When Rome Stumbles

by David Kershner

  “Who are you recording that for?” Layla asked.

  “Sam,” she replied quickly and nonchalantly. The last thing she wanted was to engage her sister in another debate about the merits of Samantha and their father possibly dating.

  Unexpectedly, Layla replied, “Tell her I said ‘hi’,” and then paused.

  Katherine slowly looked over to see that she had been crying.

  “And let her know that I’m sorry for being a jerk… and for saying she had crazy eyes.”

  Katherine reached out, put an arm around her, and continued recording. In a lot of ways, because they had different experiences in the warehouse, Katherine had emotionally surpassed her sister. The shrink had at least mentioned that it might be a possibility to Katherine and her father.

  “Dad told me about what happened at the Visitor Center. What you said to him that got you kicked out,” Layla added.

  “And?” Katherine asked.

  “I’m done being a victim, but be patient with me. Okay?”

  Katherine leaned over and gently kissed her on the head. She then used her thumb to wipe away her sister’s tears. As she placed their two foreheads together, she replied, “Deal.”

  The girls were brought back into the moment when their father said, “Those of you with children in their early twenties might remember this one. My daughters played it non-stop for months and I’m sure some of yours did as well. I spent hours trying to teach them how to play it. Some us were more successful than others,” he said as he began pointing at himself to rub it in on the pair.

  “This last song is called Little Things and even though I thought it was probably the most annoying thing on the radio at the time, the lyrics are beautiful.”

  Josh looked down from the stage at Katherine and said, “I’d like to dedicate this song to the love of my life, Ms. Samantha Jameson. I hope you enjoy it.”

  He then proceeded to sing the lead while the choirs filled in with the harmony and chorus. When the song was finished, the crowd was standing and applauding, both daughters were in tears.

  As Josh left the stage, a town car silently made its way down the driveway and parked in front of the cabin. A young man in a suit exited, leaned against the vehicle, and lit a cigarette.

  Some minutes passed before Josh noticed the trespasser. When he did, he grabbed the Sheriff and the two walked over together. As they approached, the man dropped the butt and stamped it out.

  “How about you pick that up before I put you on the ground and snuff you out, ya little punk,” Josh barked at the man’s indiscretion.

  “Josh!” Jim exclaimed. “It’s responses like that that keep landing you in jail.”

  The offending young man swallowed hard at both comments and quickly bent to retrieve the trash. Josh and his friend quietly laughed as they continued their approach.

  “Are you Mr. Josiah Grant Simmons?” the suit asked.

  “I am. What’s this all about?”

  “The Chairmen for the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry has issued a summons for your appearance in two weeks’ time.”

  He then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and removed an envelope. “You have been served.”

  * * *

  Several days later, after months of delays and posturing by politicians and corporate honchos, the Committee hearings began. Drs. Emily Chastain, Georgia Tipton, and Ethan Caldoro entered the chambers and took their seats at the witness table. A lottery was held for seating because demand for attendance was so high. Every head turned as the procession walked by.

  Josh wasn’t scheduled to appear for over a week, but since he didn’t have a TV, he was camped out on Juan’s couch. Nothing was going to get done outside of feeding the animals while the hearings were in session and being broadcast.

  The three doctors spent all of Monday and the better part of Tuesday explaining the science behind the various GMO structures inherent to the individual crop types. The trio explained that some variants were laced with vaccines, some were altered to produce their own pesticides, and some were engineered to be drought or flood resistant. The problems arose, according to the researchers, over long term exposure to all things genetically modified.

  Emily stunned the proceedings when she declared, “The coupling of the genetic modifications with the individual’s own environment creates havoc in the human body. These two factors coalesced and manifested into the primary causes for the rise in incidence rates. Specifically, the cancers and maladies noted in Secretary McInerney’s report. Basically, because our various organs and internal systems don’t know what to do with the non-natural ingredients being ingested, it kicks up the white blood cell count because it’s thinks it’s infected.”

  Drs. Tipton and Caldoro set the chambers abuzz when they disclosed that the CDC was releasing new rates of incidence regarding autism. They corrected Secretary McInerney’s original assessment from just under one in ninety to one in sixty-eight children are born with these traits.

  Congressman Abernathy, forever a Tomason Industries lackey, was the most vocal during the doctor’s testimony. The three scientists could have testified and been in and out in a few hours, a day at most. Unfortunately, his dogged pursuit of alternative explanations dragged the entire process out into a second day.

  The remainder of the week was taken up by Secretary McInerney and the three GMO heads. Senator Bainbridge, as the Chairman of the Senate Committee, purposefully called them after the Secretary. As their mouthpiece, he wanted to afford them the opportunity to rebut any and all of Elias’ accusations before the Committees.

  U.S. Attorney Ryers, watching from his office, was amused when the Senator and the rest of Tomason’s insiders, verbally tore in to the Secretary. Not surprisingly, the three produced kid gloves and went easy on the three GMO heads. They’re just sealing their own fate.

  Josh arrived in D.C. on Sunday night. He immediately reached out to Secretary McInerney from the hotel. The two made arrangements to meet at the USDA building first thing the following morning. When he entered the office, Elias flipped the sterile room switch located under his desk and then preceded to detail the batting order for the week’s testimony.

  “Look,” be began, “I want you to hear it from me. Attorney Ryers had to read the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader into the scheme,” he said without any preamble.

  “Seriously? Why? They’re gonna screw it all up! Why would he do that?” Josh spouted in a series of questions.

  “If we have any chance of pulling this off, they need to know,” Elias replied.

  This made him extremely uneasy. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

  “You think I do? Unfortunately, this is how it’s gotta be,” he stated. “Now, Samantha will be called first. If Ryers has it figured right, and I believe he does, Senator Bainbridge is going to try and clear the chambers. When he attempts this, both the Speaker and the Majority Leader are prepared to intercede and prevent it. This allows Congress to save face. If they are viewed as trying to protect one, or in this case, three of their own, they’d all be out of a job. We had to play ball and throw them a bone.”

  * * *

  Once again, the viewing gallery was full. It was standing room only within fifteen minutes of the Capitol being opened. The buzz of anticipation was electrifying the chambers. Everybody watching at home, or attending in person, was waiting to lay eyes on the whistleblower. The talking heads spent their previous twenty-four hour news cycle making circumspect guesses as to the whistleblower’s identity. The heads of the GMOs and their handlers quickly made it through security and found seats.

  At 9:45, the Committee members entered and began heading to their assigned places. As they sat, they began reviewing the packets laid out in front of their respective chairs. At 9:55, Elias proceeded through the chambers with Josh at his side. The Secretary paused at the long mahogany table that had been provided for those testifying and directed him to the first
row of seats. At precisely 10:00, Senator Bainbridge checked his watch and gaveled the session to order.

  The Chairman rose, and authoritatively stated, “Secretary McInerney, although these committee hearings are generally run by the Committee Chair, and witnesses are called by said Committee, we have allowed this departure from procedure. We have waited several long months for this, please produce your whistleblower.”

  Elias stood slowly and placed his sweaty hands at his sides. In equal voice, he replied, “Senator, I would like to call Ms. Samantha Jameson.”

  The gallery immediately began clamoring. The news anchors in their studios were reduced to stunned silence at the pronouncement. The boom microphones picked up the audible conversations and gasps emanating from the audience. TV viewers heard the comments, ‘I thought she was dead’ and ‘where have they been hiding her?’

  Before Chairman Bainbridge could gavel the chambers to order, the double doors at the back of the chambers were thrust open to reveal Samantha and two FBI Agents on either side of her. The three began a slow, but steady, march toward the front of the room.

  As she approached, Congressional aides began providing addendums to the report for each member present. The added documentation was hand delivered by the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader to co-conspirators for emphasis.

  Senator Bainbridge began furiously pounding his gavel. The din of the room all but prevented him from being heard until Samantha took her seat. Edward Tomason, James Thurber, and Michael Monahan discreetly rose in an attempt to leave the chambers.

  When the audience quieted enough for him to hear his own voice, he immediately began calling for the session to be closed and the cameras to be turned off.

  On cue, the Speaker of the House re-emerged from behind curtains erected to cover the large windows. As he appeared, the rear doors were simultaneously closed. The Sergeant-at-Arms for both houses stood and blocked any escape. Seeing this, the three GMO heads quietly retook their seats.

  The sight of the Speaker brought the clamoring to an abrupt halt. Everyone was left to guess what would happen next. The Speaker calmly told Senator Bainbridge to take his seat.

  He then picked up the Senator’s microphone stand and said, “The American people deserve the right to hear all testimony before the Committee. All cameras and recording devices are permitted without interruption.”

  Senator Bainbridge swallowed hard and deferred the questioning of the witness to the Ranking Member of the Committee.

  “Ms. Jameson, since we’ve just now only been given this document, and haven’t had time to digest this new information, could you please explain what I am looking at?” she said.

  “Yes ma’am,” she began. “What you’ve received is basically the proof that the American people have been lied to for almost forty years,” Samantha started to say.

  As the Senator leafed through the Addendum, she replied, “That’s a pretty serious allegation, Ms. Jameson.”

  “I understand, but unfortunately I haven’t heard a single word provided by the scientists or Secretary McInerney that hasn’t rung true. As a testament to this fact, if you’ll turn to the last five pages of the packet, you will see a transcript of conversations that I was party to involving, not only the heads of the other GMOs, but also several members of this joint Committee. There was a fourth member of this Committee that was present, but he’s now deceased.”

  The assembled audience began ruminating and disturbed the proceedings. Senator Bainbridge began pounding his gavel again. Again he called for a closed session. “We have procedure here, Ms. Jameson. Any testimony involving misconduct by Committee members is subject to a closed session.”

  “I am suspending that privilege,” came a booming voice from the rear of the chambers.

  “Who said that? Stand and identify yourself,” Bainbridge beckoned loudly.

  The audience members seated in the floor seats began to turn and look for the person. The gallery members leaned forward, craning their necks over the balcony rail, trying to peer in to the back of the chambers.

  The Vice President of the United States stood and barked, “As President of the Senate, I have final say and discretion when it comes to procedural matters. I am suspending this Committee’s ability to call for a closed session. Now put that gavel down and have a seat!”

  Senator Bainbridge slumped back in his chair. He could see that the other two congressional members were drinking copious amounts of water to quench their parched throats.

  Turning in her seat to face the Committee again, Samantha said, “Perhaps it would best if I start from the beginning.”

  Chapter 21

  Samantha took a drink. As she put the glass back down, she took a long slow deep breath and began.

  “In 1988, my father started Hyloset with the simple purpose of providing affordable seed for silage, as did Tomason Industries, Ruhr Chemical, and NFCC. It was an emerging industry and all four were looking to capitalize. Unfortunately, he was a self-made businessman. He saw an opportunity and he took it. He didn’t know or understand the science behind the modifications to the seed.

  “Drs. Chastain, Tipton, and Caldoro provided testimony to this aspect of the report earlier so I won’t rehash that now. However, somewhere along the way, either through advertising campaigns or company propaganda, the genetically modified seed was deemed more reliable and more economical than that of traditional seed.

  “That’s when the myth grew. It snowballed so much that over ninety-five percent of all crops today are GMO. This is true even when the GMO wasn’t any more effective than the heirloom variety. All of these figures, and others, are provided in Secretary McInerney’s report, so I won’t delve into these points again either.

  “However, in 2015 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. My father, Peter Jameson, after hearing the diagnosis, started researching her ancestry. He discovered that this disease was not a trait carried by the women in our family. Moreover, her oncologist stated that if it wasn’t in her genetic make-up, then it was most likely her environment that caused her DNA to become damaged. As a result, he began looking at her diet.

  “He determined that it was high in synthetics made from agricultural products derived from GMO crops. From there, he authorized a study by Hyloset scientists and provided the report to the EPA in 2016. That’s almost a decade before the Secretary’s report. The GMO consortium knew at that time that they were poisoning the American people, and the world for that matter.”

  “Where is the report now?” the Senator asked.

  “I don’t know, ma’am. According to the late Mr. Donald Toombs, that report was spirited away from the EPA shortly after it was delivered.”

  “He told you this?”

  “Yes ma’am, as he was pointing a gun at me and the young daughter of the family that saved my life.”

  The Ranking Member put the document down and circled something several times. She then whispered directions to an aide.

  “Ms. Jameson, I don’t want this to read like some sort of soap opera before the Committee, but I want to be fair—,”

  “I’ll be extremely brief, I promise.”

  Smiling, the Senator said, “Very well then, please continue.”

  “After my father provided the report to the EPA, he began swapping out the GMO seeds sold by Hyloset for traditional heirloom seeds. He also started a hydroponic and an organic fertilizer division. This was about the time that the three other GMO heads learned of his supposed treachery and began poisoning him. I have already had the body exhumed for testing.”

  “I’m sorry? What? What in the world is going on,” the Committee member extolled Samantha.

  Above the rumble of conversation among the audience, Samantha raised her voice and said, “Again, Mr. Toombs attested to this shortly before his death. A year ago my father died from the poisoning and I took over the company. Before he passed, he provided me with information about the industry and his role in the death of Congre
ssman Davies.”

  “Your father had a hand that?” the Senator said incredulously.

  “Unfortunately, yes ma’am. Congressman Davies was campaigning pretty hard for products that contained GMO to be labeled in all packaging. The heads of the GMO companies at that time considered him a big enough threat to use their connections to have his plane shot down over the everglades. This is the same tactic they used to try and rid themselves of Senator Hightower and myself. Edward Tomason learned that the Senator was passing information to someone at the EPA. This action was enough to seal his fate in the eyes of the consortium.”

  “This is unbelievable,” the Senator exclaimed. “And I suppose you have proof of this? Yes?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Pages twelve through eighteen of the addendum contain transcripts of the conversations I had with my father on his death bed.”

  “You recorded your father’s death bed confessions?”

  “At his request, yes,” Samantha replied.

  “Why on earth would he have asked for this?”

  “Senator, with all due respect, but you and this Committee are both the question and the answer. He knew there would be skepticism and doubt as to the veracity of the claims being made here today.”

  The Congressman from Maryland interjected, “Hyloset hasn’t sold a GMO seed since 2016? Did I hear you right?”

  “Yes, sir. That is correct. Prior to Hyloset’s acting President’s statement, our organic seed accounted for eighty percent of the cotton and tobacco, thirty percent of the soy, and ten percent of the corn, alfalfa, and rice in the United States. These, and the percentages for the other three companies, are in the report.”

  “And how much seed does Hyloset have available with regard to crops on the low end of this percentage?” the Congressman asked in follow-up.

  “At present we are able to fulfill about sixty to eighty percent of the existing commercial agricultural land in the U.S., depending on the crop, for the first year, but this is only temporary. If Hyloset seed were used, on this scale for all GMO crop replacement, enough seed could be harvested to replenish our vaults for the next several years.