Crowns and Cabals Read online

  Before the war, pills were prescribed by doctors who asked a few questions and then filled out the prescription pad. Now they were even easier to get. The pharmacist asked questions from behind the counter and then sold the customer the pills directly. By the time many of these kids got to college, they were hooked.

  Harper and I discussed our students’ drug problems before. At least these young adults came to class, filled a seat, and prolonged my position at Preston Lakes Community College. The boy sat in the back and put his head down on the desk. I still had twenty minutes before show time.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. Well then, I will let you go. My students will start to filter in as well. Have a great first day,” Harper said.

  As Harper left the room, I followed her out and inserted a door jamb under the door. More fresh faces dodged in and took their seats. Five minutes remained. I counted heads. Twenty-four students. One more to go. At nine o’clock sharp, I started my spiel of who I was, my office hours, class curriculum, upcoming papers and assignments, etcetera. I didn’t get too far when number twenty-five barreled through the door.

  “Sorry,” she whispered as she sat in the only empty seat in the front row.

  The late girl was older than the rest of the class. Twenty-nine, maybe early thirties, I guessed. She was the only one who wore shorts. Considering it was over one hundred degrees and muggier than ever, shorts and a tank top were the smart choices of clothes. Her tanned legs went up to her ears. She looked casual, like she didn’t want attention, but with those legs attention was sure to follow. I put the distraction out of my head and continued rambling on about the syllabus. `

  The late girl smirked at me as I went through the lessons. She gave off the attitude that this was all bullshit. The lesson about fact checking and legitimate sources really got her to roll her crystal blue eyes and sigh. A cynic. I liked cynics. They made great recruits. I immediately liked her more than I should have.

  Her brown hair was so shiny that I could almost see my reflection. Freckles sprinkled across her nose, and her skin was pink from too much sun. Her legs kept shifting in desk. It was too small for her height. She finally raised her hand.

  “Your name?” I asked.

  “Justine. Justine Capriati. What do you specifically know about the news? No disrespect. I am assuming you have some personal experience in order to get this job.”

  “No experience. I actually slept my way to the top.” The class chuckled at my sarcasm. Stupid remark, politically incorrect, and even could be construed as sexual harassment. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend anyone. Seriously, I used to work in New York when there was a New York. I had my own news show at CWBN.”

  “Wow, what happened?” Justine said. Again, the class chuckled, but at her for asking a stupid question.

  “New York City was one of the nuclear targets and it no longer exists,” I answered. I heard all kinds of ‘dahs’ and saw the eye rolls from the rest of the class. She couldn’t be that dumb.

  “I know that,” Justine said with a flash of anger. “What I meant was why didn’t you relocate like the other broadcasters?”

  I realized then that she knew much more about the news business and me than the rest of the class. The tone of her voice suggested that she did some research. “Well, first of all, many broadcasters and newsmen and women died. Others like me got out of the news business altogether, or got a job for the only operating network in this country which is WBNX.”

  Justine put a finger in mouth and rolled her eyes after WBNX was mentioned. “That’s not news. C’mon, they’re a puppet for the new U.N.”

  I laughed and then remembered the camera was rolling. “I’m sure they are doing their best. I’m sure other networks will soon take off, but I am done with that chapter of my life. After my wife died in the war, my heart was no longer in it.” That was partly true. My heart wasn’t in it for years. I was a sellout. My own show was anything but my own. Certain stories that I covered were mandatory, others had to be approved. The money and the fame was enough to do what I was told. Justine and the class would never know this. The recording camera mounted in the back of the room made sure of that. My trite answer was enough to shut her up. “Listen, we have five more minutes left. All of you need to watch the video link on Day 1 of the syllabus and answer the questions that follow. Next class we will talk about the five W’s and one H.”

  As the class filed out, I packed up my folders in an old leather briefcase that once belonged to my grandfather. Gratefully, I found the case in the trunk of my car when I left New York during the war.

  I stood by the door, waiting for Justine to leave so that I could lock up. She struggled to get out of the desk chair. I estimated her height at around six feet, all legs. At six foot six inches, I appreciated tall in both men and women. Most people made me hunch down when making eye contact. Something in Justine’s body language gave me the impression that she wanted to talk. I grew suspicious. Students didn’t want to hang out with me until midway into the semester.

  My ego liked to believe that she must have been infatuated with her older, handsome journalism instructor. I might have been aging, but women were still interested. I once considered myself to be dashing like a James Bond character-tall, dark, and handsome. I was still in excellent shape. But my vanity faded and paranoia took over. Was she some kind of plant? A means of entrapment? My heart beat faster than a drumline. She never said anything, just lumbered out of the door.

  My second class for the day wasn’t nearly as interesting. Most of the students were lethargic. It was like teaching a lesson to a morgue. SSRIs were probably the reason. I packed up and sped-walked home.

  My cell rang. “Yeah?”

  “We on?” asked Chad Whitley, a former student of mine from last year. He was twenty-seven years old, smart as hell, athletic, tall, even taller than me, black, and a loyal comrade.

  “Yes. Coffee this Friday. Same time, same place.”

  There was no turning back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Raphael

  My first week of the new school year ran like clockwork. Despite the job insecurity, I loved the smaller classes. My new students found it easier to connect with each other and me. They were much bolder with their questions and comments than the semester before. There were times when my eyes obliquely glanced at the camera when discussions ran off topic. They noticed. I tipped my hand. Some students rephrased their words to suit the narrative of the lesson. Others went silent. I longed for the freedom of my grandfather’s generation.

  My last class of the week was my only Journalism 200. Last semester in the spring I had three Journalism 200 classes. The subject and major ceased at being the competitive, exciting career of the past. The profession lost its respect. Reporters were glorified script readers who pitched products for their networks.

  I didn’t fault any of the reporters. We all did what we had to do in order to survive. However, some survivors labeled them all as co-conspirators in the global takeover. They were, after all, announcing propaganda for the U.N.

  There were some small time reporters who remained untarnished. A growing circle of journalists still worked for grass-roots e-zines and blogs. Chad Whitley was one of them. He turned me onto some other underground publications. All of their bravery moved me. Never once in my career did I stick my neck out for truth. My career was built on ambition.

  These grass roots reporters didn’t have it easy, but the masses were hungry for real news. Chad anonymously wrote an article about corruption within the medical world that ended up on a blog. The blog was shut down a week later, but received over ten thousand hits. The attention encouraged him, but I worried.

  Blogs, e-zines, and radio broadcasts that challenged the New World Order didn’t last long. A Truth Council of the U.N. was created for those who had problems with new globalized policies. I suspected Fogle was behind it all. Sites and the Internet radio stations were quickly blocked. Some
would try again, creating media under a new name, only to be blocked again. I championed these little guys and wished I could join them. One day. They needed money to continue. Lack of funds caused lack of regular news. Many of these grass-roots reporters would dry up and moved on.

  Once I got home from Friday’s class, I set the microchip on the kitchen counter, changed my clothes, put on a new hat, and headed out to the park. Chad sat on a concrete pedestal of where a confederate statue once stood.

  “Raphael, did you know years ago when I was a child that Dallas demolished all of the Confederate statues and replaced the Confederate street names?” I shook my head. I kept forgetting that I was now in the South which had a very different history than my native Chicago and adult New York City roots. “Yeah. The city tore everything down to appease the black community. My mother was so pleased. Then they took down other statues that had nothing to do with race, and other streets were renamed after prominent men and women in business and entertainment. The goal was not to appease, but to test, see what people would put up with. Even back then it was all planed. They wanted Americans to forget American history.”

  Chad Whitley was my first recruit. He was a former student of mine last semester. I was instantly drawn to his sharp mind that remained immune to indoctrination. His dark brown eyes were filled with sobriety and intelligence. His veiled comments of disdain gave me the confidence to recruit him.

  Chad graduated from Preston Lakes Community College with an Associate’s Degree, and then was promoted to manager at a warehouse that shipped Chinese goods to Dallas consumers. He was too smart for the job, but it was a decent job. Like most young people, dreams were dead. All anyone wanted was a productivity factor.

  Chad handed me a cup of coffee as we sat next to the empty pedestal. Despite Dallas’s ninety-nine degree weather, we both wore jeans and drank hot drinks. Chad wore a hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. Despite Chad’s efforts, his size and build always attracted attention. He looked more like a NBA star than a warehouse manager. The hot weather did not discourage others in the park from dressing the same way. Drones flew high in the dark gray sky around the city.

  Chad and I silently stood up and walked down the path with coffees in hand. We both liked this park because of the canopy of trees that covered the path. Once the dreary sky was blocked out from the trees, we spoke.

  “Everyone is in,” Chad murmured. “Raphael, I think we are ready.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” I flashed Chad a keycard wrapped up in a Starbucks napkin. He flashed his napkin which contained another microchip.

  This was a new step for Chad. I had been the one in the group that got his hands the dirtiest. But our fledgling cell of vigilantes had yet to do any serious damage. Chad wanted more responsibility, so I gave it to him. I could no longer go it alone. This was our fourth hit in six months.

  We hailed a self-driving cab up to Highland Park, one of the most prestigious neighborhoods within the city. Chad paid the fare with the phony microchip. The inside of the guard shack was empty and the gate was left open, all as planned. I didn’t want to know what happened to the real guards, but was thankful for the easy entrance into the neighborhood. We punched a few buttons in the car’s console and had it pull over and stop in front of the club house. As the car drove off, we walked to Alberta Ross’s mansion.

  Dylan and Marta O’Malley were outside in front of Ross’s house disguised as landscapers in bright-yellow jumpsuits, hats, and handkerchiefs wrapped around their faces. I couldn’t tell what race they were, let alone their gender. They truly had outdone themselves in finding perfect disguises. I eyed up their van. Professional looking magnets which read ‘Joseph’s Tree and Shrubbery Co.’ were slapped on both sides of the vehicle. The van was stolen as were the uniforms. My outlaws were getting too good at the art of deception. I shot them an approving smile, and they ever so slightly nodded back.

  Dylan O’Malley worked as a driver under Chad’s supervision at the warehouse. He also lived in the apartment above him a few miles away from me. Originally Dylan was from Los Angeles. Never able to maintain a real job, he ended up distributing cocaine and heroin throughout the West. Chad swore to me that Dylan smoked a joint every now and then, but never touched the hard stuff. I couldn’t afford to care. He was a master criminal with important connections. With his greasy dark hair, pasty white skin, murky blue eyes, and tattoo sleeves of various gang symbols, he had the look of an ex-con. He admitted to doing a few months here and there for misdemeanors, but believed his record evaporated with the city of Los Angeles after they had been struck by a nuclear warhead.

  Dylan ended up in Dallas by sheer luck. He had been out of Los Angeles, his home, when the bomb hit. He was hired to transport a truck load of drugs from Los Angeles to Dallas. His mother and girlfriend didn’t make it, but his sister, Marta, was still alive. He had no one else that mattered.

  Dylan set up a new life in Dallas and quickly got hired as a delivery driver. His position gave him an amazing vantage point of the city as well as firsthand knowledge of who was home and who wasn’t. This was where Marta, his sister, came in. He tipped her off about vacant houses, and then she would break in and steal.

  Marta lived in Anaheim. Once she heard that Los Angeles turned into rubble and ash, she jumped in her car and drove straight through to Dallas to join Dylan. Her resume wasn’t much better than her brother’s, however, she did brag about never doing any time. Both of them had a long history in crime. She ironically got hired at Love’s Field as a security guard. She, too, had dark hair, murky gray-blue eyes, and pasty skin, but her high cheekbones, square jaw, and pin-thin figure made her look more like a high-end fashion model. I immediately liked them as they reminded me of George, my grandfather.

  Chad knew Dylan was stealing. Instead of firing him, he recruited him and his sister into our group. The two of them proved to be invaluable to our mission. They, too, lost loved ones and wanted those responsible for the war to pay.

  As Dylan and Marta planted yellow mums on the side of the house, they tilted their heads in a way that gave us the green light in continuing our mission. Chad and I walked up the flagstone pathway onto the slate stairs of the front entrance. The Tudor mansion estate had mini-cameras mounted all over the property. The cameras by the door did not have the power lights on. Jun Wong, the last member of our vigilante band, must have been successful in disabling the mansion’s security. He was a godsend to our entire operation as a legitimate computer hacker. He was like a poor man’s Jaxie, almost as smart, but specialized in private security systems instead of global satellites.

  Jun was the only one in my tiny group of vigilantes who was not here. He sat in the attic of his parents’ Chinese restaurant a few miles away, watching us with our own set of cameras that Dylan and Marta surreptitiously mounted around the property while doing some landscaping.

  I still needed one more assurance from Jun. I checked my Twitter account from my phone before we opened the door of the mansion. Jun tweeted out the sign, a vague tweet about a nearby balloon festival in Plano. I nodded at Chad. We were safe to go inside.

  Chad used the keycard that Jun and I made. The double cathedral shaped doors clicked open. The inside of Congresswoman Alberta Ross’s house was even more opulent than the outside.

  We already knew that the congresswoman would not be home. Her husband would not be around either. Marta confirmed Derrick Ross was on an airplane set out to Tampa, Florida. Derrick was even more important than his well-connected wife. He owned and operated one of the few remaining American grocery store chains.

  Our Intel verified that Derrick had landed and arrived at his girlfriend’s condominium on the beach that he had acquired for her the month prior. Alberta was a United States congresswoman before the war for several years. After selling out her country, she continued to keep her title and represent her district at the southwest branch of the U.N.’s American division. She currently was in Austin, the southwest headquarters, and pr
obably hobnobbing with other politicians about a new global law.

  My eyes darted around the enormous foyer. There was a stunning painting of both Alberta and Derrick, two middle-aged, glamorous looking African Americans, decked out to the nines, holding champagne glasses, that hung over the sweeping staircase. It was by far the largest painting, but the plastered walls dripped of other oils. They had to have once belonged to a museum. I estimated several millions of units had to hang in the foyer alone. Chad looked at me and I followed. We needed to find the wine cellar.

  “Over there,” Chad whispered.

  We walked a few steps from the front door to the sweeping mahogany staircase. Under the stairs was a set of stone steps that led into a sunken grotto. An iron door blocked us from entering. Chad’s phone buzzed. It was Jun who acted as our eyes. The text read, “Coast is clear.”

  Chad pulled out his gun, screwed on the silencer, and shot at the iron door until it opened. I speculated ten different scenarios on how he procured the piece. Guns were confiscated and outlawed since the war ended. He would have to tell me about it over a beer once we were finished.

  We entered the wine cellar and frantically pulled at every bottle we could get our hands on. Time was ticking. Eventually, I found the right bottle and a secret door within the wall pushed back, allowing us into Alberta Ross’s safe room. A separate camera that was not part of the house’s security system flashed. Chad knocked out the lens and shot at the control panel. He clicked on his timer.