Dean Ing - Soft Targets

by Soft Targets(lit)

  A voice behind him said, "Neat. Any charlie who sneaks his forty-five past that rig will have to carry it as a suppository," and Everett wheeled to face Rhone Althouse.

  Everett's delight was real, though brief. "It's nice to see somebody I can ask questions of, instead of just answering 'em," he said.

  "I heard your speech on porn," was the reply, "and I can't believe you have any answers. Seri-ously, I did want to-well, uh, actually Charlie George, ah-oh, shit." He cocked his head to one side. "The fact is, our little Palm Springs con-spiracy has become the worst-kept secret since the Bay of Pigs. Dahl D'Este couldn't sit on such a juicy tidbit for long. To begin with, his lady-love is a gossip columnist."

  "It's a little late, but thanks for the warning. Lady? D'Este makes both scenes?"

  A one-beat pause. "Yeah, ob and epi; and thanks for the straight line. Charlie and I thought you should know that the word will be leaking. It should have a positive effect in the Industry," Althouse added quickly. It had the sound of an excuse.

  Everett nodded, hands thrust into pockets of his stylishly discomfiting jacket. "Well, you're answering my questions before I ask. I'll have to deny my part in it for the record; but just between us, Rhone, I'm willing to let it live as a rumor. The Commission is interested in this ethical epidemic, naturally. I've been asked how long you can keep it up." Raised eyebrows invited an answer.

  "Hell, it's popular," the writer beamed. "With CBS taking it up, it's a trendy thing-oh," he said quickly. "You mean the reprisals?"

  Everett's nod was quick. "Those Fat'ah pismires cost NBN a bundle when the net refused to air that videotape Arif sent them last week."

  "Fortunes of war," Althouse grimaced. "Don't think our own Charlie isn't hurting, even if he doesn't flinch. He's got a piece of several sta-tions, and those transmission towers Fat'ah de-stroyed didn't do the dividends any good. Insur-ance tripled."

  "Arif didn't flush out any friendly envoys from the nets to pay him off, I suppose."

  Althouse squinted in the subdued light. "I think I would've heard if that were in the offing. If that's the crux of your concern-officially, I mean-I can't answer for the whole industry.

  "Maury, it's become a grass-roots movement, just as I hoped. Doesn't have a single spokesman, and that's where its strength lies. But it looks to me like a full-scale media war brewing." He hesitated, glanced around, bit his lip. For the first time, Everett saw something in the writer that was not young, something of the mature hunted animal. "We haven't forgotten those scenarios you laid on us. Do you have-no, can-cel that, I don't want to know. Do you think we should have around-the-clock protection when our names hit the newspapers?"

  "Let me put it this way: you and I both know D'Este can put us all on the list of endangered species. You think our names are due to hit the newsstands?"

  "I know they are," said Althouse, with a sickly smile that told Everett why the writer had flown to Reno: face-to-face admission that Everett could expect the worst. There could be little pleasure in a print-media hero label that doubled as death warrant.

  No point in asking how Rhone Althouse knew. His pallor said he knew. "Tell Charlie George we are about to learn what it's like to be a popular politico," Everett remarked, fashioning a cross-hair `X' with his forefingers. As an effort at levi-ty, the gesture fell sprawling. "How long before our oh-so-responsible press fingers us?"

  "Tomorrow."

  Everett drew a long breath. "Goddam the world's D'Estes, we ought to put out a contract on that guy ourselves. Well, I can't say I didn't expect this sooner or later."

  "My fault. I knew Dahl was a gamble."'

  "Uh-huh-with odds they'd be ashamed to quote in this town. I don't like the stakes, either."

  "What're you going to do?"

  "Find pressing business somewhere else. One thing I won't do is stick around in Reno. Thanks again; and luck, Rhone." Everett turned and moved off.

  Althouse stood and watched the big man, wondering if Everett would hide, wondering if he too should disappear as D'Este had already done. He took some comfort in Everett's refusal to blame him for the original idea. But the Com-missioner had known the danger, even while he lent tacit bureaucratic support. D'Este gone to ground, Everett forewarned: better than nothing, yet a poor defense against the fury of terrorism which his own scripts had turned against them all.

  An unfamiliar itch between his shoulders made Rhone Althouse aware that he was standing absolutely inert, alone and unarmed in a hotel, a perfect target. Althouse walked away quickly. He did not care who noticed that his path was a zigzag.

  THURSDAY, 4 DECEMBER, 1980:

  The news magazines spread across Hakim's bed made up in depth what they lacked in im-mediacy. The article before him was satisfyingly thorough under its head, "TV: No More Strange Bedfellows?" It began:

  For weeks, every pundit in the sprawling tele-vision medium had matched his favorite terrorism rumor against the rumors in the next studio. The scathing satire on terrorism, newly unleashed and widespread in TV, was said to originate in an oval office. Or, less likely, that it was a propaganda ploy jointly financed by Israel and England. One pollster claimed that the new scripts merely reflect what the American viewer wanted to see.

  The truth, as it filtered from CBS last week, was both likelier and stranger than whodunits. There had been no tugs at domestic political strings, and no foreign influence. But in the persons of four highly regarded media men, there was defi-nitely a plot. The top banana, to no one's great surprise, turned out to be NBN's answer to Jac-ques Tati, the protean Charlie George. Of consid-erably more interest to media analysts was the reputed anchorman, anomalous FCC sachem Maurice D. Everett (see box)....

  "All bedfellows are strange," muttered Hakim, patting the rump of the girl who slept as he scanned the stack of clippings. He read the four-page article carefully, marking some passages with a flow pen, then concentrated on the verbal sketch of Everett:

  The Commission will not provide some trendy new definition of pornography every two years, or even every election year. True, our job is as the traffic cops of broadcasting. Well, we'd like to enter into a sort of public collusion with the National Association of Broadcasters: we won't give you speeding tickets, if you won't be too racy on public information channels. Fair enough?"

  These were the closing words last Wednesday in an NAB address by Maurice Everett, the FCC's strapping executive-turned-Commissioner. The only son of a Des Moines merchant, his mother a 1936 emigre from Haifa, the eclectic Everett brings a lively open mind and informal clarity to media problems.

  Everett, 42, has always marched to the music of a contrapuntal drum. His unpredictability was well-known as early as his undergraduate days in California Polytechnic where Everett switched majors four times while holding his position as second-string fullback. He emerged with a dou-ble major in American History and Engineering, and has not been second-string at anything since.

  The Vietnam conflict drew Everett for a tour of combat duty where the towering young lieuten-ant won a Silver Star and, not incidentally, picked up fresh ideas on electronic informa-tion-gathering systems. His subsequent marriage was brief, ending in divorce in 1964.

  Everett's career with a Colorado microelec-tronics firm seemed to orient the salty-tongued young executive toward narrow technical areas but, in a clean break with other industrialists in 1970, he thrust his hulking shoulders in with Denver ecologists. Between frequent solo jaunts into western wild areas, Everett championed several hobby and special-interest groups in what, at first, appeared to be playboy en-thusiasm. But Everett, long regarded as one of Colorado's most eligible rebounds, rarely fol-lowed the playboy mold. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment, small sedan racing, cross-country skiing, and bicyclists in a pattern that developed squarely in opposition to the philosophy of conspicuous consumption.

  For the past two years a member of the Federal Communications Commission, Maurice Everett had seemed to be settling into a liberal position, confining his ag
gressiveness to the handball courts, even after a chance encounter with the Pueblo bombing that hospitalized him for a time. But late last week, acquaintance and set designer Dahl D'Este revealed an apparent about-face by Everett. Previously a staunch friend of press freedoms, the Commissioner was reportedly a key figure in the sub rosa group that planned a broad media counterattack on terrorism (see Media). Central to the group's strategy was a new treatment of the act of terrorism per se; and to some pundits this treatment was a dangerous excursion into media control. For free-swinging libertarians, the choice lies between the Scylla of manipulated media and the Charybdis of ram-pant terrorism. Whichever course the Commissioner charts, he will create new enemies. Judg-ing by his demeanor last week in Reno, Maurice Everett is losing little sleep over it.

  Hakim made special note of the Commissioner's unpredictability, his stress on physical fitness, his military background, his direct methods of dealing with the world. Hakim did not find these details pleasant; the man could be a formidable challenge. Yet the element of surprise still resided with Fat'ah. Presently Hakim riffled through other clippings, finding-as he had expected-invaluable data on his enemies. His sullen longing found focus in names which he listed in alphabetical order: Althouse, D'Este, Everett, George.

  Print media made one thing pellucid: no matter how brilliantly successful his coup, the ter-rorist was still to be treated as a charlie, a fool, on television. Hakim saw this dictum as a simple clash of wills. These strategists might give up their brave posturings if one of their number paid the price. Fat'ah might even subcontract the job.

  If the fait accompli carried no leverage, Fat'ah could relocate again and try the threat. No hol-low promise, but one steeped in potency. The sort of threat one could employ when the enemy is reduced to a softened target; isolated, im-mobile, helpless. Hakim wondered which of the four he would concentrate on first. Perhaps he could find some means to make object lessons of all four, he thought, and felt a lambent surge of rekindled strength. He turned off the light and nudged Leah Talith. It had not once occurred to Hakim that others, less cautious than he, might react with a blinder savagery.

  SATURDAY, 6 DECEMBER, 1980:

  Young Donny Flynn drenched himself in mis-givings before he had driven the provos an hour out of South Boston, Massachusetts. It had been all very well to parade these two micks on the streets of Old Southie as his mysterious and powerful friends-even though the elder Flynn himself had never set eyes on them before they showed up, the previous Sunday, bearing the nearest thing to an illiterate letter of introduc-tion anybody could ask for. It didn't matter if they'd written the letter themselves, thought Donny; when you were nineteen and a recent flunkout from Boston College you could use the street status these old soddy friends conferred. Donny had made sure everybody knew he would be disappearing with them for a time, for Something Very Important. But cooped up in the goddam BMW with these jabbering drunks all the way to Colorado? Donny would go out of his gourd.

  He remembered his father's confusion when Flaherty, the tall slender one with the voice like a fiddle string, and McTaggart, the nervous red-head, walked into their house in Old Southie. Da kept up with soccer and he read the Irish News, but he wasn't much for writing letters since Ma died and Donny couldn't recall when he had last seen a postmark from Ireland.

  Donny had never seen Ireland and couldn't care less. Da spoke less about the Irish question than most of their friends, and was definitely not interested in visiting the country of his youth even though as a machinist in nearby Chelsea, he made enough to buy a nice place and little things like a twenty-thousand dollar BMW 733i. Other people went back to visit. Why not Da?

  McTaggart, talking for the both of them, dumped a flood of lilting patter the minute he walked in. He wasn't much older than Donny but any dumb shit could see he'd been around. And if he couldn't see it he could hear it from McTag-gart. Donny had heard it, dropping his Playboy on his bed and putting his ear to the wall that separated him from his father's hobby room. McTaggart's musical brogue was a tune to make Donny smile, but the lyrics did not please his father much.

  It was weird: the sound was muffled to begin with, but in addition to the opaque Irish slang of McTaggart it seemed that Da's own speech had curiously peeled its American frosting away so that Donny was listening to a father he had never heard before. Da had laughed a lot at first. And then Flaherty, the older one, had talked a little in that squeaky voice, not much, and after that Dawasn't laughing much and when he did, it had an undertone Donny did not recognize at first. But when he recognized it, he liked it. It was fear. Donny could use some pointers from anybody who could walk into his father's house and im-mediately make his father seem less like a fuck-in' knowitall and more like a man who could listen to reason. Who had to listen.

  It was all mixed up with some old friend, a provo, who felt that it was time Da earned his keep. It was the Irish Republican Army, and again it wasn't. Donny might be lost in a classroom but he was bright enough to assemble the fact that provos, of the Provisional Wing of the IRA, had abiding disagreements with the IRA's main body. Jeez, it sounded like two entirely separate armies.

  It also sounded like a lot of shit about Da earn-ing his keep and Da had made that point himself. But to the provos it seemed that you assumed a debt, boyo, by leaving the ould sod, especially if your machinist's skills were needed for weapons repair, and most particularly especially if you had planted a tin of jelly, whatever that was, in a London railway depot.

  Sure, said McTaggart, an' it was a wee time back, but the sojers hadn't forgot and the fookin' protestants hadn't forgot but, as luck wud have it, ould Flynn had the chance to make the provos forget. And that wud break the chain of memories. All square, all debts repaid.

  So Da had decided to think about it. The two micks had seemed to notice Donny for the first time after the talk in the hobby room, Flaherty succinct, McTaggart effusive. By bedtime, Donny was trying to get the hang of their melodious jargon, quick to realize that when Da was working during the day, Donny would be their guide and if he could manage it, their con-fidante. They went to the snooker hall on Monday with Donny, and found new friends with old brogues who helped them become chummily, gloriously drunk while Donny worked to confirm the image of Donny Flynn as a man with connections. But no matter how he hinted and pried, no matter how many stories he began about the swath he cut among the little broads from Brookline to Newton, somehow Donny Flynn was the outsider. He learned, as McTag-gart might say, fuck-all about the provo mission-which was to say, nothing whatever.

  But Donny found them happy enough to talk about the United States. They found Boston ac-ceptable, though there was much to be said for Quebec, where they had visited before coming down, legal as the Pope, to see the States. The people in Quebec had a villainous language but they understood repression and martyrdom better, and their connections with rich men in Libya and Syria were excellent. Still, the Irish here in the States knew how to give for a good cause. At least they did until thon bunch of blirts on the telly started blatherin' like eejits, makin' sport of the provo cause.

  Then Flaherty made an observation, eloquent for him, that thanks to the newspapers he knew how they could be accountin' w'it.

  McTaggart had then suggested that Flaherty shut his gub. It was hard for Donny to tell whether McTaggart was the superior or merely the more loquacious. Certainly McTaggart was the talker. Donny wondered what might be Fla-herty's special talent.

  The next nights had been a pleasure since Da had supplied Donny with money and, Jasus, even the car, so he could enjoy himself in Bos-ton. Donny would have loved to know what the men talked about at home while he cruised in the metallic blue BMW, looking for-he tried the phrase-some wee hoore. Actually he took in a movie each night, and remembered subplots so he could inject himself into them to describe his conquest of the evening, in case McTaggart might ask, or might be willing to listen. McTag-gart never asked, and hardly listened at all. It was hard to tell whether Flaherty was li
stening, the way those yellow-gray eyes roamed from deep in the narrow head. In fact, Donny was beginning to think he had made no impression on the visitors until Thursday, night before last. On that night, McTaggart had brewed up a real Irish stew, all by himself.

  Halfway through the meal, articulated at the tail of a monologue extolling the luxuries of Old Southie folk, McTaggart singsonged, "An' ye've been a gracious host, Mr. Flynn sur, none better seein' the bloody great wad ye donated to buy us some proper togs in this cold weather. Mind, the Flaherty and meself, we cud hardly want fer more. But there'll be one more wee askin' fer the cause, and that'll be all."

  The harried machinist laid down his spoon with a grizzled hand, wearing an expression of disgust. "An' that'll be what?"

  "A car, sur; as the wee lad says, some wheels,"

  McTaggart said, with a laughing wink, bestow-ing on Donny a camaraderie he had previously withheld. "A car an' a driver, d'ye mind, it's the papers to drive that we're needin' and between the Flaherty and meself there's nobbut-"