Polar Shift

The question spoiled Malloy's triumph.

'Yeah, I'm Malloy,' he said with a frown. 'How did you make me, Mr. Barnes?'

'Easy,' the reporter said with a shrug of his shoulders. 'You're sitting alone in a dark blue Ford in a neighborhood where it's practically impossible to get parking.'

'I must be losing my touch,' Malloy said dolefully. 'Either that or I've still got cop written all over me.'

'Naw, I cheated,' Barnes said with a grin. 'They told me at the MACC that you'd be here.'

MACC was shorthand for the Multi-Agency Control Center, the entity in charge of security for the international economic conference that was being held in New York City. Political and business leaders were converging on the Big Apple from all over the world.

'I cheated too,' Malloy said with a chuckle. 'MACC called and said you were coming over.' He studied the reporter's face and decided he looked familiar. 'We met before, Mr. Barnes?'

'I think you gave me a jaywalking ticket.'

Malloy laughed. He never forgot a face. It would come to him. 'What can I do for you?'

'I'm doing a story on the conference. I've heard you're the top consultant in the field when it comes to dealing with sophisticated techniques of disruption. I wondered if I could interview you about how you plan to deal with the planned protests.'

Malloy owned a firm in Arlington, Virginia, that advised police departments around the country on crowd control. He was on the boards of a number of companies that made riot-control equipment, and his business and political connections had made him relatively rich. A favorable story in The New York Times could mean even bigger bucks for his consulting business.

'Slide in,' he said and reached over to open the passenger door. Barnes got in the car, and they shook hands. The reporter shoved his sunglasses onto his forehead, revealing intense green eyes and sharply angled eyebrows that formed a V similar to the shape of his mouth and chin. He pulled a notebook and a miniature digital recorder from his pocket. 'Hope you don't mind if I record this. It's insurance, to make sure my quotes are right.'

'No problem,' Malloy said. 'You can say anything you want about me, but just spell my name right.' Since he'd left law enforcement and started his consulting company, Malloy had become a pro at handling reporters. 'You were at the press conference?'

'Oh yeah,' Barnes said. 'Quite the arsenal! The Long Range Acoustic Devices you've got mounted on the Humvees just blow my mind. Is it true those things were used in Iraq?'

'They're considered nonlethal weapons. They can let out an ear-splitting screech that drowns out even the loudest demonstrators.'

'If someone blasted one hundred and fifty decibels in my ear, I'd stop chanting about peace and justice.'

'We'll only use the screamers to communicate with large crowds. We tested them the other day. Good for four blocks at least.'

'Uh-huh,' the reporter said, jotting down a few notes. 'The anarchists will get the message, all right.'

'My guess is that we won't need the big artillery. It's the little stuff that counts, like the scooter patrols and mechanical barriers.'

'I've heard you've got a lot of high-tech stuff too.'

'True,' Malloy said. 'The most effective way to control the crazies is with software, not hardware.'

'How so?'

'Let's take a ride.' Malloy turned the key in the ignition. As the car pulled away from the curb, he got on the radio. 'This is Nomad. Heading north on Broadway.'

'Nomad?' Barnes said after Malloy had signed off.

'I wander around a lot. Keeping an eye on things. The crazies know I'm on the move, but they don't know where I am. Keeps them on edge.' He turned east, drove a short distance on Park, then made his way back to Broadway.

'Who are these 'crazies,' as you call them?'

'When it comes to anarchists, you never know who or what you're dealing with. Back in Seattle, we had enviro nuts and peace nuts. We had Wiccans and feminist neo-pagans, yelling about the WTO and the Goddess, whoever she is. Most of your mainstream anarchists are against the world economic order. They're nonviolent when it comes to people, but some of them say corporate property is fair game. Chaos is their main weapon. They're usually organized in autonomous collectives or affinity groups. They act by consensus and avoid any kind of hierarchy.'

'Given their lack of organization, what exactly are you looking for?'

'Hard to describe,' Malloy said. 'Pretty much the same stuff I did when I was on the street. The crazies will split up into small groups. Pairs or singles. I just look for patterns of behavior.'

'I've read about the Seattle protests. Sounds like that was a nightmare.'

Malloy let out a low whistle. 'I've still got the scars to prove it. What a mess!'

'What went wrong?'

'The crazies targeted the World Trade Organization. What they call the 'power elite.' I was a district supervisor in charge of crowd control. We got caught with our pants around our ankles. Ended up with a hundred thousand demonstrators pissed off at what they said was an oppressive world trade system. There was looting, curfews, cops and National Guard running around shooting rubber bullets or tear gas at the nonviolent as well as violent protesters. The city ended up with an international black eye and a pile of lawsuits. Some people said the police overreacted. Others said they didn't do enough. Go figure.'

'As you said, a major mess.'

Malloy nodded. 'But the Battle of Seattle was the turning point.'

'In what way?'

'The protesters learned that marching down the street wasn't enough to get attention. Only direct action worked. You had to break things up, inconvenience people, disrupt the focus of the people in your bull's-eye.'

'From what I've seen around the city today, the power elite have come a long way since Seattle.'

'Hundred percent,' Malloy said. 'I was in Philly for the GOP convention when the anarchists made us look silly again. They'd raise hell, then run down the streets with a bunch of overweight cops chasing them. Created chaos and confusion. They stirred up the pot at the WTO conference in Miami too. We finally began to get a handle on things at the World Economic Forum here in 2002, and pretty much had our strategy in place for the Republican Convention in 2004.'

'You kept disruptions to a minimum, but there were complaints about civil rights being violated.'

'That's part of the protest strategy. These guys are sophisticated. It's mostly a small group of hard-core instigators that moves from city to city. They provoke authority hoping we'll overreact. Whoops!'

Malloy pulled off to the side, double-parking near a group of people carrying musical instruments, and barked into his hand radio.

'Nomad to MACC. Guerrilla musicians gathering for an unpermitted march from Union Square to Madison Square Garden.'

Barnes scanned the sidewalk on both sides of the street. 'I don't see anyone marching.'

'They're walking in two-by-twos now. Nothing illegal about that. They'll start coming together in a minute-no, wait, there they go now.'

The musicians were coalescing into larger groups, stepping off the curb into the street to form a procession. But before the parade began, police officers on bicycles and scooters swooped in from both sides and began to make arrests.

Barnes furiously scribbled notes.

'I'm impressed,' he said. 'That went off like clockwork.'

'It should. That little maneuver was the result of years of experience. We're only dealing with an in-between economic conference, but there are hundreds of guests and protesters, so there's the potential of big trouble. The crazies are always trying to stay one step ahead of us.'

'How do you tell the real fanatics from people who simply want to protest?'

'Pretty hard. We just arrest anyone who's a troublemaker and sort things out later.' He took a ringing cell phone from its dashboard cradle and handed it to Barnes. 'Check this out.'