Part 33 (1/2)

This isn't really war, is it? Tripp asked himself. Do the rules even apply? To people that gunned down helpless civilians and outgunned state troopers. f.u.c.k it; today they don't.

His eyes steel cold and determined, Tripp keyed the radio by flicking a switch on the right side of his helmet. ”Battalion, this is Black Six. The rules do not apply to these murderers. No quarter.”

Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas Crenshaw found himself sliding in and out of consciousness with neither pattern nor control. He remembered sharp pains, at times. At others he could recall only a dim foggy ache. He managed to turn his head to one side.

More broken toys like me, he thought. There seemed to be a lot of pain going around, much moaning, many screams. Why don't we have enough medics to treat the wounded? Didn't they know we would have wounded. Where are the helicopters, the dust-offs?

Turning to the other side, Crenshaw saw black-clad men, more and more of them, ascending what had to be flexible ladders anch.o.r.ed on the roof and dropped over the sides of the building. Unable to turn his head very well, he lost track of those men as they cleared his field of vision.

His vision blurred, dimmed. Crenshaw pa.s.sed out.

Santa Fe, New Mexico The Surgeon General's Riot Control Police had plenty of warning, both immediate, from the siren, and more long range, from a few sympathetic reports.

So they did what they could. They got behind their cars and busses; loaded their shotguns, pistols and submachine guns. And then they waited for a short time.

The tracks. .h.i.t the police cordon from two directions. Tanks led, but they led with their machine guns and their bulk, scorning to use their cannon on such trivial targets.

Ahead of Tripp, his lead tank, A-24-nicknamed ”Abdan,” st.i.tched a row of half-inch holes across the waiting line of SGRCP vehicles. The turret traversed slowly...leaving holes in the metal much too close together for there to be many survivors behind that metal.

Abdan swept onward, reaching, cresting and-in the process-crus.h.i.+ng the pitifully-thin walled civilian vehicles. Its crew did not hear the mournful cries that came from crushed federal riot control agents as it pressed their lives out like juice from grapes.

The turret turned, fast-so fast, and began chattering out a new chorus at panicking thugs in armor fleeing from the hastily formed line of police cars. The bullets, heavy .50-caliber rounds-one in five a tracer, danced among the routing RCPs, each bullet giving off a flat, heavy crack as it tore the air.

Behind the terrorized federales more armored vehicles reached and battered their way across or through the barrier. These, too, joined the chorus, lighter machine guns adding the sound of giant sailcloths ripped asunder by giants. More police fell in tumbles and shrieks.

”No quarter,” repeated Tripp, over the radio and the men of his command took it as gospel.

Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas Crenshaw awoke as a crew of Army medics bustled his stretcher aboard a ”dust off” bird. His shock was so great that he could not speak, could not acknowledge the softly spoken, confident, ”You'll be fine. It isn't a bad one,” the medic rea.s.sured him with as he gave the wounded ex-Marine a shot of much needed morphine.

Even with the morphia, Crenshaw screamed, once, as a medic accidentally jostled the barbed spear sticking into and from his leg.

”I'm sorry, Captain. Sorry. I couldn't help it.”

Crenshaw tried to rea.s.sure the man that he understood, that it was all right. Tried, but lacked the strength.

In any case, the medic was gone to the other side of the bird before he had a chance to do so. And then Crenshaw felt the sudden surge of the helicopter lifting with its burden of broken parts.

Maybe I'll make it....

The helicopter flew away a distance to the northeast and then turned, heading west to a Fort Worth hospital. The PGSS man watched the smoking building recede. Everything went suddenly dark and he knew his vision was blacking out again.

It was dark down in the subterranean levels of the Currency Facility; dark with smoke but also simply dark from the electricity having been cut off. The only lights were the usual red-filtered emergency ones. These were enough to show a dirt- and blood-begrimed Pendergast the last dozen worn out survivors of the defense force. One man, Fontaine, held the only entrance in or out.

Well...this is about the end, thought the sergeant major. There might be a few of us still kicking and gouging, here and there, but this is about it. There might be a few of us still kicking and gouging, here and there, but this is about it. A faint chatter of rifle fire, followed up by two grenadelike explosions, confirmed his judgment. A faint chatter of rifle fire, followed up by two grenadelike explosions, confirmed his judgment.

He glanced at the weakened Captain James, barely keeping his head up. He looked at the shocked and dazed few that remained. He looked to the small device with playing cards wired to it.

Doesn't seem right, somehow, to just blow these guys up. ”Suicide's a sin,” the nuns always taught.

Pendergast shook his head, ruefully, and walked over to James and the device. He shook the captain to a semblance of alertness. ”Sir, we're gonna charge. I'm gonna hand you the 'aces and eights.' You hang on as long as you can, then just let go, okay?”

James forced a hollow smile. ”Okay, Top...I me...”

”Top's just fine for this, sir.” He handed the captain a device that looked like nothing so much as the torsional steel hand-grip exerciser from which it had been created. ”Get a good grip, sir,” he advised. Seeing that James had as good a grip-though, in truth, it wasn't all that good-as he was capable of, Pendergast removed the steel oval that had held the device safe. He laid the cards down on a desk-aces and eights.

”All right, you apes,” he shouted loud enough even to wake the zombies under his command. ”The captain is live. We're gonna charge now. On three...one...two...THRR-”

James lost his grip and eleven tons of Ammonium Nitrate-Fuel Oil finished the job the PGSS had begun. Along with eight hundred and forty seven of the PGSS that had been in the building.

Chapter Eighteen.

From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of Virginia v. Alvin Scheer DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUEDBY MR. STENNINGS:.

Q. I saw the same thing, Alvin. What did you think had happened?

A. No question about what happened, sir. Not even then. See, you can't even grow up in Texas without learning about the Alamo, even if you grow up kind of dumb like me. Those folks knew the story as well as I did. Maybe better. They blew themselves up, there at the end. I knew it as sure as I knew the beer I was drinking had gone warm and a little flat.

Q. And the other people...just your own impressions, Alvin?

A. They was shocked. Maybe stunned is a better word. I'd guess they just didn't realize, up to then, how d.a.m.ned serious Texas, and the Governor, were.

Austin, Texas ”It's over, Juani.”

The governor's head rested on folded arms on her desk. Eyes puffed and reddened with lack of sleep, she looked up from the papers, reports and files littering the wood to gaze blearily upon Schmidt. ”The Currency Facility?” she asked.