by Tom Kratman
Nervous almost to the point of hysteria now, Barletta dropped the pistol and ran off through the office door, through the waiting room, and into the corridor. From there he forced himself back to a brisk walk, and began to move to the stairs that led down and to the front entrance where his secretary was supposed to be waiting with the car running.
National (Parilla's) Presidential Palace, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The police van was the same model as some of those used by the Legion. It was not longer obviously a police vehicle, however, having been given a paint job in legionary colors by one of Balboa's many highly talented body and paint workers. It was also the same model as that used by the guard on Parilla's palace for the changing of the guard, which was rather a less formal exercise in Balboa than it was in, say, Anglia.
In any case, the nine men in the van weren't interested in formality. Nor was the guard on the gate interested in much but that they looked right, their identification cards looked right, their uniforms were legionary, and the van wasn't inherently suspicious. He passed them through with a smile and a wave.
Only when past the gate did this portion of the hostage rescue team remove their heavier arms from bags sitting at their feet. Magazines were quickly loaded into the side wells of submachine guns and then the bolts were jacked. There were suppressors already screwed onto the muzzles. The weapons were the same Pound submachine guns as used by the close-in presidential guard, in lieu of the more common F-26 assault rifle that was standard Legion issue.
The team had opted for the unsubtle. As soon as the van stopped in front of the palace, the side sliding door popped open and a half dozen men stepped out. These walked purposefully toward the two guards on the front entrance and shot them down without warning. The only sounds made were the coughing of the submachine guns and the gurgling death rattles of the guards.
Though the "rescue" team had plastic explosive in case the door needed blasting, and a police locksmith, in fact the door was open. They'd had and studied the floor plans exhaustively, but assumed, not unreasonably, that at this time of night Parilla would most likely be in bed with his wife. Two men remained on the door, after pulling the guards' bodies inside. The other four raced upstairs, soft soled, high grip shoes making little more noise than would a cat on the marble steps.
Parilla's door was open as well. As silently as possible, the chief of the kidnappers turned the knob and gave it a slight push, letting it continue to swing open on its own.
Then came the rush, the sudden throwing on of the lights, and a piercing scream from Parilla's wife.
One of the attackers cuffed her into silence, while another stroked the folding metal but of his submachine gun across the president's chin. Parilla, stunned into silence, was quickly turned over and cuffed. The chief of the team then said, "Presidente Parilla, you are under arrest, by order of the legitimate President of the Republic, for election fraud, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and narcotrafficking." The man then spoke a code word into a small radio.
"Get him to the helicopter pad."
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
Nine policemen sufficed to take down the President. It was thought, not without reason, that Carrera would make a harder target. More than twice as many men, and three vans, plus the only other helicopter still under Rocaberti's control, were assigned to his capture and evacuation.
Of course, the casa was considerably less hard a target that it once had been, what with Hamilcar's Pashtun Guards gone, and security the responsibility of rotating sections from the Mechanized Legion at Lago Sombrero. Moreover, most of the original staff had moved out and moved on as they'd found wives or better housing elsewhere. Perhaps worst of all, with Sergeant Major McNamara living elsewhere with his young bride and growing brood of children, there was no one single person charged with security and paranoid enough to see it done properly.
Though McNamara and Artemisia were still very frequent guests at the place.
* * *
The children, Lourdes' and Artemisia's, both, were playing upstairs, minus only Lourdes' youngest, Little Linda, who was not only too young to really be willfully difficult but also on the "Lourdes Diet," and would be for some time yet. The others had been impossible at dinner—they always were when they got together—and had been sent away early. In theory, this meant they hadn't eaten much. In practice, it meant the cook smuggled dinner in to them.
Mac leaned back in his chair, stretched, and belched. "Damned fine feed, Miss Lourdes. My compliments to t'e chef." As if to punctuate that, the sergeant major broke of a piece of chorley bread, dipped it in some "Joan of Arc" sauce, and popped it into his mouth, chewing gustily. "Could use a little more 'Satan Triumphant,' though," Mac said. "Just a tad, not enough to take the skin off the tongue."
Artemisia shot him a dirty look, not over the belch, but over the sheer volume of food he'd managed to tuck away. "It just isn't right. I have to diet, exercise, and practically kill myself after I have a baby, and this tall bastard can eat enough for ten men and stay slim. It's not fair."
"High metabolism," the sergeant major answered, in Spanish. "And you must admit, love, that this has its advantages in an old man."
"Some advantage," Arti agreed, "though I end up paying the price for that in the form of a distended abdomen, and eventual rigid dieting."
"Good wit' t'e bad; good wit' t'e bad. It's pretty good, still, ain't it?"
"As a matter of fact . . ."
Lourdes sighed. "If you two are going back to teenage games, I've had a metal plate installed between the headboard and the wall in the number one guest room, so you can pound away. Alternatively, we can move a mattress down to the concrete floor in the basement, though I shudder to think of the damage to the foundations of the house."
"I'm getting a little old for t'at, high metabolism or no," Mac said.
"Not so old," Arti corrected. "Not yet, anyway."
* * *
"Time," announced Moises Rocaberti, nephew to the soon to be full president and younger brother to that Rocaberti who had been shot for cowardice years before, in Sumer.
Moises was, his uncle thought, a happy choice. He was, indeed all the Rocabertis were, effectively barred from higher office in the Legion by Carrera. Given that, and given a military bent, the younger Rocaberti had joined his uncle's police force. He was bright, handsome, ruthless, loyal to his blood, and had—best of all—an abiding hatred of Carrera and Parilla, which hatred had festered in the long years since his older brother's execution.
"What are you going to do after we take down the prick?" his driver asked of Moises as he started the first of three vans parked in the nearby town of Bejuco, Balboa.
"Fuck his wife in all three holes and then turn her over to you bastards."
"Works for me. Especially if the rest of us get to fuck the former Miss Balboa." He started the car.
"Nah. She's off limits, Mrs. Artemisia Calderon-Jimenez de McNamara. Too many people care about her. And neither she nor her husband have ever harmed anybody. But Carrera's tall, skinny whore? She's getting stuffed. To punish her bastard gringo husband. Those were my uncle's orders."
* * *
Though it really wasn't needed, indeed it was wasteful competition with the air conditioning, there was a fire blazing in the fireplace. The light from that reflected of the living room's mirrors, and then again from the ancient sword hung over the mantle.
"So this fucker," Carrera told Lourdes and Arti, pointing at McNamara with the glass of scotch in his hand, "jumps in the back of one of my squad's tracks and proceeds to spend the day with them. Observing. Teaching. The next day it was different squad, and then a different squad after that. For nine days."
He sighed. "If every sergeant major in the Federated States Army was like that, they'd be unbeatable."
McNamara, embarrassed, sipped at his own drink, then said, "It ain't t'e sergeant majors t'at won't do it. It's t'e system t'at keeps t'em chained to a desk. T'at, and
t'e spare parts t'eory of personnel management."
"You didn't let the system chain you," Carrera said.
"I was so freakin' senior, t'ey couldn't make me do anyt'ing. Hell, t'ey tried to make me division sergeant major and I told 'em to stuff it. Hard to control someone who got no ambition for anything t'ey can give."
Outside, Jinfeng the trixie gave off a loud warning screech.
"Even so . . . what the fuck was that?"
* * *
"Now!" Moises Rocaberti ordered, lowering his submachine gun and firing a burst into the bird whose screeching head stuck up above one of the bushes flanking the main entrance. Immediately four of his men, standing under windows, propelled two more through those windows and into the house. The distant sound of crashing glass told of similar maneuvers around the back. Two men standing by Moises pulled back the door knocker—a welded steel battering ram—and slammed it into the door, once—cachang—twice—cachang—thrice . . . and the door burst open.
By twos a mass of men flooded through the door, each careful to avoid the cooling bodies of guards silently slain when the attackers had first left the first van. This mass split off, some turning into the living room, some ascending the steps, and some racing for the back part of the house.
Resistance was over before it could be said to have begun.
* * *
Lourdes screamed.
"Shut up, whore!" Moises ordered, his gaze lingering for a moment on Lourdes' milk-swollen breasts. "Patricio Carrera, aka, Patrick Hennessey, you are under arrest for . . . hmmm . . . do we have the evidence?"
"Outside in the van," one of the policemen reported. "I didn't see the point of bothering to bring it into the house."
"Very good. You are under arrest for war crimes, crimes against humanity, election fraud, and narcotrafficking. All over the country forces are moving to get rid of your people. You're finished."
"Piece of shit!" Carrera twisted in the arms of the men cuffing him and received a cuff in turn for his troubles. To two other of his men the younger Rocaberti said, "Escort the puta upstairs. Make sure her kids are accounted for." He pointed at Artemisia and said, "And take this one to a different room."
"Fuck you, you bastard," Arti sneered. Moises slapped her to the floor. That was too much for McNamara. He'd been standing with his hands up, in front of the fireplace. He turned immediately and grabbed the old sword Lourdes had purchased for Carrera. Before he could well turn around, one of the police fired a burst into his midsection, tossing him forward and into the fireplace.
Lourdes pulled away from the hands gripping her and ran to pull Mac away from the fire, kneeling on the floor and keening besides him.
"Never mind, Lourdes," Mac said, weakly. "This is a better end than any I'd hoped for."
What can I DO? Her eyes pleaded.
Whatever you must, his own answered back. Anything. Then McNamara closed his eyes. He could feel the life pouring out of him. "Take care of Arti for me, Miss Lourdes," he said, at the end.
"Get this twat upstairs," Moises repeated. "And carry the new widow off, too." To Lourdes he added, "Get into something more comfortable and easier to get out of."
Fort Cameron, Balboa, Terra Nova
In his analysis of the problem, Pigna had come to the conclusion that there was only one force really capable of intervening in the city. All the others—barring only the troops in the jungles of La Palma—would take from hours to days to mobilize and move against his 7th Legion. The troops in the jungle would take even longer.
But the Volgans . . . they're the only real threat to my operations. They're here; they're trained; they're organized. Let them loose and my legion would collapse like a house of cards as soon as any of them came to understand what is happening, beyond the handful I brought into the plan last night. Most of them are just following orders to secure the city and do certain things that they think come from Carrera.
Got to neutralize the Volgans.
With that in mind, he got out of his mule and walked the fifty odd concrete steps to the Volgan commander's quarters, the two moons cancelling out his shadow. He mounted the stairs and knocked. A somewhat plump Volgan woman answered the door, then turned and called something in a language he assumed was Russian. The man he recognized as Samsonov came to the door quickly.
"Legate Samsonov," Pigna began.
"Legate Pigna."
"I just wanted to let you know I've received orders from Carrera to do some very odd things in the city. My legion is already moving, by vehicle and on foot, to secure certain vital assets and critical facilities."
"War with the Taurans?" Samsonov asked. The prospect didn't seem to worry him overmuch.
"No," Pigna shook his head in negation. "At least I don't think so. Frankly, I'm not sure what Carrera has in mind. Though he insisted we break out and issue our basic load of ammunition."
"Damned strange. I would have expected him to have told me."
Pigna shrugged. "He did say that this was a test of readiness, so perhaps that's why you were not informed."
"Maybe. I hope no blood is spilled by mistake because people were not informed."
"Oh, I understand that he or someone will be speaking tomorrow morning. It should be all right."
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
Lourdes never noticed that her knees were covered in McNamara's blood. Perhaps she avoided looking down instinctively. Instead, she paced frantically about the room she shared with Patricio. She heard her children and Arti's crying in the room next door. She went to the adjoining door and opened it, only to be met by a grim faced guard who pointed her back to her own room. Behind that guard, two others were laying Artemisia down on one of the children's single beds.
What am I going to do? What am I going to do? "Anything" Mac's eyes told me. Anything. What is "anything."
Calm, Lourdes, calm. You have to think clearly if ever you did. For your own sake, for your husband's, for your children: Think.
She picked up the phone. Dead. They must have cut the lines. Aha: My mobile . . . She grabbed the phone and flipped it open . . . is dead. Has no signal, anyway. They must have taken control of the wireless system. Damn it! Think, Lourdes, think.
Who is behind this? Not the legions, or not most of them. But maybe some. Who can I trust? Not the police. Who . . . who . . . the Volgans! But how do I get to them?
Quarters 39, Fort Williams, Balboa
So far as he was aware, Colonel Muñoz-Infantes didn't have a single reason to worry about much of anything. Oh, yes, that skinny frog, Janier, had it in for him, but no more than he, the Castilian, had it in for the frog and the Tauran Union. Yes, he was passing information to the other side, but that was an old Tauran tradition, and something the bureaucrats who ran the place would be loathe to curtail. Besides, he was Castilian, and the frogs had no real authority over him. This phenomenon was one of the reasons that the Tauran Union was so militarily ineffective, even though its individual armies were generally quite capable in battle when allowed to be. Though there were rumors, persistent rumors, of a change to this that would create a unified armed forces with a unified chain of command and legal code.
"I can't see that happening, though," the colonel told Victor Chapayev. "We're Taurans; we all hate each other, deep down. I mean . . . maybe if we had an outside enemy threatening us. Maybe."
Maria, the colonel's daughter, hadn't yet stalked off as she usually did. Instead she sat quietly on a chair opposite her father and Victor. Her father had had a very long and not particularly pleasant chat with her on the subjects of rudeness, honor, and the duties owed to one's father and one's guests. She still thought that the work Victor was engaged in was vile, even if he seemed nice enough.
"On the other hand," the colonel continued, "we've got an inside enemy—the bureaucrats of the TU—and that hasn't brought us together."
"The Tauran Union is not the enemy, father," Maria said, heat in her voice. "It's all that's kept us at peace since the Great
Global War."
"So say the schools that propagandized you since you were a girl," her father answered, calmly. "Personally, I think it was a combination of Federated States occupation troops and the external threat of the Red Tsar that kept us from each others' throats and that the TU was a beneficiary of that but had absolutely nothing to do with causation."
Best not to take sides, Victor, Chapayev told himself, though the colonel is clearly right.
"And then there's the corruption that permeates . . ."
"I'll get it, father," Maria said, rising to answer a knock at the door. Anything to cut off another of these TU rows, she thought.
"No, never mind," Muñoz-Infantes insisted, likewise rising. "I'll get it. It's probably business anyway."
He walked to the door and undid the latch. As soon as he had, the door swung open hard, knocking the colonel to the floor. Victor stood and Maria screamed. Both stopped, the one in caution and the other in deer-in-the-headlights panic when presented with an armed group of men in Castilian battle dress pushing into the living room, and the muzzles of pistols pointed in their direction.
"Colonel Muñoz-Infantes," said one of the pistoleros, "you are under arrest for . . ."
At that, Maria fainted.
* * *
The colonel was being dragged down the walkway when Maria came to. Chapayev made sure she was all right, then reached under his uniform tunic to take his service pistol in hand.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Didn't you notice that those men were in your country's uniform but had the local accent? That was no legitimate arrest."
