The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Rosen Estate

Sanibel Island

Florida

"Coming to us live from his family home in Florida...thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Mr President?" Martin Pelosi said, his tanned smiling face appearing in the corner of Fletcher's monitor as he watched himself going out live on the leading syndicated breakfast show in the country. Jake had set the equipment up on the porch, with a view of the lake in the background, and he was wearing a polo shirt, because it was a Saturday morning and he was technically off duty. Not that a President was ever really off duty.

"Thank you for asking me, Martin...you know that this is an issue that really concerns me and I am delighted to have the opportunity to address it with your audience."

"Yes...you are concerned about these plans to staff a new hospital in Boston with nuns...is that right, Mr President?" Pelosi, a friend of Jake Palmer, said as arranged, setting him up to say what he wanted, in his own way. "It all sounds pretty crazy to me?"

"More like horrified, Martin...this is not Britain...we do not force young women to join a religious order and make them work like slaves...even if those young women are convicted criminals? And I know that using a word like slaves is emotive...but that is what they are and that is why they would save the state of Massachusetts money. Bill Bateman is a staunch Christian Reformist...and I have no problem with that, he is entitled to his beliefs...right up until he starts trying to import one of the more iniquitous British models to allow him to deliver on his cheaper healthcare for all promises. The reason nuns are cheaper than nurses is that you don't have to pay them a salary, you don't have to give them benefits, or holidays and they don't take sick days. And they can be forced to work longer hours, and kept in worse conditions than any prisoner in this country has to tolerate. Using the word convent conjures up romantic pictures of saintly women in their familiar black and white habits mopping the fevered brow of her patients. But this is a prison, which the women thrown in there will never leave. If they don't work, they will be beaten...if they don't pray, they will be beaten...that is what happens in Britain...the only way this works is if you abuse the young women you force to become nuns, to make them slave for the state?"

"But the idea is to only use women serving a life sentence, Mr President?" Pelosi asked as Fletcher deliberately paused to let him cut in, sticking to his script.

"Martin...this Boston project is a trial...as we understand it, they plan to open hundreds of these facilities...and they will need four to five hundred nuns to make one hospital work. As we only have around seven thousand women serving life sentences, they are not going to have enough to go around, are they?"

"They do mention other sources, Mr President?"

"Yes...there is a possibility that they intend to import British nuns...slaves...to provide the trained medical staff they need," Fletcher said grimly, staring down the eye of the camera and talking directly to the people. "Remember that in Britain you don't have to do much to earn yourself a life sentence...not being employed or married by the age of eighteen will do it...or your father can sell you into service...Martin, we are talking state-sponsored slavery here whatever way you look at it, and I don't think that the good people of America want to have access to cheap healthcare delivered by slaves?"

Palmer was sitting just out of shot, drinking coffee whilst rather enjoying watching a master at work. Sean Fletcher had learned a lot from Sharon Rosen, and he spoke with passion and sincerity, never pulling his punches. He knew he would only get five short minutes to speak to Pelosi's ten million viewers, and he had to be punchy to make sure that his soundbites cut well for social media. Jake and Norman would have been working on that state-sponsored slavery line, honing it and perfecting it, and the White House media team would have the clip on every social media platform five minutes after he finished speaking.