A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  She took a sip of her ice-cold vodka, served in a glass that would have done for a beer, and reminded herself, Oh, yes, I am here because Janier, at the bequest of the Gaul-dominated Renseignements Generaux, added some specifics to their intelligence requirements, and I happened to have a couple of personal connections for that. I still wouldn’t be here if Sidney hadn’t asked personally.

  “Sidney,” AKA Sidney Stuart-Mansfield, lieutenant general (retired) and currently head of Pimlico Hex, which was to say, Anglian Intelligence, was the one who had arranged her secondment to the TU, her most-welcome promotion, and the independence in action she’d always craved.

  So, I suppose I owed the bastard, she thought, taking another healthy slug from her glass.

  At least the vodka’s not bad, though the best of it is still horse piss next to a good twelve-year-old Kinclaith. Then again, I could still be in the POW camp in Balboa, so I’m not going to bitch too much about being here. Hell, it’s something of a fluke that I’m not dead, so I really can’t complain at all, can I?

  Placing the vodka back on the table, Jan used her fingers to pick up a pelmen, a kind of thin-doughed, stuffed dumpling, from a bowl, dip it in sour cream, and pop it into her mouth. The dough of the pelmen was yellowish, since the flour that went into it came from chorley, a grain that grew on a sunflowerlike plant, the seeds of which, prior to grinding, resembled tiny kernels of corn. Where chorley came from, native to Terra Nova or imported long ago by the Noahs, none could say.

  Yeah, not bad. So, yeah, it could have been a lot worse than this.

  A hand snaked down to grab one of the pelmeni. She swatted at it instinctively but missed.

  “You never were quick enough to catch me,” said a plump and balding Volgan, speaking French and smiling broadly as he took a seat. He made the pelmen disappear as he did. A briefcase he carried was set down by his left foot.

  “I never really tried, Vladimir Yefimovich,” she retorted. At his sceptically raised eyebrow, she modified that to, “Well, I never tried that hard.”

  The eyebrow dropped, replaced by an equally sceptical smile. “So what can I and the Volgan Republic do for you, my lovely ecossaise?”

  “I need to know everything that you, that is to say, your country has sold to Balboa.” In fact, Jan already had a good deal of that information. She concealed this the better to be able to judge the truthfulness of what she hoped the Volgans would give her.

  “Only that?” the Volgan asked. “Just that little bit?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly? Nobody knows exactly. Well, nobody in this country. I am sure the Balboans know, some of them.”

  “How is that even possible?” she asked.

  Vladimir sighed, whether at fate, at human iniquity, or both, Jan couldn’t be sure.

  “The short version,” he said, “is that about the time the Balboans went on contract to the Federated States, we were still in a state of moral, emotional, economic, and accountability collapse. The difference between ‘socialist principles of accounting’ and ‘generally accepted accounting principles’ being several decades of gross domestic product.

  “It was possible—hell, it was easy—for someone with cash in hand to go straight to, say, the Thirty-second Guards –that’s right, Guards—Armored Division with a satchel of money and drive off with not just some of their equipment, but all of it. Yes, that included the secret material. Moreover, provided that the colonel or general or colonel general making the deal sent some of the money upward, and used some more of it to support his troops so that the government didn’t have to, he’d be commended for his business sense.”

  “The Balboans didn’t do that,” she countered, “or at least not much.”

  Vladimir held up defensive hands. “No, they didn’t,” he admitted. “My example was just that, an example. Instead, they contracted directly with factories—they bought a controlling interest in some of those—for what they wanted.

  “Now tell me, Major Campbell”—the Volgan laughed at seeing her startled—“well, of course we know about that . . . and congratulations. In any case, tell me how to tell if a factory that supposedly produced forty White Eagle tanks actually produced one hundred, but recorded only forty. Or if the factory from which that factory bought the one hundred engines didn’t hide sixty or six hundred of those. Or took a hundred burned out engines and transferred them to that same Guards Armored I mentioned, with a little cash to their commander to accept the scrap as new. We spent decades under the Red Tsars, fudging production figures to prove this or disprove that in order to support some piece of propaganda. And we were, and still are, good at it.

  “Let me give you another example, those eighteen-centimeter guns they used to so discomfort the Zhong recently. I can tell you where they came from. Those I can tell you exactly where. I got curious because the use to which they were put I found quite clever. They were in a depot-level storage yard in the frozen south. They were allegedly demilitarized, as part of the treaty regime on force reduction. Demilitarization, in this case, consisted of boring out the lands. And, surely you will agree, boring out the lands of a rifled artillery piece does make it unserviceable.”

  “Not,” Jan said, somewhat bitterly, “if the shells they’re going to fire are laser-guided, fin-stabilized arrow shells, with simply amazing range.” Bitterly? Well, she hadn’t a single fuck to give about Zhong losses, but the Zhong’s losses meant Balboans freed up to fight Anglians and that meant her losses.

  “Correct,” Vladimir agreed. “They were bought by someone in Cochin, as scrap, for a fraction of their previous worth as arms. And then . . .”

  “And then they were sent onward,” she finished, “fully functional for their intended purpose.”

  “Yes,” Vladimir nodded. “Sent onward, disassembled, stored in shipping containers, and then—so it would seem—reassembled. By the way, though we cannot prove it, we think Carrera had a hand in the method chosen to ‘demilitarize’ those guns.

  “Some were bought openly, because your enemy needed some to train with. Most, however, went under the table. Aircraft? Those Mosaic Ds they used recently to give you so much trouble? Same story, or only slightly different, anyway. The one difference is that I think I can tell you how many of those they have.”

  Jan tilted her head with interest. That was one of the intelligence requirements the Gauls had laid on her. “How many?”

  “We think eight hundred and fifty-seven. From that you must subtract training and combat losses on your own.”

  Those, based on the training I saw, are unlikely to be small, she thought.

  Jan felt something bump her right leg. It felt hard and sharp cornered and . . .

  “In that briefcase,” said Vladimir, “which is my personal gift to you, is enough information to get your bosses off your back. It is neither everything you want nor everything we know. We do, after all, have an interest still in selling our arms, and the more TU soldiers the Balboans can kill with those arms, the more profit we can make. But, for an old friend, why not?”

  “How much of it is lies?” Campbell asked.

  “Why none,” he answered. “Though do be careful of half-truths that can be wholly misleading. And watch out for some oddities I, personally, cannot explain.”

  “Why give this to me at all then?” Jan asked.

  “Longstanding affection?” he offered, a broad and insincere smile beaming on his face. At her scoffing snort, he said, “Not buying that, eh? How about so you’ll owe me a favor when the time comes? How about because we don’t think it, for the most part, matters? That we think in this case the material aspects of the war are the least important?”

  “Not very Volgan of you.” It wasn’t clear whether she was speaking of the favor or the claim of irrelevance.

  Vladimir shook his head. “No; no, it isn’t.” He didn’t make it clear either. Indeed, he found the whole idea uncomfortable enough that he decided it was time to end the meeting. Before he took his
leave, however, he passed Jan a business card with an email address, and a written password. “If you need to get hold of me, sign in to that and leave the message in the draft folder. I’ll get it.”

  IV Corps Headquarters, Fortress Cristobal, Balboa

  The air, for a change, wasn’t shaking with the impact of enemy ordnance. This was unusual enough to be remarkable, and some had remarked on it. Still, the assault could recommence at any time, so the sensitive communications equipment stayed mostly in the stifling command bunker. Hence it was there that Jimenez spoke calmly into a military field telephone that someone had spliced into the remnants of the landline system. Sarita Asilos, seated at her usual workplace, watched adoringly as he did.

  “No,” he said, “no, I know this isn’t a small thing. It’s a big one. And I’m not prepared to offer anything like what it’s worth to me personally. You know I can’t surrender Fort Tecumseh. And I can’t and won’t surrender Cristobal. All I can offer is a truce for both of us to evacuate our wounded and for me to put in medical supplies . . . .why don’t we have enough there already? That’s a good question, Chaplain, and someone is possibly going to lose a good chunk of his ass over the answer. I can trade some medical material, because apparently, we have plenty here, and I’ll toss in a can of legionary rum if that will seal the deal . . . six cans? You don’t need medical supplies but six cans and you’ll arrange it . . . oh, you can only try. All right, Chaplain, but obviously if I can’t get the truce I can’t deliver the rum.”

  I know it’s a joke, but I will, by God, get him the rum if he can get me the ceasefire. If necessary. I’ll float it to their side in a balloon. Ooops . . . not supposed to even think about those, am I?

  “Yeah, sure . . . I’ll be standing by here. Just let me know. But hurry, Padre; there are good men on both sides in needless pain . . . Yes . . . I know you know that. Jimenez out.”

  “Will it work, sir?” asked Asilos.

  “Fifty-fifty,” the legate answered. “But I believe the Anglian minister when he said if it fell through it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  “I’m going outside for some fresh air. Call me when the phone rings.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarita answered.

  Nice girl, Jimenez mused, idly, as he turned and began to walk the twisting, turning half aboveground tunnel to the shell of a building that covered the tunnel’s exit. A trench through the former floor of the building led from the opening to the ripped-up asphalt of the street. There, more trenches had been cut, a mix of torn-up asphalt, gravel, dirt, and sand being piled to either side to allow safe enough movement when half bent over.

  Jimenez followed the trench to a sangar that faced north, one of a half dozen expressly sited to let him—or, should it come to that, his replacement—see and sense the battlefield.

  It didn’t seem like much of a battlefield at the moment. To the east, piece by piece, the pounding was lifting from Fort Tecumseh. Quick work, if that’s the Anglian chaplain’s doing. And, if it is, I’ll make it twelve cans.

  To the north, few aircraft flew, no bombs exploded, and the Tauran artillery had gone unaccountably silent. Even the aircraft sounded to be helicopters, perhaps under a bit more strain than usual.

  Jimenez heard a small sound behind him. He turned to see a familiar shape or, rather, two of them. The larger shape was Asilos, who had apparently tracked him down. The smaller was a roll of wire she reeled out behind her.

  “It’s the Anglian chaplain,” she announced, handing over the handset of a phone she’d hung from a strap across her back. It was then that Jimenez saw she’d pulled an operator’s headset on. Into the boom mike she said, in pretty fair English, which he hadn’t known she could speak, “Legate Jimenez will speak to you now.”

  “Jimenez, Padre.”

  Sarita heard the Anglian say, “Well, I’ve got you your truce. And you can come by small boats to bring over medical supplies and pick up your wounded. But we’re having some communications trouble on this end so it will be some hours before I can be certain everyone here is on board with it. If you don’t hear from me otherwise, sunrise is when it kicks in and it will last four hours.”

  “That will be fine, Chaplain,” Jimenez answered. “Now, where can I deliver your booze?”

  “I’m going to take a small boat out into the middle of the bay,” the Anglian said. “I’ll be the only one wearing a clerical collar. You can give it to me there . . . if you insist.”

  The chaplain couldn’t see Jimenez’s confirming nod. He did hear, “I do, and I’ll send someone trustworthy. Oh, and good work on getting the artillery lifted off Tecumseh. I’ll order ceasefire except in point self-defense on our end as soon as we finish here.”

  “That wasn’t my doing,” the Anglian said. “That was . . . well . . . you’ll see in just a bi—”

  Indeed, Jimenez saw it before he heard or felt it. Suddenly the night sky was lit up from dozens of locations, as if by strobe lights. He immediately dove into the bottom of the sangar, pushing Sarita down with him, eliciting from her a shocked scream. The sound followed along about a minute later, distant enough and from enough guns—Artillery, it must be artillery—that it was more a rumble than a blast.

  But not aimed at us; the noise of the shells would have arrived before the muzzle blast. So what is . . .

  That question was cut off by the scream of jets, both overhead and to west and east. Interspersed with the shriek of the jets was another sound, crisper than the first wave, but more distant.

  In that moment Jimenez understood two things. One was that an attack was ongoing, probably aimed at what the president refused to call the “Parilla Line.” About that he couldn’t do much. The other was that he was lying atop Corporal Sarita Asilos. Must have shielded her with my body automatically; dumb ass.

  Closely related were the facts that the breasts her uniform hid fairly well were, in fact, unfairly impressive under the material, and that this was all most irregular indeed.

  “There’s no one else here,” she whispered into his ear.

  Jimenez hesitated a moment before answering, “Just my conscience.” He then sighed, before using his arms to push himself backwards, off of her, to his knees, and then onto his booted feet.

  He bent to give her a hand up, saying, “Some different time and place, maybe, we can continue this . . . conversation.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “The best reconnaissance will always be the attack.”

  —Adolph von Schell, Battle Leadership

  Bella Vista, Balboa

  There was a small headquarters set up in the shell of a burned-out home, a couple of hundred meters away. For the nonce, though, Janier left it to his staff while he, alone, tried to get some sense of the looming battle from out in the open air.

  He shuddered and almost cringed from the blast of jets moving fast and at low level, just overhead. They passed, this wave of them, in a fraction of a second, yet their roar stayed behind for much longer, reverberating from the ground, the rocky outcroppings, still-standing buildings, and from the very trees. Leaves fell from those trees, too, under the sonic assault. Janier saw the leaves fall but didn’t notice that some few birds likewise fell dead, perhaps frightened into cardiac arrest by the sound. He’d have understood the cause completely if he’d seen them flutter to the ground.

  Along with the jets, there was a steady freight train of artillery shells heading north as well. Coordinating those so that the jets and shells didn’t try to occupy the same space at the same time had been a major job for his staff. At this range both cannon and shells were distant and weak, but every now and again the blast of a thousand or two-thousand pounder—Anglian attack aircraft, Anglian measures—rocked Janier back on his heels.

  Poor bastards, he thought, in contemplation of the effect of the bombing and shelling on the Balboan defenders. He thought, too, of the troops he was going to launch into and attack on the ridge south of the river. The sentiment was almost exactly the same; Poor bastards
, but I have to know.

  Mentally, for the umpteenth time, Janier went over in his mind the indicia on offer. We captured over fifty of their regimental guns. At the scale they were issued, previously, three guns per battery, that’s enough for—oh, call it—six regiments, or two divisions. Or a corps, which we know was here. We also have enough heavier guns and rocket launchers in the capture pool to make it a corps that we seem to have caught flat-footed, and all oriented to the north, as if anticipating the Zhong eventually landing from the Mar Furioso, if they’d taken the Isla Real.

  Once the island was obviously not going to fall, nor the Zhong to land anywhere near Balboa City, they should have faced south, to contest our landing. Why didn’t they? They could have hurt us badly if they had, maybe even defeated our landing. That’s grounds for suspicion number one. Yes, yes, the deployment of the artillery, lighter and shorter ranged nearer the north and heavier and longer ranged to the south, was completely consistent with a focus on the Zhong. And it’s plausible, as the staff insists, that they simply lacked the transportation to shift them around, so they were still in that configuration when we hit them. Yes, it’s plausible. But I still don’t believe it.

  The artillery fire to the west slackened and then stopped. He shuddered inwardly again, as another wave of jets shot by overhead. He couldn’t see them but following their progress by sound wasn’t hard. This set peeled off to his right, or west, to lay their bombs along the ridgeline, using the airspace temporarily freed up by the halt in artillery fire.

  I told the staff that the regimental guns, at least, the Volgan eighty-five millimeter, were auxiliary propelled and could have moved if their formations had wanted them to. Of course, the staff weenies had a good answer for that; “the guns may move themselves, yes, mon general, but the ammunition may not. No sense in moving them until you can move that as well.”