Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

by Frank Klus

  Dennis was still not sure where this was going. He knew the history of the Lightning Squad. It was part of his training, but he’d never heard it straight from Casimir’s mouth before.

  “So I got rid of them. They were too dangerous, but I have a healthy respect for them; which brings us to my point.”

  At last, thought Dennis.

  “The mistake we’ve been making was going up against the Blues with a few traffic cops. But what we have going for us are numbers. We have over four hundred thousand Squad members and RAC soldiers across the country, and we can use our sheer force of numbers to beat them. I can’t outwit them, but I can use our numbers to encircle them, tighten the noose, and leave the Blues and our Eugene Sulke with no place to go.

  “Think of it, Dennis. Wherever Sulke goes a whole bunch of those Blues show up. They watch his house, his parents’ house; and when we stuck him in Hell House they somehow knew he was there, and with lightning action they rescued the brat and burned down our house. You can bet they’re still around Sulke. Now we’re not just going to recapture him, we’re going to capture the whole lot of them.” Casimir was smiling now, and his face brightened further as he continued with his grand idea.

  “You see where I’m going now, don’t you, Dennis? We’ve got an opportunity now I never thought I’d live to see. We capture Eugene Sulke and we capture maybe a dozen Blues. We stick them all in Hell Houses and start the Blues again—only, this time, under our control.” Casimir was beaming now.

  “I’m putting you in charge of executing the plan. Think of yourself as Genghis Khan.” Now, Jaydan took the piece of paper he was holding and slid it over to Dennis.

  It was a budget—a million dollar budget—to be used for recruiting Squad soldiers and necessary resources. “It’s all I could get,” he continued. “I tried to get more money from Martinez, but he’s so tight-fisted. Nevertheless, we can use this money to bribe people at every rest stop, gas station, inn—shit, every place those guys would stop at. They’d just observe and report. Then we use the Lightning Squad to come at them from all different directions—you know, tighten the noose. We’ll overwhelm them with force of numbers, just like Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde. By the time those guys realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late. We’ll have them.

  “Now, Dennis, this is all going to take careful planning. I need intelligence: how many there are with Sulke, where they are, what they are driving—shit, everything. Then use the money from our budget as a reward for your recruited spies. Whatever is left from this budget is yours to keep. Furthermore, if you are successful, there’s a twenty-five thousand dollar bonus and a significant promotion. You’ll be way more than a brigade commander. You’ll be my permanent assistant. Are you ready, Dennis?”

  “Yes, sir!” Dennis O’Reilly said, beaming.

  “Or should I call you Genghis?” Casimir began laughing now. His white teeth gleamed like he just discovered he’d won a million bucks, but then he turned serious. “Don’t let me down, Genghis.”

  Dennis returned jubilantly to his office. He took another snort from his flask, this time as a victory swig. Then he started reflecting on his new power and responsibility and felt overwhelmed by it. The more he thought about his task, the more unworkable it seemed to him. Four hundred thousand Squad men surrounding Eugene Sulke and his friends. How much would that cost me? What’s a million divided by four hundred thousand? About two bucks? How can I make this work? I’m supposed to be this Khan guy and I’m just a Squad leader. Christ! I’m a traffic cop!

  Chapter 13:

  The New Pilgrims

  “Commandant, Captain Paoli is on Line three.”

  “Casimir here.”

  (After a pause), “What is it?”

  (A few minutes later), “Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me? What the hell happened, Paoli?”

  (After another pause), “Grifton? Oh, for Christ sake.”

  (After another minute), “Shit! All right. I’ll be there in about an hour.”

  Pamela and Eugene were just entering Iowa with Ray and Cassandra behind them. As they drove up to the state border check, Eugene braced for their first encounter. Eugene was given a fake ID with the name Phillip Mulligan from Dearborn, Michigan. He was driving with his sister, Jennifer Mulligan. They were going to visit their sick mother in Idaho.

  The first border stop was easy. The northern half of Iowa was neutral territory, and they didn’t care for any of the paramilitary organizations or the need for exit visas, which Pamela had copied onto passports issued by a friend.

  No special preparation was made for Ray and Cassandra. If the Squad had sent information that they were wanted, the O’Reilly’s may have had to take drastic action. Ray calmly told the border guard that he was with the Mulligans. The guards motioned them through.

  “Do you love me, sweetie?” Catherine said.

  “Yes, I love you, my sweets.”

  “How much do you love me?”

  “I love you more than there are stars in the sky.”

  Catherine just smiled and kissed her husband. Gene loved everything about her: the sweet moist warmth of her breath, the feel of her touch, and the lovely clutch of her embrace.

  “What do you love most about me?” she prattled on, playfully.

  “Everything.”

  “But what do you love the most about me?”

  Eugene thought about it, smiled, and said, “Your eyes.”

  Catherine smiled, playfully. “What about my eyes?”

  “They’re the first thing I noticed about you. They’re so beautifully shaped and bright; so feminine….” He hesitated; not sure how to express himself.

  Catherine put her head on Gene’s lap and smiled upward at his awkward responses. Eugene returned the smile, wanting to give the perfect responses and fumbling through them. It was what Catherine loved most about him. He was real, unpretentious, and he cared so much to please her. “You have such a beautiful smile, my husband.” She reached up to him and kissed him voraciously.

  “Tell me you love me, Genie.”

  “Gene.” Eugene sat there with a soft smile on his face.

  “Eugene!” Pamela said, more insistently.

  Eugene’s smile was gone as he turned to look at her.

  “You looked so lost in thought.”

  “Oh, sorry. I was just remembering something my wife used to do.”

  “You must miss her very much.” Eugene didn’t respond and seemed to prefer to be alone with his thoughts.

  It wasn’t until around two p.m. that Jaydan Casimir reached Brigade Unit 187 of the Joliet district. Captain Paoli completed his investigation and escorted Commandant Casimir down to the basement of Joliet Hell House.

  “Doc Grifton will be all right,” the Captain said to Commandant Casimir.

  “How could this have happened?”

  “Fortunately for us, Doc Grifton was able to give us a full report, which is still so fantastic that I’m having trouble understanding how such a thing happened. I’ll relay the essential parts of the report to you now, and then I’ll send you the full report sometime tomorrow, when we’re able to complete it.”

  “Start from the beginning, Marco.”

  “From what Doc said, everything was going pretty well—at least normally—when…Jeez, he just went off his rocker.”

  “What stage was Menendez in at this time?”

  “Just the first stage of treatment. He was undergoing initial phase brain probe treatment. He’d been subjected to it eight or ten times. Doc said he’d have to check his notes to get an accurate number. It will be on my report.”

  “First stage? He was still in the initial stage?”

  “Yeah, for about a month.”

  “I know. I had him brought here about a month ago.”

  “He resisted just like his ex-wife did. It took her six months to be cured…well…you know that. The way Menendez was going, it would have been probably as long. You can’t always tell, according to Doc Grif
ton. Some guys stay in Stage 1 for a month…hell, even longer; then fly through the remaining stages.”

  “What was Grifton doing here in the first place? I thought…oh, what was his name?”

  “Pinzon, Dr. Pinzon, sir. He trained under Doc Sistrunk.”

  “So, how did Grifton get involved?”

  “It was just recently, sir. When Doc Pinzon was having trouble making progress with Menendez he called on Doc Grifton for help.”

  “All right, tell me what happened when he went nuts.”

  “It’s like I said, he received eight or nine sessions—I’ll have the exact amount in my final report—and I guess he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was strapped in the chair, given several probes and then released. He appeared pretty much out of it. They usually have to carry him to the table, but this time he stood up on his own, like a drunk who’s still on his feet, but he spoke quite clearly.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘I’m feeling much better now.’”

  “He just went through a brain probe treatment and said he’s feeling better now?”

  “Doc thought he was probably in shock. He says it happens sometimes. Anyway, doc says he asked Menendez if he needed help getting on the table, and he says ‘no, it won’t be necessary’. He figured he meant he would climb on the table by himself, but we know now that isn’t what he meant.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “That’s when he went nuts, sir. He grabbed a bottle of some chemical—I’ll have the exact specimen in my report. Anyway, he clobbers the guard with the bottle in the forehead so the chemicals dripped into his eyes. He screamed and covered them. Then Menendez grabbed a scalpel and—oh, Jeez—just slit the poor bastard’s throat with it.”

  “What was the doc doing when this was going on?”

  “He froze.”

  “What did Menendez do next?”

  “Well…and this is the difficult part, sir. Menendez grabbed hold of the doctor and forced him in the chair. I believe the report, sir, will indicate he slugged the doctor, and then forced him in the chair. Anyway, sir, he turned the machine back on. Doc realized what he was going to do and pleaded with him not to touch the probe; that it was a delicate instrument—”

  “I know, I know, Marco. Now, was Grifton strapped down?”

  “Sorry, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, he strapped his arms and feet in.”

  “Didn’t Doctor Grifton struggle with him?”

  “Doc said Menendez overpowered him. I don’t think Doc’s very strong. He’s kind of old, sir. He screamed but no one came downstairs.”

  “How can that be?”

  “According to the other guard, he assumed it was Menendez screaming. He simply ignored it. He says it was just business. He doesn’t go down unless he’s called.”

  “Wasn’t Doc calling for him?”

  “No. Doc says Menendez was going to kill him if he yelled for anyone. He still had the scalpel in his hand. Doc says he was scared shitless.”

  “What about the others: nurse, recorder, others?”

  “On break. I guess Menendez just waited for the right opportunity.”

  “Okay. Then what happened?”

  “Menendez strapped him in. Then he turned on the machine and dialed the volume up high. Doc didn’t think he would know how to use the machine, but he must have been paying attention. Doc tried to talk him through the adjustment process, but Menendez would have nothing of it. Doc tried to reason with him. He said you have to use lower settings or it could destroy the brain. Are you ready for this, Commandant?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Doc says Menendez just had this look of a maniac. He had a grin on his face like…Jeez, how do I describe it? It was like that grin Jack Nicholson had in the movie, The Shining, when he went after his wife with the axe.”

  “Less dramatics, Paoli. So I guess he turned on the machine?”

  “Oh, yeah. Then he planted the probe right on his noggin. That’s when Doc let out a real scream. His whole body went tense. Menendez just kept wiggling it around. He learned that whenever Doc Pinzon wiggled it, it hurt more. Now, this is when it got really creepy. Menendez, with that same diabolical smile says, ‘Like it doc? How ‘bout another one?’ Then he sticks the probe on another part of his noggin. Then he says, ‘Like it here,’ and sticks it in another part of his head and says, ‘How ‘bout there, and there, and there’. All the while he keeps jabbing and wiggling the probe. Then he stopped to taunt the doctor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘There, there, now. That wasn’t so bad now. Oh, you make such a fuss’—shit like that. Doc said it was like he was drilling holes in his brain. Then he resumed jabbing him. All the while Doc says Menendez just had this murderous look on his face while he’s jabbing him.”

  “That’s enough, Paoli. I get it. About how many times did he jab him?”

  “Doc says he doesn’t know. It just seemed to go on, and on, and on.”

  “Was Doc still conscious?”

  “Doc says he doesn’t know when he lost consciousness. When he came around he was sitting on the floor right over there. That’s where we found him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, this part is speculation. There weren’t any witnesses, but the evidence points to what happened next. Menendez got back on the chair. He evidently took the thing off its holder and was holding the probe in his hand. He sat down in the chair. Ah, Jeez.”

  “Go on, Paoli. What did he do?”

  “He taped the damn thing to his head. Then he pushed the ON button. The upstairs guard heard continuous screaming that lasted about ten minutes. He’d never heard anything like that before and it scared him. So he came downstairs.”

  Casimir just looked at him.

  “Well, he started to come down the stairs and the screaming stopped. He said he stopped as well, and thought about going back up, but there was a strange silence. He said he slowly walked down the stairs. He said he should have heard some talking or moving around, but there was total silence. ‘This wasn’t right,’ he said. So he came all the way down, and he saw the first guard dead; then he saw Doc Grifton barely moving, but pointing to the chair. Christ, sir, I’m sorry, but I’ll never get that look out of my mind. He was still in that chair when I came in.”

  “What did you see, Marco?”

  “It was Menendez, sir, sitting in that chair with the probe taped to him. His head was cocked to one side, and his mouth was wide open in a frozen look of horror. His face was bright red with tear streaks on his cheek. His pants and the floor below the chair were all wet with urine.”

  Paoli stopped to get another sip of water. “It wasn’t like anything I ever saw before. We took plenty of photos. They’ll be in the final report.”

  “The thing I can’t figure out,” Casimir said, “was why did he do it? Why didn’t he try to escape? He could have taken the gun from the dead guard. Once he got rid of the upstairs guard he could have made it to freedom.”

  “I know,” Paoli said. “I asked the same question of Doc Grifton. He just said that Menendez told him of his desire to escape. Doc said, ‘Where would you go? We’d just recapture you again.’ He said Menendez just kept muttering about how he missed his wife—I mean….”

  Casimir looked cross, and Paoli continued. “I guess that he didn’t want to live without her. I guess, sir, that he just wanted to die.”

  The exiles were now at the southwestern border of South Dakota. This was neutral territory, but the kind that sided with the RAC. Ray and Cassandra led the way across because they feared they would have to furnish I.D. Fortunately, they went through, and Eugene and Pamela followed them. The plan was to take the back roads going north and west until they reached North Dakota.

  Sticking to the east end was considered the safest, but they would have to use the back roads, making the trip all the longer. They would have to go through North Dakota and into Manitoba before swinging down to northern Mont
ana. The Canadian border was controlled by people friendly toward the Old American government, but at the two crossing points, few questions were asked. This was the primary benefit of Pamela’s contact in Congress.

  The journey, thus far, was pleasant, but Pamela figured by this time the Lightning Squad would be organized, and a cooperation network with the RAC would be set up. Furthermore, there might be mercenaries looking for them, assuming they’d figured out the vehicle they were driving, but Pamela had anticipated this.

  She would trade vehicles with a contact provided by her Congressional contact. It was a private dealer that also helped people who weren’t allowed a visa to New America, but were being persecuted by local authorities sympathetic to the RAC. They would make contact about 75 miles up, about a two hour drive from the back roads.

  They traded their ten year old Impala for a fourteen year old Toyota Camry—an even trade. The Camry had about four hundred thousand miles on it, but the car ran well and had new brakes. They turned in for the night at a small family-owned motel. The motel was owned and operated by a friend of the Piper family that also assisted people trying to leave the country. He was a general manager in one of the cooperatives set up during the time just prior to the Rust Belt bombings, and might have been killed if he were working the night shift. He never forgot that, and dedicated his life in helping escapees.

  “Pamela, it’s great to see you so soon.”

  “Jeff, this is Eugene Sulke. He went through Hell House and is being looked for as we speak. Gene, this is Jeff Blakely, he was a friend of my brother. You can trust him.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “He is a polite one,” Jeff said, who just laughed. Then he got serious. “You went through Hell House?”

  “Yes, sir…I mean, Jeff.”