Interstate 8, Arizona

 19:18:16

            Manuel Morales and Milagros Delatorre turn south off the highway’s blacktop and onto a two lane wide dirt road. They are driving in the delivery truck they intercepted and confiscated some thirty miles west of the dusty access arroyo. The truck is carrying the six cases of mixed liquor and another twenty of beer donated to the international troops of United Nations Border Base # 5. Their comrades, Jimmy Cormier and the brothers, Dan and Jason Rosa, are also in the back of the truck. On the floor, tied and gagged between them, the original driver lies unconscious. Behind the truck, two Hummer Mark VIIs emblazoned with the US Border Patrol logo stop a little ways into the dirt road. They will stay at the north end of the five mile arroyo, following the progress of Milagros and Manuel through transmitters hidden in the truck’s reflectors. Across the border, two Mexican military Jeeps filled with more of their comrades wait, watch and listen in as well. The Hummers and Jeeps will move in once the truck is inside the compound.

            Milagros is singing Feliz Navidad along to the disc player as she stares ahead through a pair of binoculars. Even though her pitch is a half-step flat, Morales finds her voice pleasing.

            “I see the buses,” she says, stopping in mid song. “There are two of them.”

            “Just like we were told to expect.”

            “Si.”

            Manuel steals a glance at the young woman in the passenger-side seat. Milagros is a dark-skinned, shapely five-foot-eight beauty with large, brown eyes and straight, waist-long black hair. She has on black, cowboy boots, a short, black skirt and a matching, low V-cut, sweater. Delatorre is wearing the revealing clothing for the mission’s sake and not because she enjoys the immodesty. She, in fact, does not enjoy it. The scanty outfit made her cringe when it was first shown to her, no doubt dredging up unpleasant associations to her days spent as a sex slave in Tijuana. Milagros put her distaste aside for the mission’s sake however and agreed to wear what she called ‘the shameless half-skirt and half-shirt.’

             “It’s hard to believe that some women choose to wear so little in public,” Milagros remarked after she had agreed to wear the outfit.

            Padre Negro was with Delatorre when the skirt and V-neck were shown her.  “I’m afraid some women choose to wear a lot less and do a lot worse in public, my dear.”

            She shook her head at the thought and asked why. “Por que, Padre?”

            “The world has convinced them that shamelessness is liberation and immodesty is empowerment,” the young priest explained. “And not just women, of course; men too have been taught that the indiscriminate feeding of their sexual appetite is acceptable, even commendable. As a result, this favorite movement of the modern world, what they laughably call ‘sexual liberation,’ has enslaved millions to their bodies. This movement is father to so many ills and evils, divorce, abortion, unwanted, unloved children, sexual disease, sexual slavery; all of it is the result of ‘liberating’ sex from marriage.”     

            Morales, remembering the priest’s words, lifts his gaze from Milagros’ long, walnut-brown legs. He turns his attention back to the road ahead of him rather than let his senses lead his thoughts awry. Manuel knows it is perfectly natural for a man like him to appreciate, even to adore the beauty of a woman like Milagros, but he knows also the failings that flesh is heir to. He loves her and will not allow his affection to be soiled by base appetite. God willing, they have prayed, that one day soon, when the revolution is triumphant they will marry. Until then, they will honor their vows of celibacy to the Order of Knights Templar.

            The Order demanded that its knights take a seven year vow of chastity. Manuel was on his second vow. Milagros had recently taken her first. He had tried to dissuade her, but Delatorre insisted on sharing his struggle, his path and, if need be, his very fate. He could not deny her, especially when she completed the grueling training without whine or whimper.  

            He looks at her again, this time catching her eye and giving her a loving wink, admiring how long a way she has come since her rescue five years ago. Manuel can remember the shrunken, emaciated body and the darting, deep-sunken eyes of the wretched creature he found screeching with terror in the corner of a filthy brothel stall. At the time, Morales feared that Delatorre wouldn’t survive for long after the rescue. Her detoxing was a harrowing experience for all concerned, but she did eventually pull through it. Once free of heroin’s grip, the young woman recovered by leaps and bounds.

            They identified her through dental records. It turned out that Milagros was born in Santa Fe New Mexico to a young couple living illegally in the United States. In 2009 the young family joined the droves of illegal aliens returning to Mexico as job opportunities for them in the States dwindled in the imploding economy. Their bus was stopped by a band of Los Zetas who killed everyone onboard except for the half dozen girls they raped and sold into slavery. Delatorre’s parents were just two of the over fifty thousand people killed along the Mexican-American border by the cartels in the first dozen years of the century that led to the Border War. Sometime later they discovered a great aunt of hers living in Mexico City who contributed some photos and the few facts known about her parents. On learning about her aunt, Manuel had offered to arrange Delatorre’s return to Mexico, but Milagros declined.

            “I would rather stay here with all of you,” she said, referring to the underground base beneath the Fortuna Mountains that hid their detachment of crusaders.

            “I feel safe here,” she added. “I’m not ready yet to return to the world.”

            They accepted her decision and adopted Milagros into their community. Four years later, he cannot imagine Fortuna Base without her. In their care and company, Milagros Delatorre’s body and spirit all but recovered from the ravages inflicted by her years as a child sex slave. Only her memory suffered still from the tragic trauma of her adolescence.

Milagros has seen a few pictures of her parents since her rescue. There is one in particular that she keeps on her at all times. She looks at it often. The wallet-sized photograph is of her parents and her outside a pale-pink, shotgun home. She knows every detail of the photo by heart but the smiling faces of her parents stir no memories of her lost years. Neither does the laughing face of her younger self, hanging knee-high from their arms. Delatorre remembers nothing of the world the image hints at.

“They might as well be pictures of strangers,” she told Manny. “I have a thirteen year hole in my memory. You wouldn’t think such emptiness in the mind would feel so heavy on the heart, but it does.”

“I think, maybe it’s because you watched them be killed,” Manuel told her. “Maybe the sight of them in that ditch you dream of so much, maybe that sight was too much for your young mind. I think your memory erased them completely so that you will not remember what was done to them.”

“That’s what Padre Negro says,” she said. “Do you think I will ever remember?”

“I don’t know,” Manny answered. “Let’s hope so.”

“Si, let us hope.”

            Beside him in the cabin of the truck, Milagros lowers the binoculars and puts them away in the glove box. Out of it she pulls a Smith and Wesson M&P SHEILD 9mm compact pistol. She chambers a round and slips the small pistol into the holster taped to her right hip under her skirt. She then pulls out the larger Sig 1911 45 and hands it over to Manuel. He leans forward in his seat and tucks the pistol under his belt and shirt at the small of his back. A few minutes later they reach the north gate as the second of the school buses is cleared through the gate in the south end. As they had hoped, soldiers start coming out of the barracks in twos and threes, eager to ogle their entertainment for the night.

            “Look at those animals,” says Milagros. “They can’t wait to get their hands on those children.”

            “But they won’t get a chance,” Manuel says soothingly. He stares ahead, smiling at the guard behind the sliding gate. “As long as we keep our cool and do what we got to do, the kids will be safe. A piece of pie, remember?”

            She gives him a broad smile. “Si, a piece of pie.”

            The guard who approaches the driver’s side of the trucks cabin is a small, dark man with the high cheekbones of an African. He looks the two of them over, his eyes lingering over Milagros a little longer than on Manny. “Joyeux Noel,” he says in greeting.

            “Feliz Navidad,” Manny and Milagros respond cheerfully.

            Morales hands him the manifest through the window. Milagros opens up a compact and begins applying lipstick.

            “Ah si,” the guard switches to Spanish after a quick perusal of the papers. “We’ve been expecting you.”

            The guard hands the folded sheets back to Manuel and points him to the two story building. “Unload over there.”

            “Gracias!”

            They drive through the second gate. Manny backs the truck into the parking space in front of the mess hall. The two of them hop out of the cabin, Milagros with the manifest on a clipboard. They proceed to the back of the truck as two UN soldiers step out of the mess hall.  The two peacekeepers smile at both Manuel and Milagros, but their attentions settle on her.

            “Is this the long longed-for delivery of much needed hooch?” The tall, pale one asks in a British accent.

            “Hooch?” Milagros asks with a slight cock of her head.

            “Booze,” says the soldier. “You know, cerveza… trago…”

            Milagros smiles sweetly at him. “Si, senor.”

            “That’s grand,” the British lieutenant says. “Give it here and I’ll sign for the delivery.”  

            “I’m sorry, senor,” says Milagros. “El Commandante must sign.”

            “I’m afraid he’s busy.”

            “I’m afraid I no deliver.”

            The soldier looks from Milagros to Manuel.

            Morales shrugs his shoulders. “Me no hablo Ingles.”

            “Very well,” the lieutenant concedes. “Go get the Colonel, corporal.”

            The smaller, equally pasty-skinned soldier at his side darts back into the building behind them.  

            Milagros watches as the children are gathered and lined up by a pair of soldiers. She figures there are sixty, maybe seventy of them, mostly girls. She guesses the average age of the group at fifteen.

            “Are you throwing them kids a Christmas party?” She asks.

            “Something like that,” the lieutenant responds with a slight smile.

            “They no look too happy.” Milagros says. “Not for kids invited to a Christmas party.”

            “They’ll cheer up soon enough,” says the peacekeeper.

            “When you give them Christmas presents, right?” Milagros says cheerfully.

            “Exactly,” says the UN soldier curtly. “Now if you would open the truck, my men can help you unload it.”

            “First commandante comes and signs, then I open truck.”

            Manuel is amused by how easily her sweetness keeps the soldier’s exasperation in check. He is equally tickled by how difficult a time the man is having keeping his eyes off her cleavage.  Beyond Milagros and the lieutenant, Morales keeps an eye on the other soldiers gathering at the buses. He counts thirty-one milling about in the square watching the kids. They are unarmed and should be easily corralled, he thinks. The two in the towers and the two at the gates however are armed with automatic rifles and could make a bloody mess of the operation. Manny is counting on the element of surprise to spare them that possibility.

            On cue, the Mexican jeeps arrive at the south gate. The driver of the lead vehicle engages the guard in conversation. Manuel turns his head and makes out the dust plume of the Hummers approaching from the north. Visits to the UN bases by the Mexican military and the American border patrol are not uncommon. The soldiers at the gates and on the towers are alert but not overly wary. They are however, no longer looking in the trucks direction. Perfecto, he thinks.

            The lieutenant pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “You’re one tough nut, senorita.”

            “I no crazy, senor,” Milagros says, feigning offense. “I just do my job, just like you.”

            The soldier shakes his head and laughs. “I no call you crazy. I call you tough.”

             She turns a skeptical eye on him.

            He offers them each a cigarette. They graciously decline. He lights up and begins puffing away at it. “Any plans for your holidays?”

            Milagros sidles up to Manuel and gives his right bicep an appreciative squeeze. “We got very special plans.”

            “How does a fellow get so lucky?” the soldier asks with a smile.

            “He no habla too much, that’s how,” she says.

            “I see.”

            A minute later his comrade returns with the Colonel in tow. The small, bald-headed Asian scowls at Manuel as he comes out through the mess hall doors. Manuel gives him his best simpleton’s smile and points at Milagros. The Colonel’s demeanor changes immediately at the sight of Delatorre.

            “What’s the problem here, young lady?”

            “No problem senor,” Milagros answers sweetly.

            She hands the Colonel the manifest and gestures to Manny to open the truck doors. Manuel pulls a key ring out of his pants pocket. The commandant scratches a quick signature at the bottom of the manifest and returns the pen and clipboard to Milagros. She drops the pen and bends at the waist to retrieve it. The soldiers all look her way. Morales turns a key in the handle of the right side door, gives both handles a twist and throws open the doors. Behind them, Jimmy, Dan and Jason stand with M-16s held at the ready.

            “Merry Christmas, y’all!” The three say in unison.

            The Colonel, the Lieutenant and the corporal turn to face the new voices. Manuel and Milagros pull out their pistols. The corporal throws his hands high in the air.

            “What’s the meaning of this?” The Colonel demands.

            “We’re crashing your little child-molesting party,” Delatorre says.

            Manuel grabs the Lieutenant and spins him around. Milagros does the same to the Colonel. They put the barrel of their guns to the backs of the peacekeeper’s heads and push their hostages towards the front of the truck. Dan and Jason hop off the back of the truck. Jimmy stays aboard, covering the door to the mess hall.

            “Face down on the ground,” Dan orders the corporal.

            “Hands behind your head,” adds Jason.

            The soldier complies immediately. Jason and Dan follow Milagros and Manuel to the front of the truck, covering either side of the two. A few of the soldiers by the buses notice their approach. Their ejaculations of surprise draw the attention of the guards at the gates and on the towers. Milagros and Manuel angle their prisoners, placing the soldiers between them and the weapons that are now pointed their way. Beyond the fence, their comrades impersonating Mexican soldiers and American Border Patrolmen train their guns on the guards whose attentions are suddenly split two ways. Everywhere in the camp, heads of UN soldiers swivel left and right trying to take everything in. The children break their lines and frightened, shrink back towards the buses in a tightening cluster.  

            “Tell your men to drop their guns,” Milagros says.

            “Kofi! Arnaud! Drop your weapons!” The Colonel cries out to the guards on the north side of the compound

            “Chung! Lombardi! Drop your weapons!” The Lieutenant orders the two on the south end.

            The guards at the gate comply. The blue helmets on the towers hesitate, holding their rifles at the ready, looking for a shot. Some of the milling soldiers back off with uncertain steps while most of them freeze in place.

            “You will be the first to die when the shooting starts, Colonel,” Milagros whispers and cocks the hammer.  

            “Drop your weapons!” The base commander bellows. “All of you! Drop your weapons!”

            After another long, tense moment, the weapons are dropped from the towers.

            The gates are then opened and the Jeeps and Hummers enter the compound. Ten minutes later all the UN soldiers are accounted for, gathered face down around their flagpole. The base is theirs!

            “Piece of pie,” Milagros says, regarding the scene.

            She and Manuel hammer fists in congratulations.    

Washington, DC

19:18:17

Felix Culpa is popping the old bird from the coop.

The facebook post excites millions of facebook users around the world, leading them to believe that satellites were back online and they would be allowed re-entry into their digital worlds. Their hope is false and short-lived. All they can do with their gadgets is read Felix Culpa’s status update. At sixty-one seconds from the posting, all their PalmPals, cell phones, pads and readers go dead again. Everyone who noticed the update is left scratching their heads at the posting and wondering, who is Felix Culpa? Try as they might, they cannot place him in their immediate circle of friends or acquaintances. They cannot remember ever inviting or accepting his e-friendship? Not a one of them is able to fix a face to the name. The profile picture that accompanied the post, a sword, held hilt high in a gauntleted hand, is no help whatsoever.

At facebook headquarters, the post fires off another burst of excitement. It is the second posting by Felix Culpa, and like the first, it inexplicably goes out to everyone, all of the billion and a half people in the network. It is an unprecedented breach of their security systems. Programmers and technicians spring to attention and try once again to wrest back control of their network. However, the sixty seconds of online connection is not enough to do anything.

“Nothing is working,” the chief of operations reports to the CEO. “We’re completely locked out.

The CEO squeezes a rubber stress ball in each hand. “The timestamps on the postings are definitely pointing to a countdown.”

“Yes, to six o’clock tomorrow night.”

“And then what?” The CEO asks.

            The chief of operations can only shrug in response.

            “They may know already,” the CEO says after a short spell of silence. “But in case they don’t, we should advise the government.”

            Two thousand miles away, Ralph Golden slips the Ghost Mobile into a reserved slot in the parking lot of DC’s Metro Central Detention Facility. The Ghost Mobile is a 1963 Chevy El Dorado. The old century car’s exterior is white but for the mirror-polished chrome grill, highlights, and the large, red, eight pointed Knights Templar cross on its hood. The seats are red with white piping. A red and white Rosary hangs from the rearview mirror. The license plates read REPENT, red letters on white.

            Ralph thumbs a small, glass disc in the center of the steering wheel. The sensor behind it reads his fingerprint and shuts the Ghost Mobile down. He gets out of the car and walks the long, ribbon of concrete curving between two yellowed lawns that lead to the prison’s entrance. The large, glass doors part silently when Golden approaches them. He steps through doorway and enters DC’s Metro Central Detention Facility. Two large, beefy guards, one white and the other black, on either side of two metal detecting arches look up and smile.

            “Hello, Ralphy-boy,” says the black prison guard. “Merry Christmas to you.”

            “Merry Christmas, Bill,” Ralph replies. “Merry Christmas, Stanley.”

            “Merry Christmas, Ralph,” Stanley says.

            The three men shake hands.

            “How are the wives and kids?”

            “They’re just fine, Ralph,” Bill says.

            “Doing real good,” Stanley answers.

            “Excellent!”

            “Here comes the old bird now, Ralphy-boy,” Bill says, pointing to an opening door in the far end of the waiting room.

            Ralph Golden looks over to see Cardinal Redding, in full regalia, step into the large, harshly-lit rectangular room. He is a big and broad shouldered man of seventy-seven years. The only hair on his round head is in his gray, bushy eyebrows. The Cardinal walks through the aisle between rows of plastic, purple chairs, blessing the few people scattered among them. One side is filled with a half dozen people waiting on the release of prisoners. Seated throughout the other rows of chairs are a score of new arrests, handcuffed to the seats, waiting to be processed into the system. Most of them are Maxists, Golden notes by the unwashed and unkempt state of them. A few of them spit curses at the Cardinal as he blesses them. When they do, Redding gives them a wider smile and an extra blessing.  

            “Never off the clock, that one,” observes Stanley.

            “Married to his job,” Ralph agrees.

            Cardinal Redding reaches them. “Gentlemen, a very merry Christmas to you all.”

            The three men take turns kissing his ring. “Merry Christmas, your Eminence.”

            “Pass my compliments on to the Mayor, officers,” Cardinal Redding says, addressing Stanley and Bill. “Tell him I regret not being able to avail myself of more of his hospitality.”

            “He’ll understand,” Bill says. “You’re a busy man.”

            “Yes, you are Eminence,” Ralph says. “So if you would, please come along. The clock is ticking. Keep the faith, boys.”

            Bill and Stanley give Ralph casual salutes.

            “Very well,” says the Cardinal and then pauses to bless the two prison guards before following Golden out.

            “Thank you for coming to get me, Ralph.”

            “My pleasure, Cardinal,” Ralph says. “I trust you got along fine on the inside.”

            “The jumpsuit was the worst thing about the experience,” the Cardinal says.

            “Orange just isn’t your color, Eminence.”

            “I would say not.”

            The walk to the car takes twice as long, as Ralph slows his pace to keep up with the slow moving older man. When they arrive at the Ghost Mobile and Golden opens the passenger side door with exaggerated flourish. “Welcome aboard the Ghost Mobile, Cardinal.”

            “That’s a real beauty, Ralph,” Cardinal Redding says, pausing to admire the automobile. “They don’t make them like that anymore.”

            “They may yet again, your Eminence,” Ralph says, taking the Cardinal’s arm. “They may yet again.”

Cardinal Redding bends and gets in. Ralph shuts his door, walks around the front and takes his seat behind the wheel. He starts the car with the touch of his thumb and pulls it out of the parking spot. After a few short blocks on G Street, the Ghost Mobile merges into the heavier trafficked Pennsylvania Avenue. The old El Dorado stands out against the smaller, modern automobiles around it, drawing considerable attention from other drivers. The looks are mostly appreciative mixed with an occasional sour expression from those who do not approve of old, gas-guzzling giants on the road.

The speakers on the dashboard suddenly emit an electronic ping.

“What was that?” The Cardinal asks.

Ralph glances up at his rearview mirror briefly. “There is a cop car a little behind us in the right lane. It just scanned us. They’re making sure I have the Government Motors Patriot Governor installed. You can’t drive in Washington without it, you know. They routinely check out old century beauties like my Ghost Mobile.”

“Your car knows when it’s being scanned?”

“Sure does,” Ralph says.

“And do you have the governor installed?”

“Yes and no, your Eminence,” Ralph says with a small smile under his handlebar moustache. “As far as the cop’s scanner is concerned I do. But no, I don’t really. I’ve got something which mimics its signal.”

“What happens if the officer decides to engage the governor?”

Ralph Golden laughs. “If Mr. Five-O tries it, the signal would be shot back at his car. It would shut him down.”

“Goodness,” says the Cardinal. “Can you shoot rockets out of the headlights too?”

“Not yet, Eminence, but we’re working on it,” says Golden. “Maybe it’ll be included in the next upgrade. Check out the heads up display, though. It’s custom.”

“Give me the heads-up display, Gracie,” Ralph says, speaking to his automobile through his PalmPal. “Set it on a bird’s-eye-view at an inch to a quarter mile scale, if you please.”

The windshield lights up with a ghostly outline of the city’s downtown. The Cardinal sees blue, green and black dots moving along the streets. There is one red dot moving northwest along Pennsylvania Avenue which he figures is Ralph’s car, the Ghost Mobile they are in. A half inch behind it is a blue dot.

“The blue dots are police cars, I take it.”

“Yes Eminence,” Ralph answers. “The green dots are military vehicles. The blinking ones are ours. The black dots are unmarked cop cars. The rest of the traffic is represented by the brightness of the lines. The darker the line, the heavier the traffic is on the street.”

“Impressive.”

 “That isn’t the half of it,” Ralph boasts. “The Ghost Mobile is also hacking into the signal system as we drive, making certain we’re not bothered by red lights.”

 The Cardinal whistles appreciatively. “Did the Colonel fix up this car for you?”

“Nah, it was my uncle Tommy and I,” Ralph says. “My Uncle Tommy, he’s a genius mechanic with a love for sticking it to the man, if you know what I mean.”

“I suppose I might.”

They turn left onto Independence and then right onto First Street. The two men fall silent as they scan the crowds on their left. They drive past the Library of Congress and reach the encampment of Catholics in the park across the street from the Supreme Court building. Most of the faithful are knelt in prayer, reciting the Rosary in tight columns. The monitors, wearing full-length, cross-emblazoned scapulae, stand guard around them. They notice that many of the monitors are looking warily up Maryland Street, several shaking their heads. Ralph and the Cardinal turn to see what has drawn their attention. They see it immediately, a life-sized Crucifix burning in the street. It’s on the north side of the Supreme Court building, about a quarter of the way up Maryland Street. Some thirty or so Maxists dance in a ring around the cross. A dozen others sit in a ring around them, banging away at make-shift drums.

Cardinal Redding shakes his head at the sight. “How did we ever come to this?”

“It’s your fault, Your Eminence,” Ralph Golden says flatly.

The Cardinal’s head snaps to look at Ralph, his eyebrows arch in surprise. “My fault?”

Ralph nods. “Absolutely, it’s your fault. Not yours alone, mind you. I mean all church leaders. From the Pope on down, y’all the clergy are responsible for that and the whole general mess the world is in.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do, Your Eminence. I do say so.”

Ralph drives on, confident that the monitors will not take the Maxists’ latest bait and lead their charges into a riot. They will maintain discipline and not abandon their posts. A quick glance at the Cardinal tells Golden that the old man is dangling, rather helplessly, from his bait. He does not know Redding well, only having met him briefly on two other occasions, but Ralph decides that’s no reason to spare him.

“The Church, Eminence, is the world’s first, last and best defense against evil,” Ralph Golden says. “Or rather it is, when it is doing its job and storming the gates of Hell. We’re supposed to be on the offensive, always attacking and marching ever onwards. But thanks to you guys in the clergy, we’re on the defensive, fighting a rear-guard action.”

“How is that our fault, young man?”  

“For fifty years after Vatican Two the clergy took their eyes off the ball. Rather than going at the world, you all went at The Church like a horde of Vandals, Cardinal. You ripped out Communion rails and organs, stripped the altar and altered the liturgy. One day it’s a Mariachi Mass, the next day the priest is in a rubber nose and clown face and the day after it’s a Hip-Hop or a Hippie Mass.”

Cardinal Redding turned as much of his aging body as he could to face Ralph squarely. “It’s not fair, Ralph comparing some of the excesses of the post-Vatican II experiments to the pillaging of Vandals.”

“It’s not fair to Vandals, perhaps,” Ralph retorted. “The Vandals may have looted and burned churches, but to their credit, they never touched the liturgy. You the clergy did however, making the liturgy over again and again, tweaking it this way and that, re-making and tailoring it twelve ways to Sunday until you turned The House of God into a tower of Babel. You confused the faithful, outright frightened them in some cases. It’s no surprise they fled the pews in droves because of all that ‘spirit of Vatican 2’ crap. All the while you argued with Rome, challenging The Seat of Peter on central issues like sexuality, abortion and contraceptives. Y’all refused to do your job and draw a line in the sand. In the name of charity you refused to defend, enforce or even articulate doctrine. Instead, for fifty years, Communion was allowed to politicians pushing the culture of death down our throats by a clergy too afraid to go up against a hostile press. Too afraid to hurt anyone’s feelings, communion was given to every Tom, Dick and Sally living loud & proud in all manner of sin. And rather than discipline the mavericks, Pope after Pope allowed priest after priest to run his parish like his own private theocracy. Even more cowardly, the worst of the worst, child-molesters in collars were shuffled from parish to parish by Bishop after Bishop until, not conscience, but scandal finally forced the clergy’s hand.

“Is it any wonder, Cardinal that The Church’s moral authority has become a joke? Is it any wonder that secularists have our backs against the wall and Crucifixes are burned on the streets? I say it’s no wonder at all.”

“The clergy has made a lot of mistakes, I know,” says Cardinal Redding after a painful pause. “We’ve corrected many of them and are working on the rest.”

“I know, your Eminence,” Ralph says. “I know. I meant no disrespect. I was just answering your question. We’re glad to have you aboard at last. We the faithful laity, we who never got swept away by all that ‘spirit of Vatican 2’nonsense, we’re thrilled that the last couple of Popes have finally begun the house cleansing; we’re overjoyed that you and so many others have his back. Better late than never and all, you know.”

The Cardinal nods thoughtfully.

They drive on in silence for a few more minutes more until they reach the US Treasury Building. Ralph parks the car but keeps the engine running. He gets out and walks around the back. Two guards make their way down the steps of the Treasury Building. Ralph exchanges salutes with them. He opens the passenger side door and helps the old Cardinal out of the Ghost Mobile.

“I sincerely hope that I have not upset you, your Eminence.”

“No, Ralph, you haven’t,” Cardinal Redding replies. “We Cardinals wear the red to show our willingness to shed our blood for the faith. An ego bruising is a trifling in comparison. Besides, there is much truth in what you said.”

“That’s all behind us now, Eminence.”

“Indeed.”

“We will save Christendom.”

“Yes, we will.”

The guards arrive at their side.

“Merry Christmas, gentlemen,” Cardinal Redding says in greeting.

“Merry Christmas,” the two men respond and kiss Redding’s ring.

Ralph shakes hands with the guards. “I’d love to stay and chat, but the clock is ticking. Keep the faith, boys.”

Golden then turns back to the Cardinal, shakes his hand and kisses his ring. “See you soon, Eminence.”

“God bless you, Ralph,” Cardinal Redding says making the sign of the cross.

“Right back at you,” Ralph says and turns to his car.

Golden sits in the idling automobile until the Cardinal and the guards disappear into the Treasury Building. Once inside, the guards will escort the Cardinal through the secret tunnel that connects the Treasury Building to the White House where the Colonel is waiting for him. With his first mission of the night completed, Ralph Golden drives off to the second, the speakers in the Ghost Mobile booming the Gregorian chant, Da Pacem Domine, a favorite of Knights Templar, old and new.   

Dearborn, Michigan

19:28:03         

Sheik Qassim Abdul Zahra does not allow televisions in his Dearborn Michigan home. He doesn’t want his family exposed to the poison of Western culture any more than they are forced to by living among the infidels. Zahra does not hear of the assassination attempt until one of his aides whispers the news into his ear when he finishes his evening prayers. Sheik Qassim is immediately intrigued. It is not so much by the shooting itself, but the fact that it happened within a locked down Air Force base gives him pause. He cannot think of any of his brothers who have the sort of reach which could’ve infiltrated the Secret Service. He is all but certain that another player is responsible. The American military itself is, no doubt, involved. As Zahra hears further details he becomes ever more convinced of the US military’s authorship. How can it be otherwise, he thinks, especially in light of the satellite failings?

            Sheik Qassim Abdul Zahra orders his guards to bring his car out. Within minutes, he is in the automobile heading to the Ikhwan Mosque and Salafi Cultural Center. He has the driver turn on the car’s television. The small screens on the back of the front seats head rests offer up channel after channel of snowy static.

            “Can we get news on the radio?”

            “No, Sheik,” answers the driver. “It’s all just static on the radio.”

            “Then how do we know what has happened exactly?”

            “I saw the assassination attempt and the shooting of the planes over the Potomac River.”

            “How Mahmoud?”

            There is a pause before the driver answers. “I saw it on my cell phone, Imam.”

            Mahmoud kept his eyes on the road. He had just admitted that he was watching television while on duty. Sheik Zahra decides to leave the infraction unanswered for the moment.

“It was on the news for a few minutes,” the driver went on after a beat, relieved that he was not being called on the breach of discipline. “It was on for only a few minutes before the phones stopped working.”

            “And how do we know about the kidnapping?”

“Hamdi in Washington, he called my brother Fazir,” the driver explains. “Fazir has an old style telephone in his shop, you know, the kind that plugs into the wall. Those phones are working, we think, because they communicate through underground wires. So, Hamdi tells my brother what he knows. He tells Fazir about the jet from Barcelona and the President’s kidnapping in the look-a-like helicopter and Hamdi gives him a phone number to call for more information.”

            “Whose phone number is it?”

            “It’s a number for The Washington Post,” the driver continues. “It’s a hotline. You call it and listen to a recording of the news. They set it up when the satellites were lost. It’s their only way to communicate with the world outside Washington. Fazir called the number, listened to the recording and sent our cousin over with the information. He thought you would want to know.”

            The driver dares a glance at the Sheik through the rear view mirror.

            “Your brother has done well, Mahmoud,” the Sheik says.                            

The Sheik turns inward, the fingers of his right hand run absently through his beard as he mulls over the few known and striking facts. Six planes were shot down, one of them a passenger jet, all within minutes of the assassination attempt. The President is then kidnapped, whisked away in a Marine One look-a-like. No one knows where the President has been taken because the satellites all around the world go down when O’Neill is snatched. What the connections between the incidents are, he cannot begin to fathom; however, Zahra knows an opportunity when he sees one.

The heightened security that will grip the country until the crisis is considered passed will come with a heightened sense of anxiety. It is at these times that Sheik Qassim Abdul Zahra likes to strike. The attacks need not be great ones. A series of small attacks, a few well-placed suicide snipers, two or three car bombs synchronized to explode together in different parts of the country will be enough to deepen the anxiety and drive the terror further than the President’s kidnapping could by itself. He has a series of such attacks scheduled for the coming spring at sights where college kids liked to gather for their yearly drunken celebrations. The strikes, he decides, will have to be moved up to the New Year’s festivities. He will gather his lieutenants and make the necessary arrangements.

Sheik Qassim is fighting a war of attrition. Success in his war, he knows, lies in the depletion of the enemy’s will. Sheik Zahra is an old man, sixty-nine years of age, but he is optimistic about seeing the final victory of Islam over the West. He believes he will live to see Islam prevail before Allah calls him to paradise. The West will fall. He is sure of it. The House of Islam, the world of believers will conquer the world of the infidel, the House of War.

Zahra has no doubt. After all, his Muslim Brotherhood has come quite far from its humble beginnings in Egypt less than a century ago. There is not a nation on the face of the Earth that does not have Brotherhood cells working in them. In just the last twenty years they have accomplished more than he had ever hoped or dreamed possible when he was recruited as a teen in a Cairo jail. And the further the Ikhwan, the Brotherhood, advanced, the farther America declined. Despite all howls of protest, their decades-old plan to conquer the West, their glorious ‘Civilization Jihad’ was triumphing daily. 

It was not difficult. Democracies like America, while normally able to confront external enemies, were generally uncomfortable facing internal threats. So many of them, Sheik Qassim observed, would sooner sell their souls than be thought of as less than ‘open minded.’ This weakness was easily exploited. Pushing along lines specifically designed for just such a liberal, multi-culture-minded populace, Zahra and the Brotherhood won concession after concession from the federal and local governments. The Muslim Brotherhood invented the word Islamophobia precisely for the waging of cultural and legal warfare and it has paid off handsomely over the last couple of decades. In a society as litigious as America it was only necessary to claim discrimination to get most opponents to back down. This simple strategy severely limited the attacks they had to counter while they spread their creed of Islamic supremacy. For the others, there was the always implicit threat of the violence Muslims could, when offended, be incited to commit that muted their critiques and curbed their resistance. The mix of grievances, peddled through an enabling press and violent demonstrations could work wonders through a government as weak and divided as America’s. 

Through such a combination of pressures the US had even offered up three of its own soldiers to Afghanistan’s Taliban at the close of the war. The men were beheaded and their bodies dragged through the spitting crowds of Kabul for the burning a couple of Korans.       

Nowhere is Islam’s progress more visible than in his adopted home of, Dearborn Michigan. And the crowning achievement of his sharia-compliant city is the newly built mega-mosque looming into view ahead of him. It is the largest mosque in the western hemisphere. Its construction paid for by the United States government as part of the reparations settlement won from the Department of Peace for the mental and emotional anguish Bush’s wars inflicted on the Muslim-American community. The settlement, to the Sheik’s great amusement also endowed Muslims in America with a protected minority status that made them immune to many of the laws and policies that were closing down churches across the country.

 “If anyone needed proof that Allah and time are on our side,” he told his audience after last Friday’s service. “One need only consider how our ancient adversary, Christendom is beaten back as Islam thrives on her former ground.” 

Sheik Zahra initiated and led the landmark suit ten years ago. And while he had the support and resources of every Muslim interest group behind him, his best allies were Westerners themselves. Self-loathing Americans, wanting desperately to make their government pay for 'war crimes', bent over backwards to help them through the suit process. It was the same with the latest suit that promised to erase all traces of Christianity from the nation’s monuments. Their chief lawyer in the latest effort is an avowed atheist and socialist with the ACLU. Sheik Zahra had asked her why she decided to work with the Brotherhood.

“I hate Christians,” she explained. “I understand you all are not too fond of them either. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, no?”

Qassim had smiled in response to her question. Fool, he thought. She could not see that Islam would quickly fill the void left by vanquished Christendom. It had been the same story in his native Egypt and the other North African nations that now made up the Ihkwan Caliphate. Socialists and other secularists had worked with the Brotherhood to bring down Mubarak, Gaddafi and others. In exchange for their service they expected power sharing with the Brotherhood and some even thought to win western-style liberties for themselves when the fighting was done. They got none of it. In the end, most of them lost their heads for their troubles.

Lenin had rightly called their sort, useful idiots. America was full of them.     

            They arrive at the mega-mosque. The car drives through the empty parking lot and around the large domed structure. The Salafi Cultural Center building is behind it. His office is on the top floor of the twelve story building. The black Lincoln comes to a stop at the front door. His body guard gets out and walks around the back of the car.

“Go gather the others,” Zahra tells his driver. “Bring them here.”

The driver nods, knowing what to do.

His body guard opens Sheik Qassim’s door. At the entrance, Zahra punches in his security code. The door slides open and lights come on in the crescent shaped atrium. He enters the building and hears his car drive off. The two men ride the elevator in silence to the top floor. Qassim’s office is just down a short hall. His office consists of two rooms, an outer office where he handles public business and an inner, secure chamber where the plans for Jihad are advanced safe from the prying, electronic ears and eyes of the government. He punches the code to his door and enters his outer office with his bodyguard behind him.

            “What’s shaking, Sheik?”

            The two men spin around at the sound of the voice. They each find themselves looking down the barrel of gun.   

19:45:10

            Simon Aguilera thinks there is no better view of Manhattan than the one from his office atop the United Nations Tower. The office of the Secretary General of the United Nations also offers Simon an unparalleled view of the world. It is this latter vista that he is contemplating as he stares out his window at the city’s nightscape. His three years as Secretary General have greatly expanded his grasp of international politics and given him the perfect base of operation from which to advance his revolution. It is a revolution he has served faithfully for nearly three decades starting with his steady rise through the ranks of Hugo Chavez’ New Socialist Party. His loyal service brought him to the attention of Venezuela’s Supreme Leader and thrust him onto the world stage.

When, eight years ago, Chavez hand picked him to represent Venezuela at the UN, his instructions were brief and to the point. “Gather our revolution every advantage you can Simon, but; more importantly, you must thwart the United States at every turn. Isolate them every way you can. They are the revolution’s greatest enemy.”

            It was not something Simon needed to be reminded of. He sympathized with Hugo’s contempt for America. The nation’s policies and its very way of life were understandably repugnant to anyone with modernist sensibilities. Simon himself considered the majority of Americans to be little more than fat, self-indulgent sheep, arrogant in their slavish devotions to crass materialism and long dead gods.

            “Americans are incapable of vision,” he once confided to a comrade. “All they can come up with are shopping lists.”

            While stripping the United States of its last vestige of super power status would go a long way to advancing Venezuela’s revolution, Simon Aguilera’s ambitions are not so provincial. At forty-seven years of age, Simon is not only the youngest Secretary General who ever served the UN, but he likes to think of himself as the purest internationalists that ever walked through its doors. Aguilera’s life and work are dedicated to creating history’s first world government.

            ‘One World, One Law’ is both the title of Aguilera’s bestselling book and his highest aspiration.

            His goal is still a long way off, he knows. Countries still hung, with superstitious devotion to their borders and their anachronistic national identities, few as doggedly as the United States; but as the years passed, his hopes rose. While the old borders ostensibly carved up the globe, the real power was now being administered through the macro borders of the various UN regional unions. His predecessors had created the template when they stitched together the European Union. When Aguilera entered the scene, the EU was in danger of being lost with the crash of world markets. With the help of the International Monetary Fund and a capital infusion from the United States, the United Nations bolstered the Euro. Then through Group 21 Advisory councils, they got busy reorganizing the continental economy, putting out the riots and fires that were threatening to destroy Europe. In exchange for the UN-brokered bailout of their economies, the Union members allowed the World Body to set many of their domestic policies.

            The European template was duplicated around the world. Russia, China, America and the ever fractious Middle East still remained outside the UN corral of Nations, but Aguilera had teams on the ground working to round up the holdouts. There were Group 21Advisory Councils all over the globe and through them, the United Nations was steadily whittling away at the sovereignties of the more obdurate countries. Simon was hopeful that America would soon join the fold, with Mexico and Canada in tow. America was key and already more than halfway there. Even without benefit of membership in a union, Simon had gotten the United States to sign on to the Shanghai Accord and had even placed a token force on their southern border. Creating the North American Union would put considerable pressure on the others to follow suit. Bundling the resources and economies of North America to the existing Unions would buy Simon the much needed time and treasure to forestall the new economic collapse threatening the Eurozone and through it, the world. Assimilating the populace and might of the North American continent would help make the United Nations the kind of super power that could, at long last, create the world government Aguilera sought.

            The American President, a man with an amiable instinct for internationalism, was in favor of the Union. O’Neill was convinced that the pooling of resources and the creation of a new currency was the only way out of depression’s grip for his nation. He rightly saw that the international community would never allow the dollar to become the world’s reserve currency again. Through the UN, O’Neill and his counterparts in Mexico and Canada had agreed to scrap their individual currencies and create a new, shared one, the Amero.

O’Neill was hoping that the new currency would do more than breathe new life into the economy; he was hoping to save his dying country from the burgeoning secessionist movements working to tear it apart. In the south, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and Utah were threatening to secede as a bloc. California was in talks with Oregon and Washington about creating the world's first 'green nation', an 'eco-topia' between them. The states of Alaska, Florida and Louisiana each claimed they were prepared to go it alone. Worst yet for the President, all their neighboring states were, if not happy to let them go, certainly not overwrought at the prospect.

            “The only way to save my nation from being carved up into small pieces is to make it part of something bigger,” O’Neill told him. “The North American Union is that something bigger.”

            Simon had congratulated the American President on his broadmindedness during their last meeting nine months ago. “I don’t think any past President would have ever considered such a move.”

            “Well, it’s a different world now.”

            “Indeed it is,” Simon agreed. “With a truly progressive leader such as yourself leading a nation as great as yours, we can work together to make it a better world, Mr. President.”

            The long years spent serving under an egomaniac like Hugo Chavez had pressed upon the young Aguilera the utility of flattery when dealing with world leaders. It is a skill he honed to great effect over the years. It helped disarm the President’s initial reluctance to the Secretary General’s other wish, the releasing of foreign combatants held, some for over a decade, in American prisons.

            “The Hague, Amnesty International and every human rights group consider those held to be political prisoners,” Simon told the President. “The war is over, sir. They cannot rightly be called enemy combatants any more. Send them home to their families, Mr. President. I believe freeing them will generate much goodwill for you in the Muslim world.”

            O’Neill eventually relented but insisted that Simon make no mention of their ‘gentlemen’s accord’ until after his re-election.

            “There are those among my opposition that would spin these acts of clemency and cooperation as weakness,” O’Neill said.

            “I understand, Mr. President,” Aguilera assured him. “You will choose the best time to announce your plans.”

            That was another lesson learned in Venezuela. Simon is careful never to take credit for his ideas. When President O’Neill left his private audience with the Secretary General, he did so aglow with the self-congratulatory light of a man who thought himself not just clever, but enlightened as well.

            The American President did not know that ‘his’ plan to release the Islamist fighters would allow Simon to close a deal with the Iranian ambassador he had been working on ever since his appointment as Secretary General. Hugo Chavez wanted nuclear weapons. He needed them if he was to effectively counter America’s strength in the hemisphere. More specifically, Venezuela’s Supreme Revolutionary Leader was determined to keep the US out of Cuba and draw the island nation into closer orbit around Caracas. Chavez was confident that merely possessing a few ‘big bombs’ would be sufficient to get America to back down and make of the Caribbean and Gulf, a Venezuelan sea.

Simon was inclined to agree. America’s defeat in Iraq had demoralized the nation. The twenty-five kiloton nuke that destroyed the Panama Canal had it spooked. Twelve years of budget cuts had dulled the eagle’s talons. Whatever fight was left in the superpower was turned in on itself. Everyone sensed their day was done. The press ran frequent stories detailing the torturously protracted self-destruction of the American Empire.

            The Iranians agreed as well. However, their own Supreme Leader, President Ahmadinejad was reluctant to share the fruits of his rebuilt nuclear program until the Secretary General used his influence on behalf of Islam and Jihad. After much negotiating, it was agreed that the release of hundreds of the most hardened Islamist fighters still in American prisons would be a suitable gesture of goodwill to both Allah and Ahmadinejad. All parties were pleased with the deal Simon had brokered. Aguilera himself was well pleased.

Simon Aguilera had dealt with Islamic leaders often in his thirty years in international politics. He did not like them. He certainly didn’t trust them. Simon recognized that they wanted the same thing he did, a world government; but their medieval notion of a world-wide caliphate was nothing he was willing to get behind. As a bloc, Muslim countries rejected Simon’s Resolution 2112 and, it being his signature policy as Secretary General, he resented them for it, but not so much that he would let the slight keep him from working with them on other fronts. Aguilera was too much of a pragmatist for that. Socialists and Islamists worked together often because they shared an enemy in the capitalist power of America, but Simon knew the day must come when the two would fight it out for world domination. If he could bring America and maybe China or Russia into the UN’s fold, he would deal with the Islamists once and for all. In the meantime he dealt as well as he could with the odious ally.   

The recent events in Washington did not, however, please the Secretary General. Quite to the contrary, Simon Aguilera was displeased and disturbed. The events have ‘military coup’ written all over them. Particularly frustrating is the loss of satellite communications. Simon was stunned to learn the loss was global. In one swift stroke the entire world had been returned to a pre-Sputnik connectedness. All coups were unsettling affairs, but because nothing of this sort had ever occurred in America, the Secretary General feels a peculiar chill in his bones. The world, he knows, is entering uncharted waters.

            He is at his window, racking his brain, trying to figure out who might be behind it all, and what, if anything, he can do about it, when four American soldiers walk into his office unannounced. The oldest of them, a Colonel with short-cropped brown hair and a badly scarred neck, speaks in a low and scratched voice.

            “Merry Christmas, Secretary General.”

            “Who are you?” Aguilera demands.

            The old soldier tosses a small, leather bag at him. Simon plucks it out of the air. Inside the bag is a lump of coal.

            “What are you doing in my office?”

            “We’re here to evict you.”