Dominatus (3 page)

“How’d he die?”

The question hung in the air unanswered for a moment before Mac looked back at me directly, and though his voice remained calm, his eyes briefly betrayed the still smoldering rage within.

“Suicide.  The most positive guy I ever knew, and they say he took out a gun and shot himself in the head.  Just like that.  And he did it at home so his little girl found him like that.  Slumped beside a chair in the kitchen, brains splattered all up against the outside of the dishwasher.”

“And you don’t believe he would kill himself?”

The rage returned, this time showing itself more fully.

“NO.  No I do not…”

“Was he the last of the three to die?”

“Yeah – about…shit…he was gone right before I got out.  One-two-three, and all that was left was me.  That was what got me going, got me running up here.  Had heard about this place through your dad.  He was the one who told me about the Old Man.  Said he had set this place up away from the United Nations, said it was so far out there nobody was bothering him.  So this is where I went, where I ended up.  Came up here and told the Old Man who I was, said I could help out if he wanted, and I haven’t been back since.”

“Did you have family?”

“No.  I knew early on that the life I chose wasn’t…wasn’t really conducive to family life.  Maybe I would have started a family later on, but I wasn’t exactly given that chance, right?  Prison isn’t the place to do that either.”

“Tell me how you met my father.  I’ve heard his version over the years.  Tell it from your side.”

Mac pointed to another photo on the wall, one I had taken note of already, but had not indicated to him.

“That’s me and your dad right there, the day I was released from prison.  September 10
^th
, 2018 – almost 20 years ago now.  They had me locked up for three years.  Your dad never gave up on me.  Finally got a senator to take notice of my case, when a U.S. Senator still had some power left before…nowadays they are nothing more than symbolic, right?  But back then they still had some pull, thank God.  And that’s when I first heard about the Old Man too.  He was pulling some strings for me.  Your dad got him involved on my behalf.”

“Take me back to when you were charged – the details of that.  What did you do?  What were you alleged to have done that put you in prison?”

“Officially, I was charged with deadly assault using an illegal weapon.  The weapon was my side-arm.  A little MK-25 from my SEAL days.  I carried it with me all over the world, and after the federal handgun ban in 2014,  I kept on carrying it, to hell with the law.  That was my frame of mind, and a lot of former military were right there with me in thinking that.”

“So describe what happened that day, at the market.  Why you did what you did.”

Mac sighed, and the deepening fatigue returned to his eyes.

“First – I wasn’t sent to prison because of what happened that day.  I was sent to prison because of what I knew.  Even though it had been years ago, any liability was seen as a risk to them.  So, many of us…most of us were eliminated.  First they were pushed out, from generals to enlisted guys - forced out.  Then months later, maybe a few years later, you would hear about them dying.  A car accident.  Overdose.  Suicide.  Cancer.  Heart attack.  Whatever.  Over and over again we were just…disappearing.  Any of us around Benghazi, we were…eliminated.  So what happened to me, the prison sentence, it wasn’t about me killing that asshole in the street, it was about what they thought I might know on Benghazi, simple as that.  I was the last one of the four of us left, and I’m sure they were getting ready to take me out too, but then what happened that day made it just as easy to lock me up and throw away the key.  And they almost got away with it.  If not for your father, I’d still be rotting away in some cell…or dead.”

I was about to ask another question when a loud buzzing sounded and a small red light lit up just above Mac’s office door.  Mac shot up from his chair and placed a hand firmly on my shoulder.  I could hear movement in the hallway as someone was making their way to the office.

“Stay here.  I mean it – don’t say a word and STAY HERE.”

A voice called from just outside the doorway.

“Got a visitor Mac.  ETA about five minutes.  It’s Carol.”

Mac turned back into the office and sat down in his seat, and I sensed him relaxing a bit more than he was just seconds earlier.

“You followed my instructions when you came here?  To the letter?  Arrived at the reservation, had Yoti drive you up the trail and drop you off and then you walked the last mile to here, right?”

Yoti was the Eskimo man I had been instructed to contact at the Native reservation – the closest thing to an actual town within a hundred miles of Dominatus, and even then it was nearly three hours of slow travel in a dilapidated 4x4 on an eight foot wide path that hardly resembled a proper road until we finally reached a turnaround where the alleged road devolved into little more than a barely seen trail.  Yoti, who had remained unnaturally cheerful during the journey, pointed me to the trail and said “Good luck – watch for bear,” before driving away.

I responded to Mac’s question.

“Absolutely, just like you said.  Why?”

“If Carol is making his way up here so soon, that means somebody was keeping a close eye on you.  Having that kind of surveillance up here is kind of uncommon.  And for Carol, we don’t normally see him this early in the year.  Too tough of a drive for him.  He’s getting up there now and it’s unlikely he would just go make that kind of trip on his own.  So that means somebody ordered him out here, somebody wants a report.  And that means you were being watched pretty damn close as you made your way to us.”

“Who’s Carol?”

“He’s the only Compliance Officer within a hundred miles of here.  He’s what we would have called a state trooper twenty years ago.  Carol Denny.  Not a bad guy, but he answers to the N.U.N. office in Anchorage – those New United Nations pricks.  So we don’t exactly get all warm and fuzzy when we see him up our way.  So they were watching you, and we all know up here they’ve been watching us a lot more lately.  We had a flyover a few weeks ago, and that used to never happen this time of year.  Sooner or later they’ll come for us – we know that.  Only a matter of time.  So be it.”

I could hear the approaching sound of a vehicle outside, and Mac once again stood up, though this time he made no indication I was to stay inside the office, so I followed him down the hall.   Music still played in the tavern, a song my father had played often at home years ago titled
A Country Boy Can Survive
by an artist named Hank Williams Jr.  Despite the uncommon surroundings and the apprehension for the arrival of this Carol Denny, I couldn’t help but smile while being reminded of my dad loudly singing out the chorus…

The sound of a shutting vehicle door was heard just outside, followed by footsteps making their careful way to the entrance of Freedom Tavern.  As the door opened and a smallish man of sixty or so years stepped through, only Mac acknowledged his arrival.  Two of the three men I had seen earlier sitting at the bar were still there, though they were no longer smoking or laughing, and no drinks sat in front of them.  One of them, displaying a long grey ponytail that ran well down his back, kept his right hand inside his jacket, where I made out the faint outline of a handgun.  A quiet shuffle was heard behind me and I turned to see the third man who had been seated at the bar when I first arrived, now sitting in the darkness of a corner facing the door, intently watching every move of N.U.N. Compliance Officer Carol Denny.

Hank Williams Jr. was now singing of a friend killed in New York City…

II.

The man Mac had tagged as Carol Denny stood just inside the now closed door of Freedom Tavern and briefly surveyed the room, his right hand resting atop the butt of small electric powered gun that shot a high voltage arc toward its intended target not to kill, but to merely stun.  Such weapons were carried by all law enforcement officials working under the New United Nations.  Deadly force was looked down upon, though recent history proved N.U.N. more than willing to use it upon private citizens when they deemed it necessary.

Mac stepped forward with his hands up in a mocking gesture of surrender.

“No need to come in here guns blazin’ Carol.  We are just sitting a spell out from the cold.  Harmless old men is all we have here.”

Carol’s mouth twitched as his eyes continued to dart about until they rested upon me.

“You have a new guest Mac?”

Mac turned nodded his head in my direction and smiled back at Denny.

“Sure do Carol – kid from the Lower 48.  Come here for a little downtime.  Just like the rest of us.”

Carol Denny took two careful steps toward me while continuing to question Mac.

“You know you’re required to notify me of any new arrivals Mac.  Every time you try and bend the rules you make it tougher on me to let you people alone up here.  Now I have to create a report on this new arrival of yours and note you didn’t comply with the notification requirement.”

“Now Carol, he just got here.  Give me a break.  Second, he’s not really my guest, and I’m guessing you already know that.  The person who took care of the arrangements in getting here, that was the Old Man.  So if you want to complain about somebody not giving you timely notification…well…you’re welcome to take that up with him yourself.”

Carol Denny puffed out his chest defiantly and looked at Mac with attempted contempt.

“Maybe I’ll go ahead and do that Mac.  Nobody living up here is immune from the mandates.  Not you.  Not him.  Not anybody.  You know that.  We all know that.” 

“So should I bring him here, the Old Man?”

Carol’s eyes lowered to the floor and he shifted nervously while trying to appear disinterested in the request.  Mac took a step closer to him.

“Or I could take you to his cabin Carol, if that’s what you want.”

Carol Denny drew himself to his full height, which still left him several inches shorter than Mac, shook his head and then pointed at me as he spoke.

“That won’t be necessary Mac.  I’m not here about the Old Man.  I’m here about HIM.”

“What do you want with him Carol?”

“Just a brief interview Mac – have to do my job.  I don’t want to have to come up this way any more than you and everyone else wants to see me here.  You know that.  I just need to ask a few questions.  No big deal, ok?”

Mac looked over at me and raised his eyebrows, wanting to know if I was ok with being questioned.

‘That’s fine,” I replied.  “Could we just do it here, over at that table?”

Carol shrugged.

“Hell, I don’t care.  If you don’t mind other people hearing what you have to say.  Otherwise, we could just do it in my vehicle outside.”

I walked to a small table seated up against a wall and sat down facing the door.  Carol Denny sat down across from me, as Mac stared down at both of us before looking directly at Carol.

“Try to keep this to a minimum, ok Carol?  The kid just got here and I imagine he’s tired and hungry.”

Carol looked back up at Mac and gave a small smile.

“Sure Mac.  I’ll keep it brief and even pretend there’s no smoking going on in here. Or that the three men you have watching me aren’t armed with illegal weapons. That sound fair?  I could cite this place of yours with about twenty violations easy, right?  More than enough to take you in.  Is that what you want Mac?  Because if it’s not, then please shut the hell up, and let me do my job.”

Mac leaned down and placed his face inches from Carol’s, hissing his own response to Carol’s newfound courage.

“You and I both know that won’t happen Carol – you’re gonna need a hell of a lot more than that little electrical pea shooter to take me in.  So don’t be trying to write a check you can’t cash, son.  Don’t come into my home and make threats.  Right?  You got ten minutes and then you’re gone.  Ten minutes Carol, or you and me, we’re gonna have ourselves a real disagreement.”

Whatever courage Carol Denny had shown so recently quickly evaporated under the direct gaze of Mackenzie Walker.  Mac’s eyes now appeared almost reptilian, no hint of emotion, looking at Carol just as a snake would look into the eyes of a rodent just before consuming it whole.  For the first time since arriving in Dominatus I fully understood and appreciated what my father meant when he described Mac as “the most dangerous man I have ever called a friend.” 

Carol Denny’s eyes darted away from Mac and looked back at me.

“Ok then, ten minutes and we should have this about wrapped up.  Is that acceptable to you Mr. Neeson? Mr. Reese Neeson?

I must have appeared surprised he already knew who I was, because Carol quickly replied.

“Yes, I already have your name.  You’re in the system of course.  We all are.  That’s the world we live in.”

Mac walked back behind the bar and stood looking over at us with his arms folded while the other three men remained in the same spots they were when Carol Denny first arrived.  I also noted Frank Sinatra’s smooth baritone was singing of summer wind.

Carol gave me a brief smile in an attempt to put me at ease.  I spotted the small camera lens attached to the front of his jacket – an audio visual transmitter that all enforcement officers of the New United Nations wore that transmitted sent a video of every moment they were on duty back to a regional headquarters – in this case the one in Anchorage, Alaska – meaning of course some government agent was watching and listening to everything happening at that moment inside Freedom Tavern.