A state of disobedience (26 page)

"And another thing; you know how often you mix up incompatible loads of ammunition? Why, it's a national disgrace," he added while tearing off another bit of paper, this one stating in precise terms what kind of ammunition the truck was carrying.

The trooper looked the driver squarely in the eye and ordered, "Son, you are just gonna have to unload this here truck and let me inspect it."

"But, sir . . . it's over twenty tons of ammunition. I can't, I just
can't
; not in less than a week."

If possible the trooper's friendly smile grew broader and grander still. "I know."

The 1
^st
Marine Division command post fairly crackled with energy. It crackled with radio transmissions as well.

The barrel-chested, iron-jawed major general in command, one Richard Fulton, stared with disgust at the charts hanging from the tent's frame along its walls. These showed all the pertinent information on the division, from personnel to logistics. It was the last which raised Fulton's disgust.

His unit's supply status merely raised the disgust, however. The voice coming from a radio's speaker gave it force. The Division's "Zampolit"—the Russian word had gained wide currency by now—sitting in a corner, amplified it even more.

He listened to, "And so, yes, despite your logistic inconveniences, you are ordered to proceed into Texas, commencing tomorrow morning at 0400, liberate El Paso, then proceed generally east along Interstate 10 to San Antonio. As you proceed, you are to drop off adequate forces southward along the Mexican border to seal that border as you go."

Fulton clenched frustration into a balled fist. "General McCreavy . . . you realize, do you not, that I have the fuel to get to approximately Van Horn, Texas, before my tanks are bone dry? And
that
is assuming I do not have to fight the Texans on the way. They can pull back, wait for me to run out of fuel, then beat the hell out of me. That's open country, great for tanks, not so great for infantry. And my force is mostly infantry . . . and the Texans—the ones facing me anyway—are mostly not."

"We are working on your logistic problems from this end, General Fulton. By the time you reach the eastern edge of El Paso, you can expect a clear supply route."

"I'll believe that when I see it. But fine then . . . fine. I'll start moving in the morning."

Nobody felt like singing "Garryowen" this morning.

It was a perfect time for it; the sun rising in the east, the smell of fresh diesel and motor oil on the gentle breeze, hundreds of thousands of tons of steel rolling in a long massive pike down the highway.

Still, nobody felt like singing.

Third Corps was coming back. They had left at command and now they were returning at command. They had left with reluctance and now they returned with much the same feeling.

Silent and sullen, the drivers and commanders scarcely risked a glance at the protesters lining either side of the highway. Yet they did glance from time to time and they did read some of the signs the protesters carried. "Don't mess with Texas," said some. "Thou shalt not kill," said some few others, a message pretty much lost on the professional killers of the Third Corps.

"The South shall rise again," "Lee surrendered; we didn't," and "Get Washington off our backs," were sentiments many, many of the officers and men of the largely southern and largely rural corps shared fully.

Moving at full speed, which is to say—roadmarch speed, the point of the Corps took little time in reaching the Texas-Oklahoma line. There it paused, briefly, waiting for federal police to come and clear away the eight or nine thousand Oklahoman protesters who put their own mortal bodies between Texas and harm.

These same federal law enforcement types had known of the protest and had stationed themselves fairly far forward in the long snaking column of medium armor. With truncheons and dogs, they set into the protesters quickly. Even so, since the protesters seemed willing to be beaten or bitten rather than simply leave, dispersing them took some time.

Curiously, though there were news reporters at the scene, not one report that day on national television showed the weeping women, the split and bleeding skulls, the canine chewed faces the federal police left in their wake.

Still, though the nation did not see, the men of Third Corps did. And this was not without significance.

"Mission accomplished, sir," the sergeant said to Bernoulli with a crisp salute. The "mission" had been to considerably reinforce the demolition charges previously set on the bridge to the north. From wherever it had come, General Schmidt had come through with enough—truth be told,
more
than enough—demolitions to bring down every bridge in the state, twice over.

Bernoulli returned the salute, then nodded solemnly. "Okay, Sergeant. Get the boys loaded up then take them to the next bridge down. I'll stay here until it's time to blow this one, then I'll join you later assuming I can get away."

"Sir . . ." the sergeant began to protest, but Bernoulli was having none of it.

"Don't argue," he said with an upraised palm. "Just go."

"Yes, sir," answered the sergeant, then, turning to the troops, he ordered, "All right, you dickheads, load 'em up. We're heading back."

Within minutes, Bernoulli was alone at his command post by the bridge complex spanning the Trinity River.

Not that he was entirely alone; nearby and ahead remained a mixed tank and mechanized infantry task force and a battery of superb New Mexican air defense artillery. But these were there for their threat value, to seem so dangerous that the federals would be prevented from grabbing the bridge with a helicopter insertion.

Yet, still, Bernoulli was alone with his mission and his thoughts.

Dark thoughts they were, full of the doubts that he never let anyone see. Am I doing the right thing? Is this the only way? Can I get by with saying "I am only following orders" when I have a choice of the orders I could follow? 

A captain from the infantry interrupted Bernoulli's reveries. "I just got the word. The Corps is about ten miles out. Their point elements will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes; half an hour, tops. I told my people to get back here and over this bridge before there isn't any bridge to cross on."

"Just let me know when the last of them is across," reminded Bernoulli.

"You'll be able to see yourself; two tanks, four tracks, each with a big white star painted on front."

Ahead, from the north, came the sound of a 120mm cannon firing, distance and distortion making it seem more like natural thunder. The captain picked up a microphone and listened briefly.

To Bernoulli, he announced, "That was just a warning shot, nobody hit. My boys said the Corps was pushing them a little hard and they needed some breathing space. The point of the Corps is deploying now. We should get a few extra minutes."

"Just get them over the bridge before the Corps shows up, sir, preferably with a few minutes to spare in case something goes wrong."

After some short time had passed the pair heard, faintly, the roar of the Bradleys' diesels. They were still too far away to pick up the quiet whine of the tanks' turbines.

"There they are," announced the captain, pointing at the small column of six armored vehicles racing towards them.

Feeling a lump grow in his throat, Bernoulli nodded while affixing one wire to a post on his detonator. With hands trembling slightly he attached the second wire.
I guess this is really it.
 

"Please tell your men to hurry, sir," Bernoulli advised.

"Yeah, I know, 'restrained response.' We don't want to have to blow up the bridge with a hundred guys from Third Corps on it when we do."

"No, sir. Though if I have to . . ." Bernoulli left the thought unspoken.
If I have to, I'm not sure I can.
 

The small covering force reached the bridge then. They were close enough, and the engines racing fast enough, that Bernoulli could just make out the turbines' whining under the diesels' throbbing. Then he felt through his legs the slight tremors as three hundred tons of steel moved, and moved
fast
, across the bridge.

"It's on you, now, bubba," the captain announced as the last of his vehicles passed Bernoulli's command post. "Should we take cover?"

Distantly, Bernoulli answered, "Not necessary. The bridge will blow, mostly, down."

"Best do it then."

"Yes, sir." Bernoulli clutched both hands to his chest, the detonator between them. He clutched and then, unaccountably, froze.

"Lieutenant? Are you going to blow it or not?"

Bernoulli remained frozen.
Am I going to "blow it"?
 

Across the river, a few miles away up the highway, the first of Third Corps LAVs, Light Armored Vehicles, made an abrupt appearance.

Ohh, shit.
Bernoulli steeled himself. He set his jaw in a tight grimace. Then he closed his eyes and forced his hands together.

"Wow! Oh, my God! Holy fucking shit, that was fucking
great
!" The captain jumped up and down, in plain sight, shouting praise and waving two upright fingers in the general direction of the LAVs massing on the other side of the river. "Son, you done good," he continued, pounding Bernoulli on the back with exuberance.

"I went to college to learn to build bridges, sir, not to blow them up," answered Bernoulli, trying to retain his dignity under the pounding. With one hand he dusted from his uniform fine concrete from the shattered and sundered bridge.

With a last look at the Trinity River, now boasting a set of rapids it had never had before, Bernoulli recovered his detonator, got in his Hummer, and drove south.

The Trinity River flowed generally north to south, passing between Houston and Beaumont before spilling itself into the Gulf of Mexico. East of that river, east also of Beaumont, ran a series of creeks, rivers, and bayous. Most of these were too swift, too deep, too muddy, or had too insubstantial a set of banks for easy fording.

A LAV would float and even, after a fashion, swim. It took some preparation and, even so, water was not precisely the LAVs optimum environment. The Marines of the 2
^nd
Division had LAVs, of course, as did the Army's 3
^rd
Infantry Division, both moving quickly westward towards their final objective, Houston.

But the Marines had more than LAVs; they had AMTRACs, Amphibious Tractors. And the AMTRACs' optimum environment
was
the water.

Thus, while a mixed company of Texas Guard infantry and tanks, reinforced by some air defense, was enough to prevent a helicopter insertion to seize a bridge—as it had been up north—it was not enough to stop the reinforced battalion of Marines, swimming their AMTRACs, that crossed Cypress Creek between Deweyville and Orange, then fanned out to seize—without a shot being fired—not one but
four
bridges, along with their engineer defenders. The engineers, like the rest, had been under orders not to shoot.

In panic and despair, the covering force raced back toward Beaumont and even farther westward. Sadly, they did so without so much as a single detonator to blow the bridge over the Trinity River where it was crossed by I-10.

The road to Houston was open . . . and in less than a day.

"Hah!" exclaimed a jubilant Wilhelmina Rottemeyer when she was given the news. "Hah!" she repeated, "let's see that wetback wench stop us now! And her precious national guard is running like scared rabbits. Maybe we took all this too seriously."

"They're not running, Madam President," corrected McCreavy. "They're under orders not to shoot to kill; to warn and withdraw. I'm actually kind of amazed that they're following those orders, to tell the truth. It requires a level of discipline somewhat higher than one would expect in a reserve formation."

"Bah," answered Rottemeyer with a contemptuous snort. "They're folding, crumbling."

Exasperated, McCreavy ran fingers through close cropped hair. "I don't know how to make you see this . . . but they're really not. All my commanders report the same. Professionally prepared demolitions, in the hands of people willing to use them, covered by forces that buy them some time and then withdraw . . . rather well, too. And we took some prisoners from the Texans. . . ."

"I want those men to put on trial," insisted Vega.

McCreavy ignored her. "We took some prisoners," she repeated. "They—the ones who would talk anyway—insist that their orders not to shoot are temporary and that at some point Texas will fight. They likely would have fought along the Colorado River and the Balcones Escarpment. But with things having swung our way faster than they might have liked or anticipated, my guess is that they might fight to hold Houston. And that would eat the 2
^nd
Marine and 3
^rd
Infantry Divisions alive. We need to approach that city
very
carefully."

"It's disaster," admitted Schmidt. "No other word will do."

"What can we do about it?" asked Juanita.

"Fight? I can move a brigade from the State Defense Force into the western parts of the city. I can reinforce them with a couple of battalions of mech infantry and even a few tanks."

"But you said the State Defense Force was mostly untrained."

"So they are, Governor, about half trained. But they're more like completely untrained for city fighting. They're not too badly trained—provided they have some help—in defending the fortifications we have thrown up. And the heavy troops aren't the most suitable for a city either. I asked if you wanted me to 'fight.' I didn't say I could 'win.' But this is so bad . . . Juani I have got to fight."