A state of disobedience

Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas

Every time Sawyers looked at the building he liked what he saw less and less. Open, no cover, clear fields of fire from positions inside he couldn't see much less hope to effectively engage. He had a battalion's worth of armored vehicles now—and didn't the army bitch over the costs in fuel of getting them here? But as to whether that would help or just give the guardsmen inside more profitable targets for the antitank weapons he was certain that they had . . . well, he just didn't know.

All in all he had misjudged the defenders very badly to date. Worse, he knew he had. He had never imagined that the Texans would attack to relieve that miserable old priest's mission. He had assumed that—faced with the prospect of a real attack to take back the Western Currency Facility—respect for the law would cause them to fold. Even when they had answered his demand for surrender with a defiant, and remarkably well-placed shot, he had still assumed that a real attack would break them.

He'd been so very wrong. And his men had paid the price for it.

Sawyers, it was fair to say, had suffered something of a crisis of confidence.

He had asked for air support; a couple of fighters to drop a couple of large bombs each. He'd asked and been told, in no uncertain terms, "No."

His superior at Treasury had explained, a bit. "No, the President has outright refused to drop bombs on American soil. Bad PR, you know."

Sawyers didn't buy it. He'd gone over her head to her boss. Similar story.

He'd pressed. Finally, it came out. "Commander, you can't have any air support because we do not trust them not to drop the bombs on you before flying off to San Antonio to join the Texans. It's not on the news but there have been a couple of cases of that; pilots stealing their planes and defecting. More of the bastards are faking sick to avoid flying, and the President is furious about that too. Unfortunately, she can't do much. So you're on your own."

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