Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (4 page)

"You
don't want me to fall asleep at the wheel and crash, do you?"  That was
what Saldid had said, the argument used to justify listening to that...racket. 
Hakim grunted at the memory.  He could not stand to listen to the noise the
irritatingly beautiful little girl claimed was "music".  Now her
body...Hakim repressed a smile.  He could make her
sing
. 

Inside his
head, the voice of his Imam reproached him for his lustful thoughts.  Hakim
mentally shrugged off the warning.  He found it was easier and easier now to
ignore his Imam.  The crusty old man was on the other side of the world and he,
Hakim Sharif Hassan, was about to make history.  What mattered if he dreamed of
a few virgins on earth before he met the Prophet?  It was a vice, he knew, but
then again, no one was perfect.

“I have
good news and better news.  We have been given the command to begin.  In a few
hours, we will be on our own.”  He smiled.  Hakim laughed out loud after a few
moments of quiet contemplation.  After so long, the dream was a reality.  He
glanced at his watch. 

“Now my
friend, we must be south of Flagstaff as soon as possible.  We set our plans in
motion at dawn.” 

“Millions
of these accursed animals will die soon, by the Fist of the Jihad.  By Allah’s
will,” intoned Saldid solemnly.  The emotion in his voice made it thick.     Hakim
continued to stare out the window.  He watched with detached awareness as the
Arizona landscape rolled past.  “Praised be Allah’s name,”          

“So what is
the better news?” asked Saldid after a moment of silence.  They had reached the
speed limit and he backed off on the gas.  The last thing they needed was a
speeding ticket.  It would never be paid, but the process would slow them down
just enough to ruin the beautifully designed symmetry of their plan. 

Hakim
grunted again.  “My friend, Malcolm.  The one in Chicago.  He is ready.  When
he receives word of our deeds, he will strike.  His connections will greatly
advance our cause, Saldid.  That is the best part of the whole plan: bringing
in our African Brothers in a coordinated strike across this country of evil. 
It is a pity they are so misguided in their motives, though they are
believers.”  Hakim shrugged.  “Oh well, it is Allah’s will.  They are
expendable, like the communalists and anarchists.  Those fools will garner so
much attention, our Brothers will have an easy time of it, I think.”

"They
may be fools, but these anarchists have a passion to be respected," agreed
Saldid.  He smiled again.  "I almost wish I could watch it on the news as
it happens.  Think of what it will look like!"

"I
prefer to live it, my friend," replied Hakim with a smile of his own.

As the
mid-morning sun began to heat up the parched land called Arizona, Hakim and Saldid
pulled out of the K-Mart parking lot.   It was their last stop.  The backseat
of the old Buick was full of emergency road flares, matches and fireworks—anything
they could get their hands on that would remain on fire for more than a few
seconds. 

The trunk
held a few weapons, a cooler full of ice and cheap American beer, and a duffle
bag full of granola bars and cans of soup.  They had hit every Target, K-Mart,
Wal-Mart and convenience store they found on their way out of town, buying a
handful here and a handful there.  They never bought enough of one item to
arouse suspicion.   Nonetheless, the two men quickly amassed a modest stockpile
of incendiary devices.

Hakim
checked his watch once they were safely on the highway again.  12:30pm EST. 
That meant 10:30am here in Arizona.  It was finally time to bring
jihad
to America.    “It is time, Saldid.”

Saldid
smiled and cranked up little Ashley Sword.  Hakim reluctantly tolerated his
partner's transgression and even grinned after an irritating song.  Finally
they came to a suitable dirt access road and carefully pulled off the road. 
The car quickly left the sanitized highway area and entered the brush lands of
Arizona’s mountains.  It had been a very dry season and they kicked up an
enormous rooster-tail of dust. 

Hakim
reached behind him and pulled a handful of road flares into his lap.  He rolled
down his window, whispered a quick prayer, then ignited the first flare and
tossed it out the window of the and into the dry grass next to the dirt track.

Flare after
flare went out the window at regular intervals.  Neither man looked back to see
if they took.  There wasn’t a need.  Smoke had already started to drift across
the road behind them.  Saldid could not see it in the rear view mirror for all
the dust that was kicked up, but he could well see it in his side mirrors. 
There was no time to stop and watch the fires grow into Allah’s sword.  They
had to start more fires and move on—other teams such as theirs were doing the
same exact thing throughout the American West.  The plan was driven by precise
movements.

Following
the access road a few more miles, the two men found another dirt road that took
them back to the highway.  Along the way, more flares went out the window.  The
smoke from the first flares was visible now over the hills where they had
started.  The wispy black cloud mingled tenuously with the dust cloud the car
had generated.  It still appeared delicate and harmless, like something out of
a dream. 

Hakim
glanced at the mountains in the distance, the great dark forests of northern
Arizona.  It would be only a short journey for the newborn fires to reach the
fertile breeding grounds of a dark summer-dry pine forest.  He smiled.  His
plan
would
work.

Saldid
checked for traffic before he entered the highway, and then headed north.  Both
men knew another team would be cover the middle part of Arizona, while still
another team the south.  In a single day, if they stopped only to refuel, the
three teams that Hakim knew of would cover hundreds of miles of road.   They
would all toss countless flares, cigarettes, and matches into the dry grass and
weeds, all over the state.  How many other teams were out there, Hakim and
Saldid could only speculate.  However, one thing they knew for certain was that
the Holy Firestorm had begun.

ERIK TURNED ON the TV
while he got dressed.  Brin was still sleeping.  He smiled and peered through
the bedroom door at the softly breathing form under the sheets that was his
wife. 

He frowned
when the news came on.  The way-too-early-in-the-morning-to-be-this-pretty
blonde on the TV looked at her notes and continued to report: “In other news,
our Flagstaff, Arizona affiliate, KTWN, is reporting a fatal mystery in the
mountains near Flagstaff this morning amid the raging wildfire that began
overnight. 

Evidently,
an Arizona Highway Patrol Officer was investigating an abandoned vehicle
blocking a high mountain pass.  There was an explosion, which killed the
officer.  Officials are not releasing the name of the officer, pending
notification of the family and they are unsure as to the cause of the
explosion.  The dramatic event was caught on the dashboard camera mounted in
the officer’s patrol car, which though extremely damaged, is still viewable. 
You can even see the small brush fire that experts claim is the cause of the
wildfire…”  A small box in the screen appeared showing the current fire,
sparked from the car explosion, consuming a whole mountainside. 

“Folks, I
must warn you the following segment is graphic and may not be suitable for all
our viewers so if you feel that—“

“Oh give me
a break!” hissed Erik.  “It’s only 7:30!  You can’t start the day off with footage
of a cop getting blown up!  See? 
This
is why people don’t watch the
news anymore.”

After the
grim news on the television had sunk in, Erik decided he didn’t have much of an
appetite after all.  He sighed and sat down on the couch.  In front of him sat
his stack of books.  The thesis awaited.  Beyond the books he saw his video
game console.

In his
mind, his
Modern Warfare 6
performance from last night echoed like a
movie.  It was legendary.  In the end, he had actually scared more people away
from the match than he had killed.  His teammates were ecstatic.  His enemies
were pissed.  It had been a good night.

"I’ll
work on the thesis later.  Maybe after Brin goes to work," he mumbled with
a smile.  He got up to go power up his game remote.

IT LOOKED TO be another
hot and muggy July afternoon.  After his morning was spent online fighting a
virtual war, he had gotten lunch and dedicated the rest of the day to work. 
So, Erik continued to slave away on his thesis paper in the living room in the
air conditioning and longed to be at the pool. 

He skimmed
notes absently and pondered a large stack of books on Tokugawa Japan that sat
on the coffee table when the sudden silence from the TV made him pay
attention.  He had put on the news at lunch and left the boob-tube on low in
the background while he worked.

The
reporters had been deep in discussion with "experts" about the
wildfire in Arizona that officials were still puzzled over.  Many argued that
the car bomb that had killed the cop that morning was the root of the wildfire
that was now out of control.  Others claimed it was lightning.  Only one woman
had been brave enough to mention the dreaded “T” word.  Then there had been
silence. 

Erik looked
up and saw that the reporters were staring at each other in confusion.  He
grinned.  It was just priceless.  He loved when the know-it-all talking heads
were just rendered speechless by someone courageous enough to state the
obvious.

“Is this
correct?”  asked the anchorwoman.  She looked off camera while her male
counterpart began to speak again.   He had a hand on his ear and had plastered
a grave look on his photogenic face.  Erik rolled his eyes at the obviously
trumped up drama.  Anything for summer ratings, he figured.

“Folks...folks
at home, we’re just getting word in here of a serious power outage in
Washington, D.C.  Unconfirmed reports are coming in from our affiliate in
Baltimore suggesting power is out there as well.  I—hang on folks.  I’m
getting…” the man concentrated on the voice in his ear piece.  

“We’re now
receiving word that power is out in a suburb of Denver.”  The female anchors
equally well groomed, serious looking face frowned.  “Sporadic disturbances
over a wide area…Okay…” she paused.  “Okay, folks just stay tuned right here to—“

Erik got up
and padded to the kitchen for a soda, eyes still on the TV. 
Here we go
again...this is gonna be a long summer. Every year it seems to get worse.  It’s
pretty late to start this though.  I would have thought they got the kinks
worked out back in June when San Francisco lost power for a few days. 
He
saw a 6-pack of Brin’s favorite beer and grinned.

“Five
o’clock somewhere,” he muttered as he opened an ice-cold beer with a loud
snap-hiss.  The TV screen went dark before the metallic echo of the beer can
died in the kitchen.  He looked at the TV, then at the open beer in his hands. 
Condensation had already started to form around the can. 

“Whoa,” he
whispered.

The TV
screen remained dark.  He looked up at the VCR on top of the TV, the digital
time display blinked and read 10:57am—power was still on.  So it wasn’t a
problem at his end.  The screen suddenly came back to life and showed a
disheveled reporter as he attempted to calm himself.  Emergency lights
flickered on and people moved about more than normal in the background. 
Someone ran right in front of the camera and blocked the anchorman by accident.

“I
apologize to our audience out there.”  Erik rushed back into the living room. 
The reporter’s voice sound faint and tinny, as if his microphone was
malfunctioning.  There was an audible crackle, then the man’s voice returned to
a normal level.  “Power was interrupted here in our New York headquarters just
then, but only momentarily.  We’ve got our back-up generators online now, so we
can still broadcast but, it looks like something similar to the Blackout of ’03
is in the works here in New York, folks.  Stay with us as we try to piece
things together for you.”  The anchorman looked around for a piece of paper to
ruffle and look important.   “For those of you just joining us—“

Erik
changed channel looking for more news on the blackout—the other channels were
in similar states of disarray.  More reports came in as the minutes flew by. 
New York, D.C., Baltimore, Denver, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, even
Portland, Oregon…all rumored to be in the dark.  Things were still very
sketchy: some people claimed the power was out when it wasn’t; others got
cities mixed up in their reports.  The central fear was that the outages were
in the process of spreading, like a giant black carpet unfurling across the
country from New York to Los Angeles. 

Erik went
into the spare bedroom in their apartment and turned on the AM/FM/Weather
radio.  The AM station he had programmed into the unit broadcast the local political
talk show host loud and clear.  He was curious to see if anything was going on
locally. 

“—
told
you…didn’t I tell ya?  It’s only a matter of time.  I said that when the
Blackout back in…when was it?  2003?  That’s right.  It hit—anyone who was listening
then will remember
.” 

Erik did. 
He well remembered the day.  It was the most anxiety filled day of college he
ever experienced.  He could still remember all the people crying in the student
lounge when he walked in after that test in art history.

“I
asked, ‘is it terrorism?’ and I hated that I thought of that first!  Because
everyone wants to think that it’s not…that it’s lightning hitting a relay
station, or like when England or Italy lost power a few years back, just a tree
branch falling somewhere.  Even a damn squirrel chewing on a power line, but…I
mean, come on, people!  Look at this list of cities we’re being told are losing
power…and I’d like to remind everyone the list is growing fas
t!”  Erik
heard what sounded like rustled paper.

 “
We got,
let’s see here, San Diego, L.A.—-my God folks, can you imagine the hell that’s
going to break loose in South Central tonight?  Time to break out the canned
goods and shotguns!  This has got to be terrorism.  This
—“ the sound cut
off as the radio went silent. 

The host
came back on the air after a few breathless seconds.  “—
what happens.  Okay,
all you listeners, we just lost power, to explain what happened there.  We got
back-up generators, though…So there we have it, even Florida isn’t immune from
the power outage this time around…Hey, someone want to tell me if we’re still
on the air?  Craig—you getting anything over the internet?  I think this whole
thing was timed to go off at once…can you believe this?”
  The host
continued to talk to the people in the studio, regardless of his audience.

Erik found
himself looking at the framed hurricane chart from 2004 that hung on the wall
above the desk.  He was barely aware of the announcer as he ranted raving about
terrorism and why people were going to
really
freak out this time.  He
looked at all the hurricane tracks as they cris-crossed Florida.  He had
plotted each one, patiently listening to NOAA Radio to get the exact hourly
coordinates of the storms for days on end.  He remembered all the devastation
and confusion and suffering caused by those storms.  A year for the record
books.

Major
cities on the east coast, the west coast, the mid-west…all lose power in the
middle of the afternoon on a Friday.  There’s no hurricanes, no major storms. 
Far as I know, there’s no heat waves or anything like that going on. 
Well…maybe in Arizona and southern California, but nothing major.  So what
happened out there?

The radio
host was talking about the 2003 Blackout again.  Erik thought back to the news
broadcasts from that largely regional event in New England. 
The country has
three power grids, the east, west and Texas...

Erik’s mind
raced. 
 They said Houston was out.  Texas is separate to some degree from
the other two grids, if I remember correctly.  So that means something—or some
one
—took
down all three grids at the same time or close to it…it’s gotta be terrorism.
 
Erik felt a sudden weight in his stomach.  He leaned over the desk and closed
his eyes.  His imagination showed him images of riots and food rationing in the
major cities after a week of no electricity. 

If it’s
terrorism, than this is
big
.  Bigger than 9-11.  Hell, they don’t
even have to kill us this time…take out the power long enough, we’ll do the
dirty work for ‘em when the shit hits the fan in the cities….it’ll be
anarchy…oh my God.
  He opened his eyes and looked down at the radio, only
then realizing that it was silent again.

The lights
in the room went out with an audible click.  The TV, which still blared reports
from around the nation out in the living room fell quiet.  Nothing but silence
in the apartment, except for the battery powered wall clocks going
, tick,
tick, tick, tick.
  It sounded eerie to hear that
tick
noise coming
from three different directions when normally he could hardly hear one over the
normal background noise.

Erik’s
heart felt like it skipped a beat.  “Oh,
shit
.”

He heard
the rasp of plastic on metal as the door to the screened in porch slid open
before Brin stuck her head in the room, cell phone in hand.  She lifted the
sunglasses from her blue almond-shaped eyes and frowned at Erik.   He almost
smiled—even with a frown on her face, she was still the prettiest girl he had
ever seen.  And what made him want to smile even more was the fact that she
would never admit that.

“What
happened?  I was talking to Mom—she said Uncle Bill saw two planes have a
mid-air collision over Sacramento!  They blew up right in the sky and one
started to spiral down into the city!  Can you believe it?  He was out in his
backyard and looked up and
bam
!  He had already called Mom and was
trying to get a hold of me because he thought that I was on a flight headed
home—but that’s
next
weekend…and then my phone just disconnected.  Now I
can’t even call
anyone
.  It just says some stupid thing about all
circuits being busy…” her voice trailed off as she saw the look on Erik’s face,
saw the lights out, the TV off, didn’t hear the air conditioning.

“Erik…sweetie,
what’s going on?”

“Better
shut the door, baby, we need to keep as much cool air inside as possible.  It’s
gonna be warm tonight, I think.”  He tried a disarming smile and looked down
again at the desk.  The weather-alert alarm clock was dark.  That wasn’t good.

Erik opened
up the clock and connected the emergency 9volt battery inside.  The voice of
the talk show host came back. 
“—ay, it’s getting serious folks.  We just
got word of a plane crash in Maryland, near Andrews Air Force Base.  That makes
two—one in Sacramento and one in Maryland.
 

“
More
reports of power outages in the mid-west and even into Canada.  Looks like our
neighbors to the north are sharing in the fun again.  It’s like the entire
nation just shut down.  I—hold on a minute, NBCRadio just announced there’s
been a mid-air collision outside Sacramento…now it’s two airliners down in
California.  Christ, I’ve just been handed a report that…oh My God.  Now
there’s another airliner down.  Outside Tampa.  Something about—is this right,
John?  A missile?  What’s going on?  Are we under attack?
”  There was a
slight pause.  Brin’s hands went to her mouth in shock, cell phone forgotten on
the floor where she dropped it.