The Generals of October

by John T. Cullen

  President Bradley has issued a statement welcoming Mrs. Cardoza’s support, and has asked all American citizens to work toward seeking a peaceful resolution to this second U.S. civil war.

  Chapter 47

  As Tory held the unconscious President, alarms and sirens went off in cacophony. Feet thundered in the halls on all sides. The doorway filled with bodies and brandished steel as men and women fell over each other to reach the President. Tory thought she was about to die in a hail of bullets from all the weapons aimed at her head. Then someone screamed: “Two men! Two men! She’s not one of them.”

  “She shot them.” “She killed them.”

  “Clear the deck! Clear the deck!” a hoarser voice bellowed, and a Secret Service agent holding an Uzi muscled his way in. He gave way, inturn, as Navy SEAL paramedics pushed in with a stretcher.

  For Tory, the next few minutes with their shouts and shoves blended in a kind of wet, warm hell. The President’s body was removed from her embrace. She raised her hands to her eyes and cried. Hands on her shoulders squeezed and comforted, and as she recovered, she realized it was Devereaux on one side and Mattoon on the other.

  “He’s alive but barely!” a paramedic yelled hoarsely.

  “We have a pulse! We have a pulse!” a female nurse yelled.

  “Open the airway,” the hoarse voice boomed. “It’s crushed. I’m cutting now. Cutting!” A scalpel flashed, silver at first, then blood red. “Cutting. Press there. Yes. Stop the bleeding.”

  “Chopper!” someone else screamed, “Chopper!” as Tory heard the deep throb of a powerful helicopter on the roof.

  “Tape, use tape!” the nurse yelled. “Pressure! Stop the bleeding. I’m going to intubate. Oxygen! Over here!”

  “Move! Move! Move!” a man waving an Uzi hollered to other men with Uzis. “Cover! Cover! Cover!”

  Tory sniffled and rose in the ungainly crush of bodies. The many people crowded into the Oval Office moved as one, causing some of them to stagger against each other and crash against chairs and tables but they quickly lifted the President, now strapped in and taped up and tubed in and cut open, hand over hand to several Navy air crew in white bubble helmets and olive-drab flight suits waiting just outside the door.

  Tory told Devereaux: “General Norcross is behind all this.”

  Devereaux nodded grimly. “Norcross. He was the final, core layer of the conspiracy. He found out about the plot to take over CON2. He let Montclair and Mason and the others think he’d back them, then he switched sides at the right moment. He had this planned with split second timing. Think of it--as the coup is put down, more uncertainty and terror as the President is murdered by unknown assassins. Coming to rescue us from all that chaos is Billy Norcross, America’s Napoleon. Think how close he got!” He chewed on his cigar for a second or two, said “harrumph” to clear his throat. “Your grandpa’ll be proud of you. God knows I am.” He started toward the door. “Come on, we have to find General Norcross.”

  Devereaux pushed through the crowd of dazed, jabbering men and women and strode down the corridor. Tory followed. Devereaux said: “Now I see why Jankowsky’s Task Force was bombed. Norcross was using them to try and learn if anyone was on his trail, and when the Task Force and Tabitha Summers got too close, Norcross’s people terminated them. It was Norcross’s people who killed Shoob, not Montclair’s bunch.” Devereaux stuck the cigar in his mouth and, with his fist, pounded on Norcross’s office door. “God dammit, Norcross, open up!” He turned to two open-mouthed agents and said: “Bust this door down. Now!” When they stared at him, he bellowed: “Right now, boys.” A phone kept ringing inside.

  It took the two big men several lunges, and still they had to shoot off the door handle, before they got inside. General Billy Norcross was not in his office. A side entrance stood ajar. As they entered the office, Tory heard ANN on a radio:

  ALLISON MIRANDA: We seem to have lost contact with the White House. Minutes ago, we were speaking with General Billy Norcross, who told us that he has taken charge of the White House. A moment ago, as the news was unofficially spreading that an assassination had been averted and the President is alive, I repeat, the President is alive though his condition is not exactly clear at this moment, our line to General Norcross’s office went dead.

  From outside, the White House seems to be in pure chaos. An unknown body on a stretcher has been lifted onto the rooftop helipad by a frantic cluster of man, and the standby air-evac chopper is just now lifting off, apparently toward Bethesda Naval Hospital. Secret Service agents have begun sending people outside the building under armed guard. We have absolutely no idea what is going on. Hello? Hello? General Norcross?

  Chapter 48

  Devereaux ignored the anchorwoman’s voice. He and Tory stared at the painting of Napoleon. “Look at that,” Tory said. The Napoleon on the white charger in the picture seemed to have manic eyes as he directed the carnage of battle all around him. He waved a white scepter. “The Ivory Baton!” Tory said. “OIB-FED-N. Norcross or Napoleon, take your pick.”

  “What are you mumbling about,” Devereaux said. “C’mon, we’ve got to catch Norcross. Oh why in the hell did those morons take my gun?”

  Together, Tory and Devereaux rushed out Billy Norcross’s private side entrance.

  As they pushed through the crowd of stunned news people and men with assault rifles outside, he explained: “That guy I was just on the phone with? My people are on their way to capture him--the commanding general of something called the 9595th M.I. (Reserve) over in the Virginia woods. Another bunch of closet goose-steppers from the Wild West. Wanted to know if I work for Norcross and if he should begin the attack on the other side of the city. That was Norcross’s other hidden ace. Good thing we just cut his flank off.” They hurried across the lawn after the fleeing Norcross. A Marine briefly tried to stop them, but Devereaux, cigar butt gritted between his teeth, lifted his shirt collar ends and flapped all eight stars; the boy dropped back looking pale. The jog took them around the side to a small exclusive gravel parking lot hiding under huge pine trees. Devereaux tossed his cigar stub aside. “Listen,” Tory said. She heard the slam of a car door.

  “There’s the son of a bitch,” Devereaux said, pointing to a shadow in an expensive car. “The emperor.” Tory moved to arrest Norcross, but Devereaux shook his head. He stopped to light a new cigar. “Wait a moment or two. Let’s give His Imperial Highness a minute alone.” Instead of a car engine starting, they heard a muffled pop. Devereaux said. “Jeez, he didn’t waste any time.”

  As they neared the car, Tory smelled a whiff of gunpowder. The air was squalid and gray and filled with burning, but this was an exquisitely specific smell. Tory pulled open the passenger side door. Sitting crumpled against the driver side door was General Billy Norcross. In his left hand, clutched to his gut, was an ivory baton. His right hand loosely cradled the service revolver with which he’d ended his life. The man who would be emperor had his head tilted against the window. His mouth and eyes were open in a vacant expression. Blood, bone, and brains dribbled down the window from the open bowl of his skull.

  ALLISON MIRANDA: As we were led to believe in the last hour, we now know that indeed there has been an attempt on the President’s life. That attempt failed, and the saga of the Hotel Generals has spun out a few more surprises.

  The President is alive at Bethesda Naval Hospital and is expected to recover.

  The Acting President is Rep. Norm Daley of Washington State, Speaker of the House.

  General Billy Norcross, the apparent author of this coup attempt, committed suicide minutes ago outside the White House.

  Acting President Daley has appointed Rocky Devereaux, an Iowa realtor and Army reservist, Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  President Bradley’s two would-be assassins were shot to death during the assault, by a female U.S. Army officer of the Military Police Corps, we are told.

  In an up-to-the-minute poll, more than 90% of American voters app
ear to favor Cliff Bradley if next year’s presidential election were held today. We believe that is the highest approval rating a sitting U.S. president has ever received.

  Reaction to Meredith Cardoza’s statements has been overwhelming. After Mrs. Cardoza accused MCP leaders, including the late Robert Lee Hamilton, of murder, conspiracy, and treason, all but a handful of the elected MCP officials have resigned from the party. They say they will form a new Stability Party. MCP offices in at least 14 states have been sacked and burned by angry mobs. There are reports that at least two state MCP officials, in Maryland and Oklahoma, were dragged into the streets and hung on light poles by lynch mobs, comprised mostly of the same people who had been duped for so long into zealously supporting MCP's incendiary and anti-Federal agenda serving the large corporations that financed Robert Lee Hamilton and his so-called Middle Class Party, which in reality was a Trojan Horse for special interests...

  Chapter 49

  It was sunny, not too cold, the kind of Sunday Tory loved, a last Fall day before the golden leaves fell and the dark months of winter settled like a blanket. She would also be glad when this morning was over with, for the White House lawn was covered with flags, bands, people in uniform, families, Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, and more families. Civilian police and state troopers from as far away as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina were on the streets to help keep order. The only military units in sight were two or three marching bands. Congress had quickly passed, and the President had signed into law, the so-called Roman Law, which forbade the presence of any military leader in the city at the head of his forces. This was similar to a famous law the Romans had enacted after tossing out the last Etruscan king in 510 B.C. and declaring a republic in 509--with a consular system of government with checks and balances that delayed the republic’s becoming an empire and a totalitarian state for five centuries.

  Before the parade, hundreds of neatly uniformed military personnel and their family members milled about. Tory pressed as close to her love as she dared. She introduced him to her grandmother, who had come especially to Washington for today’s ceremony, a white-haired woman in a buttoned up dark blue coat, who rarely smiled and wielded her black handbag as though it were a weapon. She did seem to like David. Maybe that was a good sign.

  Tory did not fully trust that David would remain hers. I’ve had too many failures at love, she thought, but here I go again. He kept giving her looks that made her feel warm inside. Their hands were clasped together, and on them sparkled a pair of gold wedding bands that Maxie had borrowed from First Lady Mrs. Bradley, whose daughter was about to get married soon. Maxie had promised to return the rings shortly, when David and Tory had a chance to buy their own. Mrs. Bradley had been more than happy to help out. Maxie had arranged a brief ceremony at the White House late last night, with a hastily summoned Air Force chaplain officiating and Maxie and Tom Dash as witnesses. The big family wedding ceremony could come later, Tory and David thought. They were just happy to be husband and wife. Tory had to admit that she still felt some tight little band of fear inside; how could something this wonderful last for her? When all the excitement died down, would he get cold feet and--no, not David. She squeezed his hand, and he glanced at her with a little frown, then a look of understanding, at her uncertainty. He squeezed back, and she glowed inside.

  White House tailors had sewn their new insignia of rank on last night. Effective last midnight, she was a captain, he a major.

  “I want to take you away from here,” David whispered in Tory’s ear. She whisnd, in the secrecy between their bodies, and she squeezed back. Even that was beyond reguations for two officers on parade at the White House, but today who was really checking?

  Maxie brought a nice-looking tall man in dress Army uniform. “Hiiiii y’all.” Slash smile, small nose, smoky voice; but the sunny blonde hair was tamed with hairpins; and the lovely eyes had shadows, not enough to dull the glow of her personality, but those eyes had seen young people die. She hugged Tory. “When do we disco?”

  “How about this evening?”

  “That’ll work,” Maxie said. She whispered: “You like Tom?”

  Tory examined Major Tom Dash. Of course Maxie would meet someone with a name like that. He seemed friendly and gentle enough, with just that aviator’s thrust of chin, that worried wrinkle of brow, as he and David compared notes about some man thing--how many pounds of thrust in an F-1 or some such thing, how many cannons on an Elizabethan barkentine. She told Maxie: “So far, I don’t see an ego.”

  Maxie punched lightly with a white glove. “Never again.”

  “You’re off to a roaring start, Max.”

  “My parents agreed to throw a big wedding next month. Everyone on Earth will attend. I know this is the man for me.” She must have thought of past personalities, for her eyes slitted with anger and she made fists. “I’ll never again let a guy be so mean to me.”

  “If you forget, I’ll send you to Dr. Van Meeuwen.”

  “Oh look,” Tom Dash said, putting his arm around Maxie as she pressed against him, “isn’t that Allison Miranda of ANN?”

  Indeed, Tory spotted the ANN news crew moving about, interviewing people. There were two camera persons and the unmistakeable attractive, dark-haired Allison Miranda. “They’re coming our way,” Tory said.

  “Isn’t she just gorgeous!” Maxie enthused.

  “Hi,” Allison smiled excitedly as she came toward Tory with an extended microphone in foam wind cover. “Aren’t you the M.P. officer who saved the President’s life?”

  “Er,” Tory began as cameras surrounded her.

  Soon, uniformed personnel were called into formation, and civilians were gently herded behind rope enclosures.

  A drum began its deep, measured tolling. An eight-person color guard with the U.S. flag and other banners moved onto the now-cleared lawn in synchronized steps. Ahead of them walked the Master of Ceremonies, a tall Army major with drawn saber raised before his dark blue dress-uniform shoulder.

  President Bradley and his wife stood at a podium, flanked by senior members of all three branches of federal government. Also present on the stage were Meredith Cardoza and her three children; and the Joint Chiefs, with their new Acting Chairman, General Rocky Devereaux.

  Two bands waited, one at either end of the stage: a Navy brass band; and an Army fife and drum corps with antecedents in Revolutionary War times. Drums pounded and brass blared while the M.C. and his assistants formed the honorees into a long straight line, a motley of beautifully tailored dress uniforms representing all services. A Coast Guard admiral, master chief petty officer, and a U.S. Navy Muslim chaplain stood with Ibrahim Shoob’s family at one end of the line. An Army Command Sergeant Major, a Chaplain Corps rabbi colonel, and an Infantry colonel waited with Solomon Goldman’s wife and children. Similar clusters of bereaved families and military representatives stood in for Jankowsky, Tomasik, Lewis, and so many others. The M.C. escorted Tory to the podium, where she sat between Mrs. Bradley and General Devereaux. The new Speaker of the House, Representative Daley of Washington State, who had briefly assumed the role of Acting President of the United States while Cliff Bradley was in a coma, sat nearby. He was a dour man, resembling those old busts of Roman city fathers. He always wore black suits and never smiled. Life seemed for him to be one long funeral. He held on his lap a plain wooden box the size of a jewelry case.

  The music fell silent and President Bradley opened with some brief remarks. There would be other ceremonies, and other bereaved families to be honored, as things were sorted out and fallen heroes buried, before this blot could pass into history along with the Civil War. Bradley singled out Tory for intelligence and heroism, and she didn’t really hear the words for her ears were singing, with a rushing like waves on the shore. In the crowd, smiling, Grandma winked, and Tory winked back. Her next assignment was Command and General Staff College, and after that the sky was the limit. Rocky had told her: that star--maybe more than one--might en
d up on Breen shoulders yet! Loaded with medals, including the Legion of Merit for Valor, Tory sat down. Mrs. Bradley put a gloved hand on Tory’s sleeve and whispered affectionately: “The President, the Speaker, and a number of other people will put strong letters in your record.” There was a round of cheering, and a brass rendition of The Army Song, for Tory.

  Meredith Cardoza, in a firm, clear voice spoke about the necessity to forgive, and about the healing process that must now begin, the sooner the better--the best tribute the nation could give her late husband.

  One by one, the high muckity mucks made speeches.

  Then the award ceremonies began. The Joint Chiefs walked along the line of honorees returning salutes, pinning medals, shaking hands. With them walked old sourpuss Congressman Daley, holding that small wooden box as if it contained the ashes of a loved one.

  Uniformed soldiers carried satin pillow displays, one pillow for each type of medal--and the pillows were crusted with many medals. Today General Devereaux handed out many Purple Hearts for those wounded in action. Tory watched as the group moved to Colonel Richard Bellamy, and then to newly created Marine Corps Warrant Officer Marguerite “Jet” Steffey. The family of each person killed in action received a pillow full of medals, and lengthy condolences. Tory thought Hala Shoob would collapse as the generals and NCOs surrounded her; yet Hala stood with grim pride and accepted Ibrahim Shoob’s medals in recognition for his heroism and sacrifice.

  The generals and admirals, along with President and Mrs. Bradley, Congressman Daley, and other officials, moved into position near the color guard. A Marine solemnly escorted Tory behind them. The M.C. called out: “Your attention please.” It grew very still. Just one drum made a very tiny beat, one stick tapped against one rim, softly.

  Everything happened in slow time, solemn time, military time. The M.C. marched in dignified, gliding steps toward Maxie. Maxie stood between her mother and father, who beamed proudly. Maxie’s uniform gleamed with the medals she’d just had pinned on. The M.C. approached Maxie; halted facing her close up; spoke a few words with her; and then about faced. Tory watched the look of puzzlement, or horror? grow on Maxie’s face. Maxie stepped to the MC’s right, slightly forward. Then, in step, they marched toward the color guard--two tiny figures on that green expanse.