Crowns and Cabals Read online

“Here,” she said. “Please return when you are done with your class project. You are always welcome to borrow whatever you need from my room.”

  It took me two trips to carry all of the books back to my room. I hurriedly stuffed them in my desk drawers, out of the camera’s eye.

  I walked back into Harper’s room and asked, “Lunch? Around one o’clock?”

  “Well, I didn’t bring…”

  “I have enough for both of us.”

  There was still a good hour before my first class. The first book I chose to thumb through was a picture book about the Mesopotamian Empire. There were several pictures of vases, tablets, statues, and tools, but none of baubles and trinkets of the rich. Some of the statues were of winged deities similar to the one that was primitively sculpted in gold filigree between each of the peaks of the crown. Was there a connection?

  The next book was about ancient kings. A photo of a crown showed a similar winged-creature crafted on each of the crown’s points. There was another crown photo with a caption explaining how the crown once belonged to a Sumerian king’s daughter. I took out Jun’s drawing. My crown had a similar winged being, but there were leaves around the crown’s band, almost like a Roman laurel. The winged-being looked more like a person than a bird. I thought of angels, which made me think of the Bible, and I wished I had one on hand.

  Bibles used to be found in every hotel room, every church, every library, bookstore, just about everywhere. There were even apps one could download onto a device. That was all gone. The few Bibles left were hard to fine. Most of them became family heirlooms passed on from former generations.

  Libraries still held a few copies, but Bibles weren’t allowed to be checked out. The Bible was once considered to be the cornerstone of two major religions and a piece of history. Now the book was reduced to a mythical document that caused great wars. Those in power went as far as denouncing the book as a hateful racist document that discriminated against those who didn’t believe.

  I wasn’t religious, but the religious ban bothered me. The U.N. agendas had drafted the removal of religion decades ago. Swiftly and secretly, gathering worship centers were demolished with wrecking balls and explosives overnight.

  The Pope of the Catholicism was somewhat immune to the wreckage. He pleaded with the U.N. for compromise in order to save the Vatican and dozens of other masterpieces of architecture. In exchange, the U.N. ordered him to come up with a religion that included everyone and offended no one. Inter-Faithism was born and the former Catholic Church would maintain its power by overseeing it.

  As George predicted, every detail of this new world was planned out for centuries. Did New World Order go back as far as the beginning of civilization? I perused the pages of Harper’s books and wondered if the Mesopotamian kings and Babylonian queens discussed world domination. Soon, our history books would tell a different story of how it all began.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jaxie

  My business trip took longer than expected, but I left Phoenix with a few more potential Patriots. People were angry. They just needed a little push in the right direction.

  My Boston Patriots hit a target without me. Once my plane landed, my disposable phone rang. An emergency meeting was set up at an abandoned house a few blocks away from Wendy’s bakery.

  Wendy told us the whole block had been vacant for months. She knew the neighborhood well. One of her friends lived there. She would watch his dog from time to time. He, the dog, and all of the neighbors vanished. She doubted they would be back.

  The Patriots kept busy while I was away on business. They rampaged a U.N. armory in nearby Cambridge. Something went wrong, and a mess needed to be cleaned up.

  Yolanda, Wendy, Sai, Brick and Camden were all there despite my early arrival. It was almost one o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted.

  I walked down to the unfinished basement. The place was a disorganized mess. A workbench, endless tools, and ladders cluttered the space. A young, bald, clean-shaven Hispanic man in a U.N. Peacekeeping uniform was tied and gagged to a chair. Yolanda pointed a pistol at his head.

  My eyes scanned each concrete wall. The basement had one small window that was boarded up. Around the corner from the giant furnace was a second area without a door. In contrast with the room in which I stood, the other room was clean. Neatly stacked wooden boxes and crates were piled high to the ceiling.

  “What’s that over there?” I asked.

  “All kinds of goodies-rocket launchers, pistols, machine guns, grenades, soldiers’ boots and camos. Lots of medical equipment. Drones and explosives. We got gas masks and radiation suits as well,” Wendy said.

  “And him?” I asked.

  “He and a couple of his friends tried to stop us,” Brick said. “They opened fire on me and my dad. Just missed us. Yolanda clipped ‘um. They’re dead now. We took this man and half of the warehouse. Two Peacekeeper trucks are locked up in the garage.”

  “The soldier’s name is Phillip,” Sai said.

  “He’s nothing but a low-life, parasite Peacekeeper. Low-life parasites don’t have names. What did you do with the other two bodies?” I asked.

  Camden pulled up a chair next to the captive soldier and answered for the group. “We dumped them inside of the boathouse at Harvard. It looked like it hadn’t been used in a while.”

  “Harvard? They were using Harvard for an armory? I thought it was open to students. And you figured it out…Nicely played. What about the GPS in the truck?” I asked.

  Camden answered back, “I showed Brick how to disable it. Couldn’t be more proud of him.” I nodded. “Tomorrow, I’ll delete any satellite images that might have been taken. We’re covered.”

  My adrenaline spiked and my heart quickened despite Camden’s reassurance. My Patriots proudly displayed their trophy, desperate for my approval. “So why did you take this man?” I asked. I thought I already knew the answer.

  Sai looked ill. Her dark brown eyes were bloodshot and her long black hair hung like string. “Wendy and Camden want to question him.”

  “Good. And then what? Let him go free?” I asked.

  Sweat dripped off of Sai’s brow. She could steal, but killing wasn’t in her nature, at least not yet. “That’s what the meeting is about,” she answered. “We have not reached a consensus.”

  “Well then, let’s question him first, decide his fate later. Don’t want to be here all night. How will we make sure he answers our questions?” I asked.

  Brick rifled through some of the boxes and then walked back to our group congregated around the prisoner. He held a defibrillator in his hands. “How about this?” He eyed up the paddles. “They got to hurt when you’re not having a heart attack.” Brick played with some buttons and turned the machine on. The light turned green. “Cool. Looks like we are ready.”

  Yolanda raised her arms and moved closer to the tied-up soldier. “Phillip…”

  “I said low-lifes don’t have names, Patriot,” I interrupted.

  Yolanda nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.” She then pushed the gun barrel into the prisoner’s chest. “Low-life Peacekeeper, if you get any ideas, I’ll blow your fucking brains out.” She slowly reached for the gag and untied it, clutching the gun the whole time. Hate filled her brown eyes. She wanted payback for her boy.

  “Please, oh God, please. You people are crazy. You don’t understand anything. Do you know who you are dealing with? You won’t get away with this-you can’t! The entire sky has turned into a camera. Computers are watching every minute of the day.”

  I scoffed at his idle threat. “No, soldier, you don’t know who you are dealing with. We’re the assholes who program that sky. We’re the assholes that analyze every minute. We’re the assholes who your bosses need to prevent future revolutions. Patriot, get the paddles ready. Soldier boy needs to know just how crazy we are. So, why did you sell-out?”

  “Huh?” he said in a very high-pitched voice that didn’t go with his big man frame.

&nbs
p; “How and why did you become a U.N. Peacekeeper? When? You had to know what was coming.”

  “Listen, I’m from Baltimore. I was in the army intelligence, stationed in Germany. A U.N. ambassador asked me if I wanted a promotion. Five times the pay. Of course I said yes. My family was sick of moving every few months, and I was all but guaranteed permanent residence in the Boston area.”

  “When?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know, not that long ago…”

  Brick lunged at the soldier and zapped him right in the chest.

  “Owwwwww!!!!!! Six, maybe seven months before the war, alright.”

  We all looked at each other and nodded. Finally, the confirmation we needed to hear. Raphael’s New World Order theory proved to be more of a blueprint for a worldwide coup on every government. This opened up a whole new line of questioning. I couldn’t have been more proud of my Patriots than at this very moment. Their mishap turned into an advantage.

  “Camden,” I called out. “Record this for…posterity, okay?” He scrambled in his backpack and found a tablet. Within seconds, he focused in on the soldier’s face and then pressed the record button.

  Camden then said with his face out of the camera’s view, “I am with Phil, a U.N. Peacekeeper who has just admitted that he took a job as a U.N. Peacekeeper before the war. Can you please confirm?”

  “You don’t want to do this,” the soldier pleaded.

  Camden shut the camera off and then he nodded at Brick. He hit the soldier again with the paddles. Brick stepped away and his father continued recording.

  “Soldier Boy, you just said that you were promoted into the U.N.’s Peacekeeping militia. Right?” The soldier nodded. “You didn’t question the promotion? Or why was the U.N. building up its reserves? It never occurred to you that there was a reason for your recruit?”

  Phil’s armpits were soaked with sweat stains despite the near freezing temperature of the basement. He knew he said too much. “C’mon, I’m just a soldier. I got a wife, three kids…I’ll admit I willingly took this job, but others refused.” The soldier cried like a little girl. He squirmed within the rope that bound him. Yolanda cocked the gun. “Okay! Yes, I knew. Everyone promoted knew. We were trained before the first bomb and given instructions on the takeover. You people better kill me after this, because these sick vampires over at the U.N. will kill me as well as my family…”

  Something about his words seemed more like a decoy. Was he trying to buy time? Could he free himself from the ropes?

  I saw a machine gun sticking out of a box in the clean part of the basement and motioned to Brick to hand it me. As the soldier rambled, I examined the gun and slung it over my shoulder and then interrupted the soldier. “Shut the hell up, or I blow your brains out right now! I don’t trust our soldier boy nor give two shits about his family. His family. You catch that? He has a family that lives. This piece of shit gets to see his wife and three kids when he comes home from soldiering. He gets to eat dinner in someone else’s expensive home and then play games after a day of killing the kids of others. Soldier Boy, get yourself together right now and tell us what happened to the soldiers who refused the promotion.”

  “What do you think? They ended up dead. Don’t judge me. It was a deal I could not refuse. Still is. You’re right about the perks. You’re right about the job description. That’s what we do-kill anyone who might threaten the winners of the post-war world.”

  “How many other soldiers are stationed here, in the Boston area?” Sai asked.

  “In Brookline? One thousand, maybe two,” the soldier answered. “Boston is another story. Tens of thousands.”

  “How many arsenals? Are there barracks? Or do you all live in other’s homes?” Wendy asked.

  “Arsenals? Lots. They are all over. Harvard is holding a few more on the campus. I don’t know where others are. We don’t have barracks. Homes in concentrated areas are used instead. You must already know that. I don’t blame you for being angry. It didn’t sit well with me when the former Secretary of Defense announced our living arrangements. I told my superior this might trigger a reaction.”

  That prediction was spot on. I held on tighter to the machine gun. “Are they planning to kill more people?” I asked.

  The soldier shook his head. None of us believed him. I looked at Brick and nodded. He zapped the soldier on the shoulder and he squealed.

  “Okay, yes!”

  “And for the record, the General Assembly of the U.N. is technically running the world?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. Many of them are dead. It doesn’t really matter. The U.N. will change very soon. It is restructuring itself from within as we speak. There will be new leaders, and a new headquarters right here in Boston. Lots of new laws. They will work in conjunction with some corporations. Okay? Please, I am begging you, let me go home! I will give you even more information!”

  “Enough! I want the names of everyone who was involved in this takeover!” Camden said.

  “I wish I knew all of them. I’d say there’s four hundred people or so from around the world who planned every detail of the war and its aftermath…Twelve will have ultimate power. They will call themselves the Twelve or Twelve Elders. Those who belong to this inner circle of elites are warring among themselves. Soon, whoever is left will vote on a leader before the end of 2044.”

  “I still want names!” I yelled.

  “I don’t have the names of the entire U.N. memorized! Uh…Maximillian Steele of Fogle, some South American general, I don’t know, Doctor Stephen Laurie, he won the Nobel Prize a few years ago…uh, a banker, Harry Ronchild…Um, a man named Greene who runs the media. I just don’t know any more! My mind is drawing a blank!”

  The soldier’s movements made me nervous. My stomach dropped. In a flash, he somehow unloosened the rope, got out of the chair, and grabbed the gun from Yolanda. A shot went off. Yolanda fell to the floor. Her beautiful face was no longer recognizable. Blood pooled out in every direction. I had less than a second to process, and it was the longest split second of my life. It felt more like a lifetime. Without any shooting practice or knowledge in guns, I aimed my machine gun at the Peacekeeper and put at least twenty five holes into his body. He toppled over Yolanda.

  My Patriots were hysterical. Yolanda was our first loss, and the Peacekeeper was my first kill. I had no choice. Strangely, Yolanda’s death didn’t move me one way or another. All I could think about was the gigantic mess we needed to clean up.

  “Camden, did you record all of this?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if I was devil and nodded.

  “Send me the file. I’ve got others who I need to share it with.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Raphael

  My Monday morning nine o’clock students started to filter in. Twenty-five students were enrolled in this particular class. Only one week in, and nineteen of them showed up. Of the nineteen students, five of them were clearly drugged up on some kind of SSRI.

  Doping up war survivors was a way of maintaining crowd control. Most of us were in shock, and many were going through a post-traumatic stress syndrome type of thing. Drugs alleviated the pain quicker than therapy. With cameras and drones, students didn’t feel like talking.

  Years ago, many pious talking-heads in the media aired television specials about the breakdown of the family. As of today, no one televised any specials about the death of the family. Everyone in my classroom lost at least one family member or friend from an explosion or radiation poisoning despite Dallas being spared. Dallas was a city of transplants. Almost everyone here began somewhere else, somewhere that no longer existed.

  Education took on an overhaul of change. There were still many kinks within the new system, but new plans for a global school system were scheduled to begin the next school year. Soon children would be placed into certain schools that matched their aptitudes. The U.N.’s current Secretary-General Rubiak, a former Russian ambassador, claimed that general education was too general.


  The new public school system would begin at age five. The driving force behind education was long-term productivity. Five year olds who excelled in computers would be trained in the technology school. Five year olds who excelled in anatomy would attend medical school. Five year olds who excelled at playing with toys and daydreaming would be placed within a service industry school to train and then work. One’s future was decided at five years old. Many professors praised this progressive caste system. I shivered at the thought of what would happen to the children who just wanted to be kids and the parents who let them do it.

  Justine Capriati waltzed in late again, wearing another sexy tank top and daisy dukes number. She sure knew how to make an entrance. Her crystal blue eyes were bright, as if she just drank a pot of coffee and ate an energy bar. She looked ready to learn. I didn’t know whether to take her on as my new favorite student or see her as some kind of spy. My paranoia was on high alert.

  The day’s lesson was on careers within the media industry. I didn’t have the heart to tell the class that the top spots in journalism were reserved for graduates of Ivy League schools or the children of the inner circle. Opportunities in journalism as well as everything were decreasing at rapid speed. Nevertheless, I continued babbling on as if nothing had changed. The lecture was part of the school’s curriculum, and the camera pointed at me was turned on.

  I passed out some more handouts. I was old-fashioned in that way, preferring the hard copies to links, downloads, and posts. It was only the second week of school and I wanted a routine established. Justine had her hand up in the air as I walked by each student’s desk. I ignored her due to time constraints, but she grew more impatient.

  “Professor King,” she called out.

  “I’m not a professor, Justine. Please call me Mister King.”

  “Very well, Mister King. I researched potential careers within the media. Did you know that every reporter on WBNX graduated from NYU, Columbia, Harvard, or Yale?”

  “No, I did not.” That was a lie.