A State of Treason

by David Thomas Roberts

  The senator turned to look at Bartlett while he was talking to Pops. She could tell by his expression something was terribly wrong.

  “We don’t believe there are any more U.S. or Mexican fighters in the air near the area,” said Pops with obvious disgust. “I suggest your pilot take you to the ranch so Bartlett can see firsthand what ya’lls Yankee buddies in Washington just did.”

  “How far away are we?” Simpson asked.

  “Less than an hour,” interrupted the pilot.

  “Take us right now. Any more news on Cooper?” asked the senator.

  “Senator, you better tell your people that they are going to see some damned horrific images at the ranch. I want you to make sure Bartlett and her staff witness everything. Hell, take pictures for the whole world to see!”

  “Will do, Pops. Who’s in charge out there right now?”

  “The sheriff of Llano County. I’ll let them know you are still coming.”

  Secy. Bartlett tried mightily to figure out what was going on from the little bit she could hear of the senator’s conversation. She could barely hear the radio over the engine noise, but not enough of it to prepare for what she was about to hear.

  “They attacked the ranch! There are casualties and the governor is missing!”

  “Damn, it had to be Tibbs!” exclaimed Bartlett. “He had to know we were meeting. The timing is not a coincidence.”

  “Nothing with this administration is a coincidence,” retorted the senator.

  “I want to go to this ranch,” Bartlett said.

  “Oh, you’re going, Madam Secretary. We are headed directly there now.”

  “What else should I know? Where’s the governor?” asked Bartlett. The four staff members were hanging on every word they could hear over the rotors and engine.

  “Apparently, either Special Ops or DHS launched an early morning raid this morning with Blackhawks.”

  “Oh, my…” was all Bartlett could get out before Simpson continued.

  “He said fighter jets struck civilian airports in San Antonio, Brownsville, Corpus Christi and air bases like Lackland and Beeville. What I’m unclear about is that he mentioned something about fighters from the Mexican air force.”

  “Mexican fighters? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.”

  As the helicopter changed course to the Swingin’ T, the staff members began texting the state department and the senator’s office back in Washington for news of the morning’s events.

  It was difficult to hear on the noisy helicopter. Since operation Prism was made public and revealed NSA’s ability to listen, track, record and catalog all cell phone calls made by Americans, most administration cabinet members had switched to satellite or encrypted phones for sensitive communications. Secy. Bartlett had a separate satellite phone but wasn’t able to establish a link over the Texas hill country to call her office.

  News was sketchy at best, but reports came across their cell phones. Bartlett’s chief of staff handed the secretary her smartphone opened to a CNN app.

  “Feds Conduct Raid on Texas State Government Officials! Casualties Reported!”

  “This is not good. Not good at all,” said Bartlett, shaking her head.

  “How did Tibbs find out about this meeting, Anna?” asked Simpson suspiciously.

  “You’re assuming he found out,” said Bartlett. “We don’t know for sure yet that he knew.”

  “Oh, come on, Madam Secretary! Even you know better.”

  “If you are asking if I tipped them off or if anyone on my staff did, then you just back up, senator. I had a lot to gain by a successful negotiation down here, just as did you.”

  Bartlett was visibly angry at the suggestion. Simpson knew the old political war horse could verbally devour him easily.

  “What about your staff, senator?” quipped Bartlett, looking directly at Simpson’s chief of staff.”

  “Okay, okay, truce here. My mistake. I agree we both wanted a negotiated settlement.”

  The pilot flipped his intercom switch on and announced they were just a few miles from the Swingin’ T.

  All the occupants strained against their seatbelts to look out the windows.

  “Look, there’s smoke coming up in several places! Looks like something is on fire,” yelled one of the staff members.

  The helicopter made several passes around the main lodge as they reached the sheriff’s department by radio. On the ground, they were greeted by various law enforcement personnel, including state troopers and Texas Militia.

  “Senator and Madam Secretary, I’m Sheriff Porter. All the remaining state officials and staff were loaded up and sent elsewhere. We have crime scene investigators here, as well as some Rangers, state troopers and Texas Militia. Over there is the coroner. We have a damned mess.”

  “There are fatalities? Who are they?” asked Simpson.

  “Maj. Gen. Conroy was killed, as well as several state troopers and four Texas Rangers. We lost some damned good men, Senator.”

  “And news of the governor?” said a hopeful Simpson.

  The heavy-set buzz-haired sheriff looked at the ground for what seemed like an eternity.

  “Follow me,” he replied, speaking to the entire contingent as he began walking to the main lodge. Sen. Simpson and Secy. Bartlett were visibly shaken as they walked through the carnage.

  “Here is where the governor and his wife were sleeping.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Bartlett, putting her palm over her mouth and nose, “look at the blood!”

  “Christ!” exclaimed Simpson.

  “A federal agent and state trooper were both shot and killed in this room; we know that for a fact. So whose blood is whose is anyone’s guess,” said the sheriff as he looked at several Texas Rangers in the room doing what amounted to a crime scene investigation.

  “It appears, however, there are two blood areas,” said Porter, pointing to blood spatter on the wall next to the end of the bed and on the floor, and then pointing to the entrance to the bedroom where the other blood stains were concentrated.

  “Nobody saw them take the governor? What about bodies? Did anyone see them load bodies into the choppers?” asked Simpson as he looked for any clue or sign of the governor’s fate.

  “Nope. Whatever happened to the governor, they made damned sure it would leave us guessing,” answered Porter.

  As they walked the compound to tour the rest of the crime area, Bartlett’s chief of staff handed the secretary her smartphone, again opened to the MSNBC website.

  “Mexican President Reports Texas Air Guard Violated Mexican Air Space and Downed Several Mexican Fighters. Mexican Military Mobilizing Along Texas Border!”

  “What the hell is going on?” muttered Bartlett. “I need a briefing as soon as possible from the White House. Get Washington on the phone now!” she screamed to her staff.

  Chapter 17

  “Communism possesses a language which every people can understand—its elements are hunger, envy and death.”

  ~ Heinrich Hein (1797-1856)

  German Poet & Writer

  Santa Anna One maneuvered into a landing pattern in eighteen-knot winds as it prepared to land on the USS Harry S. Truman in the Gulf of Mexico. The massive carrier was pitching slowly in moderate seas as the stealth-skinned Blackhawk came to rest on the deck.

  Dozens of crewmen and officers lingered on the deck to maneuver the chopper once the rotors stopped turning. The airmen had orders to immediately position the chopper on the elevator deck; the chopper’s occupants were ordered to remain onboard. The Blackhawk was to be lowered two deck levels before the pilot, crew and others could get off. Deck level three was ordered to be empty with the exception of crew and officers who had security clearances.

  Command did not want anyone to see who got off the chopper, whether it was Texas state officials in custody or body bags. Per Adm. Victor Beacham, only a small percentage of the Truman’s crew knew the Blackhawk’s mission or why the carr
ier was in the Gulf of Mexico.

  The Blackhawk drew quite a crowd when it landed as very few people outside of special operations had ever seen the stealth skin on the chopper, made famous in the raid that netted the most famous terrorist in the world. The scuttlebutt had already started among the sailors, trying to guess why a stealth Blackhawk was operating in the Texas Gulf Coast instead of its normal Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean venues. Adding to the mystery were a number of fighter jets in the air circling the carrier. The fact that the occupants did not exit the chopper only heightened speculation.

  Adm. Beacham was already on the third deck waiting for the Blackhawk as it slowly descended from the flight deck. Joining him in the wait were six men in suits and other officers from the Truman. The suits included four men from the FBI and two from DHS. Naval corpsmen and surgeons were standing by with gurneys and medical equipment to attend to the wounded.

  The elevator deck locked into place with a loud clank as it settled onto the third deck. The crew and occupants began climbing out of the cargo bay, first with the two wounded agents who were immediately loaded onto gurneys. They each had an IV, started onboard during the flight from the Swingin’ T by crew members who were also trained in emergency EMT procedures.

  Next, Lt. Gov. Foster and his wife were helped out of the craft. Foster also had an IV started, and it was obvious he had suffered a wound to the thigh. He looked gaunt and weak, and it was apparent that he had lost a lot of blood. Although not wounded, his wife could barely walk, no doubt stunned by the trauma of it all and noticeably shaken by her husband’s worsening condition.

  Texas Atty. Gen. Jeff Weaver was accompanied on both arms by DHS forces in full combat gear. His hair was disheveled, and he still wore just his boxer shorts and a t-shirt, a result of the sudden raid on the Swingin’ T. Weaver was slightly bent over with handcuffs on his wrists, attached to a chain that went around his waist and connected to shackles on his ankles. The shackles were so tight that he could only take baby steps as he inched toward the edge of the Blackhawk cargo bay.

  Weaver looked up to see the contingent of officers and suits staring at him from twenty feet away, and he recognized the ranking naval officer.

  “Admiral, if this was your operation, you should be ashamed! Texas won’t forget, I can guaran-damn-tee you that! What happened this morning was criminal!”

  “Shut him the hell up!” yelled back one of the suits.

  The two commandos holding Weaver by the arms forced him to the ground, face down, with a knee in his back. Another stepped over and gagged him. At that point, Weaver started resisting, prompting one of his captors to start kicking the Texas attorney general in the ribs.

  “Stop that!” snapped the admiral.

  “Excuse me, Adm. Beacham, but he’s got it coming!” replied the suit.

  “You won’t treat a prisoner on my ship like that!” said the red-faced admiral.

  “This turd is a prisoner of the U.S. Department of Justice,” said the suit.

  “Son, if you touch that prisoner one more time, I will have my sailors strap you to the catapult on the flight deck and launch your ass into the Gulf of Mexico and you can swim back to Washington, D.C.!”

  Two chief petty officers moved toward the offending suit, who took two steps back, raising both hands slightly to indicate he was finished beating on Weaver.

  Adm. Beacham next ordered most of the remaining sailors off the deck. The suits walked over to the chopper and turned to make sure there was no unnecessary crew still on the elevator deck.

  “Get everyone the hell out of here!” yelled one of the suited men to the admiral.

  Adm. Beacham wasn’t used to someone barking orders at him, especially in front of his staff and worse, from a civilian. “Son, this is my ship. If you attempt to issue an order to me or any of my officers from this point forward, you will spend the night in the brig down below. Is that understood?”

  “Okay, Admiral. I get it. Can you please make sure non-essential personnel are cleared?”

  “The officers and seamen that remain on this deck have the clearance to be here. Now let’s get on with this.”

  The admiral and the suits anxiously waited for the operation commander to bring out Gov. Cooper. The commander had indicated, through coded transmissions, that they had gotten Cooper. The suits were especially anxious to see the governor in shackles. The governor’s true condition wasn’t relayed to the carrier command while in flight in order to keep radio silence and to keep the status of the mission and the occupants and their status secret.

  When the crew began offloading the black body bags of the four dead federal agents, the mood changed slightly until the body bags had been carried into an adjoining room and the door closed behind the gurneys.

  Everyone now stepped closer to the Blackhawk as the operation commander of Santa Anna One jumped down out of the cargo bay. The admiral did not like the look on his face.

  One of the suits blurted out immediately, “Bring the bastard out. I want to see the criminal that killed my brother agents.”

  “Here you go…” said the flight commander as two of the crew members pulled out another black body bag.

  “Oh, my God. You can’t be serious!” exclaimed Adm. Beacham.

  “He brought it on himself, sir.”

  “You boys were supposed to arrest him, not kill him!”

  Just then another body bag was brought to the edge of the cargo bay.

  “Who the hell is that?” barked the admiral.

  The commander looked away for a brief second. “The governor’s wife, sir.”

  “Instead of capturing him, we killed him and his wife? Are you serious?” asked the admiral in disbelief.

  Operation Santa Anna was the admiral’s mission. The Joint Chiefs had chosen him and the Truman to carry it out, although he had objected to the name given the operation by DHS. Even though federal agents conducted the raid, the coordination and operation were his responsibility. The admiral knew in that instant his naval career was over.

  “Who else knows this?” asked another suit.

  “Just the crew. We were able to contain the rest at the ranch and keep them separate. I seriously doubt anyone knows they are dead, but I cannot guarantee that, sir,” answered the operation commander.

  The admiral continued to rub his chin in deep thought. “There might be some in Washington that will be happy about this. But I can certainly tell you this… You just killed the duly elected sitting governor of the state of Texas and his wife. No matter how it happened, this is a bad, bad scenario,” he lamented.

  “Sir, there was a firefight in his bedroom. One of the body bags contained a dead federal agent who was shot and killed by the governor himself.”

  “Then it was justified. Whatever happened, he had it coming for what happened in Austin,” retorted one of the suits.

  “Gentlemen, he was killed in his bedroom as a result of this operation. I can tell you this for sure; any chance this administration had to win over the hearts and minds of ordinary Texans just went out the window. To them, the federal government has just murdered a popular Texas icon and his wife.”

  “Well, screw ’em. Like I said, he had it coming. There are dead federal agents’ blood on his hands for what happened in Austin. I’m certainly not shedding any tears,” said the same suit.

  “I want those two bodies treated with the utmost respect and the same respect you gave those others in that room. This man was a duly elected governor. You will not defile their bodies or treat them any differently than the others while their remains are on my ship. Is that understood by everyone?” asked the admiral.

  “Aye, aye.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The admiral was visibly shaken. His senior officers had never seen him in such a state of shock and uncertainty. He was a rock, always a beacon of confidence and assuredness to his staff and sailors on ship. He paced aimlessly, looking down at the deck floor while rubbing his chin and the back of his nec
k.

  The corpsmen then began the task of loading the remains of the governor and his wife onto gurneys to the refrigerated room where the other remains were placed.

  “Gentlemen, I need my senior officers and the commander in my quarters. We have a satellite debriefing with the Joint Chiefs in fifteen minutes.”

  As Adm. Beacham walked back through the interior maze of the carrier, he was in deep thought and oblivious to anyone around him, failing to acknowledge the salutes of numerous sailors he passed on his way to his quarters. He stepped into his quarters, shut the door behind him and sat down in his overstuffed leather chair.

  Adm. Beacham, an Annapolis graduate and forty-two year naval officer, was highly decorated and well respected. He sat in his chair and lit up a cigar. He had lost his wife of thirty-seven years thirteen months ago. He missed her greatly. He always felt guilty that he wasn’t at her side when she died from cancer much faster than doctors had predicted.

  The admiral was at the helm of the Truman in the Indian Ocean steaming home, and had been assured by her doctors that his wife was in remission. The admiral was not going to miss the opportunity for the Truman to be part of Operation Python, in which sorties from his flight deck contributed to the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The guilt ate at him twenty-four hours a day.

  This entire mission, from the time the Joint Chiefs and Atty. Gen. Tibbs laid it out until they pulled the governor’s body bag from the Blackhawk, was surreal. Like any good officer, he accepted his orders, but he never liked it.

  Launching a secret special ops mission into one of the United States’ sovereign states to capture a sitting governor and having him and his wife turn up dead as a result of the operation under his watch was something the admiral could have never imagined. As an astute student of U.S. military history, he was ashamed his name would forever be attached to this debacle. He was sure this would launch the country into a dangerous spiral from which it might not recover.