Israeli Embassy, Washington DC

Walking out of Martin's (bellies full of bar food, brains swimming in alcohol), a Yellow Cab spotted us, pulling over to the curb. I'd called dibs on the first cab, so Bob stepped to one side allowing me to be the one to open the door and climb in.

"G'night, Bob."
"G'night, Frank."

But as the taxi pulled away, and I started to tell the driver my home address, the schmuck cut me off.

"That won’t be necessary, Professor Myers — I'll be taking you directly to the Israeli embassy. Sorry, sir, but I have my orders."

Minutes later, the highly-secured gate on Embassy Row was sliding open for us to enter Israeli territory. As soon as it had slid shut behind us, a garage door quickly opened, and the taxi disappeared inside. To our left was a team of mechanics who, for some reason, appeared to be totally disassembling a UPS truck. To our right was the familiar face of the station chief for the Mossad, who was there to greet me, as was his equally familiar second-in-command. They immediately advised me not to share anything I was about to witness with anyone but my immediate superior at the George Bush Building (i.e. Langley). "Obviously," I replied.

At the west side of the garage was an elevator that took the three of us into the basement. But no sooner had the elevator door opened onto the bottom floor than I heard a muffled gunshot followed by the sounds of two men screaming.

"What the fuck was that?" I blurted out, unaccustomed to such aural stimuli.

"That was the sound of the brain of one SVR agent hanging by his wrists from the ceiling being splattered across the faces of two other SVR agents also hanging by their wrists from the ceiling. We don’t fuck around here, Mr. Myers. You should know that about us.”

The two men then proceeded to lead me down a long hallway. At about the midway point, the station chief opened the door to our left where a group of technicians was gathered around some sort of device sitting on a Formica table in the middle of the room.

"That's what the device looks like, Mr. Myers — the purpose for your visit here tonight."

As we continued on down the hallway, we passed by a thick metal door on our right just in time to hear a muffled bloodcurdling scream from inside. This time it was a woman's voice. I cringed.

"Again, Mr. Myers — we don't fuck around."

At the far end of the hallway was an ornate, French provincial sitting room. Once inside, door closed, the station chief looked me straight in the eye, speaking in a hushed, measured tone:

"We only have about 5 minutes, Mr. Myers, 10 tops, before your colleagues begin to cordon off the area, opening a channel to that red phone over there, demanding to know why we have abducted you, before making it crystal clear as only they can that we had better goddamned turn you over to them immediately —or else. So let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

"Earlier this evening, our security team detected 'pulsed and directed microwaves' entering our compound from a UPS truck parked across the street. The same type of 'Havana Syndrome' shit that's been targeting your embassies and consulates for the past two years. Apparently, those same assholes that have been targeting you thought they could pull the same shit with us. They were, of course, fatally mistaken. In less than 90 seconds, we had them surrounded; took everyone inside prisoner; and commandeered their vehicle.  As you've probably already guessed, the sounds you've been overhearing are those of our Russian-speaking interrogators doing what they do best."

Just then a second gunshot rang out, along with another bloodcurdling scream. I narrowed the corner of one eye to signal to the two gentlemen that I did not appreciate being so close to their 'sources' and 'methods.' The station chief shrugged, "Sorry about that" and continued in the same steady, measured tone:

"Again, let's cut to the chase: My team should be walking through that door, any minute now, with the schemata for the device. Along with any preliminary findings from our interrogators. It's our goal to pass that off to an American operative who can be trusted not to let it slip into Trump's hands — and from Trump's, into Putin's."

(Just then, a knock came to the door: it was the schemata and the preliminary findings... and three of the scariest looking motherfuckers I ever laid eyes on.)

"Fortunately for us, it's a Sunday evening. And we always have a pretty good idea where we can find 'Professor Myers' on a Sunday evening."

"That reminds me, Frank: How did you of all people become our 'Deep Throat'?"

I paused for a moment –– unsure what to make of my inquisitor's quip comparing me to some "cocksucking toadie" from the Nixon era (even if it WAS the same code-named whistle-"blower" personally responsible for "blowing" the lid off Watergate! ha-ha).

Choking back an off-color joke about Linda Lovelace and Tricky Dick (which I'm relatively sure would've left my interlocutor in stitches), I did my best, instead, to keep it serious:

"Normally, I would have delegated something like that – something as mundane as 'opening the mail,' 'cleaning the windows,' or 'leaking top secret shit to reporters about how the president's leaking top secret shit to the Russians' – to my secretary, my second-in-command, or perhaps one of my junior staffers. But my own days as an op-ed writer for The Post and The Journal made me the logical choice. The only member of our team with the inside track to locate, single out, and win the trust of my very own Woodwards and Bernsteins."

He nodded in agreement. "I assumed as much."

"Within moments of that first 'leak,' however, the first shoe dropped. Trump received an unscheduled call from Moscow warning him that someone in the IC had the Oval bugged. At Putin's direction, our 'golfer-in-chief' immediately set into motion a plan for an August vacation to his Bedminster golf club to coincide with a 'renovation' – which, of course, was nothing more than a cover for his team of Keystone Cops to tear the place apart, top-to-bottom, searching for bugging devices. Most notably, the wallpaper in the Oval."

"Yeahhh... I think I remember that..."

"Fortunately, my team had had the foresight during the transition to plant fake bugs behind the wallpaper to throw them off; decoys to make them think they had succeeded in finding what they were looking for. In the meantime, though, just 'to be safe,' Moscow told Trump he had to start taking his briefings in the family residence upstairs. So, naturally, our nanobots simply followed him up there, and into his private quarters – recording every sight, sound, smell, or cobweb along the way. Bots so advanced they can measure temperature fluctuations, such as someone hiding in a closet, or detect the changes in someone's heart rate or blood pressure, signaling whether they're nervous, for example, or sexually aroused. The sort of 'next gen shit' Putin couldn't even imagine, let alone know his mortal enemies have already mastered."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Our bots don't just circle the president in the Oval Office, Brick. They follow him everywhere... Air Force One... Camp David... His MAGA rallies... All of his properties... Even the family residence: Everywhere from the gold toilets that feature Perrier in the bidets, to the Lincoln Bedroom, where he secretly plans to reenact the 'pee-pee video' with Kayleigh McEnany and Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Melania was a 'hard no.')

"And considering those 280 pounds of butt ass ugly are usually up and 'hate-tweeting' by 5am — but don't actually show up for work before 11 or 12 — what do you really think the sex addict trolling porn stars and Playboy bunnies with the pick-up line 'you remind me of my daughter' is 'doing' during his so-called 'executive time' locked away in his bedroom?"

An involuntary "grossed-out" expression swept across Troutwine's face, as if he already knew what I was about to say. But I said it anyway —

"Every morning, right on cue, like a meth addict smoking his first pipe of the day, that orange blob of bloviating blubber has one eye watching Fox & Friends, and one hand clicking out hate tweets — while the other eye's super glued to father/daughter Internet porn, and the other hand's putting the grip of death to that congenitally-deformed trouser snake Stormy Daniels once compared to the 'Toad from Super Mario Brothers.' 

"Just imagine the poor sap on our team who has to review that footage every morning waiting to overhear the daily briefing from Moscow!"

...there came a knock at the door: It was Father Dillon.

The only priest on the payroll with the code-word/top-secret security clearance required to hear my final confession.

And, as always, Jack was right on time.

By this point, I think it's safe to say, we knew most of each other's secrets. But what haunted me now in my last 24 hours was that one secret I had never shared with anyone. That fateful day back in '96 when temptation knocked at the door, forcing me to make a snap decision that would define who I would be from that moment forward.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

For the next twenty minutes, I described, in startling detail, how I had allowed myself to be sucked into one of the biggest criminal conspiracies in American political history. 

Forget Whitewater... forget Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky, and all the rest... because what I witnessed behind those glass doors was the real "smoking gun."

It was the Thursday following Clinton's reelection, and I was still nursing a hangover from the big election night party at the Capitol Hilton. After three months of long hours volunteering at campaign headquarters — enjoying the thrill of a lifetime, which included rubbing elbows with Bill and Hillary at their anniversary party — it was now time for HQ to begin the process of "breaking camp." Only a few of us had bothered to show up for work that day, so it was up to me to "man the shredder."

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, there I sat, on the floor in the middle of an otherwise empty room, feeding ream after ream into its sharp teeth. Midway through this mindless task, a junior staffer from the campaign treasurer’s office bursts through the door, an anxious look on his face, carrying a large stack of papers under one arm. He tells me to stop whatever I'm doing, he has something he needs me to shred right away. 

Handing me his tall stack of paper, he tells me it's the master spreadsheet detailing all the illegal foreign campaign contributions. His office had kept it locked up in a file cabinet in case they ever had to do "damage control" at a moment's notice, and needed to know what exactly it was they were trying to cover up.

I guess he assumed that someone like me — someone who had worked with the "Rapid Response Team," a "team member" responsible for "taking incoming" and "returning fire" — that I wouldn’t bat an eye at hearing someone say something like that. But truth be known, I couldn't believe my ears, nor my eyes. 

The first thing I noticed, glancing down at the top page, was how the spreadsheet had been broken down alphabetically by country, with "Algeria" topping the list. Each line included the dollar amount of the contribution, and the U.S. corporation or political action committee through which they had laundered the money. Which meant, of course, there had to be at least one American accomplice at each of those entities. Potentially dozens, if not hundreds, of co-conspirators. 

As I flipped through, page after page after page after page, it became clear that what I was holding in my hands was a paper trail adding up to millions of dollars. And that what I was now being asked (so casually) to do — (what I was now EXPECTED to do) — was to destroy the evidence. In other words, join the criminal conspiracy as an "accessory after the fact." Me... Someone who had never even got a speeding ticket before. Inexplicably, the junior staffer left the room, trusting that I would follow his instructions. Me... Someone who he barely knew.

I sat there for a long minute... Reeling from the realization of what I was now holding in my hands... Eyeing the door... Considering my options... Never once did the thought cross my mind, though, to "do the right thing" — Report the crime I had just witnessed to the appropriate authorities. And turn over the smoking gun. — Instead, I considered slipping it into my backpack, and disappearing out the front door. Not to turn it over to the FBI, mind you, but for blackmail purposes to advance my career. 

There I sat... History hanging in the balance... My mortal soul hanging there, too... Should I do the "right thing"? — I'd already ruled that out. Should I look out for "number one"? — I thought long and hard... Or should I prove I'm a good "team player"?

In the end, though, I chickened out. Feeding everything into the shredder, page-by-page, until nothing was left but confetti.

After I had finished bearing my soul to Father Dillon — my friend Jack — I settled back into my chair, and let out a long sigh. Relieved that, after all those years, I'd finally gotten that off my chest. My confessor just sat there for a minute, shaking his head. And then, the hint of a smile.

"That's all you got for me, Frank?"

I shrugged. 

"Seriously, Frank. I was expecting to hear something more like where all the bodies were buried... Seriously, Frank — THAT's the best ya got?"

"Well..." I continued. "There is 'one other little thing' I could use your help on, Father."

...a naval four-star by the name of Mildred Parker rose from her seat, flipped off the lights, and pressed <PLAY> on a "newsreel" of surprisingly crystal clear footage of unidentified flying objects collected over the years by tailhook pilots and their crews.

The same footage, she explained, that sparked their project in the first place. 

Images a trillion times sharper than anything she would ever share with the public, or even the White House. Videos of UFOs accelerating, in less than a second, to super hypersonic speeds without ever once producing a sonic boom.

For the next twenty minutes, there I sat, transfixed, as one clip after another featured high definition images of flying saucers over the ocean, defying the "laws of physics" by darting about, levitating, and even "flying" directly into the water, seeming to "disappear." 

"Our big breakthrough," the chain-smoking admiral beamed (continuing her narrative, while talking over the footage, and pointing at the screen with her fourth or fifth Marlboro), "came just last year, on August twenty-first, during the solar eclipse – when dual satellites captured the simultaneous image of one of these UFOs disappearing into the ocean, before reemerging, an instant later, from the mouth of an active volcano on the opposite side of the planet."

Parker then manually scrolled the dual footage back-and-forth several times, backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, so I could see for myself, with my own eyes, the "clear as day" visual of what she was describing... something beyond even the wildest human imagination.

"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked, scratching my head.

"Because all of this information should prove useful to you in the future. A future which would make no sense to you now. That's why."