After enjoying the fineries of the Wasatch Front, the party of eight was driven to a large farm on the Utah, Idaho border, across the Samaria Mountains from the Pocatello Valley. The next morning they all donned large rucksacks and made their way into the foothills above the farm. They hiked all that day, sometimes using the lightly graveled road, but often marching through the dry prairie grass and sagebrush. The party reached the summit late in the afternoon, descending halfway down the west slope of the Samarias, careful to remain out of view from the valley floor. It was a silly precaution, they knew. No one would be paying attention to this part of the valley. Even if they did, they would likely think they were residents of the town on a quick backpacking trip.
They camped at dusk and rose with the sun. After a breakfast of granola bars, trail mix, and bottled water they made their way to the valley floor. As instructed, they holed up in a small grove of quaking aspens. Almost exactly on time, a large Chevy Suburban pulled off the highway and drove down towards their makeshift camp. The sunglassed driver exited the vehicle and opened the back hatch. He looked up and down the highway. There was no traffic, so he made his way to the stand of trees where he was greeted by Travis.
“You made it,” the driver said.
Travis looked back at his small company and then back towards the highway.
“Yeah. No problem. Amanda twisted her ankle pretty good but we wrapped it.” Travis scouted traffic on the highway then said, “Let’s go. We’re ready.”
The driver nodded. He walked over to the girl with the wrapped ankle and gestured for her rucksack. They loaded their packs in the Suburban and made their way into town. Charlie greeted them gregariously. He fed them a large, catered lunch and while Travis’s companions napped through afternoon, he and Charlie discussed their plans.
“When do we move?” Travis asked, reclining in a large stuffed chair. He swirled a glass mindlessly in his hand, the ice clinking.
“Soon.”
Travis glared at him. Charlie raised his hands submissively.
“I’m sorry Travis, I don’t know the exact day.”
Travis nodded, but wasn’t entirely assuaged.
“The important thing,” Charlie continued, “is to make sure we have enough people. Anna’s friends are here, but to be honest… I don’t know if they’re up to this.”
Travis nodded. He understood that most people’s anger didn’t automatically translate into action. Violence was a skill, he knew. Not that the acts themselves were difficult to perform, but the will was difficult to develop.
“You got anyone else in the pipeline?” Travis asked, not confident in Charlie’s answer.
Charlie nodded.
“Good, because I don’t want to wait too long. The longer we’re here, the easier it will be for someone to notice us.”
“I don’t want to wait either,” Charlie said, standing and stretching. “I’m already starting to hate these people.”
Carl was at the tail end of another 12 hour shift. His pallid face and drawn eyes reflected the images from the bank of monitors he watched. As usual, Nate and Alex had approached him unaware, but didn’t immediately try to get his attention.
“See here?” Nate said, pushing onto a thumbnail-sized video on one of the main monitors. While still pressing he scrolled his finger to the left and the footage played alone on a large monitor.
Alex watched, the second knuckle of his index finger in between his teeth.
“Roll it back,” Alex said, gesturing with his other hand.
Nate scrolled the timeline of the video to the beginning and stepped back so they could both see.
“Eight backpackers… coming down from the east… then they make their way to that clump of trees,” Nate said, as if Alex needed the play by play.
Alex grunted. He rewound the video again.
“Why would they hide in those trees?” Alex asked after watching the video again.
Nate shrugged.
“Carl, is this footage from the drone?” Nate asked.
Surprisingly, Carl turned to them once his name was spoken. He seemed unusually lucid.
“That’s one of the drones, yeah,” Carl replied. “I sent another one out but they were gone by the time it got out there.”
“Hmm,” Nate replied. “Did we get a license plate scan?”
Carl shuffled through some papers and eventually found what he was looking for.
“Yep. Registered too… Patrick… Mick… Mick… something.”
Nate grabbed the paper from Carl and read the name.
“McNulty.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Carl said, returning his attention to the monitors.
“Anyway,” Nate said, speaking to Alex, “it’s an approved vehicle. Suspicious behavior, yes. But probably just a bunch of people doing exactly what it looks like. Backpacking.”
Alex was skeptical but he let it go.
“Just write up the report as usual,” Nate instructed him. “Attach both the doctors and the government liaison. Tell them there was some suspicious activity in the Northeast quadrant. We’ll send the footage if they want it, but I doubt they will.”
Alex nodded, went into his cubicle, and got to work writing the report. The report, which ended up being just over a page single spaced, went largely unread. No one from either the researchers or the government asked for more information. So, for the most part, Charlie’s invasion went largely unnoticed.
Charlie Henry, the elder statesman, held the room in rapt attention. Looking at this roomful of young people took him back to his glory days—their passion, their youth and their vigor invigorated him in turn. He felt twenty-one again.
“And what is the main thing we are looking for here? The thing that America has lacked for so long?”
A few of the “students” looked at each other, none of them wanting to speak up and give the wrong answer. Before the silence became awkward, Anna, ever the teacher’s pet, spoke up.
“Social justice,” she said, looking around at her colleagues shyly.
Charlie looked down at her with a sense of fatherly pride in his eyes.
“Very good, Anna,” Charlie said imperiously. “And what is the significance of social justice?”
Everyone just looked over at Anna this time. She bit her lip and gave her mentor a timid look. To her, the term “social justice” had always been that—a term. It was one of those postmodernist terms that could mean anything and everything. To her, though, it meant that the state ran things and met the needs of its citizens.
“Now,” Charlie said, gaining more confidence in his recruits as this meeting progressed, “what is the most important thing we remember as we go forward?”
The vague question caused many hands to shoot up. Charlie pointed at a strongly built young man with longish hair.
“The most important thing is to keep the big picture in mind. Progress is slow, especially when we’re dealing with Neanderthals,” he said proudly, looking around the room and grinning.
“Good point,” Charlie said, smiling. He pointed at the next hand, which belonged to Anna’s friend Mark.
“Adding to what Brandon said, progress is slow and sometimes it seems like you’re stuck. When that happens you have to keep moving forward. If one tactic doesn’t work, you go to the next one on the list.”
“Very true,” Charlie said. “That’s what Alinsky taught us. Anyway, what are we missing here? What hasn’t been mentioned?”
He peered around the room, meeting every person’s gaze. He looked at the long couch where Travis and Andrew were sitting. They both got heavily involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement and then with Antifa. He was very confident in himself, Anna could see, and Charlie had already told her that Travis was going to be his pit bull. Andrew was smaller than Travis and was clean-cut. Underneath his calm demeanor, however, Anna could tell that Andrew was not averse to violence.