Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (11 page)

The
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense continued, unabated.  
“General, the Governor of
Georgia
just informed me this morning that
he’s ordered
his
National Guard forces and police to pull
out
of
Atlanta.”  He turned back to the President. 

“It’s a
total loss, Mr. President.  Over half the city is already on fire.  We’re
talking upwards of a million of potential casualties, Allen.  The people that
tried to evacuate got stuck on the roads and…it's a nightmare.  It’s still
going on, and we can’t do anything about it.  The manpower to tackle that kind
of a event is simply not in place."

The President's
shoulders slumped, ever so slightly.  This was
not
 the way to start day
one of the recovery.  "How long, Hank?"

"It'll
take days, in the best of conditions to move the amount of personnel and
resources into place that are going to be needed.  This is not a regional event
where we can simply pull from another state.  Every state along the eastern
seaboard has riots of the same magnitude.  We have to pull from the mid-west. 
Without power and normal communications, it'll be at least a week.  I'm afraid
we won’t know the final tally for a long time…”

The
President was visibly shaken.  “My God.”  His hands went out to steady himself
on the table.  An aide rushed to his side, but the President bravely waved him
off.

“How in the
hell
could this have happened so God dammed quickly?” fumed the
Secretary of Defense from a few feet away.  He ripped off his glasses and
tossed them on the stack of reports in front of him on the conference table. 
“Okay.  Yesterday around ten o’clock in the morning the power goes out…”

“Closer to
noon—“ offered the Secretary of the Navy.

“Ten, noon,
do we even know for sure yet?” asked SecDef.  “Someone get on that and find out
exactly when power went out.  Now, whatever time it was, by nightfall, we had
riots—“

“Reported
in some areas as
race
riots, sir,” interrupted one of the SecDef’s
staffers.

“Race
riots!” roared the Secretary of Defense, throwing his hands up in frustration. 
The War Room grew quiet after his outburst.

“
Whatever!
 
We got riots.  We need to know why the hell we had riots—
race
riots,” he
said pointedly looking at his chastised staffer, “In just about all our major
cities, all within hours of each other and within hours of the initial
blackout."

"And
within hours of the wildfires in the southwest, which the Forestry Service
believes were ignited at the same time that we have concluded the attacks on
the power grid commenced," added SecDHS with a knowing look at the
President.  He looked around the War Room.  "Gentlemen, something is
rotten in Denmark.”

Now he thinks
he's a Shakespearean actor.  Jesus help me...
prayed the President
silently with eyes closed.  He rubbed his temple and stared at Suthby in
shock.  The man had no self-respect.  He had to know that the rest of the men
and women in this room must think him an idiot and that was
before
his
conspiracy theory.

"It
makes sense," mused the National Security Advisor.  "Al Qaeda has
been promising for years to hit us harder than ever."

"Yeah,
but could this be it?  Wildfires, riots, the power grid, all at the same time? 
This feels different than Al Qaeda.  Those chickenshits like to use suicide
bombers," replied General Stirling.

The
President tried to calm his heaving stomach.  Suthby had managed to get his
idea out into the open and they were all starting to fall for it.  He couldn't
believe what he was seeing. 
Damn you, Suthby, I will destroy you for this.

“It doesn't
fit their usual M.O., that's for sure," agreed NSA.  "But, we did
suffer the suicide attacks on the power grid.  That was hallmark Al Qaeda tactics."

"And
the wildfires?" asked SecDef.  "That is definitely above the
cognitive abilities of those animals."  He picked up a sheet of paper and
examined it, now that he had the room's attention.

Come on Ron, don't let
me down
,
begged the President, watching the sparring match unfold. 

"I
find it hard to believe that the various groups responsible for the riots—says
here in Seattle,  it's mostly anarchists—would team up with the most dangerous
terrorist organization in the world."

"Communications
with the individual states are iffy right now, sir, but we’re working on it,”
mentioned the National Security Advisor.  She looked at a report and
continued.  “Some have localized power, some have backup generators, some
don’t, and a few are too busy with riots to even get back to us.”

“What?”
asked the President incredulously. 
Finally something solid.  Maybe I can
get him off the conspiracy thing.
  “Hank, get on the horn and tell the
Governors to play ball,” the President ordered.  “I want you to know that you
have my full backing on this.  We have
got
to know exactly what we’re
dealing with here.” 

“Yes, sir,”
said Suthby.  He was practically smiling.

President
Reed turned to the massive, full wall display of the country.  Pointing at the
west coast, he said, "So, Ron, you're saying we've got anarchists running
the show in Seattle."  A quick staffer got to a keyboard and typed some
commands.  Over the location of Seattle, a little red Anarchist symbol
appeared, glowing like an angry target reticle.

“Yes,
sir."

"In
this whole region—what, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and parts of
Colorado and Wyoming, we have the forest fires."

"Sir,
they've also started in Utah," added Suthby.

After a
moment, the areas the wildfires were ravaging began to glow red.

The
President didn't bother to turn from the screen.  "Utah.  We're talking
some serious manpower just for the fires.  Now, in places like Chicago, New
York, and Atlanta, it's confirmed race rioting."

Little
flames appeared over the big cities where rioting was occurring.  Over Detroit
and Atlanta, double sized flames appeared on the screen.

"Yet
the last word out of Dallas was the rioting was over immigration," added
NSA.

"The
country is on it's knees and we've got immigration reform riots going on?"
the President turned around to face his people.  "As much as I hate to buy
into the whole conspiracy theory idea," he said with a nod towards Suthby
who flushed with anger.  The President had to stifle a small smile. 

Take that.
. 

To the room
he continued, "I'm thinking he may be on to something."

The rear
door opened and a Secret Service agent rushed in, hand at his ear.  He pushed
aside NSA and went straight to the President.

"Mr.
President, the rioters have broken through the line just north of us.  They're
heading towards the White House.  We have to get you out of here, sir."

The room
erupted into chaos.  The Joint Chiefs stood and demanded updates on their
respective forces.  General Stirling begged to be allowed to bring in local
Army units to restore order.

The
National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defense issued orders to some
staffers and turned back to await the decision of the President.  Would he
stay, would he flee?  Where would the rest of them go?  Surely the rioters were
coming straight for the White House.  Would they burn it down?

“Alright
people, listen up,” said the President in a loud, commanding voice.  He put
both hands on the conference table.  The room fell deathly silent.  Everyone
watched him. 

“From what
you’re all telling me, we’ve got a real shitstorm on our hands and its likely
to get worse before it gets better.  We've got no power to most of the country,
riots in the major cities,”  He paused, considering his options.  He glanced at
Suthby and grimaced.  "And wildfires threatening the southwest."   He
looked up and barked, “Al.”

“Yes, Mr.
President,” replied Al Masterson, the Secretary of Defense.

“Where’s
the military stand?”

“Locked,
cocked, and ready to rock, Mr. President.  We just need someone to shoot.” 
That got grins from the Joint Chiefs, who until that point were tight lipped
with frustration.

“Sir, I
might be able to help on that front…” offered the National Security Advisor,
Alicia Grayne.  The smooth olive colored skin of her well sculpted forehead
creased in a frown.  “We have reports coming in that suggest something bigger
is brewing in the Middle East.”

“I knew
it!” hissed the Chief of the Army, balling his fists.

“Israel is
pretty much pissing off everyone in the region with harsh rhetoric.  Harsher
than usual, that is,” she said after getting some sarcastic looks.  “They
really kicked it up a notch yesterday afternoon.”

“Alicia, I
don’t really care about words right now.  Is anyone
fighting
?  Any word
about anything coming after us or forces or people?”

“Well…No,
sir, not really.  There’s, well...we’re still pouring over some intel we picked
up recently but so far it’s not even enough for a warrant.  However, both the
Syrians and the Saudis are massing their troops along their borders close to
Israel.  Syria claims they are preparing to defend Palestine from an Israeli
invasion.  The Saudis are saying they just want to protect their borders.”

The
President thought for a second, his mind split between the disturbing news at
home and the Middle East situation getting out of control.  “They know
something.  There's no way they picked the last 24 hours at random to begin
moving armies around.  They knew something was coming our way, didn't
they?" asked the President.

"We
have no knowledge of that, sir," replied NSA.

The
President thought for a moment.  "Well, for now Israel can take care of
itself.  What about threats to
us
?”

"Sir,
I need to get you out of here,
now
," urged the Secret Service agent
at his side.  The man looked ready to throw the President over his shoulder and
storm from the room any moment.

"In a
minute, Alex.  I promise," said the President.  He looked back to the War
Room.  "Anything else—any other threats on the board?"

“The
terrorist attacks seem to be over for the now, sir.  We’re not getting anything
on future attacks other than some shaky intel gathered from a captured
ringleader.  It’s sketchy at best.  It looks like all they wanted to do was
knock out our power.  As for outside our borders, we’ve got nothing on the
radar yet, but we’re paying close attention to China.  There’s a convoy of
trucks heading into North Korea—admittedly for humanitarian relief sanctioned
by the U.N.” replied NSA.  She closed her briefing folder and watched her
Commander in Chief.

“In a pig’s
eye,” mumbled SecDef sourly.

“That’s
pretty much our assessment,” said NSA, with a sly smile.

“When was
this convoy authorized?”

The
speakerphone in front of the President chirped to life.  “Sir, that convoy was
authorized back in March.  It’s a standard, scheduled delivery of rice, water,
and other foodstuffs,” came the detached voice of the Secretary of State from
his office across town.  “Unless the Chinese knew something was going down—and
I find that hard to believe, I think we can safely assume this is totally
harmless.”

Something
stuck in the back of the President’s mind. 
Why would the terrorists simply
want to knock out our power?  Were they expecting us to self destruct?  Like
the riots?  But that’s only affecting the cities…what’s going on here?  Maybe
Hank’s information is correct.  Maybe they want to hit us hard while the lights
are out.  But can they? 
He returned his mind to the conversation going on
around him.

One of the
State Department staffers held up a fax and said to no one in particular, “The
U.N. wants to know if there’s anything they can do to help…” 

The hairs
on the back of the President’s neck began to rise.  
What does the U.N. have
to gain in all this?  Do they want to send in a peacekeeping mission or
something as if we were the Balkans?  That was awful fast.  We haven't even got
the word out to our own people yet...something's not right about all this.

“Tell ‘em
to go to Hell,” barked the Secretary of Defense. 

"Al,
I'm not about to give those whining ingrates the satisfaction.  No, we're
perfectly capable of handling this on our own,” was the President's calm
response.

The
Secretary of State’s voice returned to the speakerphone  and replied, “Tell
them we’re still evaluating the severity of the situation—that when we have more
information, we’ll let them know our position and if there’s anything they can
do to assist.  Thank them for their concern.  Be
polite.
” 

The
Secretary of Defense grunted his disapproval.  “I like my response better.” 

The
Commandant of the Marines shared a smile with his Army counterpart.  There were
a few chuckles around the table as the tension eased a little.