“God in heaven,” whispered Liz.
“Sonsofbitches!” said Dick.
“No, no…” said Odile.
The middle figure, in the Iroquois mask — black haired, wild eyed, crazily baring his wide wooden teeth — raised a sheet of paper and began reading from it, voice lowered to doomsday bass by a voice changer.
“God in heaven,” said Liz.
Burt and I commenced shooting with our cell phones.
“Allow us to introduce ourselves,” said the Iroquois. A male voice, unrecognizable. “We are representatives of The Chaos Committee. You know what we have accomplished in the last week and a half. We wanted to give you a chance to meet us. Face-to-mask. Forgive our shyness but our anonymity is important.”
It seemed as if all of Rancho de los Robles was holding its breath. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“The last week has only been our introduction, as we have made clear. Injuring minor political slaves is not our goal. But now that you have seen us, we know that you’ll be taking our devolution very seriously. We are serious because this is the nation we once loved and believed in and fought for in a thousand different ways. This is a nation born in chaos. Then destroyed by two centuries of greed, moral sloth, and the mass rape of nature. We must now return to chaos to be reborn. To reclaim our future. To devolve.
“Citizens, act with us. Lash out with fury! Destroy the masters in government — from city hall to the president. If you are an honest policeman, turn your guns on the wealthy who control you! If you are loyal military, bring us the heads of your officers! Death to the lockstep of parties and opinions. Only chaos can burn the weakness and corruption and greed out of this republic! Burn it brightly and completely. Compromise is surrender. Violence is victory. Chaos is God and God is Chaos.”
Anchorman Dwayne Swift fainted, sliding down behind the desk as his ninja captor knelt out of camera beside him.
By now all of the Irregulars were standing and shooting with their phones.
Except Odile, who sat still as a statue, eyes wide. “Something worse is going to happen,” she said. “I can’t see it yet.” She closed her eyes again and I could see her hands, clasped together and trembling on the picnic table.
“My brothers and sisters in arms,” said the Iroquois Goliath. “As proof of our power and the power of our ideas, witness the Encinitas office of Representative Clark Nisson. Good night!”
The masks advanced on the cameras and the picture went spastic, then dark.
Burt stormed off toward the sunset, phone to his ear: calling Nisson’s office, I presumed.
Odile stood, her eyes still wide and fixed on the television.
I changed the TV to the local PBS channel, which would be mid-broadcast with their nightly news hour.
And there she was, the familiar face from which we got our commercial-free San Diego weather. Another sunny spring day everywhere in the county, she said, then was suddenly cut off mid-sentence, replaced by the anchors at their desk, a man and woman of stolid professional calm and good cheer, now obviously distressed and trying not to show it.
“We have a confirmed report,” said Rick Carpenter, reading off a teleprompter, “that a fiery explosion has rocked the Encinitas office of United States Representative Clark Nisson. We have no information on the cause of the blast, injuries, or damage. We do not know if Congressman Nisson was present. However — oh jeez — the terrorist group calling itself The Chaos Committee has apparently claimed responsibility… Donna, do we… Jimmy, is there any footage to go with that… no? None? Please, all of you at home, be patient, we’re trying to get corroboration of this very disturbing development. Please stand by.”
I hadn’t felt that helpless since pushing the gauze into Ernie Avalos’s gaping face in that gun-smoke-clotted room in the old city of Fallujah.
Dalton picked up. He was drunk and morose. He’d been gaming, hadn’t heard about the TV station takeover or the bomb sent to his congressman.
Late that night Mike Lark returned my several calls. Congressman Clark Nisson and aide Art Arguello were killed instantly when a firebomb exploded in the representative’s office at 6:48 p.m. The bomb had contained a gel fire accelerant that had been blown throughout the office by the explosion. The fire had engulfed the small ground-floor office almost immediately. Lark and his brethren suspected another mail bomb, as was The Chaos Committee MO.
California’s governor stated that the bomb was a terrorist act and declared a state of emergency at 7:30 the next morning.
Seventeen
Tola Strait led me from the fragrant, spacious showroom of the Julian Nectar Barn to her office in the back. The skunky green aroma of marijuana followed us down a bare hallway, brightly lit. An armed and uniformed guard pressed a lock code into a wall keypad and the door slid open. He was a Native American, size large. Gave me a blank look on my way by.
The office was roomy and orderly: a brushed aluminum desk behind which Tola sat down in a task chair, a shiny concrete floor littered with Navajo rugs, brick walls hung with framed landscapes in oil and watercolor, and two Outlaw Iron Horse gun safes towering side by side on either side of a wet bar. A large digital scale on the bar top, away from the sink. A cowboy chic leather sofa along one wall, Pendleton blankets draped over both arms, and reading lamps at each end. A pink bathroom behind a half-open door.
And red-haired Tola, setting her cell phone on the brushed desktop. No business attire for her today. Instead, jeans tucked into cowboy boots, a crisp white dress shirt, and a red leather vest festooned with turquoise nuggets and leather tassels.
I sat across from her on a faux cowhide armchair.
“Thanks for looking at the Nectar Barn offerings, Mr. Ford,” she said, nodding to the wall-mounted security video screen. “Though I’m disappointed you didn’t pick out some good dope. I profiled you as a pump-me-up, high energy cannabis user.”
“On account of my laid-back nature?”
“You got it. One of those guys who toke up and run on the beach. Or hit the iron pile, or whatever you do to burn off the energy.”
“Not my drug of choice,” I said.
“It can take you up, down, or sideways. Ever tried it?”
“I giggled and couldn’t walk straight.”
“And the downside? Let me guess — loss of control over your surroundings. Paranoia and right-wing fantasies. An uncontrollable lust for ice cream.”
“Peanut-butter chocolate,” I said.
“We make an incredible edible — the Nectar Barn peanut-butter-fudge brownie.”
“I wish you’d quit trying to sell me something I don’t want.”
“You just need the right hybrid.”
“I know what I need, Ms. Strait.”
An amused gaze. “I must have something you want, or you wouldn’t have called.”
“Natalie’s been missing ten days,” I said. “Complete silence from her, no credit card charges, no cell phone usage. Your grandfather fingered Kirby but I think Kirby’s had his hands full. We know she’s not on a manic-phase jag, or at least things didn’t start off that way. Two men got themselves into her car, took her for a drive, then hustled her into a white Suburban not far from the Tourmaline Resort Casino. As you have probably heard from Dalton or Virgil, she wrote the word ‘Help’ on the back seat of her car, in lipstick.”
From a desk drawer she withdrew a pack of cigarettes and set them in front of her by the phone. Gave me a long steady study.
“This may be naïve,” she said, “but why hasn’t Dalton made this public? Why aren’t the police high-profiling it?”
“He fears political fallout,” I said. “And the police are doing what they can.”