The Crimson Fall (The Sons of Liberty Book 1) (32 page)

He merely thought of the friend he had lost.

When the Secret Service had first been issued their new side arms after the treaty, the men had all been reluctant to adopt them. It had originally been dubbed an Eight Point Safety System due to the fact that each weapon also had a standardized safety switch built in. However, they and most other law enforcement agencies had flat out refused to carry a side arm that had a safety switch. In the end the developers decided a Seven Point System was more than enough for law enforcement. It was what they had used for generations, and they saw no point in changing a thing. Which was quite unfortunate because had Steve Fillmore had one more split second to think about what he was doing, he might not have pulled the trigger.

The electronic firing pin was by no means a new idea, but it was what Marc Gregory, a lead firearm engineer at Holt-Chambers Industries, had wanted so desperately for the new system. It had meant misfires would be a thing of the past and that dependability would skyrocket. Before the new side arms, most agents in the department had carried an older Holt platform that had a tendency to jam on its very first shot. Holt Firearms had known about it, but they were unwilling to part with the coating that caused the one-time jam because of how well it protected the finish of the gun. Everyone simply knew that the gun would need to be broken in that first day on the range, and after that, things would work just fine. It just so happened that Steve had left his issued side arm at a Secret Service range in DC two days prior and that he had been forced to request a replacement there in New York City. The guys had given him a hard time about leaving
his
side arm, because, what Secret Service agent really does that? The weapon he had been given as a replacement was one that the team leader found first and—unbeknownst to him—it had not been shot since it was shipped from the manufacturer. While there is no way of telling if the gun would have jammed had it been an older system, things might not have worked out the way they did when the electronic firing pin struck primer.

Jenny Jean had not only inherited an annoying name but also a terrible company from her beloved father when he passed away. She had spent her life trying to save the company left to her, and she considered herself a modern-day George Bailey. So she studied business—earning multiple degrees and surrounding herself with the brightest minds she could afford—while those she employed studied the art of crafting the perfect bullet. She had avoided the men who had pursued her in her twenties, always telling herself she wanted to be financially secure as a woman before she gave her heart to a man. Jean Ballistics had come to make some of the most reliable ammunition that had ever been used in law enforcement and the military. However, her father’s recklessness with the company’s finances had left quite the mess for Jenny to clean up. As the years passed, so did the hope of finding a man that would lasso the moon for her and help her finally leave behind the moniker of ‘The Girl with Two First Names.’
Though a husband had eluded her, success had most definitely not. So when the pin struck the primer, it ignited easily, just like Jenny Jean would have for any man at that point of her life.

As the primer and gunpowder caught fire, the pressure inside the brass case built up so much that the lightweight, one hundred and twenty-three grain bullet had no choice but to separate from the casing and begin its short journey forward. The barrel had been designed in house to incorporate a tighter twist rate of one rotation per eight inches versus the industry standard of one rotation per ten inches, giving it one full revolution before leaving the barrel. In combination with the patented Side Port Integrated Gas Release Receiver—or the Spig’r as the men in research and development so cleverly called it—the weapon became the most accurate handgun ever created. Thus, the flames and gases escaped out the hidden side ports, allowing the bullet to travel fast, straight, and true toward what it had
unintentionally
been intended for.

Meanwhile, as the trigger had been pulled and the bullet began its short voyage down the hollowed steel-printed pipe, Dan Martin continued his struggle on the floor. He had never been one to exercise much; thus, his struggle had mostly been a pathetic squirming underneath the three brutes atop him. But a squirmer he was to the fiercest degree. He had devoted his life to the rewards one got from being behind a desk and not the benefits of a rigorous training routine. So when he found himself underneath the trained agents, the most he could manage to do was swing his arms pathetically as he swiveled his head side to side. Which for him proved to be quite disastrous because he had rotated his head just perfectly to the left as the trigger was pulled, and the bullet that had left the proprietary barrel, after igniting inside Jenny Jean’s perfectly designed ammo, which had been activated by the electronic firing pin that Marc Gregory had fought so hard for, after failing to pull the safety switch that was never there in the first place, and all because Steve Fillmore of Detroit simply wanted to be accepted—that bullet entered Dan Martin’s temple and killed him instantly on live television.

Time and thought recommenced at their normal pace as those in the studio realized what had just happened. Shocked faces looked back and forth at one another before all eyes eventually fell on the stunned president. Lukas stood there in a daze, looking toward the dead man on the floor and at the sight of a growing pool of blood around him.

Lukas Chambers, the president of the United States and arguably the most powerful man in the world, glanced over to the nearby camera and its attentive eye that watched him. The camera’s real-time reimaging software tried and failed to adjust the quiver of his eye as it also attempted to mask the blood that had splattered on his face. All it actually managed to do was cause his pigment to flash back and forth between a healthy tan and a deep red as the entire right side of his face shuddered periodically—causing him to look less like a man and more like the devil he was at that very moment. Lukas gazed at the camera and deep into the soul of a nation that now knew the truth about his shattered lies as the red light underneath the camera finally winked out.

Adam and Eric stood side by side in a crowded Times Square. Adam had taken careful precautions to keep his face hidden when he first started watching the interview on the massive screens above, but as things spiraled out of control, he threw all care out the window. He doubted that anyone would try to do something if they did recognize him behind his glasses after what just happened.

The crowd of hundreds had quickly turned into thousands as the interview had progressed. The stunned faces surrounding Adam reminded him of the images he saw as a boy of the people watching the Twin Towers fall to the ground. Taxicabs, business limos, personal cars, bicycles; they all stopped to watch the events unfold on the giant television. Republican and Democrat, white and black, blue collar and white collar, young and old; everyone stood motionless and watched in disbelief as the Voice of New York began accusing the president of murder and treason. Gasps and shouts of horror had gone up from the crowd as one thunderous, painful cry when the struggling man was silenced by what sounded like the president’s order to shoot.

An eerie silence filled the square as Lukas’ demonic-looking face turned to them before the video feed blinked out completely. Adam tore his eyes from the screen and looked around at the speechless audience. Men and women both held hands over their mouth, donning faces that were as dazed as his. A few days ago Adam had asked Dan Martin to help him and the country he loved. He had honestly believed it would be the best thing for the American people. However, Dan now lay in a pool of his own blood for the whole world to see, after doing what Adam had asked of him. The congressman fought back the urge to vomit as his stomach began twisting in a knot. Eric stood next to him, holding his hat atop his head, staring at the now blank screen with a horrified look on his face as the stillness continued.

And that’s when it happened.

It started as a muffled murmur somewhere out of sight in the middle of the crowd. That murmur grew until the hum of weeping souls rose from the masses of frightened people; a cauldron of men and women rapidly approaching the boiling point. Then, just as Adam was about to turn and walk away, the people did what scared people do best. They began to panic.

The citizens of New York began to shout. Within a matter of seconds, two men—running toward or away from something—shouldered Adam and knocked him to the ground. He quickly stood back up and looked around at the crowd, trying to comprehend the madness that was starting to billow around him. Shouts of terror had turned into shouts of rage, which then turned into cries of violence. Within a few more moments, several fights had already broken out between the people. Glass shattered in the distance, followed by a car alarm and three dangerously hollow pops. Finally, Adam realized what was happening.

The people had just watched the nation’s most beloved president ever as his darkest secrets were exposed on live TV before he murdered a man they all knew and loved. However, the panic around Adam was not created solely because of what had just happened. Adam’s father had warned him about that day many times before—a day when that which had burrowed deep within each and every citizen resurfaced to rear its ugly face. It was something that had almost been eradicated but had proved resilient to disappearing completely. It had festered inside the minds and hearts of Americans as they watched their country change over the years. When Adam saw it for what it was, he knew they had to get out of there fast.

“Eric! We got to go!” One shout was all it took for Eric to snap out of it. The captain quickly ran around to the passenger side of the van, just as Adam jumped in and cranked the engine. Cars had begun to move, and the crunching sound of fender benders could be heard throughout Times Square. Adam looked around for an opening in the horde of traffic when Eric started directing.

“Take Seventh to Central Park. We need to clear the city. We find Gene and get to—look out!”

A brick somersaulted through the air from the outstretched hand of an angry-faced man. It struck the right side of the windshield, sending fractures across the window. The man and two others ran toward the van.

“I told you that’s him!” One of the men pointed and shouted as they advanced. “Get out of the—”

Eric raised a silenced pistol and fired repeatedly, shattering the broken windshield into a shower of pebbled glass as Adam pressed the pedal to the floor. He swerved right, mounting the curb as a gust of wind rushed into the vehicle, and laid on the horn as people ran for cover.

A man leapt out of the way, revealing the terrified woman cradling her child behind him. Adam veered back into the street, narrowly missing her before slamming into the back of a driverless taxi. The airbags deployed with a suffocating bang, slamming hard into the two men.

Adam coughed—a distant whoop to clear his lungs that was barely audible—as the ringing in his ears dominated the world around him. Eric tugged on his arm, pulling him across the center console and through the open door. Adam looked up, half expecting a throng of people to be surrounding him, but realized that he wasn’t the only one with deployed airbags in the chaos around them.

“Damn it!” Eric shouted as he looked back into the vehicle’s cab. “I lost my radio. We’ll have to hoof it on foot to the other car.” He began running north along Seventh with a bag over his shoulder and his pistol in hand.

“We have to get to my family and Elizabeth!” Adam shouted as he jogged beside the captain. His leg ached as they jogged north toward the park, but he ignored it as best as he could. “We need to get them some place safe before I leave.”

“Leave?” Eric said as he looked over. “Where the hell are you going?”

“I don’t know yet. Probably DC.”

“That’s the last place you want to be right now! We have got to get some place safe. Jackson’s down at Bragg and—”

“My family and the others need to get to safety, but not us. Hiding is the last thing I need to do right now. I’ve got to find every friend we have, and I’m going to need a good pilot to do that.”

“Why?” Eric demanded.             

“Because the shit just hit the fan, that’s why! And if we don’t act fast, the entire nation is going to rip itself apart!”

C
hapter
S
eventeen

Light the Fire

Denver, Colorado

Day One             

Don Bergen hadn’t realized the remote had left his hand before it crashed into the blood-red face of Lukas Chambers. It shattered against his new Ultra-K television, creating a flurry of spider web cracks that slowly expanded from the point of impact and stretched out toward the edges of the way too expensive—and now worthless—display. It had been one part shock, three parts anger that had caused him to fling the little plastic missile. Now fury welled up inside the fifty-four year old man, but not because of his broken prize. Don had just witnessed Dan Martin—the one man he had come to trust in all the news media—literally lose his head on live TV at the command of the president of the United States. Don looked over at his wife of thirty years sitting motionless on the adjacent couch, her hands covering her mouth and nose as tears began to form in horrified eyes that were fixated on the flickering screen. Marsha had always been the most pleasant, carefree soul in his life, and seldom had she cried in front of him. With her reaction and his anger at what they had just witnessed, a fear also began to settle on Don at the realization that everything Dan had said must have been true.

“Call the boys,” Don said. “Tell them to meet me at Walmart in twenty minutes. I’ll take the truck. You take the motorhome, fill it up, and then come meet me as soon as you can.”

Marsha continued to sit there and cry. As much as he wanted to sit down and comfort his wife, Don knew hesitating was a luxury they could not afford. He needed to be the first to beat the rush if he wanted to be the first to survive what he feared had just begun. He lowered to the seat next to her and spoke quietly.

“Marsha, we have to move. All that talk about chaos that we used to have with your brothers—I think it’s about to happen. Now all of Denver is going to try and get what they can when things start to get bad. I have a feeling they won’t wait for some delivery drone to transport their groceries to their doorsteps. We have to move and we have to move now.”

Marsha shook a few more times, wiped away her tears, and looked over to her husband.

“Get everything you can,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Forty-five minutes later, Don was awkwardly pushing one cart with his right hand and pulling another behind him with his left. His two carts were filled to the brim with every kind of food that had any sort of shelf life. A group of five laughing college-age kids rounded the corner and stopped, gaping at him as though he was a deranged man. Don scooped two dozen cans of vegetables into the cart and continued down the aisle, ignoring the young men as best as he could as he passed them. However, just before Don was out of earshot, one of them worked up the courage to speak his mind.

“Yawn,” the young man shouted in a pathetic and condescending manner. “You’re nothing but a pawn, old man.”

Any other day, Don would have turned and confronted the laughing men, but he didn’t feel anger or malice for them at that moment.

He merely pitied them.

If things started to unfold the way Don believed they might, then the snickering college students behind him might soon be dead, dying, or doing unspeakable things for their next meal. If Don and his family were to endure the coming madness, he knew he very well might be the man sighting them in through the scope of his rifle one day.

He turned the corner and saw his son walking toward him.

“Wyatt,” he called out. His son’s cart was overflowing with toiletries, cheap camo jackets, winter hats, socks, gloves, empty blue water jugs, and countless other items that Don had asked him over the phone to buy. “Did you watch the interview?”

Wyatt nodded. “What do you think is going to happen to Chambers?”

“Nothing if what Dan Martin said was true,” Don replied. “The president is probably halfway to some bunker already. Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now. Only thing we need to worry about is getting ready and staying low. Have you seen your mom or brother yet?”

“Knowing Taylor, he’s probably stocking up on protein shakes as we speak.” Wyatt answered with a laugh, though Don shot back a serious look that cut his son’s laughter short. “I haven’t seen them. Mom called and said she filled up the motorhome and the gas cans. She said she was going to stock up on meds and antibiotics after that.”

“Good,” Don said. “I think we all need to leave tonight. Me, your mom, you, Taylor, your wives, and the kids. All of us.”

“And go where?” Wyatt asked.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll need to make one more stop back at the house to grab anything useful that we can find before locking it up. We’ll be well stocked for a long time, but Denver’s too big for us to stick around very long. If the food runs out, I bet half the city runs to the mountains with some crazed idea that they can just camp and live off the land. It won’t take long before some idiot with a belly full of beer and a campfire sets the entire state on fire. So I’m thinking we go east to the plains until we have a good idea of what’s really going to happen.”

“And how long do you think that will be?”

“As long as it takes,” Don replied. “Let’s go.”

The two pushed their carts down the wide aisle, grabbing anything they thought they might need as they went. Diapers for the kids, extra shoes in what they hoped were the right sizes, and Chinese-made pocket-sized solar generators. Don figured he was about to max out all of his credit cards, but he didn’t care much. In fact, he didn’t even think most of the banks would care a few months from then.

“I see Taylor up front,” Wyatt said.

“One more stop,” Don said as he steered his carts to the back corner of the store.

Don passed the row of fishing line, grabbing three poles, a few tackle boxes, and plenty of line before walking up to the gun counter. The woman behind the glass display—an overweight, uncaring person who was clearly too unhappy with her job to give a damn—glanced at Don and down at their carts curiously as she fidgeted with her nails.

“You know something I don’t know?” the woman said with a sudden chuckle that jiggled the lowest of her three chins.

“I’d like to purchase some guns. I can—”

“Sorry, no firearms sales after eight.”

“Fine, what about ammo?”

“Take your pick,” the woman said as she turned back to the locked case behind her. “Pretty much have everything. We’re a little scarce on the newer Chambers rounds, but we’ve got nine, forty, forty-five, twelve gauge in bird and buck, three-oh-eight. . . .”

The list went on. They had everything Don could ever want for the guns packed away in his RV and any firearms they found down the road. He had recently read that Denver had been quite the success story with its enthusiastic participation in the firearm exchange, and Don figured finding something other than a Chambers System would be next to impossible. However, he also knew ammo and food might soon be worth more than gold, and to take a pass on anything could prove to be a vital mistake.

“Okay,” Don interrupted. “I’ll take it.”

“Alright, which do you need?” the woman asked.

Don Bergen leaned in close—pressing both hands against glass as he spoke to the woman.

“All of it.”

Logan, New Mexico

Day Five

The strong winds of northern New Mexico ripped fiercely at Tim McKinley’s long leather duster as he spurred his Spotted Saddle horse onward, urging the steed to quicken its pace. Sand from the plains had already begun to gather on the wind; it intermixed with the lake to his right and formed wave after wave of wet, airborne sand that heralded the impending storm and stung his unshaven face. However, the sudden onset of the high desert gale didn’t bother Tim at all. It only made him smile with joy as he raced toward his ranch. The hard years of work had molded him into a fighter that looked nothing like the weak man he had been when he had first started running from Lukas Chambers almost five years ago.

Tim arrived home, quartered his horse, and ran to his front door just as a thicker wall of wind began pounding the north side of his home. The air shrieked and whistled as it raced up the opposite side of his house and down the roof, swirling around him and into the entryway as it tried desperately to find a route into his quaint little abode. He quickly closed the door behind him and took in a deep breath of fresh air before heading toward his kitchen.

The house was a three-year-old adobe ranch that held true to its southwestern design. Teals and whites decorated the cream-colored walls and the tops of the handmade furniture. A rounded fireplace stood coldly in the corner of his small living room. Books filled the wall-to-wall shelves to his left. Other than the complete lack of electronic devices—save the decades-old appliances—the interior of his home was quite unassuming.

Tim stopped in the kitchen, dropping off his coat and tall hat before preparing a full pot of strong coffee. He had never been much of a coffee drinker, but he knew he wouldn’t be ready for a break for at least twelve hours. When Tim started working, he almost never stopped for anything other than food and sleep. He turned the pot on, left the kitchen with his long, heavy bag, and opened the door to a coat closet next to the garage. He reached up and held his thumb against the hidden switch nestled above the inside of the doorframe and waited. After three seconds, the rear of the closet popped open. He pushed the hanging coats aside and walked forward, powering on the lights below before descending into a room that could not have been more different than the house above.

Walls of servers and monitors decorated two sides of the long concrete room. The other two walls were home to steel workbenches that held hundreds of specialized pieces of stolen or fabricated equipment—some worth double the price of the home above. He walked toward one of the steel benches but stopped for a moment, looking over at the two thick, lead doors that housed what eight men had died to protect.
Not yet
, he thought.
And hopefully never.
He set his tall backpack on the workstation and dropped down into his chair with a sigh.

His love for figuring out how things worked had begun as a kid and eventually led him to become a brilliant mechanical engineer. His yearning for knowledge, combined with a desire to improve the technology that fascinated him, had helped him achieve a perfect GPA all the way through his undergraduate and master’s programs. Afterward, it had been his passion to perfect the complex three-dimensional manufacturing of goods and his belief that he could integrate electronics into a printable design that pushed him to create the world’s first fully functional phone that came out of a printer. H.C. Industries had taken a liking to his craft and eventually, Lukas Chambers himself hired Tim for an innovative program that he promised would change the world.

Within a couple years Tim had invented a new printable material that was stronger than steel, lighter than carbon fiber, and allowed anything created with it to be tracked by a satellite without the need of a larger GPS or quantum compass unit. He had designed the technology to incorporate thousands of microscopic Nano receivers into an industrial-strength, fireproof frame that would allow the download and upload of encrypted information. He was rewarded heavily for his new creation and told it would be used to further protect the newly developed FODs.

However, when a friend in software mentioned a new code-altering algorithm that had been created specifically for receivers like his—and when he discovered his new creation would be utilized in the frame of an upcoming biometrically-secured firearm concept—he couldn’t help but grow suspicious. Though he wondered if the government could use the algorithm to disable a weapon, he dismissed that idea almost immediately. After all, Tim knew the government would
never
do such a thing. He figured any use of his technology in a civilian firearm was strictly meant to protect the end user. A year later, when the first prototype tested flawlessly, Tim and his team had celebrated what they labeled as their perfect and unbeatable creation.

Shortly afterward—as the project’s research and development stage came to a close—a lead engineer named Marc Gregory died of food poisoning while watching TV at home. A week later, another engineer who had worked with Tim drowned in his own vomit after a bartender failed to cut him off. Two weeks after that, the four software engineers responsible for the algorithm were driving to lunch one day when they were struck by a dump truck, killing them all in a horrific inferno. Tim had always been proud of his intellect, but he didn’t need to be the genius he was to know what was happening. Someone didn’t want what they knew to ever become public, and those involved were quietly being removed. So Tim did the only logical thing he could have done. He faked his death and ran.

Before his fake yet believable death, Tim emptied his bank accounts and purchased as much silver and gold as he could afford, melting it down and casting new bricks to sell off to the highest bidder. For a year he ran from place to place—hiding where he could—until he eventually came across the small town of Logan, New Mexico. After staying there for a month, he finally felt removed enough to settle down. For four years he had remained hidden, leaving only once to help a new and elusive friend retrieve the powerful device that now dangled behind the two lead doors beside him. However, no matter how long he remained unseen, he knew one day his past would catch up with him, and he would have to discover a way to fix a new problem at hand. And that is exactly what brought him down into his basement on that stormy August day.