The Lesser Evil

by Jim Magwood

  Somehow, though, a little story about crooked congressmen or faulty equipment being sent to battle zones didn’t seem to carry the punch of the events. Or, he thought, maybe they did.

  Maybe they were just as much a part of the evil that was being attacked in the events he was dealing with as anything else.

  Maybe it was all part of the same thing: evil, apathy, corruption, tolerance; the ‘I don’t care’ public attitude; the loss of ethics and morality around the world. Maybe it all comes from the same bucket. But, how do we get the bucket emptied and cleaned? Maybe the vigilantes were on the right path. Maybe it could be explained to the public.

  His mind flipped again to the thought that had been coming up often: How can they be doing this? Nobody can have this much power and this ability to snoop into lives and records and to cause these things to happen. Then he paused for a few moments and thought again, But, yes they can. The governments have this power, and even the militaries and other agencies. The NSA and the ECHELON groups. The governments just won’t do it, that’s the problem. They’ve been trapped so long by the politicians and the people who’ve been crying about their rights that they just refuse to step out and do what the real people want. If we ever really turned the military loose, for instance, with all their assets they could practically wipe out drugs and crime overnight.

  So why not someone else? It just takes money and scientific knowledge. And you can buy that if you have the money.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Well, there’s that house right down the street from mine, and it’s just drugs and cars all night long. Every night. I’ve called the cops half a dozen times, but they just say they’re working on it and there’s nothing they can do right now. I can’t stand this any more. It’s got to stop.”

  “Charles, are you willing to get involved with us and help take care of it?”

  “You bet. I know I’m not strong enough on my own, but if you guys will help me…”

  “Okay. Bob, Randy, Mike, are we ready to do this?”

  “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? We said we wanted to help clean up our streets, so now we have an example. I say let’s do it. Those vigilante guys in the news are doin’ it, so we sure can. These are our neighborhoods.”

  “Mike?”

  “I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  “Randy?”

  “Yeah. It’s time to take back our neighborhoods. These people have been running us out for too long. I say let’s go.”

  “Okay, we’re all in, then. So, how do we do it? Charles, you know the place. What can you suggest?”

  “Well, I’ve been watching them for a lot of nights, and it looks like about ten or so they get rolling pretty heavy and it goes on until maybe two or three, then it starts slowing down.

  If we want to catch them in the place with the drugs, then the best time would be somewhere in there. There’s never much action out back. It’s basically just drive right up front, someone comes out with the stuff, then they drive out. If we went up to the back, they’d probably never know we were there.”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right to me, too. You guys okay with that?”

  Everyone okayed the idea, so Frank continued.

  “I’ll have the extra gas cans from the construction site. If we can all get up to the house with a can each and pour it around the foundation and on the walls around the sides and back, it’ll go fast. It’ll probably be gone before the fire department can even get there.”

  “They keep a really expensive looking car in the garage out back. Can we get that, too, so they’re really out some cash?”

  “Yeah, one of us can do that, too.”

  “Okay. Tonight?”

  They all agreed.

  “Okay, then, let’s all meet back here at eight. We’ll drive over to Charles’ place—be sure you park up the street and around the corner away from his house—and we’ll go down the alley and in the back. I’ll have the gas and the lighters, so you all don’t have to bring anything. Be sure you wear some dark clothing, and don’t be carrying anything that might fall out of your pockets. We’ll tell our families we’re all meeting at my house for cards, and I’ll have everything in place. Julie’s at her mother’s place for a few days, so there’ll be nobody to see us. We’ll watch the ballgame at Charles’ place for a while, then about eleven—sound right, Charles?—we’ll head out.

  We’ll be back by twelve at the latest, head over to my place, cleanup a little and play some cards, then head home by maybe one? Just tell your people we’re meeting for the game and cards.”

  Shortly after eleven that night, the men walked quietly up the alley from behind Charles’ place to the drug house. They watched from the alley for several minutes and saw fairly constant activity out the front with people delivering drugs, presumably, to the cars at the curb. The back of the house was quiet, and even dark. No movement at all. Frank had provided gloves for everyone, and the men each carried a five-gallon gas can. They had emptied their pockets of wallets, keys and all other personal items into a bag Frank carried and left the bag inside the back yard back at Charles’ place. Now they carefully opened the gate into the drugger's back yard and crept up to the house. Charles was appointed to douse the garage; the others quietly went around the sides of the house and emptied their gas cans on the walls as they moved back to the yard.

  Frank checked each man out as they met together, then made sure all the gas cans were accounted for. He directed the men to move back into the alley. The men walked back to the spot behind Charles’ house, then Frank went back to the drug house while the others got their possessions, moved out of the alley and to the cars. They stowed the gas cans carefully in the trunks and got in the cars, ready to move out.

  When Frank got back to the yard, he took the last gas can to the back of the house, then emptied it in a trail from the house to the garage and back out to the alley. The can was plastic, so he walked back to the house and stuffed it under the porch, knowing the fire would destroy it. He then walked back to the alley, closed the gate, pulled out one of the little lighters he had brought, and touched the flame to the small gas puddle on his side of the fence. The fire caught immediately and he watched for a moment as it zipped under the fence and half way across the yard to the garage. Then he turned and walked quickly down the alley to the cars.

  He heard the sound of the fire as it softly exploded into full force at the garage, then a louder eruption as it raced to the house and rushed up the walls. He pointed to the first car and it moved out, then got into the second one and got it going.

  They had all been pointed away from the alley and the drug house, and they drove out of the neighborhood in the opposite direction from Frank’s house, then turned after a few blocks and arrived back at his place within about ten minutes. Frank lived just around a bend in the street in a cul-de-sac where his home was the only one completed yet, so he knew the arrival of the cars wouldn’t be noted by anyone.

  The men brought the gas cans into Frank’s back yard and he loaded them into his work truck to take back to the job site in the morning, freshly filed with gas for the work at the site.

  Each man used the bathroom and washed carefully to be sure there was no smell of gas on them, then went to the kitchen and poured a small amount of beer down the front of his shirt and pants to be sure there was a covering smell, just in case.

  Then, they all sat down at the table, had a quick drink in case someone happened to talk to them within a short time, and started up the card game. Frank checked the news to get the score of the game they had agreed they had watched. He heard there had been one spectacular play that was being talked about, so the men memorized the rough details for later conversations.

  About 1:30, the men left Frank’s place and returned home. Nobody noticed them. When Charles got home, he saw the fire trucks and equipment still down the street. His wife was awake and brought him up to speed on the event of the night—a huge, fast fire and the drug house completel
y destroyed. They celebrated the loss of the house and the drug business with a quick nightcap, then turned in.

  The fire was reported in the news the next day as being of suspicious origin, then confirmed in the nightly news as definitely having been arson. It was also reported that four people had been caught and killed in the fast moving fire—a man and woman and two small children, all apparently sleeping in a back bedroom. Several other people were reported to have rushed out of the house and away as the fire engulfed the building.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Mr. Hested, what are your thoughts now after getting out of the hijacking of your tour bus last week?”

  “Well, I do have to admit that they didn’t hurt any of us.

  After we got over our initial shock, they had lots of food and water all set out for us, and bathroom facilities. The tourist bureau refunded all our money for the part of our tour that was in Egypt. It really wasn’t so bad. It kind of sounds like those guys took the buses to attack that city, but I…I don’t know that for sure. Sure hope nobody was hurt in that thing. Guess it’ll really be something to tell the grandkids, huh?”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “This is David Herzog coming to you from Jerusalem.

  We’ve been able to get some more pictures from our representatives in Cairo of the city that was virtually destroyed in Egypt last week, and more information as to what’s happening to the ruling family there. As you can see on the screen, there’s not much left of the city. Most of the newest tourist places weren’t touched, but the extent of the destruction in the rest of the city is simply amazing. Word is now coming through that it’s likely the city will not be rebuilt, at least not in the same place. Tourist visits to the hotels and casinos have, of course, dropped off to nothing and most of them have now been closed, maybe permanently.

  “It now appears that several tourist buses owned by the family were taken from a tour group near the Aswan Dam and driven north to the city. They were apparently filled with some kind of explosives and then driven into the city to strategic points where they were detonated in the early morning hours.

  The tourists who had the buses taken from them were not injured, and actually received new buses the next morning and had all their money refunded by the tourist bureau. There are also reports that, despite the terrible damage here, very few people in the city were seriously injured by the explosions.

  There were three fatalities at the oil refinery that was destroyed and about twenty people brought to the hospital for assorted burns and injuries, but with the city being almost completely destroyed, the injury figures are amazingly low.

  There are rumors that a warning was spread through the neighborhoods of the city prior to the explosions and the greatest majority of people living there left before the destruction took place. The workers in the electric and petroleum plants apparently saw the buses and figured out what was happening and they all left the plants immediately. Apparently, the only ones who really had no notice, and were in the city when the explosions went off, were the various members of the ruling family, their immediate guards and staff, and the tourists in the grand hotels in the new area of the city.

  “We understand now that the ruling family has lost almost everything. Most of their money and almost all the documents showing ownership to their assets were in the couple of large banks in the city that were completely destroyed. For some unknown reason, there was apparently no backup of bank accounts or the documents in any of the home offices of the local banks. Everything was held on a local basis, so with the destruction, there is no way of proving account balances, ownership of properties, and so on.

  “We are being told that most of the people that were living in the city have left, either looking for other places to live or trying to find new sources of livelihood. The incoming oil pipelines were destroyed by the explosions that went back up the lines and we’re being told the destruction is so extensive no one can predict when the lines might be re-built. The family members have been left with no income flow, and with the missing documents, no way of reestablishing rights, and so forth, to renew the income sources. They are apparently also having a difficult time getting anyone else to come forward with sources of financing so they can even begin to start rebuilding.”

  CHAPTER 16

  LOS ANGELES (June 5) Police Commissioner Charles Roberts, when questioned by city leaders at a special meeting yesterday, said that it does appear that certain crime rates are rising in the city, and that it is apparently reflective of the nation as a whole. “While crimes against property, such as bur-glaries and auto theft, and crimes directly against individuals, such as armed robbery and assault, appear to have been held in check, and even reduced to a degree, crimes against both property and individuals that we would generally call ‘terror-istic’ are appearing to rise quite dramatically.”

  Commissioner Roberts said that many cities across the country are seeing attacks of all kinds against “supposed criminal elements” by what he said “can only be called civilian vigilante groups,” and that many of these attacks are taking deadly aim on their targets. He cited eleven attacks in the Los Angeles area over the past two weeks that were targeted against known gang members or their residences and meeting places in which several members were killed. “These attacks appear to have been conducted by regular citizens of the city and not by rival gang members. From information received at our TIPS phone centers, we have reason to believe the attacks were by people who were claiming to be sick and tired of the criminal elements running lawful citizens out of their neighborhoods.” The Commissioner also said there had been seven arson attacks lately against local businesses that were rumored to have been providers of much of the illegal drugs and pornography in their areas. Once again, the Commissioner said information received seemed to be pointing toward private citizens being behind the attacks.

  The city leaders called on Commissioner Roberts to have the city police forces crack down on any of these illegal vigilante actions, and ensured citizens that the safety of everyone was paramount to everyone on the city governing boards. The Commissioner again stated that he was receiving data from across the country that showed these types of attacks by private citizens to be on the rise in many communities.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  As he read the article, Henry thought that nobody was speaking about the vigilante group. But, it was obvious that civilians around the world were beginning to watch them and were now trying to copy their activities. He tried to get his mind around the question of whether that was a good or bad thing and whether the citizen activities might get out of control. However, he constantly came back to the idea that if the citizens hadn’t let the problems get out of hand in the first place, if they had controlled their governments and legal agencies from the beginning, they wouldn’t likely have to take such actions now. Maybe now there simply weren’t any other ways to restore sanity to a world seemingly very lost.

  CHAPTER 17

  “This is Trenton Simpson and we return now to our discussion with the Reverend Jesse Campbell of the People Helping People organization of Chicago and Ali Hassan al-Sistani, the leader of the Democratic People’s Freedom Authority. Gentlemen, welcome back, and let’s continue with what you were saying, Reverend Campbell, about this latest terrorist attack in Egypt.”

  “Thank you, Trenton. I was saying that there is simply no way to justify these vicious attacks, especially by an unknown group of terrorists and against people who are peace loving and generous. The family there had opened their palaces to visitors from around the world so precious religious relics could be viewed by everyone. They processed a large amount of petroleum products at the refinery in the city and were shipping those products to people who really needed them.

  And I’m told that a huge amount of the profits from those sales were used to better the lives of the people who lived in the city. How could anyone justify attacking them like this?”

  Hassan al-Sistani quickly added, “If I could add, M
r.

  Simpson, the people who carried out this repulsive terrorist act are enemies of all decent religious people around the world.

  The people of the city were loving and kind people who wor-shipped openly and encouraged everyone to do so freely. The mosques were open to all. The family members gave large gifts to be distributed to the needy in the city. These terrorists were obviously godless maniacs bent on destroying the freedoms the people have worked so hard and so long to gain. Did you know, Mr. Simpson, that the family members started out as simple sheep herders and farmers in that area generations ago, and that they rose to their positions through hard work and faithful service to their own leaders?”

  “I did hear they were poor farmers when they started, Mr.

  al-Sistani, and they appeared to be very generous with their wealth. Do either of you know whether they plan to rebuild the university that was in the city?”