Chapter 33

By Thursday morning, the military, National Guard and law enforcement personnel were finally beginning to gain the upper hand in their struggle with A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. It had become apparent shortly after the insurrection began that A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. had sympathizers within the military who provided them with intelligence and weapons and had been for a long time. These sympathizers had also tried to sabotage whatever actions the military tried to take, and some had even worked in concert with A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E., destroying supplies, communications equipment and ammunition which delayed effective execution of the effort to quell the rebellion.

A total of 734 military personnel were convicted by courts martial of aiding and abetting the rebels. Twenty nine of them were judged to have been guilty of actions serious enough to warrant the death penalty, including murder of other military personnel. Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment at hard labor by President Lehrer, who personally disapproved of the death penalty, but wanted them to still be examples to others as to what they could expect if they were to try to rebel against the government. The shortest sentence meted out was ten years at hard labor, and none of those sentenced to hard labor was eligible for parole or time off for good behavior.

Just before dawn Thursday morning, military, law enforcement and National Guard personnel had surrounded every rebel stronghold throughout the Pacific Northwest. Once they were in place, they then began turning off all electrical power to the rebel fortified areas. The military was able to land forces on the roofs of several of the buildings, which gave them access to the ventilation equipment for those buildings. They then removed the grates protecting the equipment and placed canisters of tear gas inside. Once this had been accomplished, they radioed to their headquarters, which then ordered that the electricity be restored. The ventilation equipment turned on as expected and the tear gas was then piped throughout the buildings.

Soldiers and S.W.A.T. teams dressed in full combat gear including gas masks then prepared to storm the buildings. Squads began pouring into the buildings from the roofs and from the ground floors, going up and down the fire escapes and searching every room on every floor. In a number of cases, the rebels had been overcome by the tear gas and surrendered peacefully, but in other cases, the soldiers were met with resistance, which they were able to overcome within several hours.

Other cases involved outright firefights between A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. rebels and soldiers, with numerous casualties on both sides and a great deal of damage to the buildings in which A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. had set up operations. Calls from the military for the rebels to surrender were met with gunfire. The military responded with rockets, automatic weapons fire and tear gas fired through the windows. In a dozen cases, the rebels fought to the last man, but in others, after numerous shots had been exchanged, the few surviving A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. members surrendered.

There was one instance in which the rebels seemed to have the upper hand and had the government forces pinned down by their superior numbers and weaponry. The military had tried to attack the stronghold with helicopter borne troops, but the rebels had shot down three quarters of the choppers before they were within a mile of the building. The other choppers then turned back.

The insidious acts of five traitors within the government forces also aided the members of A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. The rebels had set up a number of rockets on the roof of the building and the renegades then radioed the positions of government artillery and mortars to the rebels on the roof, who then wiped them out with their rockets. This prevented the government forces from attacking the building with artillery that may have weakened the rebel defenses.

There was a great deal of open space near the building, and not nearly enough cover for the troops hoping to assault the building. Any that tried to near the building quickly became a casualty.

A group of local hunters and members of a local gun club then approached the military commander and offered their services, and their high powered rifles. They set themselves up in positions where they were able to get a clear shot at anyone near the windows. The marksmen then began taking target practice, picking off rebels one by one. It was a long day, and the military commander would have preferred quicker action, but the marksmen were effective in keeping the rebels away from the windows enough that the government forces were able to begin approaching the building without being shot.

By 4:30, P.S.T., the last rebel stronghold had fallen to the government forces. A.S.S.W.H.O.L.E. and its allied racist groups that had worked along with them during the insurrection were decimated as a result of the uprising. Very few escaped death or capture during the manhunt that followed the fall of the last segregationist stronghold. That is not to say that racist hatred disappeared from America; it just was not as organized as it had been before the uprising.

John White and Martin Pecksniff were captured without a struggle by F.B.I. agents who raided their headquarters in a dilapidated farmhouse thirty miles outside of Boise. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment with no hope of parole. However, neither sentence was particularly long; John White was stabbed to death by a gang of Black Muslims less than a year after his arrival at the maximum security penitentiary to which he had been sentenced and Martin Pecksniff was beaten to death by thirty five members of the Black Mafia after they had finished gang raping him just over a year later.

The food riots had begun in Brazil a week and a half before. They started in Belem, a city on the mouth of the Amazon River, in response to government moves to remove subsidies from food and housing in response to demands from the I.M.F. to cut domestic spending. In a country with inflation running at close to one thousand percent annually, such a move was sure to unleash discontent from those who could least afford to have their subsidies cut. So, they took to the streets and began plundering government food warehouses.

They were met by gunfire from government forces. Those that had weapons responded in kind. Those that did not responded with Molotov cocktails. Within hours, the business district in Belem was ablaze.

The sparks from Belem spread to other cities. Sao Paulo, Rio and Brasilia were all hit by massive rioting over the next three days. The government appeared to be starting to gain control of the situation when the unions called a nationwide general strike to protest the loss of the subsidies. That occurred the Monday after the Capitol bombing. The first two days, a number of businesses tried to stay open, but were met with looting, firebombing, or both. The government tried to keep trains running, but saboteurs destroyed tracks and bridges, halting the railroads. By Wednesday, the general strike was nearly total throughout the country. Brazil was completely paralyzed.