For one thing, I lived in Texas all my life. I know what a Tex-Mex sounds like, speakin' English or Spanish. And Puerto Ricans aren't too common back home. So why do you suppose that of all the people they interviewed on TV about the mission and the priest weren't a one of 'em that had a proper Tex-Mex accent, but a whole bunch of 'em sounded like the Puerto Ricans I'd met? In particular, they sounded like some Puerto Ricans I met once who came from New York.
I stopped once, in a small town in Missouri, and I bought me two papers. One was the local town's; the other was the New York Times. Funniest thing how the local town's was full of mail from readers, a good chunk of which was in favor of Texas and against the feds while the Times was nothin' but hate mail directed at Texas, the governor, and anything having to do with them.
I didn't know if that was how folks up north really felt, if it was the news making 'em feel like that, or if they were maybe . . . pickin' and choosin' what got into the paper. And if they were doin' that, I wondered what else they were playin' games with.
* * *
Atlanta, Georgia
The head of Global News Network didn't normally have to force himself to think of himself as a "big man." He was not only physically large; he was rich, he was powerful, he was even rather famous around the world. He had grown used to people treating him with a certain respect and deference.
He was shocked.
Somehow, the man had come to believe that Wilhelmina Rottemeyer was a kindred soul; another person whose fondest desires were an end to want, a government that cared, a respecter of the law. And yet, when he had voiced complaints to the White House about what he saw as dangerous abridgments to the First Amendment he was met with scorn.
He was very shocked.
"So you listen here, you stupid bastard," said the unnamed man in the suit with a bulge under the left shoulder, "I don't care about your 'Freedom of the Fucking Press.' The President has said the gloves are off with dealing with assholes like you. She hasn't got time to sugarcoat this crap any more. You will broadcast what you are told to, and only what you are permitted. Is that clear enough even for a moron like you?"
Summoning his courage—the head of the network asked, "And what if I don't?"
The suit picked up the phone from the desk and dialed a number. On the other end someone answered the phone. "This is McCarthy. Put the lady of the house on the phone. She needs to have a little chat with her husband."
"What do you think you are doing? Where the hell did you get my home number?"
The suit just smiled, beneficently, and handed the phone over with the words, "Why don't you ask your pretty new wife what she thinks you should do?"
Whatever the standards of the American press as a whole, the head of Global News was no coward. For himself, he feared essentially nothing. Yet, the color drained from his face as the head of the news agency listened to his near hysterical bride describe what had transpired at their lavish home—the knock, the forcing of the door, the manhandling of her and their young son . . . the slaps . . . her split, puffy lips. When she was finished, he returned the phone to its receiver and said, ashen faced, "I'll play along. Just don't hurt my family."
The suit's smile broadened further. "Well, then, I am glad you are going to be sensible. Not everyone is being so, you know?"
* * *
Fort Dix, New Jersey
Most of the major media didn't need the lesson administered to GNN. Leftward leaning already, they were more than happy with Rottemeyer's program. There were some few, however, who did need some sterner measures.
In this former military base turned partial federal prison those who were not being "sensible" came in by twos and threes and tens and twenties. Shorn of hair, and dignity, the dissidents were quickly and efficiently processed into the general population. Fortunately, for them, this was a fairly low security prison. They were spared the very worst that the system had to offer in the way of roommates.
What they had was bad enough, even so.
There was, however, a saving grace. In order to leave, all the assembled newscasters, editors, and writers had to do was sign a paper admitting their complicity in "treasonable activities" and promising to cooperate with federal authorities in the future.
At first, none would. Some few days later, after a particularly nasty homosexual gang rape, a few would. A week later still, and with a regular session of beatings for the recalcitrant, a few more signed and were duly released. Then the heat was turned off in the prison barracks until, as it was announced, the members of the press corps in those barracks decided to cooperate with the authorities.
At that point, the authorities stopped providing physical "corrective measures." There was no need as the freezing nonpolitical prisoners warmed their limbs through strenuous exercise. After that, some of the talking heads would need extensive prosthetic dental work before they could hope to resume their old jobs.
The number of resistors shrank daily thereafter.
* * *
Washington, DC
There was a great shuffling of chairs as Rottemeyer and her Cabinet took their places for the daily crisis management conference. Of course, some aspects of the problem were no longer in crisis management mode.
"I always knew the press corps were pussies," mused a highly amused James Carroll. "No offense," he said to Rottemeyer.
"None taken. And how goes 'Project Ogilvie'?"
"Not bad. Not bad at all, really. We are filling the airways and the papers with every nasty, dirty, and underhanded thing we can think of to say about that fucking priest, his goddamned sister, and Texas in general."
"Fine, fine," commented Rottemeyer. "Be sure to pass on to your people how much I appreciate the fine job they are doing."
"I'll do that, of course. But, Willi, this is a labor of love for most of them."
McCreavy, also present, was sickened by the very idea of "Project Ogilvie." To her mind this was nothing less than the destruction of the First Amendment and the rights it guaranteed. She had given most of her life, in large part, to the defense of those rights and others. Now, she could see, all was lost.
But she had also spent too much time in uniform to argue with the boss.
"Willi, I have some bad news. We were hoping that Texas would be too poorly armed to put up much resistance when we roll."
McCreavy paused, contemplating the news she had received, news of tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of buried rifles, now unearthed and in hostile hands. She considered news of arms shipments through Mexico. She shivered slightly from rumors among the arms dealers of the world of massive shipments of heavy, Chinese-made arms currently in transit.
She decided to speak mostly of more local and immediate matters.
"I have learned, however, that the Third Corps commander, General Bennigsen, left them a great deal of all kinds of war materiel when he and the Corps pulled out. Bennigsen has been relieved of his command and is going to be turned over to the FBI on charges of treason."
"Shit! Fuck!" fumed Rottemeyer, banging her hand against her desk. "What's that do to our plans? Damn it!"
Embarrassed, McCreavy answered, "It's going to make them a lot harder to take down. Worse, Intelligence says they are bringing in enough foreign arms to make them a very tough contender."
"How are they getting the arms, from where?"
"Some of the lighter stuff—rifles, machine guns and such—is coming over the border with Mexico. Apparently they are buying from the Chinese, paying cash to boot."
"Paying cash with money they have printed at our currency facility. Bastards! Where else are the weapons coming from?"