Liberty's Last Stand (23 page)

I was so tense the liquor hit my stomach hard. I began to feel the glow down there instantly. I sat back in my chair, smiled vacuously, and tried to relax. Some of us were almost certainly going to be dead soon. I wondered if one of them would be me.

When Willie Varner's steak came, it was still bloody. Travis pointed to it and said, “A good vet could have saved that cow.”

“Thank God he didn't,” Willie said, and stuffed a piece in his mouth.

The copilot woke JR somewhere over west Texas. “General, ATC is off the air. No one on any of their freqs or on El Paso Approach.”

“Can you get into the civilian field?”

“We're in solid goo. If the ILS is on the air, no problem. If we have to shoot a GPS approach, we may have to go below minimums, we think.”

“Get me on the ground. However you have to do it.”

“Yes, sir.” The copilot went back to the cockpit.

After another twenty minutes, the plane was maneuvering, answering the controls and responding to throttle input. They came out of the clouds perhaps three hundred feet above the ground, JR estimated.

“Good job,” he told the pilots as he was getting out of the plane.

They saluted.

The ramp of the El Paso Fixed Base Operator's executive terminal was packed with planes, most of them jets or turboprops, yet the terminal was almost empty. The place reeked of luxury, with leather-covered sofas, ornate glass coffee tables, big flat-screen televisions, and subdued lighting—perfect for important business executives or people who wanted to think they were important. JR approached the woman standing at the desk, the only human in sight, a cute twenty-something brunette wearing stiletto heels and a little black dress that ended well above her knees.

“What's happening?”

“The airspace is closed to civilian traffic, General. These planes are stranded.”

“I need a car.”

“All our courtesy and rental cars are gone, sir. The passengers and crews of the planes outside took every one.”

“Do you have a mechanic's van?”

“Yes, but—”

“I'll take it. Send for whoever has the keys.”

“General—”

“Now.”

He wanted to see his old civilian contractor boss Pete Taylor and then look up the local National Guard commander, Wiley Fehrenbach, who was probably at the National Guard armory.

On his drive to Taylor's house, a helicopter flew past. It was an Apache scooting along at perhaps two hundred feet.

He knocked on the door of the house, which was a modest rancher in a modest neighborhood, and Zoe Taylor answered it.

“Oh, JR. Come in.”

“No time. Is Pete here?”

“No. The army came for him this afternoon. Arrested him.”

“What for?”

“They had a list.”

“I see.” Lee Parker was following the Jade Helm plan, no doubt on orders from Washington. “Thank you, Zoe.”

“Can you talk to them, JR, get him out? People have been talking for over a year about these Jade Helm things, saying it looks as if Soetoro was planning martial law.” Tears leaked down her face. “I can't believe this is really happening. It's like a nightmare. Is this still the United States of America?”

“I understand,” JR said, and against his better judgment, he added, “I'll do what I can, Zoe.”

Tears burst forth and she closed the door.

JR got back in the van and headed for the armory.

The armory was a hive of activity. Bulldozers, generators, trucks, and construction equipment were swarmed by soldiers painting the Texas flag on every flat surface they could find. Plainly, these Texans were willing to fight, but they didn't have a lot of stuff to fight with: this was an engineering battalion. JR parked his mechanic's van in a handicapped spot and went inside.

Wiley Fehrenbach was delighted to see him. He wrung JR's hand and touched the stars on his camos. The pistol belt didn't escape his notice. He was wearing one too.

“I'm in command of the Texas Guard now, Wiley.”

“Thank God.”

“I need to know what's happening in town and at the base. Everything you know.”

“When the news came out about the declaration, the town went wild. They've had it with the federal government. Martial law really ticked them off, then the gun thing. This morning civilian patrols started rounding up illegals and pushing them to the border crossings. The ICE people there tried to stop them, but they were surrounded and disarmed and told to disappear. Civilians shut down the border crossings. Only Mexican nationals can cross going south. All the trucks waiting to cross are lined up—someone said the line is two miles long already.”

“Okay.”

“Our people came here as fast as they could this morning. I issued weapons, and it's a good thing I did. Some colonel and ten army troopers with weapons showed up at ten this morning and wanted to secure all the weapons and send everyone home. I refused, and since they were outnumbered twenty to one, they climbed into their car and left. They'll be back, and it's going to be bloody. My troops won't surrender. Right now, though, I think the army is out arresting civilians. They want all those Republic of Texas people who have been shouting for independence for years. They've arrested all of them they could find, plus newspaper people, the television and radio people, the sheriff, anyone who is anybody. It's all rumors, but everyone heard something and they're buzzing. Looks like they've opened the Jade Helm playbook and are going down the checklist.”

“Where are they taking the prisoners?”

“They have some railroad cars equipped with shackles on base. The army got them ready during the last Jade Helm exercise.” JR already knew about the railcars with shackles, which had been hot news and stoked the rumors about martial law being planned. “No one knows for certain,” Wiley Fehrenbach said, “but probably there.”

“Are you sure your troops will fight?”

“'I talked to them this morning. Told anyone that couldn't in good conscience fight for Texas to turn in his weapons and leave. Less than ten percent did. We're Texans and that's that.”

“What's the situation out at Fort Bliss?”

“It's on lockdown. Only U.S. Army soldiers admitted. I've had people out watching the gates, and as near as we can figure, a lot of the soldiers living in town haven't gone in. Maybe a hundred went in since we started watching, all told. You know there are maybe ten thousand soldiers living in town, so that's good.”

“Yes,” JR agreed.

“Parker ordered the television and radio stations shut down this morning, and all the phones and the internet are off. Electricity and water are still on, but who knows for how long.”

“You need to get some troopers out to the water plant as soon as possible.”

“Already sent a squad.”

“Good man.”

“It looks as if Parker has troopers patrolling the fences around the main part of the base, but you know how big Bliss is. I doubt anyone is out on the fence in the boonies. I don't know what Parker has planned, but no one has been back to get our weapons, so maybe he has some loyalty troubles. A lot of soldiers may have refused to fire on fellow Americans.”

JR Hays rubbed his head and tried to concentrate upon the problem. As he looked out the window, he realized the day was almost gone. It was twilight outside, under a gloomy sky. He heard another helicopter shoot overhead. With night-vision goggles, they could see everything that moved on the streets below.

Wiley Fehrenbach read his thoughts. “Supposed to get some thunderstorms in here soon. How soon, I don't know. Maybe that will ground the choppers. I didn't think it wise to deploy my people until they were grounded or had left.”

“I have four helos coming in from Fort Hood. They're supposed to land at the civilian airfield. Send some armed troops to meet them. Do you have some handheld radios? Our pilots will need them.” The truth was, he thought wryly, he should have thought of that before they left Fort Hood. Maybe he was too tired, or maybe he wasn't thinking clearly.

“Sure.” They discussed frequencies and JR made notes. A female sergeant appeared, and he handed her a note that contained a freq, told her about the helos, and sent her off with five enlisted soldiers carrying M4s and four radios with fully charged batteries.

After they left, JR said, “Wiley, our long-term objective is to take that base. We need all the military equipment they have and all the people who will fight for Texas.” He tried to visualize General Lee Parker's situation. A lot of his soldiers had stayed home. The base, with base housing running right up to the perimeter fence, was basically indefensible. If Parker had any sense, he would arrange his tanks and loyal troopers into a strong defensive position where the tanks could cover each other and his artillery could provide support. Parker's helicopters were already patrolling, searching for threats.

Parker must be very worried, JR thought, wondering if his troops would fight. No doubt he was sending messages as quickly as he could dictate them to Washington, requesting instructions. These messages would go out over the army communications net, which was radio. JR doubted that Parker would do anything without orders from Washington. Then he would move slowly, carefully.

He and Wiley Fehrenbach discussed the situation as night fell. JR didn't want a battle, but he suspected he was going to get one before long. Eight hundred or so National Guardsmen in this armory were the only organized military unit in the area, so Washington would eventually tell Parker to take the armory. Parker outnumbered the guardsmen at least ten to one and had enough armor and artillery to invade Mexico and take Mexico City.

“Will U.S. soldiers fight Texans?” JR whispered to the gods, who didn't answer back.

“Food?” Wiley asked.

JR hadn't eaten since breakfast, which seemed like years ago. “Hell, yes.”

He was soon handed a paper plate with three hot dogs in buns smothered in chili, along with a plastic knife and spoon and a bottle of water. JR found he was ravenous.

He had just started on the first hot dog when the radio on the desk came to life. It was “Milestone One Six,” the senior army aviator, who was flying a Blackhawk—CWO-4 Erik Sabiston, Sabby to his friends.

“JR, we're fueling at the FBO at El Paso International. Weather is turning to crap. We flew at a hundred feet to get in here.”

JR answered, “Fort Bliss has Apaches on patrol. Be careful, but I want you to do a recon over the base. I need to know what they're up to. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir. As soon as we finish fueling. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“I'd like to know if there are any units from Bliss out on the street. Your primary mission, though, is to shoot up everything on the flight line at Fort Bliss. Here are the coordinates. Ready to copy?”

“Go.”

JR read them off, and Sabiston read them back. “We know the base,” he said. “Trained there many times.”

JR ended with an admonition. “Shoot and get out, Sabby. Hit them as hard as you can but don't be a hero. We need to deny them the sky.”

“Yes, sir.”

JR attacked the food on his plate and said to Wiley Fehrenbach, “They're going to come looking for you people sooner or later. You are going to have to abandon the armory. What do you have in the way of munitions?”

“Dynamite, of course. Locked in vaults out back. And a couple hundred AT4s. Maybe a dozen .30-caliber machine guns. Ammo and grenades.”

JR felt a bit better. AT4s were handheld, single-shot anti-tank weapons. They came with the rocket pre-installed and could not be reloaded, so they were discarded after use. They weighed about five and a half pounds each and fired a rocket with a 1.6 pound HEAT warhead, HEAT standing for high explosive anti-tank. The rocket was marginal against an Abrams, which had the finest tank armor in the world, unless the rocket took a tread off or was fired into the rear, where the armor was thinnest. It was better against Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and whatever other version of the armored personnel carrier 1st Armor had. It was hell on unarmored vehicles, such as trucks, or buildings.