Wolves in the Night: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Seven

by Chris Stewart

  The senior member of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs grunted again, then sipped his wine. He was not young, and the sense of history was not lost on him.

  He thought a moment, letting the words they and them turn over in his mind. Then he thought about his home. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he traced his family roots back to Plymouth Rock, almost four hundred years before. Yet he and the partners always spoke of the Americans as them and they.

  There were the Americans and there were the others, and the members of the firm were part of the others now. Their society had no borders, no love for country, no love for people or culture, and certainly no love for home. They were above and beyond that, and happy that they were. America was not the enemy, just an obstacle that had to be overcome. Very simple. No emotion. Just another part of their job.

  Still, Kelly understood the United States more than most. And yes, its people had the tenacity to rebuild their nation. If the partners didn’t think they would run into opposition, they were painfully mistaken.

  Sensing his thoughts, the fat partner glanced toward him, hiding his contempt, then took a final drag before snuffing the half-smoked cigarette onto the palm of his hand without feeling any pain. “The Great Experiment failed and you know it,” he almost sneered. “We knew it would. You and that idiot Drexel might not have believed it, but the rest of us knew. They tried to share it, they tried to force this thing they call democracy,” his voice slipped into a sneer, “but the Middle East wasn’t ready and their timing couldn’t have been worse. Democracy doesn’t mean anything if you’re worried about getting shot out on the street. Democracy doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have anything to eat. They pushed too hard and failed. Just as they were at the apex of their rotting, they tried exporting their philosophy throughout the world. Now it has failed, or it is failing, in every quarter of the globe. Iraq. Iran. South America. Central and Eastern Europe. Tiny convulsions of democracy sprouted here and there, but none of them were self-sustaining. Some of them survived a generation, some more or less than that, but it’s over for these countries. Everything is crashing down.”

  Kelly stared down at the glistening city as he listened. Sipping his wine, he wished that he were drunk.

  The other man lit another smoke. “Little wonder it fell upon them. The truth is—and even you recognize this—most people no longer want to bother with actually governing themselves. They want a nanny more than freedom, someone to feed and bathe them and take care of the details, someone to make decisions, to make life easy if not satisfying or complete. They don’t want to really understand and analyze all their problems—those are far too complex. Free will is such a bother when there are so many other things to think about. Morality is such a distraction when there are parties and food and sports and drugs and sex and computers and corruption and, well, you get the point.”

  Kelly didn’t answer.

  “Life in the States was so easy and undemanding, the Americans would have given up anything to preserve it,” the junior partner continued, smoke escaping from his nose. “And in the end, they did. They gave up everything. Now they are the cotton candy of world cultures, soft and sweet, entirely without substance.” Another whiff of smoke drifted from his nose. “So,” he concluded, “there will be no rebuilding, not without our help. We’ll be able to fashion the government. Shape it and mold it. And we will hold the power.”

  Kelly shook his head. It might have proven true in Asia, mostly true in Europe, and certainly true in former Russia and dozens of other countries throughout the world, but the United States was different. It had always been different. And it was different now.

  Still, he held his tongue as he stared at the dead trees that lined the streets below. It was too late to convince his partners, and he just didn’t care that much about it anymore.

  The partner watched him out of the corner of his eye, shifting his massive weight, and started in again. “The United States is the most hated nation in the world. Is there a better indication of the magnificent job we have done! The United States is the monster—not Cuba or North Korea, who have institutionalized starvation and poverty for generations now. Not Middle Eastern monarchies who beat little girls who learn to read and behead their older sisters who have the misfortune of being raped. Not China with their forced abortions—where are the civil libertarians on that?” He stopped and laughed, the irony forcing his fat belly to roll. “Evil is good and good is evil. We have crested that plateau. As long as they believe that, as long as they really hate each other as much as they love themselves, as long as they think their own nation is the evil one, they will comply with our demands.

  “We can take the U.S. Constitution and shred it, then mold a new society into what we think is right. The Society we all belong to. It is clear our time has come.”

  Kelly sniffed again. A long silence followed. “You are aware, I am certain, who the president of the United States is now?”

  “Of course,” the fat man grunted.

  Kelly turned, looking directly into his eyes. “She is not a part of us.”

  The fat man lit yet another cigarette. “I know that. They know that.” He gestured vaguely in some direction toward the east.

  “So, then—how do they propose we get past that?”

  The fat man shook his head and sneered. “They’re going to kill her. What did you think they’d do, my friend?”

  FIVE

  Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania

  There was no reason to lie to her. She was with them or she wasn’t. Either way, she wouldn’t leave the command post without making a decision. Nor was there any reason to soften the impact of what they wanted her to do. And there certainly wasn’t any reason to speak to her as if she really was in charge. She was a custodian of the presidency, but she hadn’t been elected. She didn’t speak with the voice of the people nor did she carry the support of the military or the cabinet or—more important—the men who were in charge. She was a happenstance of the Constitution and that was all.

  The blast over Washington, D.C. had already killed the president and vice president. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line to the presidency, lay in a hospital somewhere in western Virginia, but she hadn’t regained consciousness since the explosion. If she ever did (and the two men were absolutely certain that she wouldn’t), it was extremely unlikely that she would regain even a fraction of her faculties.

  Which meant the poor woman propped up before them, the former president pro tempore of the Senate, was now in charge.

  A fractured leg and third-degree burns were the total of her injuries. Which meant that, one way or another, they had to deal with her before they could move on.

  The new president of the United States sat at the head of a huge wooden conference table, her casted leg hidden under a full skirt, a pair of chrome crutches leaning against the side of her chair. Her hair was full and straight, with fashionable strands of gray. Her face was drained and weary, her mouth tight with determination. She looked off as she thought, breathing in the purified underground air.

  Her name was Bethany Rosen. Fifty-six years old, a Californian, three terms within the Congress, she had been selected as a Senate leader for her congeniality and middle-of-the-road politics—that, plus her husband had made a billion dollars producing movies and could raise more money for the party than any other person on the West Coast.

  The new president put the red binder aside, took a frightened breath, then reached down and moved her leg, feeling the heavy cast against the chair. A shot of pain moved up her spine and, for a moment, she thought of the day the injury had been sustained. She remembered the emergency alert, her cell phone going off, scrambling down the front porch of her townhouse east of the Capitol, the wailing sirens, the sound of an approaching helicopter sent to take her away, the white-hot light, the blazing heat against her face and arms, the falling steps and crashing metal, the sound of splintered wood, th
e pain against her knee. She remembered passing time, blurred visions and urgent voices, an ambulance ride and then a helicopter, the softness of white sheets and the peacefulness of sleep as someone poked a needle in her arm. Then she remembered slowly waking and finding out that she was in charge.

  If the rush of power was good for recovery, then she would recover very soon, for the office of the president was something she had coveted for almost thirty years. And she intended to make a difference while enjoying every moment of her command.

  Which might be a long time or a little, depending on the decisions she now made.

  *******

  The meeting had begun at exactly 10 a.m. The two men had entered the room and sat down, one on her left, one on her right, and slid a four-page, red-bound document across the table. “Read this,” the first man had commanded, then sat back in silence as she read.

  The conference table inside the presidential office suite at Raven Rock was huge, easily accommodating twenty-five or thirty people, and the three individuals seemed small, their chairs tucked up against the edge of the thick oak table. The room was very quiet as the president read. Ten minutes later, her heart racing, she lifted her eyes, pushed the red binder away, and adjusted her leg. “You want me to what?” she whispered at the men in disbelief.

  The first man, a former president himself, leaned forward, his voice patronizing and sickeningly friendly. A bitter old man beneath the soft tone, he’d been voted out of office almost thirty years before and his eyelids were heavy now with age, the pupils dull and empty underneath the drooping lids. The anger of his rejection had grown more acidic through all the empty years, and most everything he said or did now revealed the poison in his soul. “Bethany,” he insisted as he reached out for her hand, “this really is important. You have to listen to us now.”

  She stared into his face, spiderwebs of tiny purple veins running up and down his cheeks. “You want me to hold back,” she hissed. “You don’t want me to retaliate. You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  The former president shook his head. “It’s the best thing for us now.”

  “It’s outrageous,” she answered simply. “Outrageous and impossible! And that is not all.” She tapped the red binder. “Everything you’ve suggested here will weaken us to the point—”

  “What we’ve suggested, Madame President, will ensure the survival of our nation.”

  She openly scoffed. “No. It wouldn’t be the same nation, not after you get through it.”

  The other man, the current National Security Advisor, cleared his throat. He was young, extraordinarily a good-looking man, with lots of family money and supremely confident. “It’s too late for all that, Bethany,” he answered in an impatient voice. “We already are not the same nation. The old days have passed us. It’s a new world now.” He turned away to keep from glaring. He and the newly sworn-in president had a history of conflict that went back several years, and their philosophies of government relations couldn’t have been more opposed. The ugly truth was, he considered any one of his current girlfriends far more capable of being the president than the woman who sat across the table from him now, and it was all he could do to hold back his disdain and contempt.

  Her dark eyes flickered and her mouth hung open. She thought for far too long. “So, while we leave our enemies untouched, you want me to,” she glanced down at the binder, reading from the list, “suspend habeas corpus. No more evidentiary hearings. Arrest hostiles and hold them as long as it takes. Months. Years. A lifetime. No evidence. No trials. Keep ‘em all locked up forever.” She glanced down again. “Declare martial law—now, maybe I could go along with that but for the fact that giving military personnel law-enforcement authority would break the Posse Comitatus Act. You both know that. We have always forbidden the military from exercising police duties within our own borders.” She paused and took a breath. “This isn’t the Third Reich, my friends. I don’t care how difficult things are right now, we can get through this without—”

  “Without what?” the former president sneered. “Without exercising a few understandable precautions?”

  She turned to face him, adjusting herself painfully in her seat. “Listen to yourself, Mr. President. Listen to what you just said. Understandable precautions?” She angrily tapped the red binder. “It seems to me that shutting down the court system is a bit more than just an understandable precaution.”

  “We don’t have time for trials right now. Don’t you see that, Bethany? The nation is hanging by a thread! It’s nothing but chaos out there, worse than anything you could imagine. In very short order, you’re going to have food riots in the streets. You’re going to see murder and mayhem over a single loaf of bread. Do you think, in your naïveté, that the courts can begin to handle that? You can’t have sympathetic judges releasing prisoners because the prison food isn’t warm and there aren’t enough beds! More importantly, half the federal judges will interfere with what you have to do right now. And what is that, Madame President? The answer is perfectly clear. You’ve got one priority, and that’s security. You’ve got to buy yourself some time to put this thing back together. Until then, you’ve got to keep a firm grip on the situation or it will spin completely out of control. You keep a tight grip, and we might—probably not, but we might—keep this nation together. But if you go soft, if you go all civil rights, sympathy and ACLU on us, then believe me, we’re through. Do that and it won’t matter—you won’t have anything left that is worth fighting over anyway!”

  The president looked down in pain, uncertain. Nervously, she flipped the pages. “Detention centers. Expanded powers. Look at this!” She slapped the red binder closed. “You want me to nationalize industry, the media, all means of transportation—”

  The National Security Advisor sat back and scoffed. “You really don’t understand the situation, do you, Beth? You don’t understand it at all! You think nationalizing industry and transportation is going to matter? You think taking control of the media will make a difference? There is nothing up there, Beth. Nothing left at all, not since the EMP—no television, no radio. A few old-fashioned printing presses have shown up, but believe me, Madame President,” he seemed to choke, “no one is concerned with editorializing right now. The only things that are working, the government owns and controls anyway. Military transportation, computers, command and control. The Emergency Broadcasting System. That’s about all there is. A few other things here and there, but not much, you have to know. So believe me, Madame President, taking control of industry and transportation is the very least of your worries. No one’s going to give a whit who owns what if you can’t get things going anyway.”

  He paused and leaned toward her, his eyes simmering, traces of red around the lids. “Lay the foundation for rebuilding,” he concluded forcefully, “and no one’s going to complain about the niceties of ownership. No one’s going to ask the driver of the ambulance if he’s a member of the government!”

  She looked up, her face growing pale. Something desperate and dark had settled over the room. She felt a cold shiver run through her and fought a sudden urge to move away from these men, to remove herself from the feeling. Still, she summoned her strength and held the binder up, shaking it at the former president. “Disband the Congress. Send them home. You can’t seriously be advising me to—”

  “Federalize power within the presidency? Absolutely we are!”

  She turned away, too stunned to react, her breathing shallow, her heart throbbing in her ears. “I don’t believe it. I simply can’t believe it. You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course we’re serious, darling.” The National Security Advisor leaned toward her ear. She looked at him and almost recoiled from the anger in his eyes. There was no respect within their burning and certainly no fear. You are a pretender, they seemed to scream at her, an unfortunate happenstance of history, but that is all. You are not the president, at least not really! You have no power. You have no judgment. You will do what we tell
you to do.

  It stunned her, the burning hatred, and she had to look away. “I don’t think you would have called the previous president darling,” she barely whispered, trying to hide her rage and fear.

  The National Security Advisor snorted, letting the insult hang like a bad smell in the air, then wiped his brow. “You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, Madame President.”

  His apology was only more demeaning, and she looked away again.

  The National Security Advisor fell silent. He was much smarter, more experienced and certainly more capable of managing this crisis than she was. It galled him to even talk to this woman just because she was next in line.

  The president glanced down at the paper, stabbing the first item on the list. “You don’t want me to retaliate for the EMP attack?”

  The former president edged toward her, leaning on his arms against the table. “Beth, who are you going to retaliate against? Do you even know who launched the missiles? How are you going to prove it?”

  “Prove it! We all know who did this. The missiles were Iranian variants of the Al Abbas Scuds! Soon we’ll know where the warhead nuclear material was refined, but even now we all can guess—”

  “Guess, Bethany? I don’t think we should be guessing.”

  “We won’t be guessing,” she shot back, feeling hostile now. “We’ll take our time, we’ll analyze it carefully, but when we have our answers, I swear to you, we will retaliate.”

  The former president sadly shook his head. If he didn’t believe what he was saying, it was impossible to tell, for lying was such second nature to him that he hardly knew himself. He was so comfortable in his many skins that he didn’t notice when one shed. What do I need to believe in order to convince them? Close my eyes, think a moment . . . poof! That’s what I believe now. “It won’t make any difference,” he countered sincerely. “Bethany, we have known each other now for what, twelve, fourteen years? I have watched you and admired you. I’m comfortable, and I mean this—no, I’m grateful that you are in this position now. The nation will be well served by your considerable judgment and intellect, but you must listen to what I tell you. Forget retaliation. It solves nothing. Certainly, you could order the deaths of a couple million Arabs. But what will that do to improve things for the United States? And the Persians you would kill are innocent! You understand me? They are innocent, every one. Sure, you might kill some of those who are responsible, you might take out a few of the mullahs, but remember, all of them are buried now in blast-proof bunkers in the desert that we can’t identify or target. Even if you get lucky and kill a handful of the leaders, what about the millions of innocent civilians who are collateral damage to your cause?”