A state of disobedience

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 I will ever be—can take care of any tower they might put up to snipe at us. If they use tanks there are the "special" bottles.

Miguel referred not to flammable Molotov cocktails but to bottles of household ammonia, good for taking out any tank in the world. This was not only true if the tank had an air filtration system, but especially if it had an air filtration system. Ammonia molecules were smaller than oxygen molecules. They would pass through any filter that would pass oxygen through. The bottles were positioned around the mission's adobe wall.

Miguel spared a surreptitious glance at hidden position and emplacements. The police have no clue about the weapons; all we are letting them see are the old ones we had. We have a chance.

"Gas!" Montoya announced, half unexpectedly. The boys immediately started fumbling with their cumbersome, clumsy face masks as the priest counted off, "One thousand, two thousand . . ."

* * *

Sergeant Akers walked off alone and made a cell phone call directly to the Chief. "Captain Nagy? Boss, there's nearly a thousand feds here. Twelve from the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. Thirty-seven from BATF. About nineteen from the Department of Justice. A hundred man maintenance and support team for the armored vehicles Fort Hood loaned them. They have about thirty-five cooks with them. Four 'observers' from . . . well, I think they're from Delta. You know, the Special Forces types? Act that way, anyway. Arrogant folks, you know? Then there's two full companies from the Secret Service. Over four hundred in that crew. Plus there are two more companies of riot control troops from the Office of the Surgeon General. Oh . . . and something like twenty-one folks toting guns from the Environmental Protection Agency. No, sir. No, I haven't a clue what EPA thinks they're doing here."

"Yessir. Tell the governor. Forty-eight hours. No more. In forty-eight hours the feds will assault."

Grimly, Akers shut off his own phone, closed the cover, and contemplated a dilemma he had never thought to confront.

* * *