Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (6 page)

HAKIM LOOKED AT the gas
display on the dashboard again.  Only a quarter of a tank left.  He and Saldid
had been on the road for hours.  They continued to carefully drive the speed
limit and laughed as they tossed road flares out the window of their Buick. 
The two holy warriors relished the thought that their handiwork had ignited the
landscape around them.  They had traveled in a semi-circle route away from
Flagstaff, out towards California, then curved back east.  They spread fires
all along the road behind them.

On the
other side of Arizona, another team was doing the same.  Those men operated
near Tucson and spread fire towards the Mexican Border.  It was hoped that the
fires would distract the Border Patrol and cause havoc with the illegal Mexican
migration—another knife in the back of America. 

A third
team was near Phoenix.   By nightfall, a massive swath of the Arizona landscape
would be engulfed in fires.  The wall of fire would spread and consuming all
before it and create a huge swatch of destruction.  The dry summer had provided
ample fuel reserves, the fires begat their own winds.  By dawn of the second
day of the Great Jihad, Allah willing, there would be true firestorms loose in
Arizona.

In Southern
California, similar progress was made.   A handful of
mujahadeen
were
operating near Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Another four teams were in the
northern part of the state.

Hakim did
not know all the details of the Great Jihad, but what he did know made him
proud to be a part of the effort to rid the world once and for all of the
pestilence and influence of America.  He knew that some airliners had been shot
down with Stinger missiles smuggled into America from Mexico.  That much they
had heard on the radio.  The frantic reporters were describing the havoc and
chaos unleashed by Hakim’s brethren.  He was filled with pride.

Hakim was
slightly annoyed at his leaders, however.  They had agreed to strike the Great
Satan a crippling blow, yet had come up with the idea of letting America
self-destruct, rather than forcibly decapitate her.  He was all for bringing
down the Infidel any way possible, but it was in his heart for explosions,
bombs, mayhem and destruction.  He personally believed civil strife to take too
long.  Perhaps his unauthorized treaty with the Black brothers in Chicago would
speed things along.

Part of him
was worried that the higher ups would find out about his secret dealings with
Malcolm and the Brotherhood, but Hakim did not care.  Malcolm stood at the top
of a well organized group of useful idiots, willing to be manipulated by the
mujahedeen
. 
They could not be counted on totally, of course, but they would serve a purpose
to speed things along.  Their connections to the anarchists and communists
would further the destructive spiral that America would travel.  Hakim could
hardly wait for the real fun to be reported on the radio.  Hopefully the radios
will broadcast that long.

We shall
see.

Hundreds and
thousands of Black Muslims, communist community organizers, eco-anarchists,
militants all, had joined the growing alliance with the Fist and would now
spread chaos through the streets of the largest powerless cities. 

The pact
Hakim had forged with Malcolm Abdul Rashid a few years back would devastate the
country even as America tried to come to grips with the crippling assault on
its power system.

Then the
effects of the Holy Firestorm and the chaos that would follow would
truly
be felt.  There was no way America could stand it all at once. 

The icing
on the cake,
wished Hakim,
would be for some country to attack
America while it is weak.  If only the Chinese had listened to us…instead of
shunning our ambassadors.
 Hakim, a simple warrior, did not understand why
the Al Qaeda leadership warned him that more than anything, the Chinese were
perhaps the best in the world at listening.

Hakim tried
to forget about lost opportunities and grinned as he imagined the riots in
American cities, perhaps under way at that very moment.  At the very latest,
they would start at sunset. 

The fools
played right in to our hands...they are completely our pawns.  They expect
their ‘Arab brothers’ to welcome them with open arms…after.  They have no idea
the Fist will consider them just as American as the Whites and all the other
infidel half-breeds found in this stinking cesspool called America.  They will
all
be
cleansed by the Sword of Allah.  They profess their faith, yet do nothing to
satisfy the command to purify the infidel that the Prophet desires.  Their
hearts may be in the right place, but they are not truly of the Faith.
 
Satisfied that his betrayal of fellow Muslims was a rational, justified act,
Hakim decided to think no more on the fate of his erstwhile comrades.

The man on
the radio appeared to be crying.  Hakim took special joy in the squeals from
the American radio stations as they drove through the countryside.  Only three
could be heard this far into the wilds of a largely powerless Arizona.  Reports
of power outages all across the nation grew by the hour and never ceased to
bring a smile to his face.  

Many radio
stations, especially the smaller ones, simply had no power to operate.  Huge
swaths of the radio dial were static.  To Hakim’s silent joy, the stations that
mostly played the rubbish Saldid preferred were already offline.

They had
only recently heard over the radio that their comrades had accomplished the
first part of the Great Jihad.  Only now, some dozen hours after the first
power outages, did the foolish Americans own up to the fact that a number of
mujahedeen
had been killed in attacks on power installations across the nation.  No
matter, enough damage had been done to overload and topple the entire national
grid.  Hakim swore to avenge the fallen
mujahedeen
.  For every Brother
that died, Hakim vowed to slay ten American infidels.

“I don’t
believe it, friends…the power is out over most of the nation.  We’re only going
to broadcast for the next few hours.  Our backup generator will probably be
requisitioned by the local authorities soon.  They’ve really hit us below the
belt this time.  We’re still waiting on details of exactly
how
they did
it…And to add insult to injury…I’m just now receiving reports of large scale
rioting in Chicago and Boston.  Atlanta appears to be in the midst of a
race
riot of some sort.  Of all the stupid….who the hell has a
race
riot just
as we’re being attacked by terrorists!?  Looks like violence is breaking out in
New York, too.  What’s
wrong
with these people?  It’s like they’re just
looking for an excuse to burn down their own homes and communities!  Is our
country falling apart or am I just paranoid?” cried the radio host.  Hakim
smiled.

“Malcolm
did it!” he exclaimed and whooped for joy. 

“You did
not think he would follow through?” asked Saldid with sudden alarm.

“No, no,”
said Hakim, waving a hand in dismissal of Saldid’s worry.  “I knew he would do
it.  I just knew not if his friends across the country could be relied upon to
help us.  I prayed every day for the last three years for this night.  Allah
has not let us down!”

“So, the
Great Satan has been surrounded and attacked from all sides, from without and
within!” laughed Saldid.  “Today is a great day, my friend!”  He slapped the
steering wheel in mirth.

Hakim
offered praise to Allah and threw another flare out the window.  He looked over
the seat into the rear of the car.  The stash of flares was down to a mere
dozen or so.  “We will be out of flares soon, Saldid.”

Saldid
drove in silence for a few seconds, savoring the taste of victory.  There were
a lot fewer cars on the road now.  People sought shelter in the comforting
walls of their homes.  The scenery outside the car was a blurred
yellowish-reddish color.  Dots of green in the distance denoted cacti that
roasted in the heat of the desert afternoon.  

“Do we
begin the slaughter soon?” asked the Syrian born driver quietly.  Hakim saw his
friend feel the grip of the pistol pressed against Saldid’s right leg.

“That we
do, my brother, that we do,” replied Hakim.  He ignited another flare, used it
to light his cigarette, then threw the sparkler out the window.

THE FIRST NIGHT without
power was destined to be nerve-racking for most of the nation, Erik figured. 
The radio had spewed news all afternoon of the much-feared looting and
rioting.  By sunset, it was mostly confined to Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles
and New York.  Curiously, Atlanta was in the grips of a race riot which was in
the process of eviscerating the inner city.   Power had only been off for an
afternoon, there was still water and food to be had.  It made no sense to the
reporters, the authorities or Erik.  What it did do was tickle the back of his
brain.  Something was not quite right.

There was a
lot of speculation flying around that race was the motivation for the unrest in
most cities around the nation suffering from riots and violence.  In Seattle,
though, eco-terrorists had ransacked the downtown district and began a
systematic campaign of destruction in the name of Mother Earth.

Despite the
blossoming rioting and chaos in the inner cities, most people across the nation
chose to react like they would during any power outage—try to get home and stay
out of trouble. 

Erik rubbed
his chin in thought.  It was as if the rest of the inhabitants of the major
cities just wanted to watch and wait while the hearts of the cities burned for
no good reason.  So far most of the violence was localized, in the sections of
the major cities that most people tried to steer clear of anyway.  But it was
spreading to business districts, fast. 

Florida was
no exception.  The major inner-cities were turning into war zones if the local
radio hosts could be believed.  Miami, a city that never needed an official
reason to party, was acting as if it were New Years Eve on crack.  
Jacksonville, though, was in the grips of the infant stages of what appeared to
be a  race riot.  Early word was, the violence was led and coordinated by a
group called the Brotherhood.  No one really knew what they were all about, but
they meant trouble.  Somehow they were tied to Islam, but no one on the radio
knew if they were foreign terrorists or, as suspected, Americans.

Erik looked
at the map in his hands.  Tampa was in flames.  From the radio reports, he was
able to put pencil marks on the map to denote where the violence was
concentrated.  It straddled the border between “wrong side of the tracks” and
the lucrative business/entertainment district that nuzzled the glassy waters of
Tampa Bay.  But why?  Ybor City, a haven for transplanted Cuban refugees, had
deep connections with Catholicism, not Islam. 

Erik put
down the map as the twilight faded and he could no longer read.  He pondered
the demographics of the Gulf Coast.  It was common knowledge that there were
more retired people than any other age group.  ‘The land of newlyweds and
mostly-deads,’ as the saying went. 

He figured
most people would probably just go to bed, expecting everything to be better
the next day.  Or, at least expecting the people in charge to know more about
what was going on.  Maybe they would have a better explanation tomorrow.  That
had even been the thought process of a few people in the apartment complex. 
Erik shook his head at the fallacy of that line of thought.

He kept
seeing those infamous pictures of what had happened in the wake of Hurricane
Joyce cycle through his mind.  There hadn’t been as much flooding as Hurricane
Katrina when it destroyed New Orleans, but the destruction around Jacksonville
had been just as complete.  The looting and fighting that broke out in the
streets was surreal to the rest of the country.  Florida had gone back to its
roots and relied on the lessons learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992. 
Homeowners who had them, used firearms to defend themselves in record numbers. 

The
fighting that erupted after Joyce had turned into some sort of turf war between
rival gangs in and around Jacksonville.  It had been a close call, but in the
end, the National Guard and the local police had been able to contain the
situation and restore law and order.  But it had been a hairy two weeks.  Erik
had not slept very much then.  He had been glued to the TV and ready to
evacuate should things turn south.  He’d been thinking all afternoon about just
such a situation occurring in many spots all over the country.  It made him
shiver.

“You
getting hungry?” asked Brin.  She put the book down she had been reading and
closed it.  “Can’t see any more, anyway.  How about dinner?” she asked again.

Thankful
for the interruption of his fatalistic thoughts, Erik heartily agreed and went
into the kitchen to gather supplies.  He quickly threw open the fridge and dove
for some meat he had bought a few days back.  After the door was safely shut
again, he took all the ingredients to the back porch and set them on the little
café table.  When he had retrieved his camp stove from the hall closet and a
canister of gas, he lit the burners and started to boil some water.

As he
waited for the water to boil, Brin went back inside and began to rummage around
in the kitchen for a suitable wine and some glasses.  Erik considered their
resources.  He had a 3-pack of the large camping stove gas bottles.  He’d never
actually had the chance to take them camping, so he wasn’t too sure exactly how
much fuel it would take to cook pasta and beef. 

Well, this
will serve as an experiment.  The first bottle will tell us how much gas is
used to cook meals.  We’ll have to ration the other two to make sure we have
the stove for as long as possible
, he told himself absently.

As the beef
sizzled on the gas burner, he threw on some just-boiled pasta and sprinkled the
mixture liberally with spices.  Brin opened a bottle of wine and lit some
candles.  They had a nice romantic dinner on the porch, without any of the
usual distractions.  No TVs or cell phones, no work to worry about, no
nothing.   The only sounds they heard were the low murmurs of neighbors talking
quietly and the cheers and shouts of children playing in the dark with
flashlights.

As Erik
chewed a mouthful of pasta, he marveled that parents would allow their kids to
waste a precious resource like batteries.  It was as if everyone thought the
power would be back on by morning.  Even Brin had commented that it seemed
wasteful to play flashlight tag.

“They may
need those batteries tomorrow night…” she muttered around her glass of wine. 
“What will they do if the stores can’t open up again?”

“Yeah,”
said Erik.  He took a sip of his own wine to clear his palate.  “That’s good,
sweetie.”  He watched her smile and continued, “I’m not a wine fan but this is
pretty good.  Yeah, we were lucky to get to the store and get what we did this
afternoon.  Thirty bucks wasn’t all that much, but we got plenty of soup and
granola bars to last at least a week now on top of everything else we have…”

As on any
other night, a car would drive by the entrance of the apartment complex every
few minutes.  However, many people just sat on their porches and tried to stay
cool when normally everyone would be inside.  Most of the people in the complex
weren’t nearly as prepared for a power loss and simply got in their cars and
headed out on the road seeking a restaurant.

Erik and
his wife clinked wine glasses and finished off the pot-luck pasta.  As he put
his empty glass down on the table and sat back with a contented sigh, he
watched his wife.  She leaned back and stretched like a cat, full of grace and
strength.  Completely alluring.  He had just come to the conclusion that there
was something they could be doing that would make the night go faster when she
glanced towards the pond and pursed her lip in thought. 

“Wonder
what’s going on over there?” she asked with a nod of her head.

Erik tore
himself away from absorbing the beauty that sat across the table from him in an
oversized t-shirt and little else and looked where she indicated.  A handful of
people had gathered at the apartment’s pool across the little pond.              Brin
finished the last of her wine.  She glanced at her husband with a half smile
that put his plans for the rest of the night back in motion.  “Mmmm, I bet the
pool would be great, right about now,” she said, using her napkin to wipe away
some moisture from her face.  It had been a hot and humid day—typical of
Florida this time of year.  The night would cool off, but it would take a
while.

Inwardly,
Erik sighed.  He had to admit, taking a dip in a nice clean pool would feel
nice.  And there was no telling how long the pool would stay clean in the
tropical environment without proper filtration.

“Yeah,
looks like some of the others think so too.  Let’s head on over, see what’s
up,” suggested Erik.  After cleaning up and blowing out the candles, they
changed into swimming suits and headed over to the pool.  Erik shut off the
emergency radio, but slipped his pocket AM/FM radio into his shorts.  As an
afterthought, he grabbed a six-pack of cold beers from the cooler in the
kitchen.

With only
the handful of emergency lights still running on weak batteries to illuminate
the pool deck, the residents were forced to light a few impromptu tiki-torches
liberated from pool supply shed.  The night was cloudy, so the moon wouldn’t
help at all.

“Hey, you
all believe what’s going on?” asked Erik, carrying a few beers with him to hand
out to the men clustered near the public grills.  Most of the women and
children were in or around the pool.  Brin went over to chat with the other
ladies.

After the
beers were passed out to the grateful men, introductions were made.

Stan
Gibbons was a restaurant manager who lived with his wife and young daughter in
a building nestled in the northeast corner of the complex.  It sat across the
small parking lot from Erik and Brin.  They had seen each other a few times in
the lot but never really talked.  He had been on his way home from work at a
local restaurant when he heard the news of the blackout.

“I had just
pulled into the parking lot here when the radio interrupted a song and went to
that annoying beep.”

“The
Emergency Broadcast system,” offered one of the others, a tall, skinny black
man.

“Yeah,”
replied Stan with a grin.  He took a long swill of the can in his hand, shot a
grateful nod to Erik, and continued.

“So,” he
shrugged.  “I turned around and went right back.”

“Why?”
asked Erik casually.  He opened his own beer.  He wasn’t too keen on switch hitting
after all the wine he had at dinner, but he wanted to appear sociable.

Stan
started to speak, then appeared to think better of that idea and took another
swallow of beer instead.  After a moment he said quietly, “I don’t really
know.  I guess I just wanted to check on the restaurant.  When I got back, the
power was out, of course.  People were leaving, but most continued to eat.  The
shift manager was doing a good job of informing customers of the power outage
and keeping everything calm.”  He looked down at the can.  “Then a woman
screamed that a plane had gone down near Tampa and more were dropping from the
sky across the country.”  He shrugged.  The other men shook their heads and
looked away, lost in thought.

Erik stared
at Stan. 
He’s lying!
  Erik was almost ashamed to admit the thought. 
Or…at
least he’s not telling us the whole truth.  He’s holding something back.  Why
did he go back to the restaurant?

Erik was
about to ask another question when Stan turned abruptly to the tall black man
and said, “Ah, enough about me, what about you, Alfonse?  What happened in
Tampa today?”

Erik filed
the quick subject change away as something else to think about during the
coming days.  The only black man introduced himself as Alfonse Johnston, a
programmer for a tech firm up in Tampa.  He and his wife Charone had recently
moved down from New Jersey in the spring.  He had a real passion for computers
and electronics and he, more than most, felt the unease of being without
power.  His whole world revolved around electronics and computers.  Without
power, he felt useless.  His company had been forced to evacuate when the
airliner crashed outside Tampa International Airport shortly after the power
went out in the early afternoon.  He was still a little shaken up and had
drained the beer Erik offered in a few large gulps. 

“After I
picked up Charone at the hospital—no, no, she’s okay,” he said as the others
expressed sudden concern.  “She’s seven months pregnant.  She had a routine
doctor’s appointment today so I took her in to town with me on the way to
work.” 

After a
round of smiles and congratulations, Alfonse continued.  “Thanks, it’s our
first.  Gonna be a little boy,” he beamed.  Then his face fell.  “The ride home
was a nightmare.  Man, people were out of control on the highways.  I heard on
the radio that the plane that went down was carrying some sort of biological
weapon.  I have never seen traffic like that.  People were runnin’ each other
off the road.  I’m serious,” he said, looking at Erik.  “Some dude cuts me off
doing about 60, right?” he said, moving his hands to represent two cars. 
“Then, before I could even honk my horn, this truck flies in from the right,
almost hits me, and clips the guy that just cut
me
off!  That guy goes
flyin’ off the road to the left…I couldn’t even try to get a look because
someone else cut me off.  I thought I was gonna have a heart attack!”