Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (11 page)

TWENTY
FOUR

The
Residence of the Vice President

Naval
Observatory, Washington, DC

It was Friday
afternoon. The weather was briskly cold. The ground was partially frozen, with
a dusting of snow. As the historic grandfather’s clock in the foyer of the Vice
President’s residence struck four P.M. the Vice President swallowed the balance
of her second glass of Chardonnay and picked up the phone in her paneled
office. It was time.

“Sarah. It’s Hilde.”

“
Hilde
….that
is,
Madam Vice President….
how good to hear from you. To what do I owe
the privilege on this cold February afternoon?”

“It is cold, Sarah,
I’ve never been a fan of DC Februarys. I was doing some reading….looking at
some reports from around the country….some disturbing things….and….I wondered
if you had anything on your schedule for tomorrow morning? Maybe coffee at ten?
Here at the Naval Observatory residence?”

“Sure, Hilde, I was
just going to the gym at the agency in the morning, I can join you for coffee
at the residence. Make sure you alert the guards, remember the last time I came
over, they didn’t have my name. Or, if you’d rather, we could meet at your
office in the White House, or your other office in the Old Executive Office
Building. Your choice.”

“Sorry, Sarah, about
the gate issue. It’s been fixed…. and uh….I’d rather meet here, not down at the
White House, or even next door at the Eisenhower Building. Just a private
behind closed doors meeting would be best. Just the two of us.”

“
Ooh
, well,
OK, now you have my full attention, Hilde. You know I’m always up for palace
intrigue, because….”

“Sarah, let’s not use
that phrase, OK? I’ll see you at 10 AM.”

As promised, Sarah
Sahale, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was quickly cleared
through security at the entry gate of the Naval Observatory. She drove herself
up the hill to the Vice Presidential Residence. The Vice President was waiting
for her guest in her formal sitting room, which had been swept for electronic
bugs just the day before. One couldn’t be too careful, she had concluded,
especially with a subject like the one she was about to spring on her best
friend in the Cabinet. The Vice President had given her friend the triple explicit
admonition that she could not,
absolutely
must not
, divulge to
any living soul what the Vice President was about to tell her.

TWENTY
FIVE

Washington,
DC – Russell Senate Office Building

The members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee were slow to re-convene, most using the recess as an
opportunity to grant interviews to favored reporters, giving their spin to the
high-profile Committee hearings. Returning to the Senate Caucus Room, Senator
Blevins rolled his wheelchair the length of the massive oak table, and
positioned himself in the center seat, the location with the Chairman’s gavel,
and the Chairman’s power, unequalled by any other Member.

“Mister Madison, suh,
are ya ready to continue ya testimony?” 

John Madison was
technically ready, he thought, but it was obvious from the brief brush up with
Senator Blevins already this morning, that he was in for what he would call in
Texas, a tussle. How could anyone, he thought, really be ready for a tussle
with a varmint committed to his destruction? Nevertheless, he was committed to
as much civility as he could muster. “Yes, Mr. Chairman, I’m ready to continue.
Thank you so much for the timely recess.”

The Chairman started
to give a flippant response, then decided the better course was to move on. “I
would remind the witness, suh, that the oath ya took this morning still applies
to anything, that’s
anything
, that ya may choose to offer to the
Committee in ya further testimony today. Do ya understand that, suh?”

“Yes, sir, Mr.
Chairman.”

“Mr. Madison, late in
October last year ya delivered a much-reported speech to the gun lovers, uh,
‘scuse me, let me re-phrase that, to the Austin chapter of the National Rifle
Association. Isn’t that right, suh?”

“Yes, Mr. Chairman,
and it was much-reported, as you said. I’ve seen short excerpts from that
speech on several occasions broadcast by the nation’s media. What the news
clips don’t show is what I said about…”

“Ya’all answered my
question, Mr. Madison.…just wanted to be sure that ya were the same person
whose speech, many folks believe, may have led to the shootings, in Dallas. The
President’s shooting, mine and the murderous shooting of Vice President Larry
McAlister, for whom we have named this hate weapon and hate speech elimination
law to honor his memory. Now, what I want to ask next…”

“Mr. Chairman,
please, you have to give me the opportunity to respond to your…”

“Mr. Madison, I don’t
have
to do anything. I asked if ya gave that hate weapon incitement
speech and ya have now admitted that ya did. My next question, though, is
about.…”

John Madison was
close to losing it. He had been well prepared for the likelihood of this
specific attack, the accusation of his complicity in the shootings, but that
didn’t make it easy to take. He remembered his lawyer’s advice, he took two
deep breaths, and again interrupted the Chairman of the Senate’s most
prestigious and powerful committee. “With all due respect, and I do respect
your position as Chairman of this Committee, I want to state, on the record,
that I had
absolutely no prior knowledge
of the tragic shootings in
Dallas, including yours, Senator, which I sincerely regret. No knowledge. None.
Nothing.”

“Now, suh, that was a
mighty fine statement. Well-rehearsed and well stated. It suhtainly was. I
expected no less. No less, indeed. I am not accusing ya, suh, of any
direct
involvement
with my shooting, nor the President’s nor Vice President
McAlister’s. If there were even one shred of evidence connecting ya with the
shootins, what’s been called the Gun Conspiracy Against the Gubment, ya
wouldn’t be settin’ here, suh, ya’d already be in a federal prison, yes suh, ya
would. No, Mr. Madison, what I want to know more about, and what the members of
this Committee want to know more about and frankly, what Americans want to know
more about, is how ya hate speech may have motivated the triple shooting of
high government officials, just days later. We not only want to know
what
ya knew and
when
did ya know it, we want to know
what
the
shooters knew and
when
did they know it, and how much was based on
your
provocative little hate speech.”

“Senator, since I
have no clue who the shooters were, and apparently the FBI doesn’t either at
this point, how can I be expected to know how my speech affected them, or may
have affected anybody else, for that matter.”

“Now, Mr. Madison,
that’s right convenient, yes it is. Ya make ya little hate speech in Austin,
poisoning the public discourse, throwin’ unfounded accusations at our Commander
in Chief, then when ya followers take to heart what ya said, and try to
assassinate the man ya said the hateful words about, then ya just duck and
hide, and say ya just can’t be responsible for ya own hateful words. That won’t
wash, Mr. Madison, ya gonna have to face the music for what ya said in that….”

“Mr. Chairman, if I
may. Please….please….Sir, you have called my words in Austin hate speech and
hateful words, but anyone who has read the words, or watched the speech,
realizes that I was only saying in the middle of a heated campaign that the
President would likely try to take away our right to keep and bear arms if he
won a second term. To use your phrase, that’s political discourse. My words are
by no stretch the use of hate speech. I know from the media reports that the
Department of Justice is supposedly looking into whether or not I can be
charged with violating the federal Hate Crimes Act, and that…”

“And, suh, that
doesn’t concern ya?”

“Of course, Senator,
it concerns me. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m told that there was a judge a few
years ago who said that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the
District Attorney requested it. Of course, I’m concerned, I just don’t think
there’s any basis for such a charge.”

“Very funny, Mr.
Madison. Very funny, indeed. A ham sandwich, hunh? Well, we will see what we
will see. I am told that there are more federal agents working on the Dallas
shootings than have been assigned to any other investigation since 9/11. This,
suh, I can assure ya. This government will find and prosecute those who fired
the actual shots, but we will also put away for a very long time the lunatics
who set the stage for the assault on the government. We cannot, we will not
allow the overthrow of the government by violent means, even when it’s all
masqueraded as protected campaign speech. Not gonna’ happen, Mr. Madison, suh.”

John Madison felt
sick at his stomach. Virtually everything his attorney had warned him about was
unfolding before him, and being broadcast to a nation demanding answers. How
long had this been going on this morning, he wondered? He glanced at his watch,
another thing his attorney told him
not
to do.

“Mr. Madison, suh,
are we keeping ya from an important appointment? Are ya missin’ a meetin’ with
a gun manufacturing lobbyist? Do ya need to make a call to ya gun groups?”

Feeling humiliated
that the pressure and stress of the Committee hearing had made him forget even
the most basic prep, like not looking at his watch, John Madison could only
say, “No, Senator, you have my full attention.”

“Why, I thank ya for
that, I really do. Moving on Mr. Madison, the Committee staff has prepared some
basic questions for ya to submit to ya little tax payer, tea party, patriot
groups that ya are affiliated with down there in Texas. We’ll give ya plenty of
time to respond, say twelve, no…., let’s say ten calendar days. But, before I
pass the questionin’ to the distinguished Rankin’ Member, the gentleman from
Minnesota, I have one other area of questionin’, suh.”

“Yes, Senator.”

“I take it that ya
are well acquainted with the Second Amendment – it’s  kinda like ya holy grail
and ya holy Bible all rolled into one?”

“No, Senator, I
wouldn’t put it that way. I’d just say that the Constitution grants us as
citizens of the United States the right keep and bear arms, as it says in the
Second Amendment.”

“Well, let’s look at
your precious Second Amendment, suh. Not exactly, wouldn’t you agree, a model
of precise, careful use of the English language. It starts out by referring to
the militia.
The militia
. Quote
. A well-regulated militia being
necessary to the security of a free state.
Unquote. Do ya belong to a
militia, Mr. Madison? Of course, ya don’t. Nobody does any more, over two
centuries after the words were written with a quill pen, except for some
lunatics running around in the woods shooting at pumpkins and hiding ammunition
in logs. There might, I say, might, have been a valid reason to own weapons of
violence when the country was still gettin’ rid of the Brits, but today? Give
me a break.
The militia?
Because they needed an armed militia over 200
years ago doesn’t mean every man, woman and child should have the right
in
the 21
^st
Century
to own instruments of mayhem and murder. Now,
that just makes no sense to me, none at all. If ya want to arm the National
Guard in each State, I have no problem with that, they are today’s militia, I
believe, but my neighbor shouldn’t own an armory. Ya would agree that the many
legal scholars that have been calling for a legal re-interpretation of this
clumsy language have a point, wouldn’t ya, suh?”

“Senator, far be it from
me to criticize the founding fathers for their language. Sure, the language
used might have been a little more precise, but it’s clear enough. Read the
balance of the Second Amendment -
‘the right of the people to keep and bear
arms shall not be infringed’.
The people, the citizens, of this nation,
have a basic right to defend ourselves, by force of arms, if necessary. You
don’t have the right, Senator, to warp the clear intent of the Constitution by
just saying you are re-interpreting the Bill of Rights. When they wrote those
words, I’m sure they never thought that some future Congress would someday say
that the black letters on parchment had
no meaning
.”

Senator Blevins just
sat back in his Chairman’s chair and smiled. He knew that he didn’t need to reply
to Madison’s words, as the witness had just given him tomorrow’s headlines, and
those words would help push the Bill towards passage. John Madison had fallen
into the classic Congressional practice of trapping witnesses into agreeing
with a statement worded against the witness’s own interests. The nation’s
leading liberal media lost no time in headlining Madison’s testimony to advance
their undisguised anti-gun agenda:

New York Times

MADISON AGREES 2
^ND
AMENDMENT IS FLAWED

Boston World

PRO-GUN LEADER TESTIFIES NO BASIS

FOR GUN RIGHTS IN 2
^ND
AMENDMENT

CNN

CONGRESS
POISED TO PASS HATE WEAPON ACT