He squinted through the cigarette smoke. What the devil is this?
Within seconds the object disappeared high above his office and out of view. He shook his head. As far as he knew there were no test flights scheduled for tonight out of Shahezhen—certainly not over the capitol.
As he finished his thought, night turned to day. His office lit up with the intensity of the noon sun. He cried out in surprise and staggered back from the window, blinded. After the initial shock wore off, Po Sin blinked, rubbing his eyes and stepped forward to the window.
The bright light outside dimmed slowly. He stared at Beijing, revealed in daylight when it should be night. Over the course of the next minute or so, the light faded until it seemed no more than dusk outside. A very pink-tinged dusk. Po Sin pressed his face against the window like a child looking for winter's first snowflak and peered up to find the source of the light. Undulating ribbons of color swirled in the sky, casting an eerie glow on the ground.
The northern lights? Impossible. None of it made sense.
Only when he saw the stars—thousands of them glittering like diamonds scattered across a velvet mat in the sky—did know something was terribly wrong. He glanced down at the city and in a unique moment of self-pity, accepted that his career was effectively over. The bright light—an explosion—the aurora, never seen this far south—and not a single light on in the city, not even car headlights.
No, they couldn't have…how did it slip through the air defense network? Po Sin glared at the dark city, seeing the trajectory of the object again in his mind. That's why it flew so low. A cruise missile. It was the only logical conclusion to reach based on the event he'd just witnessed.
The Americans had finally retaliated. With one detonation they'd obliterated the entire electrical grid in Beijing—most likely a good chunk of China as well.
Is this the only strike? What about our navy—they've been getting into position to…
Panic gripped his heart. He had to get out of the city. Now.
At any moment, 11 million of people trapped in a powerless Beijing would realize they no longer had working refrigerators or running water. There would be no more working public utilities, no Internet—no nothing. The factories would not open tomorrow and no one would get paid. China’s capitol was as good as destroyed.
The door to his office burst open and a breathless Fai rushed in, illuminated by starlight and the eerie auroral glow.
"Minister! Did you—"
"Yes, Fai, I saw," Po Sin said urgently. "Quickly, now—we need to leave! Do you remember your emergency directives?"
His assistant nodded and his Adam's apple bobbed in the dim light. "Yes, minister!"
Po Sin opened his desk and pulled out a Norinco 213. He tossed the 9mm pistol at Fai then pulled another out and slipped it in his waistband. "Good, let's go. We must leave. Now."
"Minister, your wife? I can call—"
Po Sin laughed. "If we survive tonight, I will happily embrace my status as widower. Now move!"
Chapter 80
Aftermath
ERIK EASED HIMSELF INTO an Adirondack chair and sighed as the pain in his hip subsided. Taking the weight off his legs helped a lot. Lucy had done all she could and packed his wounds with her honey-based antibiotics, cleaned him up and proclaimed his hip not broken, but he still felt like he'd been in a car accident. His cheek throbbed and the hole in his gums where she'd pulled the loose molar out grossed him out, but he'd live.
He closed his eyes as a sudden flare of pain down his leg made its presence known then subsided while he settled his body into a somewhat comfortable position. A long sigh escaped his lips.
Warm fingers entertained in his. He turned his head to the left and smiled at Brin, sitting in a matching chair. She'd hauled the chairs up from the fort curators' house just north of the structure and set them up on the eastern wall. Now that the battle was over, the gulls circling overhead made the only sounds to be heard. Shanty Town was quiet.
"They're waiting for you, you know."
Erik sighed again and let his eyes roam out over the still waters of Lake Ticonderoga. He wondered how many times in the past people had come to the edge of this picturesque lake and just looked, procrastinating some an important decision.
He smiled to himself. Maybe Benedict Arnold did the same thing hundreds of years ago while he was debating how best to delay the British advance south out of Canada during the Revolution.
"Spike kept the survivors as slaves. You can't just lead the attack that wiped out his crew and just walk away…"
"Watch me," Erik said quietly.
Brin was quiet for a moment. "Babe, the folks living in Shanty Town are free for the first time in weeks, if not months. They're homeless, half-starved, and most are injured. Lucy's got her hands full down there and we don't have close to the supplies she needs to treat everyone. Someone needs to organize—"
Erik shook his head. "I'm retired." His tongue found the hole in his gums unbidden. God damn that's weird feeling.
"What?" she asked again.
"I'm done with leading," he said, massaging his cheek. "I tried that in Florida and we got shit-canned in favor of Lentz and his 'trust the government' crowd. Remember where that got us? Our homes burned down, half the people in the Freehold killed…we had to leave and…"
"The Russians…" she said quietly.
"I tried to be a leader then, too." The faces of the men Stepanovich had killed in retribution for Erik's failed prison break still haunted his sleep. Just closing his eyes transported him back south, tied to that damn tree in the woods, surrounded by the rotting bodies of the men he'd tried to help.
He shook his head. "I'm done with leading. Let someone else take over."
"That kind of thinking got them Spike," Ted said, limping up the ramp on Erik's right.
Erik listened to his friend's boots crunch on the pea gravel strewn across the wall's walkway as he approached.
"You too?" Erik asked.
Ted sighed as he leaned against the wall, gazing out over the lake. "God damn but it's pretty."
"Yes it is, but the answer's still no." Erik lay his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. "Besides, Lucy said I need to be immobile for a while. Consider me medically disabled for the time being."
"There'll be more Spikes, you know," Ted said.
Erik cracked an eye and looked at his friend in the waning afternoon light. "Not that Spike, though. They tore him to pieces."
"True," Ted admitted. "But he's not the only hard case out there. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow—but the guys still out there on the sailboat will come back."
"God, I hope not," muttered Erik. "I need a vacation."
"Sssh," added Brin with a playful squeeze of his hand.
"Someday, another one like Spike is going to show up. The world we live in now was made for people like him. People who can mistreat others and abuse others and try to rule others…"
Erik sighed. "It's the Dark Ages all over again. The strong will rule the weak and get stronger."
"That sounds about right," muttered Ted. He rubbed his shoulder and winced.
"As the single thug gains followers and people to work for him—willingly or not—he becomes a chieftain, then a general, then a lord, then a king." Erik watched the far shoreline for a moment. "I wonder if there'll be a dozen little kingdoms here in a hundred years or…"
"That all depends on people like you."
Erik squinted up at Ted again. "How do you figure that?"
Ted stared out over the water. "You're a leader Erik."
"You're a marine."
"Oorah—but that's different. I can fight, but you're…I don't know, good at pulling people together. Organizing. If those idiots hadn't given in to Lentz back in Florida, we'd probably be fat and happy instead of hungry and bruised. You get me? Susan and Mark would still be alive."
"That's not fair," Brin argued.
Erik closed his eyes again, letting what littl
e warmth the late November sun provided soak into his battered body. He dreaded waking up tomorrow—he'd be stiff as a board and sore without pain relievers.
"But it's the truth," pressed Ted. "You're the type of person the rest of us need to help us stand up to people like Spike."
Erik looked at his wife and squeezed her hand. "I only did what everyone wanted to do—"
"But until you arrived, no one did. Don't you see, man? You're the opposite of Spike. Most of us are happy to follow someone and if it's not you, I guarantee someone just like Spike—maybe worse—will come along and try to do what he almost got away with."
"Kill a town?" asked Erik with acid in his voice. Dad's dead because of that psycho. Mom's going to take a long time to come out of whatever place she's in.
"Or start a kingdom."
Erik thought about Ted's words. The scholar in him knew Ted was right: nobles in the middle ages all across Europe weren't noble because God waved a hand and decreed it. They were just lucky to be the descendants of brutal warriors who took power at the point of a sword when Rome fell and law and order became a memory.
"How many people were in prison across the state—across the country—when the lights went out?" asked Brin quietly. "How many survived?" She shook her head.
"No, forget about the prison—there are plenty of opportunistic assholes out there not in prison. How many of them were only law-abiding before the collapse because they didn't want to go to jail? When everything fell apart, it would be like…like letting a starving dog off the leash outside a chicken farm. It's only a matter of time before the dog catches a meal. And then what?"
"Farmer needs a gun," Ted observed. "The people need a leader."
"I see your point." Erik sighed. "Both of you."
"So?" asked Ted. "The people are waiting."
Erik craned his stiff neck to look over his shoulder. "Awww, shit." The recently cleared parade ground was packed with bedraggled, hopeful faces, most of them standing around staring at him.
"That is definitely not fair."
Brin squeezed his hand. "They cleared all the loot out so they could see you. No one told them to."
Erik looked back out over the water, letting his eyes trace the Vermont shoreline south until it met the intimidating mass of land and trees called Mount Independence. He'd hiked over there with his family every summer growing up. He knew every trail and path on that promontory, all the best spots to lean between the trees on the cliff face and look at the fort across the water.
"I always wanted to live over there," he said softly.
"The lady that's looking after your mom—Kelly—she's the widow of the dairy farmer who lives just the other side of—what did you call it?"
"Independence. That's Independence," Erik said, pointing. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing west. "The one behind me is Mount Defiance. The Americans wanted to put canon up there during the Revolution to take the fort."
Ted whistled. "That's a hell of a climb to drag those two-wheeled bastards without a road." He turned back to the lake. "Anyway, Kelly lives over there. She has cows and fresh milk—she's willing to bring food across if we can help her get things back in order. Spike did a real number on her farm."
"How did you find all that out?" Erik asked with a lopsided grin.
"I…uh, well, I mean…she—"
"Are you blushing?" asked Erik. "You are!"
"Fuck you."
"You're stalling," Brin whispered over Ted's embarrassed stuttering. She squeezed his hand.
Erik sighed. "All I wanted was to make it up here and sit by my parents' house, in chairs like these, holding your hand, and watching the sunrise over the lake."
Brin sighed. "It's a good dream. And we can still have that."
"Well, you'll have to get a new house…"
"Thanks," muttered Erik. "You're a real help, Ted."
"Just doing my part. Duke."
Erik groaned. "Oh come on. Don't start that shit again."
"So you'll do it, then?" asked Ted. Erik didn't need to look at him to see the smile on his face. Before Erik could answer, Ted turned toward the parade ground and raised his arms.
"He said yes!"
"Damn it, Ted!" Erik hissed.
The ragged cheer that exploded behind him sent a shiver down Erik's spine. He reached out a hand to Ted. "Help me up, you bastard. I can't just sit here while they're all cheering."
With Ted on one side and Brin supporting his other, Erik stood and faced the people. His people. Someone got a weak chant started. "Dux…dux…dux…"
"Are you serious?" Erik asked. "You taught them that?"
Ted cracked a grin, his face a mess of cuts and bruises. "Dux bellorum, right? War leader in Latin—that's what you told me back at the Freehold, right?"
"Asshole."
"They love you," Brin marveled. She squeezed his free hand.
"For now," Erik replied. He waved, and the people cheered. "We've got a hard winter ahead of us," he muttered, looking out over the hopeful faces.
Ted chuckled. "That's the old Duke we know and love."
Erik glanced at his friend while the people in the courtyard continued their obscene chanting. "We'll see how happy you are when I announce you're our chief of security. Again."
Ted's smile faded. "Hey, we only have a few people who can fight, and most of them are twice my age. Not much for me to be chief of—”
"Ah, the trials of leadership," answered Erik as he waved to the crowd below. "Ain't that a bitch?"
"So what's the first order, oh wise and merciful Duke Erik," quipped Brin, hugging him gently around the waist.
"Ow. Easy on the battle wounds, there." She squeezed harder. "Ow! All right, all right." Erik took in a deep breath and surveyed the fort. The fire in the gate house had been put out, but the smoke lingered and the structure was still hot.
"First thing we have to do is get that fire 100% out," he said, gesturing at the gatehouse. "If that thing burns, we'll lose a lot of living space and it'll compromise the integrity of the fort itself."
"Living space?" asked Brin.
"Yeah, that's the old enlisted men's barracks. You don't think we're going to live in what's left of the town, do you? We're going to move as many people as we can inside the fort. There's not that many survivors left, unfortunately. I think we'll all fit. We may have to modify some of the buildings a bit…"
He waved again to the crowd, setting off a new round of applause and cheering.
"God, they're desperate aren't they?"
"Yep," answered Ted. He raised his rifle in the air and the noise intensified. "And thankful."
"They need to eat." Erik looked at the red-tiled roof of the gunpowder storage building on the east wall.
"Everyone," he called out, his voice echoing across the parade ground. He raised both arms, wincing at the effort. "Everyone calm down, okay?" Eventually silence returned to the ancient fort.
"Thank you for placing your trust in me. I don't deserve it—"
"Bullshit!" someone called out from down below. "You killed Spike!"
"You did—I merely knocked him out." The crowd thundered in approval. They were wholly unrepentant for what had happened to Spike. Erik glanced at the dark stain on the gravel near the gatehouse, the last reminder of what had been the evil that reigned over this place. He didn't know what happened to the body, or what was left of it—and he cared less. Spike was gone.
"Spike and his crew spent their time stealing and killing, building up a huge stockpile of food and supplies taken from everyone they could reach. It's enough for ten times the number of people he had. I know some of you may be uncomfortable eating the spoils of their raids…but if we don't, the people who died—who gave up this food we now have—they will have died in vain."
The crowd grew deathly silent. Erik cleared his throat. "That said, if we're careful, that food can see us all through the winter."
The crowd roared. Several people fell to their knees in tears.
"We'll need volunteers to help our surgeon—"
"Lucy's a surgeon now?" asked Brin playfully.
The shouts went out as people raised their arms, offering to help.
"Ted, can you find Lucy and have her meet with the volunteers?"
"On it," Ted replied. He limped toward the stairs.
"Once the wounded have been seen to, let's all get something to eat. I'll need a volunteer to run the kitchens—"
More than one person nominated Maggie. She smiled, the fresh pink scratches on her face in stark contrast to the white hair around her shoulders. She handed her shotgun to the nearest man and retied her pony tail.
"I guess it's time to start cooking." The crowd cheered again.
"Maggie, can you handle a big Thanksgiving?" asked Erik. "It's only a week away…anyone have any objections to celebrating a little early?"
The crowd cheered again.
Erik raised his arms. "I want to warn you right now," Erik said, dampening the spirit of the crowd instantly. "There's rough times ahead. We can't just empty the stores in one day. We're going to have to ration what we have to last us all through the winter and into next year. We've had some early snow and I'm no farmer, but I don't think that bodes well for the rest of the season—we'll need to start crops as soon as the spring thaw hits."
"We'll survive," someone said. "We always have."
"That's going to be our motto," Erik replied somberly. "We survive."
A knot of people clustered around the base of the flagpole in the center of the courtyard drew his attention. In a few seconds he understood what they were doing.
An old, tattered Betsy Ross flag rose to the renewed cheers of the survivors. The threadbare flag reached the top of the pole and snapped in the breeze. It reminded him of the flag he flew atop the Keep, back before the Freehold fell.
Brin rested her head against his shoulder and sighed. "We made it."
Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) Page 49