Breaking the Beast Read online

  Yes, that’s right. The dirty little secret was the conspiracy of all conspiracies. It was the most heinous and evil act ever perpetrated on humanity, and it wasn’t done by some psychotic religious cult or terrorist group hell-bent on the destruction of all non-believers. No, it was perpetrated by an elite order of globalists: The New World Order, if you will, who had set out to establish themselves as not just the ruling class of their own nations, but of the world. A world they could rebuild and repopulate as they saw fit.

  Just as a former White House Chief of Staff once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” I guess since a big enough crisis wasn’t going to come soon enough for them, they decided to make their own.

  Chapter Two

  Once I had put together all the pieces of the puzzle, it became clear to me just how many of my fellow ODF members were onboard with team tyranny. The sergeants and below, who were mostly sheltered from the truth, were just doing their jobs. At that rank, they were still the disposable front-line security personnel, managing the day-to-day operations of policing and security on the streets in and around the capital, as well as the OWA’s other areas of interests and bases.

  Lieutenants and above were placed in positions of command over those operations, as well as providing security inside the hallowed halls of government, protecting the elite inside their inner sanctum. That part of the job really started getting to me after a while.

  I knew serving the OWA was wrong. I began to feel as if I was a storm trooper carrying out the bidding of the Empire. When I looked at my fellow citizens on the street, even though they didn’t know what I knew, I felt guilty. I felt guilty that I was the muscle for the organization that had destroyed their world, and killed so many of the people they once held so dearly. I had to do something, but what?

  I decided to bide my time, learning as much as I could about every facet of OWA and ODF operations. I figured a plan or idea on how I could help my fellow man and stand against the tyrants I served would eventually present itself. I just had to be patient, and not let any of my superiors or the elite themselves begin to question my loyalty. The penalty for that was clear.

  Even though there wasn’t a written policy on such things and it didn’t get carried out as common knowledge, there was a reason I had advanced through the ranks as quickly as I did. Clearly, there were voids to be filled above me, and the longer I stayed and the more I learned, the more certain I was as to how those personnel shortfalls at the senior ranks came to be.

  The captain directly above me in my chain of command was Captain Ronnie Wilks. Ronnie was a likable fellow who had served with me before the outbreak hit as a Capitol Police Sergeant back when I was just a new recruit. I did my best to ignore the fact that at his level, he was surely more ‘in the know’ than I. The understanding of the level of knowledge he was likely to have, created a conflict within me. At any other time in my life, I would look at Ronnie as someone I could trust without question.

  He would have been the guy I’d have drunk beer with while grilling steaks on our days off. He would be the guy I’d invite to my wedding. Hell, of all the people left alive, he’d probably be my best man. If I was getting married, of course—which I was not. I knew my life was going to take a sharp turn at some point in the near future, so there was no reason to complicate things with entertaining the possibilities of a relationship. Although it was very tempting at times. Being ‘in the know’ had created a very lonely world for me.

  Ronnie’s likeability allowed me to lower my guard with him, behaving more like my real self than with anyone else. He seemed to look at me in the same way. We never spoke of the OWA other than in terms of its operational control over the ODF in which we served. Not many people around me did, either.

  In the past, before the outbreak, people would express their political ideology to their coworkers, even if they knew it would result in an argument that could never be settled. Now, though, everyone remains silent on their view of the world. The OWA simply is, and no one questions it. I guess we all had the same feeling deep down inside us about how the staffing shortfalls above us came to be. We were like horses wearing blinders. We would just keep pulling the wagon and concern ourselves with the next obstacle directly in front of us. Nothing more.

  One day, I visited Ronnie’s office on the first floor of the Capitol building to provide him with the weekly written reports of my assigned areas of responsibility. There was generally nothing new in the reports. If anything out of the ordinary had happened during the week, he would have known about it immediately. This was just one of those repetitive tasks that seemed to add an unnecessary cog in the machine. I suppose someone higher up in the food chain liked keeping us all preoccupied with menial tasks. Either way, I saw it as a routine visit to Ronnie’s office, and I rather enjoyed that break in the week’s monotony.

  As I approached Ronnie’s office, I noticed his door was closed, which meant someone was already there. Ronnie hated having his door closed. He always said something about not liking the still air since his office didn’t have an HVAC vent of its own. If his door was closed, it meant someone was in there, and whatever was going on, it was something that couldn’t be shared.

  I stood in the hallway and waited patiently for his meeting to conclude. As I looked around the elaborately adorned former U.S. Capitol building, I thought of all of the patriots who’d first walked these halls early in the nation’s founding. I thought of how they’d given everything they had in order to create a nation that would ensure the freedom of their children and of future generations.

  I guess you could say I was an unofficial history buff. I wasn’t a history buff in a scholarly sense, I just liked to read books about earlier times. I was especially fascinated with the founding of the United States, as well as the U.S. Civil War and from the expansion into the West through the World Wars.

  I wondered what they would think of us now, having consistently strayed further and further from their original objective of a government established of the people, by the people, and for the people. We were now anything but that. The United States, or at least the scoundrels occupying halls of government at the time, had surrendered our sovereignty to tyranny so widespread the founders could have never imagined it.

  As my mind wandered on, Ronnie’s office door opened, and I heard him say, “Ah, there he is. Lieutenant Branch, could you join us, please?”

  Stepping into Ronnie’s office, I carefully glanced around the room to see three individuals in suits, who appeared to have no interest in my joining their conversation, as well as our ODF sector chief, Chief Hildebrandt.

  “Yes, Captain Wilks,” I said with a smile toward Ronnie and a nod toward the three stiffs in suits. “Good evening, Chief,” I then said to Chief Hildebrandt with a nod and a smile, removing my hat and placing it under my arm, maintaining my professional bearing, of course.

  Seeing my weekly reports in my hand, Captain Wilks quickly said, “Just put those right here,” motioning to his inbox. “We’ve got more important things to discuss. Please, have a seat,” he said with a gesture toward the only remaining unoccupied seat in the room.

  “Thank you,” I said, as I took a seat, extremely curious about what may be going on.

  Ronnie turned his attention back to the men in suits, and said, “Lieutenant Branch here is the best we’ve got. I’d trust him with my life and the lives of my family any day.”

  Without even looking my way, one of the stiffs told Ronnie, “There’s no need to rehash what we’ve discussed. We’ll leave Lieutenant Branch’s briefing up to you, with discretion, of course.”

  “Of course,” Ronnie replied, seeming a bit put off by their lack of regard for my presence.

  As the three men stood, both Chief Hildebrandt and Ronnie rose smartly as if snapping to attention. Following their lead, I stood as well, understanding such behavior highlighted the authority and status of Ronnie’s visitors.

  Once they were gone, Ronnie looked at me nervously
and said, “Get the door, please.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied, pulling the heavy oak door shut. As I walked back to my seat, I could see that both Chief Hildebrandt and Ronnie were relieved that the suits were finally gone. “Who were those guys?” I asked.

  “OWA Special Service,” Chief Hildebrandt replied.

  The OWA Special Service (OSS) was what you’d get if you crossed the U.S. Secret Service with the CIA, and maybe sprinkle in a few clandestine organizations that we didn’t even know about. They weren’t people you wanted to mess with. No one was closer to the OWA elite than the OSS. In my eyes, they were the equivalent of Hitler’s SS, which was ironically part of their acronym.

  “That can’t be good,” I said, seeing both Ronnie and the chief showing clear signs of stress.

  Ronnie sat back in his chair and loosened his tie. Ronnie was a few years older than me and would have been the ideal actor to play a stereotypical Hollywood police precinct captain. He was the captain who, although beloved by his men, was always ready to explode on them at any given time whenever their actions made the local news, bringing the heat down upon him from city hall.

  Sector Chief Hildebrandt, on the other hand, was more like your typical career focused coworker, who just wanted everything to keep running smoothly so they wouldn’t miss out on their next promotion. He’d paid his dues on the street, and for lack of a better way to say it, was done with it. He hoped to never find himself outside the highly protected walls of government again.

  Before Ronnie could say a word, the chief stood and adjusted his uniform, saying, “I’ve got to brief my boss. He’s gonna be pissed enough that he wasn’t involved in this conversation. I can’t let him catch wind of this before I tell him. You can handle this, Ronnie,” he said as he turned to leave the room.

  “Absolutely,” Ronnie replied. Waiting until Chief Hildebrandt closed the door securely behind him, Ronnie looked me in the eye and said, “You’re about to get some fresh air, my friend.”

  “Fresh air? What?” I stammered, confused by his statement. I mean, I was too senior to be a patrol officer on the streets, so how was I going to be getting some fresh air when I worked entirely within the confines of the Capitol building? Was I being demoted? “What the hell is going on?” I asked.

  Leaning back in his chair, Ronnie explained, “There are some high-value prisoners en route to the Central Detention Facility down on D Street.”

  “Why are high-value prisoners going to a basic detention facility?” I asked. “Why not take them somewhere more appropriate? D Street is more for your average street trash.”

  “The optics of it,” Ronnie replied.

  “The optics of it? How do you mean?”

  “As far as they know, they may or may not end up being prisoners. They could end up being defectors.”

  “Defectors from what?” I asked, assuming there were no more governments out there to be defecting from, based on my own limited personal knowledge of the outside world, that is.

  Looking me dead in the eye, Ronnie seemed as if he were sizing me up before answering. “Insurgents,” he declared. “You know how it goes. There are people out there who want to fight for their share of power whenever some sort of reorganization of things occurs. We’ve seen it over and over again throughout history, and our present day is no exception.”

  Staring at me, Ronnie looked deeper into my eyes than I’d ever seen. He was usually the kind of fellow that huffed and puffed, spouting off but not putting too much of his own personal feelings into things. “How do you feel about such things?” he asked.

  “About insurgents in general?” I said with a shrug, attempting to get him to clarify his question. “Or someone specific? I don’t know who you’re referring to. This is the first I’ve heard of them, whoever they are.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Ronnie looked around the room and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “A walk?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, a walk. I’ve got to get out of this stuffy room.”

  Ronnie and I then proceeded out of his office, and through the Capitol building toward one of the rear entrances. “How’s it going, Mark?” he asked the security officer on duty at the door.

  “It’s going good, Captain,” Mark Sutton replied. “A slow, uneventful day. Just the way we like it.”

  “Well, don’t work too hard,” Ronnie said as we continued through the door, smiling at Mark.

  “There’s no danger of that,” Mark replied. “My shift is almost over, and I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

  “Right on,” I said with a smile.

  Once outside and on the wide concrete sidewalk that wrapped around to the right, following a tall, stone retaining wall leading away from what used to be the Capitol Building Visitor’s Center, Ronnie gazed off in the distance as if he was in deep thought. “It’s a shame our world has gone to hell, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah… Yeah, it sure is.”

  “You weren’t married, were you? Before, that is?”

  “No. No, I was lucky and had gotten out of a rocky relationship the year before. I was in pure bachelor mode. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I guess that jaded attitude kept me single, and avoided the potential heartbreak of losing someone when it all started going down and people starting dropping like flies around us.”

  “Well, I was married and had two kids,” he explained. “My wife, Margaret, died when the virus first reached us here. She was a charge nurse in the emergency room at Sibley Memorial Hospital. That damned virus swept through the hospital staff like a wildfire. Margaret was one of the first to become ill, and one of the first to pass.”

  Struggling to retain his composure, Ronnie cleared his throat and continued. “My oldest daughter, Alicia, was twenty-two years old and was saving the world all on her own as a member of the Peace Corps. She was in Cameroon when first reports of the Sembé virus started coming in. When they locked down travel in and out of Cameroon, we lost contact with her. I… I don’t know what happened, but I can only assume the worst.

  “My youngest, Ron Jr., was in his sophomore year at the U.S. Naval Academy at the time. Given the national state of emergency, he and his classmates were deployed throughout the fleet as Midshipmen. He was doing well the last I heard, being meritoriously promoted to Ensign and given a field commission. Our line of work isn’t the only one where you can move up quickly these days.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “He’s on the Bunker Hill, CG-52. It’s a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. They were homeported in San Diego, and have been deployed for quite some time. Where they are now, I have no idea. You know how it goes; you can’t really email or call someone outside of the local area these days.

  “The last time I spoke with him, he was disgusted about how they were forced to man the rails for a ceremony where they lowered the Stars and Stripes and raised that big, damn ugly OWA flag with the O and a globe in the center in its place.”

  As we continued walking, Ronnie mumbled, “I’m not okay with how things are these days, Joe.”

  “Who could be?” I said, not knowing where he was going with this.

  “Oh… there are those who are quite happy. Quite happy indeed,” he replied. “I’m having a hard time dealing with it, too.”

  “Be careful Ronnie; they’ll promote me to captain to fill your vacancy if you say stuff like that in front of the wrong people,” I said, attempting to sound as if my cautionary statement was in jest, but we both knew it wasn’t.

  “That they would, Joe,” he replied, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “That’s why I would only say it in front of you. I feel like I can trust you, Joe. I know where you came from. I know your roots. We both came into this place from the Capitol Police. I don’t share much in common with others around me. I can trust you, can’t I, Joe?”

  “Of course, Ronnie,” I replied. My curiosity was killing me. He obviously wanted to tell me something. That, or he wanted to try to trap me into
admitting something. Of which it was, I couldn’t be sure just yet, but I was dying to find out.

  Looking around, Ronnie said, “If you stay in this little world, this… fake world, you’d likely forget how bad it is outside this city. It’s a wasteland out there. With the exception of OWA farming and production facilities, all you’ll see in any given direction is the remnants of what was. Fields that used to be full of crops are now full of weeds and small trees as nature is wasting no time taking it back, now that the local farmers are all dead and gone.

  “Cities that were once bustling now look like scenes from apocalyptic movies, with abandoned cars parked all about, broken windows, and burned ruins from the panic and mayhem of the initial stages of the collapse.

  “The bodies of all those people… all the ones who weren’t properly dealt with by loved ones or local EMS, well, I’d imagine the animals had quite the time with that buffet. I’m sure by now the coyotes and other predators that once kept their distance are roaming the streets like they own the place.”

  Stopping in his tracks, Ronnie turned and looked at me, saying, “It’s an absolute hell out there, Joe. And the worst part is, it’s a man-made hell. They planned it, Joe. They did it on purpose.”

  I knew precisely what Ronnie was saying. The things I’d learned since being on the inside had totally shattered my world, far beyond that of the collapse itself. Feeling like I was part of the problem, rather than the solution… or the revenge, I’m not certain which it was for sure, was eating at my soul. I wanted to agree with Ronnie. I wanted to let him know he wasn’t the only one feeling this way, but was he testing me? How was I to know? Did I really know Ronnie all that well? Or did I just feel like I did?