The State (5 page)

Tabby was in the supply closet when she heard the response and a tear welled up in her eyes as she fought to find the tool kit in the declining darkness.  Once she put her hands on it, she also found the store’s medical kit. 

Raven sensed the woman enter the front of the store. 

“Tabby, is that you?”

“Yes, Raven, I have the screwdriver and some medical supplies,” Tabby said, careful to use the same entry and exit points in every step that she took.

“Do you think this will work?” Raven asked.

Tabby gently opened the adjoining cabinet door and began removing items from inside as she answered. 

“Yes, I think it will.  Wait,” she stopped and tilted her head towards the opening of the building.  “What’s that noise?”

Raven sat still for a second and then said something that caught the surgeon off guard.

“I think it’s my dad, he’s got a big diesel Humvee, and it sounds like that.” 

“Your dad drives a Humvee?”

“Yeah, he’s in charge of part of the Georgia National Guard.”

CHAPTER 6

The Tiller Farm

Grace and Joshua walked a guard duty route on the farm.  They circled the house, the vehicles and along the fence line, taking about 30 minutes to make the sweep.  Satisfied that the grounds were clear, they made their way towards the stable.  The horses were turned out to the pasture, so the stable was quiet.  The night sky was open, the moon was bright and the stars, outside of the moon’s glow, were on full display.  There was a nip in the air and Grace found herself wishing she had added her mother’s extra long sleeve wicking shirt before donning her mother’s bulletproof vest.  

“Are you cold?” Joshua asked.  He saw her shiver one time before shaking it off.

“No, I’m fine,” she answered, but obviously, Joshua wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer.

“Here,” he said, taking his windbreaker off and putting it around her shoulders.  He didn’t have a bulletproof vest; that was one prep that his father had yet to afford.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting the gesture with no further objection.  The jacket held his warmth and she could smell his scent when she pulled it tight.

“So, you don’t seem as angry or frustrated as you were in the bunker,” Joshua treaded lightly.  “Is everything clear now after talking with your dad?”

Grace walked into the stable, where the crunch of the gravel under her boots gave way to the hardness of concrete.  The smells changed, as did the humidity.  She liked the stable, even when the horses weren’t in it.

Joshua lit a small lantern, casting a low light on the ground.  He was sure that it could not be seen from outside of the stable.

“Joshua,” she said, turning around.  “I need to confide in you, but I need you to keep this completely between us.  Do you promise?”

“I promise,” he said, looking where her eyes were supposed to be.  But the light was not pointing in the right direction and he could only see shadows instead of blue eyes.

Grace hesitated at first, and then accepted his promise.  “Okay,” she said, turning around from his stare, and reaching into the bag where the horses sugar cubes were kept. She pulled a small white cube out and rolled it through her fingers.  Her mind was racing.  She didn’t know how to tell Joshua that her parents were spies for the CIA. 
Is that really important now?

“What made you ask my dad about Senator Payne?” she asked instead.  Her mind was made up, she would tell Joshua about the CIA later.

Joshua raised an eyebrow at the question; he had expected a different subject.  “He’s the reason,” he said simply.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, while you were out talking with your parents earlier today, my dad and I were talking about Senator Payne.  You probably don’t know, but my dad’s is an IT guy with the state.  It’s his office that does all of the cyber security for the state.  All that stuff your father mentioned about the shipping ports and cyber attacks,” he waited.

“Yeah?”

“My dad was living that,” Joshua divulged.  “He told me there were massive firewall hits against the state’s computers.  Especially against the ones that control the state’s shipping ports.”

“So, you think that it’s linked to the invasion?”

“Has to be.  That’s why they’re breezing through our ports now. ”

“And you think Senator Payne organized this?”

  “All arrows point to him, especially with what Ian just said,” Joshua had been thinking about this ever since they heard the broadcast from Payne. “This guy was the keystone, he had to be.  I mean, he’s the one broadcasting to us; he’s the face of the bad guys. Also, your dad said he’s the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee,” Joshua said, really white boarding his ideas out loud.  “Remember, it was the Intelligence Committee that had that cyber hack last year, and then our shipping ports last week! This thing started near the top, Grace.  It had to!”

Both teenagers stood quietly in the stables, mulling over their thoughts.

“So, Senator Payne?” Graced asked again.

“Yeah, Senator Payne,” Joshua repeated.  “The guy’s a snake.”

“Obviously!  He’s working with the Chinese.  He might as well have pushed the button on the nukes himself and opened the shipping ports for them to land their invasion force,” Grace surmised.

“So, if we were to take down Senator Payne, we could really strike back for the good guys.  Couldn’t we?” Joshua asked, not really expecting an answer.

“So, how do we do that?” Grace asked.

CHAPTER 7

The Hill Above the Tiller Farm

Xi Wu, First Lieutenant in the People’s Army, had finally stopped the bleeding from being shot in the upper shoulder during the fight at the pipeline terminal.  The only reason he was not dead was because of a small metallic transponder that was sewn into the upper sleeve of his combat uniform.  Used to track troop movements, the transponder had deflecting most of the bullet away from entering his chest cavity.  The result was a useless transponder and a badly damaged arm, but he was alive. Which was more than he could say for any of his platoon mates.

Unfortunately Wu was right handed, and with his arm in a makeshift sling, he was far from deadly with a rifle, and didn’t want to take his chances fighting with a knife.  What he did know was that he needed to communicate with his commanders.  He needed to inform them about the rebel stronghold, and their failure to secure the pipeline terminal.

The platoon’s radio equipment, first-aid kit, extra ammunition and supplies had been on the truck when it exploded.  Somehow the Americans had stolen one of their helicopters and used it against them.  They killed everyone in his platoon and the engineering soldiers that had been assigned to shut off the pipeline.  He had been told that the Americans would roll over and beg for their lives; that was not true.

Now, Wu stood along the tree line, feet from a freshly dug grave. The grave had a wooden cross at one end with a small red pocketknife tied to the cross.  He handled the knife, and thought about taking it, but he did not need to let the rebels know that anything was out of the ordinary.  He looked at the knife, wishing that he could read English better.  He recognized the word AMERICA, but did not know what the BOY SCOUTS OF characters meant.

They slaughter many of my comrades, and we kill only one!
Wu thought to himself.  “I will change that,” he whispered.

In the distance, closer to the living structure and the building that housed the horses, Wu could clearly see the dark bulk of something hidden under camouflage tarps.  He assumed that the Americans were hiding their stolen helicopter under the netting, but he would have to get closer to find out for sure.

Wu shouldered his rifle and slowly moved along the tree line.  He came up to a split rail fence designed to contain the horses at night.  Thankfully, the horses seemed to be sleeping on the other side of the field, away from where he was, or where he needed to get to…and that is when he heard voices.

Grace rolled the sugar cube in her fingers, feeling the individual crystals coarse across the ridges of her fingerprints.  The grains fell to the concrete floor of the stable as she did, and then she stopped and put the cube back in the bag.  She had suddenly remembered the new preciousness of sugar.

She and Joshua had been talking for the better part of a half hour about Senator Payne and his demands for each state in the new ‘Provence of North America’, or PNA.  They had shelved the idea of taking down Payne until they knew more about the situation, but to each of them, it was a mission that they both wanted a part of.

“What do you think each of the states will do?” Joshua asked, continuing the conversation.

“I think a few of the states, especially the ones that are already liberal leaning, might cave in.”

“What choice do they really have?” Joshua countered.

“They could organize and fight,” Grace said, smacking her left fist into her right hand.  “That’s what I would do.”

“Don’t you think they’re doing that now?”

Grace thought before speaking.  “I don’t know if they are or not.  I get the feeling that most people feel that the US Government is going to ride the white horse in and save them.  There’s been nothing to show for it, I mean we’ve only seen one jet take out one drone.  Shit, our two families and Mary have done more damage to the enemy than the Government has!”

Joshua smiled; he had been directly responsible for inflicting most of the damage by blowing up a water tower.  The resulting destruction took out most of a platoon of soldiers, a truck and a communications relay station.

“It sounds like the guys in Texas and Louisiana are fighting back,” Joshua offered.

“Yeah that’s good.  But that is a long way from here,” she offered.  “Maybe that’s a good thing that we aren’t bearing the brunt of it?”

“So, if there’s some of them fighting back and some not fighting, I guess the questions is, what, if anything, will the United States do by the deadline tomorrow?” he asked.  “Or, for that matter, what will our state do?”

“You mean Alabama?”

“Yeah.”

“You think they will cave?” Grace asked, not believing that her predominantly conservative state would kneel down and change sides.

“No, actually I don’t.  We have a lot of well armed bad ass rednecks in this state…”

“And we’re probably two of them,” she cut him off with a snicker.

They both laughed quietly.  To Grace, it felt good to smile, and even to laugh. 
Has life changed that much in such a short time?
She grew serious again, her mind shifting back to her parents.

“You’re a military family, like I am, right?” she asked. 

“Right.”

“So,” Grace continued.  “I guess you get the need for secrecy?” she asked, suddenly feeling her questions helping her parents justify their own secret life in the CIA.

He nodded, not wanting to sidetrack her line of thinking.

“Joshua, my parents are actually in the CIA,” she said flatly.

Joshua looked at her, waiting for more, but that is what she needed to say.  “Well,” he said, taking a deep breath.  “That explains a lot.  Doesn’t it?”

Grace was about to say something, when they both heard something outside of the stable.

Wu froze once he stumbled over the rock, catching himself from going down. His arm screamed in agony at the motion. He bit his lip and tilted his head towards the red building, listening for the voices, but they had stopped.  He knew that their silence would not be good.  He started walking backwards up the hill, his feet following the smooth ground of a trail.  He was desperate to find something to hide behind.  The moon was still bright, and he was by no means safe from being seen. 

Wu found a moss lined boulder several meters up the hill and crouched behind it.  He pulled his rifle up, struggling against the pain in his shoulder.  He didn’t want to fire, at least not yet.  His training was crystal clear when it came to being separated from his command structure.  He was to gather as much information on the enemy as he could and then find a way to communicate with the command structure.  He was not to engage the enemy unless it was a last resort, or the enemy engaged him first.

Wu peered through the small scope of his rifle.  In the silvery light of the moon he could see that two enemy soldiers had emerged from the large horse building.  They each split directions, one moving along the split rail fence, and the other moved through the silver edged shadows of the trees.  They had clearly heard him stumble…a mistake he hoped never to make again.

Wu pivoted his rifle over the moss, acquiring the target that moved along the edge of the woods.  That one would be an easier kill.  The second one would be exposed to the open, and should also be easy…that is if he had full control of his shoulder.

Grace eased her feet along the shadowy side of the area between the split rail fence and the woods of the ridge.  They had extinguished the lantern in the stables the instant they heard the noise.  She had her AR-15 rifle up to her shoulder and swept back and fourth in 15 degree segments, looking for anything that might be out of the ordinary.  She had done this same routine a dozen times with her father at the hunting club where they belonged. 

Joshua let his eyes wonder over to where Grace walked twenty-five feet to his left.  He had heard the sound outside of the stables too.  But, his mind was on what Grace had confided in him seconds before the sound…
her parents were CIA agents. 

He shook the thought from his mind, the adrenaline beginning to heighten his senses. He let his eyes scan the forest-laden hill, the light from the moon shot through the canopy like small flashlights.   The combination of elevation, shadow and colorless light made it difficult to recognize shapes on the hill.  He waited for his eyes to calibrate, and that is when he spotted something that did not look natural. It was a shadow in a rock formation up the hill from Grace. He had grownup playing on this hill and knew what those rocks were supposed to look like from his vantage point.  He turned his back on the split rail fence and walked at an angle towards Grace, his rifle sweeping above her head with a possible target up on the ridge. 

Grace stopped walking the instant she saw Joshua change directions.  He had seen something that she missed, and he had a bead on it.  She pivoted towards the direction above her and backed up a foot or two so that she was now standing in the shadows.

Joshua came up next to her, never taking his eyes or his aim off of a point up on the hill.

Wu fought the pain as he steadied his aim on the soldier that seemed to suspect his hiding place.  His hands started sweating as his own adrenaline pumped through his veins.  He had the soldier in his sites.  He waited, his finger heavy on the trigger.  He was not to engage first.

Joshua scanned the ridge a few more times and then dropped his rifle to his side and reached out for Grace’s shoulder.

“C’mon, there’s nothing there,” he said, pulling her along behind him, and back to the safety of the stable.

Grace let him pull her until they reached the back entrance of the stable, and then looked at him as if he didn’t know what he was doing.  He cut her off before she could speak, by putting his finger up to his lips.  She didn’t speak.

“There’s at least one person up the ridge,” he whispered, as he continued to usher her along the long concrete runway of the stable.

“So, why didn’t we…”

“He had the high ground on us, Grace,” he whispered, cutting her off. “Just like when we did at the water tower, he would have mowed us down if we’d been any more aggressive.”

Grace let whatever anger she had for being pulled out of the situation, fade with the realization that Joshua had just saved her life...again.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, looking over her shoulder as they moved away from the backside of the stable.

“Let’s get your dad, this could be bigger than one or two guys on the ridge,” he said, speaking with wisdom.

Wu released the grip on his rifle and relaxed his trigger finger.  They had not seen him, but he had been careless nonetheless.  He would not make the same mistake again.  Wu slung the rifle across his back and headed back up the hill; the American’s were on to him.  He would have to find another way to communicate with his commanders.