A NATION DIVIDED - THE SECOND CIVIL WAR (The Second Civil War - BOOK I 1)
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“According to Chief Sellers they are currently gathering evidence from the crime scene. He indicated that they had several possible leads.”
“But no actual suspects?”
“Not at this time.”
Turning back to the camera he said, “Stay tuned for more breaking news, including a reaction from the White House.”
“I need to start to work on this immediately,” the President said.
“It’s being taken care of. Kendra is already on it. She will meet with the press in one hour. She is outside and would like to speak with you if you have the time,” Sarah said.
“You bet. Have her come in.”
The Chief of Staff stuck her head out the door and a few seconds later Kendra Cox, the White House Spokesperson entered. At six foot, with dark brown hair and eyes that looked like they were made of chocolate, she was a very impressive figure.
“Mr. President.”
“Ms. Cox. I understand you are already working on a statement.”
“Yes sir,” she said, handing him a single sheet of paper.
The President read through it quickly and looked up.
“Well done. The only thing I would like you to change is the phrase ‘the President is saddened by this brutal act’. Change that to ‘deeply saddened.”
“Yes sir. Any other changes?”
“No. I think that will do quite nicely. I like the part about how much I admired her convictions and willingness to hold her ground. That has a nice sincere touch to it.”
“Thank you. Alright. We will hold the press meeting at 10:30, forty minutes from now. If you think of anything else, just have someone contact me,” she said.
“Will do, and thank you for your prompt attention to this tragedy.”
***
“Markham, I want you as lead on this. Understand?”
“Sure Captain but what my other load?”
“I’ll reassign them but for now this is the case I want you to live and breathe.
“Give it my best shot,” Detective Dan Markham replied.
“Look, this isn’t going to be pretty. You know the White House will be pushing on this, which means everyone above you will be poking their nose in this as well. Don’t be surprised if the FBI wants to take over the case. We won’t fight it. Let them have it and we will consider ourselves lucky,” the Captain told him.
“Okay, but I still intend to work it like a homicide, just like I would any other case.”
“Of course. That’s what I want you to do. Just beware, they may want to step in and take over.”
“I have no problem with that,” Markham replied.
Detective Markham went back inside and watched as the Crime Scene Techs went over the bedroom.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not much. If I had to guess I would say that this wasn’t done by an amateur,” the tech answered.
“Why is that?”
“No hairs, no prints, no material under her nails. Maybe the ME will find something but from our point of view, we got nothing.”
“Sounds like a hit. I wonder why they didn’t just pop her?”
“Maybe the gun wasn’t clean. It could have been used before so they decided on strangling her. Hell who knows what these sick bastards think?”
“I don’t know. Why take the risk of a struggle? I would have just used a ball bat or a gun. Hell even a knife would present less risk.”
“Don’t know. Just the way it is sometimes. Who can figure?”
Just as he was about to leave the ME arrived so he decided to wait around.
“Markham,” the ME said when he saw him standing by the door.
“Dr. Rawson.”
“Have you looked at the body yet?”
“Just from a distance. Didn’t touch her.”
“Good. You want to join me?”
“Sure,” the detective said.
Dr. Rawson was considered one of the best Medical Examiners on the East Coast. He was highly regarded by not only the Metro Police but by the FBI and Homeland Security as well. That in itself was quite a feat.
They made their way to the bedroom and the ME slipped on two pairs of latex gloves. He put on his glasses and gently pulled back the covers. He took the whole picture in before he began his exploring. He slowly went up and down each arm and turned to Markham.
“Look here,” he said pointing to a small puncture just where her rotator cuff was located.
“Looks like a needle mark,” Markham said.
“Maybe. The question is, why in such a strange place?”
“Any guesses?”
“I don’t do guesses my boy, you should know that by now. Obviously a full toxicology screen will be necessary.”
“Could it have been some kind of knockout drug, to make sure she couldn’t fight back?” he asked.
“That would be a reasonable guess but unfortunately, it is still a guess,” the ME said.
He opened her eyelids and examined her eyes.
“Subconjunctival hemorrhages. Petechiae,” he muttered and continued to examine her.
He felt her throat and said, “Subcutaneous emphysema resulting from a broken larynx.”
“Yeah, I get it. She was strangled.”
He didn’t bother to comment.
“Ecchymosis,” he went on muttering. Finally he said, “You want to help me roll her over?”
“Be delighted,” Markham answered.
The ME went on checking but didn’t find anything else of significance.
“If you are through with the body, I'll have her taken back to the lab and do the autopsy. I’ve been told it is my top priority,” Dr. Rawson said.
“Yeah, there is a lot of that going around,” Markham replied. “Let me know when you are ready to do the autopsy. I think it’s in my best interest to be there.”
“Very astute my boy, very astute.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The President's inner circle, minus Secretary of State Cole, was seated in the Oval Office.
“You have a list of names for me?” President Quasim asked.
“I do,” the Attorney General said and handed over a list with eight names on it.
“That’s quite a list. I was expecting two or three names.”
“My reasoning is that we can leak it to the press that we are trying to seek the most qualified person. By making it look like we are vetting a large number of candidates, they won’t pick up on the fact that we have only one real person we want in the position.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” the President said.
“That’s what Washington is all about,” Noel replied.
“Are we actually going to interview all of them?”
“I think we have to. It needs to look convincing. We don’t want a single one of them to say no one looked at them seriously.”
“This will slow us down some.”
“Yes, but it is worth it,” the Attorney General replied.
“You agree?” the President asked, nodding to Ralph Larson, the Counselor to the President.
“I think it is a good plan. If we just try to shove Robert Stein into the Supreme Court, the Senate will fight it tooth and nail. We will have to use the Trojan Horse ruse. We need to center our efforts on a sacrificial candidate and then ‘settle’ on Stein.”
“Maybe we should have two sacrificial candidates. Make it look like we are getting desperate.
Ralph looked over at Noel and smiled.
“Actually that was our first thought but we figured you wouldn’t want to wait that long so we just revised the plan.”
“I see. Well, surprise, I agree with the two person sacrifice. Yes, it will slow us down, but I think we have a better chance of getting Stein confirmed,” the President replied.
“Excellent. If it is okay with you we want to have a private conversation with Stein. Essentially we’ll tell him to cool it with his liberal views. He needs to be very middle of the road until this is a done deal.”
“I think the risk is worth it. Stein is no fool. He doesn’t want to make enemies in the White House. He has too much ambition to burn his bridges,” Noel said.
“Do you agree Ralph?”
“Yes sir, Mr. President, I do.”
He thought for a few seconds and finally said, “Alright, have your talk with him. Make sure no one knows about you meeting with him until after we leak the eight names.”
“No problem sir. We will be very discreet.”
“Okay. Now, here is what I think we should consider doing next…”
***
The confirmation hearings were ugly and hard fought. The first candidate, Judge Albany, an extreme liberal, was shot down almost before the hearings started. The White House put up a fierce battle before finally giving in.
They knew he didn’t stand a chance but it was part of their game plan. The second candidate, Judge Margaret Knight, was certainly less liberal. Nevertheless she was questioned extensively. Once again the White House defended its selection and fought hard. Maybe a bit too hard. She was almost agreed upon but lost by a narrow vote.
The battle had taken its toll by the time the President nominated Robert Stein. As directed, Stein had been keeping a very low profile and making sure his rulings were either center of the road or slightly conservative.
The questions were pointed and it became very confrontational on several occasions, Stein managed to keep his cool and came out better than expected with the Judiciary Committee’s questions. While they finally passed Stein’s nomination on to the full Senate for a vote, it was done without a recommendation. This created extra stress for the White House.
Three weeks later the Senate voted fifty-three to forty-seven to confirm Judge Robert Stein to the United States Supreme Court. It couldn’t have come at a better time for the administration. The latest unemployment figures were showing a 1.1 percent increase, up to 11.4 percent. As if that wasn’t bad enough, inflation rose 2.1 percent during the same period. Stein's conformation was the one bright spot that the President could boast about.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Financial News Report - Monday, August 12. The stock market nearly panicked today as a massive sell-off of stocks began just after the opening bell of Wall Street when it was learned that the Consumer Confidence Index released by the Conference Board had fallen another 3.7% to a new low of 56.5%. That, along with the latest unemployment figures now approaching 13.5%, was the triggering mechanism. The Dow fell 21.1% before the officials invoked the so called ‘circuit breaker rule’ which suspends trading for the day. The DJIA ended down 505 points.
The circuit breaker rule was implemented to let investors cool off and rethink their investment strategy.....
***
“Does anyone have any good news?” the President asked looking around at the gloomy faces.
“Robert Stein was sworn in yesterday.”
“Well duh. Old news, Ralph.”
“Sorry. Just trying to help.”
“Then find me come current good news. Is China’s economic situation getting any better?”
He waited but no one spoke up.
“I’ll take that as a no. The EURO?”
“Struggling. Not looking very good in the long run. Spain, Greece, Finland, and Italy are all experiencing an economic meltdown,” Ralph Larson reported.
“That’s just great. Ms. Cole, you said that several of our Embassies are in need of a lot of security upgrades. In your opinion, which are the neediest?”
“Albania, Cyprus, Romania and Syria. The one in Damascus is the worst of all. It would take hardly anything to breach the Embassy. The Ambassador is very concerned, as well he should be. We have deferred upgrades for over six years now. In Syria, longer than that. It wouldn’t take much for us to have a real situation on our hands.”
“Son of a...” the President started to say and changed in mid-sentence, “buck.” Our budget is already out of control. We are at a point where we can’t borrow any more. All we can do is print more money and get it into circulation.”
“We really can’t afford to do that either. With inflation starting to hit 12 percent, we can’t just print more money,” Cole said.
“Then what can we do? Shift the money from the military?”
“That isn’t a good idea. We are going to need them badly when we start the gun confiscation campaign. Without them we simply won’t have enough feet on the ground to get the job done,” Cole reminded him.
“Damn catch-22.”
“So it would seem,” she said.
She was enjoying watching the President squirm. Served the asshole right, she thought.
“Sir, I hate to bring this up but after today’s market performance it is looking pretty bad for the administration. Unless Wall Street comes out strong tomorrow we could find ourselves in quite a pickle. Another run like today could cause us to spin into a deep recession,” Ralph said.
“Depression is more like it,” Cole added.
The president laid his head back on his chair and closed his eyes. This could get very ugly fast he thought. Finally he opened his eyes.
“How quickly could we get the military and other agencies ready to confiscate guns? Think of the situation we would be in if private individuals were armed to the teeth and we did slip into a depression. There could be bloodshed in our cities' streets.”
“At one time I would have said we could do it almost immediately. That opportunity has slipped by. Now I don’t see how we could do it in less than three to four weeks,” Cole said, trying her best not to smile.
The President didn’t take the bait. He remained stoic.
“In three weeks our streets could look like a war zone,” was all he said.
***
Financial News Report - Tuesday, August 13, - Wall Street made a modest recovery today. While it certainly wasn’t enough to wipe out Monday's losses, it at least demonstrated some gain, finishing up 29 points after a hectic day of ups and downs.
The opening bell saw another start of a sell off but by noon it had slowed down and started to climb marginally. While better than yesterday, it was not what Wall Street was hoping for. The President will be holding a news briefing on the economic situation at 8:00 p.m., on Thursday, August 15, on all major network stations.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Mr. President, Vice President Jason would like a few minutes of your time.”
President Quasim closed his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk to the VP. The man was a dullard and tedious at best.
“Alright. I can give him ten minutes.”
“I’ll send him in.”
James Jason was tall with thinning gray hair. His nose seemed too small for his face. To the President he looked malnourished. His most striking feature was his piercing gray eyes. They seemed to bore right through you. The President stood and walked around to shake his hand.
“Well, it’s good to see you James.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your taking the time.”
“Always a pleasure. Please have a seat,” the President said sitting down on the couch.
It was his favorite place to sit when he wanted it to seem like he was really interested in what his guest had to say.
“So James, what do you want to talk about?”
“A couple of things really. The first is this gun confiscation plan. I can’t help but think it is not the best thing we could do at the moment. The administration’s approval rating is down again to thirty-six percent. That’s a six percent drop in just the last month. With the economy, national debt, and Wall Street flagging, I wonder if we should just hold off on this.”
The president put on his concerned face, like he was really taking what the VP had said under advisement.
After a
few seconds he said, “I agree things could be better but we are always going to have something crop up. Everything is in place and while I agree the economy and other factors need to approve, I really don’t want to take a chance on a general uprising. Think what it would mean if the people become hostile enough to try to use force. Can you imagine the carnage that could occur?”
“I do see your point but if you try to circumvent the second amendment all hell could break out and then what would happen? Are you willing to order the military to fire on American citizens?”
“Of course not. That would never happen. We would simply make it illegal to own hand guns or rifles that have a magazine of any kind. We intent to tax ammunition like we do cigarettes. We will make them cost prohibitive and eventually put the gun and ammunition factories out of business.”
“You do realize you are talking about ending over one and a half million jobs? Think about that. One and a half million. What do you think that will do to people? Unemployment is already reaching epidemic proportions and then dumping another million or so people in on top of that is frightening,” the VP said.
“You're oversimplifying it. They won’t all close at once and besides they will still have the military contracts. We’re just talking about the private sector.”
“Mr. President, do you remember the eighteenth amendment? It seemed like a good idea at the time but looked what happen. Crime was rampant. Prohibition did not slow down the consumption of alcohol, it actually increased. There were more bars in New York City during prohibition than before it was enacted. Our Constitution is what the country was founded on. People don’t take too kindly to those that try to take away those freedoms,” Jason said.
“I appreciate your concerns, really I do but the second amendment is outdated today. No one could have foreseen the type of weapons we have now. We’re not outlawing militias or certain kinds of guns, just the really dangerous ones.”
“Sir, I don’t think you have an accurate reading on what the American people are considering an infringement of their rights.”
“The government determines their rights,” the President shot back.