by Adam Yoshida
“Look,” she said, “I know that you’re tired and I know that you’re frightened. I understand all of that. But they’re tired too. And a lot of them are an awfully long way from home. If we give them a good and solid punch back, like all bullies, I expect that they’ll fall right apart. That’s what we’re here to do.”
Wagner looked around. There were no cheers. But there were nods. There was quiet resolution. That was enough.
The platoon fanned out across the ground floors of a handful of squat downtown stores, taking improvised firing positions and waiting.
“Only fire when you have a clear shot,” Wagner ordered, lifting her C7 Rifle to her shoulder as she waited for the enemy to pull into view. From a distance, she could make out the roar of a vehicle engine.
“Missile crews, at the ready!” she shouted, as a half dozen men and women began to fumble to put their anti-tank missile into place. The sound got nearer and nearer.
From around the corner, a sixteen-ton LAV-III vehicle raced into view, coming in at nearly one hundred kilometers per hour. As her missile crews turned to engage the infantry fighting vehicle, it raced down the street, wildly spraying machine gun bullets without bothering to attempt any exact targeting. One of the crews fired a missile that flew wildly off target as the others continued to fumble with the controls. A 7.62mm round struck Gerri in the chest, sending her instantly collapsing to the ground. It clipped her right lung, which began to fill with blood, leaving the Lieutenant wheezing and struggling to speak. As the world around her faded into eternal blackness, Wagner could see her men and women begin to drop their weapons and run, leaving her behind to spend her final moments reflecting upon the utter futility of it all.
Arlington, Virginia
Back at his apartment, Mark Varro sat flipping between the reports of the fighting in Canada and the local news. From monitoring the local police radio, he knew that the body had been discovered within minutes and that the Washington, DC police were on the scene. However, to his profound disappointment, the local media was reporting the incident as a “bizarre crime” rather than giving his action a full hearing.
I signed the fucking note “Osawatomie Brown”, thought Varro, surely there’s someone there who took a high school history class at one time in their lives.
“Of course,” the local reporter droned on, “some are asking what role the media - and our overheated political environment - played in this terrible crime.”
“I have to wonder too,” the local anchor asked the reporter, “just why anyone would ever need to own a ‘Braveheart-style’ sword? I mean, it can’t really serve any purpose other than to kill people, can it?”
Varro sighed. Next time, he vowed, they would get the point.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pathways
The White House, Washington, DC
Most of the media might have been too distracted to pay attention to what had happened to Professor Anderson, but it certainly had gotten the attention of the Vice President, who had demanded an immediate Oval Office meeting to discuss it.
“The man never did anything in his life, other than struggle in the cause of peace and social justice,” he quietly told the President.
“So I’ve been told,” Warren replied quietly.
“Mr. President, I know that we’ve never quite seen eye-to-eye on all of this,” Vice President Bryan said, “but you must see - between the obstructionism, the violence, the mass accumulation of wealth - which is really just another form of violence - that something must be done.
“Something will be done,” said the President. The Vice President smiled.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he said.
“I’m holding this economy together with duct tape and twine, Mr. President,” Daniel Hampton told President Warren during his morning videoconference from New York to Washington.
“I understand that the situation is very grave,” the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors conceded, “but I don’t think that it’s quite as bad as that.”
“Then you fucking come up here and deal with it,” Hampton pointedly shot back over the feed.
“Ok, ok,” the President waved his arms, “I don’t think that sniping is going to get us anywhere. We just need to get beyond our present troubles, and then we can begin to make some real structural changes.”
“Capital markets are frozen, Mr. President,” Hampton emphasized, “there’s no real underlying activity that isn’t, at this point, being driven by the Fed. The Fed is underwriting and, really, conducting by proxy all interbank transfers. The Fed is driving all interbank lending. People are buying commercial paper only when we’re guaranteeing the transaction and lending the money for them to do it.”
“I think that we all understand the problems, Mr. Hampton,” Raul Emerson interjected.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Ok,” said the President, “I don’t think that we’re going to solve any of these problems at once or overnight. I certainly don’t think that this is accomplishing anything productive. Let’s come at this with fresh eyes tomorrow, folks.”
Northern Ontario
Colonel Stern didn’t like his latest orders, even if he saw the sense of them.
The Federal soldiers fleeing Thunder Bay were no longer an organized force. They were a rabble. Many of them weren’t even armed in any real sense. Striking them, he felt, might actually prolong the war by arousing an even-greater hatred of the West throughout the East and thereby motivating them to continue the war even longer. Of course, he wasn’t a policymaker and this wasn’t even his country. On a personal level he was simply being paid to shut up and fly. On a deeper level, he knew, somewhere a deal had been struck that would ensure not only that he was paid, but that his actual homeland was compensated as well.
Drones had sighted a column of five hundred soldiers, some on foot and some in vehicles, on the move twelve miles to the east of the city. Without proper air defenses, they were sitting ducks. It was entirely without joy that Stern swung his MiG into place and dropped two five hundred pound bombs right on top of them.
Ottawa, Ontario
The Prime Minister, having witnessed the collapse of the army on the battlefield, now turned to General LeFluer, who responded to his e-mail within minutes with a reply which contained as an attachment a detailed plan for the conduct of non-conventional operations against the Western Army designed to serve as a delaying action until “external forces” (meaning, in other words, American military support) could be brought into play.
“We still possess tremendous resources, many of which may be used to our advantage,” a visibly-excited Prime MInister told the Cabinet.
“At this point, what we’re talking about here is guerrilla warfare, waged across all of Ontario, for the purpose of restoring a Canadian federation with a radicalized West and where very large promises have been made to both Quebec and our aboriginal population in order to gain military volunteers from those communities. I don’t know that that is a cause worth the tremendous losses contemplated,” the Finance Minister sourly declared.
“I think,” the Leader of the NDP declared with a heavy pause, “that some from of conciliation is the only realistic option left open to us at the present moment in time.”
“You mean to allow the Western Provinces to bolt the country with Trillions - yes Trillions - in wealth that properly belongs to all of the Canadian people? To shirk debts that are as much theirs as they are ours?”
“I think that the debt matter could be settled reasonably in final negotiations. Likewise, I think that we’d stand a fair chance at holding the north - it’s more occupied by Western forces than it is an active part of the separatist movement,” the Finance Minister said calmly.
“There will,” the Prime Minister jumped from his seat as he spoke, “...listen to me. There will be negotiations with separatists and traitors so long as I sit in this chair. I will never concede what generations built - what my father built...�
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As the Prime Minister continued, the Cabinet began to look less at him and more at each other.
Northern Ontario
“Goddamnit!” shouted Lieutenant General William Jackson as he slammed his first into the table. After Thunder Bay and the death of General Wayne, Vancouver had had little choice but to give him the overall command of the Western Expeditionary Force and a third star to go along with the billet. However, as a military commander, he was emphatically not being consulted on the political questions of the day.
“They’re going to fucking negotiate!” he shouted to the staff members who had turned to face him, started by his outburst.
The new Prime Minister was actually a Westerner - a LIberal MP from British Columbia who had kept their seat in the Federal Parliament even after succession. They were moderate and fairly popular with all sections of the country. What they proposed - as he had had to learn from the media - was a treaty that would concede a form of Western independence that would maintain a form of economic federation between the East and West, including an equal sharing of the debts. Further, it was reported that referendums would be allowed in all of the northern territories to determine their final status. This process was sure to end up with the north in Ottawa’s hands.
“No. Fucking. Way,” declared the General, followed by a further slam of his fist into the desk.
An aide walked into the room.
“General, this has been passed to us by a Federal officer under a flag of truce,” he said as he handed Jackson a piece of paper.
In light of the imminent commencement of negotiations between the Federal Government and the de facto authority in the West, I believe that it would be in the interests of humanity for an immediate cease fire to be declared across the entire front.
The tension in the room increased as the General read the message. Most of the staff was prepared for a real explosion this time. Instead, the General laughed.
“Does anyone have a pen?” he asked.
A Captain who specialized in public affairs was tasked with ensuring that Jackson’s response to the Federal commander be transmitted to the media immediately.
I will not order any cessation of hostilities except on the terms of the immediate and unconditional recognition of the independence of the Western Republic and the surrender of your force. My tanks can be in Toronto in forty-eight hours.
After handing copies of the statement to the reporters waiting outside of the WEF’s headquarters in Thunder Bay, he took a CTV reporter aside and pulled out another piece of paper on which he had written down some quotes that he released to her to be attributed to a, “high-level source within the Western Army.
“There are no organized forces available to defend Toronto. We expect resistance from within the city itself, but we’ll be able to use artillery to simply smash that. The political leadership and the soldiers of the Western republic are not particularly concerned about the condition of Toronto, of all places, when we’re done,” the white-faced twenty-something reporter read aloud as CTV broke into its programming for an urgent update.
“That,” said the reporter, “from a very high-level source within the Western Army. That Army, now nearly 50,000 men in strength is, of course, encamped at Thunder Bay right now - roughly a two day drive from Toronto. And, I have to say, after spending time with the soldiers and the leaders of this Army, I have little doubt that they mean what they say.”
At the WEF’s headquarters, the reporter’s final words were greeted with a whoop. General Jackson watched the smiling staff from behind a glass partition as he listened to voices yelling at him on the phone.
“Now, gentlemen,” Jackson said, “do any of you really question that a response to a proposed parlay is within my authority as the local military commander?”
The silence hung on the line.
“Ok then. Well then, that being conceded, I must say that I agree that whoever leaked it to the foreign reporter, and the general tenor of the quotes... Well, that’s all very regrettable. That being said, what’s done is done and what we have now is a very real opportunity that we may capitalize upon in the immediate future, especially given the panic that has already been created throughout the east.”
“General,” President Eagleton’s voice came across the line, “I understand your point of view on this. However, policy-making must remain entirely within the political purview. When you surrendered your political office you agreed, implicitly, to step aside from political decision making.”
“Naturally... naturally,” replied Jackson.
“I will definitely seek to make a clarifying statement at the earliest opportunity.”
“Alright. Do that.” said Eagleton.
“We’ll get back in touch with our counterparts in the East and see where they’re at. Have a good evening, General.”
The line clicked dead. Jackson turned to his Chief of Staff and smiled.
“Tell those reporters outside that I’m going to have a press conference in fifteen minutes.”
“General,” asked the reporter from the Toronto Star, “are you preparing to advance deeper into Ontario?”
“I cannot and will not comment on future military operations,” replied Jackson, “I will only say that we will take all necessary measures to assure the security of our forces.”
“Right. But are you planning to advance - for example, to make a lightning attack across Ontario designed to secure the city of Toronto?” pressed the reporter.
“Asked and answered, Sam,” replied Jackson.
“Let me emphasize this point,” said Jackson, pounding the lectern that had been hastily retrieved for him from a local high school, “the Western Army does not advertise its plans in advance. That would make no military sense. But let me assure the public, because I think that certain reporters have caused unnecessary public alarm, that the Western Army had always and will always conduct its operations with a view towards inflicting minimum collateral damage. For example, we would only resort - and this is a purely hypothetical example - to using heavy artillery in a built up area, such as Toronto, if we were being resisted and forced to fight for the streets of the city block-by-block. We would not, of course, shrink from such a fight, but we would avoid it if at all possible.”
“General, if and I’ll emphasize the hypothetical part of that question, if, your forces were to attack Toronto tomorrow afternoon, do you think that that there would be fewer than 100,000 civilians killed during the fighting?” asked a reporter from the Vancouver Province, reading a question e-mailed directly to his phone from an anonymous number.
“I don’t want to get into hypothetical numbers, Jack, but I certainly would not make any promises.”
“But civilian areas would be avoided?” the reporter asked.
“Well, if you’re asking - again wholly hypothetically - whether we would deliberately fire upon civilian areas without a military objective then the answer, of course, is no. But, of course, an area ceases to be a civilian area when it is used for military purposes an, of course, in fighting in a built-up area it can be extremely challenging, even impossible in some cases, to avoid damage to civilian areas.”
“If you took Toronto, would you deliberately target civilian infrastructure, as was the case in Winnipeg?”
“Look, I don’t want to get into hypotheticals. It’s possible that we’ll be fighting in the streets of Toronto and that a few hundred thousands Torontonains will consequentially be dead by Thursday afternoon, sure. But that’s not our desire or our publicly-expressed intention,” answered Jackson.
Toronto, Ontario
The uproar was immediate and massive. Canadian and, indeed, world television was filled with images of the Western Army’s tanks driving and firing. The timeframe was so short and the panic so intense that no one really noticed that they were simply driving in circles. The story was so well-covered that it threatened to displace the Senate vote on the impeachment of President Warren as the leading stor
y. Ontarians were driven to a frenzy of fear: wouldn’t someone save them?
The means had always been in place. That had never been in question. The willingness to act had always been the problem. The Premier of Ontario was a practical woman. Yes, technically speaking she was a Liberal and therefore shared a party with the Prime Minister. But, after Thunder Bay, it was clear enough to her that the Eastern Government would never subdue the West. Not without active military aid from the United States and possibly not even then, unless the Americans were willing to throw tens of thousands of their soldiers into combat in order to restore the rule of an Eastern government that wasn’t particularly popular with the American people. Not unless they were willing to fight a Western government that was fairly popular with those same people. If the Congress would even vote money to a President who might be up for the fight. And, even then, it would mean battles fought across all of Ontario and, after the destruction of Winnipeg, who was to say what would be left of Ontario’s industrial might when all of it was said and done. No, the Premier had told her Cabinet that afternoon, it was simply time.
Her PowerPoint presentation had been prepared, under the conditions of the strictest secrecy, months before by a special unit working quietly in a basement at the University of Toronto. They had prepared other materials as well.
“My fellow citizens of Ontario,” she began a few seconds after the light on the camera began to glow red, “I come before you tonight to deliver as vital an address as a Premier has ever been asked to deliver. The challenges that I and the rest of your government have had to weigh have been the gravest ever to fall upon us at Queen’s Park.”
