Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

The Board of Elders
watched the news broadcasts on the large TVs which lined the side wall. They
resembled the emotionless zombies that they were while they watched the news
affiliates from all across the USR report on the latest deadly attack brought
about by the resistance. Anti-American rhetoric was also present on nearly all
of the broadcasts. The USR, the reports said, would not sit back and just let
the resistance tear this country apart.

For his part, Caine
kept a low profile at the end of the table. He watched with intent eyes and his
ears were wide open. Destroying the cure, to some, was a bad move. There were
no doubt others in his Board that felt the same as that other prick, but after
seeing his fate, they kept their mouths shut.  The only one he knew for sure
was on his side was Blake, who as second in command, had obvious political
reasons for siding with him. There was just too much power to lose by doing
something stupid and speaking out at inappropriate times.

Caine had enough of
the TV and turned the screens off. His Elders looked to him with anticipation
in their eyes. They were ready to know what would happen next. A few of the
Elders had already talked to Caine outside of the Boardroom, but Caine
reassured each individual that everything, again, was under control. When would
they realize that he knew all the right moves to make?

Before he spoke, his
eyes moved down the table to each one of his men. At the end was Blake, who had
a peculiar smirk on his face. He nodded his head towards his leader and Caine
nodded back. Blake was the only one who knew what was to come. Their next phase
of control over the population was about to commence. It was all thanks to
those resistance thugs who tried to take what was his. They could, whether they
wanted to admit it or not, thank themselves for what was about to happen.

Caine marveled to
himself for a moment at the brilliance of his plan that was set in motion. With
all of the compounds which were used to manufacture the population control
drug, he assumed that the resistance would also be searching for the cure to
the old drug. So, after another compound was attacked, he intentionally leaked
the whereabouts to the cure on the computer systems. It was very much a high
risk/high reward operation. The hope was that the resistance would take the
bait and go after it.

It worked to near perfection
as the cyphers that he dispatched all around that mountain caught a glimpse of
a team of terrorists hiking their way towards it. Once Caine received
confirmation, he called in the birds and also a hit squad to take out the rebel
squad. It didn’t work to full perfection, as some of the rebels survived the
attack. However, the more significant damage had been done. The cure was
destroyed and, thanks to the cyphers, they had visual evidence of the
resistance at the scene of the crime. It was truly brilliant.

“Gentlemen,” Caine
said. “Congratulate yourselves!”

There came a sharp
round of applause from the Elders. They looked to their leader with smiles and
looks of accomplishment. This was one of Caine’s favorite parts of the job. He
truly got off on the accolades and lesser individuals giving him praise. When
he said ‘congratulate yourselves’ what he meant was ‘congratulate me’. Caine
held up his hand to quiet down the applause.

“Now,” he continued.
“On to the next assignment, I suppose. From here, we’ve got more leeway to
advance our cause. Which is to keep those filthy buggers down there in check.
We are going to intensify our search for the resistance. And, those fools are
so scared out of their minds that they will not say anything about it. In fact,
I think that they will grow needier of our services.”

“How do you propose we
do that?”

Caine smiled. “It’s
quite simple, my friend. Let me introduce you all to General Hank Blackman. He
was a member of our Committee here in this city.”

The room grew silent
as the decorated war veteran walked into the room. Though the numerous medals
attached to his military jacket meant nothing to him now, he liked to show them
off whenever he could to let people know he meant business. He wanted people to
respect what he’d been through. It worked as he received nothing but respect
from anyone he ever encountered. Whether it came from those resistance dogs or
these high and mighties in their fancy suits that must have cost a fortune.

Blackman had a lot to
think about in the past few months after his Committee was put out of
commission. The USR still paid him a nice sum of credits for time served. The
more time he had to think, the more he wanted to stop thinking and get back to
work. He was delighted when he got the call from Caine about a new operation
that the USR was to conduct, though the full specifics were not mentioned to
him. All that mattered to Blackman was that they wanted him to be the leader of
it and the old General couldn’t help but smile big while he held the phone.

“Evening, gentlemen,”
Blackman greeted, “you all look dressed for some fine occasion.”

“It is a fine
occasion,” an Elder said. “We just scored another victory.”

“That you have,”
Blackman agreed with a head nod. “However, there is still work to be done.
There are still rebels out there ready, willing, and able to strike back at us.
They are always out there. We have to snuff them out.”

“That’s correct,
General, sir.” Caine said with a sarcastic tone to his voice. “We need to up
our game and hunt these boys down.”

“How do you propose we
do that?” asked an Elder.

“It’s simple,” Caine
replied. “General?”

“We’ve got plenty of
surveillance on the ground, in the form of your Agents on the streets. However,
the resistance is still in hiding. To up the ante, we are going to apply
military personnel on the ground.”

“Declaring martial
law? Brilliant.”

“That’s right,” Caine
spoke up. “With troops on the ground, in our major cities, we will be able to
not only find the rebels, but also keep those little ants out there in check.
As we all know, these citizens that we have under our control don’t know what’s
good for them. They think they do, but they don’t. Our military will be able to
further help them on the path of righteousness.”

There was a loud bat
of laughter that filled the room from Caine’s words. Caine joined them with a
few chuckles of his own. He truly loved his life and it was moments like these
that brought even more joy to his soul. With a wave of his hand, he got the
Board to quiet down.

“All right, let’s
settle down. The General has some more to tell us, isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct, sir.”
Blackman replied. The General was growing tired of the Board’s games and lack
of respect. But, they were the USR’s leaders, so he had to just deal with it
and respect them. “We might have some rebels sneaking around here, in this
city.”

There was a collective
gasp from everyone but Caine and his second in command. He had their full
attention now. There was nothing but looks of complete anticipation from them.
Gone were the stupid jokes and the snide remarks. Blackman soaked all of their
looks up and breathed in deep.

“That’s right, they
are right under our nose.” Blackman continued. “We need to put an end to their
activities.”

“What have they been
doing?”

Blackman answered the
Elder with a complete breakdown of each of the suspects. He explained, in great
detail, about the top secret factory that they worked in. When he got to the
point of what department they were involved in, the attention in the room grew
more intense. It took him a few minutes, but he finally got to the end about
the best COA to bring them to justice. Of course, there would be no trials or
anything like that.

No, Blackman had the
perfect solution for dealing with the problem.

Sullivan rocked the
recliner back and forth with gritted teeth as he watched what was going on in
the news. The cure, it had been destroyed, and the USR was blaming the
resistance for it. That, of course, didn’t make any sense to Sullivan as he
thought about how the USR operated…how
he
operated when he was the big
shot Agent in town. To the USR, the truth wasn’t important. What was important
was how they could spin the truth to create their own truth which, of course,
the public believed because they didn’t know any better.

Davie was wrapped up
close to him with his head rested on his chest. The little boy fell asleep
about an hour ago. He almost sent the boy to bed, but with what little time he
spent with his son, he just let him sleep. Even though the boy was unconscious,
Sullivan still felt like this was a way of spending time together. He looked
down at him and smiled. The smile quickly dissipated, however, when he thought
about the type of world Davie would live in when he grew up. That was a life
that no father in his right mind would have for his son. Not a world where its
leaders poisoned their own people.

Sullivan cradled the
boy and quietly moved him to the back bedroom. They were at Mary’s house once
again. Surprisingly, he was able to get out of work today at a decent time.
They went to the hideout, which of course was quiet, so they got to leave. The
investigation on the suspected rebels would grow a bit more intense and
Sullivan knew it. They would start to go after them at home.

Once he had Davie in
the bed, he tucked him in nice and snug. Davie began to blink his eyes a little
bit as he woke. He asked his father what was going on. Sullivan smiled and told
his son to go back to sleep. Within seconds, Davie was back in dreamland. Sullivan
stood over the bed for a moment and just watched his boy sleep. The boy was so
at peace in his bed, no doubt dreaming about being a superhero or something.
Putting away bad people like his dad was supposed to do. For the first time,
Sullivan could feel something inside like he was about to do the right thing.
The only downside, which would be almost enough to make him not go through with
it, was that he would have to leave Davie behind while he went out and fought.

The time for thinking
about that was premature. Sullivan turned and quietly closed the door. As he
walked down the hallway, he pulled out his black cell phone which had a secure
line to keep the USR’s curious ears away from his conversations. The number to
the phone Reed had was on speed dial. Sullivan pressed the number, listened to
the phone quickly dial the number, and then listened to the phone ring four
times. He was starting to get nervous until Reed finally answered after the
fifth ring.

“This is Travis,” Reed
said.

“Travis, Sullivan,
how’s everything?” Sullivan replied.

“Doing just fine, on
my way home from work.”

“Good. You being
followed or anything?”

There was a pause on
the other end. Sullivan assumed that it was Reed checking his surroundings.
There was also some chatter that Sullivan could hear on the other end. It must
have been some, if not all, of Reed’s boys talking amongst themselves. Sullivan
really hoped that it was only a few and not all of them. He had enough faith in
Reed’s smarts to trust that he knew better.

“All clear,” Reed
replied after the brief moment of silence.

“We were at your
funhouse today. We didn’t see or hear anything.”

“Of course not.”

“Listen to me, things
will get tougher from here. They are going to get more aggressive. I haven’t
been able to convince my superiors that there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay.”

“Whatever you guys are
planning, get it done. Get it done fast. Can we meet tomorrow?”

“Yeah, where?”

Sullivan named the
time and place.

***

Kaspar sat by himself
in one of the vehicles. His mind was consumed with visions of Krys. She was all
over his thoughts and there was nothing he could do about it. When he closed
his eyes, he envisioned her smiling at him. When his eyes were opened, he saw
her lying dead in his arms, unresponsive to his attempts at saying, and then
screaming her name. His body rocked back and forth in a slow, steady rhythm.
The knuckles on his hands were a pale white from clinching them together.

His quiet time was
interrupted by the sound of the back door opening. Kaspar looked up to see
Harvey walk in. The old Marine didn’t even bother to ask if it was okay to come
in, which bugged Kaspar a little bit, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t
need someone, anyone, to talk to right now. It was just that the one person he
wanted to talk to was gone.

“How are you holding
up?” Harvey wondered as he reached back to shut the door.

“Trying my best,”
Kaspar replied. “It’s hard, though.”

“I understand, Ryan.
I’ve had to go through a similar loss myself.”

“I know, Buck told me
about it.”

Harvey’s face dropped.
“What did he tell you?”

Kaspar breathed in.
“Not much. Just what happened when he was born.”

Kaspar could see that
the comment hit home hard for his leader, so he decided to shut his mouth and,
when Harvey didn’t say anything for a while, there was that awkward silence
that caused Kaspar to want to just be alone again. When Harvey finally
collected himself, he looked to his soldier with stone cold eyes.

“We’re going to get
them.” Harvey said.

“Excuse me?” Kaspar asked.
The comment came out of nowhere and caught him off guard.

“I said, we’re going
to get them. I know that I can trust you not to say anything, so what I’m about
to tell you is to be considered extremely classified.”

“Why me?”

“You never said
anything about the cure…back when we first learned about it.”

“Okay,” Kaspar said.
His spirits started to go down with the mention of the cure.

“Listen, we, Sanders
and I, are planning something big. Something that will strike at the very heart
of the USR. It’s going to be risky, and the repercussions immense, but we think
it will be worth it.”

Kaspar’s curiosity
piqued. “What are you planning?”

Harvey went into all
the details regarding the planned assault on DC. Through it all, Kaspar grew
more and more ready for the fight. His attention began to leave Harvey somewhat
at times, but when his leader kept going into how much this would hurt the USR,
if successful, the words fired him up. He was ready to grab a gun and go right
this minute. When he told Harvey as much, the leader warned that this mission
would take careful planning and they couldn’t just rush the place.

“So,” Kaspar said.
“What’s it going to take?”

“Well, Sanders is
currently getting with our contacts, we’re hoping that we can get a small force
together in a united effort for this Op, but it might not be that simple.”

“Why not?”

“This is dangerous and
unprecedented. Since the USR has come into power, nobody has tried anything
like this. Our operations have always been small, you know, guerilla war type
stuff.”

“Right…”

“And, whether we win
or lose, the people of the USR are going to be the ones to suffer the most. The
USR will be more than a little pissed off when we take down one of their
beloved symbols of America’s defeat. Their control over the population will get
out of control. You think it’s bad now? Just wait until a few weeks from now.”

Kaspar leaned forward.
“What happens if we can’t get enough folks to do this?”

“Let’s not think that
way, son. I’m hoping that there are enough like-minded men brave enough to
punch the USR in the mouth and stand up to the counterblow.”

Kaspar took a moment
to think about what he had just been told. There was a mixed feeling inside. Of
course, he wanted to strike back at the USR, but not for what Krys would
consider the right reasons. The USR had taken away Mother, now they took away
Krys, and Kaspar was left with nothing. However, he thought about what Harvey
said about the consequences of such a bold move. Was his need for revenge more
important than the lives of the men, women, and children who already lived in
fear? Was the need for the old ways to come back worth that high of a cost?
Kaspar simply didn’t know.

Kaspar looked directly
into Harvey’s eyes. “Do you think this would be worth it?”

“I don’t know the real
answer to that one. I just know that something needs to be done. The people out
there,” Harvey said as he pointed towards the closed door, “they need
something.”

“Something what?”

“Something to have
hope in….”

Kaspar pointed his
index finger at Harvey. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong. The people out
there, save a few leftovers, don’t give a shit about what we do. They hate us.
They want us to be found out and killed. To them, life under the USR is the
only way to live.”

A nerve was struck
within Harvey. “What makes you think so?”

“I’m not a leftover,
you know? I don’t know anything about what life was like before the USR took
over. Don’t really know which way is better…”

“How can you say that
after your mother…”

“My mother is the only
reason I’m in this. If she had never died, I would be still boxing or doing
something else with my time. I’ve never been bought into one way or the other.
I know that the USR is into some funky shit, but I also don’t know any other
way.”

Harvey smirked. “So,
you’ve really learned nothing since you joined the fight.”

“I’ve learned a lot.
But, we’ve been so busy demolishing the USR’s labs and whatnot that I’ve only
learned how to fight. And, I’ve learned what love is, but that’s about it. No
‘this is why America was so great’ other than a few speeches from John back
when he was still alive.”

“I understand your
ignorance and I don’t mean that as an insult. When things settle down, if we
are still alive, I swear to you I will teach you about America.”

Kaspar smiled,
“Looking forward to it.”

“If only you knew,
Ryan. All the talk in the world couldn’t clue you in unless you actually
experienced it.”

Harvey then started to
do something that really caught Kaspar off guard. The old Marine started to
talk about himself. Kaspar listened as Harvey told him about how he grew up,
without much money but with a loving family, and he had his freedom. The
freedom to talk about whatever he wanted, the freedom to pick his own way, not
a predetermined order of things that the USR saw fit. When he joined the
military, Harvey explained, it was of his own freewill. Nobody from the US
government forced him into it because he was more physically fit than others.
He joined because he loved his country and wanted to fight for it. In that way,
things for Harvey weren’t much different since he decided to fight back against
the USR.

The one thing that
struck Kaspar was that Harvey didn’t say anything about his life before he
joined up with the resistance. He simply said he had a wife and when Buck was
born, she died. The leftover didn’t mention his feelings toward the incident as
he spoke about it in a matter of fact tone. The thought of living under a
totalitarian regime seemed to get under the old man’s skin more than the death
of his wife or the birth of his son.

It was after his wife
died that someone approached him with a job. Harvey didn’t elaborate too much,
all he said was he and Buck lived in a place with some other ex-military types
and refugees. The leader of that place, Harvey explained, was too much a
pacifist for his liking. He took Buck and a few men with him and they went it
alone. It wasn’t long until someone offered him a job. That someone, unknown to
him, was an undercover USR government official who was assembling a resistance
squad much like the one Paxton started. After that, he was gung ho in his
fight, raising his son at the same time.

“Truth is,” Harvey
said. “I’m not sure it was really me who was raising my boy. It was more of a
team effort. Every man who fought with me played a role in raising Buck.”

“Maybe that’s why Buck
is so upset all the time.” Kaspar said.

Again, Harvey’s face
dropped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Listen, I grew up
without my father, so I can understand.”

“Buck didn’t grow up without
his father.”

Kaspar leaned forward.
“You were physically there. I’ll just leave it at that. Maybe you should talk
to Buck about it. Not to me.”

“You mind your own
business about my son and I’s relationship.”

“Just saying,” Kaspar
replied. He held up his hands in the air.

“So,” Harvey said in
desperate need of changing the subject. “What are your feelings about the
mission?”

Kaspar shrugged. His
thoughts from earlier were in the back of his head. “I’m just thinking about
Krys. Before she died, she told me to fight for the right reasons, whatever the
hell those are.”