The Road to Hell (19 page)

Light glistened off the shiny brass rails leading up the stairs. The contrast between the dark burgundy carpet, the deep purple wall hangings and the seemingly golden lustre of the polished brass fittings gave a sense of depth and dimension beyond what this hallway should have held. Dark shadows and strategically placed drop-lights illuminated the hall, giving the entrance to the senate chambers a sense of regal importance.

The entrance hall opened out into a vast lobby immediately outside the senate chamber. Soft footsteps echoed across the marble floor.

To one side stood an eight-foot statute of Chief Justice Dianora. He stood resolute, frozen in time, carved out of a single block of white granite marble. A copy of the law was held firmly under one arm, a burning torch in the other, lighting the way before them. The folds of his gown, chiseled from marble, seemed almost like fabric blowing in a breeze.

The senator paused before the solid wooden doors leading into the chamber itself.

It was cold, he thought, it was always so cold, so sterile. He barely even heard the clerk walk up beside him. His mind was elsewhere, wishing there was another way. But no, he thought, now was the time to ‘quit you like men,’ to stand against the storm.

“
The council has been waiting.”

Muffled, muted voices resounded from behind the twelve-foot high wooden doors leading into the chamber, some pleading, others shouting, only one calling for calm.

Built out of redwood, each door was handcrafted from a single, solid panel. The senator had often marvelled at their beauty and no more so than today. Oak leaves wrapped around the ornate border while a map of the United States spanned both doors.

The map was topographical, a raised relief showing the Rockies meandering through the West, the Mississippi winding its way down to the Gulf of Mexico, the Appalachians Mountains running in a raised ridge that stretched down to the Atlantic and the Great Lakes spread across the north of the American Midwest. It was America as it had been, as it should be. The senator longed to run his fingers over the intricate carving, just to feel the heart and soul of his country running beneath his fingers. Above all, the senator craved the ascendancy of a new America.

“
Your excellence,” the clerk repeated. “The council awaits.”

Still there was no reply.

The weight of the moment showed on the senator’s face. Deep lines ran through his ageing forehead. Perhaps it was the half-light, but to the clerk, the senator looked like one dead before his time.

Two officers stood to attention on either side of the impressive doors. They wore white gloves and highly polished black shoes. Their parade dress was resplendent, with a bright red pinstripe running down their trousers. Unarmed, they were a symbol of freedom, the idea that peace comes from openness and not from force of arms. It was a lost ideal. Oh, how the senator longed for those days again.

“
Sir,” one of the officers asked, reaching for the door handle, looking for tacit permission before opening the heavy wooden door.

The senator nodded softly. As often as he’d stood here in the past, it never got any easier. His hands shivered, not so much at the cold as at the bitterness of the moment, knowing all that hung in the balance. The senator knew exactly what to expect, and that didn’t make it easy.

The clerk of the senate walked in first, a sceptre in his right hand, calling out in a loud voice, “The senator for reconciliation, the right honourable justice for resolution, Mr. Bradley Johannes.”

Inside the grand chamber, the other hundred and forty-four senators were in disarray. Some cheered, some booed, jeering, shouting above the commotion while still others stood silently out of respect. Most simply turned in their seats to watch the senator enter.

With aged steps, steps intended to defuse both the anger and the zeal of the council, the senator walked slowly to the front of the chamber. The five original judges from the old Supreme Court sat at the front, behind the speaker for the house, facing the senate. They were the council, the ruling body for the United States of America.

The chamber never ceased to amaze him. A loftily white ceiling curved in a dome some sixty feet above. Ornate cornices and Corinthian pillars lined the walls. The senators sat in plush white leather seats within the amphitheatre as they faced the five judges seated at the hub, everything revolving around the judges, as it always had.

The speaker slammed his gavel, calling for order. And still the senator struggled on as though fighting against some unseen current trying to sweep him out of the chamber.

As he approached the speaker’s platform, down in front of the Five, groups of senators reached out into the walkway, having run down the aisles to get a glimpse of the old man. In some perverse way, he was a spectacle. The chamber seemed more of a sporting arena than a house of debate and law. Even those that supported his cause confused him. Their zeal overwhelmed him.

“
There will be order,” shouted the speaker, bringing his gavel down like a hammer. The Five sat there unmoved. They were all that remained of the bench that had overthrown the old order. Grey and ageing, they looked only a pale image of the defiance that had once led to revolution.

The senator stepped up on the speaker’s platform and turned to address the senate, raising his hands in a gesture for quiet. Almost instantly, the commotion ceased. All sides held respect for the old man.

“
My brothers, I stand here before this august body to give an account of the reconciliation effort to the senate and to ask for more patience from the council. We have accomplished much, but there is much that is still undone. It is no small feat to bind up the wounds, to heal the ailing heart and restore our great country to her former glory.”

Justice Dianora spoke first. Speaking for the five members of the council, he leaned forward, peering down from the bench at the senator standing on the podium.

“
You enter the senate like a king reclaiming his throne,” he scolded. “Yet from all we have heard, your efforts have ended in defeat. How dare you stand before this honourable body with such insolence and disrespect?”

In a soft voice, amplified by the audio-visual team seated at the back of the chamber, the senator replied in carefully measured words.

“
Most esteemed excellence, it is with no such intentions that I come before you. I stand here before you at your request to answer the allegations levelled against me and to give a true and honest account of those things that have transpired in recent days.”

Dianora was visibly red with rage, barely able to control his anger. The other judges sat on the bench solemn and silent, watching and observing, hiding their emotions.

“
You threaten the very existence of our country,” cried Dianora. “You presume to reconcile in the name of the council without its blessing on your actions. Your appointment to the reconciliation portfolio was not a license to act as you choose.”

Cheers erupted from some of the senators.

“
My friends,” the senator began, stretching out his arms, turning to face the senate, turning slowly through almost a hundred and eighty degrees as he continued. “My colleagues. My fellow-labourers. We have been entrusted with a great and solemn trust, to steward the affairs of these United States of America, to bridge the chaos of civil war and bring a return to democracy.”

“
Lies!” yelled Dianora slamming his fist down on the wooden bench. “You poison minds with talk of freedom. Is it freedom you champion or anarchy? Your talk of democracy only fuels the unrest and rebellion. You would see us return to the darkness of Egypt when we seek the Promised Land.”

“
Here, here,” chanted a large number of the senators gathered there.

Senator Johannes refused to be baited. Bowing his head in submission, he continued in a soft voice, refusing to allow the anger inside to boil over. To explode in rage would validate Dianora’s position and cloud his own.

“
It has been fifteen years since the cessation of hostilities, my brothers, two long decades since the war began. We, the living, have honoured the dead by rising out of the devastation like a phoenix. We have accomplished much. We have rebuilt the new world above the old. With enemies within and enemies without, we have stayed the course. Piece by piece we have rebuilt our once great society. And now, I beg you, we must return and rebuild the one great institution upon which this country was founded. We must restore the presidency and the congress.”

The senate erupted. Yelling broke out from all quarters.

“
Order. Order,” cried the speaker. “There will be order.”

Dianora yelled at the senator but nothing could be heard above the commotion echoing through the chamber.

“
Order!” yelled the speaker, pounding his gavel on the desk. For the first time, he stood, his scarlet robe flowing majestically by his side. With a vengeance, he brought the gavel down again and again, yelling, “Order.”

“
My friends,” cried the senator, raising his frail hands again, appealing for the chance to speak freely. “My friends, please. Please let me speak. Allow me to continue. Give me a chance to explain.”

Slowly the commotion died.

“
Please, let me proceed,” the senator continued in his soft voice, relying on the calm in his speech to quell the unrest, praying his quiet words would speak loudest of all.

“
We have a duty to history. Our country was founded on the principle of law, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

“
Heresy,” yelled one of the senators at the back, followed by “Traitor,” from the far side of the chamber.

Dianora sat there fuming.

“
Please,” the senator continued, his palms stretched out before him, almost willing the seas to part. “The emergency powers originally bestowed by the Supreme Court were only ever to be a temporary measure, a vessel to carry us through the storm, not the permanent dissolution of government. The Constitution still stands as the pillar of our strength. The time of emergency has passed. All things must be restored.”

“
Blasphemy,” cried Dianora. “The widow’s tears still fall in the streets.”

“
This country wasn’t built without tears,” replied the senator. “It was built by them. Civil war is nothing new to the Americas. Even the Revolutionary war was a civil war between England and her colonies as was the Civil War that led to the abolition of slavery. Nothing about freedom guarantees peace. Freedom guarantees opportunities, not outcomes. We must fight for the right, fight to restore true peace and prosperity.”

Dianora stood yelling in reply, addressing not only the senator but the entire senate with his fiery words.

“
Sixty five million Americans fell on their own land, on their own soil, at the hands of their own brothers. Over two hundred million Americans were displaced by the war. Five years of fighting left our cities in flames, our economy in ruins. Still the fire smoulders. And you would risk all this? For what? For an academic ideal? For a conceptual understanding of democracy that has more place in a university lecture hall than in government? No, I stand corrected. It does not belong in a university, it should be in a museum.”

Cheers erupted from the senate.

Dianora's voice boomed out over the senate chambers.

“
Democracy is an illusion, a vision of a shimmering oasis in the desert. It is nothing more than a mirage. It offers false hope to those that hunger and thirst. It has been a con, a blight on the American people for well over a hundred years.”

“
The last president to truly represent the will of the people was Truman, or perhaps maybe Eisenhower, but from Kennedy onward the presidency has been a plutocracy, an instrument of the rich and powerful, allowing an elite to rule over the people.”

“
Oh, there are political ideals and social agendas, but these are all just the theoretical musings of the elite, not the stirrings of the people. According to the latest estimates, a run at the presidency would cost close to a hundred million, something absurdly beyond the average man. If we were to listen to you we would not be restoring democracy, we would be restoring the lords and barons of medieval England.”