And lay out his bill he did. He noticed that as he spoke a few sena tors actually began to pay attention or, to be accurate, he could see them chuckling and shaking their heads. But theyd see who had the last laugh.
His first proposal was to eliminate a large part of the threat by shipping every Muslim who was not an American out of the coun try. And he wasnt kidding, he said. Students, visitors, immigrants with green cards Well, adios, or whatever the Arabic word was for goodbye. He noted that Prime Minister Tony Blair had had a similar reaction toward foreign Muslims when the London subways were bombed. Blair, however, had wanted to deport only the rabble-rousers and agitators; Broderick wanted to take Tonys good idea one large step further.
His second proposal was that future visits by people from Mus lim countries would be significantly limited, carefully controlled, and primarily allowed only for business purposes. Being a good Re publican he knew that business mattered, but Muslims could send their children to Europe for school and if they wanted to take a vacation they could visit the Fijis. He knew some would argue that education and tourism were businesses, but hey, you had to draw the line somewhere.
Muslims desiring to enter the country would have to apply for entry months in advance to permit time for background checks. Upon ar rival they would be photographed, fingerprinted, and DNA-sampled, and they would have to have an American sponsor who would be responsible for their conduct. Naturally, these people would be care fully monitored while they were in the States.
But Broderick knew it was his last proposal that would draw the most attention: he proposed that background checks be performed on all Muslim Americans. These background checks would identify if a Muslim belonged to a radical group or supported radical causes and, most importantly, would identify who these people knew and were related to overseas.
The near demolition of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel God only knows how many would have died showed that radical Muslims in this country, American citizens, can be proselytized and turned into weapons of mass destruction. We must take steps to guard against this very real threat.
Later, he wished that he hadnt used the word registry, but he did. He said that all Muslims who successfully passed the background checks he was proposing would then be entered into a registry, one of the benefits of this being that airport travel for these folks would become less bothersome. He wasnt saying they wouldnt have to go through the metal detectors, just that they were less likely to be pulled off to the side and patted down. He noted that the idea of travelers having some sort of special identification to speed up airport screen ing was nothing new.
Im just saying lets start with the Muslims, Broderick said.
Joe DeMarco saw Mahoney sitting on the warped wooden bleachers with five black women and a couple of toddlers. The football players they were watching appeared to be ten or eleven years of age, their helmets too big for their heads. The team in the hand-me-down, wash faded orange jerseys was called the Tigers; the other team, their color blue, their uniforms just as worn, were the Cougars. Just as DeMarco reached the bleachers, the Cougars quarterback threw a perfect ten yard spiral to a kid who was about three feet tall and who was imme diately buried under a sea of orange shirts.
Good hands, son! Mahoney yelled out. Way to stick. Way to hang on to that ball.
DeMarco had no idea why Mahoney did this the stress of the job, a need for some time alone but whatever the reason, every once in a while hed leave his office and sneak over to southeast D.C. and watch the kids play. Hed sit there on the sidelines with the mothers, completely out of place, a big white-haired white man dressed in a topcoat and a suit in a part of Washington that was predominantly black. The other odd thing was that he wasnt usually recognized; this was odd because John Fitzpatrick Mahoney was the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. It seemed as if folks who lived in this section of the city had lost their faith in politicians a long time ago and no longer paid all that much attention to the players, including those at the top of the roster.
DeMarco took a seat on the bleachers next to Mahoney. Mahoney glanced over at him clearly irritated that he was there and turned his attention back to the game. DeMarco took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Mahoney. I ran into Martin Born up in Boston, he said. He asked me to pass this on to you.
Born was a Boston developer, one of Mahoneys wealthier constitu ents, and he had his small avaricious heart set on a wetland area known to be home to some variety of slow-breeding duck. Mahoney, at least for the moment, was siding with the ducks.
Mahoney started to open the envelope, but the Cougars quarter back was sacked just then by a ten-year-old who looked big enough to play for Notre Dame. You gotta double-team that guy, boys. Protect your quarterback! he yelled.
One of the mothers, a woman as big as Mahoney, turned to him and said, They gotta triple-team that one. That chile, he must weigh a hundred fifty pounds.
Yeah, Mahoney said, but that kid playin right guard, hes stoppin him by himself about half the time. That kids got game.
You got that right, the woman said. Thats my sisters boy, Jamal.
When the Cougars took a time-out, Mahoney ripped open the envelope and fanned out a number of hundred-dollar bills, maybe ten of them. What the hells this? he said. A tip?
DeMarco just shook his head. He was a lawyer, although hed never practiced law, and he occupied an unusual position on Mahoneys staff. If asked his job, he would have said he was the speakers personal troubleshooter, but one of his duties was bringing Mahoney envelopes like the one hed just delivered. There were times DeMarco didnt like his job.
Mavis sent me over here to get you, DeMarco said. Mavis was Mahoneys secretary. He didnt bother to add: Which I wouldnt have had to do if youd ever turn on your goddamn cell phone! You got a roomful of people waiting to talk to you about Brodericks bill.
Mahoney shook his head. What a waste of time. That bills not goin anywhere. Brodericks a fruitcake.
DeMarco shrugged. I dunno. People are scared.
So what? Mahoney said. Just because Mahoney leaped to his feet. Offside! Number eight, he was offside!
Yeah, Lionel, the big woman said. You shoulda seen that, for cryin out loud. Them glasses you got, they thick enough to see stuff on the moon.
Mahoney whooped.
Lionel, a man in his sixties, a good guy who had volunteered his time to ref the game, glared over at the woman and the speaker.
What are you lookin over here for? the woman yelled. If you wasnt always lookin at the women in the stands, youda seen that boy was offside too.
Mahoney sat back down, happy. Nothing he liked better than start ing a ruckus.
Mavis said the meeting was supposed to start half an hour ago, DeMarco said.
Aw, goddammit, Mahoney said, but he rose from the bench. He started to walk away, then turned back to the woman. Hey, you got some kind of fund for uniforms and stuff?
Yeah, she said, suspicious now, not sure what Mahoney was up to.
Well, here, Mahoney said, and handed her the envelope that Mr. Born had stuffed with cash. Get those boys some new jerseys and football shoes too. You know the kind with little rubber cleats on the bottom, so they wont be slippin all the time.
1
The two F-16 Falcons screamed down the runway at Andrews Air Force Base.
Pete Dalton Lieutenant Colonel Dalton lived for this. There was absolutely no other experience on the planet like flying an armed-to-the-teeth air force fighter.
It was the week before Thanksgiving, and when the klaxon went off, Dalton and his wingman had been sitting in the ready trailer at Andrews, bitching that theyd been assigned to work the holiday, although Dalton didnt really care that much. Then the klaxon blared and they were out of the trailer, into their planes, and tearing down the runway five minutes later.
As they were ascending into the skies over Washington, they were briefed on the situation. Some idiot in a small slow-moving plane had just taken off from an airfield in Stafford, Virginia. The guy was at three thousand feet and doing eighty-six knots, almost a hundred miles an hour. He had flown briefly to the south, then turned northeast and crossed into the outer zone and was not responding to air traffic controllers at Dulles.
As they were ascending into the skies over Washington, they were briefed on the situation. Some idiot in a small slow-moving plane had just taken off from an airfield in Stafford, Virginia. The guy was at three thousand feet and doing eighty-six knots, almost a hundred miles an hour. He had flown briefly to the south, then turned northeast and crossed into the outer zone and was not responding to air traffic controllers at Dulles.
There are two air defense zones around the nations capital, an inner and an outer zone. The outer zone has a ragged, roughly circular boundary that extends thirty to fifty miles outward from the Washington Monument. This zone is called the ADIZ the Air Defense Identification Zone. To enter the ADIZ a pilot has to identify himself, must have an operating transponder that broadcasts a signal identifying his aircraft, and must remain in continuous two-way communication with FAA controllers. The second zone, the inner zone, is the no-fly zone. The no-fly zone is a perfect circle extending out sixteen miles from the Washington Monument. The only aircraft allowed to enter this area aside from commercial traffic going in and out of Reagan National Airport have to be specially cleared.
The fool in question hadnt identified himself, his transponder was either malfunctioning or disabled, and he wasnt responding to queries from FAA controllers. He was doing everything wrong. When the unidentified aircraft was two miles inside the ADIZ, thirty-three miles and approximately twenty minutes from all the government buildings in D.C., a whole bunch of things began to happen.