W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  “We’re about fifty miles from my base camp,” Jessie replied.

  “No, I mean, literally, where are we? I was transported from Phoenix in the back of a military supply truck—no windows, no way to keep track of time, no way to tell which direction we were headed. Six other doctors were transported with me, but they took our watches, and it was as black as night inside the truck.”

  “Dude, you’re in Nevada—Disneyland for adults—unless, of course, you happen to be in one of the Feds’ death camps.”

  As Jessie spoke they were flying over a desolate stretch of sand and sagebrush. “Whoa!” he said. “Welcome to California. We just crossed the state line.”

  Fifteen minutes later Jessie announced, “We are now approaching Base Camp One.”

  Ron looked out his window to see a large dilapidated cow barn, a few empty corrals, and a rusty single-wide trailer barely visible in the early morning light. The place looked as if it had been deserted for years. As Jessie prepared to land on the narrow dirt road that led to the trailer, Ron fought back the notion that he had somehow managed to allow himself to fall into the hands of a crazed cult leader who had brought him to that deserted spot so that he and his followers could murder him in some sort of perverse ceremony. Instantly, he was on guard.

  As soon as the plane rolled to a stop, Ron leapt out and stood with his back against the craft. He surveyed the area looking for any signs of movement. Just as he began to relax, however, the trailer door flew open and a fat, freckled, middle-aged woman wearing tight knit shorts and a tank top emerged.

  “Hey, Jessie,” she called. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Can’t tell ya, or I’d have to kill ya,” Jessie responded.

  At this both Jessie and the woman laughed uproariously.

  “This is my sister Shirleen,” Jessie said.

  “She lives here with my nephew. Where’s Kyle?”

  “He’s asleep, like normal people,” Shirleen responded. “What do you need Kyle for?”

  “I need him to help me get T-squared into the hanger.”

  “I’ll help,” Ron offered.

  The two men pushed the plane into the cow barn and covered it with a tarp to protect it from the pigeons that roosted in the rafters. As soon as the tarp was in place, Jessie produced an ancient motorcycle that had been standing behind some moldy bales of hay and pushed it out of the barn. He then straddled it and motioned for Ron to get on behind him. The motorcycle rumbled to a start, and the two men began the dusty ride to Base Camp Two.

  Chapter 2

  Kris Mitchell sat in a Starbucks located in the parking lot of a Phoenix strip mall. Her brother, Keith, was with her, but he was busy texting and had not spoken for half an hour. As she sipped her coffee she watched the door. She was afraid that one of her former co-workers would step through that door and immediately notify the Federal Municipal Planning Division that they had spotted her. That was a baseless fear; FMPD employees were paid only in credits that could be used only in the federal employees’ community where they were required to live. All meals were served at the community dining hall. Besides, FMPD employees were not allowed to own private transportation. It was ridiculous to think that any of them would take the public transport system into town to charge a cup of coffee on a credit card.

  Nevertheless, Kris was worried. The same night that she had discovered that all of the residents of Section W where she was the liaison had inexplicably vanished, she had fled with Keith into a wilderness area that Keith referred to as “somewhere near the Lincoln National Forest.”

  As she sat nervously watching the door Kris reminded herself that she had done nothing illegal. Leaving your job without notice is not a crime. However, she also knew that if Director Leonard Scott or his assistant Pat Kilmer ever discovered her whereabouts they would invent a crime so that they could have her taken into federal custody.

  Keith finished his texts and picked up his coffee.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  Relieved, Kris nodded.

  When they were in Keith’s Jeep and heading out of Phoenix, Keith spoke. “I was texting with Jessie. You remember I told you that he was flying missions over a compound near Nellis Air Force Base? Well, this morning, just before 5:00 he saw someone escape under the fence. He managed to land on a road nearby and pick the guy up. Turns out this guy is a doctor who treated the toxin victims in the Gulf Coast fiasco that the government staged. Anyway, the guy has a lot of information that TruthTrakker can use.”

  Kris could hardly believe her ears. She had known for some time that Keith had been right all along about the government’s plan to exterminate specially selected groups of American citizens, but she had not believed that they actually had concentration camps on U.S. military bases. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

  “Of course, I’m sure. Jessie said that the doctor is from right here in Phoenix. They sent him to the Gulf Coast to treat the toxin victims, even though his specialty is pain management. When the doc gets home, his wife tells him that their house is going to be taken through eminent domain, and then a couple of days later the Feds storm into his office and take him away in handcuffs. He winds up in this death camp on a base a few miles from Vegas.

  “But that’s not the best part. Just as Jessie and the doc are airborne, the Feds raid the camp in a pre-dawn strike and machine gun everyone—doctors, workers, guards—everyone.”

  As Keith spoke Kris had grown pale. “What’s the doctor’s name?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Find out. I think I know him. And call Jessie; don’t text him. If the doctor is who I think he is, I want to speak to him.”

  Keith exited the interstate and pulled onto a residential street. When he had Jessie on the line, he asked him the doctor’s name, and then, turning to Kris, he said, “Ron Edmonton.”

  Kris held out her hand for the phone. “Tell Jessie to put him on the line.”

  Kris’ voice was shaking as she spoke, “Dr. Edmonton, this is Kris Mitchell. I’m the real estate agent who sold you and Luisa your house. Do you remember me? Good. I know where Luisa is. She’s safe for now, but after what my brother just told me, I don’t think she’ll be safe for long. I’ll get her tomorrow morning and move her to a secure location. I’m so glad that you’re alright. And, Ron, if you’re a praying man, pray that I’ll get to Luisa before the Feds do. If you’re not a praying man, now would be a good time to start.”

  Kris returned the phone to Keith and closed her eyes. She leaned back in the seat and said, “Keith, we have to stick around here for another night. I’ll get Luisa in the morning, and then we can get out of here.”

  “You sold the doc his house? Is that where we’re going?”

  “No. Luisa’s living in a smart community a little way from Scottsdale. She’s Romanian, and with Ron gone she was completely alone in this country with no family and no money. When the Feds offered her a life lease on a unit in exchange for her home, she had no choice but to accept.”

  “The same kind of deal they gave Mom and Dad, I presume?” Keith interrupted. “The kind where after you move into your unit your life expectancy is about six months because as soon as they’ve taken everything you own they march you out and shoot you in the back?”

  Tears were streaming down Kris’ cheeks. She nodded and continued, “Now that the Feds think they’ve eradicated Ron, they’re going to take Luisa. Fortunately, when I visited her, she told me that she goes to mass every morning to light a candle for her husband. Since she doesn’t have a car, she’ll be attending mass at a church near her unit—something within walking distance. Give me your laptop so that I can find out which Catholic churches are close to her.”

  After a quick online search, Kris discovered that Blessed Sacrament was only three blocks from Luisa’s unit. Although there were two other Catholic churches within walking distance, Kris thought that for an early morning mass Luisa would choose the closest one. She went to the Blessed Sacrament
website and discovered that they held a 6:00 A.M. mass every weekday.

  “Keith, I’m going to go to Blessed Sacrament tomorrow to get Luisa. We’ll meet you a few blocks from there—I don’t want anyone spotting your Jeep. As soon as we hook up with you, we’ll get out of Phoenix.”

  The following morning before daylight Kris entered the alley across the street from Blessed Sacrament. At 5:45 she saw two men enter the church. From their dress and manner she knew that they were federal agents. Kris felt the tension that she had been battling for the past forty-five minutes increase.

  Approaching Luisa inside the church was no longer an option. From her vantage point in the alley she looked up and down the street. No other agents were present. It had never occurred to them that they might encounter any opposition. Luisa’s unit was on the same side of the street as the alley where Kris was standing. Luisa would almost certainly pass directly by her. She could call out to her and tell her why she had come, but she did not want to risk having one of the agents spot Luisa entering the alley. After all, it was possible that they were watching the sidewalk from one of the church windows.

  As Kris stood in the dark alley with her mind racing, a city bus pulled to a stop to pick up some morning commuters. The bus was directly in front of her. If the agents were watching, the bus would block from their view that portion of the sidewalk for a minute or two. Quickly Kris stepped out of the shadows and began to walk in the direction of Luisa’s unit. She listened carefully to see whether anyone was following her, but the only sounds came from the passing traffic. She had covered the first block when she saw Luisa walking toward her. When she was within three feet of her, Kris spoke, “Luisa, don’t say anything. Ron’s safe. I’m here to take you to him.”

  Chapter 3

  Kris and Keith sat in the tiny living room of Keith’s mobile home drinking coffee with Michael Linton. Keith had spent the last hour pacing nervously, going outside and walking about the dry sandy plot of ground where he had parked the trailer after moving it from its location near the Lincoln National Forest and then bursting through the door like a madman, swearing and running his hands through his thick hair. The mountain forest in New Mexico had provided shade, cool temperatures, and towering pines to conceal the location, but Southwestern Utah offered no such amenities. The blazing desert sun baked the sand into an inferno that heated the trailer to sweltering temperatures. The worst part, however, was that the trailer was exposed to anyone who happened by. Not that anyone happened by that particular stretch of dirt road very often, but the possibility was enough to make Keith nervous.

  Keith finished what was left of his coffee in one big gulp and slammed the mug down on the dilapidated table that served as dining table, computer desk, and general entertaining space. “Where is that Jackass!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know why Jessie can never be on time. If we didn’t need him, I’d never speak to him again!”

  Keith continued, “I’ve spent my whole life doing the right thing, and look where it’s gotten me! Whenever anybody needs anything, Keith is always the go-to man. I did everything right, and God rewarded me by killing my wife and baby. I spent a small fortune feeding Mom and Dad and their rabble-rousing friends when they got into trouble, and God rewarded me by having the Feds take them out and shoot them down like dogs. Now I’m sitting here in this hellhole waiting for the Feds to break down the door and drag me off to some gulag. Well, when they do show up, I’m going to take out as many of them as I can before they’re forced to kill me. They’ll never take me alive!”

  “Keith,” Michael interrupted, “You’ve got to get a grip on yourself. We’ve all lost people we love, and we’ve all suffered. We’re going to get through this, but you can’t keep reliving the past and blaming God for every bad thing that’s ever happened to you.”

  “Don’t preach to me, Mike!” Keith retorted angrily. “You can’t begin to know how I feel. Losing your parents is not the same thing as losing your wife and kid. I’ve lost all of them, so I should know.”

  “No, it’s not the same thing,” Michael replied. “When I lost my parents, I lost their friendship, their support, their love, and the special relationship we shared. It was horrible. But when I buried my wife, I buried all of my dreams with her.”

  Keith stared at him, “You were married?”

  “For fifteen years. I met my wife on our first day of school; we were both six, and we became inseparable. We married when we were twenty. Madelyn was beautiful and sweet; she was my best friend. The next ten years were the happiest time of my life. We couldn’t have kids, but we were always together. I went to medical school, and she enrolled in nursing school. Everything was perfect.”

  “What happened?”

  “When she was thirty years old, Maddie was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

  “That’s what happened to my wife—only hers was leukemia. Cassie was dead in a month.”

  “Maddie lived five years. She had a mastectomy, chemo, radiation, adult stem cell therapy, and everything else you can imagine. I prayed for her every day. Her parents prayed; my parents prayed. When we first got the diagnosis, I was scared, but I knew that she would be okay—between prayer and medicine she would get well. After three years I was relying solely on prayer. And then she went into remission; we were so happy. She started getting well. I thought that we were going to get our lives back.

  “A year later the cancer returned, and this time it had spread to her bones, her lymph nodes, her organs—it was everywhere. That was the worst year of my life; I was forced to watch the person I loved more than anything in the world die a hideous death, and there wasn’t one single thing that I could do about it. After Maddie died, I buried myself in my work, and then a few years later that was gone too.”

  “Okay, see, this is what I mean,” Keith interjected. “How can you possibly trust a God who would let all of this stuff happen to you? If God is real and He’s good, then He’s too weak to help anybody, and faith is just a bunch of nonsense. But if He’s real and He’s powerful, then He’s a sadist. Either way, why would you waste your life following a God who allowed that to happen to you?”

  “During Maddie’s last year I was horribly depressed. One day I told my father that I didn’t know how I could go on if she died. I didn’t understand why God let her get sick and why He let the cancer come back. We had such a good life filled with so many plans for the future. How could God do this to us?

  “After I finished talking Dad was quiet for a little while, and then he asked, ‘When you found out that Maddie was sick again, did you ever think about abandoning her?’

  “‘No, of course not,’ I replied.

  “‘Why not?’ he pressed. ‘When you married Maddie, you were both very young. You thought that your life was going to be perfect; you never imagined that you would have any serious problems. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Why stay with her when you can clearly see that you’re not getting what you expected?’

  “I was very irritated. I wasn’t irritated with my father very often, but that day I was angry. I answered, ‘When I married Maddie, I made a lifetime commitment to her—for better, for worse. This is the worse part—worse than I ever dreamed it could be, but my commitment to love her and to stand by her has nothing to do with whether I have the outcome I expected.’

  “Then he explained what he meant, ‘When you make a commitment to Jesus, it is also a lifetime commitment. On their wedding day virtually everyone expects that marriage will be good and that it will meet their needs. Likewise, virtually everyone who makes a commitment to Jesus expects that the relationship will be wonderful and that He will meet all of their needs. But then life happens—sickness, loss of income, death, or some other tragedy. Most marriages don’t survive those upheavals and neither does most people’s faith.

  “‘What is important in the time that you have left with Maddie is that you keep your promise to love and cherish her for as long as she lives—no matter what. What is important in the ti
me that you have left on earth is that you keep your promise to love and follow Jesus for as long as you live—no matter what. We serve Him in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in sadness, knowing that no matter what our circumstances He will never desert us, and we must never desert Him.’

  “The next day Dad e-mailed me Romans 14:8; it became a sort of life verse for me, and it has helped me survive the last ten years: For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Living or dying, we follow the Lord.”

  When Keith realized that Michael was not going to say anything further, he rose from his chair and walked out the door of the trailer, slamming it behind him.

  Chapter 4

  As soon as Keith was outside, he plopped down on a rusty metal lawn chair that sat in the shade cast by the trailer’s shadow and went to sleep. By the time he awakened to the drone of an approaching motorcycle engine, it was dark and Michael was long gone. He stretched and peered down the road where he saw the single headlight growing larger.

  Keith checked his watched and muttered, “Here’s Jessie, only five hours late.” He remained seated until the motorcycle came to a stop in the stretch of sand that served as the front yard.

  Kris had heard the motorcycle and had cautiously opened the trailer door and stepped onto the rickety wooden steps. Her first impulse had been to hide, but she could not leave Keith outside with an unidentified person.

  Keith was shaking hands with two men when he spotted her. “Hey, Kris, come over here and meet Jessie and Kyle. Jessie’s my buddy from way back. He runs the greatest website ever. When it comes to outing lies and conspiracies, he’s the man. Kyle’s his nephew.”

  Kris shook hands with both. She had heard stories about Jessie for months, and he was exactly what she had pictured—forty-something with thick curly shoulder-length red hair streaked with gray. His grizzly red beard was mostly gray and badly in need of a trim. Jessie was about five feet ten and at least one hundred pounds overweight. His threadbare jeans and tee shirt should have been thrown away years ago.