"We got a call just after lunch to check out some kind of anti-religion group meeting, only about five or six guys. A couple other cars were already there when me and Tommy pulled in. We must have got there right when it was all starting to hit the fan. I couldn't tell that any of them had done anything wrong, but the other cops were beating the hell out of… Sorry, beating the heck out of one of the guys." He stopped talking and seemed to fade into an alternate reality of rage.
Leigh just listened, letting him get the story out but nodded to him when he paused. "What did you do?"
Covey came back to the present. "I did what any normal person would do. I tried to break it up. I pushed him – it was Jamerson – and he took a swing at me. I dodged and he missed, but I was so pissed off I swung back. Broke his nose."
"Didn't you explain it to the Captain?" Leigh asked.
"Yeah but he said it didn't matter; you can't assault another cop. Plus," he paused again and shook his head in anger. "Cap said he's already got a lot of brass breathing down his neck about this whole rebel bull crap. They're afraid of terrorist sleepers in the police force, that sort of thing. The way he explained it, this just looks like I'm one of the bad guys. Like I'm one of the rebels."
"Oh Greg," Leigh said softly to comfort him. "They can't really think that. You're one of the hardest workers and loyal men on the force."
"I've got this feeling that he's going to make an example out of me," Covey spat. "He actually advised me to talk to a lawyer today."
"That means he cares about you right?"
"No, that means he's covering his ass," Covey said and winced at his vulgar slip. "Sorry."
"It's okay," she said.
"That's why I was late," Covey continued. "I spent an hour on the phone talking some lawyer named Craig. He's making notes in case they throw the book at me, but he just advised me to keep my mouth shut for now. It took that jerkoff an hour to tell me to not say anything. Can you believe that?"
"Hey," Leigh said, moving closer to him on the couch and kissed him on the cheek. "It's going to be alright. We've got enough saved up and I've still got my job. We can make it through anything together."
Covey's expression softened and he turned to look at her. She was so beautiful. Somehow, just looking at her brought peace back into his violent heart.
"You know you're the most beautiful girl I've ever met?" Covey asked in a low gravely whisper.
She beamed at him and nodded once.
"Why would you ever want to be with a hateful, ugly monster like me?"
She grabbed his right hand, intertwining her fingers between all five of his and squeezed. "Because you're handsome to me," she said. "I love you, Greg."
"I love you too, Leigh."
She hugged him tightly. "We've got nothing to worry about. We've got good luck on our side."
* * *
An alarm blared a rapid, repetitive beat that was so loud it could be easily heard over the thumping helicopter blades. A red light in the cabin flashed and cast crimson highlights and shadows on everything it fell upon.
Covey snapped to attention. He clutched his rifle between his knees and used both hands to pull the safety straps over his shoulders and around his waist. His mangled right hand was clumsy and the straps slipped away from his grasp and he was forced to reach a second time.
"Alright boys, strap in and hold on!" Covey shouted. "Don't let your weapons out of your hands. I don't want a rifle flying and hitting me in the face because some dumbass has butter fingers."
Private Sanchez was through singing and his jovial expression was warped into a serious frown ready for combat. The other four soldiers shared similar facial distortions as they strapped themselves in for what would no doubt be a bumpy ride. They all knew what the red light meant: Incoming missiles.
Without any more of a warning than they had already, the helicopter banked sharply to the right at a near forty-five degree angle. The well-trained soldiers were ready and didn't react instinctively to grab for a better hold on the seats as one might expect. They knew they were strapped in and focused on holding their gear to keep it from flying about the cabin. They sat as solid and immutable as statues as the chopper rolled back to the left and began a nose dive.
Explosions lit the sky much brighter than the lightning had and each sent a tremor that rippled through the bones of every soldier in the helicopter. Covey closed his eyes and tried not to focus on the blasts in the sky that were so close to them. One way or another, he knew it would be over soon and there was nothing he could do to affect the outcome.
Suddenly, the whole world seemed to rock and whipped Covey's neck violently. His body was pulled against the safety straps as if he was being constricted by a giant python. A missile had hit the back of the chopper right where the tail met the body and tore the entire back section of the flying machine off.
Covey watched in stoic shock as the metal peeled back and flew away. Then the three seats holding Sanchez and the other two privates were sucked out and disappeared into the darkness.
With the tail rotor gone, the helicopter began to spin out of control. The unstoppable power of centrifugal force pulled painfully on Covey and the remaining two soldiers next to him. They were going down. They fell so hard, Covey didn't even know when they actually hit the ground. He didn't feel the impact, he didn't feel the heat of the burning jet fuel. Everything just went instantly dark.
* * *
Greg Covey hadn't just been suspended. He was fired. No severance pay, no letter of recommendation, no more retirement, just fired.
A notepad of torn-out pages with scribbled phone numbers and contact names lay sprawled on the table in front of him on the kitchen table where he sat. The last two days had been filled with nothing more than sitting at home and checking want ads in the paper and on the internet. Everything required a Master's degree now and Covey had barely even finished high school much less any kind of college education. He was dumb as a brick and he knew it. He had gone straight into law enforcement at nineteen and that's all he knew.
The days were getting shorter as they moved into December and it was already getting dark outside. He checked his watch. It was after five now and any recruiting personnel would have gone home for the day. There was one more number to call: the county jail. They had an entry-level guard position open. Fourteen years on the force should have earned him something better than 'entry-level' but right now he was willing to take anything he could get. The best part of it was that it didn't require a degree. He might actually have a chance. The HR guy would be gone, no doubt, but he could leave a message and at least make contact.
Covey dialed the number and listened to the phone ring through the tiny speaker. With a small burst of excitement, he heard a click on the other end.
"County Jail, Peters," a woman's voice said.
Covey was caught unprepared. He hadn't expected anyone to answer and he scrambled to get his notes together. "Yes, I'm calling about the guard position you have," he said. "My name's Covey. Greg Covey."
"Okay," Peters said, "give me your social so we can do a background check and if you clear we'll bring you in for an interview."
"That's great," Covey said and gave her his social security number. "I think you'll find I'm very qualified for the position. I've been a police officer for more than a decade."
"Mmm hmm," Peters absently muttered. Covey could hear typing in the background. There was a long pause.
"I'm sorry Mr. Covey," she said. "We can't hire anyone who is currently under investigation by the Roth International Militia."
Covey's teeth clinched and he slammed his fist on the table. "Under investigation?" he growled at her. "I'm not under investigation. I was let go from the force but no charges were even filed. That's just not possible."
"No, I'm afraid it is. I've got the information right here."
Covey took a breath and tried to calm himself. "What am I under investigation for?" he managed to squeeze out in a barely contr
olled tone of voice.
"Collaboration with and assistance to known terrorist groups and anti-religious movements," Peters replied as cooly as if she was reading an ingredients list for a recipe.
Covey stood up suddenly from his chair and it clattered to the floor behind him. "I'm not collaborating with any terrorists, dammit!" he roared into the phone.
"That's for RIM to decide," Peters said.
"Go to hell." Covey pitched the phone across the room where it shattered against the wall and left a small divot in the drywall. He stopped and leaned over against the table and panted heavily until the red faded from his eyes. He felt a little calmer, but his heart was beating so hard and fast and pumped angry blood to every muscle in his body.
Finally he looked up. Leigh was standing in the doorway coming from the bedroom. "What happened?" she asked quietly.
Covey shook his head and looked back down at the table trying to contain an outburst in front of his wife. "That fffff…" he bit his own lip to squelch the expletive and hit the table once with his fist. "Captain reported me to the Roth International Militia as a potential terrorist threat."
"I'm sorry," Leigh said.
"Me too."
"What do we do?"
Covey took in a deep breath and straightened up. "Let me borrow your phone," he said more calmly. "I've got to call that Craig lawyer and see if he can get me out of this."
Leigh dug into her pants pocket to pull out her phone.
All at once the front door crashed open and broke off the hinges, tumbling to the floor. The splintered pieces of the frame spun and landed random patterns on their new beige carpet. Four men dressed in black SWAT gear poured into their living room brandishing short-barreled, military-style shotguns. On their jackets were the embroidered initials: R.I.M. Roth International Militia.
Covey stood between the enforcement soldiers and his wife and he immediately moved toward them. He knew there was no sense fighting it right now. The men had come here expecting a fight, because they probably believed he was a terrorist and they had brought some serious firepower with them. If Covey resisted in any way, he was afraid they would shoot him or his wife without a second thought. As he stepped toward the living room he put his hands up next to him to show surrender.
As soon as he took one step toward them the enforcer closest to him raised his shotgun and pointed it right at Covey's head.
Covey stopped on a dime and instinctively put his right hand out in front of him. "No wait, I'm not…"
He never finished the sentence. The soldier fired. The bulk of the buckshot hit his hand, blowing off his ring and pinkie finger. The rest spread out along his arm and his face. Blood went everywhere and Covey was overwhelmed with the most extreme combination of pain and vertigo he had ever experienced in his life.
Covey fell to the ground backwards and hit his head hard on the floor. He couldn't see anything but a blurry pinpoint of light out of his left eye and nothing at all in his right. He could hear Leigh screaming somewhere behind him. He tried to move, but couldn't get control of his muscles.
A second shotgun blast roared through the pervading darkness. He couldn't hear Leigh screaming anymore.
"Ah hell, he's still alive," he heard one of the soldiers say.
"Got it," another one closer to him said.
Covey blinked to try to clear the fog and blood from his eyes. He gained a little sight in his left eye but only enough to distinguish shapes like looking into a mirror after a hot shower. All he could tell was that one of the enforcers was now standing right over him, holding his shotgun point blank at Covey's face. Covey closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. The gun fired.
* * *
Covey came to with a start. Every sensation was painful and the hard rain hitting his face felt like thousands of tiny needles tenderizing his flesh. He lifted his right arm to wipe the blood and rain out of his face, but something was wrong. He tried again. There was no feeling in his right arm. He tried his left and was able to wipe a little vision back in his left eye. When he touched the right side of his face he felt nothing but raw meat and when he drew his hand back, it was covered in blood and flakes of black ash. The whole right side of his face had been burned. It was no doubt a third-degree burn and if he didn't get to help soon, it could kill him.
Clinching his stomach muscles, Covey tried to sit up but the pain was too much. He collapsed back down and rolled his head to look at his right arm.
The arm was gone. The skin was ragged at his shoulder and a gruesome hole was left where the socket had been. Somehow in the chaos of the crash, his entire right arm had been ripped clean out.
His emotions buckled as if they were a physical weight he was trying desperately to keep held above him. Covey gritted his teeth and beat the earth next to him with his left fist. Something in his left arm was broken and the pain shot through him like the lightning shot through the clouds above him but he didn't care. He hadn't cried in five years and he would be damned if he was going to cry now or ever again.
He had to get to help. The blood was pouring from his right shoulder and the burns on his face were cooking their way deeper. It was sink-or-swim time. Move or die.
Screaming to mask his own pain, Covey pushed himself to a sitting position with his broken left arm. Once he was certain he wouldn't fall back over again, he stopped and caught his breath. The effort had taken almost every ounce of energy he had and he knew he would need a lot more to get to his feet, much less walk to the nearest base where he could get medical attention.
He looked around to try to find any kind of assistance to help him get up: a tree, a stump, even a large piece of the helicopter he could lean against would be nice. Anything to keep from having to push himself up with his left hand again.
That was when he saw it. A four-foot-long, jagged piece of the helicopter had pierced his right thigh and continued deep into the earth, pinning him to the ground. Just by looking at it Covey knew it had cut right through the bone. Even if he could get the metal out of the ground or even out of his thigh, it would be impossible to walk. He would have to put all his weight on his left leg and with no right arm, he would be off balance and would have nothing to prop a crutch against.
The blood was still pumping out of his leg. He could see it exiting in steady, rhythmic bursts of red into the muddy puddles around him. That was when Covey truly grasped the hopelessness of his situation. He could feel the darkness closing in on him. It felt different than just slipping into unconsciousness. He was dying.
Covey let himself fall backward again and rested his broken body in the mud. He was foolish to have thought he could make it. He wouldn't have made it ten feet before he dropped dead. Even now, he could feel death wrapping him up like baby in swaddling clothes. It almost felt good. Relief from the pain was finally here.
* * *
A gun fired, but it wasn't the enforcer's shotgun. The weight of the two-hundred-plus-pound man fell hard on top of Covey and knocked the wind out of his lungs. But he was alive. He had no idea how, but all that mattered was that he was alive.
Covey opened his eyes and peered over the fallen soldier on top of him. The image was still blurry but he could see something happening.
A new man had come in through the front door brandishing two pistols, one in each hand and was ducking through the living room, firing at the soldiers who had invaded the Covey's home. The man was so fast that only one of the enforcers ever got a chance to get a shot off and that one went wild. The next second, the enforcer was dead on the floor with his comrades.
The next thing Covey knew, he was being picked up by the stranger with the pistols, heaved over his shoulder and carried out the front door. He tried to speak, to call out not to forget about Leigh, but his body was in too much shock and the words wouldn't come. Instead, he went completely limp as he went unconscious.
He came and went several times over the next few hours. First he was in a car, then he was in some kind of warehouse, an
d when he woke up the final time, he was lying in a very comfortable twin-sized bed.
As he blinked the fog away, Covey realized he could finally see clearly out of his left eye, but his right eye was dark. He looked at his right hand. It was neatly bandaged and he could tell from the form of the wrapping that he had definitely lost his two outer fingers. His right eye had also been bandaged, but he had no idea if he had lost the eye or not.
"Glad to see you're awake," a voice said.
Covey turned to his right to get a view of the rest of the room and see where the disembodied voice had come from. The room was simple and plain with no other furniture but the bed and a single wooden chair. Sitting in the chair was a man in a three-piece suit. He was about six feet tall, built but not overly muscular with short, dark-brown hair.
Covey sat up in the bed. "Who are you?" he choked out through his parched throat. "Where am I?"
"I'm Jacob Craig," the man said. "And you're at a safehouse."
Covey blinked, a little stunned. "You're Craig?" he asked. "My lawyer? What are you doing here?"
Craig smiled at him. "Practicing law is my day-job," he said. "I've been watching you closely for the past couple of days. I was afraid something like this would happen. I'm just sorry I couldn't get to you faster."
"Wait," Covey stopped him, confused. "Are you the one who shot all those soldiers?"
"Yes I am," Craig said. "And I've brought you here for a very specific reason."
"What's that?" Covey asked, caution coloring his tone.
"You're a fugitive of the law," Craig explained. "The Roth have orders to shoot you on sight. You're a rebel terrorist in their eyes. So you can leave here if you like when you get well enough to walk, or you can join us."
"And who exactly are you?"
"We're Red Horizon," Craig said proudly. "An underground movement to bring down the Roth Empire. And we'd love for you to join us."
"Why me?" Covey asked.
"Because we need men like you who have experience in law enforcement to help build the army we've started. We also need people who are completely out of the public life: fugitives like yourself who can devote their whole life to the movement. I have to keep up my façade as a lawyer and stay hidden among the Roth for the sake of my family. My wife and I have a nine-year-old son and we want him to get a good education while we still can before we're forced to disappear."