Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (26 page)

Perp Walk III

Dan Mitchell sold guns for a living.
He sold more guns than any other gun dealer in the Midwest. His was a familiar
face to television viewers, as he would appear on screen, standing in front of
hundreds of guns for sale in his gun store in Iowa. His sandy hair and wide
smile were his trademarks, along with his famous television ads. Each ad always
ended with Dan looking into the camera and saying,
“I don’t care about
making a profit, folks….I just live…. to sell guns”.

During the national debate over the
McAlister Bill, and before Congress made the Bill into a law, Dan Mitchell was
a significant public participant in what the
Des Moines Register
called
‘the Iowa Gun Fight’. The newspaper didn’t much like Mitchell, and would
frequently parody his ads by calling them
‘Dan’s Hate Weapon Promos’.
The
problem for the newspaper was that Dan Mitchell became the major spokesperson
in the State against the McAlister Bill, so the paper was forced to quote his
colorful attacks, though it would have rather have just ignored him completely.

Possibly Dan’s most memorable
statement opposing the anti-gun Bill was when he called for armed resistance by
Iowans should the McAlister Bill become law. He told a gun owners rally in
Council Bluffs, “Mark my words. If the Congress passes this wicked Bill, we
will see even more
blood run in the streets of the cities of Iowa
. No
way Iowans will allow the President to take away our guns, no possible way. We
will
shoot
anyone who tries to do it. Mark my words. And this is not
about my ability to sell guns, ‘cause you all know I don’t care about making a
profit, folks,
I just live to sell guns
.”

ATF agents later denied rumors that a
blown up picture of Dan Mitchell was taped to the wall of the ATF offices in
the Field Division office in Kansas City, which had jurisdiction over Iowa.
They also denied that someone had written across Mitchell’s face – PUBLIC ENEMY
#1. Whether true or not, once the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed McAlister as the
law of the land, agents lost no time in obtaining a search warrant for
Mitchell’s home and rural farm buildings. Dan Mitchell had earlier locked the
doors of his mega gun store the day after the President signed the McAlister
Act in the Rose Garden. He did so surrounded by guns rights advocates carrying
protest signs, and well covered by regional media. He cursed the President and
the Congress for the new Law, and for its forcing him to close the business he
had lived to enjoy for over thirty years. Dan told the media that, “I don’t
have to keep selling guns, folks. I’ll survive just fine, but what won’t
survive is
the freedom to own a gun
.
That freedom died
in the
Rose Garden, killed dead by this idiot President and idiot Congress of ours.”

Mitchell’s incendiary words on the
evening news were watched carefully at the Kansas City ATF office. An internal
memo was sent to the Des Moines Field Office advising the office to obtain a
search warrant to attempt to locate any illegal firearms in the possession of
Dan Mitchell. The memo, it was said, had been taped to the picture of Mitchell
that was officially not taped to the wall of ATF offices.

The Des Moines Field Office lost no
time, once the Supreme Court upheld McAlister, in asking the presiding District
Court Judge to issue a sealed search warrant. Sealed, because they did not want
to alert Mitchell before they showed up to search his house and out buildings.
But, it wasn’t as if Dan Mitchell didn’t expect them. He knew he had made
himself a giant target. He even had a local t-shirt shop make him a shirt with
concentric red rings on the back. He liked wearing it when he went into town to
have coffee at Nellie’s Pastry Shop and Deli. He’d tell anyone who asked,
“Since I know they’re coming for me, I don’t want them to miss and just
maim
me
, I want to help them get a
good clean shot
.” No one, of course,
planned to shoot Dan Mitchell, that was bit of exaggeration on his part, but he
was after all, a consummate show man. He was correct, though, that he was a
target. He had made himself one by his own words. He had to be brought
down….and shut up.

When Dan saw where the fight over gun
rights was headed, he gave serious thought to leaving the country. In his
research he learned that there were still several nations that allowed private
gun ownership. His final first choice was New Zealand, where over 200,000 gun
owners own over a million guns, which are licensed, but not registered. Gun
shops in New Zealand are legal, a fact which appealed to Dan’s desire to stay
in business. But, Dan frittered and fretted, and couldn’t bring himself to pack
up and move, somewhat like the Jewish families in Europe seeing the danger from
Hitler’s Brown Shirts coming, but failing to escape while they still could. He
later wondered how he could have been so stupid, but by then it was too late.

When the agents arrived at Dan
Mitchells’ farm they served their warrant, then went immediately to work. They
did not expect to find any firearms in the sprawling house, but they searched
it anyway. They then turned to the several out buildings. Armed with sensitive
metal detectors, agents eventually uncovered a serious cache of firearms under
a metal plate in the back of a straw covered horse stall in a long abandoned
farm building, on the backside of the 180 acre Mitchell farm property. Over one
hundred weapons of various types. Caught.

Dan Mitchell could afford a good
criminal defense lawyer. His good criminal defense lawyer advised Dan Mitchell
to shut his mouth, and keep it shut, with no comments, no fighting words, no
nothing. He told Dan to just do the perp walk. No smiles. No frowns. Hold up
your head, as much as you can, with your hands cuffed behind you. Dan argued
that he was too well known for being a fighter to not fight, or at least
verbally fire back, when they hauled him into the federal building on Walnut
Street in Des Moines. Dan’s good criminal defense lawyer responded that if he
mouthed off, each word could cost him years of incarceration or thousands of
dollars in fines. Dan Mitchell got the message, and was uncharacteristically
subdued when he was perp walked along Walnut Street in front of his ‘friends’
in the media. Several of the agents who had been less than amused by Dan’s
harsh words in years past gathered later at Java Joe’s Coffeehouse to commemorate
his arrest. One said, toasting the event with his coffee cup, “Here’s to Dan.
You shoulda obeyed the law, Dan. Now, you’ll get to spend a lot more time with
your former customers.”

Results of
Perp Walks

Within a week after the highly
publicized perp walks, and several others that followed around the country, the
various Redemption Centers reported tens of thousands of firearms brought in by
obviously concerned owners. The ATF’s initial success with the redemption of
firearms cheered the occupant of the White House. The re-writing of the
Constitution was a natural outcome of years of discussions between the
President, before he achieved public office and a close friend who bombed a
police station as a 60’s radical. Both had served on left-leaning not-for-profit
boards of directors. The President’s first meeting in his initial run for
office was in his friend’s living room. His friend was now a trusted advisor
who was frequently called on by the President for his creative public policy
ideas. His friend had often speculated how the U.S. government might one day be
taken over by people who thought like they thought. He advised the President
that his study of history confirmed that once a person in authority gets away
with operating outside of the traditional restraints of the rule of law, the
next similar act becomes even easier, as the fear factor increases. The success
of McAlister fueled their determination to further radically alter America in
the days ahead.

FIFTY FIVE

Wilbur
Calhoun’s Hospital Suite

Former President Wilbur Calhoun asked
the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps to meet with him in his
hospital suite. He readily agreed to do so. The former President asked his
friend and the former Adjutant General of his state, who served when Wilbur was
Governor, to show up in casual dress, not in his four star general olive tan
uniform Marine Corps uniform. There was no way to avoid being seen entering the
hospital, but in any given day many people entered the hospital. Wilbur
concluded that a fiftyish man with a close cropped hair cut wearing a
sweatshirt and jeans would attract little or no attention, even if his Secret
Service guards were snitching to the White House, which he assumed they were.

The general was seated in a chair close
to the bedside of the former President, who had requested his nurse to turn up
the volume on the radio in his suite. The room had been cleared and his Secret
Service agent posted in the hall. Wilbur motioned for his visitor to lean over
closer, so he could speak to him quietly.

“Look, General, let’s just get to it. I’m
more than well aware that ya job as Commandant of the Corps is primarily an
administrative position.”

“That’s right, Wilbur, uh, sorry, Mister
President. And you can drop the General handle, I’m still just Wes to you. By
the way, I’m so glad you’re out of your coma. That’s right, I have no direct
operational command authority.”

“Wes. How long have we known each
other? Thirty….thirty five years, since my first term as Governor? I didn’t ask
ya here to talk about the niceties of law, the legalities of the Corps. I
understand what the statutes provide and what the organizational charts show. I
wanted to talk to ya about
saving the country
. Hilde and I have both
decided that ya are very possibly the only person in the entire nation who is
positioned to save America.”

“Un hunh….Look, Wilbur, I might have
been born at night, but not last night. I assume you asked me to visit you to
discuss all those rumors about Hilde’s effort to kick out our much beloved Commander
in Chief. Am I right?”

“Very perceptive, Wes. But let me just
say that not everything the media reported about what happened in January was
accurate. Mainly a lot of rumors….and….such.”

“OK, but you didn’t ask me here to talk
about my health. What happened in January at the Cabinet meeting? The only
Cabinet meeting, as I understand it, that’s been held so far this year?
Between
us
, of course, did Hilde, excuse me, did the Vice President try and push
the President into stepping down? The word at the Pentagon, which came from my
sources at SecDef, was that she tried to line up enough Cabinet members to sign
a document ousting the President because he was unable to discharge his powers
and duties. Do I have that right? Am I close?”

“Well, pretty much, but the SecDef,
that scurrilous weasel, is the one who tipped off the President and blew
everything out of the water.”

“You’ve confirmed that?”

“Ya figure it out. Every Cabinet
member, except SecDef, was ousted….every one. Plus, then Hilde lost her White
House office. Since then, she’s been kicked out of the Eisenhower building next
to the White House, and, Wes, believe it or not, her Secret Service detail is now
down to one agent at any given time, just as I predicted would happen, by the
way. SecDef and the President have this country in their grip. We both know
that posse comitatus is no longer worth anything. The U.S. military is running
this country, under the direct orders of the Commander in Chief. Wes, ya know
the real body count, not the doctored, cleaned-up tally. We can’t continue
shooting Americans who oppose the President and his policies.”

“Mr. President, we both know what
happened out in St. Louis, and in city after city, Americans killing Americans.
Everybody knows where this is heading, if it’s not contained, and soon. That’s
obvious even to the mainstream media, though they’ve been covering up for the
White House now for way too long. They know the truth, but to protect
themselves from the harsh spotlight of history, they continue to lie and
obfuscate. Which brings me back to asking….why, exactly, why did you ask me
here?”

“Wes, SecDef has the President’s back.
He quite obviously sent the armed troops who were parked and ready at the
Treasury Building to rush over to the West Wing if the Cabinet even came close
to signing a document to remove the President. The President threatened Hilde
and the Cabinet with the use of the troops if they tried anything. I don’t
think that’s what Senator Bayh and Representative Celler had in mind when they
wrote the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. They wanted a smooth transition process. Hilde
has a source at Justice who tells us that the AG is looking at how the
President can remove Hilde from office under Section Two of the same Amendment,
which talks about a vacancy in the Office of the Vice President. Wes, we can’t
have any more of this internecine warfare, but more importantly, we can’t have
any more bloodshed in the streets.
The man has to go
.”

“Mr. President, you know how highly I
regard you, and also the Vice President, but, there are obvious limits to what
I can do. I don’t command any troops, even though I’m the Commandant. Though,
obviously, I could ….”

“Well, Wes, what ya can….”

“Wait, let me finish. You haven’t
asked yet, but should you ask….umh….should you ask me to use Marines to
forcefully change the occupant of the White House, you would be violating
untold numbers of federal statutes. In addition to which you would be inviting
me to
a hanging party
. Last I looked, it’s treason to overthrow the
government. I wouldn’t last three months before they’d put the hood over my
head and fire away.”

“Wes, my friend, that assumes that ya’d
fail. History is written by the winners. If ya succeed, and Hilde becomes ya
Commander in Chief, she’ll pardon any technical violations of the law that ya,
and your troops, may commit. That’s a given. She’d put it in writing, in
advance, of course.”

“What?
Technical
violations?
Aren’t you troubled just a little bit, especially as a lawyer, with violating
the trust of the people who
elected
this man as our President? Why not urge
Congress to
impeach him
? You know, the old fashioned way, you should
know something about that process, right?”

“No reason to bring up bad memories, Wes.
Ya know as well as I do that impeachment has to start in the House, and Speaker
Pelham and the President are, to be charitable, close. Very close. Impeachment
isn’t going to happen. With his mummy-dummy Cabinet installed, all now
doubly-sworn loyalists, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is off the table. The only
way to stop this man from ripping our country apart is to forcefully remove him
from office. I don’t know of any other way to say it, or to do it. General, America’s
very survival is at stake.”

“Sir….it’s time for me to leave….I
need to think. Sorry.”