by Ray Rhamey
Suzanne stepped to the side and studied Marion. “You’re not sleeping again.”
So the makeup hadn’t disguised the purple bags under her eyes. She shook her head. “It was a dream about Noah Stone. First there’s this nice, earnest face. Slowly, his gray hair turns brown, and his mustache darkens and gets smaller and rectangular . . . and suddenly he’s Hitler, haranguing a mob.”
“You think the Alliance is that bad?”
“Not on the surface.” Marion turned to her computer and launched a browser. Typing in www.theallies.org, she was soon at the Alliance’s home page, complete with a multicolored logo and the words I promise to help, the best I can.
Suzanne leaned forward to see, her hand a delightful warmth on Marion’s shoulder. The faint scent of the perfume Marion had given Suzanne for Christmas brought up pleasant memories of— No, save that for later.
Marion clicked links to flick through a series of essays written by Noah Stone and other members. “I’ve been through the whole site, and all they talk about is how to work together, their philosophy, and their agendas for change.”
Suzanne pointed to an ad offering a free book. “There’s a name I recognize.” The book was Justice Through Truth and Advocacy, and the famous name was Edgar Aaronson, a former Supreme Court chief justice. The coauthor was Noah Stone.
Marion said, “Yeah, I want you to send for it. Aaronson was one of my heroes in law school. Maybe there’s a clue there.”
Suzanne made a note. “Will do.”
Marion clicked on an icon of a pistol with the universal “no” circle and crossbar over it. It took her to the Alliance approach to eliminating lethal firearms and replacing them with defensive guns. “Look at this . . . Who can argue with wanting to get rid of handguns and assault rifles?” She’d read the Alliance’s ideas, but didn’t see how they could really work, long-term. On the flip side, a militia “patriot” had taken a shot at Stone in Chicago, so maybe he was doing something right.
Suzanne said, “Okay, so what’s so wrong with the Alliance?”
“God only knows, and She isn’t telling.” She thumbed through the messages and found a cluster of governors there. “And what are the leaders of California, Washington, Colorado, and Idaho up to?”
Suzanne took the top folder from the stack she’d brought in. “Well, my guess is the new FBI crime report.”
Marion rolled her eyes. “They’re calling to complain about Oregon again.”
Opening the folder, Suzanne scanned a printout. “I bet you’re right. Oregon’s crime numbers are down for the fifth month in a row, and their state crime rates are up even more than the rest of the country.” She looked up. “Do we know why?”
Marion knew half the answer. “It seems crooks are leaving Oregon and setting up business in nearby states. What do the governors want me to do, close the borders? I can’t exactly call Oregon up and tell ’em to stop getting rid of their criminals.” Her Noah Stone nightmare came to mind. “You know, Hitler’s Germany had a really low crime rate, too.”
What Marion didn’t understand was why more and more crooks were slipping out of Oregon. She hit her desk with a fist. “What is it? Why’s their crime rate dropping as if Superman were on patrol? The reports I get say more than a third of the citizens are already armed with those little defensive guns the state pushes, but I don’t see how that explains it—all over the rest of the country there are more guns on the street than ever, but the result is just the opposite! Every study shows that more guns mean more violence—except, now, in Oregon. It’s going down.”
Suzanne moved to the front of the desk, picked up the Priority Mail box, and held it out.
Marion shifted her gaze to the box and raised her eyebrows. “And that is . . .”
Suzanne’s smile warmed Marion. “Something from Joe Donovan.” She shook the box as she handed it over. It rattled.
Inside, Marion found an example of the “stopper” weapons that, according to Donovan’s last report, were taking over the state. Supposedly nonlethal, the little pistol made of red plastic fit readily into her hand. It would also fit easily in a pocket or purse. Three small-bore barrels were stacked one over two. There was no trigger, though; in the place she expected to see a hammer were three buttons—one red, one white, one blue, arranged in a triangle that matched the positions of the barrels.
Three Ziploc baggies were tucked into the box. They held bullet-like objects and were labeled “nap,” “tangle,” and “whack.” “This must be the ammunition Joe wrote about.”
She slid the contents back into the box and set it in a desk drawer. “Call Cy Ligon over at the FBI and ask him to pay me a visit. He might claim he’s too busy, but tell him I’ve got a new weapon I need analyzed. That’ll get him.”
Marion swiveled and gazed out the window. A siren wailed below, and an ambulance zigzagged through traffic. A quick image of a sheet-covered body flashed into her thoughts. “I passed another shooter crime scene on the way in this morning.”
Suzanne said, “What are we coming to?”
“I said the same thing.” Marion turned back. “Did I tell you about Charlie?”
“That cute little old security guard at your apartment house?”
“Yeah. Mugged right in my foyer. He’s in the hospital with stitches and a concussion.”
“And you moved to Georgetown to be safe.”
“Where is safe, anymore?”
Marion returned to the Alliance website and clicked on “About Us.” After skimming Noah Stone’s story about the idea for the Alliance coming to him as a result of a study group in a church, she gazed at his face. Was there a religious connection? Was that what he was hiding? What were his ambitions? How did he profit from destroying constitutional protections?
When Cy Ligon arrived an hour later, she was surprised at how paunchy and graying he had become—but his eyes were as lively and intelligent as ever.
He said, “Long time since Quantico, Marion.” They’d become friends when they’d gone through the FBI academy together. Though their careers had taken different paths, him staying with the Bureau and becoming a weapons expert, and her moving on to Justice after a few years as a field agent, they’d stayed in touch.
“Yeah. A little too long, I think.”
“Knowing you, you didn’t call me just to hash over old times.”
“I’ve got a little puzzle I think you’ll like.” She led him to her desk and handed him the stopper along with the ammo.
He grinned. “Hey, a stopper.”
She should have known Cy would be on top of this. As he turned the pistol over, peered into the barrels, and opened the chambers, she said, “You know about them?”
“Weapons are my life. From what I’ve heard, these are kinda fun and relatively harmless.” He picked up a baggie and took out a cartridge, a brass casing with a paper tube in the place a slug would ordinarily be. He opened the tube and poured little balls the size of BBs into his palm. “They call this one ‘nap.’ These beads contain carfentanil, an opioid eight thousand times stronger than morphine. A tiny dose is sufficient to knock out a human, and the drug has a wide safety range. They break on the skin like little paint balls. A good choice for dimming someone’s lights, if not knocking them out.” He poured the little balls and the casing back into the nap baggie.
She said, “With so many people in Oregon using these as ‘nonlethal’ defensive weapons, I want to know if they can kill.”
Cy’s eyebrows lifted. “Interesting question.” He took a tangle cartridge from a baggie, a casing with a white ball in the place of a bullet. “This’s an adhesive material that expands and will bind, let’s say, someone’s legs or arms. You can’t break or cut it. Comes off with a spray that dissolves it.”
He pulled out a whack cartridge, another tube, this one with a plastic cap at one end. “Whack, here, is a mix of pepper spray and a chemical that triggers mental confusion. Your eyes clamp shut and you can’t think straight. I don’t see conve
rting the whack cartridge to lethal—any killing spray can blow back on you. Tangle could kill someone if you shot enough onto their face to suffocate them, but that’s pretty hit-or-miss.”
He held up the baggie of nap cartridges. “This little baby, though, is all kinds of opportunity. The right poison and this can be a deadly delivery system.”
“You want to see what you can do and get back to me?”
“I don’t really have the time for this, Marion.”
“I know, but . . .”
He smiled. “But it’ll be fun.” He opened his briefcase and tucked the stopper and ammo into a compartment. “What’s this about?”
“The Alliance.”
He nodded. “Noah Stone.”
Surprised, she said, “You looking at them?”
He shrugged. “Everything we see appears clean. The way they turn out the vote, they seem to be do-gooders with muscle.”
“On the surface, yeah, but what worries me is where their so-called reforms could take this country.”
He shrugged. “All I know is that since they got going good our caseload in Oregon keeps dropping.”
But Hitler’s Germany had a really low crime rate, too.
Old Pain, Still Hurts
Hank was sitting on his hospital bed when an aide came in with a tray of the stuff the hospital served in lieu of food. Hank said, “No thanks, I’ve been discharged and I’m leaving now.”
“You can still have this.”
He caught the aroma of a yellow pool of squash the consistency of soup and said, “No thanks, I’m leaving now.”
The aide grinned. “Don’t blame you.” She left, and he went to his closet to dress. His T-shirt was snug over his bandages. His ribs were wrapped, and the dressing on his arm wasn’t due to come off for a couple of days. But he felt sound enough.
He had just slipped his Windbreaker over his shoulder holster when a man he’d hoped to never see again stepped into his doorway. Hank had always hated the thought of anybody tinkering with his mind, and this guy had tried his best after Amy and Marcie were— He closed the closet door.
The psychiatrist stroked his salt-and-pepper goatee, and irritation churned in Hank at the sight of the gesture. But he kept it cool. “Hello, Doc. You’re a long way from the VA hospital. Run out of heads to shrink?”
Dr. Kensington grinned. “I never finished with yours. Saw the story on the news and thought I’d look in.” He scanned the room. “You’re out of here pretty fast.”
“Got things to do.”
The psychiatrist focused on Hank. “How are you feeling these days?”
Hank shrugged.
“Having any dreams about kill—”
“Nope.” He wasn’t about to mention tears on his cheeks when he woke up. The shrink would be all over that.
Dr. Kensington frowned. “That’s not good, Hank. It’s part of your PTSD. You need to—”
“I don’t!” The vehemence in his voice surprised Hank . . . but the guy ought to leave well enough alone. He lowered his volume and said, “I’m fine.”
The doctor studied him. “You’re still troubled by it, aren’t you?”
Hank lifted a fist, then uncurled it and smoothed his jacket instead. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any reason to be troubled.” He advanced on the doctor, forcing him to back up and step out of the way. “Good to see you.”
It felt so good to get out of the hospital that the cab ride through Chicago’s muggy air was almost refreshing. Equally refreshing was the anonymity of his high-rise apartment building on North LaSalle—encounters with neighbors were few and far between, the way he wanted it. But it was nice to get a smile from Jim the doorman, a retired cop Hank liked.
In his bedroom, he glanced at the dirty clothes littering the floor and decided they were fine right there—he had enough clean stuff for his trip. Tidying for guests was no problem, because he never had them. No place to sit, for one thing. He kept things lean: one phone, one TV, one TV tray, one lamp, one table, one chair, one computer, one dresser, one nightstand, one bed.
He changed into fresh jeans and a black T-shirt, and then packed a suitcase, raiding the bathroom for his anxiety meds, regretting having to leave his stash behind. Weed helped keep the PTSD triggers down. But it was legal in Oregon, so he figured he could get some there. He left his gun and holster. It felt like he was going on a mission naked.
Back in the living room, he got online, bought a plane ticket to Oregon, and reserved a room at the Ashland Springs Hotel.
When he scanned the bedroom to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he stopped at the photo of Amy on his nightstand. She gazed up at him, forever five years old, wearing her favorite flowery party dress, her black curls shining and her brown eyes alight. Her silver butterfly necklace hung draped over a corner of the frame by its delicate chain. She’d been wearing it the day she—the day she—
He turned his back . . . then he pivoted, gathered the necklace, and slipped it into a pants pocket. Outside the window, sailboats scudding across Lake Michigan caught his eye. His focus shifted north, to where the cemetery was. Dr. Kensington said Hank’s inability to remember Amy came from denying what had happened to the two people who lay at rest in that graveyard.
But he was wrong. Hank knew what had happened because he’d read the report—it had been a righteous shooting. He didn’t need to remember the actual event. He was done with it. He knew his failure.
When he drove out of the parking garage, he turned north instead of heading for O’Hare Airport.
At the cemetery, the two flat granite plaques lay side by side, surrounded by lawn. A surge of spring air jostled a dandelion plant that had evaded mowing and bloomed bright yellow next to the plaque engraved “Amy Lynn Soldado.” Amy had loved picking dandelions gone to seed and blowing the white fluff into a breeze. She’d chase after it, all a-giggle.
Hank clutched the necklace in his pocket, and then knelt to pluck the dandelion flower and lay it over Amy. But he decided to leave it be—if a mower didn’t get the flower, soon a breeze would waft white fluff across her grave.
His gaze turned to the stone marked “Marcella Caruso Soldado.” He would never understand how things had gone so wrong with Marcie. How she could have done what the report said. How she could have thrown . . . could have thrown— Pressure grew in his mind, a sense of something surging against the inner barriers that kept him operational.
Enough. He had a plane to catch. Duty called with a good mission to execute.
Sending a Message
Martha Hanson pulled the living-room curtains aside and peeked out. Her miniature poodle joined her and stood on its hind legs, yapping to be picked up. Martha scooped her up and held her so she could see out the window, petting her head. “Shh, Sparky.”
Across the street, the pushy reporter with the camera was still camped out, sitting in a lawn chair. Thank God Mackinac Island didn’t allow cars or there’d have been a news van parked out there. She looked up at the sky, hoping for rain to pound the jerk, but there was nothing but blue overhead. She shut the curtains, gave Sparky a hug, and put her down. Martha went to her office and fired up her computer. She pulled up her militia website, but then just sat there and stewed, too angry to think.
She had never been so pissed off, never. The goddam media still pestered her every time she went out about dumbass Jason Schaeffer trying to shoot that asshat Noah Stone. The reason she lived on an island was to avoid exactly that! Her gaze drifted to a .22 semi-automatic rifle leaning in a corner. Maybe if she just winged the guy . . . She shook her head. That would be even dumber than what Jason had done.
On the other hand . . . She snatched up the rifle, chambered a round, and went to her front door. When she opened it and stepped out on the porch, the reporter stood and lifted his camera to his eye. He’d march across the street any second now, yelling questions at her, embarrassing her in front of her neighbors.
She snugged the rifle in
to her shoulder and aimed at the reporter. She was close enough to see his one visible eye widen, and he lowered the camera. At that moment she squeezed off a shot and splintered a leg of the chair behind him.
And then she almost hurt herself laughing as he ran down the sidewalk at a pretty damn good pace, holding his camera cradled to his chest. The abandoned chair sagged on the sidewalk. Her across-the-street neighbor stepped out of his front door, gave her a thumbs-up, and hauled the chair inside his house. Feeling much better, she went back to her office.
The grin on her face slid away, though, when she pulled up the Huffington Post Crime page and there was Jason’s photo with the headline “Assassin or Victim?” She clicked on the article and sure enough, her picture was there, too. Christ, she’d like to put a bullet in Jason—although she might have felt differently if he’d succeeded. Jason’s bullet hadn’t had Noah Stone’s name on it, but someday one would.
Martha laughed. Why not now? She went into her gun room and pulled out a .44 Magnum deer rifle cartridge. Her grin came back when she rustled up a Sharpie and printed “Noah Stone” on the brass casing. From there it was a simple matter to snap a picture of it with her phone, email it to herself, and then put the image on her website. No way of knowing if Stone would ever see it, but there were plenty of folks who would get the message. She could only hope that they would do whatever they did smarter than Jason had.
Pistol-Packin’ Mama
Chloe had been complaining about being hot and tired, so Jewel was glad when her daughter stood on the bus seat as they came into Portland and peppered her with Why this? and Why that? Jewel held Chloe close, fascinated by the pretty city with wooded hills at its back and a river at its feet. Maybe it was only the pure light of early morning, but Portland seemed fresh and clean.
She wished they didn’t have one more leg to go in their journey. Why did Noah Stone have to hang out in the state’s bottom instead of this nice city at the top? At least they had an hour break before it was time to leave for Ashland. And they’d be on a different bus—the smell from the john in the back of this one was pretty rank.