His dad was a hero long before he died in the collapse of the Twin Towers. He sat next to Alex at the kitchen table every weeknight from middle school on, teaching him how to find the circumference of a circle or the chemical names for salt and carbon dioxide and water. Testing him on the Bill of Rights and helping him edit his essay on George Orwell’s Animal Farm. He took him to the park to throw a football and taught him how to shave two seconds off his sprint time in the hundred-yard dash. He was there every single time Alex needed him — right up until the morning of September 11.
Angry tears poked pins at his eyes, but Alex blinked them back. Crying wouldn’t help. His dad was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Period. Even so, the memories remained. Like with Holly, Alex didn’t allow time for reminiscing, otherwise the pain would paralyze him. He didn’t need heartbreak; he needed determination. Drive, not grief, was what saw him through every shift with the LA Sheriff’s Department. The sort of drive that could keep him on his game sixty or eighty hours a week, so that no more creeps could steal the happy life from some other unsuspecting family.
He slowed down, taking the curves with expert care. His dad might as well be riding shotgun. That’s how clear his father’s image remained in Alex’s mind, his tall and handsome dad, the smile in his eyes, the laughter in his voice. The man never once thought of himself, not at work and not at home. His last morning alive, he’d only been concerned that he and Alex talk about Alex’s future, about him being a doctor or a lawyer or a salesman. Anything but a firefighter.
“I’m concerned for you, Son,” his dad had told him. “You’re driven and competitive. Fighting fires can take over a person’s life and leave him nothing for the people back home.”
His dad’s final concern as he left for work that Tuesday was that Alex might find a career that would allow him an amazing life. Others. That’s what drove his father in everything he did. Of course, he’d be racing up the stairs of the Twin Towers when everyone else was running down. His dad wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Alex dug his fingers into the steering wheel. He tried his best never to go back to that horrible Tuesday morning. But here, winding through the canyon toward the beach, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d been sitting in his Shakespeare class, first period, watching the door for the moment when Holly would pass by like she did every day at that time. Some kid from across the hall ran in and shouted something about a plane crashing into a building in the city.
There were TVs in every room, and almost instantly the footage was being broadcast throughout the school. All around him people were talking, saying things like, “Man, that’s crazy,” “How could a plane do that?” or “Look at that fire … wickedest fire ever!”
Alex tuned out every noise but one: the sound of the announcer giving updates. Let everyone else wonder about why a plane would fly into a building or how many people must’ve been killed. Alex was the son of a firefighter. Looking at the first footage from the city’s financial district told him that across Manhattan, fire trucks were being dispatched, racing into the streets and heading south to the Twin Towers. And within a handful of minutes, those same firefighters would be trekking their way up seventy stories into an inferno in the sky.
Don’t do it, Dad … don’t go, he thought. Be with him, God … please. He’s too good. Don’t let him get hurt. Please, God … The frantic pleading ran constantly in Alex’s mind from the moment he saw the flames. He was still catching his breath, still wishing he could get a message to his dad when another plane appeared on the left side of the screen and flew straight into the second tower.
No, God … not again, please … no … The horror of the scene brought Alex to his feet, coursing through him and urging him to run, to find his dad and help somehow. But there was nothing he could do, nowhere to go. He didn’t need the TV announcer to state the obvious: Someone had flown the jets into the buildings intentionally.
On purpose.
Alex couldn’t find a place in his imagination to relate to the evil that would’ve done such a thing, so he watched, too stricken to move, until finally Holly raced into the room and took hold of his arm. “I talked to my mom,” her face was pale, her eyes wide with terror. “She and your mother, they both want us home.”
The images on the television drew him, but he needed to get home. His car was at the shop that day, so Holly was his best option. He grabbed her hand and raced with her toward the school parking lot. Maybe there was something they could do. If they could make it into Manhattan, maybe they could catch his dad and get him home. Before he reached the Twin Towers. They were irrational thoughts, all of them. As they drove home, they listened to the radio, and when Holly dropped him off, tears were streaming down her face. “What’s happening? It’s like the world’s gone crazy.”
Alex didn’t know what to say, but he wanted to get inside, needed to see for himself again that the Twin Towers were really on fire. That he hadn’t dreamed it. Needed to hear the reports about whether firefighters were actually being sent in to fight what looked like unbeatable fires. He promised to call Holly later, and he tore from her car, racing up the sidewalk and into his house.
His mother was sitting there, stone still, watching the TV, and …
Alex stopped himself. Stopped the memories cold right there. He couldn’t take another minute of remembering. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, and his face felt flushed from the searing pain of the images in his head. He exhaled and tried to slow his heartbeat. The fear and agony and shock of that day was as real inside him now as it had been seven years ago.
Ahead of him, the ocean came into view, spread out beneath a hint of remaining daylight. With no plan, and no way to stop his racing heart, Alex took the easy route. At the light where Malibu Canyon ended at Pacific Coast Highway, he turned left and then right into the parking lot for Malibu Beach. A few surfers hung out near the showers, rubbing down their boards, peeling off wetsuits. They didn’t notice him, another guy in a truck.
He parked in a spot that gave him a clear view of the water, and again he exhaled long and slow. The events of 9/11 were too agonizing to relive, and he could do nothing to change the outcome. So why remember it at all, except to let it motivate him? The criminals on the streets of Los Angeles County? They might as well all have been members of the al Qaeda. People who plotted evil were all the same, and someone needed to take care of them.
Someone other than God, because He didn’t seem to be doing it.
Alex looked at the clock on his dashboard. It was just after eight. He didn’t want to risk being late to the meeting, so he put his truck in reverse and pulled back into traffic. He missed the beach, missed surfing the way he’d done so often when he first moved here. The power of the waves beneath him was for a few seconds like wrestling his loss, like finding relief from it.
He would bring Bo here tomorrow, after his workout at Pierce College. That way he could surf and Bo could watch, and by the end of the afternoon he’d be one day closer to wearing his uniform again.
Shadows danced between the mountain peaks as Alex turned right onto Malibu Canyon. A sick part of him wanted to go back and retrace the day of the terrorist attacks, but he couldn’t let himself think about that now, with the job ahead of him. Fear needed to be far from him, because this was his chance. An inside look at the insidious ways of the REA.
The meeting spot remained the same. Chumash Park. A sixteen-acre oasis of sloping hills and trees at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains. Alex pictured the park. He’d been aware of the place before, but in the last two weeks he’d cased it from every angle. Agoura High School sat to the east, and each of the other three sides was framed with cozy cul-de-sacs and two-story homes.
The beginnings of an adrenaline rush worked through his veins. He entered the Ventura Freeway, north again to Kanan Road, just a few miles away. The meeting place didn’t surprise him, because it was smack in the middle of the sort of reclusive, high-end neighborhood that might
house a member of the REA.
Once he’d been assigned to the taskforce on studying the REA, Alex had tried to climb into the REA mind-set by reading an interview with ecoterrorist Jeff Luers, a bespectacled guy with the look of a computer techie. Luers described himself as a militant, a radical who enjoyed civil disobedience. True to his passion, a year before the Twin Towers were attacked, the then-twenty-one-year-old Luers set fire to a number of SUV’s on an Oregon car lot and was sentenced to more than twenty years in prison. The sentence brought Alex deep satisfaction, but there was something even more maddening.
After his arrest, Luers created a magazine called Heartcheck, in which he wrote this message to those who would come after him: “Smash it. Break it. Block it. Lock it down. I don’t care why you do it or how you do it, but stop it. Get out there and stop it.” Worse, in the same publication, Luers said, “It’s a beautiful thing to see the financial district of a major city smashed to pieces.” He went on to say that what happened on 9/11 “wasn’t totally wrong,” and that the World Trade Center was a legitimate target.
The idea that there were members of the REA who actually believed and thought the same way was enough to push Alex even in his off-hours. He focused on the center line stretched out before him. Did the members of the REA ever think about the people who put the fires out? Luers actually said in his interview that in order to stop consumerism and overuse of the environment, a loss of life might be necessary.
Of course, not every extreme environmental group behaved like the REA did. Some had even issued statements condemning the idea of violence as a means of achieving environmental goals. But not the REA.
Alex exited at Kanan Road, turned right, and drove a mile toward the hills. A left turn at Thousand Oaks Boulevard put him just a few blocks from Chumash Park. His heart beat out a hard and steady rhythm, and he was glad he’d left Bo at home. The dog would’ve sensed something big was about to happen, and since he couldn’t be involved, it would only frustrate him.
Besides, Alex needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. No police dog, and no way he could let Owl or any of the others see his truck. A guy interested in joining the REA wouldn’t think of driving a Dodge Ram. If anyone from the group suspected he was an infiltrator, they’d guess right away he was a cop. Everything he’d been working toward, the knowledge of the REA’s headquarters, their plans for burning down custom homes, all his work would be gone in a single instant. His life could even be in danger. That’s why he’d cased the area. At first he’d thought about parking in the strip mall at the corner of Kanan and T.O. Blvd. but at this hour the shops would be closed, leaving his truck way too visible.
Instead, he’d gone on Google Earth and found the perfect spot, a paved area nestled between the trees at the south end of the football stadium at Agoura High. Alex turned right on Argos Street and there it was, Chumash Park on his right, the high school on his left. The meeting spot was on the far side of the park, so even if Owl and the others were there, they would be near the picnic tables — out of view from his driving route down Argos.
Here we go, he thought. Don’t make a mistake. He turned left into the school’s back service road and wound his way up toward the stadium. The spot was perfect. A person couldn’t see the truck from five feet away, let alone from across the street. He killed the engine and rehearsed his plan again. While he did, he slipped a pistol into his ankle holster and made sure his other guns were in place. Then he donned a hooded navy sweatshirt and slipped out of his work boots. He’d brought old leather sandals for the occasion — so he’d look the part a little better.
Finally, he pulled a miniature tape recorder from his glove box. The thing could pick up a conversation from twenty yards away. Alex had no doubt it would do the trick tonight. He needed proof of the meeting, so he could share it with his superiors. The information might never be admissible in court, but at least it would help Clay and Joe get the SWAT team on these guys. Before they lit a match to start their next fire.
He climbed out of the truck, shut the door, and slid his way through a few yards of brush, over a fence, and over a hill. Just like that, he was back on Argos. The street was empty as he jogged across and stayed to the right, cutting across the top of the park and then down Medea Valley Drive toward the picnic area. Alex slowed his pace, slipped his hand in his pocket, and started the recorder. At the same time, he checked his watch. Five minutes till nine.
Calm, Alex … be calm. This is a war … no room for hesitation. He exhaled and lifted his sweatshirt hood into place just as the first picnic table came into view. Sure enough, there were three men sitting at the table. Alex felt his heart skip a couple beats, then slam back into some kind of hyperrhythm. Calm … calm …
One of the men shifted his attention toward Alex, and the other two did the same. Alex forced himself to play the role, pretend he was truly interested in connecting with the REA. He kept his hands empty and at his sides as he approached the table.
“Danny?” The closest of the three men stood.
Alex glanced over one shoulder, then the other, and suddenly it occurred to him that he’d made a colossal mistake. So he was armed, so what? He was meeting with crazed felons in a dark park without backup of any kind, without a cell phone or a radio. What if this was an ambush? Alex refused to give the possibility further thought. It was too late for that. He motioned to the bald man. “You Owl?”
A slight breeze rustled the leaves of the trees overhead. The man shifted nervously, and behind him the backs of the others tensed. The short guy shrugged. “You need more than that.”
More than that? Panic tried to grab at Alex, but he dodged it. “Green Night.”
The man held out his hand. “Owl.” He stopped short of smiling.
“Danny.”
“Glad you could make it.”
He wasn’t sure whether to sit or not, so he stayed standing. If for some reason this was an ambush, he’d have a better chance on his feet. With a quick glance at the others, he noted everything he could about their appearances — everything he could determine at a dark picnic table in a matter of seconds. Owl had a week’s growth on his unshaven face, and he was easily the youngest of the three. Of the other two, the shorter one was completely bald, and the taller one had neatly combed short dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Alex had no guarantee about this meeting or how long it would last. His observations needed to happen fast.
“Why the REA?” the one with the glasses nodded at Alex. His eyes looked hard and unflinching.
Alex needed to think fast, think like an ecoterrorist. “The REA’s not really a group, right? I mean, it’s a mind-set.” He hooked his thumbs into his front pockets and stayed confident. “The more of us who act, the greater the chance people will notice.” He gave a shrug that said the things he was explaining were obvious. “Civil disobedience has been a part of societal change since the days of the Boston Tea Party.”
The air around them was still tense, but he saw the two at the table relax their posture a little. “We don’t have long.” The bald guy focused hard on Alex. The chip on his shoulder seemed only slightly smaller than his ego. “We’re looking for people to run reconnaissance for us. A few housing tracts.”
Alex could hardly believe he was taping this conversation. “Owl tells me you’re looking at the Oak Canyon Estates.”
The two on the table looked at each other — then at Owl. They wore buttoned-down oxfords and dark slacks — like they’d just gotten off work at a bank or an insurance office.
“Danny guessed.” Owl’s lower lip twitched, and his voice rose a notch. “Not like I just brought it up.”
The tall bespectacled man was still looking at Alex. “Owl talks too much.” He leaned closer. “You talk and we kill you. Get it?”
Alex ignored that. “So it’s the OCE, that’s what’s next?”
“The OCE is ours. You’ll start small. Find the next possible targets.”
“Right.” The bald one piped in. “You
’ll report to Owl.”
“What am I looking for? Homes only, or SUV’s?” Alex’s heart pounded harder, fueled by a combination of fear and thrill. “I could take out an SUV every night after work.”
“The REA is more methodical than that.” The tall guy bristled. “You’ll do only what we tell you to do.”
His buddy nodded. “Or it isn’t the REA.”
Owl looked nervous, uneasy. Alex had the suspicion that maybe Owl wasn’t as committed as the other two, as if he was maybe in over his head here and didn’t know how to cut himself free. If he was right, Owl could be a help to him down the road. Alex was about to ask what they’d already accomplished and how long it had taken to plan those attacks, when a small sedan drove slowly by the park, along the street closest to them.
Immediately, Owl took a step back, and the other two stood. “Meeting’s done.” The guy with the glasses started walking in the opposite direction of the car.
The driver of the car was either part of the REA or someone undercover, a detective from the sheriff’s department watching them. Either way, the three said nothing as they left the picnic table and hurried through a cluster of trees. Alex took a different route, straight across the field toward the far end of the park. He wasn’t sure what happened to the slow-moving sedan, but he heard no sounds of a car. Was he crazy to be out here when he was on mandatory leave? He reached into his pocket and clicked the tape recorder shut so it wouldn’t pick up his racing heart. If the information he’d gathered tonight was ever going to be used, he would really have to work to convince people why he’d done this.
When he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he crossed the street, pushed his way through the bushes, back over the fence and climbed into his truck. The service road he’d driven in on led back to the freeway a different way, so that he could avoid crossing paths with any of them.
Alex was halfway to the freeway when he finally caught his breath. Stupid, Alex … so stupid. A cop should never make himself that vulnerable. He grabbed a piece of gum from the center console and shoved it in his mouth. It was one thing to be driven to get the bad guys, to protect the citizens of the city in a way that would’ve made his father proud. But it was another to be so careless that he got himself killed. He’d have to keep his discussions with Owl to the phone. He could tape those conversations a lot easier.
The Tuesday Morning Collection Page 80