True Allegiance

by Ben Shapiro

  “Take a bullet for you, babe,” she whispered to herself. Then she pushed herself to her feet, launched herself past a startled Mahmoud, and grabbed Omari’s phone.

  Air Force One exploded at approximately two thousand feet. The daylight went bright, then brighter, a blinding green flash in the sky forcing people miles from the detonation to look away. The blast wave hit almost simultaneously with the light—those nearest the blast would never register it. The blast blew through skyscrapers, tearing them down sideways, their glass facades disintegrating almost instantaneously. It tore through Washington Heights, obliterated full blocks. It set the trees on fire through Fort Washington Park. Tenements blew apart like a house of cards. The shock wave exploded through the streets, disintegrating peoples’ clothes, ripping the flesh from their muscles, tearing their faces open, turning them to ash nearest the bomb site; further away, debris from the buildings killed hundreds more.

  Tens of thousands of military men and women still in the midst of cleanup at the George Washington Bridge were killed almost instantaneously; thousands more of them were wounded, doomed to radiation poisoning, burned beyond recognition by the nuclear wind in the aftermath.

  General Brett Hawthorne saw none of it. He was staring at the wall of his cell near Battery Park when the bomb went off; he merely saw the sky grow light.

  He turned to stare into the distance. He saw the mushroom cloud rise above the profile of the new Freedom Tower. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, God, please, no.”

  Then he fell to his knees and buried his head in his hands, screaming silently.

  Washington, DC

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans.”

  The former governor of Michigan looked directly into the camera. She spoke from the East Room of the White House. The tears in her eyes were genuine; she forced them down.

  “I know many of you may not know me; few Americans bother to learn the name of the vice president of the United States. But my name is Allison Martin. A few hours ago, I was sworn into office as the president of the United States.

  “By now, I’m sure you have heard the news from New York City, where our nation’s greatest city has once again been struck by the scourge of terrorism. I am also sure that you have heard that the president of the United States, Mark Prescott, was the target of that attack, along with hundreds of thousands of the citizens he loved so much.”

  Her green eyes, hardened by years in the political limelight, glinted. She had earned the lines around those eyes, the worry lines around her mouth. Allison Martin had fought her way to the top of American politics. She had done so not as a token woman on a vaguely inspirational ticket, but as her party’s chosen ideological warrior. Allison Martin, they said, backed down from no one. She would keep Mark Prescott honest.

  Her enemies had questioned her qualifications, her achievements. They had implied that her sex had elevated her to the second highest office in the land; they ignored her degree from Harvard, her law degree from Columbia. They had overlooked her.

  Her speaking style was mechanical. She was unlikable. She did not have the charm of Mark Prescott; she did not inspire. She was, as she liked to think of herself, a grinder. She did not, she reminded her subordinates, tolerate losing.

  “I would give my own life to have preserved Mark Prescott’s. Mark Prescott was a visionary leader, a public servant for his entire life. He died serving the public, standing for you. He lived for unity, not divisiveness. He lived to bring people together.

  “We will live for him, and for his memory. We will keep our commitments, and the commitments of President Prescott. The commitment to build. The commitment to love one another. Mark Prescott’s visionary sense of Americanism will live on in our hearts, and in our policy. What Mark Prescott brought out in us, we will magnify; what Mark Prescott uncovered in us, we will allow to shine forth.”

  Her voice rose a pitch in urgency and tenor. “Mark Prescott was always honest with you. And I will be no less honest. Here is what we know tonight. We know that there was an assassination attempt on President Prescott today at New York Harbor; it was thwarted through the diligent work of our security on the ground. We do have a man in custody.

  “Shortly after the attempted attack on the president, the president’s security team moved him aboard Air Force One, where he was accompanied aboard by media and political figures. We have released a full list of those aboard the plane, all of whom lost their lives in today’s tragic terrorist attack.

  “The White House has been in negotiations with the State of Texas over Texas’s refusal to abide by federal immigration law, and Governor Bubba Davis’s unconstitutional use of state troops to attack a sovereign nation outside the borders of the United States. President Prescott had invited a representative of Governor Davis to New York City to discuss possible solutions. That representative, Ellen Hawthorne, is suspected of having smuggled and detonated a small-yield nuclear weapon aboard Air Force One.

  “This aggression will be answered. As President Abraham Lincoln once did, I now appeal to all loyal citizens to aid the effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our national union.

  “Now, life will undoubtedly change in the short term. Our intelligence shows that the highest levels of our government have been penetrated by those who sympathize with the extremism of Ellen Hawthorne and the State of Texas. This is a time for unity, not disunity, and we must steel ourselves for the battle ahead.

  “There is also no question that America’s capacity for rebuilding has been significantly damaged by recent events. Our estimates show the loss of tens of thousands of American troops. Our stock market has dropped precipitously; the value of the dollar has fallen off. But hope is around the corner. Tonight, we request that the American people stand together and find the best in themselves. Help is on its way.

  “And we will help ourselves. Those who perpetrated this heinous act will be brought to justice. America will be made whole again. I stand with you, and we stand together.

  “Let me end tonight with a quote from President Mark Prescott, spoken just a few weeks ago at the site of the George Washington Bridge bombing. ‘Love for each other,’ the president said. ‘Care for each other. Sacrifice for each other. And that’s what I’m going to ask of all Americans now. Not anger, not lashing out, not blame or knee-jerk reactions. Love. Love your neighbor. Love your country. Stand together. And together we will rise. For in times like this, in times of tragedy and horror, it is love we most need.’

  “We will love each other like never before. America, we are strong. Good night, and God bless us all.”

  The red light on the camera blinked off. Allison Martin looked at her reflection in the dark eye of the lens. Then she stood, ramrod straight, and walked briskly toward the Oval Office.

  Detroit, Michigan

  Levon spoke into the computer’s camera. On the line, he could see from the list on the right-hand side of his screen, were the mayors of Indianapolis, New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Boston, Memphis, and a dozen other major cities. He’d talked with all of them repeatedly over the past few weeks, since the media and Mark Prescott had appointed him an emissary of peace, and since his big victory over Detroit Energy. Levon had reached out to others, too—“activist affiliates,” he called them—who could influence the community to bring pressure against companies and government actors.

  Now he sat alongside the mayor of Detroit in his conference room.

  “Folks,” Levon said, “I have known President Martin for a long time—we had dealings when she was governor of my state. She has asked me to speak with you all about basic security within your cities.”

  “We’re at war,” Levon said, “and that war is down south, as you know.” Some of the mayors nodded; a few looked uncomfortable. He pressed on. “That means that we’ve got to have order in our own cities. I know that you’re
all doing your best. But as you know, and as Mark Prescott said, police departments across this country have a long legacy of racial bigotry. With the current shortage of National Guard and federal military aid available, there’s bound to be some unrest.”

  Levon looked at the faces of the mayors—most of them nodded along. “So here’s what needs to happen, and here’s what President Martin wants to happen: you’re all going to set up civilian oversight commissions. These will be parallel to your city councils, and they’ll have real authority, real public authority.” He hoped his emphasis conveyed the threat. Just in case, he added, “If not, I can guarantee violence will happen. That’s a guarantee.

  “Now, don’t worry—all of the leaders of these commissions will be in touch with me regularly, and I’ll be in touch with President Martin. She has also asked me to work with the commissions to recruit for the new civilian national service corps she’s planning, as well as help fill out the military’s needs. So we’ll all be working together a fair bit. Hope that works for y’all.”

  The dialect drew a few chuckles. Levon smiled. They could all chuckle. Underneath, they knew exactly what he did: they no longer ran their cities. Levon Williams did.

  The South China Sea

  The aircraft carrier sat moored to the man-made island atop the atolls of the Spratly Islands. The Chinese government had spent years dredging the coral reefs, turning them into military outposts in spite of international furor. The crew of the Liaoning, fully two thousand strong, had been trained aboard the ship and knew her well. They came accompanied by another seven hundred members of the air group. Beside the Liaoning sat a full flotilla of destroyers and frigates.

  At 0400 hours, the flotilla, led by the Liaoning, began its over eight-thousand-mile journey to the West Coast of the United States. Admiral Chen De stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier, watching the greatest armed amphibious force ever assembled by his nation steam toward America. His orders had come through that morning. He knew that Chinese forces would be joined in the United States by coalition forces from Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia. But by far the largest on-the-ground contingent came from China, which the new president of the United States had publicly labeled a friend and partner.

  In the game of international politics, friendship and partnership only went so far, Admiral Chen knew. He had contingency plans, just in case something should go wrong. Such things were bound to happen from time to time.

  Austin, Texas

  Pages sprinted around the Texas House of Representatives, bearing paperwork and messages from the legislators to each other. In the hallways, congressmen berated one another, cornering each other, trying to talk some sense into each other. Cameras clogged the corridors, reporters frantically attempting to sequester some unlucky rube politician and peg him or her down on the vote.

  The impeachment vote against Governor Bubba Davis was underway.

  Blocks away, Davis sat in his office, the drapes closed, the room dark. He stared into the darkness, thinking about Ellen Hawthorne. He’d watched the speech from President Martin, disbelieving—there was no way that the federal government, even this federal government, could actually believe Ellen Hawthorne responsible for the worst terror attack in the history of the United States. Could believe him responsible for that attack.

  But they had said it. They had declared war. His bluff had been called.

  Unless he wasn’t bluffing.

  Davis knew that governors all over the country were waiting, watching to see what the House would do today. He’d spoken with the governors of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia; he’d received calls from the governors of Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. He’d assured them all that he had nothing to do with the attacks in New York, and that President Martin had exploited the terror attack to reassert federal authority. All of them feared for the future of the United States, but they also feared the domination of their states by an assertive executive branch prepared to declare war on its own citizens.

  The federal military still had tremendous resources, but the combination of Prescott’s military cuts with the terror attack in New York had taxed them to their limits. If it came down to it, military action by the feds wouldn’t be that easy.

  The thought of American men and women aiming guns at each other made Bubba Davis sick to his stomach. He hoped, in a way, that the House would go through with it, remove him from office, put an end to all of this, replace him with someone who would back down. But if the feds could trump up such a pack of lies about Ellen, what would they do to him? He’d be put on trial for treason against his nation; maybe Martin would pardon the men and women defending the border, maybe not. All of that sounded better to Bubba Davis than the prospect of a war with his own government, a government he’d fought for overseas and defended with his blood.

  But they wouldn’t keep the citizens of Texas safe. Those citizens were Americans, but their rights didn’t spring from the federal government—they came from somewhere deeper. That was the only reason Bubba Davis didn’t resign and turn himself over to the feds for a trial. Polls showed that Texans were strongly divided on whether Davis should stay or go, but polls also showed that few believed Davis had been behind the attacks in New York.

  The phone rang on Davis’s desk. He let it ring twice. Then he answered.

  He hung up, leaned back against his chair.

  He was still governor of Texas. His state was with him. Soon, he knew, he would be at war with the federal government.

  New York City

  Brett sat in an empty warehouse—they weren’t going to risk bringing him back to a known facility. Too high profile, too much media. He sat with his back to the wall—just like the ’Stan, he laughed ruefully to himself—his head in his thick arms. It was getting late; the sun was setting beyond the haze of the skyline, devastated once more by terror. He looked up, the sunlight reflecting in his red-rimmed eyes. “Ellen,” he whispered. “Ellen, I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t even sense it when the door creaked open and an officer in full SWAT regalia strode into the room. He was tall, broad shouldered.

  Piece by piece, he began undressing.

  “There isn’t much time, sir,” he said. “You need to put this shit on.”

  Brett looked up at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re leaving, General.”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “You want to stick around here, that’s up to you, General,” said the officer. “But I have a feeling you’ll be better off taking my advice.”

  Brett stood up and began putting on the police gear as the officer spoke. “General, you’re going to walk out of here. Keep your face toward the wall as much as possible. Show them this ID. It’s federal.”

  Brett looked at it. “EPA? What do they have to do with this?”

  The officer laughed. “The ID serves the purpose. Used to belong to a friend of mine.”

  When Brett finished suiting up, the officer sat down with his back against the wall. “Only one of us can leave,” he said. “That’s you. No time to argue. Get out of here.”

  Brett nodded slowly as he clipped the ID to his vest. “Thanks.”

  “The car’s down the street. Two rights, then a left. Black van, license plate 3X8FFSL. Get out of here.” Then the man dropped his head to his chest as Brett opened the door.

  None of the guards in the hallway gave Brett a second glance. The uniform took care of that. At the end of the hall, he took an elevator down to the street.

  When he got to the street, he followed the directions to the van. As he approached, the passenger’s side door popped open. He climbed in.

  A woman sat behind the wheel.

  Then Brett saw her face.

  He grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her toward him as
she screamed. He placed his hand on her neck, gripping it. “Why?!” he yelled. “Why would you do this? Who are you?”

  Her left hand gradually came up—Brett found himself at the point of her muzzle. “Get the hell off me,” she said.

  Slowly, he let go.

  “My name is Soledad Ramirez,” she choked. “I’m here to get you out of the city.”

  “You tried to assassinate Prescott. What do you want with me?”

  Soledad looked at him seriously. “Do you want to stick around? If so, get out right now.”

  Brett looked at her. “You’re that terrorist.”

  “I prefer rancher. The government made me a terrorist.”

  “No,” said Brett. “You made you into a terrorist.”

  “You’re free to get out at any time.”

  Brett went silent. She started the engine. “For what it’s worth,” she said, looking straight ahead, “I’m sorry about your wife, General Hawthorne. I’m sorry for this country. I’m not sorry what happened to Prescott. None of that matters.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I figure you’re the general. You pick.”

  Brett thought for a moment. Then he looked to the horizon again, to the murky cloud of ash blotting out the rising stars. He set his jaw in a look Ellen would have recognized instantly as unshakable determination.

  “Let’s head West,” he said. “I’m going home.”

  Ben Shapiro is editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com, as well as editor-at-large of Breitbart News. Shapiro is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller, Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America (2012). Shapiro is also a nationally syndicated columnist since age 17, a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, and the host of The Morning Answer on KRLA 870 in Los Angeles and KTIE 590 in Orange County.

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