Consequence

by Steve Masover

  “You want to chase after them?”

  “Naw. Zac was right. Whatever they do, it’ll be a Hail Mary play.”

  “Agreed. I’m not in the mood for a nightstick massage.” They turned back as the cops behind the barriers broke ranks.

  “You really think those kids have read Kropotkin?” Brendan asked.

  Christopher shrugged. “Some of them, sure.”

  They veered left, around a bronze statue of Simón Bolívar mounted on a rearing horse.

  “It’s pretty hard to ignore the déjà vu,” Brendan said. “I keep thinking back to ’91. Those endless blockades of the Federal Building during the first Gulf War.”

  “Remember that Union Square breakaway,” Christopher asked, “speaking of black bloc anarchists?” Brendan wasn’t any more likely to forget than he was. The tac squad had formed a line shoulder to shoulder across Powell Street, batons drawn, with no barricades to cushion confrontation. For a few tense minutes it had looked like the breakaway was going to get creamed.

  “Thirty ass-naked mud people,” Brendan said. “Of course I remember, like a tribe straight out of some rain forest. A gaggle of neohippies turned those riot cops to jelly.”

  “What blew me away was the timing. That was before people carried cell phones, right? And they managed to get onto that cable car, rolling down from behind the police at the exact moment.” Christopher could see it clear as IMAX. When the mud people headed for Macy’s, ululating like extras in The Battle of Algiers, the cops had no idea what to defend or attack. The ungovernable masses poured through their tattered line. “The Westin St. Francis,” he said.

  “And then Neiman Marcus. We never found out who those guys were, right?”

  “Never did. Nobody got caught.”

  “But I’ll tell you, Chris …” They came to the library and sat on the steps. “You know the difference between then and now?”

  “Lay it out for me.”

  “Diddly.” Brendan paused, challenging Christopher to react. “In 1991, no organized movement, the rest of the country thinks San Francisco is whacked,” he said. “Fast-forward to 2003, eleven million show up worldwide, but there’s still no movement. The politicians don’t give a damn because people are going home afterward to watch Survivor.”

  Christopher absorbed the weight of the comparison. Not a new thought. But his friend was wallowing in it. “That’s recklessly cynical,” he said.

  “Everybody out here knows how powerless this shit is. They found out a year ago if they didn’t read the memo beforehand.”

  It was hard to argue against Brendan’s despair. For Christopher, it struck way too close to home. They watched people come and go, a slow stream walking into the demonstration and a greater number heading for Muni. “So have you reached … the guys who set up your southern adventure?” he asked.

  Brendan busied himself with a cigarette. “I put out feelers,” he said. “Organizers who can contact the contacts, discreetly. It’s only been a week, the ATF might still come banging on the Triangle’s door. Better to sound things out before leading heat to people they don’t know.”

  It was the second time Brendan had called out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Not the FBI. “So you’re pretty sure it’s ATF who’d want to find you.”

  “Chris, it’s no secret. The Federales said there were guns. Not what I enlisted for, but I didn’t load the truck. I could have been carrying anything. Only the guys who set this thing up can fill in those blanks.”

  “I get it. And I don’t mean to pry, I’m just interested. You tell what you want, when you want. Can I ask something else?”

  “You can ask anything else. All those letters? Letters nobody else managed to write? You’re the one kept me sane down there. I owe you answers if I owe anybody.”

  “You’d have done the same,” Christopher said, embarrassed.

  “Maybe. Not everybody came through.”

  “I want to hear stuff we couldn’t put into letters.” Christopher wondered who Brendan was angry at. Allison? “Like why you decided to go south in the first place.”

  Brendan took a deep drag, and exhaled slowly. “I was tired of feckless First World protests,” he said. “I wanted to have real effect, at a global scale. The Zapatistas embody radical democracy like no one has in decades, and Marcos knows how to work the media. The chance might not have come along again.”

  “I get it about Chiapas and the Zapatistas,” Christopher said. “And real effect, I sure as hell get that. But I can’t give up on engaging here. Even our smallest victories make a huge, amplified difference elsewhere. In the countries we exploit, in the biosphere we’re crapping on.”

  Brendan stared into the middle distance. He didn’t reply.

  “Given what the Federales said you were carrying, did you ever wonder if your contacts played you for a patsy?” In truth, Christopher was asking for himself. Without spilling the story of Chagall’s approach, it was as close as he could get to angling for advice about the saboteur.

  “How do you mean?” Brendan asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly. What if they planned all along to run weapons? How do you know they’re really Zapatistas? I mean … what if they were fronting for some drug cartel?”

  Brendan snuffed his cigarette, visibly pained. Christopher swallowed.

  “I hope I wasn’t suckered that badly,” Brendan said. “It’d be hard to live with.”

  SIX

  November 2003

  Miles from home, Chagall climbs rain-slick stairs and enters a stuccoed public library, low and drab as the leaden sky. He wears a curly brown wig over his crewcut, and a baseball cap that calls out unremarkable loyalties. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses squares his features. Under worn denim, a knee brace encourages an adopted limp, and an army surplus jacket completes the masquerade. Shabby veterans are rife in this past-its-prime city, men whose prospects were tested and spent by the time they racked up thirty years. No one gives the invisibles a second glance.

  He shuffles toward the back of a carpeted room. Only one of the library’s internet terminals is being used this morning, by an old man, sparrow-thin in a blue windbreaker. There are no staff in sight. Chagall chooses a terminal, sitting with his back to a wall of gardening books, and surveys the equipment. He inserts a flash drive into an available USB port.

  Chagall cycles the computer’s power, boots the machine into MiniBot Linux, and points a web browser at a Civil War reenactment site sized to fill most of the screen. Opening a secure terminal window, Chagall positions it low on the monitor. He navigates through a series of anonymizers to an IRC host where he and the hacker who found him online have agreed to convene.

  CHAGALL: Assume you have verified my claim?

  ROMULUS: Indeed. Thanks for the b-day wishes. Loved the candles.

  CHAGALL: Good. Let’s move on then.

  ROMULUS: Have you arrived at a preference?

  CHAGALL: Leaning toward Corn.

  ROMULUS: Surprised. Figured you for English Breakfast. Aspirin too hot in wake of recent activity, IMO.

  Chagall stares hard at the screen, considering whether to dwell on the targets they’re setting aside. He types a response, encrypts, sends.

  CHAGALL: Agreed re: Aspirin. English Breakfast is densely populated. Corn carries less risk of unintended consequences.

  ROMULUS: Understood. Will follow your lead.

  CHAGALL: Need three items to determine feasibility. First, architectural diagrams. Structure only, interior plans not necessary yet. Readable w/o specialized software. Transmit via asynchronous drop.

  ROMULUS: Have already begun to explore access points. Drop transfer is trivial. What else?

  CHAGALL: Construction schedule for target. More detail than on public site.

  ROMULUS: Shouldn’t be a problem. #3?

  CHAGALL: Agreement re: how you will physically participate. Risk differential is too great between virtual vs. physical roles. No action possible when entrapment possibilit
y exists.

  ROMULUS: This is new.

  CHAGALL: Task assignment not yet worked out, so the question isn’t settled. Suggest modes of participation that suit your capacity. There needs to be some activity beyond virtual.

  Romulus takes a while to reply. Chagall surreptitiously observes a middle-aged librarian now sitting at the reference desk. Bobbed gray hair, prim white blouse buttoned to her throat. When she looks up he averts his eyes, focusing again on the chat window at the edge of his screen.

  ROMULUS: I’m not prepared to respond now. This may require negotiation.

  CHAGALL: I can wait.

  ROMULUS: Let’s come back to that. Have begun to collect addresses. Have tested capacity to send e-mails, previously discussed goal is attainable. Progress re: content?

  CHAGALL: I want to recruit a writer.

  ROMULUS: Why another party?

  CHAGALL: I need to focus on mechanics to hit agreed date. And we need a fresh voice. Our message should not link to previous activity.

  ROMULUS: I can draft.

  CHAGALL: Your responsibilities are also nontrivial. Drafting can be done by an anonymous recruit without disclosure of action’s nature, location, date. We finalize writer’s draft.

  ROMULUS: How would we recruit?

  CHAGALL: Securely. Candidate identities need-to-know only. I will manage solo. Identifying evidence to be scrubbed once secure contact is established, for obvious reasons.

  ROMULUS: You are distrustful.

  CHAGALL: Of everyone.

  ROMULUS: Proofs have been offered between us.

  Chagall registers the hacker’s petulance. A good sign, he thinks. Seasoned FBI would show a tougher façade, more bluster.

  CHAGALL: Proof is in the execution. Nothing is proven until it’s done.

  ROMULUS: How can we proceed on this basis?

  CHAGALL: No benefit of working together can outweigh caution.

  ROMULUS: Some trust is inevitable. Example: how will you verify accuracy of plans? I could supply garbage. Or you could be a cop, lurking in chats to attract genuine actors.

  CHAGALL: I’ll take precautions. You’ll watch your own back. If this is a problem, now is a good time to abort.

  Again, the hacker pauses before he responds.

  ROMULUS: Back to #3. Options for participation are unclear.

  CHAGALL: Consider supply, transport. Consider target infiltration to place equipment. Beyond remote surveillance, beyond remote control. Need evidence of your boots on solid ground.

  ROMULUS: I can hack. Physical breakins are beyond my expertise.

  Chagall, casting and dapping like a fly fisherman, dispassionately watches Romulus thrash.

  CHAGALL: Our collaboration is not a video game. The project is worth some risk in working with an unknown partner. You know how to obtain diagrams, build a bot net—I don’t. Still, it’s not worth a frivolous risk to freedom. Burden is on you to assure this is not a sting, you contacted me. Need you to do something no cop would contemplate.

  ROMULUS: I’m discouraged by this interaction.

  CHAGALL: I’m not a shrink.

  ROMULUS: You’re one cold MF.

  CHAGALL: I’m good at what I do. Nothing else offered.

  ROMULUS: Let’s return to this later.

  Chagall looks up from the screen. The librarian is scanning bar codes from a pile of books on the reference desk, absorbed in her work.

  CHAGALL: Make no mistake. I want and intend to do this. Nothing personal. Bottom line, I don’t know you.

  ROMULUS: Understood. But consider the possibility we’re both genuine. Why would either of us invest effort if we don’t trust the other?

  CHAGALL: Distrust is practical.

  ROMULUS: I don’t want to spend my best effort then be dumped.

  CHAGALL: Action is incomplete until you broadcast our message. You hold the reins in the final lap.

  ROMULUS: Perhaps. But these are unanticipated twists. I say we delay recruitment of 3rd party writer until after next contact. I need to participate in selection.

  CHAGALL: No back and forth for selection, it’s too cumbersome. I’ll select. Opportunity for your influence in giving direction to writer through multiple drafts.

  The hacker takes a full forty seconds to reply.

  ROMULUS: I insist at least on contributing one or more candidates, to be considered on equal footing to yours.

  CHAGALL: You have someone in mind?

  ROMULUS: Will research.

  CHAGALL: Strict conditions. No candidate can be connected to you in any way. You have never met or been in the same room. You have never participated in online exchange of any kind, not e-mail, not IRC, nothing.

  ROMULUS: Of course, what do you take me for?

  CHAGALL: I have no idea who or what you are. Makes no difference, conditions are invariant. I will accept writer candidates if submitted within the next two weeks. Structural drawings will enable further progress on my end.

  ROMULUS: Two weeks for candidates, fine. Will obtain drawings, at least partial set, by then as well. That or call off collaboration. You are not easy to work with.

  Chagall judges the threat is empty, that Romulus is blowing off anxiety.

  CHAGALL: Via drop 17f?

  ROMULUS: Roger that. Until then.

  He watches Romulus exit the chat, shuts down his Linux instance, then starts the machine booting back into Windows. The librarian looks up. The chugging disk must have caught her attention, and now she sets aside her books. Footsteps strike the floor with dull precision.

  “Are you finding everything you need?” the librarian asks in a whisper.

  From where she hovers, the woman can see only the back of the monitor, but the screen’s blue wash will reflect tellingly in his glasses. “Yes, ma’am,” Chagall says, mumbling into the keyboard. “I’m about finished now.”

  “I noticed you turned the computer off and back on again. That’s not necessary. Do you know how to log off from the internet?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. I’m sorry to be troublesome.” Chagall wants to bark at the woman’s self-important sincerity. As if her shitty computers matter.

  He steadies himself.

  “It’s no trouble,” the librarian is saying. “Next time, please ask the person at the desk for help.”

  “I’ll remember that, ma’am.”

  She moves along to the old guy.

  “Good morning, Mr. Farrell. How are you today?”

  Chagall rises and gimps his way toward the door.

  —

  The drizzle has let up. Streaks of blue show through cloud cover to the west. Hobbling toward the bus stop, Chagall is careful not to break character. He’ll catch a ride several stops beyond where he parked one of the pickups he uses to project a blur of identity toward whatever persons, security cameras, and databases might register his existence. He has stashed a change of clothes a few blocks from the truck. The man in the library will cease to exist.

  It’s tempting to continue fishing for clues to whether Romulus is a cop. As he lowers himself slowly onto a bench, cold but dry under the slanted roof of a bus shelter, Chagall turns the question over in his mind. At this stage the answer doesn’t matter much. There’s nothing to be gained by trusting an unknown accomplice. Romulus may make good on all claims, but Chagall will retire before he lets anybody else calls his shots.

  It riles him that Romulus imagines he would target a livestock cloning startup in Boston, the company they’ve been calling English Breakfast. He failed to account not only for population density, but also for the fact that research on Boston’s Route 128 is overwhelmingly medical. Yes, it’s true that amateurs planting bombs at biopharmaceutical campuses in the Bay Area have put West Coast targets on guard. Romulus got that right. The startup they nicknamed Aspirin is located less than a mile from Chiron Corporation, where an animal rights group planted explosives less than two months ago. But the medical angle would compromise their message whether they struck Boston or Emeryville. Only
fascist wingnuts win converts by attacking doctors. You might as well blow up a hospital.

  If Romulus is naïve enough to aim at fuzzy targets, he’s not qualified to draft their manifesto. Chagall sees their opening in grassroots rejection of growth hormone that taints commercial dairy products. Parents have already demonstrated they’ll shun rBGH in milk; it follows that they can be convinced their kids are threatened by mutant grains and the animals that eat them. Protecting the food supply is a goal that can gain support if their target is sharply focused. Hence Nebraska. Corn.

  Will his coconspirator deliver? Chagall will be interested to see what Romulus suggests as material contribution.

  He needs blueprints and a bot-driven propaganda typhoon from a nimble-fingered hacker. If Romulus gets the diagrams and participates physically in their conspiracy, Chagall will take his own game to the next level. He’ll run every play in his book—and likely some new ones besides—to mount their attack on a university research facility under construction on the outskirts of Lincoln. A building consecrated to agricultural biotech: the AgBio complex, as a campus spokesman names it in the local press.

  The bus is coming, in a miasma of diesel smog.

  Chagall, still playing the beaten-down vet, rises arthritically to his feet and digs in his pocket for change.

  SEVEN

  Allison sat in the salvaged wooden banker’s chair at Jonah’s desk, rocking gently forward and back. Jonah sat cross-legged on his bed. “Did you have any dinner?” she asked.

  “Chips and salsa.” Jonah kept his eyes on the history textbook spread open on carelessly straightened blankets, but the performance wasn’t fooling his mother.

  “That’s not much,” she said, keeping her voice even, her tone light. “Didn’t Brendan offer to take you on a burrito run, or for pizza?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “But we agreed on our walk to school—”

  “He’s all freaky now.”

  Allison sighed. Parenting had been so much more straightforward before teenage diffidence took root. “Jonah, I think he’s turned inward a little bit, after a rough time in Mexico. But he’s still the same Brendan.”