My
Journal
By Harriman
Nelson
33
We’d
only been in the air a short time when Sharkey asked if we’d like to
see the news.
“I’m
not in the mood for any more distressing news.”
“I
think we should, Harry,” Emmie said. “Yes, please, Chief.”
“Yes’m.”
He tuned
it to CNN as they were a news channel, but most shows had been preempted by the
news of Melody’s death and were broadcasting the same. The cause, still unknown.
“…We
return you now to the Museum of Arts and Sciences,” a pretty reporter said, “where
the tragedy took place…detectives are still making sure all foodstuffs
and drinks, especially the ones the First Lady had are being accounted for and tagged for
forensics and…isn’t that Ambassador Numbers arriving? Ambassador? Ambassador? Would you like to say
a few words to our….”
“Get
out of my way!”
“Sorry,”
an accompanying agent said. “He insisted on coming here…”
The
camera team followed him into the lobby past Lee’s painting still on its easel,
then toward the group of catering staff assisting the detectives.
Numbers
started to turn the staffers around, one by one, to face him,
as if he were searching for
someone. The detectives tried to intervene but he pushed them backwards.
Turning
a new staffer toward him, he ripped off the man's hairpiece and fake mushtache.
“It’s
Ronald!” Emmie gasped.
“I
gave you the poison to kill him, not her!” Numbers shouted, pulling out what
looked like a weapon from a jacket he'd probably borrowed from one of the agents.
“What’s
the difference," Ronald spat, "they’re both scum.”
Just
as Numbers was about to use his weapon, the agent tazed him, causing him to move
uncontrollably and fire at the wall. The power failed, even the back up lights.
“My
God,” the reporter muttered. There was a hole in the wall, its edges smoldering, its
wires exposed. Fortunately the camera crew had lighting
of their own.
“Pull
him up,” a detective ordered another. “Better grab that ‘ray’ gun out of his hand and
tag it for evidence.” Then he cuffed the still trembling Numbers. “You’re under
arrest for attempted murder and being an accessory to murder. As for you, Mr. Nelson,” he
added as a cop cuffed him, “you’re under arrest for’murder.”
“I did
the nation a favor!” Ronald yelled. “Who wants a damn alien so close to the
heart of the government? The bitch had the president under her wicked wiles!
Think what a family of them could do! Look at what that damn ray gun did!”
“How
did you poison the First Lady?” the reporter asked.
“Hold
it, lady,” a detective said, “we got to read them their Miranda Rights. Don’t
say anything yet, either of you," he told Ronald and Numbers. "Anything you say can and will be
used against you in a court of law…”
“Blah
blah blah," Ronald said. "I know what Miranda Rights
are. I watch Boston Legal and Perry Mason on the rerun channel! I’m a
hero. You can’t convict
me of murder! She was an alien, damn it! She and her half breed pup!”
“What
about you, Ambassador?"the reporter asked as both human and alien were escorted
outside. “Do you understand your rights? Do you have anything to say?”
“I
claim dip-lo-mat-ic immunity as a rep-re-sen-ta-tive of my world.”
“You bastard!”
Ronald spat, and turned to the detectives, "You can’t let him go free on a technicality when I can't! He came to
me! On the internet and we met here before. Gave me the poison
in the men’s room and told me how to put a few drops in the damn broad's glass of Mur. That
it wouldn’t show up in any tests…”
“Neither
of you are going anywhere but to jail right now,” one of the cops said. "We’ll just
let the D.A. decide who has to go to trial or not. Oh, and we’re adding another charge against you, Ambassador, discharging
a deadly weapon in a public
place.”
“That was your fault. Your
weapon moved my hand. Not I.”
“Well,
isn’t that too too bad,” the agent said, “tell it to the judge.”
The
prisoners were placed in two different patrol cars that sped away,
lights on and sirens blaring, along with the unmarked White House sedan the
agent took.
“Well,
you saw it here first,” the reporter said. “It remains to be seen if the Ambassador
will be granted diplomatic immunity or not. Meanwhile we will have to wait to
see what the First Lady’s father will
do in response to her murder. This is CNN.”
“Chief,
give her a little more speed if you can,” I said as the broadcast went to commercial.
“We're at max, now, sir,
but I'll try.”
“….We
asked the Nelson Crane Institute of Marine Research for a comment from Admiral Nelson,” the reporter continued as CNN
returned to its broadcast, “but he is currently enroute to Washington via the
Flying Sub and unavailable for comment…Mrs. Crane is also
on her way to the
White House from Cape Cod, and is also unavailable for comment… there has been no news if the
military has been placed back on alert. The absence of any military presence around the Whitel House would
seem to indicate that it has not.”
“Maybe
the skip…the president," Ski asked, "knows more about them aliens than we do, right, sir? I mean, that they
won’t hold this against us?”
“Well," I said, "
it was one of theirs that plotted to kill Lee in first place…”
“Yeah,
but it was a human that…er…”
“Never
mind Ski,” I said.
The
rest of the flight has been uneventful as I write this up, hoping that Joe has
been able to comfort Lee and take some of the non-essential reigns for him.
As for
the diplomatic status of Numbers, well, the immunity claim might just hold, despite his guilt.
As for Ronald? He as much admitted
his guilt right there on TV.
God forgive him, because I'll never be able to.
I know
Lee can’t.
