Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (19 page)

Harvey sighed.
“Fighting for the right reasons is a tricky thing.”

“I hear you.”

“You’ve just got to
get beyond your personal vendettas, which will take time, and really consider
why we are fighting.”

“I’ll try.”

Harvey looked down at
his watch. “Well, it’s getting late, I’m going to try and get some shut eye.”

“All right, I’ll see
you tomorrow.”

“And, Ryan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you ever need
anything, you know where to find me.”

Sullivan sat in the
chair in front of Fitzpatrick’s desk with a scowl on his face. Things were not
going well with this supposed routine meeting with his superior. In fact, he
was waiting for his boss to ask for his badge and gun. Little was sitting next
to him and, unlike his partner, he seemed to be in a good mood today. Sullivan
began to question whether or not his partner had ratted him out. That seemed
unlikely, given the fact that Little was a coward who wouldn’t dare do anything
to put his perfect life at risk.

The meeting started
out bad and quickly escalated to horrifying. Sullivan was forced to answer
questions about why he called in sick the other day. Why there had been no
collected evidence against the suspects. And, most important to Sullivan, why
he felt that he should still have a job with the department.

Sullivan tried his
best to explain away his absence from work. However, he failed to get a
doctor’s note, and of all the times he had called in, Fitzpatrick decided that
today was the day to demand one. When the Agent tried to say that he wasn’t
sick enough to go to the doctor, Fitzpatrick fired back with if he wasn’t sick
enough to go, then he wasn’t sick enough to miss work. Sullivan just sat there
after that, that scowl grew more intense on his face by the minute.

“What’s that look
for?” Fitzpatrick demanded.

“What look? We need
more time it’s that simple, sir..”

“Time, again, is a
luxury we don’t have.”

Little spoke up. “You
know what I think, sir?”

Sullivan looked over
to Little and the two locked eyes. The look in Sullivan’s said “I would love to
hear what you think”. The younger Agent caught his drift. Sullivan could tell
by the way he sort of squirmed. It was as if Little’s balls would finally drop,
but the coward in him took over once again.

“Yes, Detective?”
Fitzpatrick said.

Little cleared his
throat. “I just think that maybe we’re moving a little bit too slow, that’s
all.”

“Too slow?” Sullivan
demanded with his eyes still locked on to his partner’s. “What makes you think
that?”

“It’s just, you know,
we haven’t gotten anything on them.”

“That’s because they
are very good.”

“If I may,”
Fitzpatrick said. “I think that your partner might be right. And, also, I find
it very suspicious that after I warned you about only having three days, you
call in sick, and when you go to the warehouse, the suspects are nowhere to be
found.”

The scowl grew more
intense. Sullivan was found out and he knew it. He swallowed hard and knew what
was coming next, as well. Instinctively, Sullivan reached for his badge.
Fitzpatrick caught it with his eyes. The Captain threw up his arms.

“What are you doing?”
he asked.

“Nothing, sir,”
Sullivan replied. “I’m pretty sure what comes next. I’ve been through this
before.”

“Kevin, if you would
please leave the room for a second?”

Little nodded. “Yes,
sir.”

The two Agents
remained silent as Little stood. The rookie politely saluted his Captain. When
it came to Sullivan, Little did not make any kind of gesture to him. Sullivan
could sense that the young rookie just wanted to get as far away from him as
possible. When the two Agents had a quiet, private session, Fitzpatrick began
to rub at his brow before he said anything.

“You know how I feel
about your skills, Will.” The Captain finally said. He stopped rubbing at his
forehead and gave Sullivan his full attention.

“I know.” Sullivan
replied.

“I’m just sad to see
you willing to give up your badge so quickly. Without any kind of fight or
whatever. I just want to make sure everything is okay before we moved forward.”

Sullivan thought about
that comment before he spoke up again. Everything was not okay. It hadn’t been
okay since Julie left this world. The guilt he felt for staying an Agent while
his wife wanted him to quit and find something else still lingered. She knew
the types of things that would go on, it was all over Sullivan’s eyes, and she
just wanted something better for him. In his stubbornness, and his pride, he
went against her wishes and it ruined their marriage. It ruined the
relationship he had with the woman he loved. Then, when it became apparent that
it was the USR who was behind it, things just got worse.

However, despite his
feelings about it, he couldn’t reveal that to Fitzpatrick. He would have to lie
and pretend like he was still wallowing in his own self-pity about her death.
It had worked well for him up to this point. In the midst of their silence, his
thoughts also drifted to that of Reed and his resistance partners. The time to
act was now, but Sullivan didn’t know how to go about it. He still had his son
to worry about. In the back of his mind, he knew that he would have to leave
him for at least a little while, but he didn’t want to accept it just yet.

“William?” Fitzpatrick
said, breaking up Sullivan’s thoughts.

Sullivan shook himself
back to the present. “Yeah? Sorry.”

“How is everything? I
mean, do you feel that you can still do your job effectively?”

“I don’t know, sir.
The wounds from my wife’s death still haven’t fully healed.”

“I can see that.
Listen, why don’t you take a few days of leave?”

Sullivan almost
smiled, but held back. “Are you sure that’s necessary, sir?”

“I just think that,
with your current performance, and the fact that I don’t want to fire you, I
think that’s the best course we can take right now. I’ll need your badge and
your firearm.”

Fitzpatrick made a
motion with his hands for Sullivan to hand over the items to him. Sullivan,
with a fake reluctance, stood from his chair and complied. After the items were
on the desk, Sullivan again felt that sense of relief that he felt when he went
through this six months ago. After saluting the Captain he turned his back on
his superior and walked out the door. Now, he had the space and the time he
would need to get the information needed.

After the door was closed,
Fitzpatrick picked up his phone and dialed just one number into the key pad. It
rang only once, and then he could hear the decryption sequence go through its
process to ensure the line was clean. It took about a minute for the voice on
the other end asked him to code in. He did so.

Fitzpatrick then asked
for the Consul’s office phone.

Sullivan looked down
at his watch. As he saw the time, he picked up the pace of his walk to the
bridge where he was to meet up with Reed. The chill of autumn air forced
Sullivan to throw his bare hands in his pockets. The sky above was gray, it was
always gray, with dark clouds blocking the sun. A storm was brewing causing the
wind gusts to intensify. Out of his ear, to the left, he could hear the
mechanical sounds of cranes moving and metal hitting metal.

Things were about to
go downhill for those boys. He could feel the prying eyes of the USR staring
straight at him. The feeling of paranoia caused the Agent to look around from
side to side as he continued towards the bridge. Even though there had, for as
long as Sullivan could remember, been Agents on every street corner always
watching, this time he felt like they were all looking at him.

Once he reached the
end of the street, he could see the bridge, and he saw that Reed was already
there. Reed seemed to have the same feelings as Sullivan, because he was
looking around every few seconds as well. Sullivan started to approach Reed,
but stopped in his tracks. He looked around him one last time and, once he felt
assured that he was not being followed, or that nothing was out of the
ordinary, he approached Reed from behind.

“Travis,” Sullivan
said in a low voice.

Even though he was
speaking with that low tone, the salutation from the Agent startled Reed.
Sullivan could see the man jump at the sound of his name. Once Reed turned
around, he placed his hand over his chest and let out a slow, deliberate
exhale.

“You scared the shit
out of me.” Reed replied.

“Sorry,” Sullivan
said. “I didn’t want to attract too much attention.”

“That’s nearly
impossible in this city, under this government.”

Sullivan nodded his
head in agreement. With his right hand, he made a gesture for Reed to follow
him towards the bridge. The rebel hesitated for a moment, not knowing whether
to trust Sullivan to lead him under a bridge. With a genuine smile, genuine
enough for Reed anyway, Sullivan gestured again. The hesitation was still
there, but Reed reasoned that if this was his time, it was simply his time and
there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. If he tried to run,
there were Agents on every street, ready and willing to put him down. Besides,
he had, with great reluctance, grown to trust this Sullivan character.

Once under the bridge,
the sound of the river’s water rushing filled their ear drums. The sound was
relaxing Sullivan thought as he reached into his jacket pocket for a piece of
gum. Reed’s eyes grew as Sullivan first opened up his jacket; ready for the
Agent to pull out a gun and end it all. Sullivan noticed the look and smirked.
He held out the opened pack of gum to offer Reed a piece. Reed declined.

“I doubt you brought
me out here to chew some gum together.” Reed said.

“You never know,”
Sullivan replied. “Your breath is pretty rank.”

Reed wasn’t in the
mood for jokes. “What did you want to talk about?”

“First of all, I have
to warn you, I was just suspended from the force today.”

“Really?”

Sullivan nodded. “Sure
did. It isn’t the first time, though it could be the last.”

“Why’s that?”

“I think I’m done serving
the USR for a while.”

“What happened to you?
I mean, you are high up in the ranks, why change your mind now?”

Sullivan took a deep
breath then told Reed the whole story about Julie. A lot of the parts,
especially when he got to the part where he told the doctors to pull the plug,
almost choked him. Reed, for his part, just stood there and listened. His eyes
still wandered, but he was becoming more comfortable under the bridge, where
there was very little line of sight.

In the middle of
telling his story, the Agent grew surprised at himself. Sullivan was never one
to talk about his life or his feelings with people that he didn’t know. He
wondered, as he kept talking, how exactly he ended up in the stage of his life
that he was at. A once dedicated Agent, who swore to hunt down and kill all the
resistance leaders in his city, was now talking to one openly about his life
and what he wanted out of the life of an Agent. He also couldn’t help but think
what if he had come to this realization sooner. Maybe then, during Julie’s last
moments on earth, they could have shared some love together before the end.

“I understand, I
think.” Reed said once Sullivan got to the end.

“I want to know the
truth, like I said.”

Reed nodded his head.
After he looked around him one more time just to make sure, he went into all
the details that he knew about the population control drug that killed the
Agent’s wife. He talked about how the USR feared overpopulation and the drug
was just one more form of their control. Reed also went into detail how the USR
distributed the drug into the water supply system, how they knew there were
bugs in it, but went through with it anyway. No regard for the lives of the
women they would kill. What Reed told him, unlike before, was much more detailed.
This wasn’t just some angry rebel any longer, but he seemed to be a
well-informed citizen.

More than once,
Sullivan shook his head in utter disbelief. At one point, he had to stop
himself from interrupting the rebel and telling him to get real. The more Reed
went on, however, the more the guilt inside Sullivan grew. He realized that he
had been fighting on the wrong side this whole time. Even though some of the
juicier parts of Reed’s story were hard to believe, he couldn’t shake the
feeling that a lot of it had to come from some kind of truth.

The USR simply denied
the problem and then went so far as to blame the resistance for destroying the
only place where they were developing a cure. It was all just one big control
scheme after another. And that, Sullivan knew from his prior cases and arrests,
was an undisputed fact. The USR craved that control, so using a population
control drug, no matter the consequences, seemed right up their alley.

“Hard to believe?”
Reed said after he finished. He could tell from Sullivan’s facial and body
language that the Agent was having a hard time wrapping his mind around what he
was being told. He couldn’t blame him.

“Sure is,” Sullivan
replied. “I worked for the USR and, even experiencing a lot of the things that
I was basically forced to do, I just can’t imagine they’d stoop to such a low.”

“Well, believe it.
I’ve got no reason to lie to you.”

“You’ve had everything
you just told me verified?”

“Sure,” Reed replied.
“After that one rebel leader was executed at the Consul’s office, we were
approached by someone who provided us with the evidence.”

“Who was this person?”
Sullivan wondered.

Reed smirked. “Not
telling.”

“Understandable.
Listen, you need to protect yourself right now. I’m no longer on the inside. I
can’t help you in that department.”

“Understood.”