by James Hunt
“Wessick and Furth are good to go,” Derrick said, getting off the phone.
“Good,” Chase replied. “Where are we with San Diego?”
“Everything’s on schedule. You were right in anticipating the President to bring home troops to help stabilize the country after the attacks. There’s over a quarter million soldiers in the Southern California area right now,” Derrick said.
“So predictable,” said Chase.
“Do you need me for anything else?” Derrick asked.
“No, you can go,” he said.
Derrick folded up his laptop and headed out the door; just before Derrick could exit, Chase called out to him. “I love you, Derrick.”
“I love you too, Chase.”
Derrick shut the door behind him and Chase listened to his brother’s footsteps fade down the hallway. A family portrait hung next to the door Derrick had closed that was taken when they were still in elementary school.
Chase and Derrick had fought all the time when they were younger. Derrick had tried to beat him at everything but always fell short. Derrick would spend hours practicing, reading, learning whatever edge he could to best his brother. Chase was smarter, faster, and stronger at everything they competed in. He remembered one time when he was fifteen and was playing with his brother in a game of one-on-one on the driveway of their parents’ home in Indiana. Chase had just hit his first growth spurt and was a good foot taller than his brother at the time. He just won his third game in a row when his father came out and pulled him aside.
Tom, Chase’s father, was never one to back down, but he told Chase to let his brother win once. He assured him that it would mean so much to Derrick to actually beat him at something. Chase started the game and let Derrick score a few early points, but then started to attack him. He scored again, and again, and again, pushing his younger brother out of the way, knocking him down, whatever he had to do to humiliate him. The final score of that game was four to twenty-one. His brother ran off crying and when his father asked Chase why he’d humiliated his brother, Chase answered casually. “You never let someone weaker than you beat you. If you do, then you become weak.”
It was the first time Chase’s father ever told him he was proud of him, and that mindset and philosophy stayed with him his entire life. He had the ability to crush anything that came against him, and he was on the verge of crippling the world’s biggest superpower and reinventing it in his own image. His father’s words fueled him. He would become more powerful than his father had ever dreamed of being.
The planning he’d done over the past twenty years was finally coming to fruition. He had influence, money, and power on his side and, just like that day over twenty years ago when he humiliated his brother in basketball, he would humiliate the United States federal government.
Chase closed the window of Matt’s work file. Before he shut down the laptop, another picture caught his eye. He opened the file and there was a picture of Matt, Samantha, and Annie with birthday hats on celebrating Annie’s third birthday. He leaned in close to the screen to get a good look at Samantha, who was the final missing piece of his puzzle. “Where are you?”
Chapter 3
When Samantha Kearny opened the door to her daughter’s room that morning, Annie was still as water. The only sign of motion from the 5-year-old’s bed was Jim’s cat Tigs, who looked at Samantha and meowed tiredly.
“Annie?” Samantha whispered. “It’s time to get up, hunny.”
Annie didn’t move. Her open eyes stared into the corner of the room, avoiding her mother’s presence. Annie hadn’t spoken a word since she saw her father die three months ago. The doctors agreed it was shock and that the girl would speak again, but it would just take time. How long that time was though, the doctors couldn’t say. All they could tell her was to keep everything as normal as possible to allow Annie to get back into a routine of what her life used to be; a routine that no longer involved her father.
General Locke had set them up in an apartment just north of San Francisco in a small town called Santa Rosa. It was his way of telling them how sorry he was for their loss. But the apartment didn’t help stop the pain. The apartment didn’t allow Annie to speak again. The apartment didn’t make them feel like they were home. They hadn’t even had a chance to bury Matt’s body yet because the government was still “examining” the remains.
Samantha scooped Annie up in her arms and Tigs bounced off the bed, following them into the kitchen. She set Annie down at the table and fired up the skillet. “How about eggs and hash browns today?” It was Annie’s favorite dish, and lately she was trying anything to get her daughter to say something. Annie simply stared at the kitchen table while Tigs weaved in and out of her legs.
Samantha cracked open the eggs into the skillet and they sizzled from the heat. She pulled the hash browns out of the freezer and piled a plate of them into the microwave. The microwave beeped and Samantha grabbed the plate of piping hot hash browns and scraped some of them onto a plate next to a pile of scrambled eggs. She set the plate right in front of Annie and made herself one, too.
Annie picked up her fork and poked at the eggs. She ate nothing.
“Eat, sweetheart,” Samantha urged.
Tigs jumped up on the chair and then onto the table. The cat plopped down next to Annie’s plate of food and stared at the girl.
“You better hurry before Tigs gets it,” Samantha said as the cat gave a meow.
The little animal then nudged the girl’s arm. Annie picked up the fork and put a small piece of hash brown into her mouth. Samantha smiled. Tigs purred while Annie slowly picked away at the food in front of her.
When the doorbell rang, Samantha almost dropped the fork in her hand. She and Annie hadn’t had any visitors since moving in. The only person that knew where she lived was the military personnel aid that helped them move in and handled the apartment complex’s paperwork.
Samantha looked through the peephole and saw a small, balding man, no taller than five feet. He wore a black suit and tie. Samantha’s eye dropped from the peephole. She ran towards her bedroom quietly.
Jim had given her a 9mm pistol before she left the military base a few months ago. Samantha entered her room and opened her dresser drawer. She pushed aside socks and underwear until she pulled out a black box. She flipped the two latches that held it closed and grabbed the pistol. She loaded a magazine, racked the chamber, and tucked the gun in the waistband of her jeans under her shirt. Samantha cracked the door open, making sure she kept the chain lock attached to the doorframe. “Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Kearny, I apologize for showing up unannounced,” the man started.
“How do you know who I am?” she demanded.
The man patted his jacket, looking for something. When he reached inside his coat, Samantha drew the pistol out in the crack of the door and the man’s hands shot up in the air.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Kearny, again, my apologies. I’m not here to do you any harm. I was simply looking for my card,” he said.
“Who are you?” Samantha asked, the gun still pointed at him.
“My name is Kevin Mears,” he said, giving a small bow.
Kevin slowly reached into his pocket, pulling out his card and handing it to Samantha while forcing a nervous smile.
Samantha closed the door to examine the card. It had Kevin’s name on it along with the name of the firm he was with: Woolen, Woolen, and Mears. She flipped the card over in her hands as she weighed her options of what to do. She knew that Jim would want her to contact the military before anything happened, but she couldn’t help but feel that if somebody wanted to hurt her, they would have sent someone bigger.
Kevin jumped when Samantha opened the door again and kept the pistol aimed at him.
“How’d you know we were here?” Samantha asked.
“G-general Locke’s assistant gave me your information,” said Kevin.
Samantha lowered her
weapon and tucked it back under her shirt but left the door chained. “What do you want?”
“I was hoping to go over a few things left to you in accordance with your husband’s will.”
Samantha shook her head. “That was done months ago.”
“Yes, perhaps his personal will, but I’m here in regards to what he left you with his PamTech properties,” he explained.
She looked the man over and after a slight pause she closed the door, un-hooked the chain, and let him in. Kevin bowed gratefully and stepped inside. He took off his jacket as she guided him past the kitchen where Annie sat chewing on her breakfast, and into the living room. Samantha sat on the couch, and Kevin plopped himself onto a chair across from her.
“First off,” Kevin began, “I must say I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Kearny.” He spoke as though Samantha hadn’t pulled a gun on him less than sixty seconds ago. “Now, in regards to the will your husband left with us, I have a few documents here that he was very adamant you receive if something should happen to him.”
Kevin rummaged through his briefcase and pulled out a thin manila folder. He handed it to Samantha and continued searching through his briefcase.
When she opened the file, she saw pages and pages of programming code. Samantha shook her head as she thumbed through it. “No, there must be some mistake.”
Kevin’s stumpy fingers were skimming through documents. He didn’t look up at her. “No mistake, Mrs. Kearny. That document was left for you and your eyes only.”
“This is nothing but code for programmers. I can’t read this,” Samantha said.
“Ah, here it is,” said Kevin. He pulled out another piece of paper and extended it to Samantha. “For you to sign, Mrs. Kearny.”
“But what am I supposed to do with this?” she said shaking the sheets of code in her hand.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Kearny, but my instructions were to simply deliver the document to you. I’m not well-versed in programming code either, so I would be just as lost as you if I attempted to decipher it.”
Kevin thrust a pen out with his other free hand and Samantha took both. She signed and dated the paper. Kevin snatched the pen and paper back, placed it in his briefcase, rose from his chair, and gave a small bow.
The sound of the door opening caused Samantha to look back up and see that Kevin was gone. She jumped up to try and catch him before he left. “Wait! Was there anything else? Anything that went along with whatever this is?”
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Kearny. Best of luck to you and your daughter. Goodbye.”
Samantha stood in the doorway with the files hanging limply in her hand. Lines of letters, numbers, phrases, and symbols dotted the pages. She had no idea what they said, why Matt would have sent them to her, or what she was supposed to do with them. She set the pages down on the coffee table in the living room and walked back into her room.
The magazine from the gun slid out, and a single bullet popped up as she cleared the chamber. Samantha placed the gun and magazine into the lockbox and covered it back up with socks and underwear in her drawer.
When she returned to the living room, she saw Annie trying to read the pieces of paper she’d left on the coffee table. “Careful with that, sweetheart,” Samantha said from the kitchen, cleaning the breakfast plates.
“Daddy left this for us?” Annie asked.
The plate crashed and broke into pieces at the bottom of the sink. The sound of Annie’s voice rang through Samantha’s ears. She spun around and watched as Annie sat fixated on the papers in her hands. She left the mess in the kitchen and rushed over to her daughter. “Yes, he did.” Her eyes started to water.
“Why?” Annie asked, finally looking up from the paper to her mother.
Samantha’s hands cupped Annie’s face, then she ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair while she knelt on the floor. “I don’t know, hunny,” she replied.
Tigs jumped up on the couch next to Annie and climbed in her lap. The cat started to purr while Annie ran her small hands down Tigs’ back. “I miss him.” She threw her little arms around the cat and squeezed.
Samantha sat beside her daughter on the couch and engulfed the two of them in her arms. Her cheek rested on top of her daughter’s head as she slowly rocked the three of them back and forth. “Me too, baby. Me too.”
Chapter 4
Jim stared at the clock on the wall, watching its hands crawl forward. He’d been staring at it for the past fifteen minutes while the therapist in the chair across the room drummed his fingers nervously on his notepad.
“Is there anything you wanted to talk about, Jim?” asked the therapist.
Jim leaned forward, clasping his hands together. He rested his elbows on his legs and looked down at his boots, retreating into himself.
“General Locke thinks that it’s best to-”
“Locke doesn’t know shit,” Jim said, cutting him off.
The therapist let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair, placing the notepad on the wooden floorboards next to him. “Jim, what you went through was an incredibly traumatic experience. It’s something you should talk about.”
Jim shook his head. “I did five combat tours for the Navy when I was enlisted. Five. I never came back with any sort of PTSD or mental issues. I was fine then. I’m fine now.”
“What happened on your combat tours is completely different than what you went through in Phoenix,” said the therapist.
“I’ve killed men before,” Jim replied.
“Except those men weren’t your sister’s husband,” the therapist retorted.
Pissed, Jim made a beeline straight for the door, slamming it behind him.
Sweat formed on the shirts of the men in the regiment marching across the parking lot. Jim didn’t notice them. The hot afternoon sun beat down while the steady rhythm of their boots on the pavement kept time with Jim’s own feet.
Jim headed towards the parking lot where Coyle sat leaned back in the driver’s seat of the jeep he had dropped him off in. Coyle had his sunglasses on with his head tilted back against the headrest, sleeping. He jumped awake when Jim the passenger door open. “Aren’t you supposed to be in there for another forty minutes?”
“He let me out early for exceptional cooperation,” Jim replied.
“You know, the whole rebel persona is supposed to be my thing,” Coyle said, turning the engine over. As the two men rode in the jeep, Jim kept ignoring Coyle’s glances. Finally, Coyle spoke up. “Jim, I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t, but avoiding what happened won’t make it go away. Not talking about it won’t make it go away.”
“There’s nothing to make go away,” Jim said.
“No,” replied Coyle, “but it’ll start to make the pain have less control over you.”
Jim turned to Coyle, shoving a finger in his face. His face was red and his breathing quickened. “It doesn’t control me!”
“Clearly,” Coyle said.
Jim felt his anger slowing along with the car as Coyle brought the jeep to a stop, letting a platoon pass in front of them. Coyle placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder and squeezed. “Jim, it takes two to tango. Matt put you in a bad spot with what he did. You acted how anyone would have acted…anyone.”
Jim released a sigh, letting the tension escape him in one long breath. “Yeah.”
“Now,” Coyle went on, “we have thirty-eight minutes to kill before we have to go back for Locke’s new mission briefing, so I say we grab some lunch. I’m starving.”
“What do you feel like?” Jim asked.
Coyle thought for a moment before replying. “Do you think we can get the interrogators to convince Kate to give up her lasagna recipe?”
***
Later, Jim and Coyle arrived at Locke’s office, which was busier than usual. Office personnel were bustling around, examining different pieces of code on their screens. Jim saw Twink and Brett sitting in chairs in the hallway. “What’s going on?” Jim asked, approaching the
men.
Twink and Brett shrugged.
Locke turned a corner down the hallway accompanied by his assistant, Chris. “Gentlemen, come with me.” Locke and Chris headed for the general’s private conference room. The men followed suit.
Coyle kept his eyes on one of the female petty officers who just so happened to be bending over to pick up a file she dropped. Coyle started grabbing at Twink’s arm to get him to turn around and look. Twink smacked Coyle in the back of the head and pushed him forward, then turned around himself when no one was looking.