Rescue: Book 3 in the After the Fall series

by David Nees

  “We get to warring,” Clayton said. “We maybe have to go back to the mountains.”

  “You don’t want it to come to that. No one does,” Rodney said.

  The conversation went on until the women came into the room. Their presence expanded the scope of conversation to daily living and the efforts to restore the pieces of modern society: schools, medical care, power, sanitation. The children growing up in the post EMP world would not know of a different one; children like Jason and Anne’s son, Adam. Most adults wanted to be sure they learned what the United States had been and, therefore, what it could be again.

  “Speaking of children,” Jason said. “When are you and Catherine going to start a family?”

  “We’re working on it,” Kevin replied with a shy grin.

  “Enough said. To think we’ll be grandparents.” He beamed at Anne. “We’re not that old.”

  “It will be different. Their baby will have an uncle barely older than themselves,” Anne said.

  “Odd times for sure,” Mary said.

  The rest of the week brought no news regarding Knoxville and the worry began to settle down in everyone’s mind. Jason and Anne started talking about whether to move back to their farm in Hidden Valley. Only Tom and Betty Walsh, along with Claire Nolan still lived there. Tom and Betty helped Claire who had lost her husband, Andy, in the battle with Big Jacks and was getting a bit frail. The Sands had moved with their daughter to Hillsboro before the revolt. John was now helping with rebuilding projects in town.

  Both Jason and Anne loved the valley, but it was now much more isolated. Sarah was seventeen and would not want to move back. She liked the increased interaction with people in the city and had found friends her age. Plus, she got to see her boyfriend, Tommy Wilkes, someone who Jason and Anne figured would be a son-in-law someday. The better education opportunities for Adam in town also played a big part in their considerations.

  Ten days after they had returned, the guards at the northwest gate stopped a Humvee flying two flags. One representing the City of Knoxville and the other plain white.

  A man got out of the back and introduced himself as Phillip Cordell, Administrative Assistant to Tom Horner, the Chairman of Knoxville. He said he had come to talk to Hillsboro’s mayor, whoever that might be, about a transgression on the part of one of the town’s citizens.

  The vehicle was escorted to City Hall.

  Phillip Cordell was brought into the mayor’s office and introduced to Steve Warner.

  “You’re the mayor?” Cordell asked as he shook Steve’s hand.

  “Acting mayor. I’m filling in since the position became vacated.”

  “Who was the previous mayor?”

  “Not important,” Steve said, trying to avoid any interrogation. He had been told Phillip was from Knoxville and he didn’t anticipate this was a goodwill visit.

  “You have the authority of a fully elected mayor? I ask because one doesn’t know exactly how cities are organized these days.”

  “Indeed.” Steve gestured to a chair. “Please sit down. Can I get you something to drink? We have a small amount of whiskey left and water.”

  Cordell shook his head. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Steve sat back in his chair and tried to look relaxed. “What brings you this long way?”

  “We had an incident recently. I think you may already know about it. We were holding two men from Hillsboro, who had broken our laws. Two men from your town infiltrated our city, kidnapped our Chairman, terrorized his secretary and the office guard, and broke the two prisoners free. I set up an expensive and time-consuming chase to rescue our mayor and recover the fugitives. That resulted in the deaths of twelve men from our militia. All killed by those four men.”

  Steve just sat there stony-faced. His hands clenched in tight fists below his desk. Cordell sat across from him, waiting, staring at him. He had one eyebrow raised in a dramatic questioning gesture. Finally, he spoke again.

  “I’m sure you are aware of what I am talking about. I came a long way to discuss this outrage with you and what we can agree to do about it.”

  “Mr. Cordell,” Steve began. His mind was racing. He had hoped this day wouldn’t come and he hadn’t prepared any rebuttal in advance. “Your premise seems to be off base, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to respond. We received a ransom demand. A person from Knoxville delivered it. It was for one hundred pounds of gold. You realize that kidnapping and holding someone for ransom is against the law. Against city, state and federal law. It looks to me like you, or someone in your city was the perpetrator of a crime. We sent a team to rescue our hostages from a kidnapping.”

  Steve leaned forward. “Now what do you want to talk about?”

  Cordell smiled. He was not shaken by Steve’s response. “I think you may have misunderstood the message. Couriers are not the most efficient method of communication. We were asking for the payment in order to pay the fines for the two men we were holding.”

  “The fines were for exactly what crimes?”

  Cordell took some papers out of his pocket and placed them on the desk.

  “Here are arrest warrants for a Jason and Clayton, last names unknown, and the two prisoners.” He shoved the papers across the desk. “As you can see, they’re signed by a judge. You are obliged to honor these orders. I’m here to return the men to stand trial.”

  He sat back with a slight smile on his face. “The warrants list their crimes. The men we arrested trespassed into the city without registering at an entrance gate. They attempted to elude discovery to avoid proper registration, and they refused to pay the transit fees we charge for people to pass through our jurisdiction on the interstate.”

  “The federal interstate highway?”

  “The very same…that runs through the city, inside the city limits, over which we have jurisdiction since there seems to be no federal government.” Cordell continued, “Jason and Clayton committed kidnapping, assault, threats of bodily harm to multiple people, committing a felony with an unregistered weapon, and,” he paused for effect, “murder.”

  “I see the document and I hear what you’re saying but I go back to the origin of these actions. Contrary to what you state, there was no confusion in the courier’s message. Your man was quite clear in his demands. I doubt he made that up or distorted a message about paying a fine for some minor infractions into a demand for a ransom.”

  “So, you don’t believe me?”

  Steve smiled. “Mr. Cordell, I’m finding it hard to accept your story.”

  “And you don’t want to honor these legal arrest warrants?”

  “Considering the circumstances, I don’t think I can.”

  “Perhaps I should speak to our courier, to help clear things up.”

  “I don’t think that can be arranged at this point. It could be interpreted as you trying to manipulate your courier’s statement to align with yours.”

  Phillip Cordell sat there for a moment. Steve could see he remained calm. The man seemed to be an experienced negotiator, a good choice for an assistant to a tyrant.

  “There is a requirement for you to honor legal arrest warrants. Are you putting Hillsboro above the law?”

  “I’m not a lawyer, just an electrician. But from what I know, there is no state government and maybe no federal one as well. You’re aware of that reality. So what we have are two cities, city states if you will, each sovereign, with no current treaties between them.” Now Steve paused for effect. “From what I see, this arrest warrant is based on a flawed premise and I doubt our citizens could get a fair trial in such a case.”

  “Let me get to the crux of things,” Phillip said. “If you pay a reduced fine and turn over the man or men responsible for shooting our militia, we’ll drop the issue.”

  “I can’t do that. I only have your word for the shooting and if it is so, there’s a good possibility they were acting in self-defense.”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “
It’s what I heard.”

  “You didn’t get a report when they got back? You didn’t get debriefed on this supposed rescue? I’m surprised.”

  “What happens here is the town’s business and not yours. I find your request not valid and in conflict with the facts as I know them. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

  He started to rise. Phillip held out his hand to stop him. Steve stopped and sat back down. As soon as he did, he was angry with himself. The gesture and his response gave Cordell more authority over the meeting than the man should have had.

  “Do me the courtesy of letting me bring my proposal to your council. I assume you have a town council?”

  “We do. But I’m not going to let you have the floor at a council meeting.” He paused for a moment to think. “I can call a meeting to present your demands, but that’s the best I can do.”

  Cordell sighed. “At least do me the courtesy of being able to attend the meeting, even if you won’t let me speak on my behalf.”

  Steve stood again. This time all the way. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  He led Cordell out of the office and grabbed one of his staffers.

  “Escort Mr. Cordell to the hotel and set up two rooms for him and his escorts.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “They are not to leave the hotel. Arrange to have a dinner and breakfast tomorrow brought to the hotel.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Steve turned to Cordell, “I’ll try to get the council together on short notice. I assume you don’t want to spend much time in our city.”

  Steve shook his hand and watched as the man departed. He had an ominous feeling about where events would go from here.

  Chapter 35

  ___________________________________

  I t took some effort, but Steve managed to round up the nine members of the council to meet the next day at noon. There was much talking going on among the members when he walked up to take his seat on the dais. He looked around and was glad to see that Kevin had been able to recall Catherine so she could attend.

  Kevin, as Police Chief, had seen the arrest warrants. He had gone over them with Charlie Cook who pronounced them reasonably correct. Charlie was not on the council but was in attendance in the audience. There was a smattering of citizens at the meeting. Steve guessed some of the council members had contacted them to attend. He could see some of Raymond Culver’s support sitting there.

  Steve opened the meeting with a recap of Phillip Cordell’s visit the prior day and the existence of the arrest warrants. He explained his doubt about the story given him by Cordell, noting the courier had presented a far different story with a clear demand for ransom. It was hard to think the courier had been confused regarding his instructions and his message. Because of this discrepancy Steve thought the arrest warrants should not be honored. It looked like another attempt to extort money from Hillsboro with the addition of turning over their citizens to what would not be a proper trial.

  When he finished, a cacophony of voices broke out with everyone, both on the dais and in the audience talking at once. Anne gripped Jason’s arm tightly. Jason sat there, grim-faced. Steve pounded his gavel until he got the room under control.

  “The audience will not speak. This is a council meeting. You may only speak if I agree to it and call on you. Council members,” he said, looking both right and left, “you will all have time to make any points you want. But you must wait until recognized. We will have order in this chamber.”

  Hands shot up. Steve recognized Kevin first. He hoped he would put this issue into its proper context.

  “The courier’s demands were independently corroborated by various council members other than myself. We all came to the same conclusion. Rodney Gibbs and Billy Turner had been captured and were being held for ransom. One hundred pounds of gold. Let no one here doubt that was the reality we faced—”

  “And Jason abused that courier. Cut off his finger,” one of the council members shouted.

  “And he stepped down as mayor for that,” Kevin responded as Steve pounded his gavel again to get order.

  “If I may continue,” Kevin said. Steve nodded to him. “I viewed the arrest warrant. It is unprecedented and not easily dealt with since we have no state government and no federal presence. In addition, Knoxville is in a different state.”

  “What’s your bottom line,” someone from the audience called out.

  “Silence!” said Steve in a loud voice. “I see you. Another outburst and I’ll have you thrown out of the meeting.”

  The man scowled but didn’t respond.

  “My bottom line is this. First, Cordell’s story conflicts with what we know are the facts presented to us. It represents a reinterpretation of events to put Knoxville in a good light. Second, there is no precedent for this action even if it were legitimate. We’d have to sign a treaty with Knoxville that established such things. Because of these two points, we cannot give in to the man’s demands.”

  There were murmurs of both support and dissent as Steve gaveled for quiet.

  Other council members got their turn to speak. Bob Jackson, the man who had led the effort to restore the water mill to provide electric power, spoke in support of Kevin’s position. Others were on the fence. Dr. Morgan asked about consequences.

  “I’m not in favor of bloodshed, battles between cities,” she said. “We just got through that horror when removing Stansky. I get to see the ugly backside of all that fighting. It’s not pretty and made worse by our limited medical supplies. We need to consider the consequences of saying no to this man.

  “What would you have us do?” Steve asked.

  Dr. Morgan paused. She liked Jason. She knew he was the catalyst that freed the city, that he was the one who, along with Kevin, had directed the fighting to defeat Joe Stansky. Her face reflected her conflict.

  “I don’t know. I’m not in favor of turning Jason and the others over to Knoxville, but there must be another way beyond refusing all their demands. Maybe we could have a trial here where we could insure its fairness?”

  There were some snickers from the audience.

  “A middle ground for sure,” Steve said. “We should keep it in mind, but I doubt Mr. Cordell will go for that.”

  After more comments, Raymond Culver finally raised his hand and was recognized.

  “We all owe a debt of gratitude to Jason and all the others who fought to free Hillsboro from Stansky’s tyranny. We are the better for it.”

  Steve waited for the “but” that usually accompanied Raymond’s friendly comments.

  “This situation, however, cannot be dealt with by simply saying we must defend Jason and the others at the peril of our city.” He began to warm to his topic.

  “It seems to me that Jason is a fighter and prone to impetuous behavior. Some would say dangerous behavior. We know he abused the courier against all norms of decency and civilized behavior. He acted like the gangster we recently displaced.

  “Then he convinced the council to not pay the ransom demand and set off with his cohort in arms to wage a personal war on Knoxville because they detained two of his friends.” He paused for a moment. “And he did this with the support of some people we put a lot of trust in.” Raymond now was looking directly at Kevin.

  “If we had not followed his direction, the two men would have resumed their journey and Knoxville would not be knocking on our door with arrest warrants and possible threats. We would be at peace with no crisis and left alone to continue our rebuilding.

  He now stood as the room silently stared at him. “We have to put this aside. We cannot follow this out-of-control fighter who steps on civil rights and resorts to violence to solve problems.” He pounded his fist on the dais. “We have to turn him over to the Knoxville authorities for his unlawful actions in their city. Actions which only bring discredit to Hillsboro. I don’t want us to be led down a violent path by this man who has lost any moral authority to lead this city. He cannot dictate Hillsboro
’s policy by…his words…or his actions.”

  He sat down. There was a smattering of applause but the room remained mostly silent.

  “Jason,” Steve said, “since you are the focus of this discussion, would you like to say something on your behalf?”

  Jason didn’t answer for a moment. He looked forward, his eyes focused on the wall behind the dais. The town’s shield and motto were there, “Honor omnia”, honor in all things. Slowly he stood.

  “I seem to be more than the focus of this discussion,” he began quietly, “I seem to be on trial without a court or judge.”

  “You’re not on trial,” Steve assured him. Jason didn’t acknowledge his remark.

  “The town’s motto, on the wall behind you council members, translates into ‘honor in all things’, or ‘honor above all’. That is how I have tried to live my life. I don’t apologize for what I did to the courier. I felt I needed to do it for the sake of Rodney and Billy. However, I realized after that action, I could no longer officially lead the city. I shouldn’t lead it anyway even though I helped free everyone. All of you.”

  He stopped to look at all the citizens who were now on the council and then turned to look over those in the audience.

  “You, collectively, let a gangster take over this city. I saw it in the months after the EMP attack. I had a business in this city. I contributed to its taxes and its civic affairs. I left that after the attack and set out on my own. Should I have stayed and fought it? Who knows? What I do know is that no one else did. Everyone was content to let the gangster take over and run the town as long as he kept you safe. Trading off your freedom for security.

  “It looks like you’re about to do it again. If you bow to Knoxville, like Raymond suggests, they won’t stop. There will be increasing demands to give over authority to them, to abide by their rules until you will have accepted another tyranny into your midst. Raymond Culver was comfortable with that. He made sure he had a comfortable position in the old tyranny and he will do so in the new one. He’s clever that way.”