Power Play- America's Fate

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  How could Quenten even consider extraditing Bradley to the United World Criminal Court after everything the Sniper had done for him?

  Ryan inhaled slowly to calm his body and diverted his attention to the bank of monitors. Only one TEradS op was currently in progress, and the feed from Cozart’s helmet camera was virtually useless thanks to the unrelenting downpour.

  Like looking through fucking waxed paper, he thought.

  The audio was marginally better, dropping nearly every other syllable. Still, he was able to deduce that Cozart had just ordered Abby to escort the female protestors back to the National Guard checkpoint. Clearly, the team leader was taking the threats against her seriously.

  “What the hell is that?” Fitzgerald mumbled.

  The Captain directed Ryan’s attention to one of Langden’s security camera feeds. His mind flashed back to his Middle-East deployments, to the sudden storms that turned day into night, clogged weapons, and hampered communications. A dark wall of clouds was transforming the horizon into a brownish-black morass, devouring the land with turbulent swirls of dirt as if propelled by hundreds of miniature explosions.

  “It’s a dust storm,” he told Fitzgerald. “We’re going to lose comms soon.” He could already imagine General Quenten’s impending reprimand over the consolidation of command into a single location—one that was about to be blinded and deafened.

  The storm would probably blow over before operations in Districts Three, Five, and Eight got underway; and with a little luck, District Nine in California would wrap up their mission before communications were impeded.

  Helmet cameras worn by Cozart and Lahey allowed him to watch both teams descend on the target. Windows had been draped with fabric, obscuring the occupants from view, but the drone overhead was capable of seeing through the low-hanging clouds, heavy rain, and even the roof of the building itself.

  “Alpha Leader,” Corporal Scott said, hailing Cozart. “Infrared shows eight tangos in the ground-floor entryway. Perimeter is clear.”

  “Roger that.”

  Team 9B trekked toward the back of the house and plodded across soggy mulch beds and dead foliage, each man leaving behind a chain of craters where his boots had compressed the soft mud beneath. Team 9A queued up alongside the front door; and after checking in with Toomey, the Sniper on overwatch, Fitzgerald gave the order to breach.

  Pizzuto swung the battering ram.

  The massive wooden front door splintered; the rear door exploded in a shower of glass.

  Cozart and Lahey hurled flash bangs inside, and the camera image lurched as the Soldiers turned away from the blinding light. Ryan heard two successive bangs, the last more elongated and louder than the first. Windows blew out, spitting shards of glass and bits of fabric onto the covered stone porch.

  Cozart charged inside, rifle trained on a man at the top of the steps. Hands raised in surrender, he said, “I just Chinese worker. No shoot.”

  Team 9A barreled up both stairways, past wallboard gouged and slashed in a shotgun-type pattern. A second man was peering over the railing into the foyer below and—in unaccented English—he shouted, “Why did you throw grenades at women and children? What’s wrong with you?”

  Ryan watched his men tackle and restrain both Chinese nationals, assuming that the men had mistaken the flash bangs for fragmentation grenades.

  The image dissolved into pixilated particles then reconstituted, and Ryan blinked at the grainy image that was rolling vertically across the monitor.

  A jumble of burned and bloody bodies were clustered at the center of the foyer.

  Women and children.

  Fitzgerald shouted, “What the fuck just happened?”

  Feeling sick to his stomach, Ryan stared at a snowy pattern that indicated the video signal had been lost.

  A warbling hiss of static confirmed that audio communications had succumbed to the dust storm.

  Then the Chinaman’s statement began rebounding inside his head.

  Why did you throw grenades at women and children?

  20

  South of Scoville Air Force Base

  District Five, Illinois

  BRADLEY WEBBER HAD barely been introduced to his new team before they’d embarked on this mission, but it felt good to concentrate on something besides Ryan’s wrath, Volkov’s vendetta, or Sun’s order to shoot Abby on sight.

  Teams 5A and 5B had already cleared surrounding buildings in the small, middle-class neighborhood. Bradley’s scope panned the sole remaining two-story Colonial again. The windows were draped with material sheer enough to allow light to penetrate, yet thick enough to mask the movements of the occupants. Plywood panels encircled the porch railing, each spray-painted with graffitilike propaganda that vilified the TEradS and declared this property a “sanctuary zone.”

  Bradley’s eyes widened, then he activated his tactical headset. “West side. Unarmed female just jumped from a second-story window.”

  She landed atop a brittle, dead bush that did little to break her fall, then rolled onto the grass, stumbling, hands pawing at the ground as she struggled to regain her footing and run at the same time. A Type 56 rifle protruded from the window, and a spray of bullets chased the limping woman.

  Unable to see the shooter, Bradley sent a short burst of rounds into the window to suppress the gunman’s fire. Master Sergeant Norwyn, his team leader, dashed toward the injured woman, tossed her over his shoulder, and sprinted for the cover of an adjacent house.

  He returned her to her feet, and she immediately collapsed into a sobbing heap. Norwyn leaned closer, so that his mic could transmit information to the entire team as well as headquarters, then he said, “What’s your name?”

  His calm, yet commanding tone seemed to instantly quell her panic.

  “M-my name’s Leigh.”

  “Okay, Leigh. I need you to tell me what happened.”

  “They-they just stormed into our houses. Kidnapped us at gunpoint.”

  “Who?”

  “The-the peacekeepers.”

  Bradley grimaced. Are they taking hostages for human shields?

  “How many peacekeepers? How many hostages?” Norwyn asked.

  “Twelve, maybe. I’m not sure. They were coming and going. Like in shifts. And there were three other women besides me and seven kids.”

  “Tell me about the layout. Where are the hostages being held?”

  “I jumped out a bathroom window. We were being held in the room next door—”

  The high-pitched feedback of a bullhorn interrupted the debrief.

  “TEradS, r-reave!” The irate-sounding voice had a heavy Asian accent. “Or I shoot hostage every two minute!”

  The front door opened and a child was shoved across the threshold, a little girl who reminded Bradley of Nikki.

  Her head jerked to the side, emitting a faint haze.

  Her body melted onto the porch, then the door slammed shut.

  Bradley could feel the rage rising inside him, like an entity taking over mind and body. Hatred burned in his veins. He craved vengeance for that child, for the girl raped and beheaded at the swing set, for the woman who had been stoned to death, for every atrocity he had been forced to witness since the EMP.

  Noticing the tremor in his rifle barrel, he sucked in a cleansing breath and exhaled slowly, trying to regain control over his respiration and heart rate. This had never happened before. He had always been able to control his emotions during operations.

  Why are my feelings suddenly so intense? he asked himself. Is the accumulation of all those fucked-up situations overwhelming me? Or am I starting to lose it?

  Stop, he chided himself. Do your job. Protect your team.

  Norwyn continued extracting information from the freed hostage while Fineri wrapped her injured ankle with duct tape—a sight that sent Bradley’s thoughts caroming back to Abby.

  A split second of worry reignited his anger, and this time, it was even harder to suppress.

  “The good Lord
always provides.”

  He whispered his grandfather’s mantra over and over until a sense of calm returned to his body.

  “Were the peacekeepers spread out?” Norwyn was asking. “Or all in one area?”

  “They were in the foyer. Half guarding the front door. The others watching the rear. All the hostages are upstairs in the back bedroom.”

  Her information jibed with their most recent infrared drone scan.

  The front door opened again. A grieving woman dropped to her knees and gathered the dead little girl into her arms. A bullet shattered the mother’s skull and she slumped forward.

  Norwyn shouted, “Avery, you get ahold of HQ yet?”

  Head shaking, he said, “The equipment’s functioning and we’ve got a strong signal, but they’re not responding.”

  Bradley felt the rage seeping back into his bloodstream.

  There would be no guidance from headquarters.

  His team leader would have to make the call; and if things went sideways—take the fall.

  21

  District Six, Texas

  KYLE MURPHY SAT AT an unfamiliar desk inside a two-story office complex that was being retrofitted to serve as the new sheriff’s station. The steel jail cells from the former facility had survived the fire and were being installed on the lower level of the building, bolted into its cement foundation.

  The natural light dimmed as though a cloud had blotted out the sun, and Kyle glanced toward the tinted window. To the west, he saw a massive brownish-black cloud, an avalanche of darkness that appeared to be rushing toward him. It stretched north to south, as far as he could see, like a mountain rolling in on itself, consuming everything in its path.

  Confused, Kyle pushed back his chair and navigated a maze of empty cubicles; then he jogged down the stairs into the artificial twilight that had claimed the ground floor.

  Sheriff Turner burst through the main entrance, spun 180 degrees, and locked the door. Then the native Texan propped a forearm against the glass and rested his forehead against it, staring out at the bizarre apocalyptic scene.

  “What the hell is it?” Kyle asked, not bothering to disguise his ignorance.

  “A dust storm,” Turner told him. “When a thunderstorm collapses, sometimes a downburst of air hits the ground and kicks up loose desert soil.”

  “Must’ve been one hell of a downburst,” Kyle mumbled.

  “These storms can grow to a hundred miles in width, rise two or three miles in altitude, and travel up to a hundred miles per hour,” Turner said. “I sent the deputies out to spread the word and assist farmers and ranchers with their livestock.”

  Kyle felt the warmth drain from his body. “What about my kids and Jessie? Should I go get them?”

  “You won’t have enough time. But don’t worry. As long as they stay inside, they’ll be fine.”

  A blast of wind crashed against the glass door, rattling it, and Turner backpedaled.

  Kyle stood transfixed, watching dust particles streaming upward and outward, like rain skimming along the windshield of a speeding vehicle. “What happens to somebody caught in the open?” he asked.

  “Unprotected eye exposure could lead to blindness. And inhaling too much dust could asphyxiate people as well as animals. Some say it can spread disease by whipping up spores that are normally dormant in the ground. But mostly, I’ve just found them to be a huge pain in the ass.”

  “Does it happen frequently?”

  “Fairly often,” Turner said. “Didn’t you ever hear about ‘Black Sunday’?”

  Kyle searched his memory, only managing to conjure “Black Friday,” formerly the busiest shopping day of the year.

  “April 14, 1935,” Turner said. “My great-grandfather was an Oklahoma farmer; and in his journal, he referred to it as a ‘Black Blizzard.’ The dust literally piled into drifts like snow and buried farm equipment. He wrote that even the birds couldn’t outrun the storm. They eventually succumbed to exhaustion and died along with thousands of jackrabbits.”

  Briefly, Kyle contemplated the consequences of smothered chickens, pigs, and steer; then he squinted at his watch, wondering how long the storm would last. Unable to see the hands on its analog face, he slapped a nearby light switch, but the lobby remained too dark for him to read the time.

  “Did the storm take out our power?” Kyle asked, his mind vaulting ahead to the cascading loss of communications, water, and sewage treatment that would inevitably follow.

  “Dust storms can create a lot of static electricity,” Turner told him. “And even generate lightning. So I ordered a shutdown.”

  The air in Kyle’s lungs solidified into a painful lump of incompetence. As governor, he should’ve been aware of this threat. “Thanks, Mark,” he said sheepishly, “for handling a crisis that I would’ve royally botched.”

  Turner shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. By tomorrow you’ll be an expert.”

  A gust of wind battered the office complex, and Kyle’s eyes narrowed, watching dust squirt through the seam in the commercial doors. “It can penetrate a sealed-off building?”

  Ushering Kyle away from the lobby, the sheriff said, “Governor, when this storm ends, you will find dust everywhere.”

  22

  South of Scoville Air Force Base

  District Five, Illinois

  DINGBANG, A POOR uneducated farm hand in his early twenties, had volunteered for the transpacific journey to the United States a year earlier. Promises of increased pay, adventure, and a better life had lured him into this predicament. Until President Quenten’s address, he had no idea that China’s relief effort was a veiled invasion, a hostile takeover attempt that had turned him—and thousands of other workers—into enemy combatants.

  Although cellular phone apps remained functional and periodic newscasts got through, Dingbang and his comrades could no longer place or receive calls. Isolated, starving, and unable to defend themselves, he and his friends had become resigned to the notion of surrender ... until they had met Leigh Winer, an activist from Amnesty Alliance posted outside the District Five POW camp. She had alluring blue eyes and a bewitching smile capable of scrambling a man’s thoughts and silencing dissent. Leigh had presented them with satellite images of rubble-strewn craters and a European news report that detailed how American secret weapons had destroyed Beijing and Shanghai along with the upper echelon of the Chinese Communist Party.

  “The U.S. military intends to eradicate soldiers and workers alike,” Leigh had told them. “And your countrymen can’t save you.”

  Then the activist produced her most compelling evidence, a video of the TEradS slaughtering Chinese POWs, men who had surrendered in accordance with President Quenten’s directive.

  “Promises of food, medical care, and humane treatment are lies,” she’d said. “Paramilitary forces are being deployed to stop the genocide of Chinese nationals. We are setting up ‘sanctuary zones,’ offering asylum and an opportunity for workers—like yourselves—to earn a ticket home.”

  In exchange for a month’s labor, Leigh had pledged evacuation by Amnesty Alliance ships, which were delivering humanitarian aid; and the chance to return home was an irresistible enticement.

  For the first week, the chores had been benign, siphoning off electric and water for the “sanctuary zone,” raiding farms and ranches, recruiting more Chinese nationals into their ranks. This morning, however, they had been ordered to kidnap women and children. Leigh claimed this was a new initiative to educate U.S. citizens by forcible exposure to the truth. She insisted that once the American people discovered what their government was doing, they would rise up and oust the genocidal murderers.

  Now, we have become the murderers, Dingbang thought, recalling how a PLA soldier had shot those hostages in cold blood.

  The door remained shut, but the sight of the slain mother and child was burned into his mind. How much longer would the threat of additional executions hold the Americans at bay?

  Did Leigh really jump from tha
t second-story window in order to mobilize a nearby paramilitary team? Would they arrive before the TEradS raided the house?

  Suddenly, the front door burst open.

  A rear window shattered, and Dingbang felt a vibration that seemed to emanate from the coat closet behind him.

  Liquid gushed over the hardwood floor and engulfed his feet like an onrushing tide.

  Two dull thunks preceded a collective shriek as the hostages recognized the odor of gasoline.

  He sensed a flash, felt a massive whoosh of air, then a deafening roar mutated into physical pain. Violent sound waves were assailing every joint in his body.

  An enormous ball of fire blew out the windows.

  Dazed from the concussive blast, Dingbang lay on the floor, gasping and writhing.

  Raging flames were consuming his clothing and flesh.

  The TEradS ... they firebombed the house despite the presence of American women and children ... Those savages!

  23

  North of Edgar Air Force Base

  District Nine, California

  “YOU’RE A WOMAN,” one of the female prisoners said, glaring at Abby. “How can you condone genocide?” She punctuated the statement with a glob of saliva, a parting shot that fell short thanks to the downpour.

  Why are they so eager to condemn the TEradS? Abby wondered. We’re risking our lives to protect them, and they’re treating us like we’re the enemy.

  “They’re all yours, Sergeant,” Abby told the National Guardsman, then she turned and began jogging toward the “sanctuary zone.” Mountainous terrain and lousy weather had hampered radio communications, completely isolating her from the mission and compounding her sense of frustration.

  She glanced skyward and frowned at the dense, gray clouds. Despite lashing winds, the storm appeared stationary; its supply of precipitation, unending. With each step, moisture sloshed between her toes, sweat trickled down her neck, and she squinted into the blurry haze of water, searching for a column of captured prisoners.