Toe Popper

by Jonny Tangerine

  Lane felt on edge, despite the presence of thousands of footprints in the sand. He knew that the beach had been cleared by the FBI’s bomb squad, but there was always a chance. And he realized now that a determined perpetrator could easily plant a mine a day on U.S. beaches without much fear of ever being caught.

  In front of tower five, Lane saw a sun-burned middle-aged man in a lawn chair reading a paperback. The man appeared oblivious to the grim death that had consumed three lives in that spot only days ago. But it was a beautiful day, and any trace of blood had already been absorbed by the shifting sand.

  Lane looked out at the Pacific and reflected on the short history of landmines. Discounting caltrops (basically four-inch sharpened jacks used to protect infantry from cavalry charges) used by fifteenth century Europeans, landmines were a true-blue American invention. Early in the War Between the States (as the Pentagon officially called it), a Confederate officer, General Gabriel Rains, decided to implement an idea he had been contemplating since the 1840’s when he’d successfully fought a guerilla war against Florida’s indigenous Indians. In 1862 General Rains was in charge of the defense of Yorktown, Virginia. The gathering Union forces, both land and sea, were deemed to be too great, and he was ordered to pull his forces back to Richmond. General Rains retreated, but had his troops hide dozens of “land torpedoes” (buried artillery shells topped with mercury fulminate friction fuses) on the roads leading into Yorktown. On May 4, 1862, a Union cavalry scout (and his horse), were the first modern land-mine victims. There was much outrage over this new type of weapon and General Rains was condemned in many newspapers for inventing a device improper to the conduct of war. However it was the time of industrial revolution and technology of all kinds was rapidly the expanding the limits of a number of human endeavors.

  And, as in almost all subsequent engagements, the land mines had little impact on the course of the battle. The Union troops were only momentarily slowed and quickly adapted. The first de-miners in history were Confederate prisoners pushed into duty by Union bayonets.

  General Rain’s inventions proved to be much more effective in water. After the siege of Yorktown he was put in charge of the Confederate “torpedo division” and quickly moved into mass production of water-based marine mines, which were ten times as powerful and fused with silver fulminate. His devices outperformed the entire Confederate Navy, sinking 29 Union ships and damaging 14 others. The mines were also credited with keeping the ports of Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston open during most of the war.

  During WWI, the technology advanced again when Germany developed anti-tank mines to counter Britain’s trench-breaching tanks. Personnel mines soon followed to protect the bulky anti-tank mines from being uncovered and defused. There were also mines created, on both sides, that dispensed poison gas, but these were tricky to manufacture and not many were made. Mine development reached its pinnacle during the Cold War when Great Britain developed a nuclear-armed mine. The project, code-named Blue Peacock, called for a series of doomsday deterrent mines laid along the Rhine River to counter a Warsaw Pact blitzkrieg. There was even the idea of an eight-day count-down timer that, once triggered, could not be stopped. Madness. A prototype was built, but (as far as anyone knew) never put into service.

  Lane took a deep breath of sea air.

  It was too beautiful a day for such thoughts. Still, being on the sand made him uneasy. He walked back towards his Explorer, instinctively retracing his exact path and stepping carefully in his own footprints.

  FOREST LAWN CEMETERY – 10:01 AM

  The signs on Forest Lawn Drive telling visitors to lock their cars and remove their valuables were never more unnecessary. Law Enforcement personnel from a fifty-mile radius created a sea of blue and green against the brown hills. Row after row of dress uniforms - black ribbons taped across sparkling badges. Freshly washed police cars double and triple parked across the wide boulevard, blue lights circling silently. CHP motorcycles lined up together in perfect formation. Local television trucks recorded the proceedings as a squadron of helicopters flew in missing-man formation over the high-voltage towers that bisected the cemetery.

  The Park family huddled under black umbrellas to shield themselves from the relentless valley sun, although it was diffused and pixelated by the smog. They stood silently on the Astroturf, the polished white casket of their loved-one poised above the grave.

  Catherine Mills, wearing a black Nordstrom’s suit, stoically absorbed the ultra-violet assault. She felt a drop of perspiration run down her back beneath her silk chemise. She glanced down the length of her short skirt and saw that her low, Nine West heels rested on the recessed bronze headstone of the “Kim Family.” A dry sprinkler head was a foot away. She felt the turnout was impressive. The CHP was well respected. She noticed several of the LAPD’s top brass as well as many lifeguards in sweaters, looking like grade school kids who should have worn suits.

  The Chaplain was concluding his remarks. He had been vague with the details, merely saying that Officer Park was killed in the line of duty, rushing to the aid of a fallen citizen and lifeguard.

  Catherine was familiar with the procedures at a military honors funeral. She covered her ears as the CHP honor guard stepped back, pointed their rifles at a perfect sixty degrees, and fired…

  EL SEGUNDO – 10:01 AM

  Huay ate huevos rancheros with homemade tortillas at the Emperor Café just south of LAX. He usually had the deep-fried taquitos with habanero guacamole, but it was too early for that kind of meal.

  His morning work had gone well. His route had been Huntington…Newport…San Pedro…Hermosa…Dockweiler…Venice…Santa Monica…and Will Rogers. He had eight mines for each beach, but had split the mines up 10, 10, 3, 20, 15, 8, 17, and 13 respectively. He’d been taught to always vary the number mines in any field so that an enemy could never be sure if they’d encountered them all. The parking meters were all free before nine and he was confident his Mercedes was a common enough status symbol in Southern California that he would not attract second looks. He encountered few people on the beaches. Early morning joggers, a few homeless men. One set of college lovers in a damp sleeping bag. He’d also been passed by two Lifeguard pick-up trucks, a Santa Monica Police jeep, and flown over by an orange coast guard helicopter. He’d waved at the police jeep, but the officer hadn’t seen him or just didn’t feel like returning an acknowledgement. His biggest concern was a Chinese fisherman at Dockweiler who had glanced at his tangled reel.

  The whole mission had taken him four hours. He was exhausted. Each time he pushed and turned a pin there was risk. And there was always the possibility of a manufacturing defect, one going off in his hands. He didn’t want to think about the probabilities. He knew it was probably a bigger risk to have the delay switch, the mines could be found before he had planned, but he had been careful to bury them beyond the tide lines, and fairly deep. If one or two were discovered, it might have the same effect on the authorities as mines going off. But it was not what he wanted. He planned for today to be all about the cemetery and the Nixon library.

  Huay was grateful for the incredibly strong coffee they served at the Emperor. He had three business meetings scheduled for the afternoon and he’d promised to drive Dominique to ballet class. Huay mopped up the last of the salsa with the edge of his tortilla and signaled the portly waiter for the check.

  FOREST LAWN CEMETERY - 10:02 AM

  The first six mines went off simultaneously – shredding the tightly packed ranks of officers, one of the Parks.

  The movement of the crowd set off another fusillade. The blasts threw three of the Parks forward onto the supported casket. Screams pierced the cemetery. Five hundred cops drew their guns. The front end of the casket thumped down into the grave and set off the mines hidden in the bottom - spattering parts of the decomposing guard up and out and throwing polished wood slivers out into the crowd.

  Catherine saw Blake grab a hysterical old woman trying to run down the aisle. Agent Bl
ake yelled into her face. “Don’t Move!”

  Catherine could see people bleeding on the ground all around her. One of the wounded officers, she recognized him as the Captain of the Hallenbeck station, got to his feet, staggering in shock, holding his bleeding groin together with his left hand.

  “Stay down!”

  The Captain ignored her.

  Agent Blake let go of the old woman and took three reckless steps toward the injured officer.

  “Blake, don’t!”

  Blake took the Captain in his arms and sat him in the nearest folding chair.

  Where the fuck is Lane, Catherine thought as she holstered her gun and climbed onto her chair.

  Catherine cupped her hands, “Everybody freeze! Don’t move, the area is mined!” Her voice carried strongly over the crowd – amplified with adrenalin.

  Smoke hung low in the warm air, the chemical taste of the plastic explosives suddenly on the backs of everyone’s tongue.

  On the tops of the television trucks, the cameras rolled. Inside the first remote van, a producer was already on the phone back to the station, begging for a live-feed.

  The coffin slipped again and triggered another explosion, flinging more red flesh out of the grave - the Park women used their umbrellas to fend off the shower of putrid remains - an image that would be imprinted on the brainscreen of the entire city of Los Angeles.

  Catherine continued to give instructions.

  “If you can reach a wounded person without taking a step, try to stop any bleeding. Everyone in a chair, stay seated and don’t move.” This instinct was what made her a leader. She knew what to do, what to say, a half second before anyone else had even begun to think.

  The LAPD commanders, hats and crests full of silver plate were useless, struck dumb in front of the rank and file.

  The honor guard was frozen. Their fingers poised to fire twice more, horrified that they had somehow set the mines off.

  There were more screams from the victims. One of the CHP officers couldn’t watch his partner bleed, he stepped…one step…lightly…on tip-toe. BAM!

  This set off another small panic - the crowd surged toward the road, quickly resulting in two more BANGS! - adding new members to the haunting chorus of screams and moans. The cemetery transformed into battlefield.

  Catherine continued to command, “If you’re on the road stay on it! If you’re on a headstone, stay on it! If you’re injured, try to stay still.” Trained to respond to every type of victim, the cops were being tortured with inaction.

  Catherine scanned the crowd for Lane. In her peripheral vision, the newly wounded CHP officer vomited blood. All around her people were crouched down, weapons pointed at one another, still sure they were under attack from an unseen force.

  Catherine shouted to the officers on the asphalt. “Get the cruisers and motorcycles cleared. We’re going to need hook and ladders to get people off the grass, and then room for ambulances. No sirens, and stay on the path.” Catherine saw Alan kneeling on a blood-freckled chair in the row behind her. His phone in his hand.

  “Alan, call the ‘SC trauma center, tell them what to expect. We’re going to need air evacuations,” she looked at the perimeter for possible landing zones. “But tell them no closer than…two hundred yards.”

  “Okay.” Alan was dialing. “Then do you want me to call Washington?”

  “No,” Catherine said. She touched her face, brushed human tissue from her cheek. She felt a shaft of fear in her stomach, not from the physical danger, but from something else. She looked down and saw Blake holding the now dead Hallenbeck Captain in his arms. And she knew then what the feeling was. She was humiliated. Powerless and humiliated.

  “No.” Catherine repeated. “I’m sure they’ll be calling us.”

  Behind her, the cameras rolled on – digitized video ricocheting off the satellites in the sky.

  ZUMA BEACH 10:15 AM

  Lane sat on his hood and trained his binoculars on a fisherman in the surf. The thin Asian man was wearing rubber boots, a baseball hat and good God, he was leaning down and burying something in the sand!

  Lane sprinted. As he got closer he pulled out his gun.

  “Police! What did you just bury?”

  The man’s eyes showed complete shock. He motioned for Lane to see for himself. “You.” He said.

  Lane was furious.

  “No! You. You! Show me.”

  The frightened man leaned down and brushed away the sand. And Lane saw a tail flip up, and then spots - it was a foot and a half long leopard shark. The man lifted in up by the tail and offered it to Lane.

  Lane put his gun away.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Never mind.” Lane turned to walk back to his Explorer, numbed by his own fury and stupidity. The man was only keeping his catch fresh. Lane looked around once and saw the man was still watching him.

  Back at the Explorer, Lane flipped on the radio. A twangy voice was singing a country song about tires “No flat, No flat, I ain’t scared a sharps, I ain’t scared a flats – run flat…”

  Lane hit the search key and the dial zipped to AM1070. And the words came. He pushed up the volume. “A series of explosions at the highway patrolman’s funeral…reportedly caused by hidden land mines…”

  Lane started the truck and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  NIXON LIBRARY – 10:05 AM

  At the Richard M. Nixon Library and Research Center, Amit Agarwal, a Sikh immigrant, was the head gardener. He took personal and tender care of the nearly four hundred rose bushes on the grounds. The Sikh loved gardening. So much that he often thought that if he had a choice he would like to be reincarnated as a bee - not a common honey bee, but a fat solitary bumble bee - lumbering slowly from flower to flower, and climbing inside the perfectly structured blossoms. Children were often frightened of bumble bees because of their size, but the Sikh knew there was little to fear. He knew that bumble bees cannot be raised commercially because they do not produce excess honey – only a few grams at a time to feed their young. He also knew that they live in small nests and never swarm – plus they were much less aggressive than honey bees, despite the fact that they did not have suicidal stingers. They only died after mating – in the true tradition of the French petite morte.

  But now Amit was not thinking of bumble bees. He was sensing a disturbance in his garden. His eyes scanned the perfectly dusted roses along the colonnade, undistracted by the catering staff smoothing the starched tablecloths over the banquet tables. And then he saw it - someone had pilfered a bloom from his Gertrude Jekyll. And below it, around the base, he noticed freshly disturbed earth. Someone or something had been digging. Amit squatted down and poked around with his trowel. It struck something metal. He used his fingers to brush away the remaining dirt and exposed the white Cyrillic lettering.

  The tumblers of his mind lined-up and clicked together. His heart fluttered. When he was nine years old, he’d come face to face with a death adder under his family’s woodpile in Jaipur. Today he felt the same way.

  Amit jumped back out of his squat – and then looked down at the grass between his feet. He jumped again – up and over the roses and onto one of the draped tables. His feet knocked over the centerpiece – crossed American and California flags surrounded by orange blossoms.

  Around the library, the Sikh was famous for his silent rectitude. When the man with the top knot turban and beard began dancing on the table and screaming like a Punjabi teeny-bopper, the staff knew something was very, very wrong.

  FOREST LAWN CEMETERY -11:10 AM

  Lane drove like a madman – flat out, nearly rolling the Explorer at one point swerving around a Wonderbread truck.

  At the cemetery, several SWAT teams had responded and were still clutching their heavy weapons - as if there were a physical enemy and a show of force indicated control. But the only enemy was in the ground, and it had already won the first two rounds.

  Lane stood in the chaos of law enforcement and knew he ha
d been right. And sensed that the next trap was just around the corner.

  Lane had fifteen seconds with Catherine Mills. He’d said one thing to her.

  “Close the beaches.”

  She had nodded wistfully. And then her phone had rung and she walked away.

  The area around the Park grave was taped off. The cameras and news vans had been pushed back – they at first refused, until a cop had thrown one of the producers up against his van and handcuffed him.

  People were still being lifted off the grass with hook and ladder trucks, the ladders extended flat, four feet off the ground. From the details Lane extracted from various bomb squad officers, he was fairly certain they were dealing with acoustic activated mines. It was a brilliant use of the weapon, especially in a cemetery where no one was eager to investigate lumpy grass. With the amount of people present, they’d probably all been triggered, and the concussions setting off anything else, but you could never be a hundred percent certain. And it was possible a couple had been deliberately disabled and then booby trapped somehow. Lane also figured there weren’t any large anti-tank type mines, it would be too difficult to transport and hide something that large here. Lane approached one of the FBI agents who was wearing a bomb disposal suit and recommended setting off a couple dozen stun grenade blasts to trigger any leftovers, but the FBI wanted to wait until there were fewer traumatized bystanders. It was impossible to use dogs for detection, there was too much explosive residue scattered, which was also why it was hard to use them in combat situations. The K-9’s were left panting in their cars, bottled water brought to them periodically.