Rise: Luthecker, #2

by Keith Domingue

  Luthecker: Rise

  Keith Domingue

  Third Street Press

  Contents

  Also by Keith Domingue

  PROLOGUE: Eval

  I. HARMONICS

  1. Lucas Parks

  2. Tibet

  3. Los Angeles

  4. Dollar

  5. Waiting

  6. Potala Palace

  7. Blue Curtain

  8. Empire

  9. Home

  10. Rooker

  11. Howe

  12. Drugal

  13. Confrontation

  II. KARMA

  14. Board of Directors

  15. Offer

  16. Say You Understand

  17. The 417

  18. Trans Dniester Moldovan Republic

  19. Underground

  20. Empty Vessel

  21. Captivity

  22. Two-Good

  23. Decision

  24. Altered Path

  III. CHOICES

  25. Corporatists

  26. Escape

  27. Arrival

  28. Kirby

  29. Propositions

  30. Reunion

  31. Weapons of War

  32. Deep Web, Dark Web

  33. Prep

  34. Launch

  35. Ne Cede Malis

  36. Home

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Luthecker: Revolution

  Also by Keith Domingue

  Also by Keith Domingue

  Luthecker

  Luthecker: Rise

  Luthecker: Revolution

  * * *

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  Luthecker: Rise

  © 2014 Keith Domingue

  All Rights Reserved

  * * *

  Third Street Press

  First Edition, 2017

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations common in a book review.

  Cover images courtesy of:

  photo 168, Olga Altunina & Dreamstime.com

  * * *

  Cover by Joleene Naylor

  ISBN-13: 978-1-948142-12-0 (ebook)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-948142-01-4 (paperback)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-948142-10-6 (hardcover)

  For my nephews Brent and Trevor. You are the future.

  PROLOGUE: Eval

  Richard Brown woke with a single gasp for air.

  Disoriented, he sat up and tried to get his bearings. He was far from the comfort of any of his homes, and it took him a minute to adjust to his surroundings. Once he realized where he was, he took a deep breath to calm himself and tried to rub the hallucinatory images of that night’s vivid dreams from his mind’s eye.

  Gripped by severe insomnia, Brown needed heavier and heavier doses of the non-benzodiazepine hypnotic Ambien to help him achieve unconsciousness every evening, and he wondered if his nightmares were a side effect of the drug or caused by events that had transpired at the Coalition Properties West Building in Los Angeles six months earlier. In the end, he decided, it didn’t matter.

  He finally pushed his covers aside, put his bare feet on the cold concrete floor, and slowly stood up. He winced at how stiff his feet and hips were. The pain in his joints and bones had grown progressively worse over the last two years, the doctors informing him it was the beginnings of arthritis. Always in top physical condition, he had shrugged off the diagnosis, but at fifty-seven years of age, the former military commander’s body had been through a great deal, and now he was paying for it. He took several steps before the muscles in his feet and hips relaxed enough so that he could walk upright.

  He glanced at the wall clock. It read 6:15am. He had less than three hours before he would have—what he had been told would be—his final psych evaluation. He carefully padded his way to the shower and turned the water on.

  It was all political cover, Brown knew, regarding the evals. Five people had been killed that day in the Coalition Properties West Building, and as CEO of the Coalition, as it was known to insiders, Brown was technically responsible for it all. He was a very wealthy man, however, and an important part of the military industrial complex; the combination of which supplied him with both a formidable legal team and plenty of cover via the cloak of national security.

  Still, the Justice Department had wanted something to show for its investigation into the incident. The public exposure of that chaotic day that had ended in five deaths demanded it, they had said. There was simply no way Brown could walk free without causing uproar and suspicion within the community. So Brown was found guilty of negligence, diagnosed with posttraumatic stress syndrome, and sentenced to six months of psychiatric evaluation in a minimum-security facility. Legally speaking, Richard Brown was a prisoner.

  His cell was quite comfortable, essentially a studio apartment, with not only a private shower but also a king-sized bed, comfortable couch, television with access to several hundred channels, as well as Internet. It even had a small kitchenette.

  Interestingly enough, the facility that held him was owned by Coalition Corrections Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Coalition Properties, the company that Brown had been forced to resign from as CEO after the incident in Los Angeles. He was still a major stockholder and board member of the company, however, and as such, he was being treated relatively well.

  It was Brown who had spearheaded the acquisition of prison complexes from the government. With the country deeply in debt, it was an expense political leaders of both parties were eager to get off the books. Brown saw early on that the privatization of the prison system was a growth business as well as a source of cheap, unregulated labor. Brown knew that over time manufacturing could be brought back to the country at a competitive price via the prison system. Therefore, it was something that he wanted to control. And at over six hundred facilities and counting, Coalition Corrections Corporation would soon be the largest penitentiary chain in the country. The irony was not lost on Brown that he was now an inmate of C.C.C. He also knew that he would not be held here much longer.

  Brown finished his breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, and he drank the last of his coffee. He set the dishes in the sink and wiped his hands with a small towel before setting the cloth down on the counter. It was 8:55am, and the guards would be here for him any moment now. He picked up the television remote and turned CNN off the flat screen before straightening his jacket and tie and getting himself mentally ready. As if on cue, he heard the sound of keys being inserted into a lock, and he looked to the large metal door that reminded him he was a prisoner, just as it opened.

  “I am easily wakened by noise.”

  “False.”

  “I suffer nightmares nearly every night.”

  “False.”

  The bald-headed, terse-looking sexagenarian wearing reading glasses and a white lab coat took his eyes off his questionnaire and looked at Brown.

  Brown smiled at him in response. Any sleep disturbances I suffer from are because of the drugs you have me on. Go ahead. Check the polygraph.”

  The bald-headed man examined Brown a moment longer before he looked over at the needles of the lie detector machinery and scribbled something into his notebook.

  Brown took a quick look around the observation room. Three concrete walls were blank, but the one across from him was dominated by one-way observatio
n glass. He had a strong idea of who sat on the other side of it observing the petty theatrics currently taking place. I’ll be speaking with the observer soon enough, he thought, and there won’t be much to discuss. His eyes moved to the sensor wires that connected him to the polygraph, and then on to the steel table between himself and the bald-headed man in charge of his final psych eval. The thought of slitting the bald-headed man’s throat briefly entered Brown’s mind.

  “A minister can cure disease by praying and putting his hand on your head,” the bald-headed man continued.

  “False. Doctor, can we cut to the chase, please?”

  “Just answer the questions, true or false.”

  “They are the same ones. Every time. I know how this works. I had final approval over the questionnaire. You know who I am.”

  “Would you kill your worst enemy if you knew you could get away with it?”

  “I fought in Iraq.”

  “Do you feel you will be an historically notable person?”

  “I am an historically notable person.” The needles on the polygraph briefly maxing out betrayed Brown’s ice-calm delivery. “Why don’t you get to what you really want to know?”

  The doctor carefully put his notebook aside and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth.“Do you think it’s possible to predict what will happen in the future?”

  “False.”

  “Do you think Alex Luthecker can predict what will happen in the future?”

  Brown examined the man who sat across from him, fighting hard to keep his anger in check. When Brown was free of this annoyance, and back at the helm of Coalition Properties, this man would disappear. “I think Alex Luthecker is a messed up homeless kid who lives from hand to mouth,” he finally responded. “He’s intelligent, but not smart. He poses no threat, and I have no intentions of trying to kill, capture, or contact him in any way upon my release. Now are we done here?”

  The bald-headed man looked to the polygraph. The needles held steady. He then carefully closed his notebook and looked at Brown. There was no detectable emotion on his face. “Yes. We are. The guard will escort you back to your cell.”

  Brown sat on the edge of the couch in his cell and opened the large envelope that held his belongings: His Cartier watch, his wallet, his keys, and his cell phone. He slipped on his watch and pocketed the keys and wallet before checking to make sure his cell phone was fully charged. As soon as he was out, his first call would be to a certain senator who owed him more than a few favors. There were many favors owed to Brown by several of the powerful and elite, and he had every intention of calling them all in.

  Brown’s release was scheduled for 11:30pm, seventeen minutes from now, and it would be done discreetly to avoid any press. The first order of business for Brown would be a brief vacation at his Aspen, Colorado home to wash his psyche from the foul stench of incarceration. He would have preferred his villa in Switzerland, but he was technically on parole, and therefore could not leave the country—at least for the moment. It was in Aspen that he would plan his return.

  He had every intention of getting back in the game. The conditions of his parole forbade direct employment by Coalition Properties, mostly to protect the reputation of the company. The conditions of his parole did not, however, prevent him from starting a consulting firm that could raise capital, lobby Washington, and in time act as an advisor to the Coalition, eventually controlling its fate, which was exactly what he planned to do. Brown would be at the head of the table once again. And when he was he would spare no expense hunting down and killing Alex Luthecker for what that arrogant young miscreant had done to him.

  The black town car with tinted windows pulled up to the curb just as Brown stepped through the gate and beyond the razor wire fence that surrounded the ominous multiple structures of the prison facility. Relief washed over Brown’s face as he approached the vehicle. Despite experiencing a minimum of hardship during his incarceration, it was still prison, and Brown felt the release of anxiety associated with regaining what is often taken for granted: one’s freedom.

  He quickly opened the rear passenger door of the car and climbed inside.

  “The airport please.”

  Brown had arranged for his Citation X to be waiting for him, along with a steak dinner and a 2007 bottle of Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon, a favorite of his. He looked forward to relaxing with a decent meal and a dry wine, something he had missed over the past six months.

  The car didn’t move.

  “I said the airport—” Brown stopped short when he saw the black suppressor on the end of the gun barrel. He felt the bullet burn his flesh as it struck his chest; a fraction of a second later, he heard the muffled whisper of the shot. His lungs seared, and he fought for air, clawing at the back of the driver’s seat.

  But the air never came.

  Then everything went black.

  Part I

  HARMONICS

  1

  Lucas Parks

  Lucas Parks leaned against the humidity dampened concrete wall of his 8x12 cell. His shirt was off, and he was trying his best to keep from sweating. Christ, it’s fucking hot, he thought to himself. The air conditioning was out again, with no word when it would return. He eyed the pressed T-shirt, his only clean one, which he had carefully laid out on his cot. The guards would be here for him any time now, and it was important to the forty-six-year-old, half-Irish, half-Cuban Parks that he appear unfazed by his environment, that the people who believed they held his fate in their hands literally did not see him sweat.

  Parks had been an inmate at Canon City Correctional Facility for less than a month, and the warden had already scheduled a conduct review. This came as no surprise. Other inmates, those who were affiliated with Parks’ organization, had warned him that this would happen. Parks knew the drill. As a transfer from San Quentin, Parks had a notorious reputation, and the warden was going to lay down the law.

  Canon City Correctional Facility located in the desert of Arizona, was part of a new class of privately run prisons, centers that worked closely with state and local governments to maximize incarceration rates in order to guarantee over ninety-percent occupancy to investors. Parks, not just street savvy but well read, paid attention to these details. He also knew his transfer was part of the ongoing inmate migration out of the overcrowded Federal penitentiary system to the one controlled by the private sector. California’s prison system alone was running at one hundred and seventy percent capacity, and the governor of that state had demanded that that number be reduced to one hundred and twenty percent to save taxpayer dollars and reduce overcrowding. Canon City Correctional, owned by the much larger Coalition Corrections, was more than happy to take the overflow, as was the local economy of the small Arizona town. With over two hundred and fifty employees, the facility was the community’s largest employer.

  At first, Parks was happy with the transfer. San Quentin was beyond dangerous, and even with his six-foot, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound muscular frame and the reputation he carried, Parks had had his share of violent confrontations. In prison, an inmate’s level of brutality provided his rank, and in the San Quentin general population, Parks quickly rose to General.

  Serving life without parole for a manslaughter conviction, Parks had been given up by one of his own. Eddie “Dollar” Monday was a mid-level exec within Parks’ organization and had been recruited by a rival. Dollar would have received both a high rank and compensation within the rival organization for testifying against Parks. The traitor had been well protected throughout the process and quickly disappeared after the trial. Parks suspected Dollar was nestled somewhere deep within the infrastructure of his competitor, and perhaps was no longer in the U.S. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. It was only a matter of time before Dollar was found and dealt with.

  Parks heard footsteps on concrete approaching and moved off the concrete wall toward his bunk. He dabbed sweat off his head and body with a bed sheet before putting on his clean T-shirt. He turn
ed toward the bars just as the guard reached his cell.

  Parks took one look at the person who sat across from him and knew immediately that the man was not part of Canon Corrections Facility.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Parks. My name is James Howe. I’m with the Department of Homeland Security. And I’m here to speak with you about your freedom,” the soft-featured man with the razor-sharp suit said to Parks.

  Parks said nothing in reply. Homeland Security could mean anything these days, and freedom was never free. Parks watched as the perfectly-groomed Howe opened a file on the steel table between the two men. Howe said nothing for several seconds as he scanned the contents of the file. He finally looked up at Parks.

  “Eddie “Dollar” Monday. Would you like to know where he is?”