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…

The idea here was to capture supplies -- East German Volkspolizei actually had fairly decent armament as a result of the deals with the West Germans that kept the East German state going with trade deals that essentially made Germany a client of the Warsaw Pact, but free to run itself internally. Most of the European nations had made a deal to stay out of it and let the big boys duke it out, particularly after the Battle of Basra.

There was maybe a platoon of German troops and they were quickly overrun, not expecting the sudden resistance in a quiet sector -- for about a month after the invasion, Vermont had been the quietest of sectors, though people melted into the hills and were kept on a leash as they joined the Green Mountain Boys by the US Army types running that show.

The idea was to end it quickly, and if it couldn't be ended quickly, fall back. But if things went well, the guerrillas had the chance to grab equipment off the dead and loot the trucks. It was a small convoy, six or so trucks, but these trucks were laden down with useful items -- consumables and fuel for the Germans.

So as soon as the gunfire died down, they had orders -- strip the bodies, grab the supplies that could be carried and, most importantly, blow the rest. The whole thing had gone off, except for the bright yellow cab nearby the trucks; no one had shot at it, but that didn't mean things hadn't gone badly for them. He noted it out of the corner of his eye once he was done stripping a body of useful, military, equipment.

Daniel still had the Enfield, with its handful of rounds that he'd spent very sparingly, but acquired a German kalashnikov and some of the man's web gear and backpack. He'd sort through the loot later, as he mostly pulled off the man's equipment, bloodstains and all, and headed for orders. "Check up on that cab, we can't leave civvies out here when the Soviets come looking."

Dan gave a nod and moved over toward the cab, the rifle held carefully with his finger off the trigger. He waved at the vehicle from an unthreatening distance before closing, "Good morning, folks, I think you're on the wrong highway. You might want to clear out if you can."

He knew he probably had to look like a sight, a guy dressed for deer season in Vermont festooned with magazines and pouches and grenades taken off a freshly-shot East German Vopo, field kit that was probably not as good quality as the stuff the survivalist and army guys had, but would still be useful in the long haul. He was in it until it ended, no doubt about that, and he'd known that when he parted with his parents and Claudette.

Don't think about that, Danny.

The driver, no other words necessary, tried to start the vehicle but got a dead engine; the culprit was some of the shrapnel that shredded the vehicle from the ambush. That's when Dan realized, these people were stuck.

"I'm looking at engine damage here, buddy, I think we've got a situation..."

"No," he agreed pleasantly, "we aren't KGB. But the Stasi, that's East German KGB, will be here eventually when these vopos don't check in by radio. This is an East German sector and they take commo protocol seriously. What I'm trying to say is, you can't be stalled here when they do show up, probably by helicopter, and deploy troops to scour the area for insurgents. And anyone that saw anything. So if you can't get this thing moving, you need to get moving. Care to maybe ease up on the trigger a bit? I don't want to get shot accidentally."

Of course, he had a point -- triggers could only take so much pressure before breaking, and he didn't try anything like reaching for his AK, now slung across his chest. She had him pretty dead to rights, and he felt like he could talk his way out of the situation. He kept his hands off his weapon, real calmly, and didn't try to gesture with them, as that was threatening. He was wary in posture, watching the weapon as he did the talking, to make sure that the girl wasn't going to just blast him down. There were others around, his comrades, and he wasn't sure how some of them might take the situation either -- if they saw an armed person aiming a gun at Daniel, they might well decide to shoot first and ask questions later.

"It's real simple, basically. There is no time. So if you can get the car fixed and get it out of here, great. If not, you need to probably come with us." He hated the idea of dragging these people along, but Holmes didn't seem like the type that would want to leave people milling around an ambush site and they weren't really the kind of guys that were going to kill witnesses just because. "And you gotta stop pointing the gun at me, there's a bunch of mountain boy militia here that are gonna shoot anyone that's armed and pointing a gun at a friendly out of fear."

"Slow down, we're not Stasi," first thing he'd pull off the web gear was any East German markings, but that was not here or now, "We're Americans and we just shot a bunch of Vopos, do the math. If the car's dead, we have transport."

"Legion!" shouted Holmes, from a distance, "What's the holdup, man!"

"Civilians, car's busted. Can you get a pickup over here?" Danny called back.

The conversation was at a distance, and one of the militia types, with the latest-greatest optics on his guns, camo'ed out the wazoo, started to object and the green beret was distinctly heard saying, "We aren't killing civilians and we aren't leaving witnesses behind, so what do you think we can do? Just get the damn truck."

There was a dichotomy there; the Special Forces guy was a lot more rumpled, his field gear a lot more broken in from actual use. The country was seeded with SF guys who were doing what they were trained to do -- train guerrillas, lead guerrillas, keep the fight going behind enemy lines as long as possible. It was the classic mission they were designed for in the 1960's, the Kennedy years.

Daniel was a different sort; wearing the sort of upland hunting gear one might expect in Vermont, but adding German web gear to it, that he'd just acquired. He looked less formally military than even the militia guys, but that was probably a lot less threatening than some over-eager gun nut that was enjoying the invasion because it gave him an excuse. He and Holmes had the same look -- they were calm as they went about the business.

"Listen," he told Bruno, his voice low and urgent, "we don't have time to fix the cab, so Sergeant Holmes there is getting a truck to you and we're loading you and anything you think you need out of your truck on board. We can't just leave you behind to be interrogated, because that exposes us more than we've been exposed already. We have safe areas in the mountains here and we can figure out how to move you into Canada when it's safe." He wasn't sure how, but he had to hold out something besides throwing in with a bunch of guerrillas involuntarily, and that seemed to be it.

His eyes were already scanning the horizon -- others were doing the same -- looking for signs of aircraft, listening for the sound of any sort of engine. They were on a time table.

"If you can hitch a ride, best you take the girl with you. We're guerrillas, we have no medical facilities, and those," Daniel jerked a thumb, "are mountains. Do the math, man. If we have to take her and you around, that's one thing, because we aren't leaving people stranded when the Vopos show up."

Already, the other Green Mountain Boys were trying to get drivers to untangle and get their asses out of there. There was, predictably, a snarl of people yelling at each other and arguing. "Because that's the last thing anyone wants."

He didn't want to take civilians along on an arduous haul; even the guerrillas that thought they'd been hunting in the mountains and were ready for this were getting a real education on how hard it was, he didn't fancy the chances of these folk. He also figured, quite frankly, that they were dead men up there. Everything he said about Canada was to get them to come along, but if this guy could talk him and his friend into a car somewhere, that was a better result.