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The White House Senior Staff were apprehensive. C.J. had just been ambushed by the press about an alleged armed takeover of an entire county, not dissimilar the beating she’d taken over the India-Pakistan border skirmish, so she had the underlying assumption that she was being shut out, which was shut down quickly after realising that neither Josh, Toby or Sam had no clue what she or the press were talking about. Their summons to the Oval Office by an apprehensive-looking Charlie Young had also set them on edge slightly. Something was about to go down, and they all knew it.
When they walked in, the President was standing behind the Resolute desk and Leo was in front, but off to the side.
Josh was the first to break the small silence that followed their entrance, “Mr. President, has something happened?”
President Bartlet glanced at Leo. “Earlier today, I was informed by Hutchinson and the Joint Chiefs, that an armed takeover had occurred in Hope County, Montana. Members of a religious cult known as ‘The Project at Eden’s Gate’ shut down the roads and cut off communications to the wider country.”
“This just—sorry, Mr. President, for interrupting—this happened recently?” Toby said, scratching what was left of his hair.
Leo and the President looked at each other. “Three months ago.” Leo said
Four pairs of eyebrows shot up instantly.
“Three months?” Sam said, disbelief evident in his eyes and voice.
“The FBI had no idea this was happening?” Toby added.
“I’ve already given Mike Casper a dressing down.” The President said.
“I bet he liked that.” Josh said with his trademarked wit.
“Form what we understand, the Project at Eden’s Gate had multiple people working outside the county, ensuring that nobody came sniffing around. The FBI’s been slowly round them up.”
“Is there a plan in place to turf them all out of the county or has it turned into a hostage negotiation?”
Leo and the President looked at each other again. “It’s already been dealt with. That’s how we found out.” The President said, and seeing the confusion of his senior staff’s faces, elaborated, “apparently the non-cult citizens of Hope County did not take to the idea of being under the thumb of mad men. They instituted an armed resistance and took back the county themselves.”
“The gun lobby’s going to love hearing about that.” Toby said sarcastically.
“That’s your take-away from this?” C.J. said.
Leo quickly interrupted before verbal spar took place between the Communications Director and the Press Secretary, “C.J., get the information you can and work out a statement to the press, try to move the needle away from governmental incompetence. Josh, you can brief the Hill and liaise with Mike Casper. Toby, Sam, get a speech ready for a televised address.”
The Senior Staff nodded, thanked the President and then left.
“Seriously, how did the FBI miss an entire county going dark?” Josh said, sitting down in his office chair with small grunt.
“The President’s already had words with me.” Responded an increasingly exacerbated Mike Casper, who seemed to have not been having a good day.
“I know about that, I just want to how it happened. How a group of knockoff Branch Davidians managed to elude the FBI?”
“From the information we’re now getting, they had people strategically placed in jobs outside the county, a couple were editors of newspapers, and some more were high-level electricians, that could convincingly make it seem that Hope County had just experienced a power malfunction and couldn’t contacted. Inside the county, they managed to take control of and jam the radio towers to prevent communication from the inside to the outside. That’s not even getting into the geographical limitations, Hope County is surrounded by high mountains.”
“Inside to outside communications were cut off? What about internal communications?”
“Those remained working. It’s how the cult was able to coordinate their massive resources, though it was also a double-edged sword as the resistance was able to use the same communications to coordinate their own resources, dwindled as they were.”
“I thought the FBI was good at keeping its ear to the ground about this kind of thing, I’m still not understanding how this kind of uprising was missed.”
“Apparently, the Marshals were aware of something like this and they had issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the cult, Joseph Seed.”
“There was an arrest warrant?”
“Yeah, but about three days after, they receive a call from the Marshal they sent, one Cameron Burke, he said that he was delayed and everything was fine, but not to wait on him.”
“And they bought that?”
“Hook, line and sinker. From what I understand, Burke wasn’t well liked within his department, so they were just happy he was gone for a while.”
“Is he still alive?”
“No idea. Anything else?”
“No. Thanks for stopping by.”
It was two days after and information was still rolling in.
The senior Staff were sitting in C.J.’s office, half-eaten lunches lay forgotten on the desk.
“Seriously, how does federal government not realise an entire state has gone dark?” Josh said, leaning against the office door frame.
“It’s been two days and you’re still stuck on that question?” C.J. said raising her head to look at the Deputy Chief of Staff from behind her desk.
“Two days and it still baffles the mind.”
“Did you hear how it all came crashing down for the Peggies?” Sam said, interrupting the two from his seat on the desk.
“Peggies?” Josh asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Project at Eden’s Gate. P.E.G. Peggies.” Toby supplied from the couch he was lounging on.
“Apparently, one of the deputies managed to elude being captured by the cult and basically took on the cult by herself.” Sam said, reading a report that was on his lap.
“What is this? Rambo?” Josh said.
“Yes, from what I’m reading.”
“You said it was a female deputy?” C.J. said.
“Yeah.”
“Score one for the ladies.” C.J. supplied, hold up her index finger. Sam smiled and went back to his report. C.J. looked at Toby, “is the President going to be meeting any of the Hope County residents?”
“He’s already asked for a couple of them to visit, the ones that could, anyway.” Toby rifled through the files he was holding before he came to the page her was looking for, “a Sheriff Earl Whitehorse, Pastor Jerome Jeffries and a Dr. Sarah Perkins. They’re on their way.”
“Rambo didn’t come along?” Josh interjected.
“No, the Deputy isn’t coming. She stayed behind, citing mental health. Jacob Seed, the older Seed brother, was practicing some kind of brainwashing and it took its toll on her. Don’t know much of the details, but apparently it was bad.”
“Are we sure this isn’t Rambo?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Sam said it was.”
“Sam was being sarcastic.”
“I was only half-sarcastic.” Sam added.
“Sam, I can make your job worse if I wanted to.” Toby said quickly.
“You’d never do that, Toby. You love me too much.”
“Watch me. Go to my office.”
Sam rose and made towards the door, “okay, but it doesn’t change the fact that Josh is right, and this is kind of like Rambo.”
“Thank you, Sam.” Josh said noncommittedly. After Sam left, he returned to the papers he was reading. “Again, three months of a county going dark and nobody notices?”
C.J. threw a section of her half-eaten lunch at him.
Charlie noticed that the guests from Hope County still looked shaken. Sheriff Whitehorse’s eyes would sometimes glaze over, and Dr. Perkins would at an occasional loud noise. Pastor Jerome was the only one who looked ahead with an iron conviction.
When he walked in, their eyes all snapped to him.
“The President will see you now.”
They all collectively rose and dusted themselves off removing the invisible dirt that was on them and walked out of the mural room, through the office and into the Oval Office.
The President stood in the middle of the room in front of one of the ornate chairs and as they approach, he raised his hand out in greeting
Jerome was the first to shake the President’s outstretched hand. “Pastor Jerome Jeffries, Mr. President.”
President Bartlet’s smile was warm and slightly infectious. “Pleasure to meet you, Pastor.”
Sarah quickly followed, her nervousness starkly evident. “Dr. Sarah Perkins, Mr. President.” Her hand was slightly sweaty and it made her even more nervous.
“A medical doctor?”
“Wolf biologist or zoologist, whichever one works.”
“I’ll probably forget, so I’ll just call you ‘Doctor’, if that’s fine by you.” The President turned to Whitehorse and outstretched his hand.
Whitehorse took it and shook it firmly. “Earl Whitehorse, Hope County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Good to meet you, Sheriff. Please, sit.” He motioned to the couches in the room. They sat carefully. “So, if I may offer the government’s deepest apologies for not knowing what was happening in Hope County. My Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman has been driving himself mad with the question of how an entire county went dark without the federal government’s knowledge.”
“The Peggies were in deep all around the county. They were everywhere; they were like water on pavement, they found every crack and crevice and slithered their way in.” Whitehorse said, his old and withered voice still carried with it decades of authority. “Even I knew they were a problem, but I didn’t want rock the boat too much.”
“It was your department that made the arrest.”
“Attempted. It went bad quickly and, well, this whole storm happened.”
“Apparently, it was one of your deputies that took one the whole cult nigh-on by herself.”
“She’ll disagree, but pretty much.”
“Where were you during all this?”
“Holed up in the Hope County Jail.”
“That’s in the Henbane region?” The President said and Whitehorse nodded. “What were you doing there?”
“Organising a defence, mostly.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s nothing.”
“Neither would I, but I wasn’t ready go out and potentially get caught in the Bliss again.”
“The psychedelic?”
“Yeah. Got caught in it twice, the first time I did I managed to escape. The second time…” Whitehorse paused, clearly uncomfortable, “I’d rather not talk about the second time, let’s just say that Faith Seed had a habit of getting in your head.”
“Faith? The sister?”
“Adoptive sister. Used to be girl named Rachel Jessop, but she had bad time with the needle and fell into Joseph’s hands. He moulded her into Faith and by the time the cult took over the county, Rachel was lost and never came back.”
“Poor girl.”
“Some might say otherwise, but yeah. Poor girl.”
The President moved to Sarah. “What about you Dr. Perkins? Where you in this whole debacle?”
Sarah perked quickly at being address suddenly by the Commander-in-Chief. “Oh! Uh, well, I was in the Whitetail Mountains with my team. We were studying the local wolves when the Peggies took over.”
“What happened to your team?”
Sarah’s nervousness evaporated instantly. “They didn’t make it.”
“My condolences. If you don’t mind me asking what happened to them?”
“We were doing wildlife conservation when we were told that Eden’s Gate were going to harm us if we stayed, we didn’t heed the warning because who would want to hurt a bunch of conservationists? Howie disappeared and Kent got dragged off by the Judges, Bailey got bit and bled out the day after. Thought I was a goner, but I’m still here.” Sarah was looking in his direction, but it was clear to the President that she wasn’t looking at him specifically.
“I’m sorry about your friends, I really am.”
“Yeah.” Sarah said, the word coming out in a loud whisper.
“Who are ‘the Judges’?”
“I’m sorry?”
“’Judges’, who are they?”
“Not ‘who’. ‘What’. They’re wolves, or at least they were, ‘till the cult got to them. Did all kinds of things to them. Took their aggression to the maximum and made sure they could take all kinds of punishment.”
“Sounds terrible. Awful.”
“That’s not the worst that Jacob Seed did.”
“Yes, I heard there was brainwashing involved.”
“I don’t know too much about it, but it’s the reason why the Deputy isn’t here.”
“I read the report. Apparently, upon hearing ‘Only You’ by the Platters, sufferers go homicidally insane.”
“I think insane is the right word, but that shouldn’t be taken to mean that the Deputy’s crazy. From what I was told, it’s classical conditioning with an extra dose of Bliss. It’s how Jacob was able to kill Eli.”
“Eli?”
“Leader of the Whitetail Militia. Deputy killed him under Jacob’s influence.”
“Oh.”
“Now you understand why she didn’t want to come along.”
“Well, the Secret Service won’t have to keep their eyes fixed on her at all times, so there’s that.” Sarah laughed at the President’s good-natured humour. “What about you Pastor Jerome?”
“You can just call me Jerome, sir.”
“Nonsense! You respect my station as the President and I respect your station as man of God.”
“That I am, sir.”
“I’m sure you had your hands full trying to get the wayward back on the right path?”
“I tried, but I failed. Joseph got his first followers from my congregation. I did everything I could to get them back. I tried telling them that the love that Joseph preached about was tainted, but they didn’t listen. It got the point where I almost I lost hope.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, sir. After I climbed up from the dark, I could see that I was given a task. These people were killing, murdering, in the name of their Father, Joseph Seed. They worshiped him as though his voice and God’s were one and the same, and we both know what God thinks of idolaters.”
“For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell.” The President suddenly quoted.
“And shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
“Deuteronomy.”
“Chapter 32, verse 22. If Joseph was to pervert the love of the New Testament, then he was going to feel the fire of the Old. And feel it he did. The youngest Seed, John, liked to cloak his sadism in righteousness and the Hand of the Lord smote him down.”
“Were you a victim of that?”
“No, but I saw it happen with my own eyes. Nick Rye, a pilot, had words carved into his chest and the skin flayed off him.”
“Is he okay? Nick?”
“I asked him afterwards, when Holland Valley was free, and he said that ‘a small patch of skin was worth the life his wife brought into the world.”
“His wife gave birth?”
“Yes, not long after the Valley’s liberation. A daughter, Carmina.”
“Well, when you get back to Hope County, tell him that as a father with three daughters, it never gets easier, but cherish every second. It’ll be gone in a minute.”
“That I will, Mr. President.” Jerome said, smiling warmly.
The three spoke for some time after that, but President Bartlet made it clear that Hope County and its residents were about to enter the annals of history for their actions.
The three were happy to hear the statement but made it clear that they just wanted to live in peace from now on. The President said that he understood and told them to go and do just that.
After they left, Jed called in Leo.
“Mr. President?”
“What’s next, Leo?”