by Mark Goodwin
Leo asked, “Professor, what are your personal religious beliefs? Would you consider yourself to be an atheist?”
Williams stood again. “Your Honor, I object. This line of questioning has nothing to do with the legal merits of the case. Whether there is a God or whether evolution is rock-solid fact or a complete fairytale has no bearing on the law, which Mr. Parker violated.”
Judge Flynn nodded. “Mr. Cobb, you need to explain how your witness’s testimony applies to this case, or I will instruct the jury to disregard it in its entirety.”
Leo turned to face her. “Your Honor, I’m establishing reasoning that the Community Core criminal code that my client violated is unconstitutional and, therefore, invalid.”
The judge responded. “Then make your point, Mr. Cobb.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Leo turned back to Carlton. “Professor, you said earlier that you’re not a creationist. What would be the opposite of a creationist?”
Carlton furrowed his brow as he thought. “I suppose it would be a Darwinist. And to answer your last question, I’m agnostic. I don’t believe one can prove that there either is or isn’t a God.”
Leo smiled at the jury. “And a Darwinist would be someone who subscribes to the theory of Charles Darwin, much like someone who follows the teachings of Buddha might be called a Buddhist, or someone who follows the teachings of Christ might be termed a Christian.
“As an anthropologist, you’re an authority on the social aspects of man. An atheist is someone who believes there is no God, a monotheist describes someone who believes in only one God, a polytheist believes in many gods, and an agnostic, like yourself, is someone who believes that the answer cannot be known. Aren’t these all religious beliefs? I mean, we all believe something, even if we don’t know what we believe. Isn’t each person’s perception of the spiritual realm and the afterlife, or lack thereof, a religious belief of some sort?”
Carlton smiled. “That is very well put, Mr. Cobb.”
Leo turned back to Carlton. “Are there those in the scientific community who cling to evolution despite the scientific questions about its validity that you described a few moments ago?”
Carlton chuckled. “Yes, they are quite dogmatic about the whole thing.”
“So it is almost like a religion to them.”
Carlton raised his eyebrows. “Oh, very much so. If you’ve ever read the Amazon reviews of books on intelligent design, the Darwinists and atheists are downright militant in their attacks. They are religious zealots in the highest form of the word.
“On the other hand, if you scan through the reviews of books on Darwinism and evolution, you’ll rarely see a comment from the opposing side. I’m not sure if the creationists are less passionate or if they simply don’t feel the need to push their views down the other side’s throat.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carlton. Mr. Williams, your witness,” Leo said.
Williams sat like a deer in the headlights. It was obvious that he’d never anticipated this course of action from the defense. “The prosecution has no questions for the witness.”
No other witnesses were called. Williams stumbled through his closing argument, which seemed ridiculous after Leo’s final stab.
Leo turned to the jury to make his closing arguments. “Under the 1987 Supreme Court ruling of Edwards versus Aguillard, the establishment clause was interpreted to not allow one religion to advance over another in the public school system. The opinion written on the case cites the Lemon test, which states that the government’s action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion. It is clear that Community Core advances the religion of atheism and Darwinism, while simultaneously inhibiting creationism, Christianity, and all other monotheistic and polytheistic religions. My client simply sought to avoid the gross violation of this particular Supreme Court ruling. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your careful consideration.”
As it was late in the day, the judge adjourned the court and instructed the jury to return the following morning to deliberate.
On the way out of the courtroom, Noah was beaming. “Great work, Leo.”
Leo shook his head. “I can’t believe the judge didn’t let the jury meet. They would have given us a verdict in five minutes. She’s trying to give them time to think past the truth we just laid out, but their minds are made up. I can see it on their faces.”
Noah thanked Leo again, and then he and Cassie left to pick up Lacy. That night, Noah slept like a log.
***
The next morning, the Parkers met Leo Cobb back at the courthouse.
“What time do you expect us to be called back in front of the judge?” Noah asked.
“It depends what the judge is doing when the jury notifies her that they’ve reached a verdict. I’m hoping we’ll be back in by ten o’clock. You two can hang out in the coffee shop if you like, and I’ll text you when it’s time. You’ll have at least a half an hour from the time I shoot you the text.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Cassie said.
The Parkers walked across the street to the coffee shop to wait for the notification. Noah ordered a coffee for Cassie and a decaf for himself.
“Decaf?” Cassie commented.
“I don’t want anything to make me more anxious.”
“Are you nervous? I thought you were confident that you’re going to win the case.”
Noah took his coffee to a table near one of the television screens and sat down. “I was, until now. Why haven’t they delivered a verdict? If it was a slam dunk, we should’ve been called back into court first thing this morning.”
Cassie followed him. “I don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned. You’ll get a verdict by the end of the day.”
Noah turned his attention to the news. The reporter was in the studio and “NEWS ALERT!” was scrolling across the top and bottom of the screen. Noah didn’t think too much of it, as the notification was always scrolling across the screen. However, the text was much larger than the normal alert, and it was in all caps today, which caused Noah to take notice. Noah manually turned the volume up so they could hear the report.
“. . . largest one-day spike in the gold price on record. After the reports of the massive gold purchase made by China, several other countries followed suit. While the overall purchase was only a fraction of the gold buy made by China, Russia made the second largest purchase of the yellow metal this morning. The purchases made by those two countries soaked up all available inventory in the Shanghai Gold Exchange. The Commodities Exchange, or Comex, based in New York also sold out of all physical inventory, as did the London Gold Market.
“Next up after the break, we’ll be covering the ongoing riots in Brazil and South Africa.”
Cassie grabbed Noah’s hand. “And that’s how US dollars held outside of the country can trigger massive inflation. Quick, turn it to CNBC.”
As it was after nine o’clock and well before lunch, the coffee shop was relatively slow. Noah looked around to see if any of the other patrons were watching the channel; none were. He stood and manually changed the channel to the financial news.
A three-month price chart for gold was displayed onscreen, and an analyst was talking about the recent action.
“. . . volatility that’s never been seen before. The most important factor that triggered the jump this morning is the paper market. The amount of derivative trading on the precious metals dwarfs that of the physical market. We’ve seen a massive amount of traders who were short that are now having to cover. And there is no gold, or silver for that matter, to be bought. Although physical delivery is almost never taken, the futures and option contracts are written for delivery. The LBMA and Comex both issued emergency rule changes this morning, which state that gold and silver contracts may be settled for cash instead of the actual metals, but panic buying is still running the price to new all-time highs. If it hadn’t been for the emergency rule change declaring cash settlement, we c
ould have easily seen gold quadruple in price. I mean, look at the ticker; it’s up three hundred dollars since we started this segment. I don’t even want to speculate where the price will close today. And silver, it could potentially triple in price today.”
Noah watched the gold and silver tickers, which were on permanent display at the bottom of the screen. Gold had just pushed past its previous all-time high and was rising astronomically. The present price was $3423. Silver was likewise hitting a new high at $120 per ounce.
Noah looked at Cassie. “I’m glad we got in when we did.”
“Me too, but this isn’t good.”
“Why not? We just made a ton of money.”
“The value of gold and silver isn’t going up; the dollar is crashing. This is signaling a complete collapse of confidence in the US dollar; this is the beginning of the end. We should get rid of all of our cash when we get out of court and buy everything we can think of that we’ll need: flour, sugar, coffee, whatever we can store. I’m glad you bought all that ammo from David. We probably should have bought more, but you did good.”
They turned their attention back to the television. The reporter was questioning the analyst.
“Do you expect the SEC to close the markets today?”
“Gold and silver markets are global. If the SEC closed US markets, it might be akin to throwing a bucket of water on a bonfire, but it wouldn’t have a lasting effect. This is what traders call a classic parabolic melt-up. People who bought their physical gold and silver are sitting pretty right now. Those who didn’t aren’t getting any. It simply isn’t there.”
“Oil jumped fifteen percent this morning. Is it connected to the metals market?”
“I think so. The lack of physical inventory may have highlighted to investors how important the commodities sector is. We’re seeing a big jump in the price of corn, soybeans, pork, basically across the board. At the same time, the equities markets are taking a dive. Stocks aren’t selling off at the same pace as commodities are rising, but it’s still early in the day.”
The reporter then said, “Do you think China made this huge buy today to deliberately push up the price, or did they legitimately see value in the price of gold?”
The analyst answered, “The buy was made by exercising several large option contracts on the Shanghai exchange. The Chinese central bank has been positioning itself for this move for several weeks.”
Leo walked in and sat next to the Parkers. “The jury has a verdict. We go before the judge right after lunch, one o’clock.”
Noah looked at Cassie and then back at Leo. “So that’s good news, right?”
Leo smiled and patted Noah on the shoulder. “Real good news. I think we have this in the bag.”
Cassie directed Leo’s attention to the screen. “What do you think about the gold market?”
Leo looked at the television. “Wow! That’s a big jump. I always get skittish when I see gold move up too fast. I’ve never seen anything like this before. What triggered it?”
Cassie said, “Big purchase by the Chinese. They cleared all the physical markets. A bunch of speculators got caught short and can’t cover.”
Leo looked back at the Parkers. “Strange times. I spoke with Robert Carlton after the trial yesterday to thank him. He lives near the UT campus, right by the stadium. He said it was full of military personnel and equipment yesterday morning. He asked campus security why they were there, and he was told it was a training exercise. I’m sure it’s nothing, but we’ve had no media coverage of the exercise. It’s quite bizarre.”
Cassie sat up attentively. “Did he say how many vehicles or personnel were present?”
Leo shook his head. “Didn’t say. He just said the stadium was nearly full of soldiers and equipment.”
Cassie took out her phone. “Sounds more like a staging area than a training exercise. These two events might not be unrelated. I’m going to call my friend Linda over at Channel 10.”
Noah and Leo walked to the counter for a refill while Cassie called her friend. Feeling more confident about the verdict, Noah treated himself to a cup of regular coffee. The two men returned to the table, and Noah asked, “What did she say?”
Cassie pursed her lips. “Nothing. She clammed up like she was afraid to even talk about it.”
The three of them talked about the implications of what all this could mean until it was time to head back into court.
At one o’clock, the bailiff announced the judge’s entrance, and the courtroom all stood. The jury entered the room, and the time came for the verdict to be read.
Noah regretted having drunk caffeinated coffee as his heart raced in anticipation. He held Cassie’s hand firmly.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.
The jury foreman read the verdict. “In the case of the State of Tennessee v. Noah Parker, we find the defendant . . .”
Noah held his breath. He prayed silently. “God, please let me win this.”
“. . . not guilty.”
Noah released his breath with a big sigh of relief. “Thank you, Jesus!”
Cassie hugged Noah tightly. “It’s all over, baby!”
Leo patted Noah on the back. “Congratulations!”
Noah looked over Cassie’s shoulder. “Thank you, Leo. We owe you.”
Leo smiled. “You don’t owe me a thing.”
“At least let us take you and your wife to dinner,” Noah pleaded.
Leo nodded. “Okay. We can’t do it tonight, but I’ll take a rain check.”
“Thanks again.” Noah finally broke free from Cassie’s embrace to shake hands with Leo before he left.
Noah and Cassie headed for the car and then toward the Rays’ house to pick up Lacy.
Noah’s elation over this victory was buffered by the sobering reality of the new battle on the horizon. “David probably already knows about the gold price spike, but I bet he’ll be surprised to hear about the troops in the UT stadium.”
Cassie took out her phone. “I bet Isaiah will be too. I’m going to ask him to meet us at the Rays’. I think we need to have a group powwow. Something is stirring in the wind, and we’d better get ready for it.”
Thank you for reading
The Days of Noah, Book One: Conspiracy.
Amazon reviews are the most important method of getting The Days of Noah noticed. If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment to leave a five star review on Amazon.com. If you don’t feel the book quite measured up to five stars, drop me an e-mail at [email protected] and let me know how I can make future books better.
Keep watch for
The Days of Noah, Book Two: Persecution.
You may also like my first fiction series, The Economic Collapse Chronicles, available on Amazon.com. In the first book, American Exit Strategy, America is on the cusp of financial annihilation. Matt and Karen Bair face the challenges of Main Street during a full-scale financial meltdown. Government borrowing and monetary creation have reached their limits. When funds are no longer available for government programs, widespread civil unrest erupts across the country. Matt and Karen are forced to move to a more remote location , and their level of preparedness is revealed as being much less adequate than they believed prior to the crisis.
Stay tuned to PrepperRecon.com for the latest news about my upcoming books and preparedness related subjects. While on the website, you can download or listen to the Prepper Recon Podcast, or subscribe to the show on Stitcher, iTunes and YouTube.
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