Chapter 68

CHAPTER 68

T HE MEN WERE WAITING IN the parking garage when Devine came down to get the car.

Danny Glass and four new faces. They emerged from a black Maybach and surrounded Devine.

“I don’t have a lot of time so if you can make it snappy,” said Devine irritably.

Glass looked at his men. “Back in the car.”

Without a word the four men, who looked like they would kill Devine without hesitation if Glass so instructed, quickly returned to the Maybach.

Now it was just Devine and Glass.

Devine looked around to see if he could observe the contingent of FBI agents he now knew were following Glass’s every step. To their credit, he couldn’t see any of them.

“If you’re here about Hastings and your boys, they started the fight. I just finished it.”

“I don’t give a shit about that, Devine. In fact, you have my apologies. Should never have happened.”

“Okay, so what do you want?”

Glass eyed Devine’s car. “Let’s sit inside. Parking garages have too many ears and sight lines.”

They climbed into the vehicle.

Glass said, “You know the score now, I take it?”

“Your business associates sound like a nice bunch of people. Sort of like a local Rotary Club, but only with homicidal, government-toppling intent.”

Glass shook his head. “I wore the uniform. I fought so these assholes could protest and say shit all they wanted.”

“So did I. And now they want to take those rights away from the rest of us.”

He eyed Devine severely. “When I got wind of what these people were really up to, I read up on what the original KKK wanted to do, and did. These guys are even worse. It’s not just Black folks they’re going after. It’s everyone who doesn’t look, think, or believe like they do. It’s Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one. If they ever come to power, they’ll machine-gun half their supporters, only the dumbasses won’t believe it until their corpses hit the ground.”

“How did they let you get so close to their operation?”

“At first, it was just small nickel-and-dime stuff that I did for them. At below my usual client rates. Then as we performed at a higher level for them, it got bigger, and bigger. I eventually became an integral part of what they were doing.”

“And they came to trust you?”

“They knew about my military background and how it ended. And at first they had no clue how to put something like this together, while I had a lot of experience building an operation on the other side of the law at scale and keeping it going and thriving and having free cash flow that would make a Fortune 50 jealous. They came to me all the time with problems. Problems that I always solved. So they came to rely on me. And I said the words they wanted to hear: the country was not looking like it used to, leaders were too soft and tried to be too inclusive, that if we didn’t take a stand, we’d all be speaking a bunch of foreign languages, that sort of crap. They came to see me as loyal, and important to what they were doing. And I operate on the other side of the law. They had leverage over me that way. It’s not like I could waltz in and tell the cops everything without exposing myself. They knew that, and were counting on it. So I got to see stuff other people didn’t.”

“Did you have any idea as to what you were getting into?”

“At the beginning, it was just the usual: stolen stuff, convert to money, launder the proceeds. But then, as they grew to trust me and kept asking for more and more, things got weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I saw things like when I was back in the Army, scattered at secret sites all over the country. Military-grade equipment and weaponry. Training areas, ordnance sites, fleets of private planes reconfigured to drop bombs and fire bullets. Old tanks on the scrap heap being refurbished and upgraded with depleted uranium plating. Artillery the same. A boatload of fifty cals. Hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo of all kinds, hundreds of thousands of RPG launchers. Enough weaponry and supplies to equip eleven Army divisions and maybe the manpower to fill them.”

Devine’s jaw went slack. “The U.S. Army only has ten divisions currently.”

“There’re even old Minuteman missile sites out in Kansas that were purchased by extremely wealthy private individuals. If the feds knew what was in those right now? The Pentagon would have a collective stroke.”

“Come on, how could they accumulate mountains of stuff like that and no one find out?”

“I asked myself the same thing. Here’s my answer. About eighty percent of the U.S. population lives east of the Mississippi, Devine. Another twelve percent lives on the West Coast, with the majority of them in California. That leaves eight percent of the population for nearly half the land mass of this country, which means it’s basically empty. Do you know how many places there are to hide shit out there? I’ve been to a lot of these places doing business with these folks. I mean, there’s nobody there. Fucking nobody. You could drive for days and never see another human being. And they guard against being spied on from eyes in the sky. They have former military and intel people on board. They know how the sat networks are arrayed and how to circumvent that sort of surveillance. Really sophisticated operation.”

“Okay, what else?”

Glass gazed at him pointedly. “The software . The shit that makes the hardware run.”

“Such as?”

“Aside from all the brainwashed grunts on the ground carrying weapons, I’m talking congressmen, senators, governors, mayors, police captains, generals, admirals, a fleet of lawyers and accountants, Wall Street moguls, church leaders. I was at one secret meeting at a private ranch in the middle of nowhere where I saw folks you see on TV, all talking about things that would get them hanged during wartime. And then I started running into people like me, looking to score big. Mexican cartels, African crime bosses, Chinese Triad types. And some Russian mobsters, too.”

“Chinese, Africans, and Mexicans? I thought the 12/24/65 people were white supremacists like the original KKK?”

“Oh, there was no love lost with the foreign folk and these assholes. But with them it was just about money. And toppling the U.S. government and becoming isolationists? Making sure we never fight another foreign war? You think the Russians and Chinese wouldn’t love that? The rest of the world would be their oyster.”

“Okay, and I get your point about there being huge swaths of the country that are empty, but how in the hell did they keep all this so secret for so long, with so many influential players involved? The feds only stumbled onto it recently. And probably only with your help.”

“There’s so much crap flying around, disinformation, people screaming fake news, AI-generated horseshit, how does anybody tell what the truth or reality is anymore, Devine? Somebody finds some dirt and they’re instantly hit with a billion bots that shows they’re full of lies, at least in the minds of the public, who don’t have the time to deep-dive this stuff. I’m not speculating. I’ve seen them do just that.” He looked at Devine. “So, I’m asking you, how do you prove the truth? What is it even? Is it based on how many retweets or likes or clicks you get? One million and that’s reality? A billion and it’s Jesus preaching the gospel?”

“But some hotshot reporter never stumbled on this trying to make a career?”

“I actually heard stories of a few who started nosing around.”

“What happened to them?”

“My best guess, taken, cut up, and dumped. In places where the police were in on it. How deep do you think their investigation went? I would bet that their remains went a lot deeper.”

Devine thought of Ricketts and nodded. “So why did you turn, Danny? I assume you were making money hand over fist with them.”

“The RICO shit.”

“Not buying it. I know what happened to the witnesses against you.”

“I didn’t take them out,” snapped Glass.

“I know you didn’t. I think 12/24 did. But the point is, you could have. Or threatened to annihilate their families. They never would have testified against you. So the RICO never happens. I think you dangled your low-level thugs as an olive branch to the government, because you wanted out and you wanted to take these traitors down. And when the feds came knocking, you negotiated a deal.”

Glass looked away.

“Maybe the patriotic soldier in Danny Glass showed up?” said Devine. “And he didn’t want to stand by and see his country go down the toilet?”

“Think what you want, Devine.”

“But then your sister and her husband were killed by these people. And then there’s Betsy.”

Glass looked at him. “And then there’s Betsy,” he repeated. “You know and I know that they killed Alice and Dwayne as a warning to me. They let Betsy live because that’s their best chance to blow up any deal I could make with the feds.”

“The RICO case was a pretty big chip,” Devine pointed out. “They can reinstate the charges if you don’t cooperate.”

“And they also know that with the witnesses they lost, they have no assurances they’ll get a conviction. So that leverage is not so good. But these asshole traitors? They believe that if I think they will kill Betsy, I won’t cooperate.”

“And what do you believe, Danny? So long as Betsy is alive, you won’t cooperate?”

“If I told you I’d made up my mind about that, Devine, I’d be lying.”

“You must have insurance in case they get to you.” He looked out the car window. “Despite the army of FBI agents out there.”

“I’m not stupid, Devine. I do have insurance and these assholes know I do. They kill me, they go down. It’s just Betsy. I…” He shrugged helplessly.

“The feds aren’t going to wait forever. At some point it’s do or die, Danny.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” snapped Glass.

“What would it take to make you cooperate?” asked Devine.

“Can you guarantee that nothing will happen to Betsy?”

“Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one, Danny.”

“So we’re just going in circles.”

“But what if we took the fight to them?”

“How do you plan on doing that?” asked Glass.

“If I can think of a way?”

“Let me know, Devine. And then I’ll let you know. But right now my indecision is the only thing keeping Betsy alive.”

“Not the only thing. There’s me.”

“And you’re taking her back to her home, I understand.”

“Too many threats in a big city that you won’t see coming. I can defend her better out there.” Devine was sure that Glass knew nothing about the feds using Betsy as bait. And I should tell him, but I won’t or he might blow the whole plan up.

Glass turned so he was staring directly at Devine.

“So why did you really come here today?” said Devine.

“I wanted to look you in the eye and ask you something, man to man.”

“What?” said Devine curtly.

“If it comes to it, will you lay down your life for Betsy’s?”

Devine didn’t have to give it much thought. “Yes, I will.”

Glass reached out a hand and Devine shook it.