by Gary Sapp
He felt a mix an emotions: Xavier still had a dozen guns trained on him so his fear was still prevalent but his anger was gaining a foot hole inside of him; the anger that consumed him when the news arrived on his teenaged doorstep that his father had been killed and that his brother Chris had gone missing. And the anger turned to fury when those white boys at Princeton had left him out to rot on specially designed X just for him.
“What are you people waiting for?” Xavier shouted to every Peacekeeper who had dared to betray him. He took a purposeful step towards Warren. “I won’t plead for you to spare these men who sided with me because I know that you will not. I won’t beg for my life because I’ve sworn to myself that I won’t give you the satisfaction—“
“Begging is the last thing that I want you to do, Xavier.” Quincy wasn’t finished chiming in after all. “You’ve heard the man, Warren. I need you to serve our cause not any man in particular. Do what’s better for our House, for our race.”
Warren raised his shotgun with remarkable quickness. So this is how it ends. And then he fired a single shot that blew past Xavier’s right ear into the head into one of his protectors. He matched his initial precision by firing twin shots and killing the other two men.
The next time he squeezed the trigger he would launch a round into his forehead killing him a second or two thereafter.
Xavier could feel the dozen or so Peacekeepers who had sided with Quincy Morgan tensing without looking at them. They may have disagreed with his policy, but they wanted this exhibition to end as soon as possible.
Xavier flashed back to the scene back at Calhoun Prison when he and Julian Moore held Michael Davenport’s life in their hands just like his own life rested in Warren Washington’s. He remembered hoping that Davenport would provide the information that they had needed and that he wouldn’t have to order Julian’s Black Knight’s to kill the rooster on the hard, prison floor.
All of those previous grievances seemed petty now.
“I know that we talked about this, Quincy,” Xavier was unsure of which shook more: Warren’s lips or the shotgun wielded from his fingertips. “I want to end this like we planned. I want to obey your command.”
“Then simply obey it then, Warren.” Quincy’s voice remained patient and calm—at least for now. “I remember you asking…I remember you begging me for the right to complete this task. You told me it would be and honor to rid our organization of Xavier’s smugness, of the stench of stale cigarette smoke clouding every room we were closed up with him.” Quincy exhaled audibly over the microphone wherever he was. “How many times has this man embarrassed you in front of the others in the Circle? You owe this man like no one else in that courtyard. Do it now, Warren. Kill Xavier Prince now.”
“I can do this.”
“I said do it now, Warren.”
“I will do this.”
“Do it now.”
“I’m sorry for all of this, Number One.” Warren said…and then he did something that Xavier could have never anticipated—
Warren Washington threw the shotgun aside, pulled a small caliber pistol from somewhere inside of his jacket, turned the barrel on his own temple and fired his final efficient shot into his own forehead.
Xavier didn’t bother going for the shotgun, but he slowly kneeled to where Warren Washington had fallen to the courtyard’s concrete canvas.
Warren had died instantly.
But he wasn’t the only one.
Behind Xavier, a half dozen other Peacekeeper’s adapted Warren’s inspirational but fatal move as their own as they committed a very loud and a very violent suicide as well.
Xavier got on his knees and screamed in anguish towards the heavens above.
And then he got to his feet and was pacing feverishly around the courtyard, while six remaining Peacekeeper’s kept their weapons trained on him, but otherwise allowed their former leader his space.
“Warren’s dead, Quincy. Six of your loyal troops joined him in eternity by their own hand. At the moment, I don’t see anyone else rushing to take the lead in carrying out your commands. You’ve failed. Do you hear me you miserable traitor, you’ve failed.”
“Warren failed,” Quincy said with an air of confidence that unnerved Xavier at his core. “And to some degree or the other every Peacekeeper—both dead and still alive—has a bond with you. I can forgive that. I understand that. I’ve planned for that contingency.”
“Quincy.”
“Like I said I prepared myself for all contingencies. So I recruited an understudy. I recruited a strong, courageous, coldly calculated person to pick up the pieces and put it all back together again if it became absolutely necessary. It’s never easy to find someone just like me but I did.”
Xavier had that cold inkling a fear running from his shoulder blades down his spine.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw the boy from the college who Grace Edwards had introduced him to when the Circle had its first meeting together in the days after he was released from Calhoun Prison.
Mario Stalls walked into the courtyard from a nearby gate, strolled by the Peacekeepers as if they were nearly six separate parts of the landscape. He slowed just long enough to scoop up two of the many idle guns from the fallen and both of his guns on Xavier in milliseconds.
Quincy made an announcement: “Sometimes you do have to send a boy to do a man’s job.”
Xavier showed the boy a single palm.
“You’re going to want to be careful with those, son.” He said. “You have two potentially lethal weapons in your possession. Neither one of us wants to see anyone get hurt do we?”
“If you truly believe that, then you are more pathetic than I already believe you to be, Xavier.” Quincy said. “Mario knows all too well what to do with those guns. I’ve trained him well.”
“He has, sir,” Mario said. His eyes were like cold steel. “I’m sorry sir, but I’ll do what I must.”
Xavier Prince had once heard that when a man’s death is impending that his life flashes before him.
And I believe that is what the dream that I had just hours ago—my life…what it was…what it is… and what it could have been flashing before me before I met my end.
He heard his father tell him with his gruff voice one last time how proud of the man he’d become.
He heard his boys ask him to sit his work aside and toss the football around before the game came on.
He heard Grace Edwards invite him into her bed to make love to her again—for the first time.
He heard Death is in the air playing in his head.
And then Xavier Prince, the One, the most dangerous man in the world heard Mario Stalls fire his killing shot at him.
Serena
The former director of the FBI said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Serena. I apologize for my choice of locales but it will have to do.”
Serena Tennyson pulled her hands out of the windbreaker’s pockets and folded them.
“Anything for you, Guardian,” She said. “I need to be here for you, for Pandora—especially now.”
Death was in the air tonight. Rice paced in a semi-circle around a small space in the alley. The place stank of discarded food, garbage and mold. And when the wind gusted just right…the stench of burning flames nearly consumed the senses.
It was wondrous.
Guardian had chosen this place or reunion well. The banks of the Chattahoochee River were a stone’s s throw from where they were standing right now. Three decades ago Muhammad Clark had tossed more than one of his victims into a watery grave. Caretaker had witnessed two of the incidents himself.
Tonight she’d come unarmed as show of good faith even over Rohm’s persistent protest. She reminded Danielle that she’d already seen herself in the flames. Tonight didn’t have that feel of finality—at least not yet.
But she did have that feeling that the flames had cleansed another of his burdens tonight.
She could feel it in her marrow.
She heard the rattle of automatic gunfire in the distance. I am not beyond making errors in judgement. If tonight is the night then I am ready. And in that instance she heard the whine of an ambulance soon followed the gunfire.
“I’ve gone over this thing countless times in my head since we’ve last spoken, Serena.” He finally stopped pacing long enough to look up at her. “I want Xavier Prince dead. As soon as we confirm his passing—and I do mean that I want to see a body—I want the remainder of this campaign to cease and desist.”
“Sir—“
Rice waved a dismissive hand at her so she would remain silent.
“All other losses are deemed acceptable to me at this point. I’ve come to realization…and not for the first time—that when the clock moves beyond the Zero Hour that you and I will be forced to call Xavier’s bluff or we can fold. Continuing along the first path likely will lead us towards a massacre if not an annihilation people of color in this country. I’m talking genocide, Serena. I will not stand by and watch the country that I love go down in history with the likes of Rwanda or Kosovo. It can’t come to that, Serena.”
“And what of the Caretaker’s vison? What about his personal sacrifices—
“I don’t think Isaac Prince envisioned what we have in store for his people if this escalation of hostilities continues.”
Serena stepped into his shadow and squeezed his shoulder. “If we don’t complete our mission now—
“What,” The Guardian snapped at her. He tugged at the collar that seemed to squeezing every bit of oxygen out of his windpipe.
