Another just wanted to talk about a federal government many of her constituents perceived as an out-of-control, fire-belching, meat-eating monster that could not be tamed, controlled, or killed, a monster that increasingly stuck its nose into every facet of American life and propagandized their children every minute of the school day. A minister denounced a government that he believed was not just neutral on religion, but actively antireligious.
Charlie Swim broke in. “The bottom line is we need to stop these riots. You want to help black people?” He scowled at Luwanda Harris. “The people getting crippled and maimed and killed are black. The people doing it are black. A lot of the businessmen getting looted and burned out are black. If the federal government won’t stop it, the state government must: it’s that simple. A government that fails to protect its citizens from violence has forfeited its claim to legitimacy. And if bucking Soetoro and the feds leads to a confrontation, it’s time for Texas to face the issue head-on and declare its independence.”
Charlie Swim stood on a chair and looked around the room. “I tell you now,” he continued, “I’m for independence. The people of Texas would be better off without the other forty-nine states, all the Texans, white, black, and brown, for all the reasons that have been mentioned here this morning. We would be better off without those fools in Washington.
“Luwanda, you, the Republicans, and everyone in the country with a brain know that Cynthia Hinton doesn’t have a chance to win the November election. She knows it too. She has plenty of her own ghosts, but carrying the Soetoro record on your back would have defeated anybody. All Hinton is doing is jacking off the faithful.
“And as for Soetoro and his gang. You know what their motto is: Never let a crisis go to waste. I don’t trust them or believe anything they say.
“I think the time has come for us to start our own country. When you don’t trust your spouse, or your boss, or your government, it is time to say good-bye and go on down the road.”
When JR Hays considered the tactical possibilities, he decided the only answer was booby traps, or mines. One man shooting wasn’t going to get it done. Oh, he might get a few of the drug smugglers, but he wouldn’t get them all, and if he didn’t get them all, every last one, he would be signing his own death warrant.
Not that JR thought he was going to live forever, because he doubted that he would.
The problem with booby traps was that they kill anyone who trips them — illegal pregnant women trying to get across the river to have their babies in Texas, men looking for work, as well as any drug smugglers and professional killers who happened by. Anyone and anything, including kudus, elands, oryx, springbok, nyalas, impalas, whitetail deer, and coyotes.
Unless he wanted to bury a lot of relatively innocent people and very innocent animals, he needed mines he could detonate at the proper moment.
He unlocked the toolbox in the bed of his pickup. Using the truck’s tailgate as a table, he laid out all the devices he had borrowed from his former employer, the defense contractor, and looked them over carefully. Nothing there was explosive. What he had was sensors, miniature control boxes, radio controllers, batteries, and the other bits and pieces of high-tech booby traps. With the black powder and fuses, he should be able to construct some seriously lethal homemade Claymore mines.
FIVE
After the crowd filed out of Jack Hays’ office, Ben Steiner stayed behind and closed the door. He dropped into a chair and lit a foul little cigar. Jack Hays sat in his executive chair, which his wife had bought from Office Depot and he had assembled in his garage.
“Looks like you’ve crossed the Rubicon, Jack. Ain’t no going back from here.” Steiner blew smoke around, then looked for an ashtray. There wasn’t one. “You’re sort of in the position of the fellow that found himself astride a fence when the ladder gave way and he came down with one leg on either side.”
“If you introduce a declaration of independence in the legislature,” Hays asked, “will it pass?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Ben Steiner said, puffing lazily. “And damn, I don’t know. It might. Just might.”
“Or it might not,” Jack Hays said disgustedly. “Don’t you think you ought to start counting noses? If it’s DOA, I’d like to know it before I manage to piss off every federal employee from the postman to Soetoro.”
“I’m all for it,” Steiner declared, “but it’s a big step. Soetoro is arresting everybody in Texas he can get his hands on — whoever intimated, hinted, or told his wife that he didn’t like Soetoro. FEMA has a camp for them up in Hall County. They got a list and are rounding ’em up.”
“How come you aren’t on it?”
“Oh, I am, but my wife told them I was in Argentina fishing for a couple of weeks.”
“Ben, it would be silly to introduce such a resolution, or bill, unless we knew it was going to pass.”
“By how much?”
“Simple majority.”
“That isn’t much.”
“We’ll be lucky to get that,” Jack Hays said. “We must have something to paper our ass with. Unlike Soetoro, I want to hear the people’s representatives speak. One way or the other. Yea or nay.”
“It’s that ‘lives, fortunes, and sacred honor’ thing that has them worried.”
The governor took his time answering. “I think everyone would like to wake up and find this is just a nightmare. But it’s real. None of us are going to be able to bury our head in the sand and hope the wolves don’t bite our asses. The revolution has started. Soetoro has suspended the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Lincoln did it under his war powers. Unfortunately for Soetoro, we aren’t in a war. A rebellion, or revolution, will change the life of everyone in America. Indeed, perhaps everyone on the planet. We can’t start it — and the Texas legislature can’t — because Barry Soetoro already did.”
“That wasn’t what you told me yesterday.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Ben Steiner took a deep drag on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly. “Our people need a little time,” he said. “They gotta work up to being brave. They gotta examine all the options before they can screw up their courage for this one.”
“How much time? The Soetoro administration has been planning martial law for years.”
“Tomorrow or the next day.”
“We better not have the vote if we aren’t going to win. Barry Soetoro is too much of an egotist to ignore an independence vote, win or lose.”
“We’ll win,” Steiner said grandly. In his fifties, with a booming voice, he knew how to sway people, persuade them. Jack Hays was a more difficult sell than the average juror, however.
“When you’re sure you know how the vote will go, after you’ve talked to every member, come back and see me.”
Ben Steiner leaned forward. “Jack, as we sit here Luwanda Harris and some of her friends are burning up the wires to Washington. If you don’t want the capitol surrounded by tanks and army troopers from all over, you had better start talking to people, tell them what’s at stake. We must get this done, and soon. If you don’t, my best guess is the government of Texas is going to get arrested en masse and accused of treason. In the interim, let’s cut off access to Washington.”