State of Terror

by John Brown

  After walking for another quarter-hour, he figured he had covered at least a mile. Tired and hungry, he ducked into a busy delicatessen, making his way to a booth in the back. The place was crowded with patrons and waiters moving in the narrow spaces between the tables. The smell of real food was irresistible. Not aware of feeling hungry before he stepped inside, he became ravenous while waiting for service.

  A television mounted on the wall near where he was sitting played a current affairs show. No one in the bustling restaurant was watching. A raving lunatic in military-style costume and Arab headdress was on a rant addressing a boisterous crowd, protected by rifle-toting bodyguards right there on the stage with him. He raised his hands in victory, a mean smile on his gnarled face. It seemed that this new dictator was threatening vengeance for years of trade sanctions and wars. He stabbed his finger in the air for emphasis with each of his talking points, pausing now and then to allow the crowd to cheer. He bore a striking resemblance to the dictator he had replaced the year before, whose name Benson had forgotten. The noise in the restaurant made it too loud to hear the show, and he had to settle for reading the transcript scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

  An expert on Middle Eastern affairs from the King administration came on the show to explain that American interests abroad could be in jeopardy. The show’s host then switched to footage of the highlights of President King’s recent speech on the matter to a special joint session of Congress.

  “This modern-day Hitler must be removed,” King had declared, flanked by the seven generals and admirals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Experts believe they may have the yellow cake and terrorist training camps. Weapons of mass destruction and mobile labs to make killer biological and chemical weapons. Drones that can fly—”

  Congress interrupted his speech with immense applause. King raised a hand and waited until they had calmed down.

  “Weaponized drones that could reach our cities with the Hellfire missiles. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for proof that could come as a big, smoking mushroom cloud.”

  The camera panned out to the audience. Leading congresspeople and chairs of farm and business welfare subcommittees, military-industrial directorates, climate-change sustainability panels, economic fairness boards, human rights panels, regulatory and licensing commissions, price and wage control councils, fair trade committees, equal opportunity tribunals, and prominent corporate-union cooperatives nodded sagely in agreement.

  Benson looked around for a waiter to come to his table, but they all seemed to be occupied.

  “The international community has nearly reached a virtual consensus. We may be facing a threat that could be imminent. The Department of Intelligence just came out with a report that says some of their more senior officials, probably even including their Supreme Leader, may now be more willing to attack the Homeland as a possible response to the real or perceived actions threatening their rogue regime.

  “Experience shows the doctrine of appeasement has failed. They’ve ignored all the United Nations’ resolutions and mandates and motions and commissions and special sessions and emergency sessions. We’ve tried years of trade sanctions and kinetic military actions in our ongoing Overseas Contingency Operations. They have no medicines and hardly any food and still they’re goin’ forward with their plans anyway. It’s time to put all our cards on the table. Our coalition forces—”

  Wild applause broke out. King pursed his lips and waited patiently to resume.

  “Our armed forces in the region — the coalition of the willing — they’re not gonna sit around waiting to be attacked. Our new enemy teaches that innocent people can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. That vision is to impose their kind of law on all of us. We don’t share that vision, it’s not democratic. They can’t vote; they don’t have any freedom. The freedom of speech. The freedom of worship. The freedom from want. The freedom from fear. And they make their women—”

  He was interrupted again with thunderous applause.

  “And they make their women wear those long, black clothes that cover their faces and they don’t let them drive cars, either.”

  He looked down upon the packed House, moving his eyes over the hundreds of representatives and senators. He gazed up at the spectator galleries. The momentary silence was dramatic.

  “It’s time for a change.”

  A few members of Congress stood and clapped feverishly. As they did so, the others joined in until everyone was on their feet, even those from the other party. King bowed his head modestly, waiting for the applause to draw down.

  “Hi, I’m Kevin, welcome to Sunny Jim’s Deli. I’ll be taking care of you today.”

  Kevin the waiter retrieved a marker from a front pack he wore around his waist, whose pockets bulged with napkins, games, crayons, and balloons. His little blue vest was dotted with promotional buttons. He wrote his name upside down in thick letters on the white paper tablecloth, with a circle over the i.

  “You look like you’re gonna collapse. Can I start you off with some nacho chili cheese fries or maybe our signature jalapeño mozzarella sticks? They are so-o-o good.”

  “Give me the biggest pastrami you can make and a large coffee.”

  Kevin tapped out the order on his tablet.

  “Okay, chief, your order’s in,” he said, and left as quickly as he had come.

  Benson observed with fascination the customers eating and talking, the cooks and waiters chatting, the toddlers in their high chairs banging their cups and throwing food off their trays. Real life. No one watching, no one controlling, everything perfectly normal. For everyone but him, things were probably much as they had always been. Their lives hadn’t been turned upside down. Only a short time ago and another world away he had escaped from a wretched prison.

  He resumed watching the news show, now on an extended commercial break. A slick announcer offered precious metals for sale; all one had to do was call a toll-free number to learn more about “why gold and other precious metals could be right for you.” A fake newscast-style presentation featured a fake anchorman-woman team vigorously promoting non-genetically modified plant seeds as part of a strategy for something they ominously referred to as a “food security plan.”

  The commercial break finally concluded and the new dictator resumed his speech, denouncing rumors of an impending invasion. The crowds roared their support.

  “Fine, will you let ’em come!” he said, his fist pumping the air. “Gang of international villains find ferocious tiger devour for glorious motherland. I am promise mother of all battles. Americans be surrender or burn in their tanks! Oh yes, my friends, they surrender, it is they who surrender!”

  Kevin returned with a gigantic sandwich and coffee. Benson tucked into it with exquisite satisfaction. He consumed most of it and drank down real coffee in between bites. Had food ever tasted this delicious? It restored him almost to his old self. He sat back, closing his eyes for a moment.

  He opened his eyes to discover Kevin standing over him.

  “My, that was quick,” Kevin said. “Can I interest you in our Molten Chocolate Volcano Lavacake or our signature Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Coconut Cream Cobbler? They are so-o-o good.”

  “Give it a rest, Kevin. How about some foil to wrap up my leftovers?”

  Benson returned to the show. Mideast mobs marched in the streets, their fists punching the air as they chanted, AK-47s raised high. A waiter switched the channel to a gameshow in which contestants dressed in outlandish costumes could win cars, refrigerators, televisions, and various household appliances if they correctly guessed the retail prices of the items on display, helped along with boisterous encouragement from the studio audience. Even some of Sunny Jim’s customers played along, shouting out the prices.

  Benson paid his bill and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Fishing the REAL ID cards and other identification from his pocket, he wrapped them all in the tinfoil.

  25

  Home, Sweet
Home

  HE HAD ANTICIPATED THIS MOMENT for months. The sight filled him with longing for what had been. The fantasies had turned over and over in his head, an endless movie in which the hero somehow pulls through, reclaiming his former life and his rightful place, complete with the triumphant homecoming, the tearful, joyous reunion, and all the requisite hugging and kissing. At last, through the long months of anguish following his abduction, through the endless, sleepless nights consumed with gnawing worry and fear, Jane would be overjoyed that he was safe in her arms again. These scenes, so real to him playing in his mind day after day, had kept him alive, filling his miserable existence, its hardship and brutality, with hope and purpose.

  This had been their home for nearly a decade, the place where he had raised his only child with his beloved Jane. This was where they had built their lives together. It was filled with precious memories, both happy and sad. He had planted that maple himself in the front yard when they moved in; it now towered over the roof. The garage door still had the dent where Daniel had bumped the car into it while learning to drive. The yard had fallen into disrepair; weeds and moss had taken a foothold and the bushes were overgrown, but no matter; the pleasure he felt was overpowering.

  He was home again.

  Jane arrived. She turned the key in the lock and removed it, pushing open the door. Footsteps approached from behind. She froze, inhaling sharply and dropping her keys. They clattered to the brick porch with a jarring sound that made her jump.

  “Mrs. Benson!”

  “You scared me to death,” Jane said, her heart racing.

  “Sorry to startle you, ma’am,” said a policeman looming over her. “We are sorry to inform you, ma’am, your husband escaped detention at approximately 1042 hours Tuesday. We don’t know exactly where he is but we’ll stay close by. Just in case.”

  He tipped his hat.

  “For your own protection, ma’am.”

  “For my own protection.” Jane took a deep breath to calm herself. “Sure. All — all right.”

  The cop peered inside the dark house for a minute in silence before lumbering back to his car. Jane shut the door behind her and leaned against it, closing her eyes for a moment. She locked the door and flipped the hall light on.

  “It’s good to be home,” Benson said.

  After the initial shock of seeing him, he had imagined that she would run into his arms and they would embrace. He would hold her tight and bury his face in her soft neck, a feeling of intense relief flooding over both of them. Tears would run freely down her freckled cheeks. He would be alive; nothing else would matter. Against insurmountable odds, he’d returned from the missing and the dead.

  Indeed, she stared, wide-eyed, struggling to get the words out, overcome by raw emotion. After all these months, her long-lost husband now appeared before her like an apparition.

  “But he said … how did—”

  “It doesn’t matter; I’m back, Jane, I’m back!”

  Benson took her hand. She pulled it away.

  “I missed you so much,” he said.

  After she fell into his arms, she might well find his monstrous ordeal too difficult to comprehend. If it hadn’t happened to him, even he would have found it incredible.

  Jane eyed him suspiciously.

  He stood there, stunned.

  “That’s — that’s not exactly a hero’s welcome,” he stammered.

  Jane coldly appraised him, looking him up and down.

  “You’re not exactly a hero. Just what do you think you’re doing, do you have any idea of what I’ve been through? The shame and humiliation, while you went and got yourself arrested—”

  “Got myself arrested?”

  “I have connections, I worked for Senator Dixon, remember? After your arrest I got a job with her replacement.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You were laundering money and drug running. They seized our bank accounts, our brokerage accounts, everything, under the asset forfeiture laws. They impounded our cars and auctioned them off. They ransacked all the rooms and stole jewelry and things. They confiscated your power tools. They hauled off your gun safe and the motorbikes and your fishing and camping gear. They found the hidden safe with the emergency cash and our passports and drilled it open. They stole your boat and trailer. They were like kids in a candy store; they grabbed everything but the house. I had no money left to contest it and now it’s all gone, all our savings, everything.”

  She began crying, the tears running freely.

  “Daniel … they sent him overseas. And Petey — they just left him there for me to find him like — like that. I’m all alone.”

  She wiped her eyes.

  “You look like hell.”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through. The torture, the interrogations every—”

  “And to think I trusted you. I never would have believed a man like you — never! Mixed up with terrorists. A man with your record of service.”

  “Mixed up with terrorists?” he choked out. “No. No! Lies. What can I do to convince you?”

  “You can turn yourself in and face the consequences,” she said, bowling him over with her matter-of-fact manner. “Go to trial. If by some crazy miracle—”

  He couldn’t believe any of this. He grabbed Jane and kissed her. She pushed him away, disgust in her eyes. He was devastated.

  “No,” she said through tears. “You can’t do this to me again. You have no right to come here and endanger me.”

  “But honey—”

  “Just go. Do what you need to do, I don’t even want to know. Damn you, Tom,” she said, with a loathing he had never seen in their long marriage. “Just be gone in the morning.”

  She ran upstairs, slamming the door behind her. Left alone in the dim light, he stared dumbly at the closed bedroom door. His bedroom door.

  Heading downtown early the next morning, he entered a large, old building. Formerly a library, it was now the State Educational and Cultural Center, and practically empty.

  The clerks staffing the information desk ignored him as he walked past and entered the PetroChina Educational Wing. Lines of cubicles extended down the aisles. Open reading spaces with comfortable seating and adjustable monitors surrounded the cubicles. Benson took a seat. “Identification Required to Access this Workstation” said a small sign on the monitor. He swiped Agent DeSoto’s REAL ID through the reader. After a delay, an exploding pink bomb icon appeared on the screen. Today’s threat level is Pink. Be aware of your surroundings and report suspicious activities to the Authorities. Please press Enter to continue.

  The next screen required him to check off each statement before continuing:

  You are not, and are not acting on behalf of, any person who is a citizen, national, or resident of, or who is controlled by, the government of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Myanmar, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Columbia, Algeria, Venezuela, Syria, Uzbekistan, or any other country to which the United States has prohibited transactions.

  You are not, and are not acting on behalf of, any person or entity listed on the U.S. Treasury Department classified list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, or the U.S. Commerce Department Denied Persons List or Entity List.

  You will not use this computer for, and will not permit this computer to be used for, any purposes prohibited by law, knowingly or unknowingly, including, without limitation, for the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

  “Siri: find George Franklin.”

  Photographs of Franklin in various settings and poses populated the screen, some of them embarrassingly private. Benson swiped through, noting present and previous addresses, friends, employers, and memberships in social networks and professional societies. It seemed that Franklin had pursued graduate degrees and earned a doctorate from the School of International Graduate Studies at the Naval Postgraduat
e School. Benson selected a satellite view of office buildings, zooming in to identify the location, then switched to a street-level view, examining the entrance to Franklin’s building and its immediate surroundings.

  Mounted on the top floor, the giant, illuminated blue eagle logo could be readily seen across the city. White police cars were parked end to end around the entire building. Striped barricades blocked the entrance, on which the sign informed visitors that they were “Now Entering a Federal Security Zone.” Soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders passed the time talking among themselves, their German shepherds resting next to them. Benson strode past them with the air of an important man on official business. The dogs sat up on high alert.

  He put his few belongings, belt, and shoes in a gray plastic bucket. The conveyor took it silently through the x-ray. The Homeland Security guard on duty rubbed his eyes, paying a cursory glance at the monitor and then at his watch. Benson went into the scanning booth, held his hands up, and spread his legs. The guard stroked him all over with a big electronic baton, rubbing it over his crotch, it seemed to Benson, a bit too keenly. Without the belt, his pants began falling down.

  “Okay, you can drop your hands now,” the guard said.

  Benson pulled up his pants and threaded the belt through the loops while the guard watched him dress. A computer screen displayed a thumbnail image from Agent DeSoto’s REAL ID.

  “Destination?”

  “Franklin. George Franklin.”

  The guard handed him a visitor’s badge. On the way to the elevators he passed a portrait mounted on the wall of President King pointing off-camera to the metaphorical future, rendered in simple primary colors, the same one that had been used in the campaign. He got off the elevator, walking past a sea of identical cubicles to the outer offices with expansive views of the city ringing the perimeter. The carpets and furnishings were quite plush for a State office building. It was all very quiet. Some people momentarily looked up from their terminals as he walked past and then returned to whatever it was that they were doing.