Chapter 14

I didn’t know what to do with an old ambulance, but I thought it would be a cool thing to own. I took a good look the body, it seemed to be in good shape. It needed paint of course, and I was sure that it needed some mechanical work done. Regardless of all that, I wanted it. I had found out just recently that I had come into a few grand, which I wasn’t expecting. That said, I decided to buy it after some price negotiating.

“Jasper, how many ambulances do you have out there in the yard?” I asked.

“Four, they are all the same. I bought them as left over stock after a county action. They are from Randolph County.”

“Did they come with the gurney?” I further asked.

“No, they were all stripped out. The lights and sirens are gone as well,” he informed me. “They all are running, but they all have over a hundred thousand miles on their replacement engines.”

“How much for the best one in the yard,” I asked.

“Tell you what I’ll do. I give you the one with the least amount of miles on the replacement engine, and I’ll check the tie rods and brakes. You can drive it before we make the deal. I can’t sell them till I get at least one in shape. When I do, I’ll give you the first shot at it,” he agreed.

I paid him for the work he had done, and I left him one of my cards for the non existent security company. After all that I rode the scooter home. I had intentionally left the pink computer in plain sight. I wanted it as a reminder that I had to decide on something.

I needed someone who wanted to know the truth just so I could say that they knew. A Watergate type reporter, I supposed. Someone with no ties to either side. That person still had to have a passion for the truth. Enough passion so that it would over ride their personal philosophy, if that were possible.

Instead of trusting someone I already knew. I did a search of the web. I wanted to see if there was any mention of the general on the web. There was of course since his death was very public. He made sure that the mafia knew he was no longer a threat. Mostly he wanted them to know that they no longer needed to worry keep tabs on his family. It wasn’t the same as having them disappear, but it would help at least for a while.

I could understand his thinking without sympathizing with him. I did know he paid the supreme price for his family. Whether it would solve anything or not didn’t really matter. I needed to know that it mattered in the end. I didn’t like the butcher, but he tried to do one noble thing. So were we honoring our deal or not. My dad always said the mark of a decent man, was doing the right thing, when no one was looking. I hoped the State department had at least one decent man.

I needed to go about finding out what really happened very carefully. I was probably never going to work for the Lt again anyway, but I would like to stay off his shit list. He had a lot of operatives. It took me a week of running down leads on the net to find the General’s family. Some of those leads took phone calls, and some were gleaned solely from the Internet.

I called the priest in the town where his wife lived. I couldn’t imagine her being willing to speak to a stranger, so I thought I would try the back door. The priest listened to my bullshit story, then told me to fuck off. No, he really said to me, “Fuck off and don’t bother us again.”

The first question that needed answering was pretty simple. Had anyone told the widow she had been invited to the USA. It suddenly began to feel like old times. Of course it wasn’t like old times, but it was a start. I got to think more than act. Still it was a problem without an easy solution. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be any fun. There were problems without a solution, I had been told. My experience was that if I worry with it long enough, I always found some kind of a solution.

I continued to worry with it. The first break I got was from a government whistle blower website. They were probably a CIA site, I thought. I decided to give it a try anyway. I asked if anyone knew the general. The post hung around a week before anyone answered that they did.

‘The butcher of Chechnya. Of course I know of him. He was blown to hell a few months ago. It is where he belongs.’ singed Jihadist 13.

‘My understanding is that he was a paper pusher, and murdered no one personally.’ Angel 10.

‘Do you think the man who gives the order is less guilty than the sniper on the roof?’ jihadist 13.

‘Of course not, but he is hated beyond sensible limits.’ Angel 10.

“Go to hell you crazy bitch. He should have died along with every member of his family.’ Adolph.

At that point I dropped out of the conversation. I did post a message on the board that his family was not responsible for his misdeeds. I didn’t expect anything positive to come from it, and it didn’t.

‘Did you know that the American government was Negotiating for his surrender when he was killed.’ Angel 10.

‘It was just a rumor.” Prince.

‘Really, how do you know?’ Angel 10.

‘Nobody is that stupid.’ Prince.

‘Check out where the US under secretary of state was on the day the General died. The one they call Ms Shepard’ Angel 10.

At that point I left the conversation. I resisted the urge to continue the conversation, if you can call it that.

I fixed myself a frozen Mac & Cheese dinner for four. I also fried up three crumbled up sausage patties and a few spring onions. I found it was a very nice dinner, with enough leftovers for at least one more night. I ate it with whole wheat crackers so it was at least a little healthy. That and a huge glass of iced tea was all I needed that night.

Tonya’s friend the junk yard operator called to tell me the Ambulance was ready for a test drive. We made the appointment for 9AM the next day.

Before going to bed, I checked the whistle blower site, or whatever it called itself. The Prince was back on. ‘Okay Shepard’s itinerary showed her in Europe during that whole month.

I left the following: ‘right, now have someone ask her about the General’s statements. Also ask if we made any deal with him.’

I signed off and went to bed. I didn’t drift off to sleep as quickly as I usually did. I was running what if scenarios in my head. Only a couple got me killed, but that was still pretty disturbing. I finally fell asleep.

I awoke at 5:03 AM, pretty much right on time for my shitty alarm clock. I dressed in my fleece jogging suit and took the road bike for a ride. It was my plan to double my ride ever week. This was supposed to be three miles our and three back. It was a struggle. My hips really hurt, but I stuck with it, and made it home before 6:30 AM. That meant I had made six miles in about one hour. Not too bad for someone just a month out of a coma.

The shower and clean underwear made me feel like a new, used car. I was a little flashy after my wash and wax. I was also a little broke down, but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Jasper’s place was still too far to go on a pedal bike. With me as the unreliable engine, it was just too risky. So I struggled with the motor scooter. I took all my energy to get the damn thing out of the box, but I made it.

I got as far as Scooter’s downtown diner. There I had their large, but not huge, breakfast special. It consisted of two eggs, soft scrambled with cheese, sausage patties, hash browns potatoes and a homemade biscuit. Of course it came with coffee. With that kind of breakfast you had better be a working man, or your best friend should be a cardiac surgeon. As a matter of fact they should call that breakfast special ‘the heart disease on a plate breakfast special’. It should come with a disclaimer. This diner not responsible for your stupid eating habits.

When I left the diner, I felt better than I had in months. I was almost high and I had stopped taking the Tramadol completely. I was on a high dose Aspirin instead. I took 1000 mg in the morning and again in the afternoon. That much Aspirin gave me some relief, at least while I exercised. Did it really help, I had no idea for sure. I thought it did, so for my purposes it did.

I took the scooter from the diner with the same name, to Jasper’s junkyard. He was on the phone of course. I heard him say, “I have a green Hyundai the hood should fit yours.’ Then there was quiet for a few seconds, finally “Do you want to pull it, or do I need to do it? Okay a hundred cash no checks or cards.”

“So you did come back this time,” he said Looking up at me.

“Yep, so let’s see what you came up with,” I replied.

“It is basically a Ford 350 chassis, with their standard engine and tranny, so no sweat swapping them out. Any decent mechanic can handle those. I didn’t bother repairing the air conditioner. Those things are very expensive to switch out. Roll down the windows for your air conditioner. The body has a few dings but nothing that effects it other than its appearance. The V8 210 horsepower engine is in pretty good condition. It doesn’t seem to smoke. The tranny doesn’t slip and the rubber on the tires is okay. I ran a test on the pollution system and it passed.” Jasper said enthusiastically.

“So how much?” I demanded cutting through the B.S.

“$1,500 and that’s a deal,” Jasper replied.

“If you are rock solid on that price, I won’t even bother to drive it, or waste my time trying to find a use for it,” I suggested.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Okay let me drive it a few miles, then we can discuss that,” I replied.

I did just that. Test driving a slightly over twenty year old truck had it’s challenges. I had to try to sort the noises into to category. First there were a few obviously insignificant noises, then there were potential problems down the road. How far down the road I had no idea. I couldn’t hear anything that sounded ominous, so that was good. When I pulled into the parking lot, I painfully climbed onto a box in order to check the oil, transmission fluid and coolant.

“Okay Jasper, change the transmission fluid and filters and I’ll give you a grand for it,” I said.

“No way, without the transmission work it is worth at the very least $1200,” he said it digging his feet in.

“Alright 1200 but you throw in the transmission fluid work, and I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning,” I demanded.

“Done, if you pay in cash,” he said.

“Have the paper work ready to sign,” I demanded.

After my test drive, I rode the scooter to the storage locker holding my safe. Yes I went back several days after the Auction and bought the safe. I offered, then paid the scrap metal price in cash. I had the safe cracker from Sanford open it, and reset the combination. Inside the safe I stored all my ill gotten gains since working for Martin. I had the 20K from the minor prince of Saudi Arabia. A few other bucks from skimming a little off the accounts I handled in the Air Force as well. I didn’t trust off shore accounts and I really didn’t have enough money to bother with non traceable wire transfers. The over a hundred year old mill safe seemed like a good second choice. There was much less than 50K inside it.

I could just as easily have take the money from one of my Bank of American accounts, but that most likely would have required that I visit a branch. The only problem was a geographical one. Traveling to the closes branch would require a couple of hours at least on the scooter. My back would most likely give out doing that. It was much easier to just remove the cash from the safe in the Hokey Pokey storage building in Siler City.

While doing it, I was reminded that I was at their mercy. If they went belly up, I would be forced to move the safe somewhere else. That would create a rather nasty problem. That safe weighed well over half ton. I remember that from the company who move the safe to the storage facility. Oh by the way the safe was empty when it arrived at my storage facility. There were a few blank time cards, but no hidden treasure.

After I moved fifteen hundred buck in my wallet from the safe, I returned home to work on my research of the general’s family. I pulled up the forum on my computer site dedicated to Questioning the government while staying anonymous. The board had thousands of members and each had some interest. Most had some source of information, that wasn’t available to everyone else. The collective group knew more than any one person could possibly know. A lot of what they knew was bullshit, but some was golden. I had to be careful how I phrased things. I didn’t want to aid anyone trying to discover my identity. I wasn’t real sure how it would effect me, but I had started carrying the antique Remington 1911.45 cal pistol. I might have to do something different in a few more months, but at that time I wore it inside my pants. I carried it in a ‘clip on’ heavy duty canvas holster. It was a reproduction pattered on a military holster, but retro fitted with the inside ‘clip on’ design.

With my interest in the government’s policy toward the General’s family, and a crap load of cash the pistol seemed like a good idea. In the current political climate anything was possible. Since I was the possessor of a concealed carry permit, why not use it, I thought.

There was no reply to my last post concerning Shepard. I hadn’t expected one so soon. There might never be one, I thought.