The 13: Fall (53 page)

Taylor looked to see Boz and Jennings giving him the same look she was. The one that said,
Yeah, no kidding.

“Doesn’t matter what they think,” Jennings said. “You’re the guy.”

“I may not be as qualified as Calvin, but I’m not an idiot,” Walker said.

Jennings started to say something, but Walker cut him off.

“I’m also not so arrogant to ignore the fact that you all tried to warn me that something like this could happen. But there’s no sense in us dwelling on the past. We have to worry about the future.”

“Yes, sir,” all three of them said.

“So I want you to tell me about this man who calls himself the Prophet. Is all of this connected to him?”

Taylor looked to Jennings, who looked over at Boz.

“We believe so, sir,” Taylor said.

“How?”

Megan and Boz recounted the entire event. From the initial contact that had been made with President Grant, all the way to where they currently sat in his bunker residence.

Walker looked on steadily as they finished. Finally he said, “So what now?”

“No one knows,” Boz said. “The Prophet said he’d find us when the time was right.”

“What does that mean?” Walker asked.

“We don’t know,” Jennings said, echoing Boz’s thoughts.

“But in the meantime,” Megan said, “it would be wise of you to tell the people.”

Walker sat back and folded his arms. “You want me to tell the people of this country that God did this to us?”

“The Chinese did this to us, Mr. President,” Boz said sternly. “God allowed it. Big difference.”

“Listen,” Taylor interrupted. “We’re not exactly on easy street here, President Walker. I don’t know what God’s plan is for us, going forward. But I can promise you, it would go a long way to help us if you told everyone that we need to humble ourselves before Him and ask Him for His guidance in moving forward.”

“In the meantime,” Jennings said, “Boz and Megan are continuing to look for this Prophet.”

President Walker stood up, signaling that the meeting was over. “I have a speech to give in a little while. I better get ready. Thank you all for coming up here.”

Taylor followed Jennings and Boz to the elevators.

President Walker closed the door behind his guests and went back to the sitting area. He reached behind the pillow on the couch and pulled out the book again. The last few days had been extremely hard for him. He had been struggling between resigning and allowing the Speaker of the House to assume the presidency or just toughing it out. He hadn’t made his decision until five minutes ago, listening to Jennings and his two agents.

Just yesterday he had gone downstairs to sit by Calvin’s bed. He and Calvin had been longtime friends. But their relationship had been strained the last few years. They seemed to be as different as oil and water. But Walker still, and always had, respected the man. Calvin was a great leader and a man of his word. He was respected among the American people and foreign dignitaries. Well, except for the Chinese, obviously.

He had been sitting by the bed, just thinking, when Tess, President Grant’s wife, had come into the room. She had been brought here along with President Grant when they first moved everyone. Her residency in the bunker was just a few doors down from his. She came over to him and sat down beside him. They had talked for a little while. She had asked about his family and how he was coping with everything going on. She had been so sweet. Here she was, battling cancer; her husband lay unconscious from a gunshot wound; and she was asking him how
he
was doing? He had been completely taken aback. And then she reached into the drawer beside Grant’s bed and pulled out his Bible and gave it to him.

“Calvin has a lot of highlighted passages in there,” she said. “Perhaps you may want to look at some of them. I know whenever he has gone through something that has weighed on him, this has brought him through it. Maybe you’ll find it useful.”

He had taken the Bible, not really knowing what to say. He tried to find the words when she spoke again.

“But you can’t keep it,” she said, smiling. “Calvin’s going to need that back when he wakes up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” was all he could muster. He hadn’t known why, but the whole thing had overwhelmed him at the time. And now here he was, thumbing through the pages again.

He had been reading all night and hadn’t stopped until Jennings and the others had come to see him. And even though he had grown up going to church, it had never really made any sense to him. It was just something that you did on Sunday. Go to church, then go to lunch afterward, then go home and watch whatever game was on the television until everyone fell asleep on the couch or their favorite chair. But this was different. He’d never spent time reading a Bible. He hadn’t even known where to start, but Calvin had lots of notes in the margins and tons of passages highlighted. He hadn’t realized how long he had been sitting there reading until he felt his eyes burning and had looked at the clock. And for the first time, he had begun to understand some of the things that that preacher had been talking about all those years.

He checked his watch again. He had fifteen minutes to get downstairs. The speech was not something he was looking forward to, but it was necessary. He couldn’t allow the Chinese to just openly kill American citizens. Not if, by doing what they asked, he could spare them. He closed the Bible and grabbed his suit coat.

Downstairs the command center had been set up. Minister Li’s instructions were clear and simple. The Chinese had provided a satellite link for them to connect to. The signal was also connected to the satellite feed that would broadcast the speech to the citizens in the East.

He checked his notes and was led to the podium, where one of the guys wired him with the mic. He looked into the camera and waited for the red light. When it flashed on, he began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart I address you today. Our country has suffered a great blow. For those of you who have yet to find your way to the eastern states, please hear me. General Chin and the People’s Republic of China have taken control of everything west of the Appalachian Mountains. They have claimed the entire territory as sovereign Chinese soil. As of now, we have no choice but to concede this defeat.

“I have spoken with General Chin. He has assured me that he wants no more violence. Nor do we. But I must tell you that those of you who continue to resist this occupation with violence and insurgence are inciting more violence. The Chinese do not wish to harm you. However, if you continue on this path, they have made it clear that they will continue to destroy the great cities of the Midwest and those who stand in their way, until you stop. Many more innocent people will die as a result of your actions. Please, please, stop. If you can somehow make your way to the eastern states, do so. We will welcome you in safely. But if you choose to stay, you must obey them.

“Now, I want everyone to listen to me. This country has been a great nation and a friend to many others for a long time. But recently we have become an enemy to ourselves. We’ve allowed ourselves over the years to become something that our forefathers never intended us to become. The day President Grant was shot, he was going to speak to us all about this. At the time, I didn’t see it. But I do now. And I would like you all to hear what I believe he was going to say. You see, this country was founded upon a belief system. That belief system was that all of us were endowed with certain rights. And those rights were given to us by God. And our forefathers believed that with every ounce of their beings.

“Over the years, we have, much like the Israelites from the Old Testament often did, allowed ourselves to move away from God, putting our faith and trust in many things. And in doing so, we have abandoned the very principles that once made America great. And that is our fear and reverence for God.”

The light on the camera flickered.

“Excuse me,” President Walker said into the camera. He looked to the technician. “Is everything okay?”

“The Chinese have cut the feed to their satellite,” the technician said. “But you’re still live on ours.”

He nodded and continued. “Listen, friends. I have no idea what lies ahead for us as a nation right now. But I can tell you this: President Grant knew that we were headed for troubled waters. To some degree, I even think he saw this coming. And he was going to warn us. Well, it’s too late for a warning now. The damage has been done. But it is not too late for hope. I do not believe that God has brought us here just to leave us in this condition. But I’ve also recently learned that each time that the Israelites allowed themselves to be led astray, they humbled themselves before God, and He restored them. Now I’m not saying that if we do that, God will indeed restore our nation to what she once was. But I do know that if we don’t, He will not.

“I find it ironic that—on our own Independence Day—we were shown how much we actually needed to be dependent. I also find it ironic that it was in this very month, September, so many years ago, when the pilgrims landed on a strange new land that would become our nation. A nation birthed out of thirteen colonies founded on Christian principles and values. And now here we are. After generations of prominence and greatness. Fallen. And now, having come through the devastation, after getting our legs back under us, we find ourselves once again back in the thirteen where we started. It’s as if God is showing us the contrast from what we once were, to what we have become.

“Perhaps this is His way of taking us back, to remind us. To remind us of how we came to be. Back when we fled tyranny because we wanted to worship Him, not remove Him from every aspect of our lives … from our government. Friends, we have a choice to make today. Will we return to what made us great? Or will we continue down the road that has left us where we sit now?

“Let us be reminded today of how He has brought us all here, to this place, in this time. And let us humble ourselves before Him, in hopes that He may grant us a great nation once again. God bless you all, and may God bless, once again, the United States of America.”

   EPILOGUE   

K
eene could barely keep his head up as the two guards dragged him back to his cell. He had been with the interrogators again. It was the fourth time this week. He didn’t know how much more his body could take. This had been going on for two months now. He didn’t even know what the point was. They didn’t want information from him. That was obvious. All they ever did was beat him and scream at him. It really was just plain old torture. No reason, other than to make him suffer.

It was all because of Chin. During the time that Chin was with the MSS, Keene had stumbled across him. Chin and his goons had taken hostage a US ambassador in South Korea and were trying to get military information out of him. Keene and his team had been sent in to retrieve the ambassador. Though they had secured the ambassador and taken out all of Chin’s men, Chin had gotten away. Keene had never forgotten the man. And now Keene was his prisoner.

The guards opened the door to his cell and threw him in. He landed on his side on the hard concrete. A fresh batch of blood rose up from his stomach as he spat it out. He still didn’t know where it came from. As much as they had beaten him these last few weeks, he couldn’t believe he still had any blood left to bleed. And just when he thought he’d never see the outside of these walls again, Chin had him brought upstairs to a field two days ago, where there were at least five hundred other men being held captive. They had sat him down in front of all of the other men. And then they did the unthinkable. They picked four of them and executed them. He knew right then that that wouldn’t be all. He had tried to stop the other men from getting up, but he was just too weak. And so he watched Chin’s men shoot them, too.