[h3]Prelude[/h3][hr]

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 Schultz, 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. Danny though, that was always the mystery, Manny thought. 

"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 lungs are too small. We can't keep up."

"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 legionnaire!" He quipped as he dashed back the scotch. The turn of phrase on the toast caused Manny to narrow his eyes a bit, trying to remember where he'd heard that. Danny spoke French effortlessly, and gave that toast as if it was traditional.

"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.

[hr][h3]Them or Us[/h3][hr]

Several weeks forward, they were getting ready to do the last of a series of arms deals; over the course of weeks, they smuggled stuff up and down, as part of a network. Guns and ammo came through, sure, but this handoff was for drugs. Morphine, dilaudid and antibiotics of various sorts, smuggled out of Boston's pharmaceutical laboratories. They'd done a pretty heavy traffic business since the Vermont and New Hampshire state police essentially deserted posts while the Soviets made their way up and started securing towns. They had to know that they were setting up caches in the Appalachians, including the Green Mountains, but they weren't feeling like they could do more than send small raids, Spetsnaz, East German paratroopers and other Warsaw Pact operators after identifiable targets with sufficient intelligence.

That was not nearly enough, but it did make everyone cautious and a little nervy.

Which was just as well, because they had other reasons to be nervous. Usually, Danny and the others paid the smugglers, but the orders came down to go ahead and pay these guys...or not, so long as they iced them.

They'd been preparing to fight and kill for weeks, but the idea was sabotage or some sort of ambush against the enemy...not killing other Americans.

It wasn't even the guy's fault. His family was taken by the KGB. He was put in the position of giving up some guerrillas or watching his daughters get tortured. And the other thing was that it was three of these guys from New York. The intelligence pipeline included Massachusetts Staties that were feeding out information, and the intelligence guys verified it and gave the order.

Pull the trigger. 

He took a deep breath, as the car pulled into the truck yard where they'd do the trade, a construction company's yard where no further business was being done, especially after Resistance picked it clean of construction materials and went to work building bunkers in the mountains. They were expecting a long war, and construction materials had their use, especially before the Soviets had enough air support to do proper photo and satellite recon of the area. Things were changing now. Getting uglier. The place was looking pretty forlorn, with loose tarps flapping a bit. It'd been evacuated in a hurry by the workers and owner, some of whom joined the Resistance, others who just got the fuck away to avoid knowing anything about anything. The place looked like it suffered a hasty departure and a ransacking. 

That was about right. But people didn't come here anymore for much of anything.

The guys were mooks to say the least, kinda dingy, looking for a score, low level guys thinking to make it big profiteering off the guerrillas. It was about to turn into a hot war, but no one minded that these guys were profiting so long as they were selling. These dudes were out of Manchester, an hour and fifteen minutes away. They'd made a lot of money peddling heroin and fentanyl to junkies over the last couple years, but they could never hold onto it, never got larger. But they did have ways of scoring the stuff when the cops stopped caring -- the street price was one thing for the pharmaceutical grade stuff, but the Resistance was always able to pay a little more.

Of course, that money didn't do a goddamn thing for the one, Mike LeBeau, who had his wife and kids held in the Boston headquarters of the KGB, which, up here, was a joint effort of Stasi, KGB and GRU types trying to pacify things.

The problem wasn't merely that they were killing LeBeau, it's that Fitzsimmons and Stone weren't going to let them just whack their buddy and weren't going to buy the excuse. If Danny was going to be completely honest, it was very possible that LeBeau wasn't turned and wouldn't turn on them. Hell, it was even possible that his family wasn't in KGB hands. But no one was taking any chances, and he wasn't one of theirs.

Danny got the feeling this wouldn't be the first. But they had to play out the script. 

He nodded to Sullivan, who knew how to handle this best and took a walk around with his pistol tucked away, to make sure they didn't have other visitors. They weren't breaking the pattern, yet, and the idea was to put them at ease. LeBeau trusted Joe the Jew, so Joe the Jew was pulling the trigger on him.

He hated this fucking business. Assassinating other Americans was dirty business, not what he signed on for. But it was apparently necessary, because this guy knew their faces and where they were. If he went home and discovered his family was in KGB hands, he'd give them up. And that couldn't happen.