Tom Kratman - A State of Disobedience

A State of Disobedience

Table of Contents

Prologue:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Interlude:

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Interlude:

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Interlude:

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue:

Appendix

A State of Disobedience

Tom Kratman

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-7170-9

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, December 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

To Hillary, Janet, and Lon

Prologue:

From:Staring Into the Abyss: A History of the North American Republic in the First Quarter of the

* * *

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, at no time since 1860 had the United States of America stood

as close to civil war as it did a mere eight years after the turn of the century. With unprecedented sharp

divisions in political, economic and social philosophy; with a near perfect balance in the electorate, the

Congress, and the utterly political Supreme Court; with the growing specter of political failure equating to

the levying of criminal charges, conviction and prison, politics—American politics—had become a very

dangerous game indeed.

This was brought home to all with the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of former President Thomas

Jefferson Gates on charges of corruption, bribe taking, rape, aggravated sexual assault, unnatural acts,

abuse of office, misappropriation of funds, and treason, the imprisonment itself leading to the former chief

of state's beating, homosexual rape and murder by strangulation after his Secret Service detail was

withdrawn by presidential order. It could well be said that no national-level politician could any longer

afford to lose an election; the consequences had simply become too dire.1

No more could one political party or the other afford losing its control of at least one body of the

government: Executive, Legislative or Judicial, for without some political or quasi-political safe harbor,

some means of countering and stymieing the opposing party, every member of each party faced a similar

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fate. None were whole; none pure, and all knew it.

Yet, despite this mutual interest in maintaining the balance of power, the rewards of attaining control

were simply too great to be forgone. For the Democrats, control—could it but be achieved—would

make the revolution begun in the 1930s complete. Control of the economy, control of education, control

of the environment (difficult to understand now, with the then-common predictions of ecological disaster

proven wrong, but a powerful concern at the time); could all three branches be made to fall to the

Democracy, however briefly in theory, the Democrats could so arrange matters that no one and nothing

could ever remove them from power, or alter their vision of America's proper and just future.

For the Republicans, however, the Democratic dream was a nightmare: thought control through linguistic

control, micromanagement of the economy by those least suited to economic power, social engineering

under the aegis of the most doctrinaire of the social engineers, disarmament of the population and the

creation of a police state to rival that of Stalin or Hitler, at least in its scope if not by design in its evil.

Indeed, it could be said that it was precisely the seventy years of open and quasi war with first Hitler,

then Stalin, then with the heirs of Stalin that had put the United States in the position in which it found

itself at the beginning of the 21stCentury.

For, as a wise man of the times had once put it, "You should choose your enemies carefully, because

you are going to become just like them."

And so, subtly, too slowly to be perceived, the United States had become—if not "just," then certainly

much—like its erstwhile enemies.

Not that there had been great choice in the matter. Faced with totalitarian propaganda, the United States

had learned to twist truth in self-defense. Faced with planned economies, economies able to challenge the

west only through inflicting deprivations on the workers, the United States had been forced to greater and

greater economic control emanating from Washington. Faced with the possibility of armed invasion

(though we know now that was never a realistic concern) the central federal government was forced into

taking on more and more responsibility under the aegis of national self-defense.

From the national highway system (to move the military to the ports and defense materials to and from

the factories) to the school lunch program (to provide educable cannon fodder for the wars and

campaigns) to rates and levels of taxation we can today only marvel at (to pay for waging an often hidden

conflict by land, sea, air, in space and—through propaganda and strings-attached foreign aid—in the

hearts of the uncommitted); each and every spurt of growth in federal power, each Republican-detested

centralization of authority, the Republicans had themselves fought for, at a minimum acquiesced in, in the

interests of winning the seventy year war.

Yet, less than a generation after the successful closure of that interminable conflict the United States

found itself as thoroughly divided into two hostile camps as had been the world previously.

Briefly, things seemed to be on the road to improvement. National political and philosophical differences

seemed cast aside one terrible morning in 2001 amidst the shrieks of thousands of bombed, battered,

burning victims of a vicious terrorist attack that threw all awry.

With the screams of the dying in their ears, the vision of the flames seared onto their eyes, no one, not

Republican, not Democrat, not the man or woman on the streets resisted for a moment the most severe

curtailing of civil liberties in the history of the Republic. Thus when, seven years later, the United States

emerged victorious from what was known in some circles as "The Arab War," in some as "The Moslem

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War," in most as "The War against Terror," not only were all the previous differences found to be still

largely intact, the mechanisms of control had been much improved and enhanced.

Worse, as it had been in 1860, the balance was near perfect . . . and perfectly precarious. The slightest

shift left or right could tumble the entire shaky edifice into ruin, even into civil war.

Fortunately, at that time the right person, the right woman, appeared at hand.

Chapter One

From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of

Virginia v. Alvin Scheer

* * *

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MR. STENNINGS:

Q. Sir, Please state your name for the Judge.

A. Scheer, Your Honor, sir. Alvin G. Scheer.

Q. And where do you live, Mr. Scheer?

A. Well, the past several months, at least, I've been living if you could call it that, at the Fairfax County

Jail. Before that? I lived in Texas, little town called White Deer, not too far from Amarillo.

Q. Mr. Scheer, please tell the judge your story.

A. Yes, sir. Your honor, I understand from Mr. Stennings I need to tell y'all everything. I don't mind. But

where to begin?

If it 'tweren't the worst of times; surely 'twern't the best, neither.

Heard something like that once on an old movie on TV. "Best and worst." Might maybe have come out

of a book. Don't rightly know. I ain't no educated man. Always been just a simple working

man . . . "simple"— that's me. Not sophisticated, you know. Not like them folks over in Washington, the

ones that got all the answers to everything.

I watch 'em. I watch 'em on TV. Got an answer for everything. It used not be so bad; I remember. Used

to be a man could rightly expect a job, a wage to support his family and himself, taxes that didn't eat him

alive. Nope, surely 'twern't the best.

Lotsa folks turned to religion . . .

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Washington, DC

"Willi! Willi!Willi! WILLI!"

The sound grew. Louder and louder the crowd chanted as their goddess ascended the stage to the

podium. The chant's force caused dust to spring up from little unseen corners of the auditorium. It

assaulted the ears. It overwhelmed the senses. It made the internal organs ripple in a way that was

unpleasant to anyone not a devotee of politics.

To Ms. Wilhelmina Rottemeyer, President-Elect of the United States of America, the sound wasorgasm

. Never in her life had a thrusting man entering her body given her such a glorious feeling. To be honest,

never in her life had a man made her feel anything but weight, that and—not infrequently—disgust. Her

ex-husband had mostly made her feel disgust.

Reaching the podium, Rottemeyer surveyed the rainbow sea of devoted, ecstatic faces before her. She

locked eyes with her lover, hertrue lover, retired—and soon to be recalled and promoted—Army

Lieutenant General Caroline McCreavy. McReavy smiled warmly. Another small shudder of orgasm

swept Rottemeyer's body, though it failed to reach her face.

Lifting both arms up and outward, palms down, Rottemeyer made gentle patting motions. Gradually the

sound ebbed. WILLI!Willi! Willi! Willi.

She began to speak. "My people. My people. I have just received a telephone call from the President.

He concedes the electio—"

Louder even than before, the crowd broke out in a mindless animal shriek of fury and victory. Windows

vibrated, threatening to shatter. Rottemeyer vibrated too as she closed her eyes and smiled a sort of

Mona Lisa smile, another little orgasm well hidden.

Eyes opened again. The smile grew wider. It grew divine. All gazed—glassy-eyed,

slack-jawed—worshipping with hearts full to bursting.

"The way was hard. They" (everyone knew that by "they" Rottemeyer meant the Republicans, the

religious right, the antichoice fanatics, the prosperous . . . the people who disagreed with her, in other

words) "fought us long and hard trying to steal this election. They tried every low, dirty, sneaky, legalistic

trick in the book," said W. Rottemeyer . . . Esquire.

"They even murdered the man who should have been standing here today."Or at least we made it look

that way , thought W. Rottemeyer, murderess.

"Anything but accept the will of the People!"

The People howled their outrage and their triumph until quelled again by their leader's gentle pats.

"But now the will of the People is made clear to all. Not only do we control the presidency, but with the

switchovers and gains in both the House and Senate we control the legislature. With that, we will control

the Supreme Court."

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"From this day forward the past is swept away. No longer will we tolerate oppression. No more will we

accept second place. Never again will the rich oppress the poor. In the new, glorious future we will bring

dead white men will finally lose their throttle on progress! My people, the great day ishere !"

* * *

Austin, Texas

"Oh, isn'tthis a great day for the Republic?"

Governor Juanita Montoya-Serasin de Seguin (D, Tx)—she went by her husband's name,

Seguin—smiled benignly upon her tall, slender, graying adjutant general. In her size seven dress—not bad

for a mother of four strong boys—and with her pretty Mexican peasant-woman face, she radiated

maternal warmth and caring. Some said that was what had gotten her elected—"How can you vote

against your mother?"

But Juanita was much more than a face. A shrewd politician? Both her rivals and her supporters said so.

A woman of principle? There too they agreed, though some of them had, sometimes, disagreed with

those principles. Especially did those of her party but not of her state disagree. Juanita was far too

conservative to suit the social-democrat core of her party. In point of fact, she was far more conservative

than many a northern Republican. Texas had always been a funny place; Texas politics rarely quite

matched those of the rest of the country.

"You didn't like Willi's speech, Jack? I thought she did a fine job . . . speaking, that is."

Glaring balefully at his chief (the adjutant general for the State of Texas, like all National Guard officers,

took his oath of office to his governor), Major General John Lewis Schmidt answered, "I could care less

about the speech, Juani. What scares me . . . terrifies would be more like it . . . is that

that . . . that . . . thatwoman has complete control of the federal government for at least the next two

years. Worse, she's got dreams and some of them are doozies."

"Dreams? You think?" Juanita laughed. Sheknew that Rottemeyer had big plans for her presidency; big

plans for society. Some of those dreams Juanita even agreed with, relatively conservative democrat or

not.

Schmidt huffed. "You're just trying to get my goat," he snorted. His sun-worn, leathery face creased in a

broad smile. "Still pissed about the pranks your brother and I used to play on you?"

"Oh, that was long ago. Before the war, even."

"Yes," answered Schmidt, dreamily, "it was before the war."

* * *

"Incoming!"

Lieutenant Schmidt pressed himself deeper into the muddy earth of the paddy as the air was split

by the shattering crump-crump-crump of enemy mortar rounds. The stench of human feces filled

his nostrils, causing his stomach to lurch in protest. Scant inches above him jagged, razor sharp

pieces of 82-millimeter mortar shell casing whined past like so many giant, malevolent mosquitoes

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on a homicidal binge.

Around Schmidt a platoon of Vietnamese Rangers—those left alive—cowered under the withering

hail. He risked a look around and saw the unit's Vietnamese officer running away, his cast off

equipment flying behind him. "Useless dink," he muttered.

A body flopped to the mud next to him. Schmidt tightened his grip on his rifle and began to turn

before he heard a calm voice—under the circumstances a remarkably calm voice, "If we can hang

on until night we ought to make it, Jack."

The lieutenant smiled. "You mean, sir, of course."

"Sure, Jack . . . I mean, 'sir.' " The speaker scratched his nose with a finger, the middle finger of

his left hand.

"Any chance for artillery, Sergeant Montoya?" Schmidt asked, pretending not to have noticed

that his subordinate was giving him the universal salute.

"Not a chance. The VC got the radio when they got the radio man."

"Shit!"

" 'Shit,' " echoed the stocky little Tex-Mex sergeant. Still with a voice of calm he said, "Not a

total loss, though, since that was Lieutenant Dong's excuse for taking off. And we're better off

without him. I'm going to get to work on setting up whatever we can of a perimeter." Without

another word he crawled off toward a knot of soldiers hiding, poorly, in a little shell crater.

Where does he get it; the courage, the calm?wondered an admiring Jack Schmidt.

* * *

"Jack? JACK?"

Focus returned to the old general's eyes. "Sorry, Juani. I was . . . wandering. Thinking about Jorge. It

occurs to me that at the precise moment we were caught in that ambushyour new president and her ex

were calling us murderers and baby killers. Jorge Montoya: a baby killer!"

* * *

Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas

" . . . in nomine Patrii, Filioque et Spiritu Sancti."

A very young baby squalled under the Baptismal waters pouring from the vessel in the hands of Father

Montoya.

Holding the baby, Elpidia—the diminutive fifteen-year-old mother—looked up at the priest nervously.

The Latin words were close enough to the girl's native—albeit poor—Spanish that she sensed the

meaning of the words, if not their theological implications. There had been little of God in the girl's short,

unholy life. In truth, there had been little of anything good. Drugs, sex, sex for drugs, sex for money to

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buy drugs; these had been her universe and her faith.

But that had changed. . . .

* * *

The slender, tiny, and provocatively clad Mexican prostitute shivered in the cold, windy night of a

San Antonio winter. Doing her best to shield her half exposed budding breasts from the wind, the

hooker walked past the little gray pornographic bookstore opposite a well-lit used car lot already

fronted by several working girls on their nightly patrol. Knowing this was not her area, and the

girls already there might object strongly to competition, she continued on her way up Broadway

to another area where the streetwalkers gathered.

"Hi Elpi," greeted one of the transvestites standing outside the bright and cheery Wendy's. "Cold

night to be dressed for 'work.' "

"No help for it, Susan." Politely, Elpidia used the "girl's" working name. "Got to feed the baby

and my man."

Susan nodded her understanding. He (She? It?) likewise was bound as tightly as any slave to the

needs, drug needs in both cases, of a derelict.

The girl continued on to the next corner and began her sales pitch. This was a simple procedure;

she gave the "look" to every passing car that seemed likely to be holding a man, barring only

those that were certain to contain a police officer.

The look? It was something easy to perform, hard to describe, and shared equally by every

prostitute who had ever peddled herself on a corner. Part direct stare, part inviting smile, part

something subliminal, the "look" advertised her services and prices in a way no other form of

advertising could compete with.

Shortly a car pulled over. A quick negotiation session was concluded. Elpidia entered the car,

took her money, and proceeded to work.

Half a night and seven autos later, Elpidia was considering calling it a day. Then she

reconsidered the beating that was sure to follow if she didn't bring home enough money for her

boyfriend's expensive habit and decided on one more try.

She gave the look to a passing Ford Taurus and was immediately rewarded. The Taurus slowed,

turned right, and came to a stop just around the corner. The girl hurried over.

"Looking for a da . . . ?" she asked, then stopped cold, her hooker's false smile suddenly turning

to dread as she recognized the clerical collar on the driver as he turned a severe gaze toward her.

"How old are you, girl?"

* * *

Elpidia no longer wore the garb of a prostitute. She no longer painted her face, in part, to cover the

bruises. Instead, from mission stores she wore clothes that, even though used, still made her look like a

real human being rather than some streetwalking piece of meat.

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Wrapping the newly baptized baby in a fluffy mission-owned towel, Elpidia clutched it to her breast,

patting it dry and whispering soothing motherly sounds. "There, there my little baby. There, theremi

alma, mi corozon . Hush little Pedro. Mama's here and she'll never let anything bad for you happen."

Father Montoya smiled. He thought, I might have had a child like this girl. I might have been a

grandfather this day.

The good father turned away from the girl and her baby, turned toward the several dozen people, most

of them young people, who made up the population of the mission.

He began, "Today we welcome this child into the warm brotherhood of Christ. We give it, through our

Holy Father, a new life, an eternal life. Not for him the never ending death of unbelief, of faithlessness to

God."

"But I hasten to add, it is only through the courage of this little boy's young mother that he was allowed

to see the light of day at all. For many, too many, young boys and girls the darkness comes before they

even are given the chance to see the light. . . ."

* * *

Washington, DC

Bright winter light streamed through the windows, bathing the cold stones of the Capitol Building, as

Rottemeyer, surrounded by her sycophants and security, entered to address a joint session of Congress.

The Congress she was to address was nearly perfect, her instrument, her tool. It consisted of 535

members, 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. Not all of either group were

present, though the vast majority were. Fifty-five senators were from her own Democratic Party, though

three of these were far more Republican than many Republicans. Of the 45 Republicans, three were

nominal; "RINOs" they were called, Republican In Name Only. These could be counted on to vote her

way about three times in four. Of the members of the House, she had an acceptable, even substantial,

majority as well. Never since Franklin Delano Roosevelt held near dictatorial power before and during

the Second World War had a President of the United States wielded such overwhelming political force at

home. Even the Supreme Court was so evenly balanced—though she hoped to unbalance it very

soon—that it was most unlikely to interfere with Rottemeyer's plans in any significant way.

The assembled Congress stood and clapped as she walked down the aisleway to the rostrum, though

the Republicans, most of them, did so out of mere politeness, devoid of enthusiasm.

Senator Ross Goldsmith (Republican, New Mexico) was extremely successful in hiding his enthusiasm.

But then, the enthusiasm of the bespectacled, graying, balding old man was so tiny in scope he could

have hidden it under a gnat. His hands moved together, rhythmically . . . but they never quite touched.

Standing opposite, Goldsmith's old personal friend and old political enemy, Harry Feldman

(Representative, Democrat, New York), noticed Goldsmith's hands, smiled, and redoubled his own

efforts.

Goldsmith simply glared as Feldman mouthed the words, "spoilsport."

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Reaching the rostrum, Rottemeyer smiled at her Vice-President, Walter Madison Howe, by repute a

moderate midwesterner, in fact a purely political animal of little principle. The smile hid her immediate

thought,Reactionary moron. Turning away, she opened the folder containing her speech. This was a

mere formality; she knew it by heart.

"We stand poised on the brink," she began. "We can either go forward, to a new era of peace, progress

and prosperity, or backwards to the dark age of old, backwards to the days when women were kept

barefoot and pregnant, when blacks were lynched in the streets of the south, backwards to ignorance,

want and filth.

"My administration is pledged to work with Congress to go forward, into the future, rather than

backwards to the Republican age of deficits, doubt, debt and decline; recession, repossession and

retrenchment.

"Wemust go forward into the future . . . and we cannot afford to leave anybody behind in the past.

"We are going to invest in America. We are going to invest in a very large way. No more tax cuts for the

rich. No more crimping away social security. Instead we are going to make the rich—and the

corporations they control—pay their fair share for the first time. We are going to expand social security

to ensure that every American can enjoy a comfortable and secure retirement."

Rottemeyer paused, thinking, It still amazes me that anyone falls for that "soak the rich" crap. Impossible,

of course . . . short of a hundred-percent Gift and Estate tax. The corporations just pass the tax on to

consumers like any other sales tax and the truly rich pass their income tax on the same way through

demanding higher returns on their investments. And as long as they all do it together the consumer has no

choice but to pay. Still, it sounds good and helped get me into the White House. Who cares if it's the

truth or not? My job is "divinity." not truth.

She continued, "The people have spoken clearly of the kind of investment in the future they demand. We

are going to a national health care system and we are going to do so very quickly indeed. The people

demand and deserve nothing less.

"The people demand and deserve anational public education system that is second to none. They will

have it. Among other measures that will be sent to Congress for legislative action is a plan for rigorous

testing of schools for quality of education, and national assumption of authority over any schools that fail

that test. In short, we will shut down those schools and reopen them underour guidance, funding them

directly through bypassing the state bureaucracies."

Senator Goldsmith put his head in his hands, thinking, Dear God preserve us. This bitch telling all the

children what they can think.

Feldman simply smiled to himself, thinking, Sure, honey, up to a point. Don't think we'll let you get too

far. Don't get too big for your britches.

"We are also going to put one million new teachers in our classrooms, many of them to go to staff

'Opportunity Academies' to help prepare disadvantaged youths for college. In those academies and in

nationally funded and run charter schools.

"We are going to ensure that college education becomes as universal as high school education is today."

Goldsmith asked silently, Are you going to ensure likewise that that education is as bad as high school

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Tom Kratman - A State of Disobedience

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