I couldn’t sleep that night. Mom’s words kept running through my head. Dad had been tense and quiet at dinner and we’d barely spoken, because I didn’t trust myself not to say the wrong thing and because he was all wound up over the latest news, that Al Qaeda was definitely responsible for the bombing. Six different terrorist groups had claimed responsibility for the attack, but only Al Qaeda’s Internet video disclosed information that the DHS said they hadn’t disclosed to anyone. I lay in bed and listened to a late-night call-in radio show. The topic was sex problems, with this gay guy who I normally loved to listen to, he would give people such raw advice, but good advice, and he was really funny and campy. Tonight I couldn’t laugh. Most of the callers wanted to ask what to do about the fact that they were having a hard time getting busy with their partners ever since the attack. Even on sex-talk radio, I couldn’t get away from the topic. I switched the radio off and heard a purring engine on the street below. My bedroom is in the top floor of our house, one of the painted ladies. I have a sloping attic ceiling and windows on both sides — one overlooks the whole Mission, the other looks out into the street in front of our place. There were often cars cruising at all hours of the night, but there was something different about this engine noise. I went to the street-window and pulled up my blinds. Down on the street below me was a white, unmarked van whose roof was festooned with radio antennas, more antennas than I’d ever seen on a car. It was cruising very slowly down the street, a little dish on top spinning around and around. As I watched, the van stopped and one of the back doors popped open. A guy in a DHS uniform — I could spot one from a hundred yards now — stepped out into the street. He had some kind of handheld device, and its blue glow lit his face. He paced back and forth, first scouting my neighbors, making notes on his device, then heading for me. There was something familiar in the way he walked, looking down —
121 · LITTLE BROTHER
like an old woman. I had done that to her. The terrorists had done that to her. The Department of Homeland Security had done that to her. In a weird way, we were all on the same side, and Mom and Dad and all those people we’d spoofed were on the other side.