Crashed: The Death Of The Dollar (20 page)

“
They'll be fine without my vote,” he replied, hoping she would go away.

“
Nope. You have to vote, and you're going to want to kick yourself right where I'm staring if you don't.”

Mike sighed and sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. “What the hell is so damn important up for vote that my evening has to be ruined by your presence?”

“There's two votes actually. You're right, one of them doesn't matter. It's to vote for the use of force to try to stop the Pacific and Soviet invasion of South America. That's going to pass no matter what.”

“
Yeah, okay, more war. No surprise there.” Mike was being facetious and his patience with Amanda was growing thinner by the second. “What's the other one?”

“
They've moved up the date for a vote on the Sovereignty Act,” she said with a sense of urgency.

Mike sat up quickly.

“Right now it looks like a split, eight to eight, vote,” Amanda continued.

Mike stood up, groaned and sighed all at the same time.

“
What's the Sovereignty Act?” Jessica asked.

“
Okay, Amanda, I'm slightly glad you're here,” Mike rolled his eyes at her smiling, and turned to answer Jessica. “It's a bill Amanda and I wrote with a guy from Texas. If it fails, they're going to start working to arrange elections for a new congress and new president. If it passes, then the United States will officially be divided up into several smaller countries with a shared military only.”

It was really quiet for a moment as the reality of what might be about to happen sunk in.

“Um, hang on. So you two wrote a bill to literally end the United States?” Taylor asked.

“
Yep!” Amanda answered excitedly, attempting to put her arm around Mike before he blocked her.

“
Come on, Amanda. Come set this thing up and make sure I'm able to cast my vote.”

They went inside the house and Mike showed Amanda where all the boxes were. She had already set up the same system at her own house, and went right to work. Mike walked off into Jessica's room and shut the door.

The next morning Mike was still laying at the foot of the bed, with his legs down and feet on the floor. Jessica and Taylor had fallen asleep in the living room playing cards. Amanda stayed up all night, and went to wake Mike up to let him know it was working and he needed to come see how to use it. 

Mike had once been pretty technically savvy, but other than what he used to record his messages, he hadn't done much with a computer since Windows '98.

“
Okay, Amanda. When is the vote?”

“
In about two hours.”

Mike sighed again, wondering if he would regret what he was about to say. “Amanda, will you stay and help me not screw this up?”

“Yes!” She said, acting all giddy and plopping down in his lap to hug him.

Mike shoved her off and she jumped up and went outside, embarrassed over being rejected by him again.

Mike walked into the living room. “She's staying for a few more hours.”

Jessica just closed her eyes and dropped her head to the couch.

“
I need her. As bad as I hate it, I need her to get this right,” he told them.

Two hours later, Amanda was seated at Mike's side, with Jessica and Taylor standing behind them. The roll call always had Thomas Paine last, and as Amanda predicted, it was a split vote. He was to cast the deciding vote.

It was now official. The United States was to be dissolved on November 1st. The military would continue to exist in it's current state, and a single Commander-in-Chief of the military would still run for election in all the soon to be new nations. As Amanda shut down the connection, they all had tears in their eyes.

“
Why? Why, Mike?” Taylor said, forgetting that Amanda still didn't know his real name.

“
So that we won't again face such a large and powerful central government that's so easily able to take away our liberty,” he answered as he got up and walked out. None of them followed him. Even Jessica knew he needed his space for longer than normal.

Mike walked down to the reservoir and cried for almost two hours. He had just taken on the burden of the decision to end the country who's flag he'd once worn on a uniform, and casting his vote as he did weighed heavily on his heart. Taylor came down to check on him and sat to cry with him. After a little while longer, they both started feeling like they had no tears left to shed and returned home.

The process to form new national boundaries started the next week. Mike told Amanda his suggestions, and let her work with a locally-elected council to try to reach agreements by October 31st. He wanted nothing more to do with any of it. The Joint Chiefs asked him to remain with four others as advisers who could vote to overrule their military decisions. It was a shallow attempt at a balance of power until elections were being held. He wanted to decline, but Jessica's voice was still there whispering “you always do the right thing.”

Chapter 17

Escalation

Ten months had passed since Mike cast his fateful vote. It still weighed heavy on him almost every day, but he never doubted that it was the right thing to do. There were now eight nations where a single nation had once been.

Mike's ranch now sat in a nation named for a landmark that sat in the middle of it. Grand Canyon. He hated the name, but had no other ideas when he was asked. Southern Utah and Nevada, south of I-70, straight west to the border with California, and all of Arizona were it's territory.

California had remained mostly as it had been, except the northern part of the state joining with Oregon, Washington, Idaho, northern Utah and Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana. California retained its name. The new north western nation kept ongoing political fighting and still could not reach a decision between using Washington or Montana.

New Mexico and Oklahoma had joined the Republic of Texas. Colorado, east to Missouri and north through Minnesota, as well as Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas became the Ogallala Nation.

Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and the states to their south again became the Confederate States of America, with their Constitution beginning with a noted ban on slavery. The northern states, from the Mississippi River east to the Appalachian Mountains chose to be the Lincoln Nation. The remaining north eastern states became Franklin.

Most nations kept many of the same laws that were in place when the crash first happened. Texas and Ogallala didn't impose many restrictions on firearms, but Mike was pleased that Grand Canyon chose wording in their Constitution that stated “all citizens may freely own and carry any such weapon as they see fit, without limitation from any agency of government.” And he was ecstatic when he was given, as a gift from the new government, one fully automatic M4 for each member of his family, along with a truck load of 5.56mm ammunition for them, as thanks for his participation in the resistance and activism for freedom.

The war with the Pacifics and Soviets had escalated into a full scale war, though most of the fighting was taking place on the South American and African continents. Each occasionally launched missiles into the rural areas of each others homelands. Alaska was successfully defended against the Soviets and was petitioning to become the ninth nation in the NAU Mutual Military Agreement. Hawaii had little left to it after exchanging hands between the NAU and Pacifics ten times in as many months.

Mike had become very involved with the war in a sense. The entire Rocky Mountain region was hammed all winter long with massive snow storms. Amy and her kids all spent the winter in the new house, at Taylor's insistence. The snow got so deep that the entire first floor of the new home was buried in what they guessed was nearly twelve feet of snow.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Amanda had been up at the Ranch trying to convince Mike to put 'Thomas Paine' on the ballot to be Grand Canyon's first president, with her as his vice president. He refused to consider the idea and angrily ran her off, slipping on some ice and taking a hard fall, once again injuring his left hip.

About thirty minutes after Amanda left, she was sending Mike satellite messages and radio calls begging for help. She had become stuck in a snow storm and couldn't get her truck out of a ditch the road crossed. Jason, who had become quite infatuated with her, didn't hesitate to take the snowmobile out to rescue her.

Amanda came down with a mild cold from the ordeal, but Jason found himself battling pneumonia soon after. Amy spent two weeks doing all she could to nurse her first born back to health. Amanda tried daily to offer to help in any way she could, but Amy blamed her for his condition and refused to even feed him soup when she cooked it.

Jason fought hard, but in spite of everyone's best efforts, he died December 5th. By that time, the snow pack had risen to about six feet deep. Jessica and Taylor went as a team to try to find low spots they could shovel their way through to place his body until they could bury him, but were unable to even get off the porch. After a day, as the snow continued to fall, Mike insisted that they put Jason's body out the upstairs bedroom window of the room he had died in. All of them felt guilty. Like they were disrespecting the boy who had given his life to save someone else. The hard winter turned surprisingly long, making them wait until the first week of April before they could retrieve his body and give Jason a proper burial.

Mike felt particularly guilty. He had a great deal of respect for the young man, who stepped up to the task no matter what was ever asked of him. And in his mind, it was all his fault. He reasoned that Amanda wouldn't have been out there had he not run her off. And even if she had still left, had he not acted out so angrily and fallen, it would have been him who had gone to rescue her, not Jason.

Mike and Amanda both found immersing themselves in the politics of the war to be a distraction from the guilt and grief they both felt. Brazil had chosen to side with the Pacifics and Soviets, cutting all ties with the reorganized North American Union. This was a major turning point in the war, as the NAU's only remaining allies were the struggling nations of western Europe, Canada and Mexico.

Mike got the call one morning to join a conference call with the other advisers over SatLinc with the Joint Chiefs. Admiral Miller, as the acting chairman, led the call with a proposed plan of retaliation.

“I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I have a plan to take most of South America out of the war by levying an attack on Brazil,” the Admiral started.

While everyone remained silent waiting to hear the plan, Mike couldn't bite his tongue. “You're shittin' me!”

“Excuse me?!” the Admiral shot back, in disgust at the perceived disrespect.

“
You want to attack Brazil? I understand the attacks on Pacific and Soviet bases being established around -”

“
Mr. Paine, please hold your thoughts until I'm finished,” the Admiral demanded. “As I was saying, since Brazil has led the charge on the South American continent for uniting against us, I have a proposed plan of attack to show that we can't and won't tolerate such actions. If launched, Brazil would not be capable of continuing it's support of our enemies.”

“
Okay, so what's this brilliant plan?” Mike asked. “Get to the details and save us the bullshit.”

Admiral Miller was clearly getting annoyed by the man he knew only as Mr. Thomas Paine. “Well, Mr. Paine, the plan is to launch a few dozen missiles into Brazil, targeting it's key infrastructure, without which, it will only barely be able to function. Half of these missiles would assure the complete demolition of the Itaipu Dam.”

Mike didn't know what that dam was, or it's significance, but the look on Amanda's face told him she knew exactly what he was talking about.

Chairman Miller continued, “The remaining missiles will be sent directly into Brazil's capital of Sao Paulo.”

“Oh my God!” Mike exclaimed before catching himself. “I'm sorry, Admiral, please continue telling us how many civilians you've got a hard-on to kill.”

“
Mr. Paine, would you like to be disconnected from this conference, because I can have that done quite easily?”

“
Please go on, Mr. Chairman,” Mike struggled to say respectfully.

“
We would not be bombing civilian targets in Sao Paulo. Our object would be to destroy the hydroelectric dams at the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs.”

Amanda's mouth dropped as she hurriedly reached for the mute button on the microphone. “That's going to wipe out Sao Paulo worse than just bombing it! I'd bet at least two or three million people's homes and businesses lie in the lower regions of the city, and that's on the low end. Anyone who manages to survive the attack and flooding won't have any clean water!”

Mike unmuted his microphone as several of the others were talking about how it sounded to them like a good strategic attack with minimal civilian casualties. “So, Chairman Miller,” Mike spoke up over the others, “You want to eliminate the major power supplies for the country?”

“
Precisely. It will be precision strike -”

“
And what about the millions of people who live and work downstream of these reservoirs? What about the ten-plus million people who would have to figure out how to live without drinking water?”

“
Mr. Paine, any attack will have a few casualties. But Brazilians are used to heavy rains, and will not have a problem finding reasonable drinking water supplies. Assuming the board doesn't override us by unanimous vote, the attack would commence a week from this coming Sunday, March 16th.”

“Excuse me,” General Laub, of the Air Force, interjected. “Since first reviewing this plan a few days ago, some of my intelligence officers presented me with an expanded version.”

“
You'd like to hit other targets critical to Brazil's infrastructure?” Chairman Miller asked.

“
No. I propose it's time we strike at mainland Russia and China. Let's level a comparable attack on their critical infrastructure as well. Concurrent attacks.”

Everyone was silent. Even Mike was too in shock to say anything.

After nearly two minutes of everyone pondering the thoughts of direct attacks, General Laub continued. “The attack on mainland China would hit at their pride and their power. Three Gorges Dam. This would be a critical blow to their electrical generation capabilities and agricultural irrigation. It would send a firm message that they need to end their hostile actions or risk further destruction.”

Mike was finally not alone is his reservations about these attacks ideas. Mr. Lee Ivey, a machinist who actively led fighting in several small west Texas towns before traveling to Austin, and who had worked with Mike and Amanda on the Sovereignty Act, questioned what sort of response the NAU could expect. “What if they decided to strike back by hitting Hoover Dam with a nuke?”

Mike answered him before the General or Admiral could. “Mr. Ivey, you already know where I stand on this shit-for-brains idea here, but Hoover Dam is something we investigated very thoroughly when the Guard bombed it's generators last year.”

Admiral Miller interrupted Mike to remind him it was Pacific spies who bombed Hoover Dam.

“Yeah, whatever. Hoover Dam isn't a major concern even to me,” Mike continued. “They can knock it off-line, but I don't think they can knock it down. I'd be more concerned about nukes falling on some of our major cities if we seriously struck them in their homeland. So far this has just been a proxy war. If we take it to their shores, you know damn good and well they're going to bring it to ours.”

“May I finish?” General Laub politely stated rhetorically. “The other strategic targets I propose we attack are in Russia. Ivankovo Dam and the Yamburg Gas Field on Gulf of Ob. Both are in remote areas, Mr. Paine, with a far less direct civilian impact than any of the other targets.”

“
General,” Mr. Ivey again cut in. “How well will we be protected from retaliation strikes from them?”

“
Our missile defense capabilities are our biggest strength against either of these two. They cannot stop our bombs from falling on them. We can and will intercept any missiles or aircraft they send our way. And in the impossible event they landed troops on our shores, especially after our recent brief civil war, the men and women of our eight nations are the best armed population ever, and will fight along side our troops to exterminate every foreign boot before they left the sands of our beaches.”

“Maybe so, General. I can't deny that might be possible, though I have real doubts,” Mr. Ivey said, being far more diplomatic than Mike, in hopes of winning over the rest of the board members. “But, gentlemen, can any of you say that you can stop a high-altitude nuclear strike?”

Mike could see the blank stares he and Mr. Ivey were receiving over the video conference.

“
Excuse me,” Richard Foster, of New York City, broke the silence. “But could someone please tell the rest of us what that is?”

Mr. Ivey cut in. “It's called an EMP attack. Something I used to laugh at people suggesting was a realistic possibility. But times have changed. It's blowin' up a nuke way up in the sky, and instead of killin' us with the explosion and radiation, it kills almost everything electrical in the skies and on the earth below it.”

Mr. Foster was joining Mike and Mr. Ivey in their reservations now. “You mean like an actual nationwide blackout? So we'd be without power for a little while. How long are we talking? A few days? A few weeks?”