by Ira Tabankin
“Did you get permits to build your shelter?”
“Since it’s classified as a storm shelter we didn’t need any.”
“We both know it’s not a storm shelter, didn’t you break the law?”
“It depends on your definition of a storm. If you’re looking for a way to make me look bad, I don’t give a damn. I gave my word to protect my people, are you protecting the citizens of the State? I’ve seen the remains of Nashville, what’s the condition of Knoxville, Memphis, and Chattanooga? I’ve heard that all three of those cities were trashed in rioting and battles with the Cartel and ISIS. What are you doing to protect us? Isn’t your first duty as Governor to protect your people?”
“You already know the answer to your questions. We’ve had some really rough times. I’m trying to rebuild the cities and establish security zones. I’d thought someone like you, a person who’s fought to protect his family and friends would be a person who understands what I’m trying to do. I thought you’d be a supporter for what I’m doing.”
“Governor, I understand what you’re trying to do. Understanding and agreeing aren’t the same thing. Ask anyone who’s been in a real firefight and you’ll find someone who doesn’t want anyone to be in another. Real warriors don’t want to see war. I’ve seen enough blood and wounded people to last me a lifetime. I don’t want to see people suffering or people having to say goodbye to their loved ones as they’re being lowered into a hole in the ground.”
“We’ve done everything we can to…”
“No, I don’t believe you’ve done enough. Try harder, try everything so you don’t turn the Mississippi red with our people’s blood. While you think on that, let me open the door and give you the fifty cent tour.”
Jay enters his access code; the outside door lifts up allowing them to enter the shelter. The Governor is surprised to see another door in front of him.
“We have three armored doors, anyone breaking in will have to cut their way through three blast doors which are designed to survive an explosive charge.”
The governor lays his hand on the armored door,
“I’m impressed. Why three doors?”
“Anyone, given enough time or explosives can get through one door, once they break through the first door, they enter where we are, our first portal. We have hidden cameras, and firing ports plus hidden mines in the ceiling which will shoot steel ball bearings into anyone in the portal. If they somehow survive that, they have to cut through the second door which should open, right about now.”
The governor smiles,
“I see you have a backup plan. Another door?”
“Same system, mines and firing ports. If anyone gets through the first door they’ll be trapped in the first portal, if they manage to get through the second door, we get another shot at them. They have to cut through this third door before they gain access. This gives us time to prepare a warm welcome for anyone getting this far.” They hear a voice, “Good afternoon Mr. Governor, welcome to our little shelter. Jay, welcome back.”
The governor turns to look at Jay with a questioning look on his face.
“That’s John in our security room. He’s watching us from our hidden cameras.”
The third door whooshes up, opening to the main hallway which surprises the governor by it not being straight.
“I thought it would be straight.”
“All the halls zig-zag to allow us corners to slow down any attacker.”
“This is more than a bomb shelter. How thick are the walls?”
“Sorry, that’s classified. As is the ceiling.”
“Classified? Really? From the Governor? I’ll have you know I hold a Top Secret clearance.”
“I’m sorry but TS clearance isn’t high enough, the construction of the shelter is only known to a handful of people. We don’t share it with anyone. Let me show you some of our special areas.”
Jay leads the Governor to the trauma rooms, hospital, cafeteria and shows him to the security room.
“This is our security and radio room. John is our security chief. He’s an ex-Marine Captain.”
John reaches out to shake the Governor’s hand who asks, “Do you have sat communications?”
John smiles, he looks at Jay, who nods his head.
“We can communicate with just about anyone, anywhere. It doesn’t matter if they’re civilian, government or military.”
“Do you have an encryption system?”
“Of course. We don’t want to be overheard by our enemies.” Laughing he adds, “Or our friends.”
“John, or Jay, do you have a storeroom and an armory?”
Jay smiles,
“Governor, we have both, and I’m sorry, both are classified. I can tell you, we built the shelter to support the people in it for a long time.”
“Can you define a long time?”
“Much longer than FEMA recommends. Long enough that everything will be safe when we surface.”
“Have you had to use the shelter before?”
“Yes, we’ve been overrun a few times. The shelter’s saved all of our lives more than once.”
“I assume you have a conference room we can chat in?”
“Of course, follow me.”
“This place is a maze; how does anyone ever know their way around?”
“You most likely missed the color coding, there’s a color line along the ceiling, following the color will take someone to their rooms, or medical or the cafeteria.”
“That arrow says, Emergency exit, wait, don’t tell me, it’s classified.”
“That’s correct. We’d be fools not to have a quick exit strategy. By the way, we also have play rooms and a school.”
“Damn, this is a small underground city. May I ask, how much did it cost you to build it?”
“You may ask, to be honest, I don’t remember. I’m sure there are boxes of receipts someplace, if it’s that important, I can get someone to dig them up.”
“No, I was just curious. It’s not really important. I was wondering about building copies of these for our people.”
“For the people, or for the State’s government?”
“Why don’t we sit and chat?”
Jay and the Governor sit with a pot of coffee in the shelter’s conference room. The governor looks around.
“Small isn’t it?”
“Space is a resource we have to balance between living space, storage and rooms we might not use every day. Originally, there were going to be less than twenty of us, then Tony joined us, we recently added some from a few local towns so I think we’re up to sixty people. We can support up to one hundred. They won’t be comfortable, but they’d be alive. Each room is small and not soundproof, which I admit is a major mistake I made. We were so busy finishing the shelter, I didn’t give a thought to the sound proofing. When we are here, everyone whispers or communicates via texting. Otherwise, everyone can hear everything said. Like many small towns, no one here has any privacy, everyone knows everyone else’s business.”
“I compliment you. The shelter is frankly damn amazing. I’m impressed. I didn’t know such a civilian shelter existed in the state. When General Arthur told me about the shelter, I didn’t believe him. Being here, opened my eyes. That brings me to the real reason I’m here.”
Jay smiles while drinking his coffee,
“Let me guess, you’d like to use my shelter for your headquarters.”
Smiling and nodding the governor replies,
“I heard you were smart. I must have a spy on my staff. Would you tell me who told you?”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out why you wanted to visit and pushed to see the shelter. I’ll be honest with you. We have room for you and a small staff, and I do mean small. However, I do have issues which are the following;
Opening our doors for you, makes us a prime target. Rather than secure my family and friends, I’ll be placing them in additional danger. I see a large bullseye hanging over us.
&nbs
p; You’ll try to pull rank. We have a formal structure down here, one that works. It’s based on me being the owner, Tony is my second in command, John, security with Todd, his assistant. Fred supply and production chief, Doctor Basco head medical officer.
You and your staff aren’t used to living and working underground. Your menu choices are extremely limited; the walls aren’t sound proofed. Everyone is assigned a task to help maintain the shelter.
This place is one giant maze, your people will get lost and distract my people from performing their chores.
When you enter the shelter, choice is gone, you go where you’re told, you eat what we all eat, you eat when we eat, everyone works helping preserve the shelter.
If an attack comes, you and your people have to do what you’re told when you’re told.
Communications are limited.
When we’re in lockdown, no one leaves. I mean, no one.
Any questions?”
“Talk about being a dictator. You sure make a lot of rules for someone who doesn’t like rules.”
“Mr. Governor, when we enter the shelter, we’ll all be living in a very fragile Ecosystem, one we have to work at to keep in balance. There’s only room here for one leader, one manager. You can’t be that person because you don’t have the experience.”
“I’ll let you know; my list of experience is very long.”
“Great, please explain how you would handle a leak in the primary cooling line over the red section.”
“I’d call the repair people.”
“Who are they?”
“You must have a handbook of some sort.”
“Nope. No manual. Never had time to write one. You have to know what to do and when to do it. You don’t understand the first thing about running this shelter.”
“How about you become my special shelter advisor?”
“How about, you go home?”
“I need your shelter.”
“I need to protect my family and friends. You can’t just take my shelter away from me.”
“I can, and will if I have to, please don’t push me into doing it.”
“If you did, you might not live to see the surface.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Not at all, I never make threats. I make promises. Things are much different down here.”
“They can’t be much different than upstairs.”
“I’ll show you.”
Jay picks up the handset sitting next to him,
“John, cut the power in sectors one through three.”
“Roger.”
A moment later the lights go out. The Governor looks around.
“How can I turn them on?”
“You’re the expert, just do it.”
“You’re a royal pain in the ass.”
“I know I am. I also know that without me in charge, you won’t make it. I think my options have become; either I allow you to use my shelter or you take what you want.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re correct. I’ll tell you what, I’ll agree to your terms. Can we work together to provide our people a better life?”
“Since I don’t really have a choice, okay. Just remember, when the doors close, I’m in charge.”
“Thank you, I’d hate to have to use my authority to take it. How do you want to handle my staff?”
“You can have two, three if you don’t mind rooming with one of them.”
“I’ll bring two. I thought you said you had room for up to one hundred.”
“We do, but, there are others we need to add to our population. People who will add value to our little community. By the way, I’ll need their personnel files.”
“Anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.” Jay thinks, I know I’m going to regret this. Shit, I really don’t have a choice, if I don’t take him in, he’ll force his way in or we’ll be fighting our own governor.
@@@@@
Frank makes his way back to the farm and shelter. He’s looking for Tony to understand why his mission has been recalled. He walks to the shelter thinking he’ll find Tony in the security room. He enters the shelter cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee, he looks at his phone which shows him a map leading him to the security room. He mumbles walking through the zig-zag hallways. He’s surprised when he walks into Jay and the Governor. He drops his phone in surprise, looking up he smiles a guilty smile saying,
“Mr. Governor, pleased to see you.”
Holding out his hand to shake Frank’s, “Thank you, Mr.?”
“You can call me Frank.”
“Hello Frank, how long have you lived on the farm?”
“I’m a contract worker. I’ve only been here a couple of days.”
Hearing contract worker, Jay looks closely at Frank. He holds out his hand.
“Hello Frank, I’m Jay. I assume Tony hired you?”
“Yes, that’s correct. Do you happen to know where he is? I have a report to give him.”
“I think you can give it to me in my conference room in two hours. Why don’t you follow your instructions to the security room where John will escort you to my home?”
Frank smiles,
“Yes, sir. I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter 9
After a late dinner, the Tennessee governor virtually sits in front of his secession partners.
“My friends, I’ve spoken with a number of my people. They’ve made it very clear, they support secession do we send a delegation or we, ourselves meet with the President to present our grievances to him.”
The governors debate whether to meet with the President before or after the election, one point of view is meeting before the election will put them in a position of weakness, the President could stall until he sees what the people want. After five hours of heated discussion the governors vote on first holding the election, if the motion passes, then they’ll meet with the President. The tired governors agree to the plan. They agree to announce their plan in the morning. They plan to hold a joint online press conference. After the meeting breaks up, the Tennessee Governor, who’s accepted Jay’s hospitality to spend the night at the castle decided he’d try to find the family room where he’d seen a bar to get a shot of bourbon. He figured, he was overtired and couldn’t sleep so he might as well get something to drink. He thought to himself, it will help me sleep and relax me after that stressful call. Trying to hold this group together gets harder by the day. Some want to move slow, a few like Texas are fed up and want to force the President’s hand by announcing their secession within the week. I agree with Jay and others; the people have to support us. If we don’t have the people behind us, we’re going to fail.
The governor locates the family room, he stands in the middle of the room trying to remember where the bar is, he’s walking in his socks to be as silent as possible. He runs his hand along the wall when he’s surprised by,
“Governor, what can I do for you?”
“Hello? Jay, is that you? What are you doing up at this hour?”
Jay turns the light on. The governor is surprised to see Jay sitting in the dark with a mug of cooling coffee and a sidearm in his lap.
“Is something wrong?” asks the startled governor, pointing to the gun.
“I always carry a sidearm when I can’t sleep. Can’t be too safe. Too many people would like to break in and try to loot my home. I couldn’t sleep, so I came here to do a little thinking.”
“I couldn’t sleep either. I thought I’d get something to drink.”
“The bar’s across the room, do you see it?”
“Yes, thank you. It was a long call.”
“I think a five-hour call qualifies as a very long call. Stressful?”
“Very. We finally reached an agreement and have a path forward we all agreed to. We’re going to make an announcement tomorrow and hold a special election so the people can have their say. If they support us, we’ll move forward.”
“Did you agree to the percent of su
pport you’ll accept to move forward?”
The governor smiles, “Yes we did. It took up most of the call, we reached an agreement to move forward if 60% of the people support secession.”