Driver, T. C. (33 page)

I keyed in the target zone on my personal computer as we sped in low across the desert sand. This use of the World Wide Web is highly against our rules and pilot protocol. I had never done this before in my life. Air defense was not a concern and briefing on the target had been short and vague. I wanted to know just who or what I was hitting. We flew in low over endless miles of sand now in bright daylight sunshine. Satellite web photos showed three Fuller (not the dome) but Mushroom houses. Three spaceship looking mushroom houses on thick center pole stems, with cables from the top to hold them in place. These three houses were set all by themselves just outside a very small oasis green spot in the middle of the vast desert waves of sand. My heart and spirit was not into bombing these beautiful homes. I wondered who it was that lived there and I had always respected Dr. Fuller. A war raged in my soul as we approached the target; as team leader and center plane I called out the signals. Just a split second before the target computer lock tone I manually jogged my plane to the left which caused the students plane on my left’s anti-collision system to override his controls and forced him left also. Both of our seven hundred pound bombs hit left of target and did little or no damage. The plane on my right, “Mark Howard” stayed true to programming and took out the house on the right and slightly damaging the center house. The house on left was left standing (no joke) with no damage. Calvin Young the student on left was raising hell and justly so. Mark Howard the student on my right said not a word neither did I; as flight leader I gave commands over the computer. After giving Young time to vent I ordered radio silence by keying it in. My report would not be a fun one to write. I had failed to do my job. I had let the Young pilots down (ha-ha) (still no joke); as a teacher and a highly trained well paid professional that’s just not accepted. I wondered though, had this foolishness saved a life? Would the cost to me on this one be worth it? I lost some respect and ranking in the tight group of my pilot peers. These elite fly boys who lived a privileged life on ship, even when compared to other officers. A man has to do what a man has to do. He must be true to himself and God and then face the consequences.
 
Not Joe Coe or any other official briefed me or scolded me, or took me to task about “My Miss.”
 
I was sure Friday was happy to investigate the big miss and put nasty notes in my personnel file. The miss was the topic of gossip throughout the ships crew and a deep embarrassment to me around my colleagues. Sambo Station was coming to a close. I was glad to be rid of it. I told myself never again. I was washed up, no longer a warrior no longer did I have the heart for it. “Thank you Lord” I said for allowing me to work in your church; “thank you Lord” for not giving up on me when I was chief among all sinners.
                                                                                                                                                  

                                     
End of Chapter

Two weeks later we pulled near the Azores. The Great Ark took on a load of aviation fuel, the old expensive stuff; and then parked outside of a Harbor in Portugal while waiting on a dock that was way behind. We were on hold, just taking life easy. The whole ship needed a brake after a season of war, this bloody killing field of Africa called “Sambo Station.”

One particular end of shift cycle evening during this time Lou Goodliar the radio tower expert and Tommy Mute
 
 
joined my table with some very disturbing information. Both men were professors at the ships college yet both still oddly and officially Christian. Sometimes I get up to twelve students packed into my big round corner booth but this evening Lou Goodliar, Tommy Mute and a drummer named Rodney seemed to fill it up. They’re all big spread out types like me. Goodliar opened up conversation after eating with,

“Some say you missed that target on purpose Cornelius! Is there anything to that talk?”

“Why would I do something stupid like that Goodliar?” No students were around. Lou looked at Tommy Mute then Rodney as if to say, should we do this? After a pause Goodliar started up again. “Cornelius, I watched you come aboard ship back at Pearl Harbor with a group of elderly passengers? Do you remember that day?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Cornelius, have you ever seen passengers or elderly people get on the Ark before?”

 
“Yes I believe so, in Brazil,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, Cornelius, have you ever seen any elderly passengers get off this ship?”

“No Lou…I haven’t noticed!”

“Let me ask you Cornelius, have you ever seen any elderly passengers on ship during a cruise, or at any time while at sea?”

“Well no, I haven’t Lou,” I said. “ These old people stay to themselves. I’m not sure they’re even allowed on the main deck or flight deck. I don’t believe that they are!”

“Wake up, Cornelius!” stuttered Lou in a rough whisper shout! “Open your eyes man! You haven’t seen them on walk-ways, cat-walks, snack bar, medical, balconies or pharmacy because they’re not here. You have shut your eyes to the obvious truth. You have looked the other way and lived your own little pathetic life in your own little protected world. You, Cornelius, are just like the retard Osoma voters you like to rail on and on about. Many people are apolitical and do not cast wise informed votes but you also have been selfish close minded and unwilling to face the obvious ugly truth. Truth is painful, it hurts and you would rather not look at your own failings.”
   

Lou sat down his coffee and hung his head in silence. “The truth is this ship is a death camp a concentration camp. Those old people are fish food soon after we put to sea! One half of them are Jewish Cornelius, you and I are both of German families, we have become our grandfathers, we have become who and we hated.”

“Goodliar things just can’t be that bad, cheer up,” I smiled. “You must be mistaken. This whole death camp story sounds crazy. Why would they get on ship if this story was true? Who puts them on board ship and why?”

“They are picked out by computers in the personnel dept Cornelius. Many world governments pay bounty per head for each one eliminated. These people are killed and their property stolen,” cried out Tommy Mute in a coarse whisper. Lou laid his hand on Tommy’s arm interrupting;
  

“Cornelius, they are picked out by computers in the personnel dept. Democratic socialist and communist governments pay per head. They are required by the simple laws of mathematics to kill off their most costly citizens and their least productive. Elite leaders must do this constant killing to keep their slow, crude inefficient government planned economic systems alive. This or go to work and or do without themselves. This of course is not even considered. They simply have no choice, Cornelius. To be a socialist is to be a murderer, for there is no new wealth to pull from. Osoma is not a terrible, evil man, he does mean well on a simple level, but he is ungodly and without the wisdom of Gods teaching. You know all of this is true.”
   

“Let me put it this way,” said Lou. These old people are just not worth having around in a country with socialized medicine and social security payments. Also, these old geezers vote the “wrong way” and are often strong in their faith and independent in their personal opinions. Often they are Christian or Jewish and use older
  
out-law hate speech terms to describe modern day perverts.

“Cornelius these death camps are bigger than you might imagine,” broke in Tommy Mute, and it’s not just old people! Governments around the world are looking into certain families. This search has something to do with one hundred-forty-four thousand young Jewish boys and their families. Have you ever heard of Snuffer Wagons Cornelius?
  

“
Snuffer
 
Wagons
?” I answered,

“Later Tommy,” Hold up on that snuffer stuff,” demanded Loud Lou! “First things first, let us not jump ahead.”

“Do you men have any proof of this death camp talk or is this all just a rumor,” I asked.

Lou reached behind Tommy Mute and handed me a piece of paper from Rodney and said. “Here are some maintenance door codes, only Boson mates in brown jump suits have them, Cornelius. Rodney here has a brown suit in his quarters that will fit you. Rodney Dole will stand on the breezeway corner deck and give hand signals. Tommy and I both have a shore phone they work fine here in the harbor. We will be your look outs. Be sure not to face the camera on flight deck by the drink machines, it does have facial recognition software connected to it. Take your time Cornelius and check this out for yourself.”
 

“Cornelius, this is how the death camp system on the ship works or how it operates” explained Rodney. Our friend Rodney was a great sailor and a drummer and also hopelessly henpecked. He was famous for being thrown in the ships brig every three months at bonus time for drugs or alcohol. He was married to one of the band singers at the ships Gospel café. She had a habit of throwing him out and then begging him back when she got lonely. The couple was in a constant state of either breaking up or making up.
 
They would be constantly kissing or kicking, and or
  
slurping or slapping each other which wore on the nerves of everyone around them. Rodney drew on a napkin and said. “The bottom two front sections or the part before the college dorms eighty-eight cabins in all, these are the killing chambers,” explained Rodney. As he drew I sat holding my head in my hands. “Oh Lord,” I started to speak!

“Just listen, Cornelius,” interrupted Loud Lou. “Do not go into those rooms that would alert security. Motion sensitive lighting and cameras are installed. These codes will get you into the maintenance hallway between and below the killing floor rooms. Both showers, two in each room have bullet proof, soundproof, electric locking shower doors.
 
These showers can dispense a deadly gas and the floor then opens up and the shower flushes it’s self with hundreds of gallons of scalding hot water. A large fiberglass tube leads to a huge bus size garbage grinder in the bottom of the ship. The bodies are fish food never to be seen heard or thought of ever again. A clean up staff consisting of only two sailors then empty the rooms of luggage into an incinerator and then those ashes too are flushed at sea. Those old and unwanted people are now history, saving governments millions in social security payments, knee replacements, hip replacements, diabetic shots, all types of medical costs housing and food plus they take the family estates. This is big business. The world governments can’t collect enough tax money. The good of the many always outweighs the rights of the few when it comes to big government providing everything in life. You do the math son and see for yourself, it has to be that way.
    

I went to the maintenance door. I made double sure not to face that camera on deck. Tommy, Rodney and Lou kept watch. Sure enough large fiberglass tubes leading down from the rooms above to somewhere below; two becoming one from each shower were plainly visible. Could this be true I thought? Could the Worlds governments like Osoma and that guy in Germany who promise everything in the world to the poor?
 
Could
they
 
have
let their mouth over load their wallet by promising everything would be free. How could their stupid citizens believe all the lies? The ignorant uneducated people are successfully and easily controlled world wide. Slavery is common place Freedom is rare. Free men need Bible based
  
independent schools to remain free, this is truth! Today’s leaders are just as bad as the ones we studied in history. Well of course they are! Why would any one believe that men have changed and are better now than they used to be? Oh yes, I pondered and thought to myself; in the humanist religion or man becoming or evolving into a god. That’s what they believe. That man is getting better and smarter and does not need a redeemer. Modern man does not need Jesus or to be bought with his blood. That’s what is taught in government schools, just as did Stalin, Hitler, Castro, and Mao. What is this death camp evil I have become part of? Shooting Mexicans by the thousands with robot planes could I guess be argued even worst than death camps, but the “Mexicans” like our own Indians and the Africans never did really count. All were worthless people living worthless lives just like Osoma’s brother. These old people were real people who could read and write and speak clearly. They passed college boards, got married for life, washed their hands, prayed to God, played and made musical instruments loved their children, invented, manufactured, wrote poetry, worked hard, took showers, owned homes, used deodorant, and sailed ships. These people were just like me, even my very own. Back in my room changing clothes I thought about life and death and my heart grew heavy.