Reaper

by Buckhout, Craig

  A third order directed the National Security Agency to conduct any electronic surveillance deemed necessary to prevent additional terrorist attacks. And further, the President gave them the authority to block, remove, or censor any internet communication deemed harmful to national security.

  A fourth order assigned a federal agent from the FCC to every major news organization in the country and required the news agency to get approval on any story involving any national security issue.

  Each of the orders was, of course, derided by various groups and the media as an overreach of presidential authority, a gross infringement on guaranteed individual liberties, and way beyond what was necessary to stop the terrorist attacks.

  As for the second article Max read, it dealt with the status of the investigation into the attacks. Most of the attackers, including the suicide bombers, had been identified by the FBI and their residences located. But at that point, that particular string of the investigation stalled. No other conspirators had so far been found. The same was true regarding a series of similar attacks in Western Europe and Great Britain. The only arrest made was that of a father of one of the suspects who ordered the FBI off his property, and when they didn’t leave, armed himself and fired a shot in the air. An FBI sniper shot him in the shoulder and he was taken into custody.

  Another avenue of investigation proved more fruitful, however. An anonymous source indicated three of the AK 47s involved in the first wave of attacks were traced back to the infamous Fast and Furious operation run by the ATF, where weapons were allowed to be purchased by known Mexican drug cartel associates with the premise they would be traced to the drug cartel bosses. Further investigation revealed that at least four of the dead terrorists had visited that part of Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel, all at about the same time. These facts were taken as an ominous sign that the Mexican drug cartels had formed some sort of an alliance with radical Muslim terrorists, which gave them access to weapons and smuggling routes into the U.S. But so far, the identity of the specific terrorist group involved in the attacks on the United States remained a mystery, as well as the location within Mexico where it was speculated they received their training.

  Max’s first thoughts were that the government censors must not be at work yet for that kind of information to make the papers. He had no love loss for the press, but it was scary to think that they’d soon be giving only one version of the story …the government’s carefully scripted version. His musings on this matter were soon interrupted by the sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway, followed by car doors opening and closing, people coming in the front door, and the little feet of Steve’s son, Gavin, running up the stairs to see Raha’s three children.

  Raha had become a permanent resident of Max’s house, at least until Farid’s affairs could be settled and the house sold. She still felt in danger, especially since the man who attempted to burn her home down turned out to be someone from the neighborhood. As for the other families, Steve’s and Louis’s, they mostly came and went according to work schedules.

  Steve walked to the counter, grabbed a cup from the cupboard, and poured himself some coffee. As he stepped toward the kitchen table, Beth said, “Is that for me. How nice,” and took it from his hand.

  “How’d you know?” Steve replied.

  “Just a wild guess.” She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of half and half, poured a generous dollop into her cup, and sat at the table with Max.

  “We’ve got food, TP, paper towels, bottled waters, sodas, things like that, out in the car,” she said.

  “Perfect,” Max replied. “We can use it.”

  After filling another cup, Steve pulled out the remaining unoccupied chair and sat down. He tapped his index finger on the article describing the presidential orders and said, “Can you believe that shit? Gun registration, no more ammo; who does he think is gonna enforce it? Nobody I’ve talked to.”

  Max shook his head. “Stupid. All it’s going to do is bring trouble.”

  “Where they got you working?” Steve asked, referencing Max being cleared for light duty.

  “Your old job, answering phones.”

  Steve was back to full duty.

  Louis came in the door with his three kids, who promptly joined the others upstairs, who were at that moment being supervised by Raha.

  Louis Espinosa was a short, strong, barrel-chested man with a thick head of dark hair, who was a district manager for Kaplan’s grocery chain. He had served one tour in Iraq with the Army, protecting convoys that were under constant attack.

  “The nanny should be here in about a half hour,” Louis said as he put three bag lunches in the refrigerator. “And Anna said she’ll try to get off by three.”

  Although Anna hadn’t received any further threats, and they were starting to relax, they still felt uncomfortable leaving the kids alone in their house with the nanny. So the nanny was now coming to Max’s house to watch their children and, at the same time, help out with the other four kids. This took a big burden off Raha, who was still reeling from the death of her husband, and the attempt to set her house on fire.

  Max took the last swallow of his coffee, looked at his watch, and said, “Okay, well I suppose we better get those groceries unloaded.”

  Steve and Max drove in Max’s truck to the police department, leaving Steve’s car at the house for Beth, in case she needed it. There was an accident on highway 280 that was jamming up traffic, so they jumped off on Eleventh Street with the intention of taking it to Taylor and then to the Police Administration Building that most just referred to as PAB. Just after crossing over St. John Street, they saw a Department of Homeland Security SUV with its emergency lights on, but no siren, driving east on Washington.

  “Let’s see where he’s going,” Max said, crossing St. James and Julian, before turning right on Washington.

  Two blocks down, they could see the DHS vehicle stopped halfway out in the traffic lane with a Toyota Prius in front of it. Two men, dressed in black uniforms, were searching a white male with light brown, collar-length hair.

  As Max pulled to the curb behind the SUV, it was obvious the man being detained was in a verbal argument with the two men detaining him.

  Max and Steve’s arrival drew the attention of the DHS officers, prompting one of them to approach with his hand resting on the butt of his holstered pistol. As both Steve and Max got out of the truck, the one who was walking toward them said, “Just keep on moving. This is police business.”

  The one speaking to them was in his mid-twenties, had his hair cut to the skin on the sides and nearly so on top, wore dark wraparound glasses, and had the sleeves of his uniform shirt rolled up to the elbows, exposing a black, red, and yellow tattoo that sleeved one arm.

  Steve spit a mouthful of tobacco into the street as they both exposed the badges clipped to their belts. “What’s going on?” Max asked.

  As Max said that, the man being detained shouted, “Hey, man, don’t leave. I need a witness. I’m not doing anything wrong. I was just taking pictures.”

  Tattoo-man shook his head. “He’s full of crap. He drove past one of our checkpoints by the courthouse and nearly hit one of our people.”

  “That’s not true. They’re after me for my blog. Don’t leave.”

  Max and Steve walked closer. As they did, it looked like Tattoo was going to block their path but changed his mind.

  The second DHS officer finished his pat-down and directed Blogger to sit on the curb at the back of the Prius.

  “So now, what’s your story?” Max asked Blogger.

  “It’s like this; me and some others started writing a blog about how the federal government is violating the Constitution with all these new laws. It’s part of an assignment for one of my classes. One of the people working with me tried to ask these guys some questions about it, and they started pushing her around. I took some pictures of them touching her tits and putting their hands between her legs while they were suppose
dly searching her for weapons. I posted the photos on my blog and sent copies to the Mercury News. They found out about it and have been following me around ever since. They even came by my house last night. I can prove it. I got ‘em on camera.”

  At the same time this discussion was going on, the other DHS officer, who was a little older and a lot shorter than his tattooed partner, had walked near the open passenger window of the Prius, which prompted Blogger to shout, “Hey, I don’t give you permission to search my car. You hear me? Stay out of my car.”

  “Relax, I’m just looking,” Shorty said.

  Tattoo, who was standing next to Blogger, said, “Hey, look, thanks for the roll-by but we got this. He’s just making a big deal about nothing. Really, you can take off.”

  Saying this caused Max and Steve to look away from Shorty and toward Tattoo.

  Max was more inclined to believe Tattoo than not. He’d heard many complaints like this about cops he worked with, even himself, and all but a very few were either completely untrue or mostly untrue. If the two DHS officers were up to something, though, their stopping by was probably enough to make them change their mind. So he was just about to suggest to Steve that they leave when Steve turned his head to the right to spit out the last of his chew, and saw Shorty take something out of his pants pocket and throw it through the open Prius passenger window.

  “Hey man, what’d you just throw in the car?” Steve said, walking toward Shorty.

  “What are you talking about?” Shorty replied.

  As Steve arrived at the passenger window, Shorty stepped in front of him.

  “I saw you throw something in his car. What was it?”

  “You’re seeing things, man. You’ve got nothin’ to do with what we got going here, so why don’t you just take off.”

  Steve moved to step around Shorty to look in the window, but Shorty slid left, cutting him off, and put his hand on Steve’s chest. Steve trapped it with his left hand, grabbed it with his right, and twisted it away in such a manner that Shorty was forced to turn and drop a shoulder, allowing Steve to get between him and the car.

  “Hey, what the fuck you doin’!” Tattoo shouted and moved toward Steve.

  At the same time, Shorty was telling Steve to let go.

  Max shoulder-bumped Tattoo and slipped between him and Steve. “Back off! He planted something in the car. My partner saw it. You guys are way out of line here.”

  Blogger, at the same time, yelled, “I got video, man! You’re toast, now!” Max could see Blogger with his cellphone out, pointing it at the four officers.

  Tattoo spun around to look, saw Blogger with his cellphone out and pointed his way, and said, “Gimme that thing,” at the same time moving in his direction.

  Max grabbed Tattoo’s arm causing, him to spin back around. As he did, Tattoo swung a looping right at Max that glanced off the side of his head.

  Max rolled to his right to take some of the power out of the punch, which put him in the perfect position to rotate his hips and throw a short right hook to Tattoo’s left ribs. It landed solid, and Max heard the air go out of him and saw him double half over. Max followed it up with a knee to his face that snapped Tattoo’s head back and gave him a bloody nose. While all this was going on, Max became vaguely aware of a high-low radio alert tone he knew had to be from the DHS vehicle, because neither he nor Steve had a radio with them.

  Tattoo stepped back, dazed, and dropped his hand to his pistol.

  Max had his hand on his Glock and was ready to go, when he saw Tattoo freeze, touch his earpiece, look up, and say to Shorty, “Come on, we gotta go! There’s been another one!” He pointed to Max and said, “This isn’t over, motherfucker! You made a big, big mistake! Whose side you on anyway, huh?”

  As Tattoo passed by Blogger, he slapped him on the head before continuing on and climbing in the driver’s seat of the SUV.

  In the meantime, Shorty made another attempt to get past Steve, but Steve stood his ground and pushed him away. Shorty looked back at Tattoo, hesitated a second, walked to the passenger door of the DHS vehicle, and got inside. Before his door was even closed, they took off, flipping on the siren.

  Steve leaned inside the passenger door of the Prius and retrieved what looked like a small quantity of methamphetamine contained in the cut off and knotted corner of a plastic baggie.

  When he turned back, Max was on his cellphone calling Communications. With the sound of sirens starting up in the distance, he asked, “Did something just happen? We’re hearing a lot of sirens.” He listened for a few seconds, disconnected, and said, “A bomb just went off at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Lots of casualties. We better get to work.”

  Before leaving, they quickly got Blogger’s real name, Ben Peoples, his date of birth, and other basic information. Max also supplied Blogger with his work email address so he could get a copy of the video and photos.

  As they were getting into Max’s truck, Steve said, “Was that guy going to draw down on you?”

  Max shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, but I’m sure glad he didn’t.”

  After a couple of seconds, Steve started laughing. “Weird. We were just dukin’ it out with a couple of cops in broad daylight. I love it! I fuckin’ love it!”

  But Max was thinking about Myra. She was working so she was probably headed to the Convention Center.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Max walked in the door, sat down at his desk, and turned on the scanner to listen to the radio traffic regarding the latest bombing. Over the PAB public address system he heard, “Attention all personnel and visitors. We just received a shelter in place order from the Fire Department. There apparently is some sort of toxic event associated with an explosion at the Santa Clara Convention Center that should pose no health risk to us as long as we remain inside the building. The Fire Department is evaluating the situation and will provide further information as soon as they can. We will update you with anything new when we get it. For now, the safest place to be is inside.”

  Max’s first thought was Myra again, soon followed by, what the hell was a toxic event?

  Max grabbed the phone on his desk and called the Communications supervisor. As he was waiting for his call to be answered, all the phone lines in the office lit up and started ringing. The civilian employee he was working with, a woman named Brenda, started answering calls.

  The Communications supervisor came on Max’s line and told him the first Fire units on the scene at the Convention Center detected high levels of radiation, so pulled back. They advised other, incoming Fire units of the situation, allowing them to suit-up in protective gear so they could start rendering aid to the victims. The radiation exposure protocol was activated and triage tents were being set up in hospital parking lots and elsewhere to keep any possible contamination out of medical facilities. Decontamination stations were being put in place in several locations as well. The speculation was that the source of the radiation was from the explosive device itself and they were already calling it a “dirty bomb.” Finally, the Fire Department was at that moment trying to determine how widespread the contamination was and to plot the path of any possible plume of radiation.

  “Jesus,” Max whispered. People had talked about dirty bombs for years, but Max always thought of it as just wild speculation put out there by right-wing talk show hosts and conspiracy nuts.

  Max asked if any ambulance units had made it to the scene before the radiation was detected.

  “Okay, hang on, I gotta go to a different screen for that information, but afterwards I need to get off the line,” came the supervisor’s reply.

  “Thanks,” Max replied.

  “No, it looks like they were staging about two blocks from the scene when the order to pull back was given. But most of them have already been pressed into service to transport the injured to the triage centers, so I suppose there is still some danger of contamination, if that’s why you’re asking. Okay, look, I gotta go,” and she abruptly disconn
ected.

  When Max hung up he could hear Brenda on the phone, apparently with her family. “I don’t know any more than that, honey. …That’s what I heard, radiation. …I told you, I don’t know how bad. …I know, I know, I’m scared, too. They told us not to leave the building because it’s too dangerous. …Please, just calm down, okay? As soon as it’s safe to leave I will. I promise. …Okay, I promise. I’ll be careful. …Sure. Love you. Bye.”

  After she hung up, Brenda answered one of the ringing phones, told the caller to hold on, covered the mouth piece, turned to Max, and said, “Did you hear that? The bomb had radiation in it. The whole place is contaminated. Do you think, you know, it’ll reach all the way here? I mean maybe we ought to get out before it’s too late. Remember the towers …9/11? They told some of ‘em to stay where they were, and they ended up dying.”

  Max pulled out his cell phone and hit the icon for weather. As he was waiting for the screen to open up, he said, “I think if we stay right where we are, any radiation won’t touch us. The building will keep it out.” He looked at his app as he said this and noted that the wind direction was away from PAB to the northeast. “The good news is the wind’s blowing away from us.”

  “It’s just that my kids are so scared. The school is holding them there until a parent comes to pick them up. I’m the only one, and I’m stuck here.”

  “Let’s just give it a little bit of time for them to figure things out,” is all that Max could think of to say.

  Max started answering phone lines, and as he talked he pulled up Google Earth on his computer screen and zeroed it in on the Santa Clara Convention Center. He started clicking on those little icons that identified nearby places of interest. The new 49er football stadium, Great America Theme Park, Mission College, at least two elementary schools, a couple of light rail stations, and many, many high tech companies were all nearby. He also knew that there was a major hotel in the area, although he couldn’t locate it on the map. On a summer day in mid-June; well, he just hated to think about how many people there were near the explosion site. And then on top of that, if the wind really was travelling northeast and carrying contamination with it, it was headed right toward the city of Milpitas.