The Watchmen

by John Altman

  Something moved in the night.

  She exhaled, hiding the ember of the cigarette behind her body reflexively.

  For a moment, she thought it had been a trick of her eyes. The rain was falling, swirling patterns in the wind. And she was tired. Who could have been moving, here in the dead of night, in the parking lot in front of the Sleepy Hollow Motor Inn?

  She saw it again: a person, slipping into a car. The small, dark blue coupe that belonged to the mysterious stranger.

  After she saw the movement, nothing happened.

  Sonya dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. Then she stood, hugging herself, still watching.

  Minutes passed. She had imagined it, she decided at last. The whole thing was a dream. What was she doing out here, smoking cigarettes? This was not like her. A year before, the thought of a cigarette would have been anathema. A year before, she had been a good girl; she had behaved herself; she never would have smoked. The entire past year, she decided, had been a dream. The parties, the pot, Jimmy Batterberry clawing at her sweater in some strange parents’ bedroom …

  The rain picked up, and the car turned on.

  She watched as it drifted backward, out of its space, and then gained the access road running in front of the motel. The headlights blazed to life. The car pulled away.

  She kept watching, shivering in the drizzly night. She took out her pack of cigarettes and carefully, quietly, lit another.

  War loves to seek its victims in the young.

  The words are Sophocles’—written before his death in the year 406 B.C. They are as true today as they were then. And Sonya Jacobs was not the only youth who would pay a price in the latest war to absorb the world.

  In lower Manhattan, a young man entered a post office.

  He wore an oversized basketball jersey and baggy DKNY blue jeans, with a black scarf tied around his forehead. On his right, a line of glum customers waited before a row of windows. On his left were machines selling stamps. Overhead were signs reading HELP STAMP OUT BREAST CANCER and KEEP OUR MAIL SAFE and YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.

  Covering the rear wall were rows of post office boxes. He walked calmly forward, removing a key from his pocket. He slipped it into the lock and checked the box.

  An envelope was waiting.

  He withdrew the envelope and locked the box again. He turned, his soft eyes focusing on the grimy floor, and left the post office.

  The young man’s name was Muhammad Nassif.

  Only recently had he begun to use this name—his given name. As a child, he had been known as Mickey. His mother had wanted to deny her origins, and had Americanized her youngest son to the best of her ability.

  The process that led to Nassif’s reclaiming his true name had begun, oddly enough, during a fight with his girlfriend Lisa. He had been sitting alone on his bedroom floor, arguing over the phone about the upcoming prom. Lisa had wanted him to rent a limousine for the occasion. She was a strong-willed girl, who favored body piercings and belly shirts that exposed her skin to the eyes of the world. One time—and only once—he had dared to criticize her choice of dress. What do you want me to wear, she had snapped back, a burka?

  As a matter of fact, he’d thought—why not? A burka would have been better than the clothing of a whore. Yet he hadn’t dared to say this to Lisa. He had become such a part of the society in which he had been raised that he hadn’t even been conscious of his own rights as a man.

  While Lisa’s voice had fed into his ear, Al Pacino’s dull eyes looked down from the wall. Pacino was brandishing a machine gun over a balcony railing, a sneer etched on his face. The poster’s caption read: “Say Hello to My Little Friend.” All at once, everything about the scene struck Nassif as wrong—the girl on the other end of the phone, the poster on the wall, the squalor of the building, and the smell of Chinese cooking lingering in corners. Didn’t he deserve more? Wasn’t he meant for more?

  Hadn’t that been the lesson he should have taken from his brother—that he was meant for more?

  Nassif’s elder brother had always been more in touch with his roots than had Nassif. Even as a teenager he had spent time at a local mosque, meeting people who then had taken him deeper into the fold. At the urging of the brothers he had encountered, he had signed up for religious classes; he had undertaken a pilgrimage to Mecca. Then, at last, he had turned his back on America completely. He had returned to the land from which his family came, to do work that would further the cause.

  Predictably, their mother had been horrified. Years before, she had lost her husband to the fundamentalists. Now she had lost her eldest son. So she had focused all her efforts on keeping Nassif by her side, on playing up his sense of Americanism and modernism and secularism. And this was his reward—a whorish girlfriend, a cheap apartment, the insistent smell of old noodles.

  But he knew what could be done, if he decided he was better than this. His brother had given him a name. Iqbal Ajami was the man who had given his brother direction in life, who had convinced him to return to the homeland and devote himself to furtherance of the cause.

  At that moment, the instant of enlightenment, Nassif knew that he was better than this.

  So he had gone to the mosque, that very day, and taken the first step on the path that had brought him to the place he was now.

  The mosque featured separate entrances for men and women.

  Nassif picked up what to do by watching others. He removed his shoes, washed his hands and face at the hammam. Then he went to hear the Friday sermon, the khutbah—although at the time he didn’t know what he was hearing.

  Nearly half of the mosque’s attendees were black. They listened to the Arabic sermon with the same polite, blank expression as Nassif; the words, of course, made no sense to them. Yet they prayed as if they meant it, arranged in neat rows but undulating like a human ocean, heads touching the floor and then rising again. When the service was finished, Nassif approached a woman wearing a long white hijab—but no nail polish or makeup, he noted with approval—and asked if she knew the man named Ajami.

  She indicated a bright-eyed, well-dressed man in his forties, with a heavy black mustache and an unmistakable sense of purpose, surrounded by a group that hung on his every word.

  When the group dispersed, Nassif approached. He introduced himself as his brother’s brother, and genuine pleasure crossed Ajami’s face. Then Nassif received his first lecture: about the unity of the Muslim people, and about every young brother’s duty to devote himself to increasing that unity. Clearly, Ajami was a man who knew about bigger things than Al Pacino and proms.

  On that day, Ajami had gone no further than this introductory lecture. He had not spoken of the ideology underlying their cause—of the history of the Middle East, or the threat posed by the crusading Americans and Zionists. He had not extended any invitation to Nassif except one to return the following Friday, to listen again to the khutbah.

  Nassif had returned. Again, following the sermon, Ajami had been surrounded by sycophants and eager followers. Again, Nassif approached him after the group dispersed. Then he volunteered his services. Ajami looked him over, bright eyes twinkling. “If you mean it,” he said at last, “come again next week.”

  Nassif had expected that to be his last week spent living in America. After Friday, he doubtless would be sent to a training camp in Afghanistan. There he would learn to take up weapons, to fight for the cause.

  Yet the job for which Ajami recruited him proved undramatic. Nassif was given the number of a post office box and the key that would fit its lock. Once a week, he was to check the box. If something was waiting, he was to take it home, put it in a new envelope, and mail it to Ajami. Along with the man’s name and address came instructions to destroy the paper on which they were written. But Nassif did not trust his own memory; so he tucked the scrap into the bottom of a dresser drawer, beside the key. Until recently, the paraphernalia in the drawer had been of a decidedly different nature: pipes and plastic bags and scal
es, rolling papers and screens.

  Now he had replaced the drug paraphernalia with something that truly mattered.

  This was his second time visiting the post office—and the second time he had found an envelope waiting.

  After retrieving it, he rode the subway home.

  He climbed the four flights to the apartment. He let himself in, wrinkling his nose at the fishy odor in the hallway, and moved to his own room. He returned the key to its drawer, then consulted the scrap of paper, placed the envelope in a second, larger envelope, and wrote Ajami’s address on the outside.

  He found a snack in the refrigerator, ate it standing by the counter. Not so long ago he would have spent the afternoon smoking dope, listening to hip-hop, and talking to Lisa on the telephone. Wasting time.

  Now, he returned to his room, crouched, and removed the prayer mat from beneath the bed. Using the prayer mat made him feel awkwardly self-conscious. He was still new to this. He still wore his old clothes, ate his same diet, and lived much the way he always had. With time, he would improve. For now he was doing the best he could. And perhaps it would not do to show in public too much of his newfound piety. Better to walk among the enemy as one of them. Hadn’t he been warned away from too many visits to the mosque by Ajami himself? Hadn’t he been told not to grow his facial hair, not to attract attention?

  He unrolled the prayer mat, vaguely aware of Al Pacino’s eyes boring into his back. Eventually, he would take down the poster. It was part of his old life. But for now, it was important to keep up appearances. The poster stayed.

  He knelt. Praying was foreign to him; he never knew in which direction to face. But he did his best, kneeling and touching his head to the floor. Allah would guide him, if only he opened his mind.

  In the next apartment, someone tossed a new piece of fish into a frying pan; the sizzle filled the tenement’s narrow hallways.

  4

  Sonya waited for the man to sense her presence. After a moment, he did.

  He looked up from the combination washer/dryer tucked into a concrete atrium behind the motel’s front office. He had been transferring his laundry from one to the other, and stood holding a soggy bundle. Sonya sidled closer, trying to steal a peek at those clothes. Was the black tunic there, the one that for some unknowable reason had jewelry sewn into the sleeve, instead of on the outside?

  Before she could see, he had stuffed the clothes into the dryer. Then he reached into a pocket of his jeans, took out a handful of coins, and began to sift through them.

  She closed the distance between them, careful to keep her chin held high. She had spent hours practicing this walk: a swanlike motion, cool and willowy and unflappable. “Hi,” she said.

  He began to feed quarters into the machine, and didn’t answer.

  Sonya let a few moments pass. Despite her cool and willowy demeanor, he seemed determined to ignore her. Probably because she was half his age. But didn’t older men have a soft spot for younger women? If she could overlook his age, surely he could do the same for her.

  “I saw you last night,” she blurted out suddenly.

  He didn’t react. He finished with the quarters, chose a cycle, and started the dryer. It had been a stupid thing to say, Sonya thought. But now she had said it, and she had no choice but to continue:

  “It was, like, three in the morning. I was smoking a cigarette. You didn’t see me. But I saw you.”

  He turned from the machine to face her.

  “You looked like a criminal or something,” she said, and smiled nervously. “You didn’t turn on your headlights until you were on the road.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “I was standing by the office, out front. Smoking a cigarette. And I saw you—”

  She was beginning to tingle inside, the way she did when she was going through someone’s luggage, when she knew she was doing something wrong.

  “It’s just weird,” she continued. “You creep out to your car, then get in and drive away before you turn on the headlights. In the middle of the night. I mean, it’s just weird.”

  For a few moments, he considered her. “How old are you?” he asked then.

  “Eighteen.” She drew herself up straighter. “Almost.”

  “In a few more years,” he said, “you might learn to mind your own business.”

  He began to move back toward the stairwell. Sonya followed.

  “See my earrings?” she asked. “They’re on the outside. It wouldn’t do a lot of good to have them on the inside, would it? That would be jejune. That means stupid. But oh, what’s my point? I don’t know. I’m sorry if you think I’m, you know, snooping. But I do that. It’s because I’m a curious person. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being curious. But—”

  They had reached the stairs. He stopped abruptly.

  “I don’t know,” she said again. She offered a hand, limp-wristed, ladylike. “I’m Sonya.”

  He looked at the hand.

  “Sonya,” he said after a moment. “Do your parents know that you spy on the guests?”

  She felt the same dark, excited thrill. She took the hand back. “They suspect,” she said seriously.

  Then she lost her composure, and laughed.

  “Simon. What are you doing, sneaking out in the middle of the night?”

  The man’s brow darkened. For a few seconds, she thought she may have gone too far. She entwined her hands behind her back, biting her lip, and bounced on her toes.

  He turned and ascended the stairs.

  “Simon,” she called.

  He didn’t turn back.

  “There’s a liquor store about five miles down the highway. I like Stoli.”

  He ignored her.

  “You can buy it, and I’ll pay you back. And then I won’t tell anyone about what I saw.”

  He reached the top of the stairs and disappeared from view.

  She stood looking up after him for a few seconds, still biting her lip.

  His clothes were in the dryer. She could go have a look, and see for herself if the curious tunic was there.

  But all at once the thought didn’t hold much appeal. It was impolite to snoop. And she was not an impolite girl. Or hadn’t been, once.

  Besides, General Hospital would be starting soon. Then TRL.

  She looked up the stairs for another moment. Then she turned and headed back to the office.

  The photograph showed Lila as she had looked on a Saturday morning during their honeymoon: smiling into the sun, her green eyes sparkling even more brightly than the aquamarine water over her shoulder.

  Louis Finney held the photograph for a moment. He sniffled—coming down with a cold, he thought—and set the framed photograph on the edge of his desk.

  He resumed unpacking. There was not much to be done with the little bedroom, but the place was beginning to feel a little less strange to him. Lila’s face was on the desk now, beside a copy of the latest bulletin from the American Ornithologists’ Union. His clothes were folded neatly in the dresser, his favorite bathrobe hanging in the closet. His good luck charm sat on the night-stand near the bed, beside a paperback novel and a softly glowing lamp. On the sill below the curtained window were his 804 Swift Audubon binoculars, in a corduroy case.

  A knock came at the door. He sniffled again, and went to answer it.

  Thomas Warren II looked freshly showered, with his blond hair standing on end from a quick towel-drying. He wore a clean blue Oxford shirt and cream-colored slacks. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” he said.

  “Not at all.”

  “I’ve spoken with the hospital. Dr. Noble was awake for a few minutes tonight. We may want to try a visit tomorrow, if we find a chance.”

  Finney nodded.

  “In the meantime,” Warren said, “I was thinking of having a nightcap. Join me?”

  “I think I may be coming down with a cold. Probably best just to turn in early.”

  Finney started to close the door, but something was in t
he way—Warren’s foot.

  They sat on the screened-in porch on the west side of the house, drinks in hand.

  Warren had fixed himself a scotch and soda. Finney had limited himself to plain soda. Anything stronger would knock him out. His eyes already were tired as they ticked across the scene before him: the sunset, the scarecrow, the guardhouses, the parking lot with its half dozen cars glimmering, and in the distance, over the treetops, the searchlights atop the high stone wall.

  Warren produced a pack of Camel Lights. “I don’t think you remember,” he said. “But you knew my father. He supervised an experiment in Frankfurt in seventy-two. You and Dr. Noble were participants.”

  “An agency experiment?”

  “‘Quantitative electroencephalographic analysis of naturally occurring and drug-induced psychotic states in human females.’ Do you remember?”

  “The experiment? Yes.”

  “My father?”

  “It was a long time ago,” Finney said evasively.

  Now that it was mentioned, however, he thought he did recall the elder Warren. He had been cut from the same Ivy League cloth as the younger—part of a breed known within the agency as “royalists.” Recruiting from the ivory tower had been standard operating procedure for the CIA since the agency’s founding, following the model of the OSS. Under the leadership of Wild Bill Donovan, the OSS had culled its agents from the tony Eastern establishment; the initials had been said to stand for “Oh So Social.”

  Warren blew smoke from one corner of his mouth. “It must feel a bit strange, to be back in the game after so long away.”

  “A bit,” Finney allowed.

  “I get the impression, Doctor, that you have some reservations about what we’re doing here.”

  So this was why the man had dragged him down for a nightcap. Finney shrugged neutrally.

  “You’ve retired from private practice,” Warren said after a moment. “Is that right?”