Mushroom Mandate

By John Gordon Jenkins

How much government is too much? How much protection becomes intrusive? How does the individual draw the line when decisions are made by the few for the many? In every land on this planet people ask these questions, even if they ask them quietly. Where has the educational system of any nation failed to provide basic reasoning skills and clear logic as the primary template for life here? When manipulation becomes common, when money and power become ends in themselves the individual comes to a time of personal choice. This is a story of people that have fallen into an uncommon grasp of a powerful manipulation whether they wished it or not.

Mushroom Mandate presents characters considered protective in a negative light. Yet it is other than a judgment of institutions and the devoted people that populate different agencies. If there is a message here it is that we, living men and women, have a responsibility to ourselves. That responsibility is to be truly self governing and self reliant and events will often make such responsibility challenging. Changing our selves into stronger men and women rather than changing our neighbors is the one solution that may be hardest to accomplish yet the most satisfying. The technology in Mushroom Mandate has been around for a while even if it might be unutilized.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Gordon Jenkins
• Release date: Sep 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463029909

John Gordon Jenkins

I enjoyed writing at an early age and was an avid sci-fi reader pre teen and then into my teens. I have always been what I now name - a non-centrist, perhaps referred to as an individualist. I was guided into early inner experience with Gurdjieff teaching then trappist monasteries, Franciscan brotherhood and working in the world and ultimately reaching my continual overstanding that an inner and loving path is my personal way to the realms of higher consciousness. My journey to God began with lifetimes before this present one . . . and is never ending.

Book preview

Mushroom Mandate

Book One

By John-Gordon Jenkins

 1999 by: John-gordon Jenkins & Susan Jenkins

Cover Design by: Susan Jenkins

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Mushroom Mandate is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, is coincidental.

Mushroom Mandate

Book 1

by John-gordon Jenkins

Chapter 1

What do you want us to do? Arnold tightened his hands on the hat brim and looked down at the man who had invited him into the back room of Irv Kaplan's bank. That man had broad shoulders, too broad for the short body, his hands were large and rugged and his smile seemed dreamlike as though his attention was far from the steamy office in the Central Arkansas Bank, and even far away from Arnold and his wife. Those sea green eyes settled on Arnold now and this stranger expressed a confidence in the rightness of his existence, the correctness of his questioning Arnold and no doubts whatsoever that he had every right to ask whatever he chose.

Arnold was too old to have the fears of a boy and had never feared any authority anyway. If anything, authority angered him and from as early as he could remember, the exercise of power by someone bigger, or someone wearing a uniform made him cautious. But Arnold was a cagey youngster growing up and shaped into an alert and perceptive man as he aged, he learned to keep any anger banked until he had come to terms with the world. This was the way of the world for the strong decided for the weak or indifferent. His single voice could hardly change the world or America, so he learned how to deal with authority by tapping that well of feeling in small increments just a little here and little there to feed his personal passion for fairness and its result, justice.

Arnold had a studied way of talking, slow and easy even though his father never talked that way, no one in his family did. That caginess early led him by careful observation to realize that authority demanded a variety of self-incrimination and careful speech was one way to defeat it. Another way was to never let the authority know how you really think or feel about anything, always appear to be one of the sheep and this worked perfectly with the bigger people, the adults in his life, by extension he recognized that it worked perfectly with any authority whatsoever.

He seldom spoke quickly, and practiced as a boy when he intentionally decided to speak slowly. He put in a lot of pauses, and choose his words carefully so he would never regret what he said, never be trapped by the many people that seemed to want to always control. It was perfectly fine if everyone thought he was a little slow.

Over the years Arnold Carson had forced himself to slow his speech at a time when excitement was the order of the day until it was a natural part of him. In school he was often regarded just as he desired - as a slow learner. It suited him that people regarded him that way. It was a way of watching the manipulators around him, because when you're slow people didn't seem to see you as any kind of threat. If you’re not a threat they often would reveal themselves quickly and more completely than they could ever know. Only when someone actually tried to direct his thinking did they discover that he was also stubborn. Intractable was a word he had come to enjoy being applied to him, and of course, stupid.

Right now it equipped him to choose words that he knew would imply his complete cooperation with the FBI. In fact his words were planned to be as un-cooperative as possible. They didn't know that, and especially this green eyed, lizard lidded man that Arnold had taken an instant dislike to.

His country intuition not only concealed his distrust of these men, but it guided the words that would provide Carl with a warning that these creatures were after him. Since his son Frank as a national guardsman had been lost in Iraq, sent there illegally by a president with a twisted spirit and empty heart, taking the state citizens of the national guard and shipping them away. Arnold Carson had not the slightest use for the government. His trust had been meager anyway and he always trusted his own judgment of men and situations, period, authority be damned.

I just can't believe that such a nice man would do things like you say. It’s so wrong, and Carl's gentle, not a danger to anyone. Nancy Carson nodded her head as if to say yes, you agree, don't you sir, you and the NSA and CIA and all the other agencies. She knew her husband’s attitude and over the years had come to share it. He would do this his way, she would appear the docile wife with her dress sweat stained around the collar and at the arm pits, even in the room air conditioned against the Arkansas heat. The air conditioning seemed to make the air stuffy and hard to breathe, they didn't have air conditioning in their home and had no use for it.

The Carson's had farmed the land outside Lake View for thirty years.

He's been with us for nearly a year. Hard to get good help on a small farm. Arnold Carson nodded his head slowly. `Keep it slow, look for a way to help Carl,' he thought.

Agent Jim Hillman congratulated himself on his decision to contact the Carsons. The heart of America was in these two, well at least they would be helpful, why didn't really matter. These were the folks that fought and died for the ideals he had never seen anyone in the beltway act on, plus he knew their son had died fighting a sort of terrorism in Iraq, they were true believers. Even if they would never understand the necessity for M project, possibly even object to it in principle, they understood that the system would always take care of them and look after their interests. It would make the final judgment of what those interests were. It was the American way. He nodded knowingly as he glanced down at the document in front of him. His beefy hands held it angled so Arnold Carson couldn't read it.

Alex Kova, Polish American, masters in Physical Education, 36 years of age. `Way past his prime. What was Kova doing, running around like a youngster? He wasn't trained in any standard terrorist skills, insurgent skills the service called them when they were sending their own into some area to create a mess. He did have some Navy Intelligence training while in the Navy as an MP. Could be difficult.'

Hillman felt the optimistic warmth ignite in his gut. This man could be a challenge, and Hillman loved a test of his skills as much and maybe even more than he loved his work. This Kova must be sharp, he had escaped capture at the Institute and evaded another time in Atlanta, then disappeared until the tip they received from a periodic review of all Motor Vehicle Department records pointed to Arkansas. God help the thorns in government’s side when the national ID card becomes law. Then everyone better damn well do what the US of A corporation said was best. Hillman's face was sober while he enjoyed an inner chuckle.

In the folder was a copy of a top secret order, signed by the Assistant Attorney General. Hillman executed one other like this, but this one he had personally drafted and Gerald Frazer had taken it up with the Congressional oversight committee as an example of their operations subject to the new fiasco called Homeland Security. What a put-on. Americans had become the most easily led people on the planet, and Senators and Congressmen were born with rings in their noses, which is why they were presented as ideal candidates. Everything was clean on this, everything. `Use extreme caution, suspected of terrorist activities, in possession of Top Secret Information, armed and dangerous.'

No question about Kova having information dangerous to national security. Hillman knew that well enough. What Hillman knew could be misinterpreted by some. It all depended on viewpoint and Hillman was sure his view would differ widely with Kova’s.

He scanned the material though he practically knew it by heart: references to Kova's military training, five years with Military Police, two in Japan and three in Thailand. Discharged in Taiwan at his own request.

Hillman's orders were to capture or to kill the man, and five agents were part of the team to see that it was done, if this was really Kova and not a dud.

We just want to question him, that's all. But if he's the man we're seeking, any hint of our being around would send him running. People could get hurt. It's why we approached you about his schedule. What I think will happen is, we'll make contact with Carl, determine that he's not the person we're looking for, apologize and go our way. It's what I expect Mr. Carson, but I can't take any chances at all. You understand don't you?

Arnold Carson nodded softly and murmured, yes, yes he understood. But he watched them the way a man imbedded in nature watches, out of some third eye or from some place where he didn't have to look at them; he could almost see their thoughts written out against the walls of Irv's private office. Arnold had no faith in uniforms or credentials, but he never let it show, he knew people were basically afraid, they were good but frightened. Uniforms and authority reassured them. Arnold had never found authority reassuring. He walked around it like a cat around a stranger that smelled slightly off. He would spare the stranger a glance and then feign indifference, but all the while being ready for trouble.

How could he let Carl know what these men were up to? There was something definite and sharp behind Hillman's eyes, some cagey kind of thing that meant the man wasn't being totally honest, or else he wasn't comfortable with what he was doing. Hillman's soul and his heart were out of tune, that was it. Arnold knew the soul of a man was good, but the heart could get twisted. So what he saw here was a man who's heart was out of line with his spirit.

As to Carl Henderson, if that was Carl's name, and Arnold didn't really care if it was or not. He measured a lot of steps higher up the ladder of Arnold Carson's universe than these men did.

When you leave here give us about two hours. Go about your business. You've been to town. You may not even see Carl before dinner time. Hillman spread a map over Irv's desk. At first it irked Arnold that Irv would give his office up to these dark suited low lives. Didn't the man have any sense at all? But his thinking processes got going and Arnold smiled at himself, an inside smile. Irv was smart and there were bank examiners and tax auditors that could make his life hell if the wrong word was passed around about him being uncooperative in the inner circuits that all governments have. Irv was just being cagey, as cagey as he was when they played an occasional hand of poker.

It was a good section map but had not been updated. There were changes in the creek bed and part of a hill had washed down a ways so the levels were wrong.

The biggest change was a strand of forest that now was nothing more than burnt stubs from a lightning fire two years ago, but no one could tell that from the map - it was all forest green on the paper spread out on the desk. These men would drive along Fair Rd., turn a bend in the access road leading to the distant field where Carl was, and instead of a wooded slope to cover their approach, their cars would stick out like roaches in an empty bathtub.

Now where is this field in relation to the woods, somewhere near this road?

Right here. Arnold pointed to a level spot with no elevation nodes on it. That field was flat in hilly terrain. It had taken work and he was proud of it. There was just a slight tilt to the land but not enough for water to run toward the creek, and not enough to wash away the rich soil. Right now Carl was planting some ten foot saplings to further protect the field along the creek bed.

The road you want is here, comes up behind this forest. Once you get around that bend and up into here, his big hand made the map seem like a piece of note paper, you better walk, since you're being cautious and all.

Hillman closed the map and rose.

He stood medium height and solid looking and his handshake was firm, though his big hand was engulfed by Carson's. Thanks Mr. Carson, Mrs. Carson. We appreciate your help. Like I say, we have to follow every lead we get, however slim and unlikely. It's people like you that make our work easier and safer.

The agents watched the couple leave. Hillman nodded to the one at the door as it closed after them. Martin Hartley pulled a small marvel of electronics from his vest and spoke into it. Team B, meet us at Kerner road and Highway 12 in fifteen minutes.

Hillman grabbed a hat from the rack, wishing he didn't have to wear it in this heat, but knowing he would be uncomfortable without it. Let's go, we can brief them at the crossing. No more radio.

Chapter 2

This was like shaking hands with nature. This is what appealed to Alex about the work he did for the Carsons, unlike the construction in Atlanta where his building experience before he joined the military gave him the skills to do foundation work on a project. He had a car there but seldom drove, not trusting the phony license he paid quite a bit of his stake for. Eight months in Atlanta and he applied for a license with a false birth certificate, but their insistence on a social security number forced him to make one up so he used the same one that was provided with the license. That mismatch along with his photo and approximate age provided the slight hint that led Hillman and his team to Arkansas where Alex was unaware of their coming.

If the rains were mild this year the saplings should take root deep enough to provide the soil protection from the creek, that's what Arnold explained in his slow and methodical manner two days ago and Arnold knew Alex would be at work on it this week. It was Tuesday and he already had all the sites dug and the saplings lined up. They were about 10 feet tall and had been delivered yesterday afternoon.

Alex knew that meeting Arnold was either a sign of the gods favoring him or very good fortune. Almost a year here and he was relaxing and considering a social life. It wasn't what he had hoped for after leaving Taiwan and the unique training with the Hwa Hu master. That had been the most intense three years of his life and at the end he and the two men he had come to know as brothers that trained with him were all released from their three year agreement. Then they could continue on with whatever manner of life they created. Bill, Stan and himself all had goals outside of staying to become top students and style trainers in Taiwan. His choice of Tesla-Cordine did not appear as if it was a blessing from any gods, more like a strange joke on him and any plans he might have for a normal life. At least now he was working for a man he liked and respected and Arnold's wife was a gem as well as an exceptional cook. This made living in a small cabin back of their farmhouse the very best of luck.

It was a creek notorious for surprises, he thought about the natural elements he worked with now and how similar it was to living in a small village in the mountains of Taiwan. Alex walked to