Liberty's Last Stand

by Stephen Coonts

  “When Lyndon Johnson was lobbying Congress to pass his Great Society programs, he reportedly said, ‘If we pass this the niggers will all vote Democratic for the next two centuries.’ I don’t know if he said that, but that has been the consequence. People do whatever it takes to get free money, because without an education and job opportunity they can’t make it in America. We have to change that or we won’t want to live in the poor socialist empire that will result.”

  Jack Hays sighed and pointed out, “Luwanda Harris and her Democratic allies will be outraged, accuse you and me of abandoning the poor people to exploitation and starvation, or worse.”

  “I know that. Medicine often tastes bad, but until we fix the government policies that breed poverty, we have condemned the poor, black, white, and brown to a life of economic slavery. Goddamn, Jack, a hundred fifty years after Lincoln and the Union Army freed the slaves, we’re still enslaved! Enslaved to the government! If there is to be a new life, a better life, for the poor people of Texas it has to start here and now. We can’t waste another hour.”

  Jack Hays read the note, which was Swim’s political wish list, a libertarian charter for abolishing everything from public employee unions to welfare to the minimum wage.

  “Why do you want to repeal the minimum wage?” Jack Hays asked.

  “Without trade and technical training our supply of unskilled workers is limitless,” Charlie Swim explained. “We are awash in illegals. Every economist I have talked to tells me that the minimum wage really means that unskilled labor cannot be hired and trained unless they can immediately contribute to their employer the minimum wage and the value of their benefits, plus an amount sufficient to pay for supervision and the expenses of doing the paperwork they require, such as payroll, deductions, and the rest of it. All that, plus a profit. The higher the minimum wage, the greater economic incentive for employers to automate or move jobs out of the country. We are never going to get wages up unless we let the free market determine the value of labor. Stopping the flow of illegals into Texas and getting some of them to leave will help. But as long as our schools turn out nothing but an endless supply of hamburger flippers and nail techs, industry goes begging for skilled labor and the free market can’t work.”

  Jack Hays kept Charlie talking for another fifteen minutes, looked at his watch, and knew he had to come to a decision.

  The governor looked Charlie Swim in the eye. “The legislature will never pass most of these things, and right now you and I lack the political capital to even push them hard. My suggestion is that you pick the most important thing on the list and push just that. For example, education reform. We need a public education system that trains people for the jobs we have and are going to see in the foreseeable future. That we can sell, maybe.”

  “We need that and a lot more.”

  “We can’t change the world in a week, a month, or even a year. We have to convince the voters we are advocating needed change. If you draft education reform as a war measure and tell every delegate and senator I’m for it, and shepherd it through, I’ll sign it if they don’t committee it to death or amend it beyond recognition. Tell them Texas can’t afford to waste valuable education dollars. Right now we need every able-bodied Texan without a job to enlist in the National Guard. But when our future is secure, we need an educational system in place that will prepare people for good jobs, veterans, high school kids, everyone.”

  Swim jumped out of his chair and shook the governor’s hand. “Thanks, Jack.”

  “Thank me after I sign it. Now go get at it.”

  At ten that night the war began in earnest. Two cruise missiles smashed into one of the main power plants in the Houston area, leaving a section of the city without electrical power. No doubt similar strikes would soon be forthcoming for power generation facilities all over Texas. Hospitals and key public institutions had to have emergency generating facilities up and running as soon as possible and be prepared to handle mass casualties. The director of emergency preparedness, Billy Rob Smith, left the governor’s office on the run in company with Lieutenant Governor Bullet G. Fitzroy. Jack Hays had already loaded Fitzroy with more tasks than the man could conceivably handle, but Fitzroy had a background as an executive at a large conglomerate and knew how to prioritize, delegate, and supervise.

  Ben Steiner remarked to Jack Hays that they would soon find out what Texans were made of.

  Sluggo Sweatt, the president’s man, sent for Jake Grafton, and within a few minutes he was escorted into the office where he had been interrogated. Grafton, like all the prisoners, was now clad in a red one-piece jumpsuit. That morning all the prisoners had been lined up, required to take off their civilian clothes, and issued jumpsuits. It wasn’t that the authorities thought any of them could escape; the jumpsuits were designed to lower their morale and emphasize their status as prisoners.

  Sweatt addressed him. “Mr. Grafton—you notice that I don’t call you Director Grafton or Admiral Grafton, because you are no longer entitled to either honorific—are you ready to talk sense and sign a confession?”

  “No,” Jake Grafton said and dropped into a chair.

  “Stand up when I talk to you,” Sweatt said sharply. Jake did so.

  “Your wife, Callie, and daughter, Amy—have you heard from them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your cell phone, please.” Sluggo held out his hand.

  Jake removed it from the pocket of his jumpsuit and passed it across. Sluggo played with it a moment. He called up the numbers and jotted them down.

  Allowing detainees, or prisoners, to retain their cell phones was counterintuitive, but Sluggo and his friends knew precisely what they were doing. Prisoners could make and receive calls from their friends, or anyone else. The prisoners would tell their sad tales and fear would spread like a hothouse fungus. Friends on the outside would soon cease to reach out to the prisoners, who would quickly become psychologically isolated.

  Finally Sluggo slid the phone back across the desk. Jake didn’t reach for it.

  “Three more people have confessed their roles in the plot to kill the president and take over the government. They implicated you. Swore that you knew, that they had discussed key items of the plan with you on several occasions.”

  The assassination of the president was a new wrinkle on the coup, Grafton noted sourly. When he said nothing, Sweatt added, “The prosecutors are thinking of asking for the death penalty for you.”

  Still no response.

  Sluggo Sweatt sighed. “Well, I’ve done all I can for you. I’ve told you the situation. You need to go back to your tent and think about your future. A confession would keep you alive.”

  Jake stood totally relaxed.

  “Take the phone.”

  Jake pocketed it, and Sweatt nodded to the man behind Grafton, who took his arm and led him out.

  He thought that the next time they brought him in the rough stuff would start, physical abuse, and threats against his family.

  Jake Grafton knew that most men can be broken if the captors have the time to create enough pain. He didn’t know if he was one of those rare men who could summon the inner strength to resist to the death, but he hoped—make that prayed—he was. Many years ago when he flew combat missions over enemy country in constant danger of being shot down, he had made up his mind to never surrender. Ever. Sluggo might make him prove it.

  As he walked through the compound, he wondered what Sluggo Sweatt knew about the shenanigans at the White House.

  The compound was crowded now. Jake estimated there were about two thousand people milling around. He recognized at least three congressmen and two senators. And then he saw someone whose face he knew well: Sal Molina, the president’s right-hand political op. Now, apparently, his former political op. Wearing a red jumpsuit.

  “Well, well, well,” Grafton said as Molina recognized him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Molina turned his back on Grafton, who grabbed an arm and spun him around. Th
at was when he realized tears were leaking from Molina’s eyes.

  “Did the hard-liners throw you out of the inner sanctum?” Grafton asked roughly. “Or did you just decide you needed a summer vacation courtesy of the taxpayers?”

  Molina’s Adam’s apple went up and down a few times. “Texas insulted Soetoro with their Declaration of Independence. He took it real personal. Since I’m from Texas and have relatives there, he decided he didn’t want me around.”

  “Can’t say that I blame him.”

  “I tried to warn you, Jake.”

  “So you did.”

  After they had eaten dinner, some kind of stew with a little hamburger in it, Jake Grafton, Sal Molina, and Jack Yocke, the Washington Post’s erstwhile columnist, settled under Grafton’s favorite tree. The ground was damp from a morning shower, but they could talk in semi-privacy here, something they couldn’t do elsewhere, not even in the latrine, which consisted of rows of commodes with no stalls.

  Yocke rattled off the latest news, gleaned from his cell phone; Grafton and Molina made few comments. Then Yocke asked Sal Molina point-blank, “So what’s the big plan over at the White House? I’ll bet they almost creamed their pants when the Saturday terrorists went hog wild.”

  “I don’t know,” Molina replied.

  “You lying bastard. They’ve been planning martial law for years. Some people have even suggested Soetoro’s boys gave the terrorists the weapons.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “But Schanck and Al Grantham jumped all over it, didn’t they?”

  “Is this off the record?”

  “Oh, lighten up, dude. Like I’m going over the fence tonight and this interview will be in the Post tomorrow.”

  “They might eventually let you out.”

  “Might?”

  “Might. Maybe after Soetoro drops dead of old age or cancer or something.”

  “Answer the question, Sal,” Grafton prompted.

  Molina took a deep breath and looked around for eavesdroppers. Finally he said in a low voice, “Yes. They told the president he had to do it. It would be unpopular, but martial law was the only way to save the progressive revolution. Soetoro loved it. This was his chance to change the course of history, to save the planet. The bastard has a messianic complex.”

  “He’s got a lot of complexes,” Jake Grafton muttered.

  “More than you can imagine. For example, Barry and Mickey do S and M. She’s a dominatrix. I guess he needs it, although don’t ask me why. They didn’t talk about that kind of stuff in psych class when I went to college.”

  “Hell, that’s old news,” Yocke scoffed. “For seven years I’ve heard rumors that Soetoro is gay. People have even accused him of being a gay prostitute when he was younger, servicing old queens for drugs.”

  Grafton asked Yocke, “So how come your fine newspaper hasn’t investigated these rumors about Soetoro?”

  “The editors don’t think that crap is news,” the Post’s man explained. “They’re liberals. Some of them are gay, and for all I know some of them are swingers or dig S and M. Soetoro is liberal and black. He gets a pass. Now if he were some white Republican presidential candidate, they’d have had reporters investigate every day of his life from the moment his mom popped him out. You’d be reading about spitwads he threw in second grade and how many hours of detention hall he got in junior high.” Yocke made a gesture dismissing the whole subject.

  After a pause he asked Molina, “So why does Soetoro want to frame Grafton for plotting an assassination?”

  “Spymasters are good villains,” Molina explained. “They do a lot of secret shit they can never tell about, so people will believe almost any accusation. And the president doesn’t like Grafton. And, of course, right-wing plots give the public something to talk about instead of terrorism and jihad in America. And S and M. Matt Drudge got the story from some Secret Service guy and was trying to get confirmation when a White House maid ratted him out. Still, Drudge might have broken the story anyway, so Soetoro had that hanging over his head when the terrorists did their thing. That helped push Soetoro to martial law now.”

  “He doesn’t like a lot of people,” Yocke replied. “Is he going to frame them all?”

  “Oh no. He’s just going to lock them up in concentration camps. Hitler and Stalin wrote the playbook.”

  “I suppose they grabbed Matt Drudge.”

  “He was locked up before the declaration. He’s in solitary someplace. Drudge isn’t the Washington Post; he would have run the story.”

  “So you’re telling me that we’re sitting in a concentration camp and the United States is about to bomb Texas because Soetoro is a pervert?”

  “That’s about the size of it. As my old Marxist professors used to say, ‘The personal is the political.’”

  We were leaving the restaurant when Sarah Houston said to me, “Are you going to sleep at the lock shop tonight?”

  “Yes, unless I get a better offer.”

  “I feel the need for your manly presence to reassure me,” she said.

  “That’s a better offer.”

  In the parking lot we agreed to meet at the lock shop tomorrow morning at eight. “This is it, guys,” I told them. “Bring whatever you need for the op. I have no idea when we’ll be back.”

  “After Barry Soetoro is dead,” Travis Clay said gloomily.

  “Christmas, maybe,” Willis Coffee offered.

  “The Fourth of July,” Willie the Wire chimed in. “Bring an extra set of underwear.”

  On that note we parted.

  Back at Sarah’s place, she fixed drinks, Grand Marnier this time. “I didn’t know you kept this stuff around,” I remarked.

  “For the road,” she told me, and lifted her glass.

  In bed she whispered, “You know we will probably all soon be dead.”

  “No one lives forever.” That was a stupid remark. I sounded brave, which was a lie. Bravery is not on my short list of virtues. I’m anything but.

  “I want more of this,” she said.

  “Me too,” I agreed. The hell with it. Live today…

  Wiley Fehrenbach and JR Hays decided to welcome any contingent that came to take the El Paso National Guard armory with a little ambush, then the ambushers would evade. Washington was probably lighting a fire under Lee Parker, so it was just a matter of time before he sent troops to the armory. This time it wouldn’t be ten troopers and a colonel. This time he’d send the first team, some tanks, and maybe an infantry company, all with orders to shoot to kill.

  Army Apache helicopters were already circling the area. Armed with Hellfire missiles and rockets, they could incinerate any vehicle, and their Gatling guns were hell on exposed troops.

  The Apaches were the reason the Guard hadn’t moved from the compound all day. Let the army open the ball, Wiley Fehrenbach and JR Hays reasoned, while they waited for the Fort Hood helicopters that were the equalizers. Every minute brought them closer.

  JR was in Fehrenbach’s office. He heard thunder and watched lightning from the window. A soldier rushed in; three colonels followed.

  “Sir,” the soldier blurted. “Four tanks and four Bradleys are coming out the main gate of Fort Bliss.”

  Wiley Fehrenbach looked at his colonels and said, “You know what to do.”

  The colonels saluted, “Yes, sir!”

  “Wait!” JR roared. He got on a handheld radio. “Milestone One Six, this is JR.”

  “One Six, go ahead.”

  JR could hear the engine; the Blackhawk was airborne.

  “At least four tanks and four Bradleys are coming from Fort Bliss, probably headed toward the armory. We need you to take out any airborne Apaches you can find, over.”

  “Can do.”

  “Leave the stuff on the ground to us. Over.”

  “One Six copies. Out.”

  “Some of those Apaches are ours, along with a Blackhawk,” JR told the colonels. “Don’t let your men shoot at a helicopter unless they
are absolutely sure it’s the enemy. Now go.”

  For the first time that day, JR felt optimistic. Lee Parker had dithered too long.

  He got more news when a trooper announced, “We’re destroying the decryption gear, sir, so the army doesn’t get it.” JR nodded, and the trooper handed him a batch of messages from Camp Mabry.

  The first was from Loren Snyder: “She can be moved. I’m searching for men.”

  Another, from Elvin Gentry: “Dyess surrendered. Airplanes, weapons depot, and fuel facilities not sabotaged. Am recruiting crews. Awaiting further orders.”

  FIFTEEN

  Lightning was flashing from the clouds and gusts of rain and wind were pounding on the Blackhawk as it ran at a hundred feet above the housetops toward the El Paso National Guard armory, the coordinates of which the crew had punched into their GPS systems. The Blackhawk rocked and rolled in the turbulence. Fortunately the myriad lights of the city were still on, houses alight, street lights, traffic on the boulevards, so they had a good ground reference. Two Apaches were behind the Blackhawk, one on the right, one on the left.

  If the city had been blacked out, Sabiston would have kept his crews on the ground. Still, they could go into inadvertent IFR conditions at any moment if some of this cloud dripped toward the ground, or if they hit a column of rain, or if the ground rose up into a cloud. If they flew under a thunderstorm, with its river of cold air descending out the bottom, all bets would be off: It would be all the pilots could do to keep their machines from being driven into the ground. Or a house. Or a school. Or a telephone pole. Of course, the same held true for the army pilots in their Apaches. Sabiston was listening on the Fort Bliss air traffic frequencies, trying to discover how many of their Apaches were airborne.

  It sounded like only one base Apache was still airborne, and the pilot was bitching about the weather. “I gotta get on the ground,” he told the tower.

  Sabiston keyed the intercom to talk to his copilot. “Good news. Only one enemy Apache in the air, and he wants to come down. So what do ya think?”