Phoenix Rising: (2 page)

As electricity was restored and fuel became available, life in southern Alabama was beginning to return to something that approximated normalcy. The motel-like structures that had been built inside the walls of Fort Morgan were all but abandoned as those who once occupied the temporary quarters were now moved into an area known as “The Dunes.” Here were thirty-eight large, multi-story beach homes built on stilts. In addition there were two seven-story condos each with seventy apartments.

Bob and Ellen Varney owned a house here and were permanent residents, as were James and Cille Laney. The other homes and condo units were the property of absent owners, most of whom were trapped up north. That left their places empty, so Jake and Karen moved into a house next door to the one occupied by Bob and Ellen. The other members of the Phoenix Group moved into unoccupied homes so that now The Dunes had taken on all the appearances of a small community.

With abundant fuel, a steady supply of electricity, and even more importantly, security and freedom from the oppressive SPS and Janissaries of Moqaddas Sirata, Gulf Shores began to come back. Once again stores were selling groceries, most of it locally produced vegetables, fruits, milk, eggs, and meat.

On this March evening the twenty three men and women of the Phoenix Group, plus George Gregoire, gathered on the beach. A pig had been cooking all day on one of the grills, and potatoes were roasting in a fire on the beach. Red and gold sparks were riding the rising heat waves into the sky to join with the stars that filled the black velvet.

“Okay, folks, the meat's ready,” Bob said, and everyone lined up as Bob began carving the pork.

“Whoa, this is good!” Deon Pratt said as he took his first bite. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“My dad owned a fish and barbeque market in Memphis,” Bob said. “I worked for him for a while after I retired from the army, until he fired me.”

Jake Lantz laughed. “You mean your own father fired you?”

“Yep.”

“What for?”

“You would have had to know my Dad. He wasn't what you would call a very understanding man.”

Ellen laughed. “You want to tell them why he really fired you?”

“It wasn't anything.”

“Tell them.”

“One day I wrapped up some fresh fish for a woman customer. I'm not that good at wrapping things, and she complained about it, said I had done a sloppy job. So my dad fired me.”

“For that?”

“No, it was for what he said to the woman,” Ellen said. “Tell them what you said.”

“What I said was . . . ‘What the hell, lady, you plannin' on mailin' those fish somewhere?' ”

The others laughed.

“Well, I'll remember not to have you wrap any fish for me,” Tom Jack said. “But you can barbeque for me anytime you want.”

 

 

“So, Major, where do we go from here?” Marcus asked.

“He's not a major, he's a general,” Willie corrected.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Marcus said. “And I'm a captain. Nothing like getting in on the ground floor when you start building a new army. But that brings me back to my question. What are we going to do with this new army?”

“Well, our primary mission is the primary mission of any army, and that's to protect the people,” Jake said.

“But in our case, I think you have an expanded mission,” Gregoire said.

“What would that be?” Jake asked.

“The mission hasn't changed. It's to take back America.”

“Well, yes, that would be the goal,” Jake said. “But for now it is more of a rallying cry than a reality.”

“We can make it a reality,” Gregoire said.

“Tell me, George, how many other groups have you heard from that are like us?” Bob asked.

“I have heard from survivalist groups all over the country, from as far away as Washington state, and as close to us here as Pensacola, Florida,” Gregoire replied. “But I know of no other group that is quite like this one. That's why I say that we can make take back America a reality. You people, that is, we,” he said, making a circular motion with his hand to take everyone in, “can be the core of the movement. I think we should expand, invite others to join us.”

“What do you think, Jake?”

“I know that there are pockets of military gathered on the old military posts,” Jake said. “If we could get all the other military groups to join us, we could probably put together an army that was big enough and strong enough to resist anything Ohmshidi might try.”

“I think we should go beyond just contacting the military,” Bob said.

“What do you have in mind?”

“The birth of a nation,” Bob said.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I'm very serious. Right now we are calling ourselves United Free America, I say we make it a reality.”

“Oh, yeah, I see it now. You're the president of UFA, so you're getting power hungry.”

“Well, let's face it, Jake, it's no fun being a president, unless you have something you can be president of,” Bob said, laughing.

“How would we go about doing something like that?” Tom asked.

“First thing is, we are going to have to come up with a concept. And a constitution.”

“What's wrong with the constitution we have?” Chris asked.

“Nothing that a few amendments won't cure,” Bob said.

“What kind of amendments?”

“I tell you what, I'll write up a few amendment proposals, and a code. Then I'll run them by all of you and see where we might go from there,” Bob suggested.

“Good idea,” Jake said.

“Before I go any further, I'd like to get a feel from this group. If we are going to start a new nation, then I look at you people as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Paine. You're our founding fathers.”

“Where does that leave me?” Deon asked. “There weren't any brothers who were founding fathers.”

“That's where you're wrong, Deon. There were as many as a thousand black soldiers who were wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill and one, Salem Poor, performed so well that he was given a citation signed by fourteen officers. No, if we do this, we are all in this together.”

“May I make the motion?” Sheri Jack asked.

“Absolutely, you may make the motion,” Bob said.

“I move that we reach out to others like us, and that we band together to form a new nation.”

“I second that motion,” Julie Norton said.

“All in favor?”

The vote was unanimous.

“Good,” Bob said with a broad smile. “Our future is laid out for us.”

“Now,” Jake said. “As long as we are gathered here, I've got an announcement to make, and an invitation to issue.”

Everyone stopped eating and chattering, and looked toward Jake.

“Karen has decided to make an honest man out of me. So one week from now, we are going to be married. You are all invited.”

Jake's announcement was met with an enthusiastic response, and congratulations.

Judge Roy Moreton had made national news back in the pre-O time by allowing the Nativity scene to be erected on the courthouse grounds. When he refused to remove it, even after a federal court order, he was arrested, and removed from the bench.

He was one of the first judges to offer his service to the fledgling group of freedom fighters once the Phoenix Rising group broke away, and it was he who issued marriage licenses to Jake Lantz and Karen Dawes. Father Ken Coats conducted the wedding at Holy Spirit, which was particularly meaningful since it was a meeting at Holy Spirit that had allowed the little group of survivalists to expand beyond their initial base at Fort Morgan, to encompass all of Pleasure Island.

After the wedding, a reception was held in the parish hall.

“Hey, Major, I've got something for you,” Deon Pratt said. “It's a wedding present.”

Jake Lantz was no longer a major. In fact, in a recent organization of their group, Jake had been made a general in the provisional army of United Free America, but Deon, a martial arts and weapons expert, was one of the original members of the group. And because Deon had served with Jake in the pre-O days of the US Army, he often called him major, as did the others of the original group.

“You didn't have to get us anything, Deon. Just having you here is enough.”

“Oh, this isn't for both of you. It's just for you,” Deon said. He was carrying a paper sack, and reaching down inside, he pulled out a can of root beer.

“Oh, my God!” Jake said. “I can't believe it! A root beer? Where did you find it?”

“It?” Deon said. He laughed. “It's not just ‘it.' Tell him, Captain. Or should I say, Mrs. Lantz?”

“We now have a whole case of root beer back at the house,” she said.

“It's been almost two years,” Jake said. He popped the top of the can, and it began to spew out. He covered the spew with his mouth, quickly, so as not to lose any of it.

“Jake, it's hot. Don't you want it cool first?” Karen asked.

“Hot, cold, it doesn't matter,” Jake said and, as he turned the can up to his lips, the others laughed and applauded.

“Where are you two going on your honeymoon?” Barbara Carter asked. Barbara was a very pretty girl with long blond hair and big brown eyes. Eighteen years old now, she was seventeen when she and 96 other youngsters were rescued from Youth Confinement and Enlightenment Center Number 25. Barbara now worked as a secretary for Jake.

“I don't know,” Jake replied with a smile. “I heard about this place called Fort Morgan, which I understand is right on the beach. That might be a pretty good place to go for a honeymoon.”

Barbara laughed. “It might be.”

Barbara left and Jake took another swallow of his root beer. His love for the soft drink was well known, and in the pre-O time he always kept a refrigerator full of the beverage.

“When Deon told me he had found a source for that, I knew it would make you happy,” Karen said.

“A source? You mean there's more?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic.” Jake took another swallow, then looked at Karen. “Are you upset that we aren't really going on a honeymoon?”

Karen laughed. “Jake, it isn't like we have to get to know each other now, is it? We've been sleeping together for three years.”

“Shhh! You would say that in a church?”

“You mean you would rather me lie?”

“Ha. I guess not.”

Bob Varney came over to congratulate them.

“Thanks,” Jake said. He held up the can of root beer. “Did you hear? Deon found a source for this.”

“This is your wedding day, but you're excited because you've got root beer?” Bob teased.

“Bob, you wouldn't tease if you knew how addicted he was to the stuff,” Karen said.

“Well, yeah, but you've had almost two years to go cold turkey. You'd think it would have kicked the habit by now.”

“You'd think,” Jake said.

To anyone who might happen by, the little cabin that sat on top of the hill was typical of many of the structures in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri. Far enough in distance from the major metropolises of the country, this area had been spared the riots and the encroachment of the Moqaddas Sirata. People who lived here were as self-supporting now as they had been 150 years ago.

The house was small, with wide, weathered-gray board siding. The asphalt shingle roof was missing a few of the shingles, and on the front porch was an old sofa with some of the stuffing and springs exposed. A wheelbarrow, without the wheel, was leaning against the front porch, and a 1998 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, once blue but now rusted and faded, without hood, engine, or wheels, sat on cinder blocks in the front yard. Under the window was a flower box with carefully tended flowers. A sign in front read:

The little house was a ruse. Inside the house, a hidden button would open a trapdoor in the floor that led down to an elevator chamber. The elevator went on down one hundred feet into the mountain where there was a 10,000 square foot living area, completely self-sustained with a small, nuclear power plant, a deep well, a radar alert system, cold storage of foods, with satellite Internet coverage that fed a dozen computer monitors. The numbers on the dedicated monitors reported the latest stock reports from the stock exchanges of Tokyo, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Toronto, BM&F, Bovespa, Australian Securities, and Deutsche Borse. In addition there was an entertainment system of more than 10,000 movies.

This was the home of Warren Sorroto, the wealthiest man in the world.

Warren Sorroto had been born Greygor Sorkosky in Hungry, in 1930. His Jewish family was killed by the Nazis, but before they were caught up in the pogrom they managed to put their son with a non-Jewish family. During the war Sorroto, who was using the name of his adoptive family, earned money by helping the Nazis locate Jews who were trying to survive by assuming new identities.

In 1947, Sorroto went to college in England. After graduating from college, he immigrated to the United States where he began working in various financial companies, rising in importance and investing wisely until he started his own company, SIM, or Sorroto Investment Management. He began making massive amounts of money by manipulating currency. When he sold short some ten billion British Pounds, he created a financial crisis that shook England to its core, bankrupting businesses and families. But Sorroto profited to the tune of two billion dollars, in one day.

By the time Ohmshidi ran for president, Sorroto was worth twenty billion dollars, but in Ohmshidi, he saw an opportunity to make an unheard of amount of money. Sorroto manipulated the stock market, creating a crash that reflected badly on the outgoing president, who was of the opposite party, and he put a billion dollars into Ohmshidi's campaign, both by direct and bundled contribution. His Visible People Foundation and News Freedom Group managed to influence the Mainstream Media to produce and publish news stories that presented Ohmshidi in the most favorable light, but were detrimental to his opponent.

Writers for the late night talk shows were paid by Sorroto to write jokes that were critical of the man running against Ohmshidi, and when there were jokes about Ohmshidi, they lacked the cutting edge of those told about his opponent. On election day, Sorroto paid poll “guards” to stand in front of polls. He hired muscular black men, dressed them in black, military-style uniforms, and had them carry nightsticks. They were trained to profile the voters, and they were menacing, almost confrontational, to the middle-aged, white men who appeared to be affluent, while deferential to the younger voters, both men and women, to the minority voters, and to the voters who looked somewhat less successful.

When Ohmshidi won the election, mainstream media complimented him on his brilliant campaign. There were very few who realized that his election had been bought and manipulated by Warren Sorroto, perhaps because so many of them were feeding at the same trough.

As soon as Ohmshidi was elected, Sorroto began, immediately, to put his grand scheme into operation. The success of his scheme depended upon him staying in the background. Never once during the election did Sorroto give an interview in which he supported Ohmshidi. And, since the interview, he managed to keep his meetings with Ohmshidi so secret that not even Ohmshidi's chief of staff was aware of the connection.

Sorroto's first move was to convince Ohmshidi to stop all fossil fuel production, including coal, oil, and gas. He also persuaded him to stop refining, and even to halt the importation of oil or gasoline. To do so, he promised, would, by necessity, bring about the development of eco-friendly green and renewable energy.

“Just think, Mr. President. Your legacy to the world can be to free mankind of the climate destroying fossil fuels,” he said.

It did no such thing, and Sorroto knew that it wouldn't. It did, however, accomplish exactly what Sorroto wanted it to accomplish. He had cornered the market in fossil fuels and made over fifty billion dollars within a matter of months. It totally destroyed America's free enterprise system and Sorroto played it just right, riding the crest of the collapsing economy and earning another fifty billion dollars which he managed to convert into Swiss Francs and other foreign currencies, just before the final crash came. With 99 percent of Americans wiped out financially, Sorroto now had deposited in offshore accounts Swiss Francs, British Pounds, Eurodollars, Japanese Yen, Chinese Yuan, and Russian rubles, an amount of money equal to over two hundred billion dollars in pre-O currency.

Sorroto had manipulated Ohmshidi into bringing about the collapse of the nation because he planned to move in and, with a massive infusion of funds, rebuild America. While saving America, he would have himself appointed as “Director of Recovery,” which position would, in effect, give him unlimited power as well as access to the recovery money. Through his manipulation, America would once more be the most powerful nation in the world, but this time with Sorroto as the supreme authority of the land. That would make Sorroto the most powerful man in the world.

What Sorroto had not anticipated however, was the action of the Moqaddas Sirata sect of Islam. Taking advantage of the weakened position of America, brought on by Sorroto's activities, the Moqaddas Sirata detonated three nuclear bombs on American soil. That brought about an immediate collapse of the United States. Sorroto's carefully laid out plan had to be altered.

Almost immediately after the nuclear blasts occurred, Sorroto left his home in Philadelphia, retreating to the place he had already built in Missouri. Sorroto didn't live in his hideaway home alone. He had brought with him a household staff to see to his every need. Sorroto had no sexual needs. Some might think that he had no needs because of his age, but in truth Sorroto had always been asexual. His drive was for money and power, and he saw the current conditions not as a detriment, but as a stepping stone to his ultimate goal of becoming the most powerful man in the world.

Sorroto was connected to the rest of the world through the Internet, and he was able to get, not only the Moqaddas Sirata telecasts, but the outlaw telecasts as well. He had followed the change in America, had watched on television as churches were burned, and “infidels” were killed. What was happening in America didn't particularly bother him, the weaker the country became, the easier it would be for him to reassert himself and continue with his grand scheme of things. He knew that the national conversion to Islam was very thin, done only to have access to goods and services, and to avoid being killed.

Some might think it the height of conceit for Sorroto to think that he could take over an entire country, but if Sorroto decided to declare himself a nation, he would be the 50th wealthiest nation in the world. He knew, though, that if he intended to play on this world stage, he would have to have nuclear weapons.

And he had already put that into motion.

Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Trutnev was a gambler and was now so badly in debt that it threatened his career. If word of his indebtedness and addiction to gambling got to his commander, Colonel Vladimir Shaporin, he would be kicked out of the military. Trutnev was deputy commander of the Tenth Battalion of the Tamanskya Division, and therein might be his salvation. Ivan Buzinsky, a taxi driver who had himself once been an officer in the army of the old Soviet Union, hinted to Trutnev a couple of weeks earlier that he knew how to make a lot of money.

Trutnev cut him off quickly, because he had an idea of what Buzinsky was talking about. But he had received a telephone call last night from someone to whom he owed a great deal of money, a man who was connected to what people were calling the Russian Mafia.

That cryptic message sent him into Moscow today, to find his friend Buzinsky.

“So,” Buzinsky said, when Trutnev got into his cab. “You are willing to talk to me now about my offer.” It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

“Yes,” Trutnev said.

Buzinsky chuckled. “I thought getting a telephone call from Klokov might change your mind.”

“Wait a minute. You know about the telephone call? How do you know?”

“I'll just say this,” Buzinsky said. “I'm not the only one involved in this thing. There are some people who are very powerful who are also involved. And if you help us, they can help you, with much more than just money.”

“Buzinsky, what is your role in this?”

“Let's just say that I am the facilitator,” Buzinsky said. “I will get paid when I put you in contact with the person who can make all this happen.”

“Well, let me ask you this. Does this have anything to do with the fact that I am the deputy commander of a nuclear missile battalion?”

Buzinsky laughed. “You don't think anyone would be interested in you for your good looks, do you?”

The taxi stopped.

“Why have you stopped here?”

“I think you might enjoy a steam bath,” Buzinsky said.

“I don't want a . . .”

“I think you do,” Buzinsky said, pointedly. “Go into chamber number one. There you will meet Boris.”

“What is his surname?”

“There is no need for you to know that.”

“I see.” Trutnev started to pay for the ride.

“There is no charge. I think we will do business and then we will both make money.”

Trutnev stepped out of the car, then looked at the two story building at 14 Neglinnay Ulista. He entered the building through the squared off corner.

Inside, the hostess at the desk was an unattractive woman with a square chin and eyebrows so heavy that they practically met in the middle. A cigarette dangled precariously from her lips, and when she spoke, Trutnev feared that it might fall from her mouth.

“Sixteen hundred rubles,” she said.

“Sixteen hundred?” Trutnev gasped. “So expensive?”

“This is the Sanduny Banya. It has been here for over one hundred years. It is the most famous sauna in all of Russia.”

“It looks as if it has been here for over one hundred years,” Trutnev said. “All right, here is the money.”

Trutnev gave the woman the money, then passed through a light blue stucco entrance hall, up one flight of stairs to the changing room. There he was served a cup of tea, then stripping down, he wrapped himself in a towel. There were four steam chambers, and as Buzinsky said, he chose chamber number one. There were four men in the steam room, but one man, with grey hair and a bushy mustache, spoke.

“Leave now,” he said.

Three of the others got up and started toward the door and Trutnev started after them.

“You stay, Trutnev,” the man said.

“Boris?”

“Sit,” Boris invited.

Trutnev sat in the chamber, surrounded by hot steam, and he began to sweat. For a long moment neither man said anything.

“When you leave, you will find a thumb drive in the pocket of your trousers,” Boris said. “Insert the thumb drive into the inventory computer of your battalion. Use it to replace the information that is on the inventory, then remove the thumb drive and destroy it.”

“There was uh, some talk about money,” Trutnev said.

“In addition to the thumb drive, you will find a packet of one hundred thousand rubles.”

“That's . . . not enough to pay what I owe.”

“You owe nothing. Your debts have been paid.”

“Oh, thank you, Boris! Thank you!” Trutnev said.

“Do not fail us.”

“I won't. I'll do as you say.”