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Rick Johnstone opened the office door without knocking. “Mister Chairman, they just struck Kinshasa.”
Free Communities Council Chairman Daniel Markis’ blood ran cold. “Elise?” he asked.
“Just fine, sir. She left a few hours before. All the staff did, when the warning came in. They’re on their way to the facility in South Africa.”
“Thank you, Rick. You can go. Tell Millicent to hold my calls and visitors for a few minutes, please.” Another few thousand civilians dead, collateral damage from the UGNA’s “precision” strikes. Markis put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes. The latest atrocity weighed on his soul. He told himself he was not responsible, but the accusing serpent in his head hissed, Liar!
He thought he had gotten rid of that thing when the Eden Plague healed his body and his brain. But the virus could only fix organic issues; he had lived with the snake for too long before his infection to lose it that easily.
He stared at the deep crimson beret that sat on the shelf above his desk. It was symbolic, a replacement. His original one, the one he had kept with him everywhere he went, from Afghanistan to Mogadishu, from Iraq to Yemen, was lost, probably in some UGNA evidence vault. But the symbol had a powerful meaning for him. The metal flash on its face showed an angel with her arms wrapped around a globe, and the motto underneath: That Others May Live.
There are worse things to dedicate a life to.
Markis shook himself out of his funk. I am the Chairman, damn it! He was the closest thing the Free Communities had to a leader, or at least a figurehead. When he proposed something, it usually got done with a minimum of wrangling, as long as it made some kind of sense. The Eden Plague had not only wiped out disease, it had wiped out a lot of petty-mindedness and self-interest. But it hadn’t wiped out politics; it had just made the struggles a bit more honest.
He steeled himself to address the Council once again. Opening his door he called, “Millicent, please ask Rick to set up a video teleconference with all available Council members at 1400 hours.” Two p.m. was a good time for videoconferences over the secure link, from Eastern Standard Time in the Americas. Asians and Australians would be up already, or at least could be, and Europe and Africa would not be abed yet. That gave him half an hour to get some lunch.
Walking down the hall to the little cafeteria, he got himself a big bowl of stew and some iced tea. He thanked the server and went over to look out the second-floor window at the view of the town of Tunja, Colombia Free Community. It was an unlikely place from which to run a world resistance movement; that was exactly why he did.
Stomach filled and back in his office, he reviewed his notes for a few minutes, then walked down to the basement where the secure conference room waited. He nodded to Rick Johnstone, grown strong, free of the muscular dystrophy that had made his early life a creeping hell.
“Most of them are up already. I have a few more to connect.”
“Thanks. Let me know.” Markis sat down, shuffled papers for a few moments.
“All right, everyone’s up, and you’re live, Mister Chairman.”
Nodding once more, he turned to address the Council of the Free Communities. “Hello everyone. I won’t say good day. By now most of you should have heard about Kinshasa. Here’s a video of the last strike, taken from about ten miles away.”
The feed dissolved to a grainy shot of the entrance to the lab complex, then pulled back to see the scrubland between the cameraman and the target, and the city of Kinshasa, Congo, beyond. The unnamed videographer spoke as the image jumped and steadied. “Should be any time now. Hope to hell I’m far enough away.”
A few more seconds went by, then streaks of light and explosions whited out the picture. As it cleared, they could see several mushroom clouds, miniature copies of the aftermath of nuclear explosions. One billow, off target, rose deep inside the densely populated city. Then the picture faded.
Markis spoke. “It was a sub-launched ballistic missile, another non-nuclear Trident MIRV, multiple kinetic strike. I believe this happened because someone leaked word of the research facility there. I will tell you in confidence that our science program has not been seriously damaged, because none of our scientists had occupied the facility. They attacked too soon, before the lab was in operation. But we cannot let these atrocities continue.”
He wasn’t going to tell the full council about the warning that his human intelligence network, his spies in the United Governments territory, had provided. While the video teleconference technology was secure, the Council itself, and the staffs of the members, were not.
Like any political body, it leaked like a sieve.
He selected one of the blinking lights that told him a member wanted to address the Council. This was one of his most important powers: the power to choose who would be heard, and in what order. Best to let the opposition speak first. “Yes, Ms. Farnsworth?”
“This proves what I have said repeatedly. We must shut down the research programs. There has been very little progress in the last five years, since the fertility and metabolism issues were solved; the virtue effect has proven itself uncrackable. And the high-tech weapons programs are a waste of resources and cost countless lives as they provoke the Big Three to these horrifying actions. We must bide our time. Our projections show that the Plague will eventually reach everyone. If nothing else, we will outlive our opponents.”
“Thank you.” He pressed another button, to hear from a more moderate source. “Go ahead, Mr. Ramirez.”
“Thank you Mr. Chairman. We are not responsible for the evil of the UGNA, the Russians or the Chinese. But what are we doing to curb these leaks and security breaches? If there were none, they would have no reason to target facilities, real or imagined, with weapons of mass destruction. I cite Antigua.”
Antigua had been incinerated several years ago, before the Nuclear Concord agreement that ended atomic weapon use, apparently because of a mere rumor of a nonexistent Free Community research facility.
Markis pressed the speaking key. “Unfortunately the virtue effect does not preclude simple foolishness and gossip. It’s human nature. We cannot and will not use heavy-handed tactics like our opponents to try to control leaks. That’s an impossible and self-destructive task. All of the Free Communities must implement their security plans in their own way. Next?”
The debate carried on for forty-five minutes; complaints and recriminations, discussion points and politesse back and forth. The only difference between this and a pre-Plague political body is that occasionally someone’s mind was changed by logic and common sense. And they were more or less civil. And there were no filibusters allowed. He supposed it was an improvement.
When the requests for the floor finally died down, Chairman Markis addressed them. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement that may provide some hope. As you know, the Central American arena has proven the UG’s current quagmire. Since seizing everything south to Panama, the drug cartels, the Maoist guerillas, the independence movements, and simple intractable poverty consumes their resources at an alarming rate. The employment of the Security Service Psychos has exacerbated the situation for them exponentially, a tremendous blunder. Death squad tactics and gratuitous atrocities have turned the population against them.”
“The Free Communities have survived, even prevailed in Africa, South America and Australia, and the Neutral States have stabilized Europe, Southwest Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, but the situation has become stalemated. Millions of people languish in concentration camps, enslaved and starving. They don’t even have the benefit of the updates in the virus that have eliminated the hunger and the fertility issues. Our Armed Forces commandos have rescued as many as we can. But I am here now to tell you we have a chance to change the balance of power, to break the stranglehold of tyranny for millions.”
He checked his watch. They should be boarding the submarine just about now. Markis continued.
“I can now tell you that our intelligence service is on the verge of scoring a tremendous success. We have suborned a high-ranking official in the UGNA, an official so high that he ranks near the Triumvir-Presidents themselves. He has provided us with a data dump of the UGNA strategic targeting and activation codes. In a matter of hours, we will be able to deploy our latest cyber weapons to take control of, and selectively launch their own ballistic and cruise missiles, regardless of warhead, at targets of our choosing.”
Almost every picture on the screen flashed with a request for the floor; he had expected that, and he ignored them. “Please, let me finish, then everyone will have a chance to speak. Perhaps I can answer some of your questions right away.”
“I have not gone mad, nor have our intelligence specialists. No one will be launching these weapons against human targets. But in the narrow window we expect to have before the UG regains control of their arsenal, we intend to retarget and launch as many missiles as possible, to strike in harmless, empty places. These weapons are expensive, and they are deadly; if we can expend hundreds or even thousands of them, we can substantially reduce our vulnerability. There will be no nuclear detonations. We do not have the Permissive Action Link codes to activate the weapons themselves. But in one stroke we might just destroy more than half their strategic weapons.”
Now if they’ll just believe this necessary lie.
