Chapter 18 -- DHWFPJWHNFXYSJMKM
As they often did, Carter and Jessica, along with Tommy, joined Donald and his
father for dinner on the night before his departure for the Council meeting.
Conducted quarterly, the venue was always at one of the freeholds with a large
land area with the meeting location deep within it. Donald was going to Texas, where
several freeholds with large estates were located. They were all large
ranches which, much like the MacArthur farm, had ranching operations to
camouflage the secret activities.
The conversation at the table was the usual - in this case
little about the proposed operation. That was as far as it was going until it was
approved. The situation in Little Rock was apparently not over yet, as the
television news each day showed the same crowds at police barricades, with an
occasional interview with a local official or a representative of the
aggrieved community, often in front of stores with broken glass or on fire.
Apparently it wasn't going to die down until a cop or two was charged with
murder and in jail.
"Well," said Jessica, "it's been working so well, why not. They always end up
getting what they want. Of course, it'll take some time to push it through a
grand jury. They might run out of stuff to burn before that."
"If they would burn down all the hellholes, it wouldn't stop," Tommy said.
"That's one of the things that worries us," said Donald. "As long as they have
places to burn and loot, they pretty much stay there. What we
have to worry a bout is things breaking down prematurely. Then it will probably
spill out into the suburbs, even outside the cities eventually. When that
happens, it may get really bloody."
"But how prepared are the people outside the cities to defend themselves?"
asked Carter. "Sure, a lot of them are armed, and can defend themselves and
their homes individually, but what organization do they have?"
"Not much, in most places," Donald replied. "Some places might get something
going, like the neighborhood watch becoming a neighborhood militia. In other
places not so much. People are afraid, particularly when they see those who
defend themselves being arrested and prosecuted while the rioters are being
let go. Even trying to escape is being criminalized. Try to escape when your
covered up with attackers, you get arrested."
"It would seem," Carter said, "that those situations might be good for another
type of operation. Put some well-equipped 'local residents' in there, let them deal
with the attackers in the appropriate manner and then get out, without being
arrested or even identified. A little trickier than what we're planning, but
it's hard to see how it could fail to be effective."
"That sort of thing has come up before at the Council," Donald said. "Part of
the problem is knowing when, or if, the time is right. There's not a lot of
confidence that the eventual need for a high-level house-cleaning won't occur."
Carter assumed he was referring to a purge of the sort Jessica had once
alluded to. He guessed that the use of a euphemism indicated meant that even
among the highest levels, even in private, actually saying the word was
something they were not comfortable with. From his conversations with Jessica,
the story about Michael Collins, he suspected that was the plan. Only on a
grand scale.
"Am I correct in suspecting that we may not have a choice?" asked Carter.
"That in the absence of a political solution, we are looking at either a
guerilla war with an uncertain outcome, or a massive strike that will cripple
the nerve center, with equally unpredictable results?"
Donald smiled, a humorless smile, even grim.
"That's about it," he said. "If we don't want the republic completely
destroyed, turned into whatever blend of socialist, fascist, something even
those trying to create it can't anticipate - the worst of Soviet Russia and
communist China, with elements of the worst dictatorships ever seen. That's
what we could be up against, and we're hobbled by conscience, no matter how much we
try to look at it clinically. And reluctance to do what we have to do to
survive, will ensure our defeat."
The mood became somber all around. Most of the time they went about their
lives with the reasons for what they did at the back of their minds - always
there but not looming like a dark cloud over them. One could not live that way,
and perhaps that was why the vast majority are seemingly unaffected. Jobs,
homes, families - those things take up most of their time. And even if they
recognize the danger, they are too afraid of risk losing what little they have
by resisting.
"The survival instinct, in most people, overrides logic, reason, and conscience."
Gordon said. He seldom said much in their discussions, leaving most of that
to the younger ones. When he did, it was usually to contribute something strategic
or philosophical based on his greater life experience.
"During the second World War, when the Germans were killing Jews in the death
camps - in the gas chambers - they had something called the Sonderkommandos.
These were Jews temporarily spared for use as labor. They removed the bodies
from the gas chambers and moved them to the crematoriums. I watched an
interview with one of the survivors - there were very few because after they
had been used for a while they themselves were killed and replaced by new ones.
"This man, who was not very old and the film itself looked old, so apparently it was
not long after the war, described what happened. He said that among the
incoming prisoners he sometimes recognized people he knew, and would avoid
being seen by them because of his shame, knowing what was being done to them
and being part of it.
"He said he was asked, after the war, by people who knew what he had done,
'why did you do it? why didn't you refuse? why didn't you resist?'
"Clearly tormented by his guilt, he said when facing death, it is human nature
to do anything, absolutely anything, to stay alive just a little longer.
"Which is true. And a strong survival instinct in individuals is obviously
essential to the survival of the species. Very few people will sacrifice, or
even risk, their lives for principle, even when that principle is essential to
the survival of the species.
"Those who are trying to tear down the greatest nation and society that has
ever existed, do not know or care if they are destroying humanity. The only
logical conclusion is that they are evil or insane, or both."
"One of the consequences of the societal decay," Donald said, "is the ignorance
of so much of the younger generations, mostly created by the public schools. The
corruption was beginning in my day - in the 80s, I had teachers in high school
who didn't even try very hard to hide their communist designs. Now they
openly admit their intentions, and the sheeple continue to obliviously graze."
"So you have what, five to ten percent actively attacking and the other ninety
percent not paying attention," Jessica said. "If you could manage to do away
with the troublemakers, what would happen?"
"I presume you mean do away with them all at once," Donald said, "with no one to
replace them. That's the trick - there it still sanity in the federal
government, and it might be that if all, or most of, the bad people suddenly
disappeared it might be possible to effect some change. Assuming they weren't
immediately replaced with people like themselves."
"If they suddenly went away in a very unpleasant manner," Carter said, "maybe
the replacements wouldn't be so enthusiastic, maybe be reasonable."
"Quite possibly," said Donald. "The fact is, we could make it happen now, but
the outcome would be very much in question. If, say, a meteorite hit the
capital at just the right time, took out a couple hundred members of Congress -
the right ones - and at the same time a few dozen or a few hundred other
individuals who provide the money that buys them, and maybe a few dozen
agitators went away as well, could we put it back together and fix it?"
"Good question," Carter replied. "So if we have a chance at slowing the decline,
making some reversals, the inevitable big one might be averted. I wonder it
there's time."
"That's the big question," said Donald. "If there isn't any political
reversal soon, even slowing the destruction for a while, there probably won't
be. At some point they will come for the guns, mass roundups of resisters,
and once that gets underway it will be too late, perhaps even for a mass
removal of the bad people. If the structure is sufficiently advanced, the
various police agencies converted into suppression forces, their replacements
might well continue the policies."
"I guess," said Carter, "Fortifying our freeholds, in most cases, would not work.
They would most likely by then just attack with regular military forces, and
they would do it if ordered."
"That's fairly certain," said Donald. "Our only chance seems to be, if we don't
prevent the collapse of constitutional rule, a guerilla war. And the chances
of that succeeding don't look good. Prevention seems to be our only chance.
Of course, there is a mid-term election coming up. If Congress changes hands
again, it could give us another pause.
"Meanwhile, we'll see what the Council does. And it's possible we may come up
with something else workable - you never know."
After dinner Jessica and Carter went back to her house. While Donald doubtless
knew of their relationship, he had made no comment. Jessica had said her
father trusted her judgment, and presumably he saw no need. He noticed that
he had been accepted as having essentially the status of Jessica and Tommy, in
terms of is place in the organization, and Donald seemed to approve of him.
Jessica had said that Tommy had in a way become looked at as a replacement for
his lost son - he wondered if Donald looked at him in a similar way, as his
relationship with Jessica made him more a part of the family.
The television news was more of the same. The situation in Little Rock was in
seemed to have settled into the usual pattern - news segments several times a
day, the usual scenes of angry people holding signs and shouting at police and
passing cars, occasionally switching to a scene of disturbances in another
part of the city.
"Doesn't seem to be quite as energetic as some," Carter commented.
"Little Rock isn't as big as some of the other places." said Jessica. "Lots
of others ahead of it in population, and it doesn't get much attention outside
of things like this. If you were to plan one of these events, Little Rock
wouldn't be a great candidate. Still, they'll probably do what they can with it."
"As they say, never let a good crisis go to waste," said Carter.
"And if you don't have a crisis, make one. A few years ago this wouldn't have
happened. This far south, in the smaller cities, there aren't as many such
incidents, and as long as there's no evidence of wrongdoing by the police,
there isn't much trouble. But it seem no opportunity is being missed, and of
course even down here, the decay from the big cities up north and on the coast
has spread."
"I wonder if the enemy is as well-organized, and as well-financed, as we are."
"We wonder that too," Jessica replied. "Some on the council believe the true enemy,
is something we don't know anything about. Some worldwide entity that has
much more power than we ever can. If so, they're exercising it somewhat
cautiously, incrementally. Or it may be an organism with many members, like us,
and they don't always agree on how to do things. I would guess that here at
home, it's a lot of different players who want some of the same things, enough
for them to work together, but whether they are set up to make a sudden
decisive strike as us... hard to say."
"Well, I guess we'll learn some things when your father gets back. When is he
leaving?"
"Tomorrow," Jessica replied. "They usually arrive at the location the Saturday
or Sunday before it starts, have some informal meetings as they arrive. The
meetings run Monday through Thursday, and they generally leave on Friday. The ones
further out, on the coasts and up north, fly in on private aircraft. They try
to be inconspicuous."
"What's on for tomorrow? Do we need to stay close to home, with your dad gone?"
"Yeah. We'll make the rounds with Tommy, check all the facilities. But with
Dad gone we like to visit with granddad as much as we can, have most of our
meals there. Mary and Dalton can take care of things, but I like being there
as much as possible - he's not a young man."
Carter knew that Gordon had stopped attending the Council meetings a couple of
years earlier, and had turned seventy-one earlier in the year. He wondered if
he was lonely, but Jessica said he wasn't much affected by their near-isolation.
He spent a good deal of time reading, writing and communicating with other
Council members. He was one of the founders, and would be dedicated to the
cause as long as he lived. She hoped he would live to see it victorious.