Don Pendleton - Civil War II

by Don Pendleton

  He pushed a pencil idly about the desk, wondering how Winston was taking the situation. How many hours ago had it been that he'd told the gutsy whitey that he needn't worry about Negro cooperation? Williams grunted with the memory of that scene. A letter of authority. Mr. Guts had wanted a letter of authority. Well, "Winston was on the spot now. Maybe he'd come up with something. Only God knew what . . . but just maybe the man would come up with something.

  Ned Clemmons came scooting around the corner, coffee slopping from two cups. "Mike Winston is coming up on television," he announced excitedly. "Radio too. They're clearing everything off all the broadcast channels, telling everyone to stand by for an important announcement from the White House."

  Williams lunged out of his chair and followed Clemmons into the lounge. He had just re-settled on a leather couch, a cup of coffee at his knee, when Michael Winston was introduced and the familiar face of his friend, the ex-nigger-tender, filled the big TV screen.

  Winston had grown already, Williams decided, or else TV made people look different. A new expression seemed to frame his eyes, the lines about his mouth were firmer,

  there was even something different in the slope of the shoulders.

  "Approximately twenty minutes ago," Winston began, without preamble, "or at about 4:10 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, I ordered the Chief of the Automated Defense Command to launch a nuclear attack upon the United States of America." Then he paused, gazing steadily into the camera, apparentiy to give the nation's viewers a chance to assimilate the startling announcement."

  He looks ready to eat nails, Williams mused. Did he say nuclear attack?"

  "Before I conclude this announcement, the citizens of some of our southern states shall see evidence to confirm what I have just said. Now pay attention to my words and hear me all the way through. I have had no time to prepare this statement, so the words will not be fancy—only factual. These nuclear devices are to be triggered at extremely high altitudes. They will cause little or no damage to the land areas. There is no intent to harm any citizen, nor to damage any property. That is, in this first salvo. I repeat, in this first salvo. Call it a shot across the bow, if you wish. A warning salvo.

  "The government of the United States, of which I am at this moment the sole authority, serves notice that it will not stand idly by and see the slaughter of Americans—whatever the race, whatever the reasons, whatever the provocation. It must stop, and it must stop immediately.

  "I have just been given the sign that the first missiles have been launched. To any of you who cannot place love of country above personal grievances and animosities, I am telling you to look to the southern skies. There is more destruction than your mind can grasp. There is more power than you could experience in a lifetime. There is more authority than all the hatreds in the nation can assemble collectively. And there is the power and the authority of the United States government.

  "And now I speak directly to the citizens of Florida,

  Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and South Carolina. Stop the killing! Black man, go back to your military base. White man, go to your home. Do so immediately. I am a surgeon, and at this moment you are a cancerous growth upon the tail of this country. I will not hesitate to cut off the offending growth—tail and all—if that is what is required to save the rest of the body.

  "The next salvo of nuclear-tipped missiles fired by direction of this government will not be across the bow. They will not explode harmlessly in the heavens. They will come in at their level of maximum effect.

  "This ultimatum has already been communicated to Negro Army Commands. This is the only means I have of communicating with the white community. You've got until five o'clock, Eastern time. Five o'clock. That's all the time you've got."

  Winston glared balefully into the camera for a brief moment of silence, then he whirled and walked away. Howard Silverman took his place in front of the camera and began amplifying Winston's remarks.

  Ned Clemmons turned an owlish stare to Abraham Williams. "God damn," he said in an awed voice. "An atomic shot across the bow. What do you think of that?"

  "That gutsy bastard," Williams said, grinning. "He's found his letter of authority."

  CHAPTER 10

  Michael Winston was at his office window, one hand clenching the heavy folds of drapery, staring silently out upon the southern skies. His shoulders were slumped wearily, his shirt open at the neck and tie dangling, his eyes red-rimmed with anxiety and fatigue.

  He turned away from the window and let his eyes travel slowly about the provisional office of the United States. Jackson Bogan, in rumpled khakis, reclined stiffly on a leather couch. Howard Silverman sat slumped across the telephone turret, his head resting on crossed arms. Colonel Stanley sat stiffly in a straight wooden chair, a red telephone on his lap.

  That red phone had been in use a few hours earlier. Peking had called to announce the discontinuance of their "war games exercise" and to inform the new U.S. government that China stood solidly beside them in their bid for freedom. The head of the provisional government had thanked Peking for their good wishes and had assured them that the U.S. would do its best in the future to relieve the Asian peoples in their food crisis.

  But now the red phone and all phones sat silent in disuse. Other than Winston, Normal Ritter appeared to be the one man aboard with his eyes open. The tough little

  redhead was reared-back in a swivel chair, his feet crossed atop a draw-leaf of the executive desk, his eyes on the man at the window. "You look like hell," he told Winston quietly. "You want some coffee?"

  The head country-tender shook his head negative. "What time is it?" he croaked.

  "It's three o'clock in the morning," Ritter replied. "Ten hours and ten minutes since the truce."

  "I had them on the run," Winston said wearily. "I shouldn't have let them hold this parley before a complete withdrawal. They've got two more hours. They damn sure better get with it. I'm not giving them another damn inch."

  "Sure you don't want some coffee?"

  "No, but I'd like a cigarette."

  A loud buzzer sounded. The room leapt to immediate attention. Bogan was bolt upright on the couch. Ritter's feet pounded to the floor. Stanley half rose, then sat back down. Howard Silverman lurched toward a toggle switch on the turret. He flipped the switch and gave a high-sign to Winston.

  Winston picked up a telephone at his side, held it to his head, and his lips moved in quiet, barely audible sounds. "All right," he said. "All right, yes, I accept that. You have those assurances. Of course. Yes, I'll be down early next week."

  He hung up the instrument, smiled, let his eyes rest lightly on each of his companions, and announced, "The council of war is over. They accept our assurances of full redress of grievances. They will commence withdrawal to military bases immediately. Abe Williams is down there. That's him I was talking to. He says it's A-OK."

  A loud exhalation of pent breaths sighed through the room. Norman Ritter was in an ear-to-ear grin. "Well you bluffed the hell out of those guys, didn't you," he exclaimed happily.

  Then the grin faded and he asked, "You were bluffing, weren't you?"

  Winston sank wearily onto the desk and drew a leg over the edge to massage the ankle. How long and how short a time ago it had been since he'd bruised that ankle, fighting

  his way free of Tom Fairchild. And suppose he hadn't. . . suppose he'd meekly allowed them to put him away? What course would history have taken?

  "I honestly don't know, Norm, if I was bluffing or not," he told Ritter. He pulled an empty cigarette package from his pocket, crumpled it, dropped it into the wastebasket, ran a hand across his eyes and pinched his lips in his palm. "Hell. Out of cigarettes. Out of gas. Out of everything. I suggest we all retire, gentlemen. It appears that the ship of state will float, even with the likes of us at the helm."

  Winston walked out of the room without a backward look.

  Norman Ritter announced to no one in particular, "That guy still scares
the hell out of me."

  General Bogan moved slowly to the door. He turned to gaze back upon Ritter. "With good reason," he said simply, then went on out.

  "A principled man is a scare-some thing, Mr. Ritter," Silverman intoned soberly. Then his eyes lit on Ritter and he winked at him and added, "And a thoroughly principled man, like our Mr. Winston, scares the hell out of me too, my friend."

  EPILOGUE

  It is a matter of historical record that Michael Andrew Winston became the first President of the re-constituted United States in the year 2000. Historians write with warmth and pride of that eight-year tenure following the day when America jogged around a dangerous comer of world history.

  Awakening from a quarter-century of drug-like slumber, the United States reasserted itself as a leading world power early in the twenty-first century, and proceeded unfalteringly to her present position of greatness and prestige among the world commonwealth of nations. To the quiet but insistent pressure of the national attitude of "do it because it hurts," a phrase attributed to President Winston, America led the way to the restoration of human values throughout the world, and to a balancing of planetary resources for the well being of all peoples.

  Boundaries of geography, race, religion, politics, and of basic human personality still exist—but, thank heaven for our differences, as President Winston often remarked.

  Senator Abraham Lincoln Williams had a rather dramatic way of expressing that same idea, as he so effectively did in his now famous senate speech of 2005: "It is our unity of differences that make us unique. It is our

  harmony in discord that makes us great. It is the mutual respect and esteem with which individual Americans regard one another that establishs the framework of mortality and justice insuring us all a sane today, a sure tomorrow, and an America everlasting. May God respect us every one."

  The End