Liberty's Last Stand (40 page)

There was a long silence, then, “We don't have a flight plan on you. Where did you take off?”

“Fort Rucker.”

Another pause, then, “Make a modified straight-in to Runway Three-Three, Altimeter two niner niner six, wind three one zero at seven. Switch to Tower and report five miles.”

“Wilco.”

The copilot flipped the radio freq and made the call, trying to keep his voice airline-pilot, ah-shucks cool.

“Flight of six, cleared to land.”

The copilot turned to Danaher. “They'll get on the phone to Rucker, sir.”

“Regardless of what they say, land. Taxi right over in front of base ops and drop the ramp.”

Danaher went into the back and got his troops ready. They had been carefully briefed, and knew they were to go off running as soon as the loadmaster lowered the ramp.

In Barksdale Approach Control, confusion reigned. The only planes scheduled to arrive at noon were a flight of four F-22s. If Ops had received messages about arriving Hercs, no one had seen them, but that didn't mean they didn't exist somewhere. And there was something else. Approach Control radar showed blips without transponder codes, up high and approaching from the south. What were these airplanes? The duty ops officer called his boss, a colonel, who confessed his ignorance. Flipping madly through the messages on the message board, and calls to the message center, didn't help. Nor would calling Center do any good: Center was off the air and no one was answering the telephones.

The first Herc touched down and, ignoring orders from Ground Control, taxied to a stop in front of the Ops building; armed, helmeted troops in battle dress piled out of the plane.

An enlisted controller in the tower remarked, “Rucker must have sent an advance party to augment base security.”

Very shortly, everyone in the tower was disabused of that notion and jerked headlong into the reality of war. Troopers entered the tower, pointed their guns, and waved the air force controllers away from the scopes and microphones. An NCO growled, “You people get on the floor, hands in your laps, and no one will get hurt!” Troopers bound the air controllers' wrists with plastic ties. Cell phones were confiscated. Another trooper sat at a microphone to guide approaching aircraft.

Similar scenes were enacted at the base ops center, where Colonel Danaher established his command post, and at the message center. It all happened so quickly that no message of the attack was transmitted. As far as the Pentagon knew, Barksdale was still owned by the United States Air Force.

Danaher couldn't believe his good fortune. Lady Luck had just given him a gift of a few hours.

The second C-130 taxied to the B-52 parking mat. As the troops disembarked, an air police SUV came roaring up and two armed men jumped out. When a couple of the troopers fired bursts over their heads, the air policemen jumped back into the SUV and started off, but now someone shot the tires out. It kept going anyway. Another burst into the rear of it brought it to a stop. One of the air policemen was slightly wounded. They were disarmed and led away across the mat to a holding area as the troops fanned out and the C-130 began taxiing for takeoff. There were more troops at Fort Hood that needed transport.

Two minutes after the sixth and last transport off-loaded its men, Colonel Danaher could look at the base's mechanics, officers, and pilots seated in rows, hands fastened with plastic ties, and under guard. It was a quick victory for Texas. Hearing the reports over handheld radio, Colonel Danaher breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in his life, he understood the ennui that engulfed the military personnel in Pearl Harbor in the weeks before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. It is devilishly difficult to instantly transition from peace to war. Danaher knew he wasn't up to speed yet, but thought maybe he better get that way fast. No doubt all the air force personnel on the base were waking up mighty quick.

The B-1 Lancer surprise attack on the war materiel stockpiled at Fort Polk was a complete success. Not a SAM or artillery shell rose to meet them. Using JDAMs, the six bombers hit the large tank and artillery depots. Then the F-16s flying top cover came down and used rockets and cannons on armored vehicles and artillery pieces that appeared undamaged. Several JDAMs went into the fuel storage facilities. Post-strike photos snapped by the F-16 strike leader suggested that perhaps forty percent of the tanks and artillery were no longer serviceable. The black column of smoke rising from the fuel storage areas was visible in the sky from a distance of ninety miles.

While that strike was going on, General Martin L. Wynette was in his limo on his way to the Executive Office Building. When he received a call from the JCS duty officer informing him of the attack on Fort Polk, Wynette hung up the phone with a frown. The president and his disciples were going to eat him alive. He briefed his general officer aides, a male and a female, so they would know what was coming.

At the Executive Office Building, Wynette and his two aides were ushered to a conference room where Soetoro, his national security advisor, and a dozen top political aides were waiting, including Sulana Schanck, the Muslim. She had always intimidated Wynette. Those eyes, glaring at everyone who didn't share her vision of a Muslim America. Wynette thought her the most evil woman he had ever met. He thought that one of these days she might snap and start cutting off heads with a butcher knife. He hoped she would begin with Al Grantham.

Wynette opened his briefcase as the men and women in the room debated the implications of Oklahoma's rebellion and the scheduled independence votes in other plains states. Soetoro seemed to have himself under control this morning, Wynette thought, as he listened to machine-gun bursts of terrible news.

Wynette dropped into a chair and tried to keep his face deadpan. His aides sat down beside him. No one mentioned the attacks on Fort Polk in Louisiana. Maybe they don't know yet, he thought.

Finally the president addressed a question to the general, his first acknowledgment of the officer's presence. “What can the military do to put a stop to this treason?”

“Nothing,” Wynette said, “except maybe bomb the statehouses involved. And I'm not sure what that would achieve.”

Al Grantham let out a roar. “Goddamnit, General, it would kill some traitors.”

“You folks have a red-hot political crisis on your hands and the U.S. armed forces are melting away. A couple more days of this and we won't have enough people to turn the lights on and off at the Pentagon.”

Silence descended upon the room. Wynette thought about all the ways the president had disrespected the men and women in uniform during his administration, including refusing to make appearances and public statements during Armed Forces Day, and refusing to salute the flag. His contempt of the people in uniform was now being returned in spades.

“We are going to have to recruit an army of progressives who are willing to fight for America,” Barry Soetoro said.

Good luck with that, Wynette thought. What he said aloud was, “By the time you get your army recruited and equipped, with enough training to teach them which end of the rifle the bullet comes out of, you are going to be out of office.”

The political aides merely stared ahead silently, Schanck included. Soetoro didn't say a word. Even Grantham managed to control himself. All of which proved to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that the White House knew there was not going to be an election in November. That was still their little secret.

Finally Grantham said, “Maybe you should start shooting some of your reluctant warriors. That would inspire the rest to do their sworn duty.”

“I don't have the authority to hold drumhead courts-martial and execute soldiers.”

“The president can give you that authority.”

“I don't want it. If you like, I'll tender my resignation right now and you can dig down through the officer corps until you find someone willing to shoot American soldiers. There must be one or two ambitious assholes in uniform that would shoot their own mothers for a big promotion. I've never met any, but they say there are rotten apples in every barrel.”

Grantham snarled, “Why don't you start saying yes, sir, and no, sir, and stop this damned insubordination?”

“I thought you wanted me here for professional advice. I just gave you some.”

“Enough,” Soetoro said. He rubbed his face with both hands. “We have a political crisis that is fed by social media and the press pouring gasoline on hot embers. What we need to do is shut down the power grid nationwide to stop all the bitching, plotting, and conspiracies.”

Martin Wynette lost control of his face. He stared slack-jawed at the president. That had to be the most idiotic suggestion he had ever heard.

“We must do something, and that might have a good effect,” Al Grantham opined.

Ironically, Martin Wynette thought that comment proof that Grantham was a total, complete flaming fool, and a world-class ass-kisser to boot! Had his senior aide only known the general's thoughts, he would have probably laughed aloud. Wynette managed to close his mouth and put on his poker face again.

The civilians around the table discussed it. Indeed, they thought that something had to be done to douse the political fires, and this was something. If those rebels were sitting in the dark without air conditioning or the internet or telephones, at least they wouldn't be damning the administration and fomenting treason before a national audience, the members of which would have their own problems to deal with. And it was the president's own idea, which was nice. No one there had to take the risk of offering a suggestion that might be rejected. It never hurts to say yes to the boss.

What wasn't addressed, Wynette noted grimly, was how cutting the juice was going to stop the social collapse that he thought almost inevitable. In fact, Wynette thought that leaving people nationwide without power to stay cool and preserve and prepare food in the dead heat of August was likely to accelerate the process, not impede it. Not to mention the havoc it would play on nursing home residents and the elderly who lacked emergency generators. Police and firefighters could not be summoned in an emergency. This callous decision would kill American citizens, whether they were progressives or conservatives, loyal or disloyal, whether they worshipped the ground Barry Soetoro walked upon or urged God every night to take the bastard quick. It would also stop the American economy dead in its tracks. Factories would be left without not only electricity but natural gas, because electricity powered the compressors needed to move it through pipelines. Without pumps, water and sewage would cease to flow. And every filling station in America would be unable to pump gasoline or diesel fuel. Truck deliveries would stop. If the power outage went on long enough, urban Americans would begin to starve or die of thirst. Cutting power might be justified as a military necessity, Wynette thought, but certainly not as a political expedient to silence dissent. He almost said aloud that JR Hays would turn off America's juice if he could, but being Martin Wynette, he kept his mouth shut.