Time to Hunt by Stephen Hunter Page B

good order and solid professionalism. A DC Police mass-arrest unit will follow behind, detaining and shipping those demonstrators who do not disperse. Our limit of advance will be the far end of the bridge.”
    “Live ammo, sir?”
    “Negative, negative, I say again, negative. No live ammo. Nobody will be shot today. These are American kids, not VC. We will move out at 0900. Company commanders and senior NCOs, I want you to hold a quick meeting and get your best squads into the line at the point of contact. This is a standard DOD anti-riot drill. All right, people, let’s be professional.”
    “Dismissed!”
    Donny made it back to his squad, as around him other squad leaders were reaching their people. With the weird sensation of a large herbivore awakening, the unit was picking itself up, beginning to form up as each smaller element got instructions. There was some cheering, moderated by ambiguity, but nevertheless a simple expression of the soldier or Marine’s preference for doing anything rather than nothing.
    “We’ll be in that arrow-formation, platoons-abreast thing,” Donny explained. “The sergeant major will be counting cadence.”
    “Bayonets?”
    “On but sheathed. Minimum force. We’re moving these people out of here by our presence. No ammo, no clubbing, just solid Marine professionalism, got it?”
    “Masks?”
    “I
said
masks, Crowe, weren’t you listening? Some CS will be fired.” He looked about. The sergeant major had set up a hundred yards beyond the trucks and now the Marines were streaming to him to form up at the line of departure. Donny looked at his watch. It was 0850.
    “All right, let’s assemble and march to position. Form up on me,
now
!
”
His men rose to him and found their places. He marched them at the double time to a formation that was putting itself together on the broad white band of empty highway.
    P eter held her hand. He was pale but determined, his face still teary from the gas.
    “It’ll be okay,” he kept saying, almost more to himself than to her. There was something so sad about him, she had a tender impulse to draw him toward her and comfort him.
    “All right,” came the amplified voice, “WTOP has a camera in the sky and we’ve just heard that the Marines are forming up to come and move us.”
    “Oh, this is going to be merry,” said Peter. “The Marines.”
    “I want to counsel everybody; you don’t want to resist or you may get clubbed or beaten. Don’t yell at them, don’t taunt them. Just go limp. Remember, this is your bridge, it’s not theirs. We’ve liberated it. We own it. Hell, no, we won’t go.”
    “Hell, no, we won’t go,” repeated Peter.
    “That’s the evil part,” Julie said bitterly. “They don’t come themselves, the guys in the offices who make it happen. They send in Donny, who’s just trying to do his job. He gets the shitty end of the stick.”
    But Peter wasn’t listening.
    “Here they come,” he said, for ahead, out of the blur, they could now see them drawing ever closer in a phalanx of rectitude and camouflage: the United States MarineCorps advancing at the half-trot, rifles at the high port, helmets even, gas masks turning them to insects or robots.
    Hell, no, we won’t go!
came the chant, guttural, from the heart.
Marines, go home!
Then again,
Hell, no, we won’t go!
    T he unit advanced at the half-trot, to the sergeant major’s urgent cadence,
Hup-two-THREE-four, Hup-two-THREE-four
, and Donny’s squad stayed tight in the crowd-control formation, a little to the left of the point of the arrow.
    Jogging actually helped Donny feel a little better; he settled into a steady rhythm, and the constellation of equipment bounded sloppily on his body. His helmet banged, riding the spongy straps of the helmet liner with a kind of liquid mushiness. He felt the sweat run down inside his mask, catch irritatingly at his eyelashes, then flood into his eyes. But it didn’t matter.
    Through the lens of his mask the