The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (19 page)

“I’m not worried boys,” Sam says. “Just be sure to get as many miles between yourselves and the city before stopping for sleep.”

John turns to his twin. “Sleep?”

Luke mirrors John’s quizzical expression on his own freckled face. “What’s that?”

Sam chuckles. “Alright then, gentlemen, forget sleep. Just remember, it’s all likely to hit the fan very soon. Everybody needs to bring their A-game.”

“Is there another kind?” Luke asks.

“I never heard of any other.” John answers.

“That’s the spirit,” Sam says. “Good luck and God bless you.”

They hug as they shake hands. The two young men pile into the front seats of the sedan and start the car. Sam blows Mary another kiss as they slowly drive away. He then mounts his vintage, chrome-finished Triumph, starts it up and rides after the sedan.

Sam tails them through the neighborhood. The streets are quiet and mostly deserted. Christmas decorations are strung out on the front of most houses. He grew up in this very neighborhood and always enjoyed the way the season was celebrated. Neighbors would compete to put on the biggest, gaudiest Christmas display. It was something his family always looked forward to. Sam never imagined that such a thing could ever be ruined. And yet, it was five years ago that New York joined the growing list of cities to ban the public display of religious symbols. While plenty of Santas, elves, reindeer and snowmen colored the cloudless night with their garish, blinking lights; there were no crosses, manger scenes or angels allowed on the lawns. The powers that be decided that all such public displays could do irreparable harm to unbelievers. As he rode through the streets, Sam took considerable pleasure in the fact that many a home, like his own, chose to continue offending ‘atheistic sensibilities’ by placing the illegal symbols in their windows, facing out from inside their homes, where the government had not yet dared to intrude.

Not yet anyway.

If the Supreme Court gave the proposed law before it their stamp of approval this coming spring, Sam had no doubt that it would not be long before the government did intrude into their homes and drive Christians underground. He knew there were plenty of people willing to accept such meddling from the government, too many who shrugged their shoulders at the thought of further impositions and deeper reaching intrusions from the state. Sam Ericson was not one of them. He and his comrades have had enough! They were not going to be driven underground. The High Court was not going to get the chance to even consider the case.

No. Not after tonight.

Not without a fight.

As his Triumph climbs the Brooklyn Bridge Sam looks out towards Liberty Island. The jagged lines of the headless Statue of Liberty are sharply defined against the pale, night sky. A pair of explosive-laden helicopters crashed into her during the Fourth of July celebrations in 2016. The blasts broke off the head and raised arm. Sam would never forget how people danced and cheered around the world; how some celebrated, even at home. Neither could he forget the sight of Lady Liberty’s head lying on its side, eyes looking expectantly at the shore behind her. The government balked at the expense of repairing the statue. Some, including the Senator from New York, argued to scrap it altogether.

“What was the statue, anyway?” she asked on the floor of the Senate. “Was it not a monument to the delusion that had us, for so long, believing American was exceptional? Don’t we know better by now? Haven’t we learned that we are no better than anyone, no more exceptional than the Brits, the French, the Greeks or the Turks? Is this not the wise lesson of multiculturalism, that we are all equal and none of us exceptional?

“Let us not waste valuable time or scarce treasure in rebuilding a statue that idolizes a lie. Let us make the best of this small loss and use it as an opportunity to mature as a nation. Allow the idea of American exceptionalness to go the way of that other arrogant notion, Manifest Destiny. Let them both be forgotten, discarded into the same dustbin of history. If we can do that, no one will deny that America has finally arrived at the twenty-first century.

“But if you must have a monument,” she went on to say. “Let it be one raised in penance for the millions who came to these shores only to discover
the American dream was a nightmare. If we can do that, we will finally be admitting to the world and to ourselves that we were wrong to ever think we were special or exceptional in any way.”

The severed head and the shattered torch arm were removed soon after the attack but Sam Ericson can still see Lady Liberty staring plaintively across the water at him. Ever since that fateful Fourth of July, Sam has stared back silently, by turns somber and sad. Tonight however, Sam Ericson smiles.

“Don’t you worry, girlfriend,” he says in the statues direction. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

The wind off the river drops the temperature a good ten degrees. It doesn’t bother him. On the contrary, it is rather bracing. And then too, it is the excitement promised by the hours, days and years ahead that immune him to the late, December chill. As the Manhattan skyline looms closer, Sam narrows his mental focus to the duties that lay immediately ahead. First things first, he tells himself. Exiting the bridge, Sam flashes his headlight in a farewell signal to the sedan, which responds in kind with its tail lights. They continue west across the island of Manhattan. Sam takes the northbound loop to the FDR Drive. His mission is upriver. He eyes the United Nations tower in the shrinking distance.

“Thy will be done,” Sam prays softly.

Dearborn, Michigan

21:01:14

Augustine Koenig crosses his blue eyes, sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth and makes a choking noise as his wife Anya tightens the knot of his tie.

“You big baby,” she says, but loosens the tie a bit anyway.

Anya pats his lapel a couple of times and takes a step back to appraise her husband. He is five foot ten, with a compact, medium build of sharply detailed lines that his dress blues accentuate nicely. There are several white-tipped hairs in his short, blond crew cut. He is graying nicely at thirty-six years of age. He will look like his silver-haired father soon enough, she thinks. She looks forward to the transformation.

It’s been years since Anya has seen Augustine in uniform. She smiles approvingly, well pleased with her husband. She has, in fact, not seen him much in the four years since he left the Dearborn Michigan Police Department. He has been forced to travel around the country picking up construction work
wherever he can, sending the money home to support his wife, three children and aging father. Being away from his family for months at a time is harder on Augustine than he allows himself to let on. Anya notes it however in how he holds her throughout the night when he is home and especially by how he dotes on the children every chance he gets.

Her husband also misses being a cop. It is only natural, Anya knows. He is from a family of cops. He would have entered the force right out of high school if it were not for the war. After his two tours in Iraq, Augustine came home, married Anya and followed his father, grandfather and great grandfather into the police department. However the country had changed while he was gone and few places in the States changed as radically as did their home city of Dearborn. While Augustine was fighting jihadists abroad, their comrades in the states were busily remaking his country and his city in particular.

It started out gradually enough during the war years. The media, at the government’s behest, produced educational and instructional programs to show Americans they had nothing to fear from Muslims and their ‘religion of peace.’ After the troops were pulled out of Mesopotamia, in apology for the ‘war crimes’ that the United States and Western Civilization committed against Islam, The Department of Peace decided to put America through a regimen of sensitivity training to ‘combat stereotypes and prejudices that might lead to further outbreaks of Islamophobia.’ The DOP’s Sensitivity Czar made the training mandatory throughout all government. Over the years the training became ever more ‘sensitive,’ extensive and demanding. Complaints of indoctrination were condemned as ‘Islamophobic’ and proffered as evidence of the need for yet more vigorous programs. In the fall of 2015, three years after Augustine graduated from the police academy; Detroit Michigan pushed the envelope and became America’s first sharia-compliant city. All the surrounding areas were brought under the Dearborn’s iron dome within a year. And now, four years later, there were another ten enclaves of Islamic law scattered across the country and a score more cities with sharia compliancy initiatives working their way through legislatures.

The family was loath to move but as the new laws were implemented they saw little choice left them but to join the ‘Christian flight’ out of town. It was easier said than done, however. The economy was depressed and money was short everywhere. Still, they were determined to leave rather than live in the second
class,
dhimmitude
status that sharia law insisted non-Muslims endure under the rule of Islam. The family saved every cent they could spare. Four years later, they felt they had enough money to move south. They were all but set to leave until Augustine returned from the road last Easter with a proposition that convinced Anya and her father-in-law to stay in Dearborn a little longer.

Her husband explained that he ran into a Marine buddy while working in Florida. They traded stories of their lives since leaving the Corps and Augustine naturally complained about what had become of his city. His fellow Marine agreed that it was an outrage. However, he insisted it was not a situation that needed to be tolerated. The fellow Marine knew a man who had a plan to fix, not only Dearborn, but the entire nation. A couple of weeks later, Augustine met the ‘man with the plan.’ Her husband signed on immediately. Six weeks later he was home sharing what he learned with his wife and his father. After Augustine’s summation of the Colonel’s plan, Marcellus Koenig and his daughter-in-law Anya looked at each other for only the briefest of moments before turning back to their son and husband, announcing in unison:

“We’re in!”

They suffered life under sharia rule a little longer. The extra nine months were easier to take than the four years that preceded them, especially since they knew that everything was about to change.

The revolution is already under way. The Crusade is launched. Everybody in the Koenig home is in good spirits. They will soon have their city and their country back!

Sensing what she is thinking, Augustine takes Anya in his arms.

“Are you ready for this?”

She nods.

“Cause you know,” he says. “We don’t have to go through with it. We could convert. It might be easier on everyone.”

“You think so?”

“Why sure,” says Augustine. “As a Muslim male I can marry up to another three women. Think of the help they could be around the house.”

“That is tempting,” Anya says.

“And if they don’t work out, all you have to do is say the word, hon. Say the word and I will drag the ones you don’t like into the back yard and stone them dead.”

“Very tempting,” Anya repeats. “But I could never convert. Burkas make me look fat.”

“Alright then,” says Augustine. “We’ll overthrow the government instead.”

“That’s a much better plan, honey.”

They kiss. Husband and wife wrap themselves in each other’s arms, losing themselves for too brief a moment in the warmth of each other’s bodies. When their lips part, he takes her head in his hands and gently thumbs the soft shells of her ears.

“I love you, Mrs. Koenig.”

She squeezes the hard coils of muscles in his forearms.

“I love you, Mr. Koenig.”

Augustine kisses her one more time.

“Let’s get this road on the show then,” he says and pulls his gun belt off their bed. When it is slung off his hips, Augustine opens their bedroom door and leads her downstairs. Their kids are waiting for them with his father, her uncle and aunt.

“Bundle up everyone,” Augustine announces. “It’s time to go.”

The adults help the three children on with their coats, hats and mittens. Augustine and Anya dress their eldest daughter, Elsa. The curly and blond haired seven-year old is blue and teary-eyed.

“What’s wrong, baby doll?” Anya asks her.

“I wish daddy was going to Mass with us,” Elsa says.

“We told you honey,” Anya says. “Daddy has something important to do.”

“What’s more important than Christmas?”

Augustine drops to one knee and kisses Elsa’s forehead.

“There’s nothing more important than Christmas,” he tells his daughter as he buttons her small pea coat. “That’s why there are three Masses for Christmas. This way everyone has a chance to celebrate the baby Jesus’ birthday, no matter what their schedule might be.” His thumb wipes a loose tear away. “I will catch the Christmas morning Mass with you, baby doll. I promise.”

“Okay,” Elsa says and throws her arms around Augustine’s neck.

“Daddy’s got to kick the devil’s butt first, right daddy?” Five year old Emil says as his grandfather zips him into his one-piece, Superman snow suit.

“That’s right, buddy,” Augustine agrees with a wink at his son. The father scoops his daughter up with one arm and gives his wife’s hand a squeeze with
the other. He looks over to see his two year old, Emma bundled up and sleeping in her granduncle’s arms.

The women throw burkas on over their coats in case a morality enforcement patrol car drives by when they are outdoors. Marcellus leads the way out of the house and Anya, last one out, locks it up behind them. The air is cold and flurries are falling from a thickly clouded sky. Last week’s four inches of frozen, gray snow is getting powdered with a fresh layer of pristine flakes. Their neighbors’ windows are sealed and lightless behind security bars. The early evening is darker than usual without the street lamps lit overhead. Like many cashstrapped cities across the country, Detroit and the surrounding areas use rolling blackouts to save energy and money. The ‘temporary cost cutting measure’ was introduced in the summer of 2014 and has been running ever since, keeping neighborhoods in crime-ridden darkness throughout the year. The adults scan the street as they make their way to the twenty-nine foot RV parked in their driveway.