Michael Walsh: Early Warning

Byrne buttoned his overcoat against the raw spring wind. “So, is that your own personal.38?” Lannie asked. Walking with the boss was awkward, and it helped to have some neutral conversational topic.

“Yes, it’s mine. And no, not originally. It belonged to my dad. He was wearing it the day he was killed in the line of duty.”

Byrne got that faraway look in his eyes that everybody in the department knew so well. It was a look that said: this far and no farther. There are some lines not to be crossed.

Byrne had picked up the tempo now, barreling west past Teddy Roosevelt’s birthplace and across Fifth Avenue. It was as if he knew something was up, was responding to some unarticulated urgency, and it was all Lannie could do to keep up with the old man…on any level.

They had crossed Seventh Avenue, into Chelsea, and were heading north when Lannie felt his cell phone buzz again. Involuntarily, he stopped and pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was one of those shitty departmental phones, standard-issue, not his BlackBerry, which he had left back at his desk in case something really important happened.

“What is it?” asked Byrne. If it were really important, whoever was on the other end of the line would have called him. On the other hand, if it had anything to do with computers, Lannie would be the go-to guy. And that was, after all, the reason Byrne had hired him. Certainly not for his marksmanship.

Lannie glanced at the display: URGENT. He picked up the pace. They didn’t have to say anything. Byrne got it. That was one of the things that made him such a good chief.

They hit the intersection of 20th and Eighth, nearly running now, and headed north.

They rounded the corner. Up ahead was an old, nondescript warehouse, one of the few buildings that hadn’t been converted into artists’ lofts or art galleries. Actually, that was not quite true: most of it had in fact been converted, but there was still a big chunk of the giant building, which occupied a full city block in two dimensions and rose five stories into the air, that had been given over to the CTU. Not that any of the other tenants knew about it.

That was one of the things that still made New York New York, thought Byrne as he spied the building: not making eye contact with neighbors was still considered a virtue.

They pulled up in front of the building. “Mother Cabrini-Frances Xavier Cabrini-is the patron saint of immigrants,” said Byrne. His cell phone was buzzing now, too.

Lannie beat him to the punch. “We’re here, right in front of the building,” he said softly.

Byrne watched his younger colleague’s face fall. “What is it?” he asked, but Lannie was already sprinting through the front door.

New Orleans

“Archibald Grant” had a choice: to finish his speech or to react to the urgent message now coming across the face of his wristwatch.

This was no ordinary watch he wore, but then nothing about Mr. Grant was ordinary. As one of the RAND Corporation’s leading experts on international terrorism, he was in great demand, not only back at the home office in Santa Monica, California, but worldwide. RAND maintained divisions in Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Jackson, Mississippi; Cambridge, England; Brussels; and Doha, Qatar.

His attention from the message was distracted by the blonde in the front row. She was a reporter, one of the few the RAND Corporation allowed into policy addresses such as this. Most of the time, RAND hid its global activities behind its anonymous name, Research ANd Development.

This was a special occasion: a conference organized by RAND’s Gulf States Policy Institute, which had been formed post-Katrina to aid three of the most benighted states in the union, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The topic of his lecture was: “Terrorist Opportunities in a Devastated Environment: Some Thoughts on Media Responsibility,” but the reporter seemed more interested in him than in the subject of his remarks. Even in his guise of “Mr. Grant,” he hated inquisitive people, and blonde network reporters were right up there with the worst of them.

It wasn’t that Grant was so good-looking: balding, over-weight, slightly buck-toothed, he was no woman’s idea of a prize. But he was brilliant, and a compelling speaker, which in his experience was more than enough to interest a certain class of women. Luckily for men, brains often counted more than looks when it came to the fair sex.

“…and so, ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude with this thought…” His mind raced, trying to finish his remarks and at the same time process the information he was reading surreptitiously. Silently, he cursed himself for taking this gig, for being so far away from Washington and New York at a time like this. Maybe it was just an early yellow flag, but in his experience the National Security Agency didn’t issue SCI alerts-Sensitive Compartmented Information-on a whim. And besides, these days, there were no yellow flags, only red ones. He’d have to wrap it up and leave as quickly as possible, without incurring suspicion. Especially from the blonde.

“The days of so-called ‘separation of church and state,’ whether we want to admit it, are over. A new media environment, brought on first by the emergence, and by the dominance, of the Internet, coupled with the severe economic downturn of the past 48 months, has finally brought the relationship of the press and the government into a new era of cooperation and, dare I suggest, symbiosis: no longer natural adversaries, but partners in the brave new world of the 21st century. Our shared land, our common patriotism, demands no less.

“ America is unique among the world’s nations in more ways than simply the political, the military, or the economic. Three other countries- Russia, Canada, China -may be larger, territorially speaking, but none is subject to the kinds of climatological and ecological disruption. Blizzards, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes; had civilization tried to arise here, rather than the Indus Valley, it surely would have perished in short order. Far from being a land of milk and honey, America has always demanded the survival of the fittest. Lest we forget, the ‘shining city on a hill’ was bought with the blood of patriots.”

There was a slight stir in the audience; nobody used the word “patriots” anymore, nor referenced Jefferson ’s famous Tree of Liberty, however obliquely. What they usually forgot, of course, was Jefferson’s exact formulation in his 1787 letter to William Smith, written from Paris, of which Mr. Grant now reminded them:

“Or, to quote Jefferson directly, ‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’”

The buzz grew louder as he entered his peroration: “Against all odds, America defeated the world’s other superpower through a combination of willpower, tactical superiority, and a consummate knowledge of the battlefield-virtues we sorely lacked on September 11, 2001, and in its aftermath, and in many ways continue to lack. When the next terrorist attack comes-notice I said when, not if-our first line of defense will not be the government, or even the first responders, but will be the media. How the attack is framed, and explained, will determine in large part the will of this nation to fight back. In a sense, we were lucky on 9/11. The attack came so suddenly, and without warning, that the usual collection of nervous nellies, naysayers, National Public Radio eunuchs, and nabobs in the ‘loyal opposition’ took several months before they were able to regroup and begin the counterattack. But when the next blow comes, they will be ready, appeasement on their lips and terms of surrender already signed and sealed in their pockets. I just hope that we-the tip of the tip of the spear-will be ready, too.”