Chapter 49
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Arlington, Virginia
Pentagon
5:15 p.m. EDT
Hours ago, after escaping Haiti; returning to America; and being debriefed by the Joint Chiefs and the director of the CIA; Trevor went straight to his office and fell face-down onto the cot in the corner.
When he finally woke up, he saw General Lane sitting in a chair beside him, holding a cup of coffee.
Trevor thought for a moment he had died and that the Catholics were right about Purgatory.
“Get enough rest, soldier?”, Lane said; instinctively, Trevor leapt up and saluted, causing the General to grin. “At ease, Colonel. Pour yourself a cup.”
Trevor noticed a pot of coffee and an empty mug on a folding table in front of Lane’s chair and, at the General’s behest, filled the mug before sitting down on the cot. “It was a long day, sir,” Trevor replied. “I’m still not sure what to make of it.”
“Wish there was something to make of it,” Lane said. “It would’ve been nice to get that son of a bitch out of the Kremlin. You play the hand you’re dealt with, as they say. Wish I could’ve been down there with you.”
“Just like old times,” Trevor said, thinking of some of the missions the two had worked together on as a part of Task Force X. He still had nightmares about some of those missions. “Any word on what happened to Kort?”
“The Agency spook?”
“Uh…yes. Didn’t see him again after we got off the plane at Andrews.”
“Doing what Agency spooks do, I suppose. Langley’s not going to sit the war out, you know. Russians are getting all their ducks lined up and so are we, from here to Berlin to Korea. Just waiting for them to put the ball on the tee and kick off the damn war – but they’re going to go on offense first.”
“West Germany?”
“Both sides are lined up right along the border.”
“General, may I ask you a question?”
“Shoot, soldier,” Lane said. The men had never been the best of friends, and Trevor never felt comfortable enough around Lane to break protocol and address him informally.
“Do you ever wonder if we had allowed the…more gifted persons to operate openly, what kind of world we’d be in right now?”
“No.”
“No, sir?”
“No, Colonel, I don’t.”
“May I ask you why you don’t, sir?”
“Because I know what kind of world we’d be in right now, Colonel, a hell of a lot worse than the one we wound up in.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure things can get any worse than one step away from Armageddon.”
“Soldier, we did what had to be done. We step back and let things go, God knows who or what would be running things right now. What you did, what I did, what we all did – what Task Force X did – was for the good of the country and the world. We’ve had this conversation before.”
“Yes, we have,” Trevor said, and each time both men came to the same differing conclusions. “I wonder, if things might be better.”
“Better?”
“Gifted men and women, using their abilities and talents to make the world a better place.”
“Or, maniacs who make Hitler look like Mother Teresa, tearing the world apart to get some of the other bastards’ pieces. They’re the reason the task force was started at all. The mandate from the very beginning was to identify and eliminate threats to the country that couldn’t be handled conventionally. We did both of those things, soldier.”
“We did, sir. We used a pretty broad definition for ‘threat’ as we went on. We eliminated some threats that could have been allies, General, to us and to the world.”
“Aliens?”
“Gods, goddesses, humans with unimaginable gifts. We should have been able to differ between them and someone like the Joker.”
“We did. They ended up working for their country—”
“I’m talking about the ones who didn’t agree with our ‘objectives’. Sir.”
“Dammit, Trevor,” Lane growled. “We couldn’t – can’t – afford rogues and loose cannons. We can’t afford them falling into the hands of the Soviets. Remember Magnus? Holland? What Moscow did with them?”
“I remember the young half-cyborg man, sir, with his whole life ahead of him, and we extinguished him. There was a friend of mine, a career Air Force officer loyal to his country and look at how it repaid him—”
“Adam volunteered for that mission, Colonel—”
“Dr. Isley, who we couldn’t control – so we did away with her. The league of adventurers. Do you remember that incident in Omaha? We never found them, sir. I wonder how they met their fate. Maybe, they made it out and they’re still alive—”
“Colonel. You’re treading on a thin line right now—”
“I remember her.”
Lane sighed. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with Trevor nor anyone else, not now nor ever. “Colonel. We’ve had this conversation before. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s going to change, especially now. What’s done is done.”
Trevor looked away, briefly, then looked Lane in the eye. “I know, sir. I just wanted to say my peace.”
“And God knows you’re entitled to it, Colonel. You’ve been through hell serving your country, and I’m glad to have you on our side.” Lane got up and put his cup down on the folding table. “Get as much rest as you can, while you can.”
Trevor stood back up and saluted; Lane sketched a salute in return, then walked out of Trevor’s office. The Colonel fell back onto his cot, allowed himself a tear, and remembered something he could take care of, now.
There still were men and women of valor who could make a difference, and he could still help them. Trevor got up from the cot, went to his desk and placed a call.
6 p.m. EDT
--From ABC News headquarters. This is World News Saturday.
Good evening, I’m Charles Gibson, coming to you from an undisclosed location.
Hours ago, Soviet leader Mikhail Khalinin delivered an ultimatum to the West, and President John Boehner told him in no uncertain terms America would not back down, right before the draft lottery was held for the first time in three decades. And Florida braces for a major hurricane even as hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the state on every and any road going north – ignoring state officials urging them to shelter in place.
Before we get to that, Reuters is reporting that Soviet Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has walked out of a meeting with United Nations leaders in Geneva and is reportedly headed back to Moscow, along with his staff. Our U.N. correspondent, John Alexander joins us now from Geneva. John?
(camera cuts to Alexander, standing in front of the U.N. building in Geneva, Switzerland)
Charles, Churkin walked out after the U.S. and China filed protests over the Soviet Red Air Force’s carpet-bombing of Bangkok in Thailand, where the Communist government had been overthrown and a pro-Western government had taken power. The Soviets and Communist Thailand, which holds much of the Thai countryside, admitted that they hit civilian targets in addition to government and military installations inside Bangkok. After China registered its protest, Churkin got up from his seat and walked out without a word.
--those in the first round of draftees will be informed by phone, mail and email. This is NPR News.
Over 80,000 people defied a city-wide curfew today to attend an impromptu peace rally in New York’s Central Park. The New York Police Department did not interfere for the hour-long rally put on by Greenpeace. Political commentators Rachel Maddow and Sam Seder and musician Chuck D spoke at the event.
A similar rally on the Washington Mall, sponsored by Students for Global Peace, did not come off due to the large presence of Army and Marine personnel—
--Pentagon sources tell ZNN that Soviet and Czechoslovakian forces are amassing in western Czechoslovakia—
--this just in to Fox News: Mexican President Felipe Calderon has survived an assassination attempt. This comes to us from the State Department. Calderon is uninjured and currently in a secure area somewhere in Mexico. The would-be assassin is in Mexican Army custody and has been identified as Alejandro Rivera--
Washington, D.C.
Gibbs’s basement
6:25 p.m.
“You’re shitting me,” Fornell said to Gibbs after Teague and Langer played the video from the Pentagon and other rings on Teague’s laptop.
“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Gibbs quipped. His grim expression told Fornell how seriously he took the videos and the claims that came with them. Claims that Fornell had heard himself whispers about for the past few years, from fellow FBI agents, both in and outside of Bureau headquarters.
Diane – who married, and later divorced, both Fornell and Gibbs (separately; she sometimes joked all three would have ended up killing each other if she had been married to them both at the same time) – sat in front of the frame of Gibbs’s half-finished boat, next to her and Fornell’s daughter Emily, and McGee’s sister Sarah. None of the three had breathed a word; Emily looked to her mother and father, who looked to Gibbs for guidance on what to do with the information they were being told. Sarah McGee listened quietly, trying to make sense of something that to her came straight out of a science-fiction television show, no matter how earnestly her brother told her what she heard was the truth.
“Jethro, there’s something I need to talk with you about,” Teague said. “In private.”
Gibbs got up from his stool next to the workbench and nodded towards the stairs; before he could catch up to Teague, Diane raised her hand. “Got something to ask, Diane, ask,” Gibbs said to her.
“Okay,” she said. “Is the government going to tell people about these…things?”
Langer whispered something in Teague’s ear, both aware everyone else in the basement were looking at them. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Officially, the rings don’t exist.”
“How do you know what the government will do or won’t do?”, Sarah asked. “How do you know these things are even real?”
“We don’t know what Washington is going to do regarding anything, beyond preparing for war,” Langer said. “As to your other question, we’ve been to these rings. We’ve seen them for ourselves. We’ve been through them.”
“To other worlds?” Sarah asked. Langer, then Teague, then Gibbs nodded their heads. “Forgive me for being just a bit skeptical,” she added.
“I understand,” Teague said, “but they’re real.”
“What happens in the event the balloon goes up and a conflict goes nuclear?” Fornell asked. “Is this why we’re here?”
Gibbs nodded to Fornell, and smiled at Diane, Sarah and Emily.
“We can probably clear a route from here to the Pentagon,” Teague said. “It’s easier to get everyone to where they would need to go when they’re all in one place. Plus, the military has done a good job in keeping insurgents and Soviet agents out of D.C. It’s why we haven’t had the problems other cities are having.”
“You guys mind giving us time to talk about this?” Fornell said.
“We’ll be upstairs,” Gibbs replied, nodding to Teague and Langer to follow him upstairs.
When he walked through the annex into the kitchen, Gibbs saw Mrs. Mallard sitting on his couch, and Abby and Kate talking to her. Ducky got his attention, and Gibbs gestured towards the foot of the stairs leading to the upstairs bedrooms.
“Ever since Mother arrived, she’s been confused,” Ducky said in a whisper. “I’m not certain if it was the ride or the surroundings. I haven’t the heart to tell her that all of the corgis had to be put down because there simply is no room for them here.”
And they’d be a burden if we had to bug out in a hurry, Gibbs thought. “Duck, she can have my bedroom. I’ll sleep downstairs.”
“I appreciate the gesture, Jethro. It will be difficult for Mother to get up and down the stairs, but Abby, Caitlin and Ziva can help—Mother!” Ducky turned, and saw Mrs. Mallard trying to break free from Kate and Abby’s grasp.
“Donald!”, she said. “These…these hussies are holding me against my will. Please call the police!”
“Mother, they are the police,” he said, with an air of resignation. “They’re also friends. I’ve told you we won’t be going home for a while…”
Teague got Gibbs’s attention and pointed upwards towards the stairs. He nodded, and she and Langer followed him into the upstairs hallway. Gibbs’s cellphone rang, and he looked at the number on the screen. “Gotta take this,” he said abruptly, going into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him, leaving Langer to shrug his shoulders at Teague.
“Bud?”, Gibbs said, once he locked the door. He recognized the number as that of Navy Lieutenant Commander Bud Roberts Jr., a trial lawyer working out of the Department of the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General in Falls Church, Virginia. Gibbs had placed several calls to try to get in touch with someone from the office, to discuss the rings and provision for them to flee with Gibbs’s group, and hadn’t heard from anyone until now.
“We’re on a secure line,” Roberts said. “I know you’ve been trying to get in touch. We’ve been busy. Just now got time – and the clearance – to reach you.”
“You and your people okay?”, Gibbs said.
“Yeah, we’re okay. We know about the rings, Gibbs.”
“You do.”
“Yeah, we do. Got filled in by a friend of Admiral Chegwidden’s who sent some of his people to you. ‘Harm’ – Lieutenant Rabb – wanted to sign you up on the spot. The Admiral’s friend said he’d take care of it himself. That’s why he sent Agent Teague. Wants to talk to you personally.”
“Where are you now, Bud?”
“Getting ready to bug out, off the planet. Admiral Chegwidden had to pull a bunch of strings—”
“Hold on, Bud. ‘Off the planet’?!?”
“Yeah. Find it hard to believe, too. But…Harm, Mac, everyone we knew from the JAG office in Falls Church are over there. Harriet and the kids are there. Gibbs, it’s amazing. It’s like here, but peaceful, and…they’re exploring space, there’s almost no poverty, everyone gets along…they’ve even got superheroes come to life. Gibbs. You’ve got to get there—”
Gibbs heard a knock on the door. He definitely had a question or two for Teague and Langer. “So you’re all safe.”
“And sound, Gibbs. It’s good that…if things go belly-up…there’s a place for people to go. For your people to go…speaking of, I gotta go myself. The train’s here.”
“Yeah,” Gibbs said, thinking the train reference was to Roberts going through the ring to some other…place. “Give Rabb and Chegwidden and your people my regards. Take care of Harriet and your kids.”
“Will do, Agent Gibbs. Good luck. And Godspeed.”
“Same to you.” Gibbs heard the line go dead, and the knocks on the door bang louder and louder. He opened the door, and saw Teague holding up her Agency-issued iPhone. “My boss wants to talk to you.”
Gibbs wondered briefly why the CIA director wanted to talk to him. “Gates?”
“My boss over the rings, not the Agency,” she said. “He knows Admiral Chegwidden. And wants to talk to you.”
Gibbs grabbed the iPhone out of her hands, remembering how Tim McGee showed him to use it when he brought his personal phone in last year. “Gibbs.”
“Gibbs, we’re on a secure line, and my name is Steve Trevor. I’m a Colonel in the United States Air Force, and officially we’re not having this conversation. In reality, I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time but I don’t want to do it over the phone. I want to do it face-to-face.”
“Got a time and place, Colonel?”
“I’m working on it. Unless Moscow starts throwing nukes at us, be ready. I have your number, so don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Trevor hung up.
Gibbs handed the iPhone back to Teague. “You know what this is about?”, he asked her.
“I know he wants to meet you, but whatever he wants to talk about, that’s between the two of you.”
8:17 p.m.
Stan Burley had kicked back in the NCIS-issued Ford Taurus, content for its driver – a young woman in a black suit who had to still be in college – to take him straight to Gibbs’s house. They were stopped four blocks from the house at a roadblock set up at an intersection by two dark Ford Explorers, each carrying two dark-suited agents. After Burley and his driver showed their IDs and badges and the sedan was searched thoroughly, they were allowed to continue on their way.
Burley saw SUVs and Tauruses lined up and down Gibbs’s street, and only a few vehicles that looked like they belonged to Gibbs’s neighbors. The Taurus carrying him stopped on the street in front of Gibbs’s house, and Burley recognized the man smoking a cigarette on the front porch. He had never met Mike Franks, but recognized him from a photo, and remembered the few stories Gibbs had told him about Franks.
“You must be Burley,” Franks said, shaking the younger man’s hand as he walked onto the porch. “Gibbs was wondering about you just now.”
“Looks like a packed house inside,” Burley said. “They weren’t kidding when they told me ‘all of his people’ were here.”
“We’re still waitin’ on Cassidy,” Franks said, tossing his cigarette on the porch and rubbing it out with his shoe. “I’ll tell Gibbs you’re here.”
Franks turned, saw Abby running towards the door, and quickly got out of the way. Burley saw her, braced himself, and moments later saw the door fly open and Abby leap onto him, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“Stan Stan Stan Stan! Omigod I’m so glad you’re here!”, she said breathlessly, as Franks chuckled. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
“Glad to be here, Abbs,” Burley croaked out. “Mind if I take a quick breath?”
“Huh?...oh. Oh. I’m so sorry,” she said, breaking the embrace, before hugging his neck for a few more seconds. “Everyone’s here. Tony, Kate, McGee, Jimmy. Ducky, Ducky’s mother, Fornell, Gibbs’s ex-wife, their daughter, McGee’s sister…Mike.”
“I just met him,” Burley said, nodding towards Franks. “Let me stash my gear inside, and we’ll catch up.”
“Everybody wants to talk to you,” Abby said, rushing inside ahead of Burley.
“Hey!”, Tony shouted from the kitchen. “Look what the cat dragged in!” Kate, with him preparing some tunafish for dinner, rolled her eyes but didn’t hide her smile.
“Stanley, my boy!”, Ducky said, getting up from the couch where he was chatting with his mother and with one of the suits. “So good to see you!”
“Good to be here,” Burley replied, greeting everyone while waiting for someone to fetch Gibbs from upstairs. A minute later, Gibbs made his way down to the living room and shook Burley’s hand.
“Boss, I don’t see Cassidy here,” Burley said, referring to NCIS agent Paula Cassidy.
“Just got off the phone with her,” Gibbs said, so everyone in the room could hear. “C-130 she was to flown in on got pulled elsewhere. Navy put her on a civilian flight from Panama City to Houston, then on another flight to St. Louis. She had to rent a car because the military and the government are taking control of domestic flights. She’s going to have to drive here from there, and detour through Kentucky.”
“I was told Louisville’s a mess and Cincinnati’s not much better,” Fornell said. ZNN had briefly mentioned food riots in Louisville and suspicious wrecks that had clogged up many of the main routes in Cincinnati. “She better have an escort.”
“When I got off the phone with her,” Gibbs said, “she was in a Humvee outside Mount Vernon—”
“That’s where Novamerika is!”, Sarah McGee said.
“What’s that?”, Abby said.
“It’s like a city, history theme park and tourist trap rolled into one,” Sarah said. “Some rich guy started it five years ago. It finally opened in February.”
“Hope it’s not as crazy there as what I’m hearing from Baltimore,” Tony added. “I hope Paula can get here safe.”
“She’s a trained agent, DiNozzo,” Franks said. “She can take care of herself.”
“Hope you’re right, Mike,” Tony said.
9:58 p.m. CDT
Novamerika
Along Interstate 64, south of Mount Vernon, Illinois
Cassidy groaned when she came to the roadblock set up by four Illinois State Police squad cars. “Sorry, ma’am,” a trooper told her after she verified Cassidy’s identity. “Indiana’s cut off the state border temporarily because of trouble from some of the Indianapolis refugees along I-64 from Evansville to the” – the trooper pulled out a piece of paper from her back pocket and skimmed through it, until she found what she was looking for – “Hoosier National Forest. It’s packed full of people from Indy and Louisville and Evansville trying to get to safer ground. From what we’re told, that forest is a madhouse.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Cassidy said. “I have business in Washington. I can’t fly, so I’ll drive—”
“It’s too dangerous,” the trooper said. “Don’t even think about taking I-57 South to 24 South, either. Military’s got I-24 cut off at the Kentucky state line all the way into Nashville.”
“Look,” Cassidy said, holding up her badge for emphasis. “I am a federal agent. I worked in Panama. I survived Panama City. I can survive Hoosier National Forest or Nashville or anything the Russians throw my way here.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Governor Ryan here in Illinois is ordering traffic into Novamerika and Mount Vernon. He ordered I-57 North cut off at I-70. I’m sorry, but right now, Novamerika’s your best bet.”
Cassidy seethed for a few moments, then accepted her present situation. “I’m not going to get you in trouble, you’re only doing your job. But does your C.O. work in Mount Vernon?”
“DuQuoin, ma’am. But we do have an office in Novamerika. Follow the signs, show your badge and you’ll be waved through the dome and escorted to the old security office. We’re set up there now, along with the FBI, ICE, and anyone else from a state or federal law enforcement agency.”
Cassidy backed up 80 feet to the exit, and took it past the closed Pilot truck stop and still-open Waffle House, and began the five-mile journey towards the gigantic glowing dome visible in the distance.
11:19 p.m. EDT
--Jim Cantore is live from Vero Beach, Florida. Jim?
Stephanie, I’m standing here outside—outside in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn where Hurricane Barry has just made landfall. It’s a Category Four hurri—we’re going to have to get inside. The winds are too—
(the feed cuts out)
Jim? Jim?...Jim Cantore, in Vero Beach, Florida, trying to stand against the wind in what is now a Category Four hurricane that has just made landfall in Florida.—
--the State of Florida has ordered everyone in the state from the Everglades up to north central Florida to shelter in place—
--Governor Crist has ordered state and local police to pull anyone who refuses to leave their vehicles out of their vehicles by force. This has hampered law enforcement in the areas directly affected by Barry’s landfall—
--the Florida Legislature, we’re told, is torn in both houses between Republicans who are urging the Governor to prepare for war and Democrats who want Crist to focus on Hurricane Barry and on evacuating residents to safer areas out of the state--
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Midnight EDT
--This is NPR News from Washington. I’m Mary Bromfield.
United Nations Television and Radio is reporting that the U.N., along with the governments of China and India, have formally requested that the United States and Soviet Union back down from their ‘disagreement’ and for both nations’ leaders to travel to New Delhi for a summit—
--Radio Moscow dismissed the formal requests as ‘propaganda backed by a government that is socialist in word only and capitalist in fact’—
6 a.m. EDT
--South Filipino and East Malaysian MIG fighter jets buzzed US and Chinese Taipei fighters within the last hour in the Sulu Sea—
--a Ugandan submarine has been sighted off the coast of Mandelaburg—
--the South Korean government has ordered civilians to shelter as a precautionary measure—
AOL military families message board post
10:22 a.m. EDT
Joint Base Knox is under lockdown. We barely got thru the gates this morning when the MPs told us to go straight to our house.
I think we got enough at Wal-Mart in Radcliff but they were allowing customers only one cart. I got there with my son and daughter around 7 and the place was packed, everybody talking about the summit and preparations for war. Radcliff police and National Guardsmen out front and at every lane and in every aisle.
People are starting to get scared. There's a lot going on you're not hearing about from the news channels or the radio. The best way to keep informed IMO is scuttlebutt. The grapevine's working just fine.
11:25 a.m. EDT
Gibbs’s house
Gibbs, Kate, DiNozzo, Abby, Burley and five suits attend a Mass held in the basement by a Catholic priest who knew Fornell from an FBI case back in 2003. Everyone else is upstairs and respectful – although Palmer takes time off from lifting free weights in the backyard, to sit down and read through his copies of two books by author Christopher Hitchens: The Soviet Threat and God Is Not Great.
Noon EDT
--Hurricane Barry’s eye is now over Gainesville and the storm has not lessened—
--Baltimore County is now shut down. The only groups having success bringing in food and medicine are African-American church groups and the Red Cross--
--pastor Chuck Smith, from the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, urged his parishoners to go out and evangelize “everyone they can”—
--pastor Joel Osteen told a packed house of over 17,000 people this morning, during the second of eight planned Sunday services, that God is good and loves everyone—
--pastor David Wilkerson, locked out of his Times Square Church by the city’s shutdown of Times Square, told members and attendees of the Brooklyn Tabernacle that he feared America was about to reap the results of decades of rebellion against the Lord—
--Muslim worshippers throughout Michigan packed mosques, despite protests outside a few mosques in Dearborn—
--like nearby churches and mosques, virtually every synagogue throughout New York was packed today, as Jews prayed not just for the peace of Jerusalem, but for the world—
--the Pope again offered the use of Vatican City as a site for Boehner and Khalinin to work out a peace agreement—
3 p.m. EDT
--the USSR has refused repeated requests by the U.N. to send Westerners trapped inside the country to neutral territory—
--the White House would not comment on rumors of Soviet- and World Pact-affiliated persons still in the U.S. being placed in a FEMA camp in Wyoming—
6 p.m. EDT
--the government of the Oman People's Republic sent out a short email to Al-Jazeera just now. Quote: "Oman will respect the integrity of Mecca and Medina. We will not respect the integrity of capitalist oppressors in this region."
--Kentucky National Guard has been called in to put down violence at the FEMA camp at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center in Louisville--
9:12 p.m. EDT
--CNN has been told by military sources that the USS Savannah, a light cruiser supporting U.S. and Free Philippine naval ships in the western Pacific Ocean, has sunk with all hands lost in an incident off the East Malaysian Riau Islands in the South China Sea—
9:19 p.m. EDT
--President Boehner is currently discussing the incident with his advisors—
9:26 p.m. EDT
--Khalinin has just gone on Radio Moscow to condemn the United States Navy’s ‘arrogance eclipsed only by its buffoonery’ in blaming the sinking of the USS Savannah on socialist naval forces—
10 p.m. EDT
--we open this hour with news from Denmark, where Soviet Red Navy ships are shadowing their West German and British counterparts in the North and Baltic Seas--
10:30 p.m. EDT
--E.D. Rochelle, a history professor from the University of Omaha, speaks to us now from Columbus, Nebraska, where the state has set up emergency camps for those fleeing from Omaha and Lincoln. Dr. Rochelle, we've heard the mood at the Columbus camps are much more upbeat, if somber, than stories we've heard from similar facilities throughout the nation. Would you give us your point of view?--
11 p.m. EDT
--the National Hurricane Center has issued a Hurricane Warning for Atlanta, as Barry’s path continues upward through Florida into Georgia—
Monday, June 4, 2007
12:01 a.m. EDT/7:01 a.m. Moscow Time
Radio Moscow (heard in English via a transmitter in Cuba)
--Attention. Moscow is speaking. Comrade Khalinin, the General Secretary and Marshal of the Soviet Union, will now speak.
Comrades throughout the world, those laboring together under the socialist banner of the World Bloc and those shackled by the chains of the capitalist warmongers of the so-called free world, as well as those in the so-called neutral nations.
The Americans feel free to blame the Soviet Union and its socialist comrades in the East Malaysian Socialist Republic and the Socialist Republic of the South Philippines for the sinking of the American ship USS Savannah. They say their ship was sunk by an East Malaysian People’s Navy vessel.
They lie. They always lie. The blame for this incident is not with the socialist forces in the South China Sea, it is solely with the Americans.
There have been appeals to me to come to the bargaining table with the warmonger Boehner. These appeals are from parties who have their own biases: India, once a friend of socialism and now a nation wallowing in compromise; China, a bastion of Communism, now chasing the almighty American dollar; and the Catholic Pope, forever blinded by his superstition and influenced by the West.
Their appeals, as they wish them to come to pass, are in vain.
However, there is a way that leads us from the precipice of destruction towards the peace that they claim to desire and that we comrades want and are willing to fight for.
It will be together that we find this peace. It is together we can live in harmony. It is only together that we can vanquish war, once and for all, and build a world where all, regardless of gender, race, creed, nationality are equal.
Today I call for the United States and its allies, and for the neutral countries of the world to join the Soviet Union and the World Socialist Pact in the formation of one, united world socialist government. I call upon the United Nations to work with the Soviet Union and the World Pact nations to reinvent itself into the World People’s Union, and to move its headquarters to the eventual world capital of the newly People’s Independent City of Riga in Latvia.
I call upon all Western and neutral nations to willingly join the World People’s Union and to eagerly consent to the following conditions for membership:
Dismantling of all nuclear weapons;
A drawdown of all military forces by 50 percent within 24 hours from now; 90 percent within seven days; and 100 percent within ten days;
The handover of all military weapons, from fighter jets to tanks down to hand pistols, over to the World People’s Union Forces;
And, the plan to redistribute all wealth from the individuals in the capitalist and neutral nations to all peoples, within one month.
This is an ambitious plan, yes. Some would say it is outrageous. But it is no more outrageous than the capitalist nations planning for decades to fight a war that it cannot win that will destroy the globe. If you want peace, you should be willing to do anything to achieve it.
Do you want peace, Boehner? Do you want peace, peoples of the West?
Or do you want power and money and to wipe socialism from the face of the Earth?
We, the Soviet Union, and we, the peoples of the World Socialist Pact, are not willing to let you wipe us from the face of the Earth. We are willing to fight for our way of life, and we WILL fight for our way of life.
I have ordered the evacuation of all major cities in the Soviet Union, and our comrades in each socialist country are doing the same for their major cities. We are prepared, now, not just to fight capitalist aggression but we are prepared to liberate all workers and peasants in Western and neutral countries laboring under the heavy yoke of capitalism.
We will give you one hour to decide.
12:12 a.m. EDT
West Berlin, West Germany
ZDF (translated from German)
--East German forces are engaged with West German and NATO forces across the Berlin Wall—
12:13 a.m. EDT
--AP NEWS ALERT
MUNICH, West Germany – NATO forces are now engaged against Soviet/Warsaw Pact air and land forces moving into West Germany and Austria, NATO sources tell The Associated Press.—
12:15 a.m. EDT/8:15 a.m. Alaska time Sunday
Nome, Alaska
--all local television and radio stations are now participating in the Emergency Broadcast System for Western Alaska at the request of the federal government. Ten minutes ago, Soviet air and naval forces were sighted four miles from Joint Base Nome. Governor Palin has authorized martial law in Nome and Western Alaska effective immediately—
12:22 a.m. EDT/5:22 a.m. GMT
BBC television and radio
--the U.K. has formally declared war on the Soviet Union—
12:24 a.m. EDT/5:24 a.m. GMT
BBC
--the BBC has learned of a massive bombing at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium—
12:26 a.m. EDT/2:26 p.m. Guam time
KUAM-TV
Agana, Guam
--the statement from Joint Base Guam also says Soviet planes lifted off from Sakhalin Island ten minutes ago and began attacking U.S. and South Korean planes over the Korean peninsula and began engaging with U.S. and Japanese fighters over Hokkaido--
12:27 a.m. EDT/12:27 p.m. Philippine Standard Time
Voice of America
--U.S. and Filipino forces are now engaged against Soviet-backed forces across the Philippines, including Subic Bay--
12:28 a.m. EDT/8:28 p.m. ADT (Sunday)
Juneau, Alaska
Emergency Broadcast System
--this station is participating in the Emergency Broadcast System at the request of the Alaska and federal governments. This is not a test.
Soviet fighters are now engaged in battle against U.S. fighters over Western Alaska and are believed to be targeting Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and the Alaskan Pipeline. Anyone within those areas are urged to seek shelter now—
12:29 a.m. EDT/11:29 p.m. CDT (Sunday)
Mobile, Alabama
WKRG-TV
--eyewitnesses have identified planes with Cuban markings flying over Mobile seconds after the apparent multiple detonations at Fort McDermott in Spanish Fort—
12:30 a.m. EDT
Washington, D.C.
The White House
Oval Office
Sitting at his desk, President Boehner gave himself a few moments to put his face in his hands and ask God for His mercy. Then he looked up at General Samuel Lane, standing ten feet away, and told him simply: “General, the gloves are off. Tell the military to put the bastards down and good hunting.”
Lane left immediately for the Pentagon; aides, meanwhile, finished setting up camera equipment for the President’s impending address to the nation.
12:37 a.m.
Capitol Hill
In a rare joint session, both houses of Congress voted to declare war on the Soviet Union and the World Socialist Pact.
12:44 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
The White House
Oval Office
President John Boehner address
--My fellow Americans.
Forty-three minutes ago, a madman made outrageous demands of a free world he knew it would never agree to.
Thirty-two minutes ago, the madman’s forces began attacking those of the free world.
Seven minutes ago, Congress voted to declare war on the madman and his forces. Two minutes ago, I signed that declaration.
As of now, the United States is at war with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist world. We will fight, and we will not give in, nor give up, and we will prevail. We must prevail, for us not to prevail means that tyranny will win. That cannot happen.
Whatever happens over the coming hours, days, weeks, or longer, may God have mercy on us all.—
