Short Story.


Part I of III


Quarters Six,

The long awaited knock came at the door.  It wasn't an actual knock.  It was the pounding of a rifle butt against the front door of Jean McMahon's home.  She steadied herself, opened the door, and came face to face with a squad of dirty, bearded gunmen.  She would not stoop to call them soldiers.

"My husband is not here," she said, straightening her shoulders and preserving what dignity she could.

The lead gunman looked her up and down, then pushed past her without a word.  His compatriots followed and they spread through the house, searching.  Jean's two adult daughters came to her side, and they huddled together as the invaders tore through their home.  Outside were more men with guns.  They searched the other houses and patrolled across the lawns.  They moved with the confident certainty of an army who had just won a war, which they had.  Most didn't wear any kind of uniform.  The few that did wore the mismatched colors of the enemy; desert camouflage trousers and a green patterned camouflage top.  Their weapons were equally mismatched.  Hunting pieces and captured military weapons and personally purchased rifles.  Some stood guard around an odd assortment of civilian pickup trucks and military vehicles, each as course and dirty as the men around them.  One pickup looked more like something driven by the kinds of people her husband spent his entire life fighting than something driven by Americans.  A large machine gun protruded out of the bed.  Bullet holes pockmarked one flank.  Strips ofblack electrical tape crisscrossed the cracked headlights.  A HAM radio antenna swayed slightly with the breeze.  And everywhere was the enemy standard.  On flags and on patches, a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field.

Jean sighed as the gunman moved purposefully through the house.  Her husband's house.  Her house.  The house he'd worked for… she'd worked for… her entire live.

Outside the house, twists of black oily smoke curled up into the clear blue sky.  The capital was being put to the torch, again.  Not by a foreign invader this time, but by its own citizens.  Jean's eyes flicked across the skyline.  Many of those plumes of smoke could be traced down to the nation's most important government buildings: the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, the Eisenhower Building, the White House.  Another military wife called Jean last night in a panic.  She said they were back in the capital again.  Only this time they weren't scattering papers and stealing laptops.  This time they came to burn it down.  Mid-call the cell service went out.  It never came back on.

After about twenty minutes a new group of gunmen arrived.  They came in a similar collection of battered trucks.  The trucks parked in front of her house and the men inside got out.  This group was just as wild looking as the others.  But leading this group was her husband's alter ego, the commanding general of the enemy army.  The man known only as Haggard.

Haggard didn't look like a general, commanding or otherwise.  He didn't look like an officer.  He didn't even look like a soldier, Jean thought. The man was dressed in less of a uniform than most of his troops. He wore a Vietnam pattern Tiger Strip shirt with the sleeves cuffed a little below the elbow.  For trousers he had a pair of gray-green work pants.  His boots were a pair of civilian work boots, the kind a steel worker or welder might wear.  Slung across his chest was a worn XM-177 carbine, perhaps a nod to his camouflage shirt.  A thick belt held rifle magazines and a pair of grenades, and a handheld radio was stuffed in his back pocket. And that was it.  He wore no badges, no rank insignia, no name tags, no his shaggy head.  He didn't even carry a pistol.  He didn't even have a driver.  He drove his own truck.


Jean scoffed.  The man looked more like a handyman or the foremen of a construction crew than the commander of the enemy armies.  Even so, the man had a hard and serious look about him.  His eyes were fierce and calculating.  His mouth was a flat, horizontal line across his face.  Not only unsmiling, he looked like he may have never smiled in his entire life. Brooding, he looked around and then headed up the path to the house.  Just before the front door he stopped and looked up at the flag flying in the yard.  Four white stars on a field of red.  He looked at the flag for a longtime, then turned to one of his men.


"Take that down," he ordered.  Then he stalked into the house.

"My husband isn't here," Jean said again, as proud and defiant as she could be, the wife of a husband who had not only lost a war but a country.  Her husband's alternate number didn't so much as spare her a glance.  He looked around the house for a bit before replying.


"I know.  We took him prisoner this morning."


The oldest of her two daughters gasped. The other, already a widow, broke into tears.  Jean felt like wilting. 41 years.  41 years she'd been married to her husband and the Army.  41 years her husband had moved up the ranks, achieving the highest appointment in the US military.  41 years of moves and assignments, of hardship posts and political maneuvering.  41 years of work to bring the family to a position of power and prominence.  41 years, and it had all been undone in a matter of weeks by some blue-collar unknown who didn't even have a uniform.  This was a blow. Even so, Jean remained erect, staying strong for the husband and the army she'd been married to her entire adult life.


"We're here to get some of your husband's things,"  Haggard said.  His eyes darted around the room again and locked on the fireplace.   Cradled in a display on the mantel was General McMahon's sword, a pattern1902 Cavalry Saber.  Above that hung an enormous oil painting of General McMahon.  Carbine in hand, General  walked over to the fireplace. He stopped right beneath the painting and looked almost straight up.  His eyes narrowed.


Jean McMahon watched this ruffian who now glared at the presentation of her husband.  These were two very different men, their contrasts obvious.  One had graduated West Point, then went on to multiple achieve degrees from a host of institutions.  He even had a doctorate from Yale.  The other might not have even had a degree. One had risen through the ranks in a military career that surpassed a generation.  The other had just appeared out of nowhere, a brigand captain who in the heat and chaos of rebellion had risen far above his station.  One had mixed and mingled in the highest of social circles, rubbing elbows with senators, Supreme Court Justices, the highest media personalities, foreign dignitaries, heads of state.  The other looked he spent his Saturday nights drinking beer out of a can in a neighbor's garage, greasy wrenches turning hopelessly on some wreck of a project car.

And yet, for his course appearance and humble background, Haggard's achievements were undeniable.  When the revolution started two years ago, nobody had heard of this Haggard.  He was just another traitor rebelling against his government.  In the months that followed, he'd led one raid after another, derailing trains, burning powerplants, destroying aircraft in their hangers.  It wasn't until he sacked Portland that anybody took him seriously.  Even then, he'd been mocked and ridiculed in the media.  The top military experts made the Sunday news circuits, reassuring all that this Haggard was no real threat.  Just a bumpkin with a rifle who'd been lucky.  Nothing more.  The real experts in warfare, the ones who'd been educated in the war colleges and done their time in the rings around the Pentagon would deal with him in due time.

Then Haggard captured the U.S. Northern Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs.  He took the place with hardly a fight.  Most of the command was captured unarmed at their desks.  The commanding general had put up a fight though.  She'd be the only general on their side to die in the combat.

After Colorado Springs they took him seriously.  Somebody had the bright idea of attacking Haggard through social media.  The Pentagon enlisted giants of that industry.   Stories were run and propaganda was spread.  Accounts were locked and shut down, even though nobody knew if this Haggard even had a social media presence.  Reports were written, and generals like McMahon were assured and assured the country that the media campaign was working.


Then Haggard swept through Silicon Valley and burned everything in his path.

Haggard's following grew.  More reports were written.  More briefs were presented.  Staffs churned out graphs and powerpoint slides.  Drones flew, but the drones were no more effective at stopping this insurgency than they'd been at stopping the others.  And when the airfields were overrun and the supply lines were cut, the drones stopped flying.  Hearings were held.  But nobody fought in any substantial way.  Centuries of American military tradition vanished.  The US military seemed to be nothing more than one giant staff, spinning data around and around in an endless loop.

When Haggard's rebel army crossed the Mississippi River, military units went over to the other side wholesale.  When they crossed the Appalachians, the U.S. government essentially collapsed.


One of the gunmen came out of the bedroom, a bundle of General McMahon's uniforms in hand.  Light glinted off polished shoes and brass buttons.  He presented the bundle to his commander, who approved it with a nod.  Then Haggard snatched the saber and its scabbard off the mantle and turned to go.


   "That's my husband's," Jean protested.  "It's his family sword."

"My sword now," Haggard answered.

"But," she protested, hoping to save something of her husband's legacy.  The family legacy.  "That sword was in his family for generations.  Two world wars.  You can't take it.  It represents…"


Jean's voice trailed off as Haggard stormed right up to her until they were nose-to-nose.  His eyes blazed with anger.  He looked as if he might hit her, but he didn't.

"Your husband lost.  You lost.  You rolled the Iron Dice, and you lost.  Your husband, his sword, this house, the whole country, is ours now, and I'm taking it."


"Be reasonable,"  Jean pleaded.  Haggard's words came slow, and calm, but firm.


"You people had decades to deal with reasonable people.  And every time a reasonable person came forward to represent us, they were mocked, ridiculed, humiliated, and coerced.  You had your opportunities to deal with reasonable people, and you squandered those opportunities.  So now you have to deal with the unreasonable ones."


Haggard went for the door.
 
Jean called out, "What are you planning to do with my husband?"

"He's got a briefing with Danny Deever,"  Haggard answered.  He looked around the house one last time and then said, "You've got twenty minutes to grab your stuff.  Then we're burning the house down."

He didn't wait for any reply or acknowledgement.  He turned away and got back into his truck, sliding into the driver's seat.  General McMahon's flag and uniforms were already loaded in the back.

Another man sat in the passenger seat.  He held a radio handset in each hand and alternatingly spoke into both.  He  turned to his commander.

"Did you tell her how we found her husband?"

They found General James McMahon in a yacht in a Chesapeake marina, with eight duffle bags full of new $100 bills, a satchel of gemstones, and a female aide who was a third his age.  The general couldn't figure out how to start the boat's engine.  He'd surrendered without a fight.

"I didn't tell her that," Haggard said.  "I'm not completely heartless."