Dale, obviously a bit shaken, unbuttoned his collar button and loosened his tie but then shook his head. “You didn’t fall for a drink when negotiating with me; you think I’d fall for the same?”
“Just a friendly gesture in these parts,” John said with a smile.
“You know I can’t leave without Burnett and the others on the arrest list in tow.”
“And you know I will not release them—actually, I should say in all honesty that the director of public health and safety, whose care those men are in, will not release them.”
“Oh yes, your wife. So she follows every order of yours without question, I see. Or is it the other way around?”
John actually did laugh for real. “If only you knew.” But his gesture did not break the tension.
“I have the arrest orders. They are terrorists, and you know it. You are harboring them, and in the eyes of the law, you know what that means.”
“Terrorists, Dale? I recall before the war when it became politically incorrect to use that term when it came to real terrorists and ironically then applied to those who were not—and look at what it finally got us.”
He gestured to the streetlight overhead, the burned-out bank at the corner, the world of silence, a nation with the electric switch thrown off.
Dale was silent.
“So is this the next step, Dale? Everyone who somehow survived the Day but is not in compliance with the central government will be branded a terrorist?”
“You had no problem executing over a hundred of the Posse. I heard their skeletons still litter what used to be a truck stop.”
“You know damn well that was far different. They didn’t even classify as human anymore. They were a satanic, cannibalistic horde gone amok, and it was kill them or be killed. And nearly all such have been wiped out since. Burnett and his people terrorists? Well, those screaming kids dying from gut shots that we took care of yesterday sure didn’t look like terrorists to me. They looked like people to me who once were fellow citizens, not like the scum I was forced to kill.”
“You and the border reivers have been at war with each other for over a year now, and one of my jobs is to clean them out. I thought you’d be glad to see me get rid of them for you.”
“Merciful God,” John snapped. “Was that the reason why? Kill them to impress me? My God, don’t tell me that now.”
Dale again said nothing.
“Or was it to intimidate all of us? You have the gunships, we don’t, so it’s time to obey?”
“It was an act of war, Matherson. We have to weld this country back together again if we are to survive. The Chinese are on our land, same with Mexico. What’s left of Russia, with a nuclear arsenal aimed and the hammer clicked, is watching every move, and it better not be one of weakness. The only thing keeping them from finishing the job is our nuke subs sitting off their coast in the Arctic and Pacific. We have to show strength within, that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to pull this country back together, or else.”
“Or else what, Dale?”
“The president herself said in the briefing to those of us being dispatched to reorganize the various administrative districts that we had an open hand to suppress any type of rebellion. We have a year to get the job done, or someone else will do it for us, and believe me, there are many who would be far more draconian than me.”
John did not reply. The classic administrator told to do the job “or someone else will,” and it was thus a lockstep to follow orders.
“The reivers, they were at war with you and then with me. So I fought war as I was told to do, the same as you did with the Posse.”
“War? Yes, we’ve killed some of them, and they’ve killed some of my people, but they were not like the Posse, and I’ve come to realize that if anything, they were far more like us than some. Maybe if we had figured out how to talk a year ago, a lot of mistakes could have been avoided.”
“And you’d have had maybe a thousand more to worry about feeding.”
John nodded. “Maybe, but what’s your answer? Kill them all, including the kids, and not have to worry about feeding them at all?”
“Either they come into observance of the law or there is no alternative any longer.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“I have to accept that. Did you hear the news about what happened in Chicago? What about that?”
“Whoever was the dumb ass who sent half-trained kids in to fight there is an idiot, Dale. Just who in the hell is running this ANR, anyhow? For God’s sake, it’s an understanding going back to the Romans that it takes up to three years to train troops for that kind of fighting, and the schmuck running that action I bet wasn’t with the kids who were killed or captured and then executed.”
“That schmuck, as you call him, will be your commander,” Dale retorted.
“If I enlist now.”
Dale took that in and fell silent for a moment. “And if it is an order that you enlist immediately rather than a request as I first put it, John? Will you obey?”
“Is that a threat?”
“Not intended to be at all, John,” Dale said smoothly. “But it is evolving out as reality now, and the reality at the moment is that I have an arrest warrant for Burnett and nineteen others for capital crimes, and I intend to see it carried out.”
“And if I say that I will not comply, I am a terrorist, then, as well?”
Dale did not answer.
“So any order from on high, regardless of its moral worth, must be obeyed. Is that what America has really become? Did we let it slip away an inch at a time before we were attacked, and now we are finally driving straight off the cliff once and for all? When I was in the army and stationed in Germany just before Desert Storm, I met more than one man or woman who was called ‘a good German.’ When we did talk about the difficulty of the times they grew up in, they would admit that in the beginning their leaders did not seem all that bad. Oh yes, the Jewish issue was troubling, but no one figured it would really go anywhere serious. Besides, Hitler and crowd did promise social order, create jobs for all, and restore national pride and unity. ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.’ Is that what we are now, Dale?”
“What does that mean?”
“Look it up when you get back to your office, Dale, and then look in the mirror.”
“I’m not liking the tone of this,” Dale finally retorted.
John smiled. “Dale, you do realize I am holding all the cards at this moment? I cannot allow you to move Burnett. Makala dug a jagged piece of shrapnel out of his gut that shattered his spleen. How he even made it over the mountain is beyond me. That is one tough son of a bitch. He needed four units of blood. If he lapses into sepsis, he’ll die anyhow. Makala is an okay surgeon now, but before the war, there’d of been a whole team working on that man. It’ll be weeks before she releases him.”
“Is it that you cannot release him or will not?”
“I don’t see a difference at the moment.”
“I do, John—a big difference. You tell me he can’t be moved at the moment for ‘humanitarian reasons,’ and you give us both a face-saving out for the moment, and I’ll go along with that. Nevertheless, the man is guilty; his case has already been reviewed. And I’ll tell you right now, he’ll be hung in front of the courthouse for his crimes along with the others on that list. But if you want to play a game for a week or so until he can be safely moved, I’ll grant that to get us both out of this confrontation.”