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1

3400 Block of Ruby H. Harper Boulevard, SE

Atlanta

2:40 a.m.

The nineties Ford F-150 pickup cruised at a modest thirty-five miles per hour down the quiet road in the corner of Southeast Atlanta. The driver slowly braked the pickup and made a quick right turn down a long driveway.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom AME Church

3451 Ruby H. Harper Boulevard, SE

Atlanta

2:45 a.m.

It was still muggy. But the weather reports wouldn’t stop the man who his friends and associates called the Torch. He, his friends, and his associates wanted what was fair. That’s not much to ask. Shouldn’t have to be bargained for, either. Those friends and family paid their dues. More importantly, his family paid those dues for years. His friends’ and associates’ families had paid those dues for nearly longer than he’d been alive. The time was right, and that time was right now.

The Torch exited the F-150, but he wasn’t alone. Several other dark-clothed and masked men joined him. Each took up their two-gallon cans and doused the church with gasoline. Front to back and side-to-side, although they couldn’t reach the top easily. Not that the building was all that tall, anyway. Plenty of flaming heat from the other directions would be more than sufficient for the job.

Still under the cloak of darkness, without detection, the Torch directed his troops. A few of them placed devices at different points; others held books of matches. Yet others employed Molotov cocktails. Him? He used a propane tank flamethrower. Surrounded, there was little hope left for old Seven Pillars. He nodded, setting off a wave of similar actions. The matches flew in the windless night. The Molotovs arched at a low height and then plummeted to earth. He had nicknamed his flamethrower Lucille, for his fiery late grandmother on his father’s side. His hero. How proud would he be of his only son if he saw him now? The Torch smiled and pulled the trigger on his weapon. In a matter of seconds, whoosh! The Torch ran around to every side of the church and coated it with Lucille’s deadly onslaught as quickly as possible. The man took one loving look at the building inferno and prayed to God it was enough. He believed in prayer, and believed that God would meet a person where they were in life. He was no military man, nor had he ever wanted to be in the service. But he agreed with the credo of God, family, and country.

The Torch gathered his troops. As quietly as they arrived, they returned to their ride and departed in the F-150. He bit his lip as he looked out the rearview window as the church drowned in the flames, followed shortly by a series of booms. He prayed again that this was enough.

2

Midtown Lofts at 14th Street

525 14th Street

#509

Atlanta

6:30 a.m.

In Northeast Atlanta, the Midtown Lofts contained 240 loft units with one, two, or three bedrooms near the intersection of 14th Street and Northside Drive. Conveniently located north of the Georgia Tech campus and south of the Atlanta City Water Works Reservoir compound, the young complex provided easy access to I-75 and I-85 north and south.

He was back. Indeed, welcome back to Malcolm Xavier Hobbs. After the battle of his career against Philip Reddinger and the Vanguard, he quickly got back into the flow as sergeant of Atlanta PD’s X-Men Homicide Squad. The city of Atlanta continued to heal from the conflict. So, relatively speaking, homicides and other crimes were down from several months ago. Was he bored with that fact and truth? No. In some backhanded, blessed way, the encounter quelled some of the criminal aggressiveness that he and the APD were so used to dealing with daily. Hallelujah and glory to God for it.

He finished his breakfast of French toast, two turkey sausage patties, and a three-egg white omelet with pepper jack cheese, mushrooms, and tomato. Coffee and cream with light sugar and a six-ounce glass of orange juice topped it off. This was his week off from his bodybuilding regimen, used to rejuvenate his body after he trained for four to six straight weeks. He kept up his supplement intake and popped Vitamins A, B, C, and E, among others. The scale last week read two hundred and fifteen pounds for his six feet. His primary doctor still had an issue, believing that his body fat needed to hover around 10 percent. He told the doctor he aimed for 6 to 7 percent. In his competitive bodybuilding days, it was regularly as low as 3 to 3.5 percent, and doc’ wasn’t happy with that! Now, he’s out of the so-called danger zone, so cut him some slack. He laughed.

Overall, he felt pretty good about where he was in life. But there was one, well two, potential hotspots he’d faced for some time now, and he expected them to intensify as more time elapsed. First was the whole Defund the Police stratagem. The cops, from Chief Davis to the rank and file, had heard the critiques of police officers nationwide. Second, since he worked right next to him, Detective Orlando Queen made brilliant deductions in deciphering criminal what-if scenarios. It was Orlando’s big mouth that led to his suspension. The thought, and rightly so, was that Malcolm Hobbs was one of many in line who wanted to punch him in that mouth. On the other side, if that truth were told, he and only he controlled his emotions and emotional reactions. Well, with the help of the Holy Spirit. He needed Him and the Word of God like every living thing needed oxygen to live.

***

He rinsed off his dishes and put them in the dishwasher to the left of the sink. He had just set himself down to watch the local news when he pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket, jazz artist Paul Hardcastle and the Jazzmasters’ classic tune “Rainforest” ringing out.

“Hobbs…”

He listened and allowed his eyes to roll to the ceiling. Then he caught wind of a breaking news story on the massive seventy-five-inch HDTV flat screen mounted in a corner of his living room before his black leather recliner. Fire had set something ablaze. The flames knew what it consumed, but they hadn’t known that they lit up something else as well. His wrath for the offender’s choice of target.