Liberty's Last Stand Read Free Page B

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 gunmenstill 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.
    â€œBastard won’t be able to fuck his virgins in Paradise,” he explained.
    â€œYou believe that shit?”
    â€œHell, 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?”
    â€œOf course not,” Vinnie said disgustedly. “That’s a clean gun.”
    â€œOr you wouldn’t have been carrying it.”
    Vinnie nodded and lit a cigarette.
    â€œThe nuns don’t allow smoking in the building.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œWe 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.
    â€œPut 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