“Here is the simple fact: America, as we know her, cannot survive this secession movement. If that’s the basis of our political position, then why, you might ask, has Montclair accepted your commission to moderate the seminar and help develop a governmental structure for the new nation? I can answer that distinctly, ladies and gentlemen: we didn’t accept the commission to form the structure for a new nation. We came to help you examine the structure of our present nation, and see how we can apply it to our advantage. We are decidedly opposed to cradle-to-grave socialism. We are opposed to government in the state to which it has evolved. In that, we can agree. America is moving much too far in the wrong direction and removing freedom of choice in the process. That road leads to slavery.
“Montclair is conservative in philosophy. We do believe in free enterprise. We are opposed to the growth of government, excessive debt that even our grandchildren won’t be able to repay. But we are also opposed to running away from America’s troubles and finding our own little Utopia. For the sake of our discussion this morning, let’s examine the facts. Two Americas, no matter how closely aligned and coordinated their intent, will quickly become disparate in philosophy. One American is already disparate. The president can barely achieve fifty-two per cent of the vote in a national election. That means almost half of the country did not want him… or her. Within twenty or thirty years, there will be four, if not six Americas, philosophically, if not legislatively.
“But if America were divided and no longer the strongest force for good on earth-and, by heaven, I hope we can all agree that America has consistently been the primary force for good in the world this past century-but if we surrendered that title, that obligation to our role in history, who would replace us. China? Russia? A Pan-Arab confederation with government by Sharia law? Would any of those nations have the best interest of the world as their primary goal? Would they reach out to protect their neighbor if they were in trouble? Or would they join the invaders and take control over yet another country?
“These are all global considerations. Those of you in the room, I dare say, have not given much thought, education, or concern to global issues. Replace America with any of those countries, and within fifty, probably twenty-five years, there wouldn’t even be a history book to laud the twentieth-century efforts of the United States of America. We would have ceased to exist. And the Evil Empire would have won.
“You are all very young. Frankly, you’re ignorant. You see America locally, not internationally. You see America’s drift to the left, a more liberal society, taxation run rampant, a system of takers and givers, and each of you is tired of giving. I understand that. But consider this, ladies and gentlemen: you are all selfish.”
Del Valle remained quiet for a long moment as the insult hung in the air.
“You ask, how can we be selfish when we are the givers? The ones who pay taxes. The ones not on welfare. The ones the takers look to for sustenance. I can answer that. The takers are easy to figure out. They’re greedy. They’re the ones de Tocqueville spoke about when he said America would fail economically when her citizens found out they could pay themselves from the public purse. But the givers are selfish because they believe that they’ve earned what they have through hard work, industry, free enterprise, smart thinking, and they want it all right now. How many of you live in a home nicer than your parents had? How many drive a ‘name brand’ car?
“Selfishness takes many forms. We constantly hear that America is actually a ‘center right’ country. If so, why do the left-leaning always turn out to put their candidates in office? I can answer that also-to assure their continued entitlement check. The ‘givers’, as we have called them this morning, are so engaged in pursuit of their personal fortune that they do not vote, they do not participate in community, they do not ‘give’ what the country needs, so we have elected people who will ‘take’ what they have and ‘give’ it to those who they promised to feed. Selfish? Yes, too damned concerned with ‘self’ to put in the time and effort necessary to keep the horde at bay.
“Don’t misunderstand me. Individual industry is what created America and without it, America will fail as surely as it will if the secession is implemented. America has gone off the rails. As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the fifty percent of citizens who pay tax cannot sustain the fifty percent of citizens who don’t. But as greedy as those non-paying citizens might be, it’s not totally their fault.
“Let me give you an example. If I said that if you would come and listen to me speak for thirty minutes every Saturday night, I would put one thousand dollars in your bank every Monday, how long would you come and listen? Forever, I would predict. Politicians have been promising everything to everyone for over one hundred years. It’s the way to acquire public office. We call these people leaders. I call them loaders. Freeloaders. They take from you to give to them so they can stay in power, and then they claim to be benevolent. It’s a shell game, and you provide the pea.”
Del Valle ceased speaking and looked around the room, pausing to hold eye contact with each person in the room, nodding, smiling to ease the tense atmosphere and gauging the reaction.
“If you will give us three days, we will show you how to change America… the United States of America, the one and only nation in the history of the earth that guarantees, or used to guarantee, the right to teach correct principles. We must remain one nation. One nation dedicated to the core values established by our Founding Fathers. One nation standing as a beacon of light to the world. One nation under God.
“I said I would close with another Winston Churchill quote. What we are proposing to discuss these next several days is not really difficult. It closely follows, in my opinion, Churchill’s greatest and most important quote: ‘ All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.’
“May God guide our hand in this endeavor.”
Four days later, as Dan and Nicole waited at the Mazatlan airport for their Alaska Airlines flight to San Francisco, Dan received a text on his Blackberry from Joyce Jefferson.
President Snow has invited us to Camp David next Monday. Call this evening when you return. Joyce
Dan showed it to Nicole. “The plot thickens,” he said.
“Or the first team has taken the field,” she replied.
Chapter 23
Benton County Sheriff’s Sub-Station
Richland, Washington
May
Benton County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Rex Clinton departed the Richland Sub-Station where he had conducted his shift briefing, having advised the six deputy sheriff patrol officers of the operational orders for the upcoming twelve-hour patrol. At 6:20 PM on a cool May evening, he began to traverse his route, signaling his on-duty status with the joint dispatch center which controlled operations for the police and sheriff for the Tri-Cities area of Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco, Washington.
A few miles west of the Tri-Cities was the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, a nuclear research and waste disposal facility, one of the original sites from which the World War II Manhattan Project had derived some of its plutonium. The Hanford nuclear facility was on the government’s critical watch list in the current crisis. Since the terrorist attacks had started, Lieutenant Clinton had made it a point to patrol the facility several times on each shift.
Four weeks earlier in Spokane, along with about two hundred law enforcement officers from the northwestern states, Clinton had attended a briefing by the Homeland Security Department. A man named Padraig Connor and several other personnel from HSD had spent the entire day informing the gathering of what little was known of the terrorists that now roamed America. Most of the law enforcement officers were unimpressed with the lack of intelligence and felt the federal government had done little to prevent the current situation. The further up the chain of command the police and sheriff’s officers were, with some holding responsibility for budget considerations, the more mollified they were when Connor announced that the federal government would pick up the tab for overtime and extra patrols. At the end of the meeting, most left with a feeling of helplessness, having gained little actual information from which to formulate a plan of action.