Stuart, Florida
“Zup, Billy?
“Did you see it, man? All those cool army trucks?”
“No. Where?”
“The fairgrounds. I’m on my bike. There must be a hundred. They’re still coming.”
“No way.”
“Yeah, way. You gotta get down here and see for yourself.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Sitting in his office, Dan was daydreaming—woolgathering his grandmother would have said. The smartphone on his desk began to vibrate. He kept the sound off, a courtesy to his cubical mates. Yawning, he picked up the phone and looked at the screen. There was a text from his girlfriend.
SARAH: “Military trucks driving past.”
DAN: “What? How many?”
SARAH: “I quit counting. WTF?”
DAN: “What kind?”
SARAH: “Big ones what do I know.”
DAN: “What direction?”
SARAH: “Looking. Somebody got out of one. OMG, looking up at me. They are all turning in at—”
DAN: “What?”
Dan tried to call Sarah. Voicemail, he sighed. After several more tries, Dan disconnected.
It doesn’t make any sense. Finally, he took a jacket off the hanger. Trying not to be concerned, Dan knew Sarah wasn’t given to speculation. Something about the text ending the way it did was bothersome. Walking to his car, he tried to remember what he had heard on the news this morning, the radio always tuned to news/talk AM 600 WMT.
“Dan, you put too much trust in Rush Limburger,” a friend told him, ruffling Dan’s political feathers.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Aurora, Colorado
“Mayor, did you know about this?”
Mayor Slamson saw the caller ID and hesitated. “Fred, you’re always calling about every little thing. What is it this time?”
“What are those damned planes doing, coming here like this? I moved into this RV park ‘cause there ain’t no more flights.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“C-130J Super Hercules. I know my planes.”
“How many…how can they…What the—”
“Counted seventeen, Mister Mayor,” emphasizing the Mister. “There’s a lot of Army trucks unloading troops and supplies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Chicago, Illinois
The Daily Blog: Shining a light on lies in hiding
By, Chris Waltheran
Editor’s note: We are publishing the following story posthumously to honor the efforts of Mr. Waltheran to expose the truth behind Executive Order #17,342. Mr. Waltheran reportedly jumped to his death yesterday. We, however, believe it was a staged suicide, not as the government insists. This is goodbye to our many loyal readers. The editors and the entire team at The Daily Blog have been advised by our security consultants to go into hiding.
Roger Cleverton, Chief Editor
I admit I never thought we would see anything like Executive Order 17,342. It was signed by the President last on August 25th. The order was kept secret until it’s full implementation the following January 1, at one minute past midnight.
I remembered an earlier story reported on April 12, 2017, in The Washington Post. David Nakamura wrote that the government was looking at ways to set up a countrywide deportation militia, citing the danger set off by illegal aliens.
An internal security assessment was obtained, he wrote, showing the administration had designated about 33,000 additional detention beds to house undocumented immigrants.
A loud cheer came from those convinced illegal aliens are a type of social cancer that needed to be purged.
Those who thought otherwise, not so much cheering.
Buried in the proposal Nakamura obtained was mention of discussions the security agency had with local police forces—empowered with new federal enforcement authority.
Also, it proposed the hiring of hundreds of new Customs and Border Patrol offices, including doing away with polygraph tests, psychological assessments, and fitness tests.
Since then, years of court challenges have worn down the financial resource of activists trying to protest and stop the plan. Finally, out of money, their actions labeled as obstructionist and leftist, their lawsuits have quietly been dropped. Many activists report intimidation, terror, and physical assaults.
Now, the government is quietly making plans to put the scheme into play.
An anonymous source told me the national mobilization of state, and local police forces are underway under the supervision of ASP, Americae Securitatem Primum. This new agency—with the logo of a hissing deadly Asp— replaces Homeland Security. Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, all police forces, civil servants, National Guard, and military reserve units will now be incorporated, creating a new harmonized command structure.
I know I am in grave peril working undercover. Today, I received a text advising me that my life is in danger. It is with sorrow to write that I am taking my safety very seriously. I hope to be back online from a safe location soon.
Chris.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
He looked at the bedside clock. Was it time to call and wake Angela?
Midnight and the new year was only minutes away. Thad’s life would change at one minute past midnight on January 1.
Joint nationalized security forces began raiding homes, hotels, hostel and other locations. It was the start of a twenty-four-hour operation to arrest and detain undocumented, illegal aliens living in the United States.
Specially selected, secret quasi-military units had been secretly armed and deputized. In training for months, the militias were supplied with uniforms, weapons, and ammunition from Federal munitions depots.
Hearing loud bangs, Thad had never spent time around guns and couldn’t quite identify the sound of gunshots. Annoyed, he rubbed his eyes, thinking about the running argument he had with his neighbor. The sound must be coming from the neighbor’s television, he thought.
“Turn that damn thing down,” he yelled.
He wasn’t quite sure when it occurred to him the noise was coming from the street. Periodic sounds of gunfire mixed with a stereophonic sound of screaming.
Why are they screaming, he wondered, looking at the bedside clock? The readout blinked 01:13.
Gunshots were joined by sirens, a lot of sirens. Dashing to the window, he looked down at the street. Thad lived on the third floor, street side. Powerful lights were turning night into day. Pulling up the blinds, he saw what looked like hundreds of men, women and children lined up, their backs to the storefronts. Some were in nightclothes. Many were in their underclothes, their arms positioned in an attempt at modesty.
As the noise lessened, he heard the cry of a young boy. Thad saw the boy holding his mother’s hand, looking up at her for reassurance.
Large military trucks, belching clouds of diesel exhaust, came from Thad’s left. They filled the street in front of his apartment building. Men and women in uniforms started jumping from the trucks, raising their weapons. The next few minutes passed as if they were mere seconds.
Thad watched—shocked—as the men, women, and children were roughly herded into the back of the trucks. Two armed guards jumped in last, threateningly holding their weapons.
His shock turned to horror when he recognized a family being crowded into one of the trucks. Oh, my God, he thought. What’s happening? That’s Tomas Casillas’s family. Thad tried to figure out why they were being taken away like that.
What was happening looked like a scene from a historical documentary, grainy films of people on their way to concentration camps.
Thad’s horror turned to fear. I must find out what’s going on, he thought.
He turned on the television. All the channels showed the same logo, a crawl at the bottom urging people to remain calm.
Thad tried the radio. All he heard with static until he found one station. “All citizens are to stay calm. Do not approach any of the security officers unless invited. At our 8 am newscast, you will be given instructions on where to report for your new government-issued identification cards. You must bring proof of citizenship—a passport or state-issued license with a photograph. The message kept looping until Thad realized he wouldn’t hear anything new until the broadcast at Eight.
Thad powered up his laptop and waited. A pop-up message appeared, “All internet connections have been disabled due to exigent circumstances,” leaving Thad to wonder if the country was at war.
He decided to text Angela, to see if the same thing was happening where she was. His phone powered up, but all he could hear was another message, “all telephone service, wired and wireless, is disabled until further notice.
Thad sat on the side of the bed, a wave of panic and despair washing over him.
Hearing a gentle rapping on his door, Thad hesitated before opening the door.
There was a look of terror on their faces. They were people he recognized. Four women and two men stood crowded together in the hallway. The taller man at the back kept looking both directions as if expecting a threat.
He greeted them by name, rushing them in so he could close and lock the door.
Grigori, Thad knew, was from Chechnya. Two of the women were friends who traveled together to this country. They were from Columbia. One woman was from Somalia. The fourth woman was new to the neighborhood. Thad didn’t know where she was from. The tall man at the back was from Nigeria.
“They’re arresting friends and families,” the Nigerian said.
“No papers. I’m undocumented,” The Chechen said.
“None of us do,” someone said, Thad wasn’t sure who.
“That’s what the trucks are for,” Thad asked?
“They seem to know—carrying papers with names and addresses. I was at work and saw them coming for me there. I got away just in time,” a woman said with the soft trace of Columbia in her voice.
“Can you help us?” Someone said.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Thad said. “If what you are saying is true, my name is on the list.”
“How can that be? You’re American.”
Thad went to his desk. He turned and held up his passport. “Canadian. I crossed the border seven years ago. Nobody ever asked any questions, so I figured why to go through the bother with the niceties—”
Wood splintered, a battering ram had shattered the door from its hinges.
Men in camouflage uniforms rushed in, surrounding Thad and the others. The intruders kept their automatic weapons at the ready.
“Don’t move! Hands behind the back,” one shouted, probably the one in charge. He looked at a paper he was holding. “All seven,” holding up photographs.
Thad saw his photo on the top left corner of one page.
As they were ushered down the hall to the stairs, Thad looked back. The neighbor with the booming television was leaning out his doorway, sneering.
“I always knew there was something odd about you,” Thad heard him say.
Marched out through the lobby, people were lining the steps, holding signs proclaiming America First.
###
Or, is it?