Walter Williams - Deep State

There he was on BBC One, Ian Attila Gordon, dressed in blue jeans and a vintage military jacket worn over a white ruffled shirt, with the ruffles dashingly unpinned and hanging over one lapel, a picturesque little piece of asymmetry. He hadn’t shaved recently, and heavy whiskers blued his cheeks and chin.

“I wonder who dresses him?” Dagmar said. “That outfit looks good.”

“But can he act?” Helmuth said. “The Bond movie sort of left the question open.”

“I guess we find out now,” Dagmar said.

The Brigade had left the ops room for Lincoln’s suite, which had a high-definition television and more comfortable furniture. During the course of the afternoon they’d discovered that four of their scavenged modems would actually function under MS-DOS and they set up their own DOS-based LAN. Instructions had been sent to Rafet and others to put together DOS machines.

But in the meantime, since the Internet was working again, they sent messages to prepare for a demo in Ankara the following day, place and time to be determined later. Rafet and the Skunk Works drones had been sent out to find a suitable place.

Lincoln’s rooms, intended for visiting VIPs, resembled those of an upscale hotel, with fabric flowers in vases, gold-and-white-striped wallpaper, and competent but soulless oil paintings on the walls. Lincoln had thrown a packet of Orville Redenbacher in the microwave, and the scent of buttered popcorn floated through the suite. Dagmar sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the television, leaning against the warmth of Ismet’s legs. Ismet had joined them in late afternoon, saying that he was bored in his apartment, and now sat on Lincoln’s mustard-colored sofa next to Helmuth.

Dagmar ate a handful of popcorn, passed the bowl on to Helmuth, and hoped that Attila would remember his lines.

Attila stepped up to a battery of microphones. He was on the lawn of his East Sussex home, with the last glimmer of the setting sun lighting the ivy-walled house behind him. TV spotlights glowed in his eyes.

Photo flashes lit his cheekbones. He offered a half-shy smile.

I bet he’d look good in a kilt, Dagmar thought.

“I’d like tae address the claims that Ah’ve somehow masterminded the revolution in Turkey,” he said. There was a light in his eye that seemed to suggest he found the notion absurd, that he was just amused by the situation and going through what celebrity and the situation demanded.

“First off,” he said, “I’d like tae express mah true love and admiration fae the folk of Turkey. I traveled through the country when Ah filmed Stunrunner last year, and I niver failed tae meet with anything but friendship and hospitality. I made some good friends who Ah’d hope tae see again one day.”

The amusement went from his eyes.

“I wasnae happy when Ah realized mah new friends would have tae endure a military dictatorship. The coup was an unexpected blow that knocked Turkey’s hopes of modernization aw tae hell.”

Laughter returned to Attila’s eyes. A cocky grin flashed across his face.

“And so Ah decided tae do somethin aboot it, ken? Ah’m here tae tell yis that the claims made this mornin werenae bullshit.”

Dagmar clapped in delight as a roar of interest rose from the ranks of the reporters. More flashes lit Attila’s face.

“The only bit o story they got wrang was that Ah’m doin all this fae money,” he said. “Ah’ve enough poppy nae tae sell oot mah principles fir a bribe. And tae prove it-” He raised a finger in the air and then brought the finger decisively down on the podium. “Tonight Ahm lettin’ yi aw ken that aw mah profits fae the new album Ararat will be put into the cause of freedom fae the Turkish people. Ahm committed tae this, and willnae rest until they generals are behind bars.”

“Yes!” Dagmar pounded fists on the floor, torn between joy and laughter.

Reporters were screeching questions. Attila pretended not to hear, laughed, then cupped a hand behind an ear, the gesture revealing the tattoo on his neck. He answered the question he wanted to.

“What exactly am Ah doin’ tae aid the Turks?” he said. He offered an apologetic grin. “Please, Ah cannae exactly go spoutin mah plans over the air, ken? These guys are haudin’ enough cairds as it is.”

One tenor voice lofted above the others crying questions. It was a nasal, braying cry that carried all the assumed cultural superiority of Thameside, a voice calculated to raise the hackles of anyone born north of the Humber.

In other words, the perfect foil for someone like Attila.

“Are you aware,” the voice said, “that it’s illegal for a citizen of the United Kingdom to attempt to overthrow a foreign government?”

Attila laughed. “Surely that depends on the government’s legitimacy, no?” He shrugged. “Besides, if it aw goes tits up Ah’ll only get banged up. Nae great shakes.”

Reporters continued to shout questions. Attila affected to be baffled by the volume, then grinned and waved.

“Nae more answers, then,” he said, and raised two fingers in a V. “Peace oot,” he said.

Brilliant, Dagmar thought.

“What the hell,” Helmuth said from the couch, “did that man just say?” English was his second language, and its remote dialects were clearly not his forte.

“He pretty much stuck to the script I wrote for him,” Dagmar said. “He just translated it into his own, ah, idiom.”

“Does he talk like that all the time?” Richard asked.

Dagmar reviewed their conversations that the afternoon, in which Attila had seemed perfectly competent in Received Standard English, at least when he wasn’t upset and in what Dagmar had come to think of as “balls on the rail” mode.

“I think he’s exactly as Robbie Burns as he wants to be,” she said. “I also think he’s underrated as an actor.”

Lloyd laughed.

“Imagine some poor bastard trying to translate that into Turkish for Bozbeyli. My god!”

“Are our people going to get it, though?” Helmuth said. “I certainly didn’t.”

Dagmar considered it.

“Attila was doing that deliberately,” she said, “and he was winking at the audience the whole time. He’s setting up a division between those that get it and those that don’t.”

“Just as we’ve been trying to do,” Richard said.

“Right,” Dagmar said. “You’re hip to the Scottish jive or not, just as you’re hip to Ozone or not. Our folks will get it, I’m sure.”

“Hip,” Helmuth said, “isn’t going to do much against guns.”

“No,” Dagmar said. “Events have demonstrated that well enough.”

The day’s news, generally speaking, hadn’t been good. At dawn that morning, under cover of the High Zap, the Turkish military had moved against Ankara’s former mayor forted up in the Ministry of Labor. The building had been stormed, apparently with massive loss of life. Now that the Internet had been restored, photos and video was being uploaded by those survivors who had managed to escape. There was little narrative to be discovered in these artifacts, only a lot of confusion, running, screaming, and the sound of automatic weapons fire.

The Turkish media claimed that Mayor Erez had been killed trying to escape custody, but had not as yet shown pictures of his body. That was promised for later.

If Erez had recorded any last message, any declaration of defiance or principle, it had not yet surfaced. Muzzled by the High Zap, he had died as anonymously and silently as so many of his followers.

Otherwise, as video uploads and Rafet’s drones showed, the day in Ankara had been mixed. There hadn’t been any big demos, but there had been constant skirmishing between protestors and the security forces. There were videos of a cop being knocked off his motorcycle by a well-thrown brick, an armored car smashing a storefront, ambulances screaming down Ataturk Boulevard, a screaming woman being manhandled into a police car by a party of sweating men in suits and ties. Piles of tires and debris had been set afire to block roads or rally resisters, and the names and addresses of Gray Wolves and police-and their families-had been posted in order to invite popular vengeance.