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Show Acting Alone Page 99 the hallowed ground that contained the remains of one of their saints - or would-be saints. (Elder Cicerone could never get these medieval superstitions straight; that's partly why he'd converted so eagerly.) All due to one rapid series of perverted actions by a single terrorist acting alone. Such a monster, or terrorist, of course, would just be cutting his/her own throat. All it would take would be one or two incidents of extensive social unrest here in placid, prosperous Colorado Springs to produce a healthy, strong backlash among the populace, to finally make the lower and middle classes ready for the buildup and full unleashing of an adequate law enforcement establishment. Nothing too terribly sanguinary would need be done: for example, the firebomb at the convent could be placed and detonated on a First Friday, when the tornado/air raid sirens are tested, when the nuns would be in their monthly day of recollection, all quiet and not working and poised to get underground to safety quickly. The flash and the noise, the damage to property but not to life would be more than sufficient to produce the desired reaction in Reagan's America. This scenario, of course, called to mind the Elder's church. Whenever the communists or the Nazis march into a town to ream it out, there follows the church. Wherever the church gets a significant toehold, crime suddenly drops way below the national average. A certain county in Utah, for example, is the smallest population center in the United States of America to boast its own crack SWAT team. In places where terror and chaos get a foothold, the Council of the Twelve's missionary rosters grow a foot or two. The general level of popular neurosis rises with the crime rate, as do the |
