few and did little lasting damage. Two others, Chicago and New York, had degraded over time due to poor maintenance, failing to explode at all. Notwithstanding, on September 11th, 2015, three American cities and approximately four million American citizens and residents ceased to exist, along with just under one million of the king's subjects, including King William, himself.
Initially, no one took credit for the attacks. Then again, given the date, no one really had to. Both sides had taken to injuring each other on any given year's September 11th. It was almost a tradition.
The provenance of the bombs was mixed. The two that had failed to detonate fully were found to be of North Korean origin. One that had detonated was proven to be Pakistani. Two that failed were of very old Russian manufacture. For two others that exploded, we do not and likely never shall know. It is possible that they were of Iranian manufacture.
Only Russia, which had a much clearer idea of American retaliatory capabilities than most others, came forth and provided evidence of how their bombs had ended up in terrorist hands. Several dozen scientists, security personnel, and their families were subsequently shot as an act of good faith
Pakistan professed ignorance while North Korea simply glared defiance and threatened ever more severe attacks should we retaliate. China, allied to both of those, kept its own counsel.
The entire world held its breath for weeks. Meanwhile, the United States did nothing but weep and dig in the rubble. Indeed, not all wept. There was a strong feeling in certain quarters that the bombings had been just. Professor Montgomery Chamberlain, of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor summed up these views nicely when he pronounced the dead, 'So many little Himmlers' and called for 'one hundred more attacks, until the blood-sucking, Jew-controlled United States is humbled and brought to its knees.'
Neither of the major political parties in the United States lined up behind any program of major retaliation, though the President increased security along both the Canadian and Mexican borders . . .
Chapter IV
Within weeks of the attacks, and with no sign of significant retaliation in the offing, a new and highly populist party arose. Officially, it was known as the 'Wake Up, America Party.' Unofficially, it was often called 'the Armageddon Party.' It began small, with a speech by its founder, Pat Buckman, in Central Park in New York City. Half a million New Yorkers heard Buckman in person, and perhaps twice that on the TV. Tens of millions heard him across the country. Where the money came from for advanced advertising for the speech is not known. Why the people came is obvious; but for a few defects and decays, they, too, would have been numbered among the dead.
Buckman's message was simple and he wasn't shy about it. He began with the simple line, 'Those motherfuckers are going to pay.' Buckman didn't specify which group of motherfuckers he meant. As subsequent events were to show he had some very expansive ideas on the subject.
Within months, sixty million people had signed on to the WUA program. Moreover, substantial numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate likewise defected to Buckman's cause.
In the United Kingdom, the new-crowned king, and king in more than name now, launched a very similar program on his own. Moreover, the new king unilaterally seceded from the European
Union when that body attempted to interfere. The king's subjects met the news joyfully. They
* * *
Chapter VII
The election of 2016 was a foregone conclusion months before the polls opened, though both of the traditional parties, and the mainstream media, denied it until the last. Though both Democrats and Republicans attempted to mount the populist bandwagon, the people weren't listening anymore. Buckman carried every state, even—since Boston and its hard core of liberal voters had been destroyed—Massachusetts, and had unprecedented majorities in both houses of Congress.
Despite predictions, the missiles did not fly within an hour of Buckman's inauguration. He explained why: 'We must put our own house in order first. We must . . . '
* * *
Chapter VIII
No one thought it particularly odd when President Buckman, with the overwhelming support of his party's members in Congress, pushed through a bill making a very large number of crimes, most notably politically motivated homicide, purely federal in jurisdiction. Even many of the remaining Democratic and Republican members of Congress joined in supporting this 'Federal Supremacy over Politically Motivated Crimes Act of 2017.' Some, to include we must suppose, Montgomery Chamberlain, must have breathed a heavy sigh of relief when political speech was not criminalized.
If so, such sighs of relief were soon proven to be premature. Chamberlain was found in his Ann Arbor apartment, wounded by gunfire and then strangled to death by the sole surviving member of a family lost in the Kansas City attack. The killer, former liberal Democrat and former husband and father of four, Mark Moulas, called the police after the murder to inform them of it, and calmly awaited arrest while contemplating Chamberlain's cooling corpse. He confessed immediately, and never showed a trace of remorse. At the subsequent bench trial, Moulas was found guilty and sentenced to a term of ninety-nine years by the judge.
Though there is not the slightest bit of evidence that either Buckman, or any member of WUA, was complicit in the Chamberlain murder, Moulas was immediately pardoned and released.
This murder was followed by the private killing of two left-leaning Supreme Court justices, half a dozen congressmen, forty-seven newspaper editors, and an amazingly large number of academicians. All the murderers except one was pardoned, and that one was not pardoned only, so it would seem, because his motivation for the killing had been that the academician concerned had been sleeping with the killer's wife.
This was perhaps the only truly original and brilliant bit of domestic statesmanship ever engaged in by Pat Buckman. No one previously had ever suspected that the power of pardon, of executive clemency, was also a power of summary execution . . .
* * *
Chapter XII
By early 2018, President Buckman had his 'house in order.' Similarly, across the Atlantic, the king, too, was ruling with an iron fist. Whether there was collaboration between the two may be doubted. What cannot be doubted was that, under similar threats even rather dissimilar men may act similarly. Unlike Buckman, of course, the king was sane.
The first Muslim containment camps opened near Dearborn, Michigan, in the spring of 2018. Citing the case of
Another pardon from the president was required, when that one dissenting member of the court was killed.
The next major political act of the Buckman administration, the 'Redefinition of Religion Act of 2018,' defined Islam as 'primarily a hostile and dangerous political movement, and only incidentally and dishonestly a religion,' and expressly placed it 'squarely outside the protections of the First Amendment.' This the Supreme Court approved unanimously.
While the order originally purported to intern only males, a subsequent order also directed the internment of females who were related to males implicated in 'terrorist or anti-American activities, whatever the degree of relation, and whatever the degree of complicity.'
Separate camps were established for women, in order to avoid future pregnancies and, hence, future Moslems. Moreover, any who could produce permission from an Islamic country for asylum, and were not suspected of complicity in terrorism, were permitted to go, under guard, and at their own expense.
The United Kingdom did not establish camps; the prison system was adequate to hold those Muslims believed to pose a threat. For the rest, in a sort of reverse Dunkirk, the Royal Navy dumped them unceremoniously on the shores of France. After all, the EU thought them citizens of the EU and so could hardly object.
It must be said that the British were fairly civilized about the operation, more so than the United States, in any case.
In addition to the camps for males and females, President Buckman also opened camps for the political opposition, such as it was, though these were integrated. No particular effort was made to fill these camps. Instead, the administration published lengthy lists of people it considered enemies of the state. The camps were declared to be 'safe zones,' where those same people would be protected from the anger of the masses.
Implicitly, of course, Buckman was saying, 'Outside of these camps, you will be murdered and we both know you will because I will pardon your killers. Inside, we will keep you alive. Or, of course, you can leave the country. And good
