From London With Love

The most difficult decision a man can make...

“This is London calling to the Resistance, with messages from their countrymen…”

The short-wave radio operator in the corner continued on, rambling off strings of odd phrases. They didn’t make any sense to Connor Hansen, but to some Americans across the ocean, living in an occupied state, they meant anything. They brought comfort, hope, and information. There was none to be found for Connor.
Strategic meetings had been depressing of late. Just the idea that the American President lived in London was bad enough, but running a war from the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean had been unthinkable until now. Connor sat at a battered old desk, old enough to have planned Normandy, listening to a pair of long-range escort pilots talk about the condition of America. Their word carried no good news. America was in severe trouble.
Snippets of older speeches and other interviews ran around in circles in his mind. A million opinions fought for dominance at once. The cluttered mind subconsciously reached into a drawer and shuffled around some assorted envelopes. From the assorted letters he withdrew the newest, the most official. He re-read the letter to refocus his cluttered mind on his mission: deciding whether the situation in America had deteriorated and become hopeless enough to warrant a nuclear strike.
The man by the short-wave radio finally stood up and headed outside for a cigarette. Connor followed him out, shivering as he felt the bite of the cold English wind. A light snow had begun to fall, giving the skyline of London a truly surreal look as the wind curled the snow around Westminster Palace and the shattered remnant of Big Ben.
Standing in the cold, smoking a bad cigarette with a man he barely knew, Connor could not break the chains of pre-emptive guilt that was already dragging him down. People would die because of him, with or without his decision.
Eventually the cigarettes were put out and the two men retired to their respective barracks. Connor tried to bury himself in his blanket, but burying yourself in a blanket is tough when your jacket is thicker than the blanket. Eventually a fitful sleep overtook him, with dreams of fire and brimstone chasing him all night.
In the morning, Connor put on his best dress uniform, the only piece of clothing he owned that was not threadbare and falling apart. A man does not meet the President of the Occupied United States in dilapidated, threadbare fatigues. Deep in a bunker in London, Connor stood before the President and gave every side of the situation. The President listened sagely as Connor briefed him on the strategic situation, the opponents, proponents, and environmental impacts. Finally, the President nodded and asked the one question Connor had dreaded, praying he would not ask. The President asked if Connor could recommend using the nuclear bomb. Connor couldn’t do anything but stare at the ground, thinking about all the options. He thought about the families of American soldiers stranded behind the lines, the innocents that would not ever see it coming. He thought about the soldiers who would have to die in the eventual counter-attacks and reinvasion. Finally, he mustered enough strength to raise his head and look at the President. Slowly, he nodded at the President. The bomb was justified.
The President nodded to an aide next to him, who handed Connor an envelope containing a key. Connor walked back to his post, the gravity of his assignment weighing down upon him. As he traversed the military campus, he carried the look of a man condemned to die. The few people who noticed him intentionally avoided him. The man at the trailer that was his destination admitted him, somehow subconsciously aware of the gravity of Connor’s assignment.  He sat down at a computer terminal specifically designed for this purpose, inserted the small silver key, and typed in the activation codes and coordinates. With every keystroke, the face of someone he knew flashed before his eyes. All of them. It was all he could do to push their faces out of his eyes and continue his work.
“This is London calling to the Resistance, with messages from their countrymen…”
The communications specialist in the corner droned on and on. But today, his words brought no comfort. Not to Connor, to whom the fragments of songs and nonsensical messages never gave any comfort. Neither did the messages bring comfort to the Americans receiving the messages. They were warnings tonight.
In Boston, a man kissed his wife goodbye as the secret police hauled him away in the night. In Reno, Resistance fighters tapped their fists against the American flag as they filed out to fight the invaders. In Sacramento, a young boy chased his dog down a back alley looking for food.
Somewhere in the Bering Sea, a submarine-based Polaris missile screamed into the blue. At Colbey Grange, the British added Thor missiles to the strike. Across the globe, similar scenes were repeated. In minutes, Boston, Reno, Sacramento, and twenty other cities and military installations vanished in twenty-three furious red fires. When the static from the electromagnetic pulse faded, resistance groups all across America heard the same unified message from their short-wave radios, “May God forgive us, may our children forgive us, and may we forgive ourselves.”
In London, a cold snow still swirled around Westminster Palace. A young soldier wearing an American uniform patrolled the streets next to the military encampment. The bitter cold stung him through his shoddy uniform. It was not an encouraging sign, as today would probably pass without any significant events, as most days did. Around the corner, the private had his boring day shattered. A man was lying face-down in a pool of blood with a handgun, surrounded by photos of a smiling young woman, children, a proud young man, and an elderly couple. Accompanying these photos were letters, sent from behind the lines in Boston, Reno, and Sacramento, all addressed to a Connor Hansen.