“Of course I do,” Brent said. “It’s the last thing anyone in their right mind would expect, so they won’t be prepared for it. There are plenty of people who do make their way out of the Red Zone without my training or advantages, so…”
“You’re mad,” Joshua said. The very thought struck him as completely insane, even if there weren’t any alien patrols watching for people doing just that. “You’re completely loopy!”
“And that’s why we will win,” Brent assured him. He opened one of the cupboards and started to pile up the contents. “We once had to force-march five hundred kilometres merely for the hell of it, all around Fort Hood. Damn sadists thought it would help us build character.”
He winked again. “Don’t worry; I’ll be sipping Coors a week from today,” he said. “Besides, when I get back, you get the exclusive interview.”
Chapter Forty
Governments vary. A monarchy protects the interests of the people through the interest of the state while a democracy protects the interest of the state through the interests of the people.
-Anonymous
“The President is losing it.”
Deborah Ivey lifted her eyebrows at the bald statement. The bunker was surprisingly luxurious for its size, but then, it did play host to nearly a third of Congress and the Senate. The government had been dispersed across the United States, although one of the bunkers, in Texas, had been converted into a resistance headquarters, and it had been a surprise to be summoned from the President’s bunker to a very different facility. She had suspected anything from a session in front of a Senate Committee to another round of recriminations, but instead…
She leaned forward. “In what way is he losing it?”
Ovitz met her eyes, unflinchingly. “He hesitated to unleash nuclear weapons against the Redshirts,” he said. Far be it from a major politician to use the Redskin label. “The result of that failure was the alien landing and successful occupation of Texas. He refused to use them in Operation Lone Star…”
“Nukes were deployed against targets in orbit,” Deborah said, carefully. “They generated the EMP pulses that helped to blind the aliens.”
“But not completely,” Ovitz reminded her. “If they had been deployed against ground targets, Operation Lone Star would have gone the other way. Instead, they were not deployed and thousands of our best fighting men were killed. Worst of all, when the aliens started their advance, he did use nukes…and the result was the loss of Washington, with hundreds of thousands dead or seriously injured.”
“I advised the President to deploy nukes, as did you,” Deborah said, dryly. “One must argue that the President was right. At best, we would have turned Texas into radioactive glass, with the remainder of our cities open to alien attack. I don’t think that anyone would consider that a plus.”
Ovitz frowned. “I was under the impression that you supported harsher measures against the aliens,” he said. “We know, now, that they have very few nukes, certainly no more than fifty. Our prisoners have confirmed that for us. We could have traded nukes with them and come off the winners.”
Deborah steepled her fingers. She loved arguing and debating…and this one promised to be interesting, spiced with the taste of possible advancement.
“First,” she said, “we don’t know for sure that they really do have only fifty warheads, of which three have now been deployed on Earth. The alien prisoners might be lying…or they might have been lied to by their leadership. An old intelligence trick is to do just that, knowing that the person doing the lying is under the impression that they are actually telling the truth. Second, they have easy access to thousands of asteroids and other pieces of space junk; they don’t need nukes to mess up our cities. Third…I don’t think that anyone in America would take the exchange of forty-seven cities for burning out Texas.”
Ovitz smiled at her. “Are you taking his side?”
“I think that we’re not in a position to start rocking the boat,” Deborah said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but really…what do you want?”
“I want Texas freed from alien control and America restored to its former heights of glory,” Ovitz said. “I will do whatever is necessary to achieve those goals.”
“And take the credit as well,” Deborah finished, dryly. It wasn't a question. “How exactly do you suggest that this miracle is to be achieved?”
Ovitz said nothing. “I understand your desire to rid your state of the aliens, but at the moment…it’s not possible,” Deborah said. “The former might of the Army has been effectively destroyed. There are barely more than a hundred active tanks left in the entire United States. Levels of other vehicles and equipment are also low; certainly, anyone driving a military vehicle anywhere does so at risk of his life. We have gone from possessing an army that could go anywhere and beat anyone to a force that can barely delay the aliens if they decide they want the remainder of the United States.”
“The gun nuts are happy, at least,” Ovitz growled. He’d been a loud opponent of any form of gun control before the aliens had arrived and now, with civilians the only form of resistance in many areas, had been watching the gun control lobby disintegrate under the pressures of war. Several Governors had unilaterally revoked all gun control legislation, allowing their citizens to arm themselves to the teeth, while others had discovered that no one was listening any longer. “They’re the last line of defence.”
“You’re forgetting the League of Woman Voters,” Deborah said, just to watch his reaction. Ovitz wasn't their most favoured politician. “Don’t they get a say?”
She cleared her throat and continued. “The aliens have deployed weapons systems that make it impossible for us, even if we had the full pre-war might of the United States concentrated in one place, to recover Texas,” she warned. “We lost several units, including some of our best, before they even had a chance to shoot up some of those floating tanks. Senator, I’m sorry to put this to you, but…Texas is beyond our ability to recover.”
“And yet, the President is on the verge of a breakdown,” Ovitz said. “I have been reading the reports from his doctors. He’s stressed, is developing an ulcer, and hasn’t been sleeping enough. What happens if he decides he wants to surrender?”
“I don’t think that he is on the verge of deciding anything of the sort,” Deborah said, icily. She’d forgotten that Ovitz, fourth in line to the Presidency, would see those reports as a matter of course. “Yes, he’s not in a good state, which is hardly surprising. How many Congressmen and Senators are in the same state?”
“They’re suffering from a sudden loss of importance,” Ovitz said, with a quick grin and a wink. “They don’t like the damage that is being inflicted on their states and they really don’t like the way that power is devolving down, more and more, on the Governors. Why, dear Jacqueline was all upset yesterday because her people weren’t listening to her any more.”
Deborah rolled her eyes. Jacqueline had been a Senator who made most left-wingers look like the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. She’d been a fervent proponent of gun control, climate control, multiculturalism, homosexual marriage and everything else that tended to send right-wingers into a frenzy of rage. She had represented San Francisco, secure in the knowledge that she would never be voted out, until the aliens had arrived and destroyed her comfortable world. She’d been one of the loudest voices demanding no military preparations for First Contact…and, after the first attacks, she had continued to demand peace, not war. Her people, suddenly powerless and with an alien occupation force in Texas, only a few days away, hadn’t agreed. The only reason she hadn’t been recalled was the difficulty in having her travel back to California…and, probably, no real desire to have any further dealings with her. When – if – the next elections took place, she would probably lose by a landslide, screaming about right-wing plots and conspiracies all the way.
“But some of them want to impeach the President,” Ovitz continued. “They think that he is not living u
p to the role.”
“They say that in every war,” Deborah said, angrily. She had a sneaking suspicion – more than a suspicion – about who was behind it. “Did any of them seriously believe in aliens before we detected the mothership?”
“Jacqueline probably did,” Ovitz said, wryly. “They want the President to get rid of the aliens, post haste.”
Deborah thought fast. It was hard to tell what was really an impeachable offence; generally, it was whatever Congress thought it was. Every President since Nixon had faced the possibility of impeachment, although proceedings hadn’t always gotten underway. It was used more as a club to beat the President with rather than a serious threat. They didn’t have a case…but if they were angry enough, they might be able to impeach the President anyway.
“And how much better would anyone else do?”
“They just think that someone else could do a better job,” Ovitz said.
“That’s what always happens,” Deborah said, frustrated. “We have a war…people start second-guessing the President and the Government. We should be doing this, no, we should be doing that, no, we should never have done that, yes, we should have bombed there instead…”
She leaned forward, genuinely angry. “The President cannot fix the country with a wave of his hand,” she snapped. “No one can do that!”
Ovitz smiled. “You don’t think that the President should be held as accountable as everyone else?”
“You think that merely sitting in the White House confers omnipotence?”
“There have been Presidents who have believed that,” Ovitz countered.
“They were morons,” Deborah snapped. Her voice grew sharper. “The President might be the most powerful person – the most powerful human – in the world, but he was always far from omnipotent. He had power and leverage, but using half of that power would only make the situation much worse. The entire world system was based on America and damaging it would have damaged America.”
Ovitz smiled. “Are we better off now?”
“I doubt the dead or unemployed would agree,” Deborah said. Millions had died in the war and millions more were completely out of work. “We cannot be anything, but sneaky now, if we want to win.”
“All we have is an insane plan that might fail…and fail badly enough to convince the aliens to wipe us out,” Ovitz grumbled. “What happens if that fails?”
“It’s the best plan we have,” Deborah said. “Failure remains a possibility, but…what choice do we have?”
“If the plan fails, and the country suffers, we will move for impeachment,” Ovitz warned. “The country is on the verge of collapse. New blood is needed.”
“Well, you’ve been in politics for nearly forty years, so you don’t count,” Deborah snapped, standing up sharply. “If it fails, I dare say that the best the new government could do is get a slightly better deal out of the aliens. Good day, sir!”
***
“You’ve looked better,” Ambassador Francis Prachthauser said, as he was shown into the President’s private room. He hadn’t seen the President for nearly a month and was shocked by the changes. The President looked to be permanently on the verge of a stroke, or a heart attack. “Have you been eating properly?”
“You’re my Ambassador and Special Representative, not my mother,” the President said. He sounded as if he was amused, but his voice was as thin as tearing paper. “I have been eating enough food to feed a mouse, all very bad for me, of course.”
“Of course,” Francis agreed, genuinely concerned. The President was the best looked after person in the world, but there was nothing the staff could do about the real problem. The only plan they had was halfway insane. He’d finally secured permission to brief a handful of non-Americans, but it had only made it clear just how insane the plan actually was. “You need a break.”
The President snorted. “Yes, I suppose I could go to Camp David and have a month away from the stress of government,” he said. He laughed harshly. “A year ago, a crisis could be handled with proper reflection and I could take hours to decide what to do. Now…if I don’t react at once, the crisis will just get worse…and the entire country has a knife to its throat, while I’m stuck in this bunker.”
He paused. “Do you know how many plots there have been to kill me?”
Francis blinked. “Mr President?”
“The Secret Service and FBI broke up several,” the President said. He smiled thinly at Francis, who could only stare at him. Plots against the President were hardly unknown, but in times of war? “They didn’t know about the bunker, but the White House got attacked twice by people who blamed me for the invasion and everything else. The Senate blames me for their loss of influence, the rest of the world thinks that I should have deployed some super-secret weapon system that only exists in the imagination of a science-fiction author and blown the aliens out of space and the aliens…the aliens want me dead. At least they’re honest about it.”
He sat up suddenly. “But enough of that,” he added. Bright eyes focused directly on Francis. “What news do you have for me?”
Francis felt almost relieved. The President wasn’t as far gone as he’d feared. “The French, Germans, British and Russians are onboard,” he said. The President looked relieved. The absence of any one of them would have made the plan much harder. “They’re convinced that the plan is absolutely crazy, but they don’t have any other option, although they drove a hard bargain and demanded the plans for the shuttles.”
“Not such a bad move,” the President said, dryly. He seemed to be considering events properly again, even if there was a morbid note to his thoughts. “If America gets scorched from end to end because of this, they’re going to have to try it next.”
“If they can,” Francis warned. “Europe’s been pretty much coordinating the insurgency in the Middle East, as far as anyone can, with weapons, aid and even commando units, hitting the aliens as hard as possible. They have plenty of young Muslim men who want to fight in a jihad and they’re shipping them in by the boatload. Now that North Africa is under alien control, it’s a lot easier to slip in weapons and supplies, and there were a lot on the ground anyway. Someone actually managed to fire a string of Scuds directly at an alien base…and actually got one of them down to the ground.”
The President laughed. “How did they manage that?”
“The Egyptians had designed them to break through Israel’s defences and they were configured to confuse any defences,” Francis explained. “All, but one of them got shot down, but the one that landed packed enough punch to really ruin their day.”
He scowled. “The bad news is that most chemical weapons don’t seem to work on them either,” he added. “The Libyans managed to deploy some chemical weapons they didn’t have – officially – and drenched the aliens in some, but no apparent effect. It could be just their masks, but the scientists in Europe are wondering if their biology is so different from ours that nothing designed for us affects them.”
“That was our conclusion,” the President said. “Overall, how are the Europeans with the plan?”
“They need a month to finish their preparations,” Francis said. “That said, once the weapons are set up and ready, they could move at a moment’s notice. Coordinated action is our only hope for any victory and they all understand that. Now that we have the new communications links set up, we’ll have the submarines in position and ready to act.”
He smiled. “Can you imagine what we’re asking the Russians and French to do?”
“It does have its humorous side,” the President agreed. “If they all cooperate…”
“If they all play ball,” Francis agreed, “we might actually manage to get this insane plan to work.” He frowned. “I think that the aliens might be preparing for a third landing.”
“A third?” The President snapped. “Where?”
“Australia,” Francis said. “I got it from MI6 – that’s the British intelligence service – and they got
it from their counterparts down under. They’re taking more alien KEW strikes now and it looks as if they’re going to be knocked back down again; every harbour and airport has been destroyed. Indonesia is also taking a beating, but it’s just not as interesting to the aliens as Australia. If they want Australia, they can take it, probably.”
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