Resistance: A Prepper's War (2 page)

His sister Samantha hadn’t spoken to him in months and had forbidden him to see Annie, his niece. Jim had fought so hard to find them and keep them safe. After the attacks in San Diego that set all of this in motion he battled gangs, soldiers, fires, bombs, and riots and now the only family he had left didn’t want anything to do with him.

The only piece of him that was still with them was his cat, Tigs, who wouldn’t leave Annie’s side after what happened. Jim missed the feline, and as much as Coyle wouldn’t admit it, he did too.

Jim pushed all of that out of his mind as he opened the door to Locke’s office and was greeted by the faces of busy administrative workers, whirring across the floor. Jim didn’t look at any of their faces as he made a beeline straight for the interrogation room.

On the way back to the room Jim passed the locked doors of all of the other men and women who he brought in on charges of conspiracy and treason. The organization he was hunting down ran deep; politicians, businessmen, lawyers, all of whom were part of the attacks on major U.S. cities around the country four months ago. Now they were sitting behind closed doors in eight by eight cells.

Jim knew he was just reaching the tip of the iceberg with who was behind this, because none of the assailants that he brought in had said a word. Even when they turned them against one another, saying that their friends already gave them up, they wouldn’t talk. They were unwavering in their loyalty.

Locke was standing behind the one-way glass examining the empty room. His belly sagged over his belt and he smoothed his mustache as Jim entered through the door behind him. Locke didn’t turn around. He already knew who it was.

Jim joined Locked by the glass and leaned his hands forward on the thin rail in front of it. His nose was almost touching the glass as he watched the medics bring in Kate who was still passed out. One medic strapped restraints to her and the chair, while the other prepared a syringe of adrenaline to wake her up.

“Any collateral damage?” Locke asked.

“Nothing serious,” Jim responded.

Kate gasped for breath as she shot awake and the adrenaline kicked in. She looked down at the restraints as she struggled to free herself. The medics left and were replaced by two interrogators dressed in army cargo pants and blue shirts. One had a file in their hand and tossed it on the table in front of her.

The two men started to show pictures of her family, but she just looked away. They screamed threats at her and her family; told her that her co-conspirators had already given her up. The soldier kept pointing at pictures of her sons, but she just looked away indifferent to it all.

The interrogators had the water bucket out now. One of the men held Kate’s head back and placed a cloth over her face. He continued to bark questions at her, but she remained silent through the breaks in the water’s flow over her face.

“We’re not getting anywhere, Locke,” Jim said over the gurgled chokes and coughs coming through the speaker system.

“It’s going to take time, Jim. You yourself said they were well organized. Whatever it was they had planned they’d been preparing for a long time,” Locke said.

“We have over twenty members of this organization and we don’t know who’s in charge, why they attacked us, or what they have planned next,” Jim replied sounding agitated.

“Jim,” Locke started as he turned his back to the interrogation, “the President’s ordered all reservists into active duty and brought home sixty percent of our soldiers from foreign bases to help re-establish order.”

Jim shook his head. “If these people are as deep as we think they are then why is it so hard to believe that this could be what they want?”

Locke exhaled and turned back to the interrogation scene that now had Kate coughing up water over her and the two men in the room with them shoving more pictures in her face. “How are the sessions going?” Locke inquired.

Jim looked away from the General back through the one-way glass. “I stopped going,” Jim responded.

Locke heaved a sigh. “Jim, it’s important you go. What happened to you and your fam-“

“She was going to kill him,” Jim cut him off nodding to Kate in the room.

“What?” asked Locke.

“She had a knife to her husband’s throat. If it came down to it she was going to kill him,” Jim said. “These people don’t care about threats. They don’t care about their families. He turned to leave. “You’re not going to get anything out of her.”

“Go to the sessions, Jim,” Locke said. “It’ll help.”

“There isn’t anything that can help me now.” Jim closed the door and left Locke by himself watching the cloth go over Kate’s head one more time as she struggled against the water poured from the bucket onto her face.

Chase Brenner, dressed in a fine dark gray suit, crisp white shirt and black tie, watched the news report coming in on the television. All the news channels were in an uproar about the same thing. Military abductions on civilians without warrant or probable cause were causing a hell storm in the media.

The light from the parlor chandelier kept catching the diamonds in Chase’s watch as he poured bourbon, neat, into a crystal glass.

Two other men sat across the couches as they sipped on drinks of their own. The elderly of the two men tapped his index finger on the armrest as he watched the interview between the reporter and a military official from the Pentagon. The other man, younger than Chase, was focused on an article in the Wall Street Journal.

“We could use that,” Chase said sipping from his drink and catching the attention of his guests.

Chase made his way over to the chair across from where the couch the two me were sitting on. He folded one leg over the other as he swirled the brown liquid in his glass, relishing and sniffing its contents.

“Sir, it’s too soon to go public. We’ll risk exposing ourselves,” the elderly gentleman said.

Chase gave a smile. “We’re not going public, Congressman,” Chase reassured him. “Who do we know on the appropriations committee?” he asked.

The Congressman thought for a moment. “We have Wessick and Furth on that committee, sir.”

The younger man next to the Congressman put the paper down and leaned forward, intrigued. “Leverage?” he asked.

“Precisely,” Chase responded. He put his glass down and folded his hands in his lap. “The media is in a frenzy about the lack of constitutional rights our country seems to be going through. We’ll have our liberal friends push this as far as they can, trying to pass legislation through that’ll require more transparency in our military’s operations to Congress,” Chase said.

The Congressman shook his head not quite following. “Even if we did it would take months to get the bill passed and we don’t have that kind of time,” he said.

Chase looked at the Congressman like a father practicing patience on a child learning something new. “The bill isn’t meant to be passed, Congressman. We just need it to cause a stir. The more obstacles we can get our enemies to juggle, the better our chances of success,” Chase explained.

The younger man smiled. “I’ll reach out to their offices,” he said.

“Thank you, Derrick,” Chase replied and Derrick left the room, leaving Chase and the Congressman alone with the television.

“Your brother is quite the ambitious one,” the Congressman said fiddling nervously with his hands.

“Yes, he is,” Chase replied.

Congressman Jones finally summoned the courage to speak what was on his mind. “Mr. Brenner,” he said, “I think that we may be biting off more than we can handle at the moment.”

Chase narrowed his eyes on Jones as he sipped from his glass.

Jones’ hands continued to flutter in his lap and he tried to reposition himself on the couch as he started to become uncomfortable. “I’m just trying to say that with the large number of people the military has been able to poach over the last few months maybe now’s not the best time move forward. What if they told them something?”

“My people understand the meaning of conviction, Congressman,” Chase replied.

“You don’t think they gave anything up?” the Congressman asked.

Chase held up his glass to the light and examined it. “Do you know how long it takes to distill bourbon, Congressman?” Chase asked.

Jones seemed confused by the question. “I… I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” he responded.

Chase leaned forward in his chair with his elbows resting on his knees as he held the glass in both hands like it was a precious gift. “Most manufacturers require that the liquor is distilled for no less than four years. Now, if you want to really get the most out of the bourbon you want to age it between eight and ten years. That is where you’ll get the optimal flavor.”

“But after ten years the aging process gets tricky. The wood from the barrels start to overtake the flavor of the bourbon. Most manufacturers don’t try aging barrels that long because if it goes sour they’ll lose profits.”

The Congressman moved uneasily in his chair. His face was turning paler and the loose skin under his neck started to shake.

“There are a few distillers thought that are willing to risk it because, if stored properly and in the right conditions, the bourbon can become even more flavorful as time goes by, mixing and fermenting the contents of the barrel into something that’s never been tasted before.”

Chase took his eyes off of the glass and focused them on Congressman Jones and continued his story as he rose from his chair. “Now, the only way to check to see if an aged barrel has gone bad is to taste it. If it turns out the barrel has gone sour, then it’s discarded.”

Congressman Jones kept his eyes on the floor as Chase walked closer to him. His hands grappled his pant leg as he tried to contain his nervousness.

“Unlike most bourbon manufacturers, I don’t have the fear of losing out on profits to see what can be created,” Chase said and grabbed the Congressman’s chin and lifted it up so he could look him in the eye. With his hand still on the Congressman’s chin he rubbed his thumb over the Congressman’s lips and bent down to whisper in his ear. “Don’t go sour on me now, Congressman,” Chase said.

Chase walked off and left Jones on the couch by himself, breathing rapidly and putting his hand to his heart as he yelled back behind him. “Make sure Wessick and Furth do their job!” Chase barked.

Once Chase was out of the parlor room and into the hallway, he began the walk down to his office. His footsteps echoed off of the finished oak floors up into the high ceilings of the house. He passed paintings, sculptures, and elegantly decorative furniture. The house looked more like a museum than a home. When he reached his office he opened the door to find Derrick sitting in the chair across from his desk typing away on his laptop.

“Where are we at with Kearny’s widow?” Chase demanded.

“Still looking for her,” Derrick responded.

She was the missing link for him right now. Out of all of the people that disappeared he needed to find her the most.

Derrick looked up and noticed the frustration on his brother’s face. “Why are you so convinced that Matt would have sent it to her?” he asked.

Chase sat down forcefully onto his char and he leaned back as he bit his thumbnail. “Because,” he said, “we should have received his back up code by now and if his instructions weren’t to send it to us, then he must have sent it to her.”

Derrick closed his laptop to focus his attention on his brother. “We’ve had our contacts watch all possible avenues. If Matt had instructions for a delivery then we would know about it.”

“Keep an eye on the Congressman for me. He seems to be losing his nerve,” Chase said.

Derrick nodded and reached for his phone. He instructed one of the guards to tail the Congressman and then dialed over to his staff’s office to confirm that he reached out to Furth and Wessick.

Chase powered on his computer and opened up a file labeled ‘Matt Kearny.’ He browsed through pictures of Matt with his wife Samantha and daughter Annie. Birthday parties, vacations, it was all there in front of him. The sum of one man’s life that had worked for him compressed down into one gigabyte of data. He clicked on a subfolder labeled ‘Work’ and it opened up files of code and projects that Matt was in charge of.

Chase never really interacted with Matt directly, but he was always impressed by the diligence in which he processed his work. Matt never missed an assignment, failed to hit a deadline, or showed any sign of disloyalty. The fact that he hadn’t received Matt’s final code sheet raised some concerns.

“Wessick and Furth are good to go,” Derrick said getting off the phone.

“Good,” Chase replied. “Where are we with San Diego?” Chase asked.

“Everything’s on schedule. You were right in anticipating the President to bring home troops to help stabilize the country after the attacks. There’s over a quarter million soldiers in the southern California area right now,” Derrick said.

“So predictable,” Chase drawled.
“Do you need me for anything else?” Derrick asked.

Chase looked at his brother and smiled. “No, you can go,” he said. Derrick folded up his laptop and headed out the door; just before Derrick left, Chase called out to him.

“I love you, Derrick.”

“I love you too, Chase.”

Derrick shut the door behind him and Chase listened to his brother’s footsteps fade down the hallway. He around in his chair and looked at a family portrait of himself, his brother, mother, and father taken when they were children. Chase had to have been eleven and Derrick was six.

They fought all the time when they were younger. Derrick had tried to beat him in everything, but always fell short. Chase was smarter, faster, and stronger at everything they competed in.

He remembered one time when he was fifteen and was playing his brother in a game of one-on-one on the driveway of their parents’ home in Indiana. Chase had just hit his first growth spurt and was a good foot taller than his brother at the time. He had just won his third game in a row when his father came out and pulled him aside.

Chase’s dad was never one for backing down, but he told Chase to let his brother win one. He told him that it would mean so much to Derrick to actually beat him at something. Chase started the game and let Derrick score a few early points, but then started to attack him.

He scored again, and again, and again pushing his younger brother out of the way, knocking him down, whatever he had to do to humiliate him. The final score of that game was four to twenty-one. His brother ran off crying and when his father walked up to Chase and asked him why he’d done that, Chase answered casually. “You never let someone weaker than you beat you. If you do, then you become weak,” Chase said, looking up at his father.

It was the first time his father had ever told him he was proud of him, and that mindset and philosophy stayed with him for his entire life. He had the ability to crush anything that came against him and he was on the verge of crippling the world’s biggest superpower and reinventing it in his own image.

His father’s words fueled him. He would become more powerful than his father had ever dreamed of being. The planning he’d done over the past twenty years was finally coming to fruition.

He had influence, money, and power on his side and, just like that day over twenty years ago when he humiliated his brother in basketball, he would humiliate the United States Federal Government.

Chase closed the window of Matt’s work file and just before he was about to shut down the laptop he saw the thumbnail of another picture that caught his eye. He opened up the file and there was a picture of Matt, Samantha, and Annie with birthday hats on celebrating Annie’s third birthday.

He leaned in close to the screen to get a good look at the final missing piece of his puzzle. 

“Where are you?” he asked to himself.