From the Pulpit, Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Mike put the pistol into the paddle holster inside the back of his trousers and stuffed three more loaded magazines in the right pocket of his jacket.  He then moved three hunting rifles from one side of the safe to the other, bent down and pulled up the floor panel of the dark steel cabinet revealing a shallow hidden chamber.  Reaching in he grasped the object he was looking for and pulled his hand back up.  He held the round metal tube in front of his face for moment, then placed the silencer in the left pocket of his jacket. 

If he were caught he would have to ditch the silencer quickly.  While he did have a legal concealed carry permit for handguns, silencers were illegal for everyone.  He had managed to keep these items, holdovers from his days in special operations, through all of these years.  Even Janelle hadn’t known about the silencer.  He closed the safe and locked it then left the closet. 

Walking into his study from there, he picked up a couple sheets of paper that were sitting on the printer.  Turning from the printer to his fax machine he pressed the buttons to program the machine to send the two sheets to their intended recipient at eight o’clock in the morning.  The fax machine quickly scanned the documents and put them in its memory to be delivered at the scheduled time. 

After they had run through, Mike retrieved the pages from the machine, neatly folded them and stuffed them into an envelope as he walked to the kitchen where he set it on the counter. He picked up a pen and wrote “Detective Dan Martin” in large letters across the front of it. 

Turning towards the front door, he stopped in the living room at the fireplace mantle and stared briefly at the picture of his wife and son, taken only a week before their murders. 

“Baby, I love you.  Please forgive me for what I am about to do.  I hope you will understand.”  He closed his eyes and continued, saying a prayer to God.  “Father, you called me into ministry, but first you made me a warrior.  I pray that you make me strong and courageous, that I may avenge my family and my friend.  I know that your word says turn the other cheek, but Lord, if I don’t do this I will not be able to live with myself.  I commit my soul to your hands, and if I must die, first give me victory.”

He turned and walked out to his car, a used looking 1999 Chevy Lumina with tinted windows that sat in his driveway.  Driving off into the darkness he went through the drill over and over in his mind.

The note he had programmed to be faxed and had left on the counter for Det. Martin contained all the details of what he was going to do that night and instructions for his burial in the event he was killed.

Detective Martin,

I feel it necessary at this time to inform you, as you may have already guessed by now, that I lied when you asked me about any specific threats against LeRon.  In reality, there was a very specific threat not only against him and L’il Mac, but against me and my family.  I honestly did not think they would go through with it, at least not as quickly as they did.

The gang that made the threat was the Uni-Thugz from the University Heights neighborhood.  Their leader, who calls himself “Cold-Bones”, said that if we tried to put a youth mission in his neighborhood he would kill LeRon and rape my wife in front of my eyes.  I guess his gunners read the instructions wrong and ended up killing my family instead. 

LeRon had discovered where the Uni-Thugz hideout was and told me the day before the shootings.  That is where I have gone.  God willing there will be several fewer of these murderers breathing our atmosphere by the time you read this.  I have left a map and directions in this envelope as well as burial instructions in the event I am not successful.

I am sorry for the extra work this may cause you, but I understand that if you were to arrest these men it would be tied up in a trial for years and they would most likely get off eventually.  I cannot allow that to happen and am willing to face the consequences.

Mike Farris
Semper Fi

The night was dark.  The brisk autumn air came in through the slightly opened window of his car as he drove the 25 miles from the suburban community he called home into the jungle of strip malls and office complexes that gradually gave way to tall buildings as he moved through downtown Columbus.  Approaching the OSU campus area the scenery shifted to older architecture of red brick and mortar duplexes and government housing projects. 

Mike was familiar with this neighborhood.  He preferred to drive the beat up Lumina, instead of the newer Denali SUV his wife used, specifically because it would not stand out when he was doing street ministry, and therefore would not be as likely a target for thieves or vandals.  Tonight, it served as good camouflage as he passed through one of the most crime-ridden districts of Central Ohio. 

Clusters of people gathered on the front stoops of houses, sipping at 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor and talking among themselves.  Occasionally someone would look up and watch him drive by, only to turn back to their drinking partners as he passed.  Twice hookers called to him, telling him how handsome he was, in spite of the fact that they couldn’t see through the tinted glass in the dark, and asking if he needed a friend for the night. 

“Hey baby!  Love is on sale tonight!”  Called out a whore at one corner. 

Her companion put an arm over her shoulder and added, “Yeah!  Buy one get the second for half off!”

“Better than Wal-Mart baby!”  the first hooker shouted.  The two prostitutes laughed riotously at their own words as he passed them by.

He finally came up to King Street and turned left off of 5th.  He pulled into a dark alley between two rows of red brick town homes and drove another two blocks out of sight of most of the inhabitants. 

As he came out of the alley he turned off the headlamps on his car, turned right and drove to 9th avenue where he turned left then cut a sharp left into another alley, pulled up behind dumpster and shut off the car.  He sat there for several minutes to let his eyes adjust to the almost total darkness.  He got out of the car, pulled up the collar of his jacket, donned a black knit balaclava, rolling it up like a stocking cap and walked the rest of the length of the block through the dark shadows of the alley.

At the end of the block, he turned right and proceeded half a block to Loyal St. turned into shadow between the rows of houses and walked forward several hosues until he was in the darkness between two duplexes.  He leaned against the wall of one of the buildings where he pulled the balaclava down over his face and waited in the silent darkness, watching and listening to the sounds of the neighborhood.

Across the street and four houses down was 1639 Loyal, a duplex house converted to a single residence that LeRon had said functioned as Cold Bones headquarters.  Lights were on in the first floor windows on the near side.  Mike could see movement in the shadows.  There was a young man sitting on the porch in a lawn chair.  He was alert and observant, not one of the drug addicts.  It was obvious that he was a guard. 

Mike watched him for nearly thirty minutes.  Few other people moved on the street in this part of the neighborhood.  There were no hookers walking the corners, and no one sitting on their porches drinking forties.  Occasionally someone would step out of a house only go right back in or to get in a car and leave.  It was as if the entire neighborhood was aware that there was something dangerous at 1639, and no one was willing to get caught up in it.

After fifteen more minutes Mike worked his way through the shadows behind several houses until he had passed 1639 and moved down four more.  In a deep shadow beneath a broken street lamp he sprinted across the street and made his way through several houses until he was in the darkness behind the stoop at the one next door.

He waited another five minutes in the shadows watching the guard at the front of the house, then he took out his pistol and screwed on the silencer.  His heart beat went totally silent, his breathing made no sound.  He felt as if he could hear and see everything more clearly than he had in years.  His muscles tensed as he slowly rose from the shadow bringing the pistol up and aiming at the head of the guard on the porch. 

The front door of the house suddenly sprung open causing Mike to pause and slink back into the depth of the shadow.  Cold Bones walked out with another man, tall and thin, coming out the door behind.  Mike smiled to himself at his fortune as he raised the pistol to take aim at Cold Bones’ head.

He pulled the hammer back on the pistol and leaned into it preparing to take the shot.  The man behind Cold Bones paused and turned towards the guard who had risen.  Mike’s heart suddenly skipped a beat as the crookedly smiling face of Akbar Usein turned fully towards him.  He pulled back into the shadow and stood there, staring in horror at the man who sixteen years earlier had attempted to skin him alive, a man whom he had thought long dead. 

There was no mistake as to Akbar’s identity; the scar on his right temple was clearly visible even in the twenty yards distance between them.  He had not visibly aged at all in all these years, the evil in his eyes glinted in the light of the porch as he and Cold Bones walked to a car parked on the street, got in and drove away.

Mike waited until they were gone, and the guard had gone back into the house, then he slowly crept back through the neighborhood making the way back to his car behind the dumpster.  His mind was spinning as he tried to get a grasp on what he had seen. 

Akbar Usein?  Alive?  And he’s here’s in Columbus mixed up with Cold Bones? How in the world can this be?  Did he come back to find me and finish the job?  Could he have survived and spent all these years tracking me down?

He drove through the night until he was back at home and put his weapon away, hiding the silencer back beneath the false chamber of the gun cabinet. His nerves were shaken and he sat in the recliner in his living room trying to sort it all out until he fell into a deep sleep some time after six thirty am. 

From the Pulpit

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