by Glen Tate
Everyone was getting roaring drunk. Some came pretty buzzed and others came high. The hookers sure were. They had to be pretty blasted to crawl into bed with these fat, old bureaucrats.
All the men were sitting back in the conference room chairs. They were kings. They had all the booze and hookers they could want. They had it made. They were the winners. All those poor dirtbag citizens outside the courthouse who were cold and hungry. What chumps. Losers. They just didn’t have the drive to succeed like the people in that conference room.
“Where’s the new girls?” the Sheriff asked. That’s what he’d come to the party for.
“Weird, Sheriff,” Bennington said. “They were supposed to be here by now. I’ll check,” he said, getting on his radio and stepping outside where there was less noise. He knew the Sheriff would be listening to his radio back in the conference room.
“Jonesy,” Bennington said to Jones, who was the night-shift jailer, “where are those new girls you had?”
“What?” Jonesy said. “We don’t have any new girls.” He wondered what the hell Bennington was talking about; he would have remembered some new girls. Jonesy often got the first crack at them when they came in. He would have remembered that.
“Sure you do,” Bennington said. “You know, the young ones who came in last night?”
“Dunno, man,” Jonesy said.
Bennington snickered to himself. This was perfect. It was almost like Jonesy was part of the plan. He wasn’t, but he was cooperating nonetheless.
“That’s bullshit,” Bennington said. “I’ll be down in a couple of minutes to straighten this out.”
Bennington went back into the conference room. The Sheriff looked at him and said, “I heard it all. Go find those girls.”
“Will do,” Bennington said.
Moco and Señor Hernandez arrived as Bennington was leaving the conference room. They brought their own girls. The department heads liked the Mexican girls and Señor Hernandez liked to share them. It was just business. More gang members came in a minute later. Bennington counted six of them.
He was making the rounds getting everyone fired up. He was explaining the mix up in the jail and how he’d be going down there in a few minutes to get the girls up there to the conference room.
“Hey, man,” the FCorps liaison said to Bennington, “I love that stuff,” pointing to his bottle of Jack Daniels that was actually iced tea.
“Oh, hey, sorry man,” Bennington said. “I’m really sick. You don’t want to catch what I have. I got some other good stuff for you,” he said as he walked over to pour the guy a drink.
“Okay,” the FCorps guy said as he gulped down the drink Bennington made him. Bennington was glad he had planned things down to the very detail of the story about being sick.
It was 8:45 p.m. and all the government and gang luminaries were in the conference room. Shortly, Winters strolled in. He was always up for some “carne fresca.”
Bennington looked at everyone in the conference room, which now included the last piece to his plan: Winters. There he was. He had no idea he was about to die.
Bennington could not believe how calm he was. His heart was racing, but he was still calm. His body had found a way to have peace, while adrenaline was racing through his veins.
Bennington went over to the Sheriff, who was making out with a Mexican hooker in the corner of the conference room near the door to the hallway. It looked so pathetic to see the middle aged and fat Sheriff making out with a scantily clad, beautiful woman. Pathetic. The Sherriff probably really believed she was attracted to him. He looked stupid and grotesque, like everything else in the courthouse.
Bennington interrupted him, “I’m going down to the jail now to get the girls.”
The Sheriff waved his hand as if to say, “Okay. I’m busy now.”
Bennington radioed the jail, “I’m coming down, Jonesy. The Sheriff is pissed.”
Bennington didn’t go down the stairs toward the jail. Instead, he went to the cubicle right outside the conference room and got his backpack. It was still there. Of course it was, he thought. Given what was in it, the place would be on lock down if someone had found it.
Bennington got the first item out of the backpack and put it in the outside pouch. He didn’t zip it up. He could grab it easily. He looked in the main compartment of the backpack. All the other items were there too. Perfect.
Bennington walked to the doorway of the conference room. He looked at those people one last time. He looked right in their faces. He would remember these faces the rest of his life.
Chapter 271
New Year’s Fireworks
(December 31)
Bennington stepped back behind the door to the conference room so he was behind the wall. He got the flash-bang concussion grenade out of the outside pouch of the backpack. These grenades, used by SWAT teams, were also called “stun grenades.” They were not deadly. Instead, they produced a deafening sound and light so bright it temporarily blinded anyone within several yards. They were used to disorient people before a team went in.
Bennington calmly pulled the pin and threw it in the conference room. He was trying to have it land on top of the conference room table so the blast would radiate outward. He didn’t want it to go under the table because the tabletop would absorb some of the blast.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion. Bennington heard the people talking and laughing. His hearing was heightened. He could hear things like he was right there, but he was outside the door. He heard the grenade bounce on the floor. He went to his backpack and pulled out a regular grenade. He was grasping the pin right as the flash-bang went off.
“Boom!” There was a blinding white flash out of the conference room door, the loudest noise he’d ever heard, and a blast wave came out the door.
It was silent in the conference room for a split second, except for the deafening ring of their ears. No one could believe what had just happened. That’s when Bennington lobbed the second grenade in, a fragmentation grenade this time that would shred anyone within several yards of its blast radius. He knew the people in the conference room would be temporarily blinded and deaf from the stun grenade. They wouldn’t see or hear the next thing to land in the room.
“Boom!” Another explosion. It was a different kind. A different sound and different blast. Luckily, Bennington was behind the wall when it went off. He pulled the pin on the second fragmentation grenade and threw it in.
“Boom!” Another one. By now, people were screaming. Blood curdling screams. But only a couple were. They sounded like the hookers.
Bennington swung into the conference room doorway, drew his pistol, and started shooting all the men. He’d spare the hookers with the pistol. They hadn’t done anything wrong.
The closest one to the door was the Sheriff. Or what was left of him. He was literally blown apart. His chest and head looked like hamburger. Bennington had never seen so much blood.
The Sheriff was on the floor deader than a doornail. The hooker was alive. The Sheriff, in his last official act of bravery, had shielded her from the blast with his fat and flabby body while he was making out with her. He no idea he was doing it, but he had managed to save her life. Unintentionally.
Bennington was moving at lightning speed. He went on to the next men he could find. The Emergency Management director was on the floor, still alive but badly wounded. Bennington delivered a .40 round to his head. Instant hamburger. Red mist everywhere.
The FCorps liaison was trying to stand up and had a pistol. Bennington put a double tap in his chest. Another shower of red mist.
Bennington made his way from the door area to the back of the conference room where the gang bangers had been standing. They were farther away from the conference room door, where the two fragmentation grenades reach wasn’t as great.
One of the gang bangers drew a pistol with his bloody arm. Bennington was already drawn, no contest.
Señor Hernandez tried to stand up, but th
at didn’t last very long. A .40 to the head ended that attempt. That bastard deserved it.
The last gang banger was on the floor trying to use one of the injured hookers as a shield. He was a real gentleman. Bennington, who was standing, had an easy, downward angle on him and effortlessly put a round in his head without endangering the hooker. The air was filled with more red mist.
The last one in the room was Winters. He was injured on the floor. It looked like his arms and legs were torn up from grenade fragments. He was still conscious, but stunned. Upon seeing him, Bennington got a surge of joy. Joy. An odd emotion now with all this killing. But it was joy.
Bennington calmly walked up to Winters and could tell that Winters was still temporarily blinded by the flash-bang grenade.
“It’s me, boss,” Bennington yelled down to Winters on the floor. “It’s me.”
Winters was relieved. “I’m glad you’re here, John. Help me.”
“Sure, boss,” Bennington said. “I’m here to help.” Bennington raised his right foot and then he stomped Winters’ throat with his boot. There was the sound of small bones breaking. “That’s for Julie.”
Bennington realized that he needed to get out of there. He looked behind him in case one of them was alive and conscious enough to draw on him. Nope. He looked at each one on the way out of the room. All the men were dead. That was what mattered.
Bennington wasn’t done. His work that night had only begun. He grabbed the backpack and ran down the stairs. He got on the radio, which was full of screaming people talking about explosions in the courthouse up on the Commissioner’s floor.
“This is Bennington, I need all personnel on the third floor now!” he yelled into the radio. Pretty soon, fellow officers were running up the stairs and into the lobby area. Bennington pointed to the conference room. All the officers ran into the conference room.
Guilty as hell. Each one of his fellow officers running into the conference room was guilty as hell. Sanders, Jimenez, Boddleman, Tipton. In a split second, Bennington could remember all the horrible things those four had done. The bribery. Putting innocent people in jail, and worse. Stealing from people. Every one of them was guilty. All the decent cops, which had been the majority, had already left the force, like Bennington should have done.
When the four cops ran into the conference room, Bennington ran to the doorway and looked in. Then he looked around behind him. When no one was looking, he tossed another fragmentation grenade in.
“Boom!” Bennington came running from the conference room doorway toward the lobby, which had filled up with more cops, and yelled, “Booby trapped! Watch out for booby traps!” That would slow them down so he could perform the second phase of his plan.
Bennington motioned for the other officers to follow him. He ran down into the communications room and yelled at the comm guy, “The gangs attacked the Commissioner and the department heads! I saw it all! Call out Code Orange! Code Orange!”
That was the code phrase the county had for an attack on the gangs, even the “good” ones who were doing business with the county. Winters had planned for the gangs trying to take over if there had been a business disagreement between the government and the gangs. “Code Orange” meant all police, FCorps, and Blue Ribbon Boys needed to go straight to the MexiZone and start killing all the male gang bangers possible. It would be an all-out war. Perfect.
The comm guy started screaming, “Code Orange!” into the radio. Units out on patrol started radioing in that they copied and were heading to the MexiZone to start the operation. They had a meet-up point a block from the entrance to the MexiZone.
“Let’s go!” Bennington yelled. About a dozen men started to follow him out into the parking lot to get into their cars.
“Shouldn’t we secure the courthouse?” one of the astute sergeants asked.
“No time! No time! Move! Move!” Bennington yelled. These people were used to taking orders and Bennington was a lieutenant. He had planned on this and knew that the people who were still cops or FCorps were conformists who would take orders. They would do whatever he said. That was how things worked in the courthouse.
A group of about twenty men were streaming out into the parking lot. They were jumping into police cars and heading out. Bennington drove the lead car. He was in charge and everyone was following the leader.
They sped to the staging area without their lights or sirens on. When they got there, about a dozen other cops and Blue Ribbon Boys had assembled. The regular police were putting on body armor. The Blue Ribbon Boys looked terrified. They were supposed to have an easy job standing at a gate. Now they had to go into the MexiZone?
The cops, who now had their body armor on, seemed more confident. Of course they were. They had body armor. Everyone huddled around Bennington.
“Okay,” he yelled to everyone. “The gang bangers are probably drunk now so this should be easy. Go in and just start killing every last one of them. You’ll know them when you see them. You probably see them all over town. Leave the women, children, and old people alone. Now go get the bangers before they take over the whole town! Go! Go! Go!”
The men broke out of the huddle and ran toward the Mexican gate. There was no real plan or any communications of any kind. They were just running toward the “enemy.” Perfect.
Bennington, who had put on his body armor, got his AR out of the trunk and ran behind them. He heard the first shots from the MexiZone guards and then the cops unloaded on the guards. The shooting quickly stopped.
Lights started coming on in the Mexican houses near the entrance to the MexiZone. Dog started barking. The cops began fanning out into groups of two or three. Perfect.
Bennington was running around giving orders. His men had no clue what they were doing. They were just going house-to-house looking for young males. It was total chaos, just like Bennington had planned.
The number of gunshots was increasing. Now it started to sound like a bunch of firefights. Bennington ran up to a group of two Blue Ribbon Boys who were cowering behind a car. He knew both of them. They were bullies and thieves. They were the perfect government employees under the Winters administration.
“Go! Go!” Bennington yelled and pointed toward a house. The two got up and ran toward it. Bennington used the car roof as a rest and covered them. He looked around and didn’t see anyone. Bennington put the red dot of his Aimpoint sight on back of the head of the closest Blue Ribbon Boy and pulled the trigger. He quickly did the same for the second one.
“Snipers!” Bennington yelled into the radio. “Snipers!” he screamed again. The fear of Mexican snipers would slow them down. Perfect.
Bennington ran up to another group, this time, it was three cops in body armor hiding behind a car. “I think fire is coming from over there,” he yelled pointing toward a house. He ran back to a car for cover and then he shot all three of them in the back of the head.
Bennington realized that he might be too many of them. The plan was for the gang bangers and government people to kill each other. As many as possible. If Bennington kept killing too many on the government side, the gangs just might win. That wasn’t part of the plan. But then again, with most of the gang bangers high or drunk on this New Year’s Eve, the government had the element of surprise. Oh well, Bennington couldn’t plan out all the details. This was war. It could not be precisely managed, just guided, which Bennington had done.
He had set the plan in motion. Now it was time for it to play out. The government and gangs would be fighting each other for the next several hours, maybe days. And they’d be doing it in the MexiZone. That would leave the highway wide open for people to go right past everything.
Then Bennington realized he had another important thing to do in order to complete the plan. He found his car and headed back to the courthouse.
Chapter 272
Everything Can Change on a New Year’s Day
(December 31)
It was New Year’s Eve in Times Square in New York.
“Three, two, one!” everyone chanted as the glowing ball dropped, signifying it was officially the New Year on the East Coast.
Everyone was cheering. Jeanie was watching it on TV in the big meeting room back in Camp Murray, Washington. It was 9:00 p.m. Pacific time, but midnight, and officially the New Year, in New York.
Jeanie, the media expert, couldn’t help but notice that the ball drop was different this year. She could tell from the camera angles that the crowd was much, much smaller than in the past. A big crowd like in the past would be too juicy of a terrorist target so they must have limited the crowd size. A lot.
The crowd seemed surprisingly racially mixed. And they all had “We Support the Recovery!” signs. It was pretty obvious, at least to a PR expert like her, that the few hundred people on the TV screen were actors with props.
But Jeanie didn’t care. She was mesmerized by the familiar ball dropping in Times Square, even if everything about this year was different. For decades, she’d watched this on TV every New Year’s. Well, not every New Year’s. The past few years, when she was in college and then a graduate, she spent her New Year’s Eves partying instead of watching TV. But when she was a kid and a teenager, her family would all get together to watch the Times Square ball drop on TV.
Sitting there watching the ball drop, and feeling the many glasses of champagne kicking in, Jeanie was transported back in time. She remembered when she was a girl, watching the huge 2000 New Year’s Eve ball drop. A new millennium. Everything seemed so new and fresh back then. The future was wide open. Everything was going great. She had a brand new millennium to go out and make her mark in. She remembered her mom and dad telling her on that particular New Year’s Eve that she was lucky to be alive then. That her generation had it made and would have wonderful lives. It was their millennium. America was the only world super power in 2000. Everything was perfect.