Blue Dawn, 1994

Blue Dawn, 1994


Prelude – Independence Day


1 – Act of war


It is July 4th, 1994. Robert ‘Bob’ Kerrey, the forty-second American President, is at Camp David.

Throughout the holiday weekend, Kerrey has been here at the presidential retreat in rural Maryland. In the United States, Independence Day celebrations aren’t done with the president taking part in parades or ceremonies: the day is not a party political event. Kerrey has been staying in the historic Aspen Lodge up here and not had much time for relaxation. There is a lot going on in the world, trouble overseas aplenty, and he is busy with those: there are issues to address a presidential response to with the Balkans, Iraq, the wider Middle East… and the former Soviet Union too.

Kerrey takes a break from a seemingly endless series of strategy briefings and goes for a stroll in the grounds. He is accompanied by his White House chief-of-staff with one Secret Service agent in-close while many others are nearby. The agent hangs back, eyes open though, as the president and his closest aide – here at Camp David working, not for a break – get some fresh air and a bit of exercise. A wounded & decorated veteran from the Vietnam War, the former US Navy SEAL that is Kerrey sets the pace while his overweight, constantly harassed aide struggles to keep up with him. They get some distance away from the lodge and all the stresses in there.

A lone shot rings out.

It is perfectly aimed. Kerrey’s head is the target of the bullet fired and the target is hit. Dead before he hits the ground, Kerrey’s life is snuffed out in an instant.

The president is dead.


Secret Service agents spring into action – a bit late others will later say – even before the bullet strikes home. That rifle crack is heard near and far. There are agents who rush towards the president while others fan out. Camp David, a supposedly secure location, is always on lock-down but now the security situation is intense. Few know that Kerrey is dead: they only hear the call ‘BULLFROG is down!’ (Kerrey’s codename was based upon his Vietnam service) over the radio stating that he has been shot without any more details yet given. A gunman is loose and he is to be hunted down: that is what those here busy themselves with.

Medical attention directed towards Kerrey is pointless. It is still tried though. Carried to one of the many buildings within the retreat’s extensive grounds, there is a frantic effort to try to do anything possible for the president. Nothing can be done though. The fifty year-old divorcee has been dead since the very moment that that bullet struck him.

Messages out from Camp David are sent far and wide. The Vice President is one of the first informed with other political, intelligence and military figures finding out soon afterwards. There is no public announcement yet. The fellow Democratic Party politician elected alongside Kerrey, who took office like he did last January, another quiet & serious politician, will soon take the oath of office. Then, at that late point, the country – and the wider world – will be told of what has happened.

Meanwhile, the hunt for the president’s assassin at Camp David continues.


The retreat is a US Navy base – officially called Naval Support Facility Thurmont – and they have a military presence here. The Marine Corps flew Kerrey here back on the Friday and there are likewise US Marines at Camp David. Those in uniform assist the Secret Service in trying to locate whoever has just murdered Kerrey. All efforts are thrown into this. Nothing is overlooked. Nothing is not checked. A couple of hours later, just after the American people find out that they have a new president, this all pays off.

The gunman – without his rifle though – is cornered. Calls come for him to surrender from where he is in the undergrowth. He refuses and challenges those surrounding him to have a try. The US Marines want to shoot him but the Secret Service want him alive. The latter win out. They get in among the undergrowth and, after a tussle, capture him. The assassin is alive and in custody. He’ll soon be out of here, flown by helicopter away to somewhere very safe (the Secret Service Academy outside of D.C.)…

…less someone try to shoot him themselves in a repeat of the last time a gunman killed a president.

A white-painted helicopter from HMX-1, no longer using the call-sign ‘Marine One’, flies Kerrey’s body to Andrews Air Force Base. The deceased president’s fiancée goes with him. She is distraught. Her relationship with the president has been one of media intrusion, with much cruelty from them, and she is assured that there will be no press at Andrews. This brings no visible response from her: she will certainly need a doctor herself.

After his own helicopter ride, the captured assassin will have those who wish to talk with him. The US Intelligence Community, all of those government agencies better known by their acronyms, will be all over him. There will be a fight for jurisdiction – which the Secret Service will win – but there will be much access to him from the ‘other government agencies’ granted. His identity is confirmed before midnight. The CIA, DIA & NSA all have open files on him: he is not a so-called clean-skin.


The man who has just murdered the American president, on Independence Day and on United States soil, is a known intelligence officer serving now with the successor organisation of the former Soviet KGB. He’s a Russian, a suspected ‘wet-work’ operative, who is without doubt acting on behalf of the Union of Sovereign States. America and the USS (better known as either the Union or Russia: call it what you may) are currently engaged in a military stand-off through Eastern Europe because the Cold War has continued with full vigour into the Nineties.

Now, today, one of their people has just killed President Kerrey.

It’s an act of war if there ever was one.

Om my god, the UN is going to invade the United States, now you don it James G, the black choppers are coming.

A then it just your average American-Russian war then, okay, then the black choppers can go back to their secret UN basses.

1994, Yugoslavia still fall apart and civil war ongoing?

Like many other stuff i guess.

Yes, the economic collapse post-Cold War actually started in the tail end of the Cold War for very good reasons. Their economic model simply collapses due to organic reasons. Reason for malinvestment, deferred maintenance, eating through their seed stock so to speak and just general sense of management irresponsibility meant the economy just finally paid the piper for all these years of horrendously bad policy and planning. The collapse began in earnest at the end of the cold war and there is no way if this continued that this ship od state turned around. Things could have only gotten worse as they at best put bandages on a sucking chest wound. Interesting to see the world you will have built in this new timeline.