And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more "drive," or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or "creativity." In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.—C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Abdulahi was stuck in three ways. All three were exquisitely painful. In the first place, he found himself forced to pay compensation to the families of the men he had lost at sea a couple of weeks prior. In some cases this included coming up with new dowries for old wives, always an expensive proposition. Secondly, he had to deal with Lungile's bereaved mother. This was particularly bad as she had no other children. The reason, however, that she had no other children was that after the first she had become unpleasantly and unattractively fat. Abdulahi had never been able to bring himself to touch her again, given that he had younger and slimmer wives, concubines and slave girls to spend his time on. But now, in good conscience, he had to give her some of his . . . attention. Worst of all was that he had neither the means of retaliating against those who had so unrighteously slaughtered his men and his son, then stood by smiling as sharks took care of the survivors, nor could he even go to the world press for justice. If he did, the news that it was possible for pirates to be made to suffer so severely would have most of his followers back to farming and hauling fishing nets in no time.
He'd expected the infidel mercenaries to broadcast the news of their success. It was quite a surprise that they had not. Perhaps those for whom they worked had vetoed passing on the news. Or perhaps the mercenaries had some reasons of their own for keeping quiet. It was something to think upon.
Mustafa had promised him that it had been a fluke, that the mercenaries couldn't repeat their trick. Abdulahi had his doubts. Already he could think of a couple of ways, a couple of different tricks, that his enemies could use against him. He'd had rumors from ports and ships up and down the coast of helicopters flying in heavily armed, uniformed men to stand guard on certain ships. He'd placed those ships off limits to his followers, of course. But what of the armed men he didn't know about? What of the loss in revenues from ships he could no longer attack safely?
Dear God, what if the shipping companies paying the jizyah decided to pay the mercenaries for protection instead? Will I have to cut my tolls? Can I afford to cut my tolls? Will some successor rear his head if I do, and if I have to reduce the stipends to my followers?
Abdulahi shivered at the thought. In the hard world in which he had grown up and lived, the rule of the wolf held sway. If he lost his power, he would also lose his life.
I must go to Mustafa, Abdulahi thought. He has the ships and the trained men to handle this problem.
"Can we take out this enemy?" Mustafa asked of his assistant, Abdul Aziz.
"From what I've been able to gather, Prince, it will be very difficult. They have a good group of escorts and an absolutely amazing array of machine guns and antiaircraft cannon—missiles, as well—to guard their major ship. Moreover, the pattern of their attack on Abdulahi's men suggests that the Federated States Navy is committed to assisting them, even if under the table, so to speak."
"Perhaps a submarine from heretic Farsia?" Mustafa suggested.
Abdul Aziz shook his head. "Too noisy. Even if the mercenaries lack sophisticated antisubmarine warfare capability, the FSN is the definition of sophisticated. For that matter, the mercenaries may not lack the capability. We simply don't know."
"Hopeless, then?"
Abdul Aziz shook his head. "No, Prince, not hopeless. But . . . very difficult. At the very least, taking out their aircraft carrier will be very, very difficult. I do have an idea."
"Let me hear it then."
"We would need to expend a reasonably fast freighter and probably its crew."
Mustafa shrugged. Ships and mujahadin were replaceable, hence expendable. He had twenty-seven ships and nearly a thousand seamen, all dedicated to the cause.
"We would need to load the ship with explosive—I am not sure of the best mix—and ram the carrier."
"I don't have anything that fast," Mustafa answered.
"I know, Prince. We would also have to attack the carrier's propellers. I found a short bit on the GlobalNet that said the carrier has AZIPOD drive. This is very good but also, I think, more vulnerable if we can detonate a ton or two of explosive near the carrier's stern. If we can, we can jam, or perhaps even totally destroy, the drives. This would leave it vulnerable to ramming. Still, Prince, this is only an idea . . . almost off the top of my head. I need to plan more, much more. But before I can plan, I need to know if you are willing to expend a freighter, several smaller fast boats, and perhaps ten or twenty million FSD for torpedoes and missiles . . . and for something else, too."
"Define 'something else'," Mustafa said.
"It occurred to me, Prince, that one way to get a ship close to the enemy carrier would be to pay them for protection as some other shippers are doing. Our ship could be 'running from' Abdulahi's men toward the protection of the carrier. Or, at the very least, pretending to keep close under protection of the infidel ship. The small fast boat could be lowered over the side when they got sufficiently close. Torpedoes and missiles could be fired to add to the confusion. This is all very rough, of course."
Finished, Aziz bowed his head, awaiting Mustafa's decision. The chief thought hard for some time, in silence. He smoked two cigarettes, sipped absently at his coffee. In the end he decided.
"Make your plan carefully, Abdul Aziz."
El Hipodromo, Ciudad Balboa, 29/6/467 AC
Parilla had retired the week before. There'd been a parade, Carrera serving as Commander of Troops for the event to honor his friend. Speeches had been made, and more than a few tears shed. Lourdes and Mrs. Parilla had cried. Indeed, Raul Parilla, himself, had had to wipe a few unfeigned tears away at leaving the finest military force he'd ever been part of, and the only one with which he had shed his blood.
His final comment had been, "If I didn't feel I had to do this, both for the legion and for Balboa, you would have had to carry me off this island feet first."
Running a presidential campaign from the island seemed like a bad idea from any number of perspectives. On the other hand, Parilla's old home in Ciudad Balboa was too dangerous a place for him to stay anymore. After all, the government still hated his guts. The Tauran Union's pet creature the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court—in effect a Tauran court, masquerading as a world court, for the prosecution of non-Taurans—still had a warrant out for his arrest. There were Tauran Union troops along the Transitway to execute that warrant, too, if he ever grew sloppy.
Carrera had turned the original "home" of the legion, the Casa Linda, over to Parilla and his wife, rent-free. It had stood empty for the last several years, ever since the legion's headquarters had moved out to the Isla Real. It, and Parilla, would be the better for it being occupied again. From there, and with a couple of maniples of legionaries around it for security's sake, Parilla would run his campaign for president of the country.
The city's racetrack was one of only two places in the country that would really do for Parilla to announce his candidacy. Capable of seating upwards of fifty thousand, or perhaps even sixty in a pinch, the hippodrome was surrounded by open fields and parks, as well as a broad series of parking lots.
The other potential spot, the Furiocentro convention center, was not as scenic and was also in an area a bit too built up for safety. After all, that CCC warrant was still hanging around out there. The real advantage of the Furiocentro, that it was easily reachable by public transportation, could not outweigh that disadvantage.
There was no sense in running for president once the country was already plunged into a civil war. One way to prevent civil war, or rather to prevent a skirmish with the Taurans that might degenerate into foreign invasion and perhaps then civil war, was to present a threat too great for the Taurans lightly to risk confronting it. That way came in the form of one hundred and sixty-four helicopters, a mix of IM-71s and heavy-lift IM-62s, carrying three full cohorts, two infantry and one Cazador, to the Hipodromo's parking lots just at dawn. These landed and disgorged their roughly three thousand troops, then lifted off to various points around the country from which they would bring in about five thousand prominent supporters of the legions, and avowed Balboan nationalists, to help fill the racetrack's stands.
Some of the legion's naval assets, in particular the dozen large Volgan hovercraft used to transport recruits to the island for initial training and legionaries to the mainland for R and R and leave, were set to bringing in campesinos from outlying provinces. Still others would meet any of the several hundred buses chartered by the legion at various spots within the city and the Transitway Zone. Fixed-wing aircraft, as well, were sent to pick up supporters from outlying airfields.
Just to cover all bases, the legion had further paid to have on hand thirty-four hundred off-duty police to help with crowd control. It never hurts to have the cops on one's side.
By ten a.m. the troops and police had a cordon around the area, one tercio was formed up inside to parade, the stands were filled past capacity, and the television studios had their news and camera crews waiting for Parilla to emerge.
Carrera and McNamara sat in the private room in the hippodrome while Parilla went through his paces calmly.
"You're not the least bit nervous, are you, Raul?" Carrera marveled.
"Nervous about what?"
Parilla really didn't understand the question. There was a crowd; he was going to speak to it. He'd done it a thousand times before. Hell, he'd been dictator in all but name before. What was to worry about making a speech?
Carrera smiled and shook his head. Some people had the political bug and the talent to pull it off. He didn't. Though he liked to teach, he hated making speeches and rarely finished one, on the few occasions he had, when he didn't feel like a fool. Even when he had to talk to troops—and those were the only crowds he was remotely comfortable with—he kept his words short and to the point, the better to get off stage as quickly as possible.
Then Parilla understood. "God doesn't give everything to one man, my friend. You're a soldier, unquestionably the finest I've ever known. I'm not half the soldier you are and I never could have been. But politics? That I can do."
I'm glad one of us can, Raul, Carrera thought.
Turning to McNamara, Carrera said, "Sergeant Major, let's take our place outside so the future president of the republic can make a proper grand entrance."
Meanwhile, the opening show was beginning.
She was as black and as glowing as high quality anthracite. Her color was made the more remarkably and beautifully striking by the large red blossom she wore in her wavy, midnight hair and the long dress that matched the flower. With huge brown eyes, high cheekbones, a body to die for and a smile that made one think of Heaven; she was Miss Balboa, 466. Today was the day she repaid the legion for funding her win of the national crown and her almost successful attempt at the Miss Terra Nova title.
Artemisia Jimenez, legionary Legate Xavier Jimenez's niece, was going to repay her debt by her presence, her speech and her singing, today. She would add her support later on and throughout the campaign. Her voice, clear and sweet, had been her talent for the beauty pageants.
Professor's Ruiz propaganda department had come up with the song. It was not new, by any means, but had, like many others in the legionary repertoire, been scavenged from the history of Old Earth. In its translated form it was called "Mañana Sera Mejor," Tomorrow will be better.
The band played a medley of legionary tunes as Artemisia mounted the dais. The selections included small excerpts from Juventud Adelante and Canto al Aquila, the "Hymno Nacional" and "El Valle de las Lunas." The tune from "Mañana Sera Mejor" was interwoven with the others to accustom the audience to it and, with the program sheets that had also been passed out, make it easier for them to follow along and join in.
Artemisia gracefully removed the light shawl she wore and draped it over a microphone stand after she removed the microphone. As she did she saw two uniformed men emerge from a side door onto the dais. Her breath caught in her throat.
The crowd hushed; even at a distance her flesh exuded an aura of untouchable, ultimate femininity that one could only admire, desire, or aspire to.
Stealing sidelong glances in the general direction of the men in uniform, Artemisia began to speak an introduction for Raul Parilla that either came from the heart or was a first-class imitation. She could have been reading the menu from any given restaurant and the people listening would have been as rapt.
"That fucking bastard," President Rocaberti fumed at his short, pudgy nephew. "That miserable fucking peasant piece of low class shit. The filthy swine."
The president's nephew, Arnulfo, another Rocaberti and cousin of that same Manuel Rocaberti who had been shot for cowardice in Sumer six years before, answered, "Sex sells, Uncle. And Artemisia Jimenez is about as sexy as it gets. Clever of them to use her. Cleverer of them to have supported her ambitions early on. Why didn't we think of that, Uncle?"
"We didn't think of it, Arnulfo, because politics in this country had always been the province of the good families, of those with the dignity of position and wealth. Who ever thought we'd actually have to fight an election rather than simply coming up with an agreement among those who mattered as to which clan would have the honors this time around?"
"Parilla and his pet gringo thought so," Arnulfo answered. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have brought in the Taurans, after all. I doubt that either of them, Parilla or Carrera—"
"And that's another damned thing," the president interrupted. "What goddamned business is it of this fucking imported maniac how we run our country? He's not even a citizen."
Arnulfo shrugged. At heart he was an honest and fair-minded sort, or as honest and fair-minded as someone raised to care for family above all could hope to be. "His blood's buried here, whatever could be found of it. He's remarried back into us. All his friends are here. Nearly everything he owns, and apparently he owns a lot, Uncle, is here. As I was about to say, when you brought in the Taurans, you threatened all that."
"Spilled milk," the president retorted. "And you don't know that we wouldn't have had to face an election, anyway, a real election. Parilla has wanted to be president for decades and was only kept from the office by the machinations of Piña. Besides, all the money they have gained using our citizens as cannon fodder is rightfully ours."
"They seem to have redistributed quite a bit of that money, Uncle, a lot more than we would have in their shoes. Have you any idea how much they've plowed back in to the Republic? It's in the billions; schools, clinics, factories, banks, parks, job training. The list goes on. They even put some into producing a real competitor for Miss Terra Nova, and, let me tell you, that earned them a lot more in good will than they paid for it."
"And how many sons were lost in earning that money, would you tell me that?" the president asked huffily.
"It seems that a hundred-thousand-drachma death gratuity and lifetime pension and care for wives and parents, plus education for younger siblings and children, go a long way toward stifling resentment for lost sons, Uncle. Especially when our families are large, and jobs and farmland quite limited."
The president bit back an answer, then sighed. His face assumed a hopeless look. "You mean we are going to lose the election, don't you?"
"As things stand now, Uncle? Stinking. We haven't a prayer. We'll lose the presidency. We'll lose the legislature; both houses, mind you. And a few months after that we'll lose the Supreme Court. And right after that, you can be sure the investigations will start."
"Investigations?"
Arnulfo pointed at the television against one wall. "Listen for yourself, Uncle."
Parilla scowled and pointed directly into the battery of TV camera's facing the stand. "Tell us where, Presidente Rocaberti, tell us where. Where is the money from the cable television deal? Tell us where."
Led by legionaries scattered among them and dressed in mufti, the crowd chanted, "TELL US WHERRRE."
"How much was the bribe to your family that turned management of the Transitway over to the Zhong? Presidente Rocaberti, tell us how much."
"HOW MUUUCHCHCH?"
"Where are the donatives the boys of the Legion del Cid earned and turned over to the government, Mr. President?"
"WHERRRE?"
"How much have the Taurans paid you to let us become their colony?"
"HOW MUUUCHCHCH?"
Parilla stopped speaking briefly, to allow the crowd to compose itself. After all, this was a speech to announce candidacy, not an incitement to riot.
He smiled broadly, then joked, "For the answers to these and a hundred other questions on how the old families have robbed the Republic and the people, stay tuned for election night results, my friends, because today, now, this minute, I, Raul Parilla, am announcing my candidacy for the office of Presidente de le Republica. And I promise you that when I am elected we SHALL HAVE ANSWERS. I promise you, as well, a better, a more honest, tomorrow. So help me God."
That was the cue for both the band and Artemisia. After a drum roll, and the playing of the first bars, she began to sing,
"El sol del verano
Es renacido
Libre es el bosque
Por mi . . .
"O' Patria, Patria, enseña nos;
Tus hijos esperan por ti.
El dia viene quando se levantas
Mañana sera mejor!"
The president's hand lanced to the remote, to cut off the images shown on the screen as the camera panned along the galleries. They were all singing, all fifty thousand plus of them.
His nephew stopped him. "No, Uncle, we need to see this."
"O Patria, Patria, enseña nos;
Tus hijos esperan por ti."
"We're screwed," he said.
"We're screwed without some desperate measures," Arnulfo agreed. He didn't add, but thought, Though sometimes desperate measures might include just coming clean and giving back some of what we've stolen.
"Mañana sera,
Mañana sera,
Mañana sera mejor!"
Every day got a little worse. What had begun with directed terrorism and the distant siege of ambush of roads and blowing of bridges had grown to the point that most of the Tauran Union troops were confined to their bases, under frequent if not quite constant mortar and rocket attack. The Anglians and Secordians fought to keep the roads open, to rebuild the bridges, even to combat the terrorism on behalf of the TU troops that were forbidden by their governments from actively seeking battle.
In the larger sense, though, those English-speaking men and women were fighting to let the Progressive administration in Hamilton keep its promise not to commit further Federated States troops to the war, but to rely on their "allies." In the largest sense, they were all fighting to prevent what their governments considered the ultimate disaster.
That ultimate disaster? It was not that the Salafis should regain control of Pashtia, nor even that they might use it for further attacks. No; the TU leadership—though many around the globe considered that expression to the ultimate oxymoron—lived in desperate fear that the fickle populace of the Federated States might once again elect an administration that quite simply considered the TU, indeed the rest of the world, to be largely voiceless and irrelevant.
"And even that's not enough to get the bastards to let us fight," fumed Claudio Marciano, as a large caliber mortar round detonated inside his camp, a few hundred meters to the east of his sandbagged command post. Following on the heels of the explosion he heard the cry "Medic!" and the scream of an ambulance siren.
"'Fighting never settled anything,' Generale," quoted Stefano del Collea, his eyes turned Heavenward in mock piety.
"Tell it to the city fathers of Carthage," Marciano retorted. "You know what bugs me about it, Stefano?"
"No, sir. I mean, other than the unnerving blasts, the wounded troopers, the sheer frustration of being here and not allowed to do our fucking jobs, sir, what could possibly be troublesome?"
Barely, Marciano restrained the urge to slap his cynical aide with his helmet. Instead, he said, "What bothers me is that they're able to keep this up at all. I mean, without the roads—which our masters made us give away—we can still get enough to eat. Our enemies are not only apparently eating; they've got the logistic wherewithal to bring in shells by the ton-load."
Del Collea sighed. "I know, sir."
About five thousand meters to the southwest, in a small village the Tauran command had made into a no-fire zone, Noorzad looked on approvingly as one of his newer recruits, Ashraf al Islamiya, strained to carry forty kilograms worth of heavy mortar shells to the guns. He ported them—two at a time, one over each shoulder—from a small cave in which they had been painstakingly secreted over the last several months, to the firing position in the town square. There, two 120mm mortars chunked out their twenty-kilogram cargos toward the infidel base.
Noorzad had chosen this firing position precisely because it was an absolute no-fire zone, a place where all fire, even in self-defense, was forbidden to the Taurans. Had some other village in range been a no- fire zone he'd have used that. If there had been no no-fire zones, he'd have forced all the villagers to squat around the mortars anyway. That, he had learned, would stop the Taurans from shooting back no matter what he did.
Still, the patent idiocy of the Taurans was not Noorzad's reason for approval. Rather, it was the spirited way in which Ashraf put his whole body and will into carrying the shells. It showed Noorzad the power and the truth of Islam. It reinforced in a most satisfying way that of which he was convinced anyway; that his way of life, his religion, and his truth—which was the eternal truth—would triumph.
With a grunt, Ashraf flipped one shell off his shoulder to be caught by an assistant gunner. The assistant likewise grunted as he took the shell, but paused to pat Ashraf lightly on the arm and smile encouragement. Then the assistant turned, took the shell in both hands, and eased the finned base of the thing into the mortar tube. He released it to slide down, ducking while covering his ears with his hands.
When he turned back to Ashraf, he saw that the new man was shaken with the muzzle blast. The assistant tapped him, still lightly, on the face and twisted to show him how to deal with the blast while carrying a shell. This involved hunching one shoulder and pressing the ear on that side into it, while reaching across the head with the free arm to place a hand over the other ear.
The assistant took the next shell from Ashraf, who trotted back to the mouth of the small storage cave to get more. As Ashraf took the next pair he realized that he felt . . . What an odd sensation. I am . . . more than pleased . . . perhaps, even, I'm a bit happy. Why? Well . . . that someone had cared enough to show me even this one tiny thread of the ropes that went into serving a mortar. Whatever I was told about the Salafis was a lie; once you are one of them you are one of them.
He could not remember a time in the army of Haarlem when any of his then comrades had really cared much.
The shells were expended and the mortar crew breaking their gun down to hide it in the cave from which it had been drawn. They would camouflage it just before splitting up and pulling out. Ashraf, once known as Verdonk, helped with the disassembly, insofar as he could. Mostly, he was in the way of an otherwise expert crew.
"Ashraf," Noorzad called out in the English he shared with ex- Haarlemer. "Stop for a few minutes and come over here." He then said much the same thing in Pashtun, "Send the new one over."
The assistant gestured with his hands and his face, Go to the leader. We'll make do without your help for a bit. He was careful not to add, by voice, gesture or expression, Besides, you're just in the way.
What the hell; the ex-infidel kid is trying.
Ashraf turned and walked to Noorzad, who gestured for him to sit.
Feeling distinctly uneasy—after all, it was not so long ago he'd been given the choice of accepting Islam or having his throat cut— Ashraf sat.
"You're learning your duties well, Ashraf," the guerilla chief said. "All your fellow mujahadin say so."
The former Haarlemer breathed a small sigh of relief. Apparently this little meeting was not to announce that leaving his throat unslashed had been a fixable mistake.
"Thank you, Noorzad. I've tried."
"Yes, yes," Noorzad agreed. "You've tried very hard and succeeded rather well. Soon you will be a fine crewman for the mortars. It's not enough though."
Ashraf almost felt the bite of a razor's keen blade drawing across his throat. He stiffened. "Not enough?"
Noorzad effected not to notice the nervousness in Ashraf's body's stiffening and in the convert's wavering voice.
"We are simple fighting men. To fight we can teach you. But the reason why we fight, the advancement of God's way? This we are not really quite up to."
"No?" The Haarlemer had never met such a bunch of religious fanatics in his life. He'd never even imagined such. They weren't up to his religious instruction?
"No," Noorzad said. "I am sending you and your other Haarlemer reverts"—"reverts" because one did not convert to the natural faith of Islam; one reverted to it—"on to a madrassa, a school, in Kashmir. It is safe there and there you will receive more and better instruction in the faith."
Ashraf felt a small surge of relief. They weren't going to cut his throat. And he was going to get out of action for a while. It would feel odd though, leaving the first home in which he'd felt comfortable, in years.
Hovercraft pads, Main Cantonment, Isla Real, 2/7/467 AC,
In contrast to Cara's happy smile, Cruz's face was a stone mask, a study in "Man, hiding his misery." While Cara played with the kids, he just looked longingly in the general direction of his tercio's camp, a few miles up the coast.
Their household goods were long since packed up; the three bedroom bungalow they'd shared turned back over to LHD, the Legionary Housing Directorate. They had a place waiting in the city now, while Cruz attended university. He'd met the new neighbors and found he had nothing in common with any of them. Maybe his classmates at the university would be better.
Maybe, but I doubt it.
Somewhere in his personal bag Cruz had the orders assigning him to Seventh Cohort (Reserve) of the First Tercio (Principio Eugenio). At least he'd be able to soldier one long weekend a month and a month over the summer. The three month's pay he'd earn would come in handy, too, since a legionary veteran's student stipend, even for a centurion, was something less than generous for a married man with two children. Really, it wouldn't be enough to live on, but for the guaranteed loans. And those came with strings.
Cara never thought about that. She was happy enough that her man would be home and out of danger. She never seemed to have considered how miserable he was going to be without that danger, and always stuck at home.
Cruz heard a growing whine and looked out to sea. Yes, there it was; the huge, Volgan-built hovercraft that would take them from the island to the landing point in the City. From there they'd take a taxi to their new apartment, their new "home."
Home? Cruz thought. What is home? It's not just the place you live; it's not just the place your woman is. I think . . . maybe . . . it's the place you're happiest. And I'm leaving home.
Dating from early in the history of the colonization of Terra Nova, the Federated States' Executive Mansion looked less a home and more a fortress. Within it, in an office marked by golds and greens and tasteful old woods, the president of the FSC conferred with his secretary of war.
"Cut the bullshit, James," said the president of the FSC to his secretary of war. "The war in Pashtia is not going swimmingly. Our 'allies' are not doing their part, despite what you promised me, they promised you, and I promised the people who elected me and the newspapers and television stations that supported me. Right now, the Office of Strategic Intelligence is convinced that Pashtia will fall about two months before mid-term elections. That, my advisors assure me, will cost us both the House and the Senate. Losing those will stymie the social programs we counted on getting passed to be reelected. All of which means that, unless the Pashtian situation is turned around, we'll all be looking for jobs after that election."
"But Mr. President—" Malcolm began.
"Can it, James. No bullshit. We're in trouble and no two ways about it. Now how are you going to fix this and save our skins? And, please, spare me the nonsense about massive formation of TU troops to turn the tide. They're not coming, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. And if they did come they still wouldn't fight."
Malcolm hung his head. He'd been so sure that troops would be forthcoming. He'd been convinced that with the right platitudes, the proper kowtowing to the Tauran Union, the World League, the humanitarian activist NGOs and the world press, he could persuade the Tauros to really commit to the war. He'd been absolutely certain that the Gauls and the Sachsens would really help if only they were approached the right way. He'd been equally certain he had that way.
Bah! I couldn't even talk them into providing what they promised, let alone more. I couldn't talk them into allowing what little they have sent to actually go out of their bases and fight.
This was too uncomfortable a train of thought. Malcolm quickly added the mental amendment, If only the previous administration hadn't so thoroughly poisoned the waters.
He never considered that maybe the water was poisoned to begin with.
Although a local virus had the effect of substantially reducing the harmful effects of some of the things found in tobacco, it had done nothing to make its nicotine less of a poison in sufficient dosage. Indeed, in the form of nicotine sulfate, it was one of the better insecticides and lethal to humans in dosages of as little as fifty or sixty milligrams. It was even more useful since it was readily absorbed through the skin.
Khalid could have purchased simple cigarettes or cigars to prepare his mixture. There was, however, a simpler way, taught to him by his Volgan instructors. This was to purchase a commercial insecticide and distill out the impurities, leaving fairly pure nicotine sulfate. This he had done, achieving a highly concentrated and extremely deadly form of the stuff, with only enough liquid to make it free flowing.
In his hotel room he attached a baby's snot sucker to some clear, flexible tubing cut to the length of an umbrella. With the squeeze bottle at the end of the snot sucker, he vacuumed an appreciable quantity of the nicotine sulfate solution into the tube. This he plugged with a small cork, very tightly. The entire assembly he then taped to the cane of the umbrella, making a small slash in the material to allow the corked tube to protrude through slightly.
The umbrella stood by the hotel room door. Meanwhile, Khalid, his hair lightened and green contacts covering his own brown eyes, studied the picture in the folder he'd been given. The picture was of one Ishmael ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana, a very minor scion of Mustafa's clan, currently attending school in First Landing. The boy was only twenty and lacked both the finely developed paranoia of the older members of his clan, as well as their money to hire guards and drivers.
Boy, thought Khalid. Boy, I don't know why you have to die. Nor do I care. But enjoy the morning, even so. You will not see the sunset.
With that, Khalid closed the file and stood, walking to his bag to place the file within it. He closed and locked the bag. With that he left, taking the umbrella with him and placing a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the room's door.
Outside the hotel, Khalid hailed a taxi which brought him to the corner nearest Ishmael's small, student apartment. He waited a short time, then saw the boy leave, smoking a cigarette.
Which is why I chose this method. It will take a while for them to notice the outrageous amount of nicotine in your system. With doctors in the Federated States as they are now, they may not even care to look. After all, you are one of those utter unmentionables, those vile untouchables. You smoke, boy, and it's going to be the death of you.
The boy, Ishmael, disappeared into a nearby subway entrance. Khalid followed him down, neither so closely as to be obvious nor so far behind that he couldn't run to catch the train should his target enter one.
There was no train. There was, however, a fair crowd. Using the crowd as cover, Khalid moved to within two feet of Ishmael. Then he settled down to wait for a train.
Unfortunately, the next train entered the subway on the other side. Khalid really wanted not just the noise—in case the nicotine caused the boy to cry out—he also wanted everyone's attention focused on the train's arrival, and movement to begin in the crowd, to cover his own withdrawal.
As expected, the next train arrived on his side, with a tremendous rattle. Nearly everyone but Khalid turned their attention to the train, and about half-lurched forward half a step, as if to gain an advantage for boarding.
Khalid was prepared to make a similar half-lurch, if his target did. This proved unnecessary. He pointed the tip of his umbrella at the boy's calf. At the same time, he reached the other hand over and gave a squeeze to the snot sucker. As little sound as the popping cork made, there was no chance of it being heard over the sound of the train. The nicotine sulfate sprayed out, soaking the target's cloth-covered calf. Khalid immediately turned away, and walked into the mass of humanity gathering by the edge of the platform.
When Khalid turned and looked through the window of the subway car, there was a small crowd gathering around a prostrate, quivering form.
St. Ekaterina Caserne, Fuerte Cameron, Balboa,
4/7/467 AC
The stiffly marching Volgans sang in voices designed to knock birds dead at a mile.
"Pust' yarost' blagorodnaya
Vskipaet, kak volna
Idyot voyna narodnaya,
Svyaschennaya voyna!"
"Catchy," Carrera complimented. "What's it mean?"
Samsonov, the Volgan colonel of paratroopers Kuralski had contacted and hired—along with the bulk of his regiment—some years back, puzzled over the translation for a moment before answering, "Comes from Great Global War...but maybe older than that. Not sure. Means . . . mmm . . . something like, 'Let waves of righteous fury . . . Swell up as never before . . . And spur us to the victory of . . . Our sacred people's war.' You like?"
"It's excellent. Can you have one of your men make a translation and send it on to Professor Ruiz. Maybe send him a small chorus to demonstrate, too."
Samsonov, old, stout and blond where he wasn't balding, answered, "Easy . . . not those men singing now, though." He gestured at the company marching by. "Those men aren't bad but . . . regimental chorus much better."
"As you prefer."
The Volgans, roughly thirteen hundred of them, weren't on the legion's official strength. Rather, they were employees of General Abogado's Foreign Military Training Group, a subsidiary of Chatham, Hennessey and Schmied, that had provided training expertise to the legion since the beginning. Most of FMTG now was, in fact, Volgan since the Balboans and other Latins were long since capable of conducting Initial Entry Training and most specialty training, along with the Cazador School and other leadership courses. With the bulk of the aircraft being Volgan and a fair number of the ships of the classis likewise, those departments were staffed almost entirely with Samsonov's countrymen, as well. Even for the aircraft bought from the FSC, the instructors were a mix of qualified Volgans and Balboans.
Samsonov's regiment, and it was a reinforced Volgan parachute regiment in organization, provided both the Controller-Evaluators and the opposing forces at the legion's Centro de Entrenamiento para el Ejercito Expedicionario, or CENTIPEDE. The CENTIPEDE had served to put the finishing touches on cohorts just before they deployed to the war. Even without a contract, for the nonce, training continued. Being elite soldiers from an army with an impressive tradition, this suited the Volgans just fine. It suited them even better that they weren't in Volga, anymore.
It was possible that there was a more anti-Tsarist-Marxism leaning group in the world than Samsonov's paratroopers; indeed someone had once suggested as much. No one had ever proven it, though. Samsonov's men loathed Marxism as only those who'd lived under it could. They likewise didn't much care for the corrupt rump of the Volgan Empire that still lived.
One reason they were pretty content to be in Balboa was that they earned standard legionary wages—for the enlisted men about fifteen times more than Volga paid its army—and lived and ate, oh, much better.
Many had married into the locals and some had even transferred over to the legion. In turn, there were now to be found the odd Garcia and Gomez, seconded from their home tercios and standing among the Gureviches and Gregoriis of Samsonov's regiment. In time, Carrera expected something like complete assimilation. The notion that FMTG was anything but an arm of the legion was rather fictive, anyway.
"These dirty rotten Fascist pigs
We'll shoot between the eyes.
The garbage of humanity
Is headed for demise."
"What's the title?" Carrera asked.
This time the translation came more easily. "We call it . . . 'Holy War' or . . . maybe better, 'Sacred War.'"
"Oh, yeah." Carrera smiled. "I want that in the Legion's song books."
By the time the marching company of Volgans had passed out of earshot, Samsonov was leading Carrera into the regimental headquarters. They passed by banners more or less dripping with battle honors from the Great Global War, the Volga-Pashtia War, and everything in between. Carrera stopped to finger the streamers, respectfully.
"An honorable regiment," he whispered.
Samsonov answered the whisper. "Was my father's regiment . . . uncle's before him. Eventually . . . fell to me but in worst of times. When your man, Kuralski, found us we were reduced to raising corn and pigs to eat. That would be fine for some nonentity motorized rifle regiment but we . . . paratroopers. Even at that, government going to close us out. They begrudged us . . . cost of our uniforms . . . and of heating oil for winter."
The Volgan colonel spat.
Reluctantly, Carrera released the battle streamers. "How many of your men are veterans of the war in Pashtia?" he asked.
"About three in ten, or perhaps bit more," the Volgan answered. "Why?"
"I'm not just operating off faith, here," Carrera said, "I am reasonably certain that we'll be rehired soon to go to Pashtia. It's a different environment from Sumer, one my men aren't used to. We're capable of doing the mountain training and such ourselves—"
"And better than we could," Samsonov interjected.
"—but I don't know how the Pashtun act and think and neither do my men."
"We can help there. Quite lot; truth. But have you considered Pashtun? They're . . . first class . . . mercenaries and, if well treated, loyal to salt."
Carrera nodded. "I've got someone over there looking to do just that. But it's hard, he told me, to sort out the worthwhile ones from the infiltrators. Actually, he said it's impossible and I told him to forget it and concentrate on buying up land and pack animals, while collecting intelligence."
Samsonov rubbed his nose. "I can help with that. Some tribes trustworthy; some not. And I know Mullah, Nami Hassim, who is very learned, very scholarly, and—fortunaley—utterly corrupt athiest"
"Can you send a recruiting team over to help my man?"
"Sure . . . what else you want?"
"I want you to restructure to prepare us for Pashtia. Abogado knows."
Kenneth O'Meara-Temeroso squirmed in his chair in Malcolm's plush office. He couldn't, he just couldn't, do what the secretary was demanding of him. Besides, it was Malcolm who had sent him to Sumer expressly to fire, hurt, and humiliate Carrera. How could he go back and beg for help now?
"It won't even work," O'Meara-Temeroso objected. "It's a waste of time. That bastard will never forgive us for trying to stiff him. And he won't take the pain he caused us by pulling out so abruptly as sufficient payback, either."
Malcolm smiled warmly. His tan seemed particularly orange today, to match. "I don't care if you have to suck his dick. I want troops for Pashtia and I want them fast."
Whatever his failings, and they were many, ranging from obesity to a remarkable arrogance coupled with stupidity, O'Meara- Temeroso was still, at least arguably, a man. This was too much. "You suck his dick. I'm resigning."
And with that he stood, abruptly turned, and walked out.
One worthless, arrogant bureaucrat gone, mused Malcolm. Hmmm; who might this Carrera person listen to? Hmmm . . .
"Suzy," Malcolm said pleasantly into the intercom, "get me General Rivers, would you?"
"I remember his last words on the subject very distinctly, Mr. Secretary. He said, 'We'll keep track and when you come looking to hire us again everything you've cost us will be added to our fee, with interest from today.' Are you prepared to pay that, Mr. Secretary? The bill is going to be enormous. And since we tried to send funds Carrera considered due to his organization to another, the national government of Balboa, he's not going to give us credit."
"What do you think he'll charge us?"
"As much as he can squeeze. In fact, as much as he thinks it takes to hurt us. We pissed him off pretty badly and he is not the . . . forgiving type."
"But he needs money," Malcolm objected. "He doesn't have a national tax base to pay for his war machine."
"Someone—we think the Yamatans—are funneling a great deal of money to him right now. And he already had quite a lot. I don't think he's hurting."
Malcolm sighed, bleakly. It was so . . . frankly inconceivable, that a mere mercenary should be so difficult. Ah, well. Needs must. . . .
"General Rivers, I want you to go see him and see what he'll take. Don't commit us to anything yet. See what he might take that isn't in the form of dollars. The president doesn't want to go to Congress over this. Maybe we have something he wants . . . weapons . . . gold . . . I dunno. But the president wants him and what the President wants—"
"I'll leave day after tomorrow, Mr. Secretary. But I can't promise anything."
Motor Yacht Suzy Q, Xamar Coast, 9/7/467 AC
The storm trick wouldn't work more than once. At least, it wouldn't work twice in a row. The classis needed something else, rather, several somethings else.
The Suzy Q was one of those things. Oh, she was a real yacht, all right, one hundred and ten feet worth of outrageous luxury. Even the girls aboard were luxury models, hookers taken from the Wappen von Bremen and paid a hefty bonus for sunning themselves topless on the forward deck. Everyone had been surprised that so many of the girls had volunteered when asked. Six had been needed, thirty-two had volunteered, and that was even before the danger bonus was mentioned. Who knew; perhaps they had begun to think of themselves as legionettes.
Whatever the motivation, they did a very impressive job, sunning and stretching, nonchalantly showing off their assets to the fishing boats they passed. The classis assumed, not unreasonably, that at least some of those boats reporting directly to Pirates-R-Us.
In anticipation of that, the boat was not quite so yachtlike under the surface. Both sides and the stern had been heavily reinforced with resinated aramid-fiber armor plates. Three .41 caliber machine guns were positioned on each side to fire outward, as was a seventh to fire astern. The machine guns had been modified with a special jacket for water cooling. They could fire for half an hour or more before the barrels overheated. As a matter of fact, the half hour was about as much as the testing committee had cared to check. No one really knew how long they could fire without a let up. Besides the .41s, under the forward deck a single front-shielded 20mm was poised to be raised by hydraulics. An additional seven Cazadors and an equal number of sailors posed as crew in civilian dress, over and above the hidden seventeen slotted to man the machine guns and 20mm.
The Cazadors didn't get the girls' danger bonus, though they drew normal combat pay.
Centurion Rodriguez, admiring the girls from the wheelhouse, thought, Screw the bonus; watching the girls is bonus enough. Standing next to him the Suzy Q's skipper, Warrant Officer Chu, had much the same thought.
Both were making plans for their next scheduled visit to the von Bremen.
"Sweet duty," mused Rodriguez.
"That it is," agreed Chu. He pointed at the boat's radar screen. "But it's about to get a lot less sweet."
"Suzy Q this is Ironsides; company coming."
Chu picked up the microphone and answered, "We see 'em coming, Ironsides. No problem, just the one boat."
"Shall I have the girls start their routine?" asked Rodriguez.
Chu noted the distance on the screen by eye. He shook his head slightly. "No . . . wait a bit. They won't be here for half an hour. But why don't you have the Santissima Trinidad close it up some?"
The pirate vessel was crammed to the gills with mujahadin. At least, they liked to style themselves as holy warriors; it gave them a warm and fuzzy feeling to be doing the work of God while filling their pockets.
"And aren't those some bits of divine workmanship?" asked the boat's chief rhetorically, looking over the exceptionally well-breasted and tanned girls standing by the target's bow and gesturing frantically. "And won't they bring a good price at market?"
He'd asked rhetorically but his assistant had been listening even so. "The boat itself will bring a better one," he said, "and anyone who can afford that boat and those girls will probably bring a better ransom still."
"Oh, look," tsked the pirate chief. "We've frightened them; they're running below. Well, that won't matter. Cheat of us our gaze now, we'll enjoy your bodies all the more later."
The chief turned to his assistant. "Fire a shot across their bow and tell them to kill engines and prepare to be boarded."
Women end up whoring for any of a huge number of reasons. Some, albeit few, actually like the work. Others have no other skills. Some are lazy, and those often do very poorly even at hooking, while others just want to raise a lot of money in a hurry and then retire back home where no one knows what they've been and done.
Jaquelina Gonzalez's reasons were none of those. At the age of fourteen, she'd had the poor judgment to get involved in one of Colombia Latina's innumerable guerilla wars. Worse, she'd chosen the wrong—the losing—side. Undocumented, fleeing for her life, with no assets but those God had given her and no skills that anyone wanted, she'd found herself drifting into whoredom as a better alternative to starvation. Unofficially, she was the leader of the girls on the Suzy Q, and one of the senior hookers on the Wappen von Bremen, as the girls counted such things.
For the life of her, she could not have answered why she'd volunteered for this job. Maybe it was merely to get away from the von Bremen for a while. Maybe it was something else.
Whatever her reasons, Jaquelina had serious doubts about her wisdom once the pirate vessel got close enough for her to see the men waving their rifles and machetes. Rape? Well, she'd been raped before and survived it. Torture? Yes, she made the mistake of being captured once and so she knew about torture. Come to think of it, though she really didn't like to think of it, the two—rape and torture—had gone together.
"Come on, ladies," she ordered, "time for us to go below."
She waited at the hatch, shoving the other girls ahead of her, before she, too, went below to the armored compartment built especially to house them. Just before descending, Jaquelina heard a familiar blast from forward of the ship.
The pirate chief saw a portion of the forward deck begin to rise and was very quick to add up two plus two and come up with "Holy fucking shit; it's a trap." When a three-meter-long section of the port side of the boat swung out he directed an RGL gunner to fire, "For the love of Allah and the hope of seeing your family again!"
The RGL flew true and a gaping wound appeared in the target's side. Dimly, through the smoke from the blast, the pirates could see what had to be a machine gun and perhaps a body slumped over it. Two more shells flew in short order toward the rising 20mm, missing it but hitting the shield and sending the men waiting to man it sprawling. The Xamaris had little time for congratulations as two more openings appeared, even as a much larger gun continued to rise on the deck.
The 20mm sat unaimed and unmanned until a couple of Cazadors could be rousted from below. When they arrived, the larger gun began to toss out its shells, knocking down the Xamari pirates in groups.
"Close and board!" screamed the pirate chief. "It's our only chance!"
Two of the girls with her screamed when the boat was rocked by the blast. Barely, Jaquelina restrained herself from pasting them. Didn't they know what they volunteered for? Then again, did I?
She felt a bit better once the other guns opened up. But then she realized there was no fire coming from amidships, the same direction as had come the blast. Jaquelina, too, could add two plus two and come up with "Holy shit."
"Oh, fuck," she whispered, then asked, "Who'll come with me?"
The fire was terrible. The pirate boat had no armor, and its wood was little more than tissue paper to the heavy guns engaging it. The infidels' main gun, on deck, simply tore the wheelhouse and most of its occupants to bits.
The chief of the boat, miraculously unhit so far, lay on his belly amidst a layer of spilled blood, torn flesh and bits of shattered bone. One arm upraised and his hand grasping the wheel, he steered through a hole made by the enemy and he steered directly for the target ship. Already, the larger gun was overshooting. He suspected he was under its arc of fire. Already the boat had closed to the point that the two remaining heavy machine guns could only fire at its stern corners. There was a chance if, and only if, the pirates could get close enough to board. And that seemed at least possible.
Only one girl was willing to go on with Jaquelina, her friend and lover, Marta. Marta was an enormous amazon of a woman, dwarfing Jaquelina in every dimension. Nervous—well, terrified, to be honest—the amazon followed the little hooker out of their armored shelter and down the smoky central corridor of the ship until they reached amidships. There, they turned to the direction from which had come the earlier blast.
Marta shrieked when she saw one crewman, sans head, lying on the blood-soaked deck. The other gunner was slumped over his gun, burned and barely breathing.
"Shut up, Marta," Jaquelina ordered as she went to the slumped and hurt gunner. "This one's still alive."
Together, the two eased the hurt Cazador to the bloody deck. The boy's face was a mess, which caused Jaquie to tsk and Marta to shudder.
"He'll live, I think, though he won't be very pretty," Jaquie announced.
Marta didn't reply directly, pointing instead out the hole in the hull and saying, "Maybe he'll live. We won't."
Jaquie's eyes followed Marta's pointing finger. There, a scant fifty meters away, the chewed-up bow of their attackers plowed a shallow furrow in the sea.
"Fuck!"
Jaquelina tore her gaze from the enemy vessel and let it come to rest upon the gun. Looks like . . . mmm . . . a scaled-down version of the FS Model Fifty heavy machine gun. Well . . . I know how to use one of those, courtesy of the Arenista National Liberation Front. That jacket around the barrel looks funny but . . . oh, it's for water cooling. Those can fire a lllooonnnggg time without overheating.
She knelt down behind the gun. Ammunition's already fed. Looks like . . . mmm . . . three hundred rounds; two boxes.
"Honey, we're in business," she said to Marta. "Go grab a couple more cans of ammunition."
Jaquie's right hand lowered to the wheel on the gun's traversing and elevating mechanism and began to twist it counterclockwise to raise the line of fire. Her left hand took hold of the left spade grip. She rested that thumb on the gun's butterfly trigger. Scrunching herself as low as possible, so as not to be seen by the pirates massing on their ship's bow in preparation for a boarding, Jaquie shifted her right hand to the traversing wheel and moved the gun's traverse to the right side of the mass of pirate humanity.
"Now we wait until they line themselves up," she muttered. "Come to Mama, babies."
Centurion Rodriguez and Warrant Chu were more or less pinned in the wheelhouse. While Chu tried to steer the boat aport to gain a little distance from the pirates, Rodriguez attempted to poke his head around the fortified wheelhouse corner to return fire on them.
"Fucking bastards!" Rodriguez cried out, jerking his head back and rolling in pain on the deck while clawing wooden splinters from his face and one bloody eye.
Jaquie had blood in her eye as the pirate ship closed to within fifteen meters. She made a quick, fine adjustment to the traversing wheel and used her thumb to depress the gun's trigger. The pounding of the heavy machine gun's blast in the close confines of its cabin was painful to her ears. Even so, she kept up the fire with her left hand while twisting the traversing wheel with her right. In her line of sight she saw pirates bowled down, spraying blood. As often as not, the heavy bullets punched right through two and even three and four men before continuing on. She heard their cries of victory turn to despair and the sound raised a wicked grin on her face.
The gun gave a clang and the grin turned to a grimace of pain. A return shot, aimed or just lucky, had hit it causing the bullet to carom off the side plate to bury itself in her right side, just below the ribs. Even so, she never let up with her left thumb nor stopped traversing with her right hand.
Note to self: Next time I really need to ask for body armor.
Chu let go the wheel to pull Rodriguez back behind fuller cover. The blood flowed too thickly for the sailor to see the damage. He pulled a water bottle from a holder above deck and poured its contents over the centurion's eye.
This is probably a mistake, he thought, as he reached to remove a thin spike of wood from the white of the eye. Rodriguez screamed, once, as the splinter was removed. Blood flowed even more freely afterwards. Still, the pain became more or less manageable.
"Thanks, Chu," he whispered. "See to the defense . . . I'll be all right."
Blast the pirates into eternity Jaquelina could do, wounded or not. What she could not do was stop the progress of their boat. It continued on, closer and closer, until it rammed the side of the Suzy Q, staving it in and causing water to pour through the rupture.
"Marta!" she screamed, "See to the wounded boy and let's get the fuck out of here!"
Jaquelina stood up and backed away from the gun. Blood suddenly began to rush from her wounded side.
"Mierde," she muttered, and promptly fainted.
The bilge pumps kicked in automatically, relieving Chu of the burden of flipping a switch while trying to lead his own crew and the Cazadors. Whatever or whoever it was who'd taken over the central .41 on that side might have knocked the pirates' dicks loose, but just couldn't stop the boat or kill them all.
Well before he'd been enticed into becoming a squid, Chu had been a pretty fair riflemen with the Fourth Tercio. He picked up Rodriguez's bayoneted rifle and, screaming something unintelligible even to himself, launched himself bodily to the spot where his hull was breached and the pirates oozing over the side.
He was joined at the boarding point by Legionario Tomás Guillermo, the latter likewise charging forward with bayonet point to the front. The prow of the pirate vessel was on a rough plane with the side of the Suzy Q. They met, Chu and Guillermo on the one side, half a dozen half-panicked pirates on the other. The pirates towered over the little legionaries but, since both the legionaries had body armor— better still, training—the first two Xamaris met went down with screams made gurgling by the blood filling their lungs.
"Get the fuck away from my fucking ship you scum-sucking bastards!" Chu cried.
By the time Marta got on deck, Jaquelina carried under one arm and the burnt legionary slung over her shoulder, the other hookers had also emerged. Marta set Jaquie down gently and just as carefully laid the legionary alongside her.
"Does anybody know first aid?" Marta asked.
"Sure," answered one of the girls brightly. "I know just what to do; I've watched the legionaries." She then proceeded to fill her not unimpressive lungs with air and screamed "Medddiiiccc!"
With their own boat sinking under them, the legionaries had little choice but to swarm the other. Leaving their machine guns and grabbing rifles, they followed Chu and Guillermo in a surge over the gunwales. The pirates had little chance of stopping that charge. While the bodies and not-quite-yet bodies were being rolled over the side to the gathering sharks, the legionaries collected their wounded and dead and carried them across. A half dozen pirates they saved for questioning. Besides, Fosa had said he thought it would be good for morale for the rest of the fleet to see some of their enemies hang.
UEPF Spirit of Peace, 9/7/467 AC
"We'll call that one a draw," High Admiral Robinson decided, looking at a high resolution recording of the Suzy Q's fight with the Xamaris.
Wallenstein shook her head. "No . . . I don't think so. Sure, the pirates managed to sink the mercenaries' yacht, and sure the mercenaries only got a crappy, slow, tramp fishing boat in return. But all the pirates died, if you count the ones the mercenaries hung off the flight deck of their aircraft carrier and those they fed to the sharks. Those pirates won't be going home and people in Xamar are eventually going to wonder what horror it is out at sea that eats their sons and doesn't even spit out the bones. No, Admiral, sorry, but it was a loss."
Robinson, being a Class One, hated being corrected by lesser castes. Even so, he was willing to admit Wallenstein was right to the extent that he changed the subject slightly.
"I understand that the FSC is considering rehiring those mercenaries for employment in Pashtia."
"For a very impressive amount of money," Wallenstein agreed. "How do we use that?"
She already had a number of ideas of how to put the deployment out of country of the legions to good use but, since she wanted Class One status more than she wanted life, she thought it best to let the high admiral recoup from being corrected.
"They're going to have to send sixty-five or seventy percent of their force over if they're going to do any good," Robinson said. "The Taurans are collapsing in Pashtia. That will put the Tauran forces in Balboa on a rough par with the legions, not counting the mercenaries' reserves. It might be enough for the Taurans to interfere with the election there. Our ambassador says that this Parilla bastard is certain to win any open and fair election."
"What do you have in mind?" Wallenstein asked.
"Well . . . suppose we have the World League and the Tauran Union insist on sending observers to oversee the election. Perhaps we can have that idiot ex-president from the FSC go, too. You know the one, Wozniak. No matter how the elections go, they can insist there was voter intimidation, ballot-box fraud, the usual. Then the government of Balboa can refuse to step down. The Tauran troops can protect that government as long as they match the rump of the Legion in power."
"What about the FSC?"
"About one quarter of the FSC is Progressive, which is to say, Taurophile and United Earthophile, at heart. That's probably enough to stymie any FS support for mercenaries that even the more fascistic among them consider to be distasteful. So it would be just the Taurans against the Balboans."
Wallenstein considered that. "I don't think the Taurans are enough."
With that, Robinson agreed. "They're not; no tolerance for heavy casualties. The Taurans and the Zhong together might be enough though."
Robinson had no clue he was almost echoing Gallic General Janier. Still, the objective reality of the matter was available to both men. Why should they not draw similar conclusions?
"They might," Wallenstein conceded. "I wonder though, if we're not actually creating exactly the threat we fear."
And that was as far as she was willing to go. She did, after all, want Class One status.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
CORDER, GOVERNOR, UTAH v. SIMPSON, COMMISSIONER, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
CERTIORARI TO THE TAX COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued October 13, 2104—Decided March 1, 2105
The overwhelming weight of international opinion that fair and just taxation of the richest portion of humanity for the benefit of the poorest and most exploited is not controlling here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court's holding that the Fairness in Taxation Act of 2101 is both constitutional and binding upon those states which have, so far, failed to implement its provisions. See, e.g., Tomlins, supra, at 831–832, and n. 30. The United States is the only country in the world that continues to deny to its superior organization, the United Nations, its fair and just due in fiscal and tax matters. It does not lessen fidelity to the Constitution or pride in its origins to acknowledge that the concept of national— still less so, state—sovereignty has grown dated, and no longer meets the aspirations of a kinder and more enlightened world. Express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom. Correspondingly, their entitlement to support and development lays a duty upon the so-far privileged portion of humanity to pay. The duty to pay implies, indeed, requires, the right to tax.