Secession: The Storm (6 page)

“That makes two of us, sir,” Zach replied.

The older man snorted with a nod. “I suppose it does. But you’ve done well for yourself, young man. You’re tall and strong, and from what I hear, a person of character.”

The compliment, especially from a man Zach had considered a role model for so many years, made the young Bass flush. “Thank you,” he muttered shyly.

“So what are you going to do, Zach? Rumor has it that you’ve been offered a solid scholarship at Texas Tech. I also understand the Houston Astros would like to have you in their farm system. These must be a heady times.”

There it was again – that undefinable factor of trust. Zach had dozens of people spouting their opinions at him every day. Everyone from his loving grandparents to his high school coach’s secretary was giving advice on a regular basis. He couldn’t walk into the diner without someone offering him a suggestion… couldn’t read quietly in the library without a teacher or fellow student lecturing on a personal perspective of how the pitcher’s opportunities should be played out. Why was he eager… no, anxious to hear the wisdom of a man he hadn’t seen in almost 10 years? He didn’t even know the ranger’s name.

“It’s a really important decision,” Zach finally said. “I feel like I’m at a ‘Y’ in the road. If I choose the wrong path, I’ll mess things up forever.”

Again, the gentle chuckle. “That’s understandable. I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘forever,’ though. I’m sure it must seem like that… that it’s critical you get it right.”

“What would you do?”

The ranger strolled a few steps without responding. He finally stopped, looking Zach directly in the eye. “My daddy always said that an education is the only thing in life that can never be taken away. Money can be stolen or spent. Freedom can disappear. Friends come and go. Love can evaporate. But knowledge and learning are a man’s possessions forever. I think that was pretty sage.”

“So you would go to school?”

“Yes, I would. It may set you back a few years if professional baseball is in your future, but what are a few years? On the other hand, that sheepskin makes for a strong backup plan. You and I both know life can change at any moment. We both saw that out on the highway the day we met.”

Zach absorbed the ranger’s words, a nagging question rising to the surface. Without thinking, he blurted it out. “What was so special about that day on 112? You must have seen worse carnage… in the grand scale of an officer’s career, that day couldn’t have made the highlight reel. Why does it stick out in your mind?”

The ranger grunted, shaking his head with uncertainty. “I’ve asked myself that a hundred times, Zach. I don’t have a very good answer for you. The image of a brave, 6-year old boy brandishing a shotgun and staring down a deputy might be part of it. Your loyalty to your father is no doubt worthy of note. But, I think what really etched that entire episode in my mind was the fact that you didn’t crumble… didn’t panic… didn’t fold up the tent of your mind and disappear into a mental wilderness. In my line of work, mental toughness and loyalty are at the top of the requirement list, and you learn to respect those attributes above all else.”

It was Zach’s turn to grunt, his forehead wrinkling in thought. “Funny. From where I stand, I didn’t do anything special or different. My dad needed help, and I went to his side.”

“Did you know we found two bullet holes in your dad’s truck?”

“No.”

“You were taking fire, Zach, and you didn’t even know it. Have you ever listened to the recordings of your exchange with the dispatcher?”

“No.”

“Look me up after you have a child of your own, and I’ll play that tape. You can decide then if you did anything special or not.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Zach replied, still reeling from the encounter.

The ranger reached into his pocket, producing a business card. Before he handed it over, he placed a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “My advice is to enroll. Let them fill your head with whatever keeps you awake in class. No one… not God, the devil, or the government can ever take it away from you.”

The lawman presented his card and said, “Good luck, Zach.” Pivoting, the retired ranger made for the parking lot, leaving a confused teenager in his wake.  

Three months later, his chest-busting, proud grandfather had delivered Zach to the campus of Texas University.

In his junior year, a torn ligament announced the premature end to his baseball dreams, the extent of the injury beyond surgery’s means to repair. It was another low in Zach’s life.

Again, the words of the ranger drifted back into his head. “That sheepskin makes for a strong backup plan,” he remembered. Again, the Texas lawman had been spot-on with his advice.

At graduation, the feds came calling. Zach had pushed aside the barriers of lower pay and lack of promotional opportunities, accepting the offer to join his home state’s Department of Public Safety, the parent organization of the Texas Rangers.

It was the only choice that felt right.

After the academy, he’d begun his post-graduation law enforcement career driving a patrol car marked “State Trooper.” During that first year, he began to realize that a career in law enforcement wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

There had been a few occasions when Zach basked in a strong sense of job satisfaction. These rare episodes typically occurred when a case or incident involved protecting the least of the state’s citizens from the worst. Serving the common, everyday folks, as they tried to better what was often a difficult life in West Texas was remarkably rewarding to Zachariah Bass.

But those instances were few and far between. He quickly found that a percentage of the population resented authority, while others couldn’t seem to function without it. When he wore the uniform, people treated him differently, and it troubled Zach to no end.

Ranger Bass quickly found himself smack in the middle of what he eventually christened the “triangle of despair.”

On one side of his imaginary, geometric figure stood his fellow cops. He had anticipated working with honest men who relentlessly upheld law and order, regardless of the sacrifice required. Instead, he found tainted individuals who often felt as persecuted as the criminals they pursued. So many of the elder, more-seasoned, officers were filled with a genuine disrespect for their fellow human beings. Having seen and experienced the worst mankind had to offer, they were beyond caring about justice, right, or wrong. Only survival and camaraderie of their fellow officers seemed to matter.

Zach thought back to his decision to fire Tusk’s pistol – just to cover his tracks. Just to be safe. Technically, he hadn’t done anything unjustified during the showdown with the gangbanger, but that fact might not matter if the wrong people started getting nosey. In that one fleeting moment, he’d actually committed a serious felony. And that single mistake ate at his personal fortitude. Was he as disenfranchised as the rest of his comrades after only a few years on the job?

The citizenry formed another side of the triangle. After first donning the uniform, it had taken Zach weeks to adjust to people’s reactions. He recalled meandering into a restaurant and wondering why the ambient background noise of conversation suddenly decreased. Why did people stare at him when he stopped at the local grocer after his shift? What was the big deal about a guy in uniform pushing his cart up and down the aisles? Did they all feel guilty over something? Were the local cops so corrupt they were publically scorned? The isolation he began to experience led directly to withdrawal, a feeling of disembodiment from the population at large.

The final leg of the triangle consisted of the elected officials, more precisely the prosecutors. Zach had lost count of the number of times he’d witnessed overzealous district attorneys use the state’s resources to hammer some poor guy into a plea. Guilt versus innocence had lost meaning at some point; only winning the contest seemed to matter.

The people’s defenders liked their position of power and prestige. They wanted to be elected over and over again, and that meant being perceived as “tough on crime.” That also resulted in a callous, uncaring attitude regarding justice and individual rights. A conviction rate was all that mattered come ballot time.

And, the law of the land made it easy for all three sides of the triangle to feed off each other.

Zach remembered one of his law professors lecturing on the subject, the bearded intellectual claiming that there were over 27,000 pages of federal laws, with that figure quite literally growing by the minute. A huge chunk of those laws referenced more than 100,000 federal regulations, and those often changed without a congressional vote.

“The average American commits three felonies per day,” the professor had touted. “If that citizen drives an automobile, you can raise that number to six. The government can arrest any of us, at any time, and put us behind bars. We walk free only by the benevolence of men who are elected to fill the jails. Now I ask the class, is this a recipe for justice?”

More than once, the young ranger considered resigning. Late at night, when the day’s adrenaline had finally burned off, he’d often pondered changing careers. But that train of thought always ended in the same place – fear.

Fear of being on the other side stopped him cold. The vulnerability of being outside the machine made him shiver. He knew what could happen to any citizen – had seen it with his own eyes. The American justice system had become an uncaring, unforgiving, out-of-control meat grinder, and her citizens seemed well equipped to provide an unending source of beef.

It was better to be a minor gear in an out-of-control machine, than a rusting piece of scrap. He’d stay in the machine. Perhaps one day the opportunity to make things better would present itself.

“Could the FBI would be a better choice for me?” he mumbled to the empty cab. “Maybe I’m not made of the right cloth to work the streets. Maybe I should consider an FBI lab instead of patrolling the desert.”

He was right in the middle of an intense mind-movie, trying to visualize a life where his hat and boots were replaced with a white lab coat and rubber gloves, when the New Orleans skyline appeared on the horizon.

The sheer scale of the flooding amazed Zach. Despite the hurricane’s making landfall more than a week before, the elevated interstate passed over block after block of standing, deep water. The destruction seemed to stretch for miles in all directions.

As his truck ventured deeper into the city proper, he could make out more details of the devastation. The glass was missing from practically every first-floor window. Household garage doors were buckled in half from the water’s pressure. More than a few homes had been moved several feet off their foundations by the fast-moving currents.

Some streets were lined with the hulks of already-rusting cars; other avenues appeared to be entirely devoid of any sign of life. Light poles, street signs, and corner newspaper boxes had simply vanished.

The melancholy atmosphere was further darkened by the minimal traffic he spied on the roadway. Military vehicles, patrol cars, and government sedans dominated both lanes, the occasional 18-wheeler rolling one direction or the other. It quickly became apparent that every single semitrailer was being given a police escort in and out of the city.
Rule of law must be in jeopardy
, Zach realized.
They wouldn’t be using valuable resources for convoy security if it weren’t so.

Numerous columns of smoke rose into the morning horizon, their ominous presence accented by the dozens and dozens of helicopters whirring over the stricken city’s skyline. It looked like a war zone and smelled like one, too.

The stench of stagnating water, burning rubber, wood ash, and rotting garbage assaulted his nose. Some stretches of highway smelled like dirty athletic socks, others emitted the earthy odor of rotting flesh.