Screaming Eagles

by Michael Lawrence Kahn

  “Nice to know someone at least one person here in the whole damn room is awake. Shit, you’re supposed to be the fucking experts and we need a civilian to tell us what we already should have known. Damn it, what the fuck are all of you doing about the same old problems in a new disguise? Are you all a bunch of morons? Who the hell has something to add? Anyone? Come on, people! Have any of you got anything that we can work with?”

  Josh begins pacing up and down the room, sizzling anger telegraphed in every step. He looks at each person in turn, taking short, deliberate steps, turning his head seeking eye contact and getting none. His fury is bubbling, throbbing, ready to explode. No one says anything. The air conditioners continue humming loudly. Finally, he sits down.

  “Well thought out, JR Pretty damn good,” he says finally, looking at me. The perceptive is spot on. Come on, you morons, how do we find the fucking accomplices? Give me something, anything. Be creative and use some imagination. Let’s all take five. I need to make some phone calls. Five minutes after the next broadcast, that’s all I’m giving you, then I want some answers, and I mean it, I want answers, damn it.”

  He starts phoning.

  I turn towards her and see her looking at me. For the briefest instant, I sense something. I don’t know what, but it is something. The connection hovers, it is still there. I put out my hand and say, “Hi, my name is Jay. What’s yours’?”

  She grasps my hand in a firm grip, “Alexis, Lexi, McGinnis. Pleased to meet you. Have you really seen these men? Where, when? Do you know them? Are they really terrorists? Will they harm anyone? Why ATN?”

  Before I can reply, the volume is turned up loud. We hear an announcer say that it is now 12 o’clock and that they are returning to the situation at Chicago’s ATN affiliate station. John Grogan’s face comes on screen. One Iranian hands him two sheets of paper to read. The camera pans, showing Grogan taking the papers. He smiles complacently, a grim set to his mouth, lips thin, eyes scanning looking for the points to punctuate.

  Finally pursing his lips, he clears his throat, sits up straighter, angling his head slightly he assumes the professional pose he uses so effectively.

  “America, the great Satan of the world, must change. People of America, my good and wonderful friends, embrace a new, beautiful way of life. Force your President, your Congress, to listen to you. You and only you, good people of America, can make them change the direction of confrontation with us, the peace loving peoples of the world.”

  Occasionally, his eyes look up into the cameras for a moment when he is making an important point. Then he continues, the resonance of his voice rising, eyes looking up directly at the cameras, sincere and challenging his audience.

  Grogan, confident now, is getting himself into high gear. He is in control. The voice, the tone, the friendly professor, is familiar. The master is speaking. The master knows the world is listening. His words invite all to believe what he is saying, so he continues, “We who are peace-loving nations. Let them befriend us, learn from us …”

  “Stop.”

  The Iranian bends down, picks up a walkie-talkie, and listens. He speaks into it softly, nods, and places it on the desk in front of him. He looks at the man behind Grogan and speaks to him. In an instant, the man standing behind Grogan chops his fist down on Grogan’s neck. Grogan makes a slight sound. His head jerks and falls onto the desk, arms splaying out in front of him, still holding the papers.

  Bending over, grasping Grogan’s hand, the man who hit him folds Grogan’s fingers tightly into a fist, extending two fingers onto the desk. In a blur of movement, a hand slashes downward at the extended fingers. I only realize the hand holds a cleaver when I see the fingers jump away from the fist. They lie about six inches away from Grogan’s fist. Blood slowly seeps onto the desk.

  I hear Lexi’s sharp intake of breath. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see her strained, hypnotic stare. She’s gone very white. A vein pulses intensely in her neck. She grabs my hand and her nails dig deep, scorching into my skin.

  Unhurriedly, the Iranian puts the cleaver down next to the fingers. All eyes are focused on the slow, soft seepage of red that is gathering on the desktop. Drop by drop, the pool of blood bulges, flexing slowly, getting larger, the red contrasting brightly with the beige surface of the anchor’s desk.

  The Iranian rummages underneath the desk and comes up with cotton balls and adhesive tape. He lets his companion bind Grogan’s wound.

  I say to Josh, “The bastards came prepared. They knew they’d be cutting off a fingers. I wonder what else he’s planning to surprise us with in his box of tricks under the desk.”

  Josh silences me with a glance.

  The Iranian’s face tilts upward looking into the camera. “My friends, Islamic Sharia Law demands that when someone steals, the punishment is to cut off a hand. The punishment for stealing a second time is cutting off the other hand. ATN, you and your police are responsible for Mr. John Grogan’s punishment. You are stealing my time. An hour ago, I told you that we would only be here twelve hours. What is twelve hours? It is nothing. I warned you that we would not negotiate with you. A few minutes ago, I was informed that you have blacked out this broadcast. Thus, you are stealing my time. Do not be stupid or do foolish things. Our eyes are everywhere; we know your moves. Our friends are helping us. Your disgusting government’s time is at the beginning of its end. You, my friends, who are lovers of freedom like we are, support our glorious cause. My friends force your government to change its evil ways.

  He continues to peer into the camera. “In one hour, we will broadcast again. If you choose to steal my time again, I warn you, Mr. Grogan will lose his hand and once again, your police and your government will be the ones to blame. Sharia Law must be obeyed. Rise up against your government. Your time has come.”

  Josh says, “Now we know where the fifth guy is. A walkie-talkie has a radius of about a mile, but we can’t lock onto its origin because there are literally thousands of frequencies. We’ll have to start searching every hotel, office building, apartment building, and construction site. They’ll never find him. We don’t have enough time.”

  “How were we able to see the broadcast if it was blacked out?” I ask.

  “TV stations always allow the police and their top management teams to see the programs so that they can make plans, come up with strategies, make on-the-spot decisions. All civilians have their sets blacked out if the authorities say it’s necessary.”

  I hear a muffled sob turn and see Lexi’s head down. She is crying quietly into hands that tremble and a slight shudder ripples through her body. Her hair has fallen forward covering her cheek. My heart falls, sinking as I realize It—the elusive it—is not going to be. She is probably in love with Grogan. Just my luck she cares for the bastard. Damn.

  1:30 a.m., The Desert Bunker

  “Excellency, Plan Two is now in effect, just as Eagle One in Chicago predicted wisely that it would. Excellency, the broadcast was blacked out. He instructed that the necessary steps be taken. Grogan’s two fingers were severed so everything is once again proceeding smoothly. Plan Three is now six and a half hours away. Do you wish to rest, Excellency? Would you like something hot to drink?”

  “No, Hamid. I will go to the communications room half an hour before Plan Three. Wake me then. Arrange for my son, my brother, generals Ghobzadeh and Hartounian, and all soldiers, cooks, servants, everyone without exception, to be in the bunker by five o’clock after morning prayers. Have a celebration breakfast prepared. I have an announcement of major importance for our beloved country. Convey my congratulations to all who are here, but as before, Hamid, it is your responsibility to see that we maintain the strictest of radio and communication silence. Absolute silence. I warn you, it is also your responsibility to see that everyone is inside the bunker. No one is to be left outside so everyone will hear my announcements at the same time. That includes all of the guards. That is all. Leave me. Go tell them.”

  “Yes Excellency.
Thank you, Excellency.”

  Hamid closes the door to his room and locks it. He carefully unbuttons his shirt and unwinds the microphone from his chest. He clicks off the tape, writes the day and time. Climbing onto his bed, arms outstretched, he removes a ceiling panel and stores the tape with the others.

  Hamid was made the personal aide to the president four years previously, when, as a young sergeant in the army, he’d spotted an assassin, jumped in front of the President and thrown the shooter to the ground. The assassin’s bullets had hit Hamid in the shoulder and arm. In gratitude, the President had promoted him to general. He was now the trusted aide. However, no one knew he was a Kurd. This was a fact not known to any other person other than Little Hawk. Not even the elders in the village from where he came knew.

  Twenty years ago, Hamid had left the Kurdish village of Dahuk and enlisted in the army using false identity papers given to him by Little Hawk. He’d been instructed by Little Hawk to learn modem military tactics so that when the time came for the Kurdish uprising, they could fight on even terms. Little Hawk was his cousin, the most feared Kurdish leader in the mountains of the Fertile Crescent.

  Hamid reaches for the radio, looks at his watch, waits until the exact half hour, then activates the switch to turn on the radio. Hamid speaks rapidly, says, “Breakfast 6:30, all guards withdrawn, everyone in bunker. You will have no more than half an hour. Tapes, plans, panel above my bed in ceiling.”

  Hamid flicks off the switch.

  In the radio control room, the corporal hears the beeper. He sees the monitor needle jump, indicating that a radio had been activated. He puts down his coffee and walks across the room, grabbing his earphones.

  Instructions have been specific. There are to be no radio communications. As he stretches to tune into the frequency, the beeper stops. The needle drops back to zero. He watches for some minutes, finally concluding that the activation of the radio is probably a mistake. He looks at his watch, enters the incident into the log: “Radio activity five seconds 02:30.”

  The corporal takes off his earphones and continues to drink his coffee. He decides to wait until the breakfast to tell General Hamid. No need to wake him now.

  * * *

  Squatting on his haunches, Jalal, or “Little Hawk,” as he is now known, hears the message, then turns off his transmitter. Hidden behind sand dunes less than half a mile away from the camp, he prepares to wait until 6:30. Killing the president would have been easy. Hamid could have done it at any time during the past four years, but getting information regularly was of more importance. He knows something massive is being planned. When he returns to the mountains, he and the council of elders will decide what to do with the information.

  Jalal knows the elders will be surprised that they have a spy near the president. Some will be annoyed or insulted that they had not been told, but Jalal has his reasons, and he will handle any problems they give him.

  The desert is cold. He wraps his blanket tighter, thinking of the caves, the tents, the trees, that are his home as he constantly moves with his fighters high enough in the mountains so the troops cannot find them. When troops move off the roads, they are easy to pick off from the bushes. Something has to be done soon, for lately, the troops have been able to evade the ambushes and massacre the Kurds in their villages.

  There has to be a traitor in the council of elders.

  Kurdistan borders Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Turkey has closed its borders to refugees. America promised support and food and has delivered neither. Iraq and Iran promised peace, but all the Kurds get is treachery.

  Motionless, wrapped in his blanket, Jalal waits. Grains of sand move softly, whispering gently against him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ATN’s screen suddenly shows the Iranian talking to Grogan. Josh slams down the phone, groping for the remote on the far side of the table, nearly dropping it as he turns up the sound. We watch spellbound.

  Looking directly at the camera, the man in the red kaffiyeh says, “Good people of America, our friends and brothers, we have decided not to wait an hour before we broadcast and have instructed your management to allow Mr. Grogan to continue reading. They have agreed but we do not trust them and we need to test their sincerity. We warn you, management of this TV station, if the broadcast is not live, our friends will contact us and Mr. Grogan will this time lose his hand.

  “We have an agreement that you will let us broadcast to the American people but you broke it. Do you plan to break it again? If so you will be responsible for his hand, not us, for unlike you, we keep our agreements. It is your decision—airtime for a hand.”

  The man looks at John Grogan, who tries not to acknowledge him as he sits looking ahead into the camera. It pulls in a close-up of his face, focusing on a long vein, fat and throbbing, that can be seen from where it starts below his hairline and protrudes along the left side of his forehead. Sweat pours from his face, dripping onto his collar, staining his tie and the lapels of his jacket.

  The severed fingers on the desktop have not been moved; a bone projects slightly from the flesh of each. The bone’s brittleness shines stark and white against clots of drying blood that have begun forming around stringy bits of gristle and flesh. The blood has seeped out unevenly and collects in a dark pool directly in front of Grogan, the menace of the lesson clear for everyone to see. The cleaver has been placed cleverly on the console in front of the camera turned around to show the brightness of the blood staining its metal blade.

  Grogan is in a bad way. His makeup is caked and small flakes moistened by his tears drip unevenly down his cheeks, giving him the appearance of having on a cheap imitation mask of a painted old man. He is in obvious pain. His face is dazed and stricken; he is almost unrecognizable. Two blood spots have penetrated the cotton balls and bandage. He is having the greatest difficulty reading, opening and closing his eyes, trying to focus on the words. The terror in his eyes flares with the brightness of someone who had contracted a raging fever.

  He fears the Iranians and is terrorized by the cleaver and the walkie-talkie, in case the broadcast isn’t live. On the verge of hysteria, unable to stop his hand from shaking as he holds the paper, a violent tic had developed under his lip, and saliva runs uncontrolled, drooling out one side of his mouth and disappearing into his trim, gray beard.

  The man in the kaffiyeh doesn’t like what he sees. He says something to Grogan, who freezes and looked beseechingly at the man. His eyes widen slowly. With trembling lips, he motions to say something. Suddenly, he starts to cry. His body begins twitching and shaking, losing complete control. He shrinks back into the chair, hunching his shoulders and dropping his chin onto his chest. Heaving as he sobs, he puts his undamaged hand up in front of his face, trying vainly to swat and wave the lens of the camera away from him.

  The two Iranians on either side of him are watching intently.

  All of us in the room can sense that the Iranians are ready to attack him. Now visibly angry, they begin to move toward him.

  Without warning, Irene leans across, takes the paper from Grogan’s hand, and starts reading. Her face is pale and her voice high pitched, trembling. Wild-eyed, she looks at the man in the red kaffiyeh to see if she can continue reading, ready to stop at the first sign of his displeasure. He says nothing.

  Sensing that the Iranians are not going to punish her, she continues to read slowly, her voice strengthening as she developed the cadence, inserting the pauses and emphasis. Watching suspiciously, the Iranians are at first unsure. She is reading the script in her hand and saying what needs to be said. The Iranians visibly relax.

  Grogan, hands over his face, is crying softly into the bandage.

  When Irene finishes, she hands the paper back to the man. He says they will broadcast again in an hour. The screen goes black.

  Josh turns off the sound. To no one in particular he says, “Boy, that Irene’s got balls. That took some guts.”

  Someone at the table speaks up. “We got the tapes from mana
gement, which are still recording in the studio, but no one is speaking. They must be under orders to whisper.”

  “Have you found the fifth man?” I ask.

  Josh shakes his head. “We got through to the Iranian ambassador. He says that they know nothing about these people, accusing them of being Israelis, Iraqis, or Americans in disguise who want to discredit Iran. He claims that the USA is setting up Iran. Hamas and the PLO have also denied knowledge of them, although both offered to act as a mediator. The Moslem Brotherhood and Hezbollah have not returned our calls.”

  Standing up, notebook in hand, Josh walks to the second blackboard. Across the top, he writes a word and underlines it. He leaves a space and writes another word, which he also underlines. He continues until he comes to the end of the board.

  “Loosen up, people. I want ideas, creativity. Give me anything that comes to mind. Let’s go.”

  The first heading was “BUSES.” No one shouted. They just put up their hands. Disciplined, they wait as he eyes them one at a time, writing one word or phrase to capture their thoughts. Then he nods to the next person. Lexi has nothing to add. My ideas have been pre-empted by people who’ve spoken before.

  When Josh finishes, his “BUSES” column reads, “Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta. Between 4:15 and 4:30 a.m., Uzi used, no survivors, same leaflets espousing Khomeini’s teachings, witnesses saw only one man get off a bus and get into a car.”

  The remaining headings of “TAPE” and “ATN.” are treated the same way.

  “Okay, people, let’s look for threads tying anything together. Let’s find a common denominator. What have these people told us? What are we hearing and not understanding? What is staring us in the face? My reading so far is this: 4:15 was chosen as the quietest time of the night. The night shift is tired, ready to sign off, day shift not yet on. Each of the attackers used the same type of weapon and left the same pamphlets. We can be almost certain that they’re small cells operating independently for one cause. So far, the cause seems to be making Khomeini’s views known.