The Kasparov Agenda (Omega Ops Legion Book 1) (13 page)

Bruce stared at his son intently. “Okay, Alex. No more secrets. We’ll start off orientation day with a history lesson...”

***

8:00 p.m.

Scorcher and his overseas guests were at his premier place of business, the Chital Co. Tower in Manhattan. Attending the summit was the heads of the crime syndicate within Scorcher’s circle: Samuel Turly, Tony Calzone, Ulysses Frost, Gregory Pike, and of course the guests of honor: Hachiuma and his Thai mercenaries. Hachiuma sat down behind the luxury English cherry wood desk, center stage. His Thai mercenaries stood behind him.

Scorcher cleared his throat to address Hachiuma. “I usually sit behind there.”

Hachiuma glared at him. “The person in charge sits in the place of prominence. You are not in charge. I came here because you could no
t
take charge
.”

Scorcher raised his hands in defence. “Hey-hey, no need to get all snippy. You’re the guest, you can take the big-boy desk.”

Scorcher sat down on a chair beside the rest of the party.
We’ll see how well you can handle Bruce.
 

“So, what is the strategy, here?” Turly asked.

“Patience. We are going to bide our time.” Hachiuma looked from Turly to Scorcher. “Tell me exactly how the pecking order works here in New York.”

Scorcher’s eye gleamed. “The head honchos are all in front of you. Information and orders trickle down from the bodies in this room: Tony has his mafia goon squad, Frosty has a lot of random psychos at his disposal and some drug cartel connections—real snow-blowers. And Turly—I’m sure you know all about him already; he’s the glue that keeps it all together.”

Hachiuma looked at Pike. “And what do you do?”

Pike shrugged. “I blow stuff up.”

Scorcher’s devilish smile flashed. “Yes you
do
. He’s quite good at it. You know, I kinda wish I was there to see that tanker truck explode. I’ll admit, at first, I was peeved about losing all our weapons...but in hindsight, it looked like good fun. Good fun indeed.” Scorcher looked up at the ceiling dreamily. “Yes-yes, that is the price of fun...” Pike laughed uncertainly.

Hachiuma was not amused. He opted to ignore Scorcher’s ramblings and carry on. “Each of you will inform your respective parties that until further notice, Bruce Kasparov is not to be engaged.”

“What if he attacks us first?” Pike asked.

“Then blow him up, or whatever it is you do. I’m not expecting you to roll over and die if he brings the fight to us.” The intercom on Scorcher’s desk began to beep. Hachiuma leapt out of the chair and his body engulfed in a fiery spectacle. “WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!” Hachiuma bellowed in an unbridled fury.

“
Wow
...relax,” Scorcher muttered. “It’s my phone.” Scorcher walked up to the desk and switched on the intercom.

“Scorcher! When I went to sleep last night in an intoxicated haze, it just came to me, one word, just like that...”

Scorcher laughed into the intercom. “Lomez, is that you?”

“Halloween, my friend. Hallo-freakin’-ween.”

“You’re throwing a party?”

“I’m throwing a party! Saturday, October 30th. Now I know that you’re terribly self-conscious about your garish appearance, so what better time to come than when everyone’s costumed up. With that grotesque face, you’ll be the belle of the ball!”

“Hey-hey! I never said I was self-conscious!
You
were the one self-conscious about having a psychotic alien-looking criminal at your parties.”

“Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!  Okay. Okay-okay, but come down to Pennsylvania a couple days before the thirtieth. We’ll hop in my plane, fly to L.A., and we’ll completely bomb it. Tell me you can make it?”

Scorcher looked around the room as everyone stared at him. Hachiuma was sitting back down, watching him, stone-faced. “Damn right I can make it!”

“See, now that’s what I like about you, Scorcher. Whatever evil maniacal scheme you’re in the middle of—and don’t even tell me you aren’t—don’t you even deny it!”

“Now why would I try to lie to you, Lomez?”

Lomez laughed. “You can put aside the work for the play. You got your priorities right, good sir. Prepare thyself!” Scorcher turned off the intercom. He looked around to find everyone still staring at him.

Hachiuma growled. “Finished?”

Scorcher smacked himself on the forehead. “Where
are
my manners, should I have asked Lomez to toss an invite your way?” Hachiuma stood up, bearing down on the lot of them and continued as if there was no interruption:

“We will wait for the right opportunity to trap Kasparov. Until then, absolutely no moves against him. I want to find out everything there is to know about this soon to be dead Legion guardian...”

***

“C’mon, you’re not trying hard enough!” Bruce’s legs pumped across the soccer field. Peter was red in the face from trying to keep up, but it was no good.

“I can’t...too...fast...” He stopped running and collapsed onto the grass.

The twelve-year-old Bruce Kasparov looked back at Peter Santos, disappointed. “Don’t give up!” Bruce walked back and hoisted Peter to his feet. “If we’re going to enlist, we need to be all that we can be—so don’t be a goddamn wuss!”

The year is 1968
. The Vietnam War is in full effect, with America having over half a million soldiers committed to the war efforts to prevent the spread of communism to South Vietnam. A ceasefire was agreed upon so that the Tet Lunar New Year festivities could take place unimpeded.
But there is no honor in war.
It was during this arranged ceasefire that
North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive: a series of surprise attacks against
civilian and military positions. American soldiers were able to regroup and drive back the North Vietnam advances, but the damage was done and the death toll was high.
 

Following the battles waged during the Tet offensive, the media brought to light, in graphic detail, the situation in Vietnam. It had become apparent to the American people that the U.S. government was not giving them all the facts.
Public support for the war began to waiver
. Many Americans began to question the possibility of an American victory and the integrity of the war itself.
Was the United States right in sending troops to Vietnam to enforce their own containment policy?
 

This was the year the Omega Ops Legion recruited two of its finest members.

It was a late afternoon in July. The sun was still up and beating down hard. Bruce and Santos were out in the park with three other boys: Matthew Kerr, age 15; Dillon Byrons, age 14; and Charlie Walker, age 10. What these five had in common was that they were all in the care of Charlie Walker’s parents. While Bruce and Santos ran in the field, the other three were on the sidelines at the picnic benches. Matthew bounced a soccer ball from one foot to the other. Dillon was lying down on the grass, watching Matthew’s soccer skills in quiet reverie. Matthew bounced a particularly high kick with his thigh and glanced over at Charlie, who was not partaking in the activities. “Hey, Charlie, why don’t you join Bruce and Pete in their sprints?”

“No, thanks.”

“How about kicking the soccer ball around?”

“No, thanks,” he repeated. Charlie was seated on the picnic bench, absorbed in a Go board.

Dillon sat up and looked drearily at the board.
“Don’t you need two people to play that?”
 

“I’m just practicing,” Charlie replied absentmindedly. He placed another white stone on the board and studied the effect. “Learning the subtle nuances of life and death...”

“What happened to your chess fixation? At least with that there was fighting, like a war.”

“Chess is more like an individual battle, actually. Go is a war and might just be the better game, from my experience so far.”

Dillon looked at the board again. “Yeah, I don’t see it. Looks like a mess of black and white dots to me.” He grinned. “My guess is someone beat you bad at chess and you, being the sour-grape-eating baby you are, switched to this ‘Go’ of yours to save face.”

Charlie scoffed. “Oh please, we both know I can beat anyone in the house at chess. And don’t get me wrong, I haven’t given up chess. I’ve simply decided to become a disciple of Go as well. And why Go you ask?”

“I didn’t ask. It’s okay, I don’t need know, really…”

“To put it in terms
you
can understand, Go is older than chess, simpler than chess, and far more strategic. How can it be simpler and more strategic, you ask?”

“No, I believe you,
really
. You don’t need to explain.”

“Actually, this was one of my contentions with chess. The setup and the way the pieces move seemed to just be arbitrarily determined. Why does the knight move in an L-shape, for example? Why not hop every other square instead, or move any two squares orthogonally? In this sense, the game is rigid. Go, on the other hand, feels organic. No frills, no fancy movements. It’s simply boiled down to black and white stones of equal value. Their value is created in how well they work together.
Abstract strategy bliss
.”

“Okay-okay, the little genius can study his board games and massage his ego. As for me, I’m going to play keep-ups with Matt—a
real
game.
Hey, Matt, kick me the ball!” Dillon shouted.
 

Matt bounced the ball high up and popped a header in Dillon’s direction. Dillon waited for the ball to fall to chest height and then, with his hand, smacked the ball at the Go board. The black and white stones scattered onto the bench, with several dropping into the grass. Charlie balled his hands into fists. “You idiot!” he yelled. Dillon ran away laughing as Charlie chased after him.

Well, look at that... Charlie’s fast when he wants to be,
Matt thought to himself. He then looked down the field to where Bruce and Peter were running and corrected the thought:
Charlie’s fast in comparison with Dillon.
Charlie had miraculously managed to catch Dillon—but now that he had, he didn’t know what to do with him. Dillon pushed him down with one hand and laughed. Matthew shook his head. “Knock it off, Dillon. Let’s head back.”

Dillon shrugged. “Yeah, okay.” He extended a hand and helped Charlie back to his feet.

Matt picked up his soccer ball and jogged onto the field. He called out to Bruce and Peter: “Hey! Come back guys, we’re heading home!”

***

The boys walked back to their house, joking and laughing. Charlie was still upset about his board game, however. They were now just a few blocks from their house. “Hey, Matt, I’ll race you the rest of the way home,” Bruce challenged.

“Didn’t you do enough running at the park?”

“I can still take you!” said Bruce determinedly.

“Yeah, right, let’s save it for another day; we’re practically home anyway,” Matt replied.

“Alright, fine,” Bruce replied, sulking. In truth, Bruce had never been able to outrun Matt. But this was only due to Matt being older than Bruce. It was the fact that Bruce was unable to beat Matt that made him so eager to take on the challenge.

Matt fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. They had arrived at a large house that had belonged to the Walkers for three generations. The Walker family was a middle-class family that lived in Manhattan, New York. Chesterfield Walker was a carpenter, and his wife, Meredith, was a stay-at-home mother. The couple had two boys: 24-year-old Doug and 10-year-old Charlie. Despite the Walker family not being particularly wealthy, they had big hearts and were well-loved by their neighbourhood. They were involved with many charity events such as food drives and clothing donations. However, their biggest gift to the world was their role as foster parents to orphan boys. Over the years, they had adopted several children, Bruce and Santos included. Financially, they would not be able to undertake such an endeavor if not for their charity efforts being sponsored by members in the Legion.

The five boys stepped into the house and were surprised to find two strangers in the entrance hall talking with Charlie’s dad, Chester. They were an odd pairing indeed. One was a tall Englishman. He was slim, with a well-groomed brown beard that matched his suit. The second was an older Asian gentleman. He was short in stature and was wearing a pale orange robe over dress pants and a shirt. The robe was held snugly in place with a wide golden sash.

“Ah, boys, you’re home!” Charlie’s father greeted. “We have guests, as you can see. This is Mr. Alastor Moore and Mr. Keion Shyu—acquaintances of mine.” One by one, Chester introduced each of the boys to the two gentlemen. Their interest piqued when they got around to Bruce.

“Ah, and this is Bruce,” Mr. Shyu said, while shaking hands. Mr. Moore looked over Bruce with twinkling eyes.

Charlie’s wife walked in from the kitchen and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Oh, just look at you, Bruce!” she exclaimed, pinching his cheek. “You’re all sticky!”

“Ow!” Bruce mumbled, as he pushed her hand away.

“You need to go take a bath and clean yourself up when we have guests!” She looked over the other four boys. “That goes for the rest of you too!”

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Walker,” Alastor Moore said. “You know the old saying, ‘boys
will
be boys’.” Alastor smiled at the group. “You were all at the park, I understand?”

Bruce noticed that when Mr. Moore spoke, there was a certain warmth in his candor.
“Yeah, just playing around. Soccer and stuff,” Bruce replied.

“Good-good. Bruce, do you mind if we have a word with you in private?”

“Um...sure, I don’t mind.”

“You can go into the living room if you’d like,” Chester suggested, directing them down the hall with his hand.

“Yes, that would be perfect, thank you,” Alastor replied. Bruce followed Mr. Moore and Mr. Shyu into the hallway, sneaking an uncertain glance back at his foster brothers, who returned the look of confusion.