“Aliz Berniham. I am special agent Brooke Burrell, the F.B.I. agent who took you into custody when you were wounded at the motel.”
Upon the term, “F.B.I.,” Sheik Aliz Berniham focused on a crack near the sink in his one room “cell” and tried to let the remembered sound of midday prayers fill his ears in an anemic attempt to drown out her words in his head. But his mind swirled; Allah’s plan, which he had been so close to carrying out, with its two years of training and planning, had been thwarted by a woman. A woman who, from the looks of it, didn’t even bleed yet. What had he done to displease Allah, to be rebuked like this? A woman!
Then a smile creased his face ever so slightly. If the Americans were this desperate, conscripting a mere woman to combat jihad, then surely victory was a matter of when, not if. His attention eventually tuned into the voice of the woman speaking at him.
“… it’s up to you. In our system you have been designated an enemy combatant. Therefore, we can hold you indefinitely. Now, the manner of your incarceration can be good or not so good. It can be here or in a nicer place, eventually with an outdoor garden, maybe contact with certain other inmates.”
She was good, this one, well briefed about his garden at home, his sole expression of art, and the many satisfying hours he spent gardening. It was a remnant of the British influences of his youth when they occupied his country, dividing his homeland up like a holiday goose at the dinner table. His father, through his connections with the British Empire, secured free passage for his mother, his brother, and him to relocate in Hungary.
His father died soon after their arrival in that new country. He and his brother strayed from the religious teachings into the ways of science. They were both naturals at it, with each achieving academic honors and degrees in various disciplines.
“Okay, so here’s what I want to know: how did you adulterate the vaccine? How did you get operational ability in the U.S.?” The agent slid a pad across the plain wood table. He disregarded it, instead he remained focused on the wall, calculating the stress forces that combined and created the horizontal crack in the plaster.
“This is the only way for you to get some semblance of normality for the rest of your living days, Sheik.”
She was showing some small amount of respect to his position. Still, he remained focused on the fracture. He shifted in his seat.
“Aren’t you going about this all wrong?” he finally said, recognizing her against his better instincts.
“I am not going to insult your intelligence and befriend you then use that friendship to weasel information out of you,” Brooke stated flatly. She finally got eye contact from him for her gambit. “You will never get out of here, unless you tell me what I want to know. That is an iron-clad fact, sir.”
The Sheik smiled. He knew he wouldn’t be here long.
It reminded Bill of P.S. 21, the little, red brick front part. The original school building to which, in 1957, the modern extension was attached. The basement of that 1900’s elementary school was the same as the basement here in the White House, right down to the moisture-controlling gray sealant paint.
It was uncomfortable for Bill to have a gun in the White House. He held it dead at his side so no one would notice it and take a shot at him, especially no one in this room — the target range beneath the portico of the West Wing. Brent returned after signing out the ammo.
“The last time I fired a gun was up at my uncle’s cabin.” Hiccock said.
“Handgun?”
“No, mostly .22s rifles.”
“I bet there wasn’t a safe Coke bottle or old toy within a mile.”
“Bathroom tiles! Uncle Jack was a plumber. They shattered like you hit ‘em with a bazooka.”
“Was Jack former military?”
“Hunter. He actually hunted for his winter meals. Mostly venison.”
Brent reached down and took the gun from Hiccock’s hand. He threw off the safety, pulled back the slide, and popped the clip. “My little rule is approach every gun as loaded and every time for the first time.”
“Yeah, you look more cautious than me.”
“Every firearm accident happens because overconfidence makes you get sloppy. Every gun is loaded, even the one you just put down.” He placed the unloaded gun on the cleaning table next to his own identical automatic then intentionally picked up his. “Until you know that this time it isn’t.” He hit the slide hard and ejected the live round from the twin gun.
It was a bit of obvious sleight-of-hand, but it made the point to Hiccock. “Got it.”
“So since you just want to be proficient, we’ll start on the basics.”
And so Hiccock’s Introduction to Firearms 101 course started with Brent Moscowitz, the Secret Service agent from Queens. This was all happening because Bill confided to the agent, who was assigned to protect him, that he didn’t want to be seen as a weenie by the men and women of the various law enforcement agencies over which he now held sway.
By the time Bill got to his office that Monday there were just two bioterrorists left at large: one known, one unknown. It seemed that America got lucky this time. But there were a million more bugs out there and millions more fanatics willing to infect themselves as bioterrorists in a slow-motion version of suicide bombing.
The news that Janice was pregnant made that normally worrisome prospect utterly terrifying to Bill now. Is that what impending fatherhood does to a person: magnify all the sharp edges and pointy things in the world? he pondered as he signed on to his SCIAD net. The top three messages were about Edward Ensiling, a scientist found dead in Vienna. He was a member of many teams that brought about a good deal of innovation and discovery. As the science advisor to the President, Bill sent a memo to the Office of Protocol for the appropriate response or letter to be issued from the President. The office would first run an FBI and CIA background check, because Ensiling was a foreign national, Hungarian, if Bill remembered correctly.
In the afternoon, Bill came back from a meeting to find an older staffer awaiting him in his office.
“Mr. Hiccock, Dave Dwyer from the Office of Protocol. Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Dwyer. What can I do for you?”
“You alerted this office to the demise of one Professor Ensiling and suggested a presidential commendation or letter of sympathy. Your request has been denied.”
“Really? Why?”
“It seems during the ’60s, the good professor made some enemies within the Air Force and NASA. Those letters in his file are a red flag against any presidential recognition. I am sure you understand.”
“Certainly, although I am amazed. He was a top scientific mind of the last century. But if it’s red flagged it’s red flagged. Thank you for coming over to tell me personally.”
“No problem, really. I actually wanted to meet you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I followed your college career and, well, let’s just say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hiccock.”
“It’s Bill, please, and the pleasure’s all mine, Dave.”
“Your two-minute shootouts, well, they were the most exciting thing in college ball. Still, to this day.”
“Well, thanks, Dave. But you know I had an excellent offensive line. I could have washed my socks, trimmed my nails, and still had time to throw.”
“Well, I’ll be going. Again, a thrill to meet you.”
“Have a good day,” Bill said as Dwyer left.
Twenty minutes later, Bill was sitting at his desk, deep in analysis of how to defend against the next bio-terror plot. As he sat, he absentmindedly spun and caught a football in one hand, something that he first perfected on the sidelines, as a backup quarterback his sophomore year at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. Using his thumb to pivot the ball in his palm, at regular intervals he would swoop his 3x-size hand over the top and catch the ball in a perfect fingertips-on-the-laces grip. Eight out of ten times, he got it without looking. So inured was his muscle memory and acuity at finding the laces that he actually was able to focus his mind on something else, while performing this mindless feat.