Divided We Fall (9 page)

Becca came up to us. “What are you two moping about over here?” She touched her butterfly hair clip, and her big silver “Cowgirl Up” belt buckle sparkled in the firelight.

“Oh, nothing,” Sweeney said too quickly.

“Yeah, sounds like nothing.” Becca rolled her eyes and sipped from whatever fruity wine drink she’d brought. “Whatever it is, let me hang out with you?” She leaned in so close that I could smell her perfume. “Caitlyn is on the warpath, ripping on whoever’s not here like she always does. She was complaining that Cassie Macer doesn’t set her up right, but Cait couldn’t nail a spike if the net was half as high.”

“Hey, where is Cassie?” Sweeney downed the rest of his beer and crushed the empty can in his hand.

“That’s my point,” Becca said. “She’s not here, so Caitlyn thinks she can —”

“Timmy Macer!” Sweeney shouted. “Damn it, Timmy, you had
one
job to do tonight!
One
damn job!”

“What?” Timmy asked from where he sat on a log on the other side of the fire.

Sweeney headed in his direction. “Where’s your sister?”

Me and Becca laughed. “Want a drink of this?” she asked.

I tipped back the bottle. “Ugh. It’s too sweet. Like Kool-Aid.”

“Anything’s better than beer,” she said.

We watched Randy down in the river spread his arms and flop face-first into the dark water. He came up sputtering and shouting.

“You okay?” Becca asked, turning to me.

“I’m great. Why?”

She looked at me. “Danny, we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. I think I can tell that you’ve been pissed off or whatever. Don’t tell JoBell I told you this, but she’s been worried about you too.”

“I’m fine.” She raised one eyebrow. “Well, I’m going to be fine now,” I said. “I promise.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “Cool. Just remember. I’m your friend. If you want to talk about whatever it was, about anything. You know where to find me.”

“Thanks,” I said. She went back to the girls. I hadn’t been fooling anyone. They all knew something was up with me. I put my hands over my face and shook my head, wondering what I was going to do about all this.

Then I stopped. That kind of crap was exactly why everyone knew something was wrong. I had to act normal, so I went to get another beer and talk football with the guys.

The game and this party had shown me that it might be possible to get back to my normal life. The only other part of it I still needed to fix was JoBell. I missed out on that bikini last Friday, and I wanted to make up for lost time. After a while, I found her by the fire and gently pulled her out of her chair, slipping my arms around her and hooking my fingers through the belt loops of her jeans. “Hey, let’s go back to the Beast,” I said. “I want to talk to you about something.”

JoBell pressed herself against me and kissed me quick. “You want to talk?”

“Um … Not really,” I said.

“Then what are we gonna do?”

“I’ll show you.” I started to unbutton the top button of her shirt, but she laughed and pushed my hands away.

“Dan-neee,” she said in that cute way where she held my name for a long time. Then she took my hand and led me through the darkness down the Abandoned Highway of Love.

As many problems as Mom had, me and her talked a lot, about everything. Well, not everything. We didn’t discuss things me and JoBell did together. That would be gross. So far she hadn’t brought up Boise, but I worried all the time that she would, and I dreaded all the ways that conversation could go bad.

“Tea?” I said that Saturday morning.

“Mmm.” She nodded and I poured her some. “Forgot to tell you.” She took a sip of her tea and closed her eyes, rubbing her temple with her free hand. She had headaches a lot. “I have to go to this nursing conference in Spokane for recertification. It starts the last Monday of the month and goes all week. You’ll be on your own. I’m going shopping sometime soon. Leave me a list of the stuff you want me to get for you to eat. Canned soup. Frozen stuff.”

“Okay,” I said, but the idea worried me. Mom didn’t always do so well with stress or new situations. How would she handle a whole week away from home? “Mom?” I said. She opened her eyes and looked at me with a frown. “Mom, are you sure you’ll —”

“I’ll be fine.” She shrugged. “Work.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I went back to my breakfast. “Speaking of work,” I said after I’d finished my toast, downing the last of my tea and rising from the table.

“Love you.” She reached out, and I leaned down for a quick hug, but she held on and squeezed me tight for a long time. When she let me go, she kept hold of my hand and looked me in the eye. “Be careful, Danny.”

She said that a lot, but somehow today, there was something in her words — more weight, more feeling. Instead of rolling my eyes and mumbling “Yeah, yeah,” I nodded.

*  *  *

I was in the Beast on the way to the shop when Digi-Hank said,
“You got a video call coming in. He ain’t in your contacts list. Don’t reckon I know who it is.”

Who would be vid-calling me that would come up unknown? “Put it up,” I said.

“You got it.”

It wasn’t really safe to be vid-chatting while driving, but I risked a look at my comm sitting on the passenger seat.

“Oh, shit!” It was Governor Montaine. I’d just sworn at the governor. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize it was you. Kind of surprised. Can you give me a second to pull over?”

“No problem,”
said the governor kindly.

I parked the Beast and then, making sure I was off-camera, knocked my head back against the headrest again and again. I was beyond tired of dealing with this stuff. I just wanted my life back.

I picked up my comm and held it in front of me. The image of the governor was at a weird angle, looking up from below.
“Then they’ll have to move the luncheon,”
he said to someone offscreen. Someone answered, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Then get Darlene to help them schedule someplace else. The banquet hall is a barracks now. I’ll not have those men sleeping in tents out on the grounds.”
He looked down at me.
“Sorry, Private Wright.”
He frowned and waved someone away.
“Things are busy here. This situation is moving fast. In one week, it’s become a lot worse. I hope you’re holding up okay.”

“I’m fine, sir. I had a little trouble focusing on football last night, but I figured it out.”

“Ah, play a little high school football, do you?”

“Yes, sir. We won twenty-one to thirteen.” I stretched my sore arms.

He threw his head back in a big, loud politician’s laugh.
“Good man!”
Then he leaned forward and looked into the camera so that his whole face filled my screen.
“Listen, I’m sorry to mess up your morning, but I’m sending a helicopter to your armory. I’m calling everyone in the rest of your squad next. I want you all down here in Boise for a meeting this morning. We need to discuss strategy and some other issues. No uniforms or anything. Come as you are.”

“I was on my way to work,” I said before thinking. Annoying as all of this was, he was still the governor. “I’m sorry, sir. I mean —”

“Not at all. I understand this is difficult for you. Believe me, I’m on your side. I’ll see that you’re all put on state duty pay for this meeting starting right now, and I’ll make this as quick as I can. You should be back home shortly after noon.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Good man,”
he said again.
“See you then.”

The connection ended. I fired up the Beast and then turned around to head out of town toward the armory.

*  *  *

I always hated flying, but as flights went, the trip to the governor’s mansion was at least better than my last flight to Boise. Even Staff Sergeant Meyers was quiet, sleeping off a hangover the whole way. We all basically agreed to say yes to whatever the governor wanted — whatever it took to get out of there as fast as possible.

As the Chinook descended, I could see the governor’s mansion out the back hatch. It was an enormous house at the top of a hill above Boise. One of the largest American flags I’d ever seen fluttered in the wind on a pole that must have been at least a hundred feet high. Even before the helicopter landed on the massive brick circular driveway, a ring of soldiers had set up a security perimeter around it.

“Is all this really needed?” Luchen asked next to me. I hoped not.

We exited the aircraft and followed Lieutenant McFee, who had dark circles under his eyes and chapped lips. He looked like he hadn’t slept much lately. A different lieutenant led McFee toward the house. The Chinook took off again as soon as we were clear.

“Classy,” Specialist Stein said as we were led through the double front doors with arched tops. We entered a room with a carpet version of the Idaho state flag on the floor. In the center of a dark blue field was a circular image with food, some kind of miner or pioneer guy, and a woman in a white dress. The picture was framed by a gold band with the words
Great Seal of the State of Idaho
. Straight ahead, between an American flag standing on the left and the real Idaho flag on the right, a fancy stone staircase rose halfway up to the second level, stopped on a landing, then split into two stairways for the rest of the way.

Governor Montaine came to the second-floor railing and looked down at us. “Great. You’re here.” He took the steps two at a time to join us on the flag carpet and shake all our hands. “General McNabb is upstairs in the office. Follow me.”

Sergeant Kemp shot me a look like,
Is this for real?
Staff Sergeant Meyers only yawned and led the way after the governor. Lieutenant McFee was supposed to be our leader, but he trailed behind us and faded into the background like a ghost. The guy had hardly said a word this morning and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. I tried to act the way everyone else seemed to be handling all of this — like it was no big deal to be following Governor Montaine around his mansion to meet with the commander of the Idaho National Guard — but I couldn’t get over how crazy this whole situation was.

We entered a busy office with officers and civilians sitting and standing around half a dozen tables. People worked on big screens at the tables or stood around typing things into their comms. Montaine pushed aside a comm and took a seat on the edge of a desk. “Darlene, can we get some chairs for these soldiers, please?”

“Right away, sir,” said a dark-haired woman at a table in the corner. She started pulling every free chair in the room for us. We sat down. General McNabb remained standing, speaking quietly to an officer whose three large screens all showed different maps of Idaho’s borders.

“Thank you for coming,” said the governor. “I know you probably have other plans today, so I’ll get right to the point. We’re concerned that we’re not going to be able to keep your involvement in the Boise incident a secret. The general and I have been discussing contingency plans in the event that someone leaks your identities to the Fed or to the press, or in case new evidence links any of you to the shooting. In that event, what I’m concerned about is safety and security for you and your families.” The governor frowned a little when General McNabb’s comm rang, and the general hurried out of the office with his comm to his ear. “I’m assigning local law enforcement to step up patrols near your homes, to keep a closer eye on you and your families to make sure you’re all safe. What I’ll need from you today are the names and addresses of any extended family we should be concerned about protecting. Grandparents. Siblings. That sort of thing.”

Wait a minute. What was he saying? Did he really think someone was going to hurt or arrest our families? It was just Mom and me on our own. I think she had like one sister who lived in Arizona or New Mexico or something, but they hardly talked to each other. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “The federal government wouldn’t go after our families to get at us. That’s illegal, right?”

The governor smirked. “It seems like the Fed changes what’s legal and illegal whenever it suits them. But I’m also worried that if your names are discovered, regular angry citizens might try to take revenge of some kind.”

As soon as I was starting to think life could get back to normal, now I had to worry about people coming after my mom? What if they tried to take it out on my friends? On JoBell?

Sergeant Kemp leaned forward in his chair. “Sir, do you know of any credible threats? Has anyone found out we were there that night? And what about the other units involved in the incident?”

“We don’t have specific information on any leaks yet, but people are poring over all the photographs and video footage, so it’s a real possibility. I’ll be meeting individually with each of the units who were at Boise that night, including the rest of the squads in your platoon. That way, any soldier who might disobey my order to keep quiet can only sell out his own unit, not all the others.”

My cheeks grew hot when I thought of how I’d told Sweeney about Boise. Well, the governor would never find out I’d told him. I trusted Sweeney more than just about anyone else.

“Also on Monday,” said Montaine, “I’ll be issuing a call for volunteers among all Idaho Guardsmen, asking any interested soldiers to come work full-time for the state. You all would be most welcome and encouraged to take advantage of that opportunity. We’re going to take some steps to make sure the federal government can’t launch any surprise incursions into —”

“Excuse me, Governor!” General McNabb burst back into the room. “Code red!”

Six men in black suits poured into the room, all of them carrying handguns. They took up positions around the governor. My squad and I jumped to our feet.

“Sit rep!” said the governor.

“The situation is two Chinook helicopters are flying in from Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah,” said the general. “They’ve ignored our request for identification and mission and are headed directly for us.”

“Maybe they’re on the way to Mountain Home?” the governor asked.

“The base isn’t answering our calls and the birds have already passed it. They’ll be here in about ten minutes,” said McNabb.

The governor’s comm went off, playing “Hail to the Chief.” “That’d be the president calling,” said Montaine.

“All right, everybody, let’s clear the room,” said the general.

“No, that’s okay, General. I have nothing to hide. I want everybody here to know exactly what we’re dealing with.” The governor tapped his comm. “Good morning, Mr. President.”

“James Montaine, I need you to immediately begin enforcing the federal ID card law, and I need you to give me the names of all those soldiers involved in the shooting at Boise. I need you to do those things right now.”

“Well,
President
Rodriguez, I didn’t realize we were on a first-name basis now, or that you had become so disrespectful that you no longer address me by the title of the office to which I was elected. But to make this easy for you, I’ll get to the point. The answer is no. And ‘no’ is something that you boys in Washington better get used to hearing.”

There was a pause.
“All right, Mr. Montaine, then you leave me no choice. By the authority vested in me as president of the United States of America, I am hereby placing you under arrest on the charge of obstruction of justice. Two helicopters are on their way to your location at this time, both carrying soldiers from the 78th Special Forces Group. You will be taken into custody and moved to Washington, DC, where you will likely face additional charges before you stand trial for your crimes.”

The governor stood up a bit straighter. His eyes narrowed. “I’ve committed no crime. It is
you
who are breaking the law with your unconstitutional mandates and your efforts to prosecute innocent soldiers whose only crime is doing their duty.”

“We’ve been over this! It’s too late for talk. My men will be there soon. This ridiculous standoff is over.”

“No, Mr. President. You will turn those helicopters around, or I will. This doesn’t have to escalate to violence, but if people do get hurt today, it will be your fault. Goodbye, Mr. President. We can resume a productive discussion of our problem after you remove the threat of attack.”

The president had started to speak, but Governor Montaine tapped out of the conversation. “General McNabb, scramble our Apache gunships. Intercept and repel those federal birds. Tell our pilots not to fire until I give the order.”