A part of him, though, felt the guilt of having to make a decision that should have been his son’s, who was a grown adult. However, he was not yet a man, and was too young to make these kinds of life altering decisions. Not only life altering, but potentially life ending. Buck could stay back and sulk all he wanted to and would eventually get over it. If Harvey allowed him out into the battlefield…
“You’ve grown so much,” Harvey said to break the silence.
“I’m surprised you noticed.” Buck replied.
“Look, I know that I haven’t been the world’s best father, but when all this over, I promise that we will catch up.”
“Just let me go, Father. I won’t die and I won’t disappoint.”
“The decision has already been made.”
“Fine”, Buck replied. He turned and stormed out of the room.
Harvey didn’t attempt to stop him. He had a mission to prepare for.
.56
The rain outside started to pick up in intensity. Kaspar leaned against the wall and used the overhang above him to avoid the rain drops. He had a hand around his cigarette. His eyes were nearly covered by the hood of his sweatshirt as he took another drag. That lightheaded feeling started to overcome him. It had been a while since he had a smoke and now, it seemed, that filthy habit was about to be picked up again. Krys got him to quit initially, but she was gone now, and there was nobody else to care enough to tell him not to.
He was waiting for Sullivan to come out. If the coward would come out at all. Kaspar got some help from one of the rebels by telling the rebel his story. The rebel took Kaspar’s side in an instant and told him he would see what he could do. If everything went according to plan, Sullivan would walk towards the small building directly behind the power plant for a top secret meeting. Kaspar, of course, had no way of knowing how gullible the supposed former Agent was, but there was always the chance.
The mission to come could wait, Kaspar thought as he remembered what Clarke told him the night before. To not do anything stupid, that the mission came before anything else, all that bullshit. It was not that Kaspar didn’t understand the importance of the next mission. That much he did understand. The problem was that he had something personal to finish and he was going to see it through before the mission. After all, he could very well be killed in that USR controlled building and then who would avenge Mother then?
Kaspar was back to his old ways. He knew it, but couldn’t help it. He never dreamed that his eyes would see that piece of shit again. If Krys were still here, Kaspar knew that she would talk him out of it. There would have been something in her bag of tricks to convince him that it was the wrong thing to do. Unfortunately for Sullivan, she wasn’t here anymore.
After taking one last drag, he saw his target, walking towards the small building just as planned. The poor bastard bit the hook. Kaspar threw the cigarette to the side and started to make a run for Sullivan. Loud splashes of water flew from under his feet. His mark heard him coming but Kaspar didn’t care. Sullivan turned and prepared himself for the incoming fight. Kaspar just kept running, ignoring the stings from the tiny droplets of rain on his face, intent on ending this part of his life and moving on. When he got close, Sullivan put up his closed fists and forewarms in a defensive posture. This would be easy, Kaspar thought, nothing compared to some of the other fighters he fought in his past life.
“Come here, you son of a bitch!” Kaspar cried.
The two met in the middle of the field, already drenched from the rain fall above. Kaspar took a swing which Sullivan ducked under. The former Agent threw his own which connected to the left side of the face. The ex-prize fighter took the shot and didn’t feel it. There was so much adrenaline flowing through him that he could have been hit by a car at low speed and still gotten up. Kaspar faked right, and then delivered a left hook to Sullivan’s cheek.
He went for another shot, but his opponent ducked under it. This time, Sullivan wrapped his arms around his attacker’s midsection. During the attempted takedown, Kaspar threw a hard punch at Sullivan’s right ear. Sullivan remained undeterred. He grabbed at Kaspar’s left leg to throw off his balance. With all his strength, he pulled the leg up and Kaspar’s foot was lifted off the ground. Kaspar tried to fight it off, but Sullivan threw his body weight to the left. Eventually, the attacker couldn’t keep his balance and Sullivan tackled him to the ground.
Upon impact with the wet grass and mud, the back of Kaspar’s head hit hard on the ground. The force of the impact nearly knocked him out, but he managed to keep his consciousness. Sullivan, on top of his opponent in a kneeled position, looked down at him. In an instant, he delivered a sharp blow to the nose. Blood leaked out of it like water from a gauzier. Kaspar knew that his nose was broken the instant it was hit. Sullivan went for another one but stopped himself mid punch. He stood over his attacker and spit on the ground.
“What the hell’s your problem?” Sullivan demanded.
Kaspar moved his hands to his nose. “You know what it is. You killed my mother!”
“I told you already, I didn’t pull the trigger. I tried to stop my men from doing it. I wanted to bring her in for questioning.”
“You think I’m going to believe that?”
“Believe what you want,” Sullivan barked. “I’m done defending myself to you. My son has been kidnapped. I’ve got to get him back. That’s all I care about now. And, I’m not letting anyone, let alone you, stop me. I would advise staying the hell out of my way from now on.”
Sullivan turned to walk away. Kaspar tried to force his way from the ground.
“I’m not finished with you!” Kaspar cried.
Sullivan turned back around. His opponent managed to only get back to a seated position. The fogginess in his head was throwing off his balance. The former Agent moved in, blocked a halfhearted swing, and then punched the fallen fighter twice with two hard right hooks. After the hooks, he used his foot to kick Kaspar back to the ground.
“This is finished,” Sullivan said looking down as he extended his hand downward. “I’m learning how to repent. You need to learn how to forgive.”
“To hell with you.” Kaspar replied.
Sullivan then stood tall. “Fine, I’ll leave you here to bleed and think about it.”
With that, Sullivan turned and walked away, ignoring all the obscenities that were shouted his way. Once Kaspar realized that he wasn’t coming back, and that he was physically unable to chase after him, he laid his head onto the wet grass. He then reached up with both hands to his nose. With one sharp turn, his crooked nose was popped back into place. Kaspar let out a loud cry and then did what Sullivan left him there to do.
He bled and thought about what to do next.
.57
“What happened to you?” Buck wondered as he took a break from shooting rounds from his Glock 17 into the paper target.
“I picked a fight.” Kaspar replied. The white bandage over his nose littered with droplets of red crimson.
“I can see that. You got your ass kicked, didn’t you?”
“Let’s try minding our business.”
“Fair enough,” Buck replied as he resumed his firing position.
Kaspar pulled out a handgun of his own. His hand gripped the handle of Krys’s P99. He looked down at the gun for a moment before he started to fire away at a separate target next to Buck. He fired in three round bursts from the semi-automatic. Each time he practiced on getting two to the chest and one to the head. It was a technique that Paxton tried to teach him as well as Krys. After all this time he still wasn’t a pro at it, but he could manage.
As he fired the last three rounds from his mag and started his reload, he asked himself again why he didn’t take a gun to that failed confrontation with Sullivan. He realized that he made a conscious choice not to. He figured that he could give him a tune up and that would have been good enough. However, he made a huge error in underestimating Sullivan. He knew that his adversary would have had hand t
o hand combat training by the USR. Still, in his anger, he relied on his own instincts and the fact that he had never lost a fight in his life.
“What’s got you all hot and bothered, anyway?” Kaspar asked noticing the pouty look on Buck’s face.
“Mind our own business, right?” Buck replied, finishing off his own mag.
“Just curious, I guess.”
“Well,” Buck replied as he grabbed a fresh clip, “my father wants me to sit out this next mission, so I guess I’m just wasting ammo.”
Kaspar raised an eyebrow. “You going to listen to him?”
“Well, yes, at the end of the day he’s my father. I have to respect his demands, I suppose.”
“May I ask how old you are?”
Buck laughed, “Why?”
“Just tell me your age.”
“I’m twenty.”
“Twenty, huh?” Kaspar turned his attention back to the paper target and aimed. “I think that makes you old enough to make your own decisions.”
Kaspar fired off another mag into the paper target. He lowered the gun once it was empty and looked at his handiwork. He wasn’t quite satisfied with it, but it wasn’t poor marksmanship, either. With a sigh, he grabbed another mag from out of his pocket, reloaded, and then looked to the target. The firing in his left ear ceased and Buck cleared his throat before Kaspar got to firing again.
“Yes?” Kaspar asked.
“You think I should go then? Disobey my father?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Kaspar replied. He lowered the gun then turned to face the young man. “Like we talked about before, I wish I had a father to look out for me, keep me out of trouble. But, at the same time, it’s not his place to tell you what to do or how you should live your life. Do you think you’d regret not going?”
“I don’t know, yet. I know if I got hurt real bad or if I was bleeding to death I’d wish I had listened.”
“Let me tell you something, kid. I’m not much older than you, but you can’t ever know what’s going to happen.” Kaspar cleared the lump in his throat with a hard swallow. “Sometimes, I wish Mother never got shot, but then I’d still be doing the same things I’d been doing. I also wouldn’t have met Krys…”
“I’m really sorry about what happened to her…”
Kaspar lifted a hand and shook his head. “No apologies, what happened to her couldn’t have been prevented. What I’m saying is: I think for people to truly find happiness, they need to make their decisions, take the circumstances that come along with it, and live with whatever happens.”
“But, if I die out there, I’m not going to live with anything.” Buck replied with a smirk.
“You want to make difference, though, don’t you?”
“Sure I do.”
“And, is it for yourself, to prove something to your old man…”
Buck interrupted, “I don’t know why. Obviously, I don’t know any different, I was raised into this life.”
“But, the fact remains that you want to make a difference for…something. You can’t do that sitting on your hands. Your father needs to let you go, to understand that you’re a grown ass man, I guess.”
Buck smiled, “You think I should go, then, right?”
“That’s your problem.”
Buck lifted the handgun in his hand and pointed it at the target in front of him. There was an uncontrollable smile growing across his face before he fired. Kaspar noticed it and the instant guilt trip hit him with a sudden explosion of negative energy. It really wasn’t his place to tell Buck what to do, or to try to convince the kid to get into something way over his head. Kaspar also couldn’t just sit back and have Buck not do something because his father told him so. He would never outright admit it to Buck, but he envied him. For those reasons they just discussed. His own father didn’t give two shits about him, and here was this kid, who had a father trying to keep him away from battle. Harvey was only looking out for his son’s best interest, and Kaspar knew that, but at the same time, Buck was a grown man. He reasoned with himself that what he told the kid was right.
Kaspar, aiming at the paper target, just hoped that Buck didn’t have to die to prove a point.
.58
There would be no sleeping tonight. No matter how much Harvey’s brain told him to go to sleep, when his head hit the pillow, no sleep would come. It was going to be another long night before a battle. One would think that a decorated soldier like Harvey would have been used to it by now, but that was far from the case. As much as he loved the feel of battle, the emotions, the adrenaline rush, he could never stand the night before.
Out in the main lobby sat Clarke. He was sitting upright in a perfect posture just staring off into the distance. Harvey was surprised to see that there was no computer around. It seemed that computers were attached to Clarke’s hip most of the time. The old Marine walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a steaming cup.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” Harvey wondered as he pulled up a chair across from him. This was not the first time he had caught Clarke up late.
“I’m kind of an insomniac,” Clarke replied with a slight chuckle.
Harvey smiled, “What are you thinking about?”
“Isn’t it all over my face?”
“No,” Harvey said, peering through the crystal clear lenses over Clarke’s eyes. “I don’t see any emotion at all.”
“Oh, right. I’m thinking about the mission tomorrow. I’ve never gone in on an actual fight like I’m about to.”
“You think you can handle it?” Harvey asked, wincing as the hot coffee pierced his tongue.
“I’m not too sure. Not sure I even want to.”
“I’m confused. You were all gung ho about it at the meeting today.”
Clarke sighed, “I’ve always hated being left out. Left out of a mission, left out of whatever, so I thought this would be my opportunity to get in on the action. Not be left out, you know?”
“I guess. Hey, if you’re having second thoughts…”
“No,” Clarke replied with a stern tone out of place with the rest of him. “I’m not cowering out now.”
“So, what’s it going to be then?”
“I’m going to go in there and, hell or high water, and I’m going to get that information from their computer systems. That’s my role in this whole thing. I’m the tech guy. I’m not going to fail.”
Harvey sipped at the coffee once again and then looked into Clarke’s eyes. What he saw was a deep resolve. If Clarke was feeling like a coward, he was doing a good job of hiding it. For as long as Harvey knew Clarke, he hadn’t changed a bit, but he had never seen him act with this kind of bravery. Admiration was the only feeling towards Clarke in his head right now. Not to mention that he was good friends, possibly best friends, with an old war buddy, that led him to be more prone to trusting him. The computer wizard hadn’t betrayed that trust, yet, but he wasn’t so sure about putting him in a battle situation. He was so green that it was radiating off of him like nuclear material in the old cartoons.
“What happens,” Harvey wondered, “when we get in a jam in there?”
“You think we will?”
“We’re bound to.”
“I’ll have to rely on you guys.”
Harvey waved his index finger in the air. “Might not work that way. Can you even handle a gun?”
“I’ve fired handguns at shooting ranges.”
“You ever have to use it on someone?”
“No,” Clarke replied with his head down.
“I see.”
“Is it hard…to kill someone?”
“The first time you do it, yes. But, it does get easier, I guess. It’s never a fun thing to kill an enemy. You just have to know that you’re in the right, and that you’re fighting for what you know is right. After that, and you’ve done it so many times, it’s not so bad. You’ve got to take out anybody who stands in your way.”
“I’m not sure I could handle killing som
eone…even an enemy.”
Harvey leaned in close which took a hold of Clarke’s attention. “I need to know that you can handle this. If you even for a second think that you can’t, let me know, I’ll talk to Roy. Nobody will think…”
“No! I’m doing this.” Clarke cried. His breathing started to quicken. “I need to do it. No more sitting back, waiting. I’ve got a job to do and only I can do it. Nobody else can.”
“Can you handle it?”
Clarke hesitated, “Yes.”
“Okay, that’s all I need to know.”
Harvey knew that Clarke was just saying what he wanted to hear. His hope was that, even if he didn’t mean it fully, just saying the words would instill some much needed confidence in him. There would be no way to be sure until they were actually in the field, and that was what scared the hell out of Harvey. Would his life, and by extension, the lives of his unit be at risk bringing along a virgin whose cherry was about to be popped? He had already lost enough good men in this war and the thought of losing another didn’t sit well in his stomach. There was still time to…
“What are you pukes doing up so late?” Sanders demanded as he stormed into the lobby. Underneath his arms rested blue prints for the battle that had been drawn up earlier in the day.
“Roy, how are you, sir?” Clarke said.
“Don’t call me ‘Roy’.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“You know what?” Sanders cried as he slammed the blue prints onto a table behind them. “Don’t call me ‘sir’, either. Just don’t talk to me right now.”
Harvey stood. “There’s no need for that, Roy.”
“Don’t you start with me, you hear? I’ve got too many things on my mind right now.”
“Getting flip with us isn’t going to change anything.”
Sanders slammed a fist on the table. “This mission is too important. I need to look over these battle plans with a fine tooth comb to ensure that we are victorious. I also have you and that…hacker to worry about. Just give me some peace and quiet.”
Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) Page 25