A state of disobedience

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.

* * *