Resurrection Day

by Brendan DuBois

  Carl thought back to the meeting they had just had with the soldier from Fort Drum. ‘You’re planning something, aren’t you? That’s why Paul was so upset that time was running out, with elections coming in less than two weeks.’

  Jim stood up and said, ‘Come on, let’s go outside for a moment, all right?’

  Carl followed him to another door that led to a narrow balcony overlooking a dark street. Outside, there were a few lights and some music, more jazz from a hidden club. Jim held onto the balcony railing and said, ‘The election’s coming up shortly, am I right? First Tuesday in November.’

  ‘Yeah, Tuesday, November seventh.’

  ‘Today is October twenty-fourth, Carl. You know the anniversary date that’s coming up, October thirtieth?’

  The wind picked up, bringing the scent of Manhattan, of smoke and wet decay and things still rotting away, year after year. ‘Everybody does. When the bombs started hitting home, in the United States.’

  Jim stared down at the street. ‘October thirtieth. Just six days away. The day before Halloween. Some of us are calling it Resurrection Day. Carl, six days from now we’re coming out, all of us, and we’re going to demand our rights as American citizens, rights that were taken away from all of us - everybody in this nation—after the war.’

  He thought of the troops coming in, the barbed wire, the CS gas. ‘Jim, you’ve got to postpone it. Hell, you have spies in the Army, they must—’

  Jim turned and said, ‘Of course they do. Everybody has spies in this city. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the French, the Germans, the British. And someone who’s been on the edge of starvation, you give him a steak dinner and you can get a lot of information. All those people, they all know the secret, that there are free people here, and elsewhere in this country, free people that aren’t going to give it up. Damn it, we’re tired of living on scraps, tired of dying when it’s too cold or because we don’t have the right medicines. This is my city and my country, and we’re going to stop hiding.’

  Carl said, ‘Your timing. You want to impact the election.’

  ‘Yeah, we do,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter to us who is president, who’s running against whom. It’s the people behind the president that matter. If Rockefeller is elected, it’s status quo. Not because he’s a bad guy, but because of the people behind him. Same thing with McGovern, but we know if he gets in, it won’t be status quo. Things will have to change.’

  He was thinking furiously, trying to take it all in, trying to show this young man that while politics and marching in the streets were fine ideas pre-1962, it didn’t work that way now. ‘Then that’s the point,’ Carl said. ‘When word got to certain people that you were planning to come out, they had to come up with contingency plans. Bring in troops and clear you out before the election. But maybe ... maybe some of the Army generals, they said there was no way American troops would fire on American civilians.’

  ‘So they bring in outside help. Sure. Makes sense.’ Then Jim swore and pounded a fist on the railing. ‘Sure. Lots of sense. Shooting civilians. Easy to do after a war where millions of innocent people got killed, right? And you want to hear something hilarious? An old guy who had a hand in working with Kennedy and killing civilians back in ‘62, he said he could help us prevent the same thing this time.’

  ‘Caz.’

  ‘Yeah, Caz. He’s one loopy son of a bitch, but he told us he had a contact in Boston, a guy who had some important documents that could stop Rockefeller and the British cold in their tracks. We thought we had a chance, so we helped him get to Boston. Caz came back empty-handed, but said the man promised to do something, real soon.’

  ‘But he never did it. He got killed.’

  ‘Yeah, and it’s too late. We can’t back away. Planning this took months, coordinating with the other free zones. It’s like one big damn boulder. You start it rolling, it can’t stop. We’re coming out in six days, Carl. All of us.’

  ‘You’ll be fired on,’ Carl said, thinking of the men and women and children down below, in the subway tunnels and basements. ‘They won’t let you get far.’

  ‘Then they’ll be surprised. We’re not unarmed. We’ve stolen a number of weapons, over the years. Remember the expression? If they want a war, then let it begin here. And if it takes a second American Civil War to let everyone know we’re here, free and alive, so be it.’

  ‘Earlier, you said you needed my help,’ he said, putting his hands in his pockets from the cold. ‘Maybe I can do something.’

  ‘Put something in your newspaper about this, before it happens? Sorry, I know about your censors. I’m sure your British friend would have the same problem, if she tried to write about British troops preparing to kill American civilians.’

  ‘No, I was thinking of something else. Before I came to Manhattan, I was doing a story about that man’s death, Caz’s friend. I met him, just briefly, before he died. If I can get back to Boston in a day or two—’

  Jim turned suddenly and stepped up right to him. ‘Can you do it? Can you find those documents, before Resurrection Day? Find out what they are?’

  It was like the entire weight of Jim’s dreams and those of Manhattan and the other free zones and the nation were weighing down his shoulders. He found it hard to breathe, hard to keep his eye on Jim’s eager face. A hell of a thing. He remembered that Harvard voice, more than ten years ago on that cold January day. Promising to pay any price, bear any burden, for the cause of liberty. What a hell of a price. What a hell of a burden.

  ‘I can try,’ he said. ‘Best I can do.’

  Jim nodded, reached out and gently slapped him on a shoulder. ‘Then that’s all I can ask for, Carl. Look, take a look down there. What do you see?’

  He peered over the side. ‘Just an empty street.’

  ‘Sure. And in six days, the streets of this city and other empty streets across the country, they’re going to be filled with people, marching and carrying banners, heading to the RZ fences, announcing that they are alive, that they are survivors, and that they are Americans. Carl, you’ve got to find those documents.’

  Carl clenched his fists inside his pockets. ‘I know.’

  ~ * ~

  As he went back to his rented room—hell, for just a few more hours — something was nagging at him. When he looked at the empty street and listened to Jim’s description of what was going to happen in a few days, about the people marching and the banners, it had jogged a memory.

  A black-and-white memory. A snippet of an old movie newsreel. People marching, people waving ... Troops. Troops in odd, coal-scuttle-shaped helmets ...

  He stopped outside the room, took out the key.

  1938.

  The slush is coming.

  German troops, on the march. In 1938.

  Come on, come on... remember.

  1938. Czechoslovakia?

  No. Someplace else.

  The slush is coming. The slush.

  Anschluss. The German word for union.

  ‘Holy Christ,’ he whispered. In 1938 Germany marched its troops into its neighbor, Austria, swallowing the country whole, making a greater Germany. Austria was no longer a nation, no longer independent, its laws and its rules were made in Berlin.

  Britain was going to move into America?

  Here? It’s going to happen here?

  He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

  ~ * ~

  Inside, he thought of what he was going to do next. He had to wake up Sandy, tell her what he had just learned. Maybe she could do something with her contacts overseas, maybe if she got to her embassy in Philadelphia, something could be done, something could happen before the British troops came into the restricted zones in the next few days, squashing the very last independent voices in this nation. Getting Merl’s notes ... Come on, that was a very long shot, not much of a chance of that happening at all.

  But maybe Sandy could do something. He knew she would, after seeing the look on her face while th
ey toured PS 19. He knew she would help out. She would have to. Hell, earlier she had even said she would, before he snuck away to his meetings with Caz and Jim.

  Sandy was on her side, facing the wall and sleeping gently. The light was still on but he didn’t mind. He was so tired that he was sure he could fall asleep if it was an inch from his nose. He walked around his cot and stumbled for a moment, as his left foot caught one of the satchels, tumbling it over. ‘Damn it,’ he whispered, hearing things falling out onto the floor.

  Carl got down on his knees on the cold, dirty concrete and started putting items back into the satchel. It was Sandy’s, and he replaced her notebooks, a water bottle, and her purse. As he put them back into the open sack, his fingers touched something hard and plastic. He wondered what it was.

  He looked up. She was still sleeping. He dug into the satchel, pulled out the object, and held it up to the light. It was a small Sony tape recorder, black and shiny. That was odd. Sandy had never mentioned she had a tape recorder, and had never used it in the days he had been with her, either here or in Boston. Odd. Nice little piece of machinery, though, and he pressed a couple of buttons.

  Nothing happened. The tape didn’t move, no tiny red light came on, nothing.

  He turned it over in his hands. The back plastic plate seemed loose. It looked like it was held fast in each corner by tiny screws, but when he pressed down on it he found it was loose, and that he could slide it off—

  —and see a keypad, a small display screen, and other switches. In one corner was a knob and he pulled it free. It extended and became an antenna, an antenna for a radio, made up to look like a Sony tape recorder.

  His chest felt cold and empty, and his mouth was terribly dry. He put the antenna back into place and slid the cover back where it belonged. In another minute everything was back in the knapsack and he was lying on the bed, staring up at the plywood ceiling. Someone had marked in red paint, KILROY WAS HERE ‘71 and below that, in black paint, HELL, JFK WAS HERE ‘72. He wondered who was telling the truth.

  There was a rustling noise to his left. ‘Carl?’ came the soft voice.

  ‘Yes, Sandy.’

  She coughed a few times, and then yawned. ‘Where’ve you been, love?’

  He licked his lips, found that they were still dry. ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk and talked to a few people. Just to pass the time.’

  ‘Oh.’ She yawned again. ‘I wish these beds were bigger.’

  Carl put his hands behind his head. ‘So do I. So do I.’

  ‘Do you want to talk some, Carl?’

  A pause. ‘No, I don’t.’

  He listened to her breathing slow down and then he just lay there, the rest of the night, not sleeping, not even daring to think.

  Just staring.

  ~ * ~

  EMPIRE: FOUR

  A MATTER OF EMPIRE: FOUR

  * * *

  Major Kenneth Hunt stood at the end of the airstrip as dusk approached, smoking a pipe. He sat down gingerly on a large concrete block, part of some construction project going on at the air base, RCAF Station Trenton. Behind him, in a collection of hangars and barracks about a half mile away, his paras of ‘A’ Company were getting ready for a mission. In just over a week, a mission, he grimly thought, that could be the opening salvo of the next world war.

  But this time, he thought, this time, it will be in Europe. And that awful atomic sun will burn above Paris and London and Berlin and Amsterdam and Rome. All thanks to you, he thought. Damn nice thing to put on one’s headstone when one’s time is up. He wondered what Rachel would have thought.

  There was the constant noise of engines up toward the center of the air base, of lorries moving in supplies, of aircraft engines—the props of the C-130 troop transports and the jet engines of the RAF Vulcan bombers—and of other engines as well. He stared out into the darkness, at the few lights of the civilian homes that were adjacent to the west, and he glanced up. There were too many base lights to see any evening stars. Beyond the lights at the base perimeter there was a thin line of dark. He was sure that it marked Lake Ontario, one of the six Great Lakes. Beyond that was the United States of America, and in that battered nation this evening were the eventual targets for his company and the other companies of the British army, stationed up and down the length of Canada, and in Bermuda and Jamaica as well.

  A slight breeze rose, causing something metallic to rattle. He turned and looked at the shape beyond the end of the runway. Even in the dark he could make out the form of the old jet bomber’s tail, pointing up sharply to the sky. He remembered what Clive had said about the carcass of the B-52. A relic of a dead empire.

  He stretched out his legs and grimaced as a cramp gripped his left thigh. Empires. He had served his sovereign and country across the world, and now, they were asking him and his paras for one more mission, against a nation that had been a friend for almost a century. In spite of his years of service and duty, it troubled him. It wasn’t just the memory of Rachel, though that did play a part. He knew that some sort of agreement had been reached with American officials, but he also knew that the true nature of his upcoming mission was being kept secret from them. He thought again of when he was a boy, seeing his first Americans at that Eighth Air Force Base back home during the Second World War. He wondered if he would have to kill some of those same airmen who had befriended him, more than twenty-five years ago . . .

  There was the sound of boots on the tarmac and he turned, seeing a figure approach, holding a small torch. ‘Major?’ came the familiar voice, and Hunt said, ‘Over here, Paul.’

  His second-in-command, Captain Paul Heseltine, switched off the torch and sat down next to him. Paul was a squat man, hard muscled and only an inch above the required height, and had served with him for more than two years. ‘Enjoyin’ some peace and quiet, Major?’

  ‘Yes. Anything to report?’

  ‘No, sir. The lads are ready, as ready as they can be. And they’re eager to get on with the job. But...’

  Hunt puffed at his pipe and stared out at the few lights of Trenton, the nearest town, about three kilometers away. ‘Go on, Paul.’

  ‘It’s just where we’re goin’ that’s botherin’ the lads, Major. They like the Yanks, as most of us do. Raising arms against them ... It just don’t seem right.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, holding the warm bowl of the pipe in his hand. ‘When’s the last time you were in the States, Paul?’

  ‘Let’s see ... that would be ‘63. I was in Georgia, helping them set up camps for the refugees from Florida. Hell of a time. Beautiful country down there, hotter than blazes in summer, but I made out all right. Met some lovely birds. And you, Major?’

  He took out his penknife, scraped the pipe’s bowl clean. ‘The first time was in early ‘63, in California. Bad times, back then. The state was almost in open revolt. We were attached to an infantry unit. Poor buggers. They were trying so hard to keep everything under control, but they didn’t have enough food or equipment. I remember one young officer, a sergeant who had a field promotion. Can’t remember his name. Gave him a bottle of brandy when I left and you’d have thought I’d given him the Crown Jewels. So. Now we’re going back, you and I, to New York. Who would have thought?’

  ‘Not me, that’s for sure, sir.’

  Hunt refilled the pipe from a tobacco pouch he kept in his jacket pocket. ‘It will be tough, very tough, dealing with Manhattan. But I know B and C Company will do the job.’

  ‘Beggin’ the major’s pardon, it’s our company I’m worried about. And what we’re going to be doing. Sir.’

  ‘I know.’

  He sensed the captain shifting his weight on the block of cement. ‘I thought you might have some more info about our mission, with your brother Clive and all that.’

  Hunt flicked the lighter to life, the sudden flare of light bringing everything into focus. The stunted grass. The flat tarmac. He and the captain, sitting next to each other.

  ‘No, nothin
g like that,’ he said, not liking what he said one bit, not liking having to lie to his second-in-command.

  ‘I see,’ the captain said, his voice betraying his skepticism.

  Major Hunt drew on his pipe and tried to change the subject. ‘You know, I was a young boy when I first met some Yanks.’

  ‘Really, sir?’

  ‘During the Second World War. The little village I grew up in was right next to an Eighth Air Force Base. Filled with B-17 bombers. Do you remember how it was back then? Food and coal rationed. Clothing mended and re-mended. You wore shoes until they fell apart, and then you kept them together with cardboard and string. And no sweets, of course, no sweets for a young boy.’