Division: Chandler Scott, #3

Jim Mosquera

Division

The third book in the Chandler Scott series.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © 2017 by The Sentinel / Jim Mosquera

All rights reserved.

Mosquera, Jaime (Jim) Jr.

Division / Jim Mosquera

ISBN: 0-9832966-5-0

ISBN-13: 978-0-9832966-5-2

This work contains historical references to events and people.  The story, names, and characters portrayed are fictitious.  No identification with actual persons should be inferred.

No disrespect is intended towards the flag of the United States as depicted on the cover.

The text type was set in Adobe Garamond Pro

DEDICATION

To the United States of America

Part I

Convention

CHAPTER One

unrest

Chandler’s documentary exposed the seedy underbelly of the country’s efforts to suppress domestic unrest.  After the release of the reorientation camp video and the revelation of the Elysium Protocol, the Jefferson administration faced great pressure to have his proposed panel give the American public something in which to believe.  Civil liberty critics suggested the government targeted the underclass and the lower middle class for these camps.  The president convened a panel with a heavy military footprint.  The American public held the military in high esteem after 9/11.  The military rose to be the most respected part of the federal government.

Some feared the public’s adoration of the uniform could make them overlook their accountability.  The increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and artificial intelligence limited the body bags seen on the nightly news.  Eisenhower’s warnings about the undue influence of the military-industrial complex were a distant memory.  There was now the added concern of former military staffing positions in the president’s cabinet and security apparatus, positions often held by civilians.

President Jefferson’s security and intelligence leaders possessed vast military experience.  These military men knew all along what occurred in the reorientation camps and the meaning of the Elysium Protocol.  These men saw the country slipping away and felt they needed to bring order, albeit with more benign means — mental reprogramming using virtual reality.  Army doctors involved with Cerebrum Technologies perfected the technology that sought to make domestic detainees more patriotic, more submissive, and more compliant.

Littered among the president’s top advisers were former military brass — Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Gerald Burkemper retired as an Air Force general.  Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Victor Haydon served in the Air Force as a general.  The National Security Advisor (NSA), Trent Carter, had a brilliant career in the Marine Corps and retired as a general. 

The Secretary of Defense had fallen ill in late November, which led to his replacement by Trent Carter.  A former naval intelligence officer, Eric Greich, filled Carter’s NSA role.  The military-industrial connection extended to the Secretary of State, who’d served as CEO of the nation’s largest defense contractor.

While the president’s top advisers didn’t comprise the investigatory panel, they had a heavy influence in deciding its composition.  They advised against revealing too much for fear of giving domestic or foreign terror suspects information about U.S. counter-terror methods and procedures.  They suggested delaying the panel’s report.  They reasoned that over time the American public would move on to other matters if they fed the media information about economic progress and economic slogans — the Plan for Prosperity and the We Are the Future campaign. 

We Are the Future posters depicted a man, woman, and child standing in front of the Stars & Stripes looking upward and right.  The Jefferson administration hoped to rally the public around family and flag.  They bombarded the media with public service messages about the patriotic campaign.  A visitor to the nation’s capital couldn’t escape the messaging in government buildings and public transportation.  Sports leagues carried the messaging within their own apparel.  Public universities offered economics courses with case studies featuring the Plan for Prosperity.

The president’s men thought it important to cheerlead these patriotic campaigns to maintain the nation’s morale during the continued economic crisis.  If that approach didn’t work, they would distract the public with more attention on the War on Terror versus Islam and cyber hackers, with foreign hackers receiving an extra dose of venom.

For some in the foreign hacking community, it became a matter of sport to break into U.S. companies or the government.  The FBI had uncovered a sophisticated malware scheme that robbed U.S. banks of some $300 million.  The same Russian hacker was allegedly responsible for a ransomware attack that disabled thousands of computers in the United States.  The government offered a $10 million bounty, though there was never any expectation of his extradition, not with the protection offered by the Russian government who hired the same hacker for espionage against Georgia and Ukraine.  He was part of a larger band of hackers who saw it as their patriotic duty to hack the United States whether or not the Russian government paid them.  As long as they didn’t disturb domestic networks in Russia, the local authorities left them alone.

On the political front, the Supreme Court had given the president until the end of 2021 to resume the undecided election of 2020 in the House and Senate.  In early December 2021, the president had made plans for Congress to proceed.  Then the bond market crashed, sending interest rates soaring to levels not seen since 1980.  Since the U.S. Treasury had shifted the maturity of most debt to shorter terms, higher interest rates impacted new debt obligations, skyrocketing financing costs.  Businesses also felt the pinch with soaring rates on short-term paper.  The stock market took a dive and other world markets moved in sympathy.  The Global Settlement Bank, an organization responsible for U.S. economic policy, called an emergency meeting in Geneva with the financial leaders of the developed countries.  Financial Stability Board (FSB) Secretary Malcolm Holloway and the Treasury Secretary would represent the United States.  World leaders agreed to put even tighter controls over their economies to stabilize the crisis.

Nameless, faceless hackers took advantage by wreaking havoc in the nation’s capital.  The government thought the hackers were state-sponsored.  The hackers may have just been individuals seeking to harm the USA.  Some may have been hired by nation-states on a contract basis to carry out the attacks.  Unlike previous hack activity, neither Omni nor the Five Tribes claimed them.  Attributing attacks in the cyber world had always been challenging.  It came down to one of three scenarios for the authorities: identifying who did it, identifying who did it and convincing the hacker, or identifying who did it and convincing the world of the hacker’s identity.  The Jefferson administration struggled to do any of them.

Fearful Congressmen and women retreated to their districts despite President Jefferson’s call for their appearance in the nation’s capital to resolve the 2020 election. The president’s staff encouraged him to let the Congress retreat.  Congressmen didn’t feel safe, and neither D.C. nor Capitol police could guarantee their safety with increased lawlessness in the city.  Protests became more violent and patriot groups had descended on the city to maintain their own version of law and order.  It was unknown when Congress might reconvene.

The Secret Service felt wary about keeping the president safe in the White House or Camp David during the disruptions. The disruptions included the city’s power grid and its automated vehicle fleet.  The airports of Reagan National and Dulles had also seen a curtailment of traffic. 

Amid all the chaos, Senator Matt Geringer and Senator Alfonso Chancellor, both of the Independent American Party (IAP) had mustered enough support in the state legislatures to convene an Article Five convention.  Though an Article Five movement had been in play for several years, the 2020 presidential election and Jefferson’s executive action had been the catalyst to see it through to fruition, albeit with a great amount of coaxing by Senator Geringer.  This convention would move forward in Colorado in early February 2022.

As the president and his staff met in January 2022, they would face a new crucible in their efforts to hold the nation together.

The Situation Room or Sit Room comprised a 5,500 square foot complex of rooms in the West Wing of the White House.  It had a relatively small conference area and an intelligence management center.  The Sit Room housed National Security Council Watch Officers sitting on curved, dual-tiered rows of computer terminals where they received many data worldwide.  There were also five secure video rooms, a secure feed to Air Force One, and in a style befitting Get Smart, private phone booths resembling cones of silence.

The president normally sat at the end of a long, wooden conference table, forming a horseshoe, with six chairs on each side.  On the wall opposite the president hung a large, ultra-high definition video monitor, with similar monitors flanking the walls on both sides of the room.  The newly adorned Sit Room included still images on the side monitors of the We Are the Future campaign — the characteristic man, woman, and child standing in front of the flag, looking up to the right.

The meeting began with a review of the Morning Book, which contained a copy of the National Intelligence Daily, the State Department’s Morning Summary, diplomatic cables and intelligence reports.  The president held court today with DHS Secretary Victor Haydon, FBI Director Ralph Elliott, and Secretary of Defense Trent Carter, recently named to this post.  The sullen-faced team semi-balanced the horseshoe with three members on one side and two on the other.

In January 2022, the focus turned towards domestic matters.  A hack on the system authorizing EBT benefits unleashed civil devastation in cities like St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore.  The breakdown led to the flash-mob looting of supermarkets and other businesses.  The social contract of bread and circuses in the urban zones had broken down and the public responded.  With big screens, Internet, and smart phones, the circus show could always go on as long electricity flowed.  The EBT hack broke the bread portion of the social contract.  Food distribution happened as it did a hundred years earlier, via physical transport, creating a vulnerability in the system.  Supermarket trucks stopped going into the urban core.  Hunger and desperation gave rise to food riots.  With social media and cell phone ubiquity, urban youths were the vanguard of these riots. 

I suppose I should have the Secretary of Agriculture here today but, it’s beyond her, the president commented as the main video monitor showed a webcam stream of the riot in Chicago.  The violent orgy made him look away.

Secretary Haydon chimed in with a cold, leveled delivery.  Sir, the press is calling this a ‘food riot’ but I wouldn’t suggest using this term.

The president scoffed at Haydon’s attempt to sanitize the disturbance.  He raised his voice, yielding to his irritation. You know, since I’ve been president, this administration has been dogged by one f’ing hack after another.  We can’t win, can we?

Mr. President, with all due respect, this is a new frontier for us.  Sure, we’re the big gorilla in the room, but these gnats are many and just multiply after we swat them.  We can’t just nuke the room or we’d kill the gorilla, Burkemper replied.

The president didn’t want metaphors; he wanted solutions.  The solutions seemed distant at the moment, given the disturbing images on the video monitor.

News cameras captured rioters throwing shopping carts and trash cans into an intersection.  Timid drivers stopped in front of the obstructions.  The mob swarmed the stationary vehicles and yanked the terrified drivers out while they desperately clung to their steering wheels.  Outside the protection of vehicles, they were beaten and robbed.  One looter stripped off a woman’s pants and raped her.  As she rolled over, viewers saw her bare bottom, raw from the sexual violation that occurred on the rough concrete.

The rioters caused harm other than punching and kicking.  Many had knives and other homemade weapons.  Others armed themselves with 9mm pistols and AK-47s. 

Emergency medical personnel, in a scene reminiscent of the violence in Ferguson, Missouri, found themselves unable to assist those needing treatments since they also came under attack.

The main video monitor changed to an overhead display, shot by a drone, hovering over Chicago’s South Side.  Homeland Security was assisting local law enforcement with aerial surveillance.

I guess I don’t get where all the Chicago PD is while this is going on?  The president threw his hands in the air in disgust.

This would be a question for FBI Director Elliott, who steadied himself, shaken from the images he’d just seen.  Sir, the ranks of Chicago PD thinned after the civil rights violation trials and scrutiny from the Justice Department.  Candidly, many of them just stopped patrolling these areas and are reluctant to go in.

There’s another problem too, sir.  Mobs are forming more dynamically than in the past.  These urban youths are using social media to just pop up in places where the police aren’t.  They’re more like a flash mob, albeit one revolting against the EBT network crash.  But they have no idea about network hacks, and they don’t care, Secretary Haydon added.

Just as Chicago PD cleared one intersection, the mobs appeared at another.  The flash mobs were occurring within law enforcement’s OODA loop, also known as Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, which gave them much quicker reaction time than the police.  Mobs had learned lessons during confrontations in other cities and now received aid from professionals who descended into the chaos.

Why don’t we just jam electronic transmissions in these neighborhoods? the president asked, thrusting his pen against a stack of papers.  He looked at no one in particular with his query.

We could, sir, but then the people who aren’t rioting and calling for help will be cut off.  Besides, not many homes have landlines and even those are not reliable with outside plant being vandalized by rioters.  No good options there, sir, FBI Director Elliott replied.

Rioters were moving to new areas like the suburban borderlands.  Formerly safe supermarkets and stores were coming under attack by mobs armed with knives, pistols, and AK-47s.  Police living in these suburban areas were unreliable since they were protecting their own families. 

The former NSA Director, Trent Carter, who now served as Secretary of Defense, had heard enough.  He placed his clasped hands on the table and began his delivery with gritted teeth.  Sir, I hope you see the reason for the reorientation camps.  We could have the military mow down all these animals but that would be real bad press for us.  I honestly think we need to scale these camps to handle many, many more people.  Once we haul them to the camps, when they come out, they’ll never act like a bunch of untamed animals again!

The secretary’s callous disregard dismayed the president.  He prioritized public relations over humanity.

He threw a despising glance at Carter. These are people, Trent, human beings, not animals for God’s sake!

Carter recoiled, showing some contrition for his remarks.

The news of the reorientation camps stunned the president last year.  He felt betrayed by his staff for keeping them hidden.  Carter championed them and touted the favorable outcomes.  Watching these webcam feeds steeled the president’s resolve that he needed to take action, yet he remained conflicted about sending these rioters to the camps. 

Despite the panel convened to study the reorientation camps, the president’s advisers didn’t feel inclined to dismantle them.  They considered the matter a public relations problem needing resolution.  Besides, part of the American public supported them as a humane way to have people fall in line with the nation’s patriotic-inspired plans.  As far as Carter was concerned, if someone wanted to be part of the future, they needed to follow the plan or face reeducation. 

The president expected the special panel to come up with an alternative to the Elysium Protocol.  The managed death of a bad reeducation effort was not just a public relations problem.

The Elysium Protocol was a method of euthanizing mentally damaged camp participants. Those suffering adverse effects from the protocol were told they were going to a place that would put their souls at rest.  That place included a virtual reality simulation and the administration of powerful drugs.

The men in the Sit Room understood that what they were witnessing on screen could play out in many cities, and not just because of an EBT hack.  Divisiveness had split the nation far beyond just economic inequality.  Ideologically, there was a great chasm. 

Carter wanted as many people as possible on the same page.  He understood the camps and other VR mind control efforts were the key to having a compliant society.

Cerebrum Technologies was at the center of these efforts.  The government had already placed its tentacles in the company through funding from IQT, or In-Q-Tel, a non-profit venture capital firm investing in high-tech companies that supported the intelligence gathering of agencies like the CIA.  Using the letter Q in the name paid homage to the fictional character in the James Bond series, who supplied Agent 007 with an assortment of gadgets.

The Department of Homeland Security had awarded a contract to Cerebrum to develop mind control modules for insertion into popular virtual reality games used by youths and adults.  The unsuspecting players received a dose of reorientation programming designed with patriotic themes in mind; all designed to support the nation’s Plan for Prosperity.

Before I forget, I wanted to update everyone on the condition of the vice president.  His doctors are not hopeful, so please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, the president’s face saddened.  Tears welled up in his eyes, though they didn’t escape. The adviser team averted their eyes towards their notes. 

A longtime friend of President Jefferson, the vice president had fallen ill in late December with a bacteria strain known as CRE.  This class of drug-resistant bugs was impervious to any FDA-approved antibiotic.  Doctors treated him with high doses of known antibiotics and could not nurse him back to health.  His life remained in the balance.  At least one member of the presidential succession wouldn’t be able to serve if called upon.

The state of unrest in the country had made the president’s military-laden security team lean towards more authoritative measures to restore order.  This posture would challenge the president in the days ahead.

CHAPTER two

getaway

Chandler had over two months to reflect on Habakk’s Halloween morning comments at the Battery, about the United States of America remaining united.  Habakk suggested that freedom came from the ability to choose.  The separatist and secession groups were attempting to exercise their freedom and choices, to the dismay of the Elite.  Those in power responded, with public support, by imposing more authority.  The battle waged between the opposing forces of nationalist fervor and those stifled by the weight of government’s heavy hand.

Chandler had made his own choice.  After discovering the true nature of the reorientation camps, he released a documentary about secessionist and patriot groups made with his deceased partner, Arturo Dutari. 

Some Americans felt the camps were a humane way to reeducate people to fall in line with President Jefferson’s plan to rescue the economy and, by extension, the nation.  They considered the Elysium Protocol an unfortunate, though acceptable consequence of a treatment, which could harm the patient, no different from an outcome of chemotherapy and radiation killing a cancer patient.  It horrified others that government had stooped to such barbarism, barely above the cleansing efforts of the Third Reich. 

With the nation divided on the camp revelation, the Justice Department treated Chandler’s trespassing at the camp with kid gloves.  They charged him with a Class C misdemeanor and fined him $5,000 — he served 30 days of probation.  The Jefferson administration wanted to make a point about Chandler’s trespassing, though not in a punitive way.

He could still live his dream.  The dream now included a love like he’d never experienced before, a love that withstood the stress of his investigatory work.  This love understood that his work had a higher purpose.  During his undercover stint in the reorientation camp, he discovered a dark side of love, dreading that something would go wrong, and the suffering he caused her.  He missed her familiar scent, the feel of her bosom, the tingle of her hair on his cheek, the rich color of her blue eyes — oh those eyes.  He wanted to take his last breath looking at her.

Chandler Michael Scott was born on October 19, 1987, infamously known as Black Monday in financial circles.  Destined to live his life around turbulence, a single mother raised him in Texas.  He later received a journalism degree from the University of Missouri followed by a Master’s at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins. 

He’d spent most of his professional life working at El Mundo, an international TV network based out of Argentina, where he eventually hosted his own show that focused on financial and political events.  El Mundo became a victim to international organizations that wanted it to parrot themes supporting the Global Financial Union, a coordinated plan to rescue the United States and other economies.  The Global Financial Union had been kept secret from the public until Chandler revealed it in a rogue video released on the Internet with assistance from the enigmatic hacker group, Omni. 

After getting fired from El Mundo, he worked as an indie journalist.  He and his partner developed a documentary about secession and patriot movements within the United States.  Unlikely to sell the documentary to a domestic network, he offered it to the Singaporean Financial News Network in the fall of 2021.  Details of the reorientation camp caused reverberations domestically and worldwide.

He needed time away now, a time he could spend with her.  They got reacquainted socially and physically.  Their flight took them from Chicago’s O’Hare to Denver, whose airport terminal’s design foreshadowed the Front Range of the American Rockies that sat immediately to the west.  Their journey took them south to Colorado Springs.  Electrical towers stood guard over the prairie on their drive down Highway 25.  The wispy, golden grass bent away from the strong northern wind that also coaxed their vehicle down the highway.  Small hills erupted from the stretches of golden grass like irregular mole tunnels in a suburban yard.  The tunnels came to an abrupt end as the Front Range served as a reminder of the mountain’s authority over the prairie.  Standing watch over Colorado Springs stood Pike’s Peak, a mountain Arianne had summited as a youth.  She wanted to climb it again, though this time with less effort.

They drove to the summit after plows cut through the snow drifts.  The clear day allowed for a 360-degree panoramic view.  They could see jets below them flying over the Air Force Academy.  He stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist.  Even through her coat, he felt her taut frame.  Somehow the thin air bothered neither.  They stood on top of the world, at 14,000 feet.  The possibilities with her had no limit now.

Their trip took them back to Denver where they traveled by train to the towns of Fraser and Winter Park, two enclaves in a valley in Grand County resting at an elevation of 9,000 feet.  These towns, supporting the skiing industry, enjoyed growth in the early 2010s before the economic shocks arrested their development.  Incomes varied with a service economy littered with lower-wage workers living communally and higher wage earners owning the area’s top real estate — a chasm reflected elsewhere in the country.  Low wages were not always a problem for young adults, discovering who they were, planning their next move.  Some had no interest in discovery and just wanted to live among people like themselves. 

Winter Park’s permanent residents wanted to escape the madness of cities and suburbs and had a difficult time identifying with patriotic campaigns like We Are the Future.  The rest of the country had been separating for years.  It was more than just red, blue or purple states.  The country had been segregating by smaller geographic areas that, in many respects, reflected a tribal arrangement.

Arianne was an accomplished skier.  Her family spent many a winter break in Colorado, Utah or California, wherever the powder was fresh.  Chandler, raised in Texas, would feel as comfortable skiing a green trail as he would roping a calf, though he’d never roped a calf. 

The couple embarked on skiing the Seven Territories of Winter Park, Arianne more than Chandler.  Chandler found it intriguing that a ski resort would separate itself into territories.  Separation had been the theme of Chandler’s documentary — secessionists and separatists, who wanted their own space.  Some Americans feared the Geringer-sponsored Article Five convention would hasten secession.  Others worried the Cascadia Movement and California Sí, two secession efforts, would further split the country.

While Arianne skied the moguls on the Mary Jane Trail, named after a local lady of pleasure, Chandler made camp at a watering hole perched at 10,000 feet.  He enjoyed the solitude, admiring a peak that sported the contours of a bear claw on its side.  He interrupted his seclusion when he removed his sunglasses and ski mask, revealing his identity.  He spent the next hour chatting with skiers and taking selfies with admirers of his documentary. 

After a day of falls, slides, and tumbles, Arianne took pity on her man and drove him to Hot Sulfur Springs.  The heat of volcanic rock pushed out through fissures in the earth’s crust and heated the mineral-laden water, so welcome after a day of getting bucked off a steer or tumbling down a mountain, in Chandler’s case.  The relief of the hot pools was fifty paces outside the warm confines of the dressing area.  In their swimming suits, with only a soon to be frozen towel covering their shoulders, the two scurried towards the first tub in the sub-zero weather. 

Holy shit!  This is colder than a cast iron commode! Chandler yelled, as he took rapid, baby steps towards the first pool.

Chan, don’t touch the railing, it’s covered with- Her warning came too late.

Chandler’s hasty entry into the pool led him to grab the ice-coated railing.  He fell face first, taking a gulp of sulfur-laden water.  The embarrassment proved momentary.  He was happy to be warm.

Are you OK?  She nuzzled him and parted the hair from the front of his forehead.

He coughed and grimaced, expelling the foul chemical elixir. "It’s funny how just a second ago I thought my blood was about to