Donaldson scratched his shaved head vigorously. Fear and excitement warred across his face. “I’m not fucking Rambo. How am I supposed to help?”
Major Gorgas knew he had him hooked. “No, you’re not, but that’s ok. We have people that are the real-life equivalent. What we don’t have are combat-tested young leaders with broad popular appeal. Come on, the stories about you are told with awe by just as many young federal soldiers as our own people. We need a new public face and—”
“Public relations crap? More fantasy hero creation? No thank you, sir.”
Gorgas waved over two of his silent junior leaders. “You misunderstand me. I’m putting you back in an operational role. We’re setting up a special command cell. One focused solely on attacks against federal leadership. You have plenty of experience with impossible missions, so you’re the natural choice to run the team… Captain Donaldson. Put in perspective, you’re now the third highest-ranking soldier in the Guard.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Another promotion? If the job is so important, why don’t you handle it yourself?”
The leader of the entire Floridian resistance mustered all of his command presence and got right in Donaldson’s face.
“Because this war is a losing game of attrition. I’m going to be busy trying to forge an alliance with those snakes in California and trying to keep us from being lumped in with those religious fanatics blowing things up all over the place. We have a lot of work to do, so enough with the whining and second-guessing. This next month will make or break the entire war! Are you with us or—”
Kadush
Gorgas’s body saved Donaldson by absorbing most of the small blast and micro-shrapnel from the missile just one room over. Donaldson, knocked out immediately, failed to appreciate his unintended sacrifice. The ultra-low yield “focused lethality munitions,” popular with the USAF for killing insurgents in crowded areas, are only as useful as their intelligence. With these mini-bombs, one room off makes all the difference.
Since the Predator drone circling 2,000 feet above couldn’t see survivors dragging Donaldson through interior doorways and to relative safety, the operator over at Orlando International Airport chalked the mission up as a complete success. They’d spent 36 hours continuously tracking these high-value targets since they first popped up on the grid. The temptation to call it a day was overwhelming.
Half an hour later, occupation troops shifted through the rubble and cheered when they found Gorgas’s body. Despite all the blood that had been shed since the spring, they still handled the charred remains of the famed insurgent leader and his men with dignity. Enemy or not, their former brothers-in-arms were legendary warriors deserving of a little respect. It was easy to be kind when the war had clearly ended.
“Sir, we’ve got a survivor!”
A military intelligence officer dropped the hand of the corpse he was fingerprinting. He dashed over to a middle-aged fellow being hauled out on a stretcher. The man couldn’t be that bad off, since he bolted up and tried to run. Two federal soldiers tackled him before he got far. The MI officer rolled him over and smiled.
“Jackpot! Boys, this is, or was, the insurgent’s second in command. I’m sure the CIA will have some fun with him. Medic! Patch him up. Can’t send him to Guantanamo Bay like-”
A shower of blood and bone shut him up as the guerrilla’s head exploded. Some rifle’s boom followed a split second later.
Four hundreds away, Donaldson lowered his sniper rifle. A cluster of insurgents silently stared at their new leader for direction. After the bombing, every combat cell in town had been activated by this strange new youngster. Famous or not, the skinny kid lacked Gorgas’s reassuring command presence.
“Well don’t just stand there. Let’s get Gorgas’s body back.”
No one budged. “Uh, sir, this isn’t our normal style. We try to avoid standup fights whenever possible. Let’s set an IED along their exfiltration route instead. There must be twenty Feds out there. What are we supposed to do about them?”
Donaldson slapped the AT-4 rocket launcher in the skeptical fighter’s hands. “Kill ‘em all!”
Without another word, he leveled his rifle and drew a bead on a running officer armed with a fingerprint pad. His gun boomed in time with fifty other insurgent rifles and machine guns.
Donaldson glanced around long enough to make sure everyone was fighting. He was no Napoleon, but he knew the basics. Rank might have made him the commander, but only one thing could make him a leader. He dropped the bolt-action rifle, snatched up an M4 battle rifle and sprang to his feet.
“Follow me!”
The first third-term election of a president in more than seventy years wasn’t particularly exciting to most people. With the sitting president polling better than 75 % the day before the vote, the manic-depressive news cycle turned to more thrilling action out West. Results were officially called within two hours of the polls closing and given only the briefest media coverage.
What with movie stars debuting rival blockbuster films, one action thriller painted the Washington regime as evil and another horror flick branded the Californian government as anarchists, who had time for the banality of real politics? When the president interrupted broadcasting to give his victory speech, most people rolled their eyes and reached for their remotes. West or East Coast viewers, the raw passion in his usually scholarly voice halted most hands though.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, regardless of what flag you live under, I am not proud of my election today. This referendum has forced a responsibility on our nation that I prayed we could avoid.”
The novelty of his speech spread like wildfire. Within minutes, tens of millions of Americans, in both countries, were hanging off his every word.
“When rivers of tears and blood meet, they tend to flood the lowlands of common sense. The sad historical truth is that there are only two ways to end a war, especially a civil war. Right at the start, before too much blood has been spilt and passion aroused, is the best chance to stop the slaughter. In this task, America, I have failed you.
“The only other way out is through the far side of destruction. When one faction or the other is absolutely crushed. When everything worth fighting for has been destroyed.
“This is the reality we face, my fellow Americans. While Warlord Salazar likes to blather on about compromise, she has violently escalated this conflict at every turn. Her military junta is only interested in total victory. The recent, unprovoked atrocities in the Pacific and in southern Florida only demonstrate her quenchless bloodlust. Well, if she insists on going down this path, then let me remind the traitors that America has much experience with total war. Ask the Japanese, try to find a Nazi, or question the surviving Al-Qaeda members about what happens when you awaken a sleeping giant!”
Faint gunshots outside interrupted his speech, but only briefly. A platoon of US Marines and armored vehicles had long since reinforced the White House perimeter. For good reason: these random sniper antics were a weekly routine. While the pack of reporters in the conference room murmured uneasily and several Secret Service agents whispered into their radios, the president just went on.
“The time for negotiation and appeasement has passed. I have talked until I’m blue in the face. With the authority granted to me by Congress and affirmed today through popular vote, I will restore the unity of this great nation by any means necessary. Effective immediately, I have ordered the United States military to engage in unrestricted land, air and sea operations against the domestic terrorists calling themselves the United Republics of America. Every effort will be made to spare civilian areas and public infrastructure, but all mutinous armed forces will be destroyed.”