Foreign Enemies and Traitors (27 page)

Then there was the thorny issue of peaceful refugees known to be squatting in homes belonging to the dead or disappeared.  Finally, there would have to be some kind of legal accounting for the many shootings that had taken place between starving city refugees and the terrified locals.  Killings that had seemed entirely justified during the desperate weeks of anarchy and starvation after the quakes might now appear to outsiders to be murder.  Many people had been killed when they were caught trying to steal livestock, during a time when a pig or a cow was seen as a source of life itself for its owners.  The fear had been so great during the exodus from the cities that people were shot just for trespassing, after ignoring or bypassing dire warning signs.  For all of these reasons, the remaining residents of Mannville looked upon the prospect of the return of outside government agencies with a mixture of hope and dread.

The locals had been through so much deprivation and terror that they were almost shockproof.  So the two circling helicopters, ancient CH-47 Chinooks, were regarded with wary caution but not much alarm.  The dual-rotor choppers assumed opposite poles of a half-mile-wide orbit, descending to five hundred feet above the swap market, causing all eyes to look skyward out of animal curiosity.  Would they drop new leaflets or radios, or perhaps, finally, some food and relief supplies?  Even more of the blue plastic FEMA tarps would be welcomed.  Or was this purely a reconnaissance mission, some kind of a census-taking?  Maybe the helicopters would land and bring an official delegation from the state or even the federal government.  The clattering of their dual rotors and the incongruity of their airborne mechanization, in an increasingly nonmechanized world, held everyone at the swap market spellbound.  They were like suspicious foxes staring up at a pair of circling eagles. 

The helicopter noise masked the sound of the approaching column of five-ton Army trucks; no one heard them until they were only a quarter mile away.  The olive-drab trucks stopped on the state road alongside the swap market, and platoons of soldiers immediately tumbled out of their canvas-covered cargo areas.  A pair of armored cars with oversized wheels and little gun turrets, like small tanks, guarded each end of the line of trucks.  Then an amplified voice split the morning, immediately reducing the helicopter sounds and truck engines to background noise. 

“Attention!  This is an unlawful assembly!” came booming from a refrigerator-sized speaker on the last truck, which was absent the green canvas roof of the others.  “All inhabitants of Radford County were ordered to evacuate three months ago.  All persons remaining here are in violation of emergency evacuation orders.”  The disembodied voice spoke slowly and clearly, pausing for the echoes to die between each pronouncement.  “This illegal black market is in violation of currency regulations.  Many persons here are in violation of firearms laws.  Place all firearms on the ground and move back to the fence, away from the street.”

There was activity on the sound truck as soldiers in the back swung a black rectangle up to vertical, facing the crowd from a hundred yards away.  It looked like a giant flat-screen TV, turned off.  For a moment Jenny wondered if they were going to show a movie.  The black screen on the truck was higher than the top of the chain link fence along the side of the parking lot.  What was it?  Another giant audio speaker?  The first was more than loud enough to be heard clearly.

“Move now!” the voice sternly ordered.  “You have one minute to put any weapons on the ground and move back to the fence.”

Confusion and fear bordering on panic swirled through the market crowd.  Men grabbed wives and children, and then glanced at one another, unsure what to do.  They had learned to drive off gangs of marauding bandits, but they were not prepared for this new situation.  The noisy Chinooks continued circling above them, beating the air while lifting to a higher altitude.  Eyes darted between the helicopters, the armored cars, the military trucks and the platoons of soldiers standing by them—and then they saw the horse troops. 

A company of cavalry appeared from the thick woods behind the Hope Baptist Church, horses in two columns that divided into separate lines, hooves clattering, mist steaming from flaring nostrils.  The columns diverged, right and left, until the street outside the fenced market was lined with mounted soldiers, Kalashnikov rifles across their chests, attached to the soldiers with slings.  The mounted troops wore brown-speckled camouflage uniforms and brown berets.  The two columns of horses left an open space in front of the truck with the raised black screen.

Nobody moved back to the fence, as they had been ordered to do.  Children cried and women wailed as families and friends drew into tight clusters amid the market tables.

The disembodied voice boomed out again.  “Place all weapons on the ground, including knives, and move back to the fence.  Spread out in a line.  You now have thirty seconds to comply.  Move back to the fence now.  You have thirty seconds to comply.”

A few began to walk backward, some guns appeared on the ground, but most of the crowd remained frozen in place, huddled in trembling groups as stragglers hurried to rejoin their families.

“Your time is up,” declared the voice.  A second later Jenny felt her skin burning; it was as if she had been thrown naked into a bonfire.  All of her body felt the searing burn but especially her face and bare hands.  She screamed in agony along with the rest, and after an indeterminate time the pain suddenly lessened to something like very bad sunburn.  Around her, the screaming and crying continued as the people began to move back in a body, falling down and overturning some tables in their haste.

The voice came again, slow and deliberate.  “Because you did not follow my instructions, we have been forced to apply a non-lethal crowd control measure to ensure your compliance.  If you follow instructions and move to the fence, we will not be forced to use it again.  Now, put down your weapons and move to the fence.  Move now!”

The high school parking lot’s chain link fence had provided welcome security to the swap market, and it had formerly been considered a great advantage.  Now it turned the same parking lot into an instant holding pen.  The people almost ran back to the fence to avoid another blast of the invisible burning rays, which they now understood had come from the black panel on the last truck.

Most of the local men were with their families, and they were afraid to resist for fear of another shot from the heat gun hitting their wives and children.  The invisible rays had partly blinded the people who had been looking directly at the speaker truck, and these people needed to be led by those whose eyes had not been affected.  The crowd subsided from among the tables like an ebbing tide, until it caught up along the ten-foot-high chain link fence. 

“Put all weapons on the ground!  Spread out, spread out along the fence!” came the voice again.  Men quietly cursed and groaned, miserable at having been taken so easily, but what else could they have done?  Not a thing—not mixed among a crowd of unarmed women and children. 

“Weapons on the ground, all weapons on the ground.  Pistols, knives, all weapons on the ground, or you will feel the heat again!”  This time the citizens did as they were ordered.  Even Sue Bledsoe placed her revolver at her feet.  With the tall fence behind and the heat ray in front, they already were effectively imprisoned.  The people backed up to the gray steel fence and spread along it until they were in a hundred-yard-long line only a few persons deep, facing the trucks.

“Good.  Now, all men: take ten steps forward.  All men and teenage boys, walk ten steps forward, away from the fence.  Do it now!”

The crying and wailing was universal.  A few boys began to walk forward but were pulled back by their families.  Then they were all blasted again by the heat ray that sent out an instantaneous wave of burning agony.  It seemed incredible that their clothes didn’t burst into flames.  As Jenny again writhed in pain against the fence she wondered, what was this horrible black device that burned like fire, without light or sound? 

“Now—let’s try again, people,” boomed the amplified voice.  “All men: take ten steps forward, away from the fence.  Move now!”

The hopelessness of their situation became clear.  The crying and moaning continued.  A few men, then most of them, walked forward forming a rough line, individuals turning back to their families imploringly and then looking again at the truck containing the black burning machine, at the horsemen, at the soldiers, and up at the still circling Chinook helicopters. 

When the men were divided from the rest, a column of about fifty horse troops cantered their mounts through the vehicle gate, their steel horseshoes clattering on the asphalt.  Most of them had an Asian appearance, or Eurasian.  Many of them were unshaven, with hair much longer than would ever be tolerated on any American soldiers.  They approached the left end of the fence and turned their horses to ride between the line of men and boys and the line of women and children still along the fence. 

“Okay, that’s better,” came the slow, deliberate voice again, pausing between each phrase.  “I think we understand each other now.  The Mannville area should have been evacuated several months ago, with the rest of Radford County.  I’m sorry that your actions forced us to take these measures.  Soon you will understand that it’s for the best.  You will be moved now to a relocation center, where you will be fed and provided with free medical care.  School is open there for your children.  Reconstruction jobs are available, for those who can work.  You will be reunited in your family groups after you are in-processed at the relocation center.  Okay now, men: turn left, and walk forward.”

The line of cavalry was between the men and boys and their families.  It didn’t occur to them that the heat ray couldn’t be used now without also roasting the soldiers and horses.  Two searing blasts from the heat ray had taught them to follow orders immediately and without question.  The line of disarmed males, more than a hundred of them, walked forward while calling and waving back to their wives, girlfriends, mothers, and children.

The men were not marched out to the street; instead, they were herded toward the double doors of the high school gymnasium.  As they approached, the gym doors were opened from within, where more camouflage-clad troops were already waiting inside.  An order was given to the men that their women couldn’t hear.  The men as a group put their arms straight up in the air as they marched out of sight into the gym, and the doors closed behind them.

The amplified voice spoke again, slightly more gently this time.  “I’m sorry, but we don’t have enough buses to take you all in one trip.  For everyone’s security, your men will wait here while you ladies will take your children on ahead to the relocation center.  Now, ladies, everybody turn around to your right and walk out to the street in single file.  Come on, ladies—the sooner we go, the sooner you will arrive at your new temporary home.  Warm showers and hot meals are waiting for you.  Warm showers and hot meals.”

Jenny and Sue were near the head of this line, once they had been turned to face the other way from where the men had gone.  The fifty cavalry troops inside the fenced parking lot, having returned from herding the men into the gym, formed a column alongside the women and escorted them out.  Once outside the parking lot, the line of women and children was turned to march down the sidewalk, the equestrians riding parallel to them on the street.  The fence was now on her left side as Jenny walked on the cement sidewalk.  The cavalry moved between the line of women and children and the half-dozen Army trucks.  A yellow school bus drove slow-ly up the street and parked near the truck at the head of the column.  The armored cars moved back and forth nervously, their crewmen keeping watch on the proceedings.

More squads of these Eurasian-looking soldiers wearing brown berets stood by each truck.  The front of the line of women and children approached a separate group of soldiers, who seemed to Jenny to be in charge.  These five men were clean-shaven except for dark mustaches.  They were older and somewhat more intelligent looking than the rest.  Jenny had no idea where they were from, or what their alien rank insignias meant.  They were smiling and chatting away in a language she could not understand.  All the other foreign troops carried AK-47-type rifles, but this nearest group had only holstered pistols.  Were they officers?  One of them raised his arm and pointed at her as she was passing by only a yard away.  Unexpectedly, he spoke to her in perfect American English.  “You—the blond—get in the first truck.”  He was dressed identically to the others, in the same uniform.  The foreign camouflage pattern was distinctive, with jagged black zigzags over brown, tan and green, the brown predominating.  He held a slender black wireless microphone in his hand and used it almost as a pointer.

Jenny stopped to face him, causing the line of women and children to pile up behind her.  “You’re an American?”  She had recognized his unaccented voice at once.  “That was you on the loudspeaker, wasn’t it?  My God, an American, doing this to other Americans!  I can’t believe it!”  She glared at him, her chest heaving, nostrils flaring, a surge of anger overriding her fear.

“Believe it, blondie.  Just get in the first truck.  Right now—I won’t ask you again.”  He pointed with his microphone behind him to the street.

“It was you on the loudspeaker.  An American—a traitor!”  Her mouth was almost dry from fear, but without thinking, she managed to spit a fleck of saliva directly onto his face.  Then she froze and stared at him, shocked at what she had done, cringing to await the blow.  The American stood equally frozen, glaring back at the tall girl eye to eye.  He slowly wiped the spit from his reddening cheek with the back of his sleeve.  His comrades stared at both of them, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, hands moving to their holstered pistols.

“Shut up, you bitch!”  The American in the foreign uniform struck her backhanded across the face, knocking her nearly to the ground.  Then he grabbed her by her shoulders, pulled her back up, spun her around and kicked her hard in the backside, propelling her forward.  “First truck—and I’ll see you later, blondie!”