Leon Uris (43 page)

“Are you trying to say I’m orchestrating these riots?”

“You knew they would happen, brother. And you knew you could have stopped them dead in their tracks a half hour ago. But there is more. You want some blood on the streets as well. Every time someone is killed or wounded, the pressure mounts on O’Connell to quit and withdraw.”

“That’s diabolical!” Thornton protested.

“It sure is. Thornton, stick this in your craw. Every casualty that puts pressure on O’Connell puts even more pressure on you.”

Thornton turned his eyes away.

“It’s down to simple math. If the people believe O’Connell, they will vote him into office next week,” Darnell said. “If they believe you, they will vote to reelect you.”

Tomtree averted his eyes from his friend’s piercing glare in a manner he had not done since they were teenagers.

Darnell became a bundle of sweating, pleading. “God, man, stop these riots!”

Knowing that Thornton was not going to budge, Darnell backed off, broken, to whine: “I’ve been following a black-hearted man all my life. My daddy believed there was a bright star in the east the night you were born. Like Jesus! ‘Thornton’s mind can go into places where no one can follow. He will achieve ultimate greatness for himself and for the human race.’ I believed that, too. I believed you would never make a decision that knowingly put America in danger.”

“That’s enough, Darnell.”

“No, it isn’t. The reason you are doing this tonight is that seed already planted in a gangly, pimply
excuse for a basketball player in Pawtucket. You were pissed then, and you’re pissed now. World! T3 is going to even up the score for his friendless life.”

“I said, that is enough!”

Darnell ignored him. “The Bulldog Network, absolute secrecy guaranteed. A paragon of human achievement. Why did Thornton Tomtree love that? Big-time greed is where the power is, where the big bucks play. Greed is the curse of making yourself a deity in your own eyes up to a point where you cannot manage a human relationship. Greed is justifying any and all means of control. You’re an electronic monster! We have a president uncaring of how many people are killed on the streets so long as he wins his reelection.”

“I knew you’d end up weeping on your knees, big-time, when the going got tough. You didn’t know what the presidency is all about,” Thornton said.

Hugh Mendenhall slipped in.

“Muslims stirring up a riot in Detroit. That’s a very incendiary place. Michigan governor Grayson McKenney has just called up the National Guard.”

“Goddammit! Grayson’s a Republican. He should have called me first!”

“At the moment AMERIGUN is setting up for a TV and website blast starting in the morning. Otherwise, these brush fires continue to pop up.”

“Colorado?” Thornton snapped. “Has O’Connell called up his guard?”

“Negative. Nothing seems to be happening in Denver.”

“Any idea how we might set Denver off?” Thornton asked.

“I don’t fucking believe this!” Darnell cried.

“Sit down and shut up, Darnell.”

More news of rioting. The downtown areas of a
dozen cities began to flame to the beat of broken glass!

Kristallnacht!

Thornton moved to his study, adjoining his bedroom, where he had a setup of a dozen TV monitors. Snips were arriving of tear gas, swinging batons…now water cannons!

“Okay, buster,” Thornton said to himself, “so let us play chicken, O’Connell, let’s play chicken!”

Ben Horowitz was damn near inconsolable, taking the blame for turning the devil forces loose.

Quinn’s calm calmed them all. No chinks in the armor, no wringing hands, no shouts to God. He spoke softly as the news reached him and gave quick, thoughtful responses.

“Nebraska has just called up the Guard,” Greer said.

“I didn’t think we were doing that well in Nebraska. How many call-ups?”

“Nine states, six states pending. Twenty-eight states report no rioting activity…but, Jesus, if the President doesn’t issue an order…how long?”

A car bomber plunged into the plate-glass window of Feldman Toyota on the auto mile of San Francisco.

A gunman entered the Lew Singer Deli on lower Broadway and sprayed the place with automatic fire. Six are known dead, twenty wounded.

A bonfire of books from the Judaica sections of the Jacksonville Library licked the sky while encircling neo-Nazis saluted and chanted.

*  *  *

Ketchum, Idaho, bank hit by a dozen militia. Half million dollars taken. One dead.

As the night settled in, the question at hand was the upcoming day. Bitter O’Connell haters watched how the authorities were responding to see what situations would be ripe for daylight exploiting.

And the governors and mayors watched, to use their forces gingerly and not get into a situation of putting a thousand of their citizens against their own arms.

And the sound of
Kristallnacht
!

The Reverend Amos Johnson was the surviving icon of the early civil rights movement. He had risen to challenge for the presidency twice in primaries and walked off with eighteen percent of the vote.

His personal ambitions chilled by the white establishment, Amos became a dynamic wellspring of hope for his people and gathered in a large Hispanic following as well.

There was a time of separation between a liberal Jewish activism and the black community. Some African-American leaders scolded their former allies as pious do-gooders looking down with pity on their black brothers.

Into this mix crept the inevitable ancient tentacles of anti-Semitism. The slum lord, Jewish wealth, Jewish power, now grated on those downtrodden ghetto dwellers.

Amos Johnson himself took the view that the Jews were patronizing them without either deep love or conviction.

Attempts to heal a widening rift by covering the issues with a Band-Aid did not help.

The Black Muslim movement fanned a constantly
smoldering pall of anti-Semitism. The Jew is the enemy!

The Reverend Amos Johnson had worked closely with too many Jewish politicians and leaders not to realize that the two communities were inexorably bound together by tragedies.

The Jews, as a people, had reached many of their goals. This angered some and enraged other blacks whose gains came slower and with more pain.

A cycle emerged of black for the sake of black. Reverend Amos Johnson always gave a wide berth to the hate teachings of the Muslim Nation. Despite his high regard in the country, Reverend Amos never publicly rebuked them on any issue.

It was not as though the history, leadership, and white citizens deserved better. They had wrought a system of injustice that was ending in black-white polarization. Black juries proved as prejudiced as white juries had always proved.

The firebrand days were behind Johnson, and three of his children, two of them daughters, were members of Congress. They badgered him constantly to lead the African-American community out of perpetual victimhood.

As soon as the riots started, his children rushed to his home, held hands, and prayed for guidance. Outside, a crowd of believers started numbering in the thousands, backing up clear to both street corners.

The media included black cable TV channels and a black press.

“Now hear me!” Amos began.

“We hear you,” was the response.

“We have been driven to the wall time and time again throughout our tragic history in this nation. We are in pain!”

“Pain!”

“We are in agony! We still await our walk in the sun!”

“You tell us, Reverend!”

“Slowly, slowly, always too slowly we have crawled the crawl, feeding on crumbs of this wealthygate society. We yet await our walk into the sun!”

“Hallelujah!”

“Tonight!” Amos cried.

“Tonight!” was responded.

“We will play the role given us by Yahweh to be full Americans. We will set aside the injustices for the moment, and we will be Americans first! We who have suffered the terror of lynchings and dogs and nightsticks and hate-filled policemen…we who suffered all this say: we will not be used as monsters to bring down another American community!”

“Amen!”

“Do not let the forces of evil in and out of our community let us be used to do unto another what has been done to us! No matter what our personal experiences with Jews, we just set them aside, for Yahweh has commanded us to save our brothers!”

Silence swept over them.

“We who have been denied the right of full citizenship will not be used to deny that right to others. Let no black man stain himself with the blood of a Jew, because, if the carnage is not stopped, the black man and woman will become the next target. America must exist with all its little communities intact, or it will not exist at all. We must now set our own grievances aside because tonight we are Americans!”

Amos turned away from the bank of microphones into the embrace of his wife and children.

“You said the right thing, Daddy,” his daughter told him.

“The hate is killing us,” Amos whispered.

Milwaukee was quiet. The skinheads of Milwaukee looked time and again for police on the streets. There were none. They grew bolder. A call went out on their website for an immediate gathering.

Sixty bald heads swathed in black leather and adorned with swastikas marched toward the Beth El Synagogue singing one of the good old blackshirt songs.

Breaking News Breaking News Breaking News

“This is Charlotte Cassidy, CBS, Memphis. Southern Grand Dragon Potter Wesley has called for a four-state convergence of the Klan at Memphis to parade at daybreak. Mr. Wesley! Sir! May I have a few words with you?”

“No.”

“How many klaverns do you think can make it to Memphis by daylight?”

“What did you hear?” he growled.

“Upward of a thousand Klansmen.”

“I won’t dispute that, and while we’re at it, let me tell you something. CBS is just another Jew network.”

“I understand that some of your people will be carrying weapons—”

“This is a peaceful march. The KKK does not believe in violence against niggers or kikes. Now, if some folks want to bring along a weapon to defend
themselves, ain’t much I can do about that.”

“The KKK show of force,” Charlotte said, “will not be disturbed as long as it remains undestructive, says the chief of police. However, a survey of college campuses in the vicinity indicates that the Klan will run head-on into growing ranks of students.”

Breaking News Breaking News Breaking News

San Francisco.

Eric Cardinal Mueller, a dean and often spokesßman, took his seat as the cameras honed in on him and the commentator spoke, softly giving the priest’s background.

“It is the never-ending mission of the Church to find truth and speak truth even to the point of admitting Church wrongdoing in the past. No church can survive on lies. Since World War Two our foundations have been rocked by the passive role of the Vatican during the Holocaust. In this search for truth, we are now investigating our role in the Spanish Inquisition.

“Only a half century ago Jewish citizens of Germany cried out in the night for their neighbors to help them. As they slammed the door in Jewish faces, the gates of Auschwitz were opened.

“A
Kristallnacht
is shaping up in the streets of our cities and in our countryside. In the end we have to earn our keep as Christians.

“We are still haunted by the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not a Jewish problem. The Holocaust is a Christian problem. We cannot permit this to happen, for if we do, we will wipe out our own teachings.”

“Turn that goddamned thing off!” Thornton snapped. “That goddamn kraut cardinal now wants
to slap their guilt on us. Don’t forget, O’Connell is still a Catholic. And the Reverend Amos and his three kids are still Democrats.”

As Thornton received the minute-to-minute reports, Darnell all but hid himself in a corner, shriveling into a fetal position. It was befalling him to empty his head of his life and deeds. Surely, in a showdown Thornton Tomtree would come down on the side of decency. That proposition had kept them in place for over four decades. Why couldn’t he have seen what he saw now?

T3 was doing no more or less than making him an extension of himself. No, he would not curve the course. No, he would not go down graciously.

Yes, he would endanger the nation!

Oh, Lord! Darnell thought. There will be a still photograph to mark the era, like the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, or the little oriental war baby sitting in the middle of the road, or John-John Kennedy saluting his father’s coffin. What will this photograph be? A burning Star of David? Blood on the street? Someone’s stuffed bunny being clutched by a dead infant? What will be our
Kristallnacht
? Like the Monica Lewinsky-Clinton embrace, the
Kristallnacht
will bring back an ugly moment.

Dr. Jacob Turnquist did not sit opposite the President with a great deal of comfort. He squirmed.

“As the hard right groups have had a chance to organize, we can expect a renewal of street activities at daybreak. Once these incidents hop from town to town…I think we’ve reached a danger point.”

That was not what Thornton wanted to hear. He needed to speak to the vice president, to ascertain that the bedrock Christian Coalition was still in place. What was Thornton weighing? Why? How much danger should he allow?

Mendenhall came in sallow, a single sheet quivering in his fingers.

“Well!”

Mendenhall cleared his throat, a signal of a coming disaster. “Editorials for tomorrow, one hundred largest markets. Front page, ninety-two. Pro rioters, so long as they protest without destroying property or life…twenty. Call for the President to react…eighty-one. Believe Governor O’Connell…seventy-eight. Zionist plot…three. Postpone election…yea, twelve, nay, eighty…”

“Shit!” Thornton mumbled.

“Some of the editorials hit pretty hard,” Mendenhall said.

Thornton looked to Turnquist angrily. It was one thing to sit at a conference table espousing his political Princeton wisdom, but quite another to be in the bunker with shells flying all around.