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He turned halfway away from the man, further blocking Rufus from Jonathan's view.

"Ron, it's the only way!" Jonathan yelled back, "We can't send anybody else!"

"But Rufus is like… like… family to me and KP!" he choked, "You can't have him!"

Jonathan walked to within a foot of the teen and crossed his arms. "Do you want to fuckin' die here, Stoppable?" he asked calmly.

Ron, flabbergasted by the weight of the question, blinked at him, motionless.

Like lightening, Jonathan grabbed Ron by the arm and wrenched him around, dragging him toward him so their faces were only a few inches apart. "I ASKED you – Do you want to fuckin' DIE HERE, Stoppable?!"

Shocked, Ron stared at him with his mouth open, face drained of color. Meekly, he shook his head.

Jonathan released his arm with a thin, triumphant smile. "Good, because if you ever wanna get laid with that girlfriend of yours, I suggest you use the mole rat!"

Ron nodded slowly, his brain preoccupied with Jonathan's first words, which had abruptly opened up a whole new horizon of things he decided he really didn't have time to think over right now. "What… what does… Rufus have to do?" he asked softly.

"Nothing but scamper over there and press the red button. The bomb is all ready to go."

"…How does he escape the blast?"

"That's his problem." he said shortly. He paused. "Oh, and Ron…" he added as an afterthought.

"Yeah?"

"If this doesn't work… Just be sure to keep a bullet in reserve..... for.... later.... You've seen what al-Qaeda does to prisoners...."

"Whatever," Ron muttered, brushing away the comment. He kneeled and gently placed Rufus in the palm of his hand. The pink rat stood on its hind legs, looking at his master inquisitively. "Rufus, buddy," he said slowly.

"Mmm?" said Rufus, clasping his front paws together expectantly.

"I, uh, I… need you to do something for me… See, we're in a real funky sitch right now, gooier than week-old Chimberito cheese…"

"Oh, cheese!"

Ron let out a hollow laugh. "Oh, right… anyway, I need you to go out there," he pointed beyond their defenses, "And run across the room. Once you get to the other side, they'll be this real big door. Um, ignore anything you find over there," he felt a ping of nausea, "And look for this small black box with a red button on it. A red button. Just like in the Cheese Wheel!"

Rufus nodded, comprehending.

"Ok… and then… once you press it… you need to run toward me just as fast as you can. Got that? Get away from the red button just. as. fast. as. you. can," he said, punctuating his words with taps on Rufus's head.

The mole rat tilted his head to one side, thinking, before smiling and nodding intelligently.

"That's a goooood naked mole rat…!"

Rufus balanced on his shoulders as Ron walked slowly back to Simms, Jonathan and Ben. "OK… I'm ready…" he trailed off.

Simms nodded curtly. "Go for it. Good luck, Rufus."

Scrambling to the top of the pile, Ron paused to kiss his friend on the forehead. "Come back to me, okay?" he murmured, voice cracking. Then he pulled his arm back like a baseball player as Rufus curled into an aerodynamic ball. With a torn yell, he heaved the rat and sent him flying through the air. Following though, he grunted painfully and grabbed at the bloodied bandage covering the small round hole in his right shoulder.

Damn, and that was my burrito-folding arm…

Squinting desperately, he saw Rufus hit the ground and begin running, flashing madly through the shell holes and bullet traces. He saw him reach the other side of the hall and approach the bomb.

An RPG impacted in the middle of the floor. Ron threw up an arm to protect his face from a spray of lethal rock shrapnel. When he lowered it, Rufus, the bomb, and enemy lines had vanished behind an iron curtain of smoke, dust, and ash.

The Chamber
11:19 AM

The lioness stalked to and fro before her wounded prey, cautiously searching, probing. Narrowed to catlike slits, her green eyes dug for a weakness, a failing; a single opening with which to take advantage. She tactfully kept her distance. A man cornered and desperate equaled erratic and dangerous.

The prey's black eyes, also narrowed, tracked her. They betrayed the illusion of a broken body; showed that it remained cunning. Tricky. Powerful. Deadly. He followed her every move, every feint, every supple curve, mentally drinking in far more than just her limp and numerous shallow wounds. A kingpin unceremoniously ripped from his throne, he longed to give this usurper's windpipe a few good kicks.

Kim paused to wipe fresh blood from her busted lip. Her synthetic top clung tightly to her back, soaked through with sweat. The body water trickled down her exposed midriff and channeled down the trench of her spine to wet out the rear waist hem of her cargos and panties. Rivulets of sweat and blood intertwined and beaded down her temples and the curve of her gritted jaw. As she brushed darkened auburn hair out of her eyes with the back of a clenched fist, she reviewed the course of battle in her head.

After the first charge and hot, fast, furious punch-out, they became slower, deliberate, more cautious. Almost immediately, fight had devolved into its present state: a slow, grinding, bloody war of attrition. They were like two expert swordsmen clanging off each other, both so skilled that neither could land a decisive blow. Her punches were met by blocks; her kicks negated by skilled footwork. His spits to her face went unnoticed; his attempts to gouge her eyes met by crossed arms, with a crushing knee to the solar plexus as retribution. Kim discovered the hard way that Osama liked to file his fingernails into points. She had never seen anyone fight this dirty. Shego was a sparring partner compared to this.

She stopped pacing. Osama perked up like a wolf on high alert at the change in routine, preparing himself for another attack. Ignoring the screech in her tendons, Kim shifted her weight to her flexed left leg. With a deliberate slowness, she scraped the toe of her right leg before her in a semicircle, as if drawing a taunting line in the sand. The rubber tread shushed across the metal floor like chalk on a blackboard.

It shouldn't *be* this hard! she thought through lightly clenched teeth. He should've gotten his butt kicked by now!

Osama had actually gained the upper hand during the first part of the battle. It was, Kim grudgingly noted, partly her own fault. She continued to use traditional martial arts; it had always worked with Shego, anyway. The terror lord, seeing the obvious futility of going toe-to-toe with perhaps the best fighter in the world, took the route that every outclassed underdog must eventually take: dirty as mud retaliation. Meanwhile, Kim was unwilling to stoop to his vicious level, wanting to maintain her own sense of morals and dignity. Inherently resistive to changes in her time-tested strategy, reluctant to revise tactics that had worked each time, every time. Until now.
And so she found the playing field leveled, and herself in the same position as any government, from the British in 1776 to the U.S. Army in the mid-2000's, who has ever tried to fight a lopsided foe.

But this was a battle to the death; a battle of lasting; a battle of bleed-dry attrition. The simple resilience and vitality of her youth, Kim's unexpected weapon, inevitably twisted the fight in her favor. She limped; Osama's face resembled a chunk of tenderized raw meat. At current, he propped against the same spot of wall he had at the beginning of the fight, placed there by another whistling punch. An extensive web of light cracks slithered up the thin coating of drywall behind him. They could have only been put there by repeated impacts to the same place.

He rolled slightly to ease pressure on a large abrasion on his leg. Kim sensed an opportunity at last to end the fight, bent low, and silently charged. Osama saw her coming out of the corner of his eye. He twisted onto his back, bracing, a hellbent snarl ripping across his face. Surprise lost, Kim vaulted into the air with a strained yell. Airborne, she revolved in a drawn-out spinning fly kick, her striking leg flung out flat by the centrifugal force, her dormant leg bent under the hamstring. She intended to piledrive into his chest. Snarling, Osama spiked his leg upward to intercept her with a vicious kick to the crotch. Kim's eyes widened and she frantically terminated the original attack midair. Jerking her shoulders, she managed to alter her final trajectory, clawing the air like Wile E. Coyote over a void. Crashing into him, her femur took the brunt of impact. As their bodies contacted, a sharp crack! emanated from her thigh. Her lower half came to a sudden stop and her torso snapped forward. Kim used the force to drive a double-fisted slam into his chest before pushing herself away with the remaining energy of the attack and backflipped out of range.

As she shifted her stance, an arrowhead of pain exploded from her right leg and traced up her spine. Taking a deep breath, she lifted the leg and wiggled it. She heard a faint tinkling, grinding sound.

Her tongue jumped to the roof of her mouth. She froze, staring at her thigh cargo pocket, heart stopped fit to burst. Slowly, hesitantly, she dipped her hand below the flap and withdrew the shаttered, crumbling remains of the Kimmunicator.

The blue Lexan casing just below the screen was crushed in, almost touching the rear of the PDA. Slivers of broken plastic crackled away from the impact crater, flaking away in her hand. Keys dangled from their sockets, held from falling by their sensor ribbons. A spiderweb of icy fissures sparkled across the black, dead screen, oozing clear LCD fluid.

Her final link to the outside world was gone.

It had been her favorite one. After countless tries, Wade had found just the right combination of gadgets and civilian comforts. It was an oddly workable combination of CSI and iPod. The comprehensive list of Interpol's Most Wanted and her entire, extensive collection of MP3s were loaded side-by-side into the machine.

Kim felt an inordinately powerful surge of rage boil in her chest and clamp around her throat. She stared at the destroyed computer in her palm, breath coming harder, deeper, quicker. Her hand and body began to shake involuntarily from the building energy. Her vision clouded over in a haze of red. She knew she was overheating. A broken Kimmunicator was no big, really; hadn't she lost several over the years? Wade stashed every one of his device's specs in his hard drives; he could make her another one, couldn't he? And the MP3 files could be re-downloaded, right? Why this inexplicable pulse of anger?

It was because, she realized, the crushed device represented more than just wires and batteries. It symbolized all the crushed hopes and dreams and shredded families she had witnessed firsthand around the globe, run to ruin by organizations like al-Qaeda and its ilk. It represented crushed towers, crushed airplanes, crushed and mangled bodies, torn apart by false ideology. It personified the roar of broken, tangled emotions she'd felt over the past few days – the attacks, the shock, the gun. It represented her optimism, innocence, ideals, and love of fellow man crushed and left to die in the hallways behind her. This latest indignity, a broken electronic device, simply served as the tripwire.
Still, she knew she was majorly overreacting. Why?

You're narced out, that's why, her brain told her matter-of-factly, utterly disconnected from her Hulk-like fury.

"Narced out" was her term for nitrogen narcosis, a potentially deadly condition present in deep-sea diving. Ordinarily, at sea level, the nitrogen that makes up a large portion of the atmosphere is carried easily out of the body. Water pressure, however, causes the nitrogen to dissolve into the bloodstream. In addition to causing the bends, the concentrated nitrogen interferes with higher thinking, motor skills, and emotional control. The effects snowball as depth increases. Below 200 feet, the nitrogen supercharges the feelings and causes radical bouts of fear, joy, sadness, excitement, or depression. Kim herself compared it to Moodulation. A diver can easily become blindly fixated on or panic about trivial matters such as a dropped ten-dollar knife or a silt blowup, while ignoring life-and-death issues such as tangled, sharp wreckage or a leaking regulator.

Kim had experienced the narcosis effect herself while investigating a suspiciously efficient cruise ship sinking. All passengers and crew thankfully survived, and Kim's dive team was able to search the ship almost the moment after it hit the bottom and the sediment cleared, without having to wait for search & rescue. While at the dock, she had overheard a little girl bawling about her most prized possession, a stuffed bear, which she had been forced to leave onboard. In the bowls of the liner, some 250 feet down, Kim had discovered a teddy bear tightly wedged in debris. She became enthralled with extricating it, as if the entire mission, even her life, depended on returning this bear to that child. An ignored slit in her oxygen tube, pierced by mangled overhead girders, caused her air supply to drain faster than expected. Her oblivious efforts in the wreckage didn't help matters. By chance, Ron had found her, and, at risk to his own life, dragged her to safety.

But now there was no Ron to bring her back from the brink, to keep her grounded.

I'm narced out, Kim thought, trying to sift and analyze her emotions. Her next thought hit her like a cinderblock. ...And I don't care. It brought her to a full, stunned stop. She was shocked at herself for even thinking it. Then carefully, frightened, as if handling a bomb, she slowly repeated it. I… I don't have to… care… anymore… I don't have to care anymore! Idon'thavetocareanymore!

The revelation infused her with a giddy, heady, dangerous recklessness, something she hadn't felt since she kicked Shego into that electrical tower.

Kim contemplated her mind's statement, an odd bubble rising in her chest.

She no longer had Ron's presence, his "burden," to keep her in control. He was as good as dead for all the stability he could give her now. In fact, Kim suddenly forced herself to consider the very real possibility that Ron was already dead, eyes blank, lying in a pool of his own blood.

She no longer had the specter of parental opinion or punishment to bridle her. She was 19, a legal adult. And they were several thousand miles away across the Atlantic, to boot.

She no longer had to worry about collateral. Property damage. Injuring innocent civilians. It all didn't matter.

The broken Kimmunicator now represented something else – liberation from outside restraint. No one to judge her, to condemn her; no one to be appalled or shocked at her behavior. No incessant network cameras, no uppity pundits constantly picking apart her missions on national television, giving their Monday-morning quarterback pronouncements of what she should and should not have done.

She was in a sealed room with one of the modern age's most twisted men at her feet, whose forces she had been periodically fighting since his rise to international prominence six years ago. A corny motivational poster, "Character - doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching and nobody will ever know," flashed briefly before her eyes, but she brushed it aside.

He had targeted her personally. She had full right to little payback. Saving lives, a cornerstone of almost every one of her previous missions, was currently not a concern.

I'm in a frickin' Army strike force, she thought, caught up in a blind, unsteady rush, Funded by the frickin' U.S. government! I can do whatever I want!

With that, all the conscious and unconscious barriers were gone. The dark spot in the Yang of her Yin-and-Yang gleefully erupted.

She crushed the Kimmunicator parts between her fingers as she curled them into a fist. Plastic shards and wires dribbled to the floor. With piercing eyes, she slowly turned her head upward to gaze at bin Laden. She saw him recoil slightly, a look of fear stamped across his face. In a ping of horror, she realized his reaction gave her a flutter of twisted pleasure.

"...You... bitch!" she snarled in a low, slow, mechanical, inhuman voice. She let the statement hang before suddenly springing on him with a yell. Like a predator.

Like a lioness.

"Ack!" Osama held up his hands at the last second to protect his face, but it was no use. With something between a roar and a sob, Kim tore into him, sinking her fists wildly into all the flesh she could reach. If before the pressure cooker had ruptured from the steam, now it completely detonated, sending metal shards and plastic handle flying.

She felt her hands growing numb, her vision going blurry from either tears or sweat. In what could be best described as an out-of-body experience, she felt her consciousness slip away from her body and step back, observing the attack a few feet away, as if a bystander.

Wha-! What are you doing! What is this? What IS this?! her mind stammered in horror as it watched her physical form pummeling the muffledly-yelling body beneath it. How is *this* in me? Is this even me? Where in the heck did *this* come from?!

She answered her own question.

This was more than terrorism, April 2007. This was release. This was total-body release. This was eight-plus years of subconscious anger pouring out all at once. Eight years and more of attempted perfection. A lifetime of being the good girl. Being forced to miss school dances, sporting events, cheerleading practices because some idiot forgot to fill his gas tank before crossing the Gulf of Mexico and the Cost Guard was tied up. She had never seen a school function through in its entirety. The supershoe incident and the Diablos came to mind. This was scrambling to cram homework and school projects on redeye flights while wrestling with massive jet lag. This was wedging community service, extra curriculars into an ironbound schedule. Years of enduring Bonnie's taunts and jibes and willing herself to turn the other cheek. Enduring the envy, animosity, jealously, sexism of countless guys, with Ron, Josh, and a select other few the exception. They would never have the balls to do half of what she did on a daily basis, but they were just waiting for her to fail. Prove to everybody that this whole "caring" thing would never work. Stop trying to break the mold. They wanted her to shut up and sit down.
This was watching, on CNN and BBC, her efforts erased almost immediately by paranoid zealots and totalitarian governments. By now, helping the world was like trying to dig a hole in soupy sand. A game of godamn whack-a-mole.
This was eight years of Shego's needles and slanders, which became only more spiteful after the mercenary discovered Kim's new relationship with Ron. This was Drakken. Dementor. Monkey Fist. Cuts. Abrasions. Falls. Stress fractures. Twisted ankles. Death rays. Gunpoint. Plasma. Acid. Bombs. All the cheesy supervillian staples. The emotional trauma of near-death, torture, dismemberment repeated over and over and over.

The baddies only had to win once. She had to win every time.

Be the good guy, Possible, she was always told. Do the right thing, Possible. Control yourself. Control yourself because the media will rip you apart if you don't. Take the fall, Possible. Pull the punches, Possible. Hold back, Possible. Let the other guy win, Possible. Step down, Possible. Turn the other cheek and act like it doesn't bother you, Possible. Lead by example, Possible. Role model. You must have academic and physical perfection twenty-four-seven. No breaks. No downtime. Perfection.

She now understood why Shego loved her job.

And Kim had absorbed it, tucked it away, ignored it, shoved it down, carried it all, without realizing it. She filed it back in the distant corners of her memory to rot away. The strain periodically attempted to vent itself in geysers once Kim's controls were pushed to the limit. The gator farm in Florida. Slugging Drakken at Bueno Nacho headquarters. Crushing Shego into that tower. Scared senseless by her own power, she had attempted to clamp down, seal away the anger, to prevent anything like it from happening again.

But now… now, everything was rushing out like sand in a warehouse with a hole in the bottom. The recesses of her brain were in a painful, terrifying process of cleansing. The pressure had built up past tolerance. And she would not, could not, stop until it was all gone.

Her consciousness snapped back into her body as she heard Osama yelling something above the wet thud of her blurred hands and feet.

"Too… bad…. yaahhhggg! …about… your… house!" he screeched between the blows, blood gushing from his nostrils with every word, "If… we'd… eeeiiiiahhh! … known… there… was… a… bitch… inside…, we… would've… aimed… lower!"

Kim, amazed and grudgingly impressed by the sheer impudence of the man, let up from the attack and rocked back slightly, straddling him. Blood now gunked the sandpaper-like tread of the knuckles and metacarpals of her gloves.

"You really aren't helping your case, you know," she said exasperatedly, incredulous.

It was true. Osama's face was now almost completely unrecognizable. Blunt trauma. Hamburger meat. His nose was almost certainly broken. Words spluttered out between cracked, swollen lips. Two brilliantly colored black eyes were already rising and threatening to block his vision. From the way he shifted painfully, Kim was sure he had massive, traumatic bruising beneath his robes. She wondered briefly about the chances of internal bleeding, seeing his right hand sunk like Napoleon's beneath his robes.

Through the pain, he glared straight up at her with the most intense hatred Kim had ever felt. Taking a deep breath, he launched into a flying rant. "Y-you… you are foul! You are wicked! You pollute the Earth with your very breath! You have violated the Blessed, Blessed Sanctum of the Most Holy! Allah will burn your soul in hell for this, you slut! Ten thousand times a curse upon you!" He spat in her general direction. "You can do nothing against me! My death will be a signal! A fatwa! Every truly pious Muslim will rise up to erase your blasphemy! From this point on, you are a marked dog! You will not breathe a month! A week! It is the duty of all those faithful to the Prophet to purify your bloodline, eliminate your abhorrent excuses for family and fri–!"

A staggering backhand slap cut his vituperation short. His head snapped to one side, bottom of his jaw jerked sideways, saliva flying from his mouth. Kim followed through on the blow, now able to match his look of fury. Fresh blood dotted the ridge of her knuckles. Wrenching his face to front, she bent over him, shoving her face within a handsbreadth of his.

"Bull," she spat. "Bull. I'm not majoring in International Diplomacy for nothing, dammit! I've read the Koran back to front and gone over the interpretations with a half-dozen Islamic scholars. So I know what I'm saying when I tell you you've got it all wrong. The things you people have done…! You've, you've," she spluttered, losing words in her resurging anger, "It's been said before, and now I'll say it bluntly my way: You've rammed it up the ass! You thugs have twisted your own religion like a wet towel! I'm an American carrying an international visa, buddy; remember that… I've lived on both sides. Do you have any idea what I've seen? Do you have any inking of what you've done?! Do you think it doesn't pain me when I hear rednecks swapping jokes, talking about "them dirty Ay-rabs" and how the "Mus-lins should go back to where they 'yall from"? That it doesn't bug me when my own classmates laugh as they pantomime pressing detonators and shout "Jihad!" as we're learning about Islam in history class? Ever seen a girl trounced behind the school for wearing a headscarf and been helpless to stop it?"

She broke off.

"….Knowledge sucks, you know that?" she said bitterly, "The Islam I've learned about was once the scientific leader of the world. It was beautiful. It was healthy. It was innovative. Forward-thinking. Tolerant. Open. An-an-and now what! What's happened since Suleiman the Great, eh? It could have continued, you know; Islam could have been the light of the world. But no. No… Now that same religion is now used as a front to try and drag the modern world back to some chauvinistic male fantasy world from the 12th century!"

Kim paused to gulp air, trying to compose herself.

"…And I've crisscrossed the Mideast enough times to make Aladdin look like a tourist. Just as many preconceptions about Westerners as Westerners have about Middle Easterners… At least the Iranian general public seems to get that, no matter what their airhead of a President spouts out. Although, I think Iran may be in hot water within a few days…My thanks to Zawahiri. You really shouldn't keep all your hot papers in one place, you know."

She saw Osama slowly mouth the words, "Oh, shit."

With a half-grin, she continued. "I've worn hijabs and more in Muslim countries out of respect. Personally, I don't much care for it, but I admire people who wear them out of conviction. If that's the way she decides to interpret the passages, fine by me. What really ticks me off, though, is when it's forced on people through some ambiguous Koran passage that you guys twist into iron law. I've always wondered…" she asked rhetorically, "why it was only –women- who have to wear black cloaks and headdresses in the hottest parts of the world? While the men wear white, hmmmm? It's because you're scared. Deathly scared. Because nothing is more frightening than a woman who speaks her mind, right? Acknowledging the "fairer" sex can have power, or this thing men perceive to be power, would mean having to update in more things than weapons, right? I'm not denying that Christianity and the other big religions haven't had some majorly bad screw-ups, standing in their own pools of blood, but… but… c'mon! Who's making all the headlines these days!?
And the funny thing is, you're not clinging to the Koran; you're clinging to centuries-later interpretations of the Koran. I'd bet Muhammad would be really ashamed of what you've done with his words… Heck, and all this really isn't about the Koran! It's about this stupid, macho, survivalist tribalism! Tribal mentality, glossed over with cannibalized religious verses! Everybody's done it! It's last year's CB jeans, only now in bleached cobalt instead of faded-out azure…!"

By now, Kim was just rambling, more focused on untangling her own thoughts than launching a diatribe. Surprisingly, Osama wasn't stopping her.

"…But you don't really need the Americans or the Great Satan or the Evil West or whatever to destroy your societies," she said resignedly, "You're doing it yourselves. Sunni vs. Shiite… God, Iraq was horrible… You would've been able to put up a much better resistance to the "corrupting occupiers" if you hadn't been so insistent on calling the other sect "scum of the world" and cleaning out each other's ears with electric drills…. And yet, 99% of the Muslims I've met, both sides, aren't like your "ideals" or our fears… Just like everybody else, they're trying to eek out somewhere in the middle, only they have to cope with stares and car bombs. And yet you lozbos taint everybody… And it's not going to change until the middle says, 'I've had it.' …Sheesh, it's enough to make anybody agnostic…"

With her final comment, Osama fired back up again. "Atheist?! You swine! You Godless freak! You filthy little motherfucker--!"

"I didn't even know that last one was physically possible…" she said bemusedly, "And, look, you ferociously misquoted me –"

"You turned away from Allah! You shall be punished in the fires of Hell for eternity! Your name hath been tainted! Shame! Shame upon your whole family!"

"Man, you are such a headache…There's just no getting through to you, is there?" Kim said wearily, rubbing her temples. "All of that, all of what I just said, it was worthless, wasn't it?"

"Lies! All lies! Lies of the Infidel! We alone hold the keys to the kingdom of Heaven! There is no questioning the Holy Word of the Prophet Muhammad! The infidels and the Godless and wicked and those who turn away from the Submission must be dealt with by the sword! This is Allah's word! It is the only word! It is the only way!"

"SHUT UP!"

In a spasm of rage, Kim yanked her pistol out of its holster. Flicking on the laser-dot sight as she drew, she leveled toward bin Laden's forehead. She was panting again, chest shallowly rising and falling, teeth clenched, the gun rattling in her shaking hand. "I've had it up to here with you. To here. Your hate. Your bigotry. Your intolerance. I've had it. This ends right here." The barrel stopped shaking as her arm stiffened. She glared down at the once-proud terrorist leader, now semi-prone at her feet. "So now, out of a five-shot magazine, I've got… -" she suddenly broke off, trying to mentally recount her shots and failing. At once she realized the beautiful irony of situation… and smiled. She might never get another opportunity quite like this again… It felt so right… The pop-culture gods would kill her if she passed this one up…

"Now…" she breathed, letting the words melt in her mouth before letting them go, savoring the moment, experiencing an almost sensual thrill, "Now… I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking, did she fire five shots, or only four? Well, to tell you the truth, the honest-to-goodness truth, I've forgotten, myself, in all this excitement… If I did, if I pull this trigger and nothing happens… I'll make sure you land in the worst hellhole at Gitmo before I haul you up to get the justice you deserve for what you've done…."

…But if not…" Kim pulled the hammer back with a loud, clear, menacing click, "If not… I'm sure Allah will want to have a good, long chat with you about a little word called "context."
…And before you open your mouth, you've got to remember – I'm holding a .40 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world, capable of blowing your head clean off. So, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

"I am not afraid to die!" Osama boasted. "Allah will bless me above all others for carrying out his work against the Infidel! I am a true son of Islam!"

Kim snorted derisively. "Ha. Good one. Sorry to reuse the ol' cliché, but, really, you're about as Muslim as Hitler was Christian."

"Great was his work against the scourge of true believers, the Jews!" He smiled, revealing a line of uneven, yellow-tinged teeth. "You can do nothing against me, slut! My body will be gone, but my followers will carry on my crusade! I will be a martyr! My death will be a rallying cry for holy warriors around the world! You think 9/11 and 4/23 were bad… just you wait!"

"OK, one, if you haven't watched some real news recently, you're pretty much a figurehead. Two, you must've already forgotten that we will find the plan folders. And three," she broke off laughing, "You?! A martyr?! Paa-leeeze... If you haven't noticed, you, the most virulent, bigoted, destructive, intolerant, sexist man alive today, the headshot of the world's most powerful anti-Western terrorist group, just got his ass handed to him by an American... teenage... girl!"

He gasped.

"Yeeaaahh, you'd better believe it! This ain't gonna look too good for publicity, is it! It'll be near-impossible for your PR people to give this one a spin! *Nobody's* going to join you after this! You guys are going to look like laughingstocks, pal!"

She had finally gotten through. As the truth sunk in, his face slowly lost color. His mouth fell open and he looked up at her, eyes wide, the expression shocked. Kim felt his body go limp under her. The fire was gone.

"How… how… can this be…?" he stammered weakly, lost, utterly crumpled.

Kim laughed insanely and bent over him. "How?! I'm Kim Possible! Get it through your head – I. can. do. anything!"

"Including die!"

Before Kim could even comprehend what had happened, Osama wrenched a four-inch dagger from beneath his robes and slammed it to the hilt into her bared midriff. His hand, sunken Napoleon-style in his cloak, had been a ruse. He had been gripping that knife all along.

Kim gagged, doubled, stumbled backward, and fell to her knees. As she moved, a wave of incredible pain split her in two. Total agony. Yelling, she clawed one-handed at the protrusion from her abdomen. She felt like her stomach had detonated; felt as if she's swallowed a lit grenade; as if she'd been run through the backbone with a lance. Rays of white-hot fire flooded away from the impact site, paralyzing her spine and brain. Spreading her clutched, now-bloodstained hand, she saw the synthetic rubber grip of a double-edged dagger sticking from her middle, just above the bellybutton. She blacked out momentarily from the realization and the pain.

When it cleared and she looked up, she found bin Laden rearing back his foot with a terrible, triumphant snarl, aiming to kick her away and smash the hilt in deeper.

Groggy and on the verge of passing out again, she realized that through the whole thing, her gun hand had remained motionless and rock steady, as if gimbaled. The laser dot still trained squarely between Osama bin Laden's eyes. Through a dim, swimming haze, one thought lodged firmly in her numb brain.

Get him.

"So not… the drama..... for..... me," she gasped.

Leg still cocked and poised, Osama's sneer flickered slightly, a surprised, perturbed twitch crossing his face.

"...Call me beep me from Hell."

She pulled the trigger.

Osama retained his shocked expression as his head slammed backward, the bullet meeting the back of his skull and the wall at the same time. No explosion of brain matter out the back. The slug pinned to the wall and prevented him from slumping. His mouth fell open and his eyes, still open, forever open, glazed over and rolled back.

He would look surprised for eternity.

Silence.

Kim let the smoking gun drop from numb fingers. It hit the ground and bounced away. After it came to rest, the magazine box ejected halfway from the sideways grip. Empty. Apart from the drip-drip of her own blood, the room was dead silent. After the heat of the confrontation and blasting gunshot, the total quiet pounded on her eardrums. Kim clutched at the knife in her midriff, attempting to tug it out. She weakly grasped the shaft with both hands and gave it a small test tug. A roiling wave of angry red pain forced her to stop with a low moan.

You idiot. Her mind was now perfectly clear. The madness and rage were completely gone, replaced by a dry, clinical, indifferent voice. You idiot. You let your emotions get in the way. You let anger take control. You foolish girl, bending waaay over him, yelling in his face, giving him the perfect opportunity to do exactly this… All your years of training… and now what? You lost control, and now you're dying. Dead. Gently, the voice began to drift out, like a radio losing batteries. You and Ron have seen all the Bond films… You and Ron have lived all the Bond films… You know you should have finished him when you first came in. Not as much fun, maybe, but much more logical.

Yeah…but… it was… worth it…

Feeling a dizzy rush to her head, she swayed on her knees. Looking down, she distantly saw blood gushing around the silver knife blade. Fumbling, she pulled out a roll of clotter bandage from a hip pocket and tore off a small patch. Her fingers felt stiff and numb, as if she'd been out in the cold too long. Whimpering, she prodded the halfhearted bandage slightly into the wound. A spasm; she bent in half again, feeling a wrench to her gut, the blade edge tickling things inside her. The bandage roll popped from her grasp and unspoolled away across the floor. Kim watched it dimly, almost disinterestedly, as if whacked with morphine. The cloth closest to her started to soak up a red liquid spreading on the ground around her. She made to reach for it, but her muscles suddenly felt slow and sluggish. She was tired, oh so tired. The pain was almost gone, just a deep throbbing now. With a groan, she eased to her hip, holding up her torso with her left arm.

It wasn't until then, in the silence, that Kim realized the absence of something she'd previously ignored. Tiny, virtually imperceptible vibrations in the floor, representing bomb blasts and explosions several floors below, were gone.

Ahhhh.... Kim thought, vaguely happy, We've won… Her arm was now rubbery, unable to support her weight. She felt her body, then her head, gently tap the steel-plated floor. Her perspective shifted sideways, now a few inches above the ground. She could see the dust bunnies floating on the dark floor under the desk. Her body curled into a slight fetal position. With a great effort, as if through slush, she shifted her hand over the wound to slow the copious bleeding and hold in her guts.

The world suddenly blazed in lurid, psychedelic colors and spots. Kim watched with a small thrill of childlike wonder; some of the hot, garnish hues were beautiful. Positively otherworldly.

Then her peripheral vision closed in, and everything swirled into blackness.

Three minutes later came pounding footsteps; loud, panicked voices. The door shuddered and cracked under one, two running kicks. On the third, it blasted inward, smashed clean off its hinges, falling flat to the floor with a crash.

....In skidded Ron, the surviving Marines on his heels.

April 26, 2007
United States
Washington D.C.
White House
West Wing
3:01 AM EST

A lone Secret Service agent leaned against a tree trunk in a copse of maples, fifty feet from the West Wing exterior. Light morning haze filtered through the trees under a soft, clear moon. Diffused blackness. Usually, light drifted from the high, open windows of the President's office, chasing away some of the gloom. Tonight, however, the windows of the building were cold and black, covered with heavy blast panels.

Pure white moonlight played with the shadows, turning the wood into a ghostly mass of light and dark bars. Nothing moved. The area around the complex had been cordoned off for blocks, so even the ubiquitous grumble of D.C. traffic had vanished. A solitary high-pitched siren wafted in from crosstown, mingling with the crickets before fading into the night. In the silence, water in the presidential pool next to him tickled at its concrete sides. On the other side of the trees, a cicada screamed dryly. It was followed by another, another, until a whole chorus screeched tone-deaf into the morning. Then, just as suddenly, they successively broke off, leaving only their haunting calls to echo in the agent's mind.

A knot in the tree prodded him in the back. He shifted, scattering small pieces of bark across the shoulders of his expensive black sport jacket. Taking a long, slow gulp from a matte-finish thermos of coffee, he rubbed his forehead tiredly. The entire Service had been on twenty-four hour alert since the attacks; he'd only gotten four hours of sleep yesterday.

The things we do for honor… Ah, well. At least the pay's good…

He looked up at the moon. It peeked through a shifting gauze of thin clouds, scattering luminescent beams. The USSS man's eyes slowly adjusted. Deciding he no longer needed night-vision goggles, he tilted them onto his forehead. Blinking to acclimate, he massaged the back of his neck.

Exhaustion faded slightly as the caffeine hummed through his veins. Shifting again, he glanced through gaps in the trees. Across the South Lawn, he could see the gaping crater, lit up by orange worklights twinkling in the faint mist. The light glowed off florescent yellow police tape surrounding the hole and the reflective vest of a lone nightshift perimeter guard. Even now, a thin line of gray smoke twisted up from center of the impact site, lit up by the floodlights before losing itself into the night. White steam, similar to a lake's in winter, hovered over the churned ground, a result of cold air meeting the warm mass of upturned deep earth.

A breeze wafted in over US 1, dispelling the moist, balmy April air with a chill. Water in the air condensed into dew, settling on the agent's forehead and bare hands. He shivered, yanking on the lapels of his coat. The gusts bent the crater smoke in his direction. He crinkled his nose. The haze now reeked of charred rubber and burnt earth.

Stiffening, the wind chattered the chain-link fence surrounding the pool. The galvanized steel links rattled hollowly like a hall of skeletons. Startled, the agent jumped, now fully awake. He was trained, of course, no greenhorn, but there was something about this he really didn't like…

In the inky blackness of the trees, a twig cracked. Expertly, he knew that it was human-made and to his 10 o'clock. Hands now slightly clammy, he hoisted his service Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun to his shoulder and flicked off the safety.

"United States Secret Service!" he called into the night.

"Relax, Finnegan, it's me," a weary voice drifted back. Out of the woods floated a Caucasian head and hands, the black Secret Service jacket still swallowed up by the gloom.

Creepy… Relieved, Finnegan lowered the MP5 from his shoulder and safed it. "…Sorry. Can't be too careful."

"'Course not… That's our job," said the second agent, coming stand by him. He carried a Remington 870 pump-action. He stood from a moment, free hand stuffed into his coat pocket, rocking on his heels, breathing deep lungfuls of night damp through his nose. Satisfied, he pulled a box of cigarettes out of a breast pocket and stuck a cancer stick in his mouth. "Want one?" he said, keeping the stick expertly balanced in his teeth and proffering the white box.

"No thanks, Bob… Don't smoke," said the junior agent.

"...Younger generation..." the senior agent muttered, lighting up. The Bic flame and flaring cigarette tip gleamed off his opaque sunglasses. He took a long draft and held it before letting the acrid smoke jet out through pursed lips.

Smoking definitely looks cooler in the movies, Finnegan decided. You don't have the smell.

Bob silently took a few more puffs. Smoke drooled out his nostrils. "Any activity?" he asked at last, pointing toward the darkened West Wing with his smoldering cigarette tip.

"Nothin', sir," said Finnegan, "And I've been standing here all night."

"Huh…" Bob said, leaning against a tree beside him. He cracked open his shotgun and began toying with the high-power shells. "I can't tell you myself," he continued slowly, nodding toward the presidential residence, "Even if I knew, but… I think there's something up. Rumors. Something major going down overseas…"

Finnegan digested his words. "Hope it's for our side…" he murmured, gazing toward the dark-cloaked façade.

Golden chandelier light blazed off the stark white walls of the Oval Office. Instead of streaming into the warm darkness beyond the mullion windows, it rebounded harshly off flat metal blast panels set into the frames. The brightness seemed even more surreal and bizarre at this time of night, colors overly garnish and bright.

Or maybe I'm just tired… thought the President.

After the terrorist situation stabilized somewhat and agencies regrouped, his office was no longer needed as a makeshift command center. The DOD, DHS, and CIA moved their machines out. He'd been able to place most of his books back on their shelves, but he hadn't gotten the furniture or the murals back yet. As a result, the incandescents glared irritatingly off the curved walls. The rims of his eyes burned slightly and a headache boomed against his skull. Rubbing his cool palms soothingly over his hot face, Bush guessed he was developing a minor case of eye strain.

He swiveled his chair to face the square oak desk before him, built from the timbers of the HMS Resolution. On the cleared woodwork sat a satellite two-way radio. It linked directly to a similar device imbedded in Kim's strike team. He'd forced himself to get up at midnight to personally monitor their progress. But other than a quick message by Simms before the incursion, telling him they had arrived at the drop zone, the radio had been silent. Bush was growing worried. The "pace of success," as he called it, felt too slow. Without previous experience in dealing with a crack team of operatives, a three-hour radio silence did not seem like a good thing.

The lack of sleep buzzed him. His body, sensing that it wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, reacted with a flush of adrenaline. Bush now felt jumpy. Twitchy. Restless. Stretching in his fleece pajamas (tan, dotted with little mustangs, lassos, and golden sheriff stars), he drummed his fingers on the hardwood. The hollow, mindless ticking of a wall clock echoed back at him.

Before the slow tocking could get stuck in his head, the President cast about the room for a distraction. He gazed across the wide, desolate expanse of carpet emblazoned with the Great Seal. A ubiquitous Secret Service agent stood by the double oak doors across the room. Bush always studied this guard with interest when he came into Oval Office rotation. Although he was muscled and stocky, not a day over 29, his shock of flattop hair was bleached sheet white; a quirk of genetics.

Finding no other alternative, the President started up a conversation with the stony-faced Honor Guard Marine.

"Has there been any word of progress through the other networks?" Bush called out hopefully.

"No," the sentry answered with polite curtness.

"Anybody called in for a missile strike?"

"No."

"Has Cheney been informed of the situation?"

"Yes."

"Do you think they've got 'im?"

"Maybe."

"…A regular Cicero, you are," Bush grumbled under his breath, ending the conservation. The guard returned to attention, his back pencil-straight.

Antsy, the President nudged a large object nestled behind the swing-door on the front of the desk with his cowboy-boot slippers. Contacting it, he froze, thinking fast. He'd been working up his nerve, saving this up for a slow day. He glanced around. Nobody around except the guard.

Might as well try now…

Surreptitiously, he bent down and withdrew the object from the shadows. Sweeping the radio to the side, he clunked the circular object down on the desk and slowly lifted his hands away from its ceramic sides. Feeling a pang of unease, he settled back into the cushions of his overstuffed wingchair and churched his fingers, carefully studying his longtime foe.

A big bowl of mini pretzels.

He had steered clear of them after nearly suffocating on one in January 2002. Not a nibble. Having never actually served in the National Guard, he considered the aversion his own personal Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still, after five years, he thought it time to move on.

Holding his tongue between his teeth, Dubya tentatively loosened the sheen of Saran wrap and placed the film carefully on his lap as a makeshift napkin. Instantly, the delicious smell of baked bread and salt boiled up toward him. His mouth watered slightly. He'd forgotten the aroma. Carefully picking through the pretzels, he selected a choice candidate and lifted it before his eyes. Like a connoisseur, he pinched it between his thumb and index, rotating it, examining it from all angles. He frowned, brow furrowed with consideration. The Decider deciding. The crunchy breaded bits were toasted golden brown. Small nodes of imbedded salt winked dully. A perfection of corporate culinary mass-production.

Across the room, the Marine watched the proceedings bemusedly out of the corner of an eye.

What the…? he thought, letting a twitch of a smile flicker on the out-of-view side of his mouth. Remembering his duty, he wiped the grin off his face and snapped his eyes front. It was none of his business how weird the President acted out of media range.

Bush hovered the pretzel before his mouth, biting his lip. He eyed the snack warily, as if about to swallow a spoonful of molten lead.

Awww, stop dawdlin…' Nobody lives forever and soforth and suchnot…

Cautiously levering his mouth open, he extended his tongue, scrunched his eyes shut, and gingerly placed the pretzel into the center of his mouth. He snapped his teeth shut on it, not chewing, and flicked his eyes back and forth.

Nothing happened. Gays did not gain equal legal rights. Hillary Clinton did not cannonball through his office doors. Stem cell scientists did not suddenly discover a loophole in his Bible-thumper bill. Big Oil did not abruptly withdraw their payolas.

With growing confidence, he ground up the pretzel with his teeth and swallowed. No gagging. No passing out. No whacking the table edge. He had forgotten how addictive the mixture of dry and salty was. Suddenly ravenous, he picked out a small grouping and popped them down. Emboldened, he grabbed a large fistful and crammed them into his mouth, chewing happily. Another handful. Then another. Feeling picky again, he selected a single pretzel and fired it whole into his jaws.

At that moment, the silent radio on his desk erupted, practically dancing into the air.

A parade-field roar. The Gunny.

Startled witless, the President jumped as if electrocuted. He snapped bolt upright, slamming into the back of his chair. The whiplash catapulted the unbroken pretzel to the rear of his windpipe. It lodged. Bush felt a familiar paralysis to his throat. Lungs suddenly vacuums. His pupils constricted. He gagged, trying to breathe out. No air movement. Panicking, he banged frantically on the table to attract the guard, clutching his throat.

The sentry, sensing something wrong, pounded over and skidded beside the most powerful man on Earth. "…Mr. President? Mr. President! Can you speak, Mr. President!"

What does it –look– like?! the President thought angrily, adamantly repeating a choking gesture.

Sizing up the situation, the Marine reacted and slammed a sideways fist into the small of Bush's back. The President heaved, gave an almighty cough, and fired the slimy, intact salty snack across his desk. It skidded to a halt at the opposite edge, leaving a sticky saliva trail like a slug.

Note to self: Stay away from mini pretzels.

The paper-white Marine propped up the hacking President, leaning over, checking him down, deeply concerned. "Are…are you going to be okay, Mr. President, sir?"

"Y-yes… yes… Thank you. Thank you," he gasped, eyes watering. He cleared his throat and looked gratefully up at the Marine. "What's… What's your name, son?" he croaked.

"Paepur, sir. E. Paepur."

"Well, I owe a debt to you, Mr. Paepur. I'll be sure to stick a recommendation in somewhere for you, okay?"

"It was no problem, sir... Just doing my duty," the guard said with a slight bow. "Would you like me to remain here?"

"No, no... I'll be fine. ...Could you get me a glass of water, though?"

"Right away, sir." The Marine quickly strode from the room.

Bush at last turned his attention to the bouncing radio. "Re.. re…rep-OR-t, Gen-EN-eral," he coughed, still wheezing up pretzel dust. He absentmindedly picked up the bowl and balanced it with his fingertips like a basketball.

"...Success! Success! Mr. President, sir, Operation Phoenix Talon was a success!" Simms shouted in his characteristic bullhorn over the heavy bass thud of multiple helicopters behind him. "We have achieved termination of objective Omega-Zulu. Unfortunately, I must report an NGS-6 on potentially four operatives, and… finally… and… finally… s-sir…" the battle-hardened officer unexpectedly trailed off, voice breaking. "I-I feel it is… it is… my duty… t-to inform you that we have an… an… 11-44 on Alpha Prime. …I'm… sorry, sir…"

"What in the name of Daniel Boon's longjohns is this, man!" roughshod the President, "Flim-flam coded nonsense… A man can hardly understand what you're sayin…'" He dropped the sharp tone and picked up a fatherly one. "Son, I've got a bit of advice for yah – If you ever want to become a good or-ray-tor like me, you've gottta learn to cut out all this here double-talk and get right to the point. Out in big-sky country, a man either sies what's right on his mind, or he closes his mouth and sits down. Now, cut all this jibba-jabba and tell it to me again, in something that I can understand."

There was a long, disbelieving silence from the other end.

Then the radio sighed heavily, praying this conversation wasn't being routed through NORAD first. If the transmitter had had eyes, it would have been rolling them. It took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and began.

"…Pa," Simms intoned flatly in an exaggerated Texan drawl, ""Thar's four feet of wartar in the basement, the chickens is drownded, and the pilot light's out."

"Now, now, son, let's not get too carried away," replied an authentic Texan drawl. "…So, let me see if I get this straight," the junior Bush said, mentally translating and voicing his thoughts aloud, "Four of America's finest have fallen in the proud defense of our nation's freedom, the bastard decided to do it the hard way, and......-"

CRASH!

The pretzel bowl slid unnoticed from Bush's suddenly-rigid fingers. It fell horizontally onto the carpet and exploded upon impact, fanning porcelain shards and toasted bread debris across the floor. The President ignored it, clutching the telephone club with both hands, knuckles white.

"No…!" he stammered weakly, disbelieving, "No… Not… not… Kim!"

April 26, 2007
United States
Washington D.C.
White House
West Wing
3:19 AM (EST)

To be continued…