Semper Fidelis Ch. 01

The chronological order of my stories is now listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 1 - Prologue

Tuesday, March 15th. The Ides of March. For me, it was the anniversary of the failed attempt to assassinate me in front of the tailor shop, and I had been forced to shoot a person dead. That's something never to be taken lightly nor shrugged off, and I realized that if I ever did become desensitized to killing, that it would be time to hand in my badge as a Town & County Police Officer.

For some reason, I was feeling a sense of deep foreboding as I went into MCD to join the Detectives for the morning coffee klatch. And we all know what that means:

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" shouted the lovely redheaded reporterette from in front of City Hall at precisely 7:00am. "Channel Two News has learned that the Town & County Council will consider what actions to take regarding Police Lieutenant Tanya Perlman. While Lt. Perlman has mostly recovered from her wounds, she remains paralyzed from the waist down.

"There is a brewing battle between the Police Union and the top level Officers of the Police Force. The Police Union states that if Lt. Perlman returns to duty, then former Commander Robert Brownlee should be reinstated as Deputy Chief. Additionally, several Council Members have stated that their constituents are concerned about Lt. Perlman's ability to assume her duties, and that she cannot meet TCPD physical fitness requirements."

Bettina continued: "Channel Two News has also learned that the Council expects to receive notification of the civil lawsuit filed by the County Concerned Citizens for Safety and the Fire Department Union on behalf of Assistant Fire Chief William Jefferson.

"Police Commander Donald Troy was formally cleared of any wrongdoing in the dispersal of striking EMTs, and he was also cleared by a Board of Inquiry of any wrongdoing in personally making the arrest of Assistant Fire Chief Jefferson for having Fire Department officers block the Midtown Highway near Junction Station.

"Jefferson remains out on bond, charged with assaulting a Police Officer and using Government property to commit a crime, that being the blockage of the highway. All of the other Firemen involved have been disciplined internally, and will face no more legal challenges."

"In political news, Karl Frazier of Public Policy Polling has told Channel Two News that SBI Director Jack Lewis continues to lead Republican Legislator Sean Stockton by a substantial 54-39 percent margin, with 2 percent going to the Libertarian candidate Blade Schwartz, and 5 percent undecided. Stockton faces strong headwinds from reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is strongly pro-Amnesty, is funding political PACs and television ads sympathetic to Stockton. Let's go to the tape."

The tape showed Republican Sean Stockton giving a speech to a sparse crowd. "We must respect immigrant workers and their families! We must have compassion for them!" he said. "Giving them Amnesty is an act of love!"

For some reason, most of the Detectives in the MCD room looked at me when they heard that. I let my face show nothing.

Bettina came back onto the screen. "And in local races, Dagmar Schoen and John Colby were expected to have tough races for their Council seats, but have surged to double digit leads, shocking expert observers. And in the District Attorney's race, incumbent Gil Krasney leads Jenna Stiles 55-45 percent. Karl Frazier says that the number of undecideds in this race is virtually non-existent, which is also astonishing with this much time left in the race."

"Doesn't look good for Jenna." Cindy said sadly.

"It's early yet." I said, then peered at my cousin. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Cindy replied. "I'm just missing her. Ariel and Wanda have the gym running as good or better than I ever could run it, so there's not a lot for me to do there. Teresa was talking about one of us moving in with the other, and I had to say 'Hello! You're dating a hot young stud that is the CEO of the hottest young company on the planet right now!'."

I smiled. "What did she say to that?"

"She said they're just 'friends with benefits' right now." Cindy said. "I told her to go get a shovel to clean up the bullshit on that one." I laughed out loud.

Cindy then said: "Hell, Teresa loves little Doug more than that baby's birth mother does... oh, you didn't hear me say that."

"Er, no." I said. "Well, I understand why you're feeling down. It's been a tough year for you, so far. Why don't you go to your office and prepare for the Angels meeting."

Cindy left MCD and crossed the hall to her office. Going in, she saw an object on the desk. It was a stand holding two flags on black sticks at angles. One was the American flag; the other, the Canadian flag. The flags were bigger than the ones at her childhood home, but reminiscent of them. There was a note attached, that said 'American by birth, Canadian by the Grace of God. Never forget your heritage. Don.'."

"Aw, that's sweet." she said. She felt much better now.

Part 2 - Death of a Marine

Tuesday night, March 15th, 10:30pm. Two black vans rolled up Reservoir Road with their lights turned off. The license plates on the back were the only markings that they were State Government vehicles.

Inside were a total of eight SBI Narcotics Task Force officers, wearing full combat gear: helmets, double armor vests, and dark blue military-style clothes, including heavy steel-toed boots. They were armed with M-4 semiautomatic 'assault' rifles as well as Colt .45 semi-auto pistols that had been Army surplus back in the day.

Pulling into the driveway of 2467 Reservoir Road, they exited the vans swiftly and quietly. Going to the door, the leader signaled to two men to ram it.

"Wait!" said one of them. "Aren't you going to knock and announce our presence?" This was required by State Law.

The leader walked up to the man that had said it. He grabbed the man's collars, half choking him.

"Listen to me, you fucking faggot." the leader snarled. "This is a no-knock drug raid. Now shut your god-damn mouth." Turning to the man with the ram, the leader said "Okay Rogers, let's go!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hearing the noise outside, Gunnery Sergeant Manuel Jose Guernica sat up in his bad. He was on leave, having served three tours in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, and a couple of others in places that cannot be mentioned in this unclassified setting.

He heard scraping around the front door. He got his lockbox by his dresser, pressed the code numbers to open it, and took out his Beretta M9. He advanced down the hall---

*BAM!*

The SBI agents battered in the door and rushed inside. Gunny Guernica yelled for them to stop. In reaction, the SBI agents open fire upon him, relentlessly squeezing the triggers of their high-powered, military-grade rifles, emptying their magazines into him. After several seconds, the leader ordered a cease fire.

Guernica's wife Vera was screaming. Their six year old boy Miguel was screaming and their two year old daughter Sofia was crying. The agents rushed in, dragged the woman to the ground and put their guns to her head. The little boy was also thrown to the ground, and the hot barrel of an M4 was pressed into his cheek. The baby girl was then put on the floor, where an SBI Agent pressed his boot onto the side of her little face. They could all see the husband and father lying dead in the hallway as SBI Agents milled about, screaming and hollering as they tore the house up.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"We got company." one of the agents snarled. Six TCPD vehicles, including a SWAT van full of armored men that had been on call, rushed up to the house, followed by a silver Police SUV driven by the Police Commander, and another one driven by the Captain of Detectives.

As we exited our vehicles, the SWAT Team leveled their guns at the SBI Agent that was outside, showing his gold badge of the Narcotics Task Force. "We're SBI! This is our raid!"

I came up. "You didn't inform us of this, which violates State Law." I thundered. "Where is your warrant?"

"Right here." said the Agent. I looked at it, shining my flashlight on it."

"2461 Reservoir Drive... that's in Nextdoor County, on the other side of the lake!" I screamed out.

"Sir, this is 2467, too." said Hugh Hewitt, leader of the SWAT Team. "Wrong on two counts."

"Arrest this son of a bitch!" I ordered. "SWAT Team! Disarm and arrest every SBI Agent here!"

The SWAT Team went inside as if they were facing an ISIS army. I heard them yelling at the SBI Agents to put down their weapons, and the SBI saying for my guys to drop theirs. I then yelled into the house "This is Commander Troy! Shoot to kill all SBI agents! I say again: shoot to kill all SBI Agents!"

"Sir, there are two children and a woman inside." said the SWAT man at the back, closest to the door.

"Don't shoot them." I said. "Shoot the God-damn SBI agents if they do not surrender immediately. SBI Agents! If you do not drop your weapons and surrender, you will not leave this house alive, I swear to God!"

The SBI leader got out his cellphone, as if to call reinforcements. "Shit." he muttered. "No signal." Geez, I wonder how that happened, I thought to myself.

"All right!" said the SBI Leader. "We're coming out." They all came out. My men were more than a little rough in disarming them, searching them for weapons, then cuffing them and putting them into the SWAT van for transportation to County Jail.

"Commander!" called out Hewitt. "You need to see this."

Cindy and I went inside. A man was lying dead on the hall floor, his body riddled with bullets. In the bedroom, a woman and two children were lying face down on the floor. Their hands were secured behind their backs by zip-ties... including the two year old girl.

"Somebody cut off those zip-ties." I ordered. "Captain Ross, will you please attend to these children until we can get a child psychologist here?" I knew that these traumatized children would respond much better to her than to the men in armor that resembled the men that had just murdered their father...

As I went outside, I saw an older man coming up. He was allowed through the cordon; after all, he was a Police Chief Emeritus.

"What the hell happened here, Crowbar?" asked Chief Griswold. He lived three houses down the road.

"The God-damned SBI." I said. "Did you hear anything, Chief?"

"I need to make a statement to your Officers." said Griswold. "Those Agents did not call out and identify themselves before battering in the door. The first thing I heard... was the door being rammed in, then gunshots..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4:00am, March 16th. The wife's story, videotaped, was devastating. She told us what had happened, that there had been no warning nor identification by the Agents. Her husband had thought they were burglars and went to confront them. He did not fire his gun, and the intruders had kept shooting him over and over again. One of them had stood over her husband, just firing bullets into his body as he lay on the floor.

"Sir," said Martin Nash as the Crime Lab busily worked. "We have Gunnery Sergeant Guernica's Beretta... preliminary results show it wasn't fired."

"Gunnery Sergeant?" I asked.

"Yes sir." said Nash. "Active duty, United States Marine Corps. On leave, visiting his family after his last deployment ended. His wife works at Town High School as a Spanish teacher. They both grew up here, though her parents moved to Arizona a few years ago."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"None of you are to say a word." said the SBI leader as they were being transported to jail. "Demand lawyers. Our guys will have us out of here in no time."

"Oh, I'd think about that one some more." said Sergeant Rudistan in his jovial way, which belied the tension and his readiness to kill any SBI Agent that so much as sneezed the wrong way. "The Iron Crowbar is not very happy right now. He is going to barbecue your asses."

"The... Iron Crowbar?" gasped the man who'd questioned the no-knock entry. His name was Matty Graves. "Oh my God..." He leaned over and vomited.

"Jesus!" gasped the SBI leader. "You fucking wimp!"

"And I'm going to shove your face into that mess, and make you clean it up." said Rudistan... to the leader.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"So what do you have, Mr. Crowbar?" asked Chief Moynahan as I sat in his office with him. Cindy was sitting beside me; she had relinquished the Guernica children to the care of Dr. Laura Fredricson, helped by Detective Joanne Cummings in civilian attire. Dr. Fredricson had treated the burn on young Miguel's cheek, a circle that matched an M4's fire suppressor. She also said it was like being branded, and would never go away. I gave orders to identify the exact SBI weapon that had done that, so that the rifle's owner could be charged with various child battery charges.

"We've got eight SBI Agents that conducted a drug raid." I said. "But the warrant, which was issued in Midtown instead of their home office jurisdiction of Westphalia, gives the address of 2461 Reservoir Drive... which is in Nextdoor County. They instead hit 2467 Reservoir Road, in our County. I called the Nextdoor County Police. They were not informed of any raid by the SBI, which as you know, they are required to do after their last drug raid fiasco in my County."

"Yes," said Moynahan, "The story of you firing a machine gun at them is still talked about all over this State, and in the most reverent terrrms."

"Sir," said Cindy, looking at the warrant, "this address does say '2467'."

"No, that's a European-style '1', with the little flick down from the top." I replied. "It does look like a '7'... a '7'..."

Cindy looked up to see me going into a reverie. After a moment, she said "Don?"

"Uh..." I said. "Sorry about that. I was just thinking of something. By the way, where is Chief Griswold?"

"Last I saw him," said Moynahan, "he was in the Main Conference Room, calling the Governor of the State about this."

"Good." I said. "Anyway, they hit the wrong place all the way around. There were no drugs in the house, except ibuprofen and her blood pressure medicine. Both the wife and Chief Griswold have given sworn statements that the Agents did not identify themselves before breaking into the house. Having the Chief give that is going to be devastating for them. They also were really abusive towards the children, totally unnecessary use of force. The M.E. is doing an autopsy on Guernica now."

"The SBI is going to say it was a botched raid, but that the Agents should be released and punished internally." said Moynahan. "What do you say to that?"

"I say," I said, "that they are going to be charged with the first degree murder... of a United States Marine."

Part 3 - Legalities

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" she said from in front of County Jail at 7:00am, Wednesday, March 16th. "Channel Two News is following the breaking story of an SBI drug raid gone horribly wrong! Manuel Jose Guernica, an active duty Marine, was shot and killed by SBI agents during a raid on his home on Reservoir Road!

"Channel Two News has learned that the SBI raided the wrong house, and that the correct address was over in Nextdoor County. The Town & County Police responded to 9-1-1 calls of gunshots, and arrested the eight SBI Agents after an armed standoff. The SBI Agents are being held at County Jail. Commander Donald Troy has stated that there is enough evidence to charge the agents with murder and other crimes, but would not elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation. The eight agents have been assigned lawyers provided by the SBI. So far, SBI Director Jack Lewis, who is running for Governor, has not responded to calls for comment."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Consider me to be the representation of the United States Government on behalf of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Guernica." said Jack Muscone of the FBI. "I know it's your jurisdiction, but consider this an offer of assistance, and we may be wanting these assholes that did this after you are through with them."

"Which won't be until their dead bodies are taken off the table at Jacksonville State Prison, if I have my way." I replied. "But I'm glad you're here, Jack. This one is going to get ugly. Fast."

"Yes, it is." said Jack. "I'm hoping I'll have a chance to... 'talk' with Dick Ferrell again."

"And it's very likely that you will." I said. "He's in the State Office Building next to your Federal Building off Courthouse Square. Jack Lewis is here, too..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Oh my God." said Jack Lewis as he read the TCPD reports. "Oh... my... God. Dick, weren't you monitoring this?"

"Yes sir." said SBI-Narcotics Task Force (NTF) Director Richard 'Dick' Ferrell. "From Westphalia. We had radio contact until the TCPD showed up, then our signals were jammed."

"This is... bad!" said Lewis. "You guys do realized that I'm running for Governor? And what this could do to my campaign?"

Deputy SBI Director Robert Gaston said "Yes sir, we know. We're working on mitigation right now."

"What about our agents?" said Lewis.

"Our lawyers are meeting with them this morning." said Ferrell. "They're going to have a preliminary hearing this morning, where we will ask for them to be remanded into our custody. This was a location mistake, nothing more. We'll probably have to settle with the family, but insurance will cover that."

"Who's the judge at the hearing? Nance?"

"No sir." said Gaston. "Folsom stepped in and appointed Watts to do it."

"Shit!" gasped Lewis.

"He's a Conservative." said Ferrell. "If he doesn't give us our guys back, we say he's politically partisan and trying to hurt your campaign, then appeal to Leahy."

"He's also black, Ferrell." Lewis said. "You try to smear him, and we'll be called racists."

"He's Conservative, Director." Ferrell pressed. "Black hate his guts, call him an 'Uncle Tom'. They're not going to turn against you and the Democrat Party over that Conservative piece of dog shit, no matter what color he is."

"Dick," said Lewis with no small amount of exasperation in his voice, "you have to understand that the Media would try to gin it up as a racial issue, just because they can. They know Blacks will vote for Democrats no matter what Democrats do to Blacks, so they, the Media know they can make a circus out of it. So just forget about that idea."

"Yes sir." said Ferrell. "Anyway, all I care about is getting our agents out of the Iron Crowbar's jails. They're in grave danger while they're in there."

"I daresay." said Gaston. "I'm getting word that the Iron Crowbar is really going to push for murder charges. I've been told he's really hot about this one, though I'm not sure why."

"The first thing that needs to happen," said Lewis, "is that I have to have some separation from this. I'm going to say I didn't know about it ahead of time, which is mostly true. I'm going to say all the right things about how sorry the SBI is about that man being killed, and that I'm going to start an investigation to get to the truth. Meanwhile, make sure the lawyers get our men out of this County... and out of the clutches of the Iron Crowbar."