tried to beat each other, their own women and children away from them with their arms as they crawled forward on their knees, to give themselves room to vomit and breathe.
On the porch, Tracy had disappeared again.
Commandant Wolfe had his hand on the screen door to the cabin when he doubled over and puked through the screen onto both sides of the door. His vomit dribbled down the door to the threshold.
Preacher Kriegel vomited sideways onto the porch’s floor.
Holding their heads and their stomachs, people stood when they could and staggered away. They headed toward their trailers, their campers, their carport bunks.
Several rolled onto the ground as soon as they reached shade.
So:
Lunch was not desired, prepared, or served;
Camp Orania fell into a retching silence;
The meeting between Commandants Wolfe and Kriegel did not commence until after three o’clock.
“Do you trust him?” Wolfe glared at Jack as he entered the room for the meeting.
“Oh, yes,” Kriegel said.
Wolfe growled, “I don’t think I do.”
Jack smiled at him. “Sure you do.”
“Jack is an answer to a prayer,” Kriegel said. “He hasn’t been with me long, but it was Jack who organized my escape from prison.”
“Ummm,” Wolfe said. “My son is one thing …”
“And I’m another, right?” Jack asked.
“Jack’s like a son to me,” Kriegel said. “Besides, you’ve seen his father.”
“That’s one of the problems,” Kriegel said. “His father has made no commitment to us, I’d say, from the things he said.”
“But he has,” said Kriegel. “It was Jack’s father who made my escape good. It was Jack’s father who hid me out, who disguised me, got me through roadblocks, who got me here safely.”
“I don’t like the way that Fletcher guy talks.”
“It’s not what a man says,” Kriegel said primly; “it’s what he does that counts.”
“I think I’ll look into all that,” Wolfe said. “I have my own resources, you know.”
In exasperation, Kriegel boasted, “Jack shot a cop. A woman cop.”
“Well, all right,” Wolfe said.
It was then that Kriegel unfolded the gasoline company’s road map of the city of Miami on the table.
“Gentlemen,” Kriegel said. “Be seated.”
They sat at the four sides of the table.
“Even though there are only the two of us here,” Kriegel said, “with our lieutenants, this is a most significant meeting. It will go down in history. Therefore I have asked Jack to record it.”
Jack took the small tape recorder out of his pocket and placed it on the road map of Miami. He turned it on.
He’d had every intention of recording the meeting, asked or not.
“Tracy,” Wolfe said. “Take notes.”
Tracy was ready with his clipboard and pen.
“Mine is a three-point plan,” Kriegel said, “which plan, byway of stating our goal, I shall describe to you somewhat backward.
“Our goal is to drive the people from Miami.”
“What people?” Wolfe looked down at the map as if it offered information other than the names of roads. “Why Miami?”
Kriegel asked, “Haven’t you ever heard Miami referred to as ‘the capital of Latin America’?”
Clearly Wolfe hadn’t. “It’s a mighty sprawly city.”
“Nearly all the people in it are aliens,” Kriegel asserted.
“Aliens?” Tracy looked at the map, willing to see aliens.
“How do you intend to attack Miami?” Wolfe asked.
“First, by Intelligence,” Kriegel answered. “Then by Sabotage. Only then by Force.”
“You mean to capture Miami?” Wolfe asked.
“Oh, yes,” Kriegel answered simply.
“Capture and hold it?”
“Why not? You’re thinking of the armed might of the Zionist government of the United States, aren’t you?”
“I am giving it some thought, yes.”
“Once we have captured Miami,” Kriegel said, “the area will be flooded by white Americans eager to cast off the yoke of democracy, equality, and all that crap. We will fill up Florida like a boot. Our population will flood up the coast and west even as far as Texas, Colorado, and Nevada. Miami will be our capital.”
“Nice climate,” Jack commented.
Wolfe said, “You think big.”
“We will do this,” Kriegel promised. “And we will do this within three years.”
“But how? Where do we get the manpower?”
“Your organizations in this country report to me thirty thousand registered members. And I, at this moment, command half the prison population in the United States. Have you any idea how many men that is?”
Jack said, “Lots.”
“Besides, we are getting increasing numbers of followers among our student populations, our other unemployed … Oh, yes, we have the manpower, if we attract them, train them, and use them correctly. What we need are more and more training camps set up, using this marvelous Camp Orania you have established, Commandant Wolfe, as a model.” Wolfe tugged his shirtfront down and squared his shoulders. “Oh, yes, Commandant Wolfe,” Kriegel said, “I see you becoming an increasingly important figure in this movement.”
Tracy, glaring, grimaced at Jack.
“Intelligence.” Kriegel looked at the road map of Miami. “We need to know where the electrical power grids are that service Miami. How to turn the city’s water off. Sabotage the sewers. Sabotage the main bridges to the city to blow them up at the appropriate moment.”
“There’s the sea,” Wolfe said, studying the map diligently. “The ocean.”
“Yes.” Kriegel brushed that corner of the Atlantic Ocean with the back of his hand. “I expect the aliens to escape by sea. Back to Latin America. And New York.”
“But they can ship food and water, troops into Miami by sea,” Wolfe pointed out.
“There won’t be time.”
“Sir?” Tracy asked. “How can we attack Miami if we’ve already blown up the bridges ourselves?”
“That’s the charm of the idea,” Kriegel admitted. “Have you ever heard of a fifth column? The Trojan horse? Our troops will already be in the city. After the power and water are off thirty-six hours, first we seize the airport. And then our troops will proceed block by block, driving the aliens toward the sea.”
“Phew!” Jack said. “They will drive the aliens toward the sea!”
“There won’t be enough ships to take all the aliens away,” Tracy said.
“Then we drive the aliens into the sea.”
“Drive the aliens into the sea,” Jack repeated.
Wolfe asked his son, “Are you getting all this down, Tracy?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
Wolfe sat back. “Seems simple enough. Tell me, Commandant Kriegel: how do we get the money for all this, for all the training we will need to do?”
“Lots of little Miamis,” Kriegel said. “We shall establish a model. Within six weeks, I should think, after you train your men for this specific task, Commandant Wolfe, we will take just the men you have here—having chosen a small, fairly isolated city, in the Southwest, South, Midwest, West, it doesn’t matter—gather intelligence on it, turn off its power and water, attack it in force, and liberate from that town’s banks and other businesses what I think you Americans call ‘cash money.’ Millions and millions of dollars of cash money.”
