Chapter 24 -- ZVCPTXJUSIVQRHCAKKK
"Now that we've put a stick in the enemy's eye," Jessica said, "how do we go
about rubbing it in? Any ideas?"
They we in Donald's office, a week after extracting James. The news had
largely subsided, it was still an active subject in the Little Rock area, but
nowhere else.
"Essentially, we want to let it be known that it was a professional operation,"
Donald said, "and that their prisoner is free and they will never find him.
And that we did it to provoke them, that is important. We want to stir things up."
"Do we need to involve the Council at this point?" asked Jessica.
"We do," Donald replied. "We can set up a committee, three or four members, to
approve all communications. We need it to be some of us who can meet in person,
so they have to be close together."
He spread a map of the country on the table, black and white with no more than
the outlines of the lower 48 states. There was a stack of them, used for such
planning sessions as these. He drew an X at the top of Missouri, indicating
their location. Then he placed four more at locations around the
mark.
"These should work," he said. "We've got four members within a two hour drive
of here. We can get together once a week or so, draw up communiques. Then
deliver them somewhere in the Little Rock area, probably television and radio
stations, the Little Rock newspaper."
"We need to be sure the printer used can't be traced," Jessica said. "As far
as we know, only color laser printers and copiers can be traced, but we want to be
extra careful - maybe use a cheap inkjet and dispose of it afterward, like a
burner phone. And buy it somewhere, like KC, pay cash, the usual. So how
soon can we get that started? We might not want to wait too long, keep it in
the news."
"I can contact our guys, get them to a meeting in a few days," Donald replied.
"The entire council is aware of the operation, but only those of us who carried
it out know the details. Of course everyone is now aware it happened, so let
me get in touch with them."
The first message was delivered a few days later, and was on the evening news.
They watched as a feed from a station was relayed to the nationwide news
channels. It had to be taken seriously, it seemed, as Kucinick had indeed
vanished without a trace and there was no clue to his whereabouts. The FBI
had been on the case within twenty-four hours, even though it was not a
federal case.
"They use the excuse that after twenty-four hours it is assumed that state
lines have been crossed." Carter said. "It's how the FBI got in business -
they treated kidnapping as a federal crime if the victim wasn't located in
twenty-four hours. Not that it mattes, they make anything they like a federal
case now."
An image of the message filled the screen, while the contents were delivered
by an unseen person.
"Officer Michael Kucknick was freed Friday evening by a team of our personnel.
He is now in a safe place and will remain there as long as necessary. We took
this action because, as in numerous past cases, a police officer innocent of
any wrongdoing was charged with a crime to pacify the criminal element of our
society and to preserve and advance political careers. We will no longer tolerate
such activities. Your hired mobs can burn, loot, and kill as much as you wish,
but if you attempt to prosecute police officers who have done nothing wrong, we
will prevent it, by any means necessary. If you are so foolish as to imprison them,
the cost of freeing them will be much higher, for you."
The unseen news person reappeared.
"The message gave no indication of who sent it," she said. "The police
department has no comment at this time, other than that they are investigating.
We have, from our affiliate in Chicago, Dr. Robert Blakely, a criminologist
with experience in domestic terrorism cases."
"I didn't get her name," said Carter. "I'm guessing, oh, Heather."
"Not Melissa?" asked Tommy.
"Savannah is pretty popular with that set these days," said James, getting into
the spirit."
"C'mon, guys," Jessica said as the presumed Dr. Blakely appeared on one side of
the screen.
"Dr. Blakely," the as yet unnamed anchor said, "this message seems to indicate
some organization is involved here, but they don't identify themselves. Is
that unusual?"
"Somewhat, Amy," he replied. "Usually the perpetrators of such acts want to be
known, you might say get their brand out there. Of course we don't know yet
if this message is from the actual perpetrators. The only thing that does
seem likely at this point is that it was an organized and probably well
planned operation. Officer Kucinick has disappeared without a trace. Since
they have contacted the authorities, or at least the news media, we maybe able
to track them if they communicate further."
"Are they likely to?" Amy asked. "This seems to be simply a message stating
what they did - no demands or threats, except that they will do it again if
necessary."
"You're right," said Blakely. "They aren't trying to get anything - they have
what they want, you might say. So if they don't make further contact, it will
be difficult to find out who it is."
"Could the message medium itself give us any clues? The paper, what kind of
printer was used?"
"Possibly but not likely," Blakely replied. "While it is possible to trace some
types of printers and copiers, they probably took precautions against that.
But it's worth checking."
"Any idea what type of organization would do this?"
"Here it comes," said Carter.
"Well, Amy, most of the time we find this sort of activity being done by the
various anti-government, especially white supremacist organizations. I would
expect the authorities to be looking a those."
"Do you think they could have been motivated by a white police officer being
charged with killing an African-American?"
"She forgot to say victim," said Carter.
"Certainly it could," Blakely replied. "Federal authorities keep a close watch on
such organizations. I would expect increased surveillance now."
"Thank you, Dr. Blakely," Amy said. "We'll have to wait for further developments."
"Amy," said Carter. "Is that the best they could do? She won't go far with that."
"How hard would it be to create white supremacist organizations that only
exist in the minds of the enemy?" Carter asked.
"Most of them do only exist there," replied Jessica. "The Council keeps an eye on
the organizations out there that aren't associated with us. We want to know
what they're up to, are they good, bad or not worth worrying about. I can
tell you, white supremacists are just not that common. If you put them all in
one place they probably wouldn't fill a minor league baseball stadium. The
government-news media cabal just tags anything they don't like that way."
"I was thinking," Carter said, "that with our ability to remain invisible, the
imaginary creations would be even easier to hide, since they don't exist. The
digital environment would be easy enough to hide in, and some visible 'evidence'
in the form of photos and video of staged events, you could create these
things out of thin air. And if they don't even exist, the enemy could spend
an awful lot of time and money, not to mention personnel, chasing them."
"The political types, and the media as well, are actually pretty dumb," said
Jessica. "We put the bait out and they'll go after it. The actual operations
personnel are sometimes smarter, but not much these days. The BATF has for a
long time been mostly rejects from other agencies, pretty low on the scale for
both intelligence and character. The FBI was good once, but when it became a
political tool it went downhill as well. So yeah, we could definitely pull
something like that."
"Where do we go next with this operation?" asked Tommy. "We've got their
attention."
"We might deliver a couple of jabs, a couple of weeks, or even months apart."
Carter said. "Keep it visible. Each time they'll get more angry. Don't know
how many, though. Of course, we might do it indefinitely."
"Speaking of giving them ghosts to chase," James said. "Could we plant false
leads, sighting reports, things like that?"
"Anything to add to the confusion," said Jessica. "It's easy enough to
spread rumors on the internet. And we have ways to do it without being traced.
Given that the government relies heavily on spreading rumors and
disinformation these days, there's no reason for us not to. And that will be
an important tool once the real war begins.
"We have accounts at lots of web sites, including the major news outlets, but
a lot of other venues where things are discussed. Anyone can go on there and
say anything, and some people will believe it and some won't. It's fairly
certain that the various authorities and other interested parties will stay on
it. We could make anonymous calls, using burner phones, to plant
false leads.
"In the absence of anything out of the ordinary, we're not going to have much
to do outside of the normal joint activities with the other freeholds.
Unfortunately, James, it's going to be a while before you can
even leave here, outside of trips into town, maybe over to Saint Joe. Once we've
gotten your appearance changed some, and you're no longer a major news subject,
you can start getting out some. As long as you're with us you're safe - even
even if you are suspected we can handle any problems.
"And of course you have to be comfortable in your new identity. Aside from
not allowing anyone to get your fingerprints or anything with your DNA on it,
you have to be able to not respond if someone calls you by your old name. And
if anyone thinks they've recognized you, they'll try it. Anyway, we'll try to
make sure you don't get too bored."
"Your father told me a little about the setup when I arrived," James said.
"You said something about the real war. What do you expect to happen?"
"We expect the worst," Jessica said, "particularly if no political
situation is possible. And it doesn't look good. The best thing that can
happen isn't very good, only a postponement of maybe a few years. And that
would be a few years of things not getting much worse, not getting better. It
all depends on the next election. I Congress returns to a conservative
majority, it could prevent any more incursions on the constitution, but
without huge majority they couldn't pass any useful legislation. Then it
would depend on the next election.
"The degree to which the election process has been corrupted, the prospects
for the presidential election don't look good. So in the best case, things won't
get a lot worse for a few years."
"What's the worst case?" asked James.
"In that case," Jessica said, "the enemy has it all, and will never be
dislodged by elections. We'll have had our last chance. Either we go quietly
into the darkness with the sheeple, or we resist."
"What would resistance consist of?"
"There are a couple of unlikely scenarios," said Jessica. "If several of the
southern states, anchored by Texas - we doubt Texas could do it alone -
revolted to the point of declaring themselves autonomous and defending
themselves against any attempts to violate their autonomy, it could provide at
least a refuge for those unwilling to live under the coming regime."
"What would that mean, autonomous? Not seceding but not obeying federal
laws?"
"Essentially. The vast majority of federal laws are unconstitutional, no
matter what the supreme court has ruled. The constitution is what it is, and
the Supreme Court is a much a part of the corruption as the other branches.
The major problem is that no state is likely to do it. Even the most
conservative states don't have the political majority they would need to do it.
It would probably involve changing the constitution, and that could take years.
We don't have years. In any case, if one or more states did that, in the end
the federal government would use military force if necessary."
"You really believe it's that bad?" asked James.
"We know it is," Jessica replied. "So we wait. For a while."
"And then?" James asked. "Do we wait for the first move?"
"Probably," Jessica replied. "But we won't know until it happens."
"You said there were a couple of scenarios," said James. "What's the other one?"
"Something that hasn't really been part of planning all along, but something
Darrell brought up, I've discussed it with Dad, and he with some members of
the Council. So we don't have a firm picture of it. But it would be
something short of an attempt to depose the government, but to put up a
resistance that couldn't be defeated, and would have to be tolerated.
"The freeholds would fortify their territory where possible, and conceal them
where that could be done. They would repel attacks, both by defending against
attacks and by retaliation, even against unsuccessful attacks. At that point
it would be a pretty ugly situation, which is to say things getting broken and
people getting killed."
"That would be ugly," said James. "Would it be possible to survive for long,
like that?"
"Quite likely not," said Jessica. "Which is why the nuclear option has
generally been the only likely outcome, and likely will remain so."
"Nuclear option?"
"The most extreme solution to a problem," said Jessica. "And hopefully a
successful one. But if it fails, the result would be mutually assured
destruction. We are not prepared to let this country become a larger version
of Cuba or Venezuela, or China for that matter, which seems to be the goal of
many.
"We would try to take out the majority of the key elements of the enemy forces.
Members of Congress, likely the heads of some of the law enforcement agencies
such as the FBI, BATF, some that are under Homeland Security. Those agencies
are so corrupt already that we'd have no misgivings about doing away with the
one who run them. And along with the political types, we'd go after some of
their enablers. The agitators who have bee involved in creating the
conditions that made helped them, probably some who provided money. But it
would be only those whose guilt is unquestionable.
"And very likely, at the same time, we would likely be doing some disruption
around the country. Take out some bridges here and there, power distribution
stations. Cut off some of the big cities. With electricity and water, not to
mention food, cut off - they'll too much to deal with to bother us much."
"You're talking about assassinations?"
"Killing them, yes. Killing evil people who have done evil deeds and are
prepared to more. And preventing hundreds of millions of people from dying or
becoming slaves to an evil government."
They all sat silently for a while - discussing the future always darkened the
mood.
"It's over a year until the next election," said Carter. "That's time we have
to use to prepare. Wait, watch, and prepare."