by Reed Hill
The law divided the state of Texas into five individual states, by adding four new states: North Texas, West Texas, East Texas, South Texas – to the old state of Texas, which would be the central part of Texas, and carry on as ‘Texas’ or legally the ‘State of Texas’. The 1845 Annexation Agreement came about through a joint resolution between the U.S. Congress and the Texas legislature. Since Article Four of the Constitution allows the creation of new states out of an existing one with the consent of both the legislature of that state and of the U.S. Congress, the agreement was created and signed by then President James Polk as a condition of the Texas joining the Union. The joint resolution and ordinance of annexation contained language permitting the formation of up to four additional states out of the former territories of the Republic of Texas:
New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.
Various proposals had been sitting in desk drawers of conservative and libertarian Texas politicos for decades, so Cantelli assigned Jeremy to put out the word and gather the most promising of them and begin crafting draft legislation. He had a working proposal in three weeks, drawing heavily from a one hundred-year-old document by the late Sam Rayburn, drafted in 1909 when he was a twenty-nine year-old Speaker of the Texas House. Also particularly instructive was a position paper from U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, which was apparently theory-crafting from his time as a clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Naturally, it was a very controversial piece of legislation, which had driven the mainstream media into an uproar ever since it was revealed that the law was not merely a good-natured hoax. The legislation gave the Governor the new title of President, and the Lt. Governor would become Vice President of a new Republic of Texas.
The difficulty now lay in the formation of a new confederation of governments for the new sub-divided states. The way the new law was written, the current Texas State House and Senate would serve their current role in the respective chambers of the new Republic, but in addition they would also serve in these roles in new bodies in the sub-state chambers. That is, the House member from District 70 would represent Fricso and Lewisville in both the new House of North Texas and the “big house” of the Republic in Austin. The republic’s bodies would meet in session during the even years only, and the sub-state congress would meet only in the odd-numbered years.
Chase’s vision for increasing the presence of Texas was, in reality, a political ‘Hail Mary,’ attempting to wriggle from what he and other conservatives saw as a chokehold the Democratic Party had on America. Overall, Callie thought it was a divisive move, five years ago she would have called it crazy, but perhaps not these days. She often thought about how volatile the times were and how different things were compared to just five or six years ago. She had changed as well, but the country had changed even more. The Democratic Party at the national level was certainly no longer the party her parents voted for, from Truman to Clinton, and Callie had become disillusioned at what her party had done in the past decade. Several of her friends had been shocked when they found out that Callie was going to work for a Republican Solicitor General. A few relationships had all but dissolved over it. She had felt more and more abandoned by her a party with nearly every position or policy that came out of Washington. Even her grandfather, the staunch Truman Democrat, had voted Republican for the first time in 2016.
“That was a stroke of genius, finding that provision in the 1845 Annexation pact, sir,” the voice of the shorter of the AG’s deputies, the ferret-faced Jeremy, brought her back to the conversation.
Cantelli deflected the compliment with a polite nod, “Go ahead, Ben.”
“Jeremy and I have worked on the case for six months,” Ben acknowledged his colleague with the gesture of his pen. “We have a strong case for sub-division sir, because the document itself is quite clear. The federals will make the case, that in order for the state to sub-divide, it will first have to dissolve the current government, effectively withdrawing from the union.”
“The withdrawal and dissolution are probably their most fertile grounds for argument,” Callie jumped in. “If I was advising them, I would take the tack that the withdrawal constitutes secession, which the War between the States and Texas v. White made unconstitutional.”
“That’s the main line of reasoning we’re preparing for,” Ben said.
“Of course, they’ll be seeking to invalidate the results of the special elections.” Ben clutched his maroon leather notepad case to his chest. “They will likely bar the new senators from taking office, probably by refusing to swear them in – basically anything to prevent them from validating the five new states of Texas.”
“What is the word on the elections?” Meacham said.
“We don’t have any indications that they were blocked or prevented in any precincts – aside from the typical problems in Houston and Dallas,” Ben said. “Looks like they went ahead as planned. The final counts should be available at noon.”
A page appeared and called to the group from the living room doorway, “The Governor needs everyone in the Dining Room, please.”
Chase looked over the room, watching it re-fill and pulled aside his Chief of Staff and showed him the piece of paper. Chase tapped Lopez on the shoulder and turned to face the room, “The Adjutant General of the Texas Guard reports that we also have rioting in McAllen.” The room went so quiet that the clink and clank of staff working in the kitchen could be heard. “The borders have been breached by masses of armed insurgents there, like in El Paso.”
“People, the State of Texas is under attack.”
*****
Federal Bureau of Investigation – Strategic Information and Operations Center
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C. – July 5th, 2017 – 4:12 am
Margolis made a couple of calls and had yet another team leader coming into SIOC. At least he was able to tell this one that she was just coming to work early, and to report to the Submarine ASAP. No one was calling his name, no calls were waiting for him and his wireless wasn’t buzzing. He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and sat down at the desk at the rear of the huge operations center, enjoying the brief moment of respite.
A female analyst at the front of the room turned and signaled for him, so he rose slowly from the chair and made his way down to her. She removed one ear of her headphones, “I’m getting some strange traffic in south Texas. The files I’m getting are mostly CB chatter and some HAM radio talk.”
“What are you getting from our Border Patrol stations? Anything?”
“No sir, we’ve got nothing but static from the main Guard Station at El Paso and the video feed is still non-functional.”
“What video do we have from down there?” Margolis furrowed his brow. What the hell good is a $20 billion budget if you can’t get video of anything meaningful? It was times like this that he reminded himself to take notice the next time a fat contractor job was floated his way. Double the pay, weekends off and no crazy zero-dark-thirty op center marathons on holidays with crappy coffee and stale doughnuts. He was twelve years out from his MBA from Duke – graduating third in his class – and most of his study group friends were either in the C-suite or knocking on the door, most of them making a half a million per year or more. The FBI seemed like a bureaucratic mess by comparison, with a ‘deputy-assistant director’ and ‘assistant unit chief’ in every office on every floor. Margolis sighed a very heavy breath, “I mean, can we get anything at all from the region? Surely, there’s something.”
The analyst pivoted her computer screen toward Margolis and pulled up a video file with a quick double-click of her mouse, “This was twenty minutes ago at border tower 76-4D1.” I can find out exactly where this is, if needed. “I reduced
the file to the pertinent 90 seconds of material.”
Margolis pushed his glasses up higher and focused on the stationary video, intently watching the greenish tint of infrared imagery of approximately two or three hundred yards of the border fence line. Within a few seconds, some dark green outlines from off-screen moved forward to the twelve foot fence. The fence itself was made of corrugated steel with vertical posts every eight feet and three horizontal reinforcing strips, in addition to the top and bottom straight rails connecting the posts, topped with concertina.
The two blips moved to a particular spot on the fence and began working on the steel itself. Although the lack of clarity of the video prevented documenting precise actions, it was clear that the pair was able to breach the steel panel of that section and get through. Rather than run from the fence and into the shadows of the nearby hills and canyons, the two stayed at the spot, manipulating the fence with their hands or very small hand tools. “Can you get a closer look at that?” said Margolis.
“Let me see.” The analyst paused the video and rewound it for several seconds. With more than a few keystrokes and mouse-clicks, the analysts finally was able to zoom in on the pair of illegals, but the image lost clarity very rapidly. “Let me try reversing the values. That can sometimes help.” With still more computer work, the analyst flipped the light and dark aspects of the image, but it didn’t improve the clarity.
“Okay,” Margolis sighed, “let’s move forward from here. Go back to the wide view and original IR images.”
The analyst pulled the aspect back out to the original viewpoint and got the video going again. After a few seconds, five or six more individuals ran to the location and passed through in just a matter of seconds. They too gathered on the U.S. side and did not immediately run for cover. Three or four of the group came through and began working on the fence while the remaining two appeared to facing the U.S. side with their backs to the fence – lookouts.
Within a few moments, scores of individuals began appearing from off-screen, coming through the fence essentially unimpeded. It would have been unremarkable except that it just did not stop for close to a full minute, a steady stream of illegals, nearly all looked to have backpacks and rucksacks and many had some kind of long gun. “Jesus…” Margolis mumbled, “How many got through?”
“We don’t have an accurate count as of now, sir, but we would estimate three hundred or so--”
“Stop. Go back a sec.” Margolis interrupted.
The analyst wound the video back a couple of seconds, and glanced over at Margolis to if she had gone back far enough.
Margolis pointed to and circled an area on the screen, “Go in on this spot.”
She zoomed in on the spot, but it was still very pixelated, and Margolis cursed under his breath. “Come back out a little and try to re-focus.” The analyst went to a larger view and stopped when Margolis halted her, “Wait.” Margolis leaned in, straining to see the image more clearly.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, directing the analyst’s eyes to a particular area. “Is that what I think is?” Margolis sat back staring at the roughly conical shape protruding up from the backpack of one of the illegals. “That looks like an rpg to me. Am I wrong?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” the analyst said.
“Email me a copy of the video, right away,” Margolis said, as he got up and turned to walk back up to the back of the room.
“And it gets even better.”
Margolis stopped and turned back to the analyst, “How so?”
“Um, nearest tower is 76-4D1. Sector Four, coordinates 29 degrees 47 minutes North, and 102 degrees and 25 minutes West.” After a few clicks, the analyst looked up at Margolis, “Total BFE, sir. It’s 275 miles from El Paso and about 125 miles west of Austin.”
Margolis’ thin face fell. “Get somebody else to help you with the video. No, make that two more. Go back to 0100 hours and look at everything. Everything.” This is bigger than I thought.
*****
Texas State Guard – Domestic Operations - Command, Intelligence and Control Center
Austin, Texas - July 5th, 2017 – 4:20 a.m.
“Mike, Hum Dinger over at CIC,” the General tapped the rear end of a ball point pen against his cheek, right where a new pinch of Skoal would have fit nicely. “I need to get some birds in the air, pronto.”
Brigadier General Mike Phelps was the commander of the Texas Air Guard and leader of its Air Component. The Texas Guard had their own state air forces, aligned with Air National Guard units in seven different bases throughout the state, and they answered to Phelps. In reality, they shared the units with the U.S. government, even though no right-minded Texan would admit that. Dinger had known Phelps for probably close to twenty years, going back to when they were a couple of young hotshots in the first Gulf War. Phelps had come up as an F-15 eagle driver with a damn good reputation and a surgeon’s cool brashness.
“The Command Group 21st Air Cavalry up at Hood has their two Alert Apaches on standby, but they won’t launch without Command authority from Washington clearing it. They won’t even give us a couple of Kiowas to do some recon,” Dinger continued. “We need to get our crap together before I try to bring in those guys in anyway. I don’t know exactly what we’re up against here Mike.”
“I got the two alert Blackhawks from the 36th from Bergstrom in the air at 0405 and they are on intercept to coordinates,” said Phelps in a stoic, east-Texas drawl. “We should have eyes on McAllen with a good SITREP in twenty minutes. I’m readying two Blackhawks from the 36th to dispatch ASAP.”
“That’s great, Mike.” Dinger was relieved that Phelps was able to get the Blackhawks in the air, but was troubled by the reply from the duty officer up a Hood, a Major Anderson. His reply was a simple, “Let us look into it.” Dinger knew that his situation was about to get royally screwed up if everybody he called was going to take that tack. “I have to be honest with you…” Dinger hesitated a moment. “If you got any buddies over at Hood, I sure could use a guy with a stick to motivate those fellas a bit. Based on what I been looking at for the past hour, we’re in some deep thorn brush, Mike.”
“I hear you,” Phelps said. “I’ll make a call and see what I can find out. It might help me a bit if I have some more detail.”
“I’ll have Major Theroux put together what we know as of now and email it ASAP.”
“Sounds good, Hum. Shoot that brief on over and I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Dinger hung up and motioned to Maj. Theroux to come over. Theroux handed Dinger a couple of different sheets of paper, “This is the latest, sir.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me…”
“No sir, and we just took calls from state troopers at Laredo and Del Rio as well.”
*****
Governor’s Residence
Austin, Texas - July 5th, 2017 – 4:32 a.m.
Doyle shuffled his feet and bent his knees a bit. He had been on his feet for what seemed like two days straight. He excused himself and walked to a table at the other side of the war room. He refilled his glass from the crystal pitcher, letting a couple of the ice cubes fall into the tall glass, and returned to where Chief of Staff Lopez, the Governor, and Ted White – the Director of the Texas Rangers in the Department of Public Safety – stood. He thought it was interesting to see how men’s character is revealed not by prosperity, but by pressure, and this definitely qualified. He had been impressed with Chase, and had really come to like working for him, even if he hated working for his actual boss. The image of the hulkish former football player who had taken too many blows to the head that the mainstream media had portrayed of the Governor didn’t fit with the man he had come to know in the past two and a half years. The office had aged Chase. So much had changed since they had won the Governorship less than three years ago.
The national debt had passed $21 trillion last fall, and interest on the debt passed defense spending to become the second largest federal budget it
em consuming $680 billion per year. With interest rates rising in the last year and half, the debt was spiraling out of control. The Republicans relented to compromises on tax “reform” twice in a year – sold to the public under the guise of deficit-reduction – which focused on closing “loopholes” in the tax code. The national Republicans had become so gutless, servile. The public didn’t buy it and the Republicans’ approval rate from their own party dropped to an all-time low. It was Obama’s coup de gras: divide and conquer. It made Doyle furious just thinking about the cowardice and complicity of the national Republican leaders. They were way too quick to cut bad deals, trying to stay relevant to the public. They made numerous bad ones both on economics and on the budget. Their incompetence had basically created the Liberty Party.
The other contentious element that played into the split was immigration. Establishment Republicans essentially caved on a substantial immigration reform package and sided with Democrats on a Senate version of the bill that gutted border enforcement back in 2013. They were trying desperately to be relevant in the new tribalized America and got bamboozled. Most Texans saw it for what it was: pure pandering to the Hispanic vote by a desperate party. The law gave amnesty to over 12 million illegal aliens, two-thirds of which were from Mexico. It was a disaster for the state of Texas.
“So people,” Governor Chase’s deep voice brought Doyle back to the situation at hand, “Where do we stand with the rioting?” They wanted an update on the emerging situations, and initiated a conference call with the Adjutant General of the Texas Guard, Lt. General Bill Stein and the Director of Intelligence Center at Camp Mabry, Maj. General Hobart Dinger. After a page blithely dialed in the two generals and verified all were online, Chase opened the meeting with a quick inquiry, “What do we know as of now?”