A. Well, I noticed posters going up all over town, eventually. They were kind of crudely done, if you know what I mean. Well...maybe crude isn't quite the right word; the drawings were a good enough likeness, after all.

You know the ones I mean? They showed Governor Seguin from a front view and from the side, just like she was a criminal or something. For a while there they were everywhere: "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

Now, of course, n.o.body ever took any credit for them. They weren't official. They didn't offer any reward or anything like that.

But it started me to thinking, which never did come too easy to me. I mean, I'm not stupid. I never read books much, but I'm not stupid.

Anyway, if the White House could pay people to march in parades, and I was pretty sure that's where that money I was handed did come from, why couldn't they make up-have someone make up-some posters like that?

Take it all together: the parades, the news that all seemed to come from one side only, the posters. What did it add up to?

To me? Well, I added one and one and one and came up with the White House. But I figure to a lot of folks, it probably seemed like it added up to real-what do you call it?-a tidal wave? Yeah, a tidal wave of support for doing whatever it took to knock Texas into the dirt.

Pickup Zone (PZ) "Treasure," Oklahoma

The faint nimbus of the rising sun was only just beginning to peek over the low Oklahoma hills to the east. A mild southern wind carried little dust on its breeze, and virtually none into the eyes of the Army teams overseeing the loading and departure of a battalion of PGSS "agents" towards Fort Worth.

The helicopters themselves, however, kicked up enough dust to be an annoyance. It was an annoyance to which the Army was long since used, however. The soldiers shrugged it off.

Not so the PGSS. Unused to helicopters at best-most of them, they snarled and choked as they neared the birds designated to take them by "chalk"-strange Army term meaning one load for one helicopter, so they had found out-to their landing zones.

The snarling was only about half due to the dust, however, or perhaps a bit less. Mostly they were frightened. They'd never been recruited, armed, organized or trained for this kind of mission. The last several weeks' intense training under qualified Army instructors had made good some of this lack-albeit not without some friction between the two. Still, the idea of close combat in buildings-the worst and deadliest kind of combat, so their instructors had told them-had not been high on their list of reasons for joining up.

With a circle of hands and a pointed finger the ground teams signaled their helicopters to take off into the wind.

Other battalions waited to load as soon as their transport returned.

Field Mess, 4th Battalion, 101 Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment Aviation Regiment

Officers could not speak ill of the President of the United States. Noncoms and enlisted men could not insult officers but could could say whatever they wanted about the President; no rule against it. At least there was no legal and official rule against it. The political officers-the troops had already taken to calling them "Zampolits"-might have different ideas. say whatever they wanted about the President; no rule against it. At least there was no legal and official rule against it. The political officers-the troops had already taken to calling them "Zampolits"-might have different ideas.

Thus it was that, surrounded by officers and flight warrants of the battalion, one lone, slightly chubby first sergeant by the name of Henry looked around, saw no Zampolits, then stood upon a folding mess table and announced, "Be proud, gentlemen, be proud. That sound you hear over toward the PZ? Why that's our own brave boys carrying the 'elite of the nation'-Rottenmuncher's Own, the arrogant c.o.c.ksuckers-into battle. What an awesome and welcome mission. What a garland for our proud unit's history. Can't you just imagine it, imagine how you're all going to feel when we get that campaign streamer that says 'Western Currency Facility' to put on our standard right next to Ia Drang and Al Nasriyeh?

"Oh, yes...something for each of us to tell our children and our grandchildren. 'Why yes, Johnny, I was there pulling pitch...or turning a wrench...or running tests of the electronics when the Rottenmuncher hammered the last shackle on the United States. Yep...that was me, your old grandpappy, helping make the world unsafe for democracy."

Most present in the tent laughed; First Sergeant Henry was one of those characters a lucky unit has; treasured because of-not in spite of-his humor and cynicism.

One warrant pilot did not laugh. Chewing and swallowing his bite of "undifferentiated meat with differentiated sauce" quickly, this warrant officer, CWO2 Harrington, asked, "And what the h.e.l.l are we supposed to do, Top? We get our orders. We follow them."

Henry's lip curled in a sneer, not at the warrant so much as at the world. "Do, sir? Why I didn't say we should 'do' anything. Why that would be mutiny, sir, and I would, of course, never counsel mutiny. Why I would not even suggest to you gentlemen-oh, and ladies-that you remember your oaths to the country, because if I did then-who knows?-you might mutiny on your own.

"No sir, not me, never. No mutiny from this end.

"I might, though, ask the chaplain-oh, and you, too, sir," Henry indicated with a finger the battalion's JAG officer, "if it would be mutiny to ask G.o.d to help those men in the WCF that are going to be fighting there soon for our our freedom." freedom."

Henry looked around for the unit chaplain. Finding him, and catching the chaplain's eye, the first sergeant shouted, "Hey 'Chap,' can we make this a prayer prayer breakfast?" breakfast?"

In Flight

Sawyers shouted into the ear of the newsman a.s.signed to follow him and his command into the Western Currency Facility. "They haven't got a prayer, those dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on the receiving end."

"Why's that, Commander," asked the newsman.

"We're trained professionals, son. Those guys are just part-timers."

"You or your men ever clear a fortified building before?"

"A building's not fortified unless it's well defended," countered Sawyers. "And I don't see those amateurs putting up much of a defense. Hope they had a decent breakfast. It's likely to be their last one that isn't behind bars."

Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

"What's for breakfast, cookie?" asked Fontaine.

The mess sergeant sneered, not at Fontaine but at a battery of flat silver containers. "Same as usual, bubba: undifferentiated meat with differentiated sauce; accompanied by only mildly radioactive, notionally wholesome, 'potatoes-all-rotten'; optional fake ham omelet; and some half decent coffee. We're running short on sugar for the coffee, though, so go easy."

Cookie never had cared for being rendered half obsolete by modern T-rations.

"Sounds, umm, great, cookie. Let me have-"

Pendergast's voice thundered, "Breakfast in the mess is cancelled. Get your a.s.ses to your battle positions. NOW, people! Move, move move, MOVE!"

Fontaine quickly added two and two, coming up with the mathematically perfect answer of, "Hungry, and soon." With a mumbled, "Thanks, cookie," he reached directly into the trays of food, extracting several slices of meat and a scooped palm-full of omelet.

Ignoring the cook's outraged look even as he did his successful best to avoid the cook's flailing spatula, Fontaine's heart began to beat quickly as he joined the arm-flailing, grunting, wall-slapping herd of guardsmen racing from the mess to join their comrades at the walls.

Outside and above the WCF, the bulk of the pilots were mildly surprised that there was no groundfire. That they were also somewhat pleased by the lack went almost without saying. Quick glances at the facility's roof showed no possible landing place. They'd known this in advance and had not even planned such. Instead, the choppers brought the PGSS to soft and safe landings well away from the target building.

Commander Sawyers-he had managed to escape from arrest at the mission where the problem had begun-grunted with satisfaction at seeing the brisk, orderly, and frankly military way his men dispersed from their helicopters, took the p.r.o.ne, then raced for their initial objectives.

All those objectives were, of course, at or just past the outside limit of effective small arms fire from the WCF.

As the last of his men reached those objectives, and the last of the ferrying helicopters departed, Sawyers advanced with one other man and a loud speaker.

"Attention. Attention, all you people inside the currency facility. In the name of the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury I call upon you to surrender, now, while there is still time. You will be tried-at a minimum-for criminal trespa.s.s on Federal property in accordance with the laws of the United States...."

It was only with difficulty that Williams was able to keep the stress and fear out of his voice. He'd never been in real action before, not unless one considered representing a client before the Tax Court could be considered "action." Williams somehow didn't think it was quite the same.

Still, feeling stress and fear or not, Williams' words were clear when he asked, "How do you answer something like that, Top-err, Sergeant Major?"

Pendergast thought briefly, spit some tobacco juice, then answered, "I think I'd answer it with Royce."

"Royce?" asked the newly promoted Major Williams.

"Yessir. Best G.o.dd.a.m.ned shot in the unit, bar none. Royce."

"Royce," Williams mused. "Royce? Sure, why the h.e.l.l not? Might as well add to our charges. And it'll be harder for anybody to back out after the shooting starts. Royce. Fontaine, go get me Sergeant Royce, would you please?"

Baffled as it was by the building and the slit through which Royce fired, from his distance Sawyers never heard the actual discharge of the shot. One moment he was speaking into a microphone, holding the loudspeaker in his left hand. The next the speaker was torn away, hissing, sparking, sputtering and crackling as it died. Only then did he hear the crack of the bullet as it left its shock wave behind.

Tossing the ruined thing to the pavement furiously, Sawyers muttered, "So you motherf.u.c.kers want to play it that way, do you? a.s.sholes!"

To the accompanying newsman, Sawyers said, "Did you see that? Did you see? I offered them a chance to surrender peacefully and they shot at me. What's going to happen now is on their own heads."

I thought you said they'd surrender, thought the newsman. Wonder what else you're wrong about.

Sawyers turned on his heel, stomped off to his command post-sitting behind a nearby wall, and began to issue orders into a radio.

The Guard didn't use their radios, too afraid of the transmissions being intercepted. Instead, they used the intercom system the WCF had had when they first occupied it.

"Major Williams, this is Davis down in the command post. Whatever you just did riled up a hornet's nest. I've got reports of troops advancing on all sides. I'm only catching glimpses of them on the security cams but I think they're serious."

Instead of answering directly, Williams flipped his intercom to make an announcement to the entire defending force. "Listen up, everybody. Hold your fire until I give the word. But keep me posted."

Using a periscope the engineers had jinned up for him from some broken bathroom mirrors and spare lumber (for a video camera similarly mounted would not only have been heavier, but might have needed hard-to-find batteries), Williams observed as small groups of black battledress-clad men advanced on the walls of his post using whatever cover-and that not much-was available.

When they reached the last of that spa.r.s.e cover, though, those men stopped.

Williams called to all walls to report.

"Wall two: they've stopped advancing....Wall three: looks like they've held up about where we cleared fields of fire to, but there aren't that many of them on this side.... Major, this is the rotunda. They've got a man behind nearly every one of those pylons by the walkway. And I think there's more in the deads.p.a.ce past those."

Williams thought it curious that with combat so near his heartbeat had slowed, the nervousness had evaporated and that sullen, sinking feeling he had been carrying in the pit of his stomach had disappeared. He did not hesitate any longer. "Sergeant Major, take the reserve platoon and all the machine guns and reinforce the rotunda. You You can fire if they try to a.s.sault; don't wait for my command." can fire if they try to a.s.sault; don't wait for my command."

"Sir!"

Sawyers thought it would be a fine thing if he could take the building even before the rest of the brigade showed up. He mused, silently, Not that anyone told me to take it on my own. Then again, n.o.body said not to and I Not that anyone told me to take it on my own. Then again, n.o.body said not to and I was was told to try to get them to surrender. That would have been taking the building back too. Seems like a simple extrapolation to me....Besides, I'd truly like to get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that shot up my unit at that old priest's mission. told to try to get them to surrender. That would have been taking the building back too. Seems like a simple extrapolation to me....Besides, I'd truly like to get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that shot up my unit at that old priest's mission.

"Sir, the last company reports they're in position on the other side of the building."

"Thanks, Ricky. Send to all companies: open fire. Tell B Company they can begin their a.s.sault anytime."

Half frantic, Pendergast pushed, prodded and physically shoved the machine gunners and the reserve platoon into their positions. "Move it, d.a.m.n it, move it. We haven't got all f.u.c.king day. And remember, hold your fire until I I say to shoot. This might turn out to be nothing." say to shoot. This might turn out to be nothing."

Whatever Pendergast may have been feeling inside, to the men pushed, prodded and shoved he merely seemed very determined, perhaps even eager.

The positions themselves were set back some few feet from the once gla.s.s-clad, now boarded and sandbagged, floor-to-ceiling windows. The set back gave the positions, and the men inside them, a measure of protection from the concussion of shaped charges and demolitions that might be detonated against the walls. Most of these positions, made of wood and metal, sandbags and furniture, had but a single, narrow, slit of a firing port in those walls. This also made it all but impossible for an attacker to suppress those positions with rifle fire as the men inside were offset from the slits, their sectors of fire interlocking outside the building. There were also a few very strongly built bunkers that were right up against the walls. The men in these, machine gunners mostly, had much wider fields of fire.

With a grunt of satisfaction at seeing the last men slithering into their battle stations, Pendergast himself got down on his belly and crawled to a well-camouflaged observation post to watch developments.

At the OP, Pendergast selected two of four claymore clackers, one in each hand. These were wired, each to a different claymore mine, the mines themselves buried under broken gla.s.s from the windows and daisy chained together with explosive cord, called "det cord." Setting off either one would cause a chain reaction that would spill over ten thousand ball bearings outward from the rotunda.

From outside, rifle fire began to crack and splat against the walls.