Twilight's Last Gleaming

by John Michael Greer

  FIFTEEN

  16 September 2029: Endebess, Kenya

  It had been so many years since an American army had surrendered that nobody quite knew how to do it. Melanie Bridgeport, flipping through Army manuals while the rest of the staff destroyed classified gear and paperwork, found something on how to accept the surrender of an enemy force, and somebody knew somebody who knew some corporal who was a Civil War buff, and was brought to HQ to describe as best he could how Pemberton's men surrendered to Grant at Vicksburg and Lee's men did the same thing at Appomattox. Between the manual and the scraps of remembered history, Seversky's staff figured out more or less what to do.

  As the sun came up on the 16th, Seversky signed a paper accepting the surrender terms and handed it to a colonel to take to the Coalition forces. The orders had already gone out to what was left of the American force: stack your weapons, get your belongings in a pack you can carry, be ready to march to the Kitale road as soon as you're told.

  As she walked out of the primary school building half an hour later, Bridgeport looked around, wondering why it seemed strange. A moment passed before she realized how quiet the morning was. It had been weeks since she'd been out of earshot of the sound of combat.

  Dust was rising from the road to the east. Seversky was standing in front of the school, his face bleak. All the others were somewhere else, one clump of them over by the last of the technicals, another bunch by the trees next to the road, still another sitting in the shade and wolfing down a breakfast of MREs. Bridgeport started over toward Seversky, then saw the look the general gave her, saluted, and walked away.

  Instead, she went over to the group having breakfast, got handed one of the packets, and ate fast, watching the plume of dust get closer. She was just washing it down with the last of the bottled water when the Coalition technicals rolled up to the school.

  Colonel Ilumubeke climbed out of the cab of the lead truck, walked over to Seversky, and saluted him; Seversky returned the salute, crisp as if he'd been on inspection. “If you prefer, General,” said the colonel, “we can spare a technical to take you into Kitale.”

  “I'll walk with my men,” Seversky replied.

  “As you wish.” The colonel raised his voice. “If you will form up in column four abreast, please. It is still possible to reach Kitale before the heat of the day.”

  Bridgeport got up and joined the forming line. Seversky followed a few rows back. Coalition soldiers with AK-47s slung over their shoulders took up places to either side. After a few minutes, when all the Americans were lined up, one of the soldiers waved for them to start walking east.

  15 September 2029: The White House, Washington DC

  As details trickled into the White House situation room, what kept circling through Weed's mind was sheer disbelief. Diego Garcia was the beating heart of the entire US Indian Ocean presence, a key logistics and intelligence center and a base from which B-1s could pound trouble spots from Africa to Southeast Asia. Losing Tanzania was a problem; losing Kenya was a crisis; losing Diego Garcia…He shook his head, tried to think.

  “Sir?” An aide had come in. “The press conference.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” He drew in a deep breath and went to the door.

  It was by all accounts one of the best speeches of Jameson Weed's political career. Extempore—he had drawn up a draft before the news came about Diego Garcia, but it was sitting on a desk in the Oval Office as he walked up to the podium—he sketched out the situation, explained what had happened in Kenya, denounced China's behavior in thundering terms, and broke the news of the fall of Diego Garcia. “Let the People's Republic of China make no mistake,” he said. “The United States will not let this unprovoked aggression stand. We will respond with all the forces at our disposal. Nothing is off the table.” He leaned forward, haggard and minatory. “Nothing.”

  Thirty minutes later, the American ambassador in Beijing delivered a formal ultimatum to the Chinese government threatening nuclear war.

  16 September 2029: The August First Building, Beijing

  “This is hardly the outcome you led us to expect,” said Chen Weiming. The president's voice was quiet, studied, dangerous.

  “When the Committee accepted my plan,” Liu answered, “I took full responsibility for the consequences. It would be absurd to attempt to evade them now.”

  They and the other members of the Central Military Commission sat in the same secure meeting room where Plan Qilin had first been authorized four months earlier. Outside the room, across the length and breadth of China, PLA forces and civilian defense cadres were hurrying to prepare the nation for the unthinkable. In the meeting room, though, nothing moved; the heavy red draperies muffled all sound.

  Chen turned to Ma Baiyuan, Liu's equal as vice chairman of the Committee. “Ma, what exactly are the Americans demanding?”

  Ma cleared his throat. “They want a ceasefire within twenty-four hours, and our forces to begin withdrawing from East Africa and Diego Garcia within forty-eight. If we do not accept their terms within seventy-two hours, or if we pursue any further hostilities against US interests, they threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons against military targets.”

  Chung glanced around the table as the words sank in. “Yang,” he said then, “what is the current status of the Second Artillery Corps?” That was China's strategic force, some 500 state-of-the-art land- and submarine-based missiles tipped with nuclear warheads.

  “On alert since the beginning of the East African conflict,” Yang Chao said at once. “On highest alert since the attack on Hainan.”

  “Five hundred missiles,” said Ma, “against how many thousands of American bombs?”

  “Irrelevant.” Yang leaned forward. “Five hundred nuclear blasts, or even a large fraction of that, and the United States ceases to exist as a nation. They know that. They will not risk it.”

  “If you are wrong,” said Ma, “the history of China ends in three days.”

  No one else spoke. If Plan Qilin were to fail, Liu knew, it would fail then and there. A vote by the Commission to accept the American terms and withdraw the troops, and it would all have been in vain. His own dismissal and disgrace did not bother him as much as the thought of how close China stood to total victory.

  Chen glanced around the table again, sighed, and spoke. “That may be so, but we cannot back down. The people will not permit it. They have watched our missiles, our planes, and our allies in Africa defeat the Americans day after day. If we bow to American blackmail now, on the brink of victory, our government will not survive, and neither will we. It is that simple.

  “I intend to go before the media, refuse the American ultimatum, and inform the world that we will respond to any nuclear attack on Chinese interests with our own nuclear arsenal. Do I have your support?”

  One by one, the other members of the Commission voted in favor. Chen nodded, got to his feet. “I will make the announcement in one hour. By then, I expect all of you to be on your way to your assigned bunkers. All except for you.” He turned to Liu. “You have said that you accept responsibility for the consequences of your plan. Very well; you will remain here in Beijing.” With the faintest of smiles: “Above ground. The civil defense program will benefit from your direct supervision.”

  “Of course,” Liu said. “It will be an honor.”

  “Good.” The others were rising from their chairs as well. “The rest of you know what you need to do. I trust we will see each other again. If not—” Chen allowed a shrug, turned, and left the room.

  16 September 2029: Shinyanga District, Tanzania

  The truck lurched to a halt. A moment later, one of the Tanzanian soldiers came around back and pulled the flap aside. “Here we are,” he said. “Out, please.”

  Melanie Bridgeport hauled herself to her feet along with the others, headed for the back of the truck. There were trucks waiting when they'd reached Kitale, nearly all of them captured from the Americans; the Coalition soldiers had packed as many pr
isoners of war into each truck as would fit and sent them roaring off southwards one at a time. Bridgeport had been in the third truck to leave, in a random mix of staff officers and ordinary soldiers.

  For a moment, as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight, she wondered if the Tanzanians had decided to turn Camp Pumbaa into a POW camp, the landscape was that similar. It took her a moment to notice the rundown buildings, the lines of olive-drab military tents, and the two barbed-wire fences around the lot of it. The fences looked like they had been slapped up in a hurry, and there was a crew still putting up a guard tower at one corner of the camp.

  The guard walked along the line of Americans, motioned with his head to Bridgeport and the two other women who had been in the same truck. “Women's part of camp is that way,” he said, gesturing. “The rest of you will come with me.”

  Bridgeport and the other two women looked at one another, followed the guard's gesture. Off that way was a section of the camp behind its own fence, with women in Tanzanian uniform guarding it. The guard at the gate asked their names and ranks, noted those down on a clipboard, waved them in, and another guard came and walked them down one of the lines of tents, stopping halfway down.

  “This tent is yours.” The guard pulled the flap aside; there were two other American women already in the tent. The guard turned back to face the newcomers. “Latrine is down there. Mess hall, in the building there. Showers? When they get here, we will find out.”

  She stopped, and considered them. “One more thing,” she said then. “You will be told the rules here shortly. If you follow them, you will be going home as soon as this business is over. If you try to escape, or do anything else foolish, we will shoot you and then you will have to stay here forever. Please do not make us do that.” She motioned them to the tent, turned and went back to the unloading area, where another truck was pulling up. The POWs stood there for another moment, and then went into the tent for lack of anything better to do.

  There were eight rickety cots inside the tent, and Bridgeport and the others sorted out who was going to sleep where and tucked their rucksacks and duffel bags in what little space there was.

  “Going home,” said one of the others, a clerk in the headquarters company named Carron. “I hope.” She sat down on her cot. “God, I hope—but I wonder what they're saying back home right now.”

  “I don't think I want to know,” Bridgeport told her.

  15 September 2029: The White House, Washington DC

  “They can't be serious.” Ellen Harbin's expression was flat, contemptuous. “They have, what? Five hundred warheads. We have ten thousand. We could turn the whole country into ash with room to spare.”

  “True,” said Admiral Waite, “but irrelevant. Our best current estimate, given our missile defense system and their known countermeasures, is that half the Chinese weapons will reach their targets. You might want to consider what 250 nuclear explosions would do to this country. They don't have to match us warhead for warhead; all they have to do is cost us more than we're willing to pay.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Gurney. “They're bluffing. They'll back down.”

  “They've started civil defense preparations all over the country.” This from Greg Barnett, in a measured tone. “Something like five million children are being evacuated from the big cities right now. Every nondefense factory and every non-essential business has been shut down. If they're bluffing, it's a very convincing bluff.”

  “It's entirely possible that that's exactly what it is,” Harbin insisted.

  A cell phone buzzed in Barnett's pocket. He took it out, glanced at the screen, excused himself from the Roosevelt Room. “They've played a very clever game,” Harbin went on, “but they can't seriously expect to win at this stage. I'm convinced that if we keep up the pressure, we can force them to the negotiating table.”

  Weed had been standing at his end of the table, facing away. Now he turned around. “That's my take,” he said. “One way or another, though, we can't back down—not without losing our credibility around the world. I—” He stopped as Barnett came back into the room; the CIA director's face was white. “What is it?”

  “Russia,” Barnett said. “Kuznetsov's called an emergency press conference in the Kremlin—that's how it's being billed in the Russian media.” He drew in a breath. “And their strategic bombers are in the air—not headed our way, but up. Our satellites just spotted them.”

  16 September 2029: The Kremlin, Moscow

  Gennady Kuznetsov crossed to the podium with the double-headed eagle on it, and took his place behind it. Faces and cameras followed him every centimeter of the way. He relished that, relished the knowledge that everything that had been planned in Washington and Beijing, everything that had been enacted in the skies and sea lanes and savannahs of East Africa, had come spiraling in at last to rest on what would be done here and now.

  The last tense meeting with the general staff had ended a quarter hour earlier. Final orders were already on their way to military bases across the Russian Federation, and to Russia's diplomats in the United States and around the world. Now, Kuznetsov told himself. Now it is in my hands, and mine alone.

  He caught the eye of the RT video team at the back of the room, waited for the nod that told him they were ready, and began speaking.

  “The Russian Federation has been informed,” he said, “that the United States has responded to the failure of its military adventurism in East Africa by threatening the People's Republic of China with nuclear attack. In today's interconnected world, where the deepest desire of all peoples is to live together in peace, such threats are impermissible, and they must not go unanswered.”

  The eyes and camera lenses turned toward him might as well have been a million kilometers away. “It is therefore my duty as President of the Russian Federation,” he said then, “to remind the United States and the world that China does not face this crisis alone. Treaties of long standing oblige us to respond to any nuclear attack on China with our own strategic forces, and those forces are ready to launch at this moment. Should the United States choose to act on its threats, we will retaliate with our entire nuclear arsenal.”

  He could see the shock on their faces as the words sank in, and savored it. “That is all. May God protect Russia and the world in this hour.” A quick hard movement of one hand cut off the first stammered questions. Kuznetsov suppressed a smile and left the podium.

  SIXTEEN

  17 September 2029: Shinyanga District, Tanzania

  Morning parade—that was what the guards called it—was seven o'clock sharp. The POWs in the Shinyanga camp were marched onto the parade ground in the middle of camp, lined up by tents and counted, and the guards had made it clear that if anyone turned up missing, the rest would wait there until the count came out right. Standing with her tentmates in the dust of the parade ground, Melanie Bridgeport wondered whether it would come to that; with the war effectively over and more than 1,000 miles of hostile territory between the camp and the nearest neutral country, escape didn't seem like a useful project.

  The guards finished their count. The camp commandant, a portly colonel with a swagger stick tucked under his arm, returned their salutes and took the microphone. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.” He spoke English with an Oxford accent. “Before you proceed to breakfast, I am sorry to say there is bad news—very, very bad news. Your country has threatened to drop atomic bombs on the Chinese. Of course the Chinese have said they will retaliate, and now the Russians say that they will drop their bombs on the Americans if the Americans drop theirs on the Chinese. So it is possible that we are all going to die shortly.” He motioned to the guards to start marching the POWs to the mess hall, turned and walked away.

  16 September 2029: Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

  There were arrangements dating back to the Cold War for evacuating members of Congress and their families to one of the nuclear shelters surrounding DC, and Senator Bridgeport had been briefed on them annually by a success
ion of cheerful flacks from Homeland Security. When the alert went out, though, it took him less than a minute to decide that he had other plans. Like most people in Congress, he had a spare car with ordinary license plates for times when he didn't want to call attention to himself. When the call came from the Senate staff letting him know where he could meet the chartered bus that would whisk him off to the shelter, he thanked the staffer, hung up, packed a suitcase, got in the spare car and drove the other way.

  The highways would be closed to anything but official traffic as soon as enough police and national guard forces could be deployed—they'd covered that in the briefings—and that meant back roads, but there were plenty of those, and once he was past the inner ring of suburbs surrounding DC it was simply a matter of staying clear of the important federal facilities. He zigzagged north and west through farm country, past fields of corn and pumpkins, past compact little towns with white clapboard churches and one-street business districts, as the hills rose up around him toward the great ragged crests of the mountains further west.

  A cheery sign told him he'd passed into Pennsylvania. Another, miles later, told him just where in Pennsylvania he was, and he slowed, considered finding a motel and waiting out the crisis there. Another moment and he decided against it. Whatever did or didn't happen, nothing he'd done had earned him a place alongside the ghosts in blue and gray who waited for the trumpets there. He turned onto another state highway, and within a few minutes Gettysburg was out of sight in the rolling landscape behind him.

  The next town of any size was Chambersburg, or so the sign told him; afternoon was turning toward evening by the time he got there, and cars were getting thicker on the road. He left the highway, found a motel toward the edge of town that had its vacancy sign lit, and pulled into the crowded parking lot.

  The clerk behind the front desk, who must have been barely out of high school, asked for a credit card. Bridgeport handed him a $100 bill instead, with a twenty folded into it; the kid grinned, pocketed the $20, and put the other in the till. “Restaurant's open twenty-four hours,” he said as he handed Bridgeport a room key. “Liquor store's three blocks that way.”