by Frank Klus
“Oh Ray, I didn’t really know all that. I know you told me he used to be an all right guy, but I didn’t know you had such a relationship with him.”
“I remember being in that burn unit at the hospital. He was pretty bitter; didn’t want to talk much. He went back to work only six months later. Everyone applauded when he climbed back on a chopper. He was a real hero in my book. But the people….” Ray just quieted.
“What about the people?”
“That’s when they started calling him ‘death’ and ‘bog’. They’d make fun of him. Even people that he knew laughed when some jerk called him that name.”
Tears moistened Cassandra’s cheeks as she blushed.
“It’s the country, Cass; this dead world we live in. It changes everybody. Jimmy changed and became mean. Eugene is changing too. That boss he works for was backed by a NOGOV member—some billionaire. He pressured Congress to pass a law legalizing drugs, prostitution, and gambling; then financed the guy to start his business. That business is setting up these operations for his clients. Corruption is everywhere, Cass. Humanity is the biggest casualty. That’s why it’s so important that we take every advantage we can to overthrow this whole rotted thing.”
“I know. Where are we going now?”
“Sean’s house.”
“Not Sean,” she said almost laughing.
“He’s kind of on the wild side but he’s a good guy. No one but me knows where he lives.”
“We’re going to need our stuff. Why can’t we just pull into a motel?”
“Are you kidding? Even though Casimir doesn’t know anything about running an army he has enough experienced people to know to send scouts to every motel, hotel, B&B, hostel, or inn in a hundred mile radius. No, Sean’s the safest place for us. The Squad doesn’t know where he lives.”
“Do you think he can get our stuff for us?”
“If I know Sean, he’ll insist on it.”
“Won’t the squad follow him?”
“We’ll have to assume so but Sean knows how to get away.”
“What if they catch Gene, and he goes to a Squad jail; and that lawyer can’t get him out?”
Ray glanced over to her with a matter-of-fact expression on his face. “He’ll be executed.”
Chapter 7:
Prison
“Well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Sulke,” the assistant warden said. “Stay behind the line.” Eugene stopped. Another officer ordered him to empty his pockets and dump the contents in a large manila envelope.
“Take off your clothes—all of them,” the assistant warden said.
Eugene was incredulous. “What?”
“Take your clothes off.” Gene did as he was told, but he was given no prison garb to put on. The interrogation began.
“You were tracked to a triple murder scene. Did you kill three Squad soldiers?”
“No.”
“Do you deny being there?”
“No.”
“So you admit you were there?”
“Yes, but I didn’t do anything.”
“Who did?”
Gene was silent.
“Who did?” the AW said a little louder. Again, Eugene didn’t answer. He nodded to one of the officers, who caned his buttocks. Gene yelped and leaped forward.
“Stay behind the line,” barked the AW. He then repeated the question, but Gene remained silent. Time after time the AW asked the same question, and time after time Eugene remained silent, taking a caning each time.
The interrogation went on for an hour. Eugene refused to answer and was continually caned. Finally, Eugene collapsed to the floor, bleeding. The officer, administering the punishment began kicking at Gene, yelling for him to get up until he broke.
“Cassandra.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sulke. See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He motioned to another officer to bring him his prison clothes. “Put them on.” Eugene did so and was led to his cell. There was no attempt to treat his wounds.
As Eugene listened to the jail door slam shut, he looked at the bunk beds with another inmate sitting on the lower bunk. He motioned Eugene to the top one. He slowly climbed up, but he was too sore to make it on his own, so his cellmate helped him.
“They beat you up?”
Eugene said nothing.
“What’d you do?” his cellmate asked, but Eugene remained silent. “My name is Fernando.”
“Eugene.”
Neither said a word for a while and then Eugene spoke up. “I didn’t do anything.”
His cellmate didn’t laugh. “I didn’t do anything except run away.”
“Run from what?”
“From work.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They don’t pay you much for work anymore. There used to be welfare and other stuff they call hand-outs. Some of that still exists, but if you don’t qualify and need money the company you work for loans it to you. You have to pay it back with your next paycheck—with interest. If you can’t pay it back, they let the loan ride with a penalty charge. You can’t leave the company until you pay back the loan or they throw you in jail. You’re charged with embezzlement. What a joke. I didn’t embezzle any money, but that’s what I was charged with.”
Eugene knew that was going on. He even recommended the loan program to many of his clients. He didn’t know or want to know that they charged you with embezzlement, or that they put you in jail for failing to pay back the loan. He assumed, and was led to believe, that they just took the money back out of one’s next paycheck.
“There’s a lot of shit going down they don’t want anyone knowing about.” Fernando looked downcast. He didn’t say anything for a while, and then he saw a few drops of blood on the floor. “You’re still bleeding.”
Fernando got up. “Guard! Guard!”
“What do you want?”
“Don’t you got something for Eugene? He’s bleeding from the beating.”
“Shit! All right.” The guard opened the cell door and ordered Eugene down. He handcuffed him and led him away.
“Mr. Casimir, Alberto Martinez is on Line One,” Judy, the personal secretary, said to Jaydan Casimir, Commandant of the Lightning Squad at Command Headquarters in Old Chicago, Illinois.
“Alberto, this is a pleasant surprise.”
“No, it’s not. What the hell is going on there? Why is Eugene Sulke in prison?”
“Yes, sir, I understand how you feel. I gave strict orders not to bother him unless he’s really committing a crime. Unfortunately, he was at the scene of a triple murder. These were my men, Al. We picked him up speeding out of my territory.”
“Sulke isn’t the type to do that. I doubt if he’s ever owned a gun. Are you sure? Could someone else have done it?”
“Yes, sir. We know who it is. It was Cassandra O’Reilly.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, but if you knew he couldn’t have done it, why did you arrest him?”
“We needed to question him. He fingered Cassandra from jail. Do you want us to let him go? I can call the judge and have him released immediately.”
Martinez hesitated for the moment. “I’ll call you back. Don’t do anything until I do.”
Casimir hung up. He was ready to call the prison to check on Sulke’s condition, but obeyed orders not to do anything. An hour later Martinez was on the line.
“We can’t let him go. My people think Cassandra and Ray are using him. They want to radicalize him and use him to start a revolution. Now, I know Sulke is no radical but the O’Reilly’s are. They’ll work on him until he does their bidding.”
“You’re right, sir. What do you want me to do with him?”
“I want a quick trial and execution.” Even Jaydan Casimir was stunned at this.
“You there, Jay? I understand you got the judges in your pocket. Is there going to be a problem?”
“No! No problem.”
“Good. Look, there’s one more thing. These radicals—your suspects—they’re pro
bably going to try and spring him, so be on guard. Understand?”
“Absolutely, Al. We can get a trial in about a week, followed by a same day execution.”
“Good.”
Ray and Cassandra reached Sean’s house around eight that night. “Man, look at you with that big barrel chest,” Sean said as he hugged him. “What do you do for exercise—turn rocks into gravel with your bare hands?” Sean spoke with a slight Irish accent.
“Yeah,” Ray said, “and I chew nails for an in-between snack.” Ray was powerfully built with a massive neck and square head. Only about 5-10, he looked like a human bulwark, with a pug nose and square jaw.
“Hi, Sean,” Cassandra said.
“Cassie,” he said. Sean gave her a great big hug too and then pinched her ass.
Cassandra just smiled. “Nice to know you haven’t changed.”
“Cass,” Ray said, stretching her name out and looking at her sideways. Sean wore an impish grin. He was about fortyish and wiry with wild eyes.
“Well, what kind of trouble are you two in that you need my help?” The two filled him in, and Ray asked him to help out.
“You need me to get your stuff, right?”
“I don’t want to impose,” Ray said.
“No problem. Just write down what you need.”
“The Squad might be watching the house. Do you have a gun?”
“Robbing houses is my business, buddy. Of course, I’m always protected.”
“You may be followed.”
“How do you think I’ve lasted all these years? I know how to lose the Squad or the RAC. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“Thank you for helping,” Cassandra said.
“My pleasure. Say, Ray, you think when we’re done here you can rent her out for a night?”
Ray and Cassandra understood Sean.
“Just kidding.” Looking at Cassandra, “It’s just my way of saying you’re really a dote.”
Cassandra had a quizzical look. “He means cute,” Ray said.
“You should get going,” Cassandra said. “It’s a long drive.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. Take the upstairs bedroom on the right. It’s a bit small, but you’ll be comfortable.”
“Thanks,” Ray said.
Ray couldn’t sleep well and Cassandra sensed his worry. Still, he lay in bed and even faked a few snores so Cassandra could get some sleep. Ray even thought he really did nod off for a while, but he spent most of the time considering a plan. He worried about Eugene, and he worried about Cass and himself. Now he’d involved a fourth person. It might mean the end of his operation. He was the leader of the ex-Blues, and if he was in exile no one would lead any revolution. Old America was sick and dying, and he felt that few people knew that it was. He needed Eugene on his side and he needed to split. What to do? It was Ray’s last thought before he and Cassandra awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs frying downstairs. Sean was singing some Irish ditty.
“Top of the mornin’ to yah.”
“How’d it go last night?” Ray asked.
“Look in the parlor and see for yourself.”
Ray and Cassandra saw all their stuff: computer, monitor, radio, private phone, portfolio, trackers, and other stuff. Now they could set up operations from Sean’s house.
“Come on, you two, before breakfast gets cold. You can play ‘good guy/bad guy’ later.” Sean picked up on the bags under their eyes and knew they slept little. Ray wolfed down his breakfast while Cassandra picked at hers.
“I’m not that hungry,” Cassandra said as she went into the parlor to set up the equipment. Ray continued to eat his own breakfast and then turned to his wife’s plate. He began eyeing some tasty morsel as Sean just smiled at his antics.
“Ray!” shouted Cassandra from the parlor.
“Better see what the little woman wants,” Sean said, with a sly grin.
Ray came in and saw Cassandra had everything set up and fretted at an email sent by Judy, their mole in Old Chicago. As Ray began reading he saw what so alarmed his wife.
“Why would he be in Joliet?” Cassandra asked.
“He’s in a lot of trouble, Cass.”
“There’s another email, too, from Judy,” she said. They read it together as their faces went ashen.
“No, Ray. They’re going to execute him. Ray, we’ve got to get him out of there.”
“It’s up to that lawyer now. The problem is his company might not even know he’s in trouble. This is a Squad prison with Squad judges. They pretty much make their own rules. Access to an attorney usually only occurs after a trial is announced. That lawyer will have very little time to prepare for a trial.”
“If it’s Squad judges trying him, what chance will Gene have?”
“On his own—none. Remember, though, he has government connections. They can at least delay the process enough for us to spring him.”
“Whoa!” Sean said. He’d just entered the room and heard the conversation. “They’re looking for you, my man.”
“That was confirmed in another email,” Cassandra said.
“Well, you got to stay as far from Joliet as possible.”
“But, Sean,” Cassandra said, “I’m responsible for the trouble he’s in. We can’t leave him there. That wouldn’t be right.”
“For the moment there’s nothing we can do, Cass, and you know it,” Ray said.
Cassandra looked down, and then she thought of something. “If Gene can’t get to his lawyer, maybe we can.” She typed Everson into the search engine and got the contact page for Eugene’s company. “Should we email them or phone them?” Cassandra asked.
Sean volunteered the answer on this one. “Phone them. You can block your number, but with an email they’ll have your return address.”
Ray called. He couldn’t get through to Stu Everson so he left a message, and turned to his wife. “That will have to do.”
“What do we do now?” Cassandra asked.
“We wait and see what develops.”
Eugene returned an hour later, still smarting. He crawled up to the top bunk with assistance from Fernando.
“How you feeling, Eugene?”
“Better. I’m still sore though. I think I have a broken rib.”
“What did they do?”
“They just put a salve on me and then bandaged the lacerations. I told them about the rib, but the doctor just felt my rib cage and told me it wasn’t broken. No X-ray or anything. Christ, I’m sore.”
“Did they let you call your lawyer?”
Eugene was sullen. “What kind of justice is this?”
“It’s Squad justice.”
“But it’s not American justice.”
Fernando was quiet and Eugene fell asleep.
The next morning they were lined up for breakfast. Everything was highly regimented. They marched into the cafeteria, which was dirty from the previous meal. Inmates were expected to clean up their own area. Eugene and Fernando sat down after tossing someone else’s trash away.
“Tell me more about this crime of yours,” Eugene said.
Fernando was tall and spoke slowly with a Spanish accent. Eugene sized him up as someone without much education. “Some economist from Harvard…I think his name was Galboth…or something…anyway he calls it urban feudalism.”
“Feudalism?”
“What does feudalism mean?” Fernando asked.
“Well, I’m no expert, but during the Middle Ages, in Europe, the aristocracy and the kings owned all the land. Peasants, called serfs, could be given some land by their vassal in return for their labor on his land, but they had no rights. They weren’t allowed to leave the land.”
“Yeah, that’s like what I had. Only instead of land it was money I was given. They had me by the balls.” Fernando grabbed his privies with a big grin on his face, and then laughed.
The whistles began blowing, indicating breakfast was over. They marched back to their cells.
Fernando sat down on hi
s bunk and motioned Eugene to sit next to him. “So, Eugene, are you married?”
“My wife committed suicide several months ago.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. How are you dealing with it?”
Eugene didn’t answer at first, but his face became red and turned sour. “The Commandant raped my wife. She killed herself over it.” Eugene looked down while Fernando just stared at him, his mouth agape. “They accused me of killing three of his men, but the only one I want to kill is him. Now, here I am. The bastard stole my wife and sends me to prison.”
“That’s incredible! My wife left me, and I don’t know why. We were as happy as two people could ever be. Then she got into trouble with loans from her work. We ran off together but they caught us the first night. They told me to go home and took her to jail. They wouldn’t let me see her for days. Then one day I went to a lawyer who got me in; only she was gone. They said she was released, but she never came home.”
Eugene just stared at his new friend. “Where did she go? Did she go back to her old job? What did the lawyer say? What’d he do for you?”
“The lawyer was working for free. She wouldn’t do anything else. Anyway, the only thing she agreed to do was get me into the jail, but I couldn’t find my wife until I got a big envelope from some lawyer. It was divorce stuff. I was accused of being a bad husband who let his wife get into debt. I was told to sign the papers, but I refused. Then she came to the house with some other men. Gene, she was horrid to me. I never saw her like that before.”
“What was she like before? And what did she say that made her so horrid?”
“Oh, she was always smiling; so cheerful. Whenever I was feeling down, she’d pick me up. She’d say something funny. Whenever things went wrong for us, which was a lot, and I’d say, ‘Honey, I screwed up. I’m so sorry,’ she’d put her arms around me and say, ‘that’s okay, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.’ I tell you, Gene, she was always wonderful that way.”
