Chapter 27

Mike was back at the hospital to have the stitches removed from the shrapnel wounds. He waited in the waiting room listening to the activities taking place around him and watching the news on the television in the room. The news covered a forest fire that was burning out of control in Arkansas, an interview with the Secretary of State, and a speech by the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

He had been waiting for half an hour when he realized something important. The news wasn’t filled with stories about suicide bombers, sabotage, or other terrorist activities. There were a few instances in which terrorists had surprised people with suicide bombings, but they were becoming much rarer and isolated to the urban areas where there were still major populations of Muslims. The hospital was dealing with normal kinds of emergencies rather than injuries due to terrorist explosions and poisonings. Life in America was returning to normal.

His name was called and he followed the nurse to one of the examination rooms. He removed his shirt and pants to give access to his wounds. He put on the little paper gown that he had come to hate. The nurse came in and took his vital signs making appropriate marks on his charts. He watched the process with the kind of boredom that came from experience.

It was a few minutes later when a doctor came into the room. Bustling over to the examination table, the doctor started examining the wounds without any small talk. Mike looked away as the doctor examined his hand. For some reason, he didn’t want to look at the wound.

Pleased with what he had seen, the doctor said, “The small wounds look to be healing well, but your finger still needs to remain under a bandage. I’ll take out the stitches and send you on your way.”

Getting the stitches removed wasn’t a particularly painful process, but it wasn’t pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. While the doctor worked, Mike asked, “So, will I be able to fish?”

“You won’t be able to hold the pole with your left hand, but you can crank the reel with it,” the doctor answered with a smile, “There for a second I was wondering if you going to ask if you’d be able to play the violin. That, I fear will never be possible.”

There were a lot of little things that Mike was finding difficult. Tying his shoelaces was nearly impossible with the bandages and he imagined that it would always be a problem. Even the workouts in the gym illustrated that he could not perform many of the exercises. All of the machines for upper body development assumed the use of two hands.

Mike nodded his head and said, “I know.”

The doctor said, “At least you have partial use of the hand.”

“There is that,” Mike said thinking that he could use the one good finger of his left hand to ring the door bell when he visited someone.

Finished removing the stitches, the doctor rewrapped the left hand. As he worked, he said, “You can start taking full showers and baths now so long as you keep your left hand dry. I bet that will feel good.”

“Yes, it will,” Mike said. He was tired of taking sponge baths and couldn’t wait to take a shower.

The doctor finished and said, “Come back in three weeks and I’ll check out your hand. Other than that, you’re in pretty good shape. I suggest that you continue your exercise program.”

Watching television at home one night, Mike happened to catch a very chilling speech by Muhammad bin Laden taken from an Arabic station and carried on the Wolf News Channel. It wasn’t so much what the man was threatening that made the speech so evil. The speech was nothing more than an order to attack American Women. He described them as worse than the whores of Babylon. He based that claim on the clothes they wore, the lifestyles they lived, and the self-reliant attitudes they had. With their bare arms, painted faces, and tight clothes, American Women were bent on tempting all good men to hell.

He explained how such Godless women should be treated by good Muslim men. Since American Women were whores, they were to be treated as whores. A Muslim man could take his pleasure from an American woman without sin or remorse. If she remained unrepentant, then death was mandated. In essence, Muhammad bin Laden had given Muslim men carte blanche to rape and kill American Women.

Listening to the man ramble on about the evils of American Women, Mike said, “One of these days I’m going to catch you and you’re going to regret every word you’ve ever said.”

Standing behind Mike, Kim Sung had listened to a portion of the broadcast. Shaking her head, she said, “That is a very evil man.”

“The people who follow him are evil. He goes beyond that,” Mike said.

Mohammed bin Laden ended his speech with a discussion of how little infants are corrupted by the evil of their mother’s milk. The female children were fated to be whores while the male children would never be able to take Allah into their hearts. Good Muslim men would not have to worry that their actions might harm the innocent; Allah was all powerful and would protect those who would embrace his word.

Listening to the translator, Kim asked, “Is he saying that even infants can be raped and killed?”

“Yes,” Mike answered.

Mike walked out the backdoor of his house for the first time in nearly five months. The change was impressive. What had been a plain patio had been transformed into a little slice of heaven on Earth. Sun Yung stood to the side with a proud little smile on his face knowing that he had created something special.

The bathing pond had a natural look to it as if it had been carved by falling water for thousands of years. The small waterfall that fed it was made of real rock with exotic plants growing in some of the spaces between rocks. Surrounding the pond were hundreds of ferns that ranged from small little plants tucked between the pond’s rocks, to large tree ferns.

Mike had assumed that the floor would be standard decking. Instead, it was rough hewn stone that carried the natural feel of the pond through the rest of the area. Additional plants filled the edges of the patio making it feel like a hidden grotto in some tropical paradise. There were four chairs and a table made of bamboo tucked away in the corner opposite of the bathing pond.

Mike went to the sliding door and saw that the look of the patio had actually extended beyond that patio. The Waterfall feature was backed by a rock garden that looked natural. Ground cover had replaced grass through most of the yard. There were bushes that in summer would be very lush and green.

Turning to Sun Yung, Mike said, “I’m very impressed.”

“Does this make you happy?” Sun Yung asked.

“Yes,” Mike answered.

Sun Yung gave Mike a half bow and said, “Good. My job is done. I come back for two hours a week to keep garden nice. Now, I go make garden for Teva. Good bye.”

Mike stared at the retreating back of Sun Yung. He couldn’t believe that the man would show off the garden and then leave like that. Turning to Kim Sung, he said, “I think I’ve only seen him four times since he started this job.”

“Four times too many if you ask me,” Kim said.

“Okay,” Mike said wondering what the problem was between Kim and Sun.

Kim pointed to the bathing pond and said, “Now you try pond.”

“I don’t know if I have a swim suit,” Mike said.

“No need. You have nothing I haven’t seen thousands of times,” Kim said.

Mike undressed in the enclosed patio. The air temperature was perfect for being naked. He entered the water making sure that he kept his bandaged left hand out of it. The water was just warm enough to be relaxing without being too hot to limit his time in the pond. He discovered that there were seats along the edge of the pond and sat down. The water came to below his nipples when he sat up straight.

Pointing to the opposite end of the bathing pool, Kim said, “There is better spot for you on the other side. The seat is a little lower.”

Mike moved across the pond and found that the water level was just right. Laying his left hand across the rocks, he laid his head back finding that it fit nicely into a depression of the rock. He sighed in satisfaction and closed his eyes.

The sound of someone else entering the pond grabbed his attention. Opening his eyes, he saw Kim Sung entering the pool. She was naked and slid into the spot he had tried first. The water came to just over her bare breasts.

She sighed and said, “I hate old man, but he does good work.”

“Yes, he does,” Mike agreed.

His lower region reacted to her naked body, but he did his best to ignore it. He closed his eyes and leaned back enjoying the water.

He had nearly fallen asleep when he felt a hand stroking his cock. Opening his eyes, he found Kim staring intently at him while she aroused his member.

She said, “You need me to do this. Close your eyes and relax.”

It wasn’t ‘the voice, ‘ but he obeyed anyway. A moment later he felt her climb on him; his cock slipping into her. Despite the fact that his heart was screaming no, his body reacted automatically to the sensations. She brought him to a very nice climax.

She eased off his cock and said, “You needed that. It has been too long since you have had woman and that is not good. It’s not healthy. A man needs real sex to keep balanced.”

“Thank you,” Mike said thinking back to the advice he had been given by Larry. The guilt at cheating on Karen was diminished somewhat by the advice of his parents, her parents, and Larry.

Kim climbed out of the pond and said, “There is no need to thank me. I am your housekeeper. It’s my job to keep you healthy.”

Mike left the quarterly meeting of the Oversight Committee of Domestic Intelligence with a headache. One would think that three former Presidents and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would be reasonable men who carefully considered the issues. Mike was a little overwhelmed by the Office of President, but he was rapidly losing respect for the men who held it in the past.

It didn’t matter what subject was discussed in any given meeting, there were five very different and mutually exclusive opinions. The five of them couldn’t agree on a single issue. Nothing was ever resolved in any of the meetings and Mike was pretty sure that it was not a good thing. Several surveillance operations had been canceled because the group couldn’t agree what could be done, but they all agreed that how it was being done was wrong.

The meeting that day focused on the use of high tech surveillance equipment that had been developed to acquire intelligence information within houses inside the Muslim enclaves. Sending a cockroach sized mobile surveillance camera into someone’s house was pretty intrusive and raised significant privacy issues. The Founding Fathers could never have imagined the existence of such a device.

Mike had argued for an area-wide form of warrant. He felt that if there was sufficient evidence that law enforcement officials would be attacked by an entire neighborhood when attempting to enter the area, that an appropriate level of prior surveillance was necessary to protect law enforcement while they were attempting to enforce the law of the land. He thought that an area-wide form of warrant based on clear criteria could serve as an appropriate vehicle to protect people’s rights.

One former President kept repeating that appropriate legislation would make the question moot. The right bill would allow the President to make the final decision about such matters. It was his opinion that the current President was following a reasonable strategy for eliminating the terrorist threats on the domestic front.

The second former President felt that there had to be an individual warrant for each and every household. He didn’t care that it might require as many as ten thousand individual warrants. The individual and property had to be named on the warrant.

The third former President felt that legislation would be required to set up a special court to oversee the issuance of appropriate search warrants on a case by case basis. Anyone arrested could appeal the case through the legal system until an authoritative ruling was made by the Supreme Court.

The Chief Justice said that it would depend on the circumstances, but that he wouldn’t be comfortable arguing hypothetical situations. He required concrete situations against which to apply the constitution. His role with respect to the law was to refine the rough edges of how the constitution was interpreted.

Mike left the meeting knowing that he was going to have to deliver the order to cancel more than twenty surveillance operations. The only good thing that came out of the meeting was the decision that they could use them to look through windows. Once bullets were flying then using the high tech devices to search houses from which weapons fire was suspected of emerging was legal.

Under the guidance of President Anthony Archer, the spiral into social anarchy was halted. The number of deaths per week due to terrorist activities dropped to single digits for the first time since the New Years Massacre. It wasn’t due to a lack of effort on the part of the terrorists. Their efforts were being thwarted before they could be effective. Enrollments in colleges rose for the first time since the mass murder rampages by terrorists on campuses had nearly destroyed higher education.