by Gavin Reese
“On behalf of the Massachusetts State Police, the City and People of Bahstuhn, and the Bahstuhn Red Sawx, welcome to Red’s Tavern, the V-I-P lounge for Red Sawx Nation!” More cheers. “I think the cahd’ll bettuh explain all this.”
Jonathan opened the mystery envelope and read its elegant Thank You card, which had a handwritten, and atypically short, note: “Jonathan, Colleen, and Michael—Alex asked me to put something together to show our gratitude to all three of you. It turned out there are a LOT of people, here in Dry Creek and there in Boston, who wanted in on it, and my personal Fenway seats were no longer a sufficient gift. This quickly got out of hand and you all deserve every minute of it. Gratefully Yours, McNulty”
Colonel Minogue spoke again to the three of them after Jonathan looked up from the card and passed it to Colleen. “A lifetime and fifty pounds ago, McNulty was my fuhst and best trainin’ officuh. I owe that man my life, so when he called me to have a few guys walk ya over to the Pahk, I had to do bettuh ‘n ‘at. A few phone calls and a lot of philanthropy later, here we ahhh.” He then specifically addressed Jonathan. “How’s yuhh ahhm?”
Jonathan, perplexed by the question, stood silent for a moment, pondering the strange inquiry. “Fine, I guess, it wasn’t injured.”
“Good.” Minogue produced a baseball from behind his back and tossed it to Jonathan. “’Cuz you’re throwin’ out the fuhst pitch. I suggest some stretches, they’ll boo a duhtball, no matter who ya ahhh.”
One-Hundred-Four
Third Row Visiting Side, Fenway Park. Boston, Massachusetts.
After a respectable First Pitch, two Red Sox homers, and a three-run lead over the Rays, Jonathan stood with Colleen and Michael, a mere three rows above the visiting dugout with the other 37,068 voices singing Sweet Caroline during the seventh-inning stretch. It suddenly occurred to Jonathan that, only a year ago, he’d boarded a cargo plane to begin his last trip home. He thought back on the previous twelve months and felt so fortunate to be alive, to be with family who still liked and loved him, and to be here in this moment, a memory he would someday carry to Saint Peter. He and Colleen made eye contact, tears welling up in both their eyes as they kissed, and Michael sang off-key, happily squished between them.
“Sweet Caroline—BUH- BUH- BUH – Good times never seemed so good! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!”
One-Hundred-Five
Landon residence. Dry Creek, Arizona.
Alex and Genevieve sat on their couch, sharing a six-pack of local ale and watching the Sox finish off the Rays. They cheered from home every time the Fenway crowd blew up, first when the McDougals were introduced and then again when Jonathan’s first pitch met leather behind the plate, rather than dirt in front of it. As the crowd now sang Sweet Caroline, Alex’s work phone announced a new text message. He picked up the smartphone and opened the messaging app.
“u done good,” read the message from McNulty.
“They’re ur seats, sir,” he responded.
“2nd JTTF spot opens 2mrw. I expect ur letter of interest in the am”
“I’ll consider it, sir”
“Memo. Am. Do u need an order?”
Alex felt happy to be out of the limelight and simply back at work. Reporters from local news agencies initially stalked him at the Department, and eventually at his home, with requests for comments and interviews during the weeks following the attempted American Bank Tower bombing. The national news agencies were very content to accept the Department’s statements that he was just another cop doing his job and, instead, latch onto McDougal and his involvement as a combat veteran, citizen, and Good Samaritan; the local stations soon followed suit and let Alex and Genevieve be. The Army’s decision to recommission Jonathan at his previous rank and assign him to a local recruiting office to stay home with his family made for tremendous, feel-good news amid their normal “bleeding and leading” stories. Yep, finally back on track…
One-Hundred-Six
McNulty residence. Dry Creek, Arizona.
McNulty, on his own couch with three fingers of chilled Jameson, closed his work phone and returned his attention to the seventh-inning stretch, which he understood would soon be prolonged a bit. Minogue and his contacts within the Sox organization had truly pulled out all the stops to thank the McDougals. McNulty watched the live feed change from a slow, sweeping view of the sell-out crowd to a stationary focus on his personal seats, where he saw Roger “Red” Gerald, the voice of the Red Sox, standing next to Jonathan just as Red’s famous voice replaced Neil Diamond on the PA.
“Jonathan, as a final token from a grateful Red Sox Nation, I am here to present you with a game ball. This is the same baseball you threw out today to open up this season, but it’s now been signed by the entire Boston Red Sox roster! Thank you again for your family’s service to our country!” Gerald handed the protectively encased ball to Jonathan as the crowd again erupted in cheers around them.
McNulty watched Jonathan shake Red’s hand, and then hold the ball up and wave his cap in gracious thanks to the assembled crowd. The camera stayed on McDougal long enough to allow McNulty and millions of viewers to watch him turn and give the protected ball to his overjoyed son. Based on the roaring din emanating from his television, McNulty smiled as he imagined the deafening volume inside Fenway.
Red stepped out of view, Neil Diamond returned to the PA for one final chorus, and the celebration continued.
“Sweet Caroline—BUH- BUH- BUH – Good times never seemed so good! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!”
Epilogue
Dry Creek Town Hall Chambers. Dry Creek, Arizona.
Detective Ron Berkshire spoke before the Dry Creek Emergency Management Team, which had gathered in a secure Town Hall conference room for a monthly closed-door meeting. Despite his efforts to avoid these overly bureaucratic events, local Joint Terrorism Task Force had received credible and corroborated intelligence that organized terror groups within the United States and Western Europe had devised new tactics. The sources, unidentified to local law enforcement personnel, had discussed several groups’ desire to create abnormally sophisticated criminal conspiracies to use government regulations against first responders, regulatory agencies, disaster response organizations, hospital staff, and personnel tied to critical infrastructure in the days and weeks leading up to the execution of actual terror events. Further, the intel provided to Berkshire and the other JTTF personnel specifically warned that such groups intended to manipulate police and fire department policies and procedures to deteriorate the effectiveness of lifesaving and apprehension efforts in response to planned attacks.
Looking up from his handwritten briefing notes, Berkshire saw his news elicited minimal interest from Town Council members, but he continued anyway. “Law enforcement, emergency medical personnel, and emergency management command staff and administrators are encouraged to identify weak or disadvantageous policies that could be exploited, especially by those making false or salacious claims against uniformed patrol officers and key leadership and administrative officials. The policies most subject to conspiratorial manipulation are those that remove discretion from supervisors or Command Staff, and mandate specific and immediate remedies, such as mandated or minimum administrative leave policies.” He paused and looked around the room for reactions.
“So, you want us to do a complete review of all Town policy that affects personnel from police, fire, water, power, and road departments, just because some native Chechens in Georgia were found with police policy manuals in the trunk of their Soviet-era sedan?”
Berkshire sometimes wondered if the sarcastic Town Manager had any friends who weren’t also relatives. “No, sir, that was only one of the most recent examples provided to substantiate and better explain the intelligence. The specifics of most other related incidents are classified, so we don’t necessarily get a lot of details.”
“Horseshit. That’s gonna end up as thousands of man-hours for something that ain’t never gon
na happen here. I can’t see putting in the time and money required for that, and I’d hate to see that much effort and money get wasted because of the contagious, institutional paranoia of your federal cohorts.”
Berkshire held his tongue, just as he believed he’d done almost every time he spoke with the current Town Manager. “Sir, I understand that a lot of what our group discusses and worries about can often be misunderstood as ‘what if’ scenarios, but this is very different, and I believe, warrants swift and immediate action on our part. This isn’t a hypothetical, paranoia-based fear. This is not ‘what if,’ this is ‘what is.’ Known organized crime groups, several of them international terror groups, are actively pursuing these objectives. As we speak, there are dangerous, well-trained men opposed to our beliefs, our way of life, and our very existence, whose ideology drives them to try to eradicate us from the face of the Earth like weeds. This is an early warning, an opportunity for us to make certain, particularly in conjunction with other Phoenix-area municipalities, to ensure that our policies and procedures don’t unnecessarily expose us to risk of these types of attacks.”
“So, everybody else is doin’ it, so we have to, too? Is that it?”
“No, sir,” Berkshire shook his head ‘no,’ looked down at the table before him, and tried to determine the best line of discourse that could logically persuade the Town Manager to understand he wasn’t trying to waste their time and money with arbitrary requests. “What I’m hoping to explain, is that we have a known, specific threat that bad actors want to target us through our own internal rules, an--”
“You mean, like our Internal Affairs investigations policy and procedure?”
“Yes, sir, exactly, policies like that, that--”
“Well, then, I think we can say that this discussion is over with. You boys’ve been trying to get those policies changed for years to whatever you seem to think will better protect cops who oughta be drummed outta here on a rail. So, no, there’s no chance we’re gonna move forward with letting you and your organized, conspiratorial union folks use some Russian religious problem to get things changed to benefit you and your cop buddies, when those policies have to protect the public, NOT the cops who maybe shouldn’t be here anyway.”
It’s no use, Berkshire thought, this man will never see the light, and would disagree if I said he’s breathing air. “I’m sorry you feel that way, sir, because that’s in no way what’s going on here. My role with the Police Union has nothing to do with this discussion. However, since you bring it up, I think it’s only fair to let you know we plan to endorse any candidate who opposes you in the next election because of your decisions and actions exactly like this.”
“I wish you the best of luck, Berkshire, because the voters in this Town see right through your efforts to protect dirty cops, an--”
“Tom,” Berkshire interrupted the Town Manager and called him by his first name, “when you’re sitting at home one day wondering where your political career went wrong, I sincerely hope you think back to this day, and realize it was your repeated failures to allow your professional police and fire personnel to drag you into the 21st Century. We hate bad cops even more than you do, and I don’t understand how you can’t ever comprehend that.”
THE END
Gavin Reese
Gavin answers his call to service by working as a professional cop, spends most weekends and holidays in a patrol car, and is honored to protect and serve the public in this manner. His ongoing training and experience in areas such as Patrol, Narcotics, Undercover Operations, Counter-Terrorism, Sex and Human Trafficking, S.W.A.T., and Dark Web Investigations provide an ever-growing queue of ideas and stories for his fact-based fiction. Gavin’s rare free time is devoted to family, travel, martial arts, SCUBA diving, mountaineering, and pursuing the perfect ice cream. A portion of all Gavin’s sales is donated to charities that serve law enforcement professionals and veterans, their families and heirs, and honor the memory of our Fallen Heroes.
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