“The future of socialism is on display in Venezuela, which will collapse one of these days, done to death by cheap oil. Socialism depends on a huge percentage of the population being unable to survive in a changing world without government help. Entrepreneurship and technical progress promise a world with abundant cheap energy that will raise prosperity for everyone who has the education to participate. Two centuries of cheap energy have made America the most prosperous nation on earth.
“At heart Barry Soetoro is a socialist, and he loves power. Soetoro understands that in this evolving world of cheap energy, the Democratic Party as it exists will become an anachronism. So he is trying to change the game and come out on top. He and his allies are screaming about climate change and proposing regulations and taxes on energy as a way to increase the cost of energy. Regulations and taxes have devastating consequences on the poor because all those costs must be passed on. In effect, the climate changers have declared war on the poor people of the earth, and they blame the carnage on evil capitalists, banks, hedge funds, and the like: those rich bastards are the enemy.”
“All this was discussed in your presence at the White House?” Jack Yocke asked.
“In and out of my presence.”
“And you fought Soetoro’s political vision?”
“Why do you think he threw me in a concentration camp?”
“So why did Texas secede, or declare independence, whatever you want to call it?”
“Texas is going to do well in the cheap-energy future,” Sal Molina said. “The people there understand that. The legislature didn’t vote for poverty. They voted for a new, better, more prosperous future for everyone in Texas that felt threatened by Barry Soetoro’s vision of a socialist utopia, with himself at the helm. Socialism drives taxes up—to fund social justice, the socialists say—and that makes everyone poor. That is socialism’s fatal flaw. It has others, but that one always destroys socialism eventually.”
“You are implying everyone is an economist,” Yocke scoffed. “They aren’t.”
Molina made a gesture of impatience. “Politics is about macro forces. Texas and the plains states are responding to macro forces that people feel. All thinking people do that, even the uninformed. When you fill up your car, you don’t need a PhD in economics to understand that something profound is happening to the price of gasoline, and that something has huge, sublime implications.
“And you don’t have to be a computer scientist to see and understand how computer technology has changed the lives of everyone on earth, except perhaps some pygmies in darkest Africa or headhunters in the Amazon. Cell phones are bringing the internet to places without electricity or running water. People in central Asia are selling goods worldwide on eBay. Computers are revolutionizing life on earth, and that revolution has just begun. Changes are going to happen faster and faster—that’s Moore’s Law—and change threatens politicians who are invested in the status quo.”
“So Texas’ actions after the declaration of martial law was the monkey wrench in Soetoro’s plan,” Jake Grafton said thoughtfully. “That they didn’t expect.”
“They didn’t,” Molina acknowledged. “They also thought the paramilitary police they installed in every federal bureaucracy would be able to control the population. And they thought the military would be loyal; they have been purging independent thinkers from the top ranks for years, people in whom they had political doubts.”
“Civil war,” Jack Yocke mused.
“Like Crackerjacks,” Jake Grafton said. “Remember those, with a surprise in every box?”
TWENTY-THREE
After dinner Travis Clay and Willis Coffee went down to the guard cabin and in a little bit Willie Varner and Armanti Hall walked into the house. They were full of radio news, which they passed to Grafton, Yocke, and Molina.
We settled in for another night. Before we did, I took off Grafton’s tape and bandages and rewrapped them. His bruises were turning yellow and green. That was good, I thought. There were no hematomas that I could see, and no bulges from busted ribs pushing against his skin. He really needed to be in a hospital, but he would never agree to that, even if there were a hospital we could get him into, which there wasn’t.
“Thanks for getting me out of that camp,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead by now.”
“Forget it,” I replied. “But I must say, you have a real talent for getting yourself in messes.”
He just grunted. I figured he must be doing some serious thinking about where we were going to go and how we were going to survive the next few days, or weeks, or years, when Yocke and Molina weren’t bending his ear.
“We only have so much gasoline for the generators,” I told him, “and we need to save what we have for the one in the guard shack so we can monitor the security cameras. I’m going to turn off the one here in the house. There are candles and some kerosene, and we’ll cook on the outdoor fireplace. Pour water from the creek into the commodes.”
“Oh boy,” Jake Grafton said.
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” Tomorrow, I decided, I’d dream up something to keep Yocke and Molina busy. I told him that.
“Good,” he said. “Neither of them can handle being alone with their thoughts for very long. They’ve had no practice.”
“I’ll probably shoot a deer and let them butcher it. Fresh meat would be a treat.”
Then, out of nowhere, Grafton said, “Molina is a cynical bastard. He’s an economist, so maybe it’s his training. He thinks all political behavior, or most of it, can be predicted based upon where the money is going. He’s right to some extent, but life is a lot more complicated than that. He’s sat over at the White House for years preaching that welfare, Social Security, disability, food stamps, and cell phones would win the hearts and minds of the low-skilled and unemployed. He knows that poor people are easily bought. It’s everyone else he doesn’t understand.”
“How so?” I ventured.
“People are motivated by a myriad of things. Religion, tradition, a sense of service, loyalty, curiosity, challenge, accomplishment, praise, patriotism, sometimes a kick in the ass, a sense of rightness…and greed, the most basic of human emotions. Greed has built civilization; greed is the reason entrepreneurs start businesses, inventors invent, businessmen try to earn profits. Greed is the reason we aren’t still living in caves. Most people want to earn more money so they can have a better life. Yet we could make a long list of human motivations and still not get every one on it.
“The people at the White House, including Barry Soetoro, don’t understand America. None of them has ever been in the military, so they don’t understand the men and women in uniform. They aren’t religious, so they don’t understand the deep antipathy so many feel toward abortion or gay marriage. They never worked manual labor jobs, so they don’t understand those who do. They think marriage and traditional morality are old fashioned, so yesterday, so they don’t understand those who believe in them. Most of them have never worked in private industry, so they think business is crooked and contemptible. Their political base is in the inner cities, yet they advocate policies that will keep people poor and fight policies that would give the poor a leg up. They are perfect hypocrites, con artists, traitors to the people who believe in them. They willingly tell lies to advance their political agenda, and are amazed when that outrages people.
“They think they can ram things down people’s throats, and maybe they can, to some extent. Remember Willie Varner’s comment the other night: ‘Tastes like shit, but good’? No matter why you put up with something that tastes like shit, you can’t get the taste out of your mouth. Shit is shit.”
He paused, so I said, “Soetoro picked staffers who thought like he did.”
“Indeed. Yes-men. And of course women. That may be good for one’s ego, but it’s a lousy way to ensure you get good advice. Only a man who never ran anything would surround himself with staff that has only one point
of view. Barry Soetoro is a lousy manager and a lousy politician; we’re all paying for that. And he has another fatal flaw: he doesn’t want to hear anything that conflicts with his opinions, or prejudices. He refuses to listen to intelligence that might make him revise an opinion or consider other options.”
“There’s a lot of that going around these days, especially in the universities.”
Jake Grafton nodded. “People with closed minds are always the ones who get the worst surprises,” he said.
“One thing is for sure,” I said. “Soetoro’s managed to change the political landscape in the United States, and I doubt if he likes the changes.”
I wanted to ask the admiral what he had learned from eavesdropping on the White House for the last six months, but decided not to. Sarah shouldn’t have told me about it, and if I mentioned it to Grafton he would know I got it from Sarah. So I kept my mouth shut. The thought occurred to me that he had just told me his conclusions.
But I wondered. If I had listened to the conniving and plotting at the White House for six whole months, what would I have done? Whom would I have told? Who would believe me when I accused the president of the United States of plotting to subvert the Constitution, the Constitution that he was sworn to uphold, and declare himself a dictator? Who would have believed me if I accused him of waiting for a terrorist incident so he could declare martial law?
The answer of course was no one. Not a solitary soul on planet Earth. That was undoubtedly the conclusion that Jake Grafton reached.
I finished my doctoring and told the admiral he was good to go.
The attack submarine Texas, now the flagship of the Republic of Texas’ Navy, ran just below periscope depth in the Gulf of Mexico. Loren Snyder called an all-hands conference in the control room. He would rather have convened his little congregation of seven in the wardroom, but he wanted to keep a person on the helm at all times. The water was only three hundred feet deep here, so if the sub rammed into the bottom, she might never come up again. Fortunately the floor of the gulf fell away as one proceeded away from the coast, becoming well over a mile deep in places.
Snyder checked the depth, 240 feet; the heading, 130 degrees; the boat’s speed on the inertial readout, eight knots.
He surveyed the faces of his crew. Submarine duty attracted smart, technically savvy people who were interesting to be around, which was why smart, technically savvy people enjoyed it. The challenge was constant and boredom rare.
Ada Fuentes was on the helm, Jugs Aranado was sipping coffee, George Ranta, Speedy Gonzales, Mouse Moore, and Junior Smith were drinking water or eating toast from a loaf Mouse made in the galley last night.
“Okay, folks,” Loren said. “We made it to sea. That was the first hurdle, and we got over it, and I thank you. I thought our chances of getting out of Galveston about fifty-fifty. In any event, we are out.
“A few words on how this Texas Navy sub is going to be run. I am the captain, and I will make all decisions and expect my orders to be obeyed. That said, I want and need advice from each and every one of you on how to run the boat and use it as a military weapon. I hope you will give me honest opinions, and I will use them to make the best decision I can. But once I have decided, that is the way it is going to be. No more debate.”
He got nods from everyone standing around the plotting table in the center of the room.
“Our first problem for discussion is this: What are we going to do with this boat? Are we going to find someplace to hide and wait out the war, making the U.S. Navy worry about where we are and what we might be doing every minute of every day? Or are we going to use her as an attack boat? If we are, what are our targets? Where and how can we do the new Republic of Texas the most good? Your thoughts, please.”
“If we don’t do anything, the navy will stop worrying before long,” Speedy Gonzales said. “They’ll assume we managed to submerge forever.”
“Someone put two or three Tomahawks into power plants around Houston the other night,” Jugs said. “I assume they were launched from a surface ship. At least, I hope they were. If there is another attack boat out here we have major problems. They are fully manned and we aren’t.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I suggest we put a fish into that surface combatant, then get out of this pond and into the Atlantic, preferably the Gulf Stream, where we can go deep.”
“Ranta, you’ve been on the sonar. Any idea where that destroyer or frigate might be?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ve been looking at the chart,” Jugs said. “If I were the skipper of that ship, I’d be in the middle of the deep water rigs off Louisiana and Texas. If I were him or her, I’d be worrying about this submarine.”
“Tough operating around those rigs,” Ranta said. “Sonar will be crap.”
“Our main problem is another attack boat out here. It’ll be just as tough for them as it will be for us.” Snyder’s audience liked the idea that someone might be worried about what they would do.
Snyder studied the chart. Deep down, he thought the best and safest course of action was to get out of the Gulf of Mexico and look for a warship in the Atlantic. The drawback was that choice would cede the gulf to the United States Navy.
“Can we operate among those platforms without ramming a platform leg?” he mused aloud.
Junior Smith said, “We have to threaten Soetoro’s navy some way, and keeping them away from the shipping channels to Houston seems worthwhile to me. Let’s make ’em sweat.”
“What about torpedoing a Louisiana production platform?” Mouse Moore asked. “Or a tanker loaded with Arabian oil? Soetoro’s navy has to protect those tankers and platforms or the people of Louisiana are going to get huffy. Not to mention what will happen to insurance rates if one of those crude haulers gets torpedoed.”
“Let me think about this,” Loren Snyder said. “We certainly can’t go under a rig, but we can thread our way around them using the photonics mast. We’ll have to get GPS fixes as often as possible, but let’s not update the inertial until we are absolutely sure the feds haven’t tinkered with the GPS satellites.” He used a parallel ruler to plot a new course and gave the course to Ada Fuentes at the helm. She brought the boat around to the heading.
“And slow the boat. Five knots, I think. Ranta, we need you on the sonar for as long as you can stand it. Then I’ll relieve you. I was the sonar officer on my first boat, and I think I remember most of it.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” they said.
“Thank you for your input,” Snyder told his crew, who went off to the reactor and engineering spaces and, if they were off duty, to try to nap in a bunk. Sleep was precious.
Now on a more easterly course, Texas ghosted along through the heart of the sea.
Loren Snyder busied himself in the control room, checking the computers and torpedo data computer, the TDC. He and Jugs were going to have to run all this stuff. As he worked he thought about his first submarine skipper, who drilled his crew mercilessly and ended up convincing himself and everyone aboard that the crew was the best in the fleet. Incidentally, they passed their Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) with flying colors and won the Battle Efficiency E.
Snyder picked up the intercom mike and keyed it: “This is a drill, this is a drill. Runaway torpedo in Tube Two. This is a drill.”
He hung the mike in its bracket and heard a loud “Oh, shit!” and then the sound of running feet.
That first night in September, F-16 Falcons from Lackland landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. An hour after midnight, the F-16s were gone again, fanning out to defend the B-52 Stratofortresses, which were beginning their start rituals. They were loaded with JDAMs, two-thousand-pound dumb bombs with a GPS seeker and steering that would guide them to their targets.
JR Hays knew the GPS system was controlled by the United States government, which had the capacity to induce errors into the system, or shut it down altogether, but such an action would affect air navigation all over the earth, no doubt caus
ing a few airliners to crash, and he doubted that the Soetoro administration was ready for the inevitable international political backlash that would cause. Not yet, anyway.
The B-52s came to life—three of them, because another crew volunteered—and slowly taxied to the takeoff end of the duty runway. The wind was still out of the northwest, so the runway was 33.
Elvin Gentry was in the lead bomber. He had flown in at dusk and had a hurried conference with JR and Nate Danaher, then went to the crew briefing.
No doubt Soetoro loyalists all over the area would have liked to alert Washington when the fighters arrived and took off, and burn up the lines when the B-52s serenaded the city on their climb-outs, but the local power company had obeyed Soetoro’s orders and the electricity was off in the greater Shreveport area.
B-52s were old airplanes. The first one flew in 1952. Between 1952 and 1962, when the production line was closed, the air force bought 744 of them at a cost of a couple of million dollars each. Informally and affectionately known by their crews as BUFFs, which stood for Big Ugly Fat Fuckers, they carried up to seventy thousand pounds of bombs at high subsonic speeds and were relatively cheap to operate. The design intended to replace them, the B-70 Valkyrie, was too expensive. The variable-geometry B-1 Lancer and the stealth B-2 Spirit, both of which actually made it into service, were also too expensive to acquire in large numbers, and had high operating costs. Despite the air force’s institutional predilection for faster, sexier, and newer, economics reared its ugly head; the air force continually upgraded the B-52s and planned to keep them in service until 2045, over ninety years after the first one had flown. The only version still flying was the B-52H. The air force had invested an estimated $100 million into each one, so far, mere peanuts compared with the cost of newer warplanes. Twenty B-2 stealth bombers had cost Uncle Sam $2 billion each.
The B-52 crews planned on delivering two JDAMs on a support for each targeted bridge. The hope was the two bombs would drop one span in the water, or at least do enough damage that the bridges would no longer support sixty-three-ton M1A2 Abrams tanks.
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