David Wood, Sean Sweeney
Freedom
PROLOGUE
“Tell me it is not true.” Samuel Adams stood ramrod straight, staring at the closed door of his guest room.
“It is.”
If Adams harbored any doubts about the gravity of the situation, Revere’s wan face and trembling hands drove it home. The silversmith collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. Adams drew up a chair opposite him.
“What happened?”
Revere spread his fingers and looked between them at Adams. “The carriage had just pulled up in front of your house. A shot rang out and he slumped forward. He never uttered a sound.” He sat up and rested his hands in his lap. “They heard a second shot, but it must have missed. His guards chased after the assassin while we brought him inside.”
Adams had heard the shots, but never dreamed what they meant. “Where was he hit?” Adams realized he was holding his breath while he awaited the reply.
“The base of his skull. It is a grievous wound.”
Adams let his breath out all in a rush. A cold certainty filled him. “Is there any hope?”
Revere shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was still talking as we carried him in, but I’ve never seen anyone survive such a wound.”
“What shall we do? Our union is weak. This could shatter us.”
Revere raised his palms in a gesture of defeat.
They waited in silence for the physician. There was so much Adams wanted to say, but the words would not come. Finally, John Hart stepped out of the room and closed the door gently behind him.
A highly respected surgeon who had served admirably in the Revolution, there was no one Adams trusted more in this situation. Hart began to speak, but choked on his works. Adams and Revere looked away to permit him a moment to compose himself.
“I have done what I can for him,” Hart finally managed.
“And?” Adams already knew what Hart’s reply would be, but he felt compelled to ask.
“I fear he will not last the night.”
Adams kept an iron grip on his emotions. There would be time later to grieve. Right now, he needed full command of his faculties. He turned to Revere. “Gather the others. The old meeting place at midnight.”
Revere, rendered mute by despair, clasped hands with Hart and Adams, and hastily departed.
“You may see him if you wish.” Hart sounded exhausted, or perhaps it was despair that rendered his voice weak as a newborn babe’s. “He is awake, though I’m not certain he is aware of his surroundings.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
Adams saw Hart to the door, then returned to the sick room. He paused, his hand hovering above the doorknob, and steeled himself. Of all the trials he had faced for the cause of freedom, nothing had prepared him for this.
“May God help us,” he whispered. His hand shaking, he opened the door and stepped inside.
CHAPTER 1
Dane Maddock looked up from his copy of The Art of War as the barracks door banged open and a voice boomed.
“Oh, yeah! BUDS is over, buddies!” Uriah Bonebrake, a six and-a-half foot tall Cherokee with a personality like fingers on a chalkboard, raised his fists in triumph. “Next stop, SQTs!”
“Don’t forget jump school,” Willis Sanders called down from his upper bunk.
“Child’s play. I’ve been jumping off crap since I was a baby.” Bonebrake high-fived Willis and turned to address the room at large. “Tonight, I’m gonna take five hundred dollars out of my account and hit the town. I’ll spend half of it on cheap beer and loose women, and the other half I’ll just waste. Who’s with me?”
Dane muffled a fake cough as ragged cheers arose from the exhausted survivors of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. The candidates had completed eight weeks of Special Warfare Preparatory School, and a grueling six months of SEAL training. The past three-plus weeks had been spent on San Clemente Island, with Dane and his comrades put through grueling exercises designed to replicate days spent in action on the field of battle. How Bonebrake still had the energy to party was anyone’s guess.
“I think Pope Maddock is judging me again. You have something you want to say, Your Holiness?”
“Would it matter if I did, Bonebrake?” Dane didn’t bother to look up from his book. They’d had this conversation before, and he always found it a waste of time. Bonebrake was a clown destined for failure. Dane was amazed the man had made it this far.
“You think if I put termites in your skivvies they’d eat that stick that’s up your butt?”
Dane sprang to his feet and squared off with the taller man. Bonebrake had six inches and twenty pounds on him, but Dane knew how to handle himself and, if truth be told, he’d been itching for a fight since day one of training.
“What the hell is your problem, Bonebrake? Why can’t you, even once, conduct yourself with some decorum?”
“Big word from a little man. That’s another reason nobody likes you. You’re all superior.”
“Come on, Bones,” Willis said. “Don’t be like that.”
“Am I lying? Show of hands. Who here is Maddock’s friend? Hell, who knows where he’s from or what he does for fun when he’s not strutting around with proper decorum.”
“We don’t not like him,” Pete Chapman, a lanky, sandy-haired man who’d earned the nickname “Professor” for his vast knowledge of useless trivia, called out. “He just does his thing.” Chapman looked like he wanted to say more, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Dane’s cheeks burned. He took his training seriously, and he wasn’t about to waste it goofing around with Bonebrake and his crowd.
“You’re a joke, Bonebrake, and I’m going to laugh when you finally wash out.”
“I’m going to earn the trident, and when I do, I’ll have it tattooed on my ass so I can moon you every day.” Bonebrake took a step closer, so they were almost touching. “And I’ve told before, call me Bones.” He tried to poke Dane in the chest, but Dane slapped his hand aside.
Dane wasn’t sure who threw the first punch, but suddenly he and Bonebrake were in the midst of an old-fashioned brawl. Bonebrake caught him over the ear with a right cross, which Dane answered with an uppercut, then bounced a jab off the big Indian’s chin. Bonebrake didn’t as much as wince. He grabbed Dane in a clinch, drove a knee into his rib cage, and head-butted him across the bridge of the nose.
Ignoring the pain, Dane broke the clinch and landed a solid roundhouse to the side of Bonebrake’s knee. The bigger man wobbled and Dane leapt atop him. He managed to land a couple of solid elbow strikes before strong hands yanked them apart.
“Y’all done lost your minds!” Willis was the only man big enough to hold Bonebrake back on his own and, right now, it was all he could to keep him in check. “We’re supposed to be brothers.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Bonebrake spat.
“Fine with me,” Dane rasped through the Professor’s choke hold.
“Maddock! Bonebrake!”
The sharp voice froze Dane’s marrow and caused Bonebrake to immediately cease his struggles. Hartford Maxwell, or “Maxie,” was their commander and a man for whom Dane had the utmost respect. Never before had he heard such anger in Maxie’s voice. “My office in ten!”
“Yes sir!” both replied, but Maxie had already turned away from them. He strode out the door and closed it behind him with a bang.
Dane and Bonebrake exchanged looks of loathing, but otherwise ignored each other until they reached Maxie’s office ten minutes later.
Maxie was on the telephone when they arrived. He waved them inside, and they stood at attention until he ended the call. The office, austere as Maxie himself, held only a matching gray metal desk and file cabinet, and a chair. A single pad of legal paper, an empty “In Box,” a telephone, and a framed photograph of an attractive blonde girl of about sixteen sat atop his desk. When he finally hung up, he propped his feet up, laced his fingers behind his head as if he were lounging in a hammock, and regarded them with a steely gaze that matched the hair on his temples. He was solid in every way, and not a man to be trifled with.