Toe Popper

by Jonny Tangerine

  Two uniformed police officers conversed with a distraught woman who was obviously the missing child’s mother. The crowd parted expectantly for Major Lane. Joel took a moment to remind himself that he was treated as an authority only because he had access to the most resources. It was easy to be seduced by such easily earned deference into doing incredibly stupid things. The two young policemen, Lane guessed they were both barely nineteen, eyed him suspiciously. Lieutenant Rahman, who had a far greater command of the Khmer language, began asking questions.

  Major Lane immediately focused in on a man standing uneasily beside the mother, tensely staring at the ground. He was the only person not looking over the fence into the field. Lieutenant Rahman gave a report of facts of the situation as they were explained to him. An eight-month old girl had been missing since last night. Her father, the man looking at the ground, had, while searching for her, heard her crying out from behind the fence. Someone in the village had summoned the police. No one knew how the eight-month old baby had managed to crawl five hundred yards away from home in the middle of the night. It was estimated, because she could not be seen, that she now lay hidden in the tall grass approximately twenty yards from the perimeter.

  Major Lane quickly realized that what he was seeing was the result of a domestic dispute. After twenty-six years of armed conflict, the estimate of uncleared landmines in Cambodia stood at eight million. This meant that there was about one mine for every member of the country’s total population. This massive availability combined with the Khmer cultural value of avoiding direct conflict made the mine the Saturday Night Special of Cambodia. For example, disagreements in bars rarely ended in fights. It was much more acceptable to withdraw and, later, sneak outside and place a two-dollar fragmentation disk under the tire of an antagonist’s moped. Joel suspected that the husband was getting back at the mother for some petty grievance, most likely involving money for alcohol or opium. In Khmer families, the women usually controlled the finances. Judging from the fear and guilt washing over the father’s face, Lane was almost certain that the father had been denied a late-night request for entertainment funds and had retaliated by carrying the child into the minefield.

  Now, in the clear-headed light of day, he obviously regretted his actions. But there was nothing to be gained by either the mother or the father admitting the horrible truth in front of the police and neighbors. After five years of trying to get things done in Asia, Lane knew that the most effective solution to this situation would most likely not involve exposing the truth.

  Someone in the crowd suggested a helicopter. Joel shook his head. There were no helicopters, plus the pressure of rotor wash could actually increase the chance of detonating something. A fire engine with a hook and ladder rig might help, but there were none of those in this province. The crowd seemed to be getting restless, the policemen exchanged wary looks.

  “Snakes,” someone said.

  It was true, there was always that risk as well. During U.N. orientations the pictures of indigenous spitting cobras and the equally deadly green Hanuman snake seemed to frighten people much more than his pictures of little plastic mines.

  There was a palpable desire for someone to do something heroic, tempered somewhat, Joel felt, by the sight of several amputees in the crowd. One in every two hundred and fifty Cambodians had lost a limb to the “eternal sentinels.” In Battambang, the ratio was even worse. And it was possible that this very field was responsible for the spectators’ wounds.

  Major Lane liked to say that the only useful thing he ever learned at West Point was how to play poker. Later, while working as an instructor at the School of Americas in Fort Benning, he had become an expert at the most sophisticated type of poker – Texas Hold ‘Em. In this game, each player is dealt two cards face down and must make a hand using five community cards (used by all the players) which are turned over in three separate stages. The first skill required for becoming a dominant Hold ‘Em player was knowing, at all times, the odds for every possible hand that could beat you, and balancing these against the odds of cards appearing that would help your own hand. It took enormous concentration to remain focused on these calculations in the midst of all the peripheral banter and posturing that accompanied most poker tables.

  Ignoring the increasing buzz of the restless crowd, Major Lane assessed the odds of the various options available to him and decided to fall back on the second skill possessed by all successful Hold ‘Em players – knowing when to bluff.

  Major Lane drew his Beretta and chambered a nine-millimeter round. He pointed the pistol into the face of the father and, using his best Khmer grammar, said, quietly, “Go get your daughter.”

  11000 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES -- 8:00 AM

  Catherine Mills, Special Agent in Charge of the Southern California Field Office of the FBI, slept soundly on the carpeted floor of her executive suite. She was using the 818 edition of The Pacific Bell Smart Yellow Pages as a pillow, and a petite puddle of drool had gathered on the cover, distorting a full color picture of the Rose Bowl. She had planned to stay late the previous night to read over deposition transcripts for an upcoming double-murder/kidnapping trial. After glancing at her watch, and seeing that it had somehow become five in the morning, she had decided to skip the commute home. The concept of enjoying three-day weekends was long absent from Catherine’s life. But then so were a lot of other basic pleasures.

  The console phone on her desk chirped her rudely awake. Catherine opened her emerald eyes and immediately looked at her indiglo watch. She’d left explicit instructions with Alan, the junior agent in charge of guarding her phone line (who was getting double time for working on a holiday), not to let a single call in before nine. She couldn’t believe her phone was ringing. She had set the bar for what constituted an emergency aggressively high.

  The voice on the other end belonged to Assistant Los Angeles County Sheriff Avery Ataturk. She listened carefully before responding.

  “Avery,” she said, “I don’t want to hear you use the word landmine again. Make it clear to your people down there. This is not a landmine story. Listen to these words: unknown explosive devices – possibly pipe bombs. For now, this is a pipe bomb story. Close the beach and keep everybody off, especially the bomb squad. I’ll have a tactical team there in thirty-five minutes. We have a procedure for this scenario.”

  She knew about the procedure because she had helped create it for the Atlanta Olympics. She also knew there was an updated version for airports. She cradled the phone and hit the intercom button.

  “Alan, this is Catherine. I need you to activate a full CIRG team, beep everybody, I don’t care where they are. Then call Washington and scramble a Rapid Start Squad, we’re going to need a database set-up. Then call LAX and see if they have any K-9 explosive units working today. If they do, roll them towards Malibu. After that I’m going to need you to find a scenario binder, it should be with the External Threat stuff. And quick, LACSD is sending a helicopter for me in fifteen minutes.”

  Alan’s voice was instantly charged with adrenaline. “You got it. One thing though, what’s the name of the scenario I’m looking for?”

  “It’s a code name, hold on, I’m thinking…” Catherine closed her eyes to concentrate. She could already feel that two and a half-hours of sleep was going to be a shaky foundation for the day ahead. It came to her. She opened her eyes.

  “Toe Popper,” she said.

  BATTAMBANG PROVINCE, CAMBODIA -- 6:13 A.M.

  Keeping his gun trained steadily between the tortured eyes of the father, Major Lane lifted the top wire of the fence. Lieutenant Rahman, philosophically a pacifist, stared at him in mute horror.

  The callow policemen moved their right hands in tandem to rest on the butts of their forty-five’s. As a “big nose”, Major Lane was usually allowed a certain amount of barbaric behavior. He was counting on this fact to delay any deadly action by the police or other locals long enough for them to reflect on all the facets of his solut
ion. First, he felt he was offering the best chance of getting the baby girl back safely. Hopefully the father remembered his original route in, which had proven, at least in the dark, to be safe. Also, if the father had planted anything out there, only he would know how to avoid it. Second, by brutally forcing him into action, Lane felt he was creating the opportunity for the father to be a hero while simultaneously protecting him from the face-losing truth. Third, considering all the circumstances, Lane felt his solution was exceedingly expeditious and just.

  Lane figured his biggest risks were either a violent reaction by the upstaged police, or something bad going down out in the minefield. He felt the odds were pretty good that the police would feel relieved by him seizing the burden of responsibility for the crisis. And he was also banking on the fact that most minefields were mapped precautiously wide, providing a chance that the child wasn’t even in danger. Thinking back on it later, Major Lane realized that it had ultimately been the expression of the mother that had determined the initial outcome. The police, the crowd and the father had all been watching her. They accepted Lane’s action only after they had seen that she, however horrible, had approved of it.

  Without a word of protest, the father ducked under the raised wire and stepped into the tall grass. The crowd was completely still. As if on cue, the baby, concealed, began to cry.

  The tension grew as the crowd watched the father’s progress, his head barely visible above the tops of the grass blades. Major Lane holstered his weapon and smiled at the policemen, but his kind gesture was left unreturned. The crying continued in small bursts.

  The father’s head disappeared and the crying stopped. He had found her. The hum of locusts filled the new silence. The crowd took a collective breath, and then waited for each footfall as father and daughter began the trip back to the wire. The father walked slowly, carefully placing one foot at a time. Halfway, he paused. Major Lane could just see the top of the father’s face as it contorted in a spasm of silent pain. Lane felt a sudden twinge of panic: had he felt a tripwire? A pressure plate? After a second, the father, composure restored, continued on.

  He emerged from the dense field and held the perfectly healthy baby before him. He passed her over the wire to the urgent outstretched arms of his wife. Lane lifted the wire for him again. He ducked beneath it and immediately collapsed in the dirt.

  Lieutenant Rahman knelt beside the man and quickly found the two dots of blood on his ankle.

  “Cobra, King Cobra.” He said.

  Major Lane was dismayed. He had forgotten to figure in one of the most important factors of all – karma. There was now a whole new set of odds that made up the overall chance of the man living another day. Every minute that passed before he received treatment counted against him. It would take about seven minutes to get him back to their compound, five minutes to prepare the anti-venom. An acceptable amount of time, but even then there was no guarantee it would work. And there was always a chance that they had misidentified the reptile involved. Most snake bite procedures advised killing the snake or at least getting close enough to it to make a positive identification. Injecting someone with the wrong side-effect laden anti-venom could produce fatal complications. But Major Lane knew there was absolutely no chance, no matter whom he pointed his pistol at, that anyone was going to venture into a minefield in search of an angry cobra.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the thumping cadence of a helicopter. A late model camouflaged Jet Ranger with temporary U.N. markings flashed directly overhead, heading in the direction of their compound. So he had been wrong about that too. He looked down at Lieutenant Rahman.

  “Well, let’s go see if we can get our friend a ride to a real hospital.”

  COSTA MESA, CA – MONDAY – 9:55 A.M.

  Ballet is difficult with a prosthesis, excruciating, but Dominique could still get en pointe. In the mirror, her face betrayed nothing, but hiding pain was not a unique skill for those raised by the Khmer Rouge.

  As he watched his thirteen-year-old daughter bring her hands up to form a near-perfect couronne, Huay planned his day. Dominique had said she’d wanted to stop at South Coast Plaza on the way home, something about wool tights. That was fine, it would give him a chance to pick up a couple pounds of Kenyan from Starbucks. It wasn’t as good as the coffee in Paris (the European buyers still acquired the best of the harvest) but it was drinkable and he knew they were running low at the office. After that they would stop at the BP on Newport Boulevard and vacuum the sand out of the Mercedes. It was a silly precaution – what car in Southern California didn’t have beach sand in it? But Huay was convinced that his habit of being insanely careful was one of the only things that explained his improbable survival and prosperity.

  He’d been surprised on the way to the dance studio when he heard the first news report on the traffic-and-weather-together station. He had figured it would take longer for someone to discover his mines. It ultimately didn’t matter, the law enforcement casualty had been the desired result. The next step was to just sit back and wait for the funeral announcement to name his next target.

  The teacher clapped her hands and the class was over. The pixies relaxed and turned back into humans who reached out for towels and bottled water. Dominique was the only one who stayed at the barre for a few last repetitions.

  Huay smiled to himself, the ruthless discipline was inherited. The patrolman’s funeral would be well attended by both police and press. And certainly, with the help of Huay’s new mines, televised nationally.

  BEACH BOMBS KILL THREE IN MALIBU

  By Andrei Goodman

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Three people, including a California Highway Patrol Officer, were killed Monday by a series of powerful early morning explosions at Zuma Beach, police said.

  According to a senior Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department official, the CHP officer was aiding the victims of two previous explosions when a third device detonated. The slain officer’s partner was also seriously injured in the blast.

  Witnesses said one of the fatalities was a female lifeguard. The incident occurred approximately thirty yards away from a lifeguard tower that would have been manned at the time of the explosions. Authorities were not releasing information on any of the victims pending the notification of relatives.

  One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said preliminary reports indicated that pipe bombs might have been responsible for the victims’ deaths.

  Responding to these reports, Assistant L. A. County Sheriff Avery Attaturk said, “I have heard that as well, but at this time the FBI is investigating and it would be premature to speculate on the cause of these explosions.”

  A massive police presence sealed off access to the beach for approximately a mile in each direction as a FBI special tactics team searched the area with bomb-sniffing dogs.

  “News helicopters were ordered away from the airspace to avoid distracting the K-9 units from their highly delicate and critical work,” said Special Agent Catherine Mills, an FBI spokesperson.

  Witnesses reported that the bodies were not removed from the scene until after the FBI team searched the area with metal detectors and K-9 units.

  “Our investigation of this tragedy is continuing. It is too early to say what caused these explosions, or even if this was the result of a terrorist action,” the FBI spokesperson said, reading from a prepared statement.

  There were no reports of any person or terrorist group issuing a prior warning or subsequently claiming responsibility for the bombing.

  “We are right now in the process of setting up an investigative task force. Anyone out there with any information about the perpetrators of this crime should contact us or their local FBI office immediately,” a law enforcement official told Reuters.

  The explosions occurred only hours before the area would have been packed with Memorial Day beach goers seeking respite from the heat wave that brought a fifth consecutive day of hundred degree temperatures to the Southland.


  “If this had happened a few hours later, the carnage would have been incredibly worse.” An unidentified lifeguard at the scene said. “With this being a holiday and all, there could have been thousands of people laying out there.”

  Due to the emergency operations, traffic on Pacific Coast Highway was stopped for several hours. At times, back-ups stretched out over ten miles in each direction, area radio stations reported.

  “You had a million people trying to get out to the beach today, and a million people trying to get into the city. There were police everywhere, but none of them were doing anything to help or giving out any helpful information whatsoever. Plus with the heat, it was just a real cluster funk out there,” said a Malibu resident who experienced the gridlock.