Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2)

by Cotton, Brian

  “Is there anybody else?”

  “No!” Harvey shouted. “Don’t try to take this away from me.”

  “Sam, there’s no need…”

  “If he wants to do it,” Winston said aloud. “Then let him. You asked for volunteers and he’s obviously up for this.”

  There was a collective yes from all the men in the room. Sanders grinned and then regained control of the situation. For Harvey’s part, he remained mad as all hell over it. Why did Sanders want to keep him from this? He was beginning to realize after all this time that the man who appointed himself the leader had no respect for him. Why, Harvey didn’t know. All he did know was that he was tired of it. Perhaps it was because he didn’t share the same tyrannical views of war that his supposed comrade did. To Sanders, Harvey continued to learn, there was only one way to fight a war. Harvey just didn’t share that same view. In fact, the views that Sanders expressed were closer and closer to those of their enemy, the more he thought about it.

  “Fine,” Sanders said once the room was finally quiet. “Have it your way, but don’t fuck this up, you understand me?”

  “I won’t.” Harvey replied. “The sons of bitches who go to fight with me better understand one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Sanders wondered.

  “I’m the one who raises the flag.”

  “If you get that far…”

  “I will.”

  “I can spare a couple of men,” Winston said. “I’m sure any of us could.”

  Sanders cleared his throat, “We’ll sort that out later. Harvey can have his way and sit the hell back down.”

  Harvey obeyed and allowed a grin on his face as he did. Once he was seated, he began to strategize in his mind how to properly go about this. Around this time, the most unlikely voice spoke up. It was shaky at first, but grew with strength as he went on. It forced another smile on his lips.

  “There’s something else we need to talk about,” Clarke said as he adjusted his glasses and rose from his seated position.

  “And, what would that be?” Sanders asked, not hiding his amusement at Clarke’s standing up. A few of the other soldiers in the room let out chuckles as well.

  Clarke did his best to ignore them all. “There’s going to be some valuable Intel in that building that we’ll want to extract.”

  “We won’t have time for that.” Sanders said shaking his head. “Once we accomplish our mission, we all know that the USR is going to blow that place to hell, just like that compound with the cure in it.”

  “That’s why you need someone with the proper expertise to go in there.”

  “And, that person would be you?”

  Clarke nodded his head. Again, Sanders grinned and the others talked amongst themselves. Clarke remained undeterred. This was his chance to get in on the action and feel like a real member of the resistance and not one that just sat back while the others went out and fought. There was a large amount of nervousness that flowed inside which caused an involuntary shake in his legs. It all went ignored.

  “That’s right,” Clarke replied. “We may never get a chance like this again. We do not want to blow this.”

  “The most important thing we can do is raise that flag. We will focus on that first.”

  “I agree that it is important to do that, but how can we just overlook the wealth of information we can get? There’s something going on right now. Men all over are getting abducted from their homes by USR soldiers. It has to be for something, I’ll bet there’s at least something in there on the computer systems I can find.”

  “Why can’t you just get it yourself?” Sanders demanded. “What, with your expertise?”

  Clarke ignored the comment. “I’m good, but I’m not perfect. Some of these systems have firewalls that I can never break through. But, if I had hands on access…”

  Sanders sighed, “Once we raise the flag, then if the place is still standing, you can go in at your own risk…”

  “Not good enough.”

  “Don’t you ever interrupt me again…”

  “He can go in with us.” Harvey said. “We’ll watch his back.”

  “That man has no combat experience…”

  “What if he’s right, Roy? What if we never come across a gold mine of information like this again?”

  Sanders rubbed at his scar. “Your boy gave us the Intel on that cure, and look where that got us.”

  “Last time I checked,” Harvey shot back. “The United States was a democracy, not a dictatorship. Let’s vote on it.”

  The chatter in the room began once more. There were some who were on Sanders’s side. Their need to raise the American flag and stick it to the USR overcame everything else. They didn’t see the strategic value of having information. In their minds, they had waited for this day for a long time. They were done sitting on their hands, watching the USR dominate their once great country. The USR needed to be taught a lesson: the United States wasn’t dead, yet. Harvey couldn’t bring himself to blame them.

  It was shortsightedness on their part, Harvey knew, but the majority of the men in the room agreed with him. The cries for allowing Clarke in on the mission were heard by Sanders and the computer expert. Sanders looked sternly right in Harvey’s direction. The mean look didn’t bother Harvey in the least. He didn’t show it, but he took great pleasure in seeing Sanders like this.

  “Okay, fine!” Sanders yelled. The room went silent. “Take the boy with you, but he’d better come out of there with gold. And, if he slows you down, you know what to do. You leave him and raise that damned flag.”

  “I assure you,” Harvey said, “the mission will be completed.”

  .54

  The two weapons “experts” who roamed the abandoned power plant were a pair of short, skinny twins. They went by the code names “Smith” and “Wesson”. Harvey about hit the floor when he learned that. And, when he actually met the two, he couldn’t believe it. He waited all morning for someone to tell him that it was all just a practical joke. The nicknames couldn’t have been real, nor could the fact that they were the ones consulting on weapons.

  For instance, Wesson’s combat fatigues, they had to be replicas, fit him too big. The pants were all baggy and the jacket left way too much room in the arms. The kid finished it off with a fatigued hat that fit slightly over the tops of his ears. There was just no way that the twins had ever seen combat. The mission was a go tomorrow night and they were dicking around with these fools. Anxiousness before combat was nothing new, but he was especially feeling it right now.

  Smith was dealing with the ones who would be fighting on the field outside of the Capitol. It would be Wesson’s job to “teach” Harvey’s team about some of the weapons which had been smuggled just days ago that matched their mission needs. Wesson led the team down a hallway then they took a right turn inside of a cramped room. Why were all of the rooms so cramped? Beggars couldn’t be choosers, Harvey told himself as he tried to keep his internal complaining to a minimum.

  Wesson flipped the light switch and, after several flickers, the room became illuminated. What also became illuminated was the stupid grin on Wesson’s face. Harvey had Kaspar and Clarke with him. The other leaders also volunteered some men to him on loan. In total, a team of eight would charge the building in hopes of gathering Intel and raising the American flag on the roof. All around the walls of the room were weapons cases stacked high with a long, wooden table in the middle.

  “Welcome to my playground, boys.” Wesson said.

  “Your what?” Harvey demanded.

  “My playground, man!”

  “Do you even know the first thing about shooting?”

  “Of course I do.” Wesson replied, same stupid grin still on.

  “So, you’ve fired a gun at someone?”

  “All the time, bro. Me and my brother, Smith, we’ve got access to all of the USR’s VR training that they put their soldiers through.”

  Harvey rolled his eyes. “VR trai
ning?”

  “Damn straight my man,” Wesson said with a wink. “I can live, breathe, and think like a soldier. Also, I can fire any gun I want. Just like the real thing.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, ‘bro’.”

  “Enough chit chat,” Wesson said as he rubbed his hands together. “Let’s dig in, shall we?”

  Wesson reached underneath the wooden table, gripped the handle of a weapon’s case, and then slammed it on the surface with no regard. With a flip of the notches around the front, the case popped open, and inside sat one of the most beautiful assault rifles Harvey had ever laid eyes on. The material of the gun was jet black, almost to a mirror sheen, he could almost see his own smile reflected off of it. It looked like a cross between an M16 and a P90. He reached in for it, but then the damn kid snatched it away from him.

  “The ZX-17, my friends, the latest in high tech weaponry being developed by the USR.” Wesson announced with a great sense of pride as if he build the damn thing. He lifted it up and buried the stock into his skinny shoulders. Harvey was shocked that he could even lift it and it looked to weight him down.

  “Is the safety on, kid?” Harvey asked.

  “Of course it is,” Wesson replied. “Moving on. This baby is still in development. Not even USR soldiers will be armed with them. It’s a high powered gun, almost no recoil, got good shooting range, too. But, this is for the guys on the ground.”

  Wesson tossed the gun to the side. Harvey couldn’t believe how the kid could just disregard such a beautiful weapon like that. Wesson didn’t have any idea the kind of gun he was mishandling. Probably the VR disorienting him from reality, Harvey reasoned.

  The skinny kid slammed another box onto the wooden table. The others flinched and Harvey could tell that he was not the only one who was growing tired of Wesson’s carelessness. Again, after both notches in the front of the box were unsnapped, the box shot open. This gun was much different from the ZX-17 before it. It was a short barreled submachine gun from what Harvey could tell. Wesson grabbed at the folded stock and lifted the gun into the air. As the gun flew, the stock unfolded and, once again, Wesson shouldered the gun as if he really knew what he was doing.

  “This is the Kriss Vector, my friends.”

  Kaspar’s eyes went wide. For a moment, the room emptied out and the only thing he could see in front of him was Krys. She looked at him with that smile that drove him mad. Her hair was flowing along with the wind. Then, with a blink of the eye and nudge on his arm, she was gone again.

  “You okay, dude?” Wesson demanded.

  “Uh…” Kaspar said, moving his arm away from Clarke’s grasp. “Yeah. It’s just, I…what did you say that gun was called again?”

  “The Kriss. K-R-I-S-S.”

  “Oh, I just thought I was hearing things. I…knew someone by that name.”

  “Really?” Wesson asked with an animated look of concern on his face. “She break your heart?”

  “Let’s not get into it.” Kaspar shot back with his fists clinched.

  Wesson noticed the fists. “All right, all right, shit. Let me just show you what this baby can do, okay?”

  “Fine by me.”

  “All right,” Wesson said as he lifted the gun up to his chest. “The Kriss is a bad ass mother you know what. A submachine gun, yes. Nothing special about it just looking at it, right?”

  There was silence. Wesson made an expression with his face awaiting an answer.

  “Uh, no.” Harvey replied.

  “At least someone’s paying attention. Anyway, the Kriss fires .45’s, not 9MMs like some lesser guns, so it’s got a shit load of fire power. You’re wondering about the downsides, right?”

  Silence.

  “Um, no,” Harvey replied to once again break up the silence. Just get on with it already.

  “Have you ever fired one of these babies?”

  “No.”

  “Then how can you not wonder if there are any downsides?”

  Harvey rolled his eyes once more. “Like you can tell me the downsides?”

  Wesson smirked. “We’ve been over this.”

  “What are the downsides?” Kaspar demanded. He was growing as tired of Wesson’s shit as much as Harvey was.

  “Glad you asked, fellow brother in arms. There are no downsides…other than missing the infinite ammo power up.”

  “Every gun has a downside.” Harvey contended.

  “Care to give this baby a spin?” Wesson asked. He clicked off the safety and held the gun out. “Just hold down the trigger and don’t release it until the mag is dry.”

  Once Harvey took hold of the gun, Wesson motioned with an open arm to move to the shooting range. Upon approach, Harvey clicked the gun to full auto, and then aimed the gun at the target in front. He was impressed by the lack of weight in the gun and the compact design made it easy to aim. What really got his blood pumping was what happened once he pulled the trigger and released a full mag. The others who gathered around were impressed as well. They stood in awe at the bullet holes in the target. They were all center mass. There was very little in the way of spray. All the rounds hit the target and were just inches apart.

  “Brilliant,” Wesson said. “The design, the craftsmanship of this gun is awe inspiring.”

  “There’s almost no recoil.”

  “Exactly. An automatic, with no recoil, .45’s for stopping power. No downsides.”

  “Let me see it.” Kaspar said.

  Harvey turned and handed it to him. With the Kriss in his hands, even before firing a single round, he knew that this was his new favorite gun. Wesson anxiously handed him a full mag. He held the mag in his hand for a moment before reloading the gun. The crosshairs from the scope were pointed center mass on the target. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Once they were opened, Sullivan’s figure appeared on the target.

  Before pulling the trigger, he knew what he had to do.

  .55

  This was a conversation that he didn’t want to have. That was all that Harvey could think about as he pulled his son from lunch and into a small, dirty, and private room. Dust was everywhere as well as dirt on floor. A couple of empty tables and chairs were scattered about. The wood on each chipped, cracked, and showed signs of aging. What little light was in the room was provided sunlight creeping in through the cracked window.

  Buck had no idea what was going on. He didn’t even question his father as to why he didn’t want him to storm the building with him. To Buck, it was just as good to fight outside as it was inside. The young kid never would have thought that his father was going to pull him out of the mission entirely. That he would be asked, and if need be, told to not participate. This mission was too dangerous for a green solider like Buck.

  The only fear that Harvey had, really, was how Buck would react. Buck was prone to think that any kind of criticism was simply a slight on him. In almost every case that was not true, but that was how Buck took it. He was a lot like his mother in that way. She would do the same thing anytime Harvey tried to talk to her about things. That thought brought about a quick smile which was gone almost immediately. Buck didn’t even notice it.

  “What do you need, pop?” Buck demanded. “That damn tofu they feed us is delicious.”

  Smartass, Harvey thought before he spoke. “Let’s have a seat over there.”

  Harvey pointed toward the tables and chairs to their right. They both walked over to them and took a seat. Buck sat across from his father with a raised eyebrow. Harvey almost chickened out, but he knew that this was something that had to be done. He took a deep breath and looked deep into his son’s eyes.

  “Son,” Harvey said. “I don’t want you to go on this next mission.”

  Buck stood and slammed the chair to the ground. “That’s impossible! I’m going and you can’t stop me!”

  “Listen to me, son.”

  “No,” Buck said as he pointed his index finger. “You listen to me. I’m going out there. This mission is way too importan
t for me to just sit it out.”

  It was Harvey’s turn to stand. He looked at the still pointed index finger then gave a hard, stern look to Buck. Buck relaxed his posture and then lowered his finger. His hands were now in the pockets of his blue jeans. Harvey moved in closer to his son, but Buck’s head just lowered to the ground.

  “Buck, this is going to be a dangerous one. Who knows what will happen out there? If they call in reinforcements or they bomb the place…”

  Buck’s head shot up. “I know the risks. I’m still going out there.”

  “No, I’m your father, and I forbid it. That’s the end of it.”

  “Why don’t you want me to fight?”

  “Because…” Harvey started. “You’re too young for this. The other missions, they were dangerous, but not so much as this one. Not to mention, you’ve frozen under pressure before, and…”

  “Ha,” Buck said. “You’re so full of shit. Weren’t you the one who told me not to let one mistake haunt me forever?”

  Harvey nodded, “Yes, I did. But, again, son, this is completely different. I will not allow you to go.”

  “What am I supposed to do then?” Buck asked as he lowered his head. “Just sit here and twiddle my thumbs.”

  “You could sit here and think about your life and how you want to live it. You’re only twenty years old. There will be plenty more missions for you to go on.” Harvey moved close and then put his hand on Buck’s shoulder. “Can’t you see that I’m just looking out for you?”

  “I can see that,” Buck replied as he moved his shoulder from the grip of his father’s hand. “I can also see that you still don’t trust me out there in battle.”

  “It has nothing to do with trust. I don’t want to see my son bleeding out there, wishing he had stayed behind.”

  “Whatever.”

  The two stood in silence then. Harvey kept looking around the room, thinking of something to say, but nothing came to his mind. Buck just looked to the tile floor and kicked up dirt from it. It was a battle of wills, but at the end of the day, Harvey knew he had the upper hand. He could personally make sure that Buck was nowhere near the battlefield.