Life as a New Hire Ch. 40

Victoria Nuland, Ass. Sec. of State for European & Eurasian Affairs (ASSEEA)

Robert O. Blake Jr., Ass. Sec. of State for S & C Asian Affairs (ASSCAA)

Daniel R. Russel, Ass. Sec. of State for E. Asian and Pacific Affairs (ASSEAP)

Bill A. Miller, Director of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) (aka Big Willy)

We made stiff, formal introductions (which signaled the utter lack of trust in the room.) Javiera hadn't wanted to put me through an interrogation this soon after my near-death experience, considering my snarky nature when stressed. The White House was putting the squeeze on her. The main player was Tony, who talked with the Leader of the Free World on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

The Diplomatic Security Service people had successfully peeled off Pamela and my SD Amazons only after they agreed I could keep Aya. They tolerated me keeping the nine-year old girl despite the obvious fact she had gone through worse hardships than I had endured and was still packing her Chinese QSW-06 suppressed pistol.

I had already fabricated and submitted my report on how I'd overcome a plane-full of rogue delinquents from the Forumi i Rinisë Eurosocialiste të Shqipërisë (Euro-socialist Youth Forum of Albania) bent on recruiting impressionable European socialites by accessing my Twitter account.

That's right - the Albanians had it out for me. I reiterated that critical bit of data to the Department of Homeland Security when they questioned me on the veracity of my memories. The two ethnic Chinese I was found with? I thought they were from Taiwan ... and they both appeared to be suffering from amnesia.

I was already suffering repercussions from my pathological refusal to take life seriously. Javiera believed I was about to get a formal apology from Ferit Hoxha, Permanent Representative of Albania to the United Nations. Damn it! Now I had to do something nice for the Albanians. Maybe I'd offer them membership in the Khanate - full-statehood with an economic package to sweeten the deal.

Yes - THAT was how Albania AND Kosovo joined the Khanate ... a product of my love for exaggeration and a little post-Ottoman solidarity over Tarator (cold soup made of yoghurt, garlic, parsley, cucumber, salt and olive oil with a side of fried squids), Tavë Kosi (lamb meatballs) and Flia & Kaymak (a dessert I highly recommend).

We had toasted the Pillars of Kanun (Albanian oral law and tradition): ~ Nderi (honor), Mikpritja (hospitality), Sjellja (Right Conduct) and Fis (Kin Loyalty), ~ and he promised to tell his people that I had Besa which was an Albanian-ism for being a man who would honor his word of honor (despite us being brought together by my lie). The shit-ton of financial and military aid I asked the Great Khan to sweeten the pot with might have helped as well.

Later, Lady Yum-Yum told me that the military leaders of NATO called it a 'master-stroke' in neutralizing Comrade Putin's Russian-backed 'Greek threat' to the Khanate's Turkey. Fathom patted my cheek while telling me that my thunder-stunned look was 'so adorable.' Once more my big heart and dumb luck gave the world an unlooked-for pinprick. How angry was my pal Vladimir (Putin) with me? Let's just say that I was still invited to Moscow, but when Putin patted me on the back, I should expect a dagger to be in his hand; the twin of the one I'd accidently stuck into him.

Why was Russia riling up the Greeks against the Turks (not that it was all that hard)? One word: Ukraine. I'll get back to that at the end of August. At the moment, the meeting was all about introducing me to a depraved portion of the internet Web-verse devoted to coverage of the Khanate's campaign inside China ~ lots of really gory, nightmare-inducing stuff.

I looked over the videos full of blank-faced, traumatized men and women: bloody, diseased, starving and neglected. Then came the scenes of pyramids of human heads neatly arranged on street corners. The Khanate's security troops were shown moving past these and other grisly reminders of who was currently winning and who was losing this titanic struggle.

The Mongolian and Turkish troops moved about without a hint of remorse, or stress. No sympathy was exhibited for the Han Chinese being systematically herded out and driven east ... back into 'China'. Not all the Han were being expelled. If they had skills of critical importance, they could stay. That courtesy also included all mixed ethnic families.

Other footage showed swift justice being administered for the slightest sorts of offenses, often including the killing of multiple family members for one member's crime. The Khanate troops methodically participated in this merciless exercise of ethnic cleansing.

Before long, the 'offenders' stopped begging and pleading because it was clear the Mongolian and Turkish troops remained unmoved. This wasn't rabid hatred - it was schooled indifference. They had a task to do ~ inflict utter barbarity upon the Chinese civilian population. PLA soldiers and PLAAF prisoners fared much better, a distinction I wasn't sure my fellow American's understood. At the start, I didn't understand any of it either.

Oh, I knew Temujin wanted 'the invading Chinese' driven out, but seeing that actually play out was ... stomach-churning. Fate (that Bitch) was a never-ending cornucopia of pain ... pain with lessons attached. After all, my fellow Amazons were in the process of killing all their fathers; their brothers were long since dead.

Had I not suffered through that pain, I couldn't have looked at Temujin's atrocities with the new eyes I discovered. I wasn't okay with what was happening to all those innocents trapped in a life-and-death struggle that had been going on for over 250 years. That was one of the new lenses I brought to my life now. Evil is not excusable.

But with personal moral strength, you can end the cycle of violence, learn to accept, forgive and adapt. Survival was a virtue. None of that stopped evil from happening though. Nor did it make all evil inexplicable. This evil had plenty of reasons ~ they simply weren't reasons I liked, or would have accepted.

Except ... always 'except' ... Temujin and I were bound; life to life. I had save his life, thus taking partial ownership for the actions of the man whose life I'd help perpetuate.

"Okay," I spoke after going through thirty-seven minutes of man's inhumanity to man, "this is some fucked-up shit."

"Is that all you have to say?" Victoria Nuland inquired with deep interest. For her, it would be very disappointing if a man with my charisma and influence was a narcissistic monster. She had daughters after all ... and she was hot in a bookish, 'I want to rule the world with a gentle hand' sort of way.

"Terrorists," Daniel, Riki's boss sneered. He still hadn't forgiven me for busting his chops after Romania. "That is precisely what they are." At least Victoria had my 'adoption' of Georgia's plight in her department 'win' column.

"I'm sitting on another one of his down the hall," Mr. Martin added.

That was most likely one of my Kurds; who had been fighting a guerilla war against the Iranians, Iraqis and Turks for the last forty years. I wasn't going to blow up and act juvenile. That would set a bad example for Aya ... and she still had her pistol. She was scanning the room, soaking up the details while keeping an ear in on our conversation.

"How to make my position clear?" I mused. "I saw a security trooper crack open an infant's head with a 2x4. It freaks me out and I think you are all missing the two most critical aspects in EVERY single video," I trudged into the sludgy, murky water of political psychology.

"Mr. Nyilas, we have had experts go over every aspect of this footage and hours more. Your Khanate m ... allies haven't been bashful," Tony, the ringleader in this little circus, began the process of making me duly penitent to his way of thinking. Insinuating that the Khanate's considered me a subservient with his 'm' leading to 'master' trick ... he had the wrong guy.

He wasn't my type and I've had girlfriends fake pregnancies on me on multiple occasions trying to guilt me into compliance. Every libido-driven bi-sexual and heterosexual male who has ever gone to a liberal arts college has taken Art History. That course and Modern Lit. - Hemingway, Joyce and Kerouac - are all full-access passes into any wannabe female artist/rebel's bedroom.

I also learned something about art work; its creation and application ... because my Art History professor was passionate about more than a bunch of dead painters. Kimberly, my mentor, trained me to appreciate those other feminine facets they chose to reveal to me - it was the same way with my gun-lover ... pandering to your lover's non-sexual obsessions added a whole new spice rack to every erotic encounter.

"I agree that you've had experts study them for every little nuisance to put in your dossiers leading to the inevitable investigations, the issuing of warrants and the open-and-shut trials. You've been adding to your facial recognition software database for the inevitable War Crimes Tribunal," I forged ahead.

"I am telling you that you are barking up the wrong tree. Those people don't care what you think and it is your own damn fault."

"Do you care to go on record as supporting this behavior?" Tony was trying to back me into a corner.

"Tony, answer me two questions?" I requested. Since he was the aggressor here, he decided that letting me stick my neck out was the best move.

"Sure," he nodded. "I'd like to see your spin on this." No, he didn't want to hear my opinions as a counterpoint to his preconceived notions. He was gathering ammo to blast me with ... because he knew he was right and thus I had to be wrong.

"Your buddies are pissing ISIL off," Robert mocked me. "Their rape camps and beheading of common criminals is being out-shone by your Asian compatriots' inhuman behavior." I wasn't going to backslide into counter-mockery.

"What is the average age of the Khanate security troops in question and what are the camera angles and quality of virtually all the shots?" I posed.

"They are older than your average jihadist," Big Willy allowed.

"More accurately; they are all forty-five to fifty-five," I kept hammering away. "That places them past the enlistment age for regular Khanate armed forces," I said. "The troops we are watching have specifically been trained for this job. This isn't some random terrorist act. In fact, it isn't classical terrorism at all."

"First biological warfare and now mass graves?" Miller countered.

"I'm not saying what they are doing isn't abhorrent, people," I shook my head. "What I am telling you is that what they are doing isn't aimed at the West. It is an internal decision on the Khanate's part and a very deliberate one. I can prove that by the second fact I picked up." I waited. I was past the 'gifted amateur' phase, hallelujah, Dot Ishara.

"This was all high-quality camera footage," I explained. "Journalists are walking around Xinjiang Uyghur and they took this in broad daylight and the soldiers didn't care. The Khanate isn't worried about our opinions and that IS the fault of everyone one in this room that isn't me, or Aya."

"So, you are an apologist ..." Daniel accused me.

"Don't get stupid on me now, Daniel," I interrupted. "What I'm trying to tell you - please look past your current group-think - is that any moral ascendency you think that Western Civilization has - you never had." I paused, then pushed on, "You are deluding yourself into believing you have grasped what's going on here."

"Enlighten us," Tony leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He was acting confident, but he was actually quite worried. Here was someone who had been listening to Javiera; the woman standing grimly by my side.

"This war and tit-for-tat mass slaughter didn't start in 2014," I built up steam. "It started in the mid-18th century with the mass extinction of the native Mongolian peoples in the Dzungaria/Northern Xinjiang region and has continued non-stop since then."

"What you see is the Khanate acting in a deliberate manner, yet you don't understand their actions are fueled by the deliberate attempt by the Han Chinese to exterminate them. These aren't actions designed to take this conflict into a psychological paradigm. This is a visceral ethnic conflict based on real grievances and a pre-existing danger of extinction."

"Now, I know this administration is all for globalization and cultural homogeneity. In your world view, that means secularism and social liberalism. To the Khanate, it means 'They Cease To Exist'. ... And they cease to exist because you are letting the Han Chinese billions and the Russian millions do them in ... as they have been for the past 200 years," I told them.

"Why would they buy into this view of ours?" I asked. "The Mongols and Turks certainly don't think you are pro-Islamic, despite our President's repeated platitudes to that effect."

"That is correcting over a century of Eurocentric thinking," Tony defended his boss's stance.

"They don't care," I stated firmly. "They don't see you supporting a faith you don't possess; they see you abandoning a Christian faith you privately denigrate and devalue and holding out the expectation that they will reciprocate by surrendering a faith that they do value."

"They see you yourself improving upon a highly imperfect past ~ things you are ashamed of ~ while they view their past and their faith as a source of pride. You are approaching the Great Khan as if he was some primitive screw-head who needs to educate his people so that they can be as enlightened as you are."

"Your experts are creating their psychological profiles for you with their iron-clad prejudices about what is right and wrong. That renders you incapable of understanding that there is any way the Khanate are right and you are wrong," I let that hang there. I could see Big Willy and Victoria coming around to the idea they might not know everything.

I'd participated in far more psychological tests than was safe for a manipulator like me (female psych students love giving standardized tests ... and finding my secret, tragic flaws and then spending a few weeks trying to 'cure' me.) Tony was a patriot in the cause of his boss's boss - POTUS. I was afraid he was a lost cause.

Robert was in 'political-creature' mode. He'd move whichever way helped his career. Daniel was forever my enemy for personal and political reason and wouldn't agree with anything I said this side of Judgment Day.

"I can tell you resent his hubris, Tony," I kept his focus.

"Your problem is that his violence is 'correct' because he's using it to effectively erase six hundred years of fragmentation in a matter of weeks and the West is wrong because it has failed, through both diplomacy and armed force, to make the global community a safer place ever since you had the wherewithal to do so.

Finally, through no fault of your own, the overall economic disparity has been closing, just not closing fast enough."

"Cultural rejection, religious conservatism and unbalanced economic growth," Victoria nodded. Robert agreed.

"How do we get the man called Temujin to accept mediation?" Robert's attention had gone from hostile and a tad condescending to studious.

"Two options," I mulled things over. I was so used to being underappreciated, this acceptance had me off-center.

"As quick as you can, hit him in the nose hard with everything you've got, or stress to him that you will stand by his side - right now. Unless the United States makes an IMMEDIATE commitment ... either way, he has no reason to rein in any of the behaviors you find reprehensible."

"Oh, and a War Crimes Tribunal is a pitiful joke," I cut out a piece of their imagined leverage. "He's got the resources to defy you and he is doing so because he has zero respect for the United States, the EU and the United Nations. He currently controls too much of what the West needs."

"When the Chinese make their resurgence," Daniel glared.

"Won't matter. This is a death-grapple and he's going to ensure any death of the dream of a Mongol-Turkish Empire is accompanied by an utter catastrophe for everyone else ~ the Khanate goes down guns blazing," I said. "He doesn't doubt his country's resolve.

"He's counting on you to not embrace the realization that you can only stop his force with naked aggression of your own: boots on the ground and thousands of US military personnel coming home in body bags every month for half a year at least, if we - you - don't get your asses entirely kicked."

"The Khanate has enjoyed some success in their surprise attack, but the United States has the strongest military on the planet," Daniel confidently affirmed.

"One, I'm not so sure of that, and not because I don't believe in the US fighting man and woman. I'm saying it because the Khanate isn't some half-assed religious militia, or Arab conscript force that will sit around waiting to get bombed."

"I imagine if you get feisty - really feisty to the point he is sure you have his demise in mind - he'll pop off a few medium range Intercontinental Ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads toward the Persian Gulf," I lied. I knew the Khan didn't have nuclear missiles ... and I was wrong again.

Two days before I found myself in a room, rallying to the Khanate's defense, they'd stumbled across (quite literally) five DF-31A Ballistic Missiles (road capable) with a range over 10,000 km, and each carrying a 4.5 megaton warhead ... the bad-luck faeries? Worse, the capture was made possible by a JIKIT team of Green Beret and Gurkha, so the US and UK were soon going to get the bad news, just not soon enough for them to stop the Khanate from scooping up the missiles and escaping with them into the interior.

How about my threat against the Persian Gulf and Saudi fields? When the German market closed the day before the Khanate's attack, Oil was trading at $12 a barrel. When the exchanges opened this morning ~ $55 and rising. Why? China's domestic production had evaporated even as their demands skyrocketed.

Between the Russian and Khanate land-grabs and the Khanate air offensive, the PLA, PLAAF, PLAN and the PRC's struggling economy were creating a huge surge in foreign demand. Add the ISIL advances on Mosul in Iraq plus the Khanate's sudden appearance in the Middle East (Turkey and Azerbaijan) and commodity brokers were running scared.

"Can you give us any insight about their nuclear program?" Daniel (Russel) leaned forward in his chair. "Give us something useful for once."

"That is the most idiotic thing I've heard today," Javiera glared. "Everything Cáel has provided us has been both useful and timely."

"How can you say that?" Daniel stood up angrily. "No one seems to know what your taskforce is doing ... in any of our department's areas of responsibility."

"That's not so," I shook my head. "Daniel, you don't know because I don't trust you to not squeal to the PRC about Khanate intentions."

"Since Cáel doesn't trust YOU, Mr. Russel, you and anyone who would confide in you is being kept out of the loop," Javiera simmered.

"That lack of interdepartmental cooperation stops now, Ms. Javiera," Tony decided.

"No sir," Javiera confronted him. "It was Mr. Ali-Sharif's call and I back him 100%. In JIKIT's case, a leak of information will result in a level of response from our current partners we would all find unacceptable."

"I think the President would see it differently," Tony yanked hard on Javiera's reins.

"Very well, Mr. Blinken. If that is how you feel, I can speak for the whole team and tell you right now, everyone will resign. We will do this because we don't want to have our loved ones killed when, inevitably, our partners determine their intelligence data is being used against their interests. Then they will start cauterizing anyone remotely associated with that leak," Javiera coolly 'read in' the room.