CHINESE WALL © By Manning Wolfe
Chapter 1
As a jet flew over Texas, its wings reflected the bright spring morning sunshine. Below, the colorful San Antonio streets were full of hustling and bustling workers and tourists celebrating Mexico’s victory over French forces called Cinco de Mayo. None of the people below gave a second thought to the plane overhead, the busy street around them, or what harm might be coming next as they walked past the Alamo and scurried toward historic San Antonio Market Square. One end of the venue, the outdoor plaza making up El Mercado, was lined with shops and restaurants visited by locals and travelers since the 1820s. Mariachi music spilled out of many doors and Selena’s voice singing “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” blasted out of speakers mounted high on gaslight poles.
A pregnant woman and her sister, wearing breezy spring dresses, shopped for spices from the outdoor bins of Jalapeno’s Hot Spot. The two pointed to the colorful trays full of chilis and ground powders indicating to the clerk their choices. A gaggle of middle-school children wearing identical yellow T-shirts were herded by two teachers toward Cocina’s, a Mexican restaurant boasting a banner that advertised cooking classes. Three businessmen, wearing the latest style in sports jackets, talked on their cell phones about commercial properties available for lease in the downtown corridor as they wound their way toward Serrano’s Restaurante.
A family of four pushed their way through the crowd toward the end of the long brick walkway making up the esplanade of the market. The father held a crying toddler, and the mother wrangled a stroller that was cradling a sleeping infant, oblivious to the activity around
her. As the family exited the market and stepped onto the sidewalk, they were bumped and split apart by a man in military dress who didn’t stop to apologize. The father looked at him in disbelief as the mother admonished her husband with her eyes to let it go.
The rude man in camouflage garb was Timothy Walsh, who wove his way through the crowds adjusting the strap of a multi-green camouflage duffel bag on his right shoulder. He wore military fatigues as part of his disguise as a young recruit from nearby Lackland Air Force Base. He kept his large brown eyes down and his focus inward. The edges of a dark-colored dragon tattoo peeked out from under a large bandage on the left side of his neck. His lips moved slightly as he listed a sequence of instructions known only to him and his brothers in arms.
Walsh moved into the line entering the southern entrance of the market, paused, and waited for the crowd to surge forward. As more shoppers and tourists moved in, he flowed with them, walking past the numerous shops and restaurants until he reached the end of the long mall and stood in an alleyway before a facilities door marked ‘Maintenance.’ He looked around for security guards, saw none, and tested the door handle. As promised, it was unlocked. He took one last look back down the walkway, then entered. He ducked under a large pipe, turned in the small space like a dog circling to lie down, and pulled the door closed behind him.
***
In the classroom at the rear of Cocina’s, the middle-school children donned red aprons over their matching yellow T-shirts and chatted excitedly about the day’s lesson. Their two chaperones sat at a nearby table and allowed the children freedom to fully experience the exotic smells and atmosphere of the restaurant.
The class started when the chef came out of the kitchen and shouted, “Hola!” The
children looked at him in awe. He sported a colorful neckerchief in the pattern of the Mexican flag and pajama-looking chef pants covered in a chili pepper pattern. In his tall white hat and monogrammed white coat, he seemed like a character from one of the children’s favorite books. His heavy Spanish accent lent another layer to the exotic fantasy.
“Today, we learn to make tortillas from masa,” Chef said. “Masa is ground corn. We will mix our masa harina with water, then roll the dough into little balls. Then we will press it and cook it, and you can all have lunch. We may add a small vegetable to keep your parents happy. Si?”
One child stuck out his tongue and another groaned, “Vegetables.”
Chef laughed and demonstrated. “First, we mix the masa with water and salt.”
The children stirred the mixture in large metal bowls with wooden spoons as the chef
moved about the room pointing and assisting the smaller children with the large utensils. “Pour the dough onto the table and knead it until the gritty bits are incorporated. When
it’s all mixed up, form small balls and put them in a row before you.”
The children followed his instructions, making all sizes of balls, and giggled when the
dough stuck to their fingers. One boy wiped the sticky paste onto his friend’s apron, and both said, “Ew.”
Chef laughed at their play. “Now, place the tortilla maker before you, open the top, and place a ball of dough in the middle.”
When the children picked up the metal press by the handle, the hinge opened and splayed the tortilla makers. Some were dropped on the floor and others were placed upside down. Chef went around the room, righted each press, and put the handle in front of the student. He demonstrated on a small redheaded boy’s press.
“Next, push the handle down until the masa spreads flat inside the press. Open the handle, remove the tortilla, and place it on your plate. Repeat until you have a nice stack.”
Little hands pressed and played with tortillas all the way around the table. The creations ranged in size from silver dollars to frisbees. The chef worked his way through the room again and again as he instructed each student on how to achieve a more uniform size.
“Muy bueno!”
***
Walsh set his bag on the concrete floor, turned on a small flashlight and held it in his mouth,
pointing the rays downward into the duffel. He unpacked the materials and prepared the contents as he’d been taught, working swiftly as the room was tight and hot from the machinery running all around him. Fear beaded on his forehead, then dripped down his beard and onto his gloved hands as he twisted the last wires into place and adjusted the timer to allow fifteen minutes for his escape.
His focus was drawn from the task at hand as he thought of the process of his radicalization over the past months. Of course, that’s not what he called the online facilitators and enablers of the process of indoctrination. He called them friends. He’d been searching for information when he’d happened upon an internet group that had welcomed him into a private chat room and shared his hatred of minorities and those who were different from him.
Walsh had made the lucky find the week after he was fired from his job in El Paso. “So sorry,” his boss had said, “but we can get it done cheaper if we use labor from across the border. Nothing personal, it’s just business—maximizing profits, staying competitive.” His new internet friends had listened to his complaints and understood his anger. They provided a place for him to air his grievances, then invited him to train with them in the hill country outside of San Saba.
While there, he’d felt like a frolicking child playing soldier with his new buddies, and at purpose for the first time.
Soon, the far-right homegrown terrorists told him he was valuable to their cause and promoted him to the accelerated training program, giving him the affirmation and admiration he sought. They provided funds, instruction, and friendship for four months, fast tracking his indoctrination and the development of his skills. They were his friends and his partners. He was loyal to them for life. His life, not theirs, but he didn’t know that. He was a useful tool to them, but he wouldn’t live to learn that. It wasn’t in the cards.
Walsh awakened from his reverie, smiled at his good fortune, checked his watch, tucked the bomb behind the overhead pipe, balanced the device on a small strut, and secured it with duct tape. This was the last bomb of three that had been placed in strategic locations around the plaza. The two other members of his cell, known only to him as Trigger and Cobb, would be looking at their watches as well. Trigger was in a public men’s room at the other end of the plaza, and Cobb was in a nearby office building that faced onto the plaza street. Walsh hoped his fellow militia brothers had also been successful in setting up their devices. The engineering of the detonations had been researched by their militia leaders in order to achieve maximum effect. Synchronization of all three bombs was the key to mass destruction. Two would do, but three would make an outstanding statement that the world would never forget. Walsh planned to celebrate the accomplishment of their goal when he rejoined them at a safe house on the other side of town.
As Walsh repacked his bag, he heard a noise behind him and felt air rush into the cramped space. He took the flashlight from his mouth and turned around, facing back toward the door. A security guard was standing in the open entrance with a pistol pointed at Walsh’s midsection.
“Halt! Para, Cabron! I said stop!”
The guard gestured with the weapon as his navy-blue uniform stuck to his body when sweat broke through the fabric. The name embroidered on his chest was ‘Jose.’
“What are you doing in there? Put your hands up.” Jose’s body shook.
Walsh held his hands at shoulder height, causing a round circle of light on the ceiling from the flashlight. “Don’t shoot.” He pleaded as he looked around, formulating a plan.
Jose Perez gestured again with the shaking gun. “Don’t you move.”
Walsh held Jose’s gaze, then made one swift motion. He directed the beam of light into Jose’s eyes, then swung the flashlight in an arc behind the pipe and hit the bomb hard as he said, “Not on our watch, Beaner.” The bomb exploded as Jose shot Walsh in the chest.
***
Walsh never knew that his cohorts, Trigger and Cobb, were even more successful than he was.
Trigger felt the blast from Walsh’s bomb across the plaza and reset his timer for two minutes, packed his duffel bag, and sprinted from the men’s room. He ran into the throng of people streaming out of the downtown area, away from the market bombing, and blended into the distraught and panicked mass.
***
Cobb had already set his bomb and the timer per the original plan and had left the office
building. He was almost to the parking garage when Walsh’s bomb went off, followed in a couple of minutes by Trigger’s bomb. He threw his duffel into the cab of his truck, started it up and peeled out of his parking place, down a ramp, and out into the crowd. He honked and swerved, barely missing one startled person after another. He would just as soon have hit them with the vehicle if it would not have drawn unwanted attention to him and his cause.
