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The past days had been a blur of activity. There seemed always to be fifty things that needed doing, a hundred urgent tasks. They’d established a command hierarchy, not a formal rank structure so much as a loose delegation of effort. Miller was at the top and Luke his number two, but beneath them were ten other former soldiers who formed the primary team. After that, leaders were chosen by the groups they represented. Miller had been adamant about that, insisting the leadership be shallow and wide. They were analysts and ad men, the presidents of motorcycle clubs and backwater militia commanders, neighborhood watch organizers alongside scoutmasters. Those who had come as a group tended to stay with it; others paired off like pickup teams for a basketball game, resulting in ragtag squads ranging from ten to two hundred.

Thus far, the system worked. For all the differences, everyone was united by anger and pain and loss. There had been squabbles, but fewer than Luke would have guessed.

“As long as we keep moving,” Miller had said, “we’ll hold together.”

“At least until the dying starts. This isn’t an army.”

The general had smiled grimly. “The dying is what will turn us into one.”

Time would tell, Luke supposed, but over the years he’d known Miller, he’d learned not to bet against him. Besides, there had been so much to do.

What had started as an impromptu gathering had grown to a massive endeavor. People divided according to rough experience, accountants managing logistics, history professors teaching tactics, line cooks feeding thousands. But it was the private support that really made the difference.

“Check it out, boss—we’ve got corporate sponsorship,” Ronnie Delgado had joked when the trucks from Finest Supplies started arriving. Eighteen-wheelers packed with canned goods, bottled water, blankets, rifles, ammunition, all of it donated by Ryan Fine, the CEO the news kept referring to as an “eccentric billionaire.”

“That’s the great thing about being a billionaire,” Delgado said. “Poor people they just call crazy.”

Delgado was a ranch hand and former national guardsman, a twenty-eight-year-old kid who’d turned out to be a godsend. He worked tirelessly and maintained a steady stream of quips that lightened the mood, but more than anything it was his way with horses.

When General Miller had first announced that he’d convinced Ryan Fine to empty his stables for them—Delgado: “What is it about corporate dudes that as soon as they get rich they want to put on cowboy boots?”—Luke had been less than excited. A thousand horses following in their wake seemed a noisy, smelly irritation. While Luke had never been of the new breed of soldier, those more like hackers than warriors, this took low tech to the extreme.

“Horses don’t break down,” Miller had said. “Computer viruses don’t hurt them, and they don’t need gasoline.”

“And when we run out of food for them?”

“Then we’ve got fresh meat.”

Now, after a blur of constant effort and rapid decision-making, of bleary-eyed labor and bad coffee, it was time. The hundred-yard hole they’d ripped in the New Canaan fence was the first strike.

The trucks led the way. Each had a driver and another man riding shotgun; the rest of the space was packed with supplies, every spare inch filled. It was an inversion of traditional tactics, sending the supply train ahead of the army, but they didn’t expect the vehicles to get far.

Behind them, the rest of the New Sons of Liberty streamed in on foot. They slung packs and rifles, moved in loose groups. Twenty thousand people filing over the torn and broken fence, boots grinding it into the dirt. The day was just below freezing, but the sky was clear, and the men—women too, though not many—moved with a nervous energy, talking and shouting and singing as if they were heading into a football stadium, not marching off to war.

“Here we go,” Delgado said. “The charge of the world’s largest lynch mob.”

“Hey,” Luke said sharply. “Police that.”

“I’m just kidding, boss—”

“Not even as a joke. We may not be the Continental army, but we’re not the KKK, either. This isn’t about hatred.”

Delgado said, “My brother was the first to go to college. Princeton, full scholarship. He beat out five hundred candidates to get a job as a White House intern. Mostly he fetched coffee and answered phones, and that’s probably what he was doing when Erik Epstein blew him up. So don’t—”

“My sons,” Luke said, fighting to keep the quaver from his voice, “burned alive. One was a fighter pilot, the other a tank gunner. We’ve all lost somebody, Ronnie.” He took a breath. “Check the horses, will you?” He paused. “Hey. I’m sorry about your brother.”

Delgado nodded. “You too. Your boys.”