by Justin Bell
“Rhonda? You okay?”
She was already pushing herself up from her prone position, nodding toward him. “I’m all right, Phil. I’m okay.”
Max leaped down from his horse, withdrawing his Smith & Wesson revolver, clutching it in two hands as he approached the pair of strangers. Rebecca slid off the back of her mount as well, a semi-automatic pistol swinging up around in her hands as well.
“Don’t move!” she shouted. “Freeze, right there!”
“Easy, take it easy!” the woman shouted, lifting her hands.
Beside her the man lifted his hands as well, a small weapon dangling from a strap around his shoulder.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone!” the man followed up.
“Keep those hands where we can see them!” Max barked, taking several steps toward the pair. Rebecca was instantly on his heels, each of them covering one of the individuals, swiveling at the waist.
“Look, stay calm, I’m with the FBI!” shouted the woman, her voice firming as she spoke.
Fields glowered at her, the pistol leveling in her direction. “We have ways of verifying that!”
“Then go ahead. I’m reaching into my coat for my badge, okay? Just my badge, I’m moving nice and slow.”
Rebecca nodded, keeping her weapon trained on the woman. “We’ve got you covered. Nice and slow.” She shifted toward the man, her eyes narrowing on the weapon dangling from the strap. "And you, make sure your hands are far away from that ACP9, you get me?”
He nodded.
The blonde stranger moved gingerly, peeling open her jacket and reached slowly into an inner pocket, retrieving a slim black billfold. She extended her arm and slowly let the badge wallet flip open, revealing her identification inside. Fields snapped it out of her hand, keeping the pistol pointed at her, but flipped it around, so she could read what was on the identification.
“Swift?” she asked, looking at the woman over the wallet she held in her hand.
The woman nodded. “Agent Julie Swift. Out of the Boston field office. Part of the Incident Response Task Force.”
Fields read the ID carefully and slowly folded the wallet back up with one hand, then handed it over to the woman.
“Nice to meet you, Agent Swift,” she said. “Name’s Rebecca Fields, member of the tactical arm of the Houston field office.”
“Thank God,” Julie exclaimed, starting to put down her hands.
“Whoa, whoa, not yet!” Fields barked. “Keep those hands up! We’ve run into our share of government officials who weren’t exactly on our side.”
“What side are you on exactly?” the man asked standing next to Agent Swift.
Max took a step closer to him, narrowing his glare. “You look familiar,” he whispered.
“I’ve got that kind of face,” the man replied, shrugging. “I’m sure we’ve never met—”
“Jacques, right? Pietro Jacques?”
The Customs Agent narrowed his glare and looked past Max to where Phil was standing. He was looking at the man curiously, the flicker of recognition in his eyes.
“Do I… know you?” Jacques asked.
“No. Well, not really,” Phil replied. “We were friends of Brandon Liu. You let us through the Chicago Barricades.”
“Holy—” Jacques exclaimed, his eyes widening. “You guys are that family. The ones Brandon was helping find their daughter?”
Phil nodded and smiled. “We’re still looking.”
“Wait. You know Brandon Liu? Customs and Border Patrol Agent Brandon Liu?” Swift stepped forward, passing in front of Jacques.
Phil nodded. “Yeah, we know him. Well, we knew him. He helped us get to Chicago, helped us get a lead on our daughter.”
“Helped us uncover quite possibly the largest, most serious conspiracy in American history,” Fields finished.
“My God,” Swift said softly. “I’ve been looking for him for months. He was part of our task force, but he disappeared from Boston and nobody has been able to reach him!”
“There’s a reason for that,” Fields replied, glancing over toward Rhonda, who was looking back at her. Rhonda nodded softly, giving a nearly imperceptible approval to tell the story. Rebecca looked back at Swift.
“Unfortunately, Brandon Liu is dead.”
Swift lowered her head and clenched her fingers together into twin blunt fists. “I was afraid of that.” She drew in a deep breath, then looked back up into Rebecca’s eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“It’s a long story,” Fields replied.
Swift looked around her, as if searching for something, then looked back at her. “Seems to me we’ve got plenty of time.”
Fields looked back at the group, seeing everyone off their horses and nodded. The two crews converged together, turning and walking down the street, horses being led by riders, hooves softly clopping on the asphalt. Up above them a highway crossing sprawled, blocking the sky and drowning the area down on the road in a deeper darkness, giving them all a sense of shelter and protection.
“Liu and my boss got connected somehow. Ricky Orosco was my team lead down in Houston. Your agent flew down our way shortly after the incident and got there just in time to see the after effects of a detonation in Galveston Bay.”
“I heard about that,” Swift replied.
“Something apparently happened in Boston that I’m not privy to,” Fields continued.
“Brandon’s wife died. She was killed in a hit and run, and he suspected it was intentional and that they were aiming for both of them.”
Rebecca shook her head. “He never really went into details.”
“Well, apparently, whatever he told Agent Orosco,” Rhonda said, picking up where Fields left off, “was convincing enough to get him to fly north to Chicago, and he brought Rebecca here and a third agent along with him.”
“Houston to Chicago? How did he make that trek?” Jacques inquired.
“Houston FBI had access to a transport copter with a range of eight hundred miles. It was a close call, but we got there just in time to pull these folks’ butts out of the fire,” Fields said.
“We’d gotten tangled up with a militia group at an abandoned mall just south of Chicago,” Rhonda said.
“Lakeview?” asked Jacques.
Rhonda nodded. “This militia movement had help from Ironclad, the security contractors. With the help of the FBI agents who arrived, we were able to drive them all from the mall and actually killed the leader of the militia movement. But unfortunately, there was a booby trap and the explosion killed both Orosco and Liu.”
“The third FBI agent, Harrison, was lost in the gunfight before the explosion,” Rebecca finished.
They walked in silence for a few moments, nobody knowing quite what to say. The darkened roads grew ever darker as the sun continued its downward trend and they continued walking beneath the interstate above them. Houses grew thicker and more congested as the scattered vehicles became less numerous, clearing the roads for safe passage. Track housing emerged from the darkness as they progressed, though as they walked from side street to side street there remained a distinct lack of other people. Every once in a while they passed a house with a flickering light on the other side of the window, but they continued walking, not wanting to disturb the local populace.
Swift finally broke the silence.
“Sounds like you’ve had it pretty rough,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s an understatement,” Max replied in a way that should have been funny, but was far too accurate to truly be humorous.
“So, he’s definitely dead then?” she asked, looking at the group.
Rhonda nodded. “I was there when it happened.”
Brad glanced up at her, his eyes narrowed. He’d been there when it happened, too. He was holding a pistol, preparing to put a bullet in Cavendish’s head. In those few moments before it all happened he remembered looking over toward Liu’s broken body, twisted and broken, shreds of his darkly colored uniform on fi
re from the explosion. The memory was so clear and vibrant in his mind, as if a spotlight was showing on it, a spotlight that drowned all surroundings in shadow. For Brad, more and more, it felt like all of his memories were of the horrible, violent acts, he couldn’t remember any of the good things.
The times with his parents were a vague fog, but looking at his mother, face down in the St. Louis streets… that thought was carved into his brain. He used to have a unique, warm connection with Clancy Greer, a surrogate parent of sorts since his real parents had died, but as he thought of the man recently, all he could see was his vacant stare in the Cleveland hospital, the cold, clammy touch of his hand after his death.
Pleasant memories no longer existed, only the gray fog that acted as an intermission before the next violent act.
He felt cold and distant as he walked on the other side of the horse that Max led, feeling as if he could be drawn into the shadows and nobody would ever even know.
“So this conspiracy that Liu and Orosco were talking about,” Swift said. “Did they elaborate at all on that?”
Fields looked over at her out of the corner of her eye as they walked. Swift had been honest with them so far, but honest enough to trust with what Liu had revealed? What their own investigations had uncovered?
“You’ll have to excuse us,” Fields said, “but the majority of the people we’ve met in the past few months have tried to kill us, especially folks closely affiliated with the United States government. We’re a bit gun shy about sharing what Liu and Orosco stumbled upon.”
“Brandon trusted Jacques,” Max said. “And he did let us through the barricade.”
Rebecca flashed the boy a look and he lowered his gaze, snapping his mouth shut.
“Seriously,” Jacques said, “I considered Brandon a friend. A good friend. If there was some kind of mission he was on… I want to finish it.”
“How did you get here from Chicago?” Phil asked.
“The long and hard way,” Jacques replied. “I was caught in the middle of the Chicago barricade riots. Lost a bunch of friends. Saw some stuff I’ll never forget.”
“Join the club,” said Winnie, her own mind drifting back to any countless events over the past three months.
“Agent Swift here was sending out feelers, asking for anyone who had any connections to Brandon Liu. Using her extensive network of government agencies. Eventually word reached me in Chicago, and I decided there was nothing keeping me there and started my way east.”
“It’s not an easy road,” Rhonda said.
“No, it’s not. Thankfully I had a motorcycle and government credentials. I was able to take some shortcuts normal folks couldn’t.”
“How nice for you,” Brad muttered. Phil looked back at the young boy, his face a mask of concern.
“That still doesn’t explain why we should trust you,” Fields interjected.
Swift stopped walking. She raked the zipper of her jacket down from neck to waist and let it fall to the pavement. Fields jerked with the motion and started bringing up her pistol, but halted. Julie Swift was standing in a black t-shirt, a shoulder holster with Glock pistol slung across her chest. Her left arm was wrapped elbow to shoulder in white bandages, tied tight, with a slowly creeping red stain along the front of it.
“See this?” she asked, gesturing toward her injury. “We were ambushed a couple of weeks ago. Ambushed in the streets of an American city. They tried to kill us. Ever since we’ve been on the move, just trying to stay ahead of them. These people. Probably the same people who killed Brandon. Probably the same people who have been trying to kill you.” Her face was twisted in a grimace of rage. “We are on the same side.”
“The last two friends I had in law enforcement are dead,” Jacques said, picking up from his would-be partner. “We left them bleeding in the streets as we ran for our lives. We were nearly lying in the street right next to them. Believe us when we say we know how serious this is.”
Rhonda and Rebecca looked at them for a moment, then flashed looks at each other, seeming to come to the same conclusion simultaneously. Fields looked back at them.
“Okay. Fair enough. You’ll have to forgive our hesitation.”
“Of course,” Swift replied. “But there are so few of us now. So few of us who know what’s happening and who are willing to fight back. We really need to work together.”
Rhonda nodded. “Okay. So where have you been staying?”
Jacques let a long breath escape and allowed himself a brief smile. “Thank you,” he said. “We’re right around the corner, about two blocks east. Abandoned office building, and there’s even room for the horses.”
“Then let’s go,” Rebecca said and they turned the corner and walked together into the night.
***
Twin headlights cut through the indigo darkness, casting a pale pallor upon the concrete loading dock on the south side of the Philadelphia warehouse. A small hatchback rounded the corner and drifted into the parking lot, pulling in alongside the green military Humvee, the engine winding down to a low throttle, then cutting out completely. There were no lights on in the parking lot, it was painted in a darkness, various shades of black and dark blue, though for the brief second that the lights illuminated the dock, Rita Kramer could see that no guards were visible.
The entire place looked even more abandoned than it truly was, a darkened husk of what used to be, and she sat in the car for a few moments, not wanting to move. She kept her headlights on, shining against the dull, rust-colored brick of the warehouse, the loading dock just to her left. Kramer was tired, having commuted nonstop for the past ten hours through a convoluted web of interstates and passable roads. One thing she’d learned at the planning meeting for the Summit was that government workers had been hard at work clearing transport routes, and while the most direct path from Philadelphia to Washington, DC was still a clogged cluster of abandoned vehicles, there were some direct routes that were completely passable. That was perhaps one of the most important items she’d learned at the meeting and one that would serve them well in the coming days.
A narrow, white sphere burst to life ahead of her and to her right and her eyes moved toward it. Bobbing, the light ambled toward her, a translucent pale beam traversing her car, from hood to trunk, then back again. The beam halted, pointing in the window and she sheltered her eyes from the passing white light, then pushed her way through the driver’s door and out into the parking lot.
“Rita?” a voice said in a hushed whisper.
“Hyun?” Rita called back, recognizing the voice immediately. The beam swept over her, then approached and she intercepted it along the way, her eyes adjusting to the dark and recognizing the form of Hyun Ki Park. They embraced.
“Good to see you,” Hyun said. “How was the meeting?”
“Very educational,” Kramer replied with a sly grin that Hyun could not see in the dim light.
“I cannot wait to hear more about it.”
“Agreed,” another voice echoed, deep, and gruff. Hyun Ki played the beam over toward the loading dock just as Gerard Krueller emerged from one of the doors. “Glad you made it back safely, Ms. Kramer.”
“It’s good to be back,” Rita replied. “And I bring news. Lots of news.”
“Excellent,” Gerard replied. “Come with me, let’s all go inside. We have some lantern light we can at least see by.” He retreated back through the door he’d come out of, and the other two followed him through. They walked down a narrow hallway, out into a large lobby area, apparently at one time the entrance for employees. A time clock was bolted to the wall, unused in many months, and at the other side of the long room were double doors that served as an entrance on the front side of the building. Several lanterns were indeed scattered about the room which contained several chairs and even a pair of faux leather couches.
“Sit,” Gerard said, waving toward one of the chairs, and he lowered himself into a second one, his massive bulk sinking down deep into the brown cu
shion.
Rita sat in one chair and Hyun Ki sat down next to her in another.
“First of all,” Gerard said, looking at Hyun. “Tell me about the scientists. It’s been a week, how is progress?”
Hyun Ki nodded enthusiastically. “Good, good. The mixture has been made and the compound has passed initial testing. The device is nearly ready.”
“Excellent. So we are prepared for delivery?”
Hyun nodded. “The compound is ready. And the housing?”
Gerard smiled his own wry smile. “Our men have been working hard. Building the containment unit from scratch. Watching the progress has been remarkable.”
“How long until we can get it all assembled?” Park asked.
“Well, thanks to the blueprints from your home country, the actual assembly should not be difficult. We could have the device completely ready within twelve hours.”
“Good,” replied Kramer. “Because the First National Summit is happening in forty-eight.”
Krueller’s eyes widened. “What? Forty-eight hours?”
Rita nodded. “Seems they’re shooting for a quick turnaround to avoid precisely what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Krueller sat back in the chair, interlocking his fingers and looking over the steeple at her. “This presents a unique challenge.”
“Perhaps not as much of one as you might suspect,” Kramer said. She reached into a pocket within her jacket and pulled out a bundle of folded papers. “Transport infrastructure rebuild is already happening. These maps present direct routes between Philadelphia and Washington, bypassing the most congested areas. It will facilitate transportation by a hundred-fold.”
Krueller smiled, wide and wolfish. “Excellent.” He leaned forward and plucked the papers from Kramer’s closed fingers.
She glanced over at Park, then back at Krueller. “One thing we haven’t discussed,” she whispered. “Who is going on this operation?”
Krueller glanced at her over the ridge of the papers he was holding. “Oh, that’s easy. All of us.”
Kramer swallowed hard. “All of us?”
“Indeed. Not to worry, Ms. Kramer, the device will be set for remote detonation. The work on the cellular towers is nearly complete. We’ll be able to set the device off from two hundred miles away. The government is still a long way from rebuilding our cellular network, they haven’t even noticed our technicians placing the line of sight transmitters.”
