Dispatch 001: Death Rides the Other Horse

You'll wake up one morning to discover you now live in a hellscape that looks no different than recent combat zones around the planet. Newton's Third Law of Thermodynamics is a cold motherfucker.

Publisher’s Note: I issue new episodes of the Chasing Ghosts podcast fortnightly and I’d like to welcome you to the inaugural essay that will be published every two weeks in the interregnum between new podcasts.

Welcome to the CG Dispatch.

I have dabbled in the past in writing fiction and for those who are unaware, short stories, novellas and novels are among the most difficult projects in authorship. For a coherent and interesting fiction account, the many synchronized components and the character arcs have to be realistic, compelling and work in the overall narrative. I have used Scrivener (recommended) in the past and have two stalled projects buried there. My hat is off to the folks who make a living writing fiction.

Like so many things that break the world or redirect history in another wretched direction, the Gaza attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 provides a chilling glimpse into the future. William R. Forstchen wrote a novella called “Day of Wrath” in 2014 and Kurt Schlichter just released his book, “The Attack” regaling fictional accounts of terror attacks on the American homeland. Forstchen’s book is a blood-curdling account of what a low budget operation with a low density of active combatants could do to devastate a country with a sardonic ending that will be grim but predictable. “The Attack” is something of an after-action account of the events reminiscent of “World War Z” by Max Brooks. In Kurt Schlichter’s inimitable and acid style, it is a ripping good yarn. I recommend both books.

If you happen to enjoy my brief short story, I recommend you give those books a try.

My first entry in this new series at CG will be a short story illustrating a possible grim future in which the unlimited immigration in concert with a penchant for government grave-dancing in the US will presage a chaos avalanche that may destroy the country.

Strap in for a bumpy ride.

***

Some housekeeping:

I have taken a break from Gab and Twitter; I returned to Twitter after years away to help promote the podcast and I have had to tame the vampire by severely restricting the time I spend on it. I will surface to periscope depth on both social media accounts on Sunday mornings but not between to better focus on projects I am tackling. Please use the messaging function on those if you wish to chat.

And I will leverage the Notes feature here at Substack to post my brain-zephyrs occasionally.

I wanted to personally thank my three paid subscribers: V1, DC and OLM.

I wanted to thank my personal correspondents who reach out to me at Protonmail.

Like the podcast, let me know via gentlemanly correspondence if there is an issue you’d like for me to ponder or make recommendations for improvements or episodes. -BB

***

“Stupid Americans. Didn’t they comprehend what was happening? They were killing themselves. While they foolishly spent their treasure and spilled their blood in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, the very ideology they were fighting to defeat was moving into their cities, their schools, their very government. The freedoms the West championed so proudly would be their ultimate downfall. Those freedoms would be targeted and exploited. Their freedoms were their weakness. Know thy enemy.”

— Jack Carr

“I sat in the dark and thought: There’s no big apocalypse. Just an endless procession of little ones.”

― Neil Gaiman, Signal to Noise

The industrial park was dark again and the car drove to the large block building in the cul-de-sac at the end of the park. Timothy drove the car to the front entrance and parked in the handicapped space. He slipped out and clicked the fob to lock the car. The car beeped back and he strolled through the front office.

“Good evening, Mr. Henry.”

“Evening, Janice, Harry in?”

“I’ll buzz you in.” She smiled and pressed the button to release the door lock.

Timothy proceeded through the door and went down a corridor and saw the light under the last door on the left. He knocked lightly and pushed it in.

“Evening, Harry, everything on schedule?”

Harry’s office was neat as a pin with whiteboards and maps bedecking the walls around a Spartan desk with a computer monitor and a few stacks of paper. Timothy walked to the largest map on the wall and touched it. His fingers traced invisible lines across the surface and settled at the very point he was standing at right now. Two industrial shredders were against the opposite wall.

“Everything is on schedule, some paperwork difficulties in Boston but everything is set. Countdown is at D-47 right now.” Less than two days until a multi-city simultaneous event that will rock the country to its core.

“What paperwork?”

“We need to get the electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) synchronized across the entire fleet. The Feds want to eliminate paper logs but they want the electronic journal slaved to the onboard computers of the discrete trucks. Once that’s complete, we will be able to do it.”

“How many cloverleaves are mapped?”

“Interchanges in DC, Boston, New York City, Miami, Charlotte, Chicago and Seattle and LA on the west coast. The west coast events will take place the morning following the events on the east coast.

“Javelins?”

“As you know the DoD lost accountability for 36 Javelin Command Launch Units in 2003, we have managed over a period of time to procure 24 of those along with the associated missiles. Six of those have been expended in training overseas and two are inop leaving us a total of 18. Half of those are presently in the LA area being prepositioned for D-Day. There are two Liquified Gas Cargo Carriers or LNGs in the basin in the next few days.”

“Let’s talk timelines…”

“East Coast is the fulcrum at 1630 on Tuesday, Chicago will be 1730 CST and the Long Beach Terminal and West Coast targets at the same time which will be 1930 and 1945 PST respectively.”

“E&E in place for all the agents?”

“Yeah, still tying loose ends in Chicago but the Canadian ratline is active now.”

Timothy stretched his lanky frame and yawned. “Alright, send the green-light in 24 hours, we are a go and Godspeed to all the targeteers.”

Harry smiled and leaned back in his chair, drawling in a thick Mississippi accent. “So far, everything is cyber-bleached to the extent we can and Janice and I will be destroying and shredding and burning all the docs over the next twelve hours. What little there is. Remember, we are simply the catalyst for the whole process, we’ll simply finish what Al Qaeda started. A little over five years to get here…long road traveled. The next time we see each other will be on the other side of the world.”

Timothy turned to the door. “See you on the other side, brother.”

***

Tuesday 1610 on DC Beltway

John beat the steering wheel in his car as he heard the latest update on traffic snarls on 495 near 267. Bumper to bumper and he had to piss like a racehorse, he was probably a good thirty minutes out from his favorite gas station to stop and use.

I hope Helen has something good waiting when I get home.

She works evening shift tonight but at least I can heat it up and fall asleep in front of the TV. These two-hour commutes are brutal.

He looked around at his fellow inmates on the freeway and noticed a large semi pulled over at the overpass with safety cones and markers surrounding it and the hood tilted forward. The windows were tinted do he couldn’t see anybody inside. He noticed an ambulance coming down the roadway under the overpass perpendicular to his direction of travel. The ambulance picked up a man in a paramedic uniform at the bottom and drove on the shoulder.

Jesus, wish I had lights and a siren to pass all these folks up…

Thirty thousand gallons of liquid propane ignited and blew outwards in a firestorm that engulfed the entire interchange at the junction of the Dulles Toll Road and Capital Beltway. Later investigation would reveal the remnants of the propane container to be in a ten-foot crater a half mile from the initial blast. The sound blast knocked out windows a distance of ten miles away and the resulting firestorm ignited and cooked off thousands of cars and trucks in vicinity to the blast.

Power poles and transformers blew up and surged causing a heavy brownout through the entire Capitol region. Government facilities throughout the region automatically transferred to generator power. LX1 and LX2 at the Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus were rocked and suffered minor structural damage and had many windows blown out. It housed part of the counter-terrorism apparatus of the US government.

The small mushroom cloud that emerged after the massive propane blast startled some folks into thinking a nuclear event had just occurred. They would later discover that all the non-nuclear blasts were linked. NORAD would even see the simultaneous explosions bloom on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on a weather satellite. Temperatures in the blast area would reach 3000 degrees Celsius.

Similar events occurred within thirty seconds of the DC blast in Boston, New York City, Miami, Charlotte, Chicago and Seattle and LA leaving tens of thousands dead and wounded on the east coast commuting and thousands of dead and wounded on the west coast freeway system.

Later estimates would reveal an estimated total of twenty six thousand dead and three hundred ten thousand wounded. The credibility of the numbers would constantly be called into question.

***

The two Q-Max LNG tankers that had moored at the Long Beach Terminal last night had capacities of approximately 260 thousand cubic meters of gas, almost half again as much as the next largest tankers available. The ships were odd in that they had dome configurations on their hulls.

The small tugs chugged lazily between the two huge tankers at dusk as LA was preparing to turn up the nightlife. As the tugs came abreast of the two ships, small figures on the rear decks of the tugs saluted each other and uncovered the Javelins hidden on deck and within ten seconds of each other six small missiles arched up approximately 150 meters on pillars of smoke and then gracefully arced into the decks of the LNG ships.

The resulting BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) was one of the largest non-nuclear events recorded. The shock-waves knocked down buildings within ten kilometers of the blast and completely destroyed most of the Long Beach Terminal and half the ships were lost. Later estimates would peg the kiloton yield to a large 700-kiloton nuclear device. Casualty estimates were in the tens of thousands and the destruction in the tens of billions of dollars.

***

The explosions literally rocked the nation and caused a tectonic policy shift. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had turned the American economy on its head and created a multi-trillion dollar security industry that had drawn the nation into wars around the globe and a crippling anchor on productivity.

All the American news outlets dutifully broadcast the President’s response within hours of the crisis. The teleprompter message was oddly reminiscent of Bush’s speech on 911 in 2001.

“Good Evening, today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.” That is what President Bush said before me over two decades ago. But our vigilance flagged and now tens of thousands of our fellow Americans are maimed and dead.

The victims were in cars, trains, airplanes, homes or in their offices -- secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors.

Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.

Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working throughout the country to aid with local rescue efforts.

Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.

I am pleased to say that the functions of our government continues without interruption thanks to the plans and efforts of DHS and FEMA to secure us since 911. Federal agencies in Washington, which had to be evacuated today, are reopening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business next week.

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full faith and credit for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

The Congress is meeting this evening to craft a full package of reforms and improvements to make sure the American homeland is never exposed or attacked like this again.

Thank you. Good night and God bless America.”

Later, the President’s halting speech was analyzed and had 111 cuts in the broadcast. The American people flocked for government protection and they would get it good and hard.

***

Three days later the Congress passed three items of legislation that would be approved by the President and become law.

The first was the Protection of American Modal Transportation Network Act or PRAMTRAN as the networks called it. The Act authorized a wholesale expansion of the TSA to have the authority to monitor and de jure federalize all transportation nodes on Earth used by US carriers worldwide and foreign carriers domestically. The TSA was the lead federal agency under which all other FLEAs would be subordinated in the conduct of their modal duties and badged and armed TSA agents were authorized for the first time.

The second act was the Secure Gun Rights or Sanders-Schumer Act as the media referred to it as they feted the sponsors for their achievement. Even though no weapons were used, the government thought it prudent to establish more rigorous controls to head off the possibility of their malevolent use in the future. The bill would require the federal registration of all privately owned firearms, would outlaw the possession of any Class III weapons (machine guns and destructive devices), require all concealed carry permits to be federalized in a national database and impose a 100% tax on all ammunition. The NRA was critical in the crafting and passage of the bill hailing it as a “sensible compromise” in the tumultuous times in the nation.

The third act was the Law Enforcement Organizational Consolidation and Initiative Act or Lee-Oh-Chi ACT as crowned by the parrots in the media. The act would de facto and de jure federalize all 19,000 law enforcement agencies in the US to better streamline and make effective efforts by the national government to protect the people. The government unions and their associated police entities to include most chiefs of police were behind the initiative on promises of higher pay equilibration with their FLEA counterparts. In an effort to more effectively centrally plan these efforts, the DHS would be the lead agency in the effort.

While the mainstream media and many internet outlets championed and applauded these efforts as a tremendous response to the attacks. Many on the internet but few in the talking head media were worried by the tremendous shift of power to the Federal government this encouraged. The blogosphere was filled with speculation on how this could lead to new tyrannies unimagined with the PATRIOT Act and NDAA. Most of this went unheeded until the abuses began…

***

The TSA wasted little time in establishing checkpoints and roadblocks across the states on the major Federal highways. The smaller interchanges would come later as more agents were hired. Black shirts and new shiny badges now replaced the blue uniformed shirts. All the agents now carried sidearms and had been working with other agencies to get qualified for long guns. The newest aspirants in the Federal ranks now jointly manned the ICE/BP checkpoints and roadblocks peppered across the American southwest. The charter of the checkpoints had always been immigration and drugs but now a broader interpretation of the “Constitution-free” zones enabled the TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams to tear down any car they pleased if it met the lowered standards of suspicion necessary to harass Americans. The ATF had also used the checkpoints to do random weapons checks and sweeps at the roadblocks.

The ATF found other means to harass and cuff gun owners at the various roadblocks established and made a secret pact with the TSA to alert on gun violations.

The consolidation of police agencies to become more effective omnibus agencies centrally controlled form the top down had already proved much easier than not with the decades old relationship between the locals and Feds on the Drug War which had enriched all levels with Pentagon weapons giveaways, asset seizure and forfeiture and a blanket RAS/PC complex that could easily be obviated by drug dogs.

But the reaction would not stop there, the steady increase in enforcement and boldness of the TSA asserting its newfound power would prove to be the virtual death knell of commercial trucking in the US as the TSA would apply the same incompetence and small-mindedness that made their exploits at airports the butt of jokes and the object of derision universally in the US.

The architects of the terrorist attacks may have had this effect in mind much as Osama bin Laden predicted his million dollar investment would ultimately cost the US trillions; it would bankrupt the country in economic seppuku in addition to the universal approbation following the expanded military adventures around the globe.

***

Royce Pennycamp had been driving long haul trucks since he was 18 and been around them since he was a child. He came from a long line of truckers who prided themselves on the care and diligence they rendered the loads they were charged with. At 51, he was about ready to retire.

Royce had gotten fed up in the last few years by the endless regulation and police attention the trucking industry had attracted especially after 911, things had gotten even worse. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach when he watched the newsreels of the BLEVE and propane attacks and what the Federal over-reaction would be to that mess. He needed to retire soon.

At five in the morning, this extent of I-10 after leaving El Paso was almost as barren as the eternal leg between Midland and El Paso. Sort of like driving on Mercury. He had the speedometer pegged at 60 and had been driving within his regulated hours when he saw the flashing red, white and blue lights in his rear views, he downshifted and pulled over to the side of the road. He put the interior lights on, unlocked the doors, activated his interior camera suite and waited.

Minutes later he heard a knock on the passenger side door and lowered the window. A state trooper looked in and asked for his CDL, insurance and logbooks per NM regulation. Royce handed him the papers and asked him if he was free to go. The trooper scowled and replied no. He then asked him if he knew why he stopped him. Royce refused to answer the question per his own procedures. The trooper stepped down and returned to his vehicle.

A full ten minutes later, the trooper returned and had a friend with him. The men identified themselves.

“I’m Trooper Harlan Smith and this is my colleague, Agent Ben Iverson from the TSA. Do you consent to a search of your vehicle?”

“I do not consent to a search. Why did you stop me?”

“I stopped you because you were weaving in the lanes in front of me in the last fifteen minutes.”

“Trooper, I have a live-feed dash-cam mounted to a time-stamp and I will bet a call back to my HQ will show you may be mistaken.”

The trooper got red-faced and spluttered a bit. “You are not free to go and I am detaining you effective now.” He spoke into his mike. “I need a K9 unit to my location immediately.”

A few minutes later, two other vehicles lined up behind the initial patrol vehicle that had slipped behind him. Several flashlights bobbed along the passenger side of the truck.

The trooper knocked on the passenger cab and Royce lowered the window.

“I need you to step out and follow me to the rear of the vehicle, please.” Royce grabbed his flashlight, camera and keys and stepped out of the cab. As he stepped out of the cab, he heard glass breaking in the rear of the container. He stepped out and went to the rear to inspect where he found the back of the semi damaged.

The trooper looked at him and stated that the broken light was a safety infraction and he would be ticketed for that. Royce did not alert him to the security camera he kept over the rear doors so he could nail the crooked cop later.

“Our dog alerted on your container and we need you to open it for inspection.”

Royce smirked and unlocked the container, the K9 officer lifted his dog into the trailer. The officer hoisted himself into the unlocked trailer and started jacking the load. Royce voiced his concern and the cops just started getting agitated at his interference.

The original trooper was busy writing the ticket for the damaged light when the TSA agent asked to search the cab. Royce did not consent. The trooper then asked if Royce had been drinking. At this point, Royce said he would no longer answer any questions. At this point, Royce was lifted from behind by another officer and slammed to the ground.

The officer was accompanied by the original trooper who now deployed his taser and started yelling stop resisting while Royce lay on the ground with his head ground into the asphalt. The TSA officer came running back with a Glock in his hand that he had gotten from the cab of the truck.

TSA: “Trooper Smith, this is a felony violation of the new Sanders-Schumer Act, I recommend arresting this man immediately.”

Trooper Smith nodded as he was hogtying Royce with the other officer. Smith shoved Royce to the ground and put his knee on his back as the others scrummed on top of the trucker. By this time, five cars had arrived and eight officers were on deck to maul Royce on the ground.

He would end up in the hospital with a broken arm, five broken ribs, a concussion and a variety of contusions and bruises on his upper body. He would be charged with weapons trafficking under the new law and a whole battery of resistance and obstruction charges. All would be dropped when Royce’s sons released the trailer rear camera video that recorded the entire event. The officer’s statements were at odds with the video, which went viral and revealed the duplicity and mendacity of all the departments involved. No officers were disciplined or fired after the incident.

***

The meeting between the AZ State Police and the various representatives of the Tucson vicinity law enforcement entities was in a posh conference room at the JW StarrPass Resort in Tucson. After introductions around the room, a tall and portly man in an expensive suit stepped to the front of the room.

“Good morning, I’m Grant Harrison, I’d like to welcome you to the orientation meeting for the new initiatives the Congress and Executive have just implemented. I am the senior DHS Coordinator for this project in the southwest region.” In a clipped New England accent, he continued on.

”A number of representatives to include the TSA Regional Director and the Phoenix-based FBI Special Agent-in-Charge are also in attendance.”

Chief Brian Haggerty from Tucson Police Department spoke up first: “I noticed the Governor’s representative is here, does she agree with moving ahead with full compliance on what the Feds want here for consolidation?”

A nod from the Governor’s representative confirmed the agreement.

Grant smiled at Haggerty and clicked the remote in his hand, which started the PowerPoint presentation on the big screen on the wall.

“Continuing, here is a chart showing the new consolidation of the Southeastern Arizona Law Enforcement Fusion Center. So we don’t get confused, this is completely different from the DHS intelligence fusion entities scattered throughout the region. To avoid confusion, the DHS has reflagged those as Regional Intelligence Portals identified by a numbering system that will be coordinated in the next 48 hours. Pinal, Pima, Cochise, Graham and Santa Cruz counties will comprise the element I just described. This will include rolling the fire departments into these functions to streamline leadership and save money.” He paused and took a sip of water. “Much like the previous consolidation efforts before the LEOCI Act, the Feds aren’t taking over the local policing efforts so much as providing resourcing and leadership functions the states and regions simply don’t have the resources to support.” He winked.

This last statement was met with scowls and groans from the audience in the room.

Harrison held up his hands and smiled. A reptilian smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a new era and a new century and it is time to cowboy up. The United States has just suffered a catastrophic attack that significantly overshadows the events of 911. You are either onboard or you will be replaced. I come here with the full authority of the DoJ and the White House to do whatever it takes to implement this law. You are either for us or against us and if you are the latter, you career from this moment on has a short fuse. I will be followed by the Regional TSA Administrator who will detail the integration of the VIPR teams into the broader scheme of enforcement.”

The room quieted down and the meeting went on for another two hours. There was quite literally a new Sheriff in town.

The chaos avalanche had begun.

***

“It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Write me at cgpodcast@pm.me