Roger and his son returned to the community area and as soon as they walked into the room Susan greeted them by saying, "Sit down, my men. The feed is just about to start."
Harrison looked at his mother with a new recognition. She saw the expression on his face but only smiled at him as she knew they would have their time to talk later and she trusted her son's ability to assimilate all he had been told. He went back to the seat he had taken previously and turned his attention to the television. His father walked over to sit by Susan. He said nothing but took her hand as he sat down.
In a moment the television came to life with the face of someone no-one seemed to recognise. He was a young man but he wasn't a known politician, celebrity or anyone who usually filled the news channels with their thoughts on this or that event in world news. He had soft brown eyes, his hair was neatly-trimmed and he had no beard. He didn't look like anyone's idea of a radical.
The speaker was standing behind the podium in the White House briefing room and started talking without introducing himself.
"It is not our intention to destroy America but rather to restore it. There is no surprise to anyone in the corruption of the political process by lobby groups and other corporate interests and that will stop effective immediately. The members of Congress were not injured and all have been moved to a safe place but they will not be restored to their positions. For the duration of the stabilisation of the country, the White House will perform its executive role and will schedule elections for the following November. Incumbents will be specifically disallowed from running. I repeat that the members of Congress have not been injured. However, those who are guilty of corruption will be identified, tried and imprisoned appropriately."
"I am one member of the Revolutionary Council but there are twelve others symbolic of the thirteen original states. At this moment we are speaking with the President and we anticipate he will address the country at any moment. I will begin a reading of the points of action in the Manifesto but will interrupt that in favor of hearing from him when negotiations complete. He has already been told of the contents of the Manifesto."
The briefing room usually clamoured with questions during any pause in a statement from the podium but tonight there was silence. During the pause, a young woman walked up to the speaker and whispered to him then stood to one side, briefly smiling at the crowd.
"The President will speak at this time. CNN, please cut to the feed from Andrews AFB."
The image on the television cut back to Rachel Hawkins in Atlanta who said only, "Please stand by and we will bring you the Andrews feed as soon as we connect."
Hawkins saw Abrams waving frantically to her and then said, "We are cutting to the feed now."
The screen filled with a nondescript room decorated with nothing but a podium in the center and an American flag in one corner. The President looked tired but was otherwise doing well. As with previous speakers, he did not do any introduction but went straight into what he had to say.
"The Raggedy Andy Party has control of the United States and it will not be on my watch that we launch into a military campaign to change that. This country has had one Civil War and it will not have another. I have ordered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Masterson, to stand down. He advises me the only military action that has been taken was the legally-ordered strike against the militias. We regret the loss of life but the country will not be given over to violence."
"In speaking with a representative of the Raggedy Andy Party, I am satisfied it is not their intention to overturn the United States but rather restore it to what it was. In fact I agree with a number of points of the Manifesto and would have implemented them myself if not for various political considerations."
The President paused to catch his breath as he was as stunned as anyone at the developments that were unfolding.
"The Raggedy Andy Party has guaranteed my safe passage back to the White House where I will meet Supreme Court Chief Justice Kenneth Winston to swear in the Revolutionary Council as the leaders of the country. I will assist them as an advisor but will not be performing any executive functions. At that time I will resign from my office of President of the United States. There will be no lapse in executive function."
Without waiting for the end of the President's speech, General Haddock shouted to the other generals at the Pentagon, "Jesus Christ, I will not let this country be captured by a bunch of hippie liberals."
He stood and glared hard at General Masterson and was poised to leave the room.
Masterson's eyes turned to steel as he had spent as much time in combat as Haddock and wouldn't be intimidated by this kind of display.
"Sit down, Haddock. You will decide your loyalty right this minute or you will face arrest. Make up your mind."
"Damn it, my loyalty is to America and has never been questioned."
"It is being questioned right now. You will follow the orders of the President or I will arrest you for treason. Make your choice and I mean right now."
Haddock continued glaring at him, furious in his frustration. Masterson knew some would snap in a situation like this and he also knew Haddock was the most likely. There was no braver man in battle but he was not one to tolerate change of this nature. All of the generals were looking at Haddock, some sympathetic to what he was saying but torn as to the wisdom of it.
"I say again, General Haddock, decide your loyalty. All of us are here to defend America and we will do it as ordered. That order was to stand down and it will not change until another order is received."
Defeated, Haddock sank back into his seat and looked down at the table. He had a very strong temper but he wasn't a stupid man.
"Say it, General," ordered Masterson.
Still looking at the table, Haddock said, "I will follow the order of the President."
Masterson knew there was the possibility of insurrection once Haddock left the room but he would deal with that as necessary.
"Gentlemen, I suggest we continue following the television feed as it is currently our best source of intelligence."
With that, Masterson turned his attention back to the television monitor.
At Andrews AFB, the President was still speaking.
"I will contact other world leaders from the White House and I will serve as a de facto Secretary of State but will have no vote in the Revolutionary Council. My mission is as it has always been to live in service of America and I ask you, the American people, to do the same. America will survive. We will survive. Thank you."
The President removed the lapel microphone and put it on the podium. He looked briefly back at the camera and then walked out of view.
FBI Director Albert Stiller was in his office at the Washington FBI headquarters and, like just about everyone else in America, he was watching a television monitor. Aghast at what was happening, he turned to two of his managers, Clifford Walters and Edward Murray, who were watching with him.
"Where in the hell could they have taken the people from Congress. If we find them then the rebels lose a major bargaining chip."
"They couldn't be anywhere near as they would be impossible to hide. They had to have taken them away in buses. Too many of them to have used anything else."
"Right, Walters," said Stiller. "How about recordings from traffic cameras to look for anything unusual in the area surrounding Congress.
"Perhaps they used some of the buses that brought the rebels into the area to take the Congress people back out," said Murray.
"That idea balances well. Might very well be it," said Stiller. "Follow that. Any other ideas?"
"Witnesses. But getting into the area to find anyone would be extremely difficult," said Walters.
"Anything else," said Stiller.
Walters and Murray were silent.
"OK," said Stiller. "Let's see those video recordings then."
The network television view switched back to Atlanta and Rachel Hawkins. She was momentarily-flustered by the sudden cut but responded quickly.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will not be offering any editorial or split image commentaries as these events proceed and we will cut back to the White House briefing room to await further word from the Revolutionary Council."
There was constant scrambling in the CNN control room where they were monitoring multiple television feeds. Hastings, the lead producer, said into a stage microphone that fed to an earplug Rachel Hawkins was wearing, "They aren't ready at the White House. Fill."
Hawkins again rose to the moment and said to the camera, "We will have live updates from around the country later in the evening but we don't want to cut away until the news coming in from the White House settles. What we can tell you quickly is that there has been surprisingly little violence but we will have comprehensive reports ..."
She paused for just a moment and then said, "We will now cut back to the White House."
The same young man was behind the podium in the White House briefing room and he started speaking right away.
"The leading points of action in the Manifesto are as follows: where Congress failed to cut spending, we will do that ourselves effective immediately."
"The military will stand down around the world except where required in support of NATO. We will be closing all overseas bases and we will be doing this in concert with other world leaders to assure the ongoing balance of power. Radical extremists in other countries should be advised that we will be working in concert with a new Tripartite Defense Force we will build with Russia and China to control extremist violence. Our efforts will focus primarily on stabilising the economies of the countries most vulnerable to extremist violence such that it reduces the interest in perpetrating such violence in the first place."
"All weapons sales and military aid will cease effective immediately. Our military manufacturing facilities will be converted to civilian applications and consequently privatised. For example, America shipbuilding is some of the best in the world and that will be converted to construction of civilian vessels to support the world's commerce."
"The only exceptions to military aid will be in Afghanistan and southeast Asia where the military drones will be used to burn the poppy fields and thus destroy the ability to produce heroin. In parallel with this we will stage one of our aircraft carriers in the Caribbean Sea to interdict drug trafficking from South America."
"We will eliminate the DEA as their efforts have been useless. In parallel, we will commence the immediate release of all drug offenders from U.S. jails provided they are not guilty of any violent crimes. In all cases the war on drugs will go directly to the source where we will burn the fields that produce it and we will use the U.S. military for interdiction for any that is missed in that effort."
The most insidious threat facing most of the countries of the world that is inherent in illegal narcotics. We have no interest in marijuana and the like but we will halt the massive worldwide traffic in narcotics by stopping it at the source."
"The NSA surveillance will be stopped immediately and verifiably. All data accumulated through that surveillance will be erased. We have dispatched a team of auditors and systems programmers to the NSA facility in Utah where they will oversee the dismantling of the monitoring systems in use there. The U.S. Army will assure the safety of the team on entering the NSA facility as it is located inside Camp Williams, an Army base."
"The CIA and the NSA are placed immediately under the command of General Masterson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and will undertake no independent action without his specific order. Any contravention of this order will be considered treason and will be judged in a military court."
"All multinational U.S. banks will be subject to immediate Federal audit and any Federal payments to those banks is henceforth halted. We will continue payments on the national debt to foreign nations but payments to U.S. banks will stop right now. Any banks objecting to this policy will be nationalised. The banks are not too big to fail but the U.S. most certainly is. The banks will serve the national interest or they will not serve at all."
"Health care will be addressed through the construction of neighbourhood clinics for several purposes. The first is to take the strain off expensive emergency rooms which are routinely used by many people for basic health care which doesn't require that level of medical help. The second is to emphasise prevention and consequently reduce medical costs overall. Another task for the medical clinics is methadone maintenance as we know our interdiction of heroin will make the prices skyrocket and no amount of burglary will keep up with it. We want to cure addicts, not arrest them."
At The Refuge, Goldberg and everyone else had been listening in total silence but he could no longer contain himself, "You know what, Boss. I can't say I disagree with them."
Harrison didn't respond but he looked around the room and saw what looked like might be a growing optimism. He looked quickly to his parents and both smiled at him but neither said anything.
Goldberg continued, "I'm sure there will be a full transcript on the Internet so if you all will excuse me, I believe I'm going to look in on the dogs. Coming too, Jane?"
Both of them stood and looked around the room before leaving.
Roger spoke up and said, "If you don't mind, I would like to see them too.
Quickly after, Doctor Kreitoff said, "Ich auch!"
Just as quickly, Margaret chided him gently, "English mein Herr."
Then she said to everyone, "We haven't lived in Germany for thirty years but he still falls back to German when he gets excited.
Harrison watched this and saw their enthusiasm to see the dogs but also noted their willingness to leave the reading and thought to himself this Raggedy Andy movement is very widespread indeed.
Harrison looked at his mother with a new recognition. She saw the expression on his face but only smiled at him as she knew they would have their time to talk later and she trusted her son's ability to assimilate all he had been told. He went back to the seat he had taken previously and turned his attention to the television. His father walked over to sit by Susan. He said nothing but took her hand as he sat down.
In a moment the television came to life with the face of someone no-one seemed to recognise. He was a young man but he wasn't a known politician, celebrity or anyone who usually filled the news channels with their thoughts on this or that event in world news. He had soft brown eyes, his hair was neatly-trimmed and he had no beard. He didn't look like anyone's idea of a radical.
The speaker was standing behind the podium in the White House briefing room and started talking without introducing himself.
"It is not our intention to destroy America but rather to restore it. There is no surprise to anyone in the corruption of the political process by lobby groups and other corporate interests and that will stop effective immediately. The members of Congress were not injured and all have been moved to a safe place but they will not be restored to their positions. For the duration of the stabilisation of the country, the White House will perform its executive role and will schedule elections for the following November. Incumbents will be specifically disallowed from running. I repeat that the members of Congress have not been injured. However, those who are guilty of corruption will be identified, tried and imprisoned appropriately."
"I am one member of the Revolutionary Council but there are twelve others symbolic of the thirteen original states. At this moment we are speaking with the President and we anticipate he will address the country at any moment. I will begin a reading of the points of action in the Manifesto but will interrupt that in favor of hearing from him when negotiations complete. He has already been told of the contents of the Manifesto."
The briefing room usually clamoured with questions during any pause in a statement from the podium but tonight there was silence. During the pause, a young woman walked up to the speaker and whispered to him then stood to one side, briefly smiling at the crowd.
"The President will speak at this time. CNN, please cut to the feed from Andrews AFB."
The image on the television cut back to Rachel Hawkins in Atlanta who said only, "Please stand by and we will bring you the Andrews feed as soon as we connect."
Hawkins saw Abrams waving frantically to her and then said, "We are cutting to the feed now."
The screen filled with a nondescript room decorated with nothing but a podium in the center and an American flag in one corner. The President looked tired but was otherwise doing well. As with previous speakers, he did not do any introduction but went straight into what he had to say.
"The Raggedy Andy Party has control of the United States and it will not be on my watch that we launch into a military campaign to change that. This country has had one Civil War and it will not have another. I have ordered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Masterson, to stand down. He advises me the only military action that has been taken was the legally-ordered strike against the militias. We regret the loss of life but the country will not be given over to violence."
"In speaking with a representative of the Raggedy Andy Party, I am satisfied it is not their intention to overturn the United States but rather restore it to what it was. In fact I agree with a number of points of the Manifesto and would have implemented them myself if not for various political considerations."
The President paused to catch his breath as he was as stunned as anyone at the developments that were unfolding.
"The Raggedy Andy Party has guaranteed my safe passage back to the White House where I will meet Supreme Court Chief Justice Kenneth Winston to swear in the Revolutionary Council as the leaders of the country. I will assist them as an advisor but will not be performing any executive functions. At that time I will resign from my office of President of the United States. There will be no lapse in executive function."
Without waiting for the end of the President's speech, General Haddock shouted to the other generals at the Pentagon, "Jesus Christ, I will not let this country be captured by a bunch of hippie liberals."
He stood and glared hard at General Masterson and was poised to leave the room.
Masterson's eyes turned to steel as he had spent as much time in combat as Haddock and wouldn't be intimidated by this kind of display.
"Sit down, Haddock. You will decide your loyalty right this minute or you will face arrest. Make up your mind."
"Damn it, my loyalty is to America and has never been questioned."
"It is being questioned right now. You will follow the orders of the President or I will arrest you for treason. Make your choice and I mean right now."
Haddock continued glaring at him, furious in his frustration. Masterson knew some would snap in a situation like this and he also knew Haddock was the most likely. There was no braver man in battle but he was not one to tolerate change of this nature. All of the generals were looking at Haddock, some sympathetic to what he was saying but torn as to the wisdom of it.
"I say again, General Haddock, decide your loyalty. All of us are here to defend America and we will do it as ordered. That order was to stand down and it will not change until another order is received."
Defeated, Haddock sank back into his seat and looked down at the table. He had a very strong temper but he wasn't a stupid man.
"Say it, General," ordered Masterson.
Still looking at the table, Haddock said, "I will follow the order of the President."
Masterson knew there was the possibility of insurrection once Haddock left the room but he would deal with that as necessary.
"Gentlemen, I suggest we continue following the television feed as it is currently our best source of intelligence."
With that, Masterson turned his attention back to the television monitor.
At Andrews AFB, the President was still speaking.
"I will contact other world leaders from the White House and I will serve as a de facto Secretary of State but will have no vote in the Revolutionary Council. My mission is as it has always been to live in service of America and I ask you, the American people, to do the same. America will survive. We will survive. Thank you."
The President removed the lapel microphone and put it on the podium. He looked briefly back at the camera and then walked out of view.
FBI Director Albert Stiller was in his office at the Washington FBI headquarters and, like just about everyone else in America, he was watching a television monitor. Aghast at what was happening, he turned to two of his managers, Clifford Walters and Edward Murray, who were watching with him.
"Where in the hell could they have taken the people from Congress. If we find them then the rebels lose a major bargaining chip."
"They couldn't be anywhere near as they would be impossible to hide. They had to have taken them away in buses. Too many of them to have used anything else."
"Right, Walters," said Stiller. "How about recordings from traffic cameras to look for anything unusual in the area surrounding Congress.
"Perhaps they used some of the buses that brought the rebels into the area to take the Congress people back out," said Murray.
"That idea balances well. Might very well be it," said Stiller. "Follow that. Any other ideas?"
"Witnesses. But getting into the area to find anyone would be extremely difficult," said Walters.
"Anything else," said Stiller.
Walters and Murray were silent.
"OK," said Stiller. "Let's see those video recordings then."
The network television view switched back to Atlanta and Rachel Hawkins. She was momentarily-flustered by the sudden cut but responded quickly.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will not be offering any editorial or split image commentaries as these events proceed and we will cut back to the White House briefing room to await further word from the Revolutionary Council."
There was constant scrambling in the CNN control room where they were monitoring multiple television feeds. Hastings, the lead producer, said into a stage microphone that fed to an earplug Rachel Hawkins was wearing, "They aren't ready at the White House. Fill."
Hawkins again rose to the moment and said to the camera, "We will have live updates from around the country later in the evening but we don't want to cut away until the news coming in from the White House settles. What we can tell you quickly is that there has been surprisingly little violence but we will have comprehensive reports ..."
She paused for just a moment and then said, "We will now cut back to the White House."
The same young man was behind the podium in the White House briefing room and he started speaking right away.
"The leading points of action in the Manifesto are as follows: where Congress failed to cut spending, we will do that ourselves effective immediately."
"The military will stand down around the world except where required in support of NATO. We will be closing all overseas bases and we will be doing this in concert with other world leaders to assure the ongoing balance of power. Radical extremists in other countries should be advised that we will be working in concert with a new Tripartite Defense Force we will build with Russia and China to control extremist violence. Our efforts will focus primarily on stabilising the economies of the countries most vulnerable to extremist violence such that it reduces the interest in perpetrating such violence in the first place."
"All weapons sales and military aid will cease effective immediately. Our military manufacturing facilities will be converted to civilian applications and consequently privatised. For example, America shipbuilding is some of the best in the world and that will be converted to construction of civilian vessels to support the world's commerce."
"The only exceptions to military aid will be in Afghanistan and southeast Asia where the military drones will be used to burn the poppy fields and thus destroy the ability to produce heroin. In parallel with this we will stage one of our aircraft carriers in the Caribbean Sea to interdict drug trafficking from South America."
"We will eliminate the DEA as their efforts have been useless. In parallel, we will commence the immediate release of all drug offenders from U.S. jails provided they are not guilty of any violent crimes. In all cases the war on drugs will go directly to the source where we will burn the fields that produce it and we will use the U.S. military for interdiction for any that is missed in that effort."
The most insidious threat facing most of the countries of the world that is inherent in illegal narcotics. We have no interest in marijuana and the like but we will halt the massive worldwide traffic in narcotics by stopping it at the source."
"The NSA surveillance will be stopped immediately and verifiably. All data accumulated through that surveillance will be erased. We have dispatched a team of auditors and systems programmers to the NSA facility in Utah where they will oversee the dismantling of the monitoring systems in use there. The U.S. Army will assure the safety of the team on entering the NSA facility as it is located inside Camp Williams, an Army base."
"The CIA and the NSA are placed immediately under the command of General Masterson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and will undertake no independent action without his specific order. Any contravention of this order will be considered treason and will be judged in a military court."
"All multinational U.S. banks will be subject to immediate Federal audit and any Federal payments to those banks is henceforth halted. We will continue payments on the national debt to foreign nations but payments to U.S. banks will stop right now. Any banks objecting to this policy will be nationalised. The banks are not too big to fail but the U.S. most certainly is. The banks will serve the national interest or they will not serve at all."
"Health care will be addressed through the construction of neighbourhood clinics for several purposes. The first is to take the strain off expensive emergency rooms which are routinely used by many people for basic health care which doesn't require that level of medical help. The second is to emphasise prevention and consequently reduce medical costs overall. Another task for the medical clinics is methadone maintenance as we know our interdiction of heroin will make the prices skyrocket and no amount of burglary will keep up with it. We want to cure addicts, not arrest them."
At The Refuge, Goldberg and everyone else had been listening in total silence but he could no longer contain himself, "You know what, Boss. I can't say I disagree with them."
Harrison didn't respond but he looked around the room and saw what looked like might be a growing optimism. He looked quickly to his parents and both smiled at him but neither said anything.
Goldberg continued, "I'm sure there will be a full transcript on the Internet so if you all will excuse me, I believe I'm going to look in on the dogs. Coming too, Jane?"
Both of them stood and looked around the room before leaving.
Roger spoke up and said, "If you don't mind, I would like to see them too.
Quickly after, Doctor Kreitoff said, "Ich auch!"
Just as quickly, Margaret chided him gently, "English mein Herr."
Then she said to everyone, "We haven't lived in Germany for thirty years but he still falls back to German when he gets excited.
Harrison watched this and saw their enthusiasm to see the dogs but also noted their willingness to leave the reading and thought to himself this Raggedy Andy movement is very widespread indeed.
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