But even if Manhattan managed to feed itself for some time, other supplies, such as medicines, would be critical. Close observers at the time noted that the governor’s jet logged multiple trips to London, Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki. The goodwill of northern Europe, and the governor’s money, resulted in substantial commitments from foreign governments and companies to step up and provide New York, if necessary, with the essential goods that it normally procured domestically. But how to bring supplies into a blockaded Manhattan remained a vexing question, right up to that week in November 2018 when we watched with alarm the advance of the federal forces, represented on F3 by little lines of gold crusader crosses marching across the electronic map.
By the time the federal troops reached the Raritan River in New Jersey, a strange calm had settled over the city. The normal throng of tourists and business travellers left town, all commuters returned to the suburbs, and trains and airlines suspended service. Anyone left in New York assumed they would be here for the duration. State Guard troops were stationed at places where major highways entered the city, but with few tanks and no effective antiaircraft defenses, we realized these checkpoints would fall quickly against any regular military force determined to proceed. We had little hope of keeping federal troops out of the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, or Staten Island should they choose to advance from the north and east. But Manhattan itself was heavily and effectively fortified, with each potential landing point around the island defended by multiple rows of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and Guard and volunteer Sec troops manning well-protected defensive positions.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the feds advanced up through New Jersey, and the formidable Joshua Brigades from Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, and Colorado took up positions up and down the west shore of the Hudson from the George Washington Bridge in the north down to Bayonne. Manhattanites lined the east bank of the Hudson staring across at the alarming sight of tanks and artillery all poised to shoot across the river at the full length of the island. In a symbolic gesture, the Holies occupied Liberty Island from the Jersey side and draped the base of the Statue of Liberty with the “Christian flag.” At the same time, a small unit of marines landed at Stony Brook, on the North Shore of Long Island, and proceeded south to secure McArthur Airport in Islip. We watched nervously as huge air force C-17 transports streamed continuously in and out of MacArthur Airport all afternoon, discharging troops, tanks, vehicles, and supplies. The next morning, the city was transfixed by TV images of tanks and armored personnel carriers streaming west along the otherwise empty Long Island Expressway and Southern State Parkway. The defense perimeters at the city’s eastern edge were pierced following a brief skirmish. A brave unit of Guards briefly halted the advance around Kennedy Airport using only three old tanks, brought down from Camp Smith in Peekskill, until helicopter-fired missiles destroyed each tank. The governor pulled all our forces back to Manhattan and deployed them at the bridge and tunnel exits, which were relatively easy to defend, and reinforced the troops at the most obvious spots for amphibious assault around the island’s perimeter. By the end of the day, the same formidable line of tanks, artillery, and troops lined the east bank of the East River all the way up to the South Bronx.
The governor and all the senior staff spent the night in our command center on Third Avenue, most of us believing that it might be our last night alive or at least our last as free men and women. Well after midnight, we received reports of guerrilla-style attacks on the rear and side flanks of the Joshua Brigades arrayed along the river in Brooklyn on a large flat area just south of Newtown Creek that included the Greenpoint Playground. The gunfire continued for well over an hour, and when it ended we did not know whether the citizen soldiers of Brooklyn had been killed or had staged a tactical retreat.
Around 4 a.m. we were again summoned to the roof as a single US Air Force bomber flew low and slow over Greenpoint, blanketing the neighborhood behind the harassed troops with bombs, presumably in retribution for the attack. We did have antiaircraft weapons mounted on the tops of some of the taller buildings in Manhattan, and several of those shot unsuccessfully at the slow bomber. After only a few minutes, the plane departed. Although the bombs did not appear to be the incendiary type used on the Castro, the effect was equally devastating. From Newtown Creek down to Greenpoint Avenue, the entire area west of McGuiness Boulevard, almost thirty square blocks, was leveled by violent explosions. Not a single building was left intact. We stood on the roof on Third Avenue and gazed silently to the east. Thick black smoke obscured the stars and drifted on the wind to the north. But under the smoke, yellow flames enveloped the ruins of collapsed buildings and illuminated the surface of the East River. For the sixteen thousand households living in the neighborhood of old brick and wooden structures, there was no escape. No one knows how many died that night, but it cannot have been less than half of the neighborhood’s population of about forty thousand Poles, South Asians, North Africans, artists, rooftop farmers, foodies, and other young people who had been attracted in the years before to one of New York’s most affordable and dynamic communities. When we came down from the roof, the governor was in shock.
“Not in New York. I really didn’t think they would do it. Not here. It’s my fault. We should not have let the people think they could fight and win this battle. How many …” Sitting on the couch in his corner office, he covered his face with his hands, elbows on his knees. After a minute, he sat up straight, wiped his eyes with the monogrammed sleeve of a day-old shirt, and seemed determined.
“That’s it,” he said. “No more. We’re going to surrender. I’m going to call Jordan.”
“Don’t, Governor,” I said abruptly. “Please, sir. They will not come after Manhattan tomorrow. I’m sure of it. It will be a siege. Go ahead and make a statement for the outer boroughs. If you want, tell the militias there to give up. Tell them the price is too high, that they cannot win. Tell them the price for continuing the fight is their neighbors dying in their sleep as they did in Greenpoint. But not Manhattan. We must try to hold Manhattan.” I paused.
“Mike”—I almost never called the governor by his first name—“think of the gays. To give up now is a death sentence for them. And we have to think of the millions in the rest of the country who don’t go along with this madness. As long as secular rule continues somewhere in the country, even if it’s just Manhattan Island, they all will have at least some hope. They need us to hang on, sir. If we lose, all those people out there will give up. The siege will give us time. Anything can happen. The world may come to our rescue. Jordan could die or lose the next election. We have time; we’ve got to take it. Please—”
I stopped talking abruptly. The governor stood at the window looking out at Third Avenue. He asked the others for their advice.
A few hours later, at six o’clock on Thanksgiving morning, the governor summoned the media. It was the first time I ever saw him meet the press without shaving. Deep purple creases under his eyes made him look old. He honored the troops who had perished trying to stop the advances against the city from the north and east. He said simply that November 24, although celebrated by the fundamentalists as a triumph, would instead, ultimately, be seen as a day of infamy. No true Christian, no American, no person of goodwill could possibly condone the murder of sixteen thousand innocents in their beds. History would judge it to be a crime against humanity, the horrible fruits of fanatical belief. The governor then begged the people of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island to stop fighting. He said they should continue to resist in every way available to them other than violence. He said seeing the city ripped into two broke his heart, but violence in the occupied parts of the city would bring only overwhelming and disproportionate retribution against which we had no defense. The other boroughs had been occupied by federal forces and must acquiesce for the moment to the inevitable. He then addressed President Jordan directly:
Mr. Jordan—for I am too much of a patriot to call you president—Mr. Jordan, hear this clearly. We draw the line at Manhattan. Yes, you have the power to destroy us. But think a moment. This island is the capital of the world and a microcosm of the whole world. Our people are the best and brightest who have come from all corners of the earth drawn by the promise of America. Our diversity, and the energy and creativity it drives, are a model for what the world can be. Our dozens of great museums and private collections hold the most important art, sculpture, and artifacts of all human civilization. Here on this island live some of the world’s most accomplished musicians, dancers, actors, and artists. Here are the headquarters of dozens of the world’s largest enterprises, providing jobs for tens of millions of Americans and people around the world. Here lies the heart of the world’s financial system. You cannot take Manhattan without destroying all these things. If you do, your name will be recorded by history alongside the likes of Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Adolf Hitler—you will be regarded by history as a genocidal maniac and vandal of civilization. So I tell you this. Not one federal soldier will set foot on this island. The 1.7 million New Yorkers who live here will fight you in every neighborhood, every street, every building, every alley. This is a promise and a fact. What do we have to lose? We who have come from all over the world for the promise of American freedom and the American dream—we have nothing to lose, because losing that dream is to us like death. Our brothers and sisters whom you want to slaughter for their God-given sexuality—they have nothing to lose because they fight for their lives. So think well, Mr. Jordan, what you do next. And I ask the governments of the world to do everything they can to help us, and I ask the people of the world for their prayers.
It was not a great speech. I wrote it without having slept for two nights, and the governor, who was also exhausted, extemporized freely. But it worked. The violence in the outer boroughs subsided, and the world watched and waited to see what Jordan would do next.
Later that day, when families around the country rose from their Thanksgiving meals, President Jordan addressed the nation. I watched the address from a conference room and could barely contain my anger upon seeing his carefully coifed contentment, that slick telegenic face masking a lurid cruelty. Behind him, the triumphant image of the cross in the White House, now on a par with the American flag, reminding us what they had really meant when they said this was a Christian Nation.
My fellow Americans. Almost one year ago I promised you that by Christmas this year our nation would again be whole and free. It is thus appropriate that on this Thanksgiving Day, the day when the whole nation thanks God, its patron and protector, for all His many Blessings, I can ask you to join me in thanking the Lord and His son Jesus Christ, who have once again shown their divine favor by granting us victory in the Holy War we waged in their name. All fifty states are once again together in this sacred Union. All the state capitals are free. Senators and representatives from all the states once again work together in Congress for the people. By any measure, the battle should not have been so easy. With God’s grace and favor, with His miraculous intervention on more than one occasion, our brave Joshua Brigades—consisting of our finest federal men and women in uniform—retook the rebellious states with a minimum of bloodshed. We thank each of those men and women for their service. And even today, in their finest hour, our troops proceeded to the very shore of Manhattan Island, awaiting only my order to take the last bit of American soil under the control of the rebels.
My fellow Americans, like you, when I face a tough decision, I turn to the only advisor a man needs, to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the good book he gave us. And lo and behold, my Bible opened right to Deuteronomy 20, and this is what I read:
10. When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. 11. And it shall be, if it make
thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall
be,
that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. 12. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
My fellow Americans, I am no longer surprised, but always grateful, when the Bible has a direct answer for every question.
And so tonight, on this day of Thanksgiving to the Lord, I do what I have done my entire life and career, and seek humbly to follow the will of God. For the last year, I have said over and over to Governor Bloomberg and each resident of Manhattan, peace be unto you. I have come at the behest of the Lord to fight you, but I have offered you peace as the Lord instructed. If you had responded in peace, and offered us peace, then you would have been returned to the bosom of your country in the peace of the Lord. It’s not too late. But you have not made peace with us. You have made war. So the Bible is clear. We shall besiege your island. Effective immediately, I announce to the people of America and the nations of the world that the island of Manhattan is quarantined. Its waters have been blockaded by our navy. Every connection between the island and the outside world is under the control of US forces. No one may enter and no one may leave. No food or other goods shall be allowed in or out. Manhattan is surrounded, just like Jericho was when under siege by Joshua and the armies of God. The prophets, thanks be to God, were right, and it all ends now with a siege against the godless and disobedient. I don’t know whether it will take seven days, like Jericho, or seven months, but I tell you this. Just as the indestructible walls of Jericho tumbled to the ground, everything yields eventually to the power of God’s intervention and God’s favor. Good night, and may God bless America.
In remarks to the people of Manhattan the next morning, the governor, who had a good sleep and a shave, was in high spirits: