One Department

by Thomas A. Young

  “That’s true in some respects,” Preston replied. “But just exercising a right isn’t an issue of who’s on top, is it?”

  “Aah, exactly wrong,” Burt said, and at that moment Cindy returned with the coffee and pastries they had ordered. She set them down on the table and left them again. Burt sipped his coffee, took a bite of his muffin and went on. “These open-carriers are a perfect example of people who want to challenge authority, and their particular challenge is aimed right at us.”

  “Well, I admit they’re a little provocative, but I never really saw the harm in what they do so long as they don’t misbehave with their weapons,” Preston said.

  Jack Hayward said, “What they do is to put their weapons out in people’s faces, including ours. That’s the problem.”

  Burt smiled and went on. “That’s exactly it. They’re advertising a right to pack guns in the open whether anyone likes it or not, especially us. It’s pretty much all about tweaking us, and legal or not, we can’t let that slide. The bad news for them is that they’re tweaking us with weapons, and that opens up a whole lot of options for us.”

  “You mean in terms of justification?” Preston asked.

  “Yep,” Burt replied. “‘Officer safety’ justifies anything. If we don’t feel safe, that’s all we need to justify hard takedowns, long detentions, searches, interrogations, pretty much whatever we want.”

  “And if somebody happens to get shot,” Hayward added, pointing his finger like a pistol while he smiled, “it’ll cover that too.” Hayward knew what he was talking about.

  Preston took all this in for a moment, not sure if he liked what he was hearing. “I see your point, but even if we can legally justify something like what we just did, what’s to be gained by it?”

  “It’s all theater,” Burt replied. “It’s our way of saying to the public, ‘This could be you.’” At that moment Burt took the unusual step of looking around to make sure no one was listening in, then leaned in closer to his men. “And if you ever happen to squeeze the trigger a little too hard when you’re in the middle of this sort of thing, don’t fret. There’s no such thing as an unjustified shooting. We take care of our own, no matter what.”

  * * *

  Fresh mountain air, with the smell of gunsmoke. Nothing on Earth that’s quite as refreshing, Randy thought.

  Randy and four of the men from his construction crew were spending a Sunday shooting at a gravel pit in the mountains that lied East of Seattle out Interstate 90. Good places to shoot were becoming scarce as more and more of them were shut down, but you could still find them on the national forest roads if you didn’t mind a little bit of driving.

  Scott cracked a few rounds from his AR-15 downrange, shooting from the hip. “Try to hit something!” Randy yelled at him. Scott gave him the evil eye, then raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed as he fired off a few more.

  Eric was wearing his Springfield XD in a hip holster while squaring off against three silhouette targets lined up in a row. Randy and the others watched as he drew smoothly and put two rounds into each target. Then he smiled and holstered the gun.

  “Nice shooting,” Randy said, “just one little problem. While you were dispensing with the first one, the other two got you.”

  “Okay smartass, show me how it’s done!” came the reply, as Eric took out a pen and marked his hits. “There’s one of you and three of them, so what’s your solution?”

  “Make myself harder to hit than they are,” Randy said. Then he stepped into position in front of the targets, as his crew stood behind him to watch. Randy was wearing a Tommy’s Gun Pack, a sturdy fanny pack holster that contained his .40 caliber Glock 23. He put his hands out to the side, and Eric yelled go.

  As quickly as he began reaching for the fanny pack release buckle, Randy broke right into a full sprint, lateral to the target. Despite having a spare tire about him, he used to be a sprinter in school and that talent hadn’t completely gone away. He drew the gun and fired a quick burst with a one-hand grip while running at full tilt, then he instantly reversed direction and fired another burst with two-hand grip while sprinting to the right. Then he stopped, blew the smoke off the barrel, and smiled as he and the others walked to the targets.

  “My hits were closer to center,” Eric said, as they observed that while Randy had a couple hits on each target, they were leaning toward the fringe.

  “The important question is, who won the gunfight?” Randy replied. “These hits of mine might not have killed them, but chances are pretty good that they kept the bad guys from shooting me long enough for me to move in and finish the job.”

  Pete, a tall and heavy-set thirty-year-old, shook his head. “If you did that at the Renton Sportsman’s Club, they’d run you out of there with a shotgun,” he said. He was talking about a place where they did tactical shooting and competitions, but they were sticklers for safety.

  “That’s one reason of many I don’t go there,” Randy replied, “or to most any other range for that matter. I understand their need for safety regs, but they teach you too many habits that can get you killed when shit really does get ugly. Out here in the middle of nowhere, you can do whatever kind of training you need to, no permission from any range officer needed.”

  Randy cleared his weapon while Pete continued. “They have move-and-shoot drills there too.”

  “You mean the drills where you walk slowly while shooting at the target?” Randy asked. “Think about it. If you’re moving, it’s because you’re in somebody’s line of fire, and if you’re in somebody’s line of fire you need to be moving a hell of a lot faster than that.” Randy motioned toward the three targets. “Those could be three active shooters that just walked into a mall. If they are, then walking slowly while you shoot won’t make you any harder to hit than standing in one place will.”

  “What kind of shootout are you training for anyways?” Scott asked.

  “You have to think about the kind of situation you might really encounter, and train accordingly,” Randy replied. “And unless we go to Iraq, the biggest thing we might actually run up against is a heavily-armed mass shooter. You might even be driving past a school and see a Johnny Jihad, or two or three, charging onto the property with weapons. If that happens, you have to be prepared to stop them with the weapon you have with you.”

  “Would you really shoot like that in the middle of a mall, or on a school property?” Scott asked.

  “Well, this is another benefit of moving fast,” Randy replied, then he motioned everyone to move back. He opened the top compartment of his fanny pack, where there were three more magazines sitting upright in pouches. He took one out and reloaded the gun. “Let’s say there’s a group of bystanders standing right behind the Johnny Jihads.” He chambered the gun, then bolted to the right again. He came to a sudden stop, fired a burst of four rounds, then broke left. He stopped at another position on the left and fired another burst. Then he fell straight to the ground on his right side, fired a few shots upward toward their heads, and his slide locked back. But Randy already had another mag in his left hand, so he quickly changed mags, holding onto the empty one, then charged straight up close to the targets and gave them two rounds each at lightning speed, fired in a downward direction.

  Then he walked back to the group again. “If you move quick, you can get into a position where there aren’t any bystanders behind your targets. And you can pick directions to shoot in that minimize the danger to other people too.”

  Todd, the freckled and red-haired welder on his crew asked, “What if there is no good spot to run to?”

  “Then, you might be screwed,” Randy replied. “But at the same time, do the math. You might be those people’s only hope, and if you get taken out, the shooter or shooters will be free to mow them down again. So if you have a shot at them, you have to take it, even if there’s a chance of hitting a bystander. A possibility of hitting someone if you do shoot is still better than the certainty of a dozen or more dying if y
ou don’t.” His crew glanced back and forth at each other, not sure if they liked his math. “But, there are still tricks for cutting the danger.”

  Randy loaded another fresh clip, holstered the gun in the fanny pack, and everyone stood back again. He drew swiftly and broke right again, this time taking a circular path around the targets. When he was to the right of the targets and they were all in a line going straight away from him, he turned and charged straight at them, screaming like Rambo and firing steadily. But his workers noticed that the rounds were striking the rock wall behind the targets about fifteen feet off the ground. Randy wasn’t firing into the targets, he was firing just high enough that no one would be hit. When he got up close however, he put one round straight into the first target, then ran quickly past it and shot the other two in the same way. Then he walked back to the group.

  “Gunfire is a very disconcerting thing, especially when it’s coming at you,” he said. “And the typical mass shooter wants no part of any gunfire coming at them, which is why they always give up or kill themselves when people start shooting back. So some gunfire coming in their direction, aimed a little high so as not to hit anyone, might just let you get close enough to nail them.”

  Todd held up his Ruger .357 Magnum revolver. “I don’t think that method would work for me very well…”

  “In that case,” Randy replied, “You need something that isn’t Clinton-approved.” He opened the top pouch of his fanny pack and revealed the three Glock mags. “A six-shooter will get you through the average make-my-day moment, but when shit gets really ugly, six rounds will be gone before you know it. Between the fourteen rounds in this gun and the three Glock 22 mags with another fifteen each, I’ve got enough for a decent amount of suppressive fire with plenty leftover to put in the targets.”

  “I usually do my shooting at Wade’s,” Todd said. “I never even thought about any of this.”

  “That’s because at a range, you’re shooting from inside of a box,” Randy replied. “For real world scenarios, you need to think outside of the box.”

  Eric pointed at Randy’s fanny pack. “Only trouble I see with your carry mode is that everyone knows there’s a gun inside.”

  “So how’s that a problem?” Randy asked. “It’s out of sight so it doesn’t scare people, but at the same time, few people who see it will want to pick me as a target. I call that the perfect solution. Plus it holds all the ammo I need, and I can wear it anywhere, in any weather too.”

  Eric patted his belt holster. “I still like mine. This is an open-carry state, and I started doing that a couple months ago.”

  Randy raised his eyebrows. “Really? How’s that working out for you?”

  “For me, not too bad, so far anyhow,” Eric replied. “But in a lot of places, cops don’t like us too much, and they tend to come down a little hard when they get the chance.”

  “I’ve read some of those stories. Cops drawing down on people who haven’t done anything at all other than to carry their gun where people could see it. That’s not happening much anymore though, is it?”

  “Oh yes it is,” Eric said with a deep frown. “We just had a guy get that treatment yesterday, right in town. He was with his wife and son too, and they all had guns put to their heads.”

  There was an idea that had been kicking around in Randy’s head for quite a while, and hearing this story gave him the sense it was time to put it into action. “I need to know who this guy is,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  Initiative Is A Wonderful Thing

  November, 2005

  Randy had a little piece of property to the east of Forest Hill. It was close to an acre, which was all the room that he and two cats could ever need.

  On this property he had a single-wide mobile home. It was a little weather-beaten, but sturdy. There was a metal pole-building in the back corner of the lot that housed his garage and his workshop. A lot of time got spent in there working on projects, but today was too sunny for being indoors. Today he was sitting at his picnic table, working on his newly-acquired Springfield M1A rifle.

  The cats were busy too. Kemo was the older of the two, at seven years old. She was a Showshoe variety Siamese cat that Randy had caught as a wild kitten. He had named her Kemo Sabe for the Lone Ranger style mask across her eyes. Randy had first considered naming her Farrah for her black mask, which also bore some resemblance to two black eyes, but his girlfriend of the day had persuaded him that was not the way to go. Kemo had grown into a loyal and lovable cat, but she only loved Daddy. She didn’t have the time of day for anyone else, man or critter, which led to more than the occasional conflict. Especially between her and Ninja.

  While Kemo sat on the porch surveying her domain, Ninja crept out the pet door and stalked her from behind. Ninja was an aptly-named runt-sized Calico. She had been one of those unstoppable ball-of-fire type kittens who had never really outgrown that phase. Now at a few years old, she showed no signs of slowing down. She made people feel sorry for her, because all she wanted in the world was for someone to play with her, and it kept getting her beat up. Sometimes swatted away by people, frequently by other cats, and once by a possum. That last one had cost a pretty penny at the vet, and she was lucky to still be around. She learned enough from that incident to test the playfulness of strange, toothy critters from a slightly safer distance, but it appeared that was as good as it was going to get.

  Randy grimaced as he watched the impending collision between the cats, and he didn’t have to wait long. Ninja pounced on Kemo’s back, and Kemo spun around with a growl and knocked her right off the porch. Ninja looked back up at her with a miffed expression, while Kemo turned away and trotted off to find a place where she could rule her domain without being bothered.

  Randy shook his head, then got up and walked over to pick Ninja up and console her. “Kemo’s being a bitch, isn’t she?” he asked her. Ninja looked up to him in total agreement. He was still consoling the tiny cat when the Bronco pulled in.

  It was an older brown rig, and the driver matched it perfectly. He was an older man in his late fifties, with long whitish hair that used to be brown, and a similarly colored mustache. He got out of the vehicle. “I hope like hell this is important,” he yelled, “you just pulled me away from watchin’ the Mariners get their asses whupped again.”

  “I’m sure that was all very interesting, but I don’t follow hockey,” Randy replied. Vincent Quigg walked over and they shook hands. Then Randy motioned toward the picnic table.

  “So that’s your new toy? What’d this set you back?” Vincent asked.

  “Fourteen hundred for the rifle, and another seven hundred for the scope.”

  Vincent picked up the rifle, put it to his shoulder. “Pretty light. This the Scout model?” The Scout was the shorter version of the rifle with an 18” lightweight barrel.

  “Yep. I might not get a full thousand yards out of it, but it’s a hell of a lot handier than the 22” barrel version.”

  “What kind of scope you got?”

  “A Shepherd.” Randy picked up the scope and let Vincent look through.

  “Rangefinding reticles all the way to a thousand yards. I like that in a scope.” Vincent handed the scope back. “You gonna hunt with this?”

  “No, that’s what I’ve got the 7mm for.”

  “What you gonna do with it then? Home defense?”

  “No, that’s what the AR-15 is for. Home defense requires something that doesn’t kill everything within a half-mile radius.”

  “So if it’s not for hunting, and it’s not for home defense, what exactly is this thing for then?” Vincent inquired. Randy had asked himself that very question many times before putting his money down, and the truth of it was, he wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It just seems like a good idea to have something around that’s good for bigger problems than what you’d handle with a .223.”

  “Like what kind of bigger problems?” Vincent hefted the rifle again. �
�This is good for some pretty big problems.”

  “Well I’m not thinking of anything specific really, but did you hear about that young guy that got drawn down on in the park with his family?”

  “Sure did. It’s all anyone’s talking about at the gun club.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this rifle for a long time, and that’s what finally made me decide to drop the money. The idea that something like that could happen to somebody who broke no laws is just beyond imagining to me.”

  “Well, it’s happenin’, I know. But what’s that got to do with plunkin’ down all the money for this?”

  Randy thought it over for a moment. “I’m not one of those water-the-tree-of-liberty types. Life is too good to throw away over a fight you couldn’t win anyhow. But there’s so much unreal shit being pulled by people in uniform, and they always get away with it. To me, owning this is just a way of saying, ‘I don’t want to mess with you, but you don’t want to come here and mix it up with me either.’ That make sense?”

  Vincent shook his head. “Not to me it don’t.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Nope. That’s what I’ve got my Saiga 12 for.” Vincent was referring to a Russian made 12 gauge semi-auto shotgun that used banana clips that held twelve rounds.

  Randy chuckled. “Shotguns are for people who don’t know how to aim.”

  “Within a couple hundred yards, that thing’ll lay so much waste, you don’t need to aim.” Randy nodded in agreement, as Vincent went on. “So you gonna get the scope on this thing or what? We gotta move if we’re gonna try it out today.”

  “Yeah, that’s a fact. I’ve got a meeting this afternoon, with the same kid who got taken down.”

  Vincent’s eyebrows went up. “Serious? How come?”

  “I’ve got some ideas for solving his problem. I figure if I’m going to start making ready with things like this rifle, I ought to at least get involved and make an attempt at fixing things peacefully first.”

  “Think it’ll do any good?”

  “I doubt it. But at the very least, if shit ever does hit the fan, they won’t be able to say I didn’t try to settle things peacefully first.”