Chapter 4C

Hathaway's prediction of two days turned out to be an accurate one. The Denver federal grand jury, which consisted of seven women and five men, were horrified at the crimes that Laura Whiting, current governor of Mars, was accused of participating in. The evidence that they were presented, coupled with the extensive media coverage of the events that all had been following of late, prompted them to issue a six-page indictment against her on six distinct federal charges, all of which carried lengthy prison sentences if the accused was found guilty.

The two prosecuting attorneys who had presented the case thanked the grand jury for their time and then dismissed them, reminding all that they had agreed to serve for a year and could be called up again. The twelve members left the federal courthouse and went about their business, all of them proud to have served and eagerly awaiting their next assignment, blissfully unaware that the justice system had no intention of ever using them again. They had served their purpose.

The text of their indictment was on Hathaway's terminal before the first of the jury members were even able to board a commuter train for their homes. She quickly read it over and then sent it on to Clinton's office via a secure landline. Clinton read it over ten minutes later and then composed a voice mail giving instructions for Hayes.

"Take her into custody tomorrow morning," he told his subordinate. "Take enough teams with you to insure that she will not be liberated from you by her security forces or pissed off greenie civilians. The most important thing to remember is that she be taken alive and unharmed. I don't want a single hair on her head to be damaged, nor a single piece of her clothing rumpled. If she were to be hurt or killed during the arrest we would have hell to pay among those Martians. She is not to become a martyr, do you understand?"

When he finished the voice mail he attached a certified copy of the arrest indictment to it and then told the computer to send it on the secure channel to the FLEB headquarters in New Pittsburgh. The documents and his mail were digitized, encrypted, and then sent through the WestHem Internet system to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the coast of Brazil. Since the main communications computer knew that direct communication with the planet Mars was now impossible thanks to the sun being directly in the path, the signal was sent across the solar system to another communications satellite in orbit around Ganymede. It took forty-eight minutes for it to arrive there at which point it was re-routed and sent to another satellite in orbit around Mars. This leg of the trip only took eighteen minutes. And so, one hour and six minutes after being sent, the message and the indictment arrived at the terminal of Corban Hayes.

Hayes watched the email message and then looked over the indictment very carefully. He had a very bad feeling about what he was being asked to do but nevertheless he began to make the arrangements to carry it out. He called Mitchell and several other of his top agents into his office and told them the news. All of them were delighted that the greenie bitch was finally going to go down. They went over the basic plan to take her into custody the next morning.

"We need to make sure that we tip the big three first thing in the morning so they'll have cameras and reporters there to watch us taking her away," Hayes told them. "However, if we tip them too early, they'll start asking questions before we want them too. Those media people are helpful but they're also very annoying at times. So, until tomorrow, nobody says a word to anyone about the indictment. This is top secret stuff, okay?"

Everyone agreed to keep it under their hats for the time being. They were dismissed so they could start drawing up their plans and of course the secret leaked within ten minutes to some of the civilian staff. An agent named Skeller, who was trying to penetrate the pants of a young secretary named Darla, was the first to spill the beans. Darla asked him in her flirtatious way just what the big meeting had been all about. Since Darla was an Earthling and very loyal to the FLEB, he didn't see any harm in telling her. "We have an indictment for Whiting," he whispered in her ear. "We're gonna take her into custody tomorrow morning and send her back to Earth for trial."

Darla quickly told another Earthling secretary the good news and that secretary quickly told another. It wasn't very long until the word reached the ears of a Martian receptionist down in the front lobby of the building.

Lisa Vaughn was a fourth generation Martian who worked in the FLEB office because it was the only job that she had ever been able to get and the only thing that kept her from vermin status. She hated Earthlings, particularly the federal variety that were her bosses, but she endured this miserable employment in order to keep her child from growing up in the ghetto. Her ex-husband, the man who had fathered her one legally allowed child, was already vermin, having lost his job in a merger of two computer software companies two years before, so he was of no help to her. If she had had any other prospect of employment over the years, she would have gladly taken it. But, since jobs were few and far between she had stayed on and, some months before, a man from the MPG intelligence division had recruited her to report to him various information about the daily operations of the agency. She was, in short, a Martian spy. She received no money or anything else in exchange for the information she passed on. She did it only out of sheer loyalty to her heritage and out of sheer hatred of the Earthlings that worked in this building; Earthlings that treated her as a piece of furniture at best and with open hostility at worst. How many times had agents or civilian staff come into the building and called her a greenie to her face? How many times had they excluded her from their gossip circles, from their after work parties or gatherings? How many times had she heard them mocking her Martian accent as they talked about her? It had not taken terribly much for the handsome MPG lieutenant to convince her to pass a few things on to him.

It was as she was in the lobby level staff restroom that she first heard about the indictment of Laura Whiting and the plan to take her into custody the next morning. Lisa had been in one of the toilet stalls, relieving her bladder of the coffee she had consumed when two female secretaries for the piracy section of the office had entered to re-apply their make-up after their lunch break. For more than five minutes she sat there silently, listening to them flippantly discuss how "that greenie bitch" Whiting was finally going to get what was coming to her.

"I told you she was involved in all of the terrorism going on in this place," one said to the other.

"I never had any doubt about it," the other responded. "So they're going to take her tomorrow morning?"

"First thing," she agreed. "At least that's what I heard from..."

Soon the two women finished their work and left the room. Lisa waited another three minutes before getting up and returning to her desk. She had been briefed to keep her ears out for just such talk and to report it as quickly as possible. Of course she could not use the main terminal on her desk to make the notification. That would be madness even though the message would seem innocent on the surface. Instead she unclipped her PC from her waist and flipped open the small screen.

"Call Gina Hawkins," she told it, referring to one of the names in her address files. To anyone overhearing her or homing in on her conversation with electronic devices, it would seem she was doing nothing more than conducting a personal call during business hours, something that was against the rules but fairly commonplace. No one would know that she had no friend named Gina Hawkins or that the number she was using to get hold of her was actually a relay station for MPG intelligence.

A pleasant faced female appeared on her screen a moment later. "Hi, this is Gina," she said in a thick Martian accent. "I'm not able to answer your call at the moment. Please leave your name and number and I'll get right back to you."

"Hi, Gina," she said into it lightly. "This is Lisa Vaughn. I just wanted to see if you were interested in going out to O'Riley's tonight after work. Give me a call back if it sounds good. If not, maybe I can stop by your apartment tomorrow morning on the way to work. I have to pick up that blouse I let you borrow. See ya."

With that, she clicked off and put her PC back on her waist. She returned to her duties. At the relay station the computer terminal that took her call identified the code phrase — "Hi Gina, this is Lisa Vaughn" - and automatically sent a copy of the message through several other relay stations. Two minutes later it arrived at the desk of Major Tim Sprinkle, head of MPG intelligence. He took one look at Lisa's message and knew, just by the words it was composed of that an indictment for Laura Whiting had been received at the FLEB office and that agents were going to attempt to pick her up the next morning. Within seconds he was on the terminal to General Jackson.

Laura knew that push had come to shove when Jackson entered her office an hour later. She could tell just by looking at his face. "The indictment?" she asked him, half-fearing it, half welcoming it.

"It was issued by the grand jury earlier today in Denver," he confirmed. "I have some sources on Earth that were able to confirm this for me. Six counts, all of them high federal felonies. Just like you predicted."

She offered a weak smile, feeling her stomach knotting up. "It's not that hard to put yourself into the corporate mindset," she said. "I left them with no other option short of actually negotiating our independence. And we know they would never do that. An indictment and a quick removal probably seems like a brilliant solution to them."

"It's brilliant all right," he said. "They'll be giving us the final catalyst that we need tomorrow morning."

"That's when they're coming to get me?" she asked, impressed as always with the quality of Jackson's information.

"We have a source inside the FLEB building," he told her, nodding. "We got a message from her not too long ago. She confirms that the indictment has been received and tells us that they're planning to take you tomorrow morning."

"Does she know how many agents? How many guns?" Laura asked.

"We don't know at this time," he said. "All we have at the moment from her is a code phrase telling us that it's going down. One of our intelligence teams will meet with her tonight to try for a better debrief. In the meantime, it's time we initiated the first stage of operation Red Grab. The first elements need to get rolling as soon as possible if they're going to be in position in time."

"The special forces soldiers," she said. It was not a question. She knew almost as much about the details of operation Red Grab as Jackson himself.

"Right, I need you to give me a governor's order activating them. I'll put the call out and get them on the transports to Triad. When the time comes, they'll be ready to move."

"Will they do it?" she asked pointedly. "We'll be asking them to commit treason and murder. Have things gone far enough so that they'll do it?"

"Time will tell," Jackson told her. "I think that they probably will but we won't know until we ask them."

"If they can't complete their portion of Red Grab," she told him, "then we might as well just surrender tomorrow."

"I know," he said. "Believe me, I know."

"But remember my conditions," she warned.

"Everyone is a volunteer for this," he recited. "All of the soldiers will be briefed on what the mission is and what the stakes are. They will all be given the opportunity to back out without recourse if they wish. No trickery or lies will be employed to get them to complete their portion of the mission."

"Right," she said. "I know it probably makes things harder for you, Kevin, but no matter how this turns out in the end, I don't want to go down in history as being the woman that tricked people into fighting for her cause. If they're not willing to fight for our freedom, then I guess it's not worth having, is it?"

"That's the truth, Laura," he said. "And I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Good."

"But from this point on, you don't leave this building until its over," he said. "The capital is now your home. I don't want to take the chance that our information is wrong. If they grab you at your apartment tonight then everything will collapse."

She did not particularly like the idea of remaining in the capital for another two days or so but she understood Jackson's reasons. "I'll stay here," she said. "I'll order in a pizza tonight."

"Good," he said. "And I'll brief your security platoon in that its time to act. When the FLEB comes to take you, they'll be ready."

Lon Fargo was behind the wheel of his maintenance truck, his partner Brent by his side. They were on their way to one of the soybean greenhouses to fix a broken fan unit on the environmental supply system. As always they were passing through other greenhouses in order to get to the one they were after, driving their lift truck along the maintenance roads along the walls. This greenhouse was one that grew rice, one of the staples of the Agricorp productivity. Stretching off to the far wall were acres and acres of neatly engineered rice paddies, all of them green and glimmering with an approaching harvest. Brent, who was smoking a cigarette on the passenger seat, was bitching about the loss of a week's pay that the general strike had imposed upon him.

"I'm telling you, man," he whined, "I don't know what I'm gonna do if we have to go through another two weeks of that shit. I mean, as it is I was barely able to make my rent payment and still pay for enough groceries to get us through until next time."

"Maybe if you cut down on the buds you smoke you'll be able to absorb it better," suggested Lon, who had also felt the sting of losing half his pay for the pay period but who was proud to endure it.

"Heretic!" Brent accused. "What kind of man are you? Cut down on my buds? That's uncivilized!"

"These are trying times," Lon said, rolling down his window to ventilate the smoke from his partner's cigarette. "Just be sure to follow through the next time Whiting asks us to strike. The only way we're gonna beat those fucks is to hit them in the wallet."

"Shit, I know that," Brent said defensively. "I wasn't saying I was gonna cross the line or anything. I'm just saying that it's a bitch going without a week's pay. It'll be a bigger bitch to go without two weeks."

"No matter how much of a bitch it is to you, it's five times as much of a bitch to them. Remember, nothing moves, nothing happens, no money gets made when we strike. That hurts 'em bad."

"Yeah yeah," Brent said, taking an especially long drag. "I just wish they'd give us a little more time to recover before the next strike comes."

Lon was about to answer him — something to the effect of how his recovery time was also their recovery time — when his PC began to buzz on his belt, indicating an incoming communication. He unclipped it and opened up the screen, which was showing the communications software and the incoming call information. He expected to see that Barb, the girl that he had been seeing over the past week, was calling to chat with him. Had that been the case he intended to send the communication to his mail system. Barb was becoming too clingy lately and he had no desire to talk with her just now. Instead of Barb's number however, he saw that it was the MPG headquarters communication system. "What the hell?" he muttered.

"Who is it?" Brent asked. "Is it that crotch you been slamming?"

"No," he said.

"Too bad," Brent offered, grinning lasciviously. "She's a pretty tasty looking piece."

"Answer," Lon told his computer, ignoring his partner.

The screen changed showing the face of Major Mike Queen, commanding officer of the Eden special forces battalion. It was not a live shot, but rather a pre-recorded message. "All special forces members," his image said. "We have a special training exercise today beginning as soon as everyone can be assembled. Report immediately to your duty station. This is an official call up. It is very important that all members attend this session. All employers are expected to honor time-off requests. I repeat..." He repeated.

"A call up?" Brent, who had been listening in, asked. "What kind of shit is that? They're calling you up for training?"

"They've done it a couple of times in the past," he said, puzzled. "Although usually its for a multi-company drill on the weekend. I don't ever remember them doing it on a weekday before."

"You can't just leave work," Brent said.

"I have to," he said. "I can't refuse a call-up. That's part of the MPG code."

"What's Pittman gonna say about that?" Brent asked, referring to their supervisor.

"I guess he can take it up with Governor Whiting if he doesn't like it," he told him, stopping the truck and starting the process of turning it around. "She's the one that put in the constitutional amendment about release from work duties."

Pittman, one of the lowest level managers in the entire Agricorp chain of command, certainly did not like it a bit that one of his people was skipping off for MPG training in the middle of the day. Though Pittman was a Martian by birth, he had been one of the one percent that had not participated in the general strike, apparently feeling that his bosses higher up the ladder would respect him for this and not eliminate his position when the cuts finally came. Whether or not that was the case still remained to be seen, since Agricorp was still waiting for things to settle down before proceeding with their eliminations. One thing that had resulted from his lack of participation however, was that he was now universally despised by all those he supervised instead of being merely disliked, which had been the case before the strike.

"You can't just leave in the middle of the goddamn day because the freakin' MPG is holding some sort of training session," he said from behind his cheap metal desk in the dispatch office. "Get your ass back out there and finish your assignment."

"Sorry, Pitt," Lon told him, shaking his head without a trace of regret. "This is an official call-up. I'm not allowed to disregard it and you're not allowed to discipline me for responding to it. It's the law."

"I don't think the law applies to training," he replied. "It's meant for an invasion of the planet by EastHem."

"The constitution doesn't say that," Lon told him. "All it says is that you are expected to honor an official call-up of forces. I've been given an official call-up and I'm leaving. I won't let the door slide shut on me on the way out."

"Fargo, I'm warning you," he said sternly. "You are not to leave early for this. If you do, don't bother coming back."

Lon was not impressed with his words. "You don't have the authority to fire me, Pitt," he told him. "Don't even pretend that you do. You're just a greenie like me, although apparently you forgot that back during the strike. All you can do is compose a disciplinary notice for me and recommend that I get fired but middle management is the one who makes that decision and I hardly think that they'll go up against a constitutional issue for something as petty as this. So find someone else to fix that fan unit and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye now."

He walked through the door, letting it slide shut behind him. Pittman was too astonished and too angry to even make a parting reply. Instead he started yelling at Brent, who had been hiding a chuckle the entire time.

Lon, knowing that he had a spare uniform in his locker at the MPG base, didn't even bother going home first. He left the Agricorp maintenance building and made his way to the nearest commuter train station. He walked up the stairway and, coming to the gates that guarded access to the platform, used a fund transfer port in the back of his PC to transfer the cost of the fare to the MarsTrans bank account. The gate then slid open, allowing him access.

A train arrived six minutes later, only four minutes behind schedule, and he climbed aboard, finding a seat near the back among a few elderly Martians and a few gang member types that were probably delivering dust chemicals back to the ghetto. The commuter trains ran atop the street level roof and the train itself, which rode on a magnetic track, cruised along at 45 kilometers per hour, jerking to a halt every few minutes and then, after passengers embarked or disembarked, powered up again for the next leg. Buildings flashed past and turns were negotiated at high speed. None of the motion being produced was felt by Lon or any of the other passengers thanks to the inertial damping system. If you closed your eyes it felt as if you were standing still. When they reached a hub station ten minutes later Lon disembarked that train and waited another ten minutes for another one. When it arrived he climbed aboard and rode it to the station nearest the MPG base.

Since it had taken him quite a while to come in from the greenhouse he'd been traveling through, Lon was the last of his squad to arrive. The rest of his team were gathered in the platoon's briefing room, all of them looking a little confused and gossiping among themselves as to what the meaning of the call-up was and what form the "special training" would take. Lieutenant Yee, whose presence on the base had been confirmed by other members, was conspicuously absent at the moment, probably in an officer's briefing.

Lon was of course inundated with questions from his men and from the other sergeants in the room, as if he were in possession of some information that they didn't have. "I don't know," he told them all. "I've never heard of them calling us up for special training on a weekday before. Nobody told me shit."

They waited. A few more stragglers from the platoon came into the room and starting the entire round of questioning and speculation over again. All forty men did show up however, many with tales of unhappy supervisors or managers.

Finally Lieutenant Yee arrived. Since the MPG was light on military formality, no one stood up or saluted him but they did all quiet down respectfully to await his orders.

"Okay, people," Yee said slowly, "here's the deal. I just received a briefing from Captain Armand and he wanted me to tell you all that we are not really here for a training mission. That was just a ruse to keep WestHem authorities from taking alarm at our call up. The real reason we have been called up is because of possible action up on Triad. I was not told much more than that. All I know is that it is not just the Eden area company, it is the entire battalion. All of us our going to be moved as quickly as possible up to Triad for a possible active service in defense of Mars."