The Lesser Evil

by Jim Magwood

  When the two men completed their conversation, Eli learned that it had been impossible to trace the call. It had gone through several cutouts and there was simply no track to follow after the first couple of breaks.

  CHAPTER 37

  Reverend Samuel Strong got back to the housing center after his half-hour walk and started getting ready for the breakfast rush. The sun was coming over the mountains and the little rescue mission in central California was just coming alive for a new day. Strong had founded the mission more than ten years before and, while every day was a new struggle, he thoroughly enjoyed being able to reach out to the people who came through the doors each day. Most were destitute or sick and had lost all hope, but he did what he could to help “his people.” He heard the cooks getting started in the kitchen, so went to his tiny office to start his regular, every day paperwork.

  He started opening yesterday’s mail. Too much to do yesterday to get at that, so now was the time. It was quiet and he shouldn’t have many interruptions for a couple of hours.

  Bills; advertising circulars; requests for him to send them money to help (he chuckled at the thought that he had enough to do more than barely make ends meet for his own little mission). God was good, but He certainly hadn’t chosen to provide more than the bare essentials for Strong to use.

  He opened a letter that didn’t have the usual advertise-ment printing on it, pulled out the letter inside and almost tossed it when he saw the phony check. People would try most anything to get you to read their solicitations, he thought.

  Then the headline on the letter, PLEASE READ, caught his eye and he opened it.

  Dear Reverend Strong,

  This is not a solicitation. The check is real. Please do not throw it away. Please read the rest of this letter.

  We choose to remain anonymous, but we wish to assist your ministry with this one-time gift. The enclosed Cashier’s Check in the amount of $968,456.00 is the amount of your projected budget for the next three budget years plus the amount remaining on your mortgage and building repair loans. Any and all taxes that might come due on this amount have already been paid to the various taxing authorities, and the net amount of the enclosed check is entirely free and clear to you. You may call the bank that is the issuer of the check and they will confirm that the entire amount is yours to deposit and use.

  There is absolutely no obligation attached to this gift and you may use it in any manner you desire. It is being given to you to cover the above noted budget and debt items, but the choice of use is up to you. This is NOT a loan; it is entirely a GIFT and there will never be an obligation or a call for repayment. Keep this letter for proof of our statement if you ever feel the need. We suggest you immediately deposit the check into your mission bank account and wait until any banking security requirements are settled. You are then completely free to use the money at any time and as you see fit.

  We are an anonymous group and will remain that way.

  We do hope the money will help you in the future as you help others.

  Sincerely,

  FRIENDS

  While it took a number of days for the good Reverend Strong to overcome his shock, to decide to deposit the check and to finally determine that it truly was real, he still almost decided to not use the money. He had no idea where it came from. In the end, all he could do was trust that his God was indeed a very mysterious God and provided in very mysterious ways.

  Over the following month, eleven other small rescue missions in the United States received identical letters and checks, except for the dollar amount of the checks. Each was person-alized to the actual situation of the individual mission.

  In addition, sixteen small missions in Central Africa that worked to relieve the suffering of the poorest of the poor in their areas received funds for a year’s worth of medicine, and funds to build small hospitals and chapels and to purchase food for one to three years. Six self-help food and housing groups that tried to provide for those in England who had lost their jobs got funds that would cover a year’s worth of food supplies. A group that provided schooling and support for the Dalits, the “untouchable” people in India, received five million US dollars for their schools, food and medical supplies and well-drilling operations. A group that provided housing and supplies for hurricane and flood victims around the world got funding for a year’s worth of expenses plus four million dollars for supplies to buy or build homes for the destitute or to dig wells for water, etc. One hundred and sixty small mission churches in hard-pressed locations around the world received enough money to pay off all their debts and purchase reasonable space for their churches, plus a full year’s support for the church staffs.

  In total, it was estimated that almost 3.8-billion dollars had been sent to the list of organizations that were in the business of helping people who could not help themselves. There were rumors that many other small organizations also received such aid, but most were not able to be found or the amounts verified. Unfortunately, in some cases, the funds did not get to the missions themselves or the people they were designed to serve. Several directors of the groups simply disappeared after cashing the checks.

  As the gifts gradually became known, news reports started popping up around the world detailing the amounts and the organizations that had received them. Many of the reports simply described the work of the various missions and gave details of the help that many of the people received. Pictures showed starving children lined up to receive food, a couple of new cottage-type homes with their new occupants, and lines of people going in to hot meals and a bed for the night at several of the rescue missions. “A September Christmas in Nairobi”

  was one headline that ran under pictures of children leaving a mission with small toys and adults with sacks of food.

  However, as the reports continued to run, several of them began to document apparent abuses of the gifts supposedly received. A poor, but thriving mission that had been feeding people the month before was seen with it’s doors now pad-locked and destitute people reading a “CLOSED” sign posted on the front doors. Some reporter had traced the former owner and had found the money trail. More than $200,000 had apparently been deposited into the mission bank account, then transferred out to an unknown account, and the owner had disappeared. Several similar reports surfaced from around the world and soon a public outcry began.

  A minister from Germany was quoted as saying, “What right do these people have to receive monies like this when other worthy causes have so little. This practice needs to be stopped right now. It is simply not right.” A government official from Great Britain said, “We already have programs to help these people, and now the system is being subverted.

  People are receiving assistance without going through the qualification processes, and many others are receiving nothing. We have launched an investigation…”

  When a newspaper took a survey of people leaving gro-cery stores as to whether they believed it was right for organizations to receive “gifts” to provide services without having to document those gifts, the initial responses ran about sixty percent in favor of the situation. However, after several more news reports had documented the phenomena, the survey results quickly turned the other direction and more than seventy-five percent of the respondents were turning thumbs down.

  Within just a few more weeks, several groups of citizens in various areas of the world began forming protest groups to demand their governments bring down the curtain on the use of the “gifts” unless and until the give-away programs were enlarged to include citizens who had not been included. Several lawsuits were filed by “concerned citizens” against mission organizations to bring about a stop to the spending until all the funds could be accounted for. In three cases, government liens were filed to put holds on all funds in the accounts of the organizations so the taxing agencies could determine whether tax laws were being broken.

  Then the news broke that the funds many of the organizations had been receiving might have come f
rom some of the raids supposedly instituted by the vigilante group and that the funds were rightly those of the people or businesses that had been attacked. Within just another week, the surveys taken showed results that had jumped decidedly in favor of both chasing down the vigilante group and chasing down all the organizations that had received funds and retrieving all of it for the use of people rightly documented as “deserving.” Legal aid groups filed suits on behalf of “the public.” Taxing authorities began audits of the organizations known to have received “gifts.” Six of the known organizations were vandal-ized, two were burned and destroyed, and three of the owners of the missions were caught by gangs of citizens and killed.

  Over the next few months, several of the missions were forced to close their doors. One mission owner, after being threatened by a militant religious group that had not received a gift, was known to have closed out the mission accounts, turned all the funds into cash, and, on a dark night, was reported to have hurried quickly down the streets of his village putting envelopes containing $1,000 on the steps of the shacks of the people he had been trying to serve. He then disappeared.

  Another man was known to have turned all the assets of his mission into food supplies and to have driven through his town pushing the food out into the streets where people scrambled to gather what they could.

  As the days went by, more “gifts” were received by mission-type organizations around the world. As investigators looked at the agencies that were disclosed, they found a few specific facts that were the same in each case: One, no organization that received a gift was directly connected with any large, umbrella organization such as a church denomination. All the agencies were independents and functioned on their own.

  Two, none of the groups had received any funds from any government sources. Their funds came from donations or from the pockets of the mission owners themselves.

  Three, the people that were served by the missions had no selection criteria except their need. Whoever showed up in line, and could reasonably prove their need, received help.

  Race, religion and nationality played no part in the selection process. The only people turned away were those who proved to be dishonest in claiming their needs.

  And finally, all of the missions initially claimed to be honest, moral, and working within good, spiritual guidelines.

  None were politically inclined; none belonged to any radical parent organizations; none had any part in so-called “rights”

  groups. Each of them did have written, if short and sweet, by-laws or principles they used for guidance. Unfortunately, some of the mission owners or directors proved unable to withstand the temptation of the money they received and disappeared after cashing their checks.

  Only one news reporter ever got to the truth of the “gift”

  program—Henry Baxter. When he asked his contact with the vigilantes, Randall Johns, if he was aware of the program, the reply was simply, “Yes, we are the ones giving the gifts. The money is coming from the funds we’ve taken from those perpetrating the evil around the world. I told you we in the group had no use for it and that we would eventually find places to use it for good. At this point, this is what we have chosen.”

  CHAPTER 38

  As Carl Jackson was watching his screen in the Operations Center, his attention was suddenly drawn to a blinking red light in the upper right corner of the screen. He immediately zeroed in on it and keyed up its information package. It was a KH-12s satellite located above the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, and it, along with several others, monitored activity in a circle that covered most of the Middle East, Europe and North Africa, with a special concentration on Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran—and Israel. Right now it was keying in on a hot spot in the northern part of the Gulf and, as Carl watched, his computer sent up an alarm that made him jump and brought Bob Parker, his supervisor, quickly across the room.

  “What do you have, Carl?”

  “First guess is a rocket launch. Give me just a minute to tune this in and…yeah…right…there. My god! It is a rocket being launched—just off the coast of Kuwait, almost due west of Shiraz.”

  “It’s being launched out of the Gulf itself?”

  “Yeah. Must be a boat or something. It’s coming from the water. I don’t have it specifically registering on my screen, though, so it must be pretty small. I’ve got the Keyholes looking for it, too. No ship. Probably a yacht-size vessel, or some kind of barge. It’s a rocket, for sure. Got its heat signature… Whoa, hold on. There goes another one. Same place, same direct… Whoa, again! Another one. That’s three, Bob.

  Big trouble in Black Rock.”

  “Direction?”

  “North, north-east, all three right now. Lining up right now across north-central Iran. No deviations yet.”

  “Keep on it. I’m on the line to Mitchell.” Bob broke off as he got through to the CIA deputy director of the Operations Center, Don Mitchell, and began to relay their information.

  Mitchell was keying up his system as they spoke.

  “Okay, I’ve got the same picture as you do. I agree; they’re rockets and heading about forty-five degrees to the northeast. Nothing much out there on that line, so maybe it’s going to turn in a minute. Will Israel have seen them yet?”

  “They were immediately locked on, Don.”

  “What about the platforms?”

  “I’m having the Keyholes focus on them as we speak. Just a few more seconds and we’ll have it.”

  “You’re still not seeing any deviation in the flight path?”

  Mitchell’s voice betrayed the extreme concern everyone felt when anything happened that could in any way affect Israel.

  “No, still north, north-east. Hold on—yeah, there’s the platforms. Looks like barges, maybe a hundred feet long; pretty much blackened by the lift-offs. In fact, I think they’re sinking. Yeah, one is definitely down now…going under…it’s going fast. Yeah, another one is wet now, and…going…down.

  Yeah, now it’s under…and there goes the third one. Couldn’t see anything to ID them; just pretty much gray, flat, with a small structure on one end. That’s all I got.”

  “The rockets…?”

  “Same track. Running straight and… Oh, god…”

  “What?” Almost panic could be heard in his voice.

  “Natanz! Esfahan! Hold on. Yeah, if they don’t change, they’re straight line for the hot-spots, Don.”

  “How long?”

  “Right now, less than an hour.”

  “Do you see any movement from Israel?”

  “No, we still have a line on them and they’re holding steady. Finger’s on the trigger, though. If those babies starts to turn…”

  “Everyone here’s been notified and we’re all on hold. I think the president’s on the line to the prime minister as we speak, so hope we can hold them. If this all takes off, the whole Middle East is going to explode.”

  “Don, I’m getting something pretty weird here. These things are looking like Radugas. And, I think, RK-55s.”

  “No, can’t be. Those were scrapped years ago.”

  “I know, I think they were destroyed in the late 80’s, if I remember my history. They were the land-based version of the old Kh-55. That’s why I said weird. But it sure looks like them. It’s showing the signature as old, but it’s still there. In fact, it is. If this is all still correct, they are RK-55s. Carl, can you confirm that?”

  “That’s what I’ve got on my charts, too.”

  “Don, Carl’s got them as Radugas, too.”

  “Okay, I’ve passed that on. No changes you can see yet?”

  “No, still straight on for the Natanz area. They could jink a little, turn a little northwest and get Arak, but I hope they don’t go that direction. Our friends will get pretty nervous if anything even starts in their direction. They could over-fly, though. Nothing says they’re going to one of those places.

  They’re just on those lines.”

  “Could they get that
far?”

  “What? Israel?”

  “Oh, my god, no. Don’t even think that. Natanz!” He paused. “But…yeah, could they hit Israel?”

  “Yeah, no sweat to Natanz. They originally had 1,500 to 2,000 miles, I think. I don’t know now for sure. But, yeah, I’d think so. And, Israel? Yeah, could do.”

  “But, they went right past Bushehr. Didn’t even wiggle.”

  “And Bushehr saw them, too. We saw them light up, so the word’ll be spreading pretty fast right about now. Haven’t seen anything scrambling yet, but we should soon.”

  “Hold on, I’m getting a question… They’re asking what warheads they used to carry. Do you have that?”