“I want you to speak freely.”
Franklin half nodded, half shrugged.
“What do you think of the video we put out on the Internet?”
“You mean of the User family? Wasn’t that the plan from the beginning?”
“A question is not an answer to a question,” Copley admonished.
Franklin’s whole body shrugged. “I think it’s what we needed to do. What’s the sense of having assets if you’re not willing to exploit them?”
“Did you feel that the recording and airing of the video were the evidence of hubris on my part?”
Franklin looked uncomfortable.
“Again, I ask you to speak freely.”
He took his time. “I don’t know how to answer you,” Franklin said. “Hubris means pride, and I suppose that pride is a sin, yet, you have every reason to be proud of what we are accomplishing.”
“Was it the right thing to do, in your opinion?”
“It was an important thing to do. The necessary thing to do. The entire point was to portray ourselves as a Muslim offshoot. That’s a main strategy.”
Copley found himself smiling at the words he’d wanted to hear.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you ask the question?”
“Brother Kendig,” Copley said. In its own way, that was a complete answer.
Franklin took a sip of his coffee and gave a conciliatory nod. “Well, yes. Brother Kendig has always been… careful. Is he the one who accused you of hubris?”
“On more than one occasion.” Copley paused to consider his next question. “What do you think of the good Sheriff Neen?”
There was that uneasy look again. “I think that he’s been a friend of mine for many years.”
Copley sat on the flat rock, ignoring the aching cold that seeped through his trousers and into his spine. “Do you think he is an asset to our mission, or a hindrance?”
Franklin joined his commander on the rock. “You ask me to speak frankly, and then you ask a question about loyalty. In time of war, the underlying accusation carries a death sentence.”
“For good cause,” Copley said.
Franklin took his time assembling his words. “I’ve known you for many years, Brother Michael. For as many years as we have both known Brother Kendig. If you’re harboring paranoid thoughts that he is somehow against what we are doing, then I respectfully-”
“Not against us,” Michael said, raising his hand to interrupt. “Just not entirely with us.”
“Two ways of saying the same thing, sir. The entire community has trained long and hard for this war. For those who are under twenty, they have trained their entire lives. Much of that training came from Brother Kendig. Without him, we would not be empowered as we are now.”
“But people change, do they not?”
Franklin considered that. “Of course they do. We all change. Our hair turns gray with time, and we get winded sooner during physical training. But I don’t believe that we change fundamentally. I believe that who we are remains who we are. That means Kendig is a talented soldier and loyal to the cause.”
“Yet he disrespects me,” Copley mused aloud. None of this was what he’d expected to hear. Brother Franklin’s words, in fact, made him wonder if a conspiracy of sorts might be in play.
“If you say, then it must be so. But if you’re seeking my counsel as an elder, then my advice to you is to think carefully about the space that separates disagreement from disloyalty.” He paused, obviously hesitant to state the rest. “One could argue that if a person holds an opinion deeply and firmly enough, disagreement could be judged the highest degree of loyalty. Sir.”
In an academic setting such lofty statements would have more meaning for Copley than they did right now. For a team to function healthily, dissent was wrong. He was surprised that Franklin didn’t already know this.
“What are your thoughts on the execution?” Copley asked.
Franklin’s answer came without pause. “I think that you have no choice. They killed a soldier.”
“The boy maintains that he was protecting his mother from rape,” Copley baited. “I cannot say that such a crime is beyond the reach of Brother Stephen.”
“And had he lived, he would have been appropriately punished,” Franklin said. “As it is, that opportunity for justice was denied.”
“Exactly,” Copley said. “And do you agree that the execution should be broadcast live on the Internet?”
Franklin’s body seemed to stiffen with the question. “Is that important?”
“Our goal is to rend the fabric of what the Users believe is comfort in their lives. Could there be anything more unsettling?”
Franklin hesitated. “Nothing I can think of.”
Copley didn’t like the noncommittal answer. “I said you can speak freely.”
A deep breath, followed by a settling sigh. “I worry about cause and effect,” he said. “Actions have consequences. It’s one thing to watch the news and hear and see reports of the mayhem the Army is sowing. But if you present the public with the spectacle of an execution, I fear that instead of justice, they will see only cruelty.”
“You fear,” Copley said. He was sick to death of that word. “Is cowardice in battle likewise not a crime?”
Franklin stood. “You told me to speak freely.”
Copley felt a wave of anger approaching, but he pushed it down. “Yes, I did,” he said. He stood as well and pointed with his chin to the rifle. “Are you up to more spotting?”
“I am,” Franklin said. As they covered the distance to the weapon, he said, “Please, Brother Michael. If I offended-”
Copley waved him off. “You’re fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
The two men moved almost in unison as they lowered themselves to their bellies on the ground in front of their respective toys. Copley positioned himself at the gunstock and wriggled a bit as he settled into a comfortable position on the ground.
“Be aware on the left,” Franklin said. “It looks like one of Mrs. Shockley’s cows has wandered out of the pasture.”
“Is it likely to wander into my field of fire?” Shooting was a head game, and he didn’t appreciate the interruption.
“Probably not. Not unless you shoot wild. She ranges at twenty-one fifty yards and three hundred twenty feet from the target.”
Copley reacquired the acoustic panel and ran the previous ballistic calculations through his head. “Is the cow moving or standing still?”
“Looks like she’s grazing.”
Without saying a word, Copley pivoted the Barrett to the left, adjusted in his head for the new range, and squeezed the trigger. Again. And again. The massive weapon bucked with each round, the pressure wave at the muzzle blasting dirt and leaves.
Two point two seconds later-long before the sound of the gunshots could arrive on the opposite hill-the cow erupted in a pink cloud, one of its hind legs spinning away and landing ten or fifteen feet from the rest of the carcass.
Copley smiled. He lifted his cheek from the butt stock and craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Franklin, whose face was a mask of disbelief.
“You didn’t even aim,” Franklin said.
“Of course I aimed. I just did it quickly.” He rose to his knees and hefted the Barrett from the ground. “But a shot like that tells you that it’s time to stop for the day.”
He walked back to the flat rock to begin the process of cleaning the weapon and returning it to its padded case, leaving Franklin to pick up the sandbags and other clutter from their shooting perch. Arriving at the rock, he gently placed the weapon butt-down on the flat surface. He removed the five-cartridge magazine and cleared the breach.
“Franklin?” he said without looking.
“Yes, sir?”
