The Second Coming by John Dalmas

“Last evening about dark, it showed five humans start out of the woods, eight miles away, on what appeared to be a compass course for the Cote. He sent out a squad in a whisper craft, and they took a terrain position to intercept. When ordered to stop, the intruders broke for nearby cover. The rangers opened fire, killing three and wounding one. The fifth was captured. I can’t imagine they have a clue to how they’d been found out. The two prisoners have been kept apart, so they can’t compare notes. They’re being, or will be, interrogated by the Bureau, but I haven’t been informed of any results.”

“What about evidence? What did they find?”

“Contraband M-16s, fragmentation and concussion grenades, and shriekers. Each man had a sketch map of the Cote, sketched on aerial photo blowups, with Ngunda’s cottage circled. Their van contained assorted other military contraband, including electronics.”

“I suppose the squad had an advocate along?”

“One jumped with them; I’ve talked to him. He assured me that everything was done by the book.”

“And none of our people were hurt?”

“None. I asked.”

“A success then.”

“A success.”

The President sat frowning. “Then why don’t I feel good about it? This project is my baby, or one of them, and its very first operation has been a success.”

“Maybe because the AT platoon concept—the whole Anti-Terrorism Act—crowds the Bill of Rights pretty hard. Now if you were to declare martial law . . .” He shrugged.

“That again. You know where I stand on that. Martial law is like morphine; it requires larger and larger doses. Use it for anything short of a deadly emergency, and you’re asking for addiction.”

“Agreed.”

“That’s it then?”

“There’s one thing I haven’t gotten to yet. There was a CNN news team at the Cote—they’d just completed a special there—and they heard the gunfire, obviously automatic weapons. They don’t know what the situation was, but they heard the racket. Millennium declined to comment on what it might have been, but carrying honesty to an extreme, they didn’t deny knowing. They only said it wasn’t them. And the army isn’t commenting.

“However, there’s nothing in law to prevent CNN’s reporting the gunfire, and speculating about it.”

The President shook her head in annoyance. God damn Murphy’s law! “Keep informed of the interrogation results,” she said, “and let me know anything interesting.”

* * *

Andy was working on the President’s back before supper, when there was a knock at the massage room door. “Madam President, it’s me. Heinie.”

“Just a minute.” Andy threw a large towel over the president’s bare back—standard procedure—then disappeared out another door. “Okay, c’mon in.”

Her chief of staff entered, closed the door behind him, and came over to the rubdown table. “Ennerby just called. There are developments in the Millennium firefight. The fifth man they got wasn’t with the other four. He hadn’t made that clear to me before. A man had been left at the intruders’ carryall, and a different squad captured him. Now it seems he was actually a sixth man, and there’d been a different one with the four they shot. A man that got away.”

The President frowned. “How the hell did that happen? If the satellite reported five? Did the troops see five out there, or didn’t they?”

“They thought they had. The casualties were scattered somewhat in the tall grass, and at first no one realized they’d only bagged four. When they gathered them up, the lieutenant in charge sent men looking around for a fifth, assuming he’d been hit too, and crawled off. By hindsight, what he should have done was send the chopper back up right away, but he didn’t. He’d called it down right after the shooting, to load prisoners and casualties, and held it on the ground to load the additional casualty he expected his people to find. Which actually was sound thinking, but this time . . .” He shrugged.

The President lay there trying to keep the story elements straight in her mind.

“When they didn’t find anyone,” Heinie continued, “he sent it up wounded and all, to hunt for him. And radioed the larger copter, the one with the backup squad, calling it in. Earlier he’d had it backtrack the intruders and see if it could find the vehicle they’d come in. For evidence. It backtracked them to the forest and a truck trail, spotted their carryall through gaps in the trees, and put its men down. No one was there; there had been, but he’d heard the chopper and run. Walked, actually; he’s got a bad leg, presumably from some old mercenary contract.

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