William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

“The price of real freedom never comes cheaply—it is, in fact, very high. Sometimes, in order to gain real freedom, one must break some laws—as we are doing. But I believe—and I think you all agree with me—the end will justify the means. If I didn’t believe that, I would not be asking my men and women to lay their lives on the line for you people. I would just take my personnel and head into a section of the nation and rebuild my Tri-States. But I realized that I would have to someday fight the central government. So here we are. Like marriage, for better or for worse.”

The crowd laughed for several moments at that; the men more than the women.

“Okay,” Ben held up his hand for silence. “We’ll be pulling out in the morning, then you folks can have yourselves a real town meeting, without us looking over your shoulders. But at the outset of this meeting, someone in the audience had a beef concerning your local federal police. What was it?”

A man stood up. “I’m the one. First of all, let me say that I think we in Radford are more fortunate than some other folks. We’ve been… well, untouched is not the word, but handled a bit easier than others around us. No torture that I know of—at least not the physical kind, not until the cops grabbed my daughter, that is.

“Most everyone in this room will tell you those of us in the underground—supporting you, General, I mean—kept our kids out of it completely. They had no knowledge of what was going on. We figured that was the best way to go.

“Well… my wife called me at work one afternoon and she was really upset, crying, almost hysterical. It was about our youngest daughter. Pat. I tell her I’m on my way home and I’ll call the doctor from the plant. The Doc beat me home and he was with Pat in her bedroom for a long time. When he comes out, he was angry, red-faced, and cussing.

“The police had got one of those anonymous phone calls telling them Pat and some of her friends were in the Rebel underground. General Raines, Pat is only fourteen years old and small for her age. But she’s definitely female, if you know what I mean.

“Well, the cops took the girls to the jail for questioning; didn’t call me or any of the other parents. They kept the girls down there for almost four hours, and they got pretty ugly with the kids.” He paused and shook his head, as if choosing his next words carefully.

“I guess the best way to say it is just to come right out with it. The cops stripped the girls and searched them… with their hands and fingers. This is embarrassing, General. And just think how it must have been for those kids.

“It… got really… perverted for a time. I won’t go into that. It never was rape—in the strictest sense of the word; but it was dirty, General. Real dirty.”

“Wait a minute,” Ben interrupted, turning to James Riverson standing in the wings. “Go get the cops and bring them in here. Put the young one in question on stage; right over there,” he pointed. “He has a right to hear the charges leveled against him.”

The officers were herded in and placed on both sides of the stage, the young officer in the center of the stage.

The young officer was scared, and looked it. Steve Mailer, standing in the wings on the right side of the stage pegged the young officer with one quick glance. He was the classic example of small-town federal cop; and also the classic example of small-town cop fifty years back. Maybe a high school education, but probably not. He would swagger and bluster. He would be a womanizer and would use his badge to achieve this goal. He would be a failure at almost anything other than being a small-town cop. He would be an amateur all his life. He would be a bully and a coward.

Ben pointed to the young man. “You searched several young girls, including that man’s daughter?” Ben shifted the accusing finger to the citizen standing alone in the crowd. The audience was very quiet.

“Yeah, I did,” the cop said defensively.

Ben looked at the parent. “Tell your story.”

“He searched her after he stripped her naked. It was a very… personal search, and he—all the cops—said things… made suggestions and proposals to the girls. He made Pat bend over, naked, and grab her ankles. Then he used his fingers… on her. Well… when I finally got the whole story, I went looking for that son of a bitch,” he pointed to the federal officer. “I found him outside the police station.”

“Were you armed?” Ben asked the man.

“No, sir. All I had was my fists. I told that punk if what my daughter said was true—just one little part of it—I was going to kick his brains out. I’ve never held much with the way lawyers do things. I feel—maybe wrongly—that when someone does a hurt to me or my family, I have a right to handle it. And I’ll meet the problem head-on, not backing away from it.”

“Is what this man says true?” Ben looked at the cop. “And bear in mind, sonny, I’ll have a team of doctors pop you with truth serum faster than you can blink if you start stuttering.”

“Yeah,” the young man said after only a second’s pause. “That’s right. I’m a cop trying to uphold federal law; just trying to protect the citizens.”

The huge room erupted with laughter and hoots and catcalls at this. Some of the remarks verbally thrown at the young cop suggested a lynch mob could easily be formed from both the male and female members of the crowd. One woman even had a rope.

Ben quieted the crowd and looked at the young cop. “You didn’t feel it wrong for a man to search a young girl… in the manner described?”

“Hell, no! Not when the girl is as mouthy as that one was.”

“What happened when the girl’s father confronted you at the police station about his daughter?”

“He got lippy and I drew my pistol. I’m a police officer and I have the right to protect myself.”

“Against an unarmed man?”

“That don’t make no difference to me. You can’t threaten a police officer and get away with it—nobody can.”

Ben turned back to the parent. “Is that all that happened?”

“No, it isn’t. When I told this punk I was going to stomp him, he laughed and waved his gun around. There was a pretty fair-sized crowd gathering by then, and the chief of police came out and broke it up. Then they arrested me.”

“For what?”

“Threatening a police officer. They took me inside and shoved me around some—nothing serious. Then they fined me fifty dollars and pushed me out the door. The next day was when they started following my wife around, hassling her. Then I started getting tickets; my kids were picked up several times, questioned. If you hadn’t showed up, General, I was going to kill that son of a bitch.” He was looking straight at the young officer.

Ben looked at the chief of police. “You were aware of all this?”

“Yes,” the man replied.

“And you did nothing to stop it?”

“People have to have respect for the law.”

That brought a huge roar of laughter from the crowd, the sound of it rippling around the chief. His face reddened and he became uncomfortable in his chair.

“Seems like the people in this town don’t think much of your concept of law and order, Chief.”

“You’re an anarchist!” the chief hissed. “You want to destroy all forms of law and order.”

“No, Chief,” Ben said, speaking so his voice carried over the PA system. “You’re wrong. I’m going to put the law back into the hands of the people, then they can decide what they want to do with it.”

Applause greeted those words.

Ben looked at the chief. “Tell me, Chief—if that had been your daughter, what would you have done?”

“I would have obeyed the law.”