Empire City

by Matt Gallagher

  Chance or fate, Pete had asked. Sebastian knew which had saved him. It hadn’t been the government. It hadn’t been God. It’d been a luck even blinder than he was. He thought about his family offering to pay his ransom. They’d tried, at least, whatever the federals had to say about it. That’d taken courage. That’d taken love.

  So many others had died in Tripoli. Rangers. Soldiers. Terrorists. Insurgents. Innocents, too. Why had he lived? Others needed to be there. He’d chosen to. Sebastian pulled out his own phone. Into the web search he typed Abu Abdallah Wife and Baby.

  He scrolled down and clicked a website written in Arabic, pressing the translate button. His phone’s internal stateware issued an alert—this website had not been approved by cyber command. Whatever, he thought. I turn invisible. I’m already on every watch list there is.

  It was an op-ed from the Tripoli Post, dated three years prior.

  What are we to make of the unbelievers’ attack last week on a rice farm in the city outskirts? Let’s start with the bodies: at least sixty dead, to include dozens of local women and children. The invaders claim over thirty of their own were killed in the gunfire. That’s ninety human souls lost in minutes. For what?

  Or we could start with what you, what I, what everyone in Tripoli has been talking about since that bloody day: the bomb of fire that fell upon the farm. My mother’s mother says it came from Allah. My neighbor says it came from the invaders’ fighter jets. My joker son says it came from a fool American on a ship who fell asleep on the wrong button. I say all those can be true, or none. I also say I’ve never seen anything so bright and also so dark.

  Who amongst us didn’t believe in those minutes we were living the Hour of Judgment?

  Or we could start with the new fact that Umm Khalid was one of the Muslims martyred at the rice farm. She was one of the wives of the jihadist cleric Abu Abdallah, and not a native of our land or city. But she came here with her new child seeking peace. She came here seeking haven.

  We failed her. We failed her child. We did not protect them, as was our charge.

  My readers know what I think of the jihadists. They are dogs, barbarians who pervert the Quran. But after last week’s bombing, I am left wondering: What now is the right choice for Tripoli? What is the right choice to keep our families safe? Things like that did not happen until the unbelievers came here.

  Bomb of fire, Sebastian thought. Huh.

  He put away his phone. He looked up to find Pete looming over him, wraparound ballistic shades propped up on his head, a tower of muscle and light.

  “What’s so vital in that phone, hostage,” Pete said.

  “Nothing, really,” Sebastian said, trying to sound normal. “Work stuff.”

  Pete stared at him without blinking for what seemed like perpetuity. Sebastian knew he’d break under scrutiny. He almost hoped for it. Anything to get those two bright eyes of fury off him. Then Pete smiled wide, breaking the spell. “Just joshing. Roll out?”

  Sebastian set down cash so they didn’t have to wait for a bill. Where to next? Sebastian suggested a museum, or perhaps a panel discussion at Empire State University. Pete thought he was joking. As long as he was home in time for the new Utopia episode, Sebastian didn’t care. Bobby Kennedy survived the assassination attempt this episode, and he wanted to see how. They settled on Kiernan’s, a pub in the Village that claimed to be America’s oldest. Lincoln had campaigned there. Women hadn’t been allowed until the Haig administration. It was a historic place. Thanksgiving wishbones from World War I doughboys who didn’t make it home from France still hung from the rafters.

  “Have an ancestor who fought over there,” Pete said. “Trenches, man. Mustard gas, frontal charges… fucked-up shit! Got his tin helmet in storage, somewhere.”

  “Me, too,” Sebastian said. He didn’t think his family had a helmet memento but they could have. “Great-great-grandfather? Something like that.”

  Pete pulled out a flask of bourbon. They shared it, Sebastian sticking his tongue in its mouth to limit the intake.

  The city wasn’t crowded for the hour, but it wasn’t empty, either. “Defy” had taken on new meaning in the aftermath of the bombing, and citizens nodded at one another with grim solidarity. They stared up at Pete, wonder sealed across their faces, and Sebastian could hear them asking each other if they should ask for a photo. Only a Scandinavian couple and a youth soccer team mustered the courage. Everyone else just wanted to hold him in with their eyes, from a distance.

  They walked the bridge, languid and sun-kissed, sipping from the flask. They talked about the day-to-day practicalities of their powers: how Pete’s coursed within him, and he could always feel it, like his bloodstream had been spiked. Sebastian likened his to a lever in the back of his brain, and explained the migraines he often got after going invisible. Pete hadn’t taken a pain reliever in years so he couldn’t empathize. All his organs had distended, though, and doctors weren’t really sure what the long-term effects would be. Pete himself doubted he’d make it to fifty. That’s why he didn’t worry about credit card debt, he said. Or much else.

  Pete asked about Sebastian’s handler, Dorsett. Sebastian said he was a nice guy. Pete asked if Dorsett ever shared Bureau intel with him. Sebastian said no, not really. Then Pete said he’d help Sebastian develop his convalescent skills. Sebastian asked what that meant. “Hotwiring cars, field-dressing wounds, picking locks, that sort of thing,” Pete said. Sebastian asked why. “I’m putting you in VASP—Volunteers Assessment and Selection Program,” Pete said.

  Between that and the bourbon and the sun, Sebastian’s soul felt warm.

  Underneath the Old Gothic Bridge’s far tower, a man in rags squatted in a corner. His skin was stretched and worn and his beard was matted and he held a sign that read HOMELESS VET + PALM SUNDAY FIRST RESPONDER = PLEASE HELP IF U CAN, GOD BLESS. A few passing citizens placed coins in his jar. Most ignored him.

  Sebastian wondered if the man was a fake, then chided himself for it. Still, vets with troubles got placed in rehabilitation colonies—Block Island, the Outer Banks, even Hawaii. They’d earned it. They’d been warfighters. Some returned to the citizenry, full and whole again. Others lived out their days in paradise, brain-scarred but honored. It was one of the things that made America special.

  Pete approached the man in rags. “Hey, brother,” he said. “Who were you with?”

  The man looked up with eyes like mirrors. He had the blanched look of a maven addict. Maybe he was legit. Only veterans and mega-rich assholes had access to that drug. He wore a faded ultra cap with the slogan WE THE PEOPLE on it, as well as a yellow rubber bracelet decorated with antifascist arrows. Quite the mix, Sebastian thought.

  “Twenty-Fifth Infantry,” the man said. “Twice to Syria. Once to Cyprus.”

  Pete winced, pulling out his wallet. “Tip of the spear,” he said. “Cyprus was nasty.”

  He handed the man six twenties, $120 in total. The man put a palm on top of Pete’s fist in gratitude. Sebastian wanted to tell him he’d be better off buying the man a meal, or maybe putting the money toward those credit card bills, but didn’t. I could be wrong about the maven, he thought, looking again at the man’s vacant expression and dark bags underneath his eyes.

  But I’m not.

  Two city police in uniform appeared on the bridge’s walkway, moving with purpose. They wore light tactical vests fitted with ammo pouches and chemical spray holders and black Tasers sleek as ice. They ignored Pete and Sebastian and went straight to the man in rags. One reached down and grabbed him under the elbow.

  “Need to clear the bridge,” the other said.

  “Who’s he harming?” Pete’s words flexed, and he set his shoulders back. He stood a full head higher than both police. Ignoring him had been a mistake. “Just checked—this ain’t Abu Abdallah.”

  The one who’d gripped the man in rags straightened his back and turned around with contrived slowness. He was thick and broad, the type of linebacker Irish that’d mad
e up the thin blue line in Empire City for more than a century. Sebastian put him in his mid-thirties. He looked Pete up and down, registering Sebastian with a quick flicker.

  “Orders are to clear the bridge.”

  Both cops were lacquered in sweat, Sebastian noticed, and bore the wide-eyed shine that came from recurring early mornings and long nights. The ECPD had received much of the national blame for the attacks. There was talk the police commissioner had submitted his resignation. It’s been a rough stretch for these guys, Sebastian thought. Maybe we should—

  “Look at the city right now,” Pete said. “And you’re fucking with a bum.”

  “I’m a citizen,” the man in rags said, his voice arcing. Sebastian peered closer. It wasn’t the same guy from the subway, or the guy collecting bottles. This guy was leaner. More downtrodden yet younger-seeming, somehow. “The tribunal druids will just send me back. But I don’t want to go. I was a lieutenant! I had power. I had a life. The colonies are clinks.”

  No one responded. The other policeman, slighter than his partner but still built, moved his hands to his belt, hooking his thumbs into the loops. Intentional or not, it called attention to the pistol holstered there.

  “All good, officers,” Sebastian said. “We’re heading out.”

  If Pete heard Sebastian, he made no sign of it. He and the first cop were flashing invisible feathers at each other like peacocks, the man in rags between them. Dark Irish implacability versus a soldier’s ambered rage. The policeman looked tough to Sebastian, and resolute. The kind of man he’d want beside him in a dim alley, and would fear provoking. The kind of man who believed in order above all else, which, combined with physical courage and a keen moral sense, made for an ideal enforcer of democratic law. But he knew the man would look away first. And it wouldn’t be his fault when he did.

  The man in rags saved everyone from whatever was supposed to come next.

  “Now, now,” he said, stumbling to his feet with the help of a beam. “We’re all warfighters here.”

  He promptly hocked up a stream of brown phlegm into the river.

  That dispelled most of the testosterone from the bridge, but not all of it. As Sebastian stepped away and Pete moved to follow, the second cop said, “Be easy, boys.”

  Pete stopped, cracked his neck, and seemed to consider his options. He pulled out the flask. Then he took a drink, sloppy and full, facing the police and the city at once. Pete licked his lips, staring at the cops for long, scratchy seconds.

  “Defy the guards,” he finally said. “Guard those who defy.”

  Why he was quoting far leftist dogma, Sebastian had no idea.

  The police looked at one another, their faces blank but tight. The larger one raised his hands to the top of his vest, pulling it down to relieve some of the pressure from his shoulders. The other did nothing. Without a word, they turned to the man in rags and helped collect his things.

  “America Honors the Warfighter!” Sebastian called back, injecting his voice with as much earnestness as he could.

  The man in rags smiled and put his hand across his heart, looking down into the river. “The honor is ours.”

  As they walked across the remainder of the bridge, Sebastian replayed what he’d just witnessed. He felt a bit in awe, and a lot in dismay. Maybe it was the suburbanite in him. Maybe it was the former Boy Scout. Maybe it was the blood—even half-Bolivians from the upper middle class knew they didn’t have white-people latitude with police. Maybe it was something else. But he’d never seen anyone treat a cop like that.

  “Goose-steppers,” Pete said, mostly to himself. Then, “Some people are just dented cans, you know? Nothing to be done.”

  Sebastian didn’t want to opine about goose-steppers or about dented cans.

  “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

  Pete shrugged. “Part of the social contract, I think.” Then he grinned up at the afternoon sun and took yet another sip of bourbon.

  Sebastian wasn’t sure which social contract Pete meant. It didn’t sound like something from any America that’d come before.

  CHAPTER 8

  “MUST SEEM SMALLER to you, being back.”

  Mia thought the opposite—the halls of Riverbrook felt larger, somehow—and told the dean so. He shrugged and poked his head into an ajar locker.

  “Memory can be a beast,” he said.

  Riverbrook School (“A Fine Place to Learn”) had been built on a leafy, quiet block in a northwestern corner of the city some seven decades before, molding the young minds of future statesmen, financiers, and an occasional drug merchant in the duration. It was modest, as Empire City private schools went: simple uniform, demanding-but-not-draconian academics, mandatory volunteer work in the community, et cetera. Mia had attended Riverbrook from kindergarten through eighth grade, and still held it in regard, if not deep affection. It was a good school, like many others.

  “How are the kids?” Mia asked. Three weeks had passed since the war memorial bombings. Public transportation across the city remained a horror show and the lack of arrests had become a national punch line. The academic year beginning on time seemed a little step toward normalcy, at least. “Skittish?”

  “Less than you’d think.” The dean closed the locker and they continued down the hall. He’d introduced himself at the front desk as “Riverbrook’s Resident Tyrant.” He was a bowling ball of a man, sixty or so, wearing an old suit and new tie. “Young people—easy to forget, sometimes. They’re adaptable.”

  “A gift.” Mia’s thoughts drifted toward the aftermath in Vietnam Victory Square, and the tour group she’d helped reunite. The young girl finding her father again had been a high point. The Korean War vet dying from a heart attack as they pulled shrapnel from his leg had been the nadir. It’d been a long evening. The acrid tang of burnt metal had lingered in her throat for days.

  “So, your cousin tell you much about the class?”

  “It’s a history course,” Mia said. “And they’re studying modern conflict.”

  “Innovative approach, starting now and working backward. Not how my generation did things but that’s okay. They’ll get to Nam in November, just in time for V-V Day and the parade.”

  “Are you a veteran of Vietnam?” Mia felt sure he was. The dean had the look about him. The moxie, too. “Praise to the Victors.”

  “Protestor.”

  “Oh. I—” Mia didn’t know what to say. She was almost never wrong about this. “My mom was one of those. A protestor, I mean.”

  “A long time ago,” the dean said.

  “Did you—did you go to jail?”

  The dean nodded. “Society’s tried real hard to make us embarrassed about it. But I’m not.” He sniffed. “ ‘Peacemongers.’ That’s no insult.”

  “Proud, then?” They were nearing the classroom. Mia was curious. The dean was right. Most Vietnam protestors expressed shame now. Or had learned to fake it.

  “Not exactly. We were more right than wrong. But we weren’t all right, either. Now it’s just something I did forty years ago. A lot’s happened since. My life, for one.”

  “I think it’s good,” Mia said. “You believed in something.”

  “Belief can be good,” the dean said. “So can doubt. Like I tell the kids, it all depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  The dean winked and held the door. “The billion-dollar question.”

  They walked into the classroom as the bell sounded. Twenty or so sixth graders sat in rows as ordered as any army formation, a muted, bantam energy crackling along the verges. Mia found her cousin Quentin in the middle of the third row. He smiled a little grin and waved. Mia introduced herself to the teacher, a man about her age built like a long, spruce Y. He thanked her for coming and set up the slide show. The dean took a desk in the back.

  The lights were dimmed and Mia began, selected photographs from her tours cycling behind her.

  “How many of you know a World War Two veteran?” she asked. “Like a
grandfather.”

  A few hands went vertical. They’re so young, Mia thought.

  “How many of you know a Vietnam veteran?” she asked. “Father, uncle, something like that.”

  Many more raised hands filled the room, including the dean’s.

  “Now,” Mia asked. “How many of you know someone who has served in the Mediterranean Wars?”

  Thirty years was a lot of war, but most of the hands fell like diving birds in rhythm. She pointed at those left raised.

  “My brother,” a girl said. She was proud, Mia liked that. “My cousin,” Quentin said, and the class laughed. “My old neighbor,” another boy said. “They moved to the army base in the South,” he explained.

  “Does my nanny’s boyfriend count?” still another boy asked. Mia looked at him. He wasn’t trying to be funny.

  “Have you met him?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Then of course.”

  “He got blown up bad,” the boy said. “Stepped on a trash bomb.”

  The room shifted his way. Other boys wanted to know the gory particulars. Mia asked about the recovery.

  “Don’t know,” the boy said, slumping back with his hands in his pockets. “They broke up.”

  Mia discussed her own journey from Riverbrook to the military—the meaning of service, the power and importance of it, too. She talked about her early failures at flight school, and the power and importance of overcoming those failures. She talked about missing family during deployments, and the power and importance of letters and care packages. She talked about leadership, and how good leaders were also good followers. Then she asked for questions.

  They weren’t shy. They were old enough to be informed but young enough to be unfamiliar with the art of guile. That mattered in these conversations. They wanted to know about the helicopters she’d flown, so they asked that. They wanted to know about the guns she’d carried, so they asked that. They wanted to know about women soldiers, so they asked that. They wanted to know if she’d killed, and how many, and how. So they asked that.