Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (5 page)

NINE

Offices of the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia

The President wasted
no time following his victory in the election. Once the election was over, he
had frequently thought during the campaign, his anger increasing with each day,
it would be time to settle some scores that were much in need of settling.
Nobody treats me like they did the last four years and get away with it, he
thought. Not
this
President. Not now that I’ve just been safely
re-elected into my second term. Never facing the voters again. I can finally
complete the process of fundamentally transforming a country that is obviously
drastically in need of radical transformation. They elected me the first time.
I told them what I would do. They re-elected me to a second term, knowing what
I would do. So, now, it’s finally time to actually do it.

It had been a long
day for Archbishop O’Malley. Most of his day had been spent fielding media
inquiries. Reporters were uniformly curious as to whether he had been served
any legal documents from the Department of Justice, as DC was full of rumors
that either the Archbishop or the Archdiocese were being indicted for
unspecified crimes. None of this came as a surprise to the outspoken
Archbishop, as he had been the leader of the nation’s Catholics in opposing the
re-election of the President. So, he expected no less, as he was a student of
history and knew well what happens to those who oppose the occupant of the
throne. He was acquainted with Machiavelli’s warning that “If you strike the
king, you must kill him.” 

The battle lines were
joined once the Department of Health and Human Services had ordered Catholic
institutions to provide medical services contrary to their faith. In response,
the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were unanimous in refusing to bow to
the dictates of the federal government, even including bulletin inserts passed
out in Catholic churches across the nation. Catholics were told that, if
necessary, they could be called upon to engage in civil disobedience against
the government’s violation of their religious liberty.

Archbishop O’Malley
walked his talk by personally leading Catholic civil disobedience in eastern
Pennsylvania. He signed a letter instructing employees of the Archdiocese to
refuse to allow any funds, directly or indirectly, to be used for contraceptive
health services. He also wrote to the insurance company that insured employees
notifying the company that he would cancel their services if any contraceptive
services were accorded by the company, as that would violate the beliefs of
their faith that life begins at conception.

The Archbishop made
the cover of TIME and most major daily newspapers with his stance leading the
fight and his public call two weeks before the election to “un-elect a
President who wants to destroy the Constitution’s guarantee of religious
liberty in America.” The White House was not amused, but the President and his
advisors decided that to avoid drawing rank-in-file Catholic voters into the
fight, they would just ignore the Archbishop, and the Church, until, after the
election, that is. They believed that most of the voters in the nation’s
Catholic Church pews were not behind their Church leaders, in any case. Studies
after the election showed that Catholic voters supported the President in
appreciable numbers. The Administration rewarded Catholic voters by indicting
Archbishop O’Malley.

What the President
had planned before the election for the Archbishop after the election was a
single count criminal indictment. The crime of which the Archbishop was accused
was that he purportedly violated the federal hate crimes statute. The DOJ
alleged that Archbishop O’Malley’s actions opposing the President’s HHS
directive was a hate crime in that the Archbishop “discriminated egregiously
against a protected class under the law, i.e., gender, as he committed acts to
deprive women of health services.” Not a single lawyer working at the
Department of Justice thought that there was even a remote chance of a
conviction, but the President’s decision to prosecute was not to be denied.

The Vatican’s Press
Office issued a statement “on behalf of His Holiness.” The Statement read:

“Today’s indictment
of Archbishop O’Malley is a travesty of justice. Unless dismissed immediately,
it may well lead to an unfortunate religious war in America. The Church doesn’t
want such a war, but apparently some in the American Administration do. May God
help us.”

The President buzzed
his Press Secretary to come to the Oval Office to discuss his Administration’s
response to the strongly-worded statement from the Vatican.

“Mike, look, I’m not
going to take this from Rome. Who does this Pope think he is? Religious war? If
they want a religious war, I would remind his Holiness what the Bible says
about King Rehoboam.”

“I’m sorry, Mister
President, I may have missed that in Sunday school class. The name is familiar,
though.”

“Check out Second
Chronicles chapter ten. After Solomon died, the people of Israel came to his
successor, Rehoboam, and begged him to lighten their load, to lay on them a
lighter yoke. You know, less government, so to speak.”

“So, Mr. President,
he did it, right?”

“No, of course not.
He told them that his little finger would be thicker than his dad’s loins. He
promised to make their yoke heavier, not lighter. That’s my plan.”

“Really, how did that
work out? Didn’t that split Israel and Judah into two nations?”

“That’s not the
issue. I’m just saying that the Vatican has picked on the wrong man. They did
their best to beat me, so I’ll do my best to increase what this government does
to rein in all these churches, of all denominations, that raised the sword
against me. What’s the phrase, ‘if you live by the sword, you will surely die
by the sword’?”  

“But, I can’t say
anything even close to that at the media briefing.”

“No….that’s
right….but here’s what you will say….”

At the daily media
briefing the President’s Press Secretary responded to the Vatican statement by
saying, “If it’s to be war, on behalf of women’s health services, let it begin.
America will not lose the battle.”

The next afternoon
Archbishop O’Malley surrendered at the Federal Building on Market Street. After
internal discussion the Attorney General determined that cuffing and
perp-walking a robed Archbishop in front of the media might not be the best
idea, even though the election was now successfully over and no votes could be
lost.

TEN

Dallas,
Texas

“POTUS is down! OH,
NO!…Repeat, the President….is down!...So is the VP.”

“Appears to be an
upper front shot…bleeding...he’s behind the podium …on the platform.…. Several
on the podium appear to have been shot…Protocol SkyHook. STAT! ….Full
perimeter. STAT, STAT.”

With these
frantically shouted words Secret Service Agent Stephen Quinn was only
confirming what hundreds of thousands of day viewers could see with their own
eyes – the President had been shot and was down, along with others on the stage
in Dallas.

Normally, viewership
of a day time Presidential speech outside of DC would not be large, but this
was no normal day. The election was now over. The post-election pundits had
given their views. The President and his running mate, accompanied by several
Congressional leaders, had for some time been touring the country in what some Republicans
derisively labeled the “President’s Victory Lap”. Some asked if he intended to
extend his tour for four years.

The major news
outlets led their initial reports of a shooting of the President by reminding
their audiences that the site of the shooting was the same city in which John
F. Kennedy was slain – Dallas, Texas. No one could know, of course, this soon
after the trigger was squeezed how this President would fare. Was it a fatal shot?
Was he merely wounded and would survive, as did President Reagan? As in any act
of violence of this nature, the crowds of supporters in City Hall Plaza
panicked, running from the Plaza. Within seconds, the Secret Service, following
well-rehearsed plans, had covered the President’s body, followed by carrying
him swiftly off the back of the stage erected for the speech in the Plaza, and
to an ambulance, always kept nearby for just such a purpose. Vice President
Lawrence McAlister, whose wounds appeared to be more serious, was likewise
swiftly moved offstage. The Senators and other Congressional leaders were
treated initially on the stage, due to the lack of immediate available
ambulances. President Bush, 42, noted that as long as he could see the ambulance
tasked to carry him, and he wasn’t in it, he was ok.

News coverage being
what it is in the age of satellites and the internet, tens of millions, and
then, billions, of residents of the world soon heard the news from Dallas,
holding their collective breath for what would inevitably follow – either the
good news of the President’s diagnosed likely survival of the assassination
attempt, or instead, the tragic news that he had succumbed to the malevolent
plans of his assailant, or assailants.

Within ten minutes of
the shot being fired, CNN set a new timing record in concluding that the act
appeared to be that “of a lone gunman”, though no one had any idea who the
shooter was, or even where the shot came from. Federal investigators, however,
narrowed the location of the shot to a one inch circular hole cut in a vacant
office window in a building a block and a half distant from the campaign event
platform, so far away that it had not been felt necessary for the building to
be secured prior to the event. Forensics experts concluded that the shooter had
to have been a highly skilled, well-trained sniper to make the shot, given the
distance and angles.

Twelve minutes after
the first Associated Press flash bulletin alerted the nation’s news outlets,
the NBC affiliate in Dallas reported that its hospital sources had informed the
station that the President had not survived the shooting. Lemming-like, the
world’s electronic media repeated the report of the death of the world’s most
powerful man. The news, though, was incorrect. As soon as the White House Press
Secretary, who had traveled to Dallas with his boss, could assemble the media
in the lobby of Baylor Hospital, he assured grieving reporters that the
President was very much alive, and was expected to fully recover.

The Press Secretary’s
response to questions about the Vice President and Congressional leaders was
more guarded. His reluctance led media veterans to conclude that at least one
of the leaders shot may have died from his injuries. The Press Secretary promised
updates of the President’s condition from Air Force One, to which the President
was about to be transported for a flight back to DC and medical attention at
George Washington University Hospital.

News of the shooting in
Dallas led officials to instantaneously conclude that the government of the
United States was under armed attack
.
The various federal agencies
charged with law enforcement responsibilities alerted their key employees to
the potential of a widespread assault on federal officials. Cabinet officers,
Congressional leaders not present in Dallas and Supreme Court Justices were all
taken to pre-arranged secure locations. With the shooting of federal officials,
it was clear that the events required the government to shift into full crisis
mode. Official Washington, DC knows well how to do crisis mode.

The startling news
from Dallas, as compelling as it was, ratcheted up even further in the midst of
the evening’s news coverage of the shootings, as talking heads on all media
outlets referred to the AP instant news feed. Chris Walters of Fox News covered
the breaking news:

“….and so, as we have
been extensively reporting, the President has survived, thankfully, this
dastardly, might I say also cowardly, attack today. Our sources tell us that
the President was not actually shot, but may have suffered superficial injuries
from shrapnel from the several bullets that were fired at the stage at the
rally in Dallas. We also understand from hospital sources that the Vice
President remains in surgery in Dallas and that a U.S. Senator who attended the
rally, whose identity has not been disclosed, was also injured in the mass
shooting today. We understand that the U.S. Senator is not from Texas, but that
he was traveling with the President in his post-election ‘thank you tour’
around the country.

“One un-named doctor
at Baylor Hospital, several blocks east of Parkland Hospital, which is where
President Kennedy was pronounced dead in 1963, as you will recall, has been
quoted by the Dallas Morning News as saying that one of the persons shot at the
rally today is in what he called ‘dire, worse than critical, condition’. He
opined to the newspaper that the shooting victim is not likely to survive.
Whether he was referring to Vice President McAlister or the U.S. Senator, who
remains to be identified, is unknown at this point in time….Let’s see….My
producer is telling me that next we’ll look at a segment from the hospital news
conference held late today at Baylor. Dr. Chap……wait…yes.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just
been told in my ear piece that the AP is issuing an emergency news flash. No,
it’s apparently not about the President, who remains in stable condition,
thankfully, and is on his way back to D.C. But, we have some news from Dallas,
according to the AP, and I quote, ‘the Senator who is suffering from a gunshot
wound has now been identified as U.S. Senator James R. Blevins of South
Carolina. He is…I’m repeating from the AP….‘apparently in serious condition’ …but
thankfully he is still alive’.

“The Senator is one
of the President’s loyal supporters, and one of the more liberal Senators,
though he’s from a southern State. He bucked the trend of conservatives elected
from Southern States, apparently because his father had been an icon in the
Senate for seven terms.

“This shooting report
is obviously somewhat different from the 2010 attempted assassination on
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, as her shooter was caught,
fortunately, at the scene of the shooting at a town hall meeting at a mall in
Tucson. As you know, she survived, some would say almost miraculously, a bullet
in her brain, though a federal judge and five others were killed. 

“ I will have to say,
though, that the almost complete lack of information on the condition of the
Vice President is troublesome. We’ve been told that the President, though
involved in the shootings today, was not seriously hurt and now we hear that
Senator Blevins was shot, but his condition, though serious, is apparently not
life threatening. That’s all good, but why no condition report at all on Vice
President McAlister?

““While we await
further news on the mass shooting of a number of elected federal officials in Dallas,
I would just like to comment about what I’m beginning to hear from our friendly
competitors on cable and beginning to read on some of the blogs. Just as in the
Arizona shooting where journalists and some bloggers immediately jumped to
conclusions, unwarranted as it turned out, and speculated that the shooter was
a ‘right winger’, I am starting to hear, actually increasingly now, that these
shootings were the acts of right wingers, or the militia or tea party folks. I
would suggest that everybody in my profession just hold on, be patient and let
the federal agencies, and the state authorities, do their jobs. We don’t need
any witch hunts at this point in time. We’ve got enough troubles, obviously,
without pointing fingers, or assessing blame….this early…. and….without all the
facts. Enough said. Now let’s take a quick break and we’ll be back to try and
sort all this out for you.” Walter’s unsolicited advice was ignored by most
American media.