***
The light marched across the floor of the terminal building just after 7 AM. Dawn came late this time of year, and the soldiers slept until the brilliance flashed in their eyes and glinted off the steel of their weapons.
Joniver saw the light bounce off the barrel of an Angriff weapon and it reminded him of his sword, a weapon made for the light, he thought. He didn’t know where the hilt with the shard was, but the pulsing pain in his upper arm reminded him of its jagged edge.
As the Angriff collected and organized their gear, Joniver stretched his tired hamstrings on the stairs as he walked up two levels to see Hunter’s body. When he arrived, the body was gone. Blood stained the wall and the carpet, but the body was nowhere to be seen.
Joniver rushed back downstairs and went straight to Jacob. “The body’s gone,” he said.
“What?”
“Hunter’s body,” Joniver said, “it’s gone.”
“Can’t be,” Jacob said. “You looked in the wrong place.”
“See for yourself!”
The brothers shot up the stairs. Jacob stood staring, as shocked as his brother. They searched, but there was no body.
“This isn’t good,” Jacob said. “But we gotta get moving.”
Dunston was both shocked and perplexed when the brothers reported their findings, but he agreed they needed to move. Elizabeth was already plotting something and the quicker they got to her the better.
Joniver had never been very far outside his district, much less the city, so when their trucks headed southeast into the forest, he was awed. The giant pines lining their route stood thirty meters tall and looked like giant Centurions protecting the woods from trespassers.
We are trespassers, Joniver thought. We are entering an area where we don’t belong in order to rid ourselves of someone who doesn’t belong. How ironic! Why would Elizabeth choose this area? But where else could she go? Maybe she believed these giant silent trees would be the guardians for her scheme.
Joniver found it harder and harder to believe Elizabeth was really his mother and Nana’s daughter. For someone who was as caring and kind and understanding and likable as Nana to have children like Hunter and Elizabeth seemed improbable - no impossible.
Nana was a wonderful parent to me, Joniver thought. She had to have been the same for them. What happened?
Joniver heard a shrill, Crack-Boom! Boom! Boom!
There was a violent explosion to the right of his truck. Joniver bolted forward and the bulky vehicle swerved hard to the left throwing its occupants against the right side. An explosion to the left countered the force of the first explosion however and rocked the truck back to the right. The driver lost control, and the truck rolled on its right side and skidded fifteen meters, coming to a stop behind a mound of sand and rock it piled up during the slide.
All the Angriff climbed out and a mine exploded not far from their vehicle. Further up the road they could see two of the remaining three trucks suffered similar fates.
“Here, here!” Dunston’s voice boomed over the explosions. “We’re on foot! Follow me!”
The Angriff ran on foot in chaotic order toward the Centurion trees. They may prove to be our guardians, Joniver thought. The Angriff worked their way through the densely packed pine trees and thick kudzu undergrowth with difficulty. Tracking someone in here would be nearly impossible, Joniver thought, but it would be equally tough for anyone tracking me.
The Angriff thrashed forward for what seemed like hours, and soon the early morning sun, which had been at their backs, became a glaring heat in their faces. As the day and their march wore on, tension and foreboding rippled through the men. The strain of the day and the mission were as oppressive to Joniver and the Angriff as the sun’s heat.
Sometime around mid-afternoon, Dunston called a halt. His voice came over Joniver’s comm-pod.
“Everyone stop and down. There are no comm transmissions without my ok. We are comm quiet.”
The Angriff stared through the pine trees at a clearing thirty meters away. A cabin sat in the center of the clearing and just beyond the building was a drop off. Joniver could not see the drop, but the distance to the other side, and its width, told him it was more than just a hole. Joniver remembered reading once about the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is far to the West, he thought, but this has got to be something like it.
The cabin in the clearing was a low slung single story structure about thirty-five meters by twenty meters. The front of the building had only one door visible and a window on each side of the door. The structure was made from logs, and Joniver assumed the logs had been produced by sacrificing some of his new friends, the tall pine Guardians. The building sat unassuming and unguarded; exterior protection of any kind was eerily absent.
Joniver surveyed all around. Jacob crouched to his left and Beetle to his right. He saw Peters just in front on the other side of Beetle. There were some Angriff in front of him, but most were behind and to his right.
Dunston turned and looked over his shoulder and signaled Jacob. Jacob grabbed Joniver, Peters, and Beetle and motioned them to the right. Jacob led as they worked their way slowly to the side of the cabin.
Dunston did not know what was in the cabin. He thought it likely Elizabeth bunkered there, but if she was inside, it was impossible to know what she had planned. The attack on the road earlier today surprised Dunston and he did not like surprises. Dunston led his group forward as Jacob, Joniver, Beetle and Peters crept closer from the sides. The two groups moved with painstaking caution. After twenty minutes, each team was positioned on either side of the structure. Jacob signaled to Peters and then gave the all clear sign to Dunston, who stepped into the clearing and instantly the door opened. Everyone stared in shocked surprise as Elizabeth walked out.
“Dunston!” she shouted. “Excellent job! You’ve done it! Is Hunter dead?”
“Yes, he is,” Dunston answered.
“How did you accomplish it without using our plan?”
“We couldn’t use the plan,” Dunston shouted back. “We were ambushed. They knew we were coming."
Jacob and Joniver moved closer.
“How would they have known? Do you have a mole? But be that as it may, you’re here now, so come in and let’s get our bearings for the next phase.”
Joniver was almost to the door, and Jacob was not far behind. The damp pine needles provided excellent ground cover, absorbing the sound of their footsteps.
“I don’t think so, Elizabeth,” Dunston said, straightening to his full height.
“Elizabeth?” she asked. “I’m not still your commander, Dunston?”
“No, you’re not, and we all know about your plans.”
Joniver sprung forward and grabbed for her, but she spun away and ducked inside. Joniver, Jacob and Dunston followed.
“None of that matters,” she shouted. “I have the codes and I can load them now that I know Hunter is dead.” She reached in her pocket for the drive used to store the codes.
Joniver held it up in his fingertips. “Looking for this?”
Elizabeth jumped up and let out a scream of anger and humiliation. My own sons! I won’t allow them to ruin twenty years of careful planning and tireless work, she told herself. “Listen to me,” she said. “We can still make this work. You two - all three of you - can still make it work. We still have to stop the terrorists, and you all know the company is the best way.
“You think what you’re doing is noble and brave and righteous. You think you can turn people loose and let them make decisions for themselves; don’t you see where that got us? People were dying and dying by the thousands each year! The company stopped the terror threats and provided security. The government was impotent; it was our actions that saved the people! Those lazy-assed bureaucrats couldn’t get off their one-spots to do anything, and the terrorists had most of them in their pockets anyway.
“All they wanted was power! They didn’t care about safety or people. They care
d about their own asses. Go back and look at the things they did - the things they voted for; always voting to exempt themselves from whatever they imposed on the people.
“The company didn’t do that! They did that. Is that the kind of government you want? I don’t think so; I really don’t think you want that. It’s a losing system! It’s chocked full of inequities and the politicians will use the system to help themselves. They’ll say they’re in it for the people, but who protected the people? We did! They didn’t do jack-shit!
“And they never will!
“Don’t you see? Don’t any of you see? History is on my side. The problem is the system; it doesn’t matter who is in there, it’s the system! The system will always produce inequity. But the company fixed that. We brought equity and security to the people - to everyone!”
Her eyes were wide and wild. Her dark hair, normally coiffed just so, was a tangled web of sweat and dirt. Joniver looked at her wondering if this was the real Elizabeth. Jacob thought the same. Each of the brothers searched in vain for a positive memory of their mother. Something good they could grasp and hold on to and remember about her, but there was nothing. There was nothing eternally good they could find in her, except that she had given them each a brother.
Elizabeth looked into her sons’ eyes and saw her bevy of words taking her nowhere. She glared at them. This is not how things are supposed to be, she thought. How had it all gone so terribly wrong?
She thought back to their birth and the happiness she felt the first time she saw them. She saw each of their tiny faces staring up at her with those big newborn baby eyes. They were curious and hopeful and wondering.
Elizabeth recalled how Jacob Jonathan, her husband, looked so proud as he held a son in each arm. She never saw him so happy.
What went wrong? They planned for the boys to grow, following their father and mother into office at the company. The family tradition was to continue. Why had her husband been so hell-bent on destroying all they had built? He ruined it all with his freedom talk and new revolution. She thought back to the fight between them only months after the boys were born, and the realization that he was not for her. She was not sure what he was for, but he was not for her. She slapped him, and he threatened to take the boys and leave. If she let him walk out, where was she to go - the street?
I had to kill him, she thought. What option did I have? None. He had to be eliminated. And who did it? I did. My sorry-assed, gutless brother didn’t have the balls.
But these boys, this was not supposed to happen. They were going to be for her, and they would support her. Now, here they stood ready to kill her and for what? Because she wanted to take the company from their uncle and make the world a better place?
They were not listening to me and they’re not going to listen…
She ran. She turned and headed for a back exit, and Jacob and Joniver were after her in a shot. They were faster, but she knew the building, and they were forced to navigate through obstacles. They rushed outside, looking for her escape path. They spotted her sprinting toward the canyon. Jacob and Joniver followed.
As she approached the edge, she stopped and turned to face them. She smiled with a wicked glint of evil coming from her dark eyes. She thrust her hand in the air, her fist clinched.
Joniver stopped and looked, but Jacob continued his pursuit.
“Jacob,” Joniver yelled. “Wait! She’s got a…”
Joniver’s last words were cut short by the deafening roar of the detonation, as a ball of fire and light erupted in the clearing. The force of the explosion threw Joniver twenty meters in the air, slamming his back against the trunk of a tall pine with a loud thump. The beautiful trees, which he so recently admired as sentinels, proved to be uninterested bystanders offering no help to the dead and wounded. Joniver lay motionless as flying wood and debris skimmed across his face, lacerating his head and creating rivers of blood across his forehead and cheeks. The smell of burning wood and charred flesh hung like a pungent blanket over the scene.
Joniver lay like a dead man for minutes or hours, he was not sure. He opened his eyes to a world of destruction and his body throbbing with pain. He shook uncontrollably. His ears rang and his head swam with light and sound from the blast. He raised up on an elbow and the disorienting spin of the world around him forced his eyes shut. Joniver rolled to his knees with his head down. His limbs trembled and his stomach churned with dread and adrenaline. He glimpsed the trunk of the mighty pine that crushed his back and balancing himself against it, rose slowly to his feet on wobbly legs. He scanned the area for Elizabeth, and the reality of what happened hit him like a second explosion.
Elizabeth lay not ten meters from Joniver, a splintered wood rail imbedded through her heart. She intended to kill her sons, but the destruction of the cabin created shrapnel that took her life instead. Joniver wondered how he should feel seeing Elizabeth’s cold dead eyes staring back at him. His thoughts ran, for an instant, to what might have been with his mother and brother.
My brother.
“Where’s Jacob?” he asked out loud. Before the explosion, Joniver recalled Jacob running toward Elizabeth, then…
Was he killed? What is that sound?
He heard a ringing like a school bell.
“Jacob!” Joniver shouted. “Jacob!”
“Joniver!”
Joniver spun around, anxious worry cut deep furrows in his brow. When he realized where Jacob fell, Joniver was gripped with panic.
Chapter 36
Joniver ran to the cliff’s edge and peered over. Jacob hung by his fingertips to a small outcropping of rocks three meters below. His armor jacket was caught on a small tree, which had grown undisturbed on the ledge. Now it was a lifeline.
Joniver sensed his panic rising and took two long breaths in an attempt to calm himself. He tried to think of an idea for getting his brother off this sheer faced cliff. Despite all the training he knew Jacob had, Joniver saw worry in his brother’s face, and he heard it in Jacob’s voice.
“Hang on, buddy!” Joniver shouted.
“Got nowhere to go but up, Dude!” Jacob shot back.
“I’ve got rope coming but it’s pretty far down the path, so I’m looking for something for you to grab, and I can pull you up. I’m not sure what I’ll find, but I’ll look and it may take me a bit. I’m hurrying so hang on!”
“Joniver, just do something and stop talking! Dude, you can come up with words at any time, can’t you! Just do something! I trust you, okay?”
Joniver shook his head and jumped up off his stomach, searching for something to reach Jacob. Fear spread through him like a cancer as he ferreted through the debris and forest undergrowth. Jacob seemed calm, and although he chided his younger brother, Joniver took it as encouragement. The sarcasm was Jacob’s way of diffusing his tension. Joniver thought back to the abandoned building where he and Jacob were trapped, and their firefight with the Guardsmen.
We are a good team; no, a GREAT team, Joniver told himself.
Joniver suddenly realized something he never knew before. What he experienced was not an understanding exactly, or even closure; it was more like an unfolding and all at once, he knew it.
All the things he tried to understand and piece together and fight for; the indescribable love he felt for Emily, finding and getting to know Jacob, and the deep feeling to set the world aright. All the pieces seemed to unfold before him, like a giant sheet of paper, which had been drawn with pictures and written with stories of the world and his life and his family. The paper had been folded in half and then half again, and half again.
Life unfolded before him. The feeling calmed and energized and motivated him. Joniver felt as if he finally had the giant puzzle piece he needed and all he had to do was drop it in. He breathed a sigh, and it was peaceful. But he still had work to do.
Then there it was, a long pine tree limb that was trapped under some rocks and stones. Many of the branches were ripped off and those that remained were strip
ped of pine needles. Joniver moved the rocks, picked up the branch, and he visually measured it. This one is perfect, he told himself, but dragging the limb took all Joniver’s strength. Dunston and Beetle appeared around the rock wall thirty meters from the cliff. They saw Joniver and sprinted toward him, offering help with the tree limb. In what seemed an eternity to Joniver, they reached the cliff’s edge with the limb in tow.
“What…!” Beetle said, but then saw Joniver’s intentions. Dunston assessed the situation and jumped to Joniver’s other side to help.
They heard Jacob’s weakened voice from below, “Guys!”
As the three looked over from above, they saw Jacob clinging with two hands to the rock ledge. Dunston, also militarily trained, saw Jacob’s strength and training had kept him alive.
He saw the raging, foaming river below and he realized two things. First, it was bad luck to be at this point of the river. In other places the winding ribbon of water flowed smoothly and deeply, and for an individual with Jacob’s strength, it is at least possible he could survive the fifty meter drop. He could have injuries, but he would survive if he could stay conscious.
Here, however he saw the reason for the foaming and splashing of the river below - rocks. They were not just rocks, however they were boulders. Boulders so large, if they had been aligned across the river, there were easily enough to create a dam several meters thick.
No one, no matter how strong, could physically survive a fall from this distance onto the bed of boulders below. The mist from the water spray made it impossible to see details, but the rocks were there. And just thirty meters south of the boulders, the river turned sharply east and dropped dramatically into a twenty meter waterfall.
Jacob caught the look in the commander’s eyes, and nodded. He had also measured the situation and knew a fall would be fatal. The reason for his cry however was not related to the probabilities of surviving the fall - or maybe it did. The small tree on the ledge caught on Jacob’s armor jacket when he fell, and it found the small tear his jacket received in the fight two nights earlier.
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