chapter EIGHT: Next Time We Talk

The snow wasn't bothering him all that much, nor was the cold. He'd been given the same thing he'd been given back in Shadow Moses. Naomi had called it an anti-freezing peptide, but Snake wasn't quite convinced. His face still stung with every prick of the icy rain and his eyes felt frozen over like the surface of a lake in winter. His legs remained warm and comfortable, though, for they, as did most of his body, hid beneath his sneaking suit that was insulated beyond expectations. The contrast in temperature from face to chest was a drastic one, but it was something Snake had dealt with before, and was definitely not something that would get him down.

SO, he went on, trudging through the snow that was rising up past his heels and even up to his knees as tall drifts had formed on the icy plain. Off in the distance, though, growing ever nearer, was the hazy outline of his destination, of Trinket. And it wouldn't be long before he reached it. It wouldn't be long.

But then, he heard a voice resonating from just feet away, and he quickly dropped against a snow drift, hiding his body behind it. "Damn radios," the voice came, "they never work."

"It's this fuckin' weather," another voice chimed, grim and gruff. "You can't see or hear a damn thing."

Snake frowned at their crude language but paid close attention. He could hear their boots crunching in the snow over the drift he hid behind. They had stopped, though, and were merely talking, conversing. They banged their radios, hit them against the freezing surface of the snow, and nearly broke them in half as they went on talking. Snake didn't take his time, though. He looked beyond the drift and surveyed the terrain as well as he could in the weather.

And, without waiting another moment, he scurried out from behind the tall drift and moved behind another, further away from the two guards. He could see them from this angle, now, but he didn't think they could see him. He knew they were American from the way they spoke, but he couldn't tell what kind of weapons they carried. The night was too heavy, the snow too dense.

~*~

He was still in the White House. He hadn't left. There was another meeting for him to attend to, one of great importance. He followed the maze of lighted hallways, all bustling with suits and ties and ringing phones and beeping fax machines and loud televisions. It was very early morning still, the sun trying hard to break beyond the sharp skyline of the east coast. In the west it had shown its face, but, with its coming at the capital, one of the world's most important days, in a political sense, was coming too. And it seemed, even as the sun was far from rising, that day had all ready begun. Preparations for the START 3 assembly in Moscow were underway and had been for many years ever since George Sears was in office. They'd started then – they would end today.

He moved through the cramped corridors until he came to a guarded door in the West Wing. Showing off a badge or a card of some sort, the guard stepped aside and he went on through. The busy offices became a memory as soon as the door shut behind him, and the echoes of boilers and other machines became his new background.

Before him was a dingy staircase, stains and rust eating it away. He went down them in something of a hurry and stopped at the last landing where there was nothing but a single door populating the narrow stairwell. Brandishing the card or badge again, he swiped it over some sort of scanner mounted beside the door and there was a faint release of air as it pushed itself open. The man passed through the now-open doorway and moved into another hall, the lighting dim and the walls scarred much like the staircase.

There were few people around, but it was still noisy – noisy only in his mind, though. Every face he saw as he went down the hall held an air of suspicion, a heavy look of dismay, and a trace of amusement. All of the men in this area wore whatever they pleased, though most still took the way of the suit and tie. There were doors and doors and doors, all sitting in the walls on either side of him. Outside of each closed door stood an armed officer – armed not with just a simple sidearm, but also stun grenades and tranquilizer equipment. At the end of the hall, on the right, there was an officer standing with his sidearm in a tight grip. He watched the man go down the hall and when they were finally standing before each other the officer checked the card the man was carrying with him and then nodded, opening the door to a room bare of anything but a table and two chairs.

When the man moved inside, the door shutting behind him, he immediately noticed the security cameras in the room. There were four. Two were suspended in opposite corners of the room, while a third watched under the table, and the fourth looked straight down on the table. The next thing that the man noticed was the young-looking official that was all ready sitting down in the chair opposite him.

"Mr. Vice President," the man said, taking a seat. The Vice President let no emotions show through, not this early in the game at least. The two didn't know each other well. They'd worked together for a time, but they hadn't become good friends or anything like that. Most of the man's work was unacknowledged beyond the President's high chair. Not even the Vice had much knowledge of his history or his records.

"Simon West - you know the rules. Nothing leaves this room."

The man nodded as he took off his jacket and set it over the back of the chair, as he'd done in his meeting with the President and the other representatives earlier.

"You're not a member of FOX-HOUND, is that correct?"

The man nodded again. "That's correct. I work with the President – directly with the President."

"Good…have you noticed him acting strangely at all?"

"The President?" the man asked. "No I haven't. Why would you ask?"

"There are identified foreign agents inside the government as we speak...agents that are a threat to our national security…agents that have means to screw us over today in Moscow. The President has perfect knowledge of them, but is unwilling to remove them. He wants to play with them, see what they are planning, see who they're planning it for. But, I don't like the way he's handling the situation. It's foolish, and these agents must be removed."

"That's the way he operates," the man said. "He's not the conventional political figure. You must know that, being his right hand man."

"He's making the wrong decision, and the stakes today are far too high for him to play games. These agents must be dealt with, and they must be dealt with now, before the assembly in Moscow."

"You want me to take care of them," the man said, crossing his arms. He was impatient with the Vice President, now. He wasn't one to betray a close associate like the President.

"I have the names, their locations, everything about them. At this point there is no way we can simply let them go on and plan away. We have to take care of the problem before the assembly. There's no option any longer. I need your help."

"You can't honestly tell me that there's not another more qualified agent in the capital today who's able to do this job," the man said.

"There are certainly more qualified agents, but none that have the connection you share with the President. He would never suspect that you would do this, and as long as you do the job well, he'll never had reason to."

"I do the dirty work and someone else takes the blame?"

"You'll be in touch with the President throughout the day; I'm sure, seeing the importance of this day. I'm not simply afraid that he is ignoring these agents – I'm afraid that he has dealing with them."

He was surprised to hear this, especially from a man whom he'd never truly gotten to know, about a man whom he'd spent years of work with. "You're calling my President a traitor to his country."

"He's my President too!" This was the first time the Vice President had gotten angry. He seemed hurt, saying the things himself, but he seemed to have his priorities straight. He knew the country came before his own emotions and there was reason, apparently, for him to question the President's objectives. "I know the man just like you do."

"Then you'll agree that he'd never turn his back on his country."

"I would have normally said that," the Vice President began, but now he seemed upset by something, "but I wouldn't be accusing him if I didn't have reason to, or poof regarding it."

"And you say you do have proof?"

"That's what I'm saying, but there's someone else you'll need to talk to for that," the Vice President said. "He was a former colleague of yours. You worked together on a few operations a couple years back."

The man waited.

"The name is David Springfield," the Vice President said. The man looked at him and could recall the last time they'd worked together. He'd been with him at the tanker when he'd submitted Snake. That was about two years ago, but he had a vivid memory. There had been something about that David Springfield that had always touched him the wrong way - something he had a hard time remembering right then, when he first heard the name, but something that was soon come back to him.

"Here's the number," he said, sliding a piece of crumpled paper across the desk. The man picked it up, looked at it, and then slipped it in his jacket pocket. "Take this too," he said, passing a cigar to the man. He picked it off the table, too, and looked at it questioningly. "Everyone enjoys a smoke every once in a while."

The man looked disconcertingly upon the Vice President and stood, pulling his jacket off the back of his chair and slipping the cigar into the pocket with the crumpled piece of paper that bore the phone number of David Springfield.

"Stay in the district," the Vice President told him. "The President will be in touch with you throughout the day, as will I. And, I'd like you to get back with that Brant character."

The man seemed to freeze. No one knew about his association with Brant.

"I'm going to need updates on the situation at Trinket."

"Do you think the agents inside the government have connections with those operating Trinket?"

"We won't know until you make contact," the Vice President said, still sitting. "I'll be giving you a call in a little while. And, make no mistake, you're being watched today. If you leave the district or tell anyone about the offer I've given you, you're time on this earth will be instantly limited."

The man gave him a look of amusement, sensing the humor in the Vice President's voice. But, that hardly meant they were warming up to each other. He still didn't quite believe what the Vice had told him, but his conversations with Springfield and Brant might change his mind.

He went to the door, not thinking to say good-byes, and put his hand on the knob. "Next time we talk," the Vice said, "it's Alex – Alex Moore." The man smiled to the door and as he turned the knob said: "Next time we talk…it's Desperado."

Then, he swept out of the room and went back through the dim hall, ascending the rusting stairwell, and then leaving the White House through the busy offices of the West Wing.