Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 470: The Price of Order

A tumbleweed rolled through the dusty streets of Tijuana near the United States border, and yet nobody was there to witness it. Nobody dared cross the streets unless it was absolutely necessary. Not now… Not since the Black Skulls had rolled through.

Law and order were restored to a region run by your friendly neighborhood revolutionary warlord of the week until just a few months ago. And now? Now there was peace—brought not by words, but by the end of a noose.

The city was like a ghost town, other than those brazen civilians who dared the journey beyond their doors, and the occupying forces who by now one might think had run out of rope due to the number of bodies currently swinging from posts.

That was the thing most people didn't realize… Once law and order collapsed, the only way to bring it back was to get rid of those who had reveled in the chaos… And there was only one way to do that effectively.

But even so, Tijuana was cleaner, and safer than it had ever been over the course of the last decade. Not a single sound of gunfire, or combat, could be heard… Well save for the cries of a young man being dragged through the streets by its current lawmen, kicking and screaming in Spanish as he did so.

"You sons of bitches! You come here! You steal our food, you drink our water! And you have the nerve to call us thieves for simply taking back what we need to survive! You're nothing more than a glorified group of bandits!"

The man being dragged had either just reached the cusp of adulthood, or was just below the line. Yet those dragging him did not react, at least not with words. Nor could their faces be seen as they were obscured by skull bandanas.

Instead, they silenced the boy with the butt of their rifle stock, slammed brutally and swiftly into his solar plexus, knocking out his breath with a single and precise shot. He doubled over, gasping for breath, the air knocked clean from his lungs. As he was dragged to the hangman's alley, where he would be joining those lawbreakers like him in eternal rest.

The boy didn't fear death, since he was but a small child he had seen too much of it, no… His eyes weren't filled with terror, but resentment. These men promised order, and then when they came in, they were just another pack of warlords, with a different flag, and heavier firepower.

He simply spat towards his captors as they tied the noose around his neck and listed his crimes. Petty thievery was just one of many. Nah, this boy was proof of the festering rot of lawlessness that consumed a land when order was driven away, and baser instincts prevailed.

Among his charges were crimes such as kidnapping, armed robbery, and a few other, more heinous crimes that should not be spoken about in polite company. And after the verdict had been given by the same men who arrested him, pronounced for the few onlookers bold enough to witness justice enacted, the stool was kicked beneath his legs, and his body went stiff after a brief and audible snap.

The men who had sentenced him to death did not even look twice at his freshly post-mortem corpse. They instead walked away rifles in hand, as they sought another lawbreaker to hunt down.

And this was the scene across northern Mexico at this moment. No matter what town or city you found yourself in, this was a common scene.

---

Bruno was sitting in his office looking at reports from across the Atlantic. The Werwolf group had managed to extract from Mexico, no longer acting as advisors as Washington, or more specifically the President of the United States no longer had a need of them.

They had done their job, and trained puppets for the USA to act, and a price had been paid in gold bullion for their work. But now? the United States could handle the rest, or so the President thought…

The reality was that the President had played right into Bruno's hands, and it wasn't just him, but his entire administration. Bruno was looking at recorded transcripts, both audible and written of the conversations he had with the man.

How could the President of the United States know that tape recorded of phone calls was a thing? Or that the men who installed the phone lined in the Oval Office were from a company Bruno was a partial owner in behind the scenes?

Everything that was said in the Oval office Bruno heard himself, in some way or another. And every call made out of it was etched onto reel and page alike. And Bruno had enough damning evidence on the United States Federal Government that he could spark a revolution overnight.

This was the true reason why he had approached the President to begin with… Because he wanted the man to confess to stepping well and beyond the constitutional and legal limits of his office.

Bruno had been very particular in his use of language while speaking with the man in the past for this very reason, because he knew everything was recorded, and would never admit to conspiracy or criminal acts.

Hell, by now that was just how he spoke in any formal setting. And sitting on his desk was so much evidence collected, he honestly felt bad for his opponents who swam blindly into the jaws of a great white shark without even realizing it.

The question that Bruno now had was how did he best use this evidence against the Office of the presidency, and its entire administration? Leak it to the press? Cause a civil war in the United States, or use it as blackmail to informally vassalize the country?

The problem with this was there was a small window of opportunity, as in a year another election would be held, and it was doubtful the current president would run for a third term…

And when the idea finally surfaced in Bruno's mind, there wasn't a smirk, or grin like he normally had when he thought of something brilliant, rather a lamentable expression as he shook his head and sighed….

"I might really be the devil after all…. With a bit of editorial framing and a little help from Hearst... I could have Congress on its knees by Tuesday, and they'd still call it democracy."