* * *
Hawkes was still talking:
“You should know, or if you don’t, I’ll tell you . . . a lot of you people have been talking to the authorities in El Paso, and, as far as we know, Washington, D.C. We are hoping to convince these people to let us go peacefully, after we stop the caravan. We’ll remove the highway barricade and drive in a convoy to El Paso. We’re hoping that the authorities accept that. But: we’re willing to die if we have to. We won’t go alone. Most of us are, or have been, soldiers. We’ll be a tough nut to crack. We’ve thought this through. We know what we’re doing. We have more armaments than they realize—and if they don’t let us go peacefully, we’ll take them on, and a lot of Americans will die.”
She looked at her watch again, lips moving as she did some math. “Some of you are talking to the authorities. Maybe right now. Maybe you have your phones on. We knew this would happen. But from now on, we’re going to need additional security. So . . .”
She looked up the hill. Nothing happened. She continued to stare over the heads of the crowd, and people began to look in the same direction, and then, CRUMP. From the bottom of the hill, where they were standing, the crowd could see only the top of the cell phone tower, which seemed to hop sideways and then fall out of sight.
“I think AT&T can afford another one,” Hawkes said. “For now, that’s the end of the cell phone service. We’re also taking out the Internet fiber-optic. We’re trying not to damage it too badly. I know it’s inconvenient, but it’ll be back up in a couple of days.”
A groan rippled through the crowd and almost everyone held up a cell phone to check the screen. Letty did the same: there were no bars for reception. The phone was dead.
On the truck, Hawkes said, “Now, another one of the Land Division leaders would like to explain why we’re doing this, better than I can . . .”
* * *
Letty checked around, peering at the members of the militia who stood at the edges of the crowd. They were, she realized, taking walkie-talkies from their pockets. The militia had communications, but nobody else did. Across the river, the Mexicans were all looking at their cell phones, talking with one another—they apparently only had phone access through the Pershing cell phone tower, which was now gone.
On the pickup, standing next to Hawkes, Rand Low began explaining the reasoning for the attack on Pershing, but the TV crew was backing out of the crowd, heading to their truck. Going to the cell phone tower for a shot of the damage, Letty thought: If it bleeds, it leads. She eased out of the crowd with several other people, started walking up the hill. One of the militiamen asked Letty, “Where you going, girlie?”
“I’m supposed to be looking after the baby. He was sleeping good, but I got a feeling he ain’t anymore. After that blast.”
He nodded, said, “You’re gonna miss the speech,” and she went on, past the first four streets, then down a side street near the top of the rise, then through a scattering of trailer homes, and past a truck parking lot. At the crest of the slope, she saw the TV truck set up to record the downed tower, the camerawoman messing with her equipment while Rodriguez got back into a sport coat. There were still three militiamen at the site, examining the wreckage.
Letty watched for a minute or two, then walked back down the hill to the motel, went into her room, checked the Wi-Fi. The Net was down. She thought about it some more, then got her pack with the Staccato and extra mags, along with two bottles of water and some PowerBars, and went over to the motel office. The old man was there, with a somewhat younger woman, and Letty asked, “Are there any hardwired phones in town?”
The old man shook his head. “Haven’t had those for years. Not even the Mexicans have them anymore, after AT&T put up the tower.”
“Anybody in town got a ham radio?”
Again, he shook his head. “Not that I know about. A few guys got CB radios, but they’re short-range. A couple miles down here. Who do you want to talk to?”