by Tom Kratman
The column raced on, the leading police vehicle changing the lights by remote control at each intersection.
Tripp's mind wandered to that portion of his men cut off in Fort Worth. He thought that it would go hard on them when the PGSS assault finally went in, very hard . . . terminally hard.
This isn't really war, is it? Tripp asked himself. Do the rules even apply? To people that gunned down helpless civilians and outgunned state troopers. Fuck it; today they don't.
His eyes steel cold and determined, Tripp keyed the radio by flicking a switch on the right side of his helmet. "Battalion, this is Black Six. The rules do not apply to these murderers. No quarter."
* * *
Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas
Crenshaw found himself sliding in and out of consciousness with neither pattern nor control. He remembered sharp pains, at times. At others he could recall only a dim foggy ache. He managed to turn his head to one side.
More broken toys like me, he thought. There seemed to be a lot of pain going around, much moaning, many screams. Why don't we have enough medics to treat the wounded? Didn't they know we would have wounded. Where are the helicopters, the dust-offs?
Turning to the other side, Crenshaw saw black-clad men, more and more of them, ascending what had to be flexible ladders anchored on the roof and dropped over the sides of the building. Unable to turn his head very well, he lost track of those men as they cleared his field of vision.
His vision blurred, dimmed. Crenshaw passed out.
* * *
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The Surgeon General's Riot Control Police had plenty of warning, both immediate, from the siren, and more long range, from a few sympathetic reports.
So they did what they could. They got behind their cars and busses; loaded their shotguns, pistols and submachine guns. And then they waited for a short time.
* * *
The tracks hit the police cordon from two directions. Tanks led, but they led with their machine guns and their bulk, scorning to use their cannon on such trivial targets.
Ahead of Tripp, his lead tank, A-24—nicknamed "Abdan," stitched a row of half-inch holes across the waiting line of SGRCP vehicles. The turret traversed slowly . . . leaving holes in the metal much too close together for there to be many survivors behind that metal.
Abdan swept onward, reaching, cresting and—in the process—crushing the pitifully-thin walled civilian vehicles. Its crew did not hear the mournful cries that came from crushed federal riot control agents as it pressed their lives out like juice from grapes.
The turret turned, fast—so fast, and began chattering out a new chorus at panicking thugs in armor fleeing from the hastily formed line of police cars. The bullets, heavy .50-caliber rounds—one in five a tracer, danced among the routing RCPs, each bullet giving off a flat, heavy crack as it tore the air.
Behind the terrorized federales more armored vehicles reached and battered their way across or through the barrier. These, too, joined the chorus, lighter machine guns adding the sound of giant sailcloths ripped asunder by giants. More police fell in tumbles and shrieks.
"No quarter," repeated Tripp, over the radio and the men of his command took it as gospel.
* * *
Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas
Crenshaw awoke as a crew of Army medics bustled his stretcher aboard a "dust off" bird. His shock was so great that he could not speak, could not acknowledge the softly spoken, confident, "You'll be fine. It isn't a bad one," the medic reassured him with as he gave the wounded ex-Marine a shot of much needed morphine.
Even with the morphia, Crenshaw screamed, once, as a medic accidentally jostled the barbed spear sticking into and from his leg.
"I'm sorry, Captain. Sorry. I couldn't help it."
Crenshaw tried to reassure the man that he understood, that it was all right. Tried, but lacked the strength.
In any case, the medic was gone to the other side of the bird before he had a chance to do so. And then Crenshaw felt the sudden surge of the helicopter lifting with its burden of broken parts.
Maybe I'll make it. . . .
The helicopter flew away a distance to the northeast and then turned, heading west to a Fort Worth hospital. The PGSS man watched the smoking building recede. Everything went suddenly dark and he knew his vision was blacking out again.
* * *
It was dark down in the subterranean levels of the Currency Facility; dark with smoke but also simply dark from the electricity having been cut off. The only lights were the usual red-filtered emergency ones. These were enough to show a dirt- and blood-begrimed Pendergast the last dozen worn out survivors of the defense force. One man, Fontaine, held the only entrance in or out.
Well . . . this is about the end, thought the sergeant major. There might be a few of us still kicking and gouging, here and there, but this is about it. A faint chatter of rifle fire, followed up by two grenadelike explosions, confirmed his judgment.
He glanced at the weakened Captain James, barely keeping his head up. He looked at the shocked and dazed few that remained. He looked to the small device with playing cards wired to it.
Doesn't seem right, somehow, to just blow these guys up. "Suicide's a sin," the nuns always taught.
Pendergast shook his head, ruefully, and walked over to James and the device. He shook the captain to a semblance of alertness. "Sir, we're gonna charge. I'm gonna hand you the 'aces and eights.' You hang on as long as you can, then just let go, okay?"
James forced a hollow smile. "Okay, Top . . . I me . . ."
"Top's just fine for this, sir." He handed the captain a device that looked like nothing so much as the torsional steel hand-grip exerciser from which it had been created. "Get a good grip, sir," he advised. Seeing that James had as good a grip—though, in truth, it wasn't all that good—as he was capable of, Pendergast removed the steel oval that had held the device safe. He laid the cards down on a desk—aces and eights.
"All right, you apes," he shouted loud enough even to wake the zombies under his command. "The captain is live. We're gonna charge now. On three . . . one . . . two . . . THRR—"
James lost his grip and eleven tons of Ammonium Nitrate-Fuel Oil finished the job the PGSS had begun. Along with eight hundred and forty seven of the PGSS that had been in the building.
Chapter Eighteen
From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. I saw the same thing, Alvin. What did you think had happened?
A. No question about what happened, sir. Not even then. See, you can't even grow up in Texas without learning about the Alamo, even if you grow up kind of dumb like me. Those folks knew the story as well as I did. Maybe better. They blew themselves up, there at the end. I knew it as sure as I knew the beer I was drinking had gone warm and a little flat.
Q. And the other people . . . just your own impressions, Alvin?
A. They was shocked. Maybe stunned is a better word. I'd guess they just didn't realize, up to then, how damned serious Texas, and the Governor, were.
* * *
Austin, Texas
"It's over, Juani."
The governor's head rested on folded arms on her desk. Eyes puffed and reddened with lack of sleep, she looked up from the papers, reports and files littering the wood to gaze blearily upon Schmidt. "The Currency Facility?" she asked.
Schmidt nodded. "Yes. Gone. At the end they blew the whole thing up, just like they said they would. There won't be any survivors. Even televised, I've never seen anything like it. No survivors."
Juani spoke dully, "My fault, too, I suppose."
Schmidt shook his head, then walked around the large desk to take Juanita's face firmly in both hands. "No, Juani. Not your fault. You did what you had to."
He moved a hand from her left cheek to the top of her head, tussling her hair
as he had not since the day he had left Texas for a war few wanted to remember. "I was so proud of you, my Juanita. Always, but never so much as the day you made the only decision you could have under the circumstances; the decision to lose the Currency Facility and save New Mexico."
Juani found speech difficult. Nonetheless, she choked back her feelings and nodded brisky. "Thank you, Jack. Now what?"
Schmidt drew a hesitant breath. "What happens? Well, Third Corps continues to come south to Austin, the Marines and 18th Airborne Corps to our east continue to get ready to hammer us . . . and eventually they do."
"Out west?"
Schmidt took a deep breath before answering. "Fact is, Juani, I don't know. Their commander wants them to openly side with us, I think. But politically, he just doesn't have the horses inside his own organization for that."
"Politically? In a military organization?" Juani looked extremely skeptical.
"Yes, 'politically.' Oh, I know people look at the military and see a dictatorship. But it just isn't so. Every military organization is a very delicate—and to a large degree democratic—political entity. A commander is more than a rabble-rouser and cheerleader, true. But if he didn't have some political skills, to persuade his own troops, he'd be hopeless."
"You've never explained this to me before."
"You never needed to know," Schmidt answered.
Schmidt paused momentarily, then said, "There is something you need to know though and it also has to do with our friends around El Paso."
Juani turned her hand palm up and made a "come on, give" gesture.
"The Marine part of it is based out of San Diego. There have been a couple of incidents involving, apparently, the families of some of the Marines."
"Incidents?"
Schmidt gave a disgusted sigh. "A speech that turned into a demonstration. A demonstration that turned nasty. Several break-ins. One rape. One murder. One other rape that ended in a murder. My people are trying to confirm some rumors that the PGSS," he showed a wicked smile, "or what's left of them anyway, are being sent there to take the Marines' families into protective custody."
"Hostages," announced the governor.
"Hostages," agreed Schmidt.
"What will that do to us? If they take the Marines' families hostage I mean?"
"Juani, I haven't a clue. It could mean that suddenly our western flank is open and vulnerable again. It could mean that the Marines march right back to San Diego picking up as much rope on the way as they can get their hands on. If the White House handles it just right it could mean nothing more than that the Marines stay out of play. If the White House can do it, or thinks it can do it, it could mean the Marines start to march on us again. But I can't tell you which."
"I can tell you that if the PGSS lost as many men as I think they did at Fort Worth there are going to be some pissed-off honchos . . . the kind that are not too likely to handle a delicate mission well."
"How many do you think were killed, Jack?"
"Over a thousand. Maybe over two thousand. They are going to be really, really pissed, Juani."
* * *
El Paso, Texas
"Motherfuckers haven't seen what pissed means, yet," murmured the Marine, Fulton, as he read his intelligence officer's reports of the incidents happening to his people's families back in California. "Funny how the Presidential Guard was ready to move in to 'secure things' so quickly. Yes . . . funny."
Fulton lifted his eyes from the report to shout to his driver, sitting at a makeshift desk just outside the door. "Get me the quartermaster, the division recon battalion commander, and the trans officer. Now!"
Then, very softly so that none but he might hear yet, Fulton said, "And I'll need lines to Austin and Camp Pendleton."
* * *
Camp Pendleton, California
Mrs. Fulton spoke calmly over the phone. She was certain that, whatever problems she and the other dependents at and around the camp had, her husband's problems were much, much worse. She spoke calmly, but also very carefully. The Presidential Guard officer seated opposite her seemed much too unstable—a boiling mix of anger, pain, fear, regret and something the general's wife could not quite put her finger on—to risk his displeasure.
"Yes, dear, it looked like a spontaneous thing. Someone started speaking downtown and the next thing we knew there was a crowd marching on the camp gates. Some of the crowd didn't come here, though. They fanned out over some of the nearby residential areas . . . looking for the wives, I guess. It was pretty bad . . . yes, dear, you do know some of the women that were caught up in it. You remember Captain Diaz' wife—cute little thing? She's in the hospital and it doesn't look good.
"Yes, dear, we're all safe enough now. The Presidential Guard has taken over our security and is evacuating all the dependents they can find from off the installation. Everyone is kicking in to put them up in our quarters, doubling up. The overflow is going to gyms, the theaters, anyplace we can get a roof over their heads.
"Yes, dear . . . I'm sure we'll all be fine," she lied. "You just take care of yourself and the division."
* * *
El Paso, Texas
Hanstadt had been closest. Alone, clad in civilian clothes, he had driven a commandeered rental car from San Antonio west, down the Balcones Escarpment, past the thin, amorphous Texan "front" line and to the forward trace of the 1st Marine Division.
There, at a nondescript segment of Interstate 10, he had been met by Fulton's sergeant major. After saluting and looking over Hanstadt's bona fides, the sergeant major had escorted him through the lines and onward to Division Headquarters.
At the headquarters were a number of tour busses, each with a full or nearly full load of men clad in civilian clothes. The men were so obviously Marines that Hanstadt wondered why they even bothered. Entering the headquarters, Hanstadt was unsurprised to see both the accompanying sergeant major as well as the uniformed guards at the entrance "present arms" to another civilian clad man who looked about the right age to be a somewhat youngish battalion commander.
Seeing Hanstadt's raised eyebrow the sergeant major merely said, "General Fulton will brief you on that, I imagine, sir."
"I can hardly wait, Sergeant Major."
Hanstadt was startled as a long rattle of musketry, seemingly from some miles away, shook the windows of the headquarters.
* * *
Austin, Texas
Juani stared from her office window at the gathering clouds. So many problems pressed upon her that it could not be said she was concentrating, or was even able to think clearly, upon any one of them. In a few days, she knew, the main body of the force to the north would arrive in the vicinity of Austin; the point of that dagger had long since come. To the east, Houston, cut off from open communication, was rumored to be in a state of violent anarchy. South the Navy stood poised to descend upon the coast. Further south, from Panama, she had been informed that the ruse was wearing pretty thin and that soon the gates of the Canal must be opened to pass the Marines through.
Far to the west? New Mexico was beginning, late and slowly, to imitate Texas. Nearer though, in the vicinity of El Paso, the Marines were forming up for something. Possibly to march east again. Jack had told her, though, that their supply status was said still to be terrible so perhaps if they marched, they would do so slowly. Even so, combat could not be far away; not on any front.
Besides New Mexico, not a single governor or legislature had thrown in with Texas, despite her pleas. They were sympathetic, yes. They wished her and Texas well, yes. They were "concerned" about the direction the country would take after Texas went under, yes.
They were afraid of the same treatment . . . also, yes. "Governor, if you somehow manage to survive what's coming for you then maybe we can talk."
So deep in her thoughts was she, yes—and her bitterness, that Juani didn't notice as Schmidt entered and quietly closed her office door behind him.
He cleared his throat to announce his arrival.
"Hanstadt's back."
"And?"
"He says the Marines are going to take care of their own problems with the PGSS. For now, they are under a threat and they know it. The White House has been too canny to try to force them to do anything . . . but the message was clear: if the Marines decide to side with us their families will suffer for it."
"That means that the Marine—Fulton was his name?—is going to have to turn back control to the political people that were watching him before they were arrested."