The Rangers Are Coming (9 page)

              Washington got into bed.  It was easily the most comfortable bed he’d ever known.  He tried to think through the momentous day and speculate on what tomorrow would bring, but he found himself growing sleepier by the moment.  Finally, he pushed the button on his light and the room went dark.  He was asleep before he even knew it.  It was the same for the others.

            
9

Fort Independence, Virginia

              The phone rang in Washington’s room at exactly six AM.  He fumbled in the dark, pushed on the light and picked up the phone.  “It’s six o’clock, General,” said the male voice at the other end.  “Breakfast is at 7 in the same place as last night.  I will send someone to escort you.”  The phone clicked off.

              Washington stretched and got out of bed.  It seemed that all his old aches and pains were gone, and he did not have the throbbing in his mouth from the old ivory teeth.  He jumped up and went into the bathroom and admired his new teeth in the mirror for a moment.  Then he proceeded to take a shower, enjoying it a great deal.  He shaved, marveling at how easy it was and how close the shave was.  He happily brushed his teeth.  Then he added anti-perspirant, and a splash of cologne.

              He went to the closet and pulled out the green fatigue uniform.  It was fresh, and sharp with starch.  There were two stars on the collar and a name tag sewn to his right pocket that said ‘Washington’  on the other pocket was sewn ‘U.S. Army’.  He put on the uniform.  Then he slipped on the comfortable brown boots that went up past his ankles.  There were a couple a stretchable cords inside the boots, but he had no idea what they were for.  He worked the belt, finding the clasp to be a green metal.  He looked around for a hat and found a smart looking beret in the closet.  He slipped it on and looked at himself in the mirror.  “So this is what the soldier of the future wears.”  He discovered the cloth was foreign to him.  It was not cotton, but was light and comfortable and certainly seemed durable.

              Just then, there was a knock at the door.  He opened it and found his aide from the night before standing there, wearing the same uniform.  The soldier snapped a smart salute, and said, “Good morning, Sir, did you sleep well?”

              “Very well, thank you,” said Washington returning the salute with a kind of wave to his head.

              “I see, sir that you found the blousing rubbers, but nobody showed you how to use them.  Look at mine.”

              Washington saw immediately how the bands were supposed to work and he put them around his legs, just above his boots and tucked his pants around them.

              “Perfect, general,” said the aide.  “If you will just wait a second, I’ll gather the rest of the group.  He went down the row of doors, pounding on them.  The five others came out, dressed as the night before, but very impressed with Washington’s uniform.

              “You look just like the Commander in Chief, you are,” said Franklin.

              Breakfast was eggs, cooked to order, bacon, sausage patties, pancakes, toast, and the best coffee any of the men had ever tasted.

              Other soldiers, dressed in the green fatigues, came in and ate.  All of them said a respectful good morning to the Colonials and “Good Morning, General” to Washington.  Washington looked around and did not see Arcadia.  He asked one of the men at another table where she was.

              “Arcadia went out with the recon chopper at dawn.  She was hoping to contact some members of the Indian tribes who live nearby.  She’ll be back in time for your review.”

              “She’s very active here, isn’t she,” said Madison.

              “Our Arcadia is the heart and soul of our entire mission. Much of the planning you will hear today was written and designed by her.  She’s the smartest of us all, and there is not one person in this entire installation that would not give his life for her.”

              “You are not bothered by the fact she is a woman,” asked Franklin?

              “In our society, Mr. Franklin, women are completely equal with men.  Many of our senior leaders are women.”

              Just before 8 o’clock, Arcadia came bounding into the dining room.  Gone was the white dress.  Now she was dressed in green fatigues like most of the others.  She wore a beret with a feather sticking out the side.

              “Good Morning!” she said brightly, “ready to have a look at the hardware we’ve brought along to help you kick the British Butt’s?”

              “We await your pleasure, Arcadia,” said Washington with deep respect.  The others nodded.

              “Then let’s go.” Arcadia headed for the door and the rest of the Colonials followed her.  They walked past the big buildings in the center of the installation with the barracks that surrounded them.  Eventually they came to a wide-open parade ground with a reviewing stand built right in the center of one side.  Arcadia led the Colonials up the stairs and Washington got a look at the formation below.

              There were about 300 men and women, dressed in fatigues and drawn up in companies.  Arcadia went to the microphone set in the center of the reviewing stand and barked the order, “Brigade!  Attention!”

              Instantly, the formation came into sharp focus and you could hear 300 sets of boots clicking together in unison.  “Pass in Review!” ordered Arcadia. 

              Washington could hear supplemental orders being given within the ranks and each separate company began a complicated set of movements that ended with a long line of companies in ranks that marched across the parade ground and lined up across the back edge.

              From the left side Washington saw a group of large green rolling machines driving in perfect unison.  Twenty of these vehicles, the Humvees, drove in rows of two across the parade ground, turned at the corner, and came to a stop in a precise formation in front of the men.  Next, 10 Bradley light tanks rolled across the parade ground in columns of two.  They also made the turn at the end of the parade ground and ended up in a formation just in front of the Humvees.  Then the artillery crossed in front of the reviewing stand.  Six gleaming 105 mm Howitzers pulled by their own heavy trucks.  They took their place in front of the Bradleys.

              Now a whistle blew and the soldiers at the back of the formation marched to the corner of the parade ground, up its side, and marched perfectly in front of all the other equipment to make 10 precise formations in a row facing the reviewing stand.

              Washington turned to Arcadia, “That was quite a show.”

              “Does the parade ground still seem a little empty to you,” asked Arcadia?

              “There’s still plenty of room, if that’s what you mean.”

              “These are just the officers and trainers for our Colonial Army.  When we next have a review, you will have an additional 3,000 soldiers of your own countrymen.  The Colonial Army, one reinforced Brigade.”

              “One Brigade?” said Washington.  “The British will have 30,000 troops in their army.”

              “They are badly outnumbered,” said Arcadia, “Not the Colonial Army, but the British.  When we’re finished training you troops, one man will have the firepower of a whole regiment of Red Coats.”

              Arcadia went back to the microphone,  “Well done!  You are dismissed to continue your duties.”  The Brigade marched and drove off the parade ground in good order.

              “OK, General, and the rest of you,” said Arcadia, “let’s go plan ourselves a future, starting with a war.”

              The conference room in the Admin Center was full.  Not only were the Colonials present, but also the senior commanders of all the components of the Brigade.

              A professorial man, balding, with a round face and a smart goatee, stepped to the podium at the end of the conference table and in front of several big plasma screens.  His bright eyes twinkled with intelligence.  “Gentlemen, let me introduce myself, I am Dr. Owen Wilkins, and I’m the Chairman of the Sociology Department at Harvard University.  We didn’t just cook up this plan overnight.  Following Arcadia’s vision, she came out with a very long list of things that would have to be done to wipe out the carnage in America today.  Our biggest cities and half our population, about 150 million people are dead.  Up until this time, the United States was the greatest power on the planet for almost a hundred years.  Arcadia was told the only way to avoid this from happening is to alter the past and we would have to come to this time, 1770, in order to effect enough change to save our country and our people.”

              Wilkins pushed a button on a pad, and one of the screens came to life.  “This is the current arrangements of countries in the world.  The nuclear weapons that were detonated in the United States were almost certainly provided by this country.”  A red light highlighted Iran. “This country is Muslim.  The other countries who are also Muslim and who contain the likely leaders in the attack are these.” Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Indonesia all went red.  “The non-Muslim countries which would benefit the most from the destruction of the United States are China, and Russia.”  Orange lights highlighted these countries.

              “Our premise to prevent the attack is really quite simple.  We must make the United States so big, so powerful the rest of the world will not dare challenge us.  I will also add that the new United States will be a strictly neutral nation with no interest in anything but trade from the rest of the world.  In fact, we’ll lead the way in providing aid and assistance to countries that are struggling.  However, our aid will never be in weapons.  As an additional component of our supremacy, we intend to lead the world by decades in technology.  We’ll do this by having the greatest educational system on earth.  With just a little help along the way, the scientists, engineers, ordinary students of the country will be able to develop the kind of technology you are experiencing here.  Trust me you are only seeing a minute fraction of our capabilities.”

Wilkins paused for effect, “While other countries are using letters to communicate with each other, we will have phone systems such as you used this morning.  While others are studying better ways to build roads and bridges, we’ll have a country that is crisscrossed with both.  While other countries are working on ways to make better bombs with gunpowder, we’ll be sending men to the moon.  We’ll be so far ahead of everyone else, countries will pay anything, do anything to stay friends with us to receive even the smallest pieces of our technology.”

              Wilkins stepped aside.  A man who was obviously, a clergyman came to the podium.  “It’s vital that our country continue to worship God in a manner in which He will continue to honor and bless us.  We couldn’t care less about the doxology of the various churches as long as they all have the core belief that Jesus is the son of God and sacrificed himself, to atone for our sins, and by his resurrection made it possible for us to experience the love of God, follow His will in all ways, and experience entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven when our lives on earth have run its course.  The key to this is in the manner in which we educate our children.  We must have the finest schools from grade school to university, and all of them must teach its students to experience God in a very personal way.”

              “In about a hundred years, scientists are going to discover the Earth is about 4 billion years old.  An immediate schism will develop between the scientists and theologians who question the first words of Genesis that says God created the Universe and Earth in six days.  We would like for you to know that science will not kill God it will confirm him.  I’m sure that all of you have heard the scripture that our ways are not God’s ways, and our thoughts are not His thoughts.  We now know part of what that means.  Moses wrote the book of Genesis and quoted God directly.  However, God was speaking of time as He measures it, and a day for God is billions of years long.  Moses had no way of understanding that.  He just wrote down what he heard.  When we get to that crisis in America, we’ll be ready to counter it, and God will continue, as he always has, the Master of the Universe.”

              Now it was Arcadia’s turn at the podium.  “All that you have heard this far is really only for effect.  It’s to let you know that we have a really big plan that spans 275 years, and that at every crisis point, we believe we have an answer for it.  However, that doesn’t solve the problem we have here and now.  The British have to be defeated and it has to be done in short order.”  She pushed another button on her pad and a map of North America came up.  “This is the United States as it exists today, with Canada to the north and Mexico and Central America to the south.  This is the new United States that all that firepower you saw out there on the parade ground, plus some other things we’re going to give you.”  The map changed and it showed a United States that now included Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Central America, and all the islands in the Caribbean from the Bahamas to Aruba and from Cuba to the Cayman Islands.

              “We will be the biggest country in world, all Christian, neutral, avoiding foreign entanglements, and virtually impregnable in 2025.  At that point, the Lord promises to release the gates blocking the river of time and what we’ve created will be real and everything else will simply cease to exist.  Our country is not attacked and 150 million people will not die.”