“Keep me posted,” Kuris barked into the phone at his aide back in Fort Knox. “I want to know everything as it happens. Day or night, you call me. Understood?”
Ferraro felt helpless. Not only did he hurt for his general, but watching the captain struggle with his own impotence over the situation just added to Ferraro’s own grief.
“Is there anything I can do, Captain?”
Kuris shrugged. “Not unless you can cure cancer.”
“Why don’t you come by my apartment tonight? My wife will make you her famous Pernil.”
Kuris looked up. The Puerto Rican pork dish held a special place in his heart.
“I have some Medalla on ice,” Ferraro added.
The island beer went especially well with the spiced pig. His wife also made a mean black bean and rice combo, and usually topped it off with fried sweet plantains.
“Hell, Ferraro. You had me at Pernil,” Kuris quipped.
The lieutenant smiled. “I’ll see you at 1800, and bring your appetite.”
Ferraro saluted and left to finish his day, leaving Kuris to ruminate about his lack of control over the general’s problems. Later, when the long afternoon finally ended, the captain was an emotional wreck. When he showed up for dinner at Ferraro’s apartment, he was both troubled and exhausted.
“Captain, you don’t look too good,” Ferraro said.
“Oh my,” Ferraro’s wife, Stella, said. “You need to sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Kuris replied. “But I could use some of that beer.”
“The place smells fantastic.” Kuris noted as Ferraro’s wife came back with a cold beer and a plate of Croquetas de Jamón, a fried ham appetizer.
“Thank you, Captain. Please take a seat,” Stella replied.
Kuris and Ferraro sat in the living room. Their top-floor apartment overlooked a local lake. The sun was starting to set in the summer sky, and their west facing apartment’s picture window benefitted from its tinted glass.
“It’s a beautiful view,” Kuris said as they gazed out toward the theme parks.
“The balcony is even better, and with no traffic noise to spoil the experience, we often eat dinner out there. But it’s too darned hot now. We probably won’t use our outdoor space until November.”
“Shame,” Kuris replied. “That’s another five months.”
They both were taking a long draw from their beer bottles when Stella announced that dinner was ready.
“Where are the kids?” Kuris asked.
“Stella’s mom’s apartment.” Ferraro replied. “She lives three floors down. They’re spending the night, so we won’t have to rush our meal.”
Kuris lifted his beer bottle and nodded. “Thanks guys.”
The three of them attacked the food, and it was everything Kuris remembered from the last time Ferraro’s wife had cooked for him. That had been over a half a year ago, back in Kentucky.
They made small talk, and Kuris slowly began to emerge from his bubble of depression. An hour later, their meal finished and Ferraro’s wife busy cleaning her kitchen, the two men hazarded a visit to the apartment’s balcony. Sliding the tempered glass door open, a hot rush of humid air hit them. They quickly closed the slider, and sat down in a couple of Rattan patio chairs. Ferraro produced a couple of cigars, and the two men soon were contentedly puffing on the fine Cuban tobacco.
Stella appeared a few minutes later with a couple of snifters of Cognac. Kuris sniffed the inside of the glass after having swirled the amber liquid a few times to admire its legs. The faint smell of orange met his nose.
“Grand Marnier?” Kuris asked as he took a sip of the warm liquid.
“Yeah,” Ferraro confirmed. “Nothing like orange in Florida.”
“To Florida!” Kuris said as he raised his glass in a toast.
“And the general,” Ferraro added, earning him a nod from Kuris.
The two men began conversing as men often do. They bantered about friends, sports, and humorous stories about times long past. It was therapeutic for them both, at least until Stella opened the sliding glass doors.
“It’s for you,” she quietly said, handing the satellite phone to Kuris.
With a grim nod, the captain put the phone to his ear. “Kuris here.”
The captain listened quietly for a moment, then hit a button to disconnect the call. He wandered over to the balcony’s wall and stared out at the dark cityscape.
“Captain?” Ferraro asked.
“He’s dead,” Kuris simply stated. “The general’s grandson just died.”
Ferraro, unsure what to do, simply put his hand on Kuris’ shoulder and held it there. Kuris, for his part, didn’t move. Even after the others went back into their apartment, the captain stood immobile, lost in the frustration of not being able to do anything for his general. It was his job to fix things, and he was helpless to make things right.
Eventually, Kuris went back inside. Ferraro and his wife were in the kitchen, holding hands. Kuris shook hands with the lieutenant and gave his wife an appreciative peck on the cheek. And without a word, Kuris left the building and returned to his assigned quarters. He laid in bed and stared all night at the ceiling, planning his revenge on Director Bedford. It was going to be a long and painful day for the DHS administrator when Kuris finally got his hands on the man. He planned to extract justice, and it wasn’t going to be swift, nor would it be painless. It would be just what the sniveling coward deserved.
CHAPTER 26
ORLANDO, FL
“There is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.”
— Bertrand De Jouvenel
THE DAY AFTER THE DEATH of the general’s grandson, Nixon hovered over a drone sensor operator as the technician fiddled with the controls of the LoJack GPS locator.
“Well, have you got its position?” Nixon asked.
“It’s not steady. The signal is transmitting, but it’s shutting itself on and off. Mostly off. I need at least twenty seconds of steady signal to triangulate the source.”
Nixon scowled. The Latin gangs they had been using to scare the population into the relocation camps were becoming a liability. They were disobeying or ignoring almost every order they were given. Instead, they were fighting with other gangs over territory or attacking DHS convoys and stealing supplies.
Bedford had ordered their termination, and Nixon had been tasked with executing the plan. The problem was that the gangs knew this territory better than Homeland. They’d also been recruiting at a rapid pace, swelling their ranks even as Nixon tried to hunt them down. They would soon be big enough to challenge DHS’s control over the city.
As far as he could tell, the city was being controlled by two factions. The first, an offshoot of the Latin Kings, dominated the southern part of the city, where they ambushed vehicles traveling to and from the airport. Their rival was a white supremacist group based northeast of town. Nixon had been inclined to let the two of them wipe each other out, but recently, the gangs had agreed to an uneasy truce. At least, that’s what their DHS G-2 had informed him.
“There!” The technician said. “I’ve got them.”
“Are they moving?” Nixon asked.
“No, they’re stationary. Just give it a minute to make sure.”
Nixon pressed the send button on his radio microphone, informing his counterpart in Operation Purgatory that they’d be receiving coordinates from the location of the LoJack he’d put among the supplies of a “broken down” truck. The Trojan Horse had been left on the side of the road, a few miles south of the airport.
“No movement. I’m sending the co-ordinates to the drone now.”
“Where are they? Give me a cross street,” Nixon demanded. “I’m sending my men in to finish the job.”
“I doubt there’ll be much left to finish,” the technician said. “Both Reaper’s are carrying two GBU-12s.”
“In English, please.”
“The two drones are going to hit their target with both of their five-hundr
ed-pound, laser-guided bombs. That’s literally a half a ton of explosives. The crater will be the size of a football field.”
Nixon still wanted his men to check it out. He wasn’t going to risk missing something because he didn’t put eyes on the target. An after-action report delivered to Bedford would go a long way towards bringing him and his men back into the director’s good graces.
After weeks of unsuccessful missions and mounting supply losses, Bedford had pulled Nixon’s men from the Grand Cypress, shunting all of them into a reclaimed Best Western. It was not in a safe zone, forcing Nixon to run a guard schedule to prevent the theft of their vehicles. Bedford had even made them to give up their women, leaving the girls at the Grand Cypress for the director’s occasional visit.
Bedford did promise to reconsider the move if Nixon produced results. This was the agent’s best shot to do so.
Nixon had matured into the position, at least that’s what he told himself. Traditional hit and run tactics that worked on Key Biscayne were a total failure here in Orlando, so he changed tactics
“The signal is coming from a storage facility on Highway 15, about two hundred meters north of Lee Vista Road.”
“How long before the bombs hit?”
“They’re two minutes out.”
Nixon nodded. “This is Reaper,” he said to his team. “Coordinates are on Narcoossee Road, two hundred meters north of Lee Vista. Initiate now.”
Nixon’s team was holding on top of a downtown parking garage, their Blackhawk awaiting the order to take off. The flight time would be about five minutes from his command until they arrived on station.
“Spinning up now, Reaper,” the team leader reported.
“Good luck.” Nixon said as he terminated the call.
NARCOOSSEE STORAGE AND RENTAL
ORLANDO, FL
Julio Arnal had become the leader of the local Latin Kings after negotiating a deal with DHS to get their brothers out of prison. It didn’t hurt that his primary rival had been found shot and disemboweled a day later in an MS-13 style gangland killing. The message had been sent, and so far, no one had challenged his reign.
Over the last six months, he had found that the key to keeping power wasn’t through brute force. Anyone could do that. The real key was providing food, comfort, drugs, and women. It was his men’s loyalty that kept him in power, and as long as everyone under him was satisfied, he had little to fear.
“Open them!” Julio commanded to his men, who were crowded around the crates they had salvaged a few miles south of the airport. Several of the polyethylene cargo containers and modular storage boxes had some interesting logos painted on their fronts. One of them, the crate he was standing next to, was marked as having liquor and beer inside. Others had manifests stapled to their lids listing hygiene items such as toilet paper and feminine products. There was even a medical supply box.
“Meira!” One of the men said, holding up bottle of whiskey.
“See if there is any tequila!” Julio yelled.
As the men tore open the individual cardboard boxes that were stored inside the polyurethane crates, they announced their new treasures. Every member of his ruling council and most of his fighting men were present. It had been a lean few weeks, and this booty was needed badly.
“Jefe?” one man called out. “What is this?”
The man held up two small metal boxes with multiple wires running between them. A hole began to form in Julio’s stomach as the man brought the thing over to him. He recognized the GPS transmitter, having made his early mark with the Latin Kings stealing cars.
“Chingado,” he spat. Turning to his men, he yelled out, “RUN!”
The gangbangers barely had time to hear their leader’s warning before the bombs struck. The four GBU-12s struck the ground just yards from the gang leader, effectively disintegrating Julio and his men.
In one stroke, Nixon had effectively decapitated the Latin Kings. Fifteen minutes later, he received confirmation from his men of the mission’s success. There had been two survivors, and per Nixon’s orders, the DHS team was bringing them to the hospital.
“Get video and gather as much evidence as you can,” Nixon commanded the leader of his strike force. “Then bring it to me.”
“Copy that, Reaper,” the man replied as Nixon terminated the call.
“Perfect!” Nixon said to the drone operators after hearing the report. “I’ve got some live ones coming in.”
Nixon had been studying military torture techniques, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Once the two of the prisoners were well enough to take it, Nixon planned on using some enhanced interrogation techniques to gather more intelligence and plan his next move.
Nixon left the ground control station that had recently been installed on the DHS headquarters’ grounds and, after meeting his strike team to collect the videos and some key evidence, he reported to Director Bedford’s office.
There was a new secretary at the desk. The blonde girl smiled as she escorted the agent into the director’s room.
“She’s a keeper,” Nixon said, as he turned to stare at the secretary’s swaying hips.
Bedford gave a frustrated grunt. Since his unfortunate first meeting with the general a few days ago, Bedford had kept his libido in check while at work. The last girl, a spicy Columbian teenager, had been reassigned. It was a shame, he thought. She was rather enjoyable.
“Yes,” Bedford finally replied. “Now what do you want?”
Nixon held up the video camera, displaying the recorder like a kid showing off his Little League trophy. “I think you’ll like this.”
Bedford took the device and played the recording on the attached LCD screen. The leader of Nixon’s crew was narrating as he scanned the devastation, adding his body count estimates to the grisly home movie.
“A little optimistic, isn’t he?” Bedford said.
“Maybe, sir.” Nixon replied. “But we have two survivors, and one of them confirmed that their leader and his top men were all in the building when it was hit.”
Bedford nodded slightly, and Nixon continued. “Also, if you fast forward the recording, you’ll see the number of vehicles parked nearby is consistent with the after-action report. We may be off by ten or twenty percent, but the evidence suggests that I—I mean, we—took out over a hundred of them.”
“This is a good start,” Bedford said. “But until I see evidence of your success, you’re still at the Best Western.”
The agent looked crestfallen. Nixon had thought that this would be good enough to return to the comforts of the resort hotel.
“Look, Travis,” Bedford said. “You did great. You’re thinking outside the box. Just give it another week, and keep doing what you’re doing. You can do this.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now, get out of here and tell your men that they did a good job.”
As Nixon turned to leave, Bedford raised his voice and called a last command. “Travis, why don’t you and your men take the day off and head over to the Grand Cypress? You guys could use some R and R. But! It’s just for today.”
Nixon stopped and turned. “Thanks. The men will appreciate it.”
As he turned to leave, the office door opened without an announcement and a squad of soldiers barged into the room. Two of the men grabbed Nixon and pulled him to the side. They frisked him and then shoved him in the corner of the room, holding their M4 rifles on him.
Bedford stood up from the desk. His body immediately began to shake from fear, his eyes wide and mouth open. Two more soldiers grabbed the director, spun him around, and put him against the wall. After checking him for weapons, a sergeant from the group called out the all-clear.
Captain Kuris entered, followed by NSA Assistant director Qualls. She strode confidently into the room and assessed the situation.
“Director Bedford. Or should I say former Director Bedford. I’m here to relieve you of your duties.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
Bedford looked at Kuris with wide, pleading eyes. “That was just a misunderstanding the other day. It was a one-off. It’ll never happen again.”
Kuris looked at the new director and received a “go ahead” nod from her.
“I know it won’t happen again,” Kuris said. “I’m here to place you under arrest for gross negligence…and murder.”
Bedford’s eyes bulged. “Murder? Are you talking about those gangbangers? This is ridiculous!”
“Explain.” Qualls said.
Bedford struggled out of the guard’s grasp and retrieved the video camera from his desk. “I just ran an operation that eliminated the leadership of the Latin Kings,” he said. “Here’s the evidence.”
Qualls took the camera and looked at Nixon. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
Nixon nodded. “I ran the operation.”
“Who planned it?”
Nixon, sensing the shifting power, said, “I did, at the request of Director Bedford.”
Qualls nodded. “Good answer. What’s your name?”
“Agent Travis Nixon, ma’am.”
“Agent Nixon, report back to me in two hours.”
“Yes ma’am. Where is your office?”
“You’re in it, agent Nixon.”
Without missing a beat, Nixon saluted. “Yes ma’am.”
Qualls returned his salute and Nixon, aware that he had just dodged a bullet, hurried from the room.
“Captain Kuris, Bedford is all yours,” Qualls said.
Two guards grabbed the sniveling man and pulled him out of the room. Kuris followed and closed the door behind him.
Ramona Qualls looked around the room, noticing the obscene artwork and pornographic sculptures, and shook her head.
“Sergeant. I’ll be back in ninety minutes. I want this room cleared of all this…,” she waved a hand, “…artwork.”
“Yes ma’am,” the former marine replied.
In the hall, a defeated and mortified Bedford could barely stand. Incoherent babbling and the occasional curse were all he could manage.
A short ride later, Kuris placed Bedford in a basement room under one of the high-rise buildings nearby. Once a maintenance room, it was now a holding cell with bare block walls and hanging light bulbs illuminating the dank space. A single chair and table were in the middle of the room, and the guards shoved the obese man into the lone metal chair.
Charlie's Requiem: Resistance Page 22