Collective Retribution

by Edwards, D. S.

  “We continue as planned. Make sure everything is ready.”

  “Sure, boss.” Bill started to back out of the tent.

  Nirsch spoke again, stopping Bill in midstride.

  “Send my family a message for me, Bill. Tell them I love them, and what I’m doing, well…I’m doing it for them. Send Jillian hugs for me, and tell her I am truly sorry for what happened to Brett. Let them know this will be over soon.”

  Bill left the tent. Nirsch bowed his head, closed his eyes, and prayed to God for his family’s protection. After he finished, he took out a pen and paper and wrote a letter to his future grandchild.

  My Dearest Grandchild:

  My name is Levi Nirschell. I am your grandfather, and if you are reading this letter, it means that we never had the chance to meet face to face. It also means that the war we are fighting was won, and the evil reign of terror by evil men was destroyed. The reason I felt I needed to write you was to tell you everything I was not able to tell you in person.

  First of all, always make God a priority in your life. He will guide you, protect you, and walk beside you in times of trouble or sorrow. Second, cherish your family and always keep them close. Family is the most important part of your life on earth next to your relationship with God. Third, always honor your mother and show her respect. She loves you more than anything else on this earth. The lessons she teaches you are always taught out of love. Fourth, love your country and never forget those who sacrificed their lives to ensure your freedom. Never forget the ideals that America was founded on. Know your history and cherish your heritage.

  Lastly, the most important thing I can teach you, always reflect the light of Christ in the way you live your life and treat others. As I write these words, my heart breaks, knowing I will not have the chance on this earth to look upon your face. But I take solace in the fact that we will see each other in heaven if you follow the words and instructions in this letter. Even though we have not met, know that I love you and that I am interceding on your behalf in heaven. I pray that your life on earth is filled with joy and happiness.

  Sending you my deepest love,

  Grandpa Nirsch

  Three days after hearing of the attempt on his family’s lives, Nirsch and 75,000 angry and vengeful men, women, and children rode out of Ruby Valley, Nevada. They would reach Telluride in forty-eight hours, depending on the level of U.C. resistance they encountered along the way. Their eastern and northern troops would arrive at the same time. They would strike at dawn, 145,000 of them attacking on three sides. It would begin with an air assault, causing as much damage to U.C. defenses as possible while gaining valuable intel on their fortifications. Heavy artillery would move in next, with ground forces swinging in directly behind.

  Nirsch estimated the U.C. troop numbers at fifty thousand. The rebels outnumbered the U.C., but were outgunned. The foreign governments vying for a piece of the American pie had transported the latest weapons and technology to Colorado in one big push. They had definitely laid all their chips on the table. They would either get the cards they wanted on the flop or they would lose everything. In the poker game of war, they had one hand left, and they were all in.

  By the time the rebels reached the Colorado border, they had picked up several thousand strays. There weren’t enough weapons to go around, so most of these were armed with shovels, ax handles, baseball bats, and old rusty firearms. Looking over the new volunteers, Nirsch knew most of them would die. It couldn’t be helped. He was not going to refuse them their right to be a part of the rebirth of the United States.

  43

  PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

  1:30 A.M., MONDAY, OCTOBER 26

  PRESIDENT HARTLEY AWOKE IN A PANIC. HIS SHEETS WERE soaked with sweat and his hands trembled as he reached for the bottle of scotch on the bedside table.

  He’d been having the same dream for months. At first, it had always been a happy dream. He’d find himself standing on the balcony outside his new bedroom, a crowd below him. The mass of people stretched out as far as he could see, all bowing low in worship of him. He smiled as he rose into the air and floated over their heads. The warm sunlight danced off of his upturned face as he drifted ever higher over the crowd. He continued to rise until he eventually passed through soft white clouds and drifted into space.

  It was that first night after Boise was attacked and his troops were defeated that his benevolent dream became an unbearable nightmare. In the dream, the people changed from worshiping him to reaching for him with bony fingers. The warm sunlight was replaced with snow and icy wind. The faces of the crowd were distorted and twisted. Hatred, bloodlust, and fire shot from their eyes. The nightmare ended with him falling into the waiting arms of the crowd. They tore the clothes from his body and gnashed their teeth, biting off chunks of his flesh while flames danced around their heads. He tried to scream, but no sound escaped his lips.

  The president took a large pull from the bottle, then opened the drawer of his nightstand. He removed several trinkets and held them close to his chest for several minutes. This always seemed to make him feel better and helped to chase away the demons.

  He’d carried several items at all times since his first days in politics. Each had special meaning to him. There was the gold coin that a cleric had given him as a child. There was the lucky rabbit’s foot his aunt had brought to him on the day of his high school graduation. There was also the small gold statue forged in the image of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god.

  He got out of bed, stretched, put on his silk robe, and walked onto his balcony overlooking the courtyard. It was a cool, fall night, and the moon was nearly full. A few crickets that had survived the first couple of autumn frosts chirped loudly. A coyote howled in the distance.

  Hartley took several deep breaths of the sharp night air and gazed at the garden below him. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The crickets stopped chirping. A shadowy figure ran across the garden and disappeared into the forest.

  No one was supposed to be out this time of night. He maintained a strict curfew and the servants were too afraid of him to violate his rules. He watched the trees intently at the point where the shadow had entered. Half an hour later, the shadowy figure emerged from the cover, pausing just inside the tree line. The figure looked around carefully, then sprinted back across the garden, disappearing around the corner.

  Hartley ran back into the bedroom and rushed across the floor to the other side of the house. He threw open the doors and looked out across the servant’s quarters. No candlelight leaked from around the cracks in the plywood walls. There was no sound of doors opening or closing. Had he imagined it? Had someone really been out in the trees? Or had his nightmare spilled over into his conscious mind, blurring the lines between crazy and sane?

  Yet he was sure he’d seen someone. If so, it had to be one of the servants. In the morning, he’d find out for certain.

  Hartley reached into his pocket, wrapped his fingers around his trinkets, walked back into the palace, and went to bed to await a fresh onslaught of terror.

  44

  SERVANT’S QUARTERS, PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

  2:10 A.M., MONDAY, OCTOBER 26

  MANDI LAY ON HER MAT, SHIVERING FROM THE COLD AND THE adrenaline coursing through her. She had done it. She’d delivered her first report as a spy for the rebels. When General Scheper and the president had met earlier in the day, Mandi had been hiding in a closet, listening to it all. As soon as it was dark, she’d gone to the place Larry had told her about and found the radio he’d left there. She gave her report, covered up the radio, and snuck back to her shack.

  She felt alive and tingly all over. I am a superspy, she thought. Sleep came to her as she reminisced about the Saturday evenings she used to enjoy with her father. They watched spy movies on their eight-inch, black-and-white TV. Her father’s boss had given him a collection of old spy movies and a television to watch them on. James Bond was her favorite.

  Mandi awoke to the sound of
someone banging on the door of her shack. She put on a robe and opened her door a crack.

  She was knocked backwards to the ground when U.C. soldiers burst through. One of the soldiers grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out into the dirt, causing her robe to tear free and leaving her naked. The soldier threw her down next to her fellow slaves and went in to search her shack. Mandi crawled back toward her shack and reached for her robe. One of the soldiers saw her and kicked her in the ribs, knocking the wind out of her. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back to the other slaves.

  The soldiers threw all of her belongings out the door in a pile. When they finished searching her shack, they went down the row, repeating the process in each slave’s quarters. When all of the shacks had been searched, the slaves were herded to the courtyard in front of the palace. President Hartley was waiting for them, dressed in a khaki-green uniform and black, polished, knee-high boots. He wore a cap pulled low over his forehead and dark, mirrored sunglasses. He had a leather riding crop tucked under his right arm. Mandi thought he looked ridiculous and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at him.

  The soldiers lined the slaves up. President Hartley walked down the line, carefully inspecting each of their faces. When he finished, he stood in front of them and addressed them with a stern voice.

  “I am very disappointed in one of you. I feed you, I give you a roof over your heads, and I keep you safe from the horrors of the outside world. I consider myself a fair man. I allow you to come and go unescorted in and out of my home. I have put my trust in each of you.”

  The president stopped speaking and walked up and down the line of slaves again, pausing in front of each and staring into her eyes. He stepped back and continued his speech.

  “One of you has betrayed that trust. We are here now to find out who that someone was. We are not going to leave this spot until we accomplish this task. I am going to turn my back, and I expect the person responsible for betraying my trust and my compassion to take two steps forward.”

  The president turned his back on the line of slaves and waited a few minutes. When he turned back around and saw that no one had come forward, his face turned red. His body shook with rage as he yelled in their faces.

  “Since no one is coming forward and exposing their shame, I’m going to help you!”

  President Hartley pulled a pistol from his side and shot the slave closest to him through the forehead.

  Mandi’s heart felt like a giant hole opened up in it as she watched her friend Kelly die for something she had done. Mandi choked back her sobs and filled the hole in her heart with hate. She would not step forward. She was not afraid of this man anymore. She did not fear death. She stayed in line because she was the rebels’ best hope of defeating this tyrant.

  The president stood in front of them again and removed his sunglasses. His eyes were pools of blackness. No light reflected in them. There was no distinction between his pupils and the rest of the eye.

  “I am going to give you another chance to step forward.”

  He turned his back again. Mandi began to shake. Her mind worked through her night’s activities. Had she been seen? She must have been seen or they wouldn’t be here right now. Did the president know it was her? He couldn’t know or he would have surely killed just her and left everyone else alone. How much did he know? Did he just see someone out after curfew or did he know one of them was a spy?

  The president turned to face them yet again. Mandi’s breath caught in her throat. President Hartley was holding her radio, the radio Larry Collins had given her to feed him information.

  “If the person who is responsible for this radio will step forward now, there will be no further reprisals. You will not be punished, and you will dine with me tonight, where we will discuss your activities of late and who you have been speaking with on this radio. If you do not step up now, in fifteen seconds I will kill two more of your companions. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.”

  Mandi felt as though her heart had been ripped from her chest. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. How would she tell them his plans without her radio? What if he used it to listen in on their transmissions? That would give him the advantage.

  “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  She would have to get that radio back and contact Larry. After she contacted him, she would have to destroy it.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  President Hartley turned and shot another slave in the forehead, and yet another in the kneecap, causing her to scream out in pain.

  “You dare to defy me?!”

  He shot the wounded slave in the other knee. Her screams of anguish tore a black chasm in the center of Mandi’s soul.

  “I have tried to be reasonable! I have tried to care for and protect you.”

  The screams of the girl on the ground were nearly deafening, drowning out the president’s words. When she stopped to take a breath, the president yelled to one of his soldiers: “Shut her up!”

  The soldier walked over and smiled as he put a bullet through her brain.

  The president finished his speech. “This is obviously not getting us anywhere, so now you will all suffer until whoever is responsible for this act of treason comes forward. No one eats until this is resolved. There will be no exceptions. Now, pick up that trash!”

  He pointed at the dead slaves, turned, and walked away, his soldiers following close behind.

  Mandi went to her shack, retrieved some clothing, then helped bury her friends. She had to figure out where the president was keeping that radio, and she had to figure out how to get it without being caught.

  9:15 A.M.

  Mandi began her daily duties. In the kitchen, she retrieved the president’s breakfast cart and made her way upstairs. She couldn’t get the image of her dying friends out of her mind. She didn’t even know their last names. Only two servants were allowed to use their last names, Rollie Patterson and Chef Zenneli. Those who had died at the hands of Richard Hartley had last names. They had families who loved them. Mandi vowed she would never forget them, and that someday everyone would learn of their sacrifice.

  She knocked on Rollie’s door. He opened the door, glanced at his watch, and smiled up at her.

  “You’re running a bit late this morning.”

  Mandi did not return his smile. “We had a problem this morning.”

  Mandi realized for the first time that a part of her resented Rollie. He had the easiest and most luxurious job in the palace. He was never hungry, and he had only one duty. He would perform his job for exactly thirty minutes each day. Ten minutes at breakfast, ten at lunch, and ten at suppertime. The rest of his day was filled with sleep and reading. He had full access to the presidential library. He was allowed to read any book on the shelves as long as he replaced it when he was done.

  Rollie finished sampling the president’s meal. Mandi walked away and delivered the cart to the president’s door without another word to the cupbearer.

  After the food had been delivered, Mandi went to the kitchen intending to get her breakfast, momentarily forgetting about the president’s orders an hour earlier. When the realization hit that Rollie was the only slave allowed to eat, she felt a fresh dose of resentment.

  She was about to leave the kitchen when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She turned and was greeted by Gordon’s smiling face. The chef motioned for her to follow him and led her into the large walk-in refrigerator. He looked around carefully, then closed the door behind them. Gordon walked to the back of the cooler and reached behind a box of ground beef. He winked at Mandi as he handed her a zip-lock bag full of cold chicken and day-old biscuits.

  “That should hold you for a day or two.”

  Mandi smiled. For the first time, she felt a faint glimmer of affection for Chef Gordon. She quickly pushed it away and backed out of the cooler, hiding the bag of goodies under her apron.

  “Thank you,” she said. She smiled at him again and went back to her shed to stash the food.
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  At noon, General Scheper landed in a helicopter and left a few minutes later with President Hartley. Mrs. Hartley came out of the palace a short time later with her children, all of them dressed in riding clothes. Mandi thought this could be the chance she was waiting for. She had to figure out how to get into the private residence and find that radio.

  She waited until they’d ridden out on one of the trails, then went to the laundry to retrieve some clean linens. It wasn’t her normal day to change the bedding, but hopefully no one would question her.

  The palace was quiet as she made her way to the private residence. She paused outside the door and listened for Billy the house-boy. Satisfied that he was nowhere near the door, she quietly slipped in, closing the door behind her. She tiptoed past Rollie’s door. In the “entertainment” room, she changed the linen on the bed and left the pile of dirty bedding on the floor. If anyone caught her leaving, she’d be carrying dirty bedding and would hopefully avoid questions. If she was caught once she got farther inside, she would not have any excuse. She would just have to make sure that didn’t happen.

  45

  12:10 P.M., MONDAY, OCTOBER 26

  ROLLIE PATTERSON HAD HEARD A NOISE OUTSIDE HIS DOOR. He quietly opened it in time to see Mandi disappear inside the president’s private residence. He closed his door as his mind processed what he had just seen.

  Rollie had heard the president tell General Scheper about a suspected spy among the servants. Not too much happened in the palace without Rollie knowing about it. He rarely left his room, but he had very good hearing and keen observation skills. Mandi seemed to be trying to hide her entry to the private section of the palace. He didn’t think she was trying to avoid the president. Everyone knew when he left the grounds. Mandi had to be the spy they were looking for. There was no other reason for her to be sneaking around.