Of Gods and Thunder
By Chuck
Semenuk
Agent Trent Barrows looked up at the
brilliant blue sky and took a deep breath.
After a lengthy, miserable Great Lakes winter that just didn’t want to
quit, the warm sun and gentle breeze did wonders for his morale.
Trent worked out of the Buffalo, New York field office of
Homeland Security. The Buffalo and
Niagara borders with Canada were his primary work assignments. The incidence of illegal entry through the
Canadian border, and weapons smuggling was growing at an alarming rate. Canadian border agents were detaining many
but a large number still managed to find their way across. Once they reached the general population on
the American side, they easily blended in making it difficult to identify them. Sometimes, Trent’s enthusiasm for his job
began to wane. With all of the
corruption and political shenanigans going on inside the various government
agencies, it was often hard to tell the difference between the “good guys” and
“bad guys.” The President and his
crooked cronies had succeeded in drastically dragging the country down financially
and morally in his first term. Despite
tales of obvious voter fraud, he was well into his second term. The
major media sources were in his pocket and the public knew very little of the
wheeling and dealing that went on behind closed doors in the big white house on
Pennsylvania Avenue. Even Congress was
often left in the dark as he signed executive orders, more than the total of
all previous presidents combined to further his own policies, public be
damned. Trent knew that we needed to be
continuously vigilant for possible terrorist attacks on our own soil but he had
lost faith in the Washington leadership.
They were more interested in promoting their own agenda, making their
point with sometimes totally outrageous lies while lining their pockets in the
process. Trent considered leaving the
agency but a belief that he could still possibly make a positive difference
kept him going.
Having parked his car outside of the Buffalo field office,
Trent entered and went to the office of the Director of Buffalo Field
Operations. The Director’s secretary
Sarah looked up from her work and smiled.
“Good morning, Agent Barrows.
It’s so nice of you to visit us poor folks today,” she smiled.
Trent laughed, “I thought I’d drop in and brighten your day a
bit. I wouldn’t want you to feel
neglected,” he quipped. “I received your message that the boss wanted
to see me. What’s going on?”
Sarah put her finger up to her lips. “Sh-sh-sh!
Secret stuff. They don’t share
with me,” she grinned.
She picked up her phone and announced him to the Director. “You can go in now. I think he hustled the party girls out the
back door,” she laughed.
Since the formation of Homeland Security after 9/11, Jack
Muller began to climb the ladder. He was
a master of schmooze and made his way from a rookie agent to Director
quickly. He seemed to be a straight up
guy but Trent had gotten to where he found it difficult to trust those in high
positions. Was Jack faithful to America
or was he a pawn of the destructors in Washington?
