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power grid, these buildings became little more than unbearably hot, humid, dark caves. Jake was thankful for both his store’s architecture and its PV panels. As part of the Old Florida—both culturally and architecturally—Jake and his family were far better prepared for the Crunch than most.

7
SOLDADOS
    â€œShortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: ‘You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?’ The soldier replied: ‘We will shoot twice and go home.’”
    â€”Historian Stephen P. Halbrook, as quoted by Bill Buppert in
ZeroGov: Limited Government, Unicorns and Other Mythological Creatures
Tavares, Florida—November, the First Year
    R umors began to circulate about Cuban raiders in the Florida Keys and on both the east and west coasts of the Florida peninsula. The concern was that they would start to loot inland regions. There was even talk of a full-scale Cuban invasion. When Janelle brought up these concerns in the store one day, Valentin immediately dismissed the rumors. “The Cuban army couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.”
    Valentin, however, later admitted to Jake, “Papa Fidel may be dead, but they’re still a bunch of commies down there. I have no doubt that they’ll come and loot in Florida, if they have the chance.”
    Surrounded by three large lakes, Tavares effectively sat on a peninsula. The economy of the region was dominated by theme parks. There was not just the Walt Disney World resort, which included four theme parks, two water parks, and huge resort facilities, but also the two Universal Studios parks, SeaWorld, and many minor spin-off tourist traps in greater Orlando. They all had brought throngs of visitors year-round. The local saying was, “Directly or indirectly, everyone works for the Mouse.” Or more derisively, “for the Rat.” Even before the Crunch started in earnest, Disney World tourism dropped to nil, and everyone felt the pinch.
    In Tavares, the locals were nervous, but they felt comfortably isolated by the lakes, which eliminated several potential avenues of approach. The town conscripted a levy of armed men to man the roadblocks. Each man between ages eighteen and sixty was expected to do an eight-hour guard duty shift five days of each month. There were very few exceptions made—only those with chronic health conditions were excused, but even these men were expected to pay the daily wages in silver for substitutes to stand duty during their assigned shifts.
    Eventually, the roadblock levy rules were liberalized, allowing more substitutions. A few men served as substitutes for three or even four others, which provided a way to make a decent living just by standing guard duty. These men soon went by the nickname Suntanned Soldados, given the many long hours they spent manning the roadblocks. A few men tried to claim noncombatant status because of their religious objection to being armed, but they were told to report for duty anyway and serve as unarmed “runners” or as medics.
    The men at the roadblocks were in constant radio contact with the police department. It was initially the police, bolstered by more than a dozen recent combat veterans, who formed the Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs). They would be called up anytime a sizable force of looters was spotted. The attrition rate at the roadblocks was low, but on the QRTs it was surprisingly high. They lost an average of one man a week—either killed or wounded so badly that they couldn’t return to duty. By the end of the first year, there had been a complete turnover; only two of the pre-Crunch police officers were still with the force.
    The Lake County Sheriff Department’s heaviest weapon was a Barrett semiauto .50 BMG rifle. Lake County had a National Guard armory in