“Who’s he talking to?” Roger asked curiously.
Simpson’s pleasant demeanor shifted. “Not for you to worry about.”
Feeling like a dog that was just scolded, Roger meekly peeped, “Sorry.”
The door burst open, and Barone energetically entered.
“Sorry to be late, but I had to deal with something,” Barone said as he walked over and sat down across from Roger.
“We have a real problem brewing.”
“Christ, do I ever get a break?” Barone blurted out.
“The mayor has convinced another councilor.”
“What am I going to do with her?” Barone asked bluntly. “She won’t meet with me. She says it’s no use.”
“We have another issue that I was hoping wouldn’t happen.”
“And that is?”
“She’s going forward with the joint town hall meeting this afternoon. She plans on presenting everything to the people and working on getting their support.”
Barone looked at Simpson with an air of disgust. “Fucking politicians, I can’t escape their bullshit!” he spat out.
Roger shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“Thanks for the information, Mr. Timms. I’ll see you later at the meeting.”
Roger looked at Barone curiously at the abrupt ending of the meeting. “I’ll see you there, thanks.” He stood and walked out.
Barone turned to Simpson and said, “Where to start?”
“What do you want to do about the mayor?”
“She’s the least of the issues I’m dealing with now. I just got off the phone with President Conner and he wants to make a deal.”
Simpson’s eyes widened with excitement. “A deal?”
“I have to laugh; I thought Cruz was the president. Everything is so fucked up; they’re holed up in the mountain. It appears that Cruz is the president but also the vice president? I’m confused about the whole thing. Anyway, Conner wants to have a treaty with us in exchange for us releasing Cruz and all his people. The treaty will give us a defined area that we can call the Pacific States.”
“That’s it?” Simpson asked.
“No, there’s more. He wants an alliance with us. He’ll let us establish a country out here. He pledges to leave us alone; what he wants is Cruz and an alliance to fight these savages from the south.”
“Hmm, interesting,” Simpson mused.
“It’s interesting for sure. I have to say, I think I’m for it. We just have to carve out the area we want to call home. We then need to coordinate a plan with them against the Pan-American Empire.”
“Pan-American Empire? What the fuck is that? Are we in some kind of medieval role-playing game?”
“Remember the cartel that we bombed in San Diego? It’s that group, but now they have the backing of the Venezuelans.” Simpson nodded as Barone continued on. “It’s all tied together. The Venezuelan infantry, the flagged vessels that the USS Topeka sank the other day. It’s all tied together”
“Now you can stop being pissed at White,” Simpson quipped.
Captain White and his crew of the USS Topeka had been patrolling the coastline of Oregon and California in his submarine. Barone was grateful for White and that he had at his disposal an attack submarine. Ever since they had met up with White in the middle of the Pacific weeks ago, his sub had been the tipping point more than once, first against the USS Denver, now against the Venezuelan ships.
“It turns out his assumptions were right. These must have been the amphib ships for these self-stylized conquistadors.”
“Shall I call a staff meeting?” Simpson asked.
“Yes, but there is something else that is seriously troubling that I wanted to discuss with you. Conner told me that five more nuclear devices were set off.”
“Oh my God, where?”
“He needs our help because five of the major bunker systems were destroyed.”
“Sir, do you think this is also tied to the Venezuelans or the cartel?”
“Could be. They were able to test the signatures from the bomb detonated outside Denver. They found out it was a Russian device.”
“So the Russians are involved?”
“I don’t think so; they didn’t get out of this whole mess unscathed, so I don’t think they had anything to do with it. Their government is too fractured, according to the Australians. I think whoever did this got their devices from Russia.”
“If the Venezuelans pulled this off, what a brilliant operation. How could they keep this quiet? I mean, this had to include many different players, rogue governments, terrorist organizations. Think of the structure of this plan. Unbelievable!” Simpson said incredulously. While the outcome was awful to him, he respected the ability to pull it off.
“It is unbelievable. What’s even more unbelievable is that we will soon be back in the good graces of the United States. Funny how things turn full circle.”
Simpson nodded and stood up from the table. “Sir, if that is all, I’ll go call the emergency staff meeting.”
“Very well. Let’s hold it here at fourteen thirty.”
“Roger that.”
“I almost forgot. I know you’ll cover this, but how’s the call back of our forces going?”
“Very good sir; all patrols are coming back. Nothing really to report.”
“Good. It’ll be nice to have all my men back.”
Simpson nodded and left.
A deep feeling of satisfaction filled Barone. He had made a bold move when he mutinied and now he had a way to get out of it with a country of his own. He just hoped Conner was a man of his word.
“I don’t have you here to complain! I have you here to tell me what we should do, not to tell me we can’t!” Pablo yelled at his commanders, his words bouncing off the walls of the Senate chamber.
Bad news kept pouring in for his army and his mission. They had lost all of their ships. Two of their patrols had come under attack from what they thought were U.S. military forces to the north. Civilian resistance had grown quickly in Sacramento. They had dealt with occasional resistance but this was more organized. In the past two days, their forces had been attacked almost a dozen times. These attacks weren’t just from random armed citizens; several of their convoys had been hit by IEDs. One of their camps had been assaulted by a large force armed with machine guns, rockets, and grenades. He knew they’d eventually encounter an insurgency, but now that it was upon them so quickly, he struggled to know how to best address it. His forces were conventional, and he knew that when dealing with guerrillas, it was necessary to shift tactics. Pablo liked to work with a well-defined plan; without one his mind would drift, overwhelmed. Outwardly, his confidence was still intact, but secretly, he was rattled by how quickly the tides had turned against him.
He was getting mixed messages from his commanders. General Pasqual and half of his staff believed that he needed to keep the momentum and move on to the next objective quickly. The other half believed in moving more diligently and carefully. Pasqual recommended that Pablo deal with the civilian resistance harshly, with suggestions of mass killings of everyone in an area, including women and children. The contrarian opinion believed that tactic would backfire and only cause further and deep-seated opposition.
“Sir, we must show everyone we conquer that resistance will be met with severe consequences. If you show too much mercy, you only breed contempt and greater resistance,” Pasqual stated.
Colonel Gutierrez put down the cigar he had been smoking and responded, “General, you and I both learned in Academy the consequences of enraging the civilian population.”
“Colonel, hasn’t invading their nation already enraged them?” Pasqual shot back.
Both men went back and forth with snide comments. It was clear now to Pablo that these two didn’t like each other, both professionally and personally.