Highway To Armageddon (48 page)

           
“No. I want to assassinate the Empress.”

           
Everyone in the room gasps.

           
“But… how…” Boom Boom starts to say.

           
“I’m getting to that, girlie,” Klaxton barks. “Keep your panties on. Empress
Xing is usually hidden away to keep her safe from assassins. Next Saturday,
however, is China’s annual celebration of Xing’s ascension to the throne. It’s
one of the few times a year she comes out of hiding. She will be part of a
parade that snakes through the streets of Beijing. She will be surrounded by
security, and she’ll most likely be encased in some sort of bullet-proof
bubble. But even that won’t protect her from a radar-deflecting nuclear car
bomb that drops out of the sky. And even if she somehow survives the blast, she
will undoubtedly be grievously wounded. That will put that vicious cyborg freak
General Kang in charge. She will have no qualms declaring war against us.”

           
Practically everyone in the room appears to be reeling from Klaxton’s shocking
assassination plan. Boom Boom composes herself enough to say, “With all due
respect, Madam President, there are a few holes in your plot.”

           
Good ole Boom Boom. She’s going to try and use logic to talk Klaxton out of her
psychotic plan. I’m not exactly the world’s smartest person and even I see
problems with it. For one, why would the Chinese assume we had anything to do
with the bombing?

           
Boom Boom says exactly that. “While it’s apparently true you’ve been working
with Rasputin and the Purple Dragons for years now, the Chinese don’t know
that. I’m sure they suspect it, but they don’t know for sure. Why would they
jump to the conclusion that the U.S. provided the bomb? The Dragons could have
just as easily gotten the nuclear material elsewhere.”

           
“It’s so cute how you’re pretending to be smart,” Klaxton says condescendingly.
“First of all, the only places you’d be able to find any nuclear material is
here in America, in China, and in Bavaria. During the 21
^st
century,
America, China, Russia, and the other nuclear powers at the time locked down
all nuclear material. And when China invaded Russia, the first thing they did
was take control of Russia’s nuclear facilities. This was after they took out
Russia’s defenses with a relentless bombardment of EMP bombs, of course.
Otherwise the Ruskies probably would have used their nukes to repel the
invasion. We did the same thing with Canada.

           
“Secondly, the Chinese will realize they got this nuclear material from us
because we’re going to tell them so. More specifically, Rasputin will tell
them. Shortly after the bombing he will broadcast one of his terror videos over
the internet, taking credit for the attack and claiming he got the material
from one of our gun stores in Vegas.” Klaxton turns to me. “As you alluded to
before, little boy, we do have dirty bomb kits available in a few select shops
on the Strip. All of that material is fake, of course. I don’t want to risk
some crazy Canadian terrorists getting their hands on something like that. But
the Chinese won’t know it’s fake. Rasputin will reveal photos of him shopping
at one of the stores, ultimately making America an accomplice in the deadliest
terror attack in history. General Kang will have no choice but to declare war.
It will prove we’ve, at best, been passive in cracking down on Russian
dissidents and, at worst, that we’ve actually encouraged them.”

           
“This seems like a lot of work just to start a war,” I point out. “If you want
to fight the Chinese so bad, why don’t you just attack them first?”

           
Klaxton chuckles and shakes her head. “Just when I begin to think you kids have
some brains, you go and say something as stupid as that. I can’t launch a
preemptive strike for two reasons. One, Americans would not rally around me
like they would if we were attacked first. I’m going to need the full, patriotic
support of the entire country if we are to have any hope of taking it to the
Chinese. And two, history would view me as the aggressor in the conflict, and I
refuse to have my legacy soiled like that.”

           
Unbelievable. Klaxton is more concerned about how history will view her than
she is about the safety and security of the people she’s supposed to
protect.                          

           
“I’m sorry, but none of this makes any sense,” Boom Boom says, shaking her head
so fiercely that her purple hair whips back and forth. “Why on Earth do you
want to start a war? What purpose could it possibly serve except to cause
widespread death and destruction?”

           
“It’s simple economics, dear,” Klaxton replies, sounding almost bored with the
question. “A war is the only way we’ll ever be able to end this crippling
depression.”

           
I think everyone in the room says, “Huh?” at the same time, even Klaxton’s
secret service agents.

           
Klaxton sighs. “It’s really not that complicated to comprehend, is it?”

           
“Sort of,” I say to a chorus of chuckles.

           
Klaxton purses her lips. “As everyone here is painfully aware, the Horrible
Depression has been chugging alone for well over 40 years, ever since that
fateful day when Hurricane Omega wiped out New York’s financial district. When
I was first elected president I had high hopes I’d be able to turn the economy
around. At the time we had been mired in a global depression for two decades.
22 years later I have nothing to show for my efforts. Unemployment still hovers
around 80% and crime is more prevalent than ever. During my 22-year rule of the
most powerful empire on Earth, I’ve tried everything to turn things around. I
spent trillions on stimulus projects. I freed up revenue by outsourcing
criminal apprehensions to bounty hunters. I manipulated our currency. I slashed
interest rates to zero. I cut taxes to stimulate consumer spending. But nothing
has worked. The economy hasn’t budged a single percentage point since I took office.
It’s the deepest, widest, most stubborn depression in world history, a
depression that’s been going on for nearly half a century. I was beginning to
think we’d be stuck in a depression for all of eternity.

           
“That’s when it hit me. I figured out precisely what medicine our economy
requires to get it moving again. All we need is a healthy dose of
war
.
World
war
to be exact.”

           
President Klaxton has officially gone bye-bye.

           
“How exactly did you come to that conclusion?” Boom Boom blurts out. She sounds
like she’s on the verge of hysteria.

           
“You seem like a somewhat intelligent young woman,” Klaxton says. “You’re
certainly smarter than the other peons in this room. All you have to do is look
back on history to see why this is a flawless plan. The second greatest
depression the world has ever known, the so-called Great Depression of the
1930s, was strikingly similar to the one we’re stuck in today. Granted this one
is many times worse, but there are similarities. Unemployment was sky-high.
President Roosevelt did many of the same things I’ve tried: stimulus, social
programs, cutting taxes. While his socialist ploys worked to a certain degree,
they did not end the depression. The Great Depression did not officially end
until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, sucking us into World War 2. It took a
world war to end the Great Depression, and it will take nothing less to end
this one.”

           
“How exactly does a war help the economy?” I ask.

           
Klaxton looks at me like I’m the dumbest creature she’s ever laid eyes upon.

           
“Don’t they teach you wretched children anything in school?” she snarls. “War
is the ultimate stimulus program. If we go to war with China we will see an
explosion in job growth. Millions of men will be sent overseas while millions
of women go to work in our factories, building guns, bullets, bombs, tanks,
planes, armor, and military rations. The unemployment rate will be cut in half
within a year, and it could drop as low as 10 percent only a few short years
after that. We will finally be able to claw our way out of our economic grave.”

           
My eyes do kind of glaze over at the thought of a low 10% unemployment rate.
The country would change overnight. Poverty and crime would disappear as people
finally had money to care for themselves. Maybe a war is the answer.

           
Boom Boom snaps me out of Klaxton’s brainwashing when she asks, “What happens
when China lobs a few nuclear and antimatter missiles our way? You honestly expect
China to sit there and allow us to invade their territory?”

           
Klaxton waves Boom Boom off. “Do you really think I’d consider a war with China
if I didn’t have a plan to deal with their weapons of mass destruction? First
of all, the same thing that prevented the United States and the Soviet Union
from entering a nuclear war is the same thing that will prevent the U.S. and
China from having one: the specter of mutual annihilation. Just like the U.S.
and the Soviets waged a Cold War during the latter half of the 20
^th
century, so too will the U.S. and China. We managed to have skirmishes with
Soviet-backed forces in Korea and Vietnam, and we helped the Afghans repel a
Soviet invasion in the 1980s. We will have similar battles with China. Think of
it as the world’s greatest super powers playing a friendly game of chess, with
the entire planet as our chessboard. It’s sort of like what occurred in the
Orwellian classic
1984
, when the empires of Oceania, Eurasia, and
Eastasia were engaged in a perpetual state of war to keep their people in line
and to stimulate the global economy. So too will I control our economy with a
willing sparring partner, General Kang.”

           
“But you said it yourself, General Kang is insane,” Boom Boom says, struggling to
reason with our deranged leader. “What if Kang goes crazy one day and decides
to launch China’s entire nuclear and antimatter arsenal? The world would ignite
in a nuclear holocaust.”

           
For the first time I detect a gleam of doubt in Klaxton’s icy cold eyes. But
it’s only for the briefest of seconds. An instant later she is back to her
cold, intense self.

           
“If Kang is as foolish as you say, then our missile defense shield will make
short work of their attempted bombardment. Our EMP rockets will intercept their
warheads over the Pacific and send them hurtling to the depths of the sea.”

           
“Are you positive our shield will stop
all
the warheads?” Arrow asks.
“Even if one slips through it’ll cause an insane amount of destruction.”

           
Klaxton once again appears unnerved by the prospect of our nuclear shield not
being all it’s cracked up to be. After all, it’s not like you can test it. We
won’t know if it works until an actual nuclear war breaks out.

           
Klaxton finally says, “I have full faith in our rocket scientists and
engineers. The shield will protect us, I am sure of it.”

           
Boom Boom shrugs. “Okay, but it sounds like you’re playing Russian roulette
with nuclear bombs.”

           
“Oh, I love Russian roulette!” Norma exclaims. “It’s my favorite pastime!”

           
Klaxton glares at Norma until she gulps and looks down.

           
“You all seem to forget I’ve been in power longer than any president in
American history,” Klaxton says haughtily. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

           
“I just can’t believe you’re behind all of this,” Boom Boom says. “I bet you
allowed Chinese satellites to capture that image of Rasputin in Vegas, didn’t
you?”

           
“Bingo,” Klaxton says with a shrewd smile. “I wanted the Chinese to have proof
Rasputin was in Alaska. That way they could accuse us of not doing enough to
find him. I put a bounty on his head to pretend I was doing something, but I
was never concerned he’d actually be found. He was too well hidden. I might as
well have put out a bounty on a leprechaun.”

           
“That’s not a slight against my height, is it?” Rasputin growls.

           
“Keep your Napoleon Complex in check, short-stuff,” Klaxton snaps. “So like I said,
you kids don’t have to worry about a war with China resulting in a nuclear
holocaust. I have everything under control. Soon the economy will be chugging
along on all cylinders, and I’ll go down in history as the woman who ended the
Horrible Depression
and
took out the Chinese. I’ll be greater than
Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt
combined
. And it’s all thanks to my
perfectly orchestrated façade.”

           
Klaxton is seriously on crack. I mean, comparing herself to three of our
greatest presidents? What the hell!

           
“Now that you all know what’s up, it’s time to put Klaxton’s plan into action,”
Rasputin says, patting the suitcase nuke. “At dawn we will begin our odyssey to
Siberia. By this time next week the world will be at war.”

           
Igor and the rest of Rasputin’s cronies break out in huge grins.

           
“I can’t wait to return to Russia,” Norma says, clapping like a deranged baby.

           
Rasputin glances at me, Arrow, and Boom Boom. He’s probably wondering why we
look so frightened.