Freedom TM

senior partner, Aldous Johnston, stared at a huge media wall. Television news feeds from every channel in the Western world were tiled along the wall to either side. Live spy satellite imagery from a dozen locations around the globe were tiled on screens all along the bottom row.
    But the large central screen was a wonder to behold. Spread across its thirty feet was an awe-inspiring image of Earth—live high-definition video from twenty thousand miles in orbit. The day-night line cut diagonally across the eastern edge of Russia, with North America in a band of daylight that stretched to the Western seaboard of Europe. Most of the Southern Hemispherelay in darkness. Great swaths of Europe were woven with intricate filaments of light, blending into the glow of metropolitan sprawl. Knotted clumps of light daisy-chained across the landscape. Japan glowed like a tear in a lampshade down in the Pacific.
    Connelly could see the lights from the vast night-fishing fleets in the Sea of Japan. The lights of Seoul bringing back fond memories of the DMZ. Beijing, Hong Kong, and Mumbai glittered. Indonesia blazing in the South Seas. Wildfires raging in north central Australia. More traceries of light stretching along the Trans-Siberian rail line into Russia’s heartland. Natural gas burn-off smoldering in the blackness of Siberia.
    Connelly felt an adrenaline surge verging on euphoria. What would Napoleon have given for the power he now held? He turned to Johnston.
    Johnston nodded solemnly back.
    Even he’s hushed by it.
They were gods.
    Red lights were still flashing on dozens of other sensors. Connelly concentrated on the task at hand.
    Suddenly a Klaxon warning sounded. Johnston jumped in his seat. Connelly turned around to face a nearby Korr board operator. “Report to me.”
    The board technician was clicking through monitors. Images on the big board changed. He brought up an overhead view of the massive ranch with its concentric rings of fencing. Hundreds of flashing red points arrayed all around the ranch—in a 360-degree arc. “Seismic sensors have gone off on the fence line all around the ranch, sir.”
    “Along four hundred miles of perimeter? Unlikely. No one would scatter their forces like that. What are the chances that our security system has been compromised?”
    “We’re on it, sir.”
    Johnston scowled. “If our security system has been breached, then that might mean Daemon operatives know about our plans.”
    “Unlikely. But even if they did, it’s too late to do anything about them. We’re going to move ahead on an accelerated schedule.”
    Connelly was motioning to gather subordinates around him, but he spoke to Johnston.
    “A Daemon counterattack was anticipated, but much of the darknet’s bandwidth should disappear when we conduct the blackout.”
    “What the hell are we waiting for?”
    Connelly ignored him and instead barked at the control board operators. “What are we seeing from our surveillance drones on the perimeter? I want live visuals.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    In a few moments the central screen showed black-and-white infrared imagery of the prairie floor from a few thousand feet. The fence line was clearly visible running into the distance. Nothing unusual. The image jumped to another drone aircraft. Then it flipped to a third. Then a fourth. This one showed a rail spur stretching out to the horizon. The plain was empty.
    “Looks clear on the perimeter, sir.”
    Connelly nodded. “If false alarms are the worst it can throw at us, then we can manage. Lieutenant, seal the ranch and put the base on high alert. No one enters or leaves as of
now
. I want Kiowas in the air in a thirty-mile radius, and I want perimeter roads watched closely.”
    “Yes, General.”
    A piercing air-raid siren slowly wound up to a long mournful wail somewhere outside the bunkerlike building.
    Connelly and his assembled staff officers gathered around a plasma-screen table displaying a satellite still image of the ranch. He pointed with a pocket laser light as he spoke. “The seismic sensors along our perimeter have been compromised. Ignore them. However, we can’t rule out that this is the beginning of an attack.We have six surveillance drones airborne, but since we can no longer trust our perimeter alarms, that gives us too much terrain to cover. Have the garrison pull back to the secondary perimeter and establish kill boxes at the service gates here, here, and here, and at internal ranch road junctions