Reaper

by Buckhout, Craig

  A lieutenant walked in the door with a handful of papers he split between Brenda and Max.

  “These are all the off duty people,” he said. “Start calling them back to work. They’ll be assisting Santa Clara Police and Fire as needed. Have them meet at the San Jose State University P.D. parking lot and wait for further instruction. CHP, S.O., Campbell PD, Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and I think even some Santa Cruz units will be meeting there, too. And then to Max he said, “When you’re through with that, the Chief wants to see you.”

  Shit, Max thought, those DHS guys must have made a complaint.

  Max and Brenda started making calls and were only able to get a hold of about sixty percent of the off-duty officers despite calling both cell and home numbers. This made Max suspect that some of them just weren’t answering their phones, instead opting to stay with their families until they knew for sure they were safe and didn’t have to evacuate the city.

  Max took a break and put a call into Raha and told her she and the others were in no danger but if conditions changed, he would call them right away. He then tried to call Myra, but couldn’t get through.

  He did receive a call from Steve, though, who told him everything was “all fucked up.” Steve explained there were at least a thousand kids and their parents at Great America when the bomb exploded and radiation levels showed they had all been exposed. There were also a couple hundred students starting summer classes at nearby Mission College who had to be evacuated, high density housing nearby, and several thousand employees of high tech companies in the area who were affected. All the cars parked near the explosion site had to be left behind because of the potential of contamination, so people were being taken in county buses to decontamination centers that were overwhelmed by the number of clients. The Red Cross had already started setting up shelters outside the area. And as far as casualties from the explosion were concerned, there were about seventy five injured enough to require transportation to triage centers.

  The bomb had apparently been driven to the convention center in a stolen catering truck. The explosion wasn’t so powerful that it caused extensive structural damage, but it dispersed what the Hazmat people figured to be Cesium 137, a radioactive substance used in medical, industrial, and research applications, and found in just about every country in the world.

  “Did you happen to see Myra?” Max asked.

  “Naw, sorry man, I didn’t go anywhere near the scene. In fact, right now I’m wearing this paper suit and mask and working a perimeter position. I’ve seen plenty of ambulances go by, but haven’t seen who’s in ‘em.”

  “How safe do you feel?” Max asked.

  Steve laughed. “They say I’m okay. Supposedly I’m in the cold zone, so far enough away that contamination isn’t likely, and even if I get dusted a little, the chance of getting sick from it is pretty small. It’s a weird feeling, though. You can’t see it or smell it, so you could be covered in the stuff and you’d never know. A couple of the guys were freaked out enough about it that they refused to work the perimeter, so have been assigned to evacuation centers instead. Oh, and those DHS pussies have made sure they’re way out of reach. The only ones I’ve seen are the ones with air packs and moon suits, headed to the scene.”

  “Okay, keep your eyes out for Myra, will you? I haven’t been able to get a hold of her.”

  After hanging up with Steve, Max told Brenda he had to go to the Chief’s office and would be back as soon as possible. Just as he said that, he heard over the scanner that Mineta San Jose International Airport had been shut down and all incoming flights were being diverted to other airports. The light rail had also been stopped well short of the danger area.

  The potential financial cost of this one single incident suddenly struck him. It seemed staggering; millions, maybe billions. What if the convention center, Great America, the new 49’er stadium, all those high tech companies, and the hotel had to be abandoned? Think of the money lost. Think of the jobs lost. Think of the loss of sales tax, hotel tax, parking fee revenues. Mind boggling.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Chief’s office was on the second floor of PAB. To get there, Max had to actually walk outside the building, up a set of stairs, and go through an exterior door. As soon as he stepped out, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was getting dusted with radiation. Everything he knew so far said he was safe. He could only imagine, though, what people who didn’t have the same access to information he did, felt.

  Chief Morris Flanders III was a tall, trim, fifty year-old African American widower, with close-cropped gray hair, who almost always wore his uniform while at work. He was rumored to be a competitive cyclist, but was also rumored to suffer from high blood pressure, so looking at his retirement options.

  Max had never had a private conversation with him before. His feelings toward the Chief were ambivalent. The Chief was, however, said to be a fair man, not overly ambitious, who seemed genuinely concerned for the welfare of the troops.

  Flanders was standing at his window, staring out, when Max walked in. Without turning around, he asked, “Coffee?”

  It was only when Max said, “No, thanks” that the Chief turned, crossed the distance between them, and shook Max’s hand.

  “Hell of a mess, huh?” the Chief said. “Have a seat. I got a job for you.”

  So it’s not about the DHS, Max thought. He let out a silent breath.

  He dropped into an upholstered chair facing the Chief’s desk as his boss moved to his own chair.

  “Does it involve someone trying to kill me?”

  Chief Flanders laughed, “Probably not.” Then the smile disappeared. “I heard about you opening up your home to cops and their families. And of course that whole thing at Farid’s house with the fire bomber; impressive. The thing is, it’s only going to get worse …is getting worse. Some of the civilian, non-sworn have already left the building to be with their families, despite our warning them not to. Well, for that matter, some of the sworn, too. I can’t blame them; I mean look at what’s happening, but I also can’t run a police department unless I have people here to do it with. That’s where you come in.”

  Max gave him one of those, what the hell can I do about it, looks.

  “You’re going to open up the Southern Substation and operate it as a shelter for families of employees. There’s plenty of room, over a hundred thousand square feet of floor space, bathrooms, kitchen, televisions, parking, and an eight foot fence around the whole thing with electronic surveillance. Our employees can take their families there, know where they are, know they are safe, and contact them whenever necessary. I’m hoping this will give them enough peace of mind to come back to work and stay when bad things are happening.”

  The south substation was a ninety million dollar debacle. It was budgeted for, contracted for, designed, and started at a time when it seemed the money would never end and the expansion south would never stop. But along came the 08 crash, and by the time the building was finished, the city couldn’t afford to operate it. Even if they somehow found the money, by then they had laid off so many cops and cut the pay and benefits of the rest, causing a wave of resignations, they couldn’t possibly staff it now if they wanted to.

  “Why me? Why not a lieutenant or sergeant,” Max asked.

  “Well for one thing, you’re on light duty for a couple more weeks, so can’t work the street anyway, and I need every one of my command people and supervisors here at work. The other thing is, well to be frank, I have confidence in you. What you did at the mall and the other night ….” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  Yeah? Well you should have seen Steve and me trading punches with those DHS assholes a couple of hours ago and maybe you would have a different opinion of me, Max thought. “Look Chief, the idea might work, but we need more than a building. We’d need food, cots, blankets, tables and chairs, garbage cans, mops, brooms, TP, maybe even a couple of vehicles to pick people up and drop them off in an emergency.”

  “Some o
f that is already there. Some of it I can get with a phone call or two. As for the rest, …” he opened his center desk drawer, pulled out a city credit card, stood up, reached over, and set it on the edge of his desk nearest to Max. “It’s got a five thousand dollar limit on it. If you need more, call me and we’ll talk about it. There are also a couple of those big, metal, cargo containers on site that contain pre-positioned disaster supplies. There should be some folding cots, food, water in those little Mylar packages, and so forth.” Your old PAB key should fit the locks. If not, I’m sure you know what to do.”

  “Okay, you kind of took me by surprise there, but now I’m thinking about it. There’s no way I’m going to be able to do it by myself. I’ll need some help. Just like at my place, I can use some of the parents to do things; cooking, monitoring the kids, clean up, stuff like that, but if a lot of people show, it will be too much for me alone. Can you give me anyone else to help?”

  “Pick someone.”

  “Steve Woods.”

  “Done. What else?”

  “I need a letter from you putting me in charge and saying I report directly to you, that way some sergeant, lieutenant, or captain doesn’t come in there and start changing things he doesn’t have to live with.”

  “I’ll have it ready for you twenty minutes after we finish our conversation. In fact, as of now you’re an acting sergeant. I’ll put that in there, too. But since I’m now your supervisor, I’ll want daily verbal reports from you on what’s going on and, from time to time, I’ll be dropping by to see how things are going.”

  Max nodded his head. “When do I start?”

  “Today. Now.” Chief Flanders wrote something out on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “This is the name and phone number of a guy at Public Works who knows that building inside out. Call him and get the grand tour.”

  Max looked at the note and saw the name Will Mason.

  Max stood, shook the Chief’s hand, and turned to leave. Before reaching the door he turned and said, “I’ll want a couple of shotguns, too.”

  Chief Flanders flicked his hand, “Whatever you need, take it. If they give you trouble, tell them to call me.”

  Max told the Chief’s assistant he’d be back in thirty minutes to pick up the letter making him a sergeant and putting him in charge of the substation. He then returned to his office where he discovered Brenda had bugged out on him. He let the phones ring, the callers would eventually hang up or be transferred to the Bureau of Field Operations clerical staff, and called Communications for an update on what was happening.

  What he learned was that the shelter in place order had been lifted for everyone except those north and east, within two miles of the blast. For the rest, the danger was very, very minimal. The radioactive cloud was diluting nicely the farther away it got. However, a six-block area, completely around and out from Convention Center, had been cordoned off and declared a ‘no go zone’ for anyone without the proper equipment. The evacuations and decontaminations were continuing, and in a new twist, people were showing up at the hospitals by the dozens, erroneously complaining about radiation sickness. There were so many in fact, that cops had to be redeployed there to maintain order.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Before leaving the phone center, Max made three calls. The first was to Will Mason in Building Maintenance. They set up a meeting at the southern substation for later in the afternoon. The second was to the ambulance company Myra worked for. Their dispatch informed him that she was at one of the triage/decontamination centers, located in a vacant building that used to be a Kmart store, on Bascom Avenue. The final call was to Steve to inform him of their new assignment and to instruct him to meet Max at the old Kmart on Bascom, as soon as he could.

  Steve’s response, “Fuckin’ A!”

  Max next picked up his letter of authorization and temporary promotion from the Chief’s office before stopping by Central Supply and the Police Range to check out some of the equipment he thought he’d need. From the latter two locations, he took possession of a new ballistic vest, four Remington 870 12 gauge shotguns, two LAR 15 carbines with magazines, twenty boxes of 12 gauge, double aught buck shotgun shells, and four hundred rounds each of 5.56 and 9mm cartridges. After loading all that in his truck, he headed to the old Kmart store to check on Myra and meet up with Steve.

  In route to the triage/decontamination center, Max turned on his car radio to listen to the local news. From there he learned that travel on highways 101 south, 880 south, and 280 north was slow-going due to the number of people voluntarily evacuating the San Jose/Santa Clara area. On a national level, the radio station reported the Dow had dropped another five hundred and thirty-five points on a selloff due to the dirty bomb detonated in California. With the selloff that had occurred following the other attacks, worldwide, it made for nearly a fifteen hundred point decline. Experts were already speculating on how this would lead to a shrinking of the economy and rise in unemployment, during a time when the United States was just getting back on its feet.

  There, of course, was a great deal of discussion about dirty bombs, their limited physical destruction, but huge psychological damage. One speculative comment that particularly caught Max’s attention concerned the suspicion that Cesium 137 was the radioactive substance dispersed, and it was also the substance that had been stolen and never recovered in Mexico. This reminded Max of the article he’d read earlier in the day detailing part of the on-going federal investigation that suggested a possible connection between radical Muslim terrorists and Mexican drug cartels.

  As Max approached the location on Bascom Avenue, he couldn’t believe his eyes. It looked more like a prison camp than a place where people went to be treated for injury or exposure. The parking lot was already surrounded by a six-foot chain-link fence. At the corners, and in several places in-between, were Department of Homeland Security MRAP vehicles (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles) weighing fourteen tons each. These were manned by M4 carbine-totting federal police. More armed federal police were stationed at the entrances, stopping and searching vehicles entering the property. Inside the perimeter was a large, OD green tent with a handwritten sign out front announcing “Decon.” Several San Jose Fire Department trucks were parked around it, and fire fighters in protective suits were going in and out of the structure. A helicopter, painted black with the DHS logo on its fuselage, rested in one corner of the lot.

  Thirty to forty yards from the tent was the old Kmart building. On the door was another handwritten sign that read, “Triage/Treatment/Shelter,” with arrows pointing to different doors. Two DHS cops were standing guard outside the doors. Several ambulances were parked nearby, a couple with their doors open.

  Max pulled up to the perimeter entrance where two DHS guards, sitting in white plastic lawn chairs, rose to their feet and approached.

  Max removed his San Jose P.D. badge clipped to his belt and showed it to them.

  One of the guards, a white guy with a long narrow nose, thick rubbery scar on his chin, and wearing a pair of gloves without fingers, said, “You got picture ID to go with that?”

  Max pulled out his wallet, removed his ID card, and handed it over.

  Scarface stepped closer to the driver’s window to accept it and as he did, saw the weapons in the backseat of the truck. He brought the barrel of his carbine up, pointing it at Max’s face and said, “Hands. Lemme see some fucking hands.”

  Max put his hands on the steering wheel and replied, “Are you out of your mind? Get that thing out of my face. I’m a cop. Look at my ID, dumb shit. These are department weapons I’m taking to a police department facility.”

  The second guard came around to the driver’s side of the vehicle and shouldered his weapon.

  Max could see people looking his way and a few starting over, including a uniformed California Highway Patrol officer and three or four DHS officers.

  “Get out of the car!” Scarface yelled, holding his rifle by the pistol grip in his right hand, pul
ling open Max’s door with the other, and stepping back at the same time.

  Max slid out of his truck, staring at the finger Scarface had on the trigger of his weapon, and said, “Can’t you read? I’m a police officer. These firearms are lawfully possessed. Get your finger off that trigger and put your weapons down.” He then stepped toward Scarface who backed up. At the same time all this was going on, he was aware of a vehicle stopping behind him. He assumed it was someone from DHS blocking him in.

  Scarface saw that Max was wearing a pistol and said as much to his partner who started yelling, “Put your hands on your head! Put your hands on your head!”

  Max felt the anger well up inside him. He ignored the command and kept walking toward Scarface. “What are you two idiots going to do, shoot a cop? The crazy thought came into his head that if he could get close enough, he’d grab the barrel of Scarface’s carbine, push it up, and disarm him.

  He was almost within reach of it when he heard Steve’s voice behind him, “If you two fucks don’t lower your weapons, I’ll kill you both. He’s a cop.”

  Max took a chance, looked behind him, and saw Steve in full uniform standing behind the bed of the pick-up with his pistol out and pointed at Scarface. When he looked front again, he saw that the CHP officer, this one with sergeant stripes on his sleeves, had arrived, apparently had heard Steve’s threat, and pushed Scarface’s gun barrel up.

  “Get those guns up, now!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with you guys?”

  To make matters even more interesting, among the group of people approaching was one dressed in white paper coveralls, paper booties, and running at full speed in his direction. “What are you guys doing!” Myra shouted.