Infringement (4 page)

As he waited, Declan’s thoughts turned back to dinner and to his older brother Evan, who, as expected, had brought the conversation back around to the state of the country and the Bible. Declan had grown used to the topic over the years and could generally let the words pass through one ear and out the other without any trouble. He’d grown up, for the most part, in a strong Christian house and remembered loving God when he was a boy, but after watching his dad die he’d lost whatever faith he’d had. Initially, Declan hated God for taking his dad from him. He couldn’t fathom how a loving God could take a good man like his dad off the earth so early in life. Over time, his hate had subsided into a general antipathy toward God and religion.

However, for whatever reason, his mom’s words that night hadn’t just passed through his ears, but had hung on somewhere in between, occupying his thoughts in an annoyingly consistent manner. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, Declan did see her point about people’s rights and privacy being degraded. He’d seen it at the Bureau and with the new Homeland regulations. He didn’t necessarily believe that would inevitably lead to the types of things she and Evan purported, but, for the first time ever, for whatever the reason, his mom had gotten a small part of his attention, if for no other reason than a childish desire to prove her wrong.

When he finally made it home, Declan looked through his boxed books and found the Bible his parents had given him for Christmas one year, which he hadn’t looked at or touched in years.

“Let’s see where it actually says everyone in the world will follow one guy,” he said to himself.

Declan flipped through the onion skin pages quickly scanning the words and came to Revelation 13.

“
¹
And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
²
The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
³
One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.
⁴
Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?”

Declan read the passage again, admittedly bewildered by many of the words, but then he read it a third time, focusing on the sentence, “The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.”

“The whole world will follow the beast,” he said to himself somewhat astounded. “The whole world will follow him.”

Declan read further:

“
⁵
The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months.
⁶
He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.
⁷
He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
⁸
All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
⁹
He who has an ear, let him hear.”

The words burned into Declan’s mind as he read them again and again. “And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation… He who has an ear, let him hear. He who has an ear, let him hear.”

December 20
^th

With each passing day, David Stanton grew more excited about his imminent entry into world history. The path chosen for him was, admittedly, nothing new or novel. People had been shedding the blood of others since the beginning of time. Certainly, others had come before him, and his relentless research had made him as intimately familiar with his various predecessors as possible. However, while Abaddon wouldn’t be the first, he would be the only one to invite the whole world to witness the fulfillment of his destiny, judgment and wrath, live on the web and through social media.

Stanton had always viewed his endeavor as having four essential stages. The first stage, setting up the technical mechanisms to broadcast what was soon to come to the whole world, he’d already accomplished. The second stage was his virtual training, which he engaged in daily. While he acknowledged the value and essential nature of his virtual training, no matter how realistic the simulation, it could never substitute for killing a real flesh and blood human being. David Stanton had never killed anything substantial before and he couldn’t leave such an important detail to chance. He couldn’t run the risk of freezing when the time came to seize his glory, and risk the humiliation of failing in front of his anticipated world audience. Quite simply, Abaddon had to know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that David Stanton could kill and, more importantly, would kill without hesitation. Thus, stage three of his plan.

In the early evening Stanton double checked his equipment, then dressed in a shabby, intentionally dirty, second hand military jacket, nondescript black t-shirt and worn jeans he’d picked up for $1.00 at Goodwill. The outfit hadn’t been washed in two months, despite multiple wears, intentionally carrying the strong distinctive scent of body odor. Once dressed, Stanton stuffed a shabby unkempt high-quality brown wig and a dirty faded baseball cap into a small brown paper bag and headed out.

He walked over a mile from his apartment to a bus stop he’d scouted and knew to be generally deserted most nights. Most importantly, the bus stop featured a covered partially-enclosed seating area, which was only dimly lit at night. Stanton ducked inside, took the wig out of the brown paper bag and applied it over his own closely-shaved hair. He put the baseball cap on over the wig and threw the paper bag into a trash can. A few minutes later, the No. 202 bus, which was headed downtown, stopped and let Stanton board.

_______________________

The downtown streets were frigid and mostly deserted. Stanton walked deliberately through the biting cold, being sure to take in anything happening around him. Generally, things were quiet and still, but every so often a car would pass a bit too slowly or he’d notice another pedestrian moving about. Whenever he saw signs of life, another person out on the streets, he paid close attention and quickly assessed whether the situation fit his various conditions. In most instances, for one reason or another, it didn’t.

After walking for about thirty minutes, Stanton decided to veer off onto a small side street when he heard someone sneeze. He walked slowly, looking around for the source of the sound, until he finally saw a single silhouette leaning over a trash can about a hundred feet in front of him. Stanton stopped and watched the silhouette for a few seconds, then looked around the rest of the street to see if any lights were on in the surrounding buildings or whether there was any other movement on the street. Seeing nothing, he slowly approached the silhouette, still leaning over the open trash can.

“Anything good in there?”

The startled silhouette jumped slightly and turned around quickly to face Stanton. “You scared me to death, man. What the hell?”

Stanton looked over the man standing in front of him. He was young, maybe in his early 20’s, but with an already worn-down and rugged face. He had a full light-brown beard and dirty matted hair which seemingly hadn’t been cut in quite a while. “Sorry,” Stanton replied. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Dude, you should know better than to come up from behind somebody like that. That’s not cool.”

“Sorry. Forget I asked.”

“Whatever. Why don’t you just move the hell along?”

“Fine, I’m moving along.”

Stanton turned around and began walking back in the direction from which he’d approached. The man watched him until he reached the end of the block and turned back onto the main street. A few seconds later, Stanton discreetly peeked around the corner to see the man’s silhouette once again leaned over the trash can. Looking around the street again and still seeing no lights or other signs of life, he moved slowly toward the man again, staying in the shadows close to the building facades.

He stopped and ducked into an unlit doorway about 60 feet away from the man, took out a pair of black leather gloves from one of his coat pockets, and put them on. Next, he gently removed the perfectly polished and sharpened hunting knife from the inside pocket of his military coat. The 12 inch metal blade glistened ever so slightly in the night. Stanton closed his eyes and readied himself. He breathed in slowly, he breathed out slowly. He breathed in again, even more slowly, more measured, then let his breath out again, controlled and calm, but with a quiet fury burning deep within him. With each breath, his mind focused more pointedly on the scum digging through the trash, on the dirt-ridden and matted excuse for a human being who’d had the audacity to tell Abaddon’s servant to move the hell along.

Stanton felt his limbs tightening, steadying themselves for battle, preparing his body to release the just and righteous fury building to a crescendo within him. He gripped the knife tightly in his hands and closed his eyes to envision the long metal blade sliding smoothly into its victim.

“Abaddon, great one, give your servant the strength to fulfill your mission,” he whispered into the cold. “This, the first blood I’m about to shed, the first fruits of my coming harvest of blood, I dedicate to you, the Destroyer, Abaddon the mighty.”

Stanton ducked deftly back onto the street, immediately locking his eyes like a killing machine onto the silhouette now standing erect in front of him, unwrapping something he’d apparently found in the trash. He moved swiftly toward the man, feeling as though he was practically gliding. When he was within about five feet, the man either heard or sensed that he was no longer alone and turned around to see Stanton bearing down on him. A second later, Stanton was upon him and immediately thrust the hunting knife deep into the man’s stomach, dropping him to the sidewalk instantly.

Stanton swooped down onto his knees above the man, who was writhing on the concrete, and looked into his eyes, which, to Stanton’s great joy, were an indisputable mixture of terror, pain and disbelief.

“Take solace in that you are blessed to be the first among many,” Stanton whispered into the man’s ear.

Then, with one fluid precise left-to-right movement with the hunting knife, David Stanton slit the man’s throat, and sat above him watching the last warm breath wriggle meaninglessly from him into the cold night air. Where seconds before, the man’s eyes had been overflowing with emotion, they were then completely void in every respect. This change fascinated Stanton to no end. He stared into the lifeless eyes below him, fully cognizant of the fact that
he
had taken the life and emotion from them. An unexpected sense of pride and power came over Stanton. He was worthy of the task before him, truly he had been born for it.

Sensing it was time to move before someone happened by, Stanton pulled out his iPhone and quickly took a close up picture of the man’s blank eyes. He then collected some of his blood in a small plastic medicine dosage cup, and held the full cup up to the night sky.

“I pray that you now find your servant worthy,” he said still looking to the sky. David Stanton took the cup to his lips and, with great satisfaction, drank the man’s blood. The salty taste on his tongue and lips only whet his appetite for more.

December 21
^st

“Declan, are you ready? We’re going to be late for our range time.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” Declan replied while locking his computer.

“So, what did you think of Bleeker’s initiative this morning?”

“It seems ambitious,” Declan responded. “I’m not really sure how it’s going to play out in practice, but it is ambitious.”

“That’s not surprising really. Bleeker’s an up and comer.”

“Didn’t he graduate from Yale?”

“Yep. He has big time family connections. I’m pretty sure his grandfather served as an ambassador to somewhere in Europe and his dad is connected to Wall Street somehow. I know for a fact that he’s friends with the Director. Bleeker’s biding his time here, working to make a name for himself in the Bureau, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him at Langley soon or taking over the New York or L.A. field office.”

“You think?”

“Count on it. He has a pedigree and this is just a brief stop on his way up the ladder.”

“Must be nice. Hey Kev, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” responded Kevin as they entered the shooting range.

“Funny. Anyway, last week after we talked about the guy with the two registered AR-15’s.”

“Which guy?”

“The guy I got a call about. I ran him through TSC and NCIC and he came up clean, but when I ran him through NICS he came up with two AR-15’s registered to him.”

“It’s ringing a bell. What’s the guy’s name?”

“David Stanton.”

“Gotcha.”

“You told me to put in a PRISM request on him, which I…”

“I did?”

“Yes, you did, which I did, but he came back SCI and I didn’t have proper clearance.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What do you think that means? I mean, it seems kind of strange to me.”

“I don’t know, Declan. It could mean any number of things. Maybe there’s something Homeland, the CIA, or the NSA has in relation to the guy that got him tagged SCI.”

“Is there any way to get around the clearance?”

“Probably, if you want to end up in the federal pen. He really came up SCI?”

“Weird, huh? I mean with that kind of required security clearance to get info on him, you’d think he’d show up somewhere on our systems.”

Kevin thought for a minute as he loaded and checked his 9mm pistol. “My suggestion is to leave this one alone, Declan. There’s no telling why he’s SCI, but I know they don’t just dole out SCI clearance requirements on every Tom, Dick and Abdul. If he’s SCI, it came from somewhere well above us.”