OR1-EP4: Prelude to the Millennium (17)

Winter in the southern hemisphere was a reality as we entered the month of June, but the tensions in and around South Africa had not cooled even half as much as they had with the onset of winter. Having obtained authorization from the Senate, Governor-general Jacob Herzog smugly sent his proposal to the South African Colonial Assembly for approval. He envisioned that the cowardly and incompetent members of the Assembly would simply go about their business as usual, coyly endorsing his proposal.

Unexpectedly, Governor-general Herzog then waited for the news that the proposal had been rejected. The emboldened Colonial Assembly relied on the Constitution to emphasize that all measures proposed under the South African Colonial Resources Integration Act could not be unconstitutional. There is no doubt that Governor-general Herzog's intended radical approach was in serious conflict with the relevant provisions of the EU Constitution on habeas corpus, of which he himself was well aware, and believed that the support of the Senate and the Consuls would help him to ignore these flaws. Legally speaking, the Colonial Assembly had had countless opportunities before to veto Governor-general Herzog's orders that allegedly violated the law, but they had collectively chosen to capitulate, except for this uncharacteristically hardline approach, which really caught the Governor-general off-guard.

"They are deliberately trying to embarrass us."

The Commander-in-Chief of the Guardian Corp, Lt. General Wood, angrily came to the Governor's Palace to discuss countermeasures with Governor-general Herzog. The Guardian Corp under his command were already on the ropes, and the cowardly and incompetent legislators had actually called a halt to the Governor-general's crucial initiative to restore order at the nick of time. The military and political dignitaries of the colonial governing body had rallied to the Governor-general 's residence, expecting a reasonable solution from the Governor-general.

"Who doesn't? They are just going to come against us by virtue of the power given to them by law, what can you do?" The Governor-general picked up his cane and tapped the tabletop, the teacups were swept to the floor and shattered. From time to time, he swung his cane around to attack non-existent enemies, and even the staff and subordinates around him, who considered him their backbone, became a bit alarmed.

"It seems that we can only resort to extraordinary means." Lieutenant General Wood looked gravely at his fellow officers with varying expressions, "Gentlemen, I think you know very well that an open armed rebellion is about to take place in Rhodesia, and all His Excellency the Governor-General is doing is trying to either nip it in the bud or minimize the damage it will do to our South Africa when it finally breaks out."

Several officers had the good sense to close the door, and the room was terribly quiet, all holding their breath as they waited for the final word from the Governor-General himself and the head of the military. Governor-general Herzog, however, simply sat back in his chair and rested, and it appeared that the sudden turn of events had greatly impaired his mental health and strength of will. To suffer an unexpected betrayal was more despairing than to face any number of frontal enemies.

"... But if we announce the dissolution of the Colonial Assembly, won't we be giving people a hard time?" A civilian official wearing nearsighted glasses on the side blushed, "Your Excellency does have that power, but since the end of the Second World War, there has never been a similar incident in the colonies, and we can't afford to set a precedent for that."

"Pedantry." Lieutenant General Wood scolded angrily, "If we eliminate the traitors, we will naturally have plenty of opportunities to deal with these maggots who are holding all sorts of evidence and want to equate me to death; on the contrary, if we care about decency and procedures now, the end result will be that we all die together at the hands of the traitors, and no one will be able to live."

"Silence!"

The Governor-general jumped up from his chair and roared toward the squabbling crowd. The officials who were talking and complaining about their fellow officers immediately stopped debating and looked at the cane-wielding Governor-general in unison.

"As long as we are always assured that the orders will take effect, we don't have to worry about those lazy people who can't do anything but drag their feet." The Governor-general rasped, his bloodshot eyes fixed in a deadly stare at the various subordinates before him, "I will send a request to Paris at once, telling them to agree to dissolve the Colonial Assembly and hold elections, which will buy us enough time to put down the rebellion in Rhodesia."

Lieutenant-General Wood was next to report on the military dispositions in regard to the situation. In view of Governor-general Herzog's accusation in Paris of treason in the adjoining commissions, and the arrival of the investigating mission yesterday, South-West, Central, and East Africa must not dare to continue to support covertly the armed organizations which are confronting the colonial authorities in South Africa. Despite the general loss of control of the Guardian Corp in Rhodesia, especially in the north, Lt. Gen. Wood has succeeded in establishing a cordon around Rhodesia. The economic structure of Rhodesia dictated that it was necessarily highly dependent on the outside world, and as long as the army imposed a prolonged blockade and then dispatched elite troops to capture the major cities, the rebels would be defeated without a fight.

The Governor-general listened patiently as Wood reported the main aspects of the military plan in rapid succession, and then asked a vital question:

"Will the question of mutiny among officers and soldiers be effectively checked?"

"For the time being, nothing better can be done until the cause is ascertained."

"Then what might be the cause?" The Governor-general coughed a few times as he remembered that his teacup had been broken by himself and told his secretary to fetch another cup nearby, "They swore allegiance to the United Republics, and now easily renounce their oaths when there is no foreign enemy, what is it that is so magical?"

This was not something Lieutenant General Wood was supposed to be in charge of, but he understood that he and the Governor-general were one and the same, and that any question that might pose a hidden problem should be dealt with carefully.

"As you say, many of the soldiers believe that war is inevitable, and with their hometowns in Rhodesia, it is assumed that they believe that throwing away their share of the responsibility will allow their families to escape." Lieutenant General Wood sneered, "Perhaps they would even be willing to join the rebel army to deal with us invaders who will kill us sooner or later."

"A bunch of fools." Governor-general Herzog coughed violently as he hastily took a sip of water, barely stopping the discomfort in his throat, "They never learn to look at things from a higher perspective, and are truly only worthy of being tools and pawns for ambitious people. Just as well, since they believe we'll do it, let's show them!"

The crowd was alarmed; Governor-general Herzog's remarks seemed to imply that the army should go on a killing spree against Rhodesia. They scrambled to dissuade the Governor, all believing that to do so would push South Africa into ruin. But their exhortations had little effect. Governor-general Herzog's obstinacy was far beyond their imagination, and the old man would never return on what he had recognized. In that respect, McNeil knew Governor-general Herzog much better than these bureaucrats.

"Go get ready for what you need to do, and don't hang around here."

When the crowd had left, the Governor-general called his secretary and asked him to bring a letter to McNeil, who lived in the city. McNeil had just returned from an expedition to the North with Adalbert Herzog not long ago, and the Governor-general seemed to know his itinerary like the back of his hand.

"You can call him; he has a cell phone." The secretary seemed a little disconcerted.

"If there is no accident on you, it is unlikely that the contents of this letter will be known to the outside world, but a phone conversation is not necessarily so." The Governor-general stroked his forehead and sighed long and hard, "Go on, go on, there's a lot more to do."

Michael McNeil had a rare vacation. He still had a lot of work on his hands that needed to be completed, and when the contents of the documents had been organized, he needed to give the texts to the Governor-general himself for perusal. Therefore, when he heard a knock at the door, he was instinctively alert, picked up the pocketknife he had placed beside the table, and tiptoed towards the door. Only after confirming that the visitor outside did not look like an enemy looking for trouble did McNeil cautiously open the door.

"Greetings, Mr. McNeil." The visitor in a feathered coat took out a letter from his pocket, "This is what His Excellency the Governor-general asked me to give you."

"How did he know where I live now?" McNeil asked suspiciously.

Generally speaking, McNeil lived with Old Jack, the newspaper seller. However, when he was engaged in such secret work, he often feared that the trouble it brought would involve acquaintances who had nothing to do with it, so he would choose to hide in a secluded place until the work was done.

"Major Herzog certainly can't hide his every move from his own father." The visitor brushed off this remark and left straight away. McNeil realized that his hiding was useless, and that an outsider could have gotten the information relating to himself from Adalbert.

He shook his head and returned to the front of the table, continuing to organize his materials. According to the Guardian Corp' s tracking of the flow of materials in the Rhodesian region, it was a foregone conclusion that the African Britannians were planning a rebellion, a conclusion that both Gene Smilas and Adalbert Herzog agreed with. With the army gradually losing control of the city, the Guardian Corp and the Defense Force planned a blockade on the outskirts of Rhodesia, and then proceeded to quell any possible rebellion as originally planned. Inside Rhodesia, on the other hand, an African Britannian-led cleansing operation had begun, targeting all whites suspected of not being Britannians and natives who would have been slaves in their eyes.

McNeil suggested to Adalbert at the time that it was perfectly possible to use this as a basis for galvanizing public hostility against the African Britannians.

"But we ourselves cannot at present clear ourselves of the charge of massacring the natives, and outsiders will, at best, say that our two factions are equally bad scum."

"What the hell were those on the mainland thinking?" MacNeil snorted, "Are they going to judge the colonies morally? Just because there are no saints among the two sides, they think it's okay to let it go?"

"They take everything for granted, not having tasted the beatings of hard times."

McNeil went back to his desk and continued to organize his materials. Sometimes, when he was laboring at his work, he would try to draw some sketches. As a true military expert and former commander, McNeil always enjoyed recreating on paper the classic battles he had commanded, or perhaps drawing the weaponry that currently existed only in his mind. When he was a boy, he would never have dreamed that the cosmic battleships that exist only in science fiction would become a reality in his lifetime.

"Never overestimate or underestimate human creativity."

And so, when this letting loose of his painting creativity was interrupted, McNeil's inner rage increased to an unmitigated level. He didn't want to be interrupted from his rest, not by anyone. But by the time he was at the door and realized that a familiar figure of dark complexion stood outside, he immediately ran back to his humble office and fished out a pistol from under the carpet. If Adalbert hadn't given him the green light, he wouldn't have been able to bring the pistol out of Rhodesia, which was currently under strict control.

McNeil opened the door with his left hand and didn't push it open, just took a few steps back and waited for the other man to move. The black man, seeing that McNeil wasn't going to come out, pulled the door open himself and stood in the doorway, looking straight at McNeil's gun.

"Nito Mariam, you've obviously escaped from prison." McNeil sneered and aimed for the black man's head. The simplicity and slowness on this driver's face now disappeared without a trace, and his face was full of hostility as if he had just crawled out of the netherworld.

"Drop the gun, I'm not here to get back at you." He said in a calm tone.

"You're trespassing, I have the option to just shoot you down." McNeil threatened, "Put your hands up and stand still."

Without a word, the black driver obeyed McNeil's command and allowed McNeil to approach him and frisk him. After ascertaining that Nito Mariam was not carrying any murder weapon on his person, the puzzled McNeil had no choice but to permit him to enter the house and talk. He didn't want anyone outside to notice something unusual.

The shredder was making noise, and McNeil had destroyed the letters Governor-general Herzog had given him.

"What are you doing here?" McNeil eyed the other party warily, "Or, allow me to ask in a different way: how did you learn of my current residence and manage to arrive after your prison break?"

"It was Major Herzog who released me." Nito Mariam looked as if he was at the mercy of God.

"You set him up and he took advantage of the chaos in the North to release you from death row?" McNeil was incredulous, "It couldn't be that he was planning to entrust you with something he wasn't comfortable doing, could it?"

Thinking of the letter Governor-general Herzog had handed him, McNeil couldn't help but marvel at how much the father and son were alike. Nito Mariam just nodded mechanically, as if acquiescing to McNeil's statement.

"I heard that you paid out a large sum of money to cure my wife, this favor I will find a way to repay in the future." Nito Mariam finally expressed his awe under McNeil's gaze, "I want to take revenge on the masterminds who put me in such a state, and the Major intends to get rid of them as well."

"You don't hate me?"

"You are doing your part, Mr. McNeil." The driver was a little ashamed, "And I ... I was played by those men. I was used by them to kill my true benefactors and have nothing to show for it, nothing to do but wait for death. I'm going to slit their throats myself, not one of them."

McNeil knew this well. Adalbert Herzog had cut off Nito Mariam and used what was left of the black driver's sanity and humanity within him to get him to die for the Herzogs' goals.

"Understood." McNeil nodded, "We'll leave tomorrow to meet your enemy."

TBC

Chapter Summary：

In any case, EU did not take over the whole of Africa by propagating love and peace.

It is common behavior to put death row inmates in charge of certain unseemly tasks.