Dead on Arrival Read Free Page A

airports when we all know the most likely terrorist is a young Muslim man.’
    Broderick could almost hear the redheads cheering.
    ‘And as the near miss in Baltimore clearly showed, the threat isn’t solely from outsiders, from foreigners from across the sea. My friends, even though we don’t like to say it out loud, the fact is that we are at risk from some of our own citizens because some of them – hopefully a very small number – have more allegiance to Islam than they do to their own country.’
    Broderick looked around the Senate chamber. It was half empty, and most of the senators in attendance were busy talking to their aides or reading e-mail on their BlackBerries. That’s the way it usually went. Politicians didn’t give speeches to change the minds of other politi cians; they gave speeches to get their faces on C-SPAN and their names in the papers. And Broderick’s name was going to be in the papers. As he was speaking, Nick Fine was e-mailing the text of his speech to everyone, friend and enemy alike, and Broderick figured that on this occasion his enemies were going to be at least as much help as his friends.
    ‘My fellow Americans, I’m going to introduce a bill that contains three provisions that will make this country safer. Some of you will be shocked, some of you will be angered, but as I said before it’s time for us to start doing something other than praying that we don’t have another nine-eleven. Yes, it’s time for somebody in the United States Senate to do something other than hold a bunch of daggone hear ings after we finish mopping up the blood from the latest Muslim attack.’
    And lay out his bill he did. He noticed that as he spoke a few sena tors actually began to pay attention – or, to be accurate, he could see them chuckling and shaking their heads. But they’d see who had the last laugh.
    His first proposal was to eliminate a large part of the threat by shipping every Muslim who was not an American out of the coun try. And he wasn’t kidding, he said. Students, visitors, immigrants with green cards … Well, adios, or whatever the Arabic word was for goodbye. He noted that Prime Minister Tony Blair had had a similar reaction toward foreign Muslims when the London subways were bombed. Blair, however, had wanted to deport only the rabble-rousers and agitators; Broderick wanted to take Tony’s good idea one large step further.
    His second proposal was that future visits by people from Mus lim countries would be significantly limited, carefully controlled, and primarily allowed only for business purposes. Being a good Re publican he knew that business mattered, but Muslims could send their children to Europe for school and if they wanted to take a vacation they could visit the Fijis. He knew some would argue that education and tourism were businesses, but hey, you had to draw the line somewhere.
    Muslims desiring to enter the country would have to apply for entry months in advance to permit time for background checks. Upon ar rival they would be photographed, fingerprinted, and DNA-sampled, and they would have to have an American sponsor who would be responsible for their conduct. Naturally, these people would be care fully monitored while they were in the States.
    But Broderick knew it was his last proposal that would draw the most attention: he proposed that background checks be performed on all Muslim Americans. These background checks would identify if a Muslim belonged to a radical group or supported radical causes and, most importantly, would identify who these people knew and were related to overseas.
    ‘The near demolition of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel – God only knows how many would have died – showed that radical Muslims in this country, American citizens, can be proselytized and turned into weapons of mass destruction. We must take steps to guard against this very real threat.’
    Later, he wished that he hadn’t used the word registry , but he did. He said