The Anarchists (31 page)

“You and your friends helped me solve a problem. In turn, I provided you the opportunity to reboot your lives, so to speak. And you granted me godhood. Thank you.”  

Suddenly, Damario snapped back to normal consciousness inside Madison’s Caper at the James mansion. His right hand cradled a thumb-segment sized blood red disk with the Italian flag and crest emblazoned on it.
Did I dream it? A half-hour has passed!
He dialed Robinne at home, and received no answer. Immediately, he tried Adharma’s penthouse at the Royal Gentry. He answered on the first ring.

“Hello, Officer Coley. How may I help you?”

“So, you do know me?”

“Of course,” said Adharma in a convincing tone. “We spoke not too long ago.”

Damario cursed at the man. “You killed my wife.
”

“I don’t know what you mean, Detective. I did no such thing.” 

At that, his holophone rang. The caller identification said it originated from his home. Without announcing so, he muted the transport line and picked up. “Robbie, are you okay? Where were you?”

“Hey Damario,” said his father-in-law. “I brought the kids home because her mom has the stomach flu and I can’t pull double-duty. Robbie told us what’s going on.” 

He paused. “Is she okay?”

“Robbie? Yeah, she’s at our house.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“Sure as a half-hour ago. Don’t worry. I’ll stick around to see them off to school tomorrow. The school transport gets here at a quarter after 6:00, right?”

Damario froze.
It did.
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll talk to you later.” He un-muted Adharma.
 

“So, are we done here, Officer Coley? I have a four o’ clock.”

Still confused, he backtracked. “Why did you ask to see me again?”

Adharma pointed to the thumb-segment sized, blood red disk. “The arrangements for driving me tomorrow. Please be prompt, as we must arrive no later than 6:15 a.m.. You understand – timeliness will throw off the criminal element.”

“I understand what must happen, Mister Prime Minister.”

“Good,” he uttered. “I will see you then.”

Damario dragged himself from the vehicle toward the mansion’s entrance. Quinne, Micah, Harper and Madison – who crossed her arms and frowned – gathered and met him outside. “You can’t kill Adharma, Maddie.” His voice broke.

Her glare melted into tender compassion. “D, where have you been?”

“If you shoot him, he’ll kill Robbie, her parents, and my kids. He showed me he would.”

Micah grew alarmed.
He knows about us, what we want to do.
Among the quintet, Madison was the best shooter. “You went to see him?”

“He called me, Micah. Asked me to be his driver to Camp Bradley tomorrow. If I don’t, he’ll do it. He said Maddie won’t shoot him, if I’m in the way.”

He’s right.
“What’s the play?”

Damario cleared his throat. “We kill him first.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

January 31, 2050

Early Monday morning, Damario used his name at each security checkpoint en route to the Royal Gentry hotel and glided through them without issue. He maintained a steady driving pace and minded the delicate package on the passenger seat. 

“Prime Minister Adharma is expecting you,” the human guards said with a hint of jealousy. Adharma’s reputation as a peacemaker, worldwide financial icon, social media maven, and political strategist preceded him. President Mateo rode shotgun on this deal. The conference revolved around Adharma and what he alone could do.

He left his transport at the hotel and entered another; a black stretch with tinted windows, flying the Italian flag. Damario wished for coffee. The two lattes he drank after his 2:00 a.m. alarm woke him up and stimulated him for now, but the unmapped road to Camp Bradley was dark, wide, straight and poorly lit. He and Madison knew this and shared it with the group the night before, suggesting the cover might mask a getaway on foot.

According to the orders handed to him by Adharma, they were the first stretch Bentley of three. Eight police motorcyclists and Capers preceded them. Without a distraction or unforeseen obstacle, the motorcade would travel too fast for anyone but an Olympic-class marksman or professional sniper to successfully shoot it. The Bentley’s tinted glass was standard issue and not bulletproof.

“Good morning, Detective.” A cheery Adharma slid into the backseat. “What a wonderful day to change the course of the world as we know it!”

He tipped his uniform cap in deference. “May I ask you a question, Mister Prime Minister?”

“Teanna Kirkwood? Theodore Mitchell? Yes, I killed them both,” he said matter-of-factly. “You were never going to figure that out. I destroyed the Ordnance, disabled the cameras and erased the transfer. Now, let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.”

When Adharma clapped his hands, Damario started the engine and turned up the heat.
I should turn around and kill him now.
His Ordnance weighed heavily against his hip. Micah warned him not to give into his anger – especially with no guarantees for his safety, or that of his children. Now, in the man’s presence, he could care less and wanted the evil presence to suffer and die miserably. But he stuck with the plan.

Minutes later, the caravan pulled off and Damario fell in line. Helicopter/jet hybrids followed overhead, shining spotlights down ahead of them.

Adharma closed the solid barrier between Bentley’s cab and its rear.
God only knows what he’s doing back there,
Damario thought. Though a frost warning had been declared, the road had slickness in some spots. He did his best not to skid much, though he’d gladly trade an arm and eye in a crash, if it meant destroying Adharma.   

Pressured with the second most important task – the distraction – Harper completed it to the best of her ability using household switches and common chemicals. It unnerved her, as she violated her government contract and at least three or four national and international laws doing it. Thankfully, chemistry was her specialty in college; fellow students came to her for study notes and advice. Applied Physics was where she struggled, and the fact she chose psychiatry in another life was not surprising. Micah supervised her and stepped in when she trembled too much to handle mixing volatile substances. In all, she assembled two modes of destruction
.

To avoid suspicion, Madison donned her uniform and handcuffed them both. She would drive.      

Quinne heard Madison call her five minutes ago. Waves of adrenaline and nerves kept her vigilant. She did not need a lengthy explanation to do her part. She looked at it as her first official order as a soldier. She mused on her artificial future and the different battles she figured to have. The glory of war did not outshine its ugliness – like how it broke her uncle into flawed mental and physical fragments. Her bones might have been powdered in places, like his, and she would relive the horrific smell of death into her golden years.

If I make it that far.

If not, glory awaited her on the other side. She believed in God and Jesus, and even “got saved” years ago. She just did not pay obeisance to the Jesus that Anibel worshipped. The battles of the Bible interested her most; where kings of ancient times killed everything moving. The only one to die in battle that she remembered was Saul. He could not follow orders – something she would never fail at doing.    

To keep himself awake, Damario thought back to the last time he had seen his children; another day he left without spending time with them. He choked up, thinking about his boy’s chubby legs and Christian’s recent developmental strides. There were no guarantees that he’d return to them, but if he did not do anything, they might as well be dead. Nothing about Adharma indicated a tendency to keep his word.

Madison involuntarily popped into his head. On Sunday night, before he left for the hotel room in one of Micah’s Cougars, he received a passionate kiss from Madison. He did not pull back as fast as he should have. Worse, he enjoyed it. The touch felt familiar and touched off a heated chemical reaction in his body.
What was I supposed to do?
Under the threat of death, she indulged a desire. Robinne would never understand it, in any form.

Whenever you go back to something, it’s never the same,
he thought.  

Without warning, the caravan slowed. Damario panicked, as any setback advanced time closer to 6:15, and he was the only one in a rush. Adharma retracted the sliding partition and glowered through the opening. “You have a schedule to keep, Officer Coley. Find out what’s going on.”

Damario hurriedly called the emergency channel. It didn’t work! He pounded his fists into the steering wheel until the horn burped. “My orders are not to leave you, Mister Prime Minister.”

“Find out what’s going on. Get out and do it!”

He exited the Bentley. The other officers did the same, as their communications had been shut down, as well. As they neared the lead Caper, a dead deer and two of its young came into view. The animals, who slipped in running across the road, had downed three policemen and their cycles.

Damario tapped one of his superiors on the shoulder. “We’re gonna keep going soon, right? We can drive around that.”

“Get back to the Prime Minister, Coley. Now!”

He jogged back to his Bentley and noticed a rustling in the bushes. Thinking it to be another animal, Damario entered the transport seconds before an explosion shattered the windows, igniting billowing clouds of flame and smoke.

Madison covered her mouth to muffle her cries. With the plan broken by the deer, each person on the team had to improvise. The overhead spotlights shined on her, and the reflective snow banks illuminated her position to the policeman searching for an assailant.

“Freeze!” they yelled.

Instead, she ran, darting through tree branches, zig-zagging to avoid Ordnance fire. To her left was a dangerous slope. She steered away from it, but inadvertently led the chase to the original rendezvous point. To throw them off and to warn the others, Madison drew her weapon, turned, and haphazardly fired in her pursuers’ direction. They split into two groups; those who continued after her, and the marksmen who set up to return fire. When she resumed running, several shots embedded into her back, causing her stumble and roll down the mountainside of jagged rocks.