The sheriff nodded reluctantly. “Today and this evening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll try like the devil to get this stuff done and get out of Galveston?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Okay, Captain. But I ain’t asking my deputies to get in a shootout with SEALs. No way. They’re law enforcement officers, not soldiers.”
They discussed radio frequencies for a moment, then Loren Snyder said, “Thanks for stopping by, Sheriff.”
The sheriff had one last gulp of coffee, then said, “Good luck to y’all out there, Captain.” After he and Loren shook hands, he followed Speedy to the forward torpedo room and the ladder topside.
Captain. Loren Snyder liked the sound of that.
Secret Service sniper Tobe Baha drove slowly around Austin looking things over. He had had a private interview with President Soetoro’s chief of staff, Al Grantham, then went home and packed for a trip. He put his rifle in its aluminum airline case in the toolbox behind the cab of his pickup. He carefully locked the toolbox with the best padlocks money could buy.
The rifle wasn’t his service rifle. This was his personal rifle, a Remington Model 700 in .308, or as it was known in the service, 7.62×51 NATO. It certainly wasn’t the best cartridge for extreme long-range shooting, but Tobe had used it extensively while in the military and knew the ballistics cold, so he was very comfortable with it. And ammo for it was available everywhere, if need be. Tobe had loaded his own with match bullets and had two boxes in the airline case.
Under his rifle was another airline case stuffed with a quarter of a million U.S. dollars and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of gold. That was his down payment on the assassination of Jack Hays.
The problem was that Tobe Baha wasn’t an assassin. He was a sniper, pure and simple, so he didn’t even bother trying to come up with a second method of taking out the president of Texas if setting up a snipe proved difficult. Actually, he couldn’t conceive of a set of circumstances that would cause him to miss a rifle shot, if and when he got one. And he would get one, sooner or later. Everyone was vulnerable to a sniper, unless they lived in a prison, and politicians especially. They had to make public appearances, they got into and out of limos and helicopters on a routine basis, and most of them, including Jack Hays, had families.
Patience was the sniper’s golden asset, and Tobe Baha had more than his share. He could and would wait until he was presented with a shot he knew he could make during one of Jack Hays’ inevitable public appearances. After that, with a cool million in his jeans, he would disappear.
Of course, he worried a little about the possibility that the Soetoro administration might eventually want him permanently removed from the land of the living. If they just had him arrested, he might talk. So arrest wasn’t the risk.
Tobe Baha had thought it over when approached for this shoot, and decided he could handle the risk of treachery by his employers. After all, three or four of the Secret Service people knew of the plot.
He had said as much on his last interview with Al Grantham. “If you don’t pay me the money you owe or if you send people after me, I’ll come after you,” he told Grantham, “and I won’t miss.”
Austin certainly had possibilities, Tobe concluded as he drove around. The capitol was surrounded by buildings, although they were several hundred yards from the capitol itself, which sat on a small knoll surrounded by scattered large trees and lots of grass. The governor’s mansion also had buildings within range of a .308. The real question was whether Jack Hays’ bodyguards included snipers. Protecting a public figure from bombs and maniacs with pistols and knives was what the Secret Service did best. Snipers, however, were the worst threat, which was why Tobe Baha had been recruited by the service. It takes a sniper to kill a sniper.
If the Texas crowd didn’t have snipers protecting Jack Hays, Tobe Baha’s mission would be a whole lot easier. So his first task was to determine if they did.
Tobe Baha smiled. This was going to be a good hunt.
Major General JR Hays launched his first offensive that morning, the thirty-first of August. He watched Texas guardsmen file aboard six C-130 Hercules transports, four-engine turboprops, at Fort Hood, sixty-four combat-equipped soldiers to each plane. Two other C-130s were being loaded with howitzers, ammunition, rations, water, and a portable field hospital.
“I’m banking on surprise,” JR told Colonel Nathaniel Danaher, who was leading the attacking force. “I think you can get on the ground and establish a perimeter before the people on the ground figure out that something is going down. I want you to clear the planes and let them take off immediately for another load. Ideally, I’d like to get a brigade on the ground over there with some artillery to give it teeth. F-16s will provide close air support and top cover. But it’s up to you to stop our assault if you find you are in way over your head. You must remain in radio contact with the planes in the air at all times, keep them advised of how things are going.”
Nate Danaher looked ten years younger than he did last night. The challenge of leading men in combat had always energized him.
The six transports bearing soldiers took off first, escorted by a high top cover of F-16s from Lackland. The attacking force would fly east of Barksdale, turn and approach the base from that direction, calling the control tower for landing clearance. While the panicked air controllers sorted through messages trying to find one about incoming Hercs, the Hercs would land, discharge their troops, and take off again. The C-130s bearing howitzers and ammo would land an hour later, after the soldiers of the first wave had secured the flight line.
Would they achieve surprise? JR Hays asked himself that question, but he didn’t know the answer. If the bad guys had gotten wind of the invasion of Louisiana, he would be among the first to hear about it.
Maybe yes, maybe no, he decided.
Perhaps he should have given his major general stars to Nate Danaher and commissioned himself a colonel, then led the troops invading Barksdale. Jack Hays would have said okay, if that was the way he wanted it. But would Nate Danaher have laid on this attack if he had been the general in charge? That hypothetical had no possible answer, because JR had made the decision. Nate had saluted and marched off to give every ounce he had in him. That quality, JR thought, was the salvation of the professional soldier. Regardless of whether the professional thought the order wise or foolish, he said, “I will do my best, sir,” and the rest of the sentence was unspoken: “Even if it kills me.” So generals ordered men into combat, knowing that some of them, an unknown number, would die. Generals hoped and prayed that the objective would be worth the sacrifice, and, in the end, only they and God would know how the scales balanced.
JR thought ruefully about the old observation that doctors buried their mistakes. Truly, so did generals.
And yet, even if he lost every soldier and airplane he sent this morning, JR Hays would win a strategic victory simply by attacking. He knew that in the depths of his military soul. Soetoro would stop worrying about invading Texas and wreaking havoc and start worrying about protecting what he had. People the world over expect their government to protect them, and when it doesn’t, or can’t, they begin to worry.
And if Danaher was victorious and captured a fleet of intact B-52s, Barry Soetoro would start fretting about where they might be used against him. Would they bomb Washington? New York? Los Angeles? A squadron of B-52s carpet-bombing with unguided weapons could destroy a city, just as they did Hanoi. Fighters would be detailed to guard the skies over cities and military bases. Soetoro must commit his air force to protecting those places, and if he did, those air assets would be unavailable to attack Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, or the military bases Hays had captured.