Sons of Thunder
A Novel
By Bowen Greenwood
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by bowen greenwood
at www.bowengreenwood.com
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © May 2014 by Bowen Greenwood.
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Life of Secrets
Born with Secrets
The Prophet Conspiracy
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Dear Reader
Acknoweldgements
CHAPTER ONE
Connor Merritt was about to get shot three times in the torso and once in the head.
He unfolded his lanky frame from the passenger side of a small car. He wore blue jeans and a black leather jacket. The jacket had a stylized drawing in silver on the back: a picture of an open palm covering a closed fist. His dark-brown hair was perpetually unruly and hard to comb. His dark eyes glinted slightly in the harsh florescent light of the convenience store’s outdoor signage.
On the driver’s side, Connor’s roommate Lincoln Blunt emerged from his hatchback and fell into step as they walked into the gas station. Lincoln was slightly shorter than Connor, with blond hair that he gelled back until it looked painted on.
Neither of them noticed two other young men lurking near the street sign. One watched Connor and Lincoln walk into the store. The other watched the street.
“Man, you just have to wear that jacket everywhere, don’t you?” Lincoln asked. “Why not wear a sign instead: ‘I just bought a motorcycle?’”
Behind them, the two other men walked toward the door, ostentatiously casual. One had his hand inside his coat.
Connor grinned, touched the heavy black leather of the protective jacket, and took the ribbing with good grace.
He said, “Can you blame me? It’s the coolest thing since ice in the freezer.”
“Yeah, but the jacket’s only going to be practical for a few months a year. It’s ten pounds of heavy insulation. This is Vegas, man! Get into April, and you’re going to be pouring sweat every time you put it on.”
“Not when I’m going 70, man! Speed makes everything cooler.”
The banter had the familiar quality of old friends who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses very well. Connor had befriended Linc when the latter moved to town and became a new student in his freshman class. Now, four years later, they were freshmen again, this time at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas.
Although Lincoln did not share Connor's love of motorcycles, they did share a love of martial arts. Connor, who had started much earlier, had personally presented Linc with his first black belt last summer. Hours of sparring together had given each of them a familiarity with the other that would have surprised most observes. That relationship made rooming together in the freshman dorms easy.
It also made it easy for Connor to take Lincoln's jokes. If anyone else made fun of his Harley Nightster, they might have had a problem but from Linc, it was fun.
The grimy gas station floor looked like it could never really be clean. Racks of candy and chips filled most of the available space. Bars over the windows testified to a history with the violent element of society.
Connor made a quick selection from the freezer and walked up to the counter with a pint of double chocolate ice cream. He dropped his card to pay for it and flashed the night clerk his brightest smile. She was wearing a t-shirt with the college logo on the front, so she was probably a classmate. He silently hoped she would notice his jacket, and he could tell her about the bike. She was blonde with a nice smile and bright eyes.
She smiled back at him and for a moment Connor tried to come up with something to say. Other boys were always asking girls out on dates, after all. Why couldn’t he? She might like motorcycles, too, or she might like martial arts, too… there were all kinds of things they might have in common. He moved his mouth a couple times, trying to get something out.
The moment was interrupted by shouts from the entrance. The front door slammed open hard, causing a rack of candy bars to cascade to the floor.
“Money! Now! Gimme all the money now!”
Two young men – boys, really – came charging into the store with guns drawn, screaming obscenities. They wore the flashy clothes and bright colors of the criminal underworld. However, the thing that attracted the most attention was the dullest color of all: the matte black scuffed finish of their pistols.
The girl behind the counter screamed and backed away from the register, toward the wall of magazines and cigarettes behind her. She kept screaming as she covered her head with her hands.
One shouted, “Quit screaming and give us the money! Open the register and give us the money! Quit screaming!” Both boys waved their black pistols to emphasize the point.
Tears streaming down her face, the girl managed to bring her lungs under control. Her screams were replaced with huge sobs as she gulped in air and tried with shaking hands to hit the right keys to open the register.
Connor’s skin tingled from the gallon of adrenaline that flooded his bloodstream. He’d been studying karate for almost ten years and for the first time in his life all that self-defense training might just matter. Here was a pretty girl being attacked by evil men. With the reckless way the youths brandished their weapons, his own life might be just as much in danger as hers.
Connor did something he hadn’t done since middle school. He prayed. It wasn’t much of a prayer; just, “Please God, help,” but it was all he could remember. In his head, he went through the steps he’d need in a situation like this. Redirect & take the first weapon. Disable that shooter as hard and as thoroughly as possible, probably a strike to the throat or eyes. Reorient on the second shooter…
The girl’s cell phone rang.
It trilled a top-40 ringtone over the faint bass of its vibration. Out of an instinct trained since she had first acquired it, she reached for it without conscious thought.
One of the criminals mistook the motion for a threat.
It was like paging through the stills of an animated movie, one at a time. Connor saw the boy move his pistol in the general direction of the girl. It wasn’t held in any fashion that would allow for an aimed shot but at this range, that wouldn’t matter. His lips moved; he was shouting something. His finger was moving, squeezing on the trigger.
All of Connor’s planning vaporized in an instant. None of his carefully planned strikes on the criminals would matter. There was no more time.
Connor Merritt took one step to the left, placing his body between the robber and the girl.
He had no basis with which to compare the feeling of being shot. There was so much adrenaline in his system that for the first moment he felt nothing. The wind was knocked out of him. His mind began to process what was happening.
I’ve been shot!
The first ro
und hit him in the gut, just above the waistline. The second hit higher up. The third hit dead center in his chest, and the fourth hit him in his cheek.
The sound of the weapon discharging was painfully loud, and his ears rang like the highest note on a xylophone. In the background, the girl was screaming again. Connor wasn’t sure if he actually heard the words or just read the lips of the accomplice – the boy who hadn’t pulled the trigger – as he yelled something like, “Come on man! We gotta get out of here before the cops come! Forget the money; just go!”
By sheer instinct, Connor held his hands over his midriff. He was afraid to look down; he didn’t think he’d be able to stand the sight of his own body with gaping holes in it. Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t stop himself. Haltingly, timidly, he bent his neck down to look.
There was no blood.
His t-shirt was shredded. His precious motorcycle jacket had gaping holes singed even blacker than the leather around the edges. But there was no blood.
Connor removed his hands and looked again. No blood.
He put his finger through one of the holes in his jacket and t-shirt. No damage at all; just the skin and muscle of his abs.
Behind him, the girl had apparently called 911. “They just shot him! I think he’s dying! Please come as fast as you can!”
Lincoln rushed up to him, gripping Connor’s upper arms in his hands. “Are you OK? Connor? Con! Say something man! Can you breathe?”
Maybe he was in shock. Maybe he was scared. Connor didn’t exactly know why but at that moment, he didn’t want anyone else to see what had happened to him. He assumed the police would be mad, having been summoned to the scene of a shooting where the victim was unharmed. Or maybe he would be a burden on the system for no good reason, since he wasn’t bleeding.
Whatever the reason, he lifted himself up from the counter where he’d been resting his butt. He left the ice cream behind as he took a faltering step toward the door.
Grunting, he said, “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here, Linc.” He walked out the door.
His roommate followed him out. “Con? Are you crazy? You’ve been shot, dude!”
“Just drive, Linc. I want to get out of here.”
***
Later on, back in their dorm room at UNLV, the two boys stood facing each other.
“You do realize this is insane, right” Lincoln asked.
“I don’t know, Linc. I don’t know what happened.”
“I do. I saw you jump in front of the girl, I saw the flashes of the gun shooting, and now I’m looking at you with my own two eyes, and there is not a spot of blood on you.”
“Forget about it, OK? He must have just missed me.”
Very deliberately, Lincoln put his finger through the hole in Connor’s prized leather jacket, through the hole in the t-shirt underneath it, and touched his friend’s gut just slightly left of the navel. He said, “If my skin stopped bullets, I’d be crazy excited about it, Connor.”
“I’m not bulletproof, OK? I don’t know what happened.”
“I’m just saying, man. All those jerks who picked on me in freshman year in high school? Who used to hold my head in the toilet and flush it? I’d like to have a chance at them when I knew my skin was impenetrable and here you are trying to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Look, I don’t understand it, Linc. I have no idea what happened. I just want to forget about it and go to bed, OK? Can we just quit talking ‘til morning and let me sleep?”
“You sleep if you want, Connor. I suppose rest has got to be healthy for a guy who just got shot, but I’m not going to sleep. I’m going to stay awake and keep an eye on you in case you all of a sudden die.”
Once he persuaded his roommate to leave him alone, Connor took a long shower. He checked himself out thoroughly. There was no damage. He didn’t even hurt. He wished he’d stayed for the ambulance just so he could have a professional look at him and confirm the evidence of his own eyes.
Connor wished Linc would leave him alone about this. For almost as long as they’d been friends, Lincoln had always been weirdly fascinated by fighting and violence.
When Linc had moved to Las Vegas during Connor’s freshman year in high school, they’d become friends but in that Connor was unique. With the cruelty of teenagers, most of their classmates had isolated and teased the new kid.
Eventually Connor had invited Linc to his uncle’s dojo, thinking it would be good for him. Martial arts would help him defend himself from the bullies. Winning one or two good fights would earn Linc acceptance, Connor thought. It had worked that way for him.
But the first time Linc tried to use his training to defend himself; he had broken a kid’s arm and sent him to the hospital. After that, he’d been even more rejected than before. Lincoln seemed to think that if he got strong enough, or won enough fights, the other kids would have to finally treat him with some respect. Instead, they just ostracized him even more.
Here they were in their first year of college, and it still hadn’t worked. And now Linc, always fascinated by stuff that would win fights, could not let go of the idea that his roommate and only friend had literally been shot and taken no damage.
Connor could easily understand why it was fascinating to Linc. He just didn’t like it.
Lying on his bed, lights out, trying to ignore the sense of Lincoln awake and staring at him, Connor regretted his decision to leave the convenience store.
Stupid, Connor! You should have stayed to get checked out. What kind of dumb idea is that? You should have stayed!
He spent a sleepless night replaying every single memory of the robbery at the convenience store. He remembered the girl’s beautiful face: her blonde hair, her high forehead, her hair pulled back, her wide eyes… but he couldn’t go back there. Not after he had run away the night before. That in itself was probably against the law. He had fled the scene of a crime when he was a witness, after all.
Stupid, stupid, stupid Connor! Why not just stay behind and let them ooh and ah over how all the bullets barely missed you.
The next day, Monday morning, he did the best he could in the shower. It’s hard to look good after a night with no sleep, but he fought his hair into some kind of submission and prepared to face the day. Wearing light cotton khakis and a blue shirt, he left for his workout at the dojo. Lincoln, on his way to his internship with a local video production company, walked beside him.
It was barely spring in Vegas, and the heat was already unpleasant. It was just past seven in the morning, and it was 90 degrees. Walking toward the covered space that housed his motorcycle, Connor carried his jacket slung over his arm, to avoid putting it on until he was on the bike. He’d been telling the truth with Lincoln last night; it was only really comfortable when riding fast. He felt pretty weird about wearing a jacket with bullet holes in it, but there was no way he would ride the bike without protection.
“You should have gone all ninja on those guys then none of this crazy stuff would have happened,” Lincoln said. “What’s the use of a black belt if you have to be a human shield instead of karate-chopping the bad guys?”
“I was actually getting ready to,” Connor replied. “You know as well as I do when you’re going up against two opponents armed with deadly weapons, you want as much planning as you can get. I was working out how to take them down and do it fast enough that the second one couldn’t shoot me. I just about had it planned when things went crazy.”
Connor sighed and added, “I took too long to make a decision about defending the girl. I made the wrong decision about leaving the scene of the crime. Linc, you seriously should think twice before following me the next time I make a decision.”
Linc replied, “Don’t take it so hard, man. I bet if you knew your skin was impenetrable you wouldn’t have taken so long to unload on them, right?”
“Lincoln, would you please stop saying stuff like that?”
Holding his car door open as Connor zipped up his jacket, Lincoln replie
d, “Why? It’s what happened.”
“OK, setting aside whatever actually happened last night, a one-time miracle doesn’t make a man bulletproof. It’s all the more reason to never take a risk again. I used up my miracle.”
Lincoln shrugged. “Whatever, man. If I could get shot and not get hurt, I’d use that and my training to make all the jerks and bullies out there sorry for everything they’d done.”
Connor was about to rebut with reminders of their instructor’s philosophy on how and why to use self-defense skills but just as he opened his mouth, he realized he’d left his phone inside, and turned around to go back to his apartment. When he did, he saw for the first time that a couple hundred feet behind him were two men in dark suits, wearing sunglasses. They flinched slightly when he turned around and then ostentatiously looked anywhere but at him, walking on without stopping.
He wasn’t sure why, but the two men made him nervous. He didn’t know who they were, but it didn’t surprise him that people would be looking for him after last night. They were probably cops. They had probably identified him from the security camera or…
Connor slapped his forehead. He’d thrown his plastic down to pay for the ice cream. The cops would have no trouble at all knowing everything they needed to know about him.
He gave Lincoln a look. From the driver’s seat of his car, Connor’s roommate looked back at the men, and his eyes went wide. He said, “Those guys look like trouble!”
And then it was moot. They walked very directly up to Connor and Lincoln, holding out badges. Up close, Connor could see that each man’s jacket bulged slightly under his left arm – both were probably carrying guns.
“Federal agents, Mr. Merritt. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Federal agents? Why Federal and not Metro? Why would the FBI be involved? It was just a simple robbery gone wrong…
Connor began to wonder how much simpler things would be if the bullets had actually killed him.
CHAPTER TWO
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