Overthrown II: The Resurrected (Overthrown Trilogy Book 2)

by Judd Vowell

  Jacob saw a willingness in the soldier's face, an emotion that was hard to fake. If Jacob was caught in a trap, there was no way out of it anyway. His only option was to take a chance. Besides, Anna had been right earlier. She had said that he couldn’t save her and Jessica on his own. He needed help, and if this soldier was telling the truth, there it was in the form of four elite fighting machines.

  “Are you serious?” Jacob asked.

  “As a heart attack, sir. I’m done with this revolution. We all are.”

  “If that’s the case, soldier, there’s something you need to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Breaking those two out, then escaping this grid…” Jacob said. “I don’t have a clue how to do it.”

  The soldier laughed. “Don’t worry ‘bout that, we’re already working on it.” He reached his hand across the table. “I’m John Archer.”

  Jacob stood and took his hand. “Nice to meet you, John.”

  “Call me Archer,” the soldier said. “Everybody else does.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have come at a better time, Archer. Now tell me how you think we can pull this off.”

  “It’s her doctor, sir,” Archer said. “He’s the man with the plan."

  26.

  S alvador didn't notice the paranoia about Jacob when it crept into his brain. He guessed that it had first appeared when he learned that Jacob had taken so much interest in Jessica, telling the doctors to use all their power to save her. And then Jacob had stopped Anna’s waterboarding, ever so subtly. For some reason, he cared too much about the two of them. Salvador tried to pass it off as misguided sympathy, but he knew better. Jacob was changing, something Salvador had feared might happen since the day he recruited him.

  Simone was Jacob’s closest friend inside the ANTI- organization. So when Salvador decided to intervene, he used her. He called her to a private meeting to discuss how they might do it. And to ask her if she thought Jacob’s loyalty might be salvageable.

  Simone had known Salvador ever since she was an arrogant and immature young woman fresh out of law school. She could predict his moods and most of his thoughts. “Let me guess,” she said as she entered his hotel suite. “You’re worried about Jacob.”

  “Hello to you, too, Simone,” Salvador said, closing the door. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Of course.”

  He poured her a straight vodka over ice. “So let’s assume that I am worried about our dear Jacob. Should I be?”

  Simone took a sip from her glass and considered the question. “You should be worried about everyone, Salvador. This whole thing you’ve built sits on a very unstable foundation. It will get stronger over time, as long as what you say will happen does happen. Until then, you can’t trust anybody. In my opinion.”

  “And does that include you?”

  “If you’re smart, then yes, that includes me. But I’m not going anywhere, and I think you know that.”

  “So, that takes us back to Jacob. If I can’t trust him, then I should be worried about him. And right now, Simone, I am very worried.”

  “He’s not built like us, Salvador, I’ll admit that. He’s got a big heart under that tough exterior he’s created. Maybe too big.”

  “I want you to follow him,” Salvador said. “Just keep an eye on what he’s doing. I’m afraid he may be up to something that could hurt what we’re trying to do here. But I hope he’s not.”

  “And if I find out you’re onto something? What then?”

  Salvador could sense the slightest bit of apprehension in Simone’s question. She was cold and detached, but Jacob was special to her, connected to her in a way that no other man had ever been. “I’ll handle that, Simone. Just watch him for now. We might can save him from doing something senseless.”

  Simone left the meeting with a knot in her stomach. Salvador’s suspicions were rarely unfounded, and that meant that Jacob was going to disappoint her. She knew that much without any doubt, and it broke what was left of her already damaged heart.

  27.

  J acob met Dr. Raj for the first time in an empty parking garage, the night before the jailbreak. Archer and Laz were there, too, along with their two Omega XT friends helping with the escape. The discussion was abbreviated; none of them needed to risk disappearing from their routines for long. The group reviewed the details of their finalized plans, making sure that everyone knew their role. The six of them would have to execute the mission flawlessly for it to be successful. And they all understood the consequences of failure.

  “Mr. Marsh, it all starts with you,” Dr. Raj began. “You will be the one with sole access to the girl. In the morning, when you perform your daily check on her recovery, you will inject her with this Propofol.” He handed Jacob a syringe filled with liquid. “You will have to tell her what the plan is before you do it. We can only hope that she trusts you enough to go along.”

  “Don’t worry, Doctor,” Jacob said. “She’ll do it.”

  “She better,” Dr. Raj said. “Otherwise, this mission is over right then and there."

  The military-minded Archer then described the rest of their strategy. "Ok, assuming everything goes well with Jessica’s injection, the next step involves you two.” He pointed at the two soldiers who would be on guard duty at the courthouse, just as they were every morning. “Marsh will rush back upstairs once Jessica becomes unresponsive. When he gets there, one of you call the emergency in. Make it official. That’s the only way we can buy enough time to make it work. Laz, you and I will be at the hospital. The doc has gotten us paramedic uniforms to wear. When the call comes in, we're the first responders. We take an ambulance and head straight to the jail."

  "I'll be in the ambulance bay with you by that time," Dr. Raj interjected.

  “What’s gonna be your reason for going with us anyway, doc?” Archer asked. “Wouldn’t make much sense for the head of the hospital to be jumping in on a 9-1-1 call, if you ask me.”

  “You let me handle that," Dr. Raj said.

  Archer nodded, then continued. “Alright then. When we arrive at the jail, we take a gurney down to the basement, where Marsh will be waiting. While we transfer an unconscious Jessica and prepare her for transport, you'll be in charge of Anna, Marsh. I've got an Omega XT uniform for her to wear. She leaves with us, one extra soldier who should easily go unnoticed in the confusion. We get to the humvee and ambulance, and head to the border. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. Everyone with me so far?”

  No one said anything. Archer took that as acknowledgement. He continued with his instructions. “Remember, they’ll be watching all of this happen, in real time. There are cameras everywhere. Don’t break from the script, be the best actors you can be. We just need a few minutes to pull this off, and the way we appear to the eyes in the sky will determine just how much time we get.”

  “So what happens at the border?” Jacob asked.

  “Yeah, the border,” Archer said. “That's where things could get really interesting. When we reach the border, our story is still medical emergency, except now we’ve got to rush a patient to the Sector 1 grid, where a specialist is waiting. Salvador Sebastian’s orders, with Dr. Raj acting as his direct representative. Either they believe us, or they don’t. Whichever the case, we drive, as fast as possible. There will be no turning back at that point.”

  The men held on to the garage’s silence that hung around them after Archer’s last few words. The plan had holes in it, and everyone could see through them. But it might work if they all stuck with their assignments. And as long as there were no surprises.

  “I like it,” Jacob said, breaking through the nervousness. “Helluva plan, guys. But I gotta ask – how were you gonna pull this off before I came along? Seems like you need me just to put the whole thing in motion.”

  “It was fate,” Dr. Raj answered plainly. “Timing is everything in this life, Mr. Marsh. Believe it.”

  “Well I’ll say this,” Jacob
continued. “When we get thirty miles outside the grid, beers are on me.”

  The men smiled and laughed under their breath.

  “High Life,” Archer said suddenly.

  “What’s that?” Jacob asked.

  “You just make sure they’re Miller High Life, Marsh,” Archer answered. “If we’re gonna be celebratin’, best to do it with ‘the champagne of beers.’”

  28.

  S imone hoped that Jacob wasn’t deceiving her, even though her gut told her he was. At first, everything seemed fine while she followed him, his life inside ANTI- as it should be. It was a full twenty-four hours before she saw something unusual.

  On the second morning of her surveillance, Jacob went to the jail to check on the girl, just as he had the day before. He wasn’t inside for long, and afterward he began to walk the path that led back to his hotel residence. He had not made it far when a humvee pulled up next to him and two Omega XT soldiers got out. After a few words, Jacob climbed into the vehicle, and then it was gone.

  Simone stood aghast, confused because she had not seen it coming. If Salvador had decided to apprehend Jacob unexpectedly, why had he not forewarned her? And it didn’t make sense for a group of the specialized soldiers to grab him in broad daylight without orders. She called Salvador as soon as it happened.

  “Good morning, Simone,” Salvador said through the cell phone’s speaker.

  “Is there something I don’t know?” Simone asked hastily. “Did you send someone to bring him in?”

  “Someone?”

  “Don’t screw with me, Salvador. The Omega XT soldiers. Did you send them to get Jacob?”

  “I can assure you that I did not send anyone to get Jacob, Simone.”

  “Dammit, I had a feeling you didn’t,” Simone said. “He’s gone. They put him in a humvee and took off.”

  “And you can’t follow them,” Salvador said in disgust.

  “No, I can’t. Because they’re the only ones with vehicles around here. Remember?”

  “Settle down, Simone. Go back to the hotel and wait for him. Don’t ask him about this when he gets back. And make sure you follow him if he keeps moving.”

  “I can’t keep up as long he’s got wheels, Salvador.”

  “If what I think might be happening really is, they won’t risk that move again. Stay on him, Simone. And stay in touch.”

  ΔΔΔ

  That night, just after sunset, Jacob ventured out into the grid again. Simone followed him, but she had to be stealthier than before. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, aware that someone may be spying on him. “What are you up to, Jacob?” Simone thought. She was almost afraid to find out.

  After walking a few blocks and taking some unnecessary turns, Jacob entered a vacant parking garage. Simone was wary about following him inside. Instead, she found a dark nook in the building across the street. She concealed herself in the pitch black of the area, and there she waited.

  Fifteen minutes later, she saw four uniformed figures leaving the garage. Simone recognized their garb immediately: the dark gray military fatigues and black masks of the Omega XT. The four soldiers turned in the same direction and walked quickly up the street’s sidewalk.

  Just as they disappeared from Simone’s sight, another figure caught her eye as he came out of the garage. When he stepped into the light from a street pole, she could see that it was Jacob. He surveyed the street and buildings around him. Satisfied with what he saw, he walked in the opposite direction from the soldiers.

  Simone waited for Jacob to get ahead of her. She was about to step outside of the nook to follow him when another figure appeared on the other side of the street. She stopped herself, but just barely. When she looked with more focus at the man who had come out of the garage last, she thought he was familiar. He was an Indian man, shorter than average and dressed in a suit and tie. He shifted his head one way and then the other, glancing down the empty street in each direction. Then he began to cross it, walking straight toward her. She eased back a step further inside her hiding place and held her breath. The Indian man walked hurriedly past without any sign of noticing her. When she saw his face up close, her memory of him became clear. It was Dr. Raj Khurana, the head of Sector 3’s hospital. She had met him during her recovery, and she knew he was one of Salvador’s earliest disciples.

  Simone’s mind began to race. She kept watch on the garage for a few more minutes, making sure that the doctor was the last one inside. By then, she was too far behind Jacob to catch him. But she was sure that didn’t matter.

  She pulled out her cell phone and pressed its circular home button. “Call Salvador,” she said. As the phone buzzed and she waited for him to answer, she tried to imagine why the six men had been meeting. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle of information and images floating around in her head. And she wouldn’t put the pieces together until it was almost too late.

  29.

  J acob pulled the jail’s steel door behind him until it slammed shut, then he took a deep breath. He cleared his mind of distractions and focused on the task before him. The lives of Jessica, Anna, and his five co-conspirators depended on his actions over the next few moments in time. He was the vital beginning of their escape, and any flaw would mean disaster for them all.

  He descended the basement stairs quickly, gliding two steps at a time. He turned and went to Jessica’s cell door, unlocking it just as he would have on any other day. He went inside and sat next to her on her bed. “Jessica,” he said, speaking just loud enough that Anna could hear across the corridor, “you’ve got to trust me. Now listen closely, because I can't say much. I’ve got a way out of here, today, right now. But I’ve got to put you to sleep to do it. It’s the only way. Understand?”

  Jessica had been looking into his eyes while he spoke. She wanted to believe him. “Anna?” she said, without breaking her gaze.

  “It’s alright, Jessica,” Anna replied from her cell. “It’s gonna be alright.”

  Jacob pulled the syringe filled with Propofol out of his jacket pocket. “This will only make you sleep for a little while, ok?” Jessica nodded. “When you wake up, you’ll be safe. I promise.”

  Jessica turned her arm over so that the veins of her elbow’s crease were exposed. Jacob, leaning over to block the cameras’ multiple views, inserted the tip of the needle and slid it beneath her skin. He pushed the syringe’s plunger down, and Jessica’s eyes closed. He waited a few seconds before pulling the needle out. Once he did, he quickly taped a piece of gauze over the wound.

  Next came act one of the play he and his fellow mutineers were set to perform. Jacob checked Jessica’s pulse and breathing. He put the side of his head against her mouth. He shook her by her shoulders. She showed no response. He jumped up from the bed with urgency, then ran to the stairs.

  When Jacob got to the top of the staircase and swung the basement door open, the two guards were ready, but they acted as surprised as they could. One of them placed the planned emergency call to the hospital, and the other rushed back down the stairs with Jacob. Act One was complete.

  ΔΔΔ

  When Dr. Raj arrived at the hospital earlier that morning, he sensed that something was different. The staff was quieter than normal, more attentive to their work. He walked the hallways with a strange concoction of fear and curiosity brewing inside of him, but he was also nervous about the mission ahead. When he opened his office door, he knew that his intuition had been trying to warn him.

  “Good morning!” Salvador said, standing from the leather chair behind the doctor’s desk. “How’s my favorite doctor today?”

  Dr. Raj, ever the pragmatist, entered the room quickly, answering Salvador without betraying his heightened heartbeat. “Salvador – this is a surprise. What brings you to the hospital today?”

  “Just wanted to make sure everything here is running as it should. I find it’s best to come on these little check-ins unannounced. Allows me to see things as they really are.”

 
The innuendo was obvious to the doctor, and he suspected that Salvador had intended it to be. Dr. Raj tried to rapidly formulate an adjusted escape plan in his brain, while also slowing Salvador’s probing. “So, tell me, how does everything look to you?”

  “The hospital?” Salvador said. “Seems to be running just fine.”

  “Good,” Dr. Raj said. “I pride myself on organization, as you know.”

  “Organization,” Salvador repeated. “Let’s take a look at that word. For things to be organized, they must be in order. They must be in line, some might say. And if something, or someone, falls out of line, the organization can’t function.”

  “What are you getting at, Salvador?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Raj. Why don’t you tell me? Is everything in order here? Because I get the feeling that someone’s falling out of line.”

  Salvador’s subtleties were over, just like Dr. Raj’s prospects for escape. The only thing he could do now was keep Salvador from finding out any more than he already knew. He could maybe stall Salvador long enough for the others to make it out. Archer and Laz were smart men. Smart enough to leave him behind, he hoped.

  “You’re not here to check on the hospital, Salvador. You’re here for me. I’m not going to act like I can’t see that. So enough with the roundabout questions. Just ask me what you really want to know.”

  “I want to know what happened to you, Raj,” Salvador said with disappointment. “You were one of my staunchest supporters and one of my best friends. I gave you all that I could to help you with your research, your life’s passion. And now you’re turning on me. I guess I just want to know why.”

  "You want to look at words, do you?" Dr. Raj asked.

  "I want to know what you're doing behind my back!"

  "The word 'compassion' comes to my mind. Do you know what that one means?"

  "Quit playing games with me, Raj. What are you up to?"