by Billy Roper
Both forces were relieved when the nineteen F-16s from Hill began releasing their combined effects munitions bombs over the forward elements of the Mexican forces at Horseshoe Lake, and worked their way south. Each plane carried eight of them, and each of them could take out a platoon on the ground. With subsequent passes, their Vulcan gatling guns spewed forth 500 rounds of eviction notice at the already fleeing Reconquistadores. The boys from 1st Battalion 157th Infantry swung in from the north and cleaned up the hold-outs between the Medical Center of the Rockies and Johnstown. The main body of the Mexican advance didn’t stop running until they were in the concrete canyons of Denver. That was one place Kelly knew she never wanted to be.
They would cut north from I-80 at North Platte, long before they got into the danger zone near Omaha. If all went well, it would be about a thirteen hour trip in the Green LDS Jeep Cherokee they were being issued. “That sure beats pedaling all the way on bicycles”, Sister Patricia laughed. Kelly figured they would get along just fine. They would be staying with a local Mormon family in the village of Dunning, until they found a place of their own. The family had no idea of their real mission. She wondered if she did, for that matter.
The Day Destroys The Night
Okay, the whole flag thing had just been a stroke of inspired luck. The committee had been debating patterns and colors and historical designs, when he happened to walk in to give them all printed out reports on the Agriculture Committee’s progress in locating secured quantities of seed corn for planting across Illinois and Iowa, and stopped to listen for a second. The delegate from Arkansas, that Klan lawyer, pointed out that they needed to have a flag as obviously American as possible, to emphasize their patriotism and direct successorship from the United States. The lady from Kansas argued that the stars had already been done in circles and squares of all different designs and numbers, and so anything they came up would just look like an older U.S. flag. The Chairman of the Second New American Congress, as the papers were calling it (and the media, not him, had begun capitalizing the “N”) sliced the Gordian knot with one question. “Why not just leave it blank?”
At first they had all just stared at him blankly. Then, they all began talking at once. “Brilliant!” It’s original, any way…” It’s never been done before, it would mark us as our own, but with direct ties, and with a style no other territory or state has used…” One of the delegates wanted to fill the blue field with a Christian cross, to represent the dominant faith of White America. Another wanted to fill it with a Celtic Cross, to symbolize White Nationalism. McNabb would have personally been fine with either of those, but the quickest and most efficient way to get this pushed through was to choose more important battles to shed each other’s blood over.’ Get’er done’, as Larry the cable guy used to say, back when he had been a kid. An hour later, he was handing out printed reports to the other committees about the newly proposed flag, the one with an empty field of blue. Let people wonder about what it meant, if that’s all they had to do. He had a country to build.
With the delegates from two dozen states and territories in the capitol, downtown accommodations near the Old Courthouse had gotten kind of scarce. John had decided to move both his offices and his residence, to free up space for the Congressional committees to meet in, and for the delegates to stay in. A week had barely passed since his last ‘conversation’ with Carolyn, and already his security staff was overseeing the furniture and household accessories being moved into the empty turn of the 20th century four story warehouse he had picked out.
The sturdy red brick structure had been converted to lofts in Downtown West, just eleven blocks from the Old Courthouse. The remodeling should be done in another two weeks. It gave him plenty of space for the added security Kip had brought on after the assassination attempt. The first floor would be an office space for his secretary and Kip and himself, with a reception area in front and a common kitchen and lounge in the back for recreation and hosting small gatherings. The second floor would have ten individual bedrooms, one for each of his security staff, and showers and restrooms and a small lounge where they could eat or hang out. Kip’s suite was on the third floor, along with a library and the large armory, probably the most important room in the building. On top, the fourth floor would have his master suite, a safe room, another armory, and a private lounge. It also held the only access to the roof, where General Harrison’s birthday present to him resided: the Lt. Col.’s very own newly refurbished Vietnam era Bell Uh-1 Iroquois, delivered straight from Lambert Field, complete with two pilots as his own aircrew, now on full time staff with the eight member black-uniformed security force. The Iroquois was armed with two 7.62 mm M-60 machine guns and two 7 round 70 mm rocket pods, one of each on either side.
Kip had picked up the other five new guys from the Air Force Special Operations Group ParaRescue team when they had moved over from Wright-Patterson. As far as Harrison cared, it was just an inter-Unit personnel transfer. He was happy to be busy as acting Commander in Chief of all of the armed forces between the Appalachians and the Rockies. It seemed to McNabb that he was doing a good job of bringing all the militias and private armies and Guard and Reserve units and regular armed forces together in a single chain of command. Their coordination and joint operations had been getting smoother every day, that was for sure. Good enough to stop the bleedout of career officers to Bellefont’s little empire in Texas.
With the moving, and the Congressional meetings every day, he hadn’t had time to worry about the argument with Carolyn. His birthday had come and gone without a word from her, or even the damn birthday presents she had risked a nuclear submarine to have looted, for that matter. The Post Dispatch hadn’t mentioned him in a week, but the BBC and London Times and all of the other international media now permanently ensconced in the city followed him around like puppies. If anything, now more than ever. He knew that Carolyn’s absence had been discussed in the newsrooms as a story unto itself, but not worth reporting on if they wanted any future access to the Congressional Chairman. She kept her distance, and he didn’t feel that he had any reason to apologize, so it was a stalemate. Maybe he had a reputation among the power groupie newshounds. Three or four of the female reporters had been in competition with one another for a few days to get the most face time with him.
One of the features that McNabb liked best about the warehouse building, aside from the fact that it was the tallest structure on the block, was the small enclosed patio garden in the back. It was just enough room for some grass and a few bushes and two trees for a shady area. He had a couple of tables and some chairs brought to the circle of shade. In the corner of the patio garden, up against the high cyclone fence topped by razor wire, was a row of flowers newly planted, to pretty the place up. At the end of that row was one smaller mound from which nothing would ever grow. It was a tomb of sorts, for a body which had never lived, and yet would never die. Barbie rested there, in peace.
Over the next two weeks, the Second New American Congress made quite a lot of progress. Without partisan bickering, nearly eighty more coal powered plants were located in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois that were in operational condition, and plans made to bring them back online with coal that would be shipped by rail from friendly areas in West Virginia. They should be added to the power grid by the anniversary of the collapse, in May. At the same time the Agriculture Committee reported that the seed, fertilizer, and tractor fuel had been located, along with the coordination of mechanical parts and repair to get the machinery running, to plant the Midwest’s corn crop by the regular start time next month, beginning in Illinois and working their way north through ,Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota through June. They were focusing on getting the highest volume yield areas planted first, then working the marginal areas with whatever they had left over.
The Unified Command of the armed forces was a done deal, they had a new flag to begin painting and sewing everywhere, and they had set the next Congressional meeting date for two months fro
m now, in the middle of June, right after the planting season was done. The gold in Ft. Knox and three other Federal reserves had been counted, and the gold from fifty-six major bank vaults across the nation liberated and added to it, to back a new currency, a new monetary system, really, called the New Dollar. Those notes were being printed right here and introduced, first as pay for the armed forces, then to trickle down from there. Reaching out to other countries and managing international relations, they had all willingly left up to him. Eagerly, in fact. He didn’t blame them.
Lt. Col. John W. McNabb thanked them all for their hard work, urged them to stay in touch during the recess, and reminded them to work on organizing the scheduled general elections planned for November. Representatives and Senators from each state and territory would be elected through the popular vote, just as lined out in the U.S. Constitution. They would try to go by that roadmap, as well as they could, under the current circumstances. General Harrison, as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, functioned as the head of the Executive branch in theory, but in practice, John ran the ship of state’s day to day operations, and everybody knew it. There was no Judicial branch above the county court level, with the exception of a few district courts still holding irregular sessions, but that was evening out. In fact, McNabb wanted an outsider, like himself, to help him rebuild a Supreme Court, instead of the Federal judges from the capitol who were waving their hands screaming “pick me”, practically. Maybe that Klan lawyer, the delegate from Arkansas, Jason Roberts, he seemed to be up on the Constitutional structure of the Court, as it was meant to have been. He’d schedule a meeting. And open diplomatic relations with a select few countries, since that was his baby to spank.
The morning after the Congressional delegates all went home for their two month recess, he moved his personal effects into the newly finished ‘warehouse’, as they all had taken to calling it. The smell of new wood and paint was welcoming. The workers were just sweeping up the last of the construction debris from the inside remodeling. The Lt. Col.’s security team was adjusting the outside cameras and inside monitors through walkie-talkies. This was home. He was so exhausted from the Second New American Congress that he slept most of the next day while his staff moved in and the groceries, linens, towels, toiletries, appliances, and other items liberated from the Galleria Mall were delivered and installed.
The next few days John spent giving interviews in his new office to the Sunday Mirror from the U.K., the Bild from Germany, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta from Moscow, and again, the BBC. It was often the same questions, these days. He had no comment on the actions of Vice Admiral Robert Woods or the U.S. Seventh and Third Fleets, as they were not integrated into the Unified Command, but he was in communication with the Admiral and hoped their forces would cooperate more closely in the near future. No, he was not the acting President, or anything like it. His office and position were officially as an appointed Congressman from Indiana, and the Chairman of the just-completed session of Congress. In their opinion, the Presidential line of succession had been broken when the Vice President, having resigned through his actions and never taken the Presidential Oath of Office, had declared himself the leader of a foreign nation, and the remaining successors were…rendered unavailable to fulfill the duties of the office of President. That is why a new Constitutional Convention was planned, to begin June 15th. An acting President would be chosen, a system of government maintained and confirmed, and then this fall, general elections would be held.
The tall, leggy young reporter in the short skirt from the Bild asked him his opinion about the ongoing deportations of German Muslims from shariatowns by the NPD led government. His response was that it was not his place to comment on the internal security measures of sovereign nations, but he certainly supported their right to secure their borders and protect their citizens. A brunette from the Sunday Mirror had all but climbed up on his desk asking him whether it was true that he was one of the most powerful men in North America, and was he in fact building a new nation, here, or resurrecting the United States. McNabb had demurred that it took many men and women working together to return their nation to the intent of its founding people, regardless of any changes to the government itself, or its continuity.
The male reporter from the Russian Rossiyskaya Gazeta sat stiffly, and gave away his true role through his military bearing. He was there on state business, and more than just because the paper was government-ran. The Lt. Col. had acknowledged that by speaking frankly with him. He wished to extend his gratitude and appreciation to the people of Russia for their help in delivering General Ferguson’s command out of Afghanistan. The people of America were indebted to Russia for this act of friendship, and would honor that friendship in the future. In fact, he would like to extend and offer for the Russian government to open a consulate in St. Louis, at their discretion. At some point in the future, he would be interested in discussing the return of Gen. Ferguson’s command to…home, of course. He steadfastly avoided using the term “United States” any more. It was barely too early to consistently use the term “North America”, but the foreign media already were, almost exclusively. He would let them do the legwork on pushing that meme, for him.
The BBC crew were interested in videotaping reams of New Dollars being printed, the Air Force honor guard at Lambert field raising the new starless flag, and lots of B roll footage of McNabb walking up the Old Courthouse steps, McNabb talking on the phone, and McNabb’s mini-motorcade driving through town. They even filmed McNabb attending services at the First Baptist Church, which these days was teaching that people of European ancestry were the true Israelites of the Bible.
When the video shooters packed up their gear, they, the Daily Mirror, and the German and Russian journalists all boarded the Lufthansa flight they had collectively chartered together from London. John thought that was funny, the Germans and Brits and Russians working as a team. He watched as they took off from Lambert, headed north to the newly reopened O’Hare. That took him back a few months to those bitter days in Chicago. It seemed like so long ago, now. The fifty passenger CRJ-200 would land, refuel, and head east again across the dark Atlantic to Heathrow, in about thirteen hours. A world away.
As Kip and John and the two guards pulled back into the loading dock of their new home, Alan, one of the new guys, was standing at the reinforced metal gate, grinning like a possum. While they had been out, a courier had made a delivery. When he opened the package, McNabb first say the handwritten note in the familiar script: “Sorry this is late. Let me know if, and when, you have time for me. I’d like to talk.” It didn’t have a signature, but didn’t need one. Inside the large box was another box, containing a silver plated Colt .45 with the initials “E.A.P.” engraved in the handles and “T.C.B.” on the slide. Under it was a gold record, the first, with “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”. He couldn’t help grinning, too.
After a cigarette to think about it, he asked Daniel and Mike, his pilots, to fire up the Iroquois. He wanted to take a sightseeing tour. Within half an hour they were skimming over the Old Courthouse, around the arch, and over the river, where two U.S. Coast Guard cutters guarded over the surface moored USS Nebraska. Through his headset, John directed his pilots to circle around northwest. A small crowd looked up when they landed in the grassy area of InterCo Plaza. They came up to shake his hand when he walked across Dr. Martin Luther King., Jr. drive (have to rename that soon, he thought to himself) to the Post Dispatch offices. In his mind on the way over, he had fantasized that she would meet him at the door and run into his arms. Life never works out quite like you plan. It took ten minutes of stomping around with his bodyguards and a trail of reporters not so subtly following him before one of them pointed him to where she was with a smirk. Oh well. She looked happy to see him, even if she did pretend to be put out by the interruption in her routine.
He practically dragged her into the helicopter at gunpoint. They didn’t say a word until the Iroquois, which he�
��d had painted solid black in jest, came to rest on the roof of the warehouse. The crew and guards discretely withdrew downstairs. Then, showing her the panoramic view of the city around them, he popped the question.
“What do you mean, you want me to quit my job? Are you crazy? I’m like Barbara
Walters and Dianne S awyer and Margaret Thatcher rolled into one!” Carolyn exclaimed. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Eva Braun or Leni Riefenstahl, but
whatever. No, this government, this new country, all of these people you see around you,
Carolyn, they need you. Okay, I need you. The people are going to need a government,
and that government is going to need a Press Secretary. I’m offering you the job.” “But would I be working for the government, whoever or whatever that is, or for you,
John? I don’t know about this. I’m comfortable where I am. No offense, I’m flattered, I
guess, but…I worked my way up to the top…” McNabb interrupted her. “One, you’d be
working for me, if that makes any difference. As MY press secretary. And two, you’re
not at the top, yet. Not quite. But we can get there, from here. Together. You and me.