Three Metal Pellets

5. Choctaw Ridge Resort-1

5

Choctaw Ridge Resort

As soon as Priscilla and Julia arrived at the Choctaw Ridge Resort, they learned that its many buildings served not only as a resort but also as a retreat and a country club.

As they walked through the resort on an early fall afternoon, they saw a large number of annuals and perennials that surrounded each building: pansies, chrysanthemums, asters, begonias, and marigolds. And they saw a variety of trees, mostly pines and a few dogwoods, maples, magnolias, and oaks. The trees stood amid a dense woods, which surrounded an immense lake. Given their choice of pedal-boats, rowboats, or motorboats, Priscilla and Julia selected a pedal-boat and pedaled it across the lake and observed some of the other, less visible features of the resort. Northwest of the main site of the resort, they saw a golf course, which had been designed to reflect the natural setting—the soil and grasses and rock formations—of north central Alabama. From their boat, Priscilla and Julia saw biking and hiking trails swirling throughout the golf course. After they pedaled their boat through some dangling moss, they came upon many cabins and bungalows nestled within more pines. On their return trip, they saw a helipad on the shore of the immense lake. Even the helipad had been meticulously landscaped with ground cover and a few colorful, fleshy succulents.

Soon they were near the entrance to the country club. So they pedaled their boat up to the bank nearest it and got out. Then they walked up a high knoll, where the clubhouse stood. Its façade resembled an ancient Roman monument, such as the Arch of Constantine. Priscilla saw two columns anchoring the façade, and they were complemented by immensely tall windows and doors. To the left of the clubhouse was the helipad, well-hidden behind more pines and landscaping. To the right was a garden, where, upon gazing at its hardscape, Priscilla thought, Perhaps the Hollingsworths are world travelers because there’s so much art and sculpture throughout the grounds.

Most impressive to Priscilla were the two columns that greeted the guests upon their arrival. She and Julia walked inside the clubhouse. The foyer was a large, open space with seats that surrounded a simple, lighted aquarium filled with colorful fishes. To the immediate left of the foyer was a powder-and-cloak room. On the other side of the foyer were administrative offices. To the immediate right of the foyer was a bar and lounge with adjoining powder-and-cloak rooms.

The second major space in the clubhouse was the conference-ballroom, which extended the width of the building. Partitioned into three rooms, the space seemed to Priscilla that it would accommodate three hundred guests. Off to the left of the conference-ballroom was a commercial-grade kitchen and a storage area, where, for the first time, the two friends saw a kitchen crew working feverishly for what they knew was the menu for the reception and the dinner that evening.

Fully aware that they might encounter more staff making the place ready for the evening, they wrapped up their tour after noticing that the rear wall was made of glass and featured a third major space: a huge, oblong indoor pool, complete with shower stalls and steam baths. But they stood still for a moment and marveled at the magnificent atrium that covered the pool and shower stalls and steam baths. Yet while Priscilla and Julia were in the ballroom, they mistook the pool for being outdoors when, in fact, the landscaping had created that illusion. As they rushed back through the facility to the outside, they hoped that they would not encounter any more of the staff making ready for the evening’s festivities.

Back outside, they saw tennis courts behind the clubhouse. Priscilla pointed out to Julia the hiking and biking paths that circled the immense grounds of the clubhouse. Choctaw Ridge Resort had indeed been designed with a flair for elegance and intrigue.

Historically, the site had been home to Choctaw Indians who had escaped the Indian Removal Program of the early 1830s. During Priscilla’s visit, a few Choctaw Indians comprised a miniscule portion of the population of Birmingham and the surrounding communities. But before their displacement, neighboring Mississippi had been their home, and that of the Chickasaw; Alabama and Georgia had been home to the Creek and Cherokee; and Florida had been home to the Seminoles. Unfortunately, however, in what became known as the Trail of Tears, most of the Indian tribes in the eastern part of the country had been forced off their land. But some bold warriors among them had fought for their land through the American court system. During the 1830s, the South had been a producer of half of the cotton in the world; therefore, the Southern cotton producers had utilized every possible action to take over the rich farmland in the area. So, despite some of the Indians’ legal victories, the American Congress had sided with the Southern cotton producers and land speculators and developers and had authorized the Indians’ displacement west of the Mississippi River.

But some of the Choctaw had escaped the removal program and had hidden from the American soldiers in the dense forests at Choctaw Ridge. They had refused to come out of hiding even when faced with starvation. As a matter of survival, therefore, others of the Choctaw had assimilated with the African slave population, whereas many others had simply died out. So, in tribute to the Choctaw, the Hollingsworths had chosen to preserve Choctaw Ridge and had marked the Choctaw mounds with historical markers on what had become Hollingsworth property.

After Priscilla read some of the historical markers planted throughout the grounds, she felt at ease. Natives of Canton, Mississippi, several of the Austins had intermarried with the Choctaw there. On her maternal side, however, Priscilla’s grandmother was Cherokee, and Priscilla’s mom, Liza, had always boasted of that part of her family’s heritage, and although Fleetwood Marshall Hollingsworth possessed a more detailed record of his pedigree, Priscilla had finally come to terms with much of her own.

True to form—as CIA Agent Froley and FBI Agent Rothschild had informed Priscilla earlier—back in Joburg, the South African terrorists had, in fact, reorganized. After the SANM PG and the Judges had been dismantled in August 1986, the newly revived South African terrorists had opened their offices in opulent quarters just like their predecessors, but they used a slightly different name, the New South Africa Patrol Guard. Also like their predecessors, they did not print or publicize the “Patrol Guard” in any of their literature. Because their families had already controlled much of the wealth in the country, the New South Africa Patrol Guard expended their energy and resources on developing the intelligence wing of their organization. But, for the most part, they strengthened their raison d’être: the elimination of PJ Austin and, now, presidential hopeful Fleetwood Marshall Hollingsworth.

Because the a*******d system still existed in 1987, the remnants of the South African terrorists continued to sponsor their lobbyists in the U.S. Congress, and Eerik von de Smidthe was one of their key lobbyists. The nephew of former SANM Executive Committee CEO Simeon Johannes, Eerik was PG to his core. Of all the other South African lobbyists, he had been the most familiar with Congressman Hollingsworth, hence his assignment to eliminate the congressman and to eradicate the earlier, foiled assassination attempts of PJ Austin.

At the helm of the New South Africa Patrol Guard was Ian Saunders (Saperstein). Having earned his stripes in the South African Army, Ian now commanded the contingency of fairly new recruits in the Patrol Guard, who, like himself, possessed strong military training because the South African Army was one of the most efficient in the world.

“Eerik,” PG Commander Ian Saunders (Saperstein) said, “they’re meeting at that swanky country club as we speak, so we’ve got to make the first attempt a successful one.” The PG commander was conversing with his compatriot Eerik by telephone from his office in Joburg.

Eerik von de Smidthe had been the mysterious man who had missed two opportunities to kill Priscilla at the airport in Atlanta, and then at the airport in Birmingham. After his conversation with his PG commander, Eerik had made his way to the Choctaw Ridge Resort, where he had been ordered to eliminate both Priscilla and the congressman during the reception that evening.

But unlike Ian, and Eerik, too, for that matter, most of the other PG recruits lacked any intense psychological training. Yet their desire to avenge the deaths of their predecessors far outweighed proper planning for a long-term agenda. At the time, they simply wanted to avenge the deaths of their family members and other compatriots who had been killed during the dismantling of the organization at the culmination of Priscilla’s time in Africa.

While PG Eerik von de Smidthe staked out the situation at the Choctaw Ridge Resort and while Priscilla and Julia continued familiarizing themselves with the country club, CIA Agent Froley and some of his colleagues at Langley discussed the status of the newly revived Patrol Guard.

“Well, that’s crazy,” Agent Froley said. “We wouldn’t expect a former Marine to automatically become a Navy seal overnight. Now would we?”

Agent Froley and his colleagues pondered the swiftness with which the SANM PG had transformed itself into the New South Africa Patrol Guard.

But, as it turned out, the CIA officials determined, and rightly so, that a South African soldier does not automatically become a patrol guardsman overnight. There was a battery of training and regimen requisite to becoming a member of a special operatives unit. But American intelligence officials had no idea how bizarre the new order of the Patrol Guard would turn out to be, so they decided it was best to prepare for the worst. As far as American intelligence was concerned, the so-called New South Africa Patrol Guard had merely represented a name change in the terrorist organization formerly known as the SANM PG; therefore, American intelligence officials still referred to the order as “the SANM PG.”

Back at the Choctaw Ridge Resort in Birmingham, Priscilla was eager to attend the reception because she had so desperately wanted to meet the presidential hopeful. But little did she know that the congressman had been equally excited to meet her. Already dressed in a simple, sleeveless, V-necked silk gown of gray with black-and-white zebra-like streaks of color, she waited in the living room of her bungalow for Julia to join her. But when Julia walked into the room Priscilla was suddenly overwhelmed by her emotions.

“Oh, Julia, your dress, well, it’s just … and the color matches your complexion really well.”

Julia was wearing the tea-length, melon-color silk dress that Liza had designed for the bridesmaids for Priscilla’s ill-fated wedding.

As the tears streamed down Priscilla’s cheeks, Julia rushed over to comfort her.

“Priscilla, I had to wear it. Something told me to get it over with, now. But if it’s too much for you, I’ll wear something else.”

Priscilla wiped away her tears. “No, Girlfriend, please don’t change. Besides, my shrink told me to try and relive that tragic day and the other stuff as much as possible.” (That “tragic day” had been the day of Priscilla’s wedding when her fiancé, Jonathan Morgan, had been mistakenly assassinated by a member of the SANM PG.) Then she stuffed some tissues in her handbag, and the friends left for the reception.

The weather was unseasonably mild and dry—remarkable weather for early fall in Alabama. Along their short walk on the narrow roadway lined with pines and maples, Priscilla and Julia met several other guests leaving their bungalows and also heading to the reception. The more people they met, the more their excitement heightened.

Then, as they approached the entrance to the clubhouse, a photographer stepped in front of Priscilla and Julia and the other guests they had met and snapped their picture several times.

Either still unaware of—or uncomfortable with—her popularity, Priscilla seemed genuinely surprised at the number of people who asked her to take pictures with them, even though she had said, “Folks, please, the congressman is the focal point. Besides, I need to get inside.” But when Priscilla had had her fill of the seeming frivolity, she simply walked past the other guests straight through the foyer.

Then, to her amazement, through the wide threshold leading to the ballroom, she finally caught a glimpse of the congressman and his wife. They were standing in a receiving line right inside the ballroom. Several other guests were still trying to get Priscilla’s attention, some asking to take pictures with her, too.