The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror (7 page)

“The SS will protect the Prophet,” Erpent snapped. “Don’t you worry about that.”

I felt my partner tense at my side. “Hang on. Did you say
toward
the Thin House?” he asked.

Olde traced the bloody trail into the darkness with his flashlight. “See for yourself.”

Green jumped forward, notebook once more in hand. “It can’t be Hungry’s blood. He’s dead. Maybe the murderer was injured in the struggle. We have to find out where it leads. Expose this criminal to the world.”

He took the flashlight from Officer Olde and traipsed off into the darkness. I turned to follow.

Erpent grabbed me by the shoulder. “You said it yourself. It’s just a ketchup stain. Tell your partner to come back.”

“Green’s a bloodhound,” I said. “What if he’s right? It could be an important clue.”

“By the Prophet’s two-timing taste buds!” he swore. “We haven’t got time for this.” To Thinn he called out, “Get him back here, now.”

The sergeant gestured at two of his men. Nice and another cop jogged off, and came back carrying Green between them. They jogged awful fast for not having eaten in three years. I wondered where they got the energy.

They set him on his feet, and Green came up swinging.

“This is an important piece of forensic evidence,” he said. “A major clue to who the murderer might be. Justice in a case like this could mean freedom for us all.” He looked around at us wildly, his fists bunched up. “Don’t you understand that?”

Erpent’s face had turned red. He looked like he was going to explode. Like a Spanish-style blood sausage when you throw it into the furnace and watch it burn. Instead, he pulled out a cell phone and pushed a button. To Thinn he said: “Did you find it?”

The sergeant cleared his throat. “What you were looking for? No.”

“What were you looking for?” Green demanded.

“Yeah, Sarge,” said Olde. “What were we looking for, anyway?”

But Erpent held out a warning finger. “Yes,” he said into the phone. “No…no, Agent Frolick. With a
k.
What? At the end. He’s right here.” He held out the phone to me.

“For you.”

“Me?”

He nodded.

“Who is it?”

“The Prophet.” He looked at me like I was a package of Twizzlers about to be destroyed on Burn Day. “And you’re keeping him waiting.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

Green squeezed my elbow. “He doesn’t look like the type.”

Erpent took a step forward. “He wants to talk to you, Special Agent Frolick.”

If the skies had opened and a bearded god addressed me from the clouds, I could not have been more shaken. Who was I? A lowly ATFF agent, tormented by a plague of suicidal Twinkie rapists. All because my faith was weak. I shuddered in self-loathing.

Still Erpent stood there, blinking at me quietly, unmoving, arm extended. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The Prophet. The man to whom I owed my life. My freedom. Everything I had. The Prophet wanted to talk to me?

“For me?” I croaked again.

Erpent nodded and shook the phone in his hand impatiently.

I took the phone and lifted it to my ear. But it slipped from my grasp and I fumbled for it, caught it before it hit the ground. I let out a long, trembling sigh and looked up at my partner. Green held out both palms. Relax. I pasted the phone back to my head. Opened my mouth to say hello, but a sound like sandpaper on metal squeaked from my lips. I held the phone away from my head and coughed to clear my throat. Loudly. Several times. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I brought the phone back to my ear and said as casually as I could:

“Hello?”

Nothing but silence. Had I broken the connection when I dropped it? Or was this some kind of practical joke? It was just the sort of prank the guys down at the station would play.

“Agent Frolick?”

It was a familiar voice, and it wheezed, deep with the bitter self-reproach that had won him so many followers. I remembered the speeches, the videos, that gravelly, growling voice of truth, with its reedy whine—so strange, but so compelling—listening to his life-changing righteousness pour from my car stereo, back when I needed a hydraulic lift to climb out of my vehicle.

It couldn’t be. How could it be? It was. “This is Frolick,” I said, with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

Another pause, then that voice again, like an out-of-tune oboe.

“Do you know who this is?”

By instinct, I flung my palm out and clicked my heels together. “Yes, Mine Prophet!” I bobbed my head in the darkness. “Can I just say, sir, what an honor it is to, to, to—”

“Agent Frolick.”

Had I offended him? Offended the Prophet? What did I say? I swallowed hard. “Sir?”

“Do you believe?”

“Yes, Mine Prophet! I believe, I believe, that is, I—”

“Do you renounce food, and all its wicked recipes, and all its wicked restaurants?”

The litany from Air Temple. I was on solid ground now. I relaxed, let my arm fall to my side. “I so believe.”

“Who will lead us from bondage, break the shackles of that grim overseer Food, and deliver us from the Babylon of Calories into the Promised Land of Oxygen?”

“The Prophet will,” I responded by rote. “That is, I mean, you will, sir.”

There was another long pause. I heard panting in the background, as though from exertion. Come to think of it, his voice sounded kind of nasal. Or at least, more so than usual. Like he had a cold or something. What was the protocol here? Was it polite to inquire if the Divine Leader was congested? Or would that be rude? Before I could make up my mind, the Prophet continued.

“We are beset on all sides, Frolick,” he said. “There are those in this world who do not believe such purity as you and I practice is even possible.”

The Twinkie flexed its wings in my ankle holster. Not now. Not now! The Prophet couldn’t know. I’d kill myself if he ever found out. I forced myself to answer.

“That’s true, sir.”

“The UN continue their food drops up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Their planes and helicopters fly the Red Cross. For every one I shoot down, two more take its place. I’ve got secessionists in the so-called Rocky Mountain Republic, a.k.a. the Republic of Food, with their open flaunting of the food laws and their illegal Gluttony Congress in Denver. I’ve got cannibals on the loose on the West Coast, I’ve got hillbillies with hydroponic gardens in Appalachia, and do you know what the worst thing is, Special Agent Frolick?”

I had no idea what it might be. I didn’t dare guess. I said as much.

“The worst thing of all,” the Prophet said, “is that even after our glorious Amendment passed, even after the Air Force sprayed every square inch of arable land with an herbicide powerful enough to last for fifty years, food continues to be available in this country! And do you know why?” He did not wait for me to answer. “Because of the mafia, that’s why. The French Food Mafia. Because of Fatso. Did you know he even calls himself the Foodfather?”

“The Godfather of Food,” I corrected.

“I said the Foodfather and I mean the Foodfather,” the Prophet said. He didn’t raise his voice, but a note of steel cut into his tone.

“I need some good news for a change,” he continued. “I need it soon. Something to show the world. That we’re making progress in the War on Fat. I need your help.”

I threw my shoulders back. The Prophet needed me. The clarion call of duty had come at last. How could I fail to oblige our savior?

“Understood, sir,” I said. “You can count on me.”

“I hope so, Agent Frolick. Because tomorrow I am hosting the Coalition of the Fasting at the Thin House. Presidents and prime ministers from all over the world will be here, including the heads of state of Tonga, Lichtenstein, Monaco and the Federation of South Pole Research Stations. Our most important allies in the Global War on Fat.” He covered the receiver for a moment, and it sounded like he was blowing his nose.

Green looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I held out an open palm. Wait.

The Prophet came back on line. “When word gets out about tonight’s murder—oh, I know, our press would never publish something like this, but those vicious ferrn news outlets take such delight in tearing down everything we’ve worked so hard to build. When word gets out, our enemies will use this as an example of our failures. ‘Look at how crazy they are!’ the French president will say. ‘Trying to ban food.’ Do you know he actually tried to give me” —and he lowered his voice to a whisper— “a giant wheel of Camembert cheese at his last state visit?”

“The French are nothing but a bunch of food-sucking slaves to pleasure, sir,” I said.

“I just don’t understand why the ferrn press can’t print our press releases and be done with it, the way the Thin House Press Corps does,” he lamented. “It would be so much less work.”

“It’s the same all over the world,” I commiserated. “Ignorance is the greatest crime. If people only knew what was good for them, they would surely do it.”

“A man after my own heart, Frolick. Let me tell you what I need you to do.”

“Anything, sir.”

“I need something to show the Coalition of the Fasting. Something to reinforce their loyalty to the cause. We are in the middle of delicate negotiations for tightening this all-important military alliance, including opening new Fat Camps in their countries. Need I say that a scandal right now, a murder outside the Thin House, of a pizza dealer no less, could easily derail the alliance and put the progress of air-eating back twenty years?”

I mumbled noises of agreement.

“It all comes down to you, Frolick,” he said. “On your shoulders. Bring me Fatso.”

My mind whirled, reviewing everything I knew about Fatso and his organization. He had proven the most elusive criminal I had ever matched wits with in my ten years in law enforcement. The only one, too.

I frowned at the difficulty of the task. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

He lowered his voice. “Your best is not good enough.”

I cringed. How could I be so stupid? My best wasn’t good enough. I knew it, and now the Prophet knew it. What was I going to do?

The Prophet then said: “You will do everything in the power of the government of the United States of Air to bring Fatso in. Alive. I have signed an executive order putting the entire resources of our military and intelligence establishments at your disposal. Screw the Food Courts. Fatso’s going straight to Fat Island.” The tiny atoll in the Indian Ocean where extraordinary rendering takes place.

I gulped. The Supreme Food Court had ruled that only ferrners could be sent there. “But what will the judicial branch of our sacred constitutional republic say?”

“You let me worry about the Obstructionist Nine. This is a direct order, Special Agent Frolick. From your Commander-and-Air-Eater-in-Chief. Find him. Do whatever you have to do. You have twenty-four hours.”

I came to attention again and saluted. “Yes, Mine Prophet!” I said. “Your will be done.”

“At home as well as abroad,” he replied. The formulaic rebuttal complete, he surprised me by shifting gears. “Have you ever considered applying for the Skinny Service? We could use a man like you.”

My jaw went slack. I fingered the tape measure at my waist. “I would not presume to such high ambition, sir. Besides, I’m at least a couple inches short of—”

The Prophet’s reedy voice cracked high. “Exception can be made, Special Agent. Bring me Fatso and you work for me. Here. In the Thin House.”

I stammered, “That would be an honor, sir.”

“Twenty-four hours, Frolick,” the voice said. His cold seemed to be getting worse. “Now give me Erpent.”

The SS man took the phone. “Erpent here.” He listened for a long moment. “Understood, sir.” He hung up and turned to us. “The Thin House has woken the D.C. medical examiner. He’s on his way to the morgue right now. The contents of the victim’s stomach will no doubt lead us to Fatso’s greasy lair.”

An ambulance idled nearby. Two paramedics had arrived while I was on the phone. At a signal from Erpent, they loaded the dead pizza dealer onto a stretcher and trotted off.

Erpent and I turned to go, but Green just stood there with his arms crossed. “What are you waiting for?” the SS agent demanded. “Let’s move!”

“We’re not going anywhere,” my partner said. “Not until we’re finished with the crime scene.”

“Twenty-four hours,” I pleaded with him. “That’s all we have before the Coalition of the Fasting meets. The Prophet is depending on us—on us!—to find Fatso for him.”

“And the way to do that is to spend some time here looking for clues.” He gestured at the vomit and blood at our feet. “It’s the only way to bring the real criminal to justice.”

Erpent stepped forward until he stood nose to nose with Green. “And who, in your opinion,” he asked, “is the real criminal?”

My partner flushed. “Well, I don’t know, do I? That’s why we have to investigate.”

Erpent jabbed a finger into the other man’s chest. “The real criminals are lone wolf food terrists. People who look just like you.” He smiled. “Who even work for, say, the ATFF. Sleeper cells of entire families. But they forget. Their disobedient child loves the Prophet, and refuses to be force-fed—”

“Enough!”

“—force-fed their parents’ food-eating lies.”

“I said, enough!” Green backed away. “You win. We’ll do it your way.”

Erpent pursued him across the dead grass. “You don’t know anyone like that. Do you?”

My partner’s shoulders slumped. “No.”

“What would you do if you did?”

“Arrest them, I suppose.”

“You
suppose?”

“I would turn them in. It would be my duty.” His voice had taken on a wooden inflection.

I slapped him on the back. “Good man.”

His head hung low, like he was sleepy. I was tired too, but now was no time for a nap.

“Come on, Harry,” I said. “Let’s go eat some caffeinated air.” I put my arm around his shoulders to lead him away. But he just stood there, staring at the Thin House lit up across the street.

Erpent barked at Thinn, “Sergeant. Skinny Service cleaners—I mean, forensics team—is due here shortly. Make sure you leave no traces of your presence. Wrappers or…whatnot.”