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  "Tell me everything you know about this guard," Nathan said, pulling a notebook and pencil from his back pocket.

  Chapter 10 - The Mound

  When Paul Campbell and his driver arrived in Jackson at the normal conference location, the protocol officer approached and told the guard to get out. Without even a courtesy look in Paul's direction, the guard exited and walked away. The escort then got into the driver's side and cranked the vehicle.

  "Slight change of plans," he told Paul.

  "I'm supposed to meet Ethan and then see my son," the president said.

  The man turned to Paul and smiled. "You'll talk to the president, don't worry." He pulled away from the conference facility and drove for a half hour outside of Jackson. Paul attempted several times to engage the man in conversation, but to no avail.

  When they pulled off of a main road and onto a dirt lane, Paul Campbell began to get nervous. "You sure Ethan is out here? Does he know about this?"

  "Rest assured, I am following his orders explicitly," the man answered.

  He stopped in front of a wide open field surrounded by trees. The center of the field rose up into a rounded mound approximately thirty feet from ground to summit. At the very top of the hill sat a chair and side table under a sun umbrella.

  "Up there," said the protocol officer. "The president wants to talk to you up there."

  "Ethan is up there?" Paul asked.

  The man just frowned at him and pointed.

  Paul sighed heavily and began trudging up the hill. Although it was fall and getting cooler, the sun was high in the sky and he was beginning to sweat before he reached the top. He saw a military field telephone on the table. It was a crank-to-ring type that would only call a like item attached by a wire to the other end. A wire snaked off the back of the table and down into the ground. Paul stared at the phone, and it rang.

  He reached out and picked up the handset.

  "Have a seat, Paul," said Ethan. "We have a lot to talk about."

  "What the hell is this about?" Paul asked. "You called me down here on some sort of emergency to talk. I don't like getting jerked around like this."

  "Neither do I," Ethan answered. "Now please, sit. I insist."

  Paul slowly lowered himself into the chair.

  "Thank you," said Ethan.

  Paul looked around. "You're obviously watching me; why not just come out and talk?"

  "We'll get to that in a minute," answered Ethan. "First, your SSA Chief, Nathan Taylor, do you find him to be highly incompetent?"

  Paul stuttered. "Nathan...I...what's anything got to do with him?"

  "Just answer the question, please."

  "Why no," said Paul. "Security and intelligence are not really my thing, but he seems to know what he is doing."

  "And he is the one who told you about Nashville's radiation levels having dropped?"

  "Yes," answered Paul.

  "Would it surprise you to know that is not true?"

  Paul couldn't speak for a moment. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean," said Ethan, "that I sent nearly one hundred men into the heart of a city with extremely high radiation levels. Lethal levels. Now, knowing your history, and that of your son, I trust you understand what that means?"

  Paul swallowed. "Dear Lord."

  "Yes," answered Ethan. "Those men are in a tent a few miles from here. Some will survive, most will not. All of them are in excruciating agony. The only relief they get is when they are vomiting and spraying shit out of their asses so they forget about the fire burning them up inside."

  "Please don't hurt my son," Paul pleaded.

  Ethan continued on as if Paul had not spoken. "And all that equipment. All those supplies. All that invaluable stuff they returned with. What do you think had to be done with that?"

  "Oh hell," said Paul, sitting back in the chair. "It's radioactive. You've got to get rid of it."

  "Bingo," said Ethan. "But getting rid of several hundred tons of radioactive material is harder than it sounds. We finally decided to dig a big pit out in the country. Once it was all inside, we covered it with concrete and dirt and grass. Even so, the radiation level around that mound is still very dangerous."

  Paul jumped up and looked down at his feet in horror.

  "There is sniper watching you now," Ethan said. "If you run, you're dead."

  "Why?" whined Paul near tears. "I did everything you asked."

  "Because I don't like getting played," said Ethan. "Either your intel chief is a complete moron or you lied to me."

  "I didn't!" squealed Paul, loud enough that the protocol officer could hear him from the car a football field away. "I didn't lie. That's what he told me, I swear!"

  "So, if you didn't lie to me"—Ethan nodded to himself—"and Nathan Taylor is somewhat competent, there is only one reason he would tell you something that was so obviously false."

  "I wouldn't betray you," insisted Paul. "My son is too important to me, I wouldn't—"

  "I believe you, but I had to be sure" Ethan said soothingly. "You had nothing to do with this. Nathan Taylor has played a little ploy to test his suspicions. He suspected you before and now knows for certain that you are providing information to the WTR."

  "What?" asked Paul. "How? Will I be arrested?"

  "Unlikely," said Ethan. "What Nathan believes and what he can prove are two different things. You're okay for now."

  Paul was staring at the ground and rubbing his skin. "Am I going to die?"

  "Die?" asked Ethan.

  "From the radiation poisoning," Paul said in a quivering voice.

  Ethan laughed. "Oh, of course not. I said we buried the radioactive materials, but I didn't say it was here. This is an old Indian mound. Been here for almost a thousand years."

  "So...so, I'll be all right?"

  "Certainly," answered Ethan. "I couldn't have you go back to the JP vomiting and shitting yourself, could I? It would have been kind of hard to explain how you got radiation sickness visiting the WTR President, wouldn't it?"

  "You made me think..." said Paul with a hint of anger in his voice.

  "Oh, lighten up," Ethan said. "I had to determine if you had betrayed me. If I thought you had, radiation sickness would have been the least of your worries."

  "So, what now?" asked Paul.

  "We're going to have to get rid of Nathan Taylor," Ethan said casually.

  "Get rid of him?" asked Paul. "How are we supposed to do that?"

  "Just leave that part up to me," said Ethan as he hung up.

  Paul looked at the dead phone and then set it back in its cradle. He turned to the protocol officer waiting by the car and raised his hands up around his mouth. "Can I come down now?" he yelled.

  The protocol officer lifted his hands to his side and shrugged.

  The JP President slumped back down into the chair. "How did I ever get in this position?" he asked out loud and wished he had a strong drink.

  Chapter 11 - Old Friends

  It had been a long time since Nathan had seen Harold Buchannan and Jim Meeks. He used to meet with them nearly every day when he was allowed to live and work out of the facilities in the Land Between the Lakes, but the new Campbell administration had insisted he relocate to the capital of Paducah. Nathan realized he missed the tranquility of the place. He also missed his friends.

  "How you like being the county executive?" Nathan asked Harold after all the hugging and backslapping had ceased.

  "Not the worst job I've ever had," the man answered, scratching under his eye patch, "but really too much politics for me. I'd rather be back doing his job." He pointed at Jim Meeks who sat beside him like an adolescent-sized Kodiak bear.

  "I've got my share of headaches too," Jim said. "Don't go thinking about all that green grass on the other side and stuff."

  Nathan smiled. "Both of you are doing well, and I'm not just saying that. If you weren't, I would know."

  "I guess that's true," said Jim. "How do you like your job?"

 
Nathan hesitated, unsure how to answer, but was thankfully saved from doing so by David's arrival. Nathan stood to greet his son and, as always, was surprised at how much taller his boys were than he.

  "Hey, Dad," said David with a smile as he hugged Nathan with what felt like real feeling. The two had been through a lot together, but physical affection wasn't always comfortable with either of them. David then clasped hands and patted the shoulders of both Harold and Jim.

  "It's like a family reunion," said Jim.

  "In a sense, yes," answered Nathan.

  Harold's face got more serious. "You never did tell us why you wanted to meet. And why just us? It must be pretty serious."

  Nathan sighed. "I've got to tell you something, but you have to keep it between us. This sort of information could cause a lot of trouble. I wanted Joshua to hear this too, but he's out on recon to the west."

  "He's doing okay?" asked Jim.

  "Yeah," answered Nathan. "They tell me he should be back soon."

  "Well then, just spit it out," said Harold. "Bad news doesn't get better with time."

  "Bad news indeed," quipped Nathan. "I'll give you the bad part before I give you the worse part. Winter is fast approaching."

  "Holy shit!" said Jim throwing his hands up. "Again? I thought that was just last year. Are we going to have winters every year?"

  "Very funny," said Nathan. "The point is that the JP isn't prepared."

  The room was quiet as each of the men thought about what that might mean. Finally, Harold broke the silence. "That actually explains a few things."

  "Like what?" asked Nathan.

  "Well, we don't produce a lot of food here between the lakes," Harold explained. "We have our gardens and lots of game and fish, but we get the majority of our grain and corn and the like from the rest of the JP and from areas to the west in exchange for electricity."

  "And?" asked David.

  Jim was nodding. "We've been ordered to send all food we collect in taxes on to Paducah, and we haven't received any shipments since the harvest."

  "I don't think you're going to get any," said Nathan.

  "But we don't have enough food to survive the winter," said Jim.

  Nathan shook his head. "I don't think the JP has enough food to survive the winter. We've been taking lots of people in, no one is stockpiling, everyone is eating like before N-Day, and the harvest was so-so. I believe everyone is going to be hurting."

  "What do you recommend we do?" Harold asked.

  Nathan hesitated before answering. "Disobey. Don't send all the food on; just send enough to keep them from getting suspicious. Start stockpiling your own food."

  "That still won't be enough," said Jim. "Even with all the game and fish, it won't be enough. I hate to say it, but man cannot live on meat alone. I've eaten so much deer in the last month I think my appendix has started working again."

  "We start making our own deals," Harold said.

  David was nodding. "For the electricity, food for power."

  "But everyone who could trade for something already has," Jim said.

  "For what we were asking, true," Harold said. "But it might be time for a little discount. Maybe even get us a little goodwill with some communities to the east. Winter is going to be cold. Might be nice for them to be able to run lights and heaters."

  "The JP can't know," Nathan said.

  "Who would tell them except you?" asked Jim.

  Nathan shrugged. "I don't know, travelers, the army—"

  "We can shut off immigration during the winter," Harold said.

  "And the army doesn't need to know," David said. "I think I can keep a lid on things from that angle. The west and south are my sectors, and we can make sure that info doesn't get reported."

  Harold was drumming his fingers. "But if everyone is going to be in need of food, things are likely to get pretty bad out there before it's over, right?"

  "Possible," admitted Nathan. "We're just not used to hunger. Not the way our forefathers were. For thousands of years, people simply lived on near starvation diets during the winter until they could gather food. People won't be able to do that. At least not immediately. They'll panic and then turn desperate."

  "So we need to be ready to close our borders," Jim said. "Even to other areas of the JP."

  Nathan nodded. "I would, but...I'd like you to take Bethany in here before you do."

  "No problem," said Harold. "You've still got your own cabin here. Where will you be?"

  "I'll have a job to do. At least, I think I will."

  Jim smiled. "And does that bring us to the worse thing you were going to tell us about? As if the bad thing wasn't bad enough."

  "Is this about those trucks going to Nashville?" David asked.

  "Nashville?" Harold asked. "Who'd be dumb enough to do that?"

  Nathan dropped his head. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. Although the gambit had been successful in letting him know that Paul Campbell was passing info to the WTR, it had likely cost many people their lives. Without looking at them, he told the entire story. When he was done, they all stared at him incredulously.

  "Are you telling us," asked Jim, "that Paul Campbell, the JP President, is in the pocket of the WTR?"

  "Looks like it," answered Nathan.

  "But why?" asked David.

  Nathan sighed. "I think it's because they have his son. He was going to school in Memphis before, and I think he survived, but the WTR is holding him hostage. That would be a powerful motivator."

  "Well, we've got to tell the council," said Harold.

  Shaking his head, Nathan said, "The problem is I can't really prove any of this. Everything is fairly circumstantial. Also, if I admit to intentionally giving the president false information, I'll be fired, which wouldn't be a bad thing, but I think we're going to need me in the SSA before this is all over."

  "You've also shown your hand," said Jim. "The WTR and Campbell will likely know that you lied to them."

  "True," Nathan admitted. "I sent a follow-up report saying the initial readings were inaccurate, bad Geiger counter and all that, but it’s flimsy."

  "The WTR tried to take over the JP once before," said Harold. "They specifically tried to get control of the dam and its power. If they have another opportunity, they might take it. If not through war, then maybe a puppet leader."

  "But that was all Sampson," said Jim. "This new guy is more of a Mister Rogers character, isn't he?"

  "I'm not so sure," said Nathan."There might be more to him. Besides, he might be a puppet too, manipulated by some shadow leader behind the scenes."

  "So what now?" asked Harold. "Civil war, coup d'état, separation?"

  "I don't rightly know," admitted Nathan. "That was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you all. None of the options seem like good ones."

  "Maybe you could just talk to President Campbell," offered Jim. "Say you know what's going on and would like to help him get his kid back."

  "I thought about that," said Nathan, "but the whole son as a hostage thing is really just a hunch. What if Campbell is truly loyal to the WTR? What if he's just plain dirty?"

  "Then we offer him more than what they're offering," said Jim.

  Harold shook his head. "The truth is we just don't know enough to make a decision."

  "We could always kill him," said David. "Wouldn't be too hard to make it look like an accident. Admit it. That would solve some problems."

  "I'm not so sure we want to go down that road, son," said Nathan. "At least not yet. We're trying to build something here. If we start killing our elected leaders whenever things go wrong, where will it end?"

  "If it turns out your hunch about the son is true," said David, "we could always try to rescue him."

  Jim frowned. "Do you know how horrible a mission that would be? Going down into the WTR and busting him out of some prison? We don't even know there is a son or where he might be."

  "Which I admit comes back to Harold's point," said Nathan.
"We don't know enough. I'll do what I can to remedy that situation, but we all need to prepare for the worst."

  "Indeed," said Harold. "You watch yourself, Nathan. And if things go totally to shit, get yourself back here. We held off the WTR, we can certainly hold off the JP."

  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," said Jim.

  They all nodded, but left with dark thoughts.

  Chapter 12 - Prisoner

  Joshua felt worse than he ever had in his life. Not only had he stumbled into a trap, he had gotten all his men captured and some of them killed. He wanted to find them and tell them he was sorry, but ever since the ambush, he had been locked up alone in a small wooden cell.

  Peering through the cracks in the wood, he could see swarms of wretched men and women working under close watch by guards in uniforms with whips. Scavenger birds were everywhere, drawn by the dozen or more hanging corpses that ringed the central courtyard in front of a large estate house. Occasionally, he would see men come and get one of his soldiers out of a guarded pit on the other side of the house and drag him inside. Screams would soon follow. After an hour or so, this routine would be repeated.

  Joshua figured that as the leader, they were saving him for last. He was ashamed to admit that he was more scared for himself at this moment than he was worried about his men. Father would know what to do, he thought, but then shook his head. That was childishness talking. Father hadn't always known what to do. He'd made mistakes plenty of times, but he did get it right more often than not. Joshua knew he needed to figure this out on his own.

  Far too quickly he saw two large men approach from the house and walk directly to his cage. Joshua decided he would fight them and then try to make a break for it. He knew this was a weak plan, but he didn't have another.

  When the wooden cell door swung open, Joshua waited for one of them to reach in so he could grab them. He would bite them or get a finger in an eye, maybe get a hold of a gun or knife. Instead, the men stepped far back and shined a flashlight in his face.

  "Come on out of there," they said, "unless you want us to use the baling hooks to drag you out." He held up a long sharp steel hook with a parallel wooden handle at one end.