by Reed Hill
“You think Sergeant Miller is going to be okay back there?” the young soldier asked.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Mathews said. “He’s a good leader and knows people. He’ll do great.” Mathews was still a little unsure about leaving behind a squad in Fort Stockton. Sergeant Miller worked in the public affairs office at the Air Defense artillery school at Bliss and was used to dealing with the citizenry. Miller, along with a handful of the “rear and gear” types, had volunteered to stay behind and assist with the aid effort at Fort Stockton.
The rest of them decided to head to Sonora and re-equip, and try to rally with some of the National Guard there. If not Sonora, the closest options were the National Guard unit in Odessa, or the Air Force base in Del Rio, but the police officers in Fort Stockton had mentioned that Del Rio was flooded with gang members and under siege. There was even a rumor that the base had been taken by marauders.
As they rolled into Sonora, Mathews took the Airport Service Road exit, turned back over the highway and took the column of Humvees and Deuces down the access road toward the backside of the airport, where scattered maintenance and storage buildings sat. The National Guard armory looked like an ordinary warehouse among the dozen or so maintenance buildings and distribution centers, save the official brown sign with white block lettering on the exterior by the steel double doors.
Mathews jumped out and the men fell in behind him as he pounded on the steel doors. A young private appeared in the open doorway after a moment, breathless and a bit shaken up, “Hey y’all, what are you doing here?”
“I’m Staff Sergeant Mathews; we’re from Fort Bliss.”
“Fort Bliss, holy crap! Some of y’all got out then?”
“Yeah,” Mathews said dryly, “We’re from various units there, mostly the 31st and 11th Air Defense Brigades. We got about four hundred women and children out of there at about 0300 and got them to a safe location.”
“Cool, we were all wondering what the hell is going on over there,” the young private with the long, hooked nose said. “Come on in and take a load off. There’s only about five of us manning the armory right now – the unit got mustering orders. I assume that’s a response to the crap going down all along the border.”
“What do you mean ‘all along’ the border?” Mathews asked as they passed into the armory proper. It had the cast of an old elementary school gymnasium more than a military facility, with the large open floor space
“More than just El Paso got it,” he said scratching the back of his neck as they moved into the main armory. The large open space still had basketball hoops and a couple of volleyball nets set up. “Del Rio, Laredo, and McAllen got hit too. McAllen got hit real bad it sounds like.”
“Damn…” Mathews muttered.
“A big gang of them descended on the nuke plant down there, and it sounds like they took that too. The whole world was going to hell down here. That’s why they called us up.”
“What are the mustering orders?” Mathews said.
“Orders basically said ‘Get your asses to the Guard Post at San Angelo A.S.A.P. Even if you’re on a non-alert contract, they said they need e’rbody over there.”
“You all should head over there, even if you are Federal, and not Texas Guard,” the private said. “They can use any info you can give them. Plus, they’ll probably ask you to come along, you being regular Army and all.”
“Yeah,” Mathews considered, “we’ll probably do that. In the meantime, can we get a few weapons and ammo, in case we run into any trouble?”
“Hmmm…” the young private hesitated, “I don’t think I’m authorized to hand out anything to folks who aren’t part of the 2nd Regiment, Texas.”
“Come on, private,” Mathews said, “we’re all on the same side and I got a couple of guys carrying Beretta 92s here. Can you at least hook us up with some rifles and some ammo?”
“Let me what we have. The guys took most of it when they mustered out a couple of hours ago.”
“Okay,” Mathews said. “We’ll wait here, but it will go faster if you let us help you look. We’re happy to help you do it.”
Mathews signaled to Corporal Andreson, who ran over, “Andreson, tell the guys to take a couple of hours in the rack here, while I get us hooked up with weapons, ammo and some decent gear like SAPI plates, forty-mike mikes and some PEC-fours.”
“Roger that, Sarn’t.”
“All right, I guess I can help you a little bit,” the private said with a sigh, “but, I’m gonna need y’all to fill out a form 1067-A for the stuff.”
“Oh, I can do that,” Mathews said smiling. “After thirteen years of service time, I know how to do paperwork.”
*****
Downtown
Austin, Texas – July 5th, 2017 – 10:20 am
Court wasn’t until one o’clock, but Callie and Solicitor General Bill Meacham had agreed it would be a good idea to get set up in the courtroom and do a last minute review of their arguments over lunch. They loaded up in Meacham’s SUV and made the short trek from the Governor’s mansion to the U.S. District courthouse down on 8th street. Callie had been amazed at the throng of news crews, reporters and protestors that had gathered outside the mansion. It had taken longer to navigate through the crowd toward Meacham’s forest green Range Rover and get out of the driveway than it had to go the dozen or so blocks downtown.
Bill pulled the big SUV into the parking garage across the street, taking the ticket and maneuvering into the grid of cars and spaces. There were more spots available than normal, and he took an open spot near the north exit on the first floor of the garage. he grabbed his leather file case and his briefcase from the back seat, and they strode out of the garage. The U.S. District Court was just on the north side of the street, a straightforward, 1970s concrete eyesore, and the pair jaywalked across 8th Street to the glass doors of the gray building. They presented their IDs, breezed through security and jumped in a waiting elevator. The building seemed rather empty, but that was to be expected on the 5th; much of the office staff was on vacation. It was a rather austere white-walled interior with cold florescent lighting and gray linoleum, with only a random bust or piece of framed wall art protruding almost rudely from the rigid decor.
“Here we are,” Bill paced toward the black steel double doors, above which was a placard which indicated Courtroom 3. Callie had been in Courtroom three a number of times in the past five years, and it always struck her as seeming more like a county traffic court than a federal district courtroom. Typical of the 70s construction, the place was bereft of any wood, and with the environmental consciousness in society, it wasn’t likely to have any added. “Let’s drop our file cases and go. How about that? I’m actually getting hungry.”
“Sure,” Callie dropped her large file case onto the table. “I could eat.”
They took the elevator back down to the first floor and out past security.
“Let’s grab a spot over at Silhouette’s,” Callie said as they walked out onto 8th Street. “They’ll have a back table away from the entrance where we can talk in relative peace.” They were only a few blocks from Callie’s loft and she relaxed a little, basking in the familiarity of downtown.
“Okay,” Bill straightened his sport coat a bit. “Sounds good.”
“Did you find out who had been assigned to the case?” Callie brushed her auburn locks from her face, but the southern breeze kept toying with her hair.
“Maria Baracho.”
“Ugh,” Callie loosened her tight grip on her briefcase a bit, letting it swing more naturally with her stride. “The bulldog…great.” Callie knew of Bulldog Baracho from the legal scene in Austin. She was a player in the Bar Association and was about as far left as they came. Five or six years ago, Callie would have said she admired how Baracho had moved her way to the top of the still pretty male-dominated legal community in Texas. She had a reputation as a fast-talking, in your face counselor who took a no holds barred approach in court and out.
“Yeah,” Meacham said dryly, “her arrogance may provide us with some openings. It should be a fun argument.”
“The only time I’ve ever heard her speak, she certainly lived up to her nickname,” Callie mentioned, recalling the ABA speech from a couple of years ago. Baracho had been a very energetic speaker who seemed intent on making controversial arguments, if not completely legally cogent ones. “I seem to remember her language was laced with bits and pieces of Spanish, mostly for flourish rather than substance.”
“I think she’s a little defensive about being a Texas State grad,” Meacham turned one corner of his mouth up as he glanced at Callie. “The night school crowd loves her.”
Callie wondered how difficult it was to get into Baylor or UT when Maria Baracho would have been applying some thirty-odd years ago. “Well, she got somebody’s attention along the way.”
“It’s political at that level,” Bill said. “Who knows how much back scratching she had to do, in order to land that spot.”
Callie wasn’t sure she liked the implication, but had no real grounds to dispute it or even protest. “I don’t know her at all.”
Meacham was a little old school, but she never thought he was truly chauvinistic. At least half of the staff in the office was women, and Meacham’s reputation had never been disputed as far as she knew. He had hired Callie personally after only a year on the private side, based largely on the recommendation of Judge Dawson from her time clerking for him. “I’ve seen her in court perhaps a half-dozen times, and she was pretty effective, in my mind.”
“Oh, you’ve seen her?”
“Yeah,” Callie admitted, “it’s a bit of a hobby when I get the chance. Some people like to go to Longhorn football games,” Callie grinned. “I go to court.”
“Well, young lady,” Meacham glanced at her, “that shows up when you make your arguments. You certainly do know your way around a courtroom.”
“My exes would probably say that I just like to fight,” Callie gave a little wry smile as they approached the small restaurant.
Meacham opened the door and held it for Callie, “In that case, I would say that their pain is my gain.”
It was still short of eleven o’clock, and there were only a handful of patrons at the thirty or so tables in the restaurant. As the hostess took them to one by the front window Meacham smiled. “Would you mind if we grabbed one of those tables in the back?”
“Not at all sir,” the hostess smiled and turned to usher them to a four-seat table across from the bar. “How is this for you two?”
“It’s fine,” Meacham set his briefcase down in one of the open seats. He pushed out a chair for Callie, who slid into the padded, black iron chair and set her briefcase on her lap.
She popped open her briefcase and took out her pad and silver pen and the case file setting the case on the floor under the table, “Okay, where do you want to start? We’ve got a little over two hours.”
Meacham twirled the gold pen in his hand and looked down at his own pad. “Let’s work on the pre-trial motions. I think we want as strong a start as possible.”
“Agreed,” Callie looked at her watch and noted the date and time at the top of the clean sheet of the legal pad, as she always did in meetings. She stared at the blank sheet of legal paper, which seemed to be mocking her with its clean, crisp white tone. She stabbed the point of her pen on a corner of the paper and got the ink flowing, “We’ll certainly need to come out swinging against Baracho.”
Bill scribbled something on his yellow legal pad, “So, how soon do you think that the subdivision is going to come up as an issue?”
“It’s got to be early, given our pre-trial motions.” Callie wrote ‘Subdivision’ with a couple of question marks on her legal pad. “I expect Baracho to just ignore it completely as it works against her case, but we’re going to force it on her.” The Subdivision of Texas was still a horrifying thought to Callie in many ways. It really was a desperate act to try to increase the presence of Texas in the U.S. Senate and sway the balance away from liberals who had been feasting on their power for a decade. The cost seemed so high to Callie. Isn’t this a classic Pandora’s box? Sure, the state would get eight new U.S. Senators – but at what cost? No one had a crystal ball. Callie shook her head and sipped her water. There had to be unforeseen consequences for Subdivision, and when the stakes were this high, those consequences would affect people’s lives in significant ways, maybe for a very long time. Is this all worth it?
“Callie?” Meacham was looking at her with high arched eyebrows, “The Subdivision line of argument. Are you still convinced we need to move to dismiss the case in pre-trial motions?”
“Yes, because it still gives us the best odds of a favorable outcome,” Callie took a sip of water and looked at Meacham. “Given the elections occurred without incident – which was a huge win for us – it’s going to go one of three ways for us I think. One: the judge agrees to dismiss on the grounds that the ‘State of Texas’ which produced the law, has no substantive interest in the case, since it shares no border with Mexico. That’s de facto recognition of Subdivision and a win for us.”
“Yes,” Meacham wrote a note on his papers and glanced back up a Callie, “you’ve made that argument earlier. I don’t think it’s likely, but go on.”
“Right. Fairly unlikely – I concur, but it would be prudent to prepare for it.” Callie nodded. “Two: the judge denies the motion to dismiss, but says that we need to continue as the new state of Texas, the little central state surrounded by the four compass point states of Texas. We move forward in the interest of the larger good of the people of Texas. That’s de jure recognition, official acknowledgement by a federal authority of Subdivision, and that would be very good for us.”
“Again, possible but very unlikely, I would assume.” Meacham glanced at Callie’s silk blouse and then back to her eyes. “Good to be prepared nonetheless.”
Callie grabbed her water glass and held it in front of her with both hands, “Or the third way it could go is that he could deny the motion to dismiss and ignore Subdivision issue completely, as the federal government would like to have happen. That’s a huge loss for us as it effectively invalidates the elections and forces us to move forward as one Texas, the old Texas.”
“The federal government clearly is expecting that, and it’s probably why they never lifted a finger to try to stop the elections,” Meacham scribbled in his pad. “They figured that their chances were good that most federal judges would act in the interest of preserving the union, even if it meant destroying federalism.”
“Well, it would be a good bet.” Callie set the water glass down and jotted some notes. “Think about at all the laws that have been passed and cases decided that have taken away piece after piece of the armor of federalism. We’ve basically become one national government with only tiny differences granted to us as federally approved trivialities.”
“I suppose that’s their idea of what it is to be a union,” Meacham sat back and crossed his arms, sighing.
“Granted, but at some point the states become irrelevant,” she slouched lower in her chair and propped her legal pad on the table. “If that’s the case, the original compact of the states with the federal government is truly dead. It calls into question whether the states can really do any independent act of governance which does not comply completely with the larger government.”
“Oh, I don’t think anyone really and truly believes that the nation of Jefferson and Madison exists any longer,” Meacham took a long draw from his water as the waitress appeared pen and pad in hand. “It’s been dead and buried a long time. Does the Compact Theory really matter anymore?”
Meacham started to speak with waitress about the lunch specials, and Callie felt a dull burning in the pit of her stomach. “Well, I still care,” she muttered softly to herself. “It matters to me.”
*****
Federal Bureau of Investigation – Intelligence and Planning Unit –
4th Floor
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C. – July 5th, 2017 – 10:30 am
Kevin Margolis stood and stretched before loading the last of his files into his briefcase. The intercom on his desk phone buzzed and he slapped down on the speaker button without looking up from his files, “Margolis here.”
A woman’s voice came over the line, “Mr. Margolis, this is main reception. Your ride is waiting. I think they’re…ready to go.”
“Thank you very much. I’ll be right down.” Margolis put the last of the files into the silver briefcase and set his sidearm and four spare magazines in the top compartment before pushing it closed and spinning the numeric wheels to set the lock. It was for times like this that he had prepared and kept overnight bag, with an extra pair of khaki slacks and a couple of fresh oxford shirts, as well as socks and underwear, in his office closet for the past five years. He snatched the black roller bag from the closet and wheeled toward the door of his small office taking his briefcase.
He was anxious about the trip to Austin. He was an analyst, not a field agent, but Burke had insisted that he go and rendezvous with the Austin Field office for what had to be done now. He was taking control of the CIRG at the local level, and the Director had elevated the priority of the incident. As of 1000 hours, he was the head of the Sector Four Special Task Force, and he had the authorization paperwork in his briefcase to prove it.
He hustled down the hallway and caught an elevator going down just as the doors were closing. He nodded a quick apology to the pair of young agents who were in the elevator and patted his breast pocket, making sure he had his credentials and badge with him. When he doors opened on the first floor level, he pushed through and strode briskly across the lobby, with a wave to the three ladies who sat at reception at the main E street entrance. Margolis could see the white Lincoln sitting parked just outside the tall glass doors, beyond the three massive concrete planters which held a variety of greenery. The driver exited as Margolis came through the massive entrance and opened the rear door of the long white car for him. Margolis gave him a polite, nearly inaudible “hello” as he stepped into the back seat next to Arthur Burke, who was looking over the papers in a file folder, waiting for him.
