The Presidential Palace called Jeremiah back as he walked away. Voices, memories beckoning from the smoke and the destruction. His feet carried him forward. Tears blinded his path. Still, he knew where to go. To the wall to wait. He paused as he passed the café where he and Ben would stop for a morning cup. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee seemed to fill the air, but it was only an illusion, a chimera from a past which would never be again.
He peered inside. Dust and debris covered upturned stools, black seats on chrome legs, lying beneath pieces of ceiling as though dead. The long counter remained intact, except for an oblong crack on the side closest to the window where a beam had fallen on it. The ghosts of baristas plodded behind the counter, filling imaginary cups and setting them on imaginary plates. Spoons rattled as they stirred the sugar and cream. Jeremiah lifted his hand to his mouth.
Back on the street, he sat down and rested against the corner of the building. His eyes glanced up more than once at the sounds of the night, expecting Ben to run up at any moment. But the sounds were also illusions, and Jeremiah remained alone.
Darkness settled over the street. Dim, distant fires provided enough light for Jeremiah to see to the end of the block. A shadow ran out of the darkness towards him, constant, hurried, agitated. He followed its progress as an eagle might watch the affairs of men as it drifted on the wings of the wind. Arms folded across his chest; a hand rubbed his chin. The expression on his face didn’t change when the man spoke to him in a familiar way.
“You’re OK. Thank God.”
Jeremiah turned away from him. “Ben’s dead.”
“I know. We saw it on the live feed.”
“They killed him. He knew Ben would be in his limo. He knew the Russians had a helicopter waiting. He or Maraina did. That’s why he insisted we take his limo. He knew they were waiting.”
“I know, J. I mean I know now.”
“Where is he?” Jeremiah asked.
“He took off.”
“What do you mean he took off?”
“Zedekiah and Maraina got into a car with Agent Marlowe. They’re headed to the gate.”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “Why would they do that?”
“The Russians have broken through on the east. It’s just a matter of time before they hit the northern gate. Zedekiah has ordered it to be opened and for all the troops to fight their way out. He says it’s so they have a chance to escape. I heard him tell Maraina they’d sneak out in the chaos and try to make their way to West Virginia. Apparently, the Chinese have an extraction team waiting near Morgantown.”
“Do they?”
“Zedekiah seems to think so.”
“He won’t make it far,” Jeremiah said.
“Yeah. I know.” Mel held out his hand. “But it won’t do us any good sitting here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, but we’ll go there together.”
Jeremiah took Mel’s hand and let his friend lift him up. “We need to tell Gedaliah that his father is dead.”
“I can do that if you’d like,” Mel said, “once I get you to safety.”
“There is no safety,” Jeremiah said. He paused and nodded quickly. “Let me tell Gedaliah. I’d rather he heard it from me.”
“As you wish.”
They made good time, all things considered, meandering up Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park to avoid the lines of people streaming towards the northern gate. A silver moon sprinkled its light through the outstretched limbs of the trees. Shadows played across their path, alternately showing then hiding the fear on Mel’s face. Jeremiah’s was gone, left behind in the fiery wreckage of the presidential limo. Climbing up the bank to Military Road, they rested on the bridge crossing the dry creek bed below.
No more than a minute later, loud shouts from 16th street caught their attention. As they neared the intersection, they saw the cause of the commotion. A group of people, too many to count, yelled at a wave of people pushing down from the north. They met in the middle of the road, jamming together and clogging the intersection. Panic filled the eyes of the people from the north, anger filled those of the people from the south.
Mel grabbed Jeremiah’s arm. “Run!” he yelled.
Jeremiah froze, not out of fear or courage or even curiosity but simply because he had tired of running.
“Let’s go,” Mel ordered.
Jeremiah shook his head. “No.”
Mel began to argue, but seeing his friend’s determination, he backed off. “Then, at least get out of the way.”
Less than a block away on the rubble of a former five-story building, Mel and Jeremiah climbed to the top to watch. In the distance, a column of Russian tanks rumbled down 16th street, tracks tossing gray dust into the black night. The whir of blades beat the air to the south. A pair of helicopters appeared out of the darkness and unleashed a torrent of fiery darts. The strafing fire, thousands of whining, biting hornets, cut down two columns of people. Bodies jerked and heaved and fell motionless.
A white light flashed from the bottom of the helicopter. A second later, orange flames surged upwards from the bottom of the pile of rubble. Jeremiah felt himself tumble backwards, down the pile and into the throng of panicked people. He stood up and called for Mel, but the tumult drowned out his cries.
He tried to move, tried to run to his friend, but from every side, the flowing mass of the terrified bumped and pushed and threatened to knock him to the ground. His elbows jutted out, finding breathing space in the mass. Eyes searched up and around, looking for room to maneuver, hoping for a way out of the crowd. But the mass descended on him, constricting him even tighter, an anaconda wrapping around its prey. With no other option available, Jeremiah let himself get pushed along by the pack until he reached a narrow alley. He darted in and let the human river pour by.
Orion rose long before the crowd dissipated. Jeremiah stepped back onto the main road and headed into the fray. The Russians had arrived but he didn’t care. His feet propelled him forward towards the north gate, conscience thought disappearing into the screams and the crushing blackness, freewill and fate combining into the path set out for him before the formation of the earth. His world had become a dream, and he was no more than a casual observer in someone else’s nightmare.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jeremiah stepped onto the main street. Fires raged on every side. Cars and trees, human candles in flowing orange suits collapsed in piles of fleshy wax. The smoke drifted across the street, filling the air with a thick, pungent odor. He covered his nose with his shirt to keep out the smell of the holocaust.
Russian troops approached from the north with their line arcing around to the northeast. A pair of tanks flanked by their support platoons pressed forward in a slow, steady march, bodies falling before the advancing troops like marionettes whose strings had been cut. A handful of soldiers fired back from a foxhole to Jeremiah’s left. The pop pop pop of their small caliber rifles no match for the heavy roar of the machine guns mounted on top of the tanks. In a matter of moments, the foxhole was silenced. One blast from the cannon left no doubt, showering the street with dirt and rock.
With little resistance left, the Russians swooped around to from a semi-circle on the east. The people who tried to escape fled into the thick woods to the west, into the arms of waiting Russian soldiers hidden in the thick woods. Bayonets slashed across men’s throats or plunged into soft, bloated bellies. Flamethrowers lit up the twitching bodies to purge the world of their disease. The women not ravaged by diarrhea or boils or tumors satisfied the needs of soldiers far from home before they too tasted the cleansing fire.
On the street, Russian soldiers walked up to survivors and casually placed bullets in the back of their necks. Two down. One safe. Two down. One safe. Jeremiah held his hands above his head and counted.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The zip ties dug into his red, chafed wrists. He had an overwhelming urge to pee and shifted his weight to ease the pressure on his bladder. To his right, the sun rose in a glorious stream of yellow and orange.
The sounds of war had dissipated long before dawn, sometime after the cool of the night usurped the heat of the evening. The city had fallen. Horizontal stripes of white, blue, and red flew over the Presidential Palace while the American flag burned on the ground below. Survivors were rounded up and marched to the open fields in front of the Capitol. Anyone found in uniform received an immediate trial and sentencing. A few of the generals had been spared and now waited in a circle, chained together, naked except for a star carved into their chests. President Zedekiah sat on the ground guarded by four of Russia’s finest. His press secretary and lover stretched out beside him, the back of her head touching her breasts.
Jeremiah glanced at the people around him. General Hannah, Mel, a few more secret service agents, any other person believed to be in Zedekiah’s inner group. They huddled together, silent, no communication between them except for an occasional look of support or resignation. Each one in his or her own thoughts. Each one pondering whether their end would be quick or whether their prolonged screams would carry across the open fields before slowly dissolving into nothingness. A general with a two-headed eagle on his epaulet emerged from an armored vehicle and let them know they would soon have their answer.
The Russian general chatted with his aides for a minute and walked with them towards Jeremiah. He stopped in front of General Hannah, the Russian’s face turning red. His English was nearly perfect.
“Why does he still wear the uniform?”
Hannah swallowed hard. Sweat appeared around his hairline.
“Take it off him.”
An aide summoned a couple soldiers from the lines and gave the instructions in Russian. Hannah’s uniform came off. A glove slipped over the Russian general’s hand. A knife slipped into it and plunged into Hannah’s lower stomach. He doubled over but the two soldiers pulled him upright. The Russian reached into the wound and extracted a length of intestine. A dash of alcohol. A lighter ignited. Hannah writhed in agony as his stomach burned.
A wad of spit flew out and landed in the dust. Polished shoes headed towards Zedekiah. The double-headed eagle stared down at the former president from their lofty perch. The Russian grabbed Zedekiah’s chin, lifting it so he could look directly at his face. Another command and the four guards by Zedekiah’s side took hold of him, forcing him to kneel. One of the guards took Zedekiah by the hair. The blade found its mark, once, then twice. Each time the president’s eyes made a sound like a water balloon popping, like the sound of a fetus’ limbs ripping from their sockets. Blood ran down his cheeks. His eyes stared at him from the dust. Chains slipped over his wrists and ankles as the pain screamed out his lungs.
The Russian returned to the group of Zedekiah’s advisors encircling Jeremiah. The general motioned to the soldiers, who lifted Jeremiah to his feet.
“What is your name?” the Russian said.
“Jeremiah.”
The general squinted his eyes. “Jeremiah. I have heard of you.”
He nodded once. A soldier removed his knife. Jeremiah felt the blade go behind his back and heard a snap. He brought his hands to the front and rubbed his sore wrists.
“Go,” the Russian general said. “Go before I change my mind.”
Jeremiah bowed his head. “If I may, sir.”
“What is it?”
“That man must come with me.”
The general clenched his jaw and nodded once more. Mel Ebed trotted over to Jeremiah’s side. Together, they traveled across the field, small clouds of dust agitating by their feet. Behind them, shrieks of agony echoed through the sky and pushed them forward. Only when they reached the banks of the Potomac did the cries diminish into nothing.
A light mist swirled around them, sprinkling the branches which held a pair of sparrows. The sparrows struck up a conversation, a prayer of thanksgiving to the Creator who kept them in mind. Mel turned his gaze heavenward and let the drops of rain cool his face. Sadness merged with relief. The weight lifting off his shoulders to land on his heart. A few drops fell from his brown cheeks and watered the ground.