The 14th Colony: A Novel

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For the Ducks,

Larry and Sue Begyn, Brad and Kathleen Charon,

Glenn and Kris Cox, John and Esther Garver,

Peter Hedlund and Leah Barna, Jamie and Colleen Kelly,

Marianna McLoughlin, Terry and Lea Morse,

Joe Perko, Diane and Alex Sherwood,

Fritz and Debi Strobl, Warren and Taisley Weston.

The terms of the President and Vice President
shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.

—U.S. CONSTITUTION

20TH AMENDMENT

PROLOGUE

V
ATICAN
C
ITY

M
ONDAY
, J
UNE
7, 1982

Ronald Reagan knew that the hand of God had brought him here. How else could it be explained? Two years ago he was locked in a bitter primary fight against ten contenders, vying a third time for the Republican party’s presidential nomination. He won that battle and the election, defeating the Democrat incumbent Jimmy Carter and claiming forty-four states. Then fourteen months ago an assassin tried to kill him, but he became the first American president to survive being shot. Now he was here, on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace, at the pope’s private study where the leader of nearly a billion Catholics waited to speak to him.

He entered the room and marveled at its modesty. Heavy curtains blocked the summer sun. But he knew that from those windows, each Sunday, the pope prayed with thousands of visitors in St. Peter’s Square. Sparse furniture, the most prominent being a plain wooden desk, more reminiscent of a table, with two high-backed, upholstered armchairs fronting each long side. Only a gold clock, a crucifix, and a leather blotter sat atop. An Oriental rug lay beneath on the marble floor.

John Paul II stood near the desk, regaled in papal white. Over the past several months they’d secretly exchanged over a dozen letters, each delivered by a special envoy, both speaking to the horror of nuclear weapons and the plight of Eastern Europe. Seven months ago the Soviets had declared martial law in Poland and clamped down on all talk of reform. In retaliation, the United States had ordered sanctions imposed on both the USSR and Poland’s puppet government. Those punitive measures would stay in place until martial law ended, all political prisoners were freed, and a dialogue resumed. To further ingratiate himself with the Vatican, he’d directed his special envoy to provide a mountain of covert intelligence on Poland, keeping the pope fully informed, though he doubted he’d passed on much that had not already been known.

But he’d learned one thing.

This cagey priest, who’d risen to one of the most influential positions in the world, believed as he did that the Soviet Union was destined for collapse.

He shook hands with the pope, exchanged pleasantries, and posed for the cameras. John Paul then motioned for them to sit at the desk, facing each other, a panel depicting the Madonna keeping a mindful watch from the wall behind. The photographers withdrew, as did all of the aides. The doors were closed and, for the first time in history, a pope and a president of the United States sat alone. He’d asked for that extraordinary gesture and John Paul had not objected. No official staff had been involved with the preparations for this private discussion. Only his special envoy had quietly worked to lay its groundwork.

So both men knew why they were there.

“I’ll come straight to the point, Holiness. I want to end the Yalta agreement.”

John Paul nodded. “As do I. That was an illegitimate concept. A great mistake. I have always believed the Yalta lines should be dissolved.”

On this first point his special envoy had read the pope correctly. Yalta happened in February 1945. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met for the last time, deciding how a postwar Europe would both look and be governed. Boundary lines were drawn, some quite arbitrary, others deliberate as appeasement to the Soviets. Part of those concessions entailed an agreement that Poland remain under the sphere of the USSR, with Stalin pledging to hold free elections. Of course, that never happened and the communists had ruled there ever since.

“Yalta created artificial divisions,” John Paul said. “I, and millions of other Poles, greatly resented that our homeland was given away. We fought and died in that war, yet it mattered not to anyone. We have suffered brutality for forty years, starting with the Nazis, then the Soviets.”

He agreed. “I also believe that Solidarity is the way to end Yalta.”

That tear in the Iron Curtain happened two years ago at the Gdansk shipyards, the first non-communist-controlled trade union ever allowed. Now over nine million Poles were members, one-third of the entire workforce. A scrappy electrician named Lech Walesa served as its head. The movement had acquired power, force, and appeal. So much that last December the Polish government had imposed martial law to quell it.

“They made a mistake trying to quash Solidarity,” he said. “You can’t allow something to exist for sixteen months then, just as it catches on, reverse course and outlaw it. The government has overestimated its reach.”

“I have made overtures to the Polish authorities,” John Paul said. “We must open talks on the future of Solidarity and the end to martial law.”

“Why fight it?”

And he watched as this novel overture registered. His special envoy had urged him to broach the subject, thinking that the Vatican would be receptive.

A grin came to the pope’s lips. “I see. Let them be. All they are doing is alienating the people. So why stop it?”

He nodded. “Any rebuttal the government mounts to Solidarity is a cancer. Let it grow. Every word in opposition the government speaks just makes the movement stronger. All Solidarity needs is money to keep it alive, and the United States is prepared to supply that.”

The pope nodded, seemingly considering what he was proposing. That was far more than Reagan’s people had been willing to do. The State Department strongly disagreed with the tactic, saying the Polish regime was stable, solid, and popular. They provided a similar assessment for Moscow and the USSR.

But they were wrong.

He said, “Pressure is building every day from within, and the Soviets have no idea how to deal with that. Communism is not equipped to handle dissent, short of dishing out terror and violence. The only morality Moscow recognizes is what will further its own cause. Communists reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime. To lie. To cheat. To do anything they want. No political system like that has ever survived. It’s inevitable their system will collapse.” He paused. “But we can hasten it.”

John Paul nodded. “The tree is rotten, all it needs is a good shake and the bad apples will fall. Communism is evil. It prevents people from being free.”

That was another sentiment his special envoy had reported, and what he’d been hoping to hear. Never had a pope and a president conspired in this way, and never could either of them admit it had happened. The church openly forbade itself from interfering in politics. Recently the world had seen evidence of that when John Paul scolded a priest for resisting a papal order to resign a government position. But that did not mean the church was oblivious to oppression. Especially when it hit so close. Which was more proof that God was clearly at work here. At this precise moment in human history the storm seemed centered on Poland. For the first time in 450 years a non-Italian, a Pole, occupied the chair of St. Peter. And nearly 90 percent of all Poles were Catholic.

A screenwriter could not have imagined it better.

The Soviet Union was about to be gripped by a great revolutionary crisis. He could feel it coming. That nation was not immune to revolt, and Poland was the pivot that could send everything over the edge. Cliché as hell, but right on target. As with dominoes, one country falls—they all fall. Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and all of the other Soviet satellites. The entire Eastern Bloc. One by one they would drop away.

So why not provide a push?

“If I may,” he said to John Paul. “I was once asked, how do you tell a communist? The answer is easy. It’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. But how do you tell an
anti
-communist?” He paused. “It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”

The pope smiled.

But it was true.

“I agreed to this private talk,” the pope said, “because I wanted us to have the opportunity to be honest with each other. I thought the time had come for that. So I must ask, what of the cruise missiles that you wish to deploy in Europe? At present, you are presiding over an unprecedented rearming of America, spending many billions of dollars. This concerns me.”

His special envoy had warned him about this reservation, so he was prepared to reply. “There is no one in this world who hates war and nuclear weapons more than I do. We must rid this planet of the scourge of both. My goal is peace and disarmament. But to accomplish that I have to use what’s at my immediate command. Yes, we are rearming. But I’m doing that not only to make America strong, but also to bankrupt the USSR.”

He could see that John Paul was listening.