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little family I had left was in the last stages of preparing to flee Las Vegas and retreat to the redwood forest of southern Oregon to make their last stand. However, even if I wanted to join them, they were half a bad world away.
    Then, as if to prove coincidences do indeed exist, my inbox pinged. Clicking on the icon, I saw an email from Leah:
    Hey, Baby,
    Just to let you know, we’re almost ready to leave Las Vegas. We got Mama and Kobe out of Cali. She’s safe with us now. I’ll shoot you an email when we are on the road.
    Have you decided yet what you’re gonna do?
    Maya Jade, how long can you keep waiting on a ghost…?
    Tick Tock…Tick Tock
    Leah
    My big sis—my dearest enemy growing up, but now, the one I’d want to have on my side in a fight.

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    CHAPTER 3
    T HE M ACCABEES
    Leah wasn’t a witch or a seer, though like other women in my family, she seemed to have the uncanny ability to be able to read the signs ahead and act accordingly.
    I remember when Leah had first mentioned her misgivings about the direction the economy and society in general were heading, and her plan to retreat to the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest. Leah’s fourth husband, Jack, was originally from Oregon, though they had met, married and lived in Las Vegas these past nine years.
    It was in December of 2011 when she told me of the scenario that they were anticipating, eighteen months before society, the financial system and the planet started to meltdown simultaneously.
    America was way past the honeymoon phase of Barack Obama’s presidency, even though the markets had roared back from the near-collapse of the previous years. It wasn’t quite “Morning in America,” but there was a sense of optimism that maybe the worst of the financial crash of 2008 was behind the world.
    The financial crisis of 2008 was triggered when one little Wall Street player went bust. Yet no matter how the world’s banks or governments tried to spin it, the whole system was rotten and unsustainable. In 2013, it was sovereign nations that defaulted throughout the Eurozone like a column of dominoes toppling on their neighbor, one by one, and knocking everyone down. The subsequent destruction of the financial markets and banking system spread like wildfire across the globe.
    Now everyone around the world knew the Emperor was wearing no clothes. That the world’s banking and financial system was a Ponzi scheme. A scam created to benefit solely the dictatorship of banks and corporations that ran our planet. No amount of sleight of hand, propaganda or military adventures could misdirect people’s attention away from this bald fact. It was time to prepare for the worst that was yet to come.
    When you think of Americans turning their backs on society and retreating to the woods or mountains of places like Oregon, Idaho, or other western states, you think of members of the Militia Movement, or right-wing Christian patriot groups like The Covenant, Sword and Arm: groups who believe the federal government is trampling on one or another of their constitutional rights.
    You wouldn’t think a software engineer from the laid-back Northwest of Microsoft and Nike, or a director of marketing for one of the racier Las Vegas casinos would be thinking of such a radical lifestyle change. Much easier to imagine them relocating to Macau for a new job now that Vegas casino heavyweights like Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson were invading those shores, or whiling away their golden retirement years, lounging on a terrace overlooking the sea in Cabo.
    Recently, the topic of what to do when the shit hits—once a subject of banter and speculation at cocktail parties—had become a subject to be considered with the utmost seriousness. Leah and Jack’s network of friends had casually become part of a grassroots movement.
    Their faith in government authority to preserve and protect them evaporated. They looked at what was coming, and each in their own quiet way put his or her