One Second After

They turned into the drive leading up to Gaither Hall. And the troops were out. The days of close-order drill long past, they were practicing covering fire and withdrawing in front of the library, Washington pacing back and forth, yelling instructions as John pulled up and turned off the car.

Washington turned and went through the ritual, still the annoying ritual for John, of saluting, which he returned.

Kids were all around. Hunkered down low, concealed behind trees, under vehicles, up in windows of buildings. Farther up the road John could see what must be the red force, Company B, deployed out beyond the girls’ dorm, a dozen vehicles running, some Volkswagens, again courtesy of Jimmie Bartlett, a few farm pickup trucks. One had a fake machine gun mounted on the back, technicals, John thought they were called in Somalia.

Washington held up his megaphone.

“Captain Malady. Now!”

Kevin Malady had been, of all things, an assistant librarian. With his strong, massive shoulders, thick black hair, and lantern jaw that made him look a bit like Schwarzenegger, the kids quickly giving him the nickname Conan the Librarian. He was ex-military, a sergeant with a mech unit in Iraq back in ’03. He had just resigned from the library staff and had planned to go to Princeton Theological in the fall. Now he was the CO of Company B.

He knew his stuff as they simulated the assault. The technical supposedly laying down fire support, a vehicle with a plow bolted to the front driving straight at the barrier.

Of course it came to a stop, Washington shouting that the barrier had been pierced.

Malady had more of his troops storm from around abandoned cars, rushing the barrier.

If this had been done a few months ago, the kids would have been laughing, seeing it as playacting, shouting and whooping. Not now. They were silent, following directions from their officers, several of them staff and faculty with military experience, the defensive force pulling back, to try to lure the attackers into what would be the killing zone if the gap was pierced on the interstate. A couple of hundred yards back from the gap, the road was flanked on one side by a high concrete wall, a sound barrier erected for several hundred yards to shield the conference center.

Washington had already established firing positions on the reverse side of the wall. The campus chapel, the new one built several years back, which now housed a famous fresco, The Return of the Prodigal, by the famous artist Ben Long, was serving as a simulator for the wall, students suddenly popping up from behind the ridge of the roof.

“That’s it!” Washington shouted. “Once up, it’s fire superiority. Pour it down fast and hard, fast and hard. Panic them!”

The simulation was starting to break down, kids standing around. There could be no realism to it, no blanks, no miles laser packs.

They had used paintballs at the start, but the supply of those was used up in two days.

Washington blew his whistle.

“Stand down. That’s it. Take an hour break. Dinner at noon.”

To John’s amazement, a fifer started to play and it sent a chill down his back. It was the D’Inzzenzo boy, not a student at the college, a local kid who had belonged to the reenactment unit and had taken to hanging around the college. Washington had taken a liking to him and he was now the official fifer for the militia, playing “Yankee Doodle” as the exercise ended.

“Good marching stuff,” Washington said as John looked back at the kid, wearing a Union kepi. “The students love it and it’s good for morale.”

Students came out from buildings, crawled out from under concealment, all of them armed. Their equipment had been gradually upgraded. Most were armed with semiautos, heavier caliber, a great percentage of Company B with deer rifles, a lot with scopes. Charlie had already said that if a crisis came, he’d release the automatic weapons kept in the police station to Washington. A few civilians had come forward as well, one showing up with what had been an illegal full auto M16 with over four hundred rounds, saying as long as he could tote it in a fight, he’d be part of the militia, a vet from the early days in Nam.

Both companies were now rounded out by vets who had seen service, as far back as Korea, adding nearly a hundred to their ranks. These vets might be old, but they had combat experience and were now slotted in as squad and platoon leaders.

Others, the survivalist types, including the legendary Franklins, were teaching the kids how to concoct homemade claymores, land mines, satchel charges, and homemade rocket launchers fashioned out of PVC pipe. The reenactors in the town regretted they could not get their hands on an original cannon, but were now mixing up black powder for these weapons and rigging up a field piece made out of steel pipe that would be packed with canister.