“Look around and get all the people out of this area. You’re FEMA guys, tough dudes. Government orders. Don’t take any backtalk.”
“You aren’t going to blow this warehouse, Tommy,” Willis Coffee said.
“I thought I would.”
Willis lowered his head onto the steering wheel for a moment. When he raised his head, he said, “And I thought we were just going to burgle and run.”
“Hey, Walmart’s lawyers undoubtedly got FEMA to agree to indemnify them. The surrounding owners can sue in the sweet by and by, if the courts ever get back up and running.”
“I don’t care about that lawyer shit. I would prefer not to be chased. Not anytime soon, anyway.”
“An opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime, if that,” I told him.
So they drove through the open door and I walked over to the C-4 pile and got busy. I figured the C-4 would ignite all the ammo in the warehouse, so there would be a pretty good pop. Even if it didn’t, the blast should wreck all this stuff, turn it into junk. Just to make sure, I poured a jerry can of gasoline on the ammo pile and opened three or four others. I gave us twenty minutes on the timer, checked my watch and saw it was two minutes after one o’clock, and pushed the button. The countdown began.
I used the forklift to lower the overhead door, then walked out of the warehouse through the buckled personnel door and pushed it shut. The three or four civilian vehicles that had been in front of other warehouses were now gone. I climbed into the van with Sarah and drove away. The pickups were waiting by the front gate. We headed west.
I was glancing at my watch when the whole thing went off. I saw the top of the mushroom cloud in my rearview mirror.
Sarah saw me looking, twisted her right side mirror, and took a squint.
“Tommy, what if some civilian was killed in that explosion?”
“We all have to die sometime. I’ll pray for ’em.” I wouldn’t, though, if I heard they were Soetoro voters.
It took a little under half a minute for the sound of the blast to reach us. The concussion probably broke windows in Leesburg.
SEVENTEEN
The mushroom cloud was still hanging over Leesburg when General Martin L. Wynette and two staff officers, both generals, arrived at the Executive Office Building across from the White House. President Soetoro and thirty or so of his staff were waiting in a large conference room. The emergency generators were apparently running sweetly: the building was well lit and the air conditioners were pumping cool air.
“So what is your plan to crush Texas?” the president asked the chairman of the JCS.
“The briefer has some maps. He’ll run through it and we’ll answer questions.”
The briefer, Major General Strong, stood in front of a huge computer screen, upon which a PowerPoint presentation was projected. “Our first problem is manpower. Given desertions, we’re estimating our combat effectives are fifty percent of what they should be.”
The president’s chief of staff, Al Grantham, blew up. By reputation, he was one of the most aggressive leftists on the president’s staff, and, although he was white, was of the opinion that white America would have to be conquered. He thought most whites were racists and Nazis. “You mean to tell me that in the armed forces only the people who want to fight have to fight?”
Wynette said flatly, “We have a volunteer army. It’s hard to make someone fight if they refuse to do so.”
Grantham glared. “What the hell have we been paying them for?”
“We have been paying them to defend the United States. Not to put too fine a point on it, a lot of our personnel don’t think shooting their fellow Americans meets those criteria.”
“Court-martial the bastards.”
“Oh, we can do that, if the president orders us to do so. We can convict them of cowardice, give them bad discharges, maybe some jail time, but that still doesn’t put people in ranks willing to fight.”
The president gestured at the briefer to continue.
The major general nodded and said, “We will take two divisions, one armored, one infantry, from Georgia and Alabama; put them on trains, trucks, and air force transports; and assemble at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. From there we will proceed to Austin and take it, engaging any Texas military units or guerilla bands we encounter along the way. Meanwhile we will have the Fourth Infantry division at Fort Carson in Colorado proceed by road to Amarillo, and from there to Austin. So we will have three divisions in a two-pronged assault. Operating on two fronts—”
“How will they get across the rivers and all that?” Grantham interrupted, glowering.
“I was about to cover that, sir,” the briefer said patiently. “We will drop paratroops to seize the key bridges and hold until relieved. Then—”
“So how are you going to get there? Across cow pastures and rice paddies?”
“We will use the interstates and other roads where possible. A division cannot move on only one road. It must move on a wide front, yet not so wide that one brigade cannot reinforce the other. Where we must cross rivers without a bridge available, we will use pontoons. We will have close air support from attack helicopters and air force fighters every foot of the way. We’ll use satellite reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance, and drones to keep us apprised of the enemy’s movements.”
“Those crackers are going to shoot at you,” Al Grantham said. “Probably a lot. Every one of those racists has a gun, or two or three or four.”
“No doubt,” Martin Wynette replied. “We’ll take casualties, yet we’ll annihilate all opposition and proceed forward as fast as possible to our objective.”
The president smiled at that comment. He apparently liked to think of his opposition being annihilated. Then the smile faded. “When?” he asked.
“It will take at least two days to get people sorted out and transferred to fill up our three assault divisions. Another four days to get our people and equipment to Barksdale, and another two days to get them under way. The Fort Carson division commander says he can get his division under way in two days, after he gets his personnel sorted out and is reinforced by willing fighters. That shuffling will take at least two days, maybe three. Then it will take another three days to get them to the Texas line. Seven days total. If anything slips, eight or nine.”
“What will the rebels be doing while we are getting our show ready to go on the road?”
“Making a nuisance of themselves and getting ready to block our moves.”
“How will they know what we intend?”
“Texas’ commander is JR Hays, Jack Hays’ cousin, and he was a career army officer, although retired now. He could probably write our op order. If he hadn’t burned out in the Middle East and retired, he would have become a general. I’ve seen his service record. JR Hays is a soldier from head to toe, and he doesn’t shrink from combat. He’s seen more than his share and knows precisely how to fight. And how to win. The Taliban had a price on his head: ten thousand American dollars. No one in the Middle East was able to earn it.”
“Can you whip him?”
“The United States Army can.”
“Eight days to get combat troops into Texas,” Al Grantham stated. “Or nine. Or ten. Or eleven. That’s too long. Can’t we use fewer troops and go sooner?”
“Even if we cut our invasion force to only one division, we will only save one day,” Wynette said flatly. “So the tradeoff is one division that can possibly be surrounded and cut off, or a two-pronged assault that will force the Texans to divide their forces to fight them both. In my military judgment, and the judgment of the Joint Chiefs, if we are going to hit Texas with a hammer, it should be a really big hammer, as big as we can put together in a reasonable amount of time. Given a month, we could hit them with every American soldier willing to fight.”