299 Days: The Collapse

Chapter 60 Power (May 6)

“It’s time to go,” Tony, Menlow’s chief of staff, said to Jeanie. She picked up her single suitcase and followed him.

Tony and Jeanie got Menlow and met Trooper Vasquez. They went to the parking garage, which was nearly empty. An unmarked police car pulled up, and the uniformed trooper opened the doors and trunk. Vasquez loaded the suitcases, said something to the driver, and motioned for them to get in the car. Tony took the front passenger seat so it was the Menlow and Jeanie in the back seat. It felt surreal.

Everyone was silent for the first few minutes. They saw the capitol campus go by out their window. They were heading onto the freeway, to who knows where.

Menlow finally broke the silence. “You know, Jeanie, the Governor called me and said that the State Legislature will be on recess for the foreseeable future. There are things going on in D.C. that would boggle your mind, too.”

Jeanie was stunned. Menlow just stared out the window.

“Do you know what ‘black bagging’ is?” He asked Jeanie.

“No,” she said.

“It’s when the government grabs someone,” Menlow said, “puts a black bag over their head, and takes them away to prison, or torture, or death. It’s what all the teabaggers are worried about and it’s what’s sparking this thing off,” he said. “You know, with the checkpoints we’ve set up?”

Jeanie was thoroughly confused. Menlow seemed to be out there in space.

“It’s been out there for quite some time,” Menlow said, “that Homeland Security thought the biggest terrorist threat was returning vets, conservatives, libertarians, Ron Paul types. You know.”

Jeanie had been to the Homeland Security trainings at the State Auditor’s Office about what to look out for. The “terrorists” in the training materials were always “militia types.” Never Arabs. But Jeanie was still confused. Maybe Menlow had lost it.

“Well, these vets and teabaggers,” Menlow said, still staring out the window, “have been getting stopped the past couple of days at the check points. They don’t know if it’s just a traffic stop or if they’ll be ‘black bagged.’ The Feds can do that, you know? To ‘belligerents’ or ‘enemy combatants’ or whatever…” Menlow just trailed off as he looked out the window.

Jeanie had heard about that. It was the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, but it was only supposed to be used on “terrorists.”

“Yep,” Menlow said, “so when a few of these teabaggers see the checkpoint, they think they’re about to get ‘black bagged.’ So some of them decide they’ll fight it out to the death rather than be taken away.”

Menlow turned around to look at Jeanie and shrugged. “The sad part,” he said to her, “is that the checkpoints weren’t to pick up teabaggers but, now that cops are getting killed left and right, it’s turned into that.”

Menlow turned away from Jeanie and stared out the window again. “A self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “A sad and horrible self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Menlow looked out the window at the people on the street. Those poor folks had no idea what was coming. He felt sorry for them, but he was glad he was in the back of a police car going to someplace safe. He focused back on his brief phone call with the Governor.

“The Governor is signing a bunch of executive orders,” Menlow said. “Emergency powers. They had a plan for this worked out some time ago, but no one thought they’d ever have to carry it out.”

Menlow paused and kept staring out the window. Finally, he said, “You know…the cycle is broken. The political cycle. Where the Ds spend a bunch of tax money and then some Rs get elected. Then Ds win, then Rs do, all the while, each side is spending more and more. Maybe at different rates, but spending more. Well, that’s over now.”

Menlow paused and looked out the window some more. Those poor bastards out there walking around, Menlow thought. They have no idea.

“Politics is over,” Menlow said as he turned to look Jeanie in the eye. “This can’t be fixed with elections. That’s a big thing for a politician to admit,” he said with a chuckle. He turned away from Jeanie and looked back out the window.

“We can’t restore order with politics,” Menlow said with a sigh. “Politics? That’s how we got here. It will take something bigger than politics to get things stabilized. Power. That’s what it will take. Power.” He kept staring out the window.

Everyone was silent.

Menlow continued, “The Feds are doing the same stuff. Emergency powers. Some scary stuff. You know the old line, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ They’re not. They’re going to announce a new civilian law enforcement auxiliary called the ‘Freedom Corps.’ This is like 9/11 times a hundred.”

More silence. Now they were getting on the freeway. Menlow said, “Oh, did I mention that the Southern states are basically seceding? Yep. Everyone’s wondering what the military will do. I wonder about our National Guard in this state. How many will be willing to carry out some of these new powers? Then again, it’s the only way to stop the chaos.” Menlow wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was thinking it: now is precisely the time the state needed a law-and-order Republican governor. He smiled. Power.