After buying groceries for the forty or so men, he’d head over to the bar. Aiden wasn’t a drinker, but he’d buy himself a beer and nurse it, sitting in back, watching the television screen hanging next to the deer’s head over the liquor bottles. A week before, he’d arrived to find the bar closed up—an oddity on a weekday. At first he’d been suspicious that the authorities had found them, that someone would follow him from the bar back to the farm. But after driving a mile in the wrong direction, nobody in sight, he’d realized something else was going on. He’d flipped on the car radio and heard about New York. Aiden wasn’t much of a praying man—he couldn’t stand his Catholic school growing up, the nuns with their dull black shoes and brittle faces and yardsticks—but when he got back to the farm, he’d lit a candle. So had Soledad. Together with the men, they’d prayed.
Today, the bar was open. Aiden made his way inside, nodded to the bartender, and took his usual seat in the shadows, watching the television. More coverage of New York, of course, where authorities were still dredging the river for bodies. National Guard troops were pouring into New York and New Jersey, filling up all the available communities, straining capacity. The city had virtually shut down. The stock market had been closed ever since the attack. Curfew was still in place. The roads were heavily policed, travel heavily restricted.
The foreign policy experts were blaming Ibrahim Ashammi for the attack, but he’d stayed strangely silent. Normally, Ashammi couldn’t wait to rush to a camera, and with an attack of this magnitude, most of the commentators had expected a big victory speech from the terrorist mastermind. Around the Muslim world, however, rallies sprang up celebrating the attacks: Palestinians in Gaza dancing and cheering, handing out candies; Muslim Brotherhood operatives in Egypt using the operation as a trigger for their own attacks on the US embassy; the Iranian mullahs leading vast crowds in chants of “Death to America,” even as the president of Iran shed crocodile tears over American losses while simultaneously suggesting that America could not avoid terror if it continued to support the Zionist regime.
Aiden found himself enraged. These were the enemies. Not ranchers trying to make a living in California or pinstriped Wall Street muckety-mucks with private jets or Christian bakers who didn’t want to bake a cake for a gay wedding. These monsters. These people who wanted to kill the decent and indecent alike, who didn’t care what happened to the babies they were still finding washing up on the banks of the Hudson.
The bottle in Aiden’s hand shattered. He’d been gripping it tightly in his fist without noticing it; a deep gash ran down the meat of his palm. He walked to the bar and asked the bartender for a towel, stanched the flow of blood with it. Then he motioned up at the screen. “Hey, buddy, is there anything else on? How about something a little less depressing.” The bartender shrugged, tossed him the remote. Aiden began flipping channels.
When he hit MSNBC, he stopped. They weren’t covering the cleanup at the Hudson or the investigation into the terror attack. Their cameras were focused on the streets of Detroit. Specifically, one of their reporters stood outside the Detroit detention center.
“This could get out of control,” the reporter said, a hopeful gleam unmistakably shining in his eye. “This morning, a leader of the uprising, one Levon Williams, posted a list of demands on the website of the Fight Against Injustice and Racism movement, what they’re calling the FAIR movement. Here’s what we know about Levon Williams. He’s a graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in African-American Studies. No police record. Model citizen, by all accounts, owns a barbershop on Eight Mile Road. According to the public interviews he’s done, he came back to the community in an effort to bring prosperity home.
“The shooting of Kendrick Malone prompted him to action, he says.”
The footage cut to a shot of Levon on set with an MSNBC anchor, some carefully manicured white guy with 1950s-style black-rimmed glasses. “We have seen injustice stacked upon injustice,” Levon said slowly. “Too many injustices to count. Kendrick Malone is just another victim in a long line of victims stretching back to the first black men and women stuffed into cargo holds to be sent to die on plantations in this country. We’re not going to back down this time. We’re not going to let this wave of brutality go unchallenged. We demand justice for Kendrick Malone and all the other Kendrick Malones who have died and all the other Kendrick Malones we want to keep from dying. Justice for Kendrick.”
The anchor pondered this statement. “And what if Officer Ricky O’Sullivan is not prosecuted?”
Levon said, “The people demand justice. And the people will receive justice.”
MSNBC cut back to its reporter on the ground. “Levon Williams, leader of the FAIR movement. Well, today, the FAIR movement listed its demands: immediate trial of Ricky O’Sullivan. A jury of his peers from the Detroit area—no transfer of trial to a more sympathetic venue. More equity in the economic system of Detroit and surrounding areas. A complete makeover of the police force, including the firing of the police chief, with officers drawn from the local community, and an end to what they call the ‘occupation’ directed against people of color.”
Now another anchor, female, appeared from the MSNBC studios on split-screen with the reporter. “Gil, have they said what they will do if their demands are not met?”
The reporter gestured to a sign in the crowd: “RICKY O’SULLIVAN, DEAD OR ALIVE.” Then he said, “If the feeling I’m getting from the crowd is any indicator, it could get very ugly very quickly.”
Soledad sat on the porch of the cabin, watching the snow fall. She had a blanket wrapped around her; she thought she probably looked like her ancestors had, without any modern conveniences, garbed in an old quilt, breathing steam into the air. In her hands, she held a cup of tea, sipping it every so often, reading yesterday’s newspaper. She was mildly relieved to see that she’d been knocked completely out of the newspaper for the first time since the conflagration in California.
The door to the cabin opened behind her. She turned to see Ezekiel Pope—grizzled, older than the other recruits. He was black, came from Los Angeles. Their California background had been their point of connection. He’d joined up with the air force decades ago, and he’d been just about ready to quit thanks to the military cutbacks: he’d never rise higher than lieutenant colonel. He’d been called into his superior’s office just after the New York attack, told to round up his men and get ready to ship out to New York.
For some reason, he’d come to Soledad instead.
Aiden said he hadn’t given a reason for deserting. But he said that Ezekiel was trustworthy. Soledad had no option but to trust Aiden’s judgment.
Ezekiel looked over the snow falling silently into itself. He wore heavy work gloves on his hands, and an M4 slung over his shoulder, a maroon scarf around his neck. Soledad gestured at the gun. “What’s that for?”
“We’re gearing up.”
“Gearing up for what?”
Ezekiel laughed. “Well, you tell us. After all, you’re the Terrorist Mama. That’s what they’re calling you now, you know. Ever since the escape.”
She felt sick to her stomach. She’d wanted to feed her workers, water her animals. That was it. Opening up the waterway had just been necessity. She hadn’t wanted anyone hurt or killed. “I’m no terrorist,” she said.
Ezekiel spat into the snow. It steamed, hissed out. “Last time I checked, didn’t matter much what you had to say about it. They’ll drone you just the same. I know. I worked for them.” He stood, turned to walk into the house. Then he turned back to her. “Listen, Soledad. You can either hide out and hole up and wait for them to turn you into a pile of guts, or you can figure out what comes next.”