299 Days: The Collapse

Chapter 56 Secure Location (May 6)

The day before, when the protests started, Jeanie Thompson had been trapped at her State Auditor’s office, which was adjacent to the rotunda of the capitol building. The protestors encircled the rotunda. It was the most exciting and frightening time of her life up until that point.

She and her colleagues were constantly watching the news and passing along rumors. The Governor’s Office was receiving dozens of telephone threats. They evacuated the Governor’s Mansion and gubernatorial senior staff offices. The House and Senate buildings were evacuated. Staff at the capitol were told to work from home.

There were many strange security measures taking place. Jeanie noticed that as soon as a car left a parking spot, a traffic cone would appear in the spot so no one could park there. Was that to keep car bombs away? She also noticed swarms of state police patrolling around, some with dog teams. They did not have rifles with them; they were trying not to alarm anyone. There were loud protests outside, but only with a few hundred people, which was not entirely unusual for the capitol. The size of the protests seemed to grow every hour until Jeanie started seeing crowds bigger than she’d ever seen.

There was a helicopter whirring overhead most of the time. Unmarked state patrol cars were zooming around with people in the back; probably legislators and other elected officials. None of this was going on the day before. Today was different; definitely different. The State Auditor’s Office had a state patrol trooper assigned to it. This duty was usually assigned to a new trooper because it was easy, largely consisting of walking around the office and waiting area and being alert. But now it was a bigger deal. There were many people furious at government. Most of the angry people were losing benefits and were desperate, but some were mad because government was taxing them too much. The state patrol knew that most attacks on politicians and their staffs were from angry and desperate individuals. Jeanie knew their trooper, Mike Vasquez. He had been there for a few weeks. He was about Jeanie’s age, in his mid-twenties; kinda cute, she thought.

Mike, or “Trooper Vasquez” as she called him when people were around, was very focused today. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said to her in his official trooper voice.

“Good morning,” she said. “So what’s going on today? Things seem rather tense.” She was very curious, but was also looking for information to put into the rumor mill. He was cute, as well, so talking to him wasn’t exactly a chore.

Trooper Vasquez knew plenty that was going on, but specific information on threats was distributed through official channels. However, there were general things that he was authorized to tell the protected employees for their own safety.

“We have received numerous threats to the Governor, Legislature, and other elected officials, including the State Auditor,” he said. That last part about Auditor Menlow being threatened was news to Jeanie. What Trooper Vasquez didn’t say was that there were only about two dozen threats, most from obvious lunatics who weren’t a real threat, but a handful of threats were shutting down the government. That’s all it took. For years, government had been convincing itself that the citizens were a threat to it. Government had developed a bunker mentality that everyone was out to get it. That was silly paranoia. Until now.

Trooper Vasquez continued, “We are implementing our plan for this. You might have seen abnormal activity. We are preparing for some large protests this afternoon. We will close the capitol campus at noon. Everyone needs to go home. Please let your co-workers know. Please report any suspicious activities or people, and especially any packages left unattended, to me or another trooper. We have dog teams coming through to sniff for bombs.”

Wow. This was serious, Jeanie thought. She thanked him and went into her 8:30 a.m. executive staff meeting with the State Auditor. The meeting was chaos.

A thirty-something cute guy with dark brown hair from the Governor’s Office was there. Jeanie thought that was weird. They had never been briefed by the Governor’s Office about anything.

The young man started the meeting by introducing himself as Jason and abruptly saying, “Sorry, but I have to go in a few minutes. The Governor wanted you to know what is going on. We’re shutting down state government for…” he paused, “a while.” He quickly added, “Essential services will continue. Law enforcement, prisons, that kind of thing. Other state employees will be sent home today or tomorrow. There’s no use having them around. No one is getting any work done. Some are calling in sick now that they have family to worry about.”

Jason seemed uncomfortable about this next part. “The Governor has been moved to a secure location.” He turned to Menlow and said, “Sir, you are fifth in the line of succession.” Jeanie knew that the state constitution had a line of succession for when there was a vacancy. She knew that it went something like Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, somebody else, and then the State Auditor. They had always joked about it with Menlow, saying “you’re just five heartbeats away from the Governor’s Mansion.”

Jason continued, “Mr. Auditor, you need to be in a secure location. You can bring your immediate family and two staff members. That’s it. You need to tell your trooper who is coming with you. Your guests will need to have all their personal effects and some photo ID and be here by noon.”

The room fell silent.

Menlow just nodded slowly. He was taking it all in. He felt that adrenaline surge. He loved this. “Secure location” and body guards. He felt so much like the Governor already. This was fabulous. During the upcoming campaign season, he could say that he had been evacuated with the Governor. That would get him votes. People would view him as a key player in a crisis. This was awesome. He wanted to smile but didn’t since it would have been wildly inappropriate.

“I’ll take Tony,” Menlow said. That was his Chief of Staff, Tony Walker. Jeanie didn’t actually know Tony well, but knew that he was a long-time state agency manager. He wasn’t a Kool Aid-drinking Democrat; he stayed out of politics and basically managed people. Jeanie thought he was a nice, but boring, guy. He was about to retire, so Jeanie didn’t pay too much attention to him. She had a direct connection to Menlow—getting him elected and trying to get him elected to the next job—that put her outside of Tony’s control.

“And Jeanie,” Menlow said.

Jeanie felt a surge of pride. She had made the traveling squad. Of course he picked her. He needed political advice now even more than ever. She nodded to Jason.

She thought about her boyfriend, Jim. He was deployed now, anyway, so she didn’t need to worry about that. Her cat could stay with a neighbor. She didn’t have kids, so she was free to go have a big adventure. A scary adventure, but a once-in-a-lifetime one, nonetheless.

This would be so awesome when everything calmed down, she thought. “Let me tell you the story about when I was evacuated to the Governor’s secret location during the protests,” she would tell people. How cool was that?

Jason looked at his watch and said, “I need to go brief the Secretary of State in a few minutes.” He had to give the mandatory pep talk part now. “This is just a temporary thing. A few days. The protests will peter out. People are mad, but soon they’ll realize we all need to make some sacrifices. We’re Americans. We’ll get through this.”

Jeanie was mentally rolling her eyes. That spiel might have worked on her a few years ago when she was a flag-waving Republican. But, the more she saw firsthand how government really worked, the more she knew why the country was in the situation it was in. And she knew the country wasn’t just going to “get through it.” America wouldn’t get through this in one piece with things being like they had been. America would be a worse place when all was said and done.

Jeanie hated to admit it, but the more she was in the upper levels of government, the more she wanted the “secure location” kind of perks. She loved being briefed by the Governor’s Office. She felt so important. She really liked the idea of being Governor Menlow’s press secretary. Really liked it.

Jeanie and the rest of the staff of State Auditor’s Office were lucky they left the office early that day. That evening, the same evening the Team evacuated the gun store, a giant protest enveloped the capitol. Most state office buildings on the capitol campus were vandalized. Some had small fires. The few state employees remaining in their offices were dragged and beaten. One died. This was serious.