“We’ve got plenty of options,” the man said.

“We shouldn’t have plenty of options.” I sighed. “How many have we selected out?”

He looked puzzled. “They’re all equally qualified.  The target will be unconscious. It’s just a matter of -”

“No. I don’t think you see the seriousness of the situation. We don’t need an “expert in the field”. We need a ninja. Someone who can remove that mustache in record time, and apply the electrolysis to remove it permanently.

The man looked sheepish for a moment. “Sir…pardon me for asking, I know this is classified, but why are we doing this?”

I looked around, then decided there was no harm in telling him.  It wasn’t classified. This was a dark mission.  It can from deep state, keeping the executive out of the loop, for their own protection. Or there’d be war. And although war had its benefits, hot wars between nation states destabilized regions and economic markets. This was a cost to high to bear. We could pick a pretense, like the CIA did, using the meeting of a Trump campaign rep to create a case of collusion.  But that was a shit show we hoped to avoid this time. Keep it dark. That was always best.

“His power comes from the mustache,” I said in a low voice.  There was only silence as I watched the man’s stunned reaction.  I went even deeper:

“He can influence minds with it.”  I saw further incredulity. Understandable.

“I know what you’re thinking. But look back.  The mustache was present in every powerful leader of history.  The leaders who really changed things.  The disrupters. Confucius.. Genghis Khan…Stalin…Hitler… Theodore Roosevelt… Martin Luther King Jr…Theodore Roosevelt.” I saw the slow realization wash over his face as he processed the information. ” With Bolton’s mojo removed, so is his influence over the executive. And his pushback on our recruiting Ukraine against Biden.”

The man nodded, “But, where is this information on the power-stache coming from?”

“We have a dossier,” I answered.  I saw him start to protest.

“Gotten through back channels.” I assured him. “The sources were properly vetted this time. Unlike that British ex-spy’s sources. What an amateur smear job that was…”

We were interrupted by a knock on the door and our intern stuck his head in, opening his mouth to speak.

“Later,” I barked.

“Bolton is gone,” the boy blurted.

“What…he vanish into a secret meeting of mustached neocons?” I asked.

“Resigned,” the intern replied. “Trump asked him to step down.”

“H-how?” I sputtered.

The man nodded his head knowingly:

“Mustache trumped by comb over.”