Between Right and Wrong

  Between Right and Wrong

  By Bret Stubbs

  Forward

  ◆◆◆

  Somewhere deep in each person’s mind, in a dark hidden corner, is the real you. A personality untainted by parents, siblings, hot or cold, friends, and your status in life. That person leans either good or evil. Perhaps one’s experiences have leaned you from evil to good or from good to evil, but the basic person is still there. The real you is in there and this is where all else begins.

  Phillip Warner is stuck in this quandary. There may be someone who knows what he does in secret. Certainly someone is causing him troubles and he needs to find out why.

  CHAPTER 1

  In a suburb of Dallas Texas a normal, educated, run of the mill guy relaxed in his single level brick home watching the Channel 5 News on Saturday morning. Phillip Warner watched, with interest, a mobile reporter who was on the scene of an apparent gas explosion in a rural neighborhood, near a popular lake. The house was completely leveled and burnt. A body had been found in the rubble. The reporter interviewed the closest neighbor who told the story of that dead man. He had gone to prison, served his time, but had changed his life in this year since his release. He was now respected in the community and often brought his mother to church on Sundays. A neighbor woman being interviewed, bewailed how this now reformed sinner was a volunteer at the local church and had joined the Men’s Group. Their pastor had worked with him to join the local lodge and was going to ask him to help with the next Children’s Group picnic. His death saddened her as he was well liked by all of his neighbors. The reporter finished his segment by stating the fire department believed a faulty stove was cause of the explosion and the fire, which took the man’s life; and it was unknown if an autopsy would be needed. Phil watched the end of the story, turned off the TV and began fixing himself breakfast.

  The Home Owners Association for Phil Warner’s quiet, middle class neighborhood with its running trails, privacy fenced yards, and community pool; prided itself in keeping the community safe. Owners of the homes within the purview of the HOA could not have a criminal record and had to pass the scrutiny of the Sales Selection Board prior to the approval of a purchase agreement. Home owners in this part of town held a reputation as good, upstanding citizens. Easily, Phillip Warner fit the picture of the type of neighbor everyone in the area welcomed.

  After breakfast, Phil began his normal Saturday chores. Before the heat of the day, he was outside mowing the lawn to the two and one half inch height required by the Association. The smell of fresh cut grass filling his nostrils while in his mind he could not help but recall the details of his activities last night.

  As he trimmed the hedges, Phil thought of how he had been instructed to fulfill this job by an employer whom he had never met. Sweat was rolling down his back and face as he went back over how the instructions included details about the targeted man’s guilt. This was not the first such job he had done for the employer and he wondered at the similarities of the guilt each target possessed. The instructions had always been accurate and reliable. He had never failed to succeed nor had he ever caused suspicion.

  While washing the grass and stains off the driveway, he remembered the surprised look on the target’s face when a middle aged man, dressed as a pizza delivery driver, struck him down then put him to sleep. Rigging the gas stove to burn the house had been easily within Phil’s talents. Strangely enough, he remembered his own gas bill was due the following week.

  As Phil rolled up the garden hose and swept the porch, he could not help but picture the little girl who had been hidden inside a back bedroom, her face tear stained, and her arms and legs bound so expertly. Rescuing her was worth the risks he took. She and Phil were miles away from the house before it was leveled by the gas explosion. The smell of baby shampoo in her hair had been the first cognoscente sense of her age and it brought a tear to Phil’s eye for the child.

  As he played fetch with his dog behind the privacy fenced back yard, he recalled the kind woman who took the child out of his hands late last night and the angelic look on her face as she assured him the little girl would be back with her family soon. She was somehow employed by the same person who had hired Phil.

  After a full day’s yard work, a cold drink, and comfortable chair, with the sun setting and the coolness of the night beginning to filter into the shaded porch; Phil wondered about the man who sent him on these missions of mercy. Surely the Home Owner’s Association would not approve, but he hoped the rest of the world would- should they ever find out.

  Finally, when the drink was finished, Phil patted the dog on the head and went into the garage where he put away the tools used for last night’s work.

  The thermal imaging camera needed re-charging before he went to work on Monday. It had insured there was no one else in the house before the fire started. The nitrile gloves belonged in a drawer of his mechanic’s tool box. They were critical to prevent any sign of Phil’s presence where the police could link him to the apparent accident. His trusted knife with its belt holster returned to the hunting bag that also kept his winter hat and warm gloves. The truck he had driven last night was safely garaged in a storage unit directly opposite of the way he drove to his day job. There was no need to worry about it, as he had washed and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it up and driving his Volvo sedan back to the house. There was no laundry to do. Those clothes worn the night before were now gifts to Goodwill, placed in a drop box on the way home.

  Phillip Warner fed the dog as he did every night, then sat down to a quiet, single man’s supper of leftovers from a pot roast he had attempted a couple of nights before. As he ate, he reflected on his life and wondered at the thought of being in his forties and single. The aroma and taste of meat, potatoes, and carrots somehow did not live up to his mother’s recipe.

  His parents had been married by their twenties and lived a long life together, happy with the small living they eked out of the East Texas soil. They had lived quietly and contently. Somehow, though he tried, living that slow moving life style was not for Phil.

  His work ethic was formed as a youngster. Dad would wake him up early on the Saturdays during the school year to do whatever jobs needed extra hands to work. By eight years old he could drive the antique John Deere tractor whether it be to plow the garden spot or to drag trees to the cut pile for fire wood. There were cows to feed and fences to fix. The work never seemed all done; always there was a list of broken boards or rotted timber to fix, or firewood to chop for next year. The summers found Phil usually on a hay hauling team, working for pennies a bale, and glad to get the money. He was never unfriendly and had a girlfriend from time to time but could not get serious; so the relationships often only lasted a few weeks. Work always came first. Besides, life in the little town made him feel out of place.

  His mother kept the house. She was constantly baking for someone’s graduation or a wedding. On Sundays she would sing in the choir. She often volunteered to make costumes for the school’s cheerleaders or majorettes. Phil remembered, she was more concerned with every one being happy and comfortable then spic and span cleaning; but that was ok with his dad.

  Neither of his parents seemed to believe nor discuss there was an ugly side to the world. From their view from a small town, the world was just as they would have it. Phil was destined to find out the world was not so simple nor so innocent.

  The little town had a little school. Opportunity for an education that prepped one for college was limited. The few girls who got college degrees, would mostly go to a college nearby and the boys went off to college only if they were great at sports and gained a scholarship. Families were tight knit, most of the townspeople related to each other in some
form or fashion and kids were usually eager to stay in the area after high school. Right and wrong was never questioned in his little town. Everyone knew the difference.

  CHAPTER 2

  Monday morning the alarm rang at six a.m. Like every weekday, Phil got out of bed, straightened the covers and let the dog out. He stepped into the workout clothes he had laid out the night before and finished his stretching exercises before he grabbed the leash to hookup his dog Roo; then went down the street to the running trails. Both knew the daily routine and ran as one. Phil tried to keep the pace at a ten minute mile as best he could, running about 5 miles each weekday. The slight breeze was cool on his face as they travelled up and down the hills and turns of the running path that laced through his neighborhood. First light showed clouds gathering, “gonna be stormy today,” Phil told Roo. The chocolate Labrador Retriever kept pace, ignoring his master’s random thoughts. Roo was always happy and obviously loved the morning exercise with his master. The dog had no thought or care of what things his master had done in the past, nor what Phil did now. His only care seemed to be that he was treated well and loved.

  After the run, Phil turned the dog loose in the back yard and began to get ready for work. As he exited the shower, the doorbell rang. Between rings, there was knocking at the door. “Be right there”, Phil called out as he swung his robe on and scurried to the door.

  Phil could see a uniformed figure through the side light at the front door and took a deep breath. Phil called out a ‘good morning’ as he opened the door a few inches.

  “Oh, hello Pam,” he sighed, “you the Police now?”

  Pam giggled, “It’s for the costume party I texted you about, silly. You didn’t forget, did you?”

  Pam lived across the street and was always very friendly, too much so at times. She was five and a half feet tall, had a pretty heart shaped face, with red hair and freckles that she tried to hide with makeup. Phil figured her fit body was developed by all the peeking and prodding she was known to do.

  “How’s Don?” Phil thought he would throw her off her game by asking about her husband.

  “He is out of town again,” Pam frowned.

  “Kind of early for a visit, isn’t it officer” Phil teased.

  “You were up a long time ago running with that dog of yours,” she smiled.

  “You bringing a date to my party?” Pam was always prying, “if not you can come anyway, Don won’t be home from California. You can keep me company,” she squirmed and twisted her hair as she talked. “The weather is turning cooler, so it should be a nice night to party or just sit and talk.”

  “There it was again, those innuendos,” Phil thought. “Pam, I got to go, gonna be late for work.” No sense in tempting fate.

  “Text me and let me know you are coming.” Pam was talking through the closed door.

  “Wow, I need to nix this somehow” Phil thought as he let the dog in and went back to getting ready for work.

  The loose suits he wore along with the wire rimmed glasses made Phil look ten years older. This was their purpose. It was old habit of keeping mysteries and secrets. He was somehow shy about the fit way he kept his body. A land development company had hired Phil right out of the military and placed him in an entry project position. Phil took full advantage of the opportunity, becoming an important part of the planning and design team. Vance and Rodgers LLC knew Phil had been a Structural Engineer in the Air Force. They knew the unclassified truth.

  As he drove through the hectic, chaotic Dallas traffic Phil thought of how life seemed to drag a person along, almost without any control. Phil started out his commission for the Department of Defense in the Air Force with special assignments, one of which was as a Structural Engineer. Mostly, Phil’s assignments were to engineer other types of things to happen. There was a boat that sunk off the coast of Yemen after an attack on a Navy frigate; a bridge failure that cost a Saudi royal family member his life, after an attack on an embassy. Every time an assignment was issued to him, things happened.

  He was forever travelling and working, until he had enough and decided a quiet civilian life was better suited for his future. Now he was settled into his present job. Promotions were regular and he made a comfortable living. But his life became too quiet, until a man who used the name of The Gent contacted him.

  Traffic was a at a standstill as he thought about his childhood in east Texas where most kids grew up and stayed put, taking over their Dad’s business, working at the school or in the lumber industry. Life was quiet and uneventful for the most part. Folks went about their business respectful of each other. Once in a while a school mate’s father would drink too much and run over a sign or get stuck in a ditch and everyone talked about it for days. Phil was not one of them. While others gossiped, he thought about the world outside of the edge of town, outside of the quiet, too peaceful, life in the wooded, rural community. “Nothing like the arduous traffic is in Dallas,” Phil had to chuckle at the thought of the difference.

  Growing up, Phil’s family didn’t have a lot of money, and one small vacation a year was all they could afford. The family usually visited his uncles or aunts for vacation. At ten, an older cousin tried to force Phil to touch him. Phil was just strong enough to pull away from him and run to his uncle’s house. He never told anyone, but, he never forgot. As he got older, he realized the situation could have gotten much worse. The memory of that hot summer day came back to Phil whenever he read about the evil side of society; it grieved him when a woman was struck or a child abused.

  Good jobs were hard to find in East Texas when Phil graduated high school in 1989. He knew what he wanted but there weren’t many options, as his parents could not afford to send him to college. A military recruiter routinely visited the high school and Phil found himself talking to Sgt. Smallwood more and more often. Phil was excellent at math and wanted to be an Engineer. Sgt. Smallwood provided the avenue with an enlistment in the Air Force.

  Even at the military entry center, where he reported for duty, Phil felt like his direction in life followed an unseen path. In the screening room tests were given on different types of talents, a man in a suit and tie called Phil’s name and brought him into a small office after the tests. In the dimly lit room, the man handed Phil a contract. The words were hard to read in the poor light and Phil remembered being a little scared of what the man wanted.

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “Phillip, my name is Joe Smith, and I am going to offer you a rare opportunity. Not because you deserve it, but because of your test scores and the recommendation of Sgt. Smallwood.” He continued without allowing Phil to ask any questions, “Only a select few are offered this opportunity, only a select few will be successful. But,” he paused and lit a cigarette, “you will gain skills, you will see places, and you will be able to get that degree you want at the same time. And, you will be an officer when you finish your schooling, making a lot more money than an enlistee.”

  From the entry center, Phil and the others who passed the tests were whisked away to a Boot Camp that was not in San Antonio, where all the other recruits go. Phil was sent to the swamps of Georgia. The camp appeared built during the Second World War and consisted of wood frame two story dorms, a chow hall, and a headquarters building. All were wood frame structures with windows that seldom stayed open by themselves. There was no air conditioning and the heat for the cold winter nights were old oil fired boilers. The compound was dirt and rock with a flag pole in the center; flag flying high and proud. The few vehicles were parked at the edge of the swamps, usually covered by the Spanish moss that dropped off every cypress tree within sight. Recruits fell asleep each night with the sounds of frogs and crickets in their ears, sometimes the owls hooted to break the monotonous marsh vocals. Snakes and alligators required everyone in camp to watch their step and carefully chose where they decided to rest.

  Phil could still picture in his mind that first night, when they arrived. There was thirty recru
its. All where wide eyed teens. They marched everywhere, climbing, digging, and building shelters throughout the first weeks. They practiced shooting many forms of weapons every day. Self-defense practice sometimes went long into the night. And then they marched and marched some more. They ran the swamps until Phil thought he would cough out a lung. Everything ached every day. All of them had blisters and bruises and cuts.

  The man training them was Ernie Godwin who stood a good six foot one of lean muscle. He was a tough, in your face, hard charging sergeant, who took no lip from anyone. He spoke with a wheezy southern drawl perhaps hampered by a gold front tooth with a letter L engraved in it. His black eyes seemed to never blink. His lean face never changed expression. Sergeant Godwin’s job, he so eloquently put it, was to get rid of the worms, slugs, cry-babies, and anyone else who looked sorry, or he just did not like. Some of the recruits who grew up hauling hay or logging trees or fighting in the streets may have thought they were tougher than Godwin, but they weren’t.

  “Tom Ulzman,” Phil could still remember his name.

  He was the largest man in the squad. Big and slow and hot tempered.

  He must have been an easy target for Ernie, this big round headed lumberjack with that stupid grin and callus look which never seemed to leave his face. The sergeant was barking orders we hardly understood, “columns of five right here!; stand at attention, eyes right! You idiots!” He could still hear that wheezy voice.

  They were all so totally shocked and confused. Tom was too slow at every order. From out of nowhere, Sgt Godwin was in his face, straight brimmed black Technical Instructor’s hat pressed against Tom’s nose while profanities rained out of the TI’s mouth. Tom was getting mad. His face was red. Phil saw his arm start to flinch upward, but in one swift move, Sgt Godwin had one handful of his testicles and the other hand on Tom’s neck. To this day, Phil wondered what was said in that wheezing whisper just before Tom Ulzman was flipped on his back and a foot placed on his throat.