Liberty's Last Stand (4 page)

I was elected to tell Grafton, and did so a bit after five p.m. He just nodded. He had spent the afternoon on the phone, presumably talking to other heads of agencies and political big shots all over town.

“Are you going home soon?” he asked. After all, five o'clock is traditionally quitting time, although not in the CIA.

“Not if you need me, sir.”

“Hang around. Sal Molina is coming over again later. I may need a witness.”

Oh boy. I wandered out past the receptionist and walked the halls a while with my hands in my pockets. Was Grafton going to resign? Or get fired?

People were standing in knots here and there, chewing the rag over the terrorist attacks. The news shows, they told me, said that Cynthia Hinton had scheduled a news conference for prime time this evening.

I was sitting in the director's reception area when the vice director, Harley Merritt, strode by on his way to the inner sanctum. He ignored me. He had an EA with him, and she ignored me too. It was that kind of day.

They were in there about a half hour and came marching out. Grafton stood in the doorway as they crossed the reception room. He motioned to me. I went in and he closed the door.

“Molina is on his way. Sit down.”

“Is he going to ask for your resignation?” I asked. Why beat around the bush?

“I don't know,” Grafton said crossly.

I also suspected he didn't give a damn, but I kept my mouth shut and seated myself on the couch. Laid my notebook on my lap, so I'd be ready to scribble down orders or telephone numbers or order flowers for funerals.

Grafton picked up something from his in-basket, glanced at it, tossed it back, then rose from his chair and stretched. He reminded me of a caged lion. Waiting. In a darkened office with the lights off. Behind him the day was slowly coming to an end.

“Nations don't just happen,” he remarked, as if he were talking to himself, or perhaps composing an essay. “They are put together by groups who are convinced that the people who live within a certain area will be better off as one political entity, this thing called a nation. Nations are fragile. Homogenous nations seem to have done best through written history. Ours is anything but homogenous, a grand experiment with many people from diverse racial groups, cultures, and religious heritages, all mixed together willy-nilly and bound together politically.”

Looking back, I think at that moment Jake Grafton had a glimpse of the future, a future that disturbed him profoundly.

He sat in silence for a while, then remarked, “A government that loses, or forfeits, the consent of the governed is doomed. Invariably. Inevitably. Irreversibly.”

He was sitting in silence with the light from the window behind him throwing his face in shadow when the squawk box buzzed. “Mr. Molina.”

“Send him in.”

I went to open the door and close it behind Molina. He sat in the chair across the desk from Grafton and glanced at me. “You won't need him,” he said to Grafton.

“He stays. Say what you want to say.”

“You need a witness?”

“I won't know until I hear it.”

“The president is declaring martial law tomorrow. He wants you standing behind him tomorrow at ten o'clock in the press room when he announces it.”

Jake Grafton didn't look surprised. I was flabbergasted, but since I was sitting on the couch against the wall Sal Molina couldn't see the stunned look on my face unless he turned his head, and he didn't.

“Why?” said Grafton.

“These terrorist conspiracies need to be rooted out. We must make sure the American people are safe, and feel safe.”

“Horseshit,” Grafton roared, and smacked the desk with both fists. “Pure fucking horseshit! Oh, a million or two jihadists would love to murder Americans, including Soetoro, if they could get here, but if they were a credible threat we'd have heard about it. This is just an excuse for Soetoro to suspend the Constitution and declare himself dictator.”

“The American people must be protected, Admiral. The president is taking no chances. No one wants to be the next victim of Islamic terrorists.”

“So he is going to rule by decree.”

“We face a national emergency.”

“And he is going to postpone or cancel the election in November. Isn't that the real reason for martial law?”

“I'm not going to debate it, Grafton. Tomorrow at ten at the White House. Be there an hour early and we'll have a decree signed by the president detailing the actions that he wants from this agency.”

“His staff can e-mail me a copy,” Grafton said softly. “I am not going to be a prop in a presidential power grab. Not now, not ever.”

Molina ran his hands over his face. “Jake, you don't have a choice,” he said reasonably. “You'll either be there or your name will go on the list as an enemy of the president. They'll lock you up. Soetoro is playing for keeps. You can kiss your pension good-bye. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison?”

Molina stood, put both fists on the desk, and leaned forward. His voice dropped. “You think
I
want to be a part of this? I have a wife and two kids. I don't have a choice. By God, you don't either.”

Grafton was silent, looking at nothing for a moment or two. Finally, he said, “Soetoro has been waiting for a terror strike so he could declare martial law, become a dictator, and fix all the things he doesn't like about America.”

“You don't know that.”

“I'll bet any sum you want to name he is going to call off the election and remain in office.”

Molina straightened and made a gesture of irritation. He glanced around and saw me, which obviously startled him. Apparently he had forgotten I was in the room.

He took a step in my direction. “One word from you outside this room will put you in a cell, Carmellini.” I'd had confrontations with Molina before. I wasn't stupid enough to open my mouth this time.

Molina swung back to Grafton.

“Be there tomorrow morning. If you aren't, I can't help you.”

“
Me
? You can't help
me
?” Grafton was standing too, and he was beyond fury. He had a scar on his temple that was throbbing red. “That bastard is going to rip this country apart, and you worry about your family and pension? You think there's a lifeboat handy that will keep you and yours comfortably afloat in this sea of shit while the ship sinks? What the hell kind of man are you, Molina? He doesn't need
you
and he doesn't need
me
. Get a grip, fool.”

Molina was holding on to the desk, as if he were trying to stay erect. “Jake. . .”

“You get out of my office and don't ever come back.”

“It won't be your office long. That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

“I don't ever want to see your face again, Molina. Get the fuck out.”

Molina turned and walked from the room. Neither fast nor slow. He merely walked. The door closed behind him.

I was too stunned to open my mouth or move.

Grafton looked at me and gestured toward the door. “You too, Tommy. Out.”

I got my muscles working and went.

In west Texas, Joe Bob Hays' hired man stood in the yard of the ranch house and watched the helicopter approach. It came from the east and slowed as it descended. It touched down in a cloud of dust and, after the sound of the engine subsided, the rotors slowly wound down.

A man in a suit but without a tie climbed out. A state trooper got out with him. They came walking over.

“I found him this morning, Governor, down by the arroyo trail. They killed him and cut the fence early Saturday, it looks like.”

Governor Jack Hays was Joe Bob's nephew. He had grown up on the ranch back in the cattle days, and had gone on to law school, then into politics.

“The sheriff and his men are down there taking pictures and whatnot. I think the body is still there.”

“Let's go. I want to see him.”

“They shot him in the head, Governor. Executed him. Blew the top half of his head clean off.”

“I want to see him. Let's go.”

They went by jeep. In the late afternoon sun, the blood and bits of brain had turned black. Ants had gathered, and bugs. . .

The county sheriff was there, Manuel Tejada, and he shook hands with the governor. “I'm sorry, sir,” the sheriff said. “You know about this trail. He complained for years, and I did what I could, but I only got so many men and this is a damn big county. . .”

“I know.”

“They came up the trail, at least ten of them. Judging by their tracks, at least eight of them were carrying a heavy load going north, but not when all ten of them went back south. One man came up the hill here and executed Joe Bob. He would probably have died anyway from that bleeding hole in his chest, but. . .shit!”

“Yeah.”

“The first bullet was fired from the other side—” the lawman pointed “—over there. We found a spent .223 cartridge. Probably one of them ARs. Tracks. The tracks went through the hole and up here to where Joe Bob is, and here's the second cartridge.”

He opened his hand for the governor's inspection. Jack Hays merely glanced at the open hand, then said, “He's lain out here long enough. You got your photos?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get him out of here. Take him to the funeral home in Sanderson.”

“Yes, sir,” Sheriff Tejada said to the governor's back, for he was walking away, trying not to look again at his uncle's remains.

Back at the ranch there was a trim, fit man in his early forties waiting beside a large pickup. His name was Joseph Robert Hays Junior, but everyone called him JR.

“They're bringing him out of there now, JR,” the governor said, after he hugged the younger man. “Better stay here. You don't want to see him like that. He wouldn't have wanted you to.”

JR nodded. His eyes were dry. He had seen his share of bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan and had not the slightest desire to see his father's remains.

The governor continued, telling his cousin what he knew. JR had just retired after twenty years in the army, retired as a lieutenant colonel, and was working as a consultant for a military contractor in El Paso, one supplying state-of-the-art night-vision equipment to the army. After he got the news, JR threw some things in his pickup and drove east.

“He was trying to protect his fence,” Jack Hays said. “They killed him and cut it.”

“I told him to put a gate in that damn fence,” JR said, “but he wouldn't.”

“No. . .” the governor said thoughtfully. “That wasn't him. There was no backup in him.” He eyed his cousin. He suspected there was no backup in Joe Bob's son, either.

“They'll be back,” JR said matter-of-factly.

“You going to wait for them?”

“Hunting assholes in the desert was my business for a lot of years. I suspect I know more about it than Sheriff Tejada and his deputies do.”

Jack Hays didn't try to talk him out of it. All he could hope for was that JR didn't get shot or caught. But JR was JR, and Joe Bob was his dad. And this was Texas. If JR shot some Mexican drug smugglers who had killed his dad, no Texas jury was going to convict him of anything.

“Fred coming down?” Fred was the younger brother, teaching school somewhere in the Dallas area.

“For the funeral. He and his wife can't get off just now.”

“Call me when you get the funeral scheduled,” the governor said. “Nadine and I will want to be there.”

“I will, Jack.”

Jack Hays hugged JR again, then went to the helicopter and climbed in. “Let's go,” he told the pilot.

TWO

M
artial law! Rule by decree from the White House! Barry Soetoro, emperor of the United States. People had been whispering for years about the possibility, but like most folks, I dismissed the whisperers as alarmist crackpots. Now, according to Sal Molina, the president's longtime guru, the crackpots were oracles.

I sat at my desk in my cubbyhole and thought about things. I wondered if there was any truth to Grafton's crack that Soetoro and company had been waiting for a terrorist incident so they could declare martial law. Well, why not? The nation was fed up with the Democrats. Seniors and the white middle class had deserted the party by the millions. Cynthia Hinton didn't have a chance. The Republicans were going to take over the government in November if there was an election.

I felt hot all over. Suddenly the room was stifling. It looked as if the nation I had grown up in, the crazy, diverse republic of three hundred million people all trying to make a living and raise the next generation, was going on the rocks. And all the king's horses and all the king's men weren't going to be able to put it back together again. That must have been the thrust of Grafton's remark before Molina arrived.

I felt as if I were on the edge of the abyss, like Dante's hero, staring down into the fiery pit. What next?

Grafton would be gone. Like tomorrow. The agency would become another arm of Soetoro's Gestapo. Molina had implied that much.

I opened the locked drawer where I kept my stuff. I had a shoulder holster and a little Walther in .380 ACP in there. Since I did bodyguard duty for Grafton, I had a permit for it signed by the director, who was Grafton. I took off my jacket, put on the shoulder holster, checked the pistol, and made sure I had a round in the chamber and the safety engaged. Put the pistol in the holster and put my coat back on.

I stood there looking around. There was nothing else in my office I wanted. Not the CIA coffee cup, the free pens, the photo of me and the guys on a big campout in Africa that hung on the wall. . .none of it. I locked the drawer and cabinets, left the room and made sure the door locked behind me, then headed for the parking lot.

Driving out of the lot was surreal. There were still some cars there, and people trickling out, just as there were every evening. The streetlights were on; traffic went up and down the streets obeying the traffic laws; news, music, sports, and talk emanated from my car radio. . .
and it was all coming to an end
.

As I drove I took mental inventory of my arsenal. If you live in America, you gotta have some guns, so when the political contract falls apart. . .yeah!

I drove over to a gun store I had had prior dealings with. A few people in the store, about as usual. I bought two more boxes of Number Four buckshot for the shotgun, another box of .380 ACP for my Walther, and four boxes of .45 ACP for my Kimber 1911, which was in my apartment. Three boxes of .30-30s for my old Model 94 Winchester.

“Expecting a war?” the clerk asked.

“Comes the revolution, I want to be ready,” I replied.

I used a credit card to pay for the stuff. If the future went down the way I suspected, in a few days no one would be able to buy guns or ammo for love or money. Soetoro would shut down the gun stores. Screw the Second Amendment.

Then I drove over to Maryland to visit the lock shop I owned with my partner, Willie “the Wire” Varner. He was a black man about twenty years older than me, and had been up the river twice. Now reformed, he was my very best friend. Don't ask me why a two-time loser should be the only guy in the world I really trust—besides Jake Grafton—but he is.
Maybe because he's so much like me. As I unlocked the front door and went into the shop, I realized that I couldn't tell him about the bomb Molina dropped, but I did have news.

Willie was in the back room of the shop wiring up the motherboard of an alarm system for installation in an old house. The final innings of an Orioles game were on the radio. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey. Stopped by to tell you, I quit the agency this evening.”

He stared. “No shit?”

“Honest injun. I am not going back.”

“They give you any severance?”

“Uh, no.”

He turned back to the alarm system. “They goin' to be lookin' for you, Carmellini?”

“Naw. It'll be days before they figure out that I'm gone. Maybe weeks.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Just did. All I can.”

He straightened up and gave me another look. “And I thought I had a monopoly on fuckin' up my life. If you ain't gonna tell me nothin', just why the hell did you drive over here tonight?”

I was at a loss for words. Why did I? I knew the answer, of course—because I needed some company—but I wasn't going to tell him that.

“Don't think you're gonna start workin' here on salary,” Willie declared. “We ain't got barely enough work for me. We divide it up and neither one of us will be eatin'.”

I nodded. Stood looking around. Maybe I should just give Willie a bill of sale for my half of the place and be done with it. He would never leave the metro area, and I wasn't staying. I didn't know where I was going, but I did know I wasn't staying in Washington.

I decided that was a problem for another day. Said good night and left.

I wasn't ready for my apartment. Hell, I had nothing better to do, so I headed for Jake Grafton's condo in Rosslyn. I had certainly been there
often enough these last few years, so I knew the way. I was going to try to find a parking place on the street, but instead decided to cruise by the building and see who was sitting outside in cars. Sure enough, a half block from the entrance there was a parked car with two men in it. They were of a type. FBI. After a while you get a feel for them. Trim, reasonably fit, wearing sports coats to hide a concealed carry, maybe a tie. Who, besides middle-level government employees, dresses like that at ten o'clock at night?

I decided I didn't give a damn if they saw and photographed me. There were no parking places on the street, so I steered the Benz into the parking garage and found a spot on the third deck. Took the stairs down, crossed the street, and went into Grafton's building.

Grafton buzzed the door open and I went up. Knocked and he opened the door. Callie was sitting in the kitchen. The admiral led me there and asked, “Want a drink?”

“Sure. Anything with alcohol.”

Callie Grafton was a tough lady, but she looked about the way I felt. Bad. “Tommy,” she said, trying to smile.

I realized then that coming over to Grafton's was a really bad idea. But I couldn't just walk out. The admiral opened the fridge and handed me a bottle of beer. I unscrewed the top and sipped it. “Car out front with two men in it. Maybe FBI.”

“A dirty gray sedan? They followed me home,” he said.

“So are you going in tomorrow?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, scrutinizing my face.

“Not me. I'm done. Gonna hit the road tomorrow. I think the time has come for Mrs. Carmellini's boy Tommy to go on to greener pastures.”

The admiral didn't say anything to that. Mrs. Grafton hid her face behind her tea cup.

On the way over here I wondered if Grafton had told his wife about the conversation with Sal Molina. From the silence and the way she sat looking at the dark window, I knew that he had.

“I shouldn't have come,” I said. “I'll take this road pop with me to remember you by, Admiral. Good-bye.” I stuck out my hand. He shook it.

“Mrs. Grafton.” She rose from the table and hugged me. Fiercely.

Then I left. Pulled the door shut until the lock clicked. I took the elevator down, put the half-empty beer bottle in my side pocket, crossed the street, and climbed the stairs.

The next morning, Tuesday, August 23, I was wide awake at five in the morning. The sky was starting to get pink in the east. I hopped out of bed, showered, shaved, put on jeans and a golf shirt, and got busy packing. Everything had to go in my car, which was a 1975 Mercedes. Guns and ammo, of course, plus some of my clothes. No kitchen utensils, pots, pans, dishes, or coffee pot. No television or radio. I did decide to take my laptop and charger, but I left the printer.

When I had made my selections and the stuff was stacked in the middle of the little living area, I began shuttling stuff down to the car in the elevator.

When I got the car loaded, I stood in the middle of my apartment and took stock. Nothing else here I wanted.

I wrote a short letter to the landlord and enclosed my key and building pass. He could have everything left in the apartment. The stuff in the refrigerator I emptied into a garbage bag and carried down with me.

In light of what happened subsequently, perhaps I should have been worried about the country and martial law and what was to come, and perhaps I was on a subconscious level. I must have suspected the future might be grim or I wouldn't have worried about the guns and ammo. Still, after I packed the car, I was thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

It was a nice problem. I had daydreamed about
afterward
for years, after the CIA, but that eventuality was always somewhere ahead in a distant, hazy future. Now, boom, the future was unexpectedly here, and it wasn't hazy.

Of course I didn't have to plot my next fifty or sixty years today. I decided that this day would be a good
one to head west, following the sun. A few weeks of backpacking in Idaho or Montana would suit me right down to the ground.

Already I was late for work—at Langley—as if I were ditching school. Feeling rather bucked with life, I drove to a breakfast place in a shopping mall and ordered an omelet and coffee. I scanned a newspaper while I waited for my omelet. The journalists had dug up a lot more on the dead terrorists. They were from Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The experts were speculating on where and how they acquired their weapons, all of which were legally for sale in many states in America. Two more of the Saturday gunshot victims had died, bringing the grand total of deaths to 173.

At 9:45 I was standing in line in the lobby of the suburban Virginia bank where I had my accounts. When I reached the window, I wrote a check for the amount in my checking account, leaving only a thousand bucks in the account to cover outstanding checks.

“And how would you like this, Mr. Carmellini?” The teller was a cute lady wearing an engagement and wedding ring. The best ones are always snagged early.

“Cash, please. Half fifties and half hundreds.”

She tittered. “Oh, good heavens. Since it's over ten thousand, we must fill out a form. Are you sure you don't want a cashier's check?”

Titterers set my teeth on edge. On the other hand, she wasn't still swimming around in the gene pool looking for a man. I silently wished her husband luck. “Pretty sure,” I replied. “Cash, please. And while you are at it, I want to close out my savings account. I'll take that in cash too.”

She had to go get more cash from the vault, then the paperwork took another few minutes. When I had my money, a little over twenty-two thousand monetary units—they gave me a little cloth envelope with the bank's name printed on it to carry it in—I opened my safe deposit box with the help of one of the ladies who didn't titter.