(Interior, government office,
Washington, DC. ASSET HANDLER sits at his desk staring forlornly at his
computer screen. DIRECTOR storms into the room, face red with anger.)
DIRECTOR: Asset Handler, my office, NOW!
ASSET HANDLER: Yes, sir.
(ASSET HANDLER rises and follows
DIRECTOR into a corner office. DIRECTOR slams the door.)
DIRECTOR: What the fuck were you thinking?
DIRECTOR: What the fuck were you thinking?
ASSET HANDLER: Sir, I…
DIRECTOR: Shut the fuck up and listen. You will speak when I say to
speak, and at no other time. Is that clear? Do you know why you’re in here?
ASSET HANDLER: …
DIRECTOR: Speak, goddammit!
ASSET HANDLER: Sir, I imagine it’s about the Shalwar Kameez situation.
DIRECTOR: You’re goddamn right it’s about the Shalwar Kameez situation.
I thought you had everything under control, Asset Handler, but apparently I
made a mistake in believing that. I don’t
make mistakes, Asset Handler, I make other
people make mistakes, I make the enemies
of the United States make mistakes, and then I ground them into fucking
powder when they do! When you made contact in Lebanon in 2010, did you have any
idea that this fucker was playing us? Any idea at all that he was going to go
off the reservation when he had what he wanted – check that, when he had what
his Palestinian asset handler wanted?
Speak, you halfwit!
ASSET HANDLER: Sir, I believe that what Shalwar Kameez left behind
before he went dark should explain everything….
DIRECTOR (in a condescending tone):
Oh, you mean this? (DIRECTOR holds up a
cassette tape with a torn orange sticker emblazoned with “Confidential”) This
technological relic? Please, Asset Handler, tell me what I’m supposed to do
with this goddamned beat tape. (DIRECTOR chucks cassette across the desk,
hard, and ASSET HANDLER bobbles the catch, dropping the tape to the floor. He
hastily retrieves it.)
ASSET HANDLER: Well, sir, it’s much more than a beat tape, I assure
you. I mean, there’s some acid, some techno, even some psychedelic rock by the
end. There are some cool samples…
DIRECTOR: I don’t give a shit if it’s a lost Velvet Underground
bootleg, I want to know what Shalwar Kameez knows, and I want to know what he’s
going to do with that information.
ASSET HANDLER: Sir, there’s evidence that Kameez has already been
killed…
DIRECTOR: You know that’s horseshit, son!
ASSET HANDLER: Yes, sir, of course, that’s in my report…
DIRECTOR: Your report is incomplete and inconclusive. Who do you think
you are, Fox Mulder? You’ll never be a
Fox Mulder, you little puke!
ASSET HANDLER: Sir, I had an idea – what if we ran the tape through a
spectrograph? Maybe Kameez has hidden the information in the music itself, like
the Aphex
Twin face in “[Equation].”
DIRECTOR: What the fuck is an “Aphex Twin”? Look, Asset Handler, I
don’t care if you have to analyze every single nanosecond of every single tone
on this cassette, I want you to fix this, and fix it immediately, or I swear to
Christ I’m gonna bust you down to checking passports along the Canadian border.
Now get the fuck out of my sight!
ASSET HANDLER: Yes sir, thank you sir!
DIRECTOR: GET OUT!
Fin
--Ryan Masteller
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