by Adam Yoshida
One squadron – flying further ahead of Stern's – had been detailed to attack the airfields known to be used by the RCAF in and around southern Alberta. The other two were flying further back, guarding the dozen precious C-130 aircraft, scrounged up from all over the world and quietly delivered to the Western Republic over the previous few days. General Jackson had tried to use his rank to secure himself a place on one of them, pointing out that he had been skydiving several times. It had finally taken the intervention of the President himself to put an end of that notion.
The Republic's High Command, it turned out, hadn't had to worry nearly as much as they had about the operation. The five hundred airborne-qualified (or pseudo-qualified) men that they had managed to scrape together from the ranks of their volunteers were greeted on the ground as liberators by thousands of Calgarians who had, either armed with their own guns or those provided covertly the government of the Western Republic, already convinced the local Federal forces to surrender control of the city.
Daniel Hampton could do the math. Anyone could, really. Twenty-one years learning various forms of math in school, and all I really ever needed was some common sense and a copy of Microsoft Excel, he bitterly thought.
Gold was headed towards $5,000 an ounce. Oil, despite a surge in production, remained above $200 a barrel and rising. People were, quite simply, losing their trust in the Dollar. No, he corrected himself, the Dollar was the last thing that they trusted. Now they don't trust anything.
Instead, people were throwing depreciating Dollars – and Euros, Pounds, Yen, Rubles, and Yuan – at whatever physical assets that they could lay their hands on. People were bidding up the price of Gold and then physically moving it overseas, the long memory of 1933 lingering in the minds of a few. People were buying real estate, shares – anything that they could actually touch and hold. It could not go on and it would not go on.
"Are you telling me," he finally asked the assembled staff, "that there are no bidders on the current tranche of Treasuries, other than the Fed itself?"
"Yes, that's exactly what we're saying," one of the silent aides finally chimed in.
"Jesus," he said, "can't we make it look a little better than that? Make some capital infusions into some of the banks and other institutions and have them buy at least some of them?"
"...We can try," said one of his deputies, breaking a long silence.
"A couple of hundred nuclear bombs and the fuckers just don't seem to have gotten the message," General Dylan Mackenzie announced upon the conclusion of his daily regional briefing.
"That's about the size of it, General," his Intelligence Officer quietly agreed.
Insurgent attacks all across the region, but especially those directed against Israeli targets, were actually increasing. Palestinians had actually become bold enough to fire off a couple of hundred Katyusha rockets against Israel, the first time that they had done so since the arrival of American "peacekeepers" the better part of a year earlier.
The General slammed his fist upon the desk.
"Fuck!" he shouted. "This isn't war. This is half-war. This is the lesson that we somehow didn't learn in the decade of fighting after 9-11 and that you people," he gestured in the direction of the Israeli officers at the table, "never seemed to learn in more than half a century of fighting. The only way to end a war like this is to make it so hellish that the people themselves become so heartily sick of war that they won't dare to fight again for a century or more. That's the way to fix this fucking thing."
He slammed his fist down again.
"How have we responded to this latest outrage?"
"We've moved drones over the area, but we have yet to find any targets that our RoE authorize us to engage, General. We're continuing to sweep..."
"No. No. No," replied Mackenzie. "Firepower. Firepower. Firepower."
"General, as you know, the present RoE explicitly forbid us from making indiscriminate use of force in areas where there is a civilian presence, as there definitely is along the Gaza frontier."
"No," Mackenzie pronounced firmly, "this is enough. Put in a call to Diego Garcia. I want cells of B-52s fully loaded and put on station in shifts. The next time someone launches these rockets, I want to pulverize the area. That's the only way that anyone is going to get the message. That's an order."
Mackenzie turned to face the Israeli present.
"I trust," he said, "that you will carry my message and intentions back to your government."
From a military perspective, it might have been better to wait. Flush with foreign volunteers and the money bought from selling their commodity-backed investment vehicles, the Western Republic had the resources to organize a real army. So far units like the 1st Armored Division and the Airborne Brigade (the latter being so-named, in spite of the fact that it only had five hundred and fourteen airborne riflemen on its rolls, in the Western Republic tradition of optimism about the future prospects for growth) had performed well and they, thanks to the popular acclaim for the rebellion in the right-wing portions of the American media (as well as the experience and organizational skills possessed by Praetorian International), had plenty of combat veterans among their ranks, but it was undeniably also true that units thrown together from scratch without adequate training or even, in many cases, standardized weapons would encounter all manner of trouble in actual combat. However, military considerations were not the only ones driving the calculations of the Western Republic.
Politically, the time to move was now. The pace of the impeachment of President Warren dictated that they had to move immediately or risk losing everything. Through back channels they had already been informed that the President had told the Prime Minister that, while he was unable to intervene militarily or provide substantial aid to him at the moment, he would have additional "flexibility" once the impeachment process was over.
In six months, the Western Republic Army would have had an additional two fully-trained divisions. Now it only had one half-trained one along with two independent brigades. But it would have to do.
Given the vast distances involved in travel within Canada, there wasn't much room for subtlety. I Corps had managed to make its transit over the Rockies to Calgary, following the Trans-Canada Highway, without facing any substantive opposition. There had been some isolated skirmishes as the army passed through the Okanagan region, largely triggered by the expansive promises now being made to Canada's First Nations by the Federal Government in exchange for their support in putting down the rebellion. The next stage of the plan was a reckless lunge across the Prairies, one that would carry the rebel forces all the way into Ontario and force a speedy end to the conflict before the new Federal Army could be fully prepared for battle. However, despite smooth sailing through the now largely pro-Western province of Saskatchewan, it had now become clear to both General Jackson and General Wayne that an entirely unopposed transit was not in the cards.
"Fucking Manitoba," said Jackson as he finished reading the message passed to him by an aide before handing it on to General Wayne.
The Provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan had been for the rebellion from the start. British Columbia had, after some domestic disturbances, likewise declared for the Western Republic. Manitoba had dithered and dodged and now, with armies from both sides at its doors, it had invited the Federal Army in.
"We could simply bypass Winnipeg," suggested Wayne.
"That would leave a major city – including large-scale facilities – in the hands of the government. And we don't have any substantial garrison forces behind our own army. The First and Second Divisions remain embryonic at best. With a large and friendly city behind our own lines, the Feds could probably put a mobile brigade into the city – and supply it – and cut our own lines."
"If we wait to reduce Winnipeg, then there's every chance that the U.S. might let them transit their new army through the American rail and road system. And then who knows where the hell that they'd strike," pointed out Wayne.
"They don't have substantial forces there yet," noted Jackson quietly.
"I don't think that there's any question that we'd take the city, if we hit it immediately. But then what? Our force is mostly armor, hardly a good garrison force."
"What if we take the city, but don't garrison it?" said Jackson.
"What's the point of that?" answered Wayne.
"As you pointed out, the question of the importance of Winnipeg is largely logistical. As things stand, the Federal Army could fly a substantial force almost anywhere behind our lines – save perhaps for British Columbia and parts of Alberta. The problem is that, once they got too far behind our lines, they wouldn't be able to supply that force, so they'd have to live off on-hand stocks of food, fuel, and other supplies. There's not enough ammunition anywhere in this country, so they'd have to fly that in – but elsewhere that they could move they'd have to fly everything in quantity, thus reducing the size of the force that could be supported to one that would be swept aside by whatever relief expedition that we could mount."
"That's all true enough. But what's your point? That we should wreck Winnipeg?"
"Shermanize the place, to be exact."
Though, in some ways, it ran contrary to tradition, Rickover had managed to get himself appointed as one of the House Managers in the impeachment trial of President Warren. Whether this act had been motivated by ego or the reality that he was the best man for the job was a question that even Rickover himself was not able to answer but, in any case, it had been done.
"The evidence that will be presented," he declared in making his case to the assembled Senate, "will show that the President, with flagrant disregard for the Constitution that he is sworn to uphold, deliberately issued orders in contravention to the law and to the separation of powers between the branches of government. He has sought, in effect, to render the Congress subordinate of him.
"The question before the Senate today is not a partisan one. It is transcendent. The question is whether we will defend the Constitution of the United States or whether we will allow the President and a small circle around him to obtain unlimited powers over the affairs of the people. This is not hyperbole. If we permit the President of the United States to simply print and then spend money citing one pretext or another under Federal law, we will have ended the power of the Congress. If the law may be stretched as far as this, there is nothing that this President – or a future President – may not find somewhere in the vast cornucopia of laws enacted by all of the Congresses that have ever been summoned to justify some action or another."
Abu Fayed had spent his whole adult life – actually, even prior to that – in the service of the Palestinian cause. His affiliations had been mutable but his core loyalty had always remained. It was enough that when the phone had rung – while he was in bed with Adela in Ramallah that he had actually answered the phone, as much as he might regret it now.
As his men worked around him he thought about Adela. Her soft skin. Her gentle laugh. The subtle scar on her leg, which she always tried to hide but which he adored, from when she had fallen on the playground as a child and cut herself on some jagged metal.
Muhammed, Fayed's best friend since they had been boys, tapped him on the shoulder. Normally Muhammed was jovial, always laughing and joking. He loved the American cartoon Family Guy , even though many around him neither got it or approved. But now he was serious.
"Everything is ready, brother," he said. Fayed nodded. Muhammed signaled the rest of the men. With a whoosh, the first Katyusha rockets began to race across the sky.
Overhead, an orbiting Predator drone picked up the distinctive visual signature of the launch of the rockets. Normally the drone's remote pilot would use this as a trigger to call other drones into action but, today, they had special orders.
Major Martin Rasmussen had spent nearly a decade flying for the Air Force following his graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Where the majority of his classmates – and indeed most of the people who joined the Air Force – came in with dreams of flying fast and glamorous fighters, Rasmussen had always had always dreamed of being a bomber pilot.
It still hurt a little bit that the old Strategic Air Command – what he would have given to have flown in the days of LeMay and genuine strategic air power – had been essentially folded into the old Tactical Air Command under the auspices of the Air Combat Command. Lately, the bomber force had regained some of its old identity under the new Air Force Global Strike Command but, still, Rasmussen couldn't see why they simply couldn't have re-established the old SAC that he might have been given the right sort of shoulder patch to wear to war.
"$20 can buy many peanuts," Rasmussen announced to no one in particular.
"Explain how?" he blithely continued.
"Money can be exchanged for goods and services!" he cheerily replied, followed by a "woo-hoo!" A handful of crew members indulgently laughed as Rasmussen began to study the latest updates on his HUD.
"Well boys," he declared, "it looks like we're going to get some action to-day!"
The rockets finished their grim arc, landing somewhere in Israel – Fayed had never bothered to figure out exactly where any of them landed, so long as they hit something that belonged to the Jews he figured that he was doing right by Allah. The men were professionals and working to quickly pack up and move on before some Reaper or Apache came by to assault them with Hellfire missiles.
"Let's go, let's go!" he encouraged the men.
He'd come back to the fight for these operations – with nuclear bombs going off all around him what sort of man could not? – but when it was all over with he was going to go back to Adela and stay with her. Someday, he vowed, there would be no more war for him.
Muhammed strode towards him, carrying a heavy bag.
"Listen, do you want to get a beer--"
Muhammed never got to finish his thought. The more religious among the rocket crew, had they lived, might have speculated that Allah himself might have opened the skies in order to punish him for his blasphemy. The credit for the fact that they never did find the time to think such uncharitable thoughts about their friend must be jointed shared between Major Rasmussen and the rest of his crews, their ground support crews, those associated with the two other planes in his cell, the good people and Boeing, and the noble men and women responsible for the manufacture and distribution of the Mk. 84 General Purpose Bomb. Fayed's remains were never identified because the only group of people capable of sorting out the mess that the "Arc Light" mission left on the ground worked at the FBI Crime Lab in Quantico, Virginia and no one, not even his dear sainted Adela (who had already invited another man into her bed before the day was finished) really cared all that much about the details of the situation.
"They did what?" the President asked, his face flushed with anger.
"Apparently CENTCOM called upon the B-52s tasked to them as theatre support assets. They had them orbiting and, when the next round of rocket attacks began, they called them in – targeted by Predators – and dropped nearly two hundred tons of explosives down upon the Palestinians. Early estimates say around two hundred civilians died... Though, I'll add, that count came from the Palestinian Authority itself and might not be entirely reliable."
"Jesus Christ," pronounced the President, before slumping into his chair.
"Well," he said after a pause, "now what do we do?"
"I don't think that we should do anything immediately," Raul Emerson said tentatively.
"He just violated his orders and murdered several hundred civilians," replied Alexis Jensen.
"I understand that," said Emerson, "but you know what the hue and cry from the right will be – that they were responding to terrorism, that we're soft on terror, that we're cover Muslims, etc, etc – and I just don't think that we need that right now. Not with the trial in just a few days. Better to slow-play this one. Have DoD announce an investigation or some such. Then, once we're clear of the tri
al, we announce the results of the investigation – and then we move."
"They'll all get theirs soon enough," the President darkly muttered.
"Well..." volunteered Alexis Jensen from the corner of the room, "perhaps we might make it a little bit sooner than that, even."
"How so?"
"My sources in the Pentagon tell me that the Chief of Staff suspects that General Mackenzie is transferring supplies, off-the-books, to what's left of the Israeli Defense Force."
"Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?"
"It is only a rumor."
"Get me General Hall, now," said the President.
The last time that William Jackson had been in Winnipeg, he had been a child. His last memory of the city was of mosquitoes the size of a quarter practically eating him alive during an attempted picnic. To take the torch to some cities would have been a melancholy duty – to do so to a city that he had always despised and that now presented a danger to his cause was actually kind of fun.
All around him the air was filled with acrid smoke as every major source of aviation and motor fuel in the city – those that the Western Army could not appropriate for themselves at any rate – was allowed to burn. Another crew of 1st Armored Division soldiers – all of whom had some special expertise in the matter – had been allowed to volunteer for the special duty of tearing apart every facility of significance at the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport.
Some of the soldiers had gotten a little bit carried away and begun to loot private businesses. Jackson drew a firm line at that. All private property not considered to be of potential military value to the enemy was placed firmly off-limits with soldiers being warned that those who stole from private citizens would be tried and then shot. Two soldiers who were convicted, following a quick court martial, of raping a local girl were actually shot.
