The Loma Linda surveillance team sees ‘Duardo show up; they listen in on the conversations within, noting how much shouting ‘Duardo is doing; mostly due to his ears still ringing. He is in a room of equals – five in all – and one superior, a guy called James. He listens to ‘Duardo telling the story of rolling up on the house, periodically waving his hand downward, suggesting that ‘Duardo turn down the volume. ‘Duardo tells him about the smell, knowing now it was likely gas. He tells James how he bent down to look under the trailer, crouching low enough to be out of the blast and debris field, at just the right moment. He shouts about the ringing in his ears, tells about the men’s body parts laying about in the yard, splattered against the next trailer, an eyeball dangling from a kitchen vent, covered in what remains of a head, and while recounting the moment, the recordings seem to express that ‘Duardo threw up (he vomited in the trash bucket).
Professional listeners would later say that they could hear the guttural noises of the vomit coming up, along with the resonance of a metal bucket of some sort as the vomit splashed into the bare bottom, causing the ringing vibrations of what may have been perceived as bell-wrapped-barf. No one knows why they felt the need to provide such detailed information about a man puking; maybe just to show off their skills. As you can imagine, they don’t get out much, and any opportunity to engage other humans is a bonus.
‘Duardo says it seemed to take forever to wake up, that he got a glimpse of someone, sitting on Tiny’s bike, wearing Tiny’s colours, with a phone against their face, but that then he could see that it was not Tiny, but a woman. In flashes of light and darkness, he got only moments of her presence and actions. It was flitting visions of motion, jammed together as if a film had dropped a bunch of the frames out of every second. She was way over there, then there, then over there, then here, but never anywhere in between. In jolts and jumps and flashes, she walked over, putting the phone between her and the world as she went, but in a moment she had hopped back on the bike, and was gone.
James told ‘Duardo to stay in the house for a few days, that his hearing would likely return, that James had suffered some hearing loss similar to this when he was at grenade practice, having unknowingly lost his earplug in one ear. He actually patted him on the shoulder, gave him a hug, scruffling his hair, saying, “I’m just glad that you weren’t killed too.” He slapped him on the back a few more times, then gently pushed him aside to shake hands with the others, and give them some instructions. He told the other four that everyone should be on their best, tightest security, double up on the ammo, just in case. Everyone should reach out to their farthest underlings and let them know there may be trouble. “The trailer couldn’t have gone up on its own . . . someone lit the fuse.”
The report comes in from the police; the explosion was arson, and every person inside the trailer was dead before it happened. The high-speed explosion scorched the cheap carpet to the mat, singed half the hair off everyone, even melted some of the faces more than a little, making them almost unidentifiable. Their wallets were missing, so the cops have to build a list, and their colours make it possible for the gang taskforce to be able to put names and handles to every body they found. The biggest man in the house died of bodily bludgeoning, and several others were shot to death. One had been beaten to near-death, and then his leg had been sliced open, bleeding him out.
This appears to have been a major attack on a drug den, but the motive is uncertain, seeing as how the drugs and weed were burnt up on the carpet. There was no money to be found in the house, other than whatever the guys had loose in their pockets, and there was one other minor detail that made little sense. When the bodies of these dead criminals are brought into the morgue, their DNA is sampled to see if they can be connected to any criminal events, especially where the CSU was able to bring back evidence. In the case of the “Trailer Park Tragedy,” as one Latino news outlet called it, the DNA evidence of five of the men led back to a single incident – a recently raped body dump. None of them was in CODIS . . . until now. But the television crowd is not let in on that bit of news.
A pair of detectives went to the house of the victim – Mae Ishikawa – and met with her parents. They asked a lot of questions, made a lot of assumptions, queried to see if Mae was known to frequent biker bars, run with gangsters, or deal in drugs. “No!” her parents testified.
The Club
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.[5]
E-Day Minus 7.5 Years
James W. Blitchington was born in Aiken, South Carolina in 1978, and had no greater ambition than to be a part of something other than his own backwoods family. His was a long-standing, redneck clan, with a history of shine-runners and screw-ups; always just one step on the wrong side of the law, like the Dukes of Hazard, but without the cool car, hot cousin, or the grins and giggles. Within his family to the furthest cousins, there were over five hundred years combined time served on petty charges that locked them away for between one month and ten years. The only thing that keeps this from being the saddest family saga in history is that there are about sixty aunts, uncles, and cousins that he knows. They averaged about four years each.
He had joined the Air Force when he was seventeen, and at the end of his second tour, he decided, and the Air Force agreed, that if he would re-up he could train to be Security Police, so they sent him to Lackland AFB. He wasn’t one of the typical police types who actually want to protect and serve, but instead one of those who secretly preferred to have power over others, not in a military command sort of way, but in an abusive, malicious way. Still, he had said all the right words and done the right things to pass his eval, and they sent him to school.
Luther Martens was another of the bad fit cop cadets, and soon enough they found one another. Together they discovered that it was more fun, and of far greater profit, to smoke the weed and sell the meth than it could ever be to stop it from being smoked and sold. They weren’t actually busted for the drugs, because no one ever looked that far, but for insubordination – resulting from a terrible attitude – and conduct unbecoming. When James met Luther, they were a party unto themselves, and time not spent in school was almost certainly spent, at first in the EM Club, then in the bars, pool halls, and bowling alleys, both on and off base. They drank a lot of beer at first, then whiskey, and by week nine they were smoking weed, and occasionally dabbling in weekend coke and occasionally dropping mescaline into mezcal, or what they liked to call a “double mess.” Then they met Jacob Peters, and that was the beginning of the end for their Air Force careers, and the impetus for their careers as drug lords.
Jacob Peters was a thinker, and a corner cutter like few others. He had learned to get through everything in life with the least amount of actual effort, and usually with very little dedication. He believed in nothing but himself, and despite giving the illusion of caring for his comrades, he was the center of his own universe, and he was not likely to change. He had a woman who had taken his name in marriage, but whenever he was away from her, he made no gestures that would lead anyone to believe that he was faithful. He had taken several other women in the past years since they all left the Air Force, and except for the one with his ring, if they turned up pregnant and then let him know about it, he aborted the pregnancy, the relationship, and sometimes the woman, who may just disappear. He wasn’t getting tied down with any more than he wanted, and he barely wanted his own. The family was a convenience, a source of pride, almost like a pride of ownership, and a construct that lent legitimacy to his everyday life.
His wife, Angela, is the picture of a perfect trophy wife; three kids – four, eight, and eleven – a house in Inwood, wearing sunglasses indoors, driving a eighty-five-thousand dollar Tesla, sometimes slumming in her Mercedes, sporting the finest in designer clothes all year round, long sleeves and calf length . . . and all of it topping off her $400 heels. She exercises her ass off – literally and figuratively – with a workout bottle loaded with Blo
ody Mary in the morning, screwdriver in the afternoon, and a Vodka Collins at night. When they are out together, which is rare, she sips champagne, staying more sober than usual, mostly out of self-defense. She loves her life, her car, her wardrobe, her Maltese, and her home, and she is even a bit more than attached to the kids, but she all but loathes Jacob. Yaakov, she calls him behind his back, or when he is away, and she’s alone, reminding herself of the colloquial meaning of his name . . . Deceiver. The only thing she likes about him is the sex. He really gets worked up, puts himself into it, with both skill and fervor, but only about two or three times a month. She can’t divorce him because a pre-nup says that she would get nothing but child support, and while that may be worth a grand or two per kid, per month, that would never keep them in Inwood, and it sure wouldn’t help her make it to the Dominion – the most high-tone neighborhood in the San Antonio area. It’s where movie stars, music stars, big name preachers, and basketball legends live. It’s where she wants to live too. No, she can’t divorce him, and she doesn’t have the chutzpah to kill him, so she drinks.
James either can’t keep a girl or doesn’t want to, but every month or so he is seeing someone else. Luther says that it’s because James is gay, but that may just be Luther’s wishful thinking.
Luther has had the same boyfriend for the past year or so, though the past month or two he has been complaining to the guys more and more. This is his pattern. Find someone, invest completely, proclaim the love of his life, bask in the sunshine for a while, then begin to find the flaws in their every breath until, finally, there must be a separation; and always with more drama than anyone can stand.
The last one, or maybe it was the one before, pulled a gun on him in a shouting match, out in the yard – downright Shakespearian – over the car door, but Jacob “happened by” just as the gun appeared. Jacob shot him straight in the eyeglasses from three feet away. The neighbors had come out to see the pissing match, which had become a circus. They first came out to see if it would get to fisticuffs, or just a slapping contest, and they testified to what they saw. Stupid pulled a gun on Luther, just after Jacob arrived, and Jacob shot him in Luther’s defense. Five neighbors, five stories, one Concealed Handgun License, and in a week – after ballistics testing – the gun would be returned to Jacob. Of course, Jacob would have the gun melted down, so it would never be identified in a crime.
Each of these men have five or six guys that answered directly to them, each of whom had six or eight guys, each of whom had another five to ten in their crew. With a little help from a hacker friend, Helene at Langley – a government employed hacker – Helene was able to spider together all of the calls from all the cell phones Mike garnered. She was able to tell the phones they called, then the phones that those phones called, until they ran out of bad guys. In four days’ time, she had a package delivered by FedEx that was nearly twenty pounds, containing the complete records – criminal, marriage, divorce, military, and immigration – even those of the guys who were not legal in this country. She has copies of Mexican, Dominican, and Honduran criminal records, along with the names of about fifty cops on the SAPD, and another ten on Lackland AFB, each of which received too many calls from this phone network to not be in the pocket. She had service records of all those cops as well. She had their academy records, citations, performance reviews, family members who were vulnerable, financials, and more. She knew everything there was to know about this virtually unknown local cartel. Thanks to her, they were about to go from underground crime masters to front-page news, in a most colourful way. The files all had tags on them indicating if the person in the file was an enforcer, a soldier, a distributor, a team leader, middle management, or leadership. There were also locations of operations that belonged to “The Club,” as she was calling it.
Mike had arrived home for the funeral of her sister, Mae, and to tend to the two zombies that seemed to be what is left of their parents. They are operating on autopilot, nodding and agreeing their way through everything. The pastor had made comments about being in a better place, but Mike looked at him like a dog staring at a fish. Did he even know her sister? She helped make certain that all the funeral arrangements went off without a hitch. Mission Funerals had a package and she wrote a check, they filled in all the blanks about time and place, what services were needed; viewing – check, family and friends meet and greet – check, hors d’oeuvres – check, grave-side service – check, check, check, all the way down the line. She stayed with them for almost a week, ‘til she couldn’t stand the image of the walking dead they were becoming, so she got busy.
She got drunk, or seemed to get drunk, found the exact wrong guys she wanted, and you know the rest up ‘til now. And what happened next is that now . . . boy howdy . . . well, now she’s armed to the teeth with knowledge. Now, she will test the mettle of every man involved in the gang, the leadership of everyone with an underling, and the loyalty of the soldiers in the army of Jacob. She has had several days to work her ideas into plans, digging through the piles of intel from her friend in Langley, shuffling records, payments, papers of all kinds, setting things in order on the floor and walls of her hotel room. The place resembles one of those scenes in a crime movie where the whack job is plotting to kill someone. Well . . .
Her next move is getting her friend at Langley to hack the OnStar for the family limo. Then, at three forty in the afternoon, on a very typical Monday, she waits on the route they are taking home from the kids’ school. The limo pulls by as she calls the number at OnStar, trailing by nearly two hundred feet, speaking on the Bluetooth of her helmet she sends her message directly to the leaders of this corporation of thugs. She wants to be terribly specific
“This is OnStar; how may we assist you today?” the pleasant voice says into her ear.
“Hello, this is Angela Peters and my car has just been stolen.”
“Mrs. Peters, do you know your account number?”
“No, but I have the license plate of the car, would that help?”
“Yes, that will help me find your account.” There is a pause for about ten seconds after she has the plate number. “Here it is! Can you give me your password?”
Angela uses the same password for everything so this one is easy, “Marilyn 62!”
“Just a moment Mrs. Peters.” The lady on the other end of the phone is quietly humming Amazing Grace, then she says, “I have located your car and have initiated the shutdown process.” The limo begins to slow before her. “I will be contacting law enforcement now to let them know where the car is and that the thieves are locked inside.” The limo is stopping and she is slowing as she thanks the OnStar lady for her help in a tone of jubilation.
She reaches into her shoulder bag and pulls out a small sticky grenade, which she arms by a press of a button on the top, as she glides by the limo. As the driver is struggling to open the door, she slaps it onto the window right beside his face, speeding away. He yells out at her briefly, thinking she has just slapped his car for working for the wealthy, “Hey bitch!” and then, if only for a tenth of a secone, he sees what she has done.
The charge explodes right before his eyes, driving sixty pellets of steel wrapped lead, like a mini-Claymore mine, detonating through his face from a range of eight inches. His face is fully perforated, and the back of his head is splattered down his back, on the seat, and the far door. The privacy panel between the front and back seats is cracked all the way across, but the children in the back seat are only slightly aware of the incident, being fully engaged in their devices – gaming, Facebooking, texting – and oblivious to the world until it all went bang. Then they are pissed because the car is stopped, the doors are locked, they cannot see the driver, the privacy panel will not go down, they are not going to get home at their expected time, and even more so when they learn that “daddy” is going to cancel their further adventures into the world. For now, their world is about to be reduced to their devices.
Jacob gets a call from the police –
one of the cops on his payroll, Dixon, who is on duty – saying that the limo has been attacked, the driver is dead, and the kids are okay. Dixon has taken the statements from the children and has begun his trip to deliver them at the house as he makes the call. The kids didn’t see anything, they didn’t hear anything, and they didn’t know anything, except that the car stopped and the driver – Big Tony they called him – was dead. They liked Big Tony fine, and Tony got along with them okay, taking them to their extracurriculars, and sometimes for an ice cream on the way home, mostly because Big Tony liked ice cream. The kids were all too cool for that, or so they would say, until it was time to pick out their favorite flavors. Yeah, they liked him, but he was like every other cog in their world, making no mistake it was their world, and the cogs, however pleasant, are still just cogs. Apple . . . tree.
Jacob asks Dixon if he can stay with the kids until home security can be established, on site, as needed. Dixon agrees, but that he has to get back to working the crime scene soon, and Jacob understands. When Sergeant Dixon arrives with the kids, there is already a man at the door, so he feels comfortable depositing the kids, and he heads back to the limo.
“What do we know?” he asks as he approaches someone of the CSU.
“We know that the car had been decelerated, switched off, and stopped when it was hit, and that it was done by a small explosive device, seeming like a one sided grenade.”
“What the hell does that?”
“Well, the blast took what is essentially a bunch of small bullets and blew them through the window into the face of the driver. The blast pattern is very narrow, so that the shots would impact mostly his face, leaving only about another ten degrees of blast allowing a few bullets to stray on each side of his head. Actually, if he had ducked, he may be alive today.” He points to the privacy panel, saying, “See how there is only about half a dozen impact points on the glass and a crack all the way across. Also,” pointing to the dash board, “see how much went on this side of him? A few in the glove box, a few in the headliner, and a couple cracked the window on the other side.” He stands with his hands forming frames through which to gaze, trying to look at the wreckage as a whole and observes, “No, sergeant, this is a message.”
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 7
