Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Nine

 
The open society is not threatened, it is in a state of dissolution. The date on which the unconditional surrender was announced can be exactly identified: It was the day that the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie and the European institutions and governments did NOT react with an immediate break in ALL ties to the Mullah-Regime. Instead those multi-culturally oriented knowers came out and explained to us why Rushdie would have done better not to provoke the mullahs.

Europe—Your Last Name is Appeasement!

—Henryk Broder, Welt am Sonntag, 14 November, 2004

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 22 Sha'ban,
1536 AH (18 June, 2112)

"Choose me, master," the exotic girl said, her eyes demurely downcast. "I will make it worth your while in more ways than the poets tell of."

"I don't know much about poetry, girl," Hans answered. "They give us little of it. And it seems—"

"Please choose me, master," the girl repeated. She looked up at Hans and said it again, but with a slightly different emphasis of tone. When Hans still didn't agree, the almond-eyed houri bit her lower lip and added, "In the name of God, choose me."

"All right, girl, since you're so insistent. But I can't promise much from me."

"It's not for you to promise, master, it is for me to."

The stop by the mullah for him to pronounce a properly contractual temporary marriage was brief. The only question was, "For how long?"

"Two days," the exotic girl had said, explaining to Hans, "You may tire of me after that, though I guarantee you will not before then."

Hans had agreed. What, after all, did he know about the heavenly delights of the houris?

Hans let the girl lead him upstairs, through several ornate halls, down a corridor and into a room furnished in ways he'd never imagined before, all hanging silks and rich wood. Once in the room she'd removed the diaphanous veil she'd worn across the lower half of her face. She was very beautiful, Hans thought. No . . . that wasn't strong enough. He had to admit to himself that he'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

The girl had sat him in a chair, then knelt to untie and remove his boots. The carpet on the floor felt amazingly plush and soft to Hans' march-hardened feet.

"Wait here," the girl had said. "I have a small surprise for you."

Impatiently, and with some small amount of bad grace, Hans had agreed. The girl slipped out silently through a side door.

A few minutes passed before Hans heard someone, not his exotique, saying, "No . . . I won't go . . . this is wrong . . . I said . . . "

A woman, tall and blond and, if anything, more beautiful than his temporary wife was pushed into the bedroom. She turned around and tried to push her way back but the door was blocked by the slender almond-eyed one. "Zheng Ling," she'd given her name as.

"Master," she said. "Meet your sister."

At that, the blond girl wailed and crumpled to the floor.

"In the name of God, what's wrong with her?" Hans asked frantically, while helping Ling move Petra's inert form to the bed.

"Mostly, she's ashamed," Ling answered.

"Of . . . oh."

"Oh."

"But it isn't like she did this to herself," Hans objected.

"Does that matter in our world?" Ling asked, rhetorically.

They laid Petra out on Ling's wide bed. Ling tactfully neglected to mention how frequent an occupant of that bed Petra was.

While busying themselves with silly, ineffectual things like rubbing Petra's wrists, Hans asked, "Why did you show her to me when she didn't want to be seen?"

"She said she didn't want to, but there are two people about whom she can never talk without love creeping into her voice. You're one of them. She didn't want to see you because she was afraid of what you would think and say . . . that, and that she didn't want you to have to endure the shame among your friends of having a houri for a sister."

"I knew she was a slave," Hans said. "All else follows from that. And what does she think I am, but a slave soldier. As for which of the professions chosen for us by others is the more obscene? That I leave for God to decide."

Ling stopped rubbing for a moment and, smiling warmly, said, "You know, master, I think I am going to make good on the promise I made you."

Far up in one of the towers, the one where Latif made his personal quarters, the brothel owner poured three large vodkas for himself and his two guests.

"I get it from across the border," Latif said. "You can get anything for a little baksheesh."

"The Holy Koran forbids the drinking of fermented grain or grape," Rustam objected.

Latif nodded piously. "Very true," he agreed. "But vodka is made from potatoes; Allah will be none the wiser."

"And neither will the caliph," said Abdul Rahman.

"Well . . . as for the caliph," Latif said, "he prefers scotch; or so my contacts tell me. And are your boys settling in well?"

"They seem to be," said Abdul Rahman, sipping at the frosty glass. "They seem to be settling in very happily, indeed."

It was a time for tears. By the time Petra was awake, and Ling left for Petra's room to leave the siblings some privacy in her own, the two were weeping onto each other's shoulders, hugging, and each trying— and failing—to get a word in edgewise.

I never knew any family of my own, Ling had thought, glancing over her shoulder as she'd left. The idea of having actual blood relatives is . . . fascinating. And strangely . . .

Ling cut off the dangerous thought, closing the door between the rooms. For her there never would be, never could be, such a thing as family.

What wouldn't I do to have a family?

A little voice in her head told her, Don't even think about it. You have your duty to your people. That should be enough.

But what if it isn't?

OSI Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, 20 June, 2112

"No, I won't do it," Hamilton snarled. "That goes way past any duty I owe to you or the company or the country. Two hundred and fifty years ago my people fought against this monstrosity. Nothing you can say can make me. It's evil."

"Yes, you will," Caruthers said with great assurance. "It's the only ingress to the place we have. You can't pass for Chinese. The Japanese are too close to us to be permitted in and you couldn't pass for one of them either. The only way we can get you in there is as a South African and just about the only ones of those who are allowed in are slave traders. Which is why the only cover we've been able to prepare for you is as a slave dealer. So you will do it."

"Couldn't I be a buyer, instead? Then we could free the slaves after the mission, rather than leaving them behind in mines and workshops and whorehouses."

"South Africa doesn't buy much. Mostly, they sell. It just wouldn't wash. Even if it would, your target area is the kind of place that buys slaves, not one that sells them."

Hamilton turned away, looking sick. "Please don't ask me to do this."

"No other way." To drive home the point, Caruthers asked, "You did read that paper Claude O. Meara was working on, didn't you, John?"

When Hamilton didn't answer, Caruthers said, "Atkinson, you shithead: read back the introduction to Meara's research paper on artificial smallpox variant VA5H."

The little box answered, "Yes, sir. Proposed artificial smallpox, variant VA5H, is a completely genengineered pathogen which very nearly approximates the ideal biological weapon. VA5H is not actually smallpox at all but has very similar symptoms at one stage of its development. It can be expected to produce ninety-seven percent fatalities in the affected population if left untreated and fifty to sixty percent if full medical care is available. Because of the society-wide spread of the disease, most victims could not be given full treatment. Due to the artificial virus' ability to use any conceivable mode of transmission—contact, air, or vector—coupled with the long delay between infection and the onset of symptoms, defense is highly problematic.

"The cleverest part of the disease is in its pattern of morphing, which follows five stages. In stage one, which is the stage at which it is released from deepfreeze, the disease is asymptomatic and is spread mostly by air and, more rarely, bodily fluids or insect vector. This stage lasts thirteen days, after which it mutates into something which closely mimics the symptoms of the common cold. The coughing and sneezing act as an aid to transmission and, because colds are, in fact, common, can be expected to create no great interest. This stage, stage two, lasts twenty days. It then mutates into something harmless again, and lies dormant for a period of five days. In stage four, the disease turns deadly, killing virtually all who are infected within seven days, and more usually within four. This stage lasts nine days. In stage five the disease once again turns harmless and becomes incapable of reproduction.

"Moreover, every offspring of the virus begins life at the same stage of morphing as the original parent. This is achieved by the genengineering of excess segments on the virus' DNA, which decay or slough off at the times given, leaving a DNA strand with the pathogenic characteristics listed. Subsequent generations breed true to the stage the parent was at, at conception.

"Computer simulations show that nearly one hundred percent of a given population will encounter VA5H and be infected by it sometime in the forty-seven days prior to it mutating into stage five. Of the three percent who survive exposure, approximately one third can be expected to go blind, while another third will become sterile. Casualties among the very young and very old will closely approach one hundred percent. It is a civilization destroying disease.

"There is no known cure and no known vaccine. Natural immunity can be expected to be quite limited. Creation of a vaccine would be highly problematic without a sample of the original. In effect, VA5H would operate against a target population as a virgin field epidemic.

"As the virus will be very large, physical defense in the form of air filtration and isolation is possible but dependent upon warning. The major transmission stage, the long stage two, should aid in defeating any such attempts.

"The symptoms of the disease in its fourth stage are similar to Hemorrhagic Smallpox rather than to its less deadly cousins, Malignant Smallpox and Variola Major and Minor. In essence, VA5H causes the victim to fall apart, beginning with the mucous—"

"Stop!" Hamilton shouted, causing the machine to go suddenly silent. "It doesn't make me feel any better about committing one obscenity by hearing about another."

Caruthers set his face into a mask of anger. "Look at me, John," he said. "Look at me!" Caruthers held out one hand and pinched a fold of skin with the fingers of the other. "See that? What's that color? John, I'm black! How do you think I feel about it? Do you think those lily white bastards below the Sahara are selling off any of their precious white volk? Hmmm? Do you think I'm not going to see the faces of the people you sell to my last day? There is no good choice, none that works well enough. Not for something this serious."

"God," Hamilton sighed, "how did the world ever get to be like this?"

"I think they used to call it 'progress.'"

"Yeah . . . I guess the decay of a corpse is progress, too . . . from the point of view of the bacteria."

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Sha'ban, 1536 AH (20 June, 2112)

Graduation holiday was over. From a high window overlooking the courtyard Petra watched her brother's company of janissaries forming in the courtyard next to the great, golden-domed mosque. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. She doubted it. Even so, she thanked a God she was not at all sure even existed (and, to be fair, Petra had reasons for doubt, if anyone did) that she'd had at least this one last chance to be together.

Ling wasn't taking it particularly well. She'd grown genuinely fond of Hans in the few days together. Petra thought that "fond" might be something of an understatement, yet that was all Ling would admit to.

Her eyes say something else though, Petra thought. Who would ever have thought it; little Ling-ling in love? And Brüder Hans as much so?

Petra asked directly, "Are you in love with my brother? You told me, when I first came here, never to get attached to the clients."

Ling sighed. "I don't know what love is. I know this, though: Of the thousands of men who've had me only one ever treated me like a princess, rather than a piece of meat."

She didn't say, but thought, And I might not be a real girl . . . but I have a real girl's feelings. The breeders couldn't breed that out of me. And when I look down there and see your brother marching away, I feel like a part of me is leaving, too.

Ling stood up and left. On the outside she seemed calm enough. What she was feeling inside Petra could only guess at.

Petra watched as the boys turned right and began filing away down the mountain path. She saw Hans turn around several times and look up at the windows. Whether he was seeking her or Ling, Petra didn't know. It was probably both, she decided.

When the last of the boys had disappeared, Petra turned away from her perch and began searching the castle for Ling.

She found Ling sitting alone on a wooden bench in what some of the staff called, "The Singer's Hall." The janissaries had banqueted there, each night of their stay.

Ling didn't notice her at first, or didn't seem to. That the Chinese slave was fully aware of Petra's presence became obvious once Petra was within a dozen feet.

Though Ling didn't turn her eyes from the painted wall upon which she had been gazing, she said, "There's a picture under there, you know."

Petra didn't know. As far as she could see the wall was blank.

"I can't see anything but white. What do you see?" Truthfully, Petra thought Ling was simply seeing things that weren't there. This would have been troublesome if their lives weren't already so miserably blighted.

"It's a man on a horse, an armed and armored man. He's dressed in silvered armor. His horse is roan and draped in red. Over the armor the man is wearing red as well. There's a castle in the background. Not this one, some other. The red clothed, armored man is fighting someone in brown."

"I can't see anything," Petra repeated.

Ling said nothing. A little voice in her head, however, said to her, Shut up about it. Now.

"Hans promised me he'd write to us," Petra offered.

"They often say that," Ling answered. "And sometimes, for a little while, they do. It never lasts. After all, we're just houris, polluted and polluting. Not real people, just slaves. Not someone real people care about."

"Hans is a slave, too."

Ling sighed. "I know. That's why I'll allow myself a little hope that he really cares."

"Both of us do."

Ling's brown, almond eyes looked up into Petra's rounder, blue ones. "Did I ever mention how much you two look alike?"

"A couple of dozen times, yes. It's the other reason I hid all the time my brother's company was here. If they'd seen me they'd have known his shame."

Ling stood and yawned. Taking Petra by the hand she said, "Well . . . if I can't have the boy I want, I'll just have to take the girl. Come on; it's bedtime."

Hand in hand the two houris walked toward their quarters.

OSI Headquarters, Langley, Virginia,
27 November, 2112

There was snow on the breeze. Hamilton and Caruthers walked under a covered walkway between one of the academic buildings and the nearest cafeteria.

"Man, I hate Afrikaans," Hamilton said to Caruthers, following a language lesson. He could have been implanted, or "chipped," and learned the language quickly and perfectly. No free man ever gladly submitted to being "chipped," though it had uses for the disabled.

"Cheer up," Caruthers answered. "You don't have to learn it perfectly; just well enough to pass as a Cape English type who learned it as a second language. You do, on the other hand, have to get the Cape English accent down perfectly."

Hamilton nodded. "Working on it."

"I know. You had best concentrate, though, because there's not a lot of time before you have to go to D-D-S,"—Demolition, Destruction and Sabotage—"refresher, then the Mission Course"—special courses of instruction designed for particularly high value operations—"then into LCA"—local cultural assimilation—"followed by insertion."

"To say nothing about the knife," Hamilton said, his distaste palpable. Yet there was no choice but to send him to plastic surgery to alter his features and change the color of his eyes. It was altogether too possible that the Quebecers had managed to send off a picture of him before their ring was broken.

Caruthers shrugged. "There are worse things. At least you get to keep your mind and your thoughts to yourself. Even though I think that's a mistake."

Early on, when the chips had first been developed, OSI had made it a requirement that all foreign service operatives had to be implanted. The Han had been the ones to figure out how to hack into those chips. OSI was still not recovered from that particular disaster. And while the chips were infinitely more secure now, the prejudice remained. It remained so strongly that OSI couldn't force its operatives to be chipped; they'd resign first and in droves.

"No one is going to chip me," Hamilton answered. "Even before I knew about that poor Chinese slave, I thought the idea was disgusting. Since then . . . " He let the thought trail off.

"Well, . . . as to the Chinese girl . . . the Ministry of State Security is now telling us she's become somewhat unstable."

"Oh, great. Now what?"

"Nothing important. We still think we can make use of her. And she has been able to confirm the presence of Meara, Sands and Johnston in the castle we had thought them in."

"Any word on their 'progress' to date."

"No, and we don't think we can make any good guesses. I mean, how much can you read into it when one of them beats a slave girl half to death? When he normally beats the slaves?"

"Not much, I suppose."

"No," Caruthers said. "Not much."

"I really don't understand why we just don't nuke the castle out of existence."

"Couple of reasons. One of them is a good one, the other is even better. The good one is that England is a hostage. The Caliphate doesn't have much in the way of delivery systems, but they can range the British Isles. There are seventy million of our allies, citizens and subjects there. If we nuke the castle, they probably die."

"Better seventy million than five billion or more."

"True," Caruthers agreed. "That's where the better reason comes in. We have to know where research is being conducted, where backups might be, where strains of VA5H might be stored."

"It used to be easier, I understand," Caruthers continued, "to keep track of goings on in the Caliphate. But then their cell phone system deteriorated to the point that they had to fall back on landlines, most of them underground. Those we can't track for beans."

Caruthers' face grew contemplative. "You know," he said, "it would be worth it to let them use our satellite system just so we could listen in on the bastards . . . not that they'd be stupid enough to take us up on the offer if we made it."

The range bench held an assortment of weapons, all of types typically found in the Caliphate. Some of those types were imported there from other places, typically South Africa and China; still others were locally manufactured. How OSI came upon them the instructor didn't offer and Hamilton didn't ask. Nor did it matter; if he were going to be armed—something almost expected for fully free men within the Caliphate—it would have to be with something that would excite no comment.

Arranged from left to right on the bench were seven pistols, four submachine guns, three shotguns, six assault rifles, and two versions of the basic janissary armor piercing rifle.

"We've got five days," the instructor said, "five days to teach you to shoot and maintain all of these."

"Why so many versions?" Hamilton asked.

"Because we've not a clue what you'll actually be able to get. We can't even guarantee you will be able to get one of these; there are other types to be found within the enemy's country."

"Now wait a minute," Hamilton objected. "I'm going in as a slave dealer. The slaves will surely object to being slaves. It's only reasonable I'd carry arms with me from South Africa."

The instructor hesitated for a moment before speaking. When he did speak it was to ask, "Didn't they tell you the typical ages of the cargo?"

"You son of a bitch! You didn't tell me I was going to be transporting children!"

"Calm down, John," Caruthers said. The controller looked even more bone weary than usual. "There was no need for you to know."

And I'm going to have a few words with one large-mouthed instructor for telling you prematurely.

"Kids?"

"That's the usual cargo, yes."

"Sweet Jesus. Kids?"

"They don't take up as much space. They don't eat much. They're cheap. They're docile. They're easily converted to Islam once they're sold. Besides, the guy who runs the brothel in the larger castle prefers kids. That gives you an in to our Chinese chippie." Although when you find out the real destination of the kids you are going to puke.

"This is it," Hamilton said. "I'll do this mission because I said I would. But after this, I'm putting in my papers. My obligation will be over by the time this is and after that I am out of here."

There wasn't a building big enough, or expendable enough, to simulate actually blowing up the castle. Instead, demolitions refresher training concentrated more on the theoretical: dust initiators, expedient timing devices, local manufacture of high explosives, and such.

"What good does it do to know how to make triacetone- triperoxide, when there isn't going to be any in the castle?" Hamilton asked. "What is the logic of using low explosives—or even high explosives—when they might do no more than release the agent?"

"Mr. Caruthers insisted on a full refresher course, Mr. Hamilton," the explosives instructor, a Dr. Richter, said. "We follow orders. How you come up with the material, is up to you."

"It's box of rocks, stupid. And this shit"—Hamilton's finger pointed at a small cone of what looked to be a very damp white powder— "doesn't release any heat. It couldn't destroy the virus if I used two hundred tons of it."

"I need a nuke," Hamilton said. "Nothing else will work."

"No nukes. I've explained why."

"C'mon, Caruthers, you . . . or your bosses, are being ridiculous. Any attempt at destroying the VA5H without a nuke is just as likely to release it."

"Any attempt at nuking it, if there is another supply somewhere, is just as likely to get it released as simply cracking the castle would."

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Caruthers agreed.

"We need to talk to Mary."

"Talk to me about transportation," Hamilton said. "Safe transportation. Talk to me about how long it would take to make a vaccine if we had a sample of the virus."

"We could give you a general purpose containment unit, small enough to carry, cold enough to keep the virus inactive, and large enough to hold any likely container you might find the virus in," Mary answered. "But the risks . . . "

"John," Caruthers said, "if you got caught and engaged . . . if the containment unit were breached . . . we're talking end of the world here."

"We're talking end of the world anyway. This way we might have a chance of preventing that." Hamilton turned his attention back to Mary. "How long to manufacture a vaccine?"

"Full court press? Even assuming it can be done . . . maybe six weeks. Maybe a little less. But what difference would that make? Meara, Sanders and Johnston could simply—well, not 'simply'; but still they could—modify the virus to some other configuration."

Caruthers smiled cynically. "Mary, it isn't like John is going to leave them there alive. He'll either bring them back or . . . "

Her eyes grew wide. After all, she knew one of them. But . . . "Oh. Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

"No, Mr. Hamilton, not like that. Didn't you learn anything when you were among the heathen in the Philippines? You must remember to sit without pointing the soles of your feet at anyone more important than a servant."

Wearily, Hamilton stood in front of the large tray of kibsa, a rice- and, in this case, lamb-based dish, and sat again, this time tucking his legs under him in such a way—and a damned uncomfortable way it was, too—without pointing the soles of his feet anywhere but behind him.

"Much better. We'll practice that more later but for now let's try the kibsa while it's still hot."

The instructor reached out one hand, saying, "There are a number of ways to do this, all more or less correct. We'll begin with the classic method, the one that prevails over most of the Arabian Peninsula." Palm down, using his right hand, the instructor bent his fingers and dug them into the mass of steaming rice. He then closed his fist, causing a wash of gooey, yogurt-based sauce to run through his fingers and out each side of the cup of his hand. He continued to press until the mass of rice and lamb was compressed into a small ball about and inch and a quarter in diameter. This he then popped into his mouth.

"Your turn," he said to Hamilton, once he'd swallowed the ball.

The instructor saw Hamilton reaching out with his left hand and, quick as a snake, grabbed a long pointer and used it to rap Hamilton's knuckles. "Never," he said, "never, reach for or take anything with your left hand."

"Motherfucker!" Hamilton exclaimed, alternately rubbing and flopping his hand with a loosed wrist. "What the fuck was that for?"

"You learned nothing in the Philippines?"

Hamilton shrugged. "Look, we killed them when they fought and rounded them up and deported them when they didn't, or couldn't anymore. We did not socialize."

"I see," said the instructor. He sighed. "Where to begin? Mr. Hamilton, the Arabian Peninsula is not a place much given to trees or any crops from which paper could be made. Leather was, in olden times—and again, today—too valuable to use wastefully. Even rocks were rare in most places."

"So?"

"What are you going to do after we eat this meal, oh, sometime over the next day or two?"

"Sleep?"

"Besides that?"

"Ohhh."

"Yes, Mr. Hamilton. The culture our enemies sprang from never really got used to the idea of toilet paper. They used their hands. Given that they ate with their hands, it only made sense—you'll agree—for them to use one for one thing, and one for the other."

"Got it. Right hand only or you're shitting in the pot."

"Not just shitting in the pot, Mr. Hamilton. Use your left hand for anything involving another person and you are sending him the mortal insult of shitting on him."

"Shokran," Hamilton said.

"Very good. Afwan."

Hamilton ran doubting hands over another man's face. Not that the face wasn't attached to the front of his skull; it was. But that face was not his. The cheekbones were higher; the eyes had been reshaped; the nose was broadened and the ears subtly reoriented to stick out ever so slightly more. His eyes were green now—"The enemy has a thing for green eyes," Caruthers had said—and his chin more substantial.

"Who the fuck am I?" Hamilton asked.

"No one important," Caruthers answered, chuckling. Hamilton didn't look amused. "Oh, all right! You are Johann De Wet, scion of a not-very-important family from Cape Town. Though your name is Boer, and though you had a distant Boer ancestor of some importance, your ancestry is almost entirely English. You speak Afrikaans well enough, but with an accent. You elected to do military service, as all white South Africans must, prior to going to college. You rose to the rank of sergeant in the Logistics Corps, which sparked your interest in the transportation side of business. You are a graduate of the University of Cape Town where you majored in business administration, with a minor in international shipping."

Hamilton raised one eyebrow. "It's probably a stupid question, but . . . uh . . . I assume there is documentation? An electronic and paper trail to back this up?"

"All the important things, yes. The actual Johann De Wet died as a baby of pneumonia. Parents subsequently divorced and there were no other children." Caruthers laughed. "I imagine they'd both be very surprised to discover that their baby boy has returned from the grave."

Caruthers continued, "Upon graduation, you were hired by Koop Human Resources, based in Natal, but immediately sent to be an assistant administrator of a slave breeding camp in the Congo which has since been closed. Thereafter, you were resident in a hospital for two years while recovering from the outbreak of Ebola III that closed the camp.

"KHR, by the way, is a wholly owned subsidiary of OSI, though nobody knows that but us and South African Intelligence. And neither of us is saying. As I told you once, we can cooperate."

"You mean the company has been in the slave trading business for years now?" Hamilton asked.

"Leave off, Mister Hamilton!" After he said it, the man seemed almost to shrink. "It's a shitty world, John . . . and neither of us made it; we just have to live in it. Now if you'll allow me to continue, you will be working for one of our senior people over there. You don't need to know his real name but he goes by a local one . . ."

Excursus

Excerpts from: Empire Rising, Copyright © 2112, Baen Historical Press

Introduction

The United States finds itself now with an empire it does not want, that costs more than it brings in, and that requires the perversion of our values and the suppression of civil liberties we had enjoyed since the late eighteenth century and in some cases the early seventeenth, to the early twenty-first.

How did we get this way? Why is it that only now that we are beginning to be able to discuss it openly? Can we ever get rid of it? Can we keep some parts and dispense with others?

Can we even remain a nation . . .

* * *

Chapter II

We have seen in the previous chapter how various security measures, some sensible and others silly, some intrusive and others not, had never really sat well with the American psyche. It is open to debate whether those measures, even if maintained, could have stopped the attacks that followed their dismantling. What is not open to debate is that the security measures adopted at the beginning of the century were dismantled, and that attacks followed.

Seven bombs had been introduced into the then United States, and one into the United Kingdom. A further bomb was stopped by Israeli security forces as terrorists attempted to bring it in over the shore. Sadly, because it was stopped at sea, and the yacht carrying it sunk, the Israelis were unable to warn us, because they were ignorant themselves, for some days, of the nature of the yacht's cargo.

Of the American bombs, three came through Mexico and three through what was then Canada. A seventh, and the largest, came by sea. The targeted cities were Los Angeles, Kansas City, Chicago, Boston, New York, Houston, and Washington, plus London in the United Kingdom. The Chicago, New York, Houston and Washington bombs failed to create a nuclear detonation. In two of these, Houston and Washington, it was determined that the bombs were simply defective in manufacture. They exploded, spread a fair amount of radioactive material about the targeted cities, but killed very few and did little lasting damage. Two others, Chicago and New York, had degraded over time due to poor maintenance, failing to explode at all. Notwithstanding, on September 11th, 2015, three American cities and approximately four million American citizens and residents ceased to exist, along with just under one million of the king's subjects, including King William, himself.

Initially, no one took credit for the attacks. Then again, given the date, no one really had to. Both sides had taken to injuring each other on any given year's September 11th. It was almost a tradition.

The provenance of the bombs was mixed. The two that had failed to detonate fully were found to be of North Korean origin. One that had detonated was proven to be Pakistani. Two that failed were of very old Russian manufacture. For two others that exploded, we do not and likely never shall know. It is possible that they were of Iranian manufacture.

Only Russia, which had a much clearer idea of American retaliatory capabilities than most others, came forth and provided evidence of how their bombs had ended up in terrorist hands. Several dozen scientists, security personnel, and their families were subsequently shot as an act of good faith cum human sacrifice. In addition, Russia promised and gave substantial aid, especially in the form of oil and natural gas. Volunteers from there for clean up and recovery came by the thousands. Many times the numbers that came volunteered to, though no place could be found for them.

Pakistan professed ignorance while North Korea simply glared defiance and threatened ever more severe attacks should we retaliate. China, allied to both of those, kept its own counsel.

The entire world held its breath for weeks. Meanwhile, the United States did nothing but weep and dig in the rubble. Indeed, not all wept. There was a strong feeling in certain quarters that the bombings had been just. Professor Montgomery Chamberlain, of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor summed up these views nicely when he pronounced the dead, "So many little Himmlers" and called for "one hundred more attacks, until the blood-sucking, Jew-controlled United States is humbled and brought to its knees."

Neither of the major political parties in the United States lined up behind any program of major retaliation, though the President increased security along both the Canadian and Mexican borders . . .

Chapter IV

Within weeks of the attacks, and with no sign of significant retaliation in the offing, a new and highly populist party arose. Officially, it was known as the "Wake Up, America Party." Unofficially, it was often called "the Armageddon Party." It began small, with a speech by its founder, Pat Buckman, in Central Park in New York City. Half a million New Yorkers heard Buckman in person, and perhaps twice that on the TV. Tens of millions heard him across the country. Where the money came from for advanced advertising for the speech is not known. Why the people came is obvious; but for a few defects and decays, they, too, would have been numbered among the dead.

Buckman's message was simple and he wasn't shy about it. He began with the simple line, "Those motherfuckers are going to pay." Buckman didn't specify which group of motherfuckers he meant. As subsequent events were to show he had some very expansive ideas on the subject.

Within months, sixty million people had signed on to the WUA program. Moreover, substantial numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate likewise defected to Buckman's cause.

In the United Kingdom, the new-crowned king, and king in more than name now, launched a very similar program on his own. Moreover, the new king unilaterally seceded from the European

Union when that body attempted to interfere. The king's subjects met the news joyfully. They were Britons, after all, and had had just about enough . . .

* * *

Chapter VII

The election of 2016 was a foregone conclusion months before the polls opened, though both of the traditional parties, and the mainstream media, denied it until the last. Though both Democrats and Republicans attempted to mount the populist bandwagon, the people weren't listening anymore. Buckman carried every state, even—since Boston and its hard core of liberal voters had been destroyed—Massachusetts, and had unprecedented majorities in both houses of Congress.

Despite predictions, the missiles did not fly within an hour of Buckman's inauguration. He explained why: "We must put our own house in order first. We must . . . "

* * *

Chapter VIII

No one thought it particularly odd when President Buckman, with the overwhelming support of his party's members in Congress, pushed through a bill making a very large number of crimes, most notably politically motivated homicide, purely federal in jurisdiction. Even many of the remaining Democratic and Republican members of Congress joined in supporting this "Federal Supremacy over Politically Motivated Crimes Act of 2017." Some, to include we must suppose, Montgomery Chamberlain, must have breathed a heavy sigh of relief when political speech was not criminalized.

If so, such sighs of relief were soon proven to be premature. Chamberlain was found in his Ann Arbor apartment, wounded by gunfire and then strangled to death by the sole surviving member of a family lost in the Kansas City attack. The killer, former liberal Democrat and former husband and father of four, Mark Moulas, called the police after the murder to inform them of it, and calmly awaited arrest while contemplating Chamberlain's cooling corpse. He confessed immediately, and never showed a trace of remorse. At the subsequent bench trial, Moulas was found guilty and sentenced to a term of ninety-nine years by the judge.

Though there is not the slightest bit of evidence that either Buckman, or any member of WUA, was complicit in the Chamberlain murder, Moulas was immediately pardoned and released.

This murder was followed by the private killing of two left-leaning Supreme Court justices, half a dozen congressmen, forty-seven newspaper editors, and an amazingly large number of academicians. All the murderers except one was pardoned, and that one was not pardoned only, so it would seem, because his motivation for the killing had been that the academician concerned had been sleeping with the killer's wife.

This was perhaps the only truly original and brilliant bit of domestic statesmanship ever engaged in by Pat Buckman. No one previously had ever suspected that the power of pardon, of executive clemency, was also a power of summary execution . . .

* * *

Chapter XII

By early 2018, President Buckman had his "house in order." Similarly, across the Atlantic, the king, too, was ruling with an iron fist. Whether there was collaboration between the two may be doubted. What cannot be doubted was that, under similar threats even rather dissimilar men may act similarly. Unlike Buckman, of course, the king was sane.

The first Muslim containment camps opened near Dearborn, Michigan, in the spring of 2018. Citing the case of Korematsu v. United States, as well as the related cases, Yasui and Hirabayashi, and the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, the President, by executive order, directed the internment of all male Moslems, to include Black Muslims, over the age of twelve, whatever their citizenship. The Supreme Court, now with two more justices firmly in the WUA camp, endorsed the order, eight to one.

Another pardon from the president was required, when that one dissenting member of the court was killed.

The next major political act of the Buckman administration, the "Redefinition of Religion Act of 2018," defined Islam as "primarily a hostile and dangerous political movement, and only incidentally and dishonestly a religion," and expressly placed it "squarely outside the protections of the First Amendment." This the Supreme Court approved unanimously.

While the order originally purported to intern only males, a subsequent order also directed the internment of females who were related to males implicated in "terrorist or anti-American activities, whatever the degree of relation, and whatever the degree of complicity."

Separate camps were established for women, in order to avoid future pregnancies and, hence, future Moslems. Moreover, any who could produce permission from an Islamic country for asylum, and were not suspected of complicity in terrorism, were permitted to go, under guard, and at their own expense.

The United Kingdom did not establish camps; the prison system was adequate to hold those Muslims believed to pose a threat. For the rest, in a sort of reverse Dunkirk, the Royal Navy dumped them unceremoniously on the shores of France. After all, the EU thought them citizens of the EU and so could hardly object.

It must be said that the British were fairly civilized about the operation, more so than the United States, in any case.

In addition to the camps for males and females, President Buckman also opened camps for the political opposition, such as it was, though these were integrated. No particular effort was made to fill these camps. Instead, the administration published lengthy lists of people it considered enemies of the state. The camps were declared to be "safe zones," where those same people would be protected from the anger of the masses.

Implicitly, of course, Buckman was saying, "Outside of these camps, you will be murdered and we both know you will because I will pardon your killers. Inside, we will keep you alive. Or, of course, you can leave the country. And good riddance."

Many chose to leave, rather than be interned. Many of those leaving left for Canada, which was convenient, prosperous, civilized, highly humanitarian in outlook, and always a willing home for true political refugees.

Even so, the total numbers, exclusive of Moslems, who left for other climes in the years 2018-2020 were only about one million, about eighty-five percent of those going north . . .

* * *

Chapter XV

Whatever his sanity, or lack thereof, no one could accuse President Buckman of not thinking ahead, of not planning for the future. Even while the social order was being altered, his administration and its allies in Congress were busy making the country approximately energy self-sufficient.

This program was unprecedentedly huge. Not only did nuclear plants begin to spring up like mushrooms, every major city was scheduled for a thermal depolymerization plant, solar chimneys began to rise in the deserts of the southwest, all barriers to drilling for oil in northern Alaska were swept away, Colorado and adjoining states were gifted, if that's quite the word, with further plants to begin to convert the huge shale deposits of the Green River Basin, holding enough recoverable oil to meet the needs of the United States for several centuries.

With this level of government sponsored planning and employment, to which must be added the rough quadrupling of the size of the Army, from five hundred thousand to just over two million, the United States experienced a more or less severe labor shortage. This was partially made up by a guest worker program that allowed in millions of Indians and other East Asians. Many of these later achieved citizenship, enough so that "Dinesh" and "Aishwarya" began to compete with "John" and "Jennifer" among most popular baby names.

It should perhaps be noted that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and even Christian-Animists have never once, as of this writing, set off a bomb or engaged in any other act of terrorism on mainland American soil.

Mexicans and other Latins were generally not allowed in, as much of that newly huge Army was deployed along the Mexican border with orders to shoot crossers without warning. Much of the Army not deployed on the borders was devoted to massive roundups of illegal immigrants, generally. Most of these were, of course, Latin.

The Supreme Court decided that that was not a violation of Posse Comitatus as the illegal immigration had arisen to the level of an invasion and invasion was a military rather than a legal matter.

The resultant loss of revenue experienced by Mexico, in particular, as millions of Mexican citizens were unceremoniously dumped back across the border was to create a massive and rising level of instability within that country. Nor was the loss of revenue the sole factor in the later outbreak of civil war within Mexico, for those same illegal immigrants to the United States—even though cut off from the mainstream of American society—had also seen a society that worked far, far better than Mexico ever had. These returnees saw no insuperable reason why Mexico could not work as well . . .

* * *

Chapter XXI

A Marine amphibious force, of roughly corps size, was dispatched to the Indian Ocean weeks before President Buckman went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war. This was duly granted by substantial majorities in Congress. The form of that declaration was unique in that no specific national enemy was identified. Rather, the declaration of war of 2019 merely stated that a state of war shall exist between the United States of America and "any nation which supports, or has supported, or defends, or has defended, or permits, or has permitted, its soil to be used as a haven for terrorism inspired by the pernicious pseudo-religion known as Islam."

In theory this would have placed the United States at war with most of the world. In practice, Buckman defined the enemy unilaterally, on 1 September, 2019, by insisting in a public broadcast that each of thirty-two Muslim majority nations which had had one or more of their citizens implicated in the "three cities attacks," plus North Korea, surrender unconditionally.

They failed to do so. While the initial demand had resulted in widespread panic and flight from Islamic cities, within a week calm had returned and most people in those cities returned to their normal occupations and lives.

On September 11, 2019, the missiles flew . . .

* * *

Chapter XXII

It seems likely that few, if any, of the people voting Buckman into office had quite envisioned the terrible vengeance he would wreak upon the Islamic world.

A dozen Trident missile-carrying submarines were used for the attacks, six firing from the Atlantic, four from the Pacific, and two from the Indian Ocean. Only about half of each submarine's load of missiles was fired, a total of one hundred and forty-six missiles and seven hundred and thirty warheads, each in the four hundred and seventy-five kiloton range.

Fifty-five major Islamic cities, and many minor ones were on the targeting list. No major city was hit by fewer than two warheads nor more than four, except Cairo, which received five. Riyadh, Medina and Mecca were each hit by three, spaced some hours apart. In addition to those cities, the entire Nile River Valley saw nuclear weapons essentially walked along its length, a tribute of sorts to the significant Egyptian participation in the Three Cities Attacks, courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nine missiles and forty-five warheads were sufficient to scour North Korea free of substantial concentrations of human life. The fourteen largest North Korean cities were attacked, and Pyongyang obliterated.

Marines began landing to either side of the city of Dhahran, headquarters of ARAMCO, within twenty-four hours of the nuclear attacks. It fell with little fighting as did its neighbors, Dammam and Khobar. The local populations, excepting only those critical to the oil industry and their families, were driven into the desert to die. As those remaining locals were replaced with Americans, they too were driven off.

The American presence in Arabia was to end only when the last drop of economically recoverable oil had been taken. By that time, the United States had become energy self-sufficient, once the energy assets of the former Canada were taken into account and a full rationing regime imposed. The triple cities of Dammam, Dhahran and Khobar were destroyed by nuclear weapons once the last Americans had been withdrawn.

It is believed that President Buckman's guiding principles governing the attacks were that every Islamic nation which had had a national involved in the Three Cities attacks was to be struck, that major Islamic cities were to be destroyed at a rate of not less than ten for one, that Mecca and Medina were to be reduced to the point that no landmark should remain, and that deaths were to be inflicted at a rate of not less than one hundred for one.

It known that the second and third goals were met. Indeed, no single trace remains of the Kabaa or the Grand Mosque. It is believed that the first and fourth were met as well. Indeed, counting not merely the direct victims of the attacks, but adding to that those who subsequently died of starvation, disease, lack of potable water, lack of medical care for injuries, and the complete breakdown of anything approaching civilization in the Islamic world, it is very likely that total deaths approached eight hundred million, or roughly two hundred to one.

It was the greatest mass murder in history.

Nor should it have surprised anyone. It was not only predictable; it had been predicted. As one Lee Harris, a sophont of the day had put it:

In other words, the only effect on America of a continuation of September 11-style attacks would be an increasingly repressive state apparatus domestically and a populist home front demand for increasingly severe retaliation against those nations supporting or hiding terrorists. But neither one of these reactions would seriously undermine the strength of the United States—indeed, it is quite evident that further attacks would continue to unite the overwhelming majority of the American population, creating an irresistible "general will" to eradicate terrorism by any means necessary, including the most brutal and ruthless.

* * *

Chapter XXIX

The first imperial acquisition, outside of the lodgment on the Arabian peninsula, was Canada. It was that former state's misfortune that, while the United States had been her last line of defense, Canada had been America's first line.

Buckman had hinted all along that Canada must move to eliminate the threat its Moslems presented to the United States. These tacit warnings were ignored, for the most part, though some Canadians living in the United States or who had lived there, tried desperately to warn their countrymen that America was in utter earnest, that it was no longer in a mood to accept the threat Canada's insistence on diversity presented. It had taken fewer than forty terrorists to introduce the nuclear weapons used in the Three Cities Attacks. It was believe that Canada contained more than four thousand more.

Even so, it took a combination of three miscalculations to make the United States move. The core states of the European Union broke diplomatic relations with America within hours of the launch of the retaliatory attacks. Canada, always one with the EU in spirit if not in fact or law, did likewise. Cooperation in terms of border control ceased. The effect of this, though, in the case of Canada, was to rob the United States of any sense of security on its northern border.

The second miscalculation was to admit into Canada some two millions of mainly Moslem refugees from the irradiated ruins of Islamic civilization. A few of these attempted cross-border operations against the United States. Most of these Canada put down. It only took one failure, however, to give the United States all the excuse it needed to invade.

The final miscalculation, on Canada's part, was the assumption that the United Kingdom could somehow dissuade the United States from taking action. The UK, under the new monarchy, busily rounding up its own Moslems and fearful of terrorists entering the Kingdom from Canada, was simply not interested.

Nineteen Regular Army divisions, one dozen divisions of the Army National Guard, plus the Second and Fourth Marine Divisions, rolled across the border just before dawn on 11 May, 2020.

Despite the gallant resistance put up by the main elements of the Canadian Forces, notably the Royal 22nd and Twelfth Armored, which died in defense of Quebec City, the Royal Canadian Regiment and Royal Canadian Dragoons, shattered in the forlorn defense of Ottawa, and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and Lord Strathcona's Horse, butchered in detail in a hopeless defense of the long western border, Canada—rather the thin strip of well-populated area that roughly paralleled the border with the United States—fell quickly.

It is both interesting and sad to note that it was only those most despised by the government of Canada, and its ruling party, who actually proved willing to defend that government. Those who had most despised their own forces, and who had themselves signally failed to fight, soon found themselves the center of attention of a country-wide sweep. Almost as quickly they found themselves in various well-guarded logging and mining camps in the cold, cold lands of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories . . .

* * *

Chapter XXXII

Mexico had been a vital trading partner for the United States for many decades. This trade continued, even after the completion of the wall between the two countries, until the Revolution broke out and grew beyond the ability of the government of Mexico to handle.

Even then, President (now, as a practical matter, given the repeal of the 22nd Amendment and the control he exercised over every aspect of American life, "for life") Buckman did not intervene. Canada, with its thirty-five-odd-million people, not all of them averse to American occupation and Anschluss, had been comparatively easy. Mexico, with one hundred and thirty million people—almost to a man and woman loathing the United States, and not without reason—was a patently tougher case.

Nonetheless, following a series of attacks on the wall between the countries, Buckman ordered the armed forces to intervene. It was to be fifteen years and as many as ten million lives, before anyone could, with a straight face, call Mexico pacified . . .

* * *

Chapter XXXIV

The precedent of Mexico established, Buckman felt very comfortable invading Cuba, not because there were any numbers of Moslems there and not because it represented a threat, but merely because he was a child of the Cold War and could hold a grudge.

It was only that the United States armed forces were so tied down in Cuba, Mexico, Canada, and the Arabian peninsula that allowed the Latin and Caribbean states to retain that measure of independence they enjoy today. The price of retaining that independence was, however, high. Each remaining independent nation (except for Brazil which was frankly too large and powerful to be all that easily intimidated) was required to sign on to a heavily amended update of the Rio Pact. This Protocol, as it was called, required each to expel or intern any Moslems found within its borders, to provide either military formations for the use of the United States, or their equivalent value in money or goods and, in the latter case, to permit free recruiting by the United States. The Latin states were also required to submit all questions of foreign policy to the United States for approval, and to suppress within their borders any movement founded upon disloyalty or opposition to the United States.

As Buckman said, at the convention, "I can't take you all on at once. We all know this. But I can knock you off one or two at a time. Choose wisely."

In the end, only Venezuela chose unwisely. It was transformed from a sovereign state to an imperial province in 2023. Most of the troops for the expedition were other Latins, acting under American command pursuant to the 2022 Protocol to the Rio Pact . . .

* * *

Afterword

It would have been pleasant to report, had it come to pass, that President Buckman had somehow been overthrown, and that he had been tried for his many crimes and hanged. Sadly, this was not to be. Rather, he passed away quietly one night in 2036, leaving us his legacy: an empire we don't want yet can't get rid of, the enmity of most of the world, a crushing military burden, and damage to our traditional civil liberties that has yet to be fully undone and may never be.

As pleasant as it might have been, however, and as pleasant at it may be to contemplate, in all probability it would not have mattered. Once the United States let down its guard while at the same time not removing—even assuming it was possible to remove—the causes and reasons that caused us to be hated throughout the Moslem world, the Three Cities attacks became inevitable. Once those attacks took place, Buckman, or someone just like him by another name, became equally inevitable.

Back | Next
Framed