Dark Road (34 page)

“Crystal, sir,” Mallory said.

“Good. Get your people with the program, and I think I’m going to need to have someone onsite there in a week to see how things are going, Olsen out.” Olsen said.

…

Mallory sat looking at the radio equipment and thinking about the conversation she’d just had.

“…why our mission has changed…orders were leaked…insurrection against the legitimate authority…we can’t lose another unit like that…”

Mallory picked up a pen and threw it at the tent wall. “Crystal clear you lying, evil, conniving son of a…Specialist Cox!” Mallory barked, but more to get his attention than anything.

Cox stuck his head through the tent flaps, “Ma’am.”

“It’s all yours again.” She said. “Hopefully I won’t get any more calls today. I believe I dropped your pen,” she pointed over on the far side of the tent, “somewhere over there.”

“Happens all the time, ma’am,” Cox said with nod.

…

“Captain,” Sergeant Stewart said.  “A word?”

Eric nodded.  “Sure Top, what’s on your mind?”

“A lot, unfortunately, and not much of it good,” Bill said.  “I’m afraid things don’t seem to be going too well between the ranks and the civvies since word got out about the rest of the orders.”

“How so,” Eric frowned.  Things had really been going well since the election and this was a bit of a surprise.

“Well, sir,” Bill said. “I’m not sure where it started, with us or with them…”

“Stop right there,” Eric said.  “That is the last time you use that phrase when talking about anyone in this camp, period.  Understood, Sergeant?”

Bill blushed and nodded.  “Yes sir,” he said.  “I didn’t mean it that way but yes, I’m sorry.  It’s already started and now I’m doing it.  I’m not sure who started the talk of separating the military from the civilians, but now it’s starting to run rampant.  There is talk of having the civilians move down to Redemption and have the military stay here in the park.”

Bill shook his head at Eric’s questioning look.  “The talk is that ‘we’ can’t be trusted.  Who’s to say we won’t jump on board with the new orders at some point—with no notice, supposedly.”

…

Rachael, Chuck, and Dan approached Joel as a group and he knew that no good was going to come from the encounter.  He held up his hand before anyone could say anything and said, “One at a time, and my wife gets to go first.”

“The town, or more appropriately the civilians here and in the town, have lost their minds.” Rachael said.

“Ok, not nearly as helpful as I was hoping it would be.” Dan said. “Who’s going to give me details?”

Rachael glared at him but didn’t say anything, so Chuck started.  “The non-military folks have decided they don’t trust the military all of the sudden.” Chuck said.  “They are saying things like; are they protecting us or are they guarding us?  Who’s guarding the guards?  Stuff like that.”

Joel put a hand over his eyes.  “Dan?  Anything to add?”

“Yeah,” Dan said.  “They think that all the civilians should move to Redemption and the military should stay here in the park and that we should cease to have any dealings with each other.  They say that’s what the orders say we should be doing anyway.”

“No,” Joel snapped but not at the three in front of him.  “The orders say the military should start by consolidating themselves and all of their resources and
then
subduing the civilian population and all our resources, and putting the entire surrounding area under martial law!”

The group who had come to him looked sheepish and Joel felt bad for yelling since it wasn’t their fault.  “The Major is putting everything on the line by pushing back and refusing to go along with these orders.” Joel said.

“We know that,” Chuck said, “but nobody is listening to us.”

Joel nodded, realizing that it was going to be up to him.

…

It took several seconds for Joel to realize what was different when looking out over the crowd and then it hit him—there were no guardsmen mixed in.  He’d asked Mallory to keep them separate for this meeting and she’d obliged, but it hadn’t struck him until just now how odd it looked after months of integrating with them.  There were no M-16 rifles slung over shoulders, and although there were fatigues worn by a number of the civilians, they didn’t
look
the same.

Joel waved his arms to quiet everyone down and it got quiet after several seconds.  It had been a day since he had first heard about the dissent and mistrust that was brewing between the civilians and the military.  Since then, he’d heard the terms us and them more times than he cared to count, and had told each person he could identify to knock it off.  Most times the individual looked like they felt bad for saying it in the first place, but a couple of people tried to stare him down, and once someone got belligerent and his buddies ended up convincing him to back off.

“A little over two months ago,” Joel began, “the military got some orders, code named ARCLiTE.  They gave the military permission to do what they had been doing all along, which is to work with the civilians, keep civilization alive, help build the community, and protect the citizens.”

There were a few cheers that were silenced fairly quickly by their neighbors.  “About a month ago, they got another set of orders
claiming
that ARCLiTE was a miserable failure and that all bets were off.”  Joel continued.  There were a few boos and catcalls that weren’t silenced quite as quickly.

“These orders,” Joel went on, “instructed the military to pull back from the civilian population, cease integration, and to be more concerned with their own.  They were to consolidate their own supplies and resources in preparation for the next step, which was to pacify the citizens for their own good and declare martial law.”

That caused the crowd to erupt with shouts, yelled curses, and shaken fists.

Joel held up his hands to quiet down the crowd but nothing happened for several seconds.  He wolf-whistled to no avail.  Finally, Joel pulled the .45 from his hip and fired it into the air, which was such an unheard of occurrence in camp that it silenced everyone immediately.

It also caused two guardsmen to come running at full-speed around the corner, to make sure everything was ok.  As soon as they saw Joel with his pistol pointed up in the air they scanned the crowd to make sure nobody was crying or had been obviously shot, and then left without a word.

 “The Major,” Joel said, “for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, haven’t noticed, or just like to stir up trouble, has decided not to obey the second set of orders; at all.  If anything, the military has stepped up the integration with the civilians.  They are looking at ways to ensure communications with the outside world aren’t interrupted.  We are working
together
to get limited electrical and telephone capabilities restored here and in Redemption.”

Joel scanned the silent crowd.  “Do those sound like the actions of a person interested in disarming and pacifying the citizens for their own good?”  Joel asked.

People in the crowd were starting to look down at the ground and look at each other instead of looking at him and Joel decided to take a page from Mallory’s book.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Joel shouted.

That stunned the crowd for the second time in as many minutes.

“If you’re ashamed of yourselves it’s for a good reason; you
should
be!” Joel said.  “Before there were any orders, before there was any ARCLiTE and there was just a crisis the likes of which this country had never seen, those people, those soldiers, stepped up and did what was necessary because it was right.  Now you don’t trust them to continue to do what’s right because someone on the other end of a radio told them to do something wrong!”

Joel scanned the crowd again and spat off the stage.  It was a gesture that he hated and he doubted that anyone here had ever seen him do it before.  It was a distaste that he’d gotten from his father and he’d tried to instill it in his son, and it appeared that it had the desired effect now as the crowd flinched—almost as a group.

“That makes me sick.”  Joel said.  “We’re better than that, and I don’t mean we the civilians, I mean as people, as a community, as a group that includes everyone in this camp and the town.  There was no talk of division until the Colonel put it in our heads,” and Joel tapped the side of his head with his finger.  “He’s done a number on us; sowed the seeds of mistrust and dissention deeper and quicker than I thought possible.  Prove him wrong.”

With that Joel turned and walked off the small stage and went back to work.  It took the crowd a few seconds to realize he was done.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Good morning, Colonel,” Mallory said.

“Major,” Colonel Olsen said. “Is everything in order for our little visit?”

“That depends, Colonel.”  Mallory said.

“Quit beating around the bush, Major,” Olsen said.  “What’s the situation there in Promised Land and your annexed town?”

Mallory closed her eyes and steeled herself for her response.  “No different than they were on September 10
^th
Colonel and I don’t see there being any changes in the next day and a half.”  She said.

There was a brief pause and Mallory could only imagine Olsen giving the signal on his end to ready the troops before he responded.  “Are you sure about that Major?”

That wasn’t the response Mallory had expected from the Colonel; the Army equivalent of Regis Philbin and “Is that your
final
answer?”  Mallory would have laughed if the conversation weren’t so serious.

“Sir?” she said.

“There’s still time to fix this,” Olsen said, the unspoken threat hanging in the silence.

“Fix what, sir?”  Mallory asked.  “My refusal to follow the mandates in the orders outlined a month ago?  No sir, that cannot be fixed because there’s nothing broken.  I don’t recognize the orders as lawful.”  Mallory couldn’t say so to the Colonel, but from the sounds of things on the backchannel communications it sounded like several others were feeling the same way.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Olsen began.  “I have no choice but to…”

“I’m sorry, too, sir,” Mallory interrupted the Colonel, “but with all due respect, I’m afraid that while I originally recognized your authority I’m afraid that I cannot anymore.  I believe you have either been suborned or are no longer acting of your own free will.  Alone you can’t find me guilty of an article 81, 85, 92 or any other article via a court-martial and couldn’t do it on the spot anyway.  You also couldn’t strip me of rank by yourself.”

Mallory closed her eyes and continued without giving the Colonel a chance to break in.  “Questions have been raised about the validity and origin of the initial ARCLiTE orders, regardless of the LANCER authentication during first contact and not just by me.”

“I haven’t heard of any such questions!”  The Colonel snapped and then said nothing more.

“Regardless, sir, I took an oath when I accepted my commission.”  Mallory said.  “That oath was not to any one man or woman, but to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”

Mallory paused to let that sink in and then continued to lecture her superior officer when he said nothing.  “We have voted to ratify the Constitution and here it is full force and effect.”  Mallory said.  “We have held elections and there is a duly appointed Mayor.  Here, we have laws.  We respect and abide by those laws just as we respect each other.  We didn’t need permission to help out before ARCLiTE ordered us to.  We are American citizens working together.”

“So be it.”  Olsen said and cut the line.

…

“It’s done,” Mallory said to Eric and Joel.  They were outside today as it was cool enough and she was tired of tents.

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Joel said while going through the paperwork as he tried to figure out who was going to move into the fixed lodging

“That’s because it’s not. The Colonel was mad enough that he let slip that they’re listening to everything we say.”  Mallory said.

Eric raised an eyebrow.  “You must have gotten under his skin,” he said.  “How’d you do that?”

“I told him that questions have been raised about the source of the orders for ARCLiTE in the first place and not just by me,” Mallory said.  “He admitted that he hadn’t heard anything about that, which means he hasn’t heard anything about it on the
satellite
radios, which also means he doesn’t have one of our HAM rigs, so it’s a double plus.”

“Nice,” Eric said.  “Did you just think of that?”

Mallory nodded.  “Actually yes, I didn’t think of the HAM connection until just now.”

“Any word from Major Franklin,” Joel asked.

“No, not yet,” Mallory admitted, “and that has me worried.  I didn’t expect him to just agree to send in a bunch of missiles down here as soon as I asked, but I figured I would have heard something by now.”

…

Specialist Ronald Tyler was on radio duty when both radios, military and HAM, came to life almost simultaneously.  “Sergeant, I need a hand in here,” he yelled to a passing guardsman.  “Please,” he amended.

“I can’t take both of these notes at once and I’m afraid they’re going to be important.” He said as he handed a pad of paper and pencil to Sergeant Harris as he trotted into the tent.  “If you can rewind the recording on the military side, I’ve been taking the notes on the HAM side.”  Harris nodded and grabbed the headphones for the satellite rig; the color drained from his face, but he set the recording to continue and replayed the last thirty seconds.

When both of the transmissions were transcribed, Harris turned to Tyler and said, “Get the Captain in here.”  Tyler took off with a nod.  Staff Sergeant Morris was only slightly curious as to why he saw the Specialist he had on communications duty running through camp a few seconds later.