He smiled suddenly. “I just ordered him out. He turned west of his own accord.”
Mary jumped up. “And does that satisfy you? Does it make you happy to know that the great Master Plan is being carried out, that Berendtsen’s dream of unification goes marching on, even if only to that small extent?”
Berendtsen sighed as the knock fell on the door again. “I don’t care whose plan it is, or what it’s called. I do know that I gave Eisner an order I couldn’t possibly enforce. He carried it out anyway.”
He got up and went to the door, opening it. “How are you, Bob?” he said.
Robert Garvin looked at him silently for a moment. Then he exhaled loudly, as though sighing in relief at the long-delayed accomplishment of a complex and difficult task.
“You’re being called upon to answer charges of treason,” he said bluntly. “Your trial begins tomorrow.”
It was three weeks, not two, when Jack Holland came back with A Company, and Jim, sitting outside the barn with his legs in crude casts, winced as he saw them. There were four armored cars now, with wounded riding on their decks, and the last car was being towed by the one ahead. He ran his eyes over the marchers, counting, and didn’t believe the count until he saw Jack’s face.
“We’re done,” Holland said bluntly, dropping down beside him. “We couldn’t beat off an attack by archers, right now.”
“What’d you run into?” Jim asked, not knowing what else to say.
“The gamut. Bazookas, mortars, fragmentation grenades, antipersonnel mines…Name it, and we got it. And we’re not recruiting, Jim. We can beat ’em, but we can’t recruit ’em. They just aren’t interested. They’re scared white at first, and then they find out we won’t flay them alive for breathing in the wrong direction. Then some of them get sassy. But mostly they just sit and stare at us as if we were conquerors, or something. We gave them the offer every time before we moved in. We put up signs, we broadcast, we yelled. But they wouldn’t trust us enough to listen. Then we have to knock them over, and that makes us conquerors. The conquerors of South Jersey! I don’t know, Jim. It’s the creepiest goddamned feeling I’ve ever had. It’s nothing like it used to be.”
Jim nodded. “I’ve been getting my licks at it. They’re so full of this Bogeyman Berendtsen stuff that nothing’s going to penetrate. We’re all right, catch? Even if we are the monster’s men. But Berendtsen himself? Brr!”
“You know what kind of rifles they’re using, Jim?”
“M-16s.”
“The woods are full of them.”
“Horton’s been a busy boy around here, I see,” Jim said sourly. “I’ve been thinking about that bridge. That was awfully easy getting across.”
“Yeah,” Holland agreed. “One lousy little man playing roadblock. If we hadn’t found anybody, we’d have reported it to Ted. If we found too many, we’d have reported that. But we found just about what we expected to. We were suckered into this, all right.”
“You figure Ted wasn’t supposed to trust Philly?”
“Ahuh. Makes sense. He splits off a healthy piece of his army. He doesn’t go with the whole army, though —he’s not supposed to think it’s really going to be rugged, and do that, because whoever’s behind this knows damn well the AU can’t be stopped by anything this side of hell. If Ted went down here and smelled a rat, he’d turn around and knock Philly on its ear all over again. And if he got mad enough, he might come roaring into New York, instead of feeling his way like he’s doing now—or was doing, I guess.”
“Sounds like the kind of thing somebody with real brains would dream up.”
“A whole bunch of them, more than likely. I don’t think there’s any one man that can out-think Ted,” Holland said.
“I wonder what Bob’s doing these days,” Jim said half to himself, his eyes narrowing. “Anyway, here we sit, dying on the vine.”
“With the farmers hacking at the roots, yeah.”
Jim wet his lips. He asked the unnecessary question. “You tried to get ahold of Ted?”
“Sure.” Holland sighed. “I’ve been trying, for the last two weeks. All I get is some snotnose in New York. ‘Relay all messages through me, please!’ ” he mimicked viciously.
Jim closed his eyes, letting his head sink. “Ted knew what he was doing, making us an independent command.”
Even if we couldn’t get up even a rousing football scrimmage, the shape we’re in, he thought.
“He knew why he wanted Eisner in Manhattan with him, too,” Holland said. “Boy, can’t you just see those rolling roadblocks cleaning up Manhattan like nobody’s business?”
Suddenly they stopped and looked at each other, realizing the scale on which they had been thinking. This was more than just Horton, playing out some game of his own. This was New York and Philadelphia working together. This was a whole nation, suddenly aligned against them.
And that night, there was the first message from New York.
To Officer Commanding, A Company and attached armored units, Army of Unification. From Interim Commander-in-Chief. Orders follow:
You will proceed immediately to demobilize all units AU under your command, permitting each man to retain his personal equipment and weapons. Common supplies will be held under interim custody until arrival of civil governor, your former military district. Maintain volunteer militia force to keep order if necessary. Such militia units are not to display AU insignia of any nature. Keep frequency open for further orders. Do not initiate independent messaging.
Holland looked at Garvin, who had been moved into the communications center the men had knocked together. “You ever heard of anyone named Hollis?” he asked.
Jim looked up. “I guess there are a lot of people in New York nowadays that we never heard of.” He stared hopelessly down at his immobilized legs. “I wonder what happened to Ted?” he asked, conscious of the lost note in his voice. But both of them knew that it no longer mattered. Somewhere in New York, the initiative of leadership had been taken up by other men, with other purposes. The AU was dead, and the purpose behind it had ended. Ted Berendtsen had kept some sort of appointment with history, and even if he lived, his time was over. And when the force that had been he and his work was ended, the arm that he had stretched out into this last territory was as powerless as all the rest.
They were finished. Cut off and finished.
“What do we do?” Jim asked.
“What can we do?” Holland answered. “We do what Boston and Tampa did. We’re licked. There’s nothing we have to say about it anymore. It’s still one nation—one organization. We don’t run it anymore, but we’ve still got to work in it, to keep it alive, just because it is an organization.”
He grinned crookedly. “Ted was right—again.”
But the messages had not ended. They listened to a general broadcast from New York, and, following orders, broadcast it over a public address system to the general population.
This is Robert Garvin, President of the Constitutional Council for the Second Free American Republic.
Once again, we are free. The power of the Army of Unification has been broken, and this nation, risen from the ash of dissolution and hopelessness, can once more grow, broad and prosperous, toward the sun. From Maine to Florida, we are one people, one union, inseparable and unyoked. We are a nation of free men armed, each equal to the other, each a brother to the other, each firm in his resolve that no one man shall again impose his twisted will on other men.
The right to bear arms is inherent in each of us. The right to subjugate is not. No man may say to another “You will do thus and so because I decree it, because I have gathered up an army to pillage your home and rob you of your substance.”
Soon, civil governors will be sent to you. They will establish an organization whereby a free election may be held. You will be asked to elect local officers to administer your territory under the general supervision of the
