The Land of the Free (25 page)

The first shots were easy, catching
the attackers by surprise.  But once alert to the danger, the mercenaries
adopted the techniques of counterinsurgency that had earned them their
reputations.  A group exchanged fire with the Marines, while two groups broke
off to the sides and made their way around the source of the shooting.

“Lance, they’re flanking us,”
screamed Bill Parnassus.

“Steady, Bill.  If you see him,
take him down.”

Parnassus took aim and hit one of
the mercenaries, who dropped to the ground.  He saw another scrambling away
from his fallen comrade.  He took another shot, but missed. 
They’re sure
not Marines,
he thought.  He stood up to get a better shot, when he was hit
from behind.  His chest exploded in front of him and he fell dead on the spot. 
The others instinctively drew in closer together, trying to stay out of the
line of fire.  They exchanged fire for another minute, when a rocket propelled
grenade found them.  They had slowed Morningstar and inflicted losses.  But
they gave their lives in exchange, and they had not stopped them.

…

Flying that old Sea King helicopter
was never very satisfying to Grayson Miller.  He had joined the Navy to learn a
skill he could use later in civilian life.  Flying helicopters could earn you a
living, but only if your training was on modern helicopters with their
computerized operations.  The Navy was planning to retire the Sea King when and
if they ever cut back on operations and had a surplus, so there was no effort
made to modernize the birds other than updating their basic communications
equipment.  The Sea King was seen as the lowest helicopter assignment you could
have, and Miller was losing hope that he would soon be promoted and trained on
the newer Sea Hawk.

Late in the afternoon, Miller was
patrolling in the South China Sea near the disputed Dongsha Islands, a coral
atoll mostly submerged at high tide.  The only settlement of note was small
Pratas Island with its air strip and few buildings.  The Dongsha Islands were
administered by Taiwan but were only 200 miles from Hong Kong.  China had a
standing claim over the Dongsha Islands, and for this reason there were
constant air patrols to monitor any Chinese activities in the region.  All this
meant little to Miller, but he enjoyed flying over the region with its shallow,
circular, turquoise colored lagoon bordered by little more than sand bars to
the east and Pratas Island to the West.  The shallow lagoon and sandbars
reminded him of flying over the Bahamas, and he daydreamed of being back home
when he flew over this segment of the South China Sea.

Miller slowed as he flew over the
lagoon and savored the moment, the sun setting behind him.  In the distance he
saw a modern Sea Hawk helicopter approaching to relieve him.  He would return
to base, leaving the patrol to the luckier pilot.  Wistfully, he pushed forward
on the lever to increase his forward speed, but as he did so he noticed a
blindingly bright flash coming from almost overhead.  He scrambled to quickly
analyze what might have just happened.  His control of the helicopter was
intact but his radio and all other electronic equipment were dead.  He could
not speak to the other crew members, and supposed that the wireless devices in
their helmets were dead.  He could not contact anybody electronically.  His
thought went to contacting the approaching Sea Hawk visually.

As Miller scanned the horizon for
the Sea Hawk, he saw it in an uncontrolled descent to the water.  As he watched
it splash down, he thought it had retained enough rotor speed that the crew
would probably be unharmed.  He turned the Sea King in the direction of the
downed Sea Hawk, and noticed they had deployed an emergency raft. 
Why had
they gone down when my old helicopter was flying just fine?
he wondered. 
Because
my flight controls are completely hydraulic while the Sea Hawk has an
electronic interface
he concluded, suddenly feeling more respect for the
old bird.  Miller hovered over the raft deployed by the Sea Hawk crew while his
own crew winched them aboard, one by one.  He was unable to communicate with
the rescued Sea Hawk crew other than by hand signals, so he flew to nearby
Pratas Island and landed.

“Did you guys lose all
communications too?” asked the other pilot.

“Yeah, but the old bird could still
fly.  You went down.  I guess your computer went out?” said Miller.

“We lost everything,” said the
other pilot.  They looked at one another briefly, and each could see the look
of confusion in the others’ eyes.

…

Bill Connolly’s doorbell rang at
six in the morning, waking his security personnel.  They let an angry Tyler
Matheson into the mansion and awoke the Director.  Connolly dismissed his Security
Staff and walked to his study to meet Matheson. 

“This is no damn drill!” exclaimed
Matheson, angrier than Connolly had ever seen him.

“Calm down, Tyler, I told you it
would seem crazy.”  Connolly walked to his desk, sat down in his chair, and
motioned Matheson to sit at the guest chair.

Matheson sat down, but was in no
mood for explanations.  “It’s not a drill when my Air Force bases have scores
dead and some sort of special forces in control of the place.  And to think I’d
spent most of the night discounting the reports, telling everyone there’s no
need to panic.  I’m going to revoke your codes for the Pentagon, and change the
codes for our nuclear weapons.  I should never have agreed to this.  You’re
some kind of traitor.”

Connolly leaned forward a little,
picking up his pipe off the desk with one hand, the other below the top of the
desk.  As he leaned back, he kept speaking casually.  “Tyler, I’m telling you,
there’s a misunderstanding.  You’re hearing the dramatizations we’re putting
on.”

As Connolly leaned back, he raised
his hand above the desk, showing his gun for the first time.  Matheson’s angry
expression turned to terror for an instant.  Then Connolly pulled the trigger.

Connolly phoned a speed-dial
number.  “Matheson’s dead.”

“He said he kept them from
reacting, and when he realized what was happening, he came straight here.”

“You should be all set at the
Pentagon.  Morningstar can proceed.”

“One more thing.  I’ve dismissed my
security.  Get someone over here to clean up the mess.”

…

The
Hall of Heroes
ceremony
was scheduled for nine o’clock, and by seven, the Pentagon was starting to fill
with soldiers in dress uniforms, reporters, and dignitaries of all stripes.  TV
crews were set up everywhere they were permitted.  The Pentagon Force
Protection Agency (PFPA) was assembled with the honor guard, one of the few
times they were all in one place.  With the emptying of the nation’s military
bases, the PFPA was the largest single security force in the DC area. 

In charge of the ceremony was Diane
Ellison, social coordinator at the Pentagon.  Her vivacious personality and
good looks were indispensible to organize and manage social events.  The guests
assembled in the central plaza of the Pentagon, known since the Cold War as
“ground zero,” on the assumption that the first Soviet missile would strike
there.  The podium was set up, and by eight, most all the guests were present,
drinking coffee, socializing, and networking.  Ellison was working the crowd
expertly, but she was secretly growing anxious about the absence of the Defense
Secretary.  He was officially needed to introduce the guests, but unofficially,
he should be here right now to shake hands and chat.

“Ms. Ellison, do you know when the
Secretary is supposed to arrive?” asked the press corps.  “Any second now.  I’m
sure he’s just attending to some last minute business,” was the brave answer. 
She moved on to speak with a Senator passing by.

Nobody noticed when the doors they
had used to enter the central plaza closed, and locked.  The other doors were
all access controlled and closed, so nobody could know they had been overridden
from inside, and the guests were trapped, some five thousand in all.  The
cacophony of conversations continued uninterrupted until several doors opened at
once.  Everybody noticed the men dressed in all black emerge, carrying M-50
machine guns.  There was silence as everybody watched the men set up their
weapons at one end of the plaza.  When they took aim at the crowd, the silence
turned into panic.  “They’ve got machine guns!” shouted a man.

The guests made aggressively for
the opposite side of the plaza, running and trampling others underfoot as they
went.  The PFPA Agents and various soldiers in the crowd scrambled to get to
the front of the crowd to face the men in black.  It was pointless, as the
crush of people trying to escape the machine guns overwhelmed them.

The men in black looked at each
other calmly, and one gave a hand signal.  The guests began screaming
hysterically once the shooting began.  “For God’s sake, stop!” was heard
loudly.  “There’s women here!” was another.

Only a few people among the guests
even had a light sidearm, so it was a bloodbath.  The screaming reached a
fevered pitch as the guests realized that all of them were targets.  The
shooting continued uninterrupted for several minutes, until the screaming had
stopped completely.  Bodies were strewn everywhere within the plaza.  Diane
Ellison was on her back, blood flowing from one corner of her mouth, her eyes
glazed over.  The pile was so deep at places that nobody could be sure there
weren’t survivors piled under dead bodies.  The men in black threw grenades
into the piles of bodies, mostly dismembering those already dead.  As they
backed out the doors they had entered through, several stopped and for good
measure fired a dozen incendiary rockets into the plaza, creating a firestorm
so hot that nobody could survive.  More importantly from their perspective,
they had created a scene of incomprehensible horror at the precise center of
the American Defense establishment.

The sounds of the screams and
shooting, and the fire that followed, were observed by the media outside the
Pentagon, and reported live on the air.  Rumors of attacks all over the country
were coming in one after another.  The press covered all of them, even the
speculative rumors that could not be confirmed.  The reporters described each
one with the backdrop of a burning Pentagon, so every American watching TV
could see for himself the state of American Defense.

…

Homeland Security Agents were
positioned at checkpoints on the nation’s major highways at underutilized rest
stops, where all traffic could be routed through the rest stop.  Agents were
informed that they were looking for the terrorist cells that were responsible
for the Pentagon attack.  They knew that this would bring all highway traffic
to a standstill, but had no choice but to follow their instructions.

Some highways would not experience
gridlock.  One was the Trans-Texas Corridor from Mexico through Texas, where
all on-ramps were blocked off but traffic would be allowed to pass.  Similarly
open but for the on-ramps were spurs from this highway leading to key elements
of America’s oil industry.

Traffic at the periphery of most
major cities was curtailed by pickup trucks bearing large caliber machine guns
staffed by Chinese troops under the command of fluently bilingual Chinese
civilians.  The Chinese troops met no resistance in most cities.  A SWAT team
in New Jersey responded to a report of shots being fired at the Palisades
Parkway but was cut to pieces by large caliber machine gun fire.  Survivors
radioed in reporting what happened, and word spread quickly that the Chinese
had control of the cities and were willing and able to use lethal force.

Paratroopers from San Gustavo
secured major civilian airports not near sea ports and air transport craft
followed, landing supplies and heavy equipment at those airports.  Within
hours, military and civilian airports around the country became the bases of
operation for a new occupying power.  There was little resistance and before
long, the air space of the United States was fully controlled by Morningstar
security together with General Kim’s forces.  Any remaining American ground
forces, and there were few, were now operating under a hostile air umbrella. 
They had no ability to mount an armed response.

Aircraft from San Gustavo lastly
began to land on closed highways close to oil refineries, storage and
distribution facilities across the country.  With oil facilities secured,
America’s oil refining and distribution was under the control of the invading
forces.  Denial of energy could now be used against noncompliant communities. 
No oil or gas could be imported from abroad except through the ports and oil
terminals, now also under occupation.  If a counterattack were even possible,
it would risk destroying America’s energy infrastructure, leaving a completely
disabled economy in its wake.

Kurdi sat in Hanna Morgensen’s
office first thing in the morning, together with John Corson, Frank Goworski,
Roger Snyder and Mildred Howe.  Kurdi’s phone rang and he said, “I’ll be right
back.”

When he returned moments later, he
was accompanied by Lyle Ferguson and Jess Linssman.  “I did some searching and found
these two cruising the Caribbean, so I had the Coast Guard pick them up off the
ship and flew them here.  I take it you know each other.”

John embraced Jess, turning his
head away from everyone to hide the tears now flowing freely.  “I was afraid
you’d been killed in the plane crash.”

“We scrapped that plan when it was
clear we’d been followed,” said Lyle.  “Still, we had no idea they’d take down
a whole plane to stop us.”

“When they picked us up off the
cruise ship, we weren’t sure who they were working with.  That was the scariest
part for us, not being sure if we’d be dumped at sea,” said Jess.

“Sorry for that part of it,” said
Kurdi.  “But I felt the quicker you got here, the safer you’d be.  Now I
apologize for not allowing more time for you to reacquaint yourselves.  Ms.
Morgensen has agreed to take us to see the President, where the whole case can
be made and the United States can respond appropriately.”

“I just hope it’s not too late,”
said Jess.  “The whole thing was already pretty much in motion when we left San
Marcos.”

John looked out of the corner of
his eye and noticed that as they were walking to the Oval Office, Lyle and Jess
were holding hands.  He let himself smile broadly at what he took to be their
happiness.

…

“Mr. President, these people have
discovered a plot by China to invade and occupy the United States,” opened
Morgensen.  “At first I didn’t believe it when Mr. Kurdistani told me, but the
satellite imagery shows it’s true.  And they say it’s now underway.”

Torres’ darted from the calm,
persistent scowl of Hanna Morgensen, to the faces of his visitors, and other
random directions. 
The Cobra would not have brought them here if it weren’t
true
, he was sure of that. 
But she has an agenda.  She always does
. 
And she would not be so calm if this was a surprise to her
.  “Please,
tell me what you know,” he finally said.

John started to brief Torres on
what he had found by pursuing Robbie’s death, inviting Lyle to describe what
they witnessed on San Marcos.  Jess showed the photographs she had taken of the
facilities, and Torres was aghast throughout the presentation.  They were
suddenly interrupted by Gerry Levine, charging into the office in a panic. 
“Sir, there’s an urgent matter I need you to address.  We have a national
security emergency developing.”

“Let me guess, Chinese invasion of
our ports and a ground army crossing the Mexican border,” said Frank.

Levine’s eyes opened wider as he
looked at Frank, then back to Torres.  “Two of these men are wanted for
questioning by the FBI and should never have been allowed in here.  I’m going
to demand that Matthew Simpson be suspended from the Secret Service for
allowing this breach.”

Frank continued, “If you weren’t
tied up with your stupid fundraising, we could have told you about this four
days ago when there was still time to do something about it.”

Torres attempted to calm things. 
“Gerry is it true, that this is the emergency?”

Levine turned to Torres and
continued, “Yes, Sir, it’s true.  We’re under attack.  And there’s been a
massacre at the Pentagon.  Thousands are dead.  The press was already there, so
they’re all over it.  But we have to get these people out of here immediately.”

“Gerry, these people are the only
experts we have on the developing scenario,” said Torres.  He turned to the
Secret Service Agent at the door.  “Please take them to the situation room and
make them comfortable.  They’re staying a while.  Meanwhile I’d like to speak
with you Gerry, Ms. Morgensen and Kurdi a moment.”

Levine was frantic.  “Sir, the
Pentagon’s on fire.  Thousands are dead, people we know.  Secretary Matheson
was supposed to be there.”

Torres was having none of Levine’s
hysteria, and screamed at his cabinet members.  “How in bloody hell does all
this happen while the only people who knew it was coming are outsiders who
can’t get in to see me for four days after they’ve learned it?”  The cabinet
members said nothing, and even the Cobra looked at the floor respectfully.

“Levine, you’re dismissed,
effective immediately.  Kurdi, you’re in charge of the situation room.  The two
of you get out of here now.”

Levine and Kurdi left, and Torres
spoke with Morgensen.  “So what’s the game Hanna?”

“Obviously, elements of the
government are involved in this,” said Morgensen.  “You can’t just take over
the United States without some inside help.”

“And my army, the one you insisted
I send over to Taiwan because we didn’t need them here at home?”

“Better that they’re positioned
forward where they can confront the enemy on their turf.  That’s been United
States policy for years now.”

“Confront how, exactly?” asked
Torres.

“You need to bring in Tyler
Matheson.  Or if he’s dead, an Undersecretary of Defense, and craft a military
response,” said Morgensen, now appearing a little defensive.

“And after I do, you’ll tell me what
the response is going to be, Hanna.  So cut to the chase.  What are you going
to make me do this time?”

“An appropriate response would be
to deploy our troops to occupy strategic ports in China,” started Morgensen. 
“No point escalating things beyond that.  At least not yet.”

“What about securing our country?”
asked Torres.

“We sack the quarterback, Mr.
President.  The best defense is a good offense.  Then we can negotiate, after
we capture territory of equal value.”

“Let’s get everyone in the situation
room,” said Torres.  “We can go into executive session for decisions, but for
the discussion the whole group will be present.”