Clay smiled. “You ever thought of channeling that anger in a positive direction?”
“I thought I have been.”
“You’ve killed a lot of people, Captain.”
“I like to make a difference. Are you ever going to tell me why we’re talking?”
“I want you to work for me,” Clay said. “Here, in Iraq, for the time being. Then … elsewhere.”
“Doing?”
Clay took a drink from his Desani water bottle and said, “You are uniquely qualified for a special project. My project.”
“What’s your project?”
“Protecting our country and our Constitution, assuming they continue to exist in some form we recognize. And doing it your way.”
Clay seemed happy to wait for a response, pausing for almost thirty seconds before he spoke. Turnbull just watched him. Clay seemed mildly disappointed.
“The report said you’d be more enthusiastic,” he said, lifting the folder and smiling.
“That’s a psych report?”
“Uh huh. They thought you would be intrigued by the challenge.”
“I’m happy where I am. Thanks for the chat.” Turnbull got up to leave.
“Sit down, Captain,” he said. Sometimes you can tell when not to make a stand. There was something in his voice that told Turnbull this was one of the times to sit down and shut up.
Clay leaned forward. “Do you know why Delta rejected you?”
The man certainly knew how to push buttons.
No, Turnbull didn’t know why, at least not exactly why. After he got back from a tour in Afghanistan, a colonel and a sergeant major in sanitized uniforms with no nametapes pigeonholed him at Bragg and invited him to try out for Delta Force, though they never used that name. At 0330 the next Saturday, Turnbull showed up in a parking lot with a stripped uniform, a rucksack and a canteen. There were a few dozen other guys there – Turnbull knew some of them, all squared away SF guys. They had told them not to talk among themselves, and they didn’t. It started to rain, and when a couple of 5-ton trucks showed up an hour later, they got in silently and rode silently for an hour into the North Carolina hills.
In the middle of nowhere, the trucks stopped and the candidates piled out. The cadre – scary NCOs likewise without nametapes – handed them maps and compasses and told them each to go to a different point on the ground as fast as they could. Turnbull’s point was 13 kilometers away over three ridges and two large streams. Off he went. When Turnbull got there, three hours later, exhausted, a bored looking master sergeant who probably could have broken him in two with his little finger gave Turnbull another point to find. It was 18 klicks south.
This sort of thing went on for three weeks, with intermittent breaks for food and sleep. At the end, just three of them had neither dropped out or been kicked out. The cadre trucked them into camp, fed them their first hot meal in nearly a month, then sent them one after another into a series of long interviews in front of a half-dozen cadre members who pelted them with questions, some difficult, some incomprehensible. The candidates filled out pages of forms asking even more bizarre questions – probably some kind of personality profile. When that was all over, Turnbull collapsed. He hadn’t slept in 32 hours.
The next morning, the colonel thanked him and told Turnbull he would be sending a letter commending his efforts to his commander. But they did not need Turnbull’s services at that time. Turnbull had never been rejected for anything in his Army career.
“I suppose you’ll tell me,” Turnbull said, doing his best not to take the bait and get angry.
Clay’s face brightened. “They did predict that you would say something like that. They certainly predicted that the issue of your rejection by Delta would agitate you, which it has.”
“The reason?” Turnbull asked.
“Oh yes. Well, your physical skills were top notch. All of your scores were exceptional, in fact. You were off the charts in pure aggression and your stubborn refusal to quit. There was only one problem, Captain Turnbull. Delta rejected you because you habitually violate known norms, rules, and laws. You find them…frustrating, so you just ignore them. Now, the good news is, you’re not a sadist. You do not seem to get unusual pleasure from the suffering of others.”
“Just the normal amount?”
Clay smiled. “So you’re not a sociopath, which is good.”
“That’s a relief.”
“You’re just not reliable, in the sense that they could rely on you to complete your mission but they could not rely on you not to go and take it to the next level,” Said Clay. “Delta wanted a xacto knife. Subtle, precise. And you’re a battle axe with a mind of its own.”
“Not subtle, not precise.”
“No. Kelly, a man like you isn’t given an assignment. You’re unleashed. And that’s exactly what I need.”
“Thanks, I guess. So, are you ever going to tell me why he’s here?” Turnbull asked. Javadi grinned again.
“You are going to be working with me and him directly.”
Turnbull looked over the Iranian, and not in a nice way. “You know, Javadi, someday we’re probably going to be shooting each other. I mean, overtly, not just covertly.”
“But not today,” Javadi said. “Not for the time being. By the way, thank you for last night. For the Accountant.”
“Sorry I couldn’t take him alive,” Turnbull lied.
“I am not. He knew things that were…what is the term? ‘Inconvenient.’ So thank you for solving our problem, as we expected you would.”
“If you think telling me you played me makes me want to cap you any less, you are terminally mistaken.”
The Iranian smiled. “I think we will work together very, very well, Captain.”
Turnbull drummed his fingers on the table. Clay motioned to Javadi, who got up and left the room without another word.
“Sometimes we have to work with bad guys to get other worse guys,” Clay said after the Iranian closed the door behind him.
“Yeah, I get the whole ambiguity thing you people have to deal with. I prefer being straightforward. There’s the bad guy. I go shoot him.”
“And I need a guy who’s direct, but also who can take it to the next level when necessary, if you get my meaning,” Clay said. “This is only a short term op, Captain. A couple months. Then you come home. This war here – at least our part of it – is ending. Everyone’s going home. They’re bringing us back from almost everywhere. You’ve read about what’s happening at home, haven’t you?
“I don’t follow the news much. Got other things on my mind.”
“Well,” said Clay. “Did you know we’re leaving Europe? Three brigades pulling out. Have to appease the Bear and all. NATO Article 5 isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on – President Clinton always talked a big game about Russians when she was slagging President Trump, but she isn’t going to war for Poland. I guess she’s just not that into our allies. You could ask the Baltic States about that, if there were any that Putin hadn’t grabbed as soon as she was sworn in. And back home it’s getting ugly. You heard what Texas said about her fracking ban yesterday?”
Turnbull shook his head.
“Texas said ‘No,’ and pretty much dared the President to do something about it.”
“I make it a point not to pay attention to politics anymore.”
“Yes, but soon politics will be paying attention to you,” Clay replied. “You work with me here for a couple months, then we go back home. And you work for me there.”
“Doing what back home?”
“Whatever needs done.”
“Which side?” said Turnbull.
“The one with the Constitution.”
“Sounds like a great deal. Now, am I volunteering or being voluntold?”
Clay shrugged, and Turnbull nodded resignedly.
“Understood. So, there are always details. What are the details?”
“None of this exists. This interview, this discussion, none of it
,” Clay said. “Agreed?”
“I kind of assumed that.”
“And if I need to take you out to protect our country, you are history. I hope it won’t come to that, but if it does, adios. Mission first. Know that going in. I’ll always be straight with you, Kelly. Relatively.”
Turnbull had the feeling then that if he left that room without signing on the dotted line, it was going to be adios anyway. “Guess I’m in.”
Clay smiled and nodded.
“And they predicted I’d accept.”
“Oh yes,” Clay said.
“So what now?”
“The paperwork is done; you’re seconded to the Department of State as an agricultural liaison. The Army is probably happy to have you become our problem. You settle in here and tonight the three of us will meet and start planning.”
“Okay,” said Turnbull, unconvinced. “But I don’t trust that Javadi guy.”
“Nor do I, but it’s in his interest that we succeed so I expect we will. I’m not particularly concerned about what happens here in Baghdad.”
“You’re not? Seems pretty significant to me.”
“It’s what’s happening back home that concerns me. We’ll finish up here, and then we’ll go home,” Clay said. “It’s getting ugly, Kelly.”
“Ugly enough that you need a guy like me?”
“I truly hope not,” said Clay.
America
June 2027
2.
Dale Chalmers kept his shower short for two reasons. First, in 2027 in the People’s Republic, hot water was expensive; his power bills had tripled since the Split. Second, a long shower was a waste. It was an odd day of the month and the license plate on his Dodge ended in “8,” so like all the other evens without a special pass, he was walking to work today in the June heat. That meant putting his suit and black shoes into a bag and changing in the bathroom at the office after wiping off his sweat with the towel he kept there for that purpose – paper towels had been banned as an “environmental outrage.”
On the upside, his sacrifice was going to help save the polar bears or something. Yet the new climate change laws didn’t seem to be helping to temper the heat wave that was turning Southern Indiana into a sauna.
He toweled off and put on shorts and sneakers and came downstairs. Liz and the kids were already around the table eating breakfast.
“Why won’t you buy Count Chocula?” Jimmy complained.
“I told you,” Liz said. “There’s no more Count Chocula.”
It was true. All the sugary cereals that kids actually liked were long gone from the supermarket shelves. They announced the new regulation from the Food Justice Commission on the news one evening and the next day shelves were bare. The broadcast had featured interviews with several moms excited about the opportunities presented by their narrowed options, but none of Liz’s friends were happy about having to hear their kids complain.
Dale ate his corn flakes dry – the store was out of milk and the kids got what they had left in the carton. The empty went into the cardboard recycling bin – Liz was careful about that, not wanting another $100 fine if one of the snoops who went up and down the street pawing through people’s bins on trash day caught them misdividing their recyclables again.
Beth, the high schooler, was at the table reading her American history textbook, Legacy of Hate.
“Test today?” Dale asked.
“It’s all such bullshit,” she replied.
“Beth!” Liz snapped. “Watch your mouth. You can get in trouble talking like that.”
“Honey, you need to not be difficult. You want to get into college, right?” asked Dale reasonably.
“You think I’ll ever get into college? From here?”
“Your grades –”
“Grades don’t mean anything. You’re an insurance salesman. Mom’s a housewife. Our name is freaking ‘Chalmers.’ You don’t know anyone with connections. I’m fucked!”
“Beth! Don’t say things like that,” Liz said. “And don’t say the f-word either,” she added.
Beth took her book and left without another word. Jimmy shrugged and followed. The bus might or might not be coming and they needed to be at the stop in case it was their lucky day.
“Should we leave?” Liz asked, again. Dale crunched down the dry flakes in his mouth and put down his spoon.
“Now you want to go? I thought we agreed to stick it out. And what about your brother? Your mom?
“We could take Mom with us,” Liz replied.
“She would never leave. She’s been here all her life. Hell, we’ve been here all our lives. What would we do in wherever – Texas?”
“We don’t have to go to Texas. Maybe we head over the border to Kentucky. That’s still close to home.”
“They’re talking about sealing the border. And leave the business? I built that office for 20 years. I’m 45. I can’t just start over in a different country.”
“A lot of people are. Todd and Katie Terrell left with their kids. Just picked up and left their house last week. Supposedly, they went to Florida.”
“So we go and we have no money because you know we can’t take anything with us. So I have to find a new career. You have to get a new job. We can’t vote because we’re not vets. Our kids have to join the Army if they want to.”
“I can’t see Beth in the Army…,” said Liz.
“Right? Is that what we want?”
“No, but it’s just – everyday it’s something new. We can’t drive our car on odd days, the reparations taxes, all the politically correct stuff. The fighting –”
“There’s no fighting around here. Look, all this politics – it’s got to get better soon. People’s Republic, USA, none of it matters to us – everything’s going to calm down and get back to normal. It has too. We just have to wait it out. Anyway, I need to get to work.”
“Is your new employee going to show up for once?” his wife asked.
Dale frowned. Three weeks ago, a sour-faced bureaucrat from the Fair Employment Commissioner had walked into the offices of Chalmers Insurance Brokers and informed him that one Leon Williams was to be hired immediately as part of the new full employment program. It was not a request.
Williams looked fidgety and disinterested; Dale suspected he was one of the drug convicts granted blanket pardons as part of the criminal justice reforms designed to make amends to those who had been caught violating racist, classist, and similarly terrible laws. But Dale tried to show him the ropes and Williams paid attention for a few minutes then announced he needed a break. He showed up for three days, then on the fourth day he called in sick. On the fifth he didn’t call at all. But when Dale stopped paying him, assuming Williams had lost interest and quit by default, he got a prompt call from the Fair Employment Commission informing him that he had failed to meet the new good cause standard for terminating an employee and that Mr. Williams would be by to pick up his check. And Mr. Williams did come by for his check, then smiled and walked right back out the front door.
Dale muttered something, and left for work.
It was two miles to the office in downtown Jasper, but it was a beautiful day in Indiana. The road had no sidewalk along that stretch, just a ditch off the shoulder to catch the run-off. A gentle uphill slope of green grassland on one side of the road led up to a line of trees. On the other, corn grew out to the blue horizon. Dale wiped his brow, then turned around upon hearing the crunch of gravel under tires behind him.
Cop car.
Ted Cannon, his brother-in-law, was at the wheel, in his tan uniform. The door read “Dubois County Sheriff” Dale relaxed, then thought it odd that he had tensed up seeing the light bar. He had always considered the police his friends. Until now.
“Odd license plate, huh?” Ted said when Dale walked back to his driver’s window. “Hop in.”
Dale came around and got in the passenger side. An old 12 gauge Mossberg was in the rack between them.
“Thanks.”
<
br /> “I’m really not supposed to,” Ted said, maneuvering the cruiser off the shoulder and back on the street. “But whatever. I’ll deal.”
“You busy today?
“Not really. I’m not allowed to do real police work anymore, so that makes it easy. It’s oppressive to hassle scumbags these days.”
“You don’t want to be oppressive.”
“Yeah, well, the people worried about the scumbags being oppressed aren’t the ones getting their houses broken into. Since they collected up the guns, the scumbags think it’s open season.”
“I have a feeling that not all of them got turned in,” Dale said.
“Hell no,” scoffed the deputy. “There are guys I know – guys I hunted deer with – who I know for a fact had dozens of guns who shrugged when the collections officers came to their houses and swore they didn’t have a one. Searched their places and nothing. Man, I bet if you go into those woods and turn over a shovel full of dirt you’ll probably find an arsenal.”
“That seems risky, you know, just for a gun.”
“Five years minimum. Remember Joe Jordan from school?”
“Of course. He puked in my house at a party when my parents were away.”
“They brought him in yesterday. Deer rifle. Five years, man. He had it broken down, but if it had been assembled when they came I bet he’d have capped a couple deputies. Bad shit. This is getting ugly. You know, the day after they announced that we will be absorbed into the People’s Security Force, four deputies disappeared. Went South, I hear.”
“You ever thought about going south?”
“Your wife would kill me if I even suggested leaving. Our mom would too.”
Dale didn’t mention his talk with Liz that morning. He trusted Ted, but it just didn’t seem…wise.
They were passing the skeletons of the old furniture factories, now closed due to environmental regulations. Apparently the chemicals Americans used to make beds and desks and tables were so damaging to the environment that the Americans had to be laid off; apparently these same chemicals had no effect when used by the Third World laborers the work was outsourced to.
Indian Country Page 3
