day of 9 May Braden and Sheldon had made their peace and were once again fast friends. Sheldon, in a rare turn-around had even come to her room one afternoon and apologized. They actually talked for more than an hour. Talked! Not yelled, not talked at, but to each other. In the end, they both realized that their sibling war was over. What would have grown between brother and sister, as with what, if any future she and Braden might have had, Lauren would never know.
What she did know was that since May 9th she would never again allow anyone to call her Candy O.
The infiltration was accomplished in a matter of weeks. The open border between Canada and the U.S. made this procedure relativity simple. Years of cached arms are unearthed, oiled and made ready. Civilian clothes are exchanged for military fatigues, and weapons distributed. Curt orders issued as each man finds his unit. Speeches are unnecessary. Those took place up to two years earlier in the depths of the Motherland. Even the comradely renewal of friendships takes place with little more than a motion of acknowledgement. A nod, the silent handshake, a wink is all that most permit themselves. All seven thousand men realize that the borrowed time they have lived on since arriving in North America is running out. Their uniforms and weapons show clear relation to their country of origin.
None know, as they board the thirty-two trailers that will take them the twenty- eight miles to and across the border, that the promised massive nuclear attack by their Motherland will not be forth coming. There was never any serious intention to do so. Instead, they have been betrayed to the American military as renegades. To their masters they are. An uncontrollable right wing faction whose excessive patriotism could not be reconciled by either appeals to honor or direct orders. The old political order had done its job all too well. Inculcating young men and women with the righteousness of a bankrupt philosophy forced the newer, more enlightened order to walk a tight rope between the internal appeasement of a rabid nationalistic military, and the promised economic reforms demanded by the general population.
But the exact betrayal by their revered motherland only occurred within the past twenty minutes and the group's exact objective was not disclosed. Old feelings die-hard. Even the most liberal of the reformers still grew up under the old system. No matter how much the new order complies with the people's desire for a consumer economy, no matter how deep the secret greed of their imagined coffers they eagerly await to plumb, the new masters still realize that their revised international status places them firmly in the back seat of an economic transport driven by the United States. While the new order certainly wishes no direct confrontation with U.S. authorities, the now classified renegades are still 'their boys.' Warning the Americans leadership of the impeding attack was surely enough to avert most suspicion they might entertain. Feigning ignorance of its exact location would be the very least they could do for their brave men whose only crime of obstinacy to the new political reality would cost them their lives. Plus, let it serve as a warning to the 'winner' that their former foe still is worthy to sit at the international grown ups table, maybe not as equal as before, but still not to be ignored as a second rate trifle either.
Their own intelligence analysts had estimated (correctly) the time it would take and the locations the U.S. satellite intelligence assets would monitor for the incursion. Starting at both coasts would afford the "Group Ecuador," the time needed to cross the border at Montana and raise what hell they could before they were slaughtered. The prima facie embarrassment was, considering the degree of courting the West had lately invested in the Motherland, an acceptable trade off.
Lauren was already drawing the bulk of the crowd toward her electric motor tour bus. Lloyd Foster's bus, parked more toward the entrance now begun to attract the overflow. Lloyd's sturdy 6'2 frame is as much a beacon to the crowd as Lauren's comely smile. Friendly, there is nonetheless a distance about him that deflects many, especially young girls with flirting on their mind, like rank body odor. Lloyd's charges are therefore mostly male. Men and their sons who wish to see what they consider a real hero. Some are younger men who come to mentally compare their mettle to the man in front of them. These try jealously to divine what qualities make a hero and in some measure, inculcate their discoveries into their own make up. Most walk away disappointed.
Lloyd and Lauren represented two of the three surviving seniors from the HTS class of '22. The third, Rhoda Delcum, formerly a patient on the 5th floor of the Dorsey Health Center in Helena some 500 miles away, had died earlier that year. They had become engaged Christmas of '21, with Lloyd presenting her a half-karat solitaire. He argued with her parents, insisting Rhoda be allowed to keep it until Mr. Delcum took him aside. He explained to Lloyd that Rhoda's physician thought it best to return her jewelry until the crisis passed. Lloyd responded that she would think he'd abandon her. The argument was settled when her dad, voice breaking, said that he thought well of Lloyd and had looked forward to having him in the family. But as far as what Rhoda thought, "Look son, she loved you when she was with us, but now! Now it's doubtful whether Rhoda will ever be with us again."
There had been other visits to her parents. But it soon became apparent to Lloyd that with the Federal Government stepping in with the offer of supplying the best medical care possible as well as footing the bill, the Delcums wished to move quickly to the status of being the grieving parents of a martyred hero.
The attention, especially for Andrea Delcum now that acceptance was replacing shock, was alluring. She was quite aware that the local notice she received was tainted. Herbert Delcum's womanizing, already the stuff of legend, had guaranteed the local wags a comfortable supply of gossip from which they had fed on for years. The mixture of genuine sympathy for Rhoda with the pity cum laughter she imagined in their eyes equaled a potion that Andrea could not bear to drink. Even her own attempts at playing Herb's game were ham-handed failures, forcing her to conclude that she wasn't much of a flirt nor possessed (as Herb's dalliances constantly reminded her) much natural proclivity toward sex.
Her daughter at that time was, according to the doctors, gone probably never to return. Even now Andrea could not suppress that twinge of jealousy that had grown steadily since Rhoda's junior year. Even if local college were to be Rhoda's lot, she would at least be free. Young and free to explore and experience life just like Andrea had before she had made what was amounting to the greatest mistake of her life – meeting and marrying Herb. Even her engagement to that Foster boy evoked envy in her so great that at times it took all her strength not to scream.
In such a contaminated environment, what Andrea wanted most was revenge: a divorce that separated Herb from half of his worldly goods. Well, now that was quick and doable, as one of her erstwhile lovers, a divorce lawyer, had assured her. But for the locals she had to do something big. Something so large that, once she divested herself of Herb the Philander, she could show them her backside and they would know that it was meant for all of them, real personal like. What had happened at Schonefield and Rhoda's subsequent fate gave her a gift straight from a Greek tragedy - the national spotlight!
In Andrea Delcum's heart of hearts she wanted to care less what some hick from Podunk, Idaho watching the Morris Melton Show thought of her, good or bad. The fact was that Herb had absolutely refused to allow her to accept any of the repeated invitations to appear on the show. "My God Andrea, are you totally insane?" he had shouted after first making sure that they were out of earshot of their sympathetic neighbors. Sympathy, which, in Herb Delcum's mind, was becoming a real nuisance since it forced him to rapidly dismantle several regional affairs he had been enjoying for years. "You actually want to sit next to some woman claiming to be the illegitimate offspring of Ben Affleck, and who now is carrying his grandbaby fathered by Bigfoot?"
Her acquiescence was tempered with the secret knowledge that very soon, his input in her life would consist of one thing only: money. A call to the divorce lawyer, who she had first met some months before Schonefield would become a household name throughout th
e country, in an out of the way roadside bar some thirty miles away, was very friendly. Naturally, she knew his motivations had nothing to do with any displayed abilities on her part during their one and only tryst. The obligatory compliments done, he moved in for the kill. Once he was satisfied that smooth talking along the lines of 'I was just thinking about how great we were together' wasn't going to pan, he changed tack becoming the consummate professional. Was the grieving Mrs. Delcum still interested in becoming the former Mrs. Delcum? If she was, she only need give the word.
Without hesitation the word was given.
He went on to inform her that his myriad talents included entertainment law. If she were interested in representation in that arena he would be honored to advise her. And, oh! By the way, he was sorry to hear about her daughter's tragedy, and prayed every night for her speedy recovery, but back to this entertainment law business. If she was interested, all she had to do was once again give the word, and she would be well on her way to quite a tidy sum of cash. Give the word and while he was drawing up the divorce papers he
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