by JC Ryan
Susan lifted her hand and placed her finger on his lips to stop him from talking, “Sam I know why you did it. At first, I hated you for doing that to me, but over time, I realized why you did it, and it just made me love you more than ever. I’ve been following your career all these years just as you’ve been following mine.”
“What? How do you know?” Sam asked with surprise.
Susan just smiled, “You think you’re the only one who knows how to be a spy? Your sources from whom you got your information about my life always told me about your inquiries. To have followed what you were doing the past few years was as easy as switching on the TV.”
“You aren’t mad at me? Don’t you hate me? Susan, how is that possible after what I did to you?”
“Sam let’s not live in the past. I’ve had a full and happy life. I was married to a wonderful and caring man, and I have two beautiful sons, two beautiful and loving daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren. I have been blessed in ways that would never have been possible if we were married while you were in the CIA. Looking back now, there’s nothing I regret.
The last five years since John passed away I have been lonely. I’ve thought a lot about you. Many times I’ve dreamed that one day I would again have the pleasure of watching you through the window gathering the courage to ring the doorbell and ask me on a date. “
Sam was speechless again for the second time in less than twenty minutes. But then he was not going to dwell on the past anymore. In fact, the past forty years had just been wiped out in twenty minutes.
Carpe Diem – seize the day – that was how he was going to live his life from now on, with the most amazing woman he had ever met. Can any man ever hope for a better retirement than this? What a redemption it was.
The two of them spent time over the next few days catching up. When Sam told Susan about the second item on his bucket list, there was no stopping her. She would be ready and packed in forty-eight hours. She declared she was not ever going to let him get away again. Sam didn’t need any persuasion. He felt exactly the same.
They decided to postpone the trip to Henry’s Fork, which was only two hundred and eighty miles away from Boise. Close to Yellowstone National Park, it was the first of the ten most favorite places on Sam’s list. Instead, they gave all family and friends a bit of notice about the upcoming wedding.
Two weeks later, at a small and private ceremony, Sam became the proud husband of the most beautiful sixty-four year old woman in America, stepfather of two boys and their wives as well as grandfather of three lively and beautiful grandchildren. There could not have been a prouder and happier man in the world.
The time at Henry’s Fork, was an idyllic and blissful honeymoon, after which they went to Washington DC to pack Sam’s stuff, put it in storage and arranged with an agency to rent out his house in DuPont Circle. They had decided they would live in Boise, which was close to the family and grandchildren and not too far away from three of the most popular fly-fishing spots on Sam’s list in Oregon, Washington, and Montana.
The musketeers
Although Sinclair was a few years older than Luke, Ben and Ryan, they found themselves in each other’s company often in Boulder. They met in the late afternoons, played bridge or poker and enjoyed a shot or two of ‘Irish nectar’, as Sinclair called it.
On their fishing trips, they soon had a fierce competition going between them complete with ‘de-liars’ scales and rulers to weigh and measure their catch and determine on a weekly basis who was the winner. The winner got one extra fishing trip as a prize.
It did not take too long before they were known as the musketeers. But no one ever dared to tell them whom each of them resembled - Athos, Aramis, Porthos or D’Artagnan
When they were out of hearing range, their spouses referred to them as the four ‘grumpy old men’, but it was all in good spirits. They were actually delighted their men found good camaraderie amongst their peers. The women never questioned or let on that they knew exactly what the four men were up to when they disappeared in the afternoons and came back smiling and relaxed a few hours later.
During their preparation for the move to the Rabbit Hole, the four men had packed enough alcoholic beverages to last them until the first supply run was made.
After six weeks at the Rabbit Hole, as they were slowly but surely working their way through their stock and no supply run in sight, they realized that they were heading for a crisis. All but Sinclair thought it was something to worry about. The reason he was not worried they couldn’t get out of him. He just kept on assuring them he had never run dry in his entire life, and had no intention of doing so now. Try as they might, he would not say anything else except that they should trust in the ‘luck of the Irish’.
At one of their happy hours, Ryan made a few mathematical calculations, taking into account various scientific factors. Their rate of consumption being a heavily contributing factor in his calculations, he came to the conclusion that they would run dry in about three weeks. They had to either get an order out to Owen at Mount Ararat, or they would have to drink strong black coffee during happy hour, and that wasn’t a pleasing thought to any of them.
Sinclair saw the despair on the faces of his friends, and he knew it was time to help them out of their misery. He asked that they all follow him to a room where he had stored some of his translation material. He had them help him move a few things around so he could get to two boxes in a corner, which marked very clearly “Handle with absolute care. Do not open without me present. Sinclair O’Reilly.” There were skull and crossbones stickers across the top and sides of the boxes.
They all exploded in laughter when Sinclair carefully unpacked and unwrapped the contents of the first box, a shining five-gallon copper moonshine still kit with an electric element.
“So this is what you have been smiling about all these weeks, you old coot!” Luke shouted. “You've caused us so much stress and anxiety, man!”
Sinclair just laughed, “I told you I have never run dry and don’t intend to - I even blessed you all with the luck of the Irish. Okay, so now stop fretting and let’s figure out how to assemble this thing and get it operational.”
Ryan replied, “Well, I think between us we have the skills to get it assembled, and if we fail at first we can always read the instructions. The problem I see is where do we obtain the ingredients we need to get this thing going?”
“That’s what the next box is for,” Sinclair replied with a big smile.
They immediately opened the second box and found it to be neatly packed with a recipe book containing instructions to make moonshine from corn, rye, fruit, even berries, and honey. Sinclair certainly came to the Rabbit Hole adequately prepared. They were elated. That second box also had enough ingredients to make more than twenty gallons, and they reckoned that would last them until they could produce their own corn in the Gardens of Gallatin.
They were sure the ladies of the Gallatin Garden Society would not mind them growing some corn. In fact, those girls owed them a big favor because their flourishing gardens were only made possible by the earthworms that the four of them discovered and supplied.
Ben wanted to get down to business as quickly as possible, “Okay guys, now we have to be sure we avoid getting ourselves into trouble with the womenfolk. We have to find a place to set this operation up where no one can find it or smell it. There's a room Aaron and I have blocked off on the top level that could be ideal. Let’s go inspect it and decide what we have to do.”
They followed Ben and examined the place. It was perfect. They would have to cut a few small holes to the outside for ventilation. Ryan would build mini extraction fans to make sure the smell of fermentation didn’t spread throughout the caves. The rest of them would smuggle the boxes up there, assemble the still and hook it up to the electricity.
It took three days to get the whole operation going. Luke made sure their pub was completely sealed off and marked with signs and barriers that said no one
was allowed past that point. Within fourteen days, the three musketeers had their first taste of their ‘Chateau de Grotte’ and all agreed it was an exquisite vintage. Ben, who’d become quite handy with Roy’s laser cutting tools since he arrived at the Rabbit Hole, constructed a beautiful table and benches out of the rocks inside their pub.
Not forgotten
Brideaux was a busy man with a lot on his plate. There was the world to govern, but despite that he very often found he was still getting a nauseating feeling whenever he thought about the 8th and 10th Cycle libraries. The Rosslerites and the humiliation they had caused him in front of his followers ate at him, always.
Jason, his detective who was supposed to have captured the Rosslerites weeks ago, was still traveling around the world following leads. Brideaux realized it was a wild goose chase. They'd licked him again, despite all his contacts and influence, and it remained as infuriating as always to have to admit it.
Though he and the Eligo Rarus council members were reasonably happy with their progress to subdue the world populace and establish the new order, his biggest and most disturbing problem was the missing Rosslerites and the libraries he so desperately needed. Both subjects were brought up over and over again at the meetings. There seemed to be no escaping them.
They were all painfully aware that as long as they didn’t have those libraries it would serve as testimony to the biggest failure of their otherwise successful operation to date. Those treasured records in the hands of the Rosslerites could one day cause them a lot of trouble and even their downfall. It was time to cast the net wider. Brideaux kept reminding them the Rosslerites were all human, not ghosts. They had to be somewhere. They would have made a mistake somewhere. They would have left a trace somewhere. No human could be nowhere.
They had the names, photos and details of each and every one of the forty-five adults and fifteen children whom they suspected to be amongst the fugitives. To hide a group of sixty people without detection was not going to be a walk in the park. With the passing of time they would start to relax and their guard would drop. They would become a bit more careless and negligent and were bound to make mistakes sooner or later.
No one had to remind the council how brilliantly the Rosslerites saved the world from destruction by a group who called themselves the Sword of Cyrus a few years ago. They outsmarted the perpetrators who were armed with nanonuke technologies so advanced that the world’s scientists were in total shock to learn that it was even possible to create. Not only was the prevention of global domination by a resurrected Persian Empire an astonishing feat. The very fact that the Rosslerites were capable of doing it in less than forty days was the cause of severe distress for the council members.
The longer it took to apprehend the Rosslerites the better the chances were that they could develop countermeasures and use it to destroy Brideaux’s plans, and with them, every member of the council. They were also well aware that although they had the support of large parts of society because of the appeal of the utopian world promised to them, they had already made many enemies that would grow in number as time passed. The Rosslerites had to be prevented from ever being able to join forces with those enemies of the state.
They appointed James Gordon, former head of MI6, as the head of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS). He'd openly sworn allegiance to the Supreme Council on the day of the takeover in New Delhi and was now a member of the council. Their primary task was the identification and eradication of the enemies of the state.
The Rosslerites were enemy number one on their list.
Gordon had at his disposal the expertise and cooperation of every former law enforcement agency in the world. He appointed a team of experts and analysts, even clairvoyants to this task. The group working on the Rosslerite case would study not only their backgrounds and every scrap of information they could find, they would peel back the lives of all they could of the missing sixty people.
They would also study each and every person the vanished group ever came into contact with during their lives. They would keep a close watch on every one of them and if necessary use them to lure the Rosslerites out of hiding.
The second group was on the hunt for the enemies of the state. Gordon's task was made a lot easier than in the days when he controlled MI6, as he now had immediate and unrestricted access to the files of every former security and law enforcement agency in the world. It was astonishing, even to a man like Gordon, to see what information he had available to him. Not only the dirtiest of dirty secrets, but also files on every person ever placed on a watch list by their former governments.
Some of the reasons people were on those watch lists, especially in the so-called democratic countries of the world, made him smile. The whole concept of democracy, 'freedom of speech’ and the 'right to privacy', all grandiose philosophies that people thought existed, but he knew didn't and didn’t believe ever had.
He found the names and exact locations of every prepper group in the world, many of those which, or at least some of the members, were of interest to him. He made sure his employees paid them a visit just to let them know ‘we know about you’. He would also direct drone surveillance over them. Most of the prepper groups just wanted to be left alone to live in isolation. They had no interest in politics or the rest of society, but Gordon also knew that once the bio tag implants became compulsory it would violate their principles. They could quickly become the ideal breeding ground for resistance.
In addition, the prospect that the Rosslerites could be holed up with one or more of these prepper groups made it a wise decision to keep close tabs on them. From a study of the files of the history of the Rosslerites, Gordon had no doubt in his mind that they were not idle. They were working on a plan and would eventually make their move. He was going to be ready for them. That was if he had not smoked them out before then.
Another task BOSS officials had was to visit all former high-ranking politicians, law enforcement, and security force officers, as well as government officials, with the purpose to persuade them to support the new world government initiative. In some cases, no persuasion was necessary at all. Many of them signed up and became loyal supporters right away. In other instances, it was a bit more challenging, but with the help of some of the information gathered from those secret files, the ‘persuasion’ process was very efficient. Those people were employed as campaigners for the new government, and many became regular faces and voices in the media.
The third group, those who didn’t fall into line right away, proved to be a major headache for Gordon and his bureau staff. There was no help in those secret files. Many of these people were dead set against the new government and said so outright, while others just requested to be left alone. Gordon had to find another way to deal with them and limit their influence. He decided that he was going to personally conduct meetings with the highest-ranking people in this group.
BOSS moved swiftly to quarantine everyone of influence that could not be ‘persuaded’, by providing them with protection services for their security. Only when the protection services were in place did they realize that their safety and security had nothing to do with it. They were under house arrest and not allowed contact with anyone else.
They were in the state’s protective custody until senior officials from BOSS or the head of BOSS could meet them. Councilor Gordon would work out a plan with them to guarantee their security in the future. As the meetings took place they found out that ‘their safety’ actually meant staying out of jail by doing what BOSS told them to do. They were not allowed to be in contact with anyone unless BOSS pre-approved such contact, and that included close family members.
Within a few short weeks, BOSS officials had paid visits to everyone on their list and effectively placed them in quarantine. With these measures in place and effectively enforced, BOSS officials took their time to arrange the promised meetings. There was no hurry.
Gordon was left with a few prominent people from the old era who
did not want to cooperate as requested. He instructed his secretary to arrange the meetings and flights. For the next two weeks he did an around the world trip to have meetings with the world’s most famous people – such as the Pope, the Dalai Lama, ex-president Harper and his wife, former head of the CIA Sam Lewis, and quite a few other former heads of state, along with a few celebrities.
Gordon’s colleague in charge of the Bureau of Information and Political Affairs, Anastasia Oriov, former Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Media, had a few plans of her own for these former VIPs. She was going to use all of them, persuaded or not, to help her win the hearts and minds of the people. She intended to parade them in public at every possible opportunity to show the people that all the former famous people were in support of the new regime; everyone was going to see all of them. Of course, only those she chose would be heard.
The Harpers
The year after the successful prevention of the world takeover bid by the Sword of Cyrus group from Iran, Nigel Harper and his wife Esther retired. They would be remembered as the most popular presidential couple in the history of America. Now they were living on their farm in Tennessee, not far from Cookeville.
The shock they felt when the first news about Daniel and the other Rosslerites emerged left them shaken and anxious. Over the next few days as they watched the reports and saw how the story got new legs with almost every broadcast, they both came to the conclusion that something was wrong.
The so-called facts as reported by the media created more questions than answers. They were soon convinced that the Rosslerites were framed in some conspiracy and that the 10th Cycle Library could very well have had something to do with it. Two FBI agents eventually turned up to question them about their relationship with the Rosslers and to ask their help to track them down. Nigel and Esther made it a point to speak their minds and told the agents in no uncertain terms that they were barking up the wrong tree.
