“It’s all about following orders,” said Grant. “You’ve got to learn to hear instructions and carry them out. If you can’t do that with a recipe, how are you gonna do that on mission?”
Jerry fidgeted. “But I can’t cook.”
Martin grabbed his shoulder. “And you’re gonna learn.”
I stabbed one of the steaks with a fork, holding it up like a torch. A wisp of smoke trailed from the surface of it. “You sure you wanna do that?”
“That’s one thing you’ll learn, Cherry. One man fails to follow orders, the whole team suffers.”
“Great.”
“Besides, charcoal’s good for ya. Helps with the digestion. Serve it up, Jerry. Let’s eat!”
***
Later, after we’d struggled through dinner and cleaned up the dishes, we sat in front of the fireplace, picking our teeth and chugging beer. Martin had us bring in several loads of firewood before shutting the door for the night, and not a moment too soon. Outside the cabin, the wind had picked up, howling with phantasmagorical fury, rattling the shingles like a thing alive, demanding entrance through the rafters. Snow and ice lashed the window panes, as if whipping us for overstaying our welcome. Despite the blaze in the hearth, I felt chilled.
“Ain’t that wind something?” Jerry muttered.
The corners of Grant’s mouth turned up a bit. “Now’d be perfect,” he muttered.
Martin shook his head. “Limits, Grant. They ain’t ready for it.”
“Just saying.” He sipped his beer.
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“All weather training.”
“Are you frickin’ nuts?”
“Don’t give him ideas,” Martin warned me. I strongly suspected they were making this up as they went.
“Another day or two, this’d be perfect,” said Grant.
I pointed toward him with my beer. “What did they do to you in the military? This’d be inhuman.”
He shrugged. “Inauguration’s in January. You’ll be shooting from the top of a building in high winds. No telling what the weather will be like. You’ve got to be prepared, Cherry.”
“Speaking of prepared,” said Jerry. “What happens if it don’t let up? We gonna get snowed in up here?”
“Could happen.”
“They’d send up a rescue party, right?”
“Who’s that?” said Martin.
Jerry shifted in his seat. “The guys back at camp.”
“You mean the ones who left today?” said Grant.
“Are you telling me there’s no one back there who knows we’re up here?”
“Never was. ‘Cept for Boog and Rick.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The militia doesn’t know we’re up here?”
“They know what they need to know.”
“And what’s that?”
“They’ve been ordered to stay off the mountain this week,” Martin explained. “So we don’t cross paths. Most of them don’t even know we’re here.”
Grant added. “Boog’ll look in on us at week’s end if we don’t check in. Other than that, we don’t exist.”
“You’re keeping us a secret?” Jerry asked. They nodded. “Why would you do that?”
Thirteen
“We’ve got our reasons,” said Martin. He and Grant shared bemused expressions. Jerry and I stared at them both. Outside, the wind continued to whip hard particles of ice against the windows, and the chill in the room deepened. After a moment, Jerry set his beer down.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Petey and I are on board with this thing, and I know you’ve been piecemealing intel out to us. Telling us only what you think we need to know, when you think we need to know it. While I respect that you’ve got yer reasons, I don’t think it’s good enough.”
“What are you saying, Cherry?”
“I’m saying you should cut the crap. Tell us what’s going on.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Martin snickered. “Think your head’s big enough for that?”
“Screw you, Marty.”
Martin laughed aloud. No one joined him.
“‘Everything’ is a pretty broad category, Jerry,” Grant drawled. “Maybe you could narrow it down a bit for us, so we know where to start.”
Jerry squirmed. I watched him from the corner of my eye, fully sympathetic. We both felt out of the loop, and it was beyond annoying. If I hadn’t been asking Grant and Martin so many questions myself, I doubted whether they’d have told us anything.
“All right,” he finally said. “For starters, how long exactly have you and Marty been talking about this?”
They exchanged glances, then Martin said, “Maybe ten months, give or take.”
My jaw dropped. “Ten months?”
He shrugged. “Could be longer.”
“I thought you started this in November.”
“That’s just when we decided to pull the trigger on it. Op like this takes months to plan.”
“You had all this worked out months ago. So, what was all that talk after Election Day? Were you playing me?” I started wondering about patsies again.
“Naw, it’s not like that, Petey. I won’t say I wasn’t trying to find a way to get you involved. Hell, yeah, I was! But that don’t mean I was playing you. I’ve known for years we’d have to do something sooner or later. Hell, I think we all knew that. Grant and I started talking maybe a year and a half ago. Just sorta putting feelers out there, trying to figure out whether or not one of us was going to turn the other in. After a while, I guess we trusted each other enough to start talking strategy and tactics.”
As he continued, his eyes lost their focus, as if he were staring wistfully into the past, relishing the memories.
“We talked about bombs and biologicals, chemicals, radiologicals—you name it. Nothing was off the table.”
“Radiologicals? You mean—”
“We were gonna steal a nuke.”
Grant chuckled. “Yeah, that was a dumb idea. We wanted to put it in downtown Washington and just take out the whole city. Too difficult, though. Nuclear material’s too well guarded. Even the Russian black market isn’t as open as people think. Otherwise Ahmadinejad would’ve taken out Israel a long time ago. We did talk about a dirty bomb though. You can make one of them with enough explosives and about a zillion smoke detectors.”
“Better yet, microwave ovens,” Martin corrected. “Stuff’s just too frickin’ dangerous to work with though.”
“Word gets out and they pop themselves a couple of iodine capsules and take a good shower, and there’s not much point.”
Martin nodded. “And we talked about anthrax. Ricin. Problem with all that is the delivery mechanism.”
“It ain’t targeted,” said Grant.
“It ain’t targeted,” Martin repeated.
“That’s when we hit on the idea of assassination. It’s quick. Easy. Take your shot from far enough out, there’s no way to really eyeball it, so they won’t see it coming. That’s what Oswald did with Kennedy. Most the other recent attempts involved small arms—and for that you have to get too close. That’s why Hinckley failed. He used a .22 caliber revolver.”
“That, and he was a nut bag.”
“That too. But that’s the problem. Secret services sees you and takes you down before you can deliver. You want to be effective, you’ve got to go large cal, and you’ve got to be far enough away that you can plan your shot.”
Grant nodded. “After that, it was just a matter of figuring out when and where.”
“I’ve got a question,” I said.
They looked my way.
“What happens after the op?”
“You blend in till you can get the hell outta Dodge.”
“No, I don’t mean the whole escape thing. Ah—” I pressed my lips together and fought for the right way to frame my question. “Let’s assume everything goes as planned, you know? I
mean the assassination, the escape, the response of the government—everything you’re hoping for. The government declares martial law, goes after everyone’s guns—the whole shooting match. How will we be organized to respond? ‘Cause you’re talking guerrilla war, right? I mean, have you got a list of preliminary targets we’re supposed to hit? And shouldn’t we be training for that stuff, too? It’s gonna be hard to do that after all this hits the fan.”
Martin said, “Hey Bro, let’s not jump the gun here. The militia wouldn’t know you from Adam. Once you pull the trigger on the Prez, your job’s done.”
“My job? What do you mean, my job?”
“What do you think your training for? Geez!”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s a team effort, all right?” Martin ran his hand through his hair. “Point is, this team only has one job to do. Once we do it, we’re done.”
Grant said, “You do understand there’s a reason we chose men who weren’t part of a militia, right?”
I frowned. The thought hadn’t actually occurred to me until just then. With so many already trained and prepped in the sort of operation Grant and Martin had planned, and certainly motivated to respond with far less resistance than I showed, why weren’t they using militia men?
“I guess I don’t,” I replied.
“Petey, for very strategic reasons, there cannot be any—I mean any—connection between the assassination teams and the militias.”
“What about Grant?”
“What about me?”
“Grant’s the only connection we can allow, and I’m confident enough in his abilities that it won’t make no difference.”
“Why can’t they be connected?” Jerry asked.
Martin looked like he was ready to fall into an open hole. “Please tell me you’re sharp enough to understand this.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. The firelight made the shadows of the rafters throb against the wood, something dark and living quivering above our heads. “The assassination attempt is designed to provoke the government. The government reacts by imposing martial law and trying to seize our weapons. The militia groups see this as... unprovoked. They didn’t assassinate the President, but the liberals are using that as an excuse to go after the militias, thus forcing them to either surrender or fight.
“If the police or the news media can tie the assassination to the militia groups, it’ll provoke a backlash against the right wing. But if this is all seen as coming out of left field, pardon the pun, then the militias are innocent bystanders being attacked by their own government.”
Martin smiled, looking pleased. “And when the American people see the militias being served up as the scapegoat...”
“They’ll side with the militia groups against the government, thus bringing on—”
“Full scale collapse,” he finished for me.
I nodded. It made sense, in a Machiavellian sort of way. “You’re manipulating the militia groups.”
Grant’s eyes were narrow slits reflecting firelight. “If you want to put it that way.”
“So the goal isn’t to take down the government with this, but to provoke a confrontation. My God, it’s April 19th all over again.”
Jerry looked confused. “What’s the deal with April 19th?”
“You never did study your history, did you?” said Martin.
“I hate history.”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“Hell, even I know that one. That was Santana.”
“Santayana,” I corrected. “George Santayana.”
Jerry frowned. “Who?”
“Santayana. Santana’s the guitarist.”
“He didn’t say it?”
I grimaced. “No.”
“Whatever. What’s the deal with the 19th?”
“The shot heard ‘round the world,” I said. “Opening salvo of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“Who fired the shot?”
“No one knows. Probably wasn’t even one of the troops on the ground. Not unlike now.”
“Told you he was smart,” Martin said to Grant.
“You know, it occurs to me: if you’re manipulating the militia groups, it’s because you’re trying to get them to do something they don’t really want to do.”
Grant snorted. “Nobody really wants war, Cherry.”
“But you’ve determined it’s necessary.”
“Hell yes.”
“Shouldn’t the militias have a say in that?”
He shook his head. “Talk about learning from history. What else do you know about April 19th?”
Fourteen
“Waco,” I said. “April 19th, a fire broke out at the Branch Davidian compound. Eighty-one people died. Conspiracy theorists still maintain the government set the fire.”
“Conspiracy theorists,” Grant exclaimed.
“I ain’t saying they’re wrong. Exactly two years later, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing a hundred sixty eight men, women, and children. McVeigh claimed it was in retaliation for Waco and Ruby Ridge.”
“Not bad,” Grant said. “How’d you know that?”
“You start talking militias. I start doing research. April 19th is like the Holy Grail of the movement.”
“There’s good reasons for that,” said Grant. He began ticking off dates on his fingers. “April 19, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt took us off the gold standard. 1961: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. 1992 was the first attempted raid on the Weavers in Idaho. 1993 was Waco. 1994 Dr. Henry Kissinger announced publicly there would be a New World Order, and the U.S. would be forced to change its perceptions of the world and its place in it. 1995 we struck back. All of this on April 19th. And on April 19th, 1996 the United States Marine Corps issued a treatise against its own people, calling us right wing extremists. Still think we’re conspiracy nuts?”
“Theorists,” I corrected. “And I didn’t say you were nuts. I didn’t even say you were wrong.”
“That’s good, ‘cause we ain’t. Do you understand what April 19th represents?”
“I think so.” When he said nothing, I realized he wanted an answer. “It’s the day of revolts, the lynchpin of movement for or away from tyranny.”
“It’s also a day of failure and missed opportunity.”
I reached for my beer, but it was empty. “Okay. I guess I don’t understand.”
“Every spring I hear these cherries up here start talking about April 19th. April 19th this. April 19th that. Oh, when April 19th comes, then we’ll show them. We’ll remind the government who they work for. Bullcrap. It’s been almost twenty years now, and they ain’t done a damn thing. The simple fact is they ain’t gonna jump unless they’re pushed, and I mean pushed hard.”
“See, that’s where McVeigh went wrong,” said Martin.
“I thought it was when he murdered babies.”
“That didn’t help any,” he agreed. “But McVeigh thought that by striking the government, he could signal his fellow militia men to rise up and support him. But our people don’t rise up unless they’re personally provoked. Japan learned that in World War Two. The Taliban learned it again on nine eleven. Hell, it’s been that way ever since the Revolution. King George learned it after he punished Boston for the Tea Party. The rest of the colonies didn’t like it, and that’s what made them ready for war. The King played right into the Patriots’ hands.
“You strike the American people, you make them angry, provoke them to respond with force. McVeigh thought he was striking a chord for the American people against the government, but he didn’t take into account that the average American doesn’t feel attacked by the government. Annoyed, sure, but not attacked. You’ve got to provoke the government into attacking the people—which is why we cannot have this operation come back to the militias, otherwise
it’s just Oklahoma City all over again.
“There was support for our cause after Ruby Ridge and Waco, but soon as the people thought it was the government going after a few isolated nut cases, they didn’t feel attacked. We have to provoke the statists so bad that they finally do what they’ve always wanted to do, seize the reins of power from the people and suspend civil liberties. Then the people will rise up.”
Grant pointed at me. “Do you realize why the American people were able to take all this land from the Indians?”
“We had the guns,” said Jerry, answering for me.
“Naw, that ain’t it. We were trading guns and ammo to the Indians long before we wiped them out. They had guns, and they outnumbered us like thousand to one. But the Indians refused to band together until it was too late, and because of that, we were able to divide and conquer. They lacked the will to fight. Plain and simple.”
“These guys lack the will to fight, too, then. That’s what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying they ain’t properly motivated. Lethargy is death to the republic.”
“Jefferson,” I replied. “So you’re taking it upon yourself to motivate them.”
“Better to fight than die the death of a thousand cuts.”
I shook my head and blew out frustration. “Has it never occurred to you that maybe these guys aren’t motivated because they’re just not all into this?” When they didn’t respond, I felt emboldened. “I mean, let’s face facts: for most of these guys, this is nothing more than bravado and blowing off steam. For others, it’s all about playing soldier-boy. You know? Cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians for grown-ups. Nothing more. These are just weekend-warrior types. And they don’t want to take on the Federal government, ‘cause they just ain’t that crazy.”
Grant snorted. “Here I am, waiting for you to say something relevant.”
“Petey,” said Martin, “sooner or later we’re all gonna have to step up. Not put up or shut up, ‘cause it’s too late for that. We’re gonna have to step up, whether we like it or not. That’s all there is to it. Getting our country back ain’t some idle fantasy. It’s a cold, hard, reality. ‘Cause if we don’t, we ain’t gonna have a country to try to take back no more. It’ll be gone. The dream will be dead, and without America to light the way, the whole world will plunge into darkness.”
“You want to know what it’s about?” said Grant, rising to his feet. “It’s about Lieutenant Boog.” He went to the fridge and pulled out four more beers, passing them around.