Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) (75 page)

In the morning, he'd receive word Shin Ho had been removed from office—most likely permanently. The Supreme Leader was not pleased with the way things in America had devolved.
 
The Americans' successful campaign to expel the Russians had freed up most of their southern home guard units.
 
They'd focus on what was left of the Chinese force in California now.
 

We failed to link up with that resupply mission on the coast and the second wave is in jeopardy of being destroyed upon arrival. The American surface fleet is encroaching dangerously on the secret locations of our submarines.
 
He clasped his hands behind his back.
 
He'd gone over everything in his mind a hundred times and the result was still the same.
 
The situation had become very dangerous.

America was positioning her forces for a counterattack. Beijing sent a steady stream of diplomatic wishes of goodwill and offers of support—anything to keep Washington occupied until they could get within striking range of the American mainland.
 
Their last chance was to get Chinese missile subs off the coast of California and threaten retaliation if any action was taken against Beijing.

Po Sin lit another cigarette and smiled, staring out the window at the cityscape. "You see old friend?" he said, speaking the words he wished he could say to Shin Ho's face.
 
"You stole my thunder—you took everything from me.
 
You claimed credit for the idea, you got yourself a promotion by presenting it to the Supreme Leader, and you pushed me aside."
 
He exhaled smoke and frowned.
 

"You kept me in the background, using my genius—my plan—and my men. This is what you deserve."
 
He inhaled slowly, letting the luxurious blue-gray smoke fill his lungs with warmth.
 

In the morning Po Sin would be proclaimed the new Minister of the Interior and take his rightful place in the upper echelon of Chinese politics. He already had an idea of what he wanted to do to remodel Shin Ho's office. The man had no taste—but he did have an excellent side chamber which could be used to entertain Po Sin's girls.

He fairly salivated over the party he would throw to honor himself. He'd have to find an excuse to ship his wife out of town for a few days.
 
Maybe a week.
This one will go down in the history books! It's a shame you won't be there to see it, old friend.

Po Sin laughed, watching the glittering city out his window.
 
Somewhere downtown an air-raid siren sounded, muffled and eerie on the edge of his hearing.

A storm drill? Now?
 
He glanced up at the sky.
 
The bright lights of the city effectively canceled any view of the stars but one of the planets—Venus maybe—glared at him from the heavens.
 
Clear skies then.
 
Another drill.
 
The failure of the Russians must have someone on edge.

He rolled his eyes and continued to smoke.
Let them practice their drills. I will not be afraid…

He spotted a white point of light far out to the east. It seemed terribly low for an airplane. There were no blinking navigational lights, either. He stared at the low flying object as it quickly approached—much faster than any airplane he'd ever seen. It was then he noticed the first spotlight slicing across the night sky.
 
Then another…and another.

His curiosity piqued, Po Sin stared at the light, the cigarette absently burning away between his fingers. Without warning, the light made an abrupt turn and shot straight up into the sky. More spotlights flickered on and lanced up into the sky like white fingers seeking out the unidentified target. The civil defense brigades had been activated.

He squinted through the cigarette smoke.
 
What the devil is this?
 

Within seconds the object disappeared high above his office and out of view. He shook his head. As far as he knew there were no test flights scheduled for tonight out of Shahezhen—certainly not over the capitol.

As he finished his thought, night turned to day. His office lit up with the intensity of the noon sun. He cried out in surprise and staggered back from the window, blinded. After the initial shock wore off, Po Sin blinked, rubbing his eyes and stepped forward to the window.

The bright light outside dimmed slowly. He stared at Beijing, revealed in daylight when it should be night. Over the course of the next minute or so, the light faded until it seemed no more than dusk outside. A very pink-tinged dusk. Po Sin pressed his face against the window like a child looking for winter's first snowflak and peered up to find the source of the light. Undulating ribbons of color swirled in the sky, casting an eerie glow on the ground.
 

The northern lights?
 
Impossible
.
 
None of it made sense.

Only when he saw the stars—thousands of them glittering like diamonds scattered across a velvet mat in the sky—did know something was terribly wrong.
 
He glanced down at the city and in a unique moment of self-pity, accepted that his career was effectively over.
 
The bright light—an explosion—the aurora, never seen this far south—and not a single light on in the city, not even car headlights.

No, they couldn't have…how did it slip through the air defense network?
 
Po Sin glared at the dark city, seeing the trajectory of the object again in his mind.
 
That's why it flew so low. A cruise missile.
It was the only logical conclusion to reach based on the event he'd just witnessed.

The Americans had finally retaliated. With one detonation they'd obliterated the entire electrical grid in Beijing—most likely a good chunk of China as well.
   

Is this the only strike?
 
What about our navy—they've been getting into position to…

Panic gripped his heart. He had to get out of the city.
Now
.
 

At any moment, 11 million of people trapped in a powerless Beijing would realize they no longer had working refrigerators or running water.
 
There would be no more working public utilities, no Internet—no
nothing
. The factories would not open tomorrow and no one would get paid. China’s capitol was as good as destroyed.

The door to his office burst open and a breathless Fai rushed in, illuminated by starlight and the eerie auroral glow.
 

"Minister! Did you—"

"Yes, Fai, I saw," Po Sin said urgently.
 
"Quickly, now—we need to leave!
 
Do you remember your emergency directives?"

His assistant nodded and his Adam's apple bobbed in the dim light. "Yes, minister!"

Po Sin opened his desk and pulled out a Norinco 213. He tossed the 9mm pistol at Fai then pulled another out and slipped it in his waistband. "Good, let's go.
 
We must leave.
 
Now
."

"Minister, your wife?
 
I can call—"

Po Sin laughed. "If we survive tonight, I will happily embrace my status as widower. Now move!"

Chapter 80

Aftermath

E
RIK
EASED
HIMSELF
INTO
an Adirondack chair and sighed as the pain in his hip subsided.
 
Taking the weight off his legs helped a lot.
 
Lucy had done all she could and packed his wounds with her honey-based antibiotics, cleaned him up and proclaimed his hip not broken, but he still felt like he'd been in a car accident.
 
His cheek throbbed and the hole in his gums where she'd pulled the loose molar out grossed him out, but he'd live.
 

He closed his eyes as a sudden flare of pain down his leg made its presence known then subsided while he settled his body into a somewhat comfortable position.
 
A long sigh escaped his lips.
 

Warm fingers entertained in his.
 
He turned his head to the left and smiled at Brin, sitting in a matching chair.
 
She'd hauled the chairs up from the fort curators' house just north of the structure and set them up on the eastern wall.
 
Now that the battle was over, the gulls circling overhead made the only sounds to be heard.
 
Shanty Town was quiet.

"They're waiting for you, you know."

Erik sighed again and let his eyes roam out over the still waters of Lake Ticonderoga.
 
He wondered how many times in the past people had come to the edge of this picturesque lake and just looked, procrastinating some an important decision.
 

He smiled to himself.
 
Maybe Benedict Arnold did the same thing hundreds of years ago while he was debating how best to delay the British advance south out of Canada during the Revolution.

"Spike kept the survivors as slaves.
 
You can't just lead the attack that wiped out his crew and just walk away…"

"Watch me," Erik said quietly.

Brin was quiet for a moment.
 
"Babe, the folks living in Shanty Town are free for the first time in weeks, if not months.
 
They're homeless, half-starved, and most are injured.
 
Lucy's got her hands full down there and we don't have close to the supplies she needs to treat everyone.
 
Someone needs to organize—"

Erik shook his head.
 
"I'm retired."
 
His tongue found the hole in his gums unbidden.
 
God damn that's weird feeling.

"What?" she asked again.

"I'm done with leading," he said, massaging his cheek.
 
"I tried that in Florida and we got shit-canned in favor of Lentz and his 'trust the government' crowd.
 
Remember where that got us?
 
Our homes burned down, half the people in the Freehold killed…we had to leave and…"

"The Russians…" she said quietly.

"I tried to be a leader then, too."
 
The faces of the men Stepanovich had killed in retribution for Erik's failed prison break still haunted his sleep.
 
Just closing his eyes transported him back south, tied to that damn tree in the woods, surrounded by the rotting bodies of the men he'd tried to help.
 

He shook his head.
 
"I'm done with leading.
 
Let someone else take over."

"That kind of thinking got them Spike," Ted said, limping up the ramp on Erik's right.
 

Erik listened to his friend's boots crunch on the pea gravel strewn across the wall's walkway as he approached.
 

"You too?" Erik asked.

Ted sighed as he leaned against the wall, gazing out over the lake.
 
"God damn but it's pretty."

"Yes it is, but the answer's still no."
 
Erik lay his head back on the chair and closed his eyes.
 
"Besides, Lucy said I need to be immobile for a while.
 
Consider me medically disabled for the time being."

"There'll be more Spikes, you know," Ted said.

Erik cracked an eye and looked at his friend in the waning afternoon light.
 
"Not
that
Spike, though.
 
They tore him to pieces."

"True," Ted admitted.
 
"But he's not the only hard case out there.
 
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow—but the guys still out there on the sailboat will come back."

"God, I hope not," muttered Erik.
 
"I need a vacation."

"Sssh," added Brin with a playful squeeze of his hand.

"Someday, another one like Spike is going to show up.
 
The world we live in now was made for people like him.
 
People who can mistreat others and abuse others and try to rule others…"

Erik sighed.
 
"It's the Dark Ages all over again.
 
The strong will rule the weak and get stronger."

"That sounds about right," muttered Ted.
 
He rubbed his shoulder and winced.

"As the single thug gains followers and people to work for him—willingly or not—he becomes a chieftain, then a general, then a lord, then a king."
 
Erik watched the far shoreline for a moment.
 
"I wonder if there'll be a dozen little kingdoms here in a hundred years or…"

"That all depends on people like you."

Erik squinted up at Ted again.
 
"How do you figure that?"

Ted stared out over the water.
 
"You're a leader Erik."

"You're a marine."

"Oorah—but that's different.
 
I can fight, but you're…I don't know, good at pulling people together.
 
Organizing.
 
If those idiots hadn't given in to Lentz back in Florida, we'd probably be fat and happy instead of hungry and bruised.
 
You get me?
 
Susan and Mark would still be alive."

"That's not fair," Brin argued.

Erik closed his eyes again, letting what little warmth the late November sun provided soak into his battered body.
 
He dreaded waking up tomorrow—he'd be stiff as a board and sore without pain relievers.

"But it's the truth," pressed Ted.
 
"You're the type of person the rest of us need to help us stand up to people like Spike."

Erik looked at his wife and squeezed her hand.
 
"I only did what everyone wanted to do—"

"But until you arrived, no one did.
 
Don't you see, man?
 
You're the opposite of Spike.
 
Most of us are happy to follow someone and if it's not you, I guarantee someone just like Spike—maybe worse—will come along and try to do what he almost got away with."