A Time for Patriots

Please disperse immediately . Thank you for your cooperation.” The convoy stopped just a few yards away from the crowd of protesters.

“We’re not going anywhere until they shut down the robots and spy planes!” someone shouted.

“Your grievances will be forwarded to the Department of Defense and the governor and attorney general of the state of Nevada,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “Be assured, all of your grievances will be promptly addressed. But you are still blocking a public-access thoroughfare and creating a disturbance. Please return to your vehicles and leave the area so free access to this public roadway can be restored. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“We’re not going anywhere until the governor or the president orders all the spy planes and robots out of Nevada!” someone in the crowd shouted. “This is bullshit! You’re flying weaponized planes and operating armed robots out of this base to terrorize innocent citizens! How do we know you’re not looking in on me or my children right now? We want it to stop right now ! Right now! Right now! ” And the chanting and anger level rose once again.

“Please return to your vehicles and leave the area,” the voice on the loudspeaker said over the chanting. “The public roadway must remain clear. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Oh yeah?” someone else shouted. “What are you going to do — blast us with that cannon or those missiles, cop? You gonna drop a bomb on us from one of those CAP planes you got flying around?”

“Thank you for your continued support of our community,” the voice said. “The Nevada Highway Patrol is here to assist you. Please return to your vehicles. Thank you for your cooperation.”

It took several minutes, but soon the energy level of the protesters seemed to decrease, and one by one they turned and headed away from the main gate. A few slammed their signs on the armored vehicles and spit on the Highway Patrol vehicle’s windshields, but the officers did not react.

“Well, this is definitely a new one for me,” Nevada Highway Patrol sergeant Leo Slotnick said. He was standing beside his car, the second in the convoy behind the armored car, talking with his partner. He was wearing a bullet-resistant vest over his uniform that read NHP and POLICE in large yellow letters, a Kevlar riot helmet with face shield, and heavy Kevlar gloves — his riot baton and cans of pepper spray were inside the vehicle, out of sight but quickly available. Most persons passing by him waved hello — no one seemed to be angry at him personally. “A protest march, way out here in Battle Mountain? I think it’s pretty funny. I had to dust off my riot gear— literally dust it off.”

“Whatever happened to the sheriff’s department?” Leo’s partner, a relatively new member of the Nevada Highway Patrol named Bobby Johnson, asked. He was outfitted the same as Leo but with a small digital video recorder affixed to his helmet; Leo was his training officer in his first six-month probationary period. “They’re a no- show?”

“They said they couldn’t spare the manpower,” Leo said. “Technically this road is a state highway, so we have jurisdiction, but they should be out here with us. They never showed when the Civil Air Patrol was searching for that downed plane either.”

“I heard one of your guys thinks he was shot at by someone in this crowd,” Bobby said. “These bastards were shooting at aircraft over the base? Are they nuts? I think we should search each and every one of them for that rifle.”

“Bobby, think about it — there’s thirty of them, and just twelve of us,” Leo said. “If there’s a gun in that crowd, we don’t want it let loose on us. If they start heading off and going home without another shot being fired, that’s a good thing. Next time there’s a protest, we’ll be ready with more guys.” As his eyes scanned the departing protesters, he caught a glimpse of two men, apart from each other but definitely together, walking along with the crowd toward their vehicles but looking as if they were scanning the crowd themselves. “Get a shot of those two tall guys at twelve o’clock,” Leo said.

Bobby turned in that direction but couldn’t really see whom Leo was referring to. “What’s up?”

Leo shook his head. “Just a hunch,” he said. “Remember what you were taught at the Academy about the personalities that create a disturbance?”

“Agitator, instigator, aggressor, and… and…”

“The lemmings — the followers,” Leo said. “Who are the agitators here?”

“The guy who organized this march.”

“True,” Leo said, “but couldn’t you also say it was the Air Force when they rolled out those armored vehicles over there? Maybe the crowd wouldn’t be so agitated if they hadn’t brought those out.”

“Well, then couldn’t you say that we are agitators for bring our armored car?”

“Good point,” Leo conceded, “although then you have to think about officer safety, and that’s a command decision. Now, the instigator is the one who does the first noncivil action — in this case, maybe the ones hitting the armored car with their signs. But he doesn’t usually cause the riot. It’s the aggressors that you have to watch out for — the ones who wait for something to happen, then push everyone around them over the top. Then the lemmings do whatever the aggressors and the rest of the crowd does, and the thing turns into a riot.”

“So if you can find the aggressors, you might have a chance of stopping the riot.”

“Exactly,” Leo said. “The agitators are the hotheads, but they’re usually just lashing out, not attacking — they get the crowd’s attention with an overt act, but the crowd hasn’t turned into lemmings yet. The aggressors do the extreme actions that turn the crowd.”

Bobby continued searching the crowd, but still couldn’t see whom Leo was referring to. “Gotcha.”

Leo made eye contact with one of the tall guys he was watching, broke eye contact and scanned the crowd for a few seconds, then came back to the guy — and they made eye contact again. “And the first rule of surveillance?”

“Countersurveillance,” Bobby said. “Make sure you’re not being watched yourself.”

“Either we’re being watched, which I doubt,” Leo said, “or these guys were on their way to do something else and have now noticed that they’ve been spotted. They’re spooked, but they’re not running — they know it’s the running man that attracts attention.” He looked behind him at some of the protesters widely circling his car, but couldn’t see anyone else who stood out — there could easily be another pair behind him, but he couldn’t make them out. “Weird vibes around here, that’s for sure.”

When he looked back at the pair, they had both vanished, and no one was running or shoving — they had quite literally disappeared.

Later that day

“I don’t know what to say, Brad,” Patrick said as they examined the Civil Air Patrol Cessna. They had pans and buckets underneath the hole in the left wing, collecting leaking avgas. Maintenance crews already had the shattered window off, and they were getting ready to start removing inspection panels and rivets to replace the damaged left-wing sections. “You have about thirty hours total time flying the C-172 and P210, and I don’t recall you ever getting airsick. I know you flew in the back of the Aerostar a few times when Gia was with us, but you were a lot younger and you weren’t looking out the window — you were usually asleep. Did you ever get airsick flying cadet-orientation rides?”

“I don’t think I ever flew in the back,” Brad said. “There was never anyone else riding along.”

“So today was the first time that you’ve ever ridden in the back of a light plane with your eyes open and searching out the window,” Patrick summarized, “and every time you’ve done it, you’ve gotten sick.”

“But what does that mean, Dad?” Brad asked. “If I can’t ride in the back without getting sick, I can’t be a mission scanner, and if I can’t be a scanner, I can’t be a mission pilot. And that’s what I want to be!”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, big guy,” Patrick said. “We’ll get you a few rides with you not doing scanner duties but just sitting in back, not looking out the side windows, to get you accustomed to sitting in back; we’ll find out about approved medicines or other remedies. You can still be a transport mission pilot — ferrying planes, taking cadets on orientation rides, towing gliders — and a mission observer, and there may even be a way for you to be a mission pilot without being a scanner first. I think the reason they have you qualify for scanner first is to see how well you do in a light plane. But we know you can fly a plane without getting airsick — it’s just that you get airsick riding in back. We’ll start checking out all the options. But just remember, there’s more to Civil Air Patrol than flying. You can lead a ground-search team, and you can man an incident command post and put together sortie packages—”