The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  In order to be conservative about his lines of resupply and minimize the advantage that their air and armor gave to his enemy, Rev. Ike aligned his defenses along Highways 82, 92, and 96. He gave up the western quarter of the city in order to deny Hampton’s armor an open approach. It would be block by block, street by street, and not conducive to massed armor. He hoped that the antiaircraft guns promised by his allies would arrive before the Texicans were finished ethnically cleansing Houston, an operation he made great propaganda use of on his broadcasts. Rev. Ike labeled the Republic of Texas as a racist, bigoted force, but not only was no one on the opposing side shocked or appalled by that, it turned out that they embraced it. Perry went on the air mocking Ike and publicly accusing him of being tied to the cartels, and a traitor. They went back forth over the airwaves while the preparations for a climactic battle were made on both sides.

  As it turned out, the battle never happened. At least, not in Beaumont. It had all been a waste of time and manpower. One morning, Rev. Ike blearily stood in the parking lot of a looted Target store, observing the northern end of his city’s defenses as they went up along the Eastex Freeway. He was still hung over from the night of hard partying with the girls he’d picked out at dinner, and in no mood for any foolishness. While he crabbily chewed out a Deacon of the Faithful for taking too long getting his coat, he stomped both feet to warm them up. Ike leaned against his sedan and began to bend down, stretching. It was almost March, and should be warmer than it was. If he hadn’t put back on a few pounds, he’d be colder than a…the thought flew out of his head, pushed by a 660 grain full metal jacket .50 caliber slug that continued on through the other side of his BMW and into the store. It had travelled over 1600 feet, nearly 500 meters, at 1,900 miles per hour from the roof of the Parkdale Mall across the interchange. The Texas Ranger sniper and his spotter verified the hit as Huckleberry’s entourage scattered and looked around to try to figure out where the shot had come from. Their extraction team in the Wal-Mart Supercenter to their west covered their withdrawal into the open fields beyond.

  The Faithful had quite a job picking Rev. Ike up and clumsily stuffing him, bloody head first, into the back of his beamer. The Deacon got behind the wheel and hoped that the sniper wouldn’t mistake him for his better and shoot him, next. With the Reverend’s panicked Chief of Security next to him, he began to drive, and pray. Within minutes, the word went out on the radio, from post to post, that Rev. Ike had been shot by a sniper. Facing the Republic of Texas Army in front of them, and having spent the last four days looking up at jets flying overhead with the Texican star on their wings, their faith was shattered. By nightfall, most of their defensive positions had simply been abandoned. Some of them, the Whites who did not have any nonWhite offspring to be saddled with, slipped through the lines and tried to be good Texicans. Some with nonWhite dependents just left them behind and forgot about them. Most, though, could not get out that easily, and fell back to Port Arthur.

  The Church of the New Dispensation’s Board of Deacons had just been a rubber stamp for Rev. Ike before, but now they met in earnest. He was their figurehead, and they openly accepted that theirs was a cult of personality that would not survive his loss. Although he appeared to be mortally wounded, they had to do everything in their power to keep Huckleberry breathing, at least until they could reach a more defensible position. But, where would that be? After a brief debate, complete with much citing of scriptural verses and prayers for guidance, the obvious best choice was Lake Charles. The Louisiana port city was the nearest and largest Church of the New Dispensation held position left. They would begin loading their essential personnel onboard their cartel ships immediately.

  By the first week of April, Republic of Texas forces had completed the ethnic cleansing of Beaumont and Port Arthur. The news that Rev. Ike had been shot down by a sniper made that job easier. As had been the case with Galveston and Houston and their environs, the Mexican and black and Asian and mixed race persons, as well as the remaining Faithful who had nonWhite family members, were given a choice. They could either march south to the Mexican line at Victoria, or they could march north across the Red River into what had been southwestern Louisiana, but was now the border with the Church of the New Dispensation territory. Or, they could start swimming. What they could NOT do, was stay in Texas. Most of the Mexicans opted to head south, and the rest headed north.

  On April 11th, the region was shocked when radio and satellite broadcasts for the Church of the New Dispensation resumed. Speculation that it was a bad double on screen ran rampant, but in fact, Rev. Ike Huckleberry had survived. On the camera he looked macabre. The poor makeup job could not mask the unhealed wound above his left ear, covered with a massive bandage painted flesh-tone to somewhat match his skin color. This gave his head a lop-sided appearance. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes wild, more than half mad, as he frothed and screamed that God had saved him for a special purpose, and that the Church of the New Dispensation had ordained his survival a divine miracle. The camera never came too close, and his viewers were glad for that…even those who believed.

  Across black southern Louisiana, those believers were the majority. Backed up by the best of his Faithful fighters and Deacons, as well as his cartel allies, Rev. Ike’s crazed multiracial zealotry spread like wildfire through the bayous and the towns. Where it did not spread through the word, it spread through the sword. From their two strongholds of Lake Charles and Lafayette, devout missionaries and Faithful took their message all along the Gulf Coast…and wherever they went, the cartel followed.

  Although he was busy with the reopening of the ports of Texas and defending them against the cartels, President Bellefont did find time to go on the radio himself, and read aloud from the Bible’s Book of Revelations, Chapter 13, verse 3:

  “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”…

  Perry spent twenty minutes implying that Rev. Ike might be the AntiChrist and that the Church of the New Dispensation was the one world church foretold to mislead and deceive, and urging all true believers to reject Huckleberry and his false teachings. When he stepped outside the recording studio, Gen. Hampton and the First Lady stood waiting. Unable to judge their expressions, the President asked his wife “Well, darlin’, did you buy it?”

  “Not for a minute, but you sounded good.” She replied, linking her arm through his as the three of them began to walk outside to enjoy the Spring day between government buildings.

  Bellefont frowned. “What about you, Scott, do you think it’ll sell?”

  The General stopped and looked his Commander in Chief squarely in the eye. “People will believe what they want to, Perry, and truth has nothing much to do with it, one way or the other. That works both ways.” They continued on to their next meeting, about their efforts to coordinate actions with the Emerald Coast, now a Territory of the Republic of New America, but their best potential ally because the Florida panhandle enclave was already fighting Church of New Dispensation troops in Mobile.

  Further north in Atlanta, the largest city and the closest thing there was to a capital of New Africa, Emperor Malik Jamal Bling-Bling was enraged to hear that a White preacher was taking over more of his territory. The whole idea of peace and brotherhood and multiracialism was an insult to the Prophet, and to Malik. He felt fronted. First those crackers down in Florida done took from him what the Cubans hadn’t, and neither would give it back. Then up north a ways the New’Merican racist honkeys were coming down out of the mountains and pushing good black folks out of Asheville and Greenville and Dalton. Now this. Well, he was about to open up on this new Church of the Nude Decoration or whatever it was. No way was this going to go down like what happened in Virginia last winter when he had to give up Charlottesville. That’s what he had all those hardheaded negroes in Fort Benning for, to use, wasn’t it? He knew how to handle smart-mouthed crackers who insulted Allah. Emperor Malik call
ed for Ray-Ray, his new General, and told him his plan to smash this honkey preacher like a bug.

  Cast my memory back there Lord

  Sometimes I’m overcome thinkin’ ‘bout it Makin’ love in the green grass

  Behind the stadium…

  Having a toddler in the house was hectic enough . When that ‘house’ was a four story warehouse with armed guards and staff coming and going and leaving doors open all of the time, it was all Brenda could do to keep up with little Cindy. Now that Carolyn was more than halfway along, and still doing the Press Secretary job for Mr. John, it was her full time work, though. At least most of the phone calls and faxes came into his office at the Old Courthouse, these days. She was becoming more of a nanny than a secretary, but that was okay. Her husband and his brother had both gotten jobs working for Charles in his expanding grocery delivery business. There were still fewer functioning cars than there used to be, and fewer mega supermarkets where you could buy everything at one stop, and gas was more expensive than it used to be, so more people had their groceries delivered. At least, they did in the capital, where so many of them worked for the government and didn’t have time to shop, anyway. They were gone a lot, at all hours, so watching over Cindy kept Brenda busy, now that her kids were old enough to look after themselves.

  Brenda shooed Cindy away from the cracked door the little blonde girl had been peeking into, where her daddy was having an informal meeting. She shut the door quietly, and led her back to the front office/playroom by the hand. Soon, it would be time to have some dinner. She radioed Glenn and asked him what was on the menu that a fussy little girl might eat. Cindy loudly sang “Jesus Loves Me” in her ear, while he ran down the choices for her.

  In the lounge, the meeting ranged over topics that were too theoretical to be discussed at the office, where Carolyn was still at work, typing up tomorrow’s press release about the mediation of the difficulties between the Wyoming Rancher’s Association and Deseret over grazing lands along the Continental Divide which formed the amorphous national border there. Such were the mundane dramas of governance. They worked through their agenda over dinner, as they often did, together.

  The Secretary of Defense, Gen. Fred Grace, looking older after the recent passing of his wife, was asked by John to say grace over the simple meal. He did, then asked about the strength of N.A. Marine forces in northern California, where a line from Lake Tahoe to Vallejo marked the southern range of ‘Northern California’. A legislative body in Redding had petitioned the Republic of New America for admission as a Territory by that name. John chewed a bite of his cheeseburger thoughtfully, waiting for the answer. Mark thought that was a premature move to make, and said so. Secretary of State Smith added, in answer to Gen. Grace’s question, that they didn’t have enough boots on the ground to defend the territory, and wouldn’t until the 6th fleet arrived on the West Coast from Oahu. Not even with the 7th patrolling off Eureka as backup.

  A more pressing issue for tonight was the internal squabbling within a current New American state. Things up in Alberta were headed towards a shooting scrape, if somebody didn’t get a handle on it, fast. Calgary and Edmonton had achieved a kind of balance for leadership of the expanded state, of cattle interests and oil interests. Recently, that balance had been upset by the resumption of oil being pumped through the pipeline from Alaska, weakening the bargaining position of the oil faction. The Mayors of the two towns would both have to be called in, along with the Governor of the state, for a real old fashioned ‘Come To Jesus’ talk. John told Kip to summon them to be in the capital by no later than next week. All of them. At the same time. Petty factionalism and division couldn’t be tolerated, not when they had so many external enemies who would love to see them fall. Besides, the dust-up probably was more Albertan cabin fever after a long winter than anything else. It would do them good to come south and spend a weekend getting some vitamin D.

  Speaking of internal fighting, the Attorney General gave them an update on the Klan and allied militia fighting the Creek Indian tribes along the banks of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. Three weeks earlier, the Razorback Regiment of the 5th Arkansas had ambushed a band of First Nation braves at Fort Gibson Lake, killing several and capturing seventeen alive. The prisoners of war would be traded for Whites the Creek had taken during raids into the ethnically cleansed northeastern corner of the state. A stalemate position had been held at the Arkansas for a long time, but Jason’s nephew, who had recently taken command of the Knights Committee Crusaders army, had mounted an offensive into Indian territory that had driven as far as the suburbs of Tulsa.

  Everyone at the table paused in eating to listen to the former lawyer from the state of North Arkansas recount how surprised the Crusaders had been that so many Whites had survived the years of occupation, and come out to welcome them as liberators. That gave them hope not only for the rest of Oklahoma, but other regions of the country, such as New Africa. The West Virginia Guard and Tennessee Volunteers pushing east and south from the Appalachians into the Carolinas and Virginia had experienced similar success, as well. They, too, had found isolated farmsteads, bands of White families, and even small enclaves that had survived the last four years behind enemy lines. Some of their tales were amazing, harrowing, even horrific. Others seemed downright miraculous. They all were glad to see that red, white, and blue flag, even without any stars.

  Some of the progress of the West Virginia Guard had been slowed by strikes of the coal miners in that state, protesting for higher wages even as coal prices fell in response to the influx of Alaskan crude through the pipeline. The Speaker half jokingly suggested that either they could send in troops to break the strike, or they could send in negotiators to mediate it, or they could draft them into the army and send them down to the Charlotte front into the Carolinas to fight the New Africans. He noticed that nobody laughed, and Kip was furiously taking notes. Sometimes the problem with being the Speaker was that everything he said got taken too seriously. Well, he would wait and see which of the three fates awaited the striking miners. That would amuse him, if nothing else.

  General Harrison finished up his french fries and asked Jason whether the Arkansas River was still the southern border of North Arkansas. “Well, officially, yes. But on the west side of the state, we control the Ouachita Mountains and everything down to Texas, keeping I-30 open. We have Knights Committee garrisons in Texarkana, Hot Springs, and Arkadelphia. Little Rock is still in enemy hands, on both sides of the river, though, and so is everything south of I40, to be honest. Southeastern Arkansas’ population has decreased by about seventy percent since Cinco Day. The old Mississippi River delta area was populated by blacks who hadn’t done anything but sit there and breed since their ancestors had been slaves on cotton plantations there. It still is, only less so.” The Commander in Chief took a drink of his tea, and nodded in brusque response. It was a rare treat to have the brew, these days, and he was frankly more interested in it than the answer to his question.

  For this meeting, Gerta was present, and not only because they had all learned over the past half decade to trust the Greater German Ambassador to New America. She had remained silent during their discussion of internal issues that didn’t concern her. Or rather, she had been engrossed in a side debate with Congressman Balderson of South Michigan over the relative merits of German vs. Detroit automotive engineering, since he wasn’t personally involved in the decision making process for state affairs, either. At least, not at the Cabinet level, as the rest of them were. But now, John posed a question for her.

  “Gerta, normally I’d leave this to the Secretary of Agriculture, but she’s busy overseeing the preparations for Spring planting in Iowa. And that’s part of the problem, guys, Illinois’ growers coop doesn’t see us as being impartial.” He added, looking around the table at the rulers of half the continent.

  “Well, neither am I a neutral observer, I have the interests of my country to think about first. But whether the corn that is eaten in Hamburg an
d Munich comes from fields in Illinois or fields in Iowa, we cannot tell the difference in our stomachs,” she said.

  “No, but it matters to the Congressmen from Illinois and Iowa how much the tariffs are that their states have to pay to Greater Germany, especially when they get paid the same price per kilo for their corn.” McNabb pointed out.

  “I see this. All of Greater Germany buys and sells together and pays and is paid the same prices, whether Mercedes or BMW, this is so. “ Gerta admitted, grudgingly.

  “Or Bavaria or Austria, right. Exactly, so, what we’d like to ask is that the NPD treat Illinois and Iowa as if they were both a part of the same country…which they are…ours. And, place their tariffs accordingly. We don’t want a foreign government, even a close friend, playing favorites between New American states and, inadvertently of course, stirring up discord between them.” John locked eyes with his old ally, so there could be no misunderstanding his meaning.

  “Of course. I will certainly discuss your position with the Chancellor, at my earliest convenience.” Gerta promised.

  “Excellent”, John said. “And, we will go ahead and tell both Iowa and Illinois that, this fall when they make their harvests, they both can expect to get paid the same amount, and pay the same tariffs, in Germany.” He stood up and bowed. “Now, if ya’ll will excuse me, I think I need to go check on my daughter, or my wife is gonna kill me when she gets home. She’s pregnant and hormonal, and I made the mistake of teaching her how to shoot!”