by Schow, Ryan
“The last thing I want to do,” he added, “is go out into that freaking mob.”
He loved her like crazy, but he kept his assertions even-handed and contained so as not to unnecessarily spook her. Still, when he hung up the phone, he had the sick, sad feeling that he would never see her again.
Even worse, Rowan was afraid he would never see his child.
Chapter Four
Rowan McDaniel
Shrugging off his ever-increasing fears, he joined the others in the main office. Brian, Clair, Tommy, and Dhanishka were all there, but none of them were working. They were all standing at the window, enamored by the chaos below.
Tommy was the design and layout specialist for both magazines, making the tough decisions about titles, pictures, font, spacing, and more technical decisions about things like aspect ratios of the pictures. Dhanishka was Tommy’s assistant and on a work visa from India. Both of them were caught up on their work as far they could be while waiting on Clair, so Rowan really didn’t mind them taking a break to watch what was happening. Clair, however, was stopping things on her end. She saw Rowan eyeing her, then quickly went back to her desk. When Clair was back to work, Rowan turned his attention to Dhanishka. He couldn’t seem to reconcile his concerns surrounding her.
Last year, when he asked Tommy to get him an intern or hire on some cheap labor, Tommy had put out an international ad, which was what attracted Dhanishka in the first place. She was a Bangalore resident looking for work in America. Rowan filled out the application for her with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), got the approval, then informed Dhanishka that she was now eligible to fill out the required forms to obtain a work visa. Once the USCIS approved her application, Rowan paid to fly her to America and set her up with a downtown apartment they put in the corporation’s name. As complicated as this had been, it was still cheaper than hiring on a full time employee with benefits and everything.
“Aren’t there people still in there?” Dhanishka asked about the condominiums.
Rowan wondered, Did she miss the person who ran out of the building on fire?
Below, more people were fleeing the condo complex.
The Hayseed Rebellion, or whatever communist faction these psychos represented, saw the fleeing masses and cut them off near their front lobby. Rowan was suddenly glued to the glass like everyone else. The HR-type degenerates started pushing the people around. A few passing cars managed to move out of the way of the fiery tanker and the burning car next to it, and then they made a run for it. Moments later, one particular car took off, revealing a burning body in the street. The woman Rowan saw earlier was now a fiery husk now—this flaming thing that was once a person.
“Is that…?” Dhanishka asked.
“Don’t look,” Tommy said, standing in front of her.
Dhanishka started to hyperventilate which was not unexpected. She was not privy to any of the turmoil plaguing the nation when she first applied for her work visa. With only one international news outlet to spread the word for America, the international community seemed to think there were only peaceful protests going on. More than a few of these protests had gotten out of hand, but on the whole, the words that seemed to describe this craziness was largely peaceful, rather than intentionally harmful. Rowan had just shaken his head when he heard this. Repeat a lie over and over and soon it becomes everyone’s truth.
Well, not everyone…
When Dhanishka first arrived in Columbus, Rowan told her the rioting and looting were not isolated incidents, and that they were reporting on them as part of The Dissident Weekly. She reluctantly agreed to stay, but sadly—after a short reprieve—the violence continued to escalate, and fear swept the nation.
Dhanishka was scared, like the rest of America, but not just because of the widespread chaos. It was more than that. The ongoing persecution of investigative journalists, both under the 1917 Espionage Act and at the hands of the cancel-culture cocksuckers, was a real concern. If someone didn’t like what you said or wrote, they would post your home address in online hate forums. Even worse, they’d post your kids’ pictures, where you worked, your schedule, and other things like that for the most disgusting people in America to see and act upon. He’d explained to Dhanishka that this practice was called doxing, and it was every bit as insane as it sounded.
“What do you do to counter this?” she’d asked.
“Very few people have the courage to do what needs to be done these days,” Rowan had said, “which is find these sick offenders and assault them without mercy.”
Dhanishka was visibly taken aback by this rare divulgence.
“Unfortunately, physical violence ends badly for all parties,” he’d said. Deep down, he promised himself that if anyone ever doxed him or his family, he’d dig them an early grave.
“So what you’re saying,” Dhanishka had said months ago, “is that good, normal people are terrified to report the real news fairly?”
“They’re afraid, but only in public. That was the point of the alternative news. But then the cancel-culture mob and big tech banned them, de-personed the reporters, and memory-holed their entire existence. So now we have the underground media.”
“I think I understand,” she’d said.
“Dark news-reporting factions have sprung up on the internet on politically unregulated social media sites, Dhanishka, but we were one of the first publications, which is why our subscriptions are so hearty. There is a place for us there, a place for good people and loyal, patriotic Americans.”
“This sounds really dangerous,” she said.
“For me, it is,” he replied.
“But not us?”
“Not for you, not now. But if it gets bad, I’ll get you out of here and to safety as quickly as humanly possible. I need you to know that. I need you to trust that.”
She nodded, smiled, then said, “Okay, I trust you.”
The good news was, no one had outed them yet, so they continued to be the most read publication in the underground media. Their breaking stories topped everyone else’s stories, which the team constantly attributed to Rowan’s fearless pursuits.
But now, he and his team were trapped by the very creatures they were trying to warn others about. These circumstances alone precipitated a rather somber feeling among them, a sort of physical and mental hopelessness.
“We should have left already,” Tommy said.
“Are you afraid?” Brian asked.
“I am,” Dhanishka said. “The person down there burned to death, and they’re shoving others back into the buildings they just came from.”
Rowan couldn’t take his eyes off the scene.
These radicals, these fascist assholes, were not only putting peoples’ lives in danger, they were beating them back with bats and clubs.
“Where the hell are the police?” Clair asked, slamming a fist on the glass.
“Yeah, where are they?” Dhanishka asked.
Rowan said nothing because Clair knew better. She was just venting. Dhanishka, however, did not understand, even though Tommy had explained it to her before.
Rowan decided to address Dhanishka. “After Senator Eichmann presented the chief of police with compromising materials surrounding an affair he had with a female lieutenant last year, the chief has continued to enforce his city’s stand-down orders. This is why these guys are getting a free pass. Because your elected officials are scumbags who allowed others to have dirt on them.”
“So the senator is corrupt?” Dhanishka asked.
“Is that so hard to believe in this day and age?” Brian asked, although it was phrased more like a statement than a question.
“It’s one thing to know there’s government and police corruption,” Clair said, “but it’s another thing entirely to see it happening right before your eyes.”
Rowan felt that familiar anger returning. “Yet we all sit back and watch it happen,” he growled. “It’s disgusting and cowardly.”
They a
ll looked at him, especially Dhanishka. No one really knew what to say. He was right, but he was also speaking out of character. The real Rowan McDaniel, they were finding, was not a happy person. The face he put on for everyone else was that of a guy who kept his temper reined in and his tone neutral. His even-keel disposition was exactly what he needed to do his job and provide as much of a stress-free environment as he could. But if he couldn’t keep it together, they were about to see who he really was behind this mask.
Instead of standing there in a haze of their confusion, or perhaps their scrutiny, he returned to his office where he grabbed the duffle bag his uncle had sent him last year. Initially, Walker said to take it with him everywhere, even to the bathroom if he was worried about things going down. Walker had left him a note in the duffle bag saying as much. Until then, Rowan didn’t understand why taking it with him everywhere was so important. Now it had become clear. Today could end on a high note, but it could also end on a low note, or with him in a body bag. Walker told him that was the roll of the dice in times of civil upheaval and unrest.
“I knew you were going for that,” Brian said, popping his head into the office.
When he first showed Brian the duffle bag and told him who it was from, his business partner laughed and said, “Paranoid much?”
No one Rowan knew had a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar duffle bag that was both EMP proof and tactically sound. “My uncle was prepared,” he had said.
And so began the Uncle Walker talks…
His uncle had problems, for sure, but Walker took Rowan out shooting and hunting a lot when Rowan was a kid. With his father’s permission, Rowan learned the basics of fighting from Walker as well. But then the blow-up between Walker and his father occurred, and all that fun and familial bonding came to a sudden, grating halt.
Since that fated day, he had only heard from the man every so often. It was when he learned that his uncle was a mercenary for hire, or a paid contractor, that Rowan decided that, personally, he was too soft. He had always wanted to be stronger, faster, meaner than he was. He accredited this to his uncle’s influence, and he was thankful for it. When he turned seventeen, Rowan acted on his instincts, enrolling in Jiu-Jitsu courses with his parents’ blessings and support.
Now, in the profession he was in, all that training had come in handy. Twice, he’d been attacked on the job. Once by two paid goons in a parking lot, and once by three morons in the smelly bathroom of a run-down bar. He had taken a few licks, for sure, but he gave a hell of a lot worse than he took, something he wanted to tell Walker if he ever saw the man again.
“Tell me you brought your gun,” Brian said, closing the office door behind him.
“You know how Clair and Dhanishka feel about weapons.”
“Yeah, Clair said she wanted to shoot Tommy that one time, and Dhanishka is scared to hold one. That shit makes me crazy, you know? It’s not like a gun is a feral cat that attacks without cause or merit.”
Rowan started to laugh, remembering the day he’d asked the team how they felt about him bringing a weapon to work. The conversation hadn’t gone over the way he had hoped.
“My gun is in the car,” he said.
“Walker would be so disappointed,” Brian joked.
“One day, if he ever comes in here, I want to see you crack a Walker McDaniel joke,” Rowan said. “But you won’t. Which is why I’ll tell him you have lots of Walker McDaniel jokes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Just to hear the sound of your butthole puckering.”
Brian laughed, but there was more than enough truth to the statement. As far as Rowan’s uncle was concerned, Walker wasn’t exactly a prepper, but he was a Green Beret. Once, when Rowan asked what that meant, Walker said it meant that he was always focused on any number of things. In this case, with the duffle bag—which he later learned was a Mission Darkness X2 Faraday Duffle Bag—Walker wrote that he was introducing Rowan to tactical, operational, and strategic thinking.
Then, over the months, when Walker would have a bit too much to drink, he’d call Rowan and talk to him about some of the missions he ran. He once said, “The guys you have around you are your life, and you are theirs. You’re spot-on in intelligence gathering from what I can tell, but one day you should study small-unit leadership, which you can do if you form your own company and hire employees. But if you’re going to staff up, hire some guys with balls, and a couple of girls for cover.”
“For cover, right?” he asked with a wink and a knowing laugh.
“I’m serious, Rowan,” he had said. “You see what’s going on, don’t you?”
“I think?”
“Man, you don’t know,” he groused over the phone. He blew out a sigh, then said, “You need to study insurrections, specifically those that took place in the Ukraine, and those going on in the EU. And if you don’t know about Nazi Germany or how Hitler turned on the German people, you really need to know that, too. Also, study the Bolshevik Revolution.”
At the time, Rowan didn’t know what any of that meant, but he figured it out pretty quickly. The next time they spoke, Walker said, “Have you figured out what an insurgency is yet?”
“Yeah, I have.”
“It’s the same every time, right? The way countries are conquered?”
“There’s a definite pattern,” Rowan had said.
“What’s going on here in America is called unconventional warfare. Or better still, twenty-first-century warfare. No one’s firing any guns, or going around bombing cities. But the pattern fits. You’ll see a slow infiltration that will eventually boil to the surface. When the coup is finally shoved out into the open, when the insurgents mess up—and they will—they will bring about the country’s most dangerous times. And it’s in these times that a country either survives or is taken over.”
“So it would seem.”
“It’s time to build your team, Rowan. And keep your eyes peeled, because to understand something, you have to adequately study it. But to infiltrate something bigger, you have to make those inroads yourself, sometimes at the cost of your own soul.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, not sure where all of this was coming from.
“You’ve never infiltrated anything, so you don’t understand that you have to do bad things with bad people if you want in. That’s the only way you’ll ever get to the top of an organization, and only when you’re at the top will you understand how you can truly defeat them.”
“Yeah, that’s way above my pay grade.”
Walker laughed. “You’re alright, kid. But things are going to crack off sooner rather than later, and when they do, you’re going to be up to your tits in dog shit and sinking fast. So keep your gear nearby, and treat every second of every day like it’s all you have left before the war.”
Rowan tried to live that way, but he found he couldn’t maintain Walker’s levels of paranoia for very long. The acceptable compromise was to continue to build on the contents of the EMP-proof duffle bag his uncle bought him. And then he hired his team. He was busy training up Brian, both in the business and in life, but Rowan made a mistake in thinking Tommy could focus like Brian could. Ever since Dhanishka came on board, Tommy seemed starry-eyed for the girl and only halfway focused on his daily activities.
Looking at his bug-out duffle bag had him thinking of the team. He walked back into the main office and said, “Show of hands, who has their bug-out bags with them?”
Clair looked at him funny. “Here at work?”
“Here with you now,” he said.
“I kind of have one in my car?” Tommy said, like he wasn’t sure.
“What’s in it?” Rowan asked.
“A change of underwear, some water bottles, socks, and hiking boots. Plus a poncho and an emergency blanket.”
“That’s it?” he asked, shocked.
“We all just thought you were a bit paranoid,” Clair said.
“I am!” he barked. Then, calming down, he said, “Bu
t for good reason.”
To the last of them, they hung their heads in shame.
“Uncle Walker would be so disappointed,” Brian said, which made a few of them snicker under their breaths.
“Really, Brian?” Rowan asked, burning him with a glare.
“What have you added to yours lately?” Clair asked him. Was she being serious, or trying to prove that he hadn’t updated his gear either? Or was she merely diverting the attention off of them?
“Mostly the stuff from a few weeks ago,” he said.
He’d added a Pyle bullhorn that broadcast up to twelve-hundred feet away, two road flares, a four-pack of walkie-talkies with the requisite batteries, more emergency food, a new supply of DATRIX emergency water pouches, and an updated Emergency Med Kit.
The duffle bag wasn’t as full as it could be, but it was starting to get heavy, which meant it would slow him down if he had to run with it.
“How can you even lift that thing?” Dhanishka asked.
Her arms were super thin, like her legs and hips. She wasn’t anorexic, but she was about ten pounds away from Rowan starting to worry.
“Look at his arms,” Clair said.
Rowan was in shape, less out of vanity than potential necessity. He took a deep breath, felt the storm inside him pass.
“It’s going to be dark very soon,” Rowan said, “so we need to take a consensus, make sure we’re all on the same page here.”
“Are we dealing with Dr. Jekyll, or Mr. Hyde?” Clair asked.
He laughed at the clever joke, but then the lights flickered out, causing them to look at each other with concern.
“The computers and the printers are dead,” Dhanishka said. “It’s all dead.”
Chapter Five
Constanza Navarro
As Constanza lay on the dirty asphalt contemplating the idea of delivering Rose in the dark, she stared up at the homeless woman and suddenly longed for Dr. Green.