METAtropolis:The Wings We Dare Aspire

by Jay Lake

  Then, on an otherwise quiet Tuesday, a nearby apartment complex exploded in a cloud of C4, rubble and human body parts. Churches were good for rumors and they flew up and down the prayer chain that day until it came back to his office.

  “Did you know we had people there?” Sister Rebecca asked him from the doorway of his office.

  His head came up and he felt the news like an ice pick in his stomach. “We did?”

  She nodded soberly, her mascara already running from the tears. “Twelve dead, I hear,” she said, shaking her head. “Including those four new boys. Fellas on the news are saying they think it was a bomb.”

  The thudding of his heart was a hammer as life drove another nail into the coffin of George Applebaum’s faith.

  * * *

  Charity Oxham ran until she lost herself in the relentless splash of one foot in front of the other as the rain and wind worked her over. DC weather sucked, it always did, but it sucked more today. She’d given up an entire day to reports and interviews before busing to the tiny studio she called home. Usually, she could get one of the patrols to give her a lift home. But no one was making eye contact with her after she’d lost Murphy and Carter in a soft entry op gone fatally bad. They sure as hell weren’t offering her a ride. The stink of failure was contagious.

  She’d collapsed onto her fold-out. After tossing and turning the night away, she showered, pulled on her sweats and hit the street to run it off.

  There just aren’t enough miles. Charity was pushing ten at this point and she could feel it in her ankles and calves. Still, it was better than what gnawed at the edges of her conscience. She’d lost people under her command before, certainly, and at some level she knew all losses were equal in their senselessness. But it felt different in the wilds of Southeast D.C., as opposed to a village in Pakistan or Nigeria. When she and her boys had geared up Tuesday evening, they thought they were picking up a felon, but nothing in the briefing had indicated the level of violent response they’d encountered.

  And now, two men—men with wives and children—were dead. And she was responsible.

  Charity blinked at the tears and forced her mind back to the thud-splash-thud of one foot ahead of the other.

  She’d put another mile between her and her guilt when her earbud tickled. She ignored it the first two times, letting it roll over to voicemail. But when it tickled a third time, she tapped her glasses on to see who was hell-bent on finding her. The number was blocked.

  She slowed, and as she did, she noticed the sedan out of the corner of her eye. The vehicle was out of place here on the edge of Obama Park, larger than the other electric cars and one of the few in this part of town where bikes and buses were the norm. It moved slower than it needed to, keeping pace with her. When she stopped running, it pulled to the curb and stopped as well.

  The earbud tickled again and with one eye on the sedan, she picked up this time. “Oxham.”

  It was a man’s voice. “Sergeant Oxham, my name is John Forrester, chief of staff for Senator Rodriguez.”

  Senator Rodriguez. It was strange hearing her former C.O. referred to as a senator. She’d known about the election, of course, and would’ve gladly cast her vote for the woman. They’d been out of touch for most of a decade but Charity couldn’t imagine any political landscape that she wouldn’t trust Captain Sandra Rodriguez to navigate with all the savvy and relentless tenacity that she brought to bear as a soldier. Half the citations on the dusty uniform in her closet came from listening to her.

  “The Senator,” Forrester continued, “would like to meet with you this morning if you are available.”

  Charity jogged in place, glancing again to the car before scanning the area quickly. “I don’t suppose she’s sent a car to collect me?”

  The caller chuckled in her ear even as the rear passenger window slid down. A young white man with a round face and eyeglasses raised a hand and nodded slightly. “She has, Sergeant, in case you were amenable. She suggested I mention Tehran if you hesitated. Or I can just drive away …”

  Tehran. Charity wished she didn’t remember it. They’d lost a lot of blood on that one and she herself would’ve been five point six liters of that blood if Rodriguez hadn’t saved her ass. They’d possumed-up among their own dead, swapped out their BDUs for burkhas when things had quieted down enough, and made it back to the DMZ. “You owe me,” Rodriguez told the young corporal, “and I call in all my debts … eventually.” Afterwards, Oxham had collected a citation and a promotion, in addition to living to fight another day.

  “I assume,” she said, “that the Senator understands I’m not quite dressed for a formal meeting?”

  “She does,” Forrester said. “The Senator is not one to place much emphasis on formality.”

  It was Charity’s turn to chuckle and as she did, she disconnected and jogged to the car. She climbed into the back even as Forrester slid across the seat. He handed her a thick blue towel as she pulled the door closed, and was smart enough not to engage her in small talk as they started the long drive across town.

  Charity watched the bicyclists and buses around them until the car emerged onto the Beltway and accelerated. In the front seat, the driver leaned back and let the automated road take over. When he did, she felt that sudden loss of control, which brought Murphy and Carter back to mind.

  Here, on the first day of an administrative leave pending investigation, a woman she owed her life to was calling in a favor.

  Outside, the rain became a hail that pounded the car, bouncing off its hood and onto the highway. The shift was as sudden as unexpected gunfire. Charity Oxham closed her eyes against it, wondering just what moved toward her in the gray of this day.

  * * *

  George Applebaum felt the sweat trickling down his sides beneath his damp white shirt. He rubbed his temples and even considered, for a moment, praying that this latest headache would pass. He swallowed the words before he uttered them. Outside, feeble sunlight tried to penetrate the gray clouds that hung over so many Oregon days.

  The day had started with the Portland police and Cascadia Law Enforcement Cooperative detectives waiting in his study, followed soon by the Feds, all asking roughly the same questions: What did he know of Casper Logan, Jack Devlin, Spencer Algood and Linus Cooper? How long had he known them? He’d told them what little he could. Something in their questions had perplexed him. The way the agents looked at him made him suddenly nervous, and the phrasing of their questions gave them an edge that he could’ve sworn was near accusatory in tone.

  Still, he’d done his best to stay focused and forthright. Even though each time he asked what it was all about, they rebuffed his questions abruptly, letting him know that they weren’t at liberty to discuss it.

  Of course, the news had been speculating from the start and that had him sweating. Four men, names withheld pending investigation, were suspected of bringing down the apartment building when a bomb-making concern in their own apartment went badly. They’d traced the young men to his church and, most likely, they’d traced easily back to Frost’s church as well. If he’d not been completely convinced his phone and email were tapped, he’d have already called Billy to find out what was going on.

  It was just past five when he stood, gathering up his Bible and the small stack of papers he’d work on from home. Sister Rebecca had already left so he was surprised by soft footfalls on the carpet when he locked his door.

  Next, he heard a quiet cough. “Reverend Applebaum?”

  He turned and saw a man and woman in dark suits. Yet another law enforcement agency come to call. “Pastor Applebaum, actually.” He tried to find his smile.

  “It looks like we’re catching you at a bad time, Pastor.”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve been answering questions all day. A few more can’t hurt.”

  The woman smiled and, for a moment, he thought he saw genuine sympathy. Her dishwater blonde hair was cut short. She stood a few inches less than her male counter
part. “Thank you. Is there someplace we can sit and talk?”

  “Let’s step into the sanctuary.” Applebaum led them down the hall, through the foyer and into the large auditorium. He took a pew and twisted around, gesturing to the pew behind him. “Have a seat.”

  They sat and the woman slipped a pair of glasses from her pocket, tapping the side. “Do you consent to biorecording, Pastor Applebaum?”

  This was new. Of course, he’d heard of it. But the other officers had been old school with their notepads and mics. “Certainly.” He swallowed. “Tell me again which agency you’re with?”

  “Patriot, Inc.,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. A soft blue mist shaded the lenses of her glasses.

  Ah, he thought. Private law enforcement, working contract for somebody big. “Of course.” George hoped his nerves didn’t flow into his voice.

  “For the record, state your name.”

  “George Harper Applebaum.”

  “Thank you.” The woman opened a faux-leather bound notepad and brushed the screen to life with her fingertip. She held it out for him. “Do you recognize this?”

  It was a picture of a charred credit card, held with tweezers, against the backdrop of an equally charred wallet lying open on a white patch of cloth.

  It was familiar. He could just make out the words “church” and “Applebaum.” He reached for his wallet, fumbled it open, and paled at what he didn’t find. “Where did you get that?”

  She ignored his question. “What about this?” Her finger moved again and another image flashed onto the screen. It was an old-fashioned paper transaction report indicating a purchase at a feed and grain store in Newberg that Applebaum had never heard of, though the signature was a close enough approximation to his own.

  “That,” she said, pointing to the quantity, “is a lot of fertilizer. We found most of it in an antique U-Haul truck they stored in Gresham.” She paused, her brow furrowing with concern. “Its rent was also paid with this card.”

  Applebaum felt his scalp tingle. “I have no idea how—”

  Balancing the notepad in one hand, she reached out to briefly touch his arm with her other. “We know that, George.” Her sudden shift to his first name along with the physical contact disconcerted him. “We think a member of your congregation stole the card and passed it to one of the four.”

  Applebaum felt his jaw go slack with surprise. A member of your congregation stole the card. It was unfathomable because it had to be one of five who had access to his office. “Why would they do that?”

  The woman looked at her partner then back to Applebaum. “We have reason to believe they were targeting the Cascadia and Western Governor’s Conference on Sustainability. Evidence suggests they were financing the operation with credit cards stolen from four area churches targeted by their local handler.”

  “Handler?”

  She nodded. “We’ve identified three of the four as members of a domestic terrorist organization known as the Sons of New Jerusalem.” She touched the screen of her notepad and a familiar face grinned up at him. “The local cell is led by Pastor William Frost. You went to school with him.”

  “We … we were friends.” He heard the hesitation in his own voice. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His friend had sent these four to his church? Worse: someone from his congregation, working for Frost, had taken his card, passed it along? To make bombs. To kill people.

  Applebaum’s stomach lurched. All day long, he’d answered question after question, being told nothing in return. And now, in the span of fifteen minutes, he knew far more than he ever wanted to. The headache was back. He closed his eyes against it. “Why are you telling me all of this?” he finally asked.

  “Because,” the woman said, “we’d like your help.”

  From then on, the more she talked, the more George Applebaum’s head hurt. And after they left, he sat for a long time in the silence, amazed and terrified at what he’d just agreed to do.

  * * *

  They rode in silence. Charity watched the people slipping past outside the tinted windows until the driver dropped them off in the heavily secured garage beneath the Senate Office Building. From there, Forrester whisked her up an elevator and through security. The guards ran her glasses through a debugger and handed them back. Then they checked her unipass before ushering her along.

  The halls were peppered with aides moving about their business. Charity suddenly felt self-conscious about her sneakers, sweats and ball cap. The only people who stood out more had to be the suits—the men and women of Patriot, Inc., a division of Edgewater handling outsourced Secret Service and counter-espionage. Security contractors like her had a saying: You had to be nuts to work for Edgewater; you had to be fucking nuts to work for Patriot.

  The Patriot agents stood in corners and near exits, scanning the room with their dark glasses.

  Forrester guided her through a door and pulled it closed behind him as they entered an outer office. “Senator Rodriguez is expecting you.” He knocked on an inner door, and a voice Charity hadn’t heard in at least a decade called for them to come in.

  He held the door, and Charity passed through. She’d expected him to follow but he didn’t. Forrester nodded curtly and closed the door quietly.

  Sandra Rodriguez stood and came around to the front of her desk, her smile wide. “Charity Oxham,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

  She resisted the sudden urge to salute. “It’s good to see you, Capt … I mean, Senator.”

  They shook hands, then Rodriguez pointed to a chair. Charity sat as the senator made her way back to her side of the desk and a much bigger chair. She craned her neck toward the door and then pulled open a drawer. “Smoke?”

  Rodriguez put a plain white box and a lighter on her desk blotter. She reached back down to draw out an antique smokeless ashtray that whirred to life when she hit a switch at its base.

  Charity’s mouth watered. “You have cigarettes?”

  Rodriguez pushed the box across. “French. I have a friend who brings them in through Canada.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Charity said. She leaned forward and drew a cigarette from the box, the sweetness of the tobacco soft in her nose. She put it in her mouth and let Rodriguez light it for her, coughing slightly as the first of the smoke hit her lungs. She sighed. “I’ve missed these.”

  Rodriguez nodded. “I gave them up when I got pregnant with Matt.” Her face clouded over when she said his name. “Picked them back up again when I jumped into politics.”

  Charity drew in another lungful of the smoke, holding it briefly before exhaling it in the direction of the ashtray. Possession of two cartons or less was a misdemeanor in most states. Hell, they’d been expensive when they were legal.

  “So,” Rodriquez said, “I heard about the other night. Sounds like you got bad intel.”

  “Really bad intel,” Charity agreed.

  Rodriguez shrugged. “I’m sure the investigation will reach the same conclusion.”

  Charity nodded but she wasn’t certain that was so. Edgewater had learned over the years that someone had to take the fall and someone on the frontline was always preferred. “I certainly hope so.”

  Rodriguez leaned forward. “Are you happy there, Oxham?”

  She’d never really considered the question. It was what she did to earn her housing and utility allowance and her meal card. They’d recruited her straight out of the army. Fifteen years had already slipped by. She’d found the work meaningful but was she happy? She mustered a smile. “Well, at the moment I’m not.”

  “How would you like to come to work for me?”

  Charity remembered the suits in the hallway and she felt her eyes narrow. “For you? Or for Patriot, Inc.?”

  “For me, initially,” Rodriquez said. “But if it works out, I can arrange a transfer easily enough. Tom owes me a favor.”

  Tom was Tom Haskins, CEO of Patriot. Charity knew her former CO was well connected these days, and t
his one made sense—Patriot and its parent company were headquartered in Rodriquez’s own Denver Free Zone. “That’s quite a string to pull,” she said.

  Rodriquez nodded. “I really need your help, Charity.”

  The cloud was back, and Charity suddenly saw the link. “It has something to do with Matt.” She felt the words in her gut.

  She’d never wanted children herself. When her CO announced she was transferring out of combat because she was pregnant, Charity had been convinced Rodriguez would change her mind and be back on the streets of Tehran in no time. But she hadn’t, and when Charity shipped stateside, she’d gone to see her captain and the bundle of life that had changed the woman into someone Charity couldn’t quite recognize.

  “Yes. It has to do with Matt.” Rodriguez sighed. “He’s disappeared in Seattle. I need someone I can trust to track him down.”

  Charity nearly dropped her cigarette. “Disappeared? Have you contacted the police?”

  Rodriguez shook her head. “No. Not like that. Wherever he’s gone, he’s chosen to go there. He told me he was leaving. He sent a long email about it.” She waved her hands. “Hell, he sent it to everyone. His father. His friends. Even his girlfriend—he breaks up with her in the PS.” She reached down, touched the screen built into her desk. “There. I’ve forwarded it on.”

  Charity’s glasses chirped. She resisted the urge to open the email. “He sent the same note to everyone?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And it’s him … but it doesn’t sound like him.” She leaned forward. “The note’s riddled with references to history and the Bible. And the last activity on the account I maintain for him was a rather sizeable donation to a Lighthouse Bible Temple near Seattle. I think …” her voice trailed off and her eyes briefly made contact with Charity’s. When they did, she could see the fear in them. “I think he’s joined a cult.”

  Of course. That’s why she chose me. Charity sighed. “Sandra, I’m not sure I’m the best person to—”

  Rodriguez raised her hand. “You absolutely are, Charity. You’re a good scout. And you understand that world.”