The Fiery Trial Page 16

  "My fellow citizens, I appeal to you now: refrain from violence. We can still have peace – and we can have it today – if we recognize all that we have in common as Americans. We can restore basic Constitutional principles and make our government genuinely accountable to the people once more. We can still ensure that America is at peace at home and strong abroad. We can do all of these things, but we can do them only if we, now decide to pull back from the brink and let all of the old feuds die.

  "I will speak to you again soon. God bless you and God bless the United States of America."

  U.S. Capitol Grounds

  Time had run out. The White House and the Secretary of Defense were ordering the attack continuously. Why had the attack not come yet? When was it coming? The questions and the orders were non-stop. Some of Colonel Gregory's soldiers argued that they should follow the orders of Terrance Rickover, who now claimed to be the President, but that claim was seemingly recognized by no one in the 4th Battalion's chain of command. Who really was in charge? For Colonel Gregory's money it was whoever was in the White House and the Pentagon issuing orders and he, as a soldier, was duty-bound to follow those orders.

  The Colonel took a deep breath before he finally spoke.

  "All units, this is Roland Actual. Begin the attack."

  The Stryker vehicles moved forward across the open ground in the direction of the Capitol. Moving slowly, at just a few miles per hour, they gave plenty of time for the members of the Congressional Provisional Battalion holding the perimeter to fall back in a gentle and graceful dance. The Congressional soldiers didn't have weapons that would allow them to fire upon the armored vehicles with any effect and, in any case, they didn't want to have to do so.

  As the vehicles approached the steps of the Capitol, the CPB soldiers trained their rifles upon them. The radio net for the Congressional Army exploded with orders.

  "Hold your fire, hold your fire..."

  The Congressional soldiers held their weapons close as the Company worth of Strykers dropped their rear hatches. A loudspeaker mounted on one of the vehicles broadcast out demands.

  "Lay down your weapons! We do not wish to fire upon you, but will do so if you resist!"

  "Hold steady!" ordered Jack Hawkins, the U.S. Representative from Oklahoma whose combat experience and position of authority had made him the ideal man to command the company of soldiers defending the West Front of the Capitol.

  The soldiers of Bravo Company of the 4th Battalion were pouring out of their vehicles now, moving into firing positions versus the Congressional militia. One after another scrambled out of the back of their Strykers and gathered into formation.

  "We have been ordered by the President of the United States to facilitate the return of this place to the control of the United States Government!" shouted Captain Devon Gagnon, the commander of Bravo Company.

  "Lay down your weapons!" Captain Gagnon continued, "and no one will be hurt!"

  "I have been ordered by the President of the United States to hold this place on behalf of the government of the United States!" shouted back Congressman Hawkins, "and I will use force to see that this is done. If you attempt to take this place by force, you will be fired upon!"

  On a hand signal from Gagnon, Bravo Company began to carefully advance up the Capitol steps. Representative Hawkins stood in absolute silence.

  "Put down your guns!" ordered Captain Gagnon, echoed by most of the rest of the soldiers of Bravo Company. Their shouts became an indecipherable cacophony of noise. They were joined by the members of the Congressional Provisional Battalion screaming warnings back at the Army soldiers to stay back.

  Ten thousand cameras were filming the events in front of the Capitol. Both groups of soldiers moved inexorably closer together as one agonizing second after another passed, both training their rifles menacingly on one another. Before anyone could gain a handle on the situation, they were at almost point blank range. It agonizing frame-by-frame examination of multiple video feeds to figure out what happened next. One of the Congressional Provisional Battalion soldiers, a twenty-six-year-old Capitol policeman named Wayne Shelton, opened fire on one of the Army soldiers. Many argue that he did so because he saw a sudden movement by the soldier. Others think that he just panicked. Some believe that he just did it. Whatever the reason, once Wayne Shelton opened fire, everyone opened fire all at once.

  In a span of just under fifteen seconds, the four hundred and seventeen men and women ranged against each other on the steps of the Capitol fired the better part of two thousand rounds at one another from extremely close range. Neither side was prepared either for combat or for the tremendous carnage that ensued. Rifle bullets fired from just feet away tore into human flesh as both sides fired in either full automatic or semi-automatic modes. To the degree that there was any sensible control left within Bravo Company, its soldiers sought immediately to pull backwards in order to allow the automatic weapons of their Strykers to engage without inflicting friendly casualties. Within the less well-disciplined Congressional Provisional Battalion, all command and control broke down almost instantly. Congressman Hawkins attempted to order his soldiers to halt fire and withdraw, but within seconds he was silenced when he was struck in the neck by the first of the seventeen bullets that would hit him. Some of the militiamen broke and ran wildly, while others simply responded with an insensate rage, firing every single bullet that they had in the direction of the Army.

  Thirty seconds after the first shot was fired, the initial firing was over. One hundred and four members of Bravo Company lay dead or wounded along the Capitol steps along with one hundred and fifty-six Congressional volunteers.

  "Fuck!" screamed Colonel Gregory, grabbing off his helmet and throwing it against the ground.

  "We have the steps," radioed Captain Gagnon in a deathly ill voice, "but we cannot proceed. We require all available medical assistance."

  The Situation Room, The White House

  "Mr. President," said Secretary of Defense Ransom, "should we order the next phase?"

  President Kevin Bryan sat silently in his chair, wordlessly watching the latest live feeds from the Capitol.

  "All I ever wanted to do was to ensure that everyone could have a decent life," the President said sadly to himself.

  "Mr. President," repeated the Secretary of Defense, "given what has happened already, I believe that we require your order to proceed."

  "I have to explain to the people," insisted the President quietly.

  "Mr. President..." said the Secretary.

  "Do whatever you have to do," said the President.

  "Sir," replied Ransom, "I think that this situation requires more explicit instructions than that. Should we continue the attack on the Capitol and arrest the insurgent members of the Congress, pursuant to your earlier orders?"

  The President gazed at the ground for ten seconds as every eye at the table trained on him.

  "Do it," he finally said, "whatever you need... Just get it done. Now."

  U.S. Capitol Grounds

  The Congressional Provisional Battalion had been forced to withdraw behind the doors of the Capitol under the fire of Bravo Company. The end of the initial standoff, however, posed new logistical challenges.

  "When they come through the door, open fire," order Jacob Henry as he and the other sweat-soaked men and women took up their positions within the Capitol complex itself.

  Alexandria, VA

  General Richard Hall was unsurprised when the phone rang at his Alexandria townhouse and his caller ID showed that the call was coming from the personal line of the Secretary of Defense.

  "General Hall," said Ransom.

  "Mr. Secretary," said the General curtly as he continued to read the latest news from a two tablets and a computer set out across his kitchen table as he wife brought him endless cups of coffee.

  "General, we need you back," said Ransom flatly.

  "I have been relieved by the President," said General Hall.

  "I
'm willing to take responsibility for bringing you back," answered the Secretary, "but right now the whole of the military is coming apart. Already some units are signaling Terrance Rickover for orders, but he's out-of-touch, given that the last reports have him in the Capitol, under fire. Soldiers have mutinied in multiple units when given orders to move. You're the one figure with enough respect in the Army – and the armed forces as a whole – to keep this situation from devolving into an all-out civil war."

  "Mr. Secretary," said Hall, "frankly, I'm not even sure who the legitimate President is at this point or what the next steps are. The economy is collapsing minute-by-minute and there's no one effectively in control of the country."

  "That's why we need to keep the Armed Forces together, General. I'm a Republican, as I believe that you are as well... Between you and I, I don't like a lot of this President's agenda either. But I don't believe that an armed insurrection is the way to oppose him. And, even if I believed that was right – I certainly don't believe that we can have the armed forces fracturing along ideological lines."

  "According to the reports that I've seen, that's already happening, Gerald."

  "Come back, then, and keep together as much as you can. I don't know what the solution will be at this point – but any hope of a peaceful end to this ends if the military is divided into competing factions."

  "I... I'll have to think about it, Mr. Secretary," Hall finally answered.

  The Capitol

  Acting President Terrance Rickover had, almost immediately after his swearing in, been relocated to emergency space in the underground Capitol Visitor's Centre.

  "Mr. President," said Jacob Henry, "they still aren't advancing into the Capitol complex itself. We're holding the hallways with as many men as we can. If they try and enter, there will be a bloodbath. I don't know if we can stop them but, by God, we can definitely make them pay."

  "Let's hope that it doesn't come to that," said Rickover.

  The problem facing the infant Rickover Administration was simple: they had no means of directly contacting most of the Federal Government and since almost all Executive Branch officials were appointees either of President Bryan or President Warren, few of them were inclined to accept orders from a usurper President and to pass them on to their subordinates. Thus were the group of men and women who, in theory, the new Executive Branch of the government reduced to using their handful of secure lines of communication to simply attempt to make phone calls and send e-mails to people that they happened to know and to beg them for their cooperation.

  Immediately after convicting the President and removing him from office, both the Senate and the House had immediately adjourned sine die, explicitly for the purpose of allowing the Acting President to dismiss the existing Cabinet and other Presidentially-appointed officials to install replacements by making recess appointments, but this was challenging in two respects. First, it was difficult to find qualified people willing to accept Federal offices from a besieged bunker and second, none of the people who he had been able to appoint had control over any of the facilities that they required to do their jobs.

  "The problem here," Rickover finally said, "is chains of command. Even in cases where we've seen individual acts of mutiny or defections, in most cases we need the entire chain of command to come over to us or else we can't really mobilize anyone for action. For the time being, I think, that we should forget about trying to gain control of most of the Federal apparatus."

  "Well, what then?" said Michael Nelson, soon to be promoted to House Majority Leader, but temporarily serving as Rickover's de facto Chief of Staff.

  "The states," said Rickover.

  "But, when Federalized, the soldiers of any state National Guard fall firmly within the DOD's purview," pointed out Nelson.

  "Well, sure. But if they're only de facto Federalized, rather than de jure, is there any practical impediment to the Governor of, say, Arizona ordering their National Guard units to report to me or such official as I might designate, instead of accepting ordinary Federalization?"

  "I suppose not," agreed Nelson.

  "Then let's get on the fucking phone," said Rickover.

  Petersburg, VA

  General Starnes watched as his fleet of M1000 Heavy Equipment Transporters pulled over for a penultimate time to refuel. The giant trucks had hauled the 3rd Squadron's Abrams and Bradleys all the way from Georgia, but now it was almost time for the armored vehicles to disembark and take to the road on their own.

  The General walked over to the Squadron commander, a sandy-haired Lieutenant Colonel in his late 30s.

  "Colonel," said Starnes, "how are the boys holding up?"

  "They're all listening to the latest news from all of their personal devices," said Colonel Taylor Smith, "and they're fucking ready to go. Especially after what happened on the steps of the Capitol."

  "Ready to fight fellow soldiers?" enquired the General.

  "I don't think that anyone feels great about that General, and I don't think that any of them envy those men in the Old Guard... But, yes, they're damned well prepared to fight."

  "Well, I think that's what we're going to have to do," said Starnes, "we'll disembark around Fredericksburg and go on the rest of the way tracked."

  "What if they start blowing bridges?" asked the Colonel.

  "Then we're fucked," said Starnes, "but I don't know if they're organized enough to do that. Anyways, we have a lot of personnel – we can fight on foot if we have to. It sure doesn't sound like they have a lot of personnel on their side either, or else they'd have already taken the Capitol."

  "Do we know where we're going, General?" asked Smith.

  "What do you mean?" asked Starnes.

  "Well, almost everyone assumes that we're going to the Capitol... But we could end this even sooner if we headed to the other end of Capitol Hill. Couldn't we?"

  "Hmmm..." responded the General, "perhaps we should ask the President."

  "I'm pretty sure he'd be against us storming the White House, General."

  "Not that one. The other one."

  The Capitol

  Mark Preston had served four years as the Deputy Secretary of Defense before he had retired to a life of luxury as a K-Street lobbyist. Once, in another life, he'd had ambitions of taking the top job at the DOD in the next Republican Administration, but those dreams had waned as his accounts receivable had waxed. Not only would a return to the Pentagon have meant giving up a seven-figure income stream, but his myriad contacts with defense contractors would have made his confirmation a torturous process with no more than 50/50 odds of success. This morning he had woken up as just another resident of This Town concerned with what the absolute mess in Washington meant for the economy and for his business. He'd gone to the Capitol that morning for consultations at the invitation of the Speaker. Now, at mid-afternoon, he was suddenly the Secretary of Defense.

  "Mark," Acting President Rickover had told him, "you're the only guy with the contacts to pull together the vast defense apparatus without control of the Pentagon bureaucracy. I need you. You're the Secretary of Defense."

  The challenge that existed this Wednesday afternoon was that while the military as a whole was broadly sympathetic to Acting President Rickover and a majority of officers and soldiers were likely to accept his claim upon the Presidency in theory, the Pentagon bureaucracy was still definitively in the hands of the Bryan Administration, as was a substantial minority of the military. Worse still, many of those inclined to be politically sympathetic to Rickover and the Republicans would still act in accordance with the orders of their superiors who were still aligned with President Bryan.

  Someone had shut down cellular phone and internet service to the Capitol itself. However, rudimentary communication lines were being maintained by those who had access to personal devices that had satellite access. It was quite possible that these satellite phones were being monitored but, for the time being, they were pretty much the only means of communication with the ou
tside world. It was by these means that General Starnes reached Preston.

  "Well, congratulations, Mr. Secretary," said Starnes to his old friend.

  "Thanks," said Preston hurriedly, "but now we have a pretty damned large load of troubles."

  "Indeed. I'm on my way. One heavy battalion. 3-7 Cav. Where do you want us?"

  "Sorry... Where are you?"

  "We're two hours out," answered the General.

  "All the fucking way from Georgia?"

  "All the fucking way, Mr. Secretary. Fully loaded. We're good to go. But, where do we go?"

  The Pentagon

  When General Richard Hall walked back into the Pentagon, almost everyone stopped to stare. They knew that the General had stood up to the President over the assault on the Capitol and they knew that he'd been gone for nearly a day. The rumors were that he had been fired. Now, walking into the National Military Command Centre wearing his full uniform, the General brushed questions aside.

  "What's our status?" he asked.

  General Martin Walker, the Vice-Chief of Staff of the Army walked up to him.

  "General, it's damned chaos out there. Units are refusing to respond to commands, or calling us here and demanding to speak to Mark Preston..."

  "Preston?" asked Hall.

  "The rebels announced that he'd been appointed as the Secretary of Defense a few hours ago," answered a staffer.

  "Right," nodded Hall, holding his arms up.

  "Ok, everyone stop for a second," he said.

  "I know that the situation is terrible right now. There are a lot of hotheads out there, both inside and outside of the armed forces and they're making a bad situation a lot worse. I know that some of you aren't fans of the current President and his policies. I know that a lot of you have had thoughts or said things like, 'I took an oath to the Constitution, not to this President.' I understand those feelings. I share in them. I took an oath to the Constitution and not to the President. That cuts both ways, ladies and gentlemen. There's a process and there are elections and there are courts. I know that things look bad right now. Wrongs have certainly been committed. But our government ultimately remains one of laws and not of men. If we can keep our cool and keep the Armed Forces together, we can keep the country together.