In Canada, a barracks outside of Halifax was mortared with heavy loss of life; the mortars used where prefabricated from steel piping and had been fired remotely.
Outside a hotel in San Francisco, the crew of a federalised airliner was machine gunned by the pillion passenger of a motorbike, as they awaited their transport to the airport where they were scheduled to fly troops to Australia.
All across the United States and Canada that morning orchestrated acts of sabotage and terrorism were carried out, targeting the war effort and the workers who sustained it, be they military or civilian.
Three hundred and eighty miles off the eastern seaboard, Major Glenn Morton checked the gauges before him and eased back a fraction on the throttle, easing away from the big KC-135 tanker. “Trident One is full tummy… thanks for the drink Texaco!”
The big ALASAT hung below the belly of the F-15C as he moved back on station, awaiting the call to launch on another surveillance satellite.
The stockpile of the weapons had risen to ten in the past couple of days and the plan was to knock down all the satellites that China and Russia had in orbit. That meant they needed rather more than they had available at present, plus of course the enemy could always launch more, but Glenn reckoned they had to start somewhere and here was as good a place as any to begin.
“Trident One this is Yoda… steer zero eight four degrees and buster, you are weapons hot.” Glenn went to full afterburner to build up airspeed whilst punching in the commands for the big missiles tracking, acquisition and launch program. They hadn’t given him another Angels to climb to in preparation for the launch so he pulled back into the correct 55’ climb required by the launch profile.
He was carrying one of the new weapons today and the powers that be were confident that an expensive double shot at the target was unnecessary. The missiles had been tested a dozen times and were being kept under the tightest possible guard until uploaded onto the airframes.
At 40,000 feet Major Glenn Morton was anticipating the ALASATs growl in his ear on its eventual acquisition of its target, when there was a bright flash accompanied by momentary, yet intense pain.
Trident One disappeared from the radar screens at the same time as the ground/air data link ceased. The missile had not malfunctioned; it had not even acquired the RORSAT it was intended to destroy.
Under the circumstances, all nine remaining F-15Cs of the ASAT squadron were grounded pending an enquiry. When a USAF officer, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, on the air force guard detail responsible for guarding the airframes failed to appear for his next rostered duty, all the aircraft were inspected minutely. It took a full day to find that all of the F-15Cs had custom made explosive devices with altimeter triggers, secreted next to wing tanks.
In Washington DC, the search for survivors had not lasted as long as it would have done under peacetime conditions. With so many collapsed buildings a level had had to be found, a point where someone had to say, enough, and move on to the next building. The rescue workers were working under the very real danger of death and lasting harm from the existing conditions, despite the protective clothing that provided some barrier against radiation. Bomb damaged buildings have a nasty habit of falling on people who are disturbing the delicate balance of rubble that may be supporting damaged walls, in their search for trapped survivors. In view of the danger, only volunteers were working in the rescue teams, and to their everlasting credit, every able body in the police and fire departments had stepped forward when the situation was explained. The National Guard had more volunteers than it had protective clothing for them to wear. Construction workers, doctors, nurses and paramedics also numbered amongst the volunteers.
Quite incredibly, some law firms had sent ambulance chasers to the city and refugee camps to persuade victims and relatives that the overloaded emergency services, doctors and nurses, had not done enough to find victims in the rubble, not done enough to save limbs or alleviate suffering. Pending lawsuits were estimated at over $200 billion in damages against the police and fire departments, hospitals, the National Guard and civilian volunteers. The lawyers and para-legals descended upon the grieving and those in pain, thrusting pens into shocked hands and legal papers before stunned eyes.
At one such tented refugee city, two smartly dressed representatives of the legal firm of Zxul, Stroppel and Hext, approached a middle-aged man who sat on a canvas camp chair. The camp was situated in fields ten miles outside the city limits, and despite the short length of time it had been in existence; over twenty thousand pairs of feet had trampled away the grass into the wet earth below, creating muddy tracks between the green tents.
The young man and young woman wore designer business suits and Italian footwear, with mud now marring their hand tooled finish. The leather document case’s they carried bore genuine designer labels and everything they wore was genuine, with the exception of their expressions of sympathetic concern.
The target of their interest had hair matted with brick and cements dust and grasped a newspaper in his right hand. His clothes were filthy and torn, his footwear which was a size too large, had been issued to him by a charity here at the camp, his own shoes were buried beneath the rubble of a hotel. On his lap sat a battered carry-on bag and the expression he wore was obvious to the most insensitive person as one of abject misery and loss. It was this very expression that had drawn the two toward him, along with his apparent age; after all, if he had lost wife, children and grandchildren, then he was a potential multi-million dollar claimant.
He listened to their spiel and answered their questions in a monotone, and in their turn the lawyers hid well their disappointment that he had no grandchildren, only his wife, a son and a daughter buried beneath the collapsed hotel where they had been staying.
“Who you gonna sue then?” asked Rudi Pelham.
“Well, I understand the emergency services and National Guard had only thirty men and women working on the site of your hotel, and they gave up after twelve hours’, hardly enough time for a competent search!” the smartly dressed young woman stated.
“Criminal, just criminal.” her partner tutted in support, shaking his head as he did so.
“What about the guys who let the bomb off… what about the guys who started all of this… it was communists started it… right?”
The young woman kept the exasperation out of her voice and expression as she explained.
“The police, the fire department… all the emergency services have a duty of care… it doesn’t matter who caused this… we think we can prove that your family may have suffered terribly if they were still alive, as they probably were, when the rescuers abandoned them.”
Rudi Pelham looked at them a moment, before withdrawing from his bag a small photograph album and handing it over.
“In there are some of the best, most loyal friends I ever had.” The pair feigned interest as they flicked over the pages, not really seeing the once youthful face of the man before them, the screaming eagle patch he wore with pride on his jungle fatigues, or the young men with him.