“Yes, I am. I told them Edwards was wounded at the gas station during the shoot-out. He eventually bled out somewhere in the hills, but I couldn’t remember for sure where. Honestly, I was surprised at how fast, how readily, the FedAPS agents accepted my story. But then seeing what kind of show was made out of my trial, I think I understand. The facts really didn’t matter. They had a story they wanted to present, and nothing else. As if reality were nothing but mere perception.”
“I’ve got a map, marked where they found all the bodies! I’ve got photographs from the official file!” Levine felt panicked. Fatigue, brought on by the lack of sleep, left him ill prepared for this revelation.
“I lied to them. In turn, they lied to the American public. If they’d really found Edwards’s body, it wouldn’t have been where they claimed. Nor when they claimed to have found it.”
“How do I know you’re not lying to me now?” Joel Levine threw his hands up as if he’d just tossed indisputable evidence in front of Harris.
“I’ve heard the rumors in prison,” Harris said. “Hell, I’ve heard the rumors reported on the news; surely you have as well.”
“They’re rumors!” Levine cried. “Fantasies created by those who’d foster hope that there’s something left of the old America. There’s never been any hard evidence those stories are true.”
“Look, you want to say I’m lying, go ahead. But you know I ain’t.” Harris spoke with unwavering confidence.
Levine wanted to ask Harris why he’d say that, but found himself too afraid to find out. FedAPS had already made it clear that all those past stories were unfounded.
“I don’t know about you,” Levine said in frustration, “but I could use some sleep. Why don’t we break this off for today and meet tomorrow morning?”
“Sure, Joel,” Harris agreed, slowly standing up, his aged body stiff from sitting so long.
Why? Levine wondered, struggling to understand what he’d just learned. Why would a man kill, let alone sacrifice his own life for another’s freedom? What does freedom even mean? Who today can even define it, let alone understand it?
Joel Levine stood up and stretched, then started to collect his things.
“It’s been good meeting you, Joel.” Harris stuck out his hand in front of Levine.
“Yes,” Levine, feeling very unsettled, responded awkwardly. “Like I said, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Harris gave a slight smile and nodded. The guards escorted him back to his prison cell.
I deserve a drink after that phone call, Joel thought and popped opened another can of the strawberry vodka cocktail he’d bought from the convenience store across the street from his hotel. Getting drunk right now felt like a higher priority to Joel than getting much-needed sleep.
Shortly after arriving at his hotel, he’d called his FedAPS-assigned publishing agent/supervisor, Sandra LaGard. She was also his contact for Nina Perro, commanding general of FedAPS.
“Go ahead and wrap up your interview tomorrow as planned. I will inform the Madam General of your problems,” was all LaGard said before she hung up the phone. What bothered Levine was that he’d never used the word problem in describing the Harris interview with LaGard.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Joel began to second-guess himself. FedAPS will bury the story before they ever admit they made a mistake, he worried. I’ll never get VIP status.
Before he’d called LaGard, Levine brainstormed alternative presentations and interpretations of Harris’s story that, he thought, would benefit FedAPS. But LaGard did not seem to respond favorably to any of them. He desperately wanted to save his assignment, his story with Harris. Levine feared he’d lost his career as a FedAPS journalist/historian before it even started, along with his VIP status.
He looked out his hotel window into the city’s run-down business district. He downed the rest of his strawberry-vodka cocktail and turned around to fetch another. He looked at his laptop, phone, and the rest of his gear issued to him by FedAPS, sitting on the small table common to motel rooms. General Perro had given it all to him herself.
She’d have found out sooner or later, Levine reminded himself. It was better I had told them myself.
Perro, LaGard, or any other high-ranking FedAPS official would be able to see any file he’d accessed online or anything he’d written down. Besides, one had no way of knowing when FedAPS might access the microphone on any personal electronic device.
There are no secrets anymore, Levine told himself. Not from FedAPS anyway.
Levine let out a long sigh, then fell onto his bed, and turned the TV on.
On the other hand, maybe she just didn’t want to commit to anything until she got General Perro’s permission, Joel thought, trying to find some hope. After all, this project is Perro’s baby, and who would want to cross that woman!
The memory of what Perro did to MacTaggart grated through Joel’s mind. No, she’s got the power and authority to do whatever she wants to whomever she wants.
The FedAPS news channel reported on dissension in one of the interior states. A story of some non-specified act of violence.
“Fortunately, however”–the news announcers beamed with glee–“all apprehended dissenters have voluntarily agreed to be processed for ideological rehabilitation.”
Harris said I knew he wasn’t lying. What does that even mean? Was he telling me the truth? Or just trying to get more attention? Levine emptied another can of his strawberry-vodka drink and turned the channel. He found a gameshow where contestants compete with self-deprecating acts of stupidity for a chance to win an all-expense-paid week at a FedAPS VIP resort. Levine groaned and got up to get himself another strawberry-vodka drink.
You know he’s telling the truth, Levine told himself as he popped open another can. You’ll never say it out loud, but you know he is.
At first, Levine thought he was having a bad dream. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. But then it became hard for him to breathe. Waking up, Levine realized two men were holding his body down on the motel bed. Another was holding a needle into his arm, injecting something. His body felt unnatural. Joel realized he couldn’t resist them. The man finally extracted the needle and nodded to the others. Joel tried to scream when the hand covering his mouth was removed, but found he’d lost the ability. His mind told him to move, but he couldn’t. His eyelids grew heavy. Desperately, Joel fought to keep his eyes open; he could not. It was then Levine realized he was dying. The only pain he felt was the terror of death in his mind.
“Well, that was easy,” Litner joked to his team after he confirmed Joel Levine was dead. He turned the bedside lamp on and placed the syringe on the nightstand. “Crane, turn the volume down a bit on the TV.”
“Fuck, man, I’ve had old ladies put up more of a fight than that.” Crane chuckled as he did as he was told.
“Did anybody ever check to confirm whether this guy actually has a set of balls?” Breck tried to join in on the wisecracks.
“Get off on your own time,” Litner joked. “Let’s get out of here. Nice and quiet. We’ve had incredible luck. Don’t get sloppy and blow it now.” Captain Litner of FedAPS couldn’t believe his good fortune, finding Levine drunk and passed out. It would blend in so well with the death-by-drug-overdose scene they had created. Perro will be very happy. He smiled as he closed the door on Levine’s body.
Adjusting to the light, Harris barely opened his eyes. He felt too tired for it to be morning. The black sky visible through his small cell window told Harris he was right.
The warden’s playing mind games again, Harris thought. He’d expected some kind of repercussions after telling Levine about Edwards. More than once in prison, Harris’s lights were left on twenty-four hours a day for several days at a time.
Only after the guards ordered him to do so, Harris slowly got out of bed. As usual, his body was stiff and ached when he got up. Tonight, however, his leg was particularly sore. He dressed himself, as commanded. While doing so, Ha
rris stared at his aged and scarred face in the polished stainless-steel mirror. His reflection was an ugly reminder that events of his youth, relived the last couple of days, were long in his past.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Harris greeted the guards as they entered through the cell’s exterior door. He placed both hands through the slot of his interior door so they could handcuff him. “We’ve not met before. Are you gentlemen new to Reid or just the cell block?”
The guards did not reply other than to order him out of his cell and down the hall. Harris was not surprised. New guards often acted this way.
As usual, Harris was walked down to the end of the corridor. But this time he was ordered to turn right instead of left. The day before, Harris had suspected the interview might not continue. Now he knew the interview would not continue.
FedAPS doesn’t want stories about Marines fighting, Harris thought. They want stories of them dying, like the rest of old America.
Halfway down this new hallway, the guards ordered Harris to stop and enter another room. Immediately, Harris saw that the concrete walls were covered with thick plastic sheeting, and a lone gunman was in the right corner of the room. The guards walked him to the far-left corner of the room, and forced him to his knees facing the wall. They chained him to a D-ring bolted into the floor, next to a drain, and walked away. When the heavy steel door slammed shut, Harris smiled.
“Shoot straight, FedAPS,” Harris ordered and looked up at the ceiling. Thank you, Lord, he prayed. After more than fifty years, Sean Harris finally went home.
EPILOGUE
“Well–” Paisley Brandeis smiled into the camera “–tonight I’m excited to introduce to you our new colleague and rising star here at the FedAPS Network, Jaylah Webster. Jaylah”–Brandeis turned to her left–“welcome.”
“Thank you, Paisley. It’s really cool to be here on your show.”
“Now, Jaylah, I’ve had the opportunity to look at some of your recent work, and I’m totally blown away. I mean, it’s like some of the best work in a generation.”
“Yeah.” Jaylah giggled.
“Why don’t you tell us about it. I mean, lately we, like, hear a lot of stories, about Senator Ferguson in particular, instigating a lot of hate and anger towards our government with talk of individual liberties and stuff like constitutional rights. You’ve had an opportunity to spend time with someone who really was a product of that old, toxic American way of thinking.”
“Yes, Paisley. Like you reported earlier tonight, the last living veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Sean Harris, recently died. Now, fortunately, our supreme commander of FedAPS, Madam General Perro, had the foresight to commission a history of Sean Harris so that we might, like, better understand old America and the damage it caused the people.”
“Now, Jaylah, you spent a week?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“You spent a week,” Brandeis continued, “interviewing this ‘last Marine.’ To start with, what struck you the most about him?”
“Sad,” Webster emphasized, mimicking a sad tone and shaking her head.
“Really?” Brandeis responded with rehearsed surprise.
“Yes, Paisley. Think about it. He lived with so much pain and so much regret. He told me in fact, the day before he died”–Webster masterfully teared up and cracked her voice–“if only his generation had been taught as children to serve the people instead of trying to serve old America, maybe all his friends and loved ones would have stayed alive. Think about it, Paisley, this was a man who eventually found himself on the run and all alone. All his friends had died, as he put it, for nothing.”
“What a load,” Lawson mumbled to himself and turned off the news. He tossed the TV remote onto the sofa, got up, walked over to the apartment’s only window and stared outside. The night sky glowed purple from the reflection of the city’s streetlights. Never having met Harris, nonetheless the old veteran’s death saddened him. He felt as if something valuable had been lost, never to be recovered.
Lawson remembered Edwards talking about Harris. He had called him “a real Marine.”
“A true American warrior,” Lawson mumbled out loud, but in his mind he heard Edwards’s words clearly.
“Even in prison,” Edwards said, “a man can remain free if he never stops thinking like a free man.”
He’d never forget that day. How could he? Few boys of his generation had an opportunity to meet a genuine hero. Let alone to shake hands with an American legend, Ethan Edwards, the last Marine.
Book Three of The Last Marine Series
THE WARRIOR EDWARDS
Ethan Edwards knew he’d missed before he’d even finished pulling the trigger.
Don’t worry about shots fired, focus on what you can do now, he reminded himself as he turned his body slightly to his right and fired two more times. However, it was to no avail. All four of his shots hit the “friendly” targets.
“If you and your mom are ever held hostage you better hope I’m having a good day,” Edwards dryly joked with his son, although he felt all too well the truth behind his sentiment.
The day’s exercise was one he’d learned from his own father; on this same range his father had built decades earlier on the family property. A silhouette target was attached behind another, with just enough of the back silhouette showing to simulate a person standing closely behind another with about three quarters of his head showing. The front silhouette was “friendly” the back silhouette was “hostile”. Something akin to a hostage situation. Ethan had set up two such targets for him and his son to shoot at that afternoon and, hopefully, give him a chance to clear his head. Normally this worked. The concentration and focus required was always enough to distract his mind and allow him to reapproach his problem with a better perspective. That was not the case today.
Tomorrow his only son, and namesake, would turn eighteen. That morning the younger Ethan had announced that he would enlist in the United States Marine Corps and do his part for the war. He was not surprised by his son’s proclamation. The Edwards men, including him, had a history of Marine Corps service going back to World War I. So, he was not surprised by this. Rather, it had been a source of worry ever since the People’s Republic of China attacked the United States nearly a year ago.
The boy sat down at the table in front of the targets for his turn to shoot.
“You know, you sign up for the Marines now, you’ll be in for the duration of the war,” the father said, disrupting the boy as he prepared to shoot. Ethan turned and looked at his father and grinned.
“I’m counting on it,” the boy replied.
“We drive the ChiComs out of Mexico, we’re going to have to take the war overseas. No way out of it, if President Clark is serious about destroying Communist China.”
“Well, yeah, I imagine so,” the younger Ethan responded oblivious to where his father was going with this.
“You should give some thought to joining the Missouri Militia,” the elder Ethan continued. “The militias have already done a big part in driving the ChiComs back to the Mexican border. Clark says they’ll be integral in the Mexico Campaign. Better yet, in my opinion, they’re not authorized for overseas deployment. If you survive Mexico, you’ll have done enough. It’ll be time to come on home. The Marines, the ones still ALIVE, will be heading overseas. Trust me son, you don’t want to get caught up in a war that has no end in sight.”
“I do, if that’s what needs to be done,” the boy indignantly replied. The father stared into his son’s pale blue eyes, struck by how his son could look so innocent, yet so serious. “You always told me,” Ethan continued, “that’s what Marines do. When there’s a fight, they keep fighting, right? They never quit. For our land, our people, our freedom.”
“I did,” the father agreed with a sigh. He felt desperate to change his son’s mind but didn’t know what else to say.
The boy reached out with his right hand and gripped an empty tin can. With explosive speed and a
practiced grace, Ethan threw the tin can in the air as he stood up and drew his pistol. He fired once at the left target and once at the right. Then he repeated the sequence. Four shots placed in two holes. Ethan ejected his empty magazine and placed his pistol on the table. Then he turned and looked at his father with a confident smirk that the elder Ethan had always found so charming on the boy.
At that moment, the father was hit by the full weight of his own vanity. Ethan Edwards had always thought his primary objective as a father was to protect son. He saw now that was wrong. A father’s time with his boy is limited, and his protection can only go so far. A father’s primary responsibility is to train the boy into a strong man.
The boy’s fate is in God’s hands. Always has, always will be, the father told himself. All he could do now was hope he had prepared his son well enough. “Nice shooting Ethan,” the father praised his son, but could not smile. “The Marine Corps will be lucky to have you.” Ethan Edwards turned around and slowly walked back to the house.
“Thanks,” the young man said and turned around smiling. “Where are you going Dad?” He called after his father.
“You go ahead and shoot up the rest of the rounds.”
“Really?” Ethan asked in surprise. He’d never known his father to quit the range early.
“Yeah, I’m tired today,” the elder said, struggling to not let his voice crack. “Besides, I’ve got some things to talk over with your mom.”
***
Edwards moved at a pace inspired more by anger than fear. Although, there was much for him to be afraid of. The full weight of the United States federal government had been brought down upon him and his friends. They were all US Marines, veterans returned from the Sino-American War. Now they were all outlaws, and not deemed worthy of life, let alone freedom by the very people they had served, and the very government they had defended. They had taken from him all that he’d loved and cherished. Ethan Edwards was now alone, and desperate.
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