by Vincent Heck
A member of the Brendenhall Club chimed in. He was a bishop. He asked, “Well what do you do to reel it in?”
President Harris nodded his head. “It’s a step-by-step process. It’s easier to tell someone they’re not allowed to do something they’ve never done than to take away something they’ve been allowed to do freely for many years. It has to be done with caution and care. This is one thing we can not rush. Hopefully we timed everything right. Our psyops folks have been on it for decades.”
“The captain of said psyops team is roaming willy-nilly, like an old person at a geriatric center. How are you on it?” Brendenhall said.
“Sir, you’ll have to trust us.” Harris responded.
“Well, maybe we can help.” The clergyman interjected. “What do you want us to do?”
“Promote listening to their government, and supporting the troops at all costs.”
The Mall at Prince George’s
Washington D.C.
Next day after chase 10:00 a.m.
Jason stood outside of the dressing room while Dany changed into his new clothes. Czyra had already picked out his clothes and changed.
“So, what has you on the run, son?” Jason asked.
“We’ve been researching 9/11 since it happened and ever since then, weird things started happening.”
“Weird things like what? How in depth was your researching? Were you crossing lines?”
“It’s a long story.”
Dany came out of the dressing room in a purple polo shirt and white pants. Czyra and Jason stared at him for a brief moment.
“That’s what you’re wearing?” Jason asked.
“What’s wrong with this?” Dany asked.
“Are you boating on a yacht to a golf party?”
“What?”
“Nothing, let’s go.”
Jason paid with cash before discarding the kid’s old clothes in a mall waste basket. “You hungry?” Jason asked. “Let’s go to the food court before we hit the road.”
Without looking back in the kids’ direction he asked again. “So, I’m going to need you guys to speak up. What do you know? Why are they after you? You chased me down, now you’re going to have to step up to the plate. Speak.”
Czyra started speaking as Jason approached the end of the line at the fast food window. “I was in school that day. 10th grade.”
MD HS September 11, 2001 8:50 a.m.
Czyra sat in history class behind the prettiest girl in school. Jasmine Beckard – a fairskinned, brown-eyed girl. Everyday he’d attempt to peek down towards her lower back. Her shirt always raised high and pants sunk low enough to expose the fair skin of her lower back. Her panties showed everyday. Usually, this made it hard for him to listen to Mrs. Mulforson. They were talking about World War II; a subject Czyra could care less about.
“So, on what date did Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, and in turn the United States declared war on Germany and Italy?” Mrs. Mulforson asked. “Dany.” She called.
Dany who sat across the classroom put his stubby left arm down before answering, “December 11, 1941.”
“Very good.” She flipped through her paperwork. “OK. And, as part of 'Operation Thunderclap' on February 13-15 1945, the RAF and US Airforce fire bombed a major German city into non-existence. Which was it?” The classroom was silent as she scanned the classroom for hands. Dragging the word out she said, “Alriiightt.” She pointed. “Dany, again.”
“It was Dresden. Dresden had been left virtually untouched by allied bombing because of its lack of strategic targets. The preferred range of estimates of the number of people killed—which was mainly civilian—has narrowed in the 21st century to 25,000 to 30,000.”
“Awesome.” She said before shutting her book.
“Suck up.” Czyra coughed.
“Shut up, fag.” Dany barked back across the room.
“Excuse me!” Mrs. Mulforson hollered. “That gross inflammatory word is not allowed in this classroom. Very unacceptable. Dany, I’m writing you up.”
As she swiftly walked to her desk, Czyra responded.
“I rather be a fag than to be the sack of room temperature butter-bag that you are.”
Dany glared towards Czyra while the class laughed.
“Hey, that’s enough!” Mulforson scolded. As she wrote out the write-up slip, she spoke in a much more calm tone. “Look, kiddos. I know it’s only the beginning of the school year, but we’ve gotta get those brains clicking on all cylinders. We’re not going to start this year off like this. The Summer is over. Time to think now. Dany, you’ve come prepared for school, but you will not be using words like that in my classroom. Got it?”
Mulforson’s desk phone rang.
“One moment.” She walked over to the phone on the wall and answered. “Mrs. Mulforson’s class.”
Mrs. Mulforson stayed quiet; something she barely did on that classroom phone when it rang. Her face calcified into stone. “Denise.” She called out to one of the girls in the class. “Your mother is here to get you early.”
“What?” Denise asked.
“There’s an emergency. Just pack up your stuff. Your mother is here.”
Denise quickly scurried to gather her things. She seemed confused as to if she should be grateful to be out, or worried about why.
Attempting to keep the phone on her ear while scrambling to her desk, Mrs. Mulforson stretched the phone cord to its limit. Sliding her desk drawer out, she grabbed the TV remote. With a flick of the wrist, she clicked the classroom TV on.
Czyra didn’t know what he was looking at, to begin. A tall building was smoking from the top. He knew it was something serious by Mrs. Mulforson’s reaction to the broadcast.
“Oh my god!” Mrs. Mulforson tearfully screamed out. “That’s that bastard, Osama bin Laden. I know it!” She slammed her text book onto her desk. “I know it’s him. That freak.”
Even with her, seemingly, extreme reaction, she appeared to be attempting to hold her anger in.
“Class, in 1993, when you all were about 7 or 8-years-old, a Saudi-native, freak-terrorist, tried to take down our towers in NYC—Oh, my god—And I’m telling you this is him, again.” She spoke into the phone, “I’m OK. I gotta go.” She banged the phone on the hook. She spoke inaudible words through her hand covering her mouth. Her statue stance lasted minutes while she looked at the at the news telecast.
Each classmate moved their eyes from the TV back towards the teacher who stood in silence.
“You see,” she said quietly, “there’s a group of extremist Muslims that hate Americans. They claim to want us off their soil, but as we’ve learned in previous lessons over the years, this is very reminiscent of the Christian/Muslims battles in the past. This group, they’re called al-Qaeda. They’re not true Muslims – they’re terrorists.”
At the time, what Mrs. Mulforson was saying went clear over Czyra’s head. But, it was fascinating to him that there was a group that hated American’s so much that they wanted to kill him.
“Look!” Mrs. Mulforson screeched, “There’s another plane, there’s another plane.” She said with her high-pitched squeal morphing into sorrow. “Oh, no.” She cried out.
After the explosion fire-balled out of the side of the building, Mrs. Mulforson lost strength in her legs. Grabbing onto the desk, she began sobbing. Czyra and Dany immediately jumped out of their desks, to help Mrs. Mulforson.
The fireball billowed into a smoldering cloud of smoke enveloping the Manhattan skyline.
Czyra and Dany helped Mrs. Mulforson up. She sat on the edge of her desk. Tears flowed from her eyes. She was quiet, but steaming mad all at the same time. “Someone better protect the White House.” She said as if she had any authority.
None of the kids knew exactly what they needed to be afraid of—and it made the day that much more still.
A dull buzz chimed through the classroom speaker next to the clock. “Attention
all teachers and students: due to the nature of today’s events, the administration has decided that we’re going to call an emergency early dismissal, effective immediately. All parents have been notified, and extra buses will be provided.”
The kids gathered up their things, and prepared to head back to home class.
On the way out of the door, Czyra heard Mrs. Mulforson cry out in pain. She now had broken into a full-out sob. Czyra looked up at the TV. What he saw looked like it was directly out of a motion picture. The entire tower was collapsing on itself.
Frozen, he watched as his teacher crippled to the floor sobbing with her hands over her mouth. Her back slid down the concrete cinderblock wall until her butt hit the floor.
“Mrs. Mulforson, are you alright?”
She nodded rapidly while waving him out.
Hesitantly, he turned and headed for home class.
Once Czyra was home, he sat restlessly in his room watching TV.
“I felt hopeless as I watched the nation in panic. With all of my restless energy, I logged onto the internet to see what I could find about the first WTC attack in ’93. It all confused me, though. I didn’t, really, understand a lot.”
“What didn’t you understand?” Jason asked.
“There were a lot of things.”
“So what did you do?”
“I sought help.”
Dany interjected, “That’s me!”
“What did you guys come up with?”
Dany promptly took over the conversation. “The way the buildings collapsed was most interesting to me. My father is in demolition, and I happen to know that to rig a building to fall in its own footprints takes a lot of skill and experience. Three of them fell in their own footprints at random on 9/11. That, to me, didn’t smell right.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. I’m hoping you have some answers being so close to the situation.”
“So, you think that’s how it works?” Jason said to the two boys. “A couple 21-year-old kids attempt to kidnap a government official and ask for a whole lot of complicated and probably sensitive questions that may endanger the nation’s safety?” Jason tossed another bite of French fries into his mouth. “How about you tell me about some of the things you’ve said and done, so that I can know why they’re after you. You’ve certainly struck a nerve with them. So, I’ll give you that.”
“OK, truth is,” Czyra said, “I—we think 9/11 was an inside job.”
Jason scoffed under a slight chuckle. “You’re one of those, huh? Enlighten me.”
“No, listen. I realize that not all those high up in the government or even in the president’s direct administration know all the details—sometimes the president doesn’t even know -- I just don’t get it. I guess not everyone can agree with all the operations, but they can still be used to execute them. Hell, the Kennedy administration attempted to forge plans without him. They couldn’t get him to agree with them on several war waging issues. I’m not just some punk kid, I’ve done my research.”
Chatter in the food court bustled around their silent chewing.
“Well, that’s it? Is that all you said? Continue.”
“We’ve talked to a scientist close to the situation, we’ve talked to a doctor, we’ve talked to a few men who made it out of the building after it collapsed. We’ve seen the videos on the internet. There are a lot of unconnected dots.”
“There are, indeed, a lot of unconnected dots. You’re right. I’m after answers myself, kid.”
“So, what are we gonna do?”
“We? No ‘we’, kid. I’m going to continue to search. But, I’m also going to look for a safe place to drop you and your friend off. There’s nothing you can do with what we may be up against.”
“This is whack, yo.” Czyra said slamming his back into the back rest of his chair. Jason finished his fries and brushed the salt off of his greasy hands. “Finish up. We’ve gotta move. They’ve probably got UAVs all over the place here -- don’t want to be spotted.”
Amidst the silence that had fallen over their table as the boys finished their food, a conversation by a group of men at the next table was hard to ignore. They were discussing the New York City auto show. Czyra had taken light interest in their conversation. “Hey kid.” Jason called out. “You’re gonna be OK. Just take a break. I promise I’ve got this.”
Czyra was disappointed, but he had no intention of staying out of this battle. After he finished the last of his burger, he asked, “So, what was your main job there besides the day-to-day activities in the DHS?”
“I studied social science. Neurology. Psychology.”
“What did you do with that?”
“I people watch, basically. My job was to monitor the stark contrast between people’s everyday lives and how they viewed the government.”
“What do you mean? How would you do that?”
Jason overheard the autoshow conversation turn into complaints. “Listen over there. What are they talking about?”
“It seems they’re complaining about the car companies only being in the show for money and not really much for the showcase or the spectacle.”
“Right. Listen to that main guy. He’s going on about the value of a car going down when so many people sit in it. You hear him?”
They listened to man grumble for a minute. “They wouldn’t let me sit in there,” The man said. “and I felt like saying ‘stop being cheap!’ They’re only there for the sponsors and not so much the potential buyers. They know most of us are there cause we can’t buy those fricken cars.”
Czyra looked back at Jason. “So?” he asked.
“So, you can learn a lot from listening to someone’s view and developing a question for them. Watch this.” Jason said. “Excuse me, sir.” He called out to the man. The guy stopped mid-sentence. “My boy and I, here, were having a discussion. Can I get your honest opinion?”
“Sure, why not? Shoot.”
“The government just released a documentary the other day on domestic drone usage. Have you seen that?”
“Yeah, I have.”
“What did you think?”
“Very fascinating! I think it’s the way of the future.”
“Well, we were having a debate. My son thinks that it was solely educational since we’re moving forward. I think it’s propaganda to convince us that it’s good for us since so many people are concerned with the idea of privacy.”
“Well, there is a concern of privacy, I guess. But, I wouldn’t get too paranoid. May be a little of both. An education to teach us that we have little to worry about.”
Jason nodded. “Thanks for your thoughts, sir.”
Jason looked back at Czyra. “Now what did you learn?” He asked the boys while packing up to head out to the car.
“I don’t know. He seemed to be more hard on the car show than the government.”
“He’s what’s considered ‘in a good place’ with what I do. He’s not hardcore gung-ho like some who would have called me paranoid or unpatriotic, but his, seeming, tendency to look for ulterior motives watered down some when it came to government-type issues. In my line of work, he’s a good guy. He’s a trustworthy American. Of course that’s only a sample-size.”
They walked back to the car. The evening was peaceful. As Jason sat into his driver seat, he heard the sputtering exhaust of one of the mall’s many medium-sized surveillance drones.
“Buckle up.” Jason said. “We’re going to find someplace safe to stay.
Pulling out onto I 395, besides the smooth sound of the Mercedes’ tires gliding over the road, there was a moment of silence in the car. Czyra broke the silence. “Seems like you had a fun job; like, it was something you enjoyed.”
“I love analyzing people. People, overall, have detached from their natural selves to protect the government’s honor, and that’s 100-percent needed to build a strong nation. But, like an
y other empire, it leaves little room for growth and seems to lead to collapse. It happens in each age. And in each age, the people seem to think their advancement causes them to be the exception.”
After some time riding, the car pulled off an exit into a Virginia town.
“Where are we headed?” Czyra asked.
“We’re going to check into a hotel and figure out where we’re going next, and what in the world I’m going to do.”
Jason thought about Clareese. He was concerned with her safety. He didn’t know Max, but he hoped she would find a much better place to be protected. The last person he wanted protecting his wife was the man she might run off with.
“So, I’m assuming because they let you hold a pretty high place in the new government focal point department, that you knew that they needed something like 9/11 to happen in order to carry out this new government?”
Jason only glanced in his rearview mirror at Czyra.
Czyra continued. “He needed that to happen, he even said it; PNAC’s ‘new Pearl Harbor’. It happened only in the next year.”
Jason remained silent.
“It’s hard to read you.” Czyra said. “I feel like you’re not taking me seriously. What are you thinking?”
“Look, I’m not thinking anything. I’m just listening, as I’ve been telling you. You want me to tell you how amusing your conspiracy theories are?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Czyra asked.
“I’m tired and I can’t keep up with your vivid imagination. We’re almost at the hotel. Just, get your things together, and be ready to get in here quickly. Got it?”
Czyra slumped back into his seat.
“Feel free to talk as much as you want. When, and what you need to know, I will give you. Until then, you are the one that needs to tell me—someone who can actually do something about the info—what you know. Does that make sense to you?”