Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3)

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  Without further fanfare he was brought up to a podium and thrown to the lions. Immediately, the crowd erupted and Matt couldn’t stop them for what seemed like forever. Finally he raised his voice in insistence. The crowd silenced and he addressed them.

  “Thank you truly for supporting me here,” his voice was loud and strong, so his lack of a microphone or bullhorn was okay. The over-stimulated crowd erupted again and he had to get control back once more by raising his voice, “I really appreciate what the message here is, especially on such a tragic day as this in American history. Many a family is trying to cope right now, including me. Until a few moments ago, I thought my parents were on that ferry, but thank God they are safe. Right now, that situation is playing out all over the place and my heart goes out to anyone going through that.”

  The emotionally charged situation was too much for Matt and he started to cry and couldn’t continue for several moments. He regained some composure and re-addressed the now stoic crowd. A policeman handed him a bullhorn, but he refused. His voice was able to carry to all in the plaza.

  “My wife and son were poisoned today by Pablo Manuel. I know this because he told me himself. They are fighting for their lives right now and there is little chance they will survive. So every minute I am here with you, I’m not with them. The hospital asked me to come out here and plead for you all to move to the park two blocks over that way,” said Matt, pointing south. “The hospital is basically non-functional as a result of all your support of me.

  “Please don’t take this wrong, it certainly isn’t meant to be offensive, but now is not the time for adulation. Now is the time for mourning—and for me personally, terror. As you all know, my life has been anything but easy to this point, and now it looks like I will have made the biggest sacrifice I’ve ever made for my country. Right now my wife and little boy are fighting for their lives because I chose to take on a madman. So we all need to keep perspective here.

  “Now if you want to stay to support me, then I say thank you, but please don’t add one more problem on this day for me. Please just go to the park and let the hospital function. If you really care, it is there you will pray for my family.”

  During the last part of this speech, Matt had tears running down his face. Never being one to hold emotions in when they needed to be let out, Matt was turning to leave when he heard a small pop that he’d heard before. The square was absolutely silent after his speech and to the untrained ear it could have been anything, but to his ear there was only one thing it could be and he was still alive, so that meant someone else was trying to kill him and Jim stopped the assassin dead.

  He looked up to the place where he thought the sound came from and saw a tiny puff of smoke shining off the evening sun coming from the roof of the parking garage; his suspicion confirmed.

  No one would have known and he would have made his escape back into the hospital if there weren’t suddenly a loud scream from the exact place he had seen the smoke. The voice yelled, “Someone just shot a gun out of that van!”

  It was like a light went on in a cockroach-infested room. In an instant, people turned into this frenzied machine of madness. Matt had been so stupefied that he hadn’t even noticed the TV cameras. He was speaking to the crowd and in his naiveté had forgotten that this show was being played out live throughout the nation.

  Before he could deal with the humility of a few hundred million people being witness to his emotional breakdown, once again, higher duty called him. If he didn’t take control of this situation right now, then his country was going to be wounded in a way that would make them feel vulnerable for a generation or more.

  To kill him would have been such a coup for evil—especially coming on this day, at a time like this time in his life, where to kick him on the ground would be the cruelest of insults. Not to mention it would make everyone feel the type of post 9/11 anxieties that all terrorists go for—like there was no safety for anyone.

  So no matter how badly he wanted to be with his wife and child, he needed to take control of this situation right now. He stood back up to the podium and shouted in his most commanding voice, “STOP!”

  * * *

  Malcolm used the field glasses to quickly look back over to the distressed shooter on the roof to his right who was now off the generator and forsaking cover was making his way to the southwest corner of the roof. He was obviously looking for an angle to get the target that was on the other roof. He made a decision—and that was that the distressed shooter was somehow a friendly.

  He replaced the spotter glasses and opened the left side doors port. He fixed his rifle on the other roof just in time to see the female walking backwards obviously pleading with an unknown figure. As she was backing up, she tripped backwards to the rooftop. The unknown assailant suddenly became visible, appearing in full-camouflage. The assassin hesitated a split second before he made a move to leave his feet and plunge his knife into her.

  Malcolm’s world froze. It was only a millisecond before he took the shot, but in that fraction he was able to replay his whole career right up to point where he killed the kid in Afghanistan. He joined the ranks of the CIA to help be the executor of justice in an unfair world. He hated that the tough guys always pick on the weak. Although it all went bad in Afghanistan, that didn’t change what he was here for in the first place, and why he fought so hard to prove to Frederick that he was over it. In that small fraction of time, he was able to right his perspective as he squeezed the trigger for what was surely a clean headshot. The crimson spray confirmed it so.

  * * *

  After seeing the guard attacked, and throwing all standard procedures aside, Jim scrambled off the generator that he was laying on and expeditiously made his way to the southern corner of the roof which would allow him an angle if the hostile showed himself again. In position, he could see the part of the adjacent roof past the left side of a probable generator unit. Although he still had a slightly obscured perspective, he could now at least see that side of the roof and if the shooter were going to try to get to Matt, then he would have to come into his line of sight.

  Suddenly a woman appeared, walking backward and she was hysterical and pleading with the hitter that took out the guard. Jim was sure it was his target. The woman was Caucasian, rust colored hair, and was not moving right, like she was injured, Jim noted.

  As she was backpedaling, she must have backed into an object that tripped her up and she went straight backward onto the roof. Jim tensed immediately as his camouflaged target came back into view, knife at the ready and heading to where the woman fell back. Jim pieced it all together in that small time frame. Guard one interrupted the shooter, but was dispatched in hopes of saving the opportunity, but the girl must have made her way to the roof for pictures—as Jim recalled a moment before she fell that she had a camera around her neck—so she stumbled onto his target that had just felled the guard.

  Right as the camouflaged man was going to make his move to finish the woman, Jim steadied for the shot; his finger was flexing the trigger, but he had not depressed it yet. As he was in the final process of the shot, the man’s face quite literally disappeared in a red spray. Jim heard the suppressed shot as it came from right over him to his left. He looked up and saw the small puff of smoke hitting the setting sun and magnifying it significantly. There was a second shooter protecting Matt?

  Jim was still processing that information when a civilian on the top deck of the parking garage put two and two together and sounded the alarm.

  The D.C. sniper case had warned people about the possibilities of someone shooting out the back of a vehicle like that. The resulting scream had the effect Jim thought it would, complete pandemonium. Then he saw something that made his heart swell and he forgot what the hell he was doing for the first time in his profession career.

  It was not so much that he forgot; it was more like he had the realization that he was living a moment in history, one that would be replayed over and over again, but
not to be missed live. Matt turned back around and did what every true leader was able to do. He commanded immediate attention.

  * * *

  “Stop what you people are doing right now! I don’t want to see another person run. This is a perfect example of what the hell is wrong with us right here! First of all, I heard no gun report and if it were the kind of gun that was silenced, then I wouldn’t be here anymore, would I? Because if someone is shooting anyone here today, it’s either someone shooting me or someone protecting me, and I’m still here.” Matt saw that stopped them. Now all eyes were on him again and it was time their ears got it too! Enough of this sheep mentality!!

  This was it . . . the moment. He somehow knew that God would lead him to this moment, as he had faith. Faith. For all of Pablo’s wisdom, he had very little faith. He was always trying to steer his destiny, where Matt had chosen to take the path of least resistance and not try to put his own spin on God’s plan. He felt it now, as this was his moment to put forth a plan that had God’s spirit at its core.

  But the angst over his family had not subsided, for God was known to make sacrifices—or have others make them would be more specific. His Divine belief was going to override all other things here though, it just had to. In his memory, Matt was suddenly driving back from church with his parents when he was just sixteen-years old.

  That day’s sermon was about loving Jesus over all other things, about loving Jesus over even one’s wife or children. Matt’s parents had said that they understood this and they agreed, but he would not relent that point. He argued it from every angle he could until his dad had to finally kill the conversation completely. Matt argued that if God gave us the capacity to love and he made us in his image, then how could it be a sin to love one’s wife as much or more than the being that created her? Weren’t we all God?

  It just never made sense to Matt, yet here he was living it out in a real life or death situation. He knew that to say what he had to say was going to take a speech, and time—time he did not have. Before he knew it, a microphone was placed in front of him and he now had an impromptu speaker system to address the crowd through, the speakers were on top of a news van.

  As if there was any doubt he was going to go ahead with this, that doubt was laid to rest. Like Abraham, Matt was asked to forgo his instincts as a father and husband and do the Lord’s bidding—or he was out of his mind; one of the two.

  Contrite, yet resolved to get his diatribe out, Matt spoke to the crowd passionately. “Our reality as a country changed in nineteen sixty-three.” He expected some feedback from the speakers, but this was a different blue-tooth world than the one he grew up in. “In November of that year, a sniper sent a message to all of us, and the message was, ‘They kill the good guys.’ And the first question everyone wants answered from that statement is, ‘Who are they?’

  “Most people think anyone who dares to say things like there is a ‘They’ have to be a conspiracy theory nut, or some other dismissive or derogatory remark designed to cause everyone else to disregard them and their thinking outside the box. Unfortunately the people deriding the brave and different would also be the people hiding it all. That’s really the beauty of it—if you’re the perpetrators.

  “Unfortunately for people like me, there are some conspiracy theory nuts that are obviously mentally distressed individuals, like the Una-bomber. Such people have little or no connection to reality, and these are the people who the oppressors love the most, because they cloud the water, they make us all seem unbalanced. Once that happens, the masses will be less likely to believe the truth when it is presented.”

  As Matt paused and cleared his throat, a policeman handed him a bottle of water, which he took and drank half of. “That’s where America is now, people. We’re in trouble because we are now run by the ‘They,’ instead of our actual Government. We got so greedy and powerful that we have nearly destroyed the natural earth in less than two hundred years and have given away the power of our Government for money. And I am not talking about our great and honest President by the way, as he is just one man against an army. I am talking about our lawmakers.

  “There is an obvious plan to erode our middle class and it is almost complete. Who is doing it, you ask? Who are They? If you don’t know the answer to that question by this point in your lives, then shame on you, because you are the problem that’s causing our great country to implode.

  “The answer is the One Percenters; they created this and you created them. You bought their products as loyal customers, then, when their companies hit what would be a natural ceiling of growth, they hacked jobs to keep investors happy, and you let them; you kept buying. When it again reached its ceiling, they started taking their manufacturing overseas to make better profits. And that’s where it went all wrong, people. That single issue is the one that we need to inspect.

  “There is a difference between allowing countries to sell their products in our country and moving manufacturing out—a big difference. These companies are putting higher profits over being patriotic Americans, and you all let them get away with it by still buying their products.”

  Matt looked at the people in the front row for a second, then he realized another face in the crowd was familiar as Justin from his group was listening intently. He went on to say, “We all have, we’re all guilty. We built the very thing that is now killing us, and those are multi-national conglomerates. They’re a beast that doesn’t count you as individuals, and they have no face of responsibility. You’re just a marketing number to them. And now their Special Interest Army has taken over our Government. This is no conspiracy theory, it’s a fact.

  “Think about it people. We know that corporations have sent in their shills to bribe their way into legislature. In short, the rich guys are now controlling the people that write our laws. So, if that’s true, every single law passed must have some advantage for them. Given that, what would you suppose would be the reason for our insane immigration laws? Assuming what I said is true, what do you think that reason would be?

  “It’s obvious that our immigration laws are a joke by world standards, so let me tell you my theory, if I may. I think it’s because they know that if you separate us enough and don’t enforce English as the only spoken and written language, then you have weakened us as a people because our freedom of speech and communication are a HUGE POWER. It’s a power we all take for granted, but they understand that all too well.

  “Why do you think the Iranian authorities always take away the cell phone relays during unrest? If keeping people from communicating is an act of repression, then having the ability to communicate is the opposite. My family emigrated here from Germany in the late 1700s; I did my family history. My family still honors many German traditions and my father speaks a little as well, but we are Americans first. The only reason that the recent immigrants to this country have all these laws passed to help them remain factionalized is because it’s obviously in the best interest of the powers that control us.

  “I grew up in a very multi-national, multi-cultural mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area, and anyone that has ever known me knows that I have not a racist bone in my body. I think we should all embrace different cultures. But let’s face it, cultures don’t run free countries, people do, and the people running this country are taking advantage of us. They don’t care about the color of our skin, or our religion, or what cause we care about. These people have figured out that our parent’s generation had about thirty percent disposable incomes, and now they’re targeting ours to make sure they have it and we don’t.”

  Matt was on such a role that he didn’t dare to look at another face or a monitor; he had turned everyone into a blur as he went on.

  “Although my family is waiting for a team of specialists right now and I have to be there, I am going to take another five minutes to tell you how we can fix it, but will anyone listen? Even when my sacrifice could be that I might never see my wife and child again . . . the first thing we have
to realize is there can be no disagreement in the solution. The solution is simple, and if it’s followed, it will work and it will work on the principle of the tipping point.

  “One of the main powers of the One Percenters is that they get us to argue about everything. They get us to omit their treasonous acts and fight like idiots over the most mundane things. They’ve created pundit television to counter every good thought that might come out, and they push partisanship over patriotism. We must stop arguing! That’s what the game American Pride is all about; and it starts with the second problem for me.

  “If you want to know what that is, then look no further than the answer to observation number one, and today proves it, ‘They always kill the good guys.’ What am I saying, you ask? You want it in plain English? Then here it is. I’m not going to lie to you as you’re used to nowadays. I’m also not going sugarcoat it so we don’t offend any sect or people. To know me and know my words is to know a man who does not see people in colors, I just see us as all in the same boat, and the boat is sinking.

  “Today, just a few moments ago, a person tried to kill me right in front of all of you. I can almost guarantee you that the person who perished moments ago was the very beast we speak of. I offered my life and the life of my family for my country. Only through the grace of God did I survive both encounters with Pablo Manuel, and these people were going to callously blow my head off right in front of you because they might not be able to make their shareholders expectations the next quarter if I’m able to pull this game off. If you’re asking how I know all this, let me tell you.”

  Matt observed Robert’s hulk in a stupefied trance, it was almost off putting as he continued, “Before the person screamed about a shooter I heard the silenced shot. I’ve had some training in this field now and I recognized it, faint as it was, the sound carried in this hushed plaza, which meant that my protector killed or deterred someone from killing me. For that reason, although the idea for American Pride was mine, I asked Robert Leme to not include me in the design team, as I inherently knew what was coming. Like that day in sixty-three when we lost Kennedy, I knew I would end up leaving a wife and child behind if I did this alone.”