Phoenix Rising: (39 page)

“You must try,” Mironov said.

“All right. I will try.”

Mironov stood. “I wish you the best of luck, my friend. The lives of many, many people may depend on it.”

Bryan nodded. Then, as Mironov left the coffee shop. Bryan thought about the last time he had seen Chris Carmack.

 

 

Bryan had met Chris at the Mehran Kabob Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue, within sight of the White House. The two shook hands, then found a table in the back of the room that was some distance separated from any other customer in the restaurant. Chris had been someone that Gates worked with in the CIA, and though he never knew about Chris's “contract killing” job, he did know that Chris had been involved in several very classified operations.

 

 

Shortly after that meeting, Gregoire had been rescued, and Rahimi killed. And since that time, Gregoire had made broadcasts from the center of the rebel stronghold.

Bryan smiled and hit his fist into his open palm. He knew exactly where Chris Carmack was.

Chris was on the balcony of his sixth-floor apartment at The Dunes condo, looking out toward the Gulf of Mexico. There was absolutely no surf today, the gulf being as flat as a swimming pool. Kathy came up behind him, then leaned into him. When she did, Chris smiled.

“You are either wearing something very thin or . . .”

“Would you believe the or?” Kathy asked, her voice low and breathy.

Chris turned toward her, and his smile broadened. “Damn,” he said. “You are totally naked.”

“I am not totally naked,” Kathy replied. She smiled, and held out a foot. “If you would bother to look at my feet, you would see that I'm wearing slippers.”

“Now why the hell would I want to look at your feet?” Chris asked, wrapping his arms around her, and pulling her naked body against him.

“Woman, what have you got in mind?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Kathy said. “I suppose it depends on . . . what comes up.”

Chris chuckled. “Yeah, well, something has come up.”

“So I've noticed. Shall we take care of it?”

“I think that would be an excellent idea.”

Not one traditional university had survived the collapse of the United States. Old and storied schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, as well as traditional football powerhouses like Alabama, Ohio State, USC, and Christian schools such as Notre Dame, Seton Hall, Texas Christian, and Baylor were gone.

In their place were new schools based upon the religious principles of Moqaddas Sirata, schools with names like Islamic University of Enlightenment, Holy Path College, and American Islamic University. Math and science courses were still being taught, but there were no American or world history courses available. Neither were there courses in business, literature, art, or music. Medical and law courses were still available, but the law courses stressed sharia law, and the practice of medicine was limited to males only. And, as part of their instruction, they learned that women were to receive no medical treatment of any kind as it was a sin for any man, including a doctor, to look upon the naked body of a woman.

“Should such a heresy occur, both the doctor and the female patient will be put to death,” the course warned.

The curriculum was heavy with classes on Islamic thought, Muslim philosophy, as well as the evils of Christianity and Judaism.

“It is our duty to convert everyone to the truth of the Holy Path, including other Muslims who have not seen the way. Those who do convert will be received as one of us. Those who do not convert will receive neither sustenance, support, or sympathy from the believer. It would be better for the nonbeliever to die quickly, for death is sure to come.”

Four students of the University of Islamic Enlightenment were gathered in the one-room apartment of Ron McPherson. The students were Ron's sister Ann, Carl Mosley, and his wife, Sally. Ann and Sally were wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, though both girls had burkas handy for when they left the room. They had gathered around Ron's computer, giving him suggestions on what to write. After a few minutes he lifted hands from the keyboard.

“I think this is it,” Ron said.

“Read what you have,” Carl said.

Ron ran his cursor back to the beginning of the file.

“A Message of Defiance, and a Plea for Action,” Jack read.

“Great title,” Ann said. “Who came up with that?”

“You came up with it,” Sally said.”

“Oh, no wonder I like it,” Ann said with a chuckle.

Ron cleared his throat before he continued to read.

“We were born free, looking forward to a future with the innate idea that could achieve anything we set out to achieve, limited only by our intelligence and self-determination. This was the result of what had been two hundred and thirty two years of freedom in a country that was the preeminent nation in the entire world.

“But the nation that our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and generations past fought to build and preserve, is no more. How did this happen?

“Perhaps we can start with the universities. The education we sought to guide us into our professional careers was sabotaged by the very people who were to provide us with this education. College and University professors all across the country began a program of indoctrination of a left-wing political philosophy that exceeded the actual education.

“This platform undermined two hundred and thirty two years of awareness of duty, sense of honor, and pride of country. The result was the creation of a society that was more interested in free stuff than freedom. The United States of America did not fall victim to a foreign enemy, but to an electorate that was either too selfish, or too intellectually challenged, to carry the torch of freedom forward. We voted for a candidate who had no record of accomplishment, or even a history of gainful employment.

“When the
Titanic
struck the iceberg, Thomas Andrews, the head ship designer, was aboard. As each succeeding compartment filled with water, he was able to calculate to the minute when the ship would reach the tipping point, when there would be more compartments not contributing to the buoyancy of the ship than there were compartments that were contributing to the buoyancy. Once that tipping point was reached, the result was inevitable, the
Titanic
would go down. With the unprecedented spending, and the number of noncontributing units outnumbering the contributing units our “ship of state” reached the tipping point, and, like the
Titanic
, our Republic foundered.

“We are no longer a nation of individuals, we are a flock of sheep. We stood by without so much as a comment as our economy was wrecked while, to deal with the emergency
he caused
, Ohmshidi began to strip our rights away. And where are we today? We are subject to Moqaddas Sirata, a degrading law that enslaves our women, and robs us of our humanity.

“In the 1960s this nation witnessed the power of an aroused student population when it helped to end an unpopular war. It is time, once more, for the students to take the lead. Next Wednesday we are calling upon all students to show solidarity with our sisters, by men and women wearing a burka, and staging a sit in at every university in the country.

“Signed, Warriors of the White Camilla.”

“Okay, what do we do with it now?” Sally asked.

“First thing we will do is send out an e-blast,” Ron said. “I had a computer geek who agrees with us create a program for me. All I have to do is send it to one address, and it will go out to every student in every university in the country.”

“How many students would that be?” Carl asked.

“Before the collapse of the United States we had twenty million university students,” Ron said. “I imagine that now the number is less than five million.”

Carl smiled. “But five million . . . damn! That's quite a circulation!”

Ron put the article into an e-mail file, and typed in the macro address “university,” then hit send.

Ron and Carl made a reasoned decision that they would not wear burkas on the day called for. If they didn't wear burkas, it seemed less likely that the movement, should it actually occur, would be traced back to them. They were purposely late in arriving but were rewarded as soon as they did get to school by what they saw.

Sitting on sidewalks and on the front porch of the entrances into all the academic buildings, were hundreds of students. And, because they were all wearing burkas, it was impossible, without a closer examination, to tell who was male and who was female. There was a big, hand-painted sign sticking up in the ground near the demonstrating students.

“All right, look at this!” Carl said excitedly.

“I wonder if it is like this at universities all over the country?” Ron asked.

“I'll bet it is. Why should they be any different? Nobody here realizes that the movement started here.”

“Don't anybody leave!” one of the students shouted, though as everyone was in burkas, it was impossible to tell who shouted.

“Stand your ground!”

The staff and faculty nearest the demonstrating students began talking quietly among themselves as they tried to decide what they should do. A couple of them went over to take down the sign, but after a couple more announcements over the public address system, telling the students that they must leave at once, it was the staff and faculty who finally left.

“They're gone! We won!” someone shouted, and the demonstraters cheered.

That evening in Ron's room, he, Ann, Carl, and Sally celebrated their victory.

“What happens now?” Ann asked.

“I don't know,” Ron admitted. “We let the genie out of the bottle, from now on what happens is up to the genie.”

“How could something like this happen?” Ohmshidi asked. “For the last week there have been thousands of students all across the country showing up for school, men and women, dressed in burkas, and blocking the entrances to the academic buildings. After the first day you said it would go away, but it hasn't. It's gotten larger. What started as a few hundred has grown into tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of protesters!”

“It is bound to go away, Glorious Leader,” National Leader Franken said. “These kind of movements feed upon publicity. And because we control the press, not one word of these incidents has been printed, or discussed. It's as if it never happened.”

“But it has happened,” Ohmshidi said angrily. “And I want it stopped. That is, if you can stop it.”

“Oh, I can stop it, Glorious Leader. But it will require action of the harshest kind.”

“I don't care how you do it. I just want this movement stopped.”

“Yes, Glorious Leader,” Franken said.

After leaving the Oval Office, Franken called in several of his advisors to discuss the situation with them.

“How did they manage to coordinate it so that everyone knew when to gather and what to do?” Franken asked.

“Oh, we know how that happened, National Leader,” Clint Waters, the chief of SPS security said. “A blast e-mail was sent out, going to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of students.”

“Where did the e-mail come from?”

“We haven't been able to track it back to its source, but we are on the net now so, when another one comes out, we will know about it.”

Franken drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Can we do something more than just know about it?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Can we send one out to the same people?”

Waters nodded. “Yes, we can. And I think I know where you are going with this. We can monitor the e-mails and next time one comes out, we can send one right afterward, admonishing them against the meeting.”

“No,” Franken said.

“No?”

Franken smiled. “I want to send an e-mail out, organizing another demonstration. Only this time we will have our men there ahead of time, and when they arrive and start their demonstration, we'll be there.”

“National Leader, if we arrest that many students, where will we put them? There are just too many for us to handle.”

“Who said anything about arresting them?”

“Well, if we don't arrest them, what are we going to . . .” Waters stopped in mid-question, then smiled. “It would send a very strong message to anyone else who might try something like this, wouldn't it?”

“Do it,” Franken said, standing up, then walking quickly from the room.

“Did you send this, Ron?” Carl asked, showing Jack the e-mail he had printed off.

“No, I didn't send it,” Ron said.

Carl smiled. “Good! You know what this means then, don't you? It means that our movement is spreading! Now, others are taking the initiative to organize demonstrations.”

“I suppose so,” Ron said. “But I wish they had coordinated this with us. The only way these demonstrations are going to have any effect is if they are well orchestrated. I mean, look at this. Gather in assembly hall? What assembly hall? And what are they supposed to do when they get there?”

“I don't know, but I suppose all organizations have growing pains. The SDS, the Weather Underground, even the Vietnam Veterans against the War, all began as independent groups before they began to cooperate for a single goal. I'm told that there was one peace demonstration where 250,000 students came to Washington,” Carl said.

“That's true,” Ron said. “Well, what do you say we go to Assembly Hall on Monday Morning and see what's going on?”

“Good idea.”

 

 

“Ron,” Ann said Monday morning just before they were ready to leave. “Let's not go. I've got a funny feeling about this.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“A feeling like something isn't quite right. I don't think we should go down there.”

“We've got to, Ann, don't you see? We are the ones who started this movement. How would it look if we get cold feet and chickened out now?”

“It's not the same thing. Like you said, there was no coordination on this. It is haphazard at best. Let's don't go down there. It won't make any difference to the movement whether we go or not. We could just sit this one out and see what happens.”

“I tell you what. You and Sally stay here,” Ron said. “Carl and I will go.”

“No, if you're going then I'm going as well.”

“No, I'm serious, Ann. Maybe there is something to what you say, maybe this wasn't as well organized. Maybe the SPS has gotten word of it somehow. If that's the case, it only makes sense to not commit everyone.”

“I agree with Ron,” Carl said. “Sally, you stay here with Ann.”

After several minutes of arguing about it, Ann and Sally finally decided that they would stay back.

“Be careful,” Ann said. “Don't leap in right away, sort of hang back until you see what's going on. Promise?”

“I promise,” Ron said.

 

 

When Ron and Carl arrived at the assembly hall, they were pleased to see that there were at least two hundred students there, and they were all standing around, talking excitedly, but with a sense of apprehension as well.

“What's supposed to happen here?” someone asked. “The message didn't say what we were supposed to do.”

“Maybe someone will come speak to us,” another suggested.

The confusion grew until it looked as if several were going to leave.

“Talk to them, Ron,” Carl said. “We can't waste this opportunity.”

“Yeah, you're right,” Ron said. He picked his way through the crowd to the front of the hall, then he climbed up on the stage. Walking to the front, he held his arms up, calling for attention. The conversation quieted.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Ron McPherson, and I thank you all for coming.”

“What did you call us here for?” somebody shouted. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Well, truth to tell, I didn't call you here, and I don't know who did,” Ron said. “I got the same message as you, but I figure that if we are all gathered here, then we may as well take advantage of it.”

 

 

Two SPS men, dressed as workmen, were in the utility room of the auditorium. They were each carrying a tool bag and, reaching into the bag, they pulled out gas masks. They said nothing as they pulled on the masks, then donned rubber gloves. One of the two men opened an inspection plate to the ventilating system. The other removed a steel container, unscrewed the lid, then, from the cushioned interior of the container, pulled out a test tube. The tube opening was sealed with a cork and, very carefully, he removed the cork, and held it up to look at the liquid.

“You sure that's enough?” the man who had opened the inspection plate asked, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

“It's Sarin. You don't need much,” the first man said. He poured it into the ventilating duct, and the stream of air atomized it, then pushed it through the duct to the outlet grate. Sarin gas quickly filled the room.

“If we can organize students all across the country, we can . . .” Ron was saying, but suddenly his nose started to run. Embarrassed, he reached up to wipe it and saw that many others in the room were also experiencing a runny nose. Next, he felt a tightness in his chest.

“What?” someone shouted. “What is happening?”

Ron started having difficulty breathing, then spittle began drooling from his mouth. That was followed almost immediately by vomiting and, even though he was in distress he saw that he wasn't alone. Everyone in the auditorium was having trouble and many were already down. Ron lost all control of his bodily functions, he began to defecate and urinate at the same time. He tried to call out, but he couldn't make a sound. Falling to the floor he began to twitch and jerk, then, in a final series of convulsive spasms, he found it impossible to breathe.

Everything went black.