“You aren’t hearing me. We’re going to have 60 officers here, plus detectives.”
“That won’t be enough.”
“What, are you and your us going to start some guerrilla war?”
“We’re going to finish one. My question is whether you’re going to help us or not. That’s the question.”
“You want me to spy.”
“Yeah. Get us information. You’re on the inside. You know what they do, you know who they are, you know where they’re watching. You know what’s happening.”
“They already don’t trust me. They won’t even let me call out when there’s an operation underway. They don’t let me leave until the op is over.”
“You still have more access than anyone else. You still see the bigger picture. The question is what are you going to do to help us?”
“What, help you kill them?”
“It’ll probably come to that.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? You’re an insurance agent, Dale, not a guerrilla.”
“The guys who won World War II weren’t soldiers either, until they were.”
“You’re crazy. You need to never tell anyone else any of this or you’ll end up in a cell, or worse. You and all your stupid friends, digging up your deer rifles and playing war.”
“We’re not playing. Like I said, you need to choose a side.”
“Is this your idea? Who’s in charge of your little rebel band?”
“It isn’t little, Ted. It’s big, and it’ll get bigger.”
“You’re really going to do this.”
Dale nodded and pointed at his bloody shirt. “That’s real, and so is what’s coming. You in or out?”
“What, what do you want from me?”
“Tell me about who is in charge.”
“Lieutenant Kessler. She’s a female – at least she uses female pronouns. She got sent down to take over a few weeks ago with a bunch of outside officers. She moved the Sheriff out. She’s converting us from deputies to PSF, and I’ll have to wear black too.”
“Okay, that’s good to know. What does she do, where does she live?”
“What are you going to do? Kill her?”
“Maybe.”
“Is that your plan?”
“Our plan is taking back our town.”
“I’ll tell you what I can. You want to do some vandalism, write some graffiti about how the PR sucks, go for it. But I’m not going to be a participant in murder.”
“You think you’re not already? Whether you like it or not, you’re part of the People’s Republic, and it just killed a dozen of our friends. You need to make your choice.”
“This is crazy,” Ted replied.
“This is happening,” Dale said, and finished his beer.
“Get the tactical team assembled!” Kessler shouted from the squad room floor. The lieutenant should have been planning and supervising – she was stepping into sergeant’s business, something the old sheriff would have never done when he was still in charge.
The PSF officers were scrambling following the call about the sniper attack on the cruiser. The officers assigned as the quick reaction force ran to the supply room to draw their body armor and AKs. Cannon sat at his desk, watching but not offering assistance, the other administrative staff, a few men and women from around Jasper who acted as clerks and receptionists, simply kept their heads down as the uniformed officers ran about.
“Lieutenant,” a sergeant yelled across the chaotic squad room. “There’s reports of shots fired at the administrative building, and a fire.”
Kessler stared for a moment, then said, “We need to respond to the sniper call first. The firemen can put the fire out.”
“But, there were shots—” began the sergeant.
“The sniper is the priority!” Kessler ordered.
Ten minutes later eight of the station’s cruisers roared out of the police lot heading towards the checkpoint. Cannon monitored the operation on the radio. The casualties were light – one rifle round in the leg and some damage to one of the vehicles. There was no sign of the snipers. Nobody on the street saw anything – the PSF was canvassing everyone within sight of the checkpoint. They were able to generally pinpoint the direction of fire as from the south, probably in the woods somewhere. A search yielded nothing.
With the station almost empty, Kessler finally assigned Cannon and another PSF officer, a young man with curly hair and a surly mien, to respond to the continuing calls from the administrative building. Cannon parked his cruiser down the street. Firemen were putting out the flames and a young man with a bad leg wound was being lifted into an ambulance.
Cannon’s temporary partner just stood there.
“Maybe we ought to interview some witnesses?” suggested the deputy. The PSF officer seemed put out by the imposition.
“You can talk to them,” he said, fingering his rifle. Cannon left him and began corralling onlookers.
Interestingly, the descriptions by the bureaucrats was consistent. The citizens were all over the board. It was some tall skinny guy, or a short fat guy, depending on who you talked to, who had walked into the People’s Republic administrative building, shot one of the diversity workers in the leg, and set fire to the place. All while the PSF was out responding to the sniper call.
“Langer,” thought Cannon. He scribbled down his notes, making sure to include all the different descriptions. The PBI people would not be happy about it, but too bad.
The plainclothes PBI detectives had taken over a suite of offices and began their work. They ignored Cannon except to demand he retrieve or move various things for them; they saw the PSF officers as fodder and a PSF officer who had been a local deputy was even lower in their esteem.
The detectives were bringing in a lot of computers. Cannon heard some of their cell calls – he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it looked like they were increasing monitoring of cell phone traffic within the county. And there was talk of software that would help define terrorist networks.
The people of Jasper who would not roll over were, apparently, terrorists now.
Kessler was afraid of the PBI contingent, though she tried not to show it. The lead detective was a man named Kunstler; he had her shaking in her boots every time he spoke to her. Or rather, spoke at her.
It took them some time to learn what Cannon already guessed, that the admin building shooter downtown was the same Larry Langer who had capped two PSF while escaping during the raid on his family farm. He obviously had not left town and the PBI “recommended” she increase patrols and random stops for ID on the street and at checkpoints.
“Have you set up surveillance on his known frequented establishments? Is there a bar or something he usually frequents?” asked Kunstler calmly.
“I, I don’t know,” Kessler stammered. “I just got here a few weeks ago.”
Kunstler looked her over, annoyed. “Starting now, I’m assuming command. Get your officers ready to go out on the street. We are going to tear this town apart.”
9.
“Look, we’re not calling ourselves ‘Wolverines,’” Turnbull said, annoyed. “Stop suggesting that.”
One or two of the assembled insurgents looked disappointed.
“What we are going to do is turn this map red,” Turnbull said, pointing to an AAA roadmap of Southern Indiana that they had tacked up to the wall of the barn.
There were about a dozen men and a couple women there, gathered around, watching the stranger. There were deer rifles, some AR15s and a few AKs leaning against the wall. One of the younger guys, a trucker from a nearby town, looked at the map, then at Turnbull, then back to the map. Turnbull had heard him called “Kyle.”