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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Raven Rock¹

Source
"Mr. President?"

Former Secretary of Defense Matthew Burleson looked up from his desk. He had a raging headache, a number of commanders he had been counting on when he had declared himself President of the United States were refusing to take his calls. Didn't the fools realize that his claim superseded that of the Secretary of the Interior? His office was sixth in the line of succession, Nakagawa's was eighth.

When Vice Admiral Thomas Washington, his closest ally at the Pentagon, had gone to the Marine Barracks at 8th and I to confer with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, another of Burleson's supporters, he had completely dropped off the grid. Shortly thereafter the President had demanded his resignation. When he refused, the President fired him.

But that last tidbit was unknown outside of the President's circle, when that President died, Burleson had quickly declared himself President and had found a Federal judge in Pennsylvania's Eastern District to administer the oath. His staff had warned him that that was premature, but Burleson had overridden them. Now that fool of an FBI Director had declared himself to be in charge!

Burleson rubbed his eyes, "What is it now, Anderson?"

"Our communications are down, Mr. President."

"What?! That's not possible, where is General Henry?²"

"We don't know, Sir. The equipment was reset with new passwords and keys, we don't have them."

"Don't tell me Henry has them."

"Yes Mr. President, he does."

"Find that son of a bitch, NOW!"


FBI Director William Sheppard was headed out of the building, he was accompanied by his two "special projects" agents, Special Agents Jack Delaney and Nancy Pelton. He had been trying to get in touch with the CIA and Homeland Security all day, nobody was answering his calls. He had tried Delaney's personal cellphone, which had been answered. Nearly as soon as he had spoken the call had been cut off. Calls from Delaney's phone weren't answered after that.

"I guess their computers have voice recognition, Sir." Special Agent Pelton said.

Sheppard glanced at Pelton and said, "Ya think?"

Pelton turned beet red, she looked ahead towards the exit, oddly enough the screeners were absent. She started to mention it, then held her tongue. The Director was in a very bad mood and she had suffered enough of his sarcasm for one day.

Delaney however, mentioned it. "Sir, where is everybody?"

Sheppard looked up from his phone, at first he looked puzzled, then he had a moment of fear. He hesitated for just a moment, but then saw his car pull up outside. He thought it might be prudent to get out of town, something was in the wind.

Delaney drew his sidearm, as did Pelton, they went through the checkpoint and out into the street. The Director's car stood there, the driver looking out at them with a puzzled look. Delaney saw nothing amiss, so he waved the Director out into the street.


"Target acquired."

The sniper was in the tower at the Waldorf Astoria, not far from the Hoover Building. He had a clear line of sight.

"Take him."

The gunman squeezed the trigger.


Pelton was startled, she had been sprayed with liquid, which puzzled her, it wasn't raining.

She had been looking to her left, the Director was to her right. She turned to see if the Director had also gotten wet.

It all happened so quickly, she had no real perception of time. From the instant she felt the spray of wetness until she turned to her right felt like a hundred years, everything was moving in slow motion.

She saw that the Director's head had snapped to his left, towards her, then she realized that the wetness she felt was from the Director's head, well, what was left of his head.


The phone rang on Burleson's desk, which he thought odd, communications were supposedly down, weren't they? He picked up the phone.

"Burleson."

He listened for a moment, not believing what he was hearing.

"What? Say that again."

Burleson sat there, at a loss for words. He hung up the phone just as his aide walked in.

"Sir, seems our comms are back up ..." Then he noticed that the man he worked for seemed to be staring into space.

"Something wrong, Mr. President?" Ted Anderson asked.

Burleson looked at his aide, "The FBI Director has been gunned down in the street, along with two agents."

"Sir?"

"We need to get out of here. Get me a helicopter, that bastard Nakagawa is running the table."

"Sir?" Anderson was in a state of shock.

"It's over, we need to get the hell out of here before they come for us. Move it man, get my helicopter ready!"


The President of the United States, John Nakagawa was tying his tie when Bill Aspinall tapped on the door, then entered.

"Morning, Bill, what's up?"

"Just had word, Sheppard is down. The onsite team decided that an arrest wouldn't work, so ..."

"Sniper?"

"Yes Sir."

Nakagawa sighed, "I guess we better let Congress know. How about the team up at Raven Rock?"

"They're ready. Burleson hasn't moved yet, their comms were cut last night, General Henry brought the system down, changed all the codes, then left with his staff."

"I trust Billy made it to a safe location?" Nakagawa had been Henry's commander when that man was a young lieutenant.

"Yes Sir, as scheduled, comms were restored at Raven Rock and a call was made, Burleson knows about Sheppard now."

"Think he'll run or will he try to bluster his way out? There are still some folks in DC who think he'd be the better man for this job."

"He'll run, Mr. President. The man is a coward, he proved that in Yemen, to those who were actually paying attention."

Nakagawa thought back to those days, he'd been flying A-10s, that venerable bird's last campaign, his last as a squadron commander. A battalion of Marines had been trapped in the mountain passes near Al Habilayn, Burleson had been in command of Task Force Ruby, waiting off the coast aboard their Navy transports. The Marines had begged Burleson to send in his force, but he had demurred, saying that Washington hadn't authorized that.

The Marines had fought their way out, at heavy cost. No Marine on the ground, and no airmen aloft that day ever forgot that. Burleson had retired shortly thereafter and became a high priced political consultant with a defense contractor.

He remembered when his predecessor had appointed the man Secretary of Defense, his confirmation passing by a single vote.

"Sir?"

Nakagawa snapped out of his reverie, "If he runs, take him, if he stays put, we'll have to go in. One way or the other, his time is over."

Aspinall nodded, "Yes Sir." Then he went out to make the call to the forces positioned near Raven Rock. "Time to water the tree of liberty," Aspinall muttered as he headed to the communications room.



¹ An interesting place.
² In this story he is the Air Force general responsible for communications at Site R.

32 comments:

  1. When Burleson runs, I hope it's a MARINE F/A-18 that gun kills him.

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    Replies
    1. No, Marine K-Bar. Knife in the back since that's his style.

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    2. Anonymous....nope. Knife in the torso just under the sternum , and the guy looking into Burleson's eyes as he twists it and stirs his innards, while snarling, "I survived Al Habilayn."

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    3. Oh, you people are too nice. Do the Blood Eagle. Or go to Amish country, get a wagon wheel and do a Catherine's Wheel. Chain him between two JLTVs (the Humvee replacement) and slowly pull him apart. Or, better yet, keep him alive and send him to a traitor's death after finding him guilty of treason, insurrection, not paying his library fine, wearing white shoes after Easter...

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    4. Scott - That outcome is highly unlikely, for various reasons.

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    5. Any Mouse @ 0631 - Points for style, but also not likely.

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    6. Joe - My, my, but y'all are bloody-minded today.

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    7. Beans - Pretty sure that fits the definition of "cruek and unusual punishment." So not likely, we aren't barbarians. Not yet anyway.

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    8. Not cruel and unusual, as all those were common during the time of our nation's founding. Well, maybe not the Catherine's Wheel, as the indigenous population hadn't discovered or embraced the wheel. So hot tar and feathers, hanging (slow pull, short drop, long drop,) firing squad, cannonization, keelhauling, starvation, death by exposure... all of those weren't considered cruel and unusual in the late 1700s...

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    9. But they are by modern standards, again I'd like to point out that we're not barbarians. As soon as we start doing that sort of thing, we belong on the ash heap of history.

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    10. (Don McCollor) Such melodramatic executions worthy of a James Bond movie. Just take him out and shoot him.

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  2. Aha, a house cleaning, boy Sarge, your Muse has her teeth into it this post.

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    1. She decided it was time to clean up loose ends before the big finish.

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  3. Well now. Shades of the Октябрьская Pеволюция. (I know, not the best analogy, but similar) Factions shaking themselves out, thinning the herd.

    As more details come out, and details are important (see? I do sometimes pay attention!), I'm starting to trust/like Nakagawa a bit more. Of the players still on the table he seems....SEEMS....to be the one willing to hew to the constitutional line with an adz rather than hacking through it with a felling axe. Or an ice axe.

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    1. I think our fascists had their wings clipped when the sniper nailed the FBI Director. (Bolsheviks, fascists, two sides of the same coin.)

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  4. There will be an end to cleaning this table, and then there will be others to clean. What can end this, whence the start?

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    1. There has to be a cut-off of who gets prosecuted once this type of stuff starts. Broadcasting to the enemy to lay down their arms and surrender is how to start the stop. Those who surrender before fighting, or who slab the leaders and then surrender will get looked at with a fine toothed comb and maybe at the most be required to leave office/their job/the military, at best a general pardon or something in between (determining guilt is a big issue, but surrendering when the situation is explained counts a lot.)

      Obviously, if they continue to resist, prosecute to the fullest extent the leaders and the knowledgeable followers (some of the lower ranks will 'just be following orders.') Arrest and detain all those who surrender.

      Then the sticky part starts. How guilty are the resistors? You get into venal and deadly sin territory here. Knowledge that those above the resistor were on the wrong side? Pretty much a guilty verdict, leading to, at the least, dishonorable discharge and at the most a traitor's death, degree of venality depends on what actions the person took. But actively leading the resistance to lawful authority or be part of the coup before the hammer fell, well, that's deadly sin territory, no turning back, minimum 20-life in fed prison, maximum is death and no forgiveness.

      Those, like the general who locked the comms out, venal sin for following the SecDef, maybe. Once he locked the comms and left, well, that establishes some bona fides that he wasn't totally with sin, so to speak. Of course, bringing the bound SecDef and presenting it like a present to the new President would have been the most favorable way to come back in the fold of goodness, followed by just gifting Nakagawa with the SecDef's head or lifeless body (head's easier to carry around, fits in a Home Despot bucket with lid or a small cooler...)

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    2. htom - Hopefully the good guys know when to stop. Or they're no longer the good guys.

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    3. Beans - Why get the lawyers involved?

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    4. Military tribunal, at least for those in the military. So a trial, by their peers.

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  5. I suspect no-one thought Nakagawa would "implement" such measures.

    Never, never underestimate an opponent - unless you are the opponent. Then do everything in your power to be underestimated.

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    1. Nakagawa plays his cards close to the vest, he is a smart fellow.

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  6. Raven Rock would be a very tough nut to crack. It was designed to take an assault from everything including a couple of nukes. Yes I've been there. Smart money would be stay and negotiate a deal. Of course there is always someone you trust putting a bullet in the back of your skull to sweeten their deal. Running just means you die tired. Enjoying the story line immensely!

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    1. No way they'd try to go in, it is a very, very tough nut to crack, I do believe they'll try and flush their prey into the open.

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  7. And now we get to see how far the rot extended. Who will realize that the correct president is, in fact, the correct president? And will they act to save themselves/the nation?

    Fun times, not. So much cleaner fighting an external enemy.

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  8. Replies
    1. So far...
      It does bring up the difficulties of cleaning up once things go kinetic. I suspect Sarge/Muse's scenario might be as good as it gets. Things are likely to be far worse.
      The only thing worse than that is continuing down the current path.
      Boat Guy

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    2. Rob - 'Tis my fervent prayer.

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    3. BG - The current path leads to ruin and chaos, worldwide!

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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