A state of disobedience

Washington, DC

Though the ambient temperature was normal and comfortable, the Oval Office held a chill to make fat men shiver. Rottemeyer was in a rage so icy and yet so forceful that her Cabinet and staff—most of them—cowered in her presence. "What the fuck . . . I say 'what the fuck!' . . . do those goddamned Marine Corps morons think they are up to? Who the fuck do they think they are? Who do they think they are fucking with?"

She paced the Oval Office in a furious snit. Up went a hand to a bookcase; down went a shelf of books to the floor. Out went both hands to a globe; out went the glass of a antique book cabinet as the globe sailed through it. The President worked her way from artifact to antique, from file to phone, destroying everything her strength allowed. Finally she gave out an inarticulate scream of pure frustration and pounded her broad desk with both hands before collapsing back into her chair.

"Willi, they haven't joined the other side, at least. They've just said they're going to sit this one out. That's worth something, isn't it?"

Rottemeyer shot McCreavy a venomous glare. "Not too much, it isn't. Didn't you yourself tell me that this fucked up everything."

"It makes it harder," McCreavy admitted. "With the west flank no longer threatened the Texans can shift forces to the north and east. And . . . well . . . being honest, no matter what the Marines and the Third Armored Cav have said, there's no guarantee they won't join Texas at some time. And that means that our west flank is open and threatened, potentially."

Carroll had sat silently through Rottemeyer's tirade. He spoke now in a voice full with wickedness. "Take their families hostage, Willi. Send a force to Camp Pendleton, California and grab the wives and kids."

McCreavy's eyes opened very wide in stunned disbelief. "You are out of your mind to even suggest such a thing," she said, turning them onto Carroll. "Are you going to grab the families of 2^nd Marine Division too? How about all of the Army's? The Air Force's? The Navy's?"

Shifting her focus back to Rottemeyer, she exclaimed, "Willi that is the one thing I can guarantee will turn the entire armed forces against us! If we so much as start to move in that direction we'll be destroyed."

Looking at the President's face McCreavy's eyes opened wider still, if possible. "Willi, you just can't be seriously thinking about this."

"Why not?" Rottemeyer snapped. "What the hell do I owe those people or their families?"

"Remember what Machiavelli said, Willi," added Carroll. "You know; about people who do not know how to be forceful or wicked enough to survive turmoil?"

He stood and began to pace among the scattered books and broken bits. Wickedness disappeared from his voice, being replaced by a more reasonable, even intellectual, tone. "We have come so far, so fast Willi . . . we are so near to completion of the . . . the . . . the revolution—and that's what it is—to which we all pledged ourselves so many years ago that it would be nothing less than criminal to let anything stand in our way now."

Carroll leaned forward, resting his hands on the President's desk and staring her straight in the eye. "If we lose this contest, everything for which we have worked for so long and so hard will disappear. This government will be pared down to impotence. Every federal program we believe in will be dismantled. Control of the economy will go back to an unelected cabal of the rich. The environment will be trashed in the interests of greater and greater profits for fewer and fewer financial aristocrats."

He turned around to speak more generally to the Cabinet. "I don't even claim that Texas and this Seguin bitch even want that. She was, after all, a Democrat of sorts. But that's still the logic of what will happen if we lose. Not even Seguin will have the moral authority to keep this marvelous machine—this wonderful federal government we have created through the sweat and blood and sacrifice of millions—from being largely dismantled.

"If we fall, Madame President, the nuts will come out of the closet. And the momentum of events will be with them. The federal budget? Watch it pared to a fraction, a small fraction, of what it is now. Civil rights? Women's rights? Minority rights? Watch every progressive Supreme Court ruling made over the last seventy-five years legislatively disappear as if they had never been. Multiculturalism? Gone. Group rights? Gone.

"Everything we believe in . . . gone."

Carroll turned back to Rottemeyer. "You cannot let that happen."

Rottemeyer turned to Jesse Vega, in effective control for the nonce of the PGSS. "Tell my personal guard they are to reduce the Western Currency Facility before midday tomorrow—regardless of cost—and then move sufficient force, post haste, to California to . . . mmm . . . 'secure' the persons of the military dependants in and around Camp Pendleton."

Looking up at an obviously distraught McCreavy, the President added, "Those are my orders, Caroline. Do not balk me on this."

McCreavy sat heavily, putting her head in her hands, incredulous that it could have come to this.

Carroll added, "We need to put some kind of spin on this. People won't like the idea of us taking hostages. Might I suggest instead that we arrange some sort of incident with some of the locals around Pendleton. A demonstration, maybe, that gets out of hand. Perhaps a couple of rapes and a murder or two. Our party organization in California is strong, Willi. I can arrange the incidents within a few hours."

"And then we bring the families in for . . . ummm . . . 'protective custody'?" Rottemeyer grinned.

"Yeah," said Carroll slowly. "Yeah . . . 'protective custody' . . . that's the ticket."

Carroll stopped for a moment before continuing. When he did continue it was with a hesitation unusual in someone of such forceful character. "There's one other thing I think we need to do, Willi."

Rottemeyer raised an eyebrow.

"I checked with CIA. They can provide any required number of Predator Remote Piloted Aircraft."

"So?"

"The Air Force won't play." He turned an inquisitorial eye toward McCreavy who shrugged in agreement.

"So I think we need to bomb that cunt Seguin out of the equation."

"That's going to cost us . . ." began the President.

"Damn the cost," shouted Carroll. "Madame President we are fighting for our political lives here."

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