Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (45 page)

THEY’VE TOTALLY
SURROUNDED Israel, sir,” said the President’s National Security Advisor. 
“There’s just too many Arabs, too many tanks, too many planes, too many
expendable soldiers.  The Arab ring, you can see here,” she said pointing at a
map on the display wall.  “It’s closing like a vice.”

“More like
some monstrous steel noose,” grumbled the tired looking image of the Secretary
of Defense.

The NSA
continued without missing a beat: “Suicide bombers are being reported now in
ever increasing numbers,  24 hours a day.   Israel is being attacked from
without and within at the same time.”

“Sir, my
people tell me it won’t be long before they nuke the Arabs,” agreed the
SecDef.  “We’re hours away from a nuclear war.”

“The brink
of nuclear war…and where are our boys?” asked the President in the voice of an
old man.  “Eh?  I hear they call it the ‘Great Withdrawal’.”

SecDef
nodded.  “Yes, I’ve heard that too.  Can’t blame ‘em.  We’re engaged in the
largest global troop movement the world has ever seen.  We’ve got assets on
five continents.  Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines…they’re all congealing
towards ports and airports, climbing aboard transport jets, commandeered
airliners, cruise ships and transport vessels of every make and size.  Anything
we can commandeer or buy or beg, borrow, or steal.”

“Sir, due
to the attack on the
Theodore Roosevelt
, our response is limited now to
long range bomber attacks.  Without a clearly defined enemy other than Iran and
Egypt, those attacks are not heavy or concentrated,” bemoaned the Secretary of
the Air Force.

“Turn ‘em
loose.  I want to make Operation Rolling Thunder look like a gentle rain,”
grunted the President.  “Let the B-52s have one more chance at payback.”

THE OLD MAN frowned
.  “Payback, revenge,
vengeance.  Call it what you will.  They will not do
anything.
  They are
not the people they once were.” 

The leader
of the Al Qaeda cells in Iran paced in front of the desk of the highest cleric
in the Islamic Theocracy.  He was afraid the old man would get cold feet, at
this, the most critical hour.  He stopped suddenly and faced his elder.   The
old man peered at him from under shaggy grey eyebrows.

“Ayatollah,
I
swear
to you, the Americans will not be long in retaliating.  They
must know where that missile came from.  And the
Jews
—they have their
nuclear weapons in the air already—“

“This I
know…” croaked the old man.  He waved a scraggy hand in dismissal.

“Then why—“

The old man
looked up under his dark turban and silenced the younger fundamentalist with a
cold stare.  “I do not wish to destroy that which is our holiest site without a
care for the consequences, in this life
or
the next!”

“I have
explained to you—the Holy Osama has—“

The old man
waved an impatient hand.  It showed how much he truly cared for the much touted
martyr Bin Laden.  “Bah…what has he done to deserve the name ‘Holy’?  Has he
conquered the world with his preaching?  Has he destroyed all the infidels—“

“This act
is but a piece in the war, if we stop now—“

“We will
not stop now.  We cannot,” said the old cleric, sadly.  “The Americans are far
from defeated, this I know,” he said, pointed a craggy finger at the younger,
well dressed man.  Dressed western-style, the cleric noted.  “The Great Satan
has rallied before—history, young one, history!  They are slow to react but
once put in motion are terrible to behold.  You would do well to learn from
history—“

“If we act
now, we can
live
it!” cried the Al Qaeda rep.  “This act will start a
chain reaction which will bring down the Westerners who have oppressed us and
mocked us with their affluence—mocked Allah! 
We
will become the
dominant civilization once more!”

The old man
considered the alternatives and weighed each possible action in his mind for
the umpteenth time.  “You are sure this will work?”

“Positive. 
But we must act soon.  Timing is critical.”

The cleric
sighed.  He leaned back in his old padded chair and waved his hand again. 
“Very well.  Do it.  And may Allah have mercy on you if this fails.  For no one
else will. 
This
, I know.”  The older man fixed the younger with a look
of death as an aide slipped out of the sparse room to give the fateful order
which would either remember him through the ages as the man who saved Islam, or
the man who destroyed it.

In the desert,
west of Tehran, at the base of a dusty mountain, two massive doors of crude
construction, camouflaged to fit in with the surroundings, slowly opened with a
hiss of steam and condensation.  A few minutes later, a single Russian
ballistic missile with a Chinese warhead shot out of the concealed launch
complex and tore into the sky on a column of fire and smoke.

DEEP INSIDE NORAD on
the other side of the planet, the officer of the watch was about to have
kittens.

“Say that
again
,
Lieutenant?”

“Sir, we think
we’ve figured out what’s going on with the satellite signals.  Our birds aren’t
aligned properly in orbit—“

“I got that
part, mister.  I want you tell me again,
why
,” the stressed and sweating
Major said through clenched teeth.

“One of
NASA’s birds picked up an anomalous energy reading at about the same time that
our orbital malfunctions took place.  We’ve done some tracing—it’s all
preliminary of course, but we
think
that some other satellites must have
used some pretty high powered lasers to disable ours,” the young lieutenant was
flushed with excitement and dread.

“Jesus…
whose
?”
the Major rubbed his forehead with a handkerchief.  He loosened the collar on
his uniform.  The pressure just went up a notch.

“The
satellites we’ve identified were launched by China over the past three years.”     

“
China
?”
the Major said, breathless.  He scrambled to find a phone and get the Brass in
on the loop.  He wanted to pass the buck on this one so bad he could taste it. 
His pay grade wasn’t high enough to deal with situations this hot.

“Officer of
the watch!” called out a voice on the other side of the darkened command and
control center.  The Major rushed over to the new problem.

“What is
it, son?” he asked. 

“We’re
getting some sketchy data because of the satellite glitches,” he obviously
didn’t know the full situation.  “But I think we just saw a missile launch from
Iran…
again
.”

“ICBM?”

“That’s
affirmative, sir.  We’re plotting vector and trajectory based on the latest
info we got, but sir, it’s just a guess at this point with so many satellites
screwing up.”

“But it’s a
pretty Goddamned
good
guess, Lieutenant—this is NORAD, remember?  Now,
where’s it going?” asked the near apoplectic Major.  He had to find a phone
before he had a heart attack.

“Well…from
this,” the young man said, pointing to his glowing screen, “It looks like it’s
sub-orbital.  It’s not leaving the Middle East.  I’d guess Israel, since it’s
originating from Iran, but it’s curving south.  We lost contact here.  Should
pick it up in about two or three minutes when another CIA satellite passes
overhead.”

“Time to
impact?”

The
lieutenant swallowed audibly.  “Two or three minutes.  Best guess, sir. 
Sorry.”

“That
doesn’t help at all.  Someone get the General out of that staff meeting.  NOW!”
the Major bellowed.

RICHARD ASMAR PEERED
around the corner of the dingy old stone building and saw the goal of his great
Pilgrimage.  Newly Converted to the Faith, he had changed his name from Smith
to Amsar, quit his job, pulled out all his stocks and devoted everything to
attaining this one Truth—to stand in Mecca before the
Ka’ba
, the large
black house built by Ibrahim and his son Isma’il to house the ‘Truce of God’.

The massive
structure, all black in the bright sunshine, was surrounded by hundreds, if not
thousands of worshipers, all chanting and circling in unison.  All the toil and
hardships he had endured over the past two months vanished from his mind.  He
had attained Nirvana.  His infidel ex-wife would laugh if she had been there to
see him, broke, dirty, a two month beard adorning his face, wearing hardly
anything but rags, quite possibly the only sun-burnt white American within a
thousand miles.

Richard
didn’t feel like laughing, he felt like crying—for joy.  In his rush to join
the throngs in prayer, he, like most of the people crowded into the most holy
of holy sites at Mecca, failed to notice the bright star-like object in the
sky.  They failed to take note that the object was getting bigger and brighter
with each second.  They failed to notice the smoke trail chasing the point of
light and arcing out of the heavens toward Mecca.  Like the scimitar of Allah
Himself.

An instant
later, they failed to see the flash of released atomic energy.  All of the
Faithful, too busy with their prayers, failed to see the dirty mushroom cloud
growing up out of the crater of what once was called Mecca. 

On the
outskirts of the holy city, a shockwave emanated in the hearts of every
Muslim.  An anger so deep, so white hot, so scorching erupted in their very
souls.  For one shining moment, every Muslim on the face of the Earth was
stunned into silence.  Years later, legend would have it that many of the
witnesses, their eyes burned out by the blast, would simply keel over and die
on the spot in grief.

The
shockwave of hatred raced around the globe as fast as the news could travel—that
is, about ten minutes.  By then, most of the world’s largest media firms were
interrupting coverage of the Middle-East War, the American Crisis or the U.N.
situation with devastating new alerts about the developments in Mecca.

Mecca had
been effectively wiped off the face of the earth. 

Islam’s
most holy site was no more.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY
Advisor’s most senior aide burst into the President’s war room at NORAD about
five minutes after the destruction of Mecca.  Most of the leaders of Congress
and the higher ranking officials in Washington were gathering in Denver.  They
were setting up the government out of reach of enemies.  It was a safety
measure first dreamed up during the Cold War but never really implemented.

The
President, the NSA, and the head of the Department of Homeland Security turned
to look at her.  She swallowed her nervousness as she noticed for the first
time all the faces on the myriad displays.  The heads of most departments, the
military and many senior officials in congress.  All gathered digitally in this
one room deep under the mountain.  All looking at her.

“Mr.
President, we have a
big
problem!”

ON THE FLOOR of the new
U.N. Assembly Room in the Hague, chaos had erupted when news of the attack on
Mecca was announced.  The Islamic delegates cried, screamed in anguish, clawed
the air in rage—three even leapt over their desks and charged headlong at the
Israeli delegate, who looked just as shocked as the rest of the room.

Once order
was restored, some minutes later and only with the help of a few burly security
guards, the accusations started to fly.  Israel was blamed right off the bat—America
included as an accessory after the Egyptian delegate told of the sudden and
inexplicable destruction of most of his country’s military bases.  No one
bothered to tell anyone about the surprise attacks on the U.S.S.
Theodore
Roosevelt
.  The loss of a city in Jordan by a nuclear device was forgotten
in an instant.  All eyes were on Saudi Arabia.

The
Secretary General, while just as surprised as the next man in the room, was
delighted inside.   He steepled his fingers and sat in his position at the head
of the room and thought.  He didn’t try to slow things down—the enraged Arab
and Islamic delegates were pushing matters to a head faster than even he had
wished.  The Islamic world—and it was a big chunk of Earth’s population—was
quickly gathering together and rattling scimitars in the direction of Israel
and her western allies.  America and Israel were names to be hissed in infamy,
it appeared.

Demands for
action were called out, votes taken and measures adopted in record speed.  The
U.N. was going to act, faster than anyone had thought possible and faster than
the Secretary General had dreamed.  His plan was going even better than could
have ever hoped.  Israel was the prime suspect and in the eyes of most of the
delegates it seemed, was already guilty.

The Israeli
delegate roared in impotent rage at his accusers.  “Even while
you
attack my homeland,
you
accuse
us
of this monstrosity!  We are a
people of Faith—we do
NOT
attack holy sites!”  He thrust his age-spotted
hand at the Palestinian repres