Free Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) by Tom Abrahams

Spencer who had brought Edwards into the fold. After an initial introduction from Thistlewood, Sir Spencer was impressed with Edwards’s intelligence and political bent. He seemed creative and extreme. Sir Spencer saw himself in the artist and liked him.
    The old Brit watched Edwards try to open the locked doors to the pub. When Thistlewood took his turn pulling on the brass handles, the dark sedan passed again.
    The men did not notice. Nor did they pay attention to the jacketed bum leaning against a trash can a half block up the street. They were too far away to hear the rapid clicks of his camera’s shutter.
    “Let’s see here,” offered Sir Spencer. “I think we might rouse Mr. Ings if we knock loudly.” He rapped on the doors.
    Jimmy Ings walked down the stairs from his apartment, yelling at the front doors of the pub as he braced himself against the banister. “I’m coming!” he shouted. “Stop your knocking. I’m coming.”
    “Are you there, Mr. Ings?”
    Ings recognized the voice as that of Sir Spencer Thomas and was pleased to hear it.
    He opened the door. “I’m here.”
    “Art, George. Good to see you, men.” Ings reached out to shake their hands and then ushered the trio inside. As they disappeared inside the building, he checked quickly to see if anyone was watching and then shut the door.
     
    Ings surveyed the men in front of him as they settled themselves in his upstairs living room. He opened the oak cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulled out a trio of glasses, holding them with his thumb and forefingers. His other hand was grasping the two liquor bottles from downstairs.
    His hands and arms full, Ings walked back over to the group. Thistlewood was next to Sir Spencer on the couch. Edwards sat by himself in a brown leather and wood-grain-laminate Eames knockoff, his feet on the ottoman. Nobody appeared thirsty.
    “Okay then.” Ings put the glasses and bottles onto the coffee table. “The drinks are here if you want some later.”
    The barkeep rubbed his palms on his thighs and then took a seat in an antique gold recliner. The flared arms were peppered with cigarette burns, most of the buttons in the tufted cushion back were popped, and the reclining handle was damaged. Ings didn’t care. He loved the chair that often served as his bed.
    “Fellas, what’s up?” He smiled his crooked smile and thumbed his hands on the chair’s arms. “We got a lot to talk about, and none of you seem up to it.”
    “I’m still adjusting to the odor, James,” Sir Spencer finally offered. “You seem to have let the place go in the past year.”
    “It has been a year, hasn’t it?” Ings thought back to their last meeting at his place. It hadn’t been a good one.
    “I’m sick of not doing anything!” he remembered yelling at the others. “How can we do anything if nobody knows who we are and we have only five members? That seems insane to me.”
    Sir Spencer had assured him that political success did not always depend on numbers or volume, and that often it was about timing and strategy. If they chose the correct moment in time and executed the perfect plan, they would be effective. On the other hand, Ings recalled Sir Spencer informing him that a loud persistent voice was bound to be ignored eventually.
    “We don’t have a voice,” Ings had countered. “We’re invisible. We’re wasting our time.”
    They’d tried to effect change through back channels and lobbyists. The conventional cheating hadn’t worked and neither had funneling money to sympathetic candidates. It all seemed almost pointless.
    “Inaction can be the best action,” Sir Spencer had counseled. “We need to talk and meet and discuss so that when the time comes to act, we are ready. If you choose not to be a part of that, so be it.” Sir Spencer had hoped Ings would calm himself. He valued Ings for too many reasons to see him quit.
    The group had disbanded and didn’t correspond for three months. After years of