School of Fire

by David Sherman

  The man casually wiped the blood off his machete on the shirt of Praxiteles Romero, Mother's chief steward, who collapsed with a heart attack and died right in the front pew.

  "Where is your Jesus now?" the man roared, holding his machete high above his head. Michelle Nguyen began to scream, a high-pitched wail that penetrated every corner of the small chapel. As if it was the signal for pandemonium, everyone began to scream and sob and beg for mercy.

  "Outside!" the leader bellowed, and his men began to push and shove the panicked worshipers out through the broken doors. The brilliant morning sunlight and breezes redolent with the perfume of spring flowers contrasted incongruously with the terror of the congregation. The men herded them into a small group in the courtyard outside the chapel. Mothers comforted children, and fathers comforted mothers and children, and all stared fearfully at the armed men. The leader emerged from the chapel, dragging Mother by her hair. He swung her frail body by one powerful arm and flung her hard upon the stones, where she landed with a thud and the sickening crunch of breaking bone. She moaned and lay still.

  "My name is Lieutenant Xuyen Phong, and this area is now under the protection of the Peoples Liberation Army," he bellowed. "Those of you who have committed no crimes against the workers of Friedland will be spared. The rest will suffer the punishments prescribed by the party." He snapped his fingers and one of his men stepped forward with a list of names. The man who called himself Lieutenant Phong glanced briefly at the list. "Gretel Siebensberg," he announced, and paused. "Death by burning." The crowd gasped. Two of Phong's men stepped forward and lifted Mother from the stones. Quickly they bound her with wire and then hoisted her semiconscious form into the air and left her hanging from the branch of a nearby tree. Her clothes were quickly saturated with a flammable liquid. Phong stood nearby with a lighted taper.

  The drenching had partially revived Mother. She understood she was about to die, but had not heard Phong's pronouncement and so couldn't guess the reason why. "Good-bye, my friends," she whispered to her quaking servants. "God will forgive these men. I am going to see Jesus."

  "Witness the death of this traitor to the people!" Phong shouted. He stepped close to Mother and looked into her eyes. "I ask again, where is your Jesus now, bitch?" he demanded, and set her on fire. He stepped back quickly as Mother's clothing burst into flames. In seconds she was a twisting ball of agony. The horrified onlookers watched as her clothes were consumed and then her hair. Her prayers quickly turned to screams, the screams to inarticulate wailing that died away gradually as the flames singed her lungs and her flesh swelled and burst and then began to turn black.

  Turning away from Mother's smoking corpse swinging obscenely from the tree limb, which by now was also on fire, Phong announced, "When I call your name, step over here." He pointed to a spot in a corner of the yard by the chapel wall and a thick row of cedars. When he finished reading the list, only the youngest children were left from the original group. They continued staring blank-eyed at Mother's blackened corpse.

  "Death by machete!" Phong shouted, drawing his own. To the cowering children, he announced, "Witness the death of these traitors to the people!" With that he and seven of his men set upon the adults, and in moments had hacked all of them to death.

  Michelle Nguyen tore her eyes away from Mother in time to witness her own mother fall under the razor-sharp blades. Blood flew everywhere, and soon the killers were drenched in it. The victims screamed piteously and begged for mercy but were shown none at all. The machetes rose and fell again and again. When they struck the cobblestones, sparks flew. Too overcome with terror to cry out anymore, little Michelle watched dumbly as the men went methodically about killing the adults. She remembered afterward the vivid red footprints the men left upon the stones as they walked away from the dismembered remains of her family and their friends.

  "They had to die, little ones," Phong said gently to the shivering children pathetically clutching one another in a small group. "That is what happens to traitors. Tell that to those who will come to investigate. As a token of its sincerity, the party wishes each of you to have one of these. Rejoice, little ones. This is the dawning of a new age for the people of Friedland." With that he handed each of the seven survivors a little book brightly bound in red leather. The children accepted the books wordlessly and clutched them tightly in their tiny hands. That is how they were found hours later by a rescue party sent out from the city.

  * * *

  "Ted," Chief Long began without preamble when he'd raised Brigadier Sturgeon on his vid hookup, "I have terrible news." Briefly the chief told him what he knew of the massacre in Friedland. "The subcommissioner of Friedland's Stadtpolizei force has asked me to investigate."

  "Guerrillas?"

  "Looks like it. Ted, I need fast transportation and firepower. Can you spare a couple of Dragons and some men for me? Whoever did this may still be around."

  "I'll send twenty-five men from the landing party security detail. Transportation will be ready for you at the port in, oh, twenty minutes. You'll be in Friedland in less than two hours. Keep me informed." The brigadier's image disappeared from the screen.

  "Pete, Alois! To me!" Chief Long shouted.

  Commissioner Landser's face turned ashen white when he heard the news. "I knew Gretel Siebensberg," he muttered. "Who in God's name would want to hurt her?"

  "That is what we will try to find out, my dear Alois. Get me six of your best detectives. Pete, grab your lads and some personal things. You are all going with me to Friedland. Alois, you come too. Turn over the operation here to your deputy. We'll be gone several days."

  The bodies of the victims had not yet begun to stiffen by the time Chief Long and his party arrived on the scene. The sub-commissioner of the Kreuzstadt Stadtpolizei, a nervous little man way out of his depth, had done three things correctly: cordoned off the crime scene to prevent contamination of the evidence; isolated the witnesses immediately; and called Chief Long for assistance. Still badly shaken by what had happened, his voice was unsteady as he tried to answer questions.

  "It-It w-was the smoke from the f-fires of Siebensdorf burning that f-first attracted our attention," he told Chief Long. "The f-fire department was f-first on the scene. When I got here..." His voice trailed off and he gestured helplessly at the mutilated bodies lying about the small courtyard just outside the chapel. Someone had cut Mother's charred corpse down, and it now lay, contorted, under a blanket. The remains of the butchered worshipers lay where they had fallen, crawling with swarms of buzzers attracted by the blood.

  Finished at the chapel, the raiders had then marched into the village of Siebensdorf and slaughtered everyone there, over three hundred men, women, and children. After torching the place, they had disappeared toward the mountains in the northeast, little Michelle reported.

  Brigadier Sturgeon's twenty-five-man security detail immediately established a defensive perimeter around the chapel. Now the small group of policemen and the two Marines, Dean and Claypoole, stood in the courtyard, surveying the horror. Claypoole, face white, stared at Dean and shook his head. Chief Long pulled the blanket away from Mother's contorted corpse and someone gasped. Its arms and legs flexed into the fetal position, it was impossible to tell who the corpse had been, even whether it was that of a man or a woman. Chief Long hastily threw the blanket back over the cadaver. He turned to the men standing around him. He said nothing for a few moments, just stared off in the direction of the mountains. Then he began issuing rapid-fire orders.

  "Lieutenant," he said, addressing the officer in command of the security detail. "I want you to contact the Denver at once. We need drone surveillance here, every inch of the continent. If the men who did this are still here and still operating in a group, we must find them.

  "Dean, Claypoole. Contact the intelligence officer on the Denver. I want you to review every centimeter of tape the satellite surveillance system has taken of aircraft and seagoing vessels arriving and departing from the port of
Kreuzstadt back ten days from today. I also want you to review all electronic and voice intercepts the Denver has made from this region during that same period. I'll have one of Commissioner Landser's detectives assist you." Anxious to be excused, the Marines hurried off to set up the necessary communications and data-processing networks.

  Chief Long then ordered the assembled detectives to collect and sort evidence, including getting detailed statements from the survivors.

  "Pete," he turned to Lieutenant Constantine, "take all of these little red books back to the forensic lab at Brosigville with you immediately. Have everyone here who's touched them fingerprinted. You know the drill. Do what you can to lift and ID latent prints that don't match the kids' or the cops'. I want every detail of these books compared with a genuine article, one of the books we know was taken from the guerrillas." He pointed to the bloody bootprints on the courtyard cobblestones. "Alois, we need to compare those prints with every known type of shoe and boot manufactured on this planet. Start with those that may have been captured from the guerrillas. You men," he addressed the detectives who'd come with him from Brosigville, "scour this entire area. You know how to do it. The murderers must have left more behind them than these little red books."

  But they had not.

  The survey of arriving and departing vessels and a review of intercepted communications proved fruitless, as Chief Long half expected it would, but it was something that had to be done. Given the disposition of the people of Friedland, he'd been pretty sure all along that the raiders had not come from among them, but had been infiltrated into the country in very small groups as visitors or legitimate businessmen. With virtually no police force available in the country, it proved impossible to conduct a canvass of the population, to identify suspicious persons or strangers who might have been seen anywhere around the capital city before the massacre. The news media throughout the country was cooperative, but after five days no promising leads had been obtained.

  Feldpolizei files were scoured for any mention of a man named Xuyen Phong among the guerrillas, but none was found, as Chief Long had also expected.

  The security element tracked the murderers into the foothills of the nearby mountains, where they disappeared completely. To the Marines, this meant they had been airlifted out of the area, but satellite surveillance had shown no aircraft in the vicinity. They had left nothing behind but the little red books and some footprints.

  Leaving his detectives to follow up on the investigation, Long and his party returned to Brosigville.

  Feeling awkward in civilian garb, Alois Landser sat uncomfortably in a small cafe off an obscure side street in downtown Brosigville. He had only just returned from Friedland, and the horror of what had happened there still hung about him like a pall. He was not only depressed but angry, so angry in fact that he had called for this unusual face-to-face meeting with a valuable and very confidential source.

  Landser regarded his wineglass darkly. It contained Weinbauer Katzenwasser '36, a rare Wanderjahrian vintage that often graced the table at Oligarch Arschmann's villa, and one Landser, a connoisseur, normally relished. But that afternoon the glass sat untouched. Nervously he brushed at some lint on his trousers and then looked again into the street outside.

  Since his appointment as commissioner of the Arschland Stadtpolizei, Alois Landser had been collecting information on people. His files were extensive and very confidential. Much of the information, along with the identities of his informants, he was sharing with Chief Long and the Marines, as he had been ordered to do. But he had kept some of it deliberately to himself, files he'd compiled on Wanderjahr's most prominent people, including the oligarchs themselves.

  That afternoon, one of his most highly placed and trusted informants was to meet with him. Normally Landser did not meet with informants personally, not even the most trustworthy ones. Communication usually took place through drops and blind signals Landser had worked out with them over time. Initial contact always had to do with official police business of some sort, but afterward, information was passed on through Landser's secret communications system, which he controlled personally when dealing with the most highly placed contacts. The man who would be coming through the door anytime now had agreed to inform because, some years before, his brother had been charged with a very serious crime and Landser had gotten the charges dismissed. He was now paying the commissioner back for that favor.

  Landser never used real names when dealing with his informants. This man's code name was Schlange, and the man he was reporting on, one of the oligarchs, was Verrater, "Snake" and "Traitor" respectively. To Landser the name Schlange fit the man too well; he was also supplying information to the bandits. Verrater? If the suspicions Landser was forming about him proved correct, he would derive the utmost pleasure from making the arrest.

  Schlange came through the door. Squinting his eyes in the semidarkness after the bright sunshine outside, he bowed slightly at Landser before sliding into the chair opposite his.

  "Good afternoon, most gracious commissioner," he said, smiling unctuously. Landser grimaced as he signed for the waiter to bring another glass. "Thank you," the man said as he was served. Schlange regarded the dark red wine for a moment and gulped half his glass down. "Ahhh," he sighed. Landser was offended. He sipped gently at his own wine, but he was so upset at being in the boor's presence that he could not even savor the bouquet.

  "Herr Schlange," Landser began, "if you help me now you are off the hook. I will not trouble you anymore."

  The man he called Snake nodded. "This is most generous of you, Herr Commissioner."

  "I am not a generous man, Herr Schlange, you know that," Landser replied coldly. "I want revenge, and if you help me get that, you are a free man."

  "At your service, Herr Commissioner."

  Landser leaned across the table. "Answer some questions." Schlange nodded. "Did Verrater set off the bomb that killed my brother?"

  "No."

  "You're sure of this?" Landser was disappointed at the answer.

  "Absolutely."

  "Do you know who pulled off the Morgenluft raid?"

  "Verrater." Landser's heart jumped. The raiders nearly killed Commander Peters, an officer of the Confederation Marines. He had the bastard! Maybe Verrater didn't kill his brother, as Schlange believed, but he had him anyway. Landser was a policeman, and he could not suppress a surge of joy at the prospect of breaking a case and bringing a criminal to justice, even if it did not bring the personal satisfaction he wanted.

  "He wanted to get rid of his closest rival." Schlange shrugged. "He also wants the Marines to act more quickly against the bandits. Two for one." He passed a microcassette across the table. "I recorded the conversation between Verrater and his agent in Morgenluft. There is other interesting information on there as well." He smiled. Landser pocketed the cassette.

  "Oligarch Siebensberg? Do you know who murdered her?"

  Schlange shrugged again. "Not the bandits either, that's for sure. But not Verrater either. That narrows the list, doesn't it? I have my suspicions, though."

  "Don't play games with me." Landser's voice had turned icy. "Who?"

  "Zitze." This was the code name for another oligarch.

  Landser sat back in his chair as if slapped in the face. "Impossible!"

  Schlange sipped at his wine. "Only a suspicion."

  "I cannot believe this," he said after a moment. "I need confirmation of this... this speculation."

  Schlange nodded. "There is someone, an employee of Zitze's." He gulped the rest of the wine noisily and regarded the empty glass with satisfaction. "Nice, but not sweet enough, don't you think?" Fury silently mounting, Landser glared at the man. "You know, everyone involved wants to eliminate his rivals—"

  "The man's name, Herr Schlange!"

  "—on the Ruling Council," Schlange continued unperturbed, "and have the Marines step in and eliminate the bandits. The Marines and the bandits are the only ones whose motives are honest in any
of this business. That is why I support the bandits, Herr Commissioner. I know you don't care about any of this because you are not political, but I have principles." Schlange grinned and flicked a forefinger against his wineglass, which produced a melodious ping.

  The sun glinting off the windshield of a landcar passing very slowly by in the street suddenly drew Landser's attention. "Down!" he shouted, and dived for the floor.

  Schlange was not so fast. The first bullets from an automatic weapon shattered the windows, and the next slammed into the informant. The first entered his jaw on the left side at the gum line and exited the right side of his mouth in a spray of blood and tooth fragments. Another struck him just behind his left eye and angled up to exit through the right side of his head, taking much of the right frontal lobe of his brain with it. A third projectile struck his left external carotid artery before plunging down to bury itself in the first cervical vertebra.

  Landser drew his own pistol and, as the shooter attempted to reload, fired through the shattered windows at the passenger side of the landcar. The figure sitting there jerked several times before the car sped down the street. Running out into the bright sunshine, Landser took a shooting position in the middle of the street and fired the rest of his magazine at the swiftly departing vehicle. He could clearly see his bullets striking, but they failed to stop the car. Landser stood still for a moment, catching his breath, his still-smoking pistol dangling from one hand. Then he dashed back into the cafe.