On Broken Wings

by Francis Porretto

  Tiny hadn't understood the real purpose of the outing until it was far too late for him to do anything about it. Now he was trapped.

  Lawrence's lackey forced MacKenzie Assurance's front door with a small pry bar, and the three of them surged into the insurance brokerage's offices like a squad of commandos. The front portion of the shop was completely dark. Light gleamed from beneath the door of an office at the back of the suite. Lawrence headed for it and hit it with a single powerful kick. The door burst inward and ripped partway off its hinges.

  George MacKenzie sat at his desk with a fountain pen in his hand and a welter of papers spread before him. The proprietor of MacKenzie Assurance was a frail and elderly man. His stoop testified to decades spent bent over his desk from dawn till dusk, poring over the insurance policies he wrote for his fellow Onteorans. His thin white hair and lined face were the badges he had earned with his seriousness at his trade. His carriage proclaimed that he had earned respectful treatment, that it should be obvious to anyone who might look at him, and that he would always receive it. Even Tiny would hesitate to raise a hand against this man.

  Lawrence did not. He strode to MacKenzie as the old man started to rise, grabbed him by an ear and dragged him around his desk. MacKenzie stumbled and fell when he was let go. He regained his feet and brushed the dust from his gray pinstripe suit with feeble strokes of his fingers, all the while staring haughtily back at Ernest Lawrence.

  "Told you you needed protection, Mac," Lawrence said.

  MacKenzie drew himself up straight. "Your demonstration adds nothing to your negotiating position, Lawrence. Not so long as the decision remains mine to make."

  Lawrence backhanded the old man across the mouth. MacKenzie left his feet with the blow. He fetched up against the wall of his office and slumped to the floor, blood leaking from his nose and mouth. His eyes had glazed over from shock.

  Lawrence's eyes flicked to Tiny. "Get him up."

  Tiny moved forward, took MacKenzie by the shoulders, and raised him to his feet as gently as he could. He had to keep a grip on the old man to keep him upright. Lawrence's buffet had left him semiconscious at most.

  Lawrence had drawn his Browning and was fiddling with it. Tiny cringed when he heard Lawrence click the safety off and rack the slide.

  "Do you know how much of a problem rape is getting to be around here, Mac? The local womenfolk can hardly leave their homes these days. Of course, it's no worry to my clients. They all know that with me looking after them, they're as safe as they'd be in their mommas' arms. Don't you ever worry about the women who work here? Or about yourself?"

  MacKenzie's face regained animation, but he said nothing. At any rate, nothing intelligible.

  Lawrence looked at Tiny again. "Get his pants off."

  Tiny obeyed. MacKenzie did not resist, though he kept slumping toward the floor. When he looked back, Lawrence was holding his gun loosely, negligently, but the safety was off, and beyond all doubt it was pointed at Tiny himself.

  "Yours, too."

  Tiny had ceased to think about his tactical difficulty, but he couldn't rid himself of the images.

  MacKenzie began to wail. Tiny trembled as he turned the elderly broker around and bent him over his own desk. He looked back at Lawrence one more time, hoping for a stay. Lawrence grunted and indicated with his gun that Tiny was to proceed.

  MacKenzie went rigid and produced an earsplitting scream of agony. The walls hurled it back at them from all directions.

  Less than a minute later, the old man's body became limp. Tiny pushed him off and stared at himself in horror and disgust. His groin was covered with blood. More blood ran down the front of the broker's desk, puddling on the hardwood floor at his feet. MacKenzie did not stir. Tiny turned to Lawrence.

  The boss thug was holstering his weapon, his face a picture of satisfaction. His button-man was pocketing a mini-camcorder.

  Lawrence grinned at Tiny. "Pull your pants up, boy. Fun's over for the night. You go home and clean yourself up, get a good night's sleep. You did real good. I might want to use you again someday."

  Tiny had killed before, often with his bare hands. Several of his victims had surrendered their lives with Tiny's hands wrapped around their throats. This had been a thousand times more intimate, a million. Twenty years' experience with deadly force had not prepared him for the grisly chill that flowed through him when he felt the life leave MacKenzie's body, still impaled upon his own flesh.

  Yet the dot at the end of the sentence did not arrive until Lawrence gave him that you think you're bad? leer. Tiny's gorge rose again at the memory, and this time he could not control it. He staggered from his bunk to kneel in a corner of his room, and vomited until there was nothing left in him but rage, exhaustion, and despair.

  ====

  Chapter 37

  Saturday morning was unusually hot for the latter half of October. Christine paused to catch her breath before knocking on the trailer door. Loughlin opened it, looked her over, and said, "You're early."

  "Better early than late."

  "And you're dressed for sparring."

  "So?"

  "We're not going to spar today."

  "Why not?" Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to leave the house dressed this way?

  His lips thinned. "Didn't we settle that last Sunday? You're better than I am. You know it, I know it. I shan't waste our time trying to teach you something you know better than I do." He beckoned her inside.

  Well, at least he doesn't try to kid me. Or himself.

  She seated herself at his dinette table. He went to the stove and poured coffee into two mugs.

  "Milk or sugar?"

  "Black, please. Thank you."

  He set a mug before her and sat down facing her. She sipped from her mug and was surprised at the quality. "This is excellent."

  He nodded. "Thank you. Louis liked it, too."

  She nodded and fought to unclench her guts.

  I'm going to hear his name. I'm going to hear it at work. I'm going to hear it from Helen. I'm going to hear it here. I have to learn to hear it without allowing my guts to tie themselves into a knot. He's dead. I buried him myself. He won't be back, and I have to go on. I can still love him and honor his memory, but I have to go on. Maybe in time I can learn how to grieve for him, but I still have to go on.

  "What is the art of the warrior, Christine?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "What is the art of the warrior? Not his objective, but his artistry, the quality by which you would judge how good he is at it."

  She thought for several seconds. "Well, he has to achieve his objective."

  He nodded. "That's absolute. What else?"

  "I'd rather not guess, Malcolm. What is it?"

  He frowned. "Think, Christine. There are large objectives and small ones. There are some that one would be disappointed not to reach in an hour, and some for which a five year campaign would seem a small price."

  "Ah. You mean cost."

  "Cost control. A warrior goes into combat knowing not only what he wants to gain, but how much he's willing to pay for it. For all things have a price, and not all prices are worth the paying."

  "Does cost take the place of rules, then?"

  Surprise spread across his features.

  "Very good. In a formal game, the rules are the constraint on each player's actions. In warfare, the constraints are the costs involved. Costs in lives. Costs in gold. Costs in time, and in opportunities foregone. Costs in consequences, some of which are not foreseen."

  He leaned back, hands steepled over his midsection. "If you're ready, willing, and able to pay the price, you can do anything. But each of those is a constraint upon you. Before heading into combat, you must confront each one as fully as possible. Not long ago, you saw Louis kill two men and humiliate a third. Did he ever discuss that campaign with you?"

  Campaign?

  "No, not really. Didn't he just go out and do what he had to?"

  Lo
ughlin snorted. "You may rest assured that he planned his actions that day as meticulously as you planned your wardrobe."

  I didn't plan my wardrobe. I didn't even buy it. Helen told me what to try on and what to buy, and Louis paid for it.

  "And he planned them on the basis of cost?"

  "Cost and objectives." Loughlin rose from the table, stretched, folded his arms and looked down at her. "He wanted to protect you. He wanted to forestall any further assaults. He achieved both, and at a very small cost. Do you think it likely that such a result came about by blind chance?"

  She started to speak, stopped herself.

  "Louis had a natural gift for planning, and a natural understanding of costs. It was unnecessary for me to teach him anything about either. But it came so naturally to him that he'd not likely have been able to pass it along to you."

  He reached for his wallet and drew out a dollar bill.

  "We're going to play some games." He held up the bill as if to study it. "One dollar equals one hundred cents. Let's suppose we have an auctioneer here, who's trying to sell this dollar bill, this particular one and not another. Let's suppose that only you and I are here to bid. All bids must be multiples of five cents. How much do you bid?"

  She smirked. "Ninety-five cents."

  He nodded. "Very good. Now explain."

  "Any lower bid can be profitably topped. Any higher bid yields no profit."

  His smile was subtle, but there was definite pleasure in it.

  "Doesn't that imply a particular objective?"

  "Well, yes, but what other reason could there be to bid on a dollar bill?"

  "Think hard, Christine. Give me three."

  She pondered.

  Now I know where Louis got his style from. So acquiring a dollar's not the objective. What, then?

  "It's a collector's item, so it's worth more than a dollar."

  "Good. Another."

  "There's a code written on it that would allow me to open a safe full of money, or diamonds, or something."

  "Very good. One more."

  She thought hard.

  "My objective is not to gain something for myself, but to deny it to you. And if you get hold of that dollar bill, I won't be able to stop you."

  His face went slack, and she wondered if she'd said something foolish. He stepped to her side, bowed, and proffered her the bill with a slight flourish.

  "You take this home," he whispered, "and have it mounted in a fancy frame, and put it on your wall, some place where you'll see it every day. Louis chose well." There was a hint of exasperation in his voice. "Even in this, he has surpassed me."

  She hesitated, then took it from him. Even with his stony face, there was no concealing his pleasure.

  "You're already a fighter. You will be a warrior."

  ***

  Loughlin refilled their coffee mugs and returned the pot to the stove. The way he settled himself at the table suggested the commencement of an important enterprise.

  "Louis taught you a wide range of fighting techniques, but there's one I'm certain he stinted. He taught you how to cope with your opponent physically, but I'll wager he never discussed how to undermine your opponent mentally."

  Christine snorted. "How do you think I took you?"

  He shook his head. "I know what you did. That kind of friction tactic is very useful, if you have the skills necessary to execute it, but it's still just a tactic. It's about the 'how' of the contest, not the 'why.' " He leaned forward. "Why did we fight last Sunday, Christine?"

  The question flicked at her unease. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

  "Oh? Who challenged whom?"

  She straightened up in her seat. "Did you expect anything else, after what you said about Louis?"

  He remained silent, eyes steady upon her own.

  I was the one that wanted to fight. Fight? I wanted to pound you down to a smooth puree and pour you down a toilet.

  "You gave me a reason, didn't you? You wanted to see what I could do when I was too angry to think."

  He shook his head again. "No. I knew what your fighting skills would be. I wanted to see how much self-control you had. I can't believe Louis didn't at least try to prepare you for that."

  He did.

  Loughlin sat back. "We've talked about objectives already. How does an objective differ from a motive?"

  "What?"

  "Think, Christine. Did Louis ever give you any crime fiction to read? Detective stories? Murder mysteries?"

  "Well, yes. He wasn't too big on it, but there was some."

  "And what was the mantra the detectives were always chanting? What was their investigation intended to discover?"

  She thought a moment. "Motive, means, and opportunity."

  He nodded. "We can pass on means and opportunity for now. That's tactics. Motive is the 'why' of a criminal act. Where does it reside? Inside the criminal, among his desires, fears and emotions, or outside, in the objective world that he shares with the rest of us?"

  The words acted like seed crystals upon her swirling thoughts. She watched the growth of a logical structure of emotion, decision, planning and tactical execution in her mind's eye as if it were a skyscraper being built at fantastic speed.

  "Louis learned this from you, didn't he?" Her heart accelerated. "To use just the right words to unlock someone else's thoughts, and then let him go the rest of the way himself?"

  Loughlin nodded. "Was he good at it?"

  She fought down a rush of grief. "You'd have been proud of him."

  Loughlin rose from his seat without warning, walked to the far end of the trailer, and regarded the forest beyond.

  "I was, Christine. Never doubt it."

  He returned to the table and reseated himself.

  "We begin."

  ***

  She learned.

  At first it was frustrating, even maddening. What Loughlin was trying to teach her was to set aside her own desires and climb inside the mind of her adversary. It did not come as naturally as her fighting skills had.

  "Of all the musts and must-nots of warfare, this one is paramount: you must conceal your motives. Unless he is insignificant in comparison to you, once your opponent knows your motives, he'll be able to defeat you. He'll probably even have a choice of ways to do it.

  "You must move heaven and earth, if necessary, to discover your opponent's motives. His tactics will be determined by them. If his motives change, his tactics will follow. There lies your opportunity, if you can get him to adopt tactics unsuitable to the conflict. Of course, he could try to do the same to you."

  "What's the countermeasure?"

  "Constancy. Refusal to let yourself be diverted. Of course, that can be a trap, too. Motive is partly determined by objectives. If your adversary's situation changes but his objectives remain the same, he could find himself committed to paying an exorbitant price for something that's become worthless."

  "And that's the time to stop playing with his head?"

  His grin was ice-cold. "You have a gift."

  He drew her into strategic studies up a gradually steepening road. There were tools of thought and communication she had to master before they could do anything but talk in generalities: map reading, map drawing, logistics, time projections, threat and ally assessment, horizon analysis, minimax and mainchance planning, and many more. They challenged her intelligence and organizational skills in unexpected ways.

  "Be careful not to fool yourself with your own tools. A map is a useful thing, but it hides details that can change the whole complexion of a campaign. Look here." Malcolm pointed to green-shaded bands labeled Alsace and Lorraine. "It doesn't look any different from the areas around it, does it?"

  "From which I infer that it was different."

  "Very different. Heavy forestation, few major roads, and uphill going east. An attacker's logistical nightmare, especially from the western side. Probably the best defender's territory anywhere in Europe. The French thought they could penetrate the
German defenses here before the Germans swept down on Paris. The path from Paris to Berlin through Alsace and Lorraine is visibly shorter than the path from Berlin to Paris through Belgium. They were very, very wrong."

  "How long did it take them to figure out that they'd been had?"

  He grinned without humor. "One month. By which time they had lost the northern quarter of their territory and were committed to a four-year war that cost them two million men."

  "Didn't anyone know about this beforehand?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Schlieffen and the Germans. They knew that the French emphasis would be on reclaiming the provinces they'd lost in 1870. It was a motive burned deeply into the French General Staff, and it worked entirely in the Germans' favor." He snorted. "Of course, the Germans eventually forgot what they were doing, too."

  Not all of the problems he posed were from history. Some were so obviously composed exercises that it took everything she had not to laugh out loud at their artificiality. Yet he took them seriously, and insisted that she do so as well.

  "Now, the Bruxists have heavy defenses here and here, made up of mobile glomenators, along the major roads leading to the thing works, but only light anti-zark shields to defend their coastlines. You could try to punch through those defenses overland, or you could put your fresnoid projectors on sea platforms, try the Brux-Wazznia channel and come in from their northern coast." He indicated the two lines of approach on the map with light sweeps of pencil. "Which is it to be?"

  She studied the map. "The channel seems like a higher percentage choice."

  He threw his pencil down. "Have you learned so little? You're ready to send your best weapons down a narrow channel guarded by alerted Wazznian dragoons that have as much to lose as the Bruxists if you should punch through? And remember, those glomenators are mobile. The Wazznians only have to hold you up long enough for them to get here!"

  "Well?" She blushed.