by Tom Kratman
* * *
Schmidt and Nagy both began to pull her back, even as the crowd behind them recoiled from the threat.
"No," she said with a calm she did not feel. "No, we go on," with determination.
Exchanging glances, Schmidt and Nagy tacitly agreed: If she's got the balls to go on . . . then so do we.
* * *
The sergeant major watched, horrified, as the general gave commands over the loudspeaker. Boss, this isn't balls. This is bullshit.
Unperturbed, the general continued, "Now I want you to aim for the women and the children first, boys. Extra points and a four day pass for drilling a mother carrying a baby. Don't sweat it, boys. Mr. Forsythe here, from the White House, says it's just 'okay.' He says if we don't shoot down these 'rioters,' we'll all go to Leavenworth for the long course."
Tilting his head to one side, the sergeant major asked silently, Are you trying to start a mutiny? The old soldier's eyes widened, By God, you are.
* * *
Spec Four Franklin Washington had seen and heard enough. He'd also had just about enough, too. Standing there on Eleventh Street, with a rifle in his hands, a bayonet on the end of it, a magazine seated firmly in the well; facing a crowd that looked no different and no more threatening than a crowd at a beach; for a government and a cause he neither understood nor very much liked—Washington had indeed had just about enough.
The crowd had reached the intersection and begun to spread out and around the street-wide line of arm-linked men and women. They were close enough for Washington to make out faces easily. There was a familiar one, right there in the center; the Texan Governor.
But that face wasn't the problem. It was all the others—those many, many others—that looked no different from folks back home.
How could he, Franklin Washington, ever go home to Alabama and tell his folks that he had shot at people that seemed so much the same? Bayoneted and clubbed them?
The simple answer was: he couldn't.
So while better than half the officers and men on that line were thinking much the same thing, it was left to a young black man of no great station in life to state the popular feeling first.
"Fuck this shit," said Franklin Washington, tossing his rifle on the ground. "I ain't a-gonna play anymore."
* * *
At the sound of not one, but hundreds of rifles being dropped and thrown to the ground, the general turned a beaming smile on Forsythe. "Did you hear that, sir? That sound? Why here I have given orders for my men to put down this 'riot' . . . and guess what? They didn't listen.
"The sound you've just heard, Mr. Forsythe, was the breaking of your government in Washington. I suggest you run, sir. To Canada, perhaps, because no place in the United—or even perhaps disunited—States is going to be quite safe for you.
"And—to quote that young man down on the street—'We ain't a-gonna play anymore.' "
The general turned from a shocked Commissioner Forsythe and said into the microphone for his loudspeaker, "First Squadron, Seventh Cavalry: on your feet and face this way. Pick up your rifles, boys. Now let's escort the Governor of Texas back to her job."
Interlude:
From: The End of the Dream: Reconstruction in
Post-Rottemeyer America by Patrick T. Hamilton
Copyright 2051, Baen Historical Publishing
The end, when it came, came suddenly.
With the Marines and soldiers to the west in rebellion against federal authority, with the main force, the Army's Third Corps having turned, it was a matter of hours before the Eighteenth Airborne Corps and 2nd Marine Division likewise pointed poignant fingers in Washington's direction. Even the Navy, shadowing the Texas coast, refused to continue the blockade imposed by President Rottemeyer.
At that point the federals could count on nothing but their own law enforcement agencies, already badly depleted and demoralized, and the states' National Guards.
The states' National Guards were, of course, under the authority first and foremost of the state governors. These came from states of two different classes: northern and western urbanized states where the National Guards suffered a considerable degree of both unpopularity and benign neglect, and southern and rural states where the guard remained rather popular.
Thus, when California mobilized its National Guard in response to a presidential demand, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado did the same in response to California. Unlike California, however—which merely sat there, once those other National Guards were reinforced by the 1st Marine Division, they advanced and California's Guard simply melted away.
In the deep southern states, aggressive action was also contemplated. That no fighting took place was largely the result of more moderate, even centrist, states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia whose collective reaction to both sides might well be summed up as, "Oh, no, you don't. Not again."
The first peacekeeping call is reported to have come from Utah to Governor Garrison of New Mexico and Governor Seguin of Texas. The substance of that conversation has never been reported. Yet, the very next day Utah's legislature—at her governor's behest—adopted what had come to be called "the Texas Program." The governor also called for a constitutional convention, a request heartily endorsed by his legislature.
Within the week that call for a convention had become general. From Alaska to Alabama, Mississippi to Maryland, New Hampshire to New Mexico—forty-one states demanded a new Constitution or at least substantial revisions to the old one. Only four of the six New England states, plus New York, Minnesota, California, Oregon and Hawaii, refused to join it. Elsewhere, the sentiment—or the scent of blood in the water—became overwhelming.
The popular reaction was more severe. Federal agents and bureaucrats were hounded, burned in effigy . . . sometimes beaten and in a few cases killed. Nor would local authorities protect them. The media, that group—ever so "ready to feed the masses on the carrion of events"—the same group for whom Rottemeyer had once been as near a goddess as one might hope to find on Earth, turned—if anything—more rabidly anti-federal than the national norm for the day. "Project Ogilvie" had soured more than a few in the industry on the federal goverment.
It was said, possibly truthfully, that—in any one day of the next three weeks after the defection of 3rd Corps and its beginning to fan out to the north—more Americans sought refuge in Canada than had done so during the entire Vietnam war.
It was whispered too, perhaps unkindly if not entirely untruthfully, that some fleeing the fall of the Rottemeyer presidency had also fled the call to Vietnam.
These numbers picked up noticeably when states' troops began assembling along the political and philosophical boundaries between north and south, urban and rural, conservative and liberal.
When the Marine expeditionary forces in the Gulf of Mexico steamed back through the Panama Canal, this time without any strikes by Canal workers, even Hawaii decided to send a representative to the constitutional convention . . . even as that state's population began to drop from the many, many chartered flights to Vancouver, British Columbia.
The City of Washington would have come under siege, one suspects, except that the 3rd Infantry Regiment seized the Pentagon, all of the notable public places, and all of the roads leading into and from the city.
Rottemeyer herself, along with key staff, left via a Marine helicopter for New York City.
It was perhaps significant that the crew of that helicopter refused to fly until cleared to do so by the Commandant of the Corps. Possibly of greater significance, the commandant, signally, failed to consult with—allegedly refused to consult with—General McCreavy's replacement.
But if anyone believed that a constitutional convention was going to solve all of the problems of the United States, those persons were to be sorely disappointed. . . .
Chapter Twenty
From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CO
NTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. So, Alvin, were you taken by surprise when things turned around so fast?
A. Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Stennings. I never thought for a second that the whole . . . well, nearly the whole, I reckon . . . of the military would turn on Washington the way they did.
Q. And you saw your chance then, exactly when, Alvin?
A. Well . . . with them soldiers in the blue dress uniforms guarding Washington, I was no better off than I was before . . . not so far as getting close to my target went, anyhow. But I heard that all the governors were getting together in Virginia Beach and I figured, under the circumstances, that eventually the President would have to go there too. So I packed my bag and my rifle and I headed south. . . .
* * *
Washington, DC
A cynic might have scoffed at smoke-filled back rooms. The cynic would, of course, have been years—decades—out of date. There was no smoke.
Other than that, though, the back room was much the same. In it assembled the real movers and shakers on the national political scene. One party's worth, anyway.
"Ladies and gentlemen," began Carroll, "our fortunes have definitely headed south."
"Is there no hope then, James?" asked the party chairman.
"None with Willi, no, sir. She's burned more bridges than the Texans blew up. Worse, she tied a whole bunch of the rest of us to railings on those bridges and . . . man . . . I tell you . . . the fire's gettin' hot."
The chairman lifted an eyebrow, inquisitorially. "All of us?"
"Yes, sir. I mean, we know her close confidants are going down. Vega . . . well, hell . . . the whole Cabinet. Maybe that cunt McCreavy might have gotten out in time. And don't think for a minute McCreavy won't be testifyin' against us, too. The rest'll be singin' like birds inside half a month."
"Willi can't control them, then?"
Carroll shook his head emphatically. "No way. She's going to be spillin' her guts, too . . . and likely it won't take her as long. She's a lot smarter than most; more ruthless, too."
"Does she know about this meeting, James?" asked one of the two women present.
"Ma'am, I don't think so. She's, for the minute, in such a blue funk about everything that's happened that I don't think she's listenin' to much of anybody about much of anything."
"Useless, then . . . or harmful."
"Harmful is the only way to read it, Mr. Chairman," piped in Walter Madison Howe, Rottemeyer's always-kept-in-the-background Vice-President.
Sadly, reluctantly, the chairman nodded his head. Looking around the room's important occupants he saw . . . some regret, yes. But little opposition; none, in fact.
The chairman looked pointedly at Howe. "Can you handle your responsibilities to the party, Walter? Rebuild everything we've lost or are about to lose? I know it will be hard, very hard."
Howe exhaled. "I can set us on the right road, sir. But rebuilding seventy years of effort? And that was seventy years in a world already more or less under our thumbs? We'd be doing well if we did it in forty. And that's a big 'if.' That miserable Seguin woman is going to be an awful impediment to our purposes as well."
The group discussed Juanita, Willi, a host of problems—Republican, Democrat and Independent—before reaching any firm conclusion.
Again nodding the dignified old head, the chairman turned to Carroll. "Can you fix the problem for us, James?"
"I've already taken the liberty, sir. . . ."
Houston, Texas
After so long without it, liberty felt strange to the senses of Jose Bernoulli. Indeed, based on the shocked, stunned expressions on half the faces emerging into liberty's light, Bernoulli was by no means alone.
Not that the sight of liberty, confronting people emerging at last from a long dark, was so very pleasing. That sight, in this case, in this city, was as often as not one of wrecked and burned cars, trashed buildings, and bloodstains.
At least they've taken the bodies down from the lampposts, thought Bernoulli.
Underneath a nearby lamppost, under guard by the engineer's platoon, some dozens of former federal agents labored at cleaning up the mess, shoveling broken glass, prepping wrecked automobiles for towing . . . cleaning up unsightly stains.
"God in Heaven," muttered the short Tejano, "I hope we never have to do anything like this again."
* * *
Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Virginia
"Please don't ask me to do anything like this again, Juani," pleaded Jack as he walked by her side down the long aisle between cheering—and a few scowling—attendees at the convention.
It was the off season; hotel space was plentiful, the convention center unbooked. Transportation by air and ground was easy. Moreover, the U.S. Army's own "Transportation Center," at Fort Eustis, was nearby to assist and coordinate, as was Oceana Naval Air Station and Norfolk Navy Base. And, given how much the Armed Forces were looking forward to the expected changes from the convention, that support was cordial indeed.
And Virginia Beach was a great place for a convention, in any case. Though off season, the weather was unseasonably warm. The area reeked of history, of sights to be seen and restaurants to be sampled.
It was a place and time of the greatest excitement.
It was also bedlam, nothing less. Schmidt followed Juanita through the mass of cheering . . . cheering what? Nuts, was Schmidt's opinion. And, though he tried to hide it from everyone, Juanita knew that opinion, even shared it to a degree.
A quick glance confirmed Juani's suspicions. "Smile, Goddamit, Jack. You're the man of the hour. Act like a politician for once in your life, will you? It won't kill you, you know."
Schmidt nodded, forced a smile to his face and then leaned over to whisper in Juani's ear, "These people are insane, Governor."
Juani shifted her eyes, glancing quickly at a bearded man in a confederate uniform with a pole bearing the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia grasped tightly in his hands. The man wore gray clothes with a double set of brass buttons topped by a broad brimmed gray felt hat.
She smiled, warmly, and tore her widened eyes away. "I know, Jack, but what can you do?"
"Run to the insane asylum?" he asked, rhetorically. "It should be safe enough since all the real nuts are here."
"Jaaack . . ."
"Okay, Governor, okay. I'll be good."
Juanita, followed by Jack, began to climb the steps to the stage on which stood the podium. She really didn't feel quite at home. Worse, she felt a horrible itching between her shoulder blades, as if someone had set cross hairs on her back.
At the top of the stairs, once again standing by the governor's side, Jack whispered, "I've heard Willi herself is going to show up."
* * *
New York, New York
Wilhelmina Rottemeyer looked grimly at the message bearer, not more than half listening to the message. She thought, Feldman seems to have lost that useful obsequiousness for which he had once been so notable. Ah, well . . . why should he be any different from any of a hundred others of the "four f's" that have turned their backs on me? Even Caroline . . . but that thought, that wish, that reminiscence, she let go as being too painful to consider.
Feldman was far less groveling than she had become used to over the term of her administration. But there was a nervous quality to his voice and manner that raised Willi's hackles.
"So, yes, Madame President, the party is insistent that you must go and address this convention, to save what you can. The chairman says you owe him this much."
"My ass," snorted Rottemeyer. "I wouldn't trust my safety in Virginia now to a division of tanks. I sure as hell won't trust it to anything less."
"You'll be safe enough," answered Feldman, his doubtful tone belying his words.
"Even you don't believe that."
"You'll be safe from arrest, then. Will that do?"
"No."
Momentarily nonplussed, Feldman considered his next move. A slight smile crosse
d his face. He checked his wristwatch and said, "Governor Seguin is due to address the convention in about three minutes, Madame President. Why don't you watch that and then consider?"
* * *
Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Juani took the podium, took a deep breath, and lastly took in her audience. They're not all nuts, Jack, no matter what you think, nor even most of them.