A state of disobedience (3 page)

"As the corruption of bureaucracy must end, so must the tyranny of gun-related violence, the violence that murdered the man who should have been standing here today, my late running mate, Senator Palmer. I intend to ask this Congress for an increase in funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said increase to be paid for by a tax, a large tax, on both purchase and possession of these implements of death. This will naturally require registration of firearms to ease collecting the tax.

"Moreover, it seems only reasonable, just and fair that the tax on these hateful implements pay for correcting the natural and predictable results of widespread ownership of firearms. In other words, the tax shall pay for health care to mitigate the wounds and bloodshed these guns cause."

Now this is something where I will support you one hundred percent plus, Willi, thought Feldman, glancing again at Goldsmith.

Over my dead body
, Goldsmith returned the glance with a glare.

Oh, grow up
, said Feldman's smile.

"This will go a long way toward paying for another cornerstone of this administration's plan: National Universal Health Care. New taxes on another national health menace, cigarettes, will pay for an equally substantial portion.

"The third leg of this program shall be the imposition of taxes on the great polluters of our environment, heavy industry. In this way we shall protect our environment, preserve the health of our people, and bring ourselves voluntarily into line with the Kyoto Agreements on emissions of greenhouse gasses.

"Lastly, as we march into the future, we must also build from the fragments of our polity one country, one single—unified—people. No more black nor white nor brown nor yellow nor red. No more Texans and New Yorkers and Californians and Indianans. One people. One nation. All united under the leadership of one government!"

Still flushed with the success of her speech to Congress, Rottemeyer met with select members of her Cabinet in the Oval Office.

"It's the expansion of the federal law enforcement capability I have problems with," said her new attorney general, Jesse Vega. "There's a limit on how fast any organization can expand. It's not just a question of funding the money and recruiting the bodies. We've limited training facilities, limited numbers of people trained for upper management, limited number of administrative people to take care of everything from pay to promotions. The U.S. Marshal Service, DEA, FBI and Treasury can only . . ."

"Who said anything about limiting the expansion to only the existing agencies?" demanded Rottemeyer.

"What?" asked Vega, incredulously. "You want to create . . . oh . . . the Surgeon General's Riot Control Police?"

"Tell me why not, Jesse? Does the Surgeon General's office not have an interest in controlling demonstrations that get out of hand at, say, abortion clinics? Do they have a bureaucracy capable of administering an additional force of several hundred or even a thousand? Can they hire people to train the new officers? Yes, to all. So why not?"

Vega stood somewhat dumbly, the effect enhanced by a certain rotundity and a face gone slightly slack from a stroke some years past.

"Well," she continued, contemplatively, "there
has
been a certain amount of expansion of federal law enforcement in places you would not expect. Maybe that's the way to go. I mean, we already
do
have armed turkey inspectors with the Food and Drug Administration, armed agents of the Environmental Protection Agency. Maybe . . ."

"Yes," said Rottemeyer with an air of logical triumph.

Later that night, in a bed in fact chaste, Caroline McCreavy asked, "Willi, I understand your goals and ideals. I even share many of them . . . most of them. But this . . . this . . . creation of a police state. I just don't get it. We don't need this."

Rottemeyer snorted. "Goals I have, love. Ideals? I don't have any ideals. Just ask the Republicans."

"Bu—"

Rottemeyer, interrupting, smiled from where her head rested on a pillow. "All right then. Goals? I believe in power, Caroline. Since I was a helpless little girl and boys were mean to me I have believed in power . . . and sworn to get it. That's my goal.

"And now I have it. And I will never let it go."

"But you have to. In eight years anyway."

Rottemeyer smiled indulgently. "Oh, Caroline, you're so innocent. After these eight years the party will run the country . . . and I will run the party. I will never give it up.

"I'll never give you up, either, Caroline," Rottemeyer added softly.

The other woman smiled back, warmly but with a troubled expression. "Don't tell me you don't have ideals, Willi."

"Ideals," mused the other. "Beliefs. I believe that you can make people better than they are. I believe that people are basically good until the system makes them bad. I believe that there is too much untrammeled economic power in the United States and the world. I believe that if someone has to have power, I can also use it more wisely, more benevolently, than anyone else I know."

"Then why the police state, Willi? And why split it up the way you are planning?"

"I'll split it up because I do not trust power that isn't in my hands. As long as there are fifty law enforcement agencies competing with and suspicious of each other then my power is safe. The police state? A lot of people are not going to like what I think I have to do. And I do not want them able to fight me on it.

"Now come here. . . ."

DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED

BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. And how did you feel about the President at that time, Mr. Scheer?
A. The President? Sure talked like she meant well. I mean, she was out there in front of the cameras all the time. Checking schools, visiting old folks. Seemed like she really cared, really felt our pain.
I never made much money in life. Used to have to hunt to help feed the family. Couldn't pay the tax on my rifles though, let alone buy the ammunition to hunt with the thing; not at three dollars and fifty cents per round . . . for the tax alone.
When they came and took away my neighbor after his kids let slip to a teacher that their daddy still had a gun at home? Give him five years for tax evasion? Put his family on welfare? I couldn't face that. So I had to give up one of my two guns. The other? Well, you know by now I buried—
Q. MR. STENNINGS: Stop right there, Alvin. The Court doesn't need to hear about any of that.
A. Okay if you say so. Anyway, I never could get the hang of bow hunting.
Q. So you gave up hunting, Mr. Scheer?
 

A. Well, sure. Though it made it a lot harder to feed my family, like I said. Anyway, sure and some of them new programs did help. When my factory closed, moved down Mexico way . . . trying to run away from the taxes, I reckon . . . and my missus got sick? She could go to the doctor right off, and I didn't have to pay for it. Mind, she had to wait in line for a while, half a day maybe . . . maybe a little more, and the doctor didn't have much time to see her. But he gave her some medicine. And she was okay for a while.
I did get work again, eventually. Didn't make so much as I had been. But they raised the "minimum wage," which seemed to help, a little.
Though, why prices kept going up every time they raised the income tax on the big companies and the rich folks, I don't rightly know.
Weren't for charity, that and welfare food parcels, don't reckon we'd a made it.

"Sergeant Montoya, post!"

Stripped to the waist, sweating in the sun, despite having a fifty pound sack of government surplus rice over one shoulder, the priest stiffened to attention. The pattern of scar tissue on the priest's abdomen lost color as the skin there stretched.

"Dammit!" he muttered, shoulders slumping again. "How does he keep doing that to me after all these years?"

He turned around and glared into the smiling face of his oldest and best friend. "Why do you
do
that?" An extended finger began to move up to scratch his nose.

"Because I can and because it's funny." Schmidt kept his eyes away from his friend's battle scars.

The priest's middle finger stopped moving. He gave a rueful smile, rubbed it and the index finger of his free hand under his nose and admitted, "I suppose it is at that."

Sack still on his shoulder, Montoya looked around for one in particular of the boys helping him unload the monthly supply run from the 49
^th
Armored Division, Texas National Guard truck—food and truck both courtesy of his friend, Jack Schmidt.

Spotting the boy, the priest shouted, "Miguel, take over here. I am going to have a few words with the general. Elpi, would you bring us a couple of beers from the cellar?"

"Si, Padre," answered the dark skinned, brown-eyed teenager, running to take the sack from Montoya's shoulder. "Come on, Julio. You too, Raul . . . put your backs into it. These men"—he meant the National Guard truck drivers—"don't have all day."

In the cool, dimly lit rectory Montoya and Schmidt sat down on opposite sides of the roughly crafted but sturdy wooden table. The priest took two beers from Elpidia, thanking her. Then he opened both and passed one over to Schmidt. . . .

"Here, drink this, Jack," ordered the sergeant, handing over his own canteen. "Only the best for you." 
 

The lieutenant refused at first, but at his sergeant's insistence took a sip of the tepid, muddy, iodine-tinged water. As he did Montoya glanced down at the red seepage at Schmidt's waist, gift of a mortar fragment ripping across the officer's stomach. Only the bandages Montoya had applied kept the lieutenant's innards from spilling to the ground. It did not look good.  
 

"Not looking too good is it, Jorge?" 
 

"That's 'Sergeant Montoya' to you." The sergeant smiled, hesitated, then continued, "We're down to fourteen men, plus you and me. Ammo's holding out . . . but only because so many of the ones who ran didn't want to carry theirs. What is it, four assaults we've beaten off? No . . . five, I think. They've got to be getting tired of it." 
 

Still on his back, Schmidt nodded weakly before allowing his head to flop to a muddy rest. His practiced eye gauged the setting sun. "It's time, Jorge." 
 

"Time? What time?" 
 

"Time for you to leave me, take what you can save and try to get the hell out of here." 
 

Montoya just snorted for an answer. Then, to change the subject—admittedly somewhat ineptly, he turned his rifle over and read aloud the serial number, "120857. Good. Still have my own." 
 

"That's an order, Jorge. Get out and save what you can." 
 

"No." 
 

"Damn you, you wetback! I said get out of here." 
 

"No, Jack," answered the sergeant, calmly, as ever. With determination, as ever. 
 

"Jack? Are you all right?"

Schmidt collected his wits as quickly as he was able, covering his lapse with a sip and the observation, "Good beer."

"Only the best for you."

"Who was that girl?"

"Just a poor girl who has found her way to Christ."

Under winking stars, Montoya whispered, "It's just you and me and about six of the ARVNs left. They're the best six though: Nguyen, Tri, and their crew." 
 

More unconscious than awake, Schmidt muttered, "Christ," then nodded as if he understood. What was left of a platoon had assembled a rude stretcher out of a poncho and a couple of saplings. On this they proposed to carry off their wounded officer under cover of night. 
 

Montoya spoke a few sentences in reasonably fluent Vietnamese, courtesy of a short course and a long tour, themselves courtesy of the Army. Taking courage from the round eyed Mexican, Corporal Tri grunted his own determined assent in broken English, "We no leave notin' for stinkin' baby killin' Cong." 
 

"So . . ." Schmidt hesitated. "I've got some bad news for you, Jorge. Juanita asked me to tell you. She would have told you herself if you would have a damned phone put in here. I can't use my trucks and busses to transport you and your kids to any more political rallies."

"Political? What political?" the priest demanded. "Murder is murder and there's nothing political about it."

"Come on, Jorge, be serious. There is nothing so political in this entire country as abortion. And with the new rules from Washington, any state that permits any interference is going to get hurt, let alone one that uses an arm of its government . . . which I am."

"Bah. Tell Juanita I am disappointed in her."

"She's doing the best she can, Jorge. Times are tough and getting tougher."

"Not as tough as being twisted around inside your mother and having your brains sucked out through a tube."

Nearly four hundred and fifty people burned candles through the night as Father Montoya led them through prayer and song. Mothers held their babies. Husbands held their wives. All joined in asking for divine intervention to stop what they considered a horrible series of crimes.

Montoya looked with mild disapproval upon a large banner fronting one group of protesters: "We, personally, would object to shooting abortion doctors . . . but we would never want to interfere with somebody else's choice of values. Catholics for Children."

And so Father Flores is heard from again.
Montoya walked over to see his fellow priest.

"Don't you think that sign is, maybe, a little—oh—inflammatory, Father?"

Flores' fanatic eyes flashed fire. "Not so inflammatory as what awaits the people who work in that clinic."