by Robert Boren
“The founders knew,” Ivan said. “They set up three branches of government to be at constant war with each other. That makes it a lot harder for government to conspire against the will of the people.”
“Three branches, but there’s really five entities that rule our society, and they’re always at war with each other, if things are working correctly.”
“Five?” Ivan asked.
“The Executive Branch, the Senate, the House, the Courts, and the Media.”
Ivan leaned back in his chair, thinking. “Okay, I’ll grant that. What did you mean by if things are working correctly?”
“The model has problems when the media takes sides.”
Ivan laughed. “That’s a no-win argument, you know.”
“How? The media, or at least the press, are supposed to be adversarial, regardless of which side is in power.”
“That’s always been a crock of shit, in my humble opinion,” Ivan said. “We’re really talking about freedom of the press here. We like to say media, and there’s some boundary crossing, but most celebrities who sound off too much about politics are ignored by the side they disagree with, with much more vigor than befalls a news organization with at least some semblance of fairness.”
“I don’t think it’s a crock of shit,” General Hogan said. “Not really.”
“Look at what the press was in the founder’s time. We didn’t have big well-funded corporations controlling a handful of news outlets in the late 1700s. That’s a late-19th Century development. We had pamphlets in the late 1700s, usually put out by the political parties, and they were local. There was nothing objective about their coverage. They all existed to push a certain political point of view. Eventually town newspapers began to spring up, but they made no secret of their bias either, with one paper for those on one side of politics, and another to service people with the opposite opinions.”
General Hogan smiled. “You’ve studied this.”
“I have. I think it’s fascinating. In the early 20th Century, with the rise of big-city newspapers, radio, and TV, the barriers to entry into the news market was much greater than ever before. The idea of journalistic integrity was promoted at that time, and there were some news outlets that were at least somewhat unbiased. In most cases there was plenty of bias, but there were attempts made to hide it. Manipulation of what got on the first page vs. page twenty was used to push a narrative, for example. It got worse and worse as the twentieth century progressed. By the late 1960s, the bias in news was just as rampant as it’d been in the 1780s, but the outlets continued trying to assert that they were un-biased. Most people knew better.”
“And now we have the internet and social media,” General Hogan said.
“Yep, which has removed a lot of that barrier to entry I was talking about. The mainstream media outlets, most of them established in the early part of the twentieth century, are now fighting against the alternative media, trying to brand it fake, as if they themselves had a shred of credibility to make such comments. I used to think it was hilarious.”
“Used to?”
Ivan eyed the General. “Manipulation of alternative media and battles between alternative and legacy media outlets helped the enemy start the war.”
“Tell lies often enough and they become truth,” General Hogan said. “There’s no fix for this, you know.”
“Any attempted fix would be worse than the disease. Totalitarian leaders try to fix the press. That doesn’t mean that political leaders can’t criticize the press. That’s healthy. Actually going after press outlets will ruin our Republic. Too many people don’t understand the difference. Thomas Jefferson railed against the press. He didn’t try to fix the press.”
The two men sat silently for a moment, thinking. General Hogan chuckled. “You know what the biggest change in the 2000s has been?”
“What?”
“The corporations who own the alternative media are trying to fix the press, as you call it. Look at what happened in social media a few years ago, starting in Europe and spreading to the USA.”
Ivan shook his head. “I’m not following.”
“The social media corporations began to silence users who held political beliefs the management didn’t like.”
Ivan laughed. “That’s true. These corporations created a new form of media that became more important than the legacy media, and felt it was okay for them to ignore the intent of the 1st Amendment and block unpopular speech on those platforms. One could argue that certain people in government are in there, behind the scenes, pushing who should be promoted and who should be silenced, which is, in fact, a classic 1st Amendment violation. Hard to prove, but let’s call a spade a spade.”
“Congress could stop that behavior,” General Hogan said. “They could write legislation that make it illegal for social media platforms to censor political speech.”
“Not sure that I like the sound of that. More government regulation often brings unintended consequences. Why not just rely on the market? Promote competing social media platforms that don’t indulge in that kind of bad behavior?”
“That’s where the barrier of entry problem raises it’s ugly head again,” General Hogan said. “We have four major and a few minor social media outlets today, and people are in the habit of using them. Habits like that are hard to break. All your friends are on the platform, for example.”
Ivan thought about it a little more. “I used to cringe when people said this, but here goes. Social Media outlets ought to be considered utilities. If you have a different political view from the management of the electric company, they aren’t allowed to turn off your power.”
“That’s because the public has paid for a lot of the infrastructure via tax dollars,” General Hogan said.
“Who paid for most of the internet infrastructure?”
General Hogan sat silently for a moment. “Crap. I don’t have a rebuttal for that.”
“Well, after saying it, I doubt it’ll ever happen. Not without some big changes in government. Can you imagine the amount of lobbying that would come from the social media companies if Congress decided to pursue that idea?”
“I suspect it’s already been tried,” General Hogan said, “but enough of this. We were talking about the Secretary General before we got sidetracked. How are we going to do what we need to do without it coming back to bite us?”
“We show that he was an enemy of the people,” Ivan said. “Don’t worry, I’m already thinking about ways to do that. Maybe you’re a tad too worried about it. The population knows what the UN did in this war, especially in places like California and the upper Atlantic states. Using rape to control the population has no redeeming value and no excuse.”
“Maybe that will be enough,” General Hogan said, “but we should try to find more. People who talk about that are labeled conspiracy theorists, and it works.”
***
It was the end of Colleen’s shift, and she was worried sick. She sent a quick text to Katie asking for them to meet her at the insurance office, getting a reply in moments.
“You okay?” Chris asked as Colleen gathered her things to leave for the day.
“I’m nervous. Steve should’ve been back here by now.”
“How long since you called the sheriff’s office?” Chris asked.
“Almost four hours.”
“Well, it could take that long, especially if some of the sheriff department’s vehicles are damaged. They might be trying to bring them back here.”
“I hope that’s all it is,” Colleen said, giving Chris a hug. “Thanks so much for giving me a little time earlier. I’ll make it up to you.”
“No need, honey,” Chris said. “You do what you need to do, okay?”
Colleen nodded, looking on the verge of tears, and went out the door, Justin driving the Jeep up as she was walking down the steps. Katie got out of the car and ran over to her.
“Nothing yet?”
Colleen shook her head. “It
’s been almost four hours. Chris said they might be trying to bring the broken vehicles back down here. I hope that’s all it is.”
“No luck with your phone?” Justin asked.
“Nope, tried to call again five minutes ago. I’m so worried.”
“Let’s go to the sheriff’s station,” Katie said. “They’ve got radios. They probably know what’s going on.”
“Maybe,” Colleen said. “Follow me over there.” She got into her Honda Civic, driving out of the lot, Justin following her. The Sheriff’s office was three blocks down the main road, then a right turn. They both parked in the lot and walked towards the door.
“Hey, Skip, hear anything about Steve and the others?” Colleen asked.
He looked up at her with a grim expression. “I can’t raise them, even on the radio. Normally I wouldn’t be worried—we lose contact with people that far out all the time. It bothers me that they’ve been gone for four hours.”
“We should go up there,” Justin said.
“And who might you be?” Skip asked.
“Old friend of Steve’s, and this is Steve’s sister Katie.”
“Oh. Sorry. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Might be bad guys up there. Hell, my people might see you coming and take a pot shot too, you know.”
“We told Steve what vehicle we had when we talked to him earlier,” Katie said.
“What are you gonna do if you run into the bad guys?” Skip asked.
Justin eyed him. “Probably kill them.”
Skip chuckled, shaking his head.
“We were with Ivan’s team in Dulzura,” Katie said.
“Sure you should be telling him that?” Justin asked.
“It’s my brother.”
“Ivan the Butcher?” Skip asked.
“Yes,” Justin said. “We were in all of the major battles with him.”
“Like where?” Skip asked, eyeing him.
“Most recently, the battles in Bonita and National City,” Justin said. “I’m not going to say much more about it.”
“Those bad guys are gonna be well armed,” Skip said.
“We’ve got full-automatic M4s and gobs of ammo,” Justin said, Colleen and Katie shooting him a nervous glance.
“He could confiscate those,” Katie muttered.
“No, we’ve been ordered to stand down on that until the state gets back to normal,” Skip said, “and this isn’t back to normal. All right, I get it, but I’m going with you guys.”
“Thank you,” Colleen said.
“Hey, Brett,” Skip yelled. A young deputy rushed out.
“Yeah?”
“Grab the others and break out the assault rifles. We’re going after the posse.”
“Finally,” Brett said. “Who’s staying?”
“I’m calling John in,” Skip said, picking up the phone. “Kaye can run the desk until he gets here.”
“The only four-wheel-drive vehicle we have left is the truck,” Brett said.
“No problem. Dress warm. Some of you will be in the back.”
“Gotcha,” Brett said, rushing back into the sheriff’s station.
“Five minutes,” Skip said.
***
“Hey!” yelled Lance from downstairs. He was fuming, watching TV coverage of the attack on Margaret Hines in the London ICU ward. “Come on, dammit!”
He heard the door open, and footsteps approaching down the stairs.
“You want the neighbors to hear you?” Victor asked as he came into the room.
“I need to get the hell out of here.”
“Why? You’re still healing.”
“There’s stuff going down. Somebody just hit Maggie in London. I need to talk to Charles.”
Victor laughed. “He tried to kill you.”
“Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t, but we’ll both get executed if things come to light. I don’t even have a damn phone down here. Where’s my cell?”
“Must have been dropped at the scene,” Victor said. “It wasn’t with you when you got here.”
“Son of a bitch. Get me another phone.”
“How many of the phone numbers do you remember?”
Lance sat down on his bed. “Crap.”
“That’s what I thought,” Victor said. “The cops are liable to show up again, and if you’re wandering around up-top, they’ll nab you. They’ll throw me in jail for hiding you, too.”
Lance shrugged. “So I just stay down here and stew, huh?”
“It won’t be for that much longer, trust me. We need to get into this fight, but I don’t think Charles and the rest of those well-heeled morons are allies now. I think they ought to be targets.”
Lance grabbed the remote and turned the TV back on. “All right. Sorry, and thanks for saving me. I know I’m an asshole.”
“We grew up together, remember?” Victor asked. “We’re blood. I’m not going to let somebody get to you, but you’ve got to help. Right now you can help by cooling your jets and giving yourself and me a little time. Given any thought to helping your original targets?”
Lance chuckled. “Yeah, I have, as a matter of fact. I’ve got information they could use, but if Malcolm Davis puts two and two together, it’ll be the death of our family.”
“You’re giving him way too much credit.”
“He’s killed off several of our family and friends,” Lance said.
“Oh, so we’re family again, huh?”
“I just gave you as much of an apology and thanks as you’ll get,” Lance said. “I don’t want to lose everything I’ve built. Probably too late now. Good thing I have the offshore accounts.”
“Checked them lately?”
“No.”
Victor eyed him. “Did Livingston or any of those other creeps know about them?”
“No.” Lance thought about it for a moment, his brow furrowed. “I didn’t tell him, but these bankers might be comparing notes. He’d know who to contact for information. We got internet out here?”
“I could run it out, but it’ll show.”
“Bury it,” Lance said. “I need a laptop too.”
“I’ve got a better idea. We’ll use LTE and a personal hot spot. I’ll need to get you a phone, though.”
“Do that,” Lance said, something on the screen grabbing his attention. It was a pile of rubble, the caption under the picture saying it was the Barona Tribe Hotel and Casino. Lance chuckled. “You see this?”
Victor walked over and looked at the screen. “Yeah, hit the news last night. Why?”
“That tribe was allied with the California resistance.”
“Were they targets?” Victor asked.
“Nope. We talked about it, but decided to restrict our revenge to people who were likely to hurt us. I hope Charles or one of the others didn’t do this.”
“It’ll add to the target list?” Victor asked.
“No, it’ll add to the hunter list. Charles and the others weren’t afraid of these guys, only the ex-special forces and CIA folks. That wasn’t smart. I argued against leaving them off the target list.”
“Maybe they saw the wisdom of your decision.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Lance said. “Where’s the food?”
“It was almost done when I came down here. I’ll go check.”
“Get me that phone and the laptop.”
“I will. Don’t worry, cousin.”
***
Charles sat in the office of his private jet as it flew over the Atlantic. His mind was spinning. Maggie wasn’t supposed to actually get shot. His calls to former Jihadist partners went unanswered. It was possible none of them survived the end of the war, but he doubted it. The message sent from Maggie’s service said nothing about her condition. The only information included was her location. There was a soft rap on the door.
“Come,” Charles said, sitting up straighter behind his desk.
His chief security officer came in. He was a large man with a shaved head, of Spanish background. “Got a mi
nute?”
“I do, Sebastian. Sit. Planning complete?”
He took a seat in front of the desk, in a chair fastened to the floor, sporting a seatbelt. “The plan for getting you to the estate is nearly complete. We’ll work the rest of it if we get you there safely.”
“Are you afraid that won’t happen?”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Sebastian said, “but I wish you’d taken my advice and stayed stateside. We’re going into a foreign country, one that might not be friendly to us at this point.”
“The Queen is protecting Maggie. It’s safer there than it is at home, as long as we can get in un-detected.”
“That’s the real trick.”
“And that’s why I pay you and your team the big bucks,” Charles said. “You aren’t inspiring confidence. What’s the plan?”
“Your secretary and your CFO will go through customs. You will go out in the luggage cart, straight to the limo.”
“Who owns the limo?” Charles asked.
“We rented it. Margaret’s security team offered theirs, but we believe she’s being watched, even if she’s being left alone. If it suddenly took off for the airport in the dead of night, all kinds of alarms would go off.”
“So I’m getting into a limo with no bullet proofing? No security enhancements?”
“It’s got the ultimate security enhancement,” Sebastian said. “Stealth. Bulletproofing won’t save you. You might make it through an initial attack, but then what? It’s not likely you’ll just be driving away.”
Charles sighed. “Okay, I understand. What if they check the luggage cart?”
“There was a payoff made,” Sebastian said. “That should keep the authorities off our backs.”
“Hope that payoff goes better than the one Maggie made.”
Sebastian chuckled. “Her payoff was worth double the weight in gold. She’s still alive because of it. How do you think she got out of that airport alive?”
“Anything on the Islamists?”
“We know exactly who was at Heathrow.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Charles said. “Who hit the hospital? There wasn’t supposed to be any survivors from the original cell.”