I’m prob­a­bly going to do major revi­sions on this in rewrites, but I enjoyed the heck out of writ­ing this scene. Susan, a blog­ger, is trolling George­town water­ing holes look­ing for some­thing juicy as her dead­line looms.

She was just com­ing out of the Ladies Room when she heard, “He just ran out of the police sta­tion? A terrorist?”

Ter­ror­ist. There had to be a story there. Susan pre­tended to read the notices posted on the bul­letin board, look­ing fiercely inter­ested in loser bands play­ing col­lege frat houses.

“You know you can’t say a word about this, right?”

“Dude, who are you talk­ing to.”

“I know, I’m just saying.”

“It’s in the vault.”

“Your vault sucks.”

“Get on with it.”

“Okay, so, and you didn’t hear this from me — “

“Dude.”

“There was a crash today on M.”

“I know, the traf­fic totally bjorked my lunch date.”

“You want me to tell this story or not?”

“By all means, sir.”

“One of the bod­ies disappeared.”

“What, like it went poof?”

“No, it’s just miss­ing. One of the drivers.”

“And he was the terrorist?”

“No, man, let me fin­ish. So this guy, a Korean off-​duty para­medic stops to help res­cue people.”

“Bunch of sav­ages in this town.”

“Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“I was quot­ing ‘Clerks’.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense.”

“I was being ironic.”

“Yeah, good job there, Ala­nis. Anyway — “

“You fel­las doing okay?” The wait­ress had just walked up. Susan pre­tended to scrib­ble down some show dates for bands she’d never heard of.

“Another round, please.”

“You bet!”

Out of the cor­ner of her eye, she watched the two young men in the booth next to the bul­letin board check out the waitress’s ass as she walked away to get their orders. Pigs. Then they started talk­ing again.

“So any­way, this para­medic stops to help — “

“Bunch of sav­ages in this town.”

“It wasn’t funny the first time, Randall.”

“Well, excuse me.”

“Any­way, the body of one of the dri­vers goes miss­ing, and this para­medic goes nuts. He goes chas­ing it down a back alley.”

“He was chas­ing a dead body?”

“No one saw it but him, but he said he was.”

“Dude, you never chase a zom­bie. That’s like basic knowledge.”

“I am going to pour this beer on your head.”

“Keep going, I’m listening.”

Susan’s hand was cramp­ing up from all the fran­tic scrib­bling, and she was start­ing to won­der if these two frat mon­keys would ever get to the damn point.

“So this guy starts ram­bling about the dead body walk­ing away, the cop takes him in for questioning.”

“For, like, a zom­bie line up.”

“I’m done tak­ing to you.”

“Okay, I’ll be good. Keep going.”

“The cops get the guy down­town and start ques­tion­ing him and the guy goes all ninja on them.”

“Korean para­medic ninja.”

“Dude.”

“I’m just say­ing, they’re overachievers.”

“Who?”

“Ori­en­tals.”

“Dude, you can’t say Ori­en­tals any­more. That’s offensive.”

“To the para­medic nin­jas? I’ll take my chances.”

“How have you not been fired?”

“I have pic­tures of my boss in ass­less pants. True story.”

“I’ve met your boss, man. He can’t look good in those.”

“Which is why he won’t fire me. Can’t let those wind up online.”

“Your life is a source of unend­ing con­fu­sion to me.”

“So the para­medic ninja. What makes them think he’s a ter­ror­ist? Sounds pretty cool to me.”

“Well, that’s the part I’m not sup­posed to talk about. The guy is North Korean — “

“Do you think they’re all issued track suits and those cool sunglasses?”

“And sup­pos­edly he’s an M.D.”

“He’s a doc­tor? Well then he’s def­i­nitely guilty.”

“If he’s trained as a doc­tor, why would he be work­ing as a paramedic?”

“To meet chicks?”

Susan snapped the lead off her pen­cil. Get to the point!

“And there’s more. He’s a loner — “

“So are you. Doesn’t count if it’s not on purpose.”

“And he just moved here from San Francisco.”

“So a gay loner para­medic Korean ninja.”

Susan couldn’t take any more. “What the hell hap­pened to him?” she shouted, at just the moment that the juke­box was paus­ing between songs. The entire bar stopped to stare.

The frat mon­key who had been telling the story, his spot­less black suit a sharp con­trast to his friend’s kitschy ironic t-​shirt and jeans, turned to look at Susan. “I’m sorry, what?”

Susan rushed to pull a chair from a nearby table up to their booth. The rest of the bar went about their busi­ness. “My name is Susan.”

The frat mon­key reached out to shake her hand. “Dante. He’s Randall.”

Like I care, Susan thought. “I couldn’t help but over­hear part of your con­ver­sa­tion, and I was curi­ous. Who said this guy was a terrorist?”

Dante’s face went pal­lid, then blank. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”

“Please,” Susan said. “It’s com­pletely off the record. I just need to know.”

“Show us your tits,” Ran­dall said. Susan glared at him.

“I’m sorry,” Dante said. “Both for my friend and for the fact that I really can’t talk about this. It’s a national secu­rity matter.”

“That I’m sure your boss wouldn’t want to know you were dis­cussing in pub­lic bar,” Susan said.

“Miss, you don’t even know who I work for.”

“The FBI,” Ran­dall said.

Dante spun on his friend. “Why would you tell her that?”

“Hey, man, you’re the one who just con­firmed it. She might have thought I was delib­er­ately lying to throw her off the path. And besides, she’s hot.”

“I swear,” Susan said. “It’s totally off the record. Just background.”

Dante threw a twenty on the table. “Miss, I’ve already said more than I should have.” He shot a stern look at Ran­dall. “Too many bad influ­ences in my life as it is.”

He got up and edged out of the booth. Susan stood and fol­lowed him out the door.

“Please, I know you’re not sup­posed to say any­thing. But if there’s a ter­ror­ist loose in Wash­ing­ton D.C., the people — “

Dante stopped short of the curb and Susan almost knocked him into traf­fic. “Are you nuts, lady? Keep it down!”

“The peo­ple have a right to know,” Susan said, much qui­eter but still loud enough to be heard over the happy hour traf­fic on M street.

“The peo­ple know what we let them know,” Dante said, wav­ing furi­ously at a cab. “And right now we don’t know that there’s any­thing to be con­cerned about.”

“That’s not what you told your friend in there,” Susan said.

“That was just two bud­dies talk­ing. Offi­cially, there’s no threat. We don’t even know if Cho — “

“That’s his name? Cho?”

A cab pulled up and Dante flung the door open. “Lady, you never met me. I have noth­ing else to say.” Then to the dri­ver, “Hoover Build­ing, please.”