Dominatus (4 page)

“And what is your purpose here in Alaska Mr. Neeson?”

The question hung in the space between myself and Carol for a moment before I replied.

“Just checking it out.  I had heard about it, and wanted to come up here and see it for myself.”

“See what Mr. Neeson?”

“Dominatus.”

Carol Denny was looking at me very intently now, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“And why is that?  What purpose do you have traveling all the way up here to Dominatus?”

“My father had told me about it, told me it was something I might want to see.”

“How well do you know Mr. Walker?”

I could feel Mac’s stare, though I fought the urge to look over at him.

“Just met him today.”

“Oh, so you had no prior knowledge of Mr. Walker before today?”

Again I paused, taking just a few seconds to construct a response.

“I had never met him in person, that’s correct.”

“That’s not what I asked you Mr. Neeson.  I asked you if you had any prior knowledge of Mr. Walker prior to today.  Please answer the question.”

“I…yes…I had heard stories.  From my father.”

“And how did your father know Mr. Walker?”

“He was a client.”

“Of your father’s?”

“Yes.”

‘Your father was an attorney, is that correct?”

Again I was being asked a question by Carol Denny that he apparently already knew the answer to.

“Correct.”

“And why did your father encourage you to visit here, to visit Alaska?”

I sensed the attempted trap, and remained silent.

“Mr. Neeson, I’ll ask you again.  Why did your father encourage you to visit here?”

‘That’s none of your business.”

Carol Denny leaned back slightly, then folded his hands on the table and again attempted a little smile.

“Just answer the question Mr. Neeson.”

“No, it’s none of your business.”

“Mr. Neeson, you are a visitor in my jurisdiction.  I am a compliance officer of the New United Nations .  I assure you, it very much is my business.  So I will ask you one more time, why did your father encourage you to come here?”

The music no longer played inside the Freedom Tavern, and I saw out of the corner of my eye Mac give a brief gesture to the man seated across the room.  The two men at the bar shifted in their seats and I could sense the tension in their bodies – coiled and ready to move quickly.

The silence, though only a handful of seconds, felt much longer.

Carol Denny once again leaned forward in his seat, his eyes now begging me for a response.  His rounded face was kind, his left hand trembling just slightly.  This was a man who did not want confrontation.

“Please Mr. Neeson, I don’t want to have to take you in.  I will though.  It’s…it’s my job…my responsibility to do so.”

I found myself now leaning forward as well, sensing that the older man wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Maybe you can tell me who sent you out here Officer Denny.  Is that the right title?  Officer?”

Carol Denny shrugged.

“Sure.  It’s actually Compliance Officer Denny, but Officer Denny is fine too.  I’m not stuck on titles…I’m just a guy doing his job.”

“So who sent you out here to do this job?  I’ve been here just over an hour and then you show up?  You must have been ordered out here almost as soon as I left the reservation.”

Officer Denny used both his hands to rub his eyes before looking back at me.

“Yes…you were being tracked since you left the Lower 48.  We knew as soon as you entered Alaska, and as soon as you made the trip out here.  So, I answered your question.  How about you answer mine so we can wrap this up?”

“You didn’t answer my question though Officer Denny – I asked who ordered you to follow me all the way out here and interview me.”

“The Compliance Office in Anchorage, there’s your answer.  Now Mr. Neeson, I’ve entertained your question long enough.  Let’s get back to you answering my questions.  Why did your father send you to Alaska?”

“I don’t know, you would have to ask him.  He’s dead though, but you already know that, right?”

Carol Denny leaned forward again, looking over at Mac before whispering a response.

“Mr. Neeson, these people…I would suggest you turn around and go home.  Nothing productive will come of this.  Your personal safety…you are putting that at great risk the longer you stay here.  How long do you intend to stay?”

“As long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes Mr. Neeson?”

It was my turn to shrug.

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Neeson, I’m not going to order you to leave this place.  Not yet, but I will if you remain here longer than a few days.  It’s in my power to do so, and I will exercise that authority, do you understand?”

I could hear Mac’s footsteps as he strode across the room and to our table.

“Your ten minutes are up Carol, time to go.”

Officer Denny ignored Mac and continued speaking to me.

“And one more thing Mr. Neeson.  I suggest to you in the strongest terms, do not transmit any unlicensed communications from this location.  Do you understand what I am saying?  Am I making myself absolutely clear to you?”

I inhaled sharply and sat upright.  If Officer Denny knew of my transmissions, that would mean I had been closely monitored by the N.U.N. authorities for far longer than just this trip to Alaska.  It also likely meant my father had long been monitored as well.  How much they knew, the possibility began to form a ball of sickness in my stomach.  Officer Denny was right about one thing – I faced real danger.

“Do you understand Mr. Neeson?”

Before I could reply, Mac’s hand came down upon Denny Carol’s shoulder and he repeated his earlier statement.

“Time to go Carol, NOW.”

Carol Denny quickly stood up and as he did so his right hand held the electrical charge device that had just a mere half second before been holstered at his side.  I was stunned at how quickly he moved - how quickly he became a fully armed Compliance Officer of the New United Nations.

I was then even more stunned at how much more quickly and easily Mac disarmed Officer Denny.

The former Seal Team Six member’s movements were difficult to follow – I saw Carol’s weapon come up, and then in nothing more than a blurred flash, Mac was holding it in his own right hand, as his left hand clamped down on the right shoulder of Officer Denny and forced him back down into his seat.  Carol’s face broke out into a grimace – whatever hold Mac had on his shoulder was producing a considerable amount of pain.

Mac then brought his face into the small lens of Officer Denny’s transmitter that hung on the front of his light blue New United Nations’ jacket.

“I know you shits are watching this, so make note of the fact I am allowing Officer Carol to leave here unharmed and am returning his little gun to him.  He asked his questions of our guest, and now it’s time for him to go.  We just want to be left alone up here do you understand?  Just leave us the hell ALONE.”

Carol Denny’s eyes were darting around the room, and a thin sheet of sweat now covered his forehead.  He didn’t appear upset, or even afraid, but rather genuinely concerned not for himself, but for the man who had just disarmed him.

“You shouldn’t have done that Mac.  That was over the line…you…you just put everyone up here in serious danger with that stunt.  You just assaulted a compliance officer.  They won’t allow that to slide.  The next time I’m up here, I won’t be alone.  And I won’t be in charge.  Dammit Mac - why did you go and do that?”

Mac appeared unconcerned with anything Officer Denny told him.

“Carol, just get back in your vehicle and drive on home.  If you or anybody else wants to make this a real fight, that would be the mistake.  I ain’t looking for a fight Carol, but if I have to, I’m still more than capable of bringing it.”

Office Denny’s tremble in his left hand returned, and sweat from his forehead was trickling down his cheeks as he stood back up.

“You’re an old man like me Mac. This is nuts, all of it.  This tavern, the smoking, the music, the unlicensed alcohol, the weapons - this won’t end well for any of you.  The Old Man, he can’t stop what’s coming now.  This has gone too far.  Even he is running out of friends and influence.”

Carol Denny then looked back down at me.

“If you are planning to transmit your program from here, to try and use this place as some kind of example to the rest of the world, if you engage in any kind of anti-N.U.N. propaganda, you WILL be getting these people killed.  Are you aware of that?  They will send the counter-compliance teams up here and wipe every last one of you out.  None of you will have ever existed.  Don’t you get that?  Women, children, all of you, dead.”

Mac stepped between Carol Denny and I, gently pushing Officer Denny back a few steps. 

“Carol, you have been giving us the doom and gloom report for…hell…it’s been at least three years now hasn’t it?  I suppose sooner or later they are going to try and shut us down up here, and there isn’t a one of us who doesn’t know that and isn’t prepared for it.  The question is, which side of that conflict are you going to be on?  Which side do you want to make your stand?  Them?  Or us?  The New United Nations, or what used to be the United States?”

Again Officer Denny raised himself to his full height, looking up into Mac’s eyes.

“I am a sworn compliance officer of the New United Nations.  I took an oath to defend the mandates for the betterment of society.  That won’t ever change Mac.  You and me, we ain’t so different.  But when…when it comes to my job, doing what I swore to do…I’m keeping that obligation.  If it comes down to it Mac, I’ll take you down.  If that’s the order, I’ll do it.  Won’t take any pleasure in it, but I’ll do it.”

Mac shook his head slowly and looked down upon Carol with tired sadness.

“We are VERY different Carol, you know that.  I’m living day to day a free man.  You?  What you have chosen to do is something else entirely.  C’mon, you sold your soul when you signed on to this New United Nations compliance officer bullshit.  You know that.  What were you before this?  Alaskan State Patrol?  Wasn’t that it?  How many years was that?  Fifteen – twenty years?  And then what?  The mandates come down, D.C. sells us all out, and you take this job.  Why?  For safety?  For the paycheck?  What was that oath you took when you signed on as a patrolman Carol?  Wasn’t it an oath to uphold the constitution of the State of Alaska?  To protect its citizens – its laws?  When did it become acceptable to you to break that oath and put on the uniform of the New United Nations?”

Each of us in the tavern watched and waited for Carol Denny’s response.  The two men at the bar had turned around, while the other man in the corner had risen to his feet, his eyes looking intently in the direction of Carol and Mac, his right hand poised to remove the sidearm he likely carried.

Carol lowered his eyes to the floor briefly, before looking back up, his mouth contorting into a snarl, his right hand grabbing his weapon back from Mac, which he then returned to its holster.

“You’ve gone crazy up here Mac, all of you have.  You hear me?  Damn crazy!  How do you see this ending for you?  You really think they’re gonna just let you live on like this?  Breaking the mandates over and over again?  Now you think we will let you transmit your propaganda from here?  To stir the people up?  Where do you think this is going to end Mac?  I’ll tell you where – DEAD.  And not just you, but everyone you’ve taken in up here.  The women, the children…what about them Mac?  It’s their blood that will be on your hands.  Their blood.  Are you really that willing to accept that?  To accept their deaths along with your own?”

It was Mac’s turn to rise to his full height, standing nearly half a head taller than Compliance Officer Denny.

“If I die today, if I die tomorrow, or anyone else who has made Dominatus their home…we die on that day free people.  We die knowing liberty.  We die as citizens of the United States of America, not as slaves to the New United Nations.  As for you, Carol, you died years ago when you turned your back on your oath to Alaska and to America.  When you decided to do the bidding of N.U.N.   How many people has your kind murdered?  Huh?  How long ago was the raid on Nome?  Ten years ago?  Were you part of that?  How many women and children were killed there Carol?  HOW MANY?  They brought in the drones and bombed the shit out of them in the middle of the night…all of them.  Then marched in and took out the rest.  And what about outside Waco?  The Texas resistance?  How many there?   When we were still calling ourselves the United States.   Ten thousand dead.  Or Lake City Florida, Grant County Washington, Jamestown North Dakota, Alton New Hampshire, Hardy Iowa.  What did your people do there?  I heard mass graves for the people in Hardy, just because they refused to pledge allegiance to the New United Nations.  Refused to give up their hunting rifles, refused to stop going to church on Sunday. Refused to stop flying the old American flag in their front yards.   And you lined them up and shot them down…buried them and the entire town in the ground and wiped out any mention of them in the history books.  All for the “betterment of society”, right?  Just like all the others.  Isn’t that your real pledge Carol?”