Times of Turmoil: Christian End Times Thriller (Book 1)

by Cliff Ball

  Chapter 15

  Michael Evans looked at his watch as he stood on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building staring across the open expanse to the twin buildings of the World Trade Center. The weather was clear and sunny, the perfect day for something big to happen. Nobody in his circle, not even Helen, knew what was coming next, only the Al Qaeda agents and bin Laden knew, and they only planned on announcing they were involved long after the fact. Now, Michael was by himself on the Observation Deck, his bodyguards convincing people not to come on the elevator to the Deck, even though he could’ve informed the owner of the building he was here, but he didn’t feel like getting his butt kissed this morning. He told his guards that no one was to disturb him, even the NYPD, who would probably be concerned with other matters in a short time.

  Fifteen minutes before nine, he saw the first plane, an American Airlines branded plane, come flying into the area, headed directly for North Tower, which it hit at full speed seconds later. Michael watched the top of the building explode into a fireball and the surrounding floors catch on fire. Far below, on the ground, he could hear sirens blaring as the Police and Fire Departments began to respond to the plane hitting the building. Eighteen minutes later, a United Airlines plane smashed into the South Tower, also exploding into a fireball and catching the surrounding floors on fire.

  Michael was pleased that it was happening almost like clockwork. He looked at his watch again, seeing that the third plane should hit the Pentagon in about thirty minutes, while the fourth would hit the Capital near the top of the next hour. Originally, the organizers of the attack wanted to target the White House, but Michael, after reading “Debt of Honor” by Tom Clancy, thought it would be cooler to hit the Capital as a nod to the novel, even though the President would be out of town, and only the Representatives, Senators, and their people would be hurt or killed. The Al Qaeda organizers didn’t need to be convinced much, since they thought hitting the White House would probably be nearly an impossible target to hit anyway. If he had thought that Al Qaeda’s leadership had really been interested in punishing Americans, instead of just the government or the economy, Michael would’ve suggested terrorist attacks on places where lots of people gathered: the malls, large sports venues like football stadiums or NASCAR, a few of the mega churches, and parades such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where they could get a massive amount of deaths, which would give them great PR in the Middle East. But, they never asked, so he didn’t bother suggesting it.

  He had an idea of how the American people might react, since some over-reacted to the whole Y2K scenario the year before last. Michael wanted to test his theories out before the 9/11 attack, so he had the media over-hype, for a full year leading up to January 1st, the possible computer glitch involving the year 2000, and what might possibly happen to the world-as-everyone-knew-it (at least the American version of it) when the clock struck midnight. Some people stocked up on food and water, while others stocked up on ammo and weapons, and then there were some who said they would get what they could from the survivalists. It was an interesting case study in the survival instincts of some humans and how far some would go to get ready for anarchy. It also showed Michael that someday he would need to start getting Congress to push an all-out gun control measure, for there were some people out there in flyover country that would do whatever it took to keep anyone, including the government, from getting on their land, and that just wouldn’t do in the future Michael had in mind.

  As Michael watched the buildings get consumed by fire, his cell phone rang, he looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Helen, so he answered it, “Hey Helen, I thought you were meeting with your group today,”

  The cell service was spotty and dropping conversations as she answered, “Michael, I’m in the (scrambled) Tower, I think we were hit by a (scrambled). We’re not sure (scrambled) it out,”

  “What? Did you say you’re in one of the Towers? Do you mean the World Trade Center?”

  “Yes, in the North Tower, there’s (scrambled) and smoke all around us, we (scrambled) see anything. Do you know if (scrambled) will rescue us?”

  Michael cursed to himself, having not taken the time to know where Helen was going to be this morning, if he had, he would’ve told her to stay as far away from the World Trade Center as she could for the day. Now, there was nothing he could do for her. “Helen, you’re going to have to start making your way downstairs. Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you. We’ll try, (scrambled) we’re not sure where the stair(scrambled) is,”

  As Michael was trying to talk to Helen, he heard a loud boom, and then saw the South Tower collapse in a cloud of smoke and dust. That wasn’t supposed to have happened, at least according to all the engineering reports he had read, but it did happen, and he couldn’t do anything about it now, so he put it out of his mind. However, he was glad Grandfather hadn’t been comfortable with putting an office in a skyscraper as tall as the World Trade Center, he had always preferred to stay as close to the ground as possible. He heard Helen ask, “(scrambled) happened? We heard a loud crashing kind of sound,”

  “The South Tower just collapsed; both Towers were hit by passenger planes flown by terrorists. You should get out of there as quickly as you can. Helen?”

  All Michael ended up hearing was nothing and then the sounds of a disconnected line that everyone used to hear when they left their land-line phone off the hook for a while. A few minutes later, he watched the North Tower collapse and take out surrounding buildings with it as it collapsed. Cell phone service was now completely dead, since the cell tower was on top of the North Tower, so millions of people in Manhattan now had no way of communicating with the outside world. The fact that Helen was dead bothered him some, but he really had no natural affection for anyone, so he went on with his business as usual. He would publicly mourn for her if anyone asked, and go through the motions to make it appear so, but privately, he would carry on like nothing happened. In the meantime, he had business to take care of.

  At home, after hearing about the downing of Flight 93 because passengers rebelled against the terrorists and the surprising lack of catastrophic damage done by the plane to the Pentagon, Michael e-mailed some of his cronies that were handy with the internet and told them to begin circulating rumors online that the United States government had a hand in the attacks. He asked them that if they could, to put up Photo-shopped pictures of the attack from various points of view from the Twin Towers that really couldn’t have existed or random explanations for the lack of major damage at the Pentagon. He also told others to also circulate the rumor that the Israeli government really conducted the attack, even though there were Israeli’s that were also killed in the Twin Towers. Michael knew there would be enough stupid people to believe those rumors, and that the rumors would probably stay in circulation for decades to come.

  Michael called the Attorney General of the United States about an idea he had. “Patrick, this is Michael Evans, are you busy?”

  “No, I’ve only got an investigation going on into the attacks we just had, but other than that, not busy at all,” the Attorney General sarcastically retorted.

  Michael chose to ignore the sarcasm, “Good, because I have some suggestions that will prevent more terrorist attacks on the mainland U.S. I can e-mail you my proposal or you can hear my pitch over the phone,”

  “Why don’t you do both?”

  “Ok, sending you an e-mail now. What I’m sending is in much deeper detail, but I’ll just tell you the gist of what I want, all right?”

  “I’m looking through your e-mail. Are you sure this isn’t legislation for Congress to look at, because it doesn’t look at all like just a proposal,”

  “Patrick, get your friends at CIA and FBI together, go talk to the President, and convince him that the American people need this new kind of security. Tell him that Americans don’t want the threat of terrorism hanging over them while they fly, so we need some kind of security at airport
s. I have no doubt that the President will see your way and Congress will have no problem passing the legislation to create these new departments. Airports will have security, the people will accept it soon enough, and then, when Americans are resigned to the fact that they have to go through checkpoint in airports, we expand it to the highways, train depots, and bus stations. You have to admit, the American people have way too much freedom of movement,”

  “I acknowledge that. If we can control where people go, we can keep better track of the criminals and subversives, and make sure people who are put on watch lists never get to leave the city they live in. Do you know who we’ll get to work these security checkpoints?”

  “I have the Government Workers Union in mind for the contracts. They’ll do a most efficient job,” answered Michael.

  “I’m sure they will. What of this Department of Homeland Security? What’s that about?”

  “This new government agency will house the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other government security operations under one roof. The President will appoint someone to head it, they’ll issue various warnings about terror threats and track the most wanted terrorists in the world. Eventually, they’ll tie themselves to state and local police departments, where they’ll keep track of potential homegrown terrorists and possible terrorist organizations. When the technology to track people via satellite comes of age, the department will initiate the program. It’ll also oversee some false flag operations to help bring more government into Americans lives, such as gun control, but that will come later. Does that answer your question?”

  “Yes, it does. Thank you, Michael, for coming up with a way to protect the people of the United States from so-called terrorists. I’ll take your recommendations to the President and we’ll have all of this implemented in a few months. Anything else?”

  “No. Goodbye.” both men hung up from the conversation.

  The United States government announced the creation of the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security a short time later. DHS introduced a color-coded terror threat warning sheet, but decided to keep the United States at a yellow threat, the second highest threat level. DHS also introduced baseball cards of terrorists so Americans could be on the lookout for these radicals. DHS knew exactly where the terrorists were, including the leaders of various rural terrorist camps throughout the United States, but figured they would tell the American people they were doing “something” and told them not to worry, because the government had it under control.

  DHS, through Michael, even managed to convince the military leaders at the Pentagon that Saddam Hussein was also responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and if he wasn’t taken care of, the Iraqi leader would be a threat to the security of the United States. The U.S. invaded Iraq shortly after, even though the U.S. didn’t have the means or the wherewithal to conduct a two front war. The goal for Michael Evans was to get the Iraqi dictator and his sons out of the way so Michael could conduct even more business in Iraq in the open with his Muslim associates. As for the weapons of mass destruction Iraq supposedly had, Michael had them moved to Syria and would later use it as leverage to have the media and others accuse the President of the United States of America of lying to the American people. The U.S. Military would be stretched to the point of falling apart with these two wars, and Michael would push the buttons of Iran, North Korea, China, and others who wanted the Americans out of the way militarily by convincing these countries’ leaders to do what they wanted because the U.S. couldn’t do anything about it. North Korea was the first to test this idea of the U.S. being weak by building a workable atomic bomb and then waited for the first opportunity to use it.

  The TSA were staffed by union workers on Michael’s payroll. Their job was not to harass the foreigners who looked like threats, but to harass regular Americans. Harass the disabled, those with artificial limbs, the occasional child, and even the occasional politician if they were dumb enough to fly commercial. These Americans would be thoroughly searched to the point where some would claim they were sexually harassed, but the TSA would claim they were just doing their jobs. The airlines got in on it by getting the TSA to confiscate e-Readers, cell phones, and other electronics that they claimed would bring the aircraft down, which, of course, didn’t have the power to do so. All airlines wanted was for their fliers to use the electronic devices the airlines provided, at a price. Random items were taken from Americans and then sold at government auctions, where none of the airplane passengers would be given notice that their items were up for auction. The goal was simple for the TSA: Be the government representative that was constantly in one’s face about security, and get Americans so used to it, that once it expanded to railroads and the roadways, Americans would have no problem with being stopped and searched, and then Americans would hardly notice that the few freedoms they had left had vanished in front of their eyes.

  ******