The President and his advisors were getting the latest information on the sabotage of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge the same way that millions of other Americans were: they were watching the local and national television news programs. The Homeland Security Team was assembled in the Situation Room beneath the Oval Office watching a bank of four enormous TV screens, all of them depicting the bridge from various angles. From above, the bridge resembled a long row of teeth with one tooth knocked out. An unseen aide in harmony with the President’s tastes kept the four televisions tuned to whichever four stations were running the best images, or had the most interesting expert being interviewed. President Gilmore sat in his black leather recliner (with the Presidential Seal on the head rest) holding the remote control, bringing the sound up on the channel he wanted to hear moment by moment.
A dozen news helicopters buzzed around the bridge like gnats, focusing their cameras on the mid-river gap where the span had been dropped. No one spoke as the President switched the sound from channel to channel. Television voices fired out random comments.
“That’s right Katie, if you’re in a hurry in Washington today, you’d better have a helicopter!”
“…looks like a laser-guided smart bomb hit the bridge Tony, or at least a very smart bomber!”
“The other downtown bridges are completely overwhelmed. People are abandoning their cars and walking to metro stations, which is compounding the gridlock…”
“…DC Beltway is at a total standstill from the Baltimore Washington Parkway around to I-66, so stay away from Washington is all I can say.”
“This is Bob Margate, your eye in the sky. We’re taking a break from the bridge for a moment to show you the National Mall, where smaller than expected crowds are gathering this morning for the countdown to the assault rifle deadline…”
The President muted the sound entirely. “Turn them off, I’ve seen enough.” Walnut panels quietly slid across the television screens. “What a total goat-screw! How long until that section is repaired and the bridge can be reopened?” The President glared at the Secretary of Transportation, who had just entered the Situation Room disheveled and out of breath, part of his “comb over” hanging the wrong way across his ear.
“Me? Uh, well sir, I’m just getting up to speed on the particulars on this sit…”
“Then tell me what you do know, dammit!”
“Well, the part that’s down was 165 feet between the cement columns on each end. The bridge spans all rest on four long I-beams between the columns, and we might be able to get new I-beams in a couple of weeks, at least…”
“Weeks? Weeks? Don’t tell me that! That bridge can’t be out for weeks.”
“Uh, sir, we’re checking everywhere, they don’t build bridges that way any more, and I-beams like that, well they’re not lying around anywhere, they have to be manufactured in a foundry, and we’re checking everywhere. Also, sir, I need to mention, the engineers are telling me the support columns have been damaged, they were cracked when the girders tore off. This is going to be tricky to fix if we use the same columns and don’t replace them. If we go that way, we’ll have to keep the speeds down, and, um, well, no more trucks. What I’m told is the Wilson Bridge was a wreck to begin with, and the damage goes well beyond what we can see.”
President Gilmore sank down in his recliner. “Oh that’s just great. And the new bridge is still what, two years from completion?”
“Yes sir, maybe a bit less.”
“Does anybody have any good news? Wayne, what’s the FBI got so far? Is this an Al Qaeda job? Is it Muslims?”
“Mr. President, no one has claimed this one yet. We do have a preliminary report from our dive team.”
“Did they find anybody? Did any cars go over when the bridge went down?”
“The dive team reports no vehicles sir. The Coast Guard received a warning call at 2:25, and police were able to clear the bridge before it went off.”
“So can the divers tell what happened? Was a car bomb parked on the roadway?”
“No sir, it looks like explosive charges were placed underneath on the supporting steel itself. I’m told it’s very sophisticated work, definitely the work of pros. We’ll know what kind of explosive was used in a few hours. And we have some photos taken by the dive team.” FBI Director Wayne Sheridan signaled to another audio-visual assistant, a Navy Senior Chief in a white dress uniform, and murky color images appeared on a large screen for the Homeland Security Team to examine. The clean cut young FBI director slipped a laser pen from his suit pocket to point out the areas of interest with its brilliant red dot. “This picture shows the precise area of the original explosive cut, on one half of the I-beam that was on the southern side of the span. You can see how clean the cut was, like an axe hit it. Next picture please.”
“What’s this one showing Wayne? Letters?”
“Yes sir, the letters D.O.L. are spray painted next to the cut. Possibly the name of a new terrorist faction, we’re checking it out against all known groups. Possibly it’s an authentication code: in case the terrorists try to contact us, they can use the letters to prove who they are. We don’t know yet.”
“What’s your feeling? Is this a Muslim job, or a militia job? Is it Shifflett’s old gang? Is it the same people as that car bomb in Norfolk? Is it related to the Stadium Massacre?
“We don’t know yet sir. With the assault rifle ban coming in three hours, it could possibly be some type of protest over that. It might be an attempt to disrupt the ceremony on the Mall. We really don’t have a handle on how these things are tied together yet, or even if they’re connected at all.”
President Gilmore stared hard at the giant image of the broken steel under murky water with the initials spray-painted near the cut. “D.O.L…. Okay, that’s all everybody, thanks for your time.” More quietly he said, “Harvey, you stay,” to his most trusted advisor. His Chief Staff Officer and old friend Harvey Crandall pulled his chair closer to the President. Crandall was a nearly obese man with an uncanny ability to calculate political fallout.
After the others had filed out, the President asked him, “Any ideas? How do we play this?”
“It’s a tough one. If all of these…incidents after the Stadium Massacre are unrelated, if they’re just spontaneous, then we’ll take a big hit for asking for the gun ban and provoking the gun nuts. You know, the Second Amendment fanatics. Pushing them beyond their limits. I thought we’d just hear the usual carping about “trampling on the Constitution,” like we heard after we passed the Universal Surveillance Act, but this might be something much deeper. We might have really struck a raw nerve.
“So no matter what, we have to spin it all as a planned and coordinated militia terrorism campaign, from the Stadium Massacre on. We need to play the domestic terrorism angle all the way. The people will rally against terrorists, even domestic terrorists. That’ll play bigger than the gun nuts’ anger over the assault rifle ban. The people always rally against terrorism, that always comes first.”
“Okay…that makes sense. Tell Mickey to spin it that way.” Mickey was Mickey Flanagan, the White House press spokesman. “And you can leak it the same way to your usual reporters, from the ‘unnamed senior white house official.’ Now what about my making an ‘unscheduled appearance’ on the Mall for the deadline ceremony, like we discussed yesterday?”
“Absolutely not, not after this bridge fiasco! Let Schuleman and Montaine have their day in the sun. Let them catch the laurels today, and then they can catch the brickbats if this situation blows up any worse.”
“Is that statue made out of guns finished?” asked the President.
“What? Yes, it is, that’s my understanding. Schuleman and Montaine are going to unveil it at noon. They’ve got white doves and about a million white balloons ready to go. It’s going to be a real dog and pony show.”
“What kind of crowd are they going to get with the traffic fouled up like this?”
“They’ve already got a few thousand true believers there, the ‘million mom march’ types, and more are coming in on the Metro. But it doesn’t really matter. As long as they have at least four or five thousand show up, the networks will shoot it close and tight and make them look like a million. Anyway, they can blame a low turnout on the traffic, and they can always say there was fear of a right wing militia attack.”
The President sighed, sinking even lower into his presidential recliner. “What a day.”
“And it’s only nine o’clock.”
****
There were two men in a silver Toyota 4-Runner, a father and son, trapped on a highway that had become a vast parking lot.
“We should have driven all night Dad, then we’d have been at the launch point hours ago, instead of being stuck in this mess!”
The older man slammed his hands against the dashboard. “You’re beating a dead horse Joel, I know it already! So what’s the absolute maximum range on that thing?”
“Round trip like we planned it? Or one way?”
“No, still round trip, back to here. Can I launch from here and fly to the Mall and make it all the way back?”
“With a full tank, you might get twenty-five miles total range, depending on the wind. So sure, you could theoretically launch from here and make it back. But I don’t think you should fly it Dad, not from here. You’ve only had a couple of hours on it.”
“So what? I can fly it, can’t I? It’s easy. Like you said, it’s the safest flying machine ever invented. You’re already under your parachute, right?”
“That’s not the point Dad. Sure, you could fly straight down the Mall, turn around and come back. But from here? I don’t think you have enough control. It’s not like flying the Cessna.”
“Right, it’s a lot easier! More throttle, you go up, less throttle, you go down. Pull right, pull left. How hard is that?”
“Dad, I know this whole thing is your idea, but I don’t want you flying into a bridge or a building, or getting messed up with a jet coming out of Reagan National. It’s too far, and I won’t be able to help you if you go down. If we have to start from here, I’ll fly it.”
“Joel, this was my idea, I should do it. You’re young, you just got married…”
“Look, Dad, this traffic is completely stopped. Face it, we have to launch from here, or we have to abort the mission and drive back to Knoxville. You can’t fly it from here, not safely. I’ve got over a hundred hours on the power chute, it’s my rig. Either I fly it, or we abort the mission and go home.”
The sixty-something year old man and his thirty-something son studied each other across the front seats of their SUV. They had spent the last three days working on this plan, printing 5,000 leaflets and training Michael Friedman to fly his son’s motorized parachute.
Now, with less than an hour to go until the twelve noon assault rifle deadline, and the ceremony on the National Mall, they were hopelessly stuck in traffic gridlock on I-66 just inside the DC beltway near Falls Church Virginia. The National Mall was only ten miles due east, but the traffic had finally stopped creeping and come to a complete halt an hour before, due to the spillover from the Wilson Bridge sabotage. All of the other Potomac River bridges going into Washington had frozen tight with traffic detouring around the Wilson Bridge, and the ripples continued extending outward and intersecting with each other until the entire DC Metro area was locked up tight.
“Okay Joel, you fly it. We can’t go back now, we’ve come too far…we have to see this through.” Michael Friedman paused and cleared a lump in his throat. “We owe it to all the Jews that went quietly.”
“I know. We have to do it… I’ll fly. We can set up and launch from that field over there. Everybody’s pulling U-turns across the median, so let’s roll.”
“I’ve got the bail money Joel, just in case.”
“Just in case.”
****
“All right Mr. Fallon, your check is approved, are you ready to ring it all up now?”
“I think I’ve got everything I need today, let’s do it.”
The manager of the Boat America marine super store had several employees help carry Brad Fallon’s selected products to the front of the store by the checkout lanes. “We’ve got the twelve foot Avon inflatable dingy, the 25-horsepower Yamaha motor, the ICOM single sideband, the Furuno radar, the Garmin GPS color chart plotter, the lap top, the salt water rods…then we have everything in those shopping carts… Is this everything?”
“I believe it is; I don’t think we left anything back on the shelves. Let’s start ringing it up and I’ll write the check.”
“Well that’s fine by me, let’s get to it.” The other employees carried Brad’s selections to the counter, and as they were scanned, they placed his items into large cardboard boxes and placed them under the windows along the front of the store.
Several customers in the other checkout lines and a few plain gawkers stared in awe as Brad racked up his titanic order. You never could tell with yachties: a millionaire or a trust fund baby could walk in wearing shorts and old boat shoes, and buy enough gear to outfit a brand new sport fisher in one shopping spree. This young fellow seemed to fit that mold. Or he could just be the hired captain of a big yacht simply doing his job, working off the boat’s expense account. And, of course, it was impossible to rule out that the young fellow with the big order might be spending the profits made running an illegal cargo from Colombia or Jamaica. Boaters were hard to pigeonhole that way.
All Brad Fallon cared was that Boat America would accept his personal check, and that the bank had given them its blessing in advance. The feds had threatened to freeze his accounts if he fled, but it appeared that he still had the ability to write substantial checks against them. If they were going to freeze his accounts after he took off, he planned to leave them as little as possible of his savings to freeze.
The cashier at the register scanned the last small item from the fourth shopping cart and deducted fifteen percent, a discount that had been worked out in advance with the manager, and then added the state sales tax. The paper receipt ran several feet along the counter from its printer within the register. The cashier tore it off and circled the bottom line figure with a ball point pen and pushed it across to Brad. He took the receipt and sat in a canvas folding deck chair and spent several minutes checking the listed items. The store manager waited patiently until he was finished, and then invited him into his office off to the side of the checkout counters.
In the private office, sitting across the desk from the manager, Brad wrote the second biggest check of his life, for twenty-six thousand four-hundred and eight dollars. His only larger one had bought Guajira.
The store manager shook Brad’s hand as he accepted his check. “Thanks for choosing Boat America Mr. Fallon, let me give you some store coupons. These are our big ones, and there’s no expiration date. And of course, since your order is so large, we’ll be happy to provide free delivery anywhere in Tidewater.”
“I really appreciate the offer, but I have my own truck. I’ll pull it in front.” Brad had no intention of unnecessarily disclosing the location of Guajira to anyone if he could help it. He felt fairly sure that “George” would soon be hearing about this big purchase, and he might come to Boat America trying to find Brad’s current location.
“We’ll be glad to help load up your truck Mr. Fallon.”
“That would be fine.” Tomorrow Brad planned to do it again at East Marine, and what he couldn’t use he would sell or trade down-island, or later in South America.
****
“William Peter, William Peter, this is Henry Niner. I have visual on what looks like a red white and blue motorized hang glider, repeat hang glider, flying southeast over the Roosevelt Bridge, estimated altitude 500 feet, how copy over?”
“Uh… Roger, copy all Henry Niner, you have visual on a red white and blue motorized hang glider, what’s your location over?”
“William Peter, I’m at two grand over the Lincoln Memorial. William Peter, is this guy on the program? He’s turning east toward the Mall at ten to fifteen knots. Is he on the program over?”
“Henry Niner, stand by, we’ll contact the Park Police and the Secret Service, wait out.”
****
Joel Friedman had stopped worrying a few minutes into his flight, and was enjoying his aerial view of the Capitol from four-hundred feet up. The 180cc motor on his back sounded like a chainsaw so he really could not hear anything else, but the skies were clear, the winds were light and manageable, and the scenery passing below was stunning. Hundreds of motorists who were standing around their gridlocked cars on Potomac Parkway waved up to the man in the red white and blue “power chute” as he buzzed over them. Before he reached the Lincoln Memorial he added throttle on his chest mounted control panel, then gently tugged his left riser to turn left over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He straightened out over the Reflecting Pool, and finally began his approach flight down the National Mall.
He checked his watch, it was 11:51 and he had just two miles to fly before he would be over the temporary location of the still unnamed “gun statue” at the Capitol building end of the National Mall. His timing was nearly perfect, the national media would all have their television cameras rolling for the twelve noon unveiling of the statue, which had reportedly been welded together from thousands of turned-in assault rifles. No one knew what it looked like yet. The sculpture had been brought to the Mall covered in tarps on a flat bed trailer before being erected.
Joel Friedman passed along the north side of the Washington Monument a hundred feet below its apex; more people looked up and waved at the red white and blue canopy and the man with the noisy little screen-enclosed gas-powered fan on his back. With only a few minutes to go, he undid the Velcro flaps on his canvas sack full of 5,000 leaflets. He could see the crowd milling on the grass at the far end of the Mall, he could see the several story high statue at their center which was covered in light blue canvas.
****
“Henry Niner, this is William Peter, Park Police advise that the parachute man is not, repeat not on the program, over.”
“Roger William Peter, I copy parachute man is not on the program. Break-break, Sierra Four, do you have the parachute man visual, over?”
“Roger Henry Niner, the parachute man is passing my location down the center of the Mall, he's over 9th Street now, over.”
“Sierra Two, Henry Niner, do you have him visual Sierra Two, over?”
“That’s a roger Henry Niner, we have him from our location on the Art Gallery. Break, William Peter, request instructions over.”
“Henry Niner, this is Sierra Three, we have him from the Air and Space Museum, clear shot over.”
“Break Break! All Sierra Teams, this is William Peter Control, do not, repeat do not fire unless he crosses First Street approaching the Capitol. First Street is the red line; do not take a shot without authorization, over.”
“William Peter Control, this is Secret Service One, we’ll take this now, request you stay off this channel at this time, break, Sierra...”
“…William Peter, this is Sierra Two. I copy are we green light to shoot east of First Street, please confirm, over.”
“Sierra Two, Secret Service has opcon, advise…”
“…calm down people, this is Hotel Niner, we don’t know this guy’s intentions. Parachute man appears to have a large package strapped to his waist, but both of his hands are visible up on his parachute lines over.”
“…Service, Sierra Three. Copy and confirm large package strapped on parachute man’s waist, parachute man is approaching 4th Street, he’s almost over the crowd, request instructions, over...”
****
Senators Schuleman and Montaine were standing front and center on the temporary stage, holding the ropes which would pull away the sky-blue canvas coverings to unveil the gun statue. They were surrounded on the stage by other politicians, film and television stars, famous network media personalities, and other well known gun control advocates and activists. On a smaller stage to the side, a rag-tag collection of aging folk singers with gray pony tails and frayed bell bottoms were strumming acoustic guitars and leading the crowd in singing, “How many times, must the cannonballs fly, before they’re forever banned? The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…” All of them: the folk singers, the politicians and stars and the crowd below them were swaying back and forth as they sang, tears of joy rolling down their cheeks, euphoric smiles on their faces. The law had been passed! They would be free forever from the scourge of assault rifle violence!
At a minute past twelve the two Senators pulled down on their ropes, and the pale blue canvas fluttered free of the forty-foot tall statue. At the same moment, a hundred white doves were released from unseen wire cages beneath the decorated platform supporting the statue. The doves winged off in all directions as a thousand white balloons ascended at the same time, released from giant white boxes behind the main stage.
The forty-foot tall statue was obviously meant to be a person with his arms reaching skyward, holding up a large golden ball, which closer examination revealed to be a representation of the one united world. The gun-man statue was constructed entirely of hundreds and thousands of rifles and pistols of all types, welded tightly together along with odds and ends of scrap metal to fill the gaps. The hands and fingers were constructed from rifle barrels; it was possible to identify the front sights of AR-15s and AK-47s as the very finger tips supporting the world.
Joel Friedman watched the unveiling as he crossed 4th Street, flying above the outer fringes of the few thousand people surrounding the statue. He flew through a cloud of white balloons as he neared the center of activity, but with the chain saw motor on his back he hadn’t heard any of the speeches or the folk songs. Descending slightly, down to three-hundred feet above the crowd, and using the gun statue as his release point, he let go of his risers and reached into his open sack and grabbed a double handful of leaflets.
****
“William Peter, Sierra One. Parachute man is almost over the stage area, he’s reaching into his bag, I can’t see his hands, request permission…”
“Henry Niner, Sierra Two. Confirm if the bag contains a bomb over?”
“… bomb, William Peter…”
“…Peter, Sierra Two has a clear shot…”
“…William Peter, Sierra Three clear to shoot, request…”
“…William Peter, Sierra…”
“…this is Hotel Niner, break, Sierra…”
“…this channel, repeat, stay off…”
“…Sierra Two…”
****
On televisions across America, the views were alternating between the crying and hugging gun control advocates on the stage, and the white balloons and doves lifting into the clear blue sky above the gun statue. Some of the skyward-pointing cameras captured the unscheduled entrance of the rainbow shaped red white and blue parachute, and the man in the white jumpsuit suspended in a harness beneath it, being pushed along by an oversized fan on his back.
The parachute man was reaching into a sack tied around his waist when he suddenly arched backwards, throwing both hands high and releasing a blizzard of confetti which fluttered through the air. Then he fell limp in his harness, his chin on his chest and his arms dangling as he flew on towards the Capitol.
****
“…shot? Who shot? Cease fire! All Sierra teams stand down, stand…”
“…William Peter, Sierra Three. Sierra Three shooter has, uh, discharged his rifle. Uh, wait one, over…”
****
The parachute man had been shot by a .308 caliber Remington 700PSS bolt-action police sniper rifle, firing a 165-grain lead and copper hollow-point bullet. The slug entered his right side just above his pelvis at 2,600 feet per second, slewed sideways, and exited under his left shoulder. Instantly dead in his harness, his white jumpsuit filling with blood and blooming into crimson, Joel Friedman flew on, gently descending until his body thudded into the south portico of the Capitol building. His red white and blue parachute snagged a black wrought-iron balcony railing and stopped there, draping it almost like patriotic bunting.
His chain saw motor continued running, swinging his body back and forth like a pendulum against the whitewashed wall, leaving a red smear. He continued swinging to and fro while amazed Capitol police on the balcony looked down, conferring on cell phones and radios, until ladders were extended up the wall from below. Finally Capitol workers were able to tear out his motor’s rubber fuel line, and silence the tiny engine. They lowered his limp body down to the ground, under the unceasing gaze of the network television cameras.
****
Ten miles to the west, Michael Friedman watched his son Joel’s last act play out on a wall of televisions in the electronics department of a Falls Church Target Store, along with other shocked and speechless customers.
Then Michael Friedman’s very own leaflet was suddenly the hottest item on television, framed in close-up detail on every channel. It showed an old black and white picture of a nameless hollow-eyed Jewish man kneeling by the edge of a vast body-filled pit, staring directly at the camera in helpless despair, in the last moment of his life. Behind him a grinning Nazi soldier in a slouch cap aimed a pistol at the back of his head, while other smiling Nazis with rifles and sub machineguns slung casually on their shoulders looked on in approval. Millions of Americans simultaneously read the captioned headline printed above the strange picture, puzzling out its meaning.
When guns are outlawed
only governments and criminals have guns.
Beneath the picture of the doomed Jew and the smiling Nazis, this was printed:
During the 20th century, over 100 million civilians were killed by their own governments, more than in all 20th century wars combined. In each case, extermination followed gun confiscation.
1911: Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated.
1929: The Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, 40-60 million “class enemies,” unable to defend themselves, were exterminated.
1935: China established gun control. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million Chinese “class enemies,” unable to defend themselves, were exterminated.
1938: Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, Catholics, Gypsies and others, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated in Nazi controlled Europe.
1956: Cambodia established gun control. From 1975 to 1977, one million “class enemies,” unable to defend themselves, were exterminated.
1966-1976: China still had gun control. Millions of more “class enemies,” still unable to defend themselves, were exterminated in Mao's "Cultural Revolution.”
1990s: Rwanda established gun control. In 100 days in 1994, over 800,000 Tutsis, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated by machete-wielding Hutus backed by armed government militias.
Never Again!
We will never again be led like lambs to
the slaughter, because in a moment of
naïve optimism we allowed ourselves to
be disarmed!