6
Thomas Campbell Anderson, or Tom as his friends called him, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Saltire and Regional Director of a company that provided training and other services to military bases around the country, sat at his breakfast table with his morning tea. It was a beautiful summer day outside. Tom had just finished his daily run around the park across the street from his house and was watching the morning news before taking a shower and leaving for the office.
The news commentator was praising President Sanborn for his policies and the positive effect that they were having on the local community. Tom couldn’t help but find this a little odd. For most of his life, the press had nothing but bad things to say about politicians. When he was in the Army, the press constantly lied about the war and the President’s actions to keep the country safe. Now the press was acting like the President was their best friend. Tom didn’t think that President Sanborn was that much better of a President, but he was glad that the press finally had something good to say about someone in Washington.
“And remember,” Tom heard the commentator say, “if you witness anything suspicious or know of someone who is acting against the greater good of the nation, you’re encouraged to call the Homeland Security Force hotline at the number on your screen. If your tip leads to an arrest, you will be eligible for a reward! Don’t forget, seditious behavior or words weaken our great nation and provide an entry point for the enemy to do us all harm. To remain safe, we must remain vigilant. Homeland Security needs your help to keep this country great!”
Tom turned off the television with a frown. He had always believed that freedom of speech was the one right every citizen had that would never be interfered with. Now it seemed like speaking openly about the wrong thing could cause the HSF to pay you a visit. Neighbors were watching their neighbors to catch anyone doing anything that could lead to earning a reward from the HSF. Tom shook his head as he rose from the table and headed for the bathroom. It was like the KGB and the Gestapo, but on American soil. I didn’t fight for my country overseas so we could turn into a police state. He turned on the shower and started getting undressed.
He let the hot water melt the salt and sweat off his body as he stood in the shower, lost in thought. Crime was down, and if the press could be believed, Americans were happy. The Order had seen a decline in new interventions lately, and Tom was happy for the break. As a Knight Grand Cross, he provided oversight for multiple large interventions at the same time, and between that and his work, he had little time for anything else. Tom hadn’t even been on a date since the night he was forced to kill Jenny, the assassin who was sent by Antonio Mancuso to seduce him and then kill him almost two years earlier. He still felt pain every time he thought about her and that awful night.
As Tom stood in the shower, his mind kept coming back to the newscast that he had just watched. There were too many strange things happening lately. Reports were starting to come in from Commanderies around the country about people being arrested by the HSF and never being seen again. The little bakery that he visited several times a week had closed suddenly. A large padlocked chain was wrapped around the door pulls, and a sticker on the window showed the HSF logo on it. No one had seen or heard from the owner of the bakery for over a week. There was a family in one of the nicer houses down the street that had gone missing one day. Four days later, someone else was living in the house. Tom never saw a For Sale sign in the yard and never saw a moving truck anywhere near the house. It was as if the previous occupants of the house had never existed.
Several intervention teams had nearly been caught by HSF officers during late night surveillance work, causing the Order to have to modify its tactics and employ larger teams with more observers for even simple surveillance tasks. It was actually getting harder and harder to help people anymore, and this disturbed Tom and the rest of the Order.
Tom’s bathroom was quickly turning into a steam chamber, and when Tom saw the condensation streaking down the walls, he decided that he needed to focus and finish getting ready for work. He turned the water temperature down slightly and finished rinsing off the soap. He grabbed a towel and dried off quickly, opening the bathroom door to let the steam out so he could see himself in the mirror.
A few minutes later, Tom was dressed and heading out the door to the garage to get into his car. Tom was at an age where he didn’t feel that he had to impress anyone with his choice of vehicle, but he liked the feel of driving a well-tuned, high performance automobile. He started the engine and listened to the familiar roar it made each morning. He pulled out of the garage, closed the garage door, and headed toward the office.
Ralph Gardner was waiting for Tom when he arrived. Ralph was one of Tom’s key employees, as well as being a very talented Knight Commander in the Order. They were both among the first to arrive at the office each day, which gave them a chance to discuss work and the Order in private before the rest of the office staff arrived. Tom had been giving Ralph larger assignments to see how he handled the pressure and was pleased that Ralph rose to the challenge and performed very well each time. Ralph was assigned to an intervention to go after a gang of thugs that had been terrorizing several neighborhoods recently, and Tom was sure that Ralph wanted to discuss the team’s progress.
Street gangs were something of a rarity after President Sanborn’s crackdown on crime, and this gang was particularly violent. They needed to be captured and turned over to the police before anyone else was hurt. Ralph had selected a team of both experienced and new Knights/Dames for the intervention. He had a gift for assessing people’s skills and training less-experienced operatives to be productive and successful members of the team. Because of this, Tom didn’t feel it necessary to oversee Ralph and his team too closely. He trusted Ralph and felt confident that Ralph would keep him informed of anything that he needed to know.
Tom smiled as he approached Ralph and wished him “Good morning.”
“Good morning, boss,” Ralph responded. “Do you have a minute or two?”
“Sure, come on in,” Tom replied as he unlocked his office door and motioned for Ralph to enter.
Ralph sat down at the conference table in the near corner of Tom’s office. Tom turned on the office lights, closed the door, and walked over to his desk to turn on his computer and put down his briefcase. After he had entered his password into the computer, he grabbed a notepad and joined Ralph at the conference table.
“OK, first things first,” Ralph said as he opened his organizer. “We have three training classes finishing up today. That’s about 75 students. Feedback so far is positive. We’ve had a request for some additional on-site resources at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station next month for a special project they’re working on. I think we can handle the request. We have a few people at Pensacola becoming available around the same time. Oh, and you need to schedule on-site visits and performance evaluations for the sites that you didn’t get completed last month. They’re due in 30 days.”
Tom nodded and wrote a reminder on the notepad. Ralph was very good about making sure that Tom didn’t forget anything, although Tom had already started scheduling the on-site visits and had finished all but one of the performance evaluations. On-site visits weren’t just about reviewing staff and facility performance. They were an opportunity to meet with the military clients, ensure that the company was providing the right services, get a feeling for which services would be needed in the future, and market new services that the military might want to purchase.
“What else?” Tom asked as he looked up from his notes.
“We have a lead on the gang that’s been operating here in town. We don’t know where they’ll hit, but we think we’ve found where they meet before they strike at their next victims. It’s hard to intervene if we can’t find them, but we’re going to try to follow them tonight and see what happens.”
“Where do they meet?”
“It’s a park just on the other side of downtown – over by the statue of the guy on