A State of Disobedience

by Tom Kratman

  Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

  "And the condemned ate a hearty last meal," joked Davis as he and the other officers feasted on such rare and costly delicacies as packaged bread, undifferentiated meat, nuked potatoes, and squeezie cheese.

  Almost all chuckled though the humor was plainly forced. James alone did not chuckle. He was sick; the doc had diagnosed pneumonia brought on by damage to his lungs during the first attack. James picked at the food with little interest or appetite. His color was pale and he seemed to have lost weight.

  Suddenly, seized by a fit of coughing, James put down his plastic fork.

  "You okay, bubba?" asked Davis.

  "I'll be fine," he answered, without conviction.

  Davis exchanged a look with Williams. No, he won't be fine.

  "Captain James, I think maybe you ought to exchange places with the engineer; take over the command post and let him handle the south wall."

  Recovering with difficulty from the fit of coughing, James could only nod his head reluctantly. "If you say so, boss."

  "I'll leave a good engineer with him," volunteered Davis.

  "He ought to be in the aid station," insisted the doctor. "But then again . . ."

  "Doesn't make a whole helluva lot of difference, does it, Doc?" countered James.

  Chapter Sixteen

  From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of

  Virginia v. Alvin Scheer

  DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED

  BY MR. STENNINGS:

  Q. So it pleased you, did it, Alvin, that Texas wasn't alone anymore?

  A. Oh, yessir. Not that I thought New Mexico added much. But I figured it might be important that the governor didn't look so much like some sort of lone wolf like they was trying to paint her.

  Q. Sure. I understand how that might be so. So what did you see next, Alvin?

  A. Next? Well, next on the TV was the assault on the currency facility. And those poor bastards . . . pardon my language . . . they were sure enough alone. I didn't have no TV, like I said before, so I watched it on the TV at a bar near where I was staying. Well, that is I got to see the outside of it anyway. I had to buy more beer, a lot more, than I really like to drink to stay and watch it through to the end.

  * * *

  Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

  From the heavily sandbagged lookout position on the roof, the sun had not yet begun to peek over the horizon. Down below, to an e+ven greater degree, all was plunged in gloom.

  The sentry on duty, Fontaine, heard the sound of diesel engines roaring in the darkness. This was nothing new; since the PGSS had been linked up with their LAVs they had made a habit of moving them frequently at night.

  The sound Fontaine heard was a little different though; deeper and fuller. He decided to risk a look. Straining his eyes to make out the indistinct silhouettes he concentrated . . .

  "Holy shit!"

  In a flash Fontaine had ripped the field telephone from its cradle. He began frantically twisting the crank that caused a buzzer on a similar phone deep within the building to come to life.

  "Major Williams, here."

  Fontaine exclaimed, with panic straining his voice, "Holy fucking shit, sir, the PGSS have a battery of self-propelled artillery and they're taking up firing positions across from the south wall now!"

  Even as Fontaine replaced the handset on the cradle a blossom of fire erupted from the centermost gun.

  * * *

  Austin, Texas

  As it turned out it was Jack who lost his nerve when the word came. It surprised him; he had never even contemplated the possibility that the impending deaths of not quite a couple of hundred of his men could affect him so. But, with Williams' frantic voice relaying the brick by brick reduction of the Currency Facility—each sentence spoken mis-punctuated by the muffled blasts of artillery, Schmidt had found that political considerations meant less and less.

  "It's not too late, Governor," he'd insisted. "I can still reroute that battalion to Fort Worth. They might make it in time."

  " 'Might'," echoed the governor. "And if we did? If we did leave New Mexico in the lurch?"

  "Well . . . they'll definitely go under," the general admitted, his face and tone of voice showing great unwillingness to so admit. "Probably within a few days. But if we don't save the boys in the Currency Facility they have at most forty-eight hours. I think not that long."

  Juani sat stone-faced, unanswering.

  "Or I could send a half dozen sorties of air . . ."

  "No," she cut him off.

  Juani looked down at her cluttered desk, deep in thought. When she raised her head it was to explain, "Jack . . . we have gotten away with as much as we have, in part, because the Air Force is sitting this one out. But if we use our planes they'll feel they have to get involved. And they'll beat us."

  Seeing that Jack was still ready to argue that point she drove it home. "How many planes do we have? Not enough, yes? How much of an . . . What's that term you use? . . . umbrella? How much of an umbrella can you put over us? Not enough, yes? How much of the supplies and equipment you need will you be able to get through Mexico when the Air Force gets involved and is shooting up every convoy that tries to cross the border? Not enough, yes?

  "And how, Jack, how are we going to win on our own? If New Mexico goes under then no one, no one, no one else is going to join us.

  "And then we lose.

  "Now think about what 'lose' means here, Jack. It means that the people who killed my brother, killed your best friend and burnt alive a couple of dozen kids under age twelve get off scot-free. It means that we'll have Wilhelmina Rottemeyer's little spiked heels on our necks forever."

  Juani paused briefly. "No, I take that back. 'We' won't because 'we' will be dead."

  " 'Lose,' " she continued, "means that the constitution as we know it will also be dead, dead, dead beyond hope of recovery. It means that our kids and grandkids will grow up learning the party line and nothing else. It means that our economy is going to be trashed by a cabal of people least well suited to running an economy."

  " 'Lose' means the end of the fucking world, Jack."

  If he was shocked by the vulgarity, Schmidt didn't show a sign of it. He said, "Then I guess we had better not lose, Governor."

  * * *

  U.S. Highway 285, New Mexico

  Tripp coughed a little as he was enveloped by a cloud of dust from a rolling, blacked-out tank. He thought abstractly about perhaps ducking down and buttoning up his own armored vehicle. It would save him from the dust, somewhat, but—dammit—he wanted to see his battalion as it launched itself forward.

  Not that he could see much. Not only were the vehicles blacked out but he had spaced them over a very long line of march. He was taking a chance and he knew it, both from the probability of a major accident and the frightful possibility that the Marines to the south would detect his march and beat him to Santa Fe; meeting, fighting and defeating his battalion in detail.

  * * *

  El Paso, Texas

  The word had been passed quietly. The hour was set for the time when the command and staff of 1st Marine Division could be most certain not to be interrupted by any of the division's Zampolits.

  The Political Officers liked their sleep.

  Quietly, too, the colonels and generals assembled in the division command post. Quietly they entered. Quietly they took their seats.

  Fulton, the general commanding, entered accompanied by a pudgy, nondescript corporal named Mendez. He made a small hushing motion. Do not call "attention." Do not stand. Just listen.

  "Ladies, gentlemen . . . oh and you, too, Colonel Stilton," the general lightly pointed a finger at the commander of the Army's 3rd Cavalry. "Corporal Mendez here has come through Las Cruces recently with a load of ammunition for us. I want you to listen to what he saw there. Go ahead, Mendez."

  Obviously somewhat unnerved by the presence of so much brass, Mendez began haltingly. As he s
aw anger growing on the dimly lit faces, an anger that matched his own, he became more eloquent. As he finished speaking he heard two colonels mutter, "Motherfuckers."

  "Yes, sir . . . sirs. They were motherfuckers."

  "Motherfuckers," General Fulton repeated, definitively. "Now the question is, what do we do about it? Mendez, go take a walk. What we're going to discuss . . . I won't say it isn't your business. I will say that I don't see any good reason to put your neck in a noose, too."

  The general waited for the corporal to leave and close the door before continuing.

  The Cavalry commander interrupted as soon as he heard the door ease closed. "Me, personally, I'm sorely tempted to beg whatever diesel you guys have, turn around, and head north shooting up federal cops all the way," said Stilton. There was a muted murmur of broad agreement.

  "A worthy ambition, young Colonel. Now how do you square that with your oath of office?"

  "You don't have to anyway," piped in Fulton's intelligence officer. He pointed a thumb in a roughly northward direction and announced, "The Texas Guard is already sending what looks to be a heavy battalion to Santa Fe, though I don't think they know that we know. The general knows," he continued, defensively.

  "Yes, I knew. And I decided we all needed to chat before we decided what to do about it."

  "What do you want to do about it, sir?" asked Stilton.

  "Do about that battalion? About the federales that shot down American citizens in cold blood? Or do you mean about our general—and unfortunate—circumstances?"

  "Yes, sir. About that."

  Fulton flashed the briefest and smallest of smiles. "They say that a council of war never fights. Even so, that's what I'm calling here, a council of war. There are some decisions I can't make for you. I wouldn't, in any case. This is one such.

  "We have three questions and three choices. The questions I have already asked. The choices are these. We can continue to do what we've been doing; moving painfully forward to try to knock the Texans to their knees as part of the federal armed forces. Alternatively, we can join the Texans and try to knock the federal government to its knees. Lastly, we can decide to just sit things out right here, call a truce, and ask the Texans for some goddamned gas and water just to survive.

  "Note that the last two choices mean we will have to round up the Zampolits we've been saddled with." Fulton looked over at his provost.

  "We're ready when you give the order, sir," that worthy answered, not without an undertone of happy anticipation in his voice.

  Fulton nodded before continuing, "Note, here, gentlemen, that once I called this council my personal options became quite limited. I am in favor of one of those last two choices and by so stating I have effectively counseled a mutiny.

  "And that's all I am going to say about it. Speak, argue . . . decide."

  * * *

  "Get up, you pudgy little fuck," harshly demanded the Marine holding a rifle to the nose of the division's political officer. Two more Marines, large men both, came, one to either side of the Zampolit's rather luxurious bunk in his rather expensive and air-conditioned RV.

  "You're coming with us, asshole."

  * * *

  Washington, DC

  "Willi? Willi, wake up. We've got a problem, a bad one."

  Rottemeyer sat up instantly, unconsciously brushing McCreavy's hand from her shoulder. "What is it, Caroline?"

  "First Marine Division—well, the two thirds of it that is in Texas anyway—has mutinied. They've arrested their political officers and I have unconfirmed reports that they have sent parlementaires to the Texans."

  "Oh, my God. What's this going to do to us? And what's a 'parlementaire'?"

  "A parlementaire is someone sent to negotiate with the enemy. I think the Texans are either going to gain the better part of 1st Marine Division or, as a minimum, the Marines are going to bow out and release the Texans that are facing them to facing somewhere else . . . like against the rest of our force."

  Open-mouthed and wide-eyed, Rottemeyer exhaled forcefully. "Why?"

  "I don't know. There're nothing but rumors. But it might be because of the way the Surgeon General's police freed up the supply lines to the Marines that ran through Las Cruces. They were pretty heavy-handed, Willi."

  "Well they had to be," the President retorted. "The Marines themselves needed that highway opened."

  "Yes, the Marines needed the roads opened. And maybe the SGRCP did have to play rough," McCreavy admitted. "But the effect has not been good. Willi, I am worried about 2nd Marine Division now. And even the Army . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "There was an armored cavalry regiment with the 1st Marine Division. They mutinied, too. I don't know who you can trust anymore."

  Tossing away the bedclothes, Rottemeyer arose to throw on a bathrobe. "Get me my cabinet."

  * * *

  Dallas, Texas

  It was almost a northern city, in many ways. Like Atlanta and a few other places in the old south, the old Confederacy, Dallas was filled with northerners and flush with northern, and urban, attitudes and values. While a Texas—or Georgia—Democrat was likely to be more to the right than a Massachusetts—or New York—Republican, a Texan or Georgian Democrat from Atlanta or Dallas was equally likely to be only somewhat to the right of Marx or Engels. That was, of course, considerably to the right of a Massachusetts Democrat, many of whom stood considerably to the left of Marx and Engels.

  Support, therefore, for Governor Seguin was far more muted in Dallas than it was in, say, neighboring Fort Worth. Indeed, that support was sometimes hardly in evidence at all.

  And, however much federal law enforcement agencies had expanded and rotted under the Rottemeyer administration, some had done so less than others.

  The premier agency, in fact, had—excepting some newer and much expanded sub-groups like the Hostage Rescue Team—hardly rotted at all. Although in the shadow of a pile of filth, and affected by the stench of it, the FBI—the core of a fine old organization—still retained some measure of its old dignity, restraint and purpose.

  So, although there had been some incidents in Dallas—the FBI's area of responsibility for rear area security, those incidents had been few and not one had escalated into the type of random viciousness which were making the name of the United States government a stench in the nostrils of Texans, and others, elsewhere.

  In Fort Worth, however, things were different.

  * * *

  Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

  "Well, this is certainly fucking different," muttered Pendergast into his protective mask. Another incoming shell slammed into the brick, causing him to duck behind the sand bags of the interior bunker he occupied. Bits of shattered brick and the odd piece of razor-sharp shell casing pattered the sand bags and bounced off of the concrete floor. Distantly and from behind him Pendergast heard someone cry out, "I'm hit, goddamit, I'm hit."

  Pendergast turned around. Already a team of medics was carrying off the wounded trooper, leaking a trail of blood onto the concrete floor. He nodded approvingly.

  A body flopped into the bunker next to Pendergast.

  "Afternoon, SMaj," said Williams through his mask's "voicemitter."

  "Sir."

  "Have you noticed if the shelling has lightened up on this end?"

  "They're firing a low rate, sir. Hard to tell if it's four guns firing really slow or two guns firing a bit faster. Why?"

  "They've started blowing holes in two of the other walls, too."

  "Casualties?" asked Pendergast.

  "Not bad. Couple dead, half dozen wounded."

  "Damn good thing we let the engineers talk us into these interior bunkers, no?"

  "Oh, yes," Williams agreed.

  "What's your guess, sir? Think they're going to try to hit all four walls at once?"

  "Dunno. But that's what we have to prepare for."

  * * *

  Sawyers grunted with a grim satisfaction as a shower of displaced brick
fell in a semicircle about the point of impact.

  "How much longer are we supposed to prep the walls, sir?" asked his driver.

  "Well, technically, Ricky, we are not supposed to prep them at all. But I'll be damned if I'll let my boys fall into another trap . . . and all it took to get this half battery of guns was throwing my weight around a bit. The Army types weren't happy with it but . . . so what? Anyway, we'll pound them until I am sure there are no working claymores on the outside and that, on the inside, the Guard is reeling with bleeding ears and noses."