Council to make a peaceful demonstration in Courthouse Square around which most of the government buildings were located.
Meanwhile, Yass-Waddan agents were arming and organizing paramilitary forces in Middletown, intending to catch the 'Arabs,' as they called them, between the Heroid Police and the armed vigilantes and wipe them out. After which, they would demolish the Casbah and drop poison gas down the tunnels and occupy Portland.
Dimitri had his own plans. After delicate negotiations, he had made contacts in Portland. Portland officials are supposed to keep out of local politics except in cases of 'dire emergency.' But the Anschluss posed such a threat to their continued function, if not to their personal safety, as to constitute a 'dire emergency' and all Dimitri asked was for a customs agent to look the other way for a few seconds when the containers of heroin for the Heroid Police were being passed through customs, while Dimitri's agents substituted identical containers filled with a short-acting opiate antagonist.
Dimitri also had promises of arms caches in the courthouse building provided by certain wealthy families who preferred to avoid more direct involvement. None of the old families wanted the Anschluss. It was a threat to their power and Yass-Wadan agents were talking openly about 'parasites' and 'traitors.'
Audrey knew the battle plan. Even if it went according to plan, there would be close fighting and heavy casualties. So he had these special codpieces made up of a tough plasticlike material and issued them to his team, which was very good for morale. He was in charge of a commando group who were supposed to break through the line of Heroids like a football scrimmage then race upstairs to a room in the courthouse where a cache of arms was to be waiting and then take over the courthouse building.
On the appointed day, the demonstrators from the Casbah, after passing a metal detector and a hand search for weapons, made their way towards the square past snarling middies. So many things could go wrong: the guns aren't there ... they are in the wrong place ... the keys don't work.
As they filed into the square, he saw the line of impassive Heroids in front of the courthouse armed with 9-M grease guns. Sandbags and heavy machine guns on tripods were at the windows and on the roof.
The provocation was carefully planted: crowbars and a stack of cobblestones from street repairs. Audrey glanced at his watch. Two minutes to countdown.
Muscular youths snatch up cobblestones. Jeers and catcalls explode from the demonstrators. Automatic weapons are raised. This is it.
And something is happening to the Heroids. A composite groan is followed by the sound of emptying bowels and a reek of excrement. Instead of responding with deadly accurate machine-gun fire, the Heroids are going down like tenpins as the cobblestones hit. So far, Dimitri's plan is working.
On duty when there is no time for injections, the Heroids function on heroin capsules that dissolve at different rates, releasing a dosage every few hours. However, what is dissolving now is not heroin but a short-acting opiate antagonist. Withdrawal symptoms that would be severe enough spread over several days are compacted into minutes, resulting in immediate incapacity and, in many cases, death from shock and circulatory collapse.
A boy throws a football block into a Heroid in front of Audrey. The gun flies out of his hand and Audrey catches it in the air. Now they are racing from the gangway. Two Heroids in front of the main door are trying to raise their weapons, Audrey gives them a burst as he runs past.
A heavy iron door. The key works. Now down the gangway. Side door is open as it should be. Upstairs and this must be the room.
Key works and there are M-16s, ammo, grenades and grenade launchers, and a few bazookas. (The Paries he knows are equipped with the older and more cumbersome M-15s and some even with Garands.)
Immediately Audrey's team spreads out in groups of five to take over the gun emplacements in the building and on the roof. Audrey and four others fan into a room. A machine gun is on a tripod behind sandbags. The crew, sprawled on the floor and over the sandbags, is completely disabled. Two are dead.
Audrey kneels beside a young Heroid who is lying on his back, his deathly pale face covered with sweat, his pants sticking up at the fly. Audrey whips out a Syrette containing a quarter-grain of pure heroin and injects it into
