Dominatus Read Free Page B

- deadly accurate.  His father was a former Congressman who helped get us set up with the military contracts when we started out.  Weapons, identities, safe-houses…all that.”
     
    “And what about the other one?”
     
    “The Black guy?  That’s Benny.  Benjamin Williams – we all called him Benny.  Or just B.   Always laughing, joking, even when the shit got scary bad…he still kept that smile.  He loved the work.  The life.  Had a hard side to him though, like we all did.  Of the four of us, Benny was the only one I thought I might not be able to take in hand to hand.  He was like a 5th degree Aikido-something, really into the martial arts stuff.  I saw him take out three guys once – no weapons.  It was about a two second blur and there they all were lying on the ground and there was Benny standing there smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world.”
     
    “How’d he die?”
     
    The question hung in the air unanswered for a moment before Mac looked back at me directly, and though his voice remained calm, his eyes briefly betrayed the still smoldering rage within.
     
    “Suicide.  The most positive guy I ever knew, and they say he took out a gun and shot himself in the head.  Just like that.  And he did it at home so his little girl found him like that.  Slumped beside a chair in the kitchen, brains splattered all up against the outside of the dishwasher.”
     
    “And you don’t believe he would kill himself?”
     
    The rage returned, this time showing itself more fully.
     
    “NO.  No I do not…”
     
    “Was he the last of the three to die?”
     
    “Yeah – about…shit…he was gone right before I got out.  One-two-three, and all that was left was me.  That was what got me going, got me running up here.  Had heard about this place through your dad.  He was the one who told me about the Old Man.  Said he had set this place up away from the United Nations, said it was so far out there nobody was bothering him.  So this is where I went, where I ended up.  Came up here and told the Old Man who I was, said I could help out if he wanted, and I haven’t been back since.”
     
    “Did you have family?”
     
    “No.  I knew early on that the life I chose wasn’t…wasn’t really conducive to family life.  Maybe I would have started a family later on, but I wasn’t exactly given that chance, right?  Prison isn’t the place to do that either.”
     
    “Tell me how you met my father.  I’ve heard his version over the years.  Tell it from your side.”
     
    Mac pointed to another photo on the wall, one I had taken note of already, but had not indicated to him.
     
    “That’s me and your dad right there, the day I was released from prison.  September 10 th , 2018 – almost 20 years ago now.  They had me locked up for three years.  Your dad never gave up on me.  Finally got a senator to take notice of my case, when a U.S. Senator still had some power left before…nowadays they are nothing more than symbolic, right?  But back then they still had some pull, thank God.  And that’s when I first heard about the Old Man too.  He was pulling some strings for me.  Your dad got him involved on my behalf.”
     
    “Take me back to when you were charged – the details of that.  What did you do?  What were you alleged to have done that put you in prison?”
     
    “Officially, I was charged with deadly assault using an illegal weapon.  The weapon was my side-arm.  A little MK-25 from my SEAL days.  I carried it with me all over the world, and after the federal handgun ban in 2014,  I kept on carrying it, to hell with the law.  That was my frame of mind, and a lot of former military were right there with me in thinking that.”
     
    “So describe what happened that day, at the market.  Why you did what you did.”
     
    Mac sighed, and the deepening fatigue returned to his eyes.
     
    “First – I wasn’t sent to prison because of what happened that