Local time – 5.30pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
London, England.
The Tweets loading onto Gerome’s iPhone screen were the only news he now had from people in the crowd at the Washington Monument. Over the last few hours, thousands of people at the Monument had used their smart phones to join the hash tag discussion about the President’s shooting. They all shared the same outrage at knowing nothing of his condition. But as soon as the crowd started to notice the army’s presence, a new theme of alarmed paranoia started to fill the Twittersphere. People now felt trapped in the protest. Mostly, their Tweets were questions to those watching on TV, trying to find out what on earth was going on.
Gerome spread as much information as he could, from what he could see on the news screens, but he really only knew as much as they did. The army was there. Armed soldiers flanked both the President’s supporters and the gun rally. There was no point saying anything to the people about the army and police presence. That would just scare them more. As far as Gerome could tell, even though it was a terrifying sight to see a solider holding a semi automatic weapon just meters from where you were peacefully protesting, there was no reason for their presence except crowd control. Or perhaps damage control if the crowd became violent.
Just as Gerome had this thought, something new caught his eye on the list of Tweets flowing from the Washington Monument. And, as if to give this Tweet substance, the same news appeared before his eyes on the CBS live telecast. There was a commotion right in the centre of the crowd. At least one hundred people were jostling with soldiers and some were being dragged away through crowds of confused and frightened bystanders. The cameras now focussed on this scene, and Gerome could see the scuffle unfolding. It seemed to cause a ripple through the crowd, as people tried to get out of the way.
It appeared that a small section of the crowd had burst into spontaneous violence, and the soldiers were dealing with it in the only way they knew: with similar spontaneous violence. Gerome’s hands impulsively scrolled through the Tweets, and he tried to type as fast as he could to let people know that there was no need to react. From a career covering anti-Vietnam War sit-ins, to G8 Summits, to Climate Change action protests, Gerome knew how badly things turned out for peaceful members of the public when they got caught up in scuffles with less peaceful activists. A baton might not look like a hugely threatening object from a distance, but when it flew directly into your face, it could completely reconfigure your features. If you survived the skull fracture.
Gerome’s Tweets were designed to elicit calm, but he felt like he was using fly spray to stop a jumbo jet. A wave of panic seemed to spread from the central point of action, and infect everyone in hearing distance. It was apparent that people were now looking around fearfully, trying to find an easy path away from the melee. But soldiers were blocking every obvious exit. The crowd’s anxiety about the President’s condition, or their outrage at the gun buy back scheme, already had their emotions on edge. Why the powers that be thought it a good idea to bring in the army at this point, Gerome had no idea. Though when a President is no longer able to give orders, it was possible that the panic throughout the White House had itself rendered the government impotent. And an impotent government was incredibly dangerous. Anyone could be calling the shots now.
A horrible thought struck Gerome. The buses. Peter had seen the army arriving, and police, escorting white buses to a hidden car park behind the Washington Monument. What if violent protestors were being shipped in? What if they were purposely there to ramp up the tension? What if an outbreak of violence was exactly what the government wanted? And just when Gerome thought this was about as scary as it got, he realised something even scarier. It wasn’t necessarily the government. The US army were there. Police were there. But what if they weren’t under the command of the US government? Alex’s conspiracy video flashed into his mind. The President had been shot. What if this was the beginning of a strike against America?
Before Gerome had time to sufficiently digest this horrible possibility, there was a knock at his door. He distractedly went to open it, walking sideways so he could keep an eye on the TV. He wasn’t expecting visitors, but thought for a moment it might be Laura. It wasn’t. An authoritative looking man wearing a black T-Shirt and jeans was standing on his doorstep. Before Gerome had a chance to ask him what he wanted, he shoved past him. Gerome spun around to find the man standing in his living room.
‘Get out of my house!’ Gerome ordered. No one had ever barged into his house before, and even on a normal day, Gerome wouldn’t have accepted this lightly. But he could see that the man wasn’t going to take orders. His face must have looked as vacant as his insides felt when the man, who spoke in a clipped Israeli accent, announced himself.
‘I have no time for beating about the bush. My name is Christopher. I work for Mossad. I am here about your employee Alex North. You need to come with me.’ Before Gerome had a chance to react, the man stepped forward, as if to shake his hand, and Gerome saw he was holding something that looked like a mobile phone. He tried to jerk himself backwards out of reach, but he didn’t have a chance. The Taser caught him just below the ribs and his legs buckled under him in electrifying agony.