Molon Labe!

by Boston T. Party

  Jonathan Douglas Gray had been a federal judge and faithful protector of the law because it was his particular fate. The thousands of criminals who yearly clogged his beautiful court with the stink of their insolence were also playing out their part. Gray realized long ago that a man of his position must cultivate a garden of calm perspective: without the great unwashed there could be no laws, no court, no judgeship.

  Rulers needed subjects just as subjects needed rulers.

  Still, the notion often rankled. When it did, Gray "threw the book" at the latest would-be anarchist. Asymmetrical punishment, he called it. An eye for a tooth. The Government could not afford to appear weak, not for a second. Yes, stern measures were best. One had to shock das Volk with regular harsh sentences in order to keep them in line.

  One also had to rule one's body to keep it in line. Gray's flesh was always pleading for a "day off" from its morning jogs. He never gave in. His body was subject to his iron will every minute of every day. Being called a "Health Nazi" by the lumpenproletariat was a jealous compliment.

  Gray would return home at 6:30, take a cold shower of distilled water, rub himself down with coconut oil, and eat a light breakfast of organic bran, yogurt, and precisely measured Brewer's yeast. He would leave for his law firm at 7:15. Regularity of schedule had served him well.

  Until today.

  He reaches the park a few minutes later. On the familiar jogging path he feels his muscles warm and loosen up, his stride relaxing. His exhalations are bursts of steam, as if from a mighty train. The image always invigorates him. Powerful. In control. Exercising while sluggards slept.

  The morning is silent but for his rhythmic breathing and crunchy footfalls on the frozen gravel trail. His normal route through the park is a figure-eight, with the middle deep inside the woods and the top and bottom ends near the streets. As he nears the top of the park he notices the gray-blue dawning light through the thinning trees.

  Gray sees another jogger up ahead on the left. Tall and muscular, with blonde hair under his knit watch cap. Gray instantly seethes inside. Few people ran in "his" park this early and it always irked him when they did. Especially if they were in good shape. He overtakes the jogger in a blue sweatsuit and passes by on the right without even condescending to look at him.

  The tall jogger slightly picks up his pace, keeping one step behind. He raises his right arm, its hand grasping a leather sap filled with 16 ounces of fine lead shot. Gray feels a sense of vague alarm and begins to turn his head, but the jogger is too quick for him. He smashes the sap on the back of Gray's head, causing his brain's frontal lobe to bounce off the inside of his forehead. He is unconscious before he even hits the ground in a sprawl. He will not wake up for hours, and when he does he will not recall being struck.

  As he bags the sap in a ZipLoc and pockets it, the jogger forces his breathing to slow as he intently scans the park. Alone. He then hoists the 165 pound Gray as if a bag of dogfood and trudges the twenty yards up a knoll to the treeline by the street. He puts Gray down behind some shrubbery, takes out a pair of compact Steiner 8x22 binoculars from underneath his sweatshirt and carefully surveys the street. Be thorough. Don't be in a hurry to move.

  The neighborhood is still sleepy and quiet.

  His parked car is just thirty feet away, beckoning as his escape. He had carefully chosen something fitting for the area — a white, late 1990s Lincoln. He picked white because it was the most common color. Nearly 60% of rental cars were white. It also had a large trunk. A van, although roomier, was subjected to much more police scrutiny.

  A Lincoln would raise no attention and was instantly forgettable.

  The preparation of the car had been paramount. The registration must be valid in case he were stopped, but not linkable to him. He bought it with cash from a private owner last week. The title had not been transferred, but he signed a bill of sale made out to a fictitious company. He even printed up business cards to show any officer during a traffic stop. Once this mission was completed, he would simply resell the Lincoln on the previous owner's title (being careful not to leave fingerprints on it), never having registered it him-self. No paper or financial records tied him to the car, and he had disguised himself to thwart recognition by the seller. He could even dump the car.

  The only thing more untraceable would have been to use a stolen car, but the risks were too great. One random license check would catch him. Interim ownership was best.

  He had left the trunk just slightly open so he doesn't have to use a key. This is my moment of greatest risk the man reminds himself. From shrubbery to trunk is only thirty feet and five seconds, but they are the most important five seconds of his life. The quality of his future depends upon nobody driving around the corner, or leaving their house, or looking out their front window during that brief time. He could explain being discovered next to the downed jogger, but there was simply no plausible explanation for putting an unconscious man in a car trunk.

  A thought flashes through his mind. Still time to quit and just walk away. I can snap the bastard's neck and leave him here. Easy! He rejects the craven idea. No, that's the chickenshit way out, and it's too good for Gray! Stick with the plan! He will go through with it.

  The man is on fire with acuity, too excited to be nervous. He scans the neighborhood one last time. Nobody is stirring. The longer he waits, the riskier it becomes. Time to just go for it! He picks up Gray and walks briskly, but smoothly, to the rear of the white Lincoln, lifts the lid and gently places him inside. He forces himself not to look around, which would look suspicious if somebody were watching him.

  The trunk is completely and carefully lined with 6mil heavy plastic, taped securely around all edges. On top of that is a second sheet of the same plastic to prevent any transfer of hair or fiber residue Gray to trunk, or vice versa. The spare tire and jack had been moved to the rear floorboard so that he does not have to open the trunk in the event of a flat.

  He needs to bind up Gray so that he cannot free himself or pound on the trunk lid to attract attention. He has an overwhelming desire to drive away now, to leave the area immediately, but he knows that's just panic talking. Stick with the plan! He quickly covers Gray's head with a cotton hood and then cable-ties his feet and hands together. He had considered using tape but tape picks up lots of tell-tale debris. Modern crime labs can even lift prints from the adhesive side with dye staining or lasers.

  He bags his Microflex Diamond Grip latex gloves and tosses them inside with the sap. Then he covers the jogger with the second plastic sheet and closes the trunk lid.

  The electric latch sound is immensely reassuring. I am 80% homefree.

  He takes one last casual look around the neighborhood. Still alone. He gets in the car, carefully placing his size 12 running shoes in a plastic bag on the floorboard. He bought them for a dollar at a garage sale months prior in another state. Although he is a size 10, he wanted larger mission shoes in order to leave contradictory evidence. With two extra pairs of heavy socks, they fit fine. His shaved calves and feet left no hairs in the shoes.

  He bags his $1.00 bargain footwear and slips on another used pair —size 10 — unsoiled from his jog. Nothing from the Lincoln is in the park, and nothing from the park is in the Lincoln.

  Nothing besides Jonathan Douglas Gray, that is.

  He then dumps out two lipstick-stained cigarette butts he found in a mall ashtray. The man neither smoked nor wore lipstick, but these two false clues may cause the FBI to search for a woman driver. Having been a cop after Desert Storm while he got his Chemical Engineering B.S. on the GI Bill, the man knew police work. He understood that investigators' time was, like anybody else's, finite, and the more time you caused them to waste, the better your chances of success. Forensic crime labs with DNA analysis could identify subjects from their saliva left in payphone mouthpieces, but the finer the tool the easier it is to blunt its edge. A bag full of cigarette butts, hair clippings, used tissues, and the like dumped at a crime scene will overw
helm any forensic lab, including the FBI's. A powerful floodlight negates $4,000 night vision devices. And so on.

  Technology only has advantages when kept on its own terms. Where it magnifies, give it a boxcar load. The FBI cannot keep up with its Carnivore DCS1000 analysis of email traffic any more than the Treasury Department can filter through the millions of annual Currency Transaction Reports. Like finding a needle in a needlestack.

  It was all about the signal-to-noise ratio.

  The man smiles at his reflection on all this as he inserts the ignition key. The Lincoln starts immediately, fully warmed up by the 150 mile trip to the park. He had arrived precisely at 5:30AM so it hadn't cooled down. He leisurely drives towards the highway. Removing his watch cap and blonde wig, and bagging them both, he is glad to see his short, brown hair again in the mirror. A few miles later he pulls next to a trashcan, tosses in his bagged shoes, cap, wig, and drives on.

  I am 85% homefree.

  Several minutes later he is on I-270 South heading towards D.C. He checks his rearview mirror for a break in traffic behind him, and when he sees one he flips a toggle switch on the console. A rectangular piece of metal falls from behind his car and skitters to the shoulder. Worked perfectly! He had installed a powerful electromagnet behind his car's license plate and bracket. An hour earlier he stuck on an old, expired steel license plate (which he found at a flea market) over his own. It was his homage to "Q" and James Bond.

  I am 90% homefree.

  The most dangerous part has passed. Now, he must play the part of a commuter who has a perfectly good reason to be where he was at six in the morning, along with a mundane, believable, and verifiable destination. He obeys all traffic laws and drives at 2mph under the speed limits. He has a mug of steaming coffee fresh brewed from a 12VDC machine. Hanging in the back is a business suit.

  Just another commuter.

  The man revels in the rich coffee aroma, taking a first sip. He glances again at himself in the mirror. Although his face is calm, his eyes glow with accomplishment. He never felt more alive, and allows himself a chuckle. Turning over his shoulder he asks, "You all right back there, Judge?"

  Gray had, for all practical purposes, sent an innocent and harmless woman to her death. Today comes the bill.

  The man recalls the horrible account of Katherine Jessup's needless death as he takes the Beltway to I-66 West. He'd never met Katherine Jessup. Didn't know anyone who had, either. But when he read her story and saw her picture he thought That could have been my daughter. Jenny had those same wistful eyes before she died of breast cancer in college her sophomore year.

  Actually, the nausea that Jenny suffered from Adriamycin — better known as "Red Death" to its miserable patients — was more responsible for her demise than the cancer itself. The man had to watch his beautiful daughter waste away to a Dachau-wisp before death mercifully took her. The tragedy spun his wife into a chronic depression. She soon after ODed on barbiturates.

  He only learned of medical marijuana later through the Katherine Jessup story, but this was months after Jenny's funeral on that sullen, drizzly Tuesday morning. Medical marijuana should not only be legal, but it should have been on 60 Minutes years ago! I might still have my wife and daughter!

  Not surprisingly, the man focused on the medical rights issue. Every FDA incursion against vitamin sellers, every DEA raid of holistic health practitioners, every natural herb shop stormed by submachinegun wielding US Postal Inspectors in federal black ratcheted the man's anger one more notch. Peaceable Americans were being hounded out of business and into prison over some useful flower, stem, tree bark, or root. He stewed for years over Judge Gray, who seemed the epitome of every senseless and monstrous invasion of medical privacy.

  Gray had returned to private law practice shortly after being hounded off the federal bench for his draconian rulings, which he blamed on mandatory sentencing guidelines. The old Nuremberg defense of "just following orders" excused no perpetrator of evil. Not then, and not now.

  When Harold Krassny publicized the reasons for his actions, something clicked within the man. About time! The federal government long ago declared war on us, and we're only now just waking up to it.

  After Krassny's example, the rudiments of a plan soon hatched in the man's mind. It wouldn't bring Jenny or the Jessups back, but it was The Next Best Thing.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Law Offices of Schwartz, Williams, and Gray

  8:24AM

  Senior partner Ira Schwartz buzzes his secretary. "Apparently Jon's running a little late. Have him drop by my office when he gets in. We need to discuss McFarland."

  "Yes, sir."

  northern Virginia

  8:24AM

  The man exits the highway onto a small county road and drives southwest about twenty miles. He then turns onto an overgrown dirt road which winds its way into the George Washington National Forest. After several miles he stops just past a pair of trees flanking the road. He dons a new pair of rubber surgical gloves, gets out, and retrieves a small bag hidden behind an old rotten log. In it are a heavy chain, combination padlock, and sign. He strings the chain between the trees across the road and padlocks it. The sign reads Closed for public use. By order of US Forest Service. It is an authentic sign, "borrowed" from a gate miles away.

  He studies the road in front of him. It is a rarely used forest road hardly more than a trail, its ruts nearly overgrown with lush grass. By the dirt he can tell that nobody but himself had driven on it since yesterday. The man drives two more miles down the road, turns around, and parks. It is 8:55AM. The sun strains through the leaden winter sky, and all is quiet.

  He gets out and surveys the area with a hand-held milspec thermal device capable of detecting human presence within 600 yards. He is quite alone. He walks about fifty yards through the trees, and removes a large, weighted-down tarp. The pit he dug yesterday is undisturbed, as is the covered shovel and several 5-gallon plastic cans.

  He returns to the car, opens the trunk, and dons new gloves. Gray is half awake, groggily straining at his cableties. The man lifts Gray out, still hooded, and carries him near the pit.

  "Who, who are you? Where am I?" Gray manages to sputter through his hood.

  The man says, "We've never met, but I know who you are."

  "Well, if you know who I am, then you must realize what colossal trouble you have gotten yourself into!" Gray snaps.

  "It seems only one of us is in any trouble," the man says evenly. "I'm not the one bound up and blindfolded miles from home, now am I?"

  Gray is only momentarily fazed by this. "You are in much more trouble, whoever you are. You should have kidnapped a wealthy man, not an influential one. Release me at once! I have important business to attend to, and my people in Washington already know that I'm missing. Furthermore, I can assure you that the FBI will — "

  The man gives Gray a brutal slap across his left cheek. "You're a very important guy — noted for the record, Judge. Now shut up."

  The full terror of his predicament falls on Gray. Nobody knows I'm missing! Nobody is coming to help! Gray knows that he is going to die — horribly — and begins to panic. "Y-you're g-g-going to kill me!"

  "Calm down, calm down. You're only upsetting yourself," the man soothes. "And you're not making that headache any better. That was a nasty fall you took."

  This confuses Gray. He doesn't remember falling, but even if he did fall he doesn't understand why he's been abducted. "You're, you're not going to kill me?"

  The man chuckles. "If I were going to kill you, would you still be blindfolded? Listen, I'm going to give you something for your headache, and then we'll talk. I'm sure you've got a lot of questions."

  The man lifts the cotton hood over Gray's mouth, opens a small plastic bottle of Evian drinking water and allows him a long swig before he swallows a gel capsule. Strangely, Gray seems to trust the man and his calm voice.

  "Good. Your discomfort will be gone soon. You're not going to start shouti
ng for help now, are you?"

  Gray shakes his head. "No, but I demand some answers. Just who in the hell do you think you — "

  Slap! Spittle is flung several feet.

  "Stimulus — response, Judge. Are you getting the idea here?"

  Gray nods vigorously.

  "That's better. Just to be on the safe side, I can't risk you shouting for help. I'll let you go later, but right now I need to tape your mouth. Besides, I'm tired of hearing your voice. Just cooperate and everything'll be fine, OK?"

  Without waiting for a reply the man yanks off Gray's cotton hood and seals his mouth with duct-tape. With heavy scissors he cuts off Gray's shoes, socks, and all of his clothes except for his underwear.

  Gray blinks rapidly from the sunlight and strains to make out his kidnapper's face. Seeing it, he knows, seals his death. He begins to tremble.

  While Gray is wriggling in his boxer shorts, the man goes to the 4'x6' pit and removes a sheet of plywood from an interior earthen shelf, exposing an empty smaller hole below. It is lined with 10mil black landscaping plastic, forming a water-holding pit 3' deep and 3'x5' in dimension.

  "Hey, did you know that Evian spelled backwards is 'naive'?" He then kicks the cabletied Gray into the pit, who lands in a bruised heap.

  "I've two words for you, Judge: Katherine . . . Jessup!"

  Gray frantically searches his terrified mind for the familiar name. A burble of queasiness interrupts his thoughts.

  The man continues, "Well, J.D., I lied. I couldn't find any headache medicine. But I did bring some concentrated powdered ipecac."

  Cephaelis ipecacuanha is a creeping plant of tropical South America. Its dried rhizome and roots are used to prepare a very powerful emetic. An emetic, from the Greek emetikos, is something that induces vomiting. Taken raw it works immediately and cannot be resisted. The capsule has delayed reaction by a minute or so. Every drugstore sells it, and it requires no prescription. First aid kits have ipecac in case a victim has been poisoned.