The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  Having McNabb dead meant having one fewer person alive who knew about how Hampton had come to be President, in the first place, and that eased his mind a bit. After this long, it hardly mattered any more, though. Him and his wife. Ole Kip and a couple others, maybe. That pagan witch playing cult leader up in Utah had her own reasons for keeping her mouth shut, that was for sure. After all, she was the one who had pulled the trigger, not him. Heck, he hadn’t even ordered the thing done, he’d just kind of, kept hush. That’s all. Leaders kept quiet about the way their predecessors get ‘decessed, and Presidential groupies kept quiet about the way they got undressed, the way he saw it.

  These days, President Hampton was a bit more worried about the news that the Church of the New Dispensation’s ‘Kingdom of the Lord’ in New Orleans had linked up with the Bahaman pirate empire of King Ray Ray and his consort, Queen Taneisha. They and the core of their pirate tribe were refugees from New Africa, from before the genetically targeted virus tweaked from the Turkish Flu had swept through the SouthEastern states. Ninety-four percent of the African-American population on the mainland of North and South America, just as on their continent of origin, had succumbed to the disease. Ray-Ray and Taneisha had hopped boats from Florida one step ahead of the virus, and two in front of the vengeful Emerald Coast army which conducted ethnic cleansing operations in that part of the peninsula.

  Jointly, the duo ruled a fleet of black looters on water who scavenged the coasts of Florida and Cuba, and had done so for years. Now, if they were working with that crazy Rev. Joe Bob Clearly, the leader of the C.N.D., they not only threatened the Emerald Coast, which was New America’s problem, they threatened shipping from Houston and Galveston to England and Scotland and Ireland, which was his problem. If the oil stopped flowing out, the mechanical and technical assistance to continue the expansion of the orbital station would evaporate, too, and that would become a serious problem, indeed. Scott was determined that Texas would win the space race. Even if it meant helping the Brits with their own station platform research, by proxy. Heck, the Russians already had a space habitat twice as big, and the Germans, too, so why not let everybody into the pool, the way he figured. Right now, Texas needed some friends to keep them from getting too dependent on the Germans.

  President Hampton kicked back in his chair and propped his ostrich skin boots up on the scarred oak desk. He nearly kicked over a picture of his wife, who had once been Perry’s wife, taken a decade ago, before the flower of her beauty had faded into early middle aged spread. His predecessor, the last Vice President of the formerly United States, had once sat right here and told him that he could never trust John McNabb. But then, ole Perry had been a little confused about who he could trust, and who he shouldn’t, hadn’t he? Starting with his wife and his best friend.

  The dead Speaker had always shot straight with him, at least, on a personal level, and Scott hoped that they caught whoever had done him in. He had said so at a press conference up in Dallas that very morning. What he didn’t say, was that he was too paranoid to be sure whether or not any of his own people had a hand in it, and he wasn’t about to ask. He wouldn’t get a straight answer, any way. Maybe that was what an oldtimey psychiatrist would have called ‘reflection’, but practicing psychiatry was illegal in the Republic of Texas, these days, along with Sodomy and vegetarian hamburgers. Just as the good Lord intended.

  Scott thought about the ambiguities of trust and the perks of power as he watched his personal secretary come through the door between her office and his, and shut it firmly behind her.

  On the other side of the world, a massive torchlit procession through the streets of Berlin honored the fallen global hero of all European peoples. The Chancellor of Greater Germany described McNabb as ‘a man against time, who helped to release the shackled spirit of the German people once more’. Gerta openly wept, but quietly, quietly, her shoulders shook as the honor guard carried the starless flag of New America past her podium.

  Chapter Two

  “We deceive ourselves if we believe that the people want to be governed by majorities. No, you do not know the people. This people does not wish to lose itself in "majorities." It does not wish to be involved in great plans. It wants a leadership in which it can believe, nothing more.”

  -Adolf Hitler

  “When you’re old, when you’re old, nobody will know…that you were a beauty, a sweet sweet beauty, a sweet sweet beauty, but oh so cold…”

  The sweat dripped into her eyes and stung. There was no movement visible at the lakeshore. That wasn’t surprising, really. The noise of the motors would have frightened away most of the animals, and this region had been depopulated of people for a generation. Hope knew that they had driven more or less East, towards the rising sun, out of what used to be the Kalahari Game Preserve. They’d been travelling half the day, without seeing more than a few dried up bundles of rags on the edge of the neglected trail to show that there had ever been anyone here. She wasn’t sure how far that put her from the nearest Orange Free State Expeditionary Force outpost at Hainaveld. Kip had always been the one good at directions. He had been called back to ‘Joeys’ from their family safari on urgent business, and that worried her. Especially when she woke up just before dawn to find that their camp was under attack.

  More precisely, the two O.F.S. Rangers assigned to their security had heard something, they thought, and were firing up the scrub brush with 5.56. What a Harold of a situation! It was easy enough for even the toughest guys to get spooked, if they thought for too long about how many people had died in the space of a few weeks this far north, and farther. Then Kip radioed that everything was alright. The Australians were fussing about the Javan Caliphate patrolling the Indian Ocean, and he had to fly to Perth to talk to the N.A. ambassador there. He couldn’t continue their vacation, right now, and apologized to the kids. Once things calmed down and it became clear than neither Hope nor any of her six kids, ranging in age from fourteen down to three, were going to be doing any hunting, there was no point in staying at the camp. Not when there was air conditioning at the Hainaveld barracks where they could wait and see if Kip was going to be able to come back soon, or if they should all just go home. Or, if that was unsafe, to one of the large German-ran mining towns or English oil production stations further North, in central Africa…not that she expected any problems from the Orangers.

  As the two Mercedes Einzelganger 4x4 SUVs bumped through the high grass, her younger kids began to whine. Mary, her oldest, tried to shush them by getting them to count how many different species of antelope they could see. That only lasted for so long. They were thirsty or they had to pee. They were hot and tired. They missed their dad. They were mad at their dad for ruining the trip. The next two hours until they arrived at the military post gave her a throbbing, blinding headache.

  The base commanding officer, a chubby Lieutenant named Van der Buss, acted courteous to them all, but had a weird expression on his face. He told the two guards to hit the showers, then report for debriefing. Then, he directed Hope and the kids to the cafeteria. After she’d gotten the kids settled in and jumping onto their bunk beds in the barracks for sport, he asked to speak to her in his office.

  Hope tried very hard not to fall apart at the news that her adoptive parents were dead and missing. She had been little older than Mary when John and Carolyn McNabb had taken her in, as a feral refugee from ethnic cleansing. She was a different woman now, with children of her own, but every day of her life she strived to be as good a mom as she could be, because of the couple who had given her their love and their names. And, what should she tell her kids about grandma and grandpa?

  For now, she had to ban them from watching the base t.v., since that was the top story on all of the channels in the satellite feed. And from the internet, because it was the headline news online. She would tell Mary, and Hess, her two oldest, so they could help her watch the others and keep them from finding out until more was known. Hess was just twelve, but he was a
solemn and serious boy. He gave Hope a hug, and held his sister, while she cried softly. Then they radioed Kip, hating to bother him as he scrambled to make his flight, but wanting to make sure that he knew. He did. Hope guessed that he had kept the news of the man he had known longer than anyone else still alive being killed from his family, for the same reason that she was. She forgave him for that. At least he was caring enough to ask for it.

  It was hard for Hope to be angry with her husband for long. She understood. After all, she might have been John McNabb’s adopted daughter, but Kip had served with him during the Balk, before he was the Speaker, before they were anything more than a couple of tired and scared Indiana National Guardsmen fighting a genocidal three-way war in the blasted ruins of Chicago. He was hurting, too. Once he got to Perth, he would get in contact with the members of the Cabinet whom he knew he could trust from his years as the Speaker’s Chief of Staff, before the N.A. embassy in Joburg had needed a firm hand. The real reason he was going to Australia, was to oversee the search for Carolyn’s plane. He'd call as soon as he could.

  Hope had nothing to do to keep herself from being able to reach out to St. Louis right now, so she didn’t wait. She got Randall’s wife on the satellite phone first, after leaving messages with three Cabinet member’s secretaries. She filled in some blanks, such as the news of who was still standing. Then her call was interrupted by an incoming line beeping in. It was her little brother, sounding so grown up, telling her that he was taking care of the funeral arrangements, and it was probably safer for her and his nieces and nephews if they stayed where they were, until he could figure out who to trust. Hope told the fifteen year old young man to stay safe and watch his back, then put the phone down. She could never remember feeling so helpless, so out of touch, or so weak. She went to her children, and prayed for strength.

  A week later, the skyjacked plane still had not been found. There was no sign of any wreckage, or a fuel slick, either. The Aussies would continue to sweep, with the help of the New American 7th fleet, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Kip flew back to Orange, and Hope and the kids met him there. The next day, they held their own memorial for both of the McNabbs, in the flower garden in the back of the embassy. Each of the children, as best they were able, got to talk about their best memories of their grandparents. Hope talked about the first time she had met them, after travelling to the capitol from the Knights Committee headquarters in Arkansas, by plane. She told how bumpy the flight was, and how scared she had been that the new leader of New America wouldn’t want her to stay.

  “Why didn’t you just take the direct flight on a bigger plane, Mommie?” she was interrupted by Rachel, her nine year old named after the woman who helped get her off the street, asking.

  “I bet that was before Uncle Jason’s folks had their own airport, wasn’t it?” Hess guessed, correctly. He was her smart one, that kid.

  “Yes, that was back at the beginning, during the Balk, before we won the peace.” Hope replied.

  “Let Momma finish her turn, now, you had yours,” Mary admonished Rachel. Hope wrapped it up, as quickly and cleanly as possible, for the young ones.

  Kip spoke last. He began by saying that if it hadn’t been for John McNabb, he wouldn’t have his family. Then he surprised her by saying that if it hadn’t been for John McNabb, he wouldn’t be alive. The story which followed, of a skinny black girl with a Molotov cocktail and an ambush outside a church was one that Hope had never heard before, and she understood why. She held her husband close for a good long time. The starless flag out front remained at half mast. So did the Orange Free State flag at the government building down the street.

  “If some day, suddenly, I have to take my leave…would you still be fighting, for things that we believe…?”

  Matt Ball and Tommy Bullens stood together on the windy pier jutting into Lake Michigan, watching the contrails separate as the external fuel tanks were shed from the shuttle just before it broke atmosphere. The New American Space Authority General was glad that he’d been able to talk the Secretary of Intelligence into getting outside with him for some fresh air and a private talk. He pulled the collars of his overcoat tighter. Each of them had their own S.S. security, at a respectful distance.

  “Tommy, just look at that. What is it, number eighty -four? Eightyfive?” He shaded his eyes with his hand, until the streak disappeared.

  “I lose count,” the most informed man on the continent replied. “Almost as many as the Russians have put up. We’ll catch them.”

  “It’s kind of like the women I’ve loved and the men I’ve killed, I remember the first and the last, but those in the middle tend to blur. It’s hard to keep track.” Matt grinned. Like most former naval aviators, he still swaggered like he was Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’. All the time.

  As the nation’s ubernerd, Tommy couldn’t relate to that problem, even though he had power. It wasn’t the kind of power that brought girl trouble with it. He had left his lair, his headquarters, his mad scientist lab of information gathering devices and network interfaces downtown, to meet Matt, because they were old friends. They both had served in the Navy together, and afterwards, during the Balk. Plus, Matt sent over a science groupie girl from time to time, to get his autograph. All the James Bond, cloak and dagger stuff got old, but it was how he stayed on top.

  “Walk with me, Tommy…” Gen. Ball had said, and he had fallen into place by his side, like always. Ever since his buddy Rick had died from a radiation dose he’d picked up patrolling the South China Sea, Tommy had become more and more misanthropic. He’d flown down to St. Louis to meet with the Speaker once a week, for the general intelligence briefing and cabinet meeting, every Monday morning. That was as long as he could stand the withdrawal of being disconnected from the constant data feed from hundreds of listening posts, agents, and hackers, all over the world…and above it.

  Secretary Bullens was in direct contact with three reliable New American assets who had infiltrated the Russian ‘Zavtra Dva’ space habitat, after their first station had lost structural integrity and been abandoned a decade earlier. Even though Greater Germany was a closer ally than the Russian Empire, he maintained a few on the German station, too. And, when the next rotation of twenty technicians currently flaring overhead arrived on the lunar surface, a couple of them would already be in his pocket, too. Better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them.

  He knew what this clandestine, unofficial meeting was about, of course. It wasn’t one old buddy checking up on another. For the last week, everyone in the higher echelons of the New American government had been on high alert, waiting for the other shoe to fall. For their enemies, whoever they were, to not reveal themselves and strike when they were weakened, was counter-intuitive. Tommy and Matt had discussed the contingencies and probability matrices twice, over the last six days, through e-mail. Bullens hated talking on the phone as much as Matt did.

  A New American Legion Unit had almost opened fire on a Deseret Gull squad which had crossed the gray zone between the two frontiers in Colorado. A Republic of Texas passenger jet was ‘escorted’ out of New American air space over northern Louisiana. Things had really gotten hairy yesterday, when the French crew of a Scottish-flagged container ship was stopped and searched coming into the St. Lawrence Seaway, in what was technically Quebecois waters, by the New American Coast Guard. Everybody was at hair trigger. But what Tommy dreaded telling Matt was that he didn’t have any answers for him. None of his resources, not in the internal agencies of the Czar, or in Salt Lake, or Berlin, or even in Austin, had any more clue about who had been responsible for the assassinations, than they did.

  As they walked along, shadowed by their security, Tommy let all of this out in a rush. Matt listened patiently, before responding. “Well, as you know, this is you and me talking, not an official cabinet submeeting. The truth is, man, I don’t know who to trust, either, not even…not even here at home. It’s all Harolded up. And both
of us being based here, instead of the capitol, makes me feel even more out of the loop. That’s why I ask. I’m in the dark, here. I don’t even know who the enemy is.”

  “Our true enemy hasn’t revealed themselves. Not yet.” Bullens replied, after thinking for a minute. “But we do know that the First Lady’s plane was not authentically taken control of by someone onboard; that it took evasive action, then it disappeared from radar, and all the transponders ceased functioning.”

  “Do we know where? Or where the old Chinese incoming flights took off from?” Matt stopped to ask. Tommy stopped with him, and gave a slight smile.

  “No to the first, but yes to the second. Her plane is still missing, but considering the theater it went down in, it all makes sense. Now, we don’t know how much internal collusion there was, there had to be some, to turn or infiltrate so many S.S. guards to do the assassinations. Several who were supposed to be involved chickened out, and didn’t show up for work. Some of them are still on the run, and some we have in custody and are working on. Remember the suicide cases? We think they were related, too. And, we haven’t made this public, but there were attempted acts of sabotage at four of our radar stations and two data centers on the West Coast, the day before the assassinations. But the planes took off from an aircraft carrier one of our subs had been shadowing from a distance. All the way from the Timor Sea.”

  Matt’s face tightened as he hissed “The Caliphate, huh? What are they doing? Trying to get turned to ash and glow in the dark for Allah? Why didn’t they sink it?”

  “Well, with Israel gone and no known surviving Jews left in the world, a belief system like that has to have some external enemy. And, they’re the largest, the only, really, nonWhite nation left standing.” Tommy pointed out. “But the Captain of the sub was ordered to continue to follow the carrier quietly until further orders. We knew we could shoot down anything they launched at us…we just didn’t expect them to go after a civilian plane in the other direction, until it was too late. We think that’s what happened to the First Lady.”