Without warning

by John Birmingham

  Soldiers and cops comprised most of the foot traffic in contrast to the first few days after 14 March, when huge unruly crowds had gathered and surged back and forth, almost like people running without real purpose on the deck of a sinking ship. Together the rationing and curfew systems tended to keep people at home most of the time.

  They slowed down to negotiate a large but docile crowd that had gathered at the Fort DeRussy parklands for a food-distribution point run by the army. A dozen trucks were parked in a line before an avenue of olive-drab tents. Soldiers were unloading hundreds of boxes, stacking them in neat piles guarded by colleagues toting rifles. It was still a bizarre, unnatural sight – Americans lined up like victims of a Honduran earthquake to score a bowl of rice or a milk biscuit. Culver pushed the images out of his mind and returned to his papers, making some untidy margin notes on a briefing he had to deliver later that day at a telephone hook-up between the attorneys-general of the surviving states.

  Admiral Ritchie was adamant that the armed forces could not continue drifting through the constitutional limbo into which they had been cast. It was not simply a matter of requiring political direction for the course of the hot war they were now fighting in the Middle East. There were security nightmares springing up like poison weeds all over the world, as well as some very basic and uncomfortable questions of sustainability for those forces that remained in existence.

  ‘How do we keep going?’ Ritchie had asked Jed late last night.

  Culver thought the admiral might as well have asked, ‘Why should we keep going?’ He couldn’t imagine what was holding together a fighting force that had nothing to fight for anymore, and increasingly lacked the money to do so.

  Immediate survival, he supposed. But if and when the immediate peril was no longer there, what then? A nation of ten million people – that was the rough estimate of living, breathing American citizens left in the world – a nation that small could not sustain a military even a fraction the size of the one it had at the moment. Especially not with most of the country sealed off behind an impenetrable and utterly mysterious barrier. Frankly, Culver doubted whether the area that remained unaffected on the continent was viable in the medium term anyway. He grunted almost imperceptibly as he briefly thought of all those people stuck in Seattle and just across the border in Vancouver. None of them could be certain some natural fluctuation in the event horizon wouldn’t gobble them up in the blink of an eye, although, by that measure of course, nobody on the planet could really feel safe.

  You had to wonder how much of the chaos wrapping itself like giant bat wings around the world was down to the effect of that uncertainty rather than the unsettling effect of simply removing at one stroke the massive political ballast represented by America… Oh, screw it. It was undergrad bullshitting, all of it. The only thing that mattered was fixing the problems he could fix, and for now that meant stabilising the remnant power of the United States and securing the immediate future of his family.

  The lawyer flipped open his laptop and began to compose an email to Ritchie. He wanted to bounce a few ideas off the admiral before the conference call in the afternoon.

  ‘Hey Ritch,’ he began, very deliberately using the informal style of address he’d cultivated in his dealings with the navy man.

  You asked for my thoughts on the line of succession before I wrote them up for the reference group. Well, I’m thinking the only way to punch through all this is to go back to first principles. We’ve got us a constitutional boondoggle. We need us a constitutional convention to stamp it flat. A short, sharp, butt-kicking convention.

  Normally you’d require a vote of two-thirds of the state legislatures just to get everyone together. It’s the only amendatory process available in the absence of a functioning Congress and Senate. The intent of the relevant section of the Constitution, Article 5, is that the ‘two-thirds’ would be ‘two-thirds’ of all of the states, but that is impossible under present circumstances.

  The only available option would be for the three surviving states to declare themselves the only three states and to then call a convention or, more likely, to declare themselves trustees for the ‘missing’ forty-seven states, and vote those states’ interests at a convention called to address the current emergency. The result is the same, and it is the only mechanism available in my estimation to reconstitute a federal government within the letter of the Constitution.

  Jed stopped tapping the keys and stared out of the window at the passing scenery for a moment. They had turned onto the freeway, which was largely deserted, save for a few Hummers heading downtown from Pearl, and the National Memorial Cemetery was slipping by on the right. He had a great-uncle buried up there. Uncle Lou, on his mom’s side. He’d meant to visit the grave sometime during his vacation but had never made it. He was sure his forebear would understand. Lou Stafford had been killed on Wake Island, the same day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He’d fought when all seemed hopeless, given his life so that Jed and his kids could live free. You had to wonder what the old guy would have made of all this, thought Culver – before reminding himself that Lou Stafford was only nineteen when he died. Not much of an old guy, really. The lawyer nodded a quick greeting, which would have to do for now.

  He went back to his screen, wondering about the difficulties of assembling a convention along the lines he was proposing. The very nature of the three surviving states might pose problems. Hawaii and Washington, particularly the western half of the state, were very liberal, Democratic leaning, and in the case of the latter, not particularly pro-military. Seattle he found notoriously smug and self-righteous, although that may have changed now. The eastern, agricultural portion of Washington, right up to the event horizon, was heavily Republican, although many of those people had already relocated into temporary shelters in Seattle. Hawaii had no oil, no real agriculture and no industry, but it did have a strong military presence. The maritime power alone concentrated here was still greater than that of any other country in the world. Washington had agriculture, industry and refining capacity, but no oil. Alaska had no agriculture, plenty of oil and decent refining capacity, but very little else, particularly people; and what people it did have tended to be very conservative, libertarian Republicans. He just didn’t know whether they could all get together.

  With Massachusetts and Mississippi gone, you could award a blue ribbon to Alaska and Washington for taking out the Polar Opposites prize. Jed figured that Washington, with its much larger population and resource base, would resist Alaska having a virtual veto over any measures necessary to act within a constitutional framework. And Alaska, for its part, might well see itself as the last bastion of rugged individualism, and so would have limited interest in submitting to a drastically revised federal system highly tilted toward nanny-statism.

  It was going to be worse than the First and Second Continental Congress, that was for certain. It was going to make the argument over issues like the Article of Confederation and how much of a person a slave represented look like a middle-school debate class. There wasn’t any George Washington around to hold the delegates together or come up with the various compromises they’d need. Any constitutional convention with the three remaining players was going to be a first-class WWE smackdown cage match.

  Culver sighed, already exhausted at the prospect of tying all this together into a neat package with a bright bow that everyone would want to own. He returned to his keyboard for one last sentence for Ritchie’s benefit.

  The trick to making this work will be to cram all the wild cats into the bag before they know what’s happening.

  The key, he thought to himself, is George Washington. If a modern George Dubya didn’t exist, Jed Culver was going to have to invent him.

  * * * *

  29

  PACOM HQ, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

  He was an operator, possibly a crook, and definitely not to be left alone with the small-change jar. But Admiral James Ritchie couldn’t help but warm to Culve
r the more time he spent with him. There was no reason they should get on, a patrician New Englander from old money with a long family history of noblesse oblige, and a scheming carpetbagger from the bad end of the bayou. Certainly, naпvetй didn’t come into it. Thanks to Colonel Maccomb of the 500th Military Intelligence Brigade, Ritchie was well aware of what kind of a creature Jed Culver was. A fixer.

  He was the operator your troubled multi-billion-dollar company called in to quickly and quietly clean up the mess left behind by your recently departed and grotesquely incompetent CEO. He was the man who procured the difficult export licence in the hopelessly corrupt, but fabulously oil-rich, third-world shithole. Or the development approval for your six-star resort on the ecologically fragile tropical island. Or the seemingly impossible negotiated truce between the warring Stone Age tribes that was interfering with the profit margins of your hardwood logging operations in the New Guinea highlands. If that didn’t work, he hired the heavy hitters who protected your oil-drilling operations in Africa without cutting too deep into your budget.

  Jed Culver was a rolled-gold son of a bitch.

  That said, Ritchie had a gut feeling that when the big questions were asked, this gladhanding sack of shit would actually give you a straight answer, especially if that answer was something you didn’t want to hear. Perhaps he was a bit like old Joe Kennedy in that way. Ritchie, an avid reader of historical biographies, thought he recognised something in Culver that FDR might have seen in the old bootlegger when appointing him to head up the SEC way back in the Depression – a thief you could trust.

  The admiral kept all these thoughts to himself, of course, as Culver walked around his office speaking from notes, with his expensive jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up and tie raffishly askew. Was the ruffled, big-doofus thing just part of his routine? Probably. With a guy like Culver you had to figure that everything was part of the routine. But still, he seemed blessed, if that was the right word, with a frightening appreciation for the worst aspects of human nature, and how they might still be turned to everyone’s advantage.

  ‘The only intact chain of command we have left,’ the lawyer said, in his soft Southern brogue, ‘is, of course, your own. But by constitutional tradition, your entire chain remains subordinate to civilian rule and, let me just check-back you, ladies and gentlemen…’ Culver looked up from his notes and smiled at the small group of military officers in the room. ‘Y’all ain’t planning a coup d’йtat, are you?’

  From anyone else, it would have been a dangerous gamble, an insult to people who had pledged their lives to defending the Constitution. But Jed Culver had a way of smiling and somehow twinkling his eyes that added an unspoken Naw, of course you ain’t - you’re good ol’ boys and gals. The best.

  Ritchie even noticed a smile attempting to creep around the corners of the deeply fissured face of Lieutenant General Murphy, Commander, US Army Pacific, and the senior army officer on the islands. But, for professional reasons, Murphy had long ago banned any semblance of a sunny disposition from his person, and he managed now to crush the small grin stone dead. It had no discernible effect on Culver, who carried on.

  ‘Fact is though, folks, given the scale of disaster we face, precise legality will have to give way almost immediately to practicality. As the esteemed Justice Jackson pointed out in Terminiello v. Chicago, the Constitution is not a goddamn suicide pact. If we are going to survive, we need good government, and quick. And given that nobody is much interested in fashioning a military dictatorship out of the ashes of the old Republic, I would suggest that for practical purposes it will initially resemble a patchwork of small-and big-town mayors, the surviving political and administrative leadership, law enforcement, and perhaps-no, definitely - some religious and community leaders with a large following. Whatever government comes into being out of this nightmare has to arise from the ground up, rather than be imposed from above.’

  ‘Fine words, Mr Culver,’ rumbled Murphy. ‘Brings a tear to the eye. But we’re in deep shit and we need to dig ourselves out of it, muy pronto. Adapt, overcome and drive on.’

  There were nine military officers in the room. The commander of the army’s 25th Infantry Division and the senior Marine nodded in agreement with Murphy’s brusque comment. Again, however, Ritchie watched with sneaking admiration as the lawyer let the rebuke wash over him, even turning it around.

  ‘Damn straight,’ said Culver. ‘We need this done yesterday. Hell, we needed it as soon as that energy thing crashed down on top of us. But we have to accept that as scared and fucked up as people are right now, especially those poor bastards who are close enough to the Wave to be able to see it, they will adapt. There will come a day when it’s not the first thing they think of when they wake up in the morning. And they will go back to the old ways of doing things, of each against the other and damn anyone in between. It’s just our nature. So whatever we set up now has to have the elegance of our first constitutional principles. It has to allow for the better angels of our nature to sing, because, Lord knows, the demons are going to be a massed fucking choir over the next little while.’

  ‘What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Culver? Could you take us through your proposal, step by step?’

  ‘Of course, Admiral,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Basically, some laws are going to get bruised, if not broken, but even Jefferson would have been cool with that. You know, his purchase of my home state, Louisiana, was, to put it bluntly, completely illegal – and he knew it. But he also knew that the strict observance of the written law, while one of the high duties of a good citizen, is not the highest.’

  Culver stood up straight and appeared to stare off into space, obviously quoting from the third President of the United States. ‘The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.’

  Having finished, he leaned forward and placed his hands on the edge of the conference table where they all sat. ‘What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that we’re gonna crack some heads together. And fast. And by “we” I mean the American people, what’s left of us.’

  * * * *

  ‘I think it might be better if nobody showed up in uniform, flashing their medals and… what d’you call that stuff – fruit salad?’ Culver gestured towards the campaign ribbons on Ritchie’s uniform. He didn’t wait for the admiral to reply. ‘Fact is, we already got blood spilled in Seattle. People are skittish. Yeah, you guys are the only outfit with the chops to put boot to ass and get it all done, but I promise you that anything that looks even halfway like a military takeover will mean the end of everything.’

  Ritchie clamped down on his surging frustration. Only he and Culver remained in the office, all of the other attendees having returned to their duties. He was hungry and tired and didn’t see himself being able to do anything about either any time soon. The austerity measures he’d ordered for every military establishment in Hawaii were not merely window dressing. Food shortages would become dangerous if strict rationing was not enforced. The islands’ airfields were running around the clock, shuttling aid in and people out, but a cascading series of economic crises ripping through global money markets was beginning to bite hard in the real world. In the last twenty-four hours, both the Chinese and Japanese governments had quietly ordered container ships loaded with food and medical aid bound for Hawaii to turn around and head home. Ritchie had savoured his cup of coffee at breakfast this morning with sad relish, because he wasn’t sure when he might get another one.

  ‘Yes, I understand, Mr Culver,’ he said, still refusing to give in to the lawyer’s insistence that he was just ‘plain ol’ Jed’. ‘But I am fighting an illegal war. Men and women are going to their deaths on my say-so and not much else. Why are they doing that? No reason. No good reason, anyway. W
e’re there because we’re there and we can’t get our sorry asses out in good order. Hell, we can’t even turn to the United Nations for guidance.’

  ‘I know you got pressures, Admiral. I know -’

  ‘Do you? Really?’ Admiral Ritchie stood up and walked over to the window. He stared out at the afternoon sunlight, took a deep breath and turned on Culver. ‘I have bagmen from every tin-pot, oil-drenched Dark Ages dictatorship in the Middle East, including the ones we’re fighting at this very minute, all banging on my door demanding to know what US government policy towards them and their vile little country is now. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I’m not the President, not the government – they don’t care. They won’t listen. To them, I am the man with my finger on the trigger of what is still a very big gun. Big enough to blow them to hell and back. And the worst of it is, I can’t just tell them to take a leap because some of them, at least, I need. I cannot get our people out of there without the help of the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Turks, and half-a-dozen others. But of course, none of them want us to go, because they know the whole place will melt down three minutes later. I need clarity, Jed…’

  Damn it. You’re losing it, he thought. Get your bearing back.