Henry Rossenberg sat slumped in his easy chair, looking down at the floor once again as the men in the room argued loudly about the new change in their plans. Henry had finally made up his mind; he was going to take his chances with the "Satanists" and turn himself in. Murdock had temporarily re–established telephone contact with the authorities to inform them that he would be coming out soon.

"Don't let him go, Dan... they'll torture him, and worse. You know what they do, they'll take him to their disgusting vivisectionist worms... then they'll brag about it in their movies! We can't let him give himself to them –– it's inhuman..." Franklin rose up from his seat and faced Murdock. "I couldn't bear to go out thinking about what they'd do to him! You have to stop him, Dan..."

Murdock ran his finger down the barrel of his weapon as he listened to the arguments, uncertain of how to proceed. He wasn't just afraid of what Wolfen or his cronies would do to Henry; it was their controllers, the secret Usher society, that really worried him. These people didn't think like ordinary humans; they were ultra–paranoid, insanely vengeful over the most minute transgression, and responded with sadistic measures against any individual or entity insolent enough to try to thwart their objective, which was to take control over the entire planet. They were on a quite different plane of consciousness than normal people, and seemed to absolutely relish gloating, through their various entertainment mediums, about the injuries and insults they were continuously inflicting on a seemingly helpless society, while simultaneously proclaiming their complete innocence of any wrongdoing on some other media outlet.

John's fears were not unwarranted. Dan had heard numerous accounts of witnesses to conspiratorial crimes who had been murdered, or had simply died without explanation; mathematicians had calculated that the likeliness of so many witnesses being randomly murdered or dying of natural causes at about the same time was too microscopically minute to be believable. Most of these deaths were not reported on any news stations, papers or magazines; the victims were simply buried without a marker, to the helpless outrage of their families and friends. There was no reason to believe that Henry would be treated differently; yet Dan had no right to order Henry to stay inside and die immediately with the rest of them, if he didn't want to.

The sounds of the choppers outside had multiplied in number. There were at least five now, with numerous surveillance and attack drones also circling around; their noise was making it more and more difficult for the men inside to communicate with each other. Suddenly the loudspeaker outside crackled and came to life again.

"Major General Dan Murdock!" Colonel Rothman's voice was stern and authoritative. "You must all surrender now! This will be your last warning! You will be responsible for any deaths or injuries that may occur... the blood of innocent soldiers will be on your hands! Surrender now! This is your last chance!"

Without setting down his weapon, Murdock went over to have a look at the t.v. screen and was amazed at what he saw; standing in the large wide meadow that separated the forests outside his fenced front grounds were a multitude of armed men arrayed in orderly rows, with more rows forming behind them, just behind Colonel Rothman's unit and the media tents. There had to be over a hundred of them; he realized in an instant that it was the local militia, having courageously come to offer their support. With all the frantic last–minute preparations he had been making, this possibility had just not occured to him.

"Shit! I hadn't thought of this... it's the Franklinville militia. O.k., Martin, you'd better get the recording going now... but first I'll have to tell the militia to stand down, or there's going to be a big blood bath, and not just our own. Tell me when you're ready for me..."

Murdock turned to face Henry again. "Henry... are you absolutely certain you want to go out there? You're aware of what might happen to you... are you sure you still want to go through with this? Because if you do, you'll have to leave... soon." He glanced at the t.v. monitor again; the crowd outside was growing larger by the minute, coming down the private road from the highway that led to his estate. Colonel Rothman would surely be issuing orders to start dispersing the unwanted witnesses soon.

Murdock looked around the room; all eyes were on him, waiting for a word. He took a deep breath, exhaled heavily, and looked into Henry's eyes. "Alright then," he said softly. "Give me a second to announce your surrender to the crowd, so Rothman won't shoot you to pieces outright. Then you can go, Henry." He motioned to Sean Hackman, one of the other Air Force Officers present. "Sean... would you please go with Henry to the front door? Then get back up here quick." Without setting down his gun, Hackman rose and went to Henry, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. They both turned to leave.

Murdock had had reservations about including Henry in this dangerous scheme, but because of Henry's insistence, as well as his value as a first–hand witness to the Conspirators' criminal methods and deeds, he had brought him on board. Now he felt a heavy pain rising in his chest as he watched the men walking away; he found himself having to struggle not to shed tears.

"Goodbye Henry, and may God go with you! Like I said before... I'm very proud to be your co‑conspirator!" Dan almost choked on his last words. Turning around, Henry managed a weak smile. "Thanks, Dan. I feel the same way about you... all of you." He looked around at all the men in the room one last time, marvelling at their composure; then, fighting not to shed a tear himself, he brought his hand up to his forehead and held it there in a military salute. The men in the room, still holding their weapons, solemnly returned his respectful gesture. Henry dropped his hand to wipe away the tear that had begun running down his cheek; then turning his back on them all, he and Hackman walked out the door.

Outside the front gate, the nodding Colonel Rothman snapped to attention as Dan Murdock's voice suddenly came booming out of the powerful loudspeakers he had planted everywhere. Panicking, cursing, Rothman picked up the hotline telephone to ask his superiors what he should do next... they would know, since they were watching the whole spectacle on their monitors. Sweat started to run down his brow as he waited to be connected; this was a problem he had not anticipated.

"Attention please!! This is Major General Daniel Murdock of the U.F.S. Air Force. We are sending out Henry Rossenberg now, who wishes to surrender himself to the authorities. He is unarmed, and will be holding up a white flag as he approaches –– I repeat, he is unarmed and should not be considered dangerous. Do not shoot! He is surrendering!" Murdock's hidden loudspeakers were cutting through the noise of the circling helicopters and could be clearly heard throughout the entire area. Dan held the microphone tightly in his hand, relieved; then he brought it back up to his mouth to speak again.

"Attention, brave patriots of the Franklinville Militia! I am ordering you to stand down. Do not engage in combat with any government forces! It will not help us in any way; they will quite simply massacre all of you in cold blood and lie about why they did it, via their media vehicles. You will be made to look like traitors engaged in a treasonous attack on your own country! I repeat, there is nothing you can do to help us, and you must not engage in battle! The best thing you can do is disperse, disarm, then come back and try to record what is going to happen on video cameras; then try to distribute the evidence for posterity, as well as you can." Dan was beginning to feel light–headed, and suddenly remembered that in all of the frenzied activity he had been too busy to think of food; he hadn't eaten at all that day. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

Murdock had wanted to see Henry safely depart the grounds before playing the message he had carefully worked out and recorded –– his last warning to the world. But Ballsey had reminded him of the time factor, and he was right; their time was running out. He had to move now.

"Attention please!! This is Major General Daniel Murdock of the U.F.S. Air Force. If anyone has voice recorders on their portable phones, turn them on now to record what I'm going to say... no news medium is going to report what I tell you tonight without editing my words out of context. You must try to convey this message to everyone you possibly can, because it concerns not only your own well–being and safety, but also the fate of your country. Please turn on your telephone voice recorders now, quickly!"

There were a few seconds of silence, which Dan had put in to give witnesses a chance to get their phones out; to his immense satisfaction, he saw many in the crowd taking cell phones out of their pockets and holding them up; many had video cameras as well. A few more seconds passed, then Dan's voice came on again, loud and clear.

"You will be told that we are anti–Usheric extremists and racists who are motivated by jealousy and hatred, and a lust for wealth and power. This is simply not true; we are patriots, true to the designs of the founders of this country, which was to provide a safe haven in which ordinary, non–privileged people of all races and religions could live and prosper. That haven is now under attack, and may soon be gone forever if immediate action is not taken to thwart the conspiracy.

"The country has come under the control of an international cabal that operates in total secrecy, hence with complete impunity. The U.F.S. Government has been infiltrated and usurped by hostile foreign entities, mostly emanating from Usheria and Longlandia, whose goal is to bring not only this nation but the entire world under their domination, returning humanity to a condition similar to the middle ages so that a relatively small number of masters can manipulate, rob, degrade and otherwise abuse their helpless subjects with no fear of punishment. Alarmingly, some of the lesser components of this conspiracy have already brazenly revealed their disturbingly decadent natures, which are reflected in the jingoism, violence and insanity displayed in today's entertainment offerings and other influential mediums. Many of us know for a fact that the horror stories of satanic torture and murder rituals which unofficially circulate throughout the country are not a figment of some paranoid madman's imagination; these are based on facts that are not being reported by the media. The murders of the courageous witnesses and whistle–blowers who come forth to testify against the conspirators are also being covered up by the news media."

As Turner barked out commands, Rothman grimaced in annoyance; he didn't like what he was hearing. President Wolfen didn't want Henry Rossenberg, his Media Advisor, to remain alive; he was to be shot dead on the spot. Bet Bader hadn't specifically ordered Wolfen not to kill Rossenberg, and the President was determined not to let Henry get a chance to talk to anyone about anything, whether that person was under Bader's control or not. And that meant that Rothman would have to come up with some excuse to shoot Henry before he got to the reporters, who were only a short distance from the house. What was supposed to be a simple operation was starting to get complex, and Rothman didn't like things too complex; however, he realized that if he helped Wolfen in this matter, he would be extremely well–rewarded. And his excuse for gunning Henry down didn't have to be real good, either; the news media spin doctors would take care of the details.

"These Conspirators gain total control over us all by establishing a network of banks throughout the country which they refer to as The Central Reserve, a single entity, which has the ability to create paper money and grant loans to its operative constituents, and whoever else it pleases. I don't have time to completely describe how their system works, but basically they claim to be providing a means by which the country can stabilize its economy and achieve economic growth, by inflating and deflating the money supply to deal with fluctuations in the economic status quo. I'm not going to argue with their premise; what is important to understand is that The Central Reserve is not owned and operated by the citizens nor the government of this country, but by a secret group of conspiratorial financiers who pledge allegiance to no particular country. And they have not stabilized the economy, but rather have created financial havoc which is beneficial to their goal of merging all countries of the world into one homogeneous entity, under their supreme control.

"They are achieving this goal by simply rewarding key political and economic leaders who hold sway over a government's policies, and manipulating those leaders to extend massive loans to other countries which they either already totally control or want to control. As anyone can surmise, no politician, bank or country is going to turn those loans down, especially if they are already deeply in debt or trouble. Thus, once they have established themselves, these conspirators' method is almost absolutely foolproof, and the icing on their cake is that the loans don't have to come from their own pockets, but are provided from money fleeced from another country's citizenry, with the consent of the very leaders who are supposed to protect those citizens from these manipulative financier–politicians.

"Therefore, the only way to stop these conspirators is to identify the key political figures that are serving them, and themselves, and disempower these individuals. But in a democratic form of government, to legally neutralize these key figures involves a long, complicated process which the conspirators are experts at manipulating and circumventing, especially since they wield total control over the country's news outlets and other media. And by controlling a country's banking system, they hold a financial sword of Damocles over that country's head by implicitly threatening it with devastating recessions or depressions, which they can easily bring about through various methods that they have cultivated for centuries. These methods, and even the very fact of the conspirators' existence, are not taught in any of the country's schools and are unknown to most of the country's political representatives. Thus we are led like helpless ignorant lambs to the slaugher.

"The instigation and creation of abject warfare, where little or no conflict previously existed, is one of the methods by which they drain the strength and will of the country's citizenry and scare them into submission, reaping massive profits in the process. The events of October 13 in which Persianic terrorists allegedly flew hi–jacked airplanes into the Rothman Towers is a classic example of this instigation method..."

By this time Rothman's men had knocked down Murdock's heavy iron front gates and were in his large enclosed front yard; then from out of nowhere suddenly appeared John Terraman... The Knee. Holding a microphone in one hand and a U.F.S. flag in the other, he began doing his thing... the thing he did best.

"Hello patriots, this is John Terraman, coming to you live at the scene of the big standoff... Murdock's cowardly conspirators are too afraid to come out and face us, except for Henry Rossenberg, who was the President's media advisor and wants to give himself up... the traitor!"

As Terraman ranted away, a savvy newsman who was reporting live for another network had spotted a man he recognized as Michael Higgins, a five–star general of the Air Force, in the milling crowd. Approaching the officer, the newsman stuck his microphone in Higgins' face and began peppering him with questions regarding his relationship with the now disgraced Murdock; but instead of immediately answering the newsman's queries, Higgins simply stood there looking up at Murdock's mansion for a long time. The newsman stopped talking and held his microphone at the ready, waiting for some response.

Finally Higgins spoke. "All I want to tell you is that Dan Murdock is one of the best shots I know." He jerked his head in Terraman's direction. "You might want to move some of these patriots back a little ways," he said, with contempt in his voice. Then he turned and walked away.

Meanwhile, Terraman was energetically continuing his tirade, but suddenly stopped abruptly; Henry Rossenberg had just walked out of Murdock's front door and was descending the steps of the large porch. He began to walk slowly across the front yard towards the crowd, holding up a makeshift white flag.

Terraman was right on it. "Wait! I saw someone coming out Murdock's front door... it's... Rossenberg! He's walking towards us, holding up a white flag on a stick... here he comes, people, the traitor Henry Rossenberg!" Terraman really knew how to play the crowd.

Rothman's aide Emille was watching Henry intently, praying he would do something that would make it easier to explain why they had shot him. Then, as if from Providence above, Henry obliged him. Stumbling on a bone Murdock's dog had left in the yard, Henry dropped his flag. He quickly bent over to pick it up.

"Now!" Emille hissed to the sniper standing beside him, who quickly raised his rifle and fired. The single shot reverberated loudly, causing the entire crowd of witnesses to recoil in shock. The shooting was completely unprovoked, which was bad enough; but Emille's sniper, a moron and Knee fan who had been worked up by Terraman's raging, had deliberately aimed low. Henry gasped as a huge metal–piercing bullet ripped through his body, then fell to the ground, screaming and holding his stomach.

"You idiot! Why did you shoot him in the stomach? You goddamned jerk!" Under heavy stress Emille started to lose it, slapping his sniper on the head over and over, as the crowd began to react to the cruel and ignoble act they had just witnessed. Henry's agonized howls were resounding through the night air as he thrashed about on the moist, soft grass; he was experiencing excrutiating pain worse than anything he could ever have imagined. Convulsing in torment, he managed to twist and turn his body towards Murdock's house.

Watching the hellish betrayal from his t.v. monitor, Murdock felt a rage rising in his chest unlike anything he had ever felt before. Henry had been shot in the stomach, the worst thing they could do to him, as he was surrendering. He was in so much pain that he was pleading for Dan to put him out of his misery... and as he watched him thrash about pitifully, Murdock realized he had no other choice.

Putting down his huge rocket–firing gun, Murdock picked up the rifle next to him and ran to the large front window. Throwing back the curtains, he twisted the window's handle and flung it open, raising his rifle. He hesitated for a second, but he knew what Henry was experiencing; it would probably take minutes for him to die, in torturous agony. He couldn't bear to watch it anymore.

Three shots rang out in quick succession, and Henry stopped moving, lying still on the grass; he had been killed instantly by expertly aimed bullets. Murdock watched him for a few moments to make sure he was dead, then raised his rifle's scope to his eye once again.

Outside in his front yard, John Terraman was enthusiastically earning his pay. "Did you see that, people? Rossenberg has been shot from Murdock's house! The traitor has been killed by his own co–conspirators! This is poetic justice if I've ever seen..."

Suddenly another shot rang out, and Terraman went silent. Raising his hand, he touched his forehead for a second; then, his knees buckling, The Knee dropped to the ground with a bloody hole between his eyes. The crowd of witnesses watched him collapse... and many began to cheer.

Up in the house, Murdock's incensed partners were all holding their guns, ready to kill... and die. Suddenly the sound of the helicopters were right outside the windows; a second later a rocket crashed through one of the windows, sending glass and debris flying throughout the room and blasting a hole in the far wall, but hitting no one. For a brief second the men hesitated, looking at each other; then Mike Reynolds ran to one of the large front windows and threw back the curtains. Not bothering with the latch, he furiously smashed the glass with the butt of his heavy rocket–firing gun, then took aim and fired. He smiled with satisfaction as one of the helicopters exploded into flames and spun out of control, plummeting towards the ground. The rest of the men, including the civilian economics expert Michael DuPont who had been quickly versed in the usage of firearms, rapidly followed suit. Flinging open the windows, they began to fire upon the circling attack choppers.

Murdock's recorded voice could still be heard outside, as all hell broke loose. The Franklinville militia began to fire on the helicopters in spite of Murdock's orders. Accordingly, Rothman ordered his soldiers to fire on the militia–men, who actually outnumbered his own unit; he quickly requested additional airborne cavalry, which began to arrive in mere seconds. The crowd of witnesses, suddenly desiring to move back from the action, found themselves stuck between Rothman's soliders and the militia–men; panicking, they jostled and trampled one another trying to get away.

"Have this, you Satanic bastards!" Mike Reynolds yelled, as he blasted another helicopter out of the sky. The rest of Murdock's men were also having success in their endeavors; choppers and drones were dropping in flames all around the grounds. But more and more were coming, and it would only be a matter of time before they fire–bombed the house, using advanced weaponry that Dan's soldiers could not match.

The enraged Murdock, still firing on the airborne targets, felt his heart sinking as he watched the gruesome scene unfolding on the ground; he had not foreseen the militia showing up, and had made no contingency plan to disperse the civilians, many of whom were caught in the cross–fire of the battling soldiers. Their cries of terror added to the hellish din, chilling him to the bone, but there was nothing he could do to help them. Cursing, he blasted away at the ever–increasing helicopter cavalry, but he and his men were woefully outgunned.

Dan had laid out cyanide capsules on tables all around the room, in case his patriots were not killed in action; nobody wanted to be taken alive, not by the Ushers. He had made provisions for the assemblage to retreat to a fortified panic room, where they could have a dignified group suicide –– but Henry's decision to surrender had thrown his plans into disarray, and nobody was retreating. They were all going to fight to the bitter end.

Which came shortly. Incendiary missiles fired from the ground and air soon had the mansion ablaze –– but the trapped patriots inside kept shooting furiously skyward, even though the situation was hopeless; they were not going to go quietly. One by one they fell; the ones not hit by the constant rain of bullets and rockets directed at the house were being asphyxiated by the noxious smoke that filled the rooms.

Dan Murdock, the last man left standing, took out his pistol and began to duckwalk around the smoke–filled room, choking and gasping as he put the suffering soldiers out of their pain. When the last man was at peace, he paused for a few seconds, feeling the heat of the flames that were now licking at his legs; then, turning the gun on himself, Dan pulled the trigger. He felt no pain as he fell to the floor and lay still.

Meanwhile, the scene outside was unfolding like a war movie from hell as Rothman's men and the militia shot each other to pieces, while the helicopters circling above fired confusedly on the militia–men and Rothman's soldiers, and any civilians unlucky enough to be in close proximity to them. The grisly battle continued on for several long minutes; only when the last militia–man had fallen did the Colonel order his soldiers to cease firing and bring in the medics. Looking around at the smoking ruins of Murdock's mansion, then at the fallen bodies on the ground, some moaning in pain, others crying loudly for help, Rothman breathed a sigh of relief. The thing was done.