Midnight Squad: The Grim (54 page)

           
Mom put the kids to bed. It took two hours to get them all
to sleep. They didn’t want to until Niki came back. It took forever to convince
them that Danika was more than capable of protecting their big sister. We all
went back, sat in front of the television, and watched as Washington D.C.
became a war zone. It was horrible. I grabbed a notepad and jotted down
everything we saw on the television. The son was popping up over the horizon
when Dad finally turned it off. I scribbled the last few bits down and waited
for my Dad to shift into full Colonel
mode
. It never
took long. The Colonel finally stood up and paced in front of us. After passing
back and forth in front of us a few times, he finally came to a stop.

           
We were all waiting nervously for anything he had to say.
The Colonel opened his mouth and then let out a sigh, “Son, I know you were
hoping I might have some ideas. The only thing I can think is that it might be
a really good idea if you and your friends went into hiding.” It was like
getting hammered in the chest.

           
“What do you mean dad? We have to take them down.” I
stammered.

           
Mom cried, “You can’t go into that. You’ll be killed!”

           
“We won’t be killed.” I said it, but I didn’t believe it.

           
Dad sat back down, “I’ve never seen anything like that.
They have numbers. They have technology, manpower, and what do you have? You
have semi-trained soldiers with no military equipment. What could you possibly
do with that?”

 
Every eye locked onto me. I racked my brain.
They have numbers, they have supplies, and they even have equipment. What did
we have? I looked around and watched as everyone’s faces slowly sank. They were
losing hope. I stood up, “We have this!” I ripped my shirt open. Mom gasped as
her eyes focused on the large cross.

           
“Son, I’m not sure how a tattoo is going to help.” Dad
was trying not to sound condescending. I smiled, “This isn’t a tattoo dad.
Jesus put this on me himself.” Mom started sniffling. I think she believed her
baby boy had finally become a few tacos short of a combo platter. Penny backed
me up, “
It’s
true Mr. and Mrs. Peterson. I know how it
sounds, but that isn’t a tattoo at all. We all saw it glow earlier. There’s
more to that cross than meets the eye.” Mom and Dad slowly believed what we
were all telling them. Mom looked closer, “What are all those names?”

           
Alhambra laughed wickedly, “Those are all the people your
son killed. He’s practically a walking genocide.” Mom looked like she was going
to cry.
“So many names?”
She sounded far away. Mom
stood up and walked out of the room. I thought it best to let her be, but Penny
grabbed my arm. She dragged me until I was facing my mom. She’d been crying. I
hugged her and whispered how sorry I was. Mom hugged back, “A part of me is
shocked by what you’ve done, but another part of me is just glad that you’re
still alive. I knew you did dangerous things, but I never expected what you did
to be that dangerous. So when you say Jesus gave you that what do you mean?”

           
I brought her back to the living room. Danika and Niki
were back. I explained everything that happened with Jesus. After explaining
Mom said, “So Jesus told you to fight?” I nodded. Mom then stood up, “Well
then…I guess we better start getting ready for a fight.” Dad stared at her in
shock. Mom kissed Dad on the cheek and then said, “If the Lord wants our son to
fight then we need to support him. So what do we do now?”

           
Dad stared in disbelief, “Hugenia? Are you serious?”

           
Mom choked back a few tears and then said, “If the Lord
tells my son to fight, then he damn well better fight, and we fight with him.
It’s that simple.” Dad stared at her for a few moments then stood up, “Well
then, we have to make a plan. So let’s go over what we know.

           
I flipped open my notepad. “We know that Eisen’s primary
goal is that he wants to take over the country. He has an army of clones at his
disposal. From what we saw on the news there are three distinct types of
clones. There is the Scorpio model. It wears black fatigues with a scorpion
design on its chest. It’s packing a Gatling gun and a grenade launcher. It has
heavy armor around the chest and neck.
 
Then there is the Rhino model. It has heavy armor covering its body. It
looked as though it had a mounted mortar, and a bazooka. It has a rhino on its
chest and wears grey fatigues. Then there is the mosquito. It wears a dark
brown uniform, carries light body armor, and it looked as though it had two
fifty caliber sniper rifles mounted on its shoulders. The coloring and design
will make it easy to see what we’re fighting. Eisen also has a secondary goal of
killing Ally. If he kills Alhambra then Elizabeth can become his new Jinn mate.
So that’s all we have for now.”

           
Dad growled, “That’s not much. What we need is someone we
can press for information.” Penny hopped up and down and said, “Does anyone
have a computer?”

           
“I do.” Niki said. She went to her room and brought back
her notebook computer. A few minutes later Penny was tapping away on the keys.
Her fingers were a blur. Finally, after a few minutes she said, “Here we go.”

           
“What is it?” I asked.

           
“It’s the phone records and text messages of DD and
Elizabeth.” Dad took Mom, and they headed off to get some supplies from a
nearby Wal-Mart. Penny and the rest of us searched the phone records. “How did
you get these anyway?” I asked.

           
Penny smiled, “When you told us your suspicions I stole
Elizabeth, DD, and Gina’s phones. They have an application that lets you
monitor your kids’ phones. You can see all their texts, everyone they call, and
even the location of their calls. Then I just slipped the phones back without
them ever getting any wiser.” Penny was proud of her efforts, and frankly so
was I.

           
By the time Mom and Dad got back, we had pieced together
quite a lot. By the look of things, Elizabeth was in a secure science building
near the center of the city. DD was splitting her time between Washington, and
a hospital in Boston. Dad interrupted, “This woman…DD…she may be the weak link
you need. If you can get her, then you can use her to get intelligence on
everything else. How often is she in Boston?”

           
Penny scanned the records, “It looks like she’s there
three days out of the week. She’s there every Wednesday and then again every
Saturday and Sunday. Dad gave a determined smile, “That’s your chance. You get
her, and you have a real chance to accomplish your goals.”

           
I looked at Dad and said, “So, anything else? I mean any
other ideas?” Dad nodded, “They have all the high tech solutions. I remember
Vietnam. We had all the equipment, but they still beat us. The military will be
putting up a fight. You’ll go in like a guerrilla group and use the confusion
to go after General Eisen. The General has to fight off the power of the United
States military, and all you have to do is take him down and then it’s over.
You cut the head off the snake, and you win.”

           
Janine laughed, “You sound just like your son. He said
something pretty similar.” I felt my heart swell with pride. I think my dad did
too. He looked over at me and smiled, “Boy, I guess I did raise you right.” My
Dad was practically glowing with pride.

           
“So what did you get?” I asked nervously.

           
“I bought some stuff to make smoke bombs, equipment for
pipe bombs, and a few other dirty tricks. I also got some more ammo.” Dad said.
There was an evil grin plastered across his face. He looked like a thirteen
year old that was about to put a cherry bomb in a toilet.

           
“Ammo, we don’t really have any guns.” I said nervously.

           
Dad crooked his finger, and then led us back to his
bedroom. Then he opened up a gun safe. There were several hunting rifles, a few
pistols, a compound bow, and a few shotguns. Penny latched onto that bow and
arrows almost immediately, “I’ll go practice.” She was gone in a blur.

           
The weapons wouldn’t let us stand toe to toe with any of
the synthetics, but they’d give us something we could use for quick strikes and
sneak attacks. If we could minimize our confrontations we’d have a fighting
chance. The sun was up, and so were my sisters. I spent the morning catching up
with them. Mom and Dad took a nap, when they woke up it was our turn to sleep.

           
I woke up four hours later to the smell of bacon. I
stumbled out and sitting on a plate was a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich,
lightly toasted just as I liked it. I snatched it up and gobbled it quicker
than Pac-man ate those little white pellets. When I finished Mom had me take a
walk with her.

           
“Do you really think you can do it?’ She asked. I thought
about lying, but I realized that today might be the last day I have to see her.
“Honestly, I’m scared.” I felt a knot in my stomach, but I continued, “We’ve
got a general concept of what we need to do. It sounds almost impossible, and
the sad thing is that as bad as it sounds…it’s probably a lot worse.”

           
Mom listened nervously, “You can do it. The Lord doesn’t
give us burdens greater than we can handle. I still can’t believe that Jesus
came to you. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it. I mean it’s just so shocking.
What was he like?”

           
I told her everything I learned about heaven. We laughed
and hugged. When I finished she said, “I want you to be careful. You are the
only son I have.”

           
“Don’t worry, I’m tough. I’ll kick their asses and be
home by Christmas.” I laughed. Nevertheless, Mom’s eyes watered up and she
began crying.

           
“What is it?” I asked.

           
“You’re just like your father.” She sniffled.

           
“Oh, come on. I’m much more handsome than the Colonel.” I
joked.

           
“No, your real father, you sound just like he did. You
look almost exactly like him. You’re a little bigger, and you have my eyes, but
otherwise you are almost exactly like he was. Be careful, it took me years to
get over your father’s death. I’m not sure I could get over yours.” Mom said
through her tears.

           
I felt a little uncomfortable discussing my father, and
so I did my best to change the topic, “Mom? What did you say to Penny
yesterday?”

           
Mom smiled, her bright blue eyes twinkled like precious
gems. “I thanked her for giving me my son back.” I stared at her quizzically.
She hugged me and then said, “When I visited you in the mental hospital you
weren’t the boy I raised. You had a wild look in your eyes. It was like there
was some horrible joke out there and you were the only one that knew the punch
line. Every time I visited, you were more feral, angrier, and just scarier. The
last time I saw you I was afraid to get near you. When you escaped, I was
terrified. I kept expecting to have someone come to my door to tell me you were
dead. When you showed up, you weren‘t completely like my boy, but I caught
glimpses of the young man I raised. I’m pretty sure I have her to thank for
that.” Mom started sobbing.

           
I hugged her and said, “Penny is someone really special.
Our relationship isn’t exactly normal, but she’s definitely the one.” Mom
hugged me again, “I’m so glad to hear that. Every man deserves a loving woman,
and I can tell she loves you. It’s written all over her face.”

           
Before we headed back I had to tell her, “Mom, Alhambra
is the one that put me in the mental hospital. She’s dangerous, but we didn’t
realize it until we began our trip. Janine and the others have been keeping an
eye on her, but I thought you should know. I don’t want to talk about what she
did, and I promise you don’t want to hear it.” Mom started storming back to the
cabin, and it took almost the entire walk to calm her down. I can see where I
get my temper from.

           
“Mom, we have to play nice with her. We don’t know what
she’s up to yet, and Janine says that the Jinn still has her magic. That means
we’re all in danger, but we have to play it safe.” Mom turned to me and hugged
me until it was hard to breathe. “Be careful. I hate saying this, but you need
to go. If you’re going to keep her with you then you have to get her away from
your sisters. Who knows what she might try to do.” I grimaced. Ally had already
tried to do something with Melanie.

           
Dad helped us load up the van. We had a long drive ahead
of us. We needed to go to Boston, and maybe we’d have DD before the week was
out. Once everything was loaded, Dad started going over how to mix the
ingredients to make smoke bombs. Then he gave us instructions on how to build pipe
bombs. I already knew what to do, but Dad was a lot better at teaching.
Finally, he showed us how to use a twelve-gauge shell to make an antipersonnel
mine. It used double-sided tape so that we could attach it to a door. Then when
the door opened, it would fire as soon as the mine hit the wall.