Patton found an open window and made his way inside. He pulled a pair of night vision goggles from his bag and put them on. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, slipped the strap of his bag over his shoulder, and made his way down a hallway. The main level was clean and well organized, filled with expensive furniture and decorations. A clock on the stove told him that it was just after 6 PM. He figured he had an hour to do what he had to do, clean up, and get out unseen. Jennifer and Mike were watching the old man and would warn Patton if he started on his way home. Until then, Patton had to get busy.
Patton found the master suite and pushed open the heavy oak door. A large, four-poster bed dominated the room. It reminded him of his grandparents’ bed that he slept in as a young child. Patton set down his bag and pulled out a Ziploc bag that contained the tools he would need. After riffling through the drawers of the vanity, Patton found a hairbrush. He removed a pair of tweezers from his pocket, locked onto a few of the hairs locked in the bristles of the brush and pulled them out and placed them into a plastic tube. Patton then pulled out a spray bottle and a white light. He sprayed Luminol onto the sink, hoping the chemical would reveal traces of blood that Patton could use for a DNA sample. He shined the black light across the sink’s surface. It was nearly spotless, but after close inspection, he found a light smudge of what was probably blood. He wiped the smudge with a cotton swab and placed it into another plastic tube.
Finished in the bathroom, Patton made his way back into the bedroom and removed a small fingerprint kit from his bag. He spread some powder on the nightstand and on the lamp. The white light revealed several prints. Patton took a clear, sticky patch, stuck it on the clearest print, and put it in the bag. He looked at his watch. He’d only been inside the house for fifteen minutes. Not wanting to press his luck, Patton cleaned up any evidence that he’d been inside the house, stowed his gear, and exited the house the way he’d come in.
When he got home, Patton placed all of the samples he’d taken from Charlie Henry’s home in a FedEx box. He printed the label, affixed it to the box, and walked out to his truck. Not wanting to wait until morning to send his package, Patton drove nearly an hour to Brigham City, Utah, and mailed the package.
Days later, the email Patton had been waiting for finally came. Part of him was nervous that he wasn’t going to get the news he expected, but one sentence in, Patton let out a loud breath, relieved that his instincts were still sharp.
From: watson.w@cobrasecurities.com
Cc:
Subject: Harrell, Charles aka Henry, Charles
Attachments: dossier: Harrell, Charles
Patton,
Your instincts were right on this one. Charles “Henry” was hip deep in Students for a Democratic Society and a Weather Underground wannabe. Not only does he have an extensive police record in three states, he has an FBI file…and get this…a CIA file. Supposedly he bragged about meeting Castro in 1974. I did some back checking and it seems like the story might be true.
This guy is a radical leftist ideologue. I wouldn’t even call him a Marxist, really. That would be putting it very lightly. Go through the dossier. Just know that whatever he has planned, it’s not going to be good. Extreme measures may be necessary to deal with this situation.
Your Buddy,
Wildcat
It was as if his old friend, now private investigator, had reached into Patton’s brain and extracted the very words he’d been thinking of since he met Charlie Henry—or Harrell. The attached dossier was over forty printed pages, including mugshots from Henry’s arrests in Detroit, Seattle, and Los Angeles. There were police reports, a copy of Henry’s FBI file and an outline of what was in the CIA file. The fact that Henry had a CIA file was incredible. Outside of that revelation, there were several statements in the document that caught his eye.
“Henry was a second or third tier personality in the Students for a Democratic Society organization,” the dossier read. “He tried several times to get accepted into the more radical Weather Underground. According to one ‘Weather’ member, Henry was an intellectual lightweight, seen as a coward, unwilling to earn his stripes.”
This revelation filled in some of the missing picture for Patton. Charles Henry was a Sixties radical, still bent on making his mark, much like the other members of the SDS and Weather Underground. After realizing that a revolution was never going to happen, those people wised up, put on collared shirts and ties and earned college degrees. Some wrote papers and got jobs with federal agencies where they could bring about their “change” in more meaningful ways. And not only that, they could do it under the guise of being legitimate members of society.
Patton shook his head in disgust, remembering how he felt in 2008 when Barack Obama shot to power, bringing so many Sixties radicals on board to help him “fundamentally transform the United States of America,” as he’d put it then. If the media would’ve done its job and vetted Obama and his radical associations, he never would have entered the race let alone won two terms. Now, in a small town created to serve as an experiment, the old playbook was being used. Take a young, handsome, dynamic person and sell them to an electorate as the next messiah. Plaster their face on billboards and TV, never let him answer a serious question, and watch him rise to power.
However, what could Patton do with this information about Charlie Henry? This Asher punk was already a media darling just like Obama had been. Would he eliminate any chance that Mike Wilson had to win by trying to make the connection between Asher and Henry, or would the move be seen as crying wolf? Probably both, but the only the chance they had to beat David Asher was to connect him to someone unpalatable like Charlie Henry. That thought sealed it—they were going to slash and burn with this or they were going to lose. It was a risky strategy but Patton knew that it was the only chance they had to win.
Patton vowed that he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Mike Wilson hated having to wear makeup and he hated the bright lights shining in his face. Most of all, he hated having this brash pretty boy as an opponent, but there was nothing he could do about that. Tonight was his one and only chance to land a blow that would hurt David Asher’s candidacy, but he knew he’d have very few opportunities to do so. Mike knew that he had to be aggressive because the moderator of the debate was unlikely to give any openings.
“And so, I think we need this government to bring some stability to this experiment. I mean, honestly, I think the people that set this up were negligent when they didn’t set up a government at the same time,” Asher said confidently. “Look at all that has happened since we got here last March. The murder of the Gruber family. The fires. The burglaries and vandalizing of stores downtown. Now, with a government in place would any of that have happened?”
“Rebuttal Mr. Wilson?” the moderator asked.
Mike nodded and cleared his throat.
“First of all, let me touch on one thing Mr. Asher just said. When it comes right down to it, laws are theoretical. Back in Texas we had laws that were broken every day. Murder. Rape. Arson. Burglary. Just because a government passes a law doesn’t mean that it can’t be broken.”