The Rangers Are Coming (3 page)

America had been dealt a deathblow.  She would never rise again.

In Branson, Missouri, far away from any of the deadly explosions, Arcadia Martin froze in her steps as she was walking near the central fountain of the Park.  She had felt strangely ill at ease for several days.  It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  She sensed that something terrible was about to happen, but she didn’t know what it was.  She prayed ceaselessly throughout each day for some clue from the Lord of the source of her worries.

Even now, she didn’t know exactly what had just happened.  She just knew the source of her dread was now a fact.  She ran into the tech center of the Park and saw row after row of monitors that displayed only static.  The Park system seemed to be operating normally and all those monitors showed peaceful scenes of people wandering through the Park and enjoying the animals.

Suddenly her phone rang.  It was her father, Jacob.  “Arcadia, several American cities have just been struck by nuclear weapons.  We’re trying to sort it out now.  Where are you?”

“In the tech center,” he said

“Just wait there, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

Phones and alarms were now going off throughout the tech center.  The staff on duty were answering the phones and tracing the source of the alarms before shutting them off.  The big room was a beehive of activity.  Arcadia turned to the master coordinator of all control room activities and said, “What are you hearing?”

“Nuclear explosions have gone off in at least three cities,” he said.  “So far we have identified New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, but I think there are more.  None of the television networks are broadcasting, but people are calling in from all over the country.”

Jacob, the rest of the family, and most of the senior officials of the Park joined Arcadia in the tech center.  For the next several hours they did everything, they could to understand the scope of the attack and to assess the damage, not just to cities, but also to human life.

As it happened, President Sampson was in Branson, and not Washington, when the city was hit.  He joined the group in the tech center and worked the phones for several hours, trying to get the military leaders who were still alive assigned to positions and have them start to bring some command and control back to the chain of command.

Finally, as the sun was going down, he got up from his chair and called for everyone’s attention.  “We need to get all you Park and Community leaders together for a meeting in the big conference room.  The rest of you keep on doing what you’re doing and come tell me if anything big happens.”

Sampson led Jacob, Ali, both brothers, and the 12 directors of the various Park and Community into the conference room.  Arcadia followed her father and sat next to him.  When they all were seated, Sampson began his briefing, “It now appears that six nuclear weapons were detonated.  All of them were from bombs hidden in the cities.  No missiles were launched at us from anywhere in world.  We’ve lost New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.  In addition, a nuclear weapon took out the CIA at Langley.  We are estimating 50 million dead, and expect that number to triple over the next couple of weeks as people die from injuries and from radiation poisoning.”

“We’ve lost our entire Federal government.  The Vice President, almost all of Congress, most of the Cabinet, and everyone at the Pentagon is dead. All our big banks, the stock market, and the dozens of big corporations who had headquarters in New York are gone.  The United Nations building and all the delegates were also killed.  I’ve established a new military headquarters at NORAD in Colorado Springs.  They have reestablished operational control of the military, Army, Navy, and Air Force.  Our nuclear arsenal is back under our control and I would be happy to use if I had any idea who was responsible for this.”

Just then, a tech came rushing into the room.  “There’s a worldwide satellite feed coming in two minutes.”

“Switch it in here,” said the President.

Shortly a picture of an Islamic flag appeared on the screen and panned out to a table where six bearded men, some of them wearing cloaks of office as Muslim clerics, were seated.  The man in the center chair, with dark eyes, heavy features, and a salt and pepper beard spoke.

“By this time, most of the world knows that the Great Satan of the United States was struck a death blow by the will of Allah and his prophet Mohammad.  At last the infidels who’ve defied the will of God for so long, who have tortured and bled the nations of Islam for endless years, will no longer be able to spread their lies, and abominations to the true faithful of the world.  We declare that Christianity is dead.  All Christians in the world will either declare their allegiance to Allah or lose their lives.”

The group raised their fists in defiance and a sign of victory before the picture phased out.

Sampson picked up a phone and talked to the tech center.  “Find out where that signal originated, than arrange a global satellite link of our own.  Call me back when you’ve made the connection to the link.”

Moments passed and the people in the conference room were silent.  Then a tech came into the room pushing a camera, which he sat up facing the President.  “About a minute Mr. President, I’ll give you a ten second countdown.”

The President straightened his shirt and ran his hands through his hair.  Then he sat up straight and looked directly into the camera, as the tech held his hand up counting down from five.  A red light went on.

“My fellow Americans, it’s not possible for me to express the outrage and the sorrow I feel at this moment.  Five great American cities have been destroyed by nuclear weapons.  For every American who is able to see or hear this broadcast, I pray to God that your families and loved ones are safe, either with you, or with our Father in Heaven.  We are damaged terribly, but we with the Lord’s help will rise to our feet.

“Let me caution anyone in the world who seeks to gain from our loss, that the entire military command of the United States is intact and as deadly against our enemies as ever.  I will caution, no I will warn, every leader of every country in the world that if a single missile of any kind is launched from this moment on, the United States will respond will all our weapons, all our missiles, all our planes at that country or any other country who dares join to further damage us.  The religion of Islam is a hateful, false, and repulsive lie.  God does not honor you and He will punish you for your sins!”

3

The Emerald Cathedral

              Arcadia wept hot, bitter tears.  The meeting of the President and all his new advisors, along with video feeds from Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs at the NORAD command center, and other remaining command centers, looked like it would go on for hours.  She couldn’t stand to listen anymore, or see the ghastly pictures that were transmitted by satellites of the carnage that stood astride the United States.  She slipped out of her seat and left the room.

              She went straight to the Emerald Cathedral, the beautiful cave that was the heart of the Park.  She turned on a lantern as she went in, since night had long since fallen.  She went to the center of the cavern where the pond stirred quietly.  She sat down on one of the benches that lined the walkway that surrounded the pond.  She put her face in her hands and sobbed.  She was silent for several minutes, when a voice spoke, “I thought I might find you here Arcadia.  Want some company?

Arcadia looked up and saw President Sampson standing at the entrance to the cavern that glowed in the moonlight that shown through the crack in the ceiling.  She got up and ran to Sampson, throwing her arms around his soldiers.  “Oh Uncle Walt, how could this have happened after you’ve done so much?  I just don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, honey, said the President, holding Arcadia, “My heart is as broken as yours.

“Heavenly Father,” cried Arcadia, “you know that I’ve always loved you and trusted you in all ways. Now this has happened.  Please help me to understand.”

              “The problem with humans having free will is that they are capable of committing great sins,” said a soft voice.

              Both Arcadia and Sampson looked around for the source of the voice and saw a gleaming light in the air near the center of the cave.  It shined with radiance almost too lovely to look upon. Arcadia felt the voice take the sword from her hand.  She hadn’t realized how angry and vengeful she’d felt until the voice spoke.

              “It time for us to have a talk.”

              “I don’t know what to say,” she said, wiping her eyes.

              “This is one day I’ve dreaded for a long time,” said the soft, but purposeful voice.”

              “How could you have let this happen,” she cried?

              “I do not let it happen. It just happens because ultimately mankind determines his own destiny.  That is the nature of Free Will.  It is precariously God-like and despite everything that’s occurred today, I could not have stepped in and made it go away.  The problems would not be solved, just postponed to occur again on another day, in another way.

It is not yet time for me to return,” said the voice. “However, with your help, you can make it come sooner.”

              “I don’t understand.”

              “You are a true and honest believer, Arcadia, and you as well, Walt, but until all men are like you, my return would make the carnage of today seem like a minor skirmish.  I’m not interested in a wholesale slaughter of millions of people.  As I have said, I would hope to lose no person.”

“Your father, Jacob successfully used my gift of this Park to reinvent the United States and turn it into a truly good country, one that I can honor.  However, his success was not appreciated by a large portion of the world.  America made enemies by its faithfulness to the true word of God.  The result was today.  It’s a true tragedy and one that needs to be corrected.”

              “How do you intend to do that?” asked Arcadia, regaining her composure and focusing her mind on what was being said.

              “Let me put this is simply as I can,” said the voice.  “Time is like a river.  If you stand next to the river, it will flow by.  You know what’s upstream because that is the past and you’ve lived it.  Downstream is the future and unknown to you.”

              “What would happen if you could walk along the river, into the past and see all that has happened when you look back upstream?”

              “You could see all of the mistakes we’ve done,” said Sampson.

              “That’s right.  Now what would happen if I were to build a dam across your river of time at the moment of the catastrophe and you started walking back upstream?”

              “It would mean that downstream would not be the future for us anymore, and we would be able to tell everyone along the way what they were doing that was wrong and maybe change the outcome”, said the President.

              “Not just tell, but do.  Otherwise you would end up like some kind of modern day Nostradamus who’s not actually believed.”

              Arcadia smiled, “Great, let me just walk up your time river a little way and stop those guys from detonating those bombs.”

              “Close in spirit, but wide of the mark.  I’m afraid the problem is more systemic than that.  You’d need to set your sights a good deal up the river of time than that.”

              “How far?” asked Arcadia.

              “Counting today, exactly 275 years,” said the voice”

              Arcadia did the math and said, “That would be 1770!”

              “I think five years is long enough to alter the outcome of the Revolutionary War.”

              Arcadia was totally confused, “Maybe you’d better tell me exactly what kind of an outcome you want.”

              “Imagine how you could change things by applying 2025 technology to 1770.”

              “To what end?” said Arcadia.  She was past the shock of having a glowing light speaking to them and was now concentrating on the concepts with her full mind.

              “Here’s the plan in a nutshell,” said the voice.  “I drop you off in 1770 with a few hundred good men with very special training, and modern equipment.  George Washington defeats the British in one year, not eight, then proceeds to throw the British out of Canada, the Spanish out of Mexico and the Russians out of Alaska and you have a country to build that runs from the Arctic Circle to the Isthmus of Panama.

              “You help the founding fathers draft a constitution that is practically the same as you have today with no amendments but the Bill of Rights, Term Limits, and Balanced Budgets included.  You make sure there’s a true separation of church and state, but you insure that the country is hard-wired with a reverence and worship of God.”

              “You snip slavery in the bud from the beginning, thereby avoiding the slaughter of the Civil War.  You treat the Native Americans with respect and generosity, avoiding acculturating an entire people.”

              “You use the educational system you’ve built in the present day from the beginning, and you, bit by bit, release advanced technology to a country that will be the wonder of the world.  That way you will stay about a hundred years ahead of everyone else.”

              “Now here is the key point.  You follow George Washington’s advice to avoid foreign entanglements religiously.  America is neutral, no matter what.  The rest of the world can beat itself to pieces if it wants to, but they can never attack the biggest, smartest, deadliest country in the world, particularly a country who shares its wealth freely with everyone.”