The Collective Protocol (24 page)

THIRTY-ONE

Reagan pawed excitedly at the giant box that had sat under the Christmas tree for the entire month. Her mother’s eyes twinkled every time that Reagan asked her what was in the package. “You’re going to love it!” was all that she’d say.

She really needed the excitement in her life after having such a rough month. It had been a year since her father was murdered and the Christmas decorations constantly reminded her of him. She didn’t know if the pain of losing him would ever go away, but she knew that the sharpness of the barbs would eventually dull.

It had also been almost a year since she’d taken part in the raid to stop her sister Paige’s rampage and the team lost more than half of their members during that mission. In two weeks she was set to attend a joint memorial ceremony at the secretive CIA headquarters celebrating the life of the three operatives Greg, Joe and Thom, and the two Bureau agents Dave and Janice. Then the president had asked to have dinner with the four surviving members on the one-year anniversary of the mission that saved the United States.

Upon Paige’s death, her control over the remaining police officers was broken and they stopped fighting. Almost to a man, they laid their weapons down and turned themselves in when they realized that they were the aggressors, not the civilians protecting their friends and family. As in other instances when the telepath had used the machine to spread her message through music, they had no recollection of what they’d done.

The president had no option but to break the classification of the mission and tell the public about Paige and her abilities to control the minds of others with the assistance of highly specialized machines. He did so in order to save the lives of the policemen and women who’d committed such unspeakable acts.

He told the truth about the operation and that after the death of more than twenty million Americans they’d discovered the cause of the madness and he’d authorized the special operations forces to put an end to her by any means necessary. He wisely left out the Canadian government’s involvement in the ordeal, but within weeks, the prime minister was brought up on charges of conspiring to start an international conflict and was removed from office.

They’d been able to confirm the death of Paige, Commissioner Gavin Dartmouth and Brigadier General Mark Patel, but no one had any information about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent Antoine Leclerc. It was assumed that he left the country but the Agency assured Reagan that the hunt was on for him and that he would be found and brought to justice.

Even the tiny town of Johnsonville, South Carolina received a visit from the president. When the news of the entire town waking up in the gymnasium with the ingredients to make an extremely toxic drink sitting in front of them broke, the networks ate it up. Overnight, they all became minor celebrities as reporters descended upon the crowd in droves to determine what was so special about this town that it had been targeted for mass extermination.

Reagan, Jimmie and Pam, all inextricably linked because of their association with Paige Greene, were lucky and able to remain anonymous during the media circus that followed all the events. Juan, Ryan and Scott were heralded as the nation’s only surviving heroes from the raid that ended the three months of terror that the United States experienced from October through early January. The two operatives were forced to retire from field work since their cover was blown, but they’d seen enough bloodshed to last them a lifetime. Juan Quintana still headed the Unorthodox Crimes section and with the presidential acknowledgement of the paranormal events, the Bureau’s reports of unexplainable cases quadrupled.

Pam returned to Las Vegas and Reagan had seen her a couple of times, but not as often as she would have liked. When they returned from the frozen north, Jimmie moved to Washington, D.C. and became a private investigator. He didn’t need the money though since everyone involved in the mission was paid a stipend to keep quiet about certain aspects of the case, primarily Reagan’s existence and involvement.

Jimmie had taken the death of his former partner Rob Dzanrsky pretty hard. He’d died during the Police War, shot by an angry mob. They found his body floating in the East River a few days after the war ended. Over the course of the year, he’d come to accept his friend’s fate and to celebrate the good times that they were able to have instead of focusing on the bitter end and how he’d died.

The investigator was able to move on with his life. He and Reagan had dated exclusively for the past year and she looked forward to finishing college in a few semesters so she could try her hand at broadcast journalism. Her website was back up and Amethyst posted regular blog updates to her millions of followers.

“Alright, it’s time. You can open up the present,” Jimmie said excitedly as Reagan’s mother and sister watched expectantly.

She ripped off the paper and was rewarded with a plain brown cardboard box. No help there. The box revealed a mass of Styrofoam packing peanuts and another plain box resting inside. She lifted the box out and noticed that it weighed almost nothing, which was strange since the bigger box weighed so much. She set the smaller box aside, thinking it must have been filler, and dove into the big box for her real present.

Her fingers curled around a small hard object at the bottom of all the Styrofoam and she lifted out a ten-pound weight plate. “Hey, what gives?” she pouted while Millie, the neighborhood dog that they rescued after Reagan returned, chewed happily on the fallen packing peanuts.

“It’s in here,” Jimmie laughed and handed the small box back to her. She opened it and inside was two tickets to Tahiti for almost a year and a half in the future.

“Oh-kay,” she said slowly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s so far away.”

Jimmie slid from the seat beside her to his knee and produced a small maroon box. “Those tickets are for our honeymoon,” he replied with a clever grin and opened the ring case. “Well, will you?”

THE END

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brian Parker is currently an Active Duty Army soldier who enjoys spending time with his family in Texas, hiking, obstacle course racing, writing and watching Texas Longhorns football. His wife is also an Active Duty soldier and the pairing brings a unique set of circumstances that keep both of them on their toes. He's an unashamed Star Wars fan, but prefers to disregard the entire Episode I and II debacle.

Born and raised as an Army brat, he moved all over the country as a child before his father retired from the service and the family settled down in a small Missouri town. After his father's retirement, they purchased a farm where Brian learned the rewards of a hard day's work and relished the escapism that books provided someone with bigger dreams.

Brian is the author of the
Washington, Dead City
series which will be offered by Permuted Press
in 2015. The series includes both
GNASH
and
REND
and will culminate with the upcoming book
SEVER.
He is also the author of
Zombie in the Basement
, a children’s picture book that addresses acceptance of others’ differences;
Self-Publishing the Hard Way
, a help guide for aspiring authors who want to self-publish their manuscript; and
Enduring Armageddon
, another Permuted Press offering of one family’s struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

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