Patriots & Tyrants

by Brian Cotton

  ***

  Next up on Sullivan’s agenda was a meeting with Fitzpatrick. The Captain would want a detailed report of what Sullivan and Little discovered in their investigation so far. The Agent knew that he didn’t have much to go on. His mission now was to just try and buy some time. Time, Sullivan knew, was not something that was easy to obtain when working for the USR. They wanted results that they could take to the propaganda machines.

  It took a couple of knocks before he heard Fitzpatrick’s voice inviting him in. Once it did, he opened the door, and then waited for permission to have a seat in front of his superior’s desk. Fitzpatrick leaned back in his expensive chair and rubbed at the beaded sweat on his temple. He reached down for the “medicine” in the bottom drawer of his desk. After taking a swig of the smuggled whiskey, letting the burning sensation do its work down his throat, he put the bottle away then faced his one-time top Agent.

  “You better have some good news.” the Captain said.

  “I’m afraid that there’s not much to tell.” Sullivan replied.

  “And, may I ask, why?”

  “These boys are cunning. They have set up a very good way of communicating secretly with one another.”

  “Which is?”

  “Poker. They are passing along messages to each other through poker. Most likely the cards have different meanings. It could even be how they talk shit to each other, I’m not entirely sure…”

  Fitzpatrick cut him off by holding his hand up. “You know what I was just doing?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “Let me enlighten you, then. I was just on the phone with the Consul, and he was none too pleased with our current lack of progress, as he called it. You saw the news, right?”

  “Yeah, another compound got hit, right?”

  Fitzpatrick nodded his head. “That’s right. And, now, you come in and tell me that you’ve got basically nothing?”

  The market for time just went down the tubes. Sullivan knew he would have to really make his case, now. He remained quiet for a moment as he tried to think of how he could buy just another couple of nights. He knew, however, he may have just tonight to try and get something definitive. He would not, but he had to make it seem that way to his boss. He breathed in deep before responding.

  “I know that we’ve got very little so far,” Sullivan said. “But, you know as much as I do that these things can take time.”

  “Time is a luxury we don’t have.”

  “I understand that. I mean, shit, you act like I’m a rookie who doesn’t know these things.”

  Fitzpatrick pointed his index finger. “Ever since your wife died, you’ve been acting like one. You’re head isn’t in the game any longer. The big boys upstairs seem to think that I need to replace you.”

  “Listen to me,” Sullivan said, trying to muster up any kind of emotion about Julie’s death. “Losing Julie was hard on me and my kid. I’ve tried not to let it affect my performance, but it just happened not too long ago.”

  “Well, not to be harsh, but you need to get over it if you want to stay in your current position.”

  This was good, Sullivan thought to himself. The harsh tone of Fitzpatrick didn’t faze him in the least. And, he had put up a good enough act to where, apparently, the higher ups didn’t realize what his true motivations for staying in the department were. Still, he had to keep the act going.

  “Don’t tell me just to get over it,” Sullivan replied. “I’m trying to be as good of an Agent as I can. My son is living with Julie’s sister. I don’t even see the kid but maybe a few minutes each night. I’m putting my time in. It’s just going to be a while before I fully get over it. How dare you question my work ethic?”

  “Nobody’s questioning your work ethic. We all know that you’re a good Agent, but we’ve got this resistance running rampant all across the country…”

  “But, not in this city, right? Ever since we bagged that one leftover on TV, there’s been little in the way of terrorist attacks here.”

  “You going to take credit for that? Really?”

  “No, I’m not taking credit for the USR’s work. What I’m saying is that if my job performance, in terms of how many resistance members I’ve arrested, is in question, you can just look to that.”

  Fitzpatrick sighed. “That execution you brought up was a huge blow to them. We know they’re still around. Watch the damn news. We just have to find them. Maybe finding out where they are hiding is not your expertise.”

  Sullivan shook his head and let out a chuckle. The Captain didn’t see the humor in the situation and waved around his hand in front of him.

  “This is a new kind of war, now,” Sullivan finally said. “It’s going to take some time to adjust to it.”

  “There you go with time again!” Fitzpatrick cried. “I wish I could be like you and just tell the Consul we need time. He doesn’t give a shit how the battle front has changed! He wants results!”

  Sullivan leaned forward and put his hand up. “I understand that, but if the Consul wants good results, and not results just to get them, he’s going to want us to do our jobs and investigate. Making sure we’ve got some bonafide resistance members in our grasp, not just some punks who are mad at the way things are.”

  “I’m pulling the plug on your operation.”

  “What?” Sullivan demanded in shock.

  “You heard what I said. I’m sending men into that little warehouse tonight to send those boys to hell. Hopefully, we can bring one in to spill his guts.”

  “That’s a mistake,” Sullivan said as he rose from his chair. “We don’t know anything, yet. We don’t know who they are, what they are doing, anything.”

  “And, this helps your case, how?”

  Sullivan placed his hands on his hips. “Just give me a few more days. If I don’t have anything worthy of the Consul, then send the boys in and fuck this whole thing up all you want. Just a few days, that’s all I ask.”

  Fitzpatrick thought about it a moment. “You’ve got three days. In three days, I’m sending in the assault teams and firing you, you understand me?”

  “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.”

   

   

  .19

  The light mist outside sprinkled its way down and tapped at the top of the fatigue colored tent. Harvey and his squad had braved the mist as they held their brief memorial service for Steinner. The rebel leader felt somewhat bad about how short the proceeding ended up being. In a perfect world, they could hold an entire day’s worth of ceremonies for their fallen comrades. This wasn’t a perfect world, though, especially with a fascist regime like the USR running things. That made the resolve to pick themselves up and get moving to the next task that much stronger. He knew Steinner would say the same thing.

  They were all huddled together in the main tent. The screen behind Harvey already had the American flag emblem emblazed in the background. He allowed his team to talk amongst themselves for a while. Harvey kept trying to hide it, but his interest in the room right now was in Kaspar and Krys. He tried to read them to see if Kaspar spilled the beans about the cure possibly being found. There was nothing revealed in either of their facial expressions. Perhaps he had underestimated his young soldier after all.

  Kaspar just kept rubbing on Krys’s shoulders. The poor woman looked out of it again. Inside his head, Harvey wanted to cure her. But, just like with the debate he had with Kaspar the night before, he knew that it wasn’t all about her. Harvey also knew that Krys understood that.

  The time for chit chat was now over. Harvey cleared his throat to get his unit’s attention. They all stopped talking at once and turned their attention to their leader. Harvey looked around the room for a moment then with a nod of his head, the American flag was erased from the screen, replaced by a real time, satellite image of a USR compound in the mountains. He allowed the team to get a good look at the image before proceeding.

 
; “This is our next target,” Harvey announced. He noticed in the back Kaspar stopped rubbing on Krys and leaned forward with great interest. “It’s a compound somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. We are still gathering data on it as we speak.”

  “What’s up there?” Dexter, who was seated all by himself to the left, asked.

  “What I’m about to tell you should be treated with the upmost,” Harvey paused and looked at Kaspar, “secrecy.”

  Kaspar said nothing in return. He didn’t say anything to Krys last night about it, not wanting to upset her, but he hadn’t revealed that to Harvey, yet. He simply remained in his forward posture and waited for Harvey to continue.

  “There might be something of extreme value in this compound.” Harvey continued.

  “Which is?” Buck, seated alone front and center, wondered.

  “The cure for what’s been ailing the female population.”

  There was a collective gasp in the tent. Krys placed her hands over her mouth and couldn’t breathe for a moment. She tried to grasp what the unit was just told. The look of shock on her face surprised Kaspar. In his mind, he thought that she would be more excited than this. If the information they gathered was accurate, and they got there in time, she would be cured. The other part of her mission could be completed, too. She could spread the word on the drug and, at the same time, help those in need. Kaspar reasoned that maybe it was just her way of dealing with the revelation.

  Krys remained speechless, which came as a shock to Harvey, too. He continued on with the mission brief, waiting for the moment when Krys would interrupt him with questions. But, as he continued, they never came. He was about to get to where they would be meeting up with Sanders’s boys when the interruption finally came.

  “Are we sure that this is for real?” Krys asked with hesitation in her voice.

  “We can never be one hundred percent sure,” Harvey declared. “However, we did rip the Intel straight from that USR computer, so we are pretty sure this is legit.”

  “There was no evidence of tampering or anything?”

  “No.”

  “So, this is for real…” Krys said as her voice began to trail off.

  “As far as we know, yes.” Harvey nodded at Krys with a half-smile. “Now, moving on, we will be meeting up with another team for this Op. They will provide us with some extra guns and support.”

  With a nod, Harvey gave Clarke the signal to change the slide. After a few moments, Roy Sanders’s mug shot appeared on the screen. The look of that red scar on Sanders’s forehead caused Kaspar to wince. Just the thought of what caused such a nasty mark on another human being made his own forehead hurt a little bit. Harvey continued the brief with letting the team know who Sanders was and how his team was going to help them.

  For some reason, the look on the guy caused mistrust within Kaspar. He knew that there was really no reason for the distrust. It was more of a gut feeling. With the seriousness of this upcoming mission, getting the cure for Krys, he wanted to make sure that nothing would get messed up. He raised his hand and Harvey pointed at him.

  “Have you met this Sanders guy?” Kaspar asked.

  “No, never in person, but we’ve been in contact for several months.”

  “How do you know we can trust him, then?”

  Harvey looked to ground then back up. “I’ve been doing this stuff for a lot longer than you. I know when I can trust a man or not. He bleeds red, white, and blue, I can tell you that.”

  “How many men does he have?”

  “Including Roy, we’ll have eight more guns for this mission.”

  That would have to be good enough. Kaspar trusted Harvey, so if Harvey said Sanders was good, then he would just assume that. There was another issue lingering in the back of his head. He raised his hand again. This time, the rebel leader seemed annoyed by yet another question from Kaspar.

  “Yes, Ryan?”

  “Did you or Clarke find out anything else about this cure? Like, does it describe how long it takes for the cure to take effect?”

  Harvey shook his head. “I was just about to get there. According to the documents we uncovered, the cure takes about 24-48 hours to completely wipe out the toxins from the body. The high potency of the drugs will induce a coma during that time frame as they rid the body of them. There is an eighty percent chance of survival.”

  “Eighty percent?” Krys asked. “That’s it?”

  “It’s better than zero.”

  Dexter cleared his throat. “What are we going to do with this cure if we get it?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead, yet. Obviously, it will be something very valuable for us to have. But, we’ll have to very careful once we get it. There aren’t many people we can trust with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, this will be probably the most potent political weapon out there right now. If in the wrong hands, someone might try to sell it back to the USR for credits, or even worse, give it back to them freely.” Harvey replied.

  “And, you’re sure we can trust this Sanders guy, right?” Kaspar demanded once more.

  “Yes, I’m sure. But, I haven’t met any of his men, yet. I trust each and every one of you here in this room, with my life. I’m just saying that extra precaution will be needed once we get in and get the cure out of there.”

  Krys looked over at Kaspar and, finally, a smile crept on her face. Kaspar smiled back, wanting nothing more than to plant a big kiss on her, but held back not wanting to break the professionalism of the briefing. That smile, he hadn’t seen it in its genuine form in a long time. He just wished that they could somehow get over there in a flash, get the cure, and then everything would be like it once was with her. They could run together, continue to fight the USR, and do the other things that…

  “We move out in two hours,” Harvey’s booming voice interrupted Kaspar’s thoughts. “Let’s get everything packed up on the double. Move out!”

  Kaspar began to help Krys out of her seat when, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe any longer. Her chest convulsed violently as she tried to draw a breath. She then went to her knees on the grass and gasped for air.

  The gasps only lasted a few seconds before she blacked out completely.

   

  .20

  Kaspar kept his gaze on Krys as she still lay unconscious on the small cot. His fingers were gripped on her hand, which lay limp along with her arm over the side of the bed. Her hands felt cold and Kaspar thought that this might be the end for her. On the other side, Dexter worked on the IV, administering the same shit they’d been pumping into her system for the past several months.

  As he rubbed at her cold hand, he could feel the skin start to peel away from it. When he looked down, he saw yet another lesion developing on it. He kept telling her in his mind to wake up. They would get the cure for her and she would be all fine again. She just needed to hold on, to not give up, to just…

  A moan came from her lips as she started to move her head back and forth. Krys looked like she was trying to escape from a bad dream. Her eyes were slow to open until they finally met Kaspar’s concerned ones. With her bearings back, she gripped his arm with both hands. She moved her head up towards his arm and rested it there. Kaspar reached down and rubbed at her hair.

  “I’ll give you two a minute.” Dexter said as he headed towards the front of the tent.

  “Thanks,” Kaspar replied.

  His attention turned back to Krys. He never thought he would see her as weak as she was right now. He got down to one knee and kissed at her forehead. Krys looked up from the kiss and didn’t say a word. There was no smile on her face, either. Nothing but dread and sadness could be found there. Tears started to roll down her cheeks.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Kaspar said as he wiped the tears away.

  Krys winced before she spoke. “How…can you say that? I’ve never been this bad before.”

  “I just kno
w it’s all going to work out. We are going to get that cure and…”

  “We’ve been saying this for months now. What if there is no hope?”

  Kaspar shook his head. “I can’t believe that I’m hearing this from you right now. You’ve got to stay strong.”

  “How can I stay strong?” Krys said as more tears flowed. “Look at me. My body is…wasting away before my own eyes. I can’t keep this up for much longer. I just want to rest.”

  Kaspar snapped. “No!”

  Krys was taken aback by her lover’s sudden aggressiveness. She let go of her grip and laid her head flat on the soft, white pillow. As she closed her eyes, Kaspar started to pace around the tent. There was a sudden regret in him that he snapped at her like that, but she was being so weak right now. He couldn’t bring himself to understand the nature of her condition. The only thing that he wanted was the old Krys back and he was starting to doubt, once more, that the old Krys would ever come back.

  After he was done pacing, Kaspar walked back over to the bed and got down on his knees again. He rested his tired head on her midsection. The feeling of her hands running through his hair calmed him for the moment.

  “I’m sorry I snapped.” Kaspar said.

  “It’s okay. I know how you must feel to see me like this. But, I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t know if I even want to go on this next mission or not.”

  “Please, stay with me out there. One last time, for me.”

  Krys was silent for a moment before she replied. “Just this one last time, Ryan. After this, I’m done. I can’t go on like this.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Kaspar moved his head up and faced her. “We’re going to get that cure and we’re going to save you. I promised that I would.”

  Their moment was cut short when Harvey entered the tent. The leader tried to sympathize with Krys, but the team needed to move out, and right now. He moved in and looked down at his soldier.

  “How are you feeling?” Harvey wondered knowing the answer.

  “How do you think I’m feeling?” was Krys’s response.

  “I know. I hate to rush you like this, but we need to move. Can you move?”

  “Yeah, I can move.”

  She started to get up with Kaspar’s help. Harvey walked behind her and took the IV out of her arm then quickly taped gauze to it. With Kaspar’s help, Krys was able to get back to her feet. As they walked, her legs wobbled a little bit, but they managed to make it out of the tent.

  “Look,” Harvey said once they were out, “you don’t have to go on this next run if you are not able to.”

  “I’ll be fine, Harv, trust me. I just need to rest on the way there, that’s all.”

  “We’ll get you another IV and some room to lie down.” Harvey replied. “We’re meeting at the vehicles in twenty minutes. We’ll take your tent down for you.”

  With that, Kaspar led Krys to the armored vehicle as Harvey, Dexter, and Clarke worked on the tent. Inside, the others already made a pallet of blankets on one of the benches for Krys to lie down on. Kaspar tried to help her get comfortable. Once settled, he grabbed another blanket and wrapped her up in it.

  “Thank you,” Krys said with a smile.

  “You don’t have to thank me.” Kaspar replied.

   

  .21

  Three days was not a long time for an Agent. The timeline was sped up by the fact that Sullivan had nothing to go on. Little, his neophyte rookie partner, surely wasn’t going to help him. The young gun reminded Sullivan a lot of himself back when he first got promoted. So far up the USR’s ass that he couldn’t tell left from right. The kid just sat there beside him in the car practicing his quick draw. They were still tuned in to the hideout, and once more, there was nothing going on inside, or so it seemed. Their marks just talked shit and accused each other cheating once again.

  Sullivan was sure that the code they spoke in was either the cards, or in the way they talked to one another. He reasoned that the most likely would be the cards because there were only so many combinations of trash talk that could be encoded. With the cards, you had any number of varieties of ways to speak to one another. It was silent, the cameras couldn’t pick up on it, and the suspected rebels inside could play it off like they were just playing cards. It was ingenious, Sullivan thought.

  That three day time limit caused the Agent to take more drastic measures in his quest for answers. There was little doubt in his mind with all the secrecy and desperation on his employer’s part that they were involved in some way with what killed his wife. With his eyes closed, Sullivan breathed in deep as he reached in his pocket for that black device he took earlier in the day. He fiddled inside of the pocket and drew the attention of his partner.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Little demanded. “Playing pocket pull, Boss?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Sullivan replied.

  “Okay…”

  His fingers found the little red button in the center. He pressed down on the button and in a matter of seconds, a loud, static filled sound cried through their speakers. Both Agents ripped the ear plugs from their ears. Their ears rang from the unpleasant noise that the device caused.

  “What the hell is that?” Little cried.

  “I don’t know. Some kind of scrambler or something.” Sullivan replied.

  “You did this, didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “That thing in your pocket. You caused this.”

  “Fuck you, rookie.”

  Little was undeterred. “You trying to sabotage this whole thing?”

  “Why would I do that? You think I don’t like putting food on my kid’s table? I’m going in there.” Sullivan reached for his Glock 17 and yanked back the chamber. “You stay put.”

  “The hell you mean ‘stay put’.”

  “I mean, keep your rookie ass in this car.”

  “You’re crazy. This is my case, too.”

  Sullivan pointed the gun at the kid. Just like last night, Little just froze and didn’t make any attempt to subdue his partner. As much as this rookie wanted to put away the bad people and serve his country, he was just as much of a coward who didn’t want to get hurt. Sullivan actually liked the change of pace. There was no way he could have gotten away with this maverick behavior before with those two dip shits. They would have put him under.

  “You’re going to stay in this car,” Sullivan ordered. “If you disobey my orders, then I will personally see you put in prison as a member of the resistance.”

  “You’re not going to get away with this!”

  “Oh, yes, I am. Remember that little talk we had about seniority? Who do you think they would believe?”

  “You’ve done lost it!”

  “Stay put. If I even feel you creeping up behind me, I will turn around and put two in your chest, let you bleed for a little bit, then put one in your head. You get me?”

  The rookie simply nodded. Sullivan exited the car and back peddled the first few steps as he faced his partner. When he was certain that Little would comply with his orders, he turned and jogged at a steady pace towards the warehouse. He kept his gun held low at his thigh as he moved. That little device was something else, Sullivan thought. The device was a new invention given to the USR’s Agents. It would scramble any video and listening device within a half mile of where the user was. It was supposed to be used to scramble the resistance’s communications when the USR would breach their locations. Now, Sullivan was using it to scramble out the USR’s signals so he could talk with the resistance face to face.

  When he reached the door of the warehouse, he stopped for a moment to breathe. Visions of his son clouded his mind. He wondered if this was really worth it. They were resistance, after all, and their leader in there would no doubt recognize the man who interrogated him days before.

  Through the door, he could hear them inside, getting all rowdy over their “card game”. He would be outnumbered six
to one. If they decided to, they could kill the Agent, and then make a run for it. Somehow, Sullivan didn’t think that was going to happen. The men inside still had a plan, and they needed to execute it. If they killed an Agent, they would be forced to abandon that assignment, causing the resistance even more headaches than they already had with the mighty USR breathing down their necks.

  Just play it cool.

   

   

   .22

  With one swift kick from his left foot, Sullivan was able to knock the door open. The wave of surprise that hit him almost knocked at his concentration for a brief, split second. The boys in the room all dropped their cards and stood from their chairs. The Agent had the upper hand for the moment, as the men in the room were not expecting someone to barge in with a Glock pointed in their direction. Reed pulled out a revolver and held the others back.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Reed shouted.

  “I’m with the USR.” Sullivan replied back. “I’m not here to arrest anyone. I’ve come to warn you.”

  The men started to scramble around, but Reed told them to keep calm. Sure enough, the rebel leader recognized Sullivan from the interrogation room. Reed moved forward, gun still trained on the Agent’s head. The Agent kept his gun trained, as well, hoping that the rookie stayed in the car like he was ordered to. Now came the hard part. He had to convince these men that he was, in fact, not here to do anything but warn them of the coming invasion of USR Agents.

  “You were the one who interrogated me, right?” Reed demanded.

  “That’s right, I…”

  X moved forward, a Colt .45 in his hands, and pushed Reed aside. Things were about to get out of hand really quick for the Agent. He moved his gun from Reed to the former Mexican gangster.

  “Let’s blast his ass, homes.” X said. “They’ve found us. We can’t risk our operation.”

  “You can still run your operation,” Sullivan said. “Just listen to what I have to say.”

  “Why should we do that? We know you’ve got this place bugged.”

  “Don’t shoot.” Sullivan said as he reached with his free hand into his pocket. He pulled out the little black device for the all to see. “This is blocking our signal. They can’t hear or see us right now.”

  “I don’t believe…” X started to say.

  “X, lower your weapon.” Reed said.

  “Are you loco?” X demanded. “He’s an Agent.”

  “An Agent who came alone,” Reed replied. “Agents never come alone, am I right?”

  “That’s right.” Sullivan replied.

  The others in the room moved forward now. They raised their handguns and aimed them at the intruder. Sullivan’s mind started to race. He should have known that this was a bad idea. In fact, he did know it was, but this was the only way, given his short time constraints. The Agent’s eyes darted from left to right at all the guns pointed at him. There was an eerie silence in the room. It was time to change tactics.

  “Look,” Sullivan started to plead as he raised his gun hand in the air. “I’m not here for anything else other than to warn you, that’s all.”

  “Why the fuck would you do that?” X demanded.

  “I want answers. I was hoping you fellas could help me with that.”

  “Why would we talk to you? C’mon, boss, let’s do him and dump the body.”

  “You would kill an Agent in cold blood?” Sullivan demanded. “That’s not smart…”

  X cocked the hammer of his Colt back. “Letting you live wouldn’t be smart…”

  “Okay!” Reed shouted. “Everyone, lower your damn weapons, now!”

  The others obeyed and lowered their guns, all except for X. He remained defiant. There was no way in hell he was going to lower his weapon. Reed moved over and tapped the man on the shoulder. He tried to ask him again to lower the weapon, but the mean scowl and focused eyes of X remained on the Agent.

  “X,” Reed started to say. “If this man was here for anything else, he would’ve brought an army of Agents with him, but he didn’t. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

  “You’ve gotten soft, Bossman.”

  “It’s the right play.”

  “Your boss is right,” Sullivan said. He inched his gun back into the shoulder holster. “It’s the only play you got. You kill me here, you can kiss your operation good-bye. You kick me out, you’ll never see me again, and you won’t know what the USR is plotting right now, either. So, you lose your operation still. You can listen to me, though, maybe learn a thing or two about your enemy, and continue…whatever it is that you are doing.”

  “How can we trust you?” X demanded.

  “You can’t really know for sure. But, you can listen to what I have to say.”

  “Spit it out, Puerco.”

  “All right, now all of you, listen up.” Sullivan said.

  The others moved in around him. Sullivan still felt uncomfortable with this many men who swore that all Agents were their enemies, swarming around him. He would just have to get over it. After taking a few breaths, he gained his composure.

  Sullivan cleared his throat. “Okay, they’ve given me three days to come up with something concrete about your operation.”

  “What happens in three days?” Sugar asked.

  “In three days, if I don’t have anything, the USR is going to breach the hell out of this place and kill you all. If you survive the breach, you’ll live only to be tortured and publically executed.”

  “How much do they know about us?” Reed wondered.

  “Not much. They know you all meet here after work. They know you play cards. They also know that you are most likely working for the resistance.”

  There was an instant silence. Sullivan moved his head slow around the room. His eyes roamed around to see if anyone would bite. He still didn’t know for a fact that they were actually resistance. It had always been an assumption. The assumption proved to be accurate with the reaction of the men when he entered the room, saying he was USR.

  “Anything else?” Reed asked.

  “Well, there is one other thing,” Sullivan said. “Something that I don’t know, and I’m not sure if any of my superiors know, but what is it that you do in the factory?”

  “We make things,” X answered.

  Sullivan allowed a smirk. “What kind of things?”

  “Not going to tell you that. We don’t even know you…”

  “Look,” Sullivan said. He placed his hands up in the air. “We don’t have a whole lot of time. I’ve got a rookie sitting in a car right now who’s about to blow his wad any second. Just heed my warning. Don’t meet up here. You can meet somewhere else if you want, but not here. Just be more careful about being made.”

  He reached into his pocket and when he did, the men in the room started to go for their weapons again. Reed called them off. Again, Sullivan raised his hands in submission. They all backed off. In his right, cupped hand, rested a piece of paper. The Agent handed it over to Reed. As he slowly began to back away, the men behind him moved over to allow him an easy path back to the door.

  Once he was gone, everyone in the room gathered around Reed to decide what was next. Reed unfolded the piece of paper and read aloud from it. It was simply a phone number and instructions for when they would next meet.

  “I don’t like it.” X remarked as he began to pace around the room.

  “Well, like it or not, he did tip us off.” Reed replied.

  “That’s fine, he’s a real humanitarian. What if this is a trick? To get us out in the open and pick us off?”

  “If he wanted us arrested or dead, he could have ordered that a long time ago.”

  Pinkie stepped in, “I’m with X on this one, boss. We can’t trust him. We just need to go forward with the plan and then get the hell out of here.”

  “Listen, guys, we’ve got help on the inside now. Potential help, anyway, but he did tip us off…”
/>
  “Why would he do that?” X demanded.

  “I’m not a mind reader, X, but maybe he’s telling the truth, he just wants to talk. Something must have happened to him. Something that we might be able to help him with in return.”

  “You speaking in maybe’s, if’s, and hypotheticals is starting to piss me off.”

  Reed stepped up to the second in command. “You challenging my authority is pissing me off, too, X. Don’t forget, you asked me to lead us.”

  “I’m beginning to think that was a mistake, homes.”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to live with it.”

  “Not if I relieve you of your command.”

  Pepper moved in and got between them. “Woah, woah, fellas. We don’t need this right now. Boss is right, we did put him in command, let’s go with what he says.”

  “Your boss is going to get us all killed.” X replied.

  “All right, all right.” Reed said. “Look, let’s see what happens in the next two days and then decide what to do. If our place gets raided then we’ll move forward and see what the son of a bitch wants. If not, then we know we can’t trust him, got it?”

  “Fine by me.”

  The men began to gather their belongings and head for the door.

   

  .23

  Harvey and his team already set up camp by the time Sanders showed up with his squad. The sun had set hours ago and nothing remained in the sky but a vast darkness, the clouds covered up the stars and half of the moon. When the motors of Sanders’s team’s vehicles roared into the night air, the rebels in Harvey’s team all grabbed their assault rifles, ready to strike if it happened to be USR troops. They all approached the vehicle with their weapons shouldered and at the ready. Sanders hopped out of the driver’s side of his truck and gave a big salute and a bigger smile.

  “Lower your weapons, men.” Harvey said. He approached Sanders and the two saluted one another.

  “So nice to finally meet you.” Sanders said as his arm moved down and he held out his hand.

  “Pleasure’s all mine,” Harvey replied, embracing the handshake. “This is my team, one is away sleeping, but here they are.”

  “Nice to meet all of you.” Sanders said.

  Harvey’s unit all said how it was a pleasure to meet him, too. Harvey told his men to go and help Sanders’s squad with setting up their camp. With a laugh, he told them that it would be a great bonding experience. As they moved out to set up camp, Harvey brought Sanders to his tent. Inside, a pot of coffee was already brewing, steam escaped from the top. Harvey poured himself out a cup then offered one to Sanders. The old war veteran accepted the cup and downed it in one gulp. He handed the empty cup to Harvey for another round.

  “How can you do that?” Harvey asked.

  “What?” Sanders demanded. “This is my normal routine.”

  “You don’t burn your throat at all?”

  “Sure, it burns,” Sanders replied. He snatched the replenished cup from Harvey’s hand. “But, you can’t be a pussy and let that get in the way.”

  Sanders took slow, steady sips from his cup this time. As they sat there, Harvey tried to ignore Sanders’s dick measuring contest. His friend would do that from time to time when they spoke on the telecom. Harvey was certain that this old prick had some kind of insecurity about something and so he always tried to win out in who was the bigger man. For his part, Harvey was never an insecure man, nor was he a cocky man. So, when the contests to man up came, he just ignored them.

  “What’s been going on your way?” Harvey asked.

  “Same old, you know? USR’s getting bigger and stronger every day.” Sanders answered.

  “I hear that.”

  “I hear that you have a sick one in your unit.”

  “Yes, we do. Her name’s Krys, and she got bit by that population control drug a few months back. She’s still fighting, though, trying to get through it.”

  “Then, she’s a good soldier.” Sanders said, holding his steaming cup of coffee up in the air.

  “She is that all right. But, she doesn’t have much time left. She needs that cure and we gotta hope that it works on her.”

  “We’ll get it. She’ll be the first guinea pig to see its effectiveness.”

  Harvey let that thought sink in for a moment as he took another sip of his coffee. A guinea pig? Was that all that his comrade had become? She was human being and when she wasn’t being doped up on meds, she was reduced to the role of guinea pig. This war was starting to get the better of him. The moral ambiguity of it all was taking its toll on his soul.

  “A guinea pig, huh?” Harvey asked.

  “Well, I don’t want to call her a test subject.”

  “What do you think we’re going to do with this cure if it’s there and we get our hands on it?”

  “You haven’t figured that out, yet, have you?”

  Harvey shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve thought about it some, but nothing concrete or anything.”

  “I’ve got some ideas.” Sanders replied.

  This response got Harvey’s attention. Unlike himself, Sanders was a guy who could think ahead and plan things out intricately. For Harvey, he was more of a visionary type of leader. He saw the big picture, but his mind didn’t wrap around how to get there. Sanders, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He could take the big picture and create steps to get there.

  Harvey listened to Sanders ramble on about his idea for dispersing the cure without detection, while also making sure that the victims they saved knew that they were, in fact, saved by the resistance. Sanders said that they would have to hack into hospital systems in each of the major cities to find out which women were infected, get their personal information, and then secretly give them the cure. Most of the women infected were already discharged from the hospital and sent to their homes to die a slow death. The ones in the hospital…they wouldn’t be so lucky.

  “So, if they are in the hospital’s care, we just let them die?” Harvey demanded.

  “No, we didn’t give them this drug, they did. They are the ones who will answer for their deaths in the next life, not us. It’s, in a sick way, a good thing that we’ve got a woman infected with us.”

  “How is that a good thing?”

  “C’mon, bub, I told you already. We can see with our own eyes if this cure even works.”

  “That poor woman is dying, and we are sitting in this tent, thanking the heavens that we’ve got someone infected? That is sick.”

  “Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture,” Sanders warned with a pointed index finger. “She’s just one person. As difficult as it is to say, she’s insignificant. We are insignificant, as individuals, in this war. It’s us as a collective, and what we do as a collective, which matters. Don’t get caught up in just one person.”

  “She’s a human being, Roy. We can’t lose sight of humanity, either.”

  “You sound like you’ve gotten soft in your old age.”

  “Soft?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, soft. Weak.”

  Harvey fought back the urge to slug Sanders in the jaw for saying such a thing. Nobody ever accused him of being weak in his entire adult life. He fought the feeling and reasoned that this was just another one of his arguments to overcompensate. Harvey took a sip of his coffee and tried to cool himself off.

  “I think you’ve seen too many battles. You’ve gotten desensitized to all this.” Harvey replied.

  “Desensitized, huh? I’ve always been a soldier. I learned a long time ago that I’m only as good as the results I can bring to the battlefield. None of this bullshit is about saving one life. I’m interested in saving everyone.”

  “And, just don’t look at our comrades as people, right? It sounds like you’re losing sight of the bigger picture.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that.” Sanders replied. He rubbed at the back of his neck and let out a yawn. “What did you think of
my plan, anyway?”

  “It’s tactically sound. It could work.” Harvey replied, letting out his own yawn.

  Sanders let out a wry smile. “Of course it’s tactically sound and will work. I came up with it.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky, old man.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  Harvey yawned again. “I think it’s time us two old geezers get to bed. We’ve got a long day of driving tomorrow.”

  “The only geezer I see in here is you.”

  “That right?”

  “Yeah,” Sanders said. He stood and, as he was stretching, he took the time to flex his biceps. “I’m still in my prime.”

   

   

  .24

  Reed looked over his shoulders one at a time before he inserted his key into the front door. His two bedroom apartment, which fit his family of five, was in the basement level of a tall building which posed as an apartment complex. Most of the units were ripped up pieces of shit that had only a toilet and a shower. It was in this complex, Reed remembered, that the resistance got into a fire fight with USR Agents after the government implicated some poor bastard. He, followed by his wife and kid, were gunned down by the Agents. The government, of course, went on a tirade about how it was the resistance’s fault. Reed knew better.  Despite all the long hours Reed put in with the USR, he still only managed to afford this place. But, he couldn’t bring himself to complain about it.

  Per the usual, it took several jiggles of the key to get the damn lock to unstick. Once the lock finally cooperated, it took another shoulder shove to get the door opened. It was a workout just to get inside his apartment. He was finally inside when he took another deep breath then made sure his door was locked. The tough to open door did serve a good purpose, if the USR or some gang banger tried to break in, he’d have enough time to get to the kitchen and behind the stove. He walked over there, reached behind it, and then took hold of his AK-47. He inspected it, making sure it had a full mag, then made sure the safety was on. He placed it back behind the stove then went for the bedroom.

  The sound of footsteps caught him off guard for a moment. He quickly turned and saw that it was his son, Damian, who snuck up on him. After a brief sigh of relief, Reed walked over to his eight year old son. He got down to one knee to get to eye level with him. Damian was growing up so fast. With his job not only costing him long hours, but also his card games after work, it seemed that he was only home to sleep.

  “Hey, Dad.” Damian sound as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Hey, buddy, why aren’t you bed?” Reed asked.

  “I heard you walk in. I missed you today. I thought I could spend some time with you.”

  Reed’s heart sank. “It’s late, and a school night…we’ll hang out tomorrow.”

  “You promise?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Reed walked Damian over to the sink. He reached up for a glass and filled it with water. After the boy downed the water in one large gulp, Reed led him to the bedroom. Inside, Damian’s two sisters were fast asleep, one on each of the bunk beds. Damian’s sleeping spot was an old air mattress situated in the center of the room. Reed watched his boy get into it and then get snuggled up in the covers. Damian fell right to sleep, just as Reed had guessed.

  He shut the door as quietly as he could and then went for the master bedroom. As he opened the door, the low squeals from the hinges forced Belle from her sleep. Reed undressed then got into bed with his wife. Belle wrapped her arms around her husband and pulled him in close. Reed thanked the heavens every day and night that she had not been infected. He figured that there had to be, by some miracle, women who would be resistant to it.

  “So glad you’re safe tonight,” Belle said. The tiredness in her voice was obvious by her low speaking tone.

  “Of course, I always am.” Reed replied. His lips gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.

  “How was it tonight?”

  “We can’t get anything done. Everyone keeps accusing me of cheating.”

  Communicating in code followed Reed home, as well. Even though the desire grew within to tell her what exactly he was up to, as it was every night, he held back. The risk of her knowing something was too great if the USR was to bring her in for questioning. That thought just brought nightmares every night for Reed. Even if she didn’t know anything, she would still be tortured, likely killed. All he could do was hope and pray that that day would never come. He had already put her in a position to make that outcome a possibility. There would be no ounce of forgiveness for himself if it actually happened.

  “You never did play fair.” Belle replied with a slight chuckle.

  “Hey, now don’t you start.”

  Reed wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. He gave her another kiss on the cheek. The way her cheeks felt against his lips gave away that she was smiling. He would never understand how she could be so happy with him gone all the time.

  “I missed you today.” she said.

  “I missed you, too.”

  “When are you going to stop playing cards and be around the house more? It’s bad enough you work all those hours in the factory.”

  “I know,” Reed replied, breathing in deep. “I’ve told you that I’m doing this for you.”

  “Are you gambling or something?”

  “We’ve been over this. I can’t tell you what I’m doing. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. It’s for you and the kids.”

  “You know that I trust you. Just…please hurry up and finish what it is you are doing.”

  “We’re getting closer.”

   

  .25

  Kaspar sat alone in the woods on a fold out chair. He felt an intense craving for a cigarette, but he promised Krys that he would quit. The months of not smoking went by okay, for the most part, but it was on nights like these when the cravings would attack his brain to the point where he almost couldn’t focus on anything other than smoking.

  With so many things running through his mind at the moment, the mere thought of sleep was rendered impossible. He grabbed a stick and poked around at the small fire he had built for himself. Unlike their last location, here it was chilly when the sun went down. He pulled his jacket across his body tighter to try and conserve his body heat.

  His mind, once more, went away from the chill and back to Krys. She seemed to be doing better tonight than she had been feeling lately. Sleep caught her as soon as she laid her head down on the pillow.

  He started to question whether or not they would be successful on this mission. They had been relatively successful on all the others that they had undertaken since joining up with Harvey. Still, there had been a lot of screw ups along the way, and another man died because of such a mistake. There was also this feeling of doubt that there was no cure in that building. He tried to reason with his own mind that it was just a lack of confidence on his part. Kaspar couldn’t really think of the last time that something he wanted came to fruition.

  Off in the distance, he heard the soft sound of branches cracking under someone’s feet. When he looked back, he hoped to see Krys awaken to join him for the night. Instead, it was Buck, one of the last people he wanted to see when thinking of a mission going fubar. Buck approached and, in a meek tone, asked if he could sit down next to him. Kaspar gave him a nod of the head. Buck didn’t think ahead to bring a chair with him to sit on. Since Kaspar sure as hell wasn’t going to give up his chair for him, the kid was forced to sit on the ground. He kicked at the sticks and leaves on the ground to make a spot. The kid moved his bare hands towards the fire then started to rub them together.

  “Cold night, huh?” Buck asked.

  “Sure is.”

  “Couldn’t sleep, either?”

  “Nope.”

  Buck shook his head then focused on the fire in front. The two sat in silence for a long moment. Buck was still not used to Kaspar’s introverted nature. He s
till grew irritated with the man’s one word answers. Buck’s mind was still filled with his thoughts about Steinner. About the mission that had gone completely wrong. He needed to get his mind off of it.

  “You still thinking about Jeremy?” Kaspar asked.

  “Yeah,” Buck answered. Son of a bitch. “Can’t get it out of my head, actually.”

  “I hear that,” Kaspar replied. Instinct crept in and he reached for the pack of smokes in his pocket that weren’t there.

  “You experience a lot of death or something?”

  “You could say that.”

  The little girl was in his arms, again. She was breathing her last breaths. Kaspar couldn’t hear it come from her lips, but he knew that she was blaming him for her death, as well as the deaths of her parents. The team…they were just too slow. He looked up and saw Krys lying down on the bed with blood leaking from her mouth. That death was his fault, too…

  “You still with me?” Buck asked.

  “Yeah,” Kaspar replied. He shook his head free from the vision then cleared his throat.

  “I can’t help but blame myself for what happened.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for that, Buck. He knew what he was into.”

  “I know, but it was my mistake that cost him his life.”

  “C’mon, snap out of it! If you keep blaming yourself, you’ll never be a good fighter out there. You’ve got to move on.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  Kaspar shook his head. “Maybe your father knows what he’s talking about.”

  “What about you? You’ve obviously experienced a lot before we met.”

  “There was this family,” Kaspar started to say. He took a moment to rub his brow. “It was one of those deals. Easy mission, get in, get the family out, everyone goes home happy.”

  “But…”

  “We arrived too late. By the time we got there the USR had already showed up. We tried…Lord, we tried so hard to save them. This Agent takes the mother and daughter into the back bedroom. I run in after them. The bastard takes them both out. I bust through the door just as he did the girl. Seconds late.”

  Buck half smiled. “Sounds like we have a lot in common, then.”

  “No,” Kaspar shot back. “We don’t have a lot in common, Buck. Steinner was a soldier…these were innocent people that got wiped off the face of the earth.”

  “A life is a life.”

  Kaspar turned and looked the kid straight in the eye. “There’s a difference.”

  Buck threw up his hands in defeat. “Okay.”

  “Anyway, like I was saying, you can’t wallow in your own self-pity.”

  “How did you cope with that little girl?”

  Kaspar looked to the sky and then dropped his head back down. “I didn’t. Just like with my mother dying, and pretty soon with Krys. That’s why I’m so miserable all the time, I guess.”

  “What happened to you mother?”

  Kaspar went in detail the whole story with Mother. The words became almost too difficult to say the more he went into it. Buck just sat there, wide eyed at the whole ordeal. In the back of his mind, as he got deeper and deeper, the feeling of guilt entrapped Kaspar. The anger about his father also swelled up inside. When he got to the part about his confrontation with Sullivan, the kid finally said a word.

  “Why didn’t you kill him?” Buck asked.

  “It was because of the boy. Trust me, not a day goes by that I don’t think about if I made the right decision or not. And, every day that Krys gets closer to dying, the guilt of not killing the son of a bitch gets stronger.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Kaspar sighed, “Because it was not just the asshole’s son that kept me from doing it. It was also her. She wouldn’t want me to kill a man in cold blood right in front of his son. I’ve always wanted to be a better person when I’m with her. But, she’s almost gone, you know? No reason to be a better person then.”

  “What are you talking about? We’re about to get the cure and she’ll be fine.”

  “If the cure even exists. If we’re not on some wild goose chase. Not only that, but you heard, didn’t you? There’s only that eighty percent chance of success.”

  “You gotta have hope, though, or else what’s all this shit for?”

  The kid had a point. But, what good was hope without anything substantial coming about? Kaspar could hope all he wanted that this miracle cure would perk her right back to the way she was before, but that hope wouldn’t change the facts. Either there was a cure or not. Either the cure would kill Krys or make her better. And, not only those facts, but also the fact that the unit would either get whatever was in that complex or they would die trying. What was the point of hope? He tried to feel hope when the two of them escaped with Clarke all those months back.

  Look where that got me.

  The irony—hypocrisy even—was not lost on Kaspar. This whole time he had been trying to get Krys to not lose hope and here he found himself losing his. It didn’t quite make all that much sense to him. After all, they were about to raid a compound where something that could finally help her was supposedly kept.

  Kaspar decided to change the subject. “What’s the deal with you and your old man, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Buck demanded.

  “I don’t know. It just seems like you’ve got a rocky relationship or something.”

  “Yeah, he wants me to be this great soldier.” Buck smirked. “Some great soldier, huh?”

  “You’re still young. You’re making rookie mistakes.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want to be that?”

  “What else would you do?”

  Buck thought on it for moment. He gave a smile. “A musician or an artist.”

  Kaspar laughed. “How do you plan on using that out there? Might as well keep on with the good fight.”

  “It was a joke, that’s the point. I’ve got nothing else out there for me. If I could though, I would be like a jazz musician or something.”

  “Yeah, that’d be great wouldn’t it?”

  “What would you be doing?”

  Kaspar rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Hell, I’d probably still be boxing, I guess. Only thing I’m good at, other than shooting Agents, of course.”

  The two shared in another laugh. This was the first time that Kaspar had spent any kind of time with Buck apart from the battlefield. The kid seemed to be an all right guy. A bit too hard on himself, but Kaspar couldn’t say anything to him in that regard. After the laughter was over, they sat in silence for a while again before Kaspar spoke up.

  “Listen to your father.”

  Buck dropped the smile on his face and looked dead into Kaspar’s eyes. “What?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  Buck stood. “What business of that is yours?”

  “I’m just saying. You don’t know what it’s like to not have your old man around. All I had was my mother.”

  “Then we’re the same, but opposite.”

  “Huh?”

  Buck sighed. “My mother died while giving birth to me. I always felt guilty about it…and I’m never quite sure if my dad ever blamed me for it.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t. He just wants what’s best for you.”

  “Well,” Buck said as he turned his body the other way. “I think that’s about enough of this talk for now. I’ll see you around, huh?”

  “Sure, kid.”

  Buck started to walk for the campsite, leaving Kaspar alone with his thoughts once more.

   

  .26

  Harvey and Sanders sat in the back of an armored van with a laptop set up on a fold out table. The laptop belonged to Sanders and, of course, had a large screen enough screen that it could’ve passed for a small television. On the screen was a GPS image of the target compound. There was a road that led up the mountain to it, but there were checkpoints every few miles from what th
ey could see.

  “This is going to be tricky.” Harvey said.

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Well, we obviously can’t just drive up the road.”

  “Obviously. We’re going to have to park our vehicles somewhere far off and then walk.”

  Sanders played around with the image and pointed out what, in his estimation, would be the best place to park. Harvey noticed the distance involved from where his comrade finally stopped. He could tell, even from the smaller scale of the image, that the two teams would have to make it a long way by foot without detection.

  “How long of a hike is that?” Harvey wondered.

  “We’re looking at between ten to fifteen miles.” Sanders replied.

  “That long, huh?”

  “You gotta problem with that? Don’t think you’ll make it?”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  Sanders placed his coffee on the table. “Who are you worried about? That girl?”

  “She’s not in her best condition right now.”

  “Well, there’s no other way. Either she goes or guards the vehicles, I don’t care. Just one person, remember?”

  Harvey’s jaws clinched. “Yeah.”

  “Good. So, the way I figure it, we make the hike. Once we get closer, we can try and get a good look on the security outside the building.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “You’re pretty good with a sniper rifle, right?”

  Harvey shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve got some skill.”

  “Don’t be so damned humble all the time. We could use that skill to clear a path for ourselves.”

  It took a bit longer than he would care to admit, but Harvey began to realize that Sanders was taking complete control over an Op that he was originally supposed to just be helping out with. The old Marine had never been an in your face type of guy, it just wasn’t in his nature. Now, he felt his grasp on this mission slipping just a bit.

  “Hey,” Harvey said, puffing his chest. “This was my Op, remember?”

  Sanders grew a scowl on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “You know what I mean. I asked you for help and all you’ve done is try to take over what we’ve been trying to do.”

  “Look, big guy, I respect your military record. But, leave the strategy to me. You’re right, you did ask for my help, and I’m giving it to you. If you want to make this all about yourself, then me and my unit will just pack our things and go it alone.”

  Harvey was stumped. There was no comeback that came to mind, strategic or witty. He just sat there, dumbfounded. Sanders could have just been playing him, but then again, he could have been dead serious. There would be no way of knowing unless Sanders came right out and said it. Even if he did say it, with a drop dead serious look, the truth likely would have been hard to find. On the computer screen, and now face to face, Harvey found his comrade to be nearly impossible to read. None of that mattered, however, because this was likely the most dangerous—important—mission that he and his team would undertake. He just had to swallow his pride and take what he was given.

  “All right,” Harvey said. “We’ll play it your way, for now. But, if this thing gets fucked up, you are the one to blame, not me.”

  “The mark of a great leader is not giving a shit about the critics. You’ll do well to learn that, even in your old age.”

  “Touché.”

   

  .27

  The sight of the factory where his targets worked at caused a wave of curiosity to pour through Sullivan. It also caused a slight wave of anxiety, as well. Once again, he had been forbidden from getting too close to those he investigated, which got under his skin even more now than before. Before, he would just take it all in stride, but now his mind was more than a little bit questioning of the powers that be.

  His excuse for not showing up to work today was that he was sick and just needed the day to rest. That, of course, was utter bullshit. Sullivan’s actual reason for calling in was so that he could get a closer look at what Reed and the other boys did for a living with the USR. As he walked to the front door of the facility, one final bit of emotion hit him right in the gut. It was guilt. He felt guilty for not calling in sick and taking Davie out of school for a day of one on  one time with each other. All that would have to wait, he supposed, as he approached the door.

  After a deep breath, he yanked down on the heavy metal door handle and into the lobby. Inside, there was a desk in the far right hand corner which served as a check in area. The lanky, middle aged man behind the counter didn’t show a shred of emotion as Sullivan approached him. Sullivan decided not to use any either. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his credentials.

  “William Sullivan, Detective, USR Agent.”

  “How may I help you, sir?” the man behind the counter asked.

  “I need to talk with one of the employees that works here. Travis Reed.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Reed. On what business?”

  “Confidential, my man. Just get him over here.”

  “Just one minute.”

  Sullivan took a seat on one of the uncomfortable, pumpkin orange chairs to the left. He felt that maybe there was still some good to be done with his current standing in the USR. It still provided him the chance of using his title to get shit done. The man behind the counter was like any other man or woman in the United Society of Reason…they didn’t say anything but yes to an Agent. It occurred to him, as it did months before when his wife died, that he had no clue what he would do after he either quit or was forced out of the department. After he found the answers he was looking for, who knew? He might even join the rebellion. But, where would that leave Davie?

  “He’s on his way.” the man said.

  “Good. Have him meet me in the back.” Sullivan replied as he stood from his seated position.

  “Of course, sir.”

  Sullivan walked towards the door on his right, which led to the back alleyway. A perfect spot for him to have a little face time with Reed once again. He wondered if the suspected rebel actually took his advice or not. Right now, it didn’t really matter. He needed to have this talk with him to try and gain some trust with his target. Sullivan couldn’t blame the guy for not immediately trusting him for the same reason that he was able to quickly get the man behind the counter to do what he wanted.

  The sound of the door creaking open behind him forced the Agent’s attention towards that direction. There stood Reed, who threw his hands in the air, almost in defeat. His head went straight down, and then pointed straight up at the sky. When this little ritual was over, Reed finally approached the Agent.

  “What the hell?” Reed said aloud.

  “Calm down,” Sullivan replied. “I’m not here for anything but to talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Have you cancelled your card game?”

  Reed thought for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Fine.”

  The two men walked around the corner and down a mildly busy sidewalk. Sullivan, for the first time that he could remember, grew weary when he saw an Agent in full riot gear. The instincts inside him caused his head to move to the side so as to avoid all eye contact. Reed, to his credit, just acted like everything was cool and even nodded at the Agent. Sullivan turned left and led the two into a deserted alley littered with trash. They walked about midway down before he stopped. Loose pieces of paper blew around them along with the steady wind.

  “What the hell is going on?” Reed asked.

  Sullivan rested his back against one of the walls. “I need you to trust me.”

  “You know that that’s a large request.”

  “I realize that. There’s not much else I can do other than ask for your trust.”

  “How do you expect me, us, to trust you, an Agent?”

  “Remember when you were brou
ght in for questioning?”

  “Yes, of course I remember.”

  “I’ve been holding back the big guns ever since. We’ve been watching you. I volunteered for the investigation, because I knew someone else would be too eager to get a gold star by their name, if you catch my drift.”

  Reed rubbed at his chin then looked down either side of the alleyway. “Why us?”

  The Agent pulled his upper body off of the wall and approached the suspected rebel. He, too, now looked from left to right down the alleyway to make sure nobody was listening in. For the first time in his career, he was about to breach the oath of secrecy that all Agents took when they were hired on to their respective departments. There was no going back now, though, he told himself. It was time to get some answers.

  “For some reason, all of your buddies have abandoned the streets of the major cities they used to operate in. For the past six months, there has been little to no resistance activity for me to investigate.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Reed replied with a smirk. “You think I’m going to tell you where they are?”

  Sullivan shook his head. “No. I don’t care what the resistance as a whole is up to.”

  “So, you don’t care about them blowing up your compounds that build that drug then?”

  “No, I don’t. In fact, I applaud them.”

  Reed raised an eyebrow. “I’m confused.”

  “My wife…she was infected by some kind of poison that our doctor had never seen before. Then, I see something over the TV that the USR was responsible…”

  “They were!” Reed cried. He took a breath and calmed himself. “They created that drug to promote their population control, killing off countless women in the process, unaware of the side effects. Or, maybe they were aware, which is even scarier. I just thank God that my wife hasn’t been infected, yet.”

  “Yeah, well, the boys in my department are all hush hush about it. They don’t even talk about it. It’s like they don’t care or that it’s not really going on.”

  “Okay, so what does this have to do with us again?”

  Sullivan folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve tried searching every database in our network. Every time I get close to the truth, my clearance gets blocked, almost like someone is watching me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Reed said, holding his hand up. “You think that I’m going to provide you with some type of answers to your wife’s death?”

  “You do work in a top secret USR facility and you resistance folk seem to know more about this poison than anyone I work for.”

  Reed paused before speaking again. He tried to get a read on this Agent he was talking to. The deep feeling within that he was being trapped started to take over. To tell this man what he did in the factory could give this Sullivan a good enough reason to arrest him. After the arrest, Reed knew what came next. However, it was obvious to him that Sullivan had been hurt in some regard by his employers. He didn’t even seem like he wanted revenge as much as just wanting answers. Either way, he had to play this one right. Having a mole inside the USR couldn’t do anything but help.

  “Look, I don’t trust you enough yet to tell you what I do.” Reed said.

  “I understand that.”

  “But, I can tell you that it was in fact the USR that initiated your wife’s death with their experiments and that it is the resistance who is trying to fight back against them for it.”

  “Okay,” Sullivan said. “Time to cut this short. Here, take this.”

  Sullivan looked around before he reached into his jacket pocket. When his hand came back out, the fingers gripped a small black cell phone. Reed seemed to a bit apprehensive about taking the phone.

  “Relax, it’s not bugged. I know that you guys can scan the thing anyway to make sure. I’m here to help. If I wanted to bring you boys down, I would’ve called in a SWAT team instead of barging in that warehouse myself.”

  “Okay, what’s the phone for?”

  “Keep it on you. If I hear of anything, I’ll call to warn you. My standing in the department isn’t very high right now. I had to call in sick today just to meet with you. I don’t know how much longer I’ll even be employed.”

  “All right.”

  “Stay low. I know this is ironic, but don’t trust anyone in there. If you feel the heat or anything, take your family, and book it the hell out of town.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to keep in contact with you until you trust me enough to give me some answers.”

   

  .28

  Those pair of wide, brown eyes stared right back into Harvey’s. He could feel her pain. There was a time when he had to sit out an operation because of injury. Actually, there were more times than he cared to remember. Such was the case when running these rebellious black ops that went against the government. Her condition was getting worse and there was simply not a chance that she would survive not only the hike, but the bitter cold they would face as well.

  “It’s your choice, of course,” Harvey said after he cleared his throat. “But, I must advise you to not go out on this one. Not in your condition.”

  Krys faked a laugh. “My condition hasn’t stopped me, yet. Not going to now.”

  “Look, I understand…”

  “How can you understand?”

  “I understand because I’m a soldier. I’ve had these talks with others before. Had the same talks directed at me, too. Look…”

  “I’m going, Sam. That’s the end of it.”

  Harvey stood from his stool and looked down at his comrade. There was great admiration inside for the woman’s fighting spirit. But, there was a time to go with your balls out, so to speak, and a time to sit one out. This was a time for the latter, but there would be no getting through to her, and he knew it. Ever since they linked up, her mind and her focus had been on one thing. Spreading the word about the USR experiments and finding a cure. Although the unit’s activities had led to less time for spreading any kind of word, she was about to embark on her second, and most important, obsession. It would take a bullet to stop her.

  Through the front of the tent, Kaspar entered with two cups of steaming coffee in his hands. He looked shocked to see Harvey here. The sight of the leader, looking so concerned while talking to Krys, caused him to have chill bumps. Harvey stood and shared a salute with Krys. The leader didn’t say anything to Kaspar as he walked out. Kaspar took a seat at the stool and handed over a cup of coffee to Krys. She took it and slowly sipped at the steaming hot liquid.

  “What was that about?” Kaspar asked as he blew on his coffee before taking a sip.

  “It was about the next mission. I was told not to say anything about it.”

  Kaspar raised his right eyebrow. “Really?”

  Krys smirked back. “Yeah. He told me not to tell you that I’m being asked to sit this next mission out.”

  Kaspar’s heart sank and all the playful little emotions on his face disappeared. In their place was an ice cold stare. His mind raced as to what would happen next. Why would they ask her not to tag along on this one? Even with her worsening condition, she was one of the best and most valuable assets Harvey had at his disposal. It could’ve had something to do with the added reinforcements that Sanders character brought along with him. There was only one way to find out and he was too afraid to ask.

  As he studied her, he didn’t notice anything different physically. There were no more lesions around her neck. If there were any new ones, they weren’t large enough to really notice. Her voice sounded weak, but that was nothing different, either. It had to be the added guns, Kaspar figured.

  “What do you think?” Kaspar asked.

  “You know I’m not going to sit this one out. Not when we’re this close.” Krys replied.

  “So, tell him to kiss your ass.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Oh, Christ. Kaspar thought. Here we go.

&
nbsp; “Huh?”

  “The security at this place is no picnic.”

  “Of course not. Especially if they’ve got in there what we think is there.”

  Krys tried to raise herself up from the bed but was too weak. Kaspar moved in and placed his hand on her head. He could feel her getting colder. The weather was getting colder, too, the further northwest they moved. The cold weather did nothing to help her get comfortable. They were told that they would have another day’s drive before they were close to the target. It would be another long day in the armored vehicle for her. Those bumps in the road didn’t allow her to sleep, which was what she needed more than anything else.

  “We’ve got to park the vehicles about ten miles from the compound where we won’t be seen. Then, we’ve got to hike the rest of the way.” Krys informed.

  “Shit.” Kaspar replied.

  “Tell me about it. That’s a rough hike even for a healthy person.”

  Kaspar looked her straight in the eye. “You can’t make that hike.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. It’s not only ten miles of walking, with all of your equipment, but we’re going to be in the mountains. The cold, not to mention any obstacles we might run into. You’d be dead before we even got there in your condition.”

  Krys frowned. “Everyone keeps saying that ‘in your condition’ bullshit. I know that I can do it. Nothing’s ever stopped me before.”

  “You’ve got to pick your battles, Krys. You know deep down you couldn’t make it that far out in the cold.”

  “I’m sure as hell going to give it a try.”

  Kaspar sighed. “Try to get up out of bed.”

  “What?”

  “Give it a try.”

  The sight of the woman he loved being so sick that she wasn’t able to get out of bed almost brought tears to Kaspar’s eyes. He watched her struggle until he couldn’t stand it any longer. He repeated over and over that it was okay to stop trying. Krys simply kept pushing until she was seated upright.

  “You see, I’ve got this.” she said.

  Kaspar ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her cheek. Krys moved her head over and rested the cheek on his forehead. Her body trembled as she began to weep. With the sound of the crying, Kaspar wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Whispers in her ear that everything was going to be okay didn’t stop the expressions of sadness from pouring out. Kaspar knew how embarrassed Krys was right now. With her strong will and cocky attitude, the scene that just now unfolded must’ve felt like the lowest point in her existence.

  “We’ll get this cure,” Kaspar said. “I’m going to personally inject it into you. I’m going to save you.”

  “I hope you do, really, I do.” Krys replied.

  “In order for me to do that, you need to stay alive. You’ve got to sit this one out, baby.”

  “Okay,” Krys said. The words were almost too hard to say. “I’ll sit this one out.”

  “You will?”

  “Yes, I will. Don’t make me say it again or I’ll puke.”

  Kaspar let go of her and stared straight in her eyes. There were still a few tears running down her cheek. With his fingers, he brushed them away. She managed to smile at him and, although it was hard given the circumstances, Kaspar smiled back.

  “Your ass better make it, though. I’m not going to sit back and you not make it.”

  “I’ll make it. You know me.”

   

  .29

  The mission brief went well enough Harvey thought as he sat down in his tent. Of course, Sanders took complete control over the mission brief from Harvey and didn’t even allow the man to speak the entire time. The act had gotten old to the former Marine. This was his team and his operation. Now, Sanders was acting like it was he who discovered this compound and that Sanders, not Harvey, asked for the help. It was complete bullshit.

  Over to his side was another cup of coffee. With his fingers gripped on the warm Styrofoam, he brought the steaming liquid to his lips. After he let the hot liquid run down his throat, he reached over for his pack of cigarettes. Just as he was lighting up, Buck walked into the tent. The kid didn’t say anything. He simply walked into his father’s tent and rested himself on the bed.

  Buck reached into his pocket for a tennis ball and began to throw it in the air. Harvey was familiar with the game that his son played right now. During the wars he fought in, there was a lot of time to sit around in your tent and await your next order. Harvey began to throw a tennis ball in the air with the object being to get as close to the top without actually hitting it. As he watched his son go at it, he smiled as he realized he had been passed on his own invented game.

  “What do you think about the mission?” Harvey asked.

  Buck’s eyes remained on the top as he continued the game. “Sounds good. No bombs this time. No chance for me to screw something up.”

  Harvey sighed. “You’re never going to get over this if you keep on beating yourself up.”

  “I know that, but I can’t stop thinking about Steinner. Would he still be alive if I hadn’t been on that mission? Is it really my fault? I can’t bring myself to answer any of those questions.”

  “War, and life for that matter, is full of unanswered questions. All we can do as men and women is try to learn from the past.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m still hurt by what happened, okay.”

  “Nobody said you couldn’t feel any kind of emotion towards it. But, let that emotion make you stronger, not bring you down.”

  “Whatever.”

  Buck continued to play his game while Harvey looked down at the ground, taken aback by his son’s blatant disrespect. There was a voice in the back of his head telling him to kick the little bastard out. Instead, he just sat there, staring at the ground wondering how he could get it through his son’s thick head that death on the battlefield was inevitable. It almost felt like Buck did this kind of crap on purpose. When he finally looked up, Buck was just lying there, the tennis ball rested on his chest.

  “You ever think about mom?” Buck asked with his eyes still straight up.

  Harvey’s face turned ice cold. “Where’s this coming from?”

  “I’m just asking if you ever think about her.”

  “Of course I think about her. She was the love of my life. The best parts of my life were with her.”

  “I see,” Buck said.

  After another moment of silence, Harvey spoke up. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. I’m going to go somewhere by myself and think.”

  “Son, let’s talk about this.”

  Buck had already gotten up from the cot. When he heard his father’s voice, he stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t turn his body around to face his father. Instead, he merely turned his head and gave him half his face.

  “Come on back in.” Harvey pleaded.

  “There’s nothing to say.” Buck said before he walked out.

  Harvey gripped his cup of coffee and threw it to the ground. Words were never a strong suit for him. It seemed like he said things that could easily be twisted around to mean something completely different from what he intended. Buck knew this, of course, so when the little shit got angry or frustrated, he pulled a stunt like he just did. Now, Harvey was the bad guy once again while his son got to walk around and play the victim.

  The rebel leader was ready to get up and grab another cup of Joe when Sanders walked into the tent, unannounced. Harvey felt like the luckiest man on the face of the planet. Just when he needed a pick me up, there stood the one person that he wanted to see. Sanders gave an expression that asked permission to walk in without actually saying those words. Harvey nodded and stood from his stool. Sanders walked in and sat down on the stool while Harvey moved over to his cot.

  “What’s going on with that little puke?” Sanders wondered.

  “Father and son bullshit. You need
to talk to me, Roy?”

  “I sure as hell didn’t come here to sit on your comfortable stool. Why don’t you get us both a cup?”

  Harvey held back what he wanted to say and instead went over to his coffee pot and poured out two cups. Sanders was a lot like himself when it came to coffee. Both wanted theirs to be straight up black. No sugar or cream to ruin one of God’s greatest gifts. As he handed over the cup to Sanders, he felt a sense of shame once again. Not only did Sanders take over this operation, he was now giving orders in Harvey’s own tent. Regret for asking for his help began to cloud the old Marine’s thoughts. The regrets were always overruled by the realization that this operation would not be successful without Sanders’s guns and his strategic thinking.

  “What’s up?” Harvey finally asked.

  Sanders took a sip from the cup. “Just wanted to get your thoughts on the briefing.”

  “Your delivery was impeccable.”

  Sanders put on a scowl. “I don’t give two rat’s asses about how I delivered it. I’m a soldier, not some faggot public speaker. What did you think about the mission plan?”

  “I think you’ve got it all figured out, Roy. What else do you want from me?”

  “So, you don’t have any thoughts, any suggestions, nothing?”

  “I just don’t know about that hike. We’ll be worn to hell before we even reach the compound. The weather conditions won’t be favorable, either.”

  “Those little pussies you’ve got under your command better cowboy the fuck up. I know my men can make it.”

  Harvey’s face turned a beet red. “My men are brave and they’ve been through a lot together. Don’t you ever disrespect them like that again, you get me?”

  Sanders remained undeterred by the threat and gave Harvey a smirk. “What are you going to do about it? I’ve already taken over this mission with little resistance from you.”

  “You really want to make this about you and me? We don’t have time. I don’t have the energy to waste on these petty little arguments. I needed your help and I’m humble enough to admit that you’re a better strategist than me. I just don’t feel comfortable with that hike.”

  Sanders thought on that for a moment then took another sip. “You still thinking about that girl? Did you talk to her, yet?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t like being asked to sit out a mission.”

  “She’ll get over it. Once we get that cure in her, she’ll be right as rain, killing the bad guys again. Is she why you don’t like the hike?”

  Harvey laughed to relieve the tension he felt. “I don’t like the hike because I don’t fucking like it.”

  “Let’s move onto something else, then.”

  “What?” Harvey demanded.

  “That boy, Ryan I think, he’s totally got it out for that woman. Do you trust him on this?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Is he going to jeopardize this Op trying to be a hero for that woman?”

  Harvey hadn’t thought about this before. If they got the cure and there was very little of it, and they had to conserve it, he knew that Kaspar would give his life if needed to make sure that Krys got a dose. Still, there was an entire compound full of the stuff. It had to be assumed that that building was only there to produce it. Harvey considered that outcome to be a very remote possibility. But, it was still a possibility.

  “I trust him,” Harvey said after thinking the details through in his head. “If anything, I think he’ll fight harder.”

  “What if something goes wrong? Like we were sent on a wild goose chase and there’s nothing there?”

  “He’ll be fine. You worry about your own men, Roy. I’ve got mine under control.”

  “Control? That sounds like something you struggle with.”

  “This conversation is over. You can see your way out.”

  Sanders was again defiant. He gave Harvey another smirk before he stood from his chair and walked out. There was something mumbled under his breath as he left the tent. Harvey didn’t pay any attention to it.

  The rocky relationship was only getting rockier.

   

  .30

  Reed’s back was still sore from another grueling day at the factory. Having just showered and changed in the locker room, he was putting on his street clothes when X tapped him on the shoulder. Reed looked up at him unsure of what the supposed loose cannon would do next. All the reformed gangbanger did was make a simple hand gesture with his thumb by his ear telling Reed to meet him outside once he was ready. The leader understood and he finished getting ready. The closer he got to the back door, the faster his heart rate rose.

  The cool air outside felt good as it brushed against his skin when he first walked out. Work in the factory was not only hard labor, but it seemed that the USR didn’t deem the factory workers worthy of the credits it would take to air condition the place. Reed looked around for X but couldn’t find him right away. After a few short moments, he heard a whisper sound to his right. He turned the corner of the factory and found his friend motioning with his hand to come closer. While Reed wore a light jacket and jeans for the cooler weather, his comrade simply wore a sleeveless vest made of leather to go with the worn out jeans on his legs. Reed approached, preparing his mind mentally for the worst.

  “What’s up, X?” Reed asked in a low tone.

  “Heard you talked to the enemy today.” X replied.

  “You heard that, huh?”

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here, amigo.”

  The two began to walk with a brisk pace down the deserted sidewalk and streets around the factory. Because of the grueling nature and hours with their work, everyone who worked in the factory was exempt from the USR’s mandated curfew. All they had to do was show their credentials and they were given a free pass. Tonight, they were kept several hours later than what they normally worked. That tipped off Reed, and he’s sure X and the others, that someone was onto them. They couldn’t meet for their card games after work if they were in the factory until midnight. Reed didn’t mind the extra work, but he knew there were certain others in the crew who would be upset about it. It seemed that they were going to X now and not him, which pissed off Reed to a certain degree.

  Without warning, X grabbed at Reed near the chest, his strong hands gripped his jacket as Reed was shoved into the brick wall behind him. Reed’s breathing quickened as he looked into the eyes of a man not afraid to kill. X let the tension build by not saying anything at first. In the process, he quietly dared his leader to say anything to him without permission.

  X pressed Reed further into the wall. “What are you doing talking with an Agent, bro?”

  Reed talked through his heavy breathing. “He came to the factory. I was called down to talk to him. I wasn’t going to say ‘no’.”

  “Was it the same pig who crashed our party the other night?”

  “Yes, but listen…”

  X moved his face closer to Reed’s. “Listen to what? I think you’re sleeping with the enemy, homes.”

  Reed fought through the stench in X’s breath as his mind raced. “Look, he’s disillusioned, his wife…”

  “I don’t give a shit about his wife. What I do care about are my homeboys that you’re putting in danger. I should kill you right now.”

  X reached into his jacket pocket and reached for his old switchblade. With a push of the switch, the clean, shiny blade popped up through the handle. The sight of the weapon caused Reed’s heart rate and breathing to escalate to the point where he thought he would pass out. The words “wait, wait” didn’t come from his mouth as his vocal cords failed to respond. X held the blade close to Reed’s eyes.

  “You know how many people I’ve killed?” X demanded.

  Reed shook his head.

  “More people than you can imagine. Now, I want to know why you’re talking to the enemy.”

  “Just…let me breath for a second.”


  X let loose of his one-time friend. Reed’s sore back slid down the brick behind him. When his feet touched the ground again, he bent over and grabbed at his knees. The fatigue from the workday was still clouding his mind, now he had to deal with X’s bullshit. Their whole operation to this point was built on trust. Now, there was some dissention within the group thanks to this Agent who wanted to play both sides. Reed feigned catching his breath so his mind could work. How could he explain this to X? He tried to reverse the situation and think how he would react if X was the one that seemed to flirt with the enemy.

  “Look,” Reed began. “He wants out, okay? That drug in the water supply killed his wife and he wants answers.”

  “Why us?”

  “Because, the USR has done such a damn fine job of weeding out the resistance. That Agent seems to think we’re the only ones left in town.”

  “I don’t buy it. It’s a trap.”

  “It could be, I agree. But, if it’s not, think of the advantage we could have with someone on the inside feeding us information.”

  X pondered that for a moment. “I don’t like it. You need to stop talking to him right now.”

  Reed reached into his jacket pocket for the phone. “He gave me this. He told me that he would call me on this phone if he sensed any trouble.”

  “Give me that.”

  X snatched the phone from his hands. He held it up close and began to inspect it. Reed simply gasped for breath again.

  “Is it bugged?” X demanded.

  “I don’t know, okay? We can run a tracer on it to see.”

  “What all have you told him?”

  “Nothing. He has no clue what we do in the factory. It’s forbidden even for him to know by his superiors. I think he’s telling the truth.”

  X slid the phone into his vest pocket and put the knife away as well. He then reached over and patted Reed on the back. The leader grew confused as to what would happen next. Was it really over after X threatened his life with that knife?

  “Pick yourself up, homes.” X said. “Just had to make sure.”

  “Make sure what?”

  “That you weren’t switching sides. We’ll take a look at that phone to see if it’s bugged. Just, don’t trust that Agent, okay?”

  “Not sure who I can trust at the moment, actually.” Reed replied.

  “Well, you can trust us. If that Agent wanted to fuck around with us, he would’ve done it already.”

  “How’s our little mission going?” Reed asked with a sense of relief in his tone.

  “We’ve got the shipment ready. Statue is going to export our goods within the next couple of nights with that truck. Just gotta make sure he’s all clear. After that, we disappear.” X replied.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to fight with the resistance. What about you, homes?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve got my family to look after. We’ll probably go on the run. Maybe I can find a job somewhere after that.”

  “Unlikely. The USR’s going to be looking for you. You’ll have to go underground.”

  “Thanks for the reassurance.”

  “I’m not here to comfort your patty ass. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

   

  .31

  The combat vehicle came to complete stop. Under Sanders’s direction, the rebels were able to avoid detection, just as he planned. They sat now on the mountain some thirteen miles away from their target. Kaspar felt the vehicle stop and his nerves were starting to get the better of him. His body was shaking, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold air outside, or if it was from those nerves. He still struggled with pre-fight jitters.

  Krys’s head rested on his lap. Somehow, she managed to get some sleep during the trek up the mountain. When the vehicle stopped, she started to move her head as her mind left the dream world and reentered the real one. She moved her hand up to her burning forehead and wiped at the sweat. Then, her eyes made contact with Kaspar’s and her mouth revealed a smile. Kaspar smiled back down at her.

  “Hey, you.” Krys said.

  “Hey, yourself. How are you feeling?” Kaspar replied.

  “I feel like I’m burning up.”

  Krys reached for the zipper on her jacket, but Kaspar moved her hand aside. He unzipped the jacket for her. She needed help rising up from her lying position and then she slid her arms out. The fact that she was burning up was not a good thing. The combat vehicles they rode in did not have heating on the inside, and the temperature outside was frigid.

  “See you outside, Kas.” Dexter said as he stood and moved for the back of the vehicle.

  When the door was opened, the cold air blasted its way through. Dexter was quick to shut it, but the damage had already been done. Krys’s demeanor immediately changed. Now, she felt a sharp chill run down her spine. A curse from under her breath could be heard as Kaspar maneuvered himself down the bench.

  “Might need that jacket after all,” Krys said through her chattering teeth.

  Kaspar handed over the jacket and helped her put it on. Once on, Kaspar then helped her try to get comfortable on the bench. There were blankets in the back and two were placed overtop her. She rested her head on a white pillow and struggled to take a deep breath. Kaspar moved off the bench, got down on one knee, and rubbed at Krys’s forehead.

  “You be careful out there.” Krys said.

  “I will. You going to be okay back here?” Kaspar wondered.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Robbie’s going to be here to look over me.”

  “Not sure he’s the best person for that.”

  Krys smiled. “He’ll do fine. We should be able to avoid detection all the way out here, anyway.”

  “I don’t want to leave you here.”

  “I know, but they need you and your gun. Trust me, I’ll be fine. You just need to focus on the task at hand.”

  Kaspar could feel a lump in his throat as he swallowed hard. “I’m going to save you.”

  Krys smiled again. “I know.”

  Kaspar was about to move in for a kiss when he heard a loud banging noise on the back door. He shouted to hold on a moment then focused his attention back on Krys. It was always obvious to him, but the woman in front of him had never looked more beautiful. The greatest privilege of his life was being the one that Krys loved. That love was returned ten-fold on his end. Besides Mother, no other person loved him just for being exactly who he was. The thought of not having her around any longer caused him to feel a great, vast darkness inside. He moved his face close and embraced Krys with a kiss.

  “You better get moving.” Krys said.

  Kaspar pulled away. “Yeah, I guess so. You just hold tight. Try to stay warm.”

  There was that damn banging on the door again, only louder this time. Kaspar looked to the door then back at Krys. With a wink, Kaspar turned and moved to the door. Once there, he turned and gave one last look to Krys before he opened it. He was met by the ice cold stare of Sanders once it was opened. Sanders helped with the shutting of the door.

  “About fucking time,” Sanders scowled.

  “Just had to make sure she was okay.”

  “You need to focus on the mission.”

  Kaspar bit his tongue. This old bastard was the wrong person to get in a shouting match with, and Kaspar knew it. The rebel moved over to the others who were dressed in the same white camouflaged fatigues as him. The new uniforms, different from the black ones they wore on every other mission, were provided by Sanders and his crew. Kaspar wiggled around in his as the closest one to his size was bit snug. It brought back memories of the first time he suited up for one of these missions. He reasoned that the tighter fit would help him to stay warm, which would be essential. They had a long hike on their hands, feet, and everything else.

  Dexter moved over and patted Kaspar on the back. There was a halfhearted smile on Dexter’s face. He was a man who was not goo
d with emotion. Still, Kaspar appreciated the gesture. All around them were men from Sanders’s unit. During their travels to this spot there was little time to get to know any of them. They all looked tough as hell, though. Sanders simply didn’t allow them to be “weak” with any kind of emotion other than a gung ho, let’s fuck some Agents up, attitude.

  In the middle of the make shift arc that they all made, Sanders was having words with Harvey. It didn’t seem like a confrontation so much as the two old war veterans making sure the plan was in place. Over to his right, Kaspar noticed Buck standing by himself, his arms folded across his chest. The kid was leaning against the trunk of a pine tree. The snow underneath Kaspar’s boots made a crunching sound which gave away his approach. Buck looked to the sound, saw his comrade, and then looked back into the distance again.

  “How are you feeling, Buck?” Kaspar wondered.

  “I’m doing fine,” Buck replied without looking over. “Just ready to get this over with, you know?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I hope it’s in there and that we can find it.”

  “You’re telling me. Your lover isn’t sitting in the back of a vehicle dying.”

  Buck smirked. “Just because I don’t love someone who’s infected doesn’t mean you’ve got more reason than me to get it.”

  “Why do you want it so bad, then?”

  “Well,” Buck said with a shake of the head. “I just want to make my old man proud, I guess.”

  “I’m telling you, kid, you already have.”

  The conversation was cut short with a loud whistle from Sanders. Kaspar made a gesture with his head to follow him over. When they arrived at the huddle, the bitter cold was already getting to Kaspar. He reached into his flak jacket and grabbed the white Balaclava. It fit snug on the top of his head and he didn’t fold it all the way down to cover his face just yet.

  “Okay, girls,” Sanders said. “We’ve got a long hike in front of us. Just suck it up. If you don’t think you can make it, you can stay behind with the woman and Robert.”

  Kaspar bit his tongue again.

  “Now, we want to make it there in as short a time as possible, you get me? So, go to the equipment truck, get your shit, and get back here. Double time it!”

   

   

  .32

  There was nothing but the cold. That was all that Kaspar could think about as he forced his way up trying to keep pace with everyone else. His attempts at guessing how many miles they had gone to this point stopped long ago. Every time he thought they might be close, there were more miles of snow covered ground. There was no feeling in his toes any more. His face, despite being covered by the white Balaclava, felt like someone was stabbing all areas of his cheeks with a sharp razor blade.

  The afternoon sun glistened off of the metallic silver lenses which covered his eyes. When he looked up, he thought he saw something blink in the sky. With all the mental and physical exhaustion, he felt that it must have been an illusion, so he just ignored it. He pressed on and felt a temptation to fire the PSD, which was slung across his chest, into the air so he could place his hands on the hot barrel. All the others, they seemed to be pros at this, especially Sanders’s crew. None of them seemed to struggle and, even if they were, they were skilled at not showing any signs of it. He just didn’t know, with the way his body ached, how he could even attempt to get into a firefight with the USR. Not when he couldn’t feel his hands.

  As he continued to follow the others up the endless mountain his thoughts started to drift away from him. Of course, the only person he was thinking about at this point was Krys. Was she okay? Did she finally succumb to the poison inside of her and die? There would be no way of knowing until they got back. Sanders was very clear that he wanted radio silence from all members of the team and there would be no exceptions. Sanders didn’t want this mission to go fubar, but then again, nobody else did, either. What made Sanders so high and mighty?

  The climb went on. Somehow, even though he felt as if his entire body was numb, Kaspar could feel the burn in his hamstrings and upper legs. So tired, he just needed to sit down somewhere and build a fire, then continue on. But the others, they just kept at it with their steady pace. When would it end?

  Kaspar saw Krys in his mind lying in a casket. They didn’t make it in time to cure her. All he wanted right now was to see her smile again. Was that too much to ask? He imagined them when they first got together. She made him feel like the best person on the face of the earth, and Kaspar knew that he wasn’t, but she still loved him all the same. There was never a time when Krys made him doubt their relationship. Just like with everyone else, they had their spats every now and then, but she always told him how much she loved him even when they fought. He just didn’t know what he was going to do if he couldn’t save her.

  More snow, more steps, more sharp stabs to the face. Kaspar didn’t even know how he was still standing at this point, when he couldn’t feel his feet. How had he managed to keep pressing on? The more he tried to ignore the pain, the more intense it grew to the point that it was all he thought about. There was another temptation in his mind to run to the front and ask Sanders how close they were. He knew what the response would have been, though, so he just kept moving.

  Harvey was right next to him. Just like Sanders, despite his age, he moved like he was thirty years younger. Kaspar peered over at him and tried to catch a glimpse at even the slightest bit of fatigue but there was none to be found. Harvey, who wasn’t even wearing his mask, looked to Kaspar and nodded his head.

  “Just got to keep moving,” Harvey said through the sharp, howling wind. “We’ll be there soon.”

  Kaspar couldn’t bring himself to talk with his chattering teeth. He simply nodded his head back. How soon was soon, though? Another hour of this shit? Maybe more? Kaspar’s thoughts drifted from Krys to Mother now. If there was an afterlife, he wondered what she was up to at this moment. Was she looking down at him, urging him on, even though he couldn’t hear it? Instead of that, he pictured her sitting down on a rocker, knitting away at her latest masterpiece. She was completely at peace, which was what she deserved after all she went through on earth.

  That anger over her murder burned inside once again, even in these bitter conditions. With all these missions they ran trying to stop the USR’s experiments in population control, he almost forgot why he was in this in the first place. It was because of her, to avenge her death. Even though he let one of them go, he knew that with every success, he was in turn, succeeding in that revenge. He would take down as much of the USR as he could before he joined her, but then, what would anything he had done to that point matter?

  Up front, Sanders held his left fist straight up in the air. The hand signal ordered everyone to stop. With a wave of his left arm up and down, that meant to get down. Kaspar obeyed the order along with everyone else. Down on one knee, he shouldered his PSD and aimed it forward, ready to gun down the poor Agent who showed his face.

  The longer they remained down, the more focus was lost. He tried with everything not to think about the cold, but it clouded his mind to the point where he didn’t feel as if he could pull the trigger in time if they were ambushed. After what seemed like an eternity, Sanders finally gave the all clear. They were up and at it again. Kaspar struggled to get back up. With the fatigue and the cold, his legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each.

  They kept pressing on and they arrived at the top of a hill. When Kaspar reached the top, he looked down and a wave of relief swept through him. They had made it. The compound sat there, downhill a little bit, and it still looked fairly small from here, but they would be there before he knew it.

  “Huddle up, men.” Sanders ordered.

  The team moved in towards Sanders and huddled around him as ordered. He gave each person a look before he talked. When he got to Kaspar, he made a motion with his hands for him to take off the mask. Kaspar did so, but with reluctance.
When the Balaclava left his face, the bitter cold wind stabbed at it with even more fury. What the hell did it matter if he was wearing the thing, anyway?

  Once Sanders was satisfied, he continued. “Listen up, ladies, there’s our target right down there. We’ve got to…”

  Just then, off in the distance, the loud sound of a set of jet engines echoed through the cold air. They all looked up to see three fighter jets, flying low, to the point where they could all see the USR insignia on the tails. They continued to fly in low towards the compound. Kaspar watched in horror, unsure of what was about to happen. He soon found out.

  A wave of missiles from the fighters headed straight for the compound.

   

  .33

  The explosion was deafening. Even from the distance at which the compound went up in flames, Kaspar could feel the heat of the fires on his face. He cursed aloud and got to his knees. The tears flowed free. As he stood, he caught a glimpse of an Agent pointing his weapon at him. Before the Agent could fire, Sanders took him out with an automatic burst.

  “Goddamn it!” Sanders cried out. “I thought I fucking heard something!”

  Sanders ordered his men to retreat. There was an assault vehicle full of Agents and they all came pouring out of it, M4 Carbines drawn and firing. Bullets tore through the snow covered ground all around Kaspar. He was in shock, staring down at the compound which was gone, and along with it, the cure was gone. This was Krys’s last shot and it was going up in flames.

  The bullets continued to fly in his direction. Harvey reached over and grabbed Kaspar by the shoulders and forced him to the ground.

  “The hell is the matter with you?” Harvey demanded.

  “The cure…Krys…”

  “Forget about that right now, we’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

  Harvey shouldered his PSD and fired away at the Agents who were making their way down the hill. Kaspar gathered himself and started to run down. He ran so fast that he lost his balance and went tumbling down the snow covered ground. When his momentum finally stopped, he collected himself and turned. The other squad members were moving their way down. A few would stop every so often to fire at the Agents in pursuit.

  This was all a setup, Kaspar thought as he aided in the gunfire. His adrenaline was finally kicking in and he no longer felt the pain or the cold. All that mattered now was getting out of here. He couldn’t think about the cure right now, Harvey was right about that. Dying on this mountain would do nobody any good. They would have to try and find another way.

  Kaspar tried to aim at the Agents, who also wore white fatigues, the only thing giving them away were the white helmets. He prayed that he wouldn’t hit any friendlies on accident, but he had to try and help. He fired at the white helmets as three of Sanders’s men went down. The ones that survived were getting closer. The image of Sanders’s scar on the side of his face came into view. Sanders lowered his body and slid the rest of the way to Kaspar’s position.

  “We’ve got to retreat!” Sanders cried as he turned his attention to the white hats.

  “What the hell happened?” Kaspar demanded over the gunfire.

  “No idea! No time to think about it right now!”

  More of the rebels made it down. Kaspar could almost see the whites of Dexter’s eyes before he was gunned down by a barrage of bullets from behind. Harvey and Buck were the last ones to make it. They all looked to Sanders. The Agents continued their descent down. They stopped firing for a moment.

  “Move!” Sanders yelled.

  The unit turned and continued to run down. In front of them were several trees which they could use for cover. The Agents resumed their firing as they got closer down. Kaspar made a run for one of the trees. Another of Sanders’s men went down just as Kaspar reached the tree. Chunks of bark from the evergreen went up in the air as he pressed his back against it.

  When there was a break in the tree going up, Kaspar sidestepped and searched for a white hat to shoot at. He found one and held down the trigger. The Agent never stood a chance and went down. Kaspar had to be fast. Another Agent pointed his gun at him and fired. He made it the safety of the tree trunk just in time. That Agent was taken out by Buck. Kaspar never thought that Buck would save his ass.

  “You okay?” Buck asked from Kaspar’s right.

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “Let’s move!” Sanders cried once again.

  Kaspar reluctantly left the cover of the trunk and ran. The blasts of gunfire echoed through the cold air. A couple of rebels stayed behind to provide cover. Once Kaspar and the others made it down some more, they turned at Sanders’s order to provide cover for those that stayed behind. Kaspar took out two more Agents before the rebels made it.

  “Move it!” Sanders cried.

  All but two turned to run again. The two that stayed took out several more Agents before the enemies managed to take cover behind the trees. One Agent reached for his flak jacket and blind tossed a frag grenade in the air. It landed next to Kaspar.

  “Grenade!” Kaspar cried once it hit the ground next to him.

  A new kind of adrenaline rush entered Kaspar. He ran harder than he knew he could. After a few steps, he dove forward and the grenade went off. Shrapnel flew through the air and a piece of it slashed the side of his face. He cried out in pain, but quickly got up with the help of Harvey.

  “You all right?” Harvey wondered.

  “Let’s just get out of…”

  More gunfire. Kaspar turned and fired on an Agent who slipped through. Five rounds hit him in the chest before Harvey aimed for the head. Everything was going to hell again, Kaspar thought as he and Harvey jolted forward. Why couldn’t anything they planned just go according to that plan?

  The gunfire continued. All the rebels were now in a line, down low in the snow. Sanders ordered them to hold the line. Kaspar emptied the mag in his PSD and grabbed a fresh one. Fully reloaded, he awaited Sander’s orders to fire. The Agents were still moving in their positions around the trees for cover. There were about eight of them left, from what Kaspar could tell.

  The rebels fired away at the trees, but the Agents had a solid position now behind them. They would have to make a bold move and try to ambush them there. Kaspar started to doubt Sanders’s leadership. They were now without any cover, left behind where their enemies were now. Sanders yelled for them to take their grenades and throw them towards the trees. Kaspar grabbed a hold of one and yanked it from his flak jacket. He pulled the pin and threw it. The explosives went off and the Agents scattered from behind the trees.

  Out in the open, the Agents fired towards the rebels. The rebels in turn fired back. After a long moment of straight gunfire, gun smoke filled the mountain air. When the smoke cleared, all the Agents were either dead or bleeding to death on the snow. Some were taken out by the explosions, but most by the gunfire. On the other side, two more of Sanders’s men went down. All that remained were Sanders, three of his men, Harvey, Buck and Kaspar. The threat seemed to be over for now.

  They had a long hike downhill to deliver Krys the bad news.

   

  .34

  Krys took the news of the failed mission about as good as anyone could take a death sentence. She just went silent and remained that way as they made their escape from the mountain. Two hours passed in the back of the vehicle and still no words were spoken. Kaspar rubbed at his cheek where the bandages had been placed. The bits of shrapnel that fileted his face had given him one large, nasty gash and several other scratches all across the side of his face. It hurt like hell when Sanders used the tweezers to get the small pieces of razor sharp bits out.

  Across from him, Krys lay down on the bench, all bundled up under the blankets. Kaspar grew haunted by the wide eyed, emotionless look on her face. The only thing that remained to occupy his mind, until Krys felt like talking, was the mystery of what exactly happened. Those were USR fighter jets, that much was certain, but why would they do th
is?

  Kaspar had to accept where they were at this point. Krys, as much as he hated to admit it, was likely to die within…hell, he didn’t want to speculate. There was nothing he could do to save her any longer, unless there was a miracle waiting somewhere at the end of this darkness. Somehow, he doubted it. Too much was wrong with this world to hope for something as impossible as a miracle.

  He started to say something to her, some type of motivational talk, but held back. The way he figured it, she needed the time to sit and think. As much as he loved her, and as much as he wanted to, there was nothing he could say to make the poison go away. Instead of talking, he got up from his seated position and moved to a seat right next to her head. He moved his fingers to her strands of hair and played around with her soft locks. Krys slowly moved to her side, her breathing heavy, and looked at Kaspar with those wide, brown eyes that Kaspar loved. There was no room for smiling, though, not right now.

  Krys coughed then said, “I’m sorry.”

  Kaspar raised an eyebrow. “You’re sorry? For what?”

  “I’m sorry that you couldn’t save me. I know how badly you wanted to.”

  Kaspar moved in close and gave Krys a kiss on her lips. Krys didn’t have the strength for any kind of intimate kiss, but Kaspar didn’t care. Any kind of kiss from the woman of his dreams was good enough for him. He cherished the kiss and, after their lips left each other’s, he could feel a single tear run down his left cheek. Krys moved her hand up and wiped it away just as tears started to flow from her own eyes. With a strong tug, Kaspar pulled her close from under her arms, and she rested her head on his chest. He kissed the top of her head then looked straight ahead. Only one thought ran through his mind at that moment.

  The USR will pay…in blood.