25

The Neo-Publica Rally

 

 

December 2

A

ileen’s breath steamed as she blew into her cupped hands. The hard, early December chill had hit Denver hard and the snow-faced Rockies loomed high in her view from her seat at Mile-High Field. The jagged mountains rising into the deep blue, pre-dusk western sky gave her heart that there was something greater than emotional idealism in the air. There was—seemingly for the first time—hope.

She looked down twenty or so nearly filled rows of seats to the football field. She saw Sylvia on a dais built on the fifty-yard line in the center of the field giving Piet and Hugh some instructions. She then went and sat back down in her chair as Hugh went to the podium to adjust the microphone, and Piet went off to the side to fetch something. He brought some auxiliary paperwork to her. She continued to study her keynotes as though trying to memorize them. How small she appeared; how large she loomed.

Aileen had felt for an unknown while that she had fallen in love with her. Since Barbara died, she’d had hardened the shell of her denial: to not think about it was to believe it never happened. She’d come to regard Barbara’s death it as if she had merely left town, leaving the connecting thread of her love. The truth might had been too devastating. Was this love for Sylvia a rebound reaction over the loss of the one she’d absolutely loved during what had become known as the “Kenton Tower Rebellion” in May? Who would know? Feelings like love are not controlled by fate, sanity, or reason. Feelings of true love are driven by loss. She camouflaged what she thought —or feared—she had felt for Sylvia by telling her that she loved her conviction. That seemed to help a little to ease the frustration, but once that cleared, it only seemed to hurt more.

Robert huddled in his seat next to holding with his beer. He passed her his cup. “Here, Allie, you want a sip?”

She shivered her shoulders. “No thanks, Bob. How can you drink a cold beer on the coldest day of the year? And at this altitude? You’ll be drunk in a minute.”

He simpered at her. “Maybe that’s the point, hon. It’s a football stadium. It’s November. I’m a guy who likes the Broncos. It all fits.”

Right. A guy. Sylvia’s guy. she thought. She seemed to forget that before reality surfaced to haunt the myth. “Well, dearie, this isn’t a football game, and we’re gonna need you sober for this.”

“Whoa! Look there!” he said, pointing up to the jumbotron above the bleachers on the other side, and then the ones above the two end-zones. There was Sylvia studying her notes, unaware that she was on camera as it did a position check. The people, now filling up half the seats an hour before her address, cheered. Droves of others continued file in through the gates. Sylvia, wondering what the cheering was about, looked up at the screen. She smiled coyly and held her notes up to cover her face. “That’s what I love about her,” Robert said. “Her modesty.”

Ouch! Aileen thought. But they both knew he was being facetious. “Me, too,” she said softly, and meaning it.

Some more cheers rose as the image changed to a graphic: “We, the People…” scripted out as it was on the Constitution. Below that in bold san-serif type: “We ARE the People!”

Realizing she was off camera; Sylvia rose and left the stage with Hugh and Piet to go to the locker room area for last minute preparations before her address.

————————————————————————-

The ‘Screemin’ Deemons’ rock group played out some headbanger rifts from another stage, and another world, set up in the endzone. It wasn’t Karen’s kind of music, and she tucked it away in the back of her mind. Equipped with a wireless headset transmitting to a Regime security R.V. outside the entrance, she stalked the ramps and walkways through the seats of people. She was put out there by Tom Roebling, who sat watching six video feeds like a TV news director in the darkened interior of the R.V. Karen had been one of only three Neo-Pub sympathizers among Roebling’s twelve BlueShirts circulating through the crowd, searching for anything or anyone suspicious.

Roebling had spun the affair to his operatives in the Kenton Regime as a defensive one. Even through the sixty-thousand or so people expected to fill the stadium were Neo-Pub oriented, they were still Real-Americans until they were arrested and questioned. He added that the Kenton Regime wanted no bad press, especially on the eve of his going to meet with the Soviet Premier, followed by his big New Orleans rally. So, yeah. Be vigilant for bad guys in the stands with guns. “Everything ends peacefully. And then after, you guys can go out and drink all the Coors you want. But during the rally, stay frosty. Think of this as training for the Kenton Christmas Rally in New Orleans.”

So, Roebling’s men, most of them BlueShirts in plain clothes with concealed pieces, wandered the seats at ease. For them, it was a cushy job. Karen and Roebling’s other Neo Pub sympathizers, Mike Hastings, and Dan Harris were more on edge, and on guard. She reached deep into her heavy windbreaker and placed her hand on her lucky dirk. Guns were no more her thing than that trashy head-banger stuff. She was strictly a knife kind of women—knives were quiet, graceful, and beautiful, like the Bach and Brahms concertos she’d come to love, especially before an operation. Karen was, above all, a complex person.

————————————————————————-

Madelyn busied herself as a producer with her crew in the Kenton/Fox News and Entertainment semi-truck trailer. Inside, the thing was as annoyingly appointed as her father’s big limo. It was as though the car may have been spawned from its black leather and oak interior.

“Let’s get a lock on six,” she said. “Who is that?”

“Frank, one of our steady-cams,” one of her crew told her.

“His camera’s wavering around like he’s drunk. Tell him to stand still.”

Greg Palmer, the old man of the airwaves, was directing and controlling the console as well as the cameras. He spoke into his headset and told Frank to stand still. He waited for a reply, then turned to Madelyn. “He says it’s too fucking cold up where he is. Verbatim.”

“Jesus! Tell him to tie himself to a fucking lamppost or something.”

This was Madelyn’s favorite part of the job. Concentrating on producing a show took her away from the calliope of the outer world and settled her into an alpha state of relaxed attention. Governing her crew and their array monitors in the darkness gave her the feeling of being a submarine commander, with Greg as her helmsman. “Let’s get a tighter shot on the podium with camera two,” she said. “And draw back camera three to a two-shot of whoever will be sitting in those chairs on the stage. Okay. We are set.” She glanced up at the massive LED timer above the monitors. ”Ten minutes to air. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” It had only been a manner of speech, but Greg took her literally and lit up a Marlboro. “Jesus, Greg, I never knew you smoked.”

“Took it up last month, Maddie. I figure once you get to my age, a person should catch up on lost time.”

“And maybe hasten up that time a little,” she quipped.

“Yeah, well, I gave it up thirty years ago, and missed it all that time.”

She fanned away a stray filigree of smoke. “Just don’t do too much of it Greg. I need you.”

A Neo Pub roadie stepped up to the podium and tapped the mic. Thump-thump. Then blew into it. “Test. Test. Test,” he enunciated.

Camera Two was the one assigned to Sylvia. The roadie’s ruddy, pocked, face, with a rosacea-swollen nose on Monitor Two, looked a little too far away. “Maybe tighten up on two some more?”

“Maybe that’ll be a little too tight, Maddie?”

She realized he was right. “Okay Greg, yeah, I defer to your experience, old friend.“

Another camera had been trained on Carmine, whom Madelyn had chosen to do the field reporting. She had made it though the Second Child Amendment story, because she finally deferred to Alexander. She dre the line on her journalistic integrity when it came down to threat of two years in a gulag, Probably Unqutuck, the regime’s choice for subversive journalists. Carmine tongued her plush, perfect lips and brushed a windblown stray hair aside with a perfect hand. Madelyn cringed to a flow of warmth throughout her body. She only wished Carmine hadn’t been such a mom and devoted to a husband—so hetero. “Tighten up Camera Six on Carmine,” she said.

————————————————————————-

His handle was “Brick,” but the lithe features of his skinny build defied that moniker. Though he’d spent a day in the stadium staking out his place, surviving in the shadows on Fritos and water, he wasn’t tired. He’d been trained to counter sleep when he was on a mission. Sleep only resulted in further fatigue, and he needed to stay alert. Amphetamines would have only distracted him. SEAL training had taught him that. Despite the SEAL height and weight requirements, his talent lay in his smallness. He knew how to slip into and stay hidden in small places, such as where he lay prone on his stomach in the stadium lighting housing cage below the left end zone jumbotron.

He had other assets than his jockey-size and agility. He was called “Brick” by his cohorts Commissar Montefiore’s private and newly formed and growing Real-America Coalition because his aim was rock solid, steady, and true. He had slipped in early in and taken up post here after reconnoitering for several possibilities, and this was best. He preferred to accomplish his assigned tasks from the side, such as when John F. Kennedy was shot, it allowed for more opportunities. He tested his position one more time. The flag in the stadium flicked steadily toward the southeast, so the wind was steady at with 20 mile per hour gusts from the northwest. Perfect. He raised his long-barreled precision rifle and checked the aim, even though he knew it was solid. He adjusted his windage, then trained the crosshairs on his sight toward the podium and at the roadie’s head, to check. He lowered his weapon and took up another Frito. Now came the waiting for his cue from the Coalition Commander. It was all about timing for a sniper.

————————————————————————-

Most of the crowd didn’t hear whatever Piet had said as he announced Sylvia. They all knew who she was by now. She stepped up to the podium to the sound of thunderous and enthusiastic cheers, catcall-whistles and applause from all around. The crowd flickered in dots of red, blue and white as the audience waved the American flags they were given at the stadium entrance. Others held up and waved copies of the Neo-Publica Manifesto they’d bought as they came in. Sylvia smiled broadly, and raised her hands as she was received, often flexing her fingers to beckon more. Finally, after nearly five minutes, she lowered her hands to signal for silence.

“Hi, I’m Sylvia Morales, and we ARE the people!” she said close into the mic, then went quiet over another loud rush of cheers. “Okay…Okay,” she said. “Let’s leave a little time for my remarks!” The cheers died down, except for an occasional We love you, Sylvia! “For nearly ten years, we have been fighting to restore what had made out country great for two-hundred and fifty years. It’s only taken those ten years for one man and his cohorts to tear all that down. The tear America down” Loud Booos! Echoed through the assemblage. “America may never have been perfect, but she was always great, no matter who tried to tell us otherwise. She was always great!” Now there were thousands of chants of: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” “We ARE the people…and we are all working to bring this nation back to what she was destined to be…AMERICA!” The “U.S.A.!“s were joined by another chant, and some waving signs: “Bring America Back!” She allowed more time for the fever to die down. “Okay. Now, you know about me as the one who has been fighting for this, but I have only been the most vocal. But I and my cohorts were not the only ones fighting for this. We all were fighting for it!” More cheers. “And you were fighting for it maybe even harder than I was, because what you’d believed in your hearts was suppressed by a regime who wanted to make such thinking illegal. But no more!” No More! No More! “We the people have been held captive by our wants our needs for our OUR nation. Not theirs…Ours!…” An eruption of cheers. “It’s our Constitution that made this county what it is and has always been. Even now. And every tenet of our Constitution has been violated into a dictatorship! Two weeks ago, our Premier announced that women—mothers—could choose—choose!— to be sterilized, if they did not want to risk their third child being taken and sent out for BlueShirt indoctrination and training. I repeat: Sterilization. Another right reduced to a quid-pro-quo choice.” Boos. “If we are not already there, with these gulags and sterilization, we are on our way to Nazi Germany. Maybe its more devious than that, because all this came about while we slept, and through a rule of lies. While we slept, Kenton and his people spent their time reaching into Hitler’s playbook and suppress our truths with their lies. I believe we are beyond already there, and we have systematically led to believe that this is the status quo. Our teachers—as good as gone; our scientists—gone; our thinkers, authors, philosophers—gone. And why? Because they are a threat. This regime is so frightened by the enemy of intelligence, it throws it into gulags! And what remains behind? The I.Q. of a gnat! But we were not sleeping, guys; merely waiting for the right time. And that is now! There is nothing to be afraid of with them, people. Intelligence and reason, faith, and hope, have not been put away, and the will exists to fight against those who try to take away what is in our hearts and minds. I know this. Why? Because people. We are here! And we ARE the people!”

Chants of “We ARE the people!” thundered through the stadium, as the Jumbotrons flashed an image of the Constitution.

————————————————————————-

The sun had nearly slipped behind the mountains, and the stadium lights glared brightly. Karen first caught an unusual glint while she patrolled an upper far row of the stadium’s east side. It wasn’t much; almost like a camera’s strobe flash coming from below the different brightness of the stadium lights in the end zone. She blinked twice as she trained her gaze there, and the glint happened again.

One of the Neo-Pub attendees in the upper row was watching Sylvia speak through his field glasses. “Hey, there,” she said to him. “Can I borrow those for a second?”

He held them down and glanced at her. He saw the security badge pinned to her windbreaker snd the ID—faked—in its plastic envelope around her neck. “What? You gonna take these from me? They’re not illegal, ya know.”

She tried easing her expression into a smile. “Just for a second, okay?” He grumbled something and handed her his field glasses. She aimed them toward the glint, and though it was hard to make out through the network of struts and ganglia of wires in the lighting cage, she made out a figure. She adjusted her gaze tighter and saw he was aiming a long gun. “Shit!” she said as she fumbled to bring her headset mic closer to her lips. “Tom! Tom! Are you there? It’s Karen.”

Tom Roeblings’s voice came cracking through the headset. “Yeah, Karen?”

“Tom. I think we’ve got a shooter.”

“Where?”

She raised the field glasses again for a better look. The barrel of the rifle sticking from the cage shifted a little. “Yeah. Up in the lights below that big TV over the north end zone. I don’t know how he coulda gotten up there. What do I do?” She glanced up to the top row above her and saw some sort of lighting control shack with an open front built into the stands. She blinked into the harsh glare of spotlights beaming from it onto the field.

“Shit!” Roebling said. “Stand your ground, Karen, don’t try to get up there. Anyone closer to the north end zone?”

“It’s Dan Harris, Tom. I’m about ten rows down from the top. The lights are right above me.”

“You see anything, Dan?”

“Can’t tell from my angle. I’m going up.”

Karen spied Dan fifty feet away racing toward the upper rows in the end-zone. Both of them were beneath the shooter’s line of vision. She started toward the stairs leading to the top row.

“Hey! Can I have my glasses back, now?”

She knew she’d need them. She glared back at the guy. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re illegal,” she said, and hastened up two stairs at a time.

Dan got to his position and then edged to his left for a side view of the cage. “I’ve got him, Tom,” he whispered into his mic. “I’m maybe twenty feet away. He can’t see me.”

“Can you get up there?”

“There’s a narrow catwalk, I think, and a ladder up to it. It looks a little creaky, like it might make some noise.”

“Can you get a bead on him from where you are?”

“I think so, but it’ll be tight.”

“Guys,” Karen said. “Don’t try that. If you miss, he’ll fire at Sylvia.” She saw the door of the shack, and a technician in it. The spots looked as though they might swivel. “I might have an idea,” she breathed into her mic as she rushed toward the shack’s door.

“What?” Roebling said.

“Leave me alone, Tom,” she quipped back. “Sorry. I’ll get right back to you. Don’t shoot now, Dan. I’ll let you know.”

The lighting tech jolted to a stand from behind his control panel. “What are you doing in here?”

“Security. We need these lights.”

“Why?”

“Never the fuck mind, okay?” she breathed hastily. His look turned suddenly stern as he tried to protect his post. “Sorry, man. We may have a situation here. No time to explain.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he groused as he stood aside.

“No. Stay at your control panel. Can these two end spotlight be turned?”

“Uh yeah. But I’ll have to do it manually.”

“Okay. Do it…please. When I tell you, I’ll need you to quickly aim them at the bottom left of that lighting cluster over there, over the end zone.”

He complied almost too casually as he sipped over to the end lights and pulled out the cotter pins on their stands to free them to swivel.

She brought up the glasses to get a view of the sniper. This time it was much clearer. She pulled her mic closer to her lips. “Dan?” she whispered. “You there?”

“Yeah Karen.”

“You got him in your range?”

“Yeah.”

She trained the glasses on Dan. He was about fifteen feet away from the lighting cage, protected from the shooter’s view. He had his .45 drawn and aimed. “Okay I’m gonna try to distract him. When I do, take your shot.”

“Yeah, Karen. I’ve got him.”

“Dan?”

“I hear you, hon.”

“Don’t call me ‘hon.’ Listen. Are you sure you got a good shot at this guy?” She raised the field glasses and had a good view of the shooter wriggling himself into a what could be his shooting position.

“Yeah. Pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure isn’t good enough. I need to know for solid you’ve got a solid shot at him. You’ll probably get only one. You gotta go for your first shot when I say so.”

“What are you doing, Karen?” Roebling asked.

She looked over at the lighting tech. He had his hands on the levers controlling the swings of both lights. “You ready?”

“Yeah. You want me to shoot these spots over at the end zone housing.”

“Right. You may have to do some adjusting. I’ll tell you.” She raised the glasses again and trained them steady on the sniper.

“Okay…Tom? I’ve got control of some spotlights, and I think we can aim them right at him. Maybe fuck up his concentration. That’s when you take your shot, Dan.” She saw the barrel raise through the housing as the shooter took his lock on Sylvia. “Shit! Pull those lights around hard and fast. NOW!”

He swung the light hard to glare right into where the sniper lay, hopefully right into his eyes. She saw him startle. Another roar rose from the crowd. “NOW, Dan! Take it!” She didn’t hear the report of Dan’s .45, but she saw the long gun tumble from the housing and on to the empty upper row of seats.

“Okay,” Dan said. “Target down.”

“Good work, man,” Roebling said.

“Yeah, pretty fucking amazing. I guess you can call me ‘hon’, now.”

“Thanks, hon.”

She focused the field glasses. The sniper’s arm dangled from the housing. It looked like a clean kill. Then she noticed the upper sleeve of his khaki shirt was wrapped in wide black armband with a diagonal white stripe. It might have been a uniform. “Hey, Tom.”

“Yeah, Karen?”

“Looks like he’s wearing some sorta armband. Black with a white stripe. Does that mean anything to you guys?”

“I have no idea. Wait, something’s coming up out here. I gotta go.”

————————————————————————-

Tom would soon find out what the black armband meant, as four bikers fronting a squad of six men afoot stormed toward the main gate. “What the fuck?” he said, as he saw they were all wearing black armbands on the upper sleeve of their khaki shirts. The armbands were emblazoned around their circumference with one, two, or three diagonal white stripes like designations of rank. The bikers rode in a zig-zag pattern as they up-ended the two kiosks where the crowd had bought their manifestos. The excess books spilled on the pavement as some troopers went to slice open the boxes to empty their contents of books. It had all happened quickly and precisely.

Tom rushed from the van and ran through the crisscrossing motorcycles to one of the troopers with two white stripes on his armband. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? And who the hell are you?”

Some other troopers kicked the stray books into a rough pile and set fire to it.

“I’m Premier Kenton’s security head for this operation.”

“Okay. Fine.” the trooper said blandly. “Nice to fucking meet you. We’re the Real-America Coalition Army.”

“Who? Who the fuck is the Real-America Coalition Army?”

“Make sure you get those books over there, sergeant!” he ordered a one-striper.

The sergeant gathered up a stack of manifestos in his arms and fed the fire. “Godamn it! Who the fuck are you?”

“Excuse me, there, gumshoe,” the two-striper said and brushed past Roebling. Another few troopers emerged from the stadium entrance carrying some bundles of American flags from which the attendees drew as they came in. They threw them on the fire with the books, and the flames raged higher, the fire’s smoke blackening from the dies in the burning cloth of the flags.

————————————————————————-

“Widen out the shot on Sylvia on Camera Two, Greg,” Madelyn said. “That’s a good crowd shot Camera Six.” She stared closer at the Camera Six monitor. “That looks weird. Hey, Six, zoom in on those lights below that end-zone Jumbotron.” Greg gave the instruction and Camera Six zoomed in on a strand of khaki hanging like a limp pennant below the light cage. She squinted at the monitor. “Is that an…?”

“Zoom in closer, Six,” Greg said. There was an undercurrent of reluctance in his tone.

“Shit. That’s an arm! Is that a dead guy in the light cage?”

“Excuse me, Miss Kenton,” came a large voice from behind her.

“Now what fresh hell is this?” she asked as she saw the Coalition Army three-striper fill the tight space behind her.

“We’ll take it from here, ma’m.”

“The fuck you will! This is my trailer, my operation. So please…get the fuck out.”

“No, sorry, Miss Kenton. “He edged his hand toward the .45 in his holster. “It isn’t, anymore. Not today, at least.”

“You do know who I am?”

“Of course I do, and I am under orders from your father to seize this operation.”

She was too stunned to respond, Am I on, yet? It was a familiar voice coming from Monitor Eight. Her father’s face filled the screen. It reminded her of how much she hated that man.. “What the fuck?” she said to the three-striper.

He talked quietly into the mic clipped to his collar. “Take your shot, Brick. Target’s clear.”

Madelyn, mouth agape, looked back at the monitors: Sylvia making her speech on Two; the dead guy’s khaki clad arm on Six, then something long and shiny on the seats below; her father’s face on Eight as he straightened his red tie.

“Brick? Target’s clear. Take the shot! You read, Brick?”

Madelyn glowered at him and pointed harshly to Monitor Six. “This what you’re looking for, Ranger Rick?” She reached for the phone wired to the security trailer.

“Shit!” the three-striper spat.

Madelyn tightened her expression into an ugly scowl. “Looks like your boy dropped his gun.” She spoke into the phone’s handset. “Tom? We’ve got a situation in our trailer….Tom? Are you there?”

The three-striper lifted his side arm from the holster and motioned its barrel toward a corner of the trailer. “Line’s cut. Now, I’m sorry, Ma’m. I’m gonna have to ask you and your crew to step over there. Except you,” he said to Greg.

“We can’t be Americans unless we gather together!” Sylvia’s voice echoed as she spoke into the microphone.

“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Greg told her. “I have to.” He punched up Monitor Eight and spoke into the mic transmitting to the stadium’s Audio Video control room. “Okay, Eight. Let’s go live,” he said