The Separatists

by Lis Wiehl

  “So, ah, about Spotlight . . . I’ve been in touch with Leslie Burke Wilson. She had an idea that I think is promising.”

  “She’s a font of ideas, isn’t she?” Erica says.

  “She thought we could put together a panel of experts who would comment on the election and its aftermath in live segments.”

  “So we’d cut from the film to a live panel?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I think that’s confusing and will dilute the narrative thrust of the story. Nix it.”

  “Are you sure? She threw out some intriguing names.”

  “I’ve got a lot to do here,” Erica says, picking up and reading a page she’s already read. Gloria leaves.

  Erica googles Corporal James Jarrett and finds an article from West Point, the military academy’s magazine, that details his rapid rise in the military and describes him as Mary and Sturges Bellamy’s protégé. It seems awfully coincidental that he’s been transferred out to Camp Grafton. And the posting—at a training base in the middle of nowhere—seems like something of a comedown for his rising star. Unless . . . unless . . .

  . . . Erica stands up and paces, goes to the window and looks down at the blistering city, sits back down at her desk, takes out her deck of cards, and deals a hand of solitaire . . .

  Unless . . .

  She was hoping the cards would calm her racing imagination. No such luck.

  Unless . . . unless Camp Grafton will no longer be training American soldiers . . .

  CHAPTER 63

  ERICA, EILEEN, AND GLORIA ARE in their car, being driven from the Bismarck airport to the Holiday Inn. Every room within fifty miles of the capital is booked, with media from all over the country and a decent chunk of the world descending on North Dakota. The latest polls have shown Mary Bellamy a point or two ahead of Governor Snyder. While Synder could still pull it out, people are starting to focus on what Bellamy’s first moves as governor will be. She has already created the most successful secession movement in American history. Soon she may have real power. What will she do with it?

  Erica looks out the car window. The excitement is palpable, people holding Homeland and Bellamy signs line the sides of the roads, shouting and high-fiving passing motorists. Everywhere Erica looks she sees Bellamy bumper stickers, lawn signs, vehicles festooned with bunting, speakers on their roofs encouraging voters to support Bellamy. Clearly Mary Bellamy’s campaign has incredible momentum; she doesn’t want to just win, she wants a landslide, a mandate. And she wants to send a message to the rest of the country. There are secession movements in every state, but they’re strongest and most vocal in those contiguous to North Dakota, where the leaders are following Mary’s example, eschewing violent and extreme rhetoric for victory at the ballot box. Could she be advising, even coordinating, them?

  Looking out the window at the raucous scene, Erica sees the darkness under the signs and screams, the hoopla, the near hysteria. Her adrenaline starts pumping, and part of what it’s pumping is fear. This state is not a safe place for her. She’s in their sights. Whoever they are.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Eileen says. “It’s going to be intense.”

  Gloria says nothing. She sits there looking troubled and frightened and trying to disguise it. That’s been her default expression all week. When Gloria was pressing Erica on her investigation of the murders, she probably didn’t realize she was the current focus of it. Erica suspects that somehow Gloria has found out that her liaison with Pete Nichols has been uncovered. But Erica has no proof, no evidence other than the whistling of a two-bit hood with a sadistic streak. It’s time to turn the screws, but she has to do it artfully, gently. She’s starting to question Gloria’s emotional stability, and things could turn ugly. When people are cornered they become desperate and take irrational, even violent, action.

  The women stop at their motel just long enough to drop off their bags, then they head downtown. Without a studio of its own or a local GNN affiliate, Eileen has rented a downtown storefront and set up temporary shop. It’s a great visual, with Erica sitting at a desk in front of two huge corner plate-glass windows that have a view of the downtown’s busiest intersection.

  “This looks great, Eileen, good work,” Erica says. “I think we should get out on the street to try and capture the energy and excitement, do a few on-the-spot interviews. We can shoot that segment ASAP and run it tonight.”

  “Gotcha,” Eileen says. Gloria is standing there, looking like a third wheel; it gets a little awkward. “Spotlight’s offices are up on the third floor,” Eileen reminds her.

  “All right. I guess I’ll head up there. I want to get organized and then take a crew out and get some establishing shots of the Bellamy house and the capitol.”

  “I’ll head up with you, I have a few thoughts,” Erica says.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay down here and prepare for tonight’s show? We have a lot more time to pull Spotlight together.”

  “No. I want to talk to you,” Erica says firmly.

  They step into the elevator and the doors close behind them. Erica stands with her back to the controls, blocking them. Gloria has almost wedged herself into the far corner of the car. She can’t look Erica in the eye, and Erica sees her brow start to glisten.

  “Gloria, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Tell you?”

  “Yes, tell me.”

  Gloria starts speaking very fast: “Nothing pressing. I’m sure a lot of questions will come up but right at this moment I can’t think of any, I want the second Spotlight to be as strong as the first, no slump for us, ha-ha, so I really want to get some expert analysis on what the long-term ramifications of Bellamy’s win will be, that’s why I thought Leslie Burke Wilson’s idea might work and . . . Erica, why are you looking at me like that?”

  Erica lets her twist in the wind for a few endless moments. She looks afraid. Well, Erica was afraid in the trunk of that car. Erica is afraid now. For herself. For her daughter. So, Gloria, what goes around comes around.

  “When I went up to Boston for the symposium at the Kennedy School I was kidnapped, stuffed in the trunk of a car, and taken on a terrifying ride.”

  Gloria’s mouth drops open in a semblance of surprise. Then her eyes well with tears. And is she shaking? “Erica, I’m sorry. I’m not in the best shape these days. The pressures of the show are getting to me. This is the big leagues—in DC I was swimming in a much smaller pond. I just feel overwhelmed. And personally, I’m feeling, well, I love James Jarrett. Oh, Erica, I’m so in love with him, and, well, I’m not sure how he feels about me.”

  “I thought you were engaged.”

  “That’s what I told people, but . . .”

  Now that’s weird. Erica feels slightly queasy. And then there’s a momentary surge of pity for poor Gloria, who clearly isn’t the woman Erica once thought she was.

  “I’m sorry,” Gloria says. “I let you down.”

  Erica has no proof that Gloria had a role in her kidnapping. Looking at her now, cowering in the corner of the elevator, she hardly seems capable of such twisted machinations. Pete Nichols could have been playing a double head game, a feint, with his whistling. Sending Erica down a rabbit hole in search of a wild goose. And Gloria’s recent erratic behavior could be attributed to work pressure and lovesickness.

  “So you didn’t know anything about my kidnapping?”

  “Me? Your kidnapping? No, of course not, how could I?”

  Gloria sounds so sincere, looks so stunned. What if this is all Erica’s paranoia running away with her? In any case, she has a show to prepare. It suddenly feels as if the elevator walls are closing in on her, she feels dizzy with confusion. And under it all, the telltale beating of her frightened heart. She turns away from Gloria and presses the Open button. The doors open, but the two women don’t move.

  Gloria takes out a tissue and dabs at her eyes, wipes her brow, stands up straight. She gives Erica a forlorn smile.
“If you’d like me to resign, just say so.”

  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  “We’re heading up to Grand Forks tomorrow to cover Mary Bellamy’s final rally. We need that footage for Spotlight.”

  “You want me to stay?”

  “We’ll revisit this when we’re back in New York.”

  Erica steps out of the elevator with long strides, her shoulders back, hoping that her posture will project confidence—and keep her from drowning in a sea of doubt.

  CHAPTER 64

  MAKING HER WAY THROUGH THE claustrophobic backstage labyrinth of the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, Erica can hear the crowd in the arena yelling and stomping—it’s so loud and intense that the building vibrates. An old man racing down the corridor yells at her, “Go back to New York, we don’t want your kind here!” Other people she passes give her either dirty or dismissive looks, creepy and threatening, or smiles that are too bright and eager, as if they were blissed-out cult members. She makes it to an elevator that takes her up to the broadcast booths. As she steps into the GNN booth, she stops cold. The sight of the packed arena—with a capacity of twenty-one thousand, it’s the largest in the state—is electrifying. And there are thousands more Bellamy partisans filling the streets outside and watching on jumbo screens. Looking down on the pulsing, roiling sea of humanity, Erica is awed and disquieted. People’s faces are twisted and grimacing with anger, there is screaming and fist pumping, signs and T-shirts with slogans like F’ the Feds, Power to the Homeland, Nuke the IRS, and Free North Dakota. There are far more men than women, and macho bravado fills the air like toxic gas—there’s nothing celebratory here; this crowd wants revenge, it wants blood. In fact, it looks more like a mob than a crowd.

  As an American Erica is disturbed. As a journalist she can’t help being riveted, a witness to history. And as secession movements in other states grow larger and more mainstream, this story is still in its infancy. Erica sits at her desk and checks her notes.

  Eileen McDermott comes over. “You ready for this?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “We’re a go in two minutes.”

  “I’m just going to do a brief intro and then I think we stay live on Bellamy’s speech.”

  “That’s the money shot.”

  “Blood money,” Erica says, looking down at the crowd. She watches the GNN feed from New York and then it’s thrown to her.

  “This is Erica Sparks reporting live from the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the tumultuous recall election of Governor Bert Snyder is entering its last day. We’re here at the final rally of insurgent Mary Bellamy, the leader of the controversial Homeland movement, and as you can see and hear, the capacity crowd is pumped up to a fever pitch. Let’s listen as State Senator Michael Haydn, who bolted the Republican party and endorsed Bellamy, finishes his introduction of the candidate.”

  Senator Haydn, white-haired and folksy in a bolero tie, leans forward on the podium and intones, “I have known this woman for three decades, and I truly believe she is the last best hope we have to escape the tyranny of the federal government. She is a force to be reckoned with, and believe me, after tomorrow night our enemies in Washington will be brought to heel. It’s an honor to present the next leader of the North Dakota Homeland, Mary Bellamy!”

  As Mary walks onstage the place goes berserk. It truly feels like the crowd might blow the roof right off the vast arena. Then they begin chanting—a war chant—“MA-RY! MA-RY! MA-RY!”

  Mary Bellamy, looking subdued and humble in a simple blue dress, stands there letting it all wash over her. She waves a couple of times, and each wave triggers a new round of screams and cries. Finally, she starts to hush the crowd. And hush it does, until all that is heard is a low hum of excitement, as much vibration as sound.

  “Hello, fellow pioneers,” Mary says with a smile. And the place erupts again. Again she hushes it. This time she grows serious. “Last month I lost my husband, my dear Sturges, who so many of you knew and loved. He was my best friend and my partner, and this movement belongs to him as much as it does to me. In the first days after his death I wondered if I could carry on without him. I prayed for guidance. And the answer came to me. I will fight on in his name until my last breath.”

  The arena erupts again, cheers and chants and signs and screaming. And again Mary is able to hush it, as if with a magic wand.

  “My friends, we are in the middle of an epic battle. It is nothing less than a battle between freedom and bondage, between yesterday and tomorrow, between good and evil. And the righteous shall prevail. And we are the righteous!”

  “MA-RY! MA-RY! MA-RY!”

  “The federal government has conspired with special interests to strip away our ability to control our own destinies. They have turned us into a nation of the few, by the few, for the few. And we have had enough!”

  “MA-RY! MA-RY! MA-RY!”

  “Tomorrow, everything changes. When you go into that voting booth you will be altering the course of history. You are nothing less than the Founding Fathers of the new Homeland!”

  “MA-RY! MA-RY! MA-RY!”

  “They will stop at nothing to prevent us. But they will fail. Because we are prepared. And we will stop at nothing to free ourselves from their tyranny!”

  “MA-RY! MA-RY! MA-RY!”

  With each new explosion, the crowd grows more hyped up, hopped up, unruly, on the edge of . . . what? Violence? Mob rule? The speech goes on for another ten minutes, building to a crescendo—“Go forth tomorrow and vote, for we are an army of believers and, my friends, we are going to take back what is rightfully ours! The future belongs to us!”—until the crowd is on its feet, standing on chairs, screaming, stomping, in a fever, a frenzy, a fit of what feels very close to collective madness.

  Erica is spellbound and filled with dread. She hears Joan Marcus’s voice, imploring, tearful, and terrified: I need to talk to you. I’m down in the lobby. Can I come up? I’m scared.

  . . . the scrap of photograph, the missile, and the murders and the kidnapping, and Joan Marcus’s throat slit open, the gaping wound, the blood smeared on the tiles as she fought to stand . . .

  Music blares and balloons pour from the rafters as the crowd streams toward the exits, driven by righteous rage. GNN cuts to the crowd outside the arena. Many of them hold burning torches that light the night and speak of a terrible darkness to come.

  CHAPTER 65

  IT’S MIDAFTERNOON ON ELECTION DAY, and Erica is at her desk on GNN’s temporary set back in Bismarck. All day she’s been reporting on the massive voter turnout across North Dakota; officials are saying it is sure to set a state, if not a national, record, with over 90 percent of eligible voters going to the polls. The nation has never seen anything like this. Mort Silver called to crow about how high the ratings are, and Erica is the country’s go-to reporter on the story.

  She has a half hour before her next update, and she’s familiarizing herself with some of the day’s other big stories. India is still in the grip of the worst heat wave in human history, and the death toll has reached the many tens of thousands. In addition to the dead and dying, doctors, hospitals, and public health officials are grappling with hundreds of thousands of cases of heat delirium, a syndrome characterized by hallucinations, seizures, and suicidal and homicidal impulses. The footage from the subcontinent is horrifying and profoundly disturbing to Erica. She decides then and there that the next Spotlight will focus on climate change. She owes it to Jenny.

  Jenny. There are so many dangers out there—she needs to speak to her, to warn her to be careful, to not speak to strangers. She calls her.

  “Hi, honey, how are things going?” Erica says, trying not to let her anxiety color her voice.

  Jenny giggles. That’s odd. She’s not a giggler. “Going great. Everything’s cool.” Hip-hop music is playing in the background.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, just hanging out
.” More giggles.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just at my friend Julie’s house now. She has a pool.”

  “I haven’t heard you mention her before. What do her parents do?”

  Jenny starts to laugh. “What do her parents do? What is this, an investigative report? . . . Julie, my parent wants to know what your parents do.” Now both girls are laughing.

  Erica has a jolting realization: they’re on pot. She stands up and starts to pace. She can’t get into a confrontation or make an accusation without proof.

  “Jenny, listen to me for a minute,” she says in her most serious voice.

  Jenny goes quiet for a moment and then asks, “What’s up, Mom?”

  “I want you to be very careful. About where you go. Who you talk to. Never ever talk to a stranger. Be on the alert. Will you promise me you’ll do that?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “And the bullying has stopped?”

  “I don’t need Beth and her stupid friends anymore,” Jenny says. Then she giggles again. Then the music is turned up.

  “I gotta go, Mom.”

  “Be careful. I love you.”

  After hanging up, Erica goes to Jenny’s Instagram feed. The most recent pictures show her by a pool with a group of friends, boys and girls, laughing, looking goofy and bleary-eyed. Stoned.

  She dials Dirk’s number and then hangs up before it rings. She doesn’t want to overreact. Every kid smokes a little pot these days, right? Still, it freaks her out. There’s so much addiction in the family. It can start with pot, it does start with pot. It can end with pot too. Look at Susan and the morning joint she sucked down almost every day of Erica’s childhood. Jenny may well be drinking, too, for all Erica knows. And pills. Now her imagination is running away with her. She feels at a loss, at sea, a mother without a clue. She’ll call Dirk later and discuss it, when she’s calmed down.

  She sits back down at her desk just in time to see Leslie Burke Wilson stride into the studio.

  “Erica!”