by Ryan Schow
Sung Jong-un looked across the table at Rowan, as if trying to determine the value of him as company. Rowan stared at her, unblinking. The fact that a decapitated President Kennicot was staring at him as well was both disturbing and surreal.
“What’s done is done,” the cruel woman said with the wave of a hand.
“Let’s talk about what’s coming and how we can help the transition go easier,” the man with his sister said. Was his name Isaiah? That’s what Killian had called him, Rowan reasoned, so that must be the case.
That’s when he put two and two together. Isaiah Wright was a colleague of Marley’s. Both of them worked for Killian O’Brien, the President’s Chief of Staff, the guy he just leveled. It took everything in Rowan not to visibly react. What the hell happened to the government? he wondered. What an intolerable, toxic mess!
“What’s your name, son?” Bocharov asked Isaiah.
“Isaiah Wright, sir,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“First off, we were invited. Second, we brought the President of the United States with us, in case you just missed that development. See exhibit 1A.” He gave a slight nod toward Kennicot’s head. “We want our region of choice, as promised.”
Andros Bocharov chortled, like that was funny, then: “Interesting.”
He turned his attention to Elham Golbahar, and then to Sung Jong-un, seemingly deciding the two of them were alright.
Golbahar said, “I have troops moving across the Atlantic by boat. This will be the great insurgency.”
“The second insurgency,” Sung said, correcting him. “The first insurgency came from the motherland.”
“I am the motherland,” Bocharov said.
“You’re a block of ice,” Golbahar countered. “China is the motherland, not you.”
“And you are a litter-box,” Sung said to Golbahar.
“Shut up!” Rowan finally said, suddenly tired of it all. “Not a single one of you will step foot on the streets to lay waste to these people. I will be on the streets, the former Vice President will be on the streets, Rhett and the HR will be on the streets—”
“I will be in the mix as well,” Isaiah said.
“As will I,” Marley added. She turned to both Golbahar and Sung. “So why don’t you tell us what’s next and save the posturing for your courts and politicians. Those of us on the ground and in the physical fight don’t have the patience for insults or your petty squabbling.”
The three leaders fell quiet, each of them visibly stunned.
“As I was saying, our troops are on the way here for the second insurgency,” Golbahar said. “There are already Chinese double-agents here, each of them ready for activation. They know they will not be taken off the leash until our troops arrive, but if you need access to them sooner…”
“How many troops are on the way?” Bocharov asked.
“In the first wave?” Golbahar asked.
The Russian nodded.
“Ten thousand, plus armaments.”
“Do we have open comms should our ground forces manage to kick off sooner?” Rhett asked.
Golbahar turned his attention to the American and nodded.
“What about you?” Bocharov asked Sung.
She nodded as well.
“Okay, then,” Bocharov said, satisfied.
That was all Rowan needed to know. The people in the room did not represent everyone involved in this coup d’état, but these were the ambassadors of those who were. Was it time to send a message? And if so, what would that message be? He turned and looked at Andros Bocharov, sizing the man up in a glance or two. The big Russian didn’t seem like he was done speaking, or challenging everyone, as it were. He was clearly the one with authority.
Bocharov looked past Rowan and Aldrich, his gaze landing on Rhett Jensen. “With Diesel gone and the EMP successful, how are you communicating with your teams?”
“Short wave radio comms,” Rhett said. “My teams are in place on much of the east coast. We manage from the top down, like a corporation.”
“How are your teams?” Sung asked.
“We’ve taken a bit of a beating, I won’t lie,” Rhett responded. “But it’s not that hard to get more recruits. It’s the carrot or the stick with these people.”
“My tens of thousands of men will change that,” Golbahar said, unconcerned with Rhett Jensen and his troops. “Your job is simply to weaken the infrastructure. We will take it from there.”
“Don’t minimize my position,” Rhett said, visibly puffing up from the rather arrogant dismissal. “You sit in an ivory tower and you fly on your cushy jets while warriors like me and Rowan go hand to hand with—”
Something seemed to click in the man’s head, causing him to break mid-sentence. Slowly, he looked over at Marley, then at Rowan. He paused even further, a darkness falling over his expression. He was putting everything together, but would he inadvertently out them both? That would be a death sentence.
Rowan finished his water, set the glass down, then took a quick breath and went to that dark, silent place.
With haste and precision, he grabbed the pencil in front of him and drove it into Andros Bocharov’s right eye. He then broke the water glass on the side of the table and stabbed the man in the neck, easily penetrating his flesh. He pulled the broken glass out of the wound to let it flow freely.
Beside him, Aldrich sprung into action, going after Rhett. Right then, in that surreal, violent moment, Rowan knew that whatever rage he held on tap, it was time to let it out, to open those floodgates and let loose the dogs of war.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Marley McDaniel
Marley saw her younger brother go after the Russian Prime Minister, which immediately set her in motion. She knew it was coming, she felt it. Rowan was there for his own reasons, and he wasn’t having any of their BS. Maybe it was some sort of unspoken telepathy between siblings, or maybe it was just their familiar thought processes. Either way, the second he drove his pencil into the Prime Minister’s eye, Marley threw her water in the North Korean nightmare’s face.
Isaiah moved the same time she did, hopping out of his chair and going after the Iranian, Elham Golbahar.
Marley grabbed her pencil, slapped Kennicot’s head out of the way, then jumped on the table and attacked Sung Jong-un with unrelenting force. She only had one chance to get it done right. That’s why Marley stabbed her in the face several times with the pencil. In a howling, ear-splitting shriek, the woman raked her nails across Marley’s face and started to fight back.
She was a vicious little goblin-beast, but Marley was raised right, so she retaliated in a ferocious burst of aggression. When she was able to get the final, upper-hand on the North Korean, it was because she’d gotten a hold of Sung’s pinkie finger. She wrenched it sideways with all her might, breaking it.
Sung Jong-un snarled like a demon even though Marley had disabled one of her weapons—her left hand. With a handful of hair, momentum, and physical leverage on her side, Marley began slamming Sung Jong-un’s face into the edge of the table over and over again. When she was done, Marley fell back on her butt, letting the woman fall face-first into the floor.
Sung was still breathing, her nose flattened, her face gashed open. She tried to get up, but a few broken teeth sprinkled on the floor below her, along with a long string of red drool.
Isaiah managed to kill Golbahar, and now he looked over at her.
“Are you okay?” he quickly asked.
She nodded.
He glanced down at Sung Jong-un, saw she was done for but not dead, then turned his attention to the other side of the table where Marshall Aldrich had Rhett tied up. The de facto leader of the Hayseed Rebellion had a broken arm, which hung at an odd angle at his side, and he was wincing from possible broken ribs. The former VP’s face was battered, swollen, his lip split on the side where it looked like he’d taken a serious blow, but the man wasn’t backing down.
Isaiah
knelt down beside Sung Jong-un. He then scooted over to her, lowering his knee onto the back of her neck. She started to squeal in pain. He put his full weight on her, then pulled her head back until there was a loud pop. The sound was so sharp and final, it had Marley jumping with revulsion.
Marley got to her feet and quickly walked away from the scene, trying to keep her stomach down as she looked at all the horror and bloodshed. She made her way toward her brother, who had the broken glass in his hand.
“If you need me to get in on that, Aldrich,” Rowan was saying, “you can tag me in at any time.”
“I’m fine,” he grunted.
Rowan saw Marley coming. He turned to hug her, but she took the broken glass from him, walked over to the where the former VP had Rhett locked up, then stabbed the traitor in the neck and said, “It’s nothing personal.”
“What the hell?” Aldrich barked, stepping off the man and firing a harsh look at Marley.
Ignoring him, Marley sat the broken water glass on the table, then went and hugged her brother fiercely.
She started to cry, but in her ear, he said, “Not yet, sis. We still have the people outside to deal with.”
She looked up, wiped her eyes, then took the broken glass and said, “I’m ready.”
“Who is this?” Isaiah asked.
“This is Rowan McDaniel,” Marshall Aldrich said, his hair flared from the fight.
“I’m Marley’s younger brother,” Rowan added.
Isaiah shook his head, not sure how to make sense of any of this. Marley hadn’t known how this fit together either. For Rowan, she had about a hundred questions she would ask him later. But for now, they had to assess the problem outside. When they walked outside, however, the big Russian guard was on the ground, his throat torn out.
Outside, they saw the Iranian, Russian, and North Korean guards were dead as well. Killian, who had been carried out of the meeting, had a towel under his nose and was very much alive. When he saw Marley, he left the company of Rowan’s entourage to hug her.
“Oh my God, Marley, I didn’t know you were one of us,” he said, his voice gruff from where Rowan throat-checked him. “I saw you and thought…I didn’t know. Thank God you’re okay.”
She hugged him deep, then she let go and went to the Humvee where a young woman who looked like she was of Korean decent was cleaning the blood out of her hands and hair. The girl saw the look in Marley’s eyes, then discretely handed her a weapon.
“There are two rounds left with one in the chamber,” the girl said.
Marley took it, then turned around and went back to Killian. He was looking at her with a half grin and more than enough curiosity. She lifted the weapon without hesitation and shot him in the face. He dropped down dead. She shot him again in the heart just to be sure.
Aldrich’s guys freaked out, most of them brandishing their weapons. Rowan stepped in front of her and said, “She’s with me.”
The VP confirmed this, adding, “Yeah, she’s with us.”
“But she just killed—”
“The guy who helped set off the EMPs,” Rowan said, finishing the man’s sentence. Rowan hugged Marley and said, “It’s finally over, for now at least.”
“We need to go home, Rowan,” she said as she held him. “I want to go home.”
“I do, too,” he replied, “but we need to do something first.”
Rowan turned and said, “Who has a knife?”
A few guys raised their hands.
“Biggest and sharpest, please,” Aldrich said.
One of the men handed Rowan a big blade while another handed Aldrich a hunting knife; Isaiah fetched an even bigger one out of the Humvee from which he’d arrived.
Rowan, Aldrich, and Isaiah all nodded in agreement, then Isaiah said, “Yours is nice, but mine is seasoned with the blood of traitors.”
“What are you going to do?” Marley asked them.
“Wait in the Humvee,” Rowan said.
“No,” she replied.
“Then come with us,” her brother said, not breaking stride with the others.
She went with them.
When they were inside, Isaiah said, “I’ll get the Iranian.”
“I’ll take Sung Jong-un,” Aldrich said.
Rowan went right to Andros Bocharov and began slicing around his neck, working down through the derma into the muscles, tendons, ligaments, veins, and arteries. He did this until he hit bone. He then found the notching of bone, worked the blade in the grooves, then muscled through the final cut.
When the man’s head came off, he set it on the table, then slid the blade across the table to Aldrich, who caught it.
“You look like that blade is giving you a hard time,” he said.
Aldrich set the knife on the table, took the one Rowan gave him, then said, “Thanks.”
It was all too much for Marley.
She made a beeline for the exit, blew through the door, then dropped to her knees where she emptied out the contents of her stomach with a few, retching heaves.
Rowan popped his head out into the hallway, began to rub her back, and then said, “I told you to wait in the Humvee.”
“Why are you doing that?” she asked, tears leaking from her eyes, puke all over her mouth.
“We have to show the Iranian troops their minister is dead. Same with Bocharov and Jong-un. If we can show these countries that America not only isn’t dead but that we’re very much alive and fighting, then perhaps they’ll turn their troops around and think twice about messing with us.”
“That’ll only embolden them,” she said. “It might even fortify them.”
“Maybe, but this is war, and in war, you don’t pull punches.”
“I’ll go see if anyone can work the comms,” she said as he helped her up.
“Check these guys’ vehicles for comms equipment,” Rowan said, “and if not, we’ll need to head to the airport and get on their planes.”
She pushed her hair back over her shoulders, wiped her mouth, then stood tall and said, “Walker would be craping his pants with pride right now.”
Rowan looked at his hands, at the blood spatter that coated them almost all the way to his elbows, then said, “Walker was a psycho.”
“Yeah, well so are you,” she grinned. “And so am I.”
“Did you really kill President Kennicot?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“She allowed this to happen,” Marley said. “Killian was my boyfriend and my boss. He helped her take down key satellites so North Korea could destroy some and disable others in order to drop their nuclear payloads over the US. They’re traitors, Rowan. They betrayed America and they got the traitor’s death.”
“Good God, Marley.”
“Don’t judge me, Rowan,” she said.
He shook his head and frowned. “I’m not judging you. They deserved what they got. I’m worried about you, though. Are you okay?”
“No, Rowan, I’m not okay. But I was told to do this. I was told by some people I don’t know—hackers, or something like them—that I needed to kill several people, that it was imperative.”
“That sounds screwy,” he said.
“But they knew things…”
“Like what?”
“They knew I’d be with the president and that she’d have a different name. They also knew I’d come into direct contact with Rhett Jensen, Killian O’Brien, and Farol Walsh. They also knew I’d meet a boy named Adelard Schmidt.”
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“A kid whose parents were killed in front of us. I dropped him off so he’d be safe. We have to pick him back up sooner rather than later.”
“Alright, after this,” Rowan said, nodding his head in agreement.
Just then a motorcycle pulled up, and a guy got off the bike. He slipped off his helmet to reveal his face. The sight of him took Marley off guard so hard, her knees got weak and nearly buckled. She was staring at the most beautiful man sh
e had ever seen.
“Who called about needing help with the comms?” he asked.
Rowan held up a two-way and gave it a little shake. “I’m pretty sure that was one of us, I think,” Rowan said. He walked over to the guy and said, “Rowan McDaniel.”
The man shook his hand and said, “Augustin Sandino, but I go by August.”
“You know comms then?”
“I spent half a lifetime in IT. Whatcha got for me?”
“I think we need to go to these guys’ Learjets, see if we can set up a secure link with their countries. All of them. How are you with blood and stuff?”
August smiled and said, “I’m fine.” He patted his abs, smiled, and said, “Strong stomach.”
“I’ll say,” Marley replied, looking at his trim body and wide shoulders. She extended her hand and said, “I’m Marley McDaniel. His sister, not…I mean…we’re not…we’re family.”
August smiled, gave a little laugh, then said, “So I trust we’ll be heading to Yeager Airport, then?”
“Yeah, we just need to get on the interstate—” Rowan started to say.
“I know a shortcut,” August interrupted. “We can take Greenbrier Street. It’s a straight shot from there, and it’ll save us some time.”
Just then Isaiah and Aldrich walked out with what looked like three more heads in Isaiah’s black Glad bag.
“What’s in the garbage bag?” one of Aldrich’s guys asked Isaiah.
“Garbage,” Isaiah replied.
Isaiah walked up to them, then looked at August. “Who are you, pretty boy?”
“August Sandino,” he said without shaking the man’s hand. “I trust we’re going to call some people up and show them the heads you have in there?”
Isaiah looked at Rowan funny, but then Marley said, “It’s not that hard to figure out what you have in the bag or that we need him to hijack a bunch of comms units.”
“They didn’t need to tell me anything,” August said. “So are we on a mission to protect America, or what?”
“Stop talking,” Isaiah said.
“Roger that,” August replied. “Y’all want to follow me to the airport?”
