“What do you remember?”

“I don’t remember everything that happened”

“Do you remember being found on the highway after the bomb blast?”

“No, the last thing I remember was when Gerold slowed to a stop when the traffic ahead of us seemed to stop moving.  The kids were still in their seats.  I thought I heard something like popping noises, sort of like a bunch of firecrackers detonating.”

“Miss Duvall, I am sorry to inform you, but the bus driver for your bus Mr. Gerold White died during the attack on the freeway.”

“Gerold is dead?”

“Miss Duvall, that is part of why we are here to investigate his murder.”

“Who are you and where do you come from?”  Asked the woman in the hospital bed.

“I am Detective Ambriz from the Houston Police Department.”

“I have no idea what you talking about, but this is not something to be joking about,” exclaimed Priscilla Duvall.

“Miss Duvall, We know that you saw Gerold killed in front of you.  We have several statements from the children on the bus about what happened.  If you will just be kind enough to tell me the truth, then I will leave you to your grieving.” Replied the detective.

On the other side of the state a lone hitchhiker shambled along I-10.  He held a sign that said “Will Work for Food.”  He looked pitiful enough.  Soaked to the bone and wearing ragged clothes the figure seemed almost too true to believe when looked at.

As figures, many cars trucks vans and all manor of motor conveyances passed him, not even slowing below seventy miles an hour when passing him.  Since the great blast and sketchy news stories about terrorists shooting people in traffic jams, no one stopped to help or investigate much of anything, for fear of being ambushed.

The sole consolation and applied remedy involved lead in the pistols in the dash and lead in the bottom right hand foot over in the left hand lane.  This is Texas, and Texans would not be the next to suffer in such a way that did not involve shooting or speeding their way out of trouble.

It is amazing to wonder about some people in the side of the road when you drive past them.  Many will remember the way they are dressed, or maybe just the strangeness of the signs they might heft high in hopes of getting even the slightest glance from someone in a better situation.

Most, however will not think more than putting these anonymous forms in their minds as they appear in that environment as if that environment permanently held the wayfaring and lonely figure in time and space disjointed yet in a vacuum of the viewer’s logic and wishes.

This figure, while appearing to be on his or her last leg of life and out of options for a better life moved in a way that beguiled the whole notion of shiftless or down and out.  He moved with a purpose and direction as if on course for a destination, only the destination was not a place in a static sense.  It was to a moveable place.

In Monterrey, Mexico the Mexican authorities found the former security company’s compound abandoned and stripped of everything useful.  It was hard for the Federalis to motivate anyone in their employ to search a place without consolation prizes for the lucky officer who found hidden cash or weapons they could sub duct into their coats and later their bank accounts.

One thing was for sure, many people died from gunshots in the compound.  Spent steel casings from 7.62X39MM lay everywhere.  Evidence of explosions and return fire were quite visible from the burning remains of some of the buildings left.  The rest were torched.  The grizzly discovery of the former occupants did not happen until a week after investigators combed the compound for evidence of their departure or death.

All were in a cellar or subterranean structure, hands tied behind their backs, some with their heads missing and yet others with bullets holes in the back of their skulls.  Something evil occurred here that scared even the toughest of the Federalis.

Hillario Mendez watched from across the street while selling roasted corn ears from his pushcart.  Some of his product could be seen in the hands of the Federalis inside the compound.  Hillario still fumed over the betrayal by his former business venture.  He knew that who ever did this to these foreigners was probably one and the same as Ibrahim.

Back in the hospital in Bryan, Texas Priscilla quietly nursed her hurt.  She was great full that her students got off of the bus and thank full for her life.  Something in her was still unbalanced.  Gerold White was the most honorable man she’d known in her life.  He was one of her mother’s distant cousins that seemed to know everyone in the family.

She remembered as a kid how he did everything for family reunions and organized all of the get to gathers regardless of how separated the family tree might be.  His murder seemed all too senseless to her.  In his younger years, he served as the rural mail carrier for Cut and Shoot, Texas.  If he did not know you or of any obscure location in that part of Texas, it was because no one received mail there.

It was so unfair that he had no children of his own, yet he treated every child he knew as if he or she was his own.  He even took troubled youth into his home from time to time.  He used tough love to break these kids of all their bad habits and behavior.  No matter how bad you lived, he always reasoned, you could always make it right.  Priscilla knew first hand, because she was one of Gerold’s projects.  He raised her and another boy named Bobby Moore.

Priscilla wondered about what Bobby would think, but quickly reasoned the he and Gerold were probably getting reacquainted in Heaven right about now.  Bobby died in 1989 in a vehicle accident while serving in the U.S. Army in Honduras.

Chapter 2.

“Animals” hissed Hillario as he continued to act disinterested in the policia activity across the street.

Hillario was not amused and wanted revenge.  These criminals killed his business partners months ago, and now it appeared as if they were going to get away with it again.  Hillario knew of only one group of people that could cross paths with men like Ibrahim in Mexico.  They often clashed with the police and the military on a regular basis.  When bribery failed coercion reigned.  He was too proud to admit it to himself, yet he began the mental gymnastics of thinking through the rallying of a drug cartel to help him.

Up the street a ways, a homeless man shuffled toward Hillario’s corn on a stick stand.  Something looked out of place to Hillario about the man coming his way.  At once he saw a homeless man, not an uncommon occurrence in Monterrey, Mexico, and then he also perceived a different vibe than ebbed from the thing he aped.

Gene Reboudt was taking a chance, but that was what his business was all about.  He knew about Hillario Mendez.  He also knew that Hillario Mendez was the sole coyote survivor when the clients tried to sneak a nuclear device into the United States.  His intelligence network was the best money could buy.  Gene could have left the country days before.  He had many dead drops and caches through out Central America.  He was even aware of the company property stored in America.  His only mission now was getting his teams out of this country and safe back in France.

Hillario examined the pitiful shape before him.  His face was so different than what he expected.

“Hillario” said the homeless man.

“I think we have a common enemy.” Continued the shiftless man.

“How did you know I speak English?” replied Hillario

“I know that you do not like the business that you are in too.” Countered Gene.

“Would you like to know where Ibrahim is?  I know where he is.”  Stated Gene.

“What is in it for me?” replied Hillario

“I will help you find Ibrahim if you help me get a few friends across the border.”  Replied Gene.  He didn’t specify the border crossing direction, but that was not important.  Taking down Ibrahim would guarantee success for what was left of the mission, and that was the successful extraction of everyone including the Prince.

Chapter 3.

Hillario Mendez stared at the stranger as if he didn’t quite hear him right.  This man just offered to help find the one man he wanted to find in a darkest alley in Monterrey.

“We should speak of this in a more private setting” said Gene.

“I agree, where do you suggest?” asked Hillario.

“Why don’t we rendezvous in the church on your side of town.”  Offered Gene.

“That is fine, we should meet after mass tonight at Midnight.” Confirmed Hillario.

Gene Reboubt continued down the street prouder than Machiaveli himself.

Later that evening Hillario and Gene met at the run down chapel.  The chapel itself looked to have fought the good fight weathering the World and giving as well as it got.

“Do you harbor revenge in your heart?” asked Gene.

“I do harbor revenge, and I prefer to speak in English” retorted Hillario.

“There are things of greater concern to the people of this hemisphere than your personal mission to kill Ibrahim.” Said Gene  

“Do you realize what evil that man’s perpetrated even here in the last low place on this planet?  He is the very incarnation of Satan himself.”

“You will not succeed if you continue this hatred.” Admonished Gene

“What can you offer me in assistance?” asked Hillario

“I offer the best that money bought.” Retorted Gene

“I have information for you to use in finding Ibrahim.”

“You will tell me where he is now” said Hillario with anger peaking through his demeanor.  “You once cavorted with this man, and now you think that I will ally myself with you?”  “Last week you still carried on missions for this wolf.”  “I really should just kill you and call it done.”

“We all cavort with the wolf from time to time.  Your former business associates are probably good to the description of coyote.  Replied Gene.  “You must decide what you are going to do today.”  I know where to find Ibrahim.  Do you want to find him or not?”

Chapter 4.

Billy Took his gear out and checked it again.  He would need to reevaluate what happened at the school in San Antonio.  One man dead from his cell, gave him pause, but he knew too well the consequences for doing the right thing.  Since the school hostage situation, Billy began to have his nightmares again with alarming frequency.  It was as if the past caught up with him again.  He long ago made peace with his comrades that did not survive that horrible day in Honduras long ago.  He even began to forget what they looked like in the face.  He couldn’t even recall Sgt Moore’s face from long ago.

New faces crowded Billy’s mind at idle times.  The dead in the school looked forlornly at him as if to implore Billy to work faster to bring them back to life.  He often grieved privately for the kids and teachers that did not survive the school massacre.  Something churned in his stomach to make a new life.  Some one out there could help him get it back together again, but just couldn’t wrap his mind around that someone.

“Time to make it Right!” shouted Billy to himself.

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Keep it coming.

“Time to get some!”



Thanks for the stories.  Wes

All:
Get ready cause Billy's goin to town.  There he will make some new friends, and if the situation is wrong well then yall know the mantra 'TIME TO GET SOME!"

Chapter 5.

Priscilla lied in the hospital bed looking dazed when the Houston police detectives left the room.  For all intensive purposes, she felt as if she lied to them.  Priscilla did know the truth of what occurred that day on the highway loop north of Houston.  She saw Gerold’s body agitate in a sickening dance before he went limp in his seat.

She remembered telling the kids to get down and then to exit the back of the bus as she tried to distract the gunman outside the shattered door of the bus.  She knew he was reloading and took the time to pounce on him as he clumsily grasped for another magazine.  She was startled and somewhat relieved as the man fell to the ground unexpected.  Picking up his rifle, she finished the job of locating the magazine out of his chest pouch and rocking it into place so she could have her time with the terrorists.

Priscilla’s wounds, while grave looking and gruesome were not life threatening.  A bullet did graze her head and knocked her unconscious.  On that memory she was being truthful as she did not know what happened after the bullet grazed her forehead.  She was now motivated to find the terrorists who did this and put the T back in terror for them for a change.

Edward Clymer knew his place in the metropolitan scheme of things.  He was a trained, educated and well-heeled lawyer in Houston.  He rose quickly through the ranks of the dominant political party and finally took his worthy place as the Harris County District Attorney.  Edward worked hard on a daily basis and resented the fact that some of the civilians in his district chose to act in a barbaric and churlish manner the day the progressive change agents caused their man made disaster on the roads around the city.

If only the little people would accept their place in society and allow the government to take care of their every need, then he would not be so busy prosecuting criminals in court.  He detested the fact that anyone could obtain a state sponsored permit to carry a gun in public.  He knew that this would lead to blood running in the streets due to the little people not being able to control their uneducated emotions.

The day of the bomb only highlighted his opinion of why regular civilians and subjects should not be allowed to carry guns or even possess them in their homes.  Due to the lax gun laws in Texas blood did run in the streets and overpasses of Houston.

Randy Courts hated interruptions in his workday.  As an industrial engineer at the valve plant where he worked, Randy could always be counted on to be the last of the administrative staff out the door in the evenings.  He loved to solve the engineering problems with a personal touch of his attention to detail whether he was appreciated or not.

Today, however, he encountered a different problem.  A couple of Houston Police Detectives met him in his office a little after 8:00A.M. In the morning.  They wanted to know about the free for all on the north loop of 610 the day of the bomb.

“Don’t you two have something better to do than to ask about the massacre?  I did not see anything and was trapped on that overpass until late the next morning!  I missed half a day of work because of your inability to police this city.” Said Randy

“Mr. Courts, I understand your problem, we all got delayed that day.  We would, however like for you to write a statement on what you saw that day.” Replied Detective Ambriz.  

“I didn’t see anything other than my piss as I pissed out the door.  Are you going to arrest me for being a pervert now?” replied Randy.

“Mr. Courts, I am not interested in those things.  I am only interested in finding the vigilantes that began shooting into the road block.” Stated Ambriz.

“Do you own a .30 caliber rifle Mr. Courts?” continued Ambriz

“This interview is over!  Get out of my office and don’t bother me again until you talk to my lawyer!”  Randy’s face was now red and the veins on both sides of his neck bulged.

“Billy Jackson, it is time you got to take a business trip to Houston” stated the Langerflates Metals Incorporated plant manager Barry Slodach.  I am going to shut the plant down for a month while we work on some upgrades to the machinery.  During that time, AWS is putting on a CWI Seminar and test in Houston.  You’ve worked here for over fifteen years and provided us with an excellent weld inspector.”  “It is high time you earned the title and respect due to such a worthy employee such as you.” Beamed Barry Slodach.

“We will pay all of your expenses to during and returning from Houston.”  We will even continue to pay your wages while there.”

“I really don’t know what to say Barry, This is something not expected.  I’ve always aspired to be a CWI but never thought I could be good enough to even try.” Replied Billy

“Just say thank you and do your best and come back a CWI.”

Chapter 6.

“Miss Priscilla!”  So nice to see you today exclaimed Doc.  Doc extended his hand where he could not see but knew by sound and smell the presence of an old friend.

“I want to thank you for all the flowers you sent to my father’s funeral” said Priscilla.  “I knew how well you and my father thought of each other.  It seems like nothings changed, yet everything is different since he left.” Said Priscilla.

“Now there child, you don’t go to worrying about what you can’t change.”  Your daddy would hear none of it.”  “In fact, he wants you to go on to your own wonderful life.  He really loved you and all of his children.  He would want you to keep on living no matter what.” Said Doc.  “I praise the good Lord that you are still with us.”

They both sat down on a crude log bench built in the front yard of an old shotgun shack in the middle of tall pine trees that seemed to scrape the sky.  Within yards of the two visitors, Red Fox Squirrels played and scurried about the forest floor surrounding the home and yard.  The wind sometimes swayed the pines to and fro causing a kaleidoscope vision to continually change and shift on the ground.

Doc was not totally blind, and he could put a .22lr between your eyes all the way to the mailbox fifty yards distant if he could hear you on a quiet day.  In fact, he knew the comings and going of anyone on the gravel road in front of his house.  He’d lived there since the end of the Korean War.  He did not need the single shot break action rifle that always seemed to be where he sat.  Most of his dinners came from the squirrels he bagged with what he called his Texas Walking Stick.  He built and sold them by the hundreds, each personally turned on an old foot powered lathe he used on his front porch from April to November of each year.

He built birdhouse boxes from November to April.  All of his vegetables came from the half acre of cleared land behind his home.  He met Priscilla’s stepfather in 1958 when he made his first delivery to his home.  In fact, this was the first time anybody brought mail to that address since Doc’s family lived there from the 1840s.  Up until then Doc’s family either walked to town or rode on a buckboard wagon drawn by a mule.  

Doc’s family was old stock, always in the background of the Cut and Shoot, Texas culture and society.  Rarely visible and not heard, Doc’s family never found any reason to be confused and caught up with those town people.  Isolation and self-reliance chiseled Doc’s character as much as the Chinese grenade that left him with a deformed face did in 1953.  

Doc’s mother named him Thomas Jefferson the Third after his grandfather.  Thomas’s grandfather first acquired the land when his stepfather Harold Jackson freed him in 1841.  He was a mulatto child from an affair between a wealthy Planter and a slave.    Anyone from outside of Cut and Shoot Texas would never guess their ethnicity, but family memories transcend time and space.  As much as some people despised Doc’s kind, a strange irony occurred in that area of Texas.  Almost everyone knew about Doc Jefferson and his canes, yet no one seemed to know about his Great Grandfather Harold Jackson.

“Uncle Doc, are you coming to my school for the upcoming Fall Fanfare” asked Priscilla.

“I reckon that might be possible”  “I am still a little busy and back logged here at the house.”  There’s squash and pumpkin to get a harvested and my yards getting a little crowed with squirrels.  All the same I think I might be persuaded to come on out.” Finished Doc.

“The kids will absolutely love it, they always do when you come and tell your stories.” Beamed Priscilla.  Her smile vanished as she remembered her father and Doc would make such a scene amongst the kids that they all refused to leave the Fall Fanfare until Uncle Doc told one more story and her father acted it out.

“Your are going to have to help me out this time” said Doc.  “I think your father would like that.”

“Yes he would,” answered Priscilla.  “I certainly don’t want to disappoint him or the kids.

As Priscilla got back in her truck, she pulled the seat back to reveal a gun case.  Inside resided her Romanian Semi-Auto AK47.  Since she returned from the hospital, it was non negotiable to her.  She traveled everywhere with her rifle and pistol.  Should there be a next time, she was going to be able to fight back and not watch helplessly as loved ones and strangers died.

Chapter 7.

Billy Jackson hummed to himself as he drove down I-10 East to Houston.  He would make it into North Houston just after 10:00P.M.  There he would check into the Greens Point Marada Inn.  He’d heard all sorts of rumors about a Mall nearby derisively referred to as “Gun Point Mall.”  Strangely, crime was a little down after the extreme road angst took place on the 610 loop on bomb day.  

As Billy entered Katy city limits he saw a large billboard with the picture of someone named Edward Clymer.  The caption over the top of his picture read;  “Don’t take your guns to town!”  In one hand he held a Ghost Buster sign and the other a pair of dangling handcuffs.  “I hope the bad guys see this and go home,” muttered Billy.

The Marada Inn was just off of the intersection of the North West Highway and Sam Houston Toll-way.  Inside, a man in a turban manned the desk.  His name was Bharadwaj.  He owned this hotel franchise as a result of his working seven days a week for ten years in the Mary Mount Hotel Chain as the manager for that region in Georgia.  He traded all of his stock options and his retirement to buy this one piece of property to build his own hotel empire.  At forty years of age Bharadwaj was already a senior manager in a nation wide hotel chain, holder of an MBA and now he owned his own hotel.  No one could take that from him or his heirs should he go back to India and select a wife from his hometown.

Bharadwaj looked up as two surly looking men barged into his lobby.  One pulled out a large revolver and demanded that Bharadwaj open his register and empty the contents into a proffered pillowcase.  The man holding the pillowcase turned to the other and said.

“Why don’t we just off this one.  He looks just like the ones trying to kill us over in Iraq.”  

The two looked at each other as if contemplating something on the magnitude of rocket science.

The first one now spoke to Bharadwaj.  “You aint from around here are ya.?”  “You better answer me before I blow your little brains into the wall boy!”

Bharadwaj remained silent.

Outside the doors Billy Jackson pulled up to the front entrance under the awning covering the doors and twenty feet into the parking lot.  He was getting ready to get out when he saw what was going on inside.  

“Answer me boy!” shouted the man with the large revolver.

Bharadwaj still remained motionless and silent without a change in his facial expression.

The man with the pillow jumped over the counter behind Bharadwaj.  This proved to be a fatal error for the pillow sack man.  Bharadwaj quickly sidestepped the man as he lunged for him.  Bharadwaj took his iron notary public seal and smashed his head with it as he bounced the pillow sack man against the access door.  The armed man turned on his heels to run out the doors.  He cleared the first set of doors as Bharadwaj hit the automatic door lock button beneath the desk.  It didn’t matter because the outside scared him more than the inside.  Billy Jackson leveled his .458 Socom rifle on the armed one.

By this time Bharadwaj stepped from behind the counter with a long curved sword.  He hit the button to unlock the inside door.

The armed man heard the metallic click behind him and turned to see that foreigner wielding a very large sword.  He soiled himself as he backed up against the outer door.  Billy already called 911 and put his rifle away in the truck before the first police car arrived.  

The armed man was in the process of begging for his life when the first policeman entered the lobby with his weapon drawn.  He ordered Bharadwaj to lay the sword down.  As he did the armed man picked up his weapon and shot at Bharadwaj.  He missed, and found himself the subject of a magazine dump simultaneously from the two policemen in the lobby.

Damn! Thought Billy, all he wanted was a good nights sleep.  It was 2:00A.M. Before all of the interviews finished with signed statements from Billy and Bharadwaj.

Chapter 8.
Billy woke up the next morning late for the first of several days in the CWI Seminar.  He hurriedly dressed and made it to the class around 9:00A.M.  Not so bad when considering traffic and all, but it was due to the fact that the seminar was being held in the same hotel in the banquet room!

Most of the course work involved with taking the CWI exam is knowing where to find answers within the code book.  AWS D1.1 is something of a strange bird.  One may have a Doctorate in Physics or Metallurgy and still be baffled with this heavy codebook that costs $200 plus and must be replaced every two years to keep in spec.

By the end of the first day, Billy was ready to continue the nap he took the previous evening minus the sword and gunplay of the previous evening.  The turban wearing hotel manager was back on duty that evening minus the sword taken in as evidence for the homicide.

Once in his room, Billy flopped down on his bed after setting up his laptop on the desk.  Once everything booted, Billy began to check his e-mail account for the tell tale signs that took him on strange adventures.  He knew he was off of the hook for most emergencies that the Langerphlates Rangers might respond to.  As he was looking through the e-mails, he noticed a solicitation to send money to a Nigerian Oil scheme.

He opened the e-mail and read the usual drivel.  At the end of the note he noted that there were a few key words in the last sentence.  He hovered his cursor over the third letter in the fourth word of the last sentence and clicked the mouse as if it were a hyperlink.  That led to a pornography site with more encryption key-strokes.  By the time that the real e-mail opened up all trace of the web sites visited vanished.

The message instructed Billy to drive north to Cut and Shoot, Texas to contact a man in the woods about some canes.  Nothing else followed.

At the end of the week Billy took the CWI test and passed.  He looked forward to another two weeks of vacation while his plant in Langerphlates finished its retooling shutdown.  Billy packed his bags and checked out of the Marada Inn.  He threw his bags into the back of the pick up and proceeded north on HWY 45 North into Cut and Shoot, Texas.

As he got off the exit to go through Conroe and continue east of SH105, he saw a billboard with graffiti spray painted over it.  He made a mental note of the numbers on the sign and continued east into Cut and Shoot.  On the other side of town, he turned onto a FM and drove north.  Five miles later he turned onto a private gravel road that turned to a semi gravel road to an old shotgun house.  

Inside the home, everything seemed quiet.  Nothing no noise, no movement.  As Billy peered into a window, he was startled by the man next to him, who suddenly appeared out of thin air.

“I thought you would be by sooner or later”  Said the albino skinned man.  “You look like someone that’s traveled a long ways for a knocker.”  Continued the small man.

“I did come a long ways, as I know that my hammer is not for every job.” Replied Billy.

“Why don’t you try one of these knockers?” offered by the small man as he proffered a wooden cane to Billy.

Billy took the cane and knocked a pre determined number of times on the rickety wooden frame of the screen door to the small house.  No sooner than the knocking ended from Billy’s side of the door, a similar pattern of knocks replied to the cryptic greeting.  The door opened and Billy walked inside the home.  Over the mantle piece, a faded serviceman’s photo glared at all who entered the room.

Good stuff. Always a pleasure to read this story.

Good  so far, keep it coming!

Chapter 8.5 Reunions

Billy looked at the picture on the mantle and knew immediatly the subject of the faded service photograph.  He'd forgotten what Sgt Moore looked like since his nightly visitations to the Honduran battlefield ended.  Trembling, he took two steps into the front room of the spartan home and stopped inches from the picture.  Too many questions and too many emotions hit his phsyce all at once.  He hardly noticed the old man guiding him to a chair in the room as he broke down to cry uncontrollably.

Back in Monterrey, Gene Redoubt and his reluctant ally met another man known only as the Prince.  All three came from different places and backgounds, yet none could claim a disimiler idea on what to do.  Their quarry lived somewhere in Central America, but knew all to well his ability to move through countries as if borders did not exist.

"it is good to make youre acquaintence again" said the Prince.  "indeed it is" replied Gene.  The third man kept his silence.  "Ibrahim is here,but will be moving into the United States soon.  his plans are undaunted and will continue until he feels that the Infidels are all dead." continued Gene.

Thanks for picking it back up!  

I really enjoy your writing!

.......Mounger

moar please