The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  After a couple more weeks of going to her classes and catching up on the work she had missed, her grades improved. Hope was still Emo, though, especially around her guards. She chose to blame them for how unhappy her life was. The way everybody knew who she was now, or at least whose daughter she was, made it worse. It was like half of them were afraid of her and the other half wanted to take selfies with her and have her come to their parties to show her off. Hope had a word for people who acted like they were her friends, but really just wanted to be close to her so they could claim to know somebody in the Nationalist movement. She called them ‘Papanazis’. She thought that was clever. Some of the cute guys wanted to know if she could introduce them to her dad, some day, and a lot of them asked her out just because she was the Speaker’s daughter, and that, like, totally ruined it for her.

  Chicago was a young city again. People Hope’s age and i n their twenties and thirties poured in from around the Midwest, with coal trains from West Virginia, loads of raw steel from West Pennsylvania, beef from Montana and Wyoming and Dakota, wheat from Kansas, and corn from downstate Illinois and Indiana and Iowa. Those trains exhaled out again filled with pharmaceuticals and automobiles and trucks and tractors and mechanical parts from Europe. It thrummed with life. Hope loved the feeling of new opportunity and promise in the city, as the population of Chicago began to rival St. Louis’s at a quarter million, again.

  Despite the vibrancy of the boomtown, however, there were huge swaths of abandoned areas inside the loop, especially on the south side of town. Hope never went into the dead zones. They were barricaded off, and populated only by ghosts at night. During the day, they had a life of their own, as salvage crews mined them for building materials, metals, and durable goods that could be refurbished after over four years of neglect. Her security babysitters, seen and unseen, wouldn’t let her into an unsecure area like that. There were plenty of places in the repopulated neighborhoods where the scars of war and death and human suffering still showed. Buildings with the windows boarded up. Ruined edifices being bulldozed to make room for community gardens. Nobody had to be told what The Windy City had gone through. The marks were everywhere for them to see.

  She was so sick of having to represent the family, and act proper all the time, with people watching her. It was like they thought she was some kind of European royalty, ‘Princess Hope’, or something. She hated being a celebrity. Nobody was real towards her, now. She was more sure than ever that there more of her adoptive dad’s security people around than just the ones in uniform. Because of their black color, she called the uniformed Secret Service the “S.S.” for short. That made some of them smile, and others of them cringe, a little. That’s how she could tell the difference between which ones were cool, and which ones weren’t. But there were always guys in suits with earpieces in their ears sitting in odd corners when she went out to eat, or passing her on the street when she went out shopping. They tried to be inconspicuous, and hide the wires going down into their jackets, but nobody listened to an Ipod that much!

  The courier who tried to deliver a letter to her on Tuesday got tackled by some random guy walking by before he could hand the envelope to her. The courier on Wednesday was crossing the street towards her on his bike when a black Yukon Denali swerved in between them and stopped. When it pulled away, he was gone. The courier on Thursday just handed the page to her, nonchalantly, as he walked by her table. Before her minder could grab it, she read the note. It was from Nigel. His new job had transferred him home to England. He didn’t know when he would be able to come back. It was goodbye, for now. When Hope began crying, three men in plain clothes and two men in black uniforms rushed to her side, to see if she was okay. No, she wasn’t. She was a real long way from okay.

  Slipping away again was the hard part, with things tightened up around her. Buying her way onboard the big ship carrying tons of wheat and corn from the port of Chicago to England had been comparatively easy, considering the size of her allowance. She had enough left over to buy food from the crew along the way, and to live on for a while once she got there and looked for Nigel. She imagined how happy he would be to see her, and pictured him hugging her; his surprise, his love, him holding her in his arms. It would be perfect. Hope couldn’t wait.

  Life goes by so fast, you only wanna do what you think is right. Close your eyes, and it’s passed, story of my life…

  When Cinco Day kicked off the final collapse of the global monetary markets, it wasn’t long before financing for the U.N. funded clinics and hospitals fighting the Ebola virus in West Africa began to dry up. The European doctors and nurses packed up and went home, except for the few true liberals who stayed on as volunteers and died. For the most part, within a month, the international health effort had retreated to Liberia, where it was headquartered. In another month, they had evacuated, too. ‘Doctors Without Borders’ became ‘Borders Without Doctors’. Then the local regimes collapsed, and so did those borders. Most African nations had simply been artificial, White-created constructs. The real loyalty within those states was tribal and ethnic, and always had been.

  The withdrawal of Western economic and humanitarian aid began a downward spiral in the region. By the end of the first year, Ebola and dysentery and the starvation resulting from the collapse of the infrastructure in several nations had killed millions. First, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, and Mali fell. The smaller states didn’t have far to fall. Millions more in Gabon, Cameroon, the promising and powerful Nigeria, and the Central African Republic perished in ethnic and tribal fighting, as Ebola swept eastwards like a wildfire before the wind. Nigeria’s collapse was the most surprising to outside observers, but the collapse happened there with an unexpected ferocity, as the oil and other natural resources simply provided more reason for people there to fight one another. A coup d’etat in Lagos sponsored by the Muslim northern half of the country led to a semi-religious, semi-ethnic civil war between the Muslim Hausa tribe and the Yoruba and Igbo in the South.

  Most of the survivors starved, with noone caring enough or able to send in pallets of food supplies. In six months, there were no standing national governments from Senegal to the Seychilles. In a year, the equatorial African population had shrunk by 80-90%. Power abhors a vacuum, though, so once the virus had burned itself out due to a lack of hosts, Islam took over. Not just in Nigeria, but in a reunited Sudan and then in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Caliphates were established. The mosques could be built small, as the populations had bottlenecked.

  Somalia had already been a Muslim country. Mogadishu was still a huge city, however, as the Fifth could see as the fleet trailed the Eisenhower off the coast of Liido Beach . The smoke from cookfires could be seen on land. In between the Eisenhower and the shore, several fishing boats and scrapped ships bobbed up and down at anchor. The tiny black figures onboard simply stared at the New American fleet in awe. When they had passed the island nation of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, some natives in outrigger canoes had tried to chase them, of all things. The cruise missiles they’d fired off into Dar es Salaam just to say ‘hello’ in passing must have stirred the local hornets’ nest. Because of that, standing orders were to prepare to repel boarders, or fight off pirates; but the sight of the huge aircraft carrier was too intimidating for the Somalis to challenge. The Fifth continued north, towards the Horn.

  So if you’re down on your luck, I know we all sympathize Find a girl with far away eyes…

  During the 19th century, the Kars region had been taken by Russia, a couple of times. In fact, there was still a sizable Russian and Polish minority in the city. As Orthodox Christians, the last few years of Islamic State rule had been pretty rough on them. At first, Christians in northeastern Turkey were allowed to continue to practice their faith if they paid a high tax for the privilege. Soon, though, the crackdown began, as the hardliners, angered by the Israeli nuclear strikes, got tough with any non-Muslim populations within their area of influence. There had been mass beh
eadings and executions when some refused to follow Sharia law. That gave General Ferguson and his hardened veterans some very staunch allies for the final assault on the area around the key town of 70,000 people. The local Slavs had served as guides for the American Foreign Legions ever since they’d wrapped things up victoriously in Tblisi.

  Except for a week of R and R at the Sevan National Park in Armenia, they had never seen such a cold, dusty, rocky, mountainous, God-forsaken pile of gravel as the whole region they’d been fighting in. Amazingly, too many of the locals felt like it was worth dying for. Apparently, they thought it was worth killing for, too, as Ferguson had lost over six hundred and fifty men from his command in the siege of Baku, alone. It was a large city spreading out onto a peninsula in the Caspian, or had been, before they’d been shown a way in by one of the Christian guides through the Sumgayit Bypass Highway, around the lake. It was pretty tame, now.

  After they made examples out of the President and Prime Minister of Azerbaijan for giving them so much trouble, Yerevan capitulated, giving them Armenia without too bad of a hassle. They didn’t have enough manpower to occupy the three nations, or begin separating out and retiring all of the Muslims, but that wasn’t in their job description. That was what the Russians were following them in for, once they’d softened them up for them.

  Iranian forces had not only reversed the I.S. assault on Tabriz, they’d pushed the Sunnis back over the old border and occupied Van, with the lake making a much more natural border between the two Muslim factions . Moscow had made a deal with Tehran that might save the two legion’s bacon. If the Iranians would push towards the Bhutan River Valley and put pressure on Siirt, to give the I.S. two fronts to fight on, they would finally get what they had been after for a generation: accelerated Russian help with their nuclear program. Tehran had agreed, asking only to be told ‘when’.

  The week at Sevan was badly needed for making repairs on equipment and vehicles, caring for their wounded, and shuffling troops around to fill in the gaps from the nine Centuries, or almost a thousand men, they’d lost in the last six weeks. This was the bloodiest, costliest campaign they had been in, so far, since Cinco Day had left them stranded over four years ago. Ferguson’s command was down to just over 10,100 men, less than half what he had started out with. They were the best of the best, though, and better than they ever had been. By early December, their lakefront vacation was over. It was pretty, but with the daytime temperatures hovering around freezing and dipping well below it at night, it wasn’t what the New American Foreign Legions thought of as the typical Middle Eastern experience. It sure wasn’t what they’d gotten used to in the ‘Stans, except for their winters bivouacked in the high deserts.

  Regardless of how hard the city defenders had resisted in Baku, what the Americans had been dealing with were not the best the I.S. had to throw at him, the General knew. Mainly, they’d faced goat-herders and farmers with AKs, one rusty magazine each, and a pair of second-hand boots. The legions had gone up against minimal armor and air defense, so far. His staff and the Intelligence officers told him that a modern army defended what had been Turkey. That would be a true test of hi men, their Orthodox guides…and of himself and his leadership ability. When the Russian advance forces caught up with them at Yerevan after sprinkling garrisons all over the Caucasus like salt on a field of pepper, the legions crossed the border, into the Islamic Caliphate of Turkey.

  Igdir had been bigger than Kars, but for some reason the I.S. declined to defend it. General Ferguson wished he could stop and take a better look at Mt. Ararat, since he was there, but time was miles in this chase. He left three centuries in Igdir to keep the road open in case they needed it, and to wait for the dawdling Russians, and another in Tuzluca, when they caught up with the local militia leader’s ragtag fedayeen there. After watching his two top lieutenants be shot and spending a couple of minutes of dentistry with some hot pliers, he divulged that the main body of Mujahideen regulars was waiting to ambush them in Kars. Their plan was to draw the main body of American troops further west and away from their Apache and Cobra air support, which the I.S. had to learn to fear, justly, in Baku. With the necessity of leaving Century-sized garrisons in every small town along the way to keep the road opened and hold them for the Russians, ‘by the time the body of the snake caught up with the head, the neck would be extended into the badger’s mouth’, was how the wiry little man had expressed the tactic, through the new gaps in his teeth. The Captain doing the interrogation and dental work, Rogers from the 27th Marines E.F., made a big show of paying the man generously in worthless old American dollars in front of the rest of his fedayeen, then ordered his men to prepare a defensible camp for the night.

  After the normal Russian version of an MRE for dinner, General Ferguson had a communications officer radio back to the pilots waiting with the Russians in Yerevan, to have their air support brought up to meet them at 0900 in Dagpinar, ten miles south of Kars. They only had a couple dozen airworthy helicopter gunships left, but they might make all the distance in the world if the I.S. had armor in front of them up the road. Then, he had a second call made, to the commander of the Russian forces in the Armenian capital. It was a message to be passed up the chain of command, from the Colonel to his commander, to the President of Russia: “Tell the Iranians that Ferguson says ‘now’.

  The men were a bit bummed that it was close to Christmas again, and they were still stuck here. The soldiers with families, and children, were still dreaming of getting back stateside, some day. As he tried to sleep, Ferguson wondered how many more nights he was from home. He had to admit, it felt closer and more real, every day. Even though he’d never married, and wasn’t close to any of his family, he felt like he had a duty to his men, to get them home to theirs. They were his family, the only family he needed, the General thought, as he turned over in his blanket by the fire and rested his eyes before the climactic battle in the morning.

  Chapter Five

  “A gen eral belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” –Mahatma Ghandi

  You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will, but what a thrill. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire…

  What was wrong with her? Kelly Johansen had never been the kind of girl to fall in love. Especially not with some overly macho redneck cowboy from Texas. But once she’d gotten back from the terribly embarrassing fiasco of an espionage operation to Oregon, the powers that be weren’t content to leave her be. Oh no, they had to see what else the Head of the Department of Internal Communications was capable of. So, they’d asked her to help the Ambassador from the Republic of Texas (the new one, the old one had all the ‘Brothering’ and ‘Sistering’ she could stand and went home) get acquainted with Salt Lake. Just in time for the Holidays. Jimmy said that she needed the distraction to take her mind off of Karen, since it always depressed her during Christmas to be alone. The last couple of years he had invited her over for Christmas dinner, though. If he was insinuating that he wasn’t going to this year, maybe he had a girlfriend. Kelly wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  The job seemed simple enough. All week they had been finalizing negotiations with the Argentinians, who had just concluded an advantageous cease-fire arrangement with Brazil after medium sized nuclear blasts had hollowed out Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Porto Alegre. Plus, the Republica del Norte government in Phoenix wanted to negotiate Deseret letting the Mexican farmers who’d moved into the state park there have water rights from Lake Havasu. Then there were the guerrillas who’d declared the Channel Islands independent and who’d been raiding the Mormon colony in L.A. like modern day Vikings. That kept the regular diplomatic corps of the LDS nation so busy that they needed her to show the Texican Ambassador where he was supposed to wor
k, where he was supposed to sleep, and where he could eat, just like a toddler. The acculturation process would include covering local LDS laws he might not be used to, such as the prohibitions against caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol, and introducing him to the local Bishop for the capital region he would be staying in. Maybe even take him to church, and introduce him, the first time.

  The failure in Oregon hadn’t been her fault. That was obvious to everyone. The mission had just become redundant. But the way she’d questioned the logic and necessity of it afterwards had angered some higher ups. They didn’t like to be mocked, on The Council of Fifty. No sense of humor, at all.

  For most of her adult life, Kelly had avoided romantic entanglements. They were just too dramatic and icky and complicated, and always ended badly. It was safer to stick with her books, where the dialogue could be controlled with a turn of the page. That’s why she was surprised to be attracted to Josh Walker. Maybe it was the tan Stetson hat or the ostrich skin boots. Or maybe it was the sunburned face, the pale blue eyes, and the dirty blonde hair peeking out for under the cowboy hat. Whatever the ingredients, Kelly liked the recipe.