2017. Chronicles of Secession

Copyright © 2013 by F. J. Fojo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Rev. date: 24/07/2013

To order additional copies of this book, please contact:

Palibrio LLC

1663 Liberty Drive

Suite 200

Bloomington, IN 47403

Toll Free from the U.S.A 877.407.5847

Toll Free from Mexico 01.800.288.2243

Toll Free from Spain 900.866.949

From other International locations +1.812.671.9757

Fax: 01.812.355.1576

orders@palibrio.com

488454

Contents

Clarification of the compiler

1- Night and early hours of November 8-9, 2016, Tuesday/Wednesday, Fox TV, live informative panel, coast-to-coast

2- Morning of November 9, 2016, Wednesday, FOX TV, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and dozens of other TV stations live and nationally

3- November 11, 2016, Friday morning, MachoGunShop, Texarkana, Bowie County, Texas/Arkansas border

4- November 13, 2016, Sunday afternoon, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, suburbs of Washington, D.C.

5- November 14, 2016, Monday early morning, Situation Room, White House, Washington, D.C.

6- November 17, 2016, Thursday early morning, ExxonMobil building, Irving, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area. Texas

7- November 20, 2016, Sunday evening, private mansion near the mouth of Nueces River, Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas

8- November 22, 2016, Tuesday morning, meeting room, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Pentagon building, Arlington, Virginia

9- November 24, 2016, Thursday dawn (Thanksgiving Day), offices of Sergeant Major, Fort Hood Base, Killeen, Texas

10- November 28, 2016, Monday dawn, building of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia

11- December 1st, 2016, Thursday sunset, private Office of the Secretary of State, building of Department of State, Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C.

12- December 5, 2016, Monday morning, Reverend Martin Luther King Elementary School, Little Rock, Arkansas

13- December 6, 2016, Tuesday dawn, National Guard Command offices in Texas, Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA), San Antonio, Texas

14- December 7, 2016, Wednesday afternoon, United States Fleet Forces Command, Naval Station Norfolk, Hampton Roads Peninsula (Sewell’s Point), Norfolk, Virginia

15- December 8, 2016, Thursday night, President Clinton Birthplace Home, Route 278, Hope, Arkansas

16- December 11, 2016, Sunday dawn, Louis Armstrong International Airport, Kenner, New Orleans, Louisiana

17- December 12, 2016, Monday afternoon, speech to the nation, Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.

18- December 18, 2016, Sunday night, side table, canteen, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, 3rd. Wing F-22 Raptor, Anchorage, Alaska

19- December 21, 2016, Wednesday dawn, Apple Computers Headquarter, Cupertino, Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County, California

20- December 22, 2016, Thursday noon, Houston Street and Elm Street junction, Dealey Square, Dallas, Texas

21- December 23, 2016, Friday noon, Tuskegee University campus, Tuskegee, Alabama

22- December 25 (Christmas Day), 2016, Sunday evening, Palace of the Revolution, Havana, Cuba

23- December 28, 2016, Wednesday morning, Port of Galveston, Galveston County, Texas

24- December 30, 2016, Friday afternoon, King of Prussia Mall, Upper Merion Township, Pennsylvania

25- December 31, 2016, Saturday evening, New Year’s Eve, Security House, Rowlett, Dallas County, Texas

26- January 1, 2017, Sunday morning, Hall of Protocol Events, State Capitol, Austin, Texas

27- January 1, 2017, Sunday midday, Situation Office, White House, Washington D.C.

28- The night of January 4, 2017, Wednesday, a remote place on the border, near Brownsville, Texas

29- January 5, 2017, Thursday morning, State Capitol, Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida

30- January 6, 2017, (Three Kings Day), Friday morning, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Pope Army Air Field, Fort Bragg, Cumberland County, North Carolina

31- January 11, 2017, Wednesday morning, reunion of Political Bureau of Chinese Communist Party, Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China

32- January 13, 2017, Friday afternoon, plenary session of the Senate, the Senate floor, Capitol, Washington D.C.

33- January 15, 2017, Sunday morning, underground government offices, Hakirya district, metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, Israel

34- January 20, 2017, Friday morning, inaugural ceremonies of the President of the United States of America. Washington D.C.

35- January 22, 2017, Sunday morning, Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, near the boundary Hoboken/Weehawken, Hudson County, New Jersey

36- January 25, 2017, Tuesday morning, Main Plaza, San Fernando Cathedral, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

37- January 26, 2017, Thursday morning, Prairie Chapel Ranch, McLennan County, Texas

38- January 30, 2017, Monday night, maternity ward, Children’s and Women’s Hospital, University of South Alabama, Center Street, Mobile, Alabama

39- February 3/4, 2017, Friday evening, Saturday dawn and early morning, staircase of the Lincoln Memorial, National Mall, Washington D.C.

40- February 6, 2017, early Monday morning, an isolated curve, Pajarito Road, Los Alamos, Los Alamos County, New Mexico

41- February 8, 2017, Wednesday evening, control tower, George Bush International Airport, Houston, Texas

42- February 10, 2017, Friday morning, Interexchange Swiss Bank Office, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

43- February 11, 2017, Saturday evening, Stadium Cotton Bowl. Fair Park, Dallas, Texas

44- February 17/18, 2017, early morning, Friday/Saturday, USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier, CVN-78, Gulf of Mexico, 130 nautical miles southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas

45- February 19, 2017, early Sunday morning, a farm south of the town of Hugo, Choctaw County, near the border with Texas, Oklahoma

46- February 21, 2017, Tuesday morning, Governor’s Office, 27th floor, Louisiana State Capitol, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

47- February 25, 2017, dawn Saturday, Cannon Branch Cemetery, outskirts of Manassas, Prince William County, Virginia, Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

48- February 28, 2017, Tuesday night, Baracoa Military Executive Airport, west of Havana, Cuba

49- First in March 2017, Wednesday morning, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

50- March 2, 2017, Thursday night reception of prisoners, United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Compiler endnotes

The chronicle you are about to read is nothing more than a novel, although it mentions some characters, events and places of real life.

Thank God for that.

You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

Confederate Major General Thomas Howell Cobb

(1815-1868)

Everything you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

(1881-1973)

To the Band of 4: Gaby, Tato, Patricito and Lucas

Who make me get out of the past and think into the future

Clarification of the compiler

Plenty of news and interviews have been posted on the secessionist Texan attempt of late 2016 and early 2017, there are a large number of interviews with participants from either side, lots of messages, emails, comments and pictures on social networks, recordings and reports, editorials, political, judicial, police and military records, etc.

Before such mountain of information the compiler has faced the need to collect and publish a selection of 50 chronicles, chosen on the basis of offering a simplified but coherent vision of the events and an approach to some of the most relevant characters that were directly involved in these events.

Therefore, what follows is not a detailed narration of the facts; that is the job of research journalists, historians, political scientists, biographers and academics; moreover, the compiler considers that due to the slow pace of declassification of certain documents, it will be decades before a comprehensive and total image of the episodes that occurred in this turbulent semester, whose consequences are being witnessed and will be seen for a long time, will become accessible.

We thank the different chroniclers for the generous deliver of their materials.

The Compiler

1- Night and early hours of November 8-9, 2016, Tuesday/Wednesday, Fox TV, live informative panel, coast-to-coast

The States started coloring themselves in blue on the interactive map.

And on this occasion, and for months, with conventions and debates in between, the prospects of vote for the corresponding presidential elections of United States would lack the excitement of the apparent neck to neck end photography of the last time.

Nate Silver, Dr. Krauthammer, Cillizza, Dreher and Larison, those of the National Review, Yuval Levin, Jennifer Rubin and other members of social gatherings, analysts, fortune-tellers and numerologists, independents of truth, the fewer, or of one or the other of the three parties on arena, they wrote with little enthusiasm (and sometimes quite rage) about electoral politics; it was not even worth it to bet when the result was almost sung in advance as the polls and the perception of the ordinary citizen in the street pointed out again and again.

Surveys of presumed winner asking: who do you believe will win?, instead of the ubiquitous: who are you voting for?, less known and commented but more reliable for campaign strategists, were pointing to the winning party since the debacle of the opponent extremists and their evident division midterm race in 2014, which led to the creation of one, not very well structured, at least for the moment: New Patriots and Warriors of the Tea Party, pawatis by the general public and the disrespectful and insolent humorists of the media, little words deemed offensive by its members and fans who saw themselves as restorers of some thirteen free and independent colonies -even from each other- more or less as they were in 1776.

The State of Texas, in the big digital map, saw the empty white disappear and started a weak march towards blue, as the numbers changed on the electronic tape that ran quickly through the lower part of the screen.

Tom Sullivan rubbed his eyes and withdrew his hands quickly when he realized, due to the monitors, who was in the air.

Lou Dobbs looked questioningly at the increasingly obese Karl Roveti, now impassive, hieratic, nothing like the bad loser of 2012.

Nobody, none of the three parties, had counted on the great Karl; no one had requested his advice or wise opinions, no one. Fuck the losers and the winners as well! Fuck them! His intelligent eyes proclaimed without words.

Willis, always correct and professional, looked at the camera and pointed out the inevitable.

Once more Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, the States of New England, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, -a miracle!, on time and without delays and dilemmas-, but now also Texas, an insult to the tradition, although by less than seven-tenths of a point.

Uncertain, very uncertain or rather remote hope; there were thousands of votes left to count even though the numbers changed dramatically and not exactly in the vein of their desires.

-It is almost certainly that our next President and Vice President would be a woman, well, a lady.

-I would say they would certainly be, pointed out Roveti with a twisted, evil smile.

-At any time, we could have candidate Christie’s award speech.

-I hope that this time that speech IS WRITTEN! Roveti resumed the attack with a bad intention that was already being impertinent. -Ah, and it better be brief!

-I do not know if the contender for the Tea party, Rick Santorum, will give us some words on behalf of the members of his third party, or Rand Paul, the dissident, will, said Dobbs. –They actually have very few votes and do not compete in all States.

-What for? Our time is worth it, or not? Karl Roveti spat with his fierce sarcasm.

-Texas? Sullivan said with an inquisitive but obviously sorry tone. -That has almost no explanation.

-But it has one, it does, of course it has one. Willis gave a soft blow on the table. -Latin American and Asian immigrants have been forced to become citizens and voters, women and young people communicate interactively and mutually reinforcing their beliefs, homosexuals and now asexuals or nonsexuals as well…

-We are, well, the GOP is The Party of Calamity, as Charles Blow wrote a few years ago. Megyn Kelly, who had been out of the cameras and was again incorporating to the group, said. -Everything is bad, there is no positive message, and although it’s true that everything is bad. She smiled with malice. -Votes are not earned with that much pessimism.

-Not only that. Dobbs stepped forward. -The economy has improved and has transformed, wars have become smaller and concise, and the Government has managed to encourage Europeans and Japanese to participate. He denoted a certain perplexity in his face. -The southern border is safe…

-And what can you tell me about science and high technology, the big data? Those guys have been changing the structure of the contests in front of our noses and the GOP, to make matters worse, which is now divided, hasn’t paid much attention to anything of that.

Willis’ voice broke a little towards the end of the sentence.

-Neither that nor many other things! Roveti dropped like a bomb and he vigorously rose and left set in front of the eyes of thousands and thousands of viewers, an almost unprecedented event for a live TV transmission, for which he also was probably paid good money.

The producer of the transmission, very professional and not at all unaware of Roveti’s nonsenses, juggled striking cameras on the sophisticated optical control panel of the studio, minimizing outburst as possible.

He hesitated in using a time interface, but in case it could be noted, he decided to do it the old way.

With his fingers he made the old cut signal. -Cut, cut to commercials!

Willis saw the signal and heard his words on the wireless headphones hidden behind his ear.

-We better listen to the messages from our sponsors, my friends.

Perhaps his smile was forced, but he knew how to disguise it, bearing in mind that his face was now almost on the entire screen, avoiding the obvious void that the bulk body of Roveti left in the set.

-Yes friends, let take a short break, because there’s still a long night ahead of us and well loaded with interesting and timely analysis carried out by our important guests.

He smiled more relaxed.

His face was fading out and Coca Cola, as usual, came to refresh the break.

2- Morning of November 9, 2016, Wednesday, FOX TV, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and dozens of other TV stations live and nationally

-And now, before you, the newly elected President of the United States of America in her victory speech.

American presidential speeches of the day, the night, better said, of the victory at the polls tend to be quickly forgotten.

Some, like that one and only Kennedy who said: -"Ask not, what your country can do for you. Ask what, you can do for your country" have gone down in history, but even many people who repeated the phrase do not clearly remember in what context it was enunciated and much less the rest of what JFK said in the aforementioned speaking part.

Most often analysts and historians bring about those speeches to remind us how much of what was promised was never met and the way in which the emotional and beautiful views of the speakers were lost in the reality of the political exercise and real-life circumstances, which not for nothing immediacy and need are enemies of the metaphorical beauty of good intentions.

Therefore, it is because of the impossibility of really tell the future and experience that campaign promises do not usually go beyond that, campaign promises, that these speeches are rather seen as those who are read in an awards ceremony like the Oscars or Golden Globes, where you can admire (or denigrate) more the gestures, elegance -or its absence- presence, costumes, guests and the environment than the rhetoric of the winner.

Would this be, once again, the case?

The former First Lady, now President, showed her white teeth in a smile of happy mom, an image quite adjusted to the truth that did not quite hide the bomb-proofed fighter claw that she had been showing for a couple of years.

She gently freed herself from her husband’s hand and approached the lectern flanked by American flags and protected by transparent sheets of Carboepoxy Kevlar fiber.

-Americans… The applause was deafening. -Fellow countrymen.

-First thanks to the millions of Americans who voted for me, which are still voting for me, and also, from the depths of my soul, thank to those which, making good use of their democratic Americans rights, have not voted for me and my Vice President… to everyone, thank you.

More applause, some TVs turned off with rage, and plenty of anger in different places of the country, especially in the States of the Deep South and in agricultural areas of the Bible belt.

-As any President of this great nation, I am faced, with your help and encouragement, to countless challenges and dangers, some of them we know very well and others we can only guess, or the future has still not shown us.

She made a thoughtful pause before going on.

-But before pointing out, very briefly, some of those challenges and dangers, and outlining the policies and actions that we intend to carry out, with the help of God, of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, of the good American people and our allies around the world, I want to clearly state my opinion, which I think is the opinion of the majority of the voters, in terms of a rumor that assails the ears of all of us.

Flies could be heard flying in the huge hall of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago, where the nerve center of the campaign was and now the celebration was taking place.

-My opinion, and one again I think the opinion of the majority of the American people, fully coincides with another view, expressed in 1861, against the dark abyss that was opening before the United States, by one of the greatest Americans, paradoxically, one of the founders and the first President elected by the party, today unfortunately divided, that has faced us, and has lost fair and square in these elections.

She stopped and seemed to smell, some would say that enjoy, the next fight. -Of course that I’m talking about Abraham Lincoln in his historic inauguration speech, when the split a group of States and unconstitutional and anti-American revolt were already a fact.

Expectant silence.

-Lincoln said to his fellow citizens and he also spoke to us, and to those who will come after us, over time…

Her angular face was no longer smiling and diplomatic while remaining dramatically televisual.

-And I quote: "According to the provisions of the Constitution and the Laws, the Union is unbroken, and in this respect, I will not spare any effort to ensure the faithful and loyal compliance with the laws