THE WARNING A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 2) (14 page)

CCC Headquarters

Department of Homeland Security

Nebraska Avenue Complex

Washington, DC

        
Director Manton Mortman had been in charge of the Civilian
Conservation Corps since its creation by executive order of the President. The
number of CCC Conservators now exceeded nine hundred thousand, though still
short of the more than two million hired by President Franklin Roosevelt to
work in the nation’s original CCC. The newly re-created CCC functioned under
the Department of Homeland Security. Director Mortman’s responsibilities
accorded to him by executive order from the President were threefold. First,
CCC Conservators were assigned to attend each Sunday the nation’s designated
‘evangelical churches’, recording what is said by the pastors of the churches
under agency surveillance for compliance with federal hate speech laws.
Secondly, Conservators attended, monitored and recorded all meetings of gun
rights groups, Tea Party meetings, pro-life groups, veterans associations,
Constitutionalists and other conservative assemblies considered to be ‘right
wing’ by the administration. Thirdly, Conservators were tasked to enforce the
nation’s laws, including interrogating Americans considered by the CCC to be
domestic terrorists. All Conservators were given arrest powers and were all
also armed with handguns, along with large quantities of ammunition.

        
Director Mortman had been given a corner office in DHS’s
Nebraska Avenue Complex, which was located in Northwest DC, far from official
Washington. The building had formerly been an all-girls school and then used by
U.S. Navy code breaking offices in WWII. DHS had been in the facilities for ten
years, yet many employees referred to the offices as ‘the dump’ due to its
decrepit condition. Mortman was one of the few executives who actually liked
the facilities. Some at DHS who had heard Mortman praise their offices opined
that the dingy offices were a good match for Director Mortman, given his
personality and personal traits.

        
Each day the Director dressed the same - black dress shirt,
black suit and black tie. He told his staff that he spent most of each weekend
watching WWII videos on the History channel and his vast collection of videos
dealing with the years that Hitler was in power. Director Mortman had been
heard telling staff members how excited he became when he watched footage of
Nazi soldiers, brown shirts and Gestapo officers ‘administering justice to
Jewish rebels’. It was said within DHS and CCC offices that Mortman was picked
to be the Director of the CCC due to his close personal friendship with
Presidential Advisor Vivian Higgins. It was rumored that Mortman and Higgins
had both been members of a Marxist cell during their college years. Mortman’s
secretary had let it be known in the DHS cafeteria to her lunch buddies that
the Director received calls from the White House, usually from Advisor Higgins,
on a daily basis.

        
Director Mortman’s secretary received one such call from
Vivian Higgins while her boss was in a staff meeting. She quickly entered his
office, without knocking, walked to his side and whispered that the White House
was on line one. Director Mortman abruptly excused his staff, his secretary
shooing the employees out of his office.

        
Once he was alone, Director Mortman picked up his phone
sayin, “Yes, Vivian, what can I do for you, my dear?”

        
“Morty, we
got
a
problem. The Man wants us to be fully staffed up, armed and ready by
next week
. The dollar will be devalued
soon. I’m not at liberty to give you the date, but believe me it’s
soon
. Everyone expects that the crazies,
the ‘rads’, the ‘wingers’, will all be out in the streets within a
very short
time after that. I know your
guys are armed….well-armed….with all the ammo DHS bought. The Man just wants to
be sure that you’re all set when the stuff
hits
the fan
.”

        
“I get it, Vivian, we’re
totally
ready. But, you started this conversation by saying that we had a problem. What’s
the problem? We’re
finally
going to
be able to do what we were established to do – clean up the trash - remove the
haters – the
anti-government hotheads
and fundamentally transform America, as promised.”

        
“Look, Morty, I know I can share with you what’s going on
here. That’s why I called. Without getting into too much detail….come to think
of it….you’ve probably already heard up there at the DHS offices about
the….well….you know….the….uh….
future
unpleasantness
. As
our mutual friend
stated it at a late night meeting here recently, it takes two to have a
gunfight. There’s no problem
if
you’re ready.”

        
“Believe me, Vivian, we’ve never been so ready. Just
remember the magic number….one point six billion….that’s all you need to know.”

II.

The
Government

Of
the

United
States

Goes
to War

Against
Americans

Dunwoody,
Georgia

        
Jim Farley couldn’t believe his own eyes. The Honda Civic
that he had driven for the last two plus years was missing. It was there last
night when he drove it home from work. He always parked it in the same spot in
the driveway of the Farleys’ home in Dunwoody, a suburb of Atlanta. Jim really
liked his Civic, washing it himself almost every week. He had not just one, but
two Christian fish decals, on both sides of the car’s license plate. Jim was
happy to proclaim to the world that he was a Christian. He was well aware that
how he drove his car reflected on his faith proclaimed on the tail end of his
Honda.

        
As an elder of his evangelical church Jim’s next thought was
that he needed to calm down, pray and turn the missing car problem over to the
Lord. As soon as he did, he immediately felt that everything would be okay. His
car would either be recovered from whoever stole it from his driveway or, at
the least; he would recover most of its value from his insurance company. He
knew he would need to report its loss to his insurance company and then call
their family attorney, who was also an elder at their church in Dunwoody. He’d
heard that an owner could take a bath on the market value of a car if it was
totaled or stolen. He concluded that he could lose a grand or two replacing his
little Civic. But, it’ll work out, the Lord knew this would happen, and He’s
not worried about, so I won’t either he thought as he pulled out his cell phone
to start making calls about his missing Civic.

        
What Jim Farley did not know, nor could he, since there is
no national database of stolen vehicles updated daily, was that his stolen
Civic was one of six motor vehicles stolen across the country, all on the same
night. Each was stolen from the suburbs of a major American city. Five cars
were owned by evangelical Christians, active in their local Christian church.
The sixth belonged to a Tea Party activist. Each was taken to either a facility
of the federal government or a front company which was owned by an agency of
the federal government.

        
Each motor vehicle was outfitted with a bomb. Four were made
of C-4 plastic explosive, used by terrorists on the USS Cole. The C-4 used was
made by different manufacturers. Two were provided with bundles of dynamite
with simple timers. Two were minivans, with the seats removed in each. In both
vans drums of fertilizer and kerosene were installed. Like the C-4 bombs the
vans were hooked to a cell phone ignition device. Within two days the
installation of the bombs in the motor vehicles owned by a Tea Party leader and
five active evangelical Christians had been accomplished. Encrypted messages
were sent to a designated e-file at the DHS headquarters in DC, accessible only
by Carl Goren. Upon receipt of the sixth notification Goren cryptically
e-mailed the Secretary of DHS that
“the
winds are blowing
”.

Faith
and Freedom Christian School

Joplin,
Missouri

        
Faith and Freedom Christian School was founded thirty years
ago by Christian parents who wanted to provide a faith based education for
their children. It started in the basement of a church in Joplin with twelve
students of varying ages. Today the school has a five building campus and an
enrollment in excess of twelve hundred, in kindergarten through high school.
Solo Biblica
is the phrase on the school
crest and is the guiding principle of its staff.

        
Thus, it was a difficult day when the CCC Conservator in
charge of the State of Missouri appeared at the school with a written demand.
The school’s headmaster, Adam Weaver, was himself a graduate of Faith and
Freedom, having been one of the schools’ first twelve students. When Headmaster
Weaver was told that a CCC official was in the reception area he had a bad
feeling that this was not a friendly visit.

        
The CCC State Director was ushered into the Headmaster’s
office. After an initial handshake the Headmaster asked the Director, “What can
I do for you, sir?”

        
“Well, let’s
start
with this. You can bring your school into compliance with the laws of the
United States.”

        
“Excuse me….We comply with all laws, of the United States,
the State of Missouri, the City of Joplin, all those thousands of laws. We
believe in
obeying the law
, and
that’s what we do. What
specific
laws
are you….”

        
“Let’s
not play games
,
shall we? You know
very
well that
three weeks ago this school denied an application for admission for a fifth
grader whose parents are Steve and Frank Schiller. Your only basis for the denial
of the application is that the parents are a
gay
married couple.
Now
do you know which law I’m talking about?”

        
“No, sir, actually,
I
don’t
. I recall the application, of course. Our full board of directors
discussed the admission request and denied it unanimously as
inconsistent
with our Biblical views.
The Bible mentions homosexuality seven times, all negatively. This is a matter
of
faith
for this school. This is a
private
school, as I’m
sure
you know.”

        
“Private….
schmivate.
That’s irrelevant. When the United States Supreme Court ruled that same sex
marriage is a right located somewhere in the United States Constitution that
settled the matter
for everybody,
including religious people. Even if the Court had not made such a ruling, the
President’s Executive Order covers the subject. His Executive Order also
revokes the tax exempt status of any religious school that refuses to admit
students based on some spurious argument from the Bible. In case you haven’t
figured it out, Weaver, this school is subject to the
laws
of the United States.”

        
“There’s no reason for
sarcasm
.
We abide by the law. Again,
specifically
what law prohibits this private Christian school from applying its
strongly-held Biblical beliefs to its admission policies? Cite me the law
passed by Congress. The law….that’s
all
I’m asking.”

        
“You know, some people think they’re special because they
wave their Bibles
around. I used to go
to church, as a kid, but my pastor kept preaching against my lifestyle choices,
so I stopped going. Haven’t been back since. My husband and me, we’re in love,
which you Bible bigots will never understand. I don’t care what you say that
book says, I’m here
to enforce the law
.”

        
“I’m sorry that you had a bad church experience, but I’m
going to ask, with respect, sir, for the third time.
What law
did we violate by following our Biblical beliefs?”

        
“I
knew
you
wouldn’t get it, so I requested a warrant ahead of time.
Two warrants
, actually. The first one I’m serving on you as State
Director of the CCC, under the authority of the DHS. This warrant is for all of
your admission records since the school started and….”

        
“
Thirty years of
records
? I can’t
belie
….”

        
“
Wait
Weaver, I’m
not
done. The warrant also allows us to
take and examine all of your other records, paper records and digital records
on your computers; academic, business, sports, suppliers, everything. Our
trucks are waiting outside. We have twenty of our best Conservators ready to
box up your records and computers and transport them to our warehouse for
examination.”

        
“You
can’t
do
that. Without our records and especially without our computers we’d be….we’d be
out
of business. We couldn’t run our
school.”

        
“
Tough
. You should
have thought about that before your board voted to deny admission based on
Bible bigotry
. My second warrant is for
you
, Headmaster Weaver.”

        
“What? You’re
arresting
me? For what? I can’t….”

        
“No, not
just
you.
The warrant is for all of the members of your board. Bigotry
runs deep
at this school, it seems, so
my warrant is written to allow me to arrest
anyone
I choose. Any
Bible bigot
I come
across. I’ll need a list of the names and addresses of those board members.
Now.”

        
“You’ll have to arrest me, sir, because I’m not complying
with what is obviously an illegal and unconstitutional order. I will never
agr….”

        
“Fine, Weaver,
fine
.
Stand up to be cuffed. I expected this kind of anti-government reaction. What
you guys in so-called Christian education don’t get….
yet
….is that within days you’re
all
going to be shut down. We’re told from the top that there’s a federal judge in
Philadelphia who’s about to enter an order holding that any so-called Christian
or religious school in the country that uses the Bible for teaching will be out
of business.
Done
.
Closed
.

        
“There’s no right, Weaver, to
teach
hate
to young
Americans. You need to know that the future of America is
One Nation. One President. One School.
And don’t even
think
about home schooling to get around
the order or to try to avoid the Supreme Court’s new law on marriage. Home
schooling using the Bible will be a felony. We’re done messing with you
Bible thumpers.
Got it, Weaver?”