Dominatus (13 page)

Hess leaned to the left before catching himself, his eyes blinking rapidly as he attempted to clear his still ringing head.

The Old Man turned slightly to address Officer Hess.

“And you are…Special Operations Office Hess, yes?  That would mean you come from, at the very nearest, from Seattle.  Quite a special thing you are involved with indeed then.  To travel so far to take a man in for playing music?  Owning a small handgun?”

Alexander Meyer’s head shook slowly, his eyes never leaving August Hess.

“No, your presence here would mean something far more substantial than that.  Indeed it would.  And you…you took it upon yourself to physically challenge one of us?  It would seem perhaps, you bit off quite a bit more than you thought to chew, Officer Hess.”

Hess lurched forward, snarling outrage at the Old Man, his hand raised above him to strike.  Both the hand, and August Hess, froze as Dublin’s gun now pointed inches from his face.  She uttered but a single word.

“No.”

Hess stepped slowly back, rage dancing in his blue eyes.

“That is twice in the same day I’ve had a gun pointed at my head.  I am going to take such great pleasure in wiping this place clean.”

Officer Hess’s wolf-grin returned as he pointed toward Dublin.

“And YOU…I intend to pay you some very personal attention VERY soon.”

The Old Man stepped more quickly toward Hess than I thought him capable, again peering intently at the special operations officer.

“Hess, your name…that is German, correct?”

August Hess offered his toothy grin back at the Old Man, though his eyes held only hatred.

“Yeah, it’s German.”

Now it was the Old Man’s turn to offer up his own smile, his head shaking slowly.

“It would seem, as is so often said, some things never change.”

Turning back to Officers Denny and Chu, the Old Man addressed the two compliance officers, the tremble in his voice revealing the fatigue quickly overtaking him.

“Gentlemen, I do believe I am correct in my concern over your, let us simply call it non-compliance shall we? Regarding the lack of notification to the Alaska Native Regional Corporations office, I would suggest, strongly suggest, you do so prior to any further actions intended against my property. While the New United Nations has been designated legal authority over individual states within the United States, legal authority for much of the world in fact, there remains documented uncertainty over how that authority pertains to tribal lands, governed in great part by their own people per longstanding and still-viable treaty agreements – in this case the Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.  Your actions today may in fact have placed you, each of you, in direct violation of that agreement between my tribal neighbors, the United States, and by default then…the New United Nations.”

Officer Chu again looked to Carol for confirmation of the Old Man’s words.  Denny nodded his head.

“I think he’s right, Stanley.  We can come and go up here, to monitor, whatever.  But to take direct police action, weaponry, if there was no notification to the Native Lands Office in Fairbanks, we might be walking a very fine line here with this. The non-compliance report was for one man – not the entire area.  They could raise a hell of a protest.  They have strong lobbyists in New York – the New United Nations building.  Contacts with the Consulate.  With people around the Great Consulate himself.”

The concern on Officer’s Chu’s face quickly formed into panic at the mention of the Great Consulate, his eyes darting from the Old Man back to Carol Denny.

“Officer Denny, please leave a copy of the mandate violations for Mr. Walker’s review.  Mr. Walker, you and everyone else here currently carrying any firearm are ordered to hand those weapons over to Officer Denny immediately.  Those weapons will be used as evidence during the administrative review of today’s events, as will any and all further non-compliance issues pertaining to yourself and others here at Dominatus.

“Do you fully understand what I have just told you, Mr. Walker?”

Mac looked over at the Old Man who in turn nodded to Mac.

“Yeah – I understand.”

A low rumble of protest issued from those of Dominatus who had arrived in the snow machines and who now surrounded the three N.U.N. officers.  Bear growled his disapproval, his right hand holding tightly to his M16.

“Any of you want to try and take my gun from me?”

The Old Man turned his head to Bear, his eyes communicating a plea for silence.

“Your request is a reasonable one, Officer Chu.  I thank you for your…consideration.  I know everyone here now will be, if not happy, at least willing to comply with your request.”

The Old Man looked to Mac.

“Mr. Walker, please see to it that all weapons here today are handed over to the officers, and that they are safely escorted back to the road.  No harm is to come to them.”

Mac nodded before glancing over to August Hess and grinning as Officer Hess glared back at the former Navy SEAL.

I had not noticed how much more Dublin was supporting her grandfather, but as he finished his words to Mac, I saw the Old Man’s legs buckle as Dublin gently guided him back to his seat on the snow machine, concern showing itself on her face.

Mac addressed the other members of Dominatus, telling them to hand over their weapons to the N.U.N officers.  Even Bear complied, though not without a string of obscenities directed at the three officers.  As the two other officers began driving away, Officer Carol Denny turned back to Mac, his hand disengaging the transmitter on the front of his jacket before he spoke.

“This bought you just a little time Mac.  Officer Hess will be back.  He’ll be back with more like him, and they don’t answer to anyone in compliance.  Your kicking his ass didn’t help any Mac.  They have the authority to clean things up.  I would urge all of you to…to get out.  Or prepare for a worst case scenario.  I’m sorry.”

Mac nodded to Officer Denny.

“I know what you did for us today Carol.  Thank you.”

The Old Man’s voice called out from behind Mac.

“Officer Denny, you’re not accusing me of making things up regarding certain applicable agencies are you?”

Carol Denny answered back as he stepped into his light blue New United Nations vehicle.

“Well played, Mr. Meyer. You can bet they are calling it in right now though.  I would estimate they’ll be back out here within seventy two hours. maybe less.  If I find out for certain when, I’ll try to get word to you.  That’s the best I can do.”

The soft whine of Officer Denny’s electric-powered vehicle faded as he made his way back down the road and away from Dominatus.

The unmistakable sound of a gun chamber being loaded was heard as Bear brought out a handgun and pointed it in the direction of Carol Denny’s departing vehicle.

“That’s the last time I let anyone take a weapon from me, Mac.”

Bear and the others returned to their snow machines and rode off, leaving myself, Mac, Dublin, and her grandfather behind.   The Old Man first addressed Mac.

“Mr. Walker, please take appropriate measures to prepare a defense of the road.  I will assume the drone made its way here at a very low altitude, and that is how it arrived without our sensors picking up its presence until much later?”

“Yeah – it was flying well below a hundred feet.  I can adjust our monitoring equipment to compensate for that, but no guarantee it won’t happen again.  And the next one…the next one could be armed.  I say we shoot the next one down.  To be safe.  I know you have wanted to avoid that.  It gives them an excuse to come at us, but if the next one is armed, we can’t allow it to just fly over us like that.”

The Old Man nodded his agreement.

“At this point, that would be prudent.  Yes, I have no objections to that, Mr. Walker.  I will communicate to my sources, try to find out why the officers arrived here so quickly.  I had been assured that would not happen.  It would seem my influence, has suffered some.”

Alexander Meyer then looked to me, his ancient face breaking into a warm smile.

“And what of my dinner guest for this evening?  I hope our little interaction with the authorities has not dissuaded you from joining me this evening, Mr. Neeson.  I can have Dublin pick you up within the hour and bring you to the cabin, if that is still acceptable to you.”

“I would be honored, Mr. Meyer.”

“Good.  Dublin will be back here shortly to pick you up.  Now, I do fear I am in need of some rest before that.  Dublin dear, please take me home.”

X.

I watched as Dublin’s snow machine slowly disappeared over the nearest hill, her grandfather clinging to her from behind.  Mac’s hand clapped onto my shoulder as he too watched their departure.

“I need to sit down, kid.  I haven’t tangled like that in a long time.  Every bone in my body is screaming at me.”

We both walked back into the Freedom Tavern, the music from Mac’s jukebox welcoming us back inside, this time from a song titled
One Headlight
by Jacob Dylan – who also happened to be Bob Dylan’s son.

Mac disappeared down the hallway toward his office for several minutes before returning to behind the bar where poured two glasses of his home brewed beer.  I noted he walked with a slight limp, his face grimacing slightly with each step.

“You gonna be ok, Mac?”

I sat at one of the small tables in the tavern, watching as Mac slowly made his way back to join me.

“Sure…a little rest and some anti-inflammatory and I’ll be right as rain.”

Mac’s grimace returned as he gingerly sat down in the seat across from me, followed by his taking a long slow drink from his glass.

“Feeling better already.”

“You mind if I ask you some more questions while I’m waiting for Dublin?”

Mac exhaled slowly, moving his head from one side to the other, trying to stretch it out.

“I don’t care…sure.”

“The guy you fought with, Officer Hess, they said he was Special Operations.  You mentioned Grant County.  That this Hess might have been part of Grant County.”

“Special Operations Division, that’s the people who go in and wipe out the ones who won’t follow the mandates.  Grant County, Washington State, that was four years ago.  They were pretty much living just like we are up here.  Minding their own business,  growing their own food…they had their own weapons.  There were a few hundred of them out there.  A wasteland…hot as hell in the summer, cold in the winter.  It had to have been a very hard existence, but they were free.  Or thought they were.  Compliance officers came out there, wrote up some reports. The people didn’t comply, and then they were wiped out.  I heard it was the American flag.  They would raise it every morning on this makeshift flag pole.  That’s what the compliance officers really got pissed about.  Their flag didn’t have the New United Nations emblem on it.  All other flags before then had been banned.  

“All their homes, huts really…they were out in the open.  The drones came in and bombed the shit out of them.  Then came Special Operations, people just like that Officer Hess…likely he was involved himself.  They murdered anyone who survived the drone bombings, dug a huge grave, and just dumped everyone and everything in it.  Covered it back up and it was like all those hundreds of people living out there in Grant County never existed.  There were at least thirty children living there.  Just…gone.  All of them…gone.”

Silence hung in Freedom Tavern as Mac finished his remark.  Even the jukebox now sat silent.

“They intend to do the same here don’t they?  You can feel it coming.  They are going to erase Dominatus.”

Mac’s silence remained, his eyes looking somewhere far beyond the walls of the tavern.  After several minutes his eyes refocused on me and he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“I learned a long time ago that you should worry about the things you have control over and forget the things you don’t.  Whatever is or isn’t coming to us tomorrow, or the next day, or next week…all I can do is act on it when it does.  Like I told you before, we’ve always known it was gonna happen eventually.  It was just a matter of when.”

“The Old Man said yesterday, he told everyone at the operations center they would be safe for a while.  That Carol Denny would not be visiting again for a while.  Less than twenty-four hours later we have a visit from three N.U.N. officials.  Wouldn’t that indicate that Dominatus is a lot more on the radar of the New United Nations than even the Old Man was aware of?  And that the drones could be coming tomorrow, or tonight?”

Again Mac shrugged.

“Sure it could…yeah.  It’s likely something like you just described it.”

“And that doesn’t concern you?”

Mac held up a hand, signaling his disagreement.

“I didn’t say that – it concerns me a lot.  A hell of a lot.  These people, at least in part, depend on me to help protect them.  We’ve updated our drone trackers, already have people positioned to shoot any drones down on sight - just sent out the ok for them to do that.  Keith is back at the cave right now making sure we’re stocked up on food, water, weaponry, ammunition.  We’ve been preparing for this for years.  So all of that I have control over, and things are proceeding just like we planned.  The rest of it?  Whatever that Hess or Chu, or the people pulling their strings, whatever they are planning I don’t have any control over.  So for now, I’m sitting here talking to you and finishing this beer.  After Dublin picks you up to take you to the Old Man’s cabin, I’ll be doing more prep work at the operations center.  We’ll be ready – as ready as we can be.”