The Lesser Evil

by Jim Magwood

  and a document deeding the factory to the city of Wiesbaden upon his eventual death.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Cynthia, from what we’re seeing here and from around the world, the mobs are getting more and more desperate and many more people are being injured. What’s your take on it?”

  “You’re very right, Samuel. We’ve been able to reach several police authorities in different countries and they are all saying that the vigilante actions are getting entirely out of hand. While the goals themselves of the different vigilantes are apparently not being questioned, the authorities are saying that they are now just becoming mob actions.”

  “I’m hearing the same, Cynthia. Words like “out of control,” “no leadership,” mob rule,” and “insane frenzies” are being used by the authorities we’ve talked with. And they are saying they don’t see any end to the activities. They are calling many of them now “spontaneous,” and say they simply can’t get ahead of them to stop them before they get started.”

  “Do you have any idea—have you heard any rumors, Samuel, as to where these incidents are coming from? Who might be starting or leading them?”

  “No, I haven’t heard anything. Just a lot of questions. The one question that keeps surfacing is whether the citizens have been inspired, if you will, by the actions of that international vigilante group and are now just rolling on their own momentum. These kinds of events are taking place in almost every country and they don’t seem to be linked by anything in particular. In most of them, the people seem to start with some fairly good objectives such as cleaning out the drug dealers of an area, but they then apparently are getting out of hand and are becoming frenzied mobs without leadership or direction.

  “One incident that was reported yesterday from Sweden had a fairly small group of students protesting at a university, then gradually gathering hundreds more students and deciding to march on one of the criminal districts in the city. As they marched through the streets, people from homes and shops along the way joined until, when they reached the selected district, there were apparently thousands in the mob and it was completely out of control. They began destroying, then torch-ing, homes they came across without realizing there were innocent people living in them. Before it was all over, there were a reported forty-one people killed and more than one hundred homes and businesses destroyed. And the terrible thing, Cynthia? It doesn’t appear there was a single criminal activity disrupted. The mob didn’t have any solid identifica-tions to work with and just rampaged wildly.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Henry was again picking up the news broadcasts and was even more concerned about what was taking place. With the real vigilante group no longer functioning, would there be any guidance given to the world citizens as to the right and wrong way of taking back control of their lives? Would they just rampage their way into their own destruction? Could anyone speak to the people and encourage them—maybe even assist them? The main group had done things on their own. Maybe the citizens, now that they were apparently motivated, could be gathered and managed, sent in the right directions and shown the right things to do so the ultimate purpose of ending, or at least reducing, the power of evil in the world could be handled without unnecessary chaos or suffering.

  But what kind of funding would that take? Nobody he could think of could even begin to gather that kind of power and resources without becoming known to media and government agencies everywhere.

  CHAPTER 63

  “What do you have for us today, Randall? Are we finished?”

  ‘Randall Johns’ had made a secure phone call to the other group members to set up a conference call, and the six men were on the phone together. Real names were never used, of course, even between themselves. One could never be totally sure of security in today’s world of computer glitches and in-quisitive people, the NSA, ECHELON and others.

  “Yes, I believe we are. As we discussed last year and decided last week, with the threat of exposure growing rapidly, I’ve shut down all the computer systems we’ve been using and have closed all the accounts. The final bank transmission has transferred all the funds to the organizations we selected, so as of this moment there is nothing left. Unless one of you knows different, everything is now clear.”

  “It’s sad we had to shut down so soon. We could have done so much if we had more time.”

  “I agree, Ravi. But, the pressure was getting too heavy. A question, though, for us all. Do you think we’ve given the people enough confidence to do the rest on their own? Or will they drop everything as soon as we move off?”

  Ravi replied, “I think they’ll keep at it for a while, but not for long. There’s just not enough commitment in the human spirit. Maybe a couple of years, but then it will drop.”

  “What do you think, Jesse?”

  “I feel the same as Ravi. A couple of years at the most, then it will be back to what it was before.”

  “Yaakov?”

  “I’m not so sure as Ravi and Jesse. We’ve encouraged a lot of people to get involved in one way or another. There are some strong people along with the wannabe’s, and it could very well be that the stronger of them would continue. It would be a long struggle, and even some of them will give it up. But, there may be enough impetus now to keep it going.”

  “Franklin, your thoughts?”

  “I don’t know, Randall. I don’t think people in general are strong enough to hold together in a battle like this. And this can’t be a one-man battle. They will have to band together and work together to make it all come about. Too much is needed.

  We did it because we think alike and are truly committed to doing the work, but will they? I don’t think so. I feel there may be some pockets of courage and heart, and those will continue. They may even have enough strength in those few pockets to make some big differences in local areas. But, as a total, no, I don’t think they will continue for more than a year or so.”

  “And Elias. What do you think?”

  “I have mixed thoughts, much along the lines Franklin stated. I believe there will be pockets of resistance that will continue the fight. But, I don’t think it will continue. On another thought, though, I could see someone, a single person, perhaps, taking up the reins and trying to continue. I could see a person with enough influence being able to reach out to other people in many areas and banding them together again, as we did. We had strength because of our positions, our personal wealth, and our desire to make a change. Perhaps there’s someone else out there, maybe even another group, that would pick up the sword and fight on. Realistic? I don’t know. It would take a massive effort, as we all know. But, could it happen? Yes, I believe so.”

  The men were silent for a moment, then ‘Elias’ asked,

  “Randall, what do you think? We haven’t heard from you and you’ve been the liaison for us and the closest to the people out there.”

  After a moment’s thought, ‘Randall’ replied, “I think we’ve proved out the statement made by Dwight Eisenhower when he was the U.S. president. I memorized it many years ago because I thought it laid out the basis for the things we succeed at in our lives. He said, We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. I feel we made a good start toward a magnificent goal, but that we did not reach that goal. Yes, we gave it a good try, but perhaps the world was not ready for it, or we were foolish to attempt it. But, we did not succeed. And, the people will now collapse beneath the pressure and will, as a couple of you have said, just give up and go home.”

  “Did we fail, Randall?”

  “No, I don’t think that at all, Elias. We would have failed if we hadn’t tried. Perhaps it was just a grand experiment, and, at that, we fought a good battle. Maybe the other side is just too strong, and there is simply no way we could have won.

  Maybe the people have just become so entrenched in their present way of life that despair and fear have taken ove
r, and rolling over is simply the easier way to exist. A lot of maybes, a lot of questions, no solid answers. But, the evil influence is still out there, and likely will be forever.”

  “So, are we finished, Randall—gentlemen?”

  “I believe so, Yaakov. I appreciate so much what each of you have done in our grand experiment, and will treasure this time forever. We’ve been close friends for so long, and this was truly a magnificent effort. I do pray that each of you—

  us—will be able to sleep well knowing we did try. Unfortunately, whatever the case is, we were unable to do all the work ourselves. Now—maybe we should all just take a long vacation.”

  “Ah, I will agree with you on that, Randall. Another quick question, Yaakov. Will the cessation of our activities have any affect on the security of your country?”

  “I don’t think so, Franklin. We’ve had security problems and threats of destruction for all of our existence, and we’ve built about the best protection and response groups possible. If we do get attacked in any major way, we will likely turn loose Samson and it will turn into the long-promised Armageddon.

  But until then, we will just keep trying to survive.”

  “Well, gentlemen—dear friends—for now we part. As I said earlier, all systems we were using have been disabled and/or closed down, so we are free to relax. Perhaps we should all try to meet in the near future to raise a glass to valiant efforts and to enjoy each other’s company. Until then, enjoy your retirement, my friends, and, as a youngster said long ago, God bless us, everyone.”

  CHAPTER 64

  At the meeting of a neighborhood group in New Brighton, the people put together a well-crafted plan to remove all drug influences from around the schools. Their main tools were posters stating facts of the drug trade and naming names of everyone they could find who were part of the trade; still and video pictures of the various areas of drug dealing, catching as many faces as possible; and the filing of lawsuits against the owners and renters of the drug houses, with full publication in all the papers. However, as the people left the hall for their first picket of the neighborhoods, someone handed out weapons “for protection.” As they reached the first so-called “drug houses,” a few of the brave ones in the group decided to shoot out some street and porch lights. That almost immediately caused the rest of the group to begin firing, and before the evening was over, six children and five of their parents had been killed, none of them having had anything to do with drugs.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  As a young man walked past a bar in Chicago on his way home from the office, a man inside “recognized” him as a well-known gangster. An uproar immediately exploded amongst the other patrons and the mob dashed outside to catch the “gangster” and hold him for the authorities. The patrons had been discussing for weeks how they should get involved in cleaning up their neighborhoods since the authorities hadn’t been able to do it. Within moments, the mob had caught the young man, a schoolteacher with a young family, had beaten him senseless and had hanged him from a street light outside the bar.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  In Kowloon City across the bay from Hong Kong, a group of young men intent on driving out the criminal elements that plagued the area lit fires at the entrances to several houses known to harbor the criminals and their enterprises. Unfortunately, the fires were almost instantly out of control and raged through the overall housing district. The majority of the structures were flimsy shacks that caught fire as if fuel had been poured on them. Hundreds of structures were burned and authorities never even tried to count the casualties.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  A well-known, well-loved cabinet minister in Austria was shot and killed the moment he stepped onto the stage at a gathering to celebrate a new peace memorial that had just been installed. When the young lady doing the shooting was dragged to the security forces, her reason was, “But, he wasn’t voting for the orphans of the streets. He was dong nothing for them. He was sending food to the army instead. He needed to be stopped.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  A disc jockey on a popular radio station in Rio de Janeiro decided to make up a story about a local business that had pulled its advertising from the station. While he didn’t specifically name the business, he gave enough hints about the

  “crimes” the business had committed that listeners knew which business it was. Within an hour, a crowd had formed and marched to the business, started fires and burned the business to the ground, along with six surrounding businesses.

  Almost thirteen hundred people were immediately without jobs.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  In the Northern Territory of Australia, a man drove along an outback road starting fires as he drove. The fires grew large enough to jump the road the man had driven and within hours were burning out of control for miles. The fires burned for weeks until they came against natural barriers that stopped them, with more than 1,100 square miles of land blackened.

  Perhaps thousands of animals were killed and more than 750

  homes and ranch buildings were destroyed. Close to two hundred people died in the disaster that shocked the nation.

  When questioned, the man calmly stated that he "just wanted to get rid of rich old Joshua at the ranch out there.

  He’s an evil man and needed stopping. The coppers wouldn’t do anything about him.”

  CHAPTER 65

  “Jacob, all that has to happen is for them to pick up that last e-mail I sent and we’ll have them, or at least the start to them.”

  “But do you have any way of knowing that they are using their system, or knowing if we have a chance of finding them?”

  “The only way is if they pick up the e-mail. It’ll immediately come back to me and we’ll know.”

  “So we wait?”

  “I don’t know what else to do. The searches have all come up empty. We have a lot of names and so forth, but nothing that links it all together and nothing that gives an ultimate name. I’m afraid all we can do is wait.”

  “Have you been following the news about the violence spreading around?”

  “I know. It’s simply amazing. It’s as if there was an earthquake, or a tsunami, just rolling on and getting bigger with each mile it travels. Apparently the various authorities can’t get a handle on it. Just more and more people taking things in their own hands.”

  “And more and more people getting hurt in the meantime.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been reading those reports. Some pretty ugly violence building, and now erupting.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “I’ve had a pretty disturbing thought the past couple of weeks.”

  “What is that?”

  “Might it be possible that someone is purposely causing these events—perhaps working in the shadow of the main vigilante group and using the original vigilante actions to cover their own purposes? I mean—these actions now. They don’t appear to have any connection with the direction the main vigilante group was taking. The vigilantes seemed to be doing something good, if unlawful, and were apparently careful to keep innocent bystanders out of the way. Now, it just appears to be mob rule; no directions, things running rampant and violent actions being taken that look as if they have no value. No good purpose or anything. Just violence taking control of events that started out somewhat innocently, then turning the events into uncontrolled and undirected chaos.”

  Jacob was silent for a long time, and Roger didn’t intrude on the silence. Finally, Jacob said, “I’ve wondered that, also.

  I’ve looked down through the lists of events we’ve been cataloging and have seen the early events being very drastic, but also carefully controlled—limited to the actual forces the group wanted to attack. No one outside the events was injured and the events didn’t continue to roll on out of control. Now? I agree with what you said. Something is apparently pushing these events on, fueling them and so on, or the minds and spirits of the people have been turned somehow from basically good thoughts and ideas to those just as bad, or even worse, than the
evils they were trying to work against.”

  “It’s totally out of control.”

  “Yes, it appears that way. And getting worse.”

  “So, here we are trying to track this main group and we should really be trying to track down the causes of the citizen violence?”

  “I don’t know, Roger. I’m at a loss. By the way, did you see that report about the newspaper ad coming out of Italy? It was apparently carefully worded to not say what it was saying, but it was asking anyone who wanted to work against the evils of society to call in and join with some group that had already formed. One of our clandestine organizations did call, and the recorded message left some parameters that seemed to say,

  “No individuals wanted; if you are the vigilante group, continue with this call.”