Phoenix Rising: (52 page)

Ann McPherson and Sally Mosley had been in jail for six weeks now, and Sally was beginning to have serious bouts of morning sickness, with vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss.

“I have read about this,” Ann said. “I think you are having something called
hyperemesis gravi-darum.
It is a particularly virulent type of morning sickness. You should be in a hospital.”

“Women are not allowed to go to the hospital, you know that,” Sally replied, her voice so weak that it could barely be heard.

“Then you need to get out of jail so you can go home. You need rest, and you need to keep yourself hydrated.”

“Believe me, I want nothing more in the world, than to go home. But there is nothing I can do about that.”

“Maybe you can't,” Ann said. “But I believe I can.”

“Let me understand this,” Major Fatih said, after Ann was brought to him. “You are willing to confess your guilt?”

“Yes, I have prayed to Allah, and I feel that I must do this if I am to be blessed.”

“All right, what do you confess?”

“The first thing I confess is that Sally Mosley is innocent. She knew nothing about what her husband, my brother, and I were doing.”

“How is it that she could not know? She was married to Carl Mosley.”

“Yes, she was married to him. But I was sleeping with him.”

Fatih looked up in surprise at the words. “You were committing adultery with another woman's husband?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you confessing this now?”

“Because she is in the cell next to my cell and as I see her there, the guilt of what I have done is heavy on my heart. I have prayed to Allah, and I believe I must confess these sins so that when I go to heav . . . I mean paradise, I will do so with an unburdened heart.”

“But you will not go to paradise,” Fatih said. “You have committed the sin of adultery. You will go to hell.”

“Then, if I am to go to hell, I will know that, by confessing my sin and clearing Sally's name, I will leave this earth having done the right thing.”

That evening Ohmshidi and Franken were in the Yellow Oval sitting room of the presidential quarters, watching television. On a table between them was a silver platter filled with
naan berenji
, a rice and poppyseed cookie. Earlier, Franken had told Ohmshidi that the news program tonight would be of special interest, and that he might enjoy watching it.

Ohmshidi picked up a cookie and began eating as the program opened with a full screen shot of the new national flag, The words
CMN, America Enlightened Truth Television
were keyed onto the screen, replaced by the words
Obey Ohmshidi
, then a reverent voice over intoned the opening lines.

The newscaster, a bearded man, was staring directly into the camera.

The picture on the screen showed the two women bound and gagged, standing side by side. Their eyes were open wide, and their faces reflected the fear of the moment.

Standing to one side was a bare-chested and muscular-looking man. The man was wearing a black hood.

“Allah hu akbar!”
someone shouted off camera, and the muscle-bound man made a wide, sweeping swing of the scimitar against the neck of Sally Mosley. Her head was completely severed and her body, with blood gushing from the stump of her neck, fell forward. Her head rolled away from the body.

The executioner stepped up to Ann, who closed her eyes tightly.

Again, the executioner swung the scimitar. This time the head came forward, but the body fell backward.

Laying down the scimitar, the executioner grabbed the two heads by the hair, then held them up, allowing the camera to come in close, focusing on them one at a time.

“These
naan berenji
are very good,” Ohmshidi said, picking up a second cookie. “Have another.”

“Thank you, Glorious Leader,” Franken said.

“Major Ahib Fatih, in charge of the Janissaries who broke this case had this comment to make,”
the newscaster said.

The picture on screen was that of Fatih.

“See to it that Major Fatih is given a medal,” Ohmshidi said.

“Yes, Glorious Leader.”

Now the picture onscreen was of a somber-looking walled compound.

The picture on screen changed to that of a man with dark hair and beard, wearing traditional Muslim clothing.

The next images to show on the screen were of the Civic Center in Mobile, Alabama.

The picture on the screen showed several men and women greeting each other in front of the Convention Center. The camera moved in on the sign.

“Why are they showing these pictures?” Ohmshidi asked angrily. “Get them off the screen at once. And warn them never to show such pictures again!”

Franken made a telephone call and within seconds, the pictures of the constitutional convention taking place in Mobile were gone from the screen.

“Uh, and that concludes our broadcast,”
the clearly nervous news anchor said.
“Obey Ohmshidi.”

After the constitution with the additional amendments and the platform were voted on and adopted came the business of getting a new country started. Bob was chairing the meeting, which consisted of Jake and Karen, Tom and Sheri Jack, Deon Pratt and Julie Norton, Marcus and Becky Warner, Chris Carmack and Kathy York, James and Cille DeLaney, and Willie Stark.

“You, here, represent the core group . . . the ones who started everything. So I don't believe there can be any discussion of organizing the nation of United Free America without your participation.”

At that moment, Barbara Carter stepped into the meeting room. “Excuse the interruption, but there is a phone call for General Lantz.”

“Tell whoever it is that I'll call back,” Jake said.

“It's Governor Wallace from South Carolina,” Barbara said. “He said it was urgent.”

“Take the call, Jake. We won't get started until you get back,” Bob promised.

Jake nodded, then excused himself.

A moment later he came back into the room with a pained look on his face.

“What is it, Jake?”

“A rebel firebase in South Carolina was just wiped out.”

“State Protective Service?”

“No, it was locals.”

“Locals?”

“Evidently they had recruited, armed, and trained some locals, and they turned on them,” Jake said.

“Damn, that doesn't sound good, to have your own people turn on you. How reliable is this information?”

“Very reliable. It seems that before they attacked the firebase, they turned on their own men who wouldn't join them. One of them survived, then got hold of Major Tobin who is the area commander. Tobin took a team over to check it out and found them all dead.”

“How did you hear about it?”

Jake nodded toward the other room. “That was the governor of South Carolina on the phone. He wants to talk to you, by the way. He left a number for us to call.”

“All right, have Willie make the connection, and pipe it in here on the speaker phone.

No more than a minute later, Willie knocked on the door.

“Mr. President, General, I've got Governor Wallace on the phone.”

“Thanks, Willie.” Bob pushed the button on the speaker. “Governor Wallace, Bob Varney here.”

“Thank you for taking my call,” Wallace said. “I'm sure you've heard what happened here. We lost several good men today.”

“Yes, we just got the word,” Bob said. “I'm sorry for your loss, and for the families of the men who were killed.”

“The reason I wanted to talk to you, Mr. President, is because I'm wondering what sort of military support you can give us.”

“Are you asking to join our federation?” Bob asked.

There was a long pause at the other end of the conversation. “I wish I could say that. I wish we had been able to send a delegation,” he said. “But right now our state is very heavily divided
. . .
almost half didn't want to secede in the first place. And there is no stronger evidence for that than the fact that Captain Lumsden and his team were killed by other South Carolinians, men that we had armed and trained. And of the sixty percent or so who were willing to secede, there is almost an even split against joining any other federation.

“What I was hoping for was, perhaps, a military aid program of some sort, you know, allies, like England and the US during World War Two.”

“I'm going to let General Lantz handle that question, Larry,” Bob said.

“Governor, this is Jake Lantz.”

“Yes, we just spoke, it's good to speak with you again.”

“Here is our problem, Governor. As I'm sure you may realize we have only just begun to consolidate our scattered military assets into one cohesive army. So committing troops right now isn't practical. I hope that soon we will be able to do that. In the meantime I have a suggestion. We have quite a large inventory of UAV Predators. If you are willing to allow it, I can establish a UAV presence over your state.”

“Yes!” Governor Wallace said. “Yes, thank you! That would be wonderful!”

“All right, I'll get that set up.”

“Governor, it's me again,” Bob said.

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“I know that you don't think you can convince your entire state to join us, but we plan to meet again on October 15th. Perhaps you might send a nonvoting delegation to that meeting to observe.”

“Yes, I would love to,” Governor Wallace said. “October 15th, Mobile?”

“Yes.”

“We will have a delegation there, and again, I thank you.”

“You are very welcome, Governor,” Bob said. “And, in the meantime, see what you can do to convince those who are opposed to the notion that joining with us, in full partnership with the other states, might be a good thing for you to do.”

“I am fully convinced,” Governor Wallace said. “And I will see what I can do about bringing others on board, at least enough to give us a majority.”