A state of disobedience

into the man's body where the armor did not cover, at the juncture of neck and shoulder.

'Those murdering motherfuckers!' he hissed to the media type that followed him. 'Did you see what they did to my man? Did you get it on film?'

Not waiting for an answer, Sawyers tore the microphone from Ricky's hand and screamed into it at the company facing the wall opposite the one B Company had tried, unsuccessfully, to breach. 'A Company! Get me in! Get me a goddamned breach in that fucking wall!'

* * *

Down in an office labeled 'Security,' deep in the bowels of the WCF, Davis' eyes scanned the closed circuit cameras that ringed the building. Tapping the intercom, he announced, 'They're going to try for Wall Four.'

* * *

The B Company commander had been a not very bright treasury agent with a degree, transferred in for the chances of advancement. The A Company commander, a solid little fireplug of a man, was an ex-Marine infantryman with a combat action ribbon and a bronze star from the Second Gulf War. He had transferred in because he liked combat action and the PGSS had seemed like a good place for it.

The ex-Marine had heard the sound of the blasts, clearly—heard the screams, faintly—and had a very good idea of what the two added up to.

'Forget the effing smoke for now,' he ordered his grenadiers. 'I want HE grenades at every possible place along or in front of that wall.'

Within seconds the dull crump of exploding 40mm high explosive could be heard hitting the base of Wall Four. The A Company commander had no certain idea of how effective they were. In truth, he hardly expected to set off a string of daisy-chained claymores by sympathetic detonation of the HE. He did expect to displace those claymores, to ruin their preset aim.

But, sometimes, one's expectations are exceeded. One round of 40mm HE, stray or random, managed to hit almost exactly dead center on almost the exactly most central claymore. The resulting small explosion resulted in a dozen larger ones.

Ball bearings, another ten thousand of them, arced out. Unfortunately for the defenders, they arced out where the PGSS should have been had they assaulted directly.

'Anyone hit?' queried the commander through his radio.

'Negative . . .  Negative . . .  Third platoon. I've got two minor wounded. . . . Negative.'

'Ring team in!'

* * *

'The claymores went off prematurely,' Williams heard Davis announce over the intercom. 'I can't see a damned thing.'

'Ah shit,' the major muttered, then pressed the intercom button. 'Pendergast? Sergeant Major? If you can hear this still, I'm taking what I can scrape together and heading for Wall Four. Join me as fast as you can or we're screwed. . . .'

'Fontaine? Go carry that message to the sergeant major. Run, boy!'

Williams turned to the half dozen men immediately nearest him. 'The rest of you; follow me!'

* * *

Through blind, unaimed fire sprinted the half dozen men of the 'ring team.' Identified by and with their 'ring'—a linear shaped charge twisted into a donut shape and used to blast a fairly precise circular hole in the wall of a building to be assaulted—the ring team duty was about as popular as carrying a flame thrower into fire had once been. Even so, they sprinted despite carrying the awkward charge. The men cursed the ring charge even as they cursed the nearby crackling fire that plucked at their fragile lives.

'Godammit. One fucking LAV, just one, to carry us up and give us a little supporting cannon fire . . .'

'Shut up, Corson. The LAVs will get here behind the Army's Third Corps,' answered the squad leader.

And then they were at the wall. 'Slap it up, slap it up.' With practiced precision—this commander had spent more time training and rehearsing his men than he had on political lectures—the team affixed the charge to the wall.

Charge firmly in place, the leader pulled the friction igniter attached to the fuse that led to the blasting cap. Then the team sprinted back a half dozen meters, screaming, 'Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!'

* * *

Captain James happened to be standing, pistol in hand and shouting encouragement to his men, a scant few feet from where the entrance charge was set. When it detonated, a shower of disassociated bricks first pummeled him into unconsciousness, then half buried him in one corner of the room.

This was all that saved his life for in the next moment the ring team began deluging the wide-eyed, shocked and terrified defenders of the room with fragmentation grenades. Even where the light fragments did no harm, the concussion in that enclosed space was stunning, deadening—in the case of every other man in the room but James, deadly.

Into that confused, smoke-and dust-filled maelstrom burst the ring team, bayonets fixed and blood in their eyes.

* * *

'That's the signal, boys,' announced the fireplug at seeing the distinctly green smoke from the signal grenade popped by the ring team. 'Now on your bellies . . . crawl up to the breach. But crawl fast.'