Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

  “Casey’s going to interview me,” Drake said to his fans. “I’m actually really looking forward it. As long as she’s fair.” He stared at her once more. “You’ll be fair, Casey. Won’t you?”

  45

  WHO IS GEORGE DRAKE? A NEWS 9 EXCLUSIVE, WITH CASEY CHENG

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP: MONTAGE OF NEWS FOOTAGE OF ALLEGED “TRUE MEN” INCIDENTS, SOCIAL MEDIA INSERTS/TWEETS FEATURING #TRUEMEN) CHENG (V.O.): True Men. They claim to be a new movement, taking responsibility for a series of incidents across the country involving harassment, vandalism, assault, and even murder. As of today these claims remain unproven, and it’s uncertain if an organized group even exists. But before there was an internet hashtag (INSERT SHOTS OF TRUE MEN COVERS, PAGES AS NEEDED), there was the graphic novel True Men Will Rise by George Drake.

  CHENG (IN STUDIO, GEORGE DRAKE “COMIC” PORTRAIT OTS): Who is George Drake? The writer/artist of the True Men graphic novel series calls himself a storyteller, a commenter on contemporary society, even a traditional American revolutionary.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP: DRAKE INTERVIEW AT MUGS) GEORGE DRAKE: I believe in defending traditional American values (LAUGHS). These days that makes me a revolutionary.

  (END VIDEO CLIP) CHENG (IN STUDIO, DRAKE COMIC PORTRAIT OTS): But this defender of American values has a complicated and at times troubled past.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP: DRAKE INTERVIEW AT MUGS) DRAKE: Was I on a few occasions an ass to some women at parties? Undoubtedly. But did my actions rise to the level of criminal behavior? Absolutely not.

  (END VIDEO CLIP) CHENG (IN STUDIO, DRAKE COMIC PORTRAIT OTS): George Drake denies any active involvement in a True Men “movement,” which he claims doesn’t actually exist.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP: ZOOM IN ON GEORGE DRAKE COMIC PORTRAIT, THE DOTS THAT MAKE IT UP BECOMING BIGGER AS CHENG CONTINUES V.O.) CHENG: But the truth, like many things concerning George Drake, is more complicated.

  (THE PORTRAIT IS NOW AN ABSTRACT BLUR OF DOTS)

  CHENG (V.O.): Who is George Drake? We’ll tell you what we’ve learned, when we return.

  “What’s that quote? ‘Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.’” Casey laughed. She thought she sounded nervous.

  “That’s pretty dark,” Detective Helton said.

  “But is it true?”

  “People kill each other for all kinds of stupid reasons. Men do most of the killing, the great majority of female homicide victims are killed by their male partners, so I don’t know, maybe.”

  She’d met Helton at a coffee place in the south part of La Jolla, near Windansea Beach. His call. She’d told him on the phone it was time sensitive, and at first he’d hesitated.

  “I have a little time to meet later today, if you’re okay with Windansea and you don’t mind casual,” he’d said. “I’ve got another appointment in the area.”

  She didn’t know what he’d meant by that until she saw him. Instead of his usual suit, he wore a T-shirt and board shorts.

  “You really are a surfer.”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  She’d laughed. “It was a guess.”

  “Yeah, I’m overdue for some PTO so I’m taking a little time today. Surf’s cranking.”

  They sat at an outdoor table on the sidewalk. The coffee place didn’t have a view of the ocean but it was close enough to hear the waves, catch a whiff of the brine.

  She’d felt a surge of irritation when she realized that he was taking time off to go surfing, given what was happening in her life. But that wasn’t fair, and she knew it. Everyone needed a break from this shit. She just didn’t know when she was going to get one.

  “So it’s gotten measurably worse since you ran the segment? Beyond the normal uptick whenever you do one?”

  She nodded. “Yes. The usual flood of trolls on our social media channels, except … I don’t know, even more vitriolic and … personal. And just more of them. And they don’t stop.”

  “Are you saving them? The threats?”

  “Sure. Like always. Along with some of my more interesting fan mail. I just wasn’t sure if there was any point in sending them over anymore, since nothing ever seems to happen with it.” She sipped her coffee. Her hand was trembling a bit, she noted. Get a grip, she told herself. Focus on the coffee. They roasted their own here, and it was very good.

  Helton drew in a breath that hissed through his teeth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t take this seriously. But with this many threats coming from so many different jurisdictions, we’re limited in what we can do. The FBI is better equipped to deal with it than we are.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve already contacted them.”

  Last week after her encounter with Drake she’d gone back to the FBI and called Kendrick, the agent she’d met who was on the team investigating the Cason shooting. “We’re separating this from the main investigation of the congressman’s case,” he’d told her. “We’ve assigned a dedicated team in our cybercrimes unit here in San Diego that will be working in tandem with the Cason team in case there is overlap. An agent will be in touch with you about it. Please be confident that we take this very seriously.”

  “What did they have to say?” Helton asked.

  “I’m still waiting for a response.”

  Helton shifted in his chair, grimacing slightly, and for a moment she thought he might say something critical—he’d seemed a little snarky about the FBI before, but maybe she was projecting.

  “Well, it’s a complicated investigation,” he said. “The social media stuff … it’s like chasing shadows. A lot of them use fake IP addresses, and sock puppets, so when one account gets whacked by the provider, they just set up another one.”

  “I don’t want them whacked. I want them identified.”

  “I know. I get it. But that’s the default response when you report an abuser—suspend the account. People see these tweets or whatever and report them. They’re trying to be helpful.”

  She knew that, of course. News 9 had deleted a lot of them—you couldn’t have website comments that violated your own terms of service, and as for her own channels, who wanted to interact with her if saying something positive resulted in its own torrent of abuse?

  “Do you need to be on social media?” Helton asked.

  They’d discussed it at the station. Did she, really? But her channels were popular, by far the most popular at the station, second only to the main account. The click-through rates were excellent. No one wanted to lose that exposure and revenue stream.

  “Yes, I do. It’s part of my job.”

  “Okay.” Helton took a moment to sip his coffee. Maybe to figure out what to say next. Casey had the impression that he was someone who thought before he spoke.

  “The problem is, it’s a mob mentality going on,” he said. “If it was one stalker, there’s ways we can proceed. Identify the perp, see if there’s enough to prosecute criminally, and you can choose to go after him civilly if not. But it isn’t just one. Some guy sends out a threat and then a bunch of other people pile on with their own. Wash, rinse, repeat. There’s no organized group to go after.”

  “How do you know that? They could be meeting somewhere online and organizing this.”

  “Yeah, they could be. But it’s nowhere obvious. Sure, you’ve got some guys talking smack on some boards, but does that rise to the level of a criminal offense? Is one sick tweet something you can charge a guy for?” He shrugged. “I’m no lawyer, so I really couldn’t tell you.”

  She could feel her frustration rising. She hadn’t ever recovered her patience since The Event, and if she was being honest with herself, patience was never her strong suit anyway.

  “What about True Men?” she asked.

  “You mean the hashtag? Anyone can use that. It doesn’t mean they’re working together or that t
here’s any real organization.”

  “And George Drake?”

  “You think he’s instigating this?”

  “I know he’s angry about the segment we did. He’s said so in a statement and on social media.”

  “Because you made him look foolish, because you laughed at him, basically?”

  “He’s a target-rich environment,” Casey said. “We didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

  “Has he said anything threatening toward you?”

  Casey thought about it, about the things Drake had said when they’d walked to his event, the way he’d singled her out to his audience. “Only what someone like him could do to someone like me, if he wanted to.”

  “And he said this online, or to a reputable source, or—?”

  “To me. Before we taped the segment.”

  “So you responded by going after him and hitting him with both barrels.”

  She set her cup down hard, rattling the spoons on the table. She wanted to scream. “I didn’t ‘go after him.’” She didn’t scream but her voice was tight and angry. “I used his own work and his own words.”

  He held up his hands. “Look, I didn’t say that well. What I meant was, you didn’t hold back, in spite of his threats.”

  “No. We didn’t.” Okay, she told herself. Slow down. Take a breath and think, don’t just react. “And … maybe I went at him a little harder because of the threats, and because he’s a big giant asshole, and because I’m a human being who’s taking this all just a little personally right now. But there was nothing in that segment that wasn’t true.”

  So much for slowing down, she thought. But at least she wasn’t screaming.

  “Fair enough.” Helton grinned, pushing up the crow’s feet around his eyes. The smile made him look younger. “It was a pretty epic takedown, actually.”

  She felt herself relax, just a little bit. “Thank you,” she said. “We worked hard on it.”

  “Do you want to tell me what he said?”

  When she finished, Helton let out a long breath. He’d sat there with his thumb pressed into his cheek and his forefinger curled around his mouth, listening.

  “I understand why you’re concerned,” he said. “It sounds like he told you what he was going to do, and then maybe he went out and did it.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Calling on his fans to let you know what they think of your reporting isn’t the same thing as making a literal threat to your safety.”

  “But he knew what the result would be.”

  “Like I said, I’m not a lawyer. But that seems like a hard case to make. We need evidence of him directly encouraging other people to harass and threaten you.”

  “I just told you what he said to me.”

  Helton spread his hands. “Look … Ms. Cheng … you’ve been in your line of work a while. How would you feel about reporting on something if you couldn’t verify it? Don’t you have rules about that stuff? How many sources you need before you can go on the air with it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We do.” She felt suddenly deflated. Anger was an energy; it had fueled this encounter, but now it had left her. Her body ached. She just wanted to lie down.

  “And —I just want to be clear—this hasn’t crossed into the real world, right? You’re not being followed, or physically harassed?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. And I spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder. But … ” She looked up, met his eyes. She wanted him to get this. “What happens if one of these fanboys takes the next step? Crosses over. Is that what it’s going to take for someone to do something?”

  “Ms. Cheng … Casey … ” Helton took a moment, choosing his words, she assumed. “I’d really like to fix this for you, and we’re going to do our best. But as long as you keep poking the hornet’s nest, they’re going to keep swarming. And I don’t know what to tell you to do about that.”

  “You think I should quit covering this story?”

  “I’m the wrong guy to give that kind of advice,” he said. He half smiled for a moment, the kind of tell that wasn’t conscious. She almost asked him why.

  Instead, she thought about the story. What even was it at this point? She’d started with the Morena shootings; she was going to profile the victims, the long-term consequences. She’d started with herself, really. She’d ended up with Alan Jay Chastain, who’d led her to Lucas Derry, to that day in the park with Congressman Cason and Sarah Price. With the dead and injured.

  Then to Beth Ryder, True Men, and George Drake.

  She’d thought, for a while, that everything was coming together, that all those smaller stories were part of some larger whole, and she’d almost figured out what that was.

  Now, not so much. She was back to the Big Empty.

  “You okay?” Helton asked.

  She nodded. “Just … discouraged.”

  “Yeah. I don’t blame you.”

  They sat in silence for a minute or two, sipping their coffees. What am I going to do now? Casey thought. Just keep on keeping on? Quit?

  “I can take a look at Drake,” Helton said. “I know the FBI has. I’ll see what they’ve got. Maybe I can add to it.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate that.” And she really did. Which felt a little pathetic and needy, because it wasn’t that she really expected him to find anything, or to fix this. It was only that he seemed to take her seriously, and right now, that counted for something.

  “In the meantime, you might want to consider hiring a private investigator. There’s firms that specialize in this kind of cyber stalking and harassment. They do a good job.”

  Casey sighed. No way her salary would cover the cost of that. “I’ll talk to the station about it.”

  She wondered how much the station might be willing to spend, if anything, and at what point having her attention-grabbing stories and the ratings they brought in would become more trouble than they were worth.

  Helton nodded.

  It was getting time for both of them to go. The conversation had wound down, and there was no more business to discuss, really. Unless she wanted to try to pitch him to do a segment, and that didn’t seem appropriate, under the circumstances. But she didn’t move to get up, and for some reason Helton lingered as well.

  He’s attractive, she thought. She’d been pushing that thought away and decided to just let herself feel it, test it out.

  A cop. Did she just want to be around a man who made her feel safe?

  “You gonna be okay?” he finally asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Maybe I should get a gun, she thought.

  46

  A woman narrates over footage of Matt Cason shaking hands with men and women dressed for a nice dinner—a fundraiser: “Matt Cason says his military experience makes him a good leader for America. But under Matt Cason’s watch, millions of taxpayer dollars went missing in one of the worst military corruption scandals of the Iraq War.”

  Headlines and chyrons about millions of dollars gone missing in Iraq, a warehouse full of luxury goods, footage of soldiers on trial.

  A male voice: “There was cash just going out of there in duffle bags. Nobody was paying any attention.”

  The woman again, over footage of Cason shaking hands with wealthy donors: “If Matt Cason didn’t stop corruption that was happening right under his nose, what makes you think he’ll watch over your dollars in Washington?”

  A different woman: “I’m Kim Tegan, and I approve this message.”

  A photo of Matt Cason in full battle rattle that gradually becomes a stark black-and-white image. A male narrator: “We support our brave men and women in uniform. They risk their lives, protecting our freedoms. But not every soldier is a credit to the uniform.” The image of Cason is now splashed with red. “Matt Cason was in charg
e of a program that handed out cash to corrupt tribal chieftains.” Montage of men in keffiyeh, raising automatic weapons. “There was no oversight and no paper trail. So what did America buy with those taxpayer dollars?”

  Photographs of dead and wounded American soldiers.

  A different man’s voice: “He turned around and shot up our patrol. Just like that. No warning.”

  Now the photo of Cason is entirely red and black.

  “Matt Cason. Unfit for duty.”

  A different voice, low and quick: “This message paid for by the Committee for American Values.”

  Male narrator: “Matt Cason is an American hero. He served his country with honor. But the qualities that make a man a warrior don’t always make that man the best choice for a leader.

  “On December 19th, 2007, Cason was involved in an altercation with one Jesse Garcia at a local bar frequented by service members. He beat Garcia so badly that Garcia was hospitalized with multiple contusions and facial fractures.” A photo of a man with a bruised, swollen face, a few stitches across one eyebrow. “And why? Because he didn’t like the way Garcia looked at his girlfriend.”

  A mug shot of a younger Cason, with a black eye.

  “The case was settled out of court, with Cason citing combat stress as the reason for his momentary loss of control.”

  Now we see the speaker. It’s Jacob Thresher, walking along the cliffs with the ocean behind him. His voice is warm, his expression concerned. “Unlike my other opponent, I’ll never question Matt Cason’s bravery and courage under fire. What I question is his fitness for office in dangerous times like these, when a cool head is needed more than a raging heart. America needs a healer, not a hater. We need more compassion, more kindness—not the kind of anger that problem-solves with fists.”

  The close shot of Matt Cason’s face and fist from the park, his features contorted and bloodied.

  “I’m Jacob Thresher, and I approve this message.”

  “Fuckers,” Matt muttered. He sat hunched over on the couch, elbows on his thighs, one hand covering the other, fingers flexing and digging into the covered hand.