The President

by Parker Hudson

  “Yes...yes...Ryan, I’m here.”

  “We’ve got two cameras working. One’s up there on you, and the other is somehow up and running on the president. Whoever’s manning that one ought to get a medal.”

  “On me?” They could see her look around, still shielding her face from the rain, until she saw the camera on the roof, her cameraman still trying to protect it. “Oh. Ryan, you wouldn’t believe what’s happened.” She struggled to stand up. As she did, she looked out from the van for the first time since she fell and gasped, “Ryan, I can see at least two trees smoldering, and I don’t know if anyone’s been hurt. But, Ryan, these people are all still here, and they’re still praying!” She started to cry again. “It was so awful, I—”

  “Leslie, get a hold of yourself,” Ryan said over the intercom. “Wipe your face as best you can and stop crying. We’ve got to come back to you there in Washington in just a minute, or people will start to worry. Now everything’s all right—you’ll be fine. We’ve got a team checking on damage, and once the wind dies down we’ll get the blimp back in position. Just give us a positive, heads-up report, will you? You’ll be a hero.”

  “Yes, yes. I will,” she replied into her microphone. As the rain slackened, her cameraman stood up again and put the camera on his shoulder. Leslie wiped her face and looked out. People were standing in the wet grass and in the mud, lifting their hands, and smiling while they prayed!

  “We’re going back now to Leslie Sloane in Washington,” Ryan voiced over a picture of the president still praying on his knees. “Leslie, that was some storm. Are you all right?”

  The cameraman on the van focused on a very wet Leslie Sloane on top of the van, the presidential platform behind her. “Yes, Ryan, we’re all fine here, though I’m not sure about other spots on the Mall. Ryan, you won’t believe how this storm came up; I hope we’ve got it on tape. I felt it coming, just like I felt these people praying. Ryan, I don’t know anything about spiritual warfare—that’s what the president’s sister called it in our interview with her—but I feel like either this storm was one of the century’s greatest coincidences, or we’ve just lived through a real spiritual battle.”

  “Great, Leslie. We’re glad you’re okay. We’ll check with you again in a little while, but right now we’ve got a live update on the Independence Day Golf Classic.”

  In towns and cities across the nation, believers and others drawn by concern for America’s future knelt in prayer through much of that afternoon. And in many churches, July Fourth was the kick-off day for their congregations to pray around the clock, seven days a week, until the elections scheduled for Tuesday, November 5.

  25

  It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape.

  JUSTICE JOSEPH STORY

  U.S. SUPREME COURT. 1833

  Monday, September 16

  Two Months Later

  ATLANTA—Eunice Porter answered the phone in her apartment late in the morning. It was Sally Kramer, and her voice was excited as she relayed her news. “I’ve got my train ticket for New York, and Dr. Thompson says your date is all set for the very beginning of November. He wants to wait as close to your due date as possible.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Eunice said, her voice showing no emotion.

  “You don’t sound too excited, girl,” Sally said. “Doesn’t five thousand bucks mean much to you these days?”

  “Yeah, sure. But I just hate going all the way to New York on a train, especially so close to my due date. I thought he said they’d get it worked out to do it here.”

  “He did. But he says while the courts and the attorneys are all fighting over the law, the president’s executive order, or whatever it is, stands. So we have to go to this clinic up there run by a friend of his.”

  “Well, I don’t much like it. I wish I weren’t doing this.”

  “What? Hey, you’re the one who needed the money last Christmas. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. I don’t know. I guess I’m just thinking some about this baby and all.”

  “That isn’t a baby till it’s born. It’s a fetus!”

  “Well, it sure kicks like a baby.”

  “Come on, girl. This is the best thing we’ve ever found. Don’t mess it up for us. Do I have to go up there with you?”

  “No, I don’t guess you do. I’ll be okay.”

  “Fine. Now wish me luck. I’ll call you just before I leave.” Rebecca was finishing her review of the night shift’s paperwork when there was a knock on the door to her office at the back of the nurses’ station. A young man was standing there with several sheets of computer paper.

  “Hi, Alex. What’s up?” Rebecca asked.

  “I finally got around to running those inquiries you asked for six weeks ago before the family went on vacation and our department changed offices. Sorry it took me so long.”

  “Oh, thanks. Did you find out anything?”

  “Well, it’s pretty weird, actually.”

  “How so?”

  “You remember you asked me to check on Ms. Porter and Ms. Kramer and the other full-term abortions during the year when they were legal, to see if there were any unusual circumstances?”

  “Yes, sure,” Rebecca replied.

  “Well, the most unusual thing is that Dr. Thompson and/or Dr. Sawyer were the doctors on all of them. In fact, Dr. Thompson only missed one, and his partner happened to be there.”

  “That does seem strange,” Rebecca agreed, taking the printout from the young computer whiz. “Let’s see, twenty-four full-term abortions in that year, and Harvey Thompson happened to be on duty for all but one of them. And look, they all seem to have taken place in the early evening hours. What are the odds of that being a coincidence?”

  “I don’t bet,” he said, “but they’ve got to be slim.”

  “Hmm. Well, thanks, Alex... Look, can you sort of poke around with your computer and see if there’s anything else going on in these dates and times that’s odd? I mean, maybe Dr. Thompson just always signs up for this shift, time after time, and these women for some reason all decide in the afternoon that they want to abort their children. Please check, if you can, Dr. Thompson’s other duty days. All right?”

  “I’ll try. It may take a while because they’re just getting all our equipment hooked up again, but I’ll take a look.”

  “Thanks, Alex. I don’t really know what we’re looking for, but if it’s there, I know you’ll find it!”

  VIRGINIA BEACH—Hugh and Jennifer were sitting at their dining room table. The children had finished supper and were watching television before bedtime.

  “Tomorrow night we’re starting our Bible study,” Jennifer said, “in Romans. I’m sorry you’re going to miss some of the sessions.”

  “Me, too,” Hugh said, sipping his coffee. Jennifer had joined one of their church’s small groups while Hugh had been deployed; they met weekly just two streets over, and Hugh had enjoyed getting to know the small group of believers. He particularly liked the host couple who led the Bible study. “I guess we’ll be gone on these training operations and ‘Show the Flag’ trips several times between now and Christmas. We’re supposed to make visits to Boston, New York, Charleston, and Port Everglades.”

  “Well, I hate for you to be gone, but at least we had almost the whole summer together, and going for ten days at a time is sure better than for six months.”

  “Yeah. I really should have been transferred to some shore billet by now, but rotations are still frozen until the end of the naval Human Rights Commission study.”

  “How’s that going?” she asked, rising to get the key lime pie she had made for dessert.

  “Oh, just wonderful,” he exaggerated. “Some days I think the captain wishes the committee back in June had just decided we were all bigots and chopped off our heads on
the spot!”

  She laughed from in front of the refrigerator. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, as hard as he’s tried—we’ve all tried—to bend over backward to be fair to everyone concerned in this new environment, we still don’t know if we’re getting nailed for enforcing regulations or which ones still apply or who can sleep with whom and when. I mean, it’s just crazy. These two commission members just roam around the ship all day, watching and listening and taking notes on their clipboards. We have to let them into any conversation on anything at any time. One of our men asked me quite seriously yesterday if I thought their sleeping compartment was bugged!

  “They’re now talking about permitting officer and senior chief couples to live together on board—if they’re married. A lawyer argued that otherwise the navy would “discriminate” against marriage. Isn’t that quaint? Living together in staterooms. I guess soon we’ll be needing cruise directors and nurseries.”

  Jennifer set the pie on the table. “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad, is it? Who did you say are the representatives from the commission who are riding the ship?”

  “We’ve got an Hispanic lesbian and a young white guy who graduated from Annapolis in June. To think that Captain Robertson’s last months of command at sea are lived out in mortal fear of what those two might write about something one of his four hundred crewpeople might say or do! It’s truly insane. I sure hope William gets the right people into office in November, so maybe he can undo all this politically correct mind control before we no longer have a navy—or an army or an air force, for that matter.”

  “I guess you’re right, dear,” Jennifer said. “Unfortunately I don’t think it looks too good for November, from what I read. But like William keeps saying, we’ve got to pray.”

  “I do, Jen, I do. I just hope we make it.”

  CHAPEL HILL—Katherine and Sarah had enrolled three weeks earlier as freshmen and roommates at the university, and they were living at the suggestion of the Secret Service in one of the smaller women’s dorms, where one agent at a time could watch the patterns of those coming and going without too much trouble. So far they were enjoying both college life and rooming together, and their shared, renewed values had already helped them get through one fairly traumatic double date with two aggressive juniors.

  Just before classes started, Sarah had traveled with her mother to Atlanta to testify in the regional hearings for the anti-AIDS federal grant for which BioTeam had applied. Despite their testimony, and that of three other students who shared Sarah’s disgust with the device, the virtual reality computer had won the endorsement of the regional committee on the twisted logic— Mary felt—that while the computer had its admitted drawbacks in the areas exposed by the teenagers, it nevertheless had proven to be completely effective in stopping AIDS.

  When the announcement had been made, Mary had wanted to scream from the back of the auditorium, “Yes, no AIDS cases this year, but surely the increased sexual activity leads to greater overall risk!” But she had restrained herself, knowing that they had one more chance to derail the juggernaut for this machine. And that was the purpose of Mary’s phone call this Monday night.

  She and Sarah first caught up on the few things that had happened since Sunday afternoon, when the two cousins had driven back to school from nearby Raleigh. Then Mary said, “Sarah, I got a call today. The final hearing on the federal grant for BioTeam is being held in New York, of all places. Anyway, it’s set up for the morning of Monday, November fourth. The BioTeam hearing is at eleven. I hope you can arrange your classes so that we can fly up on Sunday, testify, and be home by late Monday.”

  “I think I can, Mom. And listen, since Katherine didn’t get to go to Atlanta, do you think she could come with us to New York?”

  “Well, if William and Carrie and the Secret Service say it’s okay, it might not hurt to have the president’s daughter sitting with us in our corner when we testify. I’ll leave it up to the two of you. Just let me know how many hotel rooms we need.”

  “Great! We’ll ask and let you know.”

  “And, Sarah, we’ve really got to pray and do all we can to discredit this awful thing. The PTA approved the use of the BioTeam machine at North-side High in the second half of junior year.”

  “That’s awful, Mom.”

  “I know, dear. I know.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “I know I’ve said this before, but it really means so much to me that you and Dad forgave me for being so stupid—about the machine and Matthew, I mean.”

  “Honey, your father and I were not exactly saints in our younger days, unfortunately, and of course we forgave you. I know Katherine’s glad to have you back, so to speak. And it’s really between you and God, anyway. He’s the one who wipes our slates clean. But you know that.”

  Mary could tell Sarah was smiling. “I know, Mom. And I’ve prayed, and I know I’m forgiven. But it’s still special that you’ve forgiven me, too.”

  “All right, honey. We love you. You and Katherine get a good night’s sleep.”

  WASHINGTON—Leslie could not remember ever being angry with Ryan, not really angry. But this evening might qualify, she thought as she waited for the videotape to rewind.

  She had covered Joe Wood’s speech that afternoon to the Black Educators’ Leadership Forum for the network and had been unexpectedly impressed with the courageous and seemingly logical things the street preacher, corporate board member, and White House advisor had told his mostly African-American audience.

  But after the luncheon she had also covered the vice president’s much anticipated Second Emancipation Proclamation, at which Patricia Barton-North held a press conference to announce that after she became president in November she would introduce to her Congress in January a broad set of reforms that would proclaim freedom and protection for all types of behavior and lifestyles which were matters of individual choice. Specifically, she would ask for federal legislation to legalize and protect in every state an individual’s right to express homosexual love, to perform any and all art, to take soft drugs, to receive full-term abortions, even to practice polygamy and prostitution, the vice president having apparently decided it was better to mend her fences with all her progressive friends, so that she could be the “president for all the people.”

  Since Leslie had interviewed the vice president earlier and was their White House reporter, the news directors in New York had decided to let her cover the Second Emancipation Proclamation on the evening news as a major story, and Ryan would mention Joe Wood’s speech in the other news about the upcoming election. So Leslie had uploaded the entire video of the pastor’s speech to New York, keeping a copy for herself, as usual. And Ryan had, as expected, covered the talk in their newscast, which had ended twenty minutes earlier.

  It was her copy of Joe Wood’s speech Leslie now wanted to see again in its entirety, so she sat alone in one of their small studios with a pad and pencil while the video began. She fast forwarded through the introduction at the hotel podium and the applause. Then she settled in to listen to the pastor speak again.

  He wasted no time after his few introductory remarks. He blasted the leadership of the nation, black and white, of both political parties, for the previous forty years and for what they had done to black families, to black men, and to black children.

  “I’m so tired of hearing about black leaders. What would most of them do if black people really made it? We wanted civil rights, and we turned to the federal government to guarantee what the Declaration of Independence says about all men being created equal by God. But then we made a mistake—we looked to that same government to guarantee outcomes—and it has. Oh, Lord forgive us, it has! Black leaders and white leaders ‘guaranteed’ everyone into a federal plantation system that emasculates our men, turns our women into degraded baby machines, and then enslaves our children with more of the same programs.

  “My friends, this is a majority white nation. You
got that? We can’t change that, and it’ll hurt more than help to pretend ourselves into little groups and call ourselves ‘equal but separate.’ Where are we going to “separate” to? Instead we can keep our own culture while living successfully in this society. Look at the Italians and Ukrainians and Irish in America—they have as much or as little of their culture as they want while still living in the American mainstream. And unlike them”—he smiled from the podium— “there’s no chance that we’ll be lost in that mainstream!

  “I know our ancestors didn’t ask to come here to be slaves, but before you get too racially righteous, remember that black chiefs in Africa were the ones who sold their own people into slavery and pocketed the first cash for their souls. Look around today. Look at the death and violence in Bosnia, Rwanda, Ireland, Somalia, and you’ll see the perverse good news that greed and hate and sin—yes, sin—are not a white condition or a black condition or a brown condition—they’re the human condition, and they always will be without God in our lives!

  “As I said, this is a majority white nation. It is, or was, also a Christian nation. And I’m here to tell you today that as imperfect as this nation is, it’s the best place I know of to live. And the white people I know and work with genuinely want the best for my family and me, just like I do for them, because we don’t see black or white, we see children of God—and it’s that truth that made this nation different for blacks. When people genuinely have Jesus in their hearts, they transcend their many human differences—which are all too easy to see!—and focus instead on the spirit of God in whose image all of us were created.