Reaper

by Buckhout, Craig

Max heard someone in the hallway behind him.

  “Hey, wanna go for a ride?” Steve asked.

  Max turned around. This was the first time he’d seen Steve since the call the night before. “What is it with you? Is it your life’s mission to keep me from getting laid?”

  “I’m trying to save you. You know, keep you from getting in over your head, making a mistake, doing something you’ll regret. Next thing you know you’ll be married, have a bunch of kids, working extra jobs to make ends meet, doing the Saturday soccer game thing, getting a potbelly, losing your hair, having your booze rationed, and forced to stare at women out of the corners of your eyes. I promise you’ll thank me one day.”

  “Jeeze,” Max said, shaking his head. “Okay, whatever, …now what’s this about going for a ride?”

  Steve nodded his head and smiled while pulling some chew from one of his cargo pockets. “Yeah. I got a call from Walt Briggs. He’s working today. He says there’s a shitload of people gathering at San Jose State getting ready to march on the Federal Building.”

  “How come? What’s the deal?”

  Steve put a pinch of tobacco between cheek and gums. “Well, supposedly it started out as a bunch of Second Amendment people protesting the feds cutting off ammunition sales and forcing gun registration, some sort of national day of protest. But the First Amendment people and the Fourth Amendment people got wind of it and decided to jump on the bandwagon. Then a bunch of tea partiers showed up. Walt says there’s well over five thousand people, and it’s getting bigger. So I wanna see what’s up for myself.”

  “And that’s happening right now?”

  Steve nodded his head and started looking around for a place to spit. He finally spotted a wastebasket just inside the arms room door, walked past Max, and spit in it.

  “Really? Did you really have to do that?”

  Steve shrugged his shoulders. “Forgot my cup. I’ll clean it out later. So you wanna go or not? It’ll be good to get out of here for a little while.”

  “What’s the department doing about this march? I don’t want to get in their way.”

  “Hah …we’re just monitoring it. In fact, I heard that some of the guys are even participating.”

  “You mean undercover?”

  “No, I mean like in participating, participating. Off duty and demonstrating like the rest of ‘em.”

  It would be nice to get away for a couple of hours, Max thought. “Okay, I’ll meet you in the parking lot. I gotta let Jessica Martinez know we’ll have to reschedule our meeting. The committee selected her as their president, and she wanted to discuss a few things with me.”

  “Ah, …where’s Myra?”

  “Working. She’s also trying to sign up a doctor to join our little group here.”

  “Cool. Five minutes in the parking lot. I don’t want to miss anything.”

  Steve started toward the wastebasket again but Max closed the door and smiled.

  “That’s just wrong,” Steve said.

  By the time they got there, the protesters had already moved to the front of the Federal Building, partially up onto the front entrance area, facing off with a line of helmeted DHS people. They were completely blocking the sidewalk, surrounding a DHS SUV parked at the curb, and spilling out into the street. Five thousand people wasn’t an exaggeration.

  Max and Steve saw Walter Briggs sitting in his marked police car less than a block away. They wandered over, greeted him, and turned their attention to the events unfolding a short distance away.

  As they continued to watch, Max spotted a group of about a dozen hooded anarchists wearing white, hard plastic masks, arrive at the edge of the crowd. Twice that many of the protesters broke off from the gathering and surrounded the anarchists, pushing, shoving, and ripping the masks from their faces, stomping them to pieces. This went on for about two or three minutes, accompanied by a lot of shouting, until the anarchists were herded away, rubbing the bumps and bruises they had suffered at the hands and feet of the larger group.

  In a different group stood perhaps twenty people dressed in Revolutionary War period clothing, including wooden muskets. One of them, a man dressed like Benjamin Franklin, carried a sign that read, Liberty. Another held a sign that read, We The People.

  The crowd pretty much ranged in age from late teens to people who were maybe in their eighties. There were a few children standing with their parents, though; one of whom, a little girl of about eight, was holding a sign that simply read, Freedom.

  Up near the front, things were getting a little tense. Men and women were shouting at the DHS cops, while at the same time moving toward and away from them, pointing and shaking their fingers. At one point, a woman in her early thirties must have gotten too close to one of the DHS cops, or said something he didn’t like, or maybe he just got fed up with it all, because he stepped forward and gave her a two-handed shove with his baton. She fell back into the crowd behind her. That caused the crowd to surge toward the DHS line resulting in more pushing and shoving.

  A temporary halt to the disorder occurred when a man with a bullhorn climbed on top the hood of the DHS vehicle parked at the curb.

  To Max, he looked like an aging, paunchy, bespectacled, college professor trying to fit in. He was wearing a brand new pair of blue jeans, probably the first pair he’d owned in twenty years, a white, long sleeve dress shirt, and white, white tennis shoes that screamed just out of the box.

  There was a squeal from the bullhorn before he said, “What do we want?” which was followed by a few voices, “Liberty!” He then shouted, “When do we want it?” And the crowd, now up to speed on the rhythm and desired response, shouted, “Now!”

  This went on for a couple of minutes before the man with the bullhorn said, “The Constitution ….” The crowd slowly quieted down, and he started again. “The Constitution was written to constrain government, to protect us, we the people, from the inevitable intrusion of government into our lives. But it’s happening folks. It’s happening right now, as we stand here with our anger and our fists raised high, before the very people who are doing it to us. They are trying to take those protections from us …all of us. And make no mistake, if we just stand by and do nothing, if we let them destroy everything Americans have worked so hard and fought so hard for, then we deserve tyranny.”

  “We here today, and at other rallies across this great land, can still rescue our country. We are stronger than any government or group of terrorists trying to steal our liberty.”

  Cheers.

  “We are more committed to preserving our freedoms than any backroom politician or ignorant jihadist with a gun is committed to taking them from us.”

  Louder cheers.

  “We are more willing to fight and struggle and sacrifice, including, if necessary, to give our very lives to preserve our precious Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees, than any of those wanting to destroy it.

  Still louder cheers.

  So fight them. Denounce those who sell us out. Defy their illegal laws. Resist them at every turn. Vote them from office. Impeach the bastards. Run them out of town ….”

  The rest of his speech was drowned out by the shouts of Liberty …Liberty …Liberty …Liberty. And suddenly it seemed as if the crowd swelled-up with all the anger swirling around it, and as one it turned and surged toward the DHS line.

  The black-suited cops struck out with their batons, knocking several of the demonstrators to the ground. However, several other demonstrators were able to grab two of the DHS troops and drag them away, causing other DHS cops to come to their aid, opening a breach in the line. The crowd pushed through this gap, causing the DHS line to fall back, closer to the front entrance to the building.

  “They’re calling for back-up from the P.D.,” Walt said.

  “Oh shit,” Steve replied.

  The pushing and shoving and baton work continued at the line. The crowd was massive and pressing. The media was off to the side filming the whole thing, catching every lic
k with a baton, every face screwed up in anger, every curse and shout of protest.

  “Whoa,” Walt shouted. And he started laughing.

  “What?” Max asked.

  “Hang on. Lemme check something out.” He stroked the keyboard of his in-car computer terminal. “Look at this.” He leaned back and turned the computer screen so Max and Steve could see it. “They’re all going out of service, every one of them.”

  “What do you mean?” Steve asked.

  “They aren’t responding. Every beat cop in the city is putting themselves out of service; a car stop, vehicle problems, a flag down, a suspicious circumstance. Nobody is going.”

  “Nobody is going?” Max asked. “There’s got to be somebody who is responding.”

  Walt returned to his keyboard. …”Nope …wait, there’s one guy. Can you believe it, there’s one unit responding.”

  “Who is it?” Steve asked. “Let’s straighten his ass out.”

  “Lieutenant Godfrey,” Walt replied.

  “Figures,” Steve said.

  “Look, I gotta go,” Walt said. “I can get behind letting DHS getting their asses handed to them, but we gotta protect the surrounding businesses.” He started the engine of his car and put it in gear. “Looks like we also have a gang-related shots fired near First and Santa Clara. Catch you later.”

  As soon as Walt was gone, there were a series of gunshots from the front of the Federal Building, and the crowd of protestors ran screaming in panic toward the street.

  “The idiots are shooting,” Steve said.

  Max and Steve started moving closer to the protest. As they did, they saw the DHS line putting on gas masks while several protestors lay at their feet.

  “Tell me they didn’t shoot those people,” Steve shouted.

  Max spotted the little eight year-old girl he’d seen in the crowd earlier, the one carrying the sign with Freedom written on it. The sign was gone and she was hurrying along with her mother, but being hard-bumped and jostled by the panicked crowd running past them. Max started for them just as the girl’s mother went down and the girl tripped, falling on top of her.

  One of the protestors, a male in his mid-twenties, stopped to help them, but a tear gas canister fired by DHS landed nearby, popped, and started spewing CS gas. The man hesitated and took off running again.

  By the time Max neared them, they were in the cloud of CS and screaming, which only made their situation worse. A woman in her forties rushed out of the fog with her shirt pulled up over her mouth and nose, didn’t see the mom and her daughter, and tripped over them, landing hard on her knees. She got back to her feet and ran on, bleeding.

  Max’s eyes were tearing and his nose and throat were burning when he finally reached the pair. The little girl, on her feet at that point, had her eyes completely closed and was turning in circles, pawing at her face, shouting for her mom to help her. Her mother was down on all fours, blinking rapidly, trying to see a way out through her tears. Max quickly got them turned and headed away from the gas. Steve met them a few yards away and led them toward Max’s truck. Once there, Steve retrieved bottles of water, passing one each to Max and the woman, using another to flush the little girl’s eyes. All three were coughing.

  While all that was going on, they heard sirens and more gun fire, but it all seemed as if it was coming from further away, toward First Street and Santa Clara.

  With most the sting from the gas gone, Steve said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” looked at the little girl, turned to the mother, shrugged his shoulders, and added, “Sorry.”

  Max asked the woman where she lived, and she replied, “South San Jose,” but indicated her car was parked at the college. When Max told her they would give her a ride, she hesitated. Thinking she was probably afraid to get in a car with two strange men, he showed her his badge and said, “We’re police officers.”

  She grabbed her daughter’s hand and took a few steps back.

  It dawned on Max she was lumping Max and Steve in with the DHS; cops were cops. “Hey, we don’t agree with most of what’s going on either. There were no San Jose cops there,” he said, pointing to the Federal Building.

  The woman said, “Ah, it’s okay. Thanks just the same. San Jose State isn’t that far, we’ll just walk.”

  As they watched her walk off, another thought came to Max. If the actions of DHS were causing people to distrust all cops, and it became known that cops and their families were sheltering at the substation, then the security risk goes up. Their little refuge might just become a target instead of a safe haven. He was going to have to do more to secure the facility.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The hourly news began just as Max and Steve pulled up to the gate. After they signed in and were waived through by Officer Maureen Cooney, the story Max wanted to hear came on the radio. They stopped momentarily to listen.

  The newscaster, a man with a deep baritone voice, who painfully stretched out the last word of each sentence, simply stated there had been a small disturbance caused by a street gang near the Federal Building in San Jose, and it was quickly controlled by the Department of Homeland Security. There were several injuries when officers used rubber bullets to stop the violence, but no loss of life was reported. That’s it; all there was to it. He seamlessly went on to the next story as if the event in San Jose was a minor occurrence of only passing interest.

  “What the hell?” Steve said.

  “I was afraid of that,” Max commented. “Only I figured the government censors would just minimize it rather than completely lie about it. People will get the word, though. There were too many out there. There’s no way they’ll keep what we witnessed a secret, and my bet is stuff like that happened all over the country. They’re making another mess of things.”

  “Yeah, but to lie like that. And for the press to let them get away with it. They were right there filming. I saw ‘em.”

  “Hey, our fearless leader and the rest of ‘em have been flat-out lying to us for the last, what, seven years now, and most of the press lets them get away with it. Look, the way I figure it, we have one primary objective. It doesn’t matter what those DHS dummies do as long as we do our best for the people who want our protection. It also doesn’t matter what bullshit laws and rules the feds make; we still look out for the best interests of our people, even if it means breaking a few of those rules.”

  Max paused, thought a second and added. “Speaking of taking care of our people, we need to harden the target. We gotta make sure only those we want get inside the grounds. If we let outsiders come in at will, we may as well not even be here.”

  “So, what do you have in mind?”

  “A lot of things. I want to get direct, real time communication set up with dispatch at the department. We need to know what’s going on as it’s happening. Another thing, and I know this may sound a little overboard, but I want to set up a sandbagged position near the front gate so whoever is standing there isn’t exposed to gunfire should some knot-head get the idea we’re an easy target. Maybe even put another on the roof. We also need handheld radios. We gotta be able to communicate with one another when we’re on opposite sides of the property.”

  “About the radios, Central Supply has a bunch of the old ones nobody uses anymore. They’re bigger and heavier than what we’re issued now, but they still work.”

  “Can you take care of that? And some chargers and extra batteries, too.”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay, after I meet with Jessica, I’ll see what I can do about getting some protection for the people at the front gate.

  As if to make the point, Maureen and one of the non-sworn resident helpers approached the truck. “Just thought you should know we’ve had a few people nosing around this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean?” Max asked.

  “You know, neighborhood types. Most just slow down, stare, and then drive off, but a few of them have actually stopped to ask what’s going on.”

  �
��What have you been telling ‘em?”

  “Well, I didn’t know what to say but figured we didn’t want to tell them the truth because then we’d have people showing up, wanting in. So I just said we’re conducting a disaster preparedness exercise. Seemed to satisfy ‘em.”

  Max nodded. “That’s as good a thing to say as any. Can you pass it on to your relief?”

  Max found Jessica in the kitchen talking with Frank, who was wearing his Vietnam era boonie hat, a white V-neck tee-shirt, and a pair of faded and patched, olive green cargo pants, under an apron that read, “The Chef is Never Wrong.”

  “I don’t know if you’re keeping track,” she said, “but we now have one hundred thirty four residents, and the way it’s going, I’ll bet we’ll be over one fifty or sixty by tomorrow. Now I know you want to be the gatekeeper and all, but here’s what I propose. All the requests for shelter come to me, and I only refer to you the ones who aren’t police department employees or their family. I’ve got a system set up to keep track of who we have here and even a questionnaire for them to fill out when they arrive. It covers such things as special skills and background, contact information, vehicle description, plus any medical and diet issues we might need to be aware of. Myra helped me set that part of it up. It just makes sense.”

  Max thought about this for a second and had to admit she had a point. He was fielding maybe fifteen calls a day from people who would automatically be allowed to stay because they were part of the police family. For each of those calls he received, he then had to make a call to the front gate to let them know someone new was coming. When you factored in all the calls that weren’t answered the first or even second time, well, that was a lot of time spent receiving and making calls.

  “Okay, deal,” he said. “I’ll call the Police Officers Association and let them know to refer any calls they get to you. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, there is. The committee has talked it over and we think we can get by with less than ten dollars a day per person. Here’s the thing, though, we want to frontload it, so to speak, and lay in a good, basic supply of food before we start cutting the contribution back.”