William made his way back to his wife and hugged and kissed her. Lindsay was crying and could not deliver the angry scolding she had rehearsed. William made up some excuse about getting lost and not being able to get directions from anyone. The excuse was believable since most citizens wouldn’t look at a homeless person if they were on fire.
William took his medication in secret for the next few days and managed to recover. He was determined to keep the illness from Lindsay, he didn’t want her to worry. One morning he asked his neighbor to watch over his house so he and his family could go for a stroll and get some fresh air. While his kids ventured off within eyesight to run and play, he held his wife’s hand and looked at the skyline of New York. He tried not to think back to the days of his old life of comfort and excess. Those memories served him no good; it was from another life that needed to be forgotten. He needed to look to the future, however bleak and depressing. He had to provide for his children.
William knew his job skills were utterly worthless, at least it would be for the foreseeable future. Not many people had need for an investment banker. William was willing to work any job that gave him minimum wage. The problem was his lack of residence. Charity groups all over the country petitioned to have the Obama-Camps incorporated into actual towns with street addresses. This was met with harsh criticism from all sides. We need to get rid of the Obama-Camps, not make them permanent. The charity groups countered by offering the Obama-Camp residents the use of their business address. The public saw this as fraud, and the idea didn’t last very long. Organizations that did offer jobs to the Obama-Camp residents treated them like illegal aliens and paid them next to nothing.
William knew that if he was going to give his family any kind of future, he had only one option – joining the military. The military was glad to take any able-bodied man or woman to join the fight. All they needed was some form of identification to start processing the new recruits. Expired driver’s licenses would do just fine. The thought of joining the fight in the Iranian Theater was a nightmare to William. However, the bigger nightmare was that his family would most likely be dead in a few years. It wouldn’t take long for malnutrition or a battle with pneumonia to pick them off one by one. He would fight his way to the gates of hell and back if it meant his family was safe and provided for.
The hardest part would be leaving his family behind while he was in basic training. He would have to count on Lindsay to keep the children safe while he was away. Once he made it through boot camp, William could move his family onto a military base, at least that’s what he hoped. They would have a real roof over their heads, electricity, running water, and warm beds. They would also have free health care. Everything was going to be fine. William would do anything for his wife and children.
William was due to leave for basic the next day. He spent the day playing with his children, hugging and kissing them as much as he could. He told them that he was going away for a while so they could move into a house and even go to school. His children began to cry, and William tried to think of anything to make them smile. He promised them they could get a dog. They smiled and wiped the tears from their eyes. William beamed and asked them what kind of dog they wanted. What are you going to name it? Whose bed will it sleep in? The children got very excited, and William knew he had done his job as a loving father.
The next morning William spoke with the neighbors on either side, and they assured him that they would keep a watchful eye over his family. It takes a village, they told him. William set off for the long walk to the recruitment center. His recruiter had agreed to take him on the subway to the processing center.
William traveled many hours to the military base in the south. He spent the better part of a week in orientation, physicals, testing, and all sorts of other bureaucratic red tape. When he got his first paycheck he immediately went to the Western Union station to send money back to his wife. A television was playing above the counter. William had never been so frightened in his life.
The Unified National Guard was evicting the residents of the Central Park Obama-Camp.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Once the Americans joined with the European Army to form the Allied Forces, The Great Empire of Iran launched an all-out attack on American soil. The invasion had no similarity to Normandy or any other invasion for that matter. Troops in uniform did not storm a beach to be shot at by other troops in uniform. No tanks or heavy equipment traveled behind enemy lines to overthrow an enemy stronghold.
The invasion of America was done in secret. It was quiet. No alarms sounded. No emergency broadcast alerts to the public warning that the enemy was among them. The Empire of Iran sent an entire regiment of Muslim warriors to sneak into the United States to do one thing and one thing only — instill fear, panic, and paranoia in citizens of every walk of life. Their mission was clear and they did not discriminate. No one was off limits. They all had targets on their back.
The Silent Warriors did not act alone. American citizens helped them kill their own countrymen. Disgruntled and critical of their own government, large numbers of the American population aided the terrorists in their mission. Fed up with a collapsed economy, a failing infrastructure, and with their ineffective elected leaders, the newly branded warriors joined the fight, ready to focus their rage.
Recruitment was not difficult. The Silent Warriors simply joined in with protests and stoked the fire, causing many a peaceful demonstration to end in violence. They would pick out the most passionate and angry of the group. The waves of homeless people were the easiest targets. Cold, hungry, dirty and forgotten, the homeless needed very little motivation to join the fight.
Every law enforcement agency in the nation, from police departments, big and small, to the halls of the Department of Justice was helpless in stopping the attacks. Arriving via Iranian submarines or by simply walking across the Mexican border, the warriors breached the U.S. with only the clothes on their backs. They were given no specific instructions, no target to destroy, they were simply told to be creative and improvise. The Silent Warriors proved to be more than just experts in stealth; they held true to the name when they were captured. Puzzled captors could not make heads or tails of what little they did manage to hear. “You’ll never see us coming; you are wasting your time!” “No one is giving me orders; I give the orders only to myself!” “How many of us are here? We are everywhere! We are your own people!” “Go home and look in the mirror — you might be one! Let me out of here and join us!”
The attacks started out small, mainly sneak attacks that did not result in a lot of bloodshed. Confidence and bravery grew from these small attacks, and the terrorists graduated to large scale assaults that killed thousands. The first attack to gain recognition was The Thanksgiving Day Massacre. Terrorists, armed with sniper rifles, launched a coordinated and simultaneous attack on the cities of Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. At precisely the same time on Thanksgiving Day, the sniper teams began to kill as many people as they possibly could. The final death toll reached one hundred seventy-nine people, and as a stroke of luck, one of the victims was a Congressman’s adult son on vacation in Las Vegas. The attack had the desired effect; the American people were terrified to leave their homes. Fear and death were now joined hand in hand with the holiday’s more spirited associations of turkey and togetherness.
The Thanksgiving Day Massacre caused much more damage than simply fear and panic. Its greatest victory was paranoia. No one knew the total number of enemies walking the streets. Everyone was a possible terrorist. Your neighbor, the mailman, the waiter bringing your food, the guy in the car next to you might be the enemy. Paranoia clogged police switchboards — That guy looked like he was up to no good; go check him out! My neighbor acted really nervous when I asked him why he never parked his car in the garage; something must be going on in there! This guy down the street gets packages at all hours of the night; he’s planning something!