The Chosen (9 page)

Chapter 14

I
t had been
nine
weeks
since Michael and Jeff had been arrested. So much had happened that Kris felt as if she were living in some sort of surreal alternate universe. In less than twenty-four hours after Keith made the call to Moshe
,
Karyn and the children landed in Tel Aviv. They were gone so quickly that Kris did not even
have time to say a proper good
by
e
. Moshe’s contact had arrived at the house in the middle of the night
when
the children were all asleep. Kris and Karyn had roused Faith and Seth and hurriedly dressed them for the journey, but Mitch was still fast asleep when they left.
Kris was glad for that. I
f
he had held out his arms for her and cried, she did not know how she would have been able to
endure
it. As it was, when she handed him to Karyn, he was sleeping so deeply that his little mouth had formed a perfect “O” and was making nursing motions. “It’s true,” Kris thought, “your heart can break,” for she was perfectly sure that she could feel her
s
tearing apart.

As soon as Karyn and the children were gone Kris and Keith had quickly removed every trace of evidence that the eight of them had lived there. They stuffed everything into the back of Keith’s Jeep and headed east on the dirt road that led
to the trailer outside St. George where they had lived previously.
The following morning Keith had burned everything that the two of them did not need. As Kris watched the tiny stuffed lamb that Mitch had left behind go up in smoke she felt as if she wanted to die.

Since going to St. George, she had been unsuccessful in finding out anything about Michael and Jeff’s whereabouts. Twice Keith had driven her to a commuter train station, and she had taken the train, followed by the bus, to the regional Homeland Security office, but during both of these visits her requests for information had been rebuffed. The cold look in the eyes of the government agents who informed her that her husband and brother-in-law were
threats to national security
filled her heart with dread and fear.

Now
,
as she sat drinking coffee at the trailer’s dilapidated table she had the sense that perhaps nothing that she remembered since the night she and Keith had escaped from the FMPD in Phoenix had really happened. She held out her left arm and examined it to see whether it was really hers. It looked like her arm, and when she pinched it with the fingers of her right hand, she felt the sensation. Nevertheless, nothing seemed real.
“
What if I’m a mental patient locked away in a tiny
padded cell?” she thought. “What if Michael and Mitch a
re
only
creations
of
my
sick mind?”

As
she entertained these thoughts, she heard
a
knock at the door. Keith had taken off on his motorcycle early that morning, so she was alone. The sound made her jump
,
and her heart began to pound as she rose and walked to the door. When she opened it a crack, she gasped; for a second or two she was certain that the man standing on the steps was Michael.

“I’m Moshe Linton,” the man said. “May I come in?”

Kris quickly threw
open
the door
,
and the man entered the trailer. Moshe was a couple of inches shorter than Michael and a few pounds lighter
. His eyes were dark brown and his thick short hair was almost entirely gray, but he looked so much like his brother that Kris could hardly take her eyes off him. “I’m Kris, Michael’s wife,” she said as she extended her hand, “but you already know that, don’t you?”

Moshe smiled and, again, Kris was struck by the resemblance he
bore
to her husband.
“How did you find me here?” Kris asked. Moshe
ignored
her question.

“I have a message for you from Michael,”
Mos
he said.
“
He is being detained at a federal facility near Baltimore.
Yesterday, I was able to get in
to
see him. He and your sister’s husband are alright for now, but unless you move quickly, they will both die.”

“But, you can get them out?” Kris
asked
with more conviction than she felt.

“No, I can’t. If I could, they would be out already, but I can’t. That’s up to you. If Michael and Jeff are to be saved, it will be because you find a way to save them.”

“But they let you visit them. You must have some authority.”

“No one let me visit them. I impersonated an ECA agent and managed to talk to them for about ten minutes. By now they know that
I
’
m
not an agent; I can’t go back. It’s a
maximum security
facility and virtually esca
pe-proof.”

“What is the message?” Kris asked.

Moshe reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

Kris and Moshe seated themselves at the table, and with trembling hands, Kris unfolded the letter and began to read, “Kris, I must make this message short and say only the things that are most important at this time. First, I want you to know that I love you and Mitch more than anything in the world. When you came into my life, I had been alone in my grief for such a long time that I did not believe that I would ever know happiness again.
But
God gave you to me as
a precious gift for this time, and you took away my sorrow and turned my mourning into joy. Then when Mitch was born, in spite of the dangerous circumstances in which we were living, I was once again overcome by
the magnitude of
God’s love—that He would send me a son in such a time as this.

“Now, the three of us have been separated, but we are never alone. God has brought us this far, and He will never desert us. He has a purpose in all of this. I believe that
H
e has given us each other and our little son so that we will find the courage to fight for what is right—even though victory no longer seems possible. The fight has now come to you, Kris.
Mitch is a baby, and
I am in chains
; you are the only one who can secure the victory. Fight for the God-given rights that were bestowed on this nation by our
C
reator. Fight for Freedom. Fight for the Constitution. Fight for the laws of our country.”
    

Kris wiped the tears from her eyes and turned to face Moshe. His chair was empty. She opened the trailer door and called his name. There was no answer. She looked up and down the road, but there was no sign of him. He was gone.
          

“The fight has now come to me?...”
Kris reread Michael’s note.  “What am I supposed to do?” She tried to think of her husband’s voice, of his face, of the hope that he had always inspired in her. Her mind drifted back to his stories about the Maccabees. He had told them
to
the
whole
family at the Hanu
k
kah celebration, but he had often
talked
about the Maccabees
to her privately. Michael was the descendant of the great family of warriors who had saved their nation from one of
the
cruelest tyrants
the world has ever known
.
That
s
eemed to give
Michael’s
life purpose—it appeared to inspire the courage that
fuel
ed everything he did. That sense of destiny was part of what had attracted her to him in the first place—it
had
contrasted so profoundly with
her own
utter lack of direction.

But now.
.
.now he was gone. Everyone was gone.  And those stories he
h
ad so often repeated were just
that
—
old
stories no different
from
the t
ales of Robert Bruce or William
Tell or any of the other legend
ary hero
es
she had read
about
in school. She could not even read
about the Maccabees
in her Protestant
Bible—to her those
accounts
were not even scripture. They were just tales from long ago of the exploits of
a group of
people who had been dead for
more than
two thousand years.

Kris walked aimlessly around the
outside
of
the trailer.  Keith did not
like for
her
to go
outside—although he
rode
his motorcycle for hours at a stretch. Still
,
she could not
bear
the claustrophobic effects of the trailer right at this moment. She needed to be outside where her prayers could
fly
straight up to God. As she walked down the small path that Keith had carved with his motorcycle she read the note over and over and tried to form a prayer in her mind. She could not even think of what to pray, until finally she said aloud, “Oh, Lord, what am I supposed to do? You gave me my husband and my baby and they are both gone. And now Michael is telling me that I need to fight for him. I don’t even know where to start.  I’m not a Maccabee; I’m not anything special; I’m just a real estate agent. My ancestors were farmers and seamstresses. I don’t have any idea what to do, and I don’t have any way to help
him. Please, if there is anything I can do for
my husband
, please show me what it is.”

Kris remained
out
side
for what seemed like hours repeating some version of th
at
same prayer over and over with no results. Finally, she saw that the sun was
sink
ing
low in the sky
,
and she headed back
to
the trailer. As her foot touched the
bottom
step, one single thought came into her mind as clearly as if it had been broadcast over a loudspeaker, “Find Lena St. Clair.”

Chapter 15

B
oth Lena’s mobile phone number and the number on her card for the American Freedom Coalition had been disconnected. Kris hated to do it, but if she were to h
ave any chance of finding
her
,
she would need to drive to her house and see if she could catch her at home. Lena was not in the phone directory, but a search of the Central Appraisal District records gave Kris
her
address.

It was a long shot—visiting Lena’s house in the middle of the day during the middle of the week might, if she were lucky, put her in touch with the housekeeper, but it was unlikely that she would find Lena at home. The drive hardly seemed worth the effort. Then Kris thought again of Michael and Jeff. If she could find somebody who could help them, it would be worth following any lead.

Climbi
ng back into the Jeep, she drove to Lena’s address in Chandler.  Keith’s Jeep was not equipped with GPS, but Kris did not need it—she had spent almost two decades selling real estate in this
area
, and she could find her way around.

She pulled to a stop outside the St. Clair’s stucco, custom
built home with its beautifully
cared-
for lawn and desert plants. She had sat with Lena at the closing table the day that Lena had signed the papers to obtain the financing to have this home built. That day neither of them could have imagined how much their lives would change in the next few years.

A pretty young black woman in her early twenties opened the door. “I’m Kris Linton; I used to be Kris Mitchell; I’m looking for Lena St. Clair.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong house,” the young woman responded. “They moved away; I’m just leasing the house from them.”

Kris studied the woman carefully.  She looked like a younger version of Lena—with some of Ed mixed in. Lena and Ed had a daughter who would now be about this woman’s age. She had to be a relative, and if she were a relative, she would know where to find them.

The woman was going to close the door in Kris’ face, but Kris blocked her from doing so. “Look, I don’t want to be a bother, but I really need to talk to Lena. I’m only in town for today.  I would like to leave you my phone number and ask that if you hear from her you ask her to call me.”

The young woman looked at Kris suspiciously, but she took the card, and then she did close the door. Kris had written her burner cell number on it—maybe Lena would call; maybe not. What should she do now? She couldn’t just remain in Phoenix hoping for a phone call.  Should she wait, or should she head back to St. George?  She had a seven hour drive ahead of her.

Ten minutes later, while she was still pondering what she should do, her phone rang. The incoming number was
blocked, and normally that meant that Kris would not answer it, but this time she had a feeling…

“Hello,” she answered cautiously.

“Kris, this is Lena.” Lena’s usually friendly
tone
sounded guarded. “I got a message that you were trying to reach me. It’s good to hear from you. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine. Thank you for calling me back. I
need
to talk to you.  I’m in town for a few hours, and I was hoping that we could have dinner together. Same place as last time?” Kris was hoping very much that Lena remembered where they had last eaten lunch.  The women had not seen each other in
three
years, and Kris did not want to advertise the fact that she was back in Phoenix to anyone who might be monitoring her call.

“That would be great,” Lena answered, “but I have plans for dinner. If you can meet me in an hour I can have a drink with you, but that’s all I can do right now.”

“That’s fine. I’ll see you in an hour.” One hour would give Kris time to get to
The Gourmet
and be seated before Lena arrived. Lena sounded so strange on the phone. Kris had never doubted that her friend would help her, but after speaking with her, those hopes had already begun to fade.

As Kris pulled into the restaurant parking lot, she remembered the last time she had been there with
Lena—so much had changed in the intervening
years. After parking the Jeep, she went inside and got a table. She did not have to wait long.

Lena had changed. Kris had seen
her
many times over the years during some very stressful points in both of their lives, but she had never seen Lena look the way she did today. Although a seasoned former intelligence officer, Lena appeared stressed and nervous about their meeting.  She was
obviously not in the mood for chit-chat, so Kris
wen
t straight to the point.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Lena. I’m here because I got married
a couple of
year
s ago
.  He’s a very good man—a doctor.  We both worked for the Federal Municipal Planning Division, and we both left our jobs at the same time. We now have a child. A few weeks ago, Michael and my brother-in-law Jeff were arrested.  The government says that they
’
ve been arrested and detained because they are domestic terrorists, and they pose a threat to national security, but that’s not true.  Neither Michael nor Jeff is a terrorist or has any connections to terrorism. But I can’t get in to see them.  The government claims that under the National Defense Authorization Act it has the right to imprison them indefinitely without a trial.  I don’t know what to do.  That’s why I called you. I was hoping that you could interview me on your show and help me through the American Freedom Coalition….”

Lena relaxed a little. She
knew that
Kris was telling the truth about her reasons for getting in touch. “Kris, the show is off the air, and The American Freedom Coalition is closed.”

Kris stared at her as the realization of what she was hearing sank in. Lena and her organization were the only leads that Kris had for getting Michael and Jeff out of jail.  Her name was the only one Kris had been able to think of.  If AFC were closed, she had nowhere to go.

“What?  Why?  What happened?”

“A few months ago the IRS revoked the tax exempt status of all non-profit organizations which were connected in any way to conservatism, Christianity or promoting patriotism.  They also revoked the tax exempt status of all small unaffiliated independent religious organizations. Then they announced that the revocation was retroactive for the
past two years, and they confiscated all of our furnishings and equipment to cover the back taxes we suddenly owed. Since then, various officers have disappeared without a trace. Last week my former assistant vanished between her home and her child’s kindergarten. There’s no way to find out what happened to them; I know that any day now it’s going to be me. I thought you were here to have me arrested too.  I almost didn’t come.”

Kris sat staring at her friend absorbing this new bit of news.  “I had no idea. Why did you come?”

“Because I kept thinking about it, and I thought I was supposed to. But I can’t stay long. Ed and I had to move out of our home. We’re leaving the state tonight, and we can’t let
anybody know where we’re going.”

“The girl who answered your door; she was your daughter Lexy, wasn’t she?” 

Lena looked uncomfortable, but she nodded. “We had to leave so suddenly that we were afraid that we would tip off anyone who was watching the house. So we walked away without taking anything with us and told her to tell anyone who came asking about us that we had moved and were leasing the house to her.  She’ll join us as soon as we’re in a safe place. We haven’t told anyone where we’re going—not even Lexy. If anyone here recognizes me and follows me, I’m as good as dead—or disappeared, which is pretty much the same thing.”

Kris stared down at the table. Lena reached over and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Kris. There’s nothing we can do now but try to keep our heads down. The American people don’t care about what’s happening. I tried to tell them—a lot of us tried, but it didn’t do any good. There’s nowhere to turn.”

“Lena, the American people don’t know what’s happening. I know they’ve been warned over and over again, but they don’t really know. I didn’t know until I was living it—and even now I can’t believe all of this is happening. But even if every person in the whole world knew and they were all okay with it, what’s happening would still be wrong. My husband is
not
a terrorist. My brother-in-
law is
not
a terrorist. There has to be a way to get them out of prison.  I just don’t know what it is.”

“I don’t know what it is either, Kris. The NDAA gives the federal government power to arrest and detain any person as a terrorist without proof and without trial.  The last show that we did before we were taken off the air was about the powers that the government has under NDAA.  It’s horrifying, but it’s the law.”

Kris looked directly at Lena. “It shouldn’t be the law.  It’s unconstitutional. The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to a trial by a jury of their peers—
that’s
the law. Any law that says anything else violates the Constitution.  The last words my husband ever said to me were, ‘Fight for the laws of our country.’ The laws of our country say that Michael and Jeff cannot be imprisoned indefinitely without a trial. I need
to find
a way to fight for that right.”

“Write down this number,” Lena told her. “410-555-5555.” 

Kris excitedly copied the number onto a scrap of paper.  “Whose number is it?”

“It’s a burner cell. But, Kris, listen to me because this is very important: DO NOT call or text this number on any mobile phone that you have ever used before—that includes burner cells.

“The Feds now require stores to register all disposable phones that they sell and send the registration information to the ECA. When you leave here today, I want you to drive to Queens Creek.
Go to 5645
Main
Street; there’s
a mobile phone store
there
that sells burner cell phones. For a
n
additional charge they
’
ll sell you one that they will not register. Go in, and ask for the special anniversary edition. It will cost you about twice as much, but they won’t ask you for any registration information. Pay for it with cash, and get out of the store as fast as you can. After you are out of the area, text me the number to the number I just gave you. I’ll send you back the name and number of someone who may be able to help you.  That’s all I can do, and I can’t stay here any longer. You should go too. You don’t want to risk being recognized.” With that, Lena picked up her purse and walked out of the restaurant. Kris paid cash for her iced tea and then went out and got into the Jeep and headed to Queen’s Creek to find the mobile phone store.

An hour later Kris pulled up in front of a mobile phone store nestled in the corner of a rundown shopping center. The clerk looked at her suspiciously as she walked through the door—the hostile nature of the employees suggested that this store might be more of a money laundering operation than a money-making enterprise.  Whatever its nature, it definitely catered to the gang banging teenag
ers who hung around the center.
She hoped that Keith’s
J
eep would be safe while she made her purchase—she would never be able to explain the loss of his beloved vehicle or why she had parked it in such a crime
-
infested area in the first
place. Keeping one eye on the J
eep, she asked the clerk for the special anniversary edition and waited as he pulled one out from under the counter. In a world where the Feds could track every move
,
burner cells were a great way for low-level criminals to communicate while
staying under the radar—no wonder the ECA had demanded that they be registered. Kris felt as though everyone was watching her as she paid cash for the
phone
and then hurried back to the J
eep. She drove
well
out of Queen’s Creek before pulling off the interstate to text the number Lena had given her.  Ten minutes later, she heard the familiar ring signifying that she had an answer back.  She read the text message. “(202) 555-1212. Julian Cicchetti.” That was a Washington D.C. exchange. In spite of the
hot dusty air that whipped her face and bare arms as she
d
rove
through
the
desert in Keith’s
J
eep, Kris felt a chill go through her. Had Lena set her up?  Who was Julian Cicchetti? 

She puzzled over it and prayed about it all the way to St. George. Kris knew that people all over the country were disappearing, but she had not realized that so many people she knew
personally were being affected.
To
discover
that Lena had also lost everything and was having to go into hiding was very unsettling. To be sent this Washington D.C. number was even more so.  By the time she reached the trailer it was midnight
,
and she was exhausted, but she was too stressed to sleep.