by P. G. Van
“They don’t understand what the leader is doing for them,” the man growled making Amy wonder what his motivation was for supporting the rebel group.
“What you see in Barkha is not leadership, its dictatorship,” Sid yelled making the man shiver visibly.
“You are a dictator, Commander Sidney. Your father is the President, and now you have the Queen. You will turn into a dictator.” The man’s words sent shivers through her as she watched Sid exercising a lot of restraint.
Amy pushed the metal bar stool away from the table with a loud noise before standing up to walk to the wheelchair. She put an arm around Sid’s waist and looked straight at the man who was recovering from fresh wounds. “You can keep provoking him, and if he decides to put an end to you, don’t count on me to stop him again.”
The man visibly retreated in his wheelchair and looked away from them. “What can I do for you, Commander?”
Sid turned his wheelchair to the glass wall and pointed to the man at the table engaged in a conversation with John. “I want you to tell me how long you’ve known him.”
Amy watched as the man’s eyes widened in horror and the cockiness disappeared as he tried to get off the wheelchair in an attempt to run. The two men forced him back into the wheelchair making him groan in pain.
“Commander… I…” the man’s voice trailed off as his body went into shock. His body trembled, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head before he lost consciousness.
“Get him to the medical facility, now!” Sid ordered and sent an alert to his team.
“Sid, why did the guy react as he did?”
“Clearly, he knows the guy, and if I am guessing it right, our Timothy here is some type of regional operations head.”
“What are all these people doing here, away from Barkha?”
“Amy… they’ve had operations for the past two decades and have been on the hunt for you all this time,” Sid said in a soft voice taking her into his arms helping her fight the pangs of fear that gripped her entirety.
Chapter 20
Sid stepped out of his room later that day and smiled looking at the guard posted at the door. He had called John multiple times but could not get hold of him. “Can I borrow your walkie-talkie?”
“Absolutely, Commander!” The guard offered.
“John, come in.”
A moment of crackling, and John’s stressed voice came through the device. “Yes, sir.”
“John, why is your phone switched off?” Sid demanded.
“Apologies, sir, I have been on a conference call and…”
Sid knew something was wrong and didn’t let him finish. “Meet me in my room, please.” He handed the walkie-talkie back to the guard and headed back into the room. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight or stay away from her. He shut the door to the bedroom where Amy was napping on the chair, her head flopped on a desk. She had spent all morning with him as he reviewed the analysis reports from the interrogation.
“Sir, we have a problem,” John announced as soon as he walked into the room.
“Is the Guardian and family safe?” Sid was concerned Amy’s family had not arrived at the Embassy grounds.
“They are, and I advised the team to keep them at their current location until we figure out the situation here.”
“What situation, John?”
“Sir, there has been some activity on the grounds since last night.”
“What kind of activity?”
“We had attempted break-ins on the grounds, suspicious vehicles in the area, and I just got word that a group has invaded a home a mile from here and are holding the family hostage. It’s the house up on the hill that has visibility into part of the grounds.”
“Did the mole know we were bringing the Swan here?” Sid gritted his teeth.
“No, we had taken him in even before we decided to bring her and the other guy here. We were going to stay at Serena’s for at least another day.” John was visibly shaken.
“John, I need you to get in touch with the local Sherriff and ask for re-enforcements, and I will call into the reserve.”
“I have reached out to the Sherriff’s Office, and they are on their way here.” John stood up to leave.
“No, I need the Sherriff’s team to build a perimeter around the area, a wider perimeter,” Sid instructed.
“Got it, sir.”
Sid pulled out his phone and put in a call to the private security firm that provided him the support he needed when the President visited the country. Thirty minutes later he ended his phone calls and had a team of two hundred men mobilized to protect the person he cared about most, personally and professionally.
Sid’s heart sank when he opened the door and did not see Amy at the desk.
“Amy,” his voice blared through the silence.
“Hey,” she called out from behind stepping in from a balcony.
“Don’t ever do that,” he grumbled as she put her arms around him, laughing at his annoyance.
“Oh no, you are that kind of a boyfriend?”
“What kind?”
“The clingy kind.” She reached up on her toes to brush her lips over his tightened ones.
“Not funny,” he mumbled against her lips, pulling her closer for a deeper kiss. “I thought you were napping.”
She pulled back after planting a kiss on his cheek. “I was and oh… you have to see this for yourself.” She led him by his hand out into the balcony. “I was sleeping and woke up to a buzzing and realized it was a toy helicopter.”
“Who is playing with a toy helicopter?” Sid looked out into the grounds and saw a girl and a woman standing as they looked at something on the ground. They were partially hidden behind a hedge, but he recognized the woman.
“The woman works for the Ambassador and the little girl is her daughter. She was one of the very few people we were able to rescue from the Barkha region in one of our many missions.” Sid put his arm around her waist.
“Sid, it’s unfortunate there are people like the guy you beat up yesterday who think the Barkha leadership is good for them. How do you change them?”
“It’s going to be tough, and the followers are mostly people who lost their families in the oil pipeline accident and thought the pact the royal family made was a joke. Most of them have been brainwashed and provoked to keep the hatred building in them.” He shook his head.
“Oh… there she goes again,” Amy cheered as she watched the little girl squeal in surprise when the toy took off into the air.”
Sid froze when he caught a better look at the flying object. “Amy, get indoors, that’s a drone with a camera on it.”
“John, I want everyone to go into a stealth mode, turn on the cell phone signal jammers. Communication over the walkie-talkie only,” Sid barked into his phone pushing Amy indoors and shut the doors from the inside.
“Got it. Out, sir.”
Sid turned off his phone and opened the drawer on the desk and pulled out a set of walkie-talkies and handed her one of them. “Amy, do not leave my side. If we get separated, come back here.”
“Here?” She looked around the room.
“Yes, I suspect we are under attack, and this room is the safest. This door here will lead you into a bunker. The code is the six digit date of our first night together.”
She blushed in spite of the situation they were in at the memory of the delightful night. “Got it.”
“I still can’t believe we have so many traitors, especially someone my team tried so hard to rescue and provide for a better life.”
“You mean the woman?” Amy asked as he walked around the room securing all the windows.
“Yes.” Sid peeked through the glass French door to check on the helicopter.
“What are they trying to do?” Amy peeked at the drone roaming over the gardens with a blinking light on it.
Sid looked at the flying object for almost a minute before speaking. “I don’t get it, if they are trying to
get an image of you, why is the drone flying over the…” His voice trailed off if something hit him.
“John, come in. The activity is not for the Swan, I repeat. The activity is NOT for the Swan.”
“Got it, sir. Do you want us to take the woman and child into custody?”
“Negative, John. Keep a watch. Just make sure the drone is not transmitting.”
“Positive, sir. All signals have been jammed.”
“Good, I need you to get Timothy ready for interrogation. I think they are after him. He is more important than we thought.”
“Affirmative, sir. Give me five minutes.”
“Find out how Rachel is linked to Timothy.” Sid was angry.
“How does the woman know Timothy?” Amy asked unable to establish the link.
“Unless she was recruited after she moved here, there is no way…” his voice trailed off, and Amy completed the sentence for him. “She was one of them, and you guys didn’t realize it.”
“Fuck! How many such people do we have?” He bumped his fist on the desk.
“Sid, do you think she is his wife?”
“Rachel was never married. She had a bad relationship and broke up with her boyfriend right around the time she moved here.”
“And she was pregnant at that time?”
“Not at that time… well, at least not visibly.” Sid raked his fingers through his hair when he started to connect the dots.
“Is Rachel’s last name Gwyn?” She asked and swore she saw the blood drain from Sid’s face.
“Why do you ask?” His voice was gruff.
“When I was on my way to the hospital with Timothy, he was in a lot of pain and kept mumbling something, and one of the names he kept saying was Rachel Gwyn. He kept saying something about GG…” She stopped when she realized he wasn’t listening. He was looking at the ceiling like he couldn’t believe his ears.
“Sid, is Timothy the father of Rachel’s daughter.”
“Yes, and Timothy is Greg Gwyn, the son of the dictator I shot and killed eight years ago.”
“What?”
“The Barkha leadership declared to the world that Greg died in a ski accident while he was in medical school… motherfuckers faked his death, and he turned out to be Rachel’s boyfriend. I bet you the house where he lives is where Rachel spends her time over the weekends,” Sid declared.
“Sid, is Timothy, I mean Greg, the real leader of the Barkha Group?” Amy wondered out loud.
“You are absolutely right, the so-called leader in that area is a puppet, and everything makes sense. This guy has been managing the group from here. We found the head of the snake, baby,” Sid chuckled pulling her into his arms.
“Sid, I want to talk to the guy. I want to put an end to this peacefully. Is your Army ready to go into the region?” she asked in a stern voice.
“You want to talk to him? Yes, my Army is always ready to go. What were you thinking?” Sid was suddenly at ease.
“Can we get Rachel and her daughter to be in the interrogation room and get Timothy alias Greg to be on the observation side?” Amy’s voice was soft but firm.
“Wow, I like where you are going with this.”
“So what was Rachel planning to do with the drone? Let their followers know where the guards are posted?” She snickered.
“Probably!”
“I have a feeling the dude will do anything for Rachel.”
“Give up his life goal?” Sid challenged.
She placed her palms on his cheek. “Their goals are not as strong as yours… power drives them, not duty.”
He kissed her sucking in her lower lip between his teeth. “I love you.”
“Love… love is what is going to win the war for us. Nothing is stronger than love.” She smiled placing her cheek on her chest.
Thirty minutes later, she was about to talk to the leader of the rebel group who had gathered power to control an entire area’s operations from a remote location. The moment she realized she had saved the life of the man, who was the sole reason for the misery of hundreds of thousands of families in the Barkha area, she knew it was time she accepted her fate. She was born into a family with the responsibility to protect and inspire a nation to be great, and it was up to her to try to resolve the conflicts.
“Are you ready, your highness?” Sid kissed the back of her hand, as she was about to step into the observation room.
“Don’t say that, I’m not the queen… yet,” she teased.
“You are a queen in every sense. The only thing missing is the crown.”
“That’s no pressure at all.” She smiled planting a kiss on his cheek. “I got this.”
“Yes, you do, go kick some rebel butt.” He laughed.
“I want you to go talk to Rachel on the other side of the room in exactly five minutes and keep the volume turned off so he can’t hear Rachel,” she ordered making him smile with pride.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Five minutes, remember.”
“Why do I get the feeling he would have been better off talking to me?”
“I need to do this. Go talk to Rachel in two minutes and make her cry. I really want this to end today.” She stepped into the observation room where the man sat with his hands cuffed to the table.
Timothy looked up at her and watched his expression go from surprised to a cold expression. “Amy, I’m sorry you got roped into this. I’m sorry.”
She sat down at the table. “I’m not sorry I got pulled into this. I was meant to be part of this.”
“I… I don’t understand.” He looked puzzled.
“My name is Amy… Amyra Jane Charles. I’m pleased to meet you, Greg Gwyn.”
An eerie silence fell over him as he stared at her like he was looking at a ghost. She knew he was processing a lot of details, but he didn’t look shaken. A devious smile played on his face as he leaned back in his chair.
Amy gave him a few more seconds to react before continuing. “Just for the record, I don’t regret taking you to the hospital that night. When I was told how my parents were killed, I was angry enough to want everyone responsible to die the same way, but I can’t let my personal grudge affect all the families who are caught up in the rift.
He smirked. “Nice to meet you, Princess, and just as I had expected, you are weak like your father. You are just another royal trying to be noble.”
“You are a fool to think my father was weak just because he didn’t come after you for taking my grandfather’s life. He wanted to give you all a chance to be human again.” Her eyes spit fire even though her voice was soft.
“You have no idea what the people in my region had to go through for years,” he barked.
“Are you willing to ruin your future for the grudge you hold for an accident that happened thirty years ago?” she challenged.
“My future is my ambition to free Barkha for it to be its own nation,” he growled.
Amy smiled running her finger over the switch next to the mirrored wall. “What about that little girl? What about her future?”
Amy looked hard for the slightest reaction, but she saw nothing on his face when he saw the woman and child sitting at the table. “What about that little girl?”
“That little girl and her mother were found flying a drone transmitting images to your team so they could come rescue you, Mr. Gwyn, or should I call you Mr. Matthews, since you’ve faked your death more than once.” She stood looking at him with her back to the glass wall.
“I told you my name is Timothy.”
“Are you telling me you don’t know Rachel Dawson and her bastard daughter?” She bit her tongue for calling a child names, but she needed to get a reaction from him.
His reaction was a snicker. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“It must be sad not to be able to live in the same house with your family, watch your child grow, have her make you imaginary tea and what’s worse, is your daughter doesn’t know you are her father.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know who those people are, and I don’t have time for your bullshit.”
“Really, I still wonder why you kept chanting Rachel’s name all the way to the hospital.” She narrowed her eyes at him when he didn’t respond. “Well, you will rot in jail while I take that little girl over there and make her love the nation she belongs to. I will make her a citizen of Edenridge.”
“You have nothing against me, you can’t hold me here.”
“Oh yes we can, your hired help confessed for immunity. You are in trouble with the local authorities as well.” She laughed and caught the annoyance in his eyes. Encouraged by his reaction, she went on. “I will turn twenty- one in a few months, and my first signature would be to crash through your army.”
The man looked at her like he was running through all the possible options there are to escape and maybe even slit her throat on his way out, and then his gaze averted from hers. She turned to look into the room where the woman and child were, and she watched the horror on his face when he saw Sid step into the room and sit at the table.
“No…” Timothy hissed trying to get out of the chair and fell right back in with the hand and leg cuffs clanking against the metal of the chair. His body shivered, and his eyes blazed with hate.
“Oh, so you know Commander Sidney,” she chirped.
“Get that killer away from them!” He cried trying to get his hands free.
“Killer? Really?”
“He killed my father right in front of my eyes. My father suspected something and wiped my identity clean, and I visit for the first time to watch my dad’s head blow up right in front of me.”
“And why do you think he did that?”
“What the fuck do you know, Princess? If you think you get to wear pretty dresses and a crown and sip cocktails as a queen, wake up.” His voice was charged.
“I know everything. I know how my family was killed, and I know I was the only person who made it out alive that day out of the hundreds of people gathered at the palace. Who do you think is responsible for that, Greg Gwyn?”
“What about all the people who were burned alive and the reason for that?” he barked.