SILENT MAJORITY (Anonymous Justice Book 2) Read online

  “No more,” Adam said, putting his shotgun and sling into a hard-case and grabbing his car keys. “Maybe with a little show of force, we can scare them off,” he said to his wife, who was watching with tears in her eyes.

  “Be careful,” Brittany whispered.

  “I don’t plan on starting any trouble,” he said, walking over and kissing her on top of the head.

  “Then why the mask?” she asked, tears streaking her mascara.

  “To keep you and the kids safe, in case everyone with a cell phone tries to turn me into a bad guy, like they did to the young guy who was getting his head stomped.”

  “I love you,” she whispered, her tears falling without any sobs.

  “I’ll be home by dinnertime, don’t you worry,” he said, picking up a rubber mask in the likeness of John F. Kennedy.

  * * *

  Gerald was already waiting in the parking lot of the grocery store where they’d agreed to meet, a block away from where the protest was to take place. His Glock was in its holster, on his right side, on his belt. He’d been sitting here, in his truck, waiting for the others to show up, hoping he wouldn’t be the only one. On the bench seat next to him were three extra magazines, full of .45 rounds. Gerald had his own mask ready; Gerald Ford. Fitting, all things considered.

  * * *

  Other members of Anonymous Justice were arriving in groups at parking lots all around the gun shop. They’d agreed to arrive early to set up a picket in front of the gun shop before the protesters got there. The call to action had been shared seven thousand times, with close to 800 comments and counting. Residents from near and far had pledged their support.

  Some of them believed all Muslims are trouble, whereas the vast majority, if polled, would say that there are radical elements in all religions. It was the radicals that they planned to stand up to.

  An entirely different group, called Black Lives Matter, put out their own call to action. Their leadership sensed a good opportunity to protest, as well as video the heavy-handedness of the HPD, because they figured there would be a lot of police, a lot of TV cameras, and the chance of something newsworthy happening was high. They planned to show up for another chance to be on national TV.

  * * *

  “This is Marie Krantz, reporting to you once again from Thor’s Gun Shop in Hamtramck, MI where, only moments ago, Mike Thor himself fled the scene in a large box truck.

  “It appears that several distinctly different groups of protesters are here today. Over there,” she pointed, “are members of the Muslim community, who have been out here every afternoon for almost a week now. They have their signs and their chants that we are all familiar with now. Over here,” she points again, “are members of the Black Lives Matter movement. I’m not sure yet why they are here, but we will find out for you. I can tell our viewers one thing: it’s becoming very heated here.”

  “In front of Thor’s Gun Shop is an odd assortment of armed men forming a line, obviously determined to protect it. All of them wear Halloween masks, and every one of them appear to be armed, with a pistol on their side, or a shotgun or rifle slung over their shoulders. They are standing still, and are silent, in a relaxed stance, shoulder to shoulder. One can see clearly a mixture of both black and Caucasian men, by looking at their hands or their necks, where the masks don’t cover their skin.

  “Across the street, we can hear shouts and insults hurled towards the gun shop, coming from the now widely separated groups. We’re actually in the street, a safe distance away from everyone. At least I hope we’re safe…”

  Someone came up quickly behind her, into the camera shot and shouted, “Black lives matter!” Marie jumped in fright, and the call was taken up across the street.

  “This must be the largest collection of people that this city has seen since the Thanksgiving Day Parade! As you can see, we once again have controversy at the gun shop that sells Jihawg Ammo designed, they say, to ‘Poke some ham into a terrorist, and do 72 virgins a favor’.

  “This is the same location where one William David gunned down three unarmed Muslim men, in what is being called a hate crime by the Department of Justice. William David is wanted for questioning now, for the execution style murders of five members of the Mahmoud family, allegedly behind the St. Stanislaus Church shooting.

  “This really begs the question; does the Thor’s Gun Shop sell more than just guns and ammunition? Is bigotry and racism also being sold wholesale here?” The camera pans to show the line of men in Halloween style masks on both ends, but stern faced masks of U.S. Presidents directly in the center. The camera focuses on the guns they all carry, one at a time.

  “They seem to be standing here silently, daring anyone to give them a reason to gun them down. Never before have I seen this many guns in one place.

  “One group that we see unrepresented here is the police! They seem to be absent--”

  She put a hand to her ear, looked down, and then looked directly back into the camera, shock and fear plainly shown on her face.

  “This just in, the police are in a high speed chase of suspects who’ve just gunned down William David outside of the HPD precinct. Explosions have been called in by civilians. Dana, do you have…”

  She started to ask her producer if she had more information, but something bright orange and yellow caught the cameraman’s attention and he turned the camera away from Marie to follow it. A Molotov cocktail made a slow, lazy arc, obviously thrown from the middle of the crowd of Muslim protesters. A man in the middle of the protective line, wearing a JFK mask, raised his shotgun and quickly fired at it. The glass bottle exploded, raining liquid fire down on the protesters in the front of the mob. Their screaming was joined by angry yells from the BLM protesters.

  Suddenly, more than a dozen bottles of fire flew up and over the protesters. Three were picked off, again raining liquid fire on their own group, but the rest went over the heads of the men standing picket around Thor’s. Some land on the roof of the gun shop. A couple of them smash through the front windows, and the rest landed at the feet of the men standing picket. In a split-second, feeling justified protecting themselves, they started shooting those lighting more clear glass bottles full of flammable liquid. A barrage of gunfire erupted from the picket line and, across the street, Muslim protesters screamed, bled and fell.

  The BLM Protestors fell silent, more than half of them pulling out camera phones to record. They weren’t being targeted, but the Middle Eastern looking men, who’d thrown the fire bombs, and those still trying to, certainly were!

  Rocks and chunks of cobble and brick began flying from the Muslim protesters, and began raining down on the men standing in defense of Thor’s. One of them, wearing a Nixon mask, walked two paces in front of the picket. The cameraman caught him in a perfect angle as he raised a pistol and began firing.

  “You shouldn’t bring rocks and fire to a gunfight, you fucking pricks,” he screamed over and over in a high-pitched voice. His shots rang out steadily. Every time he pulled the trigger, someone across the street fell. For two magazines, the cameraman followed the carnage, able to show both the man shooting and the radicals falling. It wasn’t until he heard a shot nearby, and Marie Krantz began screaming in agony, did he move the camera.

  She’d fallen on the ground, bleeding from the butt. A man wearing a Gerald Ford mask stood there holding a pistol, a tendril of smoke coming out of the barrel. Marie pointed at him, and the cameraman was able to get both her and the man holding the pistol in the video.

  “Bitch grabbed my gun!” the man shouted, by way of explanation. “She tried to pull it out of my hand! Almost did too, but she got her finger in the trigger guard and….”

  “She shot herself in the ass?” the cameraman asked, stunned.

  The camera had caught it all. More than anyone would ever see. He thought they were broadcasting live, but with the carnage happening all around them, the newsroom had already cut the feed. He’d not seen anything this graphic since the first
Gulf War.

  “I need help,” Marie Krantz screamed, thrashing about on the ground.

  The group of Muslim protesters across the street had begun running towards them, over the top of those already down.

  “Concentrated fire,” someone shouted to his right, and he brought the camera up.

  Systematically, shotguns, rifles and pistols all fired, with a stunning effect. More than thirty men opened up at once, and the remainder of the mob who’d come to firebomb the gun shop were dropped. A man from the picket broke off and walked among the downed protesters, shooting those still alive and moaning in pain, in the head.

  Suddenly, there was absolute silence. The executions of those down had rendered everyone speechless. The BLM protesters continued to take video, but didn’t say a word either.

  A man wearing a Richard Nixon mask tried walking past the stunned cameraman. Marie Krantz grabbed at his leg. His reaction was to jerk his leg away, and to cock it back, like he was going to kick his attacker. She quickly rolled onto her backside to get out of his range, and the contact of the bullet wound to the pavement made her scream in agony.

  “Excuse me sir,” the cameraman asked. “Who are you guys?”

  He really didn’t expect an answer to his question, and his camera showed Richard Nixon as being an average sized man, wearing blue jeans, a camouflage hunting jacket, and black shooting gloves. He had an AR-15 slung over his shoulder, and a large black pistol in his hand. The man hesitated, and then turned to face the camera.

  “We are your brothers, your sisters, your neighbors and your friends. We’re shopkeepers, whose businesses these creeps have ruined. We’re laborers, losing money from our paychecks, because these nut-jobs get to protest forever, unchecked. We’re the fathers and mothers of this community who are sick of this shit, and we don’t want it around our children. We are the silent majority, who will be silent no longer!

  “Look at this,” the man said, his arms sweeping out towards the dead. “This is what happens when good people are pushed too far. Each and every one of these assholes came here to burn and kill, or to support it. Each and every one of these bastards got exactly what he wanted: death.

  “We are not some group of right-wing wackos or vigilantes; we are regular citizens, who’ve had enough. I’m not an Irish-American, I’m an American. My buddy over there isn’t an African-American, he’s an American. Those fools down there, well, I’m willing to bet a lot of them aren’t even Americans, but if they were, they’d call themselves Muslim-Americans. They came to bring death to anyone not like them, and death is what they got. They got justice. Anonymous Justice!” he exclaimed, pointing to his mask.

  He turned and pushed past the cameraman and, almost as if that was the cue, the rest of the masked men on the picket line turned and headed out in different directions.

  The sound of many sirens grew louder and louder in the distance. Marie Krantz swore and cried louder and louder. The BLM crowd stood silent, some with hands held up, others holding cell phones shooting video, all of them untouched. It had nothing to do with them. Help was on the way. Too late.

  3

  HPD:

  Hamtramck, Michigan

  11:35 a.m. Wednesday, Dec 23rd, 2015

  “22-17, in pursuit of the white Dodge van. We’re about a block behind the suspect vehicle. Small arms fire seems to have no effect on the rear of the van. Requesting spike strips be deployed at the ramp entering I-94W and I-75N,” the young officer, Maes, in the passenger seat says. “Try to keep them off the highways! We’re not sure where they’re trying to go yet.”

  They’d been just coming to the end of their shift, and had been parking their patrol car in the back of HPD’s parking lot, so were the first back onto the street behind it, leading the chase of the van all over the city. Early on, the van obviously chose to not enter the ramp onto I-75N, which left the city directly. The driver had skillfully maneuvered to avoid a police Suburban, which had tried to ram it in the side from a cross street. It drove intentionally through the center of a hastily set up roadblock, tearing up cruisers and the body of their own vehicle somewhat. Officer Jeffries and his partner stayed in pursuit, keeping dispatch appraised so they could engineer a trap somewhere to stop the maniacs. Back and forth, east to west, the van wove its way gradually south through Hamtramck proper.

  Suddenly one of the back doors of the van opened just a crack, and something was dropped out of it. What came out of it, right there in the city, had been wholly unexpected. It had bounced just past the patrol car’s driver’s door, and was quickly behind them. They barely had time to even wonder what it was, before a parked car they’d just passed bounced right up off the ground, amid a huge ball of fire. Car alarms were set off, and storefront windows were shattered on the whole block. Pedestrians fell to the ground, totally unaware of what had just knocked them down so hard, or why they were suddenly bleeding.

  The officers in pursuit had felt the tremendous pressure from the explosion, and the rear of their patrol car had been peppered with fragments of cement, or the car, or something. Their rear window shattered into a million little crumbles of glass.

  “Holy SHIT!” Officer Jefferies yelled. “Was that a fucking grenade?”

  “Dispatch, send emergency responders and fire to Joseph Campau and Trowbridge. Multiple pedestrians down. The bastards threw a grenade out the back!” Officer Maes shouted.

  “Turning west on Caniff.

  “Suspects turning south on Lumpkin St.

  “East on Holbrook.”

  The rear door cracked again, and another rounded object was dropped from the van. Officer Jefferies swerved into oncoming traffic, narrowly avoiding the second grenade smashing right through their windshield. He didn’t take time to look, but he prayed that the officers behind him had been able to do so as well.

  Behind them, the next cruiser was not so fortunate. They’d had no time to react to the grenade that landed on the hood of their car, just as it exploded. The explosion launched the cruiser right off the ground, and sent a two-thousand pound fireball, moving at a high rate of speed, tumbling right through a crowd of people on the northwest corner of Holbrook and Joseph Campau waiting to cross Holbrook to the parking area on the other side. It continued across the intersection and crashed through the face of a store on the northeast corner, which caught fire amid the burning wreckage.

  “Dispatch, they threw another one! Need fire and rescue to Holbrook and Joseph Campau. Many pedestrians down, and a structure fire.”

  “You ain’t tossing no more, you assholes,” Jefferies yelled, gunning the motor to ram the rear of the van. Over and over he slammed into it. “If he tries that again, I’ll knock him off his feet and hopefully the grenade will go off inside!”

  “Keep it up,” Maes yelled.

  Jefferies sped up again, but the van responded by slamming on its brakes, almost throwing them both through the front windshield at the impact. Their seatbelts were the only thing that prevented it.

  “What the hell? That was like hitting a brick wall,” Maes said. “Hey, he’s gonna turn right at Conant, and head for 94W. That’s where he’s fucked! Spike strips will get him. Fall back a little…”

  Jefferies made one more run at it, trying to overturn the van as it made the turn. They’d been trained how to make a vehicle spin out by hitting it just so, but it failed miserably on the van.

  “The damn thing is way heavier than it should be,” Jefferies told Maes.

  “22-17, we tried to spin van, it’s a no-go. Van’s too heavy,” he reported. The dispatcher’s reply was lost to the sound of squealing tires as they rounded the corner and their siren blaring.

  “22-17 back off. Roadblock ahead. Give them room to fire! Repeat, back off,” the dispatcher ordered.

  “Oh shit! Suspects turned into Keyworth Stadium! The Christmas lights, and the snow and ice carving competition is there,” Maes told dispatch.

  “All units converge on Keyworth Stadium, code 3.”

&n
bsp; The van drove right through the parking lot, and out into the closed off area where the lights and sculptures were, that was crowded and jostling with spectators, and slid to a sideways stop. Jefferies was leery of the brake lights; he didn’t want a repeat of before. Instead, he stopped about twenty feet short of the van, his front bumper pointed right at it.

  “What are they doing?” Maes asked. “They’re just sitting there.”

  In a flash, both officers were out of their car, and behind their own doors for cover, weapons drawn. They watched it carefully, not moving, as the whole procession of cruisers in the chase pulled in and totally surrounded the van, preventing it from moving again. From every direction, more cruisers pulled in the parking lot.

  A large crowd of spectators ran a short distance away, while police vehicles surrounded the van. Once the movement stopped, the onlookers edged closer, out of curiosity.

  “Move back! Run away!” Jefferies and Maes were both screaming at the people, waving their arms. Other officers joined them in ordering people away, until nothing intelligible could be heard. Car doors opened, and numerous officers emerged, weapons drawn, taking cover behind their doors.

  Two hands came out the driver’s side window.

  “Don’t shoot! Please, do not shoot me! I give up!” the driver shouted in broken English.

  “22-17, driver has stopped. Suspect’s hands are outside the window.

  “22-17 Do NOT approach! Repeat, do NOT approach! Swat and bomb squad are en route. Let them handle it from here,” the dispatcher ordered.