Читать книгу Wings Of Vengeance - Adam MD Hamedi - Страница 5

This part of north central Texas, Johnson County, had been named generations ago for the very wealthy and influential Johnson family. The family fortune kept growing with each new generation. Recently Al Johnson Sr. had died, leaving his substantial estate to be run by his three sons. The oldest, Al Jr. was over six feet tall and in his late forties and ran the family factories employing nearly half the county’s working population. After his father died, he dropped the JR. part of his name. The second son, Tommy, was slightly shorter than Al. He was the district judge and ruled the county with an iron fist. The only other judge in the county aligned himself with Judge Johnson and served on the same ticket. No one would run against the Johnsons. A few unfortunate accidents happened to a couple of spirited lawyers who showed an interest in running against the judge that forced them to withdraw from the race. None of the county’s lawyers liked to deal with him, but they had no choice. It seemed he had his own set of laws. Even though most generations of the Johnsons clan were decent and tried to be fair, this particular generation had its own scruples - or lack there of. The county’s population had to endure through the good and the bad and knew that sooner or later this generation would be gone. They could hope that the next one would be better, even though it was not looking promising.

The third son, Bruce, was the shortest of the three, at about five feet five inches. He had a noticeable beer belly that hung heavily over his thick belt and oversized belt buckle. Everyone called him Butch and everyone in the county avoided having to deal with him. He was the county’s sheriff and the judge’s enforcer. No one ever ran against him either. Rumor has it that one such person, a retired Dallas police officer tried and is now buried somewhere on the Johnson ranch. There had never been any evidence of foul play, but it was common knowledge. The guy just vanished from the face of the Earth. The irony of all this is that the Johnsons were not afraid to hint to the fact, knowing that mentioning such incidents would instill fear in the population. The sad part was that they were right. The brothers seemed to have total control of the county.

The elder Johnsons, as they were called now, had one son each. Oddly, they were born just days apart, although there had been a few years between each brother’s marriage. It was as if they were waiting for all three to marry before they had any kids.

Randy, the oldest, was Al’s son. Jeffrey was Tommy’s and the youngest, David, belonged to Butch. They were good-looking boys and their family resemblance was remarkable. People attributed that to always seeing them together. When they were growing up, Randy was always the ringleader and even though he was challenged on several occasions by either one of his cousins, he always managed to come out on top, either through his own abilities or the intervention of the elders. By the time they were eighteen they were infamous in Johnson County for being spoiled hoodlums. Even with their tarnished reputations, local girls were interested in going out with the young Johnsons. Not just for their looks, but also because of their wealth and the stature of the family in this part of Texas. It was known that if a young woman marries one of the boys, they would never have to work for a living. It was understood, of course, that the boys would never treat them with respect, but for some girls, who never had much of anything, this didn’t seem very important. And of course there always is that famous statement: it will be different with me.

When the boys were young they were in trouble every time they made a move. At first it was simple pranks, minor stuff that annoyed people more than anything. Certainly no one dared press charges. Everyone turned a blind eye to their pesky activities. The boys wanted a tag, a label to unify them and signify their strength as a unit. They called themselves the “Three Musketeers“ or the “Three Amigos“. The town called them the “Three Hoodlums“ not to their face of course, not even within earshot. As the boys grew older, the pranks became more serious. Their teasing grew vicious, vindictive and destructive. During one incident, when the boys were about fourteen, they caught a little girl’s cat, tied a rope around its neck, hung it from a tree and used it as a piñata. When the cat made noise, and it made a lot of noise, it was an easy target, even with blindfolds. They took turns beating the cat until it was dead. They did this while the girl watched. When the girl would attempt to leave, one of the boys would hold her down and force her to watch some more and the more she cried, the louder the boys shouted with glee. The mindless cruelty of this act alarmed and frightened the residents of this little town. They went out of their way to avoid them. The more vicious their acts became, the prouder their fathers were of the boys.

There were decent members of the Johnson family. Such as the mothers of the brats, but as with previous generations of women in that family, they learned to keep their mouths shut. If they tried to talk to their husbands about the kids’ behavior, they would get slapped, and always right in front of the boys. To keep what was left of their dignity, they learned to live in silence. The townspeople treated them with love and respect; after all, they were their own. The elder Mrs. Johnson was still living but, heartbroken, had given up on her boys a long time ago. She lived in a modest three-bedroom house outside of town.

The first serious incident happened on Randy’s eighteenth birthday. The boys went drinking and took along two local girls, fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds. The next morning the girls were found at the local lake where they had been dumped the night before. They had been raped and badly beaten. The parents of the girls had had enough of the boys and went to court demanding justice. They had to settle with a threat issued by the judge to the three boys and for the first time, he actually issued the boys a warning that if they get caught doing anything like this again, he would personally throw them in jail. The boys did not take him seriously, though they showed concern for the benefit of the girls’ families. They knew they would go home and laugh about it. They found these incidents amusing.

They grew up watching their fathers beat their mothers. At first they would get mad at them and talk about it among themselves in private, but after a few years of this, they just got used to it and figured that’s how things were supposed to be and couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about when they beat up the girls.

As weak as justice was, the families had to live with it. They couldn’t convince the district attorney to press charges, and when the judge heard about it, they all received warnings of employment termination. They all worked for the Johnsons. The medical bills were paid for, however.

Burleson is a small town fifteen miles south of Fort Worth on Interstate 35W. Though it had a population of six-thousand residents just a few years earlier, it saw a population boom bringing the number of residents to about twenty-thousand. It was the biggest town in Johnson County, and in spite of the problems the Johnson boys posed, it was a place where people wanted to raise their children. It was still relatively small and safe and in close proximity to both Fort Worth and Dallas.

Austin and his family lived just outside the city limits, in what they considered the country. They were never personally exposed to the problems the Johnson boys created - they only read about them in the local paper, the Burleson Star.

Their house sat on a wooded half-acre lot. It opened on two rooms on either side of the entrance. On the right was Austin’s office with a desk in the middle. A hutch behind that held his computer, fax machine and a few artifacts he had collected during his travels. On the walls were several wooden masks from Africa and South America and dozens of photos he had taken on his many trips. The photos included places like the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and one he was especially proud of was of an elephant he had snapped during a safari at Kruger Park in South Africa. On the left side of the entrance was the dining room, which his wife had decorated in French motif, connected to the kitchen. From the kitchen, one would enter the breakfast room and then the living room. To the left of the kitchen was a little entrance with a door to the two-car garage and a utility room next to the master bedroom and its private bath. The living room was large enough for a fireplace and a big-screen television. The walls of the living room had few pictures selected by his wife, and other than a few small figurines he brought from around the world and displayed on the fireplace mantle, his wife would not make him any allowances on decorating the room. “You can do whatever you want in your office but stay out of the rest of the house,” she would always say. It would always bring him joy when she would pick something up he placed in the living room without her authorization and place it on his desk giving him that look of “nice try but no dice.” To the right of the living room were two bedrooms with a common bathroom in the middle. One of the bedrooms was his daughter’s and the other was converted to an exercise room with a couple of stationary bicycles and a treadmill with assorted weights and wraps. Behind the living room they had added on a sun room/bar room that was stocked with all kinds of alcoholic drinks from around the world. Some of the bottles they had for years and kept for display because of their origin and art. The bar, as it was finally called, opened up on a covered patio and an oversized wooden deck with a hot tub at the far left corner. On the right of the deck was their in-ground swimming pool. Looking at the back-yard, one would think they were in the tropics after his wife was finished with the landscaping. That was where his wife and daughter would spend a lot of quality time together and where Austin would linger as well when he was home. During their time by the pool was where they did most of their bonding and talking and tackling any problems any of them might have. Austin loved to watch his wife and daughter interact and his eyes never failed to mist on him. He loved the drive to their house. Flying cargo for a worldwide carrier kept him away for days and sometimes weeks at a time and he hated that. The schedule was intense, so when he left DFW Airport and turned off the busy interstate toward Burleson, his nerves calmed. He drove past horses, cattle, goats and even emus on his way home. The simplicity and order thrilled him. At night he would see lightning bugs. He really loved coming home.

Austin began his aviation career in the U.S. Air Force. He flew the A-10, nicknamed the warthog. It is not an attractive aircraft but was a devastating weapon against ground personnel. During the Gulf War, Austin was involved in the battle that was dubbed the Turkey Shoot. Thousands of Iraqi troops ran from Kuwait back to Baghdad after looting the city of everything it had. The U.S. Air Force caught the retreating Iraqis just across the border. Pictures of the devastation were plastered all over newspapers and television screens across the world. Austin flew his missions with the usual precision and detachment. He didn’t feel sorry for the Iraqis. He saw them as intruders, murderers, rapists and any negative image he could conjure up. He was there to set things right. He was there for revenge. That’s how Austin saw the world, that’s how he had survived so far. Then he met Megan.

Austin was attending the University of Texas at Arlington. He had been there a full year and never tried to make any friends. He was a loner. He saw Megan when she walked on campus for the first time. She looked lost and close to tears, looking as if she had no idea where to start. For the first time in his life, he actually approached someone. It was like a magnetic attraction. He had no control of his own legs when they started dragging him toward her. It was love at first sight. She was tall, five feet seven inches, long brown hair and the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen. He always thought it was the eyes that really hooked him. She was petite and looked extremely innocent and, over time, he loved everything about her.

“Can I be of help? You look lost,” Austin heard himself say. He really was not sure who was saying the words but knew it had to be him as they were coming out of his own mouth.

“Well yes, I would really appreciate your telling me where to go from here.”

There was something about her. He couldn’t explain it but it was something that kept him close. He took her to the registration office and showed her to her dorm. When he finished helping her carry her belongings to her room and settle, he volunteered to show her around campus. She was grateful for his help and actually enjoyed his company and when he finally asked her if she would go to dinner with him that evening, she readily accepted.

That evening was the best he had ever had. They talked and laughed for hours and never felt the time go by until the waiter cordially told them that it was past closing time. Ever since that day, they became inseparable. Austin always referred to that day as the day he was born.

When he met Megan’s parents, Van and Ruth, and saw how much attention and love they paid her, he immediately liked them. He realized what he had missed all his life. He grew up alone, an orphan, and never really knew that kind of love. No one had ever paid attention to him and he never had anyone to love or love him back. He was a very bright, but painfully shy little boy and could not get along with other kids. He was told over and over that his shyness and loneliness were the reason he kept moving from one foster home to another. Each family would discover the tragic truth when they would give up on him, and even though some were very decent and tried to help, they would give up again when they were faced with their failure to get through to him.

He had witnessed his parents murder and suicide when he was five years old. He had awakened to the usual sound of his parents arguing. This time the neighbors had called the police. His father had put a gun to his mother’s head, shouting and threatening, drunk as usual, and when the police arrived and tried to disarm him, he pulled the trigger. When he pointed the gun at the police, he went down in a hail of bullets. No matter how much time passed, Austin could not erase the memory of that evening. The nightmares happened nightly and in them were different scenarios of what he could have done to prevent the incident.

Austin had no grandparents, they were all dead. He had no uncles, aunts, cousins, no one. After that night, Child Services took him in and tried to place him with different foster families. Some were very decent and wished he could stay, but he could not blend in with the other children. He buried himself in books and always stayed in his room. Some of the families knew his situation going in and when his parents were mentioned, he would explode. On some occasions, when one of the kids would persist, Austin would fight with frightening rage and it never failed, he would be driven to Child Protective Services the very next morning. Austin knew the drill. Every time he had one of those episodes, he would go into his room and start packing. No one seemed interested in the guilty party and who started the argument and hence the fight. They would be alarmed by his rage and take him back to the authorities.

He also excelled in sports. He would play with such vengeance that his own coach would eject him from the field during practice. He never failed to participate in the actual games, though. All his teammates loved having him on their side, but wanted nothing to do with him after the games.

Austin could never rekindle his rage no matter how much he tried. Every morning he seemed to have more rage after the nightmares.

After he married Megan, the nightmares continued on and off, and his loving wife never failed to wake him up, reassuring him and running her fingers through his hair every time he started having one of his nightmares. It was not long before the nightmares became few and far between. When his daughter was born, they were forever gone.

It was a joy to be around Megan’s family. Van and Ruth showered her with their love and soon started treating Austin as their own. Megan was their only child and she was her parents’ whole world. Austin and Megan were married only six months after they met and, even though her parents didn’t want her to marry so soon, they gave in when they realized how determined she was and how crazy Austin was about her. He was only twenty years old and, within ten months, Marina was born. They showered their little girl with love to the point that sometimes she wondered if they were suffocating her.

Occasionally, when she was in her teens, she would tell her parents that she felt like a member of the Brady Bunch when they both wanted to give her a ride or pick her up from school. “One at a time,” she would say.

Austin was six feet tall with black hair, hazel eyes and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. He was very athletic and was involved in a few extracurricular activities. He always excelled in school and when he graduated college with a very high grade point average and submitted an application to the Air Force, he was immediately accepted. After basic training, the Air Force sent him to Tucson, Arizona for his pilot training on the A10.

The Hunters were inseparable. Everywhere Austin went, his family went with him, but he always considered Texas home. He could not stay away from Megan’s family very long. He loved to see the closeness of the family he was now part of.

All through her growing-up years, Marina was becoming more and more of a joy to Austin. He came to think of her as the angel who guarded him through his childhood. He was the happiest man in the world. Marina was always a straight-A student. She was absolutely beautiful and was growing up to be a gorgeous little lady. She was not only his daughter; she was also his friend. Every time he came home from a flight, the three of them would talk for hours. There was nothing they would not discuss.

Austin stayed in the Air Force until 1992. After leaving the military, Austin went to work for small cargo airlines flying Boeing 707s and then DC-8s until he finally landed a job with his current company flying Boeing 747s.

The Hunters life was great and very serene. They had built their modest house in the country and every time Austin went on a trip, he knew his family would be safe. The house was fairly close to Megan’s parents. One of their best friends was Megan’s cousin, Shirley, a doctor at the local hospital, and they got together whenever her schedule would allow it. Austin knew he was living in heaven, surrounded by love. He never failed to look up to the skies and thank his lucky stars every time he was in an airplane at altitude.