by Jeff DeMarco
Erica stood, brushed the dirt and leaves off herself. “Their lives are not yours to take.”
Kristen looked at her cockeyed. “So, I just let them shoot at me?”
Erica shook her head, while rolling her eyes. She reached out, fuzed all the bolts in place, bent firing pins, ejected magazines. “There will be no shooting today.” She walked forward, towards the men, their flashlights aimed at her. “Unless you’d like my friend to kill you!” she smiled back at Kristen. “I suggest you all leave this place and don’t return.”
Several of them took aim, attempting to fire. Their weapons jammed in place. A single Soldier reached down slowly for his sidearm, drew and fired a single, ill placed shot.
“Nope.” Kristen shoved Erica to the side, pulling the Soldier out and up; held him by the throat above her head, her off hand holding his hand against the pistol. “Ever wondered what it’d be like to shoot your buddies?” she whispered.
“Kristen!” Michael yelled, finally awake from the firefight. “Put him down.”
“Make me!” She swung the weapon and the Soldier, flagging the line of troops.
“Damnit, Kristen!” He ran to them. “Stop this!”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She screamed. “For everything to just go back to normal, as if we could ever be normal… Why don’t you just go back to your perfect little idealistic bubble, where it’s just you and you have no one to worry about, but yourself.”
“Kristen…” His posture deflated at her assessment of him. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
Silence, as she eyed him angrily.
“I came here for you.” A sadness filled his voice. “Put the guy down and let’s talk.”
“That’s all you ever do, is talk.” She ripped the pistol from the Soldiers grasp and slammed him down into the dirt. “I’m done talking.” She aimed the barrel at the cowering, breathless man.
He edged closer. “So few moments that decide who you are as a person,” he whispered, edging closer. “So few that decide who you’ll be in the future, good or evil, hero or villain.” He edged closer. “This is one of those moments…”
A tear streamed down her face.
“You get to decide,” he whispered, only feet from her now. “Who do you want to be?”
Kristen closed her eyes and squeezed the grip, the weight of her decision crushing down upon her. A subtle tremor, as the firing pin bent. “Stop that.” She glared at Erica.
“Go!” Erica waved them away. “Before she changes her mind!”
Kristen walked over to their campsite in a huff, slumped into a ball on the ground.
CHAPTER 59
Luca knelt to the ground; the warmth of two bodies, the blackened outline of a third. Taylor’s presence lingered. “Taylor!” Luca called out into the void. “I know you can hear me!”
Sure enough, Taylor could hear him, as his trail crossed out of the panhandle of Texas; a dry, sandy, desolate place, devoid of life, save for the occasional rattlesnake or scorpion.
“Where?” Captain Colby asked.
Luca stood. “Northwest of Amarillo.”
Colby pressed his hand mic.
“No,” Luca said. “Not worth the fight.”
Colby slumped into the chair. “Gonna be a lot to answer for when the boss gets back.”
Luca shrugged.
“Probably get fired… Go to prison.” Colby chuckled. “Maybe they’ll execute me… have a good ol’ fashion hangin’.”
“Let a key asset escape, let an enemy out of his cell, let all the prisoners go, got Major Eckert killed, allowed human genetic testing to go on… plus whatever the hell Taylor was doing.” Luca laughed. “You’ll be lucky to get a last meal.”
Colby smiled, opened up General Petersen’s footlocker and pulled out a bottle of scotch.
Blanco knocked on General Nichol’s door.
“Enter!”
“Sir, we’ve got-“
“Just the man I wanted to see,” Nichols interrupted.
Blanco cocked his head to the side.
“I need you to do something for me,” Nichols whispered.
“Sir?” Commander Blanco sat down across from him. “Why are you whispering?”
Nichols eyes wandered around the office. “You never know who could be listening.”
Blanco’s brow furrowed. “Your orders, Sir?”
Nichols slid a piece of paper and the digital recorder across the table. “Go outside the wire, take whatever equipment you need. I need this message transmitted on this frequency on a continuous loop.”
“The purpose, being, Sir?”
Nichols looked around the office once more and mouthed. ‘She’s one of them.’
His face scrunched into a puzzled frown.
“I’m going to pick a fight, Commander.” Nichols stared at him, a grave look in his eyes. “I need to know if you’re with me.”
“With who?”
“You know who,” Nichols said. “The one’s that destroyed our country, our world. And I need their leaders in one place. One single, precision strike and we’ll end them, once and for all.”
“But, Sir-“
“Commander,” Nichol’s stared as if the fate of the world depended on his answer. “Are you with me?”
Blanco’s jaw clenched as he stood, saluted.
“If I asked you to do something,” Michael said. “Would you?”
“Depends.” Kristen sat down beside him.
“Leave with me,” he whispered. “Forget this place, these people. Forget everyone. Leave with me and never come back.”
She looked down at the ground. “He’ll find us.”
“How’s that any different than staying? We could at least find some peace away from all this.”
She stared at him, an odd tranquility to her face. “You think I’m a danger to them, don’t you?”
“Well, yea. I do.” He shook his head, stared off into space. “But I’m worried about you… what you could do to yourself.”
“You misunderstand.” Her mannerisms, her aura seemed off. “I want him to find me, to see and feel what they’ve done to me, as though it were him strapped to that table.” An impulse of wrath shot up her spine. “And then when it’s done, I want him to –“
“Die?” Michael interrupted.
“No.” Her face twitched; an anticipation and longing to deliver pain. “So long as he suffers, I want him to live.”
CHAPTER 60
Blanco and his team rolled out of the gate, drove for ten miles outside the wire; Their stated purpose, search and rescue. They set the radio and transmitter up in a clearing, away from buildings and roads, then returned without incident.
Blanco walked to an old unit headquarters building, previously vacant until the president’s arrival. He walked into the main office of the command section and set the recorder down on the desk. “You’re in danger, Madame President.”
A look of shock in her eyes, her pulse quickened. “From whom?”
“General Nichols, Madame.” He stayed standing before her. “He knows about us. I strongly recommend leaving at once.”
She paused a moment, listening to the recording. “Alpha 1,” she yelled. “Get in here!”
He entered the office, eyed Blanco conspicuously, then looked at President Kreuson.
“Get the helicopter ready.”
Alpha 1 cocked his head at the request.
She raised her eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”
“No, Madame President.” He noticed the recorder laying on the desk. “But as the head of your personal protection detail, I should be made aware of any such problems.”
Her eyes shifted to Blanco. “We have a traitor in our midst.”
Blanco picked up the recorder. “This was given to me by General Nichols. An attempt to lure Colonel Petersen here.”
A thought dawned on her. “Any idea how he would have gotten this, Alpha 1?”
“No, Ma’am.” He restrained his body,
his eyes, any nonverbal cues.
“Odd, since you have 24-hour security on General Petersen…” Blanco pressed in on him. ”Isn’t that right, Alpha 1?”
Alpha 1 nodded. “That’s right.” He turned to the president, unwavering. “I’ll find out.”
“Go.” She cracked her knuckles compulsively. “I need to make a call.”
Dust rose in the distance; a column of vehicles moving at a steady clip across the desert. “What the hell,” Julie whispered. She looked through binoculars, North of Phoenix, Arizona, 5 black SUV’s headed straight for them. The presence she had felt at all hours of the day, the blip on her radar now seemed like much more.
Their own convoy had stopped in a suburban wasteland, the presence of survivors nearby. She waved, with two arms overhead, the signal for ‘let’s get out of here,’ to her troops.
Major Coolidge ran over. “What’s up, Ma’am?”
She handed him the binos.
He looked, then handed them back. “Survivors… shouldn’t we stay and say hello?”
“You stay.” She turned and started for her Humvee. “See what they want.”
“What about the hunters, Ma’am?” Coolidge yelled.
“I’ll be close,” she yelled back. “Don’t tell them I’m here.”
She drove a mile south, then another mile west; ducked inside of an open garage. Her mind wandered to the hunters, keeping them at bay from her troops; to the approaching vehicles, scanning the occupants. A familiar mind, Colonel Petersen, his fingers rapping compulsively on the center console. And someone else, his mind shrouded. She felt the presence of something; that thing she had felt for many days. It moved towards her, stalking her.
The convoy of black SUV’s sped past the Airmen, without so much as a wave. Major Coolidge had waited in the center median, ready to meet and greet any survivors. He found their stares and black sunglasses off-putting; as well, the black motorcycle helmet of the passenger in the second vehicle.
Julie watched through Coolidge’s eyes, knowing that no good would come from this encounter. Her tires squealed out of the garage, as they circled the driveway. She hammered down on the accelerator, slamming into the front end of the lead vehicle.
She sped south and onto highway 303, her Humvee floored at 75 miles per hour was no match for the SUV’s. They circled her, pinched in on both sides, slammed on their breaks. The weight of the Humvee powered through. The windows opened, bullet impacts began filling the polycarbonate windshield and side windows, as though trying to blind her.
‘Thump,’ a noise on the roof. The piercing sound of metal, the turret hatch ripped from its hinges. The rush of wind, a black figure slipped into the opening. She slammed on the breaks, driving him into the windshield. She leapt from the driver’s seat, onto him and drove her fists furiously into his chest, into his helmet; ripping at his throat, above the thick collar. ‘The collar,’ she thought.
The door opened to a Soldier, rifle in hand.
Her hand up, the barrel bent. Her legs shot out, driving into the Soldiers chest. She scrambled over the encircling SUV’s and sprinted down the road.
Colonel Petersen stepped out from the driver’s seat. “You can’t run forever!”
She spun, now backpedaling. “I can sure as hell try!”
Demetri stepped up beside Petersen.
“Go after her,” he said, watching Julie run, faster than any human ought to. “We’ll be right behind you.” He handed Demitri a second collar.
Julie sprinted for her life, sprinted till her legs ached and her heart beat out of her chest, but he was there, nipping at her heels.
He reached out, grabbed onto her hair.
She wheeled back, drove her elbow into his visor, shattering the lens and exposing his eyes, then she bolted.
A creature pounced, dug its talons into her, its translucent skin like nothing she’d ever seen before; It’s hairless skin matched perfectly to the environment. She flung it from her, jumped driving her heel into its neck.
Demetri tackled her.
She drove her fist into his stomach, an audible ‘Uhh,’ issued from his mouth. She scrambled to her feet. “Why are you… doing this?” she yelled between breaths. “Petersen… He’s the enemy!”
He squared off to her, the collar in his hand like a lasso. “For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped,” he said, quoting Psalm 63.
Her fist clenched, she lunged.
He dropped his shoulder, slipping the blow, then again, as her fists shot furiously at him. He caught her wrist - his grip painful in wrenching the bones together. He twisted – her arm locked, driving her to her knees. “You will learn to exalt the Lord,” he whispered, as black SUV’s pulled up and encircled them. He locked the collar around her neck.
Julie panted in exasperation. “He is not the Lord!”
Petersen stepped from the driver’s seat, a controller in hand. “Don’t move! Don’t even think.” He crouched down beside Julie. “It’s for your own good… Wouldn’t want you to lose that pretty little head of yours.”
She spat, her aim landing in his eye. “Murderer!”
“Now that’s not nice.” He wiped the spittle from his eye, then stood, raised the controller and pressed a button.
Her back arched violently; electricity coursing through her, firing pain into every nerve.
“You’re smart, Julie. Smarter than most of the others… Think of the position you’re in, weigh the options.” He stood over her, writhing on the ground. “I think you’ll find I can be more than benevolent… but that depends entirely on you.” He shut the collar down and waited.
She laid motionless; broken on the ground.
Petersen motioned to Demetri.
Demetri smiled earnestly through his cracked faceshield. “Welcome.” He held his hand out.
She eyed Petersen and reluctantly took Demetri’s hand.
“I’m glad to have you back, Julie.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Sorry it’s under such a circumstance.”
“I will never follow you,” she whispered.
“Not willingly.” He opened the car door for her and smiled. “But all the same.”
Demetri waited, as Petersen shut the car door. “San Diego?” he asked.
“No,” Petersen walked him to the rear of the car. “We’ve been summoned; a rescue mission of sorts,” he whispered.
“Who?”
“It’s our leader, our President, Vivian Kreuson.”
Demetri shot him a confused glance. “Isn’t that a –“
“I know,” Petersen whispered. “Hard to understand… Flynn told you one thing, I’m telling you another. I… need you to have faith now, son.” He put his arm around him. “Have faith in me, that I’ll do what’s best for us all.”
A storm raged in Demetri, the realization that he was being led by a politician, the words of Flynn the betrayer and Petersen, the liberator. He wondered at whether the two roles ought to be switched.
CHAPTER 61
Brie grabbed Cole by the shirt, pulling him in close, down to her level. She lunged in, her lips pressing aggressively to his.
Cole drew back and struggled, eventually giving way to the kiss; his hands placed gently at her sides, till her release. He stared at her, as though she were crazy.
“Wanted to do that for a while.” She touched her fingers to her lips, savoring the sensation. “Not great… Not bad, either.”
“What the hell?” He squinted at her, as though they hadn’t met. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s just easier, taking what I want.” Cherubim dimples in full, her smile beamed at him. “It makes me wonder… What do you want?”
“What?” He squinted as he studied her, the new air to her persona. “Nothing! Julie’s been captured, taken to New Mexico.”
“Oh.” Her expression unmoved at the news.
Cole wide eyed; his hands shot out to his sides. “You gonna help me, or what?”
Brie shrugged. “… o
r what.”
Cole’s expression flabbergast. “The hell has gotten into you, Brie? It’s like you’re someone else.”
“I’m free.” She smiled her dimpled smile. “All this time, worrying about all you people, when you didn’t give a shit about me… So much for family.”
“Brie, that’s not-“
“Spare me.” She held her palm out at him. “She’d never lift a finger to help me. I’m returning the favor.”
Cole rocked his head back; the void vanished to reality.
Alpha 1 burst into the room, a stern look on his face. He set down the recorder. “Wanna tell me how you got this out of your cell?” He set down in the seat facing General Petersen.
Commander Blanco walked in, stood behind Alpha 1.
Alpha 1 shifted his eyes in Blanco’s direction, his expression obscured from view – a message.
“I…” Petersen’s eyes shifted around the room, from Alpha 1 – Blanco – the door.
“You what?” Alpha 1 Slammed his hands down on the table. “Who was it Alpha 3, Alpha 4… One of the Secret Service officers? Who?”
“I… I…” His word bumbled into a stutter. “It was… umm… Alpha 3.”
Alpha 1 stared over, his eyes narrowed on Blanco. “Questions?”
Blanco’s glared at them both. “Give me the room, please.”
Alpha 1 looked to Petersen, a stoic expression, one of understanding. He stood, then walked out into the hall.
Blanco walked around the desk, sat on the edge. He stared at Petersen for a long time, before saying, “I know what you’re doing, Sir… You and Alpha 1. I’m not blind. And all he’s doing is covering his own ass.” He stood, walked around behind Petersen. “I could torture the truth out of you… Hell I could kill you right now, say you made a move for my weapon, make it look like an accident.”
“But you’re not,” Petersen whispered, examining his own words. “Why?”
“It used to be cut and dry, you know…” Blanco clenched his jaw, exhaled heavy out his nostrils. “Our purpose in the middle east, one of them anyhow - the religious war, kill Islamic extremists. That’s what I signed up for.”
