She swung the desk chair around in a circle and came back to facing him, "Ah, yes, but it wasn't peaceful. Caesar crossed the Rubicon and fought Pompey. Anthony and Octavius fought practically everywhere. The history of the Roman Empire is shot through with civil war. And I would argue that it was the British Empire that was the largest mixing bowl in history. North America, Africa, Arabia, Central Asia, the South Pacific... they had it all."
Bill nodded and wrote British Empire next to Greece and Rome on the white board. "Caesar crossed the Rubicon," he repeated and nodded. "When Caesar crossed the Rubicon he was breaking an ancient law about a general bringing an army home to threaten Rome. He was breaking an ancient law."
Sally just nodded. Bill was obviously on a roll.
"One thing all of these participative governments brought to the people was a body of laws and some degree of fairness in their application. British Common Law and the Code de Napoleon are the two best examples for us. It's when the laws aren't enforced, or are enforced unfairly, that things quickly fall apart."
"There is no benefit to having a government if the laws aren't enforced. The same thing is true of Christian Church Law and Sharia Law," Janet supplied.
Bill played with the marker for the white board. "I don't want to work to prove a hypothesis, but could we start with some scenarios that involve loss of faith in the United States judicial system?"
Janet stood up and stretched like a cat. Bill thought it was delightful. She talked as she walked around the room looking at the books on his many bookshelves. "The easiest scenario to project is election fraud in twenty ten or twenty twelve. Right now conservatives are organizing in splintered, but really enthusiastic fashion. The class of people who are 'entitled'... who pay no taxes and who rely on government handouts... is large and growing fast. The liberal and intellectual coalition has the levers of power and has no shame and no fear of unfair play, stacking the deck, or other practices that people perceive as immoral or even illegal."
Bill was now standing against the wall watching his new wife. He was enthralled. "So, what happens?" he asked to prompt her along.
"So, the liberals steal the twenty twelve election. Lord knows the Democrats thought George W. stole the election from Gore in two thousand. I mean redistricting, gerrymandering, motor voter, losing or finding absentee ballots, it's all about getting the votes one way or another. But, let's say there is physical intimidation at specific polling places. Or even bombings at polling places in Conservative areas or something." She turned to him, "It would have to be physical. Physical harm to the voters. Physical harm that does not receive justice in the courts or that leads to injustice."
He nodded and said, "No faith in the executive branch, disgust with the legislative branch, and breach of faith with the judicial branch. Nothing left."
"Worse," she expanded. "Actual maltreatment by the judicial branch. Whatever it is has to be wide spread, but yet focused unfairly on a specific group."
"Then the shooting starts," Bill said.
"In the US?" she replied. "You don't even know the half of it. Explosives, anthrax, radioactive waste, it's all out there in the US and there is also a lot of skill behind it. A couple of generations of US Citizens learned the art of asymmetrical warfare in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department held classified seminars about this stuff and it drives Homeland Security nuts. That's why military veterans made the list of potential subversives that some idiot issued. They know how to make things go boom in all the important places."
"MacArthur and the Veterans," he said.
She smiled, "The Bonus Army. That's another reason I love you. We speak the same language."
He was almost embarrassed and waved at the bookshelves. "It's more like we read the same dusty old books."
The two historians knew that in 1932 Douglas MacArthur was ordered by President Hoover to disperse a group of over 40,000 protestors, most of them World War I veterans, who wanted immediate payment on federal promissory certificates they had received for their service. The newspapers called the protestors the 'Bonus Army'. The recession was hurting the country and the Veterans wanted their full payment. Washington DC police tried to disassemble the military-style camp created by the Bonus Army and there was gunfire. Hoover told MacArthur to use US Army forces to move them out. Under MacArthur's orders, Major George S. Patton led the 3rd Cavalry Regiment on horseback, supported by tanks, in a charge against the camp. Hundreds of the Veterans were injured and several were killed.
"But did you know," she asked, "that way before MacArthur and the Bonus Army there was an earlier battle between veterans and the Army?"
"Huh?" was his reply.
"It was in 1783 and the circumstances were almost exactly the same. Except, of course, there was no Capitol in Washington D.C. Veterans of the Continental Army marched on Philadelphia and demanded their pay. The U.S. Congress, even then they were nothing but thieves, ran up the road to Princeton, New Jersey while the Federal Army cleared out the protestors. "
"Hmmm. Did you hear the twist about what happened to the Bonus Army after FDR got into office?" He asked.
"Didn't he meet with them and Eleanor poured them coffee? I remember the photo in a book. Always the personal touch for her."
"Yeah, but the twist," he replied, "is that in order to make peace, FDR offered the Bonus Army Veterans jobs working on Henry Flagler's railroad in the Florida Keys." he said.
Janet's hand went to her mouth. "I never put it together," she said. "I always read that hundreds of World War One Veterans were killed in the nineteen thirty-five Labor Day hurricane. I've been to Key West. I've seen the railroad bridges in the Keys that were wrecked, but I never put it together with the Bonus Army. My God, Patton ran them down with tanks, horses, and sabers in Washington and then FDR got them killed by neglect in Florida."
"Isn't history great stuff?" Bill asked.
Chapter 9: "A Tough Decision"
Thursday, November 5, 2009 1441 Eastern
A Back Road on Homestead Air Reserve Base, Homestead, Florida
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative of Mr. Ted Arthurs, PhD
Recorded May 2014
CLASSIFIED SECRET/TA
"We have almost always operated in reactive mode. We have to carefully analyze our options and weigh our actions. The possibility of doing more harm than good is something we saw clearly in 1996. There are scenarios that show our planned actions to prevent the Vietnam War as causing a nuclear exchange that destroys a large part of Florida. The possibility of doing harm is always a first consideration for us. I wish politicians would take the same approach.”
Major General Ted Arthurs was into the third mile of his run when the cell phone in the front pocket of his running shorts sounded the cavalry charge that indicated a call from the Project's Operations Room. He stopped his jog, fished out the phone, slid his finger along the bottom bar and said, "Arthurs".
"Sir, we have a CRITIC message you should see." It was the voice of Air Force Master Sergeant Jerry Novak, the current shift's Duty Controller.
"I'm on the base road out past the fuel tanks in my running shorts. Can you ask Missus Arthurs to come get me?"
"Sir, when she read the message she told us to tell you she was going to the school and then she tore out of here."
“What the hell?” The hair stood up on Ted's arms. The only thing he could think of was some threat to their children. As he looked around, the world looked peaceful, but what was out there? Only a second passed and he still had the phone to his ear. He was about to say something when he noticed a small Air Force blue pickup truck pull out of the fuel farm and head toward him. "I'll get a ride," he said into the phone and hung up.
The base speed limit in this area was thirty miles an hour, so the small truck was moving slowly. Ted stood in the road and waved his arms. There were two people wearing baseball-style fatigue caps in the truck and both windows were down.
When the truck stopped and Ted approached
the driver's side, he saw that there were two enlisted women in the truck. "Thanks for stopping," he said. "I just got a call. Something is going on and I need to get back to my unit quickly."
"Where's that?" the driver asked.
"That white building near the end of the flight line. I really need to get there."
The driver shrugged and said, "Get in." She indicated the passenger side door with her head.
The woman on the passenger's side undid her seatbelt and slid into the middle as Ted got in. He was aware that he was sweaty and tried not to crowd the other passenger, but the single seat of the Japanese-made light truck was a tight fit. Both women wore the two stripes of an Airman First Class on their fatigues and he thought they looked like they were about eighteen years old, but he was getting to be a bad judge of age.
"What's going on?" asked the driver.
"I have no idea, but my guys called and said I need to get back quick."
The sound of the base alert siren punctuated his sentence. The driver continued on, but all three of them were listening for the announcement they knew would follow the 30-second siren blast. The 30 seconds seemed to go on forever. At thirty miles an hour they had just covered less than half the distance back to the Project. Then they heard the announcement, "Attention on base, set Force Protection Charlie. This is not a drill. Set Force Protection Charlie."
"Holy shit!" the driver said. "We've got to go lock down the fuel farm."
"Get up to that intersection." Ted pointed. The intersection was at least a quarter mile away. "Then you can take a left back to the fuel farm and I'll jump out. Step on it. If you get in trouble, tell them Major General Arthurs gave you an order. I'll back you up. "
The driver cut him a look. Ted read her mind. "This old guy with knobby knees wearing running shorts is a two star general?" She nodded and pushed on the gas. The little engine in the pickup hesitated, pinged, and tried to wind up. They got to a blistering 45 MPH before they reached the stop sign for the four-way intersection. "Go through it, make the turn and let me out," Ted directed.
"Yes, Sir!" the driver said and tried to take the turn on two wheels. Ted slid into the woman in the middle because the truck didn't have seat belts for three in the front. The little truck responded by under-steering and almost running into the ditch. Ted jumped out of the passenger's side even before the truck stopped. "Thanks!" he said. As he started running toward the Project, he heard the driver say, "Holy shit!" one more time.
The remaining half a mile took him four long minutes to run. There was an armed civilian security guard at the gated fence of the Project. He had the gate open and waved Ted through. A second guard opened the outer door as Ted trotted up to the building. "We heard you were coming," the guard commented as they went through the second inner door together. Even though he was in his running clothes, Ted's arm implant chip was the security pass he needed inside the Project.
He entered the operations room and stood panting next to the Controller's console. Bill Wirtz turned his head and nodded to him from the Planning Team Console.
The Duty Controller stood, leaned in, and spoke in a low voice to his Commander. The Assistant Duty Controller at his side was talking on the phone and studying a checklist on his screen. "Sir, we received a military-wide CRITIC message at fourteen forty local. It reported an attack and mass shooting at Ft. Hood in Texas. It has the elements of a terrorist event with multiple military causalities. At fourteen forty-two US NORTHCOM declared Force Protection Charlie. I immediately increased our security force and I have initiated our Oplan One. We started a recall of bravo crew and we started the telephone tree alert for Charlie crew. We are pre-cooling the cryogenic chamber and charging the capacitor bank. "
"Did Turkey Point acknowledge?" Arthurs asked.
"Yes, Sir." The Project had power feeders that went directly to the Turkey Point nuclear power plant. It was good to let them know that there might be a sudden demand on those feeders. The power surge that fired the Project’s array of precisely aimed Lasers came from a huge bank of capacitors. After each shot the capacitors were re-charged through large transformers and rectifiers. The power part of the system was big old tech. But, the faster they could re-charge the capacitor bank, the fewer changes they had to make to Laser alignments between shots.
"The alternate site?"
"Oplan One initiated, Sir."
"Any word from the National Military Command Center?" The NMCC was his official operational link to the Chairman.
"Sir, the NMCC has alerted us to come up on a secure videoconference, but it has not been initiated."
"Is that the news feed?" Arthurs walked closer to a television picture showing on a corner of the video wall. There was no sound, but the banner flashed "Shooting at Fort Hood."
Bill Wirtz had been speaking into his headset, but now he addressed Ted. "No information on the television or news wires so far that was not in the CRITIC message. What we’ve got is three shooters, estimates of dozens of military dead, and more than fifty wounded. One of the shooters was apparently military, an Army officer. "
Ted turned back to the Controller. "My wife read the initial message and headed for the school?"
"Yes, Sir. I'm sure she was thinking Beslan, Sir."
On September 1, 2004 a group of Muslims from Chechnya attacked School Number One in the town of Beslan in the North Ossetia Republic of the Russian Federation. In the end, 334 hostages were killed including 186 children. Sally Arthurs, Bill Wirtz, and the planning team of the Project were familiar with the Beslan attack and frightened by its ferocity. They used it as an exercise to determine what actions they could take to prevent the school massacre.
"Bill, is there any sign that this Fort Hood attack was aimed at a school?"
Wirtz shook his head and replied, "No, it seems to be at a military personnel processing center."
The Deputy Controller spoke up. "Sir, I'm on the Homestead Command Post telephone conference loop. The local police and sheriff's departments are responding to the schools."
"Well," Ted commented just loud enough for Bill Wirtz to hear, “I hope we don't have to get Sally out of jail."
Wirtz nodded without smiling. He had known Sally just as long as Ted and he had already considered the real possibility.
***
In the moments before the Force Protection Charlie warning went out from US NORTHCOM, Major Jose Valenzuela was reviewing an operations plan in his office with Dr. Rae Dunnan. Rae, Craig Pulliam, and others put together "TDA Operations Plan 13, Deflection of Near Earth Objects." They researched, brainstormed, drafted, run simulated exercises, researched and drafted again, and this was the final refinement of the Op Plan that only needed the formality of Major General Arthur's signature.
"You know, Jose, "Rae had said with a little touch of sarcasm in her voice, "it would have been easier if I could have read some of your basic operations plans as a template." Rae wasn’t sure if she was really irritated or just poking Jose to get a rise out of him. “Take that Mr. Starchy”she thought to herself.
Jose smiled. "You know, Rae, the military has some of its little secrets to keep. It's all that need-to-know stuff."
Rae had a reply on her lips when the PA system went off. "Attention crew, implement Force Protection Charlie. This is not a drill. Implement Force Protection Charlie."
They heard the sounds of movement in the hallway. Rae started for the door, but Jose said, "Don't get in their way. They'll knock you down."
The Boulder City detachment didn't have the luxury of an armed civilian guard force. They had to provide their own security. While anonymity was their primary protection, an armory that would have been the envy of any metropolitan police SWAT team was part of the equation. Warrant Officers moved quickly to hand out weapons and vests. After the pounding footsteps receded, Rae and Jose moved to the small operations room.
The Duty Controller for the Detachment saw Jose enter and said, "Sir, headquarters has initiated Op Plan One in response to
an apparent terrorist incident involving US military personnel and we are shadowing their actions. We are pre-cooling the cryogenic chamber and charging the capacitor bank. A laser alignment test was underway when the alert came in and we are securing from that test. "
"Where is the event?" Jose asked.
The Controller replied, "Fort Hood, Texas. The first reports say multiple shooters and many fatalities and wounded in a personnel processing center." The warrant officer's voice became softer. "Major, we've all been in that Soldier Readiness Center on Fort Hood. It's all just desks and cubicles jammed with people. If some shooters got in there it will be bad."
Jose looked the Warrant Officer in the eyes and nodded. "Mission Geometry?" he asked.
"Doctor Wirtz is working on initial geometry and some of our team called him and they’re talking to him about what they know. Since our folks here know the area, we are giving some estimates of distances and dimensions of the building's layout to the mission geometry team."
A Twist in Time Page 7