Scar Man said nothing. He tensed—but after a moment he slowly set himself down on a wooden stool.
“Good.” Fitz switched to his native Oklahoma dialect. “Now then, I’m gonna go ahead and speak in English for a while, ’cause nothing personal but your language makes me feel like I’m chewing on a sunbaked goat turd. I know not all y’all speak it, but you can translate for your buddies later.”
He glanced around, again expecting some contentious words, but none came. He had his audience, at least the ones who could understand him.
“Y’all have paid a pretty penny to have me here, and I haven’t been sitting on my thumbs. I’ve been thinking. As I understand it, y’all want to put the fun back in fundamentalist, is that right?” He was playing on his southern roots, exaggerating it almost to the point of parody, but it was worth it; these men were likely cringing internally at the very notion of listening to an American, let alone a yokel.
“The Ayatollah is misguided,” said the Tall Man in English. “His peace with the US is a grave error. Already we have witnessed trade agreements and economic sanctions that threaten to bring westernization to our country to the point of—”
Fitz held up a hand. “I get it, man, one McDonald’s in Tehran is one too many. Y’all don’t want a Walmart coming in next, or there goes the neighborhood.”
“We want to strike a blow to the psyche and pride of their nation,” the Tall Man said forcefully. “While simultaneously demonizing Iran in the eyes of Americans again. There can be no peace!”
“You mentioned that,” Fitz mused. “Right, so whip up some good ol’-fashioned Islamophobia like back in the early aughts.” It sounded so strange on the surface; these men wanted to vilify their own country in order to save it. They, a small contingent of less than a dozen, assumed they were the mouthpiece of a nation, the true heroes that would do what they needed to do, whatever was necessary to keep Iran from becoming anything like the Big Bad West.
That sort of loyalty could easily be seen as unfounded, even insane. But Fitzpatrick could understand it. After all, he’d been a Marine for more than a decade.
Oo-rah.
“And you know how to do this?” Ugly Guy asked.
“I got an idea. Pass me that tablet.”
The Tall Man slid the tablet toward him and Fitzpatrick navigated to YouTube. He typed a keyword into the search bar and waited—“Wi-Fi sucks here,” he muttered—and then tapped on a video thumbnail. It took an irritatingly long time to buffer, but when it finally played, he turned the screen so everyone present could see. They drew in closer, the nine of them, bunching up shoulder to shoulder as their brows furrowed in confusion.
On the screen was an old man. He sat in a preschool classroom with a picture book in his lap and a circle of children seated around him as he read a story about a family of ducks trying to cross a busy street. The old man wore a US Army ball cap and a checkered flannel shirt and jeans. He had deep laugh lines creased around his still-bright blue eyes, though his hair had long since gone white. He hunched over the book and read slowly, all the while keeping a genial smile on his weathered face.
“Now for the ten-thousand-dollar question,” said Fitz. “Anybody here know who this is?”
The nine Iranian faces glanced at each other and then back at him, some shaking their heads, all silent.
“Didn’t think so. That right there is William Preston McMahon. Or I should say, former President of the United States William Preston McMahon. Goes by Bill these days. Or Billy, to his wife. Grandpa Bill, to his litter’s litter. He is eighty-four years young. Served two terms in the White House, from 1981 to 1989. Grandpa Bill spends his golden years reading to preschoolers and volunteering at animal shelters. He runs a scholarship for inner-city kids, pays five full rides every year. Most recently, Bill has been doing a lot of press. He’s been on talk shows and news shows and all that, a very vocal ally of President Rutledge’s peace efforts.”
“And what use is this old man?” asked Scar Man impatiently. “Why are you showing us this?”
“Well,” said Fitz, “because as your tall friend said, I know some things. For example, I know that Grandpa Bill owns a ranch out in rural West Virginia. I know that he’s guarded by a couple of retired Secret Service agents that spend most of their time watching The Price Is Right, shooting pool, and not expecting any trouble. I know that Bill is still very much beloved by the people, possibly more so now than when he was in office. And finally, I know that for the price of a plane ticket, a rental car, and a few bullets, we could get to him.”
The Tall Man shook his head slowly. “I… do not understand.”
Scar Man threw his hands up. “This is what our money has gotten us? A plan to kill an old man?”
“Not exactly,” Fitz countered. “Look, you want to hurt the American psyche? Wound our pride? You could take out a building. Go for body count. Or—you could go after an icon. And Bill here is the least guarded icon I can think of. It’ll hit ’em where it hurts. But that’s not enough. So we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna kidnap ol’ Bill. Take him hostage. Blame Iran. We’ll demand a ransom. The US government, they won’t want to negotiate with terrorists, but they might cave for Bill. The American people will put them under a ton of pressure. It’ll be damned if they do, damned if they don’t; either way it’ll cause a lot of dissent. But that’s not even the best part. ’Cause whether they pay up or not, we’re still gonna put Bill out to pasture.”
To the Tall Man’s confused expression he added, “Kill him. It means we’ll still kill him. And the beauty of it is, most people are pretty simple folks. Even if the government catches on that it’s not actually Iran behind this, the people will believe it. The tensions are still fresh in their minds; they’ll want to believe it. They’ll rally around that. You’ll get what you want, and all it’ll cost is Bill McMahon. You dig?”
It seemed to take a few moments for the plan to fully sink in. Fitzpatrick thought it was quite brilliant, if he could say so himself; in fact, he’d gotten the idea from an incident that unfolded about six months ago, when President Rutledge had been briefly held hostage by Palestinians, one of whom was masquerading as their president. He had seen firsthand how quickly the country screeched for war, for bombs to strafe the West Bank from the face of the Earth.
This group could never get to President Rutledge. But Bill McMahon? And with Fitzpatrick at the helm?
Easily.
To his surprise, it was Ugly Guy who nodded first. A jack-o’-lantern grin lit on his face, stretching his pitted face as he said, “Yes. I dig.”
The Tall Man nodded silently. As did the Scrawny One, and the unremarkable one (who Fitz decided on the spot would henceforth be the Drab Arab), and the others.
All except Scar Man. He frowned deeply, eyes locked on the tablet screen.
“What do you say, Scar?” Fitz prodded.
“You would do this?” the man asked somberly. “To your own former president?”
Fitzpatrick shrugged. “I ain’t got any ties left there. That country chewed me up and spit me out. My loyalty is for sale, and the money you’re paying will set me up nicely in a non-extradition country. I’m thinking Moldova. I hear Eastern European girls dig scars.”