The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  And crown thy good with brotherhood…

  John’s eyes were so tired that his right one twitched. It had never quite recovered completely from the bomb intended to put him down for an eternal nap, nearly five years ago. He slipped his hand up and under his glasses, rubbing his temples and then his eyes with his thumb and trigger finger. The tension eased for a moment. His head swam, and his ears were ringing so loud that it was a distraction. In his early forties, it was more a question of mileage, than year model. Or maybe, it was being the dad to a toddler. The General moved his hand down as if straightening his uniform. He tried to focus on what the German Ambassador was saying. Gerta Rausch-Schmidt played fast pitch. You took your eye off of the ball at your own peril, around her. Even here, in his office in the Old Courthouse, she leaned back in her chair as if she was at home. He wished she was.

  “If a Major of the Deutsche Heer was forced to re -deploy his forces out of northern Philadelphia when it was bombed, then that is an issue for the German government to assess”, Gerta stated. She was middle-aged herself, but well preserved, and spoke with a light accent.

  “Surely, our brothers, and sisters in the NPD haven’t so quickly forgotten our vo cal support for your NeuAnschluss last year, have they, Gerta? After all, you’re a southern girl yourself, aren’t you?” The Brigadier General in the Unified New American Armed Forces Command and Speaker of the House of Representatives of the New American Congress responded with a weary smile.

  Her blonde head shook. “No, Mr. Speaker, we have not. We are very pleased to consider New America our friend and ally, not just on the Austrian question, but in every sense. However, if Major Strosser used German military equipment and personnel in a manner for which he did not have approval by either the U.N. or the Chancellor,…” Gerta began. John slapped his knee in frustration.

  “Oh, come on, we’ve went round and round about this, already. We had a Marine Colonel of our own lead his company out of D.C., along with ragtag U.S. Army and Air Force and even French Air Force survivors, the very same day. I think you know Col. Smith, right? You knew him before that happened. Nobody is acting butt-hurt that they did what they had to do when the missiles fell. So come on, tell me, are ya’ll bothered more by the fact that Strosser high-tailed it West into Pennsylvania, or that he used German taxpayer paidfor tanks, or that he hasn’t bothered to phone home to report in for over four years, that bothers you so much?” John pushed her. For the last few years Gerta had been a close friend of the family, as well as the German Consul, and then Ambassador, to the fledgling Republic of New America. Many times after she had tutored General McNabb’s adopted daughter Hope in German, French, or Italian, she had stayed over for dinner with the family. Often, if the Cardinals weren’t playing a home game, the best entertainment was debate. That, and going to church, but there were six other days in the week. They had both gotten to know how to push each other’s buttons.

  “No, John, the trucks and tanks and planes and other material the U.S. European Command left behind when they evacuated was payment in full for whatever we might have left here when our U.N. contingents were cut off. But we are concerned about desertion.” She pulled her skirt down closer to her knee. “We understand that Major Strosser took up the defense of a small town called Prosperity, in Pennsylvania, yes?” Gerta asked.

  “Yeah,” John confirmed, “It’s about forty miles south of Pittsburgh. The local militia had kind of ingeniously used steel plating from the local steel mill to build a wall around the town.” His fingers absentmindedly traced the top of a black leather holster holding the silver-plated Colt .45 as he remembered the details. A gift from his wife, it had once belonged to Elvis Presley. “That had kept the looters and refugees out since Cinco Day. They’d set themselves up as a strong city-state through trade. But, when Baltimore and New York and Philly and D.C. and Toronto got hit, a new wave of refugees poured out of the East Coast cities. The rural areas around them were flooded, again. Everybody thought they were going to be next to be bombed. You remember how it was…well, you were back over there that day. Anyway, it was a panicked time. If Strosser hadn’t shown up when he did, Prosperity might not have been able to make it, but they did.”

  “So, your militia fought us as invaders in some places, but when German tanks were shooting scared American women and children refugees, they became heroes. I understand. They saved them the bullets. And, they saved them the guilt.” Gerta sighed heavily and brushed back a strand of her flaxen hair. “I do understand. The German government has no desire to request the arrest or extradition of Major Strosser or any of his men for their actions. They will not be charged with desertion or dereliction. However, they will be stripped of their German citizenships, if they do not choose to come home voluntarily. Agreed?”

  “Gerta, do you know how many Pennsylvanians are descended from German Hessian mercenaries who refused to go back home after the first American Revolution was over?” McNabb asked playfully. They had already joked about that particular irony, before. “Sure, we’ll offer them New American citizenship, in exchange for past services rendered. Most of them have already put down roots around Prosperity, joined the local militia, and started families there, anyway.” His back hurt from sitting so long, so he uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “Besides, nobody on our side fussed when that old actor who used to talk to his car and run around on the beach was granted citizenship by you guys with a refugee visa.”

  “Ja, ja. Zehr gut. Now, John, I mean, Mr. Speaker…you do know what “Speaker” translates into, in Latin, yes?” Gerta smiled. “The N.P.D. is grateful for our mutually beneficial trade in your corn and wheat for our manufactured products and autos again this year, and glad to have a friend such as New America, which is still among the world’s strongest nuclear powers.” Gerta hesitated, looking down at her hands, then out the window of John’s office at the marble arch in the distance. “Of course, officially Greater Germany does not possess nuclear weapons, and does not desire them. Officially.” She gave the recently promoted single-star General a wink of one blue eye. “But, as you know, when the Party emptied out the last of the shariatowns, they had to be sent somewhere. We needed an...ahem, a final solution, as they say it, to the Muslim problem. With Turkey already becoming a caliphate of the Islamic State, they were the closest…how do you say…contenders?” John nodded and shrugged for her to continue. “Well, the tens of thousands of Muslims we dumped there put more pressure on the Greeks trying to hold them out of their own yard, as you know. So, we have had some resentment from our Golden Dawn friends in control of their parliament in Athens. Our economic aid to them has not been all out of brotherly love.” she added, cynically. Her frown showed tiny lines at the corners of her mouth.

  “But what does that have to do with me? With us? With New America? We don’t have any forces East of the Appalachians. “ John interrupted. The meeting was running over time. He had three appointments waiting their turn.

  Gerta held up a wellmanicured hand to stop him. “Let us not be coy, John. We have been friends for far too long for that, yes? Look, we know that you have met with the Russian ambassador last week. We know that you were told that the 11,400 members of the old U.S. armed forces out of the coalition troops in Afghanistan have been moved by rail to Volgograd, finally. Finally, after being used as “auxiliaries” by the Russians to beat their Islamic Republic neighbors into submission, all those Stans, over the last four years. You are talking to Ferguson, yes? Only eleven thousand left, General, but they still have some armor and they still have some air power and we know that Lieutenant General Ferguson has given his oath of loyalty to General of the Army Harrison and the Unified Command. They haven’t…how do you say…’gone native’ on you, John.”

  He tried to be in the moment, and not think about the rest of his day. John said a quick and silent prayer for patience and wisdom. “No, they haven’t. But while we are in contact with them, they know that we still can’t bring them home. Our hope is that when t
he situation improves…”McNabb began.

  “ The situation will NOT improve, here or there, unless we or you or somebody else improves it, we both know that. We also know that “Ferocious Ferguson” and his division are going to Tblisi, next, to drive the Islamic State jihadists out of Georgia. The Russians fear their soft underbelly is exposed, as they should. THAT is what your meeting with the Russian Ambassador was about, yes?” Gerta dared him to deny it.

  “My compliments to your agents,” John said in acknowledgement, but with a sour look on his face. Gerta chuckled, a deep, throaty laugh of amusement.

  “Oh, don’t be too angry, Gen. McNabb. We know that you have people of your own in Killeen and Salt Lake City and yes, in Berlin, too. Like it is said, ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your closest friends the closest, this is true, ja?” Gerta’s eyes sparkled.

  “Okay, assuming that was true, how does it affect Greater Germany?” he asked. A flight of transport planes hopping from Lambert Field to Scott Air Force Base, newly reopened on the east side of the river, made him have to speak louder than he liked, to be heard.

  “Oh, anything that happens West of the Urals affects Greater Germany, of course, these days, more and more. But, in this case, we come to you because we owe a favor to our Golden Dawn little brothers, for pouring our Muslims out so next to them in the first place and making their problems worse. In short, when Gen. Ferguson hits the Islamic State from the Northeast, the ripple effect will push more Muslims to the Southeast. And this is not a good thing for Greece, no, not at all,” the German Ambassador frowned again. “So, we need you to make sure that the Muslims do not get the…the domino effect..yes…that Greece is not overrun. We need something to happen in the West, to keep them from running that way, when Ferguson hits them in the East.” She leaned back, finished.

  “Holy…so that’s what you meant about us still being a nuclear power? You want us to”…..John stopped himself from saying it out loud. His office had been swept for bugs, this morning, as it was every day, by his personal Secret Service security team. He still didn’t like saying it, though. He remembered Colorado Springs, Omaha, D.C., Baltimore, New York, and a dozen other cities, all now gone.

  “Everybody says that John McNabb is the smartest man in the New American government.” was all that Gerta said in direct response. “But of course, we understand that the loss of the two American airbases, with so many lives, and the way the Turkish government joined in, the stab in the back, is a sore point for many in your armed forces. It would be completely understandable if a little revenge was in order, yes?” The petitioners waiting under Brenda’s watch in the outer office would have to wait a bit longer.

  We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds…

  Kelly’s daily routine had allowed her to forget the parades in honor of the wrongfully arrested Sister Missionary she had been welcomed home as. She would never forget the months of debriefings and interrogations and close monitoring the Church had put her through to make sure that she hadn’t been turned, though. Her arrest for espionage was covered with a Homosexuality charge by the goons that killed her partner (in a mission sense of the word, not in a lesbian sense). In Deseret, homosexuality was a capital offense, these days. Even in New America, it was a serious felony. She’d ended up spending six months in a medium security workhouse jail in St. Louis, being interrogated every day by former U.S. Army intelligence officers and their poster boy, McNabb. They knew her mission, knew her contact, and knew her history. They had their stuff together, for sure. He’d even known her birthday, and brought her a cake in her cell when she turned twenty-five. How thoughtful.

  After her pardon “for diplomatic relations” when the Deseret Consulate opened, she was placed on conditional release. Kelly had been allowed to work for the Consular General sent from Salt Lake City, and live in the old Community College Consular offices near Busch Stadium. That had been a boring year, winning back the Council of Fifty’s trust and doing menial and boring secretarial tasks. Worse than the workhouse, really. They hadn’t remembered her birthday. Almost two years after her mission had begun, she finally was ‘recalled’ home to a hero’s welcome, and debriefing. ‘Now, THAT was a cooling off period’, she had thought at the time. She was back in Salt Lake, and because of her name recognition as a heroine for Deseret, had been boosted up. She had learned to demonstrate more faith than she felt, as well. Kelly Johansen was amused to find herself the First Counselor, or Head, of the Department of Internal Communications within the Deseret Department of Public Safety.

  She enjoyed the larger apartment perk, which all of her old personal belongings (except for the illegal shortwave transceiver and a few banned books) had been moved out of storage and into, for her. With Mrs. Murphy, her across the hall neighbor and dead friend Emma’s mom, in the L.D.S. Church-run nursing home, there was nothing left for her in the old place. She still visited every week, and brought the old lady treats. She even sat and read the Book of Mormon to her. Deseret produced gasoline from shale oil deposits, but it was still rationed for civilian use. Most of the petroleum was needed for Gull, Beehive, and Saint units. Their grinding urban warfare operations in the ruins of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix required constant resupply. The First Presidency claimed all of the land to the Gila River and the Pacific, but the Mexican Army hadn’t given up Tucson or Chula Vista. Kelly didn’t mind walking a few blocks to work, to help the cause. It was closer than her old place had been. Being right next to Southridge Park made the apartment prime for her, too. With so many Saints moving into Deseret from all over North America in the first couple of years after the collapse, places like hers were at a premium. Most places that big went to Bishops. She was one of the elite, now. Or so they kept telling her.

  The pictures the Gull unit clearing the U.C.L.A. campus of La Republica del Norte holdouts took in her sister’s dorm room hadn’t brought closure to Kelly. The room was a mess, but Karen had always been sloppy. With their artillery barrage on the guerrillas encamped at the hill, there were plenty of bodies, both of Aztlan Reconquistadores and their White female slaves, but none of them had fit Karen’s description. A few of them had been close, close enough that Kelly had looked at their post-mortem pictures used to document Mexican atrocities against Whites. None were her sister, though. Karen might still be out there, somewhere. Most likely, she was long dead and lost, Kelly knew and accepted. Just one more dead White girl among the millions of others who had died when southern California fell to the Latino rebellion. She was grateful for the pictures of the dorm room, anyway. Rank did have its privileges.

  Sometimes Kelly wondered if Karen might have headed north, when things got really bad. If she had made it out of El Lay, and gone north of Fresno, she would have been in the area occupied by the Chinese. The People’s Humanitarian Expedition forces had rounded up thousands of Whites from their area of control and shipped them off by rail to Carson City and Reno. In fact, a commune of former Hollyweird A-listers were now trying to farm in the desert. Everyone had been really impressed with Kelly’s patriotism when she encouraged Deseret forces to keep pushing to the Sierra Nevadas and the Pacific. With the exception of maybe her Intelligence Division handler, Jimmy, none of them guessed that her motivation was personal. Karen might be one of the fifty-three million who had died throughout North America during the last five years since the collapse. She might, on the other hand, be among the hundred and eighteen million displaced persons and refugees, squeezing out a new life somewhere. Either way, Kelly had felt that the annexation of Nevada into Deseret was completely justified, since it might help her find her sister. But, no dice, she hadn’t been found there, either.

  Throughout Deseret, from the Snake River to the Arapaho National Forest, and from Bakersfield to Farmington, a standing A.P.B. was out to every local, County, and Deseret National law enforcement agency to keep on the lookout for Karen. It still took Kelly by surprise to see the posters with the picture of the oval-faced brunette
who looked so much like herself. That was about all that she could for her sister, except pray. Kelly wasn’t very good at that, not that she didn’t get enough practice. Church every week, like every other good Saint. Some better than others.

  She still lived alone, in her big apartment, and still didn’t date. Jimmy said he thought that she should, just to get over the lingering suspicion of the false charge leveled against her, but she stood firm. Nobody who mattered believed it, and those who believed it, didn’t matter. Her books were Kelly’s life. He just wanted her to date, so he could propose marriage to her, she was sure. The former gamer still was a bachelor in his midthirties, in a place where most men in his position had two or three wives. He said that he was holding out for her. What a nerd.

  He was probably more intrigued by her, than attracted to her, she felt. That conversation they had drifted off into in her office after work a few weeks ago was a prime example. Jimmy had pointed out that the scripture was clearly against interracial relationships, so they could use that as a commonality with New American prisoners they interrogated. Kelly had responded that even for the nonreligious, since not all New Americans were Christian Identity, it was logical that multiracialism destroyed the true diversity that nature required for natural selection to continue the evolutionary process. Whenever she said things like that. Jimmy would look around as if he expected a Bishop or maybe Prophet Rammell himself to be standing over them, frowning.

  His paranoid reaction just made her go furt her with it. “I mean, really Jimmy, we’re not much different from dogs, different dog breeds are the same as different human races, we may be members of the same species, just like they are, but nobody goes around telling the kennel club that the only differences between a pit bull and a poodle is in the color of their coat, do they?”

  Jimmy turned green and tried to caution her. “Well, of course I understand what you mean, but you oughta be careful saying that we’re the same as dogs. Our divine spirit…” Kelly interrupted him.