Cost of Life

by Joshua Corin

  Even though downtown Garland was closed today, every window still bore an American flag. The main street was littered with tinsel and poppers from the parade. A banner stretched above it all, spanning from streetlight to streetlight, declaring in red, white, and blue letters: GOD BLESS AMERICA! Some might have labeled such an uncynical display of affection as kitsch. Madeline wiped at her tears. When she retired—which could not come soon enough—she was going to retire to Garland, Virginia, yes, indeed.

  She parked her Porsche in the high school lot, not far from the long colorful trailers belonging to the company that set up the fair, and had only stepped out in the breeze—which already smelled of popcorn and cotton candy—when the right pocket of her shorts vibrated. She checked the screen. She considered ignoring the caller. This was her day off, goddamn it. She shut her car door and leaned against it and pressed TALK.

  “Hey, Coleman, what’s up?”

  “You need to come in.”

  From here, she could see the whole fair. In addition to the Ferris wheel, there was a roller coaster that would have felt right at home snaking along Jefferson Hill’s twisty purple trail. The midway was lined with booths and the booths were lined with stuffed animals. A merry-go-round circled near the tall arch that served as the fairground’s entrance/exit. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” echoed out from the merry-go-round’s speakers. And everywhere she looked, Madeline saw happy faces.

  But Coleman wouldn’t have asked her to come in unless it was a legitimate emergency.

  “I can be there in fifteen,” she said, and hung up.

  The aroma of cotton candy teased at her stomach. If churches could smell like that, she mused, the world would be filled with Christians. She got back into her car and peeled out of the parking lot. The way she figured: The faster she left Garland, the sooner she’d stop longing for it.

  As if that were the way regret worked.

  The drive to Foggy Bottom was decidedly less relaxed. Not even Louis Armstrong’s witty trumpeting, coming through in crystalline sound from the Porsche’s state-of-the-art speakers, helped. But at least the trip didn’t take too long. Madeline parked in one of the blessedly available spots in front of the Truman Building’s limestone-pillared east entrance, hung her special permit from her rearview mirror, and proceeded at double-speed toward the tall glass doors. By the time she reached the guards inside, she already had her security badge clipped to her tank top.

  Her final destination was Meeting Room 5E, located down the corridor from an executive office suite that budget cuts had rendered unpopulated for months now. Madeline wasn’t sympathetic to the loss; public budget cuts meant heavier government reliance on private contractors like Bellum Vellum to pick up the slack.

  Before joining the rest in 5E, Madeline stopped in her office, drew the blinds, and changed into a spare pantsuit she always stored on the back of her door. Appearances, after all, were everything, especially at the State Department.

  At her post, Madeline worked closely with the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security; the undersecretary’s executive assistant, Barrett Coleman, had been the one to call her, and his was the only face to offer a pleasant nod when, freshly attired, she finally entered Meeting Room 5E. Truth be told, the other seven people in the room had their eyes glued to the man on the screen, the secretary of state himself, appearing via videoconference from, if Madeline remembered correctly, a diplomatic layover in Brussels. The other seven people were a nondescript bunch. Two were black, one was Latino, but each and every one wore a bland suit over a plus-sized physique. Each and every one wore a watch. Each and every one was a man.

  Madeline took a seat beside Coleman. He passed her a briefing memo. When she reached a line item near the bottom of the page, she knew why her presence had been requested. Based on the fuel remaining in the airplane, analysts had come up with a list of potential airstrips that Flight 816 could reach if it were to take off again. One locale in particular was underlined: José Martí International Airport, Havana.

  Of course, all those predictions could be rendered moot by a line item at the middle of the page outlining authorized intervention. If said authorized intervention kept to the listed timetable, they would be securing the perimeter around the barn in—Madeline checked her Rolex—now, actually. She might get to spend time at the fair after all.

  Chapter 30

  There were eight men in the grove outside the barn. They were not soldiers. They were Delta Force operators and they were here to do what no one else could do. They were here to end the hostage situation inside the barn. Once the order was given from their commander, they would be swift and they would be lethal. Delta Force did not leave enemy combatants alive.

  As was unit custom, each of the eight men went by the call sign Hellhound. Hellhound-1 and Hellhound-2 were up in an orange tree. They were the spotters. The other men had taken positions at the corners of the barn.

  Now came the tricky part: waiting.

  A Delta Force operator could pinpoint a shot from six hundred yards away but waiting could tax the willpower of even the toughest badass.

  To pass the time, they played a game.

  “Achille Lauro,” whispered Hellhound-3. He had won the last round so he got to choose. “October seven, 1985.”

  After a moment’s thought, Hellhound-8 piped in: “I could do it with four men.” He was stationed at the northeast corner. Like his comrades, Hellhound-8 was costumed head-to-toe in blacks. He had a pitch-painted radio mike near his lips, an H&K MP5 submachine gun at the ready, a hip-holstered nineteen-round Glock as a secondary weapon, and a six-inch-long stainless-steel serrated knife secured in a sheath at his calf in case shit got close. “No, make that three men. Three men.”

  “I hear three men,” Hellhound-1 arbitrated. “Can anyone do it with two?”

  Silence.

  “Go ahead with your scenario, Eight.”

  In real life, President Reagan had ordered a deployment of both SEALs and Delta Force to engage the Palestinian hijackers on the Achille Lauro; the soldiers were on standby when retired Jewish American businessman Leon Klinghoffer was executed and tossed overboard. The standby order was never lifted. On October 8, 1985, the hijackers docked their captured cruise ship in Egypt and then escaped on a commercial jet not unlike the one currently housed inside the orange grove barn. Most of the hijackers were captured soon after and brought to justice. Most—but not all.

  “We’re waiting, Eight. Exact your scenario or pass.”

  “OK, OK. I’m envisioning an underwater infiltration.”

  “Oh really?” murmured Hellhound-7. “What made you figure that? Was it ’cause the ship’s in the middle of the sea?”

  Hellhound-1 grinned but said, “Let him finish.”

  As Hellhound-8 whispered his three-character narrative of wish fulfillment derring-do, Hellhound-1 reflected on the similarity between an underwater infiltration and what was planned for them here. The main obstacle in storming the airplane—any airplane—was the undetected acquisition of egress. Here, they had the added barrier of the barn/hangar. Barriers demanded creativity, and Delta Force could be very, very creative.

  The barn had two wall-wide doors at either end of its east–west axis. Based on the tracks gouged into the topsoil, it was the west end that had served as entryway for Flight 816 upon arrival. None of that mattered. If all went to plan, the eight Delta Force operators wouldn’t be using the doors until the very end.

  “…and once our scout has finished his sweep, he gives the go-ahead to our two snipers who take out the hijackers from her perch: pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Easy peasy.”

  “Nothing’s ever that easy,” Hellhound-4 editorialized.

  “Your mama’s that easy,” Hellhound-7 editorialized.

  “That’s only ’cause she learned from your mama.”

  “Play nice, children,” said Hellhound-1. “Don’t make me come down there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

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nbsp; “Sorry, sir.”

  Hellhound-1 nodded in approval. “All right. So, Eight, your op sounded solid.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “There’s just one problem. You had your snipers take five shots. There were only four enemy targets on the Achille Lauro. Your snipers took out a civilian.”

  “Not true, sir. I’ve got Muhammad Zaidan receiving a double-tap.”

  That seemed fair. On October 9, 1985, Muhammad Zaidan, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, was smuggled to safety and had remained at large until 2003, when American forces engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom stumbled upon him on the route from Baghdad to Damascus.

  “That’s a good call, Eight. Fine job.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s your turn.”

  “Gimme a minute, sir.”

  Hellhound-1 used the time to adjust his balance on the thick branch of his orange tree. Because he had lathered with malodorous DEET shortly before arrival, he could barely enjoy the sweet citrus scent around him. Still, better to be dipped in insect repellent than have to deal with the truly stygian bugs that called Central Florida home. The sun wasn’t doing him any favors, though, and soon his chemical bath would be washed off with his sweat.

  Florida in July was not a picnic, no.

  But he had been in worse places at worse times.

  They all had. They adjusted. All that mattered was the mission.

  “OK, I got it. The Hanafi Siege. March nine, 1977.”

  “We already did that one on the plane, man,” grumbled Hellhound-7. “You know, while you were snoring? You sounded like my grandmother’s sick cat. Is that what’s going on, man? You a pussy?”

  “Stifle it, both of you, or I’ll detonate the tunnels behind you myself.”

  Because that was where Hellhound-7 and Hellhound-8 currently resided: in tunnels dug underneath the north and south walls of the barn. This improvised solution surmounted the problem of detectable noise from the doors opening and the problem of detectable sunlight from, say, removing the barn doors’ planks one by one. Plus, it had the added value of three-dimensional thinking, as American infantrymen had learned all too well in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

  When the word was given, 7 and 8 would silently emerge inside the barn and quickly scout the area; the airplane’s thermal signature made it impossible for the spy satellites to determine if there were any hostiles on patrol inside the barn. Once 7 and 8 gave the all-clear, Hellhounds 3, 4, 5, and 6 would crawl through the tunnels, join them inside the barn, and commence in earnest Operation Orange Rescue.

  They had found the shovels on the property.

  They also found the property’s former managers, or at least their remains, tucked into a corner of the main building, which may have at one point in its life functioned as a plantation home, but neglect had emaciated its columns and poked holes in its floorboards. The walls were thick with kudzu and fungus.

  The managers, a literal mom and pop, had been shot in the chest and set in the corner of a storage room piled full with empty, open-topped wooden boxes. The bodies of three day laborers were found at the base of a tree. Wheeled tracks, belonging to a tractor or maybe an apple-picker, led from their resting place to the eastern door of the barn.

  Judging by the accumulation of flies and the mild decomposition of the corpses—and taking into account the region’s extreme humidity—the bodies had been lifeless for approximately twenty-four to thirty-six hours. And the Delta Force operators had no choice but to leave the dead where they were. No proper burial. No notification of kin. That was the responsibility of others.

  Over his headset, Hellhound-1 heard his commander’s voice. He nodded and then relayed the news via his radio mike to his team.

  They were a go in five.

  Chapter 31

  As the hour drew closer and closer to twelve, the volume of conversation inside Philips Arena lowered steadily to a hush. CNN broadcast in HD from the Jumbotron above the thousands—families, friends, supporters, community leaders, police, press—gathered below. The floor was a tapestry of humanity and just about every person, like ancient Hermes, produced his or her own source of light, emitted from either their smartphone or their tablet. All browsers were locked in perpetual refresh on the hijackers’ website—not active yet, but soon, soon, and as the hour drew closer, the volume of conversation lowered steadily to a hush—save for the soundproofed, glass-tinted skybox up and to the left of the stage, where Sutton Buttle Jr., chairman of Pegasus Airlines, was bellowing invectives at his just-arrived attorneys, Mr. Gradgrey and Mr. Glass:

  “And what I don’t understand most of all—the cherry on the motherfucking sundae, gentlemen—is how you can come here and tell me—to my face—tell me that somehow I’m the bad guy in all this, as if I hijacked my own airplane!”

  “Mr. Buttle, no one is implying that you personally are complicit in today’s events. What we merely came here to discuss are issues of corporate liability—”

  “Ah yes. There’s the word again. ‘Liability.’ Gentlemen, did the plane not work? Did one of the wings suddenly flop off and fly away on its own? Did the landing gears stick because they were improperly maintained?”

  Gradgrey and Glass exchanged glances. Neither fellow was entirely sure if the questions were rhetorical or if their client was actually demanding an answer. All they knew for certain was the law, and the law was never rhetorical. The law always demanded an answer. So they patiently waited for their client’s tantrum to subside.

  “My airplanes are in perfect condition because I spend a lot of money making sure they are in perfect condition because I want to be able to sell them for a price that will make my stockholders happy because when my stockholders are unhappy, they have a habit of making me unhappy, and when I’m unhappy, I have a habit of punching people in the face. Would either of you like me to punch you in the face?”

  The lawyers shook their heads.

  “My job is protect my stockholders. Your job is to protect me. And yet you come here and tell me that I’m vulnerable to litigation because a bunch of crazy people decided to be crazy on my property?”

  “First of all, sir,” Gradgrey piped in, “and I guess it bears repeating: You are not personally vulnerable. The company is, although not to litigation, I assure you. We would never let any complaint escalate to a trial. In cases like this, juries are notoriously anti-corporation.”

  Buttle smacked a hand against the obsidian surface of the bar. “But I did nothing wrong!”

  The door to the skybox suite opened, and a pair of women wheeled in a cart. On the cart was an assortment of stainless-steel serving trays covered by stainless-steel domes—but the fragrance of the food on those trays and underneath those domes could not be contained. Buttle’s wife, who had been sitting by the suite’s glass wall, got up and approached the cart as the servers lifted the covers and revealed a phalanx of pulled pork sandwiches beside a plateau of bacon-and-chive mashed potatoes beside a lake of peach cobbler. Plates and utensils were on the middle shelf of the cart. A twelve-pack of Coke Zero and an arrangement of glasses occupied the bottom shelf.

  “Thank you, ladies!”

  As Buttle leapt at the food, his wife reached into her small white purse, removed two twenty-dollar bills, and palmed one to each of the servers, who smiled at her kindness and left. Buttle piled his plate with a heaping of everything—and handed it to the missus, who received it quietly and just as quietly brought it back to her spot by the window. Buttle piled his second plate with even more edible goodness, placed it on the bar, chewed a mouthful out of his first sandwich, cried out in wet glee, and then strolled a fork, glass, and soda can over to his better half.

  “Thank you,” she signed.

  “You’re welcome,” he signed back. His fingers were mud-colored with BBQ sauce.

  The lawyers goggled at the quantity of moist, savory food. Mr. Gradgrey reached for a sandwich. Mr. Glass slapped his hand away and shook his head.
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br />   “Now, where was I,” said Buttle. “Oh. Right. We were discussing how you two little shits have no problem cashing your monthly retainer but you seem to have a problem earning it. Tell me something, gentlemen. When a convenience store is robbed and the immigrant from New Delhi who’s standing behind the counter gets his brown ass shot, can his family successfully sue the owners of the store?”

  “Can they sue? Yes. Can they win? No. Their complaint would most likely be dismissed at hearing. But those circumstances and these circumstances are vastly different.”

  Buttle slurped at his Coke. “Then convince me, motherfuckers. Because here I am, against my better wishes, because my publicist convinced me to be here and participate in the one P.M. press conference because she said it would be good for the image of the company. She convinced me. And you cocksuckers charge me twice as much an hour. So explain to me how the owner of the convenience store isn’t liable but I am. Go ahead. According to the clock, you got three minutes. But if you can’t convince me in the next three minutes that what you have to say is what I need to hear, you’re just a couple of empty-handed cunt-lickers and I’m going to make sure by the end of the day your boss sticks a pink slip so far up each of your asses you’ll be choking on them.”

  Mr. Gradgrey looked to Mr. Glass.

  Mr. Glass looked to Mr. Gradgrey.

  So Mr. Gradgrey took up the charge:

  “If you have not already, you will be receiving a phone call from your insurance adjuster. They will discuss your fleet policy as well as your combined single limit coverage. Please note that as per the limit, there are mandated caps on each of these numbers but there will be a push to indemnify as soon as possible. Also note that nothing I have mentioned thus far encapsulates potential bodily harm, but that discussion is dependent on whether we are discussing injury to a passenger. At one hundred seventy-four total passengers, some of whom may have purchased their own policies, the matter, you will agree, is germane, although, with all due respect, it is the actions of your employees during this crisis that have exacerbated your liability.”