“But Elijah, the Arab Brothers want to destroy America…I fear they are only using us!” protested Samir. His New York accent became more acute the more agitated he became. “Not all whites are evil…” he muttered insolently.
“Brother Samir, be at peace,” said Elijah. He waved his hand as if to dismiss the younger man’s concerns. “As I said, Allah is with us. You are afraid our new friends want only to lay waste to our country—a country built on the backs of slaves! Built on the backs and the blood and the sweat of our ancestors. If this land belongs to anyone, it belongs to us!” Someone clapped in approval.
Elijah put his hands together and looked pious. “You think they are using us—why do not we use them? They will be the instrument of our rise to greatness. We will join them in tearing down the Establishment. We will let them kill themselves and take the blame. When our new friends leave after the Man falls, we will remodel this country to suit our People and let the White Man and the White Woman be our servants! Then the infidels will take the place that Allah has accorded to those who do not convert!” The rest of the group cheered, clapped and praised Allah, drowning out the protests of Samir and his fellow dissenter. Old Elijah settled himself in a chair.
“Samir…Raheeb…do you not see, we are all in this together?”
Raheeb slowly shook his head. “I see, Elijah, I see. But still I worry. What if our Arab Brothers do not leave?”
“They do not want to live here…” offered Malcolm’s Mountain with a voice deep as thunder. “They want to die here. They want to punish the white man. They like their deserts.”
“You will be with us then…as agreed?” asked Malcolm. He spoke up again. His voice held a dangerous edge. All questions were stifled. The time for doubt and questions was over. He had planned for this moment for years. Ever since that first meeting with Hakim. They had made great strides in recruiting other radical elements to their cause. It was a great alliance, but a tenuous one. Without ironclad unity in their own movement, Malcolm and Hakim couldn’t hope to hold together the continent-wide agenda.
“As I said, Malcolm, our Brothers and Sisters in New York are with you regardless of what happens. That is not a question. I…” Raheeb faltered and placed a well manicured hand on his own chest. “I alone had doubts. But when I see the resolve of our esteemed Elder, Brother Elijah," he smiled at the old man, who nodded graciously. "My spirit grows strong with the strength of Allah.”
“Good. Because the hour of action draws near, my Brothers. Our liberation is waiting. My friend Hakim said that we would know when his people launched their attack. The war will begin on the White Man’s government when the streets became dark. That is the sign for our Brothers and Sisters to rise up and join our friends from the Holy Land.”
Elijah looked at the few weak candles that lit the room. They had been lit by Malcolm when the power went out. A sinister smile spread across his dark face, making his teeth stand out even whiter than normal. “The streets are become dark, Malcolm. At last…at last our People will be free.”
“Brothers, the time has come. You have prepared. You have trained. Allah has shown us the way. We need only to reach out and take what is ours.” Malcolm slowly looked around the room, let the tension build until it was a palpable force. He looked every man among them in the eye, saw the conviction, the pride reflected back. “Go to your men. Spread the word. The war begins tonight.”
ARIZONA
The Firestorm
HAKIM LOOKED AT the gas display on the dashboard again. Only a quarter of a tank left. He and Saldid had been on the road for hours. They continued to carefully drive the speed limit and laughed as they tossed road flares out the window of their Buick. The two holy warriors relished the thought that their handiwork had ignited the landscape around them. They had traveled in a semi-circle route away from Flagstaff, out towards California, then curved back east. They spread fires all along the road behind them.
On the other side of Arizona, another team was doing the same. Those men operated near Tucson and spread fire towards the Mexican Border. It was hoped that the fires would distract the Border Patrol and cause havoc with the illegal Mexican migration—another knife in the back of America.
A third team was near Phoenix. By nightfall, a massive swath of the Arizona landscape would be engulfed in fires. The wall of fire would spread and consuming all before it and create a huge swatch of destruction. The dry summer had provided ample fuel reserves, the fires begat their own winds. By dawn of the second day of the Great Jihad, Allah willing, there would be true firestorms loose in Arizona.
In Southern California, similar progress was made. A handful of mujahadeen were operating near Los Angeles and San Francisco. Another four teams were in the northern part of the state.
Hakim did not know all the details of the Great Jihad, but what he did know made him proud to be a part of the effort to rid the world once and for all of the pestilence and influence of America. He knew that some airliners had been shot down with Stinger missiles smuggled into America from Mexico. That much they had heard on the radio. The frantic reporters were describing the havoc and chaos unleashed by Hakim’s brethren. He was filled with pride.
Hakim was slightly annoyed at his leaders, however. They had agreed to strike the Great Satan a crippling blow, yet had come up with the idea of letting America self-destruct, rather than forcibly decapitate her. He was all for bringing down the Infidel any way possible, but it was in his heart for explosions, bombs, mayhem and destruction. He personally believed civil strife to take too long. Perhaps his unauthorized treaty with the Black brothers in Chicago would speed things along.
Part of him was worried that the higher ups would find out about his secret dealings with Malcolm and the Brotherhood, but Hakim did not care. Malcolm stood at the top of a well organized group of useful idiots, willing to be manipulated by the mujahedeen. They could not be counted on totally, of course, but they would serve a purpose to speed things along. Their connections to the anarchists and communists would further the destructive spiral that America would travel. Hakim could hardly wait for the real fun to be reported on the radio. Hopefully the radios will broadcast that long.
We shall see.
Hundreds and thousands of Black Muslims, communist community organizers, eco-anarchists, militants all, had joined the growing alliance with the Fist and would now spread chaos through the streets of the largest powerless cities.
The pact Hakim had forged with Malcolm Abdul Rashid a few years back would devastate the country even as America tried to come to grips with the crippling assault on its power system.
Then the effects of the Holy Firestorm and the chaos that would follow would truly be felt. There was no way America could stand it all at once.
The icing on the cake, wished Hakim, would be for some country to attack America while it is weak. If only the Chinese had listened to us…instead of shunning our ambassadors. Hakim, a simple warrior, did not understand why the Al Qaeda leadership warned him that more than anything, the Chinese were perhaps the best in the world at listening.
Hakim tried to forget about lost opportunities and grinned as he imagined the riots in American cities, perhaps under way at that very moment. At the very latest, they would start at sunset.
The fools played right in to our hands...they are completely our pawns. They expect their ‘Arab brothers’ to welcome them with open arms…after. They have no idea the Fist will consider them just as American as the Whites and all the other infidel half-breeds found in this stinking cesspool called America. They will all be cleansed by the Sword of Allah. They profess their faith, yet do nothing to satisfy the command to purify the infidel that the Prophet desires. Their hearts may be in the right place, but they are not truly of the Faith. Satisfied that his betrayal of fellow Muslims was a rational, justified act, Hakim decided to think no more on the fate of his erstwhile comrades.
The man on the radio appeared to be crying. Hakim took special joy in the squ
eals from the American radio stations as they drove through the countryside. Only three could be heard this far into the wilds of a largely powerless Arizona. Reports of power outages all across the nation grew by the hour and never ceased to bring a smile to his face.
Many radio stations, especially the smaller ones, simply had no power to operate. Huge swaths of the radio dial were static. To Hakim’s silent joy, the stations that mostly played the rubbish Saldid preferred were already offline.
They had only recently heard over the radio that their comrades had accomplished the first part of the Great Jihad. Only now, some dozen hours after the first power outages, did the foolish Americans own up to the fact that a number of mujahedeen had been killed in attacks on power installations across the nation. No matter, enough damage had been done to overload and topple the entire national grid. Hakim swore to avenge the fallen mujahedeen. For every Brother that died, Hakim vowed to slay ten American infidels.
“I don’t believe it, friends…the power is out over most of the nation. We’re only going to broadcast for the next few hours. Our backup generator will probably be requisitioned by the local authorities soon. They’ve really hit us below the belt this time. We’re still waiting on details of exactly how they did it…And to add insult to injury…I’m just now receiving reports of large scale rioting in Chicago and Boston. Atlanta appears to be in the midst of a race riot of some sort. Of all the stupid….who the hell has a race riot just as we’re being attacked by terrorists!? Looks like violence is breaking out in New York, too. What’s wrong with these people? It’s like they’re just looking for an excuse to burn down their own homes and communities! Is our country falling apart or am I just paranoid?” cried the radio host. Hakim smiled.
“Malcolm did it!” he exclaimed and whooped for joy.
“You did not think he would follow through?” asked Saldid with sudden alarm.
“No, no,” said Hakim, waving a hand in dismissal of Saldid’s worry. “I knew he would do it. I just knew not if his friends across the country could be relied upon to help us. I prayed every day for the last three years for this night. Allah has not let us down!”
“So, the Great Satan has been surrounded and attacked from all sides, from without and within!” laughed Saldid. “Today is a great day, my friend!” He slapped the steering wheel in mirth.
Hakim offered praise to Allah and threw another flare out the window. He looked over the seat into the rear of the car. The stash of flares was down to a mere dozen or so. “We will be out of flares soon, Saldid.”
Saldid drove in silence for a few seconds, savoring the taste of victory. There were a lot fewer cars on the road now. People sought shelter in the comforting walls of their homes. The scenery outside the car was a blurred yellowish-reddish color. Dots of green in the distance denoted cacti that roasted in the heat of the desert afternoon.
“Do we begin the slaughter soon?” asked the Syrian born driver quietly. Hakim saw his friend feel the grip of the pistol pressed against Saldid’s right leg.
“That we do, my brother, that we do,” replied Hakim. He ignited another flare, used it to light his cigarette, then threw the sparkler out the window.
SARASOTA
The Uncertain Home Front
THE FIRST NIGHT without power was destined to be nerve-racking for most of the nation, Erik figured. The radio had spewed news all afternoon of the much-feared looting and rioting. By sunset, it was mostly confined to Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Curiously, Atlanta was in the grips of a race riot which was in the process of eviscerating the inner city. Power had only been off for an afternoon, there was still water and food to be had. It made no sense to the reporters, the authorities or Erik. What it did do was tickle the back of his brain. Something was not quite right.
There was a lot of speculation flying around that race was the motivation for the unrest in most cities around the nation suffering from riots and violence. In Seattle, though, eco-terrorists had ransacked the downtown district and began a systematic campaign of destruction in the name of Mother Earth.
Despite the blossoming rioting and chaos in the inner cities, most people across the nation chose to react like they would during any power outage—try to get home and stay out of trouble.
Erik rubbed his chin in thought. It was as if the rest of the inhabitants of the major cities just wanted to watch and wait while the hearts of the cities burned for no good reason. So far most of the violence was localized, in the sections of the major cities that most people tried to steer clear of anyway. But it was spreading to business districts, fast.
Florida was no exception. The major inner-cities were turning into war zones if the local radio hosts could be believed. Miami, a city that never needed an official reason to party, was acting as if it were New Years Eve on crack. Jacksonville, though, was in the grips of the infant stages of what appeared to be a race riot. Early word was, the violence was led and coordinated by a group called the Brotherhood. No one really knew what they were all about, but they meant trouble. Somehow they were tied to Islam, but no one on the radio knew if they were foreign terrorists or, as suspected, Americans.
Erik looked at the map in his hands. Tampa was in flames. From the radio reports, he was able to put pencil marks on the map to denote where the violence was concentrated. It straddled the border between “wrong side of the tracks” and the lucrative business/entertainment district that nuzzled the glassy waters of Tampa Bay. But why? Ybor City, a haven for transplanted Cuban refugees, had deep connections with Catholicism, not Islam.
Erik put down the map as the twilight faded and he could no longer read. He pondered the demographics of the Gulf Coast. It was common knowledge that there were more retired people than any other age group. ‘The land of newlyweds and mostly-deads,’ as the saying went.
He figured most people would probably just go to bed, expecting everything to be better the next day. Or, at least expecting the people in charge to know more about what was going on. Maybe they would have a better explanation tomorrow. That had even been the thought process of a few people in the apartment complex. Erik shook his head at the fallacy of that line of thought.
He kept seeing those infamous pictures of what had happened in the wake of Hurricane Joyce cycle through his mind. There hadn’t been as much flooding as Hurricane Katrina when it destroyed New Orleans, but the destruction around Jacksonville had been just as complete. The looting and fighting that broke out in the streets was surreal to the rest of the country. Florida had gone back to its roots and relied on the lessons learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Homeowners who had them, used firearms to defend themselves in record numbers.
The fighting that erupted after Joyce had turned into some sort of turf war between rival gangs in and around Jacksonville. It had been a close call, but in the end, the National Guard and the local police had been able to contain the situation and restore law and order. But it had been a hairy two weeks. Erik had not slept very much then. He had been glued to the TV and ready to evacuate should things turn south. He’d been thinking all afternoon about just such a situation occurring in many spots all over the country. It made him shiver.
“You getting hungry?” asked Brin. She put the book down she had been reading and closed it. “Can’t see any more, anyway. How about dinner?” she asked again.
Thankful for the interruption of his fatalistic thoughts, Erik heartily agreed and went into the kitchen to gather supplies. He quickly threw open the fridge and dove for some meat he had bought a few days back. After the door was safely shut again, he took all the ingredients to the back porch and set them on the little café table. When he had retrieved his camp stove from the hall closet and a canister of gas, he lit the burners and started to boil some water.
As he waited for the water to boil, Brin went back inside and began to rummage around in the kitchen for a suitable wine and some glasses. Erik considered their resources. He had a 3-pack of the large camping stove gas b
ottles. He’d never actually had the chance to take them camping, so he wasn’t too sure exactly how much fuel it would take to cook pasta and beef.
Well, this will serve as an experiment. The first bottle will tell us how much gas is used to cook meals. We’ll have to ration the other two to make sure we have the stove for as long as possible, he told himself absently.
As the beef sizzled on the gas burner, he threw on some just-boiled pasta and sprinkled the mixture liberally with spices. Brin opened a bottle of wine and lit some candles. They had a nice romantic dinner on the porch, without any of the usual distractions. No TVs or cell phones, no work to worry about, no nothing. The only sounds they heard were the low murmurs of neighbors talking quietly and the cheers and shouts of children playing in the dark with flashlights.
As Erik chewed a mouthful of pasta, he marveled that parents would allow their kids to waste a precious resource like batteries. It was as if everyone thought the power would be back on by morning. Even Brin had commented that it seemed wasteful to play flashlight tag.
“They may need those batteries tomorrow night…” she muttered around her glass of wine. “What will they do if the stores can’t open up again?”
“Yeah,” said Erik. He took a sip of his own wine to clear his palate. “That’s good, sweetie.” He watched her smile and continued, “I’m not a wine fan but this is pretty good. Yeah, we were lucky to get to the store and get what we did this afternoon. Thirty bucks wasn’t all that much, but we got plenty of soup and granola bars to last at least a week now on top of everything else we have…”
Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Page 6
