Gabriel's Stand

by Jay B. Gaskill

  ——

  Many miles away, Dr. Owen sat up in his cell, straining to recall his own nightmare. The image eluded him, but he returned to sleep with a feeling of dread.

  Tuesday, 9:00 A.M. PST - Seattle

  “Your Honor,” Borah Wiggins began, “before any other trial proceedings occur, I must report that the House has acted.”

  “I am aware of the resolution to rescind the Earth Restoration Treaty and repeal all the enabling legislation. But it takes two to tango. As of this moment, Mr. Wiggins, the Treaty is still the law of the land.”

  “And this morning, I was advised that Senate President Pro-tem, Taft Castorini, has agreed that the U.S. Senate debate on the motion of Senator Jacobs of California to de-ratify the Earth Restoration Treaty will begin this very hour. The matter is being expedited.”

  “I had not heard that. Well, keep me apprised, Counsel. But this trial will proceed.”

  During this exchange between Wiggins and the judge, John Owen was sitting at the counsel table, his back to the row of reporters and cameras directly behind him. Dornan’s man, Kurt, sat on the far left, his chair turned so that he could scan the room.

  12:10 P.M. EST - Manhattan

  Agent Mix listened from Manhattan as the Secret Service agent in DC pressed play:

  “Snowfeather, this is Reporter Max…Max Cahoon. I believe I have been poisoned by a woman working with the Gaia Directorate. She is posing as a photographer named Karen Kanst assigned by the Times to the Owen trial. She will be carrying a mini camera at the trial. Late thirties, five nine, attractive, slender, dark eyes, very short blond hair, like it had been shaved recently. You’ve got to warn Owen. I am at the Holiday Wharf. Don’t be surprised if they don’t find me alive. Please hurry.”

  “Thank you,” Mix said. “What are you waiting for? Warn them! My authority. Hurry! Oh, shit. Alert our people in Seattle. We need to find that photographer.”

  9:21 A.M. PST - Seattle

  The prosecutor began his opening statement in the case of Commission versus Owen. “Our evidence will show that this man, John L. Owen, performed an unlawful genetic experiment on himself. That—” the U.S. Attorney pointed towards the defense counsel table indicating Owen’s right hand. “—is not the hand the defendant was born with. It is a genetic construct. A ‘Franken-hand’ if you will—”

  “OBJECTION!” Wiggins had lurched to his feet. “That is misconduct, Your Honor, if I have ever seen it. There is no place in this courtroom for such inflammatory and improper rhetoric.”

  “Now, now, counsel. This court will not be swayed by mere rhetoric. Only the evidence counts. Continue, gentlemen.”

  “May I say something, Judge?” John asked.

  “Let your attorney do the talking, Dr. Owen,” Judge Wandright said. “Continue, counsel.”

  ——

  At that moment, in a nearby Seattle hotel room, Ken Wang’s phone rang. After a second, he frowned, waving frantically at Esther, Dornan’s security coordinator across the room. “Pick up the extension,” he mouthed.

  As Dornan’s coordinator listened on the extension, she reached for her cellphone. “You’ve got to empty the courtroom then,” Ken shouted, “search all the reporters. Tell Kurt.”

  As Ken listened, Esther was talking into her own phone. “Why the hell not?” Ken was saying. “At least call the U.S. Marshall’s office!” Ken listened more, face reddening. “Damn. Okay, okay. Female. Blond. Short hair. Posing as a photographer. Repeat that description.” He turned to Dornan’s coordinator.

  Esther held her phone in one hand, the hotel phone against her ear. “Got it. Assassin in place,” she said into the encrypted cellphone. She was calling Kona Carpets. “Condition red,” she said into the cellphone. “Bloody blinking red. Plan Ghost? Yes, sir!”

  ——

  A deputy U.S. Marshal entered the court at the rear just as Borah Wiggins stood to give his own opening statement. The deputy caught Alder’s eye, and mouthed, “Need to talk.” Alder pulled at the sleeve of the Marshal who stood near the defense table and, after a whispered conference, left the counsel table. Dornan’s man, Kurt, followed. This whole exchange took about three seconds. In this time, K had planned the path she would take to the door, removed the safety from her concealed weapon and braced herself unobtrusively against the seat.

  Chapter 80

  12:30 P.M. EST - Washington, DC

  The United States Senate was in special session. Senator Alfred Jacobs of California lifted his considerable bulk to his feet and activated his microphone. “If the Senator from Wyoming would yield,” he said, “this Senator would ask leave to request unanimous consent to suspend the rules to allow a former member of this body to address us on this matter of immense historical import. I refer to the Honorable Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom.”

  Senator Castorini stood at the rostrum. “I support this motion and I wish to announce a change of position on the matter now before this body.” There was a sudden silence in the Chamber. Castorini had earlier been announced as a supporter of the Treaty, strongly opposed to cancellation. His announcement could be the swing vote. “But first, may we invite our former colleague to address us? Across the aisle, Senator Croft from Utah smiled and nodded at Dunn from Wyoming.

  “I yield to the Senator from California,” Senator Carl Dunn said.

  12:30 P.M. PST - Seattle

  Borah Wiggins was speaking. “Once again, Your Honor,” he said. “The leadership of our Senate has agreed to support de-ratification. Surely a delay is in order. Does the court want to take up the jurisdictional issue at this time?”

  “Assuming a vote is actually taken, is the Government prepared to argue this morning?” Judge Wandright asked.

  As the U.S. attorney got to his feet, a member of Dornan’s security contingent was standing at the side of the counsel table, hand inside his jacket, eyes scanning the courtroom, while Kurt was leaning over Alder, his mouth to the lawyer’s ear.

  “Mr. Alder,” Kurt whispered. “There is an assassin in this room. Judge Wandright has been compromised. Get a recess immediately! We’ve got to get Dr. Owen out of here!” John Owen turned in his seat, his expression curious, presenting his right side to the assassin.

  Washington, DC - Channel 33 Feed

  “The vote may take place any time.” A middle aged man with a headset stood, on camera, just outside the Senate Gallery.

  “What’s happening on the floor, Dereck?” The anchor, a blond woman in a severe suit, sat in the studio.

  “We are waiting for the arrival of former Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. There. He has entered the building.”

  “Can you confirm his arrival in the Chambers?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Thanks, Dereck. We’ll be back to you. Here in the studio, I have Sylvia Mateer from the Congressional Quarterly. Thank you for joining us on such short notice.”

  “Happy to oblige, Martha.” Mateer sat, hands folded, next to the anchor.

  “Could you just bring our viewers up to date?”

  “Yes. Ever since last session, when it was clear to the House leadership that the Commission does not appear to be bound by the U.S. Constitution, an informal debate has been going on about whether the U.S. should withdraw from the Earth Restoration Treaty.”

  “It was signed by President Chandler and ratified by the U.S. Senate years ago. How can you undo a treaty-ratification?”

  “Well, in the opinion of the House Speaker, T.S. Smith, and a number of legal experts, it can be done. It may require a Joint Resolution of Congress. …Which brings me to this morning’s vote. At 1:44 A.M., the full House voted overwhelmingly for a proposed Joint Resolution to cancel the Treaty. That is the earliest vote in decades, I think. The House actually convened at noon yesterday. Now that measure was referred to the U.S. Senate for expedited consideration.”

  “What are the prospects?”

  “As of last week it looked to be too close to call. Thirty votes for, twenty agai
nst, the rest undecided. All these head counts, of course, are notoriously unreliable. This is in sharp contrast to the count in the House, which was almost two to one in favor of the resolution. It was a surprising margin and it gives the proponents of the resolution new momentum.”

  “What happens if it does pass the Senate?”

  “It would put the current administration in a huge bind. Most of the experts we have consulted agree that the legal authority of the Commission will disappear. Of course, the President seems to have taken a different position. If the Administration continues to try to enforce Commission regulations, there is talk of impeachment.”

  “Hold on.” The anchor pressed her hand against a tiny earphone. “There is some action of the floor of the Senate. Dereck Small, what is going on?”

  “Thank you, Martha. Gabriel Standing Bear has just entered the Chambers and is walking toward the podium. I hear the gavel.”

  ——

  Gabriel stopped in the aisle and paused to shake a friend’s hand, that of Senator Granville from Maine, the only opposing Senator who had survived the electoral purge after ratification. Gabriel looked around the room, at the old wood, the fine rugs, the Seal of the Senate, the American flag. The historical resonance was strong.

  Flanked by Senator Jacobs, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Senate Chaplain, Gabriel continued his progress up the aisle. The applause was almost deafening. Everyone was standing. The gavel continued to rap, as the President Pro-tem tried to restore order. Gabriel noticed a few laptops and SmartPages on the desks on both sides of the aisle as he passed. Good for you, he thought.

  “Half of them are still officially undecided, my friend,” Jacobs said in Gabriel’s ear. “You get to talk for twenty minutes. After that, it’s the vote.”

  “You think they will listen?”

  “We’re counting on you, Gabriel, on your voice.”

  Standing Bear set his face and gathered his thoughts. He stood looking out at a full Chamber, from a vantage rare during his own term. The chattering began to fade as he began speaking.

  “My name is Gabriel Standing Bear, and…I am still standing.” The Senate Chamber burst into spontaneous applause. “You all know my record as a member of this body. I am deeply committed to the protection of nature for this generation and for all who follow us as its stewards. A gift to be cherished and protected.

  “To the Directorate and their terrorist arm, the G-A-N, I have a message. You have failed to silence me.” The room erupted again.

  After a full minute, Gabriel resumed. “Your secret is out. Deep inside your inner circle, we know what you talk about; we know what you think. You think Gaia is a living being, a God. You think Gaia is infected by a disease you call Homo ecophagus and we call humanity. Your agenda is to rid Gaia of the human disease. Your weapon is germ warfare on a truly massive scale. Your secret weapon is our disarmament. By stripping us of our weapons of self-defense, of our advanced medical knowledge and technology, you plan to achieve ultimate victory: the extermination of the human race.” The last six words were spoken in a soft staccato.

  There was a deeply uneasy silence, then a chorus of, “No! No! NO!”

  “But you did not count on an awakened American people. And you did not count on the courage and resolve of the United States Senate!” Half the room erupted in another round of sustained applause and some cheering. Some of the Senators were on their feet.

  “Fellow Senators, we cannot escape history. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘the fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.’

  “Our great nation has been captured. We are now an occupied country.” He paused. “It is high time to reclaim America.” The applause was deafening.

  “We were not conquered just because of the crises in climate, economy and ecology. This nation has faced grave tests before and we emerged from them stronger than ever.

  “No, our conquest was made possible because we forgot again that every human life is sacred. Our conquest was made possible because we forgot again about the human capacity to inflict catastrophic evil on ourselves. Our conquest was made possible because we forgot again the simple virtues of humanity, common sense and courage.

  “And we forgot again that when people lose their grounding in the ultimate value of human dignity, they invite the ultimate degradation of human destruction. Whenever belief in the God-given rights of men and women diminish, the people tend to take up false ideologies; they begin follow the false gods. In the last hundred years, people embraced the false gods of Nazism and communism. And millions died in camps and gulags. In this century it was to a new false god, Gaia, the Earth-deity before whom humanity is reduced to the level of a bacillus. Our conquest was made possible because the American people were anesthetized by the drug of surrender.

  “But I have good news. The patient has awakened. And the patient is mad as hell.”

  An applause storm followed and after it died down, Gabriel resumed, his voice suddenly softer.

  “These extremists want it all. My daughter, Snowfeather, heard it first from the Earth’s Sisters, the secret cult behind the G-A-N. She was there with them when she saw Lance McKernon’s body hanging from a pole, surrounded by the members of the Gaia Directorate. Our colleague. Our friend.

  “Mark my words: This treaty was ratified because terrorists kidnapped and killed one of our own. And another good man is on trial for his life in Seattle today because he opposed their agenda.

  “These terrorists and this evil regime can still be stopped. The end of our nation’s occupation is a single roll call vote away.” Gabriel paused, looking out over the Senate Chamber, up at the gallery.

  “I was thinking about these matters overnight, and about the soul of this great nation. There is a document, our birth certificate as a nation. I trust you will recognize these words.

  “‘We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; to secure these rights governments are instituted among the people deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these needs, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it…’”

  Chapter 81

  A recess had been called by Judge Wandright, who had decided to check the news for himself before proceeding. He rose and turned to repair to his chambers. K, still in her seat, set the armed MiniKam on hunt mode, holding it just over her head, while staring into a detached viewfinder on her lap. She waited three seconds until the aiming program’s internal cross hairs centered on Dr. Owen’s back. Then she pressed “hold,” and pulled the MiniKam against her chest. Thereafter it would automatically seek out the target. Alder, looking agitated and nervous, was standing well away from John Owen while Kurt was whispering fiercely in Wiggins’ ear, trying at the same time to keep his body between Dr. Owen and the audience.

  K stood as if to stretch, holding the MiniKam at her waist, raising it until it was just over the shoulders of the reporters seated ahead of her. The servo aiming mechanism sought out the previously selected aim spot in Owen’s back. K heard the telltale beep in her earpiece. Fire when ready. She fingered the button on the firing remote with her right hand. Die!

  Just then, Ken Wang burst into the courtroom, wearing dark glasses.

  “What’s the fuss?” Owen asked.

  “Watch ou—” Wiggins began.

  There was a barely audible rapid thud-thunk, the two sounds so close together they were almost one. Dr. Owen jerked suddenly, his face taking on a puzzled expression. There was a shout from the audience. John Owen lurched forward against the counsel table; then he bounced back, dropping to the floor, his wheeled chair skidding away. Someone screamed. A single silenced 10 mm slug from K’s camera gun had slammed into John Owen’s back, passed through his chest, and a split second later thunked into the walnut panel in front of Judge Wandright’s elevated rostrum. Kurt reacted
immediately, spinning about, pulling out his concealed pistol, only to be jumped on by three Marshals.

  At the same time, Wiggins lurched clumsily in the direction of his fallen client. “HELP!” he bellowed, just before the two closest Marshals pounced on him, wrestling him to the floor. Simultaneously, a struggle erupted on the press row.

  Ken saw that a woman carrying a MiniKam was struggling to get to the side of the room. She seemed to be trying to aim her smoking camera at Owen’s position on the floor. “STOP HER!” he shouted, running down the center aisle as he spoke. Two reporters moved directly in her line of sight. K shrieked obscenities and one of the reporters fell, a 10 mm bullet hole in his chest.

  As Ken reached the front of the courtroom, he saw that his father-in-law’s body was still unattended, lying face up just in front of the struggling Marshals. Ken knelt next to Dr. Owen, pulling gently at the stricken man’s coat lapel. “JOHN!” he shouted. “Are you all right?” Ken patted Dr. Owen’s face, the noticed the bloodstain spreading rapidly across his white shirt from the exit wound. Gently, he tried to clear his airway using his fingers. “PARAMEDICS!” He shouted. Ken’s cry was lost in the noise of eighty people shouting at once.

  What happened then was so swift and unexpected that it had to be reconstructed from the video feed. On the east side of the courtroom, the bank of frosted windows suddenly went dark. The windows rattled as if from a passing train, then the courtroom jolted sharply, as though the entire building had been moved on its foundations. A low, bone-wrenching bass howl engulfed all other sound.

  The sound grew past the pain threshold as the windows crumbled and were sucked away into the chill air.

  For a fraction of a second, silence held, then the whump-whump of helicopter blades filled the courtroom carried by a cold gust of wind. As a painful blaze of light poured through the opening, a sharp thud followed as a metal ramp struck the courtroom floor. Three flash grenades blinded everyone who was looking in the direction of the noise.