The City Burns: A Prepper's Struggle for The Truth (7 page)

“Wake up!” he screamed. Jim jolted up. He felt the trickle of blood fall onto his lips from the cut across his face. He slowly got up with Brett’s help as Twink checked the pulse of the two dead men on the ground. “What the hell happened?” Brett asked.

Jim’s hand slowly rose to his temple as he tried to gather the thoughts of what had just happened. The words felt foreign as they slipped out of his mouth. “It was Matt,” he said.

“What?” Brett asked. Jim glanced over to the computer. “The files,” he said as he rushed to the monitors where Matt had been working. There was an upload bar spread across the screen. It was at sixty-seven percent.

Twink and Brett watched as the bar on the screen increased in percentage.

“I’m guessing this is bad,” Brett said. Jim tried to hit a few key strokes, but the keyboard was locked. He couldn’t move anything, not even the mouse. Anytime he tried, an encryption code popped up on the screen.

“It’s an algorithm,” Twink said.

He pushed Jim out of the way and dropped into the chair. “He put an algorithm encryption so we can’t stop the files from being sent.”

“Can’t we cut the hard lines?” Brett asked.

Twink shook his head. “No, the connection is coming from the location where the files are being sent. Even if we cut it they’d still get the info,” Twink said. “The guy’s smart.”

“Well, I hope you’re smarter. This whole camp is going to be leveled if you don’t stop that file from being sent,” Jim said. Jim took off towards the door and shouted back behind him, “If you can’t shut it down before it gets to ninety-five percent get the hell out of here.” Jim ran outside with a pistol in his hand.

There was a trail of dust heading towards the gate. He could see Annie’s hair bobbing in the back seat of the jeep. He took off at a sprint and jumped into another jeep parked in the yard. Matt drove wild through the camp as soldiers screamed profanities after being nearly hit. Samantha gathered her reserve and started yelling at him. “What the hell is going on, Matthew?” she demanded. “Jim lied to you, Sam,” he said. “He wasn’t on a mission to help me. He was on a mission to kill me.” “What? Matt, that doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

Jim’s jeep roared down the road as he tried to gain on Matt. He was closer now. He shifted gears and cut through a narrow path between a pair of tents on the side and started to head towards the perimeter.

The loading bar inched up to eighty-five percent as Twink tried different combos of numbers into the encryption bar. He had pulled out a laptop and connected it to the tower that Matt had used. Twink opened a program and started typing code, which fed into the other monitors. “I don’t think it’s working, Twink,” Brett said as the loading bar inched up to eighty-six percent.

Matt turned the last corner of the road and saw the gate up ahead. “Almost free,” Matt whispered. Jim’s jeep came roaring past one of the storage tent’s right next to Matt’s and almost ran him off the road as he swerved to dodge him. Matt rammed the side of his jeep into Jim’s.

Matt regained control and slammed into the side of Jim’s jeep hard. He reached for his pistol and fired a few shots. Jim slammed on the breaks and got right behind him.

Dust flew up in the air as the jeeps raced for the gate, which was down, but Matt’s speed was increasing. The wooden gate burst into splinters as Matt crashed it into pieces.

Sweat started to run down Twink’s forehead as the bar moved up to ninety-four percent. Brett shook his head. “It’s no use, Twink,” he said. “We’ve got to go.” “I think I’ve almost got it,” he responded. The bar moved up to ninety-five percent. “Go,” Twink said.

“Yeah, like I’d ever let you tell me what to do,” Brett said. The bar crawled up to ninety-six percent. “My mother always said it would be my stubborn pride that’d kill me.” The encryption code was almost cracked as the second to last number fell into place. “God, I always hated that woman,” he said.

Twink worked through the lines of code on the laptop and flashed a smile. “Well, I hate to prove your mother wrong,” he said as he hit the enter button. “It looks like that stubborn pride won’t kill you today.” As the last number fell into place, the loading bar stopped frozen at ninety-eight percent.

The two jeeps raced towards the highway as the ashes of Phoenix smoldered in the distance. Jim pulled out his pistol and aimed for the tires. He fired two shots and blew out the left rear one. The jeep swerved as Matt tried to keep it under control. Matt pulled out his gun and fired back at him. A few bullets went through the windshield shattering portions of the glass. Another bullet ricocheted off the hood as Jim ducked behind the console. He came back up and aimed the pistol at the other rear tire and fired. It blew out and the jeep swerved in a circle as Matt was unable to keep control of the wheel.

Dust and sand settled around the jeep as Jim pulled right up to the side of the jeep before slamming on the breaks. He squinted through the dust, but couldn’t see the girls.

“Sammy! Annie!” he screamed. He got to the jeep, and when he looked inside it Samantha was unconscious and bleeding from the forehead. She stirred a bit when he said her name and her eyes opened. “Jim?” she mumbled.

Matt’s silhouette appeared in the dust behind Jim. “Get away from my wife, Jim,” Matt said. Jim slowly turned around to see Matt with his arm around Annie covering her mouth and shielding the front of his body. Jim stepped out of the jeep with his hands in the air.

“Don’t do this, Matt. Whatever it is you got yourself into I can help get you out,” Jim pleaded.

“I don’t need your help. We don’t need your fucking help!” Matt screamed. Annie’s eyes were red with tears as her muffled cries came through her father’s hands.

“Let her go,” Jim said.

Samantha watched in horror as her husband held her daughter’s mouth shut and pointed a gun at her brother. She tried to get up, but kept falling back down into her seat. Matt looked at him and started to laugh. “You think I’m going to hurt my family, Jim?” he asked. The words of a mad man were coming out of him. “No,” he said shaking his head. “The only person I’m going to hurt is you.”

Matt’s finger moved to the trigger, when suddenly Tigs leapt from under the jeep, landing on Matt’s leg. She dug her claws into Matt’s leg, clinging on as he shook her. Annie fell to the ground as, and in response, Matt fired his pistol into the side of the jeep, narrowly missing Jim.

Jim sprinted towards Matt and sent him flying into the sand. The two men wrestled as Matt clawed for the pistol just beyond his reach. Jim had him in a head lock, but Matt flew his head back and knocked Jim’s jaw causing him to lose his grip.  Matt scrambled for the gun and grabbed it. As he whipped himself around, Jim grabbed Matt’s arm with the pistol in it and slammed it to the ground. They both rolled over on top of each other again and again trying to use the moment they’d gain to pin the other man down.

They finally came to a halt on their sides. Both men had their hands wrapped around the pistol attempting to point it at the other man. The barrel of the gun tilted back and forth slightly between Jim and Matt.

“Matt,” Jim pleaded, “don’t do this.” His teeth were gritted as the gun teetered back and forth slightly between each man’s grip. Jim could feel the grip on the pistol slowly slipping. Matt’s eyes were wild with rage and both men’s faces were turning red from the strain.

Then the gun went off. Both of them jolted from the sound of the gunshot; each man gasping for air. The color from each of their faces began to fade. Jim glanced down at the pistol still smoking in his hand and the blood dripping from Matt’s stomach as he tried to keep pressure on the wound in his gut. Matt flopped onto his back as Jim rose to his knees, hovering over him. Matt shook and convulsed on the ground. He looked up at Jim with his fading eyes and grabbed his collar with his bloody hand to pull him close. The words were barely audible when they left his lips. “You won’t be able to stop it,” he whispered, “Just keep them safe.” Matt’s fingers slowly lost their strength as they fell limp and his hand dropped to the ground.

Samantha screamed from the jeep as she crawled over the seats to get out. She hit the ground hard and stumbled over to Matt’s side, holding his face in her hands.

Annie sat huddled in a ball in the sand with Tigs curled right up next to her. Jim’s eyes rose from the scene in front of him to the charred skyscrapers of Phoenix in the backdrop while his sister’s screams filled the desert air.

It took a while for everyone to get debriefed after what had just happened. Locke himself had flown out once he’d been radioed.  It wasn’t until his arrival that Jim was finally released. The sand, ash, and blood were still caked onto his sunburnt face as Jim found himself in a tent with Locke, a vacant chair, and another file. Locke motioned over to his assistant who came closer. “Get us some water,” Locke said. “Whiskey,” Jim said dryly.

Locke nodded and the boy left the tent. Jim stared blankly into the space in front of him. Locke didn’t want to press him for details on what happened, so he honored the silence with him.

“Did you know?” Jim asked.

“Know what?” Locke responded.

“That it was Matt.” Jim said.

“No,” he said, “but I had a thought that it could be. I needed to know for sure. I thought that if I sent someone he trusted he—“

“Wouldn’t try and kill them,” Jim cut him off.

Locke nodded. “Yes,” he said.

The assistant returned with a bottle and two glasses and placed them on the table between the two men. Locke reached for the glass, while Jim reached for the bottle. He twisted the cap off and pressed the opening to his chapped lips and took a long swig.

“Jim,” Locke started, “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, son.”

“You can’t?” he asked. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to kill your sister’s husband in front of her and your niece? You don’t know what it’s like to have them look at you after it’s done?” he finished.

“No, I don’t,” Locke said.

Jim jumped to his feet with the bottle in his hand. He pointed his other free hand at Locke and started screaming. “No! You don’t fucking know! You don’t fucking know because you’ve never fucking done it! You could have told me the information you had! You could’ve told me what he might do! What he was a part of, but no, you had to be mysterious with your orders, not matter the fucking cost!
 

The last word hung in the air the loudest. Jim’s face was beat red and his breathing was labored. He walked to the corner of the tent and kept his back to Locke who sat silent and motionless. Finally, the old general drummed his fingers on his leg and rose out of the chair. He folded his hands behind his back as he spoke. “Your father knew what it was like to follow orders,” he said. “The official report was correct when it said that over twenty of his men died, but what the report didn’t mention were the ten thousand people he helped saved in the small city where they were stationed.”

Jim’s grip on the bottle loosened as it hung limp between his fingers. Locke continued, “It was a classified mission in an area where we weren’t supposed to be. The boys back home had to cover their asses and mark him as a deserter to stop a war from happening.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Jim. “So I’ll understand why you didn’t tell me what was really going on?” The words left Jim’s mouth with a tone that was meant to sting. “No,” Locke said. “I told you because I thought you should know that your father wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t afraid of what needed to be done.”

He started to leave when Jim spoke again.

“We can’t stop it,” Jim turned around, “that’s what Matt told me when he was holding his guts in.” “Stop what?” Locke asked. Jim walked over and slid the whiskey bottle back on the table. “He didn’t say, but whatever it is it has something to do with the file that Twink stopped from being uploaded,” he said.

Locke nodded. “It’s a good place to start looking.”

Jim walked up to him. “Whatever you find out I want in on it. I want to find the bastards that are behind this,” Jim demanded. Locke put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “The United States military owes you a great debt, son.” Jim shrugged Locke’s hand off him. “There isn’t anything you can give me to undo what I did.” Jim left Locke alone in the tent as he slid outside.

Twink and Brett were outside waiting for him. Brett embraced him in a hug, then Twink. Coyle stumbled out of the adjacent tent sporting a black eye as he rubbed his shoulder.

“Just a little piece of advice for you boys,” Coyle turned back around and three very pissed, angry men were looking at him, “don’t pretend to shoot military personnel,” he said. “They don’t like it much.”