NOTE: This is part of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

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Owing to recent events, Senator Stevens made the announcement.

The Senator from Alaska, still with vanity enough to color his hair jet-black (he insisted on calling the result “Reaganesque”) intoned the inevitable. “For President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, 286 electoral votes. For Senator John F. Kerry and Senator John Edwards, 254 electoral votes. Thus President George W. Bush is elected President and will be sworn in for a four-year term on January 20, 2005.”

Meanwhile, outside, a completely different kind of ceremony was taking place.

This was the ceremony of protest. Despite a lack of publicity, and despite a lack of coverage from most major news organizations, some 2 million people were on the streets, a throng stretching from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Capitol Dome. The Park Service had refused the podium and protection afforded Dr. King. So former Senator Edwards was giving his speech into a handheld microphone, amplified only slightly and spread to the crowd through an 802.11 signal that reached thousands of laptops and hundreds of thousands more phones simultaneously. Each phone or PC owner then held his unit out away from them, toward the people around them.

“We come here to battle a coup d’etat that has seized power in America and rules it in the name of money, of might, and a limited God,” he said. “We come here as honest patriots to take back what our forefathers died for, to die for it ourselves if necessary. We come here demanding honest elections, honestly counted. And we won’t leave until we get it.”

A cheer swept through the crowd, slowly, as the words were transmitted and received with more or less latency. “Since our first revolution, in 1776, men and women have fought and died all over the world for the right to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. They have died for it in France. They have died for it in South Africa. They have died for it in India. They have died for it in Latin America. And in every one of those struggles, those people have looked to America as the shining beacon, the example, the exemplar of democracy that works, the home of the peoples’ rule.”

The cheer rose again, full-throated this time, many not waiting for the words to come through. “We have had our democracy stolen from us by a small clique of powerful, wealthy men. They installed a government of their choosing in 2001, and they are doing it again right now. We are here to tell them that this will not pass, that we will refuse to yield to such evil tyranny, and that we demand a new, free, honest and open election to choose our leaders.”

General Ricardo Sanchez, a hero of the victory over Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, seethed as he heard the words through his own phone, held up to his ear by an aide. The President had said, clearly, not to move until the victory was official. With his ear on Edwards, Sanchez kept his eyes trained on the Stevens ceremony.

Finally, the electors rose as one and applauded their work, Democratic and Republican both, united as the unified government of the United States of America. The elected government.

And he gave the order.

A line of tanks advanced from Virginia, from Ft. Myers, from the Iwa Jima monument, across the Memorial Bridge toward the Lincoln Memorial. A line of helicopters rose into the sky and surrounded the Washington Mall.

And now another voice was heard, clearly, by everyone. It was the voice of Gen. Sanchez, with plenty of amplification, speaking from sound systems latched to the bottom of every helicopter. His voice drowned out the noise of the whirring blades.

“By order of the duly elected President of the United States, George W. Bush, I hereby notify you that this is an illegal assembly under Executive Order. You are given five minutes to disperse or you will be arrested as enemy combatants.”

Edwards looked up and held his breath, wondering what would happen next. And then it did happen, as they had planned it.

Every protestor went down. They sat down, or lay down, or fell down. The sound of their falling reverberated through the still, cold Washington air, and was heard clearly by the soldiers in the helicopters. Once the falling stopped, however, the protestors all heard another, even louder sound, the sound of hundreds of tanks surrounding them on every side.

Minutes passed slowly. The only sound was that of tanks moving into position from every side, and from every Washington-area fort. The city had become an armed camp since 9-11, designed to repel any invasion by a foreign foe. Now the planning would be tested, but against American people.

Sanchez ignored the crowd, and ignored the noise. Instead he looked at his watch. When the five minutes were up he spoke one word into his microphone.

“Go.”

The protestors had no chance, no way to escape. Behind the tanks there had been troops, tens of thousands of them, heavily armed, with riot sticks and dark plastic shielding gas masks covering their faces. The tanks rolled, tear gas shells exploded from every helicopter, and the troops marched in to clear the debris.

Sanchez had planned carefully. While his tanks had moved into position, engineers had strung razor wire into a giant sausage shape, stretching from across the Jefferson Memorial, next to Ohio Drive. The FDR Memorial was inside the wire. Couldn’t be helped, Sanchez said while planning the operation, but he knew the Administration would not object.

The plan was to herd the crowd south along 14th Street to the Memorial, then process them through the razor wire, squirting them out back near the Memorial Bridge. He figured the whole job could be done in about eight hours, give or take.

But something always goes wrong, in every operation. What went wrong this time was just an image.

It was captured by the BBC, which had refused to cooperate with the government’s desire to stay away. Instead, they had cameras mounted where they could, including one on top of the Museum of Natural History.

The pictures were jerky, it was only a satellite phone signal, enhanced back at the local BBC studio. But it clearly showed a family – a man, a woman, and two children – standing before a tank on Constitution Avenue, refusing to move. They stood stock still. The parents hands clutched the children. One child held a teddy bear.

The tank moved right and the family moved to block it. The tank moved left and the family moved to block it. The street was empty now, most of the demonstrators either running for their lives or being herded by the troops. How this family got onto the avenue no one knew.

Nor would they ever know. Because the tank now moved forward. The family did not move. The children kept hold of their parents’ hands.

And the tank crushed the life out of all of them.