“You are the one who wasn’t listening the other day,” Max said. “We’ve built a new Behemoth Manufacturing Plant in Detroit. We will lose the war if the Germans reach it.”
With a sudden move, Anna picked up the wine glass and drained the alcohol. “I don’t know why you’ve come to say any of this to me. You should speak to David, to the President.”
“How can I do that?” Max asked. “He’s having a nervous breakdown. We who love our country need to help him during this dark hour. We need to help him do the right thing.”
Anna couldn’t believe he’d just said that. It was true that the pressures against David had unhinged— No! That was a bad choice of words. The pressures had debilitated David; it hadn’t unhinged him. He had trouble making decisions lately other than holding everything as it had been. Ever since the GD had unleashed its offensive and used those Kaiser hunter-killers…
“What are you really suggesting?” she asked. “You obviously came here to see me. Now say what you came to say.”
Max watched her more closely than ever. “First I need to know whether you agree with me or not about the President.”
Anna debated pretending to agree in order to find out Max’s full scheme. He must realize she would never agree to help in whatever he planned. He—
A chill set in. Why has he sought me out and told me these things if he knows I’ll never agree with him?
Troubled, Anna thought furiously. If the director knew she would tell David about this… She stared at the man. He watched her, no doubt gauging her reactions.
He’s telling me these things so I’ll tell David.
Then it hit her, the real reason for all this. If David learned that Max plotted behind his back, it would add to his worries. She’d heard David say before that Max helped him tremendously with these heavy responsibilities. Hearing about this would put more pressure on David. The Director of Homeland Security wanted her to tell the President. If true—and it had to be true—nothing else made sense. It was a diabolical piece of skullduggery. Surely, it meant that Max felt strong enough to challenge the President directly.
Or is this to force David into doing things Max’s way?
“David beat the Chinese in Alaska,” Anna said.
“He’s beaten the Chinese elsewhere too, once in California and again this winter in Colorado. He has saved our country from three military catastrophes. No one could have done better. Yet you’ve heard the generals tell us that a man only has a limited time for war. Once that time is gone…”
“Are you suggesting the people replace David at the helm?” she asked.
Max watched her steadily as he said, “The people would never do such a thing. He has become the father of our country, protecting us where no one else reasonably could. They’re not going to vote against him until it’s too late.”
The chill in her caused her shoulders to twitch. “It’s time you spoke plainly,” she said.
“No,” Max said. “I’ve said quite enough. Thank you, Ms. Chen.”
She almost blurted out that she’d tell David about this, but could she afford to tell the President? Might it drive him over the edge?
Max stood and gave her a curt nod. He turned away and stepped down from the alcove. His bodyguards hurried to their feet.
Anna watched them go, and she thought to herself: This is bad. I don’t know what to do.
Sergeant Jake Higgins of the Eleventh Colorado Detention Militia Battalion (CDMB) was very drunk. He staggered down a dark city street in Topeka, Kansas, heading toward trouble.
None of the lamps worked and low clouds hid the stars. Because of that, he crashed against a garbage can, knocking it to the ground with a lot of noise and slurred curses. He fell, and his hands squished against something wet and smelly. Then he felt wetness soak through his knees.
With a lurch he rose, swaying and blinking, muttering more profanities. His two best friends snored in a bar whose name he couldn’t remember. They were fellow militiamen of the Eleventh, and the three of them had been to Hell and back this winter. Jake had left his friends in the bar because the bartender had shut him down, and this soldier still needed more to slake his thirst.
Jake was a stocky young man with good shoulders, barely out of his teens and already a hard-bitten fighting man. He had survived Amarillo, Texas last summer when the Chinese had surrounded several U.S. divisions. It had been grim butchery, but Jake and a number of his compatriots had fought their way free of the encirclement and headed northwest. Jake had been the only one to reach Colorado. He’d arrived in time to go to Denver. There, he had survived the historic siege of Denver, the equal to the siege of Stalingrad in World War II. During the fighting, he had worked up the ranks from private and fought his way free with the rest of the Eleventh to the Rockies.
“Gotta be an open bar around here somewhere,” Jake muttered. His eyesight had gone sideways and he had to squint what seemed like down a tunnel to tell where he went.
There. He spied a blinking light. It was down a long alleyway with old trash barrels lining the route as if they were sentries. The light had red and blue colors, a neon sign. Surely, that must be a bar or a place to drink, at least.
In a lurching step, he set off for the neon sign.
Jake hadn’t always been a good soldier boy who obeyed every order. Originally, he had found himself in a detention center, in a cell, learning that it didn’t pay to protest the President and his dictatorial policies. Jake had been kicked out of college because of the protests. He’d made them with others because they hadn’t cared for the illegality of some of President Sims’ decrees. Homeland Security people in the detention center had known how to take care of such talk and such ill-advised thoughts. They had special cells for that.
Jake spat in the darkness. In truth, he hadn’t learned his lessons very well. They’d let him go to join a Militia battalion because his old man, Colonel Stan Higgins, had been a hero in the Southern California fighting. His father had also been a hero in 2032 in Alaska. His father presently commanded the famous Behemoth Regiment. His father was a war hero and Jake was proud of his old man. He wanted to be like his dad and like his grandfather, who had died in the Alaskan War, killing Chinese invaders.
The Higginses knew how to soldier. That was clear to anyone with eyes to see. Jake was young, and he had learned about old-style America where a man spoke his mind. His father had taught him history, and his father had taught him that America was a unique and special country, the apple of God’s eye. Jake spoke his mind, and Homeland Security people didn’t like that, no thank you.
Yet he was a militiaman of the Eleventh CDMB, a hard-fighting man in the Homeland Security apparatus. The higher-ups in the organization liked him, including the steroid monster, the lieutenant. Go figure. In fact, the lieutenant was one of the two men snoring in the last bar.
Jake laughed, although it had a sour note to it. He loved America, but he didn’t like holding back about what he thought. He’d bled for his country. He’d put his life on the line more times than he could remember. Even more, he’d killed for America. The killing was why he was out here staggering around looking for more to drink.
It was funny. No one had told him about this. Killing a man…it took something out of you. Sometimes his dreams—
Jake shook his head, and he cursed. He didn’t want to think about his dreams. He wanted to forget them. He wanted to forget about exploding bodies and pieces of bloody human sticking to his cheek. He wanted to forget about jabbing a knife into Chinese soldiers, or gunning them down as they ran away. Most of all, he wanted to forget about how good it felt when they ran and how good it felt to kill another human being so he could live another day.