Liberty's Last Stand

by Stephen Coonts

  “He did.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “He didn’t have anything to do with it,” I told him and put the phone back in its cradle. It rang again. I figured that we were going to get a lot of calls, so I unplugged the phone. I looked into the studio and saw that Sarah was doing the same thing to the phone in there. I could hear the phone ringing in the manager’s office, so I walked down and unplugged that one too.

  Tobe Baha, the Secret Service sniper, was having dinner that evening at his hotel on Congress Avenue in Austin. It was a nice hotel, perfect for expense-account executives and rich oilmen bringing their wives or girlfriends to see the bright lights of the big city. Tobe thought his odd hours would bring less notice here and he would have to answer fewer well-meaning questions than he would have at some cheap motel on the interstate where guests rarely stayed more than a night or two.

  So he was studying the menu and contemplating ordering a steak when three men entered the dining room, looked around, and seeing him, walked purposefully toward his table. They were in civilian clothes wearing sports coats, and from the slight bulges he could see that they were packing pistols in their armpits. After years in the Secret Service, he could spot an armed man at fifty yards.

  The man in front seated himself on Tobe’s left and put an iPad on the table. The other two took the remaining chairs.

  “Good evening, Mr. Baha,” the man on his left said. He was the older of the three, in his mid-fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair getting thin on top. “I’m Colonel Frank Tenney. I’m the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety. These gentlemen are colleagues of mine.”

  Tobe tried to hide his surprise, and did fairly well, he thought. He was registered at this hotel under a false name, so the use of his real name put him on notice.

  “Are you carrying this evening?” Tenney asked, just making conversation.

  Tobe tried to look surprised. “Of course not.”

  Tenney just nodded. The waitress came over, delivered Tobe’s Scotch on the rocks, passed out menus to the new arrivals, and inquired about drinks. The lawmen all ordered iced tea.

  “I have some video on my iPad I’d like to show you,” Tenney said, then picked up the tablet and began playing with it. In a few seconds, he placed it so Tobe could see it.

  The screen began showing aerial shots. Tobe Baha instantly knew what he was looking at: drone surveillance video. And there he was, in the van, parking it, getting out, looking around, strolling the street. Then there were shots of Tobe up on roofs, using the laser rangefinder, back on the street, driving through the city, going into stores and public places…

  After three or so minutes, Tenney picked up the iPad and shut it off. He put it on his left.

  Tenney smiled at Baha. The waitress came back with the drinks. Tenney told her that they would not be staying for dinner. She looked at Tobe, who told her, “Later.”

  When she had moved off, Tenney said, “We were surprised when you showed up in Austin, since Texas is no longer a part of the United States and Barry Soetoro isn’t planning a visit, at least to the best of my knowledge.”

  Tobe picked up the Scotch and sipped it. His hand was steady, and he hoped that the colonel noticed that. If he did, he gave no sign.

  “We thought that perhaps you were here to use your sniper skills on someone in Austin. Of course, we haven’t yet seen you with your rifle. No doubt it is somewhere in Austin, and if necessary we could arrest you and search and find it. It will probably have your fingerprints on it and so forth. But President Hays thought that an arrest and trial would not be good for future relations between Texas and the United States.”

  Colonel Tenney leaned toward Tobe Baha. He was speaking softly, and his eyes were impossible to avoid. “I also thought about disappearing you. That would solve any diplomatic problems, and the justice system wouldn’t have the expense of fooling with you. Do you understand?”

  Those eyes boring into his made evasion impossible. “Yes,” Tobe said.

  “That’s good. We’re tying up a lot of people flying these drones and keeping tabs on you, and enough is enough. So I stopped by this evening to let you know. If a sniper fires a shot anywhere in Austin and you’re still around, we’ll come for you. You will be killed resisting arrest and be buried somewhere in west Texas in an unmarked grave. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Barry Soetoro or your Secret Service colleagues may decide that you have lived long enough, so you may want to rethink your return to the States. Be that as it may, you may reside in Texas as long as you never again show your face in Austin. If someone fires a rifle in Austin and you are around after this evening, you are a walking dead man.”

  Tenney stood and picked up his iPad. “Just a friendly warning. You can pay for our tea.”

  He and his colleagues walked out of the restaurant.

  Tobe Baha drained his Scotch. He glanced at the menu, decided he wasn’t hungry, and ordered another drink.

  About ten after six, Travis Clay came through the alley door of the radio station with four buffed-up guys. “Grafton sent Mr. Shinaberry home. The sheriff and city police chief were there and we won’t have any trouble with them.”

  “Patriots are they?”

  “With twenty-five hundred armed people at Dawson, they saw the light, whether they are patriots or Soetoro loyalists.” He gestured to the other men. “Grafton thought we could use more help.”

  “Get Willis in here.”

  The ex-soldiers, for that is what they were, stood listening to the radio feed on the loudspeakers, shaking their heads. One of them muttered, “That son of a bitch.”

  I briefed the troops. Two of them at each end of the alley. I sent Willis across the street and asked him to put an M240 machine gun on the roof of the old bank building on the corner; the false brick front would give him a little protection. Travis was to be on the roof on the other corner with another M240. These were belt-fed guns that fired the 7.62×51 NATO cartridges. I would have our third machine gun, an M249 that was fed by a belt of 5.56x45 NATO cartridges, inside here on the counter. “Lots of grenades and AT4s. We’ll make the street in front our killing zone.”

  Everyone trooped out to the FEMA truck, where Willis passed out weapons and ammo. We carried some MREs into the station, and I drove the truck around back and backed in up to the alley door. We carried stuff in. I brought in two boxes of ammo for my machine gun, an M4 carbine, a dozen grenades, and a couple of AT4s.

  I was feeding a belt of ammo into the M249 when Josh came out. He looked at the weapons and ammo and at me. “Where did you people get that recording?”

  “What did Sarah tell you?”

  “That a little bird gave it to her.”

  “There you are.”

  “I’m getting the hell outta here,” he said, and marched for the alley door. I heard his old ride fire up. Josh needed new mufflers. Then it went away down the alley.

  After a while Sarah came out. “It’s all automatic,” she said. “I don’t need to sit there and watch it.”

  “Want some dinner?”

  She gave me The Look.

  “I put some MREs in the break room. There’s a microwave. I’d like meatloaf, some potatoes, and corn.”

  “Yes, General,” she said, and marched away.

  As I dug into my gourmet repast—Sarah could do MREs, let me tell you—individual cars and pickups, each full of people, kept creeping down the street and looking into the radio station. Finally I wised up and turned off the lights in the office.

  It was after nine o’clock and Soetoro was plotting with Al Grantham and Sulana Schanck on how they would turn off the power and blame it on the right-wing constitutionalists, when a van pulling an army generator drifted to a stop at the curb outside. The van had a big, flexible aerial mounted on the rear bumper.

  I cradled the M4 and waited. A woman walked around the van, tried the door to the station, found it unlocked, and came in. I could see a
guy still in the van.

  The woman looked at the machine gun, the grenades on the counter, and me. “I’m Dixie Cotton,” she said. She couldn’t have been a day over thirty, with a sexy bedroom voice and a figure to match. She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt that revealed everything she had, which was a lot.

  “Tommy Carmellini.”

  Sarah came from the hallway. I introduced the two.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Sarah said. “Aren’t you ‘The Mouth of the South’?”

  “It’s been said,” she admitted modestly. It sure had. She had a talk show on an Atlanta radio station and thrived on controversy, which she created by trashing everyone who disagreed with her, which was practically everybody.

  “I thought Soetoro had FEMA lock you up as a dangerous subversive. How did you get out?”

  “A doctor certified that I was crazy and some of my friends paid a few bribes, so they turned me loose.”

  “Could I get a certification like that?” I asked hopefully.

  “So where did you people get that recording?”

  “You know the old story: if I told you I’d have to kill you,” I said deadpan.

  “Bullshit,” she said dismissively. “Is it real?”

  “Of course.”

  “I run a mobile pirate radio station these days, during the current difficulty, while my station in Atlanta is up to its armpits in federal censors. I’d like a copy of that recording. I’ll cruise Washington and broadcast it.”

  “They’ll kill you if they catch you,” I told her, “tits, mouth, and all.”

  “Not the way I work it, they won’t. They’ve been trying for four days and haven’t caught me yet.”

  “You’re living on borrowed time.”

  “That’s my lookout.”

  “Sarah, what do you think?”

  She shrugged. “Can you use thumb drives?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s make you some.” And Sarah led her into the studio.

  Cars and pickups crept by at random intervals all evening. The locals were getting an earful and they were curious.

  About midnight, an army truck pulled up outside and soldiers piled out of the back. Jake Grafton climbed down from the cab, carefully, and led the soldiers, six of them, inside. The soldiers were in full combat gear, with helmets, weapons, and body armor. Grafton was wearing a camo shirt and trousers. Willie Varner was the only one in civilian duds, and he was carrying an M4.

  Grafton introduced the soldiers. Two army officers and four senior sergeants, all with combat experience. “They came to Dawson with General Netherton,” he explained. “Where do you want them?”

  “On the roofs on this side of the street,” I said to them. “The street is the kill zone. Don’t let any of the bad guys get into this office.”

  We talked about frequencies, because they all had handheld radios, and they trooped out.

  “FEMA and Homeland have at least a dozen people on the way,” he said. “They’re on the clear-voice radio. Soetoro is raving mad.”

  I told him about Dixie Cotton. “She’s nuts,” I added. “Literally and figuratively. Certified even. They’ll execute her.”

  “That’s her problem,” Jake Grafton said. He looked around. “Break out those windows. You want the glass on the sidewalk, not flying around in here.”

  “I’m worried about the radio tower, which is out on some knoll called Mount Morgan.”

  “We have it covered,” he said. He glanced at the machine gun on the counter. “Is that where you want it?”

  “I doubt if they’ll be stupid enough to drive up in front of the joint, but if they do …”

  “A man can always hope,” he said.

  “You could ambush these dudes on the way into town,” I pointed out.

  “It’ll take most of the night to get ambushes set up. We’ll whack the second wave. You deal with the first bunch.”

  “If they get a bullet into the equipment in the studio we are well and truly fucked,” I remarked.

  “Make sure they don’t.”

  I almost said something I would probably have regretted later, but I managed to stifle myself.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Willie.

  “I’m your bodyguard.”

  As if I needed something else to worry about.

  “You had dinner?”

  “Oh, yeah. They’re good feeders over at that camp.”

  “You should have joined the army when you were a kid.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  Grafton, Sarah, and I chatted for a bit, the admiral shook Sarah’s hand and mine, then went back out and climbed into the army truck, which got under way in a cloud of diesel exhaust.

  “There goes the next president of the United States,” Sarah said.

  “Not after Jack Yocke gets through with him,” I replied.

  “Screw Jack Yocke,” Sarah said.

  Sarah went into the break room, which had a cot, and sacked out. I broke out the office windows, as Grafton had suggested.

  Willie was in a talkative mood. He carefully laid his M4 on the counter. “Nice shooter,” he said with feeling.

  “You know which end the bullet comes out of?”

  “The little tiny round end with the asshole. I shot that thing this evenin’ at the range and the guy in charge said I was a natural-born marksman.”

  “Was coming over here your idea?”

  “Yeah. I was sittin’ beside Grafton participatin’ in a high strategy session when a radio dude came runnin’ in and told him all about these Soetoro dudes coming to shut this radio station down. I volunteered to come help. Knowin’ you, I figured you’d need all the help you could get.”

  That must have been the first time in his life Willie ever volunteered for anything but beer. “It’s good to see you, shipmate. You can stay in here with me, but why don’t you lay down in the corner and try to catch some Zs.”

  He did so, after bitching about how hard the floor was and having to use his jacket for a pillow. “Turn off that damn radio noise out here,” he said. “I’ve had enuffa Soetoro to last me a lifetime.”

  “I thought you were a Soetoro voter.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  I cranked the volume of the speaker to zero and settled down to wait. Willie and Sarah were sound asleep when I went into the break room at one a.m. and made a pot of coffee. While it dripped through, I went in to the studio and put on the earphones. The prez was talking about his enemies. I put the earphones down and went back to the break room for a cup. Nothing but that white powdered stuff for creamer, so I silently cussed the Maryland doctors and drank it black.

  Waiting was hard. I went out and surveyed the street. Two or three truckloads of them—we would kill them right there.

  Waiting has never been my long suit. I must have been at the head of the line for good looks and natural charm; when I got to patience there wasn’t much left—I only got a teaspoon full, if that.

  I found myself rubbing my sore neck again. The doctors at Camp Dawson had put more antiseptic on it and a sticky bandage. The muscles were still stiff.

  I wondered about Willie, why he was here. A warrior he wasn’t. Growing up in the Washington ghetto and a couple of stretches in the pen had taught him to stay out of the line of fire and keep his head down. Willie was a survivor. That was one of the reasons I liked him. When I had had my fill of agency operators full of bullshit and testosterone, I could visit Willie at the lock shop and come back down to earth.

  Musing along those lines, my handheld squawked. The voice was Travis Clay’s. “We have a truck two blocks north, and someone standing beside it looking the situation over with binoculars.”

  “Okay.”

  I nudged Willie with my foot. He came right awake.

  “Uh-oh,” Willis Coffee said. “I hear helicopters… . Coming this way. Getting louder.”

  Damn!

  It was beginning to look like the bleeding wasn’t going
to be one-sided at our little party.

  I walked to the busted window and listened. I could hear the choppers now, definitely coming this way. If these were paramilitary thugs, from FEMA or Homeland or the IRS or wherever, they were catching on fast. If they were military, oh boy.

  “Trucks are moving, at least three. Guys walking along beside them. All armed. Looks like FEMA uniforms.”

  The choppers were above us somewhere.

  “They stopped in the wrong block! They’re in the next block north.”

  “Choppers overhead. Two Blackhawks. Guys rappelling down onto the roofs on the east side of the street. But they’re in the wrong block too.”

  I keyed the mike on my handheld. “Machine gunners, take out the choppers. Everyone else, hit ’em.”

  And the world split apart. The hammering of heavy machine guns rolled up and down the street. I grabbed an AT4, fired it up, and stepped right through the empty window onto the sidewalk. The lead truck was in the middle of the next block. Perfect. I didn’t waste time and got the round off within three seconds. It went right into the engine compartment and exploded. Pieces of the truck went flying everywhere.

  Bullets were whanging off the concrete sidewalk and brick facade, so I dived right back through the window socket with the empty tube in my hands.

  The sound of combat rose to a roar.

  Those soldiers—I saw uniforms and helmets—would quickly figure out there was no radio station in that block and be heading this way if the guys on our roofs didn’t manage to keep them pinned.

  Then I heard a chopper crash. The explosion was tremendous. The other one was trying to get away, it sounded like.

  I grabbed two grenades, pulled the pins, and went over to the window. Risked a quick squint. Guys coming down both sides of the street, shooting up at the roofs. I threw one as far as I could across the street at an angle, then leaned out and tossed the other left-handed up the street.

  Willie was hunkered down in the corner, trying to see up the street through the empty window socket.

  “Shoot low,” I shouted. “Ricochet the bullets off the walls over there.”

  He began squirting bursts.

  “More, more,” I urged.