He read my doubts, and when I looked back up I could see the wound welling in his eyes. He breathed out a blasphemy. “You’re my brother, Petey. My own brother.”
I nodded, hoping to make him understand.
“Yes, but are you mine?”
Six
“Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Marty said.
“Means I don’t think I know you anymore. You’re talking about assassinating the President of the United States. You’re not just talking about it—you’ve gone out and bought yourself a frickin’ gun! Now you want me to write your manifesto, and you think it’ll make it all right—that if you just tell the world what’s going through that head of yours, it’ll all make sense and maybe they’ll forgive you the murder. What you don’t realize is all you’ll do is just confirm for the world just how crazy you really are.”
He pointed a finger at me. “Not if you write it, though.”
“Are you kidding? What makes you believe they won’t think I’m nuts, too?!”
“So, just wanting to kill the President makes you automatically crazy.”
“Yeah, it does! Of all the assassins, name one who wasn’t.”
“John Wilkes Booth.”
“That was a war. Doesn’t count.”
“Civil War was over.”
“Not for Booth.”
“So? You think because there’s been no formal declaration of war that we’re not in one?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So. Declare war.”
“You want me to declare war on the United States of America.”
“More or less. Sure.”
“And you don’t think that’s crazy.” I blasphemed again. It was getting habitual. “How do you expect to win such a fight?”
He sat back and sipped his coffee. “Let’s get a couple of things straight. Number one, when I entered the service, I took an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I raised my right hand and solemnly swore before Almighty God that I would do this—same as every civil employee from the President down to the postman. I meant it. Unlike the liberal Marxist who just did it to get into power, I meant it. I still mean it.” He folded his hands in his lap. “The problem is that little phrase: ‘both foreign and domestic.’ The guy we’ve elected? He’s one of those domestic enemies. He’s like one of them—shoot, what was that movie, the one with Denzel Washington, where the guy’s been brainwashed?”
“The Manchurian Candidate?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. That’s what this guy is. A Manchurian. And unless he’s stopped, he’ll be the end of this great nation. Bringing down a guy like that ain’t a protest of the Constitution, but a protection of it.” He paused. “You might want to write this down. This is pretty good.”
I sort of agreed with him. I grabbed a pen and paper. I nodded for him to continue.
“Since we ain’t been deceived by his promises and lies, we have to take it upon ourselves to remove him from power. By force, if necessary. You know what? You might want to put in there something about calling on the President elect to voluntarily resign. Let’s give the S.O.B. a chance, you know? And then if he doesn’t, we’ll take his refusal to resign itself as a declaration of war upon us.”
I sighed and looked up. “All right, hang on a second. I’ll be willing to write up your little manifesto, ‘cause maybe you’re not crazy. But I haven’t signed up for this little jihad, so don’t be using the word, ‘us,’ ‘kay?”
“Whatever.”
“All right. What’ve you got next? Workers of the world, unite?”
“Cute.”
“How about, ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country’?”
“You gonna take this serious, or do I have to come over there and slap you?”
I held my pen up and shot him a meaningful look, ready to write.
“All right. We need to say something about calling people to arms. This is supposed to be a revolution, right? And maybe we ought to put something in there about why—you know, really spell out all the reasons. Economic, political, cultural, social, religious—I mean, cover the bases. Show people why we need this revolution.”
Something troubling occurred to me. “Marty, what happens if you succeed?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, say it’s possible you really pull this off. Not just the assassination, but the whole revolution thing. What happens if we win?”
Martin smiled. “See? Now that’s what I like to hear. Now you’re talking!”
“Wait, I didn’t say you would. Personally, I don’t think you’ve got a snowball’s chance of pulling this off.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“You said ‘we.’”
Did I? I shook my head.
He started laughing. “Yeah, you did. You said ‘we.’”
“Okay, so maybe I did.”
“You did.”
“Whatever. I still don’t know what happens after.”
“Think it matters?”
“Duh.”
“I don’t mean in general. I mean for this.” He tapped the table. “The manifesto. D’you think people want to know this?”
“I think it’s not enough to have someone or something to fight against. I think you’ve got to give people something to fight for.”
“How ‘bout freedom?”
“Too nebulous. You need to be specific. Freedom means too many different things to different people. You’ve got to give people a vision of the common good. Show how revolutionizing things will make things better.”
He was nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He got up to pour himself another mug of coffee. The caffeine must’ve been hitting his system pretty good about then, because he started talking faster than ever. The words tumbled out of his mouth, a cascade of ideas and thoughts. Capturing his statements with my pen was like trying to catch Niagara Falls in a paper cup.
“See, I think it should be something like a Constitutional Convention. But we need to completely bypass the state legislatures. Maybe they ain’t all as bad as Albany, but I’d be willing to bet they’re corrupt.”
“Inept at best.”
“Yeah. It’s got to start in the villages and towns. Each municipality will elect a representative to send to the State governments. And the State governments will appoint an ambassador to the federal.”
“How is that different from what we’ve got now?”
“Now you’ve got career politicians in place. We’ve got to get rid of them.”
“Yeah, but how do you keep them from just running for office again on a local level?”
“We don’t let them.”
“But what prevents someone who thinks like them from stepping up again?”
“You mean, how do we keep the towns from electing Marxists and liberals?”
“It is how we got into this mess in the first place.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Well, that’s what the war is for, buddy.”
I pushed my pen down. Was this my own brother? Did I really just hear him recommend killing people for disagreeing with us? The room felt small and dense, as though some unseen force were compressing the walls, the ceiling, the floor. “I—I need to get some air, I think.”
I let go of the pen. It rolled to the floor. Martin didn’t move. He watched me silently, his lips pressed into a thin line. I felt like I couldn’t get to the door fast enough.
The door flung open. I don’t remember turning the knob. I was outside on the back porch, gulping huge gasps of air. Above me, the gray sky descended, enveloping everything in an opaque cloud. What was happening? Beneath my fingers lay the rough, cold wood of the porch railing. At that moment, it was the only solid thing in my world. I clung to it. I half-expected to tip over the edge and plunge headlong into the abyss.
I heard Martin come up behi
nd me. I didn’t want to talk to him. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“What’s the problem, little brother?”
“This is madness.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“Not—not just the assassination part. You’re talking about killing people. Innocent people.”
“Nobody’s innocent.”
“You really mean to start a frickin’ war! A civil war! Here in the United States!”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Last time we had a Civil War, more than six hundred thousand Americans lost their lives. As many as in all wars America fought from the Revolution to Korea! Our nation is now some three hundred million strong. Nearly a hundred and thirty million of us voted in this last election. Now, how many of them do you think need to die so you can have the kind of country you think you want?!”
Martin sighed and took a seat on the edge of the balustrade. “Petey, I don’t want anyone to die. I don’t even want the President-elect to die, if he voluntarily resigns. But you’re right: I do want my country back. War isn’t about killing people. It happens in war—and maybe it’s a necessity, but maybe it’s not. The bulk of American citizens aren’t going to take up arms—either for or against. Most of them couldn’t name the difference between a capitalist and a communist if you paid them to. They take their freedoms for granted, and live in a blissful ignorance of what’s at stake. And it doesn’t matter how much they earn or how well-educated they are. The issue is passion and concern, not capability.
“But my beef isn’t with the idiots who don’t care who’s in charge. I am concerned only with those passionate souls who drive the engines of liberalism against the freedoms and vision of the founding fathers—who use the ignorance of those idiots against them and against us. Those are the ones we’ve got to stop.
“Starting a war is about wresting power away from tyranny and giving it back to the ones who can handle it responsibly. The kind of war we have to fight is the kind that will win hearts to our cause, will discredit the Marxists, Socialists and Communists who disguise themselves as freedom-lovers, will strip away the façade and expose the ugly rottenness of their political, economic, and social philosophy for what it is.”
I turned to face him—a new thought forming in my head. “You’re talking about an information war.”
“Yes!” He squeezed my shoulder.
“Not an actual war.”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying nobody’s gonna get hurt, but stacking up bodies ain’t gonna do us any good. We do any kind of strikes, they’re gonna be guerrilla strikes against primary targets, designed to disrupt the infrastructure and force the hand of the powerful.”
“So we’re gonna be terrorists.”
He ran a hand across his brow. “Depends on who wins. You do your job right, they’ll be calling us freedom fighters.”
“The good war hallows any cause.”
“Nietzsche.”
I heaved a big sigh. “All right. I’m in.”
Seven
I don’t know why I told him that. Maybe it was because I believed what he said. Maybe I was just relieved to hear he wasn’t picturing blood in the streets as a good thing. Maybe I hoped if I signed on to an information war, something along the lines of what I’d been fighting all along with my blog, I could keep him from doing something really dangerous.
Regardless, he laid off me for a while. The country was settling in to the fact of the election. We watched the new President-elect appointing the members of his cabinet, laying out his policy decisions and weighing his options against the foundering economy and foreign threats to national security. Thanksgiving at the Knapp home came and went without a hitch. Little talk of politics beyond the typical grousing against the federal government or the fat cats in Albany. There was some general approval for the current governor—despite the fact he was a Democrat, he was nonetheless scaling back on social programs in a bid to rescue the State’s coffers from bankruptcy. It seemed some common sense had finally taken hold in the capital—something along the lines of what we hoped we’d always see happening on the Federal level, but hadn’t since Ronald Reagan or the spending cuts of the ‘90s Republican Revolution.
I continued working my blog feverishly, sometimes hinting at the need for revolution, and sometimes steering clear of the subject. I wanted to put out just enough information to draw supporters to our cause, without either driving people away by saying too much, nor inflaming the governmental watchdogs who kept an eye on all internet chatter. I was reasonably confident my rants had come to the attention of the Echelon spy system once or twice already. But I did not expect any interference. While the watchdogs would undoubtedly assess all threats, they’d only pay attention to those deemed “credible,” and in this twenty-first century global milieu, that was largely confined to Islamo-fascists and other Muslim extremists.
A week after Thanksgiving, Martin disappeared for a few days. I’d asked him where he was going, but the only reply was “Scouting.” I suspected his meaning, but wasn’t sure. When he came back three days later, he wasn’t alone.
“This is Grant,” he said, introducing a tall, muscular jarhead in a leather bomber jacket and jeans. I shook Grant’s hand. His grip was iron, but he graciously avoided crushing my fingers. “Grant was in special forces in the desert,” Martin said. “He’s gonna help us out.”
I looked from Grant to Marty. Grant looked as well. “Is he vetted?” Grant said.
“What do you mean, ‘vetted’?” I asked.
“No worries. He’s my kid brother.”
“Yeah. Don’t care.”
“What’s ‘vetted’ mean?”
“Vetted means you ain’t gonna do something stupid like call the Feds, or make noise to the wrong person.” Grant glared at me.
“I told you. Don’t worry about it. He’s cool.”
“Vetted means you can be trusted.”
“Sonova—you—you brought him in on this?!” I couldn’t believe what I heard.
Grant raised an eyebrow. “This is what you call brilliant?”
“He’s a lot smarter than you know.”
“That’s good. ‘Cause I don’t work with morons.”
“Can’t handle competition?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think better of it. Grant’s eyes narrowed. He took a menacing step toward me, but Martin intercepted him.
“Let’s not get off on the wrong foot, boys.”
“Might be a little late for that,” I countered.
Grant grunted, a half-smile crossed his lips. He stepped back and sat on the edge of the counter. “First intelligent thing he’s said yet.”
“Marty, what’s going on?”
Martin shook his head at both of us. He walked to the fridge and pulled out three beers, tossing one to each of us. “Forming a strike team. Grant’s an expert on logistics. We need his help to set up the operation. And Petey here,” he nodded toward me, “is a crack shot with the M107, and he’s our writer. He explains to the dogs what we want them to print, and they just lap it up, turn around and spit it out again for everyone else.”
Grant opened his beer. “Propaganda.”
“Hardly.” I glared at him. Who did this guy think he was?
He swallowed. “What would you call it then?”
“Telling the truth.”
He held my gaze for a moment, then chuckled. “Truth.”
“What?”
“First casualty of war.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Aeschylus.”
“Huh?”
“Greek dramatist. Around 500 B.C.”
Grant looked confused. “What about him?”
“‘In war, truth is the first casualty.’ Aeschylus said it.”
Grant looked to Martin for an explanation. Martin shrugged. “It’s our thing. Someone says a quote. Petey here knows the source.”
After a moment, he shrugged and said, “Whatever.”
I glanced at Martin, wanting to say something. This arrogant S.O.B. was about all I could take. Martin gave me a warning shake of his head and took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Come around, boys,” Martin said. We took seats across from each other. He pulled out a map of downtown Washington D.C. and spread it out on the table. “All right. Let’s work backwards. The Inauguration will be here, on the steps of the Capitol Building. The best location for us is...” He traced his finger along the map route. Grant leaned forward and stabbed his finger onto an intersection.
“Right here,” Grant said. “Pennsylvania Ave and 11th Street. There’s a couple of high rise buildings here. The roof line will get you above the street level, give you a clear shot to the Capitol.”
“Won’t they be guarded?” I asked.
Grant snorted. I instantly felt stupid. “‘Course they’ll be guarded. But the Secret Service only has about thirteen hundred in its uniformed division. The rest of the patrols will be done by the Metropolitan police and the Park police. I’m saying we can get around the patrols. This is your best location.”
“How are you gonna get around the patrols?”
Grant said slowly, “I can get it done.”
“I’m not questioning that.” My voice sounded small. “I just want to know how.”
He smiled. “Not your problem, is it, Cherry? Look, you want to learn logistics, you could always sign up and take your turn defending our country. And maybe someone will take pity on you and show you the ropes. But until you do that, leave the planning to the experts, ‘kay?”
“Hoorah,” I deadpanned.
Grant shook his head and looked out the window. I took pity on him. “How long you been in the service, Grant?”
“Eight years, straight outta high school.”
“Never had to work with civies before?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Cats and dogs. Military guys are like trained dogs. You can train a dog to do almost anything you want. It’ll obey because it’s loyal and don’t know any different. Civies are like cats. We do something ‘cause we want to do it. We don’t follow orders.”
The Spirit of Resistance Page 4