by Adam Yoshida
“Yes Captain,” he replied, his voice shaky and his eyes filled with gratitude.
“It won’t be long now,” said Ramirez to the rest of the men and women in the forward command post, “they don’t have that many shells to waste.”
Battery Park, Manhattan
Ohio and her sisters had managed to make their way to the surface without a hitch. The SSGNs had come to the surface just off the shore of New York City just after 5AM and begun to deploy a series of Rubber Raiding Craft. The tiny zodiacs, designed to carry a relative handful of SEALs, were driven to their limits as they began to deliver a steady stream of Marines to the shores of Lower Manhattan. At the same moment as the submarines made their risky trip to the surface, a set of text messages were transmitted to the leaders of the Rebel forces within New York City itself. The message was simple and direct.
“2,” the message read in its entirety, thereby informing the leaders of the resistance that a seaborne operation was taking place. Moments later it was followed by second message, this one consisting wholly of a “4,” informing them that the target was Lower Manhattan.
Colonel Durham rode in the first wave of RRCs that headed into the shore, his M-16 rifle held at the ready as the tiny boat pulled up alongside the Manhattan shoreline at Battery Park.
Thank God it’s only a name, he thought to himself. If the coast defense artillery position from which the park had taken its name was still active an operation like this would have been impossible.
The first Marines hit the shallow water and began to charge ashore at 5:42AM. By this time a handful of people had already gathered along the shoreline to observe operations. Durham checked that his shoulder-strap was secure and then slung his rifle behind his back before he walked over to them.
“What the fuck, dude?” asked a twenty-something man in jogging clothes.
“We’re United States Marines,” replied Durham, “and we’ve come to liberate the City of New York.”
W. 86th and Columbus, Manhattan
There hadn’t been time for Dallas and Moore to do anything more than to immediately race across the city. There wasn’t time for planning or even to get permission. They simply went at the maximum possible speed which, regrettably, was the speed limit: there was no point in getting pulled over and getting into a shoot-out with the NYPD or someone else at so critical a juncture. Obtaining the home address of Alexis Harman, the Schools Chancellor, had been easy enough: in wartime no one gave a damn what records intelligence services plundered for their own uses. Now they just had to hope that he was home and willing to talk.
As they pulled up to the home in the rising light of the morning, both Dallas and Moore did not speak. They’d already agreed on the plan of action in advance: silenced weapons and no fatal shots if they could avoid them. There was simply no time for anything other than the most expedient course of action.
Thank God he only has sons, thought Moore as he approached the door. He didn’t relish the thought of shooting or torturing innocent teenagers in general, but at least the boys could, by some definitions, be regarded as fair targets within the context of a war. Girls would be harder.
Dallas walked up to the door and knocked as Moore raised his pistol. A sleepy-eyed woman in her mid-fifties answered the door. Moore surged forward and grabbed her, placing his hands over her mouth to muffle her attempted screams as Dallas pulled her hands behind her back and first zip-tied and then gagged her as soon as the door was closed behind them.
Placing a gun to the woman’s back, Dallas and Moore walked her up the stairs. As soon as they arrived at the top, they tossed her onto a couch. Another person - a teenaged boy of sixteen or seventeen years - then walked into the living room. Stunned, he attempted to find words with which to respond to the armed men. Moore immediately shot him in the knee. The boy screamed and fell to the floor as Moore raised his pistol and held it close against his head.
“Shut the fuck up,” he ordered.
“Where’s your father?” asked Dallas. The boy, whimpering, pointed towards the bedroom.
As soon as Moore zip-tied the boy’s hands, the two men walked towards the bedroom, their guns at the ready. When they opened the door they found Harman still in bed.
“Wake the fuck up!” hissed Moore as he stood over the man. As soon as Harman opened his eyes and saw the two guns pointed at his face, he screamed as loudly as he could. Moore took his pistol and shoved it into the man’s mouth.
“Not one more fucking word until I say so,” he ordered.
Slowly, the man got up off the bed. Dallas zip-tied him as well as they moved him towards the living room. The man, already pale and shaking, turned whiter-still as he saw his wife tied up and his son bleeding on the floor.
“Ok,” said Moore as the family looked up at him in terror, “everyone breathe easy. No one needs to get hurt.”
He looked down at the bullet wound inflicted upon the teenager before revising and extending his remarks.
“No one needs to get hurt any worse,” he said.
“What I right now is the complete command structure of all of the para-military units that have been organized in New York City,” explained Moore evenly.
“What makes you think I have anything to do with that? I’m an educator,” shot back Harman.
Moore responded to Harman’s remark by firing a shot that struck his wife in the lower leg. Her bindings muffled her screams somewhat.
“Now,” explained Moore, “that’s just not the way to play this thing. Do you think that I’d come busting through the door at 6AM in the Goddamned morning if I didn’t already know?”
He walked over to Harman’s son and put his gun up against his head.
“Now tell me what I fucking want to know.”
“I don’t have that sort of information. I don’t know who told you otherwise,” insisted Harman, struggling to form his words through his tears.
Moore kicked Harman’s son as hard as he could, striking the bullet wound made less than a minute earlier. The son screamed uncontrollably, writhing upon the ground in pain.
“Give us the fucking information, Chancellor!” demanded Moore.
“Alright!” screamed Harman, “fine!”
Moore walked over to Harman’s wife and placed his gun against her temple.
“Start talking,” he ordered, producing a tablet.
“The command structure starts with the Mayor,” explained Harman.
“You know what,” said Moore after struggling with the interface for a moment before handing the tablet to Harman, “you type. And remember: spelling and accuracy count if you want anyone to come through this ok.”
Two Miles South of Wellton, Arizona
Private First Class Dave Edmonds raised his rifle and fired blindly through the clouds of smoke that now obscured his view. The Rebels had fired on his position for the better part of an hour - unleashing rockets, mortars, and conventional artillery - before they had even begun to advance directly. However, the entire 14th Division was quite well-dug in, making forcing them out a time-consuming and potentially casualty intensive proposition.
Initially, the Rebels had tried to force the network of trenches and defensive positions to the south of the city with tanks, but the Loyalists had plenty of anti-tank missiles and good air cover. During a furious fifteen minute long engagement the company that Edmonds was assigned to alone had expended a full one dozen anti-tank missiles and destroyed two of the Rebels’ Merkava tanks before the engagement had broken off. In the face of the stronger-than-expected resistance, the Rebels had responded by pushing forward with a complete infantry battalion that was now attempting to overrun the forward position.
Edmonds moved up from his concealed position and sighted an advancing Rebel infantryman. He lowered his rifle and attempted to fire at Edmonds, but the Loyalist soldier managed to shoot first, setting loose a three-round burst that sent the Rebel to the ground.
“Fuck,” said Edmonds as he hugged the ground, “it’s fucking hot
up there.”
The heavy machine gun assigned to the unit, out of action for nearly a minute, suddenly returned to the fray, spewing bullets in the direction of the advancing Rebel soldiers. A quick look above the top of the hastily-dug trench allowed Edmonds to observe a Rebel squad attempting to advance and then falling to the ground and crawling back towards their own lines as the leading man was felled by the relentless fire of the old M-60.
Another explosion shook the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt that obscured Edmonds’ vision and those of the soldiers around him.
“More artillery?” said one of the other soldiers of the Platoon, an overweight Private from Olympia, Washington.
“It means they’re falling back. Even the Rebels’ Generals aren’t quite so mad as to shell their own men. They think that it’s more sporting to let us do it,” said Edmonds, allowing himself a private chuckle.
W. 86th and Columbus, Manhattan
After a conversation with Harman that had gone on for nearly half an hour, Moore and Dallas left the home, ashen-faced.
“We’ll call an ambulance in a few minutes and get some help for the wife and the son… and the coroner for Harman,” Moore reassured Dallas quietly as he picked up the burner phone that he had been issued for exactly this occasion and dialled.
“Hi baby,” said the voice on the other end, “are you ready for a super-hot time? We have ladies standing by…”
“Passphrase Coronet,” said Moore clearly.
“This is Kind Heart,” came a male voice from the other end of the line.
“We’ve got a membership list of the local paramilitaries,” explained Moore.
“You’re sure?”
“Well, let’s put it this way: I’m about 99% confident and the Marines are already coming ashore,” replied Moore.
“Send us the list,” replied Kind Heart.
“On the way,” said Moore, “and one more thing, Kind Heart: it’s pretty clear that the Mayor is at the centre of this entire thing. Even more than we thought. Taking him out might disrupt the local response here.”
The voice on the other end pause for nearly ten seconds before speaking again.
“Permission granted,” it said.
Five Miles East of Wellton, Arizona
“We’re stalled,” General Jackson flatly admitted as he viewed the latest updates to the map.
“That about covers it,” agreed Colonel Dunford. The 200th Division had managed to drive the 14th Division off of some of its forward-most positions, but the truth was that the Loyalist forces were largely well-trained, well-supplied, and resilient. To the south of the city they had assailed the Loyalist lines for the entire morning only to have one assault after the other driven off by strongly dug-in soldiers.
The General tapped his hand on the table in front of him.
“Colorado Springs is adamant that the road has to be cleared,” he said quietly.
“Then, with respect,” said Dunford, “they’re going to have to give us the firepower to do it. They’ve got us fighting on a pretty much one-to-one ratio right now and that just won’t do. Not if we have to do this in a hurry.”
“Air power, aside from limited support, is being held back for the decisive battle, when we meet up with the main force of the Loyalist army somewhere in Southern California,” said Jackson without particular conviction.
“General,” said Dunford, “if we don’t clear this Goddamned highway, there’s not going to be a decisive battle, because we’re going to be stuck right here.”
“I’ll see what I can get us,” replied Jackson.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, City of New York
Mayor William Engels had frozen when the first report had reached him a little after 6AM. It was surprising enough that the Rebels had elected to move so decisively against what he regarded as the almost-unassailable position that he held in New York City. But for them to have just sailed right on up to the edge of the island of Manhattan and put soldiers ashore? It defied belief.
“Well, then fucking get him on the phone!” he screamed into his phone before slamming it down upon the desk and looking up. His first instinct, upon learning of the attack against the city, had been to head directly for City Hall, but his protective detail had refused to move. City Hall, after all, was suddenly almost on the front lines of the Second Civil War.
“The President still hasn’t spoken to me,” he said quietly to his Police Commissioner as he re-took his seat.
“There’s a lot going on today, I suppose,” said the Commissioner.
“Mr. Mayor?” said the chief of his protective detail, “I must, once again, emphasize that I believe it to be vitally important that we move you to a secure location immediately. The location of your home isn’t a secret and it’s not just the Marines in Lower Manhattan who are on the move this morning.”
The Mayor scowled at the young Lieutenant.
“Oh,” he said, “I know all about that.”
“Now, Bill,” said the Commissioner quietly, “that’s no fair. He can’t account for what a few bad apples in the department have gotten up to, far beyond his - or any of our - control.”
“Any of our control?” Engels snapped, “I’ve been warning you against subversion for months.”
“Bill,” began the Police Commissioner. He never got to complete his sentence, his words being interrupted by a bullet that struck him in the side of the neck, passing entirely through in such a way and at such an angle as to leave his partially-connected head grotesquely flopping about as he fell backwards into the lounge chair on which he had been seated.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, City of New York
Roman Moore was a different man in battle, thought Mack Dallas as he watched his friend and comrade methodically fire off one round after another into the home of the Mayor of New York City.
That’s why JSOC and Ops both took him, thought Dallas.
The XM-109 rifle that Moore insisted upon using for this operation was overkill, to be sure, but it also appeared to be getting the job done. They’d been in place for hours waiting for the Mayor to leave his home, when the ideal moment to strike against the hated Marxist would have certainly arrived. However, the Mayor had stubbornly remained in place. If it had been up to Moore, they’d have taken a whole team and simply stormed the house itself, killing anyone and everyone who it was necessary to kill in order to get to the Mayor. However, the orders from on up high forbid that approach: they were only to kill police, firefighters, and other civil servants in the event that they were required to do so in order to achieve a key objective or to protect their own lives. The last thing that the folks overseeing things in Colorado Springs wanted was for them to open up their grand offensive with the massacre of a few dozen members of the NYPD.
“Move, fucker,” whispered Moore to himself as he scanned through the windows of the Mayor’s living room.
“Who’d you hit?” asked Dallas quietly.
“I don’t know. Police big wig, I think,” said Moore.
“No cops, remember,” said Dallas.
“Anyone appointed to high office by this Mayor isn’t real police, so far as I”m concerned,” replied Moore.
Moore took another shot. The bullet sailed off into the distance as all around them the number of sirens multiplied.
“Did you hit him?” asked Dallas, “can we exfxil?”
“Negative,” said Moore, “hold on.”
“We’ve got to go,” insisted Dallas, “if they haven’t made us, they’ll be able to do it in minutes.”
“Stand by,” insisted Moore, his eyes focusing intently on the nearby house as he activated his infared goggles.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, City of New York
“Stay calm!” shouted the Mayor over the cries coming from the rest of the house as he crawled about.
“Honey!” shouted his wife.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted, “It’ll be ok!”
“Everyone stay put. Keep down!” said the
NYPD Lieutenant who was chief of the detail.
The Mayor’s wife continued to crawl towards the room.
“What’s going on?” cried out Melissa Whatcom-Engels.
“It’s the fucking Rebels,” said the Mayor as he did his best to remain level with the ground, “they’re attacked and now they’re shooting at us, too.”
“Here?” cried out Whatcom-Engels as she continued to crawl towards the Mayor.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, City of New York
“Roman, we have to go. We have to get going now,” insisted Dallas.
“Hold on,” said Moore, calculating carefully as he watched the scene via his night-vision goggles.
“You can’t even see a Goddamned thing,” said Dallas, “we have to move.”
“I can see everything,” said Moore, “I can’t figure out who is who in the living room, but there’s an adult-sized figure crawling out of what intel says is the Mayor’s bedroom.”
“Who? You can see them?” asked Dallas.
“I can see their heat signatures,” said Moore.
“What fucking good does that do?” said Dallas, “let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“There’s a reason why I demanded an XM-109 for this job,” replied Moore as he squeezed the trigger.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, City of New York
Mayor William Engels heard the bullets as they crashed through the wall, but he couldn’t see them.
“Fuck!” he screamed, hugging the ground.
“Mel?” he asked, as soon as he got his wits about him. He heard no reply.
“Mel!” he shouted, “are you alright?”
There was still no response. The tension hung in the air for several seconds. Then he heard his youngest son scream at the top of his lungs, emitting a tortured wail unlike anything that the Mayor had ever heard in his life. The Mayor’s reaction was instant, human, and fatal. Reacting to the scream of his child he unthinkingly jumped up and moved towards the door. He never heard, let alone had time to react to, the 59mm round that managed to blow a baseball-sized hole through the centre of his mass an then continue through the wall behind him. The rounds that the XM-109 fired were, after all, designed to penetrate the sides of armored vehicles: they were more than adequate for the demands of passing through plaster and wood suburban construction, as well as human flesh, with plenty of velocity to spare.
