A state of disobedience

* * *

'My God!' exclaimed Silva as Smith's inert body came to rest a few feet to his right where the force of the blast had blown it. One glance was enough to confirm; Smithfield was very dead, his blasted and shot-up body actually smoking. A faint glow outside the smoke-filled hole in the wall suggested very strongly that Smith's final shot had been as true as his first.

Silva poked a finger in one ear, rooted around briefly, then settled back onto his machine gun and began to hammer out a staccato concert for the benefit of the PGSS men just beginning to ooze through the hole.

* * *

Harrington eased back on his stick as the helicopter arrived over one corner of the WCF's roof. He took a quick glance below, then turned to his crew chief with a nod.

The crew chief on one side and the door gunner on the other tossed the thick coiled cables out of the troop doors. The cables' free ends descended rapidly to the roof below. Above, great black nylon loops affixed to pipelike projections jutting from either side held the ropes in easy reach of the PGSS men. The crew chief, mirrored by the door gunner, took positive control of the PGSS troopers, easing them to where they could easily grasp the ropes. Those men grasped the ropes, looking straight ahead into the distance.

At the command, 'Go!' one man to either side began the slide downward.

Ahead, in the pilot's seat, Harrington eased his stick ever so slightly to port. The helicopter responded, sliding to the left unnoticed.

Below, the first pair of descenders touched down without incident about fourteen feet from the edge of the roof. The second pair were closer to that edge, much closer.

The third and subsequent pairs . . .

'Arrrgh! Jesssuuus!'

* * *

'That motherfucker did it on purpose!' screamed one of the four, only four, men of the chalk who had landed safely. The other nine had, much to their surprise and chagrin, discovered that the rope ran out about seventy feet above the ground. Both surprise and chagrin had been brief phenomena, rapidly replaced by panic-stricken shrieks. The shrieks, too, had subsided very quickly as the men, by twos, had slammed into the hard-packed ground. These now lay in crumpled heaps—dead or very badly injured.

The angry survivor raised a rifle as if to fire at the helicopter. Only the door gun, pointed unerringly at his chest by the door gunner, dissuaded him from firing.

That gun never wavered as a chuckling Warrant Officer Harrington pulled pitch to go back for another load.

It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now . . . snickered Harington, silently. Just wait til Top Henry hears about this. Now how the hell do I explain my way out of this one? Oh, I know . . .

Harrington keyed a microphone on the general frequency. 'All flights inbound the objective area, be advised, we have some high winds gusting over the roof. My bird was blown off position about fifteen or twenty feet while I was fast-roping some people in . . . it was pretty ugly.' He looked back at the target building and smiled.

* * *

'Motherfuckers,' repeated the PGSS man as he watched the helicopter recede into the distance.

'Never mind that,' insisted his leader. 'We'll fix that asshole after we take the building. Now, help me carry this breaching charge.'

With that those four survivors, plus the others landed nearby, raced for a place believed to be sheltered from any explosives the defenders might push through the roof. There, they began to lay out a doughnut ring full of shaped plastic explosive.

* * *

Bullets caromed off walls with malevolent cracking sounds before continuing on their half-spent way farther into the building. From a sandbagged shelter Pendergast fired nine short bursts from his rifle before pressing the magazine release and seating a new magazine. Farther back and below, a bloody hand snaked out to grab the spent magazine as it bounced. Empty magazine retrieved, the wounded guardsman who had grabbed it attached a small device and frantically force-fed more rounds, in ten round clips, into it.

From behind, a man with a blood-streaked face crawled into the bunker with Pendergast and the other. He reached a distracting hand to Pendergast's shoulder. 'Sergeant Major . . .' the troop gasped out. 'They're on the roof . . . I mean through the roof . . . all over . . . we ain't gonna hold 'em. . . .'

Pendergast looked from the newly arrived troop to the other. Both wounded pretty bad. And I can't leave here.

'Can you make it to Major Williams, son?'

The newly arrived soldier gulped unconsciously and nodded.

'Go then. Tell him. Tell him we're holding okay here too . . . but I don't know for how long.'

New-filled magazine seated in the rifle, the sergeant major turned back to the serious business of discouraging unwanted guests.

* * *

Williams helped ease the bleeding and exhausted soldier to a chair as he digested the news. Reaching a sudden decision he looked around the command post. One junior lieutenant, a sergeant, James . . . and a number of people whose eyes just became much wider in their heads.

'Jimbo . . . take over here. I'm going to go try to seal the breach in the roof.'

Captain James nodded weakly, then began to pull himself to a sitting position. Ordinarily he should have stayed in the makeshift infirmary . . . yet he had insisted his place of duty was here in the CP. His eyes wandered to a