Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (15 page)

No one said
anything in response.  John looked at his feet and at the Mexican bodies.

Rob
continued, taking a deep breath, getting control over his emotions again, “We
are, that's what.  People like us scattered all across this country.  People
who won't give up and roll over.  People who are going to defend their homes
and their families."  Rob took off his Stetson and wiped the sweat from
his forehead.  He looked up again at John and said in a calmer voice,
"Right here, right now, the only thing that is preventing that reality is
us
….The
Regulators.”

“But—“ said
John, trying to think of another argument.

“But
nothing
,
John.  We stand alone.  And you ain’t one of us no more.  So get the hell out
of the way and let us do our job.  As of this moment, you're part of the
problem.”

"Uh,
Rob?" asked one of the men, a little further up the ridge.

"Yeah?"

"That
truck is leaving, man."

Rob
scrambled, along with most of the others, up the hill to get a better view. 
Sure enough, in the distance, the beat up truck they had spotted before the
shooting started was tearing off south.  The large rooster tail of dust was
easy to spot and would be for miles.

"Well,
you can bet by nightfall word of this will be spreading through the border
towns," said Lance with a grim tone.

Rob forced
himself to be stern. 
It's time to be hard as steel.  No remorse, no
regrets.  They chose their destiny.
  Out loud, he said, "Let's go. 
Groups Two and Seven, you finish the regular patrol.  Everybody else, back to
base.  We got some plannin' to do."

THE PRESIDENT WAS just
sitting down at his desk on Air Force One when the door opened and a Secret
Service Agent entered.  The few staffers in the room fell silent and looked
towards the agent—they expected more bad news on a day full of nothing but bad
news.

“Sir,
Secretary Suthby to see you, sir.” 

“Very good,
Mark, send him in, please.”

Suthby
entered the room quickly, with a purpose in his step.  He carried a briefcase
in one hand and a plain manila folder in the other.  His spoke, a little higher
pitched than normal, before he had even come within ten feet of the Commander
In Chief.

“Mr.
President, have you decided what you’re going to do about my proposal?”

“Hank, I’m
not going to do anything just yet.  I’m in the middle—“  the President began,
casting an eye on the staffers.  They looked nervous.

“Mr.
President!
"
interrupted the incensed Secretary.  “The nation is falling apart at the
seams.  You have got to take decisive action,
now
.  It’s been nearly two
days since the initial attacks on our power grid, sir, if we wait any longer,
it might be too late.  Continuity of Government was one thing.  Getting our
boys home from overseas is another.  The military can worry about that." 
He took a seat across from the expansive desk. 

"
I
have to worry about civil unrest.  I have to urge you once more to initiate the
National Curfew and Martial Law Order.  Sir, if you’ll just sign the paperwork
I prepared after we came aboard, you’ll have all the power you need to—“ he was
holding a folder of papers, outstretched in one arm as if pleading.

The
President’s voice was sharp and deep.  He did not like to be interrupted in his
own office—even if it was 30,000 feet in the air.  He especially did not like
Hank Suthby of all people interrupting him and sitting down without even a
by-your-leave.  “I said
not now
.   I mean it, Hank.  I appreciate the
fact that you got me the heads up which led to COG, but I’m not going to
declare a national emergency when 80% of the country is just watching and
waiting.  For the love of—“ the President seemed to stumble in an
uncharacteristic way over the words.  “Good
grief
, man, what would you
have me do, suspend the Constitution and become…some kind of
dictator
until the riots are put down and power is restored?”

The
Secretary of Homeland Defense reddened.  The President himself had gone without
sleep for two days.  Or was it three?  President Reed silently wondered how
long Suthby had been without rest. 

Suthby
opened his mouth to reply but the President held his hand up, finger pointed to
the ceiling.  He was not in the mood to argue.  “Hank, I appreciate everything
you’ve done for me in the past few days—I can’t thank you enough.  But get some
sleep man.  The work you’ve done to draft the emergency measures has been
nothing short of phenomenal.  And I respect what you’re trying to do and that
you have the nation’s best interest at heart.  I
do
.  In fact, I keep
the papers on me at all times, just in case,” the President tapped the inside
pocket of his coat, while looking out one of the cabin windows at the
cloudscape.  “But I don't think ‘just in case’ has happened, yet.”

Visibly
struggling to calm himself, the exhausted SecDHS quietly said, “Sir, have you
at least looked into our suggestions for the National Guard and Reserves?”

“Yes, Hank,
I have,” sighed the President wearily.  “In fact, I just issued the orders that
will give the Guard commanders authority to use deadly force.  The Reserves are
being called up,” the Commander-in-Chief sighed.

“The truth
of the matter is we still don’t know
why
the rioting is taking place. 
General Stirling has a special ops unit stationed outside of  New York City
now.  We're going to see if they can discover anything useful.”  The leader of
the free world paused, thinking.  

Suthby
looked startled.  "But, isn't that a little risky?"

“The
rioters haven’t attacked our people yet.  Anywhere, really.  Except Los
Angeles.  But they're shooting at anything that moves."

"Sir,
I don't think sending in commandos will—"

"Dammit,
Hank, it’s not like they’re going in to clean house—so far it’s just looting
and burning and a few rocks thrown.  And yes, I’m aware that’s all it took to
get Atlanta burning,” the President said before Suthby could interject. 
"This is an information gathering mission only.  We have to know what's
going on before we make decisions on how to proceed."

“Mr.
President, aerial reconnaissance shows hundreds and possibly
thousands
of bodies in the streets of New York and Chicago alone!  Civilians are being
slaughtered—-”

“I’ve seen
the same pictures.“

“Sir, 
we’ve
got
to—“

“Hank, I’m
not going to go crashing in there like some bull loose in a—“

“Sir, all I
ask you to do—“ the Director interrupted again.

“—Is a
little premature at this point.  But when the time is right
—if
the time
is right, I assure you, I will take the measures that are
necessary
,”
said the President interrupting the Secretary this time, looking towards the
door.  The conversation was over.

“Sir—“

“Dammit, Hank,
get out!”
roared
the President.  The force of his words caused the SecDHS to jump out of his
seat in surprise.  “I’ve got
enough
troubles on my hands right now—I
have to give a radio address that’s going to
gut
the First Amendment in
order to prevent a nationwide panic; I don’t need  you telling me to throw out
the
entire
Constitution!”

The Secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security left the airborne Oval Office and returned to his seat among
the other evacuees with frustration evident on his face and resentment growing
in his stomach.  . 

Suthby paused to look outside his cabin
window.  Smoke drifted lazily from fires on the south side of D.C., burning out
of control.  No traffic, no people could be seen this high.  The chaos of
millions of people trying to escape the dying cities of the East Coas
t was invisible at 30,000 feet.

V
ERY GOOD, MY young Brothers. Very good,”
Elder Elijah beamed as he slowly toured the dark, stifling room.  Arrayed about
him in production line fashion were five youths of the Brotherhood, all
constructing homemade pipe bombs and napalm, from instructions pulled off the
Internet before the blackout. 

Elijah had been prepared—he had known
how to make all these implements of destruction since the 1960s.  But it was
nice to have it all printed out for the youngsters.  In mere minutes, with each
one working on a different component of the whole, a pipe bomb was born, with
nails and scrap metal shrapnel.  On the other side of the room, a few more
youths were mixing the ingredients to make a crude version of napalm.  Empty
bottles of 40oz. beer and liquor bottles were lined up against the wall, full
of the hot-burning, gooey mixture.

Every so often, a Brother would come to
gather what had been made and distribute it to those in the streets.  When
Malcolm gave the order, the rioting would move to the next phase.  Elijah had
to admit, when it came to planning, their Middle Eastern friends had been most
adept.  They had informed the Brotherhood how to locate the National Guard
Armories, where the Guard would likely place its men and even predicted that
the Guardsmen would be hesitant to open fire.  It all came true.  The Guard had
cordoned off the major part of downtown that was under de facto control of the
rioters but had done little else other than watch and wait.  The Brothers had
maintained excellent discipline.  They had not attacked or even provoked the
better armed National Guard units spread around Chicago.

The real genius of Malcolm’s plan had
come when he contacted the many street gangs in Chicago and brokered a sort of
truce before the power outage.  He promised to tie up the National Guard and
allow the gangs to do what they will—which opened the door for widespread
looting.  The gangs, in return would loot the Man’s stores for a particular
list of items, those being used to create the destructive tools Elijah’s youths
were producing. 

As a reluctant concession to some of the
Brotherhoods members from other cities, the word was spread that
anyone….Malcolm had swallowed his pride and told everyone assembled in the
rowhouse that
anyone
who joined their cause—no matter their race, creed
or sexual orientation—would be welcomed as brothers and sisters.  At the end of
the day, Malcolm grudgingly admitted that whatever prejudices he held inside
for other people, it didn’t matter.  Only the cause mattered.  Freedom.

Malcolm and his Brothers had divided up
the downtown area into seven different areas, each one to be led by one of
Malcolm’s lieutenants.  Malcolm himself would lead at the front lines.  The
heart of downtown Chicago was a rectangle, on the east of which was Lake
Michigan.  The Brotherhood in effect controlled everything south and east of
the Chicago River, southwards to the edge of Chinatown.  They had been able to
block most of the bridges over the Chicago River with abandoned cars, making
crude barricades to stop the encroachment of the Man. 

During the initial panic after the
jet-liner had crashed into the city, the streets were literally bumper to
bumper as far as the eye could see, in every direction.  Too many cars at once
simply shut down the road system out of Chicago.  When the riots started, the
vast majority of people still stuck in proximity to the Downtown areas simply
abandoned their cars in place and ran for their lives.  Panic drove people to
do foolish things, but for once, running and screaming had been the right thing
to do.  When the Brotherhood or its affiliated gangs came upon people too
stubborn to leave their Lexus SUVs, they were shot, or worse. 

They had decided to go old school and
take a page out of the founder of their religion: 
Convert or Die.
 
There were a surprising number of people who chose to join the Brotherhood, for
whatever reason.  Malcolm had shrugged off the numbers his lieutenants reported
to him.  He believed anyone who converted at gunpoint was only doing so to save
their skin and would desert the cause at the first chance they got.

So Malcolm had set one of his
lieutenants the task of bringing down the I-280 bridge.  He assigned a large
group of fresh recruits to help in the task.  If anything went wrong, they
would not lose true Brothers. 

For the time being, abandoned and stolen
cars were piled up at the midway point over the Chicago River to seal off the
major artery into the downtown area.  The gangs were running rampant in the
area just to the north of Chinatown, so Malcolm had no worries about keeping
that border intact.  The Loop remained the strongest section of Chicago under
the control of the Brotherhood.

Malcolm considered the success of his
organization skills in such a short amount of time this while he stood at an
office window halfway up the Sears Tower.  National Guard and Police movements
across the Chicago River could easily be seen through binoculars.  The body of
the man who’s office it had recently been lay on the floor to his right, blood
already turning a dark brown as it dried. 

“Your brother, Tahru, to see you,
Malcolm,” said his aide from the door behind him in a deep baritone voice. 
Malcolm didn’t turn around.

“Tahru, come in here, please.”

“Man, you mo-fo’s is crazy!  Momma gonna
kick yo’ ass when—“

“Shut up.”   He continued to scan the
lines of the Man through binoculars.

“Yo—ho’d up!  Jamal, that man
dead?”

“That man
is
dead, yes.  He is
the Man.  He
was
the Man.  We are taking over….can’t you see the beauty
of it, Tahru?”

“Yo, all I see’s a dead mothafu—“

“Your vulgarity will do nothing for your
soul, my brother.  Allah forbids—“

“Yo, you can take your Allah bullshit
an’ shove it up—“

Malcolm whirled around and slapped his
younger brother across the mouth, hard.  The younger man fell backwards against
a desk, scattering forgotten papers and lights onto the floor with a loud
clatter.  He touched his mouth where a speck of blood had formed.

Rage exploded across Tahru’s face.  He
reached into his waistband and pulled out a .45 semi auto, holding it sideways,
gangsta-style.  Tahru jumped up from the desk and put the gun right up against
the cheek of his older brother.  “You gonna die fo’ that, you crazy
mothafucker!  Why you gotta be trippin’ like dat?!  Ain’t no ‘body slaps Tahru
LeRay an’ don’t die—“

“You won’t shoot me,” replied his
brother.  Cool as ice.

Tahru looked nervous—his eyes darted to
the left and right.  The gun pressed harder into Malcolm’s cheek.  He didn’t see
Malcolm’s aide slip into the room and aim a pistol at Tahru’s head.

Tahru became cocky in an instant.  
“Why’s d’at, yo?  You think I ain’t got th’ balls, mo-fo?”

“Because you have never killed someone
before.  I can see it in your eyes,” said Malcolm.

“Oh, and you have?”

“Why do you think Allah found me?” asked
Malcolm calmly.  “I have killed before.  And sinned.  Allah—“

“Enough o’ that Allah bullshit!”
screamed Tahru, taking the gun away from his brother’s head and stomping away
to kick a file cabinet in impotent rage.  “You always gotta be talkin’ ‘bout
Allah!  What the fuck, man?  You think I won’t shoot yo’ black ass full a
holes?”   He pointed the gun back at his brother.  It wavered a little.

“I
know
you won’t.  Tahru, blood
is thicker than water.”

Tahru looked at his feet.  There was
certainly plenty of blood there.  “You kill d’is fool?”

“Yes.”       

Tahru laughed.  “What ‘bout Allah?” he
cried, pronouncing Allah as ‘Al-laah’.   “What He say ‘bout d’at?”  The gun
still pointed at Malcolm, but shook a little more.  The weapon was heavy for
one unaccustomed to its weight.  The younger man's arm was not well muscled. 
Malcolm's aide, still unseen, had no such problem.  His firearm aimed true, the
hand that held it, steady as a rock. 
His
weapon pointed squarely at the
back of Tahru’s head.

“The Man was oppressing Allah’s
children.  Allah smiles when the oppressors are struck down to free His
children.  I was doing Allah’s will.”

Tahru slowly lowered the gun.  “’Cause
he don’t let no black motha—“

“Yes…because the Man will not allow our
black brothers and sisters to achieve the American dream.  The Man still
represses us—he just makes us
think
we’re not.  Please do not profane in
front of me, Tahru.”  Malcolm suddenly felt the need to take a bath.  His
brother’s language was disrespectful and insolent, besides blasphemous. 

“Try to rise above the gutter-speak
which afflicts so many of our Brothers and Sisters.  It is something the Man
has forced on us, to keep us ignorant of our own plight.”

Tahru stood there, staring at the dead
man and started to sweat.  He had never been so close to a dead body before. 
“Who was he?” Tahru said quietly, losing his gangsta toughness for the first
time in years.

Malcolm smiled. 
Every journey begins
with the taking of the first step.
  “One of the Oppressors.  We ordered
everyone out of the building—he and a handful of others stayed behind to call
the police.  Even as he professed his innocence, he tried to bring in the Man’s
stormtroopers to kill us.  I could not allow that to happen.”

“You cap ‘is ass?”  asked Tahru, probing
the body with an unlaced tan colored workman’s boot.

“Yes.  I shot him.”

“Daaaaaaamn, boy!  Momma whoop yo’ ass!”
Tahru warned, eyes wide.

“No, she will not.”

“Bullshit!  She gonna—“

“A
woman
does not strike a man,
Tahru.  Allah forbids it.  I am a
man
.  A
leader
of men. 
Black
men. 
Brothers
.  When this is all over, Allah willing, I will be in
charge of Chicago.”  He turned to look out the massive window.  "Perhaps
more."

“Yo, you trippin’ Jamal.”

“My name is Malcolm."  He turned
back to glance at the body on the floor.  "The street thug you knew as
Jamal is dead.”

“Whatevah, dog.  You be trippin’,”
replied Tahru with a laconic shrug.

Malcolm sighed.  It would take time and
the very patience of the Prophet Muhammed to get his younger brother to speak
like a human again.  “Tahru, look out this window.”  When his brother moved
next to him to peer out the window at the city below, Tahru whistled.  He had
never been this high above the city before.  Drug dealers generally weren’t
allowed in the Sears Tower. 

“Impressive, isn’t it?”  Malcolm
directed his brother to examine the city east of the Chicago River.  “My
Brothers and I control that.  The Man has blocked us from going further—there,
there and there,” he said, pointing to the National Guard units across the
river. 

There were a few police helicopters on
the ground in the streets and two circling about in the air near the Sears
Tower.  The streets across the River were full of flashing lights and police
cars.  The officers who hadn’t fled from the initial riots had been killed,
their cars stolen and used as road blocks along with trucks and all manner of
vehicles.    A few of the police cars built into the roadblocks still had
lights flashing.   It was an eerie scene.

“What ‘bout all d’em people…” Tahru
cleared his throat and looked self-consciously at his brother.  “What about the
people who work here?” asked Tahru, making a visible effort to control his
slang.

Even from the height they were at,
Malcolm could easily pick out hundreds of bodies littering the streets around
the Sears Tower.  Thick black smoke curled around the Sears Tower, carried
along by winds funneled between buildings.  Debris was strewn on all the
streets they could see, windows smashed, a few buildings partially collapsed
from fires that burned out of control.  The city of Chicago looked as if it
were a war zone.   Even Tahru was amazed at how fast everything fell apart
after the power went out. 

“We are cleansing this city of sinners—of
the Man and his forces.  Brothers and Sisters are rising up to join us in
retaking
our
city.”

“But what’d you do with them?”

“They were encouraged to leave this area
of the city.  Most fled in a panic, which in turned prevented the police from
swarming in on us.  Some tried to fight and were killed.  The ones too stupid
to fight or run were slain as weak.  We have killed many hundreds, probably
thousands.  A mere drop in the bucket of retribution for hundreds of years of
cruelty and slavery.  Many more were killed in the stampede—caused by their own
fear of Black men and women rising up to claim what was rightfully ours.  Many
thousands are still trapped in buildings we control.  We are even now finding
pockets of the Man who refuse to leave.  Their numbers are dwindling.  Others
have abandoned their own kind to join our plight.  The Man was indiscriminate
in keeping down the
undesirables
…us, foreigners, the poor.   Soon we
will have them
all
rounded up and the City will be ours.”