Chapter 03

’Tinker’ Taylor: Soldier

Call to Arms

A few weeks before Lee’s seventeenth birthday he’s eating dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina. He’s with his mother and eight female junior officers having a celebratory meal for some reason Lee doesn’t know. Lee is the designated driver for the van they have so all of the ladies can drink if they want to, because now they don’t have to worry about the drive to base with him driving.

The group of ten people have to wait in the bar for about ten minutes before their table is ready. Once they’re shown to their table they take several minutes to decide on their meal orders before they give the orders to the waiter with an order for a bottle of wine. A couple of minutes later another waiter approaches their table with a tray of cocktail drinks. As he starts to place the drinks before each lady Madeline says, “You must have the wrong table. We didn’t order any cocktails.”

The waiter inclines his head toward a table with several men while he says, “The drinks are from the men at that table.”

Madeline glances at the men, shakes her head no, and says, “If they ordered the drinks you can serve the drinks to them. Take them away.”

The waiter’s face goes white and he says, “Madam, I don’t think you understand. Those men don’t take well to being refused.” He also makes a sign with his freehand. In response to the sign the manager comes to the table in time to hear Madeline’s reply to the waiter.

“I don’t care what those men want or who they are! We do not accept drinks from strangers. Take them away,” is Madeline’s response.

The waiter softly says something to the manager, and his face goes pale. The manager turns to Madeline to say, “Madam, these are from the senior partner of the restaurant. To send them back would insult him.”

“He shouldn’t have insulted us by sending them over without asking us first. Either you take them away or we’re leaving right now!”

The manager turns to look at the table the men are at. He makes a sign and is given one in response. The manager turns to the waiter, takes a drink off the tray, and he places it on the table. He’s had these sort of confrontations in the past and it usually ends here. However, this time he’s surprised by everyone at the table standing up as a group as soon as his hand lets go of the glass. In a few seconds the group collects their things and are on their way toward the front door before he can react.

Lee leads the way out with Madeline next but a few steps behind him. She glances at the table and she sees the men are all frowning while one makes a sign to someone while looking in her direction.

When Lee passes the entrance to the bar two large men step out of the bar area where diners wait for a table. From their size and appearance Madeline assumes they’re bouncers. One of the men says, “You have to pay for your drinks and the meals you ordered.”

While waving the rest to go by Madeline stops, turns to the man, and says, “The manager chose to insult us so he can pay the bill. I’m not. If he has a problem with that he can sue me. We’re leaving!”

When his mother stops to talk to the man Lee reaches into his pocket to turn on the recorder for the concealed body-cam he has in his lapel badge. It’s a new model he’s trialing. He turns as he opens the door for the ladies, and thus he’s in a position for his camera to catch what is happening between his mother and the man. Lee is standing with the door wide open while the ladies pass him. In this position he has a clear line of sight to the confrontation to his left of the line of the ladies.

The man who spoke grabs Madeline’s left arm. She says, “Let go of me or I’ll defend myself from your assault.” The man smirks at her. She turns a little to take her left side away from him. It’s as if she’s moving her arm back to pull out of his grip. His smile widens. When she reaches the angle she wants Madeline lifts her right leg then quickly kicks the man’s left shin in a way to have her shoe scrape down the bottom half of his shin. At the same time her right hand comes up and around to slam into the side of his jaw with the palm of her open hand. The man starts to yell at the pain in his left leg, then he staggers to his right when Madeline breaks his jaw with her strike. He lets go of her as he hobbles back a few steps.

On seeing the woman attack his partner the other bouncer draws his knife from the sheath at his waist. As he brings the knife forward into a position to attack with it he steps forward. Madeline sees the knife and recognizes his move for the start of an attack. She swings her left arm down at the man’s right forearm to check the knife swing at the same time as she turns further left. Her left hand hits the man’s wrist hard enough to knock the knife out of it. While he’s adjusting to the fact she’s disarmed him Madeline grabs his belt with her left hand and his coat near the chest with her right hand, then she uses all of her strength to lift him while she quickly turns back to her right while leaning back a little. The man is lifted up a little when she turns and tosses him into the light lattice wall between the bar and the entry area. The man smashes through the thin barrier to hit a small round drinks table which has him turning before he falls to the floor where he screams as his arm breaks when his weight comes down on it. Madeline turns, glares at the manager, turns again, and walks out the door being held open by Lee.

Lee follows his mother out of the door while pulling it shut behind him to slow down any pursuit. He then races ahead to the van, unlocks it, opens the doors to allow the other ladies into the back before he shuts the door to hold the front passenger door open for his mother. Lee gets in, starts the van, then he drives away. As he exits the restaurant parking lot he glances at the restaurant front door, but no one comes out of it.

Ten minutes later they’re at another restaurant to have their meal. The main topic of conversation is the events at the first restaurant.

Legal Actions

The next day two police officers interview Madeline about her assault on the two men. They take witness statements from the women and Lee as well as the men at the restaurant. Then they pass the report and all of the statements up the line for a decision by higher management. The paperwork includes a charge of assault against the first bouncer and a charge of assault with a deadly weapon against the second bouncer.

A few days later Madeline is served with papers because she’s being sued by the restaurant for the drinks, meals, damages, and compensation for the harm to the bouncers. She counters by suing the restaurant, the manager, the owners, and the bouncers on behalf of herself and her party members. She wants one hundred thousand dollars compensation for each of her party members for the insult and trauma the restaurant staff put them through, plus five million dollars for the assaults on her at the orders of the restaurant management.

Counter Action

Three days after Madeline’s papers are served on the restaurant staff two large men turn up at Jack’s workshop to talk to him. When they walk in Jack looks at them then switches to work on some wires on the bench in front of him. He’s expecting a visit like this, which is why these wires are on the bench. Jack finishes screwing together a bar holding two eight foot long wires together just behind where their ends have strong copper coated pins secured onto them. The wires run to a box beside him which has a hidden power lead going to the switch at his waist.

Jack turns on the switch at his hip while he turns to face the men. He keeps his left hand on the lead, but about two feet back from the bar he just tightened. He looks at the men as he says, “Morning.”

One of the men asks, “You Jack Taylor?” Jack nods yes. “Tell your wife to drop the court cases and to pay up. Or there will be trouble.”

A grinning Jack says, “I think you’ll be the ones in trouble when we add more charges and compensation for today.”

The second man steps forward while he brings his right hand around from behind his back. He raises his arm with the billy club in it while he walks toward Jack. The man screams when Jack swings his left arm to hit the man’s right hand with the pins on the wires. The man backs off while nursing his hand where the wires hit his hand. The first man glances from one to the other while he tries to work out what happened.

Jack asks, “Want to try that again?” The attacker shakes his head no while he slowly turns his right hand to look at the burned flesh on the back of the hand where Jack’s improvised Taser burned him. The two men decide it’s wise to leave. Jack watches them go before he turns his homemade high-power Taser off.

In Court

Due to both sides pushing for a quick hearing the civil cases go to court for a hearing by the judge alone about ten days after the encounter in the workshop. The judge opens the case by saying, “As all of the cases by both sides center around the same incident in the restaurant I think we can have one hearing for them all. Unless either party has a major objection.” The lawyers for both sides soon agree they can deal with it all at once. The judge continues with, “The complainant of the initial case has twenty statements from people at the restaurant, with most of them being from the staff and management while the defendant has ten statements from their dinner party members. I see everyone is in court ready to give their evidence and be cross-examined, so we may as well get started.”

David Lowe, Madeline’s lawyer, stands, is recognized, and he says, “I think we can keep the whole case to just the one witness if we start with our eleventh witness, Mister Crawford, Your Honor.”

“I’m not sure how one witness can resolve it all. However, it doesn’t matter who we start with.” The judge turns to look at the complainant’s lawyer to ask, “Do you have any objections to this?”

Mike Kerr, the lawyer for the plaintiff, shrugs as he says, “I don’t see how any one witness can affect the whole case. Especially one who wasn’t there, so we have no issue with starting with this man.”

The first witness is called and identified, then David asks, “Mister Crawford, please explain to the court what you do for a living and your involvement with Lee Taylor.”

“I’m an electronics security expert who specializes in visual security and recording systems. Some months ago Lee approached me because he knows my son, and through him he knows what I do. Lee wanted a high security body camera that was hard to detect and kept a recording that was certified for use in courts. He told me he had some trouble with the bullies at school and the school management didn’t believe him, so he wanted to get them on video. I’ve several units that do what he wanted, so it wasn’t a problem as such. However, he wanted something he could wear anywhere and not look out of place. In the end we came up with two products for him to test to see if they did what he wanted. One to wear with casual clothes and one for more formal wear to go with what he’d wear to the prom and similar occasions.”

As soon as he sees where this is going Kerr interrupts Crawford by saying, “I object, Your Honor. I don’t see that this as relevant.”

The judge looks at Kerr as he replies, “Overruled. I was wondering about it myself. However, your objection at this point has me wondering just what the witness has for us.” Kerr and his clients all look pale. The judge turns back to the witness to say, “Continue, Mister Crawford.”

Crawford nods to the judge as he says, “The camera for formal wear is in a lapel badge which feeds a pocket recorder. The user can turn the recorder on or off, but he can’t rewind or replay what it has recorded. To do that you need a special machine to read and decode the recording. This is to stop people from changing the recording. I have with me both the recorder Lee was wearing that night and the machine to decode the recording. On the morning after the confrontation I gave the recorder a physical examination to confirm it has a recording and it had not been interfered with. I then secured the recording in an envelope which I locked in my safe. This morning I checked the envelope hadn’t been opened when I took it out of my safe to bring it here. No one has yet looked at the recording so no one knows what it shows. I was asked to replay the recording for the court and to make a copy of it for the court.”

The Judge smiles as he says, “Provide the details of the system to the bailiff so he can check on its suitability for use in court, and set it up for viewing.” Crawford hands over a prepared document with the details of the system before he sets it up for viewing on the large court monitor. While they watch the video play the bailiff has one of the clerks check the records to see if the system is certified for use as a valid legal record.

The video takes only a few minutes to play through. It makes it clear the defendant’s witness statements are true while the complainant’s ones are false. The clerk reports back with the confirmation of the system being valid for use in court in this state and several other states.

The Judge makes notes on the file before saying, “The evidence is clear the defendants are in the right. I award each member of the dinner party compensation of one hundred thousand dollars each. I also award Madeline Taylor compensation of one million dollars compensation for the attacks on her. The complainant is to pay all court fees plus the legal fees of the defendant as well as the witness fees for all of the witnesses in attendance today. The complainant has one month to make all of the payments. If they wish to appeal the decision they have fourteen days to file the appeal, but they must also make the payment within the month set to make the payment. If an appeal is filed the defendants are to be immediately notified and they must hold the payments in escrow until the appeal is heard or six months have passed if the appeal is delayed beyond that. I’m passing the case file over for consideration of criminal charges against the people who made false statements.” Naturally the complainant isn’t happy with the ruling.

After they leave the court Madeline and Lee are approached by a man they don’t know who says, “Take care, Ma’am. The man you just upset is Ricardo Garibaldi. He’s the eldest son and right hand man of the man in charge of a local criminal group.” The man walks off after speaking.

Eighteen days later their review with the courts show no appeals were filed, and the checks for the payments turn up in the mail on the twenty-ninth day after the court hearing.

Illegal Action

Three months after the incident at the restaurant Madeline and Jack are eating dinner at a restaurant across town to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The restaurant is where they had their first date, so it’s also where they go on their anniversary each year. This is an annual night out where they leave Lee at home while they have a romantic dinner.

When Madeline and Jack leave the restaurant they notice a lot of men standing around in the parking lot. One of the men looks a little familiar. Madeline is concerned about the situation so she lets go of Jack’s hand while softly saying, “Let’s split up.” Thus they separate by walking at a slight angle from each other as they head toward their car while making it look like they’re going to approach both sides of the car at once. They’re almost to the car when Madeline remembers where she saw the man who looks familiar: he was sitting beside Ricardo Garibaldi.

The man Madeline recognizes shouts out, “Now,” and all of the men in the parking lot bring up their hands with guns in them.

Madeline yells, “Contact,” while she dives for the ground at the same time as she draws her gun from the belt holster under her loose blouse. Jack reacts to the man’s shout by diving for the ground while drawing his gun from his belt holster under his jacket at the same time as his other hand hits a button on his cell phone in its belt holder. They both turn on the laser sights as they draw their guns. They hit the surface of the parking lot with their guns in their hands at the same time as a flurry of shots make holes in the cars behind where they’d been walking.

Jack is to Madeline’s left so he starts on the left-hand end of the group when he takes aim. Both Jack and Madeline think the men are wearing body-armor so they aim for the base of the neck of their targets. When the red dot is where he wants it Jack fires, and he’s moving target almost before the round arrives at the target. Madeline is targeting and firing in the same way as Jack but she starts with the man she now knows is leading them, despite him not having a gun in his hand. Both of them work toward their right while firing. However, the gunmen are now adjusting their aim down to shoot at the targets on the ground.

Eduardo Garibaldi is very shocked when he feels the bullet slam into his neck to destroy his throat. He was sure the targets would fire at his gunmen if they were able to return fire. He never expected them to shoot him at all because he doesn’t have a gun in his hand.

There’s a short and fierce flurry of gunshots which stops a moment after the two targets are clearly dead and unable to shoot back. One of the team leaders looks over to their boss, sees he’s dead, swears, looks at the many dead they have, swears again, then he calls out to the few gunmen still standing, “Check our people and get any living wounded into the cars. Let’s get out of here.” Because most of the downed gunmen are obviously dead they only need to check a few men. The four unhurt men help three of their teammates into the three cars they have the keys for, and they leave. They know they don’t have time to get the keys for the other cars or to load their dead, so they just leave them.

The departing gunmen are three blocks away from the parking lot when two police cars race by them while going the other way with their lights and sirens on. The surviving team leader thinks, The Boss is going to be very angry about this. Not only did we lose so many men on a nothing issue, Eduardo is dead as well. He’s shocked by the hit because they used two teams for overkill while thinking they might have only one or two men wounded, and then they end up with most of the men in both teams being killed.

The Alert

Lee is sitting at his computer doing some research for a school project when his cell phone plays the bugle call of ’Call to Quarters.’ He quickly gets his phone out to check the call details. Just like it’s programmed to the special app shows three sets of information on the screen with the GPS location and pulse rate for his mother, his father, and himself. He enters the location for his parents into his computer’s map program and he sees they’re in the parking lot of the restaurant they were going to eat at. However, Lee doesn’t like the high pulse rates as this is an emergency alert app and the screen shows his father activated it. Lee is only wearing a t-shirt and jeans so he stands and he gets dressed while keeping the phone in his hand. The first thing he puts on is the lightweight body-armor he has, followed by a warm sweater, then a leather jacket.

Lee puts the phone down to pull on and do up his boots. Just as he goes to pick up the phone again it starts to play ’Taps’ which is soon overridden by the sound file restarting. Looking at the phone Lee can see there’s no pulse showing for either of his parents. He knows that means they’re now dead. His chest is tight as he says to himself, “First is my duty to my dead, then I can take time for myself.”

In a few minutes the house is locked up and Lee is riding down the road on his electric motorcycle while thinking, Having an electric bike is good because I don’t have to wait for it to warm up. Ten minutes later he’s parking behind a police car on the road near the restaurant parking lot.

When Lee walks up to the edge of the parking lot a uniformed policeman walks over and tells him to leave the area. Lee is about to speak when he sees the man who spoke to him and his mother at the court. Pointing at the man Lee says, “Please tell that officer I need to speak to him right now. I’ll wait right here while you do.”