Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty)

by Blair Smith

  A pause. Chaos and Wolfenstein looked at one another realizing the dynamics of the situation. Harvey Madison had no idea how militant the New Hampshire covenant had become. His vision of the Covenants as that of a benevolent, self-help organization had turned into a violent uprising. He looked to Max. Max stared ahead expressionless as he sucked his teeth; he was unshaken by the suggestion of armed revolt.

  Chaos broke the silence, "Well, there you go, Reverend. I think we're going to prepare for a fight. If you wish to contact the Feds and set up a meeting and talk with them, that's fine, but we have to prepare for the worst. They can't be trusted."

  Reverend Thoreau sulked as he nodded and collected his things to leave. Turning to Mrs. Larson, he said, "I have lost something. A whole town. And a way of life." Putting his hat on, he left.

  "We're meeting down here for obvious reasons," the President stated flatly as staff members sat around a large oval table and looked back at him expectantly. The Map Room in the basement of the White House was small but today it seated Secretary of Defense Kyle Paz, Chief of Staff Lucas Bennett and Secretary of Human Concerns Darwin Combs comfortably. An additional member to the group sat away from the others, Commander Serrac, an obvious stranger. Kyle glanced his way and wondered what function this young commander had at the meeting.

  "This is what we have." President Winifred grabbed the portable computer below the wall-sized, view screen and moved it to the head of the table where he sat. He flicked on the screen and the entire wall lit up with a live satellite view of the Earth. Winifred moved the track-point to the North Country and clicked. The room lights automatically faded. "It's not a big area to go into. Not nearly as bad as Utah and the Southwest were." Clifford clicked the Colebrook area and the big screen zoomed in again. "Without cloud cover we can look at everything." The greenery of the village park and the grassy patch behind the Congregational Church could be seen, but the sixty-five rectangles of fresh grass behind the Church went unnoticed. The President clicked a drop-down menu and chose the MAPPED GRID options, which changed the screen to a computer diagram of the village. He found the Philbin house and clicked the pre-marked structure. The screen switched back to a close-up, satellite view of the house and surrounding area. "It isn't just the Tobacco Boys anymore; there are some Army and National Guard deserters." Captain Thomas, with several others of his group, could vaguely be seen under a scant cherry tree on the viewing screen, their military uniforms visible below the clusters of blossoms. Two Chipping Sparrows nervously fluttered from branch to branch near their nest in the same tree, unwilling to leave their home despite the impending invasion. "The so-called Covenant is meeting in this place right now."

  Lucas turned to Secretary of Defense Kyle Paz, "Do we have anything like the Israeli satellite with a Masada?"

  "I think you know," said Paz, "we signed an agreement with China, Korea, and Japan not to develop space weapons of that type. Israel held off signing. Getting nuked changed their perspective on things."

  "General Paz, I know damn well that our satellites could direct a missile right through the door of that house." Lucas pointed at the wall monitor. "And I question your loyalty, sir!"

  "You should question my loyalty because I'm not inclined to use the United States Military to assassinate its citizens. We're not allowed to do that in other countries and we're not doing it here."

  "Attacking the President of the United States was an act of war! Knocking out the communication system of the entire East coast is an act of war!" Chief of Staff Bennett flared.

  "Hold on here," said Winifred. "We're getting nowhere with this."

  Secretary of Human Concerns Darwin Combs confirmed the statement, "General Paz is correct, you know. Something like that is legally baseless. We can't just circumvent the law that way, even if they did attack the White House."

  "If?" Lucas reacted. "The Tobacco Bunch used those little kamikaze planes on the Prudential Tower. The very same kind!"

  "Lucas! Please!" The President's tone was more insistent this time. "I'll have none of this." He collected himself. "I asked Commander Serrac to join us. He flew in from . . . . "

  "The Amur River Region of East Russia," Serrac filled in the President's awkward lapse in memory.

  "Thank you. The Commander has had a lot of experience fighting guerrilla forces in that region. Their terrain is similar to the North Country, as is the weather. What's your insight on this, Commander?"

  Serrac rose and walked over to the screen. He was six-foot two and sharp looking. Commander Serrac was part Mexican, thick chested with a slender waist--the stuff diehard novels routinely portray. There was not a hair out of place, every pleat of his uniform pressed, every wrinkle ironed to a crisp edge. "Sir, could you zoom out to the immediate area, please."

  As the President looked for the drop-down menu to pull the satellite view back to a wider scan, Reverend Thoreau could be seen on screen coming out the front door of the Philbin house. He walked directly to the tree where Captain Thomas and Steve Morrison stood. The viewing screen zoomed out to a regional map.

  Reverend Thoreau spoke to Captain Thomas, "You started this thing. You should be in there trying to stop it!"

  "I don't think there's anything I could say that they would want to hear, sir."

  Reverend Thoreau continued, "If the town could just have more time to get over the tragedy. You could propose some type of strategy that would provide more time. We're going to try and arrange a meeting with the Feds but we need someone from the Covenant to be there. The Covenant might listen to a soldier such as yourself. Just talk to them."

  Commander Serrac pointed to the Dixville region and surrounding area. "Unlike the Amur region in East Russia, the North Country has a network of back roads. We can make our perimeter along these roads, using line-of-sight or sensors. If our satellite sensors show them concentrated around Colebrook and Dixville Notch, we can tighten our perimeter around that immediate area. The smaller the perimeter, the more tightly compacted we can keep our forces. Limiting their territory is paramount." He pulled his hand down from the viewing screen and paused to give thought. "Another factor is time. We have a large number of Guards going AWOL. If they're headed to the North Country we have a big problem, your earlier photo of the soldiers under the tree is evidence of that." Winifred zoomed in on the Philbin place again to see the figures blurred by the limbs and flora of the tree.

  "This is all wrong," stated Darwin Combs. "Constructive dialogue should be our first wave of attack. I'm disturbed by the unstated assumption that this has to end in violence. And what particularly disturbs me, is Chief of Staff Bennett's notion to use a satellite to assassinate American citizens."

  "I didn't say anything like that. I only asked if we had them!" Lucas nearly yelled it out.

  "Of course you didn't, Luc," Winifred consoled. "And Darwin, dialogue is our first option, but we must prepare. Like Commander Serrac stated, the time factor is important. No one in this room, including yourself, really expects anyone in the North Country to turn themselves in for what they did in Boston, or for the murder and attempted murder at the White House. You are right though, and I want you to make contact with them. Arrange that dialogue."

  "I want to start right away."

  The President nodded.

  Darwin Combs closed files on his pocket computer and left the room.

  "Where do we start?" asked Mrs. Larson after Reverend Thoreau had left. The group looked back toward Chaos and Wolfenstein.

  "Are we talkin' tactical strategy?" asked Chaos. He got up from his chair and asked for something to write with. Mrs. Philbin went for paper and markers. Chaos looked shabby; he was unshaven and dressed in dirty blue jeans and a red flannel shirt. He wore a Mail Pouch Tobacco hat. With his chiseled physique and folksy attire, he looked like a local farmer.

  Mrs. Philbin returned with her grandson's large drawin
g pad and a fat crayon. She opened the pad and leafed through it for a blank page, stopping on a picture her grandson had drawn; she moved on and tore out a blank piece. The awkwardness in the moment muted everyone. "Here." She handed it to Chaos and sat down, clutching the drawing pad to her chest.

  Chaos taped the sheet to a blank section of the wall just beyond the light. "Three things are critical: time, territory, and the support of the people. That support may be willing or forced support, preferably willing." He drew a big circle on the paper, splitting it into sections like a piece of pie. "The center is Dixville Notch. It's rough terrain, and if the road through the Notch is blocked then they have to go out around. This is how the Pie Tactic works: Twelve attack packs are assigned to each sliver of the pie. As the Feds locate and attack Dixville, attack packs engage and down troopers from behind, within their sliver. If one sliver of the pie is having trouble, attack packs from nearby slivers flank the Feds. Within each sliver, attack packs engage in typical bait and bushwhack tactics, getting Federal units to chase a pack into unsecured woods, so waiting groups can ambush them.

  Packs also need places to wait undetected, so they can drop back to their sanctuary if they begin to get flanked. Concealment is critical. We have to build vented bunkers below ground that can't be detected by heat scopes from a satellite or plane. Our biggest advantage is communication. When the radio jammers go on, their patrols are isolated. We can signal with laser from mountaintop to mountaintop and with line-of-sight from pack to pack. The Feds should experience utter confusion within their ranks. Their casualties will be very high following their initial attack."

  Harvey Madison raised his hand. "Can I ask a question?"

  "Sure."

  "Are you counting on the Vermont side to come into this big battle, because unless things have changed drastically, I don't think we're ready to take on the most powerful nation in the world in a civil war?" Harvey had worded his comment carefully.

  Chaos looked at the group. Other than Wolfenstein and Max, they didn't look like much. Helen and Mrs. Larson looked up with interest as though they would be the ones in the bunkers. It was hard for Chaos to envision anyone other than Mountain Boys running about the woods executing attack pack maneuvers. "We could use the help but I expect the other two parts of the Triad to come in on this, at least my brother Snake from the Vermont side. Snake must have been the one responsible for knocking out the phone service in New England by severing the optical trunks. And I suspect he arranged the attack on the White House, too. Snake can be reasonable, as well as resourceful."

  "Reasonable?" Helen wondered allowed.

  Mrs. Larson spoke up, "You're missing something here: The Wizard. He helped start this whole Covenant thing in Vermont. We would be crazy to do anything without bringing him in on this." Other people from Colebrook's Covenant commented in support of Vanessa's suggestion.

  "The Wizard is in the process of organizing their own covenant in Boston. I don't know if he's in any position to help us," Max commented.

  Harvey was determined to defuse the crisis, "I just want us to agree that we will not initiate any more attacks on Washington until Reverend Thoreau has had a chance to work out a deal."

  "I'll contact my brothers and let them know our intentions," Chaos answered. "I warn you though: I can't control what my brothers do."

  General Paz had heard enough of Serrac's plan. "May I add something to this discussion?" He seethed with the notion that the President would bring in a military specialist without his knowledge to undermine him. "Is Commander Serrac here to replace me as your adviser?"

  "Oh, no. Of course not, General," the President assured. "Colonel Greely mentioned using the troops in the Amur region so I called him in. Greely set it up before he was murdered."

  Tension thickened in the room. The small alcove suffered from 20th century ventilation and the body heat from the people present added more dankness to an already muggy chamber. Serrac cut in, "Sir, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

  General Paz turned to Commander Serrac, "At ease, Commander. It isn't you. It's them." Luc's mouth trembled out to a sneer at Kyle's comment.

  "Kyle, you're taking this personally," said the President. "Don't let the imaging of the Dixville Massacre that Spectator News published get to you. The public will understand that Captain Thomas was to blame."

  "Negotiations are fine," Chaos continued, "but we have to prepare in the interim. Wolf, anything to add?"

  "Well, I think they're going to bomb us at the Notch. I think they may even use the Israeli satellites to pick off individuals they recognize. You know, those satellites in orbit with Masadas. If everyone stays under the trees as much as possible, they won't see us. And we could use decoys to let their heat sensors focus in on the Notch as a target."

  "There could be more to it than that," said Chaos. "They've come out with a new type of automated weapon that is mobile, kinda like a roving AutoMan. Captain Thomas could verify this I'm sure; the Army Regulars are training with these Armdroids. They're like little tanks with heat, motion, and metal sensors to detect any booby traps and ambushes. They are sent remotely, ahead of the troops. They look like a fifty-five gallon drum on tank tracks. Arms help it climb stairs and such; it can climb most anything. You should see them."

  "Would a radio jammer stymie them?" asked Max.

  "Nope. They work off a fiber-optic line, or on auto. If the line is severed, they just sit there and shoot anything that moves until the proper infrared signal is shot at it to shut it down. I don't think a Masada can even shoot through it. A hand-held rocket might damage one. We have some of those."

  "It is personal, Mr. President," said Kyle. Commander Serrac didn't understand the meaning in Kyle's statement, or how the General's contingent set up the Dixville Massacre. "No disrespect to Commander Serrac, but Colonel Greely was your best shot at taking down this bunch with little bloodshed; and they got him first. Your second best option was Captain Thomas." He turned to Lucas Bennett, "I think you remember him," he said sarcastically in reference to the chewing out Thomas got from Bennett in the Oval Office. Turning back to the others, he went on, "He's familiar with all the top weaponry, and the region. He was with Greely in the Carolinas. This is no longer just Colebrook and the Tobacco Boys: we have some intelligence that Boston has their own Covenant with a force made up of both whites and African-Americans." He stopped and stated resolutely, "They call themselves 'Ghost Pack 220,' and they pledge their allegiance to someone called the Akela. How do you fight ghosts, gentlemen?" General Paz turned to Commander Serrac, "Pack 220 was the group of boys slaughtered out at the Dixville Massacre."

  General Paz picked up his hat and overcoat as he rose to leave. On screen behind him, Wolfenstein and Chaos came out of the Philbin house to meet Captain Thomas, Steve Morrison, and Reverend Thoreau under the flora of the cherry tree. "I'm resigning, Mr. President," General Paz declared. "I've had enough of this charade."

  "Kyle," Winifred stopped him. "What will you say to the press?"

  "Don't worry, Mr. President. Captain Thomas has gone AWOL. You have your scapegoat. Besides, there's nothing I've done that I would care to repeat." Before exiting the door, he paused and turned sideways, "A word of caution, Commander: This is nothing like the Amur River Region. Not one bit."

  Chaos was the first out of the covenant meeting to join the Captain and Steve Morrison under the blooming cherry tree. "Captain Thomas, we could use your expertise," Chaos said. "What do you know about the vulnerability of Armdroids?" Morrison listened in.

  "An HHR will knock it over but it won't necessarily down the machine unless it hits a port and tears it open. It can get back on its tracks with its arms." Other Covenant members came out the Philbin's front door. When the Captain looked up, Helen turned away. Mrs. Larson glared at Thomas with contempt.

  Thomas returned to his conversation, "I've seen the Armdroids tested. They
're tough-skinned with three centimeters of hardened alloy. A Masada won't touch it unless you can hit a port, and that's difficult."

  Chaos narrowed his eyes, thinking. "How about satellites? They got any sitting above us by now? Any Israeli types?"

  "You mean for shooting people from the sky?" the reporter chimed in. "I thought they couldn't do that."

  "They're not supposed to," Captain Thomas replied to Steve. In his response to Chaos, "I don't know about an Israeli version but if it wasn't for the tree we're under they would be counting the buttons on your shirt as we speak,"

  Chaos stepped out from under the tree and turned his head up to look under the bill of his hat. He lifted his hand and raised his middle finger to the sky.

  "Must be a local," said Lucas in reference to the man on screen flipping them the finger. All the others had left the Map Room; Lucas Bennett and the President Winifred were the only ones remaining. "What happens here is critical in this fall's election, sir."

  "I realize that. I think I'm going to make a trip to Colebrook and actually take part in the negotiations. It will look Presidential. Turning over Kyle as the culprit behind the Dixville Massacre should also help defuse things a little. You see, Lucas, a President needs to show leadership in a crisis like this. I might even take William fishing while I'm up there. Makes for good press." Winifred had frozen the scene of the scruffy dark-haired man with the baseball cap. He walked up to the big screen beside Chief of Staff Bennett and stared at the figure. An eyebrow raised as the President said, "We'll see who screws who."

  Max's deer camp near Colebrook, New Hampshire (May 10)

  DEER WIZARD,

  THIS IS THAD-

  "No, stupid," his older brother corrected. "Write: THIS IS BUTCH AND ME. He won't know who it is that's written it." Thad nodded and back-spaced to the beginning.