THE WARNING A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 2) (25 page)

Jeronimo
Road Episcopal Church

Mission
Viejo, California

“On the streets of Babylon is
found

the blood of God’s people…”

(Revelation 18:24-CEV)

        
CCC Director Mortman decided that it was time to make an
example of the churches that opposed the administration. There were still
thousands of churches across the country whose pastors he believed were
flaunting their hate-filled sermons in clear violation of the Supreme Court’s
ruling legalizing same sex marriage. It galled him that these bigoted religious
leaders thought they could get away with misleading their flocks. It was time
to send a message. Director Mortman had just the man to lead the Conservators
in sending that message. A former convict, a practicing homosexual and a brutal
Conservator – CCC Conservator Major Billie Schwartz was the man for the job.

        
Director Mortman cleared his plans with Director Janis at
DHS, who in turn received approval from White House Domestic Affairs Advisor
Vivian Higgins. Everything was approved and ready for Sunday morning. The
Jeronimo Road Evangelical Church was the chosen church. Mortman learned that
‘Jeronimo’ was a uniquely local spelling of the famed Apache chief’s name. The
pastor of the chosen church was outspoken in his community in opposition to the
administration in DC and had publically announced that he would never sign the
religious leaders loyalty oath. His church board of elders went on record by
voting to instruct their pastor to give a series of sermons supporting the
Biblical view of traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Thus, the
Jeromimo Road Evangelical Church was a level one target church in Director
Mortman’s offices.

        
The Director was unaware of a vastly different Mission Viejo
church, a church with a similar name, as it was located three blocks away from
the target church. The Jeronimo Road Episcopal Church strongly supported the
administration. Not only had its pastor signed the religious leaders loyalty
oath he had also called for his members to vote for the President both times he
was a candidate on the ballot. The church organized parades of protest against
Prop 8 when it was on the ballot in California. After Prop 8 passed, a majority
of California voters having expressed support for traditional marriage, the
pastor organized a 24 hour candlelight vigil mourning its passage.

        
As the leader of the SWAT team, Major Billie Schwartz
practiced what he would say when his civilian troops entered the church and how
he would treat the rebels he encountered. He didn’t like religious people. He
knew those church folks disapproved of his lifestyle. He decided that he would
show them. It had taken a while, but finally he had the power to prove who was
boss and who was right.

        
Major Schwartz had requested and had been granted the
authority to hand select the most brutal Conservators, most of whom had prison
records and all of whom were known for being willing to do whatever they were
ordered to do. Major Schwartz decided after his private conversation with CCC
Director Mortman to take a full complement of eighty Conservators with him to
the errant church, each armed fully and wearing battle armor. The Director
assured Schwartz that any body count would be acceptable as the Director would
stand behind him as he did his duty to enforce the law, whatever it might take.
The Director gave the Major his private cell number in the instance that he
might need operational approval during the enforcement procedure at the church.
Director Mortman informed Major Schwartz that he planned to be at home watching
WWII footage and consuming mass quantities of Bavarian Lager, his favorite
drink.

        
The members of the DHS/CCC SWAT team met at their razor wire
fenced base south of Los Angeles two hours before the 10 AM start of church
services. The tactical plan was to arrive at the church as the service started
and congregants were gathered inside of the church building. Major Schwartz was
in the lead armored vehicle, one of five that traveled along the curves of
Jeronimo Road, pulling up in formation in front of the church. The wrong
church.

        
Major Schwartz had misread the CCC orders. He was in the
right city and on the correct road, but the target church was three blocks
further west, around two curves in Jeronimo Road. Thus, the assault force
assembled in front of the Jeronimo Road Episcopal Church. Once the Conservators
were in position at the church’s three entry doors, Major Schwartz gave the go
signal and they burst through the doors, guns drawn, yelling “
Everyone down. On the floor. Down on the
floor. Hands behind your heads
.” The one hundred thirty five Episcopalians
in the church’s sanctuary looked up in shock. Some immediately fell to the
floor, squirming into the space between the pews. Others sat immobile, unable
seemingly to process what they were seeing and hearing. The church’s pastor, in
a salmon colored robe, with a fuchsia sash around his shoulders, reacted in
horror at what he saw happening in his sanctuary.

        
“
What?....What?....What do you
think….you….are doing here
?”

        
Major Schwartz swaggered his way up the steps of the church
platform, a smirk on his face, with his AR-15 assault rifle leveled at the
pastor. “
Shut up, pastor, or whatever you
call yourself….minister….padre….just shut up. I’m in charge here
.”

        
“Sir. You….you….
don’t
understand
. We
support
you….We
endorsed
the Pres….”

        
“Don’t you
hear
what
I am saying? I said to
shut up
….
now
. I am required to read you your
rights. You, sir, are being arrested because you
refused
to sign the loyalty oath, and because your board of deacons
foolishly
, and
illegally
, approved your giving sermons
attacking
the Supreme Court order authorizing same sex marria….”

        
“
What
?
I signed
the oath. I
support
same sex marr….We even
refused
to marry
anyone
until the Supreme Court overruled Prop 8. You’ve got the
wrong church!
We’re
with
you guys!”

        
Major Schwartz stopped his verbal assault. He was confused.
Before leaving for the church this morning the Major shot up an extra dose of
illegal drugs. He was fully buzzed. But he briefly wondered if he might
possibly be in the wrong church. The address and name are right, he felt
confident of that. Before he did what he came to do – to impose punishment from
the barrel of their guns, he wanted to be sure that he wasn’t making a mistake.
He told the pastor not to move, then stepped to the side, pulling out his cell
phone.

        
The Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, now past
his tenth Bavarian Lager, picked up on the first ring, “Yeah, Major, whatsh up?
How’sitgoin’?”

        
The Major, under the influence, responded to his
administrative superior who was under a different influence, “I
may
have a problem, Director. The pastor
here at the Jeronimo Road Evangelical Church
swears
that he signed the oath and that the church
supports
same sex marriage. What do ya
think?”

        
“Major. Are you sure you’re at the
Jeronishmo
Road Evan….gelical….Is it the right place?”

        
“Yup. Sure ‘nuf. Town is right. Address is right. Name is
right…..I think, anyway.”

        
“OK. Jush a
dirty
trick
to throw ush off. Pretty schmart, really. I’ll schend out an alert to
the troopsh.
Pretending
to be with
ush…
Ha!
Don’t schtop
anything.
Take
‘em out
. Do the job, Major.”

        
Major Schwartz turned back to the pastor, who was visibly
distraught, holding both sides of his pulpit to keep his flock from seeing his
shaking hands. The CCC officer raised his rifle and shouted, “It’s
illegal
to lie to a federal agent, you
poor excuse
of a pastor. I thought you
taught folks to tell
the truth.
Your
lies are
your death sentence
, as I
have the right under law to execute….”

        
“You
still
don’t
underst
….”, were the pastor’s last words
he spoke on earth. Major Schwartz fired a DHS hollow point between the pastor’s
eyes, blood spurting across the pulpit. Shouts and cries of anguish filled the
sanctuary. Major Schwartz gave a pre-arranged hand signal to his troops, who
responded by shooting every adult in the room. Methodically. The massacre was
devised by Director Mortman and his friends in the White House to send a strong
signal to the rebellious religious Americans who refused to bow to the powers
that be. There had to be a way to convince the religious and conservative
rebels to shut up and line up behind the administration. Nothing like a little
blood
, they concluded, to get people
thinking
right
.

        
Major Schwartz punched the call button on his cell phone.
“Director?....It’s
done.
This will
send a signal
. You can
count
on that.”

        
“Did you get
everyone
?
Don’t fuget the teensh. If you leave the teensh alive they’ll be a
big problem
since you took out their
parentsh.”

        
“Let me look, Director. Hold on.”

        
While the Director waited he continued to watch on his
television the black and white footage of hundreds of bodies being bulldozed
into burial ditches in Germany and Poland. He decided that it was time to
celebrate with another lager.

        
“Director.
Got ‘em all
.
We’re
done
, we’re out of here.”

        
“
Great
, Major.
Thish’ll do the job.
Crazy religious
nutjobsh.”

American
Hawk Sporting Goods

Seven
Corners Mall - Falls Church, Virginia

        
United States Senator Charles M. Quarter was an avid hunter.
His favorite sport was quail hunting when he was back in Nebraska, the state he
represented in the Senate. His interest in hunting was well known. Thus his
almost monthly visits, usually on Saturday afternoon, to a large sporting goods
store a few miles from his suburban home near Washington, D.C. were of no particular
interest to anyone who may have seen him in the mall. American Hawk Sporting
Goods was owned by a close friend, who volunteered to allow the Senator to use
the store’s large, well-ventilated storage room for secure meetings, if needed.
The room’s six inch thick iron and concrete walls prevented eavesdropping, it
was swept frequently for audio bugs and was one of the few places in the
nation’s capital that the Senator knew was safe for confidential conversations.

        
As the Senator waited at American Hawk for his guest, he
checked out the latest full camo Team Real suits, looking up frequently at the
store’s entry to the mall. On this Saturday afternoon the Senator was nervous.
He wasn’t a man given to worry, but he knew that today’s meeting was quite possibly
the most important session of his time in the Senate, most likely the most
critical of his life.

        
Then he saw his guest. They made eye contact as he entered
the store.
   
The Senator and his guest
entered the storage room and closed the secure door. This was their second
meeting in this room. They seated themselves in the leather chairs centered in
the room. Both men were quite well aware of the gravity of the moment.

        
The Senator’s guest was Douglas Toussaint, a retired three
star general of the United States Army, having served as the Army’s
representative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senator Quarter worked with
General Toussaint in prior years as a member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee. Within two weeks after the Senator confirmed from his now deceased
CIA employed brother that the bombings were false flags orchestrated by the
feds, he asked the General to meet him for their first meeting at American
Hawk.

        
The Senator knew the General to be a man of character. His
term on the Joint Chiefs had been interrupted when the President relieved him
of his command and involuntarily retired General Toussaint. The General had
offended the President, leading to the end of his career with the Army, when he
refused to agree to order troops under his command to fire on Americans, if
instructed to do so by the Commander in Chief. General Toussaint was one of
several officers in the U.S. military who were similarly relieved of their
duties for their refusal to agree in advance to such an order. Only the nation’s
fringe media, conservative talk shows and internet blogs reported the
dismissals of General Toussaint and the others terminated by the President.

        
The Senator then outlined his deep concerns for what would
happen to religious and conservative Americans in the President’s second term.
Once the Senator shared his concerns with the General in their first meeting,
the General responded that he was convinced that what would soon happen would
be much worse than the Senator had outlined, including a collapse of the dollar
and widespread national food shortages. Based on the General’s response at that
first meeting, the Senator plunged ahead and asked the General if he would be
willing to prepare a plan to remove the President from office and to lead the effort
to do so, since the US Senate had voted against each Article of the Articles of
Impeachment passed by the House. The General asked for time to think about it.
What the Senator didn’t know was whether the General was willing to sacrifice
all he had, his reputation, his freedom, maybe his life, to save his country.

        
The Senator walked out of their first meeting at American
Hawk into the mall and bought his favorite, a hazelnut/coconut gelato. As he
walked to his car Senator Quarter licked the gelato and arrived at a
conclusion. He decided that either the General would get back to him with a
plan….or alternatively….that the Senator would be visited by federal agents,
waving a search warrant for his office and home, preparatory to his arrest and
charges of treason.

        
The Senator was, therefore, greatly relieved several days
later when his Administrative Assistant told him that a high school friend from
Nebraska, named Doogie Sanchez, had called to ask for an appointment. The name
was provided to the Senator by the General, both knowing that all
communications with all Congressional offices were monitored 24/7, 365. The
Senator took the message slip telling his AA he would arrange to meet his old
friend. The Senator left a similarly vague, message for the General. As a
consequence, the Senator and the Three Star both showed up at American Hawk,
for the second time, on this dreary, overcast Saturday afternoon to discuss the
removal of the President of the United States of America.

        
“General Toussaint, may I assume that you’ve arrived at a
decision on what we discussed about three weeks ago here?”

        
“Senator, let’s make it Doug and Chuck, Okay? Titles won’t
mean much, anyway, if we get caught trying to pull this plan off.”

        
“Sure, Doug. Did I just hear the “p” word. Have you devised
a plan
….one that
will work
….hopefully?”

        
“Yes, Chuck, I have a plan. I have continuing contacts, of
course, with flag officers and others with whom I worked when I was still serving
my country. The plan that we’ve discussed was developed under the highest level
of security, by the smallest number of persons with any need to know and, by
the way, has a
better
than even
chance of success.”

        
Senator Quarter chuckled, “That’s a relief. I hate those
no chance
of success plans. What have
you developed?”

        
“We’ve first of all eliminated any plan involving grabbing
POTUS while he’s on the road.
Way too
many
uncontrollable elements. They always staff up heavy for trips on the
road. Plus the state and local police departments assign large numbers of their
own for additional security. I could go on, but you get the idea, there is
no
good scenario we could develop under
which it would work on the road.”

        
The Senator rubbed his chin, always a sign that he was
giving an idea deep thought. After a few moments, he said, “Doug, I just
assumed that doing it on the road, or maybe during one of his frequent foreign
trips, would be best because the White House complex is so heavily protected.
Humh….but….I hear what you say about the problems poised on the road. But, do
you
really
want to lead
an assault on the White House?”