Enemies Foreign And Domestic Page 5

  “Mom, what’s the word you’re hearing on Shifflett? I just saw the network news and they all have him as a confirmed right wing militia kook, but I’ve talked to some folks here who knew him well, and they all say that story is pure BS. They say he was a nice guy, harmless, who just got weak and shaky after the first Iraq War. And he was just a Marine Corps truck driver anyway. He was so broke he couldn’t keep up a car, and he had to take a bus to get himself over to the VA hospital. They say he was so broke he had to do odd jobs for spending money, but he could barely hold a broom he was so shaky! He was kind of a dim bulb; he wasn’t smart enough to get his disability money raised. Nobody here believes those other rifles were his, he was too broke. They think they were planted. And nobody believes those sniper books were his either, he didn’t even read comic books. Plus, they said he wasn’t any kind of racist at all, not in the least!

  “And get this, he was afraid of heights. It’s all flat land around here, they hunt from tree stands around here, but he wouldn’t climb up one, and now he supposedly climbed up four sets of scaffolding with that SKS rifle? Now he’s supposed to be some kind of Rambo! A guy who hunted with him had to lend him a rifle, all he had was an old .22. rifle. Can you believe it? Can you believe the crap they’re putting out on TV?”

  “Of course I believe it—it’s just the mainstream media doing what they do best: telling PC lies and feeding the sheeple garbage. Bradley, I can’t wait to post what you told me! I’ve been on FreeAmericans dot net since Sunday, the Stadium Massacre threads are unbelievable, and we keep crashing the server. It’s the biggest story since 9-11! On the Shifflett threads everybody’s debating whether he pulled the trigger at all. Most folks think he did, but that he was probably drugged out of his mind on painkillers and antidepressants. Most folks do buy the “right wing gun nut” story though… Wow! I can’t wait to post what you said! Listen; tell me what you heard about Shifflett again. Everything, let me write it down.”

  The “FreeAmericans,” as the thousands of regular visitors to the FreeAmericans website called themselves, lived in an entirely different nation than that inhabited by the ordinary “sheeple.” The “sheeple” trusted the liberal news networks to give them all the information they needed to know, while they were switching between worn-out sitcoms and insipid game shows. Once again the politically astute FreeAmericans formed a real-time cyber think tank, which was far ahead of the usual network news “experts.” The broadcast television networks only seemed interested in painting Shifflett as a stereotypical Hollywood version of a “deranged right wing gun nut.” Any facts about Shifflett which did not fit their simple predetermined story template, they simply did not run.

  ****

  Within twenty minutes Margaret Fallon, the middle-aged suburban housewife known as PerfectStorm on FreeAmericans, had written and posted her first original report. She titled it “The Real Jimmy Shifflett,” and she attributed her information to “folks in Suffolk Virginia who knew Shifflett for years, up until last month.”

  Ten minutes after she posted her report, it had been read by over a thousand “FreeAmericans,” and the reply thread had grown to over 100 responses. By the time “PerfectStorm” logged off of her computer and went to bed well after midnight, her original report had garnered over 2,000 responses in a free-wheeling debate over the story’s stated facts and lack of substantiation.

  Some additional new information on Shifflett was also posted on PerfectStorm’s thread. “GulfWarArmyVet” had seen a local television report in Alabama, where a black former Marine who served in Shifflett’s Motor Transportation Company had sworn up and down that Shifflett was no way and no how a racist. “BoatChick” claimed to be the close friend of a nurse at the Hampton Virginia V.A. hospital. This nurse had reportedly told her friend that Shifflett had been admitted voluntarily to the hospital in the middle of August as a walk-in, but that he had signed himself out against medical advice after he was visited by an unknown “old friend” over the Labor Day weekend.

  And so it went on FreeAmericans. As report piled on report, the overall consensus emerged that if Shifflett had been the shooter, it was only under some kind of drug-induced mind control. Another faction believed that Shifflett was a patsy pure and simple, and the rifle had been put in his hands only after the real sniper finished his deadly work.

  A smaller group stuck with the “official” government-media story line: Shifflett was a right wing gun nut with a grudge against Washington because of his condition, which he blamed on mistreated “Gulf War Syndrome.” This group further believed that Shifflett, the white racist, was hoping to turn his anger into violence against Arab Muslims. To this group the “blame the Muslims” theory was “proved” by the Arab language leaflets found near the sniper’s lair. This group accused the other factions of being paranoid anti-government wackos themselves, the types of paranoids that allegedly wear hats made of tin foil to prevent “CIA brain control waves” from invading their minds. In return, the other factions derided the “Shifflett did it” group as unthinking government shills.

  Most but not all “FreeAmericans” came to believe that the Stadium Massacre was a phony put-up job designed to railroad Congress into passing extremely restrictive gun control laws, exactly as they had done. The fifty thousand registered FreeAmericans had no illusions about what was coming next, and they did not have the slightest intention of turning in any rifles at all. One way or the other, they were determined not to repeat the (as they saw it) fatal error of the “law-abiding German Jews,” who voluntarily turned in their firearms when they were ordered to do so in the 1930s.

  On FreeAmericans the Stadium Massacre was frequently called the “The Reichstag Massacre,” after the 1932 arson attack which the Nazis blamed on their communist enemies. The Arabic language “Death to America” leaflets found around Shifflett seemed too contrived, too obvious an attempt to instigate violence against Muslims in America. The leaflets seemed to be too complex for the likes of Shifflett, even after the Arabic phrases were shown to have been photo-copied from earlier Jihad pamphlets which had been published widely.

  Most of the FreeAmericans were simply not accepting the pabulum which the government and the major news networks were trying to spoon-feed them.

  4

  Thursday morning Brad drove into Norfolk to make the rounds of boat stores and marine chandleries. He returned after lunch time with his truck bed loaded with coils of thick nylon dock and anchor lines, cardboard boxes full of assorted cruising gear, and a pair of giant deep cycle batteries that could easily power a golf cart through 36 holes. His tires crunched down the oyster shell driveway past the empty farmhouse and outbuildings of his seldom-seen absentee landlord, and as he neared the river he saw that he had visitors. A dusty black Chevy Suburban and a burgundy Crown Victoria were parked in his turn-around circle under the oak tree. Both vehicles had opaquely tinted windows and sprouted numerous small antennas.

  Brad pulled off to the side of the drive to allow them room to leave and stepped out of his pickup. The four doors of the Suburban opened at once and four men got out, white men wearing sport coats and ties in the Indian Summer heat. Another pair of similarly attired men got out of the Crown Vic. There were only two reasons Brad could think of why anyone would wear a jacket and tie and long pants in the almost ninety degree weather: because it was departmental policy, and to conceal firearms. Brad was wearing his standard khaki shorts, polo shirt and boat shoes. He stood by his truck, and they fanned out as they walked toward him. He noticed that all their jackets were hanging open, presumably for fast access to their hidden pistols. Half of them were wearing dark sunglasses, the very image of the bad-ass detective.

  “Bradley Thomas Fallon?” asked the oldest man, the only one over fifty judging by his lined face.

  “Who’s asking?” Brad had a watery feeling in his gut but tried to give no sign of his unease.

  “FBI. I’m Special Agent James Gibson. We’d like to talk to you.” Gibson held out his
credentials briefly for Fallon to see: a gold badge and a laminated ID in their own leather wallet. One of the younger agents walked behind and around Brad. He had an unseen device on his belt that resembled a cell phone; if Brad Fallon had been carrying a firearm it would have begun vibrating. It didn’t, so he nodded an “okay” to his superior.

  “Mr. Fallon, why don’t we sit in our truck and get out of the heat while we talk?” asked the oldest agent.

  “I’m fine out here thank you.”

  “Please Mr. Fallon, we’ll only take a few minutes of your time, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Brad looked around him at the six agents. One of them, a tall man with weight lifter’s shoulders straining against his jacket said, “Don’t be an asshole Fallon. If we were arresting you today, you’d already be handcuffed. So do everybody a favor, and let’s have a short talk in the air conditioned truck. Please.” He smiled bemusedly at Brad and they locked eyes. He had blue eyes like Brad, brush-cut blond hair, and a neck like one of the oak tree’s branches.

  He gave up and walked with them to their Suburban; its motor was idling noisily. He briefly wondered if he was going to be hauled away as soon as the door was closed behind him, but he didn’t see any alternative. He warily climbed into the backseat of the Suburban like a rabbit visiting a python’s cage. Gibson sat in the front passenger seat, the burly blond sat in the back seat next to him.

  The third bench seat had been removed. The back half of the truck was full of aluminum and plastic lockers and boxes, weapons cases, body armor, communications gear, and other police and military items. The two agents settled in, closed the doors, and turned in their seats to face their “person of interest.”

  Special Agent Gibson surprised him with his first question. “Well Mr. Fallon, how much longer until you sail off into the sunset?”

  Brad tried not to express any astonishment at their knowledge. Perhaps Gibson was simply making an educated guess, trying to spook him. After all, there was 44 foot mastless sailboat tied up at the dock. “It depends on how many problems I have getting the boat ready.”

  “Well you should be able to go rather far on $68,000, I’d say. And I understand that the Adalaska Corporation has a very generous transportation policy, so you can always fly back to the oil fields if your account gets thin. Really, it’s a remarkable achievement for a young man hardly thirty years old. But I’m guessing your parents in Florida would prefer that you finish college, instead of sailing off around the world.”

  Brad took a deep, slow breath, feeling flushed in the face, and said, “Okay guys, I’m impressed. You know all about me. What do you want?”

  The muscular agent next to Brad said, “Maybe it’s your assault weapons. Maybe it’s the AR-15 rifle you bought at; let me see here, A&A Sporting Goods in Missoula Montana in 1996. Maybe it’s the Mini-14 you bought in Jacksonville Florida in 1995. You’ve heard about the new law, haven’t you?”

  “I think I might have heard something about it.”

  “Uh huh. So do you still have the rifles? They’ll get you ten years hard time after next Tuesday.”

  “I sold both rifles years ago. Two-two-three isn’t my caliber.”

  “Is that so? Can you prove it?”

  From the front seat Agent Gibson said, “Settle down gentlemen. We’re not interested in your old rifles, bought or sold. Not until next week anyway. We’re only interested in some friends of yours.” Gibson opened a cream colored folder and handed several grainy black and white photos to Brad. Brad could see that several of the pictures had been taken inside the hardware store in Highpoint. There was a picture of the store owner Cecil Towers, along with two of the men who had been part of the conversation at the counter, and a few others.

  “Of course I know him; he’s the manager of Dixie Hardware. The old man with the beard I’ve seen around, the other man I only saw once at the store. Am I supposed to know them?”

  “Don’t play stupid Fallon,” Gibson replied. “We know you’re a bright guy. I’ll lay our cards on the table. We need to know everything about Shifflett’s friends and acquaintances, and we need to know it ASAP. We need to know the extent of militia activity in southeast Virginia, and if any of Shifflett’s old militia buddies helped him at the stadium. We need to know if they’re planning any more actions, and we need to know about it like right now.”

  Brad was stunned by their questions. “How the hell would I know? I’ve been here less than two months! The only way I know anybody around here is running into them in a store.”

  The crew-cut agent said, “So you’ve never been shooting with any of them?”

  “Of course not! I don’t even know them.”

  “I see,” continued the agent. “Fallon, have you ever been to the Mineral Springs Rifle Range down by the Carolina border?”

  Actually this blond agent did not carry FBI credentials, because he was the Assistant Special-Agent-In-Charge (or ASIC) of the Norfolk Virginia Field Office of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, formerly the BATF, and still commonly called that or simply the ATF. Since the massacre he had been temporarily attached to the newly formed MD-Rifle Task Force, which fell under the Joint Domestic Terrorism Task Force, answering to the Department of Homeland Security. The federal “alphabet agencies” were playing Scrabble as they responded to changing terrorist threats. Supervisory Special Agent Gibson had come down from Washington with additional agents to augment the Joint Task Force in the Tidewater Virginia area as they ran down Shifflett’s militia connections.

  The muscular blond ATF agent knew that Brad Fallon had been to Mineral Springs because he had reviewed videotapes showing Fallon there two weeks earlier, participating in a monthly rifle shooting competition that drew serious shooters from several states. ATF agents routinely trolled the parking lots of gun shows and shooting ranges covertly taping license plates and people’s faces. The tag numbers were crunched by computers, revealing the regional and national patterns behind the ebb and flow of militia and so-called “patriot” groups and their hangers-on. The faces were scanned into digital biometric databases and matched with vehicles, addresses, and many of the weapons these individuals had purchased.

  It was a well-established fact that extreme right wing gun nuts and militia kooks were devoted attendees of gun shows and rifle shooting ranges. Fallon’s Ford truck had indeed been filmed at Mineral Springs, along with those of several members of a group called the Black Water Rod and Gun Club. This was a group that Jimmy Shifflett had once belonged to. This was a group which the local ATF Field Office suspected of being a cover for a clandestine militia organization based in Tidewater Virginia.

  “Sure, I’ve been there twice. Once to sight in rifles, and once to shoot in a match.”

  “What kind of rifles Mr. Fallon?” asked Gibson. “There are rifles… and there are rifles.”

  “I thought you already knew, Agent Gibson. I thought you knew everything about me. Don’t you already have it written down?”

  “Don’t be a smartass Brad, don’t go getting an attitude. We’re not in a joking mood. After the Stadium Massacre, a lot of things changed, a lot of things. The American people have had it with you gun nuts, so you’d better buy a clue and get with the program while you can! Special Agent Hammet has already started an investigation into the disposition of your assault rifles, and that’s just for starters. We can freeze your bank accounts, or we can invalidate your passport with one phone call, do you understand me? We’re not playing for match sticks here! We’ve only got to say the magic word ‘terrorism’ and you’ll be put into a whole other category, and you won’t know what hit you! We’ll drop you into a cage with the other terrorists, and you’ll never even see a lawyer!”

  Brad couldn’t make words form; his mouth had gone bone dry.

  “We know things about you that you can’t imagine. We know you shot 294 out of a perfect three hundred with your Swedish Mauser over iron sights at Mineral Springs, and took second place against folk
s who shoot competition every weekend of their lives. We have the entire roster of shooters; we know their scores, where they live, most of the guns they own, how much ammunition they bought last year.

  “We know that after two good semesters in college you suddenly quit and enlisted in the Navy to try to make it into the SEALs, but you washed out on some sort of oxygen test in a pressure chamber. So you served the rest of your enlistment as a machinist’s mate and got out. I’ve got your DD 214 discharge paper right here in this file. Then you went up to Alaska to make a ton of money, and now here you are on the verge of sailing away on your own boat.

  “Well if you want to get that boat finished and sail away, you need to do your patriotic duty and help us out. I can’t put it any more clearly than that. Now if you’ll excuse me I have other places to go today.” Gibson climbed down from the Suburban, leaving Brad alone with the younger agent, who except for his northeastern accent reminded him of a Russian boxer, with his blond flat top, pale blue eyes and broken nose. Gibson got into the burgundy Crown Vic, which departed immediately. The remaining agents had climbed aboard Guajira in their black-soled street shoes, shed their jackets, and made themselves comfortable in the cockpit under the shade of the oak.

  ****

  The blond Special Agent had recruited and run dozens of confidential informants during his twelve years with the ATF. Frequently his CI’s were parolees eager to avoid a return trip to prison, which they knew could easily be arranged if they failed to cooperate. But from Hammet’s point of view even non-felons typically had ‘hooks’ attached to them: a struggling business which could not endure a microscopic federal regulatory ‘rectal exam’, a critically needed job and paycheck which could not be lost, or young children and pretty wives which could not be left behind while Daddy went off to prison. Among the federal law enforcement agencies, the ATF had always been known for ruthlessly manufacturing federal cases out of thin air where necessary, usually in order to create a needed informant as part of an ongoing investigation. The 20,000 plus federal and state gun laws on the books, which were often vaguely written or even contradictory, made gun owners and especially licensed gun dealers an easy target for extra-legal arm twisting.