A state of disobedience (10 page)

That baker's dozen had a slightly larger honor guard of their dead and wounded assailants. Ultimately driven from the breaches by the PGSS, the padre had been helpless to stop the surge of armed inhumanity that had poured into the mission. They hadn't been able to stop it. That hadn't prevented them from bleeding it however.

Even now, from hastily excavated loopholes in the chapel walls, some of the defenders traded shots with their attackers.

Some still fought. Others? The priest's eyes scanned the chapel.
Exhausted
, was his judgment. He wasted a scornful glance upon Father Flores, cowering under a heavy sacramental alter. Unharmed, unsoiled, but also an unworthy cause to have given his children's lives for, thought Father Jorge.

He looked more carefully; began counting.
Eleven of us here. Five wounded; two badly.
One of the wounded boys was crying softly, trying to hold his intestines inside. Another, rapidly turning pale with loss of blood, managed to keep silent.

I wonder what happened to Julio. 
 

"In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," whispered Julio as finally,
finally,
he found the shot for which he had been waiting. It was not a perfect shot. It was not even a particularly good one. But it was a possibility. The first possibility he had had all morning.

The HRT's ad hoc sniper tower had been modified with a steel box at its summit. From that box, sheltered from anything that was not directly in his line of fire, the sniper had poured down shot after shot into the defenders. More than half the mission dead were attributable to that sniper's deadly, accurate fire.

And Julio hadn't been able to do a thing about it. Not a thing. The sniper and his spotter had kept safely back, with a half an inch of steel between them and Julio.

And then, easy targets exhausted, the tower had turned, presenting its half open front face to Julio's scope.

Unseen by the HRT, any potential glare from the scope hidden by a deeply recessed firing position, Julio's breathing paused, his body relaxed, his finger tightened, and his rifle spoke.

The bullet flew straight and true. Before he had the remotest suspicion that he was under fire, the sniper's brains filled the small armored box in which he and his spotter sheltered, covering the spotter with blood and gore.

In the crowded headquarters Friedberg fumed and raged. Bad enough that eight BATF agents were down. Bad enough that some dozens of PGSS were down. But to kill
her
people? Intolerable. And she would not tolerate it.

"Get me those Army types on the line," she demanded of one of the radio operators.

"Ma'am?" asked the cowed minor functionary; there were a number of "Army types" supporting the operation.

"The gunships, you idiot. About time they earned their pay."

"Yes, ma'am." The operator spoke briefly into a microphone. "Here they are, Ms. Friedberg." The Director of the FBI felt a small satisfaction at seeing the trembling in the hand which offered her the microphone.

"Who is this?" she demanded.

The answer came as if through a "sound blender" . . . the words choppy and distorted. "This is Echo 57. Who is
this
?"

"This is the Director of the FBI." Friedberg waited in vain for a suitably humble response.

"Roger, Director, this is Echo 57. You have traffic this station?" The voice was annoyingly male and had an infuriating lack of humility. There was no noticeable tenor even of respect.

"He means 'Do you have a message?' ma'am."

Friedberg glared at the operator. "I know what he means, you ninny."

"Echo 57, this is the Director. I want you to attack the mission. My people are being hurt and I want it to stop."

There was a barely perceptible pause on the other end, as if the pilots were conferring among themselves. At last came the response, "No can do, Director. Forbidden. Illegal."

Friedberg shrieked frustration.
How dare he?
"Listen to me you nincompoop. I am the Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. And nothing that I say is legal is illegal. Do you understand?"

"I understand. I will not comply."

"Get me the other pilot."

The operator checked frequencies, but made no changes. He spoke briefly, then announced, "Echo 63, Director."

Friedberg forced a measure of calm into her voice. "Echo 63 this is the Director of the FBI. Echo 57 has refused a lawful order from the President through me. Echo 57 can expect to be prosecuted when this is over. He can also expect to be found guilty, imprisoned, sodomized, and finally
audited
by the IRS! Now unless you want to join him in prison, I suggest you follow my orders and
riddle
-That-FUCKING-
CAMP
!"

"Don't do it, Max."

"Echo 57 this is the Director. Shut up or I'll send you to the worst nightmare of a prison in the federal system! Echo 63 will you comply?"

With an audible sigh, sent through a voice-activated mike, the pilot of the second gunship answered, "Wilco."

A long column of armored vehicles, fourteen tanks in the lead, stretched along Interstate 35, exhausts smoking and treads churning.

"Goddamit, fuck the speed limits. They don't apply to tanks. General Schmidt said 'now' and I want to be there two hours ago." If only we hadn't had to send to Fort Hood for main gun rounds, then had to sneak them away from the post. If only. But the general had said "be prepared to fight" . . . and so they had had to stop to arm up. 

"Wilco," came from five different senders as the better part of 1
^st
Battalion, 141
^st
Infantry, with pieces of the 1
^st
of the 112
^th
Armor, of the 49
^th
Armored Division roared down the highway.

Sergeant Akers watched from the headquarters as the gunship made another pass on the mission compound, chaingun spitting fury. He had lost count of the number of attack runs it had so far made.

There are kids in there, dammit. Texan kids I swore to defend. 
 

It was hard, so hard. Not to die, no. Hard to break the rules. Hard to lift his arm against a law enforcement agency. Hard to raise his hand to a woman, even one like Friedberg.

But it's not as hard as standing here watching those kids murdered.
Reaching a decision, commending his soul to God, Akers undid the restraining strap on his shoulder holster, thumbed back the hammer, and ensured the safety was off. Then he set those shoulders, and walked into the headquarters.

Akers walked unnoticed—few people ever noticed him, really—to a spot right behind the director. He sighed, still unnoticed, then reached his hand under his jacket. As he did, the kindly expression, the grandfatherly expression, disappeared from his face. What replaced it was something not quite human, let alone grandfatherly.

"The next sound you hear will be your brains hitting the wall unless you call off the gunship, Director. Tell your people to freeze."

Friedberg felt the cold rounded muzzle of the sergeant's pistol pressed against the base of her skull. She felt the warm drizzle of urine begin to run down her legs almost immediately. "Nobody move," she ordered, voice unaccountably and uncharacteristically trembling.

"Call off the helicopter," she told the radio operator, for a change neglecting to insult him.

The operator hesitated. "Now," insisted Johnston Akers, sergeant, two medals of honor.

"Now," echoed the director.

"And I want your agents to drop their weapons and their trousers. Now," insisted the ranger.

"Do it."

The gunship made yet another pass. Few buildings still stood undamaged in the compound. From one small one a small person, carrying a rifle, fled. His apparent destination was a large wooden structure, much like a barn. The gunner cut down Julio, then took aim at the building towards which he had been headed.

It was indeed a barn on the outside. But in the center of the floor was a concrete pad with a steel door. It was, in fact, the storm shelter. And under that pad crouched twenty-six children ages six months to twelve years.

The rockets were a mix; white phosphorus, some, and high explosive, others. The explosive shattered the dry wood of the barn. The phosphorus set it alight.

Even as the last salvo of rockets exploded, the WP in lovely art nouveau of flaming arcs, the pilot received the word, "Break off your attack now."

For long hours had the little ones cowered under their shelter while the muffled sounds of furious battle leaked in. Some of these had been enough to shake the structure, setting the younger ones to crying.

"Josefina, make it stop. Please make it stop."

"I can't, Nezi," the older girl said; left on her own as the best choice available since Sister Sofia had been killed. "I'm only twelve."

In time, the sounds of firing abated. Yet Josefina was afraid to venture out. They were safe where they were. Father had said they would be.

But if it got much hotter . . . 

Montoya heard the chopper approaching. Perhaps, better said, he felt it. He really couldn't hear much of anything. His eardrums had burst from the impact of a flock of 2.75 inch folding fin aerial rockets on the chapel roof.

He tried to move his head to the side.
Oh, God . . . nausea.
His eyes seemed not to want to focus. He forced them, willed them to do so.

Amidst bodies and pieces of bodies, most far too young to have been in that place, at that time, nausea quickened and grew worse. The priest shut his eyes, let nausea wash over him and away. Thought . . . tried to think . . . of something. . . . 

The helicopters were distant, their steady wop-wop-wop no louder than the drone of a mosquito. Hands roughly, but no more so than circumstances warranted, pulled Montoya off of Schmidt's body. Montoya opened his eyes; friendly faces, black and brown and white. Round eyes. 
 

"Oh God," he tried to whisper. "See to my lieutenant. I'm fine, I tell you. Check Jack." 
 

" 'Jack's' okay, Sergeant. He'll be fine. But let's take a look at you." Busy hands cut away a blood-soaked fatigue jacket, slashed off torn trousers.  
 

"Vug! Stick 'im." 
 

"What happened, Sergeant? How'd you get hit?" 
 

Pain began to ebb as the morphine spread through Montoya's ruined body. He found himself able to answer, if barely. "Grenade. Couldn't get rid of it in time. Had to . . . to . . ." 
 

Montoya felt the calm pat of the medic. "Later, Sergeant. For now, let's get the two of you home."  
 

Opening his eyes, Montoya could actually see the medevac helicopter, though its blade was only a blur. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the morphia. 
 

Father Jorge still felt the beating blades of the gunship hovering somewhere over the chapel. "Come on, finish it," he whispered.

"Please, God, let it be over soon," prayed Josefina. "Please." All the other children were asleep, or unconscious. It was
so
hot, so unbearably hot in the shelter.

The little girl had tried to open the door, once she understood that it was get out or roast alive. But the door had been jammed tight. It wouldn't budge, not even an inch. She wanted to weep again.
We're trapped here. Oh God, why? Why? What did we ever do to anyone?
 

Josefina felt the wall. It was hot, painfully hot, to the touch. With a weak little yelp she drew her hand back, wrapping both arms around the youngest, Elpidia's Pedro. In the girl's arms little Pedro shuddered once, then grew still. "Wake up baby, wake up," she demanded fruitlessly.

"Oh, Elpi, I'm so sorry. I tried. I really tried."

Those were the last articulable words Josefina ever spoke, as heat drove her into unconsciousness and far, far too young a death.

Akers didn't relax even when he heard the first tanks and sirens. Not until he saw his own Texas Rangers enter the room did he even begin to think about anything but keeping the director under his muzzle.

His captain, flanked by a brace of the roughest-looking men in F Company, announced, "Good job, Sergeant. We'll take it from here."

"Sir? Sir, there's two dozen kids in there."

"We know. We'll do what we can. But . . ." and the captain thought of the pillar of smoke rising from the compound.

"Yes, sir." Akers left for a breath of air unpolluted by
federales.
 

Once outside Akers stood at the door for a minute. Distantly he heard his captain say, "Ms. Friedberg? You are under arrest for violation of Texas Criminal Code, Sections 19.02 and 19.03. . . ."

The irony of that was lost on Akers for the moment, though he would cherish it into his old age. He was somewhat unsurprised to see tank after tank, track after track pouring into and through the area. He was unsurprised to see scores, hundreds of the President's Elite PGSS and the Surgeon General's special police surrendering as fast as could be.

He was very surprised to see and hear a single blast from one of the Guard's main guns, followed by the near disintegration of a PGSS LAV that had been attempting to escape.

Schmidt had his helicopter set down in the middle of the smoking compound, despite protestations from his chief pilot. Alighting from the bird with two armed guards, he immediately set out for what he instinctively knew would be his friend's last refuge, the chapel.

He announced himself, "Jorge? It's me. Jack. It's over; you can come out now. Jorge?"

No answer. Jack decided to take his chances. Jorge wouldn't shoot him by mistake. Still continuously announcing himself, Schmidt pounded the barred door with his shoulder, only after much effort to be rewarded by a sprung hinge and a—barely open path.