Trust Your Eyes

FORTY-EIGHT

“Hello?”

“Thomas, it’s Bill Clinton.”

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“I’m very good, sir.”

“Thomas, I wanted to remind you how valuable you are to us. Do you know what the phrase ‘black ops’ means?”

“Those are secret missions?”

“That’s right. Covert operations run by the CIA and other government agencies. Operations that the White House has to be able to deny any knowledge of should they somehow become public.”

“Okay.”

“When we have operatives in the field, conducting black ops-style missions, they can run into trouble, the kind where they have to slip away in a hurry. That’s why you’re so important. Not just if all the online maps disappear one day, or there’s another earthquake or tornado. So you never know when we’ll call, asking for your suggestions on an escape route.”

“I understand.”

“The reason I’m calling is to tell you, again, that there are things in your past you shouldn’t be talking about, or else the folks at the CIA are going to lose confidence in you. You’ll look weak. Or worse, like a tattletale. You understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. That’s good to hear.”

“Can I ask you something…Bill?”

“Go right ahead.”

“My brother and I, well, mostly me, but we were talking about aliens the other day, and I wondered, when you were president, did you find out what really happened at Roswell? Do they have an alien spaceship there?”

“Thomas, you fulfill your mission successfully, and I’ll tell you everything.”