A state of disobedience

held a Ph.D. in economics. He had been recruited for Juanita's gubernatorial ticket, despite being a Republican, precisely because he was an economist of national standing.

Minden announced, 'Won't matter a hill of beans. She's going to cut off funding. She's going to keep taxing. Six months of that and she won't need to invade us, won't need to jail us. There are enough people here dependent on federal handouts that they'll lynch us in the streets long before it comes to that.'

'Any way around that?' asked Schmidt. He had always respected the lieutenant governor's opinions.

'Maybe two. One is . . . well . . . why don't we make it illegal for federal income and social security taxes to be withheld in Texas? Won't stop companies whose checks are cut outside of Texas from withholding, mind you. But we are a net profit maker to the federal government in total. Losing revenues on payroll checks cut in Texas will hurt them . . . some anyway.'

'What's the other way?' asked Schmidt.

'The Mint?'

'Huh?'

'There are two Federal Mints—divisions of the Bureau of Engraving. One's in DC. The other one? The Western Currency Facility. That's in Fort Worth, just up the road.'

Schmidt cocked his head to one side and smiled. 'Clever, Doc. You mean we take over the place. Then if they tax us, we just print the equivalent money to cover the tax.'

'Yes, General. All of the tax. Plus we can manipulate the money supply if we need to; put a real crunch on the feds. The printing plant in DC just might be able to keep an adequate money supply circulating; half the reason they built a second one here was security and redundancy, after all, not capacity. But they couldn't stand it if we flooded the country with too much money. Holding the mint would send a message they couldn't ignore.'

'Won't they just bomb the shit out of the Mint?' asked Schmidt.

Minden paused, then continued. 'Right away, General? Right away and admit they have a revolution on their hands? Right away before they've even tried to take it back whole? Right away before we have a chance to disperse the printing capability? I think not.'

Schmidt looked down, thinking hard. Slowly at first, then with growing insistence, a smile forced itself to his face. 'You know, Doc. I don't think so either.'

* * *

Washington, DC

'So what if we don't cut communications with Texas,' asked Rottemeyer.

'Can't stop the propaganda coming out of there,' announced Carroll, simply.

'But,' he added, 'maybe we shouldn't worry so much over that. After all, there's propaganda and then there's propaganda.'

'Hmm?' queried Rottemeyer.

'Oh, when this all kicked off I contacted a hack writer I know, called National Endowment for the Arts and got him a grant. He's a hack, but he's a good one. Father of Pain: The True Story of the Deadly Fanatic Catholic Fundamentalist Cult of Texas will be hitting the book stands day after tomorrow. We'll pin everything from child abuse to drug use to running a prostitution ring on that priest. And we'll get the first dig in. They won't recover so easily from that.'

'Where did your hack get the information?' asked McCreavy.

Carroll fixed her with a pitying stare.

* * *

Cemetery, Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas

Ranks and files of caskets, twenty-six of them undersized, stretched across an open area that was part of the Mission's old Spanish cemetery. Among hundreds of witnesses and participants to the funeral, only a few were related in any way to the victims. Elpidia, seated in a wheelchair—and with her arm and shoulder still plastered—was one of these.

Juanita, her husband, and Schmidt were there, too, of course. In fact, all of Juanita's family that could make it had shown up to bid farewell to their Uncle Jorge. The four boys, Carlos, who worked on Wall Street, Thomas and Roderigo, both still in college, and Mario the youngest and still in high school, stood flanking their mother and father, like an honor guard.

It was her youngest son, Mario—a fine strapping, handsome boy, not too different from his late uncle—who had taken upon himself the duty of pushing Elpidia's wheelchair around . . . that, and offering what comfort he could.

Comforted by Mario or not, Elpidia still wept continuously. All assumed it was for her baby. They were only half right, however. Elpi also wept for her priest and for fallen Miguel, the only men in her miserable life to date who had ever treated her decently for any length of time.

The priest presiding had finished with his portion. The time had come for Juanita to have her say. Tired, and with the fatigue and stress showing on her face from a night spent preparing to speak, she stood. Patting Elpi's good shoulder, Juanita turned then and walked steadily to a podium, her progress followed by the cameras that fed directly to Stone's Internet node and from there to the rest of the world.

Juanita began calmly, 'The people who did this, who committed this horrible crime, believe that they have accounted for everything; that they have foreseen everything. They think that with their guns they have frightened half of us into submission . . . and with their taxes bribed the rest of us into acquiescence.

'They think that they can get away with anything—murder, mayhem, massacre—by just showing some teeth on