The Balkanization of America

by Ira Tabankin

  “Brad, I got a text from Joshua, he asks all of the cell leaders to meet tomorrow, the coded message means we’re close to being activated for action.”

  “Ron, we’re ready.”

  @@@@@

  “Admiral Zander, the communications line has been set up as you requested,”

  “Thank you, Captain, I’ll be right there, please take a roll call.”

  Three minutes later, Admiral Zander sits down at the conference table in front of the radio speaker and microphone. The Admiral aide connects all of the parties together. “This is Admiral Zander on the USS Lincoln, please sound off in order of commissioning.”

  “Captain Smith, USS Henry M. Jackson, SSBN 730.”

  “Captain Richards, USS Alabama, SSBN 731.”

  “Captain, Jackson, USS Nevada, SSBN 733.”

  “Captain, Randers, USS Pennsylvania, SSBN 735.”

  “Captain Monroe, USS West Virginia, SSBN 736.”

  “Captain Wilson, USS Maryland, SSBN 738.”

  “Captain Allen, USS Maine, SSBN 741.”

  “Admiral, seven boats of the nine that made it to sea under the emergency alert order have contacted us. Two boats didn’t respond to the request, they might not able to communicate or they may not have their tails out, they might not have received the coded message. None of us think we should worry about these two yet, we’ll send them another coded message requesting they contact us.”

  “Thank you, Captains, if you haven’t heard, the President announced he’s planning on making America a nuclear-free country. He plans to deactivate our strategic forces.”

  “Admiral, Pennsylvania actual here, Sir, he can’t, that would leave us defenseless. The Russians and Chinese will take advantage of our weakness.”

  “Captain, that’s the reason for this call, unusual as it is, I’m sure you know we can’t allow the President to dry dock your boats. I’m asking you to stay at sea, not return until I give you the RTB (return to base) code. I know what I’m asking is going to be very difficult. Nevada, I know you were at the end of your tour and preparing to return to port, we’ll get a supply ship to you, lots of fresh fruit, milk and meat, we’ll even toss in a bunch of new movies.”

  “Admiral, Nevada actual here, Sir, we’re staying on station for the duration, thanks very much for the food, I’m sure the crew appreciates the movies, and Sir, please try to round up our mail. Family grams are very limited in the amount of information exchanged.”

  Smiling, the Admiral responds, “Captain, the mail was the first thing we loaded on the tender. All of your requested parts are also already loaded if you require anything else, please let us know we’ll get you everything you need.”

  “Admiral, Maryland actual here, Sir you’re committing treason. The President will arrest you when he finds out.”

  “Captain, who says he’s going to find out. He doesn’t follow our comings and goings. I’ll report to him how many boats are in port and that we’re in the process of decommissioning them. That process takes a long time with nuclear-powered boats. I think I can keep him away from the truth for a long time.”

  “Admiral, that’s good to hear, what about the attack boats?”

  “Captain, we’ve had a similar discussion with the attack boat captains, they’ve all signed on for the duration. Two attack boats are going to rendezvous with each of you; they are going to be your nursemaids for the duration. They’ll make sure no one gets a sniff of you.”

  “Admiral, West Virginia actual, happy to hear that. We’ve had a couple of Russians sniffing for us the last four days; we were able to hide from them, it’ll be good to have some friendly company.”

  “All, I don’t know how this is going to turn out, I have faith in our people. I have faith they’ve not gotten so fat and lazy they only care about which star is sleeping with the other, or the newest smartphone. We’ll transmit a code for another conference call in ten day's time, good luck to all of you. Run silent, run deep; you may be our last hope. Zander out.”

  @@@@@

  Miami Florida is torn apart in a multi-race war; African American youth attack the Latinos, who are just about to attack a local mostly white upper-class high school. All three groups clash a block away from the school. Knives, broken bottles, bricks and baseball bats are used to beat each other. When the police arrive they find fourteen youths dead, and thirty-six seriously wounded. The families of the young decide to get revenge for their children, they start fighting with each other. 48 hours after the first punch was thrown Forty-two people are dead one hundred, and two are seriously wounded. The emergency medical services mistakenly brought the various groups to the same hospital, which results in the fighting to continue in the emergency room. The fighting soon spreads through the hospital drawing in visitors, patients plus some medical staff. Nurses and doctors try to get away from the fighting, only to be caught up in it. One security guard uses the hospital's fire hose to break the fighting up; both sides grab the security guard, throwing him out of a second story window breaking both of his legs. The fighting continues until a fire breaks out in the hospital kitchen. The flames spread through the hospital killing 75.

  Similar fights break out in Atlanta, Memphis along with twenty-eight other cities. The President is silent about the fights. He doesn’t say a word about the dead or to ask for calm.

  @@@@@

  “President Lawson, we can break into the Atlanta Federal Bank Branch. The gold is stored in the secure basement. We know we can break in and get the gold out. The issue we haven’t been able to answer is how we’re going to get the gold home.”

  “Can we truck it back?”

  “It’s 782 miles while carrying a ton of gold. We’ll attract every criminal in the country when the word gets out. We can’t afford to strip a large enough force to guard the convoy while it travels 782 miles. If we send a large enough force to provide security on our return, the Feds are sure to figure out what's happening. They’ll strengthen the defense at the bank; the Feds will surely attack us before we even arrive in Atlanta. We could end up fighting our way to Atlanta and then back.”

  “I understand, what else can we do to force the feds to give us what’s ours?”

  “We have to have something they want very badly, something they want more than our gold in order to make them trade with us.”

  “Do you mean something like the nukes?”

  “Mr. President, would you turn over the nukes after telling the feds we don’t have them.”

  “I never said we would turn over the real ones. I want our gold back.”

  “Look into how to create dummy nukes which they won’t be able to tell aren’t real when they quickly inspect them when we hand them over. See if you can arrange for our people to take one apart and copy it good enough to fool the Americans at the handover location. By the time, they figure out we’ve done, we'll have our gold and be home safe and sound.”

  “Mr. President, we’re going to have to seed them with weapon's grade uranium, so they give off the correct readings.”

  “So get some from one of our nuclear plants.”

  Chapter 6

  The firearms purchased surrendered or confiscated by the government are stored in warehouses under the responsibility and guard of the DHS. After a number of attempted and a couple of successful break-ins, DHS decides to increase the security at the warehouses with eight-foot high wire fences topped with razor wire, security cameras with motion sensors that are connected to control offices manned with rapid reaction forces. DHS moved the locations of many of the warehouses to industrial areas filled with similar buildings to confuse anyone looking for the firearms. The warehouses are hidden in plain sight. Months pass without any newly attempted break-ins DHS reduces the security supporting the warehouses. They figured they got the formula correct. They reduced the number of people watching the videos and kept fewer people in rapid reaction teams in order to reduce their costs.

  At 3:00 AM twenty men surround an unmarked warehou
se in Stafford Virginia, “Ron, are you sure this is the right place?”

  “Yes, the warehouse in front of us holds thousands of firearms.”

  Looking around very confused, I ask Ron, “I would have thought that the warehouse would be ringed with heavily armed troops, maybe even a tank.”

  Ron whispers, “You don’t see them, but they’re close by. You can see the warehouse is surrounded by a wire fence, check out the top of the fence, do you see the razor wire? The warehouse is under 24-hour surveillance; there are cameras mounted on the building and the fence posts, and there are motion sensors surrounding the warehouse. The sensors send their data to an office twelve miles away where the DHS keeps a rapid response team on standby. We’ve blocked the only road the rapid response team can use to get here.”

  “That’s good news, but how do we defeat the sensors?

  Ron laughs saying, “Haven’t you ever seen a deer run into a fence?”

  “Of course, but how are you going to call a deer and get him to run into the fence at just the right spot?”

  Ron says, “Look to your right, see the deer decoy?”

  “Yup, from a distance it looks just like a real deer.”

  “It’s mounted on an RC mobile base, from DHS’s video camera it’s going to look just like a deer. We’re going to send it against the fence, the motion sensors will pick it up; the cameras will see the top part of the deer. The response team will think it’s just a deer that came from the woods behind the warehouse. When it hits the fence, we’ll send the second decoy to the fence behind the warehouse. The deer decoys hitting the pole with the camera will bend the pole so the camera’s view will be moved creating an opening for us to slip through.”

  “Ron, I get that, but how do we get in the warehouse?”

  Holding up a keycard, and smiling, Ron says, “It’s good to have friends in high places. Hold this card against the scanner and enter the code 12345. The door will unlock.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me; 12345 is the code?”

  “Yup, DHS never made it complicated; they were dealing with some people who would have forgotten anything more difficult to remember. I understand they thought of using 00000, but the Air Force already used it for the nuclear launch code.”

  “What? Our government really is run by morons.”

  Laughing Ron responds, “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Laughing we moved towards the warehouse. The two deer decoys ram the fence setting off the alarm in the response team’s office, “Hey, what was that?”

  “Looks like a deer ran into the fence again. “

  “Yea, I told the Captain we should light up the fence, that’s the damn fifth deer to run into the fence this season, means we’re going to have to check it out in the morning.”

  “Damn deer hit the weak pole bending the pole; the camera’s view is tilted.”

  “Happens every damn time a deer hits the fence, we’ll check it tomorrow, I don’t feel like going out there in the middle of the night. If everything else is quiet, there’s no reason to rush. No one knows what in the warehouses.”

  “If they did, we’d have to have the army protecting it.”

  “Yup, some of the firearms stored there are nice; I think we have over five thousand ARs and four thousand AKs, not counting the ten thousand shotguns, plus a few hundred thousand rounds of ammo. If any of those dumb Tea Party nuts knew what’s in the warehouses, they would try to break in every night. Let’s get a fresh cup of coffee, I just hope we don’t have to clean up another injured deer tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t we leave it for the day crew to handle?”

  “Great idea, last time I had to clean up a deer, I ruined a new pair of uniform pants.”

  “You know it’s too bad we can’t take a couple of the firearms. I’d like to have a few of the Winchester lever action rifles.”

  “Ralph don’t go there, don’t ever touch them. You’ll leave DNA and fingerprints; the bosses in DC will bust you so fast your head will spin. Before you can count to three, they’ll have you in federal prison.”

  “I won’t, when are they coming to collect them?”

  “Three days, the trucks will come to collect and destroy them. After that, we move to another location.”

  “What a waste.”

  “You got that right.”

  Ten of the men with Ron and I crawl to the fence where we cut a hole large enough for us to crawl through, we reach the door, the keycard and code works, the door unlocks, we’re in! We close the door behind us. Ron says, “Don’t turn the lights on, use your flashlights.”

  Shining my flashlight around the warehouse I say, “Oh my God, this is an armory; it’s loaded with the weapons and ammo they took from us.”

  Ron smiles replying, “Yes, there’s over twenty thousand weapons in here plus over two hundred thousand rounds of ammo.”

  I’m standing still in shock, “Ron, how are we going to get them out?”

  “We’re going to do the old time bucket brigade to the fence where we’ll load the trucks. Go slowly, don’t drop anything and take only 12 gauge shotguns, ARs and 9mm pistols. We should standardize on the types of weapons we take; these are also the same types used by the local police and sheriffs.”

  Jimmy says, “Man, I like AKs over the stupid Mattel AR.”

  Ron responds, “Doesn’t matter what you like, it makes it easier for all of us if we all use the same weapons.”

  I say, “Well then, OK, let’s get started.”

  Two hours later we’ve loaded two trucks. We use gray duct tape that is close in color to the fence to hold the bent section together, two of us use tree branches to sweep the wheeled tracks the deer decoys left behind. We load the decoys in one of the trucks; the DHS security detail will figure the deer ran into the fence got dazed and ran off.

  Ron says, “Next stop breakfast at the iHOP, pancakes with Joshua. Christmas gifts for all.”

  @@@@@

  “General, Joshua left you a message. He said there were fifteen operations last night to reacquire firearms. Thirteen went like clockwork, one’s timing just sucked, something alerted the DHS rapid reaction team, the guards showed up at the warehouse as our people were carrying the weapons out, they got caught red handed.”

  “Did they put up a fight?”

  “No sir, per your standing orders, they froze and allowed themselves to be captured.”

  “Good, a warehouse loaded with ammo isn’t a good place for a shootout. Once we know where they’re going to be held, we’ll help break them out. Live men we can break out of jail, dead men, are hard to replace.”

  “What happened to the other mission?”

  “General, that’s a mystery, they checked in when they got to their target warehouse, they confirmed entry, then they disappeared.”

  “Damn it, they went rouge. Ask Joshua if he needs help finding them if they think they can fight by themselves they're going to get themselves and many others killed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Colonel, if people attack the DHS piecemeal they’re going to lose. The DHS will tear us a new one. The people have to fight on multiple fronts at the same time so the DHS can’t apply overwhelming force against any one attack. We need to win over some of the media or at least get them to broadcast the truth. Next we’re going to be fighting the President’s Citizen Defense Forces who may be untrained, but they have the numbers. We don’t want to harm innocents or damage any of our county’s infrastructure. When we attack, we’re going to do so across the country. We’ll keep the DHS black shirts unbalanced. We need to hit them so hard we knock them back on their heels at multiple locations at the same time. I’m hoping the kick start we gave Congress finally forces them to get their shit together, so they perform their duty to the country.”

  “Sir, assuming, Congress does vote for impeachment, will it be legal? The President all but disbanded the Congress when he sent them home.”

  “I asked several constitutional experts
, none knew where the President got the authority to send Congress home; as such they think the impeachment vote by Congress will hold up. The Speaker plans to pass a couple of meaningless bills sending them to the Senate to pass who will forward them to the President. He’ll either sign them without thinking about it, which validates Congress, or he’ll ignore the bills, in which case Congress and the Senate will vote to overturn the President’s pocket veto. “

  “When are they supposed to vote on the first bill?”

  “Tomorrow midday.”

  @@@@@

  The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is located on Route 601 near Bluemont Virginia. It’s the designated civilian command facility designed to shelter the civilian leadership in case of nuclear war. The House and Senate are using it to meet since they were sent home by the President who locked them out of the Capital. When Congress arrived, FEMA tried to block the Senators and Congressional people from entering the facility. The Speaker of the House told the ranking FEMA officer, “This is the designated civilian command facility, we are the 535 members of Congress, this facility was built for us. We’re here if you do not allow us entry; our private security force will force it open. Two hundred heavily armed guards including four LAV vehicles armed with heavy machine guns pull up behind the Speaker. The FEMA officer looks around, nodding, unlocking the gate, saying, “Sir, may I welcome you to Mount Weather.”