I was Dave Murphy again, walking at a fast pace through Golden Gate Park. The rain had stopped, but the chill March wind blew in heavily from the ocean. More dark clouds were forming and another dose of rain was imminent. Only the hardy had joined me to exercise that Monday afternoon. They were wrapped up thoroughly from the elements, their faces hidden in turned up collars or hoods drawn low over their foreheads. I paid no attention to them, they showed no interest in me. I wanted to rid my brain of Sally for as long as possible. Yet I knew it wouldn’t take long before she drenched my soul in thoughts about our disappearing existence on planet earth. As I walked I saw squirrels and birds and tiny insects and wondered what sort of life awaited us in the stars.
After an hour the first spots of rain began to fall, I retreated home. It was almost five, so I scooped some ice into my favorite glass and poured a decent measure of Black Label, noting that a trip to Costco was needed by the level of amber liquid remaining in the bottle. With the current state of my life maybe I’d buy two bottles.
I was alone in the family room contemplating whether to call on Sally or check the TV. My annoyance with my holographic friend was still high so I switched on CNN. I was still being verbally dissected, which meant no big story had crossed the networks. The current group included a religious gentleman, at that moment I didn’t know which denomination, who was pontificating my likelihood of being the second coming of Christ. If only you knew, I thought, you couldn’t be further away from the truth. The discussion seemed immature at best so I flipped to a California news channel who were interviewing people in the street to get their views on the winged man. Most of what I heard for ten minutes or so was a rehash of what had already been said. Then the newscaster asked a black man what he thought. He replied firmly that it wasn’t right that this flying man was white and not black. Sadly, no mention of Asian, Hispanic or any other race. For a short moment I considered this and played with the idea of changing my skin color each time I went out in public. I wondered how that would appear and what sort of reaction I would receive? It was beyond me and sadly irrelevant to what I wanted to achieve. I switched off the TV and enjoyed the quiet, interspersed with the clink of ice as my glass tipped to my lips. I wonder if Jesus liked a drink? Maybe I don’t want to know, might add more guilt to my nightly beverage.
It was almost reluctantly that I called up Sally. She appeared almost instantly and took her chair. Her clothes were plain tonight. Jeans and dull grey sweater, close around her neck. Sneakers. I ignored the statement she made with her boring attire and didn’t retrace the issues of earlier. Wasn’t that so normal? A lover’s spat. Not to be resurrected.
“What’s happening at the FBI?”
“They don’t believe her.”
“What about the security guy?
“He didn’t see you enter the cupboard, so he thinks Debra Barron got it wrong. There was no one in the cupboard, it’s the logical conclusion.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Adamant. Sticking to her story. Might be a bad idea.”
“And the senior tech guy I impersonated?”
“Said he fainted, which he did, can’t add anything else.”
“Why’s it a bad idea?”
“Oh, she has some history that wouldn’t look good if it came out.” Sally didn’t elucidate.
“What history?” I asked.
“Not that relevant, do you really want to know?”
“Yes.” I was being a bit of an ass.
“She had an affair with the senior tech guy a year or so back. She wants him to leave his wife but he doesn’t want to.”
“I see.”
“The problem is interoffice relationships are frowned upon in the Bureau unless they are disclosed and approved.”
“Jeez! You’re right, still, doesn’t seem likely to come out,” I said.
“She stalked him. He threatened a restraining order, she threatened to tell his wife, messy.”
“Okay, I’ve heard enough. Did they find prints?”
“No,” she said. I could see a smug look on her face. She was right. She loved it.
“Good. What about the task force?”
“Meeting tomorrow at one in the afternoon.”
“Where?”
“Langley. Four from each side, joint chairmanship.”
“What’s their brief?”
“To find you and bring you in for questioning.”
I thought about that for a while. “Perhaps I should join them.” Sally’s previous smile blossomed into full face of delight. That girl loved action.
I fixed some dinner at home. Crazy really. I could go anywhere in the world in a second but I preferred to stay in and toil in the kitchen. Maybe I just needed some downtime from the bizarre life of Jo-el, my Alta-ego. A taste of reality, a time to reflect on the peculiar happenings of the last week. It wasn’t quite a week since Ka-el had scared me half to death appearing on my laptop. My initial belief that he was a hoax had been shattered, yet I still had to pinch myself every so often to truly believe what was taking place. If I could be converted in such a short time, surely the governments of this world would come around.
No more rescues for now, no more vigilante exploits. I found the enormity of crime around the world quite unbelievable. The cost in money terms and human time to fight that much villainy was truly immense. It was that thought that answered my question of how to fund the spaceships.
“Sally,” I was fed and watered, sipping gently on my second dose of amber goodness. She appeared as usual. “How many terrorist groups are there in the US right now?”
Her eyes-brows perked up, she was interested in the new direction. “Just counting those people supporting overseas radicals like ISIS, here legally or illegally, seven.”
I was surprised it was that many. “How many of them are being watched? What do you mean legally?”
“Three of the groups haven’t done anything illegal yet, most of the members of each group have valid papers. Basically, they’ve either been recruited here or just hate the US and want to take some action. Some members are here on false papers.”
“So what have they done that’s illegal apart from papers?”
“Just talking about acts of terrorism is illegal, but just about impossible to prove. No one’s going to get locked up because they said in some bar they wished the President was dead.”
“So are they all being watched?”
“No, Homeland Security doesn’t know about four of the groups, the other three are being monitored but as I said they haven’t done anything illegal yet.”
“Okay, okay. I’m getting confused here. Let’s try this another way. Can you rate the groups based on the imminence of the threat?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, put them on the screen in order.”
My heads-up display jumped to life. At the top of the list was a group labelled ‘The Azizz Group’. There were just two members, Jamal Azziz and Rachid Benfarmi, both US citizens, living in Virginia Beach. Pictures of the two men were on the screen. They had been in the US since birth, their parents escaping from Iran in the eighties. Both men were mid-twenties and worked at a factory refitting navy ships. Azziz was an electrician and Benfarmi a welder. Each had become radicalized, but had kept their beliefs to themselves. They didn’t attend a local mosque and showed no public interest in Islam, yet together they talked avidly about the events in Syria and Iraq. They hated their jobs and hated America and dreamed of joining ISIS in Syria. There was a whole sub-section of why they felt so much hatred but I skipped over it to a heading that said, ‘Threat’. They had met a Persian-American woman in Norfolk about eleven months’ prior who said she could get them to Iraq. She had told them they would need to prove that they were loyal to ISIS. They had to act alone, there could be no help or contact with any other radical Muslims in the US. They hatched a plan to plant a series of bombs inside a naval ship they were refitting and to detonate the devices at a time that would cause the most deaths and destruction. Their jobs were perfect to attain this goal. Over the previous ten months they had positioned bombs in a Ballistic Missile Destroyer undergoing a major weaponry refit. The Destroyer was due for a fanfare relaunch in three weeks’ time and they planned the detonation would co-inside with that relaunch. Twenty-eight devices were scattered around the ship, kept active by the ships own electrical system and easily exploded with a code and a cell phone from three hundred yards.
‘Three weeks,’ I mused. I checked down the list, the next two groups weren’t really groups. The second was a single guy in Los Angeles who had amassed an arsenal of weapons and was planning to kill as many people as possible at an event yet to be decided.
“How do you know this Saied guy is planning a mass killing?” I asked Sally.
“He spoke to his girlfriend in those terms, five weeks ago.”
“What did she say or do?”
“She tried to dissuade him, so he told her about three days later he’d changed his mind and wouldn’t do anything, but he’s been reviewing events on the internet almost daily with large crowds. He went to a pre-season baseball game at the Dodgers last week, apparently to check on the security. He hardly watched the game, just walked around the stadium, checking exits and such like.”
“Keep an eye on him and if he loads up, tell me immediately.”
“Sure.”
The third group was a husband and wife in Tucson, Arizona. Like the single guy, they had amassed weapons and intended a mass killing. All three groups were unknown to the authorities because they were American and had no prior record of violence or support for radical Islam.
“Okay, good. Make sure none of these idiots get close to succeeding. No more terrorist acts on American soil.” I instructed Sally.
“What about those crazy people who walk into schools and cinemas and kill innocent people?”
“There’s quite a few of them, all over, but most won’t do anything. Interestingly one of the most likely is a girl in Denver, she’s a Goth. They’re unpredictable, most with some mental problems, none have a set date to act that I can point to. It’s all in their heads and you know I can’t read people’s thoughts.”
“Can you warn me if one of them loads up with weapons and look like they may do something?”
“Sure.”
“Just out of interest, how many people can you monitor at one time?”
“Almost unlimited.”
“But not Japan or Taiwan?”
“I can monitor them but the network isn’t strong enough for you to act there.”
“I guess we should do this in Europe, too?”
“No problem.”
“Looks like I’m going to be busy?”
Sally smiled, it was so obvious to me that she loved this. I’m sure if I let her she’d just go terminate all the people she thought were a threat. End of story. Might not be such a bad plan. I’ll hold that thought for another time.