Liberty's Last Stand (36 page)

Three guys were lounging around, two sucking cigarettes and one arranging a pinch of Skoal in his mouth. One of the smokers looked inquisitive.

“The guy who runs this place?”

“Sluggo Sweatt.” He pointed. “That building on the left.”

“Thanks.”

I rolled on over and parked in front. I holstered the Kimber.

“Sluggo Sweatt is on the White House staff,” Sarah said.

“I've heard the name. Are you ready?”

“Let's go in.”

We turned off the engine, left the keys in the ignition, walked up the three steps to the porch and went inside. The receptionist's desk was empty, but the next room had a window and a desk with Sweatt seated behind it in an executive chair that he had apparently liberated from Office Depot. Sarah and I pulled our pistols and pointed them at him.

“See who else is in here,” I told Sarah. As she went down the hallway looking in offices I scanned the room.

“You have precisely ten seconds to tell me where Jake Grafton is, or I'm going to shoot you.” The words were no more out of my mouth than I heard M4s begin to fire bursts.

Sweatt looked startled. His eyes went to the windows. I fired a shot into his computer, and the bits of glass flew out. “Pay attention,” I said.

I heard a shot from down the hallway. Then another.

His eyes were frozen on the pistol in my hand now. One of the interesting things about a .45 is how big the muzzle looks when it is pointed right at your eyes. Only a half inch in diameter, the hole in the barrel looks like a howitzer at close range. I lined up the sights and shot his right ear off.

He jerked and blood flew all over the wall behind him as a fusillade of M4 fire behind me filled the room with noise. Then a hand grenade went off. And another.

Sluggo got the message. “He's in a cell, down the hallway.”

Sarah came trotting back. I gave her the news.

“The keys?”

They were on Sluggo's desk. Sarah grabbed them and ran. “If he isn't there,” I told Sweatt, “I'm going to start shooting parts off.”

More M4 bursts, a cacophony. Blood ran down Sluggo's neck and his face looked pasty.

In a moment Sarah was back. “He's in terrible shape. A lot of broken ribs.”

“You keep Mr. Sweatt occupied. If he twitches, empty your pistol into him.”

She stood precisely in front of the desk and used both hands to steady the gun on his chest.

I ran outside, grabbed a medic's pack from the bed of the truck, glanced at the gate and saw all three guards sprawled there. I ran back inside. If anyone shot at me they missed. Still some shooting going on. It would have been nice to know how many FEMA dudes we had strapped on, but we hadn't had time for an extended recon.

I found Grafton lying on the floor in a cell, the door of which was standing open.

“Tommy,” he whispered. “Lots of broken ribs on both sides, I think.”

I cut his shirt off with my fighting knife. His sides were black and blue. Digging into the medic pack, I got out several rolls of gauze. “I gotta sit you up, sir.”

“Do it.”

I took his arms, which were bruised badly where he'd tried to cover up, and pulled him into a sitting position. He groaned. Working as quickly as possible, I wrapped him in gauze from his armpits down to his belly button. Needed three rolls to do it. Then I began wrapping him with surgical tape, as tightly as I could.

A few more shots. I was listening for the sound of a machine gun, but I hadn't heard it yet. “Who did this?” I asked.

“Sweatt had it done. Wanted a confession. Said if I didn't sign, he was going to personally help beat me to death tomorrow.”

“So we're right in the nick. You lucky dog.”

Now I heard the stutters of a machine gun.

Armanti Hall had set up the M279 beside a small wooden building with a good view of the guard towers and the barracks. The fact that the only lights were in the compound and the towers were backlit probably helped. The guards, one in each tower, were looking into the light, watching the people in the compound and smoking. Armanti got the belt arranged in the gun and chambered a cartridge. When he had that attended to, he gave Willie Varner four hand grenades.

“I want you to go around on the other side of this building,” Armanti said, “where you can see the front of the barracks. Then put all four of your hand grenades on the ground. Wait until I fire, then pick up one grenade. See this pin on each one—hold the lever, pull the pin, then wind up and throw it in from the outfield. Pick up another, pull the pin, and throw it. Do it until you have thrown all four. Then lay down, right where you are, and don't move a muscle until you hear me call your name. I don't want you running around out here in the dark. I'll be shooting at everything that moves. If anyone comes up on you, play dead.”

“Okay, man.”

“Can you do it?”

“I guess.” Willie Varner took a deep breath and exhaled explosively.

Five minutes later the shooting started, and to Armanti's amazement, the man in the north tower climbed down and ran for the barracks. The man in the south tower wasn't far behind. Thirty seconds later, as gunfire popped in the front of the compound, guards in FEMA green came running through the compound toward the back gate, jerked it open—apparently it wasn't locked—and ran for their cars or the barracks.

Armanti waited until no one wearing green wanted out of the compound, then opened fire.

I heard the M279 open up, followed by grenade blasts. I hoped that was Armanti Hall behind the compound gunning every FEMA guard who had came out the back gate and jumped in a car or pickup. Or anyone who wanted out of the barracks to join in the fray, if there was a barracks back there.

When I finished with the tape, Grafton said, “Cut this jumpsuit off. I shit in it.”

I knew that by the smell, but was too polite to mention it. After I used my knife and he was naked except for the tape, I got a look at his swollen balls. They were bruised almost black. I helped Grafton to his feet. “You're going to have to walk, Admiral.”

“Give me a shoulder to hang on to.” I put the medic bag over my shoulder, put my left arm around Grafton, and took an experimental step. He wasn't going to go down; that was one tough man. I drew the Kimber and led him down the hall.

Silence had descended on the compound. Sweatt was still in his chair, holding his ear. Blood was oozing through his fingers and running down his neck, staining his collared shirt.

Grafton paused in front of the desk and picked up a watch, put it on. Then he reached for a cell phone and handed it to me. He put a hand on my Kimber and I gave it to him.

“Sluggo, you were born eighty years too late,” Jake Grafton said as he looked down to check the safety on the .45. “You should have been an SS colonel in charge of Auschwitz or Dachau.”

He pointed the pistol and shot Sluggo in the center of his forehead. The back of the man's head exploded onto the wall and his body rocked back in the chair. The corpse stayed in the chair, its arms dangling, its eyes pointed at the ceiling.

Grafton handed me back my gun.

“Let's go, Tommy. Sarah.”

We both helped him down the steps and into the right seat of the pickup. Then Sarah ran around and entered through the driver's door and scooted over.

A knot of civilians was standing there. Willis and Travis were policing up weapons and tossing them into a stack in the yard.

Jack Yocke and Sal Molina came over to the right-side window, which was down. “We want to go with you, Admiral.”

“Get in the back.”

I addressed the crowd while Yocke and Molina climbed over the tailgate. “Folks, your guards have skedaddled or died, I am not sure which. Help yourselves to the weapons. You must decide if you wish to remain here or take your chances outside. We can't stay, and you know they'll be back, sooner or later, when they figure out what went down here. All I can tell you is, good luck.”

I got in the pickup, carefully backed up, then put it in drive and steered toward the gate. I ran over a body of a FEMA warrior sprawled there because I was in no mood to get out and move the corpse or wait for someone else to do it.

“Who'd you shoot?” I asked Sarah.

“A couple of men who thought I wouldn't.”

“Good.”

“This pistol doesn't kick as much as I thought it would.” Oh, man! I glanced at her, but she was looking straight ahead at the road.

The breeze coming in the open windows felt good.

“Where are we going, Tommy?” Grafton asked.

“A place I know. You need a vacation and Sarah needs access to a real bathroom.”

“Where?” he said. That was Jake Grafton. No nonsense at all.

“The CIA safe farm near Greenbank.”

He grunted. Then his head tilted back onto the headrest and he was asleep, or maybe passed out. He had had a really bad time.

NINETEEN

C
ongressman Jerry Marquart was one of the civilians who watched Tommy Carmellini and the gunmen depart through the gate and down the road into the night. He recognized Jake Grafton, former CIA director, and Sal Molina, who was presumably no longer employed at the White House. The fashionably grizzled younger man who climbed into the back of the pickup with Molina he didn't know.

Jerry was in his late thirties. He was an ROTC grad, had spent six years in the Marines, had done the Afghanistan gig twice, and then had gotten out and gone into politics in Iowa. He was in his second term in the House of Representatives when FBI agents arrested him and brought him here. He didn't even bother to ask why. He was no friend of the Soetoro administration and denounced their policies at every opportunity. He actually had a lot of opportunities, because he was one of the very few members of congress with recent military experience. Or any military experience, for that matter.

He looked at the pile of carbines the attackers had left behind, walked over, and picked one up. Worked the action, checked the magazine, then went over to one of the bodies and helped himself to several full magazines.

Another man came over and asked him, “You know anything about guns?”

“A little.”

“I'm from New Jersey, and I don't know shit about guns.” He was about twenty-five pounds overweight, had saggy jowls, and combed his hair over his bald spot. He picked up a carbine and hefted it. “But I don't think I want to stay here.”

“Don't take one unless you're willing to use it.”

“I'm getting there. Name's Evan Bjerki.”

“Help yourself to some ammo,” Marquart advised. “The price is right.”

Jerry Marquart went into the admin building and spent two seconds looking at the remains of Sluggo Sweatt. He had seen a lot of corpses so Sluggo's didn't affect him one way or the other. Nor did the two dead men sprawled on the floor of a room with cots and porn mags scattered around. He helped himself to a pistol belt that he had to pull off one of them, strapped it around his middle. He checked the pistol, a Beretta, made sure it was loaded, then moved on. The cell gave him pause. He smelled the feces, saw the jump suit on the floor, connected it to the naked Grafton, and walked back through the building and out into the compound. Knots of people, maybe a hundred by now, were talking earnestly and loudly to each other and gesturing. Bjerki trailed along behind Marquart.

Marquart went back through the camp, taking his time. There might be some guards still around, and they would undoubtedly be in a pissy mood.

The back gate of the compound was standing open. More bodies lying round. He surmised this was from the machine-gun fire he had heard. Six more bodies lay on the porch and dirt in front of the guards' barracks. One of the men wasn't dead; he was groaning and his legs worked back and forth in the dirt. Marquart didn't get near him.

The wooden sides of the building had been raked by machine-gun fire. Maybe there were more dead or wounded in there, but Marquart wasn't curious enough to go inside to find out.

He examined the vehicles. One car with a body lying beside it seemed undamaged. As he checked the pockets of the corpse, which hadn't bled much, he noted the man had taken four rounds in the chest, any one of which would probably have been fatal. He found a set of keys. They fit in the ignition. He started the engine, which seemed to run okay. Half a tank of gas. Bjerki stood by the driver's door. Marquart ran the window down. “I'm leaving,” he said. “You want to come, get in.”

Bjerki walked around the front of the car and climbed into the passenger's seat. He held his M4 between his knees. “Where are you going?”

“To the revolution.”

“Be a shame if they had one without us,” New Jersey Bjerki said.

“Put on your seatbelt.”

Marquart pulled the lever to get the car into drive, and they rolled.

On their way back to Longview, Nate Danaher said to JR Hays, “You understand that if we attack Barksdale, the gloves will be off.”

“Sure.”

“You've talked this over with your cousin?”

“Yes.”

“He understands that this is not a declaration of independence; it's a declaration of war?”

“Nate, you and I know Barry Soetoro isn't going to let Texas go without a fight. For us, the only decision to be made is whether we let Soetoro strike the first blow. Politically, it would be wise to let him be the aggressor. Militarily, not so wise. If Texas is going to win its independence, it must seize the military initiative and
never let it go
.”

Danaher nodded.

“If we let Soetoro pick and choose his points of attack, we will ultimately lose our organized military forces and be reduced to years of guerilla warfare. In the long run, I think we could win a guerilla war, but it will destroy Texas and ultimately cost more lives than an offensive that takes the fight out of Texas and into Soetoro's territory. Jack thought that a Texas offensive would, in the long run, cause Soetoro to lose political control of the country. Soetoro must show his supporters he can win the battles, or else he will lose the war. He's already on record as saying that he will crush Texas. I don't think he thought that statement through very well, because Jack can say we are responding to an imminent threat, and everyone south of Canada will believe him. Barry Soetoro doesn't want to negotiate: he wants war. We must give it to him in spades.”

“An assault on the base really ought to happen at night. Tonight would have been ideal. Tomorrow night would be the next choice.”

“We can't wait. By tomorrow night they may have flown those B-52s out of here or arranged AAA and SAMs, plus a reception committee on the ground. In addition to air police, they can fly some troops up from Fort Polk. By tomorrow night they might be ready to kick our butts. So we must go as soon as we can get ready. The C-130s are already at Hood, and the troops, all volunteers, are getting ready. We just need you to brief them, set it up, and go. Tomorrow morning at perhaps nine o'clock is about the earliest possible time. In my judgment, we dare not wait.
We cannot wait
.”

“What are you going to do about that brigade combat team from Fort Polk? And those paratroops? They could push us right off Barksdale and back into Texas.”

“I'm going to bomb them while you are taking Barksdale.”

Danaher thought for a few minutes as the miles rolled by. Finally he said, “Okay, I'll do it. Gina can stay with our daughter. Let's saddle up.”

“Welcome to the Texas Guard.”

“Welcome to the war, you mean.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“I don't know if I have another war in me, but I guess we'll all find out,” Nate Danaher said softly.

The CIA safe house was in the woods of a large farm that the locals thought belonged to an eccentric novelist. That was the agency's cover story, anyway. It was midnight when we entered by a gravel driveway, passing by signs that announced “Private Property, No Trespassing” and “Trespassers Will Be Persecuted and Prosecuted, This Means You.” The one-lane road led across a large meadow, passing a wooden hangar and a barn, and crossed a grass runway and then a bridge across a creek. Security cameras were mounted unobtrusively on trees and under the eaves of the hangar and barn. I led the way.

The safe house was used for interrogating defectors, Russians and Eastern Europeans back in the day, and now Islamic jihadists. I doubted if there was anyone there just now due to the current state of national affairs, but I was ready in case we met anyone. We didn't. No one was at the guard's cottage, and the gate was locked. Willie the Wire worked on it awhile and couldn't get it open, so we used a tow chain to pull the gate down and off the road. Willie's one skill in life is opening any lock without a key, yet he had just had his first taste of combat so he was a little shook up.

There was no one at the main house. After an incident a couple years ago when some bent FBI agents and former cops burned the house down, the place had been rebuilt. I was involved in that fracas, and hadn't been here since.

Willie opened the front door for us, partially redeeming himself. While the guys fired up a gasoline generator out back, I explored the layout and found that the new building had a small medical room. It contained an X-ray machine and one that I thought was probably an EKG machine. Some other equipment that I couldn't identify. I had the guys take Jake Grafton in there and put him on the gurney.

Grafton was conscious and obviously hurting. “He needs a doctor,” Sarah said with a frown.

“I'll go get one.”

I drove back to the hard road and went into Greenbank, and found a small white cinderblock building that said “Clinic” on the sign. It was closed of course, but a sign by the door gave a number to call in case of medical emergencies.

Back in the FEMA truck, I fired up the GPS, played with the options, and found one labeled “phone number.” I clicked on it and a prompt appeared. I put in the area code, which was 304, and the number. In about two seconds a red pin appeared. Five more seconds, and the computer filled in a map with directions from my present position to the pin.

It was eight miles away. I rolled.

The doctor's house was on a secondary road at the top of the grade, in a saddle where there was a nice view. I went up his drive and, late as it was, found a man and woman sitting beside an outdoor fireplace with drinks in their hands. I got out and went over.

“Doctor?”

“Yes. Nathan Proudfoot.” He was about six feet, thin, perhaps sixty years old, with cropped hair and a mustache.

“My name is Tommy Carmellini. I'm with FEMA. We have a medical emergency down the road a little ways and could certainly use your services. Could you come with me?”

To his credit, he didn't hesitate. “I'll get my bag.” He charged into the house. There was a lighted kerosene lamp on the porch and apparently at least one in the house.

“Sorry to ruin your evening, ma'am,” I told the lady.

“Goes with the territory,” she said. “What happened?”

“Car wreck. One hurt.”

Dr. Proudfoot came trotting out with his black medical bag. He got into the passenger seat of the truck, and we headed back for the safe house. I told him about the fictitious wreck.

“How did you find me?”

I gestured to the GPS. “FEMA can find anyone,” I said, which was true.

“How are you making out without electricity?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said confidently. “Rural nets occasionally go down when there are thunderstorms or someone knocks down a pole with a car, but only for a few hours or overnight. That's just a nuisance. Still, a few years ago we had a blizzard that took a lot of lines down and left us without power for eight days. That was a real pain, so I'm set up now. Even have a little generator that keeps the refrigerator and water pump running. We'll be fine.”

As we drove up the road I told him about the patient. “He's a little over sixty-five, I think, six feet, not obese, in fairly good health as far as I know, but he has a bunch of cracked or broken ribs on each side. I taped him up as best I could; he's in a lot of pain and needs a doctor.”