by Eric M Hill
“Chief, I need you to keep him alive.”
Chapter 19
President Cuning bent from the waist and looked at the ball. He looked at the hole and returned his eyes to the ball. He rocked his shoulders. The putter made contact. The ball rolled twelve feet in a straight line before veering off short to the right, missing the hole badly.
“Timidity is not an ally,” he said, standing erect and leaning his palm on the putter.
“No, Mr. President, it isn’t,” said the chief of staff, Hal Cook. “Timidity’s for the fearful…the person who dies with regrets of what he could’ve accomplished had he not played it safe.”
“I take it we’re not talking golf.”
“You don’t have me around to talk about golf, Mr. President.”
Cuning grinned approvingly and looked a few seconds at his chief strategist. “You know, I’ve never liked this game.”
“There’s nothing to like, Mr. President. You spend hours knocking around a little ball until you finally get it to fall into a little hole. The prize you get at the end is the little ball is in the little hole.”
“I’d hate to hear your thoughts on sex,” said the president.
Cook passed on the comment.
Cuning looked at the little ball. It was four feet away from the little hole. “I’ve got an idea I want to run by you, Hal. It’s not for the faint of heart. Not for the timid.”
“I’m all ears, Mr. President.”
“The nation was disintegrating. Foreign powers salivating at the opportunity to extend their influence into the western hemisphere. Abraham Lincoln did two things that saved the nation, and both were considered unconstitutional—until they were considered brilliant.”
“He suspended habeas corpus and gave the Emancipation Proclamation,” said the chief of staff.
“He suspended habeas corpus and gave the Emancipation Proclamation, yes,” said Cuning. “This isn’t 1863 and I’m not Abraham Lincoln, but it looks like the night before 1863, and I feel the weight of saving our nation much the same way I assume he felt.”
“President Lincoln wasn’t timid,” said Cook. “He was strong. Resolute. Willing to use the executive powers as they should be used. He couldn’t save the nation and simultaneously preserve the constitutional rights of the domestic enemies of that nation to hide behind judicial due process. The founding fathers never intended the Bill of Rights to eviscerate our ability to protect the nation.”
“Eviscerate?” smiled the president. “Linguistically baroque, but I have to admit, accurately descriptive.” His smile faded as he thought of those whose fear of his growing strength, and whose veneration for outdated interpretations of the Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights, were stronger than their desire to save the nation. “The Supreme Court,” he began, “they’re not going to budge. Neither will the Senate.”
“If we can do something to change the Senate rules…” The chief’s voice trailed off.
A dark, confident grin came confidently to the president’s face. He looked at the four-foot putt and placed his putter into the golf bag. In its place, he pulled out a driver. He looked at the body of water to his far left, positioned himself, aimed and swung. The ball flew one hundred yards and landed in the water.
“I’m tired of hitting little balls into little holes,” said Cuning. “I’m tired of pars and bogeys. I didn’t run to become captain of the U.S. golf team. I didn’t run to become captain of the Titantic, either. I ran to become president of the United States of America. I ran on a platform of strength. I told the American people that I would fix this mess. I aim to do just that.”
The chief strategist’s interest was piqued. “What do you have in mind, Mr. President?”
“Forget the Supreme Court. Five years after Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the Supreme Court immortalized their stupidity by ruling his actions unconstitutional.” Cuning glared. “He saved the nation, and those idiots declare his action unconstitutional. Who cares what they say anyway? They’re not commander-in-chief. I am. When they get an army, we can sit down and talk. Until then…
“Texas is in the news,” the president continued. “Governor Richardson’s ratings with Texans is eighty-three percent. Do you know why he’s at eighty-three percent?”
“I do, Mr. President. He’s at eighty-three percent because he publicly told you to stay out of Texas.”
“You’ve left out a few expletives he used.”
“You are the president of the United States, sir.”
Cuning nodded. “So they tell me. And why did he so tactfully and politely tell me to stay out of Texas?”
“He told you to stay out, Mr. President, his slant on it, is because you are weak and he is strong. He and that super hero chief of police of his, they’re not letting criminals hide behind the Constitution.”
“That’s exactly right, Hal.” The president smiled. “You know Governor Richardson and I went to Harvard together. He was my best man at our wedding.”
His chief strategist looked surprised.
“Finally, I say something that you didn’t already know.”
“I didn’t know.” The strategist shook his head. “You’d never know it by—” Now he smiled as he shook his head. “Politics,” he said.
“Contrary to popular Texan folklore,” said Cuning, “Texas is part of the United States, and Texas is not the capitol of the United States. Texans may be Texans first and Americans second,” the president bounced his finger in the air, “but they are Americans. They are a microcosm of the whole nation.
“There used to be a time when voters voted you in or out because you were Republican, Democrat, or whatever, but now they vote for whoever does the best job of selling security. The average American citizen just wants to be safe. If something was to convince them that I could make them safe if we got the Constitution out of the way…”
“If something or someone like Chief King and Governor Richardson…” said the chief strategist.
“Yes. If something or someone like Chief King and Governor Richardson,” said the president. “What they have going on down there works for us.”
“Would work better if a lot more cities and governors got onboard,” said Cook. “That would put pressure on the Senate to get their thumbs out of their butts.”
The president smiled a smile that his senior advisor recognized.
“You’ve got an ace up your sleeve, don’t you?” he asked.
“Are you accusing me of cheating, Chief Strategist Cook?”
“Not at all, sir. I’m accusing you of being president of the United States.”
The president took a deep breath. “We need to get going, Hal. It’s about to get real nasty in Austin.”
Chapter 20
Chief King had spent eight years in the Marine Corps before deciding to marry a Marine scout sniper named Ana and becoming a civilian. Before leaving the Marine Corps, he had unfortunately seen friends shot dead or blown to pieces. War had both hardened and humbled him. Bombs and bullets had a way of doing that to a man. If you weren’t hard enough to handle the brutality and randomness of indiscriminate hell, you either broke or died. And if your hardness kept you from breaking, it often wasn’t enough to keep you from dying.
If you managed somehow to cheat death once or twice, and you let it go to your head and you stuck your chest out like you were Superman, either the enemy would put a bullet through the big S, or he’d blow the whole ridiculous outfit off your body, taking arms and legs with it. Gunnery Sergeant Barry King hadn’t worn an S on his Marine Corps uniform, and twenty-six years later neither did Police Chief Barry King.
So it wasn’t hubris or carelessness when he didn’t notice until it was too late that something was wrong. It was 9:30 a.m. on a beautiful Saturday morning. He lived in a nice neighborhood. They had a strong community self-defense group. How could he have known that the UPS truck parked in front of his house had been stolen, the GPS disabled, and the driver killed?
> It wasn’t like he could see the prison gang tattoos on the ex-con that were covered by the stolen UPS uniform he wore. Nor could he have been faulted for not knowing what was in the can the UPS man hid under the package he carried. Or that Shank, birth name Ricky Gimenez, had a thing for cops, and that’s why the chief’s marked cop car had attracted rather than discouraged him. You could get a lot more done with a stolen police car than you could with a UPS truck.
Chief King was on one knee pulling up weeds close to the front door. He wore short pants that displayed thick, muscled legs, and a short-sleeved pullover shirt that revealed an upper body that was as much a slave of a vigorous strength training program as were his legs.
There were also four other signs of his training program. His survival training program. Strapped to both sides and both ankles were loaded semi-automatic pistols. There may have been a time in America when that may have been considered overkill, but not with violent crime as pervasive as it was. And with violent criminals being so aggressive and bold, you had to always be ready for a war. So wearing four guns while he pulled weeds was reasonable.
It was also practical. If he had a guarantee that one of his arms wouldn’t be disabled in a shootout, he’d consider—perhaps not strongly, but he’d consider—wearing guns on only one side of his body.
The UPS man got closer to the chief and his opened front door. Something instinctive happened in the chief. He was like a deer in the woods that had neither seen nor heard nor smelled the hunter, but had nonetheless sensed something fatally wrong.
Chief King looked at the approaching UPS man. He looked at the truck. Nothing off. Wait. Something was off! His glasses. The chief’s hand went to his ankle.
“Daddy! Daddy!” his six-year-old daughter screamed in glee, as she came running from around the corner of the house from the backyard, “Lauren’s shooting me with the water gun.”
The chief’s eyes shot to his daughter. Murphy’s Law went into overdrive. His wife appeared at the door. “Breakfast—”
He looked at her, but didn’t hear her tell him his breakfast was ready. He didn’t hear anything. Everything seemed in slow motion. Slow, slow, too slow motion. God, help me. I can’t fail my family! He looked up just as his own gun reached his thigh. “Tracy, run!” he yelled. His eyes were wide upon the now assessed threat.
A powerful stream of bear spray poured into his wide eyes and open mouth. Ana screamed and bear spray covered her face and filled her open mouth. Bear spray was concentrated and chemically enhanced pepper designed to stop a charging bear. It had no problem thoroughly immobilizing these two people.
Ana grabbed her face. Her eyes felt like two hot coals; her chest as though a volcano had erupted inside. She tried to talk and could only gag. Wait! She had to get the girls to safety! Ana fought pass the inferno that was burning her from the inside out. “Girls, run! Breach! Breach!” As soon as the last “Breach!” was out of her mouth, Ana vomited up some of the lava that was incinerating her lungs, and began desperately trying to fight off the blindness so she could help her family.
Chief King momentarily thought of shooting blindly at where he saw the man last. He couldn’t do it. No amount of desperation justified shooting blindly into a neighborhood. A strong hand gripped his wrist.
The UPS truck lurched forward and made a sharp right over the curb and up the driveway. Two men jumped out and ran around the left of the house to get the little girl that had sprinted off to the backyard.
“Don’t make me spill your brains all over these pretty flowers,” Shank put his mouth to the gagging man and finished his sentence with gleeful contempt, “cop. Think about making a move and you and your family are dead.” He took the gun from the chief’s hand and put it in his own waist. He backed up. “Now slowly put those other guns on the ground, and don’t try no movie crap.”
Chief King obeyed as slowly as possible, giving his family every extra second he could get them. He put one gun on the ground, then the other. The other gun he slung with a backhand across his neighbor’s yard.
The crook jumped back, anticipating a move by the cop. Chief didn’t try anything, though. “You want it, go get it,” he told the crook.
The chemicals had swollen the chief’s eyes shut. So the crushing steel of the gun’s body against his head was a total surprise. “Get up! Get in the house,” Shank commanded.
Chief rolled onto his side, holding his busted head with two hands. Gotta give them more time, he thought.
“You got three seconds to get in that house or I swear, I’ll shoot you right here and now, and that family of yours will meet you in the sweet by and by in half a minute.” The man started counting. “One.”
“Okay,” the chief hurried to his feet.
“Two.” The man pointed at the chief’s head.
“I’m in. I’m in.” Chief King walked through the door.
Shank stole a glance of the street before stepping in behind the cop and closing the door. He pushed the man forward. “You,” he yelled at Ana, “stop right there.”
Ana still couldn’t see. She stood still with her arms stretched out halfway. “What do—” Cough. Cough. “What…what do you…want?”
“Shut up!” he said, looking at her slowly from her bare feet to her face. “Who else is in the house?”
“No one,” said the chief.
“No one else is here. It’s just us,” Ana said clearly, despite the spray’s effects.
Shank walked angrily to the blinded woman. SMACK! Ana’s face spun and her body followed. She fell awkwardly to the floor. The chief heard the smack and ran in a low football crouch toward where he’d heard the smack.
BOOM!
The chief froze.
Shank moved to the right out of the path of the chief’s charge. “Cop, that one was in the ceiling. The next one’s going to be in one of you.”
The back door opened and two men hurried in. They couldn’t have been more different in appearance. One was a tall, skinny, white guy with long hair; the other a short, pudgy, black guy with no hair. They both, however, shared the same dumbfounded look. Shank looked at them as though one of them had the girl in his pocket. “Where is she?”
“She’s not in here?” the white guy asked.
Shank spread his hands angrily. “In here? Do you see her in here? Go find that girl! There were two of them. The other girl’s name is Lauren. The little one that ran away is Tracy. Go get those girls. We don’t have all day!”
The two men took off up the stairs. The black one stopped halfway up the stairs and stared straight ahead. “Uh oh.” He had heard about Murphy’s Law, too. He started back down the stairs. When he entered the living room, he appeared to have some very important information to share.
Shank looked at him in disbelief. “What the—”
“You know who that is?” he stopped Shank.
“He’s a cop! So freakin’ what?” said Shank.
The man’s fingers danced nervously. “This ain’t no regular cop, man. That’s Chief King.”
Shank turned his head sideways and squinted. No way this was Chief King. He looked at the cop and smiled darkly. “Well I’ll be. Chief,” he bent down at the waist, “is that you? Is that really big bad, Chief King? The Chief King who killed my brother?”
***
The black criminal was known as DJ. DJ started thinking as he watched Shane, the self-appointed leader of their crew. He didn’t deny that Shane was smart. That’s why none of them had objected to him ordering them around like they had voted him in as CEO, Criminal Executive Officer. But DJ knew that Shane could also be unnecessarily reckless at times. He also doubted that he knew or cared about Murphy’s Law.
DJ turned and went back toward the staircase. But when he got to the staircase, he kept walking. Very lightly. Right out the back door. “I’m going to let you and Eddie have this one, Shane,” he muttered under his breath, as he crouched and skampered toward the truck.
***
Eddie was j
ust Eddie. Not Fast Eddie. Or Easy Eddie. Or Dangerous Eddie. Just…Eddie. He was a bad man without a bad, flashy name. Eddie was like Shane. He didn’t know a lot about Murphy’s Law, either. Not yet anyway.
“Traaacy. Lauuuren,” he called out, as he crept down the hall. His eyes darted left and right from one door to the next. “Come on out, Uncle Eddie’s not gonna hurt ya.’ All you gotta do is come on out. My friend’s got ya mamma and ya’ daddy, and he’s not as nice as Uncle Eddie.”
Eddie cursed the size of the home. This cop’s as crooked as my girlfriend’s teeth, he thought. Ain’t no cop making money enough to afford a place like this unless he’s crooked. He cleared the first bedroom. He didn’t walk through the bathroom into the other room because he didn’t want the girls to be able to sneak down the hall. He shut the door that led to the shared bathroom and threw a bunch of stuff at the door’s bottom. He’d hear them if they tried to sneak past.
Thump!
Eddie went still. His head whipped left. Second room on the left. He ran down the hall and stopped before the closed door. He wasn’t rushing in there. He wasn’t stupid. He stood to the side and turned the knob. Locked. That was a good sign. He smiled.
Eddie reached above the door’s frame and pulled the pin key down. He stuck it into the tiny hole and pushed and turned. He heard a sweet pop. He pushed the door hard and let it swing until it hit the spring door guard on the baseboard. He heard crying and sniffling. He stuck his head out and snatched a peek.
Oh, oh, oh, he smiled. How he smiled! What he’d seen required more than a peek. It required a napkin. He came out of hiding and unwittingly stepped over a one-inch floor track. The track was part of the home’s Every Room A Bunker, Every Room A Fighting Room design.
In the floor track fitted a one-inch thick door that rolled into and snapped into place when needed. The door was made of a magnesium alloy that was much stronger and much lighter than steel and rested in a groove that went two inches beneath the floor’s surface and rested between steel beams. Perfect for little girls who weren’t built like powerlifters.