Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (7 page)

The three rebels were
bunched up together behind one of the black boxes which mixed together the
drug. The Agents began to converge in on them and continued to fire their
automatics into the dark metal box. Krys moved her silenced MP-5 to the side of
it, poked her head up slightly, and then fired the submachine gun at one of the
Agents. The bullets tore through his armor.

Kaspar made a signal
to Steinner. The two moved into the room. They began to fire away with their
MP-5s. The Agents inside were caught off guard. They turned their attention to
back of the room as they began to drop like flies. Dexter, from behind the box,
yelled a command for them to move out and attack. They did so and, after a
brief moment of gun fire, all the Agents fell to ground. Nobody from the team
was hurt.

“What’s your status,
Buck?” Kaspar demanded.

“I’m…almost done.”

“Get a move on it!”

Buck ran back to work
on his C4. Steinner moved in and pushed the kid to the side. He ordered Buck to
stand guard at the door. In the commotion, no one saw the Agent sneak in from
that door on the far side of the lab. He put a single bullet through Steinner’s
head. Buck stood motionless as his comrade’s lifeless body crashed to the
floor. Blood began to leak from the bullet wound. Everyone, except for him,
turned and fired a barrage of bullets into the Agent.

“Goddamnit, Buck!”
Dexter yelled. “Finish that bomb!”

The kid was still
shaken, both mentally and physically. His hands shook as he struggled to get
the bomb ready. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he got it done and
set the timer for seven minutes. He stood and gave the thumbs up.

“Harv, this is Dex,”
the rebel said as he touched his throat. “Steinner’s down, but we got the bombs
done. We’re moving out, now.”

“Shit!” Harvey cried.
“Okay, but you’ve got some forces moving in from the outside. Shift change. We
were supposed to out of here by now! I’ll provide cover fire from up here, but
you guys better book it.”

“Roger.”

The team moved down
the hallway in near single file. As they moved to the lobby, they began to see
Agents drop from Harvey’s shots from up on the hill. Once outside, there was
mass confusion for the Agents as they continued to fall. Kaspar saw an Agent
move in from the left. He turned and fired into him. As the Agents continued to
fall, the rebels made it to the hill. Dexter and Kaspar stayed behind at the
bottom, in the trench, to give Krys and Buck cover fire. Once they got the
signal, they moved up as well.

With everyone up top,
Harvey left the sniper rifle behind and ran with the others to the vehicles.
Several moments later, they heard the explosions come from inside the complex.
They all scrambled their way to escape. Dexter hopped in the driver’s seat of
the first vehicle and quickly started the engine. In the second vehicle Buck,
who had been sitting in the front seat, refused to do so this time. He instead
moved to the back with Kaspar and Krys. He figured it was safer in the back,
even with everyone pissed off at him, than up front with his father.

Harvey turned the key
in the ignition and slammed on the gas. The bumpy ride began and grew more
intense as the assault vehicle picked up speed. Harvey looked around with the
great vision that the man upstairs had blessed him with. He saw no one in
pursuit. Even still, he didn’t allow his attention to waver.

In the back, nobody
spoke. Kaspar moved over to Krys and began to rub at her shoulders. She had
already taken her mask off and tears were running down her cheeks. While he
continued to rub on her, he felt an instant fit of guilt deep within. He didn’t
really know Steinner that well, he knew that the man was a good soldier, but he
was just thankful that if anyone was going to die, that it wasn’t Krys. He
couldn’t, for obvious reasons, make that assertion out loud.

For his part, Buck
didn’t make a sound, didn’t even take his mask off. He just sat there, shaken.
He started to rub his hands together and then slammed his balled fist to the
side of the vehicle. Kaspar moved in to try and console him, even though what
he really wanted to do was knock the kid’s lights out, but Buck pushed him off.

“It wasn’t your
fault,” Kaspar said.

“Fuck you it wasn’t.”
Buck replied.

“Listen, we got
ambushed. We were caught off guard. It would be a hell of a thing for anyone to
put that bomb together under that pressure.”

“I’m fast…this is
below me. I screwed it up again and now a man’s dead. Don’t try to make me feel
better.”

“Okay.”

“Listen, everyone!”
Harvey cried from the front, his voice boomed through the intercom speakers
above. “We’ll talk about this later, right now, we’ve got to pick ourselves
back up. Buck…we’ll talk later, too.”

Buck folded his arms
across his chest and slouched in his seated position. He wanted to jump out of
the vehicle, right here, and just end it. He would never be free from his
father’s grasp. And, if he quit, then what would happen? Steinner was dead now
and it was all his fault. He knew it, tried to accept it, and would eventually
take ownership of it. He didn’t need someone like Kaspar trying to tell him
that it wasn’t his fault. In the end, it didn’t even matter, Steinner was gone
and nothing could bring him back.

He just wondered when
it would be
his
turn.

X sat at the table and
studied his cards. The hands on the table right now had a variety of messages
strewn across. Deciphered, they read something along the lines of:
Shipment
ready for pickup any heat on our end?

This is where the
little game that they created got challenging, much like playing actual Texas
Hold Em poker. He stared at his cards and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He
started to play a card, but held back. Instead, he folded.

“Don’t have shit.” he
cried as he slammed his cards on the table.

“Pussy!” Sugar said
with a laugh. He threw down a card. It changed the message on the table to:
Shipment
ready, no heat.

Reed, seated at the
head once again, wasn’t so sure about that assertion. To his surprise, no other
members of the crew had been interviewed, yet. They were careful to search the
warehouse where they met every day for any kind of surveillance, but didn’t
find anything obvious. They were all sure, though, that the room was bugged.
Everyone was under the hope that their little card game was enough to disguise
their communications.

The leader stuck his
arms underneath the table and, quickly, pulled a card from under his sleeve. He
pulled his arms back up and threw down the Ace of Hearts. Everyone’s eyes grew
wide when they saw it and the room went silent for a moment. That card was
played when there was heat on them, and Reed believed that Sullivan guy was
still hot on their trail.

“You fuckin’ cheated,
dog.” Pepper cried out.

“What are you talking
about?” Reed demanded.

“You stuck your damn
hands under the table and pulled that card out!”

“Please.”

“I think I saw it,
too.” X said.

For a moment, the look
in X’s eyes scared Reed to death. He had that look that said “I will fucking
kill you” which must have harkened back to his days as a gangster. It actually
caused Reed to shake for a moment before remembering that this was all just an
act for the USR. You couldn’t tell from X, though, as his face never changed
even when a smirk started to grow on his leader’s. He was an excellent actor to
be sure.

“All right, all right,
we’ll play another one.” Reed said.

“What about my damn
chips?” X demanded.

Now, Reed was starting
to get frustrated. X was taking it too far, but maybe that was a good thing. As
soon as he saw that Ace, his demeanor completely changed. He was playing off
his part really well, but it was starting to get under Reed’s skin.

Part of that
frustration came from another hard, grueling day at the factory, too.
Everything seemed to be going well, from the USR’s standpoint. All the guards
who patrolled and watched every move of the factory workers didn’t seem to be
too aggressive with him and his crew. No more than usual, anyway. Reed just
wanted to go home and see his wife. Her face haunted his thoughts all the time
now. All these long hours, and then the long poker games afterward, were
starting to take its toll on their marriage.

Reed loved his wife,
Belle. That name for her was perfect, too, at least in his mind. She didn’t
know what her husband did during his nights out with the crew. She just learned
to accept it. She also trusted him with all her heart. Belle knew that Reed
loved her too much to do something stupid or to go behind her back in their marriage.
She might not have known him all that well, though, as far as the stupidity was
concerned. One could argue that what Reed was doing was stupid, no matter how
careful he and his crew were, the USR would eventually catch on. The hope was
always that they would be done with their mission
before
that day came.
And, that they were long gone by then, off aiding the resistance in other ways.

“Take half of mine,
you prick.” Reed said. He pushed off half of his chips in X’s direction, making
sure that they toppled over with the force of the push to give the Latino more
work to do.

“Hey,” Pinkie said.
“You okay, Boss? It ain’t like you to cheat.”

“I’m…fine.” Reed
mumbled. “Just missing my family.”

“I’d hate to make that
pretty bride of yours a widow if you keep fucking around.” X said.

“What the hell’s your
problem?” Reed demanded, this time, he was not acting.

“Just sayin’. Give us
another round.”

The crew handed their
cards in and Reed began to shuffle the deck. He didn’t care to force cards to
the top this time. His mind was failing him. He tossed the cards around the
table. When everyone had two cards, Reed burned one then flipped the top three.
The resulting message didn’t make any sense.
Hard times Agents
.

“I think we better
call it a night,” X said. “Bossman is not on his game today.”

“Everyone, I’m sorry,
I’m just tired. We can play another round tomorrow after work, that okay?” Reed
asked.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Before everyone stood,
X slammed down two cards on the table. Reed looked at the cards, then back up
at X. The former gangster had that same look on his face that threatened an ass
whooping coming the leader’s way. Beyond the message that X laid down, without
talking to Reed about it, X’s attitude started to cause some concern. Perhaps
the old man was just having a bad day, but in the pit of his stomach, he felt
it was something else. He seemed a bit more chippy than usual. It caused Reed
to start thinking that maybe X was starting to challenge his authority. He
looked back down at the two cards as everyone started to file out of the room.

Mission go.

***

“You hear about that
plant last night?” Little asked as he played around with his fingernails.

“How could I not hear
about it?” Sullivan replied, not in the mood for stupid questions.

The sun was already
set and all that remained was a black sky. Nothing was going on inside the
warehouse, which was not a good thing for Sullivan. He had convinced
Fitzpatrick to hold off the dogs while he and Little completed their
investigation. Somehow he reasoned with his superior that they could catch the
factory workers off guard if they didn’t feel the heat coming. However,
Sullivan knew that this would not last forever, maybe not even past this week.
He needed to come to Fitzpatrick with something, anything, to keep the USR
Agents off their backs so he could get some answers. He knew what would happen
if the dogs were sent in there…they all would die and that would leave Sullivan
with nothing.

“Just trying to make
conversation, boss. This stakeout shit’s for the birds, ya know?”

“I agree,” Sullivan
replied. “But, we gotta do what needs done.”

“When are we going to
put an end to them…the resistance I mean.”

“Once we compile
enough evidence to find where their leaders are hiding, how else do you think?”

“I say, once we find
them, we bomb the shit out of them. No need to put our brave men at risk.”

“Well, that’s an
excellent strategy, Kevin. Remind me to give you a call if I ever make it in
the military.”

That comment got the
brat to shut up for a moment. Those comments from his partner did engage his
mind with thoughts regarding the resistance, however. The more and more he
thought about it, the more he thought that, for whatever reason, the USR didn’t
want to totally destroy the resistance. He remembered back when he gave a damn
about his job. Whenever he really felt like he had something, the powers that
be would call him back, then threaten his family should he try anything on his
own. It was only after he was on suspension, when he took the law in his own
hands, that he came face to face with one of their top weapons dealers. And, it
only took him a few hours.

It made sense why the
USR would let the resistance run loose. It could justify them all sorts of
tactics to bring them down, but to actually not bring them down, but create a
nation full of fear, to keep their citizens in check. A few months ago, he
wouldn’t have believed it. He was so far up the USR’s ass that his line of
thinking was different. Maybe he was wrong now, too, but that was how he felt.

The chatter on the
inside grew louder. Someone accused another card player of cheating. Both
Agents leaned forward with great interest. Finally, something was happening.
The bickering went on and on until they all decided to leave the game for the night
and sleep on it. Sullivan knew that they were using some form of coded messages
on the inside most likely to do with the playing cards. The fact that they were
starting to get angry with each other told him that they were about to do
something. What that something could be was lost on him. They were doing a damn
good job of hiding their code. In his previous professional life, he would have
immediately ordered one of them captured so they could torture the poor son of
a bitch and break the code. Now, he had to be more rational.

“Let’s go get ‘em.”
Little said as he grabbed his pistol and cocked the chamber back.

“Put that gun away,
Agent.” Sullivan ordered.

“Come on, what are you
thinking, let’s take them. You know something just went down in there.”

“Take them on what,
cheating at cards?”

“Please, boss. You
think they are really playing cards in there? Something’s about to go down, I
know it.”

Sullivan breathed in
and fought back his anger. “What is taking them in going to do? We’re
outnumbered and, if they are resistance, then they will gun us down. Chill the
hell out.”

“Let’s call for
backup, then.”

“They won’t get here
in time. Just shut the hell up and calm down.” Sullivan ordered.

Little pointed at
Sullivan with his index finger, “The Captain will hear about this.”

“The Captain isn’t
going to hear shit.” Sullivan shot back.

“You wanna…”

Sullivan pulled out
his Glock 17 and aimed it at the now scared face of his partner. It was time to
show this brat that he meant business. He was so close to finding some kind of
answers and he wasn’t going to let anyone, let alone some punk kid straight out
of the Academy, screw this up.

“Now, you aren’t going
to say anything, are you?” Sullivan demanded.

“You wouldn’t dare
shoot an Agent.” Little replied.

“What do you mean,
kid? I’ve got so much seniority over you that I could blow your head off right
now and claim you were sending in a coded message to them. Now, put your gun
away, we are leaving.”

“Yes…sir.” Little
replied.

“And, keep your damn
trap shut.”

The two Agents put
away their guns, Sullivan after he made sure that Little had his fully strapped
in to his belt holster. After that, Sullivan breathed in deep and calmed his
nerves. Half of what he just told the kid was bullshit, but the kid would have
no way of knowing. The trust factor with the senior detective within the
department had gone down over the past few months. If he did shoot the kid,
unlike back then, there would be a thorough investigation upon which they may
or may not find him guilty. He wasn’t going to shoot the kid, anyway. But,
Little didn’t know Sullivan well enough to know that.

The only thing that
mattered now was that he was still without answers.