Greta Visby was finishing her breakfast in her apartment while watching the latest news about the Mexico-United States crisis on a Swedish television channel, and was feeling pure frustration. Marine Corps units were certainly going to get involved in this and possibly go fight inside Mexico to help eliminate those drug cartel bastards.
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She wanted badly to go join her regiment there and participate in the fight but she still had eight months to serve here in Stockholm, pushing paper from behind a desk.
‘’God, I hate paperwork! If they post me to another fucking desk job after this, then I will quit the Corps.’ she growled before finishing her cup of coffee and heading to her door to leave her apartment and walk to the embassy.
02:26 (Texas Time)
Friday, November 02, 2007 ‘C’
Residence and safehouse on Water Street, El Cuatro District Laredo, Texas
Emilio Hernandez had been in a bad mood all day, on top of being quite nervous about what could happen in the next few days. His local chapter of the Latin Kings street gang in the city of Laredo had not received for many days now any of the shipments of illicit drugs it had been expecting, for the good reason that the border with Mexico, where those drugs came from, was still hermetically sealed by thousands of federal agents, Texas National Guardsmen and even regular U.S. Army units. His gang was now in its last reserves of drugs staches and would soon be unable to sell any drugs on the streets of Laredo, thus putting an abrupt end to a major source of revenues for Emilio’s gang. From what he could hear from other local street gangs who were also depending on trafficking and selling drugs, he was not alone in being in this difficult financial situation. Emilio had thus drank quite a lot more than usual in order to forget about his problems and was in a deep slumber when the noise of his front entrance door being kicked in abruptly woke him up. Just the fact of quickly sitting up in bed brought him a wave of pain inside his brain that made him grimace and take hold of his head.
Then, he heard the loud shouts coming from the ground level floor.
‘’POLICE! NOBODY MOVES! WE HAVE A SEARCH WARRANT!’
‘’FUCKING PIGS!’ heard Emilio, who recognized the voice of one of the two gang members acting as security for him and his safehouse.
‘’DROP THE GUN!’
POW! POW! POW!
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Emilio didn’t take the time to ask himself if the shots he had just heard had been fired by his gang member or by the police: he grabbed at once the revolver he always kept under his pillow, then jumped out of bed. As he was putting on his trousers in a mighty hurry, so that he could escape by the window of his bedroom, his door was kicked in and a federal agent wearing a bullet-proof vest marked ‘POLICE’ jumped in, a compact submachine gun pointed at the ready. A furious Emilio, his head still fogged by alcohol, pointed his revolver at the policeman, resolved to defend himself. He however lost that gun duel, with a short burst of five bullets hitting him before he could fire his first shot.
He did shoot once while falling backward, but his bullet went up into the ceiling of his bedroom. That only earned him a second submachine gun burst which killed him. The agent who had killed him quickly scanned the room visually to see if there was anybody else in it, while two other agents entered it to secure and search it. Going to Emilio’s body, who now lay in an expanding pool of blood, the agent with the submachine gun used his left foot to push away the revolver on the floor, then cautiously checked Emilio for a pulse. Finding none, he straightened up and looked at his two partners in the room.
‘’This guy is wearing a clear ‘Latin Kings’ tattoo on his left arm and left me no choice but to shoot him. Let’s check the place for drugs and weapons. I will call this in, so that our crime scene team can come in and gather both evidence and bodies.’
To the DEA senior agent’s relief, none of his agents involved in this raid was hurt, while a total of three gang members were now dead, having tried to resist the raid. A search of the old converted garage then revealed a substantial cache of illicit drugs, plus a half-dozen weapons and plenty of ammunition for them. This was thus a fruitful raid in the mind of the DEA senior agent. He learned a short time later that the seven other raids which had been conducted simultaneously in this part of Laredo had also been successful and had resulted in the seizure of drugs with a total value of more than a half million dollars, plus that of a small arsenal of weapons and explosives, on top of resulting in the capture or death of nineteen other members of the Latin Kings. The only sour note was the fact that one DEA agent had been wounded during one of the raids.
Thankfully, that agent’s life had been saved by his bullet-proof vest and he was now being treated in a local hospital. The senior DEA agent mentally thanked the new, tough anti-drugs and anti-gangs’ edicts promulgated by President Bush, which had given legal cover for tonight’s raids. Without them, most of those raids would not have been
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authorized by magistrates, for lack of prior evidence that would have allowed the delivery of search warrants.
The DEA raids in the Southwest districts of Laredo were far from being the only ones that night around the country, with a mixed army of DEA agents, U.S. Marshals, F.B.I. agents and city police S.W.A.T. teams cooperating in launching hundreds of raids around the southern states of the United States, concentrating on known street gangs hideouts and meeting places and seizing tons of illicit drugs and thousands of illegal weapons and also resulting it the arrest or death of over 3,400 street gang members affiliated with Mexican drug cartels. This was however only the first phase of a comprehensive anti-drugs operation covering the whole of the United States. During the day that followed those initial night raids, anyone seen with tattoos marking them as members of street gangs known to sell drugs on American streets was accosted, searched for drugs and weapons and had their residences searched as well. If nothing illicit was found on specific gang members accosted and searched, then that gang member was released after being fingerprinted and photographed. Those who were found with drugs or weapons, or a combination of both, were then arrested and carted to jail for expedited legal processing under martial law rules, which now applied to suspected accomplices of foreign terrorists. While the lower ranking street gang members arrested that day were quickly sent to various military stockades across the country, the gang leaders earned themselves a quick air trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, out of reach of the high-flight lawyers who normally defended them in American courts of law. Then, the third phase of Operation VACUUM CLEANER kicked in on the night of Friday to Saturday.
01:15 (Mexico Time)
Saturday, November 03, 2007 ‘C’
Guards hut, Los Zetas drugs processing laboratory Farm sixteen kilometers west of the port of Veracruz, Mexico Having difficulty to stay awake on this long night watch shift, Pedro Jimenez got up from the chair placed next to a telephone set and a portable radio and went to a small gas stove, intent on boiling water for a cup of strong coffee. He however moved quietly, in order not to wake up the eight guards from the day shift sleeping in the small hut
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connected to the coca processing laboratory building of the farm. His job and that of his comrades was to provide security for that laboratory, where coca leaves from Colombia were processed to produce pure cocaine powder. That pure cocaine would then be transported to other drug labs nearer to the American border, where it would be cut and diluted with a variety of other products before being packed for shipping to the United States. However, things appeared to be seriously souring up lately for the Los Zetas cartel, for which Pedro was working. The Americans appeared to have become much more aggressive and ruthless in their efforts to stop the drugs trafficking across their borders, going to the length of completely closing their border with Mexico and defending it with soldiers. One direct result of all this was that the latest batch of pure cocaine produced in this farm was still stored here, in a locked room of the guards’ hut. Nobody had come to collect it and transport it away, while no new orders or directives had been received from above for two days now. As he started filling an old pot with water, Pedro wondered if coca processing at this farm would continue, and for how long. As he was about to put the pot of water on the stove, he suddenly heard a faint noise outside that sounded like what a compressed air pellet gun would make. Freezing for a moment and listening carefully, he then heard a similar weak ‘PLOP’ a few seconds later. Now worried and on alert, he forgot his pot of water and went back to the table supporting the telephone set and the portable radio, grabbing the latter and keying its microphone.
‘’Diego, this is Pedro. How are things outside?’
Not getting an answer despite waiting a good six seconds, Pedro then called another guard on duty along the perimeter of the farm.
‘’Carlos, this is Pedro. Come in!’
Again he got no answer on his radio. Now fully on alert, Pedro grabbed his Heckler & Koch G3 7.62 mm automatic rifle lying next to the telephone and chambered a round in its chamber before walking to the front door of the hut. Opening that door and stepping outside, he took two steps, then stopped, watching and listening while his eyes got accustomed to the darkness, a process that took long seconds. He however never had the chance to see the man crouched to one side of the door and wearing an elaborate camouflage suit called a
‘Ghillie Suit’ typically worn by military snipers.
That man, who was now to one side and slightly behind Pedro, pointed a pistol fitted with a long
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silencer and shot once, hitting Pedro in the back of his head and killing him instantly.
Pedro’s body had not even fallen down on the ground before two other camouflaged men also crouched on each side of the door quickly pulled out the safety pins of the grenades they were holding, then threw them inside. The noise of the two grenades hitting the floor and rolling did wake up one of the sleeping men but he didn’t have time to fully wake up and react before those grenades exploded, sending a rain of deadly shrapnel around the small room. All of the cartel men sleeping inside were instantly killed or gravely wounded. Those wounded men didn’t survive for long however, as the camouflaged men rushed inside just after the explosions and finished off the guards with single shots from their silenced weapons. One of the attackers looked around the inside of the room, then went to the door of an adjacent room, which was locked by a padlock.
One 9 mm bullet made quick work of that padlock and the attacker entered a small storage room full of large jute bags with plastic linings. Taking out a combat knife and then making a small cut in one bag revealed the content as being a fine white powder.
Taking a small plastic drug testing kit from one pocket, the attacker put a small amount of the white powder in the test kit, then pressed on it, breaking in succession the small glass pills inside the kit. The liquid from those pills soon turned to pink and blue colors, making the attacker smile with satisfaction.
‘’Pure cocaine... Our intelligence about this farm was correct.’ the man said to himself in English. ‘’Well, it won’t be sold on American streets now. Time to blow this shit up.’
Walking out of the storage room, he spoke on the microphone of his radio headset.
‘’Nemesis Six to Nemesis callsigns: the target is confirmed as a legitimate one.
Search all the buildings and kill those you will find inside, then put fire to them. We will burn everything down, then retreat to our extraction point. Nemesis Six out!’
The leader of the platoon of Green Berets, having seen a jeep parked next to the hut, went to it and, finding a reserve of jerrycans full of gasoline next to it, grabbed two of the jerrycans and carried them inside the guards hut. Giving one jerrycan to one of his soldiers, he then carried the second one to the storage room, where he opened its cap and started pouring gasoline over the jute bags piled inside. Leaving some gasoline inside his jerrycan, he walked out of the storage room while pouring a line of gasoline on the wooden floor of the hut. The soldier with the other jerrycan had basically done the same, pouring gasoline all over the room, including on the walls. With the platoon leader
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and his two men retreating outside, they were about to light the trail of gasoline they had made when the leader’s radio came to life.
‘’Nemesis Two to Nemesis Six, come in, over!’
‘’This is Nemesis Six: speak!’
‘’From Nemesis Two: we found in the main farmhouse what appeared to be five lab technicians, which we then killed. However, we found in bedrooms on the upper floor what appear to be a family of two adults and three children. The man in the couple, when asked who he was, said that he owned the farm but that cartel thugs basically seized his farm from him in order to establish their drug lab, while letting that farmer exploit his maize fields. What do we do with that family, over?’
The Green Berets officer thought for a moment before answering on the radio.
‘’Nemesis Two, do not hurt that family and do not burn their house down. Just cut the telephone wires, dump the bodies of the lab technicians in the jungle, then withdraw towards our extraction point, over and out.’
Returning his attention to the guards’ hut, the platoon leader took a lighter from one pocket and his notepad. Tearing up one page from his notepad, he then lit it up before throwing it down on the trail of gasoline leading inside the hut. The gasoline lit up at once, quickly turning the guards hut and its stash of nearly 800 kilos of pure cocaine powder into a raging inferno. Grinning with satisfaction, the Green Berets officer then ordered his men to retreat through the nearby jungle and return to their Hiller PELICAN
VTOL troop transport waiting for them in a clearing some two kilometers away.
16:38 (Washington Time)
Sunday, November 04, 2007 ‘C’
The Oval Office, The White House
Washington, D.C.
When Ingrid entered the Oval Office, along with General of the Army Richard Warner and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, she found President Bush in discussion with his National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley, and with his Attorney General, Michael Mukasey. Bush then nodded his head in salute to Ingrid and his two other new visitors.
‘’Aah, just the ones I wanted to hear from. Please, come and sit down with us in the discussion corner.’
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‘’Thank you, Mister President.’ said Ingrid in reply before going to take place in one of the sofas and chairs surrounding the low coffee table. Bush waited until his three new visitors were seated before speaking to them as a group.
‘’So, what are the results of our efforts to date, lady and gentlemen?’
‘’Militarily, our strikes and raids inside Mexico were successful in destroying their objectives to date, Mister President.’ answered General Warner. ‘’Thankfully, we suffered only three wounded men in those raids, while over 49 cartel members were killed and an estimated total of eleven tons of processed drugs were destroyed. This is definitely bound to hurt the Los Zetas badly.’
Chertoff was next to speak while consulting notes he had just extracted from his attaché case.
‘’Unfortunately, while also successful, our campaign of raids, searches and arrests of street gang members with ties to the Los Zetas did cost us a number of our agents and police officers, Mister President. Those street gangs proved to be as heavily armed as we had expected them to be and a number of these thugs elected to fight arrest rather than giving up at once. In fact, some of our raids turned quickly into full fledge gun battles, as you probably saw on the day’s television news.’
‘’Yeah!’ replied Bush in a sober tone. ‘’Some of those television reports were rather critical of us, something I was expecting from the more ‘progressive’ networks.
However, I intend to ignore those bleeding-heart apologists insisting on the primacy of individual rights over that of the security of the nation. So, how closer are we to crushing those damn Los Zetas and their affiliated street gangs?’
‘’The Los Zetas are now quite shaken and much weaker by now, Mister President.’ answered Ingrid. ‘’Their surviving leaders have all gone into hiding and their minions are now confused and disorganized. I believe that we have by now done as much damage by military strikes inside Mexico as we could have hoped and should now concentrate on keeping our southern border secured, while continuing to sweep through the street gangs who were selling drugs on our streets. This last part will however require a sustained effort on our part to finish the job. If I may, I believe that another kind of problem is about to emerge inside our country, Mister President. I am speaking about the rise in street crimes, muggings and thefts I expect to be committed by the millions of American drug addicts who are now unable to get their daily fixes and who are growing increasingly desperate to find drugs. The various pharmacies around our
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country can thus expect to become prime targets for those drug addicts. We should thus provide them with extra protection, both stealthy and overt.’
‘’What do you mean by stealthy protection, Ingrid?’
‘’I mean having undercover officers in street clothes masquerading as customers inside the more vulnerable urban pharmacies, especially the ones in the poorer districts where drug consumption was high. I know that this would necessitate mobilizing tens of thousands of undercover officers for that purpose but I believe that our law agencies should temporarily drop their regular tasks and concentrate on our pharmacies and other places where addicts could find drugs. Finally, I believe that an extra effort should be made to rehabilitate and wean out the drug addicts, rather than simply jailing them.’
‘’That sounds like a hell of a huge task, Ingrid.’ said Attorney General Muckasey.
‘’I don’t know if we have enough officers and medical specialists to do that properly.’
‘’I realize that but, if we don’t do that, then we will end up creating more insecurity and crimes on our streets than before our anti-drugs operation. Yes, it will be an ‘all hands on deck’ effort but it has to be done if we want to get long-term benefits from all this. Our various local police precincts should be our best source of info on which pharmacies would be most susceptible to attacks and thefts. Also, posting a few highly visible patrol cars next to vulnerable pharmacies should help a lot in deterring thefts.
Mister President, I would have a suggestion about how to deal with addicts who will be suffering from drug withdrawal due to the lack of street drugs.’
‘’Go on, Ingrid.’ said Bush, clearly interested.
‘’I believe that we should start right away a nationwide publicity campaign targeted at those drug addicts suffering from withdrawal and who could be tempted to go try to rob pharmacies. That campaign should enjoin those addicts to go to our various medical clinics and hospitals, where medical teams backed up by a well-known local social activist and by a couple of undercover police officers acting as protection could receive these addicts, treat them and counsel them. Most importantly, this publicity campaign should emphasize the fact that the drug addicts who would voluntarily seek help at those clinics and hospitals will not be subject to arrest or legal prosecution. I especially would insist on that last point, if we don’t want to see American drug addicts stay away.’
The men present around her, including President Bush, gave her skeptical looks on hearing that.
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‘’But, Ingrid, illegal drug use is a crime, according to our laws.’ objected Muckasey. ‘’And you would want us to simply let go all those addicts?’
‘’And what else would you want to do with them, Mister Muckasey? Mass jail hundreds of thousands of drug addicts suffering withdrawal? We would fill all our jails and prisons within a couple of days if we do that, and for what long-term good?’
Ingrid then seemed to think for a moment before speaking again.
‘’If I may, Mister President, an idea just came to my mind. It may sound rather fantastic, but I believe that it could help us tremendously to solve at least partly our problems.’
‘’Go ahead, Ingrid...’
20:06 (New York Time)
Monday, November 05, 2007 ‘C’
Dewitt Clinton Park, Hell’s Kitchen District
Manhattan, New York City
The pair of CNN employees, one reporter and one cameraman, who showed up at the Dewitt Clinton Park after nightfall were quite nervous and on their guard, as this part of Manhattan already had a rather bad reputation for crime, a reputation reinforced by the very notable boost in criminality and violence which had surged up in the last couple of days due to the present drugs crisis. They were thus a bit surprised at seeing no visible police presence around the park, which was now filling quickly with a rather eclectic crowd of often shabbily dressed men, women and teenagers. Visible in the middle of the park, standing on an improvised stand made of a large wooden crate, was a young and very beautiful woman dressed in a simple, ample white robe. The CNN
reporter was able to recognize at once who that young woman was and signed herself.
‘’The White Angel! Get ready to start recording, Jim: this could be spectacular.’
‘’No shit!’ crudely replied Angela’s cameraman, who had also recognized the famous Nancy Dows, the so-called ‘White Angel of New York’ and lead singer of the famous band ‘The D.C. Five’. He thus shouldered his camera and pointed it at the girl and the growing crowd around her. At first, nothing happened as more people, some in obvious mental and physical distress, joined the crowd, which soon numbered well over 4,000 people tightly pressed against each other. In order to have a better view of the scene, Angela and Jim stepped on the back of a parked pickup truck. Just as they had
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done that, they heard a strong female voice in their heads, even though the girl who was the center of attention of the crowd didn’t open her mouth.
‘’THANK YOU FOR COMING TO THIS ANNOUNCED GATHERING TONIGHT, MY FRIENDS. I KNOW AND CAN FEEL YOUR PAIN AND DISTRESS AND I AM
HERE TO PUT AN END TO THEM. I WILL ASK YOU ONLY ONE THING IN
EXCHANGE FOR HEALING YOU OF YOUR DRUGS DEPENDENCY: TO NEVER
AGAIN SUCCUMB TO THE ATTRACTION OF DRUG USE. IF YOU REALLY NEED
HELP AND ASSISTANCE IN THE FUTURE, THEN SEARCH FOR THE HELP OF
YOUR FRIENDS, RELATIVES AND LOCAL COMMUNITY WORKERS, BUT DON’T
LISTEN TO THOSE WHO CREATED YOUR MISERY BY SELLING DRUGS TO YOU: THE ONLY THING THEY WANT IS TO MAKE MONEY AT YOUR EXPENSE. NOW, PROMISE ME THAT YOU WILL HEED MY ADVICE BY SAYING ‘I DO’.’
‘’I DO!’’ shouted in unison the crowd, many with emotional voices. Nancy then nodded once her head before closing her eyes and raising high both of her arms.
Filmed by the CNN crew, Nancy then gradually started to shine from the inside with a pure white glow, which quickly grew in intensity before exploding into a blinding but silent burst of light which expanded at supersonic speed all around her. Unknown to Angela and Jim at the time, that burst of light actually expanded well beyond Manhattan Island, reaching in seconds the far borders of New York State and beyond and extending to a radius of 1,000 kilometers before starting to fade in intensity and finally disappearing.
When the light dissipated in the Dewitt Clinton Park, the crowd saw that Nancy Dows had disappeared. The reaction of the thousands of now healed people to this apparent miracle was either to kneel and pray or to simply walk slowly away, often while crying with joy. When the CNN crew, still stunned by what they had seen, went back to their New York studio, they learned that a similar giant healing burst of white light had been created at the same time in the city of New Orleans by none other than Ingrid Dows, the mother of Nancy Dows. Some thirty minutes later, another wide healing burst occurred, centered on Colorado Springs, in the Midwest, with Nancy Dows being the reported source of the burst. The fourth and last healing burst of that night finished covering the remaining parts of the United States and was centered on San Francisco, in California, but the source of that burst definitely came as a total surprise and shock to the American public and government when it was announced on breaking television news: a little blond toddler boy who managed to produce an even stronger and wider healing burst than the previous ones, a burst which dissipated only after covering a radius of over
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1,500 kilometers. That healing burst actually reached and went beyond the western borders with Canada and Mexico, healing in the process millions of Canadians and Mexicans from all their ailments, and not only from drug dependency.
Apart from healing hundreds of millions of people around North America, those healing bursts also mostly prevented the wave of crimes and violence which had been anticipated from drug addicts suffering withdrawal because of the crackdown on drugs sales. The street gangs which had been selling those drugs and which were being hammered by extensive and ruthless police raids and arrests then found themselves with mostly no customers or demand for what little drugs they still had. With their biggest source of revenues having evaporated, the street thugs who had not already been arrested or killed in police raids either went into hiding or switched to other kinds of criminal activities, like break-ins, thefts and store robberies, activities in which they didn’t enjoy anymore the support of the Mexican drug cartels.
In Mexico, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmàn, who had seen and had been touched personally by the healing burst from San Francisco, watched all this happen with growing dismay. While his Sinaloa Cartel had not been targeted by the American military raids and aerial bombings on Mexican territory, the continuing closure of the American-Mexican border and the recent disappearance of the American customers for his drugs had meant a catastrophic tumble in revenues for his organization. The healing bursts, one of which had been generated by the woman to whom he had given information on the Los Zetas, had also seriously shaken El Chapo. While not truly religious, he had like most Mexicans been raised in a strongly Catholic culture mixed in with a dose of witchcraft and paganism. As he reflected mentally on all this, Guzmàn looked outside the window of his private study and spoke to himself.
‘’Maybe it’s time for me to retire to a quiet little island in the Caribbeans. This drug business isn’t worth shit anymore.’
11:03 (Washington Time)
Thursday, November 08, 2007 ‘C’
The Oval Office, The White House
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
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When Ingrid was admitted in the Oval Office, President Bush got up from behind his presidential desk and walked to her, meeting her in the middle of his office and shaking hands with her. After the huge healing burst she had generated in New Orleans three days ago, George Bush simply could not consider her simply like another member of his staff. He now in fact felt something near humbleness when in her presence, as the extent of her powers and of those of her two children were simply mind-boggling.
‘’You wanted to speak with me, Ingrid?’
‘’Yes, I did, Mister President. With the way things are going now in respect to the war against the drug cartels and to drug-related crimes in the United States, I believe that you don’t need me anymore to direct the fight against the Los Zetas. I would thus like your permission for me to return to my civilian work in Port Angeles, Mister President.’
‘’You have it, Ingrid. You have done a magnificent job here and the nation owes you and your two children its eternal gratitude.’
‘’Thank you, Mister President. I will thus leave with my son for Port Angeles after lunch.’
Bush nodded once at that, then paused while looking into her eyes.
‘’Ingrid, to be frank, I don’t know any more how to consider you and your children.
I have known for years that you possessed supernatural powers but your healing burst of Monday night was of a power scale beyond my comprehension. I, like many Americans, have many questions about ‘The One’, the spiritual entity you serve. You keep saying that The One doesn’t wish to be worshipped or prayed to but then what does he wants from us? Why doesn’t he appear to us and speak to us directly?’
‘’Mister President, his only wish is to see Humanity progress and improve with time, by itself. He has been watching us and hoping for millions of years already while keeping his interventions and influence to a strict minimum. However, the advent of nuclear weapons, which can destroy Humanity and this planet in an instant, drastically changed his outlook about how he interacts with Humanity. Know that, in Humanity’s original timeline, which I call Timeline ‘A’, such a nuclear war very nearly resulted in the extinction of the Human race in the year 2053 ‘A’. That event deeply traumatized The One when billions of desperate souls returned to him after dying in the first hours of that nuclear war. That event then pushed him into using my adoptive mother, Nancy Laplante, who had been involuntarily transported back in time from the year 2012 to the year 1940 by scientists from the 34th Century. He gave Nancy powers and an indirect
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connection with him, hoping that she could change the course of history and thus avoid the calamity of another nuclear war. In that, Nancy fulfilled his expectations and hopes, preventing a nuclear war in what I call Timeline ‘B’. We in turn live in yet another parallel timeline, Timeline ‘C’, which appeared when one Nancy Laplante was killed by an enemy from the future. I, as a Chosen of The One, have already succeeded three times in preventing a full-scale nuclear exchange: first in 1973, when China struck Taiwan with two nuclear-tipped missiles; then in 1975, when the North Koreans destroyed Honolulu with a bomb hidden inside a cargo ship and forced the permanent evacuation of Hawaii.
In both cases, we kept our response measured, thus avoiding mass slaughter. Finally, as commander of all American combat forces in 1996, I was able to thwart an attempt by Russian leaders to launch a surprise mass nuclear attack on the United States, with them using submarines posted close to our shores. I must say that we barely avoided complete destruction as a nation then, thanks mostly to the vigilance of one of our intelligence analysts, who detected the mass absence of Russian nuclear submarines from their ports and then warned me about this, giving me time to react and destroy those submarines before they could launch their missiles. Those close calls, on top of scaring all of us, also alarmed The One, who desperately wants to avoid a repeat of the 2053 ‘A’ nuclear holocaust. While The One still won’t appear directly to us, he will use more readily his envoys on Earth, namely me and my two children, in order to help cut the suffering on our planet.’
‘’And what does he ask in exchange, Ingrid?’
‘’Nothing, Mister President! He only wishes for Humanity to improve and become less violent and more caring about each other. Since each of us harbor a soul that is a tiny part of The One, he can feel our emotions, joy and suffering as we live our lives.
That is why The One cares about what happens to us and uses Chosen like me, while himself staying invisible.’’
‘’What about what we call ‘God’? Is your One the God of the Bible?’
‘’No!’ answered Ingrid at once, her tone firm. ‘’I am sorry if what I am going to say will hurt you but the God of the Bible, along with the Allah of the Koran and with the other deities venerated around Earth, do not exist, never did. They were invented by men, who then used the beliefs and worships of these gods to gain influence, control and money from their believers. Any competent and impartial scientist will tell you that the Bible we teach in the United States and in other Christian countries is a bunch of nonsense contradicted by scientific facts, like the supposed creation of Man and the
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Universe in seven days, some 6,000 years ago. Yet, plenty of Americans still insist that we should believe everything said in the Bible, the same way millions of Muslims are told to kill those who do not believe in the Koran. That is not what The One is or stands for, Mister President. The One did not create the Universe or even our Solar System, nor did he create Man. It appeared along with the Universe and is just another form of life, a spiritual one rather than a physical one. The best way to thank him is for us to become better, more caring persons, Mister President.’
George Bush was again silent for a moment before looking back at Ingrid.
‘’Well, don’t be surprised if you and your two children attract from now on a crowd of would-be worshippers, Ingrid.’
Ingrid had a chuckle at that then.
‘’Been there, done that, Mister President. My daughter Nancy once had cultists dancing in the street in front of her apartment in New York, after she healed a bunch of AIDS victims in Manhattan.’
Bush seemed amused by that and gently patted her shoulder.
‘’Well, you and your two children have my eternal gratitude for what you did, Ingrid. Have a good trip back home.’
‘’Thank you, Mister President.’
Ingrid then exchanged a last handshake with Bush before turning around and walking out of the Oval Office, watched by the President.
‘’What a woman! Too bad that she can’t ever become President of the United States because she is foreign-born.’
A mental message then hit his mind.
‘I can’t, Mister President, but my children can.’
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CHAPTER 19 – A BRIGHT KID
21:14 (Seattle Time)
Saturday, November 10, 2007 ‘C’
