The Enemy Within (34 page)

“And so now our enemies openly gather round us, my brothers, my sisters. These men, these evil men, threaten our people, all our people, with extermination with genocide.” His voice rose, gathering strength gradually. “And what is the law doing? They’re sitting, that’s what they are doing! Sitting while we die!”

The crowd growled.

He nodded flatly. “They’re being careful, they say. They don’t want to miss anything, they say. It all takes time, they say.” He shook his head. “Oh, yes, they are taking their time taking time and giving it to the killers. Handing precious hours, precious days, to those who use it to murder more of our children!”

Lawrence Mohammed’s voice rose higher to an angry shout. “These evil white men, these devils in sheets, strike, and strike again, and the police are no closer to catching them. They will never be closer, because the police are part of the same problem!

“We have been betrayed by our brothers on the police force and in City Hall! The police are one arm of the white establishment, the racists are another!”

Mohammed shook his head in disgust and asked, “Now, can one hand fight the other?”

As one the crowd roared out its resounding answer, “No!”

“Can two hands work together?”

“Yes!”

“Are those two hands aimed at us?”

“Yes!”

“Are they aimed at our children?”

“Yes!”

Mohammed paused again. He seemed to look each man and woman there in the eye, and his next words were quieter, softer. “Now, as long as I have had someone to preach to, I have preached pride, solidarity, and strength for our people. Did you ever wonder why?”

All of those filling the hall and the streets outside were silent, holding their breath in a collective hush.

He said it again, louder. “Did you ever wonder?”

The silence broke in a shout from thousands of throats. “Yes!”

Mohammed nodded, satisfied. “I’ll tell you why! So we could have the power to fight this white man’s war on us!

“If a man strikes at your children, do you turn the other cheek?” His voice rose again as he asked the question.

“No!”

“If a man strikes at you, do you give him time to strike again?”

“No!” The shout rang out, deeper and uglier this time. Men and women were already moving toward the exits, pouring out onto the streets in a fury.

The Reverend Lawrence Mohammed stood back from his microphone and watched with pride as they left. His words had become weapons. These white devils of the New Aryan Order had struck the spark, but now he would turn the flames against them and against their more powerful masters.

Bravo Company, 2nd Infantry Battalion, Illinois National Guard, State Street, the Loop, Chicago

Chicago was on fire by nightfall.

Gunfire echoed above the keening wail of police and fire sirens the single, distinct cracks of pistol shots interspersed with the echoing thumps of shotguns and the rattle of automatic weapons. The National Guardsmen scrambling down out of their canvas-sided, three-quarter-ton trucks stopped in midmotion and looked south in apprehension. Their olivegreen battle fatigues, Kevlar helmets, and M16 rifles looked eerily out of place against the elegantly dressed mannequins visible in the display windows of the Carson Pirie Scott department store.

Lieutenant Richard Pinney, a lawyer by day and soldier by weekend, glanced at his company commander in shock. “Jesus Christ, Captain, what the hell’s going on? A full-scale war?”

A harassed-looking Chicago police sergeant standing nearby saved Captain Philip Jankowski from answering. “That’s it exactly, pal.” He wiped a hand across his weary, red-rimmed eyes and nodded south down the broad expanse of State Street. “Things are totally out of control down there. What was a protest march up Martin Luther King Drive turned into a pushing and shoving match with our crowd control guys. And then that turned into a riot with looting. And now, shit, now it’s a god damned civil war.”

Jankowski’s jaw tightened. It was clear that the hurried phone briefing he’d been given by city officials before leaving the armory was already way out-of-date. He stared down State Street, peering intently through the pall of smoke and soot cloaking the area. Flickering orange-red glows several blocks away marked fires that were steadily consuming the rows of retail stores lining Chicago’s north-south commercial axis.

He turned back to Pinney. “Get the men formed up, Dick. You know the drill. Make sure everyone’s in full gear. Flak jackets, helmets… the works.” He swore softly. “Damn it. I wish we had more troops.”

The sudden activation order from the governor’s office had caught everyone by surprise. By the time Bravo Company moved out of its North Side armory, barely half its one hundred men had reported for duty. Jankowski had left another lieutenant and sergeant behind with orders to bring the rest down south as soon as they showed up. He only hoped they wouldn’t be much longer. He also earnestly hoped Bravo wasn’t the only outfit being summoned to emergency duty.

The lieutenant nodded hesitantly. “What about our weapons, sir?”

More gunfire rattled through the darkness.

“Make sure they’re loaded, Dick. I don’t want anybody opening fire without my orders, but I don’t want anyone going down that street without a full magazine and several spares. Clear?”

Pinney nodded, eyes wide under his helmet.

“Okay. You and Crawford get ‘em organised.” Jankowski pointed toward the exhausted police sergeant. “The sergeant and I are gonna pay a visit to the local CP to find out where they want us.”

Five minutes later, Jankowski emerged from the police radio van being used as a temporary headquarters even more worried than he went in. The earlier reports calling the situation in the Loop area “volatile” had been about as accurate as calling a tornado an “atmospheric disturbance.” Police commanders weren’t sure where the largest pockets of looters and rioters really were.-They weren’t even sure where very many of their own men were. Sporadic reports came in from small bands of regular police and riot squad officers cut off by the mob and forced to hole up for safety. There were unconfirmed reports that several of those tiny groups had been overrun. All communications circuits were jammed by a flood of frantic calls for fire and ambulance service.

Jankowski shook his head in dismay. One thing was clear: Many among the rioters were well armed and fully prepared to use their weapons against anyone who got in their way. Apparently, Chicago’s notoriously violent street gangs were out in force to settle old scores with each other, with the police, and with the “white establishment” especially with those who owned stores selling jewelry and consumer electronics goods.

He was pleased to see that Pinney and his noncoms had the men deployed and ready to move. The formation he had chosen was simple. Two squads up front, one on each side of State Street. They would scout for the main body of about thirty men following about fifty yards back.

Jankowski took his place with the largest group and raised his voice.

“Bravo Company! Fix bayonets!”

A succession of metallic scrapes answered him as the fifty guardsmen snapped bayonets into place on their M16s. The captain did not seriously expect his men to use cold steel in combat, but he earnestly hoped the sight of the long blades moving closer might prove intimidating to at least some of the rioters.

He stepped forward and shouted again. “At my order, Bravo Company will advance!” He paused, looking right and left one last time to make sure his outfit was ready. Pinney and the sergeants nodded back. They were set.

Jankowski faced forward again and squared his shoulders. “Advance!”

Moving with a measured tread, the small force of National Guardsmen went forward into the smoke.

They stumbled into a scene out of hell within minutes.

Waves of heat radiating from fires burning out of control in every building of the 200 block of South State Street washed over the advancing soldiers. Sheets of flame roared out the ground-floor windows of the Berghoff restaurant, a Chicago institution sir, ce 1893. The dense smoke billowing over the area was already making it hard to breathe, and now the soaring temperatures made it even more difficult. Corpses were strewn in every direction. Some of the dead were probably rioters gunned down by the police. Others were probably unlucky bystanders caught by the mob or in the cross fire. Several bodies were clad in the tattered remnants of police uniforms.

Dead and dying horses lay among the murdered humans. A patrol of mounted policemen had been ambushed near the intersection of State and Adams. Now wounded horses screamed and writhed in anguish on the torn pavement, trying desperately to rise on bullet-shattered legs.

Jankowski gagged and turned away, unable to look any further. Why hadn’t someone, anyone, put the poor beasts out of their misery? He glanced back, trying to find Pinney to order him to have a detail take care of the job.

Suddenly, the wall of the building next to him exploded in a spray of concrete chips, torn up by a tearing fusillade of automatic-weapons fire. Guardsmen scattered in all directions or fell prone. Two were hit and thrown backward off their feet.

Someone slammed into Jankowski from behind and knocked him flat. It was Pinney. More bullets whipcracked past their heads.

A sergeant wriggled closer to them, moving faster than anyone had thought possible in their weekend training sessions. “Jesus Christ, Captain! We’re taking heavy fire from a barricade up ahead!” the noncom shouted, gesturing southward. “The scouts say some of the sons of bitches have blocked the street with abandoned buses.”

Against his orders, the troops ahead of him began firing back into the smoke, pumping bursts from their M16s down the street toward the unseen gunmen. No matter, Jankowski thought in a daze. They were committed now. Bravo Company had been sucked into the maelstrom sweeping northward through Chicago.

Emergency Broadcast System bulletin, aired over
WMAQ
radio, Chicago “... the martial-law zone has now been expanded to include the area north of East Sixty-third Street, south of Wacker Drive and the river, and east of the Dan Ryan Expressway. Do not, repeat, do not attempt to enter or leave this area. The police and National Guard units now manning this perimeter have orders to shoot curfew violators and looters on sight. All citizens in the Chicagoland area are urged to stay at home and off the expressways.

“Reports from inside the area show widespread looting, arson, and rioting. Casualties and damage are both heavy, but there are no accurate counts yet. Field hospitals are being set up at the Navy Pier and Grant Park to accommodate the overflow of wounded from area hospitals. The Red Cross has put out an urgent appeal for all types of blood, especially O positive. If you live outside the martial-law zone and wish to donate blood, go to the nearest hospital, and they will accept your donation there.

“To quell the rioting, Governor Anderson has expanded his call-up of the National Guard to all Illinois units. Officials in the governor’s office also report he has been in communication with the governor of Wisconsin to arrange a selective mobilisation of that state’s National Guard units as well.

“Governor Anderson is currently enroute from Springfield for consultations with the mayor. Informed sources have indicated they are considering asking for federal troops to help restore law and order.”

NOVEMBER
13

The White House

An emergency conference on domestic terrorism had replaced the President’s standard morning briefing on foreign military and political developments. The rapidly developing internal crisis took precedence over slower-moving global concerns.

The first minutes of the White House meeting were played out before an array of television cameras and print journalists. With opinion polls showing a public that was increasingly fearful, the President’s political and policy advisors all agreed on the need to convey the impression of an administration on top of events and working hard to put things right. Pictures of the nation’s chief executive conferring with the Attorney General, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the F131 and
CIA
were an integral part of that confidence-building process.

But the real work of the gathering began only after the last members of the media were ushered out of the Cabinet Room. Jefferson T. Corbell, the President’s top electoral tactician, slipped in a side door and dropped into one of the empty chairs.

The President waited for Corbell to settle himself before dropping his tight, confident smile. He stared across the elegant, polished table at his assembled advisors. “Well?” he asked sourly. “Are we any closer to putting a cap on this god damned situation?”

Nobody spoke up immediately.

“Well?”

David Leiter, the Director of the
FBI
, cleared his throat. “I’m afraid not, Mr. President.” “And why the hell not?” the President demanded angrily. He jerked a thumb toward the television set parked in the corner of the Cabinet Room. The sound was off, but the picture was on. Right now it showed aerial shots of Chicago’s South Side. Whole city blocks were burning.

“This country’s third largest city is under martial law and tearing itself to pieces. One of the country’s biggest civil rights leaders has been blown to hell along with a couple of hundred other important people, congressmen included. Jesus Christ, Nightline’s running broadcasts asking whether or not this is the first battle of a full-scale American race war! What am I supposed to tell the American people? That we’re still twiddling our damned thumbs while this army of white-power maniacs is out there killing at will?”

Leiter and the others sat stiffly, waiting for the fiery burst of executive temperament to fade slightly. Years of service to this President had taught them how to ride each storm out.

“There’s no solid evidence to suggest that we’re facing an army of terrorists, Mr. President,” the
FBI
Director said quietly. “Even assuming the press club bombing and the schoolyard massacre were conducted by different people, we’re still talking about less than ten individuals, possibly no more than five. Taking the time between the two attacks into account, I suspect both were carried out by the same group.”