President Llewellyn already claimed the authority to create this business arrangement with the People’s Republic of China, under an executive order issued by President Drummond, giving the secretary of commerce authority to commit the US to external federal investments to secure our energy independence. That executive order was upheld in the case where the US became a major share holder in British Petroleum, when it looked like they were going to go under without a big infusion of capital. Likewise, Congress, under former President Rogers, before the Drummond administration, passed a resolution authorizing the use of American military forces to protect US worldwide business interests when they were being attacked by Muslim gangsters operating out of Khartoum. The city was attacked from the air and the offending gangs were annihilated.
So, to Dick Scully, US participation in something like the World Federation Holdings, Incorporated seemed to be, simply, a creative extension of authority already amassed by the “imperial” presidency. And very few of Scully’s colleagues in print or on the telescreen would argue the point. Likewise, it seemed the Congress was in no mood to disavow its prior approvals simply because Llewellyn’s vision was larger than they had intended. Things were running smoothly now and they had no stomach for a fight with a popular executive branch. Congress did not fare well in public opinion during the “emergency.” To most people they seemed simply to have run away, leaving the Executive Council to clean up the mess created by the United Nations.
122
Sandy Campbell decided he would kill that bastard if it was the last thing he did. He saw Slaider as the architect of this catastrophe for the oil patch. He saw Slaider’s hand in the creation of the emergency and in the creation of the World Federation. He saw Slaider as the one person who destroyed everything he believed in and everyone he worked with or for or knew. He never figured Slaider for this. Conspiring with the communist Chinese against the interests of the United States. He never figured a man who worked with American industry so closelywho had been served so well by American industrywould torpedo hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of American assets, in the ground and above ground, kill the jobs of hundreds of thousands of oil and coal workers, destroy hundreds of thousands of businesses that service the oil and coal industry. If there ever was a traitor to his country, there could be no bigger traitor than General Morgan Slaider. His super-corporation bullshit would not earn America anything except praise from those commie fucks in China who are already pushing us aside wherever they made a move, pushing aside the dollar, pushing aside alliances we’ve had for a hundred years. Slaider hasn’t inaugurated a brave new world. He has brought America to its knees.
What was Slaider thinking? How could he turn on the military, on business, on capitalism for god’s sake, on our people, on our way of life, the way he has? Well, Slaider would find that there are still people who see America as the greatest country in the history of mankind. He would find that there still are people who are willing to defend our country with their lives. He would find that traitors ultimately get payback for their crimes against their people.
Sandy Campbell would find the time and the place and he would put a bullet through Slaider. He’d taken sniper training in the service, among his other skills, and did not need to get particularly close to make his kill. With his Walther WA 2000, he could hit pretty much anything he could see. It was arguably the world’s finest sniper system. He had one of the few WA 2000 rifles still around. Only fifteen were ever made. The cost of the rifle killed it for mass production. But it was the best and Campbell liked having the best. With this rifle, he would get the job done.
But first, he had to find Slaider. He would need help. He could not stalk Slaider on his own. He needed additional stalkers and he knew how to get them. First he needed to talk with Baxter. He placed a call on his cell phone and Baxter quickly responded.
“Fred, can you talk? . . . Okay . . . I need ten from option R on the pull-down menu . . . A personal matter . . . I know. I understand . . . but when I say personal, it doesn’t mean that it is only personal. You have to trust me on this that we all benefit . . . ten . . . yes . . . starting tomorrow. Send me the list and I will make sure they are properly instructed . . . okay, thanks. Goodbye.”
Tracking Slaider would begin tomorrow on Good Morning America.
123
The overhead light suddenly turned on in Drummond’s room. Slowly he roused himself. Only recently he had been given a watch to wear. He looked at the time. It was 2:3O AM. Although still groggy, he felt his heart racing in anticipation—of what? After a moment the sound of static drew his attention to the ceiling speaker that had never been used before. Why now? The pattern was changing. Something was up. Get ready.
“Sir, please dress as quickly as possible and prepare yourself to leave the compound. Suitable clothes have been placed in your closet for you. You will be leaving in exactly thirty minutes.” They never addressed him by name. Only “Sir.” He was not the man in the iron mask, nor the man without a country. He was the man with no name.
The message was over almost as quickly as he was able to acknowledge that it was happening. Instantly, he shouted at the speaker, “Can you hear me? Are you still there? Answer me if you can hear me.”
He waited a moment. “Answer me,” he repeated. There was a long pause and then the voice from the speaker said, “Time is pressing, sir. Please prepare yourself.”
Again Drummond cried out to the speaker, “Prepare myself for what? Answer me. Who are you? Where am I being taken?”
The static died. The speaker had gone dead.
Why would they move him now? Actually, he was surprised that he had been kept so long in one location. But why now after all this time was he to be moved? It was not a good sign, he decided. He decided he would be better able to face any eventuality if he followed their advice and roused himself—shower, shave, dress. Moving quickly now, he went to his dresser and pulled out underwear, then to his closet, where he selected one of the three suits that had been placed there for him. He took out a white shirt and a dark tie. On the floor of the closet were three pairs of shoes. He laid all the clothes carefully on the bed and then went to the bathroom to take a shower. The water was very hot.
When he finished he shaved and dressed. Adjusting his tie in the mirror, he wondered if this was to be his funeral attire. Except this time any funeral service would be at some out-of-the-way place. Probably unmarked. Dead men don’t die twice.
At 3:00 a.m. there was a knock on the door, followed instantly by the entrance of an orderly. Before this he had seen only one and the same nurse during his captivity. Now they were allowing him to see another. Why?
“Sir, please turn around so that I may cover your eyes,” he said.
“Listen, you know I’m the president. Why are you going along with this? How can you do this?”
“It’s best if you don’t speak just now, sir.” He attempted to fasten the blindfold, but Drummond would not stand still.
“Where are we going?” he demanded.
“Please stand still, sir. I have to do this for security reasons.
“Security reasons? Are you mad, son? I’m the president. There are no security reasons for blindfolding the president. Where are we going? Do you understand what you’re doing?”
Inexplicably, the door to his room was still open. In a burst of energy that surprised even him, Drummond pushed past the orderly and plunged down the hallway outside his room. As he reached the far end he saw through the glass the startled expression of another orderly as Drummond rammed the door with all his weight, slamming it into the other man’s face. Darting around the sagging body, he entered another long hall with only one door located at the far end. He stopped and looked through the door. Two MPs stood guard on the other side.
Quickly he ran back to the second orderly still lying in the hallway. He turned him over looking for a weapon. He found nothing. Then he thought to check for an ankle holster and there was one. Qu
ickly he drew out the pistol and returned to the door at the far end. He banged on the door several times and then crouched below the window so the guards could not see him.
Nothing happened.
He banged again from his crouched position. And waited.
Again nothing happened.
The guards did not respond, did not enter the hallway. Desperately, he looked around for another doorway, anything. Suddenly, at the center of the hallway, he noticed the movement near the ceiling. It was a small telescreen camera being swiveled on its mount. Frozen, he watched as it turned in its arc until it pointed directly at him. He fired at the camera, destroying it.
He sat on the floor leaning against the door, waiting, not knowing what else to do.
The first few breaths he couldn’t help because there was no indication of the invisible gas entering the hall and then when he smelled it, it surprised him and his first reaction was to take a breath to analyze it. Too late he realized his mistake. Standing up he made a last effort, stepped back from the door and raised the pistol aiming at the locking mechanism. As he pulled the trigger his world went black, and he could not tell whether the sound he heard was the report from the gun, or the shock of pain as his head hit the hallway floor, or simply the slamming shut of his consciousness.
124
When Drummond awoke, he found himself alone resting against the rough solidity of a sprawling live oak trunk. The weather was pleasant, dry and cool air suffused by the rays of a unobscured sun. The sky was pastel blue with small, white, fair-weather clouds hanging suspended here and there with bright, billowing puffs. The left side of his head hurt. He remembered his fall in the hallway. He tried standing and was too groggy to stay up just yet. Sitting down again, leaning against the tree again, he watched as a man approached from a path leading to a small cottage. There were no other structures. In all directions around the cottage there was an extensive lawn bordered by dense forest that he recognized as southern. There was a man approaching whom he did not recognize. Drummond exhaled. He was still alive.
He checked his pockets. Except for the clothes on his back he had nothing. No papers, money, anything. Beside the tree was a box lunch. First things first, he decided, as he made himself comfortable and opened the box. He’ll worry about what this all means later, he thought, after he had eaten something. Perhaps the man approaching him would be able to give him some information on where he was. When he opened the box there was a handwritten note. It said, “Emerson, it has become possible to remove you to a more comfortable but equally secure location. I will be seeing you in a day or two.” It was signed, “Morgan.”
125
“Do you believe in God, Alex?” General Slaider asked President Llewellyn. They were in the White House gym. The president was on a tread mill. Slaider had moved from the curl machine to stand beside the president.
“Yes, yes I do,” President Llewellyn answered.
“I mean really believe. Not the convenient politician’s belief, not the Better Homes and Gardens magazine belief. I mean belief where it tempers your actions and comforts you with the knowledge that there is a greater being watching and caring about what we do or say or think—a personal god who cares about each of us as individuals. Do you believe in that kind of god, Alex?”
Llewellyn stopped the tread mill. “Yes, that kind of god.”
“How did you get that faith? I would really like to know. How do you support such belief? You know Einstein did not believe in a personal god. Neither did Voltaire. Actually, not many of our founding fathers believed in a personal god either—a point most politicians either don’t know or conveniently misrepresent.
“Most Christians I know don’t take all that fire-and-brimstone and burn-in-hell-forever business seriously anymore, from what I can see. And a third of the world is Buddhist and they don’t believe in any god at all. Their faith is rather more a kind of godliness that they seek personally to achieve. You’re an intelligent man, Alex. How did you come by this god of yours, this belief in a personal caring god?”
“Morgan. I chose to believe.”
“But why? I know you are bright enough to know all the reasons that make it all sound like a lot of nonsense. You see the obvious self-serving irrationality of religions institutions. And the mythology is so patently primitive and the dogma so contrived. Why do you believe, knowing these things?”
“I’ll tell you a story, Morgan. I was a young man and Stephanie and I had been married only a few years. I suppose I had the sophisticated, modern attitude about God that you just described. I had my modern view of religion, and it served me well enough and also my modern church with the guitar services and the socially relevant activities. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it and I think these things can bring a sense of community where none or only a poor one existed before.
“Then—maybe it was our fifth year of marriage—we took a vacation to Europe, our first time there. We were in the Burgundy region of France, in Dijon, in the Cathedral of St. Benigne. It was old and made of massive stones, exactly like hundreds of other churches in Europe. Yet at that moment, at that place, at that point in my life, it became very special.
“The cathedral was empty. The incense from the previous service hung heavy in the air, creating huge, plunging shafts of colored rays that burst through the stained glass windows, stabbing at the darkness inside. As I said, the cathedral was empty, but not really quite empty. From somewhere that I couldn’t really identify, a choir was practicing Gregorian chants that hung like incense in the air. And of course, there was Stephanie and I. We walked slowly through the immense structure and sensed the music and the shafts of light striking the walls, creating an otherworldly presenceas it was designed to do. We knew this. Yet we also felt how well it worked. And we understoodno, we felt at a deep levelwhy, through the centuries, these buildings still held a power to enthrall.
“We walked on, slowly and respectfully examining the artifacts and architecture. As we walked in the empty cathedral, I realized we weren’t alone. Another person had entered the building while we had been exploring with a kind of quiet reverence. I watched this young man, seeing really a reflection of myself, as he slowly admired this and that in the cathedral. And then a startling thing happened. This person, much like myself mind you, was near the front row of seats, yet off to the sideI can see it vividly now as if it had happened only yesterday suddenly above the hushed tones of the chanting that surrounded us, he let out a agonized and protracted sigh. He dropped to his knees, and to our amazement began to sob uncontrollably. This young man, his evident pain, his coming to this place, the music, the light, the expanse, the very dust in the air conspired, if that is the right word, to change me, us forever.
“Stephanie and I both looked at each other and after a moment of uncertainty we backed away quietly, leaving the young man to himself and his pain in what had become for us truly holy ground. The cathedral had not suddenly changed into something more awesome, more transcendent. Oh no. The cathedral had always been and will remain just what it was. It was entirely a transformation of usa transformation from within. We were in the presence of something much bigger than ourselves, much grander, and we knew itwe felt it, deeply. And as it turned out, irrevocably.
“We were both very moved by what we had seen and talked about it for days afterward. And what we decided was that the first and greatest role of religion was not to create a sense of community or to be socially active or relevant. Those things are all valid and good, but they are not primary. No, Morgan, I discovered that for me religion was primarily meant to bring us closer to a sense of humility, vulnerability, and awe, but without fear. That cathedral in Dijon awakened me to the certain knowledge that we are each a part of something bigger than ourselves.
“That’s the message I got that day, Morgan, and that I’ve kept—that we are a noble species, that we can recognize a greater mission than self-gratification and that we can engage with an incomprehensible mys
tery in a constructive way with really breathtaking consequences. Religion creates for me a connection to a vision that empowersI believe within all of uswhat is noble and suppresses, for a time at least, our dreadful and primitive impulses. It was in that church that it became clear to me that what distinguishes us from the lesser animals is our freedom to choosethat’s so important to me, Morganour choice to adopt a vision greater than ourselves.
“In my opinion, only God can motivate that choice and that message, and it’s a message and a choice I want and freely embrace. It’s why I joined forces with you and why I convinced the others to do so as well.”
“You don’t think you could sustain that feeling without your belief in God?” Slaider asked.
“No, Morgan. Not for me.”
“Hmm. I really don’t see the necessity. It was Laplace speaking to Napoleon about his new celestial mechanics who famouslyor infamously, if you willsaid of God that he had no need for that hypothesisnor do I. In any event, Alex, it’s your vision, however you explain it, that I love about youits scope, its daring, and its heft are exactly what I needed, what the world neededand still needs, my friend. We didn’t just talk about a new world order. You have been my strong right arm and I don’t really care why you understood the moment was now and the window of opportunity brief. I can never stop thanking you enough.”
Both men remained silent. Slaider was bothered by another question.
“But what about morality, Alex? It doesn’t trouble you, the things I had to do? Because you see, if they do bother you then you are not being consistent. What I’ve done is for something bigger than myself, exactly what you just described as driving your belief in a supreme being who gives a damn about usyou and me, personally.”
President Llewellyn sat on a large stretching ball and quietly thought for a few moments.
On Deception Watch Page 51