Liberty's Last Stand

by Stephen Coonts

  Rose-Marie McGarrity’s F-16 was over Galveston when her radar showed a low target running fast to the northwest; it had to be a Tomahawk.

  She rolled her fighter and plunged down, pulling Gs and getting her nose well in front of the missile on a course to intercept. Down through a layer of clouds, down into the gray day underneath, closing on the blip that had to be a cruise missile. It was doing about five hundred knots. Due to the angle at which she was intercepting, she didn’t need her afterburner. Yet. She flipped switches, arming the Sidewinders. If she could get a lock-on… .

  Intercepting at a forty-five-degree angle, still diving into the hot, humid turbulent summer air, Rose-Marie McGarrity found that visibility underneath the goo was no more than four or five miles. She doubted that she would see the missile. This air was like thin soup and she was bouncing in turbulence. She checked to ensure her radar altimeter was set at two hundred feet: it would give her an audible warning if she got within two hundred feet of the surface of the earth.

  Then she heard a tone from the Sidewinder, indicating it was locked on a heat source. She was down to five hundred feet above the ground, doing about Mach .9. The target was dead ahead, crossing slowly from right to left.

  With the tone in her ears, she punched off a Sidewinder, a heat-seeker.

  It left the rail with a blast of fire and shot forward into the haze almost too fast for the eye to follow.

  McGarrity was looking through the heads-up display, the HUD, at the target symbol, when she saw the flash. The Sidewinder had scored a kill.

  Instantly she was off the juice and soaring upward and right, to point her radar out to sea, just in case.

  And, by golly, here came another one. Four or five hundred feet above the earth, scorching along to the northwest. McGarrity got that one with a Sidewinder too. Elation flooded her. This fighter pilot gig was hot shit! Again she soared up and turned southeast, toward the sea.

  Two minutes later, she found a third Tomahawk on radar, this one going almost north. Catching it meant a chase, so she engaged the burner and let her fighter accelerate as it again went down toward Mother Earth. She didn’t see the Tomahawk until she was about four miles from it—it was a little thing, only visible because the radar told her exactly where to look. She kept the juice on, coming in from an angle, nose well in front to bounce it by sliding up behind it. Gun selected. She kept the missile just below the visible horizon, because to dip below it was to risk flying into the ground. Flying this fast this close to the planet was sublime, a sensory overload.

  She was only a mile from it, flying at just above two hundred feet on a course to intercept, closing at Mach 1.2, when she saw something out of the left corner of her eye. Even as the object registered as a radio tower, she hit one of the supporting cables with her left wing.

  At that speed, about 1,300 feet per second, the steel cable sliced halfway through the wing as if it were cheese; the spar in the left wing broke and the wing separated from the racing F-16.

  There was just no time to react. In a tiny fraction of a second the F-16 rolled hard left, the nose dropped, and the fighter smacked into the ground inverted. The fireball rolled along the land for a thousand yards, dribbling pieces of airplane and Rose-Marie McGarrity. Two houses and one barn caught fire. Smoke mixed with the thick, humid haze.

  No one spoke in the control room of Texas. They knew that passive antisubmarine torpedoes were hunting them. And the pundits said the age of robots was still in the future!

  “Put out some more decoys,” Loren Snyder said. Jugs Aranado went to the control panel and launched four.

  “Where’s the bottom?” Loren asked.

  “Two thousand feet down.”

  “Take us to fifteen hundred,” he said to Ada Fuentes.

  The sub continued its descent as water poured into the ballast tanks. Snyder was worried. Virginia-class submarines were the quietest ever made, and the antisubmarine torpedoes weren’t designed to find subs this quiet. But…

  The tension mounted. They could be dead in a moment. Each breath could be their last, each heartbeat.

  “Do you hear the torpedoes?” Loren asked George Ranta.

  “Too much noise,” he whispered. “I hear pinging but I can’t get a direction.”

  Boom. The explosion rocked the boat. One of the torpedoes had found a decoy.

  And another boom.

  “More pinging,” Ranta said.

  Where had the other torpedoes gone?

  “We’ve got to turn,” Ada said. “That production platform is dead ahead.”

  “Right ninety degrees.” The boat was still going down. Fourteen hundred feet and sinking.

  But they were still alive.

  They heard two more explosions. Well away.

  “The torpedoes went for a platform,” Ranta said.

  A wave of relief swept over the little crew of Texas.

  “There are more of them out there,” Ranta said. “I can hear at least one. Maybe circling.” They turned the boat toward the noise and waited. Finally the noise from the torpedo’s engine faded.

  Snyder said to Fuentes and Aranado, “Go back up, so we can use the photonics mast.” To Ranta he said, “You must keep us clear of those platforms.”

  “I can hear them.”

  So they rose slowly from the depths. When the photonics mast was raised, it revealed the injured destroyers lying dead in the water at least six miles to the west. The damaged production platform still stood, but no doubt the crew on it was on their radio reporting the torpedoed destroyers and the torpedoes that struck the platform. And trying desperately to prevent a major oil spill.

  Loren Snyder was exhausted. He’d slept six hours in three days. “Let’s get the hell out of the gulf,” he said. “Jugs, lay a course for the Straits of Florida. When we are clear of these platforms, take us back down to a thousand feet so the P-3s can’t find us. I’m going to sleep.”

  He staggered along to the tiny captain’s cabin and collapsed into the bunk.

  Fifty-five of the sixty-three Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by USS O’Hare and Harlan Jones actually impacted Texas power plants. The resulting explosions took seventeen power plants off the grid instantly. Subsequent inspections revealed that at least nine of them could be repaired, and they began producing electricity, at least at a reduced level, within a week or two. The remaining eight were damaged beyond salvage.

  The Texas government kept the amount of damage a closely held secret, although within a day or two satellite reconnaissance would allow analysts in Washington to make reasonably accurate assessments.

  No doubt more Tomahawks were in Texas’ future.

  A few minutes before three that Friday afternoon, six Secret Service agents climbed from an SUV in front of the main entrance of the Pentagon and went inside. They were escorted to the E-Ring, where they arrested Admiral Sugar Ray, the army chief of staff, and the air force chief of staff. They put all three men in handcuffs and took them to the ground level of the building and into the interior courtyard. The sun was shining and the temperature was already in the low nineties.

  Each man was handcuffed to a small tree with his hands behind his back. Admiral Ray knew what was coming. He cursed himself for waiting so long. We should have done it yesterday, he thought bitterly.

  The senior agent drew his weapon and shot each of them in the head. Sugar Ray just happened to be last. “Rot in Hell,” Ray told the agent, who then pulled the trigger.

  The agents left the bodies handcuffed to the trees, walked back through the Pentagon, past those horrified officers and enlisted who had actually managed to get to work today, and out the main entrance to their waiting car.

  Al Grantham was worried. He had visions of squads of armed troops coming into the White House and arresting the president and everyone around him, taking them to some dungeon and chaining them to the wall. Shooting three senior officers at the Pentagon was an in-your-face insult the armed services couldn’t ignore.

&
nbsp; He broached the subject to the president, who sneered. “They’ll do nothing,” he said. “They are bureaucrats, paper-pushers, and they achieved their high ranks by not making waves.” The president lit a cigarette and puffed on it contentedly. “We have nothing to fear from the generals. They have taken orders since their first day in uniform. Nothing in their experience has prepared them for the day when their superiors might use violence to make them behave.”

  “They aren’t cowards.”

  “Oh,” said Soetoro with a hint of derision in his voice, “but they are. They believe in nothing but the holy flag, keeping the boss happy, and collecting their pensions in the good by and by. The man who believes in something and will use any means to get it will leave them at a loss.”

  Grantham’s face reflected his doubt.

  “Relax,” Barry Soetoro said. “Whatever they are, they are not gamblers. When have you ever known one of them to take a risk?”

  TWENTY-SIX

  A couple of days after our first visit, Armanti Hall and I decided to call on Angelica Price to deliver a deer haunch. A little fresh meat always goes well, we thought, and maybe we could trade for some fresh potatoes and beans.

  We were in civvies and wearing our web belts that morning, and each of us had an M4 beside us in the cab of Armanti’s pickup. There weren’t many vehicles on the roads, but the pickups we passed were piled high with firewood and one was hauling a steer. I wondered if it was stolen.

  We followed the little ribbon of asphalt into the hills. When Angelica Price’s house came into view, we saw three cars parked nearby. One looked as if it were about eight years old, the other two were show-room new. The new cars didn’t have license plates.

  We coasted on by for about fifty yards, then Armanti stopped and I got out with my M4. “I’ll go look the cars over. How about you snuggling up against the bank there and give me cover if I need it.”

  “Notice that there are only two cows in the pasture now?”

  I hadn’t, but a quick scan showed he was correct.

  I strolled back with the M4 under my arm, just in case. The new cars weren’t locked. One had 170 miles on it, the other 180. The older car, a gray Toyota, wore a Maryland license plate.

  “Hey, man!” A black guy with a rifle was walking toward me from the house. At a glance, the rifle looked like Angelica Price’s old lever action.

  “Get away from them cars!”

  I was partially shielded by the front end of the old one, and I retreated one step to get a little more metal between us. I snicked the safety off the M4.

  “Where’s Mrs. Price?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “This is her house.” I was scanning on both sides. I could see someone at the window of the house watching, and the window was open. If there were anyone to the right or left in the pasture or garden, I didn’t see him.

  “You mean that old white woman? She’s out in the chicken coop, man. Gave us some shit, she did.”

  “She dead?”

  “Not yet. If you don’t get the fuck outta here, you—”

  That’s when I swung the M4 up and fired a burst at his legs. He went down hard and lost the rifle.

  Someone fired from the house. I heard the bullet smack into the car. The report sounded like a pistol to me. The distance was about sixty yards, and whoever fired wasn’t a good pistol shot.

  I couched down, used the car hood for a rest, and put a burst into the window. Silence followed.

  On my right, I could see Armanti removing two AT4s from the back of his pickup. Apparently sneaking up on the house and taking a chance on getting shot didn’t appeal to him, either. I hoped the thug lying in the yard had told the truth about Mrs. Price.

  Armanti ran up the road, using the embankment of a drainage ditch as cover.

  To keep their heads down, I fired another burst through the window.

  The guy lying in the yard was moaning, holding on to his left thigh. I could see blood at this distance, about twenty yards. Looked like a bullet had clipped an artery.

  I moved aft along my mobile fortress, with just the top of my head showing. Armanti was about a hundred yards away now, looking back at me. I gave him a thumbs-up.

  He stood. He had one of the AT4 tubes on his right shoulder. Five seconds, six, then the exhaust blast behind him raised a cloud of crap from the road.

  He had fired at the base of the chimney of the house, which was probably the only thing hard enough to trigger the detonator of the armor-piercing missile warhead.

  The windows blew out, flame gushed forth, and the roof rose a few feet, then crashed down. In seconds the house was on fire.

  I began a bent-over trot toward the house. Looked at the guy lying in the yard with blood pumping between his fingers.

  “Help me, man,” he pleaded.

  I grabbed the pistol in his waistband and left him there.

  The house was blazing nicely. No one in the yard or garden. One of the exterior walls of the house was tilting out, falling slowly. I glanced through the open door into the fire. Anyone in there was too far gone to save, even if I wanted to be a hero, which I didn’t. Near the garden was a hole with a fire smoldering. Looked like a barbecue pit. Pieces of cowhide and half a carcass were lying near it.

  I went on around to the chicken coop, the M4 ready to go. Only one chicken was in sight.

  Mrs. Price was lying on the hay in the shed. She had been smacked in the side of the head with a pistol several times; one of the blows had laid open her scalp. Now her gray hair was matted with blood.

  Beside her were a dead white man and an unconscious white woman. Sparks from the house were causing the hay to smoke. I stepped on the hot spots, and pulled the two women and the dead man out of the shed.

  “Mrs. Price. Mrs. Price, it’s Tommy Carmellini. We were by to see you a couple of days ago. Remember?”

  Armanti walked up, looking grim. “The one in the front yard is still alive.”

  “Find out who these people were,” I said. He trotted off.

  I went through the dead man’s pockets. His driver’s license in his wallet, which was empty of cash, said his name was Lincoln B. Greenwood, of Clarksville, Maryland.

  Mrs. Price was stirring. She was a tough one.

  “They killed him for the fun of it,” she said. “He refused to beg. That’s his wife, Anne.” Only her left eye tracked. “They got here an hour before the others showed up.”

  “Mrs. Price, I’m going to carry you to the pickup. Then I’ll come back for Mrs. Greenwood. We’ve got to get you two ladies to a doctor.”

  She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. After I deposited her in the truck, I stopped by where Armanti was squatting beside the wounded man.

  “He says they’re from Baltimore,” Armanti told me. “Four guys and a whore. Stole the new cars from a dealer and hit the road. Nothing to eat in Baltimore. Stopped here because they were about out of gas.”

  Blood was still pumping from that hole in the guy’s leg. He had three or four other holes in his legs, and the right leg was obviously broken, but the one high in his left thigh was a real bleeder. His jeans were sodden. He was lying back on the grass and had relaxed his hold on his thigh.

  “Let me have the keys to your truck. Got to get two women to a doctor. I’ll be back for you after a while.”

  Armanti handed me the keys from his pocket. “This one’s gonna be gone soon.”

  “They pistol-whipped the women and killed the man driving the gray sedan,” I told him. “Don’t forget Mrs. Price’s rifle.”

  I went on to the chicken coop, picked up Anne Greenwood, who had been struck at least twice recently. She also had an old welt across her face. I carried her to the pickup. The wreckage of the house was completely aflame when I drove off.

  Dr. Proudfoot was in at the clinic in Greenbank. I carried Anne Greenwood in first. The doctor was attending to his nurse, who had been whacked on the head.

  “Got two women for
you, Doctor. They’ve both been pistol-whipped. This is Mrs. Greenwood.”

  “Just like my nurse. An hour ago. We were held up at gunpoint by a gang of pill-billies looking for drugs. We didn’t have any painkillers, but they took every drug I had.”

  I carried Mrs. Greenwood into the examining room and put her on a gurney. Went back to the truck and brought Angelica Price in. I put her on a gurney in the second examining room.

  “My God,” the doctor said. “I know Mrs. Price. Why on earth?”

  “Baltimore thugs. They were after her food. Have you called the law?”

  “No phone. They wouldn’t have come, anyway. Everyone is busy getting robbed or robbing the neighbors. It’s anarchy. Maybe the lawmen are home taking care of their families. I would be if I were one of them.”

  He finished bandaging the nurse and sent her home. Then he spoke to Mrs. Price. “Can you hear me, Angelica?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “I want you to just lie here quietly and let me look at Mrs. Greenwood. Will you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  I sat holding Mrs. Price’s hand while Proudfoot worked on Mrs. Greenwood.

  “Pills,” she said bitterly. “The hollow trash is on meth and OxyContin. Surprised they aren’t robbing drugstores.”

  “No doubt they are,” I said. “This little clinic looked too good to pass up, I suspect.”

  “Thanks for coming by, Tommy,” she said.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  Twenty minutes passed before the doctor returned. “Mrs. Greenwood is in a deep coma. She needs to be in a hospital, but the one nearest here is closed.”

  “What can you do for her?”

  “Pray.”

  He began examining Mrs. Price. “You have a concussion too, Angelica. I’m going to clean up that cut on your scalp and stitch it up, but that’s about all I can do. You should be in a hospital too, but since there isn’t one around, you need to stay in bed. You’re going to have a terrible headache. We’ll pray for you too.”

  “I don’t think much of prayer,” Angelica Price told him. “I’ve been praying every night that Barry Soetoro would wake up dead, but apparently God hasn’t taken him yet.”