299 Days VIII: The War (6 page)

Jeanie’s boss, Rick Menlow, had finally realized his dream. He became the Governor.
The former Governor resigned for health reasons. She was a wreck and had several nervous
breakdowns. At least, that’s what everyone said. But, maybe she was shoved aside for
political reasons. Who knew? Who cared?

Jeanie shrugged when she heard the news. Her whole career had been built around the
dream of her boss being the Governor and she being the press secretary for him. That
was … months ago? Was that all? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Now Jeanine didn’t care. Her boss was a tool. He would just do whatever D.C. told
him. He had gone from the fresh reformer conservative who miraculously got elected
as the State Auditor to what he was now – a tool.

Jeanie reflected on her enthusiasm when she and her boss bugged out of Olympia and
first came to Camp Murray. Back then, she felt like she was going to help the state
in a time of need. She was going to do all these wonderful things to help people.

Now, Jeanie was a prisoner. Everyone in that building was a prisoner, even the people
running the state. They couldn’t leave the protections of their government facilities.
They had plenty to eat in those facilities, but they couldn’t leave.

Something had to change. People couldn’t live that way much longer.

Jeanie, who was out of the official loop because she had ties to some POIs, still
overheard conversations about a war. A “war”? Not the little terrorism stuff or the
police rounding up teabaggers. This was an actual war. They were calling it a civil
war. That term sounded so outlandish. A “civil war”? C’mon. In America? That was crazy!

There was constant talk around Camp Murray about which military units were still “sit
outs” and which ones were going over to the teabaggers. Loyal units were highly sought
after. They could have anything they wanted for their services. There were some stories
of very nasty behavior by the loyal units.

The rumors Jeanie overheard seemed to be that the teabaggers were about to launch
something in Washington State. There were conflicting reports of what it would be.
The legitimate authorities had spies in the teabagger army, but they were getting
conflicting reports. Jeanie wondered if some of the spies were double agents sending
out intentionally conflicting reports. Some said there would be a New Year’s Day limited
attack that would bypass Seattle entirely. Others said it would be a full-on attack
in February. Others said it would come in the spring and would be from units currently
sitting out that would go over to the teabaggers. No one knew for sure.

There was also continuous talk at Camp Murray about how the farms were not producing
enough food to feed people. Jeanie learned that, before the Crisis, America had imported
over half of its food. Over half! Most people couldn’t believe it. Those supplies
were now cut off. The dollar was worthless and there wasn’t enough fuel to ship food.
America had the most farmland in the world, right? Well, yes and no. America had the
most land capable of farming, but for years, farmers had been living on government
subsidies instead of actually growing any significant quantities of food. Before the
Crisis, the government actually paid farmers not to farm. That amazed Jeanie.

Even the farmers who still farmed didn’t help the situation much. Before the Crisis,
Jeanie learned, the government paid them to grow crops, such as corn, to be used for
ethanol. The fields to grow corn were still available—but many of the processing plants
to turn the corn into food were not. They had been retooled to make ethanol. The processing
plants to make cornbread and other things were shut down. Try as they might, the government
couldn’t get enough of them back up and running to make cornbread.

Jeanie also found out how devastating America’s pre-Crisis dependence on foreign goods
had been. It wasn’t just that over half of the nation’s food came from overseas. It
was that a bunch of the domestic food production capabilities had been shut down,
much like the corn processing plants. For example, when it was cheaper to grow peaches
in China and send them on a ship to Atlanta, all the Georgia peach orchards a few
miles outside of Atlanta were plowed under. It takes years to grow a mature peach
tree that will produce peaches, so it would take years to bring America’s food production
capacity back. If it ever came back.

But the government urgently needed food. The political and military people at Camp
Murray constantly talked about food riots. They were all trying to calculate the point
at which FCard food would reach such a low level that people would have nothing left
to lose and would start rioting. Would the Legitimate troops—they preferred the term
“Legitimate” to “Loyalist”—shoot fellow Americans? That was a constant topic of discussion.

It was Christmas Eve. Jeanie sat in her tight barracks room with a little stocking
that all the staff got. It looked so pathetic, so small, and so fake. It was nothing
like her real stocking at her parent’s house. She wondered if they were okay. Probably.
Hopefully. She missed going home each Christmas and going to the Christmas Eve service
at her parents’ church. She had so many memories of that, like when they turned off
the lights, everyone lit a candle, and they sang
Silent Night
. She could hear that in her head. It was sweet and warm, wonderful.

But there was no Christmas Eve service at Camp Murray. That would be too divisive.
They couldn’t even say the “C” word (Christmas) there. Instead, they had a “winter
solstice” event. That wouldn’t offend anyone … except the 99% of people at Camp Murray
who weren’t Wiccan.

Jason felt like he was in prison, too. He had gone from being the ultra-cool and confident
briefer to be being a terrified liaison with the federal government. He had special
communications equipment that let him talk with the intelligence community in D.C.
He received their dispatches and told them what was going on in Washington State.
He knew just about everything that was happening, which was why he was terrified.
The federal government had essentially ceased to operate. Almost all federal resources
were devoted to the military, FEMA, and federal law enforcement agencies. No one really
knew what the “military” was anymore. There were military units on paper, but most
had simply vanished or were sit-outs. Some units were run by seemingly loyal officers
but, on occasion, a seemingly loyal unit would just disappear or announce it was sitting
out. Some went over to the Patriots. Command and control? The federal government had
neither.

Jason didn’t know who he could trust. Was this Washington National Guard unit guarding
them secretly a Patriot unit? How could he tell? Were the federal agents who were
guarding him secretly paras? Or taking bribes to kill him? He couldn’t sleep at night.
He cat napped all day long. And each day was so long. He was up most of the time.
He lost track of time. It was like one long blur. He had aged ten years in ten months
and lost so much weight that his tailored suits no longer fit.

Jason knew it was over. Whether the Patriots won or not, it was over. There was no
way the Legitimates could continue. Food would get dangerously low over the winter.
Rioting would ensue and most military and police units would not fire on the crowds.
Some, like the mercenaries and psychos who enjoyed it, would, but most would not.

Despite all of this, there was a strange sense of hope. Seattle was a stronghold,
one of the strongest in the country. Things were relatively calm there. The population
seemed to actually like the government. Most of the individualists had left, and Loyalists
poured in from other parts of the state, even from other states. There were genuine
rallies in support of the government there.

Jason had reported this to his superiors in D.C. They came back with a plan: move
the Governor and senior staff to Seattle. They would use the ultra-secure federal
courthouse in Seattle as a headquarters. This was the first good news Jason had heard
in months.

They would move out—secretly, of course—in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.
No one would be paying attention at that time and, according to D.C, something might
be happening on New Year’s Day in Washington State. No one could know that the Governor
was abandoning Camp Murray, which was supposedly safe behind the super- fortified
JBLM ring. If Camp Murray wasn’t safe enough for the Governor…

Jason was one of about ten people who knew the plan. They would go in one of the commercial
buses taking people into Seattle. There was no need to have a big motorcade that was
a big fat target.

Jason didn’t trust even the FBI or state police EPU unit guarding the Governor, so
he arranged for a diversion motorcade to go out first. He let it slip that the Governor
was going in a motorcade from Camp Murray to the airfield at McChord Air Base to take
a flight to D.C. to meet with the President. If there was a leak, that diversionary
motorcade would get hit. Too bad for the guys in that motorcade. Oh well. This was
tough business.

Jason was packing up his things for the bus ride to Seattle that night. He realized
he didn’t have a single personal item from his months at Camp Murray. Then he saw
it. His stocking. His cheesy little stocking. He took it and put it in the inside
pocket of his tailored suit jacket. At least he had one souvenir from his time in
that God-awful place.

(December 24)

“So, how much are we talking?” Todd asked the former police officers who were being
paid to guard his posh Bellevue neighborhood.

“Depends,” one of the former officers said. “Where, exactly, do you want to go?”

“Wenatchee,” he said.

“Let’s come up with a plan first and then we can answer the ‘how much’ question,”
said another of the former officers. They looked around their makeshift guard shack
for a few seconds and then asked Todd, “You got a map?”

“Yep,” Todd said, swelling with pride. For once, he was the one who was prepared.
He went back to the Range Rover and knocked on Chloe’s passenger-side window.

“What is it?” she asked with concern.

“I need the map in the glove box,” he said. “They’re going to help us get out of here.”
She smiled, glowing with joy. This was going to work, she thought. They were finally
going to get out of this terrible place and to a safe cabin in the woods with their
former neighbors, Ken and Kim. She opened the glove box and found the old highway
map and handed it to her husband, who was finally being a man, six months into this
nightmare. Better late than never, she thought. She leaned back in the plush leather
seat of the Range Rover and felt like she could finally relax. They were getting to
safety. She smiled for the first time in a long time.

Todd took the map over to the guard station. The three officers unfolded it and started
talking among themselves.

“Once you get a mile from here, it’s bad,” one of them said. “Going through Bellevue
proper is extremely dangerous,” another said, “and the highway from there out to I-90
is spotty.”

“Robberies?” Todd asked, hoping that was the only problem, but knowing that rape and
kidnapping were also common.

“And worse,” an officer said. “But your main problem, and the main thing we can help
with, are the roadblocks.”

“Roadblocks?” Todd asked. “Who’s blocking the roads?”

“FCorps,” another officer said. “They want to keep people in the cities where the
government services are.” What he didn’t say was that they were stealing people blind
and, on occasion, grabbing women and children for the gangs.

“Gee,” Todd said. “How do I get through the roadblocks?”

One of the officers reached under his jacket and pulled out his badge that was hanging
from the chain around his neck.

“This is how,” he said with a smile. “One of us will come with you.”

Great! Todd thought. Not only will they have the badge to get through the roadblocks,
they’ll have a well-trained and armed police officer. Chloe will be so happy.

“Will you have a gun with you?” Todd asked, instantly realizing what a stupid question
that was. Chloe wouldn’t want a gun around the girls. A gun could go off and hurt
them.

The officers tried not to roll their eyes. “Yes, sir,” one of them replied. “A couple
of them.”

“And you’ll have one, too,” the third one said. “It’s a package deal: one of us goes
with you and gets you through the roadblocks, and we get you a gun you can have for
use at your ultimate destination.” He paused. “It’s a package deal, sir. You
need
a gun.”

Todd thought about what these men were saying. He realized his family could get to
Ken and Kim’s cabin with these escorts who were former police. And he really needed
a gun; even Chloe agreed to that now. The savvy businessman in Todd kicked into gear.

“How much?” he asked. He expected it was going to cost him several thousand dollars.

“Your house and everything in it,” one of the officers said.

Todd felt he’d been punched in the stomach. He could barely speak. Finally, he managed
to blurt out, “Everything? Seriously?”

“Seriously, sir,” one of the officers replied. The other two nodded.