He looked at her incredulously. “Help you to be brave?” he echoed. “My dear lady, you are clearly and unmistakably the direct stock of your father and mother. And it simultaneously thrills me and scares me to death to think you might pass on some of that same fire-tempered steel into the hearts of our children.”
She stepped back. “Our children,” she whispered, in sudden awe.
“Yes.” He laughed. “I only hope they obey me better than their mother does.”
“Will they ever see freedom?” she asked softly.
He sobered immediately. “If they don’t,” he responded with sudden determination, “then I pity the country that tries to hold them.”
As they came out of the trees a few moments later, holding hands, Lewis saw them from across the main clearing and walked swiftly toward them.
“Oh-oh,” Bryce murmured.
But he worried for nothing. Lewis stammered for a moment, then finally raised his head and met Bryce’s gaze. “Look, I just wanted to say I was sorry for what I said in there. It caught me so off guard, I—”
“I understand,” Bryce said quickly. “I wish now I had told you sooner, after all you’ve done for me, but—”
“No, you were quite right. You would be crazy to run around telling just anybody about that. But I didn’t want to leave without telling you that I’m sorry and that there are no more questions in my mind.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m grateful to be working with you.”
“Thank you,” Bryce said. And as he moved away, Bryce looked at Leslie. “Well, that was nice.”
“Yes it was.” She put her arm around him. “You’d better go say good-bye to Mother. She’ll almost certainly be gone before you get back.”
“And tell her to see if she can buy a wedding dress in America. Would you like that?”
Leslie did not look up at him. “We’ll talk about the wedding after the twenty-first,” was all she would say.
By one-thirty the next morning, the sky was overcast, and Bryce had to move more slowly through the thick darkness toward Charlie Creek. Neal stayed back at the car to wait. Bryce had received no acknowledgment of his message and wasn’t sure whether this would be for nothing.
But this time Mannington was waiting for him. “Well?” he demanded, even as Bryce walked onto the bridge.
“They bought it!” Bryce blurted. “They actually bought it.”
“Really?” There was obvious relief.
“Yes. I told them the longer we wait, the greater the chance there is for detection. They agreed. We’re leaving now, all of us, to contact the various factions throughout CONAS. We’ll set the meeting for the nineteenth of October.”
“Wonderful!”
Bryce sighed. “There is one possible hitch, though.”
“What that?”
“There’s a new player on the scene. A man named Hal Hoffman—he’s AIS and Quinn’s control—”
“So,” Mannington cut him off, “that’s where he was going! We knew he had entered CONAS, but we lost him shortly after he came in.”
Bryce kept his face impassive but once again mentally vowed to walk very carefully around this man. If they assumed all of Mannington’s eggs were in the Bryce Sherwood basket, they were grossly mistaken.
“So?”
Bryce gave him a blank look, having lost the train of thought.
“What’s the possible hitch?”
“Oh. Hoffman is really nervous about bringing all the leaders to one place at the same time. He suggested two separate meetings.”
Mannington swore softly. “We can’t allow that. You’ve got to convince them.”
“I tried. And surprisingly, Paul Adams agreed. He admitted that there was a vulnerability factor, but he argued strongly that if we are ever to unify the entire movement, we must have everyone at once.”
“That’s right! Good for Adams.”
“Hoffman finally agreed, but there’s a chance some of the leaders may not see it that way. I don’t know if we’ll get every one.”
“Do you know what I’d give,” Mannington said, speaking half to himself, “just to get Paul Adams, Hal Hoffman, and Wesley Quinn?” He suddenly straightened. “But we’ll do better than that. Much better. This is wonderful news, Bryce. The prime minister will be pleased.”
“I’m headed north into New England to start making the contacts tonight. The others are spreading out in other directions. Tell Burkhart to lay off. If the borders are too tight or any of them suspect they’ve been spotted, we’ll never pull this off on time.”
“Those orders have already been given.”
“Good. I won’t call in again until we get back. I obviously can’t take the radio along with Neal Lambert.”
“That’s fine. The prime minister is moving ahead as though the broadcast on the twenty-first will be just another speech, but he’ll have everything ready for a national trial.”
Bryce just nodded, not answering that.
He straightened. “Watch yourself, Bryce. This will be the most dangerous stage. But if we do it…” He clenched his fist and punched the air. “If we do it, there’ll be no stopping us, no stopping us at all!”
“We’re going to do it,” Bryce said evenly. “I can feel it. We are going to pull this off.”
As Elliot Mannington got back into the car, his driver turned. “Back to Washington, sir?”
Mannington took out the two slips of paper that held the messages that had come the previous night. The first was Bryce’s call. It had surprised him to hear from Bryce so quickly. But the second message had come as a total shock.
He looked at it again. “Extremely urgent we meet tomorrow 05:30 in Charlottesville safe house. Red Fox.”
Mannington leaned forward across the seat. “How long to Charlottesville from here?”
“Maybe three hours,” the driver answered.
“I need to be there before five-thirty.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the car leaped forward, Mannington read the message one more time, then tucked it into his pocket and sat back, deep in thought.
Chapter 30
It was an hour before dawn on the morning of October nineteenth when Bryce slipped out of his tent. The air was crisp, and there was already a white sheen of frost covering the ground. Above him the stars were like crushed diamonds dusting the black velvet of the sky. He looked around quickly, then moved carefully out of the trees and across the main clearing toward the dirt road that led down to where he had hidden the radio.
He stopped suddenly as a figure stepped out from a clump of underbrush, then shook his head. “What are you doing up already?” he whispered as he stepped forward and slipped his arm around Leslie’s waist.
“Did you sleep?” Leslie whispered back.
He shook his head.
“Well, then.”
He gave her a quick kiss.
“If I promise not to make a sound, do you mind if I walk down with you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She looked up sharply, then dug at him when she saw him grinning.
“Well, how I am supposed to keep my wits about me with you sitting close by?” he asked.
“Give it your best shot.”
He laughed softly and pulled her close as they continued down the hill. She sat down on a rock and watched soberly as he moved into a heavy tangle of fallen trees and undergrowth, then backed out with the radio. He turned it on and sat back, waiting for it to warm up.
“He’s not going to love you very much when all of this becomes clear,” she said softly as he blew on his hands and started adjusting the knobs.
“I know.”
Not too surprisingly, as he put on the earphones and gave the call-up codes, it was Mannington’s voice that answered almost instantly. “Have you got the scrambler on?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. What’s your report?”
“Everything’s set. The last man got in last night.”
“So how many?”
“Twelve out of the fifteen possibles. That doesn’t count Lewis or Hoffman—” he looked up at Leslie, “or Paul Adams or Neal Lambert and myself. One bit of bad news. We lost Quinn.”
“What?” Mannington blurted.
“He went into the Washington area to work with Lewis’s people. He called in today, said something urgent has come up. We’ll have to go ahead without him.”
“Too bad,” Mannington said. “But if we get Hoffman we can pull in Quinn later.”
“I wish they were all coming, but this will wipe out seventyfive percent of the leadership in one crack.”
“It’s good enough. Better than I had hoped, actually.”
“Are your people in place?” Bryce asked, watching Leslie’s face.
“Yes.”
“Any signs of alarm?”
“None,” Mannington said flatly. “We’ve been moving our forces in at night for the past three days. We’ve stayed completely clear of any contact with locals. We’re set.”
Bryce took a quick breath. “All right, then. Tell them to be careful where they’re shooting. I’m not excited about coming out of this dead.”
“These are the best men we’ve got,” Mannington responded. “They don’t make mistakes. The prime minister wants his little show on television, not dead bodies to display.” There was a pause. “Are all the others out of the camp now?”
“Yes. Everyone not directly involved in the meetings was sent down to the valley for security reasons. Leslie Adams is still here with her father. Lewis’s wife is also here, and the wife of one other man who does our cooking. There are twenty people in camp, counting myself and the three women. Come in fast and quiet and I think we can keep the casualties to a minimum.”
“Are you sure there are only the six guards posted?” That was a new voice, and for a moment through the distortion of the scrambler Bryce didn’t place it. Then he pulled a face. It was Colonel Burkhart.
“Affirmative, Colonel. There are others down in the valley watching for any newcomers or unusual activity, but the six up here are all we’ve got.”
“Good,” Burkhart said, “We’ve got those six located and will take them with knockout gas capsules. They won’t make a sound.”
Bryce felt the nervousness start to hit his stomach again. “Anything else?”
Colonel Burkhart’s voice responded again. “Yes, let’s synchronize our watches. I show four-oh-seven exactly, on my signal. Ready.” There was a slight pause and Bryce lifted his watch and peered at the dial. “Mark!” Burkhart said. “We’ll hit the camp at exactly five-thirty.”
“Good. The first meeting starts at six-thirty. Five-thirty should catch them just waking up.”
“Great!” Mannington said jubilantly. “Keep your head down and we’ll see you in just about an hour.”
As he put away the earphones and stowed the radio, he looked up at Leslie.
“Well?” she asked in a low voice.
“It’s done. They are in place and waiting.”
Neither of them spoke as they walked back up to the camp to start waking the others.
By 4:45 every one of the seventeen men and three women in the camp were gathered in the darkness of the mess hall. Hal Hoffman cleared his throat, and the soft murmur of voices instantly came to a halt. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve heard Bryce’s report. Everyone knows exactly what to do.”
There were several who nodded, but no one spoke.
“Let’s look as natural as we can. Let them catch you completely by surprise. Those of us who are to run, run like you’re scared.” He paused. “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
There was a quiet ripple of laughter.
“Those who have been assigned to go for your weapons, make it look good, but for crying out loud don’t actually get them. We don’t need any martyrs at this point.”
“These are crack troops,” Bryce added, “and they’ve been instructed to keep the shooting to an absolute minimum. But you get too excited and start blasting away at them, and they’ll blast right back.”
“Lewis and I,” Hoffman said, picking it up again, “are to be the only ones who fire back at them, and that will be only enough to keep it looking authentic.” He looked around at the dim faces in the darkness. “If we all do our part, like we’ve rehearsed, this will go off like clockwork. Any questions?”
There weren’t.
“All right then.” Hoffman turned to where Bryce and Leslie stood next to her father. “Bryce, you’d better get moving. You need to be completely clear before this begins.”
“Yes, sir.” He straightened. “I still feel like my place is here, with the rest of you.”
Hoffman shook his head. “Wes said the same thing when we sent him into Washington. But don’t worry; you’ll get your turn day after tomorrow.”
“All right, ladies,” Paul said briskly. “Get your things and leave with Bryce.”
Lewis’s wife stepped forward and kissed him quickly. The other wife was crying quietly as her husband held her. Leslie threw her arms around her father and hugged him tightly. “This is for Mom, too. You know what she’d say if she were here, so be careful, Daddy. Elliot Mannington will be very happy to get his hands on you.”
“Yes,” he admitted frankly. “But don’t worry. I’m to be the star at that circus they’re calling a trial day after tomorrow. You can bet the prime minister won’t let me miss that.”
She kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
“And I love you, Leslie. Go with care.”
Two days before, Hal Hoffman had carefully gone through Bryce’s car and located the homing device and the microphone that had been planted beneath the dashboard. He had disconnected the microphone and showed Bryce how to remove the little transmitter that would allow radio tracking on the location of the car. Then they had driven around to the next canyon and hidden the car deep in the underbrush.
Now, Bryce and the three women with him climbed steadily up the path that led away from the camp toward that canyon. As they crossed a ridge and started the descent, he suddenly held up his hand. In the quiet of the morning air they all heard the sound clearly—the crackle of rifle fire.
Bryce peered at his watch. It was 5:31. “That’s it,” was all he said.
They stood motionless for the next minute, listening intently. Bryce counted softly to himself as the soft popping sounds floated to them. After ninety seconds the mountains were silent again. “Fourteen or fifteen shots,” he said, trying to sound bright. “That’s good. Better than I had hoped.”
The three women just stared at him in the darkness, grimfaced.
“Let’s go,” he said finally. He took Leslie’s hand and they started downward again. He noticed that she held onto him more tightly than the steepness of the path required.
They had only gone another hundred yards when Bryce spun around. Someone was coming up behind them.
“Shhh!” Bryce whispered urgently. “Into the trees.”
They had talked about this possibility, and the three women quickly obeyed. Bryce stepped behind a large pine tree and raised his rifle. The footsteps were getting louder, running toward them.
“Bryce, it’s me. Lewis. Wait!”
Surprised, Bryce looked back up the path toward the dark shape that was approaching.
The voice called again in an urgent whisper. “Bryce! It’s Lewis.”
He stepped out.
“Thank heavens!” Lewis said, pulling up sharply and leaning over to catch his breath.
“What?” Bryce asked quickly, feeling a sudden fear.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Lewis panted. Bryce felt Leslie clutch at his sleeve.
Lewis straightened, looking back up the way he had come. “Hal’s coming. Needs to talk to you.”
Bryce turned and peered up the path into the darkness. As he did so, Lewis whipped a pistol out from beneath his jacket and put the muzzle against the back of Bryce’s head. “Drop the rifle, Bryce,” he said quietly.
>
Wesley Quinn drove slowly through the deserted streets of the inner city, circling and doubling constantly to make sure he was not being followed. Finally satisfied, he headed for a district of run-down factories and warehouses along the shores of the Potomac River. He glanced at his watch and grunted in satisfaction. He still had fifteen minutes before his rendezvous with Bryce and the women from the camp.
It had been a busy three days for Quinn. While the others became the bait in Elliot Mannington’s trap, Quinn was putting the final touches on the jaws of their own. There was, of course, no word about the raid in the media. Nor would there be. The prime minister was not going to let anything spoil his dramatic little surprise. But Quinn had posted a watch on the radio until nine that morning, waiting for the call alerting him that something had gone wrong. It hadn’t come, so the clock was running.
The plan was deceptively simple on paper, though the war council, as they had somehow started to call themselves, had gone over every detail meticulously again and again. The hardest part had been persuading the men and women who led the numerous factions of the resistance to send people openly into a trap set by the ISD. A few had refused, calling the whole thing insane. But most had agreed. Paul Adams had argued most persuasively, using again and again the point that if they ever wanted the struggle for freedom to succeed, they must strike one dramatic blow to win the hearts of the people.
The twenty-first of October was known as People’s Day, an ironic euphemism if ever there was one, Quinn thought bitterly. Though he loved his work and was fiercely committed to what he was doing, life in CONAS was a depressing contrast to his life in the mountains of Oregon. When this was over, he was going to request a leave, go back, maybe find a wife. He sighed, knowing he had made that same promise to himself half a dozen times before.
People’s Day commemorated the treaty of 1836 that ended the war between the Confederation of Canadian States, the New England Confederation, and the Atlantic States Alliance and created the Confederation of North American States.
And so, beginning at nine o’clock, day after tomorrow, the People’s Day celebration would begin. There was to be a large military parade at 9:00 A.M. in the heart of Washington. As hundreds of thousands of citizens lined the streets and much of the military might of CONAS was passing the reviewing stand, five small assault teams would move into position around the city. At 10:30 A.M., the prime minister and his party would leave the reviewing stand and move nearby to the state-owned radio and television station. There, at 11:00, with great fanfare, the prime minister would begin his national broadcast. The people were expecting nothing more than the usual patriotic speech and glowing reports of all the state had accomplished. But this time, of course, there would be a surprise.