War Games

Sundown in zion

Chapter forty

            “Permission granted to come aboard,” Sheriff Love said as Nelson entered his office Monday morning. “Which Gideon Nelson do we have the honor of seeing today: avenging angel, secret agent, horny sailor, or dedicated deputy?”

            Nelson laughed and pretended to think as he took his seat. “Maybe a little of each,” he said. “And what Sheriff Love do we have: jaded politician, former marine, star crime-fighter, or benevolent boss?”

            “Just a tired old asshole,” the Sheriff said, “but I have something for you.” Nelson looked surprised as the sheriff opened a side drawer in his desk and retrieved a small white box. “Here,” he said, pitching it to Nelson. “Never let it be said that I wasn’t willing to spend money on you.”

            Nelson opened the box to find and slid out an inner one filled with small cards. He fingered one from the pack, slid it out, held it before his face and read, “Gideon Nelson, Special Deputy.” The address of the Sheriff’s Office and phone numbers followed. He looked at Sheriff Love, his face registering a question.

            “Nice to leave around with folks,” the sheriff said. “Just in case they remember something they may have neglected to tell you.” He leaned backward in his chair and smiled. “Now please tell me you know things.”

            “I know things,” Nelson said, closing the box and placing it on his lap. He proceeded to relate the results of his efforts of the previous week, including the news on Clifton Sikes. “And the rest of the weekend was devoted to personal things. Don’t ask.”

            “I know they didn’t include your most fervent admirer in Armistead,” he said. “I saw her at noon yesterday, dining alone in the Cotton Bowl. Her chin was hanging so low that you could have cleared a minefield with it. The rest of her looked shipshape, though.” He stared into space. “Shipshape.”

            “As long as we’re using military analogies,” Nelson said, ignoring the message behind the Sheriff’s comment, “maybe we should talk war.”

            “I’ve fought mine,” the sheriff said. “Let these entitlement-laden assholes take care of the next one. It would do them good—might make them think twice before they vote.”

            “No doubt,” Nelson said, “but I’m talking about using military tactics to aid in our local crime fighting endeavors.”

            “You have my attention,” the sheriff said.

            “Things are too quiet and bottled up right now,” Nelson said. “Maybe we need to shake things up a bit … disrupt the homeostasis … make the rats run out from their hiding places.”

            The sheriff leaned back and thought. Then he leaned forward, opened his top desk drawer, withdrew a toothpick, placed it in his mouth and leaned back again. After another moment’s thought, he withdrew the toothpick and said in a slow voice, “If, by that, you mean let’s fuck with the bad guys, I’m all for it.”

            “That’s exactly what I mean,” Nelson said. “Any ideas?”

            Sheriff Gladson Love moved mentally back into battle fatigues, wilting heat, and the sour smell of rotting jungle. He nodded his head. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you ever did this, because you guys don’t stay in one place that long. But after we had been pretty much surrounded long enough, we jarheads tried a technique sent down from topside and borrowed from army airborne.”

            “Army airborne?”

            “A little thing called ‘mad-minute,’ designed to keep our foes off balance while we were encamped.”

            “And it worked how?”

            “We only practiced it when they knew where we were dug in and it wouldn’t have given away our position. At a secret time, between sunset and sunrise, usually on the mid-watch, the entire garrison would suddenly open fire on the jungle and maintain it for a full minute, supposedly keeping our enemy in a state of honest apprehension.”

            “Did it work?”

            “Does anything that the military thinks up ever work?”

            “Only when they seek the input of those who must actually carry out the mission,” Nelson said. “Tragically, they are almost always to hell and gone from the Pentagon.”

            “You are unusually perceptive for a sailor.”

            “So the mad-minute was a failure?”

            “It woke us all up.” The sheriff looked away to some distant place. “‘It worked once, sort of. The company commander had it set for 0137, after a new watch had been on for a while. There was this new kid in the company. Just been in-country for a couple of weeks. They “choppered” him out to our unit the day before. We had set listening posts that night, but had notified them to ease back into the perimeter in time to enjoy the fireworks ... all except for the new kid. We totally forgot about him. When we started firing, he panicked, and instead of flattening out on the ground, he started firing too. All anyone could see was his muzzle flash. We had no way of knowing the direction of fire.”

He paused and it took over a minute to compose himself. “We stopped counting the bullet holes in him next morning at 32. Seems he panicked after the first couple nicked him and started running back toward the compound.” He sniffed once, then again. “Nobody else wanted to know who he was, and the name on his blouse was obliterated. But I looked at his dog tags. Later, I found his name on the wall in Washington,” he said. “They didn’t put an asterisk after his name. I’m glad to say.”

“I’m a little confused,” Nelson said. “You say the technique didn’t work but you sounded just now as if you wanted to try it.”

“Just because something hasn’t worked doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea,” the sheriff said. “We’re not surrounded here, where all you can do is wait to see what happens. In fact, we should be the aggressors. Besides, there isn’t a bad guy in Armistead County who is as smart as the average NVA warrior.”

Nelson put a finger to his cheek and nodded in thought. So?”

“I’ll call some of those punks from that church in Connorville in and lay down some harassing fire,” he said. “You start spreading some bullshit. That’s something sailors are good at.” He smiled. “In the meantime, I’ll ask old Weasel, that police chief in Connorville, if he can be prepared to join us an a large-scale joint operation, but that I can’t tell him yet what it is. That will spread like a cosmic shit-storm. And don’t you have some suck with the press around here? Oh, and we’ll sweat a few meth-heads for good measure. We’ll do it all at once and see what happens.”

“That reminds me,” Nelson said. “Is meth a big problem around here?”

“Meth is a big problem in every rural county in America,” the sheriff said. “Ours seems to be centralized around the south-central part of the county. I’d love to take a look inside that so-called ‘hunting-club’ the gun nuts hang out at.”

“Is that the one where the Soul Warriors go?’

“The very one,” the sheriff said. “I just can’t get anything on it to justify a search warrant.”

“Did they build it?”

“Oh hell no. They don’t build things. They just destroy things, by shooting them. A bunch of rich men in Connorville built the club. Used to go there and gamble, drink, and run in whores. About 15 years ago the wives got agitated about it when one of them brought it up at the country club only to find out they were all equally pissed.”

“So they made their husbands sell it?”

            “Better than that. They ‘borrowed’ a trailer one night, one used to transport a diesel tank—most of the men were farmers, you know, and had all kinds of equipment.  They, the women, loaded on several five-gallon buckets of oil along with the diesel, then hauled it all over to a big wooden bridge on the only road into or out of the club. Got there about two o’clock in the morning.”

            “I think I see where this is going,” Nelson said.

            “They say you could see the flames all the way to North Little Rock,” Nelson said. “Took them three days to boat the last asshole out. Some of the whores may still be there as far as I know. Like I say, I can’t get a search warrant.”

            “They sold it then?”

            “Transferred the ownership to some legal entity or other. I think they lease it to this new breed of assholes.”

            “Did they replace the bridge?”

            “Oh yes. You can still get in right from the state highway, if you have a key to the gate.”

            “I thought the entrance was from a county road.”

            “That’s the new entrance,” the sheriff said. “They just keep the old one for an escape route, in my opinion.”

            “So meth is a problem and you think the hunting club is connected.”

            “Wouldn’t be surprised, but meth isn’t our only problem.” He smiled.

            “Oh?”

            “No. ‘Stuff’ causes us a lot of problems.”

            Nelson looked confused. “Stuff?”

            “Stuff … poontang, pussy, trim, cooter, snatch …”

            “Stop,” Nelson said. “I get the picture.”

            “Hiding the salami,” the sheriff said. He then yelled toward the closed door. “Now get back to work, Miss Manners, before I include some of your favorites.”

            There was a rustle from beyond the door. “Stuff,” the sheriff said, “The destroyer of kingdoms, fortunes, and power, plus the downfall of weak-willed men throughout history. Five of our last six murders were over stuff, including the man whose wife burned him alive in a house trailer, along with his girlfriend, a quality-checker from the ammo plant out on the Interstate. That’s where they both worked. She had been filching samples for some time and bringing them home. She had hidden them under her bed, so we had to wait until they quit going off before even attempting a rescue. By then they had both been plugged numerous times. It nearly drove the medical examiner crazy.” He shook his head. “Stuff,” he said. “The defense attorney got the wife off by claiming there would only have been minor burns without the accidental discharge of all that fire power.”

            Sheriff Love started scratching notes on a pad. After a moment, he looked up. “But I interrupted you. Why did you ask about meth?”-

            “I’m not supposed to know about this, much less repeat it, but I have it on good authority that the punk who killed himself driving too fast the other say had all sorts of meth traces on him?’

            “As in high on it?”

            “No, that’s the odd part. Just in his clothes.”

            “Like he had been involved in production?”

            ‘Big time.”

            “Holy hymn book,” the sheriff said. “When I get that report, I may be one step closer to a search warrant. That might be where the ephedrine is stored.”

            “The what?”

            “Ephedrine, actually pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient of both cough medication and methamphetamine, but highly regulated now. We can’t seem to find out where they are getting and storing it. Our federal friends are helping but they are stumped too.”

            Nelson was silent.

            “But,” the sheriff said. “Drugs are my problem, and I don’t have enough money to make you work on that problem for free, too.” He leaned back and smiled a broad smile, his dark eyes dancing. “’Anyway,” he said, “I’ve already wasted your time getting you off balance with a tirade about the dangers of stuff.”

            “Quite the contrary,” Nelson said. “And, as a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about the same subject myself. What say we go stir up some shit?”