Chương 145: Advanced Screening (01/10/2002)

DATE: Thursday, January 10, 2002 LOCATION: Westwood, Los Angeles | The Fox Theater (Rear VIP Exit) LOCAL TIME: 11: 15 PM PST The red carpet out front was a circus of flashing bulbs and shouting press. Sony Pictures had flown the surviving members of Task Force Ranger out to Los Angeles, seating them in plush theater chairs to watch their darkest day translated into a two-hour Oscar campaign. I didn't walk the red carpet.

I stood in the damp, rain-slicked alley near the rear VIP exit, leaning against the cold brick wall in a dark peacoat, letting the muffled bass of the theater's sound system vibrate through the mortar. The heavy steel fire door groaned open, spilling a wedge of golden lobby light into the wet alley. Two men stepped out into the shadows, carrying themselves with the undeniable, heavy-shouldered lethargy of Tier One operators forced into tailored suits. Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart.

In the original timeline, they died in the dust of the Bakara Market defending a downed pilot. In this timeline, they were standing in an alley in Westwood, shielding the embers of their Parliaments from the California drizzle.

"I'm just saying," Gordon muttered, taking a long drag.

"Johnny Strong is a good-looking kid, but he didn't quite capture your brooding, miserable essence, Randy."

"Shut up, Gordo," Shughart grunted, exhaling a plume of smoke.

"At least my guy got to shoot back. Half the movie was just Christian Bale trying to look philosophical while dipping his fingers in a coffee cup." I stepped out of the shadows, the gravel crunching softly under my boots.

"I hear Ridley Scott originally wanted Ewan McGregor to play the guy with the parachute cord and the Metallica mixtape, but the studio couldn't afford the music rights." Both men froze. Their hands instinctively dropped toward their waistbands, a reflex burned into their nervous systems. But when they saw my face in the dim amber glow of the streetlamp, the kinetic tension evaporated.

"Exit light," Gordon grinned, closing the distance and pulling me into a fierce, rib-cracking hug.

"Enter night," I replied, returning the iron grip.

"Sandman," Shughart stepped up next, grasping my hand.

"You look like you've grown a few inches since you punched out of the squadron."

"I hit a late growth spurt," I smiled.

"How was the movie?"

"Loud," Shughart noted dryly.

"And entirely too clean."

"But I'll tell you what, Chad... the movie wasn't even the best part of the night," Gordon chuckled, flicking his cigarette into a puddle.

"Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer get up on stage to introduce the film. Then they hand the mic to Christian Bale. But Bale doesn't introduce the movie." My stomach dropped slightly.

"He commandeered the projector," Gordon laughed, shaking his head.

"He looks out at the audience—specifically at us Rangers sitting in the front rows—and says, 'I grew up on a soundstage with the kid who filmed this next clip. He mailed it to me right before the events of this movie.' Then Bale leans into the microphone, completely deadpan, and asks, 'Before we begin, I just have to know... did Tillman at least say I was in his top three Robins?'" I couldn't help but laugh, remembering how carefully I had dodged that exact question in the blistering heat of the hangar years ago.

"What did you tell him?"

"Pilla yelled out from the third row that you preferred Jim Carrey!" Shughart barked a laugh.

"Bale just shook his head, muttered something about you having terrible taste, and rolled the tape." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The alley went quiet. Hearing that those frames had played on a fifty-foot silver screen—seeing the nineteen-year-old faces of the men who hadn't made it out alive in my original memory, now laughing and debating comic books—was a profound, heavy gut punch.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the house," Shughart said quietly, the humor fading from his voice.

"But then the video kept playing. It showed us watching the Shadow of the Bat blooper reel. And then Bale takes the microphone again."

"He points at the screen," Gordon grinned, "right at the exact moment you can hear the sound of a carbine charging handle racking off-camera. And Bale says: 'You lot thought I was a badass for taking a fake header into some breakaway crates. Meanwhile, the seventeen-year-old kid filming you was about to go save the whole damn city.'" I rubbed the back of my neck, letting out a slow exhale.

"He actually played it for them."

"Eversmann's jaw practically hit the floor," Shughart confirmed.

"We kept your secret in Mogadishu, and we kept our mouths shut when you showed up at Bragg as an eighteen-year-old freak of nature. But we heard a rumor you're heading to Coronado for BUD/S. Why the hell are you going backward into the surf zone with the squids? What are you hunting, Chad?" I looked at the two men I had broken the laws of physics to save.

"I'm going to build a team," I said, the cold edge of the Architect bleeding back into my voice.

"And when the time is right, I'm going to need a spear that I forged myself. Men who don't miss. Men who know how to clear a compound in the dark." They didn't ask who the target was. They didn't ask what country it was located in. Gordon simply reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a battered silver Zippo lighter engraved with the Delta Force crest. He tossed it to me. I caught the cold metal in my palm.

"When you get your trident, and you get your new team," Gordon said, his voice dead serious, "you give us a call. We don't care what the timeline is. We owe you our lives, Tillman. You need a blocking force, you call us."

"We'll bring the 550 cord," Shughart added.

"I'll hold you to that," I said, slipping the lighter into my peacoat pocket and stepping back into the shadows of the alley. DATE: Saturday, January 19, 2002 LOCATION: San Diego, CA | The Lower Foundation (Watching Live NBC Feed) LOCAL TIME: 08: 35 PM PST (11: 35 PM EST) I was sitting in the hyper-cooled darkness of the Arcology armory when the massive digital display on the far wall flared to life. Neil had remotely overridden the servers. The screen locked onto the live NBC broadcast emanating from Studio 8H.

The camera panned across the iconic Weekend Update desk, where my twenty-year-old brother sat grinning. Christian Bale was hosting the episode to promote Black Hawk Down (having been cast as Hooten in this timeline), but Neil had hijacked the segment.

"My next guest is the legendary producer behind the number one movie in America right now," Neil announced.

"Please welcome to the Update desk, Mr. Jerry Bruckheimer!" Bruckheimer slid into the chair, completely unaware he was walking into a trap.

"Jerry," Neil started smoothly, "military forums have been buzzing about a missing element. In Mark Bowden's book, there are accounts of a lone, unidentified Delta operator—the 'Ghost of Bakara'. Why was he cut from the script?" Bruckheimer slipped into his PR answer.

"Well, Neil, we set out to make a realistic war film. The supposed accounts... it's just too far-fetched. The story claims this operator was jumping across gaps between tin rooftops, taking out snipers in mid-air. And then he rigs a. 50 caliber machine gun to a steering column with 550 parachute cord. Audiences wouldn't believe that. It sounds like something out of a comic book."

"I totally agree, Jerry," Neil said deadpan, looking directly into the camera.

"It sounds exactly like a comic book. In fact, it sounds remarkably like Season Two, Episode Four of the HBO hit series, Shadow of the Bat. Control room, roll the tape." On the live national broadcast, a clip from 1988 played. A twelve-year-old in tactical Robin armor vaulted a gap between shipping containers, dropped a prop flashbang, and seamlessly landed in a prop mercenary truck. He grabbed high-tensile wire, looped it around the trigger of a mounted heavy machine gun, and yanked it from the driver's seat.

The SNL audience erupted into roaring laughter. Jerry Bruckheimer sat there, completely stunned, staring at the monitor with his mouth slightly open.

"It's okay, Jerry, we forgive you," Neil grinned, patting the billionaire producer on the shoulder.

"But I do find it odd that you cast the exact same actor as an adult to play a Delta operator, and yet you had him tone down the stunts he already performed as a twelve-year-old!" The camera cut briefly to Christian Bale standing off-stage, his shoulders shaking as he laughed at Bruckheimer's absolute bewilderment.

"I... well... we had military advisors..." Bruckheimer stammered. I leaned back against the cold steel of the armory, laughing out loud. By playing along with the public narrative that Christian had done his own stunts, Neil hadn't just roasted the biggest producer in Hollywood; he had completely insulated my identity. Christian Bale absorbed the credit, Hollywood looked ridiculously out of touch, and the "Ghost" remained safely buried behind a meta-joke on national television.