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They returned the way they had come with a slight delay in the Caymans while they waited for their ride to the U.S. Being advised that it would be at least an hour they had a drink while they waited. "Ready to get back into the fight?" Willow asked. "Ready or not," Roland replied, "we're here. How about you?" "Same here. I'd rather be doing something else but I'm pretty sure a few hundred million in the U.S.A. alone would rather be living a different life. Not to mention a few billion less fortunate. "Yeah. There's probably thirty million or more on our side but just the few hundred of us actually doing something." "I found the assessment of the Freeholds encouraging," Willow said. "I had no idea it was that big or that embedded." "That does make it look better," said Roland.
They had returned to the Caymans in the same Gulfstream but landed in Corpus Christi where a Cessna 340 was waiting and apparently there was some rush. They were met by Doug Cross and someone Roland didn't know - a clean-cut twenty-something with a military or law enforcement look about him. Doug was a liaison to the Northern Alliance Section Four. "Next stop Amarillo," Doug announced. "There's a meeting we don't want you to miss at 1700. We can just make it. You'll miss lunch but there'll be grub at the meeting. This is Roger Stone by the way - you can get acquainted later. Good thing I didn't tell Julie when I'd be back. Or count on lunch. They carried their luggage aboard and put it in the two unused passenger seats to save time and the pilot started the engines. After a ten minute wait for takeoff they were in the air and Willow and Roland leaned back and tried to sleep. It was probably going to be a long day. At Amarillo a convoy of vehicles awaited - Doug indicated that Willow and Roland should take the middle one while he and Roger went to the third. All three were old Ford Explorers from the mid-nineties when the boxy shape was being softened a bit at the front. All looked like alike except for color and appeared to be resto/recons - several practicioners of the business reconditioned groups of similar vehicles for use in low-visibility fleets. The ride to a location about two dozen miles outside town on I-40 and and another few miles on a county road ended at a small group of buildings that could have been any small rural property. A large house with a couple of smaller ones - probably guest houses - and one large and two smaller metal buildings of the type seen on farms. A few hundred yards beyond a large fenced area of a couple of acres held more buildings and some large grain bins - very large ones thirty feet or so in diameter and as high. Three cars were parked outside the house and the three garage doors might have hidden three more. He looked at Willow "We don't like having evidence of large gatherings," she said. "Even here we're under surveillance from satellites and high-altitude drones. Probaby more cars in the buildings." Inside they found a group of about twenty people, none of whom Roland recognized. One separated himself from a group when he spotted them and came over. "Dave Southern," he said. "Good to see you again, Willow. And to finally meet Roland - I've heard a lot about you." "Nothing good I hope," Roland said. "Not a chance," Dave replied with a grin. "There's time to grab a bite before the meeting. Come on." They followed him into a dining room where a large table was occupied by various types of food, including several pizzas. Roland noticed they were frozen supermarket types - having a bunch of pizzas delivered to a location might not be reported by someone to someone else but it also might. He and Willow each put a couple of slices on plates and grabbed a beer from a nearby ice bucket. A clock on the wall indicated that they had almost a half hour so they took their time eating and finishing the beers, just in time for Dave to return. "Time to begin," he said. "This way." Apparently the interior of the house had been remodeled to form a large conference room of about twenty by thirty feet. A large table was surrounded by a variety of chairs, all upscale office types but not all alike. Dave showed them to a couple of empty chairs at the end farthest from what was apparently the head. That place was as yet unoccupied. "Looks like the host is running late," Dave said. "James Manley, head of Cobalt-9. He'll be here in a few minutes - I'll have a beer - how about you?" the last to the young woman who had appeared. "Beer's good," Roland said. "Willow?" "Same here," Willow replied. The young woman - a twenty-ish beauty with black hair and dusky complexion - departed and soon returned with the beers and a young man who resembled her. He had the two beers for Willow and Roland and the woman had the beer for Dave. "Marshall and Marianne Taylor," Dave said after they left. "They're on the general staff here." "Richard Taylor's kids," Willow added. "Twins, age 24." "Richard Taylor of Sapphire Seven? OK, got it," Roland said. James Manley arrived at that point and they turned their attention to him. Roland knew from his dossier that he was in his fifties but he looked much younger. Slim and athletic with the look of the military man he was - or had been. He had retired from the Army at just over twenty years at the time of the 2008 election and had been associated with the 'underground' as the regime called it for several years. He formed Cobalt-9 from mostly former military men and got pretty good financing through some connections. Cobalt-9 was headquartered in the area - few knew exactly where and had liaison offices with the Republic and the Alliance. They were meeting in a safe house that could be quickly sanitized if discovered but these days regime resources inside Texas were spread pretty thin. Marshall and Marianne made some adjustments to the AV equipment and the lectern mike before James took his position. "Thanks for coming," he said. "For those of you who haven't yet met them Willow Kane and Roland DeVazier are with us, as is Steve Harris from MI-4 at Republic...." he paused and looked down at a horizontal screen on the lectern. "sorry, it seems I wasn't the only one late... Willow and Roland will be doing liaison work with Atlantis. They'll be at the general roundtable afterwards. "To get started, as the general situation goes my flight was diverted to Lubbock and the situation was serious enough that I opted for ground transport - so while we own Texas internal threats remain. The information we had that was the regime was aware of my flight and who was on it and whether or not that was the case it was considered too risky not to change plans. So with that let's take a look at our situation." A map of Texas and the surrounding area was displayed on the large central screen and James picked up a telestrator. He drew a large circle around Amarillo. "As you would expect," he said, "within this area we're ninety-nine percent secure. The last asset that penetrated was picked up three weeks ago - drones included but those are liquidated well outside the area and lately they don't even try. That may be an indicator of resources as much as figuring that it's useless but either way..." "The last drone attempt was thirty-six days ago," he said as someone the group raised a hand. "It was intercepted about twelve miles out, once its objective was pretty clear. Since they can't get drones inside the surveillance devices planted by them are also history, not that we don't continuously scan for them. "The big picture is that while the whole of Texas is ours. Large parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, almost the entire areas, are useless to the regime. They have agents there but with declining resources those are no more than a nuisance - something we would rather not expend resources on but we have plenty. New Mexico and Colorado we have less penetration into - a wide buffer zone and Kansas is... you know what Kansas is. The regime has little presence there and we have a lot - it separates the Republic and Alliance and travel is risky because of that - if they lose Kansas the east and west parts are cut off. Highways and railroads across Kansas are crucial to survival - especially for the east coast - and they're putting a lot of resources in to keep us from cutting those corridors. That's something I'll go into in more depth at my roundtable. "I mentioned Willow and Roland - they'll be there and the Kansas matter is a big part of it. As a general thing the situation is continues to improve. The unorganized unrest alone is a major thorn in their side mainly due to unpredictability and the fact that those outfits vary so much and often break up and reform into new organizations that have to be tracked. The fact that the Republic and Alliance have agents working with them - selecting those with potential and supplying them with equipment and intelligence among other things - increases the damage they do. "The situation for the regime continues to deteriorate - resources for engaging us in the field decline and for keeping order in their own territory are in decline. Recruitment was already scraping the bottom of the barrel and the cities were already taking most of their resources and so outside areas - rural areas they never controlled completely even in their territory and even small towns and cities of some size are unmanageable. We expect that to continue at an accelerated pace and with increased input from Atlantis the eventual fall is probably closer than our orginal projections..." "Section three of the report," he said to someone. "It's fairly involved - give it a good look as all copies must be turned in before you leave. Anyone with need to know can request specific information from your headquarters. We'll take a break now and get some refreshments and convene the roundtables in a half hour."
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