The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (40 page)

Koenig sheaths the PalmPal and looks about the cramped quarters of the RV. His wife Anya is tying a green and red ribbon on their eldest daughter’s curly, blond ponytail. Young Elsa is trying to catch her reflection in the window, complicating her mom’s effort. At the back of the RV, his son and youngest daughter sit with Anya’s aunt and uncle watching
‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Augustine notices that it is one of his favorite scenes playing. George Bailey is visiting Mary at her home after not having seen her for years. Koenig believes that Jimmy Stewart’s nervous handling of his hat while he plays at being disinterested in Mary is still some of the most exquisite acting ever committed to film.

“What do you think, daddy?” Elsa does a spin before him, showing off her new dress and ribbons.

“Beautiful,” Augustine says. “A princess fit for the King of Kings!”

“And aunty M made me a new veil,” his daughter says holding the laced cloth up by two of its corners. “It’s a giant snowflake!”

“Oh my, but that is lovely,” Augustine says. “The angels looking down from heaven will simply adore it.”

“Let’s get our coats on,” Anya advises. “Mass begins in five minutes.”

The adults secure the little ones in their coats. Even though they only have a short walk from their parking spot in the church lot to its front door, they add scarves and hats to the kids’ outer wear. It is fifteen below zero outside the RV and the flurries that fell on them in Dearborn have followed them east, turning into big, sticky flakes.

“It’s a white Christmas!” The little boy, Emil cries out when the door to the RV is flung open.

“The very best kind of Christmas,” Anya says, walking him down the narrow steps.

They walk across the snow-swept lot. In short order they reach their fellow stragglers on the church steps. Augustine scans the crowd, looking for possible signs of trouble. He sees none. At the top of the steps, on either side of the twelve foot arched doors, two young men also scan the worshippers as they file into the church. On the lapels of their long, dark woolen coats, Koenig spots the Cross and Omega pins of the Neo Knights Templar. The guard on the right spots the same pin on Augustine’s lapel and gives him a knowing smile as the ex-cop climbs the church steps with his family in tow. The sentries will remain outside, guarding the doors to the church. Another two Templar will protect the rear of the church and another one or two will be secreted among the worshippers on the inside.

It is a sign of the times, the ex-cop notes with an inward sigh. Maxists and other anti-Christian bigots were disrupting Masses and other church services with growing frequency. In several sad instances the faithful were firebombed or sprayed with bullets while worshipping. A growing number of churches organized volunteer parishioners and/or hired round-the-clock rent-a-cops to protect them from activists, vandals and terrorists. Cleveland’s Saint Anthony’s is a ‘Crusade church,’ one of the many churches in the country through which the Second American Revolution was planned. As such, Saint Anthony’s enjoys the protection of the Templar. The young men will defend their charges with their lives if they have to. Under their long coats are Uzis and Stun-Batons to aid them.

A sign of the times that will soon be a-changing, Augustine prays. He looks up at the statue of the church’s namesake saint over the arched entryway. “Help us find our way, won’t you, old friend?”

Above Saint Anthony, the twin, twisting gothic spires reach to a heaven that has never seemed closer to Augustine Koenig.

06:05:04

Sam Ericson sips his coffee and looks out the broad, floor-to-ceiling windows of the United Nations Secretary General’s office. The view is an impres
sive one. Snow has just started falling from a cloud-packed, dove-gray sky. Through the flurries, the cityscape is spread out before him as far as the eye can see. Sam is reminded of a snow globe that rested on the living room mantle of his parents’ home for many years. He smiles at the memory of the long ago Christmas that landed the trinket on its shelf. Ericson was seven years old at the time. He remembers the thrill of exploring the family’s newly purchased Bensonhurst home with his two younger sisters. They were ecstatic, feeling like royalty merely because they would each have their own bedrooms.

There would later be darker years in his family’s history. Colonel Miguel Pereira pointed out to Sam that his family was torn apart by the same influences and forces that caused the disintegration of the society they lived in. Having identified those forces and influences and with the help of his wife and her kin, he was eventually able to heal his own family. Soon they would apply those lessons to all that ailed the nation and, if God willed it, the world.

Ericson basks in the happy memory of that long ago Christmas for a few precious moments before turning his attention to the street beneath him. He examines the perimeter the NYPD has set around the United Nations complex. First Avenue has been blocked from Forty-Second to Forty-Eighth Street. Every street between them is barricaded at Second Avenue. There are cops at every intersection re-directing the light Christmas traffic. Some gawkers have started to gather, mostly behind the saw horses on the south and north end where SWAT trucks are parked besides trios of armored troop carriers. A couple of hundred soldiers are mixed in among the police up and down the line. Their leaders have set up a joint command post half way up Forty-Fourth Street. A police and an army helicopter orbit the tower, busied by keeping the swarm of news choppers from getting too close. Sam looks from the scene outside the window to his laptop on the Secretary General’s desk. On its screen, he has a view of the rear of the UN Tower. Everything from the back of the complex to the East River has been cordoned off including the FDR, its traffic diverted off the Drive at Fifty-Ninth and Forty-Second Street.

The Police began arriving at ten O’clock, a half hour after Ericson released his workmate, Sanjay Vas. Sam advised him to go straight to the police.

“Don’t you worry about me, Sanjay,” he told him. “Cover your own rear and tell them everything you know and everything you saw.”

Vas did so and twenty-five minutes later the first squad car arrived. Two cops, one black and the other Hispanic, walked warily through the open gate. Ericson met them in the plaza with Colonel Sean Grant. Santos and Hendricks tagged along with M-16s to discourage New York’s finest from any unnecessary heroics. They stayed back by the tower entrance.

“Merry Christmas officers,” Colonel Grant greeted the two young cops in his scratchy voice.

The pair of policemen looked nervously from the grinning Colonel to the stone-faced, M-16 toting soldiers.

“Merry Christmas to you,” the Hispanic cop said furtively. “We got us a report of a break in…”

“That’s right,” said the Colonel. “We did the breaking in. And we’re holding the Secretary General hostage. Would you like to talk to him?”

The two policemen look at each other and then back at Colonel Grant who was offering his cell phone to them.

“Your phone is working?” the black cop asks.

“Sure is,” Colonel Grant said. “Check it out. You do know what the Secretary General looks like, don’t you?”

“Not really,” answered the Hispanic cop.

“I do,” said the black cop, taking the phone. He tapped its screen which came to life with the image of Simon Aguilera seated in high-backed, leather chair. “Hello. Um… Mr. Secretary General, are you alright?”

“Who is this?” Aguilera’s voice demanded over the phone’s tiny speaker.

“I’m Officer Isaac Jones, NYPD. We got a report that you are being held hostage.”

“I am. I’m locked in one of the offices, somewhere in the middle of the building, I think.”

“Have you been hurt?”

“No, they haven’t hurt me but there are American soldiers here, lots of them, tearing the place apart. You’ve got to do something.”

“We’re on it sir. Please stay calm.”

Colonel Grant held out his hand and Officer Jones gave him back his phone.

“Here’s what’s going on boys,” the Colonel said after putting his phone away. “We are stripping this den of thieves and godless vipers of every hard drive and searching it for certain documents of interest to us. We expect to be
finished by six p.m. tonight. If we’re left alone, then by that hour we will release the Secretary General and evacuate the premises. If, on the other hand, your bosses choose to intervene, we’ll have us a nasty firefight that nobody wants. No telling who might get killed in something like that. You, me, the Secretary General; there’s just no telling when the bullets start flying.

“Thank you for your interest, and again, a very Merry Christmas to you both.”

Colonel Grant then put his thumbs to his ears and flapped his fingers, Hee-Hawing in imitation of Sam Wainwright’s character in
“It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“This way, gentlemen,” Sam Ericson said, gesturing the two confused policemen towards the gate.

After one last wary glance at Santos and Hendricks, the cops turn to go. Another two squad cars arrived as Sam locked the gate after them. He repeated the ‘donkey salute’ at the new arrivals before returning to the UN Tower.

Two hours later the perimeter is complete and the UN Complex is rung round, tight as a noose, with troops and cops. Sam Ericson looks up from the street to the roofline across the avenue where he knows a SWAT sniper has him in his sights. He raises his coffee cup at him in salute before taking another sip.

Colonel Sean Grant enters the office. “Green team is all done,” he says, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Team red needs another hour.”

“We’re way ahead of schedule,” Sam observes.

“How is it looking out there?” Sean Grant asks, mixing sugar into the coffee.

“All quiet,” Sam says. “They’ll wait till six. There’s less paperwork in doing nothing.”

“And more overtime,” the Colonel says, joining Ericson at the window. “On top of holiday pay no less. They should thank us.”

“They will,” Sam says. “One day.”

03:02:01

President William O’Neill can’t eat. He stares at the food spread out before him and sees only colors and shapes devoid of any allure. He passes the sunken dishes of the steam table and goes for the large chrome coffee urn. He pours himself a cup and turns to the tables. There are some fifty soldiers or so scattered about them. Most of them are looking at him and his small party with a
mixture of curiosity and pity. The latter angers him and he finds himself glaring back at the room. A few look away but most stare back at him unabashedly. Some of them even answer his glare with contemptuous smirks, which are made all the worse under the ridiculous camouflage Santa caps they are wearing. The festive air with which these rogue troops are committing high treason troubles the President, irks him the way nothing ever has.

William O’Neill picks out a nearby table where three female soldiers are having lunch and sits down opposite the smirking one. She is a tall, blue-eyed and broad-faced blonde wearing Sergeants’ stripes. She is seated between two dark-skinned Corporals. The name Burnett is stitched into the left breast pocket of her uniform.

“What’s so amusing, Sergeant Burnett?”

“You are, Mr. President,” she says without missing a beat. Her tone is less than amused, laced with sarcasm in fact. Her accent hints at Kentucky or maybe the western end of Tennessee. “It’s funny watching a politician who has made his bones screwing people over get mad when the people turn around and screw him right back. It’s a real hoot.”

Morton Gallagher and Lamar Reed arrive at the table with their trays of food. They sit to his left with Gallagher at O’Neill’s side. Annie Cooper is behind them and she, like the President, has opted for a coffee. She sits down at the President’s right. They nod curt hellos at the trio of female soldiers.

“Politicians are elected to make public policy,” says O’Neill. “Not all our decisions are going to be popular with everyone.”

Burnett rolls her eyes. “Spare me your prompter-speak, Mister. You don’t give a rat’s ass whether a policy is popular or not. You enter office with agendas that you are committed to shove down our throats regardless of how anyone feels about it.”

O’Neill sighs dismissively. “I’m sure that sentiment has plagued every losing side in every election in history.”

Sergeant Burnett plunks her utensils down on her plate. She places her arms on the table and leans forward into the President’s face. “And it’s never been more justified than by the heavy hand with which you signed the Shanghai Accord.”

William O’Neill feels Morton Gallagher start to stir in his seat. The President settles the Secret Service Agent down with a hand across the forearm. He
smiles at the woman facing him, oddly relieved by her hostility. It is something he knows. He has dealt with hostility a thousand times across aisles and debate floors, on streets and campaign trails.

“The Shanghai Accord was a ground-breaking piece of international law,” says the President. “The resultant treaty was approved by a Congressional majority,”

“It was approved by a one party majority,” the dark skinned corporal at Burnett’s right side says, carving the slab of turkey on her plate into small pieces. She has the high cheekbones, long, slender neck and full, pouting lips common to North Africans. Her accent, like Father Hermez’, has hints of French. The President notes that Hourani is stitched into her name tag. “There was nothing democratic about the way it was hoisted on Americans. It really was shoved down the nation’s throat, passed by a Congress who didn’t even bother to read its’ contents.”

She dips the piece of turkey into a dollop of gravy-smothered mashed potatoes and smiles sweetly at the President as she chews it.

“And what did you politicians do when the people pointed out that no one had read any of it?” Burnett asks. “You spat your contempt in our faces by hiring a speed reader to run through it. Do you remember that? Y’all had yourselves quite a chuckle-fest over that. Tell me, are you still laughing, Mr. President?”

“Looks to me like he’s fresh out of chuckles,” says the third woman. She is both lighter and rounder than Hourani, though taller. Her hair is much longer too, falling to her waist in two thick and dark braids. The name Simms is stitched into her uniform. She sounds as American as Burnett. The President guesses she comes from the northeast, Philadelphia, maybe New Jersey. Her plate is heaped with red and green gelatin.