17
D MINUS 53
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
This was BS duty. Jake McCallum trained his team for direct action. That’s what their purpose was. And yet here they were in a rented storefront doing flunky work that the local cops were more than capable of.
Local cops were there. And state troopers. So were the U.S. Marshalls and reps from competing federal agencies. Mac’s boss had played up this assignment as a “joint task force” operation that faced a significant threat. The threat level was exposed for what it really was when they were told they wouldn’t need helmets, armor or rifles.
In this little store front meeting room, local police and federal agents were busy collecting information from outraged members of a group that had been circulating a petition for secession. The perps were forced to surrender their wallets and let the agents go through their I.D., insurance cards, credit cards, cash and other personal items. Cellphones were confiscated and checked. They were grilled regarding places of employment, aliases, alternate addresses, friends and relatives. While local and federal agents recorded information on them, the group members protested, but were obviously not going to offer any violent resistance.
When Mac remarked about this bogus operation, his boss told him it was a sort of quid-pro-quo job. They relied on the NSA’s intelligence database for some of their raids. It was a good idea to pay the NSA back once in a while with this kind of hands-on data mining that couldn’t be accomplished online when the DomTers didn’t advertise their personal and group information on social media.
On first glance none of these group members looked like domestic terrorists. They were all middle class; most were middle aged; they were dressed conservatively and practiced good personal hygiene. And they weren’t all white. Mac couldn’t imagine them carrying bombs or rifles. But they sure were carrying dangerous ideas around.
Still, Mac’s men would be better employed against somebody who did look, smell, and act more like a terrorist.
While his men helped interrogate the people in the store front, Mac’s mind wandered back over the few operations he’d led since taking over this team. He cringed upon remembering he’d have to write the report for the last operation.
Mac had been putting this off, because he didn’t want to deal with it and wasn’t sure how to spin it: The raid on the Tasper house in Texas had been carried out with clockwork precision–his experience as an operator had finely honed his ability to organize and lead such missions. Trouble was, the intelligence was faulty. After busting in the door at 0300, rounding up the family for questioning, and cracking the gun safe, they found nothing illegal. At least nothing currently illegal.
Mac’s boss had offered to “season” the site. Plant evidence, in other words, so Mac would be credited with a good bust for his efforts, at least. This was something else that bothered him, but he’d give it more thought later when he’d dealt with other matters.
Other matters like one of his shooters: Samuels.
It was bad enough the operation was all for nothing, but Samuels had to stomp a baby kitten to death in the little girl’s bedroom. The Tasper family was complaining about that to their representative more than about the damage to their house. How was he going to explain that incident in the report?
Mac’s tablet beeped to warn him of an incoming file. He stepped outside through the back door to look it over.
Another Contingency Profile from Domestic Intel. He opened it and began reading about Gary Fram, whose profile raised just about every red flag there was to raise. Mac studied the satellite and street-level images of Fram’s house. Within a few moments he had decided which SOP, with what modifications, would work best for a home raid. He’d drafted enough of these contingencies that he could get the basic plan spelled out succinctly, to be adjusted further in the future, according to situation, policy, or team assigned, if a raid was greenlighted. But before he finished drafting a contingency for the profile, his phone rang.
He recognized the incoming number as one of Jeffries’. “Yo, what’s up DeAngelo?”
“What’s goin’ on, my brotha. Hey, I’m in the neighborhood, man. You wanna get some chicken wings?”
Mac checked the time. He hadn’t eaten for quite a while and realized he was famished. “That sounds like a plan,” he said. His team really didn’t need his supervision to finish this data mining flunky work.
The local Hooters was packed every night, but at that time of day they had it mostly to themselves. Their redhead waitress was about a seven, but would probably only rank a five without the makeup, push-up bra and short shorts. They ordered beer and the hottest wings available.
“So how you settling in?” DeAngelo asked, dipping his first wing in dressing.
Mac nodded, tearing a hunk of meat off a wing with his teeth. After swallowing, he said, “I’m getting the hang of it.”
“From what I hear, you’ve got the planning thing down,” DeAngelo said.
It was good to know somebody appreciated Mac’s ability. He wondered who DeAngelo knew in his chain of command to get this information, though.
“That’s good,” DeAngelo went on. “You gotta represent, Mac. You’re the only brotha up in there. Make us look good and they may hire some more of us.”
“How is it where you work?” Mac asked.
“A lot like major league baseball–it’s mostly a white show, with a few of us token niggas so they can say they’re not prejudiced.”
“The few, the proud, the nappy,” Mac remarked, and they both grinned around their spicy chicken meat.
The waitress came by to check on them and replenish their beer. Both men watched her little white booty as she walked away. Mac couldn’t help wondering what she’d be like. He’d heard a lot of comments about how crazy redheads could be. Crazier than white chicks in general.
Mac sobered up quickly, though, when he remembered Samuels. “You ever had to deal with a shooter who pushed things just a bit too far?”
“What’s up, man?” DeAngelo asked.
Mac told him about the kitten-stomping incident. DeAngelo listened, then shrugged.
“He’s just being a white boy,” DeAngelo said. “Half of them are psychopaths, man. If they weren’t working for the government, they’d be serial killers or something. Did you hear what happened in Texas?”
Mac shook his head. He’d been too busy to check the news.
DeAngelo frowned, his eyes flashing something dangerous for an instant. “More white cops, man. Pulled this brotha over for nothin’. Drag this brotha out his car and beat him to death right there, man.”
“What set them off?” Mac asked.
“Drivin’ While Black,” DeAngelo said, shrugging. “They’re tryin’ to say he didn’t have insurance, and that he attacked them first. Six different cops, man. There’s video going viral, though. He didn’t try to defend himself until they started beatin’ on him.”
Mac immediately thought of Eric Garner and grew infuriated. “This is too much, man. How far are they gonna try to push us?”
DeAngelo shook his head slowly, with a hard scowl. “I’m tellin’ you: local police are nearly as bad as the Constitutionalists. And state police ain’t much better. All those good ol’ boy networks, man. You’d think they’d be extinct by now, but they’re gettin’ even stronger. It’s all gonna come to a bum rush one of these days.”
Every time they talked, DeAngelo sounded a little more militant in his worldview, but that matched Mac’s own evolving mindset. White people’s media and entertainment might be getting ostensibly more sensitive and diversified all the time; but at the same time there were more and more bloggers, blog followers and social media participants sounding less sensitive and more separatist. Their boldness grew daily as they railed about the decline of western civilization. They called African-Americans “feral,” referred to mixed relationships as “mudsharking,” talked about Caucasian heritage like it was something to be proud of, and even used the phrase “white supremacy.”
“You think it’s any better at the federal level?” Mac asked.
DeAngelo swigged some beer down and made a face. “It’s a white man’s world over here. America is racist–no way around that.”
Mac nodded. “I’m the Jackie Robinson where I am, seems like.”
“Not even that, my brotha,” DeAngelo said. “You’re a Buck. I’m a Tom. At least that’s how The Man sees us. They talk a lot of shit about equality and all that, but when it comes down to drawing lines, they’ll side with their own. You and me are useful to them for now, but we’ll just be another couple niggas to them eventually.”
Mac licked buffalo sauce off his huge fingers, then stared at the texture of the skin on a drumstick while forming his words. “You hint around a lot that something big is coming down, racially. You know something I don’t?”
DeAngelo sighed. “Off the record?”
Mac held his hands out and raised his eyebrows. “Just you and me talking, man.”
“These cats like Sharpton and Jackson are a joke,” DeAngelo said. “Nearly everybody knows it. They ain’t done a damn thing for black folks, except make Whitey hate us even more. It’s like two gangs getting ready to rumble out there, man. Actually more than that—the Spics already outnumber us, and it’s gettin’ worse every day. But imagine something like Baltimore or Ferguson, only nationwide, and our people actually throw down this time. Meanwhile, Whitey is thinkin’ if he can’t have us for slaves anymore, he should either kill us off or send us back to Africa.”
“Race war,” Mac said. “You think it’s gonna come to that?”
“Oh, I know it is,” DeAngelo replied, solemnly. “And like I said, we may not just be fightin’ the whites. Might be a three-way fight with them and the Spics…or they may gang up on us. And that ain’t even puttin’ the Asians in the equation. You know there’s never been any love lost between us and the Slopes, man. They’ll most likely side with Whitey, too.”
Mac let this sink in. It was a lot to process. He knew there would always be rednecks, and some degree of white privilege, but had always assumed life would continue on pretty much as it was. Or, if anything, get better. They had finally gotten one of their own people in the White House, after all. For two terms. But DeAngelo talked about a coming attempted genocide like it was a done deal.
“That’s one thing makes working with the feds an advantage,” DeAngelo said. “We’ll be able to see it coming a lot farther off than those poor brothas in the hood.”
“And then what?” Mac asked, the pitch of his voice raising.
“Again, off the record,” DeAngelo said, locking eyes with Mac.
Mac nodded.
“Me and some other brothas been gettin’ together. Nothin’ official, and still we’re careful about what we say and how we say it. But we all know there’s a day comin’ when we’ll have to look out for each other, y’know? Mutual protection.”
Yes, Mac decided, that was smart thinking. It wasn’t just a good idea—if what DeAngelo said was true, it would prove to be a necessity.
“Hey, you know the circumstances we met under,” DeAngelo said, shrugging. “Like it or not, I know all about your background. And because I know it, I know we could use a brotha like you, when it all goes down.”
DeAngelo was inviting Mac into some kind of clandestine brotherhood within clandestine agencies. One that might make all the difference in the survival of their race in North America.
Mac had made friends in SF, in Delta and as a contractor. Some of those friends were black; some were other minorities; some were white. But he lost touch with most of them and gave up on the rest as politics became a more and more powerful influence in everyone’s life. You just couldn’t agree to disagree anymore.
In Iraq the man he trusted most was Leon Campbell. But Leon got out of the contracting biz, went back to the States and started a business with friends. Mac had other guys in SSI he got along with–some who he’d even dodged bullets and eaten dirt with. But none of them knew what it was like to be black. They never would–and probably didn’t want to.
DeAngelo knew. And he was in touch with others who knew. There was power in that.
“Give me a holla next time y’all get together,” Mac said.
###
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