The Harvest
Page 51
“Our message to you…each of you with the mark as well as the billions without it…is that it is time to decide. It is time to choose either a god…a god who tells you that you are nothing but a parasite, and that this world – our home – is nothing but your unfortunate host, to be exploited and consumed at your whim and abandoned by you once it is used up…or your own family – those who truly do care about you, who do not simply set you adrift and tell you that you are on your own, that you are on trial. They are the ones who appear to you when you are stricken with misfortune or disaster, offering not silver wings and an eternal life of bliss but simply a helping hand, a drink of water, a loaf of bread, a shelter.
“You can choose a god who demands of you a lifetime of sacrifice and commitment to him. Or you can choose your own brothers and sisters who only ask that you be a responsible citizen and a tolerant human being.
“As you make this choice, I ask you to remember this: If you are ever so unfortunate to find yourself in a place ravaged by a hurricane, an earthquake, or a war, and you and your loved ones are trapped within a fallen building, you will, in this moment of dire need and hopelessness, pray to your god for help. But the help, when it arrives, will not be from god. The sweat and the pain and the risk to their own lives, the Herculean effort to dig you out, to rescue you and your loved ones, to tend to your injuries, and to give you water and food will come from strangers. It will come from your fellow man.
“There have been many times in our history, as we looked upon horrendous events, that we have all wondered how god could do such things. We have met him, and now we know.”
Suri Kaval stopped and gazed at the silent delegation for a long moment before saying, “Thank you.”
The massive chamber immediately filled with thunderous applause as the delegates came to their feet. Kaval showed no intent of leaving the podium as he basked in the ovation which continued for several minutes. The television news commentators who covered the speech respectfully remained silent as the applause continued.
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Margo Jackson, watching the speech from her office at the Hoover Building, punched the eject button on her DVD recorder and grabbed the disc before it was finished sliding out. She dashed out of her office and arrived at Ricki Darling’s office within minutes. Exercising the prerogative of rank, Margo brushed past the secretary and opened the door.
Looking up from her work, Darling said, “Jackson, what’s up?”
Margo dropped the DVD on her desk. “Check the voice on this against the voice from the cell phone call.”
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Bill Burke, Margo Jackson, and Ricki Darling waited quietly in Burke’s office. None of them wanted to speculate on the ramifications of the Secretary General of the United Nations, who enjoyed full diplomatic immunity, being involved in the Times Square Massacre – as it was dubbed by the media – at least until they received confirmation from the techs at the sound lab. Their silent reverie was interrupted by the chirping of the phone on the meeting table. Burke reached out and punched the speaker button. “This is Bill Burke.”
“Director Burke, this is Rick Rodriguez in the lab. It’s a match.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, sir. We ran voice-print analysis and also had a language expert review syntax, word structure, and the like; it’s a dead match.”
“Thank you, Rick.”
Burke terminated the connection, looking at Margo and sighing. “We have, I believe, a truly hot potato.”
“That bastard!”
“Good call, Margo, recognizing the voice.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“What do you both want me to do on this?” asked Darling.
“Sit tight for now,” answered Burke. “I need to get with Clayton and the President.”
“You got it.”
Ricki got up to leave, and Margo said, “Ricki, at least let’s pull up known associates and start digging into phone records, financial information, the usual. Maybe we can find the identity of the other guy on the phone.”
“But do it quietly,” Bill added. “We don’t need the Secretary General of the UN calling a press conference and accusing us of investigating him after that speech.”
“No problem. We’ll keep it quiet.” She quickly left the office.
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“I just can’t believe Kaval would be behind this,” said Preston Bennett incredulously.
“Believe it,” Clayton Dean replied. “We don’t have the smoking gun, but pretty damn close.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ve turned the CIA loose on this, chasing down leads discreetly, I hope, in Kaval’s home country. I just need you to keep your eyes and ears open internationally. We need to paint a clear picture for the NSA on who is connected to whom out there. Suri Kaval isn’t out on a limb by himself. There must to be other countries, other leaders involved.”
“Clay, the UN hasn’t been a friend of ours for a long time, but this takes it to a new level. Between the attack in New York and Kaval’s speech talking about our obsolescence, it doesn’t make for a pretty scenario. I mean, he basically laid out his plan on worldwide television; all of the governments of the globe need to band together and oppose us. I’m just not sure how the attack figures into this?”
“Create unrest at home and distract us. Push us into what they see as more precipitous acts around the globe, alienating more countries and pushing more countries into their camp. That’s the President’s take on it. He might be right.”
“Makes sense. What’s our official response to his speech going to be? We can’t just let his comments stand unchallenged.”
Clayton sighed before answering, “Are we talking about pulling out?”
“Of the UN? Oh, crap! Doesn’t that just play into their hands?”
“That was my opinion. The President believes that, with Kaval’s speech and the absence of meaningful dissent or censure coming from other major players within the UN, staying would be tantamount to a wife staying with an abusive husband. I guess I can see his point. I mean, not only did Kaval trash us, but he received a twelve-minute standing ovation from the General Assembly.”
“Clay, when did we become the enemy?”
There was a momentary pause on the phone connection before Dean answered, “You’re in the political arena, Preston. You know the answer. The names change and the tactics evolve, but from the time of Attila the Hun or Alexander the Great, it has always been about power and control. The United States has cornered the market on those things in the last two decades since the Soviets fell. There are still people out there who want some of that power. The problem is that they have to take it from us.
“Nobody can come straight at us anymore; no one has the might. So they have to find our weaknesses and exploit them. They have to play our own game and beat us. Do you think that Muslims could have attacked France and the UK militarily and beaten them?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, they discovered they don’t have to spend the money and lose the troops for a venture doomed to failure, when they can simply take advantage of the existing laws and the weak will of the people and government. They don’t invade; they immigrate by the hundreds of thousands. And they take advantage of the fact that these countries are democracies. Once they arrive, they vote. When enough arrive, they can vote in their own leaders. Once the voters and their leaders are in place, hell, they can even modify the constitutions of their new home countries, turn them into Muslim theocracies, do away with elections, whatever they want.”
“You’re right, Clay. In those two countries they are damn near a majority.”
“Why go through the hassle of fighting a war you probably won’t win once you’ve figured out that in a democracy, all you have to do is get enough people inside who will vote the way you want?”
“That’s not happening here, though.”
“No. It’s not. The Muslims aren’t ge
ographically positioned to start coming through in droves under the guise of filling all of the jobs we need done.”
“But Mexico is?”
Again, Dean was quiet for a time, finally answering, “You know, Preston, there isn’t anything in our constitution that prevents the creation of the PRI party here. Once a majority is reached, either by immigration or by a combination of that and reproduction, everyone else is forced to just sit back and watch helplessly as all of the laws, rules, and amendments are changed, making us a different country than we are today.”
“A country that may not be able to hold on to the power?”
“Right.”
“What’s the President’s take on this?”
“He doesn’t buy it. I don’t know why. He just doesn’t perceive it as a threat.”
“Clay, the one thing I don’t understand is – why now? Why did Kaval let the cat out of the bag at this time, with God’s arrival? The two don’t seem to tie together.”
“I don’t know either, Preston. Maybe it’s just the turmoil. Maybe it’s because he believes that some of the pivotal people who would oppose his plan are leaving in a couple of days.”
“Leaving a power vacuum?”
“Which he will be more than happy to fill. But really, I just don’t know. I have a feeling there’s something else, something we haven’t figured out.”
“Well, I’d better get to work. Maybe if I talk to enough of my contacts on the back channels, something will come up that’ll help.”
“I hope so. Just take your time and read them carefully. We need to figure out who is on which side of the fence on this.” A tone of deep sadness colored Dean’s voice. “Because right now, it feels as though we are up against the whole world.”
Preston hung up the secure phone. A listening and recording device, which was voice-activated and installed in the handset, and which bypassed the security sensors and scrambler, also switched off and began to burn a CD with a recording of the conversation. In addition to the secure phone installed by the NSA, Preston Bennett’s house was also equipped with an array of sensors, firewalls, and shielding, preventing the hard-wire transmission of unauthorized data as well as any RF transmissions leaving the home. To circumvent this, a CD containing the recording of the conversation was waiting to be retrieved from a hidden tray, located within a concealed compartment in Debbie Bennett’s closet. The surveillance equipment then accessed the regular phone line of the Bennett household and sent a text message to Debbie Bennett’s cell phone, which read, “hi hon I luv u,” a sufficiently innocuous message prearranged to alert her of the new recording.
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The President squinted slightly under the glare of the television lights as they were switched on. He was happy with his decision to make a formal announcement from the Oval Office, rather than sharing his decision with the nation through a press conference. In the last few months the press corps had dropped any pretense of respect for him or his office and took delight in savaging him whenever they could. There was not any point in providing them with a forum, especially considering the nature of his announcement.
The media manager counted down to “zero” and cued him. “Good evening, fellow Americans,” the President began. “We have witnessed horrendous and disturbing events recently, culminating in the vicious and unprovoked murdering of approximately 18,000 innocent people in Times Square. The FBI, CIA, New York City Police Department, Homeland Security, and various other law enforcement agencies are pursuing every possible lead to find the persons responsible for these acts and bring them to justice. Overseas, our friends and allies in Germany, England, France, and other nations have suffered from attacks that were equally as heinous, although directed at lesser numbers, and are also working diligently toward the same ends. They are cooperating with our agencies, as we are with theirs, and I am confident we will soon find the monsters behind these evil deeds. My heart and my prayers as well as the prayers of our nation go out to the families and friends of those killed around the world.
“At a time such as this, when all civilized nations should be banding together to provide comfort, support, and solace, there are those who have chosen to vilify and condemn. Today, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Suri Kaval, accused the United States of seeking to oppress and exploit the peoples of the world for our own selfish gain. It means nothing to Suri Kaval that no country in the history of the world has done more to feed, clothe, or provide shelter and medical care for those outside its borders than America. It means nothing to Suri Kaval that no nation in our history has shed more of its own blood to defend the weaker countries of the world than America. The much-vaunted European Union, which Kaval holds up as the great hope for the world’s future, arguably would not exist today were it not for America’s intervention against Germany half a century ago. It means nothing to him that we have given more money and more resources to the poorer countries of the world than any other nation in our history. And all we have asked in return is for the people of those countries to be allowed to live free.
“Yet it is that very freedom Secretary Kaval disdains, saying freedom is nothing but divisive and perpetuates an inferior class which is nothing more than a serfdom paying fealty to the United States. He maintains that we have created an environment where we have ours and the rest of the world can starve, ignoring the fact that the doors to our country have always been open…some will say they have been open too wide…to millions of people from around the world. We have taken them in, fed them, educated them, given them jobs, and welcomed them to enjoy all of the benefits of being Americans. And we have done all of these things with no small cost to ourselves. These are hardly the actions of a country that wishes to selfishly amass and hoard the resources of the world.
“Suri Kaval credits the United Nations with the fact that there has been no global war in sixty years. While it is true that there has not been a war of global proportions, I ask you whether it is a result of the confused, misguided, and inept actions of the United Nations, or whether it has been due to the vigilance, restraint, and unbending willingness of the United States of America to help and intervene during difficult times. He takes credit for the technological advancement of many countries that are emerging from third-world status. I ask you whether it was the course of the hollow resolutions of the United Nations which accomplished this, or whether it was the training, equipment, and billions of dollars of investment from the United States of America. He seeks to take credit for feeding the poor, for curing diseases, and for addressing the other life-threatening or life-sustaining issues around the globe. Again I ask whether it was the United Nations which made strides in ameliorating these problems, or whether it was the charity, will, and resources of this great country which made the difference.
“America has never extended a helping hand with the expectation of gratitude, recognition, or reciprocity, and it is not the absence of gratitude that prompts me to make this announcement today. Instead, and with great sadness, I come before you with the realization that this organization, the United Nations, substantially created by the efforts of America, hosted and protected by America since its inception, and funded by America to a degree far greater than all of its other members combined, has grown to despise us and to see America as the enemy.
“It is understandable if a single member, even the Secretary General, holds America in contempt. That is the nature of politics in the world. It is also understandable if several of the delegates share that view. Again, that is the nature of our world. But when such a speech is given and is received by an extended standing ovation, and in the aftermath none of the members rise in our defense – save the representative from Great Britain, who was shouted down during his comments – it is finally time to admit the truth. It is obvious that there is no place within the United Nations for America. And therefore, there is no place within America for the United Nations.
“Effective immediately, the lease in New York City for the United
Nations headquarters is revoked as is the diplomatic status of all of the delegates. The United States has withdrawn all participation and support for this failed organization and asks that they immediately find a haven somewhere else in their new world. Thank you, and God bless America.”
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Elohim, sitting with Reese Johnson in the guest quarters at the State Department, closed his eyes and slowly let out a long exhale. Turning off the television, Reese faced him and asked, “Are You troubled?”