Fight for Power (5 page)

“What are you proposing?” Judge Roberts asked.

The old spy paused, looking around the room. I leaned forward and noticed everyone else doing the same. There was a sense of dread, of anticipation, of fear. I could see it in people's eyes, I could almost smell it in the air.

“We have to finish the job we started,” Herb said. “We have to attack them. There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. We have to do to them what they were planning on doing to us. We have to destroy them.”

“Destroy them?” the judge asked. “That makes us no better than them.”

“We don't have any choice. As long as they're capable of launching an attack, they're a real and present danger, not only to us but to all others simply trying to live. They're predators who must be stopped. Either we go after them or they come after us. Not today, not tomorrow, and possibly not for months, but they'll be coming back at us. Of that I have no doubt.”

“I thought it was over,” Dr. Morgan said. “I guess I just wanted to believe that.”

“We all wanted to believe that. But how do we tell our people? They're still out there on the streets celebrating the victory, their survival. You can't expect us to simply send people back out to risk their lives again,” the councilor said.

“They trust us. They'd follow where we lead, do what we say. I know we can convince them,” Herb said. He looked at my mom and she nodded grimly.

“Herb and I have had a discussion already,” my mother said. “This isn't something we want or need, but he already has my approval.”

Judge Roberts shook his head. “Even with that said, he still has to convince the rest of us. We can't simply march out and declare war on these people.”

“War has already been declared. They declared it when they came to kill us,” Herb said. “Look, I know what we all want to believe, what we all want to do, or more specifically
not
do, but by doing nothing we risk everything.”

“Is it possible that we could negotiate with them, come to some understanding?” the judge asked.

“Yes, like a truce or a treaty?” Councilor Stevens said.

“We could, perhaps, assuming they simply didn't kill the members of the peace delegation we sent,” Herb said. “But let's be realistic. We've all seen what they're capable of doing, what they would have done to us if they had gotten over that bridge. Even if they agree to a treaty, it would be nothing more than a blanket to cover them while they rearm, regroup, and plan how to destroy us. The only way to meet force is with greater force. Right now the advantage is ours. It won't be for long.”

“How long do you think we have an advantage?” the councilor asked.

“It's all just guesses. Today we have the larger force, plus we have the momentum and the element of surprise. In a few days we lose surprise. In a week we lose momentum. In a few months they will undoubtedly have a larger force, perhaps one matching ours in size, and we will always have one distinct disadvantage. From what I've seen, these people don't care if they kill us. Our morality is a weakness.”

“That's where I disagree with you, Herb,” my mother said firmly. “It's our strength.”

Herb's expression changed. For one of the first times, I saw him look flustered. “I wasn't implying it was wrong … please understand … I know we're doing what is right, but they don't suffer the same doubts around killing. Those pangs, those questions we're asking now, are what stops somebody from pulling the trigger for a split second, and in a split second you're dead. Ruthlessness is a weapon.”

“I don't know the answer, but I know this all has to be discussed. We have to come to an agreement, we have to plan this,” Judge Roberts said.

“With each hour that passes we lose the advantages we have. If I were in charge of the remaining enemy forces, once I knew what had happened, I'd either attack or take my remaining men, weapons, and resources and slip away,” Herb explained.

“So you think it's possible that they might just run away and hide?” Howie said. “That they won't attack?”

“Perhaps not today, but by relocating to a new spot where we can't attack them, they're free to regroup and grow. It's no different from before, except for one thing. They'll be more determined to try to take what we have because they're that much more certain that it's worth taking.”

“So you're saying by defending ourselves successfully, we've made ourselves more of a target?” the judge asked.

“Ironically, yes. Either we decide when and where to fight or they do. We have to be the ones who make those decisions first.”

“And while I don't want this any more than the rest of you, the time has to be soon,” my mother said.

“Within the next forty-eight hours is our window,” Herb explained.

“And I bet you have a plan you are ready to talk to us about,” the judge said.

I knew he was right. Herb was always playing chess—trying to stay a few moves ahead—not just with the enemy but with the people sitting around this table. He'd been thinking about this plan from the instant that bridge went down.

“The captain and I can present a comprehensive plan to this committee within an hour.” He looked from person to person. “Well?”

“I'm not sure I should even be in on the discussion,” Mr. Peterson said. “I'm a farmer, and that's all I am. I don't know about attacks and what needs to be done in situations like this.”

“Me neither,” Mr. Nicholas added. “As an engineer, I find all this well beyond my area of expertise. Can't we just leave this up to the captain and Herb, Howie, and the judge to decide?”

There was a nodding of heads and agreement from most of the others who weren't included in that group of names.

“No,” my mother said, silencing them. “We can't. These decisions affect everybody, and we all have to have input.”

“She's right,” Herb agreed.

That surprised me. I thought Herb would have welcomed the opportunity to do things that way, without consultation or interference from more people.

“In an ideal world every member of this community would contribute to the decision because it will have dire, potentially fatal, impacts on them. We don't live in that ideal place, but all of you are the neighborhood's representatives. This has to be a collective decision because we will all have to live with the consequences. If we attack it is almost guaranteed that some of our people will die. We have to share in that responsibility,” Herb said.

There was silence in the room as his words sank in. I think most of them would have relished washing their hands of the decision and then not being held responsible for what would happen—afraid of the consequences. Now they'd have to live with them, good or bad, successful or tragic.

“I just wish we could give them the opportunity to lay down their weapons,” Judge Roberts said.

“They'd never do that,” Herb said.

“How can you be certain?” Howie asked.

“The problem with a liar is that he doesn't believe anybody else is capable of telling the truth,” Herb explained. “They'd think it was just a trick and that as soon as they surrendered their weapons we'd cut them down.”

“We wouldn't do that,” Judge Roberts said.

“But they
would
, and that's how they think everybody thinks. They're not going to simply walk away,” Herb said.

“But if they did, would we let them?” I asked.

He didn't answer right away. He looked like he was struggling to come up with the right words. “It wouldn't be my decision to make.”

“But if it was?” I wasn't going to let him get away without giving an answer.

He took a deep breath. “Those people have done evil and will be prepared to do evil again. If we let them walk away, then we're responsible for every action they take from that point on. Every death done by them would have been allowed by us. So, in answer to your question, I don't think they will surrender, but even if they did they shouldn't be allowed to leave … or live.”

“And you think we should just kill them all?” my mother asked.

He looked straight at my mother. “Yes.”

“But if we did, doesn't that just make us the same as them, putting a bullet into the head of an unarmed man?” Judge Roberts asked.

“It's not the same. They're prepared to kill innocents. I'm proposing that we kill the guilty to protect the innocent. Sometimes there are necessary evils that must be done. Does that make sense?”

I slowly nodded. There were many things that were necessary, but that didn't make them any less evil.

“But I know it's not going to come to that,” Herb said. “They're not going to surrender. The only question on the table is simple: Do we attack them now or allow them to attack us later?”

I knew there was possibly going to be hours of discussion. I also knew what was going to happen in the end. For better or worse Herb—backed by my mother—would get what he wanted. All that remained was for everybody to be convinced in a way that would help them sleep afterward.

 

4

The next day, I was stuck at home looking after Danny and Rachel, my younger twin siblings. Around noon, while they were downstairs playing together, I was finally able to get outside to work on my car. Something was off with the timing and it was running rougher than usual. My 1979 Oldsmobile Omega was a junker, but that's what made it more valuable than a brand-new BMW, as I'd discovered the very first day of the crisis. Because it had no computers controlling any of its functions, it was unaffected by the virus. So it worked—but only as well as it always did, which wasn't saying much.

Yesterday, the meeting had continued for another two hours and then, just as I expected, after much debate, everybody came to an agreement with Herb's proposal. But by the time it had all been decided, it was too late to plan the attack for the next day. My mother and Herb and Howie had stayed up late putting it into place.

So today we would focus on preparation, and tomorrow would be the day of the attack. As usual, Herb got his way. Not only was the attack going to happen, but it was going to be a surprise assault, if we could pull it off.

Keeping the element of surprise had been the longest part of the discussion. Most of the committee members—my mother included—had first wanted to try to negotiate with them, ask them to give up their weapons and flee. Herb had insisted that warning them was only going to give them time to react, not surrender. In the end he convinced people, one by one, including me, that you couldn't negotiate with monsters and murderers, until it was an argument almost exclusively between him and my mother.

Finally, she gave in. She said she knew the attack was going to happen. And she had to agree with Herb that losing the element of surprise was going to cost us lives.

Watching it all happen had confirmed what I already knew. While the committee made the final decisions, those decisions were driven by my mother and Herb. The two of them were the leaders, and as long as they led together we were okay. I didn't want to think what would have happened if they hadn't finally agreed.

As word about the plan spread throughout the neighborhood the mood shifted—again. We had gone from dread and fear two days ago to gratitude and relief, and now we were back where we'd started.

The lucky ones were those of us who had work to do. At least we could be distracted. For the rest, the waiting was hard.

At our house, Rachel and Danny were picking up on all the stress and had been fighting nonstop. They had always had a healthy rivalry, but this wasn't the usual brother-and-sister bickering. They had started saying really nasty things to each other until Rachel had broken down and started crying about Dad. That had gotten Danny crying, too, and because Mom was out, I had to work as hard as I could to offer them reassurance that Dad was fine. I hated lying to them, telling them things I couldn't possibly know were true. I just wished there was somebody to give me convincing lies.

Herb, my mother, Howie, and Brett were busy preparing the attack force. There were going to be 240 men and women from our neighborhood—forty of whom were being given weapons today for the first time and were receiving last-second training. It was risky because the newbies could shoot the wrong people, but Herb had said we needed to have twice as many people as the force we were going to attack.

Five people were being trained to use the RPGs. They'd be the ones who would be leading the attack, blasting through the perimeter walls and blowing up the barracks. Brett, of course, was one of them. There was nobody, except for Herb, that I would want beside me more than Brett when there were bullets flying around me. Not that I'd be beside him. Assuming the weather was right, I'd be in the air, watching and relaying information.

Part of me felt bad, almost guilty that I wasn't going to be with them on the ground, but I knew I'd still be in danger. Bullets could fly up as well as out. Besides, they needed my eyes in the sky. I was doing something that nobody else could do.

I heard horse hooves clattering on the pavement and looked up from my car engine. Two women and an older man were coming down the road, leading a horse-drawn farm wagon. They were the compost team. They gathered kitchen scraps produced by every household and then took them to a central location at the end of the parking lot at the school. The scraps were being composted and would be put back into the fields.

Sometimes they gathered other things. A call would go out asking for certain items like extra plywood, tools, snowblowers, lawn mowers, or rototillers. Any items that couldn't be delivered by the people to the shops were picked up and transported by horse cart.

It was encouraging to see people pulling together, working for the good of everybody. That was the way it was supposed to be. That was how we'd survive. That was the only way we
could
survive.