Armed Response. Janie Crouch

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       Chapter Two

      Jace Eakin stretched his long legs out in front of him in an office chair that probably hadn’t been comfortable even when it was new. Now that it was ratty and at least a dozen years past that, it was even less so. His knee was stiff from too many hours cramped in a plane, his shoulder vaguely ached from a bullet he’d taken years ago in Afghanistan. Thirty-two was too young to feel this old.

      He was in an office that looked like it was out of some old gumshoe movie, complete with dirty windows and low ceilings. The man sitting behind a desk looked almost as rumpled as the office itself.

      Jace knew Ren McClement was anything but.

      Jace had first met him ten years ago when they served together in the US Army Rangers in the Middle East. Working side by side with someone in daily life-or-death situations showed that person’s true colors. Ren McClement was one of the few people in the world Jace trusted without restriction. He knew the feeling was mutual. Which was why he was here now in this godforsaken seat in some out-of-the-way office in Washington, DC, rather than putting the finishing touches on his ranch in Colorado.

      “Ren, seriously, dude, you’ve got to get some chairs not built for midgets.”

      Both Ren and the other man in the room, Steve Drackett, chuckled. Ren had gotten out of the army not long after the time he spent in Afghanistan with Jace. Because of his skills and security clearance, Ren had immediately been brought into Omega Sector, a joint task force made up of the best agents the United States had to offer.

      Jace knew Ren was one of the highest-ranking members of Omega, and that he worked mostly in covert missions.

      Nothing surprising about that. Ren had had the ability to blend in with almost any situation even back in his Ranger days. That the government was smart enough to use him for clandestine work wasn’t surprising to Jace.

      What was a mystery to him was why Ren had asked him here to begin with. Although always happy to see his old friend, Jace was not an Omega Sector agent. He wasn’t an agent at all.

      “Yeah, budget for this place wasn’t very big,” Ren said. “Not that I’m in here enough to worry about that anyway.”

      Ren could probably have a very high-end government office with a million-dollar view of DC, but chose not to. Jace knew for a fact that Ren never entered a government building unless he had to, and even then it wasn’t through the front door. The undercover nature of his job prohibited it.

      “I can see why you wouldn’t want to be here often. And speaking of, why am I here? I’m assuming there’s a reason other than reliving old times.”

      Ren nodded. “We have a situation in the Omega Critical Response Division out in Colorado Springs. A mole who is leaking information to a terrorist named Damien Freihof. We know the mole is someone inside the SWAT team. Steve—” he gestured to the other man, who was leaning with one shoulder against the wall “—has requested that I send in someone I trust to help find the mole.”

      Steve pushed himself away from the wall and handed Jace a thin file with some papers inside. “We found this Manifesto of Change document hidden in one of our Omega computer servers.”

      On my honor, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character or the public trust.

      I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions.

      I will always uphold the constitution, my community and the agency I serve.

      Jace looked over at Ren, then Steve. “This looks like some sort of law-enforcement creed.”

      Steve nodded. “It’s the oath of honor that law enforcement officers take at their swearing-in ceremony. But keep reading.”

      We all took an oath to uphold the law, but instead we have allowed the public to make a mockery of it. Where is the honor, the integrity, the character in not using the privilege and power given to us by our training and station to wipe clean those who would infect our society? We were meant to rise up, to be an example to the people, to control them when needed in order to make a more perfect civilization.

      But we are weak. Afraid of popular opinion whenever force must be used. So now we have changed the configuration of law enforcement forever.

      And now, only now, will you truly understand what it means to hold yourselves accountable for your actions. Only with death is life truly appreciated. Only with violence can true change be propagated. As we build anew, let us not make the same mistakes. Let the badge mean something again.

      Let the badge rule as it was meant to do.

      Jace shifted slightly in his chair. “Okay, I’ll admit, this is scary. And I sympathize, I really do, that this has come from within your own organization, but I’m not an agent. There’s got to be other people you trust who could do a better job than I could.”

      Ren СКАЧАТЬ