Grafton said, “As I see it, our first priority must be getting people out of Soetoro’s concentration camps. Then, in no particular order, we must get electrical power, telephone, and internet service restored nationwide; get police and firefighters back on the streets and highways; and tackle the humanitarian problems this mess has caused. I would bet there are forgotten and abandoned elderly, sick, and addicts tucked away in odd corners dying of malnutrition and dehydration. In other words, we must get the nation moving again.”
“What about the states that declared their independence?” the bluesuiter, Bud Weiss, asked.
“It wasn’t just Barry Soetoro who caused this mess,” Grafton replied, “it was a vast overreach by the federal government, by which I mean the executive, judiciary, congress, and bureaucracies.”
“That’s not our business.”
“It’s our business if we’re rebuilding this country. Frankly, gentlemen, if we’re going to restore the United States of America, we need a constitutional convention to decide if we really want the federal government to rule America, or if we even want a federal system. I don’t know the answer, but I know that without a political settlement to resolve lots of festering issues, this nation will fracture into several nations.”
“You’re saying we need a new constitution,” Cart McKiernan murmured with his chin down, looking at Grafton over the top of his glasses.
“The states are going to have to figure that out,” Grafton said with a gesture of irritation. “The military needs to stabilize the country and get it running again so the politicians can ruminate and negotiate without the house burning down around them.”
Grafton stood up and started shaking hands. “Gentlemen, I want to thank you for your time this morning. This is our country. Soetoro won’t be here long. The sooner he’s gone, the better.”
General Rodriquez said, “Still think we should call the White House and offer to fly him out of the country?”
When I heard that my eyebrows went up toward my hairline.
“Yes,” Jake Grafton said. “Tell him the military won’t protect him. In my opinion America will be better off going forward if people don’t have his blood on their hands, but—” He raised his hands in a shrug. Then he said his good-byes. I opened the door and followed him out.
Fifteen minutes later, when we were in the Cessna and he was taxiing around the parking lot to find a lane for takeoff, I asked Grafton why he recommended flying Soetoro into exile.
“None of the leaders at Dawson can control our little army, and that’s only one of at least eight or ten armed mobs marching on Washington. They’ll kill Soetoro if they get their hands on him. If they do, his supporters will try to make him a martyr. A lot of people still think he’s the black messiah, beset by evil enemies on all sides.”
“Think he’ll go?”
“No, but it’s worth a try.”
A minute later we were airborne and climbing over the Potomac for the White House. Maybe it was my imagination, but the crowd outside seemed larger. As we crossed the Mall, we could see people walking toward the mansion, like an incoming tide.
I looked away from the scene below. There was a house fire somewhere up to the northeast, and the plume was rising and drifting on the wind. I wondered if the fire department was on the job. Grafton finally leveled his wings heading west and added power to climb.
The flagship of the Texas Navy, the attack submarine Texas, was fifty miles east of Cape May, New Jersey, running at three knots when Loren Snyder poked the telescoping photonics masts—Texas had two of them — above the surface. In less than a minute, the video from the mast confirmed what the sonar was telling the crew, that there were no surface ships of any kind within their visible horizon.
Five days had passed since the combat with the destroyers among the oil rigs offshore of Louisiana. Texas had transited the Florida Straits and headed north. Snyder had it in his mind that if he torpedoed a couple of container ships in the approaches to New York and Newark, he could probably shut down those ports for a while. Days of cruising deep and listening via sonar for ships and submarines had been unproductive. The ocean seemed extraordinarily empty.
“Maybe the war is over,” Jugs Aranado suggested.
“We should hope,” Snyder said, but just in case, he decided to listen to East Coast radio stations to see what he could learn.
The AM band was remarkably quiet, but there were a few stations on the air. He channel surfed, looking for a news show. What he found was a station broadcasting the White House eavesdropping show. Barry Soetoro’s voice sounded in his ears. The fidelity was quite good, and he could readily understand the conversations. They were talking about declaring martial law and arresting subversives.
As he listened on a headset, Snyder wondered what he was listening to. Gradually the idea dawned that someone had recorded a White House conversation weeks ago, perhaps months.
Thirty minutes later he was sure. They were talking about the upcoming Republican nominating convention. This had to be recorded in late July or early August!
He flipped a switch to put the audio on the loudspeaker in the control room.
Jugs was there, and Ada Fuentes was on the helm.
The two women sat, startled at first, then mesmerized.
“How did this get on the radio?” Fuentes asked, dumbfounded. What she was hearing just didn’t compute.
When the scene was over, an announcer came on. “You were listening to President Soetoro and his advisors, Al Grantham and Sulana Schanck. Now for the next scene.”
Snyder reached for the dial and turned it. He found a news station. The announcer was interviewing a Long Island congressman. “We have fifteen hundred people assembling at the Meadowlands parking lot. Tomorrow we will begin our march on Washington. Food has been donated from the local food bank and some local farmers. Anyone who wishes to join us should do so today. Bring your own weapon and ammunition and whatever camping gear you think you will need. Bring whatever food you can.”
“What will you and your ‘army’ do in Washington?”
“We are going to drag Soetoro from the White House and hang him.”
“And you are sure the military won’t interfere?”
“They said they wouldn’t — you have been reading their press release every hour on the hour. They’re fighting Mexico, not Americans. We’re taking them at their word. If they want a fight, however, we’ll give it to them.”
Snyder looked at Jugs. “What do you think?”
“Holy Christ!”
He lowered the photonics masts and told Ada to speed up to arrive off the Narrows at dusk. He suggested she descend to two hundred feet, and as Jugs flooded tanks, she did.
Stabilized at that depth, they discussed what they had heard.
“Let’s go home,” Ada suggested.
Jugs didn’t say anything, merely scrutinized Loren Snyder’s face.
He had to make a decision, so he did. “We’ll take a look at New York Harbor and listen again this evening, with everyone not on duty in the control room. We’ll let everyone have his say, and I’ll make a decision then.”
Things began to go wrong pretty quickly when JR Hays saw the Bank of Manhattan’s vault. It had a massive circular door that weighed about twenty-five tons, Gottlieb said proudly. The ingots were stacked in the vault and almost filled it. Around the walls on shelves and in drawers were the packs of small wafers, small bars called kilobars, Krugerrands, and other gold holdings, all labeled with owner’s names. The sight of all that gold was awe-inspiring, the wealth of nations.
The bank had precisely two electric forklifts and four dollies to move the gold ingots, but they weren’t set up for speed. Each bar had a serial number, and two men were busy writing down the number on each bar. JR put a stop to that. “The gold is going to the Fed,” he said. “You already have the numbers.”