The Freshman Ch. 29

----------

The next day Jason's grandmother called with the news that his father had "gone berserk" at the house and had kicked his wide-screen television to pieces. Cassie had fled the house and was at the condo, totally terrified at her father's inexplicable display of temper.

"He was sitting there watching the news, and suddenly he went nuts. He smashed up the TV, and then the phone rang and he grabbed it and threw it against the wall. Then he just started kicking stuff and screaming 'FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!' Cassie said to me: 'I don't get it...he was just watching the news...and then he went crazy'. Of course you and I do know why he went crazy..."

Jason swallowed hard and tried to catch his breath.

"Grandma, you can't tell Cassie about anything that's happened with you and me, you know that, right?"

"You bet I know that. I'm not telling her anything. But anyhow, I'm glad it happened. Your father needed to get his comeuppance. Now maybe he can think about what's really important, and..."

"I don't think so, Grandma. I don't think it's gonna happen like that. I'm kinda thinking he was in a lot deeper than we realize..."

"What do you mean?"

"Grandma, think about it for a moment. Dad's not a CEO from Mega-Town Associates. He's a lobbyist. Why would they take him in as part of their group? I'm now thinking it's because each of those guys put his own money into the operation, and the money's why he was in on it. If that's true, Dad may have gotten wiped out financially."

Jason's grandmother was silent on the other end. She realized that her grandson probably was right. Mr. Schmidt was doing far more for the coup project than just writing press releases. He must have been one of the financial backers.

Jason thought about Cecilia's comment last Thanksgiving about "dirty money". Well, this was about as dirty as money possibly could get. It couldn't get much worse. Now, with the mercenaries in custody, their weapons piled in the basement of Danube City's Central Police Station, and information just beginning to come out in the press about Mega-Town's involvement in the project, the "dirty money", including whatever his father had put in, was gone.

----------

There was only a week of classes after the 23rd and then a week of tests during the first week of May. Whatever consequences there might be from the coup, Cecilia figured they would not directly hit Jason's family until sometime during the summer. She had a common sense approach to his dilemma: there wasn't anything he could do for anyone for several weeks at least. What he needed was to concentrate on was passing his classes and doing as well as possible academically. Jason followed her advice and tried to focus on his classes. He needed to take care of the semester. When he got his grades then he could deal with the other problems in his life.

----------

During finals week Jason had lunch with Cynthia Lee to get an update over what was going on in Danube City that was not making the news. Cynthia, her sharp mind able to sort out what was important from what wasn't, gave Jason a concise picture of the ongoing crisis, a systematic analysis he had not been getting from watching cable. Jason had been following the US portion of the news and its impact on Mega-Town Associates, so on that part he was able to compare notes with Cynthia.

On Wall Street and in Washington the failed coup attempt was morphing into a massive scandal that caught up several U.S. State Department employees, executives from Mega-Town Associates, arms dealers, and a couple of Danubian provincial politicians who were arrested in the Duchy as conspirators. Mega-Town Associates' reputation suffered a catastrophic blow and it's stock price fell nearly 15% in just two days. Five Eastern European governments ordered the company out of their territories, which essentially shut down its chances of expanding into that region of the world.

As for the conspirators, they were finished professionally. The week following the coup attempt Mega-Town Associates held a chaotic emergency shareholder meeting over the fiasco, which resulted in the firing of all the executives involved in the project. The company elected a new board that immediately began a campaign of damage control that publicly excoriated the rogue operation.

Certainly what happened in Eastern Europe did not reflect the values or goals of the employees and shareholders of this fine company as a whole...

It was an exercise in absolute hypocrisy, but it assured that Mega-Town would lie low for a while and leave foreign governments alone until it repaired its public image.

Cynthia then moved on to what Jason knew less about, the situation in Danube City following the failure of the coup attempt.

A total of 153 National Police Officers, Army soldiers, helicopter pilots, military reservists, and citizen defense patrol volunteers were killed during combat operations, along with 78 mercenaries. Another 583 mercenaries and local conspirators were in custody, and that was just in Upper Danubia. Another 139 prisoners had been taken south of the Danubian border, and the Greek government was holding the people responsible for the bomb.

There was a surge of militant nationalism in the Duchy, which was to be expected after such a traumatic event. The first priorities on the minds of the Danubian public were the "fallen heroes of the Ancients". The 153 Danubian fatalities were buried with honors on April 24th, the day after the coup itself was supposed to have been launched. They were buried together in a specially designated cemetery outside Danube City, each of them dressed in a black robe and holding a small mirror. That day the entire country was dressed in black robes in honor of the dead and the Temples were full of worshipers attending memorial services.

Following the state funerals, Vladim Dukov faced a complicated problem, how to handle the nearly 600 prisoners captured on April 21st and April 22nd. They remained chained in the basement of the Central Police Station in Danube City and the Governor's Palace in Rika Chorna, while the Danubian government tried to figure out what to do with them. The problem was a complex one for the Prime Minister, because the prisoners pitted his own supporters against Upper Danubia's international image.

The Danubian public was livid over the coup attempt and demanded the execution of everyone involved. Tens of thousands of outraged Danubians marched down the streets of Danube City waving hangman's nooses. Politicians and news commentators were arguing for the mercenaries to be shot in groups in front of the U.S. Embassy in full view of the American diplomatic staff. Then the crowd should throw the corpses into the embassy compound as a protest against the U.S. government.

Dukov knew that no such thing as a mass execution was going to happen. He had to get rid of the mercenaries, but shooting them was not a viable option. Jailing them was not an option, because Upper Danubia did not have any prisons. To collar them and sentence them in the Danubian manner was not an option either, because the Danubian justice system was not set up to accommodate several hundred hardened foreigners. Dukov's only real option was to somehow repatriate the majority of the foreign mercenaries to their home countries and hope they would be prosecuted abroad, but with the public mood the way it was, to do so would risk a popular revolt if he didn't handle it right.

While Dukov was struggling to calm the tempers of his citizenry, he also had to answer the angry demands of foreign governments asking what was going to happen to their citizens currently languishing in the underground cells.

Dukov viewed the conflicting demands of the Danubian citizenry and the foreign governments as a possible opportunity to solve his problem. Being a skilled and shrewd negotiator, he had decided to play the Danubian public and the foreign governments against each other. He would extract concessions from other leaders in exchange for deporting the mercenaries, bring home real benefits to the country, and improve Upper Danubia's international standing in Europe. The prisoners, instead of being a problem, would be used as bargaining chips in a very complex game of international Poker. He would argue he needed meaningful concessions, or else his Parliament would not allow him to deport the prisoners, which was very true.

While Dukov wanted to deport most of the prisoners, there were about 25 among them he planned to prosecute to the fullest extent of Danubian law. They included the three captured Mega-Town executives, several German and U.S. coup organizers, all of the field commanders, a Bulgarian arms dealer, the people who tried to plant the bomb in Athens, and last but not least, the U.S. Commercial Attaché, who was still holed-up in the U.S. Embassy.

By threatening some of the lower-ranking foreigners with prosecution, the Danubians quickly got the confessions and information the government needed to identify the leaders in court. The lower-level mercenaries had been shown TV images of the angry crowds marching outside with nooses, and after several days, many of them were scared enough to tell prosecutors whatever they needed to know about the coup operations as originally planned.

Dukov decided to allow the high-profile prisoners to hire their own lawyers and hold a foreign-style trial with real defense attorneys instead of assigning them Danubian Spokespersons. The reason for making that concession was that he wanted as much of the incident to become public knowledge as possible. He wanted the defendants to show themselves in court for what they were, allow them to turn on each other, and use the trials to humiliate Mega-Town Associates.

The strategy was risky, because foreign defense attorneys would try to cover up the truth about their clients. Also, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the coup had been thwarted because the Danubians had prior knowledge of the attack, and any worthwhile defense attorney would demand to know how the Danubian government could have known ahead of time that a coup was about to be launched.

The problem was how to handle that question: who tipped off the Danubians about the coup. Dukov couldn't tell the truth, because that would put Jason at risk. However, to claim the Danubian Secret Police somehow uncovered the plot would require police officers to commit perjury on the stand, which was a grave violation of Danubian values. Cynthia didn't know how the Danubians were going to resolve that problem, to obtain convictions that could not be challenged by foreign governments.

Jason gave her words some thought. Then he sat up straight and took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he needed to do. As the Danubians always said, it was a question of honor.

"Cynthia, the only solution is for me to go to Danube City and testify. You said it yourself; Dukov doesn't have any other options if he wants to nail those fuckers. I'm gonna have to testify."

"There's no way, Jason, no way. You'd be dead within a week of getting back. Even now there's some really pissed off people running around trying to figure out who screwed up their plans, and..."

"It doesn't matter. They're gonna find out anyway, sooner or later. Before they kill me, I want to tell my story. I want to stand up in court and say 'yes, I'm the son-of-a-bitch who messed up your precious plans.' I want the world, and I especially my father, to know what I did. I'm not ashamed of it at all, so why should I hide?"

"I think you're wrong. They don't have to find out it was you..."

"I want them to know. I want to look at those defendants and tell 'em it was me. When you go to Danube City, I want to go with you."

"But...you'd be ruining your life...your college..."

"That's over anyway. I think my dad just got wiped out financially, and anyhow, even if he didn't, I'm sick of taking his money. I don't want to go to college on his money anymore. I'll do it some other way. I want to stand up and do things on my own, and if I have to, I'll fail on my own."

"But..."

"Look. You need that information. Once I give it up, I really won't be worth killing, 'cause I won't have anything to hide anymore. It'll come out in the trial, and then, that's it. I will have said what I need to say."

Cynthia took a deep breath. Unfortunately Jason was the one who truly understood his situation. Sooner or later someone would find out he was the one who got the information to the Danubian government and he would die, probably a horrible death. If he traveled to Upper Danubia, perhaps the Danubian government could protect him.

"Maybe you're right. I suppose you really would be better off testifying and just be done with it. But if you do come with me, there's gonna have to be a condition. I'm gonna need you to stay in Danube City for a while. I think you'd be safer there than anywhere else. Maybe you could learn Danubian and study at the National University."

"But I don't have any money."

Cynthia gave him an incredulous look.

"I think the Duchy can afford a scholarship. I also think that anyone in their government would open up their house to you and consider it an honor to have you sit at their table. You're the only reason they're not all dead right now."

There was a long pause, while Jason thought of another detail in his life, the one person he could not live without.

"There's something else, that's very important to me."

"What's that?"

"Cecilia. I can't leave her. She'd have to go too."

"That goes without saying. She'll have to go, because she'll be in just as much danger as you."

----------

Later that afternoon Jason broke the news to Cecilia. She agreed that he really had no choice but to travel to Danube City and testify, and really no choice other than to stay there and hope the Danubian government could protect him. She also knew she had no choice other than to go with him. He needed her, as he had needed her over the past year, to encourage and inspire him. He needed her support, he needed her body, and he needed her presence. She would have to go.

On the last day of final exams, Cecilia told Ruth Burnside about her decision. She explained in detail about Jason's role in preventing the coup plot and that he had one final contribution he needed to make, providing his testimony to ensure the plotters could be convicted. She explained that Jason's life was in danger, and the only hope he had of surviving the summer would be to stay in Upper Danubia. To that Burnside responded:

"Well, you know that we're setting up an exchange program with the National University in Danube City. We won't be sending students until next year, but the program's going to need a counselor. We'll need someone to be the first student on the ground, a U.S. citizen who can deal with the quirks of the Danubians and help people get settled in. I had been wondering who we were going to send, but I think the candidate just chose herself."

"You mean...me?"

"Why not? You've proved yourself as an RA. I just got a phone call from the director of Huntington Hall. He told me you were the best RA he's had, ever. Since you're going to be stuck Danube City anyway, we'll just send you as our first student. Our trailblazer, so to speak. Get yourself settled in...you'll have a year to do it, and then you can put your old RA skills to use when we send our first batch of exchange students next summer."

Cecilia's heart jumped at Burnside's proposal. So it really was her destiny to follow Jason and continue to be the mainstay of his life. Even Burnside knew that. They would be leaving together and they would stay in Danube City, however long that needed to be, together.

However, another thought crossed her mind, a strange one, considering all that had happened to her over the past year. She felt pushed to share it with her professor.

"You know, Dr. Burnside, in spite of everything, I'm gonna miss you."

"I'll miss you too. A lot, maybe more than you think. We've had our rough spots, but it's not going to be the same without you around the office."

----------

Cecilia and Jason both had to say goodbye to the people in their lives. Cecilia got together with Suzanne just two days before it was time for her to leave. She wasn't one to talk about what had happened to Jason to most people, but she did feel she could share some of the details with her photographer friend. Suzanne was very sorry to see Cecilia departing from her life, but she knew that it had to be that way. Upper Danubia needed Jason, and Jason needed her. The path of her life had been determined, and she would have to follow it. Before they gave each other their final hug, Suzanne took one last picture of Cecilia. It was a simple portrait taken of her sitting at the university coffee shop, but once she developed the picture, Suzanne would consider the image one of her best.

There was the need to say goodbye to Lisa and Ken, but both Jason and Cecilia knew that it would be better not to burden them with the serious situation of the upcoming trial in Danube City. Instead they listened to Ken talking about his upcoming pledge obligations with the Tri-Alphas, and Lisa talking about her recent decision to join the fraternity's sister sorority. They would spend the summer doing odd things for upper classmen and getting their butts paddled, and then in the fall Ken probably would be doing a repeat performance as a pledge leader. It would be a while before life would close in on them, but Jason was glad about that. They could still have some fun and just be ordinary students for a few more years. Jason hoped Ken and Lisa could stay together as a couple, but wasn't sure whether that would happen.

There was one final goodbye, and that was Jason's grandmother. Her friend drove her all the way from Wisconsin to Chicago, in part so she could take some of the things he would not be able to ship to Danube City. She would store the items to give back to him at some point in the future. She talked about her hopes for him and Cecilia. As for Mr. Schmidt, she had no news about him whatsoever. Cassie had gone back to the house, but had told her that she had not seen much of either of her parents since her father's temper tantrum in the den back in April. Not that she wanted to see him. She was perfectly content having the house to herself.

Jason's grandmother was proud of her grandson, even though he had been forced to turn his back on everything he had grown up with. He would leave and then return in a few years, irrecoverably changed. While he was absent the crisis about to strike down his parents would come and go, and later he would be called upon to salvage what was left of his family. Life had great things in store for Jason, even if he did not realize it yet.

Jim Halsey was the person who took the three students to the airport. He stayed with them until they made it past the security screeners, his eyes watchful to make sure no one had followed them into the terminal. A short time later Cynthia Lee, Jason Schmidt, and Cecilia Sanchez were on their way to Frankfurt, where they would change planes and make the final short flight to Danube City.