Silencing Sam (21 page)

“Before these bombings,” said the company manager, “our biggest challenge as an industry was getting electricity from the soybean fields to urban areas.”

“A new power grid is being planned for rural Minnesota,” his assistant said. “But now turbine security is diverting our attention and finances.”

They showed Malik and me a large computer monitor that had small wind turbine graphics across the screen that represented each of the real things. It resembled a war room, except instead of a map of nukes, they had windmills. Three flashed red. They appeared in the same geographic location as the blasts.

“We can watch if there are disruptions.” The manager pointed to the red flashes. “This is what happens if a turbine has a problem.”

“Except that's after the fact,” I said. “Do you have any plans to prevent trouble?”

I could tell this was a question he dreaded.

He explained that law enforcement couldn't constantly jam cell signals in the area, unless they had reason to believe a threat was imminent. And even then, terrorists could always use a cell phone timer to detonate the bomb without making an actual call.

Starting this week, Wide Open Spaces was bringing in patrol guards after dark. And hoping to hire an explosives-detection canine of their own. They felt going public with all their precautions would reassure the residents living around the wind farm and discourage troublemakers.

((WIND MANAGER SOT))

WITH THE DEATH OF THE

BOMBER, WE EXPECT THIS

MESS TO BLOW OVER SOON

AND OPERATIONS TO BE

BACK TO NORMAL.

National media were now interested in the explosions. The
New York Times
sent a reporter to do a “Troubles in Lake Wobegon” kind of story. And
60 Minutes
had Katie Couric on the way.

When Malik and I arrived to interview the farmers and their families about living with fear, Malik's presence behind the camera now made them nervous. Certainly they were less eager to be featured on TV than they had been earlier.

Then my dad told me about whispers around the neighborhood that Malik might be connected with the bombers and passing information to them.

“That's crazy,” I said to anyone who would listen, dismissing that kind of talk.

I actually thought I'd done a good job of convincing folks about the folly of stereotypes and not to prejudge people, until something hit our van windshield at the only stop sign in town.

“What was that?” Malik said.

Another egg splashed the driver's window, and we turned and saw my old schoolmate Billy Mueller with a proud smile on his face.

“Just ignore him,” I said.

“Easy for you to say,” Malik replied. “He's basically calling me a terrorist based on my ethnic background.”

“I don't think Billy is that sophisticated. I think he's calling you a terrorist simply because your name sounds different from his. Malik Rahman. You know how messed-up the watch list is; for all we know, you're on it.”

“I do have difficulty with airport security,” he acknowledged.

Over the last few years, it's been widely reported that the government terrorist watch list is a joke, stacked with numerous duplicates, respected politicians, even children and dead people.

When word started to leak that the wind farm bombing victim/perpetrator was part of the terror file, I called the only real federal source I had, Nick Garnett, to see if it might
all be a mistake. He took my call but kept the conversation all business.

“It's a hit,” he said, verifying the rumors. Then he told me the time and location of the news conference and hung up.

These developments didn't go over big in the Twin Cities Muslim community. (Minnesota has one of only two Muslim congressmen in the country.) Upset with any hint that Islamic extremists were behind the wind bombings, they protested the coverage outside the station, dismissing Lucas Harlan as a Muslim wannabe.

We were targeted because in the minds of the public, Channel 3 owned the wind story. The protesters simply marched up and down the block, some in regular street clothes, some wearing more traditional garb. Quite a few waved signs reading “Channel 3 is unfair!” or “Islam Loves Green,” and even “Turbans for Turbines.”

Malik and I were on our way back to Wide Open Spaces to shoot another standup. He'd asked me to take a different photographer to the wind farm because all the eyes watching him suspiciously made him uncomfortable.

But just as Sancho was Don Quixote's traveling straight man, I felt like Malik was mine.

“Forget it,” I said. “Then we're just letting them win. We need to show them how wrong bigotry can be.”

As a compromise, I offered to drive and let him nap. He could even pick the radio station. About an hour into the trip I glanced in the rearview mirror, and my face looked so horrible I wanted to close my eyes but couldn't since I was behind the wheel.

“Why didn't you tell me my skin was so splotchy?” I shook Malik awake.

He mumbled something about trying to sleep.

“But you're my cameraman; you're supposed to have my face, if not my back.”

“Not my job,” he replied. “I shoot what's in front of me. Real life. Real people.”

“I stopped being a real person the day I became a TV reporter. Noreen will kill me if I show up on camera like this.”

I pawed through my purse before I realized I'd left my makeup bag in the green room, so I pulled off the highway in Rochester so I could pick up some foundation and powder at a mall department store.

On the other end of the counter two women in veils were buying several bottles of expensive perfume. They appeared to be part of the royal entourage, accompanied by a bodyguard and a flunky carrying packages. The Rochester newspaper had recently run a front-page story that the Saudis had pumped two million dollars into the local economy.

“I wish I could report the news from behind a veil,” I told Malik. “Then no one would care what I looked like.”

“Be glad for your freedoms.” I looked up and grasped that, from behind her cloak and veil, one of the women had spoken English.

Malik drifted away and the two of us chatted briefly and cordially about her stay in Minnesota and how well the Mayo Clinic was treating them. She alluded to women's rights being nonexistent in Saudi Arabia. Then her shopping party grew restless, so I said good-bye, and they moved on to the shoe department.

After they were out of earshot, Malik whispered, “There's a problem.”

“Please don't let it be a newsworthy problem. We have enough headaches.”

The two men apparently had been chatting in an Arabic dialect, unaware that Malik was somewhat familiar with it. His father, a university professor, had made sure various tongues were spoken at home. “They were talking about bombs.”

“What was the context?” I asked. This was crucial.

But Malik couldn't follow the details. It's possible, he conceded, they might just have been discussing the wind farm explosions. Or might even have recognized me as the reporter covering the story and been gossiping. Or they might have been discussing building bombs.

I recalled a speech President Obama had made a few months earlier, vowing to stop importing oil from the Middle East in ten years. I wondered if that national goal could be motivation for oil-producing countries to stall the green movement, maybe by urging extremists to blow up American wind farms. Could the terrorists' motive be economics, not ideology?

I kept the Saudi shoppers in sight as I called Garnett to share the theory.

“It's me,” I said.

“You really need to call the Homeland Security press office,” he replied. “I have work to do.”

“This might be the best tip you get all day.” I reminded him that the Saudi royal family was in town for medical checkups and explained what Malik might have heard. “What do you think? Any chance some of their team might be involved in the wind blasts?”

Garnett advised me to drop it.

“That's all? Drop it? What happened to your sense of curiosity?”

Then he gave me a lesson in foreign relations while I watched a clerk bring my Saudi sister nearly a dozen boxes of heels.

“The Saudi entourage is able to travel with diplomatic immunity,” he said. “Completely exempt from criminal prosecution. Neither they nor their families can be arrested or detained, nor their residences entered or searched by authorities.”

He waited to let that settle in my brain. “So what are you saying,
Nick? There's no point in investigating them because if they did it, they'll just get away with it anyway?”

“I'm saying they aren't even on the hook for parking tickets. Let me repeat myself. They have diplomatic immunity. So drop it. This is not a direction the federal government wants to explore. Or that you're capable of exploring.”

“What if this is all about discouraging farmers from leasing land to energy companies? What if the bombings are part of a plan to keep America dependent on foreign oil?”

“Just drop it.”

I don't know who hung up first, me or Nick. It might have been a tie.

Malik and I shot our wind follow-up story, but without much enthusiasm. On the way home, I swung into Rochester again, this time driving by the Kahler Hotel, where Saudi Arabia's monarch was staying on the lavish eleventh floor across from the Mayo Clinic.

Malik nudged me and pointed down the block. A handful of demonstrators plagued our international guests. Their signs read “Wind Instead of Oil” and “Blow Sand at Them.”

When we got back to the station, our own protesters were still on the march. Channel 3 had moved all the newscasts to the inside studio away from the set that looked onto the mall. This way the crowd couldn't wave signs in the background at our viewers.

Noreen considered all this negative attention too high a price for any exclusive, especially one that wasn't moving the people meters in our direction. She told me to tone down the wind coverage unless national security was at stake.

I didn't mention the business about the royal entourage because I didn't know what to say.

I went into my office, shut the door, and laid my head on my desk for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes, I noticed the gun-carry permit disc stuck in between some papers. So far, my Sam revenge theory was a bust, but that didn't mean the disc might not contain other news.

I loaded it in my computer and started scanning for gold amid the data. All I needed was a handful of interesting people viewers might not expect to be armed; then I'd have a story. And my boss would be off my back.

After a couple minutes, I realized I'd never get through the tens of thousands of names. Especially since so many were named Anderson and Johnson, typical of Minnesota's Scandinavian roots.

I headed to Xiong's desk. He still had the data downloaded on his computer and agreed to try a search.

“Scrolling will be a time waste,” he declared.

I didn't argue because I'd already wasted enough time coming to that conclusion on my own. That Xiong knew that, and other clandestine computer stuff, instantly confirmed him as an alpha geek.

He suggested trying to match the carry-permit database to others the station owned. The sexiest—convicted felons—might
have been a long shot because county sheriffs were already supposed to be screening out those applications. But any hits there would be pay dirt.

“Obviously we do them,” I said. “What other computerized files do we have names for?”

“State employees and campaign contributors are promising,” he said. “And we have your local-celebrity file still on hold.”

Last year, on a slow day, I'd gathered a few interns to help draw up a spreadsheet of famous Minnesotans—rosters of politicians; business leaders; pro athletes; radio, television, and newspaper names; musicians; even bestselling authors—just for a handy computer shortcut to separating newsmakers from ordinary folk, because newsmakers make the most news. I'd even added birthdays and addresses when we knew them, because that can often help match computer data.

So far, we hadn't come up with the proper project to harvest them … but I thought this might have been it.

“I will get started,” Xiong said.

I left him to do his computer magic.

By now I had nearly a hundred Facebook friends. And I could lurk on their pages and delve into their cyber lives. If I cared.

Clay still had the most, though Sophie was catching up. She seemed to attract men. Single men. I seemed to attract people with problems. Some felt they'd been ripped off by car dealers or insurance agents. Others wanted me to investigate their neighbors for not separating their recyclables or for letting their dogs run loose across their yards.

Facebook was proving almost as annoying as the Channel 3 tip line. Except here, the crazies had a direct hook to me.

Before Fitz Opheim had left Channel 3 to consult at his next station of news dupes, he urged us to use the social network to
promote our stories, but also to let viewers have a glimpse of our personal lives.

“Tell them what you had for lunch,” he said. “Share what you're reading. Let them see how you're different from them, but also let them see how you're the same.”

Noreen had friended all of us in the newsroom so she could monitor how well we interacted with viewers and how many friends we'd acquired.

“I notice you didn't post your birthday, Riley,” she said.

“I'm worried about identity thieves.”

That seemed to throw her, as if she'd never considered the idea before.

“Well, work on your numbers then. Instead of just waiting for people to friend you, you should friend them. Making friends is making viewers.”

I didn't necessarily believe her reasoning, but I also didn't want to argue. I looked at Clay's Facebook page to see how a man with a ten-gallon mouth had become so popular.