Liberty's Last Stand

FOUR

I turned the iPhone off and looked at the ceiling in the motel room. Since I heard that news broadcast while munching a burger at the bar of a TGI Friday’s at a little town in Ohio, I had tried Grafton’s phone eight times before midnight, and two times since. Then, voila! he answered.

Not that he had anything to say. I remembered that classified file that crossed his desk about the NSA going to comprehensive monitoring of all American telephone conversations. And I well knew how good they were at triangulating cell phone signals. They could put you within a few meters, whether you were using the phone or not, just as long as it was logged into a network. I was on teams that used that technique to find wanted terrorists in Pakistan and Syria and Yemen.

The way to defeat that was to wrap your phone in tinfoil. So I wrapped mine back up and put it in my pocket.

The thing that bothered me was the announcement by the FBI that former CIA director Jake Grafton — note that “former”—was being detained and investigated for a possible role in the right-wing conspiracy to assassinate the president. They could have just locked him up and thrown away the key, but no, they decided to create a conspiracy to help justify martial law. I had no doubt when the trolls in the White House were finished writing this fiction the guilty bastards would make quite a list. I might even be on one of them. Along with the many enemies of the administration who didn’t believe in global warming or Soetorocare or his give-a-pass-to-terror treaty with the death-to-America regime in Iran. Soetoro’s enemies would be in deep and serious shit that no doubt would ruin them for life. Maybe they would get a show trial before a military commission. And afterward, be put against a wall in front of a firing squad, or permanently locked in a cell somewhere to figure out where they went wrong. Barry Soetoro had that in him. He was the savior of the planet, after all.

So the question became, what was Mrs. Carmellini’s little boy Tommy going to do about it?

Well, at least I knew where Grafton was. Tonight. I suspected they would not keep him long at Camp Dawson. They would want him to sign a confession they were busy writing now, so I suspected they would move him soon and go to work on him with torture and drugs.

Personally, I didn’t give a damn what he signed. I had to get to him before they killed him.

I crawled out of bed, took a shower, and shaved because I had no idea when I would get another chance, then loaded my stuff into my car. I paused for a good look at the Benz. What an impractical car. I needed a pickup. Tomorrow, maybe.

I filled the car at an all-night station, got a cup of coffee, and pointed the front bumper east. There wasn’t much traffic. The sky lightened up and the tires hummed on the pavement and I passed some trucks. I left the radio off.

Normally I don’t think much about politics. I am like most people, I suppose. I get wrapped up in the business of earning a living, giving pleasure to select members of the opposite sex, spending time with friends, and following the fortunes of my favorite sports teams. I vote for people to represent me at every little meeting from city council to Congress and the White House; they can worry about the public’s business, about filling the potholes in the streets, the state of the sewage treatment plants, and how much, if any, foreign aid we should give to Egypt: I vote for them because I don’t want to do that stuff, and they say they do.

And yet, they need to stay within certain boundaries. I don’t want them messing with me any more than they absolutely must. I am choosing my path through life: I want to be responsible for my choices and the results.

Just like most people.

I sat there driving through America wondering about Barry Soetoro and his disciples. I have never trusted people who think they know how everyone else should live, and demand those other people obey. I am not a good follower.

Aaugh!

The highway spun along toward the horizon and the sky got lighter. Another day in America!

When Jack Hays woke up on his couch that Friday morning, Nadine was leaning over, brushing her lips on his. She liked to wake him with a kiss.

“The coffee is on,” she said, and went back toward the kitchen, where the cook reigned. Jack padded along behind and found the cook wasn’t in yet.

With both of them sipping coffee, Nadine said, “You are going to have a hell of a day.”

He nodded. “I think it’ll come to a boil today, or tonight.”

“What are you going to do, Jack?”

“Ask God for the wisdom to make the right decision and for the courage to see it through.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and they stood holding each other, feeling the warmth of each other’s bodies.

JR put his Beretta 9-mm in his belt and went for a tour of the ranch in the pickup. He wanted to see the terrain again, to refresh his memory, to see how it had changed through the years. Joe Bob had built some shooting stands here and there, boxes for hunters to stand in fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. The sports would climb up there with their rifles, hunker down, drink beer, and wait for something wonderful to wander into range, where they would assassinate it.

JR climbed up into several of the stands just to look at the terrain. Shooting at people from one of these things, with people shooting back, would be suicidal.

So what were the possibilities? Ambush the bad guys as they exited their vans in Mexico, or on the trail to the river, or as they crossed the river, or cutting the Hays fence, or somewhere on the Hays land, or out near the highway as they threw the backpacks over the fence, or anywhere along the return journey.

He saw no people during his tour, but he did spot two kudu. Gorgeous creatures.

Any ambush site would have to allow him to shoot, move, and survive. The shooting would be easier with his state-of-the-art night-vision equipment.

What if he got two or three of them? Or five or six? Those who escaped would tell their bosses back in Mexico, and next time he would be facing a company of hired killers, perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty heavily armed gunmen with automatic weapons.

Late in the afternoon, JR got out his new AR-15, cleaned it thoroughly, and mounted a scope on it, a regular 3 by 9 variable. He suspected the battle might drag on into the morning, and he should be well armed if it did.

After fifty shots he was sure of the scope’s zero and comfortable with the trigger. He took the rifle into the house and opened all the windows to let the breeze air out some of the heat. He cleaned his rifle thoroughly again. Then he got busy fixing dinner. Poured some bourbon and drank it as he ate out on the ramada with the sun setting.

While JR was scouting the ranch, Jack Hays was under political siege in Austin. The Texas independence crowd was getting really worked up, especially after they saw copies of the directives — there were four directives, so far — about life in an America ruled by martial law under Barry Soetoro. The press was to be censored; television shows preapproved; news would be government press releases, which would be read without comment; and military courts would replace civilian ones. Gun sales were forbidden, and all guns would be turned in to military arsenals that would be designated in a few weeks.

The directives said nothing about the upcoming November election, but the feds obviously were planning a long spell of martial law, so pessimists could read between the lines, and did.

Meanwhile, inner-city riots around the country were getting worse, as the civil authorities let crowds burn and loot. Any persons in the riot zones were fair game for the mobs. The military that now were under federal control, the U.S. Army and National Guard, did nothing. Government spokesmen on television blamed the right-wing conspiracy, evil men who didn’t believe in progressive goals and wanted to use low-wage earners as slaves in the capitalist economy. Translated, that meant evil whites who wanted to exploit semiliterate, unskilled minorities for the minimum wage.

Jack Hays spoke to the National Guard brigadier in charge of Houston, James Conrad, three times that day. The first call went like this: “What’s happening?”

“I need orders from Washington, Governor. I was told to await written orders. Until I get them, I can’t do anything.”

“Washington knows that people are getting murdered in Houston and having their homes and businesses destroyed, right?”

“Sir, I have sent in reports every hour. I don’t know what else to do. If I go into the riot zone on my own hook in disobedience of orders, I’ll be relieved and court-martialed and they will put someone else in my place, someone who will obey orders.”

“Are you going to keep the mob inside the riot zone?”

“No one has said anything to me about that. Governor Hays, I’m just a soldier. I obey orders and I give orders. Right now, I am awaiting orders from the national command authority.”

“That’s Soetoro, right?”

“Yes, sir. The president.”

“Call me when you hear something,” Hays said, and General Conrad promised he would.

Jack Hays called in Colonel Frank Tenney, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS), who commanded the state police. Hays told him about the call with Brigadier General Conrad of the National Guard. “We can’t let those rioters burn down the city and murder people. I want you to get as many of your men as you can and encircle the area. Let the National Guard do its thing, but don’t let those rioters out of the zone they are in right now. And evacuate anyone willing to leave. You have a copy of the riot plan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then use it.”

“I would, but FEMA’s Texas chief told me I have no authority, except as he gives it to me in obedience to the president.”

Jack Hays had pretty much had all he was willing to take. Without really thinking through the possible ramifications, he said, “You go get that bastard and take him with you. I want him right up front when I give the order to go in there.”

“You know there will be trouble. FEMA has their own private army, armed to the teeth.”

“And they aren’t doing anything about this riot. Go get the bastard. Disarm and arrest anybody that gives you trouble. That office is in Texas, and in Texas we run the show. Texas is ours.”

“You’re goddamn right it is, Governor.”

“Then get ready to go into that riot zone and arrest those thugs when I give the order. Get the Houston police to help. Call me when you are ready to do it. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

When Colonel Tenney left his office, Hays sensed he had crossed the line. He asked the Texas Ranger outside the door to come in and explained the situation. “I need your boss as soon as he can get here. We are coming to a crisis.”

“Yes, sir.” The ranger was on his cell phone as he walked from the room. Primarily criminal investigators, the Texas Rangers — there were only about 140 of them — were a division of the TxDPS.

The Constitution of the State of Texas required the governor to maintain public order and enforce the laws — and Jack Hays meant to do that. Under state law, he could assume command of the TxDPS during a public disaster, riot, or insurrection, “or to perform his constitutional duty to enforce the law.” As Jack Hays saw it, Barry Soetoro could not relieve him of this responsibility or void the statutes or Constitution of the State of Texas for any reason whatsoever. Jack Hays had sworn to uphold the law and, by God, he was going to do it or die trying.

His decision made, he called in the leaders of the legislature to brief them.

It was three o’clock that Friday afternoon when Jake Grafton was led into an office in the admin building of Camp Dawson. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs. The room looked like what it used to be, a crowded office for low-level bureaucrats and staff officers of the West Virginia National Guard. Now it appeared to be full of FBI agents.

“We want to ask you some questions,” the man behind the desk said. He was a White House aide, maybe in Soetoro’s inner circle, or only one level away. His name was Harlan Sweatt, known to the world as Sluggo. He was balding, with a double chin and a serious spare tire that was hidden behind the desk. Jake recognized him, although the two had never met.

Grafton dropped into the chair across from Sweatt. Scanned the other agents in the room, four men and one woman. All looked as if they hadn’t had much sleep, and no wonder, busy as they must have been rousing citizens from offices, golf clubs, bars and beds, and transporting them here to this mountain concentration camp.

“Ask away,” Grafton said.

“I am not going to read you your rights,” Sluggo said, “because your rights have been suspended by the declaration of martial law.”

“I didn’t know that the president had the power to suspend the rules of criminal procedure or the presumption of innocence or the right to be represented by counsel.”

“Are you a lawyer?”

“No.”

“He has been advised by good lawyers, including the attorney general. He is fulfilling his constitutional duty to protect the nation.”

“If you say so.”

“We want to ask you about your role in the conspiracy to remove the president from office.”

Jake sat silently, watching the man drone on. He had suspected this might be coming since Callie told him of the FBI’s announcement to the press.

When Sluggo Sweatt paused for air, Grafton said, “I deny any involvement whatsoever.”

“Four people have confessed, so far. They swear you knew about the planning for a coup d’état.”

“Who?”

He named names. Two names Jake thought he recognized from the CIA, low-level staffers. The other two he didn’t.

“I don’t care what they signed. I deny any involvement whatsoever, nor did I know of any plot.”

“You had better rethink that, Admiral. You have a daughter, a sonin-law, and a grandson. Your wife lives on your pension. You have money in the bank and property. With a stroke of a pen, all that can be taken away from you.”

Grafton said nothing.

“I don’t think you realize how serious the crime is that you are accused of,” Sweatt explained, as if Grafton had a 75 IQ and his wife had to help him put on his pants in the morning. “The penalties are catastrophic, for you and your family. We have drafted a confession for your signature.” He opened a drawer and removed the confession, tossed it on the desk. “As you will see, you are charged with nothing but failing to report treasonous activity. There is no suggestion that you committed any overt act. I suggest you read it, please.”

Grafton didn’t even pick it up. “Sluggo, I am not going to put my fingerprints on that. I have no doubt you can forge my signature, if you want it, and no doubt whatsoever that you have sold your soul to the devil. Currently there is nothing I can do about this situation, or you, but I’ll remember you. Not fondly.”

“I won’t try to persuade you,” Sluggo Sweatt said coolly. “But I want you to consider the fact that the world has turned, and you are in serious danger of being roadkill. There won’t be another day in your life when you can do anything about it, about me, or about your situation. Not a day, not an hour, not a minute. You can only save yourself and your loved ones a great deal of grief by signing that document.”

“Is that why you sold out? Saving yourself grief?” Grafton replied.

The man shrugged. “Unlike you, I have some common sense,” he said, and gestured to the agents against the wall.

“I am delighted to hear that, Sweatt,” Grafton shot back. “Common sense is almost as rare as hen’s teeth, and equally hard to find.”

The agents led Grafton back to the compound.

The members of the Texas legislature that packed into the governor’s office were a mixed lot. Some were demanding that the legislature pass a declaration of independence and declare Texas a free republic. Others looked damned worried.

“Are you people out of your minds?” It was Smokey Bryan from Hall County. “I fought for the United States in the army. I am a citizen of the United States. My family have all been American citizens, and my great-great-grandparents who came to Texas when it was Comanche country and got scalped — they were Americans. I’ll be goddamned if I am gonna commit treason and try to take Texas out of the Union. Again. The last time we tried that they shot a lot of Texans but didn’t hang anybody. This time they might. Barry Soetoro is, no question, a would-be tin-pot dictator, but he is the president of the United States. And let’s call a spade a spade — no pun intended — he’s black. Most black people will stick to him even if he declares he is the risen Christ.”

Luwanda Harris, a black woman representing a district in Houston, said, “Gangs of terrorists are running around killing people. People are plotting a coup. I don’t know who, but it’s probably Republicans. They hate him. You are damn fools to sit here discussing treason when the FBI hasn’t finished its investigation.”

Someone shouted from the back. “You don’t seem very worried about your constituents who are caught in the middle of a riot.”

“Fuck you,” she shot over her shoulder. She was looking straight at Bryan when she said, “And you too, Smokey, you Nazi bigot. Black people have been shit on for centuries, ever since they were dragged to Texas as slaves. You people have segregated them, won’t educate them, won’t give them a leg up. You won’t even increase the minimum wage. Let the niggers rot. That’s—”

“You racist bitch!” Senator Bryan roared. “I have had—”

“Quiet,” the governor shouted. “If you people are going to cuss at each other, go outside on the lawn to do it. You can use your fists, shout, pull hair, act like children, get your names and photos in the papers. Go on. Get the hell outta my office.” Silence descended.

Jack Hays lowered his voice. “Ms. Harris, Mr. Bryan, you two seem to have lost sight of the fact you are on the same side. You are both against Texas independence. Yet we all share a common concern, I hope. We all care deeply about the people of Texas, all of them, and what is best for them.”

“I’m concerned about what is best for black Americans,” Ms. Harris shot back. “All you white people can worry about your own damned selves. We black people are going to stick together.”

“You speak for yourself, woman,” interjected Charlie Swim. “You don’t represent me, and when the fires finally go out, don’t come begging the legislature for money to rebuild the projects. You won’t get it. You helped them burn.”

That caused another frenzy of shouting.

“Shut up,” Jack Hays roared. “The question is, How are we going to stop the riot? If the feds interfere, what are we going to do?”

“You’re goin’ to Houston and shoot a bunch of black people,” Luwanda Harris said. “I know it, they know it, and the White House knows it.”

“We’re going to arrest rioters and hold them responsible for their crimes,” the governor said in a normal voice. “Murder, rape, looting — nobody gets a free pass. Nobody. I have sworn to uphold the law and I will, whether you are white, black, brown, yellow, or green. If you want to do your community a service, Ms. Harris, you will get yourself to Houston and help stop the riot.”

“Who do you think I am?” Luwanda Harris demanded. “You think I own them?”

“Anybody else?” the governor said.

A delegate from the Dallas suburbs wanted to discuss threats. Her name was Melissa McKinley. She didn’t know whether Soetoro was right about a right-wing conspiracy, but her constituents were worried about security. Terrorist threats, insane people, drug violence, the list went on. “My constituents want to be free from fear, free to raise their children in a safe environment. Guns scare them, enraged homicidal maniacs that shoot kids in schools and theaters scare them, terrorists and assassins scare them. The specter of a civil war would horrify them. They don’t want to live in Baghdad or Beirut or Syria. They want their children to have a chance to reach adulthood free from fear.”

“How much freedom are they willing to trade for their security?” Ben Steiner asked.

“They don’t want to bury their kids, Ben.”

“So they would be happy in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia in a comfortable little cell, just as long as their blood didn’t flow?”

“I doubt it, but freedom doesn’t do you a lot of good if you’re dead.”

“Amen to that,” several of the legislators muttered.

They wanted to mention the grievances of their constituents, introduce them into the discussion, things such as EPA regulations designed to save the climate at the expense of the working men and women of Texas, even though there was no scientific evidence that the changes demanded would have any impact on the problem as defined by the EPA. And the EPA’s demands to shut down coal-fired power plants, which would raise electric bills dramatically. Several wanted to talk about the financial and social burden of illegal aliens on the school districts and the education of American children, whose parents were paying the taxes to fund the schools. Others wanted to talk about federally mandated school curriculums and school lunches. Many were sick and tired of being dictated to by Washington bureaucrats who thought they knew more than the people ruled by their edicts.

Another just wanted to talk about a federal government many of her constituents perceived as an out-of-control, fire-belching, meat-eating monster that could not be tamed, controlled, or killed, a monster that increasingly stuck its nose into every facet of American life and propagandized their children every minute of the school day. A minister denounced a government that he believed was not just neutral on religion, but actively antireligious.

Charlie Swim broke in. “The bottom line is we need to stop these riots. You want to help black people?” He scowled at Luwanda Harris. “The people getting crippled and maimed and killed are black. The people doing it are black. A lot of the businessmen getting looted and burned out are black. If the federal government won’t stop it, the state government must: it’s that simple. A government that fails to protect its citizens from violence has forfeited its claim to legitimacy. And if bucking Soetoro and the feds leads to a confrontation, it’s time for Texas to face the issue head-on and declare its independence.”

Charlie Swim stood on a chair and looked around the room. “I tell you now,” he continued, “I’m for independence. The people of Texas would be better off without the other forty-nine states, all the Texans, white, black, and brown, for all the reasons that have been mentioned here this morning. We would be better off without those fools in Washington.

“Luwanda, you, the Republicans, and everyone in the country with a brain know that Cynthia Hinton doesn’t have a chance to win the November election. She knows it too. She has plenty of her own ghosts, but carrying the Soetoro record on your back would have defeated anybody. All Hinton is doing is jacking off the faithful.

“And as for Soetoro and his gang. You know what their motto is: Never let a crisis go to waste. I don’t trust them or believe anything they say.

“I think the time has come for us to start our own country. When you don’t trust your spouse, or your boss, or your government, it is time to say good-bye and go on down the road.”

When JR Hays considered the tactical possibilities, he decided the only answer was booby traps, or mines. One man shooting wasn’t going to get it done. Oh, he might get a few of the drug smugglers, but he wouldn’t get them all, and if he didn’t get them all, every last one, he would be signing his own death warrant.

Not that JR thought he was going to live forever, because he doubted that he would.

The problem with booby traps was that they kill anyone who trips them — illegal pregnant women trying to get across the river to have their babies in Texas, men looking for work, as well as any drug smugglers and professional killers who happened by. Anyone and anything, including kudus, elands, oryx, springbok, nyalas, impalas, whitetail deer, and coyotes.

Unless he wanted to bury a lot of relatively innocent people and very innocent animals, he needed mines he could detonate at the proper moment.

He unlocked the toolbox in the bed of his pickup. Using the truck’s tailgate as a table, he laid out all the devices he had borrowed from his former employer, the defense contractor, and looked them over carefully. Nothing there was explosive. What he had was sensors, miniature control boxes, radio controllers, batteries, and the other bits and pieces of high-tech booby traps. With the black powder and fuses, he should be able to construct some seriously lethal homemade Claymore mines.