by Tom Kratman
The team's spotter radioed to headquarters that there was no movement inside the compound.
* * *
Montoya felt his heart race as it had not raced in four decades. The tanks made little sound themselves, just the ominous inhuman squeaking of their churning treads. In a way, that was worse than the throatier roar of the tanks in his experience.
There were roars too, those from the LAVs used by the PGSS. Montoya ignored those.
The squeaking of the treads grew in intensity, closer, closer . . .
* * *
Chips of adobe and brick flew away from the mission walls in two places as they bulged inward, buckled and crumbled. The tanks had struck them to create a pair of breaches in the adobe for the infantry to pour through.
In further aid of the assault, the tanks had been slightly modified. Their main cannon were partially plugged to allow the projection of CS gas from high pressure dispensers. Fanning back and forth, the tanks spewed a cloud of lachrymatory gas to subdue the defenders.
* * *
Montoya already had his mask on, one of those provided by Schmidt in his care package. Montoya's boys likewise had donned theirs with a speed that would have done credit to a regular as soon as they had seen the first white clouds spew from the tanks' muzzles.
With a shout of "follow me," the shout distorted by the mask's "voicemitter," Montoya led a team of three boys forward a few short steps and on to the southernmost of the two breaches. To his left charged four more boys under Miguel's successor, Ramon. All sprinted in a low crouch to avoid possible sniper fire.
The teams reached the undamaged wall between the breaches, then split north and south. Reaching the tanks, the boys threw clear glass bottles full of liquid to impact on the rear hulls and turrets.
* * *
"What's that, chief?" sniffed the driver of Montoya's target as the first faint whiff of ammonia passed easily through the filtration system and on into the crew and driver compartments.
Before the commander of the vehicle could make an answer the ammonia hit him full strength. It was sudden as an unexpected blow. Eyes streaming, throat closing and choking, gorge rising, he clawed at the hatch over his head, one thought on his mind: Escape!
He might have made it out quicker had his gunner not also been trying to crawl through him to escape the overpowering chemical stench.
Montoya calmly shot the driver whose easy escape had been blocked by the tank's cannon, directly overhead. Then the emerging loader took two rounds through the belly before flopping bonelessly back downwards into the tank's bowels. When two heads appeared simultaneously in the commander's hatch he shot them as well, bone and brains and blood flying away. Father forgive me.
"Padre, here!" shouted a boy as he passed over a homemade satchel charge. The priest took it with a muttered "thanks," pulled the igniter and leaning around a corner tossed the charge under the tank's right tread. The burning fuse left a curly cue arc of narrow but dense smoke as it corkscrewed through the air.
"Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! FIRE IN THE HOOOLLE!" shouted the priest as he led and herded his boys back to cover. Even as he himself leapt to safety the charge went off like a kick in the pants, knocking him head over heels to go tumbling along the ground.
* * *
Austin, Texas
"That's my boy, Jorge," muttered Schmidt as he, the governor, and her "war cabinet" listened in to reports coming uncensored from the scene. Half the words used were expletives and obscenities.
"Fucking gas isn't working. Motherfuckers took out both tanks . . . Jesus-Fucking-Christ they shot down the crews like dogs . . . Where the fuck are those goddamned helicopters? . . . What in the fuck are the snipers doing? . . . My God . . . they've got guns . . . machine guns . . . Explosives . . . Jesus . . ."
Juanita looked piercingly at Schmidt. "Where . . . where, General, did my brother get machine guns? Where did he get explosives?"
A tiny flicker of a smile. "Jorge always was a resourceful sort, Governor. You know that." Then Schmidt's face lit again in his broadest, brightest flash. "You really want to know? Fine. I gave them to him. I'll be damned if my best friend and your brother was going to be taken without a good fight. They . . . you . . . can do what the hell you want with me. But Jorge Montoya was not going to lack the tools he needed! And can you hear, Juani? Can you hear?" Schmidt pointed at the radio, still sputtering with federal outrage. "He's holding them; beating them."
Softly, "I wish I were there. I wish I were there.
"Do you know why I am not, Governor? Because I still hope to talk some sense into you. I still think that the girl I . . . voted for . . . hasn't got it in her to see her brother cut down by wolves in suits and ties."
Fiercely now, "Let me roll my division, Juani. Send Nagy there to arrest them, too. Save your brother Juani . . . save those children, Governor."
Juanita's mouth set as if concrete, hard, unyielding. "Do it."
With a triumphant shout, Schmidt headed for the door. "You coming with me, Nagy? We can take my helicopter."
* * *
Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas
The press of numbers was too great. It had always been too great. Yet Montoya had hoped that, if he put up a good fight, the feds might just back off to reconsider.
"Dumb bastards don't even know enough to know we're a losing proposition."
"What was that, Father?"
The priest shook his head. "Nothing, Ramon."
The defenders, what were left of them, had been forced back to the chapel. Only Elpidia, wounded and helpless in the small infirmary, the children cowering in the storm shelter, and Julio, waiting for that perfect shot, remained outside of this last ditch. A baker's dozen of the boys and girls of the Mission lay sprawled in death outside, victims of the sniper in his tower, the helicopters overhead, or the near random fire of the PGSS now swarming through the grounds.
That baker's dozen had a slightly larger honor guard of their dead and wounded assailants. Ultimately driven from the breaches by the PGSS, the padre had been helpless to stop the surge of armed inhumanity that had poured into the mission. They hadn't been able to stop it. That hadn't prevented them from bleeding it however.
Even now, from hastily excavated loopholes in the chapel walls, some of the defenders traded shots with their attackers.
Some still fought. Others? The priest's eyes scanned the chapel. Exhausted, was his judgment. He wasted a scornful glance upon Father Flores, cowering under a heavy sacramental alter. Unharmed, unsoiled, but also an unworthy cause to have given his children's lives for, thought Father Jorge.
He looked more carefully; began counting. Eleven of us here. Five wounded; two badly. One of the wounded boys was crying softly, trying to hold his intestines inside. Another, rapidly turning pale with loss of blood, managed to keep silent.
I wonder what happened to Julio.
* * *
"In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," whispered Julio as finally, finally, he found the shot for which he had been waiting. It was not a perfect shot. It was not even a particularly good one. But it was a possibility. The first possibility he had had all morning.
The HRT's ad hoc sniper tower had been modified with a steel box at its summit. From that box, sheltered from anything that was not directly in his line of fire, the sniper had poured down shot after shot into the defenders. More than half the mission dead were attributable to that sniper's deadly, accurate fire.
And Julio hadn't been able to do a thing about it. Not a thing. The sniper and his spotter had kept safely back, with a half an inch of steel between them and Julio.
And then, easy targets exhausted, the tower had turned, presenting its half open front face to Julio's scope.
Unseen by the HRT, any potential glare from the scope hidden by a deeply recessed firing position, Julio's breathing paused, his body relaxed, his finger tightened, and his rifle spoke.
The bullet flew straight and true. Before he
had the remotest suspicion that he was under fire, the sniper's brains filled the small armored box in which he and his spotter sheltered, covering the spotter with blood and gore.
* * *
In the crowded headquarters Friedberg fumed and raged. Bad enough that eight BATF agents were down. Bad enough that some dozens of PGSS were down. But to kill her people? Intolerable. And she would not tolerate it.
"Get me those Army types on the line," she demanded of one of the radio operators.
"Ma'am?" asked the cowed minor functionary; there were a number of "Army types" supporting the operation.
"The gunships, you idiot. About time they earned their pay."
"Yes, ma'am." The operator spoke briefly into a microphone. "Here they are, Ms. Friedberg." The Director of the FBI felt a small satisfaction at seeing the trembling in the hand which offered her the microphone.
"Who is this?" she demanded.
The answer came as if through a "sound blender" . . . the words choppy and distorted. "This is Echo 57. Who is this?"
"This is the Director of the FBI." Friedberg waited in vain for a suitably humble response.
"Roger, Director, this is Echo 57. You have traffic this station?" The voice was annoyingly male and had an infuriating lack of humility. There was no noticeable tenor even of respect.
"He means 'Do you have a message?' ma'am."
Friedberg glared at the operator. "I know what he means, you ninny."
"Echo 57, this is the Director. I want you to attack the mission. My people are being hurt and I want it to stop."
There was a barely perceptible pause on the other end, as if the pilots were conferring among themselves. At last came the response, "No can do, Director. Forbidden. Illegal."
Friedberg shrieked frustration. How dare he? "Listen to me you nincompoop. I am the Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. And nothing that I say is legal is illegal. Do you understand?"
"I understand. I will not comply."
"Get me the other pilot."
The operator checked frequencies, but made no changes. He spoke briefly, then announced, "Echo 63, Director."
Friedberg forced a measure of calm into her voice. "Echo 63 this is the Director of the FBI. Echo 57 has refused a lawful order from the President through me. Echo 57 can expect to be prosecuted when this is over. He can also expect to be found guilty, imprisoned, sodomized, and finally audited by the IRS! Now unless you want to join him in prison, I suggest you follow my orders and riddle-That-FUCKING-CAMP!"
"Don't do it, Max."
"Echo 57 this is the Director. Shut up or I'll send you to the worst nightmare of a prison in the federal system! Echo 63 will you comply?"
With an audible sigh, sent through a voice-activated mike, the pilot of the second gunship answered, "Wilco."
* * *
A long column of armored vehicles, fourteen tanks in the lead, stretched along Interstate 35, exhausts smoking and treads churning.
"Goddamit, fuck the speed limits. They don't apply to tanks. General Schmidt said 'now' and I want to be there two hours ago." If only we hadn't had to send to Fort Hood for main gun rounds, then had to sneak them away from the post. If only. But the general had said "be prepared to fight" . . . and so they had had to stop to arm up.
"Wilco," came from five different senders as the better part of 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, with pieces of the 1st of the 112th Armor, of the 49th Armored Division roared down the highway.
* * *
Sergeant Akers watched from the headquarters as the gunship made another pass on the mission compound, chaingun spitting fury. He had lost count of the number of attack runs it had so far made.
There are kids in there, dammit. Texan kids I swore to defend.
It was hard, so hard. Not to die, no. Hard to break the rules. Hard to lift his arm against a law enforcement agency. Hard to raise his hand to a woman, even one like Friedberg.
But it's not as hard as standing here watching those kids murdered. Reaching a decision, commending his soul to God, Akers undid the restraining strap on his shoulder holster, thumbed back the hammer, and ensured the safety was off. Then he set those shoulders, and walked into the headquarters.
Akers walked unnoticed—few people ever noticed him, really—to a spot right behind the director. He sighed, still unnoticed, then reached his hand under his jacket. As he did, the kindly expression, the grandfatherly expression, disappeared from his face. What replaced it was something not quite human, let alone grandfatherly.
"The next sound you hear will be your brains hitting the wall unless you call off the gunship, Director. Tell your people to freeze."
Friedberg felt the cold rounded muzzle of the sergeant's pistol pressed against the base of her skull. She felt the warm drizzle of urine begin to run down her legs almost immediately. "Nobody move," she ordered, voice unaccountably and uncharacteristically trembling.
"Call off the helicopter," she told the radio operator, for a change neglecting to insult him.
The operator hesitated. "Now," insisted Johnston Akers, sergeant, two medals of honor.
"Now," echoed the director.
"And I want your agents to drop their weapons and their trousers. Now," insisted the ranger.
"Do it."
* * *
The gunship made yet another pass. Few buildings still stood undamaged in the compound. From one small one a small person, carrying a rifle, fled. His apparent destination was a large wooden structure, much like a barn. The gunner cut down Julio, then took aim at the building towards which he had been headed.
It was indeed a barn on the outside. But in the center of the floor was a concrete pad with a steel door. It was, in fact, the storm shelter. And under that pad crouched twenty-six children ages six months to twelve years.
The rockets were a mix; white phosphorus, some, and high explosive, others. The explosive shattered the dry wood of the barn. The phosphorus set it alight.
Even as the last salvo of rockets exploded, the WP in lovely art nouveau of flaming arcs, the pilot received the word, "Break off your attack now."
* * *
For long hours had the little ones cowered under their shelter while the muffled sounds of furious battle leaked in. Some of these had been enough to shake the structure, setting the younger ones to crying.
"Josefina, make it stop. Please make it stop."
"I can't, Nezi," the older girl said; left on her own as the best choice available since Sister Sofia had been killed. "I'm only twelve."
In time, the sounds of firing abated. Yet Josefina was afraid to venture out. They were safe where they were. Father had said they would be.
But if it got much hotter . . .
* * *
Montoya heard the chopper approaching. Perhaps, better said, he felt it. He really couldn't hear much of anything. His eardrums had burst from the impact of a flock of 2.75 inch folding fin aerial rockets on the chapel roof.
He tried to move his head to the side. Oh, God . . . nausea. His eyes seemed not to want to focus. He forced them, willed them to do so.
Amidst bodies and pieces of bodies, most far too young to have been in that place, at that time, nausea quickened and grew worse. The priest shut his eyes, let nausea wash over him and away. Thought . . . tried to think . . . of something. . . .
* * *
The helicopters were distant, their steady wop-wop-wop no louder than the drone of a mosquito. Hands roughly, but no more so than circumstances warranted, pulled Montoya off of Schmidt's body. Montoya opened his eyes; friendly faces, black and brown and white. Round eyes.
"Oh God," he tried to whisper. "See to my lieutenant. I'm fine, I tell you. Check Jack."
" 'Jack's' okay, Sergeant. He'll be fine. But let's take a look at you." Busy hands cut away a blood-soaked fatigue jacket, slashed off torn trousers.
"Vug! Stick 'im."
"What happened, Sergeant? How'd you get hit?"
Pain began to ebb as th
e morphine spread through Montoya's ruined body. He found himself able to answer, if barely. "Grenade. Couldn't get rid of it in time. Had to . . . to . . ."
Montoya felt the calm pat of the medic. "Later, Sergeant. For now, let's get the two of you home."
Opening his eyes, Montoya could actually see the medevac helicopter, though its blade was only a blur. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the morphia.
