Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

Harvey and his team
already set up camp by the time Sanders showed up with his squad. The sun had
set hours ago and nothing remained in the sky but a vast darkness, the clouds
covered up the stars and half of the moon. When the motors of Sanders’s team’s
vehicles roared into the night air, the rebels in Harvey’s team all grabbed
their assault rifles, ready to strike if it happened to be USR troops. They all
approached the vehicle with their weapons shouldered and at the ready. Sanders
hopped out of the driver’s side of his tank like personnel delivery vehicle. It
had ten wheels, was almost stealth like in the blackness of night thanks to the
high tech paint job. When he was on his feet he gave a big salute and a bigger
smile. The flashlight from Harvey’s rifle projected off Sanders’s mug.

“Lower your weapons,
men.” Harvey said. He approached Sanders and the two saluted one another.

“So nice to finally
meet you.” Sanders said as his arm moved down and he held out his hand.

“Pleasure’s all mine,”
Harvey replied, embracing the handshake. “This is my team, one is away sleeping,
but here they are.”

“Nice to meet all of
you.” Sanders said.

Harvey’s unit all said
how it was a pleasure to meet him, too, all that bullshit. They then followed
Harvey’s order when he told them to go and help Sanders’s squad with setting up
their camp. With a laugh, he told them that it would be a great bonding
experience. As they moved out to set up camp, Harvey brought Sanders to his
tent. Inside, a pot of coffee was already brewed as evidenced by the steam
which rose from the top. Harvey poured himself out a cup then offered one to
Sanders. The old war veteran accepted the cup and downed it in one gulp. He
handed the empty cup to Harvey for another round.

“How can you do that?”
Harvey asked.

“What?” Sanders
demanded. “This is my normal routine.”

“You don’t burn your
throat at all?”

“Sure, it burns,”
Sanders replied. He snatched the replenished cup from Harvey’s hand. “But, you
can’t be a pussy and let that get in the way.”

Sanders took slow,
steady sips from his cup this time. As they sat there, Harvey tried to ignore
Sanders’s dick measuring contest. His friend would do that from time to time
when they spoke on the telecom. Harvey was certain that this old prick had some
kind of insecurity about something and so he always tried to win out in who was
the bigger man. For his part, Harvey was never an insecure man, nor was he a
cocky man. So, when the contests to man up came, he just ignored them.

“What’s been going on
your way?” Harvey asked.

“Same old, you know?
USR’s getting bigger and stronger every day.” Sanders answered.

“I hear that.”

“I hear that you have
a sick one in your unit.”

“Yes, we do. Her
name’s Krys, she got bit by that population control drug a few months back.
She’s still fighting, though, trying to get through it.”

“Then, she’s a good
soldier.” Sanders said, holding his steaming cup of coffee up in the air.

“She is that all
right. But, she doesn’t have much time left. She needs that cure and we gotta
hope that it works on her.”

“We’ll get it. She’ll
be the first guinea pig to see its effectiveness.”

Harvey let that
thought sink in for moment as he took another sip of his coffee. A guinea pig,
was that all that his comrade had become? She was human being and when she
wasn’t being doped up on meds she was reduced to the role of guinea pig. This
war was starting to get the better of him. The moral ambiguity of it all was
taking its toll on his soul.

“A guinea pig, huh?”
Harvey asked.

“Well, I don’t want to
call her a test subject.”

“What do you think
we’re going to do with this cure if it’s there and we get our hands on it?”

“You haven’t figured
that out, yet, have you?”

Harvey shrugged his
shoulders. “I’ve thought about it some, but nothing concrete or anything.”

“I’ve got some ideas.”
Sanders replied.

This response got
Harvey’s attention. Unlike himself, Sanders was a guy who could think ahead and
plan things out intricately. For Harvey, he was more of a visionary type of
leader. He saw the big picture, but his mind didn’t wrap around how to get
there. Sanders, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He could take the
big picture and create steps to get there.

Harvey listened to
Sanders ramble on about his idea for dispersing the cure without detection,
while also making sure that the victims they saved knew that they were, in
fact, saved by the resistance. Sanders said that they would have to hack into
hospital systems in each of the major cities to find out which women were
infected, get their personal information, and then secretly give them the cure.
Most of the women infected were already discharged from the hospital and sent
to their homes to die a slow death. The ones in the hospital…they wouldn’t be
so lucky.

“So, if they are in
the hospital’s care, we just let them die?” Harvey demanded.

“No,
we
didn’t
give them this drug, they did. They are the ones who will answer for their
deaths in the next life, not us. It’s, in a sick way, a good thing that we’ve
got a woman infected with us.”

“How is that a good
thing?”

“C’mon, bub, I told
you already. We can see with our own eyes if this cure even works.”

“That poor woman is
dying, and we are sitting in this tent, thanking the heavens that we’ve got
someone infected? That
is
sick.”

“Don’t lose sight of
the bigger picture,” Sanders warned with a pointed index finger. “She’s just
one person. As difficult as it is to say, she’s insignificant,
we
are
insignificant, as individuals, in this war. It’s us as a collective, and what
we do as a collective, which matters. Don’t get caught up in just one person.”

“She’s a human being,
Roy. We can’t lose sight of humanity, either.”

“You sound like you’ve
gotten soft in your old age.”

“Soft?”

“Yeah, that’s right,
soft. Weak.”

Harvey fought back the
urge to slug Sanders in the jaw for saying such a thing. Nobody ever accused him
of being weak in his entire adult life. He fought the feeling and reasoned that
this was just another one of his arguments to overcompensate. Harvey took a sip
of his coffee and tried to cool himself off.

“I think you’ve seen
too many battles. You’ve gotten desensitized to all this.” Harvey replied.

“Desensitized, huh?
I’ve always been a soldier. I learned a long time ago that I’m only as good as
the results I can bring to the battlefield. None of this bullshit is about
saving
one
life. I’m interested in saving everyone.”

“And, just don’t look
at our comrades as people, right? It sounds like
you’re
losing sight of
the bigger picture.”

“Well, we’ll see about
that.” Sanders replied. He rubbed at the back of his neck and let out a yawn.
“What did you think of my plan, anyway?”

“It’s tactically
sound. It could work.” Harvey replied, letting out his own yawn.

Sanders let out a wry
smile. “Of course it’s tactically sound and will work. I came up with it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get
too cocky, old man.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Harvey yawned again.
“I think it’s time us two old geezers get to bed. We’ve got a long day of
driving tomorrow.”

“The only geezer I see
in here is you.”

“That right?”

“Yeah,” Sanders said.
He stood and, as he was stretching, he took the time to flex his biceps. “I’m
still in my prime.”

Reed looked over his
shoulders one at a time before he inserted his key into the front door. His two
bedroom apartment, which fit his family of five, was in the basement level of a
tall building which posed as an apartment complex. Most of the units were
ripped up pieces of shit that had only a toilet and a shower. It was in this
complex, Reed remembered, that the resistance got into a fire fight with USR
Agents after the government implicated some poor bastard. He, followed by his
wife and kid, were gunned down by the Agents. The government, of course, went
on a tirade about how it was the resistance’s fault. Reed knew better.  Despite
all the long hours Reed put in with the USR, he still only managed to afford
this place. But, he couldn’t bring himself to complain about it.

Per the usual, it took
several jiggles of the key to get the damn lock to unstick. Once the lock
finally cooperated, it took another shoulder shove to get the door opened. It
was a workout just to get inside his apartment. He was finally inside when he
took another deep breath then made sure his door was locked. The tough to open
door did serve a good purpose, if the USR or some gang banger tried to break
in, he’d have enough time to get to the kitchen and behind the stove. He walked
over there, reached behind it, and then took hold of his AK-47. He inspected
it, making sure it had a full mag, then made sure the safety was on. He placed
it back behind the stove then went for the bedroom.

The sound of footsteps
caught him off guard for a moment. He quickly turned and saw that it was his
son, Damian, who snuck up on him. After a brief sigh of relief, Reed walked
over to his eight year old son. He got down to one knee to get to eye level
with him. Damian was growing up so fast. With his job not only costing him long
hours, but also his card games after work, it seemed that he was only home to
sleep.

“Hey, Dad.” Damian
sound as he rubbed his eyes.

“Hey, buddy, why
aren’t you bed?” Reed asked.

“I heard you walk in.
I missed you today. I thought I could spend some time with you.”

Reed’s heart sank.
“It’s late, and a school night…we’ll hang out tomorrow.”

“You promise?”

“Sure thing.”

Reed walked Damian
over to the sink. He reached up for a glass and filled it with water. After the
boy downed the water in one large gulp, Reed led him to the bedroom. Inside,
Damian’s two sisters were fast asleep, one on each of the bunk beds. Damian’s
sleeping spot was an old air mattress situated in the center of the room. Reed
watched his boy get into it and then get snuggled up in the covers. Damian fell
right to sleep.

He shut the door as
quietly as he could and then went for the master bedroom. As he opened the
door, the low squeals from the hinges forced Belle from her sleep. Reed
undressed then got into bed with his wife. Belle wrapped her arms around her
husband and pulled him in close. Reed thanked the heavens every day and night
that she had not been infected. He figured that there had to be, by some
miracle, women who would be resistant to it.

“So glad you’re safe
tonight,” Belle said. The tiredness in her voice was obvious by her low
speaking tone.

“Of course, I always
am.” Reed replied. His lips gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.

“How was it tonight?”

“We can’t get anything
done. Everyone keeps accusing me of cheating.”

Communicating in code
followed Reed home, as well. Even though the desire grew within to tell her
what exactly he was up to, as it was every night, he held back. The risk of her
knowing something was too great if the USR was to bring her in for questioning.
That thought just brought nightmares every night for Reed. Even if she didn’t
know anything, she would still be tortured, likely killed. All he could do was
hope and pray that that day would never come. He had already put her in a
position to make that outcome a possibility. There would be no ounce of
forgiveness for himself if it actually happened.

“You never did play
fair.” Belle replied with a slight chuckle.

“Hey, now don’t you
start.”

Reed wrapped his arms
around her and held her tight. He gave her another kiss on the cheek. The way
her cheeks felt against his lips gave away that she was smiling. He would never
understand how she could be so happy with him gone all the time.

“I missed you today.”
she said.

“I missed you, too.”

“When are you going to
stop playing cards and be around the house more? It’s bad enough you work all
those hours in the factory.”

“I know,” Reed
replied, breathing in deep. “I’ve told you that I’m doing this for you.”

“Are you gambling or
something?”

“We’ve been over this.
I can’t tell you what I’m doing. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.
It’s for you and the kids.”

“You know that I trust
you. Just…please hurry up and finish what it is you are doing.”

“We’re getting
closer.”

Kaspar sat alone in
the woods on a fold out chair. He felt an intense craving for a cigarette, but
he promised Krys that he would quit. The months of not smoking went by okay,
for the most part, but it was on nights like these when the cravings would
attack his brain to the point where he almost couldn’t focus on anything other
than smoking.

With so many things
running through his mind at the moment, the mere thought of sleep was rendered
impossible. He grabbed a stick and poked around at the small fire he had built
for himself. Unlike their last location, here it was chilly when the sun went
down. He pulled his jacket across his body tighter to try and conserve his body
heat.

His mind, once more,
went away from the chill and back to Krys. She seemed to be doing better
tonight than she had been feeling lately. Sleep caught her as soon as she laid
her head down on the pillow.

He started to question
whether or not they would be successful on this mission. They had been
relatively successful on all the others that they had undertaken since joining
up with Harvey. Still, there had been a lot of screw ups along the way, and
another man died because of such a mistake. There was also this feeling of
doubt that there was a cure in that building. He tried to reason with his own
mind that it was just a lack of confidence on his part. Kaspar couldn’t really
think of the last time that something he wanted came to fruition.

Off in the distance,
he heard the soft sound of branches cracking under someone’s feet. When he
looked back, he hoped to see Krys awaken to join him for the night. Instead, it
was Buck, one of the last people he wanted to see when thinking of a mission
going fubar. Buck approached and, in a meek tone, asked if he could sit down
next to him. Kaspar gave him a nod of the head. Buck didn’t think ahead to
bring a chair with him to sit on. Since Kaspar sure as hell wasn’t going to
give up his chair for him, the kid was forced to sit on the ground. He kicked
at the sticks and leaves to make a spot. The kid moved his bare hands towards
the fire then started to rub them together.

“Cold night, huh?”
Buck asked.

“Sure is.”

“Couldn’t sleep,
either?”

“Nope.”

Buck shook his head
then focused on the fire in front. The two sat in silence for a long moment.
Buck was still not used to Kaspar’s introverted nature. He still grew irritated
with the man’s one word answers. Buck’s mind was still filled with his thoughts
about Steinner. About the mission that had gone completely wrong. He needed to
get his mind off of it.

“You still thinking
about Jeremy?” Kaspar asked.

“Yeah,” Buck answered.
Son of a bitch.
“Can’t get it out of my head, actually.”

“I hear that,” Kaspar
replied. Instinct crept in and he reached for the pack of smokes in his pocket
that weren’t there.

“You experience a lot
of death or something?”

“You could say that.”

The little girl was in
his arms, again. She was breathing her last breaths. Kaspar couldn’t hear it
come from her lips, but he knew that she was blaming him for her death, as well
as the deaths of her parents. The team…they were just too slow. He looked up
and saw Krys lying down on the bed with blood leaking from her mouth. That
death was his fault, too…

“You still with me?”
Buck asked.

“Yeah,” Kaspar
replied. He shook his head free from the vision then cleared his throat.

“I can’t help but
blame myself for what happened.”

“Don’t blame yourself
for that, Buck. He knew what he was into.”

“I know, but it was my
mistake that cost him his life.”

“C’mon, snap out of
it! If you keep blaming yourself, you’ll never be a good fighter out there.
You’ve got to move on.”

“You sound like my
father.”

Kaspar shook his head.
“Maybe your father knows what he’s talking about.”

“What about you? You’ve
obviously experienced a lot before we met.”

“There was this
family,” Kaspar started to say. He took a moment to rub his brow. “It was one
of those deals. Easy mission, get in, get the family out, everyone goes home
happy.”

“But…”

“We arrived too late.
By the time we got there the USR had already showed up. We tried…Lord, we tried
so hard to save them. This Agent takes the mother and daughter into the back
bedroom. I run in after them. The bastard takes them both out. I bust through
the door just as he did the girl. Seconds late.”

Buck half smiled.
“Sounds like we have a lot in common, then.”

“No,” Kaspar shot
back. “We don’t have a lot in common, Buck. Steinner was a soldier…these were
innocent people that got wiped off the face of the earth.”

“A life is a life.”

Kaspar turned and
looked the kid straight in the eye. “There’s a difference.”

Buck threw up his
hands in defeat. “Okay.”

“Anyway, like I was
saying, you can’t wallow in your own self-pity.”

“How did you cope with
that little girl?”

Kaspar looked to the
sky and then dropped his head back down. “I didn’t. Just like with my mother
dying, and pretty soon with Krys. That’s why I’m so miserable all the time, I
guess.”

“What happened to your
mother?”

Kaspar went in detail
the whole story with Mother. The words became almost too difficult to say the
more he went into it. Buck just sat there, wide eyed at the whole ordeal. In
the back of his mind, as he got deeper and deeper, the feeling of guilt
entrapped Kaspar. The anger about his father also swelled up inside. When he
got to the part about his confrontation with Sullivan, the kid finally said a
word.

“Why didn’t you kill
him?” Buck asked.

“It was because of the
boy. Trust me, not a day goes by that I don’t think about if I made the right
decision or not. And, every day that Krys gets closer to dying, the guilt of
not killing the son of a bitch gets stronger.”

“Why’s that?”

Kaspar sighed,
“Because it was not just the asshole’s son that kept me from doing it. It was
also her. She wouldn’t want me to kill a man in cold blood right in front of
his son. I’ve always wanted to be a better person when I’m with her. But, she’s
almost gone, you know? No reason to be a better person then.”

“What are you talking
about? We’re about to get the cure and she’ll be fine.”

“If the cure even
exists. If we’re not on some wild goose chase. Not only that, but you heard,
didn’t you? There’s only that eighty percent chance of success.”

“You gotta have hope,
though, or else what’s all this shit for?”

The kid had a point.
But, what good was hope without anything substantial coming about? Kaspar could
hope all he wanted that this miracle cure would perk her right back to the way
she was before, but that hope wouldn’t change the facts. Either there was a
cure or not. Either the cure would kill Krys or make her better. And, not only
those facts, but also the fact that the unit would either get whatever was in
that complex or they would die trying. What was the point of hope? He tried to
feel hope when the two of them escaped with Clarke all those months back.

Look where that got
me.

The irony—hypocrisy
even—was not lost on Kaspar. This whole time he had been trying to get Krys to
not lose hope and here he found himself losing his. It didn’t quite make all
that much sense to him. After all, they were about to raid a compound where
something that could finally help her was supposedly kept.

Kaspar decided to
change the subject. “What’s the deal with you and your old man, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”
Buck demanded.

“I don’t know. It just
seems like you’ve got a rocky relationship or something.”

“Yeah, he wants me to
be this great soldier.” Buck smirked. “Some great soldier, huh?”

“You’re still young.
You’re making rookie mistakes.”

“Well, what if I don’t
want to be that?”

“What else would you
do?”

Buck thought on it for
moment. He gave a smile. “A musician or an artist.”

Kaspar laughed. “How
do you plan on using that out there? Might as well keep on with the good
fight.”

“It was a joke, that’s
the point. I’ve got nothing else out there for me. If I could though, I would
be like a jazz musician or something.”

“Yeah, that’d be great
wouldn’t it?”

“What would you be
doing?”

Kaspar rubbed at the
stubble on his chin. “Hell, I’d probably still be boxing, I guess. Only thing
I’m good at, other than shooting Agents, of course.”

The two shared in
another laugh. This was the first time that Kaspar had spent any kind of time
with Buck apart from the battlefield. The kid seemed to be an all right guy. A
bit too hard on himself, but Kaspar couldn’t say anything to him in that
regard. After the laughter was over, they sat in silence for a while again
before Kaspar spoke up.

“Listen to your
father.”

Buck dropped the smile
on his face and looked dead into Kaspar’s eyes. “What?”

“You heard what I
said.”

Buck stood. “What
business of that is yours?”

“I’m just saying. You
don’t know what it’s like to not have your old man around. All I had was my
mother.”

“Then we’re the same,
but opposite.”

“Huh?”

Buck sighed. “My
mother died while giving birth to me. I always felt guilty about it…and I’m
never quite sure if my dad ever blamed me for it.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t.
He just wants what’s best for you.”

“Well,” Buck said as
he turned his body the other way. “I think that’s about enough of this talk for
now. I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Sure, kid.”

Buck started to walk
for the campsite leaving Kaspar alone with his thoughts once more.