Only The Watchmen Weep

By Jim Magwood

There exist in the world a number of people who have decided they can no longer wait for humanity to implode. They know if they wait for a great political or spiritual leader to rise up, it will simply be too late.
With the corruption buried within the government, and the threats emanating from political and civil groups against any supposedly decent people, normal and peaceful life in the twenty-first century could likely soon be coming to an end—unless someone begins to take drastic measures. However, among the so-called peace loving people of the world, most don’t accept, or even believe in, the terror soon to be coming.
There are, however, some people who want to either fight the evil or to expose it, to warn people of the coming chaos. These men and women have learned, or are willing to learn, of the evils facing mankind and the many ways the world system is promoting the terror, and how to help innocent people get out of the path of the rampaging forces. They have become willing to stand in the face of any and all opposition to let people know the truth.
These people are everywhere, and they are nowhere. The average person never sees them, never pauses to think about them. Average people are so busy trying to cope with their own lives that they have no knowledge of these hidden people.
These people have been called to be Watchmen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Magwood
• Release date: Jan 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370269310

Jim Magwood

I was born too many years ago in Vancouver, Canada, and was dragged south across the border by my parents when I was too young to protest. I've lived in California the rest of my life.I entered the military right after high school, then attended college and began a career in business. My military work and years in various business management positions had me traveling to many parts of the world and I remember well the beauty (as well as the poverty and unrest) of so many places.I am happily married to Gayle.I retired early and moved from the city to our quiet country place in Twin Oaks, California. The loudest noises now are the few barking dogs, some howling coyotes, the wandering cattle and a million raucous birds. The rabbits, quail, coyotes and mountain lions have come to recognize that Shiloh (the ranch) is a sanctuary for them, so they hang around every day looking for handouts.I just hang around the ranch trying to be a hermit (at least that's what a lot of people think.) I do still manage to get shaved once in a while and can look half-way presentable when someone comes up the driveway (if given enough warning.)My work now appears to be writing. SANCTION took about ten years to finish, as it was written in bits and pieces. However, right after it was finished and sent to the publisher, what was left of the old mind began churning and there may be another few novels coming out in the future. Don't hold your breath, but... THE LESSER EVIL, COP, NIGHTMARE, JACOB, ONLY THE WATCHMEN WEEP and THEREFORE I AM are now out in the reading world waiting for you. More coming? We'll see...I'd love to hear from you, especially if you've bought a dozen or so of the books and passed them out to all your friends and neighbors. Give me a write some day, ask questions and swap stories. After all, I don't have anything else to do. You can catch me at [e-mail]. (And I do answer my mail.)

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

There exist in the world a number of people who have decided they can no longer wait for humanity to implode. They know if they wait for a great political or spiritual leader to rise up, it will simply be too late.

With the corruption buried within the government, and the threats emanating from political and civil groups against any supposedly decent people, normal and peaceful life in the twenty-first century could likely soon be coming to an end—unless someone begins to take drastic measures. However, among the so-called peace loving people of the world, most don’t accept, or even believe in, the terror soon to be coming.

There are, however, some people who want to either fight the evil or to expose it, to warn people of the coming chaos. These men and women have learned, or are willing to learn, of the evils facing mankind and the many ways the world system is promoting the terror, and how to help innocent people get out of the path of the rampaging forces. They have become willing to stand in the face of any and all opposition to let people know the truth.

These people are everywhere, and they are nowhere. The average person never sees them, never pauses to think about them. Average people are so busy trying to cope with their own lives that they have no knowledge of these hidden people.

These people have been called to be Watchmen.

Chapter 1

The young wolf crawled slowly, dragging her back legs as best she could, not giving up but almost gone. She had run across the end of the canyon where the men were shooting and one had snapped off a quick shot at her, hitting her in the hips. She had rolled over and over from the impact, then had pulled herself into the brush before collapsing. Now the dying was coming to an end.

The male had been out of sight when the shooting took place, but he had stayed with her over the time since. This was his mate until death parted them. He would stay with her, hunt for her and bring back food until the pups were weaned and gone. Then the mates would run again.

But not now.

The female could feel that the five pups she carried were dead. The trauma of the shot, then the lack of food and the quiet the den would have provided had caused their lives to come to an end. In her way, she knew she was dying, but she continued to drag herself along. The pond was just around the hillside.

As the wolves reached the shallow water, the female crawled right into it. The water was still cool from the night; it gave her some buoyancy from her terrible burden, and it slacked her thirst. She drank, then simply rested in the water with her head on the bank for more than an hour. The male lay at the pool’s edge after drinking, staying by her side. He, too, somehow knew she was dying, but nothing but more trauma could have caused him to leave her.

Rain clouds drifted overhead, bringing the heat down a bit. Even in the water she could feel it. It didn’t take away the pain, but she lifted her muzzle and breathed the cooler air. The male moved closer and reached out to touch noses. She touched, then gave a little whimper.

The male didn’t know about killing; he just did what he was supposed to do. However, if he could have figured it all out, he would have gladly killed the men who shot his mate. He wouldn’t even have eaten them; just let them lie and rot. Something led him in this primitive thinking. Now he just tried to lend some comfort to his mate.

Finally, she dragged herself out of the pool and up to the boulders of the hillside. She snuggled into a shallow depression in the shade and pulled herself into a tight ball. The male curled up close to her, not really knowing what to do but trying to give some peace. He was quiet as she stopped breathing, then stayed beside her for the rest of the day and night. The next morning he rose and sniffed her. Then he slowly pawed some dirt and leaves trying to cover her.

Finally, he quietly walked away. He would mate again, probably next year, but this part of his life was over.

Chapter 2

The old man was mountain tough, bald, fairly tall and rangy. His clothes didn’t really work for the big city, but they kept him warm. He had shaved a couple of days ago, so the stubble wasn’t pronounced, but it showed. His boots were worn but comfortable.

After all the years of sitting silently, conning himself into believing things would sort themselves out, he had finally decided to get on his feet and start walking down the streets trying to tell people the truth. So far he had hit San Francisco and Fresno (he’d been driven out of both places for daring to disrupt people), then Denver (the cop there had been kind enough to give him $20 and say, Get on a bus for someplace else, pop. There are people here who don’t want you around), but now he was in D.C. and he figured maybe someone here would listen. He was at the edge of the park near the Memorial. Surely somebody would listen.

It wasn’t too cold here but his eyes were glistening, anyway. He rubbed his coat sleeve over them and pretended it was the smog or something. He wasn’t enjoying doing this, but someone had to. He had to.

He reached out and tried to hand one of his nice flyers to a young lady, looked like an office worker in some fancy place, but she just slapped his hand out of her way. The man behind her, expensive suit and tie, really polished shoes, took the flyer but never looked at it. Just wadded it up and dropped it on the sidewalk. The next man took a quick glance at the old man, then spat on the sidewalk. Get away from me, creep.

What was it: maybe three people out of a hundred had actually kept the flyer—at least for a minute or two?

Frank knew he couldn’t stay here much longer. Already two park cops had told him to move on and if they caught him again, he knew it would likely be some kind of arrest and probably jail. He trudged back up the street a bit and sat down under some trees just across from the Memorial. He remembered several old friends who were written on that wall.

He had left his fifteen-year-old truck back at the motel across town and came in on a tourist bus. He opened his backpack and dug out the peanut butter sandwich and took a bite. Took a sip from the bottle of plain old tap water. All he could take the time for now—just bread, PB and water.

The tears were actually running down his cheeks now. His head was bowed and he cried quietly. He had sat like that for fifteen minutes, crying off and on, and listening to the wind in the trees. He lifted his head and watched the traffic flowing by, none of the people having any cares except getting to their jobs or the tourist traps.

He looked up then and saw the policeman walking across the big lawn in his direction with a lovely looking dog. He knew it was all going to come to this. All he wanted to do was warn people about what was coming, but he had known for many years that they weren’t going to listen. They were going to keep running him out of town. Just don’t hang around our area, old man. Get on down the road.

He glanced around and saw there was no one near him. He could see the roof of the White House through the tops of the trees, and a bit of the Capital Building over there. The cop and the dog were still fifty yards away. He didn’t want the cop hurt or anything, and certainly not that beautiful dog. That wouldn’t be fair.

But, they were coming for him.

So he reached into his backpack, grabbed the little green strap and gave it a good pull.

The explosion ripped the morning apart. The stuff in the pack really went up. The old man was pretty much unrecognizable. The tree he was sitting under and another one just beside him were suddenly firewood. The last words the old man had cried out were, Oh, people, people, if only you would have listened. Now you’ve run us all away and your lives are going to be torn from you.

Chapter 3

Several people noted Luke and gave careful sideways glances to see what he was really doing, but nobody approached him. Though he was usually regarded as being quiet and friendly, tonight he gave an aura of being someone to stay away from. People walked around him.

He hadn’t had any intention of attending the party when the invitation arrived, but finally decided to go. He didn't put on any fancy clothes, but had at least showered, managed to change his sweat-stained jeans and work shirt and pulled on some clean clothes. The party was a simple get-together for neighbors around the Durango/Hermosa area, a get-acquainter. Some snacks and drinks, a couple of simple speeches, shake a few hands.

Luke stood against a wall in the Amphitheater in the Durango Recreation Center, staying away from the people. Just watching. Alone.

Earlier that morning, he had received a simple e-mail that said, ‘Frank killed himself a couple days ago. Call me. Jon,’ and he was hurting. People didn’t know why, but right now they just didn't feel comfortable or safe getting close to him.

His mind was drifting back to his work after the Army and, wrapped with the death of Frank, the images were making him sick.

He had been the leader of a party of mercenaries sent into Central Africa to rescue an oilman and his family who had been taken prisoner by the ruling warlord. It had been difficult getting in; first a small ship to just offshore, then rubber boats to get to the beach, and finally a long, hard march to the holding area.

When the group had arranged themselves around the village, maybe a hundred yards away, Luke saw the remains of the wife and two children, butchered and lying beside the oilman who was tied to a post. He was in the process of being ‘necklaced.’ It was a form of torture and execution, common in the area, of a rubber tire, filled with gasoline, being forced around the victim's neck and chest, and being set on fire. Death could take a long time.

When Luke had realized the torch was about to be applied and there was no way to quickly rescue the man, he had raised his rifle and fired once. It was over. Not the pain the man had gone through as he watched his family be slaughtered, but at least the pain to come. The group he was with sprayed the warlord and his troops with massive automatic weapon fire and most would no longer take out their hate and ugliness on innocent people.

He knew Frank had gone through some of the same things.

It had been too late back east, so his reply to Jon was simply, ‘7 a.m. your time.’ He knew if tomorrow wouldn't work, Jon would message back.

Chapter 4

You heard?

Yeah, but no details. Do you know anything else about it?

No, just that he set off a bomb in a backpack. Did himself, but no one else. Some park police guy was headed his way and got knocked down, but he wasn’t hurt. Nobody else around.

How did you hear? Someone from the D.C. police called me about two this morning. I guess Frank had some contact information with him?

Yeah, probably. We really hadn’t been in close contact for a while, but he apparently carried our information with him.

Are they sure it really was Frank? I mean, with the bomb and all? You know, it looks like it with him having our info, but just wondering.

Yeah, they got fingerprints already and they were conclusive. They traced him back to a motel across town and then back to his home in Montana. Lived around Kalispell, near Flathead Lake. I think I remember him talking about that. Moved up there after he retired.

But did he leave anything? Anything that said why he went out like that?

So far, no one’s said anything. They found the ranch, about twelve hundred acres. Small house about the size for one or two people. But no signs of anyone else there.

Yeah, I remember his wife died some years ago. Maybe ten? And I guess he never found anyone else again. Maybe never looked.

Yeah, I don’t think he did. He was pretty stuck on Sue. Always did say she was the only girl for him. Usually made it sound like a song.

I think he had a little dog. Was it around?

No. They said he apparently gave it away to another rancher up there. Seemed like he maybe knew he wasn’t coming back.

But no reason why he did it?

Nope. It appears that in the short time since then, no one’s found anything.

How much did they look? Do you know?

No, but I doubt they looked very deep. I don’t think anyone cared about him. You know. Just another crazy old man.

What was he doing in D.C.? Does anyone know?

Again, nobody really knows. All anyone said is that he was passing out some flyers. He had some more at that motel, but there wasn’t much in them to tell us why.

What did they say, Jon?

They were really just a short page and the message was about the chaos taking place all over and how it was all going to come down. Not much more. I had one of the deputies read the text to me over the phone and remember one thing that was kind of scary. He apparently had some kind of prophecies, I guess, that talked about the end coming and how it really looks like that’s where we are. The deputy is going to e-mail me a copy of the flyer.

Do you think he was trying to tell that to the people? And that they wouldn’t listen?

I don’t know. I’d have to look at it a lot closer. It’s hard to think he blew himself up for that.

Are they sure he did it himself? No one else did it for him? Blew him up?

No. What I heard was that he was alone. The cop saw him reach into his bag just before he got to him and then he went up. They didn’t find any traces of a radio or receiver in his stuff. No electronics at all. Just him and the bag, and the stuff inside.

Have they said what the stuff was?

Yeah. What I heard was some form of C-4. Maybe the British PE-4.

Huh. I wonder where he got that?

From what I heard, they quick searched his cabin and didn’t find any record of it in his stuff. No purchases or anything. Just that he had it. But I guess he did a pretty good job of putting it together. Went off without a hitch and sure did the job.

He had used that in the old life, right?

Yeah, but that would have been a long time ago. Man, almost fifty years ago. ‘Dunno. Did they even have that back then?

Yeah, they did. The British made it in World War II and we had a couple of variants by Vietnam. Originally just C, then variants 2, 3 and 4. But, I think it would still be pretty hard to get it today. Nobody lets it get very far out of their hands.

Well, it looks like he had it, though. At least, that’s what the reports are saying.

Who are the reports coming from, Jon?

The ones I’ve seen are regular newspapers and such, but they’re apparently quoting several police, and even some military sources. The Park Police didn’t know much, but the officials got on it pretty quick and got the sound bites out there quick. You know, explosives in the Capitol and all that.

After a moment of silence, Jon said, Frank was a good guy, Luke. He shouldn’t have gone like that. He certainly wasn’t a terrorist. Why would he have taken the stuff to a park like that just to pass out flyers?

My feeling, Jon? It sounds like he knew he was going to get picked up or something and wasn’t going to let it happen. Maybe something inside popped and he had enough. Or too much. I don’t really know much about how he was living or what he had gotten involved in, but maybe he was struggling with something?

Again there was silence, then Jon finally said, I think maybe I’ll check into it, Luke. Look around a bit and see what else there might be.

Yeah, I thought you might. I’ll be on it, too. Let’s keep in touch, okay?

Yeah. I’ll send you what I have. If you get anything more, you know my e-mail, right?

Got it. I’ll try to look him up through Google or something.

Okay. And, yeah, we’ll keep in touch. Send stuff back and forth, okay?

Yep. Don’t think we can let this drop. Talk with you later, okay?

You know where to get me.

Chapter 5

Jess Carter sat at the long conference table with several others, trying to digest the information being discussed, but also trying to keep his mouth shut. He was management and part of his job was to make things happen as directed, not to dispute them. But this was not sitting well. He was working hard to keep his composure.

His hands felt cold and when he looked at them, he noted they were almost grey. He had been clenching them so tight under the table he had cut off much of the circulation and his fingernails had made deep grooves in his palms. Suddenly he felt real fear. Everyone else appeared to be composed, though quiet, but he could see the stony looks on some faces.

Bluffdale was a monstrous NSA facility that had just been completed and had been designed to basically hold data. More than a million square feet of warehouse and office facilities had been built, then filled with computers and data storage equipment and it was now in the process of storing everything the National Security Agency was plucking out of the ether.

NSA headquarters was back in Fort Meade, Maryland, just northeast of Washington, D.C., and that’s where the main group of searchers and analysts were located. They gathered data world-wide from basically every source there was, spent time analyzing what the data meant and might lead to, then directed the data to storage at Bluffdale. Headquarters was simply running out of space.

Bluffdale, the data storage facility, had been built at Camp Williams, located about twenty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. It was called the Utah Data Center, but just Bluffdale, for short. There were only a few hundred regular employees on the site, however, rumors were that there were also a lot of analysts there and a large part of the work was the gathering of worldwide data, code breaking and analysis itself, apart from what Fort Meade did.

Part of Jess Carter’s job as a manager was to keep the other people working well; part was analysis work itself. Now he was hearing potential orders to go far beyond what he thought he had initially signed on for.

The activity of Bluffdale had initially been ‘preached’ as being extremely beneficial for the United States, and even the world. The data would be able to be pulled as needed to track down suspected criminals and terrorists, all supposedly done under the auspices of warrants and legal overseeing. Now the staff was being directed to begin hooking up to every form of communication there was, from phones to computers to cell phones and other devices to social media accounts everywhere. Get it all and get it into storage, was the message. We’ll sort it all out as we need it later.

I can’t do this anymore was the thought going through Jess’s mind. He had inquired earlier as to how to move to some other government work, but had basically been denied any consideration. You’re too important to our work here, Jess, and you’ve received too much training. What Jess actually felt from the interviews was the message, You know too much and we can’t let you go.

Several nights he had gone home from work, stopped for takeout and drinks, then had spent the night agonizing over his decisions.

He finally made his decision. Now, it was time to leave.

Chapter 6

The young wolf walked for days, catching a few squirrels, one especially satisfying rabbit, just wandering. He certainly didn’t have any magical powers or special intelligence, but he knew to be afraid of humans. His senses warned him when he got anywhere near people and he veered away. He went back to the den in the hillside, but there was nothing now to keep him there. He could still smell her, but he knew she was gone so kept wandering.

His territory ran on for more than twenty square miles. The pack had broken up a couple of years ago and most had moved on. He and his mate had stayed, then she had conceived and they found their own den. There were a couple of small packs around the area, but because of the large amount of land available, they roamed more freely than packs bound to smaller urban ranges. Now much of the land was his and so he wandered at will.

One early morning he got close to some backpackers and his curiosity pulled him in. They were bedded down in a valley a few miles from his den and he rested quietly on a hill above them and watched as they wakened. He smelled the cooking and, while it wasn’t his type of food, the smell was good and he stayed close.

One of the men picked up a rifle and fired a useless shot into the trees around their camp. The sound tore the young male and he cringed, then ran. He didn’t specifically tie the sound with the death of his mate, but there was something that did cause a recognition. And a fear.

These strange creatures were different and were somehow related to the loss of his mate. Now the smells and sounds caused him to get back out of sight and away. Something made him recognize that these creatures were not safe and he needed to be gone.

There was life someplace else.

Chapter 7

Frank Corsey had been a quiet man, had basically stayed away from the crowds and done his own thing. He had served in the Army during Vietnam, both in the early ‘60s when nobody knew what a Vietnam was, and continuing through the early ‘70s. He went in as part of the Army advisers and Special Forces, but they were poorly prepared for the type of warfare they encountered. Everything was guerilla warfare and the U.S. hadn’t trained in those conditions. They learned day-by-day, hard, bitter lessons.

Frank had never worn the well-known Green Beret, but had served quietly behind-the-scenes by infiltrating the jungle areas, searching out and mapping the strongholds, and looking for Viet Cong leaders and bases. He had been part of several small-sized forces and had worked the early days with Special Forces troops and CIA agents trying to get footholds on where the enemy forces were coming from and trying to stop them.

He had left the jungle in 1972 before the U.S. forces were finally pulled out, had gone home to Missouri, then relocated as a trainer of Special Forces troops at Fort Benning. Because of his extensive experience in the jungles, he was regarded as one of the best of the silent, secretive guerilla-force trainers and had spent the rest of his service time turning out warriors. He retired from the Army in 1986, married his hometown sweetheart, bought the ranch in Montana and moved there. He got a job with the NSA working as an independent contractor doing research from his ranch, then started commuting to the Utah facility when it was being built.

His wife, Susan, had fallen from a horse a couple of years earlier, broken her back, and never recovered. When she died, Frank just buried himself deeper in his ranch and became reclusive. He worked full-time helping build the Utah facility, but every chance he got he headed home.

In the mid-90s, he started reading extensively about economics, the international wars and what he thought of as the downslide of the U.S. He was a regular at several of the coffee shops around the area and became known as a conspiracy theorist and a preacher of the coming destruction of the country. Pretty much everyone laughed behind his back, but they did realize he had a lot of strong thoughts—well thought-out ideas. They still laughed.

By then he was ‘old Frank,’ the debater and prophet, and he wasn’t invited to many parties anymore. He wandered through a number of churches where he got more ‘end times’ ideas, visited a few of the old VFW clubs and the like, but finally just hung out at the coffee shops or stayed at his ranch. Most people were glad when he seemed to wear out. He had always seemed very sure of what he felt was coming and wouldn’t back down from anyone just because they could only see things their way. While he was quiet, he was also persistent, and most people didn’t like that type of discussion.

Frank, where are you getting all these weird ideas? We’re not going to dry up and get blown away. Rockets and bombs. Come on, we’re too far away from everything up here. They’ll never come after us up here.

Frank’s reply was often, Then tell me what those big, old holes in the ground are around South Dakota, Colorado, and even here. Maybe some still have rockets in them. And besides, do you see what the government is doing puttering around in your bank account and your cell phone? Weird ideas? Tell me how they’re weird. No, let me tell you what’s coming down the pike. And then he was off to the races. And most folks started running.

Frank started reading and studying, listening to the radio talk shows, buying tapes and CDs by the doom ‘n gloomers, even going to some of the movies proclaiming the end. Red Dawn was an older one; Alexander Nevsky even older. Shooter became a favorite when he recognized the comparison to today’s government subterfuge. The more he read about conspiracies, the more he came to the realization that he had to warn people.

When the people in his church and the coffee shops got tired of listening to him, he decided he had to go on down the road wherever it took him and wherever people would listen. By the time he got on the way to D.C., pushed out of towns and their jails, he knew he wasn’t likely coming back. He was glad he had gotten a good home for his little dog, Josie, and he knew there wasn’t really anything to come back to.

The ranch was beautiful, but if he was going to really do this end times preaching, he figured the good life was over, even more than when Sue had passed. So, he gathered the collection of explosives from some old friends—just gotta blow some stumps—put together the backpack of boom and headed out. Unfortunately, the end had caught up.

Chapter 8

Luke Turner and Jon Arnold started searching all their sources for anything related to Frank’s life and death, working separately, but regularly comparing notes. There wasn’t much to find.

Frank had lived a quiet life and didn’t leave a lot behind. They got a few pieces of information about his arrests, but those hadn’t been heavy stuff. They knew of his life with Sue. They were able to dig up his military service records, but again they knew most of it already. The one thing that caught both of them by surprise was the vague reference to the fact of Frank having been a sniper and tracker back in the day and then having gone on to be a senior sniper trainer at, originally, Fort Perry in Ohio, then at Fort Benning, Georgia.

About a month after Frank died, Luke was blown out of the water one day when he got a call from an attorney in Kalispell, Montana, who said, I’m George Jackson. I don’t know if you’ve heard from anyone else, but when Frank Corsey died, he left everything to you and one other fellow. Jon Arnold also got that call and was likewise astounded. Both the men were even more caught up when they finally learned that not only had the ranch and equipment come to them, but a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash and investments, too.

The twelve hundred acres wasn’t really worth a lot except for big Flathead Lake being close. It was located off Highway 93 out past Lake Mary Ronan and then a couple of miles further out on W. Shore Rd. When the two men met there a couple of days later and started exploring, they found Frank had left some horses in the care of a neighbor, so the men recovered them and took several days to ride the property. They decided they would keep the ranch in both their names and share the costs and taxes and so on. Both realized it was a place of quiet and relaxation, away from all the lights and furor of the big cities, even the little ones like Kalispell. Neither man had married, so they just divided the cabin—that’s your half, this is mine—with a laugh and turned it into a retreat.

The fishing was great in both Lake Mary Ronan and Flathead. Cutthroat trout, as well as yellow perch and whitefish all flourished, so it was a rare day that they ever came back from fishing with nothing to show for it. Frank had kept a small dock rented at the smaller lake with a little motorboat for fishing.

It was in the late spring of the year that the men met at the ranch, mainly to search everything they could find to see if they could determine what Frank had gotten into and what caused him to end things as he did. Luke had flown out to D.C. to pick up Frank’s old truck from the police impound and had driven it back across country to the ranch. They found nothing in the truck except a pile of the flyers and the bag of personal items Frank had taken with him.

They carefully tore everything apart around the ranch house. Tractor, plows, the barn, the house, the well house and so on. They rode as much of the acreage as they could, but nothing popped up.

In the house they looked at every piece of paper they found but didn’t get any ideas or messages. One day, Luke even crawled under the house. It was set about three feet off the ground so the air could freely move beneath the house for cooling or warmth. He had only crawled about six feet when he found a wooden box on some concrete blocks and dragged it back out.

The men picked up the box and put it on the porch, then carefully opened it. It was about three feet square and several things inside had been packed in plastic bags. As they started taking the things out of the box, they became more and more confused. The first bag had several birth certificates in it, looking very official and correct, all in different names and for different male and female children. And all were age-dated to make the children about thirty-to-fifty years old now.

Then there were bags of other documents; driver’s licenses, library cards, social security cards, credit and debit cards. When Jon started comparing the documents, he found that the various licenses and such matched the names on the birth certificates. They appeared to be complete sets of life documents for fourteen different people.

The men sat at the table for half-an-hour just looking at the documents, letting wild thoughts run through their minds.

Finally Luke simply got up and walked outside. He sat on one of the old Adirondack chairs on the porch, still thinking. He heard Jon get up and make some coffee, and he finally brought a couple of cups out to the porch. I laced these with some of the hooch he had, was all Jon said, then he sat down in the other chair and both men stared out into the forest.

Finally, Jon asked, Any ideas?

Luke replied, Well, we know he shouldn’t have had that stuff. It’s obvious that someone made up all those sets of lives, presumably to use for different people somehow.

So what was he doing with all that stuff here in downtown Montana?

Again, both men sat in silence, just listening to the wind in the trees, but both thinking hard. This was not the old Frank they thought they knew. An older, gentle man crusading for good, okay. But a soldier from the old days, an ex-sniper, with a box of life documents for other people?

Over the next two days, the men carefully re-sorted the documents so they had fourteen piles of lives put together, and they started trying to find those people. They did Internet searches and found nothing. They looked through several social media accounts; nothing. They even signed up for a couple of accounts that did worldwide searches for names and brought up everything that could be found on them. Again, nothing. They had documents for fourteen different people, but none of the people seemed to exist. There was one set of papers that seemed to attach to a child that had been born years ago, but they found the child had died, so the currently dated papers almost certainly couldn’t be for the child, could they?

Near the end of the second day, Jon finally said, "I think it’s apparent that Frank was doing something with moving or hiding people. The documents aren’t old and degraded. They’re still in perfect shape, so they haven’t just been lost years ago. Frank had them. I think he built them.

The driver’s licenses are all current within the last couple of years. They aren’t expired. We pulled a couple of reports on a few of the credit cards and they show current activity, at least within this year. So they’re all current, Luke.

I know, and the work necessary to keep all these documents up-to-date, even to establish them all, was huge. You don’t just write off for a driver’s license, or a college transcript. They take time and you have to produce proof of an existence. Then you have to go some place and take tests and so on. If Frank did all this, he did a lot of work.

For what?

Yeah, that’s the big question. What was he doing?

Do you think he could have been running people? Bringing in boat people from Cuba or Vietnam or something? Helping them get started?

What I saw in those, Jon, were mostly white people, a few blacks and Spanish, and one Asian, if I remember right. That pretty much eliminates bringing in boat people from Asia. He would have needed several Asian packages and they aren’t there. It looks as if he was basically helping regular American folks do something. Maybe he did some Asians earlier, but he wasn’t ready for any right now.

Yeah, but again, what? You bring in some regular American guy and do what with him that he needs documents like these?

Again, the men sat quietly for a few moments, letting the gears turn, trying to understand what they were seeing.

Finally, Luke got a funny look on his face and asked, Do you think he really could have been hiding people, Jon? Taking them out of their present lives and resettling them? Making people disappear?

Jon looked at him for a while, then replied, That’s crazy, Luke, but maybe you’re onto something. He takes someone out of their present world for some reason and gets them set up with a new life? I’ve heard of people disappearing like that for years, but I’ve never come across it actually being done before.

But why? Like we said, that’s a lot of effort. Maybe years of work to get all those documents. Maybe working with some pretty underground people to get them. He thought for a moment, then added, I can see someone doing that maybe once. You know, a friend gets in trouble and you help him disappear. But this many times? This looks like a business, not just a single occasion.

And how many might have gone on before these? Would he have gotten all these and not have used them? Or might these be preparations for the next folks?

The men were quiet for a while, then got up and prepared a meal and poured some drinks, and kept glancing back at the box several times.

A box of lives.

Chapter 9

When Frank arrived in Vietnam, he was immediately caught up in the secrets. He was a well-trained soldier, yet he was not allowed to share his experiences with anyone, even to talk about his supposed reason for being there.

There were some old bases and structures from the French and others who had fought within the land for decades, but most of it had become junk. The Army, SEALS and CIA were in the country to try to build relationships with the ruling government, map the area and to help search out the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The work was done in complete secrecy and it was regularly stated in government circles that, ‘the only people in Vietnam are a few advisors.’

Frank was a young man with stars in his eyes and he believed what he had been told about his mission in the country. It wasn’t until after the U.S. had begun a well-advertised military campaign and sent in thousands of troops that he started seeing the truth of what was happening. The massive bombing; the lies broadcasted with sugar-coated campaign statistics; the numbers killed (on both sides); the political subterfuge; and the dark political maneuvering by the country leaders (of both sides). It was then Frank started quietly asking himself, What are we doing here?

He did not have answers.

Frank left before the American and South Vietnamese fall began in ‘73 and was back in the U.S. training new warriors when everything went south. After that, he did some service in Lebanon and Zaire, then in 1980 in the Sinai training Egyptian forces. He spent time in the Persian Gulf off and on combined with his training duties back at Fort Benning.

Through it all, he kept hearing more and more, often from the so-called radicals across the U.S., about the government deceptions and lies. And he began to believe them. He read many news reports that purported to tell the public what was happening and how to think about things, all the while knowing from his own experience the truths that were being covered up. Lots of good people had died to hide those lies.

He saw presidents lying and living totally dishonest and immoral lives, all while preaching about the good they were doing and how they knew how to best lead their countries. He saw senior political statesmen; senators, governors, judges and others, leading the country in ways he knew were destructive. He heard many people talking about what they saw as obvious lies and corruption by their leaders, yet totally frustrated by not knowing how to combat them. He had heard the government leaders pointing fingers at private corporations and the rich as the source of the evils in the country, but he realized that the corruption was actually found in, and promoted by, the politicians who worked and connived for their own interests and those of their political and economic allies. And while many people pointed fingers at the rich, it was the rich, the media and the politicians who made up the ruling class. The Party, uber alles. Little people stay away and quiet. We don’t need you.

He thought about the great principles that had held up the U.S. over the years and then recognized another terrible truth: Those principles have been taken away from us. Now we’re just left with fiction and deception, and we can’t even see the principles anymore.

And the more he heard, saw and learned, the angrier he got—until it began to boil over and bubble out. Finally he had retired from the Army, got the NSA job and moved to his Montana ranch. And lost his precious Sue.

He struggled. At first he just tried to walk away from the confusion and pain. He simply wanted to hide from life. But he began to remember his reading from earlier years; Alas, Babylon and Atlas Shrugged; and the conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and the New World Order, among others, and they became more and more real to him. As he saw more confusion and misdirection coming from Washington and other world governments, and he heard some church preachers expounding on their theories of the end times, he started talking about the theories himself.

That’s when his friends and