The Overton Window

  Molly walked slowly through the arch again. The vertical line of indicator lights twitched upward from dark green to barely yellow—maybe in reaction to the tiny hinges in her sunglasses—but this time there was no audible alarm.

  Noah was the only one in a position to notice a touch of private relief on Molly’s face. She was nearly to the end of the exit track of the detector when she was stopped by the officer’s voice.

  “Miss … Portman?”

  When Molly turned around she must have seen exactly what Noah was seeing. The TSA man wasn’t focused on her at all. He was staring down at her possessions in his plastic tray.

  “Yes?” she said softly.

  Now he looked up at her, and raised his hand slowly above the tray. Molly’s silver necklace with its little silver cross was dangling from the knuckle of his thumb.

  “I thought,” the officer said, “that you were Jewish.”

  It felt like the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by fifty degrees. Noah’s mouth went totally dry, his skin tingling as though all the moisture had flash-frozen out of the atmosphere, settling into a thin layer of frost on everything exposed, suspending those six words on the air.

  Cops know liars like plumbers know leaks. They encounter them every day, all day; they know all the little signs and symptoms, and they’re trained to understand that where there’s even a little whiff of smoke, one should always assume there’s a fire. As they challenge a person they study their reactions, pick apart the little telltale movements, listen to the timbre of the voice, and more than anything else, they watch the eyes. Most suspects have already made a full confession by the time they begin their denial.

  This was one of the topics of light conversation in the wee hours of that first night when he and Molly had met. Noah had been so fascinated by the woman that he hadn’t stopped to wonder why she seemed to know so much about the art of deception.

  Don’t be afraid, she’d said; that’s the key, no matter how bad it gets. If locked in a car that’s speeding toward a gap in the bridge and it’s clearly too late to stop, most people would still waste their last mortal seconds stepping on the brakes. But what you really want to do is say a little prayer, and then floor it. If you’re going down anyway, go all in, go down with courage—because hey, there’s always that one slim chance that you’ll make it to the other side.

  From behind her Noah saw Molly’s head tilt slightly, and this movement was accompanied by a subtle hip shift. There was a convex security mirror on a bracket above the metal detector, and in that reflection he saw a patient but serious expression on her face that meant, You didn’t really just say what I think I heard, did you?

  The officer appeared unfazed.

  “Would you take off your sunglasses for me, please,” he said.

  That’s all, folks. Curtains, checkmate, game over.

  Noah hoped only that his upcoming visit to prison would be more enjoyable than his first. He’d already begun to gauge the running distance to the door when Molly looked back at him. She appeared to be perfectly serene, and she mouthed something to him. He wasn’t much of a lip reader and it took his panic-stricken mind a few seconds to recognize her message. It had been the short phrase that’s always at the top of any good list of famous last words.

  Watch this.

  She turned to the officer, pulled back her hood and let it settle onto her shoulders, removed the baseball cap and let it fall to the floor at her feet, and then slow and sure, began to walk toward him.

  “The Force is strong with this one,” Molly said, as calm and smooth as a Jedi master. Her accent was gone, and her voice was just breathy enough to obscure any other identifying qualities of the real McCoy.

  The TSA man’s cheeks began to redden slightly. A power shift was under way, and as Noah had learned firsthand, when this girl turned it on you never knew what was about to hit you.

  She continued nearer, put a finger to the frames and lowered her sunglasses partway down her nose, tipping her chin so she could look at the officer directly, eye to eye, just over the top of the darkened lenses. As she stopped barely a foot away she subtly passed an open hand between their faces, and spoke again.

  “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” Molly said. After waiting a moment she gave him a little nod, as though it had come time in their close-up scene for his own line of dialogue.

  There was an eternal pause, and then before his eyes Noah saw this big, intimidating young man begin his grinning transformation from the TSA’s most vigilant watchdog into Natalie Portman’s biggest fan.

  “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.” The officer repeated her words, just as that spellbound storm trooper had said them at the Imperial checkpoint in Episode 4.

  After holding his rapt gaze for a few more seconds Molly pulled out the secret weapon more fearsome than any light-saber—that sweet, wicked smile that made your knees feel like they could bend in all directions. She slipped the pen from his pocket protector, clicked it, took the hand that still held her necklace, and autographed his palm with an artful flourish.

  “Bravo!” Kyle said, and his light applause was picked up by all the other employees who had turned their attention that way. That put a button at the end of the crisis; before any further delay could threaten his schedule he bustled around and retrieved her duffel bag, along with her cap, phone, and jewelry. Then with a cheerful, over-the-shoulder “Thank you, everyone,” he gathered his clients back under his wing and hurried them to the exit door.

  They were to board the plane from the flight crew’s side stairway out on the tarmac. When they got outside Noah motioned to Kyle that he needed just a minute with his girl. Their escort nodded and moved off to a discreet distance, pausing only to tap the face of his watch as a reminder to be quick before he turned away to wait.

  “How did I do?” Molly asked, obviously fully aware of exactly how she’d done.

  “You quoted two different male characters from the wrong trilogy, but other than that, you nailed it.”

  “I wrote a midterm paper on the first two movies in college. Never saw any of the others.”

  “Film class?”

  “Political science.”

  He had to wait for a noisy vehicle to pass before he could speak again.

  “I need to ask you something,” Noah said.

  “Sure.” It seemed she could see that he’d become more somber.

  “When we were there in Times Square, when we kissed that time …”

  She took off the sunglasses and hooked them on her pocket, moved a little closer to him, brushed a windblown lock of hair from his eyes. “I remember.”

  “Is that when you pickpocketed my BlackBerry?”

  Molly smiled, and pulled him willingly into her embrace. It was no real surprise, but this kiss was every bit as stirring as that first one had been, and as he realized then for certain, as good as every single one would be thereafter.

  She stood back a step, her face as innocent as a newborn lamb, and held up his wallet between them.

  “I love you,” Noah said.

  Molly looked up at him with all the courageous resolve of the doomed Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

  “I know,” she replied.

  By the time the jet reached its cruising altitude Molly had fallen sound asleep in his arms. They had the entire row to themselves and the crew had taken excellent care of them so far. Now it was quiet, and in the remains of this day a little peace and stillness were more than welcome.

  Molly had taken only one thing from her bag to keep with her during the four-hour flight. He recognized the book as the hand-bound journal she’d shown him back in her apartment downtown.

  It would be nice to have something to read, he thought, and after a brief consideration he decided that she wouldn’t be likely to object if he took a look through her little book as she slept.

  Folded just inside the front cover he found the pencil drawing that had been pinn
ed to her bedroom wall, that idyllic sketch of her someday cabin in the woods.

  On the next page was the beginning of the texts she’d been given by the Founders’ Keepers, that portion of the writings from early American history she was meant to preserve and memorize on their behalf.

  Thomas Jefferson

  I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

  What followed didn’t really seem to comprise the most famous or succinct of Jefferson’s writings. Rather, it was as though a great deal of his written legacy, maybe all of it, had been distributed among quite a number of people, and Molly’s was only a small, random part placed in her care. Accordingly, the first section consisted of Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address. Noah read through a portion of it.

  I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests.

  I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years.

  What struck Noah as he read these words was a fundamental difference in tone from the political discourse of later times. Here was one of the founders of the nation, maybe the greatest thinker among them, and yet he spoke with a quality that was so rare today as to be almost extinct among modern public servants. It was a profound humility, as though nothing were more important to express than the honor he felt in being chosen again as a guardian of the people’s precious liberties.

  There was a great deal more to read. Noah held his place, looked down at Molly, and found her still sleeping. He adjusted the light above him so it was less likely to disturb her rest.

  Then he remembered something else that he’d been meaning to ask her, if they’d only had a moment to breathe. Nothing important, but he was curious.

  Of all the remote destinations Molly could have picked for her flight to safety—anywhere in the world, really—he wondered why she’d chosen Las Vegas.

  CHAPTER 38

  Danny Bailey and Agent Kearns had been on the road in their bomb-laden van for nearly five hours straight, and they were past due for a fuel stop and a stretch.

  After taking his turn in the gas station’s cramped restroom Danny picked up a diet soda and a candy bar and brought them to the counter. As the cashier was ringing him up he scanned the visible stories on a bundled stack of newspapers off to the side. Two headlines stood out, and he read them over again.

  NATIONWIDE TERROR ALERT STATUS ELEVATED ONCE MORE

  DHS CHIEF: INTEL CONFIRMS ‘CREDIBLE THREAT’ FOR WESTERN U.S.

  He looked up into the corner and saw a dusty security camera looking back down at him. Even out here, he thought, on the outskirts of civilization, some backward distant cousin of Big Brother is still watching. From that odd camera angle Danny’s fuzzy, jerky image was displayed on a small black-and-white TV on the side shelf, wedged between the cigarettes and a rack of dog-eared porno magazines.

  “I’ll take one of these, too,” he said, holding up the paper.

  Stuart Kearns walked past him toward the door, still rubbing his hands dry. “Let’s go, kid, we’re burning daylight.”

  Danny nodded an acknowledgment but the words and their urgency had barely intruded on his running thoughts. A few seconds later the cashier had to nudge his hand to snap him out of it, and he picked up his bagged purchases and his change and headed for the van.

  As the trip progressed southward the Nevada roads had gradually become more and more rustic and empty of traffic. From the first wide interstate, to four-lane turnpikes, down to the aging two-lane desert highway they’d now been on for a good while—in a sense it felt as though they were traveling further back in time with every passing mile. At this rate they’d be bumping down a mule trail before sunset.

  Danny still had the newspaper he’d bought draped across his lap, though he’d stopped reading it several minutes before.

  “Can I run something up the flagpole, Stuart?”

  “Sure.”

  “The terrorism alert is elevated. I take that back—it was already elevated two days ago, and now it’s been raised again.”

  “Right.”

  “They’re talking here”—he tapped the paper—“about what they call a specific credible threat, maybe two, that they’re tracking somewhere in the western United States. They’re already stopping and searching cars at all the bridges in San Francisco.”

  Kearns looked over, then put his attention back on the road. “What are you getting at?”

  “Put on your tinfoil hat for a minute and I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay, okay, go.”

  “You remember the 7/7 bombings in 2005?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know that a security company, with a former Scotland Yard guy in charge, was running a terrorism drill in London that very morning? And this random drill involving a thousand people was planned out months in advance to simulate the same kind of bombing incidents, on the same targets, on the same day, and at the same times?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “And then it really happened. While they were running the drill, the exact, actual thing they were practicing for actually fricking happened. What are the odds of that being a coincidence?”

  “If any of that were true,” Kearns said, “I’d know about it. So what does that tell you, Oliver Stone?”

  “Well, then,” Danny went on, undaunted, “do you know that the guy your old friends in the U.S. government believe was the actual mastermind of those bombings—his name is Haroon Rashid Aswat—was also some sort of protected double agent who was on the payroll of some obscure faction of MI6? The CIA knew all about him but they weren’t allowed to touch him; he even lived over here for a few years. Hell, he tried to organize an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon—”

  “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

  “One more thing. The guy that we haven’t seen yet, his name is Elmer, right?”

  “Right.”

  “The guy in charge on September eleventh was Mohamed Atta. He had a lot of aliases, and that’s the one he started using after 2000 when he got into the United States. He was born Mohamed Elamir awad al-Sayed Atta Karadogan. But the name on his work visa, the one he showed when he enrolled in flight school in Florida, was Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir.”

  “And el-Amir sounds like Elmer” Kearns said. “Do you take a nap during the day? Because you must stay up all night thinking about this crap.”

  “In English, el-Amir translates to ‘the general.’ It could be a code word. Atta used el-Amir back then in 2001, and this guy’s using it now. If this whole thing is part of some false-flag operation—if they’re really trying to bring this war back home—they need a new boogeyman right here on U.S. soil, and they need to connect him to past events and to the patriot movement so they can demonize the resistance.”

  “Mohamed Atta is dead.”

  “Yeah? So is Osama bin Laden, but that doesn’t stop him from putting out a tape every six months. And I’m not even saying it’s a real live Islamo-fascist behind any of this, but making it look that way will make the story that much scarier when something happens.”

  “Look,” Kearns said, “I’ll tell you one thing I do know. There’s an election coming up, and fear has been a swing factor in party politics for as long as I can remember. The timing of this whole thing, the terror alert, and all the rest of it—it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out after all this is over that we’re just playing a bit part in somebody else’s political ambitions. Technically, I guess you could call that a conspiracy, if it makes you happy.”

  It didn’t make him happy, but Danny decided to let it lie.

  “How much farther now?” he asked.

 
Kearns checked his watch and then glanced at the screen of the GPS. “About a half hour, maybe less.”

  As the ride went on in silence Danny looked across occasionally at the older man, hoping that he’d at least planted a seed of warning. In that small way it seemed he’d been successful. You can’t see another man’s thoughts, but you can sure see him thinking.

  CHAPTER 39

  The fasten-seatbelt light had just blinked on above Noah’s head, accompanied by an intercom announcement that the flight would soon begin its on-time descent into McCarran International.

  He rubbed his eyes and they felt as though he hadn’t blinked in quite a while. The time had apparently flown by as he’d been occupied reading and rereading the many quoted passages that filled the pages of Molly’s book.

  In the course of his supposedly top-shelf schooling he must have already been exposed to much of this, and if so, it shouldn’t have seemed as new to him as it did. And in a strange, unsettling way—like reading a horoscope so accurate that its author must surely have been watching you for months through the living-room window—it seemed that each of these writings was addressed to this current time, and this very place, for the sole, specific benefit of Noah Gardner. There’d been many examples, but this was one that stood out:

  The phrase “too big to fail” had been reborn for propaganda purposes during a brainstorming session at the office last year. This was in the run-up to the country’s massive financial meltdown, the multiphase disaster that was only now gathering its full head of steam.

  The original purpose of the phrase in business was to describe an entity that was literally too large and successful to possibly go under— think of the Titanic, only before the iceberg. But this newly minted meaning, it was decided, would be a threat, rather than a promise.

  While the crisis had in truth, of course, been nothing less than a blatant, sweeping consolidation of wealth and power—perpetrated by some of Doyle & Merchant’s most prestigious Wall Street clients—it wouldn’t do to allow the press and the public to perceive it that way. So the government’s bailout of these billionaire speculators and their legion of cronies and accomplices was instead presented as a bold rescue, undertaken for the good of the American people themselves.