Chapter 2.
THE RIOT
The good thing about racing in Miami was that the town had an excellent assortment of restaurants. Since both Matt and Rebecca was fond of seafood, they had settled for a restaurant in Brickell with an oyster card, raw and simple prepared fish, as well as pasta, which suited the children better.
After a three-course meal and dessert the Trakkers relaxed with a glass of wine each when they were suddenly alerted to the fact that something was not right. At first the only thing Matt noted was that there were many people moving in a hurry.
He didn't think too much about until he heard approaching sirens from emergency vehicles and distant shouting.
"What's going on?" Rebecca wondered as police in riot gear begun to seal off the street.
"There's a riot going on." A police officer in helmet, body armour and shield informed. "Please go inside. This area is not safe."
"Come on." Matt said and motioned Rebecca and Chloe inside of the restaurant. "You too."
Scott peered over the railing, anxious to see what was going on, but Matt made sure to get him inside.
Within minutes the police had sealed off the 6th, 7th, and 8th street.
"It looks like they are preparing for a war!" Rebecca said as more cars parked and police officers, among them some k-9 units, scrambled out to contain the violence and limit the destruction. "How does these things start?"
"I don't know." Matt responded. "Usually, riots are a form of protests against the government. But I can't recall that any new laws had been made that would upset them. It must be something else that had provoked them."
Suddenly everything around them was chaos. The riot came down the South Miami Avenue, it was like a living moving wall. Hoping that they could encircle the activists and put an end to the disturbances quickly, the police advanced.
"Let us through! We're coming through!" The crowd challenged.
"Visor down!" a police officer instructed his colleagues as loud barks from the dogs echoed in cacophony with the chants from the crowd.
"Five, four, three…" the troublemakers counted down, then forced themselves against the police barricade. The police and their dogs advanced. This time the activists was forced back and dispersed. Several of them were thrown up against a wall, but others ran for higher ground. The police stripped them of brass knuckles, metal sticks and other objects intended to be used as weapons.
Matt noted that several persons had been injured in the advancement.
"Come on!" he said to Andy. "We have to help them."
"Matt? Where are you going?" Rebecca asked. "You'll get yourself killed!"
"We're just going to make sure that these children get to safety." He explained.
Followed by Andy he ran down the street. The wounded had sustained head injuries and bruises. Some of them were bleeding, others were in shock. Matt waved at some bystanders who came over and helped them to move the kids inside a near restaurant where they could administer first aid.
The noise of crashed windows drowned out all other sounds as shopwindows on both sides of the street were destroyed. At the same time, the trees had been set on fire. Participants in the riot had ran into the shopping centre were stores were now being looted.
"This is madness!" Andy said. "What do they want?"
"That's a question for another time." Matt cut off. "There's people sheltering inside of the shopping centre and the violence is spreading there now."
Followed by Andy, he ran after the troublemakers.
It was chaotic. People ran around frantically as furniture was thrown out of the shops, decoration destroyed, trashcans kicked over with its content spread out on the floor and the walls were covered with graffiti.
Matt spotted a security officer.
"Do you have keys to the emergency exits?" he demanded.
"Of course." The man responded.
"Get over to the nearest exit and get ready to open it." Matt instructed. "I'll try to gather some help in leading the refugees over to you."
"Will do." The officer replied and hurried away.
Turning towards Andy once more Matt gave out instructions.
"You take that side. Try to guide the people towards the emergency exit but do it in order. No chance running."
Andy ran off while Matt headed in the opposite direction into the nearest shop. He quickly looked around and his eyes found Gloria Baker and Paul Knight. He went up to them.
"You can help me." He spoke. "Gather up the people just inside of the entrance. We'll signal you when it is safe to move."
They both nodded that they understood and went into the store.
Matt covered a few more shops as fast as he could while Andy did the same on the other side. Soon he was in line with the emergency door where he could get a good look over the entire area. Estimating that the participants of the riot was preoccupied elsewhere he motioned to the first group to move.
Paul walked out in the open space and waved to the group of people from the store that they were evacuating. Gloria stood by the entrance and directed them forward, keeping constant glances inside so that there were no one that remained.
As the last person had left, she immediately ran towards the next store where a group of people was anxiously looking towards Matt.
"Get ready." She instructed, as Paul now turned his attention towards the first store on Andy's side. Then as Matt signalled her, she waved them forward. "Go! Go as quick as you can, but don't run or push. We want everyone to get out but without injuries."
Working in perfect unison the four of them rapidly and effectively begun to evacuate the shopping centre.
"What are the police doing?" Paul Knight asked as they gathered to see if they could be of any use elsewhere. "Shouldn't they be doing this instead of combating the riot?"
"I agree completely." Matt said, shocking his head in disbelief. "They have the wrong tactic here; they're boxing people in instead of getting them out of harm's way."
Out on the street, some kids broke out from the main group and ran up a side street, were they started to vandalize a sports bar. Shocked customers and staff were forced to seek shelter behind the desk to avoid flying obstacles.
Mounted Policemen arrived from the s.e 7th street to cut the youngsters of. As they did, masked activists dressed in black leather and their faces obscured behind black balaclavas appeared from nowhere and begun to throw stones against the police. Other rioters witnessed this and immediately begun to pry loose more stones from the sidewalk, and in moments even bottles begun to fly across the air, aimed at the police. Several smoke bombs were also thrown, adding to the chaos.
One participant threw several bottles, urged on by his friends. A masked man halted him and instructed him to move forward before releasing the bottle, so he would not risk hitting his own people.
Encouraged by the advice, the kid grabbed a new bottle, ran forward a few paces before he hurled the bottle. It hit a police officer on the arm. Other crowd controllers crouched behind their shields, trying to avoid the flying obstacles.
The mounted policemen were forced to turn around under a cascade of flying stones, and the 200 activists took over completely. They destroyed shopwindows, tore down a scaffold, and then threw the parts through the windows on police vehicles as well as other cars.
One police officer was hit in the head by a flying stone. He slumped to the ground unconscious. With the man down, one activist rushed forward and kicked him repeatedly.
"Oh no, you don't!"
Matt rushed up and wrestled him to the ground. He could not just stand by and watch how a defenceless man was attacked.
The activist struggled to get free, but Matt had him in a restraining hold which he held on to until a policeman came up and put him in cuffs. Others took care of their colleague.
Amidst the chaos the dark-dressed terrorists acted organised; their tactic clear; prove that the government was unable to maintain law and order. Via social media and bulletin boards, they had spread information on how to pry loose paving stones and informed everyone visiting their pages that the risk of getting arrested lessened with more people participating. Such information always tempted others to join in.
The terrorists had also prepared for the riot in advance by gathering stones in containers strategically positioned out along the city as well as stocks of weapons. The rest, creating a heated atmosphere and driving the youngsters into frenzy was child's play.
One of the masked activists calmly walked away from the chaos. He removed his black balaclava and lighted a cigarette. He had short dark hair with a shock of light brown hair on the forehead and a trimmed goat beard. Curt Harker was pleased with the nights event. He was a member of the secret organisation that was called The Syndicate. Their purpose was to tear down civil order, disrupt the peace and cause the public to lose faith in the current constitution.
Curt and his associates had been working for two years on similar activities. They concentrated their effort on different street parties, offering the youngsters free alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs. Other people in the organisation leaked information to the police about the illegal activities that transpired, and once the police arrived on the set, it was bound to degenerate into violence.
Around him the police had begun to gain control over the situation. Several activists were being escorted away by police officers for identification, others, unknown by the police were set free and allowed to leave in small groups. Curt watched them leave with little interest, it did not concern him what happened to them. To him, and the Syndicate, they were just pawns. Pawns to be sacrificed for a bigger cause.
He estimated that material, shops, cars, trees, and the sidewalks that had been destroyed would cost the city millions. This was also one of the goals of the Syndicate, and the result had been the same everywhere where they had started riots. It would ultimately lead to a large domino effect. Suppressed privileges for the public resulting in more frustration and violence, which would cause more riots and more destruction that would cost that city and state even more. In the end, martial law would be applied. The Syndicate would then take control, turning every city into an ultimate black market, a haven for those who could pay the price, where the Syndicate would have the goods, and the hoods.
As he looked around him, Curt noticed that the police had begun to remove the barricades. He extinguished his cigarette and calmly walked out to his waiting car. No one tried to stop him - no one had a single clue that he had been part of organising the disturbances. Curt knew that his colleagues were probably heading out at similar positions across the city at this time. It was all part of a pre-agreed plan. The syndicate had done their work.
"Something must be done to stop all this violence!"
The words were uttered by Brendan Harrison, one of the top ministers in the American sector of the World Unification Alliance of the United Nations. He had gathered some of his most trusted and skilled co-workers in the meeting room on the twenty-third floor of the United Nations Plaza in New York.
The meeting room was large, with windows on two sides to give it less of a claustrophobic feeling. The attendants were seated a rectangular table, with Brendan Harrison sitting at the head. To his right side sat a secretary that wrote down everything being said on a computer. Each of the attendants had leather-bound folders open in front of them, containing all sort of information they required for the meeting.
"Take a close look at the track record for the last three months," Harrison urged the attendants and pointed at the statistics shown on the large screen behind him. "Crimes and other sorts of disturbances have increased dramatically! We have a social decay and a breeding ground for increasing crime. We need to turn this negative trend. An efficient police force is only part of the solution, but we need something to enforce urban pacification. The word is open, I'm interested in hearing any idea you gentlemen can come up with."
"Perhaps we should authorise the use of more physical force and provide the police force with the necessary weapons to do it with." Warren Carrack suggested. "We have also heard suggestions to approve a citizen action patrol project."
"Our investigations reveal that at some serious incidents it has been most evident that the police organisation and the training of the officers are not satisfying." Emil Fargas pointed out. "This puts both the public as well as the police officers in very grave risks. The men in the police force should undergo special training to work efficiently during conflicts. Or perhaps we should even consider calling in the army to handle the disturbances?"
The Chief of Security for the World Unification Alliance, the American sector - Hugh Heyman, commonly referred to as H.H, cleared his throat. He was not in agreement.
"Minister," he begun. "We do not want to have a war zone in our cities. Authorising the use of physical force from the police or bringing in the army might only escalate the situation. The intelligence in my department has noticed a pattern in the activities, and we are starting to believe that these events are orchestrated by a mastermind. What we are witnessing isn't just an increase of crime - this is terrorism directed at the heart of our country!"
H.H was in his early fifties, a pleasant looking man with thinning grey hair and a trimmed moustache and beard, a welcoming man with a smile that hid his deeply committed true self. He usually worked from the World Consultation Building in New Orleans, but he had flown to New York to attend this important meeting regarding the increasing amount of hostility that was raging all over the country.
"Unfortunately, we don't know enough about the goals of this group to know how they'd select a target. It could be that they want to inflict strategic damage on our infrastructure or are attempting to acquire more resources they can use against us."
"If this really is organised terrorism that we are facing, the more reason to go through with the actions that has been suggested." Warren said.
"I don't agree." H.H. replied. "We would be playing into the hands of our enemy. The terrorists seem very well organised, they might have eyes and ears everywhere. They're poised to strike before we even know they're near."
"I have to agree with much of what Mr. Heyman is saying," Lisa Moore, a representant of the police department and the only female attendant, said. "We have heard hundreds of people regarding the riots and they all tell the same tale. A street party that begins in a pleasant way, dinner, games, and free alcohol, often served to minors I might add. Then someone tips off the police and all hell break loose. It has been this in at least six different cities where these disturbances have been taken place."
"And once the police start to round up the people that has done most fighting, the real culprits are always gone." H.H finished.
"To me this sounds a little bit farfetched." Harrison though. "Do you have any proof that these actions are actually conducted by some sort of mastermind?"
"They have put up advanced networks in order to spread the word of their actions." Lisa said. "Everything under assumed aliases so we can't trace them. They are spreading detailed information on how to disturb the peace. They say that the battle will be fought openly on the streets in a near future."
"We strongly believe that this is done from a domestic source." H.H. added. "Ever since the end of the cold war, our country has concentrated all its efforts on penalty actions and wars in the Middle East against new or former enemies. The American people is fed up and disgruntled, an easy target for a mastermind to manipulate into doing his deeds. Remember the demonstrations that were being held before the Iraq conflict? This was the first sign that the public wasn't agreeing with the interests of the government. These new terrorists are picking up on this displeasure. They have no need to encourage them because the anger is already present. They just need to point them in the right direction."
"I think that you are just pushing blame around now, H.H!" Sir George Cunningham, the UN minister of finance scolded. He was around 60 years of age, with short dark-grey hair. His face had ridiculously hard features and could have been carved out of stone.
"No, this is our tragic reality, and is quite evident considering that most of the activists taken into custody are youngsters. Our children must feel that it is possible to influence the progress in the world through democratic means. Give them the feeling that they are ignored, and their youthful activity and energy could easily be channelled into an anti-democratic direction."
"We are investigating reports that indicates that the terrorists are recruiting boys to their cause, and trains them into terrorists." Lisa added. "They are concentrating their efforts on young, lost people who has yet to find themselves an identity, and who are on their way to turn to criminality."
"We have picked up the same signals. It's a very worrying trend." H.H agreed. "And since we don't know precisely how they operate to locate and pick up these people, it is very difficult to put a stop to it."
Harrison nodded. He didn't want to believe what H.H. and Lisa was saying, but he could just wave if off either.
"This is a serious problem we are facing, and it has become quite obvious that we must work on several levels in order to bring back order on our streets."
"That might be, but we still have to do something to put a stop to the disturbances" Warren pointed out. "The public will demand some kind of action from us to make it safe on the streets again."
"Indeed." Fargas agreed. "Even if we decide to launch a multi-stage program to re-establish the public's faith in this nation our enemies will continue to wreak havoc unless we do something decisive to stop them."
"I have associates in my department that has been working on a project - the creation of an anti-terror task force that will seek out the terrorist's secret bases and neutralise them." H.H said. "But we need to battle them without playing into the hands of the terrorists. In other words: we must not let ourselves be provoked into using excessive force that our enemies might use against us."
"What do you mean?" Fargas asked.
"What I'm trying to say is that the purpose of terrorist actions usually is to force the running regime to retaliate with excessive force and through those means expose its true, brutal face to the public, and consequently collapse. They want us to change our constitution, so they might profit from it. So, while we will work to oppose them, we must remember to act carefully so we don't inadvertently help them in establishing their goal."
Harrison nodded in agreement. He leaned forward on the table.
"Please continue, H.H.," he inquired.
"We want to form a small, highly trained, mobile special missions force, with handpicked members – an elite force comprised of the nations most skilled and bravest men, using stealth as their main attribute. The stealth attribute will enable them to get in close to a troubled area without giving themselves away to their adversaries."
Sir George's eyes narrowed.
"This sounds more like a Saturday morning cartoon than a serious project for national security, can this really be achieved?"
"I have been working for ten months with Andrew Trakker of the Young Enterprises," H.H informed. "He has shown me detailed descriptions and blueprints of the vehicles and equipment that will form the core of this task force we have in mind."
Sir George leaned back in his chair and wrinkled his forehead.
"I don't really like that you are giving Young Enterprises complete monopoly on this order. It will create an instability in the business world. Other companies will feel that you are favouring Trakker over them. Perhaps it would be better to challenge the market with coming up with the equipment that your project will require?"
"I know that you are always worrying about the free market and the stockholders, Sir George." H.H replied. "But issuing a challenge for the best company would take too long and vital information that would be best kept secret would leak out. Besides, I'm not giving Young Enterprises an unfair advantage since it is not them who produce the vehicles and the equipment. Andrew's work for us is not connected in any way to his family business."
Harrison waited for the subtle whispering of bodies turning in their chairs and the murmurs of board members commenting to their peers to die down before he spoke again.
"Are all of you in favour for allowing Heyman to continue with his operation?"
Most of the attendants were in favour, only a few, like Sir George and Emil Fargas were against, but they choose to put down their votes rather than oppose.
"H.H." Harrison said. "I want you to bring all blueprints and information on this task force you are planning and show them to me and the secretary of defence on Thursday morning. I would also like you and Miss Moore to compare your records. If it is possible, maybe work together in this matter."
"Yes, Sir." H.H said. He was calm on the outside, but inside he was excited, almost like a schoolboy. He knew that he was close to have his project sanctioned now. If Brendan Harrison wanted to show the plans to the secretary of defence, it meant that he believed in them.
With a sign from Harrison, the meeting attendants closed their folders as one.