by A. American
“Hung around to get half of that Navy retirement, huh?”
“Yeah, damn bitch.” Gene replied laughing. “So what the hell’s going on around here?”
Bob laughed, filled his glass and gave Gene a rundown on what had happened, telling him about the riot and the shooting. When Bob wrapped it up, he dropped his butt into an empty cup on the desk and refilled his glass.
“Damn, you killed him?” Gene asked as he leaned out for the bottle.
“I guess. He wasn’t moving and was on fire last time I saw him.”
“Where’s Daniel? Getting’ drunk someplace?”
With a chuckle, Bob replied. “Yeah, probably. I am.”
The phone on his desk rang. Bob looked over at it, then drained his glass.
***
Daniel hung up the phone and looked at Teague and Christy. “I have to go back to the office.”
“What, why?” Christy asked.
“That was the FBI agent. He said I needed to go back there and go over what happened again.”
“Dude, you want to go out in that?” Teague said pointing at the TV.
They were watching the news and things all over the metro area were getting out of hand again. News of the shooting had found its way to the media who were now reporting on it, though they had it wrong. The story the news media was putting out was that the police had shot two rioters in Buckhead. There was no mention of the two officers that were wounded. This news pissed off the already unsettled masses in the streets.
Atlanta wasn’t the only city having trouble. Cities across the nation were in the same shape, having exactly the same troubles. Several reports of exchanges of gunfire between the police and rioters were all over the news. The incidents of shootings of both police and rioters were increasing. Both sides were escalating the use of violence. The fact that the banks were still closed, EBT and debit cards were not working and no one had access to cash unless they had it on hand was combining with the rise in violence to create the perfect storm.
The federal government’s response was heavy handed. As a result of the Lansing Incident, the President invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807. The act was amended in the 2007 Defense Authorization Act and provided to the President more power than the original Act. Section 1076 subsection 333 was changed to read; When the President determines that the authorities of the state are incapable of maintaining public order. This was the end run on the Posse Comitatus Act that allowed federal troops to be used domestically. This section, along with section 334, which provides; The President has authority to order the dispersal of either insurgents or “those obstructing the enforcement of the laws”. These were the tools used to justify the violent reaction.
Protestors were listed under section 334. When the various governors failed to gain control of the spreading riots, the feds stepped in. Section 333 was used against those refusing to hand over their firearms. It was as if the demise of the country was being orchestrated and everyone was playing their part in tune. While the White House focused on the issue of guns, one they’ve salivated over for years, the economy was circling the drain. Commerce in the nation was essentially halted. Cash was king and no one had any. That is until the markets started to tank. A week’s worth of double digit percentage point losses signaled the end of the dollar. Trading was permanently halted a week later.
“I don’t want to stay here. Can I come with you?” Christy asked.
Daniel looked away from the TV. “You guys wanna come with me? It’s certainly safer than it is here.”
“I do. Teague, you coming?” Christy asked.
“Sure, why not. Let’s go see what the belly of the beast looks like.”
Unlike his last trip to the bank, this time Daniel wasn’t stopped by the police. There weren’t any.
“Where are all the cops?” Teague asked.
Daniel’s head was on a swivel. He was watching the people running through the streets. Every business they passed was being looted. It gave him an eerie feeling seeing the people of the city tear it apart with absolutely no concern about being caught.
“This is really messed up,” Daniel said.
“It’s scary. Hurry up,” Christy said.
Teague was looking out the back window. “These people are like animals. Look at them.”
Daniel called Bob and told him he was on his way in and that he was told by the FBI agent to come back.
“Yeah, I talked to the Dick too. I’ll be waiting on you. When you come in, pull into the underground section. I’ll open the gates for you as you pull up.”
“Thanks, Bob. By the way, I’ve got my girlfriend and cousin with me. They didn’t want to stay at my place.”
“The more, the merrier.”
Daniel was sitting at the entrance to the garage as the gate rolled up when Teague shouted. “Holy shit!”
Daniel looked out the window to see a squad of riot police running before a massive crowd of rioters. The officers were in full-on, every-man-for-himself retreat. The three of them sat there transfixed on the scene. They watched as one of the officers was dragged down by the crowd, like the slowest Zebra in the herd. He was set upon by the swirling mass of people. It wasn’t long before one person held his helmet aloft, then other pieces of the riot gear began to appear, hoisted like trophies.
“Get your ass in gear!” Bob’s voice blared from an intercom mounted on a pedestal at the gate. Daniel’s head snapped around to see the gate was open. He floored the van and was in the garage in a flash. The gate immediately began to close. The rioters were more than a block away, but Bob wasn’t taking any chances.
Daniel shut the van off, though he couldn’t tell as the engineering space he was parked in was so loud, it didn’t miss the sound of the diesel engine. He was looking back at Christy in the mirror when there was a knock on his window. The sudden knock caused him to jump in his seat. Looking out, he saw Gene standing there, the broad smile on his face hidden with those whiskers.
Daniel stepped out as Teague got out of the passenger side and opened the rear door for Christy.
“Scare easy?” Gene asked.
“Not usually. Thanks for the effort though.”
“Bob was afraid you’d get lost. Sent me down here to make sure you didn’t get eaten by the hogs.”
“There are hogs in the building?” Christy shouted over the din around her.
Teague started to laugh. “No. It’s just an old saying, went to shit and the hogs eat ‘im.”
The explanation didn’t clear the issue for her. “So there are no hogs?” she asked, looking around.
Gene let out a laugh and led the trio through a door and to a freight elevator. On the tenth floor, they changed to one of the public elevators to get to Bob’s office. They found Bob where Daniel had left him, sitting at his desk, cigarette in hand. Daniel looked around the office, looking for the agent.
“The Dick’s not here yet,” Bob said.
“What do they want? What are we supposed to do?” Daniel asked.
Christy and Teague stepped into the office, interrupting Bob’s answer. He looked Christy up and down with raised eyebrows. He quickly stood up and offered her his hand. “Hi, I’m Bob.”
Christy smiled and introduced herself, then looked around the dark, cluttered office. She was just about to sit down when the lights went out for a brief instant before coming back on. Bob looked up at Gene, who nodded and left the office.
“What was that?” Daniel asked.
“Andy, what’s up?” Bob called through the open door.
Andy shouted his reply. “Power’s out, We’re on generator power now.”
Bob excused himself to Christy and stepped out. “See anything out there?”
Soon, everyone was in the outer office looking at the monito
rs. In full HD, they were watching the chaos on the streets outside the bank. In the short time since they had arrived, the mob on the street had moved up the block, past the bank and were constructing barricades in the streets. More fires were now burning, piles of tires that threw up huge clouds of thick black smoke. Across the street from the bank, buildings were being looted. Andy was panning the cameras around and the view on all sides of the bank was the same. They were completely surrounded.
“Hmm, this doesn’t look good,” Bob said. Then he turned to face everyone. “We may be here awhile.”
“What do you mean by that?” Christy asked.
Bob pointed to the monitor. “You want to go out there?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine here. They’ll get the power back on soon and the police will push them back,” Daniel said.
“How long will the generator run the building?” Teague asked.
“I don’t know. When Gene gets back he can answer that.” Bob replied.
The phone in Bob’s office rang. He stepped into the office and answered it, and after a few moments, he returned.
“Was that Gene?” Daniel asked.
“No. That was one of the security guys. He said the folks outside are raising hell on the security shutters.”
“They can’t get in here can they?” Daniel asked.
“Well, I mean, it’s possible, but not likely.”
Bob picked up the phone again and called Gene, asking him to come up to his office. While not happy about the request, Gene said he was on his way. While waiting for Gene, they watched the cameras. The crowd outside was getting bigger and more riled up by the minute. The protesters on the street woefully outnumbered the police forces. They simply could not field enough officers in any one part of the city to make a meaningful difference.
“What’s that?” Christy asked, pointing at one of the monitors.
Everyone turned to look at the monitor she was pointing at to see a Humvee sitting far down the block. On top of the truck was a large square object. Bob told Andy to zoom in on it so they could get a better look. As the truck grew in size on the screen, the object mounted to the top became clearer.
“It’s an LRAD,” Bob said.
Christy looked over at him. “What the hell is an LRAD?”
“It’s a sound cannon used for crowd control” Bob said.
“What the hell is a sound cannon going to do?” Christy asked.
“Oh, it works. They used one earlier to great effect,” Bob said with a grin.
Gene came to the door looking none too pleased to be back in Bob’s office. He announced his arrival with a loud sigh, making it obvious he did not want to be there. Bob looked up at him with amusement.
“Sorry to call you back so quick,” Bob said.
Gene didn’t even crack a smile. He was not amused. “What do you need, Bob?”
“How long will generators run the building?” Bob asked.
Gene rubbed his whiskers for a moment, thinking. “I think it will run the building for about 36 hours under full load.” Bob rocked back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. Now he was thinking.
“What can we do to extend that time, just in case it’s needed?” Bob said.
Gene shrugged his shoulders, holding his palms out as if the answer were obvious. “Reduce the damn load.”
“Well, there’s nobody in the building right now but us. What’s the biggest load we have?” Bob asked.
Gene thought about that for a minute. “I would have to say lighting and AC are the biggest loads.”
Bob let out a sigh. “Damn, turning off all the lights would take forever to do in this building.”
Gene laughed. “You want the lights turned off? Is that all?”
Bob swiveled his head around to look at Gene. “Yeah, that’s all.”
“Andy, move your ass,” Gene said.
Andy swiveled around the chair and stepped out of the way. Gene flopped his ass in the chair and pulled the keyboard out from under the desk. Using a side monitor, he opened up a program. Once the program loaded, he swiveled around to look at Bob. “You want them all off?”
“We should probably keep some minimal lighting on in the building, but I would like to have everything visible from the exterior turned off.”
“Okay, all exterior lights and all exterior office lights. That do it for you?”
“How will the cameras really see what’s happening outside once it gets dark?” Daniel asked.
Without looking from the monitors, Bob replied. “We have both thermal and IR cameras.” Bob looked over at Daniel and grinned. “We can see in the dark.”
“Go ahead and turn the lights out, Gene.”
Once all the lights were shut off, Gene suggested they shut down two of the generators. With no more load than they had running, one generator should carry it, though he would have to check the load to ensure they could also run the cooling towers and chiller plant. Bob agreed and asked him to go take a look and see what they could do to conserve fuel for the generators. There was no telling how long the power would be off.
“Worst case, we could shut down the chiller too. Might get a little warm in here, but it would save on fuel,” Gene said.
Bob nodded. “Shed as much of the AC as you can. See if we can buy ourselves some time.”
Gene nodded and spun back around in the chair and began pecking away at the keyboard. Graphics of the building appeared, showing various systems as he shut them down.
“Where’s that FBI guy?” Christy asked.
“From the looks of things outside, I don’t think he’s coming,” Teague said.
All this time, Teague had been standing in the corner staying quiet and keeping to himself. He was a little nervous at the thought of being in such close proximity to an FBI agent. Daniel and his hot-ass girlfriend had no idea what he’d been up to, and he wanted to keep it that way. Getting his family involved in his troubles was the last thing he wanted to do. But the war on the streets below them would surely keep the feds away.
“Yeah, don’t think Dick’s coming,” Bob said.
Christy leaned over to Daniel and whispered into his ear, “Who’s Dick?”
Daniel turned his head slightly and whispered back, “The FBI agent. Bob calls him Dick.”
“Hey, Bob. The largest load running in the building right now would have to be the servers and their cooling equipment. You think we should shut them down too since the bank is off-line?” Daniel asked.
Before Bob could answer, the phone rang. Bob palmed the phone. “Yello”.
“Bob, you need to pull up the camera facing the east exit of the parking garage, now,” The voice on the other end said.
Bob told Andy which camera to pull up. “Why? What’s going on?”
“You’ll see in a sec.”
When the video popped up, they could see the large security gate on the screen. Bob leaned in toward the screen and said out loud, more to himself than anyone else. “What the hell is that?”
The voice on the other end of the phone answered the question. “They’re using a saw to cut through the gate. It’s some kind of chop saw.”
“Holy shit.”
“Are they cutting their way in?” Daniel asked.
“Sure as shit looks like it,” Teague said.
Bob directed his attention back to the phone. “We cannot let them get through the gate.”
“Well what the hell do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know. But we have to stop them somehow.”
“Shoot the fuckers,” Teague said.
Everyone in the room turned and looked at Teague. He simply shrugged his shoulders and stared back at them. “What else are you going to do? If they get int
o the garage, they can get into the building.”
Bob looked back to the monitor. “Go down and bang on the door. See if it scares them away. We’re watching you on the camera.”
“All right. I’ll give it a shot. But if I get shot at, I’m shooting back.”
They all watched the figure on the screen move towards the security gate as a steady stream of sparks spilled from it. There was no audio, just the sight of the figure moving towards the gate. He held a 12-gauge shotgun up at low ready. When he got to the gate, he banged on it with a balled fist and the sparks stopped. They watched as the man kicked the gate and it appeared he was shouting at it. Suddenly, the security guard jumped ducking his head and pressed himself against the wall beside the security gate. From his actions, they could only guess what was happening. He was being shot at.
Bob still had the phone. He could hear the man yelling. He could hear what sounded like small pops. Then he heard and saw on the monitor the phone falling to the floor. The security man took half a step away from the wall and began to fire his shotgun into the security gate. In what seemed to be too short of a time span, he was reloading the tube on the weapon.
“Andy. Give me an outside view of the door, now.”
When the camera view popped up, the screen showed a body sprawled on the ground with something lying by its right hand. Bob told Andy to zoom in on it, and the object rapidly grew in size. A Glock handgun soon filled the screen. Andy backed the camera view out to take in the crowd. They could see the guy with the chop saw. He was yelling and gesturing wildly. People were running in all directions. Several of them were being helped, as it appeared they were wounded.
Inside the garage, the camera there showed the security man pick his phone up. Then Bob heard him scream into the phone. “They’re fucking shooting at me!”
“Smitty. Get yer ass out of there. We’ll secure all the gates behind you.” Bob replied.
“Oh, my god. Is that guy dead?” Christy asked no one in particular.