Phoenix Rising:

by William W. Johnstone

  “May I tell you what I think about the flag?” Bob asked.

  “Sure,” Jake said. “After all, you’re our president. And even if you aren’t going to run again, who would have more right?” he added with a chuckle.

  “Like most of you, I served the Stars and Stripes, and I never stood a retreat ceremony where I faced the flag, saluting as it was being lowered, without feeling so much pride that it choked me up. But, the Stars and Stripes stands for the United States as it was, and as we hope to reestablish. Fifty states, united as one nation.

  “That’s not what we are right now, and, while I think the Stars and Stripes should be one of our most important icons, we don’t yet have the right to fly it. In fact if we were to do so, I believe it would be disrespectful. It is what we will strive for and it shall be our goal to once again unite all our states under that banner. But until we do so, what we need is an interim flag around which we can rally.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you are right. Maybe we should have a new flag. Do you have any ideas?” Jake asked.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Julie, why don’t you come up with an idea?” Deon asked, speaking to the beautiful young black woman who had been a medical clerk in the pre-O army. “You’re always drawing pictures, and you’re damn good at it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Julie said. “That’s a pretty big order, I mean, to design a flag for a whole country? That’s quite a responsibility.”

  “Julie, you and I go back a long way together,” Karen said. Karen had been a nurse in the same hospital where Julie had worked. “And in all the time I’ve known you, you have never been one to shy away from responsibility. And I have seen your art work as well. You can do this, there is no doubt in my mind.”

  “All right,” Julie said with a nod. “I’m pretty sure I can come up with a design, but even if I do, I couldn’t actually sew the flag.”

  “I’ll sew the flag,” Ellen said.

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. You’re really good at that,” Bob said. “So, Julie, you and Ellen will be our Betsy Ross,” Bob said. “Or would that be Betsy Rosses?”

  “I’ll be the Betsy, Ellen can be the Ross,” Julie joked.

  “I do have a recommendation for something to add to the flag,” Bob said.

  “What?”

  “Add the words, Deo Vindice,” Bob said. “It means God is our Protector.”

  “Good idea,” Jake agreed.

  Bob smiled. “Jake, you being a Yankee, probably wouldn’t know this, but Deo Vindice was the motto of the Confederacy.”

  “Will you have a problem with that, Julie?” Jake asked.

  Julie smiled. “Not at all. I may be black, but I’m from Georgia. I’m so Southern that when I was born the doctor slapped my hammock with a candied yam.”

  The others laughed.

  “Anyhow, I’ve heard that there were blacks who fought for the South,” Deon said.

  “That’s absolutely true,” Bob said. “It’s not all that well known because it isn’t politically correct. And that’s a shame, because that steals honor from those brave black men who did fight. Nobody knows exactly how many, but there are estimates that from several hundred to several thousand blacks served with the Confederate forces during the war.”

  Jake shuddered. “Let us hope that this experiment doesn’t end up in another civil war as bloody as the first.”

  “That’s the hope and prayer of us all,” Bob said. “But I can’t see Ohmshidi letting us just walk away. What happened in Arkansas and what just happened in South Carolina is evidence of that.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I don’t think any of us want to go to war, but if it comes down to fighting a war or give away our freedom, then I, for one, am ready for the fight.”

  Jake’s solemn pronouncement was met with a long, studied, silence, finally broken by Julie.

  “I’ll get started on coming up with a design for the flag,” Julie said.

  Later that same afternoon Jake, Bob, Tom, Deon, and Chris began to organize the military. Jake and Bob already had received commitments from every military base they had visited earlier, but they were well aware that there was much more that could be added to the mix.

  “The truth is, we only visited five bases, but we have over forty military installations within our borders, and I would estimate at least one hundred thousand men and women residing here, who were on active duty when the US military collapsed. I think it would be a safe bet to say that over ninety percent of them would be willing to serve. Within two months, we could reconstitute a military that is at least equal to anything AIRE can put together,” Jake said.

  “In terms of a conventional military, yes. But AIRE has a head start on us with the SPS and the Janissaries,” Tom said. “And right now, they seem to be carrying the load.”

  “We have another asset,” Jake said. “We have at least three hundred Predator Drones that can be deployed. I don’t know how many the AIRE has.”

  “Probably not nearly as many as we have, but they are built in Southern California, which means they can build what they need,” Bob said. “On the other hand, we have aircraft assembly plants here in Mobile, and in Georgia. With reverse engineering it wouldn’t be hard at all for us to build enough drones to stay ahead of them, especially since we have a head start.”

  “And, we have nukes,” Jake said.

  “Yes, we have nukes,” Bob agreed.

  “And AIRE doesn’t,” Jake said. “So we don’t have that problem to deal with.”

  “Just because AIRE doesn’t have any nukes, that doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to worry about,” Chris said.

  “Why, do you think they might reconstitute the nukes?” Bob asked.

  “No, I don’t believe that any of the people who have the skill required to disassemble and reassemble the nukes would be willing to do that,” Chris said. “But if Sorroto was able to buy five of them once, I’ve no doubt but that he can do it again.”

  “If he does buy them, will he give them to Ohmshidi, do you think?”

  “No, and the more I think about it, I don’t think he was going to give them to him the first time either,” Chris said. “I’m afraid that the truth is even more frightening. Sorroto is a megalomaniac. If he acquires the weapons I believe he will keep them for himself. And he may be more likely to use them than Ohmshidi would.”

  “You’re right, that is more frightening,” Bob said.

  Taney County

  Sorroto was on a satellite telephone call to General Dmitry Golovin.

  “May I remind you that I paid for a product that was not delivered? And I paid quite well, as I recall,” Sorroto said.

  “Oh, but the product was delivered,” Golovin replied. “We followed your instructions to the letter. You said that the product was to be delivered to the Gomez. It was delivered to the Gomez. That was the extent of our instructions. Once the product reached the Gomez it was, for all practical purposes, in your hands.”

  “The Gomez has disappeared without a trace. Nobody has heard a thing from it.”

  “Perhaps the captain of the Gomez decided to go into business for himself. That was quite a valuable cargo he was carrying.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have done anything like that. I paid him enough money to buy his loyalty.”

  “Well, I have read of something called the Bermuda Triangle,” Golovin said. “It could be that the ship got caught up in that mysterious area and has gone to join Flight Nineteen.”

  Sorroto was quiet for a moment. “I want to reorder,” he finally said.

  “I am afraid that product is no longer available.”

  “I am willing to forget the previous, uh, difficulty,” Sorroto said. “I am willing to pay the same amount I paid the first time, even though I never took delivery of the product.”

  “You don’t understand,” Golovin said. “There was a unique set of circumstances which made the product available the fi
rst time. I’m afraid those circumstances no longer exist.”

  “Do you suppose you could duplicate those circumstances if I doubled the purchase price?”

  Sorroto heard a little gasp from the other end of the phone. “Did I understand you to say that you would double the purchase price?”

  “Yes. But this time I will find a more secure method of delivery.”

  “I think we might be able to do some business together,” Golovin said.

  Fort Morgan

  Julie and Ellen kept their work on the flag a secret for the two days it took them to design and sew the flag. Then they presented their flag, a red banner with a blue horizontal bar, intersected in the first quarter of its length by a vertical blue bar. There were eight white stars, representing the eight states that had attended the constitutional convention, six stars in the horizontal bar and two additional stars in the vertical bar. The motto Deo Vindice was in the lower right quarter of the banner.

  The flag was unfurled at a dinner hosted by Jake and Karen and it received instant applause and acclaim.

  “You know what I think?” Jake said. “I think we should find a factory that will make a thousand of these flags and we’ll pass them out, first come first served. Then, as people see them and want them, they’ll buy more until they become ubiquitous.”

  Karen laughed. “Ubiquitous? Well, I’m proud of you, Jake, showing off your vocabulary like that.”

  “The first thing we need to do is get them out to the military bases,” Jake said. “Nothing instills a sense of pride and duty in a soldier like seeing the flag of their country.”

  “And, we need to get a couple out to Virdin and the John Paul Jones,” Tom suggested.

  Bob nodded. “Yes, it would be a good idea to show our flag at sea. We’ll also put it on our container vessels so we can show it in foreign ports.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They didn’t have to go too far to find a company that manufactured flags. There was already such a company in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and they were not only thrilled to get the order, they turned out a thousand flags in less than a week.

  “Oh, they are beautiful!” Ellen said when she saw them. “So much more professional looking than the one I sewed.”

  Bob laughed. “Well, do you suppose it is because they are professional flag makers?” he asked. He folded, carefully, the flag that Ellen had sewn. “But I intend to keep this one. It was the very first one, and it will always be special.”

  “Yes, it will be, won’t it?”

  The next day Jake and Tom took the flag out to the John Paul Jones, which was on station about twenty-five miles off the coast. Jake sat down on the helipad on the afterdeck.

  “Damn!” Tom said. “Next thing you know, you’ll be carrier qualified,” he teased.

  “Now that is a fine looking flag,” Virdin said. “Though I must confess to being partial to the Stars and Stripes.”

  “We all are,” Tom said. “But Bob laid it out for us. We’ll fly the Stars and Stripes again, when we have taken America back.”

  “Good point,” Virdin said. He held the flag in his hand. “What do you say we raise the flag.”

  Fifteen minutes later, with all hands on deck, two petty officers attached the flag to the halyard of the ship’s truck.

  “Ship’s company, present arms!” Virdin called.

  As the ship’s company rendered the hand salute, the bugle call To The Colors was piped over the 1MC while the flag was run, briskly, up the flagstaff. The flag reached the top, caught the breeze, then filled and spread out displaying the colors. The hand salute was held until the final note of To The Colors sounded.

  “Order, arms!” Virdin called. Then, “Ship’s company, dismissed.”

  “Do you have to go back right away?” Virdin asked. “Or can you take dinner with us?”

  Since both Jake and Tom were of a military background, Virdin didn’t have to explain that “dinner” referred to the noon meal.

  Jake and Tom gathered with the other officers in the wardroom where they were served beef stew.

  “Sorry we don’t have a better meal prepared, but we weren’t expecting company,” Virdin said.

  “Nonsense, this is a fine meal,” Jake said.

  “Too bad you weren’t here for breakfast. We had foreskins on a raft,” Lieutenant Langley said.

  “You had what?” Jake asked.

  Tom laughed. “You would probably call it SOS. The only difference is, the navy version uses sliced beef instead of ground beef.”

  “Tell me,” Virdin said. “What’s happening back on the beach?”

  For the rest of the meal Jake and Tom filled Virdin and the other officers of the wardroom in on the latest news, from the incorporation of the other military bases, to the constitution convention.

  “Our next gathering of delegate will be on October 15th,” Jake said. “Then we will unite as one nation, rather than what we are now, a disunion of seceded states.”

  “I thought we were already a nation,” Virdin said. “I mean we have a flag and everything.”

  “Well, let’s just say that we will be a bigger, and more united nation after the convention.” Jake said.

  “I got an e-mail from Joel Limbaugh,” Chris said the next day as he and Jake were walking on the beach.

  “Joel Limbaugh?”

  “He was one of the Arkansas delegates who came here.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember the name. What was the e-mail about?”

  “It was a request for me to visit Blytheville.”

  “Blytheville? Isn’t that where the SPS slaughtered a bunch of innocent people at a picnic?”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m going.”

  “Oh?”

  “Jake, you know who I am, you know my background. Joel knows as well. In the pre-O time, he was an administrative aide to Senator McKenna. McKenna was on the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

  “What does Mr. Limbaugh want of you?”

  “I imagine he wants to make use of my particular talent.”

  “I see. Have you told Bob yet?”

  “I’m not going to tell him. One of the things I have learned in my profession is that it is sometimes better to keep the higher-ups blissfully ignorant of specific events. That gives them deniable plausibility. Bob represents the civilian side of our community. You represent the military side. I think you have to know, but it’s better if Bob doesn’t know.”

  Jake nodded. “All right, I’ll give you that. But if you disappear for a while Bob is going to miss you. How do you cover that?”

  “We’ll tell him that I’m going to New York to meet with some people.”

  “All right, Chris. You’ve done this kind of work before, I’ll leave all the details up to you. Anything you need?”

  “How many Claymore mines do we have?”

  “How many do you need?”

  Blytheville

  Chris was told to be at the Coffee Cup café at exactly 0800 where he would eat breakfast. As soon as he entered, he saw a big man with a full head of white hair, standing just outside the kitchen. “Have a biscuit!” the big man said and Chris had to react quickly as a biscuit came sailing across the room to him.

  “Biscuits! Who wants a biscuit?” the big man shouted.

  “I do!”

  Chris stood there for a moment as he watched biscuits sailing across the room, the big man throwing them to customers.

  “Find a table and have a seat!” the big man called out to Chris. “We don’t stand on ceremony here at the Coffee Cup.” He threw another biscuit toward Chris who caught it, even though he wasn’t expecting it.

  As Chris walked toward an empty table, another customer came in.

  “Oliver Deermont,” the biscuit thrower said. “Come on in, come in out of the cold.”

  “Cold?” Oliver said.

  “Oh, I don’t mean cold weather. I mean the coldness of an indifferent society. Nothing like that here, in the Coffee Cup.”


  “I guess not,” Deermont replied. “You never shut up long enough for anyone to be indifferent.”

  The others in the café laughed.

  Chris’s instructions were to turn his glass upside down, and lay his spoon across the top, and that’s what he did. He had been told by Joel that if he did that, he would be contacted by Harold “Curly” Latham. Chris did as directed, then he pulled the menu from between the napkin dispenser and the sugar, salt, and pepper shakers.

  Chris was dressed in coveralls and wearing a cap that read “Gristo Feeds.” He looked like any other farmer in the café, including the man who, less than a minute after Chris took his seat, stepped over to the table. This had to be Curly Latham, who, evidently, was already in the café waiting for Chris. Curly was not wearing a hat, and he didn’t have curly hair. In fact, he had no hair at all.

  “Hello, Chris, I’m glad you could take breakfast with me,” Latham said. “I know you are on your way to Memphis, and I wouldn’t want to hold you up.”

  “No, that’s quite all right, you aren’t holding me up, my meeting in Memphis isn’t until this afternoon,” Chris said, smiling up at the man. There was no meeting in Memphis, in fact until Latham brought it up, Memphis hadn’t even been on his mind. But Chris picked up on it, and followed the conversation. Neither Chris nor Latham had ever met before but if anyone in the café happened to overhear them, they would think the two men were old friends of long standing.

  “Oh, Jill said to say hello to Alice and the kids,” Latham said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  There was neither Alice nor children, but like the small talk about Memphis, Chris responded appropriately, in order to maintain the façade of two old friends greeting each other. They continued to talk about such things as hunting, the weather, and children’s illnesses. As they were talking, Latham put a piece of paper into the napkin dispenser. A moment later, Chris removed the paper. Nothing of any importance was said until finally, at the end of breakfast the two men stepped up to the cash register to pay for their meal.