“Boertje-Obed slowly led the way up the ridge, going first and flanking with Rice in the middle so they could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t tire due to a very mild heart condition she’d had most of her life. They spread out to avoid detection and angled to the right to soften the incline, but there was still a risk that she would become overtired without someone to occasionally lean on. However, Boertje-Obed had asked her to practice for some weeks before this, and she had done so diligently. Now the three hiked steadily, arriving at the top of the ridge an hour later at 3:30 a.m., their destination in view. Rice was a bit winded but gratified; the rest of the journey that Boertje-Obed now led was downhill. As they continued, they saw vehicles below, and they heard a guard dog bark, but not in alarm. They expected this. Rice had already decided that if she were attacked by the guard dogs, she would not resist. As a biologist and lifelong lover of animals, she had no will to ever hurt a dog, and she could accept being maimed if it came to that. When pressed on this point, she almost seemed to welcome it, but it’s also possible to believe a dog might sense that and not try to harm her. Walli has said in many contexts that he would happily have died for Rice that night, and he considered himself her protector. She has said on more than one occasion that he was her guardian angel.
“They reached the next fence, this one fortified with barbed wire and festooned with a sign proclaiming 'Danger: Halt! Deadly force is authorized beyond this point.' As if in response, they took their time at this point, and carefully spray-painted words at the base in all caps: 'DISARM. TRANSFORM. PEACE NOT WAR.' Then they splashed blood over the words. They hung a banner on the fence, 'SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES SPEARS INTO PRUNING HOOKS.' Again, Boertje-Obed cut through the fence and, with Rice slowly leading, they passed through. Before moving on, they hung a banner on the other side reading 'Never again,' featuring a painting of the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki.”
