Early Warning

by Michael Walsh

  Lannie said nothing as he hit the control button and dragged the shredded target forward. Everybody kidded everybody in the Counter-Terrorism Unit about their marksmanship, but over fifty or not, Capt. Byrne was still the best shot in the department. There were all sorts of stories about him; about the time when he had caught a burglar in his mother’s apartment in Queens and, without even looking, had put a bullet in the man and knocked him through a window.

  Lannie pinched up a paper bad guy and sent it fleeing into the distance. Twenty-five feet, thirty, thirty-five-

  “Keep going.”

  He stopped at fifty. Byrne was reloading. Lannie admired the way the boss so smoothly, so effortlessly, slipped the.38 cartridges into the cylinder, then snapped it into place with a flick of his wrist. That was something you weren’t supposed to do; you were supposed to politely shut the cylinder with your free hand. But Frankie Byrne was at heart an Irish cowboy, and his men loved him for it.

  “What did you say?” shouted Byrne. Saleh shook his head: nothing. Jesus, the man really was a mind reader, just like everybody said.

  Byrne turned back toward the target and let out his breath. Instead of holding it this time, he kept exhaling; instead of cocking the hammer and firing single-action, he fired double-action, each pull of the trigger doing double duty, each pull cocking the hammer and then releasing it. Six shots. Lannie didn’t even have to look at the target as he reeled it back in to know the extent of the damage.

  The first shot, he knew, would be right in the bad guy’s head; the other five were just for show. Or, knowing Byrne, to make a point. In the CTU, setting a good example and, from time to totally unreported time, creating an object lesson for the mother of some son of a bitch back home in Amman, was simply good manners.

  Byrne grunted as he looked at his handiwork. Head, heart, stomach, spleen, balls, and, for good measure, a kneecap. Mission accomplished. “Your turn,” he said.

  Lannie felt his heart drop into his shoes. He hadn’t come prepared to shoot, and certainly hadn’t expected to perform in front of the boss. Byrne slapped the protective earmuffs on his head and thrust the Glock into his hand. “You’re good to go,” he said.

  The new target rocketed out. The book said that most sidearm confrontations took place from point-blank range to no more than twenty-five feet, but Byrne had just sent Osama bin Laden flapping in the breeze at least ten meters.

  Lannie took the pistol and tried to steady himself. Even though he had already qualified this year, it didn’t matter: Byrne could fire him at any moment for any reason. The CTU was the most highly regarded and hard to get into unit in the NYPD, and the most top-down in its hierarchy; its members didn’t have to answer to any civilian review board, fat-bottomed top brass, or even the mayor. Once, shortly after 9/11, some deputy chief had tried to insert one of his stooges into the CTU’s secret headquarters, which in those dark days were in Brooklyn. Byrne, or so the story went, marched down to One Police Plaza and threatened to put the dope’s head through one of the double-glazed windows on the fourteenth floor; and since Frankie and Commissioner Matt White had been partners in the old days, that was the end of departmental interference in the CTU.

  Lannie took a deep breath of pride-pride in his unit and pride in what he had already accomplished just getting into it-and squeezed off nine shots in lightning succession. Three hits, six misses, but at this distance that was pretty good, good enough for government work.

  “You shoot like a sand nigger,” said Byrne, inspecting the target. “No wonder you guys always lose.”

  Had anyone else said that to him, Lannie would have brought him up on charges; from Byrne, it was a compliment. “You know, I could have your badge for a crack like that, Captain,” he ventured.

  Byrne laughed. “Which is one of the things that’s wrong with this country today. In the old days, in New York, that’s how we used to talk to each other, the Irish to the Italians to the Jews. Nowadays, you foreign pussies go running to the U.N. if somebody looks at you askance.”

  “Askance? What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re in America now, Buckwheat, so learn American.” Byrne slipped the.38 he had been using back into the holster that he wore on his right hip. He popped the clip-there was another term they didn’t want you to use anymore-out of the Glock and left both pieces of the weapon on the shelf.

  They walked together out of the old Academy and into the glorious sunlight of an afternoon in New York City. Almost instinctively, Lannie turned east, toward Second Avenue, but Byrne took him by the arm and headed west, toward Gramercy Park, instead. “We’re in Chelsea, remember?” he said.

  The corpse of Cabrini Medical Center lay directly across the street. The century-old Catholic hospital had closed down in the spring of 2008. Byrne could feel Lannie’s gaze on him as he reacted to the sight. “What is it?” said Saleh.

  “It’s an old hospital.”

  “I know that.”

  “ Cabrini Medical Center. One of the oldest Catholic hospitals in the city. Not financially viable, the state said. And now it’s gone.”

  Lannie shrugged. “So what? New York ’s got plenty of hospitals.”

  Byrne put a hand on his shoulder: gently, but firmly. “It’s what we were just talking about. It’s the past, old New York. It’s what used to be. And now it’s not.”

  Lannie still didn’t get it. Byrne kept his hand on his shoulder as he spoke:

  “It was named after Mother Cabrini. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian nun from Lombardy. She was the first American citizen ever canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1946, every wop in this town went apeshit when Pius XII punched her ticket to heaven. If you don’t believe me, ask Vinnie.”

  “So I guess that makes her pretty special.” Lannie hoped his tone came off as encouraging, but knew it didn’t.

  Byrne seemed to let it slide. “I’ll say. I was born there. I was named after her. And one other thing-”

  Byrne still hadn’t moved. His hand was still on Lannie’s shoulder, his eyes still focused across the street, at the back of what used to be Cabrini Medical Center.

  “My father died there.”

  Lannie felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket, but he didn’t answer it, or even glance at it. He didn’t want to break the mood, even though to him this was all ancient history, and foreign ancient history at that. “I’m sorry, boss,” he said.

  “It was a long time ago,” replied Byrne.

  They started walking. “You know,” said Lannie, “not all Muslims are Arabs.”

  “So the Iranians tell me,” said Byrne. “But you’re not Persian. Hell, you’re not even Irish.”

  “And not all Arabs are Muslims,” Lannie said, undeterred. “Some of us are Christians.”

  “And not all Christians are Catholics, but all Catholics are Christians. So what does that prove?”

  Lannie had no answer. He was 24 years old, and even though he knew pretty much everything about life that was worth knowing, like computers and girls, he also knew that he knew almost nothing about anything that actually mattered. He was on the CTU thanks to Capt. Byrne, especially considering he couldn’t shoot for shit.

  Byrne buttoned his overcoat against the raw spring wind. “So, is that your own personal.38?” Lannie asked. Walking with the boss was awkward, and it helped to have some neutral conversational topic.

  “Yes, it’s mine. And no, not originally. It belonged to my dad. He was wearing it the day he was killed in the line of duty.”

  Byrne got that faraway look in his eyes that everybody in the department knew so well. It was a look that said: this far and no farther. There are some lines not to be crossed.

  Byrne had picked up the tempo now, barreling west past Teddy Roosevelt’s birthplace and across Fifth Avenue. It was as if he knew something was up, was responding to some unarticulated urgency, and it was all Lannie could do to keep up with the old man…on any level.

  They had crossed Seventh
Avenue, into Chelsea, and were heading north when Lannie felt his cell phone buzz again. Involuntarily, he stopped and pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was one of those shitty departmental phones, standard-issue, not his BlackBerry, which he had left back at his desk in case something really important happened.

  “What is it?” asked Byrne. If it were really important, whoever was on the other end of the line would have called him. On the other hand, if it had anything to do with computers, Lannie would be the go-to guy. And that was, after all, the reason Byrne had hired him. Certainly not for his marksmanship.

  Lannie glanced at the display: URGENT. He picked up the pace. They didn’t have to say anything. Byrne got it. That was one of the things that made him such a good chief.

  They hit the intersection of 20th and Eighth, nearly running now, and headed north.

  They rounded the corner. Up ahead was an old, nondescript warehouse, one of the few buildings that hadn’t been converted into artists’ lofts or art galleries. Actually, that was not quite true: most of it had in fact been converted, but there was still a big chunk of the giant building, which occupied a full city block in two dimensions and rose five stories into the air, that had been given over to the CTU. Not that any of the other tenants knew about it.

  That was one of the things that still made New York New York, thought Byrne as he spied the building: not making eye contact with neighbors was still considered a virtue.

  They pulled up in front of the building. “Mother Cabrini-Frances Xavier Cabrini-is the patron saint of immigrants,” said Byrne. His cell phone was buzzing now, too.

  Lannie beat him to the punch. “We’re here, right in front of the building,” he said softly.

  Byrne watched his younger colleague’s face fall. “What is it?” he asked, but Lannie was already sprinting through the front door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  New Orleans

  “Archibald Grant” had a choice: to finish his speech or to react to the urgent message now coming across the face of his wristwatch.

  This was no ordinary watch he wore, but then nothing about Mr. Grant was ordinary. As one of the RAND Corporation’s leading experts on international terrorism, he was in great demand, not only back at the home office in Santa Monica, California, but worldwide. RAND maintained divisions in Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Jackson, Mississippi; Cambridge, England; Brussels; and Doha, Qatar.

  His attention from the message was distracted by the blonde in the front row. She was a reporter, one of the few the RAND Corporation allowed into policy addresses such as this. Most of the time, RAND hid its global activities behind its anonymous name, Research ANd Development.

  This was a special occasion: a conference organized by RAND’s Gulf States Policy Institute, which had been formed post-Katrina to aid three of the most benighted states in the union, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The topic of his lecture was: “Terrorist Opportunities in a Devastated Environment: Some Thoughts on Media Responsibility,” but the reporter seemed more interested in him than in the subject of his remarks. Even in his guise of “Mr. Grant,” he hated inquisitive people, and blonde network reporters were right up there with the worst of them.

  It wasn’t that Grant was so good-looking: balding, over-weight, slightly buck-toothed, he was no woman’s idea of a prize. But he was brilliant, and a compelling speaker, which in his experience was more than enough to interest a certain class of women. Luckily for men, brains often counted more than looks when it came to the fair sex.

  “…and so, ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude with this thought…” His mind raced, trying to finish his remarks and at the same time process the information he was reading surreptitiously. Silently, he cursed himself for taking this gig, for being so far away from Washington and New York at a time like this. Maybe it was just an early yellow flag, but in his experience the National Security Agency didn’t issue SCI alerts-Sensitive Compartmented Information-on a whim. And besides, these days, there were no yellow flags, only red ones. He’d have to wrap it up and leave as quickly as possible, without incurring suspicion. Especially from the blonde.

  “The days of so-called ‘separation of church and state,’ whether we want to admit it, are over. A new media environment, brought on first by the emergence, and by the dominance, of the Internet, coupled with the severe economic downturn of the past 48 months, has finally brought the relationship of the press and the government into a new era of cooperation and, dare I suggest, symbiosis: no longer natural adversaries, but partners in the brave new world of the 21st century. Our shared land, our common patriotism, demands no less.

  “ America is unique among the world’s nations in more ways than simply the political, the military, or the economic. Three other countries- Russia, Canada, China -may be larger, territorially speaking, but none is subject to the kinds of climatological and ecological disruption. Blizzards, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes; had civilization tried to arise here, rather than the Indus Valley, it surely would have perished in short order. Far from being a land of milk and honey, America has always demanded the survival of the fittest. Lest we forget, the ‘shining city on a hill’ was bought with the blood of patriots.”

  There was a slight stir in the audience; nobody used the word “patriots” anymore, nor referenced Jefferson ’s famous Tree of Liberty, however obliquely. What they usually forgot, of course, was Jefferson’s exact formulation in his 1787 letter to William Smith, written from Paris, of which Mr. Grant now reminded them:

  “Or, to quote Jefferson directly, ‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’”

  The buzz grew louder as he entered his peroration: “Against all odds, America defeated the world’s other superpower through a combination of willpower, tactical superiority, and a consummate knowledge of the battlefield-virtues we sorely lacked on September 11, 2001, and in its aftermath, and in many ways continue to lack. When the next terrorist attack comes-notice I said when, not if-our first line of defense will not be the government, or even the first responders, but will be the media. How the attack is framed, and explained, will determine in large part the will of this nation to fight back. In a sense, we were lucky on 9/11. The attack came so suddenly, and without warning, that the usual collection of nervous nellies, naysayers, National Public Radio eunuchs, and nabobs in the ‘loyal opposition’ took several months before they were able to regroup and begin the counterattack. But when the next blow comes, they will be ready, appeasement on their lips and terms of surrender already signed and sealed in their pockets. I just hope that we-the tip of the tip of the spear-will be ready, too.”

  There was a smattering of weak applause, which is about what Mr. Grant had expected. He let it almost subside before finishing.

  “Of the abilities of the men and women employed by our counterterrorism agencies I have no doubt. Nothing the media says or writes or broadcasts can or should or will affect them. Rather, I am thinking of the civilian population, the people who get their news from the networks and the cables and from what few newspapers and magazines anyone still takes seriously. I am thinking, in short, of ordinary, average Americans. People who once knew how to deal with extraordinary events and overcome them or endure them, secure in the knowledge that Der Wille zur Macht would see them through adversity. The very people whose will to fight has been eroded by half a century of guilt, defeatism, analysis, and Hollywood. For, when the time comes-and come it will-it is they who, more than anyone else, must once again summon the courage of their forebears and seize the day.”

  He paused and looked out over the sea of faces. It was time to go. “Thank you for your kind attention.”

  Through the perfunctory applause, a question: “So you’re advocating vigilantism?” It was the blonde. “And a follow-up-if so, then why do the American taxpayers spend billions of dollars each year on the military and the intelligence services? Are you saying that, in the end,
all of our vaunted technology and martial prowess can’t guarantee our safety? And finally-”

  “Would you kindly identify yourself, please, Miss?” Mr. Grant asked.

  “Principessa Stanley. National-security correspondent, People’s News Network.”

  There were a couple of titters in the audience from the Europeans. That was to be expected. The Americans were too ignorant and uneducated to get the operatic reference, while the Europeans got it at once. She had spent most of her life trying to live up to the implications of her name, to be as regal and beautiful and as cold as her namesake, the Princess Turandot. She turned briefly and flashed her famously telegenic smile: “My father was a big Puccini fan,” she explained.

  “You understand, Ms. Stanley, that we are on Chatham House rules. Off the record, on deep background, however you care to phrase it. In any case, not for attribution.” He took a small sip of water to delay her answer, giving him time to glance down at his watch once more. The news had not gotten any better. Luckily, she was waiting for him just outside, and they would be at the airport in short order.

  Principessa smiled her famous network smile again. A cable network smile, but still a network smile, and one that had, along with her pretty face and killer figure, taken her a long way from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. If she played her cards right, pretty soon she’d move up from the mid-morning slot to the late-afternoon slot and after that, there was no telling what might happen when one of the prized evening gabfests suddenly found itself in need of a host. She had been hearing rumors, and doing her best to spread of few of her own, and in her opinion a couple of the anchors were only in need of a little push-or a gossip item dropped in the right place at the right time-and the way would be open to her. Besides, Jake Sinclair liked her, a lot.