Pitchfork Justice

PITCHFORK JUSTICE

Alexander Harkavy

Copyright 2012 Alexander Harkavy

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1. THE TWEET

CHAPTER 2. IT'S A GO.

CHAPTER 3. NATIONAL VELVET

CHAPTER 4. THE CAPTAIN

CHAPTER 5. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

CHAPTER 6. SINS OF OUR FATHERS

CHAPTER 7. GETTING IN DUTCH

CHAPTER 8. A RESPITE FROM LIFE

CHAPTER 9. WHIPLASH!

CHAPTER 10. SUBLIME TO OBLIVION

CHAPTER 11. THE NEW WAVE

CHAPTER 12. OVER THE CLIFF

CHAPTER 13. STRESS CRACKS

CHAPTER 14. IT'S GOING TO BE A BUMPY NIGHT

CHAPTER 15. UP ON A MOUNTAIN TOP

CHAPTER 16. A MEMOIR

Foreword

The cold winter has done nothing to allay the growing embers of two almost supernatural forces that are threatening societies around the globe. The hot glow of the incessant greed for power and money on one end of the economic scale and the seething, jealous anger and pain at the other is now developing into a blowtorch of flaming passions. Through years of government interference, political cronyism and the flaunting of the rule of law, blind excesses have kept feeding the wealthy and at the same time stirred the larger population into a pot of boiling rage. The utter complacency at the polling booth by the vast majority of the population has allowed an incestuous coupling of the large banks and corporations. It is festering to a point of inviting, but not yet prepared for, an explosive puncture.

Since President Johnson's Great Society the national debt has continually grown. Excessive borrowing, both government and private, became the coin of the realm. More programs began heaping the less productive with more largesse. That bought their votes, which brought more spending. Although revered, President Reagan had made the so called deal with the devil in the 1980's. In exchange for a greatly expanded budget for an extremely depleted military under Carter, he was promised that social programs would have moderate increases. Instead, the funding burst at the seams with ever more lavish programs.

Big business, with the help of both Republican and Democrats, pushed for free trade agreements with a more sinister motive. The corporatists knew that with more markets, more globalism, labor would become more fungible. The unions in the United States had to be curtailed. Using labor in foreign countries was just the trick. Without the excessive business costs, right or wrong, imposed on companies in the states, profits would soar, unions would be weakened, good times for the fat cats would be had! Even though the Democrats are friends with labor, they play both sides for donations and political gain.

The Federal Reserve began the advent of extremely easy credit. Coupled with the two job household and home equity inflation the debt binge on the family front was ignited. The housing market grew almost parabolic, then blew up. With successive stock crashes and barely visible interest rates on savings and bonds, retirement, and plans for retirement, have become a nightmare.

By 2012, the swirling victims in this cauldron of emotion are a divided society. First, 50% of the population is receiving some sort of government benefit or check, a slave check if you will. They are in a permanent underclass. Some how they're living, but underwater. Second, real wages haven't risen in twenty years for the middle class, the 49%, because of the national debt inflation. They're swimming but close to drowning. Unemployment is permanently higher, but the top 1 percent of the country has most of the wealth held in the rich steam above it all.

This recipe for explosion has come to pass. The average citizen feels the rage, but is either too timid or naive to act. Even worse, many are ignorant and complacent! A small, anonymous, presumably representative, group is taking action to a much hotter level in what is fast becoming an epic struggle. It is a frightful and gruesome turn of events. Actions by both sides are fraught with danger. Economies around the globe, ones that haven't already, could easily domino into a massive collapse. Entire societies are at risk of annihilation and a return to savagery.

Chapter 1. The Tweet

@biggamecoach The weather looks good for the first game tomorrow eve. Godspeed!

The message jolted the otherwise calm countenance of all who followed it. Hearts began to race. Minds flickered with long made plans. Coded confirmation calls zipped across the country. Within an hour, anyone who had not seen the tweet was still notified. The big plan had been set into motion. It's a go.

Hey, Tom. You up to a little poker tomorrow night?

Yeah. Sounds good. I've already talked to C.J. He's closing his shop a little early. Has to go pick up some beer and pretzels.

Sounds like a plan. See ya tomorrow.

It's a go.

And so it went. In four disparate cities spanning the country, plans that were sealed in the memories of three and four-man groups were about to be deployed. Though separated by miles, they were all of the same mindset. The country appeared to them as a revisited Rome as it was crumbling to its knees in the fourth century. The decadence of the rich and the corruption of the system were rampant. The glory days were over. They and the majority of the population had been betrayed. The currency should never have been taken off the gold standard. Inflation was a hidden tax that was eating the sinew of the nation from the inside. Cronyism was rampant. All the money was headed in one direction, to the wealthiest. Whether misguided or not, whether extreme or not, this band of few was a proxy for many and they knew it. As each had done before, they were hell bent on showing their version of patriotism, again!

Chapter 2. It's a go.

Dawn brought a quiet, stately beauty to Washington D.C. this crisp spring day. There were no clouds to mirror any dreadfulness below. The aged monuments to our democracy stood out handsomely, even the grayed ones, against the light blue backdrop. A lone gull flew treacherously close to the Washington Monument fighting a quick windy side draft. He recovered from the close encounter and his flight took him across the Reflecting Pool and on toward the Lincoln Memorial. He circled Abe's perch and headed back toward the pool, almost as an afterthought. Earlier something had caught his attention, perhaps an odor or bright color. Nevertheless he found his way to the steps of the Federal Reserve Building. He nervously hopped up a few stairs. He was getting closer to the object of his fancy when the clicking of high heels down below frightened him away.

An early arriving secretary was trekking the steps, busy with a cellphone conversation buried in her ear. When her eyes were even with the top step she abruptly stopped. Breakfast instructions for the children at home began to waver in her mind. Slow motion overtook her vision and her words. She began stammering. The brutal horror of what she was literally stumbling upon was a gut punch. There, meeting her eyes to his, was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. His orbs were frozen in a death glare. His severed head was skewered on the tines of a pitchfork. The handle had been shortened and supported in a block of marble. Occasionally a drop of thick blood would slink to the stone pallet, giving one last bit of life to this ritualistic trophy.

Oh God! Oh, God! Jimmy, tell your father to come pick me up! I'll be out front of the building! Oh, God! Tell him, now! And hurry! The secretary had turned and was racing down the steps. She hadn't noticed or cared that she had dropped her purse. When a heel broke, she skidded down a few steps on her rump, but it didn't stop her from dialing 911.

It's a go, was for real.

The weatherman had not been so friendly to New York City this same spring morning. The sky was dark with smatterings of even darker clouds. The cold mist cut around the corners in the financial district. West Street was no exception, but inside the lobby of the new, glitzy financial tower there was stark contrast to the outside bluster. To be so large and ornate the interior of the new Diamond Lowe building projected greater things that needed to be noisy, but it was quiet. It was still too early for the bustle of finance to be prancing the halls.

There was only one lobby guard on duty. Enthralled with his new Playboy, he was jolted by the arrival of an elevator car. There should be no bells at this time of the morning. He closed the page on Miss March and sauntered toward the open elevator doors. His reflection in the mirrors in the rear was the only motion. The lights tended to angle in a way to partially blind him to the lower half of the car before entering. A design flaw. Once in, however, he spotted the occupant right off. The head of Michael Blankbein faced the guard's shins!

He is, was, the former CEO of Diamond Lowe Financial, the owner of the building. As in Washington D.C., the dome of the former man had been hoisted on a pitchfork. One eye was swollen completely shut. The other tilted slightly up as was the man's habit. He had been short in stature, but nonetheless, had always tilted his head slightly downward with eyes aiming up. He always seemed to peer into the bottom of your mind, even now in his silence. The man's severed forefinger, still sporting a large diamond ring, had been spiked on one exposed tine. Still pointing menacingly as it had in life.

The guard looked downward at the balding man. The piercing eye. The pointing finger. This visual, compared with Miss March, rocked him on his heels. He gagged to the point of breathlessness. His retreat from the car was blocked by a misjudged mirror inside the front of the carriage. For a moment he felt trapped in this box of death, nearly knocking himself out upon hitting the reflecting wall with his forehead.

Oh shit! Cap'n! Oh shit!, the guard screamed into his hand held radio. Oh shit! Cap'n! Get down here! Blankbein is dead! Oh shit! His head's in the elevator! Get down here!

Reverberations of It's a go. were striking around the country.

In stark contrast to the north, the balmy breeze blowing in from the Atlantic bathed the beaches of south Florida. It felt like damp underwear clinging to your body. Breathing felt slightly heavy and even stifling. The see-through curtains flowing at almost right angles to the open sliding glass doors of this 35th floor penthouse on South Miami Beach were deceiving in their airiness. Fresh brewed coffee hung in the humid air throughout the kitchen and Florida room. As was the morning ritual, Hal, Hal Carlson, former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, would awake from his separate bedroom, start the brew and retire to the balcony. His loud snoring had landed him apart from his wife in the next room for years. The aroma of the coffee would drift into her room and arouse her from sleep. The clinking of cups and spoons would announce her performance of her ritual duty to provide service for the couple as she joined him.

Good morning, Mr. Carlson, she playfully greeted him. The golden glow off the ocean was partially blinding her as she stooped around the blowing curtains to gain entrance to the terrace. Did you have a... good... night's? Her trailing voice hid her horror. Her husband's head faced her. Blood had waved and dried on the marble base and over on the glass top table. A pool of the coagulation was on the granite tiles of the floor. One shiny tine of a pitchfork was exposed to the right of one of his ears. It stood out almost as a fearsome exclamation to the weighty carnage. The sterling tray clanged and the china cups fractured beneath the table as she brought her hands up to her cheeks. The distraught wife raced to her husband's bedroom as if to seek some respite from this early morning cruelty. It was not to be. His headless body draped the linen sheets below a blood soaked pillow.

These acts were not mainstream type murders. No matter who they were by or who they were meant to impress, they transcended the boundaries of creativity. Even the hardest of sensitivities would reel from their discovery. Deciphering motive was a guessing game. The denominator of their commission was cunning, boldness and a stomach for sadism. Nevertheless, the nation, the world would take pause.

Chapter 3. National Velvet

The discovery of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve prompted an immediate call from the D.C. Police Department to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Director Miller had already been awakened and was on his way to headquarters. On the way, he telephoned the Attorney General.

Director to Attorney General Heller: Eric, Chairman Chemanske has been murdered.

Attorney General: What? How'd it happen?

Director: I'll fax you a picture. Get ready for gruesome.

Attorney General: What're your plans to handle it?

Director: "First, use all your power, in fact, bring in the President. Use all your combined powers to clamp down on the press. This has got to be covered up as long as we can! If not, the markets will tank! When it finally gets out, they will, anyway.

Attorney General: I agree. I agree...And then what?

Director: "I've tried to reach Jane Collatano over at Homeland, but she can't seem to be found. But her deputy is instituting previously devised plans for national security protocols in case this...Hold on a minute... I just got word... Michael Blankbein of Diamond Lowe Financial and Hal Carlson, the former Secretary of the Treasury, have been murdered in the same way. Have you gotten the fax of Cheman...?

Attorney General: Oh shit! I just did. God, this is brutal!

Director: Same way on Blankbein and Carlson. Listen, you take care of the press. No leaks! I'm headed to my office. We're gathering a task force as we speak. We've got murders in D.C., New York City and Miami, so far. It's national and I'm throwing the entire agency at it!

Attorney General: I think that's definitely called for.

Director: I'll keep you in the loop.

More crimson velvet pools were cropping up with their grizzly prizes. By the time Director Miller reached his office the number of victims was appearing to be an assault on the elite of business and government in the United States. Some organization, some force, something determined was literally biting the head off the snake.

When Director Miller arrived in his office he could sense his secretary's discomfort as her trembling hand pointed toward the computer screen.

Victims in the Washington D.C. and Surrounding Area

Ben Chemanske, Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Barry Sneed, U.S. Senate Majority Leader

Glenn Kowalski, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission

Charles Blevin, Chairman, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee

Victims in New York City and Surrounding Area

Michael Blankbein, CEO Diamond Lowe Financial Services

James Brozine, Former CEO BS Intercontinental

Victims in Miami and Surrounding Area

Henry Senberg, Former CEO, ALG Insurance

Abe Berger, President, SEIU, Service Employees Intergalactic Union

Hal Carlson, Former Treasurer of the United States

Victims in Los Angeles and Surrounding Area

Edwin Guitero, Executive Director ACLU, American Cleg Lawyers Union

Charles Docksen, Former Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission

Grazio Portillo, Former CEO Nationwide Finance

Arlen Brozonski, Chief Judge, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

My God. My God. My God, the director murmured as he sought refuge in his overstuffed desk chair. Normally, he would look huge in comparison to it. He was 6'4" and massively built. But this crisis, this magnitude of crisis seemed to make him shrink. Of course, his mind would never let him shirk from duty, but still, he was momentarily overwhelmed. The circle he lived in was spinning rapidly. He had to slow it down to make some sense of what was happening!

Is everyone in the conference room?, he asked his secretary.

Yes sir. And I told them they could keep their cellphones, but absolutely no outgoing calls from the meeting.

Good... you know, Lana, I couldn't make it without you. We've got some tough sledding ahead. I'll need you backing me up.

You can count on me, sir. And... thank you.

Each showed genuinely appreciative, but taught smiles. The director stood to all his height and shook his shoulders as if to remove the burden. His bearing became more resolute as he headed toward the conference room. He knew the President and the Attorney General would be in their offices trembling with apprehension, with good reason. It was his baby. His success or failure might hold the future of the country in the balance. As a former general, Director Miller new tactics and strategy. He had already mapped out a starting plan in his mind. No notes were necessary.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, he greeted the assembled with a deeper than usual voice. It matched the slam of the door behind him. Yes, he had their attention. I want you to look at the wall monitor. That list is of the victim's so far. You probably will recognize all the names. Get ready for this. He flashed the gruesome picture of Chairman Chemanske. The unified gasp followed by total silence was palpable. Literally, no one was breathing. All of these victims died in the same way. The same way. That should be our first clue. A common denominator, but right now, that's all we have.

Excuse me, sir, Lana interrupted quietly. Sir, you can add another to the list. Jane Callatano was found a few minutes, ago. Her head was on the hood of her car. The visibly shaken secretary exited quickly.

There you have it. When the Secretary of Homeland Security can be murdered, the entire country is vulnerable. Director Miller took a moment to look all the participants in the eyes, one at a time. Then he circled back to do it, again. Each new that they were being challenged. This time it was the most important case of their careers. "Okay. Here's the set up. As in any case, any of you can come directly to me, but I hope you don't have to. I'm going to be extremely busy with President Bagonda and Attorney General Heller. We will be meeting with various leaders from around the world. This has the makings of an international event.

Locally, I 'm leaving everything else to Deputy Director Allen. He is your absolute senior point man! He will give you your assignments and he will expect reports from you, timely reports! He and I have discussed it and we have decided that I am to receive a complete composite report every 4 hours, 24 hours a day! You will receive a protocol for these progress reports. Even if you don't have anything new, report! Of course, if anything warrants abbreviating that time frame, by all means, do it! I hired each and every one of you. Your qualities are all outstanding. Push your respective departments to the limit and remember, if you're found to have leaked one iota of this to anyone, your wife, your mother, your dog, your career will abruptly end in a bad way! He stood abruptly, looking out the wide window overlooking the city. After a moment, he turned to his cohorts and quietly said, God Bless America.

Chapter 4. The Captain

Deputy Director Harold Allen exuded military regimen. Indeed he was a captain, in the Navy Reserve. When his last tour of