Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [40]
“Uh huh.”
They stopped to chat with one of the restaurant’s owners before venturing out onto Jefferson Place. Inside, it had been quiet. The moment they opened the door, they were confronted with a noisy, angry group of a half-dozen young men who’d surrounded a well-dressed, dark-skinned couple who’d left Bacchus ten minutes earlier. One of the young men was the loudest and most vocal: “Why don’t you get the hell out of this country and go back with the rest of your raghead terrorists!” he screamed. “You don’t shoot down Americans, you bastard, and get away with it.”
The man and woman were terrified. She crouched behind him as he tried to reason with them. “We know nothing of the planes being shot down,” he pleaded, his hands held in a defensive position, his voice breaking.
“Let’s show ’em,” another man yelled.
The leader closed the gap and held up his fist.
“Hey!”
Potamos pushed through the men and confronted the leader. He’d pulled a small, sophisticated point-and-shoot camera he always carried with him and aimed it at the attacker’s face. “Joe Potamos, Washington Post. You want your ugly face in the paper tomorrow?”
For a moment, Roseann thought Potamos would be physically assaulted. But the young man backed away, mumbling obscenities. The group dispersed, grumbling.
“Thank you, thank you,” the man said, pumping Potamos’s hand.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s okay. Buncha jerks, that’s all.”
“We know nothing about any planes. We have lived here for ten years. We love this country.”
“I’m sure you do. Have a nice night.”
Later that night, Potamos and Roseann lay in bed with Jumper at their feet.
“That’s just the beginning,” he said.
“What is?”
“Looking for scapegoats. Pick on anybody who looks different, like that couple. You look like you come from some Arab country, you’re automatically a terrorist. Some stuff came over the wire this afternoon, same kind of stuff happening around the country.”
“That was gutsy what you did, Joe. I thought they were going to turn on you.”
“So did I.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, babe.”
They kissed and she turned over, her feet pushing Jumper and bringing forth a groan from the sleeping dog. Potamos stayed awake for a long time, thinking about nothing and everything. His final thought was a growing question: Should he ask Roseann to marry him?
He fell asleep before he had to answer it.
Chapter 13
The Next Morning
It was as though the world had suddenly ceased spinning. It was one of those moments in American news— or what passed for news in America. No revolution, no incursions, no deaths of heads of state or movie stars, not even a B-plus scandal in Washington.
“In other news today…”
What news? The downing of the three commuter aircraft, and the involvement of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, was the only news.
Television programmers engaged in a fierce competition for relevant guests to discuss the horrific crimes against innocent American citizens. Retired generals were interviewed about missiles, their range, speed, and destructive capability. Spokespeople from Justice, State, the FBI, ATF, and the administration ran from studio to studio answering the same questions over and over, reassuring the public while at the same time inadvertently heightening its fear that other such attacks could be imminent. The afternoon talk shows paraded every available, anxious-to-appear psychiatrist and psychologist before their cameras:
INTERVIEWER: “What’s the psychology of someone so filled with hatred that he would target civilian airliners?”
ANSWER: “That’s hard to say without having the opportunity to examine the perpetrator, to see what sort of background, childhood, life experiences might have impacted his adult actions.”
INTERVIEWER: “How can people conquer what is now a natural fear of climbing aboard a commercial airplane?”
ANSWER: “There isn’t much anyone can do except to adopt a fatalistic attitude. Because the victims were chosen at random, we’re all possible victims. But life is a