The Shadow Patriots Box Set

by Warren Ray

  “Hell, probably nothing left there anyway.”

  Scar gave Meeks a serious look. “We need to get back and tell the Captain.”

  Meeks gave the steering wheel a hard turn, but before he stepped on the gas, he noticed a figure staring at them from around the corner of a hedgerow.

  “Look over there.”

  “Where?” asked Scar turning his head.

  “Behind those hedges, someone is staring at us.”

  “I don’t see 'em.”

  “Cover me,” said Meeks getting out of the car.

  As Meeks walked over to the hedges, Scar grabbed his sidearm and got out of the car. Meeks called out, but no one answered. He walked around the corner of the hedgerow but didn’t see anyone.

  He called out again. “Is there anyone there?”

  A figure ran behind some evergreen trees. Meeks took off and ran around the back of a destroyed home. He caught a glimpse of the figure running through the doorway of a metal shed. Meeks turned to wave Scar over and waited for him.

  “He ran into that shed.”

  They approached the shed slowly with guns drawn. Meeks reached for the handle and gave it a quick yank.

  A little girl with blond hair stared at them with big blue blank eyes. She had a button nose on her frightened face with black soot hiding her fair complexion. At four-foot-four, and weighing no more than sixty-five pounds, she looked to be ten or eleven years old. Her movements were slow and weak like she hadn’t eaten in days. She wore a pink and white windbreaker that needed washing along with her blue jeans and gym shoes.

  “Well, hello there,” said Meeks putting his sidearm away. “We’re not going to hurt ya. What’s your name?”

  Meeks knelt down. “My name is Meeks and this big goofball is Mr. Scarborough. You can call him Scar for short.”

  Scar tucked his gun behind his waistband and gave her a wave. “How are you doing, hon? Where’s your mom and dad?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well, come on out of there. Maybe we can help you out,” said Meeks getting up.

  She walked out of the shed and they headed back toward the Mustang. Scar looked at Meeks, who gave him a half smile.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Scar reaching into his backpack. He pulled out a sleeve of peanut butter crackers and handed them to her. He also found a bottle of water and set it on the hood.

  She eagerly grabbed the crackers and started to gobble them down.

  Scar gave her a smile. “Those are almost my favorite, but I prefer the cheese ones.”

  She looked up at the tall man and returned the smile.

  After she ate all the crackers, Meeks tried, once again, to get her to tell them her name.

  “Now that you’ve devoured those crackers, you ready to tell us your name.”

  She nodded. “I’m Sadie Allen.”

  “Well, that’s a great name, Sadie. How old are you?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Where are your parents.”

  “My daddy’s fighting in the war.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “I don’t know. She was taken by those men.”

  Meeks looked over at Scar, then back at Sadie. “What men?”

  “The men who came here. The ones who burned all our houses down.”

  Scar knelt his big frame down and looked Sadie in the eye. “You saw these men then?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you know who they were?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did they have uniforms on?”

  Sadie looked at the ground and then back up at Scar. “Some did.”

  “What color were the uniforms?”

  “Black.”

  Scar looked over to Meeks. “Sounds like the National Police.”

  “Some of them talked funny.”

  “Talked funny how?”

  “Some of them only talked to each other and I didn’t know what they were saying.”

  Scar looked up at Meeks. “Jijis.”

  Meeks gave him a nod.

  “So, you said your mom was taken. Was everyone else taken too?”

  “Yes. They had lots of big trucks here and everyone had to get in them.”

  “How did you get away?” asked Scar.

  “My mom told me to run away and hide.”

  “Do you know why she told you that?”

  “At first the men were friendly, but then they got angry with us when my friend Emma’s, grandpa said he wasn’t going. So, they pushed him to the ground and said we had to go.”

  “I’ll bet you were pretty scared.”

  Sadie nodded.

  “It’s going to be okay,” said Scar.

  “When did they set fire to the houses?”

  “After everyone left.” She pointed to the burned down structure across from them. “I was watching from my house. They went up and down the street with this thing that shot flames out of a long stick like thing.”

  “A flamethrower? These guys had flamethrowers? Unbelievable,” said Meeks.

  She nodded. “I was upstairs in my room. I was really scared when the smoke started coming into my room. So, I ran downstairs and ran through the backyard to our shed.”

  Meeks turned to Scar. “Well, doesn’t that sound familiar?”

  Sadie looked puzzled.

  “Meeks and I had a similar thing happen to us.”

  “How long ago did this happen?” asked Meeks.

  “Two days.”

  “You’ve been here all by yourself for two days?

  She nodded.

  “Do you know if there’s been anyone else through here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, Sadie, you’re a brave little girl. Do you think you’d like to come with us till we find your mom?” asked Scar.

  She smiled. “You’ll find her?”

  “Of course we will,” said Meeks as he raised one eyebrow to Scar.

  “Well, let’s get out of here,” said Scar.

  Scar opened the passenger door and pulled the seat forward. Sadie hopped in the back. Meeks started the car and turned to Sadie. “You like going fast?”

  Her face lit up.

  Meeks returned the smile. “Good, cause I love going fast, so buckle yourself in little lady. There’s nothing like not having to worry about getting a speeding ticket.”

  He put the car in low drive, kept his left foot on the brake and stomped on the gas pedal. The back wheels started spinning, enveloping them in white smoke. When he let off the brakes, the car shot forward. Sadie screamed in delight. Meeks turned to Scar and flickered his eyebrows. Scar rolled his eyes and let out a hardy laugh at his friend Meeks, whom he had known since grade school.

  Meeks loved sports, especially football, which is why he coached the local youth football program, in addition to coaching the high school team. It was a big commitment, but he enjoyed every minute of it. He never wanted to be too far away from the game. After setting a couple of school records as a running back at Iowa, he came home and got hired as an assistant coach for his hometown high school, where he eventually became the head coach.

  Once the economy started to slip, budgets became tight and the school district discontinued all the sports programs, which effectively put him out of a job. He then worked with Scar for a little while before the construction business took a nosedive and Scar’s business went under. He and Scar had both decided to join the war effort together. Meeks moved his wife and three teenaged boys to Florida with her parents.

  Meeks was grateful when Winters had discovered the murders at the Patriot Centers. Figuring he should already be dead, he was thus very loyal to him and wanted to see an end to what they were doing. Meeks loved history and realized what they were doing would someday be written down for generations to come—provided they were successful.

  Chapter 6

  Washington D.C.

  Major John Green pulled out onto Eisenhower Drive and headed toward Washington Boulevard l
eaving Arlington National Cemetery behind. He pointed his car west toward his mother’s home.

  It had been just over a month since his friend Lieutenant David Crick was killed in action by terrorists in Detroit Lakes. He wasn’t able to make the funeral and had needed to visit with Crick’s parents. He had spent most of the day with them relaying the details of their son’s death and talking about old times.

  Green had known the Cricks since he was a child. His parents were old friends. The two fathers had met in basic training and served together, both making a career of the Army.

  The visit had been both sad and joyous at the same time. They went through old photos, laughing and crying together. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t give them the full details of the death. He didn’t think it to be in their best interest, at least not right now. If they knew Colonel Nunn had set them up to be killed by the terrorists and did so with the blessing of the government, then no telling what might happen to them, if they should mention it to the wrong person.

  Green drove in the bustling city with wonderment as to how it appeared as normal as before the war. It was in stark contrast to the Midwest where he had been stationed for the past nine months. People there struggled for food and keeping themselves warm through the long winter. Here in the District, it didn’t look at all like the country was at war with China, and that it was being waged on the West Coast. Cars crowded the interstate as folks left work to head home or went to restaurants for social meetings with colleagues and lobbyists. He wondered if these people had an inkling of how bad, it really was outside the nation’s capital.

  It had been a long and exhausting day. He looked forward to getting back home with his mom who would spoil him, and yet knew when to leave him alone. He needed a good night’s sleep before his morning meeting with Lawrence Reed.

  Reed was in charge of the Patriot Center Program and had requested a meeting with him while he was in Washington. Green was apprehensive and wondered what was on the agenda. No doubt, he wanted to question him down to every little detail on the Shadow Patriots and on Colonel Nunn’s unfortunate “accidental” death. Green would have to again go through the whole set of lies in his mind before he felt comfortable enough to repeat them to Reed’s face. He figured the man would question him in various ways trying to expose any lies. Since his own commanding officer, Colonel Nunn, had set him up to be killed in Detroit Lakes at the hands of Al Qaeda, after which he discovered the truth about what was going on, he had no problem lying to Reed. Green would have to act as if he cared about the death of Colonel Nunn. This was his greatest lie because Nunn’s death had been at his own hands when Nunn had tried to kill him in his office. This duel between Nunn and himself played out like a low budget kung fu movie. The arrogant old man, was too cocksure when trying to best his protégé, all the while thinking he had a move not shown to his young student. The elder had been quick, but not quick enough for Green who was enraged by Nunn’s actions. He let out all his anger on the old man and violently took him out with powerful swings to the head.

  Traffic thinned out as he entered Alexandria, where his mom lived. He’d be back home in just a few more minutes. He was confident dinner would be waiting for him when he got there.

  He turned onto her street. Dogwoods lined the streets, with their pink and white flowers in full bloom, sprinkling petals on the well-manicured lawns. The walkways had pink and red azaleas. It was a late spring, just as it had been in the Midwest. The difference here was the pall of doom didn’t spoil the beauty.

  Green pulled into the driveway and noticed his mom out in the front yard wearing gardening gloves. A tray of seedlings was beside her as she worked the soil. Soon she would get them into the ground.

  As the car pulled in, Sarah Green turned her head and smiled. She was fifty-eight years old and in as good a shape as she had always been. She was originally from the D.C. area. Being the daughter of a former diplomat, she had spent a good portion of her childhood in Europe. She had attended the University of Virginia where she met her husband at a football game. After graduating, she married him at twenty-one and had her only child at twenty-three. She had let her hair go gray rather than fight the never ending battle of coloring it. It was easier, and as a widow of an Army Colonel, she was too busy with charity work to bother with it.

  She raised her small frame up and took her gloves off as she walked over to greet her son.

  “How did it go, John?”

  Green closed the door. “As well as could be expected.”

  “I’ve got a roast in the oven. Should be about ready.”

  “Sounds good. I’m starving.”

  “Come in then.”

  They both walked into the white two-story colonial, which had high ceilings and white trim. The walls were a deep yellow in the living room and were off set by an Oriental pattern rug that lay centered on the hardwood floor, which ran throughout the home. In the living room, a fireplace stood between windows that had long white curtains hanging to the floor.

  Green breathed in the aroma of roast beef, and it instantly made his mouth water, making him even hungrier. He took his shoes off and followed his mother into the kitchen.

  Despite America being at war and food shortages all around the country, these problems had not come to roost in Washington, especially if your family had money.

  She put on oven mitts, opened the oven door, and pulled out their meal. The thermometer read 160 degrees. It was ready and they sat down at the dinner table. Both were entertaining their own thoughts, so there wasn’t much conversation, but they enjoyed each other’s company. After dinner, Green went into the living room and sat down to read the newspaper, while his mother did the dishes.

  The front-page lead heading said it all.

  SHADOW PATRIOTS STILL

  ON KILLING RAMPAGE.

  Green put the paper down after reading about the Shadow Patriots. The media had dutifully reported the misrepresentation of the facts, which had been had been spoon-fed to them by the National Government. The Shadow Patriots were a bunch of sadistic thugs, guilty of raping women and killing innocent children.

  Mrs. Green walked in and sat down. “Is it true what they say about that gang?”

  Green hesitated before he answered her. He wasn’t sure if he should tell her, but at the same time, he wanted to defend the Shadow Patriots. After all, they had rescued him and his men from an ambush in Detroit Lakes. It was there that he had lost his friend, David, in a gunfight with the terrorists. Had it not been for the Shadow Patriots showing up, he himself would not be alive today.

  He shook his head. “No. There’s not a grain of truth in that article.”

  “Do you know these men?” she asked.

  “I do.” He paused before going on. “Had it not been for these men, I would not be here.”

  Mrs. Green looked surprised.

  “Those men, those Shadow Patriots, saved my life and the lives of my men. They weren’t the ones who killed David. I don’t know how much to tell you because it may be better if you don’t know. The ones responsible are still a threat and they’re unaware that I know their identities.”

  “You’re talking about the new government, aren’t you?”

  Green gave her a surprised look.

  “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’ve been around D.C. long enough to know what goes on in here. I know there are things going on behind the scenes. So much has happened in this country in the past year that nothing would shock me.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “That bad is it?”

  “I’m having to meet with the one in charge tomorrow. He’s going to question me every which way to try to determine if I know more than I’m letting on.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Enough to know that I’m a danger to them.”

  “I see. Are you prepared?”

  “I think so. I’ve been going over it in my head for the past week. My biggest concern is that my body language might gi
ve me away.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. You’ll do fine.”

  Chapter 7

  South Bend Indiana

  Winters and Elliott sat at a long table discussing the future of the Shadow Patriots and what their intentions actually were. Nate came walking up to them interrupting their conversation.

  “Scar and Meeks are back, and you’re not going to believe what they’ve got with them.”

  Winters looked at Nate with a confused curiosity. “Ok, I’ll bite, what?”

  “No, no, you’ll need to come and see.”

  The three of them walked out of the room and into their makeshift cafeteria where Scar and Meeks were sitting down with a child.

  Scar gave Winters a nod of his head. “Captain.”

  Winters reached the table. “Hey, guys. So, who do we have here?”

  “Captain, this here is our new friend, Sadie,” said Scar. “Sadie, this is the man I’ve been telling you about.”

  Sadie put down her sandwich, stood up, and extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you too, Sadie.” Winters was immediately taken with the girl’s politeness. “You look really hungry, so don’t let me interrupt you.”

  “Yeah, if you’re not careful, Meeks might snag some food right off your plate,” said Scar.

  “Guilty as charged,” said Meeks, giving Sadie a friendly bump.

  “Got some things to tell you, Captain,” said Scar.

  “Why don’t you finish eating and meet me outside,” said Winters tilting his head toward the girl. Since Winters didn’t know Sadie’s background, he didn’t want to talk about things in front of her. Coming here as an orphan, her story couldn’t be good.

  Elliott and Nate accompanied Winters outside where they found the black Mustang with a mangled rear end.

  “Wonder what they did to this bad boy,” said Nate as he walked over to inspect the damage.

  Nate was a car buff and could fix anything. He had restored several cars over the years as a hobby and it had turned out to be a great way to make extra money. He opened the hood of the Mustang and admired the big engine. He had owned several Mustangs in the past preferring them to any other sports car. He liked them because they were easy to work on and they looked good, which helped him pick up girls when he was younger. A good-looking car always impressed the girls, at least the ones that were attracted to him. Rock and Roll and hot cars were what Nate was all about in his youth, and to this day, not much had changed.