Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  “You paid in real money,” Sanmartin said.

  “So I did. The admiral will make the changeover public in a week.”

  Sanmartin made a scissors motion with the first two fingers of his right hand. “About three minutes after that, USS stuff isn’t going to be worth cold spit. In my city, that’ll chop a lot of people off about ten centimeters short.”

  “It’s a fact I’d like you and the Variag to consider if you make any friends between now and then.”

  As they reached the step, Rettaglia cautioned, “Keep quiet unless you’re behind the sound buffer. It may take a few hours, so you may want to get a cup of tea and come back.” Sanmartin shuddered. “Anything but tea.” He followed Rettaglia in and down a level. “I’d think you’d get claustrophobia down here in the dungeon,” he commented.

  “It’s an advantage.” Rettaglia stopped in front of a massive metal door. “Welcome, and abandon hope all ye who enter here, or words to that effect,” he said, allowing Sanmartin to pass in front.

  Inside, a man was slumped over in the narrow chair to which he was strapped. His head was covered by a black hood. Rettaglia nodded. “His name is Theron. He’s a schoolteacher, a low-echelon Brother,” he said, turning away. “Intelligence Sergeant Menzies, may I impose to the extent of discovering whether the injection has token hold?”

  “Should it please the major, the client should begin to attain partial consciousness at any moment,” Menzies replied with an eye to Shimazu, who was in charge.

  “Most excellent. Please keep me informed of your progress,” Rettaglia said as he stopped to read the life monitors. He straightened immediately. “To my concern, it would appear that the client’s respiration is disagreeably shallow, do you agree, senior sergeant?”

  “I quite agree, honored major. However, I would respectfully suggest that it is well within tolerances. It would perhaps be counterproductive to introduce any stimulant at this time, if I may suggest,” Shimazu said deferentially.

  “I quite agree, senior sergeant. No stimulants. However, please give appropriate consideration to fitting the client with an oxygen hood. It would be most unfortunate if he were to rejoin the company of his ancestors,” Rettaglia directed.

  “The major’s suggestion is worthy, and it shall be as he desires. I also must state that the senior censor has asked you to return a call.”

  Rettaglia nodded and turned back to Sanmartin. “I should have gone to medical school. What do you think?”

  “It looks like an old movie set,” Sanmartin replied. “What is that you injected him with?”

  Rettaglia looked crestfallen. “Mostly serotonin and scopolamine. There’s probably ibotenic acid and a few other things as well, but the composition is classified beyond my level. I can tell you it’s effective.”

  “I thought the mad scientist always told the victim what he’s being injected with.”

  “Wrong movie. Sometimes we’ll say something, but you don’t seriously expect us to release classified information to a client, do you?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “It’s a complicated dance, Raul. Truth is such a fragile thing. In the course of our little dialog, a client will try and tell us only what he thinks he wants us to know. We try and do the same. In coming to a common understanding, tiny deceptions lubricate the process just as they do in normal social intercourse.” Rettaglia smiled and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Without a few deceptions, there would hardly be a need for intelligence officers, would there? ’ ’

  “Probably not. No whips and thumbscrews?”

  “Hardly. We try to be professional.”

  Shimazu inteijected himself without a hint of impoliteness. “Honored major, if I may suggest, our client is beginning to regain consciousness. I would say that the optimum moment for commencing is imminent.”

  “Commence, senior intelligence sergeant. Raul?”

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Superb. Ciao.”

  “Ciao.”

  Four hours later, Rettaglia came up to find Sanmartin asleep on his futons. He prodded him awake.

  “Raul, are you alive? It’s time to pack you off.”

  Sanmartin stirred. “If I died, you’re an awfully ugly angel. How did it go?”

  “Very well. We have nineteen names and three or four more that are questionable. Theron has a lisp of sorts. We have his local pretty well tagged, and we think we have the head of the district watch committee, a businessman’s preacher named Sny-man.”

  “I wish I understood what that meant. What line did you feed Citizen Jannie to get him to open up?”

  “Neck injury in a vehicle wreck. His ‘Friends’ needed to know who to contact.”

  “And he believed it?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? With that dosage, Shimazu could have convinced him he was the Mahdi.”

  “And?”

  “We’ll put him back in his bed for his Friends to find.” “This is obviously not charity on your part.”

  “Obviously. Clever of you. For us to succeed here, we’ll eventually have to dispose of the Bond.”

  “That’s another thing. What’s the Bond?”

  “Call it a secret society. The Brothers ran the Second South African Republic for nearly a century, placing or co-opting people in the political parties, the government, the military, police, media, cultural entities, churches, universities, corporations, and so on. They suffered during the Bantu Wars when hardliners and soft-liners started chopping at each other, but they’ve rebounded. USS has been spectacularly unsuccessful in keeping them down. Who did you think was running this planet?”

  "We have a problem. ’ ’

  “We do. They aim to preserve the Afrikaner people and culture, and they’re not overly concerned with who gets trampled. They organize by cells on a regional basis with a parliament called the Bondsraad, a judiciary in the watch committees, and an executive council of twelve known as ‘The Twelve Apostles. ’ For a while now, the Brothers have been happy eating up the pie. Now that we’re here, I suspect they’re a trifle unhappy.”

  “Are you going to let us rip them out, root and branch? Cheaper in the long run.”

  “My predecessor argued that option to the admiral past the point of prudence. No, we’ll go with careful surgery. Comatose Brother Jannie will be the thinnest of wedges. ”

  “I assume you laid on something elaborate.”

  “Sergeant Menzies is quite an actor, and at a distance he bears a passable resemblance to our Mend. Theron has a neighbor who saw everything he was supposed to see.”

  “I assume there’s more.”

  “Shimazu is very good at prying open information storage systems. The Pretoria Volkskas has a few accounts it didn’t have before. Jannie has one hundred thirty thousand sen in there now, and he’ll have another two hundred thousand sen tomorrow.” “That should get their attention. So tell me how this disintegrates the Bond. I’m a little dense, you see.”

  “We’ll pull in frogs twenty or thirty at a time. The Brothers are going to rave when they start finding Therons. We’ll let them execute a few while we keep pulling them in.”

  “That’s a lot of bodies.”

  “We’ll work the ones we want, and return the rest to the street as a screen.”

  “Looking to find a few real traitors.”

  “They will have Theron’s example to profit from. After the Brothers start purging each other, we’ll start weeding the survivors until we have something useful.”

  “In the interests of a higher cause, Schoolmaster Theron will have to take his chances.”

  ‘‘Uncharacteristically tactful of you.”

  “I hope he’ll have a decent burial if you happen to find him dumped in a swamp somewhere.”

  "The best money can buy. After all, in a manner of speaking, he is on the Imperial payroll. You sound soured.”

  “I suppose. After Recruit Private Novelo raped a citizen and we shot him f
or it, I had a woman wonder aloud that there was precious little difference between the two acts. I think I take her point.”

  “Juffrou Bruwer, I take it. So tell me truth.”

  “Rhett, as much as it grieves me, I will tell truth. You are better wired than is plausible in an intelligence officer, far better than certain persons I would not name who have sushi for brains. Yours is a fine circus; I love the dancing dogs and prancing ponies, but military intelligence is a contradiction in terms and a little bird is telling me that there’s something fundamental you haven’t factored. We’re going to eat stones and drink gall before this is over.”

  “First Ssu, now you. With you, it must be the Celtic blood. Well, as Admiral Lee is fond of pointing out, we have four combat battalions and ships in the sky,” Rettaglia replied.

  “Couldn’t we could play this one straight up and put the ones who are going to cause trouble on a ship now that we’ve finished shooting cowboys?”

  “Not an option, roommate. The admiral won’t consider it, and on paper he has a good case. But between you and me and the Variag, do not wear your pants down around your ankles or we’ll really have a problem.”

  Sanmartin thought for a moment. “When we get hit, what have they got? Tanks and nukes?”

  To Sanmartin’s surprise, Rettaglia slammed shut the door. “Of course, they have nukes,” he whispered fiercely, “but the admiral doesn’t believe it. Shut up and don’t joke about it. Just don’t bunch up outside populated areas or they may tip their hand. Now get out of my sight. Next time you’re down, we’ll crack a bottle.” He slapped Sanmartin on the shoulder. “Men-zies is waiting in the car for you. Next week, I’ll drop by and let you lose some money at chess.”

  “I may surprise you.” Sanmartin managed a faint smile. “Let me know when you turn the Twelve.”

  “I’ll consider it. Ciao, little brother.” Rettaglia heard the door latch itself shut. “And one of the Twelve was Judas,” he murmured so softly that not even the walls heard.

  AS BARRACKS-ROT ABOUT THE AFRIKANER BOND BEGAN TO circulate, the Imperial soldiers rechristened the Afrikaners "Bros. ” For obscure but obvious reasons, the cowboys were immediately renamed "Cons. ’ ’ This resulted in stiff protests—after the cowboys told the Boers what a “Bro” was—which resulted in a stiffly worded directive from Colonel Lynch to desist, whereupon the Imperial soldiery began calling them all “Stills” because they were still Bros and Cons.

  Saturday(2)

  AGING SENTRIES, THE TWO PIANOS WERE NEWLY POSTED IN THE rear of the mess. Like Cadillacs, the pianos were built to a purpose with solid electronics, to do a job and do it well. While he waited for the Ice Maiden to appear, Coldewe watched Let-sukov pick away at one.

  Bruwer had not found herself an apartment. She tended to take her meals at odd hours when no one else was around, which said much about her personality and went far toward explaining why she and Sanmartin got along. Almost before Coldewe completed the thought, he spotted her edging into the room.

  “Good morning, Miss Bruwer!”

  She blinked. “Good morning to you, as well, Heer Coldewe.” Her eyes brightened a bit. “Business for me?”

  Like virtually everything else Major Rettaglia had a hand in, her employment description was deceptive. Her only real intelligence job was to rewrite documents the computer translated so that they made sense. She got along famously with Mayor Beyers, who knew her grandfather and had a son and a daughter nearly her age, and she spent most of her time on community matters for the Variag’s casernes.

  “I strive for transparency,” Coldewe admitted. “Company Armorer Rytov has formally requested your presence at the launching of the still. Eleven hours thirty, tomorrow?”

  Not that Rytov had spent a great deal of time in the deliberative process—Bukanov had all the straphangers working long hours. Locally, choices for the honor were limited.

  She knit her eyebrows together. “Please?”

  “The price of vodka in town has gone up, and Rytov was tasked with contingency planning. The battalion sergeant passed word that for the time being, we might as well drink and be merry. After Preacher Erixon—occasionally Superior Private Erixon—finishes sprinkling holy water over the thing, I say a few words of wisdom and you smash a bottle over the prow.” “Oh.” She digested this momentarily. “Captain Sanmartin?”

  “Oh, he’ll be there, wearing the traditional hoodwink and smile. He’ll also kick the silly thing to pieces if the need arises. ” Coldewe couldn’t help smiling. The key to Hanna Bruwer’s quarters had gone with the farmer. When she’d raised the subject, Raul, with his usual aplomb, had confidendy assured her

  that not a soul would get through the company perimeter at night.

  That was the first time Coldewe had ever seen Steel Rudi Scheel’s poker face crack away entirely. A beet-red Raul had tossed her his pistol without another word, and Rudi had managed to subdue his levity just long enough to clear the weapon and explain the safety. Raul still hadn’t gotten it back. For all Coldewe knew, she was the only armed Afrikaner in Johannesburg.

  Bruwer knit her brows again. Then she smiled, changing the entire aspect of her face. “I will be happy to do so.”

  “Many thanks!” he called out as she skipped toward a beaming Kasha without a backward look.

  Although Raul Sanmartin liked virtually everyone, Coldewe could number the people he genuinely felt comfortable with on two hands. The Ice Maiden seemed to have made the list.

  Letsukov was still picking away, waiting for his partner to come off duty so they could work on the 1812 Overture together. “They’re playing our song,” Coldewe said to himself inconsequentially.

  Sunday(3)

  JAN SNYMAN WAITED UNTIL 6 HOURS 30 BEFORE HE ENTERED, walking the street with his hands in his pockets. Inside, he went past the sign for the Border Police to the sign that read "Imperial Recruiting Station” in three languages, pausing in front of the door. Before his mind was completely made up, a voice said, “Come in,” in strongly accented Afrikaans.

  After an instant’s hesitation, Snyman did. A wiry soldier in combat uniform sat behind a small, metal desk. Had Snyman been able to read his rank tabs, he would have recognized the man as a senior quartermaster sergeant. The man spared him this difficulty.

  “Good day to you. I am Senior Quartermaster Sergeant Red-zup. I assume that you are here to see me. Do you speak English, and would you care for a cup of tea?”

  Shyly, Snyman nodded his head twice and received a cup of tea for his troubles.

  “What is your name, please?”

  “J. N. Snyman. Jan Nicolaus, sir. Of number fourteen Vil-shoferstraat.”

  Senior Quartermaster Sergeant Redzup smiled like a wolf. “Snyman, a senior quartermaster sergeant is a noncommissioned officer in His Imperial Majesty’s service. A noncommissioned officer is not referred to as ‘sir. ’ Do not refer to me as ‘sir.’ I know who both of my parents are. I work for a living. You may refer to me as ‘quartermaster sergeant.’ Have you eaten?”

  “Yes, sir, I mean quartermaster sergeant. I mean, no, quartermaster sergeant, I have not eaten breakfast.”

  "Excellent, you express yourself clearly. Please go in the back room. You will find four green boxes fifteen centimeters by ten centimeters by five centimeters in size. The contents of each will be listed on the side panel. They will be sitting on top of the desk. After selecting one, pull the red tab and wait two minutes. Shake the box thoroughly before you open it. The box will open at the top comer, which will peel back. You will find tableware in the drawer. After you have eaten, we will talk. Do you have questions about what I have just said?”

  “No, quartermaster sergeant. No.”

  Jan Snyman got up in some confusion.

  “Meneer Snyman.” Redzup smiled again. “Please take your tea with you.”

  After Snyman had eaten, he returned to find Redzup screening records.

  “You are the son of L. P. Snyman, the dominee of the Paul-skerk,
Pretoria. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, quartermaster sergeant.”

  “A determined man and no friend of ours. Your school records are very good. Your English is particularly good. ”

  “Thank you, quartermaster sergeant. My mother’s mother was English-speaking, and my mother and I often used the language when my father was not present, quartermaster sergeant.”

  “I see. Your age is given as sixteen and seven months in Earth-style dating. Do you wish to enter Imperial service?”

  “I think so, quartermaster sergeant, I do,” Snyman stammered, not having anticipated such a flat question. “That is why I came.”

  “Very good. Sit down, here. We shall talk. I first will explain what Imperial service entails. I will not sweet-sell you. I will instead make clear to you what life as a soldier is, which is often short and miserable, and make clear to you what will be expected of you. Do you follow what I have said?”

  “Yes, quartermaster sergeant.”

  “Good. I have already turned away one lad this morning. I am recruiting for Lieutenant-Colonel Vereshchagin’s battalion, which is the First Battalion, Thirty-fifth Imperial Rifles. The battalion is stationed between the caserne outside this city and in the casernes outside Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. If you join this battalion, you will be a rifleman. If your heart is set on something different, I will redirect you elsewhere. Is this clear? ’ ’

  “Yes, quartermaster sergeant.”

  “We have time. Tell me a little about yourself.”

  Perched with his cup of tea on his knee, Snyman found himself telling the quartermaster sergeant more than he ever expected. The quartermaster sergeant was patient and spoke Afrikaans well enough to smooth over rough spots. Just as Snyman was becoming uncomfortably aware of just how much he had said, Senior Quartermaster Sergeant Redzup smiled grimly.

  “Ours is a combat battalion, a very proud battalion. We kill people under unpleasant conditions, men like you and I. In doing so, we sometimes die.” He leaned very close.