Дэвид Нордли - How Beer Saved the World

“We knew there were some disgruntled extremists out there, but that doesn’t explain why they decided to do these raids now, unless someone is stirring them up,” Verity said.

“Someone is stirring them up. I’ve got some more news, and while I’d like to take credit for it, it’s pure serendipity. About mid-morning, a woman came into the police station in Ontario seeking help. She’d been beaten badly.” He tapped the screen of his tablet to send copies of the picture to the others.

“Damn,” said Emily. “She looks like she was in a war.”

“She says she’s Mrs. Dawson.”

Both women made faces. “Mrs.” was not a title used in Cascadia.

“Well, that’s how they do things in Deseret and she seems to be happy enough with it. Anyway, this guy Dawson came back from his raid stinking drunk, woke her up for sex, and beat her when she resisted him. She slipped away when he passed out, said this time was the last straw. According to what she told our local authorities, some guy the men call the colonel has been coming around and giving them instructions on where to go and what to do. According to her, this colonel ‘wasn’t one of them’. From the interview notes”—he clicked on another file—“I gather he was probably somebody official from Deseret. She said he didn’t wear a uniform, despite the title.”

Jessica spoke up. “Those mountain men always liked to say they were independent, but it was always easy for someone outside to rouse them.”

“Mountain men?” Verity asked.

“That’s what we called them back in the day,” Jessica said. “The people who believed all that ultra-right crazy survivalist stuff. Homegrown terrorists. They were in these little militias and had hordes of guns and didn’t want anything to do with the cooperative society we were building in Cascadia.”

Emily read the transcript. “From this it sounds like there’s a whole community of Miss Jessica’s mountain men just across the border. A lot of them who lived in eastern Cascadia andv moved into the Idaho mountains after our independence. But Southern Idaho is part of Deseret now. I don’t see that kind of people being willing to act as pawns of the Deseret government, though.”

“Except that, according to Mrs. Dawson, Deseret has promised them some homesteads in our eastern territory if they’ll help to take it back,” Rob said.

“Oh. Do you suppose they mean it?” Emily asked.

“Maybe,” Verity said. “Or maybe they’ve got something else in mind. Either way, now we know we’re dealing with Deseret and not just a bunch of thugs.”

“It’s not enough for a declaration of war.” Emily had served in the military during Cascadia’s many battles to preserve its independence and was not inclined to go to war lightly.

“No,” said Verity. “War is not the answer, whatever some of the more excitable people in the Assembly have to say.” Several of the younger members had called for invasion of Deseret on the ground that they were harboring terrorists.

Rob nodded his head in agreement.

“Let’s not release this information just yet. We need to see what else we can find out.”

“Well, I’ve got one more piece of information from Mrs. Dawson that might be of use. She says her husband is planning to cross the border again and go back to the Fernandez home. She heard him talking to his friends about it when he first got back, before he beat her up. He figures there’s more good beer there and he should go get it. If we can nab him there, we might get some information out of him.”

“His taste for that beer is proving to be mighty useful,” Verity said. “I think we might be able to set a nice trap for him.”

Rob grinned. “I’ve got some folks who are just waiting for the chance.”

“Meanwhile, we need to call up the volunteers and increase the number of soldiers on the border up by Ontario.”

“I’ve already started on that,” Emily said. “Though it’s possible that they’re using that region as a blind and are planning something elsewhere.”

“Yes, but that’s the only place on our border with them that has significant population. And I don’t think they want an all-out war. My guess is they’re looking for some way to put us in a bad position, so that we’ll give in on their petition to let them transport stuff to Longview for shipping at very favorable rates. Being landlocked is killing their economy and they don’t like paying our truckers to take it to our port.”

“I hope you’re not going to agree to that,” Emily said. “They don’t just want access; they want the port. If we let them drive across our territory, they’ll find a way to take it—or at least, they’ll try to.”

“Which is why we’ve been saying no,” Verity said. “They must have a plan that will put us in a position where we have no choice but to say yes.” She paused a minute. “Emily, I want as many troops as we can get in the Ontario area, but I think it might be best if Deseret thinks we’ve only sent a few people down there. Can we do that?”

Emily grinned. “Leave it to me. We know who most of their spies are; we can feed them some juicy false info.”

Verity stood up. “We need to move fast. We can’t keep Ms.—um, Mrs.—Dawson under wraps for long. And it’s hard to keep troop movements quiet.”

As the two ministers stood to go, Jessica said, “And don’t forget the beer. It shows your mountain men aren’t real Deseret people. Real Deseret people don’t drink any alcohol, the more fools they. Two to one the terrorists are just pawns. You can use the beer.”

Verity walked over to the window as the door closed behind the others. “Mom, do you have any ideas on how we can use the beer?”

“Not yet. But if you’ll take me out for a pint of stout, I’ll try to think of a few.”

Verity hesitated. “Okay. But just one pint. You remember what the doctor said.”

“Doctors, bah.”

Verity raised her eyebrows.

“O.K. Just one. But take me to that new brew pub down near Elliot Bay. If I can’t have more than one, I want something very good.”

“Sure, you can use our place to set a trap,” Paco Fernandez told the Malheur County police officials. “We want that son of a bitch.”

His son nodded in agreement. Diego was still in the hospital—his mother with him—but they expected him home tomorrow. The bullet had broken two bones in his arm.

“I’d like to come with you, though,” Paco said.

The lieutenant in charge started to shake his head and Paco’s son put a hand on his arm. “Papi….”

“I don’t mean I want to be on the scene, dealing with those punks,” Paco said. “I’m too old for that and anyway my head still aches. But you’re going to have an observation post nearby, right? That’s where I want to be. I want to see you take those guys.”

His son threw up his hands in resignation, but the lieutenant said, “I guess you’ve earned the right to do that.”

Today there were clouds blocking the view of Mt. Rainer.

Verity liked the new vid at the Fernandez house so much she watched it twice straight through. Hank Dawson had shown up at the house about midnight with another man and a teenaged boy. The vid showed him breaking the lock on the front door of the main house and coming across a stash of beer in both small kegs and bottles in a couple of old refrigerators in a room off the kitchen.”

“We had to provide the beer and the extra refrigerator,” Rob explained. “The Fernandezes don’t make beer in that kind of quantity and anyway it seemed better to use crap beer than their good home brew.”

As the two men and the boy came out of the house, each one loaded down with beer, a half dozen police officers appeared with guns pointed at their heads. The boy dropped his load, but stopped midway toward reaching for the gun slung on his back and put his hands up. It was all over quickly.