Stolen Liberty: Behind the Curtain

by Thomas A. Watson

  Reading the wind, timing the gusts, and regulating his breathing occupied Charlie for a short span of eternity, and his eye never strayed from the site image in his Leupold scope as he acquired the target.

  The two-stage trigger, as smooth as glass, worked as the Gods of War intended, and Charlie found his happy place there on the six-hundred-meter range.

  The rifle wasn’t the same one he’d carried in Afghanistan. Oh it was close, and the manufacturer guaranteed the same level of accuracy as the one he’d hauled all over Hell and beyond but today, something felt different. Nothing wrong with the rifle, he thought, after the range went cold and he made the long walk back from retrieving his target. The group was tight, almost as small as what he’d shot when still in the Army, and he used his Sharpie to mark the date and time at the bottom of the perforated paper.

  Maybe it was something in the air, he mused. Some undercurrent his subconscious was picking up that his rational mind was still processing. Almost three weeks had passed since his conversation with Bryce McKentrick, and he’d heard nothing from his old friend. In fact, his last two calls to Bryce had gone straight to voicemail, and his emails had also gone unanswered. He’d gone up to see Kristi and the kids the weekend before and his excitement at spending time with his surrogate family might have distracted him, until now.

  As he closed up his long rifle in its hard-sided case, Charlie looked over to the other shooting stations and noticed the dearth of activity at the normally popular outdoor shooting range. Usually, there was a wait to get a lane but today, he’d just walked up, paid his money, and managed to jump right in without a pause. Maybe half of the lanes were active, he thought. Strange.

  Suddenly, Charlie felt an itch he needed to scratch. Something, again, was touching that primitive part of his brain, the old reptile that crouched in the back. He’d learned a long time ago to pay attention to that sense, and he felt his feet involuntarily pick up their pace as he neared his truck.

  By the time he reached his condo, Charlie had a plan in mind. When he had deposited his bonus check, he’d pulled out $5,000 in cash as his mad money. He never knew when he was going to see something he just had to buy for Kristi or the kids. Emily’s birthday might have just come and gone, but there was always next year, Clark’s birthday would be here before he knew it, and of course, Christmas.

  This time, Charlie was paying attention to that little voice in the back of his head, the one that had told him when hadjis were setting up an ambush in the next valley, or that the wooden crate lying next to the dirt trail contained an IED. While not foolproof, the instincts had a track record he needed to respect.

  Booting up his home desktop, Charlie looked up a number for one of his favorite stores. It was a Friday afternoon, but he hoped he could catch someone before they went home for the day, so he quickly dialed the number on his landline.

  “AIM Surplus, this is Ronnie. How can I help you?”

  “Hi Ronnie, this is Charlie Tucker from up in Cleveland. Did I call in time to get an order placed today?”

  “Cleveland? Is this for pickup or delivery?”

  “Pickup, if I can come get it tomorrow.”

  “Hold on,” Ronnie replied, “let me pull this up.”

  Charlie knew the salesman was looking up his name to make sure they already had his information on file. He knew they did but waited patiently to be confirmed.

  “Yes sir,” Ronnie said when he came back on the line thirty seconds later. “What can we get for you today?”

  “First, do you have any more of that .308 Serbian match grade in 175 grain?”

  “Yes sir, we sure do. How many boxes can I get for you?”

  “That comes in 500 round cases, correct?”

  “That’s correct. And we can let you have that at $362.50 plus tax.”

  Charlie paused for a second. In addition to the five grand he’d pulled from the bonus check, he thought he had about eight grand cash in his .338 Lapua fund. He’d been meaning to get one for a couple of years, but after dropping nearly $25,000 for the Knights Armaments M110, Charlie was feeling a bit gun-shy. His face twisted into a grim smile at the thought.

  “Alright. I’ll take ten cases of that. Now, let me see…”

  In just under five minutes, he managed to spend a total of almost ten thousand dollars on more .308. This time, some of the soft point hunting ammunition, as well as five thousand rounds of 5.56x45 split between the 55 grain and the 62 grain. Oh, and some hollow point .45ACP, and 9mm for his pistols.

  He could have gotten ammunition closer to home, but not in this quantity and in the quality he was looking for. The Serbian stuff was really good. New manufacture, instead of some old surplus that might have been sitting around in a warehouse for years. Plus, he still had over three hundred rounds of high quality, Sierra King Match Grade for the M110, but something told him he needed to lay in a supply. Maybe he would even pick up a case of the premium stuff on his way out of town.

  Assuring Ronnie that he would be there at three p.m. the following day to pick up his order from the loading dock out back, Charlie then breathed a sigh of relief and felt some of the pressure in the back of his head abate.

  Next, he hauled his rifle case into the second bedroom and set the hard-sided case on one of the benches he’d installed. The next hour would be spent cleaning and detailing the rifle, and then he would think about grabbing something to eat. Maybe call Joan, he thought.

  They’d gone out twice since that weird meeting at his office. Once, just for a bite to eat at a barbeque place he knew in Avon, and then the following week, she’d picked a Vietnamese restaurant situated just outside downtown where Charlie watched in awe as the blonde-haired Texas transplant calmly ate a tray of those killer yellow peppers that always made him cry.

  Each time, Charlie was aware of the looks he received from the other restaurant patrons. He could always feel the eyes on him when out in public, but this time, he hadn’t cared. He was sitting at a table with the prettiest girl in the place, and his watchers could look all they wanted.

  Joan, unsurprisingly, was as intelligent as she was attractive and in addition, she was also blessed with a good dose of common sense as well. At first, they’d picked around the issues and the elephant in the room, for once, wasn’t Charlie’s disfiguring scars.

  No, the touchy subject for both was Joan’s brother. Sean was like a ghost at the table when they’d started eating their pork ribs at Dusty’s Barbeque, but before the night was over at the Vietnamese restaurant, Joan was telling funny stories about her older sibling and describing how proud she felt when she saw him in his uniform when he was home on leave.

  “He was captain of the football team, but he also lettered in debate and had several schools offering at least partial scholarships. But he knew the money wasn’t there for school and joined the Army as a way to pay for it.”

  Charlie nodded at that.

  “I was the same way. I mean, not the captain of the football team or Homecoming King,” he said. “But without the G.I Bill and the enlistment bonus, I knew I would never be able to afford to get my undergraduate degree. Still,” he continued, with not a little pride, “I managed to take dual coursework in my high school, taking classes at the local junior college so when I graduated, I had the freshman classes knocked out as well.”

  “That is impressive,” Joan agreed, “but why did you stay in after you had your four years done?”

  “First, the bonus they offered for re-enlistment was nice, plus I managed to knock out another year of classes while in the Army. And second, I honestly don’t know if I would have gone for twenty, but...”

  Joan gave him a moment as he looked down at his empty plate of spring rolls, but after he remained silent for over a minute, she prompted him.

  “But what, Charlie?”

  “Well,” he said, finally finding his words. “See, I didn’t have much in the way of a home life growing up. Mom tried, but it was hard, with my father being a drunk and
all. But in the Army, it was like I had a fresh start with a new family. And after I graduated from Ranger School, that was just the best thing in the world, being with Blaster, Shadow, Cobra and Wheat, it was like we were brothers.”

  “Wow,” Joan exclaimed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that much at one time. For a lawyer, you can be rather sparing with your words. So graduating from Ranger School was a bigger deal than graduating from law school?”

  Charlie laughed at the question. Not in a mean way, but in real humor.

  “Joan, you have no idea. I thought the instructors were trying to kill me. Forget about the grind of finals. I was so tired, sometimes I was beginning to hallucinate. And so hungry, I would have fought a coyote over a week-old armadillo roadkill.”

  “Yeah, that will do it. Did you go to any other schools in the Army?”

  “Oh, the Army has schools for everything. But the one that sticks out for me was completing sniper school. That was also at Fort Benning, but it was a very different environment. There was plenty of physical, but also a lot of mental, too. Classroom subjects, but not like we had in college.”

  “So, all of your friends had nicknames? Sounds like something out of, I don’t know, G.I. Joe? I mean, come on, Cobra? Is that wrong for me to say? And what was yours?”

  Charlie laughed again before answering.

  “I don’t know about everybody, but yeah, most had a nickname or handle they picked up. Cobra? Well, that was easy. Aaron was, and still is, scared to death of snakes. Nearly got dropped from Ranger school because of it, but he managed to fake it well enough to fool the instructors. Blaster, well, he was always wanting to blow stuff up, even before they sent him to school for it, and Shadow was like a freakin’ ninja. As for me, well, the boys got to calling me Book.”

  “Book? That’s not a very scary nickname.”

  “Most of them aren’t, really,” Charlie said with a shrug. “I was always reading something, so it kind of stuck. Plus, the guys knew I was always taking classes online, whenever we were in one place long enough for me to sign up. But no, not all of the nicknames were something intimidating. I mean, come on, we all called Cody ‘Babyface’, so that should tell you something.”

  “You mentioned Wheat. Was that a nickname?” Joan asked innocently. “I think I heard you mention that one before.”

  Charlie nodded slowly before speaking.

  “That wasn’t really a nickname. He was always just Wheat. Our platoon sergeant, Frank Wheaton. The best man I ever had the honor of serving with. You heard me talking about his wife, Kristi, and their children.”

  “Oh,” was all Joan could say. “I can tell you were very close.”

  “Yeah. If we were brothers, then Wheat was our big brother. He took care of us that way.”

  And the evening went on like that, except Charlie managed to turn the tables on Joan and got the young woman to talk about herself. As Charlie suspected, Joan had been a competitive swimmer in high school and college, and she’d attended undergrad and law school at the University of Texas at Austin. Her parents were Ohio transplants, moving to Texas when her father’s work with automated production systems brought him to the attention of one of the high-tech firms near Austin.

  “So, you were law review and competed in moot court?” Charlie remembered commenting. “When did you have time to sleep?”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. ‘I Stayed Awake Until I Hallucinated’,” Joan shot back playfully. “I managed by not becoming a statistic. You know, the drunken college party girl. I just kept my head down and lived in the library, where it was safe.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could have found a way to have a little fun in school,” Charlie had said with a challenging tone, and then they were off again. It’d been a good time, and Charlie knew he was starting to develop feelings there.

  “Yeah, maybe I should give her a call,” Charlie said to himself. If they were going to go out, Charlie knew he would need a shower first. His clothes would smell like Hoppes No. 9 oil before he was finished.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cleveland, OH

  Going out with Joan turned out to be a good idea, as it allowed him a chance to find out more about the woman and her background. Now that they had breached the barrier that was Sean, he felt her grow more comfortable with their conversations. They talked about movies, art, and their favorite books. The owner of the little Italian restaurant, a corner establishment that boasted of being in business since 1956, finally had to come out and let them know they would be closing in ten minutes. He seemed apologetic with breaking into their private moment, and Charlie thanked him profusely as he left a fifty-dollar tip to go with the bill.

  Joan protested, of course, and he gently explained that she could pick up the bill next time. She seemed mollified by this provision, and when he walked her out to her car, she rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. He wondered if it was by accident that she picked his left cheek, the one rippled with scars, and decided he didn’t care. He’d caught her examining his scars a few times, but she didn’t seem repulsed by what she saw, or morbidly turned on by the sight.

  Gathering his courage after she stepped back, he asked the question that had been nagging at him for a while now.

  “It doesn’t bother you?” he asked softly, gesturing vaguely to encompass the visible damage. He knew it was a painful sight for some, despite all the best efforts of the doctors in San Antonio.

  “Yeah, it does bother me in a way,” she replied. “I hate what happened to you, Charlie. But these scars, they aren’t you. They are just something you survived.”

  “Dang, ma’am, you sure are a sweet-talker,” he replied, and turned away to hide the mist in his eyes. Giving her hands a last squeeze, he promised to call her soon.

  Back at home, Charlie paused before bed and checked one of his e-mail accounts, and quickly discovered he’d received an e-mail from Cody. It was a brief note, drawing Charlie’s attention to the attachment, which turned out to be a link to a news website with which Charlie was unfamiliar. From anybody else, Charlie would have feared a virus, but he knew Babyface would stomp all over anything dangerous before sending it to him.

  The link led Charlie to an article about HR 2121, a bill proposed to protect and secure America’s drinking water, referring to it in the article as the Safe Drinking Water Act. Whoever wrote the article, the byline was blank, clearly wasn’t a professional reporter. Too many errors in the text, and not enough meat to the analysis, but he was still riveted by what he found.

  Charlie was a long way from parsing bills in his classes, but once he waded through the high-sounding rhetoric at the beginning, he was immediately struck by the long-range implications.

  “Public water” was already subject to testing, and taxing, and varying degrees of scrutiny. Charlie paid his water bill every month, and he knew part of the money went to pay for the municipal water system. That was to be expected.

  This bill went so much further, it made Charlie’s head hurt at the idea. Charlie recalled one of his law school classes had dealt with the issue of water rights, and he knew that different states had vastly different laws with regard to water and the rights of private citizens. Some states treated the water under someone’s property as their private property and inviolate. Others took a broader approach and used a balancing test for determining private versus public ownership of water.

  Here, essentially, the federal government was pre-empting the states and claiming all fresh water sources as property of the Federal Government. Period. If you wanted to pump water from a private well, you had to have a meter installed, and the users would be liable for a tax based on the gallons used. This tax money was supposed to be reserved for repairing the nation’s aquifers and waterways.

  Likewise, people who owned any waterfront property would be assessed a tax based on the square footage of the property as a “land use” tax, and the definition of waterfront seemed darned elastic to Charlie’s reading.

  Charl
ie saved the entire bill to a file, noticing in passing, the sponsoring congressmen were a pair of far-left leaning ideologues who routinely introduced such ridiculous legislation that never saw the light of day. This bill, however, had already been passed by a narrow margin and sent on to the Senate. Without any media scrutiny and no discussion that Charlie, or Cody, could find.

  “No way the Senate will sit still for this,” Charlie whispered. The Senate, the old-boys club of vested interests and the gatekeepers of public policy, would never go along with this. This damned thing would bankrupt every corporate farm and factory in the country, Charlie realized.

  If this was what got Bishop so worked up, Charlie said to himself, then her source was either paranoid as a cat in a house full of rocking chairs, or there’s something else going on. No way those rich bastards would vote for a law rendering their own beachfront property either prohibitively expensive, or worthless.

  Scanning through the document, Charlie quickly realized all he had here was an abstract of the bill, since the actual verbiage ran over two thousand pages. Maybe her friend wasn’t so paranoid after all. Who knows what’s really hidden from public scrutiny in there?

  Opening another window, Charlie ran a LexisNexis search and found, to his surprise, that the bill wasn’t available for public view.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Charlie muttered. He prepared a short email back to Cody, ccing Randy, and gave his summary. It was a worrying bill, but not something the Senate would ever entertain. Most disturbing, though, was how closely some of the language mirrored some of the position papers and agenda memoranda he’d seen coming out of the United Nations’ more active social justice committees.

  After his shower that night, Charlie laid awake for several hours, thinking about that damned water bill. No way could it pass, he reminded himself, but why did two of the President’s fair-haired boys introduce such an obviously unconstitutional bill, and how did they manage to ram it through the House? Was it a trial balloon, to see how the public would react to the idea of having their water rights stolen by the government, or something else?