“Somewhere off base, sir, we think.”
“How many pilots do we have available to fly the Bones?”
“Twelve, sir, including us. Nine command pilots and three copilots. Using some of the command pilots as copilots, we can launch six planes.”
The general sank into his chair. A hundred twenty pilots in the wing, and he could muster just a dozen?
“A lot of them are trapped off base, sir. To get them in, we’d either have to run the civilians off or slip one of our own over the fence to find our guys and organize a mass break-in.”
“That would take all night.”
“Or longer. And we have enlisted manpower problems. Our muster list shows about thirty percent of our personnel are present for duty.”
“I saw the morning muster rolls.”
“It’s a bad situation, sir.”
The general dismissed the colonels and sat thinking. The bomb wing wasn’t ready for combat. With only six flight crews and thirty percent of its enlisted personnel, it wasn’t ready for anything. Not even morning colors.
The ops officer left, but he soon came back. “There is a turboprop inbound, sir. National Guard.”
“Send them up here when they land.”
He watched the turboprop taxi to base ops and shut down. One or two people in uniform got out, climbed into a waiting sedan. Ten minutes later they were in his office.
He recognized the Air National Guard general, Elvin Gentry, whom he saluted since Gentry was a two-star. The man with Gentry was a colonel. “Please be seated, gentlemen,” l’Angistino said.
“This independence thing,” Gentry said, “it’s turned the world upside down. I’ve come to ask for you to surrender the base, its personnel, and all the military property on it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Lou, I wish I was. But I’m deadly serious. My boss, Major General JR Hays — do you know him?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“He was army. Anyway, he sent me up here to get your surrender. If you refuse, he’ll have to launch an F-16 strike on the base to take out the planes. Texas wants them or wants them in ashes.”
“I’ll fly them out of here,” l’Angistino said stoutly. “The first ones leave in less than an hour.”
“Lou, you couldn’t have enough pilots to fly more than a handful of Bones and Hercs out of here, and I doubt you have the enlisted mechs and specialists it takes to even launch that many. We know the situation here. I’ve been on the radio with Colonel Wriston. Fact is, you could tell me to go to hell and sabotage all those planes, shoot holes in the spars, whatever, but we’re going to take this base before very long, and General Hays is going to be royally pissed with you people if those airplanes are harmed. I don’t know exactly what the Geneva Convention says about the treatment of prisoners of war, but this isn’t a war we’ve declared. You are now trespassers on property owned by the Republic of Texas. Lawyers love tangles like this, but the local Texans won’t. If you don’t surrender they will be even more pissed than JR Hays. You know those people aren’t under our control.”
Lou l’Angistino’s thoughts tumbled around.
“Lou, for God’s sake. I am not trying to threaten you, although maybe it came out that way, and if so, I apologize. Most of your people don’t want to fight other Americans, many are Texans who won’t fight other Texans even at the point of a gun. You can’t sit here on a base protected by nothing but a wire fence and defy the whole population of Texas! There is no realistic chance for victory. None. For God’s sake, do the right thing and save some lives.”
Gentry pointed to the little pile of wings on l’Angistino’s desk. “Even your pilots are trying to tell you something. Your air force is disintegrating.”
General l’Angistino picked up the op order directing a strike on Austin, glanced at it in disgust, then dropped it on the table. “What are your terms?”
An hour later, after the surrender document was signed and sent to be posted in barracks, ready rooms, and maintenance shops, Colonel Wriston of the National Guard was escorted into the office. He was wearing jeans and a faded Texas A&M T-shirt. Lou l’Angistino reached for his hand and perfunctorily shook it.
“Lou, here’s the man responsible for the ten or so thousand people standing outside on the street,” Gentry told the air force general. “Wriston and his men spent the night recruiting their friends and neighbors.”
“You mean some of that crowd were National Guardsmen in civvies?”
“They were. Wriston did what he could to block your runways, but he didn’t go home afterward to watch television. He knew the vast majority of the civilian community was behind him, so he used his men to mobilize them.”
A loud voice interrupted them, to l’Angistino’s relief. Colonel Wriston went to meet the man, who was standing in the reception area.
“Wriston, you bastard. I got back from Dallas this morning and nobody’s workin’ my job site. My foreman says the equipment operators stole ever’thin’ that would move on your orders. Where the hell is my construction equipment?”
“Out beside the runways, Carroll. We used it yesterday to block the runways here. Did you watch the declaration read night before last?”
“Sure did! All I can say is, it’s about damn time.”
“I couldn’t call and ask to borrow your stuff, but I thought since Carroll is a good man, he won’t mind.”
“By the runways, you say?”
“It’s damaged and tore up some, but it kept all the planes from taking off. You should be able to repair some of it. Anyway, your project is going to go slow until you get some more equipment operators. Most of yours are in the Guard and they are now on active duty and won’t be back for a while.”
Carroll took a deep breath. “The yellow iron is insured, but the insurance company will lawyer up and refuse to pay unless I sue ’em, then offer ten cents on the dollar. You know that.”
“Tell you what,” Wriston said, and put his arm around the construction man. “If you eat the repair costs, we’ll give you an airplane. Any one of those along the road into the base, your pick. You can put it in your front yard. When things calm down, we’ll move it for you.”
Carroll’s eyes lit up. “Got pecan trees in the front yard, but I could put it in the horse pasture out back. Damn, I’d like that.”
They shook hands on it.
It was noon when JR Hays, wearing a camo uniform and a pistol on a web belt, arrived at the front gate at Fort Hood, sixty miles north of Austin in Killeen. He was in the right seat of a sedan with Texas flags flying from the corners of the front bumper. Two guardsmen, a male captain and a female major, were with him. An enlisted woman was driving.
The soldier at the gate wanted to see ID, but the sergeant was right there immediately and said, “Sir, you can enter the base, but the carrying of firearms around the administrative and living areas is forbidden.”
“Who is the commanding general?” JR asked the sergeant.
“Lieutenant General Gil Ellensberger, sir.”
“Call him. Tell him Major General JR Hays of the Texas Army is sitting at his main gate and wants in to see him. You may tell him we are wearing sidearms, if you wish.”
The sergeant did as he was told. When he hung up the phone, he came out and explained to the driver of the sedan how to get to the headquarters building. Then he saluted. JR returned it.
The commanding general was in a staff meeting. The receptionist had a television in her office, and JR stood in front of it a minute watching. Armed citizens were taking over federal office buildings statewide. The FBI agents in Waco had been arrested en masse, disarmed, and jailed. DEA and ICE headquarters had been occupied, the agents disarmed and sent home.