Brendan Dubois - Resurrection Day

* * * *

Resurrection Day

By Brendan DuBois

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

* * * *

History will record the fact that this bitter struggle reached its climax in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Let me then make clear as the President of the United States that I am determined upon our systems survival and success, regardless of the cost and regardless of the peril.

President John F. Kennedy

April 20, 1961

I want peace, but if you want war, that is your problem.

Premier Nikita Khrushchev

June 4, 1961

We will use nuclear weapons whenever we feel it necessary to protect our vital interests.

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara

September 25, 1961

~ * ~

PROLOGUE

The BOAC jet aircraft banked as it approached Boston. He was glad he had a window seat, because he wanted to get a good look at the city. As the aircraft closed in on the buildings and spires, he felt an illicit thrill.

Ten years, he thought.

A decade since he had last set foot in this country. If it hadnt been for that opportune visit out to that American SAC airfield that October, he would have remained in this country. Forever. Cooked, crisped, the fused remains of his atoms mixing in eternally with the Washington embassy building and the dozens of people on that doomed staff. He shivered and looked again at the old brick buildings and the narrow streets of Boston below him. Almost two hundred years ago a revolution began here, and his ancestors no doubt had a hand in it. Ironic, he thought.

The aircraft made a smooth enough landing. As he grabbed his overnight grip from the overhead compartment he was embarrassed at the quickening of his heart. He knew everything would be fine. The chaps back home were the best in the world, and besides, the passport he was carrying was accurate enough. It said JOHN SHEFFIELD, which was true. If it didnt say GENERAL SIR JOHN SHEFFIELD (Ret.), OBE, CB, well, then, whose bloody business was it anyway?

He stood in queue for Customs. The room was crowded, the tile floor scuffed and dirty. Only a handful of passengers moved over to the line for American citizens reentering the country. Few could afford to go overseas and there were even fewer countries where Americans felt welcome. The queue was moving now.

He handed his passport over to a paunchy-looking fellow wearing the U.S. Customs uniform of black trousers, white shirt, necktie, and billed cap. As the Customs man gazed over his passport he felt, again, that quickening of the heart. It would be all right, he knew. It would be fine.

He wished he could forget that last conversation with that disturbing man in the Foreign Office. His contact seemed innocuous at first, gently puffing on a Dunhill: You do realize, General, that if anything goes bollocks up, we cant possibly assist you? I do hate to say this, but youre on your own. Were eternally grateful for your assistance, of course, but we cant be linked to your mission. Either officially or unofficially.

It had been a jolt, of course. No backup, even for a general. The Foreign Office man had smiled slightly, patronizingly, looking like a sad hound with his thick eyebrows and sagging cheeks.

Fair enough, he had said, speaking quickly, before he changed his mind about going back to that awful place.

The Customs agent was eyeing him. The agents beard was a day old and his stubby fingers were ink-stained. His hat looked to be about one size too large.

Purpose of your trip?

Business, he said. He had practiced saying the word in front of a mirror.

What kind of business?

Textiles. The lie came easily to his lips. Im here to visit your mill towns in the north. Lowell and Lawrence. I represent a concern thats interested in purchasing some textile mills, put them back into business.

The Customs agent glared at him as he stamped the passport. Sheffield knew the look. Ambivalence, that was it. The Yanks had two attitudes about their cousins across the ocean: gratitude for the help and aid they had received this past decade, from food to medicines to seeds, and hatred for everything attached to that aidthe scholarships, raiding the American schools for their very best students and sending them to Britain; the medical programs, helping just a fortunate few each year for the best in burn and cancer treatments back home; and the businessmen, like the one he was trying to portray. Coming in, year after year, to buy up the shattered industries and fallow earth of this wide and wounded nation, to make a tidy profit, of course, but also slowly to bind this former colony back to its former mother country.

The passport slid back across the greasy metal counter. Welcome to the United States. The agents voice was as cheerful as a gravediggers. Sheffield picked up the passport, noticed that the mans uniform shirt was mended in three places.

Thanks, awfully, he said.

~ * ~

After being cooped up in the tiny aircraft seat, the brief walk through the crowded terminal was a pleasure. Outside the air was smoky with car and bus exhaust. He was fortunate, only having to wait two minutes or so for a white and orange taxi cab at one of the stands outside of the terminal. He carried his hand luggage into the rear seat and said, The Sheraton, and the taxi drivera black man about his own agegrunted and off they went.

The driver said nothing as they joined the other cars leaving the airport and then went through a tunnel into Boston. That suited him fine. When they emerged from the tunnel he looked out the grimy windows of the cab as the driver maneuvered along the narrow and twisting streets. He had expected the place to look old and tired, like Manchester back home, but what surprised him was the dreariness of it all, like everyone had just given up. Most of the cars were old and rusted out, the buses belched great clouds of diesel smoke, and many buildings looked like they had gone for years without paint or repairs.

Fifteen minutes after arriving at the Sheraton he was in his room, lying down on the bed with his clothes still on and his shoes off, fighting exhaustion and jet lag. He got up and went into the washroom, putting a cold compress at the back of his neck. He looked in the mirror, seeing the tired blue eyes, the collection of wrinkles from squinting into the sun for years and years while in the Army, the freckled and sunburned top of his head, fringed by a faint crown of short white hair. He knew he looked his age but he was also proud that he was only a half stone over his enlistment weight, when he was just seventeen years old and entered the service of the King.

And such years of service, from the muddy fields of France to occupation duty in Germany, and then climbing up the long ladder, becoming more and more involved with the diplomatic side of things. Now, he was in service to a Queen, meeting an American he had not seen in a decade, an American who claimed to have something vital, something important for both nations future.

He washed out the compress, went back into the room, stood near the bed. Of course, the poor bastard was probably as crazy as a loon. He sat down on the faded bedspread for a moment, looking at the phone. Wendy. He could pick up the phone and get an overseas line, and in a matter of minutes, he could be talking to Wendy. The time difference was six hours. Shed be in bedno doubt with the telly in the corner droning on as she dozedbut he knew his girl. Shed be happy to hear from him, despite her anger at his being in Boston.