by Julian Folk
The chairman puts on a rhetorical exhibition, speaking in elegant paragraphs.
Amber redirects her laser to Ayelet.
Does she have to?
She finally asks about the hacking:
“Miss Martin, I’m a mother of three. The security of my vehicle is very important to me. State investigators have indeed confirmed that your vehicle’s computer was hacked and controlled remotely. Will you describe for our audience what the experience of being driven against your will, in reverse, by a computer hacker, at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, was like?”
Don’t be cute—four people died.
“It was horrifying. I would never wish it on anyone. These hackers played dice with my life and the lives of dozens, if not hundreds, of drivers, including those poor souls who died. Our hearts go out to them. I hope every law enforcement officer in the nation is looking for the people who did this. If it happened to me, it could happen to—”
Hearing murmurs outside, Ilyse looks to the door. Ayelet’s concentration wavers. She hears boot steps. In her periphery, she sees Connor and Xavier turn their heads.
She talks until the door comes down.
The SWAT cop who toppled the door tosses his battering ram to the side.
A wall of black ballistic shields, guns and helmets encroaches on Ayelet. The light rigger and camera man get tapped in the head and the heart instantly. The sound man sucks up a spray of bullets as he lunges to protect Ilyse.
Bullets compel Ilyse’s arms and legs to dance.
Xavier bounces up from his seat. This man brought Connor and Ayelet to North Berkshire. He’s protecting us; he’s protecting our baby. The bullets treat Xavier’s cranium like a pincushion. Ayelet wants to catch Connor’s falling boss. But she fears she’ll also catch the bullets shredding his organs, muscles and nerves. She lets Xavier fall.
Cara sticks her hands up. Ayelet senses the pressure of fingers on triggers. So tense, so afraid, so hopped up, so badly misinformed. Self-restraint taxes the SWAT team. They scream orders at Cara to get to her knees, spread her arms and lie face down.
Ilyse freezes and bleeds.
Spritzed with Xavier’s blood, Connor and Ayelet gawk hollowly. The lead SWAT officer dives in Ayelet’s face and manhandles her shoulders.
“ARE THERE ANY MORE OF THEM?” he asks.
She hasn’t placed her hand on her belly to protect Baby.
The movement would’ve attracted bullets.
“Your information is wrong, Officer,” she says, too frightened to risk eye contact.
SWAT cops clear the rooms.
“CLEAR.”
“CLEAR.”
“CLEAR.”
“CLEAR.”
“CLEAR.”
Chapter 9
Doing nothing, Connor lives.
Silent, motionless, staring straight ahead.
The safest play.
SWAT cops kneel at the bodies, compress chests, expel air. Paramedics storm the place, swap out, take over.
Not a firing neuron of life in those bodies.
Ilyse whimpers. The bullets sliced nerves and shattered bones. Paramedics stabilize her on a stretcher. “Can you call my mother?” she asks Ayelet.
Ayelet’s mind has left the building.
Outside, SWAT cops curse the hackers and stomp the concrete.
Trauma plays tricks on Connor’s mind. His consciousness recedes from the scene. A second wave of invaders storms the house. More paramedics, state troopers, North Berkshire cops. Nobody wears plastic on their boots. Not a question asked about the sequence of events.
The blood congeals. Boots get traction. The sticky-floor-sounds sicken Connor. Excretory odors stir his sickness.
A paramedic calls Ilyse’s mom for her and holds the phone to the producer’s ear. Somehow Ilyse reports numbers of shots fired, shooters, dead and wounded. Her mom asks a question. Ilyse assesses Connor and Ayelet from the stretcher. “Oh, they’re really pale and completely blank… No, they were spared… No, I don’t know why…”
Connor wakes up to the action washing over him. He seeks refuge in personal concerns. The deaths in the house mean they’ll never stay another night here. The fake emails criticizing identity politics mean he’ll never work in academia again. He’s so afraid Robert, Melody, the boys and Mom and Dad are suffering the same kind of Siege.
Isoldi returns. To gain entry, she negotiates hard, citing her rapport with the homeowners and her assignment to watch the house.
Leery of blood spatter—it’s evidence, after all—she hugs Ayelet.
“The call I got was a prank,” Isoldi says. “We drove away and hackers logged a bullshit 911 call in the system. Issued a bullshit order to state police. They said the news van outside was fake, this was a home invasion, ISIS jagoffs were holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make a tape.”
None of this helps Connor.
He eyes Isoldi’s belt again. Her weapons: gun, Taser, pepper spray, baton. Unhackable hardware. Pre-digital. Gets the job done.
“You need to leave for the night,” Isoldi says. “Let me talk to the Police Director about where to put you.”
When Isoldi’s out of earshot, Connor says, “We gotta go off the grid, Babe.”
The grid kills.
“I’m majorly pregnant,” Ayelet says.
“There’s nothing these hackers won’t do,” Connor says.
The spirit of Eric Rice animates them.
“My family could be…” he says.
No response. For a minute. She ponders it. “We need to go, but we need to do it right.”
How to do it right? A mystery.
“Your parents are rich,” Connor says. “We could use their wealth to investigate these people, fight them, or just hide in a secluded place, find a cabin near a hospital.”
“But my parents lack…an ethical compass,” she says.
She refuses to get specific.
He just doesn’t understand.
Shock hazes memory.
Husband and wife stay glued to their stools. State detectives question them to no avail. The truth about this event is unchangeable. The killings transpired a certain way. But their memories are dynamic, under revision, in flux. “You know, I’m not sure what the SWAT guy said to me,” Ayelet says. “I’m just not sure. I know I heard the word ‘clear.’ Someone said it in each room.”
Paramedics probe their bodies. Investigators take samples. Cameras flash.
“This is a crime scene,” says the state trooper at the door.
His arms bar the entry of a muscular man in a dark suit.
“FBI,” the man says.
The syllables sing in Connor’s mind. EFF BEE EYE. Gruff. Low-pitched. Insistent. Oozing testosterone.
Big Bro. The letter hasn’t even reached him yet. He must’ve listened to Connor’s vague voicemails and followed the case on his own…
Robert dips down to hug Connor and smack his welt-ridden back. Connor processes this at a snail’s pace. Robert stands him up. “Wish my boss got shot and not yours, Little Bro.” Robert hugs his younger brother again and covertly slips an envelope in his pocket.
He raises Ayelet to her feet. “You too, Mommy,” he says and hugs the spaced out woman and slips an envelope in her pocket, too. “Shit got so serious,” he says, “I don’t care anymore that you’re a lesbian.”
Connor watches this. He scans the room. None of the responders witnessed the transfer. Their work consumes them.
“Don’t trust anyone unless I vouch for them,” Robert whispers.
“Who do you vouch for?” Connor asks.
“Not now,” he says, hand muffling mouth. “Don’t use or go near anything hackable—phones, gadgets or appliances. I’m loaning you an old car. Don’t ride in anything that was manufactured in this century.”
“Who’s doing this?” Ayelet asks.
“Can’t say. I got a couple lines in the water,” Robert says. “Both of you, think back in your past to people who mig
ht’ve felt wronged by you. If you get a lead, contact me on the number I programmed into the burners. I gotta piss. I’ve been on the road six-and-a-half hours—why couldn’t you move farther away, Little Bro? Where’s your bathroom?”
“Make a right at the hallway,” Connor says. “First door on the left.”
Ayelet touches his side, tentatively.
Connor digs a hand in his pocket, to be sure of the contents.
“We’re supposed to just drive away?” Ayelet whispers.
“I’d prefer witness protection,” Connor says.
“Obviously, it’s not safe.”
“There must be instructions in the envelope.”
“We’ll ask Robert for clarification.”
“There must be money, too.”
The North Berkshire Police Director, Michael Spagnoli, asks Connor and Ayelet to wait in the front yard.
“Let us pack a bag,” Connor says.
“Quick,” Spagnoli says.
They pass the bathroom. Robert runs water. He always runs water to mask the thunder of his pee. What a waste.
Husband and wife pack. Fast and thorough. The backpacks become a kind of personal Noah’s ark, containing two of everything, though Ayelet stuffs one of her pilot manuscripts in Connor’s bag. “For insurance,” she says.
An epiphany: “What if our stuff is tagged?” she asks.
“Inspect everything.”
This is how they must be:
Vigilant. Ruthlessly so. Even paranoid.
They empty their bags, ruffle the shirts pants and underwear. Next they inspect their toiletries and toss them in.
“No Kindle, I guess,” Ayelet says.
“Don’t joke,” Connor says.
They don sweatshirts and jeans. Considering the eight innocent people dead for the sake of Connor and Ayelet’s harassment, never has a couple been so in danger and so much a danger to others. Never has a couple been readier to save their own collective ass.
By saving themselves, or just dying elsewhere, they save others.
Robert has their back. He hooked up phones, a vehicle, a safe house (hopefully) and cash (they assume). Big Bro and the FBI will hunt these neckbeards to the ends of the earth and destroy them.
Ayelet kisses Connor on the mouth. He closes the bedroom door. For the last time. At the far end of the hallway, Police Director Spagnoli knocks on the bathroom door.
“Agent Yard?” he asks. “State CID would like a word.”
Connor and Ayelet approach.
“Outside. I told you guys,” Spagnoli says. “I’m sorry.”
The faucet still runs in the bathroom. Been a while. Actually, the water blasts the basin. This is the world’s longest pee. Now, something hits the tub.
What’s going on?
“My brother’s been peeing more than five minutes, Director,” Connor says.
A loud thud. Perhaps a shampoo bottle hitting the bathtub bottom. Connor imagines the shampoo pouring down the drain.
That’s what’s happening to his life.
Connor believes he’s incapable of saving himself and Ayelet. Someone else must do it. It should be Robert. Connor devoted a decade of adult life to fighting people who hurt others with words. Not once has he even contemplated this type of threat: a coordinated group—and it must be a group, affiliated with a corporation or government—using technology against him and his wife this way. Taking lives.
Spagnoli bangs on the door.
Robert makes no sound.
The Police Director backs up. He charges the door. It won’t give.
You’re too old.
“Why is this shit happening to us?” Ayelet asks.
“Hey-a, I need big strong bodies over here—FIVE MINUTES AGO!” Spagnoli yells.
Connor charges like a bull, channeling repressed energy and strength, and rams the bathroom door.
His head crashes sideways against the wood, after his arms and shoulder and fists crash against it. He hears sounds of struggle under the blasting water. Shoes kick the enameled steel tub. Men snarl and writhe.
The cops push Connor aside.
One-after-another they crash against the door with greater impact and nonexistent concern for their bodies. The lock breaks. They shove inside. Connor elbows Spagnoli out of the way and shoves in after them.
Thick black-sleeved arms asphyxiate Robert. The arms come in from the window, like brawny tentacles. Asphyxiation turns Robert’s face blue and his eyes red. Connor fears Robert’s bulging eyes will pop out of their sockets.
A full beard, dyed black as ink, partially masks the Strangler’s face. Cops punch his arms. Those brawny tentacles pull tighter and leach Robert’s life, posthaste.
The Strangler: White man. Ruthless. Dedicated. Maximally fit but camouflaged by fat and hair. Eyes on his target. Mind on the work.
“Shoot him!” Connor says.
Ain’t no prying this man’s arms off.
The moment a gun is unholstered, the Strangler disappears. The gun fires. Robert drops and sinks in the tub. Connor muffles his ears, belatedly.
Cops howl for paramedics. Howl orders to shoot the bearded guy in the backyard. The cop who fired stands on the edge of the tub, leans the heels of his hands on the window, looks for the Strangler.
“Hopping the fuckin’ fence,” the cop howls and fires.
A burning shell casing flips backward and singes Connor’s neck.
Robert, the invincible brother, gets lifted off the bottom of the tub and lain on the tile. Purple hue, slow respiration. Paramedics pour in. Connor hovers. The Police Director seizes Connor’s hood and pulls him, but Little Bro converts himself to dead weight.
Robert mouths the words, “Drive, man. Go. Now...”
Chapter 10
Franklin Square, Long Island
This week Jan and Jimmy forgot to order from Chen’s Garden. No worries. The proprietor, Kevin, called and asked what they’d like. “Business’s slow, Mrs. Yard,” Kevin said. “You’re my favorite customer. I’ll be at your door in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes later: behold Kevin, and one stuffed droopy smiley-faced plastic bag/stapled-paper bag combo.
“Who’s manning the store?” Jimmy asks.
“Pravat, my cook,” Kevin says.
“Share a Diet Coke with us,” Jan says. “You’re like a third son.”
“Love to, but others forgot to order this week, as well, Mrs. Yard. Sorry.”
Kevin’s a good guy. Reminds them of their son Robert, who goes above and beyond the call of duty. That’s how Robert bonds with people. Connor, on the other hand, walks with his nose in the air.
Jimmy rips the stapled top of the brown bag. He tears the edges, fits his hands in there. A custodian at the high school, Jimmy lost four fingers of his right hand in an accident, leaving him with a pincer. A capable pincer.
Jimmy pincers the steaming trays onto the kitchen counter and Jan parcels them out.
Kevin hides treats in the bag. You poke around the bottom, or between the paper and the plastic, and you find something sweet. Something better than soy sauce and fortune cookies.
“Free pint,” Jimmy says.
Jimmy pincers the pint and Jan assesses it.
“Wings,” she says. “Kevin comes through again.”
“And three Diet Cokes.”
“Caffeine free?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“And what’s this?” Jimmy puts on glasses. “Two bags of oolong tea.”
“Nice flavor, that oolong.”
They eat during the 7:30 rerun of The Big Bang Theory and digest their food in primetime. Primetime TV, though, presents gnarly challenges.
Network programs stink. Reality dreck dominates basic cable. Premium cable only airs new shows on the weekend. Streaming requires Jimmy to switch inputs.
“Let’s watch the gorilla documentary again,” Jan says.
“One pass through the networks, and I’ll switch over,” Jimmy says.
&
nbsp; “Deal.”
Jimmy clicks on CBS. Scott Pelley’s face looms above a red BREAKING NEWS banner. They’ve interrupted prime time reruns. The subject of tonight’s breaking news isn’t spelled out yet.
“What the fuck?” Jimmy asks.
“Language, Grandpa,” Jan says. “I got a bad valve.”
She pats her heart.
“Apologies,” Jimmy says.
He clicks on other networks and cable news channels. Same deal. “This BREAKING NEWS better not be stupid,” he says.
He clicks back to CBS.
“Change it,” Jan says. “Breaking news upsets my heart.”
“Let’s hear the facts and skip analysis,” he says.
“Fine,” she says.
Jimmy and Jan favor Scott Pelley: Gentle but authoritative. Not flippant. Linear. Concise.
That’s Scott Pelley.
Tonight’s BREAKING NEWS feels ominous.
Pelley dishes:
There was a deadly prank in western Massachusetts.
It involved a so-called ‘swatting’,
in which state police received an erroneous report.
The report came in the form of a fake 911 call.
The caller stated that a home invasion had occurred;
and the home invaders were terrorists,
who arrived at a North Berkshire address in a news van that was reported stolen hours earlier—
“North Berkshire,” Jan says, hand on her bum heart. “Connor’s new town.”
“Wait ’til Robert hears about this,” Jimmy says.
The fake call came from a hacked phone inside the house.
It said the terrorists were murdering citizens on video.
A SWAT team stormed the home and shot four people dead.
The SWAT team realized its mistake seconds later.
The news crew inside the home was legitimate.
It was broadcasting a live interview to a CBS News affiliate in Boston.
Three male members of the crew are dead.
So is the North Berkshire Community College Sociology Department Chairman, Dr. Xavier Harris,
who was shot on air.
A producer, Ilyse Sullivan, was shot eight times but not killed.