The day they ran Old Glory down was the swearing in of President Chambers, but the man hardly spoke. The one who did was Che Guevara, the provocative communist firebrand that led revolutions in Cuba, Bolivia, Angola, Venezuela and the Philippines. It was the day the idealists dreamed of; "Companeros!" thundered the man whose face adorned so many shirts, "today the revolution is victorious!" The TV was turned up for the small crowd in the bar, men huddled over drinks at tables, discussing things somberly, a pall cast over the room preventing any real rowdiness.

Who could argue with a man saying that on the White House lawn, addressing the honor guards of so many Coalition partners? The GDR had troops there, so did the other satellite nations, the Egyptians and the Syrians, the Angolans, the Vietnamese and the Chinese, the Mexicans...the White House didn't need to burn the way it did in 1812, that would have been redundant.

Daniel watched this with his father, Arthur, and another man, Manny Diaz, a man that Arthur Douglas knew from the college days together; their career paths diverged and came around full circle. Manuel came out as a top man for the directorate of Operations in the CIA and Arthur Douglas as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee and then as Secretary of State when the Battle of Basra happened. He retired after negotiating America's most odious peace treaty ever, falling on his sword and then returning back to Burlington, Vermont for a quiet retirement, though he was active when his eldest, Philip, needed it as he made his way up the ranks in Vermont state politics.

But it was Danny, the quiet younger one, the black sheep, that sat there with his father, plotting insurgency with a retired CIA guy. Philip was inclined to cooperate, he had little taste for adversity and little of his father's fiber.

"You're prominent Arthur, and you are a man they will rally around, you fought in Vietnam, you are a damn good speaker and the Canadians are amenable, especially if an insurgency here keeps the Warsaw Pact too busy to consider a two for one deal." 

And, essentially, much of the military gear of the U.S. was already shipped up, what wasn't down in the Army of Appalachia, a formation carved out of airborne, infantry and special operations units based out of Benning, Bragg, Campbell and the Marines out of Camp Lejeune. These bases provided homes for many of America’s most best infantry units, but they’d been gutted by years of bad morale and a series of bad wars in small places, fighting insurgencies and losing, America's will to fight sapped. Even so, in the Appalachian trail, there was a chance to return the favor, fighting in terrain that made the Soviets pay; these units had a lot of firepower, and the Soviets couldn't move their armor in. It was infantry to infantry, and most Soviet infantry was conscripted, not strongly motivated. The American forces there had the equipment to fend off armor and aircraft, but were essentially fighting a holding action that kept the Soviets out of the Midwest.

Planes, helicopters and anything fast enough to drive but not able to reach America's last stand was already being freighted across the border into the Midwest for what remained of the US government. Other equipment, in the Northeast and Northwest, was being freighted into Canada and what couldn't reach either was being cached; Manny's work, because he'd been part of the planning committee that worked up the procedure for this-- morbid thought back then, but there they were, two old men smoking and all three of them enjoying some of the last single malt scotch they'd probably ever see in their lives, facing a scenario the ever-optimistic American psyche deemed impossible. Nuclear weapons remained, enough to maim the Soviets, but not enough to win so MAD prevailed, because the Soviets feared the nuclear missile submarines that managed to slip out into the Atlantic, and anticipated difficulties supplying by ship, because some of the subs that got out were the quietest attack and missile subs. They were more cautious, trying to wear down the remnants of the US.

"You need to go, Arthur, you are more useful up there than down here on the wrong side of the border,” Manuel told him.

"It feels like running. I was a marine, damnit," the senator groused.

"You're old Arthur, so am I," Manny, an old college friend told him bluntly, "my prostate is too big and my lung capacity is too small."

"I'm staying," Danny spoke up, and that made Manuel jump almost-- it was easy to lose the younger Douglas in an empty bar like this; slightly receding hair, pleasantly tanned features. Spare frame, though he still had powerful shoulders and arms. Calm, hard eyes. It'd been twenty years since that drunken accident at Dartmouth, and Manuel was still not sure how Danny and his parents reconciled, and yet there he was. 

Two years ago, he’d come back, taken up with a recently-divorced doctor that liked to do disaster relief work while attending classes at University of Vermont. But he was a mystery, and not one, unlike as a blustery, slightly husky rugby playing college kid that Manuel knew before, to draw attention to himself. He wore a long-sleeved chambray shirt and khaki pants, a knotted leather belt. He was dressed down, whereas the other brother was a man that liked to dress up – always in a tie. Daniel didn’t smile much, he just watched. It was a contrast from his fast-smooth talking older sibling.

Philip, well that was a known quantity-- even parental love didn't compel the father to confide in the younger son, the one that made all the smart decisions. "I'm joining the Green Mountain Boys. One of us has to fight, just like against the Brits, pa."

It was an old family with traditions, doughty Scots stock that many opponents failed to grind down, through history. 

"Are you sure, son?" The elder Douglas seemed to accept this as a matter of fact; it was part of that strange history that Daniel had to him, that whiff of mystery. In earlier years, Manuel had been part of the informal effort to locate the lad, but the trail went cold in Europe. The rugby playing boy with the alcohol fueled accident, the scandal that finished his father’s presidential ambitions, went in, a different man came out.

"Vive la morte, vive la guerre, vive le sacre mercenaire!" He quipped as he dashed back the scotch. 

"So transportation for myself, my wife..."

"And Claudine," Danny added, as he poured another, decision made, eyes clouded in thought. He looked older there, contemplating the future, "doctors are needed over the border, if guerrillas can reach safe haven. That is the idea, isn’t it?" he directed at Manuel.

Revelations; Danny Douglas knew more than he let on, Manuel realized.

---

The stretch of highway bisected the hills of Vermont, and those hills were heavily wooded. There were men and women in the hills, watching down, holding their breath, trembling and sweating in the mild heat of a Vermont spring. 

Vermont was a heavily armed state, incongruous with its rather socialist policies in a sense, whose culture relished hunting and had a strong New England style streak of libertarianism. There was a history here of resistance to the British, and that tradition informed the Green Mountain Militia. Some of the people showed up armed to the teeth, survivalists in all sorts of tactical gear and their weapons festooned with accessories. They were often loud and somewhat abrasive, loving their day in the sun. Some were cops, the ones that weren’t going to sit still for a Soviet invasion. Others were just folks with an array of different weapons one might find in a home. Bolt action hunting rifles, shotguns, handguns. It was not terribly well organized, yet, but there were people there. And there was a command structure – Special Forces types from Fort Devens, the quiet professionals of the 10th Special Forces Group, who spoke Russian, Polish, German and a variety of other languages of their opponents, trained to organize, train and lead guerrillas behind enemy lines or to advise friendly militaries on how to fight insurgencies. 

They were the ones that kept the fighters in line, steadied the lines down, planned the ambush, seeded the road with command-detonated mines and waited for the expected convoy. Not every sympathizer was out here, just about a hundred or so men and women.

Danny had a rifle, a sporterized Lee-Enfield with a scope, and a quick conversation with the Sergeant in charge of his platoon, a squat African-American named Holmes, ended with a couple of nods and a handshake as he moved to set himself up, near a young woman, cool as a cucumber and all business. His clothing wasn’t overly military, but rather the sort of thing a hunter might wear, sans an orange vest. It blended well enough and was durable, made for long periods in the outdoors.

It was a tense, quiet wait; Danny held the rifle like he knew what to do with it, in a sitting position with an elbow on a knee to help brace the rifle, the sling wrapped tight around his forearm, which had tattoos of flames and skulls, a real punk rock sleeve of sorts. 

Then the explosion happened; lead vehicle taken out. The rear went up a moment later, a LAW fired by a Green Beret, creating roadblocks on both sides of the convoy.

Breath, squeeze. The finger took the trigger all the way back to the reset, no hesitation but no haste. That wasn’t entirely unusual here – lots of Vermont guys were damned good shots, primarily during deer season. It was one shot among a fusillade of fire, some of it aimed but much of it fired out of nerves. Even a good shot wasn’t necessarily going to adapt to combat.

He put the round center mass in an East German Volkspolizei officer, coolly identifying the man by his soft cap, carbine and the way he was shouting his last order…