by Gary Sapp
a quick glance out of the door.
“They’ve been planning this coup since your release from Calhoun State Prison, sir.”
“You two keep saying they.” Xavier said as the third man, a man who looked as if he knew one joke and told it often, nearly blanketed his smaller frame with his much larger one. “Who does Grace suspect has been planning this?”
The Joker said from behind him as he pushed Xavier forward. “Look sir, your Number 2 has taken control a majority stake in the Peacekeepers, especially many of the principal admirals and lieutenants. Make no mistake, sir, you have allies, but we are outnumbered and outgunned, especially in this compound. I am prepared to exercise any method necessary to relocate you to a safer locale.
Russian smiled and laid a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “All three of us will be more than happy to accept any disciplinary measures you find necessary afterwards, sir.” He gave a final look out of the door before they all exited never to return to this room. “Number One, if you will kindly join us?”
Xavier nodded and thanked each man for their help.
How the three four of them maneuvered through the labyrinths of rooms and hallways and corridors was something Xavier would have to figure out later if he lived long enough. He would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he’d visited every square inch of this place, but quickly was realizing how inaccurate his assessment to mere size of this facility they’d secretly built hidden but in plain sight really was.
Grace Edwards had worked out this escape route even without his consent or input in order to aid in keeping him safe. Each room along the route was supplied with food rations in case they were pinned down here by a Pandora or FBI incursion. Weapons are also on demand in case they were involved in a fire fight.
Xavier’s security detail used a moment of pause to fill their clips with ammunition that would feed a small hungry army.
And then they saw the damage done from what they’d heard earlier.
Joker led the way as they stepped over scores of dead bodies of Peacekeepers that had littered the hallways. He recognized a handful of them. Curiosity bested him for a minute: Who had fought for him and who against?
This time Firecracker nudged him forward. He silently thanked Grace Edwards again. She was a genius indeed. She had chosen his protectors well.
Twenty minutes later Xavier heard one of the two men behind him whisper with some anxiety that they were nearly through this maze. Xavier couldn’t tell which one it was. He just followed Joker and kept his eyes pinned in front of him. He still hoped whichever of the men made the statement knew what he was talking about.
And he hoped Grace had been thoughtful enough to leave him a pack of smokes when they cleared this structure and the immediate danger had passed.
Joker pushed him against the wall and with eye contact only, encouraged Xavier and the other two Peacekeepers to mirror his sliding motion along the wall while staying low. They continued along with their slide for about 20 feet when Xavier saw—light.
It wasn’t much in the way of light, but any light at this point meant they were nearing the end of this perilous journey and the freedom of the outside world was one last door away.
Firecracker took the lead this time; and with his rifle drawn opened the last door which nearly blinded them with the intense light of the Atlanta morning.
And when Xavier’s pupils had adjusted to the new sensations they were exposed to—he saw Warren Washington standing in his path with a semi- automatic gun in each of his hands.
Xavier’s boys didn’t waste time or movement as they drew all of their weapons on the lone wolf denying their exit in one incredible heartbeat.
The leader of a House in Chains had to suppress a smile.
This was far too easy.
Something—perhaps a sixth sense urged him to look just over his left shoulder. And he saw movement in the shadows on the far side of the courtyard.
And then another moved.
And another still, until dozens of Peacekeepers he was sure were not loyal to him had descended and the four of them from all directions until they were completely surrounded. In addition, their enemies had nearly every model of firearm pointed at them.
Grace’s efforts were to be commended. And these three men who would die with him were more than honorable, but the seeds of this betrayal were rooted deeper than any of them would have believed.
He refused to be “protected” any longer. He shook the hand of each of the men who had tried to aid in his escape and stepped to the point.
“Warren,” Xavier called out to the former athletic star. “I should have known you would be involved in this. I did know in fact. So here I am. So here you are. I’m not surprised that Quincy Morgan sends his lapdog to execute his dirty work for him.”
Warren swallowed hard but otherwise remained still and silent—for now.
“You call it dirty work,” It was Quincy Morgan’s voice over bellowing from speakers whose central location was a place Xavier could not centralize. “I call it cleaning up, Number One. We are at a necessary end. And yes, someone must always do what is necessary especially when it concerns our people moving forward.”
“Quincy,” Xavier looked over the courtyard’s walls onto the horizon. “Don’t lecture me and don’t take the coward’s way out of this. Be half the man you claim to be and show yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Number One, but that won’t be practical or possible.” Quincy replied. A strung gust a smoke enhanced wind blew in. “Right now I am in the process of getting a lot done on a very tight schedule. But rests assure that I wouldn’t miss this important transition of power for the world.”
“So by killing me you hope to gain power, authority and status over a House in Chains?” Xavier asked the absent man. “Have you forgotten the Visionaries? I know that the everyday Joe Citizen who makes up the vast majority of our ranks. I know what they have meant to this movement—my father’s movement over the years. Do you think they will follow you when they learn how you betrayed me? You will need all of the Peacekeeper’s strength and numbers to fight them all off.”
“Under normal circumstances I would agree with you, Number One. But you’re only skimming the surface of what my real intentions are.”
Xavier listened to Quincy but watched as a female Peacekeeper disarmed his three protectors of their weapons. If they weren’t truly defenseless before they were now.
“Speak quickly,” Xavier swallowed bile. “You have my attention and I am in no rush to go anywhere right now.”
Quincy continued: “Number One, you have been our great leader. You have raised your father’s name to new heights and sealed his legacy within our House. You should be commended. Well done.”
“You should kill me now, Quincy,” Xavier said dangerously. “I will not tolerate being mocked by the likes of you.”
“I’m not mocking you. How could you ever accuse me of showing you such malignant disrespect? I admire you, Xavier. No one else—myself included—could have placed a House in Chains in this position to excel well past even your father’s mandate’s and goal. I can think of no one else in this world but you, sir.”
“And yet, you want to kill me today, Quincy. And you’ve gone through a lot of trouble to pull it off.”
“You are wrong again. I don’t wish to do anything of the sort, my friend. You are the brother I never had. This experience is heartbreaking to me. I won’t soon forget the horror of this day.” You aren’t the only one. And yet Xavier found Warren Washington standing before him teary eyed. Quincy’s choice sounded as if it were choking up with each passing sentence. “I want you know that all of your strengths in leadership and character were invaluable during peacetime.”
“And the peace has passed?”
“It has, Xavier. Pandora and to a lesser extent, our own government has pushed us into a less civilized age. In fact that new barbaric age is upon as even as we speak.”
“Educate me, Quincy.” Xavier said
in all seriousness. “I don’t fully understand your meaning.”
Quincy seemed to be collecting his thoughts and his voice. After a minute of uncomfortable silence he continued:
“I mean to say that there are heartless men and women out there, lost souls, born for one reason only: They are born to lead troops onto the battlefield, into the heart of Hell itself.”
“Are you so heartless?” Xavier asked his former Number Two. He waited on the man that he begrudgingly had trusted with his life. “Are you truly so lost?”
“I am,” Quincy’s voice went silent again. Xavier had decided that if Quincy was acting then this was an Oscar worthy performance. He did finally return at last, his voice transformed into something fragile and nearly unrecognizable. Could this hard, unyielding man truly be grappling with true emotion right now? “You are a grown man, Xavier. I won’t tell you how you should think or feel in your last minutes on this Earth. But I do want you to know that I do love you as a man would love his own blood brother.”
“Brothers who love each other don’t slaughter one another in cold blood.”
“It’s either murder my brother or allow him to fail a House in Chains in her House’s greatest hour of need. I love you, Xavier but I love the House you built more.”
Xavier scanned the courtyard once again feeling that Quincy’s monologue was at long last coming to an end. He felt the minute hairs on the nape of his neck rising in the cool, brisk breeze.
