Jackson.
Laura knew that push had come to shove when Jackson entered her office an hour later. She could tell just by looking at his face. 'The indictment?' she asked him, half-fearing it, half welcoming it.
'It was issued by the grand jury earlier today in Denver,' he confirmed. 'I have some sources on Earth that were able to confirm this for me. Six counts, all of them high federal felonies. Just like you predicted.'
She offered a weak smile, feeling her stomach knotting up. 'It's not that hard to put yourself into the corporate mindset,' she said. 'I left them with no other option short of actually negotiating our independence. And we know they would never do that. An indictment and a quick removal probably seems like a brilliant solution to them.'
'It's brilliant all right,' he said. 'They'll be giving us the final catalyst that we need tomorrow morning.'
'That's when they're coming to get me?' she asked, impressed as always with the quality of Jackson's information.
'We have a source inside the FLEB building,' he told her, nodding. 'We got a message from her not too long ago. She confirms that the indictment has been received and tells us that they're planning to take you tomorrow morning.'
'Does she know how many agents? How many guns?' Laura asked.
'We don't know at this time,' he said. 'All we have at the moment from her is a code phrase telling us that it's going down. One of our intelligence teams will meet with her tonight to try for a better debrief. In the meantime, it's time we initiated the first stage of operation Red Grab. The first elements need to get rolling as soon as possible if they're going to be in position in time.'
'The special forces soldiers,' she said. It was not a question. She knew almost as much about the details of operation Red Grab as Jackson himself.
'Right, I need you to give me a governor's order activating them. I'll put the call out and get them on the transports to Triad. When the time comes, they'll be ready to move.'
'Will they do it?' she asked pointedly. 'We'll be asking them to commit treason and murder. Have things gone far enough so that they'll do it?'
'Time will tell,' Jackson told her. 'I think that they probably will but we won't know until we ask them.'
'If they can't complete their portion of Red Grab,' she told him, 'then we might as well just surrender tomorrow.'
'I know,' he said. 'Believe me, I know.'
'But remember my conditions,' she warned.
'Everyone is a volunteer for this,' he recited. 'All of the soldiers will be briefed on what the mission is and what the stakes are. They will all be given the opportunity to back out without recourse if they wish. No trickery or lies will be employed to get them to complete their portion of the mission.'
'Right,' she said. 'I know it probably makes things harder for you, Kevin, but no matter how this turns out in the end, I don't want to go down in history as being the woman that tricked people into fighting for her cause. If they're not willing to fight for our freedom, then I guess it's not worth having, is it?'
'That's the truth, Laura,' he said. 'And I wouldn't have it any other way.'
'Good.'
'But from this point on, you don't leave this building until its over,' he said. 'The capital is now your home. I don't want to take the chance that our information is wrong. If they grab you at your apartment tonight then everything will collapse.'
She did not particularly like the idea of remaining in the capital for another two days or so but she understood Jackson's reasons. 'I'll stay here,' she said. 'I'll order in a pizza tonight.'
'Good,' he said. 'And I'll brief your security platoon in that its time to act. When the FLEB comes to take you, they'll be ready.'
Lon Fargo was behind the wheel of his maintenance truck, his partner Brent by his side. They were on their way to one of the soybean greenhouses to fix a broken fan unit on the environmental supply system. As always they were passing through other greenhouses in order to get to the one they were after, driving their lift truck along the maintenance roads along the walls. This greenhouse was one that grew rice, one of the staples of the Agricorp productivity. Stretching off to the far wall were acres and acres of neatly engineered rice paddies, all of them green and glimmering with an approaching harvest. Brent, who was smoking a cigarette on the passenger seat, was bitching about the loss of a week's pay that the general strike had imposed upon him.
'I'm telling you, man,' he whined, 'I don't know what I'm gonna do if we have to go through another two weeks of that shit. I mean, as it is I was barely able to make my rent payment and still pay for enough groceries to get us through until next time.'
'Maybe if you cut down on the buds you smoke you'll be able to absorb it better,' suggested Lon, who had also felt the sting of losing half his pay for the pay period but who was proud to endure it.
'Heretic!' Brent accused. 'What kind of man are you? Cut down on my buds? That's uncivilized!'
'These are trying times,' Lon said, rolling down his window to ventilate the smoke from his partner's cigarette. 'Just be sure to follow through the next time Whiting asks us to strike. The only way we're gonna beat those fucks is to hit them in the wallet.'
'Shit, I know that,' Brent said defensively. 'I wasn't saying I was gonna cross the line or anything. I'm just saying that it's a bitch going without a week's pay. It'll be a bigger bitch to go without two weeks.'
'No matter how much of a bitch it is to you, it's five times as much of a bitch to them. Remember, nothing moves, nothing happens, no money gets made when we strike. That hurts 'em bad.'
'Yeah yeah,' Brent said, taking an especially long drag. 'I just wish they'd give us a little more time to recover before the next strike comes.'
Lon was about to answer him — something to the effect of how his recovery time was also their recovery time — when his PC began to buzz on his belt, indicating an incoming communication. He unclipped it and opened up the screen, which was showing the communications software and the incoming call information. He expected to see that Barb, the girl that he had been seeing over the past week, was calling to chat with him. Had that been the case he intended to send the communication to his mail system. Barb was becoming too clingy lately and he had no desire to talk with her just now. Instead of Barb's number however, he saw that it was the MPG headquarters communication system. 'What the hell?' he muttered.
'Who is it?' Brent asked. 'Is it that crotch you been slamming?'
'No,' he said.
'Too bad,' Brent offered, grinning lasciviously. 'She's a pretty tasty looking piece.'
'Answer,' Lon told his computer, ignoring his partner.
The screen changed showing the face of Major Mike Queen, commanding officer of the Eden special forces battalion. It was not a live shot, but rather a pre-recorded message. 'All special forces members,' his image said. 'We have a special training exercise today beginning as soon as everyone can be assembled. Report immediately to your duty station. This is an official call up. It is very important that
'A call up?' Brent, who had been listening in, asked. 'What kind of shit is that? They're calling you up for training?'
'They've done it a couple of times in the past,' he said, puzzled. 'Although usually its for a multi-company drill on the weekend. I don't ever remember them doing it on a weekday before.'
'You can't just leave work,' Brent said.
'I have to,' he said. 'I can't refuse a call-up. That's part of the MPG code.'
'What's Pittman gonna say about that?' Brent asked, referring to their supervisor.
'I guess he can take it up with Governor Whiting if he doesn't like it,' he told him, stopping the truck and starting the process of turning it around. 'She's the one that put in the constitutional amendment about release from work duties.'
Pittman, one of the lowest level managers in the entire Agricorp chain of command, certainly did not like it a bit that one of his people was skipping off for MPG training in the middle of the day. Though Pittman was a Martian by birth, he had been one of the one percent that had not participated in the general strike, apparently feeling that his bosses higher up the ladder would respect him for this and not eliminate his position when the cuts finally came. Whether or not that was the case still remained to be seen, since Agricorp was still waiting for things to settle
