33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  “Okay,” Pat started, watching him closely, “What exactly is the virus itself? Do you know?”

  “Yes. It’s the flu. Simple, yet deadly to hundreds of thousands at the turn of the twentieth century. The pandemic swept the globe and killed indiscriminately. This one will be much more discriminant.”

  “The flu? These days, some ibuprofen and cough syrup takes care of it,” Javi reasoned. “Things are a lot different now than in 1900.”

  “Yes, sure, you’re right, but this flu, it’s not a simple fever and cough kind of thing that those drugs can easily help. This one is much stronger. It’s engineered, Javier. There is no cure except one, and only one thing can stop it before it starts, and that is the vaccine.”

  Ian’s head was spinning again, and he promised himself that when all of it was over, he’d never let anything spin his brain. “Father, what can we do?”

  Ignoring him for the moment, Ian Junior asked Javi, “How close are your associates to recruiting the army to our side of things?”

  “Not close at all, yet. We’ve only found a few so far. There are three thousand of the fuckers. It’ll take more than a few days.”

  “I’ll get you all of their locations when I visit the bunker tonight.”

  “Why are you going there, Father? It’s so dangerous for you.”

  “Son, to take the vial back, or one that looks just like it, anyway. I’ll get into the computer there to find the locations of the soldiers, then a few other things. I’m also going to plan a meeting of the top Grail members. At the same time I’m meeting with them, Javi, you and the army will…eliminate the other Grails. All of them.”

  “Eliminate? All of them?”

  Ian was sick to his stomach. “Father…Dad, is it really necessary?”

  “Is there another way? Sure, we can try to reason with them, ask them to give up their wealth and power, but in the end, how many do you think will be willing to do that?”

  “We are! Why can’t we try to convince more?”

  Pat said to him, “Baby, even if they said they would, they could be lying. They’ve killed hundreds of thousands in the past with their manipulations, starting wars, pulling strings of world leaders. Maybe not this generation, but they are all ready to see most of the world’s population destroyed.”

  “It’s just, how does that make us any better than them?”

  His father looked him in the eye and said plainly, “It doesn’t, perhaps, Ian, but it will save many more by our playing god than if they did.”

  Pat tried to help. “Ian, these men don’t care about anyone or anything except money. They won’t turn away from that. If there are those we think we can get through to, then yes, we’ll try. If not…”

  “We’ll be murderers.”

  His father was getting visibly frustrated with him, but he didn’t care. Javi, however, his opinion did get to him. “Mijo, these people would see me dead, and Denny, here, and his girlfriend, and his family, and all the people you’ve ever met and liked. Pat’s family, too. All those good people gone, all so these few can retain power and wealth, using those they allowed to live to serve them and have no other or better life than that.”

  “It’s true, son. Those that they don’t kill, even the scientists and doctors, they’ll be nothing except servants. Slaves. They’ll have exactly what they need to survive, like food and shelter, but nothing more. They’ll be no vacations, no working the way up the ladder, no planning for their children’s college. There will be no college for anyone except for the rich. No schooling at all. The dumber they keep these people, the less likely they’ll be to revolt. Books will be burned, Ian. The only television they’ll see will be what the rich allow them. What we would allow them.”

  “I get it. I do. I can’t help how I feel, Dad, Javi.”

  “I feel it too,” Denny said. “But it’s true, they’d see me dead and everyone I love. We don’t fit into their utopia.”

  To imagine his friend gone from the world, his good, decent friend, and his family, who Ian loved, it hurt his heart to think of it. “I’m in. Of course, I am.”

  Pat encouraged Ian’s father to continue with his plan. “Pat, I’m coming up with this as I go, but once the top of the Grail is gone, the others will be easy to…you know.”

  After nodding, Pat asked him, “How do we take out the top members?”

  Ian watched his father’s eyes cut away as he said, “That will likely be the easiest part. Um, I think, once I get them all to the bunker, I simply have to keep them inside and activate the fail-safe.”

  Eyeing his father hard, Ian demanded, “What is that and why is this the first we’re hearing about it?”

  “Ian, I know you’re angry with me over a lot of this but stop snapping at me like I’m the fucking enemy.”

  Ian shrunk in on himself. The mistrust and hurt from all the years he thought his father hated him were there, on the edge of his mind at all times. “I’m sorry.”

  “The fail-safe is the last resort of the Grails, in case we are ever found out and we need to hide the proof of our very existence. It’s why most of our important books and papers are kept in one place, so it can easily be burned, and no one could prove a thing against us as a group.

  “In the bunker, when it was built, we placed things that were all over the world. Once that was done, we needed a way to bury it, if we were somehow found out, so we had installed a fail-safe option. There would be a fire sweeping through the caverns, and one last implosion. There would be no surviving it for anyone living, and all of our papers, books, weapons, everything, would be buried.”

  Javi chuckled dryly, “A fire and an implosion? Overkill much?”

  “When you have so much to hide, there’s never enough caution, Javier.”

  “True story,” he mumbled. “I’ll get my guys on the army. We’ll just have to work faster, I guess. Then, you make the date for the meeting. Get all the top guys in there. If we can coordinate it, get the tops while the army takes out the rest, there would be less chance some of them get away to start this whole thing back up again.”

  Ian remembered this scenario. “Like the fucking Godfather? That doesn’t make us any less criminal!”

  They all looked away, eyes cutting to one side or the other, and only Pat had the balls to address it. “There was a reason it was done like that, Ian. A show of force, to prove a point and to let the others that they may have missed know how serious they were, and how powerful. These men only understand things like this. Power, control, and once theirs is taken away, the ones left will be dangerous. That’s why it’s better not to leave any alive.”

  Again, Ian’s stomach felt like he’d been punched. It seemed too easy for the rest of them, so matter-of-fact, and he felt as if he was about to vomit. “I don’t…I know we have to, rationally, but the thought of it, the thought of being like them. They had good reason to do the culling too, in their minds. They had good reason to sacrifice one of the initiates, in their minds.”

  “Are you really comparing us, mijo?”

  He looked at Javi, who was staring hard at him, and he said, “No, of course not.”

  “Baby, this isn’t what any of us wants to do, believe me. I am a federal officer. My job is to protect the people of this country. That’s what I’m doing, Ian. I’m protecting all the innocent people that will be caught up in this evil culling. If you can possibly think of it like that, then maybe you’ll understand where we’re coming from.”

  Ian left the room, then left the house. No one tried to stop him, and he was glad of it. Driving to the city, he had time to think, but he didn’t. His mind was scrambled, and he couldn’t land on one thought.

  In the city, he drove by a park. Being the weekend, it was filled with kids, and tired mothers and nannies on benches, watching them play. Ian stopped the car, rolling down the window to better see them.

  Little kids, playing in the sandbox, older ones climbing on the jungle gyms. Smiling, laughing, parents watching, love an
d pride in their eyes. The sound of their play, the look of excited fear as they slid down the large slides, and their pride as they built the biggest sandcastles.

  The Grail would take that all away. They’d see these children dead or working their whole lives from the time they could walk. Those sick, they wouldn’t even be considered for help, and those weak would be left behind to die.

  The evil ways of the Grail couldn’t be measured. The kids in that park, they deserved a chance at a happy, healthy life. Whether their parents were rich and powerful or not, they deserved more than the Grail had planned for them.

  It wasn’t an easy thing, thinking of killing for the good of others, but like the Grail wanted the good of the few over the many, Ian had to realize his life had to be the opposite. The good of the many was far more important than the few who thought their lives were so much more important because they had money.

  When he got back home, he found them all in his suite. They were all drinking on the sofas and Javi was lying on the floor between the couches, the table that had been there pushed off toward the fireplace.

  “I’m in. Like, I’m in completely.”

  Pat gazed up at him, a little blurry eyed, and he grinned. “Yeah? Then you’re gonna need this,” he said as he held up a bottle of fifty-year-old scotch.

  Ian went over to him and grabbed the bottle, taking a long slug. The warmth, the taste of smoky oak and age drifted down his throat like feathers on a breeze. He sat next to Pat on the sofa, staring over at his father, who was smiling at him.

  It was a smile he’d wished for all his life, one of pride and love that he never knew his father felt for him. “Dad.”

  “Son. Welcome aboard.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Checking on him once more, Pat started to leave the room to meet Ian’s father in the study, like he’d been asked. He stopped cold at hearing the groan that generally meant Ian was awake. When he peeked back in, sure enough, Ian was feeling over the bed for him.

  “Baby, I’m heading downstairs, remember? Not supposed to be sleeping here until morning.”

  “It’s too late, don’t you think? Come back to bed.”

  Pat did, but only to bend over it and kiss him tenderly. “I’ll be back soon, baby. Get some more rest. I’m sure, if you’re like me, you’re a little hung over.”

  “Yeah, my face is melting, and my teeth are furry. I guess you’re right, but I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, baby. I’ll see you soon.”

  Ian rolled over and was snoring again in seconds. Pat left the suite and made his way down the back stairs, then to the study, watching to assure no one saw him. As soon as he was inside, Ian Junior was questioning him, “How is Ian this morning? Is he okay? Does he still think we should proceed?”

  “He’s not awake yet. And, from the way he was last night, I don’t think he’s changing his mind.”

  “Still, I think we should leave him out of what’s coming. He knows, that’s enough.”

  Confused, Pat wanted to scream at him, but kept himself calm. “I don’t understand.”

  Ian offered him a seat on the sofa, and he sat next to him. “Pat…I can’t have Ian knowing the rest of it.”

  “The rest? The rest of what?”

  “Pat…there’s something he can’t know. We barely got him to agree to taking out the Grail. If he knows how the fail-safe works, he’ll never allow it.”

  Pat stood and towered over the man, the man who looked so much like Ian, the love of his life. He wanted to throttle him, but perhaps that resemblance kept him from it. “Fucking stop with the cryptic shit, Mr. Andrews. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “I have to be inside the bunker when the fail-safe is activated. It’s instant. There will be no getting out once I set it off. It was made that way for a reason.”

  Pat stared at him, suddenly sorry for any ill will he’d felt toward the man. “That way, all or nothing?”

  “Exactly. If one dies, we all die. Plus, no one can bury the Grail secrets without losing their lives.”

  “There’s got to be a way, Mr. Andrews! Can’t we fashion some kind of remote? Javi’s got hackers, and maybe they can-”

  “Don’t you think they’ve thought of all that? There’s no getting around it, and no, I won’t count on someone else to do it. Who would I ask? It’s me, Pat, and I need you to keep Ian far from there. If he tried to save me, he could die. I can’t let him die. He’s…he the only good that’s ever come out of this family.”

  “Let me do it,” he offered, thinking on how happy Ian had been that he had a real father for the first time in his life. “I don’t want him to lose his father!”

  “I’m ready to do this, to possibly make up for past sins, Pat. And he loves you. I see it, and I want him to have the happiness with you, the life with you that I was denied with James. I’ll be with him. I miss him terribly. I’ll be bereft to leave my son, but that will be eased, knowing he has you in his life.”

  Pat wanted to argue, but he saw the man’s eyes, how they pled. He wanted to do good for the first time in his life, and Pat would be taking that away from him. “How? You know he’ll hate me for this, right? He’ll…he’ll hate me.”

  “You can lie and tell him you didn’t know.”

  It was true, he could lie, but knew he wouldn’t. “I’ll tell him, when it’s over. I agree, he’d try to stop you. I can’t lose him like that. If he hates me, he hates me. Better he be alive and hate me than be dead.”

  “I thought I’d send Ian on a trip after his graduation, with you, of course. It can all be done by the time he returns.”

  “After graduation? That’s two days. That’s not enough time for Javi to get all the soldiers on our side.”

  “Exactly. Ian won’t think so either, so he won’t be suspicious. We don’t need them all, you see. Not for that first part. Once the main Grail is down, the rest will be scrambling. The army will be easier to convince. It’s perfect.”

  “I’ll let Javi know the new plan. It won’t be easy for me to lie to Ian until then. With him, I’ve made trust the most important part of our relationship. I did that for a reason.”

  “Trust,” he said wistfully. “That’s something wonderful, Pat. I’m sorry to have to break my son’s in you. The only man I ever trusted is gone from my life. I truly would never wish that on anyone.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re asking of me.”

  Pat saw the pain in his eyes with what he was doing. It was a burden he’d die with, though, and Pat knew that.

  “I’ll regain his trust somehow, Mr. Andrews. You, though, you won’t have that opportunity. You’ll die lying to him, and that’s something he’ll have to live with. I hope you can be okay with that.”

  “I’ll have to be, won’t I?”

  The day of Ian’s graduation came, and Pat saw how nervous he was. It wasn’t his first, but he was nervous all the same. “Afraid you’ll trip on the way up for your degree?”

  “Isn’t that the normal fear?”

  He was dressing in a light blue shirt and grey slacks, and Pat lusted after him, but everything was tainted with the lie that was hovering over him. Ian sensed it, and had asked many times what was going on, but Pat had been successful at putting him off about it so far.

  Standing with pride as Ian walked to the stage to get his degree, Pat felt his entire body swell with it. Ian had worked hard, even though the hardest things in his life were happening. He loved his studies, learning the things that would help him fulfill his dream.

  Unlike so many, his goal wasn’t to get out of school and start making a ton of money. No. He wanted to make things that were old and falling down new again. Bringing back the beauty of things. Perhaps he wasn’t learning to be a doctor, but he was doing good things for the world. He wanted to give of himself and turn things to the better.

  Ian looked right up at him, waving that hand once and giving him a wink. He loved the man; the world couldn’t contain the
love he had for Ian. There was precious little time left, however. He would lose him, he knew that. He couldn’t blame him for it. If anyone lied to him like Pat was lying to Ian, he’d feel the same. The trust would be irrevocable broken. There’d be no coming back from that.

  He launched himself into Pat’s arms when the ceremony was over, uncaring over who may be watching, Grails or no. His father got nearly as grand a reception, and Pat saw Marianne’s face, the shock there. She watched the two of them, moving back from them as they hugged and Ian’s father cried with pride in his son. Pat watched as he took Mitchel’s hand and he was watching the father and son as well.

  From her, Ian got a perfunctory hug. If she would only realize that, if she’d give just a bit of herself, her son would be overjoyed.

  The trip was planned quickly, but it was extravagant. Ian’s father had set up a private plane to take them to an island resort in the Bahamas, complete with their own beach home, butler, maid and cook. On the beach in front of the home, there was a pagoda with a bed, the sides and back draped in sheer curtains that blew in the gentle breeze as they made love.

  The sounds they made were lost in the lapping of the waves kissing the shore, and Pat held him like he’d never feel him again. Because, he had to face it, he probably wouldn’t.

  Everything that was to happen was on Ian’s mind too, but he was better able to smile and enjoy the time there, ignorant to the fact he was going to lose his father. He held Pat’s hand as they walked along the beach in the evening, pointing out shells that he left alone, kissing him as the waves rushed over their bare feet. Nights were for making love and mornings to sip strong coffee as they watched the birds flying over the ocean, looking for their breakfast.