by Tom Kratman
"Bu . . . but why?"
"That I don't know, but I do know your father's been a good friend to me and I'm not going to see him dragged off by fakes." Victor looked around and ordered, "Get into the kitchen, behind the refrigerator. I'm going to go get your father."
"But there were three of them, and there's only one of you."
"There are probably four of them. So? Trust me; they're toast." Chapayev stood and ran for the side door.
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
I get to the Volgans by killing at least one of my guards, Lourdes thought, then amended, No, be honest. I get to them by killing the one who obviously intends to rape me. But . . . how?
She looked around the bedroom. Patricio keeps a pistol under the mattress, but it will make noise . . . a LOT of noise. That will put an end to any escape. Knives? No . . . no, no knives here. But . . . aha!
`She kept a small desk in the bedroom, since by common, if unspoken, agreement with her husband that room was hers and he was just an invited guest. And on the desk was a large brass letter opener with an onyx handle.
I can't kill for beans with this, she thought, unless I can get it into his heart or his brain. And I'm not sure I'm strong enough to push it through the muscles on his chest. So brain it will have to be.
She suddenly felt nauseous at the thought of the thin, dull point driving through eye and bone. And then she considered how she was going get him into a position to drive the blow home. That made her more nauseous still.
But still . . ."Anything," Mac said. And . . . if this is what I think it is Patricio is a dead man and my girls orphans—assuming they're allowed to live—unless I act. So . . ."anything." Forgive me, Patricio.
Quickly, Lourdes began to undress. As she tugged at her clothing with one hand, the other took up the letter opener. Now where to put this? What piece of furniture am I going to defile?
Santa Clara Temporary Detention Facility, Dahlgren Naval Station, Balboa, Terra Nova
The facility had been a school once, with the classrooms built atop a hill and the gymnasium down at the base, both connected by a covered walkway. Later on, after it had lost that function and been abandoned, it had served as a training facility for city fighting for the very first incarnation of the Legion del Cid. This function it had lost once better facilities were built. Now the upper level school served as temporary barracks while the lower level held Parilla. The helicopter bearing a bound Carrera from his home touched down by the upper level. President Rocaberti was waiting to meet it when it landed, along with a couple of his larger and beefier presidential guards.
"Duque Carrera," Rocaberti sneered as Patricio was tossed at his feet. "How very pleasant to meet you again in this way."
"Fuck you, fat boy," Carrera answered.
"Fuck me? No, I don't think so. I did tell me nephew, Moises, to fuck your wife, though. He's a good lad, and obedient to his clan patriarch. By now your skinny, working class bitch, Lourdes, should be on all fours making the choo choo."
Turning to the guards, Rocaberti ordered, "Beat the foreign swine."
Quarters 39, Fort Williams, Balboa
He knew he would need an advantageous position. To that purpose, Chapayev first ran parallel to the road leading away from the house. His uniform was the legion's dark pixilated tiger stripes. Against the light beige house this would have stood out in the moons' glow. Against a background of jungle, it would be considerably less noticeable, essentially invisible, in fact.
About twenty meters past the house, he cut left, aiming himself toward the vehicle into the trunk of which the colonel's captors were attempting to stuff him.
Right, he thought as he padded across the soft grass, legitimate police don't stuff a prisoner into a trunk.
His pistol was lining up on the head of the captor nearest him when Victor thought, I need one prisoner, but only one. His finger stroked the trigger lightly, his pistol's muzzle flashed, and a man's head exploded in red mist and spraying bone. Chapayev rolled then, dropping from the view of the other two men as they turned to face the threat, for the moment forgetting Muñoz-Infantes. They, however, were looking in the wrong place. Victor was already almost behind them. He fired again, three rounds into the one, and then again, a single round, center of mass, into the other. Then he was on his feet, running again to stand next to a shocked driver. This one had time only to open his mouth is a surprised "O" before Victor put a single round through his head, just under his left eye.
He returned around to the back and began helping the colonel out of the trunk. "Maria! Call out the guard!"
"No!" the colonel said. "One of those people was mine!" His voice was rife with bewildered hurt. "One of my own men. Who could believe it?"
"Then we'll take you to the military academy. You'll be safe there."
"But those are just chi—" Muñoz began to object. "Ah. Yes, of course. And we must take Maria as well."
"Of course. Are you up to helping me move the bodies inside?"
"Sure," the colonel answered, "if you can get these handcuffs off of me."
Victor knelt on the bloody ground and began searching bodies until he found the key to the cuffs. "Thanks," the colonel said, once he was free. He then went and grabbed a corpse by the feet.
From the post golf course, helicopters began lifting. It was too dark to see in any detail, certainly too dark to make out the uniforms of the troops riding inside. Even so Muñoz knew his equipment and knew his own organization.
"Those are the frogs who got settled on us a little bit ago," the colonel said, as he dragged the corpse towards the house, a dark and wet looking trail staining the concrete behind it. "Where are they going?"
Victor's burden was moaning slightly. He paid the wounded man no attention as his eyes followed the navigational lights for a few moments. He answered, "They're going to the bridge over the Gatun River."
Muñoz dropped the legs of the body he'd been dragging. "To cut off troop movement, south to north?"
"That would be my guess."
"Then we're not going to the Academy; we're going to my headquarters. Maria!"
"Father?" asked the daughter, now standing framed by light in the doorway.
"Don't call out the guard, but bring me my pistol! And get my escopeta for yourself to guard Victor's prisoner."
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
"I trust the prisoner has complied with her orders," Moises Rocaberti said to the guard on Lourdes' bedroom door.
"I wouldn't know about that, sir," the guard replied. "I haven't looked. Willing to wait my turn, sir, don't you see?"
Moises nodded and unconsciously licked him lips. "Don't disturb me, then, until I send for you."
"Yes, sir."
* * *
Lourdes chewed at her lip, nervously, nervous, in fact, about seeming nervous.
Don't be silly, Lourdes, she told herself. There's no sense in trying to pretend you're anything you're not. The most this swine expects is that I'll give myself to him in fear for myself and my children. For that, I should seem terrified and disgusted. If I actually am, so much the better.
She saw and heard the doorknob turn and unconsciously moved one arm across her chest to cover her nipples and the wet circles their leaking had made in the sheer and short camisole she'd donned. Below, she wore a black thong. Her doffed clothing was tossed on the desk. She had travel clothes secreted under the bed.
She caught a glimpse of a guard's short hair, his face turned away, as the door opened halfway and the chief of her captors slid in sideways. He closed the door behind him, one handed, then half turned and slid a bolt closed.
With one arm crossed across her breasts Lourdes' other hand slid down to cover her crotch.
This suited Rocaberti perfectly as he hung his submachine gun on the doorknob by its sling. With both her hands occupied she had none to defend herself when he walked to stand directly in front of her and slapped her across the face, hard enough to hurt, to bring tears to
her eyes and a quiver to her lip, but not hard enough to make her cry out. However, when her hand moved of its own accord to her insulted cheek, her arm moved away from her nipples. Rocaberti's own hands then moved, insect quick, his fingers clamping painfully on both of those, then twisting. This made her cry out with pain, the more so as they were tender from nursing her youngest.
The next she knew his hand was entwined in her hair, forcing her down to her knees. His other hand fumbled with the fly of his trousers. As his penis shot out against her face he twisted her hair again, saying, "Suck it, whore."
She forced a smile to her face, looked up, and said, somewhat unconvincingly, "I like it rough, you know. And I'm really superb. 'The best,' my husband says, and he should know. You should sit. I guarantee you won't be able to stand once I start. He never can."
Moises was a little taken aback, perhaps even shocked. She's a good actress, he thought, but she can't hide that she's afraid.
Lourdes stood then and pulled his hand from her hair. She led him by that to the chair and pushed him lightly into it.
It isn't sex, she told herself, as she dropped again to her knees and began undoing her captor's trousers. It isn't sex-it isn't sex-it isn't sex . . .
She was still telling herself that as she bent her head and took him into her mouth.
* * *
But if he comes in my mouth it will be, she thought, several minutes later, her head moving on autopilot. The thought made her gag even more than the pressure on the back of her throat did. And that I'd rather die than. She pulled her head off and began to stand.
"What do you think you're doing, bitch?"
"I want to fuck," she answered, grabbing him with her left hand and placing first one knee than the other on the chair cushion. She hadn't even remotely gotten in the mood for sex with him, but she had gotten enough used to what she'd been doing that her voice sounded almost sincere.
Lourdes must have placed the right knee badly because it slipped off, causing her to fall sideways. She caught herself with that hand on the floor. She recovered after a moment and began to resume her straddle, her left hand guiding his penis as if to enter her. Her shin, in one case, and thigh, in the other, confined and restrained his arms.
"Hah! You really are a whore. I should have known." Half mad with desire to rut, Rocaberti had eyes only for the glistening head of his penis, and the nether lips approaching it.
And then the woman's right hand was full of something brassy and bright, which was the last thing young Rocaberti saw before it plunged through his eyeball, cracked the bone behind the eye, and was then spun like a pestle, Lourdes twisting the letter opener furiously to turn a good sized chunk of his brain to bloody froth.
"I belong to Patricio, you son of a bitch," she whispered into a corpse's ear. Then she looked at the blood again and proceeded to vomit on the corpse, the vile smelling puke running out through her fingers to mix with dripping blood.
* * *
Lourdes was dressed in denims and leather. She had a bottle of Thymoline mouthwash in one hand and a stubby firearm slung across her shoulder when she opened the door to the adjacent room holding Artemisia and their children. She was furiously swishing the solution as she placed one finger over her lips to command silence, before beckoning for Arti to come and bring the children. She spat the solution out onto the floor and began calling out, "Oh, God . . . oh, God . . . Faster . . . Oh, God," even while she pushed and prodded the others toward the door that led to the balcony.
Arti's eyes flew wide when she saw the corpse with the exposed penis and an onyx letter opener handle sticking straight out from under his forehead. A rivulet of blood ran down one cheek. She didn't ask about that, but did ask, in an urgent whisper, "What about Mac?"
"They sent him to the hospital," Lourdes whispered back. Plenty of time later to tell her the truth. I hope. "Oh . . . oh, Jesus . . . Fuck me, Moises, fuck me!"
"Hurry on ahead," she ordered Arti, still whispering. "Head to the boat. It's straight down hill. Follow the path."
"Can you run the boat?" Arti asked.
"I can push the button to start it and turn the wheel to steer it. Now go."
"What about you?"
"I have to ummm . . . to come . . . Ahhh . . . aiii . . . —go, dammit—aiiii . . . ahhhh . . . ahhhh . . ." Lourdes waited until she heard footsteps on the walkway behind the house before letting out a soul searing scream of utter, and utterly fake, pleasure. Then she followed. It wasn't until she had the boat well out to sea that Lourdes told Artemisia she was a widow. Indeed, they were almost far enough out that attentive people on land wouldn't hear the scream.
Estado Major, Balboa City, Balboa, Terra Nova
Warrant Officer Achmed al Mahamda's job was, frankly, torturer in chief, even though the title he held was merely "Senior Interrogator." Most of the time, in fact, he really didn't have to resort to torture, though he always made the threat or promise to do so plain enough. An immigrant from Sumer, and former senior interrogator with the late dictator of that country's secret police, he got more results than any three of Fernandez's other interrogators, and did so much more quickly and reliably. "It's a shitty job," he admitted, "but someone has to do it."
In relation to his job, he took the private elevator from the sub-basement, where interrogations and, it must be admitted, the occasional killings were done, directly up to the waiting room outside Fernandez's personal office. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he sniffed something odd but still familiar.
Gunpowder? Here? "Legate?" he called out.
Mahamda walked briskly into Fernandez's office, took one look and the body on the floor, and rushed over. Though unconscious and ghastly pale, he saw that the chief of intelligence was at least still breathing. The red froth oozing from his chest said as much.
On autopilot from his own otherwise none too impressive basic training in the Sumeri armed forces, Mahamda went through the drill: Clear the airway, Stop the bleeding, Treat for Shock, Protect the . . . Screw that for now.
He picked up the phone with bloodied hands and discovered it was dead. Shit. Now what? Maybe . . .
The internal intercom was not dead. In practiced Spanish Mahamda said to the guard room, "I want an ambulance here ten minutes ago! If you can't get one, get something—anything!—that will fly or roll. And I need a medic and four men with a stretcher in Legate Fernandez's office five minutes ago. Move!"
Only then did he rifle the desk, such part of it as wasn't locked, and come up with something non-air permeable. This he slapped over the exit wound that seemed to be frothing the most.
Fernandez's eyes opened. They were glazed and unfocused.
"Who did this?" Mahamda asked.
"Bar . . . B . . . Barlet . . . Barletta."
"We'll get him," Mahamda said.
"S . . . Screw him. Save the black box."
Chapter Twenty-eight
In the final analysis, then, everything else appears to have been tried and nothing has ever worked very well for very long. That the system we propose is unlikely to work well in perpetuity does not strike us as a sufficiently good argument to prefer systems that work, if indeed they work at all, for a very short time only.
The objection that such a system has "never been done before" strikes us as extremely unpersuasive, given that the usual and typical font for such an objection can be heard, regularly, insisting that the only problem with Tsarist-Marxism is that "it's just never been done right."
We should prefer a system proven to be rotten, wrong in conception, wrong ab initio, false in its logic and false in its premises to one that is unproven but promising? In Heaven's name, why? To make the Cosmopolitan Progressives happy? To set things up for the arrogant global and interplanetary elites to control the planets? There can be no worse reasons.
—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468
Pu
nta Gorgona Naval Station, Balboa, Terra Nova
"Hang on!" Lourdes shouted over the thrum of the engine. She throttled down to nothing, letting momentum carry her craft forward while aiming the bow of the boat toward the dock but away from the five patrol boats tied up to it. She wasn't very good with the boat, no experience, after all, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that she hit the former and avoid the latter.
Artemisia didn't move except to clutch the children tighter to her. She hadn't moved, to speak of, since the tears had dried perhaps an hour before. Her lips still whispered, "Mac . . . Mac . . . Mac," with some regularity.
A sailor on one of the boats, the stern said "San Agustin," shouted and waved for them to veer off. Lourdes was having none of it. Instead, she ducked down seconds before the yacht crashed into the dock, crumpling its own bow and splitting pole and frame of the other. Lourdes and her passengers were thrown forward.
The sailor, still shouting imprecations, jumped from his own patrol boat to the yacht's deck. "Lady, are you out of your fucking mind?" The sailor then noticed she had a submachine gun slung over one shoulder and amended, "If you'll pardon my language, ma'am."
Lourdes stood straight and answered, "Possibly. To both. My name is Lourdes Carrera. I am Duque Carrera's wife. I need to see your senior man present and I need your help."
In the dim white light of two moons, one of them now setting, and the yellow light of streetlamps, the sailor peered at this strange woman's face.
"By God you are the Duque's wife." He turned away, toward a small building just off the dock, and shouted, "Chief! Chief Castro!"
* * *
"I've got the five boats, yes, Mrs. Carrera," the chief said, once Lourdes had explained as much as she knew. His was a face burned dark by the wave-reflected sun and deeply seamed with a life of wind, and storm, and squinting against the elements. "But I've only got the crew coming off and the crew going on duty. And they're not even full strength. It's one of the downsides of being a militia." The chief shrugged, apologetically.
