A state of disobedience (25 page)

"Ring team in!"

"The claymores went off prematurely," Williams heard Davis announce over the intercom. "I can't see a damned thing."

"Ah shit," the major muttered, then pressed the intercom button. "Pendergast? Sergeant Major? If you can hear this still, I'm taking what I can scrape together and heading for Wall Four. Join me as fast as you can or we're screwed. . . ."

"Fontaine? Go carry that message to the sergeant major. Run, boy!"

Williams turned to the half dozen men immediately nearest him. "The rest of you; follow me!"

Through blind, unaimed fire sprinted the half dozen men of the "ring team." Identified by and with their "ring"—a linear shaped charge twisted into a donut shape and used to blast a fairly precise circular hole in the wall of a building to be assaulted—the ring team duty was about as popular as carrying a flame thrower into fire had once been. Even so, they sprinted despite carrying the awkward charge. The men cursed the ring charge even as they cursed the nearby crackling fire that plucked at their fragile lives.

"Godammit. One fucking LAV, just
one
, to carry us up and give us a little supporting cannon fire . . ."

"Shut up, Corson. The LAVs will get here behind the Army's Third Corps," answered the squad leader.

And then they were at the wall. "Slap it up, slap it up." With practiced precision—this commander had spent more time training and rehearsing his men than he had on political lectures—the team affixed the charge to the wall.

Charge firmly in place, the leader pulled the friction igniter attached to the fuse that led to the blasting cap. Then the team sprinted back a half dozen meters, screaming, "Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!"

Captain James happened to be standing, pistol in hand and shouting encouragement to his men, a scant few feet from where the entrance charge was set. When it detonated, a shower of disassociated bricks first pummeled him into unconsciousness, then half buried him in one corner of the room.

This was all that saved his life for in the next moment the ring team began deluging the wide-eyed, shocked and terrified defenders of the room with fragmentation grenades. Even where the light fragments did no harm, the concussion in that enclosed space was stunning, deadening—in the case of every other man in the room but James, deadly.

Into that confused, smoke-and dust-filled maelstrom burst the ring team, bayonets fixed and blood in their eyes.

"That's the signal, boys," announced the fireplug at seeing the distinctly green smoke from the signal grenade popped by the ring team. "Now on your bellies . . . crawl up to the breach. But crawl
fast.
"

"Faster, dammit," Williams demanded of the men slithering under the mass of corridor blocking wire suspended above. "We've got one chance to kick their asses out of the building or it's room to room and we'll all be dead before nightfall."

Where the hell is Pendergast? he wondered.

"Firs— . . . I mean . . . Sergeant Major," Fontaine fought to make himself heard over the din of continuous machine-gun fire reverberating inside the rotunda.

"What the fuck is it, Fontaine?"

Huffing and puffing with the effort made to bring word to Pendergast, Fontaine briefly stopped trying to speak, drew a breath, then shouted, "Major Williams sent me to tell you . . . Wall Four is under attack and he's going to try to hold it. He said you were supposed to come, too. He ain't got too many men with him, Fir— . . .uh, Sergeant Major. Maybe half a dozen."

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."

 

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.

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 there, 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."

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 . . ."