Kenneth Bryce, thirty-four, a Kern County employee, was found dead of apparent stab wounds in his Bakersfield apartment yesterday...
The follow-up link took us to a page-seven article in the same newspaper, two days later:
Bakersfield Police say there is nothing to substantiate a rumor that a recent murder victim had been decapitated.
Kenny Bryce, thirty-four, was found dead in his apartment Tuesday afternoon, victim of multiple stab wounds. Bakersfield PD says there are no suspects and no arrests have been made.
However, two Kern County Medical Examiner and Coroner’s Office contractors have said that Bryce’s body was decapitated when it arrived for autopsy. Neither contractor would speak on the record or give a name to this publication...
My turn again:
WARRIOR 2:47 A.M.
Do you claim responsibility?
CALIPHORNIA 2:48 A.M.
I claim glory.
WARRIOR 2:49 A.M.
But where is your proof? Maybe you only read these stories as we just did.
Caliphornia answered the Warrior of Allah with two brief and hideous video clips.
One of Kenny Bryce’s head dangling over his pillow, an anonymous hand clutching his hair.
The other of Marlon Voss’s head being set on his back, the head rolling off, then two gloved hands putting it back and getting it balanced.
A long silence.
Failure of words. Pause of will.
My anger building. Lure this cutthroat bastard in.
WARRIOR 2:52 A.M.
Why doesn’t America know you? Terror must be seen to be valuable. Where are your posts and Tweets? We do not sponsor crime, we sponsor fear. America must hear from you. If God allows. Inshallah.
Ten minutes passed. With a sinking feeling that I had asked him to do something he wasn’t ready for. And lost him.
CALIPHORNIA 3:02 A.M.
No publicity yet. Stealth and secrecy. One more U.S. drone killer to behead. Then I’ll bring the terror America has earned since 9/11. Inshallah, Warrior of Allah, whoever you are. I will launch my jihad with or without your bags of money!
WARRIOR 3:05 A.M.
Drone killers? American soldiers?
CALIPHORNIA 3:06 A.M.
Why aren’t you talking about my money? Why are you so slow? Are you believers or the FBI?
WARRIOR 3:10 A.M.
We ask the same of you. Life is risk. We have the money and are eager to invest in the right people. Acts in America are more valuable to us than acts at home. We need heroes and martyrs. We need great warriors, not shy killers. We need him who will take the head of the unbeliever and hold it high, dripping blood on the world!
CALIPHORNIA 3:12 A.M.
If you want real American terror, be ready to move very quickly. Fifty thousand. It must be delivered by an Arab man who speaks Arabic. A man of the book. I’ll message you with instructions when and if I decide to trust you. If you contact me before then, you will never hear from me again.
Half an hour of silence from Caliphornia, Taucher staring out the window, lost in something.
“He’s real,” she whispered. “He actually does these things.”
“We found him, Joan.”
Another deep breath from her. Decision time.
“You found,” she said. “But now I have to take him back to my tribe.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to. There, in the tribe, I’m Taucher the paranoid. Taucher the haunted and hysterical, Taucher the beat up and made up. Soon to be promoted out of her job and her city. But before that happens, I need the Bureau for fifty thousand cash and a takedown team. What I want most on earth is to crush Caliphornia. I’ll do what I can to keep your hand in, Roland. You brought him to us and I need you to push his buttons.”
35
Four hours and no word from Taucher. Maybe Caliphornia had ducked for cover. Maybe I’d simply been cut from the team. Maybe both.
Too tired to sleep, brain on spin cycle, I sat under the palapa in the cool morning.
Noted the evidence of last night’s party: take-out boxes from Vince’s Pizza in town, beer and soft drink empties, Ping-Pong table left uncovered. Zeno’s water bucket by the barbecue.
Clevenger’s drone hovered above the casitas, streaming me and everything else that moved within its field of view back to one of Clevenger’s computers. I was glad to have it protecting Lindsey. I flipped it off anyway.
Moving slowly, I dropped some pizza boxes and foam salad containers into the trash. Listened to the red-shouldered hawks screaming in a chill, unsettled sky. The storm that almost chased us out of the Sierra Nevada, I thought, making its way down to us. I looked out at the pond for a while, where a snowy egret stalked. If you want to see patience, watch a snowy egret stalk.
Then the slapping of a screen door, and a muscular gray beast emerging from casita three. Followed by a tall black-haired woman in a Navajo-style coat, jeans, and boots. She raised her coffee mug at me, then they started down the railroad-tie steps.
Zeno arrived a few yards in advance, stopped and beheld me. Head up, legs wide, chest full. Brindled flank like a tiger’s stripes in sunlight. Soulful brows, gray eyes focused only on me. On me, but somehow detached from me. Without judgment.
Lindsey approached from behind him. She stepped around him and came toward me, but Zeno bumped past her and sat down between us, facing me.
“Guess I’ll say good morning from here, Roland.”
“Morning, Lindsey. Looks like you and Zeno are getting along.”
“Like peanut butter and jelly,” she said.
“I see you had a pizza party without me.”
“We waited for you as long as we could,” she said. “Grass Valley?”
I nodded.
“We’ve contacted him,” I said. “Caliphornia. He’s close.”
A cloud crossed her handsome face. She lifted the handgun from the pocket of her robe by its grip, then let it drop heavily back in.
“Take a walk?” I asked.
We started up the gravel path around the pond, Zeno between us and keeping our pace. The sun was still low but warm through my coat.
I told her what I’d learned about that day in April of 2015, in Aleppo, where the Headhunters had been cleared to take out Zkrya Gourmat. I told her about the local doctor who ran the improvised hospital — a man beloved by many friends and family — one of the volunteers who died.
“Yes,” she said. “Dr. Ibrahim Azmeh.”
“Caliphornia is his son.”
Lindsey stopped. Zeno did, too.
“Benyamin,” I said.
I was just now beginning to fully understand Lindsey’s take-home from the war. Post-traumatic stress, to be sure. We combat vets all had it, just in differing degrees. We handle it in different ways. In Lindsey’s case, the stress wasn’t something the enemy had done to her or to those around her. It was something she had done to the enemy. An act that could feel eternal and could not be forgotten or changed. A psychiatrist friend of mine had written about this kind of stress. She called it “moral injury.”
“Ben didn’t just snap,” I said. “He’s been preparing himself for this. He might be planning other things, too, but we’re not sure what or when.”
I told her about Caliphornia’s martial-arts and knife training, his time spent at gun ranges, his communications with the FBI’s “recruitment” site, loyal Hector, the ammunition.