BREAKING POINT (Anonymous Justice Book 1) Read online

“I’m using them so I remember them under pressure. Now, this is a really big bunch of angry men out there, right? He just wades right through them to his employee, and single-handedly breaks it up. I wonder, what would a man like that do if he happened to find out that the same people who caused him this problem are the same ones that did the church shooting?”

  “Oh, yeah! You got a plan, Dharma?”

  “Maybe… He has his cell phone number listed on his website for off-hours and appointments. He said on the news that he doesn't know much about computers, but he obviously knows how to use his phone, which means that he likely knows how to send and receive text messages. What if we had a way to send him absolute proof of both in a series of texts that couldn’t be traced?” I say, and smile my ‘wicked’ smile.

  “How are you going to prove who caused him his problem?” she asks.

  “Check this out!” I play a video clip in slow motion for her. In it, one can see the flash of a picture being taken. Zooming in, we can see that the person taking that picture is our female suspect, and, if we move the picture over a bit, we can see what she was taking a picture of. The Jihawg Ammo display!

  “Oh, it’s easy to see who was behind that post on their page once you look at this,” Jade says. “I get that the militarized Islamics and non-Islamics have it in for each other. What I don’t get is why the jihads feel it necessary to kill innocents.”

  “They do it because it creates so much emotion; angering some and scaring the rest beyond reason. That’s why it’s called terrorism. It’s behavior outside the limits of what ‘civilized’ people consider the rules of engagement during war. It’s conflict without limits. Remember the history lessons from our school days, when the U.S. Army first began fighting with the Seminole Indians in Florida? They tried fighting in ‘gentlemanly’ formations, where both sides faced each other on the battlefield with ‘honor’ and shot each other until one side had no more to shoot? The Indians didn’t fight that way. They fought with no rules; they sucker-punched the soldiers from all sides, taking them out a little at a time. They almost defeated the soldiers for a while, until the soldiers began to fight like the Indians. Then the soldiers’ superior technology won out.

  “The jihads, like the Indians, aren’t afraid to die. That gives their ‘soldiers’ a definite advantage, because non-Islamics don’t want to die. The jihads also know that their enemy won’t break that ‘honorable’ formation, and engage in terrorism of their innocents. Until they kill enough of us that we throw away the rules, and begin fighting like they do, they’ll have this advantage,” I explain.

  “Thus the pig fat bullets…” Jade says. “Now I get it.”

  9

  Mike Thor:

  Thor’s Gun Shop

  10:00 a.m. Sunday, Dec 20th, 2015

  “Damn, there’s no way I can open up, even if I wanted to.” I shake my head.

  After yesterday, the police and even the FBI have been combing the shop nonstop, getting in my books, going through my DVR. I’m trying to cooperate fully, and plan to continue doing so, but the mood of the protesters just outside of the yellow crime scene tape is ugly. I’d wanted to carry my shotgun in and out instead of my Glock .40. Only in America do you have to worry about what other people think.

  I’m glad William’s doctor was pretty open with me. If things get as ugly as I think they are going to, I’ll need his help to get my buddy out of there in one piece.

  “Hey, you going to open up for the ranges today, man?” somebody asks. I turn and see Diesel standing behind me. How he’d gotten through the police cordon was anybody’s guess, but I’m glad to see him. He looks about 350 lbs. of pure mean right now, and has a black duffel bag over his shoulder. I’ve known him off and on all my life, but when he and all his buddies came back from the war, we all become fast friends. Guys who like guns tend to get along with guys who like guns, and those guys are some serious shooters. Private military.

  “No, I’m sorry man. I’m about to make a sign for the door. Gonna open up day after tomorrow. Hopefully this mess will be gone by then,” I say, waving at the screaming protesters.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how the cops can work with all this noise,” Diesel says.

  “Where’s the rest of the gang?” I ask, curious.

  “We saw what happened on the news. The guys figured you’d be closed, but I wanted to stop in anyways,” his voice rumbles.

  “Yeah, want to come in with me for a sec?” I ask.

  “Sure, do I have time to…?”

  “Yeah sure, I don’t care man. I gave everyone today off, and it’d be nice to have someone else in the shop with this mess going on.”

  “Just two quick magazines,” he says.

  “Oh hell, you got time for more. I don’t have to walk you through stuff,” I tell him, knowing I have about twenty minutes of busywork.

  I let us in and lock the door behind us. It wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last time I’d let these guys in when I was closed, to shoot. They’d been places a guy like me would never go. Real American hero types. They also ordered ammo by the crate, which always works out well for the both of us.

  Because of the shooting, I hadn’t closed out the drawer for the day, so I do that real quick, separating the cash money and the credit card slips, so I can make a bank deposit. Next, I make a quick sign with a sheet of printer paper and a felt tipped pen. As I’m writing, somebody knocks on the glass door and tries to come in. I take the sign and some tape and head to the door. I’m surprised to see Lewis there, one of Diesel’s crew. I unlock the door and relock it behind him.

  “Diesel in the back?” he asks.

  “Yeah, firing off some rounds,” I tape the sign on the door. “Any more of you coming?”

  “Naw… Tank, Grim and Playboy are resting up. We just got back from Syria a week and a half ago, and the thing that sucks about working in countries where there’s predominantly a Muslim population, is the fact that there is never enough beer…” he says with smile.

  “So they’re too hungover to shoot?” I ask.

  “They’re so hung over, they won’t even move off the couches, man,” he says, laughing.

  I smile. I remember those days. “You here to do some shooting?”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you, but Diesel said he was going to try to come and do some quick practice.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sure, what can I help you with?”

  “I’d like a case of 5.56/.223 Jihawg. Wait, at least a brick or more of it.”

  Ok, so that’s a lot of ammo. Not as much as they usually order, but for a few hundred dollars, I’m willing to open the register again. Even with the team’s discount, I’ll still make decent money.

  “Sure, but uh,” I pause, looking outside at the protesters. “You want me to wrap it special for you? Those folks out there might throw a shit fit--”

  My cell phone rings, startling me. I’d turned the volume all the way up when I walked into the store. I almost drop it trying to pull it out and check to see if it’s Will, his doctor, or…

  “Naw, I’m not worried about those fools. Most are just complainers anyways. Not many of them are doers unless they have mass of numbers. Like those shit bags who stomped Will. We really gotta teach that kid some more situational awareness. How’s he doing anyways?” Lewis asks me.

  “He’s… He’s fucked up is what he is,” I say, as the phone goes silent. “You see the bullshit the ADA, and now the DOJ is pulling?”

  “Just some rumblings, man.”

  My phone alerts me to a text or a voice mail, and I look at the screen. It hadn’t been a phone call; it was a string of alerts. I have five text messages.

  The first three are pictures, the fourth a video clip of the church shooters pulling out of the driveway in a black SUV. The fifth is all text. The number is an unknown number, or blocked call. It’s hard to tell with the technology nowadays.

  “The St. Stanislaus shooters got their guns from your shop, as is sh
own in the first three pictures. I believe you to be in a unique position to help me. I could take this to the police, but figured you might be open to helping me with an alternative. If you are in fact interested in justice, please reply back with the word YES. Then go buy some burner phones. Use cash. Activate the first phone, and reply to this text with the number of that phone.”

  “Hey, man, you alright?” Lewis asked me.

  I look through the pictures again. The pictures show a husband and wife that I’ve helped in the past. They did, in fact, purchase their rifles from me, and I’d set them up with training and shooting. Hell, two of the pictures were taken from my own security cameras. I feel sick, like I’ve been sucker punched. I have to talk to somebody, and I like Lewis. I’m not sure if I can trust him with this, but I have to share. One of the worst mass shootings in America had happened right here in town, and I had supplied the guns and ammunition.

  I hand Lewis the phone, and go to the cash bag I’d prepared. I pull out $300 in big bills and walk back to get my phone.

  “You know this could be a setup, don’t you?” Lewis asks.

  “They bought the guns from me,” I say, my voice wavering with a combination of rage and disgust.

  “So, what, you are just going to believe somebody anonymous?” Lewis asks.

  “So far, whoever sent me this hasn’t said or done or asked for anything illegal,” I tell him. “I’m headed across the street to the wireless store--”

  “No, your ass is going to sit the fuck down. I already replied ‘yes’, and you can’t be too deeply involved in this.”

  I look at him funny, and I see something burning in his eyes.

  “Hold on, I’m going to get Diesel in here, I want you to wait a sec; can you do that for me, Mike?” Lewis asks.

  I nod yes, and hang my head, deep in thought.

  Lewis takes my phone and stomps off, towards the shooting range at the far end of the store. When he opens the first door, I can faintly hear the shooting. The normal protocol is to wait for the first door to close before opening the second inner door. It worked wonders for soundproofing, and from outside of the shop it’s virtually impossible to hear. Lewis didn’t wait for the first door to close, nor did he have his hearing protection on, something I would normally bitch about.

  I move down the counter to where my DVR for my security cameras and my log book are. There aren’t many range entries for folks with Arabic sounding names. I find them after a moment though, because I remember it was roughly two weeks ago. I dig out the forms they’d filled out and the waivers, from my mostly alphabetically organized file cabinets. I even have a copy of their driver’s licenses. I run those through my copier, making one copy of each. Diesel and Lewis come hustling out front from the shooting range.

  I’m about to pull up the address on Google when Diesel sees the paperwork sitting out that I had just copied. “Do not do that from this fucking computer!” he booms.

  I jump back a step. “What if the message is correct? What if it is a set up? How do we know they’ve got the right people?”

  “First thing, do not look anything up, that has anything to do with this, on your computer here. Searches can be traced. We don’t want anything to lead back to the shop, man. Secondly, I’m sending Lewis out to get some phones,” he says.

  I hold out the cash again.

  He just stares at me before continuing, “I don’t need that money… and I want to see if this person is real or not. I’m not worried about it being a setup, because the cops would already be here going through your shit. Even if it is, though, so far nothing illegal has happened, other than you conducting business as usual.” He picks up the photocopied pages, looks them over, and sets them back down. “We have nothing to lose by seeing, and I’m sick of people shitting up my town.” The hand not holding his duffel bag clenches into a fist until a series of pops can be heard.

  “How do we play this?” Lewis asks.

  “When you get the phones, grab three. One from each store on the block. Pay cash out of our operational budget.”

  “You got cash?” Lewis asks.

  They look at each other, and again I pull out the $300. Lewis takes it and then looks at Diesel for instructions.

  “Go to the place across the street and get one, but bring it back here before buying the other two. I don’t want to waste time on this. Like we were talking about before?”

  “Exactly,” Lewis smiles, and gives a mock salute before letting himself out.

  Diesel stands in front of the door after locking it, and watches. Someone would have to be crazy to try and come through him!

  “What are you thinking, man?” I ask.

  “Mike, let me ask you a question.” Diesel says.

  “Sure.”

  “If you had the chance to go after who did these things; if you knew beyond a reasonable doubt who it was… Would you want to be the one who pulls the trigger, or would you let the cops handle it?”

  I think about that for a moment. “I’m all for justice, but I don’t know if I could be the one to pull the trigger. I don’t think I’m built that way,” I admit.

  Diesel nods. “Most people aren’t. So, what about the police? Yes? No?”

  “If I had a chance to get justice for these things another way, yeah, I don’t think the cops need to be involved.”

  “You know why we aren’t winning the war on terrorism?” he asks.

  The question throws me; it’s moving from one heavy subject to another.

  “No.”

  “Because we haven’t been willing to fight them down and dirty. Sometimes you have to go to where they live, and know that there’s going to be collateral damage. You don’t want it, but look what happened at the church. Look at what happened right here as Will was going home. Do you think he’d still be alive if he hadn’t started shooting?”

  “No,” I admit, thinking hard.

  This is a moral dilemma I’ve never faced before, but my hesitation was because I was thinking in terms of me being the one to pull the trigger.

  “So we good? You’re out of this now, right?” he asks me.

  “Wait, I’m out of it? I don’t even know what it is yet! Not really.”

  “Good. Tell you what, if anything comes of this, I’ll let you know after, but I’m going to wait to get out of here, until Lewis comes back with the first phone.”

  “No, that’s fine, but remember, whoever it was contacted me. I’m only out of it if whomever it is leaves me out of it.”

  “Hmm… and they are expecting to hear back from you with that phone…”

  His words trail off into the air and I nod. I have a sinking feeling about it, but I’ve also felt the same burning anger and rage, like when I rushed out with the shotgun to keep the mob from tearing Will apart. Diesel grunts, unlocks the door, and Lewis hurries inside, wiping his face.

  “They spit on me,” he says, disgustedly.

  “Did you get the phone?” Diesel asks. Lewis tosses it to him.

  “I activated it on the walk back across the street. It’s got 200 minutes, and unlimited texts and data.”

  “Good deal. Hold on a sec, ok?” Diesel hits some buttons and then hands me the new burner phone. It was showing the phone's information and, most importantly, its phone number. I replied with that number, to the series of texts on my phone, then wait.

  The burner phone startles me as it begins ringing. I look at the guys and they nod to me to answer it. I do so, and put it on speaker.

  “Hello?”

  “I assume this means you are willing to help me?” A deep male voice comes out of the speakers, heavily digitized, probably with a voice changer.

  “Yes, if your information is accurate. I don’t want an innocent getting caught up in something like what happened to my employee.”

  “Then we are in agreement,” the voice says. “If I were to provide proof of guilt, and logistical information, could you get it to the proper… people? I’m sure there are militia
groups and others who would be happy to assist in such an endeavor.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have two of them right here with me. The three of us are at the gun shop. It’s closed today, but--”

  “You’re behind the counter. The big black man called Diesel is in front of you, and the slender man, Lewis, is just behind and to his left. I am very good at what I do… Unfortunately, if I were to give my information to the cops, they may botch it, or try to arrest them.”

  The voice’s words chill me. He can see and hear inside the shop. Then it hits me: he had also been able to get the pictures of Malik and his wife buying the guns, and then when they did their range time. I smack my head, knowing it’s the DVR and my own camera systems. Still, I have to be sure.

  “You’re watching me, through my own cameras?” I ask.

  “Very good. Like I said, I am very good at what I do. Mr. Diesel, would such an endeavor interest you and Mr. Lewis?”

  “It would,’ Diesel says, his voice low, sounding like two boulders grating together, “but since you know our names and faces, it would seem that you have us at a disadvantage. I may not be inclined to help now that my anonymity is gone. We truly have discussed nothing actionable, but we might have. If you hadn’t intruded on our privacy.”

  I feel a jolt of realization go through my body. How much had the voice heard?

  “I can understand that, so let me share something personal with you. I had family at St. Stanislaus. They’re all dead. I have nothing and no one left. I would never say or do anything to compromise your identities; in fact, I am going to delete the DVR’s recordings for today as well as Mike Thor’s cell phone log for today to erase all traces. Will that be acceptable?”

  “How would this work?” I ask.

  “Burner cell phones, anonymous emails using the TOR Dark Net that are never sent, and whatever metallurgy is needed.”

  Metallurgy? What was he talking about? Then it hit me. Lead. He was saying the words without incriminating himself.

  “I know how to play that game,” Lewis says. “I’m in if you think it’s a go,” he says, looking to Diesel.