Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  Accordingly, Fripp sprung the ambush.

  “Oh, come now, Edmund, gods and little red devils, it’s small wonder the girls chase after uniforms. When have you ever seen such insipid play?” he said, opting for the crudest of the three approaches he’d rehearsed.

  If Fripp’s comments failed to cause windows to rattle, they nevertheless carried to Springboks who knew enough English to be offended. At least one man jerked as if he’d been struck with an ice pick.

  Muslar gave a sickly grin that was only half feigned. If his reply was inaudible, Fripp’s rejoinder was not.

  “I’ve seen better passing from Little Sisters of Charity. Clown routines belong in a circus.”

  Were truth to be told, Pretoria-Wes had played aggressively, if not skillfully, and the Springbok’s captain, le Grange, had bruises to prove it. Like Zeus from his throne, he rose slowly.

  “May I do something for you gentlemen?” le Grange said slowly in English. Some of the remaining fire of combat glowed in his eyes.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Fripp said coldly, turning his back.

  Muslar manifested the palm of his hand in token of peace and another sickly grin that was not at all feigned. “Fripp, the man is trying to be polite.”

  Fripp turned. “Your pardon, sir,” he said with obvious, icy distain. “I did not realize. My name is Fripp, Charles James Edward Fripp. At your service. And what might I do for you?” “Le Grange. Are you perhaps speaking of today’s game?” the burly Springbok inquired with his teeth clenched.

  “Oh, yes. I recognize you, now. Sit down, it’ll be my pleasure to buy you a beer. You were the one who blew the coverage on the wing when they scored their second goal, ’ ’ he said, hanging his cape on the bull’s horns.

  Muslar winced.

  As anticipated, some lingering sense of fair play stayed le Grange’s hand momentarily. To match his height and weight, Fripp needed an anvil to stand on. “I don’t drink with Imperials,” le Grange said distinctly.

  “Take it to your own table, then. Myself, I was never much for converting the heathen. But it’s pure coincidence you happened by. I was just remarking to Edmund here that it’s a shame you can’t scrimmage with his team, I’m sure they could teach you something.”

  “He has a team?” le Grange asked, again deflected from anticipated mayhem.

  “You can imagine how difficult it is to keep them sharp on a mudball like this. If you were politely asking, I’m sure they might even give you a game to remember them by,” Fripp announced to the establishment at large.

  Muslar grabbed his arm. “Fripp, we are guests. We do not want to embarrass the gentlemen.”

  Fripp grinned hugely. “Not good enough for you, are they?” The veins on either side of le Grange’s square head seemed about to pop. “You want to play a game, you say so! We will be the ones to show you!” the Springbok captain shouted, to a muted roar of approval from his inebriated teammates.

  “I would not dream of abusing your hospitality,” Muslar answered awkwardly.

  While le Grange was momentarily unsure who he wanted to punch first, Fripp sprang to the assault. “If you do talk him into it, I’ll wager a week’s beer your clumsy apes lose by two goals. While I wouldn’t rob a drunken man ...”

  “Fripp!” Muslar murmured.

  Fripp finished his sentence. “. . .if you’re serious, just pick a time and place!”

  Le Grange’s response was forceful and conditioned. “I say to you, any time, any place!”

  Fripp turned to Muslar. “Well, sir, you have a game.” Muslar nodded. "A game it is.” He reached down to his wrist mount. “Chiba point base. Break. Muslar. Patch me through to Major Harjalo, please. Hello, Major Haijalo? Muslar. I have the captain of the Springboks standing here. He has just challenged us to a game and asked us to name a time and a place. . . . Any time, any place, he said distinctly. Quite fine, sir. Muslar out.”

  Le Grange had forgotten to close his mouth, which gave him a distinctly slack-jawed appearance.

  “Major Haijalo says your field, eleven hours tomorrow. Standard international rules. You supply one referee and we supply another. He suggests you bring your own fans. An acceptance will be delivered to your residence, and Major Haijalo will personally notify Mayor Beyers,” Muslar said, sinking his barb. He rose, grasped le Grange’s unresisting hand and pumped it solemnly. “May the best team win.”

  Le Grange’s father was an old schoolmate of Albert Beyers. They entertained a healthy dislike for one another. Whether the engineers had a game now or not, they’d have one by eleven tomorrow. Leaving Fripp to fight a rearguard action, Muslar stepped carefully over le Grange’s net keeper on his way out.

  Wednesday(11)

  FOLLOWING THE FLOW OF PLAY WITH HIS EYES AND HIS INstincts, Muslar momentarily keyed on le Grange about to launch himself downfteld for a breakaway pass.

  The score was three to zero, engineers, before the Springboks had quite realized it. Now they were fighting grimly to cut the deficit, with a pride and ferocity only partly sapped by the evening’s excesses.

  Before unfamiliarity with the engineers’ style of play had put him on the bench, Muslar had cleared for both Haijalo and Moushegian. Fripp had cautioned him, “First couple of times down the field, run quick as a gazelle and cut in front. I mentioned that you like to knock headers in from there.” To Mus-lar’s mild rejoinder that such was not his shot, Fripp had responded, “Then there’s all the more reason for you to run quick and have them think you will, isn’t there?”

  As Muslar watched, le Grange took one long stride and his feet disappeared, Moushegian deftly stripping the ball handler and dropping the ball off. Haijalo stopped it with his foot and smiled at the indecisive little Afrikaner referee. He whistled through his teeth until Yevtushenko turned. Grinning, Haijalo held up three fingers.

  Yevtushenko nodded and blew his whistle, stopping play. He took the ball from Haijalo and flipped it to le Grange for a free kick. Le Grange rose unsteadily to his feet and dropped his jaw.

  Yevtushenko shrugged. “We let Matti have about three concealed fouls and then we make him call his own,” he explained, pumping his arm. Le Grange stood rooted until a couple of his battered teammates came over to puli him away.

  A swarming defense took back the ball.

  Haijalo accepted it from the keeper holding up four fingers, and suddenly the crowd began chanting, sensing. With a quick pivot and a head fake, Haijalo split a seam and careened down-field side by side with Ketlinsky.

  Slowed by dissipation and the pummeling at the hands of Pretoria-Wes, the strength was beginning to ebb from their legs, but the Springboks were not ready to quit. The keeper came out to cut the angle, and two defenders converged. They followed Haijalo’s eyes to the upper right comer of the net as his foot plowed forward.

  Unexpectedly, the ball flicked off directly to Ketlinsky, who made a quick left-footed stop. Reacting, the keeper made a sudden lunge to his left to block the shot that never came. Instead, Ketlinsky passed off to Moushegian on the post. Screened, the Sniper dropped the ball softly into the open, empty net.

  When the Springboks pulled their keeper, the engineers held them and scored twice more.

  LE GRANGE TOOK FRIPP TO FOUR DIFFERENT BARS, WHERE FRIPP initiated the unenlightened into the mysteries of the game of two-up. He returned with three newly minted Afrikaans verses to The Whistling Pig, having promised to introduce le Grange to Matti Haijalo at the first opportunity.

  On balance, Matti Haijalo considered the operation extremely successful.

  ON THE HANGMAN’S ISLAND, JAN SNYMAN WAS INVOLVED IN A different game.

  In four and a half weeks of the Six Weeks War, Jan Snyman had been killed five times, wounded five times, and captured once—an average crucifixion. He had also become inured, if not sympathetic, to Corporal Orlov’s oft-repeated assertion, “A couple grams brain, a little heart, I make soldiers. Instead I get thimble-wits! Always thimble-wits!”

&nb
sp; Harris’s seventh trip to the land of the shades daunted even Orlovian descriptive powers. Harris had mistimed his progress with a stick grenade so that it had gone off roughly between his thighs. The energized clothing fibers of Harris’s trousers were stained red down both sides where the light energy had been absorbed, and two more bright spots on his chest marked where a thoughtful rifleman from No. 10 had scored while he had been distracted. The harsh fact was that he and anyone relying on him would have been dead three times over.

  Snyman had originally objected to being paired with the cocky young cowboy. It was only after a week of listening to Harris’s loud mouth that Snyman realized the noisy little bekdrywer— backseat driver—was really a bright and lonely lad.

  Harris crawled over, his face as red as his pants, as Orlov ran out of breath. Snyman looked down at the boxes he’d fished out of his bergan. “Your choice. Monkey meat or old donkey.”

  “Donkey.” Monkey meat was almost as bad as goldfish or, God forbid, diced squid.

  Pulling the tab to heat the meal, Harris ate quickly, using the biscuit on the side to sop up the sauce. Finishing almost before Snyman had begun, he crumbled up the box and cocked his arm to throw it.

  Orlov jerked his head around. “What do you think you are doing with that, thimble-wit?”

  “I forgot,” Harris mumbled.

  “Not in my forest you will not. Corpse or no corpse, you flatten it out and tuck it away,” Orlov commanded in a terse, flat whisper.

  Although Orlov wept crocodile’s tears every time one of his proteges got snuffed, he was as genuinely angry as Snyman had ever seen him. In fact, Snyman didn’t realized quite how angry Orlov was until he saw Orlov put his hand right through his glove trying to put it on. Even Harris noticed.

  “What’s with Boris Karloff there?” he complained. “You’d think he was the flaming Queen of Hearts!”

  He was still grumbling when Orlov shipped him off to see the Hangman. Snyman let Kobus relieve him and stretched out with his eyes shut. Despite the heat and weight, he made no effort to remove his cap or his jacket. The Hangman had conducted that demonstration just once. The cap was double-layered, the inner layer convex. At five hundred meters a 5mm round went in the front and came out the top, the outer layer having absorbed a small portion of the impact and disabled the bullet’s flight path so the inner layer guided the projectile away from where the wearer’s head would be. Of course, at four hundred meters, the bullet went through both layers and out the back.

  Moments later, he heard Orlov’s voice almost at his ear. He opened his eyes and let Kobus pull him into a sitting position. However much of a lump Kobus had been as a farmer’s son, he had taken to soldiering with a frightening intensity.

  Orlov squatted low with his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s just the three of us, now, so we get started. The Hangman is interrupting the normal cycle. Instead of another week and a half of pretend war, we do it real. It’s only jungle bunnies, but remind yourselves that being dead is real, too,” he said gruffly. Snyman interrupted. “Shouldn’t we wait for Harris?”

  “I spoke to the Hangman, he needs another idiot around like he needs a hole through his head. Harris goes to the volunteers, they probably make him a corporal with all his brains.” Snyman persisted. “He really is trying. Couldn’t we—”

  "Your buddy, Harris, he’s so smart he doesn’t think. He keeps doing the same stupid things. He got you shot twice, he even got me shot. I got no objection he gets himself killed, I got plenty objections he gets me killed.” Orlov spat on the ground. He caught Snyman looking at Kobus just for a minute and reached over to ruffle Kobus’s hair.

  “Harris? I make better soldiers out of tin. ” He reached over and took Snyman’s rifle from him. He snapped the telescopic sight out into a carrying handle and removed the attachment from the laser ranging.

  “Try not to embarrass me by getting killed. It’s only a couple jungle bunnies, but you get hit on the head with a stone club, you’re just as dead. I’d sooner use Kimura’s geeks, but the admiral would object we shoot his geeks.” He began handing Snyman ammunition magazines, then stopped and wrapped his arm around the two of them to give them a quick squeeze.

  NAUDE WAS J09 SLASH 03. HE HAD A LAST NAME, BOTHA, BUT Menzies used the number, never the name, running nets.

  J.09/03 arranged his contacts for Wednesday nights, when his wife had a Helpmekaar meeting. On Earth, he had been a tired, little man; here he was a tired, little, old man. Wisps of his gray hair stuck straight up. He wore a dirty synthetic nightshirt that had a hole somewhere, always, as if that were a requirement for Wednesday’s nightshirt. He never offered Menzies tea. He made a point to mention, always, that he was afraid to have to explain a second dirty teacup to his wife.

  Intelligence Sergeant Menzies didn’t like face-to-face meetings with curtains drawn in shabby, little rooms. Drops were more reliable for transferring cash money one way and physical documents the other; electronic devices were infinitely more reliable for transmitting information. J09/03 could have stayed in his bedroom and spooled off anything he liked to the big dish at the Jo’burg caserne for Rettaglia’s computers to screen and winnow, but efficiency was one thing, the human factor another. Operatives were guilt-ridden bundles of anxieties who needed handling.

  “They are burning witches!” the old man fulminated as he drank down the tea he’d fortified for the evening’s ordeal. “They are unhinged entirely, all of them. They rush about this way and that, and no one knows what is happening. They have canceled the yearly meeting. We elected one who spoke adamantly for peace, and the next thing he is speaking for war! I see documents passed with limited circulations, ‘Do not show to Brother so-and-so.’ Heer Snyman and the watchdog committees listen everywhere, they touch everything. They execute persons who I know to be perfectly loyal to the ideals of the Bond. It is crazy! Have you Imperials infiltrated men into our very midst?”

  Menzies didn’t answer directly. J09/03 didn’t need prompting. Words were tripping over themselves out of his mouth.

  “My son is in the Ruiters as you know. ...”

  Information passed from the son about the Bond’s junior league was almost more valuable than information about the Bond itself.

  “The agenda of cell meetings is now fixed by order from above. Unscheduled initiatives are not permitted. The lieutenant of the cell must determine the content of speeches and single out who is to be criticized. Each meeting, one is ‘flogged’ and everyone must participate. Is this is what we have raised up? It is as if inimical forces have seized hold of the bastions of our cause and driven followers of Christ into the desert. My son is made a field comet, and he had no choice, none at all!”

  J09/03’s hands were shaking so hard that he could barely hold the cup. He set it down with an effort. J09/03 was scared, and not merely at the thought of being found out. That in turn scared Menzies, because J09/03 was an idealist of sorts. The Bond was being destabilized, but the scenario was not playing itself out.

  “I know my Brothers, I know the Executive,” J09/03 continued more calmly. “These are patient men, they know how our people have suffered. They would not willingly lead us to destruction. What is being done? Why are voices of moderation silenced?”

  Almost as he finished his remonstrance, there was a violent pounding on the door. J09/03 stood hesitantly, trembling as someone shouted, “Oopmaak!”

  Menzies slipped to the back window. He undid the latch and nodded for J09/03 to go to the door.

  Before J09/03 had a chance to comply, the thin plastic of the door melted away, and four armed men spilled inside. Menzies waited no longer. As the first of the four gunned Botha down, Menzies was already out the window, into a roll, and onto his feet to run. He gripped the wave pistol in his pocket, calculating odds.

  One of the weapon’s advantages was accuracy. At middle aperture it was almost impossible to miss a man at five meters. The other was silence. The charge that collapsed the induction field was
muffled by the baffles, and the microwave radiations themselves were totally noiseless. The weapon’s disadvantage was its almost nonexistent range.

  Menzies made up his mind abruptly. Jumping a low hedge of hibiscus, he crashed on to someone’s lawn and rolled to the wall, crouching in the shadows, flattening himself against the cool cement. Absently, he noticed that the fancy ruffles of his shirt were tom. He brushed his fingers against them.

  In the street he had left, three men were running. Holding his gun tightly, Menzies tried to organize his mind to think whether he could drop all three. They continued down the street. Crouching in die darkness, he was suddenly aware of a window opening. He heard an unfamiliar voice.

  “Sniffing around my wife, eh? I told you!” the voice said in Afrikaans, and there was a noise like thunder.

  "Riming, Menzies felt the terrible pain in his chest and opened his mouth to explain what a terrible mistake was being made. It filled with blood. His last thought was that Major Rettaglia would never know the crystal-clear deduction that occupied his mind. It was really so simple, not complex at all.

  Thursday(11)

  WHEN VERESHCHAGIN RETURNED FROM BLOEMFONTEIN, HE

  found Malinov waiting.

  “Greeting, Yuri. Is Matti here?” Vereshchagin asked, seating himself.

  “Shortly,” his battalion sergeant responded.

  Vereshchagin recognized Haijalo’s quick steps in the hall outside, and he heard him pause to rub the battalion crest for luck before walking through.

  “You’reback. How was Bloemfontein?” Haijalo asked, leaning against the dooijamb.

  “Bloemfontein is a lovely town. As always, Piotr has matters well in hand. I mellowed him. ’ ’ Even the Iceman was better for a little human contact occasionally. “I also found occasion to chat with a gentleman named Hendrik Pienaar, who is quite an engaging old cutthroat.”