D.C. RIOTS (Anonymous Justice Book 3) Page 7

  “This is really good footage, isn’t it?” Kat asked. “Do you think we could maybe sell it to the news network that Jermane Williams works for? They might pay us a shitload for it!”

  “Maybe you should setup an anonymous email account and send a low-res snippet of it to every news station in the country,” Julie said, excitement building in her voice.

  “Wait, doesn’t that guy with the brown bomber jacket and the Nixon mask on look familiar?” Kat asked, playing back in slo-mo one more time.

  “He does,” Julie said, cocking her head, squinting her eyes, and patting the small of her back where her handgun rested, “but I don’t think it’s important.”

  “You never know what’s important, until it is…” Kat said. “I’m sending this clip to Jermane Williams, offering the whole thing to him exclusively, but reserving rights to the two segments for our own use. Let’s see what it’s worth.”

  Chapter 10

  Detective James Miller: Washington, DC 1:30 p.m. Monday, Jan 17th, 2016

  “The Secret Service aren’t going to let us get any closer,” Special agent Mark Clay told his silently brooding partner.

  “I know,” Detective James Miller, Hamtramck PD replied. “They don’t answer to the Mayor or even the Governor when it comes to White House grounds and the safety of the President. I don’t think even you have the juice to influence that.”

  “You’re right, but the cops between here and 4th are almost overrun, and I think whomever shot the shit out of those looters over there are pushing more of them this way,” Clay said.

  “Let’s be honest here,” Miller said, “if those Anonymous Justice guys hadn’t showed up, those two store owners that were arrested would be dead.”

  All law enforcement had heard the dramatic narrative over their radios. Two patrol officers, facing overwhelming numbers, had taken refuge in the shadowed open stairwell of an apartment complex. It was difficult to listen to what they described. More so than the yelling in the background, was the bizarre scene one officer narrated in a whispered voice:

  “After hundreds of them swarmed inside the electronics and cell phone store, they set fire to it, and are now coming north up 4th St towards us. Ok, now they’ve stopped in front of The Corner Liquor & Deli. Some of them are going around the corner to the south side of the liquor store. They’re shouting at someone inside. The security curtains are already down, but they are trying to pry them open with something. A metal lever of some sort. They’re breaking the windows through the security curtains.

  There’s way too many of them for us to stop them Captain, we need some backup now!”

  “Negative,” came the reply. “We can’t get there. There are too many of them between us and you. Do not engage them. We cannot assist you at this time.”

  “Ah shit, Captain, they’re gonna toss a firebomb through the security curtain and the broken glass. There’s people in there!”

  “Officer, two of you cannot take on hundreds. Remain where you are and continue surveillance.”

  A long silence followed that order. Then the officer whispered again:

  “About a dozen men wearing dead President masks just marched right past us going south on 4th St, directly at the rioters. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder in a line across the street. I think it’s those Anonymous Justice guys, Captain! What do you want us to do?”

  “Stay put officer. Now there’s a dozen more men than I warned you couldn’t take a minute ago!”

  “One of the Presidents with a Nixon mask has a bullhorn, Sir. He’s telling the rioters to disperse and move away from the liquor store. The closest rioters are laughing at him. Now they are throwing rocks at him. Shit, Sir! The rest of the Presidents have opened fire on them at about fifty feet, with pump-action shotguns.”

  The chilling sound of a dozen shotguns firing constantly came across the radio...

  “Tons of the rioters dropped on the spot, Sir. A whole wave of them tried to rush the masked men, and were decimated. Some threw Molotov cocktails at the masked men, and onto the roof of the liquor store. Those that threw were shot down immediately by the masked men. Someone on the roof of the liquor store is throwing everything back down the rioters toss up there, the bottles are shattering and splashing whatever’s in them that’s flammable, all over them and setting fire to the rioters on the street.

  “That seems to be the turning point, Sir. The bulk of the remaining rioters are now running eastward up the cross-street beside the liquor store to escape the shotguns and the returned firebombs.

  It looks like it’s over, Sir. I’ll bet there’s more than a hundred down on the street. Oh shit! The man dressed in the Nixon mask is walking among the downed rioters closest to the liquor store, and putting a round in the head of any who still move!”

  “Move out now officer! Identify yourselves and stop the executions!”

  “Fuck that,” the second officer said to the first, who held the radio. “We’ve been asking for backup all along, and he said they couldn’t get here. There’s still a dozen guys with shotguns out there, and I ain’t ready to die today. Tell the Captain to go fuck himself!”

  Before they had time to decide whether to refuse a direct order to go out there, the sound of an approaching helicopter saved the moment. They looked up at it to see that it was one of their own, and when they looked back down to the street, the masked men were nowhere to be seen. Just gone!

  * * *

  “Is the helo going in locals, or feds?” Miller asked.

  “Locals. Listen!”

  “What?” Miller asked. “I missed that.”

  “Orders are for all available officers to fall back here, creating a skirmish line, and a two block open buffer to the White House grounds behind them. The gates are already closed. The POTUS is in-house. If any rioters make it past that line to rush the White House fence, well, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”

  Miller thought about that for a second, “As it should be,” he said, and then winced, when he realized he’d said that out loud.

  “Yeah, what these people don’t realize,” Clay said, “is that the Secret Service won’t have their hands tied, like the Mayor has done to the local cops. And they have full automatic weapons. That’d sure make some worldwide headlines!”

  * * *

  “Where do you think they have those shop owners locked up? Shouldn’t we go see what they know about how Anonymous Justice got involved?”

  “Why Detective Miller, I thought you’d never ask, besides, these are new shoes. If I stick around here, I’m likely to get them messed up,” Clay said, with a sniff and a fake accent.

  Miller laughed at that, as they began traveling against the growing tide of traffic headed away from the police station, where they hoped to find the two shopkeepers in a holding cell. Already, they’d heard rumblings that the Mayor was pushing for them to be brought up on terrorism and hate crimes charges for tossing explosives and firebombs on the ‘protesters’. Neither Clay nor Miller had seen evidence of it firsthand, but word was, the higher-ups wanted them lynched.

  If the taskforce could get in front of the vigilantes and the movement that Anonymous Justice had started, they could stop the violence before it got out of hand, much like this protest had. It had gone from a peaceful protest to an all out riot, with the Mayor urging people to only be destructive in designated areas and to not hamper the actions of the first responders.

  Yeah, right.

  * * *

  “Special agent Mark Clay, FBI. This is my partner in the task force, Detective James Miller of the HPD. We’d like to ask you both some questions,” Clay said, sitting down.

  “I’d like a lawyer,” Josh said, and turned his head.

  “What about you?” Miller asked Eric. “You want one too?”

  “You're damned right,” Eric said, trying to sound a little braver than he felt.

  Truth be told, both shop owners weren’t feeling all that hot. Only the crudest of first aid efforts had been made
on their burnt skin.

  “Well, once we get you two back from Cuba in about 7 or 8 years we can--”

  “Cuba?” Josh exploded at the FBI agent’s words.

  “Well yeah. You both are being charged with terrorism and hate crimes. Since we have this little thing called the Patriot Act, I can hold you as long as I want without a trial. So Detective Miller, if you would get the cuffs on these two, we can have the chopper--”

  “But we didn’t do nothing!” Eric shouted.

  “Well now, that’s a start,” Miller said sitting and looking pointedly at Agent Clay and then to the chair next to him.

  “I want to plead the fifth,” Josh said quietly.

  “Doesn’t work like that, son. You threw bombs into a crowd. You boys killed some people,” Agent Clay all but screamed, spittle flying from his lips.

  “They were coming after us, they are the ones who did this to us!” Josh said, his hands restricted in movement, but pointing to his burned skin. Eric nodded.

  “So let’s start all over then,” Miller said calmly, frowning at his partner. “What happened? I will not ask you to incriminate yourself, but so help me, if you lie, I’ll let this Fed scum here lock you up in Gitmo, just like his Muslim President has been doing to everyone he doesn’t like.”

  Clay emitted a low rumble in his throat. His face was turning beet red and his hands started to shake. Despite the threat, Eric burst into a nervous laugh and was soon joined in by Josh.

  “We really didn’t do nothing,” Josh said when he’d calmed, “We locked the store down when they started beating on the metal shutters, we called 911,” Josh said. “You can check our phone, it was taken in when they processed us.”

  “Yeah, Clay, why don’t you go get their phone?” Miller asked.

  Clay stood up abruptly, his chair flying backwards and tipping loudly. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “What’s up with him?” Josh asked, “Something crawl up his ass and die?”

  “I’m here to give him what a local’s perspective is. Truth is, there’s a lot of pressure going on because of vigilantes and a group calling themselves Anonymous Justice. Have you heard of them?”

  Both Eric and Josh exchanged glances and then nodded.

  “When we called 911 and couldn’t get help, I saw something on the news with their hashtag. I put the word out that we were trapped, and being attacked. The men in the masks showed up and we did what we did. We would have died, man…” Eric’s voice was sincere.

  “Yeah, and those really weren’t bombs we threw,” Josh said, “It was just something I learned when I was a kid. I added rocks to hopefully hurt some of them enough to quit firebombing us.”

  “What was it exactly?”

  “Two liter half filled with small gravel, aluminum foil and liquid Drano.”

  “You realize that a bomb is something that explodes, because of a chemical reaction, right? No matter what the contents are?” Miller asked.

  The color drained out of Josh’s face. He opened and closed his mouth several times and as he started pulling himself together, the door banged open. Agent Mark Clay walked in holding an evidence bag, but instead of sitting, he strode over to the TV that was set up on a rolling stand in the corner, and turned it on.

  A surprisingly high quality video was playing of the scene in front of the market. The reporter was talking about it, narrating it until she fell silent. Faintly, Josh could be heard yelling from the top of the store. Bodies were all over the ground, people who were running away were left alone, but those on the ground moaning were being dealt with by a man with a pistol and the visage of Nixon.

  “It’s all over the news. Social media. Blogs. Facebook. You boys are in some serious trouble. If we find out you have links to, or have assisted the terrorist group known as Anonymous Justice, you’ll skip Gitmo and get lined up against a brick wall with a blindfold. Now, unlock this phone.”

  Clay walked over and handed it to Josh, who fumbled with it and then set it on the table and slid it over to Clay. He pulled up the call history. Many, many calls to 911 had been made.

  “How did you get in touch with Anonymous Justice?” Clay asked.

  “Facebook. I have the app on the phone. Open it up, check out my history. We’re not terrorists man, we just heard about them on the news and we were going to die if we hadn’t asked for help.”

  Clay grunted and sat down, playing with the phone. After five tense minutes he handed it to Miller who did the same.

  “Is that it for now?” Miller asked his partner.

  “Yeah,” Clay said standing up smiling.

  “What about us? Are we being charged with anything?” Eric asked.

  “I’m sure they’ll think of something. By the way, I didn’t have the recorder going, it malfunctioned. Did I understand you correctly, to say that you only threw back what they had thrown at you?” Miller asked.

  “What?” Josh asked, “I said--”

  His words were cut off. Eric, who’s legs weren’t restrained, had just stomped on his partners foot and shin, making him gasp in pain.

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. The rioters were the ones throwing fire at us. We just wanted to get it off of our store. The only thing we could do, was throw it off the roof.”

  “So if we find evidence of anything else…?” Miller asked.

  “It probably came from the rioters or the guys in masks,” Josh said catching on, “We don’t mind helping, but we don’t want to go to Gitmo, man.”

  “If your stories check out,” Clay pointed at the news that was now muted, “You may have to lay low for a while, for your own safety. If your stories turn out to be true, I don’t see much coming of this in light of the video evidence. Detective Miller?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Miller said standing, and then followed Clay.

  When the door closed behind them, they pushed their way into the viewing room with the one way glass. Clay busted up laughing.

  “What the hell man, making me play bad cop?!”

  “Well,” Miller said, “it’d help if you were a real cop. Everyone knows the locals displeasure at the pampered feds. Figured you’d play along, once I saw how belligerent Josh was.”

  “Yeah, I’m just surprised that they didn’t see through it,” Clay told him.

  “I almost didn’t. You looked like you wanted to choke them out or something.”

  “Yeah, I was feeling a little tense from all the shit that’s been going on. Just changed the words and people around and acted.”

  “What did you do in college by the way? Most FBI agents have more than one major. I know about the Criminal Justice, what was your minor?”

  “Acting,” Clay said, smiling.

  Miller busted up laughing, but in the back of his mind, it sent chills coursing through his body.

  Chapter 11

  Detective James Miller: The White House, Washington, DC 2:30 p.m. Monday, Jan 17th, 2016

  “Gentlemen, this is Special Agent Fiona Finch of the Secret Service,” the driver said, opening the door of the limo.

  The President had sent a car to pick all three of them up as soon as possible after the event. Miller had wondered aloud whether or not the limo was armor plated. He was assured by the driver that it was, that the riot had de-escalated substantially, and not to worry.

  Medical crews were performing triage under canopies set up in the parking lot of the PD. Ambulances worked the edges, as the Metropolitan Police made sure they were safe.

  “Nice to meet you, Agent Finch,” Miller said. “I’m Detective James Miller, Hamtramck Police Department and this is Agent Mark Clay of the Detroit Branch of the FBI.”

  “I believe we’ve met before,” Agent Finch said with a smile.

  She was dressed like a lot of federal agents. A snappy suit with a clear earbud terminating in her left ear. The tailoring of her suit barely concealed the fact that she was heavily armed as well as barely concealing her figure which Clay was admiring, giv
ing her a wolfish smile.

  “Ma’am, you going to be my date for this here ball?” Clay said in a hokey voice.

  She threw back her head and laughed, and punched him in the shoulder.

  “You haven’t changed one bit. Come on you two, we’ve got a lot to talk about. This Anonymous Justice group has gone viral on more than just Facebook. We need your input.”

  “In there?” Miller asked, nodding towards the White House.

  “Yeah, you and about three more investigative teams are reporting in. It’s going to be a massive think tank meeting with the alphabet soup of agencies here. FBI, DHS, Homeland Security, Local Police, Fire, Swat.”

  Clay smiled, but Miller felt a little bit green under the gills. Miller nodded and followed.

  “So Mark, how long are you in town for?” Fiona asked.

  “Probably leaving tonight or tomorrow. Cyber has some leads for us to check up on,” Clay said. “Although I never thought a vigilante task force would have us traveling so far, so fast.”

  “That’s a shame. I wanted to see if you wanted to finish that game we left undone last year.” Her words were smooth and smoky.

  Miller was almost disbelieving. At a local level, some flirting went on in any precinct between officers of the opposite sex, but it sounded like these two had a history.

  “We both went to Quantico together,” Clay said, as if reading his mind, “and we got into a very competitive game of chess last year. She got called away before it was over.”

  “You didn’t tell him what we were betting though,” Fiona said, noticing the surprised look Miller was giving her.

  “What’s that?” Miller asked, despite himself.

  “Clothes,” Clay said, with a grin.

  “And here I thought you feds were all high and mighty. I bet you two even play beer pong,” Miller said, more to himself than either of them.