by Ira Tabankin
Chapter 20
Jay wakes at 10 feeling refreshed, turning to check his clock radio he’s mildly pissed noticing that it’s been unplugged. He reaches for his watch which is also missing. Frustrated he moves to the edge of the bed to grab his cell which is nowhere to be found.
“LACY! What time is it and where is all of my stuff?”
“Honey, did you call? Want some coffee?”
“Would you mind telling me what time it is? And why my watch and cell are missing?”
“Oh my God, you were robbed! I better call John, someone broke into our home.”
“Don’t get cute. Where’s my stuff? All of it. I know you’d like to destroy my phone, but, I need it.”
“Everything is in your night table drawer.”
“What the hell did you give me? Hardcore drugs?”
“A double dose of the doc’s special sleeping pills. He promised me you’d sleep for at least nine hours. You did really good. You were out for ten. I bet your feel much better.”
“I feel like I’m hungover. My head feels like it’s loaded with concrete.”
“It will pass. By the way, while you were sleeping, you received around forty calls.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You needed your rest. When your head clears, you’ll thank me. I told everyone who called, you’d call back around noon. Most weren’t happy, they finally accepted it when I transferred their calls to General Arthur or Fred.”
“Oh God, they’re going to kill me.”
“No, I’m not.” Looking up Jay sees the General holding a mug of coffee to him. Now that you're done with your beauty nap, we have a lot of work to do. Drink this, it will help clear your head. I’ll wait for you in your office, Mr. Governor.”
“Shit, that kind of business.”
“Yeah, that kind of business. It’s pretty urgent.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. I want to stick my head under a hot shower, maybe it will help me wake up.”
“Ten minutes.”
Walking into the Governor’s office Jay is surprised to see Nancy and Fred filing papers and answering phones.
“What’s going on?”
Fred smiles, “Good morning Mr. Governor, I needed help so I hired Nancy and Cheryl. Lacy has agreed to help out a few hours a day.”
“What the hell happened? Where did all of this paperwork come from? Who’s calling, how did they get this number?”
“I issued a press release. The people needed to know someone was in charge. I published the office phone number and email address. You’ll be pleased to know you’ve had four hundred calls this morning. Nancy, how many emails have we logged so far?”
“Mr. Governor, as of 10:00 AM we have logged over two thousand emails today. I’ve sorted them into different priorities. Sir, those with a red flag are urgent.”
“I need to catch my breath. There’s no way I’ll be able to respond to all of these.”
Fred smiles, “Boss, that’s what Nancy, Cheryl, Lacy and I are doing. Here’s a mug of your coffee. General Arthur is waiting for you in the secure conference room.”
“I appreciate you being very generous with my coffee, remember there’s only so much we have left.”
“General, sorry to keep you waiting. What’s up?”
“Mr. Governor, no one has heard from the governors. I believe they were either killed or jailed when they arrived. You have to stop putting it off and assume all of the duties of being Governor. Our state needs a leader. I’m not sure Governor Abrams is still alive or will ever been seen again.”
“Do you have any other good news I need to hear?”
“Yes, our drones have picked up over a thousand ISIS soldiers heading in this direction.”
“Oh shit! How far away are they?”
“Eight to ten hours. We estimate they plan to hit us tonight during the President’s town hall meeting. They must think we’ll all be watching and pull our alert forces out of our defensive positions.”
“Did you inform the Captain?”
“Do you mean Colonel Black of the Free Tennessee Militia?”
“Congratulations on a good hire. I’m glad he decided to join us versus fighting us. What are you planning to do about the potential attack on us?”
“Mr. Governor…”
“Can you just call me Jay?”
“I’ll try, but you are the state’s Governor. I’ve prepared an order for your signature to activate the National Guard to help defend the State House.”
“Are you telling me this is the State House?”
“It is now. It’s the only one we have. You both live and work here which makes it the State House. We have to protect it and you. We also need to finalize how we’re going to elect State Representatives, and where they are going to hold their meetings.”
“NO!”
“No?”
“I draw the line at having a couple of hundred people, mostly politicians running around my farm all wanting a room in the shelter. I didn’t spend millions to build this complex to turn it into the State Capital.”
“Mr. Governor, if not here, then where do you suggest we build the Capital?”
“I don’t know, ask someone to form a damn committee, governments do that well. Hire a consulting company to prepare a report to the representatives which they’ll debate, modify, ignore, hire a second consulting company to comment on the first’s report, they’ll send it to committee and a couple of years from now it’ll show up on Governor Abram’s desk. See how easy that was. Is that what you needed to see me about?”
General Arthur laughs, “I see you understand how government works. Jay, really, you can’t rule by Executive Order.”
“Why not? Doesn’t the President? It’s good enough for him, it’s good enough until the real Governor returns.”
“Jay, you ARE the real Governor.”
“Please find someone else. I told you, I’m not a politician. I didn’t ask for this job; I don’t want it!”
“Jay, you’re what we have. Now climb down off your mountain and let’s try to do the people’s business. If you don’t, who will? Do you want to leave the people defenseless?”
“Stop! You closed the sale. I’ll do it, what do we need to do?”
“You need to issue me orders to stop the pending ISIS attack, you need to issue an outline how the new elections will be held, what are your plans for how the state will raise money. If not here, where will the new Capital be? How do you want to help the homeless and hungry? What are you going to do with unpaid taxes, should I continue?”
“No. Let’s start with the most important issues; I’m going to send you an email ordering you to use all forces necessary to crush the ISIS invaders. Before we discuss the elections, we need a census so we know who lives where so we have equal representation. After we know how many people we have, we’ll hold elections in four weeks. I don’t want to wait too long or there will be too many political ads run. I hate turning on the TV and seeing nothing but political ads. As far as back taxes; I’m writing them off. It’s not fair for the business who failed or are holding on by their fingernails, to have to pay more than they already have in taxes. We’ll get by with less, just like everyone else has to. Our monetary policy is officially the Huntsville plan.”
“See how easy that was. You’re handling the Governor’s job as if you were born to it. I’ll tell Fred and Nancy to issue the press releases and Executive Orders. I suggest you start returning the urgent calls and emails. I have a war to fight.”
“General, what are your plans for this evening if the President declares war against us?”
“All of our forces will be on alert from 6:00 PM, two hours before his town hall meeting. I assume the farm will be too?”
“Of course. We’ll be ready for anything that he can throw at us.”
“I’m going to position six people here with MANPADS in case drones or fighters attempt to attack you.”
“They don’t kno
w about us. You told me that Black fully joined our side, he wouldn’t tell them anything that would hurt us.”
“Are you sure? Anything Governor Abrams knew, you can be sure, they know. They are devious enough to drain every bit of knowledge out of him. They most likely drugged all of the governors, there’s nothing they knew that the DHS doesn’t know now. They’ll use the information to create a target list.”
“Shit, you’re right. I assumed they would hold the governors for a PR stunt the President would use at the town meeting. Do you think they’ll hit us tonight?”
“There’s a very good chance they will. The asshole will bomb us and show the attack on television during the town hall meeting. He’ll use the quick bombing attack to build support for what he’ll call a quick strike to bring us back into the fold. He needs to be the winner, his ‘legacy’ depends on it. The progressives will applaud the President’s quick action. He’ll never expect us to be ready to hit back tonight.”
“What are the targets you’re going to strike?”
“If we’re going to strike them, I suggest we hit their power grid for the North East. Our second target is Chicago and LA’s water treatment centers.”
“I like it, bring the pain to their homes, make them see what fighting us will cost them. Are we prepared to defend our own grid and water treatment plants? We can’t afford to trade them grid for grid, plant for plant. They have more life-sustaining infrastructure than we do.”
“We’re ready. We have CAP flying over our plants, if they attempt to hit us, we’ll bring them down. We’ll have a few B1s up and waiting to make an attack run on the North East an hour before he goes on television.”
“God, I hope we don’t need them. I wish he’d just let us go.”
“We both know he’s not going to do that. It’s all about his legacy. He has to win, even if his winning means the rest of the country loses.”
“General, keep me updated, I better settle in and start taking calls.”
“I have faith in you. I know you’ll have the State running like a clock in a couple of weeks.”
“I have faith that I won’t see a single ISIS soldier here tonight.”
“That’s a promise I can give you.”
The two friends hug each other. General Arthur smiles walking out of Jay’s office. He passes Fred and Nancy, who are working the phones. Nancy looks up, waving to the General, he asks her.
“Nancy, what’s up?”
“General, we have numerous reports of heavily armed soldiers moving east on Interstate 40.”
“I know about them. I have a drone keeping a close eye on them. We’ll stop them before they get close.”
@@@@@
Each Southern Governor is interrogated by DHS agents. Each is given a ‘cocktail’ of truth drugs and is wired to a lie detector. Three experts check each answer the governors give their questioners. The governors are sedated and drugged, they don’t have any memory of being questioned. Each spends four hours in the interrogation room before being returned to their cells. They’re dressed in orange jumpsuits and left alone. They remain sedated and harmless to their guards. After questioning the South Carolina governor, the guards are given permission to do anything they want to her. She’s gang raped in her cell, every minute of it is recorded.
The President reviews the report from the Governors’ interrogation. Smiling, he lists the top thirteen targets, one in each Southern state. He hands the list to his military attaché,
“This is a list of where the Southern LT Governors are hiding. I want all of them taken out tonight just before my town hall meeting. I want recordings of the smart bombs killing all of them.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure the Air Force has the target list right away.”
The military attaché holds the door open for the President’s CoS.
“We’re almost ready with the videos for tonight’s broadcast.”
“Excellent, I plan to show the American people the threat these domestic terrorists posed is finished. I’ll also show videos of the thirteen governors apologizing to the American people. Most people won’t know we drugged them so they’d say what I wanted them to say. I’ll close my broadcast with an announcement that the threatened civil war is over before it began. Tomorrow I’ll sign the Executive Orders placing the South under martial law. I’m taking their right to own guns away from them. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted. Every hundred or so years they get it in their head they want to be their own country. Stealing a line from the damn Jews, ‘Never Again’ will the people in the South ever be a bother to us again. I’ll appoint their governors, they won’t be allowed elections until a new generation has been educated under our direction that their fathers and forefathers were terrorists who had to be put down in order to save the Union.”
“Sir, this is going to be one of your finest moments; one that with your Affordable Healthcare and Iranian nuclear treaty will cement your legacy as one of the country’s best Presidents ever. Your name will be remembered and sung about by school children forever.”
“I like that idea. Hire a couple of songwriters to draft a few songs we can add to the school curriculum. I want to hear the young students sing my name before I leave office.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it today.”
“Good, now let’s go over the town hall meeting again. I don’t want any mistakes made.”
Four hours later ten US Air Force B52 bombers take off to attack their targets in the South. They left their fighter escorts home thinking the South didn’t have time to pull together a defense. They thought they were going on a joy ride with promises of promotion and bonuses in their heads as they headed south. They didn’t turn their electronic jammers on in fear it would disrupt people’s cellular and wireless internet. They flew without a concern or fear in the world. They didn’t see the F16s waiting down low in the ‘radar noise’ at the border. When the B52s cross the border, they radioed a single warning on GUARD telling them they were trespassing into the Confederate States of America. The bomber crews laughed. The F16s’ pilots smiled as they each fired two AIM 120Ds, the most advanced missile in America’s air to air arsenal. Each missile tracked directly into the bombers bomb loaded bellies, blowing them out of the sky.
Jay and the other LT Governors were warned as soon as the bombers took off from their base by orbiting AWACS planes flying 30,000 feet over the border. They were notified when the fighters shot down the bombers. Jay’s phone rang, the ten other LT Governors are already on the call. The Texan LT Governor says,
“I assume we’re in agreement, we should approve the counter attack.”
Each answers yes.
“Then with our agreement, I’ll send the order to the B1s to strike north in the middle of the President’s town hall meeting.”
Six B1 bombers take off from their base in Texas, they are escorted by F16s. They fly as low to the ground as possible to avoid radar. When they reach the border, they gain attitude to 35,000 feet. Their transponders have been reprogrammed to transmit the codes for United Airlines flights to Boston, Albany, and Chicago. The fighters fly without transponders close to the bombers so the FAA’s radars can’t see them. They fly the commercial flight path the regular United commercial flights from DFW normally fly. The FCC computers and radar register the transponder codes and ignore the flights. They are handed off from one air traffic controller to the next, none of them aware they are talking to Confederate bombers.
The bombers continue unchallenged to their targets; the electrical grid for America’s North East and New York City’s water treatment plant changed from LA’s so the bombers can fly together. One bomber heads towards Chicago.
At eight o’clock the President opens his town hall meeting to discuss the situation in the South. He thinks he’ll be announcing the beginning and ending of the war. He’s daydreaming of winning his second Nobel Peace Prize.
“Mr. President, we’re on the air in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Chapte
r 21
“Good evening my fellow Americans. I’m meeting with you this evening to have an open, honest and frank discussion about the very worrying situation taking place in our Southern states. The Governors of these states broke the law by hacking into the television broadcasts where the Texas Governor read a new Declaration of Independence. They declared their independence from the rest of us. I know I showered today and used a deodorant.” He paused to lift his arm and pretend to sniff his armpits. “Nope, no offensive odor there. I brushed my teeth. Who here didn’t shower or brush their teeth?” Everyone laughs at the President’s joke. “I don’t think they want to leave because we smell bad. Did anyone here insult the South? If so, I want you to stand up and apologize to them right now. You know how sensitive they can be.”