A state of disobedience (32 page)

"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."

"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 1
^st
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 2
^nd
Marine Division now. And even the Army . . ."

"Yes?"

"There was an armored cavalry regiment with the 1
^st
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."

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.

"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."

"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."

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.
 

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 2
^nd
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."