This had to be some sort of a bad joke. HQ called him in on his day off for this? Special Agent Wendell Ridowski scowled into his coffee, his third since he’d gotten the call early this morning. The conference room is packed to overflowing with girls, young girls. He hadn’t seen this much fresh cleavage since the takedown at Brandi’s Burlesque Bar last year. Did their fathers not notice the way they dressed? The youngest had to be about nine and the oldest no more than eighteen. Sure, some of them looked like they belonged in Miss Hatchet’s School for Wayward Girls, but they hardly seemed like assassins.
“Do they belong to some sort of sect?” asked Lexi Patterson, the junior agent at his side.
Some of the girls had paired off, but overall the only unifying characteristic was that not one of them could vote. There were a few EMOs, a couple of dozen fresh-faced Girl Guide types and more than enough Jersey Shore clones. Seventy-three girls in all. Not a cohesive group. An involuntary shiver raced down his spine as he realized the roomful of girls reminded him of his high school days, nineteen years ago.
“I don’t think so. What are they here for?” Wendell asked. “Field trip?” He didn’t join the Secret Service to play tour guide.
“They threatened the president,” Lexi replied.
“With what? Apathy?”
“Death and by some very creative ways, too.” She handed him a printout of tweets and texts gleaned by Homeland Security. Each a threat on the president’s life.
A gum-smacking tween approached the two-way glass with a redhead.
“Can you, like, believe this?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s so totally lame.” Smack, Smack went the gum. “I was, like, supposed to go shopping with Jessica and Ashley.”
“My parents, like, literally had a cow,” her associate sulked. “They even, like, took my phone away.”
“Seriously?”
“Way seriously.”
Wendell sighed. “Seriously?” he asked Lexi.
She smiled, fighting the urge to reply, “Way seriously.” Instead said, “All threats are considered viable until proven otherwise.”
“They all look like minors. Don’t we need their parents with them before we can question them?” Wendell had managed to come home from his two tours of duty in Iraq unscathed but not high school. Those wounds refused to heal. At fifteen, he had been the quintessential ninety-eight-pound weakling, terrorized daily. By the time he was twenty he’d grown eight inches and doubled his weight but kids, particularly teenage girls, still scared the crap out of him.
“There’s a social worker waiting in the interview room,” Lexi told him.
“Confiscate all phones and have a tech go over them,” Wendell instructed. “I’ll start interviewing.
*****
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked a sixteen-year-old blonde named Brittany.
The girl, sitting slouched with arms folded under her chest, shrugged.
“What have you got against the president?”
An eye roll is her response.
Wendell lifted his clipboard up and flips through the girl’s information. Eleventh grade. No record. Two younger siblings. Parents together. Part-time job at McDonalds. On paper a good kid. Not like those hooligans living in the apartment above him. Kids who thought Screamo music was an art form.
“Why did you threaten to kill the president?” he asked.
The shoulders rose and fell again.
“Next,” he said to the officer out of sight behind the two-way glass.
*****
A fresh-faced fourteen-year-old stepped into the interrogation room with a frazzled social worker behind her.
“Hi,” the girl smiled as she slid into the seat opposite him.
Wendell relaxed. Suspect seems compliant. Now he’ll get somewhere.
“Katie?” he asked.
She sat up straighter. “That’s me,” she grinned, squinting at the security badge fastened to his lapel. “What’s the W for?”
“What have you got against the president? Why do you want to kill him?” Wendell asked.
“Have you got a girlfriend?”
He shifted in his seat. “That’s not relevant.”
“I’m very mature for my age, you know. I like your suit, by the way. Where’d you get it? I like the tie too; it really brings out the blue in your eyes.” Katie leaned forward, her low-cut t-shirt barely covering a training bra filled with hope. The girl reminded him of his blind date last night. A girl desperate to get married and start reproducing.
“Next.”
*****
Vera is an exact replica of so many young men and women he had come up against during his time in the ROTC. The straight raven hair and depressingly black clothes part of the Goth uniform—her otherwise pretty face punctured with more hardware than he had in his tool box at home, her flawless young skin etched with anarchist slogans.
“Why do you want the president dead?” Wendell asked the girl.
“He’s the Ultimate Man. He represents all that is disproportionate in this world.” Vera passionately pounded the metal table.
Special Agent Ridowski flipped through the girl’s information hoping for an explanation.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she sneered. “You are the Man’s Yes-Man.”
The Yes-Man leaned forward over the table, his face inches from the girl, eyes locked on hers. “Try me.”
Vera’s eyes visibly widened as she swallowed before quickly regaining her composure. “He wants to deport The Music.”
Wendell glanced over at the social worker for clarification. She shrugged, just as confused as he was.
“What music?”
“Jayson Mooth,” she replied.
“That Canadian kid with the DUI down in Florida?”
Vera nodded.
“It’s called Mooth Mania,” the social worker said to Wendell. “Are you saying all those girls out there are Moothies?” she asked the girl, the moniker rolling off her tongue like smoothies without the S.
“I guess,” she replied.
“That’s a matter for immigration. Why threaten the president?” Wendell asked.
“Like I said, he’s the Ultimate Man and the Man threatened to take Jayson down.”
“Is that what all those girls think?”
“Us Moothies stick up for The Music.”
*****
All seventy-three girls faced Wendell in the conference room.
“I’m going to need a show of hands.” He took a fortifying zip of his fresh coffee. “Who here wants the president dead because of Jayson Mooth?”
Seventy-three girls raised their hands.
“Cripes,” Wendell mumbled. “I’m out of here.”
Lexi trotted after him down the hall. “Where are you going?”
“To find a urologist.”