Serve & Protect

by L. J. Breedlove

  “I should be able to give you something by then,” Mike said.

  Mac escaped to his end of the building where people moved faster. Hell, we even talk faster, he thought. And louder. He relaxed. The Special Projects unit made him itch.

  At the end of his work day, Mac went to the gym for a workout. Nothing better than the treadmill to consider what he’d learned. And he had an hour before Shorty would get home from school. He shook his head. Shorty, the math teacher.

  But then, people shook their heads over Mac, the cop reporter, too.

  He’d tracked down an old drill sergeant that he knew. The man didn’t recall a Pete Norton. “Skinhead? Might be the first guy to ever have to grow his hair longer to be a Marine,” he cracked. “Let me do some checking.”

  The coroner’s office would release the results on Friday. But it wasn’t the first body they’d gotten from the national park that looked like this, the assistant coroner said. “I would expect the conclusions will be the same too,” he said, willing to chat a bit.

  “How many bodies?” Mac had asked.

  “Four? Five? In the last two years that I’ve worked here,” he said. “And they all were like this, no obvious signs of cause of death. Severe dehydration, a lot of superficial bruising and scratches, post-mortem damage. We’ve ruled them natural causes. Dehydration is usually what kills a lost hiker.”

  “Post-mortem damage?” Mac asked curiously.

  The man hesitated. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Some animal predation. But some? It’s weird. It’s as if they stumbled down a hillside, died near the top, and then continued to tumble down, accumulating damage. Off the record? It feels more like someone tossed them down the hill after they died. But we can’t tell how they died.”

  Mac could hear the frustration in the man’s voice. He was silent for a moment trying to figure out how that worked into his hunted scenario. But then, these could be the men who almost got away, he thought. So, herded over a cliff?

  “How deteriorated were the bodies when you got them?” Mac asked at last.

  “Until this one? Very. So, we are hopeful we’ll learn more from this one,” he said. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath. I think the results are going to be inconclusive.”

  Mac thanked him. Called Sarah, the park ranger from last Sunday who’d reminded him of a middle school teacher. She remembered him.

  “Are you getting complaints from hikers about gun noise in the park?” he asked.

  “All the time. Didn’t Peabody tell you? Comes from that wilderness survival guy Ken Bryson, I’m convinced. But Peabody isn’t so sure, and he’s been reluctant to pursue it for some reason,” the woman said, her frustration obvious. “Probably the number one complaint we get — outranks no toilet paper in the latrines, I think.”

  Mac laughed and thanked her. So why hadn’t Peabody mentioned it? Didn’t sound like Sarah — a woman he instinctively trusted as a source —respected her boss much, either, it was in her when she called him by his last name like that. He made note of that. Angie had been skeptical too.

  Now on the treadmill he considered that. What had Angie seen that he hadn’t?

  He’d also talked to some of Norton’s deputies. None of them were willing to say a word on the record except that he was an excellent officer of the law, and that his constitutional sheriff beliefs weren’t that far off base. “That’s why he’s an elected official,” one of them pointed out. “So that he doesn’t answer to anyone but the voters.”

  Off the record was another story. One deputy, a woman, admitted she was job hunting. “Most of the deputies are,” she said. “Especially women. Skagit County is a great place to live if you like the outdoors. But I can’t work for that asshole much longer. He puts our lives at risk. It’s as if we have a bullseye on our backs for every gun fanatic in the county, and there are a lot of them here.”

  “I was there at the Jorgensen incident,” Mac said.

  “Yup. Man shoots at deputies, and nothing happens? Shit like that gets around. It’s as if he’s declared open season on his own men. And us women? I’m leaving in two weeks. Haven’t given my notice yet, so don’t go mentioning it, you hear? Trying to decide if I want to file a discrimination complaint on my way out the door.”

  She’d been there six months. His abusive language, his rages, and his refusal to treat women deputies as real deputies had worn her down. “I don’t want to die like the others,” she said.

  What? Mac thought. “Others?” he asked neutrally.

  “You didn’t know? Two deputies have died since Norton’s taken office. Both times, it was a failure of backup. They called for backup, and no one came. Both were shot. No suspects. But then there was only a superficial investigation, I hear.”

  “Where were they shot?” he asked.

  “You mean geographically? One way out — outside Concrete. The other was near Lyman, I think. So even if someone had responded to their calls for help, they’d be hard pressed to get there in a timely fashion. But no one even tried.”

  “Why not?” Mac asked.

  “Good question. I don’t have an answer for you. Both happened before I got here. Dispatch recorded a call, issued an all-points bulletin. And then?” Mac could almost hear her shrug.

  “Be safe, then,” Mac told her.

  “Yeah, I won’t be taking chances,” she agreed.

  The treadmill’s timer went off, pulling Mac out of his thoughts. He hopped off, wiped it down. The good thing about thinking on a treadmill is at least you got something out of it — the exercise if nothing else. Because things were no clearer in his head. He still didn’t know what to think about Skagit County and its sheriff — except that there was something seriously wrong up there.

  Shorty was eating stir-fry when Mac got out to his apartment in Bellevue. He gestured to the wok, and Mac helped himself. Shorty was a good cook; he’d learned from both his Filipino father and Mexican mother. This meal involved wide rice noodles, chicken, garlic and he didn’t know what else. It was really good, and Mac was hungry.

  “So, I did the content analyses that we talked about,” Shorty said as Mac continued to eat. “I think the sheriff is MLK4whites. Someone may have helped him set it up — like I’ve done with you — if his wife is right about him not having the tech smarts to do it. I found a letter he wrote to his constituents, and I’d say there’s at 70 percent chance he’s behind that account.”

  Mac nodded. “That’s consistent with what I’m learning,” Mac said. He told Shorty about Norton’s previous life as a Skinhead.

  “Fuck,” Shorty said. “I came across an article last night that said in the late 80s-early 90s Skinhead leaders decided that they needed to grow out their hair, cover their tats and exchange their clothes for the military and the police. That white supremacy required it of them.”

  “And you think that’s what they’ve done? Gone undercover so to speak?” Mac asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  Mac took a deep breath and blew it out. “You’re talking intentional enlistments, not just cops who lean toward white supremacy.”

  Shorty shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you said Rodriguez was afraid of his own co-workers. Maybe he has reason to be.”

  “He has reason,” Mac said grimly. He told him about the FBI report Janet had sent to him. “In 2008,” he added. “They’ve known for six years, that there were white supremacists — organized, militant supremacists — in our police force and in our military. And they’ve suppressed those reports. Marking them confidential, or even rejecting them. Because no one wants to deal with it.”

  “Well you’ve opened the can of worms now, Mac,” Shorty said.

  “Any progress on the Sensei?”

  Shorty shook his head. “He’s not Anderson, Malloy or Norton,” he said definitely. “Still looking at the other names, but they don’t know you, do they? I reread that email he sent you last night. He knows you. Someone you’re not looking at. Maybe someone in the SPD? Or Ma
c? And this is what’s got me worried tonight — maybe someone at the newspaper? But it’s someone you know.”

  Mac thought about Steve Whitaker and his all-white-male team.

  “It may be someone I know, but it isn’t someone I trust,” he said slowly. “Because on my list of people I trust? They’re mostly women, or they’re people of color. Weird, right? But I can’t think of a white man I trust. I mean the Examiner publisher, executive editor and managing editor seem like good men, but they were willing to sell me out during the Howard Parker story. That’s a bit harsh. But they didn’t back me. Janet did.”

  “Women can be white supremacists,” Shorty pointed out. “But I’m pretty sure the Sensei is male. So, you’re right, probably not a colleague you rely on. But you need to be careful, because you could get blindsided on this. He knows you.”

  “Could he know me because he’s read my work? Knows about me, not necessarily met me?” Mac asked, thinking about it. A lot of readers started thinking they knew him because they read his stuff. They wrote him fan letters. He’d never been sure whether to feel flattered or stalked.

  Shorty hesitated. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But I think he’s met you.”

  “OK,” Mac said. “I won’t ignore someone as irrelevant or dismiss someone as not being a threat.”

  When Mac went home, there was an email waiting from the Sensei. Two of them, actually. One was clearly an email that went out to the general list. It was talking about self-discipline, and that a man couldn’t expect others to respect him and accept his authority if he didn’t respect himself. Mac snorted. He was pretty sure he’d heard that as a sermon in church with Kate. Didn’t sit any better minus the God part. Wasn’t that he disagreed, particularly, about self-respect and self-discipline, he thought. But he didn’t want an authoritarian relationship with his hypothetical wife.

  So what kind of relationship did he want? He thought that might be something worth thinking about. Kate was looking for this kind of relationship. She liked Mac’s authority. She wanted a man who would be the head of the house. So, if he didn’t want that, and he knew he didn’t, then what the hell was he doing?

  Not the first time that question had been posed, he thought with a snort. He needed to call her. And he needed to end things, so both of them could move on. He felt a pang of remorse, of giving up something he wanted. But his aunt was right. There were other kinds of families that didn’t require him to become something he didn’t want to be.

  He opened the other email.

  “One of the members of this more exclusive group posed an interesting question: What do I foresee that might trigger the collapse? What should people be looking out for?

  So, let me try to answer that.

  The collapse will come when the backbone of America, the white middle class, realizes that they are paying for a government that no longer meets their needs. That they are losing control of their own country. That the government can no longer be trusted. We are near that point now.

  Then a crisis will hit, as crises do. But the government will use it to try to take control and shut down individual rights. The crisis might be a natural disaster, a civil disturbance, or a foreign attack. Probably more than one of those at the same time. But the government, now controlled by those who believe in multiculturalism and pluralism rather than the republic as established by the Constitution, will use that crisis to justify suspension of our liberties starting with the right to own guns. That’s why the development of an arsenal is such a crucial investment for those of us who must stand up to such a government intrusion and be able to fight back.

  Warning signs?

  The election of a black president was such a sign. Not just a black man, but one whose American citizenship has been legitimately questioned. One who has never served in the military.

  Other signs? The continuing erosion of our Second Amendment rights. We must resist that at every turn. If your state or local government tries to pass legislation that limits gun ownership, you must use every means to protest. And the best protest is to add to your arsenal.

  I cannot predict the exact crisis. That’s what will make it a crisis. And it may not even be obvious at first. That’s why we must be vigilant. We must be ready.

  Sensei.

  Mac frowned. He’d read that rhetoric in some of the background articles he’d been reading. That was basic white militia messaging. Well of course it was: That was what Sensei was building — his own, much larger, white militia.

  But some of his troops were weak. He decided to ask Sensei about that. He fired off an email, pointing out that two of his troops had broken under stress in the last week. One had killed his children, the other had intended to kill his wife and daughter. And they weren’t the first ones either. Wasn’t that a problem for his goal of developing a trained, vigilant militia?

  He did the Facebook routine begrudgingly. He still didn’t enjoy it. He felt like he was giving away information that could be used against him. But he commented on a few posts of others. Befriended those who had befriended him. He was approaching 500 friends. Was that normal? He looked at mlk4whites account. He had over 3k followers. Sensei had 40k. Holy shit, he thought. He checked Kate’s account. She had 284 friends. So that was a normal, private citizen, he thought, who had a pretty large circle of friends in the real world. In comparison, he probably had fewer that 40 people he’d even call acquaintances, much less friends, in the real world, and here he was with 500 FB friends, and it was growing rapidly.

  But the troubling thing was mlk4whites and sensei’s accounts and their numbers. That was a hell of a large number of white supremacists. Of militia wannabes, weekend warriors. Really troubling. Mac frowned.

  He closed out of Facebook, checked his email one last time.

  There was a response from Sensei.

  “You misunderstand my purpose,” it read. “I’m not trying to raise a large militia. I’m trying to improve white men. White men have gotten lazy and complacent. They shirk their leadership roles at home, at work, and in the community. They are weak; you are right. And I’m washing them out. Think of this as boot camp, Mac. I have no regrets if a man breaks under the limited pressure he finds himself under. I’m not even sorry that he eliminates his own flawed offspring. We must become stronger as a people if we are to resume our rightful role as leaders in the modern world.

  The black man has been through the fire. He has been forged stronger and more powerful. Look at who are our cultural leaders today. In sports? In entertainment? Even in our government. Or take the Hispanics? Forged through back-breaking work. Committed to hard work ethic, to strong family units. Whites are losing, Mac, because we’re sloppy, resentful and weak. We have it too easy. That must change.

  The winnowing has begun.

  Sensei

  Well, now, Mac thought soberly. That was interesting. He printed it out, sent a copy to Shorty and to Janet. And then he shut down the computer again. Completely.

  His phone rang. It was Shorty. He picked up.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Right?” Mac said. “Motherfucker is crazy.”

  “Like a fox, though,” Shorty said.

  “What do you think these wannabe militia types would think if they knew how Sensei really felt?” Mac asked.

  “Probably, damn right, we need to winnow them out,” Shorty said. “That’s how people like this always think. They think they’re going to come out on top. Face it, how many of these desk jockeys, as you call them, would hold onto those arsenals for longer than 48 hours if we did have a civic breakdown? Someone would take it away from them. Someone like you.”

  Mac laughed. He’d had the same thought. “Might even be me,” he agreed.

  “Don’t forget who your friends are, then,” Shorty said, laughing.

  “A technical question?” Mac asked. “Can he tell that I’ve forwarded his emails to you or Janet? A trace of some kind?”

  Shorty thought about it. “Not without som
e work,” he said. “I haven’t seen any sign of it. He can tell if you’ve opened it. That’s about it.”

  “OK,” Mac said, feeling better. He should have asked earlier. “He responded right away,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, he did. He’s local to this time zone. And he’s fixed on you, Mac,” Shorty said. Mac could hear the concern in his voice.

  “I’m careful,” Mac promised, before he hung up. And he was, because a charismatic leader who had 40K followers, all building their little arsenals? Scary as fuck. Mac could envision taking one man’s arsenal from him.

  But 40,000 arsenals?

  He went to bed, but he couldn’t go to sleep as he kept thinking about 40,000 gun-toting nuts out there who were being told the white man should rise again and reclaim the country.

  Chapter 16

  (Thursday, May 8, 2014)

  Mac had never been so grateful for a low-key day. He’d made his blotter calls, then worked on more phone interviews. His retired sergeant friend called him back. Norton had been washed out of boot-camp when he was implicated in a gang of young men who were beating up Latinos. “They would roam at night, find a guy, and beat the crap out of him,” Sarge said. “Norton was involved, no question, but he wasn’t charged by the local cops. So, the Marine Corps just discharged him on entry level separation and washed their hands of him.”

  “And he left the state, reinvented himself as just a dumb jock college student?” Mac said slowly. “And gets a scholarship at a university up here?”

  “Sounds like it,” Sarge said. “Would they do that?”

  Mac didn’t know. “I’ll find out,” he promised. “Thanks, man.”

  So, Mac called the athletic department at Western Washington University, and asked if Norton had played baseball, and had it been on scholarship?

  “Pete Norton? Sure, I remember him. Walk on, I think. Let me check,” the assistant athletic director said.

  Mac waited.

  “Yup,” the ADA said cheerfully. “He was a walk-on. We lucked out there, because he could really play. Got a scholarship for his sophomore year and on, though.”