ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? (50 page)

Ten minutes later, Jack Sullivan came out of the aerie elevator, surprised at
the summons, but ready to fight whatever battle Metzger wanted him to fight.

“Did you see it?” Metzger asked, without so much as an hello.

“It?”

Metzger held his temper. “The Bowman speech.”

“Oh, yeah, sure did. That changes everything, doesn’t it? I mean Canadia, with
all that oil, and the great ski resorts…wow. I sure didn’t see that coming. But
I’ll bet you did, right?”

Metzger regarded Sullivan as one might regard a cockroach. “No,” he said. “I
did not. For once, all of my sources, all of my contacts and all my so-called
friends failed me. But no matter. I know my next step. That’s why I’ve called
you in.”

Sullivan smiled. “Well, you know, Mr. Metzger, anything I can do…”

“Good,” Metzger snapped. “This is what I want you to do. I want you to get on
the air tonight and destroy Bowman. I want you to make his proposal look
ridiculous and self-serving. Crazy, even. I’ll find you people to back you up.”

“Hmmmm,” Sullivan said, troubled. “But…well…how? I mean he made a pretty strong
case. Put all the pieces together and you would have a pretty powerful
country…I mean, wouldn’t you?”

Metzger stared at Sullivan as though he’d never seen him before. “What?”

Sullivan looked for a way to retreat. “Well, you know, I mean after Bowman’s
speech, I think most people…”

“You are a fool, Sullivan,” Metzger said. “You are a—what’s that word?—a
jackass. You have no idea what this is all about, do you?”

“I know, I know, the reunion with the Confederacy…”

“You
Dummkopf
,” Metzger snarled. “
It has nothing to do with that. It is about
power
, you
Stecknadelkopf
. It is about power politics. It is
about who controls America. That is why we are fighting Callaway. That is why
we tried to sabotage the Bourque meeting. If we lose this battle…
he
wins.”

Sullivan’s mouth fell open. “I don’t know,” he said, bewildered. “Bowman is
right, it’s a perfect fit. It will make America the biggest, richest, most
powerful nation in the Western Hemisphere, maybe the equal of Germany.”

Helmut Metzger stood, leaned across his desk, and, delivered the blow for
which, as a young boxer, he had been notorious: a vicious, backhanded slap to
Sullivan’s face, sending the talk show host stumbling across the room. “Out,”
Metzger said, “
Geh mir aus
den Augen
, you idiot!
Raus
aus
meinem
Büro
.
” Eyes afire, he picked
up the telephone. “Get me security!” he yelled.

Sullivan was working his jaw from side to side, trying to assess the damage.
Now, he held up his hands in surrender. “All right,” he said, “all right. I’m
going, I’m going.” He hit the elevator button, and when the door opened, he
scurried inside. The door closed. He was gone, leaving Metzger standing,
panting, face red with impotent fury.

*

In his video viewing room,
Presidente
Miguel Garcia sat dead
still, his single eye glaring at the wall-sized television screen. He was
gripping the arms of the theater-style seat as though he intended to rip them
off. When the
“stand by, technical difficulties” appeared on the
screen, he composed himself sufficiently to hit the off button on his remote
control.

Finally, Garcia got up and strode back toward his office. He stopped at
Rosalita’s desk. “Get Espinosa here. Now.” he instructed.

Less than ten minutes later, General Carlos Espinosa, Chief of Staff of the
Mexican armed forces steamed into the room, all sails flying. He was a mess.
His green dress uniform jacket was only half-buttoned. He was wearing
mismatched shoes. A dollop of shaving cream lingered under his left year. His
hair was wet.

Garcia raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “And what happened to you, Carlos?”

“I was in the bathroom when I was summoned,
El Presidente
,” said General
Espinosa. “I came as quickly as I could.”

“You slept in, this morning?” Garcia regarded the man with disgust. He reached
out and gave the bejeweled globe a spin.

“No,
Presidente.
I was up at 5:30, for a field exercise,” he explained.
“I had just returned and I was cleaning up.” He began to sweat.

Garcia sighed deeply. “Sit down Carlos. I have urgent business to discuss.”

“Of course.” He sat—he almost collapsed—into
El Presidente’s
guest
chair.

“Are you all right?” Garcia inquired, not so much out of concern, but because
he needed the information.

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Good,” said Garcia. “Now tell me, how many landing craft are ready to go?”

“Ready to go?” Espinosa asked, surprised. “By when?”

“By tomorrow.”

Espinosa was aghast. “Tomorrow? But that’s impossible. Nearly three hundred
landing craft have been built, but none could go tomorrow.”

Garcia’s face turned to stone. “Why not?”

“They need fuel and oil. Their batteries need to be charged. The seat cushions
need to be installed….”

“How long?” Garcia interrupted. “How quickly can this be done? If every
available man is put on the job?”

Espinosa seemed flummoxed. “I really don’t know. We planned to take care of
that over the next three weeks, but…”

“Three days,’ Garcia said. “I want it done in three days.”

“But
Presidente
, even if the landing craft are ready, the drivers are
still being trained.”

“The drivers?”

“Yes. The landing craft are, by nature, very unstable. Well-trained drivers can
handle them, but neophytes…well, it could be catastrophic.”

“Nonetheless,” Garcia said stubbornly. “I want them ready by…”

“Ready?” Espinosa said. “Ready for what? Have you spoken with Admiral Diaz?”

“About what?”

“He and I agreed that he would talk to you this morning,” Espinosa said,
sounding bitter. “He
promised
.”

“What are you talking about?”

Espinosa shook his head. He was helpless now. Diaz had played the coward,
leaving it up to him to deliver the bad news—and face Garcia’s fury. The
General steeled himself and marched into the war zone.

“Yesterday, Diaz
sent a scout plane over the Confederacy’s east coast. It discovered an NAU task
force about 20 miles offshore, covering the Carolinas and Georgia. Five fast
missile frigates, the newest and most deadly vessels in their navy. If we sent
in our landing craft, it would be an unmitigated disaster. Our entire fleet
would be destroyed. Our invasion force…would drown.”

Garcia did not
react. He gazed at Espinosa without expression.

“
Presidente
?”

Garcia put his hands
to his face, closed his eye and bowed his head.

“
Presidente
?
Do you under…”

“Missile
frigates,” Garcia said, looking up, stunned.

“Yes. Missile
frigates,” Espinosa said. “And it would be suicidal to attack them. They’re
much too fast and too well-armed for any of our ships, even in combination.”

“Could we hit them
from the air?” Garcia asked, already knowing the answer.

“Their ships are
bristling with the latest ship-to-air missiles. If we had the stealth bombers I
discussed with you last year…but we do not.”

Garcia glared at his Chief of Staff. “Are you suggesting…”

“No,
Presidente
! I assure you. I am suggesting nothing.” Espinosa said
quickly. “Everyone knows that you are a brilliant military leader and
strategist. No one could have anticipated Callaway would send a task force to
protect the Confederacy, even before making an agreement with them. We would
have dismissed the suggestion with laughter. It was foolishly premature.
Nonetheless…” He let the word dangle.

“Yes,” Garcia said. “Nonetheless.”

He reached out and spun the inlaid globe again, bring it to a stop at the
splotch of green meant to portray the greater Mexico of the future. He gazed at
it for a moment, then he rose, growling like a bear and grimacing wildly. He
seized the globe with both hands, raised it high over his head, and with all of
his considerable strength and fury, threw it against his office wall.

The bejeweled globe barely missed a window, slamming into the wall and
shattering into the proverbial thousand pieces. Shards of country-shaped
semi-precious stones rained down on the office’s thick grey carpeting. The
large wafer of jade meant to represent Mexico plus the Confederacy came to rest
against one of Garcia’s muddy boots. He scrutinized it briefly, then raised his
booted foot and tromped down on it with all of his weight, grinding the
fragments deep into the carpet.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Julia Callaway sat on the living room couch in the White House living quarters,
legs curled under her, about to watch the 6:30 p.m. TV news. She’d chosen
channel 704, the INN channel because she wanted to see how Helmut Metzger’s
network would play the day’s events.

Specifically, she wondered how anchorman Sean O’Neill, would explain the
gigantic and ultimately catastrophic Our Country First rally, most of which
she’d watched from her bedroom window, and what the station would say about the
astonishing offer from Canadia and its Prime Minister, Gordon Bowman.

She was sitting through the second station break commercial when the door
opened and the President walked in.

“Charlie,” she said in surprise, “what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in
your office on the telephone, putting the arm on some of the famously
undecided?”

Callaway took off his jacket, tossed it over a chair and sighed. “If I make one
more phone call tonight, my head will explode.”

“You’ve talked to everyone?”

“Some of them twice. Could you get me something to drink? My mouth feels like
sandpaper.” He sat down heavily, kicked off his shoes and rested his head on
the gold damask upholstery covering the back of the couch.

“Soda?”

The President roused himself. “I said something to
drink
, dear heart,
not something fizzy.”

Julie went to the wet bar in the corner of the room and brought back a Scotch
and water for her husband. As he sat up to take the glass, the 6:30 news began.

“Good evening, I’m Sean O’Neill, with the evening news. And it’s been a busy
news day, with a number of major stories, all of them revolving around the
efforts of President Callaway and Confederate President Bourque to reunite the
NAU and the CSA after 150 years of separation.

“The biggest surprise news came in a television address seen both in Canadia
and America delivered by the Prime Minister of Canadia, Gordon Bowman, He
announced that his country would be petitioning Congress to merge the two
nations, on the condition that Congress accepts the CSA’s petition for reunion.

The view switched from O’Neill at his news desk to Gordon Bowman, as he spoke
to both nations earlier in the day. “So here is our offer, America: We want to
join you—and the CSA—to build the greatest country on Earth. And we say to your
Congress, vote tomorrow to let the Southern states rejoin the union and then
approve our petition, so we can begin conforming our provincial constitutions
to yours. Let us join you, as soon as possible, in a new era of peace and
prosperity, for the good of all.”

The picture cut back to O’Neill.

“Prime Minister Bowman’s speech interrupted another speech, this one by Phyllis
Iserbyt, President of Our Country First, in which she called on Congress to
reject President Callaway’s reunion plan. Ms. Iserbyt was addressing a
Washington, D.C.rally , estimated by its organizers at more than 250,000
people.”

A new video clip came up: Phyllis Iserbyt, addressing the rally. “Hello
everyone,” she called, and she got a loud, ragged hello back in return. “Thank
you for coming. Thank you for showing President Callaway how the American
people feel. Thank you for showing how deeply we oppose this naïve,
poorly-considered and ultimately gravely-misguided adventure, this terrifying
threat to our nation and our society.”

Then, it was back to O’Neill, at his desk. “Ms. Iserbyt had barely begun
speaking when Bowman’s speech interrupting her, coming up on the huge monitors
scattered through the crowd of protesters and visible by all. This left her
confused and unable to hold the crowd, which rapidly dissipated.”

The picture cut once more to Ms. Iserbyt, just as she realized she was no
longer on the television screens and no one was paying attention to her any
more. She appeared both frustrated and bewildered.

In the Presidential living room, Julia looked at her husband and grinned.
“Could you have your people make a copy of that?”

“Why?” Callaway asked. “Seeing it once isn’t enough?”

“I just want to keep it handy,” Julia said. “I might need to be reminded.”

“God, I hope not,” said the President.

The camera came in on O’Neill again.
“Coming on the heels of President Callaway’s address to the
nation last night, both of today’s speeches—and the anti-reunion rally—come at
a critical moment for the reunion plan,” he said. “Congressional debate came to
an end on Friday, and a vote on the reunion resolution is scheduled for
tomorrow morning. How will that vote go? I’ll be back in a moment.”

O’Neill’s face faded away and was replaced by a series of commercials.

“Well?” Julia said.

“Well what?”

“How will the vote go? What’s the latest count?”