by Tom Kratman
* * *
Thank God I got out of that camp in time, thought Esteban, still leading the remnants of his group and still moving at as fast a walk as his legs would support. Every now and again, when his path wasn't blocked by vines or the sparse undergrowth that popped up wherever a fallen jungle tree had opened a space for sunlight, Esteban looked behind him.
At least I've still got my chingadera rifle!
Not all did. Especially had those towards the rear, the ones most nearly swept up in the flood of shellfire that had deluged Camp Twenty-seven, dropped theirs. Perhaps some had dropped the arms in shock. Perhaps others merely wanted to shed the weight to increase their speed. It didn't matter. Of the two thirds of the group that had escaped the shelling, over a third were weaponless.
* * *
"Jesus," Castillo whispered, hugging his face tighter to the stock of his machine gun while easing his finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger. "Half the sorry bastards don't even have guns."
"Rifles," Cruz absently corrected. "And so what?" He tightened his fingers slightly on the detonators.
* * *
Directional anti-personnel mines—something like what would have been called "claymores" or "MONs" on another world, in another time—could in theory scour an ambush's kill zone free of life on their own. After all, each had about seven hundred ball bearings or small cylinders encased in plastic resin, those fronting a highly brissant explosive that should have shattered them into seven hundred projectiles, which seven hundred should have spread out and swept the ground more or less evenly.
Theory was one thing. In practice, some went into the ground and others too high into the air. Some stayed in groups of five or ten or twenty, nearly certain death should they hit something living and then split up, but considerably less likely to hit anything. And then there's the sheer malicious chance factor with explosives. They do odd things.
* * *
Esteban saw the blossoming black and orange flowers before he felt a thing. It seemed to him that the first thing he felt was the displaced air from the passage of a zillion homicidal bees. Then he felt the explosions, rattling his brain as they pounded his body.
Shocked senseless, his fingers loosened on their own, letting his rifle slip to the ground. He was also distantly aware of something running down his legs toward the ground. Even with that, though, he was too shocked to feel any sense of shame.
Even before the chain of explosions has pummeled his body, Esteban saw flashes from the undergrowth. Only then did he become aware of the screams of his comrades, scythed down behind him.
* * *
Cruz couldn't see shit through the smoke from the mines and the dirt they kicked up. No surprise there; one rarely could. Instead, he trusted to chance for sixty long seconds while the rifles and machine guns swept across the kill zone. Some of them, at least, should have been able to see something. Cruz went by those sounds, by his own sense of timing, and by when the moans and screams of his platoon's victims let up. Then he blew a whistle and charged forward with the assault team, through the smoke . . . and right into Esteban Escobar, standing in utter shock in a place so obvious that every man of Cruz's platoon must have thought that either someone else was surely covering it or that no one could have survived the mines.
* * *
Cruz hit a block that hadn't been there when he'd set up the ambush, and which he had, not unreasonably, assumed would not be there after he fired off the mines. Thus, he wasn't even remotely expecting it and both he and the guerilla went down in a tumble.
Not being shocked shitless, as a single whiff told him the guerilla was, Cruz was the first on his feet. He aimed from the hip and was about to cut down the other, even as the men of his assault team worked through the supine forms laid out bleeding on the trail, when he noticed a small gold cross around the guerilla's neck. That stayed his finger from the light trigger of his F-26. From the cross Cruz looked up at terror-filled eyes, tears beginning to well, and said, "Ah, fuckit."
* * *
"I've got a prisoner," Cruz said into the radio. "No, I can't just kill him . . . Look; he's a member of a recognized belligerent force . . . He's got a chain of command . . ." Cruz looked up the trail at the bodies, tsked and said, "Well, I mean he had one . . . until quite recently, anyway . . . He's committed no war crimes of which I am aware . . . No, don't give me that bullshit . . . He was carrying his arms openly . . . and he . . . wait a minute." Cruz released his thumb from the microphone key and asked Esteban, "You did want to surrender, didn't you?"
The guerilla, rather, ex-guerilla, trouserless, on his knees with his hands bound, nodded his head so fast it was nearly a blur. If asked, he'd have said that his captor was twelve feet tall. In fact, Esteban would have towered over Cruz in another set of circumstances.
"Right," Cruz said, after keying the mike. "He's a legitimate POW under the laws of war. I can't just shoot him and I can't watch him; I've got places to go and people to kill. I want an evacuation helicopter with a jungle penetrator. NOW."
* * *
"Blllauauaughghgh!"
Esteban had rarely even seen a helicopter before, let alone ridden in one . . . let alone ridden in one flying nap of the earth. Between looking out the side porthole and seeing trees above the helicopter, being lifted away from his seat when the thing dropped like a rock and pressed into it when it rose like a balloon, and generally having his stomach do the—
"Blllauauaughghgh!"
He had a new set of trouser, Balboan camouflage, given him by a sympathetic crew chief. That same crew chief who now held the back of Esteban's head and forced his face into the bag to catch the vomit laughed. Still, even amplified by his own misery, the sound didn't seem to the POW to be terribly malicious. Then again it was hard to hear between the sound of the engine, the steady thrump-thrump-thrump of the nearly invisible blades and the regular—
"Blllauauaughghgh!"
The crew chief shouted into Esteban's ear, "No shame, son, no shame. A lot of people get affected like that." Esteban wanted to say thanks but—
"Blllauauaughghgh!"
—instead he just nodded—weakly—that he'd heard. The paper of the bag ruffled his face while the aroma of his own vomit assaulted his nose.
"We'd fly a little higher and flatter but the intel types say you guys might have some shoulder fired missiles." The crew chief shrugged. What can you do?
The guerilla thought about that. We just might, too. Rumor control said so and—
"Blllauauaughghgh!"
Oh, God, maybe that would be better.
Estado Major, Balboa City, Balboa, Terra Nova
As soon as the helicopter had set down on a square concrete pad surrounded by close-cropped grass, the crew chief had pulled a black bag over Esteban's head.
"Sorry," the crew chief had said. "Orders."
Immediately thereafter the door had been whipped open and two sets of hands had roughly and expeditiously pulled the POW out of the chopper, forced him to bend over slightly, and hustled him to a waiting vehicle. That vehicle sped away. Miraculously, or so Esteban thought, his stomach had settled down the instant the helicopter had landed.
When the sedan stopped, mere minutes later, two more sets of hands—or perhaps they were the same; Esteban couldn't be sure—dragged him out and then backwards to somewhere he knew not. He was dumped, unceremoniously, into a hard chair. In all, the entire process from landing to seating had taken perhaps five minutes.
A voice said, "Remove his mask."
Esteban was still shaking like a leaf in a strong wind when the black bag was removed from his head. He hadn't a clue what awaited. Torture? Death?
Probably both and in that order.
Once his eyes readjusted to the light, the prisoner saw a small, slight, and weasel-faced little man standing before him with a very uncommitted expression on his face.
"I'm Legate Fernandez," the man said, "and I understand you surrendered to our men. I have a few questi
ons for you."
* * *
"I don't know, señor," Esteban said, shaking his head. He was nervous, understandably so. "Someone in the aduana, that's all my jefe ever said. I never went with him to deliver the goods."
The one called "Fernandez" sighed. "That doesn't help much, Esteban. Work with me here. Did your jefe ever say anything about him or how he operates? A physical description maybe?"
The prisoner shrugged. "He called him 'a gold-toothed motherfucker.' "
Fernandez shook his own head. "Gold teeth, son, are not particularly rare around here."
Esteban licked his lips nervously. Torture and death. Torture and death.
"The jefe called his contact a chumbo once."
"A prick? The world is full of pricks."
"No, no, señor. In Santander a chumbo is a prick. But I think my jefe was using local slang for a chumbo, a black man."
The POW could see from Fernandez's scowl that this, too, was not very helpful. The Balboans have black folk just like we do. Shit. Torture and death. Torture and death. He stretched for something, anything that might be useful.
Esteban offered, doubtfully and nervously, "He . . . the jefe, I mean . . . he always said that payment was a mix of money and usually a single bag of the stuff, sometimes two, for his contact."
Fernandez tilted his head sideways even as his mouth formed a little quizzical expression. After a few moments' thought, he straightened his head and said, "Please, work with me here, Esteban; if a shipment's just gone through—you said these were big shipments?
"Si, señor," the Santandern agreed. "Often more than a ton. Twenty tons, once. I know because I helped load it."
"Okay. So a shipment that size gets cut by ninety percent or more before being sold on the streets of the Federated States or the Tauran Union, right?"
"Si, señor, that's my understanding."
Fernandez stopped speaking long enough to go to his desk and make a telephone call. He asked a few questions, got a few answers, said, "Thanks. Goodbye," and hung up.
"That was an acquaintance of mine," Fernandez said, "at the Federated States Drug Interdiction Team at their embassy. He says that a big shipment usually depresses prices in the FSC and TU. See, the dealers have a hard time hanging on to a large inventory and so they sell as quickly as they can. It's a supply-demand issue, much complicated by a the-police-are-looking-for-this-shit issue."
Esteban nodded, eager to please and avoid, Torture and death. Torture and death.
"Now," Fernandez mused, "if I had a small quantity of something, would I want to transship it on to someplace where the price was depressed?"
Esteban shook his head vigorously, no.
"So think I," the legate agreed. He seemed almost genial, too. "Especially if there's a substantial number of just plain rich folks locally I could sell it to. But to whom would I sell it, and how would I get my product to market?"
Before Esteban could formulate an answer, Fernandez touched an intercom and said, "Come get the prisoner."
Oh, God. Torture and death. Torture and death.
Two fierce looking guards came in. Fernandez told them, "Take this man to a holding cell. Feed him if he'll eat. Treat him well. He's been most cooperative."
As Esteban was led away he heard Fernandez speaking into a telephone again. "Patricio," he heard the legate ask, "just how far do your war powers extend? No, I don't mean outside of the country, actually."
Old Balboa City, Balboa, Terra Nova
The neighborhood was old and picturesque, built upon the charred remains of the original settlement in the then United Nations-supervised colony of Balboa.
Up the narrow, cobblestoned street, between the close-packed rows of five story mansions, most of them converted to upscale apartments or condominiums, walked a young man of perhaps twenty to twenty-five years. That young man was slight of build; light complexioned and prosperously dressed. He walked from the area of the Old City toward a neighborhood that was everything the Old City was not . . . everything bad, that is.
Rats scampered quickly and furtively across garbage strewn streets, leery of the antaniae that clustered on leaky roofs. From glassless, unscreened windows came the sounds of tuberculoid coughing and wailing babies. Even so, far worse than the moonbats and the rats were the human filth that preyed on the barrio's inhabitants.
This was the city's open social sewer. And despite Legate Cheatham's comments to Carrera, full employment—honest work for everyone—had not quite yet come to Balboa.
The young man continued to walk, pretending not to notice the nondescript, aged automobile that passed him on the street every few minutes. The vehicle's four occupants, as well, tried not to observe the young man too obviously.
As the young man turned a corner, a hand from an unseen assailant reached out to grab him by the back of his collar. He felt the point of a knife pressed against his back.
"What have we here? A rabiblanco coming home from visiting his sweetheart. Empty your pockets, white ass."
The young man did as he was told, but in doing so he dropped a handful of loose change, apparently from nervousness. A fist lanced out at the pit of his stomach. The young man bent over, reflexively. Another blow knocked him to the ground. A shutter in an upper story apartment closed at the sound.
Kicks followed. Unnoticed by the assailants, the same nondescript car that had shadowed the young man pulled serenely past his prostrate form. The car stopped. Three men, armed and masked, emerged from the car and closed on the scene of the crime. The beating of the young man stopped when the leader of the street toughs felt the cold metal of a pistol silencer press against his neck. All four of the thugs were forced to lie down by two of the men from the car. "On your bellies, assholes." The third helped the young man back to his feet.
"Are you okay, corporal?" asked the third man from the car.
"Sure," answered Corporal Enrique Velasquez, of the 10th Infantry Tercio. "The cocksuckers didn't have time to hurt me badly." He dabbed a handkerchief at some blood dripping from his face even so.
One of the two men from the car who still guarded the thugs said "You were bait this time. So you get to finish the job, except for the two that higher needs. Those are the rules." He handed a silenced pistol to Velasquez, who thanked him, politely.
Then Velasquez walked up to where the muggers lay parallel on the ground. He shot the first two, once each, in the back of the head. The pistol made a soft pffft, quieter even than the working of the pistol's steel slide as it leapt back and forth to strip, catch and feed a new cartridge. The expended cartridge flew up and to the right before hitting the ground with a soft ring. Blood and brains splattered the sidewalk, even as the smell of shit, not all of it from the dead, wafted up.
The same automobile that had brought the three rescuers to the scene returned, the driver stopping his vehicle and opening the trunk. Velasquez and another lifted the two corpses one at a time and dumped them in the trunk, even as the remaining two legionaries taped the still living thugs securely. These, too, were then dumped in the trunk atop the bodies.
"Ok," said the sergeant. "Let's drop off the garbage at the city dump. After that, we'll turn the survivors over to our contact."
An old woman peeped out from her window. "Chico," she asked Velasquez, "is it safe to come outside?"
"Only for a little while, Abuela. But soon it will be safe all the time."
Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
One had to give Fernandez his due. Given a new mission, he moved faster than anyone had a real right to expect, starting with giving the operation a name, Nube Oscura or Dark Cloud, to arranging funding, to recruiting a few score reliable troops for the effort.
He didn't entirely trust the Civil Police for work like this; they were still too close to the old ways and the old government. Moreover, there was more than sufficient reason to believe they were, in too many parts, corrupt.
Starting from scratch, Fernandez mused in his windo
wless basement office, and given orders to move quickly . . . well, we've had a good beginning. Fifty-seven criminals killed, half of them saved for interrogation before being executed. Illegal? So what? They volunteered to be outside the law when they broke the law. And, moreover, when they caused my country to be threatened with another gringo invasion they become my personal enemies as well as the enemies of all right-thinking Balboans. In short, fuck 'em.
A good beginning, he repeated the thought. That's given us the next tier up, the gang leaders. From there . . .
Aduana, Herrera International Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova
They waited until the crowd from the last airship to land had dispersed before walking forward.
Corporal Velasquez, like his senior, Sargento Lopez, wore civilian clothes, slacks and guayaberas, embroidered shirts that took the place of suits for much of Balboa's population most of the time.
"Señor Donati?" asked Lopez.
"Yes," the aduana chief answered, impatiently, "I'm Donati."
"Then you must come with us."
Sub-basement, Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, 471 AC
The entire facility had the smell of disinfectant, much like a hospital. Like a hospital, too, the whole place was rather quiet, all subdued voices and muffled mechanical sounds. Under the artificial lighting, and with that pungent stink in his nostrils, a bound and gagged Donati, shuffled down the corridor under the direction of his guards. He thought he had caught a glimpse of his wife being led off down a corridor crossing the one he followed. That was worrying enough to cause his heart to sink. Who knew what she might divulge?
One guard put a hand on Donati's shoulder, stopping him in front of a metal door unmarked save for a room number. The other guard opened the door and said, "Enter."
The room inside was lit, with one desk and a hardback chair in front of it. At the desk sat a swarthy, somewhat overweight sort, in the uniform of the Legion, making an entry into a page in a file folder. Without looking up, the swarthy one made a motion that the guards should seat Donati, which they did, roughly.
