At near sunset in Phoenix, the Valley of the Sun, the temperature only seemed to be rising as numbers on both sides along 24th Street and Camelback Road rose to the hundreds, a perceptible roiling boil of agitated separatists, activists and hate-filled anarchists. Shadows were creeping westward from the eastern horizon, draping strategic repositioning of militias and the stockpiling of weapons in shaded enclaves beside and between structures all along the divide.
There were more than 3,000 fighters on each side. Apprised of the situation, the President had called in the National Guard, but it would be hours before their numbers would justify safe intervention.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Billy? You don’t look so good,” Tamara McCracken noted in her Alabama accent as she rubbed the temples of Billy Joe Martin, the leader of the United Aryan Coalition. “It’s really going down tonight. I know ya got a lot on your mind.”
“Look up ta the sky,” he said. “See that?”
“What?” Tamara asked.
“Chemtrails! That’s a sign. The government wants this war just like we do, but not for the same reasons. They’re druggin us with chemtrails ta make sure this war happens tanite.”
As Tamara looked toward the sky, she wondered about the numerous white vapor lines that seemed to hang overhead. If they contained chemicals, then the entire area was affected.
“Taday is your big day, Billy. Here, this might make you feel better.”
The cream she rubbed at his temples contained a trivalent chromium ion, which used a matrix of zinc and gallogermanate to host the ions, the chemical structure of which created a labyrinth of “traps” that captured excited infrared energy and stored it for an extended period. In short, the infrared energy in that cream produced a glow that was visible only through nighttime goggles.
Billy Joe, persisting in the notion that he stood at the brink of history and the reshaping of America, leaned back, enjoying this final indulgence from a very attractive woman, her gentle fingers massaging his temples and forehead, though he discerned annoyance from his peers. He thought of Jesus in Bethany at the house of Simon the Leper, when the woman, Mary, came with an alabaster jar and anointed his head with valued perfume, “an expensive nard.”
When the murmuring became too pronounced, Billy invoked the memory of his lord, speaking in prophetic words.
“Ya’ll let her be. Ya’ll leave her alone. He she’s tryin ta do a beautiful thang fer me. The weak and disloyal will always be with you, and you can help them whenever you want, but I won’t always be here—not if the niggers and other savages get their way. For all we know, she might be anointin me for ma grave.”
At the same time, across the divide, the leaders of the Black/Brown Resistance were being similarly pampered and prepared by a good-looking brown-skinned woman. She had, over the last several months, become the confidant and lover of Javier Brown, a thirty-something charismatic leader of mixed black and Puerto Rican heritage. Javier cared little, neither for his own life nor the lives of his followers. A true nihilist, his solutions involved the complete destruction of both sides, along with American society.
Hadassah Gonzalez Blackburn remained at his side, encouraging his ambitions for the upcoming battle, but she also had the trivalent chromium ion ointment, infused with fragrant perfume, which she applied to his face and head. Under a freestanding canopy that served as a makeshift command center, Javier and lieutenants sat, heads bowed, game faces on, as Hadassah attended to each, applying the ointment to three of the four leaders, careful not to touch the fourth, Jerome Martin, who was Javier’s hotheaded and fiercely loyal protégée.
“What do you think’s gonna happen tonight?” Hadassah asked Brown.
“Somethin that’s never happened before in this country,” he answered. “This revolution will be televised. America will finally have to answer for white supremacy—inherent racism and its history of persecution of non-whites. Finally, tonight, white blood will flow in a river so wide the world’ll never forget the cost of America’s racial sins. I don’t care if I die. I just wanna kill me some white people—by the hundreds—by the thousands if possible.”
“Well, I hope you don’t hold it against me if I don’t stick around,” Hadassah apologized. “I’m not a soldier, cuz I have two kids at home who need me to stay alive. I’m all they’ve got.”
“You go on,” he nodded, “but you watch, and if you’re close enough, you’ll record history in the making. It will be the second and final revolutionary war in the history of this unjust, crooked country.”
“I’ll be watching,” she answered, careful to return the large jar of ointment to her bag. “I’ll say goodbye now since I know I will probably never see you again. Revolution is the only way, baby!”
“Revolution is the only way!” he yelled, returning the maxim, followed by calls of the refrain from his loyal lieutenants. “Tonight, we put the fear of God in white people. Tonight, white America bleeds!”
**********
In a building two blocks away, one sniper awaited instructions, while a counterpart, a block beyond the divide, glanced through a night-vision scope, scanning for his own marks. He followed with the rifle as several targets’ faces glowed infrared in the area around the canopy. He knew he would have to dispatch the first three targets quickly—within seconds—before the resulting panic began, and he knew his counterpart would do the same. It would be a coordinated effort, taking out actors on both sides—that based on a visual cue—a random flare that would burst ten degrees west of north in the twilight sky.
None of the targets realized their immediate peril or the betrayal by the trusted women who had infiltrated their ranks. Consumed by the rhetoric and passion of their separate causes, none realized their radicalization had made them the unwitting tools of less extreme, more calculated players in world affairs. The next few minutes would make America’s race war a forgone conclusion.
**********
A flare at ten degrees west of north lit the darkening western sky! Instantly, the spiked, staccato shooting from both positions began. The first to fall was Javier Brown, a bullet through his forehead, and then his lieutenants, one by one, in quick succession, leaving only Jerome Martin, who hunkered, trembling, behind the com array. On the other side of the divide, Billy Joe Martin lied on his face, the back of his head missing, cerebral neural gore oozing onto the pavement. His top-ranking, hand-picked replacements were also dead, two of their faces gone.
All around, Javier Brown’s forces were in a panic, with most, lacking immediate leadership, inclined to flee. Yet one of the survivors of the initial onslaught—Jerome Martin, was more angry than afraid. Calling orders to the leaders of the ground forces, he was intent on gaining the advantage of the first offensive.
“Kill them all! Shoot now, before they know anything! Fire away! This revolution is on!”
The opening salvo was deafening, accented by blasts from shoulder-launched munitions and loud explosions. For a moment, all seemed eerily silent, except for the sounds of wounded men and women screaming in agony, and then the sustained exchange began in earnest, with frenzied forces charging both ways across the divide. Pandemonium ensued as panicked fighters fired weapons without restraint, often into the backs and heads of co-patriots.
The bodies fell, though many were trampled. Within the first ten minutes, 500 were dead, and casualties mounted with each loud exchange from automatic weapons. Far from the romantic idea of war and the thought of killing enemies on the other side, the carnage resulting from the increased efficiency of domestic American war craft was gruesome to behold. Dismembered arms, legs, hands, fingers and skull fragments littered the area as the ground, in the surreal light of grenade explosions, flowed red with blood.