Read Online A state of disobedience by Tom Kratman - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: Action & Adventure
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medical supplies. There's one radio and half a dozen batteries. Good luck, friend. I'll do what I can. I am trying. There's a cell phone in there, one of those disposable jobs. Give your sister a call, why don't you."
* * *
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.
* * *
PGSS Headquarters, Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas
The tall, thin to the point of emaciated, civilian-dressed man drew no interest from anyone present. His white ten-gallon hat perched back on his head shouted "Yokel!" to everyone present. That he had as open, kind and friendly a face as one might ever hope to see only confirmed the impression.
And indeed, Sergeant Johnson Akers, Texas Rangers, was every bit as open and friendly and kind as his face portrayed.
He was also a stone-cold killer; nerveless, unstoppable, impossible-to-intimidate. In all the history of the Texas Rangers and their higher headquarter, the Texas Department of Public Safety, only one man had ever won the Medal of Valor twice.
That man, with his open, gentle, kindly, grandfather's face, sat quietly under his ten-gallon hat, keeping careful track of every federal law enforcement agent, detachment and observer on site . . . and reporting the same to his chief.
What few knew, outside of the Rangers, was that Sergeant Akers had won both medals in the course of saving children.
* * *
Sister Sofia sat on a rocking chair surrounded by the twenty-six children of the mission aged twelve and under. (The older ones were either guarding the mission's thick adobe walls, doing necessary work to keep the operation running, or being trained by Father—as best he could under the circumstances—on the dozen rifles and two night vision scopes sent by Schmidt.)
The delivery of two and a half tons of canned and dried food had, to a degree, alleviated Sofia's concerns in the commissary department—though re-hydrating Army "B"-rations had proven problematic to people who had never seen them. Nonetheless, food was food, even if it sometimes crunched when you bit it.
Still, the possibility—she could not bring herself to think "probability" let alone "certainty"—of a federal assault on the mission set her stomach to churning and brought tears to her eyes. Her innocent little ones under fire? No. Never. It was unthinkable.
So she led the children in songs, mostly but not entirely of a religious nature, while the elders, in many cases the teenaged parents, stood to and prepared for the worst.
* * *
"Now if worst comes to worst and they get over the wall we fall back to the main chapel," Montoya instructed his boys. Miguel looked to the chapel behind him and nodded understanding. He thought, Father's plan is a good one. From behind the wall only those exposing themselves can shoot at us. And unless they come over in a huge group we will outnumber them. From underneath the central water tank, Julio—who is a better shot than
* * *
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.
* * *
PGSS Headquarters, Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas
The tall, thin to the point of emaciated, civilian-dressed man drew no interest from anyone present. His white ten-gallon hat perched back on his head shouted "Yokel!" to everyone present. That he had as open, kind and friendly a face as one might ever hope to see only confirmed the impression.
And indeed, Sergeant Johnson Akers, Texas Rangers, was every bit as open and friendly and kind as his face portrayed.
He was also a stone-cold killer; nerveless, unstoppable, impossible-to-intimidate. In all the history of the Texas Rangers and their higher headquarter, the Texas Department of Public Safety, only one man had ever won the Medal of Valor twice.
That man, with his open, gentle, kindly, grandfather's face, sat quietly under his ten-gallon hat, keeping careful track of every federal law enforcement agent, detachment and observer on site . . . and reporting the same to his chief.
What few knew, outside of the Rangers, was that Sergeant Akers had won both medals in the course of saving children.
* * *
Sister Sofia sat on a rocking chair surrounded by the twenty-six children of the mission aged twelve and under. (The older ones were either guarding the mission's thick adobe walls, doing necessary work to keep the operation running, or being trained by Father—as best he could under the circumstances—on the dozen rifles and two night vision scopes sent by Schmidt.)
The delivery of two and a half tons of canned and dried food had, to a degree, alleviated Sofia's concerns in the commissary department—though re-hydrating Army "B"-rations had proven problematic to people who had never seen them. Nonetheless, food was food, even if it sometimes crunched when you bit it.
Still, the possibility—she could not bring herself to think "probability" let alone "certainty"—of a federal assault on the mission set her stomach to churning and brought tears to her eyes. Her innocent little ones under fire? No. Never. It was unthinkable.
So she led the children in songs, mostly but not entirely of a religious nature, while the elders, in many cases the teenaged parents, stood to and prepared for the worst.
* * *
"Now if worst comes to worst and they get over the wall we fall back to the main chapel," Montoya instructed his boys. Miguel looked to the chapel behind him and nodded understanding. He thought, Father's plan is a good one. From behind the wall only those exposing themselves can shoot at us. And unless they come over in a huge group we will outnumber them. From underneath the central water tank, Julio—who is a better shot than
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