Entropy (21 page)

The FBI involved me and decided to manipulate an existing scar that I had. Attempts were made to use stage make-up, but being around the intense heat of fires would cause the make-up to run and dissipate and nothing else we tried was believable enough. So we accentuated an existing blemish through a delicate procedure with the assistance of a plastic surgeon who specialized in skin reconstruction and grafting at a burns center in Washington, DC. The Virgin Mary soon appeared on the muscles and skin underneath my right shoulder, and I became a domestic terrorist and an arsonist, with her miraculous image as my guide.

Soon after, William McCoy was arrested at protests in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri. Whenever I ended up sharing a cell with other protestors and anti-abortionists, I slowly bled out my political views, and was vocal when the opportunity presented itself. My opinions became familiar but I did not push it too far. I never asked questions about further staged protests or marches, and never spoke aggressively about hate or retribution.

At least, not right away.

I absorbed information, read their doctrines from pamphlets handed to me at rallies. I blended. During a protest in Missouri that became marred by violence, I was stabbed along my hip with a hunting knife. I never saw who did it. The blade had fortunately struck bone and hadn't penetrated too deeply. Large numbers of police had been called in to restore order, and most of the protestors, on both sides of the political spectrum, were incarcerated.

Once in the cell, I removed my shirt and used it to temper the bleeding. People noticed the scar inches underneath of my collarbone, and a small biblical passage affixed by a tattoo. People were always looking for someone to lead them. That was what made a desperate person unpredictable and threatening. It was hot in the cell surrounded by twenty-five or thirty other protestors. Opposition supporters were incarcerated in the next cell. From the rear of the cell, I examined the people, wondering if the faction leader was present with the rest of his or her followers. A woman at the rear of the crowd shouted out. It was hard to understand what she was saying as I was led out of the cell and transported to the hospital. All I heard her say as the doors closed behind me was the word “hope.”

To the anti-abortionists in Missouri that I had intended to infiltrate, my scar and tattoo had provided them with the necessary assurance of my religiously righteous motivations. When I was released from the hospital and processed, a faction member came to the hotel where I was registered. I had been residing there for almost a week. I paid all of my bills paid in cash and didn't keep receipts. The gun I carried was hidden inside an air-conditioning vent behind the headboard. Still bleeding through gauze that had been placed over my wound; I had reached out to open the door. Standing in front of me was a beautiful young woman. A small manila envelope was hanging loosely in her hand.

“William McCoy?”

“What do you want?” I hadn't seen her in the crowd at the clinic, or at any of the previous protests. She hesitated for a moment, moved past me and closed the door behind her. Dark blood soaked through my white undershirt.

“What do you think you're doing?” I asked.

“You're no good to us if you can't get that bleeding to stop,” she said. I switched on the light to the bathroom and glanced up at the mirror. Over my shoulder I watched her. She studied me, uncertain, and carefully touched the flesh around the wound. When she pressed down harder, blood seeped out from between the stitches. Leaving me to pull my jeans down slightly, to expose my hip, she grabbed the towels sitting on the back of the toilet. Her fingertips moved away from the wound and across my stomach. I closed my eyes. I shouldn't have, but I allowed that woman's hands to continue moving over my body and to explore the muscles below my shoulders. She traced the outline of the scar multiple times and whispered something that I could not hear. Hesitantly, I finally pulled away from her. But it should havebeen sooner.

“Who are you?” I asked. Besides being incredibly alluring she was very composed and self-assured, almost to the point of appearing arrogant. I watched her move back into the bedroom and sit down in a chair tucked into the corner near the heater. Some blood remained on her palm. Rather than wash her hand, she gently rubbed her hands together. I didn't know her name, but I knew exactly what she was: a misguided pigeon, and a diseased carrier of false promises.

“Let me ask the questions,” she demanded.

“Get out,” I said.

“People told me you'd be obstinate.”

“People? What people? How do you know who I am, and where to find me?”

She uncrossed her legs as she edged closer to the end of the chair. The movement exposed her pale cleavage. “We've been monitoring your activities, let's say, for a while now. You brought a little bit of attention to yourself at that last protest and in prison. But that's not what we would want from someone like you.”

“
We?
What do you want from me?” I asked. In her environment, she had power. It was obvious in the way she moved her body and that she never searched around the room. There was no nervousness in her actions or mannerisms. Someone had to have been watching the motel for days. At least one or two others must be outside watching right now. She watched me tear open the envelope and slide out a small parchment of paper. On the inside of the envelope was written a time and a location was imprinted on the reverse side of a religious postcard.

“What's this?” I retreated momentarily into the bathroom and tossed the bloody towel in the corner of the room. Waiting for her to respond, I looked intently into the mirror and examined the wound. It would no doubt leave another scar. At this point, I was nothing more than an anatomical map of apprehension and misplaced self worth.

“We want you to do something for us,” she said unemotionally. She remained quiet after that. I had to let the situation run its course. Someone who had been this cautious wasn't going to give me everything here. “It's nothing you haven't done before,” she added.

“You don't know me,” I retorted.

“Yes I do, William,” she said. “First arrested in 1995, for trespassing during an abortion rally in Alabama. Those were the first twenty-four hours that you spent in prison. You resurfaced in 1997, and were wanted for questioning for the torching of a women's clinic in Oklahoma.” She then casually added, “then you murdered nine church parishioners in 1999.” She believed that William McCoy was genuine. As soon would I.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

“Yes you do. A small town outside of Pittsburgh. I saw the police photographs from that church fire,” she began, standing away from the edge of the chair. “All those sinners. Some of them still had their hands clenched together in prayer. The irony of that situation wasn't lost on any of us. It was beautiful. It took the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms almost eight months to determine that it was deliberately lit. What did you use? Kerosene? Butane?” I turned away from her and pulled a shirt across my chest.

“Whatever you want from me, believe me, you don't want to know who I am,” I said in a threatening tone, taking a few deliberate steps closer to her. I wasn't going to seem too eager. She never wavered and flinched. Instead she moved closer and traced her finger along a portion of my neck.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Who was I?

“I'm no one,” I said.

“No, you're not William. You are someone else entirely or I wouldn't be here,” she said as she came around behind me and touched the back of my neck seductively.

“You're a monster,” she purred in my ear.

Maybe she was right. I had been a criminal for so long, and kept away from the consistent and tender caress of my wife. Instead of becoming a deeper part of her and our marriage, I had retreated and sought refuge in the fragmented identities of savage men that I was steadily becoming a part of, more and more every day.

While I was reflecting on this, the door closed as she left without saying another word.

The instructions she had given me led to an abandoned building approximately twenty-five miles north of the motel. I parked my car behind a gas station a few miles away, and made my way quietly through the woods. The area around the building was poorly lit, but I immediately noticed a rear exit that had a small window with the glass broken in. If things went wrong, it could be my way out. There was an old heating oil tank attached loosely to the building. The side of it was caved in. I took an unmarked handgun out of an ankle strap, and placed it inside the tank. A dirt path led to the front of the building. It still would be another two hours before I would surface and go in.

There were seven cars surrounding the structure. I noted the license plates. Most of them would lead nowhere. In all likelihood they would match different makes and models, almost all of them reported stolen. A man stood outside the front of the building. When I approached the entrance he stepped directly in front of me. Glancing behind me, he squeezed his right hand inside his pocket. It was apparent that he had a gun.

“Tell her I'm here,” I said and handed him her message from the postcard.

Keeping his attention focused on me, he leaned back and rapped against the rusted metal door. It wasn't part of the original construction of the building. When it slid back, she was standing on the other side. The woman patted the man on the shoulder, and he pulled his hand away from the gun.

“He's okay,” she said.

The door slammed shut behind me, and the echo reverberated throughout the vacant room. Another man stepped forward and patted me down to check that I wasn't carrying any weapons. Any hope that I had of discovering any materials or detailed schematics was quickly doused. In all, eight people occupied the space, along with several rusted water heaters and folding chairs. Several were empty. I wondered if there were others who hadn't arrived. It was there that I was given instructions. However, it was difficult to get additional information. No one talked except for the woman.

“I hope you took precautions to see that you weren't followed. I wasn't sure you'd come,” she admitted.

“What do you want?”

“Help. Plain and simple. We need someone fresh, unique. Most of the people in our organization have become too visible over the last year.”

“Too visible for what?” The group needed plans for a local building, sprinkler systems, alarm systems, details of lock mechanisms, construction materials, dimly lit entry points. It wasn't anything that was too difficult to obtain. I repeated my question. After exchanging looks with some of the others in the group, she responded.

“Too visible to be seen in public, at protests,” she acknowledged, “without attracting attention; the kind that we really don't want or need. Can you get this information for us?” she asked.

“You could get this yourself. Most of what you need can be obtained from the internet or the local courthouse. It's all a matter of public record,” I assured her.

“Our organization would like to have your services,” she stated. “Your, let's say,
philosophy
, and previous practices have a lot in common with ours.”

“I don't give a damn about your politics,” I said.

“Yes you do,” she said. She moved out from behind a tattered desk and ended up behind me again. Carefully she raised my shirt higher and traced her fingertips over the Virgin Mary. “Wasn't it your mother that did this to you?” she questioned. “She burned you with an iron. The woman who nurtured you singed the delicate pockets of your flesh. Instead of comforting, she punished.” I was impressed. William McCoy had a past, and her people had uncovered all of the lies. I never said a word. She was merely selling, recruiting. And I let her.

“She was a regular parishioner at that church in Pittsburgh. How many times did you watch her go into that house of worship before you decided to act, to clean yourself and her of all that culpability, of all that hate? She had an abortion once, didn't she? And then you scorched and purified everything. It's beautiful.”

“I never killed those people,” I said. It might have been the last piece of truth I ever uttered.

“The ATF, the FBI and several other agencies seem to think you did. Interpol has an extensive file on you. It would only take one phone call, perhaps telling them anonymously where we found you. Or we could simply just not let you leave this building alive, and deliver your corpse right to their doorstep,” she threatened.

“I don't seem to have much of a choice then, do I?”

“Not from the way we see it,” she said. “But there's no need to be combative, because in the long run our goals are almost identical.”

“When do you need the information?” I asked.

“In two days.”

“Getting the information is one thing. How can I trust that you know what to do with it?” I said.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Fires can be started and in less than three minutes the authorities will be tearing down your door no matter how cautious you think you have been. It's not enough to make it look like an accident,” I said.

“Our group doesn't care about that. Our only concern is the message itself.”

“Your only concern should be remaining under the radar,” I said. “I don't want to be caught because one of your people wasn't particular enough. This isn't for fucking amateurs.”

“What do you want from us?” she asked.

“The plan of operation no less than an hour before it starts,” I admitted.

“When you have the information we need, we can discuss it,” she said.

“When do I contact you?”

“You don't. I'll find you,” she said. She handed me a disposable cellular phone programmed to receive calls, no more. The next morning she called.