The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  She had still been feeling resentful at having to do this low-end diplomatic work, feeling like it was either some kind of punishment for Oregon, or a sign of distrust. Was she being sidelined, or pushed out of the way, because she wasn’t devout enough? Had somebody called her out as a heretic? She couldn’t let paranoia take over. Probably, they were just testing her, again.

  So, when the long-legged Texican walked into her outer office, Kelly watched his graceful entrance through the glass half-wall partition with little interest. It took a moment for her to notice how he seemed to glide into the room, like he belonged wherever he was. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, a decade older than her. Some kind of jock from an oil-rich family, his dossier said. She heard him announce himself to her secretary as Josh Walker, the Ambassador for the Republic of Texas, here to see Miss Johansen. He hadn’t said ‘Mrs.’, or ‘Ms.’, so he’d done his homework, or somebody had, at least, too. That was promising.

  Her secretary made a dramatic show of bringing him in herself, but Kelly couldn’t judge, as she herself found a pile of papers to be studying officiously when the cowboy was presented. He politely took off his hat and half bowed. She thought about how tall he was, then remembered that she was still sitting down, and hoped that her cheeks weren’t red as she rose to politely shake his hand. His grip was almost stronger than was diplomatic. She nodded at her secretary in dismissal, before they both sat down again.

  “So, Mr….Walker, is it? How long have you been in Deseret?” Kelly asked. She took the moment to study him, liking what she saw.

  “Just flew in an hour ago, ma’am, and came here straight from the airport.” he replied. Kelly noticed that he was studying her, too. She felt her cheeks flush, and thought of what to say next.

  “Mmmm-hmmm, and did you have a nice flight from Dallas?” Wow, what an inane question, she thought to herself as the words came out of her mouth.

  “Well, I’ll be honest with you, ma’am, I used to think that TSA was bad, before Cinco Day, but they never had such cold hands as a Mormon does, that’s for sure.” The ambassador joked. Kelly giggled like a schoolgirl in spite of herself. This was ridiculous. He smiled at her laughter. She thought about saying ‘some of us have colder hands than others’, but stopped herself. She was in charge here. She was the professional. He was the foreigner, the stranger, in Deseret. He should be the one off-balance. But, he wasn’t. What she finally came out with was “So, you haven’t been to your place yet, or the office?”

  The cowboy grinned at her. “It’s pretty cold outside, you’d better get your coat, ma’am.”

  He was amused to find that the Republic of Texas Embassy was in a former Thai restaurant on E. South Temple Street. As he explored his new domain and met with the three full-time secretaries and the ten Texas Ranger guards who provided security for the Embassy, she enjoyed watching the ambassador work people. He gave them all a moment, a smile, a pat on the shoulder, something special. ‘He should be a politician instead of a diplomat’, she thought. Of course, there wasn’t much difference between the two kinds of animal. After he made the rounds and told them there’d be a staff meeting tomorrow morning at eight a.m., he excused himself to go to the restroom. When he came back, Josh turned the tables on her by inviting her into his office.

  “I think I’ll keep the bull head and the deer antlers, they give it a Texas feel. What do you think?” he asked Kelly with a grin, as they talked over his new oak desk.

  “Um, very authentic,” she answered diplomatically. She was getting the hang of this political stuff. “They cover the old vent hood nicely. This used to be the kitchen.” Oops, so maybe she did have a bit of refinement left to learn.

  Mr. Walker…Ambassador Walker…’Josh’, as he kept insisting he call her, just laughed and looked up at the corners of the walls. He wrinkled his nose. “I like Chinese food, I’ll be honest with you. Almost as much as a big juicy steak or some fried chicken. I can wreck a buffet. But I never cared too much for Thai food.”

  She pushed a lock of brown hair back from one eye, surprised by him once again. “Well, neither did the Department of Public Safety. The Deseret government buildings, as you see, are right across the street, diagonally, and the President’s mansion is just a block down from that. So, the location is perfect for an embassy. If it makes you feel any better, the New Americans are in the old Wild Grape Bistro down the street, and the British are stuck in the Café on 1st street, a block over. But no, we couldn’t have an, um, alien people right at the footsteps of the capital building.”

  “You mean because they weren’t White?” he asked, straight-faced. Kelly couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. She’d hate to play him at poker. Especially Texas hold’em.

  “Well, Mr. Ambassador, Deseret had, and has, as much a right as the Republic of Texas to involuntarily deport any who do not conform to our cultural, ethnic, or religious wellbeing…” she began, quoting from the diplomatic playbook she’d been up all night studying in preparation.

  “Shhhh…shhhhhhhh..” he actually was ‘shushing’ her! She couldn’t believe it! Of all the nerve. “I didn’t mean a thing by it, Kelly, and I told you before, if you want me to stop calling you ‘ma’am’, you have to start calling me “Josh”, okay?”

  She relaxed somewhat, her claws retracting. “Okay. I just wanted to clarify that the LDS is not a racist church, and Deseret is not a racist society, we just pray for each people to have their own place in the world.”

  “Whenever an “anti-racist” opens their mouths, the next thing they say, is usually in support of a future where White people become a vanishing minority – which is genocide.” Josh stated emphatically. “We have the same policies to deal with the Mexicans as ya’ll do, ma’am…I mean, ‘Kelly’”.

  ‘Well, that was a good start,’ she thought in further embarrassment. Leave it to her to start an international incident over Thai food. “Alright, fair enough. So, the government provides Ambassadorial housing just a block from here, at the Anniversary Inn, for all unmarried Ambassadors who live…unaccompanied. Would, ummm, you fit that, ummm…”

  “No, I’m not married, and don’t have a girlfriend, Kelly. Although I’m told that this is the place to come if you’re looking for a wife, or three.” Josh took a chance with that joke, a lot of Deseret officials would be offended by the slap against polygamy. Even though it was the established law of the land, they still were a bit sensitive about it, when it came to outsiders making fun.

  “Well, that depends on how many you need.” She hit him back with. That should show him that he had gauged her depth of commitment to the LDS accurately. He smiled back.

  “So, tell me more about this place I’ll be staying,” he deftly switched the subject, without apparent segue.

  ‘Well, it has thirteen suites, four of them occupied, by the New American, French, German, and British Ambassadors, and a fifth that was used by your predecessor. The suites are all themed.”

  “What, you mean, like a honeymoon place? Cool!” he chuckled. “Do I get the jungle room?”

  She felt herself turning redder, if that was possible. “Well, I believe that the Jungle Safari suite was requested by the Argentinian Ambassador, they’re due to arrive here next week, and you’ll meet them then. They were very specifically interested in the accommodations, so we had to go over that with them before they arrived, as a top priority. If it’s okay, you’ll be living in the ‘Mysteries of Egypt’ suite.”

  Josh shook his head in amusement. “Wow. Okay. With Cairo gone, I should feel honored, I guess. So, let’s go check it out, shall we?” he swung those long legs off of the top of his desk where he’d propped them to lean back in his leather chair.

  Kelly scrambled to get up, but he still beat her out his office door, waving and saying goodnight to his staff as he led her to her own car, parked outside. She tried to keep her eyes on his shoulders as he strolled in front of her, but that didn’t help much, either.

  Crying won’t help you, nah,
crying won’t do you no good. Cause when the levee breaks, momma, we’ve got to move…

  Eight counties in a cluster along the panhandle of Florida were 77% White or higher on Cinco Day. Stephen had settled in the middle of them, in Fort Walton Beach, after his wife died. They had found no insulin for her there, and complications from her diabetes led to further declining health after they had fled from Mobile. In a couple of months, she suffered a stroke, and mercifully, did not linger long. Stephen was inconsolable. He and his dog lived alone near Elgin Air Force Base. After a brief standoff and two casualties, the White personnel had maintained control over the base. Eventually, Tallahassee fell to black mobs, and the Air Force commandant held a staff meeting to debate what course to take. There was no chain of command above him, so Colonel Richard Strawn left it up to a vote. Should they attack the New African rebels in Mobile, or adopt a wait and see attitude? The officers were hesitant to take sides, and to attack civilians, without clear orders. Major Puarez, in charge at Tyndall Air Force Base outside Panama City, was Col. Strawn’s nearest Air Force neighbor and most natural ally in keeping order along the coast. When the New Mexico and Arizona state legislatures voted for secession and the shooting began on bases around the country, Puarez and two other Hispanic pilots from Tyndall had defected with three of their F-22s. Nobody knew whether they had flown to the Cubans occupying Miami or to the Mexican Army in Texas. Either way, the Captain next in line for command of Tyndall, Johnson, had been placed under arrest by the junior Captain, Lynch, for being a homosexual. Col. Strawn threw his support to Lynch as the new base commander, and so gained his subordination. The Captain in charge of the Naval Air Station in Pensacola volunteered two platoons of flightless Marines to help in the peacekeeping mission in the cities, if they became necessary. That was his way of saying that he would play ball, Strawn knew.

  Food shortages and unrest in Panama City and Pensacola were closer problems, and easier to handle, without requiring fire missions. In those larger towns, the looting turned into race riots. Col. Strawn took over civil authority in the area by declaring martial law and talking the County Sheriff’s departments into signing onto his plan to maintain order. In a combined effort, they deported the blacks, up to I-10 and eastwards, before real genocide began. Most of them came back in a few weeks, after they found no handouts in Tallahassee. When they did, they were met at every crossing of the Apalachicola by wellarmed roadblocks and barricades. That secured the eastern border of the White pocket. There was limited farming in the area, but plenty of fish in the sea, so they didn’t starve, after all. The region was calm again by the time Stephen and his wife made the short voyage over.

  Four and a half months later, a disorganized body of New African Army troops headed east from Mobile to loot the wealthy coastal communities there. Refugees fleeing the raping and murdering youths warned neighboring communities. One town decided to take a stand, and stop them in their tracks.

  The town of Loxley, Alabama, sat near I-10 between Mobile and Pensacola. It was 90% White, and proud of that fact. The local town militia, called the ‘Loxley Rebels’, flew the Confederate flag from their pickup trucks, and all two hundred and thirty of them wore it as a patch on their camouflage uniforms, financed by a local businessman who ran a military surplus store. They were very enthusiastic about getting a chance to fight. Although the New African horde was on foot, they planned to intercept them at the interstate and turn them back before they could spread off of the road and into their town to rape and pillage. Their hunting rifles and shotguns were loaded. Over the radio, they chided the Air Force for not attacking the invaders with them. If they were whistling Dixie, they should have made it the short version. Meeting the enemy on open ground, the line of pickups and SUVs was swallowed up in a modern version of the heroic and suicidal ‘Charge Of The Lights Brigade’. Few of them made it across all four lanes of the interstate the New Africans marched down before being swamped and shot and hacked to pieces. The ones who did, kept going until they reached Stapleton.

  Flyovers by the 33rd fighter wing from Elgin and the Blue Angels from the Naval Air Station in Pensacola both estimated the mob to number over 13,000, mainly men and teenaged boys. The Escambia County Sheriff’s department called up the militia they and the Air Force had been training since Cinco Day. Three days later, the battle for Pensacola took place on an island between two sections of the twin I-10 bridges over the Perdido River. Col. Strawn personally oversaw the ambush site preparations, setting up the militia barricades on the set of bridges on the east side of the island, to provide overlapping fields of fire from both the northern and southern bridges onto the island. The bridges were only about two-hundred feet long on each side of the bridge, but they provided a natural chokepoint. The Highway 90 bridge further south had been purposefully wrecked by the militia three weeks earlier, to control immigration into Pensacola.

  Eight hundred and fifty combined militia, Air Force soldiers, and deputies, more or less, stared down the oncoming horde, the vanguard of which poured onto the first southern bridge just as two new F-35 Lightning II fighters took off from Elgin. As soon as the pair of super-modern aircraft were airborne, they fired their AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles at the programmed target coordinates sixty miles away. Over two hundred black militants had made it nearly across the southern bridge onto the island before the first 1,000 pound penetrator warhead hit in the middle of the northern bridge, just at the Alabama/Florida line marker. Before they could recover from the shock, the second missile hit the bridge they were on behind them, sending the southern bridge pylons crashing over into the collapsed debris of the northern bridge. Hundreds of looters were killed or badly injured by the two missiles. Those who escaped the blasts retreated to the west side of the southern bridge, while those survivors ahead of the destroyed crossing had no choice but to move forward onto the island, off of the collapsed roadway. Because of the massive number of enemies involved, Strawn had kept half of the force in reserve, augmented by fifty Air Force Special Operations Commandoes of his own, from Hurlburt Field at Elgin, and a platoon of Marines from NAS Pensacola. With a hundred men on each of the northern and southern bridges, and two hundred more in the median in between and on the shoulders, the militia and deputies opened fire on the island.

  Trapped on the island, the cut-off vanguard of the New African Army was massacred in minutes. A few survivors tried to jump into the water to swim back, but most were shot dead as they swam. Stephen stood with his feet braced against the concrete curb and leaned over the guardrail, shooting swimmers in the back methodically. His life had lost its’ purpose when his wife had died, and there hadn’t been anything that he do could about it, until now. Some of the group of blacks hiding behind low scrub brush on the island threw out their guns and raised their hands. “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” they cried, in the tribal chant so popular throughout New Africa. Stephen pressed the button to eject his spent magazine, reached down to grab a fresh one, and brought it up to slam it into the bottom of his AR-15. The black soldiers attempting to surrender began to fall as the men around him fired. Stephen slapped the bolt release, chambering a round, and joined in. He was glad he had found out about the invasion in time to get in on this. It was a small bit of retribution. Just a taste. It left him hungry for more.

  The thousands of blacks stranded on the other side of the island recovered from the missile blasts and could see that, despite their losses, they still had the militia outnumbered almost ten to one. A large group began to move off the road and parallel to the river, in a flanking maneuver. Others ran north, to try the same thing from the other side. Their plan was obviously to catch the White defenders in a pincer and crush them in between two forces, each of which outnumbered them. From his vantage point standing on the hood of an Air Force troop carrier truck parked in the median emergency turnaround three hundred yards behind the firing line, Col. Strawn observed the carnage. Through his field glasses, he saw the horde of blacks moving off of the
road and into the thickly wooded area that came down into a point to the south, near the river. Far fewer were going to the north, where the river was wider and deeper. The defenders on the bridge could see and handle them. Those in the woods, they could not. The two F-35s arrived on site, each dropping two more vertically delivered 1,000 pound bombs into the main body of blacks well back of the bridges. The four huge explosions looked to Strawn like the fist of God smashing down on the enemy, incinerating and pulverizing hundreds more with each circle of death left behind. The militia near the island ducked instinctively, but cheered the planes. He led in the AFSOC and the reserve force, personally.

  By the time the 450 strong reserve reached the river on one side of the island, the New African militants were crossing a narrow strip of sand and wading across it, on the other. With Col. Strawn and the Commandos taking point, the two groups met in the heavy forest just out of sight of the interstate. The firing around the bridges resumed as the northern group of invaders made it to the water and hesitantly began to cross. Stephen was glad to have more targets for his repressed rage and sorrow. Even his dog had died and left him all alone in this rotten world. The front ranks of those wading in fell, and the rest turned back, giving up for the moment. Those jets and their bombs had taken a lot of the fight out of them. He really needed to pee and his ears were ringing too loud to be sure, but Stephen thought that he heard a lot of shooting going on way over to the south, past the island. He wondered what was going on, there. Everyone was looking in that direction, now, but all that could be seen was the trees.

  Strawn and his men fought tree to tree and hand to hand in the forest, against the New African invaders. It was hard, in the smoke –filled woods, to tell friend from foe. The satisfying sound of the F35’s GAU-22/A four barreled 25 mm cannons tearing up the enemy as the jets made another pass came to him as if in a dream. A man in dreadlocks and along fur coat came out of the smoke in front of him. He began to raise an axe, but Sergeant Cooper on the Colonel’s right took him out with a burst of 5.56. Two more came, and Strawn fired, not sure if he hit them before they melted back into the smoke. It was getting harder to breathe, much less see, in the woods. The smoke from the bombs was drifting in more and more.