When Rome Stumbles

by David Kershner

  When the second tone chimed, Josh quietly crossed the dimly lit room to the front door where the CCTV monitors were located. Usually, if it were just someone making a u-turn, or local kids looking for a place to drink a beer or toke up, it would not go off.

  He had exercised the care and patience of a robin building its nest while the cabin was built. He spent hours tracking down each creak, squeak, and movement of board and floor joist in the structure until every step he took was as silent as a cat. He surmised that, if the person on the other side of the door was unsure as to whether or not someone was in there, why should you give yourself away with a foot fall.

  As his left hand reflexively reached for the concealed Beretta, he scanned the CCTV images looking for identifying characteristics about the vehicle and any passengers. The early model Chevy Blazer on the screen was emblazoned with the Vinton County Sheriff’s Office decal on the door. What now? It appeared to be driven by Jim Watson and he was alone.

  The Sheriff was extremely proud of his department’s vehicles. He and his staff took meticulous care of their chariots. When one needed replacing, it was always a used model that he got on the cheap. He had often bragged that he had the only force with transportation old enough to survive an EMP.

  When the remaining alarms all went off at normal intervals, Josh knew the Sheriff wasn’t speeding down the sandy drive. Josh watched the monitors and tracked the Sheriff’s progress all the while scanning the other monitors for trailing vehicles or teams on a flanking maneuver through the woods or outlying fields. In all, Josh had installed fifty baseball-sized cameras throughout the hundred and fifty acres. He got a deal from a vendor at a trade show and spent just over two grand on the entire setup. The outlay of cash was worth the peace of mind it provided.

  As he watched, he deftly used his keyboard to switch among the various points of view in rapid succession. There was also a panic alarm hidden in the recesses of the cabin wall structure near the monitors. This was more for his daughters should they encounter trouble while home alone. When pressed, it notified Juan Martinez and his family on the other side of the farm.

  As he watched the Sheriff dismount his Blazer and adjust his holster on the monitor, Josh moved several steps backward toward the door. He peered through the wide-angle fish eye lens that had been installed to give him a greater field of vision than a traditional peephole. He had learned this lesson the hard way when his daughters were kidnapped right in front of him. He hadn’t seen the kidnappers in the shadows that night because they were hidden from view due to the decreased peripheral sight lines.

  After he looked through the lens, he glanced over his shoulder at the bank of CCTV monitors. Armed assailants didn’t seem to be prowling the property or porches. Only Jim Watson was present. Once he was sure that his surroundings were all clear, Josh put the Beretta in his waistband behind his back and opened the door.

  The rush of cold winter night air only furthered his state of alertness. The bitter weather always had a habit of waking Josh right up. The Sheriff’s visits on the noise complaints from his neighbor had provided the two with plenty of fodder to begin their friendship.

  Josh stood in the doorway and said, “Come on in, Jim. Bourbon?” as he turned and started heading to the bar.

  “No thanks, Josh. Official business,” the Sheriff began.

  Intrigued, Josh turned around. “Oh? Who’s complaining now?” he asked thinking his neighbor had called again.

  “It’s not her this time, Josh. Man, this is harder than I thought it’d be, but –” he said as his voice trailed off.

  Noticing the Sheriff’s hesitation, Josh spun back toward the lawman and quickly asked, “Is it the girls?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but your ex-wife’s body has been found,” he declared.

  “What do you mean found? I didn’t even know she was missing,” Josh exclaimed.

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a TV. Well, apparently, Amanda was on some sort of holiday cruise through the Caribbean with her boyfriend. It appears that a verbal altercation broke out and it escalated from there. At least, that’s what the authorities in St. Thomas believe. Given the guy’s blood alcohol level, they are under the impression that it was a drunken argument.”

  “Really? The girls told me that she’d been off the sauce for some time now,” Josh provided.

  “I don’t have any details one way or another on that. All I do know is that the island police think he panicked when he realized she was dead. They are working on the premise that he probably dumped the body overboard to entice some of the local wildlife. He’s in custody and claiming she attacked him. You know how it goes with these types of cases.”

  Josh thought for a moment before a wide grin appeared on his face and he blurted out, “That’s ingenious,” Josh exclaimed. “I take it that since you’re here it didn’t work though, right?”

  Recognizing Josh’s elation at the news, Jim replied, “You seem pretty happy about this, Josh.”

  “Look Jim,” Josh began. “Because of that woman and her whoring, I almost lost my two daughters. Did you know that the kidnappers were her lovers? Did you know those three had conspired to kidnap the girls?”

  Before Jim could answer, Josh thundered on. “Oh, she claimed she didn’t know they were going to drug them and abuse them, but her actions endangered my family. Ya know the funny thing, Jim; she told me all of it... to my face. I had to sit there and listen to her incoherent ramblings through the damn jailhouse glass over one of those germ-ridden phones. She even had the audacity to say she was sure I’d get the chair so it didn’t matter. That was the only reason that she came clean. The tragedy of it all is that I haven’t been afforded the satisfaction of knowing if it was true. I don’t know if it was her doing the talking or the smack.

  “She was so bombed that it was mostly incoherent babble, but I at least made out that part. What that harlot didn’t count on was a sympathetic jury and a PTSD diagnosis. That woman didn’t deserve the skin God gave her or the oxygen to fill her diseased lungs. So yeah, I’m a little flippin’ happy, Jim!”

  “Gosh Almighty, Josh. Calm down. I didn’t know all of that,” Jim replied.

  “Yes, you did, Jim. You pulled my record after your very first visit. You may not have known all of the details, but the report was there, the charges and the acquittal. You knew who and what I was long ago,” Josh quickly stated in anger.

  Caught off guard by the comment, Jim acknowledged Josh’s statement and replied in equal tone with, “You’re right. Yeah. I read the court transcripts. You were acquitted because of the various extenuating circumstances. I saw all of that. However, what was also in those pages was evidence of a man that took care of his daughters the best way he knew how. Your issues coming out of the military predisposed you to –” he paused before softening his demeanor and adding, “certain tactics and methods.”

  After several deep-cleansing breaths, Josh said in a more calm tone, “But you never said anything.” He paused for a few seconds more and added, “I thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jim said more calmly. “Some other time I’ll ask you a question about that. But you’re only partially right about your ex-wife though.”

  Josh asked inquisitively, “Oh? How so?”

  “It was ingenious and it did work... sort of. Apparently the guy she was on this cruise with was so hammered that he failed to notice a passing party boat full of New Year’s revelers and the whole thing was videotaped on about a dozen camera phones. The St. Thomas authorities brought out some professional shark anglers from the island to catch whatever ate her so they could do a necropsy. Most of her was still in there when they hauled it in,” the Sheriff informed him. “Oh, and by the way, she was stone cold sober. If I had to guess, the argument broke out because he was drunk.”

  “It’s a fitting end to a miserable existence then,” Josh replied as he glanced down at his watch. In just as
an unenthused tone, he concluded, “Well, it’s too late right now, but I guess I better head over to Athens in the morning and get the girls. The family is probably gonna want to have some sort of service back in Columbus.”

  “Already taken care of. Evan is bringing them here as we speak,” Jim informed him.

  “Why is he picking them up?” Josh asked.

  “I called him looking for you. He lives up that way so I asked him to swing over and grab them. I’d have done it myself, but I wanted to come out here and tell you personally. That reminds me, when are you gonna get a cell? I tried calling here, but there was no answer. That’s why I contacted Evan. You know, it would be a heck of a lot easier if you’d get one of your own.”

  “Forget that. I try an’ use as little tech as possible,” Josh replied. “What did you tell him when you asked him to get the girls?”

  “Oh, I didn’t say anything over the phone. I just told him to bring the girls to their father’s farm. I’m sure they’ll come in here talking a hundred miles an hour like they do.”

  Josh snorted a laugh at that comment.

  “Yeah, they do seem to talk over each other in rapid succession,” Josh said in a fatherly tone. After a brief moment of pause, Josh asked, “Now that your official business is over with, what’s your question?”

  “You sure you’re up for it?” the sheriff asked.

  “Fire away. I’m workin’ on my people skills,” Josh replied.

  “Okay then. The file said that the kidnappers assaulted the home in tandem, knocked you out, and tied up your wife before making off with Layla and Katherine,” Jim began.

  “That’s right. Then they contacted us the next day and demanded ransom for their safe return,” Josh inserted.

  “Yeah. I read that. What I didn’t see was how you found them. I was curious about that.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before finally asking, “How did you find them in that warehouse?”

  Josh turned to look him in the eye and said, very matter of factly, “Layla was getting ready to head to middle school and we gave her a cell phone so she could get used to the responsibility of having one before fall. As soon as she got it, she was always on it... texting her friends, uploading images, taking pictures, and what not. She would go to sleep playing games on it. Before we let her have it, though, we low-jacked it as a precaution. Fortunately, she was awake enough to grab it when they took her from her bed. The idiots were probably too wasted to remember to turn it off or take the chip out. They just threw it out the car window when they found it on her, I guess.

  “Once I remembered the hidden surveillance, I told the cops and they traced it to a gutter near the brewery district. I figured they had to be in there or else they would have gotten rid of it long before then. So, I kept their mother hopped up on her sleeping pills and went out each night trying to narrow it down.”

  “You did a grid by grid search of all those warehouses?” Jim asked.

  Josh shrugged and said, “I didn’t know what to do. I felt completely and utterly helpless. I fed Amanda her medication and waited for her to pass out. I couldn’t have her waking up wondering where I was. Turns out, she was already bombed and didn’t need the pills, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, one night I got lucky and found them,” Josh finished. “I guess you know the rest from there.”

  “Huh,” Jim responded.

  “What?” Josh ask in reply.

  “I wasn’t expecting that is all,” the Sheriff replied.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I figured that you’d tell me to call your lawyer,” Jim answered.

  A smile grew on Josh’s face when he provided, “Double jeopardy laws. Can’t be tried twice.”

  “I guess your attorney managed to avoid the topic and the prosecutor was stupid enough and didn’t bother to ask that question.”

  “Oh, they did. I simply said I got lucky, which was true. I just neglected to mention that I went out four straight nights looking and performed a grid search of the warehouses.”

  Josh shrugged a little shrug and started walking to the bar to fix the two a drink when Jim said, “You know Josh, there’s not a father alive worth his salt that wouldn’t have snapped on those two men after seeing what they were doing to your girls.”

  Without turning to face Jim, Josh replied, “What’s done is done,” as he sighed. “You want that bourbon now?”

  “Hell yeah,” Jim replied in his Appalachian lilt.

  * * *

  As the fourth of the five driveway alarms sounded, the pair exited the cabin and stood on the front porch. The winter air seemed to be getting colder. Josh noted the quarter moon low on the horizon. Tonight would be a good night for a raid if it weren’t for the latent snow reflecting the moonlight.

  As the truck came into view, they could see the young man behind the wheel. Evan had been working on the farm for a couple of years now. Josh had found him, as well as a number of his employees, on the ‘Hire Veterans’ website. He could never afford a private protection detail for the two so he did the next best thing. He hired vets and asked them to keep an eye on the pair while they worked in the greenhouses and around the farm. The clincher for most of his employees during the hiring process was Josh’s standing offer to fund CCL licenses and side arms.

  Aside from the status as veterans, his criteria for employment had been simple. They had to have combat experience and they needed to be a parent. Their marital status was immaterial. During his years in the military, Josh had observed that soldiers with children fought with a greater sense of urgency. Not that the single volunteers were overly prone to rash, unplanned, or ill-advised actions. It just seemed to Josh that those with kids usually kept the medal seekers alive.

  As the SUV rounded the last turn and headed toward the house, Josh said, “Jim, what did you tell Evan?”

  “Nothing. I simply asked him to pick up the girls and that they needed to pack a bag for at least a week… Nothing about their mother, why?”

  “Just trying to figure out where their line of questioning is going to go is all,” Josh replied. “I’ve found that if I don’t have a plan of action with those two, I usually get ambushed. Chances are they probably already knew and were waiting for the call. You said it was on the news?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Josh let out a long slow breathe, “Then, they know.”

  The vehicle slowed to a stop in front of the porch with a crunch of snow under the tires. Evan immediately checked the mirrors out of habit. Josh made a mental note. He’s been out of the war zone for over five years and he never lets his guard down, even on the farm. Josh watched as Evan worked his way around the perimeter of the SUV and opened the door for his passengers.

  Katherine was out of the car first and immediately headed to the back of the Suburban.

  As the pair observed them from the porch, Josh was struck by a thought. I’ll never get used to them wearing make-up.

  Amanda was nowhere to be found during this phase of their lives. Unfortunately, he knew he would be just as useless as his ex. As a result, Josh had flown the girl’s aunt in from the northeast to ‘assist’ the two with their wardrobe and what not. Thankfully Basilia, Juan’s wife, was a doctor and was able to teach them about the changes they were about to experience as they became women.

  The two walked up the stairs in tandem toward their father. As they approached the porch, Katherine paused, and with a hint of smile said, “Hi, Daddy. We’re home so can you put your Beretta away?”

  Josh feigned a response. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Layla joined the conversation and said, “Yeah right, Dad. It’s tucked into the back of your jeans.”

  “How did you –,” the law enforcement officer began to ask before she answered his unfinished question.

  “When Dad’s got his gun behind his back it draws the front of his pants in tighter. It makes him look like some sort of country singer. It’s one of his �
��tells’.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” the Sheriff said in amazement as Josh removed the weapon and showed it to him.

  The girls kissed their father on either cheek and then headed toward the cabin door. As they crossed the threshold, it was Katherine who stopped and said, “I suppose this is about Mom and her cruise gone wrong.”

  Josh and lawman turned to watch them head up the stairs toward their respective rooms as Evan approached.

  “So how did it go getting them out of Athens,” Josh asked his employee.

  “I got the call from Sheriff Watson at 19:47 and we were on the road by 20:15. Both of them were already packed and sitting at their kitchen table waiting for me when I entered their apartment. I filled up the tank on the drive back and arrived at the gates at 20:50.”

  “You know you’re not in the military anymore. Right, Evan?” the Sheriff said as he half chuckled at the efficient timetable.

  “Sorry, sir. Old habits I guess,” the young man answered.

  Josh looked over at Jim and sighed. “They were sitting at the table waiting for you, eh?”

  “Yeah, if I didn’t know better I’d say they were expecting me.”

  “Told ya they knew,” Josh said with a smile.

  Chapter 4

  January 9th, 2022 – January 16th, 2022

  The stirring of the baby awakened Emily before her alarm had a chance to jolt her out of her slumber. She gingerly rolled herself out of the bed and made her way to the kitchen. Her body still craved coffee¸ even if it was decaf. While she waited for the English muffin in the toaster, she turned on the TV. All of the channels she flipped through seemed to be discussing the same topic.