The Deplosion Saga Page 8

  Colder: How about British Columbia? Are they ready to declare?

  Nielson: Yes, the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have both pledged to declare separation from the rest of Canada and join the west-coast states in forming New Pacifica. Truth be told, the Albertans would have preferred to join our Confederacy, but we just couldn’t figure out how to make that work geographically. Too many unallied states lie between us. That’s okay, though. They might consider themselves to be conservatives, but that’s Canadian conservative. Around these parts, we spell that with a l’il ‘c’. As far as I can tell, they fall somewhere to the left of Wilson. [loud laughter]

  Colder: Any updates on Quebec?

  Freeman: As soon as BC and Alberta announce separation, Monsieur Prevost, the Premier of Quebec, will declare martial law in that province. He has the active wing of the Parti Quebecois Libre waiting to assume control of government buildings and media outlets. No doubt, there’ll be a lot of resistance from the national government in…where is it? Oh, yes, Ottawa. The feds are going to have their hands so busy with the western rebellion. I expect they’ll see the writing on the wall pretty quickly. We expect the remaining Canadian provinces will move toward applying for a union within weeks, piggybacking onto whatever part of the former America is closest to them. Heck, one or two of them may try to make a go of it on their own.

  Colder: You haven't mentioned our central and northern states. Are we seeing any support there yet?

  Freeman: We’ve tried to help the movements in the northern states, but they just won’t have their acts together in time. And Heaven only knows what those disorganized Godless gamblers in Nevada and the Mormons in Utah are up to. [laughter] At any rate, we will have our New Confederacy. Whatever’s left of the un-United Welfare States of America will just have to look out for itself. [applause and cheers]

  Colder: Thank you, Dona. It looks like we’re right on our original timetable. I have some progress to report, too. I spoke with our righteous brothers in England and France. They tell me that the Muslim-friendly European Union Parliament has gone too far. They've invited all of North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, to apply for membership. Our conscientious objectors in the non-aligned EU countries predict this will leave Europe wide open to the Muslim invasion the Crusaders fought against over eight hundred years ago.

  Trent: Good Lord, why don’t they just let in all the Indians and Chinese, while they’re at it? [laughter]

  Colder: You never know, they still might. [more laughter] The EU claims they need to increase immigration because their demographics are unfavorable—not enough of their own young folk are having babies. Their debt load hasn't declined since the Great Recession, and the past twenty years of zero growth, even with negative interest rates, has been killing them. It doesn't help that the Euro's been crashing even faster than the dollar since 2021.

  They're drowning, and they've had about all they can take of those rich bureaucrats in Belgium telling them what to spend their tax dollars on. Three hundred percent debt-to-GDP? That’s no way to build a future!

  They're looking for us to lead the way, to rescue them from financial ruin. Again. But before we do that, they need to carry out their own Freedom Revolution. We'll be ready to offer them full support once our new government is in place—I'm talking military, monetary and organizational.

  Mitchell: We’ll have to be very careful how we do that. With the European Union buying so much of our oil and liquid natural gas, we don’t want to be seen as interfering in their internal affairs. We are, of course. We just don’t want to be seen doing it. [laughter]

  Colder: Not to worry. We have a number of circumspect communication channels in place, working through our friends in Iran. Ever since the Shah took back control from the Ayatollahs, the sanctions from the EU-China-Russia trading block have hurt them a lot. EU-supported, large-scale development of solar power in North Africa is hitting their oil and nuclear electricity exports where it hurts. Iran needs our support. We've promised to work with them in strategically setting prices and quotas in future. Timing is the key. But don’t worry. None of the arms or money we invest in bringing down the European Union will be traceable back to us.

  Mitchell: I think I can help that along. My administration will be happy to help undermine the cozy little arrangement between the EU, China, and Russia. They haven’t exactly been doing us any favors this past decade since they started conducting all their business in Euros, rubles, and renminbi.

  Many: Hear, hear! [cheers and applause]

  Colder: I’ll take that as a yes-vote, then.

  Stockwell: No, George, I think that’s more like a "Hell, yes!" vote. [prolonged loud laughter, cheers, and applause]

  Colder: Alright. Settle down, everyone. I’ll remind you, although I appreciate your enthusiasm, we are working in the name of our Lord, Yeshua. So, let’s try to keep the profanity down, please.

  Stockwell: Sorry about that.

  Colder: No harm done, Steve. Now, before we call it a night, why don’t you fill us in on the progress with the New Militia?

  Stockwell: Yes, sir. I am pleased to report to the Executive Committee that the New Confederacy Militia is ready for action. Our organizational structure makes it difficult to determine the exact numbers, but I’ve passed word outward through the various Command cells to try to generate some kind of estimate of our support.

  To give you a rough idea, each Militia Cell is twelve members. If everyone does as instructed and doesn’t join any cell outside their Reporting Cell and Leading Cell, then across all the future member-states, that would put us at over 52,000 trained and armed men and women prepared to put their lives on the line for the New Confederacy.

  We also asked our Militia members to report if they’ve had any military training. Over 68% answered affirmatively. Our command recruits from the major Army, Navy, and Air Force bases assure me that we will have timely access to both troops and weapons.

  Colder: Thank you, Steve, or should I say, General Stockwell?

  Thank you all for a job well done—I remind you that it’s not over until Senator Mitchell is President Mitchell. And with your courage, your faith and, yes, your sacrifices, we will get there. History will remember you as the heroes and patriots you truly are.

  On November 2nd, we start the countdown to the New Confederacy, and to a new Christian era in our beloved South. [loud cheers and applause]

  Yeshua bless this Committee and the holy work we do. Yeshua bless the New Confederacy!

  Many: Yeshua bless the New Confederacy!

  [Original transcript and recordings transmitted to Deputy Director Thornten May 1, 2032. No copies made.)

  From the moment he received Deputy Director Thornten’s suspiciously casual call requesting this meeting, Senator Fred Mitchell was filled with a foreboding premonition.

  Something’s up. Something ominous. Weighty. High-level NSA Executives like Thornten don’t drop by a newly elected Senator's Lakeway District country home to have a friendly chat. And they wouldn’t conduct routine business out here. This has to be something big, something he wants to keep off the records.

  Senator Mitchell poured himself a generous bourbon on the rocks, and an iced tea for Deputy Director Thornten. He’d convinced Doris to take her mother for lunch at the Golf and Country Club today so she wouldn’t feel obliged to play hostess. The two men sipped their drinks and exchanged superficial pleasantries as they made their way outdoors to the shaded terrace.

  Thornten took a seat opposite the Senator; he left his sunglasses on. Mitchell resisted being drawn in by his own reflection, and took stock of the Deputy Director. He saw a highly disciplined career man sporting the lean, hard body and buzz-cut of a young naval lieutenant, and a pale complexion owing to more years spent analyzing intelligence data than sailing the open seas. Only a few small wrinkles overshooting the reflective lenses belied his true age. Neither relaxed nor hostile, Thornten wasn't giving away any clues. What was he up to that couldn’
t be dealt with at work?

  Mitchell nursed his bourbon and waited for Thornten to begin. It was shaping up to be another unseasonably warm December day in the Austin area, with highs expected to be in the mid-70s. The two men gazed out over the garden below, where Fernando was pruning the dormant shrubs and bushes. Sunlight glittered off the lazy Colorado River. Down at the lower end of the property, Fernando’s assistant was placing mulch over any exposed roots of the two brilliant red Shumard Oaks.

  Thornten unrolled his display tablet—a cheap disposable, Mitchell noticed—and called up the transcript. He spun it around and sat back to Mitchell some time to read.

  Ten minutes later, Mitchell leaned back and took a good, long swallow of his drink. He massaged his brow, in an effort to stem his burgeoning panic. How could we have been bugged? Our security was iron-clad. We were so careful with our communications. How did the NSA even know about the gathering?

  “Okay, I presume you'd like something from me. Otherwise, I’d be dead, behind bars, or on my way to some secret debriefing session.”

  Where was the leak? His mind raced through the list of people who either attended or helped arrange the organizational meeting. It wasn't easy. They’d intentionally organized the YTG—Yeshua’s True Guard Church—like terrorist groups.

  Meetings were limited to cells of twelve people, and each person in a Reporting Cell personally recruited the other eleven members of their own lower-level Cells. It was an annoyingly inefficient way to organize a revolution, but necessary. When your own government maintained passive surveillance on almost all public places—and apparently some semi-private ones as well—and when they actively recorded and analyzed all electronic communications, keeping secrets required attention to every conceivable hole in your security.

  Wait a minute. Washington would order the NSA to descend on me in force if solid information about my treason had landed on the appropriate desk. So why is Thornten bringing this to me now, himself, and why out here?

  Did the Deputy Director expect Mitchell to inform on the entire movement to save his own hide? Whether as a traitor to the country or as a traitor to the YTGC, either way, he’d likely soon be dead or in prison. He could feel his life closing in around him, and options being stripped away.

  “Actually, Senator Mitchell, my purpose in coming to you today was not exactly in any official capacity. I’m here to help.”

  “To help? What do you mean? Help how? I thought you were here to…” He picked up his glass and knocked back the remaining bourbon.

  “You didn’t think I was here to blackmail you, did you? Or worse?” The Deputy Director chuckled and removed his glasses. “No, not at all.” His steady gaze looked sincere. “That tablet and its duplicate in my office safe contain the only two copies of that transcript and the supporting recordings. I hope that after our meeting today, we’ll agree to destroy both of those copies.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Fred, may I call you Fred? Like you, and many others in that meeting, I’m also deeply troubled by the corruption festering at the core of our once great nation. We've lost our way through a combination of non-existent morals, excessive immigration, multiculturalism, secularism, and a pathetic foreign policy.

  “I used to believe I could do something about it once I reached the heart of the beast. I was so naïve. Even for the top positions of the administrative machinery, Langley and Washington remain intractable. And all the while, that nasty rot is eating away at our nation’s heart. It has to be stopped.”

  Mitchell was dumbfounded. He desperately wanted another drink. “Mr. Deputy Director,” he began.

  “Please, call me Chris,” Thornten interrupted.

  “Chris, I’m kind of dry at the moment. Can I refill your iced tea while I pour myself another?”

  “Please. But, you know, I think I’ll join you in something a little stronger, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Mitchell stepped to the bar inside his study, poured Thornten a bourbon, and refreshed his own.

  “Mr. Deputy Director, Chris. I have to say, I don't know how to respond to what you just told me. I’d think you were running some kind of a sting operation, if I hadn’t already seen that transcript.”

  “But you have seen it.” The two men returned to the patio, where they stood examining the lawn and river below.

  “Yes, I have. You have everything you need to charge a US Senator, an Army General, and probably a number of other influential and powerful people with treason. Instead, you waltz in here and tell me you’d like to join us. Now, what would you have me make of that?”

  “What you make of it is that, like you, I am a true patriot. And that, like you, I also see no future for this country as it is.”

  “I still don’t understand how a camera got into that room. The security was even better than it is here in my house, and I never fear speaking what I truly believe when I’m home.”

  “Read the top of that transcript again.”

  “This bit about quadruple-redundant neural recordings made by Spyders? What on God’s green Earth are those?”

  “I could be charged for treason just for letting you read that one line,” answered Thornten. “Fred, you are now privy to one of this nation’s newest Intelligence collection tools. Only a handful of individuals with Top Secret clearance know about this. These Spyders are literally spiders, real spiders that are genetically and electronically engineered so that we can use their nervous systems as programmable recording devices.”

  “You've got to be kidding me.”

  “No, not at all. There’s an MIT spin-off company in Boston, run by that genius kid. You know, the one with the nano computer lattice thing in his head. Well, his company developed a way to connect nano-scale electronics with the brains of insects, if you can believe it. NSA appropriated it, and now we have the ability to walk one of these bugs into any room, and have it sit there and record everything that goes on.

  “We don’t need to send radio transmission, lasers, or anything else into the room. We preprogram our bugs to walk in, record, and then walk out, completely undetected and ignored by all. We download their recordings offline. It’s the most effective listening device we’ve ever used.”

  “Genetic engineering is a blasphemy against God’s creatures,” Mitchell said.

  “Yes, it is. And it’s just another sign of how far this Administration has strayed from what decent, upstanding, Christian folk would agree to. It’s not enough the government lets foreigners overrun our country. Now they’re approving and funding companies to make abominations of God's creations.”

  “Chris, if this gets out, it could bring the Administration down.”

  “Yes, it might,” agreed the Deputy Director. “Outrage in the South would be enormous. But I’m not so sure the Yankees are going to stand with us on this. Anyway, what good would it do? Whoever replaced them would just cover up the whole thing and carry on as before, same as always.”

  “But aren’t you part of that system, too?”

  “Well, I used to think I was. I was just as surprised and disturbed as you to learn about the Spyder program. I would never have approved it. But when Director Brundy ordered me to use it to listen in on your organization, well, I couldn’t very well refuse on moral grounds, could I?”

  “I guess not.”

  “As it turned out, the whole operation was quite…serendipitous, you could say. I was inspired by what your movement is trying to accomplish and by the enormous support you’ve drawn to your cause. I can see the writing on the wall, and I don't like what I see. I’d like to offer my help so that your goals can be achieved with a minimum of bloodshed.”

  Mitchell was stunned but elated. He never could have imagined in his wildest dreams that a top NSA executive would come to his home to offer his allegiance to their plans for an independent New Confederacy. A few minutes ago, he’d been contemplating the end of his dreams for a better, stronger, more moral South, and the end of his fre
edom. Maybe even the end of his life. Now, he was thinking of ways that this powerful insider could help make their dream become a reality.

  “Chris, you can’t imagine how glad I am to hear you say that. What do you have in mind?”

  “Well, I’m happy to let your executive committee decide how I might best assist you. For the moment, I envision continuing to monitor your group’s activities but making sure that the recordings, transcripts, and analyses do not get into the wrong hands. Only my own hand-selected analysts download and transcribe the recordings. They send them directly to me, and me alone. My official reports on your activities have covered up anything serious on your part.

  “It sounds like your people will be ready to start activating your plans shortly. You should know that over the past few decades, my group has developed a variety of tools designed to cripple enemy information and communication systems for up to forty-eight hours. These tools can be used equally well against certain designated systems in America. I would presume that impairing the coordination of those who would oppose the New Confederacy would be a useful weapon when the time is right. Would it not?”

  “Yes, most helpful.”

  “And I would hope that anyone who could deliver such useful tools might find a respectable position within the Administration of that New Confederacy?”

  “Yes, I’m certain that could be arranged. Chris, thank you. You’re a Godsend. Where do you hail from, anyway? You sound like a Southern boy to me.”