by Billy Roper
“At the rate they’re going, they won’t be around to see the 22nd century. But the key is, who’s working with them? At least here in N.A.?”
Both men shrugged. Tommy didn’t know. And he knew enough to be sure that Matt didn’t, either. The rest of the people around them, he couldn’t be so sure of. Especially since all of the missing S.S. guards except four had been captured and endured long and very unpleasant interrogation at Tommy’s personal direction. There had been twelve of them at first. Three had survived the first day of questioning. They had broken the next day. Two of them survived it, and admitted being recruited by one of the four who had escaped. They had both been targeted for recruitment because their mandatory D.N.A. tests performed upon application for citizenship on their eighteenth birthdays had come back with slight AmerIndian admixtures. Less than two percent in each, not enough to have made them susceptible to any strains of the Turkish Flu still circulating through the carrier but immune White population…but enough to disqualify them for reproduction rights, or for government service.
When he had first e-mailed that to Matt, the day before yesterday, Gen. Ball had requested this face to face meeting. Even a virtual meeting in a secure cloud wouldn’t do. Tommy was about to find out why. “Look, I need to tell you, I brought Vic Brown in on this. I’ve known him since we brought the Legion home from Russia. He was with Ferguson all the way through Afghanistan, too. He’s vouched for. We need both of them with us on this.”
Tommy’s eyes widened. It wasn’t what he would have done, but to complain about it now, since it was already too late, would just isolate himself further. “Okay, then, let’s decide who we want to limit this to, and how. The Attorney General and Surgeon General, yes. The Secretary of Agriculture, no, he’s rock stupid about anything except corn, anyway.”
“I agree,” Matt said, as they reached their cars, parked side by side under a waterfront hotel awning, just in case there was overwatch neither had access to. “And the Secretary of Treasury or Transportation…it’ll be easier to list who we will include, than who we won’t: me, you, Gene, Jason, Victor, but not Tina…I think Kip…but what about Randall?”
Secretary Bullens grimaced. “If we don’t, it’ll look like WE are the ones planning a coup.”
Two days later, after everyone had been caught up to speed, five of the six counterconspirators met with a surprised Speaker Pro Tempore in his office, not the Speaker’s. Kip had been informed by secure satlink, but it was decided that he needed to go to Darwin, to prepare the New American assets there in case a direct move was needed against Java. Randall wasn’t dumb, but it took a while for everything they had told him to sink in.
“So, what you’re saying is, for over ten years somebody has been catching the failed D.N.A. tests, and using them to recruit spies, even assassins?” he asked in wonderment.
Jason and Tommy looked at each other. “Yes, Sir,” the Attorney General said. “We think they sort through them, fail the ones they think are least likely to be recruitable into the military, and change the results to pass the rest, the ones they want to make sleepers out of.”
“Okay, but then how did they activate them, or recruit them, years later?” Randall questioned.
“They kept an eye on them, guided them by recruiting them into the armed forces, in a couple of cases directly.” Tommy interjected.
“And then, when they had risen through the ranks and could apply for S.S. training, their handlers showed them their real D.N.A. test results. Some of them already had kids. They would have lost their security clearances, their citizenship, even their families,” Matt added. “The ones that refused to blackmailed, were assassinated. They made it look like suicides, or drug overdoses, or accidents. We’re looking at a half dozen cases where they had to clean up one of their targets not going along…and one case where a fiance’ didn’t, maybe.”
The new leader of New America swore softly, then turned to look for a moment out his window at the busy city street outside the Old Courthouse. A large red, white, and blue banner hung limply at half mast. The old flag had been stripped of its stars. Now, he had been stripped of his mentor. “So, how many of them are out there? Any ideas?”
Gen. Ferguson nodded. “We’ve found that nine out of ten pre-Balk Americans who claimed to have some AmerIndian ancestry had NONE. The ‘Indian outlaw’ and ‘noble red man’ myths, Sir. All family legend and undocumented, and mainly B.S.. As a rough estimate, Sir, 66% of our S.S. are ex-military or law enforcement from before the Balk. The D.N.A. tests have been in effect nationwide for eleven years. We can easily determine how many of our people were subjected to the test, since then.”
“Then, place them all on supervised suspension of duty while they are re-tested, and declared fit for duty, just to make sure that there aren’t any more unactivated sleeper agents left among them.” Victor added.”
“That sounds good,” Balderson responded, turning back to face the grim-faced group. “But how long will it take to re-vet all of them and get them back on duty? We need them all, now, more than ever!”
“We began mandatory re-testing yesterday, Sir.” Gen. Brown confirmed. We’re cycling through a Company each day. We’ll have the results of all of them by the end of the week. “
“Just how far up does this thing go, that’s what we’ve got to find out. How did they know each other and interact, once they were recruited, and how many other recruiters might there be, or cells?” emphasized Matt.
“And, we’re tracing the webs between them, to see who was pulling the strings of the S.S. Captain who did the recruiting. A Captain Stephen Susanna. All of the strings lead DOWN from him,” Tommy said.
“You’re sure he was the organizer of this thing, or at least this branch of it?” Randall asked.
“Yes, Sir. He used a series of girlfriends in the National Genetics Assessment Office to cherry-pick failed testtakers for recruitment. We have three in custody, now. They’ve confessed.” Victor offered.
“Okay. So. Three things. One, finish the re-testing and return those who pass to active duty, detain any who fail. Two, research all of Cpt. Susanna’s connections, up and sideways, for any other cells or for any handlers of him. And find him, ASAP. Third, Gen. Ferguson, I want the 7th and 5th fleets prepared to move on Java as soon as we get any more confirmation that they were involved, externally or internally. And I’m sure we’ll find that they were.”
“Yes, Sir!” Gen Ferguson responded, standing and saluting. At Randall’s nod and returned Bellamy salute, the rest of the group stiffly got up and stretched, then began to file out of the room to start to work. Jason Roberts lingered behind.
“Mr. Attorney General?” Balderson asked him, expectantly. His arm was out of the sling, but it still ached where his personal guard had shot him, underestimating the former rock singer’s reaction speed.
“I just wanted to say that I discussed the Constitutionality of the issue with the Supreme Court, and there’s no issue with you going ahead and dropping the ‘Pro Tempore’ from your title, Sir.” Jason grinned.
Randall tapped his arm, then looked pointedly at the ceiling above them, where the Speaker’s office had been racked by a fatal shootout. “Don’t do me any favors.” He quipped.
“I’ll fly away, Oh Glory, I’ll fly away…when I die, Hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away…”
Stephen Susanna had been born Stephen Susan, but the Sephardic Jewish surname and his swarthy looks both passed for Italian when he had a close haircut and an added ‘a’ vowel ending to his name. He’d adopted both of them when he recovered from the Turkish Flu and found that most of the Jews who hadn’t made Aliyah to fight in the radioactive ruins of Israel as it was overrun by the I.S. had died. Even those who, like him, were just a quarter Jewish, on their paternal side. The U.S. Army private had intended to go into the J.A.G. and have the military pay for law school, before the economy had tanked and the riots started. A couple of years as a combat medic, his secondary M.O.S. once there
was no need for lawyers, had earned him his third stripe, before he’d gotten sick. He’d been able to hide his symptoms and self-medicate, but he knew what it was. Still, he’d been spared.
Growing up, he’d never really felt a strong sense of identity as a Jew. Stephen grew up the third of four children in a secular New Jersey Jewish family that barely acknowledged Hannukah, much less went to Temple. Not that there was one, in their Sicilian neighborhood. His dad was half Jewish, his grandpa Jewish, but both of them had married Gentile women, and Stephen could hardly blame them. He wasn’t attracted to whiny, big-nosed Jewish girls, either. Not Sephardic, and not Ashkenazi. The only time that he felt like a Jew was when the Italian boys called him a ‘yid’ and beat him up on the playground in school. Maybe turning ‘Italian’ was his ultimate revenge against them. Maybe it was just a latent survival instinct. Either way, he had spent the next five years changing his paperwork until the ‘a’ never showed up, any more.
His unit being put on active duty and shipped out to the great plains to guard missile silos in Wyoming had saved him from the bombings of New York and Philadelphia, either of which might have been the cause of his death, if he’d been home. His whole family had, so far as Stephen knew. After the Unified Command had combined all the branches and units of the armed forces, he still felt different, even as an ‘Italian’.
It wasn’t so much that as far as he knew he might be one of the last Jews left anywhere, he didn’t care about that. Or Israel getting nuked, and invaded, and finally dying from the very virus they had created and weaponized. It wasn’t his family dying in a hail of Chinese missiles. Or the Nazi racist haters coming to power and Harolding everything up. What really made Stephen resent this new world, more than anything, was that the best girls went for the stereotypical Nordic guys. The blonde guys. The blue eyed ones. He had worked on becoming as suave and silky smooth as he could be, and how to target the chubby girls, the girls with acne, the girls who were shy, and had low self esteem. They were easy pickings for an exotic looking officer, once he’d been promoted to Lieutenant.
It was as a Second Lieutenant that Stephen had come up with his plan to help out others, like himself, who didn’t quite fit the exact genetic definition of ‘Aryan’. The best way he could do that, was by gaining influence in the National Genetics Assessment Office, where they hired the smartest…but not necessarily the prettiest…girls. He applied for a transfer to the Secret Service, which after his training would put him at the Capitol, near the N.G.A.O.. The rest had been easy.
The first email that he had received, a year into his passing of certain ‘fails’, he blew off as a joke. Some kind of scam. Maybe a honeytrap run by Intelligence. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the S.S., then. They were always checking on people. The second one made him nervous. The third one, more personalized, had attached a picture of his father, and his grandfather. The fourth had a copy of his grandfather’s birth certificate. Someone wanted him to keep on doing exactly what he had been doing, only more so. If he didn’t, they would expose him, both for a nonWhite, and well as for treason in the faking of the test results. That was when he had developed his first ulcer.
Each time a new girl took over the data assessment and certification position, Stephen had to dump her predecessor and start all over again. Twice he had been forced to tell the heartbroken girls that if they turned on him, they would go to prison, too. Their families would be embarrassed, humiliated, ruined. Without having to be told, the third one also just moved on with her life. Only one of them committed suicide, the fourth he had wooed, before he shut down the operation and waited for his crop to grow to fruition, as ordered.
He was only six weeks away from his scheduled promotion from Captain to Major, and had groomed twenty S.S. guards and nearly fifty other members of the armed services into position, when the order came to activate them. He nearly rebelled. Stephen considered leaving the country and going to Argentina, where his looks would fit in with the Spanish and Italian population there. He even considered suicide. He knew, however, that if he didn’t follow the orders, then someone else would. Someone who wouldn’t be able to control the mess, as he could. If he confessed and turned himself in, he would be dead or in prison, and he was no hero. He had no higher cause than himself to believe in or be loyal to. He had to see this through. It was far too late to back out. He gave the specific orders to the S.S. guards whom he had been able to transfer onto the Capitol and administrative security details. The die was cast.
Now, here was, three weeks later, huddled in a smelly sweatshirt in the corner of an internet café, checking his e-mail again to see if there was any answer to his request for followup orders…or congratulations…or anything at all. Nothing. No response at all. There was nothing about the conspiracy in the news, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, either. Logging off, he mentally calculated how far it was to his nearest cache. He needed a shower and a hot meal and warmer clothes. It was too bad that even after all these years he had no idea who had been pulling his strings, so he could track them down and choke the life out of them. Or at least get some payment for services rendered.
As Stephen left the grimy little shop in Kansas City where the electrons flickered for the working class, he felt the slush soak through his shoes again from the half melted snow. Distracted by the discomfort, he didn’t see the man stumbling along beside him until their shoulders touched and he was violently pushed against the cold brick wall, face first. The lancing pain tore into his side, then out, as his throat clamped up and he couldn’t scream or speak. That was the idea, he remembered from training. First the kidneys, then the….the right side of his throat burned, then warmth spread down his shoulder and chest. Released, he half turned to face one of his young recruits. Stephen tried to apply pressure to his neck, but the lights were going out, and he knew it. Somebody hadn’t followed orders…or had they? He thought about saying “Hey-Yah” to mock his killer, but he didn’t have time. It was way too late.
Chapter Three
“We talk about spreading democracy an d freedom all over the world, but they are to us words rather than conditions. We haven't even got them here in America, and the farther we get into this war the farther we get away from democracy and freedom. Where is it leading us to, and when will it end? The war might stop this winter, but that is improbable. It may go on for fifty years or more. That also is improbable. The elements are too conflicting and confused to form any accurate judgment of its length. There may be a series of wars, one after another, going on indefinitely.
Possibly the world will come to its senses sooner than I expect. But, as I have often said, the environment of human life has changed more rapidly and more extensively in recent years than it has ever changed before. When environment changes, there must be a corresponding change in life. That change must be so great that it is not likely to be completed in a decade or in a generation.”
-Charles Lindbergh
“I see you standing, standing all alone. It’s such a lonely pla ce for you, for you to be. But if you need a shoulder. Yeah, if you need a friend…I’ll be here standing, until, the bitter end..”
His father had worked long hours as would be expected of the leader of a large nation, and his mother did her own work with charities for White families even after she stopped working as dad’s Press Secretary, so he was used to being alone. Even when he was surrounded by guards and staff. He had been more alone since Cindy had died, and his mom withdrew inwards, and Hope had moved out of the country with his nieces and nephews. John didn’t mind not having anyone to talk to. He did mind being left out of the loop.
In the end, once the worldwide-broadcast memorial service was over, he made himself such a nuisance trying to send his bodyguards on fact-finding missions or calling the Cabinet members’ offices every day that they had to get rid of him, just to get any work done. So, Gen. Ferguson asked John if he thought he was ready to return to the Academy, and John had agreed. He could catch up on the academic
work he had missed, and would graduate with the rest of his class in three months, by late Spring. He buried himself into his make-up work with a single-minded obsession, ignoring the condolences of his teachers and fellow classmates, who were more in awe of him than ever before. His status with them had changed, but not lessened. It was if they had just suddenly realized who he was…or had been…or might become.
On the unarmed and armed combat ranges, his training surpassed his classmates, and his ferocity overwhelmed his coaches. Their only concern was that he seemed to be coiled too tight. He was. Sometimes he would explode with fury at his classmates with little or no provocation. He might have wanted to be called “John”, but behind his back, at least, his friends began to call him ‘Jack in the Box’, half in awe, half in amused fear, because they never knew when he might pop out at the world.
The only way he could quieten his mind was to work out or study until he was so exhausted physically and mentally that he could fall asleep as soon as became still. Once, when he had picked up a larger boy and thrown him into a tree after a hand to hand combat match was technically over, W.P. had accidentally said “Man, J.B, that was a triple dose!”. Everybody grew quiet, waiting for John to inquire about the ‘J.B.’ term, but he laughed it off. Later, he asked his friend what it meant, but instead of getting angry, he actually liked it. From then on, even Mr. Ness and Pastor Reed, and finally the instructors began calling him “J.B.”. It stuck. ‘John Wayne McNabb, Jr.’ became ‘J.B. McNabb’, to all who knew him personally.
During the last two months of the Academy, he got his anger issues under control, for the most part, exhibiting leadership of the class and even helping some of the underclassmen along. When Post Dispatch TV was given an exclusive interview with Speaker Balderson about the findings of the investigation into the assassinations, the students watched it together, in Assembly. Somehow, learning how the sleeper agents had been recruited and turned was less emotional for J.B. than the Assembly the week before, when they had watched Randall being sworn in by the Chief Justice before the entire Congress.