Chapter Eight
If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
—William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Zabol, Pashtia, Terra Nova, 7/9/459 AC
Even through fifty meters of rock and soil the men below could still feel the bombs going off overhead. They shook the ground, making the lights flicker and raising dust to fill the narrow cramped corridors and rooms. No matter, the cave was deep and safe. Even at its entrance, where the FS Air Force could toss bombs with frightening precision, strong baffles prevented any harm from reaching those lower. Besides, there were dozens of false entrances for each real one, though they were tolerably hard to see. Even the FS had some limits on their ability to bomb.
Feeling quite safe from the bombing, Abdul Aziz ibn Kalb still withered under the glare of his chief. Not that the glare was directed at him personally; no, not at all. The glare was directed at a report just received from the organization's cell in, of all places, Balboa. Interference on the part of the Ikhwan's great adversary had delayed receipt for some time.
"How dare they? How dare they? By the nine and ninety beautiful names of Allah how damned dare they shoot down five believers and beat a sixth to death? How dare they even think of joining this new 'crusade' against us? Little pissants!"
Aziz forced himself to stand tall and corrected, "They didn't. Just one man killed six Salafis in an outlying town. "Self defense," the local police said. Maybe it was, too."
"No matter; the lives of any number of infidels are as nothing compared to the life of even one of the true believers. And then there's this other swine trying to raise political support for aiding the Columbians. Well, we'll just have to put a stop to that."
The chief rubbed worry beads between thumb and forefinger. "What cells do we have in Balboa?" he asked.
Aziz had an answer ready, of course. He'd expected the question. "We have one 'expeditor' cell, one informational cell, three direct action cells and one command cell. Twenty-three people total."
"The direct action cells? What are their missions?"
Again, Aziz had the answers ready to hand. "One of them is trained for ship seizure and pilotage. They were intended to be able to grab a ship and ram the locks of the Balboa Transitway. But it has to be a special ship, one carrying explosives or LNG, or perhaps fertilizer, to really do damage."
"Any such ship coming through the Transitway soon?" the chief asked.
"No, Sheik, we really weren't thinking about attacking Balboa for a few years. The other cells are directed at, in the one case, the trans- Isthmian pipeline that sends oil from the State of McKinley to the Shimmering Sea for shipment to the Federated States' west coast. Heating oil mostly. In the others, they are bombers. Their status report says they are capable of detonating two to four truck bombs."
The chief mulled a bit. "Pipelines and truck bombs. Hmmm . . . "
Casa Linda, 21/9/459 AC
"Don't sweat it, Dan. You and the boys have worked miracles."
Despite the words, Carrera could not keep the disappointment out of his voice. It was true; the staff had worked miracles. They knew the required personnel and equipment strength down to the last item. By dint of sixteen hour days—eighteen hours, some days—they had designed tables of organization and equipment for every required formation. They had devised detailed programs of instruction for officers, senior noncoms, and enlisted men. They had charted out training areas, ranges, and had at least a tentative plan for barracks. They had the sketch of an adequate recruiting organization. Working with Jimenez, Parilla and Fernandez, they had most of the core cadre sketched out as well: mostly good people with only a few politically necessary hacks.
What they could not do was take that cadre of officers and senior noncoms, having only the most limited of combat arms experience, with no background in armored warfare, artillery, combat engineering, chemical warfare, mountain operations, counter-guerilla warfare, complex staff planning, a host of esoteric military skills and attributes, and make them competent overnight.
Apologetically, Kuralski answered, "Three years, Pat . . . or maybe four at the outside. That we could do ourselves. But not in fifteen months. Not in time for the spring, 461 campaign." Kuralski hesitated, then said, "Pat, outside of a couple of us we don't even speak enough Spanish yet to train them."
"I understand. Not your fault." Carrera sighed. "Go hit the rack, Dan. Maybe something will turn up."
Carrera closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, elbows resting on the kitchen table.
Before leaving, Kuralski turned and said, "Pat, Daugher had a death in his family in Dragonback Pass. He's asked if he can take a couple of weeks' leave. Bowman wanted to go with him, said he'd never been to Dragonback. Any problem?"
Carrera, despondent, said, "Sure. Let them go. No problem."
Satisfied, Kuralski left Carrera alone with his troubles.
Lourdes found him there like that, unmoving, head still in his hands. She padded in on bare feet, silently. At least, if Carrera had heard he gave no sign. She thought, How very sad and tired he looks. Poor man.
She reached a hand to pat him lightly on the back. The hand never touched; when it was a bare inch from him she drew it back. He had never invited her to touch him in any way. She didn't feel right doing so now.
Instead, Lourdes backed off, walked around the wooden table and took a chair opposite her boss.
That, Carrera heard. Though his eyes remained closed he recognized her familiar sounds. He said, "Hello, Lourdes. What's keeping you awake so late?"
"Nothing, really," the girl answered. "I came down for a glass of milk and found you here. What's wrong, Patricio?"
Eyes still shut, chin resting on steepled fingers, he answered, "Everything."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Want? No. Need? Maybe so. I am trying to build a force to avenge my family. You know this. We have made some pretty good strides in that regard, too. But I have three problems . . . and they appear insurmountable."
Lourdes made an inquisitive sound. Carrera continued.
"First off, no matter what we have planned, the staff informs me— and I believe them—that there is no way for us to put a useful force into the war in a timely fashion. 'Three years,' they tell me, 'maybe four.' Then there's Parilla. He thought he could swing the government around to supporting us. He can't. He's pulled every string, called in every favor, and we're still short the votes we need. Lastly, my damned cousin. I could afford to bribe enough politicians if I had control of my Uncle Bob's estate. I do not. Cuz found a lawyer who would . . . at least I guess he would . . . support him for an estate fight. So it looks like everything we have done so far is wasted."
Eyes still shut tight Carrera moved his right hand to massage both sides of his nose with index finger and thumb.
"It looks pretty hopeless."
Lourdes chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "I can't think of anything to do about the will or the government, Patricio, but . . . oh what's that word in English?"
"Try Spanish," Carrera suggested.
"No, no," Lourdes insisted. "I don't think we have a similar word. I'll remember it. I'll . . . outsourcing?"
Carrera's eyes flew wide. The irises swiveled like twin turrets to focus on the girl. "Say that again."
"Outsourcing. You know, where you hire outside . . ."
"I know what it means." A trace of excitement crept into his voice, along with some self-contempt. "I have many flaws, Lourdes. One of these is pride. One of the effects of that pride is a tendency not to look outside myself or whatever group I control for help when I need it. Lourdes, go wake Dan, would you? Then call the airport and get me a flight for ummm . . . where the hell did I read Abogado had settled down to? Ah, I recall. I need a flight for Phoenix Rising, in the Federated States. Hmmm. For the day after tomorrow, I think. Lastly, make me an appointment for tomorrow afternoon with a corporate law firm in Ciudad Balboa."
Lourdes nodded and got up to go.
Carrera held up a hand to stop her. "And Lourdes? Neither I nor all my damned geniuses could come up with that trick. But you did. Thank you."
Unsure as to quite why, Lourdes felt a bounce in her step and happiness in her heart as she left the kitchen.
City Recycling Plant,
Phoenix Rising,
Oglethorpe, FSC, 23/9/459 AC
Some things in human civilization are eternal. Among these is the tedious, tiresome and, above all, odiferous task of waste disposal. Carrera could smell the plant from five miles away. Worse, the speed of the auto was greater than olfactory fatigue could deal with. The stink only grew worse.
Nor had it ended by the time he was invited into the office of Major General (Retired) Kenneth Abogado.
"It was good of you to see me, General, on such short notice," Carrera said, "and especially right after Thanksgiving."
General Abogado merely smiled. (Though perhaps "shit-eating grin" described the smile better.) He smiled first because it pleased him to be remembered as a soldier and as a general officer; not everyone with whom he came in contact had the good manners to do so. He smiled second that an offer had been made to him—better said, suggested to him—that might, just might, help him escape from the constant smell of human shit being recycled. Life had been hard for Abogado since leaving the army—hard, disappointing and degrading.
"My name is Pat Hennessey, though I go by Carrera now. I doubt you remember me, but we've met."
Abogado frowned in concentration. He stared for a moment at Carrera's eyes.
"I remember now," he said. "You're the one who lectured me when you were a lieutenant on the problems with subcaliber ranges; how the other full scale things that visible ruined the training effect.
"And you had the beautiful wife," he announced, remembering a single dance at a single officers' event with the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
"Yes. The general has a good memory. As for my wife . . . 'had' is the word," Carrera said bitterly. "In a way that's why I am here."
Abogado started to open a desk drawer where he kept a pistol. Then he remembered he had never even considered trying to sleep with this man's wife. He closed the drawer and relaxed.
Carrera explained to Abogado, coldly—no tears now, no emotion showing through his armor—what had happened to his family.
"Son, that's a tough break," was all Abogado could say.
"Very tough," Carrera agreed, nodding. "Nor am I going to just take it. But I seem to have hit a wall." In a few sentences he explained what he had done to date in Balboa and what he was trying to do.
"I have several problems, but only one of those can you help me with."
"Help? How?"
"You are familiar with Professional Military Personnel Resources and what they do?"
"I know about them," Abogado spat out bitterly. "They shut me out. Just shut me out. And me the best trainer of infantry in the goddamned army, too."
"I'm not a huge fan of PMPR, either, General. And yes, you were very good," Carrera agreed. "Would you like the chance to train soldiers again?"
Ordinarily Abogado would have played a little hard to get, to sweeten the deal, whatever it was. However, at about that time the wind outside shifted and an overpowering whiff of recycled and recycling human feces assaulted his nose. "Where do I sign?"
"Not so simple," Carrera cautioned. "You haven't even heard what I need."
"Seems obvious. You need someone to train and lead an expeditionary force."
Carrera sighed. He hated to disappoint the old man. A bastard Abogado may have been, but he'd been very kind and patient with up-and-coming lieutenants. Yet . . . Abogado was old. He might have been quite something in his younger days. Indeed, he had been quite something. But he could never stand that kind of pace again.
Carrera sighed and shook his head again. "No, sir. We have a commander already. And a deputy. And a staff. What I need is a school. You have done that, and done it very well. That's why I am here; to offer to let you do so again."
Abogado kept the disappointment off of his face and out of his voice. Yet, I am not too old, a part of his mind insisted. I am not!
"Details?" he asked resignedly.
"In the big picture," Carrera said, "I am having a lawyer down there form a corporation. It will be called FMTGRB: 'Foreign Military Training Group, Republic of Balboa.' Inc., of course. Or, rather 'S.A.' Means the same thing.
"If you accept my offer, the day-to-day running of this corporation will be yours, within certain guidelines my people in Balboa are working on."
"And this corporation is to do precisely what?"
"Well, I am willing to listen to reason on this but basically I need a group to train officers, warrants and senior noncoms. I need one shortened Command and General Staff College course for about one hundred officers. Then I need that CGSC to morph itself into a general purpose, all-arms advanced course for about another hundred. Then I need it to morph again into a combined Officer Candidate School and Officer Basic Course. After that, this group is to change back into a small CGSC, a small Advanced Course, and a continuing OCS."
"Clear enough. I would need maybe twenty . . . oh, possibly twenty-four good men for that. I could find them, I'm sure."
Carrera nodded. This was close enough to his own estimate. "Second, I need a Noncommissioned Officers Academy. We will need to take Senior NCOs and bring them into the real military world, take middle and junior NCOs and prep them to be platoon leaders and platoon sergeants—"
Abogado interrupted, "You mean send them to OCS?"
Carrera shook his head in an emphatic no. "They'll need much of the same training, yes, but I intend to follow the Sachsen model in this and keep a very small officer corps, about three percent of strength. Most platoons will be led by NCOs. Anyway, call this Group Two of FMTG; the officer group being Group One.
"Then I need something like FS Army Ranger School—call it, 'Cazador School'—to take the best of new privates and select from them those who have that . . . oh . . . certain something that makes for a really good officer or senior NCO.
"The last groups are a little fuzzy right now. My staff is still working on requirements. Basically, though, we'll need a center for training and testing of large battalions or small regiments, a service support training group that will also train specialists and warrant officers, a small naval school, a flight school for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, and you will need a small headquarters yourself."
Abogado whistled. "Tall order."
"Yes. Very. Can you do it?" Carrera asked.
The old general raised one quizzical eyebrow. "Can you fund it?"
"Not yet," Carrera conceded. "Rather, I can fund part of it now, but not all, not just yet. That must await developments."
"You mean, 'Don't quit my day job,' right?" Abogado's voice was heavy with disappointment.
Carrera pondered for a moment. "No. Quit your day job. Get away from the smell of shit and come back to the land of flowers. You, at least, I can support for a term of years."
"Let me make a few calls, first. Is that all right?"
"Surely, General. But, to be fair, I ought to tell you I have appointments over the next two days with Generals Schneider at the Catlett Foundation and Friesland on the other side of Phoenix Rising."
Abogado scowled. "Cancel 'em. I'll take the job. By the way, what does it pay?"
Carrera smiled broadly despite the smell of sewage. "Enough."
First Landing, Hudson,
FSC, 23/9/459 AC
"I have had about enough of this place," announced Bowman. Daugher muttered agreement under his breath.
The two had flown to Dragonback. There they'd met some of Daugher's old motorcycle gang and borrowed a car. Then they'd driven to First Landing in an all-nighter.
Daugher and Bowman hated the city, hated the stink, hated the noise. They hated the silly disguises they felt called upon to wear— yuppie glasses and false mustaches, a slight amount of stage makeup, and practiced walks. Likewise they hated Hennessey's nasty little cousin for putting in jeopardy their own best hopes for the life they wanted to lead.
(For they still could not think of him as Carrera. For too many years had he been "that motherfucker, Hennessey" for them to change easily.)
They were following Eugene now. He hadn't been hard to find and he was not hard to follow as he walked from his upscale apartment to some unknown destination. Though the streets were dark, there was just about enough light to make out Eugene's dainty mince.
They almost lost Eugene when he turned a street corner. Racing to catch up they saw no sign of him when they had made the same corner. Music blasted from somewhere. The two raced to the next corner. Nothing, no sign.
"Shit!" said Bowman. "Lost the little bastard."
The two turned back, frustration seething within them. After a few minutes' walk, Daugher tapped Bowman on the shoulder before pointing upward to the opposite side of the street.
"The Peeled Banana?" Bowman could hardly believe it. "You think?"
"I think it's worth looking," said Daugher.
Bowman shrugged, "Maybe so. After you."
With a similar shrug Daugher led the way. The interior was not so bad. Oh yes, it was full of more homosexuals than Daugher had seen since being let out of prison on an overturned conviction for murder. But they seemed not the terribly aggressive type. He began to relax . . . slightly. Then he saw two men, neither of them Eugene, kissing in a corner and a flood of unpleasant memories returned.
"I hate queers," he whispered, too softly to be heard.
Daugher and Bowman went to an open spot at the bar, one where they could see the—no pun intended—comings and goings of the clientele. There they sat, nursing their drinks and avoiding mixing, for nigh upon two hours.
"Not a sign," observed Daugher. "Might as well hit the road; try again tomorrow."
Bowman nodded agreement, then said he had to visit the men's room. Daugher thought about counseling against that, then decided the joke was too good to spoil.
Thus it was a very surprised Bowman who entered the men's room and saw a kneeling Eugene, servicing what was almost certainly a very new acquaintance. Ignoring his intended victim, Bowman did his business and left. Before he left, however, he had cause to note a window, about head-high, that ventilated the men's room.
"Bastard's in there," he told Daugher when he returned, "blowing somebody. One window, big enough to stuff a body out of. You'll have to be quick."
"Then he's been in there since we arrived," whispered Daugher. "Must be 'ladies night out.' Anyone else inside?"
"Just the blowee."
Daugher did a few quick mental calculations. "Okay, you can't go in there again. That might draw suspicion. I'll . . ." he stopped speaking as the bartender passed within earshot . . . "I'll wait until the guy with him comes out, do the job, stuff him out the window and come back. Then we can leave."
Eugene, apparently, either had great talent for the enterprise in which he was engaged or lacked any at all. It was quite some time before the man Bowman had seen with him emerged. By that time another had gone in and stayed. Then another. It was past ten PM before they knew Eugene was alone.
"And . . . we're off," Daugher whispered, tapping his fingers on the bar.
"Oh, aren't you a big one," Eugene observed as Daugher undid himself to urinate in the trough. "Want me to take care of that for you?"
"Sure, brother," Daugher agreed as he turned around.
The last thing Eugene ever felt was the blow from above that rendered him unconscious. He never felt the hands that gripped shoulder and chin and twisted his neck in a way human necks were not intended to go. He never heard the crack of his own neck breaking. When his wallet was removed from a back pocket—Well, thought Daugher, there needs to be some better motive for the killing— Eugene's body was already beginning to cool. He was thus spared the embarrassment of shit filling his trousers. Likewise he never knew that his bladder had let go. He felt neither the scraping as he was lifted up and pushed out of the small ventilation window nor the noisy impact on the trash cans below that window.
Daugher did up his trousers and left an empty men's room behind him.
"Done?" Bowman asked.
"Very done."
"You realize, right, that if they connect us to the murder the boss is screwed?"
Daugher thought on that. "Yeah . . . but's what to connect us? By the time I did it, the bartender had changed, so he can't connect the time the queer was in there with the time I went in there." He showed Eugene's wallet. "Motive: money. What connects us to a need for money? Nothing. Did the boss have a reason to want the fucker dead? Yes. Would we have killed him if the boss had asked? Clearly. But we weren't here; as my old motorcycle gang will swear on a stack of bibles, we were in Dragonback Pass. So they've got nothing, even if they suspect the boss."
Bowman considered that as the two walked. After a few contemplative moments he agreed.
First Landing, Hudson, FSC, 27/9/459 AC
Lourdes had passed on the news when Carrera had called in to the Casa Linda from his hotel in Phoenix Rising. He was shocked, at first. Then, secretly, he was pleased. That made him feel terribly guilty. Still, try as he might, he had not been able to shake the pleasure of Eugene's most timely demise. His shame grew with that failure, warring with his joy.
I am a low-down, no good, bastard. I should be ashamed, he thought, and I am. But even so, I am glad the piece of shit is out of the way.
Having flown up for the funeral, Pat had listened patiently to the Jewish branch of the family's rabbi droning on and on about Eugene's many virtues; his love of animals, his support for equal rights, his staunch activism. All true enough, I suppose, provided you add in "eager support to terrorist organizations."
Now, standing in bright winter sunshine at the graveside, with Eugene's heart-broken mother weeping into her third husband's arms . . . Aunt Sarah was always good to me. Always. Too bad she has to suffer. She deserves better.
Cousin Annie, smelling more than a little of strong drink, leaned against Pat Hennessey for support. His arm helped her stand as she shook with great shuddering sobs. She whispered, over and over, "Poor Eugene. Oh, the terrible things I've said to him."
As the funeral began to break up, Pat half carried Annie to Aunt Sarah's side. The two women fell upon each other with weeping. Pat and Sarah's current husband held back.
Finally, Annie backed off and Pat took Sarah in his arms, cradling her aged head with one hand. "I am sorry," he whispered to her. "For you, I am sorry. I know what it's like."
Excursus
From: Legio del Cid: to Build an Army (reprinted here with permission of the Army War College, Army of the Federated States of Columbia, Slaughter Ravine, Plains, FSC)
If there were any attribute that perhaps could be applied to all Moslems, and especially the more radical Salafis, everywhere, it would have to be their exquisite sense of timing.
True, of course, self-deception was nearly universal—witness their continuing, and apparently groundless, belief that they could somehow defeat the Zion Defense Force and drive the Jews into the sea. Witness, too, the steady frequency with which the Jews drove the Moslems farther into the desert instead. Yet many Moslems knew better. Indeed, it was precisely those who did know better who made some of the most fertile ground for terrorist recruiting and joined the Salafi Ikhwan.
Bombast, too, was something of a cultural characteristic, one closely related to self-deception. And even among the terrorist crew, those who had given up on victory through real strength, bombast was quite unremarkable. Yet, even here, there were exceptions.
But the sense of timing, that inner light that tells one the precisely wrong time to take an action—if not all Moslems enjoyed it, then certainly the culture was pervaded with it, they all received the dubious benefits of it . . . and in a sense, all had come to expect it.
Has a young Federated States just ended a war with a great maritime power? Obviously this was the best of all possible times to begin piratical attacks on FSC shipping. Was an older and much more powerful Federated States about to show a little more evenhandedness in Zionic-Moslem relations? That was the surest sign possible that a planeload of handicapped orphans on their way to a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Fantasy World was about to be blown from the sky. Has Zion's prime minister announced he is willing to trade a modicum of security for some chance at peace? Pay that man's life insurance premium because as certain as daylight he'll be dead at Salafi hands before the month is over. Is the Federated States about to engage in a great military enterprise to free one Moslem state from another oppressing it? Be certain that both the Moslem adversary and its friends will do everything possible to insure that the timing of their predictable defeat is perfect . . . for the Federated States. It was as if an entire culture was locked onto one of those decision-making diagrams, one where every block is labeled, "make serious mistake here," and that culture must always, always, always choose the "yes" arrow . . . and at the worst possible time.
So it happened that in the Republic of Balboa in the fall of 459 . . .
The first sign of the attack came at a pumping station in El Toro, Balboa. An oil tanker was being refilled with crude from the McKinley oil fields when, suddenly, the station ceased pumping oil and began to spurt air. The puzzled pumping crew immediately called the sending point at the small oil port, Puerto Armados, on the northern side and was informed that pressure was down all along the system.
No one was injured directly by the explosion of the pipeline. Several hours later a small family of sharecroppers downhill by several miles drowned—husband, wife, and two small children—in a flood of silently moving McKinley crude.
The next attack, coming only minutes later, was much more noticeable. A parade celebrating the adoption of Balboa's first constitution passed by a step van loaded with several tons of ammonium nitrate based fertilizer, soaked with fuel, and containing also a number of propane tanks. The thin, sheet-metal walls of the van had been reinforced with thick glass originally intended for one of Ciudad Balboa's newest high rises. As it happened the nearest object to the van was a float carrying a bevy of young high school girls. When the bomb detonated, the glass shattered into shards and flew outward. Without warning the little flock of dark-eyed Balboan beauties was turned into a red paste obscenity in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of bystanders were killed or injured.
Within seconds, another explosion rocked the city, this one in the busy shopping district of Via Hispanica. Windows to small shops and exclusive boutiques were driven inward to tear and rend shoppers and store clerks alike. Several dozen people, those in the immediate vicinity of the blast, simply ceased to exist, blown to atoms. Among these were some numbers of children as well.
Unlike the first two, the third and fourth attacks in the city were suicide bombs. The third detonated at the very peak of the stately Bridge of the Columbias. Twenty-one cars were blown completely off of the bridge on both sides. Some dozens more were destroyed or damaged depending on both distance from the blast and luck. The pavement was blasted entirely through at the spot where the bomb detonated. The enormous steel arches holding up the bridge, however, withstood the blast fairly well.
The last bomb was crashed into the presidential palace, a lightly guarded mansion. It being a national holiday, the president was at home.
Her body was never found.