A state of disobedience

'That means that the Marine—Fulton was his name?—is going to have to turn back control to the political people that were watching him before they were arrested.'

'Ummm . . . no. Hanstadt said that Fulton had the less important half all shot and is holding the rest as hostages of his own.'

Wide eyed, Juanita's hand flew to her mouth. 'Oh, my.'

'I confess, I like the man's sincerely . . . oh . . . forthright attitude. Can't get much more sincere than shooting seventy-one federal agents and mid-ranking members of the incumbent party out of hand. I am pulling back the people we have facing him by about twenty miles and moving their supply dumps back thirty. We just can't know what is going to happen with 1^st Marine Division and, if it turns to shit, I'd rather have them walking forward at maybe three miles an hour than rolling forward—using our gas—at forty.'

'If things work out the way they are supposed to in California, Fulton is going to need gas though. He says that the second his people's dependents are safe then the 1^st Marine Division and 3^rd Armored Cavalry regiment will declare for Texas.'

'And the other side of that,' observed Juani, 'is that if they can't rescue their families, and if those families continue to be held hostage, and if it looks like the Presidential Guard is bloody minded then the Marines might have to attack us.'

* * *

Interstate 10, Arizona

Miles and miles of fuck all, thought Diaz as the bus carrying him and the bulk of his company continued on a seemingly endless track through desert and scrub.

Seated at the front, he was in position to see, or rather not to see, the other busses returning 1^st Recon Battalion to its home. He could not see any of the others because they were strung out over more than one hundred miles and many were not even using the Interstate.

Not for the first time Diaz felt an almost overpowering urge to call home. He could not, he knew. The operation was a potential intelligence sieve already and, should the people 'guarding' the Marine's families find out they were coming, there was no telling what might happen.

Not that it was home, precisely, that Diaz wanted to call. His wife would not be there, he knew. She was comatose in the hospital. But a friend? A comrade's wife? Anybody who could assure him that she would be fine.

Even if the assurance were a lie, still he wanted it.

Before leaving Texas, Diaz's initial anger had been directed toward the unknown, unnamed, likely never-to-be- caught assailants. Then his division commander had sat him down and asked him to consider a few questions; questions like, 'Whose good did this all accrue to; what happened to your wife and the others?' Questions like, 'And isn't it funny that the PGSS was ready to move at a moment's notice after coming out of one of the bloodiest battles ever to take place in this hemisphere?' And, 'Do you suppose it's a coincidence that we voted to bow out of the current troubles and then our families were attacked?' And, 'Isn't it funny how the demonstration that got out of hand started with a speaker from the party in power? The same party that controls the PGSS? The same PGSS that was ever so ready to take our families hostage?'

And so, after reflection, Diaz had added up one plus one plus one plus one plus one and come up with the mathematically suspect but morally perfectly precise answer, 'Rottemeyer.'

'Bright boy,' Fulton had beamed. 'And I assure you we are going to get even . . . if not a bit ahead.'

Diaz wanted assurance of, oh, many things. And, knowing he could not have it, he turned his thoughts, along with his eyes, to a map of Camp Pendleton and thought about the one form of assurance he thought he could have.

* * *

Austin, Texas

'Time to leave, Juani,' announced Schmidt. 'They'll be here in a few hours. And you can't let them catch you.'

'I'm not leaving the Capital, Jack. Just forget it. It's not going to happen.'

Schmidt answered, 'Governor, the federals will be here in a couple of hours. They may stop and wait a bit if they think we are going to fight. And,' Schmidt held up a quieting palm, 'we are going to fight. But the end result is all the same. Now you have to leave. Before the bullets start to fly.

'Juani, if you don't go quietly I'll have you carried out.'

Juani set her face grimly, plainly determined to argue. Jack was having none of it, equally plainly.

She relented. 'I have a few hours, don't I?'

Seeing his nod she continued, 'Then I want to make a televised address before I go.'

'Okay, Governor. We have time for that.'

'You've never approved entirely of nonviolent civil disobedience I know, Jack. But I am going to give it one more try. Can your quartermaster come up with a great deal of transportation in a hurry?'

* * *

Camp Pendleton, California

Marines can be very practical folk. Faced with a lockdown of a fenced camp, said lockdown conflicting with