Liberty's Last Stand

by Stephen Coonts

  The first Herc touched down and, ignoring orders from Ground Control, taxied to a stop in front of the Ops building; armed, helmeted troops in battle dress piled out of the plane.

  An enlisted controller in the tower remarked, “Rucker must have sent an advance party to augment base security.”

  Very shortly, everyone in the tower was disabused of that notion and jerked headlong into the reality of war. Troopers entered the tower, pointed their guns, and waved the air force controllers away from the scopes and microphones. An NCO growled, “You people get on the floor, hands in your laps, and no one will get hurt!” Troopers bound the air controllers’ wrists with plastic ties. Cell phones were confiscated. Another trooper sat at a microphone to guide approaching aircraft.

  Similar scenes were enacted at the base ops center, where Colonel Danaher established his command post, and at the message center. It all happened so quickly that no message of the attack was transmitted. As far as the Pentagon knew, Barksdale was still owned by the United States Air Force.

  Danaher couldn’t believe his good fortune. Lady Luck had just given him a gift of a few hours.

  The second C-130 taxied to the B-52 parking mat. As the troops disembarked, an air police SUV came roaring up and two armed men jumped out. When a couple of the troopers fired bursts over their heads, the air policemen jumped back into the SUV and started off, but now someone shot the tires out. It kept going anyway. Another burst into the rear of it brought it to a stop. One of the air policemen was slightly wounded. They were disarmed and led away across the mat to a holding area as the troops fanned out and the C-130 began taxiing for takeoff. There were more troops at Fort Hood that needed transport.

  Two minutes after the sixth and last transport offloaded its men, Colonel Danaher could look at the base’s mechanics, officers, and pilots seated in rows, hands fastened with plastic ties, and under guard. It was a quick victory for Texas. Hearing the reports over handheld radio, Colonel Danaher breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in his life, he understood the ennui that engulfed the military personnel in Pearl Harbor in the weeks before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. It is devilishly difficult to instantly transition from peace to war. Danaher knew he wasn’t up to speed yet, but thought maybe he better get that way fast. No doubt all the air force personnel on the base were waking up mighty quick.

  The B-1 Lancer surprise attack on the war materiel stockpiled at Fort Polk was a complete success. Not a SAM or artillery shell rose to meet them. Using JDAMs, the six bombers hit the large tank and artillery depots. Then the F-16s flying top cover came down and used rockets and cannons on armored vehicles and artillery pieces that appeared undamaged. Several JDAMs went into the fuel storage facilities. Post-strike photos snapped by the F-16 strike leader suggested that perhaps forty percent of the tanks and artillery were no longer serviceable. The black column of smoke rising from the fuel storage areas was visible in the sky from a distance of ninety miles.

  While that strike was going on, General Martin L. Wynette was in his limo on his way to the Executive Office Building. When he received a call from the JCS duty officer informing him of the attack on Fort Polk, Wynette hung up the phone with a frown. The president and his disciples were going to eat him alive. He briefed his general officer aides, a male and a female, so they would know what was coming.

  At the Executive Office Building, Wynette and his two aides were ushered to a conference room where Soetoro, his national security advisor, and a dozen top political aides were waiting, including Sulana Schanck, the Muslim. She had always intimidated Wynette. Those eyes, glaring at everyone who didn’t share her vision of a Muslim America. Wynette thought her the most evil woman he had ever met. He thought that one of these days she might snap and start cutting off heads with a butcher knife. He hoped she would begin with Al Grantham.

  Wynette opened his briefcase as the men and women in the room debated the implications of Oklahoma’s rebellion and the scheduled independence votes in other plains states. Soetoro seemed to have himself under control this morning, Wynette thought, as he listened to machine-gun bursts of terrible news.

  Wynette dropped into a chair and tried to keep his face deadpan. His aides sat down beside him. No one mentioned the attacks on Fort Polk in Louisiana. Maybe they don’t know yet, he thought.

  Finally the president addressed a question to the general, his first acknowledgment of the officer’s presence. “What can the military do to put a stop to this treason?”

  “Nothing,” Wynette said, “except maybe bomb the statehouses involved. And I’m not sure what that would achieve.”

  Al Grantham let out a roar. “Goddamnit, General, it would kill some traitors.”

  “You folks have a red-hot political crisis on your hands and the U.S. armed forces are melting away. A couple more days of this and we won’t have enough people to turn the lights on and off at the Pentagon.”

  Silence descended upon the room. Wynette thought about all the ways the president had disrespected the men and women in uniform during his administration, including refusing to make appearances and public statements during Armed Forces Day, and refusing to salute the flag. His contempt of the people in uniform was now being returned in spades.

  “We are going to have to recruit an army of progressives who are willing to fight for America,” Barry Soetoro said.

  Good luck with that, Wynette thought. What he said aloud was, “By the time you get your army recruited and equipped, with enough training to teach them which end of the rifle the bullet comes out of, you are going to be out of office.”

  The political aides merely stared ahead silently, Schanck included. Soetoro didn’t say a word. Even Grantham managed to control himself. All of which proved to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that the White House knew there was not going to be an election in November. That was still their little secret.

  Finally Grantham said, “Maybe you should start shooting some of your reluctant warriors. That would inspire the rest to do their sworn duty.”

  “I don’t have the authority to hold drumhead courts-martial and execute soldiers.”

  “The president can give you that authority.”

  “I don’t want it. If you like, I’ll tender my resignation right now and you can dig down through the officer corps until you find someone willing to shoot American soldiers. There must be one or two ambitious assholes in uniform that would shoot their own mothers for a big promotion. I’ve never met any, but they say there are rotten apples in every barrel.”

  Grantham snarled, “Why don’t you start saying yes, sir, and no, sir, and stop this damned insubordination?”

  “I thought you wanted me here for professional advice. I just gave you some.”

  “Enough,” Soetoro said. He rubbed his face with both hands. “We have a political crisis that is fed by social media and the press pouring gasoline on hot embers. What we need to do is shut down the power grid nationwide to stop all the bitching, plotting, and conspiracies.”

  Martin Wynette lost control of his face. He stared slack-jawed at the president. That had to be the most idiotic suggestion he had ever heard.

  “We must do something, and that might have a good effect,” Al Grantham opined.

  Ironically, Martin Wynette thought that comment proof that Grantham was a total, complete flaming fool, and a world-class ass-kisser to boot! Had his senior aide only known the general’s thoughts, he would have probably laughed aloud. Wynette managed to close his mouth and put on his poker face again.

  The civilians around the table discussed it. Indeed, they thought that something had to be done to douse the political fires, and this was something. If those rebels were sitting in the dark without air conditioning or the internet or telephones, at least they wouldn’t be damning the administration and fomenting treason before a national audience, the members of which would have their own problems to deal with. And it was the president’s own idea, which was nice. No one there had to take the
risk of offering a suggestion that might be rejected. It never hurts to say yes to the boss.

  What wasn’t addressed, Wynette noted grimly, was how cutting the juice was going to stop the social collapse that he thought almost inevitable. In fact, Wynette thought that leaving people nationwide without power to stay cool and preserve and prepare food in the dead heat of August was likely to accelerate the process, not impede it. Not to mention the havoc it would play on nursing home residents and the elderly who lacked emergency generators. Police and firefighters could not be summoned in an emergency. This callous decision would kill American citizens, whether they were progressives or conservatives, loyal or disloyal, whether they worshipped the ground Barry Soetoro walked upon or urged God every night to take the bastard quick. It would also stop the American economy dead in its tracks. Factories would be left without not only electricity but natural gas, because electricity powered the compressors needed to move it through pipelines. Without pumps, water and sewage would cease to flow. And every filling station in America would be unable to pump gasoline or diesel fuel. Truck deliveries would stop. If the power outage went on long enough, urban Americans would begin to starve or die of thirst. Cutting power might be justified as a military necessity, Wynette thought, but certainly not as a political expedient to silence dissent. He almost said aloud that JR Hays would turn off America’s juice if he could, but being Martin Wynette, he kept his mouth shut.

  Soetoro made the decision, as his inner circle of committed progressives knew he would. “Do it,” he said, and gestured toward the door.

  Some moron asked, “How?”

  Grantham fielded that one. “Call the heads of the various power companies and tell them to shut off the juice, and if they don’t, send the FBI around to arrest them and every officer in the company. Crack the damned whip.” When you have dictatorial powers, you can iron out all the little difficulties.

  “Yes, sir,” they said, and scattered.

  “You stay,” the president said to the general and his aides.

  When the room was empty, the president said, “Tell me about that attack in Louisiana.”

  So he had heard after all. “I got a telephone call in the car on the way over here,” Wynette said, “so all I know are the basics. Apparently B-1 Lancers. They probably came from Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene.”

  “What can we do about those Texas traitors?”

  “Sir, we are putting together an invasion, as you directed. JR Hays just made the invasion a little more difficult, but he can’t stop it.”

  “What will he do next?”

  “We need to destroy those B-1s on the ground at Dyess. I was thinking of using the B-2s at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to do that as soon as possible.”

  “Fine,” Barry Soetoro said. “We should have retired those old B-1s years ago. Instead we wasted mountains of money on them that could have been better spent elsewhere.”

  Wynette didn’t argue that point.

  “I also want you to turn off the lights in Texas, General. I don’t think calling the president of the power company will do it. Do it any way you can. As soon as you can. Texas started all this trouble.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barry Soetoro would have been furious if he had known that JR Hays was already one jump ahead of him. Another half-dozen B-1 Lancers were already in the air on their way to Missouri to bomb Whiteman Air Force Base. An hour later, as the carcasses of the B-2s at Whiteman were still burning, he found out.

  In the limo with his general officer aides, Martin Wynette said, “He knew about that Louisiana attack when he ordered the power turned off nationwide.”

  His generals both nodded.

  “And he knew about the state legislatures giving him the finger.”

  Yes.

  “Did he do it to punish the American people?” Wynette asked aloud.

  “Ten to one that he blames the Texans for the loss of power,” the female two-star said.

  “No bet,” her male colleague said.

  “A hundred to one,” she offered.

  “No bet.”

  But with the power off, only a few will hear him, Wynette thought. And who will care? The one fact every American will understand is that the federal government can’t keep electricity flowing through the wires.

  At Barksdale Air Force Base four F-22s broke over the runway and swung into trail on the downwind. They slowed, dropped their landing gear and flaps, and the controller in the tower cleared them to land. Once down, Ground Control directed them to park on one end of the B-52 ramp.

  Everything appeared normal to the pilots as they followed the directions of linesmen, parked in a row, and one by one shut down. Number Four was the last to shut down, of course, and the pilot was the last to exit his cockpit onto a boarding ladder that had been pushed to the side of his plane.

  He was standing with one foot in the cockpit and one foot on the ladder when he looked around and realized that the other pilots had their hands in the air and soldiers in battle dress were pointing weapons at them.

  He drew his pistol from a holster under his left armpit and began shooting into the instrument panel, which was composed of complex multifunction displays.

  The air force officer had fired three shots when Specialist Jimmy Schaffran triggered a three-shot burst from his M4 carbine from a distance of eighteen feet. The pilot tumbled backward without even trying to grab the ladder and fell to the concrete.

  Jimmy Schaffran, late of Minnesota and now of Texas, walked over to the body. The man’s head was at an odd angle. Obviously a broken neck. If the carbine bullets didn’t kill him, the fall to the concrete did.

  Schaffran was still staring at the corpse when his buddy from South Carolina came running over.

  One look at the dead man was enough. Carolina threw an arm over Schaffran’s shoulders. He turned him away from the body and said, “You had to do it, Jimmy. We may need these planes.”

  “Fuckin’ shit,” said Jimmy Schaffran.

  “Hey, man. We chose our side of the fence and he chose his. Not much any of us can do about it now. God will have to figure it out.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  In Galveston, Loren Snyder had a visitor. The man shouted down the open hatch, got no answer, then climbed down and wandered aft. He found Loren in the control room.

  “Hi. I’m George Ranta. The sheriff sent me to see you.”

  “Oh.” Loren was more than a little surprised. The sheriff was supposed to be guarding the pier and preventing the locals from meandering over for a look at a real submarine.

  “I used to serve in attack boats. In fact, I used to be the head sonarman on this one.”

  “On this boat?”

  “Yes, sir. Could you guys use some help? I’d kinda like to volunteer, if you could use me.”

  “Volunteer for what?”

  “For whatever you have in mind, Captain.”

  That captain thing did it for Loren. This guy could be a SEAL in civvies, he reflected, here to kung fu the whole crew, all five. On the other hand, that captain thing sounded automatic, and he didn’t look like a muscle man who spent four hours a day in the gym. Maybe he was on the level. “Prove it,” Loren said.

  Ranta sat down at the main sonar console and began flipping switches. In less than a minute the sonar was running through built-in tests. Yep, he knew what he was doing.

  “We’re going to sea in a few hours. If you’ve served in these boats, you know what we’re up against. The navy won’t like us out cruising around in an armed attack submarine.”

  “You have torpedoes in the tubes and Tomahawks in the wells?”

  “Yep.”

  “Going to use them?”

  “We might.”

  “To free Texas?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll go if you’ll have me.”

  “Got any stuff?”

  “It’s on the other side of the gangway.”

  “Go get it, and find yourself a
bunk.”

  Two hours later, another person showed up, a woman. Loren heard her call and went to meet her as she came out of the torpedo room.

  “I heard you guys were getting ready to go to sea, so I talked to the sheriff and he let me come down here to talk to you.”

  “So talk.”

  “Got out last year after three years aboard Colorado.”

  “Why’d you get out?”

  “Oh, the usual. I had a boyfriend and he wanted me home to fuck him every night. So—”

  “The navy will try to sink this boat. You understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you still want to go?”

  “I was born and raised in Texas.” She stopped, thought about that answer, and decided it was adequate. She was of medium height, trim, with a firm mouth and thin lips. Her hair was in a ponytail. The T-shirt she was wearing had a Texas flag on the front and back.

  “What was your rate?”

  “Quartermaster.”

  “Can you handle the helm?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Get your stuff and find a bunk.”

  “I already dropped my bag through the hatch.”

  “Welcome aboard.”

  She stuck out her hand. “My name is Ada Fuentes.”

  “Loren Snyder.” He grabbed her hand and pumped it.

  Fifteen minutes later Jugs met Ada and shook her hand. She sent Ada aft to meet the rest of the crew, who were running engine room drills.

  When they were alone, Jugs said, “Lorrie, we gotta get outta here.”

  “As soon as the engine room drills are complete.”

  “No, Loren. Now.”

  “Are you getting worried?”

  “You are goddamn right I am. What if those SEALs come before we submerge and shoot holes in the outer casing? Or shoot out the photonics masts? Or throw a chain around the screw?”

  “Well… .”