John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel

19 The Battle of Fort Er

19The Battle of Fort Er Timothy McVeigh is leaning his body into the stovetop in Mike and Lori’s eat-in kitchen, scrubbing and scouring as hard as he possibly can. “This is—bar none—the nastiest shit I have ever seen,” he exclaims. It always amazes you, you think to yourself, when your partner morphs into Felix Unger. When he transforms into an unmitigated neat freak. You are sitting in the living room of the Fortiers’ trailer, playing Nintendo with Mike. You are lost in the high-octane world of commercial plumbing. In the land of turtles and mushrooms with which the Mario Brothers must contend. The Third Wheel is playing the heroic Mario while you are scrapping your way through as Luigi, his craven younger brother. With the game’s ecstatic, funky soundtrack whirring away in the background, each successive level is a master class in survival as you—in a desperate effort to avoid your own extinction—attempt to exterminate the pests and the other creepycrawlies that seep from the pipes. So that you can survive—your brother and you—in order to plumb another day. You couldn’t be happier, really. You are in gaming heaven. A back issue of Shotgun News sits on a nearby coffee table, not far from the discarded tinfoil pipe—disquieting evidence of Stagger 156 J o h n D o e N o . 2 a n d t h e D r e a m l a n d M o t e l Lee’s malingering presence at Fort Er. There is also a well-thumbed copy of The Spotlight newsletter, chock-full of advertisements for contraband assault weapons, gun-modification kits, and various militia groups. You’ve never heard of The Spotlight, which is peculiar, given your elite gunrunner status. Lori is snoring loudly on the couch—her mouth hanging open in bizarrerepose,asifshewereintheactofbeingsurprised.Orfrightened. Baby Kayla is curled up against Lori’s thigh, dozing away in tandem with her cataleptic mother. Their melody of raspy exhalation rises and falls in unison, as if they were a well-rehearsed choir. Somewhere, off in the distance, a neighborhood dog issues an unruly bark. His animal sound echoing across the lonely desert evening. Looking around the trailer, you can’t help wondering if this isn’t the picture of a typical American household—of a prototypical night in the life of suburban America. T i m o t h y M c V e i g h i s s q u at t i n g in the shade behind the Fortiers’ trailer. As you look on with deep concern—if not outright fear and agitation—your partner begins building a crude bomb. “We’re gonna test this bitch out in the desert tonight,” he announces with a sense of enthusiasm verging on pure glee. Timothy McVeigh carefully balances an empty Gatorade jug on his knee. He slowly fills the container with pellets the size of BBs. With his free hand, he starts gently pouring a sweet-smelling liquid into the jug. Ennis, Texas, you think to yourself. The racetrack. Your partner cautiously inserts a blasting cap into the container, along with a lengthy segment of green-colored fuse. How does it work? you ask, innocently enough. “It’s fairly simple, actually. You combine the prills with a hydrocarbon accelerant,” he instructs, like a seasoned chemist. “But of The Battle of Fort Er 157 course, that only gets you halfway there,” Timothy McVeigh continues . “You still need a gigantic shock to the system to make the whole thing go boom. Which is why we have the blasting cap to create the primary ignition.” That’s a wicked-looking contraption, you think to yourself. “It’s a wicked-looking bomb,” corrects Timothy McVeigh. “And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t explode to kingdom come. If it works in the micro,” he adds, “why wouldn’t it work in the macro? The physical laws stay the same.” You shrug your shoulders. In truth, you don’t have the vaguest idea what he’s talking about. “It’s all a matter of scale,” your partner remarks. “If I can successfully ignite the Gatorade jug here, then there’s no reason why I can’t blow up a truck full of explosives, right?” T i m o t h y M c V e i g h i s...