Page 98 of Shadows Reel

“I think we’re all being turned into subjects by the big banks, big tech, and big government and their cops. They want to control us. We havenofuture. Day by day, they’re taking our souls and turning us into drones. I thought this was a way to get our voices heard. We’renotfucking drones. I thought maybe we had to tear everything down before we could start again.”

“I get it,” Nate said.

Geronimo’s eyes filled the rearview mirror and Nate looked up at him. “So do I,” Geronimo said. “But Axel is playing a whole different game, just like I suspected. He’s using guys like Randy. You remember my conspiracy theory?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Randy confirmed it. He overheard Axel telling his Special Forces buddy all kinds of things.

“As we speak,” Geronimo said, “the word’s out on social media that a cop in Seattle shot two Black men. Nobody knows much more than that, but folks are plenty upset. Cities are going to burn before the facts get out on what happened.”

“What did happen?” Nate asked.

“I think Axel shot the cop and then the two poor homeless guys. He planted weapons so it would look like a bad shooting to whoever first showed up at the scene. I don’t know if the cop had a body camera to show what really happened, or it was too dark, or what. But by the time they get it sorted out—if they ever do—it’ll be too late.

“This is what I was afraid of all along,” Geronimo said. “This is what I thought Axel might be up to. He was supplying more and more dangerous weapons in the caches he was leaving, knowing that young men with their blood up would likely use what they found. Axel is using his antifa ties to start a war where nobody wins and everybody loses. He stole your birds to raise money to help ingratiate himself with the antifa types like Randy here. He did it so he could whip up my more emotional brothers and sisters into a rage. He’s been working this con fora while now, and it’s all coming to a head. Go ahead, Randy, show Nate what you just found on Tristan’s phone.”

Randy turned in his seat and thrust out the phone. The screen was opened to a communications app where someone had posted a call to arms that read:

NORTH PARK

Bloc Up!

There’s Been Murder in Seattle

Gather: Midnight

Move: 1:00 a.m.

Nate read it twice. “North Park is in Portland, I take it?”

“Yes,” Geronimo said. “I’ve been there. It’s five or six city blocks right downtown.”

“Do you figure Axel is ahead of us?”

“Yes, I do, unless he stopped to get medical attention for his friend. He’s got probably an hour or ninety-minute jump on us.”

Nate nodded.

Randy said, “I overhead Axel telling the Blade that he was going to transfer your birds tomorrow to his buyer. He said there was a private jet waiting at the airport to take them to Saudi Arabia. I thought it was just bullshit at first, but I think it’s real.”

Geronimo added, “So it’s tonight or never.”

Nate looked down at his right hand and willed his fingers to flex. They didn’t. “There’s no way I can shoot.”

“I don’t have that problem,” Geronimo said.

—

Thirty minutes later,Nate looked up as they passed a logging truck. He’d never seen logs so thick or cut trees as long. The truck reminded him he was in a different world from the Mountain West. A place where trees grew to massive size, the underbrush was thick with ferns and moss, and everything just felt extreme to what he was used to.

Randy sat in the passenger seat, having a monologue with himself. He was more than disillusioned with Axel Soledad. He was disillusioned with his antifa brethren. Hearing Axel go on about the tenets of the movement—abolish the police, abolish capitalism, return all lands to the indigenous people—made him question how realistic any of it was.

“I gotta get my head straight,” he confessed to himself.

Then Nate saw the highway sign for Portland International Airport.

“Take that exit,” he said to Geronimo.

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