The Trigger

  'Thank you,' Trent gasped, still clutching his own pistol tightly.

  'Now I know - you understand the calculus. Here's your Trigger, Senator.' Shakily, he raised his pistol overhead, pointed it up into the maze of catwalks and cables above them, and allowed his index finger to relax.

  There was already a woman screaming, angry shouts, pleading. No one else could have heard the click as a lever moved, a ratchet fell, a contact closed. But it was thunderous in Trent's ears. He never heard the explosion itself, eight kilograms of shape charge blasting downwards toward the stage through the top of the fly. He heard only the cries, the choir of raised voices, that he thought were for him, on this, his day of triumph.

  * * *

  29: To Promote Peace

  'I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.'

  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Over the years, the trees on the north side of the White House had been allowed to grow to the point that there were only three windows from which one could see Lafayette Park. But even before the arrival of the Trigger, the landscaping had less to do with the security of Presidents than it did with their insecurities.

  Lafayette Park was, and had long been, the favorite gathering place for America's political protesters and social reformers to voice their complaints. They were there every day, in all kinds of weather, raising hand-written signs on balloons, programming electronic placards, and declaiming amplified diatribes. It was, in the words of one pundit, 'Washington's permanent carnival sideshow - a motley collection of political and philosophical oddities given dignity only by their earnest innocence.' President Engler, whose policies had given almost everyone something to complain about, had dubbed Lafayette Park the Thorn Garden'.

  But in the wake of the Trigger announcement, there was a new and larger presence in the park - a decidedly more mainstream, middle-class population that looked more like families than fanat-ics. That presence had grown until it filled the park by day and overflowed it on evenings and weekends. But it was a well-ordered assemblage, so much so that even the Park Service was unable to help the Secret Service by finding a pretext for closing the park or thinning the crowd.

  Calling themselves the Liberty Militia, the squatters provided their own toilets, picked up their own trash, stood patiently in line every day at Gate 5 to file their individual requests to see the President, and even sang respectably in tune during their nightly rallies. Raised on several thousand voices, those martial hymns and patriotic anthems could be heard anywhere on the North Lawn, for blocks in all directions, and inside the White House itself through any open window.

  The only jarring note was that nearly every man, woman, and child in the park carried a firearm - a chaotic assortment of rifles and shotguns, pistols and revolvers, of all vintages and calibers. As a practical matter, none of the weapons posed a threat to anyone, because the park was well within the range of the White House's Jammers. But as a matter of the laws still on the books, every one of the Liberty Militia's weapons was a violation not only of Federal statutes (for possession on National Park Service property), but also District of Columbia ordinances (for transporting them there through the streets of Washington).

  The militia's occupation of Lafayette Park could easily have become a public relations disaster on a scale unseen in the capital since the 1960s - the jails filled, open-air stockades being built, and still more protesters arriving to take the places of those arrested. But law enforcement officials had seen the civil disobedience trap being laid for them, and agreed among themselves to leave the 'broomstick brigade' unmolested. Even so, to have that citizen army camped on the White House's doorstep was still a powerful symbol. And to Mark Breland, it was also a troubling one.

  At least once a week, the President found himself caught at one of those three windows, watching and listening as the militia prayed, sang, and marched in review down the closed block of Pennsylvania Avenue. He did not understand why they were there, not even after hearing the reports from the agents the Secret Service sent into the park. He knew only that he had failed to reach them with his message, failed to convince them that it was time to find another way.

  Breland's brooding preoccupation with the Liberty Militia troubled his staff, but no one knew how to constructively address it. It fell to Breland's new chief of staff, Charles Paugh, to finally broach the subject. He did so after discovering Breland in the Lincoln Bedroom at dusk one evening, standing at an open window and staring out as the strains of The Battle Hymn of the Republic rode in with the breeze.

  'Mr President, please. This does no one any good. And when they catch sight of you watching, it only encourages them.'

  'What is it they want, Charlie?'

  'Bullets, I believe,' Paugh said, with his characteristic bluntness. 'Why do you subject yourself to this? You'll never convert them. The gun lobby is immovable. Didn't Trent just teach us that? They don't recognize any middle ground.'

  'I just can't believe that they'd feel safer down there if we turned off the Jammers, and tomorrow all those guns were full of live ammunition. I can't believe they'd be safer.'

  'That's moot, sir. It's what they believe that matters.'

  'I know, I know.' Frowning, he finally turned away from the glass. 'Unloaded or not, Charlie, I feel like all those guns are aimed at me.'

  'They are. At you, and at the next person to sit in your chair.'

  'But those aren't criminals out there. Those aren't extremists. I don't understand what I did that was terrible enough to make god-fearing, tax-paying families lay siege to the White House.'

  'You asked them to trust people instead of shoot them. Come, Mr President - the New World Order Cabal is waiting for us downstairs.'

  T want to talk to them.'

  'What?'

  'I want to talk to the Liberty Militia.'

  'Oh - oh, no. You really don't want to do that.'

  'Charlie, you're my chief of staff, not the thought police. Get in touch with John Burke and tell him I'm going out to the park.' Burke was the senior agent in charge of the President's Secret Service detail.

  'To the park? Jesus, Mark, do you have a death wish? If you're going to insist on giving them a free shot at you, at least do it here, where we can keep things more or less under control.'

  'That won't do.'

  'Sure it will. They file a thousand requests a day to see you - so, okay, tomorrow we shock the hell out of them and pick three lucky lottery winners. We bring them into a conference room, let them curse you and yours for half an hour, and maybe you can let go of this thing you have about reason being the common language of society. And then we can get on with business.'

  'Charlie -'

  'Bzzzzt. Reality check. These are the people who send out cute pictures of their kids in camouflage and semi-automatic with their Christmas cards. They're not going to listen to you.'

  Then I'll listen to them,' Breland said. 'Find Burke. I want to do this now.'

  'Mr President - this is not something to rush into. They'll be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next -'

  'Charlie -' Breland's voice had a warning tone.

  Paugh raised his hands in resignation. Tine. I'll let Burke argue with you.'

  'You do that. Oh, and, Charlie - let's leave the bullpen out of this,' Breland said, referring to the complex of tiny West Wing cubicles occupied by the press. 'I don't intend for this to become a media event.'

  Paugh grimaced at the thought. 'Believe me, I'll do everything I can to keep it from becoming one.'

  There was no chance that John Burke would ever say he was satisfied with the security arrangements for the President's startling proposal. But with Breland so stubbornly determined that he was prepared to enter Lafayette Park without any escort at all if necessary, Burke made the best accommodation he could under t
he circumstances.

  He alerted the rooftop bow snipers, and doubled the patrol on the north fences. He sent a dozen crowd management specialists ahead into the park to scatter among and monitor the temper of the squatters. Finally, he assembled the six best hand-to-hand fighters on the night roster as an escort unit. Carrying quarter-staves which were a head or more taller than they were, Breland's entourage had a decidedly medieval aspect as they moved out toward the park.

  By then, the rally was over, and most of the crowd had dispersed into the streets. Only a few hundred overnighters remained, staking down pop-up tents, laying out bedrolls, and completing the nightly cleanup. But Breland and his escort were spotted immediately by a militia sentry standing watch at the park's periphery.

  'South Post One, hail the company,' the young sentry cried. 'It's Breland - the coward-in-chief.' He repeated his astonished call into a headset mic.

  Breland changed direction and headed directly for the sentry who had given the alarm. As he came near, he received a sneering challenge. 'What do you want here?'

  'Is someone in charge, son?'

  'Colonel Harris is the watch commander.'

  It was a name and face he knew from Secret Service security briefings on the Liberty Militia. 'That'll do. Where can I find her?'

  'You don't. I notified the HQ tent. If she wants to see you, she'll come here. If it were me, I wouldn't bother.'

  'If it were up to you, son, they'd have made you watch commander.'

  By then, a small crowd had begun to converge on the spot where the two stood. Breland's escort did not allow them to approach too closely, but there were more hostile and mocking jeers. Breland tuned them out and continued looking past the sentry, scanning for Colonel Harris. He finally spotted her approaching in the company of her own entourage of broad-shouldered young men. Sidestepping the sentry, he went to meet her.

  'Colonel Harris.'

  She nodded, but did not salute or offer her hand. 'Mr President. You surprise me.'

  'That's a beginning.'

  'It might also be the end - I'd like to be able to say that everyone here respects the office even when we don't respect the man. But the truth is, that distinction gets to be pretty fine when your grievances pass a certain threshold. What is it you want?'

  'To understand why you've given up your lives to be here. And maybe, if you care, to try to help you understand why I've given up mine to be in there,' he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the fence and the White House looming beyond.

  'How much do you really need to understand when someone attacks you?' said a man to Breland's right.

  Breland turned that way and found him - a gaunt-faced man with thinning black hair combed straight back from his wide forehead. 'Attacks you?'

  'Goddamned right. You take away my ability to protect my family, my wife's right to protect herself when she has to work late and walk to her car alone - you take away my boy's chance to protect himself from homosexual kidnappers and drug addict muggers - you make us defenseless in our own homes, and you'd better believe that's an attack. That's an attack on the family, that's an attack on the Constitution, and that damned well makes it an attack on me.'

  That speech earned the speaker some hearty applause and a few vigorous claps on the back. That's tellin' him,' someone called out.

  Breland cocked his head. 'Your name is -'

  'Larry Dillard. You can tell your IRS attack dogs to look for me in Cross Plains, Wisconsin.'

  'I don't believe in punishing people for speaking their minds, Mr Dillard. Could I ask you a few questions, though?'

  Dillard shrugged, though he looked vaguely uncomfortable at the prospect. 'Sure.'

  'Is your family all right now? Everyone well, I hope?'

  'As far as I know. My middle child's here with me - my sons are back home with my wife.'

  'Good. Good - I'm glad to hear it,' said Breland, with a sincerity the audience was reluctant to credit. 'Can you tell me some more about these crimes, and how what I've done figured in them?'

  'Watch it, Larry - he's baiting a trap for you -'

  Dillard shook off the warning. 'Crimes - no, you weren't listening, how do you expect to understand? I didn't say we'd been victims. But you're setting us up to be victims. My wife weighs a hundred and sixteen pounds. How is she supposed to fight off a rapist your size? How's my son supposed to make it home if the Muslim gang at school decides to pick on him next?'

  'Your wife went everywhere armed?'

  'And shot at the practical range once a month for proficiency.'

  'And your son took a gun to school?'

  Dillard stiffened, but defiance won out over discretion. 'You're damned right he did - until one of your Gestapo squads showed up and turned the campus into a Constitution-free zone.'

  'Wasn't taking a gun to school already against the law?'

  'So's assault, but that didn't stop the damned Muslims from putting one of Ken's friends in the hospital for three weeks.'

  'So you were willing to teach your son to break the law.'

  'When the law's wrong. When the law's unconstitutional. That's a citizen's duty.'

  'I see,' Breland said, nodding noncommittally. 'Did you like your odds better when the rapist and the gang were just as likely to have guns as your wife and son?' he asked. 'Did you think that kind of arms race improved their chances of coming home?'

  'What choice did we have?' a woman nearby interjected. 'Never leaving home? Expecting the police to protect us, when they've told us that's not their job? Forming gangs of our own? Or maybe you think we women should just lie down for the rapists. Maybe that's your idea of a civil society.'

  'What reason have I given you to think that?' Breland asked. 'Why would you believe that I only care about murder, and not about other kinds of crime?'

  'How can we believe anything else?' Dillard demanded. 'You obviously don't care about the crimes that our guns prevent - if you did, you wouldn't have taken those guns away from us.'

  'Mr Dillard, I'll thank you to let me speak for myself,' Breland said. 'I know there are studies which claim that arming good people thwarts two million attempted crimes a year. When I talked to the FBI director about it, he told me he believes the number was closer to five or six hundred thousand -'

  'Making it easier for you to ignore the victims,' someone taunted from beyond the first circle.

  'Now, now, that's not fair,' another voice called. 'Maybe he likes the idea of more crime. Disarm the public, and we have to come begging to the government for help and protection. This city loves us dependent.'

  Breland spun around, searching for the speaker. 'Why is it you'd rather make up my positions for me than hear what I have to say? If it's because you've already decided not to believe me, why are you even here?' He turned a half-turn back and caught the colonel's gaze. 'I was on my way to pointing out that if you count the crimes guns prevent, then you also have to count the ones they permit.'

  That's nonsense,' scoffed a short woman at Colonel Harris's elbow. 'Guns don't turn people into criminals. That's magical thinking. My brothers and I were raised with guns. My husband and I've raised our kids with guns. Not a single bloodthirsty felon in either litter. Explain that.'

  'Good parenting. Good sense about alcohol and drugs. A light hand with the kids and a kind word for each other. Enough control over your own lives that you've been content with them. No little bit of good luck,' Breland said. 'But we don't have to be naive about this, do we? It's no accident that people reach for a gun when they want more say in how things are going to go. No difference between law-breakers and law-abiders there.'

  At that. Colonel Harris's expression frosted over, and hers was not the only one.

  'Well, that explains a lot,' Dillard said, 'that you can't see any difference between the murderers and people like us. I think we all understand you a lot better now.'

  The President scowled. 'That isn't what I said. Come on, there's no audience to play to - these people are
all with you already,' Breland said, making a slow circle with hands extended to both sides. 'Can't we have a little honesty? Whether it's a bad guy sticking a gun in a good guy's face or the other way around, you all want the same thing at that moment - juice, leverage, weight - control.'

  I'm one of the good guys,' said a round-bellied man carrying an enormous shotgun. 'I just want to be left alone.'

  'Which is wanting the world to be the way you want it to be -which is control. This isn't some secret truth that can't be spoken, is it?' Breland appealed. 'Guns are just like armies - there's only two reasons you point them at someone -'

  'Coercion, and deterrence,' said Colonel Harris.

  'Yes. You pick up a hammer to drive a nail. You pick up a gun to make somebody do what you want them to.'

  'Now, wait a minute,' called a short young woman with long straight hair. 'You're making it sound completely grim and serious. What about target shooting? Skeet? Trap? What about the history, the lore, the reenactors? What about hunting? Guns are fun. Is there anyone here who didn't get a rush the first time they fired a gun?'

  'Got a bigger one the first time I hit something I aimed at,' some wag said dryly. The laughter of self-recognition broke the tension that had been building.

  'There's a little honesty, thank you,' Breland said. 'Look, maybe you can help me understand something. What have you really lost that would make you want to go back to the way things were before the Trigger appeared? Because everything the FBI can tell me says that crime isn't going up -'

  'I haven't heard that,' Dillard said. 'What I hear is that we're seeing two, three, four or more lowlifes working together, breaking into houses, mugging people at ATMs, dragging women into cars -'

  'You're right,' Breland admitted, to his counterpart's evident astonishment. Team crime - that's what the FBI has decided to call it. We are seeing more team crime, and I'm not sanguine about it. I don't know what the solution is -'