“You will soon have a surfeit of similar headlines as the ones you saw today, let me assure you. Now, if you go after all these kingpins simultaneously, they will realize it is in their collective interest to unite—albeit temporarily—to destroy their persecutors. Together, I fear they could muster enough force to challenge the nation’s army itself. But separate them,” Rochten said, wagging his finger with a glint of triumph in his eye, “and that is a different story. Separately, they can be taken down. But it will take a bit more than a one-at-a-time approach.
“Even that they would be able to see through. Each kingpin would realize he is just waiting in line like a cow at the slaughterhouse to be butchered by the government. But if you can convince one of them that you are on their side and that he will enjoy a long-term collaborative relationship with you, you can do more than preventing him from allying himself with a persecuted kingpin. You can convince him to fight on your side in exchange for impunity. Then, once he helps you destroy your targets, you destroy him.”
Rochten then rubbed his hands together and separated them, like a man brushing bread crumbs from his hands after a sumptuous meal.
It made perfect sense to Hutherton, but he still couldn’t stomach the idea of having any dealings with such men. Rochten appeared to read his mind: “Don’t worry about that for now. I’m talking of things yet to come. And if they do come to pass as I predict, and you need a liaison, well, let’s just say as an ambassador I am used to occasionally getting my hands a bit dirty.”
Hutherton smiled. He liked the idea. He liked it immensely. He felt so happy at this moment that he thought he should share the information he had learned recently from the journalist about some of the nascent kingpins already in the underworld, but his instinctive selfishness caused him to withhold these facts like a child who refuses to share a toy.
Chapter 17
“Yes, get him,” Righty said, wondering himself if perhaps he should defer to Harold on this one, who by his inquiry had implied he would have opted for leaving Tats behind.
“But silently,” Righty said in a whisper towards Harold’s ear, “and for all that is holy don’t let him know you can talk.”
Harold had seen Tats secrete himself inside a barrel and had even put the lid on over his head rather snugly, although this was quite unknown to Righty. Harold did a swan dive that nearly sent Righty’s insides flying out his mouth, but he managed to keep quiet. Quicker than a flash Harold grabbed the barrel Tats was in, scooped it up, and disappeared into the night.
“Set him down by the junkyard,” Righty said in a whisper that was quite inaudible to the terrified Tats several feet below inside of his barrel. He had no idea what was happening other than the fact he was moving very fast. The best explanation he could come up with was that the police had picked up the barrel and put it into the fastest-moving jail wagon he had ever heard of, but he knew this was a ridiculous explanation nonetheless. His imagination, however, could not fathom what was indeed happening.
Still whispering, Righty said, “When you set him down, let’s get the hell out of here fast before he sees me.”
Harold went a step further and looked for a small hole that he could fit the barrel into snugly enough that it would be at least a minute before Tats could extricate himself. Having found it, he executed another swan dive. He would have loved to do Cyclone at this very moment, but though Righty was becoming a rather experienced rider by this time, he would have still been flung off of Harold’s body so quickly and at such great distance that it would have tested Harold’s own flying skills to the utmost to both locate and recover him before his body was smashed fatally onto the ground below.
Harold flared his wings out wide at the last moment, cutting most of his velocity, and then stuffed the barrel partway into a hole. He then took off just as Righty had requested.
“Let’s go see my new ranch,” Righty said, “but let’s just stop on a nearby hillside. I don’t get the keys, so to speak, until several more days.”
Harold was thrilled by this idea. He had struggled greatly watching Righty take on that many men at once, but he had seen only a few had swords, and he knew that had he gone down there and helped out before Righty seemed to be getting hurt Righty would have laid into him. Perhaps now that he had gotten the chance to prove to himself what he could do with his sword, he would feel more comfortable allowing Harold to have a more liberal involvement in future encounters.
Yet, he also understood, and greatly respected, Righty’s belief that it was best for Harold not to show himself too often, lest he become an item of prey hunted far and wide by the most skillful pursuers. While Harold realized he could easily outwit the most clever of such men were he charged only with the care of himself, his necessity of guarding Righty also made him far more vulnerable. The full reality of that had come tonight as he had risked being seen by a swarm of police officers on the street below. And, he was nearly certain at least one saw him.
An hour later, Righty asked Harold to touch down on the side of a tall mountain where there was a wide snow patch. Righty grabbed a handful of snow and put it onto the side of his head where it had kissed the jagged edge of a broken bottle. He took the snow away and saw no blood, for which he was quite grateful, and he then put the snow back to his head.
He then lay down flat on his back and stared straight up at the stars. He felt at peace in this place, although he realized that he had a huge mob of problems to face that he was merely ignoring for the moment. He felt more and more relaxed as he looked up at the stars, and he wondered what great men in history had looked up at these same stars hoping for a brief respite from the overwhelming problems of the world. As bad as his problems were at the moment, he found his feeling of destiny reinforced by his survival tonight. The stars themselves seemed to be looking down on him and telling him: Great things. We have chosen you for great things, Richie.
And then he was asleep.
Chapter 18
When Senator Hutherton walked before the senate the next day, bill in hand, he realized from the looks of the men that he was not seen quite as much as the snot-nosed senator who had approached them with SISA. Seeing another man’s humiliation will either produce sympathy or sadistic joy—as the feeling of neutrality rarely survives such circumstances—and in the case of Hutherton his ridicule in the newspapers had earned him a healthy portion of the former.
There was a certain look of admiration in their eyes to see this junior senator marching towards the front of the assembly with a new bill in his hand, in spite of having his last one result in a scofflaw societal response before being declared unconstitutional in one of the first related cases to ever make it to trial. As for Hutherton, he knew that sympathy in these men was to be short-lived and thus was to be exploited quickly or forfeited forever.
“Senior senators and fellow junior senators, today I have come before you not with defeat, but with victory, in mind. Most of us have already heard the news this morning that the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has approved the stay of the district court judge’s decision invalidating SISA during the pendency of the appeal.
“Gentlemen, now is the time for us to show that SISA really can work. The massacre in Sivingdel has already shown us the truly dangerous villains we are up against—men who will stop at nothing to enrich themselves off the sale of contraband. Let us not pretend that the utter failure of law enforcement had nothing to do with the district judge being so brazen as to declare our law unconstitutional.
“Yet, it is not the fault of our brave police officers that this contraband has been sold, possessed, and consumed with virtual impunity but rather the novel nature of this new criminal activity. It is for that reason that I therefore propose the establishment of a new agency, the National Drug Police. With an annual appropriation of ten million falons, it will have the tools to prove itself a worthy recipient of tax revenue, as it will find the masterminds of the Sivingdel massacre and prevent such further incidences of barbarity, l
est our nation become the laughingstock of the civilized world. And all this can be done with modest adjustments in other budgets and at no new expense to the taxpayer.”
This last part caught the senators’ attention in particular, and Hutherton had found fertile soil for his proposal. Only Senator Megders rose in opposition.
Whereas Hutherton had enjoyed the looks of sympathy, Megders faced the looks of scorn. He was becoming distrusted. His role in Hutherton’s humiliation made them cognizant of the fact they could be his next victim.
“Esteemed senators, were it not for SISA, the massacre in Sivingdel would never have happened. Users of Smokeless Green would not be filling the pockets of these emerging kingpins who are now vying for power with the savagery of ambitious pretenders to a throne. Instead, users would be purchasing SG along with their coffee, cigars, and flour at a local store the way they did before SISA.
“The creation of a national law enforcement agency tasked with the sole mission of arresting violators of a law that has already been deemed unconstitutional makes about as much sense as putting a new horseshoe on a dead horse. And Senator Hutherton forgot to mention that in granting the stay the 1st Circuit also made it clear that, while people can be arrested for SISA violations during the pendency of the appeal, such arrests can only be made for the purpose of processing the arrestee at the police station, after which they must be released immediately. The information can be passed to prosecutors’ offices, but no charges can be filed during the pendency of the appeal. This means that while Hutherton’s drug agency is out arresting people they are going also be forced to let them go right away, and the prosecutors’ offices are going to face a growing backlog of pending cases that they are restrained from moving forward on.
“I can assure you that while this threat will be enough to keep law-abiding business owners from putting SG back on the shelves you can rest assured that this will merely serve to embolden the drug dealers. They will have their cake and get to eat it too. The illegality of SG will restrict the sales to the underworld—except for the abominable ‘gentlemen exception’—while simultaneously they can justifiably presume any prosecution against them will be very difficult, as the appeals process could last for years. Frankly, I think District Attorney Hannensehn should just go ahead and announce to the public that there will be no attempt at SISA enforcement during the pendency of the appeal because otherwise the police and prosecutors will just be creating a nightmare for themselves and the courts.
“While reasonable minds may differ on that point, it is beyond the pale to appropriate ten million falons from less dubious projects to be dedicated fully into enforcing something that has already been deemed unconstitutional by one judge and will likely be by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals as well.”
No one clapped or cheered at the conclusion of this speech, and while the senators realized his arguments were virtually impeccable on a logical level, logic was gone for the day. This was about sending a message to the people that they were serious about crime.
The law was passed without fanfare, and with the exception of Senator Megders no one voted against it.
The National Drug Police was born.
Chapter 19
Freddie was feeling a bit irritated today as he strode home from the post office. Not that this was anything new. Freddie could go from calm and relaxed to being ready to rip someone’s ears off in about as much time as it takes the wind to switch direction. That was the reason he was no longer a proud member of the nation’s small standing army of four thousand. He had lasted the three years that he did because of his outstanding aptitude for soldiering.
He took orders without complaint or question. His one hundred yard dash was still a standing record at the Seleganian Military Academy. His bench press was remarkable. His marksmanship with the longbow put him in third place in the annals of Seleganian archery. His dexterity with the sword was admired by recruit and seasoned soldier alike.
The problem Freddie had was with his peers. Freddie’s mind divided the world into inferiors and superiors, and while he was submissive almost to a fault to authority figures, he was the most exacting of despots towards inferiors. And he earned no shortage of enemies by his inability to accept there were those who were neither below nor beneath him.
In his mind, if a man was not clearly above him, then he was a rival who needed to be shown his place. His superiors had first gotten a whiff of this nasty side to his character when he was a mere recruit and they saw him berating his fellow recruits for not training hard enough. To a certain extent they admired his desire to be a leader, but it became overly problematic when he would attempt to castigate recruits he thought were slacking by telling them to do pushups or other calisthenics. He had been met with jeers at first from his fellow recruits, but after he had broken several noses his orders were taken almost as obediently as if he were their drill instructor.
The drill instructors observing this from afar often let it pass, but if they were nearby they had to act, lest Freddie be seen as something beyond a recruit. They would then shout at him ferociously that he was worth less than dirt and would make him run mile after mile, all of which he did with a stout heart and without complaint, which seemed to only cause him to be further glorified amongst many of his peers as a great leader in the making, though he had no shortage of mortal enemies.
But it was when he made it to the rank of sergeant that the problems became intolerable. He once made three recruits—for the peccadillo of arriving five minutes late to training—run twenty miles while wearing backpacks fully provisioned for a journey of a month. All the while, he ran alongside them striking them with a small cudgel whenever their pace fell below his satisfaction. Those watching from afar laughed at first that he was punishing himself just as much as the recruits, but they failed to recall, or failed to accept, that this was little more than what Freddie included as part of his own daily exercise routine.
Finally, somewhere near the eighteenth mile, one of the recruits simply couldn’t continue. But where others saw “couldn’t” Freddie saw “wouldn’t.” When Freddie attempted to stimulate his motivation with blows from his cudgel, the recruit made the mistake of striking out at Freddie, who then nearly killed the recruit with a ferocious strike to the head. The man recovered but was often thought to have lost half his smarts from the injury.
This had brought a formal inquiry into Freddie’s methods, and while he was not discharged from the military, he was given a stern warning that any blows beyond the minor were not to be given in such an ad hoc fashion. Instead, any recruit he thought worthy of serious punishment needed to be turned over to Freddie’s superiors for a potential court martial.
Freddie had accepted his censure stoically and without complaint. But it was only two weeks later that a fellow sergeant made the grave mistake of telling Freddie he ought to let up on the men. It was Ted Hambenville, and he had been in Freddie’s recruitment class. Though he had lacked Freddie’s colorful nature and outstanding physical feats, he had been a competent, dependable soldier and had risen through the ranks at the same rate as Freddie.
For this, Freddie loathed the man. He saw him as an inferior who had been promoted simply for scraping by. When Ted dared tell Freddie that he should go softer on the recruits, that was more than Freddie was willing to tolerate—in this life or the next. He had punched him squarely in the nose, and after that it was a full-on brawl. It began in the mess hall and worked its way back towards the kitchen itself.
This was due to the fact Ted was doing a lot more running than fighting, though he did throw a nasty jab or two whenever he found himself temporarily cornered—a problem he then fixed however it had to be done, even if that meant climbing over the impediment to his safety.
But Freddie’s skills at running were more than Ted could hope to contend with in a game of cat and mouse. Freddie finally cornered Ted and gave him a pounding that just about cost him his life. A broken nose, two missing teeth, and both eye
s swollen shut for a week were Ted’s souvenirs from his conversation with Freddie about going easier on the troops.
To the shock of everyone, Freddie did not have to be pulled off of Ted by five strapping men. Instead, he was disengaged from his prey by the mere words: “Sergeant Freddie!!” It was a sergeant major, and that alone had the same effect as if a hundred men had yanked simultaneously.
“Sir, yes sir!” he had shouted while standing at attention.
Ted lay unconscious on the ground.
“Into my office now, sergeant,” the master sergeant had barked. Upon arrival he had chewed Freddie out up one side and down the other, all while Freddie stood stoically at attention, neither his face nor his eyes betraying the slightest hint of any emotion.
He had been court-martialed, and although ironically the master sergeant himself had pleaded for leniency on Freddie’s behalf, Freddie’s military days were over, and he was dishonorably discharged from the Seleganian Army.
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 48