by Deforest Day
It was followed by a voice from an unseen person. “Three weeks ago I inked a seven hundred and fifty million dollar no-bid with Bearclaw Security. To provide private forces for HomeSec. Outsourcing the work negates any congressional interference. As well as cutting DoD out of the loop.”
Kat watched for a moment longer. What Would Geneva Do? She would say you took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that dusty old document supersedes signing some dumb Official Secrets Non-Disclosure Act. She just hoped she wouldn't have to join Edward Snowden in Russia.
“I recognize that voice,” she said, furiously typing. “It’s Secretary Edgerton.”
“What are you doing?”
She opened an Internet connection, encrypted the video clip, and sent it to a server in Belarus, where its ISP would morph several times, before finding its way to YouTube. “I'm publishing the Pentagon Papers.”
She opened another SNAKE 8R file, scanned its contents. “Decades ago FEMA built something called Temporary Internment Facilities. In the last few weeks they’ve been staffed by Bearclaw.”
Nick walked over to the window. He stared down at the wrecker, alone at the curb. The streets were empty. Then they weren’t. A dozen police vehicles and ambulances sped past, lights flashing, sirens unheard through the double glazing.
“Temporary Internment Facilities, my ass. They’re concentration camps,” Kat said. “Part of something called REX 84. In the event martial law is declared, then what they call ‘certain undesirable and/or high risk elements of society’ will be, get this, ‘transported to designated facilities until the civil unrest is terminated’.”
Nick turned from the window, said impatiently, “Have you found this Camp Catoctin? Because my daughter is the only element of society I care about.”
“I know, I know. I want to find her, too. But don’t you realize what’s happened today? The whole damn country has been taken over by executive fiat.
“Okay. Here it is; Camp Catoctin. Eleven hundred acres, facilities for eight hundred detainees, plus staff barracks, airstrip, yada yada. Frederick County, near Ellerton.” She tapped the screen. “Here are the GPS coordinates.”
“Write them down, and let’s go.” He picked up the major’s phone. Studied the console for a moment. Tried 9. That usually worked, and it did. He got a dial tone, punched in the number for Poppy's land line.
“Go?”
He listened to the phone ringing in the kitchen. “To Poppy’s. I need to grab some gear. Then back to the Impound Yard, drop you off at your car. I’m heading for this Camp Catoctin.”
“We’re heading for Camp Catoctin.” She dumped Geneva’s hard drive into her laptop. It took sixty seconds. “You forget there's a curfew? Besides, you may need my feminine wiles.”
His conversation with Poppy took thirty seconds. “We can argue about it in the wrecker. Come on, come on.”
“What about—”
“Lock the door behind us. Sooner or later someone will decide they aren’t making whoopee in here.”
“Lannie saw us—”
“So?” He tossed the ammo box on the major’s desk. “What do you want to bet Ern’s prints show up all over this ‘murder-suicide’? Along with his brother’s. You’re way down on any list of ‘persons of interest’. And I was never here.” He used his shirttail to wipe off the door knob on their way out.
Chapter Twenty Seven
It was cool, calm, and quiet in the empty Cabinet Room. DEERSLAYER, Edge, and the AG entered the long and narrow space, one dominated by a huge oval table.
They’d just come from the Oval Office, slipping through the office of Shorty’s secretary, instead of going the long way around. Too many of the president's people roamed the corridors, and now was not the time to confront any of SHORTSTOP's loyalists.
They stood at the tall windows overlooking the Rose Garden, watching Marine One lift off, and discussing the political ambitions and personal relationships each cabinet secretary had with the man who had appointed them.
Most had come from the industries they now ostensibly regulated. HUD, HHS, Agriculture. Labor, Energy, Commerce. And, on January twentieth next, they would return to that world.
Some would do so with a very private sigh of relief. Things were going badly for the Administration. After a series of natural and man-made disasters, coupled with more than the usual allotment of scandals, it was a foregone conclusion their party would lose the White House.
The three men turned from the Elysian view and slowly walked around the table, a gift from President Nixon in 1975. The irony was not lost on them as they paused at each place, judging its occupant as a yes-no-maybe.
Each chair at the long table bears a brass plate with the member’s name and cabinet office. And, as a reminder of their relative worth—from a historical perspective—the seats are placed according to the date the department was established.
The president and the vice president do not sit at the head and foot of the table, but at the center, and across from each other.
State sits on the president’s right; Treasury on the vice president’s right. SecDef and the AG, three and four respectively, occupy the president's and vice president's left. And so on, around the mahogany table. As the newest kid on the block, Secretary Edgerton sat well below the salt.
The vice president pointed to the chair beside his own. “Treasury is the key. Topple this domino, and the rest will fall.”
The Secretary was the fourth in seven years, and not yet wise to the ways of Washington. But bright enough, they hoped, to read the handwriting on the wall.
It was Edge, of course, who interjected a biblical phrase into the conversation. “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” He thoughtfully translated the Aramaic for them. “It has been counted, weighed, and divided.”
DEERSLAYER had made it a point to attend chapel in college; it was where one met wealthy and credulous young men, and he now recalled Daniel’s interpretation of the phrase. “The King’s deeds had been weighed and found deficient, and his kingdom would therefore be divided.” It gave the vice president quiet pleasure to find biblical precedent for what they were about to attempt.
“Edge, you’ll open with your brief historical anecdote, to put them in the proper frame of mind. Second banana, if you will.” He flashed his his trademark smile. The one that displayed a great many teeth, but did not rise to the eyes.
“Gabe, you’ll pick up the thread, give the crowd the Constitutional chapter and verse. Because, like the Ten Commandments, while everyone professes reverence, few actually know the specifics of either document.”
He paused and ran his hand over the polished wood and rich leather of his own seat, across from the taller chair that was the locus of the President of the United States.
At that moment the president was on his way to Camp David with the Secretary of State, Dr. Kellogg, and a few trusted members of his Protective Detail. Sedated. SAP Drubb had gone along, to tuck him in, and would soon return in solitary splendor aboard Marine One.
It had been a stressful day, and Dr. Kellogg was treating his patient for what he variously called neurasthenia, or dementia praecox.
Since both terms had gone out of scientific fashion a century ago, Dr. Kellogg considered it safe to use them when speaking to laymen about the president’s condition. They certainly sounded better than hebephrenic schizophrenia; a form of psychosis characterized by severe disintegration of personality, including erratic speech, childish mannerisms, and bizarre behavior. No second opinion was sought.
After SHORTSTOP and his doctor were safely airborne Edge had said, “God bless the old quack. The gift that keeps on giving.”
DEERSLAYER chuckled. “My first official act will be to award the Medal of Freedom to Doctor AFLAC.”
The sounds of the slaughter in the center of the nation’s capitol had perturbed the Leader of the Free World. As had the endless replays on the three major
networks, each vying to christen the event with their own historical marker, calling it ‘Kent State Redux’, ‘Ruby Ridge Rerun’, and ‘My Lai on the Mall’. SHORTSTOP had lost his lunch in the presidential wastebasket, and a hurried call was made to Dr. Kellogg.
Like the rest of official Washington, the various members of the president’s cabinet had been either at home, relaxing with their families before Election Day, or stealing some quality time with a compliant companion at a warm and sunny undisclosed location.
The Coast Guard—Semper Paratus, Always Ready— had tracked down, picked up, and brought back each cabinet secretary for the meeting. They were handled with every courtesy their exalted status demanded. The recently completed abduction of Congress had been excellent practice.
Over the course of the afternoon the department secretaries were delivered to the Roosevelt Room. It was the largest space, save the Cabinet Room itself, able to contain the egos of those assembled. The White House Mess supplied them with culinary diversions in place of explanations.
The assembly was in a querulous mood when finally summoned across the corridor, and took their seats. Absent was the Secretary of Defense, still in the Caribbean, and the Secretary of State, loyally soothing the President’s fevered brow. Since those two sit on the President’s right and left, there were three empty chairs at the table. It did not go unnoticed.
The Vice President soon cooled their ire with a chilly forecast. “Gentlemen, Ladies, the president is unable to chair this meeting. It is that inability that brings us here. But before we turn to the immediacies and exigencies of the moment, I think a brief historical perspective is in order. Edge?”
From the foot of the table the Secretary of Homeland Security stood, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and cleared his throat. Then said nothing. He maintained a studied silence long enough to capture an audience schooled in studied silences.
“In twelve fifty-eight Hualagu Khan, grandson of Genghis, captured Baghdad. And then proceeded to slaughter every poet, scholar, military, civic and religious leader in the city.”
He lowered his eyes to a carpet dyed the color of claret and spangled with golden stars the size of saucers, as though searching for the next line. “He piled their heads into a pyramid, and topped it with the skull of their leader.” Edge paused again, letting the image ripen in the imaginations of the few who had one.
“History repeats itself. Fast forward seven centuries, when a man named Saddam Hussein convinced the ailing President of Iraq to resign. Six days later he opened the meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council by reading a list of enemies of the state.” Edge paused, saw he had the attention of every ear, and continued.
“Many of whom were present. As the names were read the Council member was arrested, and taken away from the meeting. Within the hour twenty one of them were dead. Two weeks later four hundred and fifty of Iraq’s most prominent men had followed them to Paradise.
“Union leaders, financiers, army officers, lawyers, judges, journalists, editors, professors, religious leaders.” Edge cleared his throat. “Saddam called his crimes a means to cleanse the nation of factionalism.”
Edge raised a pudgy finger and aimed it at the far wall, indicating the portrait hanging above the fireplace. He waited until all heads obediently swiveled to the image of Abraham Lincoln. Including the vice president, who was in on the game.
“Not unlike the factionalism that divided us on the cusp of Fort Sumpter.” His voice filled with sadness. “The very same factionalism which is dividing our beloved nation as I speak.”
This brought a mumbled, grumbled response from many of the secretaries. “I know, I know. You say our Civil War has nothing to do with the barbarous actions of Saddam, Al-Qaeda, ISIS. How soon we forget Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg. Where more Americans died in a single hour than perished during all of Islam’s suicidal attacks.” SHORTSTOP was not the only user of the non sequitur.
Edge plucked a pair of index cards from a vest pocket and lowered his spectacles to the end of his nose. “In the Fall of eighteen sixty-four, as the election approached, the Great Emancipator told his dear friend General Carl Schurz, ‘God knows, I have tried very hard. And now to have it said by men who have been my friends that I have been seduced by power, and I am doing this only to keep myself in office'.” Edge slowly laid his cards on the table.
“Would that we had such a giant today, to lead us! I fear the past eighteen months of political vitriol are but a prelude to a violence not visited upon us since Sumter was fired upon.
“Today’s bloodbath in our nation’s Capitol augurs parlous times for our nation. Before this is over I fear the streets of Washington will run as red as the Potomac, in eighteen sixty-one.”
He pulled out his chair at the foot of the table, satisfied he had his audience suitably disquieted and thoroughly confused. “But enough of my historical ruminations. I leave it to the vice president to give you the specifics of the many, shall we say, unusual, events over the last few days.”
DEERSLAYER stood as Edge took his seat. He too used his old college roommate’s trick of silence to focus the attention of the table. When he finally began to speak it was in a voice low enough that his audience strained to hear. Another trick.
“As you must have learned by now, the president has declared martial law. What you may not know is that he also directed HomSec to take Congress into protective custody. An overreaction, I think I can say without contradiction, to a few accidents on the Interstates, and the subsequent suicides of a dozen Venezuelan terrorists. Never mind; he is the President of the United States, and his actions are not subject to dispute.
“Until now. Recent medical developments have rendered him unable to discharge his duties. We all tried to sway his decision to quell the recent peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Square with such unmitigated ferocity, but to no avail. And, then, when he realized what he had done, when the depravity of this most monstrous act sank in. . .”
The vice president sighed as he slowly shook his head. Bewildered by the enormity of it all. SHORTSTOP knew how to play to the cameras, but decades in politics had taught DEERSLAYER the finer points of working a room filled with the powerful.
“His personal physician is attending him at Camp David. Where we hope and pray for a speedy recovery.” The vice president waved a dismissive hand, one that said weaklings and fools have no place in this White House.
“However, these times dictate that we act, act now, to save our nation. The means and methods of procedure were laid down two centuries ago, by men imbued with a wisdom far greater than ours.”
He turned to the man on his left, laid a hand upon his shoulder. “I leave it to General Oxenhammer to give us the legalities of the action all of us are about to undertake.”
The Attorney General reached down and snapped the latches on his attaché case. He brought up a stack of small booklets bound by a rubber band. The same booklets handed out by every politician needing to convince his constituency he answered to a higher power. The Constitution of the United States. He removed the rubber band, divided the deck in two, then two again, resisting as he did so the urge to shuffle.
He put one stack on his left, and one on his right. Then performed the same distribution, across the table. “Take one, and pass them down.”
He opened his own well-thumbed copy. “Turn, if you will, to the last few pages.” He looked at the cabinet secretaries and the vice president, saw that all were with him. Nobody wants to admit they don't know the words to the Star Spangled Banner.
“The Twenty Fifth Amendment. Section Four. ‘Whenever the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments’—that is you, ladies and gentlemen—‘transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as
Acting President.’”
He returned his copy of the Constitution to his pocket, and removed a slim black folder from his attaché case. Opening it, he leaned past the vice president, and placed a document in front of the Secretary of the Treasury. “Honors to you, sir, as most senior cabinet secretary present.”
The Attorney General gave him a modest verbal nudge. “The signers of the Declaration of Independence committed Treason by putting their names to that historic document. I am relieved that no such threat faces us.” There was a bit of nervous laughter. Treasury stared at the single sheet of paper. One brief paragraph; lots of room for signatures.
The Vice President slid down in his seat, stretched his foot across to the other side of the table, feeling for the call button. The one that usually summoned a steward with refreshments.
Moments later the doors at the ends of the room opened and Bearclaw troopers—black clad, black booted, and armed with black Heckler & Koch 9mm parabellum submachine guns—filed in, circled the table, and took a position behind each cabinet officer. “As a precaution I have asked Homeland Security to provide personal protection to each of us, during this period of national unrest.”
The Attorney General removed a box of Bics from his briefcase and dropped it on the table. “In case anybody needs a pen.”
In a quavering voice the ancient Secretary of the Interior asked, “But what about the election?”
The Vice President displayed his teeth. “Oh, I believe it is best to maintain the postponement. At least until my administration is up and running. Don’t you agree?”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Poppy hurried to the kitchen, answered the land line. “Nick. Where the hell are you? What’s going on? The TV's saying—”
“I’m ten minutes away. I know where they took Liz. Long story, short on time. Drag my old duffle bag out of the basement. Boots and BDU’s are in there. I need to borrow your shotgun.”