Capital Offensive

CHAPTER THREE

Panama Canal, Panama

As the thick steel gates of the lock began to swing aside, the colossal Pennsylvania loomed in the opening, dominating everything with its sheer size.

“Back off!” the harbor master screamed into a radio microphone. The man was bent over a twinkling console in the control room of Lock Command. “Veer starboard! I said starboard, not port, you fool!”

But the American oil tanker continued irrevocably onward, the ship’s computer totally confused by the conflicting information it was receiving from the channel markers and the GPS network. On the bridge of the Pennsylvania, the frantic captain was attempting to seize manual control of the huge vessel, but before he could, it was too late.

In a horrible groan of crushing steel, the prow of the ship crumpled against the open lock of the canal. The seams split, internal pipes burst and a tidal wave of thick, black crude oil gushed from the ship to spread across the surface of the water. The captain finally achieved control of his misguided vessel and applied full reverse, but driven by inertia, the million-ton tanker kept moving, sparks flying from metal grinding against metal. The bright spray touched the black torrent and the oil whoofed into flames. Rapidly, the fire spread across the water to lap against the walls of the open lock and spill into the next compartment of the waterway.

Still moving in the wrong direction, the wounded hull of the shuddering American tanker continued to yawn, the rush of oil dramatically increasing. Caught in the black deluge, a tugboat was capsized and several other ships became engulfed by the pool of fire—a Mexican fishing trawler, an Australian yacht and a gunboat of the Brazilian navy. The sails of the yacht instantly burst into flames, as did the nets of the trawler. With nowhere else to run, the crews took refuge from the conflagration belowdecks, but only minutes later their wooden hulls caught fire and men began to shriek.

Lurching into action, the Brazilian gunboat rushed to offer assistance. Sailors helped sailors; that was the rule of the sea. But, blinded by the dense smoke, the warcraft rammed directly into the trawler. The weakened hull splintered apart, exposing the vulnerable fuel tanks. As the oil fire reached inside, the gasoline lines caught like fuses, drawing the deadly blaze to the main fuel tanks.

Trapped between two of the locks, the Pennsylvania completely blocked the passageway as the crude oil continued to pour out, the internal safeties overwhelmed by the sheer amount of damage done to the crippled hull.

Standing along the side of the canal, behind an iron pipe safety railing, was a huge crowd of horrified civilians. The majestic passing of the international ships through the locks was always a big tourist attraction. Cameras flashed and cell phones took endless pictures of the mounting disaster.

In a thundering blast, the trawler exploded, the flying engine parts hammering holes in the gunboat, the oil flames seeping inside, spreading along the metal decks toward the ammunition lockers. Retardant foam gushed from the ceiling, and men dived forward to shut water-tight hatches, but it wasn’t enough and the writhing flames reached the stores of munitions, washing across the missiles, shells and depth charges. For a single heartbeat it seemed that nothing would happen, then the Brazilian gunboat vanished inside a massive fireball, the deadly halo of shrapnel tearing the yacht into splinters, and riddling the hull of the Pennsylvania to actually increase the flow of crude oil into the beleaguered lock.

Behind the railing, a hundred tourists fell as bloody lumps, their shattered bodies torn to pieces, the arms and legs gone. The few wounded survivors began to scream for their lives. But the flashing of their cameras and cell phones never seemed to stop.

Bitter smoke was everywhere, Klaxons rang like gongs, sirens howled and the primary pumps for all of the other locks automatically shut down, closing the vital canal to all traffic until further notice.

Lujan, Argentina

W ITH HEAVY TIRES HUMMING on the smooth roadway beneath the APC, a group of armed soldiers sat along the metal walls in cushioned jump seats, smoking and laughing. Suddenly there was a soft chime and a soldier opened a laptop to read the incoming e-mail. It took a few moments for the software to decode the garbled message.

“Good news, sir,” the soldier announced in grim satisfaction. “We just took out the Panama Canal.”

“Excellent,” General Rolf Calvano replied without any warmth or feeling about the matter.

Staring out a viewport, the grizzled veteran watched the seemingly endless mob of fat civilians pass by the armored personnel carrier. The sheet of bulletproof Lexan plastic didn’t distort the view in any way. More’s the pity, he thought. It wasn’t even market day and the noisy crowd completely choked the wide thoroughfare, spilling off the sidewalks and filling the streets.

As the APC stopped at a crosswalk, a dozen eager hands tried the handles, attempting to get inside to the passengers. But the driver of the military vehicle simply moved onward, the feeble attempts yielding nothing but frustration and the occasional bruised foot. In spite of its tremendous bulk, the APC was sporting slippers, rubber cushions, on the treads to prevent damage to the paved city streets, and also to any idiotic civilians.

Shouting loudly, everybody in the stores and along the sidewalks was offering items for sale. Scowling darkly, General Calvano felt distaste rise within him like the rank, sour bile that heralded vomiting.

“Too many people,” he muttered. Food prices were becoming ridiculous, gasoline outrageous. There were housing shortages, and away from Buenos Aires, at least once a week the electricity went down. Not enough generators, not enough power lines, not enough cars, trucks, farms….

Like rats trapped in a cage, humanity was breeding itself to death. The truth was in every newspaper, every broadcast, on the Web, floating in the air. Overpopulation threatened the stability of the entire world, and when the end came it wouldn’t be pretty. Natural resources were running short. The Americans were already embroiled in a war for oil. Soon, it would be for cropland. Worldwide rationing would follow, then food riots, civilians fighting one another like ants over scraps, and finally would come the ultimate horror of cannibalism.

The general grimaced at the very word. Cannibalism, the single, filthiest sin that it was possible to commit. To eat the flesh of your own kind was blasphemy beyond any salvation.

In spite of iron self-control, General Calvano shivered in remembrance of the bitter cold of that horrible month spent in the Andes, a young recruit trapped with his platoon in a cave by the unexpected avalanche. When the supplies ran out, the soldiers were forced to eat their boots, paperback books, anything possible. But as the slow days passed in an interminable march toward starvation, at last, straws had been drawn, and the killing commenced. At first a man voluntarily took his life, dying so that the others might live. But then it became a contest of the strongest, the meanest, and the true nature of Man had been brutally revealed to the young private in hellish clarity. Men were beasts, merely another form of animal, and would always revert to their base feral nature when it became a matter of survival.

As the foul memory welled, the general tried to block the taste, vaguely of pork, more like chicken. Acid flooded his gut at the horrid recollection, and he forced away the dark thoughts, denying their very existence. He alone had walked from the cave when a warm rain had finally melted away the blockage of deadly snow. He survived to walk a hundred miles through the barren hills until finding an isolated village and taking refuge near the blazing forge of the local blacksmith. As the teenager lay shivering on the dirty floor, his plan to save the world had been born. It had been crude, simplistic, but over the long years, the youth had become a man, and the plan had also grown in complexity and sophistication until it blossomed into fruition. Those American ICBMs had only been the first step toward salvation.

“Just too many people,” Calvano whispered, the words thick with hatred.

The corporal driving the APC paid no attention to the mutterings of his commanding officer. As did the other soldiers riding in the rear. Brand-new FN-2000 assault rifles lay across their laps, the 40 mm grenade launchers slung beneath the barrels loaded with AP rounds and ready to be released at a moment’s notice. They were the chosen elite, the personal guards for the leader of Forge.

Normally, officers in the Argentine army didn’t have bodyguards, but then the 67th Battalion wasn’t a normal unit, nor was Firebase Alpha. Once the soldiers had been told the truth, they eagerly joined Forge, and now worked for the general, the man who would become the unwanted savior of humanity.

Turning a corner, the APC nearly clipped a parked taxicab. The snoozing driver came to with a jerk and started to curse and wave a fist. The general knew that there was little chance of his losing a fare from the profanity. There were so many people, but everybody was walking. Cabs were expensive, while God had made feet for free.

If there really was a God, Calvano noted sourly, which he highly doubted. Enough prayers had been said over the centuries, and there had never been a reply.

Among the people thronging the sidewalks, Calvano noted drug deals happening, and instinctively reached for the 9 mm Bersa pistol holstered at his side. Then stayed his hand.

Not yet. But soon, the general noted. However, he marked the face of the traitor for later extermination along with the rest of the vermin and filth.

In a passing alleyway, Calvano saw a fat prostitute on her knees, servicing a grinning customer in the reeking shadows, garbage strewed on the ground around them. Disgusting. A professional soldier, the general wasn’t a prude, and very much in favor of recreational sex. He had a wife in Rosario and a mistress in Chivilcoy. But only the wife had been allowed to have children. After that, the general had gotten himself a vasectomy. The very minor surgery was virtually unheard of by the macho men of his backward country, and Calvano had been forced to fly to Canada.

Both of the children had been girls, which was fine with the general. Calvano wasn’t a sexist like so many of his brethren. Argentine culture was an odd mixture of Spanish pride and German rigidity, along with a certain fine madness mixed into the gene pool from the tropical paradise they lived in, and were slowly paving under with concrete and asphalt. But his little girls were fine, safe with their mother in his farm to the north, far, oh so very far away from the coming apocalypse.

As the limo stopped at an intersection, a starving man in rags appeared and started to wash the prow of the APC with a squeegee dipped into a bucket of soapy water. Normally it would have been done to the glass windshield of a car, but the man diligently washed the armor while smiling with a gap-toothed grin.

Not just an old cloth, the general noted sourly. This poor man’s job was to clean the dust from passing vehicles. He had found a way to survive. For that he applauded the man’s ingenuity, even though he hated his very existence.

“Sir, should I…” the driver asked hesitantly, pulling a wad of brightly colored pesos from his shirt pocket.

“Drive on,” the general commanded brusquely. “Give him nothing.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver replied, tucking the money away.

As the light changed, the APC surged forward, leaving the frustrated old man behind shouting obscenities and waving the squeegee in a threatening manner.

The sight made the general deeply sad. Calvano remembered when Argentina had been a beautiful land. The air and water had been clean, and crimes were few because justice had been swift. But the nation had started crumbling when the fat fool Peron and his wife took control, and was nearly bankrupt when they left. And the Americans had written a musical about the stupid bitch! he thought derisively.

Now there were homeless people living in cardboard boxes and under bridges. Crime was out of control, and food was becoming almost too expensive to buy. Only gasoline, made right there, was plentiful and cheap. A mixed blessing, as the smog was getting worse every year, even out on the ranch-lands of the wide pampas. And smog brought lung disease, which meant more sick people, more hospitals, more taxes….

As the APC left the town, the roadway became clear of traffic and the driver dutifully increased speed until the lush green countryside was flashing past the military vehicle. Fresh, clean air came in through the louvered vents, and the soldiers joked about the lack of taste as they breathed in deeply.

Lost in his own thoughts, the somber general didn’t join in the casual banter. Air pollution, water pollution…humanity was a cancer, eating itself alive, choking on the waste products and wondering what had gone wrong. Numbers didn’t lie. World population was over six billion! India and China each had a billion, and soon so would other nations. In a high-secret report, the general had read about the S2 in Brazil acually rounding up their homeless people and machine-gunning them to death in warehouses late at night to try to curb the runaway poverty. Too many people and not enough jobs.

But population control wasn’t the answer. New food technologies weren’t the answer. Oh, no. Only the general seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. One man could live in a telephone booth, but not two, and certainly not five, ten…twenty…There were just too many people in the world. Unfettered and out of control. There was only one solution. Radical surgery. Amputation of the surplus population. There were six billion people in the world, so kill five to save one billion. The numbers were harsh and unforgiving, but acceptable. A soldier’s burden.

Once, long ago, when fighting Communists from Chile trying to invade Argentina, Calvano had stationed a troop of men to hold a bridge at any cost while the rest of his battalion retreated to safety. A hundred men assigned to die so that a thousand could live. On paper it sounds like nothing. But he had looked directly into the faces of those brave men, those soldiers, when he told them to stay and die. And they had done as ordered. They stood the line and did their job, which saved the battalion. How could he do any less?