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A waiter had left a card for Willow and Roland. They had an audience with Sir Walter at 1900. Roland looked at his watch - they had a couple of hours. The guests were beginning to leave the table, some leaving and others standing around in small groups. Willow found an attendant to take them back to their quarters and later take them to meet with Sir Walter. "Do I need to dress differently?" Roland asked. "Your wardrobe doesn't have much variety," Wilow replied, "but a shower and fresh outfit will do." They bathrooms were large and luxurious and the shower was comfortable for them to use together. They dressed and had a drink while waiting for their ride. This time they went in the other direction upon exiting the elevator. It was about the same distance to a suite of offices where Sir Walter awaited. He was in a conference room with several other people. The only one Roland recognized was Bill Garrison but Willow seemed to know some of them and made point of introducing one of them. "Father," she said to an older man, "this is Roland DeVazier." "Welcome to Atlantis," the man said. "Matthew Kane in case Willow has neglected to tell you. Good to meet you at last. The extraction was impressive." "Thanks," Roland replied, "without a way to get him out of the country it wouldn't have done much good. Your resources are impressive." "Fortunately we have the financial resources for that," said Matthew. "And Atlantean territory being safe from any pursuer. It looks like the meeting is about to begin." Matthew sat at the end of the table near Sir Walter while Willow and Roland were near the other end. It wasn't a Roland noticed that Bill Garrison was near that end as well. Several older uniformed men he guessed were officers were nearer that end. Someone Roland didn't know beside Sir Walter addressed them. "Welcome to our visitors, thank you for attending. For those of you who haven't been officially briefed Charles Stuart has arrived and is in good condition. Willow Kane and Roland DeVazier, our operatives in the U.S.A. are here. There are no restricions on discussions of the operation. "The success of this operation is important - the partisans on the U.S. were able to extract a political prisoner - a rather important prisoner - from a prison in California and bring him to the extraction point in Florida. Our part was easy after that. Bill Garrison will give you an update on the situation." "Charles Stuart was in a federal prison in California," Bill said. "a new prison, a supermax build for dissidents and any troublemakers generally. His crime was at the time - four years ago - a more common one. He produced and distributed dissident material and wrote for a couple of websites that despite the best efforts of the regime are too accessible for comfort. He was charged with a laundry list of crimes and quickly convicted and put away for thirty years. It took four years to get him out and the partisans began trying as soon as he was incarcerated. "Two years ago we became involved and it was another two before we succeeded with some help from inside. He was diagnosed with leukemia and while the government would probably be happier with him dead they were worried enough to have him sent outside to a hospital. During the transport a diversion stopped the ambulance and freed him and got him out of the area. From there he was moved across the country through a network of safe houses to Florida - not easy even with the pressure on the regime these days. They wanted him back and badly. "Roland handled the final stage - getting Charles to the pickup point. That isn't the only reason for his being here but that's another matter. It was a clean operation and our informationis that the authorities lost track of him after he arrived in Arizona. The safe house had to be abandoned but no personnel were compromised." "Why bring him here?" someone inquired. It was one of the military men, thirty-something by the look but appearances weren't to be relied on. "Mainly because it's the safest place," Bill replied. "And taking the time to make arrangements with another country... and the fact that few could be relied on not to give him up. Having the American regime know that he's here and we had a hand in it is a bonus." "The Americans are powerless to even annoy us," someone else - an older man two seats away from Lord Walter - said. "Provoking them in this way or any other distracts them, if only a little. They are losing their grip day by day and the sooner they fall the better - Charles Stuart is one of tens of thousands, over a hundred thousand that we can confirm, of political prisoners." The meeting lasted a little over an hour and Roland didn't know what most of it was about. When it was over and the participants began to leave Willow remained seated and indicated that he should do she same. Eventually only Lord Walter and Bill Garrison and Matthew remained. The Matthew man stood and indicated that Willow and Roland should join them. Sir Walter and Bill also rose as they approached. "Roland DeVazier," Bill said to Lord Walter. "A pleasure to meet you at last," Lord Walter said. "You've had an interesting few years." "Thank you," Roland replied, unsure of how to address a lord. Willow smiled. "I neglected to brief Roland," she said to Lord Walter and to Roland "Atlanteans aren't ceremony-obsessed. Normally you use the 'lord' or 'sir' when initiating a conversation or when you use their name in a conversation, nothing fancy." "A pleasure to meet you, Lord Walter," Roland said. "Atlantis' aviation industry is impressive." "Thank you," Lord Walter replied. "We have some advantages, like the experience of our former countries and no shortage of money. As an aviator you'll find much of interest here, some that figures into our plans for assistance to you in that area. The briefing we're about to present is on that subject." "This way," Bill said and Willow and Roland followed them out of the dining room and into a conference room a few yards away. It might have been a conference room in any large corporation that had money to burn, and Atlantis did. The large table probably cost a small fortune and the chairs were equally opulent. A couple of large whiteboards, about four by eight feet, stood at one end while four video screens almost as large hung on the wall. At the far end was a large wet bar. "Let's get some refreshment," Sir Walter said, "and we'll begin." They followed him to the bar and all poured their own drinks, Sir Walter choosing a bottle of Remy Martin while Bill and Matthew partook of a bottle of Wild Turkey Rare Breed. Roland preferred the lower octane and found a bottle of Jack Daniels, while Willow selected an E&J vanilla brandy. Guess they don't get fancy with servants and all, or maybe it's security. Security may well have been the reason as Bill operated the equipment. He cued a video on the leftmost of the center screens. What looked like drone footage began and homed in on an aircraft parking area. There were a couple of C-120s and a couple of business jets. Bill paused on a row of small aircraft. They were straight-winged with engines at the wing roots and remarkably similar to a Cessna A-37. "The A-3 Shrike," Bill said. "The resemblance to the Cessna Dragonfly is intentional - we improved on the design to produce a multi-role aircraft with considerably more capability. The wingspan is about nine feet greater and overall length about four feet. Standard armament includes a .50 caliber three-barrel Gatling - a few have 20 millimeters. Eight hardpoints can carry a variety of ordnance and fuel tanks. Performance is better than the Dragonfly and range/loiter time considerably greater. "It's designed for maximum utility with limited ground support - fuel and four thousand feet of runway and a couple of mechanics is all it needs. We have something over two hundred and expect to be at three hundred within a year with the current single production line. A second line will be completed within the year." "That looks useful," Roland said. "It could be," said Bill, "before long. Curt Hillman believes that it can be in a few months." "Curt has been here?" Roland asked. "It was quiet," Bill replied, "like your visit. The less the regime knows about people in contact with us the better - they're probably wondering by now where you are and when Charles shows up here they may make the connection but it won't make your position any worse - they already want you as bad as about anyone. Curt being as high in the food chain as he is we were especially careful." "He's right about that anyway," Roland said. "Conceivably they could come in over the border and operate from Texas and other parts of the south. Getting them into the Alliance is feasible as well - Kansas airspace should be ours before long." "It looks good," said Bill. "That's one of things we'll be discussing. Lord Walter will have some more on that. This next item is something you may be aware of - it's in action since... for about three months." "What is it?" Roland asked. "An automated mortar?" "Exactly," replied Bill. "It can launch sixty shells into as many preselected points on a grid. It can be remotely activated and do that unattended." "I've been out of the loop on some things," Roland said. "The most recent application was at a place called Al-Azhar in Colorado," Bill said. "We have a cell there and a couple of weeks ago it was destroyed. They used four of these to pound the mosque and central area before the the armor rolled in and finished the job. There will be another dozen in this shipment." "I'm guessing you're being careful about where those get deployed," said Roland. "Indeed," Bill replied. "There's nothing like them and we don't want one being captured so we have to be careful about where they're being used. These on the other hand..." clicking to the next video "we want to be found." It showed a man holding a short weapon that looked like a shotgun with two pistol grips. Firing from the hip he blasted four silhouettes several feet apart. He broke it and ejected the empties. "I saw that at Amarillo back in June," Roland said. "In sufficient numbers those can be pretty useful." "Numbers we have," Bill said. "Over four thousand and we'll hit five thousand in the next few days. Most are 20 gauge with about ten percent 12 gauge. There's a .410 version intended for use with slugs - slugs can be useful in the twenties too but buck is the way to go. All have laser sights and you don't need a lot of practice to be effective. "It looks very little different from the original," said Roland. "The original was about perfect," Bill said. "It was a solution in search of a problem though - it was a better weapon for guerillas than for establishment defenders." "Which we are," said Roland. "Probably the Viet Cong would have like to have those but when you have a steady supply of AK-47s..." "Right. These cost about one tenth, maybe less, of what a rifle costs, even an old AK or M-16. And they're simpler to operate." "You want them to be found - to give the enemy something to worry about." "Correct. And when they occasionally find one discarded at the site of an operation they figure they're sufficiently cheap and plentiful to be left behind. And when they get information that a hundred thousand of them are in circulation rather than the few thousand actually out there they have plenty to worry about." "Hell of a weapon," said Roland. "Wouldn't mind having a few of them." "Not a problem," Bill said. "Let them know how many." The remainder of the presentation showed two small APCs and a couple of drones that seemed more advanced than the U.S. or any other state had. Afterwards they retired to a smaller room and joined by two other men. Allen Johnson was an older man and the boss of the Atlantean operation - Operation Blind Redemption. Didn't know that, or... well of course it's an operation with a name. "Allen will brief you on the operation," Lord Walter said. "We don't have security issues but some things require extra security nonetheless. Allen..." "As you know," Allen said, "Operation Blind Redemption began four years ago this month. Under the previous administration Atlantis had a relationship but the ambassador was recalled by the president within days of taking office and the embassy staff left a few days later. They wanted nothing to do with Atlantis and in fact... this is another subject for another time... they planned to at some point take over Atlantis. They believed they could put together some Euro/NATO operation and possibly even include China and possibly Russia. It was unrealistic to believe that even if such a coalition could be assembled it would succeed, but these are not smart people. In any case things fell apart too soon for it to even be attempted. "The League of Freeholds immediately began operations to destabilize the country. They're so near invisible - we had intel operations for years and didn't know about them - that the regime is generally looking at the resistance operations it does know about in response to the League's work. They have a fair number of embedded agents - government employees - who feed us information that is never used in a way that would burn them but is often useful nonetheless. Our agents often act as liaisons between the League and the other independent or loosely organized groups to keep allow the League to remain invisible. Information, equipment or both are supplied. Roland, if you and Willow are interested we would like for you to fill that role in some projects." "Liasing?" Willow asked. "Exactly. It's sometimes rather... your experience and ability to think on your feet will be important." Usually when I'm thinking on my feet it about how quick they can get me out of where I am." Roland looked at Willow. "Sounds good," she said. "When do we start?"
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