Beaulieu and Haddad had won. It seemed that nothing could stand in the way of these two men who were empowered by Satan to subjugate the world. Thus, the time had come for their next move.

THE PEOPLE LOVED PRESIDENT Mark Beaulieu. In their eyes he could do no wrong. When contingents of troops from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey began appearing on the streets of American cities, no one was alarmed. In fact, they warmly greeted the men and women wearing the teal blue jumpsuits, combat boots, and white helmets. On the breast pockets and the backs of each uniform were the bright red letters UP on an orange field surrounded by a circle of white stars.

But after the arrival of the troops, mysterious things began to happen. Prominent citizens started disappearing—public officials, lawyers, educators, businessmen. On a given day, these people would be very much in evidence, but the next day, they would disappear without a trace.

As alarm increased across the nation, the president announced a plan to combat the disappearances. To provide safety for the citizens from abduction by unidentified assailants, each person was to be given an identification card. The concept was simple. Convenient boxes were established all over a town or city. After 6:00 P.M., monitors would indicate whether or not each person was safe at home. If someone broke the electronic zone around his home after 6:00 P.M., he would have to log in at the safety box nearest his home. If he had not logged back in at some zone box within five hours of departure, safety squads would begin a search to see if foul play had occurred.

It all seemed so kind and thoughtful, until people began to realize that they had been surrounded by an electronic cage of fiber optic cables, electronic sensors, and reporting stations all connected to a powerful network of super-computers. At first, the periodic safety checks seemed inconvenient but benign. It remained so until people around the country who failed to check in on time returned home with swollen, puffy faces and bruises as a result of beatings administered by troops of the Union for Peace.

One of the early victims of a brutal beating was Vince D’Agostino, the former chief of staff to ex-president Rust. After quitting his job, Vince had decided to go back to practicing law again, with a small firm in Washington, D.C. Both he and his wife, Angie, had been among the unaffected, something for which Vince thanked God every day. Of the eight lawyers in the firm, he was the only one who was un-affected. As a result, he had single-handedly held the office together.