Assassin

33

Presidential speechwriter Bobby DiLivio chewed on the end of a newly sharpened pencil. 'OK,' he said, taking it out of his mouth and tapping it on a legal pad in front of him, 'how about this? "Human trafficking is a scourge in the world, a stain upon the conscience of civilized society." What do you guys reckon – too much alliteration, maybe?'

'How about too many friggin' cliches?' sniped his colleague Josh Grunveld, laughing as he dodged the ball of paper DiLivio flung in his direction.

Over at the far end of the White House writers' room, Thornton Black, the third member of the team working on the President's Bristol speech, paced up and down the carpet, squeezing a black and yellow Nerf ball in his hands.

'Don't worry about the cliches, man. That's Roberts's genius. He turns that trash into pure gold.'

'You calling my work trash?' DiLivio asked, beginning to bridle.

'Man, this is politics, it's all trash,' Black replied. 'So, did you guys see that story in the Huffington Post, the one about that sex-slave kid that got rescued in, I don't know, Dubai? Abu Dhabi? Some place like that – Middle East, anyway. Story came out of the London Times…'

'Nuh-huh,' muttered DiLivio, chewing the pencil again.

Grunveld frowned. 'Was that the one where the dude killed the Indian guy? Yeah, think I remember that…'

'So, would it be a totally crazy idea to get that chick over to England for the speech?' Black went on. 'The way the guy wrote it, she sounded pretty cute. I'm thinking a black president with a white slave, that's an image, right? God, that shot's going to be on every front page in the whole damn world…'

'Why stop there?' Grunveld asked. 'We could get a little slumdog and some old Chinese dude, make it a real rainbow nation.'

'Aw, come on, man, I'm trying to be serious here,' Black protested.

'You know, it could even make some money,' said DiLivio. 'If we got enough kids, from enough different countries, we could auction 'em off to Hollywood celebrities after the speech. Get Madonna and Angelina bidding against each other, who knows how high it could go? Pay for the whole trip.'

'Good to know you take the scourge of the century so seriously, DiLivio. Always helps a speech when it's written from the heart.'

'C'mon, Thorn, you know I was kidding.'

'Yeah, well, I wasn't. I honestly think this kid could make the whole thing real. Put a face on the problem, y'know? Give people something they can understand, not just a bunch of fine words and big numbers. The chick was eighteen when she got sold by her own aunt, for Christ's sake. She was flown thousands of miles and forced into prostitution… People are going to look at her, think, "Gee, she could be our daughter." That's what I mean – she makes it real.'

'You know, Thorn, that's not a totally dumb-ass idea… considering it's one of yours,' Grunveld conceded. 'You should think about it, Bob.'

'OK, I'll take it to Hal, see what he says,' said DiLivio, as Thornton Black shouted, 'Yes!' and danced a touchdown celebration. 'Now, the speech… How about I make it, "Human trafficking is a curse upon the world"?'

'How about we start again from the top?' suggested Grunveld.

'Yeah,' Black agreed. ''Cause, Bob, what you've got so far is total shit.'