Authors: Steven Konkoly
While definitely the “tried and true” solution, killing militia this far from Warren Towers carried risks he’d prefer to avoid. Warren Towers to the corner of Harvard and Stedman in thirty minutes? A simple game of connect the dots on a city map would give militia leadership a fairly accurate prediction of Alex’s intended travel route. Worse yet, a straight line drawn between the two locations terminated less than a quarter of a mile from Chloe’s apartment at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. They had no way to determine how far he travelled, but they could focus their search along this projected path, effectively trapping him in Chloe’s apartment until nightfall. Based on Ed’s report of the attack in Harvard Square, they couldn’t afford to wait until sunset to cross the Charles River. Boston sat on the verge of a complete civil breakdown.
He pointed his body at the sentries and lowered the NVGs, peering through the bushes. Leaves broke the image, but he managed to form an actionable assessment. Two armed men sat on top of a picnic table, facing the intersection. The smoker was partially obscured by a tree stump, his head and legs visible beyond the lead edge of the table. He stared down the length of the hedge, wondering if he shouldn’t try to crawl back. If they spotted movement and decided to investigate, he could take them down with little effort. If they skipped the investigation part, he’d be in trouble. The bushes would do little to protect him from a concentrated barrage of projectiles travelling at 3,200 feet per second.
He didn’t have the time to dick around with crawling back and approaching another intersection, and the sun had no intention of waiting for him to figure this out. Alex crawled along the hedge and stopped, reevaluating his line of fire to the targets. Both men sat in full view.
Let’s get this over with.
He started to rise, but stopped to reflect on his surprising indifference toward the prospect of preemptively killing them.
The sentries had been reduced to objects. Dehumanized for his emotional convenience. They fell into several convenient categories: Enemies. Targets. Obstacles. All true, but oversimplified—the way it had been done for millennia. Warfare relied on dehumanizing the enemy, no matter how “justified” the conflict. Raw human nature didn’t embrace wholesale slaughter. It had to be manipulated, which wasn’t an overly difficult task.
Alex had already convinced himself it was necessary and justified. He didn’t stop to consider why these men sat here watching the intersection. Were they doing their part to protect family and friends? Did they believe they were connected to something bigger and more important? Defending their city from the government? Alex didn’t care about the answers to any of these questions, because he was sure of one thing. If he stood up and tried to identify himself, his journey to reach Ryan and Chloe would come to an abrupt end—and that was the only piece of information that mattered.
With that in mind, he kneeled, keeping his profile below the top of the hedge. Rising slowly, he canted the rifle and braced it snugly into his shoulder. The IR laser broke the plane of the hedge and reached the man enjoying a cigarette. Alex moved the beam to the center of his head and slowed his breathing. One of the sentries’ radios broke the silence, emitting a garbled transmission, causing him to delay the shot. The second man slapped the smoker on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go,” prompting them to jump down from the table and run across Harvard Street. They hopped into a two-door sedan parked on the street and drove urgently toward Beacon Street. Alex waited for the taillights lights to disappear behind the buildings before running in a low crouch to the hedge along Harvard Street. The red lights continued to recede into the distance, vanishing from sight. A quick scan in the opposite direction convinced Alex that he could cross the street unobserved.
The team’s sudden recall from the area was a positive development. It signified a redeployment of assets away from his intended travel path, which might allow him to pick up the pace. Beyond Harvard Street, Alex faced a twisted path of obscure side streets leading to Chloe’s apartment. At a brisk, alert walking pace, he could be there in less than thirty minutes.
Chapter 6
EVENT +48:17
42 Orkney Rd
Brookline, Massachusetts
Alex squeezed between two tightly parked cars and sprinted across Ayr Road, burying himself in a stand of tall bushes next to a two-story duplex. Ed had advised him to turn on Ayr Road and look for the service street that ran between the apartments on the southern side of Orkney Road and Beacon Street. Access to Chloe’s apartment from Orkney Road was limited to a single, street-level door, which should be locked. With the doorbell inoperable, he’d have no way to effectively signal Ryan and Chloe on the third floor without drawing considerable attention. He preferred to arrive at the apartment unnoticed. One radio call to the militia from a concerned citizen could jeopardize everything.
Resting against the building’s brick façade, he measured his senses. The green image betrayed nothing behind the windows staring down at him. The buildings appeared uniformly green. No “hot spots” or movement. A few well-spaced crickets provided the neighborhood’s only discernible background noise. The near absence of sound worried him. Ed’s description of the ancient metal staircase attached to the three-story covered porch on the service street gave him pause. One way or the other, he was going to wake up some of the neighbors.
The service street connected to Ayr Road through a narrow paved drive surrounded on both sides by steep brick walls. Alex walked through the gap with his rifle raised, until it opened into a wide paved courtyard ringed with trash dumpsters and parked cars. He paused to scan the windows and was treated to a sea of uninteresting green. He counted porches, stopping at the fifth structure jutting out from an indistinguishable three-story wall of brick and windows. Ed had been adamant that 42 Orkney Road was the fifth porch—one of the few details he’d stood behind in his description of the apartment. The porches were supposedly marked with the street number, but in the sheer darkness of this alley, he wasn’t sure the night vision could pick up the numbers.
Arriving at the porch, he was relieved to find the number “42” on a sturdy placard next to the stairs. He was almost there
.
He wanted nothing more than to rush up the stairs and pound on the back door, but he swallowed his excitement and took a cautious step forward onto the metal staircase bolted to the concrete next to the building. He hadn’t made it this far to screw it up at the last possible moment. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, the metal groaned, causing Alex to stop and cringe. The sound echoed off the walls of the concrete enclave, repeatedly reaching his ears. His next step yielded the same result.
“Fuck this,” he muttered and mounted the stairs at a normal pace.
By the time he stepped onto Chloe’s covered back porch, Alex heard several windows slide open, followed by scattered mumbling. The night vision image flared bright green as at least one powerful flashlight swept the alley. Someone issued a halfhearted challenge, only to be immediately shushed. A whispered argument ensued, and a window slammed shut. They were afraid.
Good. Maybe everyone decided this wasn’t their problem.
Alex walked gingerly across the loose wooden planks, careful not to knock over the bicycles leaned against the railing next to the stairs. Four plastic chairs sat stacked next to a small plastic table in the far corner of the dingy platform. He raised the NVGs and let his eyes adjust, listening for any commotion below. His heart pounded, but not from the threat of discovery. He started to have doubts about finding Ryan and Chloe here. No effort had been made to discourage an intruder from walking onto the porch. At the very least, Ryan would have fashioned a crude early warning system by jamming the bicycles and other porch junk on the stairwell. If the kids had fled, he faced a tough decision, one with the potential to haunt him for the rest of his life.
He felt shaky approaching the door, suddenly overwhelmed by the gravity of the next few minutes. He shuffled forward and felt something rub the front of his thighs. A muted cascade of crashing aluminum cans exploded inside of the apartment, followed by footsteps. Alex reached along his leg and gripped a piece of slackened fishing wire.
They were here!
A light exploded in his face, followed by a gleeful shriek. The door swung open, and Chloe Walker rushed onto the porch, trailed by his son.
“Mr. Fletcher!”
“Dad!”
“Shhhhhh. Keep it down. Turn that light off. Let’s get inside—quickly,” he hissed, corralling them back inside.
“Is my dad here? Mom? Abby and Danny?” Chloe asked in a rush.
“Mom? Emmy?” added Ryan.
“Everyone is fine. Everyone. Chloe, your dad is on the other side of the Charles, sitting tight with a battalion of marines. I made him stay behind. It’s so good to see the two of you,” he said, tears flowing freely down his sweaty cheeks.
Alex hugged his son, squeezing him tightly. He wanted to say something profound, but settled for a comfortable, reassuring silence. No matter what happened from this point forward, it happened to both of them. The three of them. That was a promise he intended to give his life trying to keep. He reached out and pulled Chloe into the hug, and they stood there for several moments.
“I need to contact your father and let him know that you’re all right,” he said, breaking up the group embrace.
“Did you bring the satphone?” said Ryan, locking the door to the porch.
“No, I left it with Charlie outside of the city. It didn’t work the last time we checked.”
“You dragged Mr. Thornton into this mess?” asked Ryan.
“He volunteered. We wouldn’t have made it without him. He’s guarding Chloe’s dad’s Jeep about nine miles from here in the Middlesex Fells Reservation. We hid everything up there and walked in. Everyone else is in Limerick—at the pond.”
“Let me grab some candles. You should sit down, Mr. Fletcher. Ryan, grab some water for your dad, or make a Gatorade,” said Chloe.
“No candles, Chloe. We shouldn’t draw any attention to the apartment. I ran into some trouble on the way over here.”
“Street gangs or militia?” asked Ryan.
“I’d say militia, but I’m not sure. How did you guess?”
“We went out onto Beacon Street a few times during the first day, trying to get some information, but we stayed inside when the shooting started,” said Ryan.
“Who was shooting who?”
“We didn’t stick around long enough to find out, but people said the police were being targeted. That’s all we needed to hear.”
“The shooting intensified by nightfall and lasted all night,” Chloe chimed in. “At about seven the next morning, we heard someone yelling through a bullhorn outside of the bedroom window. A pickup truck was cruising down Orkney Road announcing that the streets were safe,” said Chloe.
“They called themselves the Liberty Boys. Camouflage uniforms, but not really matched. A hodgepodge of tactical gear, plenty of ARs. They were also looking for volunteers,” added Ryan.
“Jesus,” muttered Alex.
“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked.
“The Liberty Boys. Holy shit,” he said, dropping his rucksack to the carpeted floor. “It’s linked to one of the oldest militia groups in American history. The Liberty Boys, aka ‘Mechanics,’ were an offshoot of the original Sons of Liberty run by Sam Adams. Paul Revere was one of the founding members. They gathered intelligence on British military activity in the Boston area and conducted limited sabotage missions during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War. The famous midnight ride by Revere on the eve of Lexington and Concord was one of their operations. I ran into one of them at your dorm. He said something about us ‘never taking the country away from them.’ It sounded like typical paranoid militia talk, but now I wonder. This group responded quickly, right? Within twelve hours?”
“I think, yes. They definitely took control of the streets within twenty-four hours,” said Ryan.
“With rifles like mine?”
“That’s what we saw.”
“Only a well-established underground militia group could have pulled that off. The Liberty Boys never went away. They just went deeper underground and waited.”
“What happened to the guy you saw?” asked Ryan.
Alex unclipped his rifle and walked toward the couch near the front of the apartment. He desperately needed to sit down.
“I killed him,” said Alex, setting his rifle against the back of the couch.
He dropped his aching, deliriously tired body onto the soft couch and sighed. Ryan followed with a bottle of water, pushing it against Alex’s hand. He sat in one of the chairs across from his father, his dark form barely outlined against the front window of the apartment. Chloe sat in the chair next to Ryan and posed the question that his son hesitated to ask.
“Why did you kill him?”
“Because he was trying to kill me. They all were.”
“They all were?”
“Four of them followed me to the sixth floor of your dorm,” said Alex.
“Four? What happened to the rest?”
“Same thing.”
“Holy crap,” muttered Ryan, “we’re screwed.”
“Why did they follow you?” said Chloe.
Alex lifted his legs onto the couch and leaned backward, wanting desperately to close his eyes.
“They were waiting for me when I got out of the river. I managed to shoot my way through their welcoming committee with the help of a talented marine sniper. They probably assumed I’m some kind of marine saboteur.”
“That doesn’t make…none of this makes sense. Right? What happened to the bridges?” asked Ryan, the shadow of his hand reaching over to Chloe. “Why do the Liberty Boys care if you’re a marine?”
“Because they think this is all some kind of false flag conspiracy set in motion by the government to declare martial law. They see the marines, or any military unit on the streets, as the enemy. The bridges are still there. It’s just that nobody’s allowed across, in either direction.”