Zero Hour, Chapter 3 by Duty and Honour

Short Story

An Asian man in a three-piece suit, glaring at the time on his wristwatch, leaned against the red front fender of a white Shanghai SH760 with Chinese license plates. Accompanying him was another Asian, a Japanese national, who stood by the other fender on the passenger side. The vehicle’s engine was still rumbling, its headlights lighting up an empty parking lot adjacent to the Hudson River. The tall skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan loomed beyond the Hudson.

The two men overheard the sounds of a single vehicle revving up the road across from them, their hands wrapping the pistol grips of the regulation handguns concealed under their suits. When they spotted the jet-black Volkswagen belonging to Christoph and his comrades, they plodded away from their vehicle and pulled their hands away from their guns.

From the front passenger seat of the Volkswagen, Christoph stepped out of the vehicle with the briefcase’s handle handcuffed to his wrist. The Japanese man greeted him first. “You are late.”

“Are you Christoph Denker?” the Chinese man later said in a thick accent.

Christoph nodded. “Jawohl.” He tilted his head to find Andreas, Max, and Wilhelm rejoining him with weapons concealed beneath long overcoats. “I assume you are the ‘contact’ that my uncle, Gottfried Emmerich, wanted me to meet?” Christoph asked the Asian men.

“Emmerich has done many favors for our respective governments,” the Japanese man explained. “He requested that our agencies share the intelligence we gathered through a relative.”

Max quietly confided to Wilhelm. “These men are literal spies.”

“I wonder how much their embassies know about tonight’s meeting,” Wilhelm whispered.

The Chinese eyed the briefcase that Christoph was carrying. “Did you bring the Geld?”

“Natürlich,” Christoph said in confirmation, settling the briefcase against the trunk of the Shanghai, opening it to reveal the stack bundles of Federalist Notes.

“Now it’s your turn,” Andreas told them two men.

The Chinese man motioned the Japanese man to give Andreas their intelligence documents. Opening the driver’s door of the Shanghai, the Japanese man retrieved a leather attaché case and handed it to the Andreas. Max unlocked the handcuffs attached to the briefcase’s handle, freeing Christoph’s wrist. Wilhelm proceeded to shut the briefcase.

“Be careful with that information,” the Japanese man warned Christoph and his comrades. “There are powerful people here who would do anything to make that attaché case disappear.”

“Then how are we supposed to give Herr Emmerich these documents?” Andreas mused.

“Give the attaché case to him personally,” the Chinese man responded. “Do not dawdle.” He and the Japanese man hurried back into the Shanghai, speeding away into the night. Christoph and his comrades walked back to their vehicle as they left.

Sitting inside the front passenger seat, Christoph kept his door as he switched on the dome light inside the Volkswagen and sifted through various file folders packed with assorted documents and photographs. None of the papers he found were written in Chinese or Japanese; everything was in North American English. Andreas, Wilhelm and Max gawked at the papers in his hands.

“What is it?” Andreas asked him.

“Some old US government dossiers on notable political figures,” Christoph replied. “Many of them were already well-known prior to the war.”

“How many of them are still around?” Andreas added.

“Which ones,” Christoph quipped, “The ones that allegedly sided with the Jeffersonians in the Democratic-Republican Party or the ones that refused?” He continued searching through the remaining dossiers. “Most are either dead, retired, put into power by the victors or at least trying to get into power once elections are allowed to commence.”

“What about the ones affiliated with the Democratic-Republican Party?” Wilhelm chimed. “Some aligned with the Democrats and the rest with the Republicans?”

“Those ‘third parties’ you’re referring to, Wilhelm, were all ‘controlled opposition,’” Andreas elaborated. “There had been a number of those alignments in the past century.”

“But why?” Max voiced. “Wouldn’t it make more sense just to form a parliamentarian coalition with the Democrats and Republicans in charge?”

“Actually, it was more about securing votes and electoral support for either half of the Democratic-Republican Party,” Andreas corrected him. “In the Parliamentary Democracy that America had prewar, voting did not change how its federal system functioned in practice. Rather, it just determined whether the Democrats or the Republicans were the ones to govern it. There were no inputs from the supporting third parties as far as the policymakers were concerned.”

“And in that kind of political system,” Christoph added, “It is inevitable to expect third parties to support either half of the Democratic-Republican Party, whether directly or indirectly.” There was another sealed envelope hidden among the dossiers. Christoph grabbed it as he continued. “The old American Communist Party was one such example. After the 1930s, they became a Democratic constituency despite the Soviets playing devil’s advocate. Nowadays, the Communists here resemble the Protestants, forming splinter factions and feuding over their increasingly doctrinaire interpretations of Marxist Theory as the true Communist Party.”

After sorting through the different dossiers, he put them away in the leather attaché case. Aside from the dossiers, there was a financial ledger. Breezing through its pages, Christoph uncovered a long list of transactions detailing the laundering of German Marks, Soviet Rubles, Chinese Renminbi and Japanese Yen between different bank accounts.

Wilhelm readjusted his seating posture. “If you thought the American Communists here have issues working together, wait until you see the plethora of different Nationalisms on display.”

“Aren’t any of you getting this feeling that America is now engaging in some sort of postwar soul searching these days?” Max retorted.

“Something like that,” Andreas said. “You ready to leave?” he asked Christoph.

Christoph shut his passenger door, the attaché case resting on his lap. “We need to head back to King of Prussia, Andreas. I’m certain my uncle is waiting for these dossiers.”

Andreas changed gears and pressed his foot against the accelerator, the Volkswagen cruising away from the original live drop. The dome light was left on as the Lower Manhattan skyline disappeared behind some trees dotting a cemetery overlooking the Hudson waterfront on the New Jersey side. Christoph proceeded to open the sealed envelope and unfold a letter addressed to him from his uncle.

If you are reading this, the letter read, Then our contact had accomplished what we had requested them and you still have those firearms we had stashed inside the parking garage. Hold onto the guns and only use them if somebody decides to intercept the attaché case. The Party suspects that at least one attempt will be made to recover its contents. It is not safe to call me; deliver the attaché case to me personally. Do not get sidetracked on your way back. Signed, -GE

“This country is getting more interesting by the minute,” Christoph murmured to himself.

***

Outside the major GAFP-held cities across the Federalist American Union, the victors’ security checkpoints did not extend the major ‘Interstate Highways’, such as the one that ran between Philadelphia and New York. Less secure was the vast network of ‘US Numbered Highways’ that connected distant towns and rural communities to the Interstate Highways. Designed in the 1920s on a grid-based system, these Numbered Highways often stretched beyond the vanishing point, the occasional overpass or toll booth greeting all oncoming travelers.

On a moonless night, those roads seemed endless to a tired, bored driver like Andreas. The Volkswagen’s headlights continued to light up the path up away. A stag raced across the roadway into an adjacent forest. Wilhelm, his head leaning against his seat’s window, snored. Max wore a pair of headphones around his neck, dozing off whilst his headphones reverberated music from a portable MP3 player. It was only Christoph, staring at a map, who kept Andreas alert and awake.

“Christoph,” Andreas told him, “I’ve been driving for hours. Are you sure we’re not lost?”

“I am certain we’ve gone down this road before,” Christoph quipped.

“Then we should have encountered two or three military checkpoints by now,” Andreas yawned, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “All we did see on the way here were a bunch of empty overpasses.” Another overpass appeared hundreds of meters up the road.

Unbeknownst to them, somebody clad in unmarked fatigues was crouched in the middle of that overpass, observing their Volkswagen through a pair of binoculars with built-in night vision. He hid behind the concrete barrier of the overpass, reaching for a two-way radio as the Volkswagen passed under it. “The target is heading your way,” he spoke into the two-way radio.

Several kilometers up the three-lane road stood a well-lit toll booth that was quietly commandeered by a platoon of mercenaries in balaclava masks and matching fatigues. Three toll collectors, bound and gagged, were stripped of their uniforms and dragged into a nearby waystation overlooking the toll booths. The platoon leader motioned his disguised men to hurry to each booth, while he and the rest of the platoon assumed attack positions at the waystation.

When Andreas spotted the bright lights at the toll booths, he noticed that an electronic notice appeared above the three booths in big red uppercase letters. AUTOMATIC TOLL COLLECTION SYSTEM IS OUT OF ORDER, it ran. The notice was a signal that nobody could drive past any of the booths and pay the toll without stopping their vehicle.

“Something’s not right,” Christoph voiced, hiding the attaché case under his seat and cocking the holstered handgun under his jacket. “Is this what my uncle was warning me about?”

“What are you talking about?” Andreas pondered, moving his foot away from the accelerator and briefly glancing at Christoph. The Volkswagen began to slow down.

“There was a letter from my uncle inside the attaché case,” he explained. “He claimed that somebody would try to kill us for the contents of that case.”

“I figured as much,” Andreas quipped. “This whole assignment from your uncle seemed way too straightforward from the very beginning.” He slammed the brake with the enough force that he shook Max and banged Wilhelm’s head against his window, awakening them. “Get up, you two!” Andreas barked at them, eyeing them through the rearview mirror. “We’ve got company!”

Max and Wilhelm kept the MP24 submachine gun and the Winchester shotgun out of sight as the Volkswagen stopped at the left booth. The K8 carbine was still in its music case inside the trunk; there was no time to retrieve it. Wilhelm opened his window whilst Andreas did the same on his side. Christoph exchanged long stares with the two men at the other booths.

“What the hell’s wrong with your automatic tool collection system?” Andreas complained.

“Sorry sir,” the disguised mercenary lied, “Our machines were never given enough proper maintenance, even before the war. You’ll just have to pay the booth the old-fashion way.”

Andreas continued to stall the mercenary, buying Christoph and his comrades enough time to plan their actions. “Don’t you think it’s kind of unusual for you to be running a toll booth in the middle of the night and nobody’s getting it fixed before morning?”

“Look,” the man said, “I’m not with maintenance and, for all I know, your toll will eventually pay for a newer collection system. If you’ve got any complaints, you can call my supervisor, who will bring your complaint before the local Council and get it replaced immediately before breakfast. Want his phone number?”

“Never mind about that,” Andreas yawned, his foot back on the accelerator, the other on the brake. “Just tell me how much.”

“Seventy-five cents,” the man replied. “We only accept Federalist Notes here.”

Andreas turned to Christoph and patted him on the shoulder, signaling him to strike. “Do you have any spare change?”

“I do,” Christoph answered, drawing his P250 and shooting the disguised mercenary twice in the forehead. Wilhelm sent a shotgun blast to the mercenary in the middle booth, Max riddled the right booth with bullets. The disguised mercenary at that booth took cover. The mercenaries at the waystation opened fire, their bullets shattering the booth windows and ricocheting the Volkswagen’s chassis.

The mercenaries emerged from their positions at the waystation, assaulting the toll booths with automatic rifles. Max and Wilhelm emptied their guns in the general direction of the waystation. Neither hit any of the other mercenaries. “What are you waiting for, Andreas?” Wilhelm yelled. “Get us out of here!”

Christoph and Andreas ducked under their windows as bullets flew past their heads. Andreas continued to keep his head down as the Volkswagen drove away from the toll booth.