With Pow and Clay leading, and given the high percentage of veterans, it didn’t take long to get a guard system and shift schedule down. They would guard the entrance with at least one guy with an AR. The military guys all knew how to operate one so there was always someone ready to use one. One truck would patrol around. One or two trucks with well-armed men would go out and get food and gas for residents. The elderly and families with young kids would get first dibs on the supply runs. Armed supply runs were feeling “normal” for the Team. They’d been doing that a lot lately.
In a matter of two days, the world had totally changed. At least, for people like the Team; people who had the right mindset. The rest of the world was catching up to them, slowly realizing how different things had become.
But, not all were making the adjustment. Pow watched one guy in the neighborhood, a recently retired guy, washing his ’69 Mustang over and over again. Pow went over to talk to him and all the guy could talk about was all the things he’d done in that Mustang. He was almost in a trance. He wasn’t thinking about getting food or gas or the crime all around them. He just mumbled about that car and kept washing it. Pow walked away and the man didn’t even notice. Pow knew that he wasn’t going to make it through this. He didn’t want to. He wanted to be riding in that Mustang. He wanted “normal” back, and would die trying.
Chapter 63
POI
(May 6)
The ride to the “secure location” should have been pretty short, but it took three hours. Jeanie knew where they were going; it wasn’t a mystery. They would go the fifteen miles or so north on I-5 to the Washington National Guard Headquarters at the giant Army and Air Force base called Joint Base Lewis McChord, or JBLM as everyone called it.
Sure enough. That’s where they were going. Traffic was extremely heavy. I-5 was the main interstate up and down Washington State. The Seattle metropolitan area stretched from Olympia in the south up I-5 about a hundred miles to Marysville in the north. The whole metro area straddled I-5.
Many other people were going places, too, and I-5 was how to get there. The roads were tightly designed to accommodate normal loads. If just five percent more cars than normal were on the road, traffic would jam up, especially when cars were stalled out. Jeanie saw that many were; she presumed they were out of gas. When that happened, people would honk and get furious. Eventually, they would push the car over to the shoulder. People were standing around their disabled cars on the side of the road. Jeanie knew that bad things were probably going to happen to those people.
I-5 was a parking lot. There was no movement most of the time. Emergency vehicles were using the left lane. After a while, non-emergency vehicles starting driving in that lane, too, following the emergency vehicles just to get by the traffic jams. That was a misdemeanor; but no one was writing tickets.
The car Jeanie was in would drive in the left lane and on the shoulder when it wasn’t blocked. Her car had cop lights in the grill, and the trooper driving was using them.
Menlow just looked out the window. Since they were stopped most of the time, he could look into the windows of cars stopped next to his and see their faces. He saw families screaming at each other. He saw terrified faces. He saw kids crying. And, Menlow realized, the people in these cars were just the 1% who realized they needed to get out of the cities before it really got bad. What about the 99% still sitting in their homes awaiting instructions from the authorities?
As Menlow looked at all the people stuck in traffic trying to flee, he thought about all the problems that needed to be solved. Gas would need to be distributed. Food, too. The people on the side of road with disabled vehicles would need places to stay. People would need medical care. He smiled inside.
This meant government would need to do those things. Need. Need. People would depend on government for their very lives, and he was going to be running the government. Once he got elected, of course, but with the Governor not running for re-election and the state craving a Republican to fix things, he’d be in for sure. He would be the greatest governor in state history. He allowed himself to actually smile. He felt warm inside.
Finally, they took the exit for JBLM. Traffic was backed up around Ft. Lewis. There were soldiers with rifles checking IDs. They were turning people away. It took forever to get past the gate, but Jeanie’s car got right through. The guards radioed in when the trooper used a code word. They were on a list of expected guests.
They went to a nondescript building. It had very big radio antennas on it. There were soldiers and police everywhere. Jeanie wasn’t used to being around people with guns, especially rifles. Everyone looked so serious. And scared. And tired.
“You can work from here until your quarters are ready,” said a female soldier as she showed Jeanie, Menlow, and Tony a small conference room.
Work? Doing what? Auditing state agencies? It was pretty apparent they wouldn’t be doing their old jobs. They were here because Menlow was “five heartbeats” away from being the governor. No one really thought the first five wouldn’t be able to be the governor; it was probably just some dusty Cold War-era continuity of government plan that said the Auditor needed to be at the National Guard headquarters if something happened. And it had happened.
They just sat there. Jeanie looked at her watch. It was 3:22 p.m. They weren’t talking; they were just waiting to be told what to do. After a while, the female soldier said, “Come with me, please,” and motioned for them to follow her. They went down a few hallways into a bigger conference room which had many of the same people who were usually at the state agency leadership briefings. There was Jason from the Governor’s Office who had briefed them that morning.
“Hi,” Jason said as Jeanie, Tony, and Menlow walked in. As they were taking their seats, Jason continued with what he had been saying to the rest of the people in the room.
“Here’s what’s going on,” he said. “The Governor declared a military emergency a few hours ago. This means that our continuity of government plan goes into effect. That’s why you’re here, Mr. Auditor. You won’t be doing your normal job until this is over, which hopefully will be soon. We will ask you and your staff to work with the Governor’s Office to help with the relief efforts.”
Menlow nodded. He loved this.
“The National Guard has been activated, of course,” Jason said. “They are reporting in for duty as soon as they can get to their duty stations. Only a few people are able to come in, though. The police are on full alert. Oh, by the way, the capitol campus has been evacuated and protestors have pretty much trashed the place. Technically, the new seat of government is right here,” Jason said as he waved his hands around the conference room.
“We are working closely with federal authorities to start rounding up the people responsible for this,” Jason said. “There are some suspected terrorists we’ve, or rather the federal authorities, have been watching in our state. They’re getting them. There are also some radical political groups to watch. We are assisting them with the round ups.”
“What radical political groups?” Menlow asked.
“Some left-wing terrorist groups. Sympathizers with the Red Brigades,” Jason said. “Oh, and some Tea Party and Oath Keeper militia types. Lots of those. Actually, most of them are teabaggers.”
Jason continued, “We have started something called ‘POIs.’ That stands for ‘Persons of Interest.’ They are people who are not suspected of a crime per se, but are people we want to talk to. Right-wing political types, mostly. In fact, Ms. Thompson, we’d like you to work on getting the POI list out to the media.”