by John Bromley
“Well, Jim… there it is.”
At they crested the top of a small hill, both men saw an amazing sight through the windshield. Forested land had been on both sides of the road for many miles, but from this slight elevation they could now see trees extending into the distance in every direction, with a small lake visible on the northern horizon. But rising up through the forest, like the evil witch’s castle in a fairy tale, was the Wall. They were a few miles from a bend in the structure, and from that corner the Wall stretched off to the north and to the west, as far as the eye could see.
“Lots of places to hide computer parts down there,” Mike said.
“Or enemy assassins,” Jim countered glumly.
“Must you always be so bloody cheerful, Colonel?” Mike asked, affecting his horrible English accent, trying for at least a chuckle from his partner, but failing.
“Yeah, I know—it’s your gut,” Mike continued as they drove on toward their destination. “Your problem is you’ve got a grumpy gut.”
“Grumpy, maybe,” Jim answered, watching out the windows for signs of activity, “but realistic.”
The road was in surprisingly good shape, considering how few people likely used it, but after traveling only about three miles, geo-caching-expert Jim spotted a potential hiding spot. Mike pulled off and stopped. At this point, they were less than half a mile from the corner of the Wall.
Mike grabbed the shovel and they started walking, at first parallel to the Wall, but eventually, hesitantly, toward it. After searching a good-sized area for about an hour, Jim was almost ready to admit to making a mistake, when he spotted, almost by chance, the tell-tale red satin ribbon on a nearby stump. He signaled to Mike, who came running.
He was within twenty feet of Jim when a bullet impacted a tree about six feet above Jim’s head. He and Mike dove in opposite directions for cover. A second bullet passed Mike’s hiding place, about two feet left of him but five feet up.
He started crawling toward Jim, but stopped and dropped when he heard another shot, from a slightly different direction. He resumed his tedious crawl toward Jim’s hiding place.
Jim also detected the different firing angle. One guy on the move or two shooters? Well, there’re two of us—probably two of them, too. Let’s hope so.
His thoughts were confirmed when he heard several more shots in rapid succession from both locations, intermingled with “pinging” sounds and ricocheting bullets. None of them came anywhere near him, however.
Mike made it to Jim’s hiding place. “Did somebody say something about ‘assassins’?” he asked sarcastically.
“Where the hell are you going? Are you crazy?” Jim whispered urgently as Mike continued slithering out from under cover toward the ribbon-decorated stump.
“Got a memory chip to recover, remember?” Mike answered as he reached his goal. “Besides, they’re shooting high.”
Ever try to dig a hole while lying on your stomach, pinned down by enemy gunfire? Mike hadn’t, either, but he figured that there’s a first time for everything.
“We’ll get that later—I got a better idea. Plan ‘Beta’.”
“You kidding? Nobody’s gonna fall for—”
Jim didn’t hear him—he was already on his feet and running across a small meadow between the trees. Mike took cover behind the bush where Jim had been.
A shot rang out. Jim’s running stopped abruptly, and he grabbed his back. He took a few halting steps before collapsing face-first on the ground. Mike did not run to his aid but remained where he was, hardly daring to breathe.
A moment later, he heard the sounds of two men making their way rather noisily through the brush toward his fallen comrade. Both were carrying high-powered rifles. When they had passed him, he stood up and cautiously followed.
They approached Jim’s body, one man behind the other. As the man in front raised his rifle to administer the coup de grace, Mike stepped on a twig, which cracked loudly. The man in back turned at the sound, and was greeted by a 9-millimeter round to the forehead from Mike’s pistol. The man in front spun around to investigate, but by then his partner was dead on the ground and the man’s killer was gone. He turned back around to finish his job, just in time to see a very-much-alive Jim Parker, who planted a bullet right between the would-be assassin’s eyes.
“Did somebody say something about ‘nobody’s gonna fall for that’?” Jim answered Mike’s earlier sarcasm with some of his own, as he stood up and Mike emerged from his hiding place.
“You call that ‘a Better Idea’? Let me guess—your gut told you it would work.”
“Well… yeah, I guess it did,” Jim laughed, mostly from the release of tension.
“I’ll admit, I don’t always understand these ‘gut feeling’ of yours, Jim, but I’m beginning to trust them. Now,” he said as he approached the two bodies, “let’s see who we have here.”
They both wore Army uniforms, but Jim disregarded that. A quick search of their pockets revealed that both men, surprisingly, carried identification. “Special Ops,” Mike noted. “I wonder if this is the kind of mission Lt. Jansen would have been assigned to, if he’d lived long enough.”
“There was no ‘mission’ for him,” Jim answered. “Thank God—I wouldn’t have wanted to have to kill him.” He looked closer at the ID’s and snorted. “These things are as phony as their uniforms. Say hello to officers ‘Smith’ and ‘Wesson’.” They both laughed again, and Jim continued, “Special Ops, my ass. You can’t get into that group being the lousy shots that these guys were. And, no way are they stupid enough to fall for the ‘playing-possum’ trick.”
“Could you imagine,” Mike mused, “some foreign soldier watching all this through binoculars? He’d be on the horn to his base faster’n shit. ‘Hey, boys, two of the Army’s best just fell for the oldest trick in the book. Looks like it’s open season on America.’” They both laughed as they made their way back to the marked tree stump, carrying with them the high-powered rifles the “Special Ops” guys had used.
“Never know when these might come in handy. Now,” said Jim, picking up the shovel, “where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted?”
They retrieved what they had come for, but when they got back to the car, their spirits fell faster than the temperature would in these parts when the sun went down. Fortunately, that event was still a few hours off.
“Looks like all those shots weren’t ‘misses’, after all,” Jim said.
Indeed, the front of Mike’s car had been struck by numerous rounds of ammunition, to the point where the ground under the engine was soaked with leaking oil, leaking antifreeze, leaking brake fluid…
“… and let’s not forget the three flat tires,” Mike finished the inventory. “Looks like we aren’t going anywhere in this thing anytime soon.”
“Well… look on the bright side,” Jim said, feeling it to be his turn to brighten the mood. “You’re rich—you can afford another car.”
“Am I missing something?” Mike responded, trying to play along. “You see a used car dealership anywhere? You see anything at all around here?”
“As a matter of fact, I did notice what looked like an old logging cabin just a little ways back. Probably where our… late ‘friends’ were staying while they waited for us. We can hole up there for the time being.”
They made their way back up the road, keeping out of sight as much as possible, just in case their “friends” had friends. They soon discovered that Jim had been right—an old cabin stood a little ways off the road, sheltered by trees. They approached the door, guns drawn.
At the count of three, they charged through the door, Jim sweeping left to right with his weapon, Mike taking top to bottom. Satisfied that the place was empty, they holstered their pistols and brought in their food and other gear. The would-be assassins had confined their rifle fire to the front of the car, for fear of accidentally igniting the gas tank, but as a side effect of that, Jim and Mike’s most important belongings�
��their food and Mike’s computer—had survived intact.
The cabin had a fireplace, but lacked electricity, running water, indoor facilities and refrigeration. They spent the next hour or so cutting wood, and filling their canteens from a small stream behind the building. Mike fixed them a meal, and then it was finally time for their next “lesson.” Up to now, Mike had been running his laptop on house current, so his battery was fully charged. That was a good thing, because there was a lot of data on this latest device. But between historic video clips and Angela’s narration, they learned that which follows…
CHAPTER 16
When Winslow resigned in disgrace, he was succeeded by his vice-president, 41-year-old Kenneth Thompson, whose place in history is secure—he was the founder of the Thompson dynasty that still rules the country today. A born politician with lofty ambitions, he was the kind of man who, given a glass of wine, would want to take over the vineyard. Having ridden Winslow’s coattails to the vice-presidency, he lusted for the top job, not for any good he might be able to do, but just to have the power. Not willing to trust his future to a fickle electorate, he knew that there was only one way for him to ascend to the Oval Office, and under normal circumstances, given his total lack of charisma, that way would have been impossible.
As with Winslow, there is no evidence that Thompson knew anything of the virus before it struck, but when it did, he saw it as the break he was looking for, and the man was nothing if not an opportunist. He set out to undermine President Winslow’s credibility, and he did a masterful job. With forged documents and other methods of misinformation, it was he who told the military not to share their knowledge of the virus with the CDC, thereby delaying the possible discovery of a vaccine, and in the process probably costing hundreds of thousands of men their lives. It was he who persuaded the President that his sound humanitarian policies would be ineffective, and that it was better to do nothing. Of course, by the time Winslow realized what his vice-president was doing, and angrily tried to correct the situation by telling all, the damage had been done. His image was destroyed; he faced impeachment; he was forced to resign, and Thompson had what he craved, the power of the Presidency. While Winslow and all the other decent people around him saw the viral outbreak as the likely end of humanity, to Thompson it was nothing more than his road to the White House, the reputation of his predecessor and the bodies of a million victims only the paving stones. His methods of attaining power were similar to those of another politician preceding him by nearly a hundred years, a German named Adolf Hitler.
He faced a daunting task. Men were dying by the hundreds each day, and the prisons were massively overcrowded by the constant influx of women. The areas where the virus had not yet taken hold were constantly becoming smaller, and women found it increasingly difficult to convince their husbands and sons—and themselves—that they were harmless, and that they would stay that way.
Within hours of assuming the presidency, Thompson went before the nation and declared that he would immediately make available all the data that the Army had to the researchers who were frantically trying to develop a cure for the plague. He did not mention, of course, that it had been he who delayed this disclosure until now, or that he had personally ordered that Dr. Russell Norman, the CBW specialist with a conscience, be disposed of. He also did not disclose that, even at this early hour, he already had a small group of “aides,” fanatically loyal to him and ready to do his bidding, whatever that might be—not unlike Hitler’s infamous “SS”. What he did say was that if a remedy were not found “after a reasonable time”, he would be forced to “take other measures” for the “good of the country”.
It had taken the virologists at Fort Detrick six years to perfect the biological weapon. Thompson’s definition of a “reasonable time” to find a cure: one week.
Seven days after his inaugural speech, Thompson began to show his true colors. He announced that the “deteriorating national condition” was forcing him to take “extraordinary measures.” He then sought congressional permission to override portions of the Constitution, arguing that in order to “preserve the public safety”, and due to the “involuntary nature of the illness”, he would have to suspend “one or two” individual freedoms. Certain members of Congress asked for details concerning the length and specifics of this override and were directed to Thompson’s “aides” for “clarification.” Not surprisingly, many of them were never heard from again. Those that did return to the Capitol were suddenly very unwilling to discuss their concerns with the press. Congress as a whole, weary of trying to deal with this unprecedented situation, feeling that they had fulfilled their mandate by forcing Winslow from office, and foolishly not heeding the lessons of history (and in some cases, fearing for their own safety), decided to allow Thompson a free hand “for the time being.” He responded by declaring “temporary” martial law, the first—and last—time that had been done in this country. Using persuasion where possible and intimidation from his “aides” as needed, he forced through Congress a law, similar to Hitler’s Enabling Act, which allowed him to rule by decree.
Even this was apparently not enough, since the first thing he did with his new authority was to negotiate a merger with the formerly independent country of Canada to create the present nation of North America. The treaty which accomplished this was very one-sided, with the United States faring much the better. Thompson, of course, was named the President of the new nation, with the former Prime Minister of Canada being relegated to the vacant Vice Presidency. The common need of both nations to solve the viral crisis was the driving force behind the union, it was said. Whatever the reasons, Thompson welcomed “our brothers from the North” with open arms, since it gave him that much more land, and people, to rule.
Congress, now reduced to being an advisory body to the President, received recommendations from doctors, sociologists, psychiatrists, and anybody else who had studied the situation and had something to offer. But Thompson obviously had his own agenda, and promptly set it in motion.
Funding for research into a cure had been a top priority under Winslow. The new President authorized a tiny fraction of the previous amount, reasoning (privately) that an antidote would mean the end of the crisis, thus an end to the need for martial law, therefore an end to his dictatorship. From his point of view, there was only one important consideration here—the continued concentration of power in his hands.
The mental-health specialists thought it would be beneficial if the affected women, as well as their male counterparts, were treated as victims of this catastrophe, and given counseling and support. Thompson, whose own father had died at the hands of his mother, didn’t approve of that idea at all, since it did not satisfy his desire for vengeance, his need to have someone to blame for this tragedy. And since women committed all the atrocities, at least in the beginning, in them he had the perfect foil for his and the nation’s hatred. He needed to be able to think of women as the “evil ones,” a phrase he often used in private. The suggestion of leniency and understanding for women, in fact, pushed him even farther in the other direction.
Law enforcement groups were finding it incredibly stressful dealing with a constant inflow of violent females, and being unable to vent this frustration anywhere. Sensing a kindred spirit in their new President, they requested some relief of this tension, and were rewarded—but for a price, which he promptly collected. Again emulating his German idol, he nationalized all local and state police forces into one organization, reporting to him personally. He then announced a new law: women who killed men were now to be considered capital criminals, facing a mandatory death penalty, whether the homicide was involuntarily triggered by the virus or not. Further, authorities at the crime scene were empowered to execute the “criminal” on the spot if they felt “justified” in doing so. Written into the law were so many ways for them to legally “justify” their actions that, from this point on, it was almost guaranteed that every male death would also result in the immedi
ate execution of his female assailant. Thompson felt that all this would somehow “lessen the national horror” and solve the prison overcrowding problem at the same time. It certainly achieved the second goal, if not the first. Women were immediately released from prisons until the inmate population was down to a more reasonable number. As Thompson expected, many of them involuntarily became repeat offenders and were “justifiably” killed by the police. Of course, for the woman to become a repeat offender meant that another man had to die, but from the President’s point of view, this was immaterial.
Up to this point, President Thompson’s plans, though not completely explained or understood, were generally well received, except by a small but vocal minority—led by his predecessor, Jeffrey Winslow. Thompson found this intolerable, and devised a clever plan to eliminate this threat to his authority. He arranged with the police for a woman to be taken to Winslow’s house in the middle of the night. She was led into his bedroom and forced, at gunpoint, to get into bed with him. He rolled over in his sleep, he touched her, and the inevitable happened. She jumped out of the bed in horror, and was instantly shot to death by the waiting officers. Thompson himself made the news of Winslow’s assassination public the next day, lauding the “heroic efforts” of the police who “made a valiant effort to stop the deranged assassin,” and laying the blame for the “loss of this great American statesman and leader” squarely on the heads of “women everywhere, the avowed enemies of national order.”
Another official who didn’t always tow the party line was Thompson’s brand-new Canadian vice-president, Alan Kirkpatrick. On several occasions, while being interviewed by the press, he allowed that perhaps the President’s course of action had not always been perfect, that maybe he had not done exactly the right thing every time, that “a more cautious approach” might have been “prudent” in certain situations. No specific criticisms, but still Thompson found this behavior unacceptable.
