Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (26 page)

The leaders of the
resistance were all cramped together in the small, rectangular shaped room
which had been turned into their situation room. There was a projector screen
in the back with a computer animated American flag which waved along with the
simulated wind. It was always the same image. There was a lot of chatter going on
amongst themselves while they awaited Sanders to properly begin the briefing.
On top of the room being cramped, it was also hot, which caused Harvey to use
the collar on his shirt to try and fan himself.

Seated next to him was
an African-American leftover named Winston who did a lot of talking out loud.
Harvey couldn’t tell if the man was actually talking to him or not. He just
went on about his son, who would be fighting in this mission, about how he was
anxious to kick some ass. Harvey half paid attention, and that half was cut
even more the longer it went on. Winston just kept talking. Like one of those
people that released tension by hearing their own voice.

There was so much
going on in Harvey’s mind at the moment that nothing anyone else was talking
about mattered. Not even his new friend. What was running through his head the
most, as he looked around the room at all the brave men, was how devastating it
would be lose most, if not all, of them in one failed mission.

On his left was
Clarke, who didn’t say anything, either. He had just enough room to mess around
on a little PDA with notes, images, whatever. Harvey wasn’t sure what Clarke
was planning to do, but he could tell from their conversation last night, that
it was something big. The old hacker kept going on and on about how important
it was for them to get Intel from the Capitol and to get as much as possible.
No matter what Harvey said to the contrary, that they wouldn’t have the time,
Clarke kept right on insisting about it. Harvey got to the point where he was
almost more interested in what Clarke would do versus the actual mission brief.

After what seemed like
ages, Sanders showed up in the front of the room. In his hands was a waist high
wooden podium which he slammed to ground. Whether it was intentional or not, he
had everyone’s attention after the fact. He stood right beside the projector
screen, cleared his throat, and then pulled out a bottle of water from one of
the shelves behind the podium. After taking a long drink, he was ready to start
his briefing.

“Gentlemen,” Sanders
said with a hint of hoarseness in his voice. He cleared his throat once more
before he continued. “I want to thank you all again for your bravery and
dedication to our mission. I know that I’ve talked to most of you before, but
to everyone else I’m meeting for the first time, I just wanted to say thanks.”

The men in the room
greeted him back with slogans from the different branches of the military they
served in the old days. There was a mixture of Hooah’s, Semper Fi’s, and a host
of other cries. Sanders smiled while he raised his hands for the room to quiet
down. Hearing all these men with rallying cries from the old days would make
any sane soldier grin. It made him think back to how silly it was to get into
it with members of rival branches. At the end of the day, they all served their
country, and now that country was gone and they, along with the other men who
weren’t in the room, were all that was left of it.

“It really does mean a
lot,” Sanders continued. “The USR may be in power, but America is not dead. You
are all proof of that. We’ve got a huge undertaking on our plates. Nobody has
dared try something this big since the USR came into power. We’re going to give
them their first real ass kicking.”

That comment reeved up
the crowd again. There was a loud collective cheer and then clapping hands.
Sanders took control of the mass once again with a motion from his hands. The
men grew quiet rather quickly. Sanders pointed towards the back of the room
where one of his men was stationed. He clicked on the laptop in front of him
and a real time satellite image of the target building faded in on the screen.

“This is our target,”
Sanders said just as the image went onto the screen. “Notice all the pieces of
the White House, the old Capitol building, everything that represented the
American government is all lying about. Let that sink in. Of course, it offers
great cover in a wide open area like we’re attacking in. But, let it anger you,
let it drive you out there on the field of battle. It should remind each of you
why we are doing this.”

There was a moment of
silence in the room as they all stared at the image. After Sanders gave them
all some time to think about it, he continued on. The mission brief was pretty
straightforward for the most part. The resistance would draw the enemy’s fire
in front, after they surrounded the battlefield with their tanks, military
vehicles, Jeeps, whatever they had in their arsenal.  

On the satellite
image, they could all see the soldiers that were posted in front of the
Capitol. There were several tiny buildings scattered about the grounds which
served as meeting rooms and bathrooms. The soldiers were all armed and they
seemed bored as hell as they walked around in slow paces. It must have been a
shitty thing to get posted there, Harvey thought as he watched, to guard a
place no one dared attack.

On the roof, they
could see a line of sniper rifles along the edge. Instead of having men manning
the guns, the snipers up top had set up a foldout table and were engaged in a
card game. Sanders pointed this out to the men in the room. He used their
sloppiness to motivate the team. Harvey knew better, though. When the battle
started, they would not only have the soldiers on the ground, but sniper fire
from above to deal with. That fact only added extra anxiety inside about the
mission.

“Which brings us to
the next part,” Sanders continued after he took a moment to take a drink of
water. “We need a team to move into the building, take out any poor USR
bastards left in there, and then raise the flag on the roof. Obviously, I’ll be
on the ground, directing things from there.”

“I’ll go,” Harvey said
standing up in an instant.

“Thank you, Sam.”
Sanders said. He made a motion with his right hand for Harvey to sit back down.
“But, you don’t have a team left.”

“That’s right, they
all died for what they believed in on that mountain. Obviously, I’ll need some
volunteers to go with me.”

“Is there anybody
else?”

“No!” Harvey shouted.
“Don’t try to take this away from me.”

“Sam, there’s no
need…”

“If he wants to do
it,” Winston said aloud. “Then let him. You asked for volunteers and he’s
obviously up for this.”

There was a collective
yes from all the men in the room. Sanders grinned and then regained control of
the situation. For Harvey’s part, he remained mad as all hell over it. Why did
Sanders want to keep him from this? He was beginning to realize after all this
time that the man who appointed himself the leader had no respect for him. Why,
Harvey didn’t know. All he did know was that he was tired of it. Perhaps it was
because he didn’t share the same tyrannical views of war that his supposed
comrade did. To Sanders, Harvey continued to learn, there was only one way to
fight a war. Harvey just didn’t share that same view. In fact, the views that
Sanders expressed were closer and closer to those of their enemy, the more he
thought about it.

“Fine,” Sanders said
once the room was finally quiet. “Have it your way, but don’t fuck this up, you
understand me?”

“I won’t.” Harvey
replied. “The sons of bitches who go to fight with me better understand one
thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Sanders
wondered.

“I’m the one who
raises the flag.”

“If you get that far…”

“I will.”

“I can spare a couple
of men,” Winston said. “I’m sure any of us could.”

Sanders cleared his
throat, “We’ll sort that out later. Harvey can have his way and sit the hell
back down.”

Harvey obeyed and
allowed a grin on his face as he did. Once he was seated, he began to
strategize in his mind how to properly go about this. Around this time, the
most unlikely voice spoke up. It was shaky at first, but grew with strength as
he went on. It forced another smile on his lips.

“There’s something
else we need to talk about,” Clarke said as he adjusted his glasses and rose
from his seated position.

“And, what would that
be?” Sanders asked, not hiding his amusement at Clarke’s standing up. A few of
the other soldiers in the room let out chuckles as well.

Clarke did his best to
ignore them all. “There’s going to be some valuable Intel in that building that
we’ll want to extract.”

“We won’t have time
for that.” Sanders said shaking his head. “Once we accomplish our mission, we
all know that the USR is going to blow that place to hell, just like that compound
with the cure in it.”

“That’s why you need
someone with the proper expertise to go in there.”

“And, that person
would be you?”

Clarke nodded his
head. Again, Sanders grinned and the others talked amongst themselves. Clarke
remained undeterred. This was his chance to get in on the action and feel like
a real member of the resistance and not one that just sat back while the others
went out and fought. There was a large amount of nervousness that flowed inside
which caused an involuntary shake in his legs. It all went ignored.

“That’s right,” Clarke
replied. “We may never get a chance like this again. We do not want to blow
this.”

 “The most important
thing we can do is raise that flag. We will focus on that first.”

“I agree that it is
important to do that, but how can we just overlook the wealth of information we
can get? There’s something going on right now. Men all over are getting
abducted from their homes by USR soldiers. It has to be for something, I’ll bet
there’s at least something in there on the computer systems I can find.”

“Why can’t you just
get it yourself?” Sanders demanded. “What, with your expertise?”

Clarke ignored the
comment. “I’m good, but I’m not perfect. Some of these systems have firewalls
that I can never break through. But, if I had hands on access…”

Sanders sighed, “Once
we raise the flag, then if the place is still standing, you can go in at your
own risk…”

“Not good enough.”

“Don’t you ever
interrupt me again…”

“He can go in with
us.” Harvey said. “We’ll watch his back.”

“That man has no
combat experience…”

“What if he’s right,
Roy? What if we never come across a gold mine of information like this again?”

Sanders rubbed at his
scar. “Your boy gave us the Intel on that cure, and look where that got us.”

“Last time I checked,”
Harvey shot back. “The United States was a democracy, not a dictatorship. Let’s
vote on it.”

The chatter in the
room began once more. There were some who were on Sanders’s side. Their need to
raise the American flag and stick it to the USR overcame everything else. They
didn’t see the strategic value of having information. In their minds, they had
waited for this day for a long time. They were done sitting on their hands,
watching the USR dominate their once great country. The USR needed to be taught
a lesson: the United States wasn’t dead, yet. Harvey couldn’t bring himself to
blame them.

It was
shortsightedness on their part, Harvey knew, but the majority of the men in the
room agreed with him. The cries for allowing Clarke in on the mission were
heard by Sanders and the computer expert. Sanders looked sternly right in
Harvey’s direction. The mean look didn’t bother Harvey in the least. He didn’t
show it, but he took great pleasure in seeing Sanders like this.

“Okay, fine!” Sanders
yelled. The room went silent. “Take the boy with you, but he’d better come out
of there with gold. And, if he slows you down, you know what to do. You leave
him and raise that damned flag.”

“I assure you,” Harvey
said, “the mission will be completed.”

The two weapons
“experts” who roamed the abandoned power plant were a pair of short, skinny
twins. They went by the code names “Smith” and “Wesson”. Harvey about hit the
floor when he learned that. And, when he actually met the two, he couldn’t
believe it. He waited all morning for someone to tell him that it was all just
a practical joke. The nicknames couldn’t have been real, nor could the fact
that they were the ones consulting on weapons.

For instance, Wesson’s
combat fatigues, they had to be replicas, fit him too big. The pants were all
baggy and the jacket left way too much room in the arms. The kid finished it
off with a fatigued hat that fit slightly over the tops of his ears. There was
just no way that the twins had ever seen combat. The mission was a go tomorrow
night and they were dicking around with these fools. Anxiousness before combat
was nothing new, but he was especially feeling it right now.

Smith was dealing with
the ones who would be fighting on the field outside of the Capitol. It would be
Wesson’s job to “teach” Harvey’s team about some of the weapons which had been
smuggled just days ago that matched their mission needs. Wesson led the team
down a hallway then they took a right turn inside of a cramped room. Why were
all of the rooms so cramped? Beggars couldn’t be choosers, Harvey told himself
as he tried to keep his internal complaining to a minimum.

Wesson flipped the
light switch and, after several flickers, the room became illuminated. What
also became illuminated was the stupid grin on Wesson’s face. Harvey had Kaspar
and Clarke with him. The other leaders also volunteered some men to him on
loan. In total, a team of eight would charge the building in hopes of gathering
Intel and raising the American flag on the roof. All around the walls of the
room were weapons cases stacked high with a long, wooden table in the middle.

“Welcome to my
playground, boys.” Wesson said.

“Your what?” Harvey
demanded. 

“My playground, man!”

“Do you even know the
first thing about shooting?”

“Of course I do.”
Wesson replied, same stupid grin still on.

“So, you’ve fired a
gun at someone?”

“All the time, bro. Me
and my brother, Smith, we’ve got access to all of the USR’s VR training that
they put their soldiers through.”

Harvey rolled his
eyes. “VR training?”

“Damn straight my
man,” Wesson said with a wink. “I can live, breathe, and think like a soldier.
Also, I can fire any gun I want. Just like the real thing.”

“I wouldn’t go that
far, ‘bro’.”

“Enough chit chat,”
Wesson said as he rubbed his hands together. “Let’s dig in, shall we?”

Wesson reached
underneath the wooden table, gripped the handle of a weapon’s case, and then
slammed it on the surface with no regard. With a flip of the notches around the
front, the case popped open, and inside sat one of the most beautiful assault
rifles Harvey had ever laid eyes on. The material of the gun was jet black,
almost to a mirror sheen, he could almost see his own smile reflected off of
it. It looked like a cross between an M16 and a P90. He reached in for it, but
then the damn kid snatched it away from him.

“The ZX-17, my
friends, the latest in high tech weaponry being developed by the USR.” Wesson
announced with a great sense of pride as if he build the damn thing. He lifted
it up and buried the stock into his skinny shoulders. Harvey was shocked that
he could even lift it and it looked to weight him down.

“Is the safety on,
kid?” Harvey asked.

“Of course it is,”
Wesson replied. “Moving on. This baby is still in development. Not even USR
soldiers will be armed with them. It’s a high powered gun, almost no recoil,
got good shooting range, too. But, this is for the guys on the ground.”

Wesson tossed the gun
to the side. Harvey couldn’t believe how the kid could just disregard such a
beautiful weapon like that. Wesson didn’t have any idea the kind of gun he was
mishandling. Probably the VR disorienting him from reality, Harvey reasoned.

The skinny kid slammed
another box onto the wooden table. The others flinched and Harvey could tell
that he was not the only one who was growing tired of Wesson’s carelessness.
Again, after both notches in the front of the box were unsnapped, the box shot
open. This gun was much different from the ZX-17 before it. It was a short
barreled submachine gun from what Harvey could tell. Wesson grabbed at the
folded stock and lifted the gun into the air. As the gun flew, the stock
unfolded and, once again, Wesson shouldered the gun as if he really knew what
he was doing.

“This is the Kriss
Vector, my friends.”

Kaspar’s eyes went
wide. For a moment, the room emptied out and the only thing he could see in
front of him was Krys. She looked at him with that smile that drove him mad.
Her hair was flowing along with the wind. Then, with a blink of the eye and
nudge on his arm, she was gone again.

“You okay, dude?”
Wesson demanded.

“Uh…” Kaspar said,
moving his arm away from Clarke’s grasp. “Yeah. It’s just, I…what did you say
that gun was called again?”

“The Kriss.
K-R-I-S-S.”

“Oh, I just thought I
was hearing things. I…knew someone by that name.”

“Really?” Wesson asked
with an animated look of concern on his face. “She break your heart?”

“Let’s not get into
it.” Kaspar shot back with his fists clinched.

Wesson noticed the
fists. “All right, all right, shit. Let me just show you what this baby can do,
okay?”

“Fine by me.”

“All right,” Wesson
said as he lifted the gun up to his chest. “The
Kriss
is a bad ass
mother you know what. A submachine gun, yes. Nothing special about it just
looking at it, right?”

There was silence.
Wesson made an expression with his face awaiting an answer.

“Uh, no.” Harvey
replied.

“At least someone’s
paying attention. Anyway, the Kriss fires .45’s, not 9MMs like some lesser
guns, so it’s got a shit load of fire power. You’re wondering about the
downsides, right?”

Silence.

“Um, no,” Harvey
replied to once again break up the silence.
Just get on with it already.

“Have you ever fired
one of these babies?”

“No.”

“Then how can you not
wonder if there are any downsides?”

Harvey rolled his eyes
once more. “Like you can tell me the downsides?”

Wesson smirked. “We’ve
been over this.”

“What are the
downsides?” Kaspar demanded. He was growing as tired of Wesson’s shit as much
as Harvey was.

“Glad you asked,
fellow brother in arms. There are no downsides…other than missing the infinite
ammo power up.”

“Every gun has a
downside.” Harvey contended.

“Care to give this
baby a spin?” Wesson asked. He clicked off the safety and held the gun out.
“Just hold down the trigger and don’t release it until the mag is dry.”

Once Harvey took hold
of the gun, Wesson motioned with an open arm to move to the shooting range.
Upon approach, Harvey clicked the gun to full auto, and then aimed the gun at
the target in front. He was impressed by the lack of weight in the gun and the
compact design made it easy to aim. What really got his blood pumping was what
happened once he pulled the trigger and released a full mag. The others who
gathered around were impressed as well. They stood in awe at the bullet holes
in the target. They were all center mass. There was very little in the way of
spray. All the rounds hit the target and were just inches apart.

“Brilliant,” Wesson
said. “The design, the craftsmanship of this gun is awe inspiring.”

“There’s almost no
recoil.”

“Exactly. An automatic,
with no recoil, .45’s for stopping power. No downsides.”

“Let me see it.”
Kaspar said.

Harvey turned and
handed it to him. With the Kriss in his hands, even before firing a single
round, he knew that this was his new favorite gun. Wesson anxiously handed him
a full mag. He held the mag in his hand for a moment before reloading the gun.
The crosshairs from the scope were pointed center mass on the target. He took a
deep breath and closed his eyes. Once they were opened, Sullivan’s figure
appeared on the target.

Before pulling the
trigger, he knew what he had to do.