Disaster Among the Heavens, Don E Peavy Sr [reading rainbow books txt] 📗

the Vice President is en route to Moscow for a face to face meeting with Mr. Premier. Forgive me, but I am unable to provide you with any further details regarding this matter.
“On a more personal note, as many of you are aware, the director of the CIA died of a heart attack yesterday. I ask you to pray for his family and friends. He was a great patriot and friend. He will be sorely missed. Ladies and gentlemen, the night is far spent. I don’t know about you, but I am very tired. As we say back in Texas, I am dog tired! Let’s all go home and get some sleep. Within 48 hours all these matters will be resolved and you will receive a full explanation. We can do this. We must do this and we will. You know me and you know that I will not lie to you. I am your President. I tell you America is safe and you can sleep in peace. May God bless each and every one of you. May God bless America!”
The President stepped down from the podium. He was immediately surrounded by Secret Service agents dressed in black suits with white shirts and black ties. They each wore dark glasses and had an earplug in their left ear with a wire that extended from the earplug to beneath their shirts where it disappeared. These agents formed a human barrier around The President to shield him from the onrush of reporters who shouted questions at him.
“That was great Mr. President. Absolutely great!” exclaimed the Press Secretary as he caught up with The President.
“Follow me to the telex room,” commanded The President. His mind was fixed on the mission ahead – he neither needed nor wanted accolades. What he needed now was a miracle.
The President shifted his attention to what he was going to tell the world leaders about the situation in America. He felt good. Like he had done in Dallas, he had dodged another bullet. His speech would hold the Press at bay for the moment, or so he thought. Remembering his use of the term “Great Society” made him smile. He would watch the headlines to see how the media played the concept and this would give him some indication of how his message will be received when and if he has to deliver it.
As The President continued to walk bristly and confidently, he hoped he could work his magic on the world leaders like he had just done for the Press. Then, tomorrow morning, he would put together his crisis management team to devise a plan to deal with the Assistant.
He would also start drafting the elements of his Great Society program. The President was a poker player who knew the benefit of a hold card and the hedging of one’s bets. Though he felt good, he was cautious enough to not allow his good feeling distract him from the urgency of the tasks before him and lull him into a false sense of security.
Reports from Chicago had informed him that the assistant had been shot and The President, a rancher, knew that a wounded animal is more deadly and unpredictable than one which is not injured. Underestimating his opponent was not part of his make-up. After all, he was well aware that the CIA had committed grievous error in that regard – it had underestimated the assistant to the CIA Director. That underestimation gave birth to the disaster that now threatened both heavens and earth.
What he might say to the world leaders suddenly took less importance in his mind as he reflected on how close to disaster he had come this day. That he had come through gave him confidence in tomorrow. Consequently, the disaster that loomed on the horizon seemed less threatening to The President this night. He had survived the day; he was confident he would survive the night as well as the next forty-eight hours.
Blow on ill winds that bring no good, while the people sleep ignorantly in their neighbourhood.
. . .


Chapter 7
How is it that people who are near death can perceive that their sojourn on earth is coming to an end? Is death like the fragrance of recently mowed grass which is perceptible only to the person doing the mowing? Or is it like the aromatic air which pours through the open window on Christmas morning with the scent escaping from fireplaces which have been aflame all night?
Is death a person who visits those whose numbers have been called in that grand lottery beyond the sky? Maybe not a person. How could a person visit so many people at the same time? If more than one person, would not this be a very inefficient way of governing the universe?
Why must humans die? And death be such a horrible spectacle? If the spirit, like any other energy, is indestructible, changing only from one form to another, then why can it not power the body instead of relying on sinews, muscles and cells? How is it that humans can sense death yet not deter it?
Is the sense of impending death a cruel curse like that visited upon Cassandra who was blessed with the gift of prophecy and yet cursed by the refusal of people to believe her predictions? Consequently, despite her foretelling of the Trojan War, thousands went merrily to their deaths in disbelief. Must the power of perception mitigate against the power of action?
These are but a few of the thoughts that flowed through the mind of Doctor Johnny Mark Diggs as he gazed at the corpse of the Assistant. He looked at the shapeless, lifeless form which with all its skills and training could neither stay the hand of death nor delay it long enough to complete his mission.
“The assistant is dead – that’s what I said ...Why can’t we brothers protect one another?” The Doctor heard the voice of Curtis Mayfield in his mind’s ear.
The assistant was gone – dead. Death hung on him like a foggy day in London that robs this European capital of its majesty and gives it an eerie, dirty look. Those eyes that once beamed with revolutionary fire were closed. The lips that preached the gospel of violence and self determination were silenced. Hands which forced that giant of destructive force called America to its knees now lay limp across a collapsed chest.
What an awful sight! No amount of mortuary art could remove the pale of death nor restore the mellifluous glow that once emanated from this noble character who had so grandly mounted the stage of life. Like all the great rebels before him, his body would soon lie smouldering in the ground. Unlike some of them though, there would be no song written to commemorate the occasion.
No poem would be delivered to enthrone his noble spirit in the annals of heroes. School children would have no opportunity to sing him praises as they had done for John Brown; nor would the heavens reveal some cosmic wonder as a sign to attest to the Assistant’s affinity with the gods as had happened when Julius Caesar was slain on the Ides of March.
What was it all for? For what purpose had the assistant given his life? Why is it that we humans can find so many reasons to die but few for which to live? Is this the curse of Jesus’ death that so many find it nobler to imitate his death rather than his life? He who came to bring “abundant life” is the model of excessive death?
Curious it is that the Western world celebrates the poverty of Jesus’ birth and the horror of his death but not the wonder of the feeding of five thousand or the sacred call of the dead to life. These questions were among the many that hounded Diggs as he looked for and found a stack of newspapers which he used to wrap the body of the assistant in to delay the stench of death as long as possible. After the body was enclosed in newspaper, the Doctor wrapped it in a blanket and then dragged the limp mass to the far corner where he dumped it.
Diggs stood for a moment admiring his handy work. He wondered whether he should say something – perform some ritual to send the spirit of the deceased on to the next world, or maybe he could say something to ease the pain of death. But there was nothing in his medical training which equipped him to do anything more than he had done. As an emergency room physician, death was a constant presence and the next emergency robbed him of any time to reflect on those deaths – often times they were young black men shot and stabbed by other young black men.
Speechless, Diggs walked slowly over to the cot and sat on its edge, turning his attention to Fredda who slept as if she was a child whom he had just tucked into bed. He did not wake her for the telephone call from the General of the Air Force. Likewise, he did not disturb her sleep when he received a radio call from the few remaining members of the Assistant’s special troops who had survived the attack on NORAD and who were holding a number of hostages in the command center atop the bunker. They had provided him with details of The President’s press conference.5
Fredda shifted her position. She let out a low sound as if she had just experienced some joy in her sleep. Her lips curved into a lovely smile. Diggs smiled. His smile soon turned to a frown when the image of his wife invaded his mind.
Ah, if she could just see me now. He thought to himself. Yes, if she could see him now, she would not know what to make of the transformation which had taken place in this middle-class physician who had never participated in a protest march or demonstration or sit-in. Never had he even written an angry letter to the editor. His mind went back to the day on which he received the telephone call from the Assistant.
Why had he answered the call? At first he feared that it was a patient needing medical care and he would have to refer the patient to another doctor because his hospital privileges had been suspended. Maybe it was a bill collector wondering if the check was in the mail. It might even be a persistent news reporter trying yet again to get his comments on the revolution that was spreading across America.
Each of those things occupied his mind at the time; as a result, at first he refused to answer the telephone. However, it kept ringing and ringing and ringing. Finally, he answered. It was the Assistant. Diggs was shocked. The nerve of this man, who was responsible for the suspension of medical privileges for Diggs and other Black physicians at the county hospital, to be calling the home of one of those doctors. He was angry and bitter and was about to curse this intruder, this rebel with an unpopular cause, when he heard the faint speech marked by groans of pain and that hissing sound that a person makes who has been shot or stabbed and the lung is punctured.
Those sounds of