Don Pendleton - Civil War II Read Online Free PDF Page B

society, and particularly the Automated Monetary System, were entirely valid. The plan, introduced by then Senator J. Humphrey Arlington of Alabama in 1984, was officially inaugurated on January 1, 1986, after a bitter and futile battle by the nation's banking interests to have the law declared unconstitutional. Opponents of the measure had pointed out that the end effect of AMS would be a rigid control of the national economy by the federal government, and eventual direct control of the lives and fortunes of all Americans. They hinted strongly that a major thrust of the bill was toward the control of minority groups, specifically the blacks, and that this control could easily be extended to include every American citizen. It appeared that, by the year 1999, this end had indeed been accomplished—certainly, without doubt, as regarded the black Americans.
    And, with regard to the blacks, Winston's other insights were directly on target. A patient plan of years had come to an abruptly unplanned maturity, and the programmed abuse of a race covering an era of centuries was about to be run head-on into the new reality. The Omega Project, a plan designed to end an era, had led the way to a day beyond expectation. At least from one pale point of view.
    CHAPTER 4

    Birdie Howard watched the broad back of her husband as he pulled on the khaki shirt. Impulsively she stepped forward and gripped his shoulders, laying her face against the great strength there between the shoulder-blades. "I'm scared, honey," she whispered.
    "Don't be scared," Bill Howard said gruffly. "This is a time for singing, not crying." He went on buttoning the shirtfront, opened the waist of his trousers, stuffed the shirt tails neatly inside. Then he turned to survey the cramped apartment, pulling his wife into his arms, squeezing her tightly to him.
    "No more shadow living for these folks, Birdie," he reminded her. "No more crumbling buildings and nightmarey nights, no more eating powdered foods and fighting the rats. We're moving out into the sunshine, honey. We gonna bring our kids up in sight of God's heaven, and we gonna give 'em fields to play in, and a place to laugh and sing. Isn't that worth some risk?"
    "If there's gonna be killing and bleeding, I'll stay here in town, Bill." She shivered violently. "I don't want no blood of yours trickling out on white folks' ground."
    The black youth chuckled. "If my blood spills, maybe it'll look like the same color as theirs. Now look, we been
    through this ten million times. Now something that ain't worth risking a little bit of blood for ain't worth wanting, is it? I'm not raising no kids in this town, Birdie. Not if all my kids wither up and die in my dead nuts. Now give me a smile and a kiss. I gotta go out there and get my weapons."
    Birdie choked back a flood of tears, stretched to her toe tips, and gave her husband a soulful lass.
    "Hey," he said, grinning, "that's a let's-go-to-bed kiss."
    "I don't know how to give go-on-off-and-get-killed kisses," she replied.
    He laughed and slapped her bottom. Then he took one last long look about the tiny "efficiency" apartment, a place where his life had centered, as though looking ait it for the last time. He gave her another quick peck, pushed her away, and Lt. Bill Howard of the Hattiesburg Town Militia went off to the wars.
    Joe Johnson sat on the Hattiesburg Mayor's desk, swinging one leg idly back and forth, listening to the rapid exchange between Mayor Wayne Elliott and Intelligence Director Sam Hatfield. These two older men never failed to amuse the youthful military boss of Hattiesburg.
    Elliot turned to him with a slight sneering tone and inquired, "Well, aren't you going to join in on this, Joe?"
    "Hell, man, I'm joined," Johnson replied. "You two go on. I'm listening."
    "Joe never liked to talk politics," Hatfield observed, smiling. "He just wants to be turned loose. Right, Joe?"
    Johnson nodded curtly. "You can jaw about this all day long, and you'll just