A state of disobedience

to hear you speak are utterly crushed, we will exact a price for that crushing. We are also ready to provide the crowd you will speak to and the video cameras that will film the crushing.'

Minh's eyes narrowed as he bit his lower lip lightly. 'It is a brave thing that you and these people with you are about to do. Unfortunately, that bravery would go unnoticed but for the cynicism of myself and my people who will amplify your bravery and self-sacrifice to a useful level.'

'Just who are your people, Colonel?'

'Oh, we are a mix. A mix, that is, of former Vietcong and soldiers of the ARVN, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. And their sons and daughters, too, of course.'

'Old enemies, plotting together as friends?'

Minh cast a glance heavenward, wriggling fingers dismissively. 'Well, so far from our first home such little political differences as we once had seem trivial now. And we do share certain skills.'

Charlesworth knew the rule: 'They'll talk to Martin because they don't want to talk to me.' The skills of which Minh spoke were the skills of mayhem. And that was the purpose of this entire exercise: to get an overreaction from the federals for propaganda's sake; then to give them an almost equally nasty reaction in return. NonViolent Civil Disobedience depended on this mantra: Listen to us . . . or listen to the sound of the guns.

* * *

Anthony, Texas

It was a ballet; a noisy, stinky, dry, dusty, and miserable ballet. With Mexico on its right, a flank hanging in open air to the left, the Army's Third Armored Cavalry regiment—generally referred to as 'the Cav' danced tentatively forward.

It was a dance; two unequal partners moving in time together. Ahead of the Cav, two task-organized battalions of the 49t^h Armored Division fired to miss, then fell back to the next set of sand dunes or strip development. Fire and fall back; fire, make the Cav deploy, and fall back. Miss just close enough to frighten. Hit the occasional landmark—building or sign post—often enough to let the Cav know that the misses were deliberate. Hit very close once the day's acceptable limits of retreat had been reached.

And the Cavalry danced forward in time with the pirouetting Guard.

* * *

McKinney, Texas

'I am getting as sick of this dance as I am of blowing bridges,' murmured Bernoulli as the point of Third Corps approached the latest. One handed, with now very practiced ease, he squeezed and another multimillion-dollar structure shuddered, crumpled and began to collapse.

Bernoulli concentrated, no mean feat amidst the roar of thousands of tons of falling concrete, to pick out the sound of the western, Lewisville, bridge demolition. He listened for several minutes before uttering his first, 'Oh, shit.'

Even as he reached for his radio, the radio crackled into life. 'Sir, the demo failed. I don't know why . . . maybe somebody crossed up a couple of pieces of det cord. But only about one in ten of the charges went off. That wasn't enough.'

'Do you have time to reset them?' the lieutenant asked.

'Sir . . . Third Corps is already swarming the bridge. No way.'

'Oh, shit.' Bernoulli reached a quick decision. 'Fall back.'

* * *

Houston, Texas

There had been a day when Charlesworth might well have been able to speak to the crowd even without a PA set. Those days were fallen far behind him. Now, aged beyond anything he had ever expected to see outside of a biblical film role, his voice was weaker even though his heart—in the twin senses of both that which pumped blood and that which defined his spirit—was as strong as ever.

The crowd, about twenty thousand of Houston's more than four million, filled an area of not more than a couple of acres in the city's Galleria area. For this, the PA set was more than adequate.

Though weaker, Charlesworth's speaking voice had lost none of its inner power. Electric amplifiers added whatever time had stolen.

'Almost two centuries ago, and just about two hundred and fifty miles from here, a group of Texans stood up for what was right at a little Spanish mission called the Alamo. Just as far away in space, but so recently that it still makes the headlines—makes them, that is, anywhere that headlines are permitted to speak the truth—another group of Texans stood up for the right at another mission, the Dei Gloria in Waco.

'In both cases, the defenders of the truth and the right paid with their lives. They fought a hopeless fight for principle. In the first case, whatever the short-term end, we know today that the defenders won after all. In the second case, the Dei Gloria Mission, boys and girls and an old Catholic priest lost their own fight . . . but they may just have arranged for us to win ours.

'There were several survivors of Santa Ana's tyrannical attack. There was but one from the Dei Gloria. Her name is Elpi—she is a very nice young lady—and she'd like to say a few words to you. . . .'

* * *

They'd had words before, the Commander of 18^th Airborne Corps and the suited chief of the EPA's Environmental Protection Police—his personal 'Zampolit.' Much of this had been trivial. More had been hostile. The EPP simply abhorred roughing it and the Army and their attached Marines took a perverse glee in seeing that they had to do so. This was not the only point of disagreement, be it noted.