"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 7

Monday, October 25th, 2:05 p.m.

Rev. G.W. Morton set a satchel on the shelf of one of the bays at the Coyote Gun Club in Bristol, Connecticut. Since two other shooters were firing away in other bays, Morton had already put on his ear protection before entering the firing range room. Even after all these years, the muffled sound of the repeated explosions and lingering echoes off the concrete walls always struck Morton as odd. It was very different compared to the sound firearms made when used in the great outdoors.

Rev. Morton was a member of the shooting club, and usually stopped by the range at least once per month to shoot at targets with the assortment of revolvers and pistols he owned. Target shooting was one of his favorite hobbies. Morton had learned to shoot as a boy. Like most youth in southwestern Missouri, hunting and target shooting were a routine part of growing up, which was quite unlike New England, a fact Morton discovered when he traveled north to start his latest church. When Morton had become convinced that the Lord was prompting him to move his ministry to the secular northeast, he knew the culture would be different. But he was genuinely surprised at the attitude toward firearms. Very few people in Connecticut had ever even fired a gun, let alone own one. And a large number of people were convinced that guns themselves were inherently evil, as if a manmade steel device could make moral decisions. Conventional wisdom back home in Missouri, wisdom Morton accepted wholeheartedly, was that the true source of good or evil was located in the heart and soul of the person holding the gun, not the gun itself.

Morton opened his satchel and began to remove weapons, boxes of ammunition, and paper targets. He had with him on this day his favorite pistol, an expensive 9mm full-sized Beretta, model M9, which could hold a maximum of 16 rounds. He also brought along his silver Smith and Wesson .357 magnum revolver. He was extremely accurate with both of these guns. However, the third firearm he pulled out of his satchel was the real reason Morton was at the range. He wanted to get familiar with the pistol Capt. Ray Bradford had given him, a blue steel Glock, model 26, known as the “Baby Glock,” a sub-compact 9mm weapon designed for concealed carry.

When the four-member secret vigilante group first had formed about six months earlier, they agreed on a handful of ironclad rules. First, absolutely no one else besides the four men were to know about the group. No talking, no bragging, no communication to anyone whatsoever about the existence of the group. That was the most important rule.

The next rule was that each of the four members would be fully involved in the group’s activities. All four men had an equal say in planning the missions, including the selection of targets. And each member would take his turn—hopefully multiple turns—to be the trigger man. There would be no “hired guns,” no contracting with outsiders to do the dirty work. Each of the four men would take full responsibility for the group’s actions—all of its actions. That was one of the first things Capt. Bradford insisted on when the discussions of the four men moved from the “wouldn’t that be interesting” stage to the “we really should do it” stage. Having everyone take turns to carry out the missions would be the best way to insure that everyone was not only fully committed to their primary goal—ridding the community of thugs who made a mockery of the criminal justice system—but also fully committed to keeping silent about the conspiracy.

Each man in the group knew the seriousness of their undertaking. They knew what they were risking. If events did not turn out as planned, scandal, shame, imprisonment, and even death were very distinct possibilities. Long and respected careers would be ruined overnight. If things went poorly, if average citizens did not understand what they were trying to do, they knew they would go down in history forever as a group of psychotic murders. When the decision was made to move forward, the group members solemnly pledged to each other to risk everything for their common goal. They even used the concluding words of the Declaration of Independence to swear their allegiance to one another as they embarked on their noble mission: “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

The group’s final formal rule was that Capt. Bradford would provide the weapons. Each of the other three men had pistol permits and owned guns. But the missions would be carried out using the untraceable firearms Bradford had collected over the years. A few of these guns were from the days when the WHPD’s evidence room was one big knick-knack drawer. Firearms and drugs and all kinds of miscellaneous items were piled hither and yon in the often unlocked room. Record-keeping was practically non-existent. An officer could walk in and grab whatever suited his fancy. Only after a major scandal did the situation change. About ten years ago, two West Hartford cops were arrested for selling drugs to drug dealers, drugs which had been seized in prior raids. The state police and FBI were called in to institute a strict inventory and accounting system. Now it was very difficult to swipe anything from the evidence room. There were too many checks and balances in place.

This did not bother Capt. Bradford. He still had been able to increased his secret gun collection over the years using a different method: grab the desired item before it ever made it to the evidence room. The ideal situation for this was a drug bust. If the person being arrested had a pistol in his pocket, that was all the police needed to add a felony firearm charge. If other guns happened to be uncovered in the drug dealer’s house or car, those weapons simply disappeared long before anything was turned over to the evidence room inventory management team. Capt. Bradford assured the other three group members it would be a long time before they ran out of untraceable guns.

One other group rule, which was not really official and had never been spoken aloud, was that any group member who got cold feet and wanted out—or even worse, who threatened to reveal the conspiracy—would be considered an appropriate target. Capt. Bradford’s grim stare and fiery eyes spoke this message eloquently, without the need for words. One-hundred-percent commitment and no turning back were the rallying cries of the group. Each of the four men fully understood this, and each of the four men, Dave Peterson’s momentary crisis of faith the night before notwithstanding, were fully committed to carrying out the group’s goals.

Rev. Morton loaded fifteen 9mm rounds into a magazine clip and then snapped the clip into the hand grip of his Beretta. He put the gun down on the shelf and attached a paper “bulls eye” target to an overhead cable and pulley system, using two clothes pin type spring clips. Pressing a switch on the left side wall of the little shooting booth, he watched as the motorized cable moved the target out into the firing lane. When the target reached the 25-foot mark, Rev. Morton took his hand off the switch. I like to warm up at short distances, he thought. With his right hand he lifted up the pistol. With his left hand he grabbed the slide and gently pulled it back. Then he let the slide snap forward, chambering the first round. With his right thumb he moved the safety lever to the off position. With his left hand he checked briefly to make sure the cups of his ear protectors were directly centered over each ear. Then he spread his feet apart to about shoulder width, flexed his knees slightly, and raised the pistol using both hands. Closing his left eye, he focused with his right on the gun sights. When the center of the target’s bulls-eye was right at the tip of the gun sight, he pulled the trigger. A loud boom exploded in the room, the roar and echo sounding muffled in Rev. Morton’s ears.

Rev. Morton looked out at the target and saw a small hole about one inch from dead center. Not bad, he thought. He raised the gun again and carefully fired off six more shots, pausing a few seconds between each to re-aim. The clump of small holes on the target were within two inches of center. Then he raised the gun and began fire rapidly, taking less than six second to empty the eight remaining rounds. The target now had small holes all over it, many nowhere near the center. I probably missed the target completely on a couple of those, he thought. Rapid-fire shooting was not too accurate, but he just loved to do it.

Rev. Morton had planned to shoot with the Beretta for a while, switch to the .357 revolver, and then when he was good and warmed up, finally try the Glock. But now he couldn’t wait. He just had to know what that small pistol, the pistol he would use on his first “mission,” felt like. He brought the target back in and replaced it with a clean sheet. Then he sent it back out to the 25-foot mark. He began to load six 9mm rounds into the Glock’s small magazine clip.

As he prepared the gun, Rev. Morton whispered to the weapon, “You, my friend, are a sword for the Lord. You are a tool of righteousness, which will help to purge evil from a desperate and hurting world.” He thought about the other three men, and how they had formed their vigilante group in the first place. Tom Wilkins was the one who originally knew the other three men. His family had been selling Ford vehicles, mostly Crown Victorias, to the West Hartford PD for decades. Because of this connection, he had become friends with Ray Bradford, as much as that’s possible. Tom’s dealership also advertised for years on WCTR radio. He and Pit Bull Peterson went way back, their families even vacationing together. Pit Bull often did live broadcasts on Saturday mornings from the Wilkins Ford-Nissan showroom. Rev. Morton first met Tom Wilkins about four years earlier. Wilkins barged into Rev. Morton’s office at the Faith Cathedral one day. He was distraught and seeking help. Mrs. Wilkins had threatened not only to divorce him, but also to make a public stink about his strip-club-and-prostitutes lifestyle. Wilkins knew his life was a mess and had heard that the Faith Cathedral could help. A deep and close friendship began that day.

At first, the idea of forming a vigilante group was just talk, a bunch of hot air when four powerful personalities got together to complain about lawlessness and the lenient criminal justice system. Rev. Morton could not remember which of the four was the first to discuss the idea in earnest, as if they really could and should do it. Probably Capt. Bradford, he thought. After all those months of talking, Rev. Morton was a bit in disbelief that the plan was now in action. As Pit Bull had expressed the night before, “It’s real now.” Unlike Pit Bull, Rev. Morton had no temporary crisis of faith, no lingering doubts. He knew, absolutely knew, they were doing the right thing.

Holding the Glock at arm’s length, Rev. Morton aimed and fired. The pistol was double-action only. He could not cock the hammer first and then gently squeeze the trigger a fraction of an inch to discharge the weapon. With this gun, he had to pull the trigger a relatively long distance so that the internal hammer would cock back and then snap forward against the firing pin all in one motion. This, along with the very short barrel, made the gun far less accurate than the Beretta. Rev. Morton looked out at the target. A small hole was visible at the lower-left corner of the paper sheet, at least nine inches away from dead-center. He scowled and then tried again. The next hole was about five inches directly above center. When the gun was empty, six hole were scattered on the target, with only one within a few inches of center. Oh well, he thought, it’s just not a very accurate pistol at a distance of 25-feet. Then he smiled and thought, But it only has to be accurate at a distance of one-foot.

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