Gate City Bomber

A Work Of Fiction by Billy Jones

Table of Contents
Chapter I. Melvin Municipal
Chapter II.Cone Denim Entertainment Center
Chapter III, Center Pointe
Chapter IV, Greensboro Transit Authority
Chapter V. Greensboro Aquatic Center
Chapter VI. December Skies
Chapter VII. Blood Flows And Tears Fall
Chapter VIII. Let The Games Begin
Chapter IX. A Waiting Game
Chapter X. Picking Up The Pieces
Chapter XI. So Greensboro
Chapter XII. The Bomber Returns
Chapter XIII, Oh Give Me A Home
Chapter XIV, Debris
Chapter XV, Exodus
Chapter XVi, Denial
Chapter XVII, Zack Attack
Chapter XVIII, A Needed Rest
Chapter XIX, A National Threat
Chapter XX, Death Of A Grasshopper

(No Copyright Is Claimed, Anyone Is Free To Reproduce With Attribution--Billy Jones)

Chapter XX, Death Of A Grasshopper

When Nancy Barakat Vaughan arrived at her home it was as if the entire city had been told about what was going on before she had been called. Police were directing traffic on Cone Boulevard as reporters, bloggers and hundreds of people came to see what had been found at the Mayor's house. As the Mayor and her police escort made their way through traffic she thought about how the local bloggers had deemed her the "Grasshopper" and wondered why they hated her so. She just couldn't understand, she tried so hard to please everyone.

Still, she had to remain in charge. Greensboro had been failing since long before she came to power, it couldn't be her fault, she didn't even live in Greensboro when the textile mills and tobacco industry upon which the city was built began to crumble-- how could people blame her? Besides, between her time as Mayor, city councilwoman and her seat on the airport board she had resided over more economic development money than anyone ever in Greensboro politics-- was it her fault that none of it seemed to trickle down to the bottom? All she ever wanted to do was keep things in control.

When they finally got to her home she looked to see a familiar old Dodge pick-up truck parked across the street. On its side was painted the following:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F Kennedy"

"Get him out of here," Nancy ordered. "Get him out of here right now."

"Yes Ma'am," the officer replied. "Right away, Ma'am."

As officers went to carry out her orders Greensboro Police Chief  Wayne Scott met the Mayor and escorted her to the back yard. All the while reporters, photographers, bloggers and bystanders stood in the distance snapping photographs. "What's going on?" the mayor asked.

"We've found the source of the water poisoning," Chief Scott answered.

"In my back yard?" Nancy asked.

"Under your house," the Chief said pointing to the open crawl space.

As onlookers watched and photographed the entire event police and workers from water resources removed a pump and a tank filled with poison that had been hidden under the mayor's house and plumbed into her water lines. When turned on it operated at high enough pressures to pump its contents into the water mains and on down the street where it would be distributed throughout much of New Irving Park making the water there unsafe to drink.


As the Mayor had been living in a hotel for months she never knew the pump was there. It could even have been refilled and she would have never known about it.

Other pump and tank assemblies had been found in properties belonging to other city council members and prominent Greensboro citizens and because so many houses were now abandoned there was really no way of knowing how many more there might be that might not yet be put to use. "How can we stop this?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"We can spend the rest of our lives tracking these things down," Chief Scott said, "or we can order the immediate disconnection of every empty home and building connected to city water."


"What will that take?" the Mayor asked.

"Well I talked to water resources and the only way to make it foolproof is to dig up every water meter on every abandoned property." The Chief replied.


"What will it cost?" Nancy asked.

"The city doesn't have that much money," Chief Scott complained, "nowhere near that much money."


"So I guess Greensboro isn't a city anymore," Nancy said.


"And you're not a mayor," Scott said.

Nancy Vaughan looked at her smart phone. Already all over Facebook, Twitter and the local blogs people were accusing her and the City Council of having poisoned Greensboro's finest neighborhoods. Even her most loyal supporters were angry. The war was over for Greensboro and Greensboro had lost. But what had started here was still spreading throughout the rest of the nation because leaders everywhere refused to listen while there was still time to make a difference.

Chapter XIX, A National Threat

Author's note: Previously I was told that some of the scenarios  I've written of are not plausible or even possible. I promise you all of them have been researched and could be done quite easily by the right people. I'm now adding links and video to prove I've researched my work and that what I am writing, while fiction, is a real and possible threat.

***********

When the Democratic Super delegates nominated Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders the Democratic left was thrown into an uproar. Sanders had clearly won the popular vote but as had been the case all along the Democratic Party refused to give the nomination to an outsider.

Then when the final election came along in November the Electoral College did what Conservatives had most feared they might do-- they chose Hillary Clinton to be President of the United States of America over the wishes of the American people.

The entire nation was outraged.

All this had taken place shortly before the bombing of the Melvin Municipal Building where our story begins.and tensions were growing worse every day. Despite the fact that the bombings appeared to have stopped in Greensboro the bombings and other types of warfare was spreading to cities all across America as the left and the right sought revenge for everything from abuses against minorities, job losses, the failing middle class, shrinking 401Ks and everything in-between.

To make matters worse there seemed to be no leaders anywhere. The few people who stood up to lead were quickly hunted down and arrested or killed by police and Federal law enforcement so if there were any leaders they simply went underground. The various groups all seems to operate independently, as if they knew others existed but didn't know who they were. And many people seemed perfectly ambivalent towards the whole thing as long as they and their friends and families weren't being killed.

One of the problems faced by police was that almost anything could be turned into a weapon. A used gutter spike fired from a homemade crossbow could penetrate any bullet proof vest. Multi-stage compressed air rockets that no one could hear coming could be built from soft drink bottles and fired from thousands of feet away. They weren't accurate but with homemade warheads attached they were devastating and could be built inside any garage or spare room anywhere.




With the prices of scrap metals at a 50 year low things like old fire extinguishers and other metal cylinders were free for the taking and easy to convert into various types of mortars. And cheap 110 volt MIG welders meant that with just a few hours practice anyone who wanted to spend the time watching YouTube videos already knew how to do it long before the Feds ever began attempting to pull the plug on the information stream.



Bowling balls, rocks and lengths of chain could be fired from homemade cannons. Even toys could be weaponized as Super Soakers were converted into flame throwers and something as small as an ink pen could be made to fire a single bullet and fire they did. All over the nation, anywhere people believed the politicians had done them wrong.

********

Mayor Vaughan answered her cell phone in her office at the Guilford Green Foundation, "Hello Mother, is something wrong?" she asked.

"The police just called," Florence Barakat replied, "they want to search your house."

"Well why didn't they call me?" the Mayor asked.

"I don't think the officer realized you live there," Florence said. "He said he got my number from the register of deeds."

"Tell them I'll be right there," Nancy said as she hung up the phone then looked at her police escort and said, "Radio you Captain and tell him I'm on my way home and no one is to go inside my house until I get there."

"Yes, Ma'am," the officer replied.

Please continue reading  Chapter XX, Death Of A Grasshopper

Chapter XVIII, A Needed Rest

Former Greensboro City Councilman, Attorney Mike Barber and retired publisher Ogi Overman were waiting to tee up at Bryan Park Golf Course. "Did you hear about Nancy Hoffman?" Mike asked.

"What about her?" Ogi said.

"She had to sign the deed to her home over to the State to afford to get into a nursing home," Mike answered.

"Happens to a lot of people," Ogi said.

"Yeah," Barber replied, "but it just doesn't seem right."

"Well a lot of people tried to warn her that her partners, Jim Budd and Nick Piornack had run off with lots of investors money before," Ogi said.
"Yeah," Mike agreed, "but since when do we start listening to a bunch of bloggers?"

"Well just because you don't like what someone is saying," Ogi cautioned, "doesn't mean they're wrong. Some of those bloggers worked for you and I when we owned the Observer, they did a good job then."

"That's probably the same thing that's going to end up happening to Missy," Mike moaned. "I've really let her down. And the kids are going to get stuck with huge student loans to pay back."

"Is your business that bad?" Ogi asked.

"Since they bombed Grandover and Wyndham pulled out there's been no funding for First Tee," Mike answered. "We're closing the doors next week. And every attorney in town is already fighting tooth and nail to get assigned public defender cases that pay almost nothing. There's no work here for a lawyer."

"What about Justin?" Ogi asked, is he doing anything.

"Outling told me he and Jamal are going to resign from Council and go to work for some DC non profit," Mike answered. "At least Sharon Hightower still gets to keep her disability."

"Yeah," Ogi smiled, "until the bloggers figure out how she scammed it and go public with documents."

"Maybe then I can get her to hire me to represent her on her third fraud charge," Mike laughed.

"Make sure she signs over her house to you first," Ogi smiled.

"Oh, without a doubt," Mike said, "after all the grief that woman has give me over minority contractors you think I won't get my money up front."


*******

Meanwhile investigators and the Water Services Department continued to search for how and where the City's water supply was being poisoned and still confounded by the fact that only a select few neighborhoods had been targeted. Several residents of Irving Park had died and dozens more in New Irving Park, Sedgefield, Lake Daniel, Starmount Forest, Sunset Hills and Fisher Park had been rushed to area hospitals.

Hundreds of thousands of bottles of water were still being distributed every day but as the problems had spread first to Durham and them to other North Carolina cities the National Guard presence was much thinner than before. With police cruisers so packed with bottled water they looked like moonshine haulers from a previous time in North Carolina's history the officers didn't dare try to chase down anyone who simply sped away.

What had begun in Greensboro was becoming nationwide, but for the time being the bombings had stopped.

Please continue reading  Chapter XIX, A National Threat

Chapter XVII, Zack Attack

Zack Matheny and Rocky Scarfone sat at a table in the back of the newly remodeled downtown Ham's Restaurant. The place was almost empty just as it had been every night since it had been reopened. Were it not for Rocky's money laundering business and his grip on the local cocaine trade he would have left town a long time ago. "So what is it you needed to see me about?" Rocky asked.

"I'm broke," Zack answered.

"Hell," Rocky laughed, "everybody is broke these days. Look around, there's maybe 6 customers in here."

"I'm really broke," Zack said.

"Can't you find a job?" Rocky asked.

"That's what I came to you for," Zack replied.

"You want me to hire you?" Rocky asked.

"Well sure," Zack said, "I've always done everything I could do for you."

"That's true," Rocky said, "but with DGI out of business and you no longer on city council what can you do for me now? Wanna be a bouncer in one of my clubs?"

"Come on, Rock," Zack looked down at the floor, "you know I'm too small to be a bouncer. Besides, I've got a business degree."

"Yeah," Rocky answered, "but you also talk too much. That's how those bloggers found out about our business dealings before and got you pushed off of city council. How do I know you won't get all tanked up, do a bunch of coke and start running your mouth just like before?"

"Well could you loan me some money?" Zack asked as he took another drink. "That way I could start a business and get back on my feet."

"You could sell me your Land Rover," Rocky said.

"Can't," Zack answered, "It's leased and I'm behind on the payments."

"And your house?"

"House is in foreclosure." Zack mumbled, "But Rock you know I'm good for it."

"You're not looking very good to me," Rocky replied.

********

The economic situation caused by the bombings had forced cutbacks at every level of city services and most all funding to non profits had been eliminated. Even with the Business Improvement District special tax, Downtown Greensboro Incorporated had been forced to close its doors. Zack Matheny had finally been pushed out of DGI just as he had previously pushed out the two DGI presidents before him.

In the meantime the City had fell victim to poisoned water supplies in several of its more affluent neighborhoods. City leaders and Greensboro Water Services were at a complete loss as to how the incidents could be contained to certain neighborhoods and not others and yet to insure public safety city wide bottled water had to be distributed tying up thousands of man-hours for police, Greensboro firefighters and national guard.

The result was that even more emergency personnel had to be brought in making many residents feel even more like they were living in a police state. Angry groups applied for permits to march in protest only to be denied due to safety concerns which in turn made them even madder than they were before.


*********

Zack got up from the table, staggered out the front door and stood with his back to the front window of the restaurant. He pulled his pistol from his pocket, drew back the slide and shouted, "Fuck you, Rock!"

He placed his pistol in his mouth and blew his brains all over the window in the front of Ham's Restaurant.

As several diners began to puke up their dinner and others fainted to the floor, Rocky Scarfone looked on and said, "Well I guess it's good he picked a slow night. Everything's on the house."

Please continue reading Chapter XVIII, A Needed Rest

Chapter XVi, Denial

Most of the bombings were small, many in abandoned buildings, hence the rumors that the demolition workers were responsible but as there was no proof of any involvement on their part they denied it to the end.

Enforcing curfews and having the North Carolina National Guard on the streets wasn't good for public relations either. The demolition and construction workers were a tough breed who worked hard and played hard. Most were young men and most weren't above a night on the town at any opportunity. These young men could work all day at hard labor, drink all night, come in, shower, eat breakfast and go right back to work sleeping only on their lunch hour for several days at a time. This is not unusual behavior among young men in the trades, it's almost expected, but when an entire city becomes filled with this one type of demographic... Well, the system becomes taxed.

Soon the new Guilford County Jail wasn't big enough and a constant rotation of drunks and brawlers had to be briefly held in the old jail making everyone glad the County Commissioners hadn't fallen for downtown developer Milton Kern's scheme to buy the jail and convert it to a non profit homeless shelter.

Greensboro was becoming like the Wild West with the only businesses willing to locate anywhere in town being saloons, brothels, flop houses and liquor houses. And with all the City owned ABC stores having been bombed out even Greensboro's elites were sometimes to be seen dressing down and making their way into places they would have never before ventured. While there was a high probability one could end up in a brawl or be shot at a liquor house the local liquor houses seemed to be off limits to the bombers. Obviously the bombers weren't Muslim.

There was still the occasional right wing agitator come to town as had happened when the Reverend Nelson Johnson had been killed saving the lives of children passed out from smoke inhalation but the damage they caused was minimal and with the majority of Greensboro's population now being poor people of color and young radicals most KKK types weren't going to hang around very long. Racist they may be but stupid they were not.

When time for the next election came around a local blogger named Jeff Martin, known to many as Fecund Stench, who had long been critical of Mayor Vaughan, decided to run against her.

His campaign got off to a great start but it didn't take long before his writings about insurgencies and revolutions came back to haunt him. The Mayor's supporters used the fact that Mr Martin had for 25 years made his living writing computer software and began saying that he could have been the man behind the bombings-- someone smart enough to design devices to remotely stop city buses, dye the pools in the Greensboro Aquatic Center blood red or even attack the annual holiday parade with exploding drones.


But then Jeff Martin did the worst thing he could have possibly done to Greensboro and Nancy Barakat Vaughan.

Disgusted with the rhetoric, Jeff Martin withdrew his name as a candidate for Mayor of Greensboro just one week before the election leaving Nancy Vaughan to run against no one in what would become the worst public relations nightmare in the history of the City of Greensboro.

In a year when voter turn-out was the highest it had been in over 50 years, Nancy Vaughan won reelection with only 2% of the total vote. Mickey Mouse had more write-in votes but no one can find Mickey Mouse to determine if he lives in Greensboro and is eligible to serve as Mayor.

Indeed, something was surely in the water.

Continue reading Chapter XVII, Zack Attack

Chapter XV, Exodus

One thing the bombings had brought to the city were lots of jobs. Everyone who owned a dump truck, backhoe, skid steer loader, dozier, excavator or most any other kind of construction and demolition equipment was hiring. DH Griffin Companies, the world's second largest demolition contractor and located in Greensboro, was hiring new people faster than any time since having cleaned up after the World Trade Center bombings on 9-11-2001.

But there was also a mass exodus of highly paid college graduates packing up and leaving Greensboro at rates that couldn't be imagined, much less measured. The City's universities, UNCG, NC A&T, Greensboro College, Bennet College and even Guilford Technical Community College were dropping classes in the midst of quarters because professors and instructors were simply packing up their families and leaving town.

Angry and dissappointed students were signing up to go to school in other cities or dropping out altogether.

And it wasn't just a problem for institutions of higher learning. Greensboro's accounting, banking, pharmaceutical and insurance companies of which City leaders had long wooed as the means to economic development were losing key personnel in droves. Anyone who could afford to leave and had no real family ties to the city was soon to be gone.

In only a few months property values all over the city had dropped by 75% or more with no end in sight. Banks were refusing to lend to build anything in Greensboro as insurance companies wanted too much to insure it. Even people with paid off properties couldn't afford insurance premiums that now far exceeded what was once their monthly mortgages.

The people who worked at the new jobs became squatters in the homes abandoned by the brain drain. City staff gave up trying to enforce water and sewer regulations and even Duke Energy employees refused to disconnect illegally installed electrical hook-ups because neither Greensboro Police nor the Guilford County Sheriff's Department had the manpower to protect them.

Besides, the demolition workers were needed to clean up the debris from the almost daily explosions at one small factory or another. And with the factories all closing the demolition workers were quickly becoming the biggest economic driver in what was now a very upside down economy that everyone knew could never be sustained.

There were rumors that some of the demolition workers, themselves trained in explosives, were actually responsible for the explosions-- a means to perpetuate more work for themselves and their employers. Others thought it was Greensboro's homeless veterans who had disappeared from our streets after years of constant harassment by police, downtown business owners and City Council, returning for revenge. Unlike other insurgencies around the world there seemed to be no one group in charge, no ties between the few who were captured and killed. Most seemed not to know the others existed almost as if someone had put something in Greensboro's water supply to drive everyone mad.

In just a few short months the population of Greensboro had fallen from 280,000 residents to 160,000 residents with most of the losses being on Greensboro's once prosperous northwest side. Greensboro's tax base was destroyed, its bond ratings wiped out. Construction on the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts again ground to a halt as Downtown became a ghost town. Billions would be needed to build it all back and Millions of Dollars were leaving every day.

And all it had taken was one man or woman to set off the first bomb. 

How much worse could it get? I'm about to tell you in Chapter XVi, Denial.

Chapter XIV, Debris

Mayor Vaughan and North Carolina Governor Patrick McCrory toured devastated parts of Greensboro for the second time in less than two years. Not since the news was leaked that Mayor Vaughan had left Donald because of her relationship with Melissa Greer were people so angry with the mayor. Many had believed Mayor Vaughan had slept her way into her job as executive director of the Guilford Green Foundation-- a local non profit dedicated to uniting community, engaging, empowering, advocating on behalf of LGBT people and their allies, and connecting the community to diverse opportunities and resources--  and that working a full time job made it impossible for her to fulfill her duties as mayor of the city.

Still others were angry that she had managed to get City Council to grant her powers that were once the responsibility of a full time city manager even though the Mayor is only part time. People were saying emergency management, once the job of the city manager, could not be trusted to a part time mayor untrained and inexperienced in emergency management skills. Still, Nancy Vaughan refused to give up anything that resembled power or control.

Investigators had learned that both the airport and Purolator Facet explosions were caused by remotely detonated charges placed in close proximity to liquid hydrogen. In the case of the airport the hydrogen along with numerous other explosive chemicals and oxidizers were on the Airgas delivery truck that had driven into the tunnel under the airport just as it had done every Tuesday morning for over two decades. The bomber could have been miles away watching the truck via telescope or possibly even GPS tracking device-- no one could be sure.

At Purolator Facet, a manufacturer of parts for helicopters, M-1 Abrams tanks, Trident Nuclear submarines, various jet airplanes both civilian and military, huge cast iron bells are used to heat treat metals to specific hardness. The fuel used to heat the metals once placed inside the cast iron bells is liquid hydrogen stored in a 10,000 gallon vertical tank located at the back of the building as the photograph taken from before the explosion shows. With no security on site, anyone could have easily drove their car right next to the tank, got out, attached a detonator and sped away in less than a minute.

A city whose manufacturing base located mostly on the west side of town, surrounding its only transportation hub now shut down, and dependent primarily on the manufacture of items for military use was not only a target for home grown terrorism as this was believed to be but also a prime target of international terrorism as well.

To add to the Mayor's problems was her maiden name, Barakat. While Barakat is used by both Jews and Muslims, Nancy Barakat Vaughan had never disclosed to the public from which her family came. This lead many on every side to be suspect of her. And with people getting killed people were looking for excuses to point their fingers at anyone they could find.

Cleaning the debris from the streets and highways required about 48 hours and traffic was again able to flow as if nothing had ever happened. Cleaning up the debris of bodies, buildings and burned down forests would take months. Cleaning up the debris that have become Nancy Vaughan's biggest nightmare had yet to begin.

Please continue reading Chapter XV, Exodus.

Chapter XIII, Oh Give Me A Home

While the year had began with record numbers of homeless people in Greensboro the year had closed out with a huge reduction in the number of homeless people-- especially homeless veterans sleeping on Greensboro streets. And as much as Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan would like to have taken credit for those huge reductions in numbers the City of Greensboro was completely unable to account for where all those homeless veterans and many others in Greensboro's homeless population had gone.

This was on the Mayor's mind that night as the police officer who was driving her to her new home on Wilton Drive where she had lived since leaving her husband Donald Vaughan. Discussions with detectives had brought up the possibility that homeless veterans and others were possibly being recruited into paramilitary groups and used to train young fighters. That said, until today no evidence had been found that any such actions were taking place.

As the police officer turned the corner from West Cone Boulevard to Holly Drive he brought the car to a stop, turned on his blue lights and started turning the car back around. "What's going on?" Mayor Vaughan asked looking at the hundreds of people gathered just outside of her house.

"I don't know," the officer replied, "but I'm not taking you in there until we get some back-up." He reached down to turn up the volume on his police radio and heard the news that a giant explosion had completely demolished much of an industrial park just off of Interstate 40 near Sandy Ridge Road.

Mayor Vaughan reached to turn on her telephone and it immediately began to ring, "Where are you?" her daughter asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Nancy answered, "Do you know what happened?"

"The TV said Purolator Facet blew up," her daughter replied. "Friendly Avenue and I-40 are closed because of all the debris on the road. The building and everything in it are completely gone. There's just a big black spot next to a lake."

"Oh my God," the Mayor cried, "I just had a meeting there today."

"I know," her daughter said, "I was scared to death. All the neighbors and lots of other people are here at the house asking about you, the phone keeps ringing and I don't know what to tell people."

"Tell them I'm right around the corner," Nancy said, "I'll be right home. And pack your things, we're going to go stay in a hotel."

By the time the mayor arrived home a couple more police officers had already arrived on the scene and were asking people to stand clear. The officer pulled into her circular driveway, stopped directly in front of her front door to let her out then waited by the car as other officers escorted her inside the house.

Please continue reading  Chapter XIV, Debris.

Chapter XII. The Bomber Returns

Late on Sunday night a single figure dressed all in black cut his way through the chain link fence at Airgas National Welders on East Market Street in Greensboro. Quietly he made his way to one of the trucks parked there and crawled underneath. A minute later he was back out and disappeared somewhere along the NCRR railroad tracks that run right behind the building.



On Monday morning Wayne Washburn. manager of the East Market branch of Airgas, unlocked the gate and went inside where he found the fence had been cut. He immediately called 911. Security camera video had only caught fleeting images of an all black figure quickly moving in and out the shadows.The alarms on the building had never gone off and because nothing dangerous or valuable is stored outside the police assumed it was just another failed attempt to steal Nitrous oxide, more commonly known as laughing gas. Still, Wayne wasn't so sure.

On Tuesday morning an Airgas delivery truck making its scheduled weekly delivery to Greensboro's Piedmont Triad International Airport stopped in front of an entrance to a tunnel leading under the airport where the driver pushed a button on an intercom mounted on a pole next to his truck. "How can I help you?" a voice said.

"Airgas with a delivery for concessions," the driver replied looking up at the camera. Just as had happened for over two decades the doors rolled up and the driver drove inside to the dock where he was to unload carbon dioxide gas to be used in the soft drinks served in the airport concessions above. And just like every week over a dozen bottles of highly explosive liquid Hydrogen plus acetylene, propane and numerous other flammables plus various oxidizers were packed on the same truck. "Thanks," the driver said wondering if anyone ever heard him.

Former Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins was in his real estate office at NAI Piedmont Triad when he felt the explosion from somewhere in the distance. Perkins had been at the top of the world before running for mayor but infidelity, his inability to manage his business in anything other than an up economy and a number of local bloggers who had exposed all that and then some had been his undoing. Now, instead of owning NAI Piedmont, he just worked there.

 Less than a minute later another broker, Nancy Cox, stepped into Robbie's office and said, "The terrorist just blew up the airport."

"Was that what we just felt?" Robbie asked.

"I think so," Ms Cox replied.

"The airport is over 10 miles away," Perkins exclaimed, "the whole thing must have blown up."

"I'm reading the news on my phone, "Cox said. "The police are evacuating the entire area, closing all roads in and out. It must be really bad."

"Let's go turn on the TV," Robbie said, "everything else can wait."

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan was setting in her new office at the Guilford Green Foundation balling her eyes out as she read the news on her smart phone. Then an anonymous text message came for her, "This time we're coming for you."

Please continue reading Chapter XIII, Oh Give Me A Home

Chapter XI. So Greensboro

Investigators from the FBI, Homeland Security and Greensboro Police were gathered to share information. "How's the investigation going?" Chief Scott asked.

"We know how," Detective Steed answered, "but not the who."

"So give me the how," Chief Scott ordered.

"The bomber," Detective Steed explained, "hacked into the computers of various targets. How many we're not sure. Then he placed orders to specific companies he had also hacked for the items he needed."

"How did he get it delivered and installed without getting caught?" Scott asked.

"Fake e-mails, fake IP Addresses, dozens of freight forwardarders from all over the world and fake work orders issued to local companies to do the delivery and installation," Steed answered.

"In other words," Scott said, "this guy could be anywhere."

"He could be sitting in this room and we'd not know it," Detective Mark Steed agreed.

*********

The Reverend Nelson Johnson was known throughout the nation for his roll in leading what was then called the Communist Worker's Party in a Death To the Klan rally that resulted in five CWP members' deaths in the African-American community of Morningside Homes in East Greensboro in 1979 at the hands of members of the KKK and Nazi Party in shootings sanctioned by the Greensboro Police Department and then Mayor Jim Melvin.

Nelson Johnson had spend his life paying for the mistakes of his youth and mistakes he'd never committed and still thousands in and around Greensboro hated him. As they say here in the Southland, 'one ah shit wipes out a thousand 'attaboys.'

It was on a Monday morning when the Reverend Johnson felt the explosion rock the Beloved Community Center, a mixed race church and center of community activism where he was executive director and pastor. He ran from his office towards the direction of the explosion only to find the hallway completely engulfed in flames. There was no way he could get through and no way out for the classroom of kindergartners trapped inside.

Despite being in his seventies, Nelson ran to the outside of the building and using a baseball bat one of the kids had left lying on the ground knocked the window out of the classroom. He climbed in the window where he found the teacher and many of the children already passed out from smoke inhalation.

Witnesses said they saw children flying out the window as if someone were throwing them. Then they got a glimpse of the Reverend Johnson's face as he struggled to push the teacher up and out the window. The Reverend Nelson Johnson never came out of the burning building.

 Three known KKK agitators from Idaho were arrested in Greensboro the night of the bombing but had to be released as it could never be proven they were involved with the bombing. They had to be escorted to Piedmont Triad International Airport under heavy guard to get them out of town alive.

Reverend Johnson had been very involved in Greensboro's Black Lives Matter movement and for Greensboro BLM  this was the final straw-- something had to be done and done now. Even many white people who had previously had nothing good to say about Reverend Johnson now considered him a hero and joined in the movement as well as the Beloved Community Center.

Plans for a protest were made. The local NAACP had no choice but to finally get fully on board or risk loosing everything. The Simpkins PAC, under pressure from its funders, poured money into promoting the march. Even Mayor Vaughan and the Greensboro City Council announced they would be participating in the march. Peaceful protesters black and white showed up from around the world.

The Greensboro Police and Guilford County Sheriff's Department were in full force the day of the march. All days off and all vacations had been cancelled.

The march began at North Carolina A&T University on East Market Street and headed west into downtown. People sang hymns between performances by Cakalak Thunder, the A&T Marching Band and others. Remnants of what was once Occupy Greensboro performed street theater. It was indeed the beginning of a glorious day and a fitting tribute to a man who had, with a few tragic mistakes, spent his life working to help others.

As the crowd approached the corner of Market and Greene a group of young men, teenagers probably not more than fifteen or sixteen years old began shouting obscenities at the police and throwing rocks and things from their backpacks!

The police chased them but the teens ran through the crowds of protesters knocking people down along the way as did the police who were chasing them. The protesters started screaming and shouting, pushing, trying to get out of the way. A police officer caught one of the teens but the teen pulled a knife and attempted to stab the officer. A single shot from a .40 caliper Glock rang out and protesters panicked running in every direction.

It was then the Greensboro Police Department deployed their new LRAD or long-range acoustic device to get the crowds under control, but they quickly learned that trying to talk 100,000 screaming people into following instructions-- even with an LRAD-- is tantamount to herding cats. It simply doesn't work. The officers attempted to direct the protesters using street names as to tell them which direction to go but with so many people being from out of town the efforts were wasted. The same was true of using directions on the compass-- people simply don't carry compasses in their pockets. As a crowd control device the LRAD was useless.

Someone whose name was never made public by GPD gave the order to switch the LRAD to its deterrent tone. People immediately were forced to cover their ears, fall to the ground and seek shelter. Others pushed in windows and doors on buildings in hopes of being able to hide from the noise and the pain it brought.

Suddenly a single tiny drone appeared in the skies overhead. As the officers were also holding their hands over their heads none of them could reach for their guns. The drone dived in a fast spiral crashing into the LRAD equipped patrol car and exploded!

While no one knew who the Gate City Bomber was it was now apparent to Greensboro's status quo where he stood and the Elites knew that even if they captured him he had sparked a revolution they could never put down.

*********

Interlude:

Terrorism has nothing to do with religion. Terrorists simply use religion as an excuse for doing what they find to be morally unacceptable. People turn to religion, drugs and alcohol when times are at their worst. The history books and even the Bible are full of references of tribes attacking other tribes in times of drought and famine. None of this is new. Don't like something? Find an old outdated verse in the Bible or the Koran to use as an excuse to eradicate it and everyone who loves it. But just because you can justify it with some verse in some old book whose true origins can't be proven despite well over a thousand years of research doesn't make your actions right. Or excusable.

But what is excusable is fighting for your survival when others are holding you down. The true causes of terrorism in the modern age are poverty,  the greed of those who control our governments, and those who corrupt the systems. And poverty, greed and corruption threaten your very survival. Fight for those reasons and you've no need to mask your fight with religious extremism and hypocrisy. Just remember: you cannot pick and chose which truths you wish to make known. You must expose all.


I chose certain individuals in this story because of their actions. Everyone who has kept up with GPD for the last decade knows about Captain James Hinson. And Mayor Vaughan? I personally sat in a booth across from her at Bernie's BBQ on East Bessemer Avenue before she became Mayor and warned her that East Greensboro was starving, troubled and set to explode. And she did nothing except push the agenda of Greensboro's elites while Greensboro went from the 4th Hungriest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the USA to the #1 Hungriest Metropolitan Statistical Area under her watch.

Yes, the preceding story is a work of fiction but like every revolution Greensboro's revolution will only require one man or one woman to start it. I'm not that person, never was. Try as I might I simply don't have what it takes. But something tells me that person is out there and once he or she begins there will be no turning back. Someone will lead the revolution. Every great religious text speaks of a great leader coming to lead their people because it is the one truth of every religion that can be proven time and time again throughout history. It will happen because history always repeats itself.

And that, my friends, is the reality we all have to face like it or not.Are you going to be the ones to stand in the way of history?

There's nothing in this for me. I don't make anything from my efforts. I can't legally sell a book that uses real names without their permission and it's probably not that good of a book anyway. I'm too old to reap the long term rewards that turning the city around might bring. And with the death of my son, Jason on December 11, 2012, I have no heirs to leave anything to. My political activities are solely for Greensboro's working classes, nothing more. And like I've said since I started my own efforts to change Greensboro, "Change one city and the world will follow."

Buy hey, don't take my word for it, pick yourself up a copy of the 1951 book The True Believer by Eric Hoffer who was able to escape from the USSR to come to the United States under a communist regime of true believers.  I think you'll then understand how easily this story or something like it could come true.

And with the lull in the storm now passed please continue reading Chapter XII. The Bomber Returns

Chapter X. Picking Up The Pieces

Mayor Vaughan waited in the back of 1618 drinking Long Island Iced Teas. The bartender should have cut her off two drinks ago but how do you cut off the most powerful woman in a city with a reputation for making business very hard on anyone who dares say no to the city's status quo of which the Mayor represented even if she wasn't old money herself?

Why couldn't this shit have happened to Robbie Perkins? She thought. He started this shit. I inherited this mess from him. And that bastard, Donald Vaughan, why didn't the bomber blow him up? "I want my little girl back," Nancy cried as she laid her head down on the table.

"We'll take her home," Chief Scott told the bartender. "I appreciate you calling me personally. This has been hard on everyone. I don't know how much more she can take."

"I don't know how much more any of us can take," the bartender replied.

*********

There was no Wyndham Golf Tournament to be held. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion the PGA and Wyndham International both agreed it was unsafe to risk the lives of so many to play games in Greensboro. Tickets were refunded and reservations cancelled. The loss in economic impact to Greensboro, High Point, Jamestown and Guilford County was beyond measure.

 The explosion had taken place in the loading docks of the Grandover Resort. According to FBI investigators the bombs had been substituted for gallon cans of soups and sauces that were to be delivered to the kitchen. Napalm, a combination of diesel fuel and styrofoam chunks, had been placed into containers and fused. Then remotely detonated via wireless Internet devices.

Only 3 people were killed but the sticky Napalm had caused extensive damages to the building and many had to be treated for smoke inhalation. Even though the building was made of concrete and steel the 1,500-2,200° at which Napalm burns meant Grandover would be closed for many months just to make the necessary inspections to make sure the building was still sound. Then the repairs would begin.

It would seem as if Greensboro's glut of luxury hotel rooms which had plagued the City for years was immediately solved except that in the coming months, nothing and no one came to Greensboro for anything as the ACC, US Olympic Swim Committee and every conference right down to the Veterans of Foreign Wars found other cities in which to host their events. Even the Greensboro Grasshoppers were playing their home games in Winston-Salem.

The Gate City Bomber had proved himself capable of striking as hard as he wanted to strike. And despite the low death toll of the Grandover bombing everyone knew him to be the most serious threat to face the city ever. 

*********

Detective Mark Steed poured over the evidence. All these many months and still he felt as if he was no closer to finding the bomber than he was before. Greensboro Police, FBI and Homeland Security had caught several people tossing molotov cocktails and setting off other sorts of bombs. One attempt at a suicide bombing inside Beth David Synagogue had been averted and several shootings had taken place that were racially or religiously motivated but none of them were actually connected to the Gate City Bomber in any way that anyone could put their fingers on. In the minds of most people, anyone who didn't share their own views was a potential terrorist.

And everyone knew the long standing Southern tradition of bombing African-American churches would soon rear its ugly head as outside agitators whose motives we would never comprehend seized upon the opportunity to add fuel to the fires.

Please continue reading  Chapter XI. So Greensboro

Chapter IX. A Waiting Game

Nancy Barakat Vaughan waited for what seemed like hours alone in a tiny room until finally Special Agent Keith Mularski walked into the room. "It's about time someone told me what's going on here," Mayor Vaughan demanded.

"I'm only going to tell you this once," Agent Mularski replied sternly, "you and your husband as well as several other very prominent people are charged with withholding evidence in a Federal terrorism investigation. I will be the only one making demands. Any questions?"

"You've got Donald too?" Nancy asked.

"Our agents observed Donald and your daughter boarding an airplane piloted by Paul Mengurt a few days ago," Mularski answered. "Believing they were leaving the country we contacted Homeland Security who provided two Air Force F-16s to intercept them and force them to land in New Orleans."

"Is my daughter okay,?" Nancy asked.

"She's fine," Mularski answered.

"Can I see her?" Nancy asked.

"I'm afraid not," Agent Mularski insisted, "Currently your daughter is in protective custody and not on her way to some brothel in Costa Rica."

"Is this about the letter?" Nancy mumbled looking down at the floor. She was starting to cry.

"It is," Mularski replied.

"How did you find out about it?" Nancy asked.

"The bomber blind copied the FBI,"Mularski explained. "Presumably we got copies of every letter sent which brings up lots of questions as to some of the things that lead up to these terrorist events. Things we intend to find out about."

"Shouldn't you be looking for the bomber?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"This is just another way to do it," Mularski replied, "and should we happen to discover a few crooks, con men and crooked politicians in the process that's all the better, don't you think?"

*********

Rocky Scarfone was furious. "What do you mean you want to search my computers? I'm the victim, remember?"

"We're looking for anything that might help us in the investigation," Detective Steed replied. Sometimes the simplest little things can turn up clues. We'd appreciate your cooperation, Mr Scarfone."

"That'll be a cold day in Hell," Rocky shouted. "You'll have to come back with a warrant to search my computers."

"I'll see you and raise you," Detective Steed smiled. "These officers and I will just hang around until the warrant gets here. As a matter of fact, Judge Beaty said he'd be happy to bring it here personally."

*********

Things were getting under way at the Sedgefield Country Club as the start of the annual Wyndham Golf Tournament was set to begin. The attacks had been reduced to only the occasional molotov cocktail and people were beginning to get back out and enjoy life again,

Tournament director Mark Brazil was looking over the course when he noticed a truck parked near the concessions area that had been sitting there with a flat tire for a couple of days. Thinking he should probably see about getting it moved he walked closer with the intention of writing down its tag number.

Mr Brazil was almost to the truck when he heard the explosion come from the Grandover Resort and Conference Center where most of the PGA golf pros and wealthiest guests were staying. He turned to see huge clouds of black smoke rising into the air then ran to his car and drove to Grandover as fast as he could.

Please continue reading  Chapter X. Picking Up The Pieces

Chapter VIII. Let The Games Begin

It started out slow, one here, one there. Then over time it started to pick up. The people were outraged. Local bloggers social media activists and others started putting old toilets in their own front yards with signs saying,

"For Sale: Naming Rights To My Toilet.
Proceeds to Steven Tanger Performing Arts Center" 

Apparently random drive-by shootings into homes along Sunset Drive, Pembroke and Cornwallis Boulevard began taking place almost nightly with few ever being caught. Other parts of Greensboro had experienced such things before but this had never before been seen in North Carolina's most exclusive and wealthy neighborhood.

Irving Park residents demanded City Council convert Irving Park to a gated community to keep them safe but the logistics of so many entrances and exits and the fact that all the streets were publicly owned and maintained by the City of Greensboro made doing so physically and legally impossible. After a heated and lengthy city council meeting in which all the city council members were loudly and publicly reminded who buttered their bread, for sale signs began popping up all through Irving Park at a rate never before seen.

Molotov Cocktails became the bomb most often used and the targets were most often garbage dumpsters, empty store fronts and convenience stores.

Bombers came from the poorer east and south sides of town intent on forcing change to bomb downtown. Bombers came from the more prosperous north a west sides of town to bomb downtown intent on framing the east and south to make things look worse than they already were.

Arrests were made but none who were arrested could be connected to the infamous Gate City Bomber as he had been dubbed by the FBI and the media. They were just angry people who had been whipped up into lashing out.

Upper middle class neighborhoods in the northern and western parts of the city formed militias to protect their neighborhoods from the hordes of attackers they believed would soon be coming from the east and south but when the attacks never came the militias became anxious and zealous. Some of the rag tag militias traveled into eastern and southern neighborhoods never to return not fully understanding they couldn't carry enough firepower to take on  overwhelming numbers on their home turf.

 Others mistakenly attacked anyone who drove into their own neighborhoods. In just a matter of months postal workers, UPS drivers and others were refusing to make deliveries in certain northwest Greensboro neighborhoods for fear of being shot by anxious snipers. Just as they had done for the last century they found their firepower ineffective because they didn't know who the enemy really was.

As a matter of fact: no one knew who they were really fighting.

Some, out of fear more than any sense of loyalty or allegiance, posted signs in front of their homes that read:

"Bombs Away!
Just Not Here Please.

Go Gate City Bomber!"

We had all become terrorists.

*********

FBI Special Agent Keith Mularski walked trough the Melvin Municipal Building taking in the construction repairs that were going on around him. A few months ago anyone could have walked freely to anywhere in the building without being questioned but at almost every turn he came upon Greensboro Police Officers standing guard. He held up his badge. "Go right ahead, Sir" a young GPD officer told him.

Special Agent Mularski walked into a meeting room where Mayor Vaughan was meeting with GPD Chief Scott, Assistant Chief Hinson, Detective Mark Steed, City Manager Jim Westmoreland, Donnie Turlington, Director of Communications and Marketing, Zack Matheny of Downtown Greensboro Incorporated, City Council members and several other people of waning wealth and power in the city. As Agent Mularski walked into the room, Mayor Vaughan looked up and said, "Sir, we're in the middle of an important meeting."

"Yes, Madam Mayor," he replied holding up his badge, "but I'm Special Agent Mularsk with the FBI and it's very important that you come with me right now."

"Right now?" Mayor Vaughan asked. "Can't it wait until we're done here?"

"No Ma'am," Agent Mularski answered. "It's very important that you come right away."

"Well I guess if it's that important," Mayor Vaughan said as she raised from her seat to walk to the door.

"Captain Hinson," Agent Mularski asked, "would you please escort the Mayor and I to my car?"

"Yes Sir," James Hinson said as he quickly rose from his seat to follow them out the door.

When they walked outside a team of FBI agents were waiting to escort the two of them to the car.
FBI Special Agent Keith Mularski looked at the agents and ordered, "Read them their rights and bring them back to the office."

Then he walked away.

Please continue reading  Chapter IX. A Waiting Game

Chapter VII. Blood Flows And Tears Fall

Nancy Vaughan sat crying in the comfort of her Million Dollar Irving Park mansion on Sunset Drive. Donald stared at her impatiently. "So are you ready to listen to common sense now?" Donald asked.

"What do you mean?" Nancy asked.

"You almost got our daughter killed at the parade today," Donald answered, "You're lucky to be alive yourself."

"You sound as if the attack was my fault," Nancy shouted.

"In a way it is your fault," Donald replied. "It's both of our faults."

"What in the hell are you talking about?" Nancy shouted.

"Here," Donald said handing Nancy a letter, "I got this in the mail two days ago, read it."

"Donald R Vaughan,

It's time you and Nancy confessed your parts in cheating the people of Greensboro. It's time you admitted your sins publicly. It's time both of you answered for stealing people's homes and property. It's time you admitted the special favors you've done for those who are closest to you. It's time you paid for your crimes. Do these things or many more will die.

Signed
Greensboro's Working Class"

"This came with the letter," Donald said handing Nancy a copy of a check written on an account addressed to a business located in a building Don and Nancy owned along with their business partner, Paul Mengurt.

"This doesn't prove anything," Nancy said. "You said so yourself."

"No, Donald agreed, "it doesn't prove anything but it's enough in the mind of a terrorist to justify killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Besides, you and I both know it's true."

"So you expect me to confess to a scheme you, Paul and your buddies cooked up?" Nancy asked.

"No," Donald asked, "even though you're as big a part of it as I am I don't expect either one of us to confess. What I do expect is for you to let me take our daughter to Costa Rica before you get her killed. And I'm not taking no for an answer."

*********

Police Captain James Hinson sat in his car parked on Greene Street just outside of the parade route while the crime lab teams, FBI investigators, Homeland Security and others swarmed across the scene looking for anything that might give them even the slightest clue as to who was behind the attacks.

He thought about all the years he had been a police officer, his rise to the top and why he would never become chief no matter how hard he tried. James Hinson had learned the hard way you can only blackmail your way so far before your own life becomes worthless in the eyes of those you're blackmailing.

Hinson was the owner of three group homes for women. When local anti-police activist Ben Holder learned of this and learned that Hinson had never informed his chain of command of his off duty activities, Holder went before City Council to expose Hinson in the hopes of getting then Lieutenant Hinson fired but as usual Ben Holder had gone off half cocked with the long term result being Hinson's promotion to captain and eventually assistant chief of police.

What Holder failed to realize was that Hinson's group homes were where he recruited the prostitutes needed to staff a place called the Executive Suite which was frequented by Greensboro's wealthiest male clientele as well as numerous Greensboro and Guilford County law enforcement officers. And while the Executive Suite was eventually closed it was common knowledge that James Hinson had lots of information on a lot of men that many of them didn't want made public.

Hinson also ran something of a special favors program for a connected few like City Councilman Jamal Fox and others who called Hinson when they got into scrapes with the Greensboro Police Department. Hinson would show up on the scene, tell the officer to let him handle it and make everything disappear with the understanding that the favor would be called in some day. Even when Hinson got caught doing so that disappeared as well.

Years of this sort of behavior made Hinson both hated and feared by almost everyone in Greensboro. And yet his power was such that even the City Council didn't dare cross him. As he sat in his car he again read the letter he had received a couple of days before.

"Captain James Hinson,

 You built a carer on secrets never told, half truths and lies to line your pockets and the pockets of those who prey on the innocent. Now you must stand before the public and admit  your sins or the killing will continue until even those you hold dearest are taken from you. Do these things or many more will die.

 Signed
Greensboro's Working Class"

Captain Hinson folded up the letter and put it in his pocket. Never before had he faced a threat he couldn't lie his way out of.

*********

The entire city was uneasy. No one felt safe. Downtown was once again a ghost town and remained that way for the next month. Businesses were closing and properties were being listed for sale but no one was interested in buying. Downtown Greensboro Incorporated had to rent a meeting room at the Koury Convention Center because their members all refused to meet in their downtown offices. Everyone knew that if this trend continued Greensboro's tax base would be devastated and the city bankrupted.

Already the City of Greensboro's bond rating had been lowered.

In Greensboro's poorer working class neighborhoods flyers began appearing stapled to utility poles, buildings, benches, trees, signs and most anything else they could be stapled to.

"The time has come when we must take back what is ours. We cannot allow them to push us from our homes any longer. We cannot allow their police to kill our children any longer. We can no longer accept taxation for the purpose of providing welfare to the rich. The time has come when some must die so that others may live free.

Join the revolution.

Signed
Greensboro's Working Class"

"Have you had any luck tracking down the printer these flyers were printed on?" Chief Scott asked.

"Some of them were printed on City of Greensboro Public Library printers," Detective Steed answered. "Others were printed on various printers at UNCG and A&T. Some were printed at places like Kinkos and the UPS Store. And others on printers you can buy at any place that sells computers and office products."

Please continue reading  Chapter VIII. Let The Games Begin

Chapter VI. December Skies

Greensboro Transit Authority buses were running again despite the fact that no one had ever figured out how they were managed to be brought to a halt. And the dye in the water at the Greensboro Aquatic Center had been found to come from new filter systems that had been installed by Talley Water Treatment Company-- a long standing and well respected water treatment company in Greensboro. A group of city officials were gathered in the police station on Maple Street for a meeting.

"So you're telling me," Mayor Vaughan asked, "that Talley Water Company had a work order from the City of Greensboro to install these things in the aquatic center-- is that what I'm hearing?"

"That's what I'm saying, Madam Mayor," Detective Steed answered.

"So who ordered them?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"Our computers ordered them," Mark replied. "That is, the City's computers ordered them after someone hacked into the City's computers and told them to order them. Talley got an e-mail telling them that a special filter system was being required by the United States Olympic Committee and as soon as the filters arrived at Talley's dock they installed them and sent the City a bill."

"Have we paid it?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"Not yet," City Manager Jim Westmoreland answered.

"Are we going to pay it?" the Mayor asked.

"Well," City Attorney Tom Carruthers answered, "As Talley Water Company acted in good faith and there was no way they could know the work orders and e-mails were forged I think we have no choice but to pay it."

"And what about the cost of the filtration system itself," the Mayor asked, "are we going to pay for that as well?"

"Actually," Detective Steed answered, "the City paid $100,000 for that the day it was ordered six months ago."

"You mean to tell me," Mayor Vaughan exclaimed, "that the City of Greensboro is financing terrorist attacks against the City without our knowing we've been doing so?"

"Exactly," Chief Scott answered. "And it gets even worse. We have no idea of how long he's been buying this stuff or how much he's bought."

"So how do we follow the money?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

Everyone in the room looked at one another for an answer that was never to come.

*********

It was warm for early December. The annual Festival of Lights had gone off without a hitch. It had been weeks since there had been any incidents and things were finally getting back to normal.

Over 90,000 people had gathered along the parade route for the annual Greensboro Holiday Parade and the floats, marching bands, antique fire trucks, veterans groups, classic car clubs and others were just beginning their march down Greene Street as the parade got under way.

The sun was shining brightly as majorettes twirled their batons and Cakalak Thunder, Greensboro's radical drum corps beat their drums, danced in the streets and waved their banners for their latest cause. Hope was in the air.

But hope wasn't the only thing that was in the air.

Roughly 5 miles east of downtown Greensboro, dozens of tiny airplanes-- autonomous drones-- were lifting off and flying straight towards downtown Greensboro.

A North Carolina State Trooper first spotted them as they flew above East Market Street as he was pulling out of the Highway Patrol station headed east. He called in, spun his car around and clocked them at 60 miles per hour with his RADAR gun. The Greensboro Police Department had less than 2 minutes notice to stop the parade and evacuate over 90,000 people from downtown Greensboro. An evacuation that wasn't going to happen.

As the drones got closer in they divided up and started following different streets to different points along the parade route. As the drones flew nearer officers drew their weapons and began to fire but few flying at 60 miles per hour were hit.

The few that were hit exploded in the air scattering tiny pellets like shotgun pellets-- bird shot. The others exploded at or just before they impacted the ground sending pellets in every direction through the crowds.

People panicked, began running in every direction trampling over children and old people. Some of the people driving in the parade drove right through the crowds to make their escape. Everywhere people were screaming and children were crying.

Despite the fact that Greensboro and Guilford County EMS have long resisted the use of medevac helicopters, dozens of helicopters from other counties had to be flown in to take patients to emergency rooms in Winston-Salem, High Point, Chapel Hill, Durham, Danville and Raleigh. Every available ambulance was put to use as local emergency rooms overflowed.

At the end of the day, 213, mostly children, were dead and over 1000 injured.

It was believed the cost of insuring the next year's holiday parade would mean no more parades.

Please continue reading Chapter VII. Blood Flows And Tears Fall

Chapter V. Greensboro Aquatic Center

"Guilford County Metro 911," the operator answered. "What's the address of your emergency?"

"The Greensboro Aquatic Center," the caller answered.

"And the problem?" the 911 operator asked.

"The pools are filled with blood," the caller answered.

"Would you repeat that?" the operator asked.

"The swimming pools are all filled with blood," the caller repeated, "and the showers, sinks and toilets are all filled with blood too."

"Stay on the line," the operator requested. "I have officers on the way, they should be there in 3 minutes or less."

It didn't take long for investigators to figure out the water had simply been dyed but practice and swim meets would be cancelled until further notice as everything had to be drained, scrubbed, flushed and refilled.

It was assumed that the dye in the showers, sinks and toilets was delivered by way of a tap installed somewhere between the water meter and the facility itself so X-ray equipment and utility locating experts were brought in to try and pinpoint where that might be before digging up the entire water service. But the pools were another mystery altogether as the water in the pools isn't replaced very often.

It had become apparent these incidents were the work of more than one person.

*********

"Tell me they know how he stopped the buses?" Mayor Vaughan asked. "It's been a week since we ran a bus and the east side of town is up in arms. People need to get to their jobs."

"I wish I knew," Chief Scott answered. "Our mechanics, the dealership mechanics and even independent garages have been all over them and nobody has found any reason why they should have stopped. All we know is what the drivers told us, the air pressure suddenly leaked down and the Stopmasters locked the breaks down."

"What are Stopmasters?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"They're a sort of emergency brake installed on buses and heavy trucks that automatically sets the breaks in the event of low air pressure." Chief Scott explained.

"And the buses can't be driven without them?" Mayor Vaughan asked.

"The shop foreman tells us it's technically possible, highly illegal and very dangerous," Chief Scott replied. "He said that without Stopmasters the buses would have no brakes at all when they lose air pressure."

"Well I guess he knows more about bus brakes than I do," the Mayor said.

"Me too," Chief Scott agreed, "Before this happened I'd never heard of a Stopmaster."

"Are the buses safe to drive?" the Mayor asked.

"Well they've all be swept for bombs with dogs and every device known to us, the FBI and Homeland Security and all of them have come up clean," Chief Scott answered. "We've had drivers doing test runs and all of them are running just fine. As long as this madman doesn't stop them again I think they'll be fine."

"Then I don't know what else to do but call Donnie Turlington and tell him to issue a press release that the buses will be back on their normal schedules tomorrow morning." Mayor Vaughan said. "Thank you Wayne."

"Just doing what I can," Wayne Scott replied.

*********

Detective Mark Steed was getting nowhere. Just like the FBI and Homeland Security his efforts to chase down IP addresses always went nowhere. Every IP address he followed was faked or simply disappeared after having been bounced off of server after server. He decided to leave his office and take a walk in the hopes that stretching his legs might clear his head.

Mark walked a few blocks to the Green Bean Coffee Shop on South Elm just two blocks down from the Cone Denim Entertainment Center where the smoke bombs had filled the building creating a panic and causing people to trample one another almost to death. What is it this guy wants? Mark thought to himself. What's his end game?

Two cups of coffee and Mark was on his feet again walking towards City Center Park and Center Pointe. He was almost to the park when he saw the abandoned Burton's Pharmacy building explode scattering debris in every direction and knocking down part of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce building on North Elm Street!

Mark ran as fast as he could. People were running out of the building when he got there screaming, glass and debris everywhere. He could hear sirens in the distance as he ran inside doing what he could to get people out and render first aid. I don't know what his end game is, Mark thought, but right now he wants blood.

Please continue reading Chapter VI. December Skies

Chapter IV, Greensboro Transit Authority

It was Thursday, 3 incidents so far this week, all within a quarter mile of one another and downtown Greensboro was for all intents and purposes, a ghost town. No amount of government incentives would make most folks walk into what was now looking like a war zone. And no one knew who the enemy was or why all of this was going on.

Rumors abounded as to who might be responsible. A recent New York Times article exposing police abuses of African American citizens in Greensboro had added fuel to the fire of the local Black Lives Matter Movement. A letter containing racial epithets and threatening violence against B’nai Shalom Day School had the local Jewish community on edge. The murder of a Muslim taxi driver on Phillips Avenue by what was believed to be members of the Bloods street gang had the Islamic community and east side residents terrified and Dallas, Texas Mayor Mike Rawlings had stated he was more afraid of armed white men than the Syrian refugees that were coming into the country-- the same Syrian refugees the armed white men were scared of.

And some were saying as Mayor Vaughan's maiden name was Barakat-- a name used by both Jews and Muslims, that the attacks might have something to do with her.

Detective Mark Steed, like so many who were working on the case, was mired down in tracing the routes of thousands of IP addresses that had been bounced around the world off of thousands of servers. With suicide bombers someone had to actually deliver the bomb. With bombs activated via cell phones the calls could be triangulated until the location of the caller was finally pinpointed but as Mark already knew from chasing down IP addresses in fraud and child molestation cases the trails sometimes simply disappear into a vast dispersal of electrons in an ever expanding Internet seemingly as big as the Universe itself.

Making matters worse was wireless. Wi-Fi was everywhere in downtown Greensboro. The businesses that weren't served by Downtown Greensboro Incorporated's central business district Wi-Fi system had their own. Every library, coffee shop, restaurant, bar, park, museum and shoe shine stand had Wi-Fi. The bomber, or bombers, had found the most effective activation system ever conceived for use in modern cities and the only way to turn it off-- turn off the Internet itself-- might cause all the bombs to explode at once.

*********

"Why don't you let me take her back to Costa Rica with me?" Donald asked. "She'll be safe there."

"You're not taking my daughter to a brothel!" Nancy exclaimed.

"She's my daughter too," Donald countered. "Besides, it's not a brothel, it's a club."

"Strip club, brothel, what's the difference?" Nancy asked.

"Look," Donald insisted, "there's lots of rich Americans and good private schools down there. She'll never even have to see the club."

"And she'll never see me or you either," Nancy insisted. "The answer is still no, you are not taking my daughter out of the country, you're not taking my daughter out of town, you're not even taking my daughter out of my sight you, you old pervert!"

"Well if you think I'm such a pervert then why did you marry me?" Donald asked.

"I didn't know you were a pervert," Nancy explained. "Besides you're a rich lawyer."

"And the longer I stay married to you the poorer I get," Donald complained.

*********

"All in all there were 10 deaths and 70 injured. So do we know what caused the explosion?" Chief Scott asked on the telephone.

"Ether," Fire Chief Bobby Nugent replied.

"You mean ether like my grandfather used to spray in his tractor when it wouldn't start?" Chief Scott asked.

"Almost," Nugent replied. "Technically it was R-E170, a heavier than air, ether based refrigerant."

"How did the bomber get enough of it into the building to blow out the entire first floor?" Scott asked.

"He didn't have to," Nugent answered, "he used the building's air conditioning system."

"You mean to tell me we have buildings in this city that are potential bombs in the making?" Chief Scott asked.

"Well this one building did have a higher than usual ether content for R-E170 but other than that, yes," Chief Nugent answered.

"So how did he ignite the ether?"

"He didn't have to," Nugent replied. "All he had to do was put enough ether into the room and when the air to fuel mixture was right the pilots on the gas ovens ignited it."

"But wouldn't people smell it and try to get out?" Scott asked.

"They did," Nugent answered, "but he had installed remote locks on all the doors trapping them inside."

Chief," Captain Hinson shouted as he ran in the Chief's office, "GTA just called. They've got dozens of buses mysteriously stopping in the middle of the streets all over town. They're evacuating the buses and requesting our assistance right away."

"Looks like I've got to go," Scott said.

"I heard," Nugent replied as he hung up the phone.

Please continue reading  Chapter V. Greensboro Aquatic Center

Chapter III, Center Pointe

"Donald Vaughan, where the hell are you?" a woman's voice on the phone shouted.

"Well good morning to you too, Nancy," Donald replied. "Where do you think I am?"

"Are you still in Costa Rica?" Nancy shouted.

"Nancy Dear," Donald smoothly replied, "you told me to catch the next non stop flight to Greensboro."

"So," Nancy grumbled, "why aren't you here?"

"Paul is flying down tomorrow morning to fly me back tomorrow night," Don answered.

"I've got a press conference to do today with the FBI and Homeland Security, You mean to tell me you waited three days on Paul?" Nancy asked. Don could tell she was about to lose it completely.

"Well," Don replied, "you did tell me to catch the next non stop flight back to Greensboro."

"You son of a bitch!" Nancy shouted as she hung up the phone.

*********

Detective Mark Steed had been with the Greensboro Police Department since soon after he graduated from high school. The son of a Methodist minister, Mark had lived all over Greensboro as a child, knew every neighborhood in town and was friends with everyone. At 53 years old Detective Steed was older than many of his superior officers and could have retired long ago but Mark was doing exactly what Mark wanted to do with his life.

Detective Steed was an Internet crimes investigator-- one of the first to ever work for the Greensboro Police Department. Most of his cases involved fraud, people using the Internet to rob someone or chasing down online child molesters. Yes, he'd been involved in a few murder investigations over the years but Greensboro, North Carolina had not fallen victim to what most people might consider terrorist attacks until now.

Ironically, Detective Mark Steed's biggest challenge was to come closer to the end of his carer than the beginning.

While Homeland Security, the FBI and various other State and Federal agencies were all investigating these two incidents, Chief Wayne Scott had made it well known the Greensboro Police Department would be dedicating every available man and woman towards finding out who was responsible for these attacks and if at all possible, preventing the next attack from taking place.

Mark examined the devices taken from Cone Denim Entertainment Center. The bomb squad had confirmed that Potassium nitrate, the same chemical that was used to make the bombs that exploded in the Melvin Municipal Building had also been used to make the smoke bombs but that some of the other ingredients were different and the bombs had been constructed very differently. Whoever made the second bombs intended for them to be smoke bombs and intended for their mechanisms to be found. It was as if the bomber wanted everyone to know how smart he was.

The fire investigators had also been right that these devices were controlled not by cell phones but by the Internet. Mark was beginning to feel a knot in the pit of his stomach. Cell phones could be triangulated. Devices operating via Internet could be bounced off of hundreds of servers and fake IP addresses all over the world. The bomber could be across the street and make it appear as if he or she were in China. Or the bomber could have planted the bombs and already be in China.

*********

Chief Scott, Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes and representatives from Homeland Security, the FBI, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and several other law enforcement agencies all gathered at City Center Park to hold a joint press conference. Usually such an event would be held in the City owned Governmental Plaza adjacent to the Melvin Municipal Building but with the front and the back of the building blown out the construction crews needed that space for repairs.

Reporters and camera crews blocked lanes on both Market and Elm streets as television crews struggled to position live trucks so that the signals from their trucks would make it past the tall buildings downtown. Even the legendary blogging television photographer Stewart Pittman had been sent up from Charlotte to cover the story.

Chief Scott, Sheriff Barnes and the other law enforcement officers all gave short speeches about how they would find and stop the bomber, and how the Citizens of Greensboro shouldn't allow a terrorist to dictate their lives to them, how life must go on despite the threat, despite the danger. They pointed out how people are more likely to die from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, automobile accidents, suicide and a thousand other things than they are a terrorist attack.

When all the others had spoken Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan walked up to the microphone. Just then an explosion rocked the whole of downtown Greensboro. It was Billionaire Developer Roy Carroll's Center Pointe just across the street.

Please continue reading  Chapter IV, Greensboro Transit Authority

Chapter II: Cone Denim Entertainment Center

"We got the results back on the chemical analysis of the explosives," Captain Hinson said as Chief Scott walked into the conference room where Hinson and several other police officers were seated.

"So what was it?" Chief Scott asked.

"Potassium nitrate," Hinson answered.

"Any idea where the bomber might have got it from?" Scott asked.

"Could have been any hardware store or lawn and garden center," Hinson answered. "It's the main ingredient in stump rot."

"Oh great," Scott complained, "so we're looking for one of those types who can make bombs out of the stuff you find under anyone's kitchen sink."

"Looks like he might have planted the bombs months ago too," Hinson added. "They were hidden behind the electrical outlets."

"Anything on the videos?" Scott asked.

"We went back 30 days, as far as the videos go and didn't find a thing," Hinson answered.

"Great, just great," Scott complained. "Well let me know when you find something.

********* 

Fifty-five year old Rocky Scarfone had come a long ways since starting out on the streets of New York. His grandfather, Rocky Sr had been a cop and had a promising career as a boxer until he got caught fixing fights for the mob. Rocky had followed in his grandfather's footsteps, throwing fights, selling cocaine and in his early years working as a dancer in the Chippendales all-male revue until the night detectives from the Metropolitan Organized Crime Intelligence Unit removed him from a stage one night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on charges of fraud, racketeering and making threats in Florida and North Carolina along with his mother and father who were also arrested.

Most people who know Rocky think that was when Rocky decided he'd be better off controlling the clubs and what goes on stage instead of appearing on stage.

Rocky owned seedy clubs, bars, strip clubs and restaurants all over the South. He even owned half of the winery that NASCAR team owner Richard Childress had founded. He booked shows in the 22,000 seat Greensboro Coliseum, the second largest indoor arena in the United States, and ran the southeast operations for Live Nation, the largest ticket booking service in the world. He got what he wanted by paying people to break the rules and leaning hard on those who hesitated to take his money.

Tonight he was having a drink in his office at the Cone Denim Entertainment Center on Elm Street in downtown Greensboro looking out a one way mirror at the crowd drinking and dancing below. His girlfriend of the week was passed out on the couch. At first he thought one of the ventilation fans must be malfunctioning as the smoke filled room seemed smokier than usual then he saw the plumes of black smoke pouring into the room from electrical outlets and light fixtures all over the room. The next thing he knew his office was being filled with thick black smoke from every direction.

The fire alarms started blasting and the emergency lighting came on but the smoke was so thick no one could see anything. Hundreds of people were screaming and trampling all over one another as they ran in every direction in search of exits. Others, succumb to the smoke and fell to the floor only to be trampled by the rest. Rocky Scarfone, the big tough gangster, ran three steps towards his private exit, down the fire escape, jumped into his car and sped away... Alone.

*********

Hours later, City of Greensboro Interim Fire Chief Bobby Nugent stood in front of the International Civil Rights Center And Museum across the street from the Cone Denim Entertainment Center as fire inspectors finished up their investigation. "All that smoke and no fire," he heard a man's voice say. He turned to see Police Chief Wayne Scott walking up behind him.

"I guess it's been a long night for you too," Nugent said.

"Sure has," Scott agreed, "your guys find out anything yet."

"Smoke bombs," Nugent answered. "They're telling me the building was full of remote controlled smoke bombs from the bottom to the top."

"You mean to tell me we had almost ninety people injured because of smoke bombs?" Chief Scott asked. "Who would do such a thing?"

"The who is what you're going to have to figure out," Nugent said, "We firemen just figure out the how."

"Well have you figured out how he controls these devices?" Chief Scott asked.

"Well," Nugent answered, "most of these things are controlled by cell phones but my guys are saying they don't think that's how this thing works. They think this guy is controlling his devices via the Internet. And we don't have anyone who knows how to figure these things out."

"The Internet," Scott mumbled reaching for his phone, "Hold on while I make a call. Get me Detective Mark Steed, tell him to put all his cases on hold and call me at this number ASAP."

Please continue reading Chapter III, Center Pointe