Soft Target

by Rachel Brune

  “Yeah?”

  “A Corona.” Mark wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted, but he was embarrassed making the man wait.

  The bartender popped the top and set it in front of him. “You want a glass?”

  “No, this is fine.” Mark handed the man a ten-dollar bill.

  “You okay?” The bartender had made note of his face. “You want some ice for that?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.” Mark took the beer, raised it in a half-salute, and took a sip. The bartender had already turned back to the television.

  Mark’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He had forgotten he had turned the ringer off in the hospital. The screen displayed a notification that Mabry had called him. Without listening to the voicemail, he pressed the callback button.

  “Granger, where are you?” Scott’s habit of skipping over polite greetings still unnerved Mark.

  “I’m in a bar near my apartment.”

  “How far are you from Brooklyn?”

  “Where in Brooklyn?”

  “Park Slope, near the museum.”

  “What line do I need to take?”

  “At this time of night, the 4.” Scott gave him the address.

  Mark mentally calculated the trip. “I can be there in about forty-five minutes.”

  “Good.” Silence. Mark pulled the phone away from his ear to check. Scott had terminated the call without saying a word. It was a truly annoying habit.

  Mark chugged half of the beer, then gave it up. He put a dollar down for a tip and headed out the door. He had a train to catch.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Scott decided to make white beans with escarole. He hadn’t eaten all day, and wanted something quick and easy while he waited for Mark to arrive.

  His mother had taught him the recipe the week after his divorce was finalized. That had been two years before she passed away, and three months before his second deployment. Mabry shook his head as he poured olive oil into a cast iron skillet and chopped a few cloves of garlic.

  Scott turned the gas on and listened as the oil heated and caramelized the garlic. He tore the escarole leaves into halves and thirds and washed them in a sink colander.

  The way we measure time, he thought. It’s in the memories, not a wristwatch.

  Mabry had joined the Army Reserve the year before September 11, 2001. A buddy of his on the force had asked him to come with him when he went to speak to the recruiter. The buddy had decided not to go through with it at the last minute, but Mabry was intrigued and signed on the dotted line.

  Opening a can of white cannellini beans, Scott rinsed them off and stirred them into the olive oil and garlic. He let them brown a little on each side.

  Mabry’s college degree had earned him a ticket straight through basic training and the military police school at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where the drill sergeants called him “Joe College” and gave him tasks like running the PowerPoint presentations that they all had to sit through.

  It had been a little over a half a year of training, all told, followed by an immediate deployment to Iraq, followed by a rapid divorce in which his ex-wife walked away with all of his savings and the substantial amount of combat pay that he hadn’t had time to spend. He had done one more tour, come back and dropped a packet for Officer Candidate School.

  Scott stirred the skillet again, mixing everything over the escarole as it grilled into translucent, crispy green chunks. He had a feeling he might regret the concoction of olive oil, legumes and green roughage later, but for now he needed something to get the toxins out of his body.

  He pulled a bowl out of the sink and rinsed it off. He tried to remember what he last ate out of it, but was pretty sure it would be okay. Turning off the gas, he dumped the entire contents of the skillet into the bowl.

  Leaning against the counter, he pulled a fork out of the dish rack, wiped it on his pants, and began to eat. The silence in the apartment crowded around him. The television remote was on the kitchen table and he picked it up and turned on the news.

  A commercial for pet nail trimmers came on. Scott thought about getting a dog. The next commercial in the lineup was for the Air Force. Mabry decided against getting a pet. There was no one he knew who would take care of it if he deployed again.

  Mark’s forty-five minute trip took him an hour and a half. Scott had eaten only half his meal during the wait before the food reacted with the day’s events to produce an overwhelming feeling of nausea. He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, set it down carefully, put the bowl on the sofa and made it to the bathroom in time to lose it all in the toilet. He brushed his teeth and took an Advil.

  The bell rang. Scott walked gingerly to the buzzer and let Mark in. He was on the sixth floor and so had time before he opened the door and watched Mark walk down the hall. The reporter stopped before him. Mark was breathing hard from walking up the stairs.

  “Holy shit, you look like hell,” said Scott. “What happened?”

  “You don’t look so good yourself,” said Mark. “Can I come in?”

  Scott stepped back and let him enter.

  “I’m a little late,” said Mark. “There was some kind of accident on the tracks.”

  “No probl—” Scott broke off at a loud ringing sound.

  Mark pulled his phone out of his pocket and grimaced at the caller ID. “Hang on one second. I need to get this.”

  Mark flipped open the phone. “Hi…Mr. Taggert…”

  Scott could hear a loud braying from the other end. He gestured toward the sitting area, then picked up his plate and went into the kitchen to give Mark some privacy.

  From inside the kitchen, Scott watched the reporter. Mark tried to speak, but kept getting cut off by the person on the other end. Finally, he just hunched down, slouching against the wall, nodding in agreement with the disembodied voice.

  The voice finally stopped yelling.

  “Uh huh,” said Mark into the line. “No problem, yes, I’ll be there.” He closed the phone.

  Scott wandered back out with two beers. He handed one to Mark.

  “So what happened?” asked Scott.

  “My producer’s pissed off at me,” said Mark. He looked at the label. It was Shiner Bock, a brand he didn’t recognize. He tried it and wasn’t sure if it was good or not. He wasn’t much of a drinker.

  “Why?” asked Scott.

  “Mostly because I didn’t call for a cameraman after being assaulted by three guys in the studio’s own parking garage,” said Mark.

  “No shit,” said Scott. That explained the new cut and stitches on Mark’s forehead, and the crusted blood on his shirt collar. “So, did you get fired?”

  “No,” said Mark. “But they want me to come in early tomorrow to do an interview on the morning show.”

  Scott sensed he was more upset than he was trying to show. “You want some ice for that?”

  “No,” said Mark. “So what did you want me to come here for?”

  “I’ve got something to show you,” said Scott.

  The inside of Scott’s apartment was not particularly neat. There was no food garbage, and it didn’t smell, but the man hadn’t invested much in furniture. Military gear was piled in a corner next to a table that contained a few pieces of military memorabilia. Several pictures of Mabry with various groups of uniformed men and women hung on the wall. There was one shaggy looking couch and a coffee table that matched neither the table nor the television stand. Scott had furnished the apartment in one lucrative evening on Craigslist. His entire DVD collection consisted of ten discs, all starring Clint Eastwood, and several stacks of pirated movies in flimsy plastic envelopes.

  Scott cleared off the coffee table and spread out several printouts of the information he had found.

  “I wanted to show you this,” said Scott.

  Mark picked up the printout of Eddie’s record. He peered at him closely.

  “Recognize that guy?” asked Scott.

  “Yeah,” said Mark. “We met
this evening.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s the guy who—”

  “Who what?”

  “Beat the shit out of me.” Mark looked away. He tried to play it off.

  “Wait—” said Scott. “This guy attacked you this evening?”

  “Yeah,” said Mark. “Him and two other guys. Stole my wallet.”

  “Was one of them a black guy with dreadlocks? And the other a skinny little white kid, looked like a punk?”

  “Yeah,” said Mark. “Friends of yours.”

  “I met them this morning,” said Scott. “Made me late for work.”

  At Mark’s curious look, he gestured toward his midsection.

  “Got a little bloody.”

  “Thanks for giving me the heads-up,” said Mark.

  “I didn’t know they’d be coming after you,” said Scott.

  “Bullshit,” said Mark.

  Scott raised an eyebrow.

  “If you didn’t think they were connected to what we’ve been looking for, why did you bother finding this stuff and showing it to me?” asked Mark.

  “True.” Scott shrugged. “Sorry.”

  The man was infuriating, but Mark was tired. “So, you got anything else?”

  “Nah,” said Scott. “Well, yeah. I mean, I checked out known associates, but I didn’t get a line on the other two who were with him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “His grandmother’s address.” Scott showed him the article, with the picture. “Not much we can do without a last known, but chances are he’ll show up here.”

  “Can you go after him?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Scott. It was true—there was a warrant on Eddie for several thousand dollars worth of traffic violations piled up from a short stint as a delivery driver.

  “Damn,” said Mark.

  “What are you so disappointed for?” asked Scott. “We finally got something to go on here other than some lame internet manifesto.”

  “It’s just …” Mark trailed off. “It’s just, I don’t know, disappointing.”

  “What’s disappointing?”

  “These guys,” said Mark. “They’re making out like they’re some great big terrorists, but they’re just a bunch of criminals.”

  Scott laughed. “Most terrorists aren’t anything more than criminals with a slick PR game.”

  “But I expected more,” said Mark.

  “Well, it might not look as sexy on television as a burning building,” said Scott. “But a criminal with a Koran is still a criminal.”

  Mark shuffled through papers. “There’s not much here.”

  “There’s enough,” said Scott. He took note of Mark’s morose expression. “Think of it this as a good thing.”

  “How?”

  Mabry finished off his beer. “We were at a dead end before. Now we have their information. And we know they are nervous.”

  Scott tried to keep his elation out of his voice, but it was underneath his words all the same. For weeks, it had felt like he had been chasing his own shadow. Finally, with these attacks, he had something tangible to grab onto. There was proof instead of paranoia, something hard to base suspicion on rather than speculation.

  Scott grabbed his empty bottle. “You want another?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Mark didn’t look up from reading the article about Eddie’s war-hero brother.

  Scott brought out the two bottles and his mostly empty pack of cigarettes.

  “I’m going to head out onto fire escape for a smoke,” said Scott. He didn’t smoke indoors—another arcane rule that he made to help force himself to quit smoking. Like the others, it wasn’t very effective. “Care to join me?”

  “Yeah.”

  The entrance to the escape was through a window that slid down unless it was propped up. Scott held it for Mark, putting a ruler in the gap to hold it open.

  Mark took a seat on the steps. Scott leaned against the railing and lit up.

  There was a question Mark wanted to ask the soldier. The darkness that hid his face gave him the courage.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot,” said Scott.

  “You said these three guys attacked you,” said Mark.

  “Yup,” said Scott.

  “So, you were able fight them off?” asked Mark.

  “Sort of,” said Scott. “One of them kicked me in the stomach and got me bleeding again.” He breathed out. Mark deserved honesty. “Actually, they messed me up pretty badly. I had to go back to the hospital to get it taken care of.”

  “Have you ever been attacked when you couldn’t handle it?” asked Mark.

  Scott drew in smoke. It came back out with his words. “Yup. Couple times.”

  “You ever been mugged?” asked Mark.

  “No,” said Scott.

  There was silence for a bit.

  “If you were me today,” said Mark, “what would you have done?”

  Scott thought for a moment. “Call the bank and cancel my credit cards.”

  Mark didn’t tell him how helpless he had felt, but Scott guessed what he was going through. He had never told anyone about the first time he saw the barrel of an AK-47 lazily swing his way. Mabry had stood in the road like an engraving, stamped frozen while it spit whining bullets toward him. His sergeant had slapped the back of his kevlar: “Fire your goddamned weapon, sir!”

  And then training took over. He ran for cover and aimed his own bullets toward the insurgents in their mud-walled buildings. The combined firepower had wiped out the enemy soldiers and shattered the thighbone of one unfortunate citizen who had sheltered the insurgents in his house and yet claimed to be innocent of their intentions.

  Mark’s voice brought Scott back to the present.

  “That wasn’t the first death threat I’ve received,” said Mark.

  “No?”

  “I get a couple every now and then, especially now. I got a shitload after I pulled that stunt on the plane.”

  “From who?” asked Scott. “Flight attendants?”

  “Just from people.” Mark finished his beer and put the empty bottle on the windowsill. “Mostly people claiming I gave terrorists ideas and now they’ll try to hijack another plane.”

  Scott surprised him by laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Mark.

  “People are dumb,” said Scott.

  “Yeah?” asked Mark.

  “Yeah,” said Scott. “Terrorists aren’t stupid—you didn’t give them any ideas they never had. They’re smart, creative and the most dangerous have more education than your average American citizen.”

  “That’s not exactly comforting,” said Mark.

  “It’s not meant to be,” said Scott. “The media’s got people so screwed up, covering to death the shit that’s not important and ignoring the stuff that is.”

  “Hey,” said Mark. “I’m the media.”

  “No offense,” said Scott. “But most people have no clue. They watch the news on the television, and they’re either too scared … or not scared enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me show you something.”

  Back in the apartment, Scott popped open his laptop.

  “Check this out.”

  Mark stifled a yawn and peered at the screen. The computer clock revealed that midnight had come and gone.

  “I didn’t know you were getting deployed again,” he said.

  “What?” asked Scott. He took the laptop back. He had left his e-mail open. “I’m not getting deployed.”

  “But the e-mail says—” said Mark.

  “The e-mail says that the unit I requested to deploy with doesn’t have a slot for me,” said Scott. “The only unit that wanted me was a sustainment brigade out of Fort Polk. I’m not going anywhere. Now pay attention.”

  He closed the mail browser and opened a video hosting site. A quick search displayed a list of links. Scott opened a video posted by a user named “jihad2002” and t
urned the screen to Mark. “This is what I’m talking about.”

  The video window began playing a grainy reel that showed a group of men in headscarves and white robes against a backdrop of mud and brick. The men in the video let out loud martial arts yells as they high-kicked at targets and attempted other kung fu moves. One man attempted to kick a target, missed, and ended up kicking the face of the man holding the target.

  In spite of himself, Mark laughed.

  “See this?” asked Scott. “It’s easy to look at this stuff and laugh.”

  Mark’s smile faded.

  “What this video doesn’t show you is how many potential recruits it reached,” said Scott. He pointed below the video window, where “Views: 12,019” displayed.

  “Are you willing to bet your life that 12,019 people just wanted a laugh?” asked Scott. “Read some of these comments.”

  Mark blinked his eyes. He knew it was late, but the writing seemed blurrier than usual. He realized that the writing wasn’t blurry; it was just in Arabic.

  “I don’t get it,” said Mark. “Al Qaeda uploads YouTube videos?”

  “This is what I’m talking about,” said Scott. “It’s not just Al Qaeda. Pretty much every terrorist organization has some kind of public relations arm that makes videos and spreads them around. Hell, Hezbollah’s got its own satellite television channel.”

  “Really?” asked Mark.

  “These guys know their media,” said Scott. “No one gives them credit, and that makes them even more dangerous.”

  Mark was thinking of how to pitch this as a story. There had to be an angle his producer would bite at.

  “People are either too scared of terrorists,” said Scott, repeating himself. “Or else they’re not scared enough.”

  Maybe Mark could bring it up on the morning show. Maybe Scott would come on the show with him.

  Scott yawned.

  “I just don’t get it,” said Mark. “This guy, Eddie—I know you said that terrorists are criminals, but this guy really doesn’t seem like someone who would watch this video and decide to be a recruit for jihad.”

  “Yeah, that’s something I don’t get myself,” said Scott. “Maybe he’s got someone pulling his strings. He’s got his reasons, but I don’t know them.”