by Brandt Legg
“Fonda, what if you’re wrong? Do you really think the country can handle this revolution that you have planned?”
“I told you before, there is no country.”
“There won’t be after you get through with it!”
“We’re going to give it a transfusion,” Fonda said. “Otherwise, the patient is dead.”
“Do you want to talk to me about being dead? Do you want to talk to me about coming back to life?”
“No, I don’t.”
Hudson shook his head, glaring at Fonda. “I don’t know why I thought you’d help, but I did.”
“You were right to think,” Fonda began. “Believe it or not, I’m your biggest fan. Yet perhaps your greatest failing is you were unable to convince me that your way was the correct path, and I share a similar fault in my inability to bring you onto our path. But Hudson, I truly hope at the end of the road that we’re both still standing, and we wind up at the same spot.”
They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. “Are you sure?” Hudson finally asked.
Fonda nodded slowly. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“I see no other way.” Hudson knew he could be wrong, but he thought he had a better chance of being right than NorthBridge.
“Then I’ll see you at the end of the road.”
Hudson pushed a button and terminated the connection.
Chapter Sixty
Even before the president could get all the key people together and give the final order to launch Cherry Tree, he knew it was too late. He read the intelligence report coming across his laptop screen at the same time images were beginning to show up all over the media.
“This is crazy,” Schueller said as his father told him what was going on, in between reading and watching live updates. Mass demonstrations in several cities against government corruptions had apparently started spontaneously. At the same time, dozens of terror strikes had taken place which appeared too small to be attributed to NorthBridge—bank branches, 3D cameras, offices of multinational corporations . . .
“It’s a perfect storm,” the president said.
“Is it planned, or is it snowballing from the first city?”
“NorthBridge is obviously moving,” the president said. “These are coordinated attacks designed to raise the level of anger toward the establishment and the REMies. They’re also doing a damned good job at continuing their reign of terror against me in order to make my job impossible.”
“Real revolution?” Schueller asked.
Hudson thought back on his conversation with Fonda. “Absolutely,” he said as he answered a call from the Wizard.
“NorthBridge went without us,” the Wizard began. “Should we launch Cherry Tree?”
“Not in all this mess,” the president said, putting the call on speaker so Schueller could hear.
“We may miss our chance,” the Wizard replied. “In the background of all the NorthBridge noise, and potentially caused by it, are dozens of organic movements springing up—militia groups, disenfranchised poor, minority populations—anyone with a gripe against the empire, they’re rising up and taking advantage of all the unrest.”
“Can we stop it?” Schueller asked. “It looks like it’s getting out of hand really fast.”
“No,” the president said. “Northbridge has been building for this moment for years. Booker Lipton is one of the smartest people on the planet. He hasn’t left anything to chance.” Hudson pressed a button on his desk and asked his secretary if the first lady had arrived. She informed him that Melissa was on the premises.
“I thought Melissa was in New York,” Schueller said.
“She was,” the president said. “It’s not safe out there right now. I sent for her as soon as the trouble started in Los Angeles.”
“The demonstrators seem well funded,” the Wizard said. “Printed signs, transportation, megaphones, public address systems. And the other groups doing the attacks all have plenty of resources—arms, intelligence, vehicles, everything they need. Gypsy’s picking up patterns, connections. We don’t have enough data points yet, but I’m guessing that within a few hours we will, and then Gypsy will show it all pointing back to NorthBridge.”
“Booker fooled us into thinking NorthBridge was something other than what it really is,” the president said. “They aren’t just terrorists occasionally hitting a REMie target and leaking data revealing the crime and corruption of the elites. NorthBridge is just the tip of the iceberg. The revolution was always just under the surface, but we only saw the danger on top.”
“I’ve done a lot of research on Booker,” Schueller said. “I wanted to know why Vonner saw him as such a threat. Ever hear of Mansa Musa?”
“No,” the Wizard said.
“Mansa Musa Kieta I,” Hudson said. “The wealthiest black person in history. Emperor of the Mali empire from 1312 to 1337.”
“Impressive,” Schueller said. “But did you know that estimates of his wealth put in today’s dollars peg his worth at about $400 billion? That’s more than John D. Rockefeller, the Rothschild family, a lot more than Bezos or Gates. So he’s not just the richest black person in history, but the richest person ever . . . except for one.”
“Booker?”
“Yes,” Schueller said. “If the facts came out, they would show that Booker is actually the richest black person, or person of any race, ever. Vonner estimated Booker controls somewhere between half a trillion and a trillion dollars in assets.”
“Your point?” the president asked.
“How can we beat that?”
“No,” the Wizard corrected. “How can the rest of the REMies beat him? Combined, they have even more wealth than that. His war is against them, not us.”
“Yeah, but we get crushed in the middle,” Schueller said.
Melissa and Fitz entered the Oval Office from different doors at almost the same time.
“Situation Room,” Fitz said as the president and first lady shared their first embrace since Oregon. “Looks like the world’s ending,” the chief of staff added.
Hudson and Melissa shared a fast glance filled with the dialogue of a hundred conversations before quickly heading for the Situation Room.
Chapter Sixty-One
The Situation Room, crowded with the most senior members of the administration, buzzed with activity. The screens streamed live footage of trouble spots from around the country. Even with the reports he’d been hearing, the images on the screens shocked the president. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of the FBI took turns briefing those gathered on the horrific events.
“NorthBridge, various militia groups, sympathizers, copycats, and other fringe elements have launched coordinated attacks on sixteen American cities,” the FBI director said.
“This is quite an escalation for NorthBridge,” DNI Dranick added, motioning to the screens. The giant monitors showed sections of Manhattan, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, and Detroit in flames. Other parts of the same cities either had massive demonstrations or were engulfed in riots. Additional metro areas such as Wichita, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Reno, and Baltimore were not yet burning, but coping with massive rioting, looting, and other forms of civil unrest.
“Mr. President, we are not yet able to rule out involvement from foreign governments or international bad actors,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The president stared back at the screens, and then around the room. “This is an unprecedented attack. Regardless of who’s responsible, there can be no doubt that this is an act of war.” He scanned the faces of the generals as he continued. “In the history of our nation, we have never experienced an assault of this scope, this level of magnitude. We must and will act swiftly to stop this aggression.”
General Imperia spoke up first. “Mr. President, this may be the start of the Civil War NorthBridge has been promising, it may be the largest and most coordinated terror attack in world history, or it may
be a devious and well disguised attack by one of our enemies. China or Russia would be the only ones capable of something of this scale, perhaps Iran. But I see little choice on how to respond.”
“Tanks in the streets?” Hudson asked, shuddering as he uttered the words.
“Mr. President,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs continued, “we must declare martial law immediately, and then pray that we have enough tanks to restore order. General Imperia is our point-person on martial law. He’s prepared for just such an emergency as this. Please hear him out.”
For twenty tense minutes, they debated the unthinkable—declaring martial law across the United States of America.
“Martial law is not a pick-and-choose type of proposition,” the president said. “If we do this, it means the suspension of all constitutional rights—no freedom of the press, freedom of speech goes out the window, no right to assemble. We could even prevent people from going to their chosen house of worship. I do not take the thought of such actions lightly.”
“Mr. President, with all due respect,” General Imperia said, “if we do not declare martial law in the next few hours, I fear constitutional rights will be the last things on the minds of Americans. They won’t be worried about losing their right to speak, they’ll be worried about losing their right to live.”
“Mr. President, the situation is deteriorating,” one of the cabinet secretaries said.
“Look at Dallas.” Imperia gestured to the monitors depicting block after block of the city in flames. “Chicago.” The images looked like a war zone and were hardly recognizable as a major American city. “Los Angeles, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Philadelphia.” The footage was astonishing. Bodies in the streets, explosions, fires, screaming mobs running from other screaming mobs. Police and National Guard overwhelmed. “How can you look at all of this, and even hesitate?” Imperia asked.
“Because I know what has caused this.”
“NorthBridge is to blame for this,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. “We are at war.”
Hudson shook his head. It’s not NorthBridge, he thought. It’s the damned REMies—Bastendorff, Coyne, and the others—who’ve caused this.
“My God, look at Detroit,” the FBI director said. They all turned to the monitor where she was pointing. It looked like San Francisco during the 1906 quake. Total devastation—ten ground zeroes.
“I’m not even sure we can save that one,” General Imperia said.
The president was silent for a minute. The mood in the room grew increasingly uncomfortable. General Imperia looked at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Dranick almost imploringly, but Hudson didn’t notice.
“Fitz, I’d like a word,” the president said, then stood up and left the room. Fitz followed him into a separate, secure, soundproof meeting room two doors away. The president looked at his Chief of Staff somberly. “You agree with them, don’t you, Fitz?”
“Mr. President, there’s no choice. Kissinger once said, ‘The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.’ You have to do this. You have to do it now.”
“Can I trust you, Fitz?” the president asked in a desperate tone, as if his life depended on the answer. “Forgive me, but I’ve never been entirely sure of your loyalty, and I can no longer afford those doubts.”
Fitz looked at him with an expression of half-anger and half-hurt.
“You can’t blame me for asking,” the president said. “After all, you came via a REMie plot.”
“And so did you, Hudson,” Fitz said, not addressing him by his formal title for the first time since the election.
“True, but I still need an answer.”
“I’ve always wondered how someone as smart as you can constantly make the same mistake,” Fitz said.
Melissa knocked on the door and entered the room. “You look like two boxers about to come to blows. Did you forget you were friends?”
“Are we?” the president asked.
Melissa looked surprised for a moment, but shook it off. “Regardless, you need to get back in there. “I think we just lost Portland.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The president stared at Fitz, trying desperately to decide, once and for all, if he could trust the man that Vonner had placed inside his campaign with the sole purpose of monitoring and manipulating him.
“He planted you to make sure I did his bidding.”
“Hudson,” Melissa said.
He held up his hand. “The sum total of our military and intelligence wisdom is in the Situation Room. I think they can handle things without me for another minute.”
Hudson and Fitz had been through a lot, beginning with a marathon campaign, the primaries, the attack in Colorado. The president had learned to rely on Fitz and considered him a friend. Fitz had been a competent chief of staff; his intelligence, humor, and political instincts were equally important to Hudson. He liked him very much.
Now that Vonner was dead, there seemed to be a liberation between Hudson and Fitz, a lightness that hadn’t been there before. Yet the president still couldn’t let his guard down, because all along he had known that Fitz had been spying on him for the old man, and he might still be working in some way for the REMie agenda. There was a high possibility that Fitz was one of the leakers, if not the primary source for the media. Gypsy had indicated many times that the leaker was somebody in the inner circle, but now in the face of the greatest crisis he had ever faced, in fact, the greatest threat to the nation since the Civil War, he had to finally decide if he could count on Fitz.
“You tell me right now, Fitz, are you going to back me no matter what I do? Privately we may disagree, we can yell, shout, cuss, and debate, but in the Sit Room, the cabinet room, or in the press room, I need to know that you have my back no matter what, and that your advice is always going to be objective and unbiased; that you are not serving the REMies or any other agenda floating around out there against me.”
“I know you think because Vonner chose me to run your campaign and to be your chief of staff, that I was somehow on the other side, but damn it, he’s dead!” Fitz snapped. “You’ve learned a lot since we started, but when he died, you discovered a lot about what was really going on. Vonner could’ve done anything with that money, but he gave it to you and Schueller, not just because you’re related—hell, if he just wanted to enrich a relative he could have given everything to Devonshire. And it wasn’t just so you would continue his work, but so that you would finally know the truth, and the truth is he was always on your side. He did everything to put you in a position to change the world, to make history, to take it back from the REMies. He knew better than anyone how corrupt things are. You still don’t know all the things he saw and knew, about what really happens in the world and how corrupt things are, because you’ve been brainwashed in the same conditions as the rest of us. You grew up with the pressures of society telling you how it was, reading their fake history, listening to their fake news, and reacting and reeling and suffering through every single MADE event the REMies shoved down our throats. You still can’t see beyond that brainwashing. Sure, your intellect can get you past a little bit, but there’s a part of you that still thinks that votes matter, that the banks are keeping your money safe, that wars have to be fought every few years to keep us safe.
“Vonner didn’t have that filter. He knew the truth, and he tried to show you. It’s time for you to step up and take it all the way—finish what he was trying to do. In order to do that, you have to completely acknowledge that he was on your side, and if he was on your side, then I’ve always been on your side, too. That’s the truth. The real question is, do you trust yourself to be the kind of president that you always thought there should be, that you always thought there was?”
Hudson stared at Fitz for a moment. “Yes. When this all started, I had no idea what I was getting into because you’re right. I believed it was all real. I recall thinking that if somehow, impossibly, I got elected, then maybe the history of it, the presidency,
the White House, would imbue special power and I’d be able to rise to the occasion and do the job. But to wade through this corruption and filth and fight every bit of the establishment and have the media constantly pecking at me, the plots of the bankers and the NorthBridge revolutionaries and enemies on so many hidden fronts setting minefields and traps because they know what I’m trying to do, and they must stop me . . . No, I wasn’t up to that task. I’m man enough to admit it. But they killed me,” his voice cracked, “and I came back from the dead to do this. I’ve learned, and I’ve fought through the scars and the lies and the corruption, and I’m ready.” He turned to Melissa. “When I look at those burning cities, knowing what the REMies and NorthBridge are willing to do in this war . . . with the future of freedom at stake . . . I know I’m ready now, especially knowing that the two of you are with me.”
“Glad to hear it,” Fitz said, reaching to shake Hudson’s hand.
“Then let’s get back in there,” the president said, moving toward the door.
“Wait, what are you going to do?” Melissa asked.
“It’s a tough call,” the president said, looking back at them. “At first I wasn’t sure. But then I realized it’s a much simpler choice. If General Imperia wants me to declare martial law, then that’s exactly what I’m not going to do.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
The president, Fitz, and the first lady returned to the Situation Room. However, instead of sitting, the president paced back and forth in front of the screens. Portland, Oregon, had become an apocalyptic scene. State and local police, along with national guard troops, were vastly outnumbered, and had been completely overrun by competing mobs. The city was in flames.
“Get the Army in there immediately,” the president ordered.
“Are you declaring martial law?” General Imperia asked.