Peter slumped in the co-pilot’s seat. “My God,” he moaned. “Amanda and Jackie and Justin are there…”
“They’re not alone,” Sittman assured him. “Five of my boys are with ’em. They say there’s a lot of shooting going on, but so far nobody’s bothered them.”
Peter looked down as the outskirts of Omaha fell away beneath them. He knew it was at least a thirty-minute flight to Milford.
“Hurry,” he pleaded. “Please hurry!”
As the SSU began its sudden retreat from the silos, its force was some three miles south of Milford and had to pass through the town and go another four miles north to reach its base. Under normal conditions the tanks and attack vehicles might have made the journey in twelve to fifteen minutes but the conditions they encountered were far from normal.
A hundred Exiles and townspeople had attacked the SSU base, a dozen more had formed a decoy unit in the silos, and still a hundred more were posted at strategic points along the road to town. The SSU force encountered not only gunfire from the woods that lined the road, but an obstacle course of trees, broken glass, and burning automobiles. They had to fight their way, stopping to remove the barricades, and took heavy casualties as they did.
Finally the first of the vehicles reached the deserted town square and Helmut felt relieved. The road north was wider and free of trees—his men would arrive in minutes now.
Suddenly a mighty explosion rocked the Milford square. Helmut saw two of his armored personnel carriers blown to pieces, with men’s bodies flung high into the air. He burned with the knowledge that he had been lured into a trap. It was obvious that the townspeople had buried explosives under the street, and he had lost at least two dozen men. He had little feeling for his men, but great bate for the enemy that had humiliated him.
“All units,” he commanded into his radio. “Break off. Avoid the square. Return to barracks by side roads. Immediately!”
When the defense force helicopters circled Milford, they could see the smoke rising from burning houses and cars and the dead and dying soldiers in the town square.
“My God,” Peter whispered.
“Where the hell is everybody?” General Sittman asked, looking out both sides of the chopper.
Devin, Jeffrey, Puncher, Alethea, Clayton, and Alan had fought their way into the main SSU barracks. A band of Exiles ringed the building, exchanging lire with the remnants of the SSU defenders.
“The communications center is upstairs,” Alethea cried.
“I’m staying here with the wounded,” Alan said as the rest of them hurried up the stairs.
A sniper fired at them from the hallway. Puncher exchanged shots with him and soon the sniper Bed out a window. Outside, as they watched, a battered old van drove through the now-open SSU gates and stopped before the barracks. Ken, the cameraman, was driving, and with Mm was Eric Plummer, the hard-drinking old newsman who operated Radio Free Omaha.
“Who the hell is that?” Devin demanded.
“Another communications genius,” Jeffrey explained. “Come to the rescue.”
“He looks like he needs help,” Devin grumbled, watching the two men run for cover. Within moments
Eric and Ken joined them in the communications room.
“And now for the moment you’ve a! been waiting for,” Jeffrey announced as Eric carefully scrutinized the transmission setup.
“I need to have the combinations. They change satellite frequency every so often. They use the Natnet satellite in emergencies. They’ll have the frequency codes.”
“There’s a safe in his room,” Alethea said. “I think I might be able to open it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ken told her.
There was a moment’s pause. Sporadic gunfire continued outside while Eric fiddled with the radio transmitters.
“You’re about to have one hell of an audience,” Jeffrey said. “You know what you’re going to say?”
Devin smiled. “I was just wondering if it mattered. If any of us have much influence on others.”
“Hell of a time to wonder about that!” Jeffrey retorted.
“I guess what I want to talk about is America, our national unity. People ask, ‘What’s so bad about forming a new country?’—call it Heartland or Crabgrass, whatever. Maybe that’s the easy way to get rid of the Russians. We can’t fight them, so why not give up?
“If it’s too hard to be one people, maybe we should give that up too. Look, someone destroyed our Capitol. Who was it? Resisters? The Russians? I say we did it ourselves. We did it when we stopped building that Capitol in our hearts and minds. We saw the marble and the columns but forgot the meaning of it, the spirit. I say let’s rebuild the Capitol—the building and the spirit.”
“Amen. Tell them that,” Jeffrey said.
“They can stop ten of us,” Devin said, “but they can’t stop ten thousand or ten million: that’s why we have to unite. But whatever happens, as one man, I won’t accept the breakup of America. I’ll resist, with my spirit, with my life. I can resist because I’ve found the love of my children; their lives are more important than my own. Whatever happens, I’ll live through them, through whatever values and truths I have taught them.”
“For God’s sake, Devin, just tell them that!” Jeffrey exclaimed.
Helmut leaped out of the helicopter and raced toward his barracks. An Exile challenged him and he shot the man dead without breaking stride. Inside the barracks, he confronted Alan Drummond, bandaging a wounded SSU sergeant. “Wait, stop!” Alan cried, and tried to wrestle Helmut to the floor.
Helmut didn’t want to fire and alert the people upstairs. Instead, he crashed the barrel of his Swiss pistol against Alan’s temple, knocking him unconscious, and charged up the stairs, three at a time. At the landing, he saw that the door to his apartment was open.
Alethea was on her knees, fiddling with the safe; Ken crouched behind her. “Dammit, he always said it was easy to open, no better than a post office box.”
“Keep trying,” Ken said.
“Perhaps you’d like the combination,” Helmut said from the doorway.
They spun around. His Sig Sauer pistol was pointed at Ken. Before either could react, Helmut fired at the cameraman. Ken’s body hurtled forward on impact with the bullet, knocking Alethea down and pinning her beneath him.
Helmut smiled wickedly, savoring Alethea’s fear, entranced by her struggle to free herself from the weight of the dead, bleeding man that lay on top of her. The beauty of the moment demanded that he not shoot until her hand finally reached Ken’s gun. To shoot any sooner would be to dishonor himself, to forfeit his ideal of perfection. As Alethea writhed and inched across the floor, Helmut realized that he had always known more about the drama of life than most people, had always understood the inevitability of fate. But whence came that groan? The loud, twisting rasp—from the dead man? Helmut swung his pistol at the figure of Ken, and shot into the body, knocking it back from Alethea. Then quickly, deftly, she grabbed the gun on the floor, and finished the drama. Helmut’s head snapped back, his expression unchanged. The gun in his hand discharged into the floor, and he crumpled to his feet.
Several days later, when Alethea described her grotesque ordeal, she would recall ho groan, no sound, no reason at all, in fact, for Helmut to have shot into the dead man that lay on top of her.
Devin ran into the room with Alan close behind. The doctor, his face caked with blood, knelt beside Ken, while Devin lifted his sister to her feet. Alethea sobbed and struggled in her brother’s arms, but once again he held her tight.
“It’s over, Ah, it’s over,” he told her. “Remember when you were nine, little sister. Shut your eyes tight and wish for the last star in the galaxy.”
Jeffrey burst into the room. “We’d better get going— the marines are here, only they’re the wrong marines. The Heartland defense force has just come to rescue us.”