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  OTHER TITLES BY CHARLIE NEWTON

  Calumet City

  Start Shooting

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Charlie Newton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477849361

  ISBN-10: 147784936X

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary-Soudant / SOS CREATIVE LLC

  Map by Mapping Specialists, Ltd., Madison, WI

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957295

  Dedicated to the Cushing Flash

  Gentlemen, we stand not at the brink of war, but at the final abyss. The decisions made here today will set loose the deadliest conflict in human history.

  —Anthony H. G. Fokker

  North American Aviation Corporation

  CONTENTS

  The Mediterranean Region, 1938

  THE ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW

  1929

  CHAPTER 1

  ITASCA, TEXAS

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  SITRA ISLAND, BAHRAIN

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  EPILOGUE

  APRIL 7, 1952 LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  AUTHOR NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW

  The Roman Empire fell after eighteen centuries, the Ottoman Empire in six. The SS Titanic sank, and in 1929 so did the US stock market, taking with it the savings of a nation. None could happen and all did.

  On July 4, 1933, the fourth year of the Great Depression, the fledgling government of the United States of America was 157 years old and teetering, the young nation’s hopeful foundations assaulted by a global tide of economic despair. The daring democratic experiment had survived ten wars with others and one with itself, and now faced a frightened, disillusioned population whose grand aspirations had shrunk to food and shelter.

  In Soviet Russia, after decades of violent political upheaval, the aspirations were far lower. Refugees described mass executions, political purges, and the ethnic “relocations” of entire regions. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s path to national stability had successfully terrorized the new union of republics into submission, but now confronted a vast internal enemy that no regime could silence: famine. Soon plague, possibly even cannibalism, would sweep the Soviet republics. This cataclysm, the dissidents said, was the true result of Stalin’s forced reinvention of a war-decimated, agrarian society into an industrialized workers’ collective. Before the coming winter was over, Stalin’s political ideology would starve millions of Russians to death.

  Stalin and the Communists’ answer was that greed and “democratic” capitalism were the root cause of the world’s poverty and hunger. Capitalism was a ruling-class lie of economic order. Capitalism enslaved and impoverished the worker, foreign and domestic. Capitalism and its sponsors—not communism—were the supreme threat to world peace and prosperity. Only a workers’ revolt—a global economic reordering—would turn the current tide of despair before it caused a second world war. But should that war come, Stalin promised, Soviet Russia would defend herself and the Communist party no matter the cost to her or others.

  On Russia’s western border, Europe was not the horror of Russia’s famine, but Europe was afraid. After fifteen years of postwar hardship and unfulfilled promises, much of the continent still struggled with rampant unemployment; uncontrolled inflation; and increasingly angry, battered populations ravished by the same Great War that had all but destroyed Russia.

  In the beer halls and breadlines of many European cities, fascism rose as an answer to the hopelessness of the day, a workable defense against a total economic collapse that the Fascists warned was imminent. Economic collapse meant descent into another world war, this one on a biblical scale, a war the Fascists were certain the totalitarian threat of Russian communism sought to cause.

  In the United States, many of the great industrialists agreed. They denounced Russian communism and the world slavery it would bring. Communism and socialism were treason—treason disguised as “labor unions” run by Communist-directed foreign agitators who freely assaulted the very underpinnings of the United States. These great industrialists swore an oath on God’s bible that the free and democratic United States of America would not survive President Roosevelt’s radical-socialist reordering of the American Way. America desperately needed new leadership, not the “New Deal.” America needed men who knew the truth and could light the way. Men like them. Prudent men like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Randolph Hearst. Strong men like Henry Ford, Irénée DuPont, and Walter C. Teagle of Standard Oil.

  These men, and others, stated a clear vision for the United States of America, a vision that would forge and maintain order to the benefit of everyone. The rich were not evil because others were poor. The rich were the absolute proof that American capitalism worked and Russian communism did not. If democracy and capitalism were to be saved for the common man, the United States must protect the fortunes of those who had earned them. The country must look beyond the breadlines, migrant camps, and cemeteries full of the common man and, if forced to defend freedom, fight another world war.

  1929

  CHAPTER 1

  Winter

  The bluff was protection, just outside the Arab College in Jerusalem, and just high enough to be safe from the stones an angry elder might throw. Sixteen-year-old Saba Hassouneh crept to the edge, intent on her father as the crowd encircled him, his gentle professor’s voice now raised in defiance: “We are not England’s livestock! Your sons and daughters are not British slaves!”

  The crowd of Arab men was ten deep and growing. Young and old, dressed in traditional long-shirt thobes, some with waistcoats, tarbush caps, and checkered keffiyehs, some in Western suits, they shouted and stomped their agreement, churning the parched marl until it rose as a blanket above their ankles. Ten years of drought were burning all of once-fertile Palestine into desert. Saba jumped to her feet and shouted support for her father. Precocious and feminine, the professor’s daughter was a well-read, if starry-eyed, patriot, bilingual since age twelve and likely to die at the hands of her fellow Arabs for those offenses.

  A half-hidden girl at Saba’s knee tugged at her sleeve, cringing at Saba’s display and the long chestnut hair that S
aba declined to cover, even now with the clerics in plain view. “Sit. You are too bold. Sit before the men see us.”

  “See? I told you.” Saba glowed with teenage pride. “My father is not afraid. He is a great man. He will liberate Palestine from England. And I will help.”

  Both girls were visible on the low bluff. Saba hugged an American novel to her chest, one of many she read to improve her English, stories that thrilled her with their adventure and romance. America! Victors in their fight for freedom!

  “Saba. You must sit.”

  Sit? How could she? Her father openly confronted Great Britain, the largest, most ruthless colonial power on earth! It was not a time to sit. The very existence of Palestine hung in the balance! England’s King George had made promises. Saba had read and reread every document, the promises of England’s king explained in great detail by her father.

  Before the Great War, the professor had trusted King George and favored the king’s plan: “Join with England to fight the union of the German Empire and the Ottoman Turks who so brutally occupy the desert, and the desert will be free.” The king’s plan promised that those born to Palestine, be they Jews, Christians, Muslims, or no religion, would keep Palestine. The Zionists of Europe would have their Jewish national home in the states that would lose the Great War. The native Palestinian would have Palestine.

  But now Saba’s father decried England’s new truth. With the Arab blood spilled and the Great War won, Palestine’s sovereignty had been abandoned at the peace table by England’s king, a heartless bargain to curry favor with powerful men and moneyed interests on both sides of the European conflict.

  Professor Hassouneh waved a sheaf of papers above his face, red with sweat: “England’s Balfour Declaration is a lie!”

  The crowd shouted and Saba shouted with them. Now her father was a revolutionary—like the American heroes of her books—a quiet, principled teacher of history driven into the street to defend his home. Her father would rally Palestine to expel England’s soldiers! Palestine would rise from the dust and ashes!

  Saba grinned and made no effort to cover her face, a display that angered many who saw women as chattel, who feared the clerics and took England’s bribes. But not her father—her father was a patriot and had raised her to be the same. Together, they had a grand plan: school next year in America—political science. She would graduate with honors then return to help free Palestine from England’s army. A small band of Americans had outfought England 150 years ago and made history. History Saba had memorized by candlelight while she devoured the victories and speeches of America’s founding fathers. America’s heroes were hers, and one day Palestine would have her own. They would stand on every hill. America! What a grand adventure it would be. She would cross an ocean, see the vast, grassy prairies and buildings as tall as mountains. There would be suitors of every type. She might even find a boy like Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby and bring him home.

  Saba’s father held the papers high for all to see. “This is British treachery! Three agreements—all lying contradictions that will drive the indigenous peoples of Palestine into the desert. The victorious nations of the Great War steal Palestine for Russian and European citizens those nations wish to expel!”

  The crowd surged and yelled, swirling the dust.

  “England, Russia, and Europe fear their Jewish countrymen, fear Jewish success and their politics. They deport them in God’s name into Palestine!” Professor Hassouneh shook the documents at the crowd. “With these, England steals our land and kills our families. Let the guilty states of the Great War—Germany, Russia, and all others that robbed and murdered Jewish citizens—let those states, those villains, surrender their land, their territory to those they abused. But not Palestine! Palestine has wronged no one!”

  The crowd roared again.

  “The treachery of King George leaves the citizens of Palestine no choice! Who is England to grant ownership of our electricity to the foreigners? Our water? Even the salt of the Dead Sea! Rise up as Saladin’s soldiers. Do not trust that this wrong will be quashed by the League of Nations. It will not be. In one generation, we will be servants on the lands of our fathers. There is no peace with England’s king, only lies and slavery.”

  Saba pocketed her book. She clapped and yelled for her father. He did not incite the crowd with fiery religion—freeing Palestine was nationalism, land rights, and government. The clerics and their followers were not good because of their chosen God or evil. If you were a native Palestinian you were a Semite, the same as she—religion did not matter. Saba had friends, fellow students, and even suitors who were Christian, Muslim, and Jew. The turquoise stone she wore around her neck was a gift from the Jewish boy who shared her love of American books and, unknown to him, her dreams at night. Saba’s peers were proof of what her father constantly asserted to all who would listen: “Palestine is the country of all Palestinians. It is the Zionists—the Europeans and Russians—colonizing under ‘God’s’ flag who are evil in its purest form. See the Russians and Europeans for what they are, a colonial power that uses divinity as a land right for the wars they prosecute!”

  Forty British soldiers appeared at the western edge of the college library. Saba’s hands stopped midclap. More soldiers appeared at the dying orchard’s eastern fence, their brown rifles and brilliant red tunics massing double time. Saba recognized the pincer formation from previous assaults, screamed, and sprinted downhill toward her father. The first rifle company charged. Her father turned as the red wedge split the crowd. Rifle butts cracked at heads and ribs. Blood splattered the white thobes. The second company of soldiers braced, then charged from the library.

  Saba raced into the demonstrators and was knocked prone. A rifle butt slammed near her head. She rolled to her stomach. A boot lifted her to all fours and a boy’s body piled her flat. Boots kicked dust in all directions. Men yelled. Steel bayonets flashed. Saba was kicked again. She rose to a knee, choking in the dust, and was slammed back to the ground. Special security police trampled past her; found her father, bloody, dust-caked, and ragged; and dragged Professor Hassouneh away by his feet. Saba yelled from her stomach, struggled to stand, and was knocked unconscious.

  For seven days, Saba scoured for her father’s location. She pleaded with the protectorate’s court for his release until the officers beat and banished her. She implored the college—they could do nothing. She went shop to shop. Older Arab men beat her—an emboldened girl badly raised, one who refused to know her place, her behavior an insult to the dead and injured men. Finally, Saba groveled at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and on the seventh day, her father was returned. He could not speak nor hear, his head swollen black and almost twice its normal size.

  Saba ran half the Arab Quarter for the doctor. He arrived, looking over both shoulders, and warned the family to leave immediately. “Hide in Abū Dīs. All of you. The Haganah Militia have promised Professor Hassouneh’s death. The Europeans are outlaws, professional murderers; you know this. They will kidnap the professor, if he remains here, and kill him.”

  Saba’s mother argued that travel would kill Professor Hassouneh and she would not do this. Nor would she allow the family to be scared from their home. Saba’s mother said she knew this tactic, a long-favored method of the English when dealing with public figures. “We will treat my husband here. We, his family, will be his guardians.”

  The doctor condemned the terrible risk of her choice, chastised Saba’s mother without success, and left shouting dire predictions. Terrified, Saba promised her semiconscious father they would be vigilant until he was stronger, until the English released his fellow protesters and they could join in his protection. She would not fail him.

  The night brought a strange silence and no breeze. Only one candle was burned. Saba and her younger brother guarded the door, exchanging glances and no words. Their mother tended their father. Early evening brought England’s soldiers. They pounded the door, demanding to see Professor Hassouneh. Saba had her fa
ther’s pistol—a British Enfield with three cartridges—and spoke through the door: “My father is gone, in Ramallah. They treat him for your beatings.”

  “Open the door.”

  “It is not yours to demand, butcher. Be gone. To the bastard you serve.”

  The door splintered off its hinges. Saba got the pistol almost to the first soldier’s chest; he slapped it aside and her hard across the mouth. She clawed for his eyes. Her mother ran wailing into the room. A rifle butt flattened her. Saba sank her nails deep into the soldier’s cheek and lunged to bite. He yelled and twisted away. Saba heard, “He’s here. That’s him, okay,” and was punched to her knees. Another soldier grabbed her hair and snatched her to her feet. “Fuckin’ quim. You won’t be doing that again, will ya?” He punched Saba’s stomach and threw her outside. Saba was dragged screaming and flailing to an alley where the soldiers beat her unconscious.

  She came to on her back, screaming, a man crushed to her chest. Hips rammed hers. Whiskers scraped her face. A hand smothered the scream in her throat. Pain everywhere, her wrists clamped, naked shoulders gouging the dirt. The man finished with both hands clawed in her hair. Another soldier mounted her. He rammed and spit, then another and another . . .

  Saba blinked awake. She was in an alley, far from her home. Pain shot through her private parts, then her jaw, then her legs. The stink of the men was all she could smell. She struggled to stand, fell, and rose again. No one was near. Her eyes tried to focus. Her clothes were bloody. She arranged them to cover what she could. Her hands were swollen and blue-black; she was dizzy . . . Memory flashed a soldier, and another and another. Shame engulfed her. She reeled and covered her face. Behind her hands, another memory: England’s soldiers have my father. She shocked sideways against a mud wall, recovered, then staggered toward her uncle’s house. Her uncle could help his brother.

  Saba arrived her uncle’s door, eyes swollen and down, voice broken, clutching shredded clothes across her chest and hips. Shaking outside his doorway, she spoke to his shoes. “Please, please, you must come. My father, your brother, they will kill him.”