The Crimson Fall (The Sons of Liberty Book 1) (6 page)

“Did he contact anyone?” Jacob asked. “Anybody at all?”

“We intercepted one phone call,” Lukas replied. “He used the old cell networks on the way to the airport to contact his brother, the congressman from the memorial. He asked him to meet him the following day. Of course, I made sure that didn’t happen. We swept his house and office when his wife was at the funeral in case he hid anything, but he left nothing behind other than a digital trail of his foolish actions. We found and erased everything he had.”

“Did he say anything to his brother when they spoke?” Rhys asked.

Lukas shook his head.

“Are you sure your men didn’t miss anything?” Rhys insisted.

“Trust me, my men do not miss a thing,” Lukas responded. “Joe only told his brother to not trust the FBI or anyone else in government. But who does anymore after the privacy debacle over the past two decades?” Lukas laughed, though his joke was met with flat stares. “Trust me, Adam Reinhart knows nothing and is nobody to concern ourselves with more than I already have.”

“Even a ‘nobody’ in Congress has a voice,” Rhys said. “Do you think he suspects anything?”

Lukas hesitated. It was not that he suspected anything from Adam Reinhart. He simply could not shake the intensity of the man’s words that he had spoken at the memorial.

“I believe Adam Reinhart will search for answers that he will most likely find with our coming treaty. If not, then his voice will be buried beneath our victory. Regardless, we will watch all communications with him until we are finished. Whatever Joe Reinhart knew died with him.”

“Good,” Jacob said loudly and abruptly. “Then it is settled. Just remember, we may be closer to achieving the dream, but we are not there yet. If our predecessors have taught us anything it is that we must remember to never abuse the power we hold until it can no longer be taken away. In any case, I do believe that events have played into our favor. Our day in the sun approaches sooner than we hoped for. We must convene and hold a Gathering in the coming months with the others. I believe the others will agree that the time for Stage Two is upon us. It is time to disarm them all.”

With that, the meeting was over. The three men left the office and silently moved to other corners of the plane where they could remain inconspicuous. Lukas, however, remained behind to think, dismissing even Maria. A Gathering meant facing the others and though he did not fear what most of them would say, he did wonder how they might respond.

More specifically, he shivered at the thought of what Sigmund might do.

Air Force One traveled high above America, carrying the very men that meant to alter the freedoms she held so dearly. Below, the people busied themselves as Americans always do, living their lives from one day to the next. In the days that followed, they would listen over and over to Lukas’ speech and most would speak highly of their great leader. But even those who disagreed with him did not do so because they knew the full truth about him or his hidden allies. Rather, it was because he was red and they were blue; he was one political party, and they were another. Divided as they might have believed themselves to be, there was one thing, one simple lie that they would all begin to accept and share, fusing them together as strongly as any flag or belief could have. It was the statement that began to touch the lips of almost all as they went about their daily routines.

We are not safe.

That evening, America watched newscasts that portrayed a humbled yet determined president leaving his plane hand in hand with his lovely wife. They watched Maria’s father, Jacob Brekor, follow behind them. A wealthy and busy billionaire, Mr. Brekor had dropped everything to be there and lend his support to the president. The country loved him for it. Both Americans and Europeans applauded the kindness of the man who regulated most of the world’s wealth with his company. That is, a man who could bring the world’s economy to its knees at any given moment. Others could be seen leaving the plane, including the popular Speaker of the House, Rhys Howard. A man, Lukas inwardly believed, who was there only to take his place should he fail as president. Many more followed behind Lukas, but the cameras were focused elsewhere by the time Lukas’ old friend, Sūn Vetrov, a relatively unknown man with Chinese and Russian roots, exited the plane. Sūn—a hard man, who secretly owned the largest stockpile of ex-Soviet weapons and military equipment—quietly departed for his nearby plane to travel back to Moscow so that he may continue his work.

Those few powerful men went their separate ways as they began to maneuver themselves, and that which they controlled, for the coming Purge. For his part, Lukas would continue to quietly declare to America that she was not yet safe. As Americans digested the deceit being fed to them, trying to decide which flavor of the lie they preferred, most remained unaware of the storm clouds that were gathering just over the horizon. None could have suspected the horrific truth that was bearing down on them all.

None, that is, except the dead.

C
hapter
T
hree

Words from Beyond

Three times the alarm had cried out and three times Adam had hit snooze. An hour or so had passed since Sarah had silently risen and left the room to tend to the kids and the day’s beginnings. The sun had already begun to trickle through the wooden blinds, inviting Adam to wake and join the day. He pulled the pillow tightly over his head. For a few minutes he lay there motionless, wanting nothing more than to remain in bed in his impassive state of indifference. It wasn’t that he was exhausted and required more sleep. In fact, he had experienced night after night of restless slumber, unable to sleep much at all over the past couple of months. The truth was that despite his best efforts he still hadn’t managed to catch his breath since Joe’s passing and he was starting to wonder if he ever would. Eventually, when he had gathered the little courage he could to face the day’s beckoning call, he rolled out of bed.

He dressed himself slowly, grabbing whatever clothes he found first, and left the second story guest room, not caring to bother with a shower. He paused next to a tall framed mirror in the carpeted hallway outside his bedroom. Adam was fit for a thirty-four-year-old man. Though the daily routines and desk jobs had caused most men to grow soft with time, he had always found the value in maintaining his physique with long runs in the mornings. But lately he had little drive for anything other than his day-to-day basic needs. His normally clean-shaven face now displayed a scraggly beard lining his jaw and upper lip. His dark brown hair had grown out longer than it had been since his college days. Despite his best intentions, Adam was in no hurry to change a thing. He had always thought he would gradually ease into the next season of life; the stage where age and work would finally begin to slow him down. But now he felt the death of Joe had thrown him head first into the frigid waters of sorrow, deadening every fiber of what had been a lively and energetic man.

Back in September, shortly after Joe’s death, Adam and Sarah had decided it best to leave their home outside of Denver and move in temporarily with Rick and Judi. The members of Congress had granted Adam an extended leave of absence so that he might support his family and process everything before he returned to work. Initially Adam had vowed to his colleagues and constituents that he would come back renewed and fighting for those who had lost their lives. But as the weeks dragged on, any zeal he had for continuing his mission was buried beneath a mountain of suffocating doubt.

The congressman had never dealt with depression before, but Joe’s death had successfully condemned him to the darkest period of his existence. Food had lost its taste and drink had become flat, lukewarm, or both. Despite the growing cold, Adam would take long walks in a fruitless attempt to process through his tormenting thoughts. His dad would walk with him occasionally, with only their boots on the pavement to speak out in their loneliness. For the most part, though, Rick had kept to himself. Adam’s father handled the pain by staying busy: getting up early and tinkering on his Jeep, chopping extra firewood, or reading a novel in a desperate attempt to lose himself in another world. The two of them had their own methods of coping with the pain and neither one of them felt it was time to change a thing.

As autumn came to a close, Adam realized that his vain attempts to process Joe’s death mattered little anymore. Regardless of the angle from which he viewed the question nagging at him, he always reached the same conclusion. He wanted to blame the two men that killed his brother. He wanted to confront them, wrap his hands around their throats, and choke them. But they were dead, mocking his hopelessness from beyond the grave. He tried avoiding what had come next, but he couldn’t help but continue to search for someone to crucify; someone alive to take the blame. Sadly, that foolish search always led back to him.

I could have helped,
he thought time and time again.
I should have helped.

He knew it was irrational to take the responsibility on such a random act of violence. But his brother had contacted him for help in his final hours of desperation. Though Adam had decided after their conversation that he would indeed go, it gnawed at him that the last thing he had said to his closest friend was no. Whether or not the deaths of the attackers ever granted a sense of peace to the other family members of the victims, he knew deep down inside that he could never find justice for his final words to his brother.

Despite the sadness that filled the ranch daily, Judi, Sarah and the girls, Eva and Grace, had become very close over the last two months. Lately, the two mothers had begun passing on their culinary secrets to the young girls as preparation for the customary Thanksgiving feast. The thought of Thanksgiving brought more hurt than it did anticipation for Adam. Tradition had each member of the Reinhart family say what they were thankful for over the past year and Adam didn’t think he would be able to muster up one iota of thanks. In fact, he wondered if any of them would.

Regardless, the women and the girls were the only source of joy in the home. They laughed together, made crafts together, cooked together, and had even begun to sing in the house together, mostly harmonious melodies meant to worship Christ. It was not the words but rather the sound of Adam’s mother, wife, and two girls’ voices that brought a welcomed warmth. While he loved their sweet voices, he had begun to despise the lyrics they sang. All the thanking God and praising God angered him almost as much as Joe’s death had. Though he had believed his faith to be nonexistent, he had tried to seek God out in his season of fear. He was left with nothing more than an infuriating silence. Every single time he asked for God to explain what happened, he couldn’t bring himself to look for a reason justifying God’s actions.
Adam demanded answers that never came. He would end his conversations with God more upset than when he had begun and after a month of prayer, he had ceased it altogether. With time, Adam realized that whatever faith he had retained from his fiery youth had ceased to exist as surely as Joe had on the day he died.

Adam shuffled through the downstairs hallway and stopped just short of the large living area, staring wordlessly toward the far end of the brightly-lit room. Sarah sat alone by the fireplace with her worn Bible in her lap and hot cup of coffee cradled between two hands. Her brown hair caught the light shining through the tall windows behind her and framed her beautiful face with a radiant glow. She smiled as she read, shifting her feet underneath her and sipping slowly from her favorite mug. The coffee table between the two old chairs had a second steaming mug waiting for Adam and he gladly walked over to it.

Sarah looked up at him and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said and gave him a kiss. “How did you sleep?”

Adam took a seat and a sip of his coffee. “I didn’t.”

              “Sorry to hear that.” Sarah frowned. “We already ate breakfast, but I can cook up some eggs if you’d like.”

“I’m not hungry,” Adam said, “but thanks for the coffee. Where are the kids?”

“Rick and your mom took the kids down into town to go shopping. Judah’s finally made some friends here and apparently he’s the only one without cowboy boots in this corner of Colorado. And you know your dad,” she said with a laugh. “He said no grandson of his is picking out his first pair of cowboy boots without his help. And of course the girls had to have a pair as well. Eva’s birthday is next week, you know. Have you thought of any ideas?”

“Dad helped Joe and I pick out our first pair of boots,” Adam said passively as he stared ahead blankly. He couldn’t concentrate. Boots, breakfast, birthdays; he thought of how trivial it all was in the grand scheme of things. Adam saw boots as a distraction, like everything else, that was meant solely to occupy their time before death finally claimed what was owed. He thought about how slick some of the boots could be and he pictured Judah slipping and cracking his head open, dying a slow, cold death on the freezing winter ice. In his mind, he was already burying his teenage boy. Adam thought about calling Judi and telling her to not let Judah get any boots with smooth soles, but he shook his head and decided to let it go. He refused to live his life and raise his family in fear, even if his thoughts were consumed by it daily.

Sarah was looking at him. She had said something and he had missed it.

“No, I mean, sure. Eggs are fine.”

Sadness filled Sarah’s pretty face as she stared back at him.

“I love you, Adam,” she finally said.

“I love you, too,” Adam said guardedly, knowing her words had been a loaded statement.

“And as someone who loves you please believe me when I say that you’ve really got to snap out of this. I’m here to help you and you need to know that I will stick with you in sickness and in health. But if you need help other than what I can give you, then don’t be afraid to seek it out.”

“I don’t need a therapist,” Adam said defensively.

“Then what do you need?”

He stared back, suppressing the customary anger that flared up when he asked himself that question. Not anger toward her but at his inability to give an answer. He had vowed, privately and publically, to help this nation find itself again after the attack. But the days of mourning turned into weeks and eventually, he had lost all passion. He couldn’t focus anymore and he felt as though he had begun to die himself. He had no idea what to do.

What do you need?
he shouted inwardly.
Damn it, Adam! What do you need?

“Tell me about him,” Sarah said softly.             

“What?” Adam asked, taken aback by her request.

“Joe,” she said. “Tell me something I don’t know about him.”

“Sarah, don’t,” he said. “I can’t—”

“You can’t what? You can’t muster up the courage to think about the memories you made with your one and only brother?” she asked. “We all die, Adam. One day you and I will be gone with only our memories to leave our kids. So let’s dwell on that as I hope they will too when we are gone. So tell me about Joe.”

As she spoke, he couldn’t help but notice how her smile enhanced the room. He saw her as his one and only rock to stand on. Though he felt his legs had been cut out from under him after the attack, he had discovered that she alone had held him up and kept him from falling completely into oblivion.

Had it been Sarah. . . .

The very thought of her dead almost brought tears to his eyes and he vowed to never live a day without her. He couldn’t fathom life without her as anything more than an empty and worthless reality of suspended animation.

“Tell me something,” she said again. “And be passionate about it. Like you used to be. I miss that fire in your eyes when you become enthusiastic about something. Just try to focus on the good and how great of a life he lived.”

Something about Joe. . . .

Adam thought back on the life of his brother and how he had impacted those around him. He figured he had shared virtually everything about him with Sarah at one point or another, but he knew there had to be something buried . . . something that would surprise even him when he unearthed it. After a moment, he let out a small laugh.

“Do you remember Frontage Lake?”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “That lake in southern Colorado you guys used to talk about all the time.”

Adam smiled as a hint of deviousness touched his lips.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” he said. “Colorado’s best kept secret.”

“I hope to talk you into taking the family with you guys one of these days,” Sarah said.

“We’ll see,” he said. “But I’m not just talking about the lake. I’m talking about our first time to Frontage Lake.”

“You mean the story when you wrecked your dad’s new Jeep?”

“That’s the one,” Adam said with another wily grin. “It was late May and I had just got my permit. I think I was sixteen at the time. Joe had just arrived back from college and Dad had bought his first big lifted Wrangler. Joe and I wanted to take it camping, but Dad was too busy with work. We asked to take it out ourselves, but Dad wasn’t having any of it; he didn’t trust us with that Jeep any farther than he could throw us. But you know Joe. He could will a stone into growing legs and moving if he set his mind to it. Dad finally caved and made us promise to take it easy on the Jeep and go someplace safe. Joe and I made our promises, but it wasn’t more than a day later before we were off to go Jeepin’ over the craziest trails we could find.”

“Sounds like something you two would do,” Sarah said candidly with a chuckle.

“Well, I don’t know what he expected,” Adam said defensively as he too laughed. “Perhaps he thought his conniving boys would keep their word or something. But we had been out dozens of times before with lesser trucks and Jeeps. We were the kings of the trails, as far as we were concerned, and we both knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were in control. Of course, all that idiotic confidence came crashing down when we rolled it on its side up around a great fishing spot we had heard about called Clohesy Lake.”

“I thought you wrecked it when the tire blew?”             

Adam grinned. “I had convinced Joe to let me drive on the trail and I laid it on its side. We got it back upright with the winch, but we knew Dad was going to kill us when we got home. So we came up with that elaborate story that you and mom know. We said we rolled it when the tire blew next to a Boy Scout camp up around
Frontage Lake
. We weren’t even in southern Colorado; we had actually been up around Buena Vista. We thought we were so clever in our scheming that we named the fake lake after the
front
we were about to put on. Joe even punctured the spare and said it was the tire we changed.”