Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (33 page)

      
Harvey said in a tempered voice, "Bondo, I think you should know, his brother's dead.  Butch got shot trying to capture a tank."

      
"Oh."  Bondo sighed.  "That's a shame.  Thad's the last one now."  He became misty-eyed, and rubbed his scarred thumb with the index finger of the same hand; it had become a habit, a reminder of the cause.  Bondo recalled the nights the Rousells spent at their campsites; they sat around the campfire telling stories or jokes.  Butch recited the Dixville Massacre repeatedly, adding more flavor to it with every telling.  Thad softly played his harmonica after fires burned down and everyone settled in for the night.  The Rousell brothers and the dog became mascots of a sort, circulating from campsite to campsite, eating and sleeping there.  After their mother took off with her boyfriend in the fall, the Mountain Boys became their only family.  Anyone seeing the Rousells' approach, instinctively smiled.  "Thanks for letting me know.  I'll pass the word.  If for some reason you come under fire, give up the tank.  We can't let anything happen to Thad."

      
"We've found the system to be compromised, sir," explained the Network Security Advisor to President Winifred.  "The note we received from the alleged Ghost Pack earlier was put through by somebody's password within the system.  We followed up on it and believe the security of the network has been breached.  The message today was under an anonymous login, and addressed to you.  Very few people know your Fednet E-mail address.  The note signs off as Billy, your son."

      
"What?" Winifred yelled.  "If this is somebody's prank, I'll hang the bastard.  Hook me up with this so-called Ghost Pack."

      
The Network Advisor turned the President's portable computer around and set it up for Fednet mail.

      
Lucas Bennett had only watched until now.  He had many questions for the Network Advisor:  "Jim, at the very least we have a major security breach.  I'm not all that familiar with these systems, but if this guy has used two different passwords already, what makes you think he doesn't have access to all messages in the system.  Hell, Jim!  We don't know what they know.  They must have known when we were coming and what weapons we were using.  How could you let this happen?  You stupid shit!  You stupid, stupid shit!"

      
Jim's neck and face turned red, "Wait a minute!  We don't know who this is.  It could be just a hacker."

      
"Trace the damn call!"  Lucas was livid, now face to face with the Network Advisor.

      
Jim, calm but angered, "It's going through Quebec.  And thanks to your sanctions on that country we're not getting along with them right now.  It can't be traced."

      
"Luc," said the President, "let's get on with this.  I want to talk to this guy."

      
An unspoken truce was declared as Jim pulled up the message sent earlier.  The President read it.   Winifred typed in:

      
Subject: 
THE FIGHTING

Date:  Tue, 6 Aug. 2024 04:15:03

From:  President Winifred

Reply-To:  BILLY WIN

Attachments:

Ghost Pack??????
:

We're talking.  What do you have to say?

      
"Do you think they're still waiting on-screen?" asked Winifred.

      
"It's only been fifteen minutes," Jim answered.

      
Billy looked over Thad's shoulder as he read it.  "Tell him that I'm okay, and ask him if he can do anything to stop the Army at Dixville."  Thad typed in what Billy had dictated and clicked send.

      
Lucas, watching over the President's shoulder, "Ask him how we can be sure he's William?"

      
Thad looked at Billy for a response to the request for verification.  "How can I prove that?" Billy thought aloud.  "Tell them the rotor is the weakest part of the model copter I have.  Check it."

      
After reading the treasured reminder from his son, President Winifred focused on the model helicopter resting in front of him.  He lifted it by the rotor blade.  The copter separated and fell to the desktop.  "Shit!"  Winifred began typing feverishly, hitting backspaces, retyping.  "Shit, shit, shit!"  The President got up and pointed to the chair, "You type, Luc."

      
Lucas sat down and rested his hands on the computer.  "What do you want me to say?"  Lucas suspected that they were being set up, "You know, this so-called Ghost Pack could have had the informa--"

      
"Shut up and ask William where he is."  Ordered the President as he paced.  "Ask him if he's in danger, if there's any shooting around."  He walked back to look at the screen.  "Tell him to stay put.  I'll send in Special Forces to rescue him."  While the Chief of Staff typed, the President picked up the phone connected to his private secretary, "Shelley, arrange to have Air Force One prepared immediately, and have them set a flight plan for the North Country with a helicopter waiting there to take me to Colebrook, New Hampshire."  He listened a moment, "Yes!  Right now!"  Winifred hung up.

      
Lucas Bennett had prepared the message as Clifford arranged his flight.  "I got it.  Send it?" asked Lucas.  The President nodded.

      
After reading the White House note, Thad turned to Billy for a response.  Billy looked away.  He didn't know what to tell his father.

Subject:  
THE FIGHTING

Date:  Tue, 6 Aug. 2024 04:15:15

From:  BILLY WIN

Reply-To:  President Winifred

Attachments:

CAN'T COME BACK.  WE'RE FIGHTING THE FEDS.  THE FEDS KILLED SOME OF MY FRIENDS TODAY.  I'M IN THE GHOST PACK NOW.  WE TOOK A TANK FROM THE FEDS AND GAVE IT TO THE MOUNTAIN BOYS.
      

      
"I don't understand this," a frantic President looked back at his Network Advisor, "You say we can't trace this because their line goes through Quebec?"  The Advisor nodded yes.  The President picked up the phone to his secretary again, "Shelley, get me Prime Minister Merrique on the phone, right now."  Winifred motioned for Lucas to get out of the seat so he could type.  "Luc, if we still have a satellite link to Serrac, ask him if some young school boys were shot and if a tank has been captured."  President Winifred typed out a letter asking his son who the Ghost Pack was.  He begged William to let them know their location.  A few minutes later, a message appeared.  Thad had authored much of the response.

      
Subject:  
THE FIGHTING

Date:  Tue, 6 Aug. 2024 04:15:20

From:  BILL WIN

Reply-To:  President Winifred

Attachments:

THIS IS THAD.  BILLY'S FREIND.

PACK 220 WAS THE SCOUTS KILLED AT DIXVILLE LAST YEAR.  BUTCH AND ME LIVED.  FEDS DON'T NO THAT.  WE REBUILT THE PACK AND NOW WE ARE GHOST PACK 220 CAUSE THE GHOSTS OF THE MASSACRE STILL LIVE TO FIGHT.  BILLY TOOK AN OATH AND JOINED THE PACK.  BILLY SAYS HE IS NOT LEAVING TIL THE FEDS GO.  SO SEND THEM HOME.  WE ARE KICKING THERE ASSES ANYWAY.   WE GOT TO GO.  BYE.

      
Winifred turned to Lucas, "Is this true?  Are they beating us?"

      
"I think it's a ploy," said Lucas.  "The battle is taking its toll on them, too.  They must be ready to break."

      
"How many casualties did you say we have so far?"

      
"About twenty-two hundred."

      
"Is that the actual count or the figure we give the media."  President Winifred was losing confidence in Lucas Bennett's judgment. 

      
"It's the actual."

      
Winifred sighed and turned to the newly replaced window, "This is no longer an uprising.  This is a civil war and my son's in the middle of it.  It's like they were ready for us."  He turned to Luc, "And their casualties?"

      
Lucas lifted his hands, "It's so hard to say."

      
"Just a guess!"

      
"I would say, maybe half as much.  I don't know.  We sent our troops in there from all sides and they got eaten up by motor-guns with balls that cut through armor.  The units fighting up there just haven't come back.  They're jamming all frequencies so our troops are fighting blind.  We have to use handwritten messages to communicate, and sometimes they shoot the messenger."

      
The President had closed his eyes and shook his head no through Bennett's entire report. "Is that a joke?  'Shoot the messenger.'"  The Network Advisor had been standing to the side quietly the entire time.  Winifred lashed out at him, "And what the hell's wrong with you?"  Jim reacted with a stunned look.  "Go trace the damn call!  Trace the damn call!"  The Advisor scurried out of the Oval Office, chased by the President yelling, "What the hell's wrong with you?  I don't care how you do it, just do it!"

Chapter 18

      
Blood soaked the front of Helen's surgical gown.  Except for the white surgeon's mask and hat, she looked more like a butcher than a doctor.  "Oh God!  Oh God!  I don't know what I'm doing.  Deb, give me a clamp," Helen instructed as she pinched off the artery with her fingers.  "That thing on the end."  She pointed to the instrument, paused, and took a breath.  "Deb, can you look at this?  I'm not sure."

      
Deb Philbin stepped over and looked at the opened thigh.  She was frazzled too from the daylong siege of mutilated bodies they had to patch up and send back to their packs.  The unspoken verdict was, salvageable rebels received treatment.  Rebels more critically wounded didn't make it to the medical bunkers.  The packs wanted as many fighting men as possible, even if they could only sit in the bunker as a guard.  That policy put enormous pressure on the men and women staffing the medical bunker.  Though not doctors, they functioned as such.  The less experienced volunteers served as support staff.  Deb Philbin looked at the gore and said, "All you can do, Helen, is stop the bleeding, take out the debris, and stitch it up."

      
Helen had made a large vertical incision, laying the skin back on each side of the upper leg.  "This will take an hour.  We're so backed up.  Rrrrrah!" she shrieked to no one in particular.

      
"Sorry.  This is all we can do, Helen."  Deb went back to her table.

      
Max's condition exacerbated Helen's state of mind.  A penetration bomb found his bunker and mangled his left side, taking off an arm and part of his leg.  Her older brother clung to life in a gully just outside the medical bunker.  Helen's worst nightmare would be fulfilled if Chaos lay on a slab as her next patient--to find love after such a tragic event as Dixville only to have it slip away.

      
Then Chaos walked into the ward looking for able-bodied medics to form a new attack pack.  He stopped by Helen, and whispered in her ear, "How's it goin'?"

      
"You startled me."  She turned back to her patient, "Horribly.  When's this thing going to end?"

      
"You should see the other guy."

      
"How do you know?"

      
"You don't see any of them here.  If they broke through our perimeter you would see some of them here."  He yelled across the room to Al, "Run a signal to Wolf's bunker and tell him to figure out a way to make the Armdroids work for us.  We got one holding up my sector right now."  Without hesitation he informed them: "I'm taking some of your medics to make a new pack.  I only have one guy left."

      
"How are the wounded going to come in?"

      
Chaos looked around as he left, "I think you have enough to keep you busy for a bit.  There's no laser signals from the Boston packs on the southwest slope.  I think that section's been breached."

      
"Chaos, don't go!"  She finally noticed his wrapped hand.  "You need attention."

      
"It isn't that bad.  This thing is almost over.  We've held the mountain.  And Snake and Tumult have just gotten into the fight."

      
"How's that?"

      
"The Feds have almost vanished completely on the north and northeast sides.  We haven't received any communication from them yet, but I know my brothers.  They're there."

      
Myriad vapors oozed upward from Boston rebels and Federal troops scattered along the southwest slope, vapors hovering at times above warm corpses.  Motor-gun fire burned off shrubs and weeds, replaced by skeletal plant stock; lingering smoke limited sight within the tree stand.  Boston's Ghost Packs had held the southwest sector until four o'clock in the afternoon--until an overwhelming number of Federal troops took out what they thought was the last motor-gunner.  In a rocky crevice just below the summit of Baldhead Mountain, an African-American man still clutched an idling motor-gun as three Federal Troops looked down on him.