Liberty's Last Stand (3 page)

The three shooters walked into the parochial school and the first person they saw was a nun, so they shot her. One of them, a Yemeni named Hassan, stopped to cut her throat with a knife as the other two shot down several families standing there, men, women, and kids.

Vinnie Latucca was in the principal's office with his granddaughter talking to Sister Mary Catherine, who had been one of his teachers when he was a pupil at Our Sisters of Mercy forty-some years ago. He heard the sound of gunfire and reached into his pocket for his .38 Smith & Wesson with a four-inch barrel. Vinnie never went anywhere without it.

Telling Sister Mary Catherine and his granddaughter to stay where they were, he opened the door a crack. One of the gunmen entered the office area with his weapon up. As the gunman fired at the ten or twelve people in the room, Vinnie Latucca cocked his revolver, steadied it on the door jam, and fired. One shot. The masked man with a rifle went down.

Gunfire continued to sound. A woman was bent over her limp child, cradling him, sobbing softly as Vinnie Latucca shot the gunman again, this time in the head, and then helped himself to the AR. He eased the outer office door open so he could see down the hallway.

No shooter in sight, so he pocketed his revolver and stepped out.

He walked toward the sound of gunfire and found the next shooter in a classroom. The fool had his back to the door and was shooting kids. Vinnie shot him twice in the back with the AR, then rolled him over and
jerked the ski mask from his head. He put the barrel of the rifle in the man's mouth and pulled the trigger, exploding his head. The man might have been dead by then, but Vinnie hoped not.

The third man must have wondered why there was no more gunfire, because when Vinnie Latucca stepped out of the classroom into the corridor he fired a shot at him. Vinnie was quicker. Three fast, aimed shots dropped the man. He didn't even twitch. If he had, Vinnie would have blown his head off too. He ripped off the ski mask, saw the fixed eyes, and stood listening for shots.

What he heard was the sound of a siren. For the first time in his life, the sound filled Vinnie Latucca with relief.

Detective Victor Goldman, NYPD, was in the middle of his seating section when the gunmen who exited the portal into the grandstand area opened fire. He heard the shots and saw two of them. He didn't know there were three.

He had a .380 automatic strapped to his ankle, so he pulled it out and tried to get a shot. People were sobbing, shouting, diving for cover so he couldn't get a clear shot. And he was too far away. At least thirty feet, with a pistol with a three-inch barrel and a million people behind the gunmen, so if he missed he would hit a civilian or two.

He had to get closer. He made his two boys get down under the seats, then he started trying to crawl over people to get closer to the shooters, who were blazing away.

His chance came when the nearest gunman realized his magazine was empty and bent down to pop it out of his weapon and insert another. Vic Goldman had closed to ten feet. He took careful aim, using both hands on the hideout pistol, and shot the gunman in the chest. He half-turned and Vic shot him again.

That was when the gunman Vic hadn't seen shot him high in the back. Vic went down on his face, fatally wounded. He was dead when police shooting from the portals killed all the gunmen
still standing, and still dead an hour later when a paramedic team found him with his two sons, ages seven and nine, holding his hands.

Someone pulled the emergency cord on the Amtrak train, so the brakes locked on every car and it screeched to a stop. Mike Ivy and Scott Weidmann had killed the third shooter by then.

After the train stopped, the fourth gunman leaped from the train onto the gravel beside the tracks. He was on a dead run heading for Newark when Sergeant Mike Ivy dropped him from a distance of one hundred yards with one shot between the shoulder blades.

As Ivy and Weidmann stood in front of the locomotive looking down at the terrorist, Weidmann said, “Nice shot, Sarge.”

Ivy pointed the rifle at the dead man's crotch and fired a shot.

“Bastard won't be able to fuck his virgins in Paradise,” he explained.

“You believe that shit?”

“Hell, no, but they do. Send them cock-less.”

It was late afternoon in Arlington Heights when Assistant District Attorney Ronald Farrington walked into the room where Vinnie Latucca sat with two uniformed police officers and motioned to them. They stood and left, closing the door behind them.

The lawyer laid Vinnie's .38 on the table and nodded to it. “If we get a bullet for comparison, are we going to find any bullets from old open cases that match it?”

“Of course not,” Vinnie said disgustedly. “That's a clean gun.”

“Or you wouldn't have been carrying it.”

Vinnie nodded and lit a cigarette.

“The nuns don't allow smoking in the building.”

“I don't think they'll mind this evening,” Vinnie replied, and blew smoke around.

Farrington sighed. “How many guys have you hit, anyway? Off the record.”

Vinnie smoked in silence.

“We have you on a weapons charge if the DA decides to prosecute. I doubt if he will. You did good today. Saved a lot of lives.”

Vinnie didn't say anything.

“Put your gun in your pocket and go home,” Farrington said.

Vinnie pocketed the piece and stood.

Farrington held out his hand. “I'd like to shake your hand,” the lawyer said.

Vinnie grinned, shook hands, and walked out. His daughter and granddaughter were waiting for him on the school lawn.

ONE

O
ccasionally people ask me, What were you doing that day? You know—that day, that Saturday the terrorists hit the United States hard? Again. Fifteen years after 9/11 had dropped the World Trade Center, more American blood had been spilled on the altar of global jihad.

My name is Tommy Carmellini, and the people who ask that question know that back then I worked for Jake Grafton. At the time he was the director of the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. Perhaps I should tell you a bit about Jake Grafton, a retired two-star navy admiral, a former attack pilot, a genuinely nice guy, and the worst enemy you could imagine in an alcohol-soaked nightmare. He was a pretty good spook too. So-so shuffling paper. He had an uncanny ability to connect the dots, not just the ones you and I could see, but the ones that only a savant could have suspected might be there.

Yet Jake Grafton was pretty closemouthed. He never talked about his boss. He took orders and gave orders and you never knew what the man who lived behind those gray eyes was really thinking. Until the shooting started. Then. . .well, then you found out that Jake Grafton was the perfect attack pilot. Away up there in the blue going fast, out of sight of the people on the ground, he could roll in, draw a bead with his bomb, and turn it loose. To kill you. Then he pulled out and dodged the flak and pointed his ass at the blast and left the vicinity to get on with his life.
While your doom was falling from the sky, toward you. That was Jake Grafton.

So. . .what was I doing that day, the day the old world came to an end? Well, I was in Colorado watching the windup to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) exercise, Jade Helm 16.

When I got back to my hotel, the television in the lobby said over a hundred people were dead and another hundred injured, some seriously, not expected to live, after the three terror strikes. At least three of the terrorists had been Syrian refugees, and several of the others were here illegally.

Around the world, the news was all bad, but especially in the Middle East, where it looked like the Sunnis and Shiites were well on their way to a Hundred Years' War, each sect trying to exterminate the other, and any Christians who happened to be available. There were rumors of stray nuclear weapons, and there were definitely floods of refugees—and who knew, maybe terrorists among then—pouring into Turkey and Europe.

Back in the good old USA, we were already getting started on a presidential election campaign, and it was ugly. Both sides assured the voters that if the other side won, it was the end of civilization as we know it. And then there was the Soetoro government, getting ready for a civil war.

On Sunday I flew back to Washington. The airports looked like armed camps. Armed soldiers in full battle dress were everywhere, and there weren't many people volunteering to be victims of an airliner bombing. My plane was less than half full.

On Monday I finished my report on the FEMA exercise at my cubbyhole office at the CIA facility in the Langley, Virginia, neighborhood. When I ran out of words I decided to print out my opus and proof it. I stamped the report secret using my desk inkpad, stapled it together, and read it through. Signed it.

I had spent the two weeks of the exercise in Colorado at exercise headquarters, the buildings that the Federal Emergency Management Agency occupied on the federal reservation on West Sixth Avenue in Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. The head dog was a Homeland Security career civil servant who had obviously impressed his political bosses with his zeal and
commitment to the cause of federal supremacy against all domestic foes.

When my report was ready for prime time on Monday morning, I walked it and the classified summary down the hall to the director's office. Admiral Grafton was in, the receptionist said.

I just had time to pour myself a cup of coffee before the receptionist sent me in. Grafton was sitting there behind his desk looking sour, and Sal Molina, the president's man Friday, was sitting across from him. Molina looked sour too. I guess the view from the White House wasn't much better than it was from my apartment.

Grafton motioned me to a seat. I handed him my report, with the classified summary attached, and he flipped through it. He was a tad over six feet tall, lean and ropy, with thinning, graying hair combed straight back. No one would ever call him handsome, not with a nose that was a size too large. When you looked straight at him, you forgot about the nose. It was those cold gray eyes that captured you.

Molina, on the other hand, was a middle-sized guy with a twenty-pound spare tire and a shiny dome. He looked as if he were about ten years younger than Grafton, in his mid to late fifties.

The admiral tossed the report at Molina and said to me, “Tell us about it.”

“Jade Helm is an exercise about how the government will put down a right-wing uprising, or rebellion, and arrest everyone they think might be sympathetic with the rebels. They'll use these paramilitary police they have tucked into every government alphabet agency as storm troopers and SS troops—”

That was as far as I got. Molina exploded. “Comparing the federal government to Nazis is unacceptable. I am not going to sit here listening to that kind of shit, Carmellini.”

I didn't say anything. Sal Molina couldn't fire me, and if Grafton did, I was ready to be on my way. Truth was, I had been in the belly of the beast for far too long.

“Go on, Tommy,” Grafton prompted, ignoring Molina.

“They'll arrest every prominent Republican they can find and hold them in guarded camps, mainly at military bases. They have computer-generated lists.
Gun owners, people who run their mouths on Facebook and Twitter, radio talk-show hosts, editors and publishers of Republican newspapers. . .you know, dangerous enemies of society.”

“Who ran the exercise?”

“A senior Homeland Security dude named Zag Lambert. Wore a uniform shirt and a belt with a holstered pistol. Honest to God, all he needed was a Hitler mustache. That guy should be kept in a padded room.”

Grafton sighed. Molina threw the report back onto the desk. Grafton picked it up and said to me, “I'll read this. Thanks, Tommy.”

I got up and beat it.

Outside I rescued my cup, decided the coffee was still warm enough to be drinkable, punched the door code, and strolled into the executive assistants' office. I worked with and liked both of them: Max Hurley, a skinny long-distance runner, and Anastasia Roberts, a black woman with a PhD whose IQ was probably up in the stratosphere.

“Hey.”

“Tommy,” Hurley acknowledged. “You were just in the pit—how is it going with Molina?”

I shrugged. “Tense.”

“They've been arguing for a week,” Roberts said. “These agency police forces and huge ammo buys. The White House wants the CIA to establish our own paramilitary force, and Grafton has said no. He's defying the White House.”

They stared at me and I stared back. That meant Grafton was on the way out, and we probably were too. The new man, or woman, would bring his or her own management team.

“They don't trust us,” Anastasia Roberts remarked, quite unnecessarily. I knew whom she meant. The brain trust at the White House, hunkered down on Pennsylvania Avenue ever since the Democrats lost control of the Senate in the last off-year election, two years ago. The Republicans already had the House. This was August. The presidential election was in November, and no matter which way it went, the current president, Barry Soetoro, was leaving on January 20. The
Constitution limited the president to two terms, so the end of his eight-year occupation of the White House was in sight at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Only 151 days of Soetoro left to endure, according to the countdown counter on Fox News that one of the hosts opened his show with every day.

“You know I was out in Denver last week at the Jade Helm 16 exercise,” I remarked. “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has their own private army, and some of the troopers were at the exercise. A couple dozen of them came down from Boulder, decked out in camo clothes and helmets and armed to the teeth. They bonded with the storm troopers from other agencies. In my opinion, if the water and air gurus need paramilitary police, this agency certainly does.”

“Boulder is a hotbed of sedition,” Max Hurley observed. “Washington is a hotbed of sheep.”

“The revolution will start there, no question,” I agreed. “The faculty of the University of Colorado is packed with dangerous right-wing fanatics who will lead their students in a wild charge against the Bureau of Standards, burn it down, then attack NOAA.”

“If they fire Grafton, will you stay with the agency?” Roberts asked me.

Needless to say, I hadn't thought about that possibility. I had an apartment just up the road, my car was paid for, I was single, my mom was doing okay out in California. When I didn't answer quickly enough, Roberts added, “I'm resigning. I've been offered a faculty position at the University of Chicago. If the job is still open, I can start when the new semester begins.”

I grunted. The University of Chicago was notoriously left-wing, very politically correct, and Roberts was a level-headed, pragmatic genius who had worked for Republicans on the Hill early in her career. On the other hand, she was a she, and black, and consequently could get away with a lot that would sink a white male faculty member.

Hurley admitted he was on the fence. He loved the game of analyzing raw intelligence. He said so now, and expressed the hope that he could return to the Middle East Desk.

“Nothing but bad news there,” I said, trying not to sound too downbeat.

“I think I can take it for a while longer,” he said. The cockeyed optimist.

“Negativity is the problem with this agency,” Anastasia Roberts declared. “Eventually it overwhelms you and your shit bucket overflows.”

“I wouldn't express that opinion quite that bluntly in the faculty lounge in Chicago, if I were you,” I told her. “Clean it up for the civilians.”

We chuckled, locked up, and went to the cafeteria for lunch, where we discussed the weekend terror attacks.

I was working on a chicken salad sandwich with mustard and a slice of pickle on the side, plus a little bag of barbeque potato chips, when the televisions mounted high in the corner of the cafeteria broke away from their coverage of the investigation of the terrorist incidents to televise a live news conference with the president, Barry Soetoro. He had complete faith in the professionalism and competence of the FBI and Homeland Security Department. They were investigating. The terrorists were obviously criminals, he said, but they certainly didn't represent the vast bulk of American Muslims or the refugees who had been admitted to the United States. He and his security team were reviewing the information the crime scene investigators were producing, and when more was known, they would be taking any steps called for.

“Does that mean you will reconsider your decision to admit Muslims to America?”

“We can't classify people by their religion.”

“Obviously refugee screening was inadequate. What will the administration do to find the jihadists and keep them out?”

“We are looking at that.”

“A lot of people in Congress are saying your policies on illegal immigration and the admission of Middle Eastern refugees are abject failures, as proved by the events of the weekend. Would you comment on that?”

“My political enemies say a lot of things, every day. I haven't the time or inclination to listen and comment.”

There was more, a lot more. The public was frightened and angry, and Barry Soetoro was defiant.

When the press conference was over, the cafeteria was quiet.

“It's a miracle someone hasn't shot at him before now,” Max Hurley observed, leaning forward at the waist and speaking softly.

But why shoot him? The Democratic nominee was Cynthia Hinton, who, according to the polls, was going to be the victim of a landslide. The Republican nominee was Jerry Duchene, the Wisconsin governor, and if the polls could be believed, he was going to be elected by a landslide. And the Congress would get a veto-proof Republican majority. The country had had more than enough of Barry Soetoro, his left-wing agenda, and his political allies, and was waiting, more or less patiently, for his final day in office. Yet the terror strikes had stirred the pot.

Back upstairs after lunch things began to pop. Were there any indications among the intelligence bits trapped in the intestines of our intelligence systems that some evil foreign power or narco-criminals or terrorist groups had plotted with or funded the Saturday monsters?

We three EAs were told to contact every department head and find out.

We spent the afternoon talking to people throughout the agency who were trying their best to find a hint, a clue, a sniff. They failed. While it is theoretically impossible to prove a negative, you can often get close enough for government work. And we did. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Of course, on television every terror organization in the Middle East was claiming credit.