A State of Disobedience

by Tom Kratman

  "Sir, if we're not supposed to prep them . . ."

  "So? Let the secretary relieve me after the building is taken. For now I am not going to get any more of my boys killed than I can avoid."

  "Sounds good to me, boss."

  * * *

  Pendergast shrugged uncertainly. "So what are we going to do if we haven't a clue where they'll attack from or if they go after all four walls at once, sir?"

  "Well . . . casualties have not been that bad so far. Even so I want to pull back as much as we can from the inner perimeter and have a big reserve for when they actually decide to go for it," answered Williams.

  "Makes sense," Pendergast agreed. "But we are still going to have to keep a screen on the inner perimeter and wall and that is going to cost."

  "I know," said Williams, "but there's nothing else to do for it. So select an initial guard from this area then pull the rest back to the interior."

  "Wilco, sir."

  Another blast shook the exterior of the building as it shook the interior of Williams' and Pendergast's bodies.

  "I'll move like the wind, sir."

  * * *

  Highway 285, New Mexico

  I wish I knew whether this wind was helping or hurting, thought Tripp, breathing with difficulty the dust-laden air kicked up by churning tracks and carried on the stiff breeze. He dropped below to the commander's position in the turret and swept the thing in a medium speed three hundred and sixty degree scan. Nothing much in the thermals. I think it must be helping.

  Tripp had run his battalion spaced out along the highway for as long as darkness permitted. With the rising of the sun, however, he'd felt compelled to order his men off the road and into the New Mexican desert. There they had had to slow their breakneck pace considerably. Even so, the tanks and tracks still kicked up a massive amount of dust.

  Not for the first time since receiving his orders, Tripp felt an iciness gripping his stomach. I wish to hell I knew what the Marines were doing.

  * * *

  Washington, DC

  Though the ambient temperature was normal and comfortable, the Oval Office held a chill to make fat men shiver. Rottemeyer was in a rage so icy and yet so forceful that her Cabinet and staff—most of them—cowered in her presence. "What the fuck . . . I say 'what the fuck!' . . . do those goddamned Marine Corps morons think they are up to? Who the fuck do they think they are? Who do they think they are fucking with?"

  She paced the Oval Office in a furious snit. Up went a hand to a bookcase; down went a shelf of books to the floor. Out went both hands to a globe; out went the glass of a antique book cabinet as the globe sailed through it. The President worked her way from artifact to antique, from file to phone, destroying everything her strength allowed. Finally she gave out an inarticulate scream of pure frustration and pounded her broad desk with both hands before collapsing back into her chair.

  "Willi, they haven't joined the other side, at least. They've just said they're going to sit this one out. That's worth something, isn't it?"

  Rottemeyer shot McCreavy a venomous glare. "Not too much, it isn't. Didn't you yourself tell me that this fucked up everything."

  "It makes it harder," McCreavy admitted. "With the west flank no longer threatened the Texans can shift forces to the north and east. And . . . well . . . being honest, no matter what the Marines and the Third Armored Cav have said, there's no guarantee they won't join Texas at some time. And that means that our west flank is open and threatened, potentially."

  Carroll had sat silently through Rottemeyer's tirade. He spoke now in a voice full with wickedness. "Take their families hostage, Willi. Send a force to Camp Pendleton, California and grab the wives and kids."

  McCreavy's eyes opened very wide in stunned disbelief. "You are out of your mind to even suggest such a thing," she said, turning them onto Carroll. "Are you going to grab the families of 2nd Marine Division too? How about all of the Army's? The Air Force's? The Navy's?"

  Shifting her focus back to Rottemeyer, she exclaimed, "Willi that is the one thing I can guarantee will turn the entire armed forces against us! If we so much as start to move in that direction we'll be destroyed."

  Looking at the President's face McCreavy's eyes opened wider still, if possible. "Willi, you just can't be seriously thinking about this."

  "Why not?" Rottemeyer snapped. "What the hell do I owe those people or their families?"

  "Remember what Machiavelli said, Willi," added Carroll. "You know; about people who do not know how to be forceful or wicked enough to survive turmoil?"

  He stood and began to pace among the scattered books and broken bits. Wickedness disappeared from his voice, being replaced by a more reasonable, even intellectual, tone. "We have come so far, so fast Willi . . . we are so near to completion of the . . . the . . . the revolution—and that's what it is—to which we all pledged ourselves so many years ago that it would be nothing less than criminal to let anything stand in our way now."

  Carroll leaned forward, resting his hands on the President's desk and staring her straight in the eye. "If we lose this contest, everything for which we have worked for so long and so hard will disappear. This government will be pared down to impotence. Every federal program we believe in will be dismantled. Control of the economy will go back to an unelected cabal of the rich. The environment will be trashed in the interests of greater and greater profits for fewer and fewer financial aristocrats."

  He turned around to speak more generally to the Cabinet. "I don't even claim that Texas and this Seguin bitch even want that. She was, after all, a Democrat of sorts. But that's still the logic of what will happen if we lose. Not even Seguin will have the moral authority to keep this marvelous machine—this wonderful federal government we have created through the sweat and blood and sacrifice of millions—from being largely dismantled.

  "If we fall, Madame President, the nuts will come out of the closet. And the momentum of events will be with them. The federal budget? Watch it pared to a fraction, a small fraction, of what it is now. Civil rights? Women's rights? Minority rights? Watch every progressive Supreme Court ruling made over the last seventy-five years legislatively disappear as if they had never been. Multiculturalism? Gone. Group rights? Gone.

  "Everything we believe in . . . gone."

  Carroll turned back to Rottemeyer. "You cannot let that happen."

  Rottemeyer turned to Jesse Vega, in effective control for the nonce of the PGSS. "Tell my personal guard they are to reduce the Western Currency Facility before midday tomorrow—regardless of cost—and then move sufficient force, post haste, to California to . . . mmm . . . 'secure' the persons of the military dependants in and around Camp Pendleton."

  Looking up at an obviously distraught McCreavy, the President added, "Those are my orders, Caroline. Do not balk me on this."

  McCreavy sat heavily, putting her head in her hands, incredulous that it could have come to this.

  Carroll added, "We need to put some kind of spin on this. People won't like the idea of us taking hostages. Might I suggest instead that we arrange some sort of incident with some of the locals around Pendleton. A demonstration, maybe, that gets out of hand. Perhaps a couple of rapes and a murder or two. Our party organization in California is strong, Willi. I can arrange the incidents within a few hours."

  "And then we bring the families in for . . . ummm . . . 'protective custody'?" Rottemeyer grinned.

  "Yeah," said Carroll slowly. "Yeah . . . 'protective custody' . . . that's the ticket."

  Carroll stopped for a moment before continuing. When he did continue it was with a hesitation unusual in someone of such forceful character. "There's one other thing I think we need to do, Willi."

  Rottemeyer raised an eyebrow.

  "I checked with CIA. They can provide any required number of Predator Remote Piloted Aircraft."

  "So?"

  "The Air Force won't play." He turned an inquisitorial eye toward McCreavy who shrugged in agreement.

  "S
o I think we need to bomb that cunt Seguin out of the equation."

  "That's going to cost us . . ." began the President.

  "Damn the cost," shouted Carroll. "Madame President we are fighting for our political lives here."

  * * *

  Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

  Regardless of cost, Sawyers read for approximately the fortieth time. Reduce the Western Currency Facility before mid-day tomorrow, regardless of cost.

  Sawyers heard and felt the tremendous roar of one of the guns he had commandeered to reduce the WCF. The flash from the big gun's muzzle lit the landscape, forming it briefly into surreal shadows. Another flash and roar followed almost instantaneously as the shell impacted on a new section of exterior wall.

  Oh, well, thought Sawyers, resignedly. It could be worse. After all, we've got a minimum of half a dozen practicable breaches in each of three exterior walls; two more in the fourth. And I can be certain now that all their exterior claymores are either gone or at least deranged or disconnected. Since we pounded the roof it's likely as not there won't be any more mines there either. So there'll be no repeat of the goddamned fiasco we had the first day we arrived . . . my fault, my fault, all my fault.

  Once we break inside though . . . that is going to be pretty horrible.

  * * *

  "It's pretty awful up there, ain't it, Top . . . I mean Sergeant Major?"

  Pendergast, just returned to relative safety from a mind-numbing tour of the ruins the big guns had made of much of the edifice could only nod his head dumbly at first. It was bad away from the safer, inner perimeter, no doubt about it.

  After a moment Pendergast gasped out, "Fontaine, go tell the major that Captain Davis's been hit. Well . . . shit . . . tell him he's dead . . . I mean really fucking dead. Tell him I put Royce in charge of that sector." Pendergast trembled slightly with the vivid memory of a man ripped into two pieces and screaming his lungs out—begging, pleading—for someone, anyone, to kill him and put him out of his agony.

  Though Pendergast didn't mention that part; could not, in fact. The memory of his own rifle's muzzle pressed against Davis' head . . . the squeeze of the trigger . . . the flash that burned even through his closed eyes . . . no, that he could not mention, nor even quite bring himself to think about . . .

  "Sergeant Major? Sergeant Major, wake up."

  Pendergast's eyes opened immediately from the rough shoving. It took him several moments to place the voice. "Major Williams? Sorry, sir, I just . . ."

  "Never mind. You needed the sleep. But sleep time is over. The guards say there's movement outside, a lot of it. All the walls."

  "Figure they're coming?"

  "Yes . . . BMNT comes in about forty minutes. I figure they'll hit us simultaneously from every direction."

  Pendergast forced a smile with a confidence he did not truly feel. "We'll hold 'em, sir, never worry."

  * * *

  Outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico

  Tripp really could not quite believe his good luck, if it was luck. Still, against his own expectation here he was, he and his battalion, sheltered under cover in a small town south of the city.

  Though the people were friendly and cooperative, Tripp had had the phone lines and cellular repeater tower knocked down just in case. Now, with a small party dressed in civilian clothes forward to recon the state house and the routes leading towards it, the battalion—minus a small local security element, himself, the company commanders and the staff—caught up on rest. Even those still awake had had some chance to eat; Tripp vaguely remembered reading an Israeli study that said troops recently rested, fed and watered were much more effective than those without that consideration. Not that it would have mattered what any study said; to Tripp it just seemed plain common sense.

  Chapter Seventeen

  From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of

  Virginia v. Alvin Scheer

  DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED

  BY MR. STENNINGS:

  Q. You watched the entire battle on television, Alvin?

  A. No, sir. I didn't see when it started, wasn't even awake yet. Though the TV did give some flashbacks. But I did see everything that went on from about ten o'clock that morning until late that afternoon. That took a lot of beer, like I said.

  The beer was maybe a mistake because I starting cheering when they showed some of the killed and wounded being brought out on stretchers. Some folks in the bar weren't too happy about that and I shut right up.

  Didn't stop me from smiling a whole lot, though.

  * * *

  Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

  "Think of it as an opportunity," Major Williams had suggested, once the artillery pounding had begun. "Sure, they will make some holes in the walls. Likely they'll get some of us, too. But see, we will know where those holes are . . . and we'll be able to prepare a very warm reception for anyone trying to come through one."

  And so it had been. Working like beavers whenever there was a lull in the incoming fire, sometimes even when there was not, the defenders of the WCF had shifted firing positions, moving entire bunkers to take advantage of the routes in that they now knew the PGSS must use.

  Unseen in one such midnight-dark bunker, Fontaine forced a smile to his face. He had perhaps hoped that the smile would give him confidence, even help him to slow his rapidly beating heart. It did not; his heart continued to pound in his chest, breath coming short and hard.

  This was worse, far worse, than the first day's action had been. Then, following Pendergast around and simply doing what he was told, the young enlisted man had barely had time to think; he could only react. Now, with weeks of pondering and fretting behind him—weeks of tension, days of frightful bombardment and hours of chest-pounding fear . . . the boy was simply terrified half out of his wits.

  He heard the scraping of something metallic on the concrete floor behind his bunker. A friend, he was sure; there had been no break in as of yet.

  "Fontaine, that you?"

  "Yes, Top . . . I mean, Sergeant Major. Me and Silva on the machine gun."

  Pendergast noticed the strain in the boy's voice. "You okay, boys?"

  "I'll be fine, Sergeant Major. It's just the waiting . . ." Silva grunted agreement.

  "Not much waiting to go. They're massing all around."

  "I know. Sometimes you can hear the diesels," answered Fontaine. "They're close. . . ."

  * * *

  Under the dim red overhead light, Sawyers crouched in the back of one of the LAVs, looking over the sketch of the objective, looking for flaws in his plan. Occasionally, the light of one of the radios mounted forward, behind the driver, would illuminate his face with an orange glow.

  Four times had the radio's light flashed as his assault columns reported having taken up their positions. Now Sawyers heard the fifth, expected, transmission.

  The transmission warbling, broken; the "fifth column"—two companies of PGSS aboard Army helicopters—reported, "five minutes out."

  Sawyers keyed his own micophone, "Black this is Black Six. Five minutes."

  A chorus of "Rogers" made the radio light flicker like a strobe.

  * * *

  It had just become light enough for the pilots to dispense with their night vision goggles. Warrant Officer Harrington announced, "Co-pilot's ship," then released his stick as he felt the other warrant take over. He could have simply left the goggles attached to his helmet, flipping them up and out of the way. But he'd never liked the weight of the things so he opened the plastic case, removed the goggles and placed them in the case.

  He looked around and behind him at the thirteen PGSS "agents" littering his passenger area. His eyes rested momentarily on the two thick, coiled ropes on the floor to either side of the helicopter. I have a big surprise for you boys, he thought, darkly. "Pilot's ship."

  * * *

  "Here they cooommme!" shouted the man, Smithfield, bearing the antitank weapon up near the hole in the wall.


  Fontaine's heart began to pound even harder than before. Even so, he gripped his rifle, steadying it on the sandbags of the bunker and taking a general aim at the seven-foot-wide hole blown in the wall that was his firing sector, his and the machine gunner's.

  "You ready, Silva?" he asked.

  As if to punctuate and agree in one, Fontaine heard a machine-gun bolt slam home.

  "Be careful you don't hit the antitank man up by the hole," Fontaine cautioned.