One Year After: A Novel (39 page)

Finally, after the long, sustained barrage, white flags began to appear in windows in all three buildings, but he let the fusillade continue on. It was time to break them entirely.

“Tell all units to cease fire,” John finally announced.

His radio operator looked over at him. “Billy reports he thinks he sees at least three helicopters coming up from Greenville.”

“Scan the frequencies. See if you can find the one they’re operating on—most likely one of the aviation ones, perhaps the standard 122.9 of uncontrolled air space.”

As the gunfire slacked off, with only an occasional return shot from the county building where it looked like part of the roof had collapsed in, John edged to the corner of his concealment and held the megaphone up, clicking it on. “This is John Matherson of Black Mountain and commander of the forces engaged against you. I am giving all of you five minutes to surrender and come out with hands up. This is my final offer. If you do not comply immediately, we will storm the buildings, and no prisoners will be taken. You have five minutes to surrender unconditionally but with the promise that you will be treated by the Geneva Accords. Otherwise, you damn well better be ready to die for that scum leader of yours.”

In less than a minute, a side door of the county prison burst open, the first few stepping out looking about nervously and then breaking into a run down the street, staying close to the north wall of the building. From the office building next to the courthouse, it was the same, several score pouring out from a south-facing door, out of view of the county building. From the county building, the fugitives dashed out the side door facing Tunnel Road. Several ran from the main entry, and again, a flurry of shots from inside the building dropped some, but the majority were now making it to safety. Return fire tore into the front entry even as those pouring out of the other buildings raced across the potentially fatal open ground. The first of them reached John’s position, having no idea who he was. They were wide eyed and terrified, begging for mercy. He would rather spare them than kill them, but after all that had happened, he gazed at them with disgust and shouted for someone to take charge of the prisoners and get them to the rear.

After ten minutes, no one else emerged. His radio operator announced that someone inside the building was desperately calling for air support from Greenville, the choppers going into a holding position just south of Hendersonville, which was only a few minutes away by air.

It was a moment where Maury, back in Asheville, knew what to do, starting up with spoof radio traffic on the same frequency, announcing he and his assets were up and waiting to take out any approaching aircraft, the frequency jammed up with signals that John prayed was buying them time.

It was a risk John could not tolerate. Fredericks would spin out his account of the disaster in the manner all such stories were spun going back thousands of years, and though John doubted the government Fredericks represented would be willing to drop a neutron bomb on them, two or three fuel-air explosives could nevertheless destroy his beloved valley and all whom he held dear. It had to end now.

“All units. At my signal, once those surrendering are clear, suppressive fire for two minutes, assault units to go in and secure the buildings.”

He half stepped out from the safety of where he had set up his command post. A dozen or so black uniforms were running for their lives, a few shots coming only from the county office.

“On my mark. Now!”

There was another explosion of fire, all of it focused in on the county office, and there was a fury to it now, a release of rage by his troops, fed up with all that had transpired and knowing that the cause of it was at last pinned down to this one final corner of trapped bastards.

The assault teams started to dash in, crouching low under the suppressive fire, those racing for the federal office and county jail not showing too much concern as they burst into the buildings, but the county office was a different story. A heavy weapon, concealed and silent throughout the fight, now opened up from the third floor, dropping half a dozen of the team heading for the front entry. The way one of them was running, John—like any father—could recognize it was his daughter. A girl running next to her crumpled over, but his daughter pressed on. He watched, heart racing as she disappeared from his sight, his view of her blocked by the building. John could not contain himself. He stood up and started for the side entrance, his security team cursing him soundly, shouting for him to stay back as they sprinted ahead with younger legs and stronger hearts.

None of them were hit, but out at the front of the courthouse where his daughter was looked bad. The assault team dived for cover and scattered, even as John’s team reached the side entryway where, across the years, those waiting for their cases—from traffic tickets to divorces to civil suits and criminal charges—had stood wreathed in cigarette smoke, waiting for the courthouse to open. It was a tawdry place in John’s mind, having stood out there himself when he had decided years earlier to fight an unfair traffic stop from an overeager trooper on Route 70 who claimed he was two miles per hour over the speed limit. His angry comment to the judge that the trooper was just looking to make her quota for the month had lost him his case, but it was worth it for being able to at least say exactly how he felt about things.

And now he was running for that door as if his life depended on it, which it most certainly did. The glass door was shattered, his team leader diving through it and coming up with weapon raised, sending a burst of fire down the corridor to cover the others storming in.

John lagged far behind, cursing the day he had taken up his first cigarette. The long-abandoned and defunct metal detector that guarded the entryway was still there, his team pushing past it, heading for the stairs that led up to the main floor. The foyer had been built in a grand old style, soaring up three stories, ringed with balconies along the four walls leading to offices on upper floors, and the foyer was thus a death trap. There were several explosions; someone was dropping grenades from above. One of his team dropped and was being dragged back to cover.

Damn it. When will they ever give up?
John thought, boiling with rage.

His people were pouring in enough suppressive fire to disrupt the defense against the main entryway facing downtown Asheville, several dozen charging in, creeping up stairs one at a time, firing toward the balconies, and dropping several of the defenders. And then suddenly, the firing slackened, several weapons being thrown over railings to clatter onto the floor of the foyer, black-clad troops, crying that they were surrendering, holding up their hands and nervously coming down from the upper floors. Nearly all with him held fire, though one of his troopers, filled with rage, nearly reignited the fight when she shot one of the surrendering foes in the head as she turned the final bend of the staircase. She was jumped on and dragged back as she screamed at those surrendering that they were all murderers.

John did not react but knew he’d have to deal with it later.

Shots erupted from the corner office suite that John knew was the nerve center and where Fredericks, he hoped, was most likely dug in. Sandbags had been piled around the entryway, the gunner guarding the approach collapsed and dead.

“Fredericks, it’s over with. Your people have surrendered!” John shouted. “You got thirty seconds to come out, or we blow the rest of this apart and leave you to burn to death, because this building is coming down in flames once we pull back.”

A broken door ever so slowly cracked open, and to John’s utter disbelief, the man was looking out at him, wearing his ubiquitous jacket and tie as if ready to head off for a noonday power lunch meeting.

“Matherson, you could have written your own ticket, and I was ready to write it for you.”

“Just come out slowly, you bastard. Hands up.”

“For what? A trial by you and then a hanging?”

John would not admit here that was precisely his intent after the crimes that Fredericks had committed, the hundreds who were dead because of him.

“John, I was only following orders, and I suspect you do hate those five words, ‘I was only following orders.’”

“You’re damn right, I do!” John shouted in reply.

“Were you only following orders in Iraq? Were your minions only following orders when you executed the leaders and followers of the Posse?”

He did not reply.

“Greenville’s air-assault team will be here any minute, and if you kill me, John, the word will come down from Bluemont to neutron or fuel-air your precious hick village.”

It was precisely what John feared, and Fredericks had hit a nerve.

“Ah, I sense hesitation,” Fredericks taunted back. “So what’s it going to be, John? We talk this out like two reasonable men, or your community ceases to exist. You’d better call it now; the clock is ticking down.”

Damn, he is good,
John thought. As good as so many he had witnessed long ago, stalking the halls of power, amoral sociopaths drawn to power who, behind the smiles and handshakes and backslapping, held men and women of moral convictions and a soul-stirring love of a concept of the Republic in contempt. He knew far too many like Fredericks who, while mouthing platitudes, actually held everyone in secret disdain, because they as “leaders” knew what was best “for the people.”

John took several steps forward. “It’s over, Fredericks. And no, I will not trade you back. You will stand trial in front of the people you ordered murdered where a jury of twelve of your peers shall decide your fate.”

“You mean you don’t have the guts to just order me hung now, as you did that Posse leader?”

“I hold you in contempt lower than that sick bastard I hung,” John replied. “He was driven by hunger and a twisted belief in his Satan that he worshipped. You, you son of a bitch, were driven by something far deeper and darker. You are beneath contempt.”

John stepped closer, pistol in his hand half-raised. “Hands up, Fredericks, and step out slowly.”

Fredericks lowered his head, and his voice began to choke up. “Okay, John, I quit, but know if you kill me, you’ve lost your best bet to negotiate your way out of things with Bluemont. I’m worth a helluva lot more to you alive than dead.”

John sighed and nodded. The bastard was right. “Someone arrest him and get him out of here. And clear the wounded before his damned place collapses on all of us.”

He turned his back and began to walk away, disgusted with the entire end of this affair. His rage of minutes before had cooled. Fredericks would live, and chances were, trial or not, he’d be a bargaining chip with Bluemont in the end to spare further retaliation, and then another Fredericks would eventually arrive, for vermin like him certainly did breed like lice and had been a plague since the first day that someone had figured out that while some labored, others would “administer.”

“Down, John!”

He barely had time to turn back when a flurry of shots echoed, stitching Fredericks across his chest. He staggered backward and collapsed into his sacred office.

“What the hell?” John cried.

“Bastard was drawing a gun on you,” someone said even as the sound of gunfire echoed in the foyer.

John saw his old antagonist Ernie Franklin stepping out of the gathering that had come into the foyer to witness this final confrontation.

“What?”

“He drew a pimp gun and was about to blow your brains out, you damn fool. You’re a damn fool, Matherson, turning your back like that, so I covered your ass.”

John looked about in confusion. No one spoke. There were faint grins from several as Ernie walked across the foyer, stepped over the sandbag emplacement, and leaned over Fredericks’s body. Ernie’s hands were out of view for a few seconds as he appeared to pat down Fredericks and then stood back up holding a small pistol.

“Pimp gun. Bastard like this couldn’t even carry a real gun.” He then turned his weapon on Fredericks and put one more round into his head. Without further comment, he turned and walked out of the foyer, pausing to toss the “pimp gun” on the floor by John’s feet. “Historian, know your history. ‘Sic semper tyrannis.’”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DAY 750

John had called for the meeting in the Fellowship Hall of Gaither Chapel at 10:00 p.m. for a reason. His trusted team was now augmented by Forrest and also by Ernie, who had simply just bulled his way onto the town council, like it or not. It was something John did not really object to given that he had essentially done the same thing immediately after the Day. Kevin Malady was with them, as was Lee, his arm in a sling from a bullet taken in the final assault. There were also representatives from Swannanoa, a couple of police officers invited from Asheville who, word was, represented a good grasp of public opinion in the survivors of that town, one of the two the cops John had befriended long before in the first days after the war had started. There was even a doctor from Mission Hospital—which, once the fight was over and it was no longer under Fredericks’s thumb—had thrown its support into caring for the injured and wounded.

Only a little over five thousand civilians were still alive in Asheville proper, and John had won most of them over with a most simple gesture. The ANR troops had over one hundred thousand rations stockpiled, and John decided they would be divided evenly between his community and Asheville. The following day, after the storming of the courthouse complex, a delegation had come to Black Mountain seeking John out with the request that, during the current crisis and until things were “straightened out,” he and the citizens of Black Mountain would consider a “consolidation.”

It was a decision he could not just make on his own. Ever since the Day, there had been a deep sense of division between Asheville and Black Mountain, fueled by the leadership there in the beginning, brought together somewhat when the army was in direct control, and then driven wide open again by Fredericks. As to the old pre-army leadership—which had stayed on but faded into the back while the army occupied the town, only to reemerge after the military left and then fallen in with Fredericks—the last of it was gone. Several had died in the battle for the courthouse, and the others—so typically—had excused themselves before the fighting even broke out and tried to flee to Greenville. There were rumors that a reiver group that at times had control of the two main roads leading out of the southern mountains down to the piedmont of South Carolina had captured the group. No one was discussing the treatment quickly meted out to them.