Liberty's Last Stand by Stephen Coonts

stretched out on the couch.

    Jake Grafton was wide awake at four in the morning. The camp was lit only by floodlights on the perimeter fences, yet there was just enough illumination leaking through the front flap of the tent to see by. All the cots were occupied. It was August and hot and the cicadas outside, and the farting, snoring, deep-breathing sleepers inside made it anything but silent.
    Grafton had spent the evening talking to his fellow detainees. They were almost all white and perhaps forty years old or older. Some had been arrested at home and allowed to bring their medications; others had been arrested at their places of business or in restaurants or golf clubs or bars. The police or federal agents knew whom they wanted, and theycame and cuffed them and led them away without much fuss or bother. Several said they were pretty liquored up and loudly denouncing Soetoro and the feds, but the cops treated them decently anyway. Maybe the fact that they were spouting anti-government sentiments when arrested made a deeper impression on the witnesses.
    The detainees were small-business men, middle or senior managers or officers in major enterprises, civil servants, state or county politicians, a few preachers, a lot of military and civil retirees. A couple of sheriffs. Basically, the feds had taken a large sample of white America. Apparently federal officers had taken a similar sample from the female population; the women were housed in other tents at Camp Dawson, and males and females mingled inside the compound until lights out was called. The detainees were a talkative bunch, gathering in ever-shifting groups, talking, talking, talking. They also gabbled endlessly on cell phones to the folks at home.
    A lot of these people needed medications, and they didn’t have them. Grafton thought this meant the detention was intended to be only for a short period, or whoever had planned it had planned it poorly. After many years spent in large bureaucracies, he suspected the latter was the case.
    Grafton got up from his cot and headed for the latrine. Once outside the tent, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and turned it on. In a moment the device locked onto the network. Still had a charge.
    He pushed the buttons and held it to his ear. He could hear the ring signal.
    â€œJake, is that you?” Callie’s voice.
    â€œYes. I—”
    â€œWhere are you?”
    â€œCamp Dawson. It’s a detention facility in West Virginia.”
    â€œAre you okay?”
    â€œOh, sure, Hon. Got a cot in a tent and they feed us three times a day, all the food anyone wants.”
    â€œJake, your name was in the paper this morning. The government said you are being investigated to see if you were a member of the conspiracy that planned to assassinate the president.”
    â€œWho said that?”
    â€œSome spokesperson for the FBI.”
    So Sal Molina was correct. Jake changed the subject. “Are you doing okay?”
    â€œOh, sure. Missing you and worried stiff. Why didn’t you call sooner?”
    â€œThey are monitoring and recording all telephone calls. All of them.”
    â€œOh,” Callie said, and fell silent.
    â€œTalk to me,” Jake said. “I need to hear your voice. Talk about Amy and the grandbaby.”
    He leaned against the cinderblock latrine, closed his eyes, and listened to Callie’s voice. She had been his rock for so many years. He was damned lucky to have had her to share his life with, and he knew it.
    When they finally broke the connection, Jake Grafton stood looking at the ten-foot chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire, with guard towers at the corners. This thing wasn’t built overnight. Fence, latrines, sewage and water lines, showers, kitchens with natural gas stoves, electric refrigerators, concrete pads for the tents. . .construction must have taken months. The phone in his hand rang. He looked at the number. Tommy