87 – Portland, Maine
Debra Reuben was surprised at how tense Goldhersh was the morning of the March. After he’d destroyed the television the night before, she had not expected he would want to hear hours of speeches, even if his wife was among the speakers. To her surprise, an hour before television coverage of the March was scheduled to begin, Goldhersh carried a 12-inch television set from his bedroom to the living room, where she sat on the couch while he paced behind her, his eyes darting from the screen to the brass clock sitting on the fireplace mantel.
Reuben initially attributed his anxiety to anger about President Quaid’s speech the prior evening, combined with concern for his wife. Finally, Reuben confronted him.
“Abram, sit down,” she barked at the man. A thought struck her. “Abram? Is there something you haven’t told us?”
The man had stopped pacing and sat in a reclining chair, perched on the front three inches of the seat, not willing to allow himself any comfort.
“I suppose there isn’t any need for secrecy now,” he said. “Debbie, any minute now.” He glanced at the clock. “Half an hour ago, there should have been an explosion, an extremely large explosion. Right there in Washington. Proof that Jews can do more than talk and march and sing songs.”
Suddenly appreciating that the man’s wife was in Washington, Debra became frightened herself.
“Where, Abram?” she asked urgently. “Where is the explosion going to be? Is Sarah in any danger?”
Suddenly Goldhersh looked at the television screen. The camera looked down the length of the National Mall, toward the speakers’ platform. The crowd filled the distant half of the mall, with a grassy opening between the back of the crowd and the camera’s location. The camera gradually zoomed forward toward the platform to focus on an elderly man being helped to the microphone by a young woman.
“She’s supposed to be on that stage all day, waiting to speak. She’s safe there, plenty far enough away,” Goldhersh said, then he smiled. “But she’s going to have a hell of a view.”
“A view of what?” Reuben asked.
“A view of the George Washington Monument as it comes tumbling to the ground, that’s what,” Goldhersh said, a hint of pride in his voice.
“The Washington Monument?” Reuben shrieked. “You’re bombing the Washington Monument? But how, who, how do you know this, Abram, tell me?”
“You don’t need any details, Debbie.” He looked again at his watch, then back at the television. The sound was turned down so low they could barely hear what the elderly man was saying. Abram reached forward and increased the volume. He’d long ago lost the remote control for that television.
“It was terror, acts of terror more terrible than the world has seen since. God used this terror to save the Jewish people long ago. If God could take such actions to save his people then, can’t we take such actions to save his people today?” the speaker was saying.
Goldhersh turned to Reuben to comment on the man’s words when he saw her eyes open wide. He turned back to the television. The screen showed a long shot of the Mall, the empty grass closer to the camera and the crowd in the distance. The image was shaking wildly from side to side. Suddenly the ground rushed up toward the camera, coming closer and closer, all in complete silence, until the image went blank.
An announcer’s voice came from the television while the screen remained black. The man was near hysteria, shouting.
“The Washington Monument just toppled to the ground,” he shouted. “The monument was covered in smoke or dust or something and then wavered and fell forward, slamming to the grass in the middle of the Mall. I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it. I’ve never seen anything like it. The Washington Monument is lying on the ground in pieces, pieces.”
The image quickly changed to one that appeared to be from a portable camera somewhere in the crowd. People were shouting. Some were lying on the ground and slowly lifting themselves up in apparent surprise that they were uninjured.
Reuben pointed a finger at Goldhersh, her entire hand extended toward the man.
“You did that, Abram?” she said. “You are responsible for that?”
The man smiled, relief showing in his face, his posture. “I played my little part,” he said.
Reuben did not reply as she thought about the implications of this action. Then she, too, smiled and held out her hand for the man to shake.
“Congratulations, Abram Goldhersh,” she said. “After what we heard last night, it didn’t seem as if speeches were going to make much of a difference anyway.”
Their initial euphoria following the explosion evaporated as they continued to watch television coverage of the events in Washington, rapidly switching from channel to channel in a search for new tidbits of news. They watched the troops appear seemingly from nowhere to surround the crowd. They stared in horror as the soldiers waded into the crowd, restraining thousands of people who submitted to them, clubbing those who attempted to resist, although the resistance rapidly faded away.
The final scenes they saw before coverage switched from Washington to the network studios showed lines of trucks and buses heading off into the countryside, escorted by humvees and other military vehicles.
Two hours after the explosion an announcement was made that President Quaid would be speaking to the nation, again. Fifteen minutes later, the President was shown, sitting behind the same Oval Office desk as in his speech the night before. His expression was stern.
“I will be brief,” he said, looking straight at the camera. “I gave a warning last night. My warning was disregarded. A terrible act of cowardice has taken place not far from where I am sitting at this moment.” He gestured to his left and the camera swiveled to reveal a window and the park beyond it. A thirty-foot tall stub was all that remained of the Monument.
“I was standing at that window and watched the Washington Monument, a symbol of our nation’s pride in its first President, tumble to the ground. I felt the blast on my own body.”
The camera returned to President Quaid.
“I am unharmed. The nation is safe. At my express orders, the Army has taken all of the persons responsible for this terrorist action into custody, all of them. And there are many, many of them, hundreds of thousands of people in Washington alone. This was an act of terrorism, an act of war. It is obvious to each of us who witnessed this event that it was carefully coordinated with the demonstration.
“By the authority vested in me by Congress, I am hereby declaring each of these persons taken into custody to be an enemy combatant. I order them held by the military authorities. I repeat that. They will be held by military, not by civilian authorities. They will be detained as other enemy combatants are detained. They will not be charged with civilian crimes. They will not be subject to the civilian criminal justice system.
“Further, pursuant to the specific language of Section Nine of Article One of the United States Constitution, which states that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it, I am declaring that the actions taken against the United States, including what happened today in the nation’s capital, constitute acts of rebellion. I am therefore suspending the right of all such persons in rebellion against this nation to petition in any court for a writ of habeas corpus. I am requesting that Congress immediately enact legislation confirming this suspension.
“What this means is that none of the people held in military custody as enemy combatants can run into court, seek out a liberal judge, and attempt to escape from just punishment. There will be no lawsuits and no lawyers. This is a military matter and it will be handled by the military as the military, and myself as Commander in Chief, determine to be in the best interest of the American people.
“Finally, this is far from the end of the matter. As I told you last night, our enemy holds weapons of mass destruction. We continue to search for these weapons. I promise you that we will find them. When we do, we will deal with the evil persons who threaten us from within our own borders with such cowardly weapons.”
The camera zoomed closely into the President’s face.
“We know who you are. You know that we know who you are. You can not escape. We will capture you, as they used to say in the Old West, dead or alive. I don’t particularly care which.
“My fellow Americans. God bless the United States of America and all of her loyal citizens.”
Abram Goldhersh looked for something to throw at this television, then stopped, sat down again, leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He sobbed.
“Sarah. They’re taking my Sarah to a concentration camp,” the man wailed.