Liberty's Last Stand

EIGHT

In the dim light of dawn JR inspected the bodies. Some of the nails and screws in the mines had ripped open the backpacks and blasted white powder everywhere. JR didn’t know if it was cocaine or heroin, and he didn’t care. Only two of the mules had obviously tried to crawl away and bled to death; the others died almost instantly, perforated by the metal from the mines — four with nails and screws that had ripped into their brains, another eviscerated.

The two at the fence were well and truly dead, too. The man who had dragged himself had his gut torn open and intestines were trailing behind him. The bullet that killed him had been a mercy.

JR got his first surprise when he looked at the first man he shot, the man near his hide. The man had yellow and green tattoos that started at his wrists and ran up his forearms.

That deputy sheriff — he had tattoos like that, very distinctive. What was his name? Morales? He seemed to recall that was it.

JR didn’t recognize the other man wearing night-vision goggles. JR pulled the goggles off. He looked like he might have a lot of Mexican in him, but with his face contorted in death, it was difficult to say.

Hays walked back to the ranch house and poured himself a stiff tot of bourbon. Sat on the porch with the AR across his lap sipping the whiskey as the sun poked over the horizon and sunlight began illuminating the high places in the brush. Cloudless blue sky. Another scorching hot day in the works. Those bodies were going to get ripe pretty quick.

The syndicate that sent those drugs across the border would send more men, probably pretty soon. JR had no idea how much money the drugs represented, but he knew it was a lot. Enough to buy the deaths of a thousand peons and a whole lot of Americans. Enough to buy half the sheriffs in Texas.

JR took out his cell phone and called his cousin the governor. Nothing. No ringtone on the thing. He looked at how many bars he had. Two. Well, that should be enough. But the cell didn’t work. He went inside and tried the landline. No luck there either.

He was exhausted and needed sleep. Yet Manuel Tejada would be along in a little while to find out what had happened to his deputy and all the drugs he was supposed to pick up. He wouldn’t phrase it quite that way, but that would be what he wanted. Mainly, however, he would want the drugs. If Tejada could show the syndicate the drugs he might get out of this with a whole skin. If he couldn’t, he was going to be in trouble, although how much JR didn’t know. Maybe he could dig Tejada’s pit deeper.

JR placed the guns in the floor of the backseat of his pickup and drove down to the arroyo, as close as he could get. He retrieved the gear from the hide, including the periscope and parabolic antenna, stored all this stuff in the tool chest in the bed of the truck. Went to the bodies of the mules and removed the backpacks. Two were so torn up the white powder spilled all over the ground. JR thought each backpack had contained twenty-five pounds or so of the stuff.

The syndicate was going to be pissed.

JR put the six reasonably intact backpacks in the chest, locked it, and drove off. When he got to the main gate, he stopped and opened the gate, then got back in the truck.

Had the sheriff been in on it? Apparently. But JR wanted to be sure. He pulled out his cell phone and let it log on the network. Two bars. He called 911, got the sheriff’s office number, then dialed it.

“Sheriff Tejada.”

“JR Hays, Sheriff, out here at the Hays ranch.”

A pause, then, “What can I do for you, JR?”

“Hell of a shootout last night here at the ranch, Sheriff, a little after three. Woke me up. A real firefight. Kinda scared me. I went down this morning for a look, and bodies are lying all over the place. Looks like a drug gang ambush. The dead men had about two hundred pounds of some kind of drug on them.”

He paused, but the sheriff said nothing.

“It’s pretty bloody, Sheriff. Goddamn mess is exactly what it is. Might have been some of the bastards who killed my dad.”

“The drugs are still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh! What kind of drugs?”

“Damn if I know. It isn’t marijuana, that’s for sure. Some kind of white powder. Anyway, I’m going to call the staties and DEA, but I wanted to give you a courtesy heads-up first.”

“Appreciate that, JR. Much obliged. But before you call those other agencies, let me run out there for a look. I’ll bring the county coroner and we’ll see about the bodies.”

“When can you get here?”

“Couple of hours.”

“I’m pretty worried. God only knows what all that powder shit is worth. I kinda suspect somebody might come back to get it.’’

“This is my county, JR.” Like the slob owned it.

“Yes. Yes, it is.” He paused as if he hated to wait. “Okay, Sheriff, you come out and look around and call them. These guys aren’t going anywhere. Gonna get hot again today and they’ll get real ripe fast. Better bring some body bags.”

“Two hours. I’m on my way.”

“Sure.”

He broke the connection. The sheriff hadn’t even asked how many dead men there were.

He pulled the truck through the gate, got out, and shut it carefully. As he walked back to the truck a buzzard in the cloudless sky caught his eye, circling over the old trail. Two of them; no, three. Little dots up there riding the thermals. There would be more buzzards soon.

He remembered the bumper stickers. Got one out of the truck, peeled the paper off the back, and stuck it on the gate. Stood back and admired it. FUCK SOETORO. He liked it so much he put the other one on the truck’s rear bumper.

JR got into his pickup and headed southeast toward Del Rio. He decided he owed himself a treat, so he reached across to the glove box and pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camels. Opened it and lit one.

The raw smoke tasted delicious. JR adjusted the bill of his ball cap to keep the rising sun out of his eyes and smoked in silence.

The television clip of Colonel Bean reading the Texas Declaration of Independence on the steps of the capitol in Austin, and the shots of the delirious crowd, went to television stations nationwide. Networks worldwide rebroadcast the scenes over and over. In the United States, many station managers had qualms, and at some stations federal officers demanded that the feed not be aired. Some stations caved, but most didn’t. Managers argued that other stations would show it, and while they were arguing with federal censors, many staffs flipped switches and put it on the air. The scenes ran over and over again. Usually the scenes were aired without comment because the people in the stations were leery of the gun-toting bureaucratic squads who occasionally walked their halls, but the scenes spoke for themselves.

The spectacular act of defiance by the Texas legislature had immediate consequences. Here and there groups of armed citizens waylaid federal officers hauling away political prisoners, disarmed them, and released the prisoners. Several of these federal officers chose to fight it out and were shot dead. Others were taken to a county jail.

The armed federal police forces from bureaucracies nationwide became nervous. The mood of the public was turning ugly. Some of the agents stayed home and locked their doors.

Barry Soetoro nationalized the National Guard nationwide. Less than half the guardsmen reported to their armories to be inducted into federal service. Officers resigned on the spot. In two cities, small groups of guardsmen called local television stations, which sent crews to watch the guardsmen take off their uniforms in public, put them in a pile, and burn them.

In Oklahoma City a half-dozen armed officers from the FAA trying to arrest a local newspaper columnist, a conservative, panicked and opened fire on a crowd of vociferous unarmed citizens. Four people were killed and seven wounded, four of them severely. The payback came within an hour. A mob of armed civilians arrived at the FAA’s basement office where the armed enforcers hung out and put it under siege. When the officers came out four hours later with their hands up, the crowd opened fire. The last one ran a block and took refuge in someone’s basement; he was dragged out and executed with a shot in the head. No one knew if the four murdered officers were the ones who shot the unarmed civilians, nor did anyone really care. Civil wars are messy.

Up and down the plains, in the Rockies and the Midwest, people gathered in spontaneous groups to cheer Texas and wave homemade Texas flags.

In Austin, Jack Hays saw snatches of this activity on television before he, Charlie Swim, Luwanda Harris, and Colonel Tenney of the Department of Public Safety boarded a helicopter for a flight to Houston. They were met by the National Guard commander there, Brigadier General James Conrad, the mayor of Houston, and the chief of police.

Unfortunately they were downwind of some tire fires, and stinking, heavy smoke was almost overpowering.

“Have you got the riot area surrounded?” Hays asked.

“Yes, sir,” Conrad said. The senior law officers nodded.

“Where’s that FEMA dude,” Jack Hays asked, “the one I wanted at the pointy end of this expedition?”

“He got cold feet and split.”

Hays frowned.

“Would have had to handcuff him and put a gun in his back, Governor, to walk him into that riot.”

“Obviously he didn’t think his liberal credentials would protect him,” Charlie Swim said, and Hays chuckled.

Hays explained to the politicians, “We want to capture the rioters and not let them rampage through the rest of the city.” Luwanda Harris and Charlie Swim looked grim.

“Is everyone ready?” Hays asked the police chief, Colonel Tenney, and General Conrad.

Receiving affirmatives all around, Hays said, “Start ’em moving.” Conrad spoke into his handheld radio. Hays turned back to the politicians. “Ms. Harris, Mr. Swim, will you accompany me?”

“You got a grandstand seat picked out?” Luwanda Harris asked sourly.

“Indeed I do. I am going to walk ahead of the troops and talk to anyone I meet. I would like you both to accompany me.”

“They may shoot us,” Charlie Swim pointed out. Even as he said this, several random gunshots could be heard.

“They might,” Jack Hays agreed, grabbed two elbows, and started off with Swim on the left and Harris on the right. The troops in riot gear followed, then the state police carrying shotguns and wearing helmets.

Down the street, right into the middle of the riot zone.

When they were seen, young men threw some rocks, then turned and ran. Hays kept advancing. The three of them passed burning cars, looted stores, and melting asphalt. On they went.

Someone fired a shot at them from an upstairs window. Guardsmen fired back, and two soldiers charged into the building to find the shooter and arrest him, or kill him if need be.

Jack Hays pretended he didn’t notice the shooting.

It took thirty minutes, but an ever-tightening cordon of law enforcement and guardsmen had brought the rioters, mostly young men, into the middle of a large intersection. Surrounded, and scared, they threw down guns, chains, tire irons, and knives.

Jack Hays was handed a loudspeaker. He climbed up on the hood of a fire truck that had followed the skirmish line and turned on the speaker.

“Folks, the party is over. Texas in an independent nation, and as governor I am going to enforce the law. You and the folks who live around here will be questioned. If anyone here is guilty of murder, he will stand trial. For the rest of you, I am here to tell you nothing will happen to you if you obey the law from this minute on. No more looting, no more stealing, no more fires, none of that.”

Hays paused and silence reigned except for the moan of a siren a long way off.

“I know, Charlie Swim knows, and Luwanda Harris knows that you and your families have many grievances, from failing schools to horrific unemployment rates, to police harassment for the crime of being black.

“But the time has come for a new beginning for Texas and for its citizens. I swear to you that the Texas legislature and I are going to take action.

“We are going to have every complaint about police brutality investigated by the staff of a legislative committee, and both these folks standing beside me, Charlie Swim and Luwanda Harris, are going to be on that committee. If you think they will sweep harassment and brutality under the rug, you don’t know them.

“We’re going to set up a private-public partnership so that people in your community, people who study, can qualify for the thirty thousand new high-tech, high-paying jobs that are projected to grow in Houston in the next few years… and you are the people who are going to fill them. Industry will pay part of the cost of your training and the Republic of Texas will pay part. All you have to do to qualify is put your butt in a chair and study hard.

“Texas needs you right now. We are going to be invaded by United States forces in the near future. The Texas Guard needs recruits. You can do yourself and Texas a favor by enlisting. I am not going to pretend it will be easy or without danger. You may get wounded, maimed, or killed. But Texas needs your help. Make your life mean something. Fight for Texas.

“Folks, the riot is really over. Stay and talk to the guardsmen or go home. No more rioting. This is your city and your nation.”

Jack Hays got down off the fire truck. “Charlie, get on in there and talk to them. We need all the soldiers you can get. These guys like to fight — let’s point them in the right direction and give them some discipline and leadership. Hell, let’s give them a country to fight for.”

Hays looked at Luwanda Harris and added, “You tell them I’m sincere — because I am.” Then he turned and walked alone the mile and a half back to the helicopter.

In Abilene, Colonel Wriston had his column of tanks and construction vehicles ready to go by ten that morning. It had been hectic. He had received an unexpected assist from the president, who had announced via television that he was nationalizing the National Guard, so many of the soldiers had reported to the armory without waiting to be summoned.

Wriston and his officers explained that since Texas had declared its independence the Texas Guard was going to defend Texas and take its orders from the governor. All but four of the guardsmen — who were sent home — agreed to defend an independent Texas, and Colonel Wriston quickly had them organized into units and loaded them aboard trucks and buses pressed into service. With tanks in the lead, the column got rolling at ten o’clock.

One of the soldiers who was sent home instead drove straight to the main gate at Dyess and told the sergeant of the guard he wanted to see the commanding general. A call was made, and the sergeant climbed into his air force SUV and led the way to the headquarters building.

Within a minute the guardsman was standing in front of the commanding general, Brigadier General Lou l’Angistino, explaining what the Texas Guard was up to. “They’re going to block your runway, General.”

“When?”

“About as fast as they can get there, sir, I reckon.”

“Do you know where they intend to breach our perimeter?”

“No, sir. I didn’t hear anyone say.”

The general thanked the man and watched him leave the office. He nodded to his chief of staff, who closed the door. They had been poring over a stream of classified messages that flowed into the office just as fast as the message center could get them decoded and printed.

Global Strike Command, GSC, headquarters had ordered him to get his airplanes ready to fly. They might be sent on bombing missions… or they might be sent to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska… or… In the next message, GSC headquarters hedged. Belay the first message: Stand by for further orders. Let no civilians onto the base. Consult with local authorities and advise of the political situation in Abilene ASAP. Were the people loyal to the federal government or to the Texas rebels?

On it went. Action messages were interspersed with messages from Washington, from the Joint Chiefs, and every command all over. The army needed his C-130s in Colorado and Alabama. Send them immediately. No, wait. Get them ready to fly and when higher authority had sorted out the priorities, mission orders would be issued.

General l’Angistino shoved the whole pile to a corner of his desk. “Get the base security officer in here. Roust every air policeman on the base and get them suited up.”

“Yes, sir.”

L’Angistino had seen the morning news footage of the declaration. He had been horrified; his comfortable peacetime command had just been transformed.

He looked out his office window at the runway. Rows and rows of B-1 Lancer bombers and C-130 Hercules aircraft were parked on the ramps. He had thirty-six B-1s assigned, the only B-1 wing on active duty in the air force. Twenty-eight C-130s were assigned here, but five were flying, doing overnight training missions or hauling troops and supplies from one military installation to another, the usual peacetime flight schedule. Now this.

He had already issued orders to get all the airplanes serviced, fueled, and ready to fly. He didn’t tell anyone to bring the bombs for the B-1s from the magazines, and wouldn’t until they had missions assigned. Parking weapons on the ramp when they weren’t needed violated air force safety regulations.

Block the runway. Was the guardsman telling the truth, or was this only a rumor? Or was he a plant to spread disinformation?

The general was consulting a map of the base with his security officer, a major, when Colonel Wriston stopped his column at the place he and his deputy commander had been that morning.

A lowboy behind the colonel’s Humvee off-loaded a bulldozer, which scraped dirt to fill in the ditch between the road and the perimeter fence. The job was done in less than two minutes. More bulldozers off-loaded from lowboys. They quickly tore out fifty yards of eight-foot-high, chain-link, barbed-wire-topped fence and shoved it to one side. A tank covered with soldiers went through the gap.

Wriston watched his tanks, bulldozers, road graders, earthmovers, trucks, and buses full of guardsmen as they rolled through the gap and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Many of Wriston’s men were heavy-equipment operators in civilian life, which had made commandeering so much equipment relatively easy; it was theirs, and by parking it on the Dyess runway, they’d be putting themselves out of work. Well, he suspected Jack Hays would want full-time soldiers.

The drivers of the tanks soon spread out until all four were running abreast raising dust clouds. This had the unintended consequence of blinding the drivers of the vehicles behind them, who were also trying to spread out to avoid colliding with everyone in front. Watching his column disintegrate, Colonel Wriston was reminded of his experience in tanks in the deserts of Iraq. He hated deserts. He climbed into his Humvee and headed off behind them to supervise this operation. If they didn’t get the runways blocked, this whole adventure was for naught.

In the leftmost tank, the tank commander saw an air force SUV charging across the prairie toward him. There were four people in it, apparently. It came to a stop fifty yards in front of him, and the driver jumped out, holding up his right hand in the universal signal to stop.

“Shoot out his radiator,” the tank commander told his machine gunner.

The burst of the .30-caliber apparently holed the SUV’s radiator, because a cloud of steam shot forth from under the hood. The other three occupants of the vehicle jumped out with their hands in the air. Two guardsmen dropped off the tank, which speeded back up. The guardsmen disarmed the air police, pointed them at the hangar complex two miles away, and told them to start hiking.

“You can’t do this,” the air force sergeant protested.

“We already did,” a soldier answered. “Git.” They grabbed the guns in the SUV and on the ground, then ran to the left, the west, to get away from oncoming vehicles. Colonel Wriston saw them as he came up and stopped to give them a ride.

A small group, one bulldozer and three earthmovers, peeled off to block the short runway. The main column clanked up to the long runway, an awesome sight with more than two miles of thick concrete stretching before them, three hundred feet wide.

Wriston sped past the lead tanks and went a third of the way down the runway. He knew how far he was because he stopped just past the big “8” sign, marking eight thousand feet remaining to the end. He gestured to two of the tanks, and they came to a stop, then turned sideways. Other equipment would also park there.

Wriston got back in the Humvee and rolled on to the “4,000 feet remaining” sign. He stopped there and awaited his vehicles.

The operation went well, he thought. As some of the soldiers stood guard, the two tanks and four pieces of construction equipment were parked. Mechanics worked on the treads of the tanks, then the tanks ran off the treads. Bulldozers were similarly disabled. The tires of the earthmovers were shredded with automatic weapons fire.

While this was going on, four air police vehicles came rushing toward them, two on the runway and two on the adjacent taxiway. Machine-gun fire and automatic weapons fire over the top of the vehicles convinced the drivers to turn around and retreat.

Hand grenades were placed in engine bays, and guardsmen ran from the explosions. It was over in less than eight minutes. When all his guardsmen were on buses and trucks going back toward the hole in the fence, Colonel Wriston surveyed the blockade and followed along in his Humvee. The men and women of the Guard couldn’t have done it any better if they had practiced it every day for a week, he thought proudly. Then he followed his retreating vehicles.

General l’Angistino had watched the dust cloud and activity on the runway from his office with binoculars. When the guardsmen had departed, he rode out to the mess of abandoned equipment and surveyed it with his fists on his hips.

His chief of staff rolled up in an air police sedan. “You know what to do,” he said to the colonel. “Get busy and get this stuff off the runway. As quickly as possible.”

Air force crash crews were still moving equipment at dark, when General l’Angistino went home. He had of course notified GSC and Washington of the runway obstructions, but other than a terse message to report when the runway was open again, nothing else was said.