“Yeah,” said Deloitte, a bit surprised. “How did you know?”
“I just guessed.”
“You always were a quick study. You still a captain?”
“Probably.”
Deloitte leaned back in the La-Z-Boy. “So, how have you been, Kelly?”
“Just fine. Just doing my thing.”
“I’ve noticed. I should’ve known it was you from the beginning. You’ve pretty much gone right by the numbers. You did it just like I trained you, just like I’d have done it in your boots. You’ve mobilized the masses, and you’ve provoked overreach by the counterinsurgents.”
“Provoked them?” said Turnbull. “I don’t know about that. They didn’t seem to need a lot of provocation to go all stormtrooper on the locals.”
“You have to remember, the People’s Volunteers are just untrained thugs, and the People’s Security Force are not soldiers. They’re not really police either.”
“Kind of a Gestapo that gives out parking tickets, right?”
Deloitte looked him over. “You think I don’t know that the Republic isn’t perfect?”
“The People’s Republic,” Turnbull sneered. “I think this abortion of a fake country is a hell of a long way from perfect. I think it would have to work its way up to just being shitty.”
“Kelly, that’s my country you’re talking about.”
“Is it? Really? Why?”
“Because it’s the one I swore an oath to.”
“You swore an oath to the United States first.”
“That was a different United States. I don’t remember its capital being Dallas.”
“You had a choice. You chose them.”
“I never saw it as ‘them and us,’ Kelly. I saw it as a separation, not a divorce. I’m still hoping mom and dad make up and get back together again someday.”
“I don’t see that in the cards, sir.”
“Be that as it may, here we are.”
“Here we are,” repeated Turnbull, sadly.
“I’m a soldier and I follow orders,” Colonel Deloitte said, shrugging.
“My country right or wrong?”
“Always. Just like you.”
“Sir, I gotta tell you, I kind of like being in the country that’s right.”
“Like I said, it ain’t perfect, but it’s mine. And it ain’t yours. Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be back in Arizona or wherever you came from?”
“Texas. I guess I’m here for the same reason you are. I took an oath, and this is where they told me to go.”
“This is isn’t your fight, Kelly.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve gotten to know these people pretty good. They’re still Americans, even if they ended up on the wrong side of some line on a map. They’re real Americans, a little thinner than most Americans, thanks to the bounty of socialism, but still Americans. And they need to come home.”
Deloitte leaned forward. “They’re Americans who kill other Americans.”
“Finish the sentence,” said Turnbull. “They’re Americans who kill other Americans who tried to take away the rights God gave them. The right to say what they think, to pray how they want, to keep a rifle to protect those rights.”
“Yeah, that Second Amendment has been a real pain in our asses,” smiled Deloitte. “You know, I tried to explain it to those civilians. They just didn’t get it. You remember back in the teens when those two untrained Muslim pussies in Boston shut down the whole city with just a couple of handguns? I tried to warn the powers that be what a few thousand NRA members with dug-up deer rifles out here in the sticks could do, but they wouldn’t listen. Now it’s my problem.”
“That’s the thing about our progressive betters, Colonel. They never listen. Especially when it’s something they don’t want to hear.”
Deloitte pulled out his own canteen from his battle rig and took a swig, then leaned back again on the leather La-Z-Boy recliner. It was comfortable, especially after that kidney-walloping hummer ride. He thought about getting one, but these chairs were recently banned in the PR for constituting “comfort privilege.”
“You know, it works the other way too, Kelly,” Deloitte said. “You have the power to stop this war too. How about I bring my men in, I run things with a soft touch, and your people get left alone? Life as usual.”
“Except for the tanks on the street corners.”
“I’m offering peace, and no one in body bags.”
“Fake peace,” Turnbull said.
“What’s not fake is that nobody gets killed.”
“Sure. They get to live. All they have to do is submit. All they have to do is give up their freedom, and they get to keep on breathing.”
“For now. Until things get settled in the PR and we get back on track.”
“You think there’s hope of getting the PR back on track?”
“Like the guy who just replaced Lincoln in the old Lincoln memorial, I believe in hope and change.”
“Here’s our proposal. We live as free men and women however we choose.”
“I don’t think that’s in the cards in the short-term,” Deloitte said sadly. “Sorry.”
“Well, I will bring your proposal to my people as a courtesy to you, because I respect you, but I think I can safely say that they’re going to reject your deal.”
“A lot of people are going to die,” said Deloitte. “Do you want that on your conscience, Kelly?”
“Assuming I had a conscience, it would be crystal clear. These are adults. These are Americans. And if they weren’t committed, willing to live free or die, then those fake cops would still be strutting around Jasper like they owned it.”
“Let this go, Kelly. Before it’s too late.”
“Not happening. You know, when the country split, our Special Forces kept the old motto. De oppresso liber. To free the oppressed.”
“My brigade’s motto translates to ‘Down with phallocentric role paradigms.’ Though it does sound slightly better in Latin.”
“These people are being oppressed, and now you’re part of it.”
“They’re disobeying a lawful elected government,” Deloitte said, ignoring Turnbull’s snort of derision at the idea. “And they’re doing it in conjunction with a foreign power. That means I’m their enemy, Kelly. If it didn’t, my oath means nothing.”
“They’re going to tell you to move your brigade down here, aren’t they? Because if the US forces come north and you want a chance of holding them back, you need to hold Jasper.”
“I want to have a nice chat Kelly, maybe try and work this out, but I’m not going to discuss my war plans.”
“I can read a map, sir. You helped teach me to. If you want to hold Southern Indiana, you have to hold Jasper. And thanks to my guerrillas, right now you don’t.”
“I’ve got an armor battalion and infantry battalion,” said Deloitte. “That’s a lot more firepower than you have.”
“I’ve got ground forces too. And unless you get sliced some sorties from the F-16s and F-15s the PR inherited, you have no air power. That’s a conventional counterinsurgent’s big edge. And those squadrons have, what? A ten percent operational readiness rate on a good day?”
“Well, you saw to that. You killed a lot of my men, Kelly.”
“It was nothing personal.”
“It feels pretty fucking personal.”
“Join us,” said Kelly. “Those politician bastards don’t deserve having you fighting for them, much less dying for them.”
“When have any politician bastards ever deserved us fighting and dying for them?”
“We have a place for you in the USA, sir. In our Army.”
“Not going to happen, Kelly. I raised my hand. End of story.”
“Someday you’re going to say or do the wrong thing, Colonel, and these PR sons of bitches are going to shoot you.”
“That’s entirely possible. I wouldn’t be the first soldier stabbed in the back by civilians,” Deloitte repl
ied. “And Kelly, are you so sure your civilians aren’t going to do the same to you?”
“Maybe,” Turnbull said. “But I think the difference is that I might die because I am expendable in the fight for freedom. You might die because because you’re not dependable in the fight for oppression.”
Deloitte smiled wanly. Turnbull continued.
“I know that in there, you still believe in the real Constitution and not in that crap some professor invented for a gender study course at Harvard and wrote into the PR’s fake constitution.”
“Then isn’t it that much more important that I stay here, Kelly? Because if I go red, who’s going to be left to fight for those rights here in the blue?”
“Why aren’t you doing it now?”
“I’m trying.”
“I’m just worried that they kill you before you can.”
“If you and your guerrillas don’t kill me first.”
“True enough. If you guys come, it’s on. The next time I see you down here, I’m lighting you up. No offense.”
“None taken. I wouldn’t expect or ask for any less. But there’s another side of that coin, Kelly. When we roll down here, we will take Jasper, and we will destroy anybody who gets in our way. I like you and respect you, but we’re now soldiers on opposite sides, and I will not hesitate, not even for a second, to blow you and your little army of farmers, insurance salesman, and truck drivers to kingdom come if that’s what it takes to accomplish my mission.”
“So there we are, I guess.”
“There we are.”
“One thing. You know we haven’t taken any PV or PSF prisoners?” Kelly said.
“We’ve noticed.”
“That’s because fuck them. But I’m betting you have a different standard with your soldiers, and that your soldiers are something like soldiers.”
“Most of them. There are some you can go ahead and shoot.”
“Well, we won’t. We’ll treat them like real EPWs if we capture them or if they’re wounded.”
“And your prisoners will get the same fair treatment as long as they’re in my custody. Of course, that’s all I can promise. Once they are out of my hands….”
“All I can ask for.”
“So what now, Kelly?”
“I guess you go back and get your staff finishing up your op order for the move south. You are coming south, right? Not going to try and flank me from I-69, are you?”
Deloitte laughed a bitter little chuckle. He wished Turnbull was on his team instead of his OPFOR.
“It’s more fun if it’s a surprise, Kelly. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve got eyes on all my units already.”
And you’ve got your cavalry scouts inserted in here. You still call them 19 Deltas in your army?”
“No, they had a lot of problems with military occupational specialty designators. There was a lot of racism and sexism in there that we were apparently unaware of for decades.”
“I see,” Turnbull said.
“But you know I have scouts too, because you killed some of them.”
“Again, nothing personal.”
“No, nothing personal.” Deloitte got up and extended his hand. Kelly stood and shook it.
“So, was I De Niro or Pacino today?” asked Turnbull.
“I don’t think Senator De Niro would approve of you appropriating his portrayal,” Deloitte replied. Then it occurred to him that in the movie, Pacino was the one who lived. He did not bring that up.
Instead, the colonel silently walked to the door and stepped out on the porch. He fit his soft cap over his short cropped hair.
Turnbull followed, picking up the M4 and hooking the sling to his gear so the weapon hung out of the way, but was still easily accessible.
Deloitte walked down the steps and behind him Turnbull walked out onto the planks of the porch.
“Colonel,” Turnbull said.
Deloitte stopped and turned around.
Turnbull saluted.
Deloitte stared for about a second, then came to attention and returned the salute. Then he turned back around and walked down the dusty driveway.
It was early morning when Davey Wohl handed back to Turnbull the cell phone Clay Deeds had provided. Around them in courthouse square, armed locals were assembling. Lots of men, and a few women. All readying for a fight. Others had slipped away north in the night. Some were just scared. The few remaining Tories had been impolitely invited to leave.
“The email’s sent, and then I got one back 20 minutes later. It’s on there. It’s coded,” Wohl said. He had driven out up through the Hoosier National Forest to near Bedford to get cell connectivity again, eluding patrols by sticking to back roads. He had sent the email Turnbull had written, with its long list of very specific requests, and had brought back the reply.
“Any trouble?” Turnbull asked, taking the iPhone and pulling up the reply email from his commander back in the United States.
“No, the roads are pretty empty. They aren’t patrolling much. Not yet at least.”
Turnbull reviewed the email after applying the decryption app.
“Mission approved. 0100 Local tomorrow. 38°17'39.6"N 86°41'14.6"W. Eliminate radar system vic Branchville Correctional Facility NLT 0030.”
“Great,” Turnbull grumbled. It was going to happen, if and only if his guys pulled off another raid. That was an unwelcome distraction, but a necessary one.
He quickly found the landing zone on his GPS map app – it was an empty field near the intersection of County Road 570 South and Country Road 85, about a mile south of a little hamlet called Birdseye, remote and hidden from hills but near two egress routes for the vehicles.
It was the radar site that was the sticking point. The area south of I-64 was still contested, and there were more military and civilian security forces the closer you got to the border. The prison looked like it was only a few miles away. But Turnbull understood. Obviously, no one in the red wanted being caught infiltrating the People’s Republic – that could spark the conventional war the negotiations were trying to avoid. So the radar station had to be down before the mission could happen.
Turnbull sent Wohl off to find Banks – it would be the Bretzville team that drew this mission. Then he set to studying the satellite map on his iPhone. After about ten minutes, he looked up and said to Lee Rogers, his supply guru, “I need a big truck, a lot of fertilizer and a buttload of propane canisters.”
Once south of I-64, they were in enemy territory again, or at least contested territory. Turnbull’s people didn’t generally operate that far south, and they had no real connection to the local guerrillas who did. They were on their own.
At 2330 hours, a panel truck driven by one of the Bretzville cell members came rumbling down Route 37, followed by an old pickup truck with a steel plate welded behind the cab and blocking the rear window. The old prison was a few miles south of St. Croix, where 37 crossed under I-64. The scouts had confirmed there was no check point. They proceeded south the six or so miles to the old Branchville Correctional Facility.
There had been eyes on the site since early afternoon – as soon as Banks got the mission he had reconnoitered the site from the dense woods to the east. There were about a dozen administrative buildings outside the 12’ high razor wire fence which surrounded the barracks that used to house the minimum security prisoners. A large parking lot, with several military trucks, fronted the fence where it bordered the open grassy field where the inmates used to take their recreation. The forest green radar trailers were set up there, about 15 meters from the fence, dishes spinning and their thick black cables snaking to the control rooms in the old guard house.
The PR’s prisoners were largely released by the pardons that followed the Split – since convicts were presumptively incarcerated as a result of some sort of oppression – and the ones from Branchville who had not been released outright had been transferred elsewhere. The site had been taken over by the PR military to provide radar surveillance of that sec
tion of the southern Indiana border, which lay a few miles to the immediate southeast along the route of the Ohio River.
Banks counted maybe 30 troops, with only a half dozen enlisted troops on what passed for guard duty at any given moment – they were often out of uniform. There was no evidence that NCOs were checking them – clearly, the command had not inspected it lately. There were no guard towers – the threat of getting sent to a real prison had usually been enough to keep the low-risk offenders from walking off – but there was a water tower on the southeast corner of the facility. The guards did not go up there, Banks noted it as he made his plans.
At night, there was pretty minimal activity. The radar dishes rotated, but there was not much else happening except the occasional guard walking about aimlessly. The barracks lights were still on, but that was it.
At 2343, the Bretzville team that Banks had deployed in the woods on the east side of the facility saw the truck’s lights as it and the pick-up turned off Route 37 and into the parking lot. There was no checkpoint outside the wire – there was one guard at the gate in the wire fence located on the southwest corner of the compound by the warehouse. Banks shook his head. What a cluster.
The truck cut its lights and pulled up along the fence parallel to the radar systems on the other side. The driver turned off the engine, got out of the cab, and hopped into the waiting pick-up. A guard walking patrol about 100 meters away inside the fence stared, puzzled. The pick-up turned around and sped out of the lot, the rear armor plate unnecessary since none of the guards had thought to open fire.
Banks glanced at his watch, which had been synched with the rest of the team. 2344 hours.
The intrigued guard started walking toward the truck parked just outside the fence line.
“Cover your ears,” Banks told his team.
At 2345, the truck was replaced by an orange fireball that engulfed the truck, the adjacent section of razor wire fence and the curious sentry. Banks and his troops were far enough away that it took a moment for the sound and blast wave to roar through their positon. It was about the loudest thing he had ever heard.
When Banks looked back up, the whole other side of the facility was a combination of dust and fire, with the cloud rising up above it all. Banks took out his radio.
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