by Tom Kratman
Pendergast rubbed the fingers of both hands along the side of his nose as he digested the news. Williams will go right for the likely breach, he thought. That's okay, far as it goes . . . but it won't do more than hold a line inside the building. Soo . . .
"Cease fire, cease fire."
As he waited for the word to spread and the noise to die down, Pendergast forced his mind to concentrate. We've got a middling clear route, well . . . middling quick anyway, if we go upstairs. Then I can tell from the noise where the bad guys are. And then we come through the ceiling, right in behind them. Seal the breach and chop up any unfriendly intruders. Ought to work, he told himself, skeptically. Best chance, anyway, he thought, hopefully.
"Okay, boys, now here's the plan. . . ."
* * *
"Don't you just love it when, fucking plan comes together?" muttered the fireplug as he pushed himself through the jagged hole made by the ring charge.
The dust had cleared enough for him to see the shot, hacked and blasted bodies of the defenders his men had left behind them as they advanced. The fireplug shook a fireplug-shaped head. I'm sorry, guys. Truth be told, I'd rather be in here fighting with you than inside or outside fighting against you. But I had my orders.
Ahead, firing broke out afresh. With a glance backwards at the two thirds of his command still crawling forward under fire, the commander marched to the sound of the guns.
* * *
"Smitty," called Williams loudly. At the order Smithfield stuck his M-16 out past the corner behind which he sheltered and fired a half dozen unaimed bursts. At the opposite corner, Corporal Petty armed a fragmentation grenade, released the spoon, and threw the grenade down the corridor between the corners.
Williams' party heard someone cry, "Grenade!" Williams himself was pretty sure he heard someone else yell, "Shit!" before human sounds were muffled by the grenade's blast.
"Figueroa," William called. From beneath Petty another rifle was thrust outward and another series of short bursts flew.
* * *
"Did you hear that?" asked Pendergast.
"Hear what, Top . . . I mean Sergeant Major?"
"That explosion . . . wait . . . there went another one. Grenade, I think."
"Oh, that," admitted Fontaine. "Yeah, Sergeant Major. It did sort of sound like a grenade . . . near as I can remember."
"Okay . . . Fontaine, you take six men and put them on the firing ports we've got cut in the wall on this floor."
"Me, Top?" asked a wide eyed, disbelieving Fontaine.
"Yes, you, son. I want you to stop any more men from getting into whatever kind of hole they've knocked in the wall below us. Remember you've also got a couple of places cut you can roll hand grenades out. Use your judgment, son, but stop them from getting through that breach.
"Oh . . . any that are trying to leave? You just go ahead and let them. Got it?"
The young soldier's chest swelled. "You can count on me, Top . . . I mean Sergeant Major."
"I always knew that, Fontaine. The rest of you: there's a hatchway leading down four doors thataway. We're going down it and we're gonna hit them in the ass. Now—and quietly—follow me."
* * *
The fireplug risked a brief glance halfway around a corner. Now isn't that a kick in the ass, he thought as he glimpsed the mass of tangled up, gnarled barbed wire that blocked his men's forward progress. Clever bastards, using that old World War One trench blocking idea here.
The bodies of two of his men, gunned down while trying to move the wire, indicated that any further attempts would be futile . . . futile and bloody.
Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the fireplug's attention was pulled away by the sound of explosions—more than a dozen, he thought—of automatic rifle fire, and the screams of struggling, dying men.
* * *
Pendergast held one finger to his lips before bending down to remove—oh, so quietly and carefully—the rubberized runner concealing the trap door. He made a motion to the belt of his combat harness while mouthing the word, "grenade." The dozen men nearest him each pulled one hand grenade from his own belt and flicked away the safety clip. Following the sergeant major's lead, a baker's dozen pins were pulled.
Pendergast motioned for two more men to stand ready with their rifles. Then he reached down and pulled up the trap door.
* * *
"Get out, get out!" ordered the fireplug. "We can't go forward, not with what we have and we need to hurry if we're not going to lose our only way out." Hand placed firmly between a young "agent's" shoulder blades, the fireplug gave a firm shove, and then turned around for the next. Soon, the ex-Marine turned to find no more men behind him and the sound of the Texans' advance growing closer.
There was a low moan followed by the sound of shifting bricks. The A Company commander looked to one corner and stared into the single beady eye of a 9mm pistol. His eyes followed the pistol to the wavering hand, the hand to the arm, and the arm to the bruised, bleeding man half buried by the bricks.
"What's your name?" asked James.
"Crenshaw," answered the fireplug.
"Well, go on, Crenshaw. I never could shoot a man whose name I knew."
Chapter Fourteen
From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. So you did hear about the first attack on the Western Currency Facility?
A. Oh, yes, sir. And I was tickled pink, too. It was a scream, I tell you. I like to split my sides when I heard. The feds tried to take that money printin' plant at a rush and got their asses handed to 'em by my home folks.
Not that it wasn't kind of sad, too, them boys that got killed. But, I figured they took their money and they took their chances, same as anyone.
Not that the papers hereabouts took my view of it, mind you. Oh, no. I read every one I could get my hands on. That included a couple from what you might call the "lunatic fringe."
You know the kind I mean: Save the Whales—Abort the Babies? Marxist-Leninist Times? The Anarchist? Hey, I'm quoting here. I ain't smart enough to think up them titles.
Anyways, real far left stuff—chock full of all kinds of words I had never heard and couldn't even find in the dictionary. You know, the kind of thing that used to make a hobby of hatin' Washington and the President of the United States?
The mildest one of those, if I can recall correctly, called for turnin' Texas into a prairie.
Guess they didn't know we already mostly were a prairie.
Anyways, I didn't see—no one saw, far as I know—that incident on TV. Don't know whether that was because there weren't any news folks there or because the scene was just too damned nasty.
Besides, pretty soon there was lots of bigger news.
* * *
Washington, DC
If anyone noticed the scent of musk on the President as she entered the Oval Office followed by McCreavy, no one said anything. They were broad-minded men and women, all, and not a few of them had tastes similar to the President's.
"All right, what happened at the Western Currency Facility?" demanded Rottemeyer.
Vega gave the official story. "Our people there called on the criminals inside to surrender. They lulled a large number of agents into the open then they opened fire. We attacked but were driven back by superior numbers and firepower."
McCreavy rolled her eyes. Can't even make up a good lie, too damned ignorant.
"How about this, Ms. Vega? You can't take a building like that, heavily fortified and defended, with less than ten to one odds. And then you can expect to lose almost everyone you throw at it."
"That's a military answer, Caroline," corrected the President. "It might even be a true one. But Jesse's answer serves our purposes better.
"There is a military answer I need, though. Are your forces ready to roll?"
"Everywhere but from New Mexico. The commander down t
here, a Marine," she added with a trace of disdain, "says he simply can't move anywhere much. No fuel beyond what his vehicles have in their tanks and a severe shortage of ammunition."
"Those goddamned sit-down strikers on the highway?"
"Yes," McCreavy answered. "Per your order we were waiting for the Presidential Guard to clear out the Currency Facility, before sending them to clear the highway. Obviously, they've been delayed."
"Do they have enough to get them to El Paso or a little beyond?"
"I asked the commander down there that question. He said he could."
"Have him do that then. All your forces. I want them to roll tomorrow morning."
McCreavy closed her eyes, holding in a wistful sigh. I wish it had never come to this. Eyes still closed she silently nodded her acceptance.
Rottemeyer added, "We'll send the Surgeon General's riot control police down to New Mexico, instead of the Presidential Guard. They should be able to handle the problem."
* * *
Las Cruces, New Mexico
The Marine Corps Reserve truck driver—he was a California boy named Mendez—looked out at the sea of humanity blocking the highway before him. "Whew; I didn't think New Mexico had this many people in it."
"What you carrying, son?" asked the state trooper balancing on the truck's running board while hanging from its rearview mirror.
"I'm not sure I should say, sir." The driver looked down at the trooper's chest and read a name tag, "Peters."
The trooper—Peters—smiled grandly. "Well, you can say or we can just arrest you now; whatever's your preference."
The driver gave off a loud sigh. "Ammunition, mostly."
"Ah, I see. Well . . . come with me. Let's see if your truck is properly marked." The trooper stepped down.
The driver emitted another sigh as he opened his door to follow.
"It's always amazed me how often you guys hauling ammo fail to put up the signs required by federal law," commented the trooper as he ripped a "Danger-Peligro" sign from the side of the truck, folding it and tucking it in his shirt.
"But . . . but . . ."
"And another thing; you know how often you mix up incompatible loads of ammunition? Why, it's a national disgrace," he added while tearing off another bit of paper, this one stating in precise terms what kind of ammunition the truck was carrying.
The trooper looked the driver squarely in the eye and ordered, "Son, you are just gonna have to unload this here truck and let me inspect it."
"But, sir . . . it's over twenty tons of ammunition. I can't, I just can't; not in less than a week."
If possible the trooper's friendly smile grew broader and grander still. "I know."
* * *
La Union, New Mexico
The 1st Marine Division command post fairly crackled with energy. It crackled with radio transmissions as well.
The barrel-chested, iron-jawed major general in command, one Richard Fulton, stared with disgust at the charts hanging from the tent's frame along its walls. These showed all the pertinent information on the division, from personnel to logistics. It was the last which raised Fulton's disgust.
His unit's supply status merely raised the disgust, however. The voice coming from a radio's speaker gave it force. The Division's "Zampolit"—the Russian word had gained wide currency by now—sitting in a corner, amplified it even more.
He listened to, "And so, yes, despite your logistic inconveniences, you are ordered to proceed into Texas, commencing tomorrow morning at 0400, liberate El Paso, then proceed generally east along Interstate 10 to San Antonio. As you proceed, you are to drop off adequate forces southward along the Mexican border to seal that border as you go."
Fulton clenched frustration into a balled fist. "General McCreavy . . . you realize, do you not, that I have the fuel to get to approximately Van Horn, Texas, before my tanks are bone dry? And that is assuming I do not have to fight the Texans on the way. They can pull back, wait for me to run out of fuel, then beat the hell out of me. That's open country, great for tanks, not so great for infantry. And my force is mostly infantry . . . and the Texans—the ones facing me anyway—are mostly not."
"We are working on your logistic problems from this end, General Fulton. By the time you reach the eastern edge of El Paso, you can expect a clear supply route."
"I'll believe that when I see it. But fine then . . . fine. I'll start moving in the morning."
* * *
Marietta, Oklahoma
Nobody felt like singing "Garryowen" this morning.
It was a perfect time for it; the sun rising in the east, the smell of fresh diesel and motor oil on the gentle breeze, hundreds of thousands of tons of steel rolling in a long massive pike down the highway.
Still, nobody felt like singing.
Third Corps was coming back. They had left at command and now they were returning at command. They had left with reluctance and now they returned with much the same feeling.
Silent and sullen, the drivers and commanders scarcely risked a glance at the protesters lining either side of the highway. Yet they did glance from time to time and they did read some of the signs the protesters carried. "Don't mess with Texas," said some. "Thou shalt not kill," said some few others, a message pretty much lost on the professional killers of the Third Corps.
"The South shall rise again," "Lee surrendered; we didn't," and "Get Washington off our backs," were sentiments many, many of the officers and men of the largely southern and largely rural corps shared fully.
Moving at full speed, which is to say—roadmarch speed, the point of the Corps took little time in reaching the Texas-Oklahoma line. There it paused, briefly, waiting for federal police to come and clear away the eight or nine thousand Oklahoman protesters who put their own mortal bodies between Texas and harm.
These same federal law enforcement types had known of the protest and had stationed themselves fairly far forward in the long snaking column of medium armor. With truncheons and dogs, they set into the protesters quickly. Even so, since the protesters seemed willing to be beaten or bitten rather than simply leave, dispersing them took some time.
Curiously, though there were news reporters at the scene, not one report that day on national television showed the weeping women, the split and bleeding skulls, the canine chewed faces the federal police left in their wake.
Still, though the nation did not see, the men of Third Corps did. And this was not without significance.
* * *
North of Gainesville, Texas
"Mission accomplished, sir," the sergeant said to Bernoulli with a crisp salute. The "mission" had been to considerably reinforce the demolition charges previously set on the bridge to the north. From wherever it had come, General Schmidt had come through with enough—truth be told, more than enough—demolitions to bring down every bridge in the state, twice over.
Bernoulli returned the salute, then nodded solemnly. "Okay, Sergeant. Get the boys loaded up then take them to the next bridge down. I'll stay here until it's time to blow this one, then I'll join you later assuming I can get away."
"Sir . . ." the sergeant began to protest, but Bernoulli was having none of it.
"Don't argue," he said with an upraised palm. "Just go."
"Yes, sir," answered the sergeant, then, turning to the troops, he ordered, "All right, you dickheads, load 'em up. We're heading back."
Within minutes, Bernoulli was alone at his command post by the bridge complex spanning the Trinity River.
Not that he was entirely alone; nearby and ahead remained a mixed tank and mechanized infantry task force and a battery of superb New Mexican air defense artillery. But these were there for their threat value, to seem so dangerous that the federals would be prevented from grabbing the bridge with a helicopter insertion.
Yet, still, Bernoulli was alone with his mission and his thoughts.
Dark thoughts they were, full of the doubts that he never let anyone see. Am I doing the right thing? Is this
the only way? Can I get by with saying "I am only following orders" when I have a choice of the orders I could follow?
A captain from the infantry interrupted Bernoulli's reveries. "I just got the word. The Corps is about ten miles out. Their point elements will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes; half an hour, tops. I told my people to get back here and over this bridge before there isn't any bridge to cross on."