He turned, slightly, as Captain Harper entered. “Sir,” the Captain said. The Marine Protection Detail in Riyadh was much bigger than most cities. The thought of losing the ambassador and all of his staff had focused a few minds at State and they’d ensured that the embassy defenders were armed to the teeth. They couldn’t have hoped to hold off a full assault, not long enough to matter, but a rampaging mob might have been beaten off. “The gates are closed, but…”
Carmichael understood his problem. If the aliens took it into their heads to take the Embassy, it was going to happen…and the best the Marines could do was go down fighting. They might not even have that chance; several buildings in Riyadh had been destroyed from orbit and the aliens might just do the same to the American Embassy.
“Tell them not to open fire unless attacked,” he said, grimly. There was little point in trying to pick a fight with the aliens. Washington’s orders, before the aliens had knocked out the landline – had been simple enough; burn the documents, then do what seemed necessary in the circumstances. His lips twitched, suddenly; the Ambassador in South Korea was probably in worst circumstances. The North Koreans had gone over the border and had taken Seoul. “If the aliens want us, they’ll have us.”
“Sir,” Harper said. Despite knowing the man for nearly a year, and spending at least an hour with him each day since the invasion, Carmichael still found it hard to read him. Did the Marine wish for a final, glorious last stand, or was he silently grateful that his men would be spared a hopeless fight? “What do we do about the natives?”
Carmichael blinked. “The natives?”
Harper nodded. “Sir, we have already had hundreds of men coming to the embassy and begging for sanctuary,” he said. Carmichael lifted an eyebrow. He honestly hadn’t thought that that was a possibility. “Some of them are…well, just civilians, others are actually important figures in the government.”
“I doubt they even have much of a government now,” Carmichael said, looking out towards the towering flames. He wondered, idly, what to do. The compassionate answer would be to take as many in as possible, but the practical answer was to keep them out, reserving their stockpiles of food for the Americans. Part of him, he was unwilling to admit aloud, took a certain amount of pleasure in watching the former government suffer, the rest of him knew that it would be bad publicly. The practical side won out. “Keep them all out, unless they are actually working for us…yes, them and their immediate families.”
“Sir,” Harper said, without any sign of approval or disapproval. His face refused to crack from its harsh good looks. Carmichael had thought, from time to time, that he was a Hollywood stereotype that had somehow escaped into the real world. The man’s record certainly read like something out of a patriotic film. “What are you going to say to the aliens?”
Carmichael shrugged. He wasn't sure what the procedure was for being an enemy ambassador in an occupied country. “I’ll see what the aliens want to do,” he said, finally. “I’ll present my credentials at wherever they end up placing their government, and then…well, see what happens. Perhaps they’ll just send us back to Texas.”
“Or perhaps they’ll kill us all,” Harper pointed out. There was a dispassionate note in his voice, as if he were ordering dinner or discussing accounting, rather than issues of life and death. “You might want to start thinking about contingency plans for that.”
Carmichael laughed, despite himself. “Die,” he said. The laugh became a louder chuckle. “Yes, I
– James A. Garfield
Joshua had lost track of time. It had been days – or had it been weeks – since the aliens had burst in and snatched him and Loretta out of his apartment. He hadn’t seen her since the day of their arrest…and he hadn’t even seen any other humans. The aliens had kept him isolated, preventing him from having even the comfort of seeing another human face, while they decided what to do to him. His world had shrunk to the cell and the regular mealtimes; the aliens, it seemed, had a sense of humour. They might as well have fed him on bread and water. From time to time, they’d pulled him out of the cell into another room, where they’d asked questions, and then, without really caring about the answers, they’d placed him back in his cell.
