Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (16 page)

“You really gonna win?” asked Tahru.

“Yes.  And I would like you by my side. 
I need you, Tahru.  You will be my second in command.  I need someone who knows
the streets to lead my army.  We are almost ready.  I need you.  Brother.  You
are blood of my blood.  That means I can trust you above all others.”

Tahru put the gun back in his pants
waistband with a look of shame.  He glanced at the massed forces of the Man
across the River.  Then he looked at the body behind them in the trashed
office.  “We gonna clean up d’shit Martin Luth’a King lef’ undone, ain’t we?”
asked Tahru, eyebrow raised in speculation.

Malcolm bowed his head at the mention of
Martin Luther King, Jr.  “In Allah’s name, we will finally set our People
free.”

“A’ight.” Tahru said after some
thought.  He threw his head back and looked at his brother through partially
closed eyes and sniffed.  “I’m in, dog.  I go’ talk my peeps down d’block.  You
want street smarts?  I get you a motherfu—uh..an
army
…dawg—Malcolm,”
said Tahru.  His grin flashed a golden tooth.

The two brothers shook hands.  “Good!” 
Malcolm hugged his younger brother with a slap on the back.  “Together we’ll
take back this city and our freedom!”

I
T HAS BEEN set in motion?” asked the
thickly bearded, visibly nervous official.  His dark suit and aviator glasses
made him look like a B-movie spy.  Fashion was behind the times in Iran.  No
one in the outdoor café they occupied, deep in Tehran, seemed to care.

“Yes.  My men have confirmed we will
strike in twelve hours,” replied the leader of the Al Qaeda ‘embassy’ to Iran. 
He was dressed in a style that mirrored his ancestors—the loose Afghani
clothing worn by militant Islamists hunted by the American Infidels.  He sipped
his tea delicately and eyed the Iranian.  Oddly enough, both modes of fashion
were common in Tehran and no passerby gave either man a second look on the busy
street.

“This strike will cripple the Zionists? 
As you promised?”

The terrorist nodded slowly to reassure
the nervous official. 
The poor man is as good as dead if anything is traced
to his office.  No wonder he’s nervous.

This placated the Iranian.  He leaned
back into the metal chair with a contented smile spreading across his unshaven
face.  Putting his hands on the table, he laughed.  “They will pay for humiliating
us before the U.N. with their talk about nuclear weapons, their illegal
searches, violating our holy sovereignty.  Iran will sweep across the desert
and reclaim our rightful glory!  The Persian Empire shall rise again!”

The Al Qaeda man smiled behind his own
tinted glasses.  He was sure
everyone
would pay.  His commander would be
most pleased to hear this bit of good news.

Both men raised their glasses in
salute.  “To Persia reborn!” grinned the fool in the suit.

“To Allah,” nodded the Al Qaeda operative,
guarding the smile on his face.

WELL,
WHAT NEWS do you have?” asked Supreme Minister of the People’s Army Po Sin,
pushing his thick glasses up his nose.  He was pushing sixty and would need
even thicker glasses soon, he figured.

“Honorable sir, we have news from our…
ambassadors
,”
replied the nervous aide as he entered the office, bowing low as only befitted
a ranking member of the Communist Party in Beijing.

“And what might that be, Fai?” the
minister asked gently.  He knew precisely who the so-called ambassadors were of
which his aide spoke.  The God-crazy Arab terrorists from Al Qaeda had been
snooping around the Chinese government for over a decade now, but only received
semi
-official notice these last few months. 

“The…
Arabs
…” the younger man
nearly spat the word, “…claim they have begun something that will be of great
interest to us,” he bowed again.  Almost apologetically. Po Sin enjoyed keeping
his staffers off balance.  One moment they feared to see him with their own eyes,
the next he was their kind old grandfather.

“What could be more interesting than
what is happening to the Americans?” asked the minister, casually glancing at a
report from the military intelligence service.  It was a hypothetical study
done years ago, about the feasibility of invading the United States; casualty
estimates, logistics costs, materiel, numbers after endless numbers.  The old
report was becoming more and more interesting by the hour.  With their power
out and cities in chaos, and now the President himself invoking a suspension of
the rights enjoyed by private citizens
and
the all-powerful American
Media…things were very interesting indeed. 

Perhaps the time has come?
Po Sin mused, picking up the old report
and thumbing through the pages.
 The Americans are already without power and
now they will be without
information
, except that which comes from, and
is authorized by  Washington.

Po Sin knew that very tactic had worked
miracles in China for the past fifty years or so, but he was still apprehensive. 
After all, this was America he was considering, not China. 
Americans are
used to a much higher degree of freedom…at least that’s what they think.  I
must consider this further and perhaps speak to the council…

“My Arab contact repeatedly told me to
keep an eye on the Middle East.  Why we should waste time on them now…” the
aide was clearly baffled.

“Thank you, Fai…dismissed.”  Po Sin
abruptly waved off his surprised aide with a flick of his wrist.  He leaned
back in his plush leather chair and picked up his half smoked cigarette as the
office door closed softly.  He puffed, considering the news Fai brought. 
They
want us to watch the Middle East…why?  America is what everyone is watching… 
And yet they tell us to do this after we officially tell them to seek shelter
and friends outside of China?  Why?  They know we do not condone their silly
fascination with religion.  They know we cannot afford to openly support
them…at least, when America had power we couldn’t…hmmmm…

What are they planning?

M
ALCOM!  WE GOT
trouble on the Ike!”
crackled a lieutenant’s voice over the 2-way radio sitting on the desk behind
him.

Malcolm Abdul Rashid stepped back from
his younger brother and picked up the radio, turning his gaze out the window
south towards the interstate bridge over the Chicago River.

“Continue your work, brother,” he said
calmly into the microphone.  Raising the stolen high-power binoculars to his
eyes, he scanned across the river at the massing National Guard forces. 
Something had them all stirred up.  Perhaps the moment had come.  He had been
expecting it, actually. 

“The Man may be ready to attack,” he
said to his brother.

“No shit?”

“I can see three tanks.”

“Snap, dog!” said Tahru, rushing to the
window and peering in vain to see the tanks of which his brother had spoken. 
“I ain’t never seen no tank in d’hood!”

“Nor will you.”  Malcolm pressed the
transmit button on the radio.

“Abdul, are you ready with the charges?”

A brief pause, then, in a rushed voice,
“
Yeah, yeah, I got ‘em set…look…holy shit that thing big!
”

“Get your men back on this side of the
bridge and wait for my order,” said Malcolm.  It was the first time he had
raised his voice in more than a year.  He was following the lead M1A1 Abrams as
it worked its way slowly down I-290 towards the bridge.  It was a dull olive
drab color, an ugly, menacing device built for death and destruction.  Behind
it was a Bradley fighting vehicle, painted in the same scheme.  The third tank
was another Abrams.  The police cars were moved from the other side of the
bridge to allow the tanks to pass.  Malcolm could see soldiers marching calmly
behind the third tank, advancing towards his people.

“
Okay, Malcolm…we’re ready
…” came
a whispered voice over the radio.   They could hear the whine of the big
turbine engine that powered the Abrams tank.

“Wait…” said Malcolm, watching the first
tank move onto the bridge and continue rolling forward.

“Yo…”

“I see it, Tahru, yes.”

The tank was almost to the midway point
on the bridge when the Bradley reached the bridge and rolled forward.  Tahru’s
eyes darted back and forth between the sheer menace of the tanks and his
brother’s collected face.

“Yo, what you gonna do to stop
them
?”

“Patience, Tahru…”

At the precise moment when the lead two
tanks were both on the bridge and both over the water, Malcolm spoke: “Now! 
Abdul do it now!  Send them to Allah!”

At the distance they were at, Malcolm
and Tahru couldn’t hear the ear-bursting boom of the explosives Abdul had
rigged under the bridge, but they could see the blast—even the shockwave as it
forced the air away from the explosion.  In an instant, the bridge was
enveloped in a smoke cloud, but Malcolm could definitely pick out the 54 ton
Abrams falling backwards and down into the river with a huge splash of water
erupting well up over the height of the former bridge.   The second tank was
likewise dropped into the river, though the Bradley landed upside down in the
water.

“Holy
shit!
” shrieked Tahru,
instinctively stepping back from the window.  The muffled boom echoed slowly
around the city.

“Allah’s will be done,” breathed
Malcolm.  “We have struck the first blow in our struggle for freedom, Tahru.” 
The smoke from the blast was drifting lazily up towards the frantic police
helicopters that were buzzing about the scene of the attack.  In the moving
waters of the river below, the Bradley had disappeared along with the debris
from the bridge.  The Abrams was struck by falling chunks of concrete and
asphalt and quietly sank.

B
RIGADIER GENERAL THOMAS Collrade
carefully stood back up from behind his APC command post.  He looked around as
he waited for his ears to readjust.  The world was reduced to what he could see
through the smoke around him and the dull muffled roar from his abused eardrums. 
Everyone in sight was just now standing up from behind whatever cover they had
found when the bridge disappeared in a clap of thunder. 

“What…the…
fuck…
just…happened?” he
bellowed, walking towards the last surviving tank as it sat in the middle of
the interstate.  The commander’s hatch popped open and a helmeted head
appeared, the face a mask of horror and surprise at what had just happened a
few feet in front of his rig.

“Sir, did we lose the two forward—“        

Collrade stopped and spun on his heel,
surprising his underling.  “I can
see
that son!  I want to know how the
hell a bunch of rioters could drop a bridge like that! 
Someone
over
there knows what the hell he’s doing.”

“What’s that noise?” asked General
Collrade.  Whatever the low bass sound was, it was louder than the low rumble
of the Abrams at idle.

The general drew his hand across his
throat, a signal to the tank commander.  The tanker understood, bent down for a
second and his tank shuddered, went quiet with a last gasp. 

Cheering.

Through the dissipating smoke, on the
other side of the destroyed bridge, people were cheering.  A few gunshots
crackled in the smoky gloom, pistols and rifles.  A few soldiers ducked,
fearing an attack.  Collrade was furious.  First they ambush his tanks and
killed his men, then they cheer.  His eyes locked with the tank commander.  The
young man’s steel-eyed gaze took in the fury of his commanding officer and
mirrored the sentiment.      

The general decided to put his command
authority to the test.  President Reed had authorized any and all force
necessary.  General Collrade pointed at the tank driver then swept his arm
across the river and gave a tomahawk chop.  His hand ended up pointing towards
the cheering rioters on the other side of the wrecked bridge.  The tank commander
smiled and dropped down inside his vehicle, shutting the hatch.  The tank
momentarily came to life with a rumble and shudder.

“Fire in the hole!”  Collrade shouted
and clapped hands over his ears.  The soldiers all around did the same.  Some
ducked.

With a clap louder than anything heard
in Chicago before, the main gun on the tank went off in a cloud of smoke and
fire.  The barrel smoothly recoiled as the tank rocked backwards a bit on its
heavy treads.  Nearly instantaneously on the other side of the river, the crowd
of rioters disappeared in an explosion.  Bodies were disintegrated and flung
every which way.  Many were blasted halfway across the river, falling to a
watery death.  The cheering stopped and panicked screams carried across the
river.  The 120mm shell had left a crater on the other side of the river.  The
few survivors of the tank’s reply picked themselves up out of the rubble and
fled, seeking the safety of buildings further away.

Now it was the soldiers’ turn to cheer.

D
AAAAAAMN, HISSED TAHRU in shock.  He had
never seen a tank in real life before, let alone witness one fire on American
citizens only 30 yards away.  The destruction caused by one round from the tank
was awesome.  It dampened his euphoria over the implosion of the bridge.

“And the battle is joined,” said
Malcolm.  He lowered his head in a quick prayer for the souls of his men killed
by the remaining tank.  He vowed vengeance.

“Yo, dog, how you gonna fight shit like
d’at
!?”

“With brains, Tahru,” Malcolm said and
turned from the window.  He walked out of the office, intent on meeting with
his area commanders.

G
ENERAL COLLRADE PEERED over the edge of
the destroyed bridge, into the swift waters below.  There was no sign of the
tanks he’d lost or their crews. 

Damn
.

“Get the choppers in the air.  I want a
constant patrol—if they spot someone that  looks like he’s got a gun, take ‘em
down.  Seek and destroy.”

The air-wing commander saluted with a
grin.  “Yes sir!” he barked, then ran to find transport to his Apache attack
helicopter.  There were three in Chicago, brought up on orders from Collrade
the night before. 

“I want the rest of our armor covering
the bridges. 
All
of them.  If that means we put one tank for every
bridge, so be it.  Nothing gets across any bridge, Richards.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Colonel in charge
of the National Guard’s mechanized armor force. 

Collrade glanced again into the swift
waters of the river below.  “Get me the names of the men in those tank crews. 
I’ll handle it personally.”

Colonel Richards visibly relaxed.  “Yes,
sir.  Right away, sir.”

“I want to know when you’re in
position.  Get moving.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Vogel,” barked the general, turning
from the already retreating form of the tank commander.

“Sir,” said the staff’s communication’s
chief, at the elbow of her general.

“I need that link up with Washington,
yesterday
. 
I’ll be at the command post in a few minutes.”

T
HROUGH HIS LARGE binoculars, Malcolm
watched impassively as one of the Man’s attack helicopter crews got the word to
lift off.  The ugly looking helicopter had been sitting peacefully on the strip
of land adjacent to Navy Pier.  The bit of grassy parkland had apparently become
an impromptu rear echelon command post.  He swept the binoculars from the
sudden activity around the helicopter and noticed for the first time a bright
white Coast Guard cutter docked at the end of Navy Pier.

“Uh oh…” muttered Tahru when he noticed
the menacing looking aircraft lift off.

“Tell your people to get ready,” Malcolm
said quietly to his brother.  When Tahru didn’t respond, he repeated the order,
louder.

“A’ight, dog, a’ight!” replied Tahru
without taking his eyes off the helicopter.  It was gaining altitude and moving
closer to their position in the Sears Tower.  Tahru mumbled his orders into a
stolen radio and continued to watch the activity at Navy Pier.

“Yo d’at thing comin’ this way…” he said
in a nervous voice.

“This I see,” replied his brother. 
Malcolm pointed down towards the Michigan Street Bridge.  “You see the lights? 
There are police officers down there on our side of the bridge.  The Helicopter
is likely coming to assist in a rescue attempt.”  He turned to his brother. 
“Are your people in place, as I asked?”

“Yeah, they’re ready,” replied Tahru. 
He half crouched as the helicopter buzzed their floor and swooped past.  The
noise, even inside the sealed office building, was deafening.  “You see that? 
Fucker got missiles, man!  Look at the size of the gun on that bitch,” he
whispered.

Malcolm said nothing.  He was watching
two blocks south of their position, where a ring of rioters was closing in on
the trapped police officers.  There were a few killed and what looked to be a
dozen wounded.  Malcolm rested his binoculars on the plate glass window and
imagined how these men and women could end up so far behind the lines this late
in the game.

He surmised the remaining officers from
the 1
^st
District Precinct who were at headquarters when it all
started had tried to make it across the Michigan Street Bridge.  Probably tried
to keep order for a large group of civilians.  That was when they were
ambushed.  The civilians likely made it to safety, but the police officers were
trapped.

“Watch the pilots of that helicopter. 
See how he moves his head and the machine gun follows?  A  most dangerous
weapon.  We must be ready to act, brother,” said Malcolm, his voice the very
sound of resolve. 

“Here d’ey come!” cried Tahru,
pointing.  The soldiers on the far side of the river breached the barricade and
ran across the bridge.  Overhead, the helicopter brought close air support and
hovered over them like a protective mother as they made their way across the
bridge. 

“Now,” whispered Malcolm into his
radio.  In response, a handful of rioters tossed homemade napalm canisters
towards the soldiers, who were largely able to avoid the fire and continue
moving forward.  The soldiers began shooting first and killed two of their
attackers, hiding behind a burned out car. 

The helicopter flew sideways and spun on
a dime.  Malcolm could tell that the gunner had spotted the third fighter under
concealment where the soldiers couldn’t see him.  As the pilot swung over the
scene, the gunner  sprayed 30mm rounds which punched through the cars like
Swiss cheese and obliterated the enemy target in a bloody mess.

“Your death will not have been in vain,
brother,” Malcolm whispered.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Tahru, a hand up to
his mouth in shock.  “That guy just…he…the blood!” he stammered.  His
street-hardened mind had never seen anything so disturbing.

The dull thump-thump-thump of the
helicopter echoed off the buildings around them.  Malcolm scanned around the
scene with his binoculars.  He saw a soldier turn and signal his men to start
clearing out the barricade.  On the other side of the bridge, the cop cars were
pulling back, allowing two massive Army vehicles to roll through and rumble
across the bridge.