American Subversive (10 page)

Picture it, she said, licking her lips. All these cops, rows and rows of them, suddenly raising their shields and marching in lockstep toward us. It had been a standoff until then. We'd been blocking the key intersections; they'd been protecting the convention center. And that was fine with us. I mean, what were we going to do? Throw rocks at a huge building? Unfortunately, they finally figured out the delegates couldn't get to the meeting with all the roads cut off. Which is when they got serious.

Were you part of a group? I asked.

Lindsay offered me a drag. I took one.

I was in the Black Bloc, she said. A bunch of us up from Eugene. We looked so scary, dressed head to toe in black, our faces covered with bandannas, but really we were a bunch of Goths and neo-hippies. We were nineteen and twenty. Half of us were only there to cut classes.

I remember on TV, I said, that huge white banner hanging from a crane. The one with arrows pointing in opposite directions.
WTO
one way,
DEMOCRACY
the other.

The Direct Action Network did that. They were older, more organized. We were . . . oh, God, we were just kids standing in the cold trying to find some food. That's the real reason we smashed up those coffee shops: we were hungry. No one thought it would escalate. That the cops would start moving again. We were on the corner of Sixth and Union, and it was daylight, and overcast, and there were cameramen in the crowd and helicopters above us. We'd been out there since five a.m., and still there was this vitality to everything. We were all part of different groups, but it didn't matter. When a uniformed force is amassed against you, it's amazing how quickly defiance becomes a common cause. Earlier, we'd been chanting and singing, and a few of the protesters still had bullhorns. When the cops started toward us, I remember hearing this voice rising above all the noise, saying,
Hold your ground
,
hold your ground
. And the voice was so calm, so natural. I was close to the front, maybe the second or third row, and when the shields went up, we started throwing things. Rocks,
batteries, anything hard. Not that it mattered, we couldn't hurt them. It all just glanced off their protection. The cops kept coming. And still that voice:
We're Americans! We have rights! We have rights!
Then they gassed us. We smelled it before we felt it, before the burning. I didn't know what it was and kept my eyes uncovered too long. A few people tried to pick up the smoking canisters and throw them right back, the way you can with grenades if you're quick enough. But none of us were quick enough. And anyway the cops were wearing helmets. They started moving faster, relentlessly forward, their sticks out, splitting us up, driving us back. By then I couldn't see, could barely even open my eyes. The whole world was going dark, and I just looked at the ground and tried to follow other people's feet, the direction they were running. And then the voice was saying,
Don't panic! It's only tear gas! Cover your eyes and noses!
I'd lost my friends, or anyway, I couldn't see them, so I moved toward the voice. It was like the one thing that made sense.

I was sitting up in the bed, perfectly still. All of this. She was such a frail girl.

It was Keith, she continued. The voice of reason in all that madness. I ran right into him while people were getting clubbed everywhere around us. They go for the back of your legs, you know. It's what they're trained to do. So you just wilt right there in front of them, get kicked and crushed and trampled. They were coming after him specifically, but he had friends surrounding him, protecting him, and the cops couldn't get close. When he saw me, he grabbed my waist and half-carried me through the crowd. He had dropped the bullhorn, but by then it didn't matter. There was no chance for order anymore, not with the sirens and the screaming and the hovering helicopters.

We regrouped in an alley a couple blocks north of the fighting. Someone made a call, and soon we were in a car, a half dozen of us piled on top of each other as Keith directed the driver through the wild streets. We ended up at a house on the edge of a boho neighborhood called Capitol Hill. It was like a temporary command station, with posters and protective gear everywhere. They had gas masks in the living room. People were shouting into cell phones, getting updates on the carnage a mile away. Everything was still blurry, but Keith was forcing my eyes open, squeezing drops into them. They
stung so much. And my nose was running. And my skin. Have you ever been gassed?

No, I said.

Well, you're lucky. It's effective. Anyway, Keith and I were pretty much inseparable the rest of that week. And after. But that's not the point of the story. . . .

But that was the point of the story. Or one of them. Lindsay was laying out her credentials as an extremist, and, in that shrewd way familiar only to women, laying out her ground rules as well. Keith was hers, or anyway, not mine. That this had all gone down more than a decade ago wasn't important. She was in love with him. I'd realized that right away and accepted it as part of the arrangement. It wasn't new love, of course. There was nothing overtly passionate or physical about it—not that I'd seen. No, they'd probably known each other on and off for years, had lived and slept together in any number of incarnations that were now a part of history. Episodes from other adventures.

It all came down to this: I trusted Keith. And if he, in turn, trusted Lindsay, then I did, too. The man was that magnetic. The more he kept his distance, the more I wanted to know him. It's an amazing thing to hear a person spoken of in such reverence, and then you meet him and he's twice as impressive as you imagined. The business of extremism was, like all others, a business of people, and Keith was someone to go to war with. There was that past, sure—he'd managed to thrive as a leading radical for years without getting caught—but it was more than the résumé. He inspired loyalty. And faith. Now there's a word I use with trepidation. Yet he brought it out in me. I felt secure around him, even then, especially then, in those first days, as I was being whisked off to help commit some treason yet unknown. He was incredibly careful and quietly confident, and it wasn't hard to imagine it all might somehow work out. And to think I'd been handpicked over any number of capable and committed activists in dripping basements and seaside bungalows and everywhere else where people have come up against a wall in their lives and decided to smash through it.

Lindsay and I said our good-nights, and I turned out the bedside lamp. Two weeks after I met Keith, that fateful night in Raleigh, I had read about the Pike County coal mine collapse in the
Washington Post
. It had happened in the dead of night, and although there'd
been no deaths or injuries, the governor of Kentucky had immediately ordered OMSL inspectors to fan out across the state and reevaluate mining safety procedures. Tarver Coal was taken to task. Their track record was trotted out in the press, and the company's financials were scrutinized and found lacking. Tarver was levied with fines as its stock plummeted and its CFO resigned. Against this hardship, they announced the closing of two of their least profitable mining operations. Throughout the ordeal, Tarver's CEO had insisted the collapse was triggered by a small explosive device, but when investigators eventually verified his claim, it hardly mattered. The damage had been done.

Could it really be so easy? Could targeted violence truly work? I lay awake in that motel room for a long time, as Lindsay slept peacefully beside me, curled up like a question mark. We'd just traveled for nine hours through five states, and still I kept coming back to the same moment. We were crossing into West Virginia on Route 161 when Keith lowered his window and stuck his head out.

What are you doing? Lindsay asked.

Listening for the blasts, he said, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

I smiled. That he'd remembered.

AIDAN
 

FROM A WELL-POSITIONED SEAT AT A CHARMING SIDEWALK TABLE, I WATCHED as Cressida came striding across Washington Street, her high heels negotiating the cobblestones with practiced assurance. I'd been waiting more than half an hour—and had already polished off a carafe of red wine—but I didn't really care. We embraced, awkwardly, and Cressida began a complex untangling of wires and straps—from headphones, a purse, and various bags—that quickly came to involve diners at the tightly spaced neighboring tables. Finally, she fell into her chair, bumping the table just as I was filling her glass. The wine spilled. “Fuck,” she said, grabbing her napkin, then mine, as the red pool started to spread. “Sorry I'm late.” It was her standard entrance, perfected over time by actually being late, to everything, always.

It was rarely just the two of us anymore, and we weren't sure where to begin. We were always at parties or large dinners. The things other couples did—movies, walks, brunch—we never quite got around to. We were busy, knew people,
had lives,
and quiet moments had never been part of them. That is, until now. For life's natural pauses, the gaps in conversation, had begun to widen. We were great around others, but got moody, fell silent, around each other. Tinkering with cell phones, text messages, later plans, we pretended not to notice what was becoming painfully clear: that we'd run out of things to say to one another. But
didn't that happen to everyone? The vacant stares, the unintentional tuning out . . . these, I told myself, were symptoms of nothing more than time gone by. Besides, Cressida could never be quiet for long.

“So I have something for you,” she said, when we were finally organized. She pulled an oversize envelope from one of her bags. “Here's the deal: I'll give you everything I've got, but you have to tell me what this is about.”

“It's probably nothing,” I said. “Just some weird e-mails I've been getting.”

“About the bombing?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“What exactly did the e-mails say?” she asked.

“Why? Did you dig something up?” It was possible, which is the reason I'd asked her in the first place. As a staff reporter, Cressida had access to dozens of information-gathering programs and websites, and she knew how to use them.

“Maybe,” she said coolly.

This is what we
were
good at—pushing buttons, testing boundaries, baiting each other. I reached into my pocket and produced a copy of the second message from EmpiresFall (though I'd been careful to erase the sender's address). Cressida read it out loud: “ ‘Subject: Barneys. The shopping wasn't so good. The blowout sale was on the wrong floor. P.S. This is your chance.' ” She frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I have no idea. And the other e-mails are just as cryptic. Except one of them mentioned the three names I gave you.”

“Why would they e-mail Roorback?”

“Exactly. It's ridiculous, but I wanted to get your thoughts just in case.”

“Did they claim responsibility? Send photographs? Anything else at all?”

“No,” I said.

The waiter came and we ordered more napkins, wine, and finally, food. He didn't write anything down. When he was gone, Cressida opened the envelope and pulled out three file folders.

“Okay, then,” she said, lowering her voice. “Let's start with Easton St. Claire. He's the easiest because he doesn't exist. I checked
everywhere. He sounds made up and he is made up.” She handed me the folder labeled
ST. CLAIRE.
In it were three pages of search requests. I tried to look engrossed as I thumbed through them. “Next is Paige Roderick, who does appear to be real, inasmuch as there are humans who exist with that name, but . . . oh,
come on.
”

“What?”

“I know what you're up to.”

“No you don't.”

“You're wasting my time with these two phony names so I don't figure out who you're really after.”

“And who would that be?”

“Kimball LeRoux.”

Kimball LeRoux? I thought I'd made the name up on the spot, but maybe I'd lifted it from somewhere. It did sound familiar, now that she'd said it out loud.

“Let me ask you something,” Cressida said. “Is this your way of getting back at me for the column?”

“No. But if you want to think so, fine. It's probably what we should be talking about anyway. I just thought we could work together for once, focus on something other than our fucked-up relationship.”

“Really? Is that what it is?”

“That's not what I meant,” I said.

“It's exactly what you meant.”

And so we sat there in silence. When the food came, we ate in silence. Malatesta was the kind of inexpensive trattoria you might find on any corner in Florence or Milan, but for whatever reason was rare in New York. Candlelight set the mood, and a beautiful staff sustained it. At nearby tables, people laughed and carried on in foreign tongues. I wondered what we must look like to them, jaws clenched, poking at pasta. A friend of Cressida's appeared, and we smiled our way through pleasantries and the vague promise of future drinks. Finally, no doubt getting the hint, she blew us kisses and walked away.