Step Forward - Part 2

Al was eventually moved to a private room. The two PPS agents and the fire team of Paras went with him. He received a visit on the subject of security from the medical center administrator. The PPS agents stood in the background.

“I want those thugs removed from this facility!” Said the Administrator.

“What thugs?” Said Al.

“Your security detail!” Shouted the Administrator.

The Lead PPS Agent spoke up. He had dark brown hair, was constructed like a bodybuilder, and spoke with an obvious Scottish accent.

“There have two attempts on your life sir, since you were admitted to this facility.”

“Only two?” Said Al.

“Yes, sir.” Said the Lead Agent. “Only two, so far, by supporters of the late President Null.”

Well that’s no surprise, thought Al, some people are bound to be a bit upset when you apprehend and summarily execute their Glorious Leader.

And, of course, the latest manifestation of the Ubermensch mentality really doesn’t like to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us and to be legally compelled to treat us mere mortals as fully Human.

A proper chewing out of the Administrator would require the services of a Marine Corps drill instructor. Al would just have to make the best response that he could from the hospital bed.

“First,” said Al, “there have been attempts to take my life, that means that the security detail stays, regardless of how you feel about it.”

“Second,” he continued, “these gentlemen are not thugs, and I will not tolerate them being spoken of as such that in my presence.”

“Third,” Al said as he pointed his right index finger at the Administrator, “we are now living in a proper Capitalist Civilization, and if you don’t like your present working conditions, you are free to go find a job somewhere else.”

The Administrator was stunned into silence.

Al gave the Administrator a chance to speak up, he remained silent.

“Well,” said Al, “If you have nothing else to say, then this meeting is over.”

The Administrator quietly walked out of the room.

“Good one, sir.” Said the Lead PPS Agent.

“I try.” Said Al.

Eventually Al was released from the hospital.

The event was what in some respects could be called a cluster of fun.

A mixed motorcade of Federation Army Humvees with Minneapolis Police and civilian Ford sedans was parked on Seventh Street under a section of the HCMC. A mixed group of British Paras, PPS Agents, and uniformed Minneapolis Police officers had blocked off the street. Reporters and camera teams from the remaining local stations and national networks had placed themselves at the ends of the block. Present at the time of his discharge were Sonya, his mother and son, and a man who was dressed in casual civilian clothes.

Al sat the back seat with the civilian gentleman.

Uri was the field commander of the Special Unit. He gave Al a large manila envelope.

Al began to read the contents. The top sheet was a copy of a syndicated comic strip. The award winning leftist comic strip had begun publication in 1970 and its author had gone into exile as a result of The Reformation. Most of the characters in his newspaper and now online comic strip had been executed or forced into exile as a result of The Reformation. One character, a former Viet Cong terrorist, had to witness the return of Vietnam to being a proper Capitalist society.

The sheet that Al held in his hand was a Sunday strip that celebrated the assassination attempt on himself and the murder of his wife and daughter.

Al thought for a moment.

If I was the kind of monster that this idiot insists on worshiping, I could have him terminated with one phone call.

But no. Al thought. I’ll do something worse. Far worse.

I will just let him live. I’ll let him witness the intellectual dismantling of his holy socialist doctrine. I’ll just let him see as the truth about the death and destruction brought about by those that he worshiped comes to light.

And I’ll just outlive the son of a bitch.

The rest of the document was a progress report on the search for the Hidden Mullah.

Uri spoke.

“Sir, I have a request.”

“The ancient tradition?” Said Al.

“Yes, sir.” Said Uri.

“Go ahead.” Said Al.

The motorcade departed from the section of HCMC that was built over Seventh Street. The motorcade turned right on Third Avenue and crossed the Third Avenue Bridge onto Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis.

Susan had been raised in the Catholic Church. She and her daughter were buried in the Catholic cemetery on Central Avenue just north of Twenty Seventh Avenue. The Minneapolis Police blocked off the entrance of the cemetery.

The motorcade turned left into the cemetery and parked as close to the grave site as possible.

Roughly half of the security detail took up positions around the parked vehicles. The other part surrounded Al and the other visitors to the burial site.

As Al and his other family members stopped before the graves. Uri stepped behind the headstones, took two pebbles from his coat pocket, and placed one on each headstone.

“What is he doing?” Mother asked.

“It’s an ancient tradition.” Said Al. “I believe that it goes back to the Book of Judges of the Old Testament.”

Mother started to ask a question.

“Is he a...”

Al softly but abruptly cut her off.

“Stop!” Said Al. “I will not have you embarrassing me here in front of everyone.”

Al brought his tone of voice down before finishing his answer.

“I will explain later.”

When Al was finished with the visit to the graves of Susan and Alice he returned to the car. The motorcade crossed the Mississippi River at the Hennepin Avenue bridge. They continued southwest down Hennepin Avenue to the Uptown Neighborhood and turned right at Twenty Fourth Street to the house where Al and Susan lived.

When the family entered the house, Al spoke.

“Sonya,” he said, “Please take Anson upstairs, I need to speak to Mom alone.”

Sonya took Anson upstairs. Al pointed to the sofa in the sitting room and said one word to his mother.

“Sit!”

His mother sat down on the sofa. She spoke up.

“That was a Kike? Wasn’t it?”

Al cupped his right hand and brought it up to his right ear as if were hard of hearing and replied.

“I’m sorry Mother, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“You know damned well what I said!” She replied.

Al stared at his mother for a moment. And then he replied.

“Uri is a Jew. He is the head of a group of former Israeli soldiers who work for President March under my direction.”

“What do they do?” His mother asked.

“Wet work.” Al replied. “It’s a euphemism. Look it up yourself.”

Al had something else to say to his mother.

“Shut up and listen,” he said, “I have a story to tell.”

Al remained standing as he spoke.

“When Governor March was elected President, his predecessor, President Null, decided to not to surrender the office to him as required by the Constitution. Null ordered the Secret Service detail that was guarding Governor March to place him under arrest.”

Al decided not to mention the firefight that occurred in the State Capital Building between the Secret Service detail and members of both the Minnesota State Patrol and the National Guard. Or to mention the two Secret Service agents that he was credited with killing with the semi-automatic rebuild of the Austrian SA-58 battle rifle that he usually kept in the trunk of his own car.

“Needless to say, our armed forces stuck with the Constitution, and accepted John as their Commander In Chief. We set up our headquarters at the Strategic Command base outside of Omaha.”

“The what?” Said his mother.

“It used to be called the Strategic Air Command. A bunch of movies were made about it, including one starring Jimmy Stewart. He flew bombers during the Second World War and was also a General in the Air Force Reserve. And he also got to fly a B-52 on a mission over North Vietnam.”

Lucky bastard. Thought Al.

Al continued to lecture his mother.

“John and I both got offices in the old SAC command bunker. And we were working the late shift when the Final War started.”

Mother was left speechless.

“So what happened?” Said Al. “The president of we now call Frogistan had a problem. There were a mob of Muslim immigrants rioting in the streets of Paris. He could have called out the army and machine-gunned the rioters. After all, their first emperor had put down a riot by essentially doing the same thing with cannons.”

“And, of course,” said Al, “Islam is an ideology that calls for the enslavement and murder of nonbelievers. Killing a Muslim would be no more an act of murder than killing a National Socialist or a Communist.”

“A what?” Said his mother.

“Otherwise known as the Nazis and the Reds, the motherfuckers who wrote the history of the last century in human blood.”

Al continued the lecture.

“But their president decided to act like a typical present day Froggish leader and appease the mob. He did this by nuking the State of Israel.”

“John and I were in the office when the alarm went off.” Al said. “I made the call to Prime Minister Netanyahu to notify him of the attack, and I made the promise that his people would have a sanctuary here in the United States.”

Mother’s eyes widened.

“If you want to know why we had the sudden intake of Jews, that was my doing.” Said Al. “And President March put me in charge of the project.”

Al decided to skip the part about the nuclear retaliatory strike on the French.

“But the remaining Muslim states were actively interfering with the evacuation effort, they just wanted to serve Allah, never mind the real world consequences, so I called John and asked him to nuke the other Muslims.” Al said. “With that one phone call I managed to rack up a body count greater than that of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.”

“Stalin and who?” Said Mother.

“Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, they were Communist leaders, and they also loved children.”

Mother was openly shocked.

“You did all that to save a bunch of Jews.?” She said.

“Yes Mother, I did.” He said. “And I’m not ashamed of it at all.”

His mother was stunned into silence.

Al spoke again.

“I think it would be best if you went home, go pack your things.” He said. “I’ll have the PPS detail drive you to your home.”

Mother lived in an old farmhouse in central Minnesota, outside the town of Alexandria.

He would never see her again.