Fuck them. Fuck the power.
Jean-Jacques knew the way forward. Detaining Jonah Gray for the federals meant the Legion, meant freedom for himself and the Volunteers, too. And I’ll do that, he thought. Just as soon as my man up there finishes his blood crusade.
Jean-Jacques began moving again, but not at super-speed. He didn’t run, he didn’t even hurry. He walked like any regular person would through a crowd, navigating his way to the front with empty apologies and sharp elbows. He’d almost reached the library steps as General Collins finished her speech: “America’s the greatest nation this world has ever known. And I’m here to say: let’s make it even better.”
A fat beat of silence was swallowed up by the day as those words echoed through speakers and into the crowd. Then, behind him, in the thin sliver of time before applause, came a shout, strident and clear: “Thus Ever to Tyrants!”
Everyone but Jean-Jacques turned to that voice. Everyone but Jean-Jacques turned to the Victor with long, salty hair in a ponytail who belonged to that voice. Everyone but Jean-Jacques saw that man holding his hands out and above him, making it clear he held no weapon but walking like he was, perhaps, strapped to one. Everyone but Jean-Jacques didn’t see that man for what he was: one last misdirection.
You’re on, holy man, he thought.
It all seemed to happen at once, as best as Jean-Jacques could ever recall. Gray’s uniformed arm appearing from the back of the stage holding a small revolver, neat and elegant like a good weapon should be. The ponytailed man still shrieking away, to the singular interest of everyone else. Pete, big, brave Pete, recognizing what he wasn’t supposed to, lunging across the stage to tackle the general.
The sound of the first bullet snapping air. The sound of a second. The sound of a third.
He didn’t remember using his power, not in the moment or after, but Jean-Jacques must have. It was the only way he could’ve gotten to the man. Jean-Jacques rushed him. The fight was over before it began. He snapped the man’s arm at the elbow and kicked away the gun. He pinned the Chaplain to the ground, holding his forearm tight across the neck.
He wanted to ask about sacrifice. Why give yourself up when your cause still needed you? When your people still needed you? Was killing a politician worth all that? Was killing one retired general really worth the electric chair? But Jonah Gray acted first, pale eyes brittle like the sky blinking up at Jean-Jacques with recognition, then acceptance.
“Quick, Corporal. You’re quick.” He bore his teeth, straight and white, to show a little capsule between them. No human being was fast enough to stop him from biting down on it. No superhuman was, either. As poison entered Gray’s bloodstream, shutting off the oxygen supply to his brain and turning his heart to vacant muscle, he leaned up to whisper in Jean-Jacques’s ear.
“I suppose,” he said, “every cause needs a martyr.”
“What you mean?”
The other man tried to respond but all that came out was garble. His body slumped to the side and Jean-Jacques felt it tremor.
“What does that mean?” Jean-Jacques was screaming now, shaking the void of a man beneath him like he was made of straw. Deep, severe voices were gathering around them and arms began pulling at Jean-Jacques. “The hell does that mean?”
Every cause needs a martyr. For many years, through a long career in the Legion and after, Jean-Jacques Saint-Preux thought about those words, wondering which cause the man had meant, and which martyr. Jonah Gray could’ve meant himself, and the cause of freeing veterans with troubles. Or he could’ve meant something else entirely, for which Pete Swenson of the Volunteers took three hollow-point bullets to the chest and throat.
CHAPTER 25
“HELLO, I’M JAMIE Gellhorn. We begin with today’s ceremony in Empire City, where the new Lady Liberty statue was unveiled to the public for the first time. Four times larger than the original, the statue is made from Montana limestone with a shield strapped across her back, and holds aloft a longsword in her right hand. According to the project’s civil engineer and sculptor, ‘The shield shows vigilance, a readiness to defend democratic principles across the globe.’ The sword is made from quartz mined in the Ozarks and can be seen from fifty miles away. ‘A message of hope for those who seek it,’ it was described today. ‘A forewarning to others.’
“President-elect Collins was on hand for the ceremony, and gave a speech that made the case for the statue representing ‘a new dawn’ in America. Responding to an earlier remark that likened the statue to her own election, President-elect Collins joked that both she and Lady Liberty have seen too much to be considered beautiful anymore, so they’d have to make do with strength and might.
“The president-elect dedicated the statue to the late Peter Swenson, better known as Justice of the Volunteers, who famously saved her from an assassination attempt during last year’s V-V Day Parade. ‘May his memory and commitment to united service be our guiding light,’ she said at the close of her speech. ‘Now and always.’
“And now breaking news.
“We are following reports of a prison break at Triangle Island Penitentiary, north of Empire City. Gunfire and explosions have been heard from the island, and police helicopters have been spotted flying over the surrounding bay with searchlights.
“We’ve learned that the prison escape involves members of the Mayday Front. They claim to be an organization of military veterans from the Mediterranean Wars, though government officials dispute that. Last month, the War Department secretary confronted members gathered in Federal City, calling them ‘frauds and undesirables,’ instructing any real veterans in their ranks to go home and make something of themselves.
“This was on the eve of the Union Garden riots, of course.
“And—okay, we just received a communication from the Mayday Front. We’ve decided to read it on-air in the interest of public notice. This is an Empire News exclusive. Of course we do not endorse this message in any way. It’s from a man calling himself Veteran Zero, an alleged leader in the organization. He claims to be one of the fugitives who escaped tonight.
“These are his words, not mine:
“ ‘We had been told on leaving our native soil that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by our fellow citizens, and to aid populations abroad in need of our assistance. Make haste, America, and tell me that our fellow citizens understand us, support us, and will protect us, as we ourselves protected the glory of our great nation. If it should be otherwise—if we should have left our brothers’ and sisters’ bleached bones in those distant sands in vain—then beware. We will get our due. We will take our due. For those who have borne the battle. Beware the anger of the warfighter, America. Our time has come. Beware the wrath of our legion!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My gratitude to:
Annie, Sam, Mom, Dad, Luke and the Gallagher, Boisselle, Scott and Steinle families; Nick Allen, Brian Castner, Philippe Dume, Eric Fair, Ted Janis, Phil Klay, and Sanaë Lemoine; Molly Atlas, who believed in this book, through it all; Daniella Wexler and Loan Le, for their support and guidance; and Ernie.
A breakthrough in this novel’s development occurred in Rion Amilcar Scott’s worldbuilding class at the 2017 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Early drafts were completed at The Writers Room in New York.
Many books helped out with research, to include: Andrew Bacevich’s America’s War for the Greater Middle East, Võ Nguyên Giáp’s How We Won the War, John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano, Leslie Gelb’s Power Rules, Franz Kafka’s Amerika, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck’s American Terrorist, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March, and Emma Sky’s The Unraveling.
To those I mentioned, and to the many others I didn’t—Sláinte.
More from the Author
Youngblood
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MATT GALLAGHER is a Wake Forest graduate and U.S. Army veteran. He’s th
e author of the novel Youngblood and memoir Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War. He holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia and has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, and the Paris Review. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn.
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Matt-Gallagher
@AtriaBooks @AtriaBooks @AtriaBooks
ALSO BY MATT GALLAGHER
Youngblood
Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War
Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War (Editor)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gallagher, Matt, author.
Title: Empire city / Matt Gallagher.
Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York City : Atria Books, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019039694 | ISBN 9781501177798 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501177811 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: War stories
Classification: LCC PS3607.A4154415 E47 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039694
ISBN 978-1-5011-7779-8
ISBN 978-1-5011-7781-1 (ebook)
Empire City Page 33
