The Face of Freedom. Benjamin Vance
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retiring for the night, he heard a light rapping on his door. Expecting Jen he opened it. It was Ike. He invited him in. Ike made himself comfortable in one of his late wife’s wing-back chairs.
He said, “I can’t shake the feeling I know you from somewhere. Were you in ’Nam? Were you in the Army or the Corps?”
“I can’t tell you Ike. It’s nothing against you at all; it’s just me. I’ve taken an oath not to reveal my identity until it’s discovered by the government.”
“Why?Are you one of these guys in the witness protection program that Jen tells me about?”
“No sir! I’ve just decided that for the sake of others, I need to keep my history private. I’m trying to carry a message that would not be as effective if people knew who I am and what I’ve done.” He saw Ike stiffen and quickly added, “No; nothing that I could go to jail for, at least legitimately.”
Ike thought for a moment; looked at him intently and put two and two together. He slowly whispered, “Sheeeit, you’re that guy everybody’s talking about. The, the … walker guy, aren’t you?”
“Well, that’s what some people call me, because I don’t like to use vehicles. It’s too easy for the gov to monitor me unless I walk or at least hitch an anonymous ride here and there. For all we know, they know I’m here now!”
“You think?”
“Absolutely Ike, and given the right priority and circumstances, they could spy on me walking through the woods. If they think I’m a threat to the administration, they’ll kill me ... period! The only fly in the ointment is they think Jen has left the building and will be waiting on another assignment. They don’t know she’s left the reservation. They have no idea, I hope, that she’s endangered her career to help me. If I work it right they‘ll never know.”
“Soooo, what do we do? What can I do?”
“Nothing, I can think of. If we get some rest, maybe I’ll think of something tomorrow. Right now, Jen needs the rest more than I do. Just in case, can you give me the layout of your house and any alarms or possible weak points?”
“Hell, yeah. Come on with me. We’ll start in the basement.”
He gave the walker the grand tour. Meanwhile, Jen was listening to the two old timers talk superficially about guns, ammo, the government, and early warning systems. She’d already reconnoitered the house and grounds. It looked tight.
After the tour, Ike and the walker talked some more about voting responsibility, guns and the constitution. They were both all too ready to express what they thought about the government’s recent crackdown on human rights. When they said their goodnights, Ike said, “Like I’m going to be able to sleep a wink tonight.” They both grinned. Jen lay in her bed and grinned too, at the notion these old guys hit it off so well.
At about 1:00 a.m. the walker crept outside with a blanket and his pack; very bad dreams again. A big evergreen tree of some kind in Ike’s “back forty” had beckoned to him after they arrived. He lay under its low sheltering branches and the whispering of a breeze through their needles slowly rocked him to sleep. At about 3:22 a.m. hell came to earth.
15.
Roland Franks had indeed come to the White House early. The President’s secretary invited Steven Northfield, because that’s what the President usually wanted. Charles Able was a bit peeved when the two men walked in at the same time, but after a second thought he figured it was just good staff work to get all involved. After pleasantries, The President gave Roland Franks permission to arrest the walker.
Steve wondered if Roland could handle the problem since, after all, he thought the FBI came under the control of his agency. He asked the president where the walker was to be taken. The president wanted him taken to a terrorist facility. That’s all that was said. The walker was then and there considered a terrorist.
Roland Franks personally notified his FBI operative to get the hell out of Dodge before the FBI or DHS team got there. He was getting to be a bit apprehensive of Steve Northfield and his proclivity to take decisive action without regard to the consequences. Steven Northfield had always been very jealous of the President’s superficial friendship with Roland Franks, and Franks knew it well.
Roland also told Jenetta Denzine the walker was now on the terrorist list. She hadn’t immediately informed the walker. It didn’t take too long for the FBI/DHS team to get information from a jealous Julie Parker that the walker left with Isadora Lazenby, and it didn’t take long for the team to figure out who Isadora really was.
After that, it was a simple task to monitor her late model truck’s GPS system via satellite. Once she and the walker stopped, it was a simple task for Steven Northfield to direct a smart bomb to within one meter of the center of Ike Larson’s beautiful home and reduce it, and the terrorist occupants to small pieces. He would cover the incident as a natural gas explosion.
16.
The sickeningly strong impact swayed the big Balsam Fir, but couldn’t uproot it. The walker was more shaken, because he thought it was part of a horrible dream. He quickly realized it was his reality, picked up his pack and covered himself with the blanket he’d been wrapped in. He slowly moved under cover of adjacent trees so as to defeat infra-red sensors which would be looking at the carnage from Langley or where ever, via satellite. He didn’t have time to think of revenge. That would come later.
The reporter from the local newspaper arrived on the scene earlier than most, because she’d been in her bed within a mile of the blast. This wasn’t her first barbeque either. She covered the carnage of Iraq troops by American fighters as the troops tried to escape from Kuwait. She’d been in and out of Iraq’s green zone for two years and been offered a position in Afghanistan by Reuters. She said that she, “Had her fill of war and its bullshit”, and refused the job in Kabul. She sometimes wished she’d taken it though, especially tonight. Most things were black and white in war, and it was “us and them”. Things like kids in a cancer ward and explosions in the dead of night that killed innocent people were not her forte.
She couldn’t accept the randomness of death by trauma or disease. Sometimes she’d lay in bed at night while hot tears streaked her face and wonder why she hadn’t been killed in Iraq. She’d been in the thick of things and been raped by a stinking pig of an Iraqi policeman shortly after she arrived in country. She’d been too trusting; naïve. She couldn’t shake the feeling of helplessness and the justifiable rage she harbored against her government and her employer for letting it happen, and then for blowing it off when she reported it.
She arrived at the explosion site early, just after the fire and ambulance guys arrived. She knew there would be no need for the ambulance tonight; just a coroner’s van to pick up the parts. The house looked like it exploded from the inside out. She saw debris almost a quarter of a mile away on the road going in.Although the homes were separated by a thick growth of trees and were about fifty yards apart, the house across the road and adjacent homes had sustained severe damage as well. However, it was her sole and immediate consensus no one was dead in the adjoining homes, because everyone was standing in their yards gawking. The first responders found parts of what looked like at least two bodies in the home that exploded.
A couple of guys in DHS jackets arrived just after she did. She wondered what the hell they were doing there. She approached one of the men to introduce herself, while keeping an ear cocked for anything juicy.
“Hi. I’m Martha Matly. I represent the Coeur d’Alene Press. What are you guys doing at this site? What do you think happened? Do you have any comments?”
The officer said, “Hello Ms. Matly,” and did not offer his hand or his name. “We believe this was a secondary gas explosion and possibly a suicide and murder. We believe there was an FBI