By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“That’s right.”

“Jack Britton,” the man with the braided hair said, extending his hand. “Aka Ali Abd Ar-Raziq.”

“What do I call you?”

“Suit yourself. Where are you from, Miller?” Ali Abd Ar-Raziq asked.

“Here.”

“Philly?”

Miller nodded.

“You don’t sound like it. You sound like a Reading nigger. ”

I’ll be a sonofabitch!

“I have family in Reading,” Miller said, coldly. “On my mother’s side. Neither they nor I like that term.”

“I don’t even know what it means,” Betty said.

“Sergeant Schneider, I’m disappointed,” Ali Abd Ar-Raziq said. “Word is that you know everything about everything. ” He paused, smiled, and went on. “To make you conversant with a little Afro-American history not usually found in history books, Reading was one of the termini of the Underground Railroad of fame and legend. A number of the slaves who made it out of the South stayed there and became truly integrated. They even picked up Pennsylvania Dutch accents, started eating scrapple, etcetera. They went to school, college, started businesses, joined the Army, etcetera, etcetera. And soon, having made it, began to look down their noses at other African Americans.”

“Hey!” Miller protested.

The man with the braided hair raised his palm to shut him off and went on: “The reason I know all this is my father’s family are Reading niggers. I’ll bet the major and I have acquaintances in common. You don’t happen to be kin to a General Miller, do you?”

“He’s my father,” Miller said.

“See?” Britton said. “Your father and my father are friends.”

“I’ll be damned,” Betty Schneider said.

“If you’re not nice, Sergeant, the major and I will start speaking Dutch and leave you in the dark. You do speak Dutch, don’t you, Major?”

“Only what I learned listening to my mother when we went to the Reading Terminal Market to buy stuff from the Amish,” Miller said.

“Where’d you go to school?” the man with the braided hair asked in the German patois known as Pennsylvania Dutch. “Where’d you get your commission?”

“West Point,” Miller said.

“Yeah, sure,” the man with the braided hair said, switching back to English. “Of course. Your father’s a West Pointer.”

Miller nodded.

“So what did you learn about Islam when you were at West Point?”

“What is this, a quiz?”

That was opening your mouth before engaging your brain. Watch it, Richard, you can’t afford to piss off Ali Abd Ar-Raziq, aka Detective Jack Britton.

“Before I start to tell you about the lunatics, it would help to know how much you know about Islam. Save us both time.”

“I learned zilch at the military academy,” Miller said. “But after 9/11, I started to read.”

“Give me three minutes of what you learned,” the man with the braided hair said.

“You’re serious, right?”