Chapter 10: Fifth Column

Governor’s Conference Room, Martian Capitol Building

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Saturday, December 12, 2150

Harold Mitsuki was curious about what was going on and why he was in the Governor’s office. Mitsuki was the managing director of MarsGroup and as such had met all the people in the room before. Somehow this meeting seemed to be more than a usual meet-and-greet.

“Thank you for coming, Harry. It’s appreciated,” said Governor Tesla.

“Somehow I don’t think this is about you running for reelection, Mike,” responded Mitsuki.

“Not hardly. Please have a seat.” Tesla pointed to the seat next to him.

Mitsuki sat in the chair indicated and asked, “What’s going on?”

Tesla didn’t respond. Instead, he sat down and motioned for the others to sit. Once everybody was seated, he said, “Computer, record. This is a Classified discussion. Invoke clause Seventeen-A-Nine.”

A metallic voice came from the desktop speaker. “ Clause Seventeen-A-Nine invoked. Participants, please state name and title and place derm on pad. Confirmation is required.”

“Michael Tesla, Governor, Mars. Confirmed.” Tesla touched his computer and a green light lit on his screen.

“Legislator Hanna Humdinger, Speaker, Martian Legislature. Confirmed.”

“Senator Juan Bartholomew, Speaker, Martian Senate. Confirmed.”

“Marcus Slackass, Directory of Planetary Intelligence. Confirmed.”

The Governor looked at the manager of MarsGroup. “Your turn, Harry.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” said Mitsuki.

It was the DPI who answered. “Seventeen-A-Nine is a clause of the Martian Constitution and allows for planetary security-related discussions to be maintained as confidential. This meeting needs to be kept extremely confidential. Lives are at stake.”

“What?”

Tesla sighed and said, “We can’t tell you jack shit until you agree to this classified conversation. Now, just state your name and lay some derm, Harry. Please!”

“This better be good. Harold Mitsuki, Managing Director, MarsGroup News. Confirmed.” Mitsuki touched his computer.

The final green light flashed. “ Clause Nineteen-A-Seven is invoked. Conversation is being recorded under Planetary Security restriction Alpha. Planetary Warrant required to break security. Continue.”

Mitsuki said, “What the fuck is going on, Mike? What is this Planetary Security restriction crap?”

Again, it was Slackass who responded. “Harry, we have a Planetary Security threat and want MarsGroup’s assistance.”

“You want us to bury something? That is a direct violation of the Martian Constitution! You want me to recite it to you?” protested the director.

He was surprised by the smiles around the table. Slackass answered, “That is not precisely what we have in mind. No, not at all.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Over the last several months, WestHem Intelligence has been running a program aimed at turning the Marines and Navy people they abandoned here on Mars into terrorists. It has to be the ugliest thing I have ever seen, and they have had some success. We need MarsGroup’s help to try and stop their program.”

“What is this program?” asked Mitsuki. “And what does MarsGroup News have to do with it?”

“We aren’t really sure why, or what their desired outcome is, but here it goes. WestHem abandoned roughly one-hundred thousand Marines and sailors here since the Revolution. That breaks down to about thirty-five thousand captured during the Revolution, another forty-one thousand captured after Martian Hammer, and twenty-five thousand following Martian Justice. I am sure you know these rough numbers already. In every case, WestHem has refused their return and has claimed that Martian death and torture squads have killed them. I am sure you know this.”

“Yes, I do. We’ve even done interviews with some of the Marines and sailors. And now WestHem is trying to turn these guys into terrorists?” asked Mitsuki.

“The general idea is that they find one of the abandoned Marines and make a digital contact. They tell the Marine that they have arrested their family members and then show them a vid of them being beaten and tortured. Then they tell the Marine that he needs to obtain weapons and begin attacking Martian people or assets or their family members will be killed,” explained Slackass.

“This is insane, Marcus.”

“Computer, open file Two-Seven-Four-Tee-For-Terrorism.”

Speaker Humdinger turned away from the monitor on the wall. “Oh, God, I can’t watch this again!”

Tesla reached over and squeezed her hand. “Nobody should have to.”

Slackass said, “As background, of the Marines the MPG captured, there are two Eric C. Callahans. One was a captain captured during Martian Hammer, Eric Crosswell Callahan. He’s been here four-and-a-half years, has adapted well, no issues. Also, no family back on Earth. The second used to be a sergeant, Eric Charles Callahan, captured after Martian Justice. The second Eric Callahan has, or had, a mother and father back in WestHem. We have no idea how they found these two men, but they have them confused. The first Callahan received a thumb drive with the following files on it.” He turned to the speaker and said, “Computer, play first file.”

Mitsuki looked at the monitor and listened to Eric Callahan being told to pause and then watch the next file. As the second file played, he looked over at Humdinger and saw her turn white. Then the first file resumed, and he listened as Callahan was ordered to create a terrorist action cell. “Jesus!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, we’re not done yet. By the time we figured out that WestHem had gotten the two Eric C. Callahans confused, time had run out. They must have decided he wasn’t cooperating. Computer, play third file.”

If the vid of the parents being arrested, strip-searched and beaten wasn’t bad enough, the voiceover began describing what would happen next. The vid showed the Callahans still naked and bruised, being cuffed behind their backs and getting thrown in the back of a black van. Then the van was driven into what was obviously a very rough ghetto area. They were pulled from the van and crude signs were hung around their necks. ‘ RAPE ME TO DEATH!’

“You can stop it, Marcus. I don’t need to see the rest,” said Mitsuki.

“Oh, but I think you need to see some of it.” They watched the vid for a few minutes more before Slackass ordered, “Computer, close file.” To the broadcaster he said, “Both Callahans, father and mother, were raped and killed. It took a long time, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“That’s the sickest thing I have ever seen, and I was broadcasting from the ghettos here long before the Revolution,” said Mitsuki. “What is it you want me to do about this? Not broadcast it?”

“Not precisely. Besides, you don’t have the files and you don’t have proof. No, we have another idea,” said Tesla.

Mitsuki looked at Humdinger and Bartholomew. “And you two signed off on this?”

Humdinger simply nodded. She was still shaken by the vid. Bartholomew said, “Yes.”

“So?” asked Mitsuki.

“We want MarsGroup to issue fake reports to WestHem about the atrocities that Marine terrorists are committing here on Mars,” said the Governor.

“MarsGroup will not be making false broadcasts for anybody! No way, no how! I’ll see you at the Supreme Court first!” Mitsuki loudly protested.

Both Tesla and Slackass grinned at him. “You aren’t listening, Harry. We didn’t say you needed to issue false reports here on Mars. We want you to issue them in the news feed that goes out to Earth,” said Slackass.

Harold Mitsuki’s mouth flapped a couple of times before he was able to respond. “You don’t want me to lie to Mars, but to WestHem?”

“And EastHem, too, but we really don’t care about them,” said Tesla.

Slackass added, “Think about it. What if we had been able to report to WestHem on official MarsGroup News that Sergeant Callahan had been arrested committing sedition and treason. Maybe that keeps some parents alive. Maybe that keeps some Marines from committing crimes here on Mars.”

“Christ!” He looked at the monitor, showing the final picture from the vid, of Callahan’s mother’s dead body. He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Okay, I’ll lie to WestHem. I won’t lie here, but I’ll lie to them.”

“That’s all we’re asking,” said Bartholomew.

Mitsuki shook his head. “What kind of monsters would do this?”

“Harry, I don’t have any answers for you.”

Troop Club, Hialeah Sector

Procter City, Mars

Sunday, December 13, 2150

Charlie Haskell had always wanted to own a bar. He spent over twenty years in the WestHem Marines, rising from raw recruit to a battalion-level command sergeant major. He had loved the Marines, but on his first leave after graduation and assignment to a training company in Havana his squad went to the local Troop Club. It was everything he had ever thought an army bar could be. He got his first hangover after a night at a Troop Club, spent his first night in the stockade after the MPs broke up a fight in a Troop Club, and even lost his cherry to a waitress he met in a Troop Club. His first wedding was in a Troop Club, and he celebrated his first divorce in a Troop Club, which was where he met his second wife.

Along the way, Charlie Haskell saw service in Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina again. His time in the Marines ended when WestHem retreated from the Procter approaches at the end of Phase I of Martian Hammer. Command Sergeant Major Haskell’s armored personnel carrier was hit by a Martian 80mm shell. It was a glancing blow, which was the reason he survived, unlike half the headquarters squad he was leading. Instead, he was knocked unconscious, and his back was broken; unable to be rescued, he was abandoned to be retrieved by the MPG. His third wife was told he died in action.

When Haskell woke up, he was in an intensive care ward in Procter General Hospital stretched out in full body traction. He could only turn his head from side to side. The first person he saw was a very pretty young nurse. “Welcome back to the world of the living, Sergeant Haskell.”

“That’s Command Sergeant Major Haskell, miss.”

“Whatever. How do you feel, Mister Haskell?”

“What rank are you, nurse?” he demanded. What kind of nonsensensical behavior did the asshole Greenies allow? The nurse looked young, in her early-twenties, and was blonde and blue-eyed and pleasantly curvy; her parents must have been pure midwestern America to have coloring that clean.

She stared at him for a moment and then started laughing. “Nurse, First Class, and as far as you’re concerned, I am your new commanding officer! You’re not even in the Marines anymore, so if you give me any shit, I’ll give it right back.”

“Well, nurse, I am Command Sergeant Major Charles P. Haskell, Headquarters Company, One-Forty-Seventh Armored Cavalry Battalion, and nobody gives me shit.”

She smiled and shook her head. “You were. Now you’re just a patient. The Marines have reported that you were killed in action. I know the MPG reported your name, rank, and identification to the Swiss, but ICS said you had been sent to a Greenie torture chamber and killed. I guess that makes you a civilian now.”