A Desert Called Peace

Chapter Three

My sons were faithful… and they fought. -Padraic Pearse, The Mother

Cochea, 10/7/459 AC

Hennessey leaned back from his keyboard, blanking his mind of distractions as he tried to match what he remembered from the invasion of a dozen years before with the sequence of events as related by Jimenez. That was, in fact, the entire purpose of the exercise, to construct an objective history of the 447 invasion by testing it against both sides.

And besides, Hennessey thought, my side had all the histories written by ourselves. What will happen to the memory of good men who fought and died on the other side if Jimenez and I don't write down their story?

For himself, he remembered his mechanized infantry company standing by on radio listening silence from just after sundown until the order came to roll. The armored personnel carriers-or "tracks," boxy M-224s-he had pulled into hide positions off the main road that led from Fort Muddville to Ciudad Balboa, paralleling the Transitway. The engines he'd ordered to be left idling-an armored vehicle once stopped could not be guaranteed to start again-while he and his subordinates went over the plans and contingencies for the umpteenth time.

Hennessey remembered, too, the mix of excitement and eagerness, on the one hand, and regret that his company's target for the attack was also the responsibility of his best friend, on the other, to defend. Although it hadn't been his first action (it had been his first official action… but there was that letter of reprimand over his taking "leave" in San Vincente, after all), he remembered being nervous.

When he'd first been told, he had asked to be given a different mission, any different mission. The battalion commander, however, had very reasonably pointed out that the Federated States wished to keep even enemy casualties low.

"And, Captain Hennessey," the colonel had emphasized, "since Captain Jimenez of the overstuffed and underarmed brigade we call the Balboa Defense Corps is your friend, since you command the most powerful ground striking force in the country and since the fall of Jimenez's charge, the Estado Mayor, can reasonably be expected to cause the rest of the BDC to fold, there is a) some chance that you might be able to induce him to surrender and b) no chance that anyone else could."

"No, sir, not a chance, sir," had been Hennessey's answer. "Zip, zilch, zero, none, nada. You don't know him like I do. Jimenez is first rate all the way. His mother could ask and he'd tell her to fuck off, the same as he will me."

"Do it anyway," the colonel insisted.

Hennessey's reminiscences were suddenly interrupted as the rain promised by the afternoon's darkened skies came down in a deluge. Its heavy pounding on the tiles of the roof and the stones of the courtyard returned him to the present.

Even as it did so, Jimenez remembered, It rained that night, too…

The rain had come quickly, taking in its wake the trash and the smell, and even covering briefly the sounds of the city under its soft hammering. People scrambled for shelter or ignored the downpour as the mood took them; for this was Balboa City, on the closing end of its long wet season, and the only possible weather forecasts were "it is going to rain" or "it may stop raining soon."

The deluge passed as quickly as it had come. From his sheltered vantage on an upper floor of one of the many buildings of Balboa's Estado Mayor, or general staff, complex, Xavier Jimenez, Captain, Balboa Defense Corps, sighed as he watched the streets nearby fill again with people.

Jimenez missed the rain as soon as it passed, missed the feeling of solitude, of peace, of being subsumed in nature. Balboa was the rain; the rain was Balboa. Jimenez loved both very dearly.

Casting a wary glance skyward, Jimenez was pleased to see the clouds still blocking the stars above. He said softly, and only to himself, "Not tonight. They won't hit us tonight. Not with the clouds so low and thick."

He did not say it aloud, but whispered the words, "But they will hit us. I wonder if it will be Patricio who comes for us here. We're important; he's the best. I think it must be. I'm so screwed." Another sigh escaped him, this time for things that could not be helped, things as inevitable as the rain.

Dozens of automobiles passed by the Estado Mayor every minute. Had any looked up, they would have seen Jimenez smiling, white teeth sparkling in an angular, coffee-dark face. They would not have seen his hands as they clenched and unclenched to no perceivable rhythm.

Pushing the sight and sound of the automobiles from his mind, twisting his head to look directly at the corridor leading to the office of his country's "Supreme Leader," General Antonio Pina, Jimenez's smile grew even broader. "Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath. He could have spoken aloud, since that same dictator was either passed out drunk, or, if he retained some semblance of consciousness, certainly engaged in fornication with one or another of his bevy of mistresses.

The smile closed, a sneer taking its place. Some things were just too disgusting to maintain a smile over, even for him. Jimenez turned his gaze back to the street below, watching the passing cars as one might watch fish in an aquarium, relaxing, vicarious, mindless existence… like watching the rain.

Below, a corporal of the guard stopped a car. This was an unusual enough break from the pattern to catch Jimenez's attention. He watched closely, intently. He watched as the car leapt forward, missing the corporal by mere inches. He watched as the corporal grabbed a nearby rifle, charged it, and raised it to his shoulder. He saw the rifle give off three spurts of flame that lit up the area as if by a strobe, each shot driving the corporal's shoulder and body backwards a few inches.

Under the glow of an overhead streetlamp, the rear window of the automobile shattered under the fire. Jimenez saw countless tiny flakes of glass burst into the air then fall, sparkling, to the dull pavement below.

"They shot up the car, killed your man," Jimenez explained. "That was understandable, if unwise. But then they grabbed that naval officer and his wife… threatened them, beat him and assaulted her. I tried to stop it but…"

Hands clenching convulsively, Jimenez turned from his station and began walking briskly to the nearest staircase. His booted feet tap-tap- tapped on the hard stone floor.

Reaching the staircase, one hand grasped the banister as a pivot for a forceful turn. His feet beat rhythmically on the stairs as he descended. Soldiers and flunkies, each and every one perplexed at the unexpected shots, took one look at the fixed, fierce and even painful smile on Jimenez's face and looked quickly for something else to do, someplace else to be.

Jimenez burst through the door, then trotted for the complex gate. Armed guards were all around. Some stood idly. Others, those nearer the gate, were plainly at a heightened sense of alert. Jimenez trotted through them all without a sideward glance.

Reaching the gate, Jimenez slowed his trot back to a brisk walk. As if in compensation, his hands' clenching became almost frenzied and his smile grew broader still. He headed straight for the guard shack from which the shots had been fired.

Reaching the shack, Jimenez found it to be empty. He looked around until, under the city lights, his eyes caught on the former occupants. They were surrounding two civilian-clad people-one man, one woman; both, Jimenez was certain, from the FSC. Gringos- the name had been carried across the stars. They were too well dressed, too light skinned, too blond-especially the woman-to be anything else.

Jimenez stopped for a moment, watching intently. In his gaze the crew surrounding the gringos began to beat the man mercilessly. A knee intersected his groin.

The woman's head bent down as if she were crying. One of the Balboans grabbed her hair and pulled her head erect again. Jimenez thought she must have been threatened then, as she began shaking her head back and forth in obvious terror.

More words were spoken, none loud enough for Jimenez to make out clearly. He saw one of the troops smash the gringo's head back against the wall. Another made a half-ways grab at the woman's breasts, then reached down instead and patted her thigh meaningfully.

Jimenez's smile grew brilliant. Hands forming fists, he strode forward.

From clouds overhead and to the south the first hints of another warm sprinkling began to descend.

Hennessey stopped typing. He looked up at Jimenez and asked, "What happened next, Xavier?"

"I heard the corporal say, 'Kick the fucking spy again.' Then some private did, kneeing this navy type's groin. That navy officer-he was a tough man… very… well, he hardly made a sound. But his wife was crying, streams of tears running down her face, begging for her husband. She looked terrified. Who could blame her? Not I."

"Raul," Hennessey turned his head to address Parilla. "You were the commander of the old Guardia. They weren't like that before. What changed? What do you think caused them to act like that? With a woman, I mean?"

"Pina," answered the short, brown and somewhat rotund Parilla in a single word. "Our drunken idiot 'Supreme Leader.'"

"Him? How?" asked Hennessey, raising a single eyebrow. In principle, he agreed, of course, but wanted Parilla's thoughts.

"Oh… I doubt I have to explain this to you, Patricio." When the eyebrow remained raised anyway, he continued, "Look, we had a little tiny force in Balboa before I was ousted. Maybe two thousand men. Maybe a few more. But they were select. Good men. Pina brought in… oh, Christ, Patricio, some of the people he brought into the force weren't much more than criminals themselves."

To Parilla's side, Jimenez just nodded in silent agreement.

"And then he had to get rid of, get out of the way anyway, a lot of good people. It was only my nagging that kept our friend here in service. Somebody, after all, had to set an example." Parilla leaned over and ruffled Jimenez's hair just as if the younger were still the old man's aide de camp.

Hennessey laughed, more at the gesture than at the words. He turned back to Jimenez. "What happened then, Xavier?"

Jimenez sighed and shook his head with a mixture of regret and disgust. "I saw the corporal lift the woman's head by her hair. I heard him say…"