The Liar's Lullaby

by Meg Gardiner

  THE MORNING SUN BURNED AGAINST THE SILVERY SHEET METAL OF trucks parked at Blue Eagle Security. At a desk in a corner of the garage, Ivory hunched over the computer, drinking a Mountain Dew. Her feet, planted wide beneath the desk in her black work boots, tapped in time to the jitters in her head. She read Tom Paine’s latest message. Tasia warned us. She came to the concert armed with the jackal’s gun. She raised it high.

  Ivory whispered the rest: “ ‘She could not have shouted a louder message: True Americans will not go quietly.’ ”

  The desk area was grubby, a cubbyhole stuffed with paperwork and maintenance logs. Keyes loomed beside her. Saw she was logged on at Tree of Liberty. “You want to get your ass shit-canned?”

  “I’ll delete my browsing history. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

  But she glanced around. An armored car rumbled out of the parking lot, stinking with diesel exhaust. Keyes waved to the driver.

  Ivory tapped the screen. “That break- in at Tasia’s house yesterday, it was the government. The cops have beefed up street patrols, looking for this intruder. It’s a perfect excuse to set up roadblocks. Then bring in the National Guard.”

  “You positive it was the cops that broke into Tasia’s house, and not a night crawler fan?” Keyes said.

  Ivory flushed. Why did he have to embarrass her? Her face felt red-hot. She covered her cheeks with her hands. She hated color. She was white from her snowy head to her polished toenails and bleached everywhere in between. She was pure.

  Tasia had been pure too, a blonde, golden. “Tasia could have been a member of the Valkyrie Sisterhood. She should be avenged.”

  Keyes spun her around in the chair and put his hands on the arms. “This is not about your white trash prison gang. It’s about stopping this city from becoming a prison. It’s about keeping this country free.”

  She looked at the floor. Nodded. San Francisco sat, like the striking surface of a match, at the tip of a peninsula. Seven miles long by seven wide, it was surrounded by killer surf, frigid riptides, and vicious currents. Block the freeways heading south, blow the bridges, sink the ferries, and you cut it off. This place wasn’t goddamned Malibu. It was a fortress. And right there in the bay was Alcatraz, the perfect concentration camp.

  She saw that it worried him. She saw it in his strong face. He stared past her at the computer screen. To quote Thomas Paine: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

  Who’s with me?

  Ivory didn’t know what had gone down when Keyes worked for the security contractor overseas. But Keyes had gotten fired after Robert McFarland was elected. Keyes thought McFarland might turn men like him into scapegoats for a repudiated foreign policy. Shoot ragheads, come home with booty—follow an honored tradition, and face prosecution. Meanwhile, McFarland bowed to foreign kings. Keyes carried millions of dollars in his truck, and who did it go to? Arabs and Jews. The ragheads sold America their oil, the Zionists pocketed the interest on the deal, and it all went through the Federal Reserve Bank here in San Francisco.

  That’s one reason he refused to pay taxes, which also had the government on his back. But he had that look in his eyes again, the anger.

  “Move,” he said.

  She scooted out of the way and he took over the keyboard. He typed a message to Tom Paine at Tree of Liberty. “To quote Thomas Paine: ‘The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.’

  “I resist. Contact me off the board.”

  JO WOKE EARLY, and alone. Outside the window, morning fog cloaked Noe Valley. She found Gabe downstairs in the kitchen, halfway through a pot of coffee. He was holding his cell phone. He tapped it against the butcher-block table, as if doing so would make it ring.

  “Any news on Rabin?” she said.

  He shook his head.

  When she got home, she headed into her office and checked e-mail. She had no messages from the White House. But what was she expecting, a bouquet of helium balloons?

  She sat down at her desk, powered up Tasia McFarland’s cell phone, and waded deep into the frightening e-mails she had received from Archangel X.

  The first one was sent in February. Hi, Tasia. Huge fan here. I just read that you’re going to be on the Bad Dogs and Bullets tour. Fantastic!! Is everything I read in the fan mags true? (Haha.) When will your new album be released?

  It was signed NMP.

  Tasia took three weeks, but she replied. Hi NMP—glad you’re a fan. New album out March 30. Thanks, Tasia.

  Thirty minutes later NMP wrote back. Wow, is that really you? I assumed a celebrity would have minions writing her e- mail. Thx re album. But what about the fan mags? All the gossip true? NMP.

  Tasia hadn’t replied. And for six weeks, there were no messages. But on April 30 Archangel X wrote: Holy cow, I just heard the new single. It’s amazing. Your voice sounds so fresh. But what I really can’t wait to hear are your duets. Kimber Holloway? Searle Lecroix? That’s got to be some powerful music. Peace, NMP.

  Five days later Tasia responded: Great, thanks!

  That two-word message, apparently, turned on the tap. Twenty minutes after Tasia sent it, NMP wrote back an epistle that Jo could only classify as a cri de coeur. The cry of a twitching, chilly, overheated heart. Since my messages make you happy, I have to tell you, this tour is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

  NMP went on to elaborate about “My long-time intricate love of music that germinated in childhood and flowered throughout a painful adolescence.” The tone became increasingly intimate—as though NMP thought that Tasia’s pro forma response to fan mail made them confidantes.

  Tasia didn’t reply.

  NMP wrote: Did you get my message? Just checking.

  That was followed by more silence on Tasia’s end. Then by a string of six dozen messages from NMP, sending Tasia links to cute videos. But underneath the lighthearted façade lay a hunger for connection and a growing presumption of intimacy. The first dozen cutesy messages were hopeful—as if NMP were trying to lure a puppy to take a treat. Then for a while they settled into a rhythm: NMP would send aphorisms and humorous links morning, noon, and evening.

  Jo rubbed her eyes. A low- key dread was building to a stronger suspicion.

  Archangel X, or NMP, seemed to be an adult. Sounded literate. Used full sentences and standard grammar. If Jo had to guess, she’d say NMP was a native English speaker, probably had some college education, and—given that all the musicians mentioned in the e- mails were white-bread Nashville stars—there was a good chance he was Caucasian.

  Eventually, when his puppy biscuits failed to elicit a response from Tasia, he wrote: I go by the handle Archangel because I’m named after the Archangel Michael. And I’m like him—a protector. Think of me as a guardian angel. You can trust me.

  Tasia didn’t reply.

  The next set of e- mails came in pulsing batches, twenty- five or thirty in a short time span. Their tone became intrusive and resentful. I read online that you and Searle Lecroix hooked up. That’s not true, is it?

  When, for the three hundredth time, Tasia didn’t reply, NMP wrote: Who said you could date Searle?

  Jo exhaled. Stalker, 100 percent lock on that. Do you love Searle? Why are you doing this?

  Until, finally: Slut.

  At that point, Tasia finally responded. From now on all your e-mails will be deleted.

  And Archangel’s response took a turn. Well, well. You finally worked up the nerve to answer me. Took you long enough, you coward. I thought you were my friend, that you understood me. But this is what you do? You tell me I’m “deleted.” You slap me in the face. Are you ashamed? Are you embarrassed, you filthy SLUT?

  The next message consisted of a list, comparing Tasia to Pol Pot, Lucretia Borgia, Cruella De Vil, and four hundred other villains.

  Jo checked Tasia’s outbox. The all your e-mails will be deleted message was the last one she wrote. Jo wondered if she had paid the slightest bit of attention to the e-mail accoun
t after that, or even to the cell phone. She had eventually forgotten it at her sister’s place.

  Did she know that Archangel X was hounding her?

  Jo called Tang. “Archangel X was undoubtedly stalking Tasia. Perhaps only cyberstalking, but the most recent messages are alarming.”

  “Any idea who it is?” Tang said.

  “Not yet. No name. But this character says he’s named after the archangel Michael. And NMP could be initials.”

  “Gender?”

  “You mean, is Archangel really Irina Bendova, beautiful young girl from Novosibirsk, who wants to marry me?” Jo said.

  “Can you run it through one of those programs that tells you whether it’s a man’s or woman’s writing style?”

  “Those are useless. I come out as more macho than Steven Seagal,” Jo said. “I have Archangel X’s e- mail address. Can you track it down and get me a name?”

  There was a heavy pause. “Maybe. It’ll take time.”

  Jo turned back to the e- mail stream. “I don’t think Tasia saw some of these. Toward the end, long after she’d stopped replying, Archangel wrote, ‘Do you think you’re better than everybody else?’ ”

  “Nice.”

  “Archangel becomes increasingly concerned about the gossip magazines and the rumor that Tasia was seeing Searle Lecroix.”

  “That was all over the entertainment news.”

  “Here’s what worries me.” She ran her finger down the messages in the queue. “Probably the last five hundred messages focus on how awful it is for NMP that Tasia’s having an affair.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Tang said.

  “Jealousy. Ownership. I wouldn’t pin homicidal intent on Archangel based on these messages alone—they’re not openly threatening, but they’re aggressive and disturbing. Here’s one. ‘What are you doing to me? I can’t take this.’ ”

  “I could interpret that as a threat.”

  “Or as a plea. Here’s another. ‘It’s wrong. Why are you doing this? You have to take Searle? There are others out there for you. I’m out here, waiting. Selfish cow.’ ”

  “Sounds like a snotty teenager.”

  “Or a fan consumed with his idol. ‘You’re breaking my heart. You need to break up with Searle or NMP will do it for you.’ ”

  Tang paused. “That’s a threat. And ‘NMP’? He refers to himself in the third person?”

  “Yes,” Jo said. “NMP also sent photos. Porn. And they’re disturbing.”

  All at once, Tang sounded weary. “Go on, tell me.”

  “The message says, ‘Have you ever done this?’ The photo shows a naked man having intercourse with a giant scorpion. The scorpion’s tail is swinging up between the man’s legs, and it’s about to plunge its massive stinger into his back.”

  Tang was quiet a moment. “You drawing any psychological conclusions from that?”

  “A whole host,” Jo said. “Here’s the big thing, Amy. After all the hysterics, NMP wrote, ‘See you in San Fran. I already have my ticket.’ ”

  “Beckett, that’s a solid lead.”

  “Good.”

  “Forty thousand people bought tickets. But it’s a thread.”

  “Archangel X may have been at the concert. He may have caught up with her. Can you get the name of the person who owns that account?”

  “It’ll probably take a subpoena. And before you say it, I’ll get on it.”

  “How long?”

  “No promises. Maybe days.”

  “Any evidence that a stalker had been following Tasia? Complaints to police, requests for a restraining order, vandalism, break-ins at her—”

  “At Tasia’s house?” Tang said.

  “I’m way ahead of you. The man in the balaclava. The intruder.”

  Tang was silent. “That would put an entirely new spin on this case.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Amy, if this pans out, you’ll be a star. You’ll take the spotlight off the political machinations and put it on a straight-out stalker.”

  “Good God, woman, you’re a Machiavellian. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  When Jo hung up, she felt pumped and antsy. She felt that, even after reading fourteen hundred messages from Archangel, she was missing something. Some inflection, some subtext, was eluding her. Something was burning beneath the surface of Archangel’s words, like a fire in a coal seam belowground.

  She didn’t want to wait for more information about Archangel X. She grabbed her computer and went to find Ferd Bismuth.

  23

  PAINE SHUT THE DOOR AND OPENED THE CURTAINS. DOWNTOWN SAN Francisco peered back, swathed in fog, dumb and unaware. Fatigued, pressed for time, he sat down at the computer and logged on to Tree of Liberty.

  Disquiet vibrated like a wire along his arms. The government’s security machine was circling him. An intruder had broken into Tasia’s house. And he’d heard the news today, oh boy. Robert McFarland could not escape the consequences of Tasia’s death any longer. Things were coming to a head.

  Fightback began now. He wrote:Today in the Usurped States of America, police officers haul citizens to jail if they resist the assertion of raw control over their liberty. Speak up, and the cuffs get slapped on. The message is, Lie down and take it.

  Thank you, sir, may I have another?

  Beneath it lies the relentless drive to power. The authorities want us defenseless and humiliated: sheeple, subject to whim and slaughter. That way, when the crackdown comes, we’ll stand there and let them slit our throats.

  A gray heat crisped the edges of his vision. The intruder’s incursion at Tasia’s house was, frankly, crazy. Camo and a balaclava, middle of the day? Bizarre. This was a dramatic escalation, a sign of imminent breakdown.

  The gloves were coming off. And the Usurper’s minions would go for broke. They were after him: Paine-killers.

  It was nothing new. The authorities always came after him. In the army, the military police had surrounded him in the barracks. They stood there in their shining helmets, holsters unsnapped, and took his weapon away.

  Humiliation heated his skin. He’d never found out who pinned the rifle mishap on him. Garcia? That was the logical conclusion, though by then, Garcia had been swathed in bandages in the hospital, on a morphine drip, a freak with one eye and three fingers. Everybody fussing over him. Ignoring the conspiracy against Paine.

  The gray heat crept up his neck, seemed to uncurl down his throat. Paine pecked at the keys. He couldn’t type fast enough.

  The jackal wants to disarm his own citizenry, tell the world “we’re sorry,” and hand the keys to our country to the ROW.

  Wake up. Resistance to unjust authority isn’t simply a right; it’s a duty. Spilling the blood of despots isn’t a crime; it’s self-defense.

  Nobody had ever appreciated the threats against him. As a teenager, the jocks pushed him into the tiles in the shower. But when he shoved smaller kids into the nozzles and faucets, hard—did it when the jocks were watching, so they could see that he wasn’t a wimp—he was the one who got hauled to the principal’s office.

  And then he heard the principal talking to his counselor, through the office door. “He complains of being bullied, but he’s so sarcastic and vindictive that he eggs others into mistreating him.”

  The counselor claimed he was the bully. She taught him a lesson: People in authority want only to put their thumb on your neck.

  Setting the counselor’s station wagon on fire had brought him a deep, if temporary, satisfaction. Shame that her old border collie had been asleep in the back, but she should never have left the dog in the car. That was on her shoulders.

  And that was the start of his real career.

  A salt breeze blew through the open window. He set his fingers on the keys.

  Yeah. His counselor. And the English professor who called him out for plagiarism. And the sadistic drill sergeant who stuck him in a barracks full of homosexuals. All the
gays, pretending to be his buddies, Garcia wanting to have a beer, play pool, talk. And the drill sergeant doing nothing, waiting for him to buckle.

  He’d had to take matters into his own hands.

  To Quote Thomas Jefferson: The Tree Of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time To Time With The Blood Of Patriots And Tyrants.

  He posted the essay. Words were ammunition, and he was a semantic magician, a Houdini with words. But guns alone brought about real change.

  That’s why he’d been kicked out of army with a psychiatric tag on his file—because he knew about guns. He’d acted in his own defense, protected himself from the filthy threat. Nobody had been able to prove that he’d rigged Garcia’s weapon to explode in his face. They had only suspected, and so they’d discharged him.

  But Three-fingers Garcia had learned the power of a single person to wreak havoc. Paine had left a matchbook on his bunk as a message. I smoked you.

  He had sent many matchbooks to others in the years since.

  The goddamned army. And who was now commander in chief? A former army major. Another Hispanic, a greaseball in everything but name. McFarland, the wetback foreign enemy on domestic soil. Garcia all over again, writ worse. Because he’d destroyed Tasia.

  On-screen, the page refreshed. I resist. Contact me off the board.

  Paine smiled. Keyes had written to him.

  Many people wanted to contact him off the board. Access to him boosted their egos. It should—he had spent fourteen months building Tree of Liberty into a digital war camp. He had fanned the winds of outrage like a maestro. And now Tom Paine was an icon. People tried to impress him. Some of them went beyond words into political stunt-jumping. They dumped truckloads of manure on their congressman’s doorstep or wrote death threats to senators or turned up at town hall meetings with firearms strapped to their thighs.

  But Keyes, he knew, was serious. Keyes was a big data point in his files. They’d exchanged background information over the months, though Paine’s history was fictitious. Keyes had worked for an Xe-type contractor. He’d engaged in arms smuggling and money laundering—or as Keyes called it, “paperwork irregularities”—and gotten fired. He was an ideal operative.