A state of disobedience

Austin, Texas

"Yes, Rodg'—ah . . . mission accomplished? Great. Great news, friend." With a lighthouse-beam smile, Schmidt replaced the telephone on its cradle and returned to the governor's conference table.

"What has you looking so happy?" Juanita enquired.

"Nothing, Governor," Schmidt answered formally. "Nothing for you to worry about in any case."

She gave him a look of extreme suspicion, raising nothing more than a shrug in return. What have you done now, Jack?

Juanita turned her attention to the chief of her Department of Public Safety and his close cohort, Jeffrey Nagy, the Senior Captain of the Texas Rangers, a bejowled and utterly humorless looking man.

"We're following it, Governor. Company F"—the Waco-based Ranger company—"has Sergeants Akers and Guttierez on site twenty-four hours a day."

"Is that Johnson Akers? The Johnson Akers?" asked Schmidt.

Surprisingly, Nagy smiled, his previously humorless face brightening as the sun brightened the lonesome Texas prairie; his smile a match for Schmidt's own. "Yeah . . . him."

"What am I not getting?" Juanita enquired.

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