Read Fight for Power for Free Online Page B

said.
    â€œWithin the next forty-eight hours is our window,” Herb explained.
    â€œAnd I bet you have a plan you are ready to talk to us about,” the judge said.
    I knew he was right. Herb was always playing chess—trying to stay a few moves ahead—not just with the enemy but with the people sitting around this table. He’d been thinking about this plan from the instant that bridge went down.
    â€œThe captain and I can present a comprehensive plan to this committee within an hour.” He looked from person to person. “Well?”
    â€œI’m not sure I should even be in on the discussion,” Mr. Peterson said. “I’m a farmer, and that’s all I am. I don’t know about attacks and what needs to be done in situations like this.”
    â€œMe neither,” Mr. Nicholas added. “As an engineer, I find all this well beyond my area of expertise. Can’t we just leave this up to the captain and Herb, Howie, and the judge to decide?”
    There was a nodding of heads and agreement from most of the others who weren’t included in that group of names.
    â€œNo,” my mother said, silencing them. “We can’t. These decisions affect everybody, and we all have to have input.”
    â€œShe’s right,” Herb agreed.
    That surprised me. I thought Herb would have welcomed the opportunity to do things that way, without consultation or interference from more people.
    â€œIn an ideal world every member of this community would contribute to the decision because it will have dire, potentially fatal, impacts on them. We don’t live in that ideal place, but all of you are the neighborhood’s representatives. This has to be a collective decision because we will all have to live with the consequences. If we attack it is almost guaranteed that some of our people will die. We have to share in that responsibility,” Herb said.
    There was silence in the room as his words sank in. I think most of them would have relished washing their hands of the decision and then not being held responsible for what would happen—afraid of the consequences. Now they’d have to live with them, good or bad, successful or tragic.
    â€œI just wish we could give them the opportunity to lay down their weapons,” Judge Roberts said.
    â€œThey’d never do that,” Herb said.
    â€œHow can you be certain?” Howie asked.
    â€œThe problem with a liar is that he doesn’t believe anybody else is capable of telling the truth,” Herb explained. “They’d think it was just a trick and that as soon as they surrendered their weapons we’d cut them down.”
    â€œWe wouldn’t do that,” Judge Roberts said.
    â€œBut they would , and that’s how they think everybody thinks. They’re not going to simply walk away,” Herb said.
    â€œBut if they did, would we let them?” I asked.
    He didn’t answer right away. He looked like he was struggling to come up with the right words. “It wouldn’t be my decision to make.”
    â€œBut if it was?” I wasn’t going to let him get away without giving an answer.
    He took a deep breath. “Those people have done evil and will be prepared to do evil again. If we let them walk away, then we’re responsible for every action they take from that point on. Every death done by them would have been allowed by us. So, in answer to your question, I don’t think they will surrender, but even if they did they shouldn’t be allowed to leave … or live.”
    â€œAnd you think we should just kill them all?” my mother asked.
    He looked straight at my mother. “Yes.”
    â€œBut if we did, doesn’t that just make us the same as them, putting a bullet into the head of an unarmed man?” Judge Roberts asked.
    â€œIt’s not the same. They’re prepared to kill innocents. I’m proposing that we kill the guilty to