Liberty's Last Stand by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

hundreds.”
    She tittered. “Oh, good heavens. Since it’s over ten thousand, we must fill out a form. Are you sure you don’t want a cashier’s check?”
    Titterers set my teeth on edge. On the other hand, she wasn’t still swimming around in the gene pool looking for a man. I silently wished her husband luck. “Pretty sure,” I replied. “Cash, please. And while you are at it, I want to close out my savings account. I’ll take that in cash too.”
    She had to go get more cash from the vault, then the paperwork took another few minutes. When I had my money, a little over twenty-two thousand monetary units—they gave me a little cloth envelope with the bank’s name printed on it to carry it in—I opened my safe deposit box with the help of one of the ladies who didn’t titter.
    Back in my younger days, when I thought the day might come when I wanted to leave town in a hurry—like today, for instance—I had stashed thirty grand in cash in the box, along with a couple of false driver’s licenses in various names, credit cards, and a genuine false passport. Getting that paper had taken time and money years ago, but I did it and kept the stuff.Of course, the credit cards had long expired, but they added heft to my wallet and looked good to anyone who happened to glance into my wallet while I had it open. Some people think that people with credit cards are more trustworthy than those without.
    Under the money at the bottom of the drawer was another 1911 .45, an old Ithaca made during World War II with brown plastic handles and most of the bluing gone from the slide, plus two extra magazines and a box of cartridges. The pistol was marked “United States Property M 1911 A1 US Army.” It had either been liberated from the army’s clutches many years ago or sold as surplus. It was serviceable, although it didn’t have the good sights and fancy grips of my Kimber.
    If there is a possibility that you might get shot at, you should at least be prepared to shoot back. In this brave new world that Emperor Soetoro envisioned, I thought the odds of getting shot at would be increased for a great many people, me included. I emptied the metal box into my briefcase, then with the help of the vault lady, who had discreetly faded while I plundered my treasure box, put the box back into its slot where it would rest undisturbed, safer than a pharaoh’s sarcophagus, for all eternity, or until my annual box rent was due and I wasn’t around to pay it, whichever came first.
    As I was leaving the lobby with my now-bulging briefcase, Barry Soetoro was on the television high in the corner, reading from a teleprompter. That was, I had long ago concluded, his one skill set. The audio on the TV was off, so I was spared his mellifluous tones. There were people standing behind him, but since I knew Jake Grafton wasn’t among them, I didn’t bother to check out the crowd of toadies. I walked out of the bank with my money—earned, not stolen, with taxes paid on every dime. I kinda wished I had stolen it, then I would have felt better about this whole deal. I was just too goddamn conventional.
    To hell with all of it! I walked out of the bank into the rest of my life.

    Barry Soetoro’s declaration of martial law stunned the nation. His reason—the need to protect the nation from terrorism—met with widespread skepticism. After all, at least three of the Saturday jihadists had entered with Soetoro’s blessing,over the objections of many politicians and the outraged cries of all those little people out there in the heartland, all those potential victims no one really gave a damn about.
    His suspension of the writ of habeas corpus went over the heads of most of the millions of people in his audience, since they didn’t know what the writ was or signified. He didn’t stop there. He adjourned Congress until he called it back into