Free Time to Hunt by Stephen Hunter Page B

isolated from it terribly: he wasn’t a part of it. And he didn’t feel as if he were a part of the Marine Corps anymore.
    “Okay,” he finally said, “I ought to be getting back. We may be on alert. If not, can I come by tomorrow?”
    “I’ll try and break off tomorrow if nothing’s happening here. We don’t even know ourselves what’s going on. They say we’re going to march to the Pentagon over the weekend. More theater.”
    “Please be careful.”
    “I will.”
    “I’ll figure out what we have to do to get married legally. It might be better to hide it from the Corps. They’re all assholes. Then after it’s done, the paperwork will catch up to us.”
    “Donny, I love you. Ever since that date when you were with Peggy Martin and I realized I
hated
her for being with you. Ever since then.”
    “We will have a wonderful life. I promise.”
    Then he saw someone approaching him swiftly. It was Trig, with Peter Farris and several other acolytes following in his wake.
    “Hey,” he called, “it just came over the radio. The Military District of Washington has just declared a full alert and all personnel are supposed to report to their duty stations.”
    “Oh, shit,” said Donny.
    “It’s beginning,” said Julie.

C HAPTER F IVE
    A flare floated in the night. Lights throbbed and swept. The gas was not so bad now, and the mood was generous, even adventurous. It had the air of a huge camp-out, a jamboree of some sort. Who was in charge? Nobody. Who made these decisions? Nobody. The thing just happened, almost miraculously, by the sheer osmosis of the May Tribe.
    At the Pentagon almost nothing had happened. It was all theater. By the time Julie and Peter and their knot of Arizona crusaders actually got onto government property, the word had come back that the Army and the police weren’t arresting anybody and they could stand on the grass in front of the huge ministry of war forever and nothing would happen. It was determined by someone that the Pentagon itself wasn’t a choke point, and it made more sense, therefore, to occupy the bridges before the morning rush hour and in that way close down the city and the government. Others would besiege the Justice Department, another favorite target of opportunity.
    So now they marched along, past the big Marriott Hotel on the right, toward the Fourteenth Street Bridge just ahead. Julie had never seen anything like this: it was a movie, a battle of joy, a stage show, every pep rally and football game she had ever been to. Excitement thrummed in the moist air; overhead, police and Army helicopters buzzed.
    “God, have you ever seen
anything
like this?” she said to Peter.
    He replied, “You can’t marry him.”
    “Oh, Peter.”
    “You can’t. You just can’t.”
    “I’m going to marry him next week.”
    “You probably won’t be out of jail next week.”
    “Then I’ll marry him the week after.”
    “They won’t let him.”
    “We’ll do it secretly.”
    “There’s too much important work to be done.”
    They passed the Marriott, maybe fifty abreast and a half-mile long, a mass of kids. Who led them? A small knot at the front with bullhorns of the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice; but more realistically, their own instincts led them. The professional organizers merely harnessed and marginally directed the generational energy. Meanwhile, the smell of grass rose in the air, and the sound of laughter; now and then a news helicopter would float down from the sky, hover and plaster them with bright light. They’d wave and dance and chant.
    ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
    WE DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR
    or
        
HO, HO, HO CHI MINH
    N-L-F IS GONNA WIN
    or
        
END THE WAR NOW
    END THE WAR NOW
.
    That’s when the first tear gas hit.
    It was acrid and biting and its overwhelming power to disorient could not be denied. Julie felt her eyes knit in pain, and the world suddenly began to whirl about. The air itself became the enemy. Screams rose,