36.
THE DAY BACK IN AUGUST when Anthony and his two friends received France’s highest honor, their biggest problem was what to wear. Another funny contrast: they were surrounded by the luxuriant splendor of the ambassador’s mansion in Paris, but their clothes were mostly dirty, and anyway none of them had thought to bring formal attire on a backpacking trip across Europe. The best they had were sports jerseys covered in blood. There’d been no time to go shopping, certainly not to get anything tailored, so they were about to receive the Legion of Honor from the president of France while wearing gym clothes.
Chief Griffith had an idea. He disappeared, then came bursting back into the residence with a bag full of clothing. “Okay,” he said, “try these on.” A pair of khakis for each of them, borrowed shoes, belts. “But make sure I get all this back.”
“Damn, Chief,” Anthony said, holding up a pair of slacks to eyeball the size. “Where’d you get this stuff from?”
“I borrowed it. From the marines. From actual marines. So unless you want America’s finest coming after you, you better get it all back in good condition.” He’d run down to the embassy’s marine detachment and raided their closets, but no one had suits or blazers. Apparently marines didn’t have any more reason for three-piece suits than backpackers did. The best they had was polo shirts. So the boys headed down to get the nation’s highest award looking like frat brothers on their way to a barbeque. Later, when the news broadcast images from the award ceremony, anchors would try to explain away the visuals that rolled with the reports, saying things like “The three of them, dressed . . . casually, received France’s highest award . . .”
Anthony didn’t much care what he was wearing. When he walked into the embassy lobby with the others, the whole crowd assembled there erupted in cheers. And it didn’t die down; it just kept going. Someone leaned over and said in his ear, “You stopped our 9/11.” They kept roaring, the excitement feeding on itself, the fact that they’d cheered for so long becoming itself something to laugh and cheer for, and finally Anthony decided it might go a few more seconds, so he took out his camera and began filming. Still, the crowd didn’t quiet. It was the most thunderous applause he’d ever heard, and he started to get a sense of what this meant to people.
They got in a black SUV for the short ride to the palace. A line of reporters, a royal guard; Joyce, Heidi, and Everett arriving with them after flying through the night, landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport less than an hour before the ceremony, stepping off a plane to a waiting motorcade, and racing through the city. Anthony was happy to see more familiar faces, happy to see Heidi go up to Alek, hold his face in her hands and say, “Remember what I said to you before you deployed? This is it!” Which seemed nice, whatever it was about, and Alek smiled, but Anthony’s parents weren’t there yet.
“Okay, sir?” A skinny Frenchman had taken him by the elbow and led them to a stage, pointing out an X where Anthony was to stand. “He’s going to come up to you,” the man said, as if “he” was a waiter or something, rather than the president of France. “He’s going to pin the medal on you, shake your hand. That’s it.”
“That’s all?”
Anthony’s X placed him next to Chris, while Alek and Spencer stood on the other side of the podium. The skinny man attached a radio to Anthony’s ear so he could hear a translation, but when the president addressed the crowd he spoke faster than the translator could keep up, so Anthony didn’t know whether to smile, look serious—the one thing he had never, ever doubted was his ability to act appropriately in any situation, and now he had no idea. He forced his face to neutral.
Where’s Dad?
The president started talking.
“One need only know that Ayoub El-Khazzani was in possession of three hundred rounds of ammunition and firearms,” the woman in his ear said, “to understand what we narrowly avoided, a tragedy, a massacre. Your heroism must be an example for many and a source of inspiration. Faced with the evil of terrorism, there is a good, that of humanity. You are the incarnation of that.”
Anthony scanned the crowd. Many important-looking people. His father still wasn’t there. Was there a problem with the plane? Had he not been allowed on board in Sacramento at all?
“We’re not weak as a society faced with terrorism, we are strong when we stand together.” Anthony tried to keep his gaze forward, but noticed the president glance in his direction. More important-sounding oratory in French. “If something happens,” the voice in his ear said, “you have to respond. You have to do something.” That didn’t sound very official. It sounded like something Anthony himself would say.
In fact it sounded like something he did say, at the press conference yesterday—a shiver ran through him. The president of France had just quoted him! Now, he could let a little smile crack on his face. And as he scanned the crowd again, out of the corner of his eye he saw a door to the left of the stage open, and his father and stepmother slip in. Anthony locked eyes with each of them, gave a nod, and they smiled back. What he saw on his father’s face was raw, unfiltered pride that his father was trying hard to contain. Anthony wanted to laugh, to let his whole face light up in a smile, Can you believe this Dad! but he tried to put his serious face back on, lest the president of France say something sad or tragic while Anthony was grinning like an idiot. A moment later, the president of France was standing in front of him, pinning the country’s highest medal just under his collar, and kissing him on both cheeks.
IT BEGINS SIMPLY. Anthony was asleep, now he’s not. Spencer is looking at him with strange eyes because a body has just blurred past them.
Then Spencer is gone.
The adrenaline hits Anthony and he thinks, We have to do something, and Alek is already out of his seat following Spencer. Anthony gets up and moves through the train car like he’s on a gas-powered dolly blasted forward and he’s next to Spencer in something like a second. Alek is leaning down, he is picking the machine gun up, light hits the metal and triggers something in Anthony. The barrel in Alek’s arms moving toward the seat where Spencer and the gunman are twisting. Sound leaves him and knowledge comes and slams into Anthony like a heavy, open hand smacking the round of his head: Alek is going to kill Spencer.
Anthony has been injected with a drug that affects not him so much as everything around him, so limbs move like they’re moving through thick liquid, slowing them all down except his, and he can see everything happening in perfect high gloss; it is all incredibly clear, incredibly obvious, incredibly slow. Alek cocks the machine gun, moves it slowly toward the two bodies writhing on the seat. Anthony can see it clearly from this angle. The bullet will pass through the man and into Spencer.
It feels like the whole of a minute for the trigger to move all the way back. Enough time for Anthony’s brain to cycle through a series of ideas like a jukebox, flinging and twisting discs behind the glass.
Alek, don’t do it, you’ll kill Spencer too!
Alek, go, do it, kill him now because this guy is a terrorist!
Alek, don’t do it because you’re going to splatter that man’s head on all of us and you don’t want to see that and I don’t want to see that either!
Anthony’s brain gets all twisted; thoughts begin to intersect and blend and then the current grinds to a halt and his mind is still and silent. Alek pulls the trigger.
The gun doesn’t go off. Time speeds back up, and Alek is pounding the man so violently but the muzzle hitting flesh should make blood and make sound but it does neither; still, this makes more sense to Anthony, this is right, this man needs to be administered violence but not killed. Anthony watches the man’s forehead where blood should come and isn’t, so Anthony looks down at the man’s face. Each time a blow strikes the man, the face fizzles out of focus with the force of it, then resolves, and the man just stares at Alek.
He is hit again, he vibrates out of focus, stares at Alek again. He is not passing out. He is superhuman. He shows no signs of pain. His skin is softening with blows from the weapon, but he stares. Spencer holds him tight; it’s seconds or minutes, Anthony can’t be sure, but Anthony is watching the terrorist closely because he is expecting him to pass out. It lasts for an hour if it lasts a second; it is the most intense thing Anthony has ever seen. It is extreme brutality being passed between two people, but the man is not even struggling. He takes the blows, he stares.
It’s haunting. He has a look on his face that is hatred, but it is a different kind of hatred from any Anthony has seen. It is not anger at what is happening right now; it is a calmer, deeper anger, deep enough that what is happening now is only disturbing the surface. It will last longer than this grasp he’s in. It is deep enough that he will wait. He is saying to Alek, I’m in no rush. Eventually I will not be in this chokehold and then I will kill you and as many of your people as I can.
And then he passes out.