Behold a Pale Horse

by Franklin Allen Leib

  The North Korean air force, on paper the fourth largest in the world, had its obsolete MiGs and Sukhois swept from the skies by much higher-performing and better flown American navy and air force fighters. Many NK aircraft could not even fly because of lack of parts, and were destroyed in their concrete and stone revetments by two-thousand-pound concrete-penetrating bombs. No NK planes flew after the second morning of the battle.

  The four NK divisions committed to the assault were the best in the army. The troops were well trained and heavily indoctrinated, but poorly paid and fed. Their equipment was old and hard to maintain, and many tanks and other vehicles broke down even before falling prey to the artillery and mines in the Corridor. The easy victory they had been promised against the “soft, decadent” troops of the Americans and South Koreans turned into a nightmare in the Corridor.

  The battlegrounds were littered with propaganda leaflets. Many NK soldiers surrendered to the first units of the 14th ROK Division that attacked their flanks north of the Corridor, trading their weapons for the brimming bowl of rice promised in the leaflets. Others stayed in the Corridor and died.

  The 14th ROK Division advanced cautiously up the flat coastal plain, with the U.S. Second and Fourth Infantry providing logistical and tactical support. They took the important railhead of Kaesong after a brief, sharp tank and infantry battle. As the ROK 14th moved north, there was little opposition from demoralized second-rank NK units, and the 14th captured P‘yongyang on the fifth day of fighting. South Korean and U.S. Marines took the major port of Wonsan with little resistance. North Korea’s Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and his generals fled across the Chinese border. The President of South Korea, Kim Keung-buk, declared the North liberated and reunited with the South, and asked the world for aid in feeding their starving northern brothers and sisters.

  SEND FOOD,” PRESIDENT Tolliver said to Zeke Archer. He had not spoken in public since the torpedo attack. “Send missionaries also. Korea has a large Christian community; ensure they get moved up and supported. They can handle the distribution of aid and preach the gospel as well.”

  Zeke, shaken, took notes and nodded.

  “Who is the next to receive the lesson?” the president asked.

  “Iraq, or Iran,” Zeke replied, heartsick. “According to your plan.”

  “Do both. Sub pens, antiship and antiaircraft missiles, airfields, army concentrations if you can find them, suspected nuclear or chemical sites. And all the Iraqi dictator’s palaces.”

  “Mr. President, Juss, the whole world opposes this, even our staunchest allies.”

  “‘And Hell followed with him,’ Zeke. Make it so.”

  AIR STRIKES FROM the Persian Gulf were launched from the carriers Lincoln, Vinson and Eisenhower beginning at four in the morning that North Korea surrendered. More than sixty ships surrounded the carriers, including cruisers, destroyers, replenishment ships and three amphibious ready groups with over twelve thousand marines, all their gear, and their aircraft. Submarines patrolled the shallow waters of the Gulf, and Connecticut popped the first Iranian Kilo to venture out of port, providing the incident, or excuse. Air attacks were intense as were missile launches from the surface warships and submarines. The admiral commanding the task force reported complete success of the mission in less than thirty-six hours.

  12

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING to send the marines ashore, are you?” Carolyn White said at the morning briefing.

  “Not unless they move toward Kuwait, Carolyn,” the president, immensely pleased with himself, drawled. “Hell, those camel jockeys get CNN; they saw what happened to the North Koreans. They ain’t gonna do shit.”

  “Mr. President.” Zeke Archer cleared his throat. “The Secretary of State has been waiting an hour.”

  The president sighed. He found the Secretary of State, seventy-year-old Malcolm Japes, a former senator from Alabama, a bore and a windbag. He had been another appointment forced down Justice’s throat by the Republican old guard, and the president rarely consulted him, barely tolerated his pronouncements at Cabinet meetings. “All right, Zeke,” Justice said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  MALCOLM JAPES WAS thin, handsome, and courtly. He was over six feet tall, ramrod straight despite his age. His eyes were pale blue, his face patrician. His longish silver hair was wavy. Justice suspected it was permed. Justice hated the man. “Mr. Secretary,” he said warmly, not rising from behind his desk but extending his hand.

  The old man had to lean forward across the president’s desk to take the hand, a posture that hurt his lower back. He was sure the president knew this. Malcolm Japes hated the Texas mountebank who sat in the chair that should have been Joseph Donahue’s, or perhaps his own. “Mr. President,” he responded in warm tones.

  “Please sit,” Justice said. “May I ask the steward to get you anything?”

  “Nothing, sir. I know your time is precious, so may I come straight to the point?”

  “Always the best,” Justice said, taking a thin Cuban cigar from a silver box and lighting it. He shoved the box toward the secretary who shook his head. The president really didn’t like cigars but he knew Japes suffered from asthma; it would keep the meeting short. “What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. President, we’ve had protests from all over the world about the recent military actions in Korea and the Gulf.”

  “Can’t please everybody.” The president puffed.

  “We’re not pleasing anybody, sir. The Russians and Chinese are bitching, and sure, that’s dangerous enough. They have both placed their military forces on high alert. But we’re also getting howls from the British, the Germans, the Japanese, even the Saudis. All of the latter protesting the use by our forces of bases in their countries for launching our attacks.”

  The president puffed again. “What do they want?”

  “The Japanese and the Saudis have suggested they may close their bases; force our ships and aircraft to leave. The British and the Germans haven’t been so direct, but suggest the same sort of thing.”

  The president leaned forward, his cheeks reddening. “Mr. Secretary, you tell those assholes in your best diplomatic kiss-ass way that if they want us to leave, we will. But we won’t be back. Those European cocksuckers couldn’t even put a fence around Yugoslavia when it fell apart, and how bad do the Japs and the Saudis want to be left to the mercy of their neighbors? We don’t need the oil from the Gulf; it goes to Europe and Japan. We can get all we need right here in our own Western Hemisphere, especially with huge new fields coming in Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador.” The president paused and took another puff. The stinker was beginning to bother even him. The Secretary of State was ashen pale and breathing shallowly. “Tell ’em that, Mr. Secretary. Tell them it’s a new day. Tell them to fuck off, and to support our just and righteous position in restoring peace to an uncertain world.”

  The president leaned back. His color returned to normal and suddenly he grinned. “Tell them that in your best diplomatic style, Mr. Secretary.”

  Malcolm Japes rose slowly to his feet. “Mr. President, these are our oldest friends and staunchest allies—”

  The president took another puff of his cigar and blew it toward his Secretary of State. “I’m sure you’ll do fine, Mr. Secretary.”

  THERE WERE NO FURTHER responses from Korea or any of the Gulf states. The fleets, air forces, and ground troops were withdrawn to normal operating areas and tempo. The world calmed, but angry buzz continued. International travel, and more important, international trade, virtually ceased. Stock markets crashed all over the world, led by Wall Street, where the Dow-Jones Industrial Average declined 30 percent in a week and a half.

  The president kept his silence another few days, seeing almost no one. Then he summoned Zeke Archer. The Chief of Staff found the president haggard, drawn, but upbeat.

  Manic, Zeke thought, and his worries increased.

  “Zeke, call over to the Capitol. I’d like permission to address a joint session. Make sure th
ere is plenty of room for the world’s press.”

  “Of course, Juss.” Zeke felt a surge of relief. “When?”

  “Tomorrow would be convenient.”

  13

  “MR. SPEAKER, I HAVE the high honor and distinct privilege to introduce the President of the United States,” shouted the Speaker of the House of Representatives as the usher led Rupert Justice Tolliver into the packed House chamber. Senators and congressmen rose and clapped politely, but without enthusiasm.

  The diplomatic corps and the press in the gallery remained seated and silent. Even the cabinet, seated behind the Justices of the Supreme Court, could manage only a lukewarm welcome.

  The president marched to the podium, turned, and shook hands with the Speaker of the House and the vice president, behind the podium in their high chairs. Justice approached the microphones, squinted at the TelePrompTer screens, and laid his speech upon the podium. The chamber fell as silent as is possible for several hundred people to do.

  Justice looked around, studying faces. He saw hostility and fear; it was what he had wanted and expected. The lesson had been taught, and now it had to be explained. Justice was ready, his mind right and righteous.

  “Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the House and Senate, Justices of the Supreme Court, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps, representatives of the American and foreign media, the American People and the people of the world,” Justice said in a loud, clear voice as he changed his distance glasses for his reading ones. “The events of the last few weeks, when our gallant military and naval forces appeared around the globe, exercising, training, and affirming our right—any sovereign nation’s right—to innocent passage of international waterways and airspace, have caused a great crying out, by governments and the media. Our own cities have become turbulent; our people distressed. And I have been accused, not only of acting precipitously, but of doing so without regard to national and international law. Worse, some have said, in this Capitol and in the press, I have failed to explain my actions to the Congress, the nation, and the world. Now I stand before you all to explain, and to urge support.

  “I’m an ordained minister, bound to God. I saw a world falling into chaos because of the withdrawal of leadership of the United States, a nation bound to God. I’m not talking only of the Christian God, but the God of all of us, whether we call him Buddha, or Allah, or Vishnu, or simply Lord. The Holy Spirit that inhabits us all, even those who do not believe. The Spirit that binds us together, every human being on the planet. The Spirit, some have said, who has turned his face away, because we have sinned, made wars, committed genocides in Germany, Bosnia, Russia, Cambodia, and Central Africa. Turned his face, or perhaps her face, away because we human beings, blessed by God with knowledge and compassion, have shown little intelligence and less compassion in dealing with the world’s tragedies and injustices.

  “A dozen or so years ago, the Soviet Union fell of its own weight, its burden of corruption and failed ideology. The Russian people got their church back, a thousand-year-old church taken away for seventy years. The Russian people, magnificent in soul, are returning to their roots and flocking to their churches. We’re helping them.

  “The Chinese people are gaining freedoms lost for fifty years, including, very gradually, freedom of worship.

  “Islam spreads across half the world, from Morocco to Indonesia, and Muslims live among us in Europe and America. There are many differences among us, but the presence of God is being felt as it has not for many years.”

  Justice paused and took a sip of water. The chamber remained completely silent. “My friends around the world, I believe God loves us, but hates our wickedness. I believe He wants us to live in peace and brotherhood. But I also believe He expects us to act to achieve His Kingdom on earth. There are rogues among us, tyrants and slaughterers, many of whom cloak themselves in one religion or another, or even in the failed religion of communism. These rogues must change their ways, cease their offenses against God’s peace on earth, or they will be chastised.

  “I sent our fleets to some of the areas where the countries’ leaders have flouted God and threatened His peace, although most of their people remain devout, if fearful. What was their leaders’ response? To attack our ships. We had no choice but to defend our rights as a nation, and in turn the peace of the world. We did so, and we will again. Jesus said many times he came not in peace but with a sword, but he sought peace. We seek peace, not only among nations but within them. Tyrants who oppress their people, even kill them, deserve the fate of Herod and Holofernes, and will receive it. God, by whatever name you call Him, created men and women to be free beings. The Muslims say we can only be free if we first give ourselves completely to God. I believe this also.

  “But freedom isn’t only the right not to be oppressed; it’s also the right to prosper, and raise a family, and grow crops and create goods and trade those goods. The United States cannot and will not police the world, but we will right wrongs when we can, and help when we can. That’s why our fleets and armies defend our rights, and all of yours. We will not turn our faces away from human suffering and misery, just as God of any name has not turned his face away. We’ll fight injustice, and disease, and corruption, and poverty however we can, however we must. We’ll fight to elevate the human spirit in Cambodia and Rwanda, and also in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. We’ll root out the Beast wherever he appears. We’ll make a better world in this new millennium.

  “The press has condemned me, the U.N. has condemned me, and the sense of the House and Senate in this room is that I’ve acted rashly. Think of the other choice, the other path, the path of the unrestrained Beast. Nuclear wars among nations too poor to feed their people. Great plagues in Africa that go unchecked because the dictator has taken the national treasure to build palaces in Geneva or the south of France. Mountains of skulls in Cambodia, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, tribal slaughter in central Africa, starvation everywhere in a world filled with riches of every variety.

  “The United States.” Justice felt a knot in his throat, and tears start. He took another sip of water and dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. “The United States wishes to lead the world, not to dominate it. We are the messenger, but the message is God’s. You all must choose in this, the first year of the Third Millennium, if the early calculations are accurate. Let us find our humanity as a common thing, undivided by religion, race or culture.

  “I speak from my heart.” Justice placed his hand over his breast. “Here endeth the lesson.”

  Justice walked down from the podium. Most of the audience rose, and applauded politely. The applause grew louder as the president, surrounded by Secret Service and members of his staff including the Mormon, swiftly left the chamber, stopping not even once to shake an outstretched hand.

  JULIA EARLY WATCHED the speech in her apartment with her two roommates, Judith Langtry and Hilda Chu. “He’s bloody mad, isn’t he?” Judith said, moving to the small bar to refresh drinks.

  “He frightens me,” Hilda said. “What he did to Korea threatens all Asia, and what threatens Asia threatens the world.”

  “You knew him,” Judith said, passing out the drinks, a dark whiskey for her, white wine for Julia, and as always, orange juice for Hilda. “Was he always crazy?”

  “We have a saying,” Julia said carefully. “‘Crazy like a fox.’ He’s put the world on notice that the only superpower is back, and gotten away with it. But I am afraid. He seems to see himself as the last hope of the world, and how will that be perceived?”

  “Who will stop him?” Judith asked.

  “Someone,” Julia said. “Probably the wrong someones.”

  “What will their motivation be?” Hilda asked. “Sure, he paid lip service to other religions and nations, but this will be read as his taking up the white man’s burden. But what nations can restrain him?”

  “Only the United States itself, and the quiet, faceless men who run things here and in the r
est of the world,” Julia said.

  “Such men are capable of moral outrage?” Hilda said derisively. “The big industrialists? The bankers? They’re making millions out of the military buildup. They will care for the poor, not only in the world but in the inner cities of this rich nation?”

  “They’ll stop him,” Julia said carefully. “Because he’s bad for business. Every stock market in the world has tanked, and global trade has nearly come to a stop.”

  “What’ll the loony do next?” Judith asked.

  “Are either of you religious?” Julia asked.

  “No,” Judith said. “Not at all.”

  “I am Buddhist,” Hilda said.

  “There is a Bible in my room. Read the last book, the one the president keeps quoting. The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. When Rupert Justice Tolliver says God has warned us to mend our ways, he means it.”

  “I still say the man’s daft,” Judith said. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Me too,” Hilda said, rising from a lotus position on the shag carpet in a single smooth movement.

  Julia yawned. “I have something to finish on the computer. Good night.”

  14

  JULIA LEFT CNN on low as she typed. She looked at the television, distracted by an aerial camera shot of a huge city in flames. She turned up the volume and was thus one of the first people in Washington to learn that the city of Los Angeles and many surrounding communities had been torn by a vast earthquake whose epicenter was a mile south of downtown at the intersection of three deep faults of the San Andreas system. Huge fires erupted as gas mains broke all over the city, and efforts to fight fires and rescue people from collapsed buildings were rendered practically impossible by the collapse of nearly all elevated sections of freeways. Julia wept.