Chapter 20
Main House
These guys were so happy to be together that they were not exactly very demanding guests right now. That would change. Everyone was used to being waited on hand and foot. Barron and Melania and Jared met to come up with room assignments, some in the main house and some in Jared and Ivanka’s smaller place. Since the children had been returned to their Aunt Tiffany there were four extra bedrooms there, each with a private bath. They would send Jim Johnson, Elise Stefanik, Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley over there. That left 5 for the Trump place, Don, Jr., Eric, Flynn, Stone and Manafort. In all that made the total at the big house eight and at the small house six. Fourteen mouths to feed and not a cook in sight. This was going to be bad.
It turned out that Elise’s family had owned a restaurant at Fisher’s Bay. Elise grew up in a kitchen and knew about all things food. Like Melania she had left behind her days of toiling over hot stoves, but she wanted to be useful and not make the guys unhappy that they brought her along. It also turned out that Hawley was hot for Elise and volunteered to be her sous chef. Jim Johnson and Matt Gaetz, all starstruck to be in such infamous company, agreed to set tables, clear, and do dishes. They did not think they would be here long but they were family men and it was light duty. And Melania did not react well to stress.
Barron pulled away Trump’s admirers and assigned them rooms so they could put their gear away and have their own bathroom to use. Soon laundry and cleaning would become necessities. Who was going to do that? They had found a laundry room off the kitchen but no one wanted to go in there. What do you do with a bunch of rich folks, used to being cared for, when they lose their servants? It’s an interesting social experiment with possible nuclear level consequences in terms of daily living upheavals, which those in the bunker enjoyed listening to. With so many people to watch, the bunker was also now tuned into visual surveillance.
Peace settled in for a bit as everyone found a room and made it their own. Then it was time for the kitchen ‘staff’ to start dinner and figure out the logistics of seating 14 people at one sitting. A search party of the ‘kitchen staff’ went in a golf cart to find tables that could be set up on the patio, and to find some for the Oath Keepers, who had two members invited along in a separate golf cart to load and unload the furniture.
Fortunately with all these leader types and very few followers logistics were handled easily, and since roles had already been chosen there weren’t even any turf wars. Finding enough food for dinner was an issue so another expedition set out to the golf club house and the pool house to bring whatever could be found. The Oath Keepers hadn’t left much.
The pantry in the main house, the freezer and the refrigerator were raided. Twenty-six grown people had to be fed. A set of supplies was sent off to the barracks, meals were prepared and consumed and all the while those old pals and Trump’s elder sons hardly noticed what went on around them.
There they were, a gaggle of mostly grumpy old men huddled up together wherever you looked and happy as clams to be complaining about anything and everything. If you slid them a drink you might earn a glance or a tip of the head or even a thank you but the service was taken as their due. Trump, with his half orange face and his half metal head could be seen tossing that head of long blond hair as he talked, laughed, and gesticulated, animated once more.
Of course, this wasn’t supposed to be a resort hotel. It was supposed to be a prison, a fancy, schmancy prison but still isolation forever and ever. How could this miserable old man still inspire so much loyalty even at a place like Fort Hood or Guantánamo? Half of Americans did not get it at all, the other half was perhaps beginning to overcome the addiction, but not some members of the military and right-wing politicians. They still pledged allegiance to Trump. Those watching in the bunker were worried that Trump could not be kept here. Too many people would help him, too many people wanted him to run for President again, and the cyborg procedures that had given him back his health, made him more dangerous than ever.
If we take a quick peek back at Washington, Kamala and Tedra were worried about the very same things. They knew that Trump’s fans and friends were planning to bust him out of there. The President and VP did not want Trump back in the US whipping everyone into a fine froth while he got himself reelected and repeated his Voldemort routine. They were flailing around for other options, talking to leaders around the world, winning invitations that might tempt Trump and his cronies to stay somewhere else for a while, or forever.
Back at the compound the duty soldiers made the announcement at 0600 about the supply drop at the helipad and told the Oath Keepers that distributing the supplies was their new duty. They told them the part about no guns but since the drop was already over it would not matter that first time. Time was heavy on the hands of these militia guys. Until now they had set their own hours and duties, but since they were at loose ends in this compound, they didn’t mind having a purpose and they would tolerate taking orders because it was all for Trump. Four Oath Keepers were also assigned to do laundry detail. There was a utility room in the barracks. They would collect the laundry, wash it, fold it and return it. They could not be used as house cleaners because the Trump’s did not want them inside. So everyone was given spray and a cleaning cloth and told to police his own area.
With almost all the logistics set in motion, this could all just go on and on. But it was costing the army a mint and everyone was having way too good a time at taxpayer expense. This operation would be phased out real soon.
When the first two Oath Keeper sentries disappeared, whisked out of the compound and nowhere to be found, and did not return, the Oath Keepers got out their guns for real and began to protect their own. Fear crept in at the edges of their senses and set them on patrol. How far would they go to protect each other? Would they kill someone? It seemed so out-of-place in this, until now, peaceful compound. Was it to be guerilla warfare? Where could you hide in these wide open spaces. Could they turn the barracks into a bunker? No one had stumbled on the hidden bunker of the army base so far. Oath Keepers could not stay put in the barracks either. They had duties to perform.
When two more Oath Keepers disappeared things got serious. Where were they taking them? Who were ‘they’? The remaining Oath Keepers didn’t suspect that anything good was happening to their missing troops. They stopped showing up for their duties. No supplies got distributed. No laundry was collected. Flynn sent Johnson and Hawley over to check on the men, see what was going on. The Oath Keepers shot at them. They had turned the barracks into a fortress.
Back at the main house, Josh Hawley said, “break out your guns guys. The Oath Keepers are armed and angry. We have to guard these two houses. Not sure what will happen if we venture out to unpack supplies.”
So they set up sentries around the main house. Unloading supplies was not an issue since no new supplies arrived. Everyone would soon be starved out into the open. Their real enemy was still invisible. As long as these two groups did not bother each other a battle would not break out. But survival always trumps loyalty. When the food ran out this cushy prison compound could turn into a Lord of the Flies scenario.
Next chapter. Chapter 21: Wrapping it Up