The Chosen (2 page)

Chapter 2

K
ris Mitchell sat in a Starbucks located
in the
parking
lot of a Phoenix strip mall. Her brother, Keith, was with her, but he was busy texting and had not spoken for half an hour. As she sipped her coffee she watched the door. She was afraid that one of her former co-workers would step through that door and immediately notify the Federal Municipal Planning Division that they had spotted her. That was a baseless fear; FMPD employees were paid only in credits that could be use
d only in the f
ederal e
mployees
’
community where they were required to live. All meals were served at the
community
dining hall. Besides, FMPD employees were not allowed to own private transportation. It was ridiculous to think that any of them would take the public transport system into town to charge a c
up of coffee on a credit card.

Nevertheless, Kris was worried. The same night that she had discovered that all of the residents of Section W where she was the liaison had inexplicably
vanish
ed, she had fled with Keith into a wilderness area that Keith referred to as “somewhere near the Lincoln National Forest.”

As she sat nervously watching the door Kris reminded herself that she had done nothing illegal. Leaving your job without notice is not a crime. However, she also knew that if Director Leonard Scott or his assistant Pat Kilmer ever discovered her whereabouts they would invent
a crime
so that they could have her taken into
f
ederal custody.

Keith finished his texts and picked up his coffee.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

Relieved, Kris nodded.

When they were in Keith’s Jeep and heading out of Phoenix, Keith spoke. “I was texting with Jessie. You remember I told you that he was flying missions over a compound near Nellis Air Force Base? Well, this morning, just before 5:00 he saw someone escape under the fence. He managed to land on a road nearby and pick the guy up. Turns out this guy is a doctor who treated the toxin victims in the Gulf Coast fiasco that the government staged. Anyway, the guy has a lot of information that TruthTrakker can use.
”

Kris could hardly believe her ears. She
had known for some time
that Keith had been right all along about the government’s plan to exterminate
specially
selected
group
s
of American citizens, but she had not believed that they actually had concentration camps on
U.S.
military bases. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“Of course, I’m sure. Jessie said that the doctor is from right here in Phoenix. They sent him to the Gulf Coast
to treat the toxin victims
,
even though his specialty is pain management. When the doc gets home, his wife tells him that their house
is going to
be taken
through
eminent domain, and t
hen a couple of days later the F
eds storm into his office and
take him away in handcuffs. He winds up in this death camp on a base a few
mi
les from Vegas.
 

“But that’s not the best part. Just as Jessie and the doc are airborne, the
F
eds raid the camp in a pre-dawn strike and machine gun everyone—doctors, workers, guards—everyone.
”

As Keith spoke Kris had grown pale. “What
’s
the doctor’s name?”

“I dunno.”

“Find out. I think I know him. And call Jessie
;
don’t text him. If the doctor is who I think he is, I want to
speak
to him.”

Keith exited the interstate and pulled onto a residential street. When he had Jessie on the line, he asked him the doctor’s name, and then, turning to Kris, he said, “Ron Edmonton.”

Kris held out her hand for the phone. “Tell Jessie
to put him on the line
.”

Kris’ voice was shaking as she spoke, “Dr. Edmonton, this is Kris Mitchell. I’m the real estate agent who sold you and Luisa your house. Do you remember me? Good. I know where Luisa is. She’s safe for now, but after what m
y
brother
just
told me, I don’t think she’ll be safe for long. I’ll get her tomorrow morning and move her to a secure location.
I’m so glad that you’re alright. And, Ron, if you’re a praying man, pray that I’ll get to Luisa before the
F
eds do. If you’re not a praying man, now would be a good time to start.
”

Kris returned the phone to Keith and closed her eyes.
She leaned back in the seat and said, “Keith, we have to stick around here for another night. I’ll get Luisa in the morning
,
and then we can get out
o
f here.”

“You sold the doc his house? Is that where
we
’re going?
”

“No.
Luisa’s
living in a Smart Community a little way from Scottsdale.
She’
s Romanian
, and with Ron gone she was completely alone in this country
with no family and no money
.
When t
he
F
eds offered her a life lease on a unit in exchange for her home
, she had no choice but to accept
.”

“The same kind of deal they gave Mom and Dad, I presume?” Keith interrupted. “The kind where after you move into your unit your life expectancy is about six
months because as soon as they’
ve taken everything you own they march you out and shoot you in the back?”

Tears were streaming
down Kris’
cheeks. She nodded and continued, “Now that the
F
eds think the
y’ve
eradicated
Ron, they
’
re going to take Luisa. Fortunately, when I visited her
,
she told me that she goes to mass every morning to light a candle for
her husband
. Since she does
n’
t have a car, she
’
ll be attending mass at a church near her unit—something within walking distance. Give me your laptop so that I can find out which Catholic churches are close to her.
”

After a quick on-line search, Kris discovered that Blessed Sacrament was only three blocks from Luisa’s unit. Although there were two other Catholic churches within walking distance, Kris thought that
for
an early morning mass Luisa would choose the closest one. She went to the Blessed Sacrament website and discovered that they h
el
d a 6:00 A.M. mass every weekday.

“Keith, I’m going to go to Blessed Sacrament tomorrow
to
get Luisa. We’ll meet you a few blocks from there—I don’t want anyone spotting your Jeep. As soon as we hook up with you, we’ll get out of Phoenix.”

The following morning
before daylight
Kris entered the alley across the street from Blessed Sacrament. At 5:45 she saw two men
enter the church.
From their dress and manner she knew that they were federal agents
.
Kris felt the tension that she had been battling for the past forty-five minutes increase.

Approaching Luisa inside the church was no longer an option. From her vantage point in the alley she looked up and down the street. No other agents were present. It had never occurred to them that they might
encounter
any opposition.  Luisa’s unit was on the same side of the street as the alley where Kris was standing. Luisa would almost certainly pass directly by her
. She could call out to her and tell her why she had come
, but she did not want to risk having
one of the agents
spot Luisa entering the alley.
After all, it was possible that they were watching the sidewalk from one of the
church
windows.

As Kris stood in the
dark
alley with her mind racing, a city bus pulled
to a
stop to pick up some morning commuters. The bus was directly in front of her. If the agents were watching
,
the bus would
block from their view
th
at
portion of the sidewalk
for a few minute or two
. Quickly Kris stepped
out of the shadows
and began to walk in the direction of Luisa’s unit. She listened carefully to see whether anyone was following her, but the only sounds came from the passing traffic.
S
he had covered the first block
when
she saw Luisa
walking
toward her. When she was within three feet of her,
Kris
spoke, “Luisa, don’t say anything.
Ron’s safe.
I’m here to take you to
him
.”

Chapter 3

K
ris and Keith sat
in the tiny living room of
Keith’s mobile home drinking coffee with Michael Linton.  Keith had spent the last hour pacing nervously, going outside and walking about the dry sandy plot of ground where he had parked the trailer after moving it from its location
near the Lincoln National Forest
and then bursting through the door like a madman, swearing and running his hands through his thick hair
. The mountain forest
in New Mexico
had provided shade, cool temperatures, and towering pines to conceal the location, but Southwestern Utah offered no such amenities. The blazing desert sun baked the sand into an inferno that heated the trailer to sweltering temperatures. The worst part, however, was
that
the trailer was exposed
to anyone who happened by
. Not that anyone happened by that particular stretch of dirt road very often, but
the possibility
was enough to make Keith nervous.

Keith finished what was left of his coffee in one big gulp and slammed the mug down on the dilapidated table that served as dining table, computer desk, and general entertaining space. “Where is that Jackass!” he exclaimed. “I
don’t know why Jessie can never be on time. If we didn’t need him, I’d never speak to him again!
”

Keith continued, “I
’
ve spent my whole life doing the right thing, and look where it’s gotten me! Whenever anybody needs anything, Keith is always
the
go
-
to man. I did everything right, and God rewarded me by killing my wife and baby. I spent a small fortune feeding Mom and Dad and their
rabble-rousing
friends when they got into trouble, and
God
reward
ed
me by
having the
F
eds take them out and shoot them
down
like dogs. Now I’m sitting here in this hellhole waiting for the
F
eds to break down the door and drag me off to some gulag. Well, when they do show up, I’m going to take out as many of them as I can before they
’
re forced to kill me. They’ll never take me alive!”

“Keith,” Michael interrupted, “You’ve got to get a grip on yourself. We’ve all lost people we love, and we’ve all suffered. We’re going to get through this, but you can’t keep reliving the past and blaming God for every bad thing that
’
s
ever
happened
to you
.”

“Don’t preach to me, Mike!” Keith retorted angrily. “You can’t begin to know
how I feel. Losing your parents is not the same thing as losing your wife and kid. I’ve lost all of them, so I should know.”

“No, it’s not the same thing,” Michael replied. “When I lost my parents, I lost their
friendship, their support, their love, and the special relationship we shared. It was horrible. But when I buried my wife, I buried all of my dreams
with her
.”

Keith stared at him, “You were married?”

“For fifteen years. I met my wife on
our
first day of school; we were both six, and we became inseparable.
We
married when we were
twenty. Madelyn was beautiful and
sweet; she was my best friend. The next ten years were the happiest time of my life. We couldn’t have kids, but we were always together. I went to med
ical
school, and she enrolled in nursing school. Everything was perfect.”

“What happened?”

“When she was thirty years old, Maddie was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“That’s what happened to my wife—only hers was leukemia. Cassie was dead in a month.”

“Maddie lived five years. She had a mastectomy, chemo, radiation, adult stem cell therapy, and everything else you can imagine. I prayed for her every day. Her parents prayed; my parents prayed. When we first got the diagnosis, I was scared, but I knew that she would be okay—between prayer and medicine she would get well. After three years I was relying solely on prayer. And then she went into remission; we were so happy. She started getting well. I thought that we were going to get our lives back.

“
A year later the cancer
returned
, and this time it had spread to her bones, her lymph nodes, her organs—it was everywhere. That was the worst year of my life; I was forced to watch
the person I loved more than anything in the world
die a hideous death, and there wasn’t one single thing that I could do about it. After Maddie died, I buried myself in my work, and then a few years later that was gone too.”

“Okay, see, this is what I mean,” Keith interjected. “How can you possibly trust a God who would let all of this stuff happen to you? If God is real and He’s good, then He’s too weak to help anybody, and faith is just a bunch of nonsense. But if He
’
s real and He
’
s powerful, then He’s a
sadist. Either way, why would you waste your life following a God who allow
ed
th
at
to happen to you?”

“During Maddie’s last year I was horribly depressed.
One day
I told my father that I
didn’t know how I could go on if she died. I didn’t understand why God let her get sick and why He let the cancer come back.  We had such a good life filled with so many plans for the future. How could God do this to us?

“After I finished talking Dad was quiet for a little while, and then he asked, ‘When you found out that Maddie was sick again, did you ever think about abandoning her?’

“‘
No, of course not,’ I replied.

“
‘
Why
not?
’
h
e presse
d.
‘When you married Maddie
,
you were both very young. You thought that your life was going to be
perfect
; you never imagined that you would have any serious problems. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Why stay with her when you can clearly see that you’re not getting what you
expect
ed?’

“I was very irritated. I wasn
’
t irritated with my father very often, but that day I was angry. I answered, ‘When I married Maddie, I made a lifetime commitment to her—for better, for worse. This is the worse part—worse than I ever dreamed it could be, but my commitment to love her and to stand by her has nothing to do with whether I have the outcome I expected.’

“Then he explained what he meant, ‘When you make a commitment to Jesus, it is also a lifetime commitment. On their wedding day virtually everyone expects that marriage will be good and that it will meet their needs. Likewise, virtually everyone who makes a commitment to Jesus expects that the relationship will be wonderful and that He will meet all of their needs. But then life happens—sickness, loss
of
income, death, or some other tragedy. Most marriages don’t survive those upheavals and neither do
es
most
people’s faith.

“‘
What is important in the time that you have left with Maddie is that you keep your promise to l
o
ve and cherish her for as long as she lives—no matter what. What is important in the time that you have left on earth is that you keep your promise to love and follow Jesus for as long as you live—no matter what. We serve Him in good times and bad, in sick
n
ess and in health, in happiness and in sadness, knowing that no matter what our circumstances He will never desert us
,
and we must never desert Him.’

“The next day
Dad
e-mailed me Romans 14:8; it became a sort of life verse for me, and it has helped me survive the la
s
t
ten
years:
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Living or
dying, we follow the Lord
.”

When Keith realized that Michael was not going to say anything further, he rose from his chair and walked out the door of the trailer, slamming it behind him.