A State of Treason

by David Thomas Roberts

  * * *

  Shortly before midnight, and within minutes of the Citation landing in Austin, Jamail Tibbs had just fallen asleep when he received a call on his cell phone from a source within the State Department. Only those close to Tibbs that he trusted got access to his personal cell phone number.

  “This better be goddamn good,” mumbled a sleepy but irritated Tibbs as he got out of bed to move to another room so he wouldn’t awaken his wife. He pressed the cell phone to his ear.

  “What?” blurted an incredulous Tibbs. “Say that again? Are you friggin’ serious?”

  Tibbs listened for the next two minutes, not saying a thing.

  “Yes, I’m here. What the hell! This changes everything!”

  Tibbs was now pacing back and forth in his office. As he listened, he strode into the family room.

  “Is this information reliable? It’s going straight to the president of the United States. If any of this is factually incorrect, it’s your ass! Do you understand me?”

  Tibbs shoved the phone down into a pocket of his robe and sat on the brick hearth of his fireplace, pondering his next move.

  “Holy crap,” he thought. “Now I can finally get that bastard! I’ve got that damned cowboy!” A wide smile lit up his face as he dialed a special number to reach the president.

  Chapter 12

  “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

  ~ Benjamin Franklin

  Signer of the Declaration of Independence &

  the U.S. Constitution

  Author, Historian, Philosopher & Inventor

  At 2:45 a.m., three Blackhawk U-60 helicopters lifted off the pavement at the tiny airport in Piedras Negras, Mexico. The airport was a few short miles from the Rio Grande River across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. Operation Santa Anna was underway.

  The local airport had been cordoned off two hours earlier with Mexican federales. The black night and moonless sky made the black helicopters extremely hard to detect. There were no running lights on the choppers. The faint lights of the two hangars at the airport barely illuminated the insignia of a small American flag on the tail and the blue seal of Homeland Security on each of the cargo bay doors.

  The choppers headed out together toward the southwest but, upon clearing the populated areas of the border town, they banked hard to the right, headed in a northwesterly direction. The choppers lowered to three hundred feet, then to one hundred fifty feet as they cleared the Rio Grande and the United States border, traveling at one hundred seventy-three miles per hour just north of Eagle Pass.

  This area of Texas is about as remote as it gets, with gently rolling plains of Texas brush country full of small mesquite trees, cactus, and scrub yaupon trees. Despite the harshness of the brush country, it’s a favorite of hunters who travel there during hunting season from around the world, as the area boasts trophy whitetail deer, quail, javelina, rattlesnakes and dozens of other species native only to the area. In this part of Texas, nothing grows that doesn’t have a thorn, needle, thistle, or pricker, which makes it remarkable that abundant wildlife thrives in south Texas. For a clandestine route, you couldn’t ask for a less populated scenario to launch a Special Forces-type operation.

  The Blackhawks sped over the Rio Grande River into Texas, cruising barely above the scrub oaks and mesquite trees. In a little more than an hour, the fully armed Blackhawks would be approaching Llano, Texas and the Swingin’ T Ranch.

  Two of the three choppers carried eleven DHS tactical assault troops each. The third chopper had only five additional troops. Although the Blackhawks were designed to carry eleven troops each, the third chopper was light of troops on purpose so it could pick up additional passengers. The Blackhawks were outfitted prior to the operation with the same stealth-plating technology that was used to hide the choppers from radar in the Seal Team Six raid into Pakistan to kill the most famous terrorist of modern times.

  The choppers hugged the horizon as they sped along in the dark. Radar stations along the border, already operating on a skeleton-crew basis or not at all, did not pick up the choppers, nor did the closest fully functional radar stations at Lackland Air Force Base and the commercial airport one hundred forty miles to the northeast in San Antonio.

  Two more fully equipped Blackhawk U-60 DHS choppers, in reserve and for recovery efforts if needed, sat ready at the Ciudad Acuna, Mexico airport. DHS had dubbed this reserve operation Prickly Pear. Ciudad Acuna was also on the Rio Grande directly across the river from the Del Rio, Texas airport fifty-five miles west of Piedras Negras. Sixty miles from Llano, the lead chopper banked west, the second banked hard to the east, while the third continued north on the original flight path, still undetected. Despite the low flight path, both Blackhawk and Apache helicopters are hard to detect at night, as enemy forces in Iraq and Afghanistan learned the hard way. They are even harder to hear until they are right on top of their targets, or past them. Enemy forces in Iraq and Pakistan always noted that, many times, choppers were right on top of them before they heard them.

  Maj. Gen. Conroy’s decision to keep state officials in this remote area of Texas was partly based on how difficult it would be to find and reach the various ranches, even if the feds knew where the governor was hidden. It was just far enough from the Gulf of Mexico to make any extraction attempt unfeasible because there was too much ground to cover.

  Nobody would have thought seriously that Mexico would have granted use of its airspace and airports to launch such a mission. Mexico has a long history of protecting its sovereignty from the U.S. military and rarely conducts joint operations for any reason.

  The choppers triangulated their position vectors to converge on the main compound of the Swingin’ T, coming from three separate directions and ready to deliver hell from above.

  * * *

  Four Texas Rangers were posted at various locations on the property, along with six state troopers.

  In the main lodge’s master bedroom, Gov. Cooper and his wife Lyndsey had just fallen asleep in a massive king-sized, four-poster bed made from hand-hewn mesquite.

  Lt. Gov. Foster and his wife were asleep in a separate guest house, as was Atty. Gen. Weaver. The remainder of the staff was spread out in various bunk houses and guest cottages near the main lodge. Maj. Gen. Conroy was in a guest cottage approximately one hundred yards from the main lodge.

  The lone entrance to the Swingin’ T, just off the two-lane state highway, had a small temporary plywood guardhouse erected just behind the massive limestone entrance. Typical of a large Texas ranch, the entrance was impressive and had double electric gates adorned with metal art of the ranch’s insignia, cactus, and whitetail deer.

  Inside the guardhouse, a Texas Ranger and a state trooper kept vigil with a thermos and two coffee cups. Not a single vehicle had driven by on the remote road since before midnight. The small talk and coffee thermos kept the two occupied with an occasional radio check-in with the command post at the main lodge.

  * * *

  A short radio burst from the lead chopper broke radio silence among the three Blackhawks for the first time.

  “Santa Anna One, operation confirmed. We are a go.”

  “Roger, Anna Two, we are a go,” replied the Blackhawk converging from the west.

  “Roger, Anna Three, we are a go,” radioed the Blackhawk converging from the east.

  Suddenly, blat, blat, blat, blat, blat echoed the .30-caliber rotating Gatling-style machine guns as the lead chopper approached the guard shack from a quarter mile away. With two short bursts of the dual guns, the guard and state trooper, who had just been talking about high school football, were obliterated in a combination of splintering wood, shards of glass, and blood.

  The main lodge had been set up as a command post, and Texas Ranger Colby Smith, in charge of the Swingin’ T command while Pops Younger was gone, walked into the main lodge used as a command post to relieve a state trooper monitoring
radios used by Rangers and state troopers on the range. The main entrance off the state highway was two miles away down the partially paved asphalt-and-caliche ranch roads.

  Suddenly, Colby stopped and cupped his ear as if to listen to coyotes in the distance. But this wasn’t coyotes. In the rolling south Texas hills, sound carries a long way, especially gunshots.

  “Radio the shack!” yelled Smith to the trooper at the command desk. Smith grabbed his holster and a fully automatic standard government issue Colt AR-15 he had just leaned up against wall. He scrambled outside into the courtyard. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he grabbed his radio.

  “Wake everyone!” he yelled. “We are under attack!”

  Ranger Smith barely finished speaking into his radio when the .30-caliber burst from the second chopper coming from the east hit him. It caught the Ranger on his left side, ripping off his left shoulder and arm, slamming him to the ground, blood spurting two feet in all directions. He was dead within seconds.

  Troopers and Rangers ran out of the buildings they were sleeping in as ropes dropped from a chopper and DHS troops quickly rappelled to the ground. The Blackhawk hovered fifty feet over the terrace of the main lodge, throwing a thick blanket of dust in every direction.

  A hunting jeep with two Rangers making its way from a guest cottage three hundred yards from the main lodge never saw the third Blackhawk approaching from the north behind them.

  Blat, blat, blat, blat, blat, blat.

  The jeep veered hard, hit a mesquite tree and flipped twice before it burst into flames. The Blackhawk’s M134 Gatling-style rotating six-barrel machine guns were relentless, never backing off from the trigger as the jeep and occupants were strafed with 7.62 mm. tracer rounds until the occupants were neutralized.

  The governor and his wife woke suddenly into a nightmare of chaos from the noise of the first rounds that took out Ranger Smith.

  “Lyndsey, get in the closet!” Cooper yelled.

  “Oh, my God. Brent?”

  “Get in the closet!” he repeated forcefully.

  Gunfire erupted all over the lodge area as the second chopper’s DHS troops rappelled to the ground in front of the main house. The screaming of the wounded could be heard over the gunfire and even over the sound of the M134s positioned over the compound to provide air cover to the troops on the ground. Even when the .30-caliber guns weren’t firing, there was no mistaking the sound of the Gatling-style rotation.

  The federal troops entered the main house next to the lodge and cleared all resistance, leaving two troopers and a Texas Ranger dead on the floor in pools of their own blood and with grotesque wounds from multiple gunshots. The Ranger was slumped over the leather chair the governor had sat in just hours before.

  Cooper noticed his wife approaching the bedroom door. He moved to keep her in the master bedroom closet.

  “Brent, I thought they were coming to work out a deal!” Lyndsey said. Her eyes, wide with fear, were full of unshed tears.

  “Sweetheart, just stay in here,” Cooper pleaded. “They aren’t after you.”

  “Don’t go out there, Brent, please!”

  “Lyndsey, the governor of Texas ain’t hiding in a damned closet!” retorted Cooper.

  Just then the bedroom door flew open as senior Texas State Trooper Kelly Armbrister rushed in to protect the governor. Armbrister only had time to get a weapon, with no time to go back to his room and recover his bullet-proof vest. Not sure who had just come into the darkened bedroom, Gov. Cooper looked down to chamber a shell in his pearl-handled Colt 1911 that had been given to him as a gift from the NRA.

  “Governor, both of you come with me! We have to get out of here!” the trooper yelled.

  Recognizing Armbrister’s voice, Cooper turned to pull his wife from the closet. Simultaneously, two shots ripped through the jacket with the yellow state trooper letters on the back, then exited Armbrister’s chest as he was shot by the two approaching federal assault troops, splattering blood over both the governor and his wife.

  The governor immediately raised his pistol, emptying his clip into one of the intruders who fell forward as Cooper’s shots tore through him. Despite the heavily armored bullet-proof vest worn by the government assault troops, two of the governor’s shots shredded the unprotected neck of the agent.

  In an instant, the second agent reacted by firing his assault rifle into the darkness of the bedroom from the direction of the Colt’s flash. The assault troops all wore night vision goggles, but the multiple flashes from the barrel of the pistol temporarily blinded the man as he flipped up his goggles to return fire from behind the door frame.

  The agent’s first round hit the governor right below his left rib cage, penetrating completely through his body, entering Lyndsey’s chest as she knelt behind him.

  “Oh, Brent! Oh, no,” she screamed.

  The second burst of shots hit the governor in the face, chest and lower abdomen, knocking him backward into Lyndsey. He fell across his wife, dying instantly. She lay on the floor, bleeding profusely, with her husband lying on top of her. She coughed blood as she tried to speak, trying to hold her husband’s face as she lay dying. In a scene reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy during JFK’s assassination, the governor’s wife appeared to be trying to scoop up the blood pouring from the governor’s mouth and put it back in, oblivious to her own mortal wounds. With a deep gasp, Lyndsey died. .

  The gunfire throughout the compound fell silent as the choppers finally landed. The moans of the wounded and the screams of the female guests on the ranch were horrific. The lopsided gun battle lasted less than five minutes, but the carnage from the raid was appalling. Bloodied bodies were strewn all over the main lodge, terrace and outbuildings.

  “Find the governor!” ordered the blackened-faced operation commander over the radio. “Look in all buildings, all bedrooms!”

  “He should be in the main house or the lodge!” yelled another of the assault team.

  The federal troops who weren’t wounded or killed went room to room in each building to find the governor and his staff, intent on bringing them all to federal justice.

  “Oh, crap, sir! Oh, no!” came a horrified voice over the radio. “He’s in here, sir! He’s in the main house. The governor has been shot!”

  “Damn it. Get medical in there right now!”

  “Sir… he’s dead!”

  The Santa Anna operation commander and two DHS agents stepped into the doorway of the master bedroom, literally walking over the agent sitting next to the bedroom door. The agent rocked back and forth next to the body of the agent killed by the governor and the state trooper.

  Taking off his helmet and night goggles, the commander reached down to take the pulse of the governor and his wife.

  “What the hell happened?” He directed the question to the agent in the hallway.

  “Sir, there was a firefight in here. I returned fire. He killed Jameson.” The federal agent pointed to the Colt 1911 held loosely in the governor’s grip.

  “Did you not identify?” demanded the commander.

  “Sir, we didn’t have a chance… It happened so quickly,” said the agent in a dejected tone, never raising his head to make eye contact.

  “This is very bad, gentlemen. This is really bad,” the commander growled.

  “Take pictures and then get Jameson’s body out of here! Send Holmes in here to bag these two,” ordered the commander, looking disgustedly at the bloodied bodies of the Texas governor and first lady. “God damn him for causing this!” He stepped back into the hall and left the scene.

  In the main courtyard on the terrace, the DHS forces were gathering the remaining state government officials, their spouses and staffs to determine who they had, who was missing and who was going to be transported in the choppers. They were being held at gunpoint. The wounded were being moved into the main lodge. Three federal agents had been killed, including the one shot by the governor. Two other agents were seriously wounded.

  “Where’s the g
overnor?” demanded Weaver. Nobody answered him.

  “Where’s Foster?” asked Foster’s senior staff person.

  “Just shut the hell up!” yelled a federal agent, pointing his weapon at Weaver’s head. Weaver stared the agent down, showing no fear.

  It was chaotic. Women were crying, and federal agents were yelling insults at staff members and others gathered in the courtyard. The agents made no attempt to remove any of the Texans’ bodies, only those of dead agents.

  The agents searched each state employee for radios and cell phones. They then scoured the entire compound for any cell phones left in the guest houses, main lodge and house. Comfortable that all cell phones had been recovered, the commander got on his radio.

  “Prickly Pear One, this is Santa Anna One. Commence recovery immediately. All is clear.”

  Within minutes, Prickly Pear One and Prickly Pear Two lifted off from Ciudad Acuna Airport and sped off to follow the same flight path to the Swingin’ T.

  Four F-15 fighter jets immediately lifted off the decks of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier positioned one hundred miles from Brownsville, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico to ensure the safe return of the Blackhawks.

  “Where the hell are Gov. Cooper and Lt. Gov. Foster? Where is Maj. Gen. Conroy?” asked Weaver again.

  “Bring him over here,” barked the commander.

  Weaver was led over to a separate area of the terrace away from the others being held at gunpoint.

  “Are you Weaver?” asked the commander.

  “Yes, I am, but where is the governor?”

  “Mr. Weaver, it gives me great pleasure to tell you that you are under arrest by your federal government as an accessory to the murder of eighteen federal agents and U.S. Army troops in Austin. Cuff and shackle him.”

  “Oh, Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you people? Where is the governor?” demanded Weaver, his glare showing his disgust for what he saw around him.

  The commander hesitated for a few seconds as he looked off into the distant Texas night. Then he turned back, looking at Weaver with emotionless eyes.