The Detachment

prepped to hate Iran like some kind of nation state version of Emmanuel Goldstein, so when the pet reporter reports the anonymous government ‘leak,’ it slots perfectly into an existing narrative, and the public swallows it as fact.”
    “If I didn’t know better,” I said, suppressing a smile despite everything else, “I’d think you had your own roster of pet reporters.”
    “Hey, in this town, it’s more important than an entourage. Anyway, forget about Iran. The bottom line is, anytime there’s a major event, you get a certain number of witnesses describing strange pre-and post-incident occurrences. The corporate media’s been trained to ignore it unless they’re told otherwise.”
    “What if someone shoots video with a cell phone?”
    “People have shot video of UFOs. Of the Loch Ness Monster. It’s always explainable.”
    “Are you telling me the Loch Ness Monster is real?”
    “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
    “What about the debris? The FBI will pick through the place. Forensics teams will be able to tell what caused the explosion.”
    “Look what the FBI did on the anthrax investigation. They’ll be instructed to tell the public what the public needs to hear, and to close the case. And outside of a few blogs the establishment media will be instructed to marginalize, that’ll be the end of it.”
    “But we’re talking about physical evidence. On the scene.”
    “John, listen. You don’t get it. The country is traumatized. People want to believe in their leaders, so they will. They won’t be able to believe the truth. Look, it doesn’t matter whether the CIA killed Kennedy. It doesn’t matter whether nine-eleven was an inside job. Even if you could prove such things, the proof would be ignored, because as a matter of almost religious faith, the country can’t accept such notions. Especially at a time like this.”
    “But Horton’s whole plan is to expose this thing for what it was. More or less.”
    “That’s different. Or at least, I hope it is. Horton isn’t a nobody with a cell phone camera and a conspiracy theory. He’s an insider, with a reputation he’s carefully stage-managed. That reputation he’s created—his brand—is essentially a counternarrative. He’s undermining ‘I can’t believe Americans would do such things’ with ‘I’m an American, and a hero, too, and you know I’m honest.’ Horton is one communications-savvy bastard, I’m telling you.”
    I couldn’t help smiling a little. “I guess it takes one to know one.”
    “You’re right, it does.”
    “Okay. Let’s assume your information is good. Can you stop this thing?”
    “Maybe. With your help.”
    “How did I know you were going to say that?”
    “Because it’s true.”
    “Why can’t you just call the Lincoln police?”
    “And tell them what? I heard someone’s going to bomb a school?”
    “Yeah, that.”
    “Assuming they would even take me seriously, and assuming I didn’t get disappeared to a black site for doing it, the plotters would just divert to a secondary target. Remember, this is just four guys with machine pistols and a monstrously portable drone. There’s no pre-positioning and there’s almost no planning. The whole thing is nothing but a fire-and-forget exercise—if they want, they can just choose another school. And, absent the shooters—who they won’t need after the first one because the Allahu Akbar witnesses will already have been created and will already have insured the proper narrative structure—they can repeat as necessary. We have to stop them in the act.”
    “Well, then send some people in.”
    “Who? I don’t have that kind of juice with the paramilitary branch. Besides, who’s going to gear up and parachute into Lincoln, Nebraska, on my say-so?
    “Goddamn it, stop manipulating me.”
    “I may be manipulating you, but I’m telling you the truth.”
    Christ, he sounded just like his mentor, my late friend Tatsu. For a moment, it made me sad. Tatsu would have been proud of his protégé.
    “What’s your plan,” I said, hating that I was conceding.
    “Some element of you and your guys can drop the shooters before they get inside. They’re not well trained, they’re not expecting any opposition. A school is about as much as they can handle.”
    “What about the Viper?”
    “If I can locate the operator, you drop him, too.”
    “That’s a big if. And, forgive me, I prefer not to loiter around ground targets that have been