Swamp Story: a Novel by Dave Barry

Author:Dave Barry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Erik closed the door, picked up the gold bar, walked across the office and thumped it down on his desk. He sat in his desk chair, pulled out his cell phone, pressed a speed-dial number, waited.

“Yes?” said a man’s voice.

“It’s me,” said Erik, looking at the gold. “I have something for you.”

Chapter 34

Frank Wallner, chief press aide to the United States secretary of the interior, heard his computer make the special chime it made when he got an email from his boss. He looked at the screen and sighed. The email subject line read URGENT!!

The interior secretary was a man named Whitt Chastain, who had served four terms in the US House of Representatives. During his time in Congress he had never introduced a single piece of legislation but had raised his national stature to cabinet level by making 638 guest appearances on cable-TV news shows. This was believed to be a congressional record.

On a typical day Secretary Chastain sent Frank at least ten emails. The subject line on every one read URGENT!!

Frank read the email, then did some googling. Then he called in his assistant, Jacky Ramos.

“Yes?” she said.

“He wants to go to the Everglades.”

Jacky frowned. “Is he aware that the Everglades is outdoors?”

Frank laughed. It was well-known among Interior Department staffers that the secretary detested nature and avoided it whenever he could. He would have much preferred, and had lobbied hard, to be secretary of state—he loved formal dinners—but he had zero qualifications for that post. He also had zero qualifications to be secretary of the interior, but the feeling in the administration was that this was not a major problem because, in the words of one presidential advisor, “It’s Interior. Nobody gives a shit who the secretary is.”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “He knows the Everglades is outdoors. He also knows that it’s located in a swing state with twenty-nine electoral votes.”

Jacky nodded. As everyone in Washington knew, Whitt Chastain was planning to run for president sooner or later, probably sooner.

“So what does he want to do in the Everglades?” she said.

“Press conference,” said Frank. “He’s gonna formally kick off the Python Challenge.”

“The what?”

“Python Challenge.” Frank gestured at his computer screen. “It’s this annual contest, they invite people to come to the Everglades and kill the Burmese pythons, which are an invasive species. There’s prizes for who catches the longest python, the most pythons, like that. It’s a state thing, so usually the governor kicks it off, but he can’t make it this year. So the Everglades National Park people invited the secretary, and he was like, ‘Hell yes.’ ”

“I hate snakes,” said Jacky.

“Then you’re gonna hate this, because these are large snakes. And do I have a fun assignment for you!”

Jacky frowned. “What?”

“Take a look.” Frank turned to his computer and opened a file. On the screen appeared a photo of a large, sweaty, barefoot man with a moon-shaped face radiating beard in all directions. The man was smiling an alarming all-gums smile and holding up a massive snake, apparently dead.

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