Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut

  Chapter Twenty

  When our homes and our House are in order at last, we will turn out attention to the Rooster at last. They must formally apologize for their transgressions, pay reparations to and pass legislation recognizing our full equality under the law. Further acts of neglect, insult, or insolence will be viewed as a final act of aggression against our people. Any such hostility against our people or cause will be met and returned with in kind. Make no mistake; our response will be without borders or remorse. This is the Vision of our Future.

  -Xavier Prince

  Serena

  SE Marietta, 26th Day

  The piano:

  Serena Tennyson or Oracle to those who knew that it was wise to fear her, hadn’t played one of these in decades; She sat on the stool with her knees up and pecked at a key and then a second and third until she found a melody that had grown familiar to her.

  And to the one she’d been forced to destroy.

  She’d gone through the set up this new command center at a new hotel whose owner was secretly—and as importantly, a silent friend to Pandora. Considering the locale and the wondrous view of Metro Atlanta, the man had outdone himself and would be rewarded for his time and attention. Those underneath her command that she respected, trust would be far too strong a term for it, advised her that a change of scenery at this point of the campaign would be wise if not prudent. Rohm reminded her of the allies and friends of their movement butchered at the hands of Quincy Morgan and an elite cell of Peacekeepers in his company. Her people thought it highly unlikely—perhaps even suicidal for a House in Chains sergeant at arms to make a personal play for her but why risk it.

  Otherwise, their current operation was going forward and well as planned. Pandora was taking its own offensive against supporters, community leaders and The Board in all of the major cities across the country. The wounds that their enemies were inflicting on Pandora were superficial at best. Their operation seemed to be focused on pulling off guerilla tactics like desperate terrorist. Those left behind by the death of Xavier Prince were poisoning a good man’s legacy and that of his father Isaac Prince—the Caretaker.

  And it would stop. It was just a matter of time.

  She got up from the piano for the moment, worked her way to the fireplace and tossed a pinched finger full of sand into the flames as she called out the names of each individual lost to the barbarism of the enemy over the past few hours. She’d honored the people of color who were lost in the wee hours of the 411 operation. She’d better damn well honor her own solders in this conflict.

  She whispered the name of Raymond Rice…and tossed in her last pinch of sand into the flames.

  And then Oracle sat herself down at the piano and played for who knew how long until she someone nudging her on the shoulder felt.

  “Rohm,” Serena heart fluttered. She must be really tiring if she wasn’t hearing and feeling people approach her. This madness must stop. “Please sit down.”

  “I’m sorry if I started you, Serena.” The younger woman dressed all in black gave her leader a once over. “Serena, have you been crying? Are you alright?”

  Serena stifled any further questioning by offering the other woman a quick smile. It was a warm but brief one that Rohm might have missed if she blinked at the wrong time.

  Serena asked her to sit down again. The younger woman crossed one black pant leg over the other, but squeezed Oracle’s hand while she did.

  “I’m glad you came, Danielle.” Serena told her. “I asked you here because I need to ask you something important?”

  “What is it, Serena?”

  “You’ve told me, or more than one occasion, about your spiritual beliefs.”

  “I have.”

  “I was wondering what is it that you do when your faith wavers.”

  Rohm sat back and rested her head on the cushion before sitting back up in full attention mode.

  “I guess that I pray for clarity of mind and spirt. In Christianity faith is the ultimate test of our love for our Lord. He passes that love down to us…his children, and through His example we pass that love and faith on to those who matter the most to us.” She said. “But make no mistake, Serena that faith is under constant scrutiny. That is why the Bible teaches us to pray.”

  “So the faith you speak of,” Serena said. “It is like the faith you’ve shown me.”

  Rohm smiled through her black lipstick.

  “Of course, Serena,” She said. “You’ve given me no reason for my faith to waver in you.”

  Serena stands at her full height for a moment, and then turns and seats herself in front of the piano once more…and begins to stroke the keys as if she’d never missed one of her mother’s lessons from all of those years ago.

  Rohm said, “I heard you playing through the door just before I came in. I admit to being curious when you requested the piano come with this latest command center. I know how you feel that furniture, for the most part, is a waste of space in a room. I didn’t even know that you played.” Rohm closed her mouth long enough to take in an ear full. “That song is beautiful. Is it an original composition? I can remember hearing the piece somewhere before but I can’t quite picture where.”

  “It is called Death is in the air Tonight. It is Xavier Prince’s song.”

  “Exactly,” Rohm nodded, pleased with her own recollection. “Death is in the air tonight. He played it quite a few times while he was under my surveillance: Sometimes as he ate his meals, once when he sexed one of his lady friends and every night before he went to sleep. I remember when you have me secretly mail him the CD. I must admit that I never tired of hearing it play myself. Where did you first come in contact with the song?”

  “Before my father rose to fly with the Dragon he wrote and composed music in his spare time.”

  “Your father was very talented.”

  “He was at that.” Serena nodded, nearly smiling again at her father’s memory. “And yet, I believe that his raw abilities had very little to do with the origin of this composition.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Danielle, my father composed this song knowing that his fate was already sealed.” Serena said with some urgency. “He composed it for me.”

  The hotel’s phone rang.

  Serena hesitated…she glared at the receiver for a minute—and continued playing as if she were never interrupted.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that, Serena?” Rohm said in a cautious tone.

  “In two minutes exactly they will call back,” Serena played louder then. She raised her voice loud enough to be heard. “And when they do, answer it for me and put the call on the speaker.”

  120 seconds later the phone indeed did ring again. Rohm looks to Serena briefly, gets to her feet and does as Pandora’s undisputed leader requested. After that the younger woman folds her arms over her small breast and remains standing. Serena stops playing in her own time and no sooner, but allows her long fingers to rest on the keyboard.

  “You are an ally, Danielle, but I need to know if you are truly a friend. Friends don’t keep secrets from another. If we are to continue on with this, Danielle,” Serena said in a quiet voice. “I need to expose you to the truth…all of it. I need to test your faith in me.

  Quincy Morgan is the man behind the voice on the speaker. “

  “Serena, are you there?”

  Serena replied, “I am, Mr. Morgan. I am here. I need to know if you’ve got it done. Did James Carter track your movements as we both anticipated? Is that hatemonger there?”

  Danielle Rohm—Shooter’s thin black lips part into an O.

  “He did at that. You’re betrayal caught him completely off balance and by surprise. I thought the smug son of a bitch would fall to his knees and cry. You should have seen the sense of hopelessness bearing down on him when his men refused to follow the order to kill me and my Peacekeepers. We were completely surrounded, out manned and outgunned. It was priceless.”

  “Good.
Did you do everything that I’ve asked of you, Quincy?”

  “I did. As per our agreement we allowed the 50 or so men who joined him in the pursuit to vacate the scene without incident—“

  “And James Carter—did you proceed as I asked—“

  “Yes, Serena we beat him to a pulp. He is so very dead. And before you ask, we left a positive way to identify him quickly beyond DNA for the authorities when they find him in the coming days.”

  “What did you leave behind for them to find, Quincy?”

  “We cut off his head.” The man on the other end of the speaker phone said. Rohm gasped. Serena blinked her eyes rapidly. “We left no marks on it just as you asked. It’s clean. The note that you prepared in advance is attached to his skull; the title of No Hiding Place—whatever in the hell that means—is in clear script and view.”

  Serena exhaled very deeply.

  Rohm looked as if she were the Dragon. She looked as if she could breathe fire thanks to the fury brewing inside of her.

  “Very well, Quincy.” Serena said, but never took her eyes off of Rohm. “You have avenged Xavier Prince’s humiliation at Princeton by an uncivilized man with his ancient ideals. As I’ve said before, James Carter and others like him have no place in Pandora’s new world order. Our trade is now complete; the life of Xavier Prince for the life of James Carter…an eye for an eye.”

  “I believe that alliance is now at an end and the war can continue?”

  “I believe that you are correct, Quincy.” Serena said. “Of course, you could use this opportunity to surrender your remaining forces to me and help prevent a further escalation of hostilities.”

  “Save it, Serena,” Quincy Morgan said in a loud and clear voice. “I know that humor is not your strong suit. How about this for a plot twists…if you truly want to prevent this escalation as you call it, why don’t you hand over the exact location of Atlanta’s missing children.”

  Daniele Morgan could stay still and silent no longer. She took as large strides as her petite frame allowed her until she was standing over the telephone.

  “She’s perfectly serious, Morgan. I’m positive that you used the time that Serena’s cloak of protection allowed you to kill many of Pandora’s supporters—our people. I will tell you this: If you continue along this path of behavior you and whoever follows you are headed for destruction. I personally guarantee that yow will be dead before sunrise and your cause will be dead soon after that.”

  Serena could almost feel Quincy Morgan smiling through the speaker.

  “Damn, Serena, you sure not to recruit them. I another time or another circumstance I would have loved to have someone with that type of fire working for me. You just have to love her spirit.” And then his tone turned serious, almost as if someone else was speaking. “But you are right about one thing, Shooter: By the morning I will be dead. Just remember that Pandora’s arrogance have given me my own Whirlwind, my victory. I’m not too proud to thank you, Serena. I couldn’t have pulled it off without you. Goodbye, Serena, I hope you burn in Hell.”

  The next thing they both heard was a dial tone.

  In the next minute or so, Serena turned her attention to Rohm who still had her back to her.

  “Are you surprised?”

  “I’m disappointed, Serena.” Rohm turned around. “You had something of a strategic importance to gain here, as well as the long term political ramifications after this skirmish between us…and them is over.” The younger woman leaned against the piano’s frame. It was black on black, almost transparent to the naked eye. “I can think of several scenarios. Trusting Quincy Morgan to have Xavier Prince killed for you was a risky but logical move. You also knew that James Carter wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to get at the newest leader of a House in Chains after Xavier Prince survived his onslaught all of those years ago. You have preached it over and over again to me and our other comrades the need to disassociate ourselves from the old guard, the old image of organizations like Pandora. We are preaching patriotism and not hate. We are pushing for a better tomorrow for all Americans but maintaining the racial status quo in this country.”

  Serena nodded.

  “Pandora will stand victorious tonight, tomorrow, or the next day but it is important to me that we do not have to deal a House in Chains a crippling, fatal blow.”

  Rohm stepped into Serena’s personal space.

  “Is there more, Serena?” She asked. “You mentioned that you were going to test my faith in our cause, in you?”

  Serena only began to play her song once again. She slowed the melody to a near crawl so her voice could be heard over her playing.

  “As you’ve said, Danielle, the murder of James Carter was a necessary evil.” Serena stopped playing. “But what do you feel about the maiming of his wife?”

  “Oh my, God,” Rohm said. “Are you telling me that a House in Chains wasn’t responsible for shooting Carter’s wife? It wasn’t an errant shot as so many people have theorized all of this time? You ordered a hit on this civilian?”

  “No,” Serena said as a matter of fact. “You witnessed it when I defied Pilot’s orders to cease our operations. You saw how difficult the decision that I made to press on was for me. You saw that the terrible price that both Raymond Rice and I paid for that decision. It was as tough a decision that I’ve ever made since I was recruited to this organization by Isaac Prince so long ago. James Carter was a dangerous man. I needed something that would push him over the edge from a mental and emotional stand point. Killing his wife would enrage him but after a period of grief that all humans share—he would have regained his focus. Yet, having his wife maimed, having him have to see her like that—well it did enrage him, but also kept him off balanced. He made mistakes.” Serena said and after a moment of pause. “So I trusted no one, not even the Shooter to do this task. I took the precision shot myself.”

  “She was a civilian, Serena.” Rohm could hold her fury back no longer. “She was an innocent civilian.”

  “She is. She is also no different than Thomas Pepper’s housekeeper that you murdered in cold blood and no different than those boys being held at the compound by Louis Keaton—a known pedophile.”

  Rohm rounded her small hand into a fist.

  “You promised me integrity, Serena. You gave your word that some lines would not be crossed. You agreed with me that we were doing God’s work.”

  “Yes, I did. I also gave my word to Isaac Prince, before he truly died, that Pandora would end this conflict with as few civilian casualties as possible. Everything that I’ve done so far has been consistent with that philosophy. There is an element out there, Danielle that is contemplating genocide against people of color…a Whirlwind. I don’t know who. I don’t know how. I do know that such an action cannot stand. I won’t have it on my conscious or legacy.”

  Rohm whipped around and stormed out of her leader’s hotel room without closing the door behind her—leaving Serena alone with her conscious and her legacy.

  Seth

  Cobb County; Buckhead, 26th Day

  James Carter’s severed head:

  Dr. Seth Dupree couldn’t help but glare at it as much as he tried to look away. Maggots and scores of other pest were already working their way through open any open passageway on the way down his neck; and all along his lifeless eyes continued to glare up past Seth into the smoky Atlanta night.

  Seth would never forget what had transpired over the past half hour. He would never forget when Carter’s heavily armed militia surrounded Quincy Morgan and his Peacekeepers. He would never forget how the banter of threat and counter threats volleyed from one camp to the other. He would never forget the name calling and the insults and the near exchange of gunfire that would have surely left him for dead.

  He would always remember when Carter himself offered him a way out of this. The last woman who Quincy had allowed to live took him up on his offer without hesitation and spit at the spot where the sergeant at arms had been standing. Seth almos
t accepted his conditions. He almost had.

  And yet he had refused temptation. I stayed with you, Quincy, because you were the devil that I already knew.

  And so he had prepared himself to die then. There looked to be no other alternative but to perish alongside with Quincy and his Peacekeepers. Seth felt his brain cells at a tug of war with his gut.

  He remembered seeing the images of his friends who’d died during and since the boating accident that ultimately had set him off on this path to who he was and where he was tonight.

  He saw Denise Prince take her leap of faith out of the window, while he was helpless and impotent to stop her.

  And he visualized Angel, his wife, all alone at the mercy or Roxanne Sanchez.

  But he was alive.

  He was still alive.

  He’d chosen wisely.

  After Quincy Morgan and this woman…Serena, finished their phone conversation over the speaker for all to hear, Seth would always remember James Carter turn four shades of white—

  All of this while his entourage simply turned away.

  And in over two decades of performing surgery, the Gray Man had in his collective experience seen as battered and beaten a body as he did the mutilated carcass of one James Carter.

  Seth knew it to be true until Carter’s men turned over the woman who had wrongly thought that she’d seen the last of Quincy Morgan.

  In the minutes since, Seth had gone from angry to bewilder to thankful to angry again.

  He was damned angry right now.

  He jacked Quincy Morgan up by his collar until both of them were up against a nearby Volvo.

  “I want you to listen to me,” He yelled into the other man’s face. Quincy turned away. “Don’t turn your back on me you son of a bitch.”

  Quincy held him off with ease with his forearm, barely breathing hard or working up a sweat. Percy took two steps towards the combatants but Seth saw Quincy flash him a muted, confident look that he would handle this. Seth was little more than a nagging mosquito flying around to be swatted down this Atlanta night.

  Quincy moved with a speed that defied explanation that defied the laws of gravity. He spent Seth around until the Gray Man was pinned on the car and maneuvered through a combo with lighting speed and accuracy.

  Seth found himself the victim of a half dozen or more punches and kicks to what seemed to affect every inch of his torso down, while he rolled around on the asphalt again struggling for breath.

  After a moment, Seth squatted down closer to Seth, looking like Johnny Bench.

  “Our time together has been…educational, for both you and me, Doctor, but alas, that time has come to an end. Just before James Carter made his long awaited appearance, Percy here reminded me that we have more pressing business elsewhere in metro Atlanta. If you will excuse me, I intend to see to it.”

  He’s just one man, the voice inside of him, the Gray Man whispered in his ear. If you can kill him, you may save more lives than you ever have on that surgical table.

  Seth knew that he had survived this long for a reason. He’d chosen willingly to stay behind with the Peacekeepers when common sense and a healthy fear of dying told him otherwise.

  It was time for him to put the last minutes of his life to good use.

  He back handed Quincy—but once again, as if this scene were on a repeat cycle, the other man retaliated with yet another lethal combination of jabs and kicks that put Seth’s ass on the asphalt quickly and viscously.

  Quincy hopped on top of Seth where he’d fallen and raised his hand and arm in a jackhammer like motion—as if he were going to swing through for a killing blow.

  “Do it,” Seth shouted at him with his last ounce of strength and will. And in an instance it was all gone; the strength and the will. “What are you waiting for, Quincy? You should complete my education. At the end of the day I’m just one of them. You’ve murdered plenty of white people over the past few hours. Murdering one more rooster should come easily to you by now.”

  Quincy got off of him…and sat down, and rubbed his own chin. He then surprised the Gray Man further—by extending his hand to him, so that he could sit up as well. They both sat there for a time, to Percy’s growing impatience, breathing in the smoky air that was consuming the city now.

  “We’ve rid the world of a hatemonger known as James Carter.” Quincy said without preamble and looked ever briefly where the dead man’s head rested on the concrete. “America and the world are better places for it.”

  “There are thousands, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women like him still out there, Quincy. And as precise and lethal as your operation and your operatives are, you can’t possibly hope to kill them all.”

  Quincy nodded once.

  “You’re right, Doctor. You’ve been right about a lot of things since our paths crossed hours ago.”

  Seth painfully scooted himself over until he was face to face with Quincy Morgan.

  “I understand the need for you to save, especially in front of your people. I do. But is there any way possible for you to stymie the remainder of this operation you are planning. Call of this…Scar of yours, Quincy. I’m asking you. I’m begging you to stop this.”

  Quincy turned and his face looked almost apologetic in the moon light and he slowly shook his head in finality.

  And for the first time and the last, Seth thought he saw Quincy’s eyes go moist with tears.

  “My grandmother was so very right,” Quincy said after a time. “She was a grand old lady before death took her from me.”

  “Your grandmother,” Seth searched his memory banks and found the data stored somewhere in his head. “You mentioned her to me in the last minutes before Carter and his men showed. You mentioned Scar. You didn’t finish telling me what the connection was.”

  Quincy got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his clothes though the blood, brains and marrow would remain. He once again extended his hand to Seth who rose as well, but not without difficulty. Sporadic gunfire sounded off like someone one was popping another bag of popcorn for the early morning show. Seth could hear screaming.

  And then Seth heard something that he hadn’t heard before tonight—or anytime ever in his life.

  The Gray Man heard and explosion.

  And after he’d turned to see where the noise had originated from, he’d twisted in time to see a mini mushroom cloud rise through the haze of the Atlanta skyline.

  “Oh my, God,” The question sounded as if it had originated from someone outside of his own body. “What in the hell are those explosions?”

  “Sometimes you have to learn life’s lessons the hard way. That is the lesson that my grandmother left me with. Sometimes life’s lessons leave you with a scar so that you never forget.”

  Seth struggled to catch his breath.

  He felt his own body losing its equilibrium…its balance and he slumped and fell backwards until he was once again in the seated position that he had started this night in.

  He now understood to by definition what Scar truly was.

  “All of the indiscriminate killing, the tactical executions, the sniper attacks of the APD…none of that was going to be enough to satisfy your House was it, Quincy?”

  “You reminded of something earlier that I already knew, Doctor, that my ultimately people couldn’t possibly win this conflict with Pandora and I agreed with you.” Quincy pointed a long manicured nail towards the due South so that Seth would look in that direction as well. He asked Percy for the time and a third explosion and subsequent fireball appeared like clockwork when Percy replied with the current time. “All of the strife that went on during the Civil Rights Movement and the Watts Riots before our time, Doctor. We lived through the Rodney King, Ferguson and Baltimore riots over the past few years; the fires in the streets of America after the nation’s first Black president were killed. All of this, all of this has or will be forgotten by the residents of this nation eventually. All of the lives, all of the sacrifices, Docto
r, how do we dare forget?”

  “Maybe they have been discarded, but not forgotten.” Seth said, the hair standing up on his wrist and behind his neck. “I don’t think that anyone has truly forgotten.”

  Another explosion lit up the skyline.

  “They won’t ever forget this, Doctor. Scar and its aftermath will be remembered forever.” Quincy walked down the street 10 or so steps towards where the explosions were originating rom in Fulton County and his Peacekeepers followed. He turned back one last time one las time to where Seth was standing. “Farewell, Doctor.”

  Seth said quickly, “Alright, Quincy…alright, Scar contains even more destruction than Pandora or anyone else who have believed a House in Chains was capable of. I get it, Quincy. I get the symbolism. Ok, you’re blowing things up. It’s bold. It’s unprecedented. I still don’t get what’s so damned memorable about it? What makes these pipe bombs or car bombs or whatever explosive devices you are using do different, so special?”

  Quincy started to walk away but stopped. He looked towards Seth preparing to spring his final surprise but his eyes held no joy in the coming presentation.

  “Go to the gymnasium near Bel Air Street.” Quincy asked Percy for the time once again. “From here it is a good twenty minute run. If you hurry you’ll see all of the fruits of my people’s labor there. You will see for yourself why history will never forget a House in Chains. They will never forget the Vision of our Future.”

  Seth ran as hard as he could manage considering his age, injuries and lack of everyday exercise. He would pause and lean on a light pole to catch his wind, glance around him to see if he were still angling in the right direction and start again. He wouldn’t have believed that he was capable of coming close to completing this run without passing out, but he’d survived so much this night—

  He had proven Roxanne Sanchez wrong.

  He ran and then he ran some more.

  He’d owed all of those who’d died in his place tonight and over the years to make it to Bel Air. He owed them all that he should be there to bear witness to what Quincy Morgan and a House in Chains had plotted for so very long.

  He finally had the gymnasium in his sights…before his legs went wobbly and he tumbled down the hill. He struggled to his feet again—his ribs aching. He was cut and bruised as well, but otherwise he was no worse for the wear. What do I do now? In all of the time that it took to get here, he never gave it much thought to what he would do if and when he reached this place.

  The city was using the gym and other buildings of its size for shelters and would welcome people of all colors and races who wanted to escape the dangers of the streets. By the shape and size of it, Seth estimated that if could easily fit 200 to 250 people inside comfortably. He mostly saw people of his skin tone entering and leaving. One man had brought in a two bags of food.

  The Gray Man gathered his thoughts: Somewhere inside that gym or in this nearby he came to the quick conclusion that a House in Chains had an explosive planted in the vicinity.

  So now what? Do I got down there and publicly announce my belief that there is a bomb somewhere nearby? Good luck with explaining that.

  Even worse…they may believe him after all. Would they exit in an orderly way or would they more than likely trample one another while they fled the building for the lives.

  And how did Peacekeepers know that the city would use this or any other specific building for a shelter anyway?

  The Gray Man was still missing a very large piece of the puzzle and time was short.

  Seth checked the watches that Quincy had one of his men give him before he began his travels.

  He sighed. Time had indeed run out.

  Nothing…nothing but…wait…Seth watched a young black girl; she couldn’t be any older than 17 or 18 at the most, arrive at the front entrance. She was a pretty thing too but he could only see her face because the rest of her body was wrapped in a trench coat.

  Why is she wearing—?

  Dr. Seth Dupree knew that the nights in this part of Georgia at the base of the Smoky Mountains could get cool like this night one was, but not to that extent.

  Obviously the two men tasked at welcoming the refugees inside felt troubled as he was feeling at that same exact moment.

  Oh my, God, Seth had put it all together. Oh my God in Heaven, she’s wearing some type of devise underneath that coat.

  She’s a suicide bomber.

  It all made sense to him now…if unadulterated killing ever made sense to a human being.

  Quincy Morgan was correct after all.

  They both knew that never before in the history of the United States had Americans seen such brutality…such sacrifice. The country would awake in a few hours and read stories on their tablets and phones and newsstands how hundreds—maybe even thousands of young people of color strapped bombs to their chest and killed thousands and thousands of mostly white civilians.

  Regardless to how this conflict ended over the days and weeks to come, this would leave a scar on the national conscious that would never be forgotten.

  Seth yelled and waved his hands and arms in the air as he charged down the hill with only the gym in his sights. He increased his speed…but it was as if the world had been reduced to moving in slow motion and his weary legs along with it.

  The guards did seem to notice him, but as they glanced in his general direction to see what all those noise was all about—the young woman used their lack of attention to her to sprint past them and disappeared inside.

  “Noooooooooo.”

  And then there was a loud explosion—and a portion of the gymnasium’s roof blew away from its holding.

  Dr. Seth Dupree could not say how long it took him to even remotely begin to recover from the effects of the explosion. He was bleeding from the nose…from his ear…from what felt like everywhere. The Gray Man’s hearing was suspect and he could taste blood in his mouth. Dozens of smaller fires were popping up where he’d fallen.

  And the two men who were watching the entrance and been blown into several pieces of men on the hill around him well.

  Dr. Seth Dupree wept as hard as he ever had.

  He cried. He screamed. He pounded the ground around him until his knuckles matched the bleeding that his ears, nose and mouth had done.

  Roxanne Sanchez had been right about him after all.

  It was no way in the hell, he had survived it all. He would surely wake from his next slumber a dead man. No one could have witnessed what he had tonight and survived it, no one.

  He cried and pounded the ground for a time longer—

  And then the ground seemed to pound back for nearly 30 seconds after.

  He stopped crying with a suddenness that frightened him. He lifted his head from the ground thinking that another suicide pretty teenaged suicide bomber had fulfilled her destiny…but as quickly realized yet one more bout of madness had returned to the Atlanta area just in time to make an already difficult situation now impossible.

  Weary and distraught Seth lay himself down on the hard canvas.

  He prayed.

  And then Dr. Seth Dupree wondered who in the city had survived the earthquake.

  Thomas

  Downtown Atlanta, 26th Day

  The dying man spoke.

  He told Thomas Pepper a story more horrifying than any sane man would ever wish to hear and keep his sanity intact. It was a tale filled with words of machetes and precision and overwhelming numbers and stealth and butchery.

  Thomas had arrived at the downtown hotel ten minutes ago. He’d ventured the rest of the way over here over the loud and persistent protest of the Black minister who’d begged him not to return to the streets—at least until after sunrise. Thomas had convinced the man that he would be fine and promised to return when he’d finished doing what he had felt he needed to do. He never got into specifics but the other man easily could see the guilt and the unease in his eyes. Finally, the minister had been resigned to nodding his bald head and said t
hat no matter whatever sin that he’d committed, he was sure that God would be with him.

  And then he sent Thomas Pepper back out into the Atlanta night from which he came.

  He’d alternated between running and walking and had made it nearly six blocks to the base of the hotel without further incident. He’d seen troubling acts all along the way but had left the manner to those involved and left well enough alone.

  The desk manger—the dying man—was the first person living person Thomas had come across inside the hotel’s lobby.

  If anyone dared calling a man lying in a pool of his own blood with his throat partially cut and the top knuckle of each finger snatched from the rest of his hand living. But when Thomas could stand to glance around his perimeter, all of the dead and broken bodies told him more about what had happened here than any story this man could tell him.

  And yet, he struggled on trying to share with Thomas what he’d seen. The dying man told him that some young punks had crashed through the front entrance with an automobile for God’s sake. The Zero Hour had only been minutes old when they entered the premises. They robbed the hotel’s register and everyone who had been unfortunately caught here in the wrong place and certainly at the wrong time.

  Thomas could feel a frown growing on his face, especially when he glanced at the carnage in this lobby. Do you mean that some deranged kids did this—?

  The dying man found the strength from somewhere to shake his head once and again with an emphatic no.

  The punks’ self-proclaimed victory was short lived and the territory that they’d claimed as their very own was snatched from them within minutes. The Peacekeepers made quick work of the overmatched thugs. Thomas could see that they’d taken the time to gut a couple of the young men and used their blood to paint V’s all over the previously all white walls.

  The Peacekeepers weren’t done however.

  The dying man told Thomas that the vigilantes turned their attention to the employees of the hotel and any civilian who dared to get in their way. They asked only one question and they asked it again and again and again until someone provided the information that they needed to accomplish what they’d come for.

  The question of the night was: Where is Lucy Burgess?

  Thomas swallowed then and found that his breathing was becoming more difficult.

  The dying man told him how brave and courageous that his manger had been. He told him how that man refused to allow anyone to invade the privacy of anyone staying at one of his hotel.

  The dying man told Thomas Pepper that after they’d beheaded his boss that he was not nearly brave or courageous. He explained that he’d lost his top knuckle on each finger for them wrongly thinking that he was stalling when in actuality, his nerves would not allow him to thumb through the computer database any faster.

  The slash across the throat only served as a parting gift when he’d told whoever their leader was to go to hell when he provided them Lucy’s hotel room number at last.

  Thomas laid the dying man as gently as he could must on the floor and for the second time in an hour or so had promised a complete stranger that he would return. He carefully made his way through the hallway to the elevator. The Peacekeepers had left an easy trail of blood and dead bodies for Thomas Pepper to follow. Were these poor saps just unlucky bystanders or did they hear the exchange at the front desk and made a valiant but ultimately futile stand to right a wrong?

  The elevator was out of service to his mild annoyance. Thomas searched around and quickly found the stairs. He took a deep breath, still trying to recover from his long dangerous trek to this hotel from his own one.

  He saw more blood.

  He saw a handful of more mutilated bodies.

  He saw more blood paintings of the letter V. Is that for your vision, Xavier or for your victory?

  This hotel had been classy enough, probably too nice for what Thomas Pepper patronized hotels for. He wouldn’t take any of his flames to one this nice or expensive even if he’d done a weekend getaway.

  He and Lucy had never spent a night in a place like this one.

  Thomas Pepper was nearly out of breath again when he finally reached the floor where Lucy’s room would be located. He felt his heart rate quickening and he was pouring sweat. Two bodies of hotel personnel were lying of the carpet near the closest room. They’d looked as if they’d been shot in the head. A third person, dressed in a maid’s outfit, had her throat opened from ear to ear.

  A door opened when he walked by.

  He cursed and slid his large frame along the wall and tried and failed to make himself small.

  It was just one of the hotel’s guests who had peeked out—and quickly slammed the door shut before he could open his mouth to ask a question.

  Two or three other doors opened and the traumatized guests nervously watched as he passed. What have you poor bastards heard in these halls tonight? What have you people seen?

  Thomas produced Lucy’s key unnecessarily as he stood in the shadow of her already opened door.

  He made himself as small as he could again, but he had already made up his mind before he entered that there was only one person on the premises. A House in Chains had come and likely had gotten what they’d been promised. There was no need to leave anyone of their people behind with

  The room was dark as they’d doused all of the artificial lighting—but there was a smell of candles, yes that was what the smell exactly was, coming from just around the first corner of the suite. He nearly tripped over something… a broken lamp or perhaps it was a vase. They’d trashed the place for sure. No, her suite had been destroyed. The Peacekeepers had left nothing unmolested from their fury.

  Thomas got down on all floors, trying not to panic completely. He inched forward towards the candle light and the candle smell. He came across a woman’s blouse and then a pair of pants. They’d both been cut to shreds with something very sharp. And then he turned another corner and felt something cool and moist on his elbows and on the back of his arms. He stopped long enough to smell it and realized it was blood.

  If Thomas Pepper had any hope of finding Lucy alive that hope was crushed with the blood sighting. He wanted to weep. He wanted to turn back and crawl back out of the door and exit the hotel from which he can.

  He didn’t want to look up but he did.

  He didn’t want to see the silhouette of a female’s figure that the candle light provided him.

  He stood up and flicked on the nearest light switch so he would have no further doubt of what he’d seen and what he was seeing and the nightmares that would rule his nights during the Hour of the Wolf for the rest of his natural life.

  He saw a nude Lucy Burgess hanging by her extremities on an X in a makeshift poses as if she’d been crucified.

  “Lucy,” Thomas said in a voice far calmer than he actually felt. And then a sudden realization struck him. “God almighty, what have they done to you Lucy?”

  Lucy moved her head so subtlety that Thomas barely realized it. It looked to him as if she’d mustered all of her remaining strength and energy to accomplish such a small feat. She was alive…but probably only for a few minutes longer.

  Thomas used an old boy scout knife to quickly but carefully cut her down. He had to be careful though and not let her shifting dead weight topple him over as well. Just as he had with the dying man at the front desk, Thomas laid her down on the carpet as gently as he could. Her eyes were blackened and swollen nearly shut from being pounded on repeatedly with someone’s fist. Lucy’s nose had been broken in more than one place, her lips busted and several of her teeth shattered.

  The more Thomas looked at his former lover’s body, the worse it had been for her and the worse it was for him right now.

  There were burn marks of X’s all over her upper torso that nearly covered every inch of skin. She coughed up blood—and when Thomas held her close so that she wouldn’t choke on it, he got a good feel of the bullwhip marks that shrouded her entire
back.

  “What have they done to you?” Thomas asked as he began to cry. “What have I done to you, Lucy?”

  Lucy would have cried with him, if only she had the strength. She would have cried with him if only she had the tears left inside to offer. Instead she managed only a pained cough…and rubbed his hairy squared jaw with her tiny fingers. Lucy’s hand never looked more childlike than it did right then.

  Thomas heard himself say, “I’ve got to get you some help, Lucy. I’ve got to get you to the hospital right now. Maybe there is time—“

  Lucy had found another small bout of strength and shook her head at him and it broke his heart all over again.

  “It’s too late for any of that, darling.”

  Thomas teared up again.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m so sorry.”

  “And I forgive you,” She said with what must pass for the moment as a smile. “At the end we all pay for our sins.” Lucy hesitated for the longest time and Thomas thought she was gone. “I’m paying for all of mine right now. And you will as well…darling. You will pay as well.”

  And then Lucy Burgess’s small frame went instantly heavy as she died.

  Thomas finished laying her down and took the time to cover her nude and scarred body with the spread off of the nearby bed.

  He numbly made his way back out her hotel room, down the stairs and out of the hotel into the streets again.

  It wasn’t until Thomas Pepper was a block away until he looked down at his palms and saw that he had blood on his hands until they—and the entire world shook uncontrollably for a minute a longer.

  And one block from there Thomas Pepper wondered who had survived the earthquake?

  Chris

  In Route north, out of the city, 26th Day

  A flat tire;

  What else could possibly go wrong tonight? Special Agent Christopher Prince thought to himself as he removed to deflated tire and rim from Blue’s car.

  “I don’t believe this. I refuse to believe that this is happening right now.” He said more to himself than the two women who were accompanying him.

  “Well, believe it,” Blue said, pacing. She had her government issued piece out and scanned the perimeter again for dangers seen and possibly unseen. “It happened—get over it. The proof is in your hands.” And then she saw Chris scoop out the spare from the trunk she sighed and added: “And it looks like my spare is a piece of shit to.”

  Chris examined it quickly and rolled it away, the wobbling action convincing him that he and his partner had come to the same result.

  “Damn,” He said.

  “Why did you take this street anyway, Chris?” Blue asked, using her gun to mark their recent path to this neighborhood. “It would have been quicker to hop on Marion and take it all the way up to the 285 junction.”

  “You’re right, Blue. It would have been the quicker and more direct route—if we were going to drive back to the FBI field office?”

  “And why wouldn’t we, Chris?” Blue pointed her free hand at Grace Edwards, who was leaning against Blue’s useless car. “She needs to be fully debriefed and the sooner the better.”

  Grace folded her arms and took a deep breath exercising extreme patients. She turned her attention solely on the senior partner.

  “We didn’t agree on that proposition.”

  “We aren’t exercising the democratic process here, sweetheart.” Blue shot the other woman a stern glance. “You don’t get a vote.”

  Chris said, “But I do, Tabitha. Remember, our original orders were to find the leaders of a House in Chains. She still is an asset. We can still use her help. She knows where any potential rendezvous point with the Circle may be. She could potentially lead us to them.”

  “She might do that,” Blue nodded in admittance. “Or she might also be manipulating you, Chris.”

  “Manipulating,” Chris stood up straight and bit back the first rising tide of anger he was feeling. “Have you been listening to what’s being reported on the radio? Suicide bombers are igniting themselves in shelters, malls and other heavily populated houses of commerce or socialization. Thousands of civilians have been estimated of dying here in such attacks in greater Atlanta alone. The other members of the Circle, led by Quincy Morgan betrayed my brother and are acting without impunity. There is no longer a reason for her to be overly loyal to them. No, I don’t have to completely trust her, Tabitha, but in my opinion following where she leads is the most productive course of action.”

  Grace shifted her weight off of the car.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, Chris. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the specifics of Scar. I know that I kept the knowledge of the bombers from you. Again, it was our plan that if any of the Circle were out of communication with the others—that it would not stop the others from deploying them when the Zero Hour. We had a choice to use them or lose them.”

  Blue frowned at that.

  Grace noted the other woman’s expression but continue to focus her gaze and conversation on Chris.

  “Xavier and Quincy Morgan worked out the specifics and provisions for unleashing each escalating phase of Scar. Percy, Warren and I were not included in those discussions.”

  “You see, Chris? You want us to trust her and yet the members of this so called Circle didn’t even trust each other with this vital information.” Blue said in an increasingly unhappy voice. She showed her overbite.

  “Even amongst the Circle, the less that each individual knew about timing details, the less the chance that our operations could be compromised,” Grace finally turned her full attention on Agent Blue. “I felt it was totally necessary, especially if any of us were subjected to capture or torture.”

  “Alright, you were protecting yourselves and this…heinous operation of yours. I get it, Grace. And you protected the location of this rendezvous of any survivors up to this point as well?” Chris asked.

  “Yes, that is correct.” Grace was nodding. “The signal would be in the form of a specialized text over our cell phones only after Scar had been initiated in full fury. We have the potential to utilize eight different locations depending on what the surviving senior officer feels is the most secure facility at that time.” Grace raised her cuffed hands up so that the other two could see her wrist clearly. “As you can see, I’ve been a little too busy to make that call, even if I had wanted to.”

  Blue frowned up again.

  “Honey, you should find someone who cares. I don’t think that anyone of your people outside the Circle expected Quincy Morgan to have Xavier assassinated. More people in your little organization would have tried to stop him. You can’t go around terrorizing white folks if you are involved in petty bickering at the top.” Blue rubbed her thick brows a second. “I say we confiscate a ride and take her down to the field office, Chris. She’s proven that she can’t be trusted beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s more to this than she’s telling. I know that I’m right about this.”

  Grace planted her shoes into the street.

  “Then you had damned be prepared to kill me because I’m not going anywhere near a FBI Field Office or any other government agency building with you or anyone else, Agent Blue.”

  “The hell you aren’t,” Blue raised her gun and pointed it at Grace’s temple. Chris heard Grace’s braids rattle as she turned to facedown Blue’s gun. His partner took an unnecessary step in the other woman’s direction. “Lady, I’m done talking to you, I’m done playing with you.”

  “Good,” Grace said as seriously. “I’m glad I don’t have to listen to you anymore. But you should listen to me: You better be prepared to use that, Agent Blue.”

  “I don’t think that you will continue to cooperate under the terms that Chris set out for you so in my opinion you are useless to us. The only thing that you can do is to try and escape. And I can’t let you do that—

  “And I can’t let you do this.”

  Special Agent Christopher Prince had pulled his own gu
n on his partner.

  “Chris,” Blue said in a voice partly stained in surprise, partly stained in hurt. “What are you doing?”

  “Grace Edwards is trying to serve the greater good of all Americans by remaining here and fully cooperating with us. Thousands have died tonight, Tabitha. How many more thousands will die over the next 24 to 48 hours from now as this thing gets further and further out of hand. I don’t see a downside to this, Tabitha. And I gave her my word.” Chris said. “I gave her my word, Tabitha.”

  Blue stepped back from both of them, lowered her gun a half inch.

  “Listen, Chris, I know you’re distraught after losing your brother the way that you did, especially after we were so close to reaching him in time before the Peacekeeper’s loyal to Quincy Morgan did. Damn, Chris, I can appreciate how you must be feeling…really I can.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Tabitha.” Chris said in a hard voice and shook his bald head back and forth. “Xavier’s death had very little with why I’m doing this.”

  “Bullshit,”

  “Tabitha, I gave her my word. That has to mean something.”

  “You shouldn’t talk to me about giving and keeping promises, Chris.” Blue had raised her firearm back to where it was previously. She took a step closer to Grace until she was nearly hidden behind her. Chris shadowed her until he had reestablished a clear shot again. “What about the oath you made to your country?”

  Chris didn’t answer. Instead they rounded each other with their weapon trained on the other as they circled Grace Edwards. Chris did the dance with his partner as he sweated bullets. He could smell his own fear…but was it for the fear of being shot by Tabitha Blue—or was it because he was becoming more willing to shoot her with each passing minute. He felt his pulse racing in the wrist of his trigger hand.

  He could hear the rustling of the leaves in the background and nearby as another heavy gust of wind passed.

  He could hear someone fire a round off in the distance.

  He dared not take his eyes off of Blue.

  “I don’t want you to talk to me about the bureau. Maybe you need a reminder about what happened to me in the recent past, Tabitha.” Their dance paused as an imaginary record changed. “This bureau that you speak on and on about so proudly and blindly follow is a broken institution. How many of our fellow agents split and worked as double agents for Serena Tennyson and Pandora over the past few years. Hell, Tabitha, the director himself was leading that outfit over there. How many of our people abandoned their post with the ATF, CIA and other lettered agencies to aid a hate group plot the murder of people of color? How many do you think, Blue?”

  “Alright, Chris, I won’t argue that point with you, I can’t. And I give you the same word that I promised myself when I found out about what Raymond Rice has been doing: I won’t rest until those who have betrayed us are brought in to justice.” And then the dance between the partners resumed. “But I want you to forget about all of those strangers for a minute and focus on the only thing that matters right now—what about us, Chris? What about me? Do you count me among the broken? Is our partnership broken? What about our friendship?”

  “I don’t want to lose you as a partner or a friend, Tabitha.” Chris replied, but kept his gun raised just the same. “You are good cop. You’re a better person and you’re the most loyal person that I know. I just think that your loyalty is sometimes misguided.”

  “You talk about loyalty,” Blue flashed her overbite as laughed bitterly. “You are so right, Chris. I am loyal almost to a fault. I’m loyal to the bureau. I’m loyal to you. But something has to give tonight. Someone has to give in tonight. But it won’t be me, Chris. Your lady friend here claimed that she was ready to die for her beliefs. One or both of us had damn well been prepared to do the same thing. Are you truly ready to make that call, Christopher? You better not be mistaken especially if you are prepared to pull that trigger and kill me where is stand right now.”

  Chris pulled his hammer back.

  “I don’t want to, Agent Blue, but I will.”

  The dance ends at last as does the imaginary song.

  There is only silence.

  And then there is only more silence.

  Until Chris hears voice calls out from somewhere behind them. Both he and Blue train their guns off of one another and he points his to the North while his partner aims to the South.

  “Too bad we won’t ever know which one of you would give in. Both of you should put your guns down on the asphalt and kick them away from yourselves and I think that both of you should do it right now.”

  Chris silently mouthed a curse. He hears nothing but the rustling of the leaves once again and thought that the sound had aided these people in approaching them without being heard. He gives a quick head count. It looked to be a dozen civilians, all white, armed mostly with shotguns and hunting rifles. The man who spoke appeared to be the oldest of his posse. He was bald man perhaps in his mid-60’s, wearing overalls that matched the other males in view.

  Blue didn’t look impressed. She shot him a warning glance and carefully flashed her shield with her free hand.

  “Sir, listen to me carefully, this is a police manner. My partner and I would appreciate it if you instructed your people to point your weapons—or better yet, leave us as you found us all together.”

  “Sorry,” He nodded more with his thin lips than with his bald head. “I don’t think we can do that.”

  Blue tried again.

  “Sir, I would ask you to take a second look at us. Do you see the stenciled letters on our jackets? Take another look at my badge. Chris flashed his for support. We are FBI Agents on official business. I’ll warn you only once that interference in a federal investigation is a felony punishable to very stiff penalties. I kid you not when I say that you are risking jail time here.” Blue told him.

  The old man nodded in comprehension, but kept his own rifle high and tight in his grip.

  “Under normal circumstances your threat might carry more than just a little weight with me, young lady. I’m a law abiding citizen. I always have been. I’m a proud tax payer. But I think that you will agree with me that the events that have transpired over the past few months, week, days and especially the last few hours fail to qualify as normal, even around here. And I’ll tell you one more thing: What I have seen tonight with my own eyes tells me that those jackets and shield of yours don’t mean diddly squat.”

  Chris had to admit to being curious about what the old man meant by his last statement. He kept his weapon aimed at Blue but formally introduced himself, his partner and Grace Edwards to all of men wearing overalls asked him his name.

  “Martin,” The man’s answer was quick and proud. Whether Martin was his first or last name Chris could not say. “And, Agent Prince, it would ruin both my night and yours if I had to blow your head off your shoulders after meeting your acquaintance, but I will. I don’t trust you. I can’t. I surely cannot after what I’ve seen tonight.”

  “What have you seen, Mr. Martin?” Chris wanted to know now more than ever.

  “We’ve seen men of color dressed in all manners of uniforms tonight: We’ve seen everything from paramedics to firemen to policemen in person and on TV beating and raping white women all over this city.”

  “That’s impossible,” Grace put base in her tone that left no room for rebuttal. “And of course, Agent Prince and I can always depend on white folks like yourself to speak the truth in these matters—“

  “You’d be wise to watch your tone, young lady.” Martin said in a measured tone, but kept his rifle’s barrel trained on Chris more now than before. “You don’t know me. You may not want to know me, but if you are implying that me and mine are racist, simply based on how I talk and how we’re dressed then you are way off base and out of line. All white folks don’t act alike. Assumption is a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, in the wrong mind.” He looked over the horizon and Chris thought he saw the man’s eyes mist just a little. “
I was marching through these same streets with Dr. King before either one of you were born.”

  “Why should I believe that?” Grace asked.

  “You can believe whatever in the hell you want.” Martin’s tone was not kind. And then his voice suddenly softened. “All that I know is that he was a great man. And I know that he would not have approved of any of this.” And then Martin lowered his weapon a foot and only had eyes for Special Agent Christopher Prince. “And I know that your father wouldn’t have approved this either. How did you and your brother let our world come to this?”

  “You didn’t know my father.” Chris tried to mask the feelings of the truths that Serena Tennyson had told him from the others. He tried so fucking hard—“None of us knew him, Martin.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that, son.” Martin pushed the rifle higher, gripped the rifle with all of his might and his left eye disappeared as he peered through the scope. “Anyway, my eyesight ain’t what it used to be, but I can still tell you that FBI Agents don’t usually pull their side arms on one another. It looks as if I ain’t the only one who has trust issues.”

  “No…” Blue said her voice was barely above a whisper as she lowered her eyes. “FBI agents don’t usually behave like this to one another.”

  “Sir,” Chris said. “As far as I can tell, you are the one in control here. If you don’t mind, why don’t you share so information with me? I want to know more about these men wearing apparel as if they were official personnel of these various public servant organizations? Can you describe them to us? Was there anything memorable about them?”

  Martin seemed to be searching his memory banks.

  “They were the typical, hard looking types. They were wearing their hair—they were wearing their hair like your smooth talking lady friend there in the nice suit. Most of them had mouths full of gold teeth and they wore baggy pants with their boxers showing.” Martin stopped for breath. “We stumbled on them gang raping this teenaged white girl before we negotiated a deal with them.”

  “Negotiate—“Chris though that he’d chosen an interesting choice of word to use.

  “After we killed a couple of his friends, my friends and I negotiated the unconditional release of the girl for the life of those of his brood still breathing. The accepted, although I never heard the leader speak, his Deacon—yet that’s what he called him—did all the yapping for him. The lot of them headed east.”

  Chris stifled a laugh. Blue wasn’t sure what to make of the story. Grace didn’t look comfortable at all. She looked as if she were working something uncomfortable in her mind under her own braids.

  “Tell me…Mr. Martin, did you hear any of these young men chanting anything?” And when the man didn’t answer immediately, “Mr. Martin, did you hear them chanting anything in particular?”

  “I don’t remember saying that you could speak young lady—“

  “I need an answer…please. It could be very important.”

  Martin scrubbed at his heavy beard.

  “Maybe I did…yea, I think that I do. It came out all jumbled as they took turns with the girl, but at first I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

  And so Grace Edwards said it for him.

  “Yea,” Martin’s beard seemed to take a life all its own. “Yea, that’s it exactly.” And then he altered his aim from Chris to Grace. “I told you that I had no reason to trust you. Might be that you’re one of them?”

  “They were Choir Boys?” Chris said to Grace. “And it sounds as if the Bishop and his Deacon were out leading the troops tonight.”

  Grace nodded a yes.

  “We need to know how far this altercation happened from this location, Mr. Martin.” Grace Edwards asked. Chris could see genuine fear in Grace’s eyes for the first time this evening, but it had little to do with being the target of Martin’s rifle. “How long ago did this happen?”

  “I don’t remember—“

  “I need you to think, Mr. Marin,” Grace visibly worked to calm herself. “It’s very important that you remember these details.”

  Martin conferred with an associate to his near left.

  “I think it was an hour ago. Maybe, just maybe, it was 90 minutes at the top end.”

  “We’ve got to go, now, Agent Prince.” Grace’s braids rattled as her head went on a swivel. “They’ll be here soon and probably with what’s left of the Choir Boys that survived the Peacekeeper incursion at Carver Housing Apartments.”

  Chris suddenly became alarmed.

  “She’s right, Tabitha.” Chris said. “Remember the intel that we received on from the agents in the field house. Remember that we were told that the Choir Boys concentrated numbers were in Carver, we knew that they had other smaller cells all over the city. One of those larger cells hung around here.”

  “That’s why they are wearing the FBI garb.” Grace added the information, probably from her own information files. “I would bet that they are conducting assaults while they feel they have a perceived advantage. If Mr. Martin’s group got the drop on them they are not going to stop until they find you when they feel you are the most vulnerable and avenge those you’ve killed.”

  “Do you hear me, Tabitha?” Chris said. “We have to go—now.”

  “I never agreed to any of this, Chris.”

  “Tabitha, please,”

  “Alright,” Blue said. “But I need you to put your gun down first.”

  “I always thought that a lady was supposed to go first.”

  And so both FBI Special Agents began to lower their guns—

  He then the earth moved underneath them—

  And Chris could feel his gun fire off a round…

  After an unknown number of minutes, Chris picked himself up off the ground and he could see Grace Edwards and Marin and his people around him slowly doing the same.

  Everyone but Tabitha Blue was on their feet again.

  “Oh no,” Chris muttered. And then a louder voice he said: “Oh, no—“

  He sprinted over to where she was lying flat on her back with a clear head wound. He got on the ground and in an instant he had his partner wrapped into his arms. At first glance, he couldn’t tell how deep the bullet had penetrated or how severe her injuries really were. She was bleeding. She was breathing though and he was taking every positive that he could and storing it away.

  Grace Edwards pointed through her cuffs in the general direction to where the nearest hospital was.

  And then…

  And then—

  “So what do we have here?” A new voice added his to the mix. “Ain’t this a bitch?”

  Chris recognized the Deacon who was speaking—as usual—for his and the other Choir Boys leader that carried a Bible around, wore a minister’s robe and called himself the Bishop.

  Your Peacekeepers let the big fish get away, little brother. And tonight we may all pay the price for that mistake.

  He laid Blue down on the ground and instructed Grace to put pressure on her wound, while he rose to his feet with his gun discovering a new target.

  “Bishop, you don’t know how I wish I had the time to do this with you,” Chris said to him and his Deacon. The dozen or more other Choir Boys, still dressed as first responders, looked on with fully automatic weapons at their disposal. “My partner’s life hangs in the balance. I need to get her to the nearest medical center right away. You are your heathens are in my way of accomplishing this.”

  Bishop smiled through a mouth full of gold teeth and snapped out of long handgun and held it at an angle that made him look like an old school gangster.

  The Deacon spoke as if he could read his leader’s mind.

  “Well, don’t you cry, boy.” He said for his Bishop. “But it looks as if that white girl is as good as dead anyway. And if you don’t stop pointing that gun at my pastor, so will you.”

  Chris felt a smile curl on his dark face. These two clowns are everything that the mass media makes our young people out to be: They believe
that we are lazy, arrogant and stupid. Chris had made himself memorize the report on the Bishop. It had believed that the man had been responsible for fathering nearly a dozen children from nearly that many women—and that was before the Center of Disease Control reported that he’d contacted and was spreading HIV, especially to the harem he’d taken at Carver. He was a lifelong felon including murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

  I’ll give your Peacekeeper’s this, Little Brother, by liberating Carver and shutting down his drug operations there you denied him a valuable source of revenue. And he’s been on the run ever since.

  You should have stayed on the run, Bishop.

  He could take him out with a single shot but…but at what price. What would happen to Grace Edwards and his partner Tabitha Blue? And he would surely sentence nearly a dozen other civilians from Martin’s clan to death as they would have to shoot themselves out of any mess that he’d created.

  Bishop seemed to be putting Grace’s face to a name…

  “Is that my, Grace,” The Deacon said for him. “Ain’t this something, fellas? I thought I’d never see your pretty face—and the rest of you again, girl.”

  “I wish I could say the same.”

  “Yea, you still a cocky, bitch, Grace,” Deacon continued on for his Bishop. “But I liked that about you. I should have known you were a undercover hoe. I should have known. You were smarter than the average hoe. You asked so many questions. And then you sacked your Peacekeeper dogs on my boys at Carver and I never saw you again. I should have known.”

  “I was doing my duty,” Grace said as a matter of fact. “I did what I had to bring down you and your sick operation. It wasn’t personal.”

  The Bishop waved his arms in exasperation and shucks his long braids back and forth. The deacon said for him: “It was certainly personal when you were acting like you was my main squeeze over them couple of months. I put my other hoes aside for you. I was going to make you my queen. You were to be the Queen of Carver.”

  Grace said, “Thank you, but no. You know, even I have to sacrifice my ideals to serve a cause greater than myself. Sometimes it’s the little things that you have to deal with the most—“

  The Bishop mouthed something unfathomable and fired his gun into the air. Martin’s people took defensive positions.

  The Deacon said: “Bring you black ass up here now, Grace.” When she didn’t move he repeated what he’d said and added: “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Grace isn’t going anywhere with you two.” Chris said.

  “Man, you are the fool who is going to get yourself and these country boys killed. I owe them already. “

  “I might,” Chris nodded in agreement. “But know this: When I am through counting down from the number ten, that body count that you swear by will begin with you.”

  The Bishop gritted his teeth; his Deacon looked nervous as he said: “My Boys will kill everyone they can, starting with you and Grace.”

  “No they won’t,” Chris took five steps forward as to separate him from the others. “You’re Deacon and your Choir Boys are cowards. Sure, they have us outnumbered and outgunned but your number superiority is irrelevant because in their heart of hearts they are cowards. They serve you, a false god, out of fear not loyalty. The Choir Boys are only dangerous against the old the weak and the defenseless. The Peacekeepers took Carver simply because they weren’t afraid of you. My new found friends behind me aren’t afraid of you either. All I have to do is count to ten—and then kill you and the rest of your congregation will run. Your types always do.”

  The Bishop had to shake his Deacon back into the now.

  He said, “You want to take that chance with your life, boy, you want to risk the lives of everyone here?”

  “I do. I will. There will be no surrender here. There will be no retreat.”

  And then the countdown began.