“Hey!” Jake shouted.
He’d almost reached the neon sign. A soldier opened the door, and Jake heard music and saw flashing lights. He also caught the flash of a naked tit. Oh, okay, this was a strip club.
Jake grinned from ear to ear. He didn’t realize there had been one of these in Topeka. Several seconds later, he paid the entrance fee, stomped his feet upon entering, and stared in fascination at the woman on stage. She wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and little else, and her tits jiggled as she danced around the pole. Oh man, but she was hot.
“Beer,” he told a burly man.
The bald man with a square build didn’t say anything. He just pointed at the obvious bar.
Jake staggered there, slapped money on the bar and waited, turning and watching the woman gyrate to the pulse-pounding rock and roll. She ground her hips against the pole, moved away and high-stepped. She stared at the men looking up at her, and she spied Jake at the bar. She took off her cowboy hat—she had dark hair that spilled down to the middle of her back. She twirled the hat around and threw it at Jake.
The hat sailed through the air. Men turned around, watching it. Jake reached up drunkenly, and he caught the hat. Maybe she’d been a powder-puff quarterback in high school. It had been a good throw; right at him. Jake laughed, and he put the hat on his head.
“Here you go, cowboy,” a pretty woman said on the other side of the bar. She clunked a full glass on the wood. “Have a good time.”
Jake agreed with her, picked up the beer and staggered to the stage.
Men sat beside it, looking up with lust-glazed eyes at the dancer. They held bills in their fists. The stripper danced for them one by one, and each man put dollars on the stage. She was good at picking them up.
Jake watched spellbound, drinking beers and judging three different strippers. He went to the restroom several times. The last time he bumped against walls, and he vomited in a sink.
“Hey, stupid,” a tall man said. “Use the toilet for that.”
Hardly able to see at this point, Jake gave him the finger. The man scowled, gave him the finger back. It was the longest finger Jake had ever seen, with a black-painted fingernail bitten down close. Jake rushed the guy. He hit Mr. Black Fingernail several times. They were uncoordinated swings, but they were enough. He left the tall guy on the restroom floor, with his eyes closed.
As Jake tried to stagger back to the stage, a waitress intercepted him.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she said.
“Huh?” Jake asked.
“It looks like someone hit you,” the woman said. “Are you okay?”
Jake brushed his nose and was amazed to see bright red blood on his fingers. He laughed, wiped his nose again and came away with more blood.
“Here,” the woman said.
Jake peered at her. She had long dark hair. She was pretty. Oh, she’d stripped earlier, although she wore waitressing clothes now with outrageous high heels. The girl—she couldn’t be more than eighteen—had tossed him the cowboy hat. He still wore it.
“Hold still,” she told him.
He realized she’d been handing him a towel, but he hadn’t taken it. So now, she wiped his nose for him. He hardly felt a thing.
“Did someone hit you?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, slurring as he spoke.
“You’re totally drunk,” she said.
He just grinned at that.
“You should sit down, maybe drink some water.”
“Beer,” he said. “I need more beer.”
“Look,” she said, glancing around and seeming worried. “Give me a dollar, anything, make it look like I’m working, not just talking to you.”
He dug in his pockets before shaking his head. “I gave all my bills to you.”
“Then give me your hand,” she said.
He did, and she pretended to take something from him. Jake turned around, and he saw the bald, square-shaped man heading toward him. The man stopped and he turned away. Why had he done that?
“He wants to start something with me?” Jake slurred belligerently.
“Don’t let it worry you, cowboy,” the girl said. “He’s just doing his job. He’s making sure—oh, never mind.”
“What about you?” Jake asked. “You’re nice. Why are you working at a place like this?”
Instead of scowling, she looked away, almost in a shy manner. “I don’t have a choice,” she finally said. “My mom and dad…they’re gone.”
“Killed?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s the word for it.”
“It’s a dirty thing, war,” Jake said. “I’m so sick of it.”
“You’d better watch what you say,” she told him, looking worried again. “Some of our customers belong to Homeland Security. You don’t want to let them hear anything seditious.”
“Seditious?” Jake asked. “Are you kidding me? I’ve bled a hundred times more blood than you just wiped away from my nose. I’ve killed invaders by the dozen. I’ll say exactly what I want to say, and nobody is going to tell me differently because I’m an American.”
“Shh,” she said, touching his forearm. “You’re talking too loudly.”
Jake found he liked her touch. He’d just seen her in the nude. Oh man, she had fantastic tits, great legs and an ass—
“You’re pretty,” he said. “I like you.”
“You seem like a sweet boy,” she said.
“Boy?” he said. “I’m—”
She squeezed his forearm. “You’re a man, I know. I saw how you looked at me.”
He nodded, and he wanted to grab her, kiss her and maybe even do more than that. He’d just seen her naked, hadn’t he? He grinned like an idiot until he recalled the square-shaped man.
“Is he mean to you?” Jake asked.
“What?” she asked.
“Mr. Square?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I’d better go. Maybe I’ll talk to you after work.”
She turned away, but Jake decided that she had touched him, why couldn’t he touch her? Fair was fair, right? So he grabbed her and pulled her back.
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
He let go. “Sorry. Sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”
“You can’t touch me. Frank will kick you out of here if you touch me.”
“Mr. Square, you mean?”
“Look,” she said.
Jake slapped his chest, and until this moment, he hadn’t gotten himself into any more trouble than a young man might in such a place. He opened his mouth, and he talked loudly again.
“I killed for our country. I shot and stabbed Chinese invaders so free Americans can speak their mind. I don’t mind saying what I think, do you know that?”
The girl stared at him.
Jake slapped his chest again. He liked her staring at him and he liked talking about something so close to his heart. He had spent time in the detention center because he had what his dad called moral courage. He dared to speak truth to power. America needed more of that. Sure, it was a fight to the death with the invaders, but freedom only came to those willing to pay the heavy cost.
“I’ll speak to who I want to speak to and I’ll say what I think about anything,” he said.
She nodded, with her eyes wide.
“Do you know that the President has made decrees that are against the law?” Jake asked.
She shook her head.
“Oh yeah,” Jake said. “But I figure Sims believes he’s doing right. It’s that other guy.”
“Who’s that?” she asked.
Jake made a face. He was so drunk his features felt numb, as if he moved cardboard. “Max Harold, the Director of Homeland Security, he’s a fascist. He doesn’t like letting Americans say what they want to. You know what…”
“What?” she asked.
“What’s your name?” Jake asked.
“Sheila.”
“Sheila,” Jake said�
�and suddenly he had to take a piss again. He really needed to go. He’d been drinking beer like a horse for hours upon hours. The need welled up and overpowered him. If he rushed into the restroom, Sheila would go elsewhere. He liked her. She even wanted to meet after work.
His drunken mind spun fast, and it came to him then in totally clarity what would impress a stripper.
“Watch this,” Jake said. He pulled out his wallet, fumbled to open it and fumbled even more to draw out his Militia card. It was like a driver’s license, but had two pictures instead of just one. It had his mug shot, and it showed in the opposite corner Director Max Harold of Homeland Security.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I thought you said you don’t have any more money.”
“I’m giving you a visual of my feelings,” Jake said. He tossed the ID card onto the floor and zipped down his fly.
“Hey, you can’t do that,” she said.
Jake dug out his shlong and whipped it out. Normally, he couldn’t use a urinal if someone stood beside him using the next one. He needed to piss alone. But the beer poured through his system and his bladder was just plum full. Jake proceeded to urinate onto the Militia ID card, particularly on the director.
It caused a minor outrage in the strip joint. The square-shaped bouncer hurried near. Sheila backed away and looked at Jake in horror, while a large man with red eyes and a redder nose took out a voice recorder. He spoke into it before marching near.
“Hey,” Jake said. “Unhand me.”
The bouncer had a fierce grip, and the man was strong.
“Let me zip up at least,” Jake said.
“Just a moment,” the large man with red eyes said. “You’re a Militiaman?” he asked Jake.
“That’s right. What’s it to you?”
“I heard some of what you’ve been saying. What did you just think you were doing?”
“Pissing on the director,” Jake said proudly.
The man’s red eyes squinted. “The director of what?” he asked.
The girl stepped near, and maybe she was thinking about warning Jake.
Jake missed it, and he therefore missed his last chance to stay out of bad trouble. “Are you kidding me, mister?” Jake asked. “I’m an American and I tell it like it is. The director is the dictator’s puppet, and he’s taking away too many of our liberties.”
“Do you mean Max Harold?” the red-eyed man asked.
“Yeah, I mean him,” Jake said.
“Shut up!” Sheila said. “Don’t say anything more.”
The big red-eyed man glanced at Sheila and then back at Jake. “Would you care to repeat that?” he asked Jake.
Jake saw the voice recorder. In his blurry mind, it seemed like a TV reporter’s microphone. He leaned near, figuring that finally someone would go on record and say it like it was.
“Jake,” Sheila said.
“The Director of Homeland Security is the dictator’s puppet,” Jake said slowly in his slurry voice. “He’s taking away too many of our precious American liberties, and I for one am not going to stand for it any longer.”
Sheila groaned and shook her head.
Jake grinned at the red-eyed man.
The big man used his thumb to turn off the recorder. He stuffed it in his pocket before turning to the bouncer. “Put him in the other room,” he said.
“Beat him up?” the bouncer asked.
“No,” the big man said. “I’m calling my MPs. I know exactly what to do with a dissenter like this.”
“What’s that?” Sheila asked.
The big man looked at her in surprise. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No. I just met him tonight.”
“Well, say goodbye to him,” the big man said. “Unless I miss my guess, he’s headed for New England for one of the new penal battalions.”
“Who are you?” Jake asked, with the first touch of worry in his voice.
“Take him,” the big man told the bouncer. “And keep him there until my MPs arrive.”
The bouncer twisted Jake’s arm behind his back.
“Hey, let go of me,” Jake said. No one paid any attention as Mr. Square marched him against his will into a holding room. He struggled, but then it hit him hard: the amount of alcohol he’d poured into his system.
“Just a minute,” he mumbled. Then Jake vomited for the second time tonight. He would pay for this later, he knew, but he didn’t really realize just how much.
-3-
Choices
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
General Walther Mansfeld, the commanding general of the GD Expeditionary Force in North America, rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He was an athletic man, a former gymnast who had won a bronze medal on the parallel bars in the 2016 Olympics. At fifty, he was short, trim and in excellent condition. He ran three kilometers every day and stretched to keep himself limber. More importantly, he had a razor-sharp intellect and he knew himself to be the best battlefield commander in the German Dominion, which meant he was the best in the world.
Excellence in all things, it was Mansfeld’s motto. The only one who had ever approached him in ability was the Chancellor. Normally, Kleist held all the cards. The one thing Chancellor Kleist couldn’t do was win a battle brilliantly. It’s why the man had let him live four months ago when Kleist had summoned him with the thought to execute him.
Mansfeld tapped the computer battle map. A hot cup of coffee steamed beside it, his fifth this morning. He drank far too much, but he needed the caffeine, as it helped to stimulate his thoughts.
Mansfeld picked up the cup and sipped delicately as his steely eyes studied the military situation. So far, the battles had gone to form just as he had predicted in Berlin that day. The Canadians fought well given their inferior weaponry. The Americans showed stubbornness, and they steadily added reinforcements as they lost engagement after engagement. He had tested his opposite number and found the commanding American general wanting. The man would continue to add driblets. The American General Staff and perhaps the President hadn’t yet realized their danger. How could they? They were not geniuses of battle like him.
All his life Mansfeld had seen further and more deeply than those around him could. The only man whose mind he respected was Chancellor Kleist. Maybe the American who had come up with the battle plan this winter to maul the Chinese had a superior intellect. Otherwise, the world was a barren desert, a wasteland in terms of thinkers.
He sipped more coffee, holding the liquid on his tongue as he attempted to extract the greatest amount of enjoyment from it he could. He wished he could find a way to make this drink taste as good as the first one in the morning. Every day, he looked forward to his first sip of coffee. Nothing tasted quite as good. He wondered why that was, and smiled indulgently. He knew the answer, of course, but he asked himself the question almost every morning around now.
Mansfeld clicked the cup onto its saucer and tapped the battle map. He enlarged the area around the Toronto Pocket.
The fierce defensive fighting hadn’t surprise him. These were first-rate American units in Toronto. Their commander had used them to plug the gap to try to halt the relentless GD advance toward Detroit.
Mansfeld smiled. He knew it made him seem like an eagle surveying the countryside for prey. He fought at too swift a pace for the Americans. The Canadians had melted like butter those first few days. Later, the Canadians had stiffened for a time. He kept producing surprises, though, keeping the enemy off balance.
Yes, the enemy commander had thought to stem the relentless tide of GD victory before the largest city of Canada, Toronto. It had been the obvious thing to do, and in many ways, the correct move. Cities, especially big cities, could often become defender fortresses.
The allied Canadians and Americans finally had the numbers they needed. They had first-rate soldiers and for their side, modern equipment. Yes, the enemy commander had made the correct choice—or so it had seemed. Stop the relentless GD torrent at Toronto.
He had saved one of his trump cards for just such a moment. Actually, he had saved two trumps. Until that moment, he had kept the laser-armed Sabre fighter-jets out of battle. With them providing air cover, he had mass-airlifted light tanks. Then he had dropped the Ritter tanks as if they were paratroopers behind the main enemy concentrations. In conjunction with that, he had used mass Galahad hovers to swing around the city on Lake Ontario.
Oh yes, the American general had attempted to seal Southern Ontario between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. He had thought to turn Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe into a fortress so the dreaded GD couldn’t practice anymore blitzkrieg tactics. The so-called horseshoe area contained over nine million people, twenty-six percent of Canada’s former population. The enemy commander had not realized the GD ability to use the air as a flank.
Some of Mansfeld’s staff had shown surprise at this. The Americans often employed helicopter-borne troops in mass. The enemy had also faced Chinese jetpack commandos before. Surely, the Americans should understand better than anyone that air was another flank in modern war.
As he studied the computer map, Mansfeld had known the Americans wouldn’t understand. Who could airdrop tanks? No one had ever done it before. Therefore, no one thought of it, no one that is except for General Walther Mansfeld of the GD Expeditionary Force. Because of the brilliant maneuver, he had trapped the first-rate Americans and Canadians in Toronto. Now he began the annihilation of those soldiers—soldiers the Americans would badly need in the coming weeks.
“In six more days,” Mansfeld said aloud—he was quite alone. “In six more days I will kill or capture the last of you trapped men.”
The blitzkrieg would resume and the American command would panic. They would rush reinforcements before him, putting them in exactly the wrong places. Why were commanding officers of armies and the leaders of countries and power blocs so obvious?
Mansfeld picked up the coffee cup and sipped. He took a deep breath afterward. He would win the war. He knew that. His true opponent wasn’t the Americans or the broken Canadians. No. Chancellor Kleist was his real foe. So far, Kleist had kept his nose out of his affairs in running the day-to-day operations. There would come a moment, however, when Kleist would interfere. The Americans were stubborn, and they would fight hard. They would produce one seeming crisis moment, and that crisis would break Kleist’s so-called steely nerves.
Invasion: New York (Invasion America) Page 5
