Children of the Same God

About the Book

UNITED STATES SENATOR E. COLEMAN MADSEN of Utah is a devout Mormon. His faith has taught him that when the Constitution of the United States is in danger, when, his religious writings have said, it is hanging as if by a thread, the Mormon Priesthood, the Elders of Israel, will rescue it. Madsen, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has learned that Islamic nations hostile to the United States have infiltrated, subverted and taken control of major drug cartels doing business in America. They are using illicit drugs as a double-edged sword, raising money to finance their nuclear and biological warfare programs while at the same time destroying the moral fiber and will to fight of young Americans. Madsen and his democrat colleague, the ranking minority member of the committee, have already taped an interview for airing on a Sunday morning talking heads news show. They are announcing hearings by their committee that will blow the whistle not only on corrupt members of the House and Senate and persons in the Executive Branch of the federal government, but also on business leaders, state legislators and judges at all levels of government. They know it will provoke a fire storm, but they are willing to do that now because they are convinced that America’s time is running out.

RUTH MADSEN is Coleman’s wife. She is a model of the perfect wife. She is devoted to her husband and their son, ERIC. She supports him in every way. She knows that Coleman’s new crusade will put her and Eric in harm’s way, but she is willing to accept the risks because she believes in the sacredness of Coleman’s calling as much as he does. Even when a real shooting war comes out of Coleman’s daring political acts, and when pain, injury and death visit her loved ones, she does not falter in her faith or in her support of her husband.

FRANK OESTED is the President of the United States. As governor of California, he had first met Coleman Madsen when Coleman was a state senator in Utah. He sought his help to swing the Mormon vote in California when it looked like he would lose his bid for re-election. Coleman had been effective in raising money for Frank’s campaign and in delivering the swing vote. While Frank served his second term in California, Coleman was named U.S. Senator from Utah to replace a senator who died in office. The relationship between Frank and Coleman became that of surrogate father and son. That relationship came under heavy strain early on in Coleman’s anti-drug hearings.

MAITLAND MORRIS is the democratic senator from Mississippi and ranking minority member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. He is devoted to his wife and three sons, but he also has a loving relationship with HOWARD SIMMONS, a handsome young black man employed at the Library of Congress. When a certain congressional lobbyist learns about their regular trysts, he uses this information to blackmail Maitland, seeking to have him intervene to stop the drug hearings.

IRL GOLDMAN and DAVID WEINTRAUB had become involved in business investments with Oested during his early political days in California. Together, they had made a lot of money investing in ranches, timberlands, hotels, shopping centers, and, especially, in a chain of for-profit psychiatric hospitals. When Oested went to Washington, his financial advisors divested his interests in Goldman’s and Weintraub’s companies before they established Oested’s blind trust to manage his assets outside his knowledge so he could not be accused of conflicts of interest in the governmental decisions he would have to make. Unknown to Oested, Goldman and Weintraub reserved Oested’s stock holdings in their company for him and regularly placed earnings from them in Oested’s Swiss bank account. Now, faced with exposure by Coleman’s committee for their part in laundering drug money, they use these facts as levera

About the Author

Now in full retirement, Jim Sauls lives in a mountain community in Western North Carolina and writes about his intelligence career on six continents. He has four children and four grandchildren. He also maintains contact with the family mining business he started in California in 1993 and vacations at his lodge above Lake Tahoe.