Polar Strike: A Tale of the Great Crisis Read online

  “The airport?” Obuyi whispered.

  “Yeah,” Mackenzie answered.

  “Drone strike?”

  “Dunno. Could be. But I think it’s something else.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” yelled a soldier. Mackenzie felt a boot on the back of his head; the soldier pushed his face into the pavement.

  After a few moments Mackenzie could move his head, but both he and Obuyi remained prone, like all of the other civilians on the road. They lay there for several minutes, as soldiers spoke on radios and scanned the area for activity.

  “All right! Everyone up!” the soldiers screamed. “Back to the last checkpoint! Now!”

  Mackenzie and Obuyi got to their feet and trudged back up the grade to the last checkpoint. Mackenzie had only one thought in his mind.

  Peters.

  THE ROADS in this part of the continent hadn’t seen regular maintenance in decades, and most were now overgrown with weeds, and cracked and broken beyond repair. Far more efficient, rail travel also provided the ruling military government almost absolute control over movement of people and goods.

  Mackenzie and Obuyi arrived at the downtown rail yards in the dark of the winter morning. A light snow fell in the still air. Under bright lights a small diesel engine finished assembling the train: a string of tanker cars; a long line of flatbeds loaded with large machinery and several armored vehicles; and several boxcars and passenger cars. As they walked forward along the side of the train Mackenzie saw three large diesel-electric locomotives. He had never seen the car attached to the front of the train before, two missile launchers set onto a flatbed. He turned and looked at Obuyi, who almost imperceptibly shrugged his shoulders.

  Soldiers kept the workers for each rig segregated from the others, lined up in single file beside the track siding, watching closely to make sure no one spoke. Once the railway workers had assembled the train, the soldiers began to shout and push the men to board the passenger cars. All the men working a particular rig shared a single car. Propane heaters provided warmth and energy for cooking, and the rail car seats had been replaced with bunks. Metal plates covered the windows, and several LED bulbs dimly lit the car. Mackenzie and Obuyi claimed two bunks at the end. The men spoke in quiet voices as they stowed their duffels, spread out their sleeping bags, and lay down on the bunks.

  Mackenzie heard voices from outside the rail car, and then several sharp clicks. He knew this to be the soldiers locking the passenger car from the outside. With a jerk and a clang, the train started to move. Mackenzie felt the car lean as the train took a few sharp turns, then he felt the train accelerate. From the train’s movements, he guessed they traveled north.

  Though he had been working the rigs almost thirty years, Mackenzie did not recognize any of the other men that crowded into the space. From their limited talk, it seemed most of the men were strangers to each other, as well. For several hours everyone lay quiet on their bunks as the clickety-clack of the train filled the car.

  Mackenzie realized he had fallen asleep for a time. He looked below his bunk and saw it empty. At that moment Obuyi appeared with a steaming bowl of food. Mackenzie pushed back the blankets and slid off the bunk.

  “Thanks,” Mackenzie said, taking the bowl. The two men leaned against the bunk and ate. “How long has it been?”

  “About four hours,” Obuyi replied in a whisper.

  At that moment Mackenzie felt the slight braking motion. They looked at each other; Obuyi almost imperceptibly raised his eyebrows. The two had been on the route before, and both realized the train slowed as it approached the city of Red Deer.

  Over the next hour the train slowed. Many of the men in the car rose and fixed themselves a meal. Their talk was freer now, and the men started to become acquainted. As is usual with a group of men first meeting each other, everyone was polite almost to a fault; no one wanted to add to the stress with needless conflict, and each man gauged the others, instinctively feeling for the group dynamic.

  Mackenzie listened intently to their talk as he lay on his bunk. They were all far younger than him, in their twenties or early thirties, mostly black and brown skinned. They all had the thin, gaunt look of too much physical activity and not enough food, their eyes set deep in the sockets. It seemed most came from the eastern side of the continent, and had been pressed to work on the rigs by USNORTHCOM. Almost all spoke eagerly of working for a season and then returning to their families.

  In his first decades working on the rigs Mackenzie had come to know several men quite well, but over the last several years he worked with a new set of faces each time he went out into the field. At first puzzled about this, he soon instinctively realized USNORTHCOM did not want the workers to form close bonds with each other and their families.

  So Mackenzie felt extremely confused about why he still worked with Obuyi.

  Suddenly, Mackenzie heard a pop-pop-popping sound.

  “Gunfire,” someone hissed, and all the men in the car instinctively crouched.

  Mackenzie heard shouts, then the rapid brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrat of an automatic weapon. Then came a cacophony of pops and cracks, then the rapid bangs of rounds hitting the rail car. The gunfire continued for several minutes, shouts interspersed between the irregular shots and the metallic clap of bullets striking the metal covered windows. The men remained silent, their eyes wide in the dim light of the LEDs.

  Mackenzie lay on his bunk, his heart pounding as memories of Sudbury flooded through his mind. There were a dozen of them left, their filthy fatigues and jackets ragged with holes, their bodies gaunt with hunger, the rifles they carried almost empty of ammunition. They stood with their backs to the lake. Their breath steamed in the cold air. Before them a company of soldiers spilled out of Humvees and trucks. They formed a line and raised their rifles. The officer walked slowly to stand between his soldiers and the guerillas. Mackenzie remembered the smell of the man’s cigarette, and the contrast of the man’s black skin with the white of his smile.

  “I am Captain Benjamin Clark. The United States of America has liberated this nation from its greed and stupidity, and brought it within the fold of civilized people. Canada has finally realized that our two nations have shared interests and goals. But you gentlemen continue to defy common sense. Now, I personally admire your spirit and determination, but for the sake of the people we claim to defend it is high time you realized the error of your ways.”

  One of the soldiers, Kenrick, screamed and charged the officer, then crumpled to the ground after several shots filled the air. Mackenzie felt his mind on fire, and almost raised his rifle to shoot the Nationalist scumbag in the face, but the remaining officer of the regiment, Lieutenant Landry, dropped his rifle and raised his hands. Mackenzie and the rest did the same.

  Gripped by the flashback, Mackenzie lay on his bunk and breathed heavily; a sheen of sweat covered his face. The train sped up and the gunfire and shouts stopped. The men remained silent and almost motionless for a long while afterward. Slowly the men finished their meals and returned to their bunks.

  MACKENZIE woke. Obuyi stood beside the bunk, his hand on Mackenzie’s shoulder.

  “Edmonton,” he whispered.

  Mackenzie felt the train slowing. He pushed back the covers and slid off the bunk. The two men packed their duffels and waited.

  After most of an hour the train slowed to a stop. Mackenzie heard shouts, then several loud clicks. Soldiers pulled open the doors at either end of the car and shouted for the men to exit.

  The city of Edmonton had long been abandoned to the growing cold. But the rail yards on the western edge of the city still served as a transfer point. Mackenzie had been here many times before, and had transferred to truck convoys heading west to the Pembina oilfield, or east to the Viking, or had stayed on the train to go further north to the Wabasca or Deep Basin.

  In this case they piled out of the passenger car, and the soldiers, waving flashlights, herded them off the tracks to a waiting bus. Mackenzie noticed they were
the only workers departing the train at this point, the others presumably traveling elsewhere. The sky looked mostly dark and cloudy, with only a faint light in the west; the buildings of the rail yard loomed shadowy and silent.

  The men dropped their bags and duffels beside the bus. The soldiers supervised the men as they moved boxes of food and other supplies from one of the boxcars onto a waiting transport truck. Darkness had fallen completely when the men finished their task, and the flashlights cut chaotically through the darkness as the soldiers herded the men onto the bus.

  Mackenzie and Obuyi sat together near the middle of the bus on the left side. The rig workers occupied all of the seats. A sheet of Plexiglas served as a windshield. The windows on the side of the bus had no glass; they consisted of wide boards bolted to the side of the vehicle. Mackenzie saw the outside through a gap of several centimeters between boards. Two propane heaters filled the bus with heat. Two of the soldiers stood in the central aisle of the bus, their rifles slung over their shoulders. A third soldier drove. The bus pulled into a convoy with several trucks pulling cargo and flatbed trailers, flanked by two Humvees armed with heavy machine guns, and two larger trucks carrying soldiers.

  “All of you, keep quiet,” one of the soldiers said. He turned and looked at everyone, as if counting them all. “We’ll be there soon enough.” Both soldiers pulled down the night-vision headsets in front of their eyes.

  It started to snow, then the vehicles hit a blizzard. The wind picked up, and Mackenzie could see nothing in the dark and snow outside. The men huddled together against the cold. The convoy moved slowly because of the condition of the road; the vehicles frequently had to drive around damaged sections of the highway. Mackenzie had just settled down into his seat to sleep when it began.

  “Why are we stopping?” One of the soldiers stepped forward. “We can’t stop here!” he cried.

  Suddenly, in the dark and snow outside, Mackenzie saw bright bolts of tracer fire, then heard the deep budda budda budda of a heavy gun on one of the Humvees.

  “Hang on!” the driver shouted. The bus swerved to the right and then accelerated. The Humvee on the left exploded in a shower of flame and sparks. Small arms fire erupted on all sides, staccato pinpoints of fire flashing in the snow and dark. Mackenzie slid down in his seat. The men in the bus muttered and moaned in fear.

  “Keep your heads down!” shouted one of the soldiers. They stooped in the aisle and held their weapons ready as they looked out into the darkness.

  Mackenzie felt the bus accelerate for a moment, then swerve violently to the left. For an instant the bus seemed to tip sideways, then it swerved and came to an abrupt stop. The fire sounded close now, the rapid claps and pops just outside the vehicle. Flashes illuminated the interior of the bus. Mackenzie saw the faces of the other men, their eyes wide and mouths round. Shouts punctuated the gunfire.

  “Keep down!” the soldiers shouted. They fired their weapons through the gaps in the boards bolted to the sides of the bus. The sound of the rifle fire partially deafened Mackenzie, and he shut his eyes against the bright flashes. He didn’t know if the screams he heard were his or someone else’s.

  Suddenly the gunfire in the bus stopped, though Mackenzie still heard the pop and clap of fire outside the bus scattered between shouts.

  “They’re dead!” Obuyi hissed.

  Mackenzie opened his eyes. Snow blew in through the shattered boards. He saw shapes in the darkness, and heard more pops of gunfire, though it had lessened considerably.

  He heard a man call his name.

  Mackenzie didn’t move.

  The man called his name again. “Charles Stephen Mackenzie.” A figure stepped onto the bus, followed by another. Both wore white fatigues and balaclavas and held rifles. The lead figure pulled off his headgear.

  “Peters!” Mackenzie cried.

  “Mack.” Peters walked forward and held out a hand. “And it’s Captain Peters.”

  Mackenzie leaned forward and shook it. “What are you doing here?” He sat back. “Who the hell are you guys? What the hell is going on?”

  “4th Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes, out of Poitiers.” Peterson’s French was impeccable.

  “Unificationists? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We’re looking for you, Mack. I think you should come with us. Remember the commcomp I gave you? We tracked you.”

  Mackenzie leaned back; uncertainty rose in his throat. But not fear.

  “You’re not our prisoner, Mack. You’re our hero.” Peters held out his rifle.

  Mackenzie rose and moved passed Obuyi into the aisle of the bus. He took the rifle. He hadn’t held one in decades, but he checked the clip and chamber without thinking. He looked at Peters. “What about Obuyi, and the others? I’m not leaving without them.”

  “Of course. We’re all going together. It’s a few hours away, so we should get started.”

  “What about drones?”

  “They won’t be a problem.”

  “The airport? That was you?”

  Peters just nodded and pulled on his balaclava.

  Most of the men looked at them, eyes wide with surprise. An argument broke out; some wanted to stay, while others wanted to go. Obuyi finally convinced the other workers they had nowhere else to go.

  The attackers had killed all of the soldiers guarding the convoy; the bodies lay in clumps on the road and in the ditch. The Humvees and trucks burned in the darkness and falling snow. Mackenzie saw the attackers gathering rifles and other weapons.

  They walked two by two in the darkness and snow, Peters and Mackenzie near the front of the column, Obuyi and the rig workers not far behind. They followed three scouts who ranged ahead looking for the path in the snow and dark.

  “Dallas and Houston are gone.” Peters said in French.

  “What? When? How?” Mackenzie replied in the same language, though he had not spoken it in years.

  “Three weeks ago. We think the Guarico Cartel smuggled four twenty kiloton devices north of the Rio Grande.”

  “That means…”

  “All of the Permian Basin, Anadarko Basin, and Eagle Ford oil fields are now out of commission.”

  “That’s why the Airborne moved into Calgary.”

  “The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is now the only major source of energy for USNORTHCOM. They no longer can exploit Hibernia because they don’t have the equipment. Alaska and California are long since gone, and the oil fields in Colorado are under constant attack from the criminal cartels to the south.”

  “The Unificationists are making a move.”

  “We’ve allied with the surviving governments in Indonesia and Oceania. China and the Persian Empire are exhausted fighting each other, and the Caliphate is on its last legs, striking out in random directions.”

  “If you take North America, you’ve got almost the whole Northern Hemisphere.”

  “Yes. When North America joins the cause, we’ve got an excellent bargaining position with the rest of the world. We can start negotiations for peace.”

  Mackenzie noticed Peters didn’t say if. “What makes you think USNORTHCOM will just roll over?”

  “General Clark is on his deathbed; he is the last holdout. The middle rank officers are tired of fighting. Some of them have been fighting their entire lives.”

  Clark’s face loomed in Mackenzie’s mind. The sharp red color of old Lenny Shaw’s brains on the snow had not faded with time.

  “What do you need me for?” Mackenzie asked.

  “You are one of Colonel Cruddy’s Crazies; the Canadian soldiers that defied the Nationalists for months. People still talk about you.”

  “You need a symbol.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not a hero. I did terrible things, things that should not be celebrated.”

  “It’s you that should be celebrated. Your strength, your…”

  “You don’t understand, Captain. What we did,” Mackenzie paused for a moment. “What I did�
��was evil.”

  Peters didn’t answer.

  “So what about you?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I’ve been here for three years. The 4th dropped in a week ago; stealth aircraft over the pole. You need to know, USNORTHCOM used to control the continent east of the Rockies to the Atlantic, and north all the way to the Arctic Ocean, but they have abandoned almost all positions north of the fifty-sixth parallel; we received intelligence from PAC-COM, the splinter state west of the Rockies.”

  “What’s the next step, Captain?”

  “The initial wave starts in about fifty-two hours, polar route from Scotland: Peace River, Slave Lake, Cold Lake, Athabasca, Edmonton. Once those positions are taken, we move into the Deep Basin, Wabasca, and Pembina oil fields and hold. USNORTHCOM will be done in a matter of weeks.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself,” Mackenzie said. “What about my wife? Did you think about her?”

  “We are not attacking Calgary; Margaret will be safe.”

  “Who knows what USNORTHCOM will do if they think I’m with you.”

  Peters stopped and pulled Mackenzie off to the side. He spoke in a low voice. “Is this the Charles Mackenzie that fought the Nationalists, taking fingers and scalps? I thought you hated them.”

  “That was a long time ago, Peters. You don’t want…,” Mackenzie paused and shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “This is moving forward. The world has fought long enough. The differences between us, between all people, are superficial. Humanity must unite if we are to survive, and USNORTHCOM is the last serious barrier to unification. It is the only way. You say you’re not a hero. Fine. But you have intimate knowledge of all of these oilfields. You’ve been working them for thirty years. We need you.” He walked off into the snow and darkness.

  Obuyi appeared at Mackenzie’s side. “What’s going on? I didn’t know you spoke French, Charles.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s letting out of the cage,” Mackenzie answered in English.

  “What are they going to do?”