Burning Nation

by Trent Reedy

  Herbokowitz sat back in his chair, took another drink, and stared up at the ceiling. “She woke up first on Christmas morning, of course. I flew out of bed after the loudest, most eardrum-splitting scream I’d ever heard. I got … got downstairs, and she was jumping around in her pajamas like a little frog. ‘Daddy, Daddy, look! Look! A horsey!’ she yelled over and over. I could hardly get her calmed down enough to even get on that horse. Once I did, she stayed in the saddle all day until she finally fell asleep.” Herbokowitz wiped his eyes. “She’s twelve now. I hope she’s okay.”

  We went on like that, talking about our great memories of Christmases past, until we all sank into silence, weighed down by the thought of all we’d lost.

  Finally, Herbokowitz clapped his hands. “Right! Now then, I know we all want to launch an attack against the Fed, but before we run out there, I think we ought to have a plan.”

  “What gun will I get?” TJ asked.

  “None,” I said.

  “What?” TJ said. “I just swore in. I should —”

  Sweeney closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Danny, I know you two haven’t always been the best of friends, but—”

  “It ain’t about that,” I said. “The Fed aren’t looking for you, TJ. You can go wherever you want around town without drawing suspicion. You can get into the school to see what they’re doing there. You risked a lot bringing these supplies here, and none of us could have pulled that off.”

  “You’re our spy.” Sparrow nodded.

  “Hey,” he said. “Maybe I haven’t been through training, but I’m not afraid to fight.”

  “Then you’re a dumbass, just like I always knew you were,” I said. “ ’Cause fighting the Fed is scary as hell.”

  “Travis, is it?” Kemp asked.

  He nodded. “You can call me TJ.”

  “Right. TJ, Wright’s plan makes a lot of sense. And it’s not about courage. In a lot of ways your job will be the most dangerous of all. The risk of getting caught will be a lot greater for you. You could really help —”

  “Okay, okay! Enough! I’ll do it,” TJ said.

  “And no doing stupid shit!” Cal said. “Any of us. It’s like all those old zombie movies and TV shows.” I exchanged a look with Sweeney, and we both laughed. “I’m serious,” said Cal. “People trying to survive a zombie apocalypse are always doing stupid shit! The humans have their camp set up, then one guy goes off by himself into the dark woods to investigate a weird noise or take a leak. What happens? Oh, surprise, you dumb son of a bitch, a zombie bit your dick off! Now that guy is going to scream and draw a bunch more zombies, or he’s going to crawl back to camp, bleeding out on the way so that he turns into a zombie and starts killing people. I mean why can’t—”

  “Right!” JoBell said, trying to hold back her laughter. “Rule number one. Nobody goes alone.”

  “Except me,” TJ said grimly.

  “Yeah, but that’s different,” said Kemp. “You’ll be mixing with civilians, and you’ll be just fine.”

  “This isn’t some dumb horror movie,” Sparrow said.

  “No,” I said. “But the idea is the same. If one of us goes off by himself, he has no one to look out for him or help him if he’s in trouble.”

  “Okay,” said Sergeant Kemp. “We’re agreed on rule number one.”

  “The other thing the idiots in those movies do is go around without guns,” said Sweeney. “They might be somewhere they think is safe, but the zombies have sneaked in somehow, and then they’re in all kinds of trouble that they could easily have solved” — he made like he was shooting a finger gun— “if they’d only remembered their weapon.”

  “ ‘If they only had a gun,’ ” Cal sang to the tune of “If I Only Had a Brain.”

  “That’s a pretty standard Army rule,” said Herbokowitz. “Rule number two. Never go unarmed. Anything else?”

  “Always post a guard,” I said. “In the human camps Cal’s talking about, lots of times everybody goes to sleep, or they’re all eating dinner or something, and nobody is keeping a lookout for trouble.”

  “Right!” said Luchen. “Then suddenly the zombies are all up in their shit, sneaking into their tent or camper or whatever, eating one guy at a time, and the group never figures it out until like half of them are dead.” Cal grinned and slapped Luchen on the shoulder.

  “Okay, rule number three,” said Kemp. “Always post a guard. Solid. Those are good ideas that will help us avoid most problems. I guess now it comes down to choosing targets for an op. What we’ll do first is recon. We go out in small groups and gather as much information about the Fed as we can. Watch for their routines. Do they ever leave their vehicles unguarded? Do they drive the same routes a lot? If so, we could bomb their vehicles or set up IEDs.”

  “We should also monitor the radio, both Fed and Idaho signals, to get as much information as we can,” I said. “I think there’s another old radio upstairs in the front office. I could bring that down so we could listen to both stations all the time.”

  “Right,” said Herbokowitz. “Crocker. Bagley. Monitoring the radio is your job.”

  “Yes, First Sergeant,” said Crocker. Bagley only studied his shoes.

  “Don’t worry, Bagley,” said Herbokowitz. “We’ll make sure you get some time out there. If we’re going to start going topside, then all of us should get a chance to get some fresh air. But we gotta remember situational awareness at all times. Feds are everywhere.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’ll be careful. But let’s find a bunch of targets. Hopefully stuff we can hit all at once. That way, the Fed won’t have time to go on high alert.”

  “Cal, we should talk to your dad,” TJ said. “You all are going to need more supplies, and he has a bunch of stuff that” — he made air quotes — “ ‘fell off the truck’ when he was making smuggling runs for the Idaho Civilian Corps.”

  It bothered me a little that Cal’s dad had been stealing on ICC business, but if what he took helped keep my people alive, I guess I could live with it.

  Christmas Eve had begun as one of the worst days of my life. It was the first Christmas without Mom, we were trapped in the dungeon, we’d lost Danning, and we thought we’d lost the war before we’d even had a chance to fight. But starting Christmas morning, things were going to change. The Fed better look out. I was coming for them.

  —• In the aftermath of self-proclaimed ‘President’ Montaine declaring Idaho an independent country, the White House has been under extreme pressure to explain its apparently false assertions that the Idaho rebels had been subdued. Joining us in the studio is NBC’s Idaho Crisis correspondent Rebecca Cho. Rebecca, the president is expected to address the nation in just a few minutes. What do you think we’ll hear from President Griffith tonight, and what response can we expect from the Republicans?”

  “Thanks, Byron. Quite simply, the president needs to explain why she has misled the American people. It’s very difficult to gauge the public mind-set on this issue since so much of our media is subject to censorship under the Unity Act. There have been reports that comments on FriendStar and Shout Out about the Idaho Crisis are often deleted, possibly by the federal government, and the increase in these reports might indicate a surge of public unrest in the wake of the revelation that Idaho has not been subdued. As to the Republican response, I think we can paradoxically expect more agreement with the president now that Jim Barnes has been confirmed as vice president. Perhaps that was the president’s intention with that surprise nomination. But it is worth pointing out that the last time America had a president and vice president from different political parties was with Republican president Abraham Lincoln and Democratic vice president Andrew Johnson during our first Civil War. When Andrew Johnson became president, he —”

  “Going to have to stop you there, Rebecca. Thank you. Going now to the White House for President Griffith’s address, live from the Oval Office.”

  “Good evening. My fellow Americans, I br
ing you greetings. Soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines, wherever you may be serving tonight, I salute you and your families. As you face these difficult times, I ask you to remember that you carry with you the hope of a grateful nation.

  “I speak to all Americans on this night when Christmas is celebrated by many across our country. It is for the sake of the preservation of our great country that I recently made the decision to engage in a tactical deception, declaring the Idaho rebellion to be at an end. I made this decision in order to demoralize Idaho insurgents and discourage insurrection in other parts of our country. I executed this tactical deception in an effort to save the lives of Americans on both sides of this great divide, to more quickly bring an end to this destructive conflict.

  “To that end, I once again applaud the United States Supreme Court for upholding the Unity Act, without which I would not have the legal means to disrupt the communications of terrorist insurgent forces and to prevent other domestic communications or activities which might intentionally or unintentionally aid those rebel forces.

  “I know many law-abiding Americans are troubled by certain restrictions on liberties we have enjoyed for generations. I join those people in their frustration, for I have spent a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of those freedoms. But I ask, were you forced to choose between a temporary restriction of some American rights and the absolute certainty of a great many American deaths, which would you choose? Which would anyone choose? We face the very real possibility that the full exercise of our constitutional rights may ultimately contribute to the permanent and bloody fracturing of our constitutional republic. I therefore call upon this generation of Americans to endure with me the terrible indignity of this temporary infringement upon our rights, so that in the coming years we and future generations may enjoy the freedom of our fully United States of America.

  “Christmas is a time of peace. And so, in the spirit of peace, I hereby make the following offer. A bipartisan congressional coalition has agreed to grant me the authority to delay the implementation of the Federal Identification Card Act, pending possible amendments to the bill. I hereby invite the leadership of the state of Idaho, and other states with concerns about the bill, to abandon the tragedy of nullification and their futile bids for independence. Return to the negotiating table so that we can amend the Federal Identification Card Act in a compromise we can all live with.

  “If Idaho is prepared to end this useless and costly fight and return to peaceful negotiations, I will grant blanket amnesty to all Idaho National Guard soldiers and other Idaho combatants. Because rebellion against the United States must be discouraged, the leadership of this rebellion must still be held accountable for the chaos they have caused, for the lives that have been lost due to their actions. However, I promise fair trials to Mr. Montaine, those members of the Idaho legislature who voted for nullification, and certain senior officers in the Idaho military. I also preemptively commute the sentence of death for those tried and found guilty of treason. To expedite these negotiations, and to allow Mr. Montaine and his associates to negotiate from a position in which they feel secure, I would like to ask the state of Idaho’s leadership to allow a single unarmed helicopter carrying US Secretary of State Alex Clayton and his aides to safely land in Boise.

  “In the spirit of peace and reconciliation, I make this generous offer in public. I await the state of Idaho’s response, and I implore all the leaders of America to seize this opportunity so that we can restore peace to our beloved country. Thank you.” •—

  —• the latest news from the Federal Idaho Reconstruction Authority. Tragedy struck today in Grangeville, Idaho, when rebel forces operating from the Nez Perce National Forest resorted to terrorist attacks similar to those used by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Rebel insurgents launched a deadly rocket attack on an Army convoy full of food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian relief items. Grangeville, a north central Idaho city of three thousand people before the Idaho Crisis began, has been in desperate need of relief since rebel activities interrupted the free-flowing supply chain. Especially horrifying is the fact that this cowardly attack killed nine American soldiers and even destroyed Grangeville High School facilities, endangering the lives of innocent children.

  In national news, Texas governor Rodney Percy has defied President Griffith’s warning by signing his state’s recently passed bill that would nullify the Federal Identification Card Act in Texas. In response, soldiers at Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, and Joint Base San Antonio, and airmen at Laughlin, Goodfellow, and Sheppard Air Force Bases have been placed on high alert. All soldiers and airmen in the Texas Army and Air National Guards have been ordered to report for federal duty, with over 90 percent of Guard personnel in compliance. Units from the First Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood have been deployed across the state to protect National Guard installations and other critical facilities from possible rebel terrorist attacks.

  United States military forces have triumphed recently along the north border of the rebel-controlled section of Idaho. Soldiers from the Tenth Mountain Division have made rapid progress, breaking up rebel positions along •—

  —• In his Christmas address yesterday, Pope Michael made no secret of his concern over the troubles in Idaho, saying, quote, “The Idaho Crisis in America has become a civil war. This conflict has cost many good lives, but the potential for disruption of global markets and the greater violence that would bring now threatens the whole world. The message of the Christ child at Bethlehem is one of peace and mercy, and so I hope Catholics will join with people of all faiths in praying for a true, lasting end to this war. As an ally of the faithful everywhere, I offer my humble services as mediator, should the governments of the United States and of Idaho wish to resume peace talks,” end quote. •—

  —• You’re listening to RIR, Republic of Idaho Radio. Idaho Army forces today dealt a setback to the US military in Grangeville, Idaho, when they destroyed an armed military convoy that was transporting weapons and ammunition in support of the illegal and immoral occupation of northern Idaho. This action was achieved with no loss of civilian life, a miraculous accomplishment considering United States forces are using schoolchildren as human shields, seizing high schools and even elementary schools for use as bases of operation. This act violates the treaty of the Fourth Geneva Convention by interfering with and even depriving children of their right to an education.

  The Texas Senate has overcome an ongoing filibuster, and today Texas governor Rodney Percy has signed into law the nullification of the unconstitutional Federal Identification Card Act in the state of Texas. The Texas governor commented on this development in a speech earlier today, saying, “Texans are united in their opposition to the overreach of the federal government and to the Federal ID Card Act. Even as President Griffith claims to seek negotiation, she is abusing her power, expanding the definition of ‘rebellion’ within the Unity Act to include anyone who disagrees with her policies. This action exemplifies the way the federal government is moving closer and closer to totalitarian control. Texas will not stand for this. As commander in chief of the Texas military, I’ve activated the entire Texas State Guard, and have issued a counterorder to stop the federalization of Texas Army and Air National Guard personnel. Approximately 30 percent of Texas National Guard forces have reported for federal duty. The remaining National Guard soldiers are standing by as ordered. I abhor bloodshed, but if hostilities do break out, it will be the result of Texans defending themselves against federal attack. I’m asking President Griffith to not let that happen. Stand down the deployment of federal troops within the state of Texas. It’s not too late to resolve our differences peacefully. Peace is the sincere desire of every Texan, but our history has proven our belief that peace without freedom is no peace at all, and like our ancestors at the Alamo, we will fight to the last man in defense of our liberty.”

  Public opinion in the United States continues to sway in favor of Idaho, with more and more protests calling for t
he immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of the United States military from Idaho. Thousands of students have been arrested on charges of violating provisions of the Unity Act that prohibit, quote, “conspiracy to assist and promote rebellion,” end quote. Civil rights groups are decrying these arrests as serious setbacks to the rights of Americans. Republic of Idaho Radio news. •—

  “This is the best Christmas present ever, even if it did come late,” I said to Sweeney as we walked down the alley while the snow fell. The cold bit through my coat and the hat and scarf that hid my face from the Fed, but I still felt warm and free.

  “Dude, I know. Happy New Year, right?” Sweeney said. “Just smell that fresh air! That dungeon smelled like …”

  It smelled like death, and I was grateful that Sweeney didn’t say so.

  The Republic of Idaho Radio news had told us that President Montaine was considering Griffith’s offer of negotiation. The process had stalled, though, since Montaine wanted his negotiator recognized as an ambassador, and the US State Department insisted they would only meet with a mediator. Citizens of Idaho were told to stay in the fight against the Fed until Montaine ordered us to stand down.

  Kemp and Sparrow had gone on the first recon patrol, then Luchen and Herbokowitz took their turn. Each two-man team kept moving farther and farther out from the dungeon. It was hard to tell, since the Fed soldiers didn’t all stand in one formation for counting, but we figured there weren’t all that many of them stationed in Freedom Lake — just about one platoon, so almost forty soldiers. I guess our little town wasn’t a big priority, or else, with troop cuts a few years back and two wars going on, the United States couldn’t afford to send more guys. Either way, if we were careful, and if we could find some allies, we figured we had a decent chance of kicking these guys out of Freedom Lake.