Patriots & Tyrants (Rebels & Lies Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

The cool night air
crept its way into the medium size tent. Harvey sat on a folding chair at one
end, his shaken son sat at the far end. Once the team escaped the compound they
set up camp about one hundred fifty miles to the west. While they set up the
camp, everyone was quiet. There was no conversation at all. Harvey felt that it
wouldn’t be the appropriate time to go over what happened on the battlefield,
they could do that later. Steinner was a well-respected and well-liked member
of the unit. Buck, he stayed the quietest during the set up time. All that
could be heard from him were the occasional sniffles as he fought back tears.

Harvey knew that
feeling all too well. During his time in the Marine Corps he lost a countless
number of men that he respected and liked. Some died that he didn’t really care
for, but everyone who fought with him and under him were his brothers. Buck
didn’t even look up from his seated position. His head was straight down at the
grass.

“Son,” Harvey began,
“I know how you must feel.”

“Do you?” Buck
demanded.

“Don’t you forget that
I’m a soldier, always have been, always will be. Death is a part of war and
something that never gets easier.”

“Yeah, well, it was my
fault, okay? You don’t have to lecture me on that.”

“I didn’t come here to
lecture you. I didn’t come here to tell you it wasn’t your fault, either. Those
are your battles and yours alone.”

“So, I just deal with
it, that’s it?” Buck demanded.

Harvey began to feel a
fit of guilt for not being able to console Buck. It wasn’t in his nature to do
so. The battlefield had hardened him to the point that he lost almost all
emotional connections to the world. He still loved his son, loved him with all
his heart, but he didn’t know how to be a father.

What he really wanted
to do was pull his son close and convince him that it wasn’t his fault, but the
way he was trained and the way he lived his life didn’t make that come
naturally. He picked up his folding chair and moved in closer. Buck’s head
moved up slightly before going back to the ground. Harvey reached over and
started to rub at his son’s back.

“Listen to me,” Harvey
said. “Steinner, he was a good soldier, no doubt about that. We will all miss
him. But, this isn’t the first time we’ve had someone die on us.”

“It’s my fault,
though. All the others, they died, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Buck replied.

“You can’t go around
blaming yourself, though. You guys got ambushed. You had to worry about those
Agents pouring into the room so no wonder it took you longer to…”

“It wasn’t that I was
slow,” Buck interrupted.

“What exactly happened
in there?”

“We heard the Agents
moving around so we hid behind those black boxes. My heart was beating so fast
and my breathing was fast, too. I thought I was going to pass out. Dexter kept
squeezing my arm, trying to get me calmed down, you know?”

“And?”

“And, well, they heard
me breathing. So they moved over and that’s about all I remember until the
others showed up. The guns started going off and I tried to get that bomb put
together in time. I’m sorry, father.”

Buck started to cry
again. Harvey pulled his son close to him and let him cry. He moved his fingers
around his short, black hair and tried to think of the right words to say.
While he thought about that, he grew angry that he had been lied to by Dexter.
Dexter’s story was completely different. Perhaps he was trying to save the kid
from a tongue lashing, but that was unacceptable. He would make sure to have a
good, long talk with him later. Right now, he had to focus on his boy. 

“Did I ever tell you
about Scott?” Harvey asked.

“No…” Buck replied.

Harvey almost couldn’t
believe that he had never told his son this story. It was probably the most
vivid memory in his mind, something that he could never forget, yet had never
told Buck about it. This caused him to question his fathering skills even
further. How could he have not told this story?

“Well, Scott was my
best friend. We served together for several years. We got into a fight in Korea
and, after I messed up when we were scouting the area, he was ripped to shreds.
He was still alive when the battle was over. He kept calling for his mother.”
Harvey had to pause for a moment before he continued. “I will never forget the
look on his face. His eyes were full of disbelief that his life was about to
end. I don’t think he even talked to me at all, during those final moments, and
I was his best friend. He just kept calling and calling…”

Harvey had to stop. He
rubbed at his son’s shoulders. He would have to assume that Buck would
understand the moral of the story. During this, Harvey’s darkest hour, he
blamed himself and still blamed himself to this day. However, he kept fighting
because he knew what was worth fighting for. He knew that he was on the right
side.

“I guess…”Harvey
continued. “What I’m trying to say is, you can’t let one mistake ruin you.”

“I don’t think it’s
this mistake that’ll ruin me. I’m not like you. I’m not a soldier.”

“Buck, don’t give up
on yourself.”

“What do you think I
should do, then?”

“Keep fighting,”
Harvey replied. “If you ever have a family in the future, and you witness them
living in tyranny, you will regret not fighting for them. I have no illusions.
We are not fighting in a war that we can realistically win. But, you still have
to fight.”

Buck thought about
what he had just been told. As he did, his father looked over him and remained
silent. He wanted his son to think long and hard about what he had said. Deep
down, Harvey knew that he didn’t want to fight. It would just be a shame if he
quit over the loss of a friend. The reason why Steinner died might not ever be
known. Harvey wasn’t there to witness it and was being fed two stories: one
from a hardened rebel and the other from a boy who was scared of the fight and
took on too much of the blame.

The father and son’s
quiet moment was interrupted by Dexter popping his head in the tent. The two
looked up and Harvey could feel the anxiety in Dexter from his facial
expressions. The rebel leader put on a slight grin and moved his right hand
forward, letting his solider know that it was okay to move in.

“Clarke wants to see
you, boss.” Dexter said.

“Is it urgent?” Harvey
replied.

“He seems to think
so.”

“I’ll be there in a
minute.”

Kaspar began to circle
around Clarke’s desk while he worked on the flash drive. Clarke adjusted his
glasses then told the man behind him to stop. He almost felt like he was
talking to his old friend, Paxton, when he told Kaspar to calm down and let him
work. It was hard enough to concentrate on gathering all the information from
the drive without someone in the room making him nervous.

Kaspar couldn’t help
it. How could he? He had Krys to think about. She was asleep in their tent, too
exhausted from the physical and mental stress of the last mission. Not to
mention the loss of another friend, something that she said was getting more
and more of an ugly habit of theirs. She just wanted the resistance to make
enough progress to where she could just rest. They both knew, however, that
there was a lot of work to be done.

“Anything, yet?”
Kaspar demanded. He walked up behind Clarke and looked over his shoulder.

“No, now stop looking
over my shoulder.” Clarke replied. “Just…try to relax or something.”

“You know that’s an
impossible request.”

“Well, you circling
around me and looking over my shoulder is only going to annoy me and make the
wait longer.”

“Okay, just try to
hurry up.”

Kaspar patted the old
hacker on the back then found Clarke’s cot in the corner. He laid his back on
it then rested his hands underneath the back of his head. The wait was
excruciating. Most likely there would be nothing to find, but there was still
hope. Krys needed advanced medical attention at this point. She looked horrible
after the mission as she was barely able to hold her head up or keep her eyes
open. Kaspar knew that if nothing was found now that the love of his life would
be doomed to an early death.

Clarke continued to
pound away at the keys. With the tent now a dead silence, the constant clicking
of the keyboard started to crawl under Kaspar’s skin. Kaspar tried to get his
mind off of it, but there was little else to occupy it with. Other than
Steinner’s death, Krys’s trip to that same destination, and fighting against
the USR, there was nothing more to his life. He started to think about Mother
for a moment when Clarke rose up from his chair. Kaspar began to stand up when
Clarke suddenly ran out of the tent.

“Get Sam, now!”
Clarke’s voice was heard saying.

Kaspar walked up to
the screen and glued his eyes to it. A lot of what was on there was gibberish,
technical mumbo jumbo that probably only Clarke could decipher. Clarke ran back
into the tent and, without saying anything to Kaspar, sat back down and started
to click away at the screen. The fact that he had someone over his shoulder the
entire time didn’t seem to faze him any longer. There was something of great
interest on there and that could only mean one thing.

Could it be?

***

After what seemed like
an age, Harvey finally made his way into the tent. Clarke was still silent and
Kaspar was too afraid of breaking the man’s concentration that he remained
silent as well. Harvey seemed disturbed, which was obvious, as a fellow soldier
had just gone down. But, it seemed to be more than that. Kaspar didn’t care to
ask, he just wanted to know what the hell Clarke had found.

“What is it, Robert?”
Harvey asked, his tired voice shaken.

“I think we might have
found it!” Clarke cried with enthusiasm all over his voice.

Harvey started to say
something, but Kaspar cut him off. “Found what? The cure?”

“Maybe so.” Clarke
replied.

Harvey’s eyes lit up
in unison with Kaspar’s. The leader moved the young rebel to the side by
invading the space behind Clarke. The former prize fighter didn’t care about the
rude gesture. His heart started to race, the adrenaline in his blood made him
light headed, and he forced himself from running out of the tent and waking
Krys. Whatever Clarke just found still had to be verified. What a cruel joke it
would have been to give her hope too early.

“You see,” Clarke
said, without looking up from the screen. “There is it, right there.”

Harvey gestured for
Clarke to get up. Clarke obeyed and smiled wide at Kaspar who was still in
shock at the discovery. This had to be it. Why else would Clarke be so giddy at
the moment? Harvey seemed impressed, too. When he stood, he turned to face them,
and he smiled, too.

“This is it.” Harvey
said.

“The cure?” Kaspar
asked. He moved his body forward with interest.

“Yes, this report is
saying so, anyway. It’s out in the mountains. Might take a couple of days to
drive there, but this is it.”

“You’re sure? It’s not
some misread data or something?” Kaspar demanded.

“According to this
report, this is the only place where the cure is being manufactured.”

“Why would they only
have one spot where they make it?” Kaspar wondered.

“It’s easy,” Clarke
cut in. “They want to keep the supply as low as possible. If they made it
everywhere, then guys like us could swoop in and take it. Not to mention, this
is perfectly in line with the way the USR thinks.”

“Regardless,” Harvey
said, “we’ll have to play this one close to the vest. We’ve only got one shot
at this. That cure could turn the tides of this war in our favor if we play it
right.”

“And, Krys, too. Don’t
forget about Krys.”

Harvey folded his
arms. “We’re all worried about Krys, but this is a powerful tool to have if we
can get it.”

“Krys is a human
being,” Kaspar shot back.

“Again, I understand
your concern for her. God knows I’m worried about her, too. But, this is
something bigger than any of us.”

Something inside of
Kaspar snapped. It was that same feeling when Paxton accused him of being USR,
the same feeling when those bikers at the bar taunted him, when Razor said
something about his father. That button, it hadn’t been touched in a long time.
And, here he found himself, red in the face and having Clarke hold him back. He
didn’t want to slug Harvey or anything. He just wanted to get up close and
personal to let his superior know that what was said went unappreciated.

“Calm down, Ryan.”
Clarke said from behind.

“Let him go, Robert.”
Harvey shot back. “If he’s got something to prove let him.”

Clarke let go. Kaspar
got right in Harvey’s face. The feeling of hot breath brushed on his face. With
his fists clinched, he breathed in heavy breaths, even tried some count to ten
BS that Krys taught him. In the end, he simply walked past Harvey and nobody
said anything. Kaspar threw the opening of the tent aside as he paced to his
own.

It doesn’t matter what
he says, Kaspar thought. In the end, justice would come for Krys, and then they
could use that cure as a political tool all they wanted. As long as Krys got
the first dose, that was all that mattered to him.

He held back his
enthusiasm as he prepared to tell Krys the good news.