Without warning

‘Damn straight,’ said Culver. ‘We need this done yesterday. Hell, we needed it as soon as that energy thing crashed down on top of us. But we have to accept that as scared and fucked up as people are right now, especially those poor bastards who are close enough to the Wave to be able to see it, they will adapt. There will come a day when it’s not the first thing they think of when they wake up in the morning. And they will go back to the old ways of doing things, of each against the other and damn anyone in between. It’s just our nature. So whatever we set up now has to have the elegance of our first constitutional principles. It has to allow for the better angels of our nature to sing, because, Lord knows, the demons are going to be a massed fucking choir over the next little while.’

‘What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Culver? Could you take us through your proposal, step by step?’

‘Of course, Admiral,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Basically, some laws are going to get bruised, if not broken, but even Jefferson would have been cool with that. You know, his purchase of my home state, Louisiana, was, to put it bluntly, completely illegal – and he knew it. But he also knew that the strict observance of the written law, while one of the high duties of a good citizen, is not the highest.’

Culver stood up straight and appeared to stare off into space, obviously quoting from the third President of the United States. ‘The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.’

Having finished, he leaned forward and placed his hands on the edge of the conference table where they all sat. ‘What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that we’re gonna crack some heads together. And fast. And by “we” I mean the American people, what’s left of us.’

* * * *

‘I think it might be better if nobody showed up in uniform, flashing their medals and… what d’you call that stuff – fruit salad?’ Culver gestured towards the campaign ribbons on Ritchie’s uniform. He didn’t wait for the admiral to reply. ‘Fact is, we already got blood spilled in Seattle. People are skittish. Yeah, you guys are the only outfit with the chops to put boot to ass and get it all done, but I promise you that anything that looks even halfway like a military takeover will mean the end of everything.’

Ritchie clamped down on his surging frustration. Only he and Culver remained in the office, all of the other attendees having returned to their duties. He was hungry and tired and didn’t see himself being able to do anything about either any time soon. The austerity measures he’d ordered for every military establishment in Hawaii were not merely window dressing. Food shortages would become dangerous if strict rationing was not enforced. The islands’ airfields were running around the clock, shuttling aid in and people out, but a cascading series of economic crises ripping through global money markets was beginning to bite hard in the real world. In the last twenty-four hours, both the Chinese and Japanese governments had quietly ordered container ships loaded with food and medical aid bound for Hawaii to turn around and head home. Ritchie had savoured his cup of coffee at breakfast this morning with sad relish, because he wasn’t sure when he might get another one.

‘Yes, I understand, Mr Culver,’ he said, still refusing to give in to the lawyer’s insistence that he was just ‘plain ol’ Jed’. ‘But I am fighting an illegal war. Men and women are going to their deaths on my say-so and not much else. Why are they doing that? No reason. No good reason, anyway. We’re there because we’re there and we can’t get our sorry asses out in good order. Hell, we can’t even turn to the United Nations for guidance.’

‘I know you got pressures, Admiral. I know -’