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Washington, D.C., Tuesday, September 30, 2013
Stan Warren stalked the halls of the third floor, east wing. He was going to find someone who would talk to him. Three days of meetings, debriefings, strategy sessions. Then nothing. Not for a week. No one returned his phone calls; email went unanswered. He wanted to know what the hell was going on.
He spotted his target, Rebecca Nesbit, who had been knowledgeable, and committed to this investigation. Had been. He bumped into her, spilling her folders.
“Sorry,” he said, stooping to pick them up, in spite of her protests that she could do it. Holding onto three folders, he cornered her against the wall. “So,” he said pleasantly. “What the hell is going on?”
Rebecca looked around, shifting her eyes without moving her head. “Good to see you,” she said, although the welcome didn’t go to her eyes. “We should get together some time.”
“I want to know what’s going on, Rebecca.”
She sighed. “Nothing. The investigation was closed down, word from on high. Committed Christian groups are not the appropriate focus of investigations. We have been directed to turn our energies toward more dangerous targets, terrorists, Al Qaeda sympathizers, you know.”
Stan hesitated, sorting out the undercurrents of her voice. She was pissed about it, he decided. Before he could continue questioning her, however, she added, “Although if Seattle talk radio is to believed maybe we can reopen our investigation after all. With your friend as the target.”
“What are you talking about?” Stan tried to keep his posture relaxed. There were eyes on them. Who knew who? Just a brief chat between colleagues who bumped into each other.
“You didn’t hear? Some anti-abortion leader went on the air Sunday night with a talk show host and accused your friend of being an Al Qaeda sympathizer among other things. Escalating things. The newspaper has been picketed every day. So has your friend’s house.”
“I thought you were pulled off.”
She snorted. “I’ve spent years tracking the Army of God and its attack on abortion clinics, doctors, women. The powers that be can go...,” she stopped. “Look. Do you care about your friend? If you do, you better take some personal leave and get the hell out to Seattle. Nobody here is going to do anything. And this has all the markings of an explosive situation.”
Stan frowned. Taking leave wouldn’t be easy right now. “Are you sure it’s that bad?”
Rebecca shrugged. She took her folders back from him. “Let’s get together for a drink, sometime,” she said a bit louder for any listening ears.
“Tonight?” Stan said, walking along side of her toward the elevator.
“Sure. 5:15 p.m. at Blue Nile?” She smiled. Bystanders might have thought it flirtatious as long as they couldn’t see her eyes. Stan smiled back, a real one, in appreciation of her double meanings. Her eyes widened a bit, and for a moment her smile reached her eyes and she smiled at him with real warmth.
“I’ll be there,” he promised.
The Blue Nile was a small Ethiopian restaurant located not far from the FBI building. It was a small store front with a tiny outdoor porch that usually had the same crowd of African men smoking and talking. Inside was a crowded mix of urban yuppies there for the exotic food, Middle Eastern and African men for the beer that tasted of home, and locals from around the area who liked the mix. If there was such a thing as locals in D.C., Warren thought somewhat sourly as he snagged a back table where he could sit on a bench against the wall.
You were only local while your party was in power, he thought as he studied the mix of young aides and assistants who shouted over the music at each other. And then you go back to Topeka or Lincoln or God forbid, his own West Virginia hills. His career wasn’t tied to the ins and outs of the political parties—he wasn’t that high up in the Bureau, thank God. At least he didn’t think so. Although he’d been praised and received commendations for his actions last year, he wasn’t sure the current Congress really viewed his actions as a service. He’d been thinking about asking for a transfer out to a bureau. But that would be seen as a demotion, and he wasn’t sure you could ever give up the addiction to power that came with D.C. He sighed.
He ordered a beer with a gesture to the waiter who didn’t even try to be heard over the music—loud music with lots of drums. Perfect for two people who didn’t want to be overheard. Rebecca arrived at the same time as his beer. She gestured to the waiter to bring her one of the same and sat down across from him.
“So,” Stan said. “Who sent the word to shut down the investigation?”
Rebecca shrugged. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. The AIC packed up all the files, sent them to wherever such files go, and we’re all being reassigned. I’m on a task force studying whether Middle Eastern women should be considered a security risk.”
“That your field of expertise?”
She sipped her beer and sighed with pleasure. She tapped a cigarette out of a package, lit it, and inhaled deeply. “One of the reasons I like this place,” she said. “No fussy rules about smoking. My field of expertise? I’m one of the Bureau’s eggheads. My field is religious zealots. Which used to mean home-grown white supremacists, wacko—or Waco—cults, and militant anti-abortionists. It is now perceived as being essential to the crackdown on terrorism—international terrorism.”
“Maybe it is. Understanding religion, I mean.”
“Maybe. But you should watch the Texas two-step it takes for the far-right powers-that-be to dance around the connection between my field and the international terrorists. Why God-fearing Christians couldn’t have anything in common with those heathen terrorists!” She drawled the last. Sighed. “Sorry. It’s hard times for me in the Bureau right now. I’m not usually this frank. Or this bitter.”
Stan shrugged. “Well, I’m safe to unload on,” he said lightly. “I stay out of Bureau politics.”
Rebecca laughed. “Right. You didn’t last year.”
“Did my job.” Then he laughed. “Well it started out that way, at least. It got a bit... involved.”
She snorted, choked on her beer. Finally getting her breath, she said, “I guess you could say that.”
“So is Janet in trouble?”
“Best estimate? Yes. This pattern of escalation is common. It’s almost as if they are psyching themselves up for it, but I think it’s more calculated than that.” She paused for a moment, and then continued, “Most people consciously or unconsciously believe that where there’s smoke there’s fire. If you cause enough ruckus about those articles, about the newspaper, and people will start saying, well they’re obviously being pretty radical about all this, but there’s probably some truth to it somewhere.”
“And then what?”
“If the newspaper doesn’t cave—and you know better than I do whether that’s likely—I would expect there to be violence. And given Janet’s history with Jehovah’s Valley, given the personal nature of some of the attacks, she’s a likely target.”
“And Christian leaders condone the violence? How does that fit?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, no. They won’t condone it. They will condemn it. Loudly. Call for reconciliation and a time of healing. But Janet is likely to be dead by then. Mind you, this is just one segment of Christianity. Don’t condemn them all.”
“What do you call them then? To distinguish?”
“I call them radical Christian fundamentalists. Just like I call ISIS, radical Muslim fundamentalists. It’s the same thing—this human tendency for some groups to become extremists.” She paused, sipped her beer, looked out the window. Then she looked back at Stan. “What would you die for, Stan?” she asked.
He stopped short. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.
“Exactly. Most people don’t think in those terms. These people—whether they are in the Middle East or Seattle, Washington—these people think about that. They know. They are passionately committed to a cause. And they are willing to die for it. It makes them very powerful.”
One of the first things an agent is taught about using weapons was that they had to think it through ahead of time and be committed to shooting, and shooting to kill, if they pulled their weapon. You didn’t have time to think it through when you were in a life or death situation. You had to make that commitment ahead of time. What Rebecca was describing was no different, Stan thought.
“And it makes them very paranoid,” Rebecca added thoughtfully. “They assume that everyone else is out to get them, and that they must fight, and die for their beliefs. I remember, oh God, this was 30 years ago, there was this play—a children’s play—that was popular in the fundamentalist churches. Kind of based on Corrie ten Boom, you know her?”
Stan shook his head.
“She was one of the Christians who rescued Jews during World War II in Holland. Anyway. The teens in the play would march into the service, carrying rifles, and shut the service down. And hold a mock tribunal. The point of the play was if the soldiers came for you, would there be enough evidence to convict?” She stubbed out the cigarette. Hesitated, and then lit another one. “Trying to cut back,” she said, exhaling smoke. “So now I don’t light one from the old one.”
He laughed, shook his head. Tense, bright, educated, and he glanced at her left hand, married. Oh well. Reminds me of another smart woman I know.
“The play,” he said. “Teenagers put this thing on back in the day?”
She nodded. “All around the country. Think about the implications.” She grinned. “I wrote a research paper on it when I was working on my PhD, as a matter of fact. The social and political implications of The Trial.”
“PhD? In what?”
“Comparative religions. From Purdue. Bureau subcontracted with me to do some research after the Waco fiasco. And I was hooked. Hard to go back to writing papers on the implications of XYZ for journals no one ever reads when your work can be read by people who actually do something.” She sighed. “At least that’s what I thought back then.”
“And now?”
“Now the world is a different place. Well, actually, the world is the same place it’s always been; Americans just woke up and found out there really are boogey men under the bed. And they’re screaming for Daddy to make them safe again.”
Stan thought about that, set it aside. He zeroed in on the main subject. “If Janet’s in trouble, what makes you think I can do anything?”
“I don’t know that you can,” she said honestly. “But my hands are tied here. And I really want...” she trailed off.
“Want what?”
“I want inside the Army of God,” she said at last. “I want to know what makes them tick. I want to know who funds them, runs them, sets up the targets. I want to know how the system all works. And Janet is my best shot at getting there.”
“And when you know all that? Then what?”
Her face turned to stone; her eyes burned unflinchingly. “And then I want to use that information to put them out of business. I want them dead.” She flinched from her own words. “Or at least in prison,” she said.
“So, if I go out there, will you funnel me information if I need it?” Stan asked, studying her a bit. Where had that anger come from? Would it help or hinder? “I thought you were off this assignment. Files all stored or shredded.”
She smiled. “I have a set of files. Yes. I’ll feed you. What? You think you were the only one stalking the halls, planning to corner someone?”
Stan laughed. “Better order another beer,” he said. “There’s a lot I still need to know.”
He really had no idea how much he didn’t know about the rise in white supremacy until Rebecca finished a third beer. That apparently was her limit, and past that, she went into professor mode lecturing her student of one. After beer four, her language got... salty. Stan listened fascinated. You’d think a black man would know more of this, he thought ruefully. Guess it’s like the proverbial fish in water. White supremacy in all of its forms was around him all the time. He didn’t study it; he just navigated through it.
Dr. Rebecca Nesbit studied it. Ran research projects. Interviewed members of white supremacy groups. She’d even managed an interview with Dylan Roof after he shot up the black church last summer. That shooting had hit Stan hard —a different town, and it could have been his mama dying there.
“It’s the women I don’t understand,” Stan said. “Why do they stay?”
“You should ask Janet Andrews that,” Rebecca responded. “I’d be fascinated to hear her answer. But the short form? Where would they go?”
Stan must have looked puzzled.
“Even in evangelical churches that are more mainstream than Jehovah’s Valley, most women socialize within the church. They were raised in it; new converts are getting rarer all the time. Their families are members. Their friends. The further away from high school they get, the fewer people they know who are not connected to their church.”
“So even if they wanted to leave, they would have no one to go to,” Stan summarized.
Rebecca nodded. “Most of the women marry young, have their families young, and don’t work outside the home. That’s less true for the youngest cohort, but it’s still true. They have less education. So even if they wanted to leave, where would they go?”
“And what would they do when they got there.”
“Exactly. With three kids in tow, no work skills, a high school diploma.”
Stan considered it.
Rebecca went on. “Now factor in the media. Evangelical Christians consume almost no non-Christian media. Bibles, devotionals, Christian romances, Christian magazines, even Christian science fiction. The rise of the right-wing media like FOX was supplemental to this massive Christian publishing industry that already existed. Even educated evangelical Christians, who may feel like they’re getting a lot of news and information sources, don’t realize that they’re really getting only a few voices, but repeated through a variety of different media: talk radio, conservative political journals and foundations, FOX, Christian magazines, conservative preachers and media figures, and on and on.”
Rebecca paused to take another gulp of her beer.
“The rise of the mega-church has made this information silo even more complete. They’re the size of small towns. Lakewood Church in Houston has 40,000 members, 40,000! The churches have sports facilities, concert halls, places to eat. Lakewood has a children’s play space designed by Disney.”
Another cigarette. “OK, so that’s the high end, big city version. But small towns are no different. There are gym nights, basketball leagues, kids’ clubs, men’s prayer breakfasts, and women’s Bible Studies—and if Mao’s communist circles were coercive, he had nothing on the impact of women’s Bible Studies.”
Stan found himself fascinated by her story for its own sake, not just because of Janet and the danger she was in.
“And the women are rarely alone. I’ve talked to women who have left, and they talk about the overwhelming loneliness they feel. Not just because they’ve probably been disowned by their family and friends, but because they are truly alone. Church women are rarely alone. They don’t even go grocery shopping by themselves. I had a woman in her 40s confide that she has never spent a night by herself. She lived with her parents until she married. Then there was her husband and then children. He moved up at work, and they sent him to a conference. Her kids were in college. And she was terrified. She was going to be alone for the night, the first time ever. She had to have her doctor prescribe a sedative.”
Rebecca looked at Stan, studying him for a moment. “How well do you know Janet?”
He shrugged. “Not as well as I thought, apparently,” he said somewhat bitterly.
“Does she seem lonely?”
He shook his head. “Not really. She’s well respected. Work dominates her life, not unlike you or me, though.”
“Private? Independent?”
He nodded then. “Yes, very private. And she goes her own way. She really seems ageless, timeless.”
“She missed out on all the cultural experiences of her age cohort. While her secular peers were listening to grunge, or whatever, she was singing in the church choir. She probably didn’t see a movie until she was 20. Never watched television. Really, that she could make it from that to the University of Washington? She must be extraordinarily bright.”
“She is,” Stan said. “I thought it was just our age difference. It’s only five years, but that’s a lot during high school. Add in West Coast versus East Coast, Black and white, she often misses a joke or a reference to something. Especially if it’s out of her field. Don’t ever try for sports trivia.”
Rebecca snorted. “That may be a gender thing, my friend.”
He grinned.
Stan pocketed the thumb drive she handed him. “Can I share this with a reporter I know?”
“Would that be Mac Davis you worked with last year?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Make sure he understands he can’t attribute it to you or me, or we won’t just be out of a job, we’ll be in Gitmo.”
Stan wasn’t entirely sure she was joking.