The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (11 page)

“You didn’t make it, unborn child,

      
They wouldn’t let you be,”

The kids pray in one voice. He recognizes the prayer from many a pro-life demonstration.

“To your bud of life, they took a knife;

It’s the ‘new morality.’

They didn’t mean to hurt you, love!

      
You have to understand;

Forgive them for what they did,

      
Their lives are so well-planned.

They couldn’t take you with them

      
Up the ladder of success;

Money meant more to them,

      
Than a child, heaven-blessed.

Tell me, little unborn child,

      
What did the Creator say?

Did He wrap you in his love,

      
And wipe your tears away?

You hover on the edge of time.

      
I see your faceless form.

You laugh when children play.

      
Oh God, for you I mourn!

He sent us His only precious Son,

      
To teach us all The Way.

Still, we kill the unborn ones;

      
It happens every day!

You didn’t make it, unborn child,

      
They wouldn’t let you be.

They just expelled a blob of cells;

      
It’s the ‘new morality.’”

Elmer turns his head from the children to the throng on the south side of Independence. He scans a cluster of signs across the street.

Keep your God to yourself!

Christianity Sux!

Jesus freaks go home!

Kidd pauses before each one to get a clear picture and moves on, scanning north again. He spots another gray and white sign.

“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

The white letters are over a grayscale portrait of John Quincy Adams. Like the first gray and white sign he spotted, this one stands out for its professional quality amidst a forest of the home-made and the hurriedly hand-drawn.

“Get a close up of that one, Ernie,” Kidd says to his PalmPal.

The computer zooms in on the image through the small camera in Kidd’s glasses. Elmer pans through a close-up of the image created in the lens over his left eye. He spots a logo, centered on the bottom of the sign:

Creation

That is curious, thinks Elmer. He noted a facebook status post from a Felix Culpa in his message stream a couple hours back; it was something about Christmas extremism. Elmer didn’t recognize the name. He scrolled through it quickly, figuring it was just a random posting of one of his fans.

“Bookmark the logo, Ernie,” Elmer instructs the computer.

The machine responds, “Got it, Jefe.”

The PalmPal has, in an instant, trolled through the web and crafted a crude report detailing everything known about the logo and the name. It is stored away in a nook of
R
eady
A
ccess
M
emory for Kidd to summon when he is ready.

“Keep rolling, Ernie.”

The close-up shot disappears.

Ahead, in the middle of the street, Elmer notices that someone has planted another Crucifix in a pile of horse manure dropped by the mounted police patrolling the line between protest camps. The New York Times placed the picture of such a cross on its front page three days ago over its lead story on the
demonstrations. Since then, the desecrated crosses have been popping up all over the city like mushrooms out of the scattered clumps of feces. The one in front of him is planted upside down in the dung.

A sign to his right declares:
Wake Up America! You Are On The Road To Hell.

A banner to his left insists:
Christianity Is for Haters!

Only one thing, Kidd decides, can make his Christmas merrier among so many pissed off demonstrators. He pulls out a pack of Marley’s from his coat pocket and draws a cigarette from it with his lips. He inhales until it lights itself. After a few puffs, the THC begins to spread its nerve-soothing effects. He continues his stroll around the perimeter of the crowd-thronged park, sipping and smoking.

Elmer Kidd was in San Diego for the toppling of the cross atop Mount Soledad. The tension in Washington, he feels, is far worse than it was in California. Everyone recognizes it. All the elements are certainly here for a major confrontation. The protestors, cops, soldiers and counter-demonstrators who mixed with such riotous and bloody results out west are gathered in far greater numbers in Washington tonight. Crowds of this size make Kidd very nervous. There are too many psychopaths in the world who find them to be fat, juicy targets. He was nearly trampled to death by such a crowd when it was panicked into stampede by such a psychopath in an exploding vest. The physical injuries he sustained were long healed but the psychic trauma was forever. The nightmare of being dragged under a human tide of running feet, collapsing knees, falling elbows and of fighting desperately for every breath under a growing heap of sweat and blood-slicked bodies still visits him from time to time.

Elmer has a job to do however, and so he hangs close and walks the line between the hordes.

Kidd is a journalist. He knows that the stroke of midnight might unleash hell on the streets of the nation’s capital. If it does, Elmer wants to be at ground zero to capture it all. While he could cover the story from his hotel room like many of his fellows were doing, he cannot, in good conscience, join them. He had in fact received an invitation to a ‘rooftop riot party’ being hosted by a big wig, network anchor. The invitation was printed on the back of a comic drawing of robed Christians running, sweat, tears and sandals flying from them, as they fled lions in an arena full of cheering crowds. ‘Come watch the fun
from the best view in town!’ it offered. The open bar it advertised was certainly tempting, but Elmer decided against it. He wants to be near the action. He will not cheat and give in to his fear. His early years as a war correspondent taught him how to suppress it when necessary.

The whiskey and the weed also help.

And besides, he thinks, maybe the President will talk sense into everyone. O’Neill can certainly be counted on not to repeat the mistakes of Pelosi’s administration. Maybe they will all get lucky and there will be no confrontation, no rioting.

Elmer Kidd certainly hopes so.

Whatever happens tonight, he knows, will be prologue to a final, grander confrontation in the spring when the Supreme Court rules on the case that drew the quarter of a million demonstrators to town. However it might turn out, Elmer knows, it will be grist for his mill. He will soon have the material for the last chapter of his new book.

‘Christendom’s Last Stand’
, is its tentative title. Kidd has been writing it for the last five years as he chronicled the battles between church and state across the country. His publishers are excited about it. He is glad of that because they published his last book, a science fiction novel, as grudgingly as the critics were enthusiastic in the panning of it. In this, his fifth book, Kidd is returning to non-fiction. It’s always done right by him. He has every intention of taking another swing at fiction someday. In his idle moments he kicks around an idea he has for an insect-fantasy-adventure…

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States,” the voice from the giant television screens jar Elmer from his stoned musings. Kidd stops to watch the Presidential address.

“Stop taping,” he orders his computer.

“OK, boss.”

William Jennings O’Neill, the 47
^th
President of the United States of America smiles down on Elmer Kidd and the the nearly three hundred thousand people crammed cozily in and around the Great Reflecting Pool.

“My fellow Americans,” the President begins, his tenor’s voice set at its most soothing. “For centuries, on this night, people the world over have traditionally gathered to celebrate the idea of peace on Earth. When all the religious trappings are peeled back, this idea of peace on earth is what is at the core of
this special night. This idea need not be considered a far-fetched one. I, for one, believe an idea conceived is half way to achieved. Man did not, after all, take wing and conquer the skies without that first flight of fancy wherein he imagined himself soaring with the eagles. I put it to you then, if the idea of peace on earth is conceivable to the mind of man, it is also possible to the world of man. This peace on earth that we all hope and yearn for and, in our own individual ways, pray for, is attainable. It need not be dismissed as the product of wishful thinking and wide-eyed idealism. Even in these troubled times of ours, peace on earth is within our reach. It is well within the realm of possibility. I, for one, refuse to believe otherwise.

“Allow me, if you will, to suggest just how it can be made possible.

“Peace on earth will become a reality when all men and women, all nations and societies agree to live and be bound by one law; the same law. Not Divine law, which we can only guess at, but man’s law which we can all write together. Not God’s law, which is always subject to endless speculation and interpretation, but man’s law which is subject to review and revision. Man’s law is that law that everyone contributes to and everywhere and everyday bridges our differences and cements our similarities into the building blocks of civilization.

“We cannot after all, not with any real assurance, determine precisely what the deity, if such a being exists, demands or even expects of us. Like many of you, I like to believe that at a minimum, a loving God would want us to get along peaceably. That will only be possible when we live by one law, the law we all write together. I put it to you that it is precisely this law, man’s law, what Aristotle called ‘reason, free from passion,’ that makes human civilization possible at all and allows those who live under its aegis to enjoy the comforts, conveniences and blessings of peace. The legislation before the High Court proposes to secure these blessings of peace for all, believers and non-believers alike, in this, our secular nation.

“Secularism is, I know, a dirty word to some, but I assure you, it is neither a slight against religion in general, nor is it an attack on Christianity in particular. We secularists do not, as the fear-mongers assert, wish to exclude Christianity from the American tapestry. Rather, we seek to weave into that wondrous quilt the threads of other great faith traditions and philosophies. For regardless of what America might have been in the past, she can no longer be called a Christian nation. At least, we’re not just a Christian nation anymore. America
is also a Muslim nation and a Hindu nation and a Buddhist nation and a nation of unbelievers; a nation of agnostics and atheists.

“America is, in short, a nation of citizens; a grand civilization created for one and all, open to all ways of thought, beliefs and life styles. Our monuments must reflect the great values of tolerance and open-mindedness without which peace is impossible. They must not celebrate just one faith tradition but all faith traditions and schools of thoughts. Especially here, in the capital of our great nation, tolerance and open-mindedness must be on display at all times and in all places. Koranic scripture must be given an honor equal to that presently given Biblical scripture. The same honor must be offered the wisdom of the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Pagan and the wise men of secular tradition. No one must be left out of the great experiment in openness that is America. We have no desire to shut out any group. It is our highest hope rather, that by being as all-inclusive as the new law would have us be, we can spare ourselves the strife, war and the needless bloodshed that religious differences have plagued civilization with throughout history.

“As America proceeds further into the twenty-first century, a secularist orientation such as the proposed law promotes will become ever more vital to our dealings with our global neighbors. It is through secularism that America will continue to lead the world, bridging the differences between disparate nations and cultures as she helps create a brighter future for all in a single, sustainable, global, human community. The great civilization that can bring peace to all earth and deliver the goodwill this holiday season promises to all men everywhere is no more possible anywhere than here, in these United States of America.

“Let it begin here, my friends. Let it begin tonight, my brothers and sisters.

“We Americans, the great melting pot, have always been an example to the world on how the most far-flung of peoples can come to live peaceably together. Our forefathers, regardless of what corner of the world they came from, managed it by submitting to the law of the land as it existed in their day. Let us preserve that brotherly legacy. Let us, likewise, submit to the law of the land as it exists in our day.