The Coward's Way of War (23 page)

“Yes, sir,” he said.  If the insurgents, or whatever they were, had harmed his wife, he’d do whatever it took to make them pay.  “We’re on our way.”

***

The terrorists
– or so Al decided to call them – had really done a number on the NYPD forces that had been supposed to be guarding the hospital.  When he pulled up in his squad car, he’d discovered only a handful of survivors, many injured and in a state of shock.  He’d taken command and withdrawn them from easy sniper range, pressing newcomers into service and sealing off the Brooklyn Hospital Centre.  Sooner or later, a senior officer would arrive and take command, but until then it was him.  He wasn't the type of person to sit on his ass and wait for orders.

“Sergeant,” a voice said.  Al looked up to see Doctor McCoy.  McCoy wasn't in his chain of command, but it had been made clear that anyone with Project Wildfire clearance was not only cleared for almost everything, but authorised to issue whatever orders they say fit.  “Did they get the vaccine as well?”

“I don’t think so,” Al admitted.  That had been sheer luck.  If the terrorists had struck an hour later, they would have been able to capture thousands of doses of vaccine.  “I think that the army dudes were getting diverted somewhere.”

“Never mind that,” McCoy said.  “Those men in there, whoever they are, they’re not going to be vaccinated, are they?”  Al shook his head.  “And many of them might be on drugs, or have AIDS, or something else that will weaken them.”

Al looked up at him, puzzled.

“They’re in one of the most contagious places in the city,” McCoy said.  “And, if they’re on drugs or ill, they will start to show symptoms pretty damned quickly.  And, once they get ill, they won’t hesitate to harm the people inside.  I think we’d better start plotting to liberate the hospital quickly.”

Al couldn't disagree.

I have a dream that, one day, my people will rise up and take what we are owed from the White Establishment that rules over us.  I have a dream that Uncle Toms like President Obama and Colin Powell, George Bush
’s lapdog, will hang from the lampposts as the black population of America rises to revenge ourselves upon the whites.  I have a dream that the Black America Movement will lead us to victory, for have we not suffered yet have been denied the Promised Land?

-Reverend Johnston

W
ashington DC, USA

Day 17

“
Gentlemen, be seated,” the President ordered, as she took her seat at the end of the table.  The secure conference room, deep beneath the White House, felt very empty to her, for two-thirds of her Cabinet were attending electronically.  Their faces appeared on the screens as the secure links to various command posts and underground bunkers were established, lending them a virtual presence that was not reflected in reality.  They could talk, and contribute, but the President felt as if they were not really there.

The Cabinet, and the handful of briefing officers, took their seats at her command.  “Madam President,” Spencer said.  “All hell has broken loose across the country.”

The President rubbed her eyes tiredly, feeling the effects of too little sleep.  It was easy to understand why so many occupants of the White House became micromanagers, because – fundamentally – the buck stopped with them.  There were limits to what the President could do – and on what the President could accomplish quickly – yet few outside the office ever realised that truth.  They saw only the most powerful man – or woman – in the world and never asked themselves about the limits on that power.  No man could hope to control every aspect of American life – even American government – personally.

“So I understand,” she said.  No one even commented on how the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had taken the lead on briefing the President.  The Pentagon was deeply involved now in civil matters, something unthinkable outside a state of national emergency.  “What exactly is going on in New York?”

Spencer’s grim expression darkened.  “The troubles have spread out of New York,” he said.  “We’re looking at major riots and civil unrest in a dozen cities, from Chicago to San Francisco.  The worst of the incidents amount to either outright terrorism or a declaration of civil war.  I fear that we may be only looking at the beginning of a wave of incidents.”

He tapped the remote control and a map of New York appeared on the display.  “The first wave of incidents came as a set of ambushes targeted against both military and civil police units in New York,” he began.  “A convoy transporting medical supplies into the city was ambushed and would have been overrun, were it not for the quick thinking of the officer on the spot.  Other convoys were not as lucky; they, along with several police stations, were overrun and destroyed.  The supplies they were carrying were stolen.

“Incredible as it seems, those attacks were seemingly cover for a series of far more dangerous attacks,” he continued.  “The most dangerous was an attack on the Brooklyn Medical Hospital in New York.  The hospital was attacked by a number of armed men and taken, with most of the personnel within the hospital captured and used as hostages.  There was a second attack on the CDC building in Atlanta, but they had an Army battalion on defence duty and the attackers were repelled with heavy casualties.  The Brooklyn Medical Hospital, however, remains in enemy hands.  There has been no attempt, as yet, to dislodge them.”

The President stared down at the featureless table.  She was used to being briefed on remarkably destructive and bold terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and a dozen other unstable countries, but somehow it was impossible to grasp that such social anarchy had come to America.  There might have been social and political ferment in the country, as a result of Henderson’s Disease and the military blockade, yet she had believed that they were under control.  It seemed that she had been wrong.

She shook her head in disbelief and looked up at Spencer.  “Who is responsible for this?”

“The Reverend Johnston,” Spencer said, tiredly.  He looked drained, as if he was unable to believe his eyes.  “As soon as his forces overran the hospital, he started streaming his call to arms over the internet.  As you can see...”

He tapped a switch and an image of a black man, wearing a preacher’s collar, appeared in front of them.  The Reverend Johnston was a gifted orator, the President had to admit, even if his speeches were more akin to Hitler than Martin Luther King.  She listened as he raged, blaming the white man and treacherous black men for all the disasters that black Americans had suffered, before claiming that his forces were finally ready to begin the revolution that would destroy the old power structure and create a new world of social justice for all.  The preacher had been a marginal political force in the world before Henderson’s Disease – indeed, the black voters had found him something of an embarrassment – but now his blend of Black Nationalism and social justice was finding a far greater following than he had ever dreamed would follow him.  In times of hardship, the President reflected, people would follow the man who spoke to them on their level...and, thanks to the Mayor of New York, far too many people had lost all faith in the system.

“Enough of that,” she snapped, angrily.  Spencer clicked the volume on to mute, leaving Johnston raving on silently in the background.  “What do they actually want?”

“They sent out one of the hostages – a young black woman who had caught Henderson’s Disease – with a typewritten note,” Spencer explained.  “They’re demanding that we withdraw all federal forces from New York, recognise their control over the city, ship in a million doses of vaccine and pay recompense for the numerous sins committed against black men and women by the United States Government.”

“My predecessor,” the President said icily, “was a black man.”

“They do not feel that he was black enough,” Spencer admitted.  “My intelligence officer has been skimming through the literature provided by the Black Movement of America – the BAM.  Johnston feels that President Obama was a sell-out because he didn't bring about a New Heaven and a New Earth for them.  It’s not something that anyone with half a working mind can follow – a black man who climbs out of the ghetto is an Uncle Tom, while one that remains in the mud and sucks the federal teat is sticking it to the man – but it’s been going down a storm.  Johnston really believes the shit he’s been peddling to young black youths without prospects and they can sense it.  He has an entire army of young men who will do whatever he asks them to do.”

“I don’t believe it,” the Secretary of Defence objected.  “How could he do this right under our noses?”

Spencer snorted.  “I asked the NYPD liaison officer about that,” he said, sardonically.  “It seems that the NYPD
did
attempt to sound the alarm, but their senior officers shot it down on the grounds that an investigation into the Black American Movement would be” – he held up his fingers in mocking quotation marks – “racist.  It seems that the NYPD and the city government was prepared to sweep the problem under the rug rather than try to deal with it and take the flack.  The fear of being thought racist held them paralysed.  Besides...”

He snorted again.  “Besides, the governor was convinced that the BAM wasn't actually anything to do with the Black Muslims and regarded their particular brand of Christianity as more favourable to the country than the Islamic movements,” he added.  “It hardly matters just what they were thinking, Madam President; the fact remains that the country is coming apart at the seams.  We need to take action quickly.”

“But why is this happening?”  The President asked, desperately.  No President since Lincoln had faced the prospect of social unrest on a massive scale.  All the talk about uprisings against Clinton or Bush had just been talk, with few real incidents.  This was...real.  “What is happening to the country?”

“I’m afraid that it was inevitable, Madam President,” Christopher White said.  The Attorney-General looked unabashed at his own words.  “The country has been under a great deal of stress for years.”

The President frowned at him.  Christopher White was a retired Army Colonel who had become a lawyer and then entered local politics through the Tea Party Movement.  His political attitudes were regarded as slightly to the right of Genghis Khan, yet he was a remarkably effective administrator and she hadn't hesitated to take him into the Cabinet to help balance the ticket.  The mainstream media had been attacking him since the day he had first entered politics, but he hadn't allowed them to beat him into submission, or to drive him into outright radicalism.  He was older than the President by some years, yet he had been a friend of her husband’s and, after his death, stayed in touch with Paula before she had been elected into office.  She didn't always agree with him and his politics, but she trusted him.

“Explain,” she ordered.  “Just what is happening to us?”

White took a moment to gather his thoughts.  “There’s a common joke, Madam President, that claims that a country is nothing more than a group of people united by a shared delusion about the past and a hatred of their neighbours,” he said, calmly.  “Like all good jokes, there is a certain amount of truth in it.  Nations cling to their founding myths and distrust their neighbours; after all, the distrust of their neighbours is what unites them.  You could say that that is as true of us as it is true of...well, the French.

“A nation, therefore, is a group of people who share the same basic outlook on life.  An empire, by contrast, is a group of
peoples
who do
not
share the same outlook, ideology or beliefs.  The British Empire, for example, included Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews – and millions of people who didn't really have much in common.  The empire was held together by military force, with the British on the top and their allies just underneath, and when that military force failed, there was little holding the empire together.  Its collapse gave birth to many smaller nations, yet even those nations were not real nations; India and Pakistan separated into two – later three – nations, while many African states became empires in their own right – multiethnic states held together by strongmen.”

He shrugged.  “The lesson of history is that nations remain intact while empires – multiethnic states held together by the ones on top – tend to shudder and eventually break apart.  There was little holding them together apart from military force and when that force failed, so did the empires.”

The President tapped the table impatiently, willing him to get to the point.  “As a society, we have been developing...fault lines of our own,” White said, refusing to be hurried.  “The BAM is geared around exploiting black resentment at how they are treated by society, either told to climb out of the ghetto or subjected to social programs that claim to help, but actually work to keep people down and trapped in a place they cannot escape.  There is a common identity – black men and women – and Johnson is using that to form a nation, one based around a shared belief.