“So that little bastard gets to live because he’s useful.”
“Kelly, he’s more than useful. He’s critical, and I will own him. You know what’s happening over there. When the People’s Republic finally goes, it’s not just going to take the blues down the drain. It might well take us in the red too.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“We’ll approach him, let him choose between us exposing him or working for us. You got me his SIM chip, so I’ll probably just call him. What do you think he’ll choose?
“Whatever saves his miserable skin.”
“That’s our assessment too. He’s going to be very useful.”
“Useful for what, Clay?”
“Above your paygrade, Kelly”
“Is it above yours?”
“There’s not a lot above mine,” Clay replied. “Think of letting him live as a necessary sacrifice. I sure do.”
“How does someone get morphine around here? And maybe a cheeseburger?”
“I’ll summon one of the lovelies on the nursing staff,” Clay said, walking to the door. “Get well soon. We need you.”
“I’m retired, remember?”
Clay smiled again and opened the door.
“Of course you are,” he said. And then he was gone.
20.
It was about noon that the alert on Turnbull’s phone went off. There was a car coming onto his property. He had his Kimber .45, and despite the pain in his side – diminished but not yet gone – he could still be a helluva problem to anyone stupid enough to make him theirs.
From the porch, he watched a tan, late-model BMW 6-series roaring up the road and kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. It pulled in front of his house and stopped. The driver turned off the ignition and opened his door.
Turnbull looked down at his dog, who lay on its side on the wood slats.
“Nothing?” he said. “Really, nothing? Not a bark, not a growl?”
The mutt yawned.
Junior Ryan stepped out of his car, a white bag in one hand and a six pack of something in the other, and strolled around his ride and up to the porch. The limp was still there, but less pronounced. Junior was packing a Glock, just like the one he had carried into the blue. He stopped at the foot of the steps, looked up, and smiled.
“Shiner Bock, huh?” observed Turnbull.
“Yep,” said Junior.
“What’s in the other bag?” “Well, since there’s no Inside-Outside where I could get you a triple animal burger, I did the best I could.”
“That’s In-N-Out, and it’s a Double Double animal style. Oh, forget it. What do you got?” “Whataburgers,” Junior replied. “Double meat with cheese combos. After all, we are in Texas.”
They sat at the table on his porch, eating and washing it down with the Shiners. The dog finally woke up enough to beg for fries.
“I heard the kid’s getting adopted,” Junior said. “Orthodox family in Dallas.”
“Good,” said Turnbull. “So, how’s your sister?”
“She’s going into the Army.”
“You’re kidding. Going for citizen, huh?”
“Yeah. I pity the drill sergeants,” Junior said.
Turnbull chuckled. “That whole defection thing, that’ll probably keep her from being an officer. The security clearance problem.”
“I don’t know about that. She spent a lot of time with Clay’s people after she came out debriefing about what she knew. Apparently she had a lot of interesting stuff to say. Clay can work wonders for people who help him. He can make things that happened unhappen.”
“Like our little adventure,” said Turnbull. “That seems to have unhappened.”
“This is the first time I’ve talked about it except with Clay’s people. Not even with my dad.”
“Well, get used to it. Not talking about things gets to be a way of life,” replied Turnbull. He took a swig of Shiner. “I hear you’re working for Clay now.”
“You heard that, huh?”
“Yeah. You sure you want that life?”
“Somebody’s gotta have that life, right?”
Turnbull sighed. “Yeah, I guess with things how they are. The news says it just keeps getting worse over there, but it hasn’t fallen completely apart just yet.”
“From what I see, it could go any time.”
“What gets me,” Turnbull said, sitting back, “is that it didn’t have to be that way. The country didn’t have to choose to rip itself in two.”
“But it did,” said Junior. “I never really understood what it was like before the Split, not like you. I mean, I was just a little kid. But maybe I can help fix it, you know. Help make it like it was before.”
“Shit, I never took you for an idealist, Junior. Don’t you have rich kid shit you could be out doing?”
“Yeah, in fact I do. But I think I’ll do this instead.”
“Okay then” said Turnbull, raising his Shiner Bock. “To America. As it was. As it should be. As it might be again.”
Junior clinked his bottle and they drank. They didn’t say anything for a few moments. Turnbull took a bite of his Whataburger, then tossed his eager dog a fry.
“So anyway, Kelly, I need to ask you something,” Junior said.
Turnbull chewed for a moment and then eyed him.
“What?” he said, picking up his beer and taking a swig.
“Well, Clay asked me to run something by you. Just an idea. Something important. Something only you could do. And this time, it’s going to be easy, a cakewalk. Now, you wouldn’t be going back in alone ....”
Junior paused upon seeing his friend’s expression.
Kelly Turnbull swallowed before he spoke.
“Stop talking.”
About The Author
Kurt Schlichter is a senior columnist for Townhall.com. A stand-up comic for several years, Kurt was personally recruited by Andrew Breitbart, and his writings on political and cultural issues have been regularly published IJ Review, The Federalist, the New York Post, the Washington Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Times, Army Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and elsewhere.
Kurt is a Twitter activist (@KurtSchlichter) with over 71,000 followers, which led to him writing I Am a Conservative: Uncensored, Undiluted, and Absolutely Un-PC, I Am a Liberal: A Conservative’s Guide to Dealing with Nature’s Most Irritating Mistake, and Fetch My Latte: Sharing Feelings with Stupid People. All three e-books reached number one on the Amazon Kindle “Political Humor” bestseller list. In 2014, his book Conservative Insurgency: The Struggle to Take America Back 2013-2041 was published by Post Tree Press.
Kurt has served as a news source, an on-screen commentator, and a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs regarding political, military, and legal issues, including Fox News, Fox Business News, The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Dr. Drew Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Dennis Miller Show, Geraldo, The John Phillips Show, The Tony Katz Show, PJTV’s The Conversation, The Tamara Jackson Show, The Delivery with Jimmie Bise, Jr., The Dana Loesch Show, The Point, the WMAL Washington Morning Show with Larry O’Connor, The Derek Hunter Show, and The Snark Factor, among others. Kurt appears weekly on the Cam and Company show, and averages four to five other media appearances a week.
Kurt is a successful trial lawyer and name partner in a Los Angeles law firm representing Fortune 500 companies and individuals in matters ranging from routine business cases to confidential Hollywood disputes. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which recognizes attorneys who have won trial verdicts in excess of $1 million, his litigation strategy and legal analysis articles have been published in legal publications such as the Los Angeles Daily Journal and California Lawyer.
Kurt is a 1994 graduate of Loyola Law School, where he was a law review editor. He majored in communications and political science as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, co-editing the conservative student paper California Review while also wr
iting a regular column in the student humor paper The Koala.
Kurt served as a US Army infantry officer on active duty and in the California Army National Guard, retiring at the rank of full colonel. He wears the silver “jump wings” of a paratrooper and commanded the elite 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry Regiment. A veteran of both the Persian Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom (Kosovo), he is a graduate of the Army’s Combined Arms and Services Staff School, the Command and General Staff College, and the United States Army War College, where he received a master of strategic studies degree.
He lives with his wife Irina, and his favorite caliber is .45.
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