Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (59 page)

The
President made a show by signing the document with a flourish.  “There, it’s
signed.  It is now the law of the land.  This is for all you foreigners out
there thinking we’re gonna be easy money.”  The cameras zoomed in on the
President’s face.  “
Hunting season is open.”

The cameras
took his cue and backed off.  The President stood again, just under a large
painting of George Washington.  “Good night, America…and may God give us
guidance and strength in the coming weeks and months.  May He grant you safety
and good aim and may He continue to bless this, the greatest nation on the face
of the earth.”

THE RUSSIAN LAUGHED out
loud at the slack-jawed faces of his fellow conspirators.  “Come comrades! 
Drink!
 
The battle is joined,
da
?  Come,
come
—here, drink this, Pierre,
it will fortify you against the American pirates! 
HAR!
” he guffawed,
handing the Frenchman a hastily made vodka martini.  It spilled on the floor as
the Russian nearly doubled over laughing.

Slapping
the German on the back he offered another drink.  “Here, comrade!  To our good
fortune!”

“You fool,
what is possessing you to
celebrate!?
” asked the Iranian.  “Did you not
just hear the American defy us openly??”

“HA! HA! 
Da
,
I did!”  He slugged another shot of vodka.  “I did!” he said, eyes burning and
his voice rough.  Suddenly he grew quite serious and calm.  The others watched
him warily.  He knew they thought him drunk, and he didn’t care anymore. 

“We have
made our bed, comrades.  Now we sleep in it.”  The Russian roared in laughter
at his own mental quickness and reached for the vodka again.

The
Secretary General leaned back in his chair and remembered the look of sheer
determination behind the eyes of the President.  “I fear we will not get much
sleep, Gregor.”  The Russian barked a laugh and stormed from the room, heading
to consult with his government. 

The
Iranian, suddenly possessed of false courage, waved a dismissive hand at the
television.  "The fool is only going to cause our soldiers to fight
harder.  This is
insulting
.  We are going over to
help
them!"

The
Secretary General rolled his eyes.  "
Really?
  You really think
we're going to just walk in there?  Do you realize how many citizens in America
are armed?"

The Iranian
blinked his ignorance.

"Over
100 million.  A hundred million
registered
gun owners in America. 
That's not including those who chose to keep their guns secret from their own
government."

"There
will be a rifle behind every building, every rock, tree and blade of
grass..." muttered the French ambassador.  "Guerilla warfare on a
scale that is unimaginable."

"It is
no worse than Chechnya…or the Balkans.  They will be handled.  These people are
fat and lazy," pleaded the Iranian.

"That's
what the Japanese said in the summer of 1941.  Ask them how that war turned out
for them," grunted the Frenchman in reply.  The German flushed but
remained silent.

The
Secretary General held up his hand to stop the bickering.  "It matters
little enough, friends.  This merely adds a level of complication to our plans,
nothing more, nothing less.  We will
succeed
gentlemen.  America is
strong, yes, but she cannot sustain a coordinated assault by
all
of
us."

Out in the
poorly lit hallway, the Gregor passed the senior English Ambassador down by the
street entrance to the makeshift U.N. Headquarters.  He had no more time to
spend with those fools in the Secretary General's office.  He grinned to
himself.  All those people with guns in America.  It would be a nightmare for
any invading troops.  Should even one percent of the gun owners decide to take
pot shots at the invading soldiers...

One million
rifles and pistols, hindering our movement.  Death through a million
pin-pricks.  If ten, twenty, thirty percent of the gun owners...that's ten,
twenty, thirty million armed guerillas...
no, that line of
thought would not do.

“Jolly good
speech, eh old boy?” the Brit said with a wry grin as the Russian brushed past
muttering to himself.  He raised the bottle of vodka in salute and laughed
again as he rounded a corner.

"
Marque
and Reprisal
.  Bloody brilliant!" hooted the English ambassador.

THEY STILL HAVE a
carrier battlegroup in the Med, the
Roosevelt
,” said France’s top
Admiral to his country’s U.N. ambassador.

“Mon ami,
they do, but not for
long
.  I have just secured the aid of the Spanish
Navy.  Their government has had a change of heart in terms of dealing with the
Americans.”

The French
Admiral frowned.  “Yes, it’s amazing what a little terrorism will do to a
sitting government.  We must see that it doesn’t happen in France,” the old
sailor said, raising an eyebrow and looking down his nose in that uniquely
Gallic manner.

The Ambassador
sniffed.  “That, dear Admiral is
your
concern.  I’ll get you your
allies.  For now, a flotilla of Spanish warships is heading for the Straits of
Gibraltar.  I trust you will act accordingly and unite our ships with theirs to
bottle up these troublesome brats from America?”

The Admiral
stood from the conference table and gathered his papers.  “This I will do.  I
have calls to make.”  He turned and headed out of the room.  Looking back over
his shoulder, he paused at the door.

“It would
do you well to not underestimate these Americans.  They are not mere
troublesome
brats
, as you put it, Messier Ambassador.  I would hesitate to go toe to
toe with the American Navy on a
good
day.  And yet I have a few Spanish
ships—“

“Flotilla.”

“As you
say.  A Spanish flotilla to assist us in stopping the most powerful Navy the
world has ever seen.”

The
Ambassador bristled at the slight to France’s honor.  “Don’t say such things—you
are with the Spaniards now!  The Iranian and Egyptian Ambassadors assure me
their attacks were crippling.  You shall put this already wounded group of
American ships on the bottom of the ocean with ease!  Before long, the Italians
will join us, I promise you.  After all it is only
one
carrier.”

The admiral
shook his head in disgust.  “You have no idea the mess you political types have
just gotten us into.”

“Just do
your job, Admiral.  Leave the rest to me.”

“
Oui
,
we’ll do our job.  Dying is always the easiest thing for warriors to do.”

DAWN IN THE Med brought
the
Roosevelt’s
Captain to the flight deck with the assembled crew of
the mighty ship—or at least as many as would fit as the super-carrier barreled
through the waters toward home. 

The Captain
stood on a makeshift platform just aft of the Bridge.  He stepped up to the
microphone and cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention.  “You all have
by now seen or at least heard of the President’s speech last night.”  He
paused, waiting for the cheering and clapping to die down.  Thinking idly to
himself, he marveled at how the massive ship had not yet righted itself and was
tearing through the waters of the Mediterranean at a slight angle.  In the
distance, all around the huge carrier were the remaining support vessels and
the vital defense ships.  Unseen, lurking through the waters far out ahead of
the Battlegroup, the American attack subs were prowling the waters, clearing a
path so to speak.

“I’ll make
this short and sweet.  The President issued Letters of Marque to every American
citizen.  Well, last time I checked, you all were Americans.”  More cheering. 
When it died down, he spoke again. 

“So, in the
spirit of the President’s speech, any ships we take in the process of getting
home, there’ll be prize money for everyone involved.”  More cheering.  “And we
have another surprise for anyone we bump into.  Go ahead, son,” the Captain
said, nodding to a shadow up on the flag mast high above the flight deck.

“Your XO
worked hard making this, so I hope you all will appreciate it,” the Admiral
said with an uncharacteristic grin into the microphone.

YO, HO HO and a bottle
of rum…” muttered the
Anzio’s
skipper.  His ship cut through the chop
like a scalpel as they ran smartly alongside the massive super-carrier about a
half-mile out.  Captain Mitchem was viewing the impromptu ceremony from his own
watch deck, using large field glasses.

Just
beneath the large American flag that flew proudly from the top the twisted and
burnt radar structure and flag mast, a huge red shape unfurled.  On the center
of the new red flag: a large white skull with two large crossed white sabers
beneath the skull. 

It looked
all the more menacing when Captain Mitchem panned his glasses down and observed
the damage on the sides of the carrier and the flight deck: great black swaths
of carbon scorching from fires long since put out.  The ship looked like hell,
but that made her all the more scary looking with new colors flying from her
mast.

“Johnny,
get started on a flag like that for us,” Captain Mitchem said to his XO, never
taking his eyes off the evil looking red flag.  “Never thought I’d see one of
those on an American ship.”

“I never
thought I’d see one of those flying on a ship,
period
,” muttered the XO
on his way out the hatch to get started on the
Anzio
’s new colors.

"I
don't understand, sir," said a lieutenant, holding the Captain's hourly
reports.  "I thought pirate flags were supposed to be black?"

The Captain
grinned, eyes still glued to the carrier.  "Son, the black flag was a
signal to the intended victim.  'Surrender and you will be spared'.  Basically,
the pirates were announcing their intent to rob the ship."

"And
the red flag, sir?"

"That
was for when the pirates were...well,
pissed
.  It meant no quarter was
asked or given.  It was the announcement that 'we're going to rob you, kill you
and sink your vessel'."  The Captain looked over his shoulder at the
lieutenant.  "Although in our case, I believe it's meant to convey the
message that payback's a bitch."

WHEN THEY FOUND him,
Henry Grimes was crawling through a trash pile behind a half burned house. 
They were surprised to see the body of a young girl laying next to him, covered
in filth and slightly bloated.   It was obvious from the stench as they
approached the wretched man that the little girl had been dead for a while.

“Hey, you!”
called out one of the group as they approached cautiously.  “Hey bitch, I’m
talkin’ to you—
damn
that stinks!” the black man said as he caught a
whiff of the dead girl.  One of the other scouts turned and threw up noisily.

“Suck it up
you pussy,” hissed the third man, a wide shouldered Latino covered in
prison-style tattoos.  He swung the butt of his shotgun and caught the vomiting
man in the middle of his back with just enough pressure to get his attention.

“Knock it…”
the man threw up again.  “Knock it off,
asshole
…Christ what a…” the man
gave in to more heaves.

“Boss’ll be
pissed when he finds out you wasted all that food, punk…” mumbled the Latino.

“Get over
here!” roared the tall black leader of the scouting party.  He was standing a
good six feet away from the dead girl and trying hard to ignore the pitiful
sight.  So far, Henry Grimes had yet to notice the scouts.  He continued
digging in the charred trash and muttering to himself.

“Sssssh—man
you gonna get us
killed
talkin’ that loud!” whispered the Latino as he
gingerly bypassed the dead girl and crossed himself.

Henry saw
the movement of the Latino near his daughter and suddenly spun, still crouching. 
“Get away from her!” he bellowed.  The filthy man charged from his crouching
position in a heartbeat and tackled the heavily muscled Latino.  The thug went
down with a cry of surprise as the others laughed at his plight.

“Man, get
that dirty ass bum off you—“ suggested the leader while holding his nose to
block out the stench of the rotting girl.

“Stay away
you perverts!  I’ll kill you all!” Henry roared.

“Get the
fuck
off
me!” pleaded the panicked Latino, punching and kicking for all
he was worth.  His powerful blows had no effect on the stark-raving mad man who
was clawing and biting at him now.

“Ow! 
Motherfucker
bit
me!”

The others
bellowed laughter and doubled over, howling in glee.  Henry was acting more
like a dog than anything else, growling and striking his enemy with all limbs
at once.  The fight was a flurry of arms, limbs, curses in Spanish and English,
and bits of dirty cloth and trash flying in all directions.

Finally the
Latino pulled his shotgun free and shoved the barrel up under Henry’s chin. 
That got his attention.  Somewhere deep in his tortured mind the man realized
his life was in imminent danger of being extinguished.  He froze, releasing his
iron grip on the Latino’s long greasy hair and pulling his other hand off the
man’s throat.

“Back the
fuck up, bitch, or I blow your goddamn brains all over your girlfriend!”

Henry’s
eyes narrowed and the fear vanished.  His warped mind realized through the fog
of near-starvation and exposure to the elements that his reason for living was
gone.  His daughter was dead. 

The anger
that consumed him on a daily basis welled up inside him again.  A cold hard
rage. 
Larsson.  That snot nosed punk who took over the apartment complex
after the terror attacks.  He kicked me out.  Bessie is dead because of
him
…
 

Henry’s
mind snapped into focus for the first time in two weeks.

As he scrambled
away from the angry man with the shotgun—whom he just noticed was there—Henry
tripped and fell over the corpse of his daughter, Bessie.  At the gruesome
sight, the poor man collapsed into a blubbering fit of nonsense.  The scouts
looked at each other.  Even the Latino, wiping his own blood from his neck,
felt pity for the shriveled up man before them, crying over the body of his
daughter.

“What do we
do now, man?  I didn’t sign up for this shit…”

Before
their leader could answer, Henry suddenly cried out, his voice full of pain and
anguish, “
Why!?
  Why couldn’t You take
me!?
  What the fuck did
she ever do to You??”  In a heartbeat, his pleading voice changed to rage, “
You
did this, Larsson!  You
sonofabitch
—you killed my baby!  My little
girl…” 

The scouts
looked at each other—something deep inside them was struck.  His daughter.

“I’ll
kill
you! 
All
of you!  You threw us out into this nightmare!”  Henry began
sobbing and talking to himself again, his sanity slipping away as quickly as it
appeared.

The leader
stepped forward gingerly and tried to console Henry, gently patting him on the
back.  It was a forced, awkward gesture.  He was shocked to feel the vertebrae
and bones underneath the filthy rags Henry wore.  It was plain he hadn’t been
getting enough food.  Indeed, he looked like a walking skeleton.  He tried his
best to avoid looking at the rotting remains of what he assumed was a sweet
little girl a few weeks ago.

Henry
looked up at the black man, tears leaving fresh clean streaks on his filthy face. 
His beard was matted with dried blood and dirt.  His eyes were sunken and
slightly yellow.  He was warm to the touch.  “Why?  I gave her all my food and
she still got sick…it isn’t fair…I loved her…” he whispered.

“I know you
did, man…” the scout leader didn’t know what else to say but Henry seemed to
warm to the simple human contact of a reassuring hand on the shoulder.

“That boy
did this…” Henry sniffed.  “Kicked us out…”

A thought
emerged through the drug induced haze of the black man’s mind.  “Kick you outta
where
, man?”

Henry shook
his head.  “The apartment building…over there…” he said, not even bothering to
look.   He raised a hand towards the dumpster.

The black
man cut his eyes to the Latino and his partner.  The direction Henry indicated
beyond the dumpster was just forest.  “Yo, he must mean that place them bitches
tried to take a while ago, you remember that shit?”

“Yeah, but
that’s over there,” said the man who had thrown up, pointing weakly in the
opposite direction from where Henry indicated.

“Cut the
brutha some slack.”  The black man turned back to Henry, who was trying to
smooth out the hair on his daughter’s grotesquely swollen face.  A clump fell
out in his hand and he began examining it carefully.

The black
man swallowed his own bile at the sight and regained his composure.  “Hey,
man…what’s your name, yo?”

Henry
waited a while, caressing the clump of matted hair in his hand that had been
such a pretty shade of blonde only a few weeks earlier.  “Henry….” His voice
said.  He didn’t remember thinking it…he had lost track of who he was a long
time ago.  There was only pain.

“Think you
could get us in that apartment place?  We could get you some food, a woman—“

“Or a man,
yo,” joked the Latino, elbowing his friend in the ribs.  The two chuckled but
were silenced by the black man’s angry glare.

Henry shook
his head, still playing with the rotten hair.  “No…”

“You can’t
get us in?”

“No…”  The
black man was about to reply but Henry spoke again. 

“No food. 
No woman….”

“Uh…I don’
understand—“

“I want
Larsson
.”
Henry said, looking up with pure hatred in his eyes.  The black man sat back on
his heels in surprise at the ferocity of the look on the man’s face, but he
nodded just the same.

“Man, we
get you the fucker that did this, I swear it,” the black man said, thumping his
own chest.

Henry
looked back down at his daughter.  “
Larsson
…” he said stroking the
bloated cheek of his baby girl.  As the other men helped him into their car, he
was finally able to let go of his daughter.  He was focused on a new task. 

Revenge. 

He never
saw the odd white hand-like shape painted on the sides and hood of the car as
they climbed in. 

They left
Bessie where she lay.

ERIK TOSSED THE last of
his pile of trash onto the pile and wiped his hands on his sweaty shirt.  He
had pulled trash detail and didn’t make any noise about it.  It was nice, he
figured, to get away for a half hour and have some peace and quiet.  Even if it
did come at the cost of a pretty nasty smell.

Following
his own procedures set in place after the Battle, Erik and the other members of
today’s trash squad had a guard detail to watch over them as they left the
Freehold.  Paying more attention to the task at hand, Erik soon forgot about
the guards.  When all the trash was disposed of, he turned and blinked in the
afternoon sunlight, expecting to see the guards watching all approaches to
their positions.  Instead he only saw the other members of the trash squad.  A
few looked around nervously, acutely aware of being outside the Freehold walls,
alone and unarmed.

Erik
subconsciously wiped the ever present sweat from his brow with the back of his
hand and scanned the little clearing they were in.  No guards.  “Where the hell
did they go?” he asked aloud.

“Right
here, sir,” came the reply.  Erik spun just in time to see three of the four
guards quietly emerge from the nearby scrub brush as if born in the forest. 
They had been totally invisible, despite not wearing camouflage gear.

One of the
trash squad cursed with a start.  The others shared a nervous chuckle and began
the trek back to the Freehold and safety.

“Well…it
looks like Ted’s teaching you guys some tricks.”

“And
girls,” said a female voice as the fourth guard emerged.  It was Janine, the
Building Rep from Building 3.  Gone was the sorority girl image of a few weeks
ago.  She had dirt smeared on her face and her thick blonde hair was pulled
back tight against her skull, keeping it from flopping about as she moved.  She
carried no weapon save a small hunting knife.

“I’m the
mouth,” she said with a sly look on her pretty face, holding up the radio each
patrol was to carry, answering Erik’s silent question about her purpose on the
squad.  One of the other guards grinned at the obvious sexual overtones in
Janine’s voice. 

Erik looked
to the three men who were all armed with either bows, arrows or captured
handguns from the Battle.  One was a member of Hoss’s biker gang.  The beer-gut
toting biker grinned, showing yellow stained teeth through his thick, coarse
beard.

“Haven’t
had this much fun since prom night.  This guard shit is
fun
, man—it’s
like playing Rambo,” the big man chuckled.

Erik
grimaced but the others took it for a grin.  “Come on, let’s get back inside.”

As they
neared the main gate, Erik heard the tell tale rumble of Hoss’s Harley.  He let
the others go on in and waited for his cavalry leader to pull up and roll to a
stop in the gravel next to the entrance of the Freehold.

“Howdy,
Duke,” Hoss said with a grin as he shut down the motorcycle.

“What’s up,
man?  You find anything good today?” Erik said, shaking the big man’s hand by
their customary method, gripping the forearms instead of hands.

“Did we
ever,” Hoss said, adjusting himself in the seat.  Erik couldn’t imagine how hot
Hoss had to be, wearing leather chaps and vest on a day like this.  Even for
this time of the year, it was
hot
.  “Just outside town, up on I-75,
well, just east of 75, I guess,” Hoss said, scratching his beard.  “Anyway,
found a big-ass semi run off the road.  Looked like an ambush; driver didn’t
make it—he’s still there…sort of.  Somethin’ been chewing on his ass.  Found
all sorts of weird graffiti on the rig.  Looked like big hand prints in white
paint.  Like that car we saw that day we went up to the Sports Giant.  Creepy
shit, man. 

“Anyway,
the trucker’s been there for a while.  The truck was busted open and torn
through.”

Erik’s face
fell; he was hoping the biker had discovered some food.  They were running
dangerously low at the Freehold.  “We’re going to have to keep a serious watch
for these Hand People.  Haven’t seen ‘em in a few days.”  Erik cleared his
thoughts of the mystery.  “Was
anything
left?”

“Oh yeah. 
Flour
,
and lots of it.  It was some kind of supply truck for a grocery store or
something.  Here’s the manifest,” he said, handing over a crumpled and
sweat-damp piece of carbon paper.

Erik
scanned the list of contents.  “Damn…he had all kinds of dry goods.  Whoever
hit him took it all, huh?”

“Well,
‘cept the flour and all that baking type shit.  I figure it ain’t steak, but
it’s food, right?  I mean, someone can make
something
with it, right?”

“Oh sure,
we can make lots with flour…some of these other things are great too—like these
spices.  It’ll go a long way towards giving us a choice in taste of the food we
have left.”  Erik shrugged.  “Pretty damn lucky, I’d say.  Anything else?”