by J. J. Holden
“If we can keep the Maryland invaders focused on Philly, they won’t be able to divert so many resources into attacking the Confederation.”
Taggart nodded. “And it’ll be easier to supply one group, Philly, than to feed the entire damn Confederation. I think if we can get Philadelphia to back us, then we can resolve all the rest of these issues piecemeal.”
Eagan grinned. “You’re getting the hang of this civilian leadership thing, sir. If you ever have kids, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with on the local PTA.”
“God, Eagan. Just start talking to Philadelphia and see what we can arrange.”
Eagan wandered out to the doorway, giving Taggart a sloppy salute on his way. The door closed softly behind him.
Taggart leaned back in his chair, thinking about the problem. It was a pretty shady situation all around, but there was still a reasonable hope that he could navigate these waters without smashing into the reef. Nobody wanted a war, especially not him. Not right now, anyway.
- 13 -
0600 HOURS - ZERO DAY +634
ETHAN RUBBED HIS tired eyes and gently closed the laptop. He hadn’t slept much during the past few days as he worked diligently to pinpoint Watcher One’s bunker location in Virginia. He’d had to code a new database, into which he had imported every IP address his nemesis had ever been tracked through, and GPS coordinates for each of those relays and servers. To these, he added GPS coordinates embedded in various satellite photos he had previously taken of likely spots for the bunker. Then, he had programmed a new application to narrow the field, trying to get a fix on its exact location.
Although he hadn’t reduced the best options to a single location, he had gotten it down to a number he could count on one hand, all within a twenty-mile radius within rural north Virginia. Twenty square miles was an unimaginably large area to search for something as hard to find as a bunker entrance, but that number was a bit misleading because within that area, there were only three likely spots. If he could get someone out there, perhaps one of Michael’s recon units, they could check each location with their own eyes. Once they had the actual GPS coordinates, then he only had to decide how to eliminate the threat.
A couple days ago, when he had brought up the idea of raiding Watcher One’s bunker, Micheal had thought it was a good idea. The only problem, he had said, was that he would need a much smaller list of potential targets. No one had time to be gone for a year while searching, and every extra day they spent wandering around the countryside was another chance to be discovered by the invader security forces.
Also, Michael hadn’t said so outright, but he had hinted that he wouldn’t be willing to leave the Confederation bare of any capable military commander, not with the Maryland invaders pushing on their southern border.
In the back of his mind, Ethan had also been churning through a list of possible candidates to temporarily step up to the plate and handle Michael’s position while he was gone. Because, he had to face it, no one he had ever met was better at warfare than Michael.
At least he had one of those problems solved, now. With only three possible locations, all within a day’s march of one another, they could probably find the bunker fairly quickly if they could avoid discovery during their wanderings.
He checked the clock and saw it blinking 6:00 a.m. Their little local power grid often flickered, and the clock wasn’t on the same uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, system that all the computers were connected to. About once each month, he had to readjust the time to get it close enough to actual time. He had long since switched to a system based on the sun, so when the clock read noon, it was always Solar noon. Without trains and planes to schedule, time zones no longer made sense.
He made a pot of weak coffee. Just as it beeped its finished brew cycle, there was a knock on the bunker door. He grumbled as he walked to the hatch and opened it. There was Michael, right on time.
“So what’s the good news, my friend?” Michael asked, smiling warmly.
Ethan grunted and, as he rubbed his eyes again, opened the door wide for Michael to come in. “The good news is, I made a pot of coffee to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“I’ve narrowed the target list down to just three places, all pretty close together in rural northern Virginia.”
Ethan closed and locked the door after Michael entered, a precaution he took every time he entered the bunker now. Then he led the way into the living room. He waved at the couch for Michael to sit, then went to get two cups of coffee. He added fresh cream—always on hand, now, and way better than the store-bought stuff had once been—and some honey for his own cup. He handed Michael the unsweetened cup and sat in the recliner on the coffee table’s opposite side.
Michael thanked him for the coffee and then said, “So tell me about the terrain. Is it in the western mountains or in the flatter lands below?”
“Unfortunately, it’s high up in the foothills. Not quite in the mountains, but still plenty rough terrain.”
Michael shrugged. “Rough terrain is no problem, although it slows us down. It also helps us stay undetected, so I’m okay with that. I’m sure they chose that location because it was far away from the settled areas, or as far away as you can get anywhere east of the Mississippi.”
Ethan had thought of that factor, too, but he still didn’t relish the idea of marching over hill and dale. It would be great if he only had to walk down hill, both ways. Ha.
He was about to make a witty comeback to that effect when his standby laptop woke up from rest mode, and a second later his HAM radio squawked.
“You expecting HAMnet traffic?” Michael asked, looking at the laptop screen, where a window had popped up.
“Nope.” Ethan stood and walked to the small secondary desk on which he’d set the laptop up. He rested both hands on the chair’s backrest and leaned forward to read the screen. There was indeed an incoming file on HAMnet. “Good guess. There’s a file coming in, but I’m not sure yet who sent it.”
HAMnet file transfers were painfully slow, but this one finished in only a few seconds. A glance told him it was a simple .txt file, and the header read ‘Jazoony.’ He double-clicked the text file to open it and saw that it was only two paragraphs of unencoded text.
Ethan,
This is to let you know that Jaz disappeared while shopping three days ago. I have recruited as many resources as I can to help me search for her, but despite my best efforts, we haven’t found anything yet.
Please let me know if you hear anything on the Intel side that might give you a clue as to who is behind it. I wanted to let you know so that you could look into it, if possible, and also so you can plug that into your Intel analyses.
Your friend,
Choony
He stared at the monitor wide-eyed and shouted, “Holy shit. Michael, come look at this.”
Michael set his cup on the table and came over, then looked over Ethan’s shoulder and read the note. A second later, he let out a long, low whistle. “God dammit… You know very well it’s the Maryland invaders. Their agents must’ve recognized her Clanmarks and grabbed her.”
Ethan grit his teeth. His mind flooded with images of the most terrible things they might be doing to her. “Do you think she’s still alive, if it was the Koreans?”
Michael nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. They’ll want to take their time in questioning her, so as long as she is strong enough not to give them everything they want right away, they have a good reason to keep her alive. You and I both know she’s a strong bird.”
Ethan shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the images. He didn’t want to think about what they could be doing to her anymore.
Michael put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder, glanced over to make eye contact, and said, “This changes everything, you know. I was resistant of the idea of wandering into Virginia on what could just be a wild goose chase, but I suspect that the only way agents of the Maryland invaders in Hoboken would know about
the Clanmarks is through intel provided by Watcher One. Even if not, he’s probably also doing a lot to coordinate their raids on our southern border. I think it just became a strategic priority to remove him as a threat. We need somebody who can take over my role and lead our defenses while I’m gone.”
Ethan took a deep breath and tried to think of someone who might be both qualified and willing. Michael had led the Clan’s defenses long before he became the Confederation general. The most willing people were probably Clanners, but the most capable would be elsewhere. “I think there was another major who came with that battalion Taggart loaned us for the war last year. If I’m not mistaken, he was one of the ones who stayed behind when Taggart recalled everyone willing to go. I think he’s in Lebanon. Does that sound right?”
Michael nodded and said, “Yes. A major did come with them, and he had a lot of experience fighting in New York City under Taggart. But he moved in with Ephrata, not Lebanon. I think he took over that city’s defenses, so he won’t be willing or able to leave that post. What about Carl?”
Ethan frowned, but stopped to give the suggestion serious consideration. Carl had always been cruelly efficient, but since losing Sunshine, he’d become somewhat sadistic when confronting Liz Town’s enemies. That sort of savage, pragmatic approach was exactly what the Confederation would need in Michael’s absence. It was simply what it took to fight in low-intensity, low-density attrition warfare of the sort Liz Town excelled at.
“That’s not a bad idea, if he’ll do it. I’ll reach out to him and see. It might take a day or two. In the meantime, you should start to get your unit ready. I have to go with you into Virginia, of course, so plan for that.”
Michael frowned, but quickly recovered. “Sorry Ethan, but you just don’t have the necessary military experience needed for this type of mission.”
Ethan could hardly argue with that. Still, he knew he would need to go in order for the mission to succeed. “Unless you plan on carrying five hundred pounds of explosives with you, or half the plastique in the Confederation, you’re going to need me to hack through his defenses and get us access to the bunker.”
Michael shook his head. “No, not necessarily. If we can find the bunker’s vent tubes, we can just cover those or smoke them out. He’ll open the door for us or die, and either of those solves our problem.”
A vision of Watcher One running out from the bunker, chased by smoke, made Ethan smile. Still, that was a lot to bet on one outcome. “Maybe, but that’s putting all your eggs in one basket. If you don’t find the vents, then you won’t be able to smoke them out. I’m the only one around who could hack through their access systems. And I’m the only one who can access the satellite and get us a bird’s-eye view of the area as we move through it, which we’ll need to stay ahead of any incoming threats. Our best way of overcoming Maryland’s defenses is by avoiding them.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Affirmative. You have a valid point. All right, you reach out to Carl and I’ll get a team and equipment together. Plan on being out there for quite a while, so you’ll need to give refresher training to your radio and computer monitor.”
Ethan grinned. “Computer monitors are notoriously slow learners.”
Michael laughed, his eyes lighting up. He always did seem to enjoy a bit of back-and-forth. Maybe that was just more common as part of being a Marine. He said, “You know what I mean. The guy who watches the systems while you’re asleep.”
“I’ll reach out, then, and train up my guy while you handle the rest.”
Michael turned to leave, but when he got to the door, he stopped and said over his shoulder, “You do realize that if Carl is unwilling, I’m not going to be able to leave. I can’t jeopardize the Clan and the Confederation to save one person, even if it is Jaz.”
Ethan could only nod. It was the simple, harsh truth, no matter how much he disliked it.
* * *
Joe Ellings wandered in the “green zone” in downtown Philly. The new top dog in town, Nate Runke, hadn’t been able to make time to meet with him. Joe reckoned it wasn’t personal, and he could well imagine how busy the man must be after taking over that huge city from them Maryland ’vaders.
He’d been cooling his heels in town ever since, waiting to get a summons, and had found it easy as pie to earn his keep in the meantime just by showing their farming folks how to do the stuff Cassy did at Clanholme. “Theories and practices in Permaculture,” Cassy had called it, but Joe just called it God’s way of doin’ it. After all, there was farms before ol’ John Deere came along. You just had to be willing to get your shoes a mite dirty.
That morning, he was out in the fields with the leader of one of the nearest communes, checking out its workers and showing them how to dig swales and make berms on a hill to keep the soil where it belonged and keep the water in the dirt instead of runnin’ away with the dirt.
At first, it had been slower than molasses teaching them all, because they didn’t understand how digging ditches could help with all that. Then they’d wanted to argue about why he told them to plant ground covers on the fresh-turned dirt. He had helped teach enough new Clanners that shutting down them argumentative types was practically second nature by now. Easy as pie.
Currently, he was teaching them on how to use an A-frame level, with a tube full of water, to help them reckon where to dig so the swale would stay on contour.
A second shadow joined his own, and he turned his head enough to see who had come up behind him. He stayed tense and alert, but maintained his calm, relaxed appearance. It turned out the shadow’s owner was a teenage boy, but Joe didn’t recognize him. Maybe he wasn’t one of the workers from this commune.
“Can I help you?” he asked the newcomer.
“Yes, sir. The Dude sent me to deliver a message to you. He wants to meet with you in one hour, and sends his apologies for the delay.”
Joe nodded and shot the boy a smile. “Hot damn! I appreciate you. Tell ’em I’ll be there come hell or high water.”
When the boy ran off, Joe turned to the commune workers and shrugged. “Sorry, folks. I gotta go. If you feel like you have this measuring contours down pat, then by all means, get ’er done. You got my sketch to show where to dig ’em. But if y’all don’t think you can do it just perfect, then find something else to do until I get back. I’m sure there’s plenty that needs doing around here.”
He left the commune on horseback and headed toward the house he had been squatting in. The house they had loaned him, he corrected—which meant he wasn’t no squatter.
He needed to get washed up before he met with the Dude, and the house had running water, just cold as hell. For some reason, he felt a bit excited to meet the Dude, and for once he didn’t mind the cold shower.
He got to City Hall, where the Dude had set up his HQ and residence, a full fifteen minutes before he was due. He checked in with the receptionist, then sat in a chair that made his butt hurt something fierce, and waited. He had to wait another twenty minutes, during which time nobody strolled in or out of the office.
When the wall clock showed five minutes past his appointment time—right on the nose as the minute hand swept past the number twelve—the receptionist looked up at him and said, “The Dude will see you now.”
He fought the urge to chuckle. It was just so clearly a game, like one of them power-plays out of an Office Politics for Dummies book or somethin’, it was hard not to laugh. He thanked the receptionist and was extra sure to call her ma’am so she’d remember him next time. When he got to the office door she had pointed out, he knocked lightly three times.
Ten seconds later—another stupid, pointless wait—a man’s voice from inside hollered for him to enter. Joe let out a sigh, fixed a smile on his face, then went inside and closed the door behind him. He couldn’t help but glance around looking for that Office Politics for Dummies book, but didn’t see anything of the sort. He did see that it was pretty clear the Dude hadn’t changed a thing since
taking over that office from the old mayor. He even still had the mayor’s family photos on the walls, along with his old awards and certificates. This dude—or rather The Dude—was a bit of a joke, Joe figured, and it was fairly disappointing.
The man behind the desk stood and said, “Mr. Wellings, thank you for coming. I’m sorry I was a bit late, but you know, duty calls. I’m Nate Runke, leader of Free Philadelphia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Joe was caught off guard that the Dude introduced himself by his given name. He’d expected to hear his nickname. Then again, maybe Cartoon Boy didn’t think “the Dude” reflected the dignity of his new office, as Cassy might have said it. As far as Joe was concerned, Dude had about as much dignity as Elmer Fudd. Who the heck kept other people’s family photos on the walls?
“Thanks for taking time to jaw with me, Mr. Mayor. I know you’re busy and all, what with them transitions going on since you took over. Congratulations on that, by the way.” Joe smiled, stepped forward, and extended his hand across the desk.
Nate shook his hand. “We all have our burdens. Please, have a seat.” Nate sat back down in his big old chair, which looked more like a throne than an office chair, and waited for Joe to sit.
“Thank you,” Joe said as he plopped down in the offered chair. “I suppose you want to know why the Clan sent me here.”
Nate shook his head. “Not really. I’m the new top dog, so it figures everyone in the neighborhood would send another dog to sniff around and get to know each other. Actually, I was more surprised at how long it took the Clan to send someone.”
Joe bit his tongue. He almost said what he thought, which wouldn’t have been good. Not good for diplomacy anyway, though it might’ve been funny. “Oh, I’ve been here for a little while, now. I figure your staff just prioritizes what’s going on and who you gotta meet. A man in your position, well, I reckon he’s got more responsibilities than time. I’m just glad I finally made it to the top of the list.” He favored Nate with a grin, even if he had to fake it.
