by Doug Ball
The Director was quiet for a moment before answering. “Governor, we have gone where no state has gone before and I like it. Maybe I am just being old fashioned and my thinking is twisted by ‘we ain’t never done it this way before’ type thinking. You keep him and use him. I will assist you and him in any and every way possible. The troops will be under his control tomorrow at nine.”
“Thank you, Desi. I knew you would support the needs of Arizona before your own wants. If I get out of hand, just let me know like you have in the past. We can work together without agreeing on everything as long as the respect and focus on Arizona is there. Take care and be safe.”
“Will do. You also take care. I don’t like you not having Josie in the front office as a buffer.”
She laughed, “I have at least three bigger buffers than Josie sitting out in that office. They can’t type, though. Good bye, Desi.”
“Good day, Governor.”
Northeast of Mammoth
After waiting for two hours on the highway and leading six vehicles into the old mine, Tan was whipped. Chuck was sitting on a rock in the shade of the shack watching the proceedings. Tank was working his way through the rocks above the old mine laughing as he put rocks in his pockets. Men and women who normally worked in offices were slowly digging the blue Volvo out of the rubble. It was hard and dangerous work. They dug slowly and painstakingly as they made every effort to preserve any evidence as they worked.
Tank won the bet, the Sheriff got there before the Sergeant.
The office workers quickly found there was no cell phone signal on the mine side of the mountain and, for folks used to a constant stream of communication, they were stressing out.
One of the forensics men yelled, “Looks like the rubble only goes back about twenty feet. Be careful, it’s very weak and prone to move as we get deeper.” Just as he finished the rock he was standing on rolled into the mine and he went with it.
A frantic move up the broken rocks was stopped by a woman that had been five feet away. “DON”T! Don’t come up. This section is going to go quickly if the wrong rock is touched.” She stood frozen like a statue as she spoke.
She called into the hole, “You alright, Ben?”
“Got a couple of bruises and a bit a blood flowing out of a fair sized cut on my leg which is caught under this stinking rock. Nothing seems broken, including the leg, except my pride. It will heal fast when we get this cleared.”
Tank eased over and looked at the situation. “We need to work into this area very carefully, Ma’am. Why don’t you move back this way and I’ll step up there and work my way down to your friend?”
She moved. He moved into her spot and began slowly removing rocks and throwing them to the bottom of the slide. Within minutes he could see Ben.
Because of the extra light, Ben was able to look inside the driver’s side window of the truck. He said quietly, “Looks like we got a body in here.”
“That will make this more interesting, won’t it?”
“That’s a good bet,” Ben replied. “I thought I could smell something dead when I was up there, but figured it was an animal that got caught in the slide.”
Tank kept working as more men moved up the other side and began removing rock from the top far edge of the slide.
Two hours later Ben was out, access to the truck was safe, the medical examiner had been called, and a four-wheel drive morgue vehicle was on the way.
Tank came to Tan and said, “We need some shoring for this place. Up above that opening is all loose. A minor tremor, or someone being stupid, and it could all come down. Wouldn’t be a disaster for the case, but if someone were under it, you’d possibly have a dead man or woman on your hands.”
“Figure out what you need and I’ll go call it in. Globe be best?”
“Yeah.”
A very dirty man came out of the hole alongside the Volvo, the light on his head was still on.. He looked around, saw Tan, and walked over. “You’re in charge, right?”
“That’s what the Governor tells me.”
“The trailer is empty, all the explosives are gone. I found a cigarette butt in the trailer. Somebody spent some time in there after it was unloaded. I would say they were cleaning the truck and box so we would get no prints. It could be the guy in the cab. He has a pack of the same brand in his shirt pocket. Sure hope his prints are on file, there aren’t any to be found in our look-see so far.”
Tan asked, “Could you see what might have killed him?”
“Third eye. Looks to be .22 caliber hole dead center in his forehead. Slug’s probably still inside his skull.”
“Murder. One way to get rid of witnesses, terrorist or no terrorist.”
Everybody continued working to make the site safe and accessible. Chuck came back having made the order for shoring, to inform everyone that there was solid cell signal at the top of the saddle.
“Tell your boss I am going up to the saddle to call the Governor.”
“Will do. What’s your handle?”
“Folks call me Tan.”
“Nice meetin’ ya, I’m Levi, as in Jewish Priest.”
“You don’t look Jewish.”
“I’m not. Ma thought it was a nice name.”
Tan started up the hill to the saddle shaking his head, “Take care, Levi.”
Tan returned trotting down the hill toward Chuck who was talking with the lady from CSI, it said so on her shirt. “Chuck, we need to roll. The Governor wants us in Phoenix an hour ago.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ll tell ya on the way. It’s big.”
Tan trotted a bit further to Ben and told him they were leaving and he wanted all their findings as soon as then got them, little bits at a time was okay. He left Ben his fax and email information, and took off in a run up the hill with Chuck trying to keep up.
Half way to Phoenix they remembered Tank. He had no ride home.
7
Hassayampa Inn
The man sat back in his balcony chair thinking, ‘I think the State of Arizona will kick into high gear within the next couple of hours looking for little old me, with an emphasis on the ‘me’. Then again they could play it cool and await another note proving I was serious. How could I help them be convinced.’
He finished his drink and went inside to pack and change his identity. “Who will I be for the next stop? How about the oil tycoon whose wife just died and I’m hiding out while I heal? That ought to work,” He said as he pulled a wallet out of the briefcase on the bed and put the one in his pocket into the briefcase. He knew it was time to burn that ID.
He called the desk.
Roswell, New Mexico
The man watched the drone roll down the runway and come to a stop at the edge of the dirt strip he had spent a few hours grading. The aircraft looked something like a Praying Mantis. He called it Manless. Manless had one task to do, and only one, to carry a half ton of material for an hour and be able to land on a dime by remote control .
That is all he knew. He figured it was going to be used to haul drugs. A million dollars was the price of the perfect delivery system and his silence. He would build it, deliver it, train another operator, and hand it over to that other person to fly it to its destination. He built two of the drones for just over $100,000 and the rest was his. He was set for life and had a drone to play with to boot.
“Great work if you can get it.” He was proud of his work.
All he had to do now was train the new operator and then it was all over except the spending.
Tuesday
Governor’s Office
“Mr. President, how kind of you to take time away from the golf course on this lovely day to speak with me. I will assume you are on a cell phone and be brief. Phoenix has been threatened with destruction. The ransom required is far beyond what this state has or wants to borrow. They are asking a half a billion dollars, five hundred million.” It was always a problem for her to talk nice and wrap her mind around the am
ount of money needed at the same time. Actually, it was always a problem for her to talk nice with this man about anything at any time. She immediately flashed back to the State Governor’s Meeting in St. Louis when, with all 50 governors present, the President had showed up with his wife a day early and demanded a seat at the table for dinner, the Governor’s dinner. She made sure he got the last meal, a cold meal, by paying for his meal herself and tipping the wait staff generously. The President looked frantically around trying to get the eye of someone to fix the problem. By the time he caught an eye, the speeches began. He didn’t like the speechifying either.
“Madam Governor, I cannot help you. Your state has cut itself off from the monies of the United States government. You have done this to yourself. I will not miss Phoenix, or Arizona, for that matter. My administration is in the process of bringing suit against Arizona for not taking our money as you agreed to do in the agreements we made and now you want our money for your own little problem. You just cannot make up your mind, can you?
“Arizona, under your leadership, did not vote for me except for the wise folks on the Navajo Reservation to the north. Is that all you called for, I am busy?” He was eyeing a twenty foot putt as he talked. The remainder of his foursome was standing by waiting for the President to putt, knowing that soon he would put the phone on speaker, have one of the Secret Service agents hold the phone, and continue with the putt. There were few things that got between the President and his leisure.
The Governor looked at the ceiling with rolled eyes, sat in her chair, and leaned back as she listened.
He paused. The sound of the phone changed.
“Mr. President, there is nothing about your platform that a majority of the people of Arizona would vote for, but if Your Benevolence would be so kind as to throw some of the monies you seem to grasp from thin air our way, your standing with the people of Arizona just might go way up when I tell them how quickly you came to our rescue, like a knight in shining armor riding a white golf cart.
“Mr. President, you know that you and I will never agree on many matters, but one thing we both know is you are the President, I am the Governor of Arizona, and what should matter most to both of us is the welfare of this great country and all its parts. Will you help us?” She was exasperated and emotionally drained having to talk with the man. The conversations had been few and far between during her tenure up to this point. This chat burned her deeply, particularly when her conversation was lowered to the level of begging.
“Mister President, you are suing Arizona. That is your right under the Constitution. We will meet you in the Supreme Court of this land. We will not give in. We have no money. I sometimes think you are out to nationalize Arizona.” She paused. “It won’t work, Mister President. Other states will stand with us if you try that.”
“Madam, I will talk with my people tomorrow and see what their feelings are concerning this matter. As to the suit, see you in court. Until that happens, goodbye.”
“It’s Governor, not madam, you twerp,” she said into the dead phone.
She looked up to see her three body guards standing in the doorway with looks of utter disbelief.
With fists on hips she said, “What are you looking at?”
“The way you sounded we thought someone had quietly come in the back door and was preparing to do you bodily harm.”
“I was begging.”
“You were screaming.” Looking around he added, “If it means anything to you, we all agree.”
“With what?” She was humbled by these guys and their willingness to wade into whatever was going on with their lives on the line, but yet still talk to her like she was a human being first and then The Governor.
“Your opinion. Nuf said.”
The three of them turned and walked back to their stations, snickering and shaking their heads. An occasional chuckle could be heard. The Governor stood in her office staring at the empty doorway.
Arizona Legislature Caucus Room
The Hawk stood in the corner watching the young senators trying to get a word in edgewise with the older, more experienced ones. The youngest one in the room was asking as loud as possible, “How long will we let this Governor dictate to us? We can’t keep cutting and cutting, we’re down to bare bones in the budget now. My district needs better roads, more affordable housing, and a myriad of other things we cannot get from a budget like this.”
He was shouted down by two senators with much greater seniority.
Hawk finally said, “You all want to have a seat and we’ll get on with business, please?” The shuffling feet and sliding chairs slowly came to an end as the Senate Majority leader moved to the head of the table.
“Okay, folks, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue. Johnny Cash said it in song years ago and it is still true. We are the Sue of Arizona. No one likes all of what we are doing, but most see the need for the reforms that have been put in place over the past four months. The idea of a state closing her borders to illegal activities of all kinds, with an emphasis on illegal aliens, has never been done before. The idea of a single state having war declared on it and receiving no assistance from the Federal Government is absurd. That same Federal Government is now suing us for not taking its money.
“Who would have ever thought that an idea like Druggersville would fly? We send the hard core, unrepentant addicts and users to that lovely place in the desert and let them live their life without serious influence on the local neighborhoods. It’s working. The number of occupants is dropping as more and more opt for rehab and freedom, freedom from Duggersville and the drugs. Our unemployment rate is so low folks are moving here to get jobs. We have slashed the budget to the bare bones and still have everything running fairly smoothly.
“What I asked you here for today is simple. I want us to pass a balanced budget bill, a bill that will reflect in no uncertain terms that we cannot spend more than we take in. No borrowing. A rainy day account in the amount of one year’s budget which we have reduced from 8.2 billion to 4.5 billion, will be established. The rainy day account will come from the next ten budgets at a rate of 10% a year. It will only be used for real, and I mean real, emergencies like our recent difference of opinion with Mexico.
“Also, I would like the fence between us and Mexico made stronger and more hazardous to cross. I’m talking a double fence with other safeguards in between. Yes, even mines if necessary. We must never again be put in the place of the disruption caused by the illegals and, recently, by the uprooting of many who had lived peaceably in our state for years. That was tragic, necessary, but tragic none the less.
“Any questions or suggestions?”
Twenty voices spoke at once.
Early Wednesday
Governor’s Conference Room
The Governor entered the room which changed the noise level not at all. She looked around. Law Enforcement was standing in one corner, Legislators in another, and her cabinet in a third. Behind her walked her new assistant to her assistant. She had come to the realization by the end of one day that she could not get her job done without an assistant. Rachel was not a new hire, but a transfer from another office that no longer needed her due to the streamlining of the court system. In the past ten minutes she had learned quickly that the Governor’s noun of address was Governor and not, Ma’am.
“Rachel, would you get my calendar and then take complete notes on this meeting. I want even the suggestions and asides taken down. Use the recorder on Josie’s desk.”
“Sure thing, Governor. Not a problem. Got the recorder in my bag and your calendar in hand.” The highly motivated Rachel wanted to keep this job.
The Governor smiled and nodded to Tan to start the meeting.
Tan had everybody introduce themselves due to so many new folks around the table. Rachel stopped a person or two in order to get their names straight because a couple of the old hands just mumbled thinking this was ridiculous, everybody should know their name. Of course, she smiled sweetly
and thanked them. The Governor got a real lift from the humble pie eaten on a couple of the introductions.
The Governor went first with the reading of the extortion demands followed by the DPS Director. “Folks, there were no prints on the letter or the envelope other than the three FedEx people who handled the outside envelope. The credit card swiped to pay for the delivery at the kiosk was a prepaid VISA and we are unable to trace it other than to know it was purchased at a WalMart in Los Angeles with cash. As of right now, we are at a dead end with the note. Oh, yeah, the paper and the envelope are so common they cannot be traced.” He sat down.
Tan called on the Pinal County Sheriff next. He gave a quick, concise account of the hijacking and the follow up investigation concluding with, “My office was then superseded by the Governor’s Special Investigator’s office.”
The Governor and the DPS Director were not too happy with the closing comment.
Chuck was next. “We hired a local man to assist us in searching for the hijacked truck. He was able to lead us to many locales that had not been searched by the Pinal County units due to a shortage of manpower. I must say the Sergeant in the Oracle office did a great job with the force he had” He smiled at the Sheriff and nodded.
A couple of whispered comments were heard. Rachel asked for a repeat of those comments, which did not produce any reply.
He continued, “Yesterday, our local asset, Tank, was able to lead us to his own property – a long story – where we found the truck, minus the explosives. We do not feel at this time that our asset has been involved in this case other than where we have involved him through his employment by us. He was more surprised than we were to find it there. The only reason we went there was it was on the way and hadn’t been checked yet. We were at a dead end if it hadn’t been there.”
Tan interrupted him and introduced Ben Cerillo and asked for his forensics report.
