True Allegiance

by Ben Shapiro

  With the election of Mark Prescott, however, the FBI had undergone certain changes. The monitoring of mosques had largely been shut down, deemed offensive and inefficient by the new administration. Hassan still received occasional contacts from the FBI, but the lack of regularity made it difficult to track secondary suspects, or to continue long-term monitoring of those who left the area. Over time, Hassan cut off contact altogether, frustrated with the lack of investigative follow-up.

  Then he received a call from Brett.

  Hassan adjusted his glasses. “I don’t know who’s behind the bridge attack, Brett. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t expect you would.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I don’t think it’s over. And I need you to help me find someone.” Brett laid out what he knew about Mohammed: the name, the fact that he’d heard Ashammi specifically address him in Tehran.

  “It’s not a lot to go on. How do you even know he’s coming to New York, as opposed to some other city? How do you know he wasn’t involved in the original attack? Has the government even locked down the bastards who planted the bombs?”

  “I don’t know, Hassan. All I know is that there’s something more to this. And I know that he is religious. The way that Ashammi spoke to him. If he’s here, the only way to find him will be through the mosques.”

  Hassan laughed. “You could try the strip clubs, too. The 9/11 hijackers weren’t Islamic enough to avoid seeing some unclad Western women before their flights.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too, but all the strip clubs are closed. Seriously, Hassan, please dig around. See if you can spot any new faces. I think he’s here.”

  Hassan got up, stood over his old friend. “I put myself at risk to help preserve the truth of my religion once. Your boss cut me off. Why would he not do so again?”

  Brett stood up, towering over Hassan. “Because this time, my boss doesn’t know anything about it. Derek—Hassan—I know you’re angry. You should be. So am I. But if there’s anything we can do, now’s the time to do it.”

  “You don’t need to convince me, white boy. I just want you to know why I’m doing this. And it isn’t for your president.”

  “Believe me,” nodded Brett, “neither am I.”

  Hassan nodded. “I’ll be in touch when I’ve got something for you.” He turned toward the door, then turned back. “There’s good and bad in everyone,” he crooned, a smile suddenly creasing his lips. “We learn to live, we learn to give.”

  Brett laughed., “Each other what we need to survive. Together alive.”

  Hassan gave him a quick thumbs-up. Then he was gone.

  New York City

  Iconic moments.

  These were the moments that Mark Prescott had always wanted. FDR standing before Congress, declaring war on Japan. John F. Kennedy in Berlin. Reagan at the Berlin Wall. George W. Bush in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

  And now, Prescott, standing on the precipice of the Hudson River, with the Coast Guard still dredging the waters, with the wreckage of one of America’s greatest public works projects mangled behind him. No iconic moment could take place without tragedy lurking in the background.

  An American flag flapped in the breeze behind him, forlorn against the bright blue sky. Prescott had his best men work on the speech. He’d given it a personal touch, too—he’d rehearsed it down to the last inflection. If there was one thing Mark Prescott knew how to do, it was hit the emotional high notes. And there would be little need to press emotional buttons after an event that had already become known by its date, like December 7 and September 11.

  Prescott didn’t wear a suit for the speech. Instead, he wore a Windbreaker, allowed the media to join him for a ride-along with the Coast Guard through the scene. As he looked over the waters, tears came to his eyes—genuine tears, not manufactured ones. This was his country, and these were his people, and if not for the tragedies of the past, they would be driving through the city today, living their lives. The cameras clacked loudly in the background as those thoughts crossed his mind, and he briefly hid his face from them. Of course, that would make the front pages of the newspapers, too.

  The cameras broadcast him to hundreds of millions the world over; he stared above the camera line so that he appeared to be looking into the distance, into the future. He had positioned himself so that the light hit him squarely in the face. He spoke without notes, without a teleprompter—no niggling critics would be able to call this staged. His moment had arrived.

  “My fellow Americans,” he said, “we have experienced the greatest single attack on American soil in our history. Two days ago, we lost thousands of American lives: men, women, children.

  “But let our enemies hear this: we remain strong. We remain unbowed. We remain unbroken, unwavering, unshaken. We stand together, and our unity is our power. Today, our enemies rejoice in our tragedy. Tomorrow, they will see us rebuild from these ashes, restore what once was, rebuild our America: better, stronger than it was before. They hoped that their destruction would cause us to question ourselves, question our course. They hoped that we would surrender our philosophy, our way of life.

  “They were wrong. And so today, I speak to those who attacked us. We will never surrender. We will never give up. You think you are strong and we are weak for our freedoms. It is you who are weak, and we who are strong.”

  He paused, let the words echo over the crowd before him. Then, he inhaled, preparing to continue. This would be the moment when his soaring rhetoric would pull the crowd together, give them hope. This would be the moment when adversity turned to power. This would be…

  A voice cried out from the back of the crowd. “YOU DID THIS!”

  Prescott was momentarily startled. Then he began: “In times of grief, we do not walk alone. We walk together, yes, but we walk together holding the hand of a higher power, a power that believes in a higher justice…”

  The voice again: “YOU DID THIS, MR. PRESIDENT!”

  A murmur carried through the crowd. The voice continued, and suddenly a few of the cameras swung around from facing Prescott toward the lone protester. It was a woman, overweight, wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt with holes in it, her hair chopped short. “YOU DID THIS, MR. PRESIDENT! MY HUSBAND IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS RIVER BECAUSE OF YOU, MR. PRESIDENT!”

  Prescott tried to seize back the moment, kept speaking into the sky: “A power that believes in America just as we believe in Him, and who will guide us through difficult times that try us…”

  “MR. PRESIDENT, YOU OWE US ALL ANSWERS!”

  Now all the cameras were turning to face this woman. Members of the Secret Service closed in around her, seeing her as a potential threat. Prescott could already see how it would play out on the evening news: crying victim hustled away as the president of the United States looked on.

  It wouldn’t go down that way. That was no iconic moment. This woman was about to undermine the nation’s unity in order to place blame, not on the terrorists who had committed the atrocity, but on the government that tried to stop it. Prescott could feel his stomach clench in anger. Instead, he stopped, looked directly at the woman, and then held up his hands to the Secret Service. “Stop,” he said. “Let her speak. We are all grieving.”

  One of the Secret Service men had his hand on the woman’s upper arm by this point. She shook it off roughly. Then she started pushing her way to the front of the crowd, shoving members of the press aside. Prescott waited for her, seething quietly. When she got to the front, she climbed up onto the makeshift stage. Prescott could see the hatred in her eyes, could feel the rage. Her hands were shaking. In one of them was a photo. She held it up: a picture of her husband, gray mustache, heavyset, sixties. The microphones picked up her words. “Have you seen my husband, Mr. President?”

  He shook his head dumbly.

  “I didn’t think so. H
e drives that bridge every single day to get to his job. I’m sure he was on it when it collapsed. You promised, Mr. President, to keep us safe. I know, because I voted for you. You promised that bringing our troops home would change everything, that ending those wars would make us safer here at home. And now I’m asking,” she choked back tears, “if we’re really safe. How can we be really safe after this? My husband won’t ever come home again, probably, because you didn’t keep us safe. He served his country in Vietnam, and he came back to this country, and all he asked was that our country honor his service. How can you keep us safe?” She stared at him, eyes glowing.

  And he suddenly saw a way forward. He leaned forward, let a tear roll down his cheek, and hugged her. She tried to pull away, initially; he held her tighter. Finally, he felt her sob against his chest, the tension go out of her body. The cameras flashed around him.

  The moment.

  Time stood still. This was the image he’d been seeking ever since his election: Compassionate. Caring. Strong.

  Now he waved for a couple of Secret Service agents to come forward and usher her from the stage. They moved quickly; within moments, he was onstage alone again, the sun reflecting brightly off the river.

  He spoke slowly, deliberately.

  The moment.

  “We have made mistakes,” he said, gesturing to the woman. “I have made mistakes. Those mistakes were made out of a desire for revenge against others, out of a desire to strike back against those who hurt us. We go to war to protect ourselves, but we end up weakening ourselves. Vengeance is God’s, we know. Our job is to build.

  “And build we will. Safety does not lie in aggression. It does not lie in defensiveness. It lies in our continual demonstration to the world that we will build, no matter what comes. Together, we will raise this bridge again, greater than it ever was before. Together, we will rekindle our relationship with each other, frayed and fractured thanks to the exigencies of war.

  “We will not be hampered by the past. Our swords will be beaten into plowshares.” He motioned out over the thousands of American troops now working along the shoreline. “Our bravest and finest men and women will be put to work rebuilding; no more nation-building abroad. Thousands upon thousands of those men and women are coming to New York, to rebuild, to revitalize. It’s time to build ourselves up here at home.

  “Now, some will ask whether such actions bring safety. And here is what I say: Safety does not come through the fear of the gun or the height of our walls. Safety comes from love. Yes,” he continued, “love. Love for each other. Care for each other. Sacrifice for each other. And that’s what I’m going to ask of all Americans now. Not anger, not lashing out, not blame or knee-jerk reactions. Love. Love your neighbor. Love your country. Stand together. And together we will rise. For in times like this, in times of tragedy and horror, it is love we most need.”

  He paused for one moment more, looking out at the New York skyline. The cameras clicked.

  The moment.

  The president relaxed in his hotel room after the speech, flipping through the channels. The coverage was nearly universally ecstatic, though one guest commentator on Fox News had the gall to ask whether the president had any leads on the perpetrators. The host, uncomfortable with politicizing the moment, moved the guest quickly off the point. The chyron read: “PRESIDENT: A TIME FOR LOVE.” Over and over, channel after channel, the footage of the hug played as if on a continuous loop.

  The knock at the door disturbed Prescott’s reverie. Tommy Bradley peeked his head in. “Come in, Tommy,” said the president magnanimously, muting the television. “Have you seen this fucking coverage?”

  Bradley grinned weakly. “It’s phenomenal, Mr. President. Just phenomenal.”

  “Let’s see them try to stop the Work Freedom Program after this, eh?”

  “Mr. President…”

  “What is it? Spit it out.”

  “Did you know that Brett Hawthorne is in New York?”

  “No, but why the hell should I care where he is? He’s a free man, isn’t he?”

  Tommy bit his lip. “Well, you see, it’s what he’s doing here that could be problematic. I just got word from my guy at JFK that he’s digging around flight manifests, and that he’s asked to see pictures of Arabs first.”

  “Jesus Christ. Racial profiling? Right after the ‘love’ speech?”

  “And they say that the media probably will figure it out pretty soon. I mean, these things have a way of leaking.”

  “Je. Sus. Christ. Who the hell gave him authority for this?”

  “My guy didn’t know the answer to that.”

  “Well, track down the general. Should have left that pain in the ass in Iran. Jesus.” And he turned up the volume to hear himself speak once again, his voice blaring through the hard-wooded presidential suite: “Vengeance is God’s, we know. Our job is to build.”

  El Paso, Texas

  Governor Davis’s refusal to send the National Guard to New York sparked a firestorm across the nation. He cited precedent—hadn’t the governor of California refused a federal request to place National Guard troops on the border?—but in the aftermath of the bridge attack, he didn’t get much sympathy. “Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country,” shouted one MSNBC commentator into the camera, “but this time, their hick governor has shown himself to be deeply unpatriotic. You don’t get to be a star on the flag of the United States and then go AWOL when your country needs you. John F. Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ In Texas, Bubba Davis says, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country, ask how you can leave them hanging in their time of need.’”

  Davis stood fast, though. He refused the requests for the National Guard, redeployed them to the border. He told the media that the crime rate across the state had dropped dramatically. He pointed at the rapidly dropping illegal border crossings, explained that the drug trafficking had been cut dead.

  It didn’t help. Day after day, the media ran with the story: a president calling for love and unity, and a southern secessionist governor looking like George Wallace. Never mind that Davis had stood with the marchers of the civil rights era: he now stood on the side of the Old South, the media proclaimed.

  Before long, Davis turned to Ellen to be the face of his defiance.

  She refused.

  The president of the United States, she told Davis, had brought her husband home in one piece. He’d made mistakes, she knew. He’d exiled her husband based on lies, separated them for years, slashed the military, undermined the mission, she thought. But in the end, he’d brought Brett home. And that was all that mattered to her.

  “Okay,” Bubba had said, “then I need you on the border. Somebody has to head up this outfit, and if I go down there, they’ll accuse me of outright insurrection. You’re competent, your husband is a well-known military figure, and well, damn it, you’re a woman. And those sexists in the press won’t label a woman an insurrectionist.”

  So now she was back in El Paso.

  She had to admit that the border felt different. It felt safe, for the first time ever. Military vehicles patrolled the Texas side of the river, with checkpoints set up to funnel visitors and workers through after checking identification. Soldiers, many speaking Spanish, spoke with the locals, helping to direct them to the local ranches. She’d been there for a week, and there hadn’t been any dead kids in the river. Every so often, a black helicopter would buzz the troops on the American side of the border; Ellen thought it might be members of the same drug cartel that had killed Vivian. She even thought she’d seen one of the men wearing a bandanna over his face.

  She told the generals of the Guard that she didn’t want to see any fire at the helicopters unless fired upon; things were bad enough without starting a war. In the last few days, the helicopters had buzzed closer and
closer, probing, prodding American response. The Americans merely observed. The Guard had no intelligence capacities; the feds hadn’t been particularly responsive since Davis’s big announcement. But Ellen had some private investigators do some digging. What they found shocked her.

  Ciudad Juarez, they said, was run by the Juarez Cartel, one of the most dangerous criminal enterprises on the planet. Its leadership had been passed down through the Carrillo Fuentes brothers, who had turned it into a massive regional player, competing openly with powerhouses like the violent Sinaloa Cartel and spending a large chunk of their earnings on bribery of Mexican police officials. Operating across more than a score of Mexican states, the Juarez Cartel had engaged in bloody wars with the Sinaloa Cartel across the country, including in Ciudad Juarez.

  Perhaps its most famous product, aside from drugs, was creative methods of dealing death: in 2006, a reporter for the UK Guardian detailed the horrors of what came to be called the House of Death, where US informants had been implicated in complicity with multiple murder. The House of Death had been discovered and put out of business years before, but the cartel still operated in force. The city of Ciudad Juarez became the center of a renewed turf battle between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels for control of the drug trafficking routes into Texas.

  Only now, the violence in Juarez had stopped. The presence of American troops on the border meant that drug shipments slowed to a virtual standstill. Ellen’s investigators told her that the truce could mean only one thing: a plan to stir things up along the border. If the cartels could draw national attention to Texas’s militarization of the border, the media, they figured, would react by calling on Texas to step down. After all, the president of the United States had already labeled Texas treasonous for its failure to send help to New York. Any incident along the border that could be dumped at Davis’s feet would benefit the cartel; there simply was no national will to stand up to aggression along the southern border, not when the country was already recovering from the greatest terror attack in its history.