Day 859: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Wednesday - Prompt: insider

Continued from "Insider"...

Source

Mayor Garner and Commissioner Scott were each having a reasonable Friday afternoon before that audio showed up showing how Perseus Slocum and some others were planning an actual terrorist incident.

The key bit was of course the idea of hiring young white supremacists as private security – perhaps as many as 10,000 from Lofton County and from however far away as the word could go out over the weekend. It was about to be another Charlottesville, in what once had been three of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Big Loft.

But there were other details … how heavily armed they could get these men to be … where the money would come from … where a panic could be created and “n****s and s***s could be pushed right off the ridge if herded like the animals they are.”

However, folks kept forgetting: Lofton County's two native counter-terrorism specialists had come home from the army … Captain H.F. Lee of the police force in Big Loft, VA and Captain Ironwood Hamilton of neighboring Tinyville, VA were both in the Army Reserve after years and years in Special Forces and then in JAG. Counter-terrorism? Just another regular afternoon's work!

“Thank God we have some insiders on this terrorism stuff,” Commissioner Scott said in his conversation with the mayor. “I have given Captain Lee access to all information and resources necessary to nip this in the bud before it even gets a chance to blossom and grow – Mr. Slocum wanted a show of force and he surely is going to get it!”

Captain Hamilton drove up from Tinyville for the occasion … and all at once, sitting together with Captain Lee's five eager police lieutenants, it was like old times … Unit 9, one number added to Colonel Lee's last unit command in Special Forces, with Colonel Lee planning the strategy and Major Hamilton, his finest adjutant, at his side.

Because of his background in the Judge Advocate General service, Colonel Lee in becoming a police captain had wisely cultivated friendships with all the honest judges in the area – so, when he needed warrants every which way and in a hurry, he got them. Thus, banks and social media accounts were opened wide, and all the connections sussed out. Who was doing what, when, and where, all the names and locations – by 5:00pm, it was a wrap.

Then, the arrests started, all over Big Loft – Commissioner Scott allowed his most trusted commander to handpick 100 officers for the job.

James Varick IV editor-in-chief of the Lofton County Free Voice, had 20 reporters and five drones in the air, just waiting around police headquarters for the movement of all of it … there were cameras and reporters everywhere as Perseus Slocum and 15 others were arrested for criminal conspiracy.

All the show of overwhelming force where it belonged. All the humiliation of the conspirators, yanked from their cars, their clubs, their homes, the beds of their women. All the stupid attempts to resist arrest and then getting the beat downs wanted on others – including a takedown by Ironwood Hamilton that reminded folks that the gentle family man captain of Tinyville's police force was still a worthy adjutant to Big Loft's own Angel of Death – all of it was captured by the Lofton County Free Voice and cued up for the weekend feature.

“Big Loft and Lofton County are not safe for white supremacist terrorists,” Mr. Varick said in his editorial, “and that's before you realize that those of us Black men who would have been ready on the ridge for trouble wouldn't have been as 'gentle' as even Captain Hamilton. But, we're just letting you see for yourself that it isn't worth it – even the White men in charge here are tired of the nonsense. Don't say we didn't warn you, and if we have to make the point in person, we also will show you better than we can tell you!”

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash