Chapter 28

Feeling a little depressed, Cathy watched Mike hard at work on one of those special projects that arose from time to time. Not understanding why it was, she was fascinated by him. She thought he was handsome, but that wasn’t the real reason. He was an amazing mixture of qualities. When working on something that really required his attention, he was focused, intense, and dedicated. She knew there were times when he stayed until late at night pursuing terrorists. When relaxing during the occasional slow times, he was reserved while demonstrating that he cared about his people. When people were stressed, he sent them out to relax. When people were depressed, he listened to their stories of woe. He always had a good word for people, praising them when they did well and consoling them when things didn’t work out right.

She had seen him work at the height of crises that should have turned him surly. At all times, he was calm, cool, collected, and polite. She thought it was amazing that when the whole world was turning upside down, Mike kept solidly on his feet and led everyone to safety.

The fact of the matter was that Mike was everything that she wanted in a man. She didn’t care that he was almost fourteen years older than her. He was in better shape than most men her age. He was strong, powerful, and wise. It was a combination that left her weak in her knees.

The times at work that she liked best was when he asked her to operate the keyboard for him. That was when he was unusually intense. He stood over her with his weight resting on his right hand watching what she was doing. His focus on the task at hand was almost supernatural in its intensity. She knew that he had no idea how it affected her.

There were times when she wore low cut tops to work. She hoped that he would ask her to type and would notice the swell of her breasts when he leaned over her to watch what she was typing. If he did notice, he never showed it. She knew his attention was on saving the world and not lusting after her. In a way she could understand it, but that didn’t make her disappointment any less.

She tried to get his attention by doing little things that he would appreciate. She fixed his coffee and delivered it without him having to ask for it. She knew what he liked to eat every day of the week. When there was a surprise item on the menu that he liked better she knew to get it. She made sure that the office was stocked with the snacks that he usually requested.

No matter what she did, it seemed to her that he didn’t notice. At first she thought that it was because of his grief over losing his wife and son. As time went by and his grief never lessened, she began to get worried. Then he started to recover although the signs of recovery were subtle at first. There were little chuckles, jokes, and smiles. He seemed to be a little more relaxed as he moved around the room. The tension that had always been present in his shoulders abated.

For about four months she waited hopeful that he would notice her as a woman rather than a coworker. He didn’t and it had begun to weigh heavily upon her. She wondered if she wasn’t attractive enough. There were times when she was sure that her lack of formal education was a problem. She started attending a local college when it reopened to get a degree in economics. Still he never noticed.

Although she had tried to be discreet, Joe knew how she felt. He kept telling her that Mike would notice her one day. She wanted to believe Joe, but she had just about given up hope. She had gone on a date over the weekend with a man, but he had turned out to be a jerk. The comparison between the man and Mike had highlighted everything she appreciated about him.

She sighed and watched him work. Her thoughts kept returning to the same subject time after time. When would he notice her?

The news on television covered the reaction of world to the destruction of three apartment complexes in Toronto, Canada. In fact, that was the only thing that was on the news. There were interviews with any one of any significance in the world. The Canadian Prime Minister was clearly outraged at the incursion on Canadian soil that the act represented. He stopped short of declaring war on the United States, but did say that future trespasses would not be tolerated.

The President of France declared that the United States was showing its true colors as a country that desired world domination. France was not alone in feeling that way, but it was the most vocal. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium quickly jumped on that bandwagon. South American countries had believed that all along and didn’t even bat an eye.

Even Great Britain was rather surprised by the attack on the soil of a fellow Commonwealth country. The Press raised a riot, but the response of the Prime Minister was subdued. It was as if the Prime Minister had known in advance that it was going to happen. It was obvious that he did not approve of the action, but he didn’t condemn it in public. Australia was notably quiet. It had basically followed the American plan to get rid of radical Islam.

The reaction in the Middle East was quite predictable. It howled that America was nothing but a rabid dog that would turn on friend and foe alike. They pointed to the deaths of innocent Muslim Canadians who had just been sitting at home with their families as an act of war against Muslims. The call to arms in a Holy Jihad against America was raised again. Tens of thousands of young Muslim men answered the call.

Reporters who were still predominately liberal raised a cry of protest against the actions of President Archer. To any moderately informed observer of the press, it wasn’t clear what had angered them the most. Was it the fact that the President didn’t warn them so that they could have cameras on the scene or was it that they viewed it as an act of war? They called for his impeachment in a soft voice afraid that the rest of America wouldn’t go along with them. America didn’t go along with them.

Rather than give a standard speech from the White House in which the President explained his actions, the President responded with a half hour video that looked as if it had been professionally produced. It was the first time that a President had released a documentary that covered a current event. It was a very effective manner to present the reasoning behind the actions taken by the White House. It pulled the teeth from the commentators who wanted to interpret every word of a Presidential speech so that they could put their own political spin on it. The opposition party was left speechless.

The video started by showing surveillance videos of several men going into and out of a store in a mall. The front of the store had signs declaring that it would be opening soon. Small photographs of the men’s faces were placed across the top of the screen. As the video played, the President’s voice gave a summary of the actions that the men were performing.

The video cut to a scene of the mall a week later. The store was open, but there were dead bodies littering the floor around the store. It showed people going into the mall in Hazmat suits and then carrying the victims out of the mall. The President talked about how many people had died in the attack.

With the now famous picture of Mike kneeling between two women as the background, an audio tape of a conversation between the Canadian Prime Minister and the President was played. The President demanded the extradition of the individuals captured on video while giving details on where the men were located. The Prime Minister refused and did so with the simple explanation that no matter how serious the crime, Canada wouldn’t extradite to a country that practiced the death penalty. It was a matter of principle. President Archer countered by saying that America would not respect the borders of any country that harbored terrorists known to have killed Americans. America would take any actions necessary in pursuing those terrorists. The Prime Minister hung up on the President.

The next segment showed the same individuals walking into apartment buildings. The videos were zoomed to show their faces which matched five of those across the top of the screen. Two minutes after they entered the buildings, the structures were then hit with missiles. The image was brutal, but one couldn’t help but shout, “Yes! We got the bastards!”

Mike watched the half hour video with tears in his eyes. Although his features were not visible, he had seen himself moving through the mall searching for his wife. The video showed him picking up one of the victims and carrying the young child out of the mall. He had stared at the hated picture of his misery. The image of the building collapsing with the terrorist inside left him feeling frustrated. He had wanted to be the one who pushed that button. After watching the video released by the President, Mike called his therapist and scheduled an appointment for first thing the following morning.

Early the next morning, Mike dropped into the chair and said, “I watched the President’s video last night.”

Given such a flat statement of fact, Lisa knew that it was actually a cry to discuss the matter. It was up to her to guide him through the subject. Settling in her seat, she asked, “How did it make you feel?”

“Cheated,” Mike answered.

“Why?”

Unreasonably angry, Mike said, “I should have been the one to push the button that took out those bastards.”

“Why?”

In a very angry voice, he answered, “They murdered my wife and son.”

Lisa was about to probe deeper when he sagged in his chair. In a very soft voice that was very difficult to hear across the room, he said, “My wife was in a shoe store buying shoes for our son when the terrorists released the poison gas. I know that because there was one new shoe on his foot. It was a tennis shoe. The other shoe was on the floor where it had been dropped. My wife was lying on the floor beside the empty box. My son was on the floor beside her. You could see that she had held him in her arms when he died, but she couldn’t hold him when the poison affected her.”

Lisa listened to the story with a frown. As far as she knew, Mike was at the hospital having his left hand operated on to replace shattered bones with steel rods. There was no way that he should have known those little details. Confused, she asked, “How do you know that?”

Mike looked at her and carefully considered his words. Finally, he answered, “Because the man kneeling next to my wife in that fucking picture is me. The other woman there was President Archer’s wife. I was not in the hospital at the time of the attack.”

“Oh,” Lisa said sitting back in her seat. A lot of little clues finally added up for her and the tremendous guilt that he felt about the death of his wife was explained. She repeated, “Oh!”

“Do you want to know what haunts me to this day?”

Nodding, Lisa answered, “Yes.”

“I could only carry one of them at a time. I carried Karen out of the mall, but I was just too weak to go back for Robert. I keep thinking that his spirit must believe that I didn’t love him,” Mike answered with tears streaming down his cheeks. It had hurt to admit that aloud. It was the first time that he had allowed himself to even admit it to himself.

“I’m sure that he knew how much you loved him,” Lisa said wondering how he had managed to keep so much guilt hidden away.

It was only by accident that Mike was able to watch the live feed from a battle that took place in Jersey City, New Jersey. Jim had a mini-drone over the area mapping out the defenses that had been put into place by the Muslims living in the area. Jim didn’t even realize that a battle was erupting until well after it had started.

It had started when a New Jersey State Trooper had asked a Muslim driver who was speeding for his identification. The man had killed the trooper, and then he drove off into the predominately Muslim neighborhood. This was the largest and densest enclave of Muslims in the country. It was from this neighborhood that the Blind Cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman had helped organize the first attack on the World Trade Center.

A second trooper, who had arrived in time to observe the killing of the first trooper, gave chase. On entering the Muslim controlled neighborhood, he was killed in a hail of bullets from buildings all around the area. Before dying, the trooper managed to radio for help. More troopers and local police arrived on the scene and were met with a hail of bullets.

From the Emergency Operations Center outside the capital, the Governor called in the National Guard. By the time the National Guard had organized, the neighborhood had become a hornet’s nest of activity. Groups were running into buildings and emerging later covered in blood. It was about this time that Jim realized that he was watching the beginning of a major battle.

Mike called the Emergency Operations Center and provided a live feed from the mini-drone they had circling the area. The Department of Homeland Security representative had not arrived at the Emergency Operations Center. Mike tried to convey what was happening inside Jersey City, but the State Police were more concerned with what was happening with their people. After five minutes of arguing, they hung up on Mike.

Even as the National Guard was approaching, they could see the weapons atop the buildings. Narrow streets and traffic made access difficult in the best of times, but cars abandoned in random patterns in the street made ingress virtually impossible. The National Guard was nearly beaten back when they realized that they had moved into an ambush.

With the battle escalating out of control, the Army and the Air Force were brought in to provide support. Helicopters fired rockets into buildings from which gunfire was emerging. Buildings were leveled as bombs were dropped on fortified strongholds. The fighting went street to street.