The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (44 page)

“Since our colonial beginnings, despite the many, well known failings of Christians, Americans have acknowledged in Christianity the principle and all-pervading element and foundation for their laws, policies, customs and civil institutions. As the country grew, Christianity spread with it. The bond between the two is writ large across our nation. We can read it in Maryland, the state named in honor of the Blessed Mother of God. It is there in Corpus Christi, Las Cruces, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, as it is in the myriad of other cities, counties and streets named after the saints of Christendom. From the
start, America has found in Christianity her highest ideals. In our striving to live up to those values we made our nation the envy of the world. Conversely, our abandonment of Christianity is what set us on the road to ruin.

“Today, we step off that path. Today, we declare America to be a Christian Republic, a nation under God once more, which acknowledges the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, the Lord of lords and the King of kings! The crosses that have been torn down shall be raised again. Every law that impedes the practice of Christianity is now null and void.

“Today we dissolve our bonds with a world that is hostile to both America and Christianity. We declare our independence from its culture of death.

“Today we offer the world an alternative. We ask you, our fellow Americans and you, our fellow citizens of the world; we invite you all to join with us in creating a new, pro-life civilization.

“Turn a tender eye with us to human souls when they are at their most vulnerable, innocent and most dependent on our goodwill and, we promise you, gentler yet will be the hands with which we touch each other. Reject life, insist that some human beings are disposable just because they’re in fetal form and the war of all against all will continue to curse the world with the bloodbaths of genocide. It can be no other way. Either all human life is sacred or no human life is sacred. If any human life is dismissed as disposable, then all human life can be considered expendable.

“Let us resolve here and now to choose life. If we can revere every member of humanity from conception through natural death we will, in short order, reorder our minds, industries and institutions, putting them to work creating a world where every life is welcomed, wanted and provided for. Reject life and it will continue to grow ever cheaper. We will continue to abandon the weak and the wounded, step over the homeless and turn deaf ears to the cries of the hungry and the tortured.

“Choose life, we beg you. Let us love every soul that God delivers to our keeping and all life, every great and small creature of God, the planet itself even, will yet know us as better, more thoughtful, caring stewards. Reject life and we will never be able to see each other as more than human resources, faceless statistics or worse, cannon fodder and collateral damage. Choose life and we can all, at last, become good Samaritans to each other.

“This Christmas Day, here in America, we begin again. We pray you join with us and choose life, because its alternative has and always will be war, bloodshed and death.

“Consider our offer. Talk and pray it over with family and friends. At the end of this transmission, phone lines will be opened up again so you can contact loved ones. We will continue to suppress television, radio and the internet however, as these mediums will generate more heat than light on the subject. We will turn them back on again at the end of Christmastide. At that time we will also release all our prisoners.

“Until then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.”

†

Joe Corelli watches Colonel Pereira pick a remote control up from the desk. The Colonel aims it at the camera and pushes one of its buttons. The image from the Oval Office vanishes in a flash of snowy static. A moment later the screen lights up with an aerial view of the United Nations Tower complex in Manhattan. Two helicopters lift off from its roof and head across the East River. A third helicopter rises from the plaza and circles the tower as it climbs into the air. On the ground, the NYPD can be seen urging and pushing the crowd, thinned across the far side of First Avenue, up the side streets. A muffled explosion is heard. And then another and another; a whole series of muted blasts rock the street and plaza. People stop in their tracks and look back at the tower. Another, longer and louder series of explosions shatters the still, winter air. Windows burst outward in glinting shards from the bottom floors to the top as puffs of smoke plume out the sides of the building. People scream. Most run but some stand, transfixed. The ground rumbles. One after the other, the bottom floors of the tower buckle. The top floors fall, pancaking one atop the other, as the building shrinks. The skyscraper collapses in seconds, disappearing behind a rolling and rising cloud of impenetrable smoke and concrete dust.

A final blast splits the gray dome of the General Assembly into pieces. A great tongue of flame spits them into the air as the supporting walls collapse and crumble. Smoke and dust billow over the camera and the view is lost in a dingy white-out.

The coverage from New York is cut suddenly and the televisions return to playing ‘
It’s a Wonderful Life
.’ Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey is running through the black and white, small town snow-scape of Bedford Falls wishing everyone
a Merry Christmas. Beneath the television, the President, the Congressman, Annie and the rest of the kidnapped party stand stunned and slack-jawed.

Corelli looks down the wall of glass. The soldiers in the control room are cheering, whooping, clapping, trading high-fives and throwing their Santa caps in the air. He catches sight of Carlton Quinn. He is bear hugging two women, one in each arm. Their legs kick excitedly as he lifts them off the ground and spins in place. When he puts them down, they plant a kiss on each of his cheeks and run off to celebrate with others. Quinn looks up and catches Joe’s attention. The sniper gives him a quick grin, wink and a thumbs-up before he crosses arms at the elbows with Salvador Alvarez and the two improvise a twirling jig. Laughing soldiers wheel carts in from the four tunnels. Bottles of champagne, iced in bus tubs, sit atop the carts. Out of the north tunnel a short, wiry man with a handlebar mustache runs into the control room. He is not in uniform but wearing a long-tailed, white tuxedo stamped with a red and green houndstooth pattern. A matching top hat is planted on his head. He slides across a good sized length of the polished stone floor with a bottle in each raised hand. He raises the bottles of champagne high in the air and simultaneously pops the corks off each with his thumbs.

“Merry Christmas!” he shouts out.

“Merry Christmas!” the soldiers roar in reply.

Corelli turns his back on the scene. He moves past his still-struck party and takes a seat at the bench. He buries his face in his hands and tries to quiet his mind. He tries to empty it of the thoughts battling in his brain. He tries to reconcile the two disparate images of Sandi behind each warring faction. There is the girl he met in Destin, dancing in high heels, black mini and a canary feather tube top; and Sandi as Captain Castillo in combat boots, armored and armed to the teeth. The images will not reconcile themselves. When Corelli raises his head again, he notices that Annie is headed, like a sleepwalker, to her room. The President and the Congressman continue to stare at the war room turned into a discotheque of flashing lights and brassy, dance music. Beside them, Morton Gallagher and his team look upon the same scene with the same incomprehension on their faces.

Above them all, on the flat screen, George Bailey is home. He is deliriously happy, wrapped in wife and child. His eldest daughter hammers away at the family piano.

Neighbors lift their voices in song.
“Hark, the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the new born King!”

George Bailey looks up and gives heaven a knowing wink.

Joe Corelli stares numbly as the final scene fades and the closing music swells. He continues to stare wide and blank-eyed as Liberty Films’ logo and namesake Bell rocks, tolling behind the words,
The End.

Take up and Follow

†

The

Omega

Crusade

@
theomegacrusade.blogspot.com