Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  When Katelyn returned to Verron she was greeted by Paul, Kary and Marcus. She thought at first she was going to be in trouble. Her dad gave her a hug and told her how proud he was of her then added, “What you’re doing no doubt needs to be done, but in every town in America there are more of them than there are of you. Mother’s all over the country will be a bit upset if you kill off they’re sons. We were just discussing a way to go about this in a more constructive way, by following the Paul Verron war strategy and doing what Hunter is doing in Africa and the Middle East. A terrorist is a terrorist, regardless of where he lives and his method of terror. These people get their power from the money they make in the drug trade. Paul and your Grandpa think we should put a strategy together to go after the leaders, drug manufacturers, distributors and even the cartels. It’s a huge task and you can’t do it alone, but we’ll help you just like we support the Terrorist Elimination Unit. Gangs and organized crime are probably even a bigger problem than Islamic Terrorist, problem is, there are so many of them and they are spread out all over the world. We will need to pick out targets beginning with the top and systematically get rid of one at a time.” Katelyn thought a moment and replied, “I’ll be in charge of the group I put together?” Paul answered, “We will support you and supply everything you need to get the job done. This is a bigger war than what Hunter is fighting. They are better financed, better armed and harder to find, and in most countries the law is on their side. You’ll be a criminal everywhere you operate and very unpopular with those who sell and use the product that hopefully will soon be unavailable. These people are like weeds, you cut one down and a dozen more shoot-up. Whatta ya say. Sound like fun?” Katelyn smiled and asked, “Do I still get to wear this cool outfit; I’m kinda growing to like it?” Marcus laughed and asked his Dad and Uncle, “Do I get to tell my friends that my daughter is Demonio Negro?” Katelyn punched him in the stomach.

  FBI Organized Crime Investigator Bartholomew C. Brown had returned home to Pismo Beach, California to visit his Mother, Father and his 16 year-old sister for the holidays. It was a week before Thanksgiving and he had way more vacation time than he had desire to use it. He had been pushing to get assigned to the FBI Gang Task Force ever since he joined them right out of U.C. Berkley Law School. He never imagined he would be so busy. Gangs had spread from coast to coast, many of them getting their start in California. He had just arrived late the night before and was sipping on his morning cup of coffee with his mother, while the two of them watched his sister enjoying the early morning surf. Bart had taught her to surf when she was only six and she had been doing it faithfully ever since. As soon as he finished his coffee, he gave his Mom a peck on the cheek and grabbed his surfboard leaning against the wall of the deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Mrs. Brown watched as her son and daughter paddled out together to catch the next wave. She wiped a tear remembering how Bart and his older brother used to live on the beach when they were growing-up. It had been over 11 years since William Jr. had been killed and she still missed him every day. She watched as Bart let his sister catch the first wave then took-off paddling to catch the next one. He had grown into a handsome man. At 30 years-old, he still looked as lean and solid as he did back when he surfed every day with William. She worried all the time about his job with the FBI. She was sure he didn’t tell her everything that he did so she wouldn’t worry, but she was awfully proud of the man he had become.

  Bart and his sister Ginny were showered and dressed when William Brown, Attorney at Law, arrived home from work. He often spent extensive time in both L.A. and San Francisco; Pismo was almost halfway in-between both cities. As one of California’s top criminal defense attorney’s he maintained an office in both cities, staffed with hundreds of lawyers and paralegals. With all the criminals in California, Brown, Schwantz and Carmicle were a booming enterprise. He was proud of his son and had hoped he would join the firm when he graduated top in his class at Berkley. But after his older brother William was needlessly killed in a drive-by intended for a nearby gang member eating at the same street-side café, Bart had never considered anything else but the career path he was on. The two never talked about business. There was a great deal of love in the Father – Son relationship, but the bond they once knew had slipped over the years as his son dedicated his life to putting criminals behind bars and his father dedicated his to getting them out. He was still thrilled to see his son sitting on the sofa getting humiliated by his sister playing her newest video-game on X-Box. Bart paused the play and hurried to embrace his Father. William still hurt every time he looked at Bart, he and William Jr. could have passed for twins.

  While Dad and Mom prepared the evening meal of grilled Salmon filets and rice pilaf, Ginny decided to show Bart a video of some surfing competition from Australia she found on YouTube. She had been competing locally for about a year and was really doing pretty well. Her obsession had grown to downloading anything she could find of other people surfing. She called them training films, Bart called them entertainment. They watched the women’s competition for about a half hour and then the news people began the usual boring surfer interviews. They interviewed third and second place and they kept referring to what a great ride Katie was having that day. A few minutes later a good looking sun bleached blond with the most athletic body he had ever seen was standing in front of the camera. At first he didn’t recognize her, but when she was introduced as Katelyn Verron, his eyes and ears perked-up. He couldn’t believe this was the same Major he had met at Area 51. He looked closer to verify it was in fact her and was glued to the TV. Mom called for dinner and he yelled, “Just a minute Mom, be right there.” As his sister headed for the kitchen telling his Mother he was checking out the hot girls on the big screen, Bart rewound the interview, he recognized the voice. After dinner Bart watched the video four more times that evening. He wanted to think it was simply to be sure he was right about the voice, but in reality his sister had been right all along, he was mesmerized with Katelyn Verron.

  Chapter 16

  It was the weekend before Thanksgiving on Earth and Tala was not looking forward to spending her time without Brad while he headed to Southern California to be with his family. He had invited Tala to join him, but Brad coming to Verron to visit with her family was a lot different than a 16 year-old girl going to California to meet his. He wasn’t so sure his family could handle the age thing as well as Tala’s family had. Brad grew-up with a father who made his money the old fashioned way; he inherited it from his grandfather who had owned thousands of acres in Monterey, California. He had sold some, developed even more and passed a large portion on to his only living grandchild. The old man had outlived his three wives and children except Brad’s Father. His Dad didn’t care for the ocean front, and preferred to live on the 4000 acre tract of land he owned east of Monterey, in an area called Laguna Seca. Their home was on the Laguna Seca Golf Ranch and his father was the resident teaching golf pro at the club. Between his stock portfolio, real estate investments and profits from his construction company, they lived very nicely. Brad grew-up riding his mountain bike in nearby Jacks Peak Park or riding his motorcycle at track-days on Laguna Seca/Mazda Raceway. The rest of his time was spent at the Monterey Regional Airport flying his Cessna 172. He played some tennis, took karate, and loved to spend hours at the Laguna Seca Shooting Sports Association; he did not however enjoy golf. His father and mother golfed almost every day. He was not looking forward to the social life of the golf community. He made a point to have his Cessna and his CBR600RR track-day bike serviced before he got home for the holidays.

  Tala and Brad had loaded up their mountain bikes into Brad’s 4x4 pick-up truck for one last outing before they parted for the holidays and headed for Red Rock Canyon National Park. They got an early start so they could cover the boring part of the ride across the desert while still dark. Arriving part way up Rocky Gap Road, they located a good place to park the truck and unloaded. It was a long hard ride along the tops of the mounta
in to Switchback Spring. Since Brad’s enhancement, the mountain bike rides had been a lot more fun. He knew Tala could outrun him up the steep grades, but she always let him lead, after-all, he had actually been on most of the trails in the area before, but not this one. Their goal was to reach Switchback as close to noon as possible and enjoy the scenery from the high peak over lunch, then make the run back down the mountain to the truck. By the time the day was through, it would be well into the night before they made it back to Area 51.

  The trail was wide enough through most of the climb for them to ride side-by-side and actually converse, well at least Tala could converse, Brad was still sucking wind even with his enhancements. The ride up had taken longer than they expected and it was pushing 2:00 pm as they reached the Switchback. It was worth the ride. The view in every direction was spectacular. With binoculars you could see all the way to Las Vegas and even see Area 51 to the southwest. They had packed sandwiches and lots of Gatorade, bananas and some of the new Verron energy bars. Brad apologized again for running off to see his parents, but as an only child who was almost always gone, he felt like he needed to spend some time with them. He had promised Tala that he was going to prepare his Mom and Dad for the fact that he intended to spent Christmas on Verron.

  Headed back down the mountain was a real thrill, often reaching speeds of fifty or sixty miles per hour and doing it in loose dirt and rock. They would race each other through the wider sections daring to see who would touch their brake first, sliding sideways around steep turns, running inches from the sheer drop-off to the canyon below. They were often getting airborne as they flew over the rugged downhill terrain. The trail narrowed in a lot of places and wound downhill through large boulders and rock formations, some so tight that if you wobbled when you rode, the handlebars would scrape the rocky walls on either side. Racing downhill on a mountain bike was now one of the most popular and the most dangerous forms of bicycle racing done the world over. Thousands of professional racers did this sort of riding almost daily to train for any kind of situation that may arise. But no racer in the world could train and prepare for the Edwards brothers.

  Donnie, Fred and Spencer Edwards were three of the most sociopathic and hate-filled men on Earth. Born in Texas to an alcoholic oil rig worker father and part-time prostitute mother, they were abused and neglected from the time they were born. When Donnie was 9, their Daddy was killed in an oil field accident. As soon as he was buried and Momma collected the insurance money, she ran off to never be seen again, leaving 9 year-old Donnie, 8 year-old Fred and 6 year-old Spencer to fend for themselves. Local neighbors tried to pitch in and help, but the three were just too mean to deal with, exploding with violent tempers and even injuring other children and occasionally other adults, in their tantrum. Texas State DFAC was called in, but by the time they arrived the three boys were gone, jumping a slow train to Houston.

  Living in the streets and alleyways of Houston, the boys survived by pilfering garbage cans, stealing and begging, even rolling drunk homeless people when possible. By the time Donnie was 12 he was selling drugs for the local crack dealer to support his brothers and his two brothers joined in to help. The three boys killed their first non-paying crack addict when Donnie was 13, Fred was 12 and Spencer was 10. Spencer went crazy with his box-cutter after the girl was dead and totally mutilated the body, screaming his mother’s name as he did it. Things were getting hot in Houston after that and they hitched a ride to New Orleans. The boys managed to find the most despicable person in New Orleans shortly after arriving. Pierre Montré took the boys in and introduced them to male prostitution, drug dealing and extortion. They were very talented in their new skills. By the time Donnie was 16 he was accepting contracts to hire as a hit-man. His brothers loved helping him as they created new and exciting ways to murder those they were hired to kill. Since they were so creative, the police could never establish an M.O. for the boys. When Donnie hit 19 and all three brothers had become tall, lean and tuff, they had become known as the three most dangerous men in New Orleans and were then running the drug distribution business, meth labs and prostitution. Then one day, two years later, it all fell apart. Spencer had been using some of their product and flipped-out, taking his favorite K-bar knife to a fourteen year-old girl right in her back yard. If it had been the usual street tramps and prostitutes he occasionally killed he would have gotten by with it, but this girl was the daughter of a New Orleans minister. The manhunt hit the city hard, but the three boys were no longer in the city. They had moved to Nevada.

  Living off the land, cooking meth, and occasionally taking a contract to kill some dead-beat gambler, the boys now spent most of their time hidden away in an abandoned miners shack on the edge of the Red Rock Canyon National Park owned by one of the local Las Vegas drug dealers. On this particular day they were making their way home after a long day of rattlesnake hunting and wishing they had something more exciting to do than poach rattlesnakes and sell the meat, skin and venom. It had actually been a productive day for the brothers. They had managed to round up and capture 81 large Diamondback Rattlesnakes and 13 Gila Monsters. Between the lizard and snake skins, rattlesnake meat and the venom, it looked like a $12,000 day of illegal poaching. They were hot, tired, sweaty, always angry and ready for some fun, especially since the only company they had for the past 8 months had been each other. They never went to town together, usually just Donnie made the trips to buy food and supplies and those trips were always carefully arranged, often times going to Arizona, California, Utah or Idaho to get the ingredients needed for meth manufacturing, and never going to the same place twice in a row. Donnie was smart and very careful, his brothers were not. When Fred spotted the two bicycles in the distance as they rode the crest of the mountain, Donnie pulled out his binoculars to get a better look. All it took to get Spencer and Fred excited was when Donnie said, “Two of em alone. One’s a girl on a pink bike.”

  No one knew these mountain trails like the Edwards brothers and they knew exactly which way the bikes had to take for their ascent. They quickly made their way up the ravine they were following for a steep and narrow section of the bike trail where no one could stop on the steep downhill and no one could avoid their ambush. As they approached the narrow section that dropped 100 feet at a 30 degree angle and was bordered by boulders on one side and a 300 foot rock face on the other, the three stashed their bags of poached animals off to one side. Positioning themselves with one at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom of the slope, they hid themselves and waited for the soon coming sound of wheels on loose rock. Fred was in the middle with his 5 foot long snake-snare ready to be shoved into the front-wheel of the lead bike. The bike behind would have no place to go with the trail blocked by the downed rider. Spencer was at the top of the steep grade with his trusty K-bar just in case the second rider was far enough behind to stop before reaching the drop. Donnie was waiting at the bottom with his 30-30 Winchester 94 to make sure there were no problems with either rider.

  Brad was sucking wind when they reached the top of the long grade they had just climbed and paused at the top for a water break. Tala pulled alongside him and pulled her bottle from the frame clamp. Looking down the long gradual grade to where it disappeared suddenly into the rocks, Brad looked at Tala, saying, “This next two miles will go a lot faster going back than it did coming. I thought my legs would explode on that steep section in that ravine. Watch yourself on the loose rocks going down. Once we start, there is no stopping till you reach the bottom.” Tala loved it when he tried to look out for her and protect her. She knew that she could negotiate anything around here with ease after riding in the terrain on Verron. However, she did have to admit the surfaces in these dessert mountains were nothing like the good solid rock at home. It didn’t look like anything was attached to the surface in Nevada. She kicked some of the loose ground and replied, “We’ll have to do this on Verron when you come to visit, if you can keep up.” He took that as a personal challenge and quickl
y stuck his water-bottle in his bike clip and took off down the crest of the ridge as fast as he could go. Tala laughed, saying, “Oh, no you don’t!” and quickly jumped on her bike to catch-up. Brad remembered the quick bend to the left at the top of the upcoming trail and positioned himself at the best possible angle to the drop without slowing, flying a third of the way down before he touched the ground. Fred was concerned he wouldn’t touch ground until he was past his position, but knew Donnie wouldn’t let him by, but the bikes wheels hit the slippery rock a good fifteen feet uphill from him. His timing and aim were perfect as he plunged the steel snake-snare into the spoked-26-inch alloy wheel. Brad had no time to react at the sudden appearance of a hand and shoulder extending from between two boulders. In a split second, the metal rod slammed against the front forks and as thin alloy spokes began to shatter and tear, Brad was shot over the handlebars like he was launched out of a catapult. The slope was not a straight drop but curled between boulders and the steep rock embankment. Brad bounced like a ball in a pinball machine as he tumbled and bounced, until he came to an abrupt stop at the bottom. Skin ripped from his face, his nose broken, collarbone broken, wrist broken and his right Tibia sticking an inch through the skin, Brad blacked-out. The only reason he lived was because of his hard-shell bell helmet and the body enhancements that had been given to the Interceptor pilots.

  Tala hit the opening at the top with a higher speed than Brad as she raced to close the gap on his substantial lead. She flashed by Spencer unnoticed and flew through the air for over 50 feet as she landed over halfway down the slope. Fred had already used his snake-snare but he wasn’t concerned. The boys wanted her undamaged and knew she could not get by the crumpled mess of a boyfriend blocking the trail below. Tala caught a look of Brad’s broken body and his totaled out bike as soon as her wheels touched the ground and immediately began locking-up the brakes. Her controlled slide on such a slope was an impossible feat. She was struggling to keep from falling as the bike slid completely sideways with only inches to spare between her and the surrounding rocks. She came to a stop and leaped from her bike, racing to Brad’s side. That’s when she heard the distinctive sound of a rifle being cocked. She turned to face a man who looked a few years older than Brad, about six feet tall, a thin 160 pounds, with long dirty hair, a scraggly goatee and rotten teeth, pointing a rifle at her. She heard more than saw the two brothers carefully working their way down the lose rock trail and observed one of them had a K-bar knife, the other a revolver of some kind. She heard Brad mumble behind her and noticed his eyes flutter open, but there was no time for Brad at the moment.