“We could get our loyal troops and some of the equipment into New Mexico, and the Texans wouldn’t follow us across the border.”
“You think this is chess?” another officer retorted. “If I were making the decisions for them, I would follow you all the way to Hell to force you to surrender. And we’re just not ready to move. It would take a couple of days to get ready, and we don’t have two days.”
Lee Parker made up his mind. The brass would court-martial him if he ran, and, in truth, he didn’t have running in him. Nor did he want to fight for Barry Soetoro. He had been doing what he had done for the past thirty-two years: obeying orders because he was in the United States Army, serving under the Stars and Stripes. Now he lacked the means to fight. “We’ll surrender,” he said. He glanced at the chief of staff and told him to draft a message to all the higher headquarters telling them of his decision.
“Sir, shouldn’t we disable the tanks, artillery, Bradleys?”
“If we had the people to accomplish that, we wouldn’t be surrendering,” Lee Parker said bitterly. “This command has just disintegrated. I didn’t see it coming, and I doubt if anyone else in this room did either. If you did have an inkling, you certainly didn’t do your country any favors by keeping your mouth shut.” Yet, after all, in a vast bureaucracy, one didn’t get ahead by pointing out statistically remote disastrous possibilities that had never occurred in the past. A mutiny! For heaven’s sake, this is the United States Army, and 1st Armored was a hell of a good outfit!
Lee Parker went back to the NCOs who still stood in the reception area.
“Sergeant Major Mendez, will you please go to the main gate and tell the sheriff or his deputy to send for General Fehrenbach? I’ll surrender Fort Bliss to him. Have the sheriff bring him here.”
“Yes, sir,” Mendez said, saluted, and marched from the room.
The thunderstorms were gone and it was drizzling rain when JR Hays and Wiley Fehrenbach were ushered into the commanding general’s office at Fort Bliss. Seeing that JR was wearing major general’s stars, Lee Parker, standing at attention beside his desk, saluted and said, “Gentlemen, my troops have mutinied and I am unable to defend the base or the military equipment here. In order not to squander lives uselessly, I wish to surrender the base and its personnel to the Texas forces.”
JR and Wiley returned the salute. JR told Wiley, “You accept the surrender. Write it out on a computer.” He dictated the terms: All military equipment would be surrendered along with the troops. Those soldiers who wished to leave Texas were welcome to do so, and those who wished to enlist in the Texas Guard would be encouraged to do so after they took a loyalty oath and signed it. Anyone caught sabotaging surrendered military equipment would be dealt with summarily.
“If you or your staff or senior officers wish to leave, General Parker, I suggest you get in one of your C-130s or executive transports and leave immediately. We are going to block the runway with tanks as soon as you depart.”
“I’ll stay,” Lee Parker said. “My officers can make their own decisions.”
“I understand you have some civilians locked up.”
“Orders from Washington,” Parker replied curtly. “FEMA has lists.”
“Let them out, Wiley, and get them rides home. And haul down the American flags on base. Find some Texas flags and run them up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wiley Fehrenbach unbuttoned his shirt and produced a Lone Star flag. He grinned at JR and handed it to the nearest soldier. “You heard him. Run it up the pole outside and get one for the pole at the main gate.”
JR glanced at the leather couch, and asked the two generals to conduct their business in the outer office. When the door was closed behind them, he sacked out on the couch. He glanced at his watch. The Republic of Texas was just a bit less than forty-eight hours old. The window was open and the breeze felt good. He was asleep ten seconds later.
SIXTEEN
The riots continued in inner cities around the country. Baltimore was probably the worst: it had been racked by riots the previous year, and this time the mob at the core expanded across downtown and into the suburbs.
Police and National Guardsmen had disappeared. Much of their leadership had already been imprisoned by the feds. Many of those left on duty went home to protect or move their families. Others just threw up their hands. Why try to bring a mob under control when the physical risks were high and the politicians were frightened that they might lose some votes, so none of the political elite or police brass would back the men and women in uniform on the streets? Police and guardsmen went into bars, had a few, then found their cars and went home.
In the suburbs, people were getting into a state of near panic. Rumors were rampant. In subdivisions and neighborhoods, mothers and fathers surrounded by children met in front yards and culs-de-sac, exchanging rumors and fears. People talked about blocking off streets as they faced the prospect of having to defend their homes against marauders. It seemed as if much of America now had two ravenous domestic enemies — rioting, looting mobs, and the federal government. Many of the suburbanites had an old lever-action Winchester or Marlin, or a bolt-action Winchester, Remington, or Ruger in the closet, and a couple boxes of ammunition for it. They decided what they were going to do if the mobs invaded their neighborhoods to rob, loot, rape, and burn.
In Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Los Angeles, the mobs were still in the ghetto, but as in Baltimore, those who lived in the riot-torn area and were not a part of it were trying to flee. People left on foot and in cars, streams of refugees, some with the contents of looted stores on their backs, but all convinced they had had enough.
Local and network television were showing some of this, where censors would allow it, and radio stations were on the spot with breathless reporting. Social media filled in with some truth, rumor, and wild speculation. As usual on social media, budding writers of sardonic fiction posted absurd tales they thought only fools would believe; of course the fools did believe, but so did many frightened people who were definitely not foolish.
Everyone had someone they needed to talk to desperately: Telephone networks were at maximum capacity. Calls, e-mails, and text messages inundated city and state officials high and low, all those remaining after the FBI, FEMA, Homeland Security, and cooperating county sheriffs had carried off the disloyal for incarceration. Some of the less cooperative sheriffs and police chiefs had also been arrested, decapitating their law enforcement departments. The only thing observers could agree on was that the situation was getting worse. In the White House and congressional offices, staffers stopped answering telephones and e-mail servers crashed. Monday night, August 29, was another wild one in America.
They came for Jake Grafton at Camp Dawson at three in the morning, Tuesday, August 30. Four of them, in green coveralls with FEMA badges on the right shoulder. They woke him up by dragging him from his cot, slamming him to the floor, and kicking him.
Then they cuffed his hands behind his back and dragged him from the tent, across the common area, by the mess tents, to the building Sluggo Sweatt used as headquarters. Up the stairs into Sluggo’s lair. He was up, with a light on, waiting. The four thugs lifted Grafton bodily from the floor and threw him into a chair. Another man came in and dropped Grafton’s watch and cell phone on Sluggo’s desk.