Chapter 134

Friday morning I was up at 0500, reading the updates from the night; it was still night in California. My first meeting with the DHS, FBI and the Attorney General were at 0700. Then there was a meeting with the secret terrorism court at 0800. That meeting was green-lighted and the warrants typed up late yesterday afternoon.

At 0800 the Justice Department made its case before the judges. An hour later they left the court with one hundred and twenty four warrants for California state officials and one hundred ten for San Francisco government officials. There were another hundred for Los Angles and one hundred split between Sacramento and San Diego.

An F16 Fighting Falcon was to deliver the warrants to California. With in-flight refueling and afterburners it would make it in plenty of time. To hell with the sonic booms; people should be up by now anyhow.

The warrants would be served at 0800 Pacific time, 1100 here. Hundreds of FBI, DHS and US Marshals were going to do the task - they were already there waiting for paper. They were told to make the arrests as high profile as possible. Handcuffs and leg shackles were appropriate and add plenty of TV coverage.

Marty Coeburn from the FBI, Attorney General Dunne and General Ingram were in the Oval Office with a handful of papers to get the legal ball rolling. I read them and signed at all the noted places. Connie copied all of them for my records. I placed check marks by the items on the outline.

Dozens more check marks to go; it was going to be a long day. Connie and Troy both walked in with mugs of coffee for me.

My next meeting was on MTAC with General Ingram, the Army chief and the Generals assembled at Camp Parks with the addition of General Clayton Stone, the base commander of Camp Parks.

I made the opening statement. “At 0800 Pacific under the National Emergency Powers Act I am declaring two emergencies for California. One is a national disaster emergency to deal with the rioting. The second is an order for Federal Martial Law for the state of California because of inaction of the California authorities to protect the public, general safety, its property and also to deal with the rioting.”

“The third item I am ordering is the arrest of government individuals for treason, conspiracy to commit treason, suspicion of terrorism, dereliction of duty, failure to fulfill the oath of office and a variety of other charges. General Ingram will give you your individual assignments,” I said.

“General Wainwright, you should have the package with the breakdown of the operations at Camp Parks to house twenty thousand in the temporary camps that are being set up. Also included are guidelines for their detainment. The DHS, FBI and ICE teams will be there to help identify them with instructions. They should report in within the hour,” General Ingram said.

“The DHS team has the instructions on how to process all the individuals detained at the camp and that is their responsibility,” General Ingram said.

“General Wainwright, you and your team are to replace the Governor and state legislators at Sacramento. You are acting governor and control state government. You are also to assume command of all military units in the state as needed,” General Ingram said.

“Your initial order is simple; stop the rioting. Make note that live ammunition is to be issued to all soldiers. Rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails thrown at your men are to be considered deadly weapons and are to be responded to appropriately with three round bursts,” General Ingram added.

In perfect PC language – ‘kill the sons of bitches if necessary’ were my orders to the General. He made it sound so innocent.

“All homeless are to be relocated to Camp Parks,” General Ingram said.

“All rioters are to be relocated to Camp Parks, they are to be identified as rioters with the necessary information attached to their flex cuffs. Separate accommodations are being built for rioters and criminals,” General Ingram said.

“Marine Brigadier General Louis B ‘Chesty’ Puller the third will be responsible for carrying out the orders at Los Angles. He is also to be the acting mayor and local government there,” General Ingram said.

“General Richard Donner, your area is San Diego. Mayor of the local government,” General Ingram said.

“General Harold Moore, your area is San Francisco. Mayor, head of government,” General Ingram said.

“General Simon Scott, your area is the city of Sacramento with like powers,” General Ingram added.

“In the back of the packet you will notice the powers that Martial Law gives you. One of those is that it suspends all labor unions and labor contracts. I am sure you will hear from them - deal with them appropriately,” I said.

“You are to also note you have authority to limit access by the media including arrests to limit inflaming the public,” I said.

“On another note, the EPA is to do an assessment of the environmental damage to the city because of so much human waste in the streets. They are not to interfere with the cleanup as suggested in the packet,” I said.

“You have your orders, let’s make a productive day out of them. If you have any questions - call,” I added.

At 1045 I received an update from the AG. “FBI, US marshals and DHS officers in position in all cities and Sacramento.”

Connie and Troy helped with the statement I was going to give to the media at 1115. The media was already assembling. Just as we were finishing up, General Ingram came in.

“The Iranian destroyer ‘Tehran’ collided with one of ours in the Indian Ocean in the darkness. Damage to our destroyer will take several months to fix. No causalities on the USS Wilmington, there was only minor flooding. Their destroyer may be sinking, it is listing heavily to port. They are refusing aid,” General Ingram said.