Behind a stack of boxes marked “canned goods,” Enrique saw the outer edge of a child’s sneaker. Maria’s sneaker. She was hiding. Enrique had to think quickly on what to do next.
Remaining face down on the floor, he turned his head back in the other direction to see where the cartel soldier was.
The man was robbing an elderly gentleman less than five feet away. Enrique would be next. He looked to the door—the other soldier still held guard.
Enrique made a decision. He closed his eyes and prayed harder than he had ever prayed before for God to protect him from what he was about to do.
Save Maria.
The cartel soldier inched closer. He was less than three feet away when Enrique smelled the mixture of dirt and leather from his boots. He could see the scratches on the barrel of the rifle.
Enrique took a deep breath, and calm washed over him.
“You. Sit up.” The cartel soldier pointed the rifle directly at Enrique’s head.
Enrique slowly pushed himself from the floor and got to one knee.
The cartel soldier abruptly hit Enrique on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle.
The pain was like a flash of lightning, and it nearly knocked Enrique unconscious. But he did not fall.
Save Maria.
What happened next surprised everyone.
Out of the corner of his eye, Enrique saw a woman, Latina and muscular, with long hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail. She carried a two and half-foot long stick in each hand as she entered the room quick and silent.
Before anyone could react, she hit the cartel soldier guarding the door in rapid-fire succession with the sticks, breaking his gun barrel, arm, and jaw before it registered to anyone that she was in the room.
After the soldier slumped to the floor unconscious, the cartel soldier standing above Enrique began to turn toward the sound with his rifle raised.
That’s when Enrique saw a large muscular black man standing in the doorway, spinning a chain with small metal spheres at each end, whipping the orbs in a circular blur.
As the cartel soldier began to raise his rifle, the black man launched one end of the chain toward the remaining cartel soldier.
The metal ball flew across the room and struck like a cobra, hitting the stock of the rifle with such force that it shattered the weapon, hit the cartel soldier in the chest, and knocked him to the floor.
Maria watched as the strangers with the sticks and toys came into the room and took control. Their arrival here was unexpected, even by her. Maria was so focused on Enrique, so angry with all the blind and stupid people that she had not seen this happen in her visions.
But now that she did see these people, their movements mesmerized her. The precision, the detail, and the power they displayed were things she’d never seen before. All eyes in the room were on the strangers. Maria knew that if she was going to reach Enrique, she had to move now.
Enrique saw Maria bolt from her hiding spot. He leapt to his feet and raced in her direction to intercept.
But the downed cartel soldier rolled to his feet and got to her first.
“Stay back,” the soldier said as he scooped up Maria mid-stride.
The soldier then pulled a 9mm from a holster on his hip and held it to the young girl’s head.
Everyone froze. Maria started to kick and scream with rage.
The soldier squeezed her hard, and her movements slowed.
“Be quiet, Maria,” Enrique said. “It will be okay. I promise.” Enrique turned his attention to the soldier who held his sister. “Let her go. Let me take her place. And I will go peacefully.” He took a step toward the soldier.
“Stay back,” the soldier said as he pointed the gun at Enrique, then at the Latina and the black man, then back to Enrique.
He began backing his way toward the exit, Maria still locked in his arm.
“Please,” Enrique pleaded. The sixteen year old looked over the horrified faces of the other migrants.
Then he looked at the faces of the black man and the Latina. Their eyes were locked on the soldier.
Then another man entered the room and stood between the black man and the Latina. This man was white, with calm soft features offset by piercing eyes. He wore loose fitting jeans and a gray T-shirt,
“Alex…” the Latina said to the latest arrival. Then she pointed to the cartel soldier holding the little girl hostage.
“Stay back!” the cartel soldier screamed, this time pointing the gun at the man with the piercing eyes, who now stood between the black man and the Latina.
Enrique watched as the man named Alex stared at the cartel soldier. But stare wasn’t the right word. His eyes vibrated in a way that Enrique had never seen before, and it spooked him.
Enrique looked at the cartel soldier who held his sister and noticed that the gun shook in his hand.
“You’re not going to hurt her,” the man named Alex said to the cartel soldier.
Enrique saw that Alex’s words and odd moving eyes caused the cartel soldier to hesitate.
Alex then turned to Enrique. “She’ll be okay. We’ll take care of her. I promise,” he said, before he added, “I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve been here sooner. This is the only way things can happen now if you want her to live. There just isn’t enough time.”
Enrique nodded. It was as if the man had read his mind.
And then without thinking, Enrique went for the gun.
He caught the soldier’s arm and pushed the weapon away from Maria as all three tumbled to the floor.
The cartel soldier gripped the girl tightly as he fought for control of the gun.
Enrique held the gun arm with both his hands, head-butted the cartel soldier who let go of Maria, and put both hands on the gun.
Enrique watched his sister run across the room, and he lost sight of the gun. Then he heard a loud explosion next to his ear, and everything went silent.
Enrique‘s skin burned, then his body, as his heartbeat drowned out all other noise. Breathing suddenly became very difficult. He touched his hand to his chest and pulled back bloody fingers.
His eyes darted about, searching frantically for his little sister. He saw the muscular Latina, the one who had taken out the other cartel soldier, scoop up Maria, hold her tight, and sprint out of the room.
Save Maria.
Enrique let out one last breath of relief, before everything went black.
Yaw reached the cartel soldier less than two seconds after the gun went off. But he already knew that the teenager who had freed the young girl was dead.
As the cartel soldier began to raise the 9mm in Yaw’s direction, Yaw struck the man’s wrist with his Kali stick, hard, shattering both the wrist and forearm, then he rebounded the stick off the wrists and whipped it across the man’s jaw, shattering the bone and knocking out several teeth. The cartel soldier was unconscious before his head bounced off the stone floor.
Yaw then looked at the dead boy and turned the body over. Yaw hung his head in sorrow. The kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
Yaw slowly turned toward the unconscious cartel soldier. Yaw’s martial art training was never about the ability to defend himself or hurt someone. His size and strength all but guaranteed that capability against nearly anyone. Yaw’s training was about finding inner peace, finding a reason not to give into anger, and only resorting to violence when circumstances justified aggression. Circumstances like now.
Yaw stared at the cartel soldier. Anger he had not felt in a long time arose. As the cartel soldier regained consciousness and started to squirm in pain from his broken bones, Yaw gripped the Kali stick in his right hand, got to his feet, and marched in the direction of the waking man.
He raised the stick over his head, ready to strike down the man who had just shot a teenage boy in cold blood. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Yaw turned to see the hand belonged to Alex.
“Find Camilla,” Alex Luthecker told Yaw. “She has left with the young girl.”
Yaw took a quick glance about the room. It had emptied of migrants. Yaw looked at Alex, who was on the floor, whispering in the ear of the cartel soldier.
Yaw could tell by the look in the cartel soldier’s eyes that what Alex was sharing removed any false pretense, any illusion of what the man saw of himself, leaving only the truth—that he was a murderer of men, women, and children, and there would be no hiding from that fact…ever again.
Yaw knew the impact of Alex’s abilities on those who did evil was like no other. He knew that the weight of this man’s choices would be enough to destroy him. For the cartel soldier, Judgment Day had arrived.
Satisfied, Yaw headed for the exit in search of Camilla.
“I hate them. I want them all to die,” Maria screamed at Camilla as the two of them stood out in the open desert. The venom in Maria’s voice was palpable.
Yaw approached. “What’s your name?” Yaw asked Maria, his voice gentle, trying to both deflect the young girl’s anger and sooth it.
“Her name is Maria,” Camilla answered as she tried to approach the ten year old. Maria stepped back to keep her distance.
Yaw and Camilla looked at one another. They shared a young daughter, Kylie, and the plight of this girl struck close to home for them both.
“Who’s this guy?” Yaw asked Maria about the stuffed tiger she held tightly in her arms.
“Nala,” Maria replied, before squeezing him tighter.
The sound of a train horn signaling the next Beast’s arrival got Yaw’s attention. It was then that he noticed the migrants walking toward the station, a resigned walk; all were preparing to board the back of the next Beast and take their chances again, as if nothing had happened.
Alex approached Yaw and Camilla. He locked eyes with Maria, before he stooped low, so he was face to face with the ten year old. The little girl held his gaze.
“It’s nothing but blackness everywhere, for everyone,” Maria blurted out to Alex. The rage was palpable in her voice, and her choice of words disturbed everyone.
Alex studied Maria for several seconds before speaking. “That is not true. There is always hope. Your brother died saving your life. He did so because he loved you and had hope for you,” Alex explained. His tone was gentle yet direct.
He touched Maria’s cheek and she recoiled.
Alex stood up. “Don’t make his sacrifice be in vain. I know this is hard. But there is no time to mourn now. We must go.”
“I hate them.”
“And that will blind you. Make you just like the people who frustrate you. Is that what you want?”
Maria didn’t answer. She was surprised that this stranger knew about the stupid blind people. With her stuffed tiger still locked in her arms, she turned away.
“Come with us.”
Maria looked back at the strange man with the piercing eyes. She had no visions about him, no matter how hard she tried to see them. This was something she’d never experienced before. The only thing her instincts told her was that he was not one of the blind and stupid people. This was another first for her because up until now, everyone Maria met had been blind and stupid.
She kept her eyes on Alex for several seconds before she slowly held out her hand. She was young, but she could sense that this man was different from the others. She sensed that his words were not hiding other words with different meanings. And Maria also knew that she had nowhere left to go.
Camilla and Yaw looked at one another in reaction to the strange conversation between Alex and this ten-year-old girl.
“She comes with us. We take her to Safe Block,” Alex declared, as if reading their minds.
“I didn’t think we did that,” Yaw cautioned. “I didn’t think we brought anyone across the border.”
“What if she has family?” Camilla added.
“We are her family now,” Alex said with certainty as he and Maria continued to study one another. “Nikki has arranged a computer black out at the border to help us get across. But we have to hurry,” he continued.
“It’s going to be okay,” Alex said to Maria.
“They will be back soon. And then you can kill them all,” Maria replied.
“We will be killing no one,” Alex answered, his eyes still locked on Maria’s and hers on his. Alex held the gaze for several seconds before turning to the others. “We have to go,” Alex said, before taking Maria’s hand and guiding them away.
3
Choice
Alex Luthecker collapsed onto his bed, exhausted. He looked over at Nikki lying beside him; she was already fast asleep. He wished he could follow her into deep slumber, but he knew it would never happen.
Despite the level of fatigue created by both recent travel and events, sleep would prove to be difficult for him. Alex rarely slept well even under the best of circumstances, and with all that had happened in Mexico and the events leading up to the confrontation with the Calderon Cartel hijackers, he knew there would be no rest for him tonight.
I was too late, was the only thing running through his mind as he turned away from the dozing Nikki and stared at the ceiling. Alex and Nikki’s arrival in Mexico to meet with Yaw, Chris, and Camilla had been delayed.
Their flight from India through Europe with alternate IDs had gone smoothly enough, but when they arrived in Mexico, their passports had been briefly held. Both Nikki and Alex were being tracked by Coalition surveillance, and their facial profiles were in the system, but Nikki’s software algorithm PHOEBE had always been one step ahead of electronic surveillance, intercepting recognition or anomaly with their identities and negating it before it reached Coalition servers. The delay in Mexico had been caused by something else entirely, and Alex had read it immediately—there was no electronic intercept or Coalition Properties screening attempt; it was the matter of a simple bribe.
Instead of manipulating the situation and costing more time, Alex and Nikki simply paid the rogue customs official off and were on their way. The delay at the airport was only twenty minutes, but that caused them to miss their bus, which delayed them further, causing their arrival at the train stop to happen after the cartel soldiers had kidnapped the migrants, forcing Yaw, Camilla, and Chris to intervene without he and Nikki.
And it was because of this that Alex was late to the mission hall where a sixteen-year-old boy had been killed, along with a handful of others. If he had arrived sooner, he might have been able to stop it from happening.
The death of Enrique upset Alex a great deal, but what caused Alex even greater concern was the boy’s sister, a ten-year-old girl named Maria—and the fact that he could not make sense of the patterns that formed her destiny.
Her choices and mannerisms were chaotic and massive in number, as though her behavior had yet to anchor to a belief structure. It was as if Maria’s ability to choose was free of influence, a wide-open and pure psychological configuration—more like an infant than a ten-year old girl. No doubt, that would change now, with the murder of her brother. It was clear that the young girl’s thoughts were currently clouded by rage.
But it was when Maria spoke that Alex realized there was more at play here. Maria’s way of perceiving events was highly detailed and well organized, and not just beyond the ability of a ten year old, but beyond the ability of a normal adult. In many ways, it reminded Alex of how he himself had analyzed events in his own youth.
He sensed that Maria was gifted, but his inability to make sense of the chaos that surrounded her made it impossible for him to perceive exactly how gifted. And to make matters more difficult, Maria had refused to speak with anyone after they left Mexico.
Alex could sense that Maria trusted her instincts more than she trusted people, and it was Maria’s instincts and situational awareness that was behind her choice to come to America with Alex and the family, not an inherent trust of Yaw, Camilla, or himself. Alex understood that they would have to earn her trust before she would open up to the family. Maria did remind Alex of himself at that age, bu
t there were distinct differences.
When Alex was Maria’s age, he was awkward, and he lived in reactive isolation from others. He felt guilty about being different. There was no guilt in Maria’s reaction to the world, only unbridled anger. Alex may not be able to read the young girl’s destiny, but he knew one thing for sure—he had to help Maria manage her anger; otherwise, it was inevitable that she would lash out at the world. And in order to help her, he had to find out exactly how gifted the young girl was. And in order to do that, he had to get her to open up to him.
Since Alex couldn’t read Maria, he had to find other ways to get her to communicate. She was now part of the family, and as head of the family, Alex would see to it that Maria had everything she needed. Normally, Alex would read the patterns of a stranger’s fate and help them see the truth about the cause and effect of their choices. But that was impossible with Maria, at least for the time being. This left Alex without a plan or approach.
And not having any parenting skills or experience with children, Alex Luthecker simply did not know how to help a justifiably angry ten-year-old girl, a girl who refused to speak and whose patterns of behavior he couldn’t make sense of.
But at the moment there was a more pressing concern for Alex, something that had been troubling him long before his encounter with Maria. His insight, his ability to read patterns in others, was fading. Simply put he was forgetting things, the intricate details that allowed him to distinguish complex patterns over longer timelines, the patterns that allowed him to assess accurately direction and destiny.
Things began to change with Alex’s perception shortly after Winn Germaine’s funeral in Los Angeles six months ago, but he had told no one at the time. Not even Nikki.
It had started with the simple and mundane—dates and times of events he had committed to. Not a source of alarm for the average individual but quite disturbing for someone with Alex’s senses. Then the fading of details bled over and marred his ability to read the origin behind historical objects and places.
Revolution: Luthecker, #3 Page 4