Chapter 29
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Once the SCIF was sealed up Colonel Cain removed the overlarge flannel shirt he'd been wearing to reveal the uniform underneath as the screen behind him lit up. "My name is General Matthias Cain. Two months ago I was put in charge of the Pacifica armed forces. There's paperwork up here if any of you want to take a look at it."
"I thought Pacifica didn't have a military." One of the older men wearing a veteran's cap said. "They wimped out and turned it all over to the UN."
"Two months ago they changed their minds." General Cain said. They realized that the UN is trying to protect the rest of the planet, not our people."
"I thought we were safe here." A woman said.
"Oh, we are. But we are not all of us. Remember, this was a conflict based on ideology, not geography. Before the war there was some distribution, more of us on the coasts, more of them in the inner areas, but each side had people living everywhere, side by side in most cases. Since the partitioning of the continent we have let the people who feel the way they do out, but they have not done the same. And they do not intend to do the same." General Cain clicked the remote in his hand and the slide behind him changed. "These are intelligence photographs. Pursuant to their interpretation of the bible they are enslaving and killing people. Our people. And they are not willing to just let them leave, they believe that God wants them enslaved or dead and that is the way it's going to be."
"And people are just taking that?" The veteran asked.
"People don't have a lot of options." The General changed the slides to show desolated, literally bombed urban areas. "In the major cities they've been trying to fight back. But according to reports the Brethren spent a lot of time over the winter fighting their way through what major urban areas they could and keeping the rest under siege." Spencer herd Morgan grunt at one slide and realized that the neighborhood where he grew up was now burned out rubble. "No power, no water and no food has gone a long way towards getting people to agree. But not everyone. Some have been trying to get out all this time."
"What happened to them?" The veteran asked.
The General changed the slides. These showed bodies lying among patches of snow in piney woods. "They tried to walk out. Over the mountains. Now that the snow is melting up there they've found over two thousand bodies, which does not count the ones eaten by animals or that the UN found and sent back to be imprisoned or worse. These are our tasks. Number one to keep our border secure which the UN is doing an adequate job of for now. Number two is to help our people get home."
"How do we do that?" A younger man asked.
In reply the General changed slides to a picture of an older black woman wearing a dress from a hundred years ago. "Anyone know who this is?"
Morgan raised his hands right off. "Harriet Tubman." He said.
General Cain nodded to him. "Gold star in history. Harriet Tubman. They called her "Moses". She was a conductor on the Underground Railroad back before our first Civil War. By twos and threes she hiked over three hundred slaves approximately five hundred miles from Maryland to freedom in Canada. It was impossible but she did it. And if she did it so can we."
"All right." Will murmured.
"Thankfully we have cars these days; we won't have to walk so far. Our company is broken into two units. Unit one is charged with outfoxing the Brethren Council and their local authorities. They're all ready in place; they went out with the last wave of immigrants over the past month. What we're here to form tonight is Unit two. Our job is outfoxing the Brethren border patrols and the UN."
"How are we going to do that?" The younger man asked.
"Quirk of geography." The General put a map up on the screen. "You're looking at High Lakes Pass in southern Oregon. It runs through the Cascades, east to west. From here, at McClatchy Bridge over Butte Creek to here, the tip of Pelican Bay on Klamath Lake over the northern shoulder of Mt. McLaughlin and south of Fourmile Lake, It's twenty-five miles, the narrowest part of the DMZ. Heading west from the lake you gain roughly a thousand feet of elevation until you're approximately a mile above sea level. This route is going to be our highway."
Earl Hallingford had been studying the map as the General talked. "That just might work." He said. "Not a lot of logging trails back in there. And a lot of tree cover to boot."
The General smiled. "Exactly. Those two facts combined means not a lot of UN patrols either." He pointed to the map again. "Right now one group of Unit One is buying land around Klamath Lake. There's a lot of farmland around there, a lot of vacation cabins, all with docks. That is going to be our transfer point. The second group of Unit One is on the road, finding the high value targets we need returned and finding those at risk who need out. They will work together to move people to the transfer point. Our job is going to be to hike over, meet the people trying to get to freedom and hike them back as safely as we can." That set up a small murmur in the group. "We hiked it last week, crossed paths with two UN patrols and a group of slave catchers just before the Brethren border, that's all. It can be done."
"Whatever it takes." Will muttered
"But we cannot let anyone know we're doing it." General Cain went on. "The moment the Brethren find out that Pacifica is raising an army we invalidate the treaty that's allowing the UN to clean out their weapons of mass destruction. And that could make for a very bad day. So we're going to have to hide in plain sight."
"How do we do that?" A woman asked.
General Cain pointed to the map again. "Butte Falls, Oregon. It is small, it is isolated, it has the distinction of being the only town in the former United States that is completely fenced in and it is less than three miles from the border. It will be our home base but it must look like a small mountain town and we must all pass for small town locals who just happen to live so close to the edge."
The woman settled back and looked again. "Might work." She said.
"Now while we might pass for small town residents we will not be just people in a small town. From the moment we collect our charges at the lake until the moment we send them down the mountain to safe houses in the valley they are our responsibility. It will be our job to protect them from Brethren retribution, and there may well be some at some time. And bear in mind that we are very close to the border for a base like this. Should the worst happen we may have to fight to defend our home and our fellow citizens. Which is why everyone, support staff included, will be expect to qualify with a firearm and to be armed at all times." That set up a chuckle around the room which left the General smiling. "Yes, that's another reason for keeping this quiet. I do not think most citizens of Pacifica would look upon us kindly for embracing guns or violence as the Brethren do. But bear in mind, the Brethren are bullies and the only way to stop a bully is to make him more afraid of you."
He snapped off the projector. "So this is what I am asking. I am asking for volunteers to leave their homes and their current jobs, to move to an isolated town in the middle of nowhere, to be willing to hike through mountain wilderness and to face wolves, bears, mountain lions, Brethren soldiers who will shoot on sight and UN patrols who will hold you still so they can, and to be willing to shoot to kill in order to protect your fellow citizens. And I am asking you to do this without any recognition, without any heroics, with no great reward, with only the hope that someday we might go down in history like Moses herself. Now, are any of you with me?"
There was quiet in the hall for a long moment. And then, slowly, but without hesitation, every person there stood.
General Cain smiled at them, his eyes full of pride. "Thank you all. Welcome to the Pacifica Scouts."
.
End of Part 2
