“What exactly did the President say, sirs?” The grey-haired veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, and latterly the ruthless suppressor of anarchy in his home state asked. “Other, that is, than order us to featherbed traitors and criminals?”
At the height of the fighting the President had given Curtis LeMay a free hand to crush the insurgency. LeMay had called in air strikes, formed ad hoc task forces of Marines, Mechanized Cavalry, National Guardsmen, cops and anybody loyal to the President who could hold a gun, swiftly expanded the defensive perimeter out from around the White House, secured Capitol Hill and launched a series of savage counter-attacks which had relieved the siege of the Pentagon and a broken the back of the insurgency in significantly less than thirty-six hours.
Dempsey suspected that after the first few hours the rebels, drunk with success — and intoxicated in the normal way — had become hopelessly over-extended, lost what little central co-ordination they might have had at the outset, and that thereafter the coup was doomed as soon as somebody like Curtis LeMay belatedly got a grip. Either Shoup or Johnson, had they been at the White House, or in communication with the President at the critical moment would probably have done just as good a job. Disciplined troops confronted with a rabble, no matter how well-armed, led or motivated, had only to stabilise their position and await the appropriate opportunity to move forward in force to defeat their enemy. David Shoup had waded ashore on a beach heaped with dead Marines; Johnson’s tanks had held the perimeter at Pusan when the whole Red Chinese Army was trying to break in. Neither man needed an interloper like Dempsey to tell them their business but he strongly suspected they badly wanted him to say what they, as men close to the heart of power could not.
When neither man answered Dempsey’s question, he was happy to outline the way he saw the lay of the land.
“It is the President’s job to have a care for the constitutional rights of all Americans,” he observed grimly. “Notwithstanding, it is my understanding that a state of martial law presently pertains in the District of Columbia and its environs out to a distance of some twenty-five miles. The President has delegated his powers as commander-in-chief within that zone to the Military Governor of the same.” He nodded towards the Commandant of the Marine Corps. “With respect, sir,” he sighed, “you wouldn’t have invited me to attend this place at this hour unless you hadn’t already intended to use your discretionary powers as the Military Governor of the District of Columbia to the full extent.”
Colin Dempsey straightened, not an entirely pain free exercise as his old wounds had been set off by sitting twelve hours in a bucket seat in a C-130 Hercules transport flying East from California.
“What are your orders, sir?”
Chapter 20
Having been refused permission to speak to Sam Brenckmann at Van Nuys Police Station, when Sabrina Henschal had returned the next morning with the meanest lawyer she could find — her old friend Vincent Meredith was by far and away the meanest attorney she could afford but he was nowhere near as mean as she would ideally have liked — the LAPD had ‘lost’ both Sam and his ‘accomplice’, Doug Weston in ‘the system’. This in itself was not entirely implausible; the whole ‘system’ had pretty much broken down and the National Guard was still running parts of the ‘show’.
It was a little bit like the Keystone Cops meets Mickey Mouse except not in any way funny because the LAPD was running rings around the California National Guard and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had adopted a Greta Garbo ‘I want to be alone’ attitude to the whole thing!
Unfortunately, screeching this in Captain Reggie O’Connell’s face did not materially help Sabrina Henschal’s or Sam Brenckmann’s cause because despite Vincent Meredith’s presence two large LAPD detectives grabbed Sabrina by the arms, carried her outside and deposited her on the pavement.
‘Which part of please leave the talking to me did you not hear, Sabrina?’ the man had inquired, grabbing her before she could run back into Van Nuys Police Station and get herself arrested for a breach of the peace.
‘I can’t believe I once had sex with you!’
The man had viewed her with rueful fondness. Sabrina was one of those women who instantly attracted or repelled men. She was also one of those women who could be very hard work; albeit worth it but Vincent Meredith had no intention of attempting to renew their long dead ‘thing’.
‘It was fun while it lasted,’ he observed dryly.
The trip to Van Nuys had been last Friday and since then Vincent had gone about his business unencumbered by Sabrina and actually located Sam Brenckmann. He had been surprised how hard it had been and how many people he had had to talk to; LA justice was broken, basically.
Moreover, from what he had seen and heard nobody at City Hall was bothered one way or the other which was just wrong.
What made it worse was that once the initial panicky paralysis which had followed the news of the attempted coup in Washington DC had peaked, and begun to wane, the California State National Guard had meekly rowed in behind the existing police regime — like a herd of particularly dumb sheep — and effectively, got into bed with the cops.
Actually, in Sabrina Henschal’s humble opinion the National Guard had dropped its pants, turned around, bent over and let the LAPD fuck it into a virtual coma! While it was unclear whether the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had been complicit, or an accessory before or after the fact of this ‘rape’; or if it was simply a case of the left hand of the judiciary not knowing what the other was doing; the DA’s people had certainly not been on the ball in the last few days.
Sabrina had known practically nothing about the politics of the DA’s office, the politicking of the senior echelon of LAPD commanders or their incestuous relationship with the bigwigs in City Hall, or for that matter how completely gutless the part-time soldiers of the California National Guard could be in the absence of strong leadership from the top.
She had been happy living in her own little existential bubble up in Laurel Canyon, and not really cared what was going on down in the smoggy urban sprawl of the city. The October War had shaken her somewhat; once Sam had returned from the frozen north she had got over it. In Judy she had found a true sister; she did not even begrudge her Sam but right now she was on the war path big time!
“You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said to you the last five minutes,” Judy complained gently as Vincent Meredith’s seven year old Lincoln queued in the cool winter sunshine outside the gates of the California Institute for Men. Sabrina and the younger woman had sunk deep into the squashy seats in the back of the car, alternatively cooing and pulling faces at the sleeping bundle of new life Judy was currently rocking ever so gently in her arms.
“Sorry,” Sabrina sighed. “I just need everybody to know I’m keeping a list of arseholes to get even with when this is over. The list keeps getting longer!”
“I don’t care about getting even,” Judy retorted in a whisper, looking down as her baby daughter’s eyes flickered open for a moment and she almost awakened. “I just want Sam back.”
“Mrs Brenckmann’s got the right idea, Sabrina,” the middle aged attorney observed distractedly from behind the wheel. He was a lean, tanned man of no more than average height with a disdainful eye that dwelt long and distrustfully on any member of the LAPD who crossed his path. Sabrina had only been able to afford his services because he was ‘a friend’ and he was not bothered about the normal ‘advances’ every other lawyer in LA would have demanded before they even took her call. Vincent also had a history with the LAPD; the moment Sabrina had mentioned Van Nuys and Reggie O’Donnell he had been ‘in’. He reminded Sabrina why they had driven out to San Bernardino. “Getting Judy’s husband freed from custody is the first priority.”