No less an authority than Douglas Adams has reminded us of the
consequences of careless talk. In this possible future history, we
learn of just how unfortunate John's "I wuv Osama" prank might be.
Our Story Begins
In Washington, D.C., Special Agent Biff Goodyshoes of the FBI walks
into John Ashcroft's office.
"Mr. Ashcroft, sir, we have a suspected link to Al Qaeda".
"Another one? What's this one?"
"It's a man named John Hargrave. He not only drove around Boston with
a "I wuv Osama" sticker in his rear window, he ever wrote a message to
a Internet board about it. He claims it's a joke, but he seems like an un-American, non-war-supporting sort, sir."
"Hmmmm. Any accomplices?"
"Yes, sir! This message board - Gab on Zug - is FULL of weirdos. Here's some pictures." Biff spread a number of shots extracted from the Gab photo album on Ashcroft's desk.
"Good Heavens! Who is this immense creature?!?"
"He goes by Squeamish, sir. A real pervert, although his heart's in
the right place, politically. Pity."
"Which one is Hargrave?"
Agent Goodyshoes indicated a picture.
"Hmmmph. He looks harmless."
"I'd say MOSTLY harmless, sir."
"Anyone else suspicious?"
Goodyshoes pushed another picture to the front.
"She's quite a looker. Who's that?"
"She goes by Bonky, sir. We've determined that she's speaking in some sort of code."
"So, have the boys at NSA crack it."
"They've tried, sir. They lost a Cray."
"What do you mean, 'lost a Cray'?"
"They tried to decode her stuff, and the Cray melted down."
"Hmmmmm."
Ashcroft flipped through the pictures.
"They're pretty much all fat, aren't they?"
"Mostly, sir. This one's not."
"GOOD LORD ABOVE! AN ARAB!!!!!"
"Yes, sir, she goes by 'Marilyn'".
Ashcroft turned bright red. "I want this board INVESTIGATED. ALL OF
THEM."
"Yes, sir. At once, sir."
Meanwhile, near the Afghan - Pakistani border
Abdul Al Islamabad walked into Osama bin Laden's cave, carrying a
laptop.
"Your hatefulness, I have something here you must see."
"Yes, Abdul. Come closer. What is it?"
"This website, in America. I searched for your name, and look what I found!"
Osama read through John's article; then read it again.
"It seems as though he may be mocking me."
"Or, he may be sincere, sir."
"If he is sincere, he could be a most valuable - asset. Investigate,
please."
"Yes, sir."
Two months later, outside John's home
One of the oddities of the intelligence business is that intelligence agencies spend a great deal of their time doing nothing more than trying to find out what each other are doing. As a consequence, the FBI quickly noticed that John was being watched by Al Qaeda, and vice-versa. Furthermore, the other major nations of the world noticed the FBI / Al Qaeda at work, and began their own tails. As the FBI and Al Qaeda expanded their investigations to other Gabbers, the English / French / Chinese / Israeli / Iraqi / Pakistani / Indian / German /Russian / Turkish / Japanese intelligence services also sent agents to check up on what was going on. As is normal when people share a common line of work, a rough working relationship began between the dozens of agents involved in the case. Friendships arose more readily between, for example, the Americans and the English than between Al Qaeda and Israeli agents, but still, working accomodations to common problems were reached. Scenes such as the following were not uncommon.
Inside an inconspicuous solid black van with a 3' satellite dish on
top, parked across the street from the Hargrave residence and 25 feet
down the road, Biff and the French cryptographic agent Code Napoleon
were sharing a pot of coffee. A knock came at the door. Code opened
it, to reveal Al Qaeda agent Abdul Bactrian.
"Ah, Monsieur Bactrian, how may we help you?"
"If you please, may I borrow some coffee? We have run out, and with
the traffic around here ..."
Code grimaced. With 11 different governments, some represented by
multiple agencies, and a number of terrorist organizations all
attempting to watch each other and/or the Hargraves, traffic jams of inconspicuous black cars filled with barely noticable black-clad
agents were a daily event. Biff reached into a shelf, extracted a bag, and handed it to Abdul.
"Here you go. Starbuck's French Roast."
"Thank you." Abdul turned to go.
"Hey, just a minute. I haven't seen your friend Ali recently."
Adbul's face contorted. "He was given a new assignment. He was asked
to review ... the Squeamish disk."
Biff turned pale; Code flushed.
"Oh Jesus - uh, pardon the expression." said Biff.
Abdul spat on the ground. "Decadent. You Americans and your'freedom'. Ali threw himself before a bus to cleanse his soul of that filth." He stalked off.
Code watched him go, then excused himself. Quickly climbing a nearby
tree, he released the tension brought on my the mention of Squeamish's hard drive and it's contents in a way quite natural for a Frenchman, but very unnatural seeming to the squirrel involved.
Another rap came at the van door. Biff slid it open to reveal an Israeli agent named Maria Goldstien.
"So, what got into Abdul just then?" she asked.
"I guess Ali killed himself after he got tasked with the Squeamish disk."
Maria grimaced. "We haven't had anyone go that far, but we've had 3
people go on extended medical leave."
Biff smiled. "I'm just glad I have enough senority to draw THIS assignment."
Maria smiled back. "Say - can you tell me how Operation Orange Tic-Tacs is going?"
Biffs eyes narrowed. "I don't think you're cleared to hear the answer
to that."
Maria smiled still wider. "Thanks for confirming the code name -
sucker." She strolled off while Biff fumed.
In a car down the street, Won Ton Salad adjusted his satellite uplink. Beijing would be happy to get the freshly recorded conversations obtained by pointing a directional microphone at the American van.
In a black helicopter circling far over ahead, Mike Hammer, CIA agent,
smiled as the transmission from Salad's car was intercepted and an
innocuous message substituted.
And so it went, day after day, as more and more of the world's
intelligence effort began to focus on the simple question of: "Did
John Hargrave truly wuv Osama?"
Our double surprise ending
John, of course, was blissfully unaware of all the attention being
paid to him. Blissfully, because in addition to the normal page
traffic (if "normal" is a word that can ever be applied to Gab), he
was getting 250,000 page hits a day from a world-wide assortment of
spies. But, of course, whom gods destroy, they first make blissfull.
The day came that John decided to clean out his office. Idly, he threw
several old Gab pranks away - including the Afghan flag, and the
fateful "I wuv Osama" sticker. He carried the office trash can out to
the garbage can, dumped it in, and returned to his home.
Of course, he hadn't even reached the door before a consortium of black-clad agents had begun examining the new arrivals at the garbage can. It was Bactrian, Al Qaeda fanatic, who found the "I wuv Osama" sticker. He gazed at it for a moment.
"So. He was mocking the Great One." He paused. "Hargrave DIES!"
Abdul had not taken 2 steps toward the house before Biff's bullet hit
him in the back of the head. This, however, was not the end, but the
beginning. The news of the find of the crumpled bumpersticker had been
transmitted worldwide within moments. Months of cameraderie were set aside in an instand as each nation or group fought for perceived
advantage. For the first since 1865, America found itself involved in a coast to coast war. Black helicopters screamed down on
strafing runs and were met by Stinger missiles hoarded for 20
years. Chinese agents trained by Shaolin monks fought Japanese ninja
in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Elite French agents ran screaming, searching desparately to find someone to whom they could
surrender. The one great battle of "The War Against Terrorism" brought
far more terror to America than September 11th had.
Of course, for most nations, a primary objective was to eliminate Al Qaeda. In each place, there might be different levels of trust among
the various parties represented - but almost invariably, the Al Qaedo
men were the least trusted of the lot.The carnage among bin Laden's
minions was total. Within 15 minutes Al Qaeda had only a handful of
agents left in the entire United States.
John Hargrave climbed up from the floor where he had been shielding
his family with his own body. The Hargraves were happily unhurt; but
their house looked as though large caterpillers had considered the
walls and roofs to be very tasty treats. Outside, the destruction
ranged for blocks. Each nation and group had felt it needed its own
safe house nearby; and then other nations had established safe houses
in order to watch those safe houses, with the end result being that
257 different homes had eventually been occupied by spies of various
sorts. John staggered outside to examine the damage.
Suddenly there was a noise; rhythmic kicking. A grate was kicked out,
and a tall, bearded figure crawled out from beneath John's house. In
total disbelief, John Hargrave found himself looking into the eyes of
Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden walked over to the corpse of Abdul Bactrian and pried the
crumpled sticker from his fingers. "So" he said. His shoulders
shook. He turned to face John.
"Do you know how much I prayed that your love for me might be sincere?
Do you know that all I've ever really wanted was to be loved, just
once!? You have betrayed me!"
Bin Laden reached beneath his robes and pulled out a transmitter. "My
agents have done their work. When I press this button, anthrax and
plague will be released throughout this land of yours. Millions will die. You will pay for what you have done!"
On a sudden impulse, John stepped forward and tried to hug Osama. Bin
Laden shoved him backwards. "Sodomite! Fool! It is too late for you, and for your country!" He raised the transmitter over his head; his thumb moved towards the fatal button.
It took a moment for the fact that a hole had appeared in bin Laden's
forehead to register with John. It took a slightly longer moment for
the fact that he was dead to register with bin Laden. When it did, he crumpled forward, bending at the waist first, and lying like an
impossibly tall child prostate on the porch.
A burly figure emerged from behind a car across the street and strode
over to bin Laden. He spurned the corpse with his foot, turning it
onto his back. Kneeling, he pressed a retinal scanner to his eyeball. A green indicator light lit.
The man spoke into his radio. "That's him, all right. Mission done."
He picked up the transmitter and turned it off. Then he turned towards John.
"You Americans are lucky you have us Canadians to look after you. If
he'd pressed that button, it would have been a royal mess."
At this point, John's face resembled a fish out of water. A carp, in
fact. Furthermore, you have to imagine that this is a MALE carp, who has just been kicked in the piscene equivalent of the
testicles. Finally, John got one word out.
"Postbear!?"
"Yes, John?" came the kindly reply.
"I ... I thought you hated me! Thought I was a hypocrite! Were boycotting Gab!"
"Good cover story, eh?" said postbear. "Well, I hear my ride
coming. It's been real."
A motorcycle rode up, driven by a beautifull full-figured red head. Postbear ran into the street, climbed on behind the woman, and together they roared off into the sunset.
Epilogue
Biff Goodyshoes died in the firefight outside the Hargrave home.
John Ashcroft tried to stay on as Attorney General, despite the
carnage that had resulted from letting Al Qaeda operate so that they could be watched. He was forced to resign shortly after George W. Bush announced that he "Percentage-wise, was behind John 110.".
The report by Biff about the death of Ali had not gone unnoticed. Squeamish was given a top-secret clearance and a job collecting all the scat porn on the Internet onto one hard drive. Copies of this drive were made, and passed through covert
channels into the hands of the remaining members of Al Qaeda with the story that it contained CIA secrets. Within a few years, all of Al Qaeda had gone insane, or been killed for refusing to examine the
disk. Those few who were most thoroughly deranged by what they saw
sought out Dianetics centers and became Scientologists; they are truly to be pitied.
The NSA was never able to decode Bonky, but several advances in
cryptoanalysis were made in the attempt. However, several promising
analysts quit their jobs to form a religion, "Bonkyism". Gabbers
viewed Bonkyists about the same way as Orthodox Jews viewed
Christians; that is, that they'd gotten ahold of a good thing, and
screwed it up.
Marilyn wound up marrying a wealthy, titled British secret agent who
had been assigned to spy on her. They summered in Britain, wintered in Egypt, and lived happily ever after. Marilyn's ability to make a great martini, shaken, not stirred, proved to be the quickest way to this fellow's heart.
Code Napoleon made the mistake of surrendering to a squirrel in the
extremity of his panic. The squirrel harvested and buried his nuts.
Postbear retired from the Canadian Intelligence agency after his cover was blown. He abandoned his gay cover story, married the red head, and moved to Prince Edward Island, where he became presbyter of the local kirk, and famous for his barbeques. The women of the island said that there wasn't a man on PE who hadn't tasted his meat, and they were right!
John Hargrave's testimony before Congress was the highest rated event in the history of television. Billions of people watched as John told of bin Laden's final moments and how the Bush administration had come within a single Canadian hero of losing millions of Americans to Al Qaeda. The Democrats nominated Al Gore, and helped by John's willingness to make TV hit ads attacking Bush, Gore won easily.
In another paradox, this made NO difference at all.
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