Enemies Domestic (An Alex Landon Thriller Book 1)

by Gavin Reese

  Once this shit makes it into the news cycle, this'll be the single greatest piece of circumstantial evidence the cops will have. They'll have no choice but to investigate AmericanJihad911 until they can blame it on some random Abba Dabba or have enough evidence they can stop the public's renewed thirst for Muslim blood. Duke sat and briefly relished what would come; he hoped for an overwhelming public outcry for immediate police and military action against anyone with dark skin suspected of even knowing the word Quran. Only those few, fleeting moments of celebration passed before Duke chided himself for frivolity at such a crucial time. I'm already behind schedule, there'll be time for basking in my glory only after I get away safely.

  Sixty-Eight

  Landon residence. Dry Creek, Arizona.

  Indirect, early morning sunlight trickled in through the bathroom’s glass bricks just as Detective Alex Landon’s work cellphone rang loudly from the grey marble bathroom countertop for the second time in a minute, but he still had no desire to leave Genevieve alone in their steamy oversized shower. He found her most beautiful when naked, wet, and soapy, and cop work hadn’t been his intended focus this morning. At least not yet. He knew with Operation Trifecta in full swing and Task Force Willy Pete going operational later that night, he really had no choice but to dry off and take the call, no matter what his heart and base male desired.

  Gen stood facing him, and had just finished soaping her neck, breasts, and stomach with a neon pink luffa. She stepped into contact with Alex’s erection, chest, and stomach, and then leaned forward until she playfully nibbled on his right earlobe. She tugged gently, released it, and coyly breathed her question in Alex’s right ear. “You’re not going to get that are you?”

  “Nope.” He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.

  “Are you sure?” She pressed her soapy body against his, firmly, slowly caressed him, and maintained eye contact. “You look like you’re thinkin’ about it.” A devilish smirk spread across her lips.

  “That’s, uh, not what I’m after right now.” Alex pulled her body tighter against his, enveloped her with his arms, and used the soap spread across her back and buttocks to firmly massage her body into his.

  “Oh, so you do wanna get it, just after you finish getting something else.”

  “All work an-” The third series of rings interrupted Alex’s protest, and convinced him he had to at least find out who wanted to reach him this early in the morning.

  Gen inquisitively raised her right eye brow, and continued caressing her husband. “You were saying?”

  “I was just saying, don’t go anywhere.” Alex stepped forward, pressed Gen against the heated tile wall, and passionately kissed her as the cell continued to ring at him from across the room. “I’ll be right back. The soundtrack in here is killin’ my mood.”

  “Mmmm, don’t be long, or I may not need you by the time you come back.”

  Reluctantly, Alex left the hot shower, quickly closed the frosted glass door behind him, and carefully plodded across the bathroom floor’s light cream, oversize travertine tiles. He wiped his hands on a towel near the sink basin, and impatiently picked up the call without bothering to check the caller ID. “Landon.”

  “Detective, I need your help and I need it now, without hesitation or question.”

  Alex turned away from the shower and, still nude, strode into their walk-in closet to keep this conversation private. “That’s the ballsiest thing I’ve ever heard before 0-700, Jonathan. You got some real stones calling me for unconditional help when you’ve been avoiding helping me out for so long now.” He heard Genevieve quietly make some snarky comment about ballsy things before 7am, but she spoke only loudly enough to be even more distracting, rather than to be heard and understood.

  “Look, Detective, you can arrest me for that warrant when today is over and done with, but we both have bigger problems.”

  “So you know about the warrant?”

  “You’re not the only guy I know in law enforcement, you’re just the only one I’m practically obligated to work with.”

  “So, before I deliver you to a judge later today, what do you want from me?”

  “Fuck, you may as well hear it all, I’m only sleeping at the sheriff’s inn tonight if we both live that long.” Alex heard Jonathan pause, as though he sought what to say next. “So, I decided to go back out to the boss-man’s house, the security guard that lives out on Sunvalley. I got there before sun-up and set up a nice little hide on the south end of his property just spitting distance from the shed where I found a copy of my IED manual. I had just crawled into place when the security guard walked out of the shed in a blue uniform shirt with a big, desert-brown backpack like the one my medics used in Afghanistan, with padded straps and molle webbing all over the outside.”

  “Okay, so the guard has a backpack he keeps in the shed. What do you want, Jonathan, I got much better things to be doing right now.” He looked back at the glass shower and saw Genevieve had nearly finished shaving her legs. Alex watched his wife look up and wipe condensation from the glass shower door. She gazed through the translucent glass, met his gaze with a coy smile, and pressed her beautiful, full breasts against the glass. She knows damn well how much feminine power she wields over me. Gen may be down on her job prospects, but she’s always been confident in her femininity.

  “So, after he walked off, I watched him get into that same gold Alero with the backpack, and he drove south off the property. I ran into the shed, and the bombs are gone man. The components, the copy of my stolen manual, the devices, everything’s gone. He cleaned that whole shed out, Landon, like he’s pulling up stakes or he’s operational.”

  “So, the guard from American Bank Tower carried a heavy-looking backpack out of a shed that no longer contains obvious evidence of any explosives crimes?”

  “That’s it, man, the backpack was full and heavy, and the last time I was in that shed he was building IEDs based on my manual! He’s doing something right now, even if it’s just moving the device to a more secure location to blow something the fuck up later!”

  “Okay, where is he now?”

  “That’s it, that’s the problem.” Jonathan paused, and Alex thought the informant briefly struggled to gather his composure. “I don’t know. After I left the shed, I ran back to my car, and hauled ass to catch up to him on eastbound 10, ‘cuz I figured he was most likely headed downtown since he’s wearing the security guard shirt. I saw him for about a mile, but I got stuck behind semi traffic and lost him on eastbound 10 at Oglesby, man, he’s headed somewhere into Phoenix right now, maybe to American Bank Tower, but I got no eyes on him and I can’t get through traffic to try to find him. I need your help, Landon, and I need it now! If this guy detonates, I’m never gonna forgive us for failing to stop it.”

  Alex decided to ignore the repeated trespass issues and focus on the immediate public threat. “Keep your phone on and don’t call me unless you find him, I’m gonna be busy for a while.”

  “Thanks, Landon.”

  “I don’t know yet how this is gonna end, Jonathan, but I’m gonna have a helluva time writing intel derived from criminal trespass into an affidavit. Save your thanks for later, after we both manage to make this okay.” Alex hung up the call and counted at least five people he had to somehow simultaneously notify. He decided a call to Berkshire had to win out so he could mobilize TF Willy Pete assets and quickly shuffle them into central Phoenix instead of the West Valley and Tonopah. Thankfully, Berkshire answered on the second ring and listened without firing off any unnecessary questions. They hung up with the understanding that Ron would first call the TF Willy Pete command and then notify Sergeant Rudiger, who would presumably take care of calling Lieutenant Dobbins, who would call Chief McNulty to complete their internal chain-of-command phone tree.

  Landon next called Arizona State Trooper Jay Davis, Landon’s police academy classmate and a dependable partner-in-crime.

  Sixty-Nine


  Interestate-10/43rd Ave. Phoenix, Arizona.

  Trooper Jay Davis, a celebrated employee of the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol Division, sat on the north shoulder of eastbound I-10 near central Phoenix monitoring inbound commuter traffic. His personal cellphone, held within a belt holster clipped to the driver-side sun visor, rang with a distinct “whoop-whoop” sound that announced a call from another cop. Briefly lowering his Lidar gun, Davis slid the phone from its holster, saw “Alex L” displayed on the screen ID, and answered the call.

  “Landon! What the fuck, Sparky, why are you bothering me during the start of rush hour? You know this is my favorite time of the day to make friends and influence people!”

  “Are you working 10 today, Jay?”

  “Do ugly people have ugly kids?” Davis aimed the Lidar gun at an approaching Audi and confirmed it travelled exactly 78 miles-per-hour in the posted 65 zone. “Come on, man, speeders are getting away, literally, right in front of me. What are you bothering me for?”

  “I desperately need your help, Jay, where’r you at?”

  “I-10 and 43rd Ave, traffic is just starting to back up here and I was getting ready to head farther west. Whatcha need?” Davis heard the urgency in his friend’s voice and realized he had not called for their normal city-cop versus highway-patrol banter. Landon explained the situation, which he concluded by asking for help to find the security guard’s Alero and get it stopped before it left the freeway.

  “That’s fucked. You can’t use the intel during his trespass, but you can’t ignore the possibility that this guy’s about to blow shit up just ‘cuz a few judges say you can’t use the info in court. Fuck me. So, basically, you want me to charge headlong into, maybe, a bomb fight with nothing more than my rifle and good looks? You know that’s got damned-long odds, right? This is a pretty big hero-or-zero moment, Alex, and what happens if we can’t find him? Are you gonna call it in or are you expecting me to do the dirty work?”

  “I’ll take care of a public notification if we have to do that, Jay. I’m getting our task force assets sent downtown to help. We really don’t know anything about the guy, so he may be willing to detonate if you stop him, instead of just trying to shoot you like everyone else who’s had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

  “That’s funny and true.”

  “I know what I’m asking, Jay, and I’m headed into the fray with you, but I need to hedge my bets and try to get a net out in front of this guy. I feel like we have enough to call-all-cars on this one, but my bosses aren’t convinced my informant’s info is credible, so I’m left with trying to quietly stop this guy first and, if that fails, risk the public fallout from being very, very wrong. It comes down to what I know versus what I can prove. I know everything this guy is doing indicates bad things, and I generally trust my informant and his intel, but I just don’t know for certain if the bad man in the Alero’s committing crimes today.”

  “Fuck, man, you know I’m in. I’d rather be wrong and make the stop on good faith, than be paralyzed by fear and risk a shitload of lives. Partner, if you say he’s a bad man who needs guns pointed at him, that’s good enough for me. This is why we signed up for this gig, so we could risk everything on split-second decisions and half-assed info while the attorneys and judges get all the time in the world to Monday-morning-quarterback us later.” Davis paused as the gravity of the conversation really struck him. “I’m gonna go find that bomb fight. Talk to you right after I cuff this motherfucker and save your muni ass. Feel free to resume your regularly scheduled hero-worship.” Davis disconnected the call and replaced the phone in the plastic holster. No sense calling Audrie, he thought, if this goes south, she’s got no doubt how much I love her and the kids. After habitually securing the expensive Lidar gun in his duffle bag on the otherwise empty front passenger seat, Davis shifted the Impala’s transmission in reverse and backed up next to the massive concrete support column that both kept 43rd Avenue above the freeway and separated the west- and eastbound carpool lanes. Once the tires of his unmarked sedan dropped into the dirt-and-gravel median, Davis expertly backed through a small opening in the freeway’s steel rope barrier fence and stopped on the south shoulder of westbound I-10. Pausing only long enough to type a brief message on his mobile data terminal demanding his six Highway Patrol squadmates join the hunt to aid Dry Creek PD detectives, Davis dropped the cruiser into drive and stomped the accelerator to propel him west.

  Seventy

  Landon residence. Dry Creek, Arizona.

  Having witnessed his entire demeanor and urgency change within only a few seconds of answering that first phone call, Genevieve worried about whatever urgency would inevitably take Alex away from her that morning. She waited until she found him between phone calls to address him.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” She called out from the shower, still nude and soapy, but apprehensive and fearful now that unknown evil had stripped her feminine power to command Alex’s attention.

  “I gotta go, babe, it’s urgent.” The stress and exigency in his voice only further escalated her fears. Alex had dressed during his phone calls, and now stood fully clothed in their closet. He donned the police equipment he kept concealed in their walk-in closet as he spoke through the partially opened closet door.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What?!” He yelled back without fully opening the door.

  Genevieve turned off the shower so he could hear her, then decided she could help him prepare to leave and at least hold him briefly before he did so. “What’s going on? Is there anything I can do to help?” She kept her voice and emotions level as she stepped from the shower and wrapped herself in an oversized bath towel, despite the still-present soap and shaving cream. Genevieve knew distracting Alex with concern about her emotional well-being at that moment benefitted neither of them; that conversation required a safer time. Distracted cops are dead cops. She needed him to focus on whatever threats were at hand until he safely came home to her that night. God willing.

  When Alex opened the closet door, Genevieve saw he already wore his black rifle-plated ballistic vest, badge, holstered gun, and police radio, and her heart leapt up into her throat. Hold it together, she thought, just a few more minutes. She knew Alex normally kept the rifle vest with his “bad day” kit, because its two heavy, rifle-rated ceramic armor plates kept him safe from large rifle bullets. Along with the concealed rifle plates, his vest carried six thirty-round magazines for Alex’s M4 rifle, and foretold Genevieve he intended to run toward extraordinary danger. She immediately went to him and they tightly held each other for a brief moment. Genevieve hated that vest more than most things, for it constantly reminded her of the dangers Alex and his colleagues faced in their daily lives. She felt as though she were really hugging the vest, not Alex, and despised the rifle magazines that pressed into her breasts and torso through the bath towel, the sharp-edged reminders of the very real evil Alex hunted.

  “I love you, so much, please be so safe for me.”

  “I love you, too, baby. I’m always safe.”

  As usual, they quickly kissed three times, but, either because of the vest and magazines, or her sense that Alex had, at least mentally, already run out the door and into danger, their exchange did nothing to comfort Genevieve before he left her arms and hustled to the garage.

  She had rarely seen Alex leave that urgently, despite having been routinely called out for search warrants and critical investigations. Genevieve could never decide if she preferred those rare occasions when she knew what specific dangers he faced, or not knowing what he ran toward and being left to the worst of her imagination. In these moments, Genevieve wished Alex had stayed in finance. She desperately wanted to know he would be okay and that this wouldn’t be their last moment together. Given his apparent urgency, she couldn’t selfishly force an intimate moment that would both delay and distract him. She did the only thing she could and yelled after him. “BE
SAFE! I LOVE YOU!” She heard Alex swing the interior garage door open, immediately followed by the sounds of the automated, exterior garage door rolling up.

  “I LOVE YOU MORE, BABY!”

  Genevieve felt grateful to hear his fleeting response just before the interior, spring-loaded door slammed closed. Tears welled in her eyes and fear overwhelmed her heart. She briefly stood in their bathroom, listening to the police Charger start and waiting for the exterior garage door to start closing, which meant he’d run off and away. Keep it together until he’s gone, she thought, just another few seconds. Her hands nervously fidgeted between her face and the front of her toweled chest; she looked down and noticed the shaving cream still on her right leg. Genevieve heard the dissipating sound of Alex’s police car, and then the garage door’s motor started up again; she knew she no longer had to be strong for Alex, at least for a few hours. The loud, piercing wail of Alex’s dissipating police siren racing away from her only further confirmed her fears that urgent danger had called her soulmate away.

  Genevieve dropped the sullied bath towel on the cold tile floor, stumbled back into the glass shower, and turned the hot water back on. Now alone in the large house, she knelt under the spray, prayed for safety and courage for Alex and his friends, and gave herself permission to cry. Determined he would never know how terribly the unexpected danger of Alex’s world repeatedly tore hers apart, Genevieve tried to sequester her breakdowns to these private moments.