A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 39

Sonia walked into Kaija’s office and closed the door behind her. Kaija was already on the video call with Rachel and Camille. Sonia wearily sat down next to her and waved at the sleepy image of Rachel and the blurred image of Camille on the screen. All three waited for Sonia to speak. It was obvious that things were bad. Exactly how bad, was something they were about to find out.

“I had one of my staffers do some extensive trawling through social media. The good news is - we know when it is going to happen. It is this Friday. The bad news is that there are at least three groups, each with thousands of followers, who are planning attacks on each other. It seems that the first attack is on the mosque and two groups are apparently planning it.”

Sonia paused to catch her breath. She had blurted this out as if she was hopped up on too much coffee.

“Slow down… slow down…” Rachel was not yet fully awake. 

“Wait - before you try that again, let me get myself some coffee and skim through the messages that have been pinging all night. Just give me five minutes… just… hold on for a bit.”

Kaija and Sonia nodded their heads and then glumly looked at each other. Camille was on mute and had momentarily switched off her camera anyway. 

“That bad, huh!”

There was not much to say.

“Do we have the ability to stop this?”

Kaija brought up the big question that Sonia had been mulling over on her walk from the Police HQ to Kaija’s office.

“If we bring in everyone, we probably have about three thousand cops who have received at least some sort of training. And that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I am even including the folks who do mostly administrative work and have zero experience in the field.” 

This was simply not large enough to take on a mob numbering in tens of thousands. The cops in Sequoia didn’t have any weapons and that was by design. The host countries had made this a non-negotiable conditions. The fact that there were millions of new residents on their territories was scary enough for them. The last thing they wanted was this huge new population to have access to weapons of any kind. 

This last thought crossed both Sonia’s and Kaija’s minds at the same instant. They both looked up at each other in dismay. Sure, the cops had batons and shields and protective riot gear of all sorts. But nothing to really calm down the crowds with. If the crowds decided to get truly violent, the cops stood no chance whatsoever. They would be forced to retreat to safety. Whatever safety meant, at that point. Just as they were imagining these scenarios, there was an audible gasp from the video monitor. All the color had drained from Rachel’s face. 

“What… c’mon… what has happened, Rachel?”

Rachel tried to shake her head as if trying to wake herself up from a nightmare.

“They know…”

“What are you talking about!” whispered Sonia. The feeling of dread that she had kept at bay since her conversation with Tozi yesterday evening was now grabbing at her.

“The UN knows about the planned attacks. Armed forces are being dispatched to Sequoia to quell the violence,” Rachel croaked and then words stopped coming out of her mouth as she looked at them.

“How could they know? I just found out about it. And I can guarantee that Tozi has not informed anyone besides me. I trust her absolutely!”

“I am not sure how they know this. But they seem to have been tracking the developments all along. That is the only way they could have had the time to pull together this armed force. They must have ignored Kaija’s speech at the general assembly. Including the request for additional time to deal with the murders. The last riot seemed to have only accelerated their preparation.”

“Armed force? Like what? UN Peacekeeping Forces? Who is on the way?” Kaija, finally, found her voice. Her worst fears were coming true. They must have been planning this - sending these soldiers - even before her plea at the UN. There was no way, the logistics could have been worked out this quickly. All week she had been talking with various folks at the UN and in Oslo. But they had not said a single word to her about sending troops. They had been lying to her! Assholes! 

“What I can gather from the email trail is that it is neither the Norwegian military nor the UN Peace-keeping Force. It appears to be some private group that has been brought in under a contract with the UN. Apparently, they were best positioned to move quickly. There have been far too many ongoing crises to handle in Africa, Asia, and South America. The UN cannot pull any of these forces out at such short notice.”

“Why would Norway allow this?” 

“Norway - in fact - seems to have decided to stay out of this completely. They refused to send in their forces fearing that it would create a conflict on their soil. They are treating Sequoia as a UN territory. They want UN to deal with this.”

“So… then where did this force magically come from?”

“No idea,” said Rachel cautiously. Her mind was racing fast. She was frantically trying to remember the various conversations that her boss had been part of. She tended to tune those out because he was a vapid idiot. She was usually included in them as a mere note-taker. But now that she thought about it - there had been some mentions of some group in a few of those conversations. There had been a fair bit of winking and nudging happening. No wonder she couldn’t recall why that group was being mentioned. What was their name? Dammit! 

She pulled up her tablet and logged in to her boss’s account. She was hoping that there were some communications that could help make sense of all this. Long ago, she had managed to finagle her boss’s login credentials. She didn’t check it often. She just kept it in her back pocket in case she needed to access some of the high-level communications that her boss conveniently forgot to mention to her. It made her job easier. Anyway, her boss couldn’t care less about it. 

Right away, she noticed several threads of messages on which her boss was copied. He had not logged in for a while as all the messages for the past couple of weeks were still unread. Johnson Group! That was the name. She looked them up on the database and was horrified to see that they were a sophisticated and fully private militia packed with former members of special forces from many countries. They had worked in many parts of the world on clandestine operations that their clients, including national governments, preferred to not know anything about. They called it “plausible deniability”. Not that anybody felt any particular shame for those activities these days. But still - they did try to keep up the charade. 

The US had recommended the Johnson Group to the UN. The email had come straight from the White House. The UN staff had been forced into a corner because of the pressure from four of the five permanent members of the Security Council. China hadn’t bothered to give any opinion on this. The UN was notorious for its red tape. Yet - somehow - this contract had been processed within a week. That must have taken some serious arm twisting! 

Kaija and Sonia had been patient as they could see Rachel frantically scan through numerous documents. But now they couldn’t help themselves. Kaija cleared her throat.

“Is there any thing more that you can tell us, Rachel?”

Rachel looked up grimly after a few moments. 

“I won’t be surprised if the mercenaries are already in the vicinity of Sequoia. It is a global corporation called the Johnson Group. They have been providing these services ever since the early 2000s. They got established during the Global War on Terror. Anyway - the history doesn’t matter right now. For some reason, they happened to have a small force stationed in Murmansk. A second one was based in the Shetlands. Both teams were mobilized a few days ago.” 

“How big is this force?” Sonia asked cautiously. Although she felt like she didn’t want to know the answer. 

Rachel scanned through some more email threads and then with a snort of frustration, she started digging deep into the bowels of the UN’s contracting folders.

“It looks like two ships sailed from those two bases. The total size of the force seems to be about 500.”

Sonia laughed out loudly. 

“Paah! What are 500 soldiers going to do if riots break out in Sequoia. Tozi thinks that tens of thousands are likely to be out on the streets this Friday - that is, in three days time. We don’t have to worry about them!”

Rachel tried to ascertain whether Sonia was kidding. 

“You are kidding - right?”

The mirth on Sonia’s face dissolved. 

“This is bad - Sonia. Really… really… really bad!!!”

“Huh?”

“These two naval vessels must be packed to their gills with state-of-the-art weapons. These days, men don’t go into a battlefield. At all, I mean. They sit behind computers and control their deadly weapons from far away. They are close enough - physically, that is - only to deal with those weapons in case there is some malfunction.”

Rachel paused. She hated to be the messenger of extremely bad news for her friends. More than that - she hated that the assholes in the US had gotten their wish of taking over Sequoia and turning it into yet another slave colony. She had fiercely fought to make sure that did not happen. But she and all other like-minded people, her friends, her colleagues were very close to failure. Just like that, through brute force, the otherworldly dream of Sequoia was about to be smashed.

“They have awesome firepower at their finger-tips. They can utterly destroy Sequoia from far away. It would take them a few hours, at best. Not even a whole day. They could take out every single electronic circuit in the entire city with the press of one button. You won’t even realize it when it happens. One instant you are looking at my ugly mug on your monitor and the next moment, nothing. None of your devices would work. This is, of course, the non-violent form of attack. They have the usual explosives to physically destroy everyone and everything. 

But they won’t destroy Sequoia. That is not their objective. They will simply use the threat of annihilation to have all of you follow their orders. Once they physically take control of the key infrastructure - energy, water, sanitation, etc. - they wouldn’t even need weapons to force you to do their bidding. Winter is a few weeks away - you know. You can very well imagine what would happen if there is no heat.”

Sonia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Five hundred guys could do that? How in the hell does that happen?! She started shaking her head, increasingly violently.

“No... no... NO!”

She turned to Kaija and grabbed her arm, “right - Kaija? You made this city happen. They cannot just end it… this life that we have been creating for ourselves. We have been creating hope for billions who have no chance in hell. We are the expeditionary force that is setting up this new world. Proving that this new world is viable. They cannot just take it away with guns.”

She looked desperately at Kaija first and then Rachel, back-and-forth, hoping that they would agree with her. That they would reassure her. But she was met with a deathly silence. 

“I am so sorry Sonia! I am afraid, they can very much do whatever they want. They have the weapons after all and we don’t have anything to defend with except our wits and our bodies. And our minds. We had allowed ourselves to dream about a better future for us and billions of other folks. Unfortunately, the old adage continues to be true - might makes right. THE PLUTES ARE GONNA FUCKIN' PLUTE!!” 

Rachel’s voice faded and the last few words were barely audible.

The three of them just sat there quietly for several minutes. Their fate had been sealed. All because of a couple of unfortunate deaths. In a normal world, the police would have solved the two cases, apprehended the guilty parties, the courts would have judged them, and the perpetrators would have served their sentences. That would have been the end of it. Instead, in their world, the inability to so far find two pathetic murderers had become the veritable “nail” from the infamous fable that began with “for want of a nail” and ended with “the battle was lost”.

Sonia suddenly stood up and announced, “I have to go. I am going to try and solve these murders and I am going to try and stop these riots. If we catch those goddamned killers, there is no riot. I am sure those murders had nothing to do with religion! Even if I don’t catch the killers, I am still going to my damndest to stop the riot. I am going to persuade all the people who are planning it. I don’t care if I have to go and convince a thousand of them in the next three days!”

With that, she walked out with her shoulders squared and head held high. 

Kaija and Rachel watched her go and then looked at each other. 

“Is there nothing we can do to avert this?” Kaija quietly asked Rachel. She was hoping that there was some way they could buy some time at the UN.

Slowly but decisively, Rachel shook her head. “No - I know what you are asking Kaija. There is nothing that can be done at the UN. It seems that the powers-to-be have decided to use this excuse to get what they have always wanted after all.”

After a moment, she exclaimed, “Unless!”

Kaija looked up expectantly.

“Unless we can change public opinion outside of Sequoia to such a degree that the plutes decided to back off for the moment.”

“Why would that matter?”

“You may not remember this well Kaija - I think, you were deep in your grief at that time. But when you made your famous announcement, the rejection from the various governments and all the so-called “wise” people was so unanimous, that Sequoia would never have come into existence if not for Camille and the millions of young people who took to the streets. The “wise” people had written you off as a deeply troubled young woman whose statements were not to be taken seriously. But Camille felt otherwise. People like me, thought otherwise. With that announcement, you had given us all some hope after that heat wave. We had mobilized and we had prevailed. Not at the scale of the challenge that is still in front of us. Yet - we managed to get the ball rolling. I think, we need to do the same now. We need to mobilize the same people who fought to bring your vision into reality to now defend your vision from annihilation.”

Rachel’s face was aglow with fierce determination. Her fists were curled up. She too was ready to go to war. Kaija nodded her head. 

“Yes - I agree. You get going on the public opinion. And I shall start with the governments of the nations from where Sequoia’s residents came from. I will try to rally them to our cause. Have them take the fight to the powers-to-be at the UN and elsewhere. We are not giving up!!”

Just when they were about to hang up, the Camille’s camera sputtered into life. Her face looked extremely blurry but her voice came through quite clearly. Since Camille had not said a word during the call until then, and also because her video had been switched off, they had forgotten that she was still part of the conversation. 

After their first conversation when Camille was in New York with Rachel, Camille had gone underground. She had been livid to know about the plutes and the draconian condition they had put in at the time of Sequoia’s creation. She had left New York immediately after that conversation. She had decided to mobilize in the Nordic countries all over again. For the past few years, she hadn’t been paying much attention to Sequoia or the other two new refugee cities. She had been focused on blowing up fossil fuel infrastructure all over the world. She was part of a global network of saboteurs who had decided that direct action was the only way to drive up the risks and financial losses of the fossil fuel companies. No more policy changes. No legal challenges. No more trying to change public opinion. 

Her initial thought was to take down the plutes through a direct confrontation. Just blow up their properties wherever they were located. But that seemed practically impossible as the plutes had been fortifying their personal and professional properties for a long period of time. For the past few days, Camille and her buddies were trying to see what else could be done to the plutes. They didn’t have any new ideas, yet.

Rachel’s description of a mercenary force landing in the vicinity of Sequoia and the plan that Rachel suggested - mass mobilization seemed to be promising given the short time frame. But Camille felt that the mercenaries needed to be confronted directly instead of only taking out marches in far away cities. 

“Fucking cowards!” unloaded Camille. Her eyes were blazing with fury. But she was deadly calm. 

“I will make those bastards shake in their boots if they dare to touch even a single blade of grass in Sequoia!” she said slowly and deliberately. 

“I am going to get as many people as I can get to go and encircle Sequoia. Form a human barrier between the fucking mercenaries and Sequoia. We shall not use violence. But we shall broadcast all of it round-the-clock across the world. We shall die before we let them breach our barricade. Let’s see if the plutes have the balls to kill white kids from the Nordic countries on live TV.”

“Can you get this thing done… in the  next three days, I mean?” Rachel asked hesitantly. 

Camille looked at her and said, “You bet, I will!” 

“Okay then. Good luck, Camille!”

#####

Probably, for the first time in her life, Alia was, literally, biting her nails off. She was so distracted that she hadn’t noticed that she bit off some dead skin from the side of her left thumb-nail. With the next bite, a few flecks of blood had appeared. No matter. 

Sonia swept into the incident room. Such was the force of her entry, that every single person in the room involuntarily looked up. Her eyes were gleaming with fierce emotion. Some of them stood up. The sudden cessation of all chatter registered on Alia’s ears and she  fearfully looked around. 

Sonia was silent for a moment as she looked at each person turn-by-turn. When her eyes, finally, came to rest on Alia, her nostrils flared up and her eyes shone. She beckoned Alia to come join her at the front of the room. Alia reluctantly got up and walked over. The feeling of dread that she was laboring under for several days, had exponentially grown from the moment Sonia looked at her. She was terrified and desperately trying not to show it on her face. 

“Listen up, everyone!” 

They had never really seen this fiery version of their boss. Sonia seemed like she was radiating some sort of strange energy. Some were exchanging expectant looks with each other.  

“This is it! We have three days to solve these murders. If we don’t, then all hell will break loose and Sequoia will be over.”

The alarmed but also puzzled looks reminded her that none of them had a clue as to what she was talking about.  

“Okay - that probably didn’t make much sense to you. Let me explain.” 

She gestured at Tozi and said, “I have had Tozi start a separate investigation for me, yesterday. What she found is extremely disconcerting. The riot that happened a few days ago where Shahid ended up killing himself… well… that doesn’t seem to have dampened the anger. Rather, it seems to have added fuel to the fire that has been burning away since that scuffle in the warehouse district last month. It appears that a far more massive and destructive riot is likely to happen on this Friday.”

“Shit… shit… shit… ,“ Alia thought. Her blood turned cold. 

“The UN knows about this impending riot. And some people have managed to force the UN to send in armed forces to take over Sequoia if the riot does break out. These people are not doing this from the goodness of their heart. They want to take over Sequoia. The worse thing is that they can do it. Long story and I don’t have the time to tell it in detail. Here is the short version… these people are extremely wealthy and ridiculously powerful. They provided the funding to the UN for getting Sequoia built. No - before you ask - this was not charity. This was an investment. The UN - that is us - are contractually obligated to pay them back that loan with a handsome profit stuck on top of it. You know that part, anyway.”

Sonia had to pause to take a breath before continuing her tirade, “but those wealthy fuckers also added a clause when they provided that loan to the UN. The clause allows them to take control of Sequoia and we are not talking of just the city, as in buildings. But it includes us - the people. If those fuckers are able to establish that Sequoia is unlikely to pay back the money they are owed, then they can enforce that clause.

They are claiming now that the escalating riots imply that the city is falling into chaos and will not be able to honor the contract. Hence, the militia to enforce the clause. And when they do take charge of the city, they plan to convert it into a labor camp - yes, you and me will become the laborers - who do what we are told so that they can make money on our backs. We don’t have a say in all this. We become slaves, overnight. Got it?

Unless - we stop the riot from happening! And, I think, the best chance of preventing that riot, is catching the murderers before Friday.

I know, very well, how hard all of you have been working since Qasim’s murder. I know that! I am proud of all of you! I couldn’t have asked for better colleagues… better friends… than all of you… no exceptions! But we have not been successful so far and now there will be severe consequences of that failure.”

With that Sonia turned to Alia and immediately noticed that her star investigator was showing all the attributes of a deer caught in the head-lights of an oncoming truck - completely frozen and destined to be run over. She gently touched Alia’s shoulder. A wave of compassion came over Sonia. Something was really really wrong with Alia. She whispered, “you okay?”

“Huh!” Alia blinked her eyes a couple of times. 

“Yes. I am fine,” the customary poise that Alia had always maintained when standing in front of her team had fought through the fog of fear and self-doubt and reclaimed its place in her psyche. She rolled her shoulders just like a boxer as the bout begins. She was ready to throw some punches. And take ‘em. And, eventually, prevail. 

“As Sonia mentioned earlier, we won’t have Tozi to help us out, going forward. Carlos, I am appointing you as my second. Don’t you dare raise your hand now! You are being promoted - in the field, as they say. You are ready to lead and we shall greatly appreciate if you stepped up.

We have gone through all the evidence at least a couple of times in the last few days. We have re-done many of the interviews. What I want all of you to do is now find yourself a partner with whom you will exchange your raw notes. You will each go through your partner’s raw notes with a fresh set of eyes and see if there is something there that has not yet made its way into our official reports. 

We all have thoughts going on in our heads and some of us doodle or jot down whatever passing idea that comes to our mind. A different explanation or an alternative way to look at some evidence or even ideas about new kinds of evidence. These raw notes are the only ones that we have not gone back to, so far. Let’s see if they bring up new insights!

Do that for the rest of the day and we shall have a de-brief at 5 pm. We are going to be at it for the next 72 hours. But we shall do that in staggered shifts so that we can all get some rest. We need to be at our creative best to nail both these cases down!

I believe in us… in our collective ability to get this job done. All of you are thorough professionals and I am proud of you. As Sonia said, I couldn’t have asked for a better team. But, now we have far greater motivation to get this job done. Our lives… our futures… the very fate of all our families and friends and billions of people hangs in the balance. Let’s get this done!”

“This was good,” thought Sonia. She had seen the obvious effort that Alia had made to snap out of whatever was bothering her and take on the leadership role again. Of course, she needed a lot more from Alia. She needed her help in stopping the riot, too. Sonia nudged her toward her office to have a quick word as everyone got going on their allotted tasks. 

“I saw how you handled the crowd at the last riot. I am going to need you to continue doing that in an effort to head off this riot, if possible. It would be nice to solve the murders and that way take out the wind from the sails of these would-be rioters. But I would like to have a Plan B in place. If we can convince them to back off - even if it is for a bit - I think, it will give us some breathing room to come up with a proper strategy to deal with such situations over the long term.”

“Anything that you want, boss,” Alia promptly answered.

“Let’s wait for Tozi to get back in the office. We shall have her draw up a list of possible leaders behind the planned riots. Then you and I can split up the list and go talk with them. We are going to have to play it by the ear. I don’t know what kind of response we are going to get. We certainly cannot arrest anyone. There is no evidence that anyone has done anything illegal. Yet.”

“Sounds good! I am going to check on the team and see if there are any leads that I can run down. You will ping me when Tozi is back?”

Sonia nodded. 

“Good luck!! To us all! I am hoping that we catch a break right away.”