Liberty's Last Stand

by Stephen Coonts

  “Tell us what you think,” Nadine said to JR.

  JR thought about his response, then said, “I’m a natural-born Texan, and I’ve had it with Soetoro. A few terrorist incidents don’t seem to be a good reason to declare martial law. The FBI and local police can sort that stuff out. I sorta suspect Soetoro thought all that was a good enough excuse to become a dictator, but I don’t know. I just caught snatches of the news, here and there.”

  Nadine zeroed in. “Are you happy with independence?”

  “Anyone who isn’t can hit the road,” JR said. “I’m staying. But I hope you folks know that you have bought a ton of trouble. I doubt if all the U.S. soldiers and sailors and airmen will stick to Barry, but a lot of them will, and that’ll be plenty. They can cause you lots of grief. Air strikes against concentrations of troops or civilians, against industry, refineries, armories, storage tanks, power generation facilities, everything you can think of, plus armored columns and infantry going through the towns and cities to take them house by house and block by block, seeking out and killing or defeating the rebels…it could get damned rough. The feds will ultimately lose, of course, but they will give it the old college try and kill a lot of Texans before they throw in the towel.”

  Nadine jumped right on it. “Why will they lose?”

  “Because control of the cities is strategically worthless. Whoever controls the countryside always wins in the end, if they keep their nerve and are willing to take the casualties. People in cities have to eat, and the food comes from the countryside. Not to mention electrical power, gasoline, and every other commodity known to man. It all has to be produced in the country or transported through the country, which means it is militarily vulnerable.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. The American Revolution, the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions, Vietnam, Afghanistan, you name it. Control of the countryside was the essential element every time. And successful revolutions or rebellions are not the victory of a pissed-off majority, but the triumph of a dedicated minority who won’t quit. It doesn’t take many men. But the revolutionaries must be willing to suffer and be quite ruthless with the enemy.”

  “There will be casualties.”

  “A lot of them,” JR agreed, and sipped his wine. “Bloodless revolutions are usually military coups—the generals win because no one else has weapons. The people of Texas are armed. Everyone has guns, and a lot of people know how to use them. More important, some of them are willing to do so. Just having a gun isn’t enough. Successful rebels must be willing to fight, to kill, and if necessary, be killed. But you know all that and declared independence anyway, so I assume a lot of legislators have some guts. Or their constituents do, which is better. Whether a dedicated minority has enough guts and determination remains to be seen. Time will tell.”

  “We are hearing very little from Washington,” Jack Hays said. “They aren’t going to make idle threats. When the blow falls, it will be heavy.”

  “Don’t wait for it,” JR advised. “You must take it to them. Seize the initiative and put them on the defensive. That’s the only way. The Confederates in the American Civil War were strategically hampered by the politicians’ desire to take the defensive. In war the defense always loses. If you try to defend everything, you are spread so thin you end up defending nothing. If you try to defend just a few key places or installations, the attackers will bleed you to death someplace else.”

  Nadine had abandoned her breakfast. “So how do we prevail and make our independence stick?”

  “Attack. As U. S. Grant said, find out where they are, hit ’em as soon as you can, as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”

  “The best defense is a good offense,” Jack Hays said thoughtfully.

  “Amen to that. In the military we call it seizing the initiative, forcing your enemy to react to your moves rather than you reacting to his.”

  “It’s the same way in politics.”

  Nadine looked at her watch and said she had to leave for the university. Her breakfast was only half-eaten. She rose, got a kiss on the cheek from both men, grabbed her purse, and hurried for the garage.

  Jack Hays leaned back in his chair. The maid came in with the coffee pot and poured.

  When she had left again, Jack Hays asked JR, “If you were running the military show, how would you go about it?”

  “That’s a big if.”

  “A hypothetical.”

  “The commander must figure out what he has to fight with. That’s Job One. What we have in the way of people, weapons, ammo, and transport defines our options. Our hypothetical commander must start there.”

  Jack Hays nodded, sipped his coffee, and nodded again. “If I offered to make you a general,” he said, “and put you in charge of the Texas Armed Forces, which is the National Guard, Air National Guard, and every military unit within Texas, all you can grab, you’d be in charge of defending Texas. Would you take the job?”

  JR grinned. “I came here this morning,” he said, “to ask for a job in the Texas Army. Any job. Soldiering is all I know. I suspect that you are going to need an army very badly, very soon.”

  “General Twilley has wanted to retire for the last year, and I have been asking him to put it off and hang in there. I want you to take his place. The air guard guy is Major General Elvin Gentry. He’ll answer to you.”

  “Okay,” JR said.

  “Before you go, I have to add the Texas Navy to your list of responsibilities. We got a nuke attack sub yesterday morning. USS Texas. She’s sitting at a pier in Galveston, and we’ve got to do something with her quick before the U.S. Navy sinks her or steals her back.”

  “Is she undamaged?”

  “The sheriff down there thinks she is, but his nautical experience is limited to bass boats.”

  “I’ve got an old army friend who got fed up with grunts and transferred to the navy,” JR said slowly. “He’s retired now. As I recall, he was in attack subs. Smart as a tack. Went to nuke power school and did well. He’s a law student now at UT. I can send him down to evaluate the boat. If we can’t move and hide her, Jack, we probably ought to scuttle her right where she is so the SEALs can’t steal her out from under our noses.”

  “They could do that?”

  “You can bet they’re noodling on how to do it right now.”

  Jack Hays scooted his chair back and rose. “Sounds like you need to get busy.”

  “Yes, sir,” JR Hays said. “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’d like to introduce you to the press and the Guard brass hats this morning, but I’ve got to go to Houston again. We’ll do the paperwork when I get back. I’ll scribble a note to General Twilley. You run out to Camp Mabry, give it to him, and take command—and have him muster you up a major general’s uniform.”

  “Where is Camp Mabry?”

  His cousin stared at him a moment before he answered, “West Thirty-Fifth Street, west of Highway One.” Then he grinned. If you don’t know, ask. JR would do nicely.

  The governor wrote the note in longhand, they shook hands, and JR headed for the front door and his pickup.

  JR drove to the University of Texas Law School and went in. He found his friend, a muscular black man named Loren Snyder, standing in a hallway outside a classroom talking to two fellow students.

  “Lorrie.” JR smacked him on the shoulder.

  “JR Hays, folks. Long time no see, JR. What are you doing here?”

  “Thinking of getting a law degree and wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Well,” Loren glanced at his watch. “I have ten minutes.”

  “Terrific.”

  JR led Loren away from the other students to a quiet corner. “Weren’t you in attack submarines?”

  “Yep. Sixteen years of it after the army, which my wife said was plenty long enough. Now I’m going for the gold. Going to be a personal injury lawyer and screw those insurance companies down hard.”

  “Before you get to that, I need
some help. I’m now a major general commanding all the military forces of the new Republic of Texas.”

  “You’re what?”

  “You heard me. We acquired a nuke attack sub yesterday morning down at Galveston, and I need a quick evaluation of the boat by someone who knows what they are talking about.”

  “I saw in the paper Texas was making a port visit there.”

  “Will you go to Galveston right now and evaluate the condition of the boat? Then answer some questions for me. Specifically, can we get enough ex-sailors to move her, can we hide her, or should we just sink her at the pier so the SEALs can’t snatch her back?”

  “You haven’t even asked me if I’m a loyal Texan.”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Haven’t thought much about it.”

  “You do this, I’ll give you a medal to frame and hang in your law office, when you get that office.”

  “You want me to go now, miss today’s classes?”

  “An hour ago would have been better.”

  “How do I get hold of you?”

  “Any National Guard armory. They can radio me a message.”

  Loren gave him a sheet of paper from a notebook and JR wrote upon it, “Please allow Loren Snyder to inspect USS Texas,” and signed it JR Hays, Major General, Commanding, dated it, and gave it to Loren.

  “Well, that looks official,” said Loren.

  “I gotta run,” JR said. “And you do too. Saddle up.”

  Brigadier General Lou l’Angistino was fifty years old, from Nebraska, an ROTC graduate who had worked his way up the ladder, flying and performing staff jobs. He flew F-4 Phantoms and F-16s, and considered it ironic that he now commanded a bomber wing. The Global Strike Command dudes must have been very unhappy when they heard. Of course, he had served a tour on the GSC commander’s staff, and maybe that was why he was selected.

  L’Angistino habitually went to bed at nine o’clock in the evening unless he had an official function to attend, and rose between four thirty and five o’clock a.m. He usually put a leash on his black Lab and then ran five miles, rain or shine.

  The events of the previous week troubled him deeply. He knew all about Jade Helm, the plan of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to put Americans in concentration camps, and he also knew that liberals, minorities, and Democrats weren’t the intended detainees. He had been appalled when Soetoro announced martial law and invoked Jade Helm.

  The National Guard’s blockade of the runway yesterday was only the first shot in the war, he told himself. Texas has a lot more bullets. Last night his staff thought that the crash crews would have the runway cleared by late this morning. Then he would fly the planes out, if he could find enough flight crews. He suspected that might be a problem. But he would worry about all that when he got to the office.

  Normally the general ran on base, but this morning he put the lab in the car and headed for the main gate. He drove past the thirty aircraft that lined the boulevard to the highway, aircraft dating from World War II right up through the present day. One was a retired B-1 and another a retired C-130.

  He drove the seven miles into town, marveled at the display of Texas flags, and, as the sun rose, was jogging in a park with his dog.

  Two miles along he saw a man in a baseball cap sitting on a bench with a rifle across his knees. He had a golden retriever on a leash. As l’Angistino got closer, he saw the man was probably Latino and well past retirement age. He was also wearing a gun belt with a pistol in a holster.

  The general stopped to talk. As the dogs sniffed each other and got acquainted, the man said, “Was you in the air force?” L’Angistino was wearing a faded air force T-shirt and red shorts. He nodded.

  “I was too,” the man said. The hands that caressed the worn old lever-action Winchester were the hands of a working man. “Wound up in Thailand turning wrenches on F-105s. Now them was airplanes!”

  “Why the rifle?” the general asked.

  “Oh, a bunch of us are going out to the base this mornin’. Going to talk to those people out there. We’re gonna meet at nine o’clock. Can’t sleep very well anymore, so came out here to the park to sit. Gonna get hot today”—it was already pushing 80—“but with the clear sky and still breeze, it’s mighty nice right here right now. At my age, you enjoy ever’ day because you don’t know how many more you got.”

  “Think there’ll be trouble at the base?”

  “Hope not, but you never know about the blue suits. They’s good ’uns and bad ’uns, just like ever’where. But if there’s any shootin’, I fully intend to shoot back until they get me.”

  “I see.”

  “My folks was in Texas before the white and black people ever showed up. One of my great-great-great-grandpappies died at the Alamo with Travis and them. His nephew rode with Terry’s Texas Rangers during the Civil War and lost a leg at Shiloh. Yankee doctors cut it off for him. I’ve had granddaddies and uncles and men kin fight in ever’ war this country ever fought. The world wars, Korea, and me in Vietnam. We’re Texans.”

  “What kind of pistol is that in your holster?”

  “It was my daddy’s Colt Police Positive. He was a policeman in San Antone until he retired and moved here to Abilene to be near his daughters. I got it when he died.”

  “So what do you think of independence?”

  “Some more of us are gonna have to fight for Texas again.”

  “When did you get out of the air force?”

  “Seventy-five. Came back here and opened a garage. It was a close squeak at times, but we have six bays now. My two sons run it, and I sit and watch baseball on TV and drink beer.”

  General l’Angistino glanced at his watch. He needed to get going, but…

  “Texans don’t seem to like illegals. What is your opinion?”

  “I’m like ever’body else. They flood in here and take jobs away from poor Texans because they’ll work for the minimum wage or less. Down in Mexico the Church won’t let ’em use contraceptives. Lots of kids guarantees they’ll never get ahead and will always be poor. I’m Catholic, but believe me, after the two boys arrived I used rubbers back when the old lady could still get knocked up. I tol’ the priest about it, and he said I had to do what God tol’ me to do. I tol’ him that I was gonna do what my wife tol’ me to do, and if that got me sent to Hell, at least I’d know a lot of the people there.” The old man chuckled. Apparently he had told this story many times before and still liked it.

  “What does your wife think about you going out to the base this morning carrying a pistol and rifle?”

  “She tol’ me to be careful and never forget my family or Texas.”

  “Good luck to you,” Brigadier General l’Angistino said. As he jogged back to his car, dog in tow, he thought, I’m the one who’s going to need the good luck.

  Newspapers all over Texas carried the news about independence in headlines in the largest type they had. The Dallas Morning News devoted its entire front section to the declaration and interviews with lawmakers, including a short one with the governor. Of the paper’s editorials and op-ed pieces, all but one favored independence in order to preserve the freedom of the people of Texas. The lone dissenter was the paper’s token liberal, whose column most Morning News subscribers read only for aggravation.

  The publisher defied federal edicts when he published the paper. He got away with it because the federal censors spent Sunday at FEMA headquarters getting briefed on the latest orders from Washington, which was in a dither, apparently, unsure how to handle those goddamn Texans.

  At eight that morning five FBI agents, two women and three men, plus a FEMA representative, showed up at the publisher’s house in one of Dallas’ toniest neighborhoods to arrest him.

  They were met by several dozen armed civilians. In the shootout that followed, one civilian was killed and another wounded, but all six of the federal officers died on the scene. Two minutes after the shooting stopped, there was one more shot, which may have
been a coup de grâce, but afterward none of the participants could recall hearing it.

  Leaving the agents and their weapons where they lay, the victors of this encounter took their dead comrade to a funeral home and the wounded man to a hospital. Then they went to Dallas FBI headquarters and arrested everyone they could find, even the office help. The sheriff incarcerated all the prisoners in the Dallas County jail. He had to release some drunks and potheads to make room.

  When the crowd, which had swelled to more than two hundred armed men and women, arrived at the Dallas FEMA building, they found it empty. The FEMA employees had fled: that was probably a good thing since the crowd was in an ugly mood.

  Later that morning a television reporter on Good Morning Texas questioned the sheriff, Milo Makepeace. Milo claimed he was a direct descendant of Comanche war chief Quanah Parker, and he had enough Indian blood in him to make that plausible, even if newspaper reporters had been unable to ever prove or disprove the relationship. Not that it mattered. With his dark skin tint and Indian features, Makepeace was Texas “to the bone.” The interview ran on Good Morning Texas, a popular morning staple for many in the Dallas area. The show ran fifteen seconds of footage of ambulance crews in front of the publisher’s house loading the bodies of the FBI and FEMA agents. Then the station aired the interview. The reporter asked about the slayings of the FBI and FEMA agents.

  “I don’t know a solitary thing about it,” Sheriff Makepeace said, “other than the fact they’re dead. I also was told that they had federal credentials and weapons on them. Maybe they got in a shootout and killed each other, or maybe they tangled with persons unknown. If they had packed up and gotten out of Texas yesterday, that incident wouldn’t have happened. It’s very sad that they didn’t.”

  “I understand you jailed some FBI agents this morning.”

  The sheriff nodded. “As of yesterday morning federal employees got no authority whatsoever in Texas. The FBI people had a lot of concealed weapons on them that they didn’t have permits for, which is a violation of the laws of Texas and Dallas County. Texans are big on self-help, and the folks in the crowd that brought them in looked like voters to me. I’m holding them until Jack Hays or a Texas judge tells me what to do with them.”