Age of Survival Series | Book 3 | Age of Revival

by Holden, J. J.

  The jury was sitting to Prange’s right, six people in folding chairs all lined up. He noticed that none of them had notebooks or anything to write on. He wasn’t surprised. They were unlikely to do a lot of deliberation, so they felt no need to jot down any key points. Jury selection had taken quite a bit of time, mostly because he’d enjoyed the chance to be out of his cell, so he’d had Berkman ask unnecessary questions and throw up pointless challenges until Father Keller hit a critical mass of annoyance and shut it down.

  The opening argument was pretty much what Prange expected it to be. A lot of bombast and playing up to the jury, stopping just short of saying the prosecution’s case was so undeniable that they might as well just declare him guilty right there, on the spot.

  Unfortunately, Oleson made it abundantly clear why Grossman was mayor and he wasn’t. He could write a decent speech, but his delivery was flat-footed, clumsy, and slightly less interesting than watching grass die. Prange was pretty sure that one of his most socially awkward guys could fire up a crowd better than Oleson. More than once, he saw jurors looking like they just wanted him to get on with it.

  In contrast, Berkman’s remarks were clean and direct. She hammered hard on the fact that the town did voluntarily give control to Prange, that he had issued an arrest order for Grossman, and that while trying to execute it, his men had come under attack. While she also wasn’t a great orator, her simpler argument fit her delivery much better, and the jury seemed much less disinterested.

  When she finished and sat down, he thanked her.

  She responded with a non-committal grunt.

  Oleson brought up one witness, who was absolutely sure that Prange’s men had fired first on the day in question. He presented a good story about how he was watching two of Prange’s men moving across town toward The Duck Blind, when they caught sight of three men armed and wearing red cloth strips around their arms and ankles. The man was very specific that they fired before challenging the men, and that from there, he heard additional firefights springing up all over town.

  Berkman did her best to poke holes in the account, but it was quite well rehearsed. Whoever this guy was, he was good. Prange wondered whether he was just unusually composed, or whether he’d had some sort of job where he had to hold to a party line. Either way, the jury clearly didn’t buy anything Berkman was trying to do. They were completely convinced.

  When she returned to the table afterward and Oleson called up his next witness, Prange leaned over. “How many of these do you think he has?”

  She glanced at a paper in front of her. “He’s planning on fifteen witnesses to attest that your men fired the first shots.”

  “Well, let’s just save everybody some time. Let’s concede that my men fired first, but it was in response to armed people moving about despite curfews and orders to not carry in public. That first guy was very, very clear that even though my men had fired first, it was on people who were carrying, who were making their allegiance to a wanted criminal known, and under the circumstances, presented a fully legitimate threat to my men’s lives.”

  “If that’s the route you want to take,” she said.

  “Yes. I’d much rather not spend my last day on earth watching a bad remix of a courtroom drama and Groundhog Day.”

  “Very well,” she said, and asked permission to approach the bench. After a quick conference between her, Oleson, and the judge, the jury was told that fourteen other witnesses were going to give essentially equivalent testimony and that the defense was choosing not to dispute it.

  When she returned to the table, she said, “Well, you’re now relying completely on the argument that you had issued a legal arrest order, and that your men were genuinely in fear for their lives, so it was indeed self-defense for them to fire first.”

  Prange just shrugged his shoulders. “Pretty much.”

  Berkman sighed in exasperation. “Even though you pled guilty to being a complete fraud? I can’t even argue that despite your deception, we’d legitimately handed power to you, because you just took it.”

  “You didn’t resist, either,” Prange said.

  “Are you two ready to proceed?” the judge asked.

  “One moment, please, your honor,” Berkman said. She turned back to Prange. “We didn’t resist you because we thought you were legitimately from the state government. You had decent credentials, and what looked like actual National Guard troops with you. What were we supposed to do? Tell you no when you had troops with you? Demand some confirmation from Madison?”

  Keller banged a gavel.

  “Make something work,” Prange told Berkman.

  “It’s still his turn,” she told Prange, gesturing toward Oleson. “We’re ready to proceed, your honor.”

  Oleson called Prange as his next witness. Once Prange was sworn in, he asked a question. “Do you now, or have you ever worked for the State of Wisconsin?”

  “No.”

  “Who was your employer as of the presumed EMP attack?”

  “I worked as an independent contractor in manufacturing and logistics.”

  “Was your product legal to manufacture, possess, or consume in Wisconsin?” Oleson asked.

  “Objection, your honor,” Berkman said. “This is not relevant.”

  “The legality of his employment and of those working with him when they arrived in town is,” Oleson said. “It provides context for Mr. Prange’s deception.”

  “I agree. Overruled,” the judge said.

  “You still have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer,” Berkman told Prange.

  “It’s fine,” Prange said. “Some of the agricultural products are legal at a state level in neighboring jurisdictions, but not at the federal level. The manufactured product is not legal anywhere in the United States.”

  Oleson spun on his heel and walked back to his table, saying, “Nothing further,” over his shoulder. Prange was sure he meant it to be dramatic, but it was way too clumsy.

  “So, I’m done?” Prange asked.

  “Your counsel may cross examine,” the judge said.

  Prange stood up. “No need. I’m sure you are all busy people with better things to do than sit here all day.”

  “Well,” the judge said, looking a little non-plussed. “Do you have any more witnesses?” he asked Oleson.

  “None.”

  “Us either,” Prange said.

  “Closing arguments?” the judge asked.

  He got the same responses from Oleson and Prange.

  “Very well, then. The jury is dismissed to deliberate. Remember that your task is to provide a unanimous verdict on guilt or innocence, and then to recommend a sentence. Since the town board has declared homicide to be a capital offense during the State of Emergency, that option is available. I should caution you that it is also an option that should only be recommended after careful and sober consideration of the sacredness of human life.”

  Prange remembered the old urban legend that there were no clocks in any Las Vegas casino, because it would mess with your sense of time and make you forget how long you’d been gambling. He kind of felt the same in a room without any clocks, and with the mayor being the only person he could see wearing a wristwatch. He didn’t know when the jury had gone into deliberation. He didn’t know how long they’d been in there. With Berkman not interested in conversation, he had nothing to pass the time except reading the notes she’d prepared for him that he’d chosen not to use.

  He was kind of surprised the jury had been out long enough for him to let his mind wander that far. They certainly weren’t trying to figure out whether they thought he was guilty or not. Did they actually take the judge’s advice and decide to have a careful and sober conversation about whether to sentence him to the big one? Or were they maybe just hanging out for a little while to make it seem like they were actually thinking about things? Maybe they just wanted to mess with him.

  Prange had started dozing off in his chair when he heard a door open.

/>   The jury filed in and handed Davis a letter that he then gave to the judge. Father Keller took out a pair of reading glasses and unfolded the paper.

  “Daniel Prange. The jury finds you guilty on all counts and recommends a sentence of death for the conspiracy to commit murder of seventeen citizens of the town of Bowman.” He paused and took off his glasses. “I concur with the verdict and will consider the sentencing recommendations of the jury. We will reconvene tomorrow at nine for formal sentencing.”

  “Why not just confirm it right now?” Prange asked.

  The old priest fixed him with a hard glare. “I need time to separate my own personal feelings from my duty as the judge in this case. My decision needs to be made solely with the good of the community in mind, and without any emotional interference rooted in the number of my parishioners and neighbors I’ve buried over the past few days.”

  An idea suddenly occurred to Prange. “If I may make one argument for clemency, your honor?”

  “Go ahead, but make it brief. As you, yourself, so helpfully reminded us, we all have better things to do today.”

  “I imagine that some of my former associates are on their way to retrieve me. I know that one of my men escaped, so I’m optimistic that, by now, my superiors have gotten word that I am alive. If I am released and can show that I actually have been treated well, care for my wounds and all that, I could convince them that there’s no need to bother you all anymore. Think of me as a peace offering. A human olive branch, if you will.” Beside him, he heard Berkman scoff under her breath at the idea. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” he whispered to her.

  “My job was to provide trial defense, and you blew that off. Far as I’m concerned, you’re on your own from here,” she said, getting up and walking away.

  “I will take this into consideration.” The judge looked at Davis. “Chief, please return Mr. Prange to his cell.”

  17

  It was early afternoon when Peter took Chuck and Sally down the ridge to the field where they’d had their fight with Carter’s men. Two full days had passed. They figured that any wounded would have left the area instead of just hanging out to ambush them in case they came back.

  That didn’t mean they weren’t cautious; they moved slowly and very deliberately.

  “Remember,” Peter said, “if our bags are still there, we’re going to grab them and go. No wasting time.”

  “Got it,” Chuck said. With Larry off duty while he recovered a bit, and with them keeping an extra person on patrol at all times, Peter couldn’t go down with the four-person crew he’d had the first time. Chuck, being big and powerfully built, was a natural choice. He could easily haul two persons’ worth of produce back up the hill. Bill would have been Peter’s first choice, but of everybody at the homestead, he was the best at bushcraft and hunting. He would have been a great help in a run down toward the highway, but he was also needed up top to keep silent watch over the approaches to the property.

  Irene would have been great as well. She had been a landscaper and had always done physical jobs, but she wasn’t willing to get too far from Larry so soon after he’d been shot. That left either Sally or his mother as his third, and between the two, Sally was better at moving quietly in the woods. She was a hunter, like her husband, and had a natural ease following game trails or moving cross-country with minimal disruption to her immediate environment.

  When they finally dared to step out from the cover of the trees and onto the edge of the farm field, they saw that the bags of potatoes, wheat, and vegetables had been hung from low tree branches to keep them off the ground. A note inside a plastic bag was sticking out of one of the ruck pockets.

  Peter carefully lifted the bag out and unfolded the note.

  Fellow Free People,

  We hope you don’t mind the bit of assistance we offered up. We have no interest in having them in the area, either. Apologies for crossing our agreed-upon boundary, both with bullets and also to check on the two that did not leave the property with their companions.

  Both that were on your south approach were KIA and have been buried in some fallow land. We allowed the invaders to carry one other off when they retreated to their trucks. We would have done more, but there were only two of us in the area, and we weren’t sure they wouldn’t come after us if we gave away our position.

  We are sorry to have missed our meeting with you in town yesterday. We hope it is not because of an unfortunate loss you’d suffered down here.

  Stay strong, friends.

  “Shit,” Peter said, showing the letter to his mates.

  “And you were even down there to get Thorssen,” Sally said.

  “Yeah. I was so focused on getting Larry checked out, it completely slipped my mind.”

  “Seems like they understand,” Chuck said. “We should probably get a message out to them soon, though. See if we can’t set up another get together.”

  Peter pulled a pen out of his pocket and started writing on the back of the note. He composed an apology for having missed them, and an offer to try again two days later, when he was planning a regular trip down to Bowman anyway.

  “Let’s get this hauled back up,” Peter said. “Even if our friends made sure things were secure down here, I’m just not comfortable loitering down in this field right now.”

  “Plenty of work to do up top, too,” Chuck said. “Start processing this and getting back on our inspection of the property.”

  “Exactly,” Sally said. Peter saw the way she was looking at that bag of sweet corn and knew that she couldn’t wait to get some of it on a grill either.

  After dropping their bags in the kitchen, Peter and Chuck rounded up Irene and Bill and started a tour of the property. Half of it was a four-person patrol, half was a good look at each of their defensive positions to give them all another critical eye. Irene was most interested in seeing how any transplanted turf or ground cover was doing, making sure it was still camouflaging the positions when viewed from off the property. Bill and Peter both checked their fields of fire, trying to identify any dead spots downrange where an intruder might have cover or concealment to approach. Chuck did the grunt work of walking out to see how far out invaders could be seen from the fighting positions, or running back to the shed for some of the alarms and traps they’d been building over the past several days.

  Alarms made up most of the supply, as they were easier to make and the consequences of screwing up were much less severe. Some were as simple as old tin cans filled with gravel and attached to fish line so they could be strung up over game trails or in dead zones.

  The homestead had some black powder, both for a few muzzleloaders they had and for reloading cartridges. Peter would have liked to have made more explosive traps and mines, but Bill and Sally had both made good arguments for reserving the powder for firearms. Their point was that they were more likely to lose a whole lot of powder on an animal than on an intruder. Better to invest the powder in aimed shots than leaving it up to chance.

  There were some highly volatile concoctions they were able to mix up, but nobody felt truly comfortable working with them. Art had instructions printed out, but he’d always impressed upon Peter that homemade explosives were touchy and temperamental, and as likely to kill their maker as they were to fail.

  The one mix that seemed least frightening to people was a homemade napalm, and even that they were reluctant to deploy, lest a trap get tripped on a dry day and start an uncontrolled fire. With Carter having been seen in the area, and the days being cool and still damp off and on, it seemed like an acceptable risk to put some out for a while.

  The whole time, Peter could smell fresh vegetables cooking. As he and his partners circled the property, it became harder to keep giving each position the attention it deserved. Finally, they reached the end and it was time for a shift change.

  “How you holding up, Larry?” Peter asked, seeing his friend at the dining room table.

  “Much better since you guys
went down and made this all worthwhile.” He gingerly touched his shoulder near the wad of bandages covering his bullet wound.

  “Would have sucked if we’d just left it to rot in the field,” Chuck said.

  “Yeah. I hear the score for the day was Homestead three, Dipshits one, huh?”

  “Pretty much,” Peter said. “Those of us able to reach that far shouldn’t be patting ourselves on the back, though.” He smiled at Larry, who had flipped him the bird. “We still got lucky in Bill catching sight of them coming at us, and also with our allies south of the highway having somebody close enough to lend a hand. We got a little jump on them, and two of theirs were surprised by a rear attack.”

  “They were advancing smart, too,” Bill said. “Same techniques we’d be using. Without the added pressure from the south, they might have gotten a lot closer in, done more damage to us.”

  “And they abandoned the attack as well,” Irene said. “At some point, they just stopped following.”

  Larry leaned forward. “We saw them pull back to their truck, where they had more men. We only took half the force they had available.”

  “I think they weren’t expecting us to have prepared as well as we had,” Peter added. “We probably looked like easy targets out in the field, but we were smart enough to have first picked an escape route and made a couple hasty positions. I think our defensive ability took them by surprise.” He sat down with his plate. “The house is a static location. If they locate it, and they’re careful, they’ll be able to scout it out, figure out where we’ve got our defenses set, and make a solid plan. We saw, what, eight total get on those trucks? With Larry temporarily out of commission, that gives them a slight advantage in numbers, but we’ve got the fortifications. We should work under the assumption that they can get more men, so they have the capacity to hit us in numbers.”

  With that sobering thought, everybody around the table ate in silence for a while.