“I’ve seen the same pictures.“
“Sir, we’ve got to—“
“Hank, I’m not going to go crashing in there like some bull loose in a—“
“Sir, all I ask you to do—“ the Director interrupted again.
“—Is a little premature at this point. But when the time is right—if the time is right, I assure you, I will take the measures that are necessary,” said the President interrupting the Secretary this time, looking towards the door. The conversation was over.
“Sir—“
“Dammit, Hank, get out!” roared the President. The force of his words caused the SecDHS to jump out of his seat in surprise. “I’ve got enough troubles on my hands right now—I have to give a radio address that’s going to gut the First Amendment in order to prevent a nationwide panic; I don’t need you telling me to throw out the entire Constitution!”
The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security left the airborne Oval Office and returned to his seat among the other evacuees with frustration evident on his face and resentment growing in his stomach. .
Suthby paused to look outside his cabin window. Smoke drifted lazily from fires on the south side of D.C., burning out of control. No traffic, no people could be seen this high. The chaos of millions of people trying to escape the dying cities of the East Coast was invisible at 30,000 feet.
CHICAGO
Rise of the Brotherhood
VERY GOOD, MY young Brothers. Very good,” Elder Elijah beamed as he slowly toured the dark, stifling room. Arrayed about him in production line fashion were five youths of the Brotherhood, all constructing homemade pipe bombs and napalm, from instructions pulled off the Internet before the blackout.
Elijah had been prepared—he had known how to make all these implements of destruction since the 1960s. But it was nice to have it all printed out for the youngsters. In mere minutes, with each one working on a different component of the whole, a pipe bomb was born, with nails and scrap metal shrapnel. On the other side of the room, a few more youths were mixing the ingredients to make a crude version of napalm. Empty bottles of 40oz. beer and liquor bottles were lined up against the wall, full of the hot-burning, gooey mixture.
Every so often, a Brother would come to gather what had been made and distribute it to those in the streets. When Malcolm gave the order, the rioting would move to the next phase. Elijah had to admit, when it came to planning, their Middle Eastern friends had been most adept. They had informed the Brotherhood how to locate the National Guard Armories, where the Guard would likely place its men and even predicted that the Guardsmen would be hesitant to open fire. It all came true. The Guard had cordoned off the major part of downtown that was under de facto control of the rioters but had done little else other than watch and wait. The Brothers had maintained excellent discipline. They had not attacked or even provoked the better armed National Guard units spread around Chicago.
The real genius of Malcolm’s plan had come when he contacted the many street gangs in Chicago and brokered a sort of truce before the power outage. He promised to tie up the National Guard and allow the gangs to do what they will—which opened the door for widespread looting. The gangs, in return would loot the Man’s stores for a particular list of items, those being used to create the destructive tools Elijah’s youths were producing.
As a reluctant concession to some of the Brotherhoods members from other cities, the word was spread that anyone….Malcolm had swallowed his pride and told everyone assembled in the rowhouse that anyone who joined their cause—no matter their race, creed or sexual orientation—would be welcomed as brothers and sisters. At the end of the day, Malcolm grudgingly admitted that whatever prejudices he held inside for other people, it didn’t matter. Only the cause mattered. Freedom.
Malcolm and his Brothers had divided up the downtown area into seven different areas, each one to be led by one of Malcolm’s lieutenants. Malcolm himself would lead at the front lines. The heart of downtown Chicago was a rectangle, on the east of which was Lake Michigan. The Brotherhood in effect controlled everything south and east of the Chicago River, southwards to the edge of Chinatown. They had been able to block most of the bridges over the Chicago River with abandoned cars, making crude barricades to stop the encroachment of the Man.
During the initial panic after the jet-liner had crashed into the city, the streets were literally bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see, in every direction. Too many cars at once simply shut down the road system out of Chicago. When the riots started, the vast majority of people still stuck in proximity to the Downtown areas simply abandoned their cars in place and ran for their lives. Panic drove people to do foolish things, but for once, running and screaming had been the right thing to do. When the Brotherhood or its affiliated gangs came upon people too stubborn to leave their Lexus SUVs, they were shot, or worse.
They had decided to go old school and take a page out of the founder of their religion: Convert or Die. There were a surprising number of people who chose to join the Brotherhood, for whatever reason. Malcolm had shrugged off the numbers his lieutenants reported to him. He believed anyone who converted at gunpoint was only doing so to save their skin and would desert the cause at the first chance they got.
So Malcolm had set one of his lieutenants the task of bringing down the I-280 bridge. He assigned a large group of fresh recruits to help in the task. If anything went wrong, they would not lose true Brothers.
For the time being, abandoned and stolen cars were piled up at the midway point over the Chicago River to seal off the major artery into the downtown area. The gangs were running rampant in the area just to the north of Chinatown, so Malcolm had no worries about keeping that border intact. The Loop remained the strongest section of Chicago under the control of the Brotherhood.
Malcolm considered the success of his organization skills in such a short amount of time this while he stood at an office window halfway up the Sears Tower. National Guard and Police movements across the Chicago River could easily be seen through binoculars. The body of the man who’s office it had recently been lay on the floor to his right, blood already turning a dark brown as it dried.
“Your brother, Tahru, to see you, Malcolm,” said his aide from the door behind him in a deep baritone voice. Malcolm didn’t turn around.
“Tahru, come in here, please.”
“Man, you mo-fo’s is crazy! Momma gonna kick yo’ ass when—“
“Shut up.” He continued to scan the lines of the Man through binoculars.
“Yo—ho’d up! Jamal, that man dead?”
“That man is dead, yes. He is the Man. He was the Man. We are taking over….can’t you see the beauty of it, Tahru?”
“Yo, all I see’s a dead mothafu—“
“Your vulgarity will do nothing for your soul, my brother. Allah forbids—“
“Yo, you can take your Allah bullshit an’ shove it up—“
Malcolm whirled around and slapped his younger brother across the mouth, hard. The younger man fell backwards against a desk, scattering forgotten papers and lights onto the floor with a loud clatter. He touched his mouth where a speck of blood had formed.
Rage exploded across Tahru’s face. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a .45 semi auto, holding it sideways, gangsta-style. Tahru jumped up from the desk and put the gun right up against the cheek of his older brother. “You gonna die fo’ that, you crazy mothafucker! Why you gotta be trippin’ like dat?! Ain’t no ‘body slaps Tahru LeRay an’ don’t die—“
“You won’t shoot me,” replied his brother. Cool as ice.
Tahru looked nervous—his eyes darted to the left and right. The gun pressed harder into Malcolm’s cheek. He didn’t see Malcolm’s aide slip into the room and aim a pistol at Tahru’s head.
Tahru became cocky in an instant. “Why’s d’at, yo? You think I ain’t got th’ balls, mo-fo?”
“Because you have never killed someone before. I can see it in your eyes,” said
Malcolm.
“Oh, and you have?”
“Why do you think Allah found me?” asked Malcolm calmly. “I have killed before. And sinned. Allah—“
“Enough o’ that Allah bullshit!” screamed Tahru, taking the gun away from his brother’s head and stomping away to kick a file cabinet in impotent rage. “You always gotta be talkin’ ‘bout Allah! What the fuck, man? You think I won’t shoot yo’ black ass full a holes?” He pointed the gun back at his brother. It wavered a little.
“I know you won’t. Tahru, blood is thicker than water.”
Tahru looked at his feet. There was certainly plenty of blood there. “You kill d’is fool?”
“Yes.”
Tahru laughed. “What ‘bout Allah?” he cried, pronouncing Allah as ‘Al-laah’. “What He say ‘bout d’at?” The gun still pointed at Malcolm, but shook a little more. The weapon was heavy for one unaccustomed to its weight. The younger man's arm was not well muscled. Malcolm's aide, still unseen, had no such problem. His firearm aimed true, the hand that held it, steady as a rock. His weapon pointed squarely at the back of Tahru’s head.
“The Man was oppressing Allah’s children. Allah smiles when the oppressors are struck down to free His children. I was doing Allah’s will.”
Tahru slowly lowered the gun. “’Cause he don’t let no black motha—“
“Yes…because the Man will not allow our black brothers and sisters to achieve the American dream. The Man still represses us—he just makes us think we’re not. Please do not profane in front of me, Tahru.” Malcolm suddenly felt the need to take a bath. His brother’s language was disrespectful and insolent, besides blasphemous.
“Try to rise above the gutter-speak which afflicts so many of our Brothers and Sisters. It is something the Man has forced on us, to keep us ignorant of our own plight.”
Tahru stood there, staring at the dead man and started to sweat. He had never been so close to a dead body before. “Who was he?” Tahru said quietly, losing his gangsta toughness for the first time in years.
Malcolm smiled. Every journey begins with the taking of the first step. “One of the Oppressors. We ordered everyone out of the building—he and a handful of others stayed behind to call the police. Even as he professed his innocence, he tried to bring in the Man’s stormtroopers to kill us. I could not allow that to happen.”
“You cap ‘is ass?” asked Tahru, probing the body with an unlaced tan colored workman’s boot.
“Yes. I shot him.”
“Daaaaaaamn, boy! Momma whoop yo’ ass!” Tahru warned, eyes wide.
“No, she will not.”
“Bullshit! She gonna—“
“A woman does not strike a man, Tahru. Allah forbids it. I am a man. A leader of men. Black men. Brothers. When this is all over, Allah willing, I will be in charge of Chicago.” He turned to look out the massive window. "Perhaps more."
“Yo, you trippin’ Jamal.”
“My name is Malcolm." He turned back to glance at the body on the floor. "The street thug you knew as Jamal is dead.”
“Whatevah, dog. You be trippin’,” replied Tahru with a laconic shrug.
Malcolm sighed. It would take time and the very patience of the Prophet Muhammed to get his younger brother to speak like a human again. “Tahru, look out this window.” When his brother moved next to him to peer out the window at the city below, Tahru whistled. He had never been this high above the city before. Drug dealers generally weren’t allowed in the Sears Tower.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Malcolm directed his brother to examine the city east of the Chicago River. “My Brothers and I control that. The Man has blocked us from going further—there, there and there,” he said, pointing to the National Guard units across the river.
There were a few police helicopters on the ground in the streets and two circling about in the air near the Sears Tower. The streets across the River were full of flashing lights and police cars. The officers who hadn’t fled from the initial riots had been killed, their cars stolen and used as road blocks along with trucks and all manner of vehicles. A few of the police cars built into the roadblocks still had lights flashing. It was an eerie scene.
“What ‘bout all d’em people…” Tahru cleared his throat and looked self-consciously at his brother. “What about the people who work here?” asked Tahru, making a visible effort to control his slang.
Even from the height they were at, Malcolm could easily pick out hundreds of bodies littering the streets around the Sears Tower. Thick black smoke curled around the Sears Tower, carried along by winds funneled between buildings. Debris was strewn on all the streets they could see, windows smashed, a few buildings partially collapsed from fires that burned out of control. The city of Chicago looked as if it were a war zone. Even Tahru was amazed at how fast everything fell apart after the power went out.
“We are cleansing this city of sinners—of the Man and his forces. Brothers and Sisters are rising up to join us in retaking our city.”
“But what’d you do with them?”
“They were encouraged to leave this area of the city. Most fled in a panic, which in turned prevented the police from swarming in on us. Some tried to fight and were killed. The ones too stupid to fight or run were slain as weak. We have killed many hundreds, probably thousands. A mere drop in the bucket of retribution for hundreds of years of cruelty and slavery. Many more were killed in the stampede—caused by their own fear of Black men and women rising up to claim what was rightfully ours. Many thousands are still trapped in buildings we control. We are even now finding pockets of the Man who refuse to leave. Their numbers are dwindling. Others have abandoned their own kind to join our plight. The Man was indiscriminate in keeping down the undesirables…us, foreigners, the poor. Soon we will have them all rounded up and the City will be ours.”
“You really gonna win?” asked Tahru.
“Yes. And I would like you by my side. I need you, Tahru. You will be my second in command. I need someone who knows the streets to lead my army. We are almost ready. I need you. Brother. You are blood of my blood. That means I can trust you above all others.”
Tahru put the gun back in his pants waistband with a look of shame. He glanced at the massed forces of the Man across the River. Then he looked at the body behind them in the trashed office. “We gonna clean up d’shit Martin Luth’a King lef’ undone, ain’t we?” asked Tahru, eyebrow raised in speculation.
Malcolm bowed his head at the mention of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In Allah’s name, we will finally set our People free.”
“A’ight.” Tahru said after some thought. He threw his head back and looked at his brother through partially closed eyes and sniffed. “I’m in, dog. I go’ talk my peeps down d’block. You want street smarts? I get you a motherfu—uh..an army…dawg—Malcolm,” said Tahru. His grin flashed a golden tooth.
The two brothers shook hands. “Good!” Malcolm hugged his younger brother with a slap on the back. “Together we’ll take back this city and our freedom!”
IRAN
Escalation
IT HAS BEEN set in motion?” asked the thickly bearded, visibly nervous official. His dark suit and aviator glasses made him look like a B-movie spy. Fashion was behind the times in Iran. No one in the outdoor café they occupied, deep in Tehran, seemed to care.
“Yes. My men have confirmed we will strike in twelve hours,” replied the leader of the Al Qaeda ‘embassy’ to Iran. He was dressed in a style that mirrored his ancestors—the loose Afghani clothing worn by militant Islamists hunted by the American Infidels. He sipped his tea delicately and eyed the Iranian. Oddly enough, both modes of fashion were common in Tehran and no passerby gave either man a second look on the busy street.
“This strike will cripple the Zionists? As you promised?”
The terrorist nodded slowly to reassure the nervous official. The poor man is as good as dead if anything is traced to his office. No wonder he’s nervous.
This placated the I
ranian. He leaned back into the metal chair with a contented smile spreading across his unshaven face. Putting his hands on the table, he laughed. “They will pay for humiliating us before the U.N. with their talk about nuclear weapons, their illegal searches, violating our holy sovereignty. Iran will sweep across the desert and reclaim our rightful glory! The Persian Empire shall rise again!”
The Al Qaeda man smiled behind his own tinted glasses. He was sure everyone would pay. His commander would be most pleased to hear this bit of good news.
Both men raised their glasses in salute. “To Persia reborn!” grinned the fool in the suit.
“To Allah,” nodded the Al Qaeda operative, guarding the smile on his face.
CHINA
The Dragon Stirs
WELL, WHAT NEWS do you have?” asked Supreme Minister of the People’s Army Po Sin, pushing his thick glasses up his nose. He was pushing sixty and would need even thicker glasses soon, he figured.
“Honorable sir, we have news from our…ambassadors,” replied the nervous aide as he entered the office, bowing low as only befitted a ranking member of the Communist Party in Beijing.
“And what might that be, Fai?” the minister asked gently. He knew precisely who the so-called ambassadors were of which his aide spoke. The God-crazy Arab terrorists from Al Qaeda had been snooping around the Chinese government for over a decade now, but only received semi-official notice these last few months.
“The…Arabs…” the younger man nearly spat the word, “…claim they have begun something that will be of great interest to us,” he bowed again. Almost apologetically. Po Sin enjoyed keeping his staffers off balance. One moment they feared to see him with their own eyes, the next he was their kind old grandfather.
“What could be more interesting than what is happening to the Americans?” asked the minister, casually glancing at a report from the military intelligence service. It was a hypothetical study done years ago, about the feasibility of invading the United States; casualty estimates, logistics costs, materiel, numbers after endless numbers. The old report was becoming more and more interesting by the hour. With their power out and cities in chaos, and now the President himself invoking a suspension of the rights enjoyed by private citizens and the all-powerful American Media…things were very interesting indeed.
Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Page 14
