Chapter Twenty-Five

Panda Express

“It’s good to be king,” Trump said, startling Jimmie. The president had seen his little back-and-forth with Cat.

“President,” Jimmie said. “Don’t you mean, It’s good to be president?”

“Same difference.”

A trio of waiters rolled carts up to their table. The main course had arrived: burgers. Trump’s favorite food. Distinctly American.

Unlike the rest of the appetizers and side dishes that had been rolled out, the burgers weren’t served in fast-food wrappers. The burgers stood half a foot tall, with buns the size of Trump’s ego. The meat bleeding onto the plates had to weigh at least a half pound. At least. And the smell . . . the smell was so invigorating that Jimmie had to shift the napkin in his lap because of how hard it made him.

The KGB agent stepped in to sample Putin’s burger. Jimmie eyed Trump’s plate, awaiting an order to do likewise.

“Touch my burger, and I cut your fingers off,” Trump snapped. “No joke, buckaroo.”

Jimmie dug his teeth into his own burger, tearing off a chunk like a velociraptor tearing into the belly of a just-felled triceratops.

“This . . . is . . . wow,” he said while chewing. What few manners he had had completely gone out the window. “Trump Steak?”

“Panda Express,” Putin said, causing Trump to giggle with a full mouth.

Panda Express didn’t serve burgers, as far as Jimmie knew. Then again, when you were the president of the most powerful nation in the world, you could probably call in a few favors from your friends in the fast-food industry. Maybe they’d made MSG burgers, just for the State Dinner.

Putin took a sip of beer. “I kill it myself. You like?”

Jimmie nodded. “Venison?”

A look of confusion crossed Putin’s face.

“Deer,” Jimmie said. “From when you guys went hunting today?”

“Panda,” Putin said. “Is panda. Is most challenging animal to track since they sleep so much.”

“You have pandas in Russia?”

Putin shook his head. “You have pandas here. In zoo. We go hunting at zoo.”

Jimmie stared at the burger in his hands. Red juice ran down his palms and dripped onto the plate.

He’d visited the National Zoo a couple of years back. Which of the giant pandas was he eating right now? Tian Tian? Mei Xiang? Bao Bao? Or—God forbid—the cute-as-a-button cub, Bei Bei? Any of them but Bei Bei!

Jimmie looked around the room at the packed tables. The State Dinner guests were busy gnashing their way unawares through panda burgers. It would be a miracle if Trump and Putin had left a single giant panda alive at the National Zoo. It would be a miracle if they’d left any animal alive. How they’d let Trump and Putin stalk and kill caged animals was beyond him. Diplomatic immunity, perhaps?

The first lady was right to be distrustful of Putin. The man was a bad influence on Trump. How much of the talk about “going for a three-peat against England” was just Trump trying to impress his BFF? Was the Russian president influencing the American president in even more direct ways . . . advising him, perhaps? Had this clearly dangerous man thrown Lester off the roof so that they could continue beating the war drums together?

Jimmie set the burger down. The thought of eating one of the last two thousand pandas in the world disgusted him. He couldn’t bring himself to finish the burger.

However, he couldn’t let it go to waste, either.

He flagged down a passing waiter. “Could I get a to-go box for this?”