The Last Marine : Book Two (A Dystopian War Novel)

by T. S. Ransdell

  “Let the damn ChiComs deal with the Marines in China. We can give them aid and whatnot, but it’s primarily their problem now. Most of the Marines here in the US are scattered throughout various military installations and hospitals in minimal numbers. They can easily be rounded up. The outlier to this is the First Marine Regiment. You may have heard of them on the news lately.” Both men chuckled at the understatement. “They’ve got one battalion at Camp Pendleton, another two battalions on troop transports in the middle of the Pacific. A simple drone or missile strike easily disposes of the latter. As for the former, I have a rather unique resource that can take care of them. If we act now, by morning the United States Marine Corps will essentially be a thing of the past. Then we can begin to deal with the insurrectionists in Southern California and the rest of the country.”

  “Forgive me, General, if I say that sounds like a rather bold, and perhaps optimistic, game plan.” Solak loved the idea of a political purge in the United States. He hoped Mythers’s plan was bold enough to fast-track that goal. “Do you really believe your FedAPS resources can eliminate an entire battalion of US Marines?”

  “Of course,” Mythers shot back with a smile, “I’ve already disarmed the Marines.”

  Mythers was on his cell phone as soon as his limousine door slammed shut. His euphoria over the ease with which his plan was coming together invigorated him.

  Perhaps I’ve set my sights too low? The idea intrigued him until a sleepy voice over his phone pulled him back to the moment.

  “Pankhurst, wake your ass up! Hell, it’s only five after ten, for crying out loud! Listen! Call an emergency staff meeting for the SoCal HQ. ASAP. You copy? Say it back to me. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.” Mythers disconnected the call, leaned back, and took a deep breath.

  Yes, perhaps I’ve set my sights too low. The US Marine Corps will finally be destroyed, physically and culturally. The rioters will be dispensed with. Within twenty-four hours, I will control Southern California. What is it Stalin said: ‘Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem.’ Mythers vigorously laughed to himself. Yes, I have set my sights too low.

  Solak walked into the den smiling. Tang sat at the desk, staring at nothing, with a drink in his hand.

  “Impressive, isn’t he?” Solak helped himself to a chair across from the president. “We may have underestimated Mythers.”

  “He’s a soldier,” Tang gently snarled without looking at Solak. “If he isn’t good at killing, what good is he?”

  “His plan accomplishes all of our objectives more directly and more quickly. There are risks to every plan, but the speed of his plan eliminates many. By sunrise, it will be a whole new world. I confess I found it brilliant the way he set up the entire Marine Corps. If his plan works, he will eliminate the Marine Corps overnight.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Tang finally looked Solak in the eye.

  “We blame him. We blame him for the leak. We blame him for an attempted coup. We can blame him for whatever we want, really.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to look like a leader of the people.” Tang whined. “A man who builds consensus, not just uses blunt force.”

  “And you will. You can also be a leader who takes bold and swift action to protect the people.” Solak raised his arm as if he were dispersing the words of a headline in front of Tang. “President Tang stops at nothing to safeguard the people under his care.”

  Tang smiled a bit, liking the sound of it. “I just want history to remember me as a great leader for social justice, not a butcher,” Tang conceded.

  “You let me worry about that.” Solak smiled. “I’ll take care of history.”

  Mythers looked at his watch and smiled. He’d made it to the FedAPS Command Center, San Diego, in under thirty-five minutes. He saw Colonel Pankhurst nervously waiting for him in the building lobby.

  “Is everyone here?” he barked at her as soon as he walked through the door.

  “Yes, sir. Everyone except Lieutenant General Johns. She is swamped controlling the coverage of the riot, but she assured me she is on her way.”

  “Not a problem. Media is not my first priority at this moment.” Mythers bolted past Pankhurst, headed straight into the conference room.

  “At ease,” Mythers commanded, although most of his staff had failed to come to attention. “I want your eyes and ears, people. It should go without saying, but this meeting is of the upmost importance and confidentiality. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” the FedAPS officers answered out of sync.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, our situation has evolved. The protesters are now seen by the president as a group acting with the common intent of disrupting the peace through purposeful violence and destruction. Let me be clear, they are now seen as rioters and considered belligerents. Our mission is to shut down the riot and restore order in downtown San Diego within the next twenty-four hours.

  “Cabe, your mission has changed from protester protection and isolation to the restoration of law and order. It is now 2245 hours; by 2400 hours you will enforce martial law for the greater San Diego area. Any non-FedAPS personnel found on the streets at that point will be detained until further orders. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” FedAPS Lieutenant General Cabe Sanger answered in a bewildered tone. One that did not encourage Mythers.

  “Enforcement”–Mythers, with patience, like that of a weary parent dealing with a child, spoke slowly, hoping to increase Sanger’s comprehension–“will extend north to include San Clemente to Newport Beach. You will shut down the I-5 and I-15 in this area. As well as California highways 74 and 76. You can commandeer local police to patrol local streets. Anyone they apprehend is to be taken to a FedAPS substation. Let them know that is an order, not an option.” Mythers paused for acknowledgment.

  “Yes, sir,” Sanger answered more boldly now that his mind had caught up to the current situation.

  “By 0600 hours, you will have a force ready to terminate the riot and restore order to the no-go zone. Equip your force with riot control AND”–Mythers significantly raised his voice–“ANTIPERSONNEL weaponry. Do you understand?”

  “Sir, are we authorized to use deadly force?”

  “Yes, Cabe.” Mythers was relieved to see Sanger catching on. “The president has authorized the use of deadly force.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sangers answered unequivocally.

  “Jillian.”

  “Sir,” Lieutenant General Atwood responded with zeal.

  “We need to control communications. You will work the kill switch. Terminate all cell phone and internet to Camp Pendleton ASAP. By 2400 hours, you kill all cell phone and internet communications in the greater San Diego area.”

  “Sir, does the kill switch extend from San Clemente to Newport Beach also?”

  “Yes. It is critical that the president be able to control his message and communicate his agenda. We will isolate the greater San Diego area and control information. I want to kill the rumor mill before it even has a chance to start. The only source of news and communication I want the people to have is through TV and radio. They will only broadcast what we tell them to, but we’ll let Samantha handle that aspect through the Office of Balanced Media.”

  “Yes, sir.” Atwood began writing notes for her part of the operation.

  “Excuse me, sir, Lieutenant General Johns called and said she should be here in the next ten minutes.”

  Mythers nodded his acknowledgment to Pankhurst. “Listen up, everyone. It should go without saying that all information is on a need-to-know basis. Any breach of security, any leak, intentional or not, will be dealt with harshly. At a minimum, it will end your career. Tonight, we are dealing with nothing less than an attempted coup against the President of the United States.” Mythers paused for effect and was happy to see all eyes look at him in surprise. “Be alert. Be wary. No one is above suspicion. Everyone outside of FedAPS is a potential enemy. Any violation of martial law is to be presumed hostile. A
m I understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mythers’s war council answered in unison.

  “Rodriguez, you know where Sergeant Edwards is?” Staff Sergeant West yelled down the barracks corridor.

  “No, Staff Sergeant,” Rodriguez lied.

  “Do you know where Corporal Rivett is?”

  “No, Staff Sergeant,” Rodriguez lied again, but with less self-assurance.

  West’s eyes bored into the lance corporal. He knew Rodriguez was lying to him. “Don’t,” West stopped in mid-sentence. He’d known Edwards since the Mexico Campaign. He decided if Edwards was gone, it had to be for a good reason. If it was not a good reason, West decided he did not want to know about it. “Tell him McGregor wants a meeting with all officers and NCOs in fifteen minutes in front of the battalion’s offices.”

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

  As soon as West turned to walk away, Rodriguez got his phone out to send a message to Edwards.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Rodriguez quietly cursed to himself. His cell phone had lost service.

  “Listen up, Marines.” McGregor started the meeting with his signature gusto. Only he knew how hard an effort it was for him to appear so.

  The day’s events had hurt him to his core. Intellectually, he understood the protesters did not speak for all Americans, yet he still felt anger and betrayal from the people, from the government, who had benefitted from the sacrifices Marines had made through the war. This was added to when he received a warning from a high-level friend in DC that because of the media attention on the day’s events, the Senatorial Committee of Armed Services was going to open the door to disbanding the Marine Corps. Something everyone expected President Tang to support. This was followed by a conversation with Lieutenant General Sanger about the charges of manslaughter and assault that Staff Sergeant Kruschinsky and other arrested Marines were now facing.

  At the end of the day, he sat down in his study with a glass of bourbon. He opened an email from a friend in Seventh Marines that read THE SHTF. BELIEVE NOTHING YOU HEAR, AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE. SEMPER FI.

  “What the fuck kind of cryptic horseshit is this! Just what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he shouted at no one but himself. Even his dog had slipped out of his study, sensing his master was in a foul mood. Often, McGregor liked being left on his own, but given the day’s events, he found it unsettling. He decided to go see his Marines.

  “It’s been one hell of a day, hasn’t it, devil dogs?”

  “Sir, what it’s been is fucked!” the cynical voice of an anonymous Marine yelled. His comment was followed by a lot of groans and complaints. In the crowd, he saw depression. Like a man whose wife has left him and taken all he cares about, he saw the look of men who had nothing left to fight for. It turned McGregor’s stomach. He became infuriated with himself for the self-pity he’d indulged in. They were Marines; all this was beneath them. Wallowing in misery was not part of their culture, but embracing the fight was.

  “You’re right, Marine. The day’s been fucked, but we sure as hell ain’t!” McGregor roared. “On what was to be a day honoring our Marine Corps, some of our Marines ended up in jail today on bullshit charges. They fought those who attacked us. That is what Marines do, and we will take care of them. Marines never abandon Marines!” At that moment, McGregor did not know how he would keep that promise. But he knew he would, or die trying.

  “I’ll even share more fucked-up news with you devil dogs,” McGregor continued. “I got word from a former Jarhead in DC that some in Congress, and even our own Commander-In-Chief, want to disband our Marine Corps.”

  Boos and obscenities erupted from the Marines. McGregor fed off their, and his, anger. He held up his hand to quiet them. Out of respect for their wartime leader, they soon complied.

  “You watched the media on TV today; they say Marines are too dangerous for law-abiding citizens. I tell you, Marines, it’s a load of horseshit! Don’t get me wrong. We are too dangerous to our enemies!”

  “Oorahs” erupted from some of the Marines.

  “I don’t know about you…Actually, I do. Like me, you all chose to be Marines. You have sacrificed, fought, and some of you have bled…some of us have died for the honor. We didn’t do it for the son of a bitch politicians. Sure as hell, we didn’t do it for those assholes in the media.” More cheers broke from the formation. “We did it for everything we love about our country!

  “No one ever CAN, take that away from you. Only you can give that up, and you never will! Marines never surrender! They want to destroy us? They’ll have to kill us first!”

  Roars erupted from Horno. Now McGregor saw confidence and resilience in his Marines. He held up his hand to silence his battalion one more time. “We weren’t foolish enough to turn over all our weapons to FedAPS.”

  Many Marines laughed and cheered with approval.

  “We will have an armed fire watch tonight. I want every Marine vigilant. Even at home, in Camp Pendleton, we’re still surrounded by hostiles. We will defend our home! We will defend our Constitution! Always!” Lieutenant Colonel William “Bulldog” McGregor headed back to the duty office. His spirits were raised, and, more importantly to him, the spirits of his Marines were raised. He had no way of knowing, the role his speech, and his orders, would play in the night’s events.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Man, you have got to love the ‘bulldog.’” Morgan referenced McGregor’s speech before lighting a cigarette.

  “No doubt. McGregor’s hard-core. But an armed fire watch though?” Rodriguez lowered his voice. “How the fuck are Edwards and Rivett going to get back on base with Harris and McCurry?” Reflexively, he pulled out his phone to check for any messages.

  “You heard from Edwards? You can send him a message?” Morgan asked.

  “No. Goddamn service is still out. Fuck.”

  “Mine too,” Morgan replied after checking his own phone. “Dude, you may want to tell West what’s going on.”

  “Why the fuck do I got to tell him?”

  “You’re the one who lied to him,” Morgan said, more as a jest than trying to avoid accountability. “We don’t want to get them smoked on the way in.”

  “Fuck you.” Rodriguez lit up his own cigarette. “We’ll both tell him.”

  “Sir, Colonel Pankhurst is on the phone for you in the duty hut. She said it was urgent and insisted she speak to you directly.”

  “Why didn’t she call my cell?” McGregor rhetorically asked the duty NCO and looked down at his cell phone. “Damn thing’s still not getting any service. All right, thank you, Sergeant.” Fucking Mythers! McGregor said to himself. What the hell does that son of a bitch want now?

  “Good! Hardly anybody is here,” Edwards proclaimed, pulling into the nearly vacant parking lot next to Lulu’s.

  “The fewer, the better,” Rivett agreed.

  “You really think he’s going to be that dangerous?” FedAPS agent Mia Goert asked with apprehension.

  Overall, Mia didn’t like Marines. Like most Americans, she appreciated their role in driving the People’s Liberation Army out of the United States at the start of the war. Mia would even grant that many of their accomplishments were, somehow, larger than life. However, it was their methods she found distasteful. Educated to believe the US Marine Corps’ wanton brutality was the product of an archaic culture, Mia thought it no longer had a role in the civilized world, let alone the new America. Even her recent FedAPS training reinforced this notion. Complexities of modern geopolitics required more sophisticated definitions of victory than merely defeating or destroying America’s enemies.

  The irony that she was currently infatuated with a US Marine was not lost on a woman of her intelligence. But then, in her mind, the ruggedly handsome Corporal James Rivett broke all the Marine stereotypes. Intelligent, thoughtful, and kind, although his mannerisms seemed of another era, Mia couldn’t help but be attracted to him. She concluded Jimmy was an anomaly. Sean Harris, from wha
t she’d learned during the car ride, fit the profile of an archetypical Marine.

  Harris is the sort of problem we have to deal with, Mia thought, now that the war is over.

  “No.” Rivett nervously laughed. “It’s not so much that he’s dangerous. Harris is just angry right now, and he can tend to get…” Rivett paused to think how to put his words. “He can get a lot more extreme about things than McCurry.”

  “Yeah, well, angry or not”–Edwards’s voice was calm and mild, although he expected Harris to be at his worst–“we’ve got to go in there and order him back to Pendleton. And he just doesn’t like being told what to do.”

  “Of course he doesn’t!” Mia exclaimed as if she were pointing out the obvious to inferiors. “That’s what makes him dangerous!”

  All three entered Lulu’s and saw Harris smiling. He was lost in conversation with Sarah.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re finally here,” Mackenzie greeted them.

  “Has he been this irate all night?” Edwards sarcastically asked with a straight face.

  “You should have seen him earlier,” Mackenzie defended herself in a whisper, not wanting to be overheard. “His cussing and yelling earlier chased out the few customers who were in the place.” Mackenzie grabbed Edwards by the arm to emphasize her concern. “He was going on about how someone should shoot President Tang, and how he’d like to kill protesters, and even reporters, himself. Sarah got here just in time. Since then, he’s been more interested in her.”

  “That figures.” Rivett chuckled to Mia. She nodded her head, but shot an unforgiving stare at Harris. She’d heard enough to confirm her opinion of him. Edwards noticed Mia’s glance, and it confirmed his opinion of her. However, Edwards let his anger go. His immediate concern was how to get Harris and McCurry back to Camp Pendleton without making their situation any worse than it already was.

  “Yeah,” Edwards said. “Let’s get this over with.”