The Hammer of God (27 page)

“They'd never let you splurge for a hotel room for them.”

“First off, we'll fib a little and tell them Uncle Sam is paying for it. And second, since we have tickets to take them to the play Wednesday, then dinner after, where we will tell them we are going to get remarried, it makes sense for them not to go all the way back to Long Island late at night. I'll call her after we eat.”

“What do you want for dinner?” Janice asked glad for a change of subject.

“Whatever. Don't go to any trouble.”

“No trouble. Do you want pasta, meat, chicken, what?”

“Well, maybe if you could make that chicken dish with the sun dried tomatoes and the wine sauce… and maybe a little ziti with pesto on the side. Oh, and those cheesy croutons in a Caesar salad. Or with the blue cheese dressing if it's too much trouble to make Caesar. Oh, and maybe you could steam some asparagus with that hollandaise sauce from the pouch?”

“From the pouch?”

“Hey, I don't want you to go to too much trouble.”

“You don't want me to go to too much trouble… but a little is okay?”

“Hey, you asked!”

“Go sit down, dreamboat, and the kitchen staff will have dinner ready in about an hour.”

“You sure it's no trouble?”

“Ahhh, shut up, already.”

Bill went into his study. Now that the nuke was absent and accounted for, much of America got back to living a normal life. For the Hiccocks, that meant making plans to go up to New York. Bill had a speaking engagement up there and he needed to decommission Bridgestone and Ross, officially, face to face.

When word came of the death of the Palestinian truck driver, it matched an account from B & R that their truck driver, Jamal, had dropped off what he thought were plumbing supplies at another truck in the desert driven by a Palestinian. Pictures of the dead man were confirmed as the driver to whom the “hot load” was transferred, by Jamal, who was now very grateful and talkative in return for American radiation therapy. Joey placed the report in the normal pile with a note reading “Possible route of Roosevelt Bomb” (which is what they were calling the exploded suitcase nuke now).

∞§∞

Ann climbed the steps of the Bedford Street subway stop. As she exited into the Williamsburg, Brooklyn night, past the chained bicycles, the pizza shops, and Polish restaurants, it took all of her will not to turn around to get back on the L train and back to Mark's place. But she steeled herself and quickened her pace, as if the mere act of aggressively walking would change her resolve when she faced Gary. He would try to deny it, of course, but enough of her friends saw him with that tramp. She had to confront him or she could never look herself in the mirror again.

She met Gary at a Truth for 9/11 rally. Gary was fearless as he stood yelling at the top of his lungs “Bush knew! Cheney too! 9/11 was an inside job.” She remembered how he faced down a group of steelworkers who objected to his exercising his right to free speech by trying to muzzle him just because he was the lone, courageous voice crying out during the moments of silence and the ringing of the bells at the 9/11 ceremonies at Ground Zero.

Ann had seen the Internet videos and she was enamored with the likes of Sean Penn and Rosie O'Donnell who had the guts to say that fire couldn't melt steel and reveal the truth that a missile hit the Pentagon, not a plane. Overall, she came to learn from Gary that the attack on the towers was planned to be a “New Pearl Harbor” by the neocons, who were mostly Jews, like Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Armitage and who had been planning for war against Islam well before their propped up puppet, George Bush, stole an election and took power. She was disgusted over how they used the peaceful followers of the religion of Islam and activist Muslims as scapegoats, all the while denying them fundamental freedoms such as Habeas Corpus. With all these wrongs to right, things between Gary and Ann were great. Protesting by day and making out by night. But as soon as the protests became passé, Gary started to become less attentive, less involved…with her.

As she turned the corner of Bedford Avenue, walking closer to her confrontation with Gary, Ann steeled herself with the knowledge that Professor Keller… ‘Mark' was right. She
was
a human being, no less than any other, and entitled to her rights and dignity. In the last weeks, Mark had helped her realize that she possessed an inner strength and beauty that was undeniable to anyone who got to know her.
“Our relationship no longer feeds my emotional, spiritual, and essential self.”
Those were the words she chose. A closing argument designed to utterly defeat any objection or sense of guilt Gary might try to lay on her. Well, she didn't as much choose the words as Mark suggested them. But true to his teachings, she took ownership of their power and now they were her mantra. Like profess…Mark said, “These are the only words you'll ever need to say to anyone, Treasure Ann.” Although she discouraged others from using it, Ann liked when Mark called her by her whole name. He found it on her NYU enrollment form, and he asked if, when they were alone, he could call her by it. Of course he would never use it in public or when he called on her in his lecture hall, which she attended three times a week. He was older, charming, and so smart. He shone even brighter in her eyes when he spoke inspiringly of the nobility of the struggle of the Muslims against the forces of Judeo-Christian capitalism and its imperialist colonization. How Muslims were an entire culture left behind by history. In fact, things really got started between she and Mark when he invited her to listen to a radical Imam in a basement on Atlantic Avenue. She had to watch through a basement window because the men also prayed on mats prior to the speech and women weren't allowed. But on the way home, she knew he was all she had ever hoped for.

On the other hand, Gary, when he learned Ann's entire first name, simply decided to call her Pleasure. That worked for a time, especially in the beginning of their relationship. They would sneak around looking for places to kiss and grope. Occasionally, they'd find a closet or empty room and they would go at it, usually ending with her on her knees and him with his hands behind her head. At first, he would always wrap his arms around her and hold her for a moment afterwards, always kissing her on her cheek instead of on her lips afterwards; nothing like the deeper way he would kiss her before she had “Pleasured” him. She wondered if he had an aversion to his own….

She banished the thought from her mind when she saw the steps to the six-story tenement walk up on North 6th where she and Gary had shared an apartment since they were freshmen. Well, it was Gary's place originally and she kind of moved in. As her feet scraped the gritty, steep steps, her thoughts returned to how, after a while, Gary didn't even bother to hug her afterwards. He'd just neaten up and say something about being “late.” Then a quick peck on the cheek and he was gone.

As she turned the key in the front door of the vestibule, she made note to take her peace sign off the ring before she threw the keys back at him. Once inside, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath.

The fact that Treasure Ann Hunnicut was a victim, was old news. Now she was one of the walking wounded as well. Shunning her Mormon roots at 17, and armed with a 1584 SAT score and a scholarship, she fled to New York City and NYU. Her open heart and naiveté became a beacon to the predators that inhabit this city of anonymity. Falling in with the young crowd around 8th street and the surrounding coffee shops, she learned of the social ills and political realities that she had been shielded from in her pristine Utah environment. She shortened her name to Ann to better fit in without having to be “the Mormon girl.” She soon started to become overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of information on the arrogances and prejudices the United States of America was inflicting on the rest of the world. It was then that she met Gary, an NYU student, who, even though his grades were nowhere near Ann's, immediately set himself up as her mentor. Within a week, he had the 5'8 blonde with a healthy body and soft, endearing eyes, under his spell. She became his following of one. He mostly kept her in check by his never letting her feel as though she totally satisfied him. That kept her trying anything and everything to gain his approval.

Subservience was her pattern with men, whether they were in her family, her community, the men she met socially, or when she was working as a waitress one summer. She was emotionally damaged and her esteem was inexorably tied to the nearest male figure. Gary perfected his advantage by getting her to be his sexual convenience. Besides, blowjobs were what passed as “making out” these days. It was almost expected that the oral gratuity was part of the new courting ritual. On Astor Place, it was referred to as “pulling a Lewinsky” and eventually shortened to, “Getting a Lewy.” Of course, among the 20-somethings, only the Poly-Sci students had a clue what that ancient reference alluded to. The ultimate level of casual oral sex reached its pinnacle with the buy-in from young women, on something relegated as harmless, called “Rainbowing.” A young girl would “register” a unique shade of lipstick and transfer that shade indelibly onto a male's member as a way to prove to
his
friends that he got a specific girl to do him, and also as a way a girl could mark her territory to warn off other “sluts.”

In all, it was the greatest scam ever perpetrated on young women. This new ethic was in many cases supported by their very mothers, who were operating under the same male oppression in their lives. This new rule about the oldest male urge benefitted from, and was taking cover under, the new cultural mores that if “
there is no penetration then there is no sex
.” What a great time to be a young horny man; what a terrible time to be a young “disposable” girl.

As she entered the apartment, the smell of pot hung heavy in the air; that substance having also played a huge role in her transition to becoming one of the “cool” people. Then she heard a moan – a female moan. Impulsively, she stormed into the bedroom,
her
bedroom. There was Gary getting a Lewy from the Tramp! He was so wasted, he didn't even hear her gasp. But the Tramp did. She just turned and, without missing a stroke, looked right into Ann's eyes as she was consuming Ann's boyfriend.

Treasure Ann opened her mouth and was surprised that not a sound came out. Eventually, she just turned and left the apartment. On the Bedford subway platform, she stood stunned. There was the rumble of the approaching Manhattan-bound L train, the sound swallowed her up, and her head pounded. She took two steps closer to the yellow grip mat that edged the last two feet between the platform and tracks. Maybe it was the residual of the contact high, but her head spun as the lights of the approaching train splashed along the grimy tiled wall of the station. She felt her body go limp and herself falling; the little voice inside of her didn't object; she was okay with the idea of ending it all. As her body was collapsing, a woman screamed.

∞§∞

Number 1 was taking a roundabout way back to the Store & Lock. He had just met with two members of the Brooklyn cell who had formulated and stood by to execute the plan, which would have been his way out of the country. But now that the bomb had disappeared from the American authorities' watch lists, he would never have to use the carefully prepared escape route that these men created, as the Americans would say, “just in case.” He had thought of killing them, so that they would not become a possible hole or loose end threat to his perfect plan. Instead, he invited them into the main plot. They were devout and committed and at least they could be useful even as just added gun power more than as soldiers, in the second diversion. He instructed them to report to a safe house in Trenton. There they would be watched for three days. If they didn't draw any attention or surveillance teams, then they would be brought to the Store & Lock of which they had no clue existed.

This being the third subway he randomly boarded, he looked around the station to make sure no face or clothing piece was familiar and to check if anyone was paying any attention to him at all. He was watching the train pulling in when a scream turned his head in time to see the young girl beside him falling in front of the braking train. He instinctively reached out and pulled her to safety just as the cab of the train swept by the exact place where her head had been a split second before. She collapsed in his arms. Not wanting to draw any attention to himself, he walked her up the stairs to the open air.

They sat in a Starbucks as she sipped on a Chai Tea while he only had bottled water. He could see she was really young, not past 20. He could also see she was troubled.

“Where are your parents?” Number 1 asked.

“Utah. I left home without their approval.” She self-consciously cleaned up the table around her cup.

“Do you have anyone in New York?”

“I did until about a half hour ago.”

“So you would have killed yourself over a mere boy?”

“I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was just dizzy, woozy.”

“As you wish.”

The woman started to tremble and then broke out in tears. Number 1 offered her his napkin. She dabbed her eyes and then stammered, “I...I want to thank you for, for…saving my life.” Then she cried again.

“Well, I have to go,” Number 1 said.

“Wait; I owe you so much.”

“You owe me nothing.”

“No, you saved me.”

“I really must go.”

“What's your name?”

Number 1 was stymied; he thought quick, “Mahmoud.”

“Are you a Muslim?”

“Yes.”

“I take Muslim history as part of my Middle Eastern Studies degree,” she said brightening up.

“I am happy for you. Now I must go.”

“But wait, where do you live?”

“New Jersey. I hope you feel better. Now I must go.”

As she objected, he walked out. She sat there for moment and then bolted out the door.