After America

by John Birmingham

  “Does this mean we don’t have to have vegetables for dinner?” Suzie asked with the eternal hopefulness of childhood as she hauled herself up into the rear seat of the Suburban in the center of the little convoy.

  Barb smiled nervously at her daughter. It was a little sad how quickly Suzie had also adapted to an unsettled and uncertain existence. She had been whisked away into hiding so many times in Kip’s first year as president that she took it as a natural state of being.

  “Seat belt on, darling,” Barbara said, as she strained to lock in on some vital piece of intelligence from the chatter of the agents, surrounding the vehicle, fingers to their earpieces, listening to whatever information there was to be had. At times like this, Barb wished she had one of those earpieces.

  “I have my belt on, Mom, but you didn’t answer my question. Are we having vegetables? Potatoes are okay, especially the crispy ones that Chef Mikey does. Is the chef cooking dinner tonight, or are you, Mommy? If we have visitors, don’t you think Chef Mikey should do the crispy potatoes?”

  “Suzie, just quiet down for a moment and let Mommy get strapped in, would you?”

  The agents were moving with some haste but not scrambling madly the way they had on the day Kip had ordered those Chinese planes shot down over Alaska. That day remained her yardstick for judging when the brown stuff had really hit the fan. The Suburban’s engine roared into life, and they accelerated away sharply enough to press her back into the seat. She pushed herself forward with some effort, leaning over to speak to the Secret Service man riding shotgun in the front seat.

  “So what’s happening, Peter?” she asked. “Is it Kip? Is he okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the agent replied tersely as they sped up the hill and across First Avenue.

  “Yes what?” Barb asked with a flash of irritation.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s your husband,” he said, but without elaborating.

  “Mommy,” a small voice asked from beside her. “Is Daddy okay?”

  “I’m afraid he’s dead,” the agent informed him.

  “Damn,” Jed muttered.

  “But I was standing just a few feet away,” Kip protested. “I didn’t get a scratch. How did he get hit?”

  “Mister Koppel was struck by shrapnel, sir,” the detail chief, Agent Shinoda, replied. “It was bad luck. He died on the scene while two of my people attempted to stabilize him. One of them was wounded in doing so. Critically.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kipper said. “What was his name?”

  “She, sir. Agent Rachael Lonergan. She lost the lower half of her left arm. She’s supposed to be on case-vac to Kennedy, but I, uh, need to discuss that with you, Mister President. We don’t control that evac point at the moment.”

  Kipper shook his head in confusion. The three men were huddled in a small subterranean room in Castle Clinton. The rocket attack had been suppressed nearly a quarter of an hour ago, and Kipper could hear only sporadic and muffled gunfire from above them. The end of the battle on Ellis Island, they told him. With no power to provide lighting, they spoke underlit by the white glow of a battery camp light that gave their faces a shadowed, haunted look.

  “What do you mean you don’t control Kennedy?” the president asked.

  His detail chief shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Poor choice of words. We control the secured area of the airport that we came in through this morning, but it is being attacked by irregular forces.”

  “Pirates?”

  “Pirates, mercenary forces, irregulars,” said Shinoda. “They’re uncoordinated, but there’s a lot of them, in four, maybe five elements, an alliance of convenience most likely, cobbled together for the duration of your time in New York. We’ve seen them ally against each other at times. It would make sense for them to combine against us. Mister President, we cannot take you out of the city via Kennedy.”

  “Do you think you’ll lose control of the secured area?” Kip asked.

  “No, sir. A battalion from the First Cavalry Division is there along with an additional battalion of Governor Schimmel’s militia and a hundred special operators from Sandline who were on their way out after completing clearance operations in Lower Manhattan. Combined with our firebases, we have more than enough firepower to hold the position, sir. The problem is that it’s simply not safe to take you out through that facility, Mister President.”

  Kip folded his arms and dropped his chin down onto his chest, the universally recognized symbol of an unhappy President Kipper. His ears were still ringing, and he had a monster headache that was refusing to disappear even after a couple of painkillers.

  “Well, Agent Shinoda, I’m sure you have any number of fallback plans and alternate routes out.”

  Shinoda nodded. “Yes, Mister President. We can evac you by Marine One to—”

  “However,” Kip interrupted, “we have, what, fifteen serious casualties from the rocket attack and about twice that again in walking wounded?”

  Jed Culver closed his eyes and started shaking his head.

  Shinoda nodded. “Mister President—”

  Culver tried to interrupt, but Kipper cut him off.

  “Not a word, Jed. Agent Shinoda, what arrangements do you have for getting the really badly wounded people out? I assume they would have gone out on some sort of medical flights from Kennedy.”

  Shinoda looked grim-faced as he nodded. “We’d evac them to the federal health center in North Kansas City. They’ll have to wait until we can secure the landing strip, sir.”

  “That fight could go on for days,” said Kip. “Your own briefings said there were a minimum of eight or nine thousand freebooters in New York alone. And plenty more up and down the coast. They picked this fight on purpose. What makes you think they won’t just keep pouring men in to keep it going?”

  “Mister President, that’s not really my area of concern. You’d need to talk to your military—”

  Kip waved his hand to cut Shinoda off. “Well, at this very minute it is your concern, Agent Shinoda, because I’m making it so. Are you certain we’re not going to lose all of those wounded people while we wait for the fight at the airport to die down?”

  Shinoda looked deeply uncomfortable but did his best to answer, raising his voice to be heard over the growing clatter of a helicopter that sounded as though it was setting down inside the castle’s walls.

  “The irregular forces are very loosely coordinated, Mister President. In fact, calling them coordinated at all is probably an exaggeration. Maintaining a siege of the airport against superior firepower, especially with the air-to-ground assets currently servicing them, well, it’s just not feasible sir, not in the long run.”

  “But our people don’t have long, do they? Our wounded, I mean. They need to get out now.”

  Another Secret Service agent, this one dressed in black coveralls, appeared at the doors. “Excuse me, sirs, but Marine One just set down topside.”

  “Mister President,” Jed said. “Perhaps if we could continue this on the chopper.”

  Kipper shook his head. “Nope. I’m not getting on the chopper until the Secret Service can assure me that all of the seriously wounded have been evacuated to a secure federal facility. You can start moving them out on my helicopter. It’s equipped for this sort of thing, and I’m perfectly healthy, so I don’t need it.”

  Agent Shinoda attempted to demur. “But Mister President …”

  “Forget it. This isn’t a debate. I’m going to have it my way. Now Jed, you go find me whoever is in charge on the military side around here and make sure he knows what I want done. Agent Shinoda, I will stay down here if it makes your job easier, or I can relocate somewhere more secure. I’ll leave that choice to you. But I don’t leave Manhattan until the wounded are out, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shinoda said with visible reluctance.

  “Where do you have the wounded now?”

  “We established triage upstairs, Mister President, inside the old gi
ft shop.”

  “Fine.” Kipper nodded to himself. “That sounds safe, so take me there. Right now.”

  Shinoda looked as though he was going to argue, but a raised eyebrow from Kipper was enough to subdue any resistance.

  “Did you see any pirates, Daddy? They were on the news, but Mom wouldn’t let me see it even though you were on with the pirates, too.”

  Kipper smiled as he held the handpiece to his ear and imagined his daughter back home, fed and bathed and ready for bed—safe and warm and thousands of miles away from this dead city full of murderous crazy fuckers and blood and horror and madness. Her room was next to Barb’s and his on the second floor of Dearborn House, and Kipper knew she would be sitting on the thick shag pile rug at the foot of her bed, surrounded by her closest advisers: Tigger, Barbie, and a white teddy bear dressed as a cheerleader that sang, “Oh Mickey you’re so fine you’re so fine you blow my mind …” at the merest bump or provocation. It was a hell of a lot nicer to think of than his current surroundings, in the back of an armored car somewhere in Lower Manhattan listening to Suzie’s voice through a connection of static and beeps.

  “No, darling, I didn’t see any pirates,” Kipper said. “They were on another island. Now, have you brushed your teeth and said your prayers?”

  The military radio beeped, indicating that Suzie was going to speak again. It really annoyed Kipper no end.

  “Yes,” she said suspiciously.

  “Well, then it’s bedtime, sweetheart. So climb under the covers and let Daddy speak to Mommy.”

  The radio beeped again.

  “Okay, night night, Daddy.”

  Oh Mickey you’re so fine you’re so fine you blow my mind. Hey Mickey!

  “Good night, Suzie,” he called out, but she was already gone. The next beep of the radio heralded the less pleasant segment of this call home.

  “Kip, is that you? Are you okay? They said you were fine, but my God, some of the pictures on the news. All those people. I told you not to go out there. I told you. The Secret Service told you. Jed told—”

  Barb had gone from relief at hearing his voice, to anxiety, to building rage all in the space of a few seconds. He had to cut her off before she lost it. Hunching over the blinking lights of the control panels in the back of the armored vehicle, cupping his hands over the mouthpiece, he tried to keep his voice down. The two army technicians in there with him did their best to pretend they couldn’t hear a word of his developing domestic argument. A bit of static washed over the transmission, cutting Barbara off and giving Kip his chance.

  “Whoa, honey,” Kip said. “Just settle down. I’m fine. I am perfectly fine. Hardly a scratch. And I’m surrounded by a whole army of … army guys.”

  The two army techs surreptitiously rolled their eyes at each other. Another beep of the radio signaled Barb’s biting retort.

  “What do you mean, you’re surrounded by army guys? You’re supposed to be on a flight back home by now. Where are you?”

  Kipper flinched at her tone of voice. This wasn’t going to be much fun.

  “Well, thing is, I’m in New York …”

  “What the hell are you still doing in New York City, James Everett Kipper? I swear to fucking God that you are dumb as a sack of hammers.”

  The techs shrank at their posts and removed their headsets. The president reined in his temper before it got the better of him. “Two things,” he said quickly. “One, the airport we came in through wasn’t safe anymore.” He didn’t explain why. “And two, those people you saw on the news, the ones who were hurt, I put them on my chopper to get them out of here and back to KC for treatment. They’d have died, all of them, if we’d waited.”

  There was a momentary pause while Barb digested that. Kipper peered out the slits in the heavy steel doors on the back of the … the … damn, he didn’t even know what kind of tank or armored car he was in. This military stuff just was not his thing. Outside on the street he could just make out figures in uniform flitting about and other vehicles moving around, some like his and some Humvees—at least he knew what a Humvee looked like.

  “Well, when are you getting out of there, Kip?” his wife asked. “It’s not safe.”

  He resisted the urge to tell her that was exactly why he had to come out to the East Coast, as a first step to making it safe again, but he knew Barb wouldn’t be impressed by that sort of BS.

  “You know I can’t give you exact details of my movements, honey,” he said. “Just know I am safe and I will be home soon.”

  Her reply was lost in static, but it didn’t sound very encouraging. Kipper thought he saw one of the techs fiddling with some of the cables on the radio.

  “I’m sorry, Barb, what was that?”

  “… back … sorry …”

  The connection dropped out, and one of the soldiers began stabbing at buttons and muttering an apology.

  Kipper reached over and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, son. I think you just saved your commander in chief from some world-class ass whuppage.”

  12

  Swindon, England

  A man from the Home Office was waiting for her at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital, a cream-colored modernist structure on the southwestern edge of the town. The man was an unremarkable type, medium build with light brown hair cut short and a well-made but not too expensive gray suit. Caitlin picked him out as her handler, or minder as they said here, as soon as she hurried in through the automatic doors to the reception area. He favored her with a half-raised eyebrow and came gliding over, juggling a document wallet from one side to the other, allowing him to extend a hand in greeting. He smelled of aftershave and pipe tobacco. She noted that although he looked every inch the gray bureaucrat, his grip was strong and his hand was hardened by the same sort of calluses that scarred her own.

  “Ms. Monroe, my name is Dalby,” he said. “The office sent me from London to help out with your spot of bother.”

  Still jittery with the adrenaline backwash, Caitlin could not help herself.

  “Spot of bother? They tried to kill my fucking family,” she snapped back.

  “Indeed. I am sorry,” Dalby said. “Sometimes understatement gets the better of me.”

  His speaking manner was an odd mix, a rough-working class accent bundled up in a very polished and, she thought, practiced form of expression. Caitlin made a conscious effort to calm herself and brushed off his apology, “I’m sorry. Please excuse me, Mister Dalby. It’s been a hell of a morning. I just want to see my family, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course,” he said. “If you’ll follow me.”

  The hospital seemed quiet even for a midweek morning, with only a few people in the waiting area for accident and emergency and no sense of the barely controlled mayhem that characterized most public health facilities in her experience. Caitlin had half expected some sort of delay at the front desk, but Dalby handed her a clip-on badge and indicated that she should follow him by pointing toward a pair of heavy plastic swinging doors that led into the building’s interior. None of the staff questioned them or tried to interfere, and she could only surmise that the Home Office man had already established his credentials as somebody not to be fucked with. Not that anyone fucked with the Home Office these days.

  “So, you had any luck putting names to the bodies?” she asked as they hurried down a wide corridor past assessment and treatment rooms, most of them empty.

  “I have some briefing notes for you,” Dalby said. “All of your villains returned positive IDs from the national database, and we had further hits off the Yard and the Home Office’s own restricted lists.”

  “They were professionals?” Caitlin asked.

  “That would be overly generous.” Dalby snorted. “Three very low-rent criminals and two from a little further up the evolutionary ladder, probably to run the operation, such as it was.”

  Again, Caitlin found herself intrigued by his voice. He had a definite strain of East London in
his flat, nasal tone but spoke as though he’d been coached in elocution at an expensive boarding school. “They were well resourced, though,” she cautioned, thinking of the cars and guns, neither of which were easy to come by in the United Kingdom now. Both tended to be assets of the government, not the private citizen.

  “Indeed,” Dalby said, as they turned a corner into a corridor off which a number of semiprivate wardrooms were accessible. Caitlin noted four beds in each room, about half of them occupied, although mostly by young people. A few years ago she’d have expected to see a good many wrinklies and fatties and chronically unhealthy specimens in a place like this, living off the public tit. No longer. From a few cursory glances she confirmed her suspicion that most of the bedridden were trauma cases, broken limbs and crushed bodies, almost certainly from the many farms in the district just like hers, where strong backs and straining muscles were the order of the day. Her mind wandered briefly, dwelling on the growing demand for horses in the district. She was on a waiting list herself. Caitlin shook the errant thought from her mind.

  “Do we know who sent them?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Dalby admitted. “Although the chap you left alive is helping us with our inquiries.”

  “When you say ‘us,’ you mean …”

  “Our office,” he answered. “Yours.”

  “Okay,” Caitlin admitted. Dalby was here on Echelon business.

  “Here we are, then,” he announced as they made one final turn and fetched up outside a private room. Another man in a suit with a bulge under his jacket, much larger and more imposing than Dalby, nodded to them and opened the door.

  “I’ll give you a minute,” Dalby said quietly. “I understand your daughter is asleep and Mister Melton has been lightly sedated.”

  Caitlin thanked him and pushed past the guard with her heart beating noticeably harder. The room was large and well lit, with a couple of windows looking out over plowed fields to a small lake a mile or two to the west. Monique was asleep, as she’d been told, but Bret blinked groggily and tried to smile at her. She shushed him quickly with a finger to her lips, indicating the sleeping child. A cursory examination showed that the baby was largely unharmed save for a few scratches on her face. Her husband, in contrast, looked terrible. The scars from Iraq, the stitches where they sewed up his shoulder, and his missing finger had new companions. Remnants of his ranger regiment tattoo provided a stark contrast to his pale, pasty complexion. He had lost a lot of blood back in the field and looked drained. Caitlin’s stomach was clenched, and she felt a coppery taste at the back of her throat.