Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (24 page)

      
"Compressed imaging?"

      
"It shows what happened that day."

      
Helen held it with both hands and just looked at it.  She didn't know if she wanted to see it.

      
"How are the boys who survived?" Thomas asked.

      
The question jolted Helen from her trance.  "What boys?"  She didn't know what to tell him; that had been secret.

      
"There were two kids in the roots of a fallen tree.  I didn't see a blood trail so I presumed they were not hit."

      
"Ah--"

      
"You don't have to say anything.  I understand."  Captain Thomas lowered his head and backed out of the room, "I'm truly sorry.  I just wish it could all be undone." 

      
Helen looked up from the disk, "So do I."  The Captain closed the door, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand as he exited.  "So do I," she repeated.  Helen hadn't noticed it earlier but her eyes had teared too.  She saw Wolfenstein's backpack on the edge of the desk.  She opened it and pulled out his pocket computer.  After loading the disk, she viewed scenes through the Toshiba graphic interface.  The entire display couldn't have lasted more than two minutes from start to finish: The first Scout that triggered the device stuck his face in death's mouth, the constant strafing from side to side, then the pin-point single shots that either finished children off or targeted kids hiding behind trees and rocks.  "Jesus, God!"  She saw Barry.  She didn't see her son actually but recognized his shoes extending out from a boulder.  Helen put a hand to her mouth and stared at the screen as AutoMan pummeled away at the legs that extended beyond the stone.  Her eyes winced with every flinch of her son's legs.  Butch could be seen on the edge of the screen trying to go after him but an overpowering hand yanked him down.  And then came Mr. Ronolou's heroic act that allowed the Rousells' escape.  She replayed it over and over.

      
"What's that?"

      
Helen raised back upon hearing the words, and nearly hit Steve Morrison in the face with the back of her head.  She hadn't heard him come in.  "That's Dixville Notch, isn't it?" he queried, incredulous.  His chewing gum fell out of his open mouth as he looked down.

      
The question stirred her from the nightmare.  Helen nodded yes.  Steve walked around her and saw the tear paths that marked her face.  "I'm sorry.  But you see, this can end it.  This disc would hang the President.  He had to know.  It was at least a cover-up on the part of the White House.  They knew it wasn't smugglers."

      
Tater woke from her anesthesia and began to stir.  The new surroundings confused her.  She recalled the same overwhelming stench of disinfectant at Barry's death, and in her own limited capacity, wondered why she was there.  There could be no transfusion for her.  On the floor beside her, Butch reached over, "Shhh, it's okay.  Stay," he whispered and began stroking her head.  Thad nudged a bowl of water closer to her.  They appreciated the companionship of their mascot beside them.  Tater accepted the solace but roamed the room with her eyes to see if Helen was somewhere among the shadows.

      
People moved about the ward quietly.  Steve Morrison searched for Wolfenstein, scanning carefully from side to side.  He found him asleep and nudged his shoulder.

      
"Look," demanded Morrison.  Dixville images from the computer glared into Wolfenstein's eyes.

      
"What is it?"  Wolf could hardly see.  "Hold on, give me a minute."  He turned his wristwatch up to the screen's light.  "It's almost one o'clock!"  Wolfenstein caught himself speaking too loud, "Okay, okay."  They moved to the open part of the warehouse away from others.  "Now, what the hell is so important?"

      
"AutoMan had a digital imaging system.  Look."  Wolfenstein watched the glaring scenes with squinted eyes.  "I need you to help me get it to a news affiliate just outside Inner Boston.  I want to send it tonight.  We have a satellite link.  There's someone there twenty-four hours a day."

      
Chaos noticed Wolfenstein and Steve acting peculiar and walked over to check.  "Is this Dixville?" inquired Chaos looking over Steve's shoulder.  Both Steve and Wolf nodded.  "Where did you get this?"

      
Steve spoke slowly, "Captain Thomas brought it."

      
"How'd he get it?  Never mind.  I'll go ask." said Chaos.  "If he was there, I want to know what he's doing here."  He started to leave but turned back.  "Wolf, would you make a bunch of copies of that and get them out to all the pack leaders to keep in their red disk case."

      
"Me too," Steve added, wanting a copy.

      
"And make sure Helen doesn't find out about this." Chaos could tell by their faces his warning was too late.  "What?"

      
"She's seen it, sir," Steve confirmed.

      
Chaos shook his head and stomped toward the office where Helen was.    Steve turned to Wolfenstein.  "Did I just call him 'sir'?"

      
"I think you did."

      
Chaos found Helen seated behind the desk in a doleful state.  "You all right?"  He walked over slowly and pulled up a chair.  Putting an arm around her, he said softly, "Steve showed it to me."

      
"I knew it was pretty horrible up there.  I overheard some of the dads talking about it.  Half the kids were gut shot and then hit a second time trying to drag themselves to cover.  And what Butch said about Charlie Ronolou was true.  That tough old bird did sacrifice himself to save those boys.  Old Charlie, a Scout to the end."

      
"What was Thomas doing with the imaging from Dixville?  I wonder if we can trust the guy."

      
"He asked about Butch and Thad," said Helen. "Well, not by name but he asked about them.  He said he knew they were there hiding.  He feels bad about the whole thing and wants to do something," she sighed.  "The bad guys aren't what I thought they were.  I don't know who to hate."

      
"You don't have to hate anyone."  He held her in his arms.  "Get some rest.  We'll be leaving here within the hour."  Chaos didn't want to question her at the time, but her story about being chased by a Boston gang didn't jive.  "You know, the dog wasn't hit with motor-gun rounds like you said earlier.  They were 22 slugs."

      
"Well I guess I must have accidentally hit her myself when I was shooting at them.  It was dark, you know."  Helen hadn't told him the truth.  She was afraid of what Chaos might do, or rather, what Tumult might do to him.  "And I think you already know your brother's a jerk.  He just left me there."

      
Chaos didn't believe her, but nodded yes.  "Just try to get some rest."  He left to find out more about Captain Thomas.

      
Helen left the office, found a mat, and cuddled beside Tater, stroking the animal's head until they dozed off.

      
Chaos devised a three-part escape from Boston.  The first strategy was to leave quickly to take advantage of the fog and darkness.  Conditions made it difficult for aircraft to fly.  Secondly, they would leave a radio jammer at the dock with automated Masadas fending off Seal teams that might try and silence it.  All-band jammers had a radius of fifteen miles.  That would put the Mountain Boys out of the Federal radar radius.  If the weather stayed bad they could be well into Maine by the next day.  Chaos' final ace: They would divide the munitions between many boats and make a shell game of it.  They had a second jammer they would turn on in case of attack; pilots would have no communications system.  The low altitude under cloud cover would make the pilots easy targets for smaller hand-held missiles from the many boats, and then they had the anti-aircraft batteries on the ship Captain Thomas had brought.  Chaos was hoping the Feds' attempt to take them in Boston had been hastily thrown together and that they could just leave without a hitch.

      
For the past three hours attack packs had been pillaging the harbor and commandeering boats of all sizes.  They found a cargo ship loaded with cigarettes stamped Taxes Paid to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, waiting in the harbor to be off-loaded.  Chaos ordered the cigarettes dumped into the harbor.  It was all too easy: The all-frequency jammer atop Hancock Tower still mangled radio signals for a fifteen-mile radius.  And within that communication blackout, the Feds were unlikely to do much offensively.  On their way out, the Mountain Boys had booby-trapped the Hancock Tower three floors above and below the jammer; they used motion detectors as the triggering device.  The only way to get by the devices was to have someone go in and detonate them, or wait until the batteries in the motion sensors drained.  Chaos hoped the Feds wouldn't destroy an entire building like the Hancock just to take out a radio jammer.

      
"I'd like some answers about why you are here," said Chaos to Captain Thomas as Mountain Boys moved supplies and gear around them.

       
Captain Thomas welcomed the interrogation, hoping it would clear the air and allow them to work together: "The truth about the Dixville tragedy has been withheld from the American people long enough.  We were assigned to stop the smuggling in the North Country by any means necessary, the
any means necessary
emphasized.  The White House wanted to make an example of the smugglers.   After months with little success halting the smuggling of medical supplies, and a number of soldiers hit by locals in the hills, the AutoMan came strongly recommended.  They claimed it had been thoroughly field-tested and would be perfect for blocking mountain routes in outlying areas.  It had sensors to detect weight and weaponry.  The thing should never have fired on those kids."  He shook his head.  "It just should never have happened.  I'm not the only one who feels this way.  There are a lot of messed up men and women in my unit trying to deal with this tragedy.  As an added precaution afterward, they split up our unit and scattered us all over; we were ordered not to talk about it."

      
If the Captain was acting, he was very good at it.  Chaos believed his story.  Being a soldier of a different sort, he understood the predicament of battle, the possibility of the innocent getting hurt.  "So the White House has known all along about this?"

      
"From the day it happened.  Not everyone is in agreement: there's dissension at the top.  But a direct link to the President and the Dixville Massacre isn't likely.  Nothing was in writing.  Besides, as tough as it is to accept, I screwed up by allowing a technician to turn off one of the sensors.  It was my task force that did it.  Exposing the truth about Dixville would only ruin the soldiers in my unit, at least that was my rationale for not saying anything for awhile.  It won't touch the White House; they'll claim it was a military cover-up.  But it might stop the bloodshed that's about to happen. 

      
Three weeks ago, I found out about AutoMan's imaging system from our technician.  He kept the disc to himself all this time; evidently the guilt got the better of him.  Hardly anyone knows about the disk.  Not even President Winifred."

      
"I guess I'm wondering where you stand," said Chaos.  "A number of Guards are deserting with possibly more on the way here.  Where is the Army in all this?  When we get back to the North Country, is the rest of the Army going to move in and take us on?"

      
"There's a lot of unrest within the Army, particularly at the top.  Secretary of Defense Kyle Paz believes he will be replaced by Colonel Greely."

      
"Greely."  Chaos recognized the name from his encounters in the Tobacco uprising.

      
"Yes.  I'm reluctant to join your side to fight my side; I've been Army all my life, but this has got to stop somewhere.  I'm hoping you people can release the imaging to the public and put an end to the casualties in the North Country.  This country's breaking up.  There are uprisings like this going on all over the place.  I don't know what the answer is."

      
"The Feds will just have to back off," Chaos avowed.  "If they expect to regain the loyalty of the Northeast, they'll have to give in to the needs of the rural folks.  When we control the land, we control the food supply.  I know we're not alone in rebelling, but in this case, you have some pissed-off mothers behind it and it ain't goin' away."

      
Mountain Boys paraded past with stretchers of wounded, the last to be carried to the dock and loaded onto boats.  Helen walked by lugging Tater, looking away as she went by Captain Thomas.  The Captain sensed her coolness; old wounds he had received that day at Dixville re-opened and began to bleed once more.

      
The Wizard arrived at the warehouse at Union Wharf.  Other than Max and the Rousells, this was the first time anyone in the Colebrook Covenant had seen him.  Six-foot-one and lean with short kinky hair, The Wizard had delicate features; he was younger than anyone had expected.  He carried a small backpack that housed a pocket computer, electrical parts, and tools.  The Wizard had become a legend in the North Country, known primarily through his CB broadcasts.  Only a handful in Vermont knew he was African-American.  If that knowledge had gotten out about The Wizard, he would have been an easy pickup by the Feds.  There were few dark-skinned ethnic groups in that region.