A Desert Called Peace

IV.

While David watched traffic, Hennessey watched people. There, in the middle of the park, around the bandstand, stood a fair mob, certainly several hundred, perhaps even a thousand. Though as swarthy as Balboans, they were not Balboans. Hennessey would have known this from their signs-"Death to the Federated States," "Allah smiles upon the Ikhwan," "Long live the Salafi Jihad," and such-the women's tongues flicking back and forth in a Yithrabi victory cry; and the happy faces of people celebrating as though it had been themselves who had struck against a great and infinitely evil enemy.

"There are a lot of damned wogs here now," David commented. "They call themselves Salafis and are nothing but trouble."

"Salafi means those who follow Islam's oldest ways… or think they do," Hennessey explained.

"What's the difference?" David asked.

"Well… for one thing, I think Mohammad probably had a pretty fair sense of humor. The Salafis don't." To himself he whispered, "Then again, neither do I now… and I follow the old ways, too."

His finger pointed, "Pull over and park, please, David… in behind the car with the green bumper sticker."

Tanned from years in the Balboan sun, with hair naturally dark where it wasn't tinged with gray, only Hennessey's gleaming blue eyes might have given him away for the gringo he was. No matter; he kept his eyes narrowly slitted as he emerged from the car, leaned against its side and watched the local Salafis at their victory celebration. No flicker of emotion betrayed what he was feeling over people celebrating the murder of his wife and children.

Even as the celebration began to break up he did not move from the car on which he leaned, arms folded nonchalantly.

He smiled broadly as a group of six men walked toward the car just ahead of his own; the one with the green bumper sticker that said, in Arabic, "There is no God but God."

The Salafis joked and played amiably among themselves as they came closer. Hennessey's smile broadened even more.

CLICK.

He said, loudly and in adequate, if badly accented, Arabic, "Your Prophet was a sodomite and a liar. Your mothers were whores. Your fathers were their pimps. Your wives specialize in fellating barnyard animals and all your sisters came from sex change operations. You are fools if you think your children are yours."

David looked questioningly at Hennessey; the Balboan had not a word of Arabic. He needed none, however, to understand the import of what was said. This was as plain as the wide-eyed rage and hate on the faces of the men who now ran toward them waving signs like clubs and shouting their fury. One young man, in particular, outdistanced the rest.

For a moment David knew fear. He need not have. Lightning-fast, Hennessey's left hand pulled back his light jacket even as his right sought to draw the pistol.

Hennessey's right on the pistol, his left swept up to block and deflect the sign that the nearest of the Salafis sought to brain him with. Whispering, "Bastard," at the same time, he drew the pistol and smashed its muzzle once, twice, three times into the area of his enemy's solar plexus. Every blow felt like the lifting of a burden. The Salafi's breath left his body in an agonized whoosh.

One down, five to go. Before gravity could pull the first one to the ground, Hennessey had brought his focus to the main body of his assailants.

The gang attacking Hennessey could see in his eyes that this one was not going to run. They could also read that their intended victim intended to kill or maim as many as he could before he went down. They could see from the gun that he had the means to do so. Like any street gang, anywhere, these were no heroes. While they all would have advanced confidently on someone who showed the slightest fear, when faced with a target like Hennessey they stopped cold.

Had they run, some might have lived.

A quick but delicate squeeze of the trigger and the pistol recoiled in Hennessey's hands. His mind provided details his eyes could not possibly have seen; a burst of flame, the spinning half-ounce lump of bronze-jacketed lead, the bursting of shirt and flesh and blood and bone. The first target's back arched as he was impelled to the ground.

A chorus of screams arose from bystanders, Christian and Salafi both, as the crowd ran and sought cover.

The four still standing didn't have time to close on their victim before the next of them went down with a slug that ripped through his arm and one lung. Again, Hennessey smiled slightly at the satisfying recoil. His victim, now fallen to the street, wheezed faint screams, blood bumbling from his mouth and the hole in his chest.

The other three, torn between fight and flight, made the worst possible decision; they did nothing, frozen in fear. Quickly but carefully aligning the barrel, Hennessey shot one through a head that burst under the impact like an overripe melon dropped from a height. Recovering the pistol from its heavy recoil, his smile grew broad now as he squeezed the trigger yet again to ruin the left side of another assailant's chest. Hennessey didn't need X-ray vision to know that he had exploded the man's heart.

The last Salafi standing was like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-tractor, frozen, helpless… already dead.

He did not shoot that last one standing; not immediately. Instead he walked forward calmly, spit in the frozen man's face, and then kicked him in the crotch. The Salafi bent over and melted to the ground.

"Attack MY family will you? Celebrate their murder?" He took a short step forward, bent over at the waist, then calmly placed the hot muzzle against the man's head. Again, he shrieked, "Attack MY family will you?" The Salafi barely registered the pressure and the smell of crisping hair as his brain went scampering like a frightened rabbit. With such a helpless target, Hennessey had leisure to rise and walk around to a better firing position. He didn't want an innocent bystander to take a bullet that passed through his intended target.

Carefully gauging angles, he knelt down and pulled the thug's head up by the hair, jammed the pistol- hard, hard enough to break the skin and the bone beneath-into the man's face. Then he grinned even more widely, withdrew the pistol slightly, and fired. David, standing nearby, was spattered with blood and brain.

Hennessey stood again and turned his attention to the first man, the one who had tried to brain him with a sign. The Salafi began to beg for his life in mixed Spanish and Arabic. Hennessey said, "Fuck you," then shot him through the stomach, savoring the resulting scream.

Hmmm… one bullet left. He looked over the bodies. One, the one he had lung-shot, was still breathing. Hennessey shot him again, in the head. The slide locked back and Hennessey pushed a button to let it fall forward. Then, from habit, he flicked on the positive safety and turned the pistol in his grip, his index finger passing through the trigger guard. The pistol was now a hammer, not a firearm.

He walked forward, face lit by a glowing smile. Speaking with unnatural calm to the former celebrant, Hennessey explained that shooting was really too good for swine like him.

The pistol swung almost too quickly for the eye to follow. There was a crunch of bone, a spray of crimson, and another scream. Again and small chunks of hair attached to flesh joined the crimson spray. Again and teeth flew.

Again… again… again… again…

"Patricio? Patricio, stop. He's dead. Please stop."

Hennessey became conscious of a hand gripping his shoulder. "What?"

"He's dead, Patricio. You don't need to hit him anymore." David shook his brother-in-law's shoulder to pull him back to the present.

Dully, Hennessey asked, "Dead?" He looked down. "Yes, dead. Good."

"We need to get away from here, Cunado. You know, before the police come. Christ! I am the police. Shit!"

"No," Hennessey answered. "Better to take care of it now."

He calmly wiped the blood- and brain-stained pistol on the shirt of his victim. Then he laid the pistol on the ground, stood, and turned to lean again against his automobile. In the distance a siren shrieked.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Hennessey realized that he actually felt good for the first time in just over a week. He pulled out and lit a cigarette, enjoying the first puff as he had not enjoyed anything since his family was murdered.

"So you see," Lieutenant David Carrera explained to the investigating police corporal, "my brother-in-law here was minding his own business, watching the demonstration, when these foreigners simply attacked him with their signs. I don't know why, though. They were speaking their foreign gibberish. Perhaps they thought to kill another harmless and innocent gringo to add to the tally of those they murdered in First Landing."

The corporal looked skeptical. Hennessey, seeing the skepticism, suggested, "Why don't you call Major Jimenez, Cabo? I'm sure he can set this all straight."

The call was unnecessary, as it turned out. As soon as Jimenez, the local Civil Force commander, had heard the words on the radio, "gringo… shooting… Salafis" he had put two and two together, come up with the name "Hennessey," and set out for the scene.

Jimenez didn't ask Hennessey anything. He is just too likely to tell me the truth. And I think I don't want the truth. Instead, he asked David, who repeated the story he had told the corporal.

Jimenez looked at the six dead Salafis and the spreading pools of blood. He looked at Hennessey's blood-spattered and bone- and brain-flecked pistol. He looked at the corpse nearest the car and noted that his head was more a misshapen lump of mangled flesh and crushed bone than a human being's. Then he pronounced his learned judgment.

"An obvious case of self-defense, Corporal. Let the gringo go."

Cochea, 25/7/459 AC

Hennessey looked better than he had, thought Linda's mother. He had even told her that the nightmares had, if not quite stopped, at least lessened since he had shot those demonstrators. May they go away and never come back. Poor man.

Around a small hillock overlooking the Carrera family ranch and the stream Linda had swum in as a girl, Hennessey, the remaining members of Linda's immediate family, a dozen and a half aunts and uncles, her last surviving grandparent, and about seventy of her one hundred and four legitimate first cousins (and a half dozen or so illegitimate but recognized ones) stood in the rain for a funeral service. A five-foot tall marble obelisk rose above a shorter plinth placed on the hill. It was blank for now but would soon bear a bronze plaque inscribed with the names of Linda and her three children, plus a gender neutral name for the unborn. As the priest went through the funeral service, Hennessey wept.

I will never see her again. Never hold her in my arms again. All my dreams for the two of us, all my-our-dreams for the children are gone; dead. What's left? Nothing.

Oh, Linda, you were… are… my life and my love. I wish I were with you, wherever you are. I wish I were wherever I could bask in your approval. I wish I were wherever I could be warmed by your glow. I wish… I wish… I wish.

At least you are there with the children. Someday, maybe soon, I will join you. There is nothing for me here anymore. Nothing.

Linda's mother had arranged for the funeral. Hennessey himself had the monument cut, polished, and set in place. He hadn't been able to think of anything else positive to do.

Hennessey's mind wandered back to the thought of being with Linda. However, the one place he would not permit the thought of was the precise place, wherever it might be, where Linda's and the children's bodies rested. He could not bear the idea of the unknown, unmarked grave. He could not bear the thought of them rotting unprotected, of being eaten by worms and insects. No! screamed his mind, whenever his thoughts ventured anywhere near that subject. Too far, too awful. Do not trespass.

When the priest was finished, and the relatives had said their condolences and left, Hennessey continued standing alone in the rain while Linda's four brothers and her father filled in the grave containing a sample of her hair, a few personal belongings, jewelry and such, hair clippings from the children, a toy for each of them, plus another for the probable unborn.

Never very religious, nonetheless Hennessey prayed to God to take care of the souls of his wife and children. As he prayed, his tears mixed with the rain and fell to the ground at his feet. After a long while, he left.

Interlude

There was a planet teeming with life and able to support more life. There was another planet; old, worn out, depleted and allegedly groaning with overpopulation. What could be more sensible than to colonize, to relieve Earth's burden by transferring man to the new world?

Not that it was simple, by any means. No large numbers could be sent off world without some means of either reducing the trip's duration to a few months or putting passengers in suspended animation. For that matter, even with a much faster ship, the number of people that could be carried went up geometrically if they didn't need to be fed and used no oxygen during the trip.

Still… great oaks from little acorns and all. Cryogenic suspended animation seemed possible, but needed work. In the interim, a ship could be built to take at least a token number of colonists off world. This would be expensive, to be sure, but perhaps not so expensive as not sending people off-world.

Design took years. Development of materials to meet the design took more years. Actually building the thing-as important, building the shipyard in space that would build the thing-and its external laser auxiliary propulsion and putting those stations in place took decades.

She was to be called the Cheng Ho, after the great Chinese eunuch explorer. In design, externally, she was similar to the Cristobal Colon, but much larger with a diameter of just at one hundred and seventy meters.

Gravity was a problem, there being serious adverse medical ramifications to extended periods in null g. This was especially bad for a ship intended to carry people to a planet, where they were expected to live, that had gravity almost indistinguishable from that of Earth. No one had yet come up with a true artificial gravity and perhaps no one ever would. Continuous acceleration was deemed impractical. Magnetism was right out. All that was available, known and practical was that an acceptable artificial gravity could be produced through spinning the ship.

Internally, Cheng Ho 's decks were to be cylinders within cylinders, with the exterior living deck providing just under. 4 g's when in full spin. The machinery needed to run the ship was set within the innermost of the cylinders. Storage took up the intervening spaces, together with a modest investment in agriculture, this last being partially a supplement to food storage but equally a means of recycling air.

The Cheng Ho was never expected or intended to land anywhere. It would be built in space, travel in space, and live out its useful life in space, shuttling its cargo up and down. Surface planetary gravity would have crumpled the ship in an instant.

Yet it had to be built somewhere and by something. That something was a toroidal station, put together just inside of the asteroid belt. The station itself spun and that would provide the initial spin to the Cheng Ho. Gravity on the exterior ring of the shipyard was on the order of. 76, a very comfortable load.

Within the toroidal ring of the shipyard the Cheng Ho was built from the inside out, the central cylinder serving in place of the keel of a sea-bound vessel. A series of mining and refining outposts on the moon and in the asteroid belts provided the limited metal needed. Sections that would have been far too heavy if metallic were made of composites, both in space and on Earth, and lifted to the construction site.

Construction of this first true interstellar colonization ship took decades.

Passengers were selected six years prior to launch and subjected to a three-year training program before being allowed to board.

Chapter Six From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun… -Chesterton, "Lepanto"

Cochea, 26/7/459 AC

It was warmth; it was peace.

With the song of birds in the air, Linda and Patricio sat on a blanket spread on the side of a small hillock. To the northeast gurgled the creek in which she had swum as a girl. Between the hill and the creek, on grass weeded and kept smooth by family retainers, Julio, Lambie and Milagro played a game of ball, Milagro, in particular, giggling madly as her two older siblings tossed the ball to and fro over her head.

It was contentment; it was happiness. His love was with him and the results of that love were with them.

Hennessey heard Linda say, "It's hot, Patricio. Here, why don't you have a beer?"

While keeping one eye on the children, he held out a hand for the bottle she offered. As he took it, his nose was assailed by the stench of rotting flesh. He closed his eyes and whispered, "Oh, no."

When he could bring himself to open them again, he looked at his wife. She knelt motionless by his side, flesh turned black with decomposition and bones beginning to show through as the flesh fell away in long rotten strips and irregular pieces. She made no sound.

Pained, frightful cries came from the children. "Daddy! Help us!"

Almost too frightened to look, still Hennessey turned his gaze toward the creek. The children's game had stopped; the ball sat still on the smooth grass. They stretched blackening arms out toward him, pleading, imploring. Even as he watched, little Milagro exploded in a cloud of bone and rancid meat. Lambie and Julio shook and shivered, screamed and begged, as their bodies fell to ruin.

Hennessey looked back to Linda. She was no longer there. In her place lay a neat pile of disconnected bone. The children's screaming stopped. He looked back for them.

In their places, too, were little piles of joints and ribs.

"Martina? This is Patricio. Would it be all right if I stayed with you and Suegro for a little while?"

Finca Carrera, Cochea, 29/7/459 AC

Poor Patricio, thought Linda's mother, Martina. She looked out to where her son-in-law sat unmoving on her front porch, the picture of human misery. Some food she had brought to him lay untouched, except by the flies, on the porch railing.

It's like he's died inside.

He had told them he had no remaining relatives-barring one cousin-that he wished to see in the Federated States. And even with Annie he found it difficult to talk.

When he had called a few nights back, his voice choking with misery and horror, and asked if he might stay for a while, the family had naturally taken him in. Though it seems to have done little good. Still, it can't have been good for him to stay in that house.

Nothing worked. Hennessey took no interest in anything. He just sat there on the porch, day after day. What passed through his mind no one knew. The only interruptions to his vigil came when he took the short walk to Linda's and the children's "grave." Sometimes, too, he slept in the bedroom the family had provided. Just as often, however, he would fall asleep in the chair on the porch. He hardly spoke to anyone. He drank far, far too much.

Arranging some flowers on a table beneath the window, Martina thought, Poor broken man; he's got nothing left. I don't think I've ever seen a sadder sight than the way he just sits there, day after day, no hope or purpose.

She resolved to demand that her husband find something to interest Hennessey, something to give him even a little interest in life. Maybe cousin Raul can think of something to help. He's mentioned that he thought very well of Patricio.

Linda's father shook Hennessey's shoulder. "Patricio, there is someone who wishes to see you."

At the insistence of his wife, the father had invited distant cousin and old family friend, Raul Parilla, to come to talk with Hennessey. He'd been there when it happened. And Patricio had always spoken of Raul with respect. Perhaps it might do some little good for his son- in-law to talk with the retired general.

Parilla remained one of a very few influential Balboans interested in giving the country an army again. Linda's father was not one of them, though the more politically minded Martina was. The fact that there was such a group was an open secret. As Parilla had told Senor Carrera, they did little more than debate about it. The group had accomplished precisely nothing yet… and it had been years.

Hennessey didn't even look up. Twirling the ice filled glass in one hand, he said, "I don't want to see anyone, Suegro. Please ask whoever it is to go away."

"You will want to see this one, Patricio. It's General Parilla. He wants to ask you for some advice. Talk to him, won't you? For me, if nothing else."

Shrugging, Hennessey agreed. Parilla had been with him that day, that counted, as did their long standing friendship. "Okay, Suegro. I'll see him."

Linda's father led Parilla out onto the porch. Hennessey stood up; though he knew the general well, and though neither was any longer in service, old habits die hard. The two shook hands and sat down. Linda's father left them there.

Parilla lit a cigarette before beginning. At his first exhalation, he said, "How have you been, Patricio… you know… since…?"

"I don't know how to answer that, Raul. Not well? Yes, that. I have not been well."

Giving a quick fraternal squeeze on the shoulder, Parilla said, "Well, man, I can understand that. I wish… but there weren't any words that day. And I have none now. Except I am so sorry."

"Yes. Me, too, Raul. But sorrow doesn't help. Nothing helps. Only that one time have I felt any better, and shooting strangers on the street is not something I can make a hobby of."

Parilla nodded understanding. Jimenez had told him the story. In the same shoes, he could not imagine feeling or acting any differently.

"I came here to ask advice, Patricio."

"Yes, so said my father-in-law. I don't know what help I could be, but if I can help…" He let the words trail off.

Parilla's mind groped back over fifteen years, to the day he had first met a much younger Hennessey, then a lieutenant leading a joint Federated States-Balboan small unit exercise at the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Tecumseh, on the southern side of Balboa. Despite having his recon party compromised, Hennessey had managed to win through in the problem, a company raid. Since Parilla had only a very basic idea of how to conduct a raid at all, he had been impressed.

"I think you can. But tell me… you never have, you know… why aren't you still with the Federated States Army? And… too… why don't you go back now? I remember; you were good. "

Hennessey nodded quietly, then paused to think about his answer.

"Well," he began, "I can't go back. They don't want me."

"Why not? It makes no sense to me, your leaving. It never has."

Hennessey sighed with pain, an old remembered ache to go along with the fresh agony. "There's nothing I can tell you that won't sound like sniveling, Raul."

"I know you are not a crybaby, Patricio."

Muscles rarely used stretched Hennessey's mouth into something like a grimace. "No. No, I'm not. You really want to know?"

Seeing that Parilla did, he continued. "Raul… you know that in the army, nearly any organization I suppose, you will often be forgiven for being wrong. What they never tell anyone is that you are very unlikely to be forgiven for being right."

Parilla looked honestly perplexed and said so.

Another deep sigh from Hennessey. "It had to do with training; my approach to it. I'm not the only one it ever happened to. You remember General Abogado? He got bounced for much the same thing, though he had some other issues, as well. In any case, let me ask a question of you, Raul. In the old Guardia, who trained the privates on a day to day basis?"

"Their sergeants and corporals mostly. Is there a better way?"

"No. None. At least given good sergeants and corporals. But that isn't the way it worked most places in the FS Army. There, oh, since time immemorial, most of the day-to-day training has been closely supervised by officers. Mostly, it doesn't work very well, either."

"No. I can't see how it could," Parilla agreed.

"Well… I did something a little different. I had been watching and experimenting with the training of individual soldiers very closely for nearly two decades. In all that time, every time someone mentioned 'individual training,' the stock solution was: "'tighten up the training schedule,' 'waste not a minute'… you know, all that rot."

"I decided to try something a little different. I made my subordinates loosen the training schedule, to leave a lot of gaps and holes for the sergeants to use. Then I made them put on the schedule certain things that had to be done by Thursday night… or else. Told them I would test for it, too."

"Well, they didn't believe I was serious. It was too different a concept. The first week I tested-had my sergeant major test, actuallythe whole damned battalion failed and so I held them over the next night until nearly midnight retesting. Next week it was about fivesixths of the battalion to just after eleven PM. Then about threefourths until ten or so. By the time six weeks rolled around I had privates going to their squad leaders and saying, 'Forsooth, Sergeant, I am in desperate need of getting laid. The only time to do that is Friday night. The only way to have Friday night off is to pass the muthafuckin colonel's test. So teach me this shit, please."

"About that time my boss got wind of it; tubby little fart of a dumb- assed tanker. 'Tuffy' was his nickname." Hennessey sneered with contempt. "Don't ask me how he got or why he deserved the nickname 'Tuffy;' the evidence was pretty thin on the ground. He was so fat he couldn't squeeze through the hatch of an armored personnel carrier without greasing his ponderous gut. Anyway, he was a clueless, stupid shit. I explained what I was doing and he told me to stop. I answered, 'No, sir. Relieve me if you want but this is starting to work pretty damned well.' Well, he wouldn't do that. But he hated it. He hated me, too, for defying him."

Parilla likewise didn't understand why Hennessey had done this, and said so.

"The trick," Hennessey answered, "was that the sergeants had for decades been conditioned to being told what to do and had had driven out of them any native initiative they might have had. They were… over-supervised, if you will. Worse, they'd grown to like not having to think or use initiative."

"But weren't you over-supervising doing it your way?"

"At first, yes," Hennessey admitted. "Clearly. But the difference between legitimate and illegitimate oversupervision is in the end game. Once I had them in the habit of finding and using time, I let them run with it. It worked… oh, quite well. We had an individual training test a few months later. They call it the MIB-Master Infantry Badge-test. The rest of the brigade shut down for three weeks to prepare for it. My battalion rolled to the field, doing any number of things that had nothing to do with the test.

"We came in the day before we had to take it. I told the boys to get a good night's sleep. We'd take the test in the morning and clean equipment the day after.

"When the smoke cleared I had something over seventy percent of my battalion max the test. This had never been done before. Normally it's just a couple of percent of any given unit that maxes. Pissed off my boss to no end."

"I do not understand," Parilla interjected. "You do something that well… surely it makes your boss look good."

Listening through an open window Martina heard Patricio laugh and felt a sudden relief that her son in law was still at least capable of mirth.

Hennessey answered, "Uh… no. Surely it does not. The rest of the brigade failed miserably by comparison. Made him look bad, in fact."

Parilla's eyes widened. "Ohhh…"

"'Ohhh,' indeed. A commander can stand having nothing but mediocre units under his command. What he can't stand is having mostly mediocrity and one very superior unit. Makes him look bad, by comparison, you see.

"But that wasn't the worst of it. A couple of months later the brigade had an organization day. Lots of athletic competitions and trophies, things like that. Well, my boss volunteered my battalion at the last minute to be the duty battalion-picking up trash and suchfor the division, for that day. So I went out with about one-sixth as many men as the other battalions, a fair number of mine being people who had been hurt in training."

"Jesus, he really did hate you, didn't he?"

"That was my guess," Hennessey muttered. Then he added, "We beat the rest like we owned them too, cripples and all. Why, for one competition I didn't even have enough people to field a complete team and we won anyway. My brigade commander was so pissed about it he stormed off the parade field just before awards presentation."

Parilla snickered. "Surely he couldn't relieve you over that?"

"No. That came later. And, in a sense, tubby little turd or not, he was right.

"You've got to remember, this was in the most intensely leftist and pacifist years of the Gage Administration in the FSC. Peacekeeping and Operations Other Than War were the big thing. Everybody had to play along. Not that I think Gage ever really believed in any of it… or even cared. But he was beholden to his base and they did believe in it.

"Raul, I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I looked at my boys, thought about the way the world really was… and I could not, not, not train them to pass out multiculturally sensitive, vegetarian rations to starving refugees in the hinterlands in a multiculturally sensitive manner. I kept training them to fight, orders to the contrary or not.

"That was the last straw. The brigade commander fired me. I resigned my commission. And so, here I am. And so, my wife and kids were in First Landing on 11/7." Hennessey's voice broke at that last and it was a long moment before he could look up.

"What a damned waste," Parilla said. "I've known you had real talent for this sort of thing since I first met you. What a waste you can't do it anymore."

Parilla leaned forward with an almost conspiratorial air. Speaking softly, he said, "Patricio, you know I am part of a group-we probably don't deserve the name 'conspiracy,' more like a debating club for now-that would like to see Balboa fully sovereign again, which means rearmed. But we haven't the faintest idea of how to go about such a thing, you see. I thought, since you're about the only man in the country outside of the FS Marines who guard the embassy, who has ever even been in a real army, that you might be able to tell us."

Recovered, Hennessey answered, "Go ahead and ask. I may be able to help a little."

The direct approach? Parilla wondered. Yes. "How could we rearm ourselves?"

Hennessey thought about it for just a few seconds. Looking from the same window through which she had seen him before, Linda's mother saw the first sign of any interest in anything since he had returned to Balboa.

Hennessey gripped the lower half of his face in his right hand, thinking hard. "Much would depend on the attitude of the Federated States. If they were hostile, then you're likely screwed… although there are a number of techniques you can use to hide an armed force if the legal government will help. For one thing, you can use front organizations: boys' and girls' youth groups, civilian labor groups… unions, fraternal organizations, police and fire departments. I'm assuming here that the Morales government wants nothing to do with that."

A sneer crossed Parilla's face. "That is unfortunately correct. The traitors actually had the gall to legislate away our ability to defend ourselves; like San Jose did." Parilla spat with contempt.

Parilla paused, then admitted, "Well, that's not entirely true. The new Civil Force is in most respects a blurry mirror of the old Balboa Defense Corps. But it is a singularly

ball-less version of the BDC."

Hennessey nodded. "Then it will be almost impossible unless you can either change the government or change its mind… or fool it."

"I see. Well, what can be done without a change of government?"

Hennessey leaned into his left hand and rubbed his temple. After a moment he answered, "Staff work. You can prepare Tables of Organization and Equipment. If you have money, you can buy some equipment and hide it, possibly at sea. You can send people to work with other countries that have armies. You can prepare programs of instruction and plan to set up training facilities even if you can't actually set them up. Perhaps a military high school-another one, I mean-might help."

"How would you prepare for something like that?"

"Me, Raul? I couldn't. Not any more."

Parilla cut him off. "Oh, horseshit, Patricio. You live here. Your roots-new ones to be sure, not as deep as they might be-are still here. Here is where your blood rests. And we need you. We've got 'Progressivist' Santandern guerillas from FARS and the SEL pressing our western border. We'll have the homegrown variety soon enough, too, if we don't do something. We are the trade route for the world. And the same people who killed your family will eventually figure that out and come for us, too. That is, they will if they aren't already here and waiting. I suspect they're just waiting."

Hennessey's eyes were pained. There had been a time when… ah, but it was too late now. "I still can't. Look… Raul. I'm just… broken. I'm not good for anything anymore. I just don't have it. And even if I did, without Linda I am… not to be trusted. I don't really trust myself."

Parilla muttered, "Bullshit," then stood as if to leave. He turned, paused, and then turned back. "You know, Patricio, we need you. I told you; no one in Balboa has ever even been in a real army. The nearest to one we ever had your country crushed and you helped them do it. We could offer you much no one else can: a new home, a life worth living, useful work to do. We would not be ungrateful for the help; you know that."

"I still can't. I'm not the man I was." Without Linda to control me I am afraid of what I am capable of.

"Well… think it over some, at least."

Hennessey shrugged. After Parilla left, Hennessey went back to twirling the ice in his drink, occasionally glancing toward Linda's grave.

His blank look was suddenly replaced by a deep and lasting frown. Could it be possible? There is a framework here, the Civil Force. There are some good people, men like Xavier, in it.

He debated within himself. But, no. Twelve years have gone by since they thought of themselves as infantry. Riddled with corruption, Xavier has told me. No recent training in heavier weapons. No experience in combined arms or higher staff work.

But… couldn't I give them some of that? Surely I could. And I have friends still, good soldiers, who could help.

Money? It always comes down to money. And even if Uncle Bob's estate does end up in my hands, it's a pittance compared to what's actually needed. I am no Crassus and I'm not going to be, either.

Not enough to maintain an army. Enough for a staff? Yes… at least enough for a staff. And then… maybe someone else could pay to maintain an army if one were raised.

Ah, no. Forget it. It was true what I told Parilla. My heart and soul are gone from me. They died with Linda and the kids. I just can't.

Can't? Why not? I was a good soldier before I met Linda.

Good? Yes. But she made me a human one. Before I met her? I was near to being a monster.

So be a monster. This is the time for monsters again; monsters have already arisen.

Hennessey's frown cleared. He remembered how very damned good it had felt to shoot men who'd cheered the murder of his family. He wondered, How good might it feel to kill the men actually behind killing my family? Might the nightmares stop then?

His heart began thumping and stomach churning with the excitement of the possibilities. With his left hand he reached over and poured his drink onto the ground outside the porch. Then he walked into the house, hugged his mother-in-law, shook his father-in-law's hand and left.

"I need to do something at the house," he announced as he walked out the door.

Hennessey Residence,

Cochea, 2/8/459 AC

The sound of Jinfeng squawking miserably at Linda's statue came through the window. Hennessey heard it only dimly.

Instead, there was music, Old Earth music, playing in the background.

"I see a red door and I want it painted black…"

At the casa 's front door, Hennessey met Parilla and shook his hand warmly before leading him to his library. Parilla had an electronic slate tucked under one arm.

Hennessey began, "It was good of you, sir…"

"Please, Patricio; 'Raul.'"

"Raul. I thought since this was a formal mission… oh, never mind. 'Raul.' It was good of you to return to see me. I think, maybe, I can help you now." Yes, I can help you… and I can help me… now.

Parilla positively beamed. "Ah! Wonderful. How?"

Hennessey had already thought about it enough. He had spent days thinking about it. "I will collect a small staff, house them somewhere out of the way, and put them to work on some of the things I mentioned before. While I am doing that, you need to be setting up the government to knuckle under for rearmament. You can do this?"

Parilla thought about it for a moment. "I can do some of it."

"Well… that's a start. Perhaps some propaganda can do the rest. In any case, soon the Federated States will need an ally; an ally that doesn't blanch when the body bags start coming home. If a way can be found to hasten that day, so much the better."

Parilla pointed a finger at Hennessey. "Could you do that kind of preparation for rebuilding a Balboa Defense Corps that really mattered outside of Balboa? Really?"

Hennessey didn't hesitate at all. "Yes. Really. Only… let's not call it the BDC. Too politically correct for my tastes. Also too much of an image marred by defeat. As a matter of fact, I think we should partially detach the force from Balboa. Your government is very sensitive to world opinion and very fond of the Tauran Union, the World League, and the UEPF."

" La Armada," Parilla suggested.

"Maybe that. But maybe not, either. The people who legislated away the name while leaving a shadow of the reality are plainly people more interested in image than facts. Call it an army openly and they'll be more likely to resist."

Parilla pushed Hennessey's objections aside for the time being. "Patricio tell me, what would you do specifically? Wait. Let me fire up my slate to write with."

"No," Hennessey said. "If it's electronic it can be tapped. At this point let's stick to old fashioned."

Terra Nova's levels of technology were approximately those of very early twenty-first century Earth. Like that place and that time, too, the levels were very unevenly distributed across the planet. Uhuru, outside of the Republic of Northern Uhuru, for example, was little advanced in some places above the neolithic level.

Even in those areas-the Federated States and Secordia, Yamato, the Tauran Union-which enjoyed the highest levels of technology available, there were some differences from the world of Man's birth in its twenty-first century after the birth of Christ.

Terra Nova had no truly and completely peaceful use of space. The Global Locating System put up by the Federated States had some peaceful uses, true, and it had been permitted by the UEPF because of those presumptive peaceful uses. But it was there, the Feds had paid for it, for its use in war. As much could be said for the communications satellites that circled the planet.

The major use of space, however, was manifest in the extensive system of systems set up by the Federated States of Columbia to engage and destroy the UEPF if the latter ever again had the temerity to try to dictate terms to the former. And that sat unused but threatening.

Medical technology was somewhat less, in particular with regards to epidemiology and infectious diseases, generally. They had their diseases there, of course, but most of those Man had brought with him to the new world he already had considerable resistance to. The planet itself had none of importance.

Given its sad history of war and massacre, however, the planet's medicos were quite capable of dealing with trauma.

Militarily, the planet was on a rough par with twenty-first century Old Earth, as well, much to the delight of medical interns who wanted the practice.

In electronics Terra Nova was perhaps a bit further behind, being at the level of Old Earth just before the close of its twentieth entury. For example, small personal computers were common, but somewhat slower, larger and heavier than might have been expected based on the level of military technology. Personal computers and mobile communication devices-cell phones-small enough to surgically insert were still the stuff of dreams and fantasies there.

One area where Terra Nova was far ahead of where one might have expected was in hacking. This, perhaps driven by the endemic warfare, was very advanced. Indeed, it was so advanced that no one was safe, ever. It was so advanced that the Globalnet, the equivalent of Old Earth's Internet, was far less well developed. Hacking on Terra Nova could be said to have retarded every other aspect of information technology.

It was suspected, in some circles, that the UEPF was responsible for much of the hacking.

Hennessey swiveled in his office chair and took from the top of his cluttered desk a pen and notebook, which he handed to Parilla. The older man considered this, considered the subject matter, considered the effects of what they were about to discuss on those who might object, and decided that using his electronic slate might be a bad idea after all. He took the pen and notebook.

Moments later, notebook in hand, a beaming Parilla prepared to take down Hennessey's thoughts.

Hennessey pulled a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket. He took one paper tube out and stroked a match to light it. With smoke curling about his head in an infernal halo, he began, "I have friends who were once good soldiers in the Federated States Army… some other armies, too, but who despite being good soldiers-very good, actually-never made any great success of things. In some cases this was precisely because they were superior soldiers. They have left the service early or have retired. I would hire some of them to come here to do the staff work."

Half turning his head away, Parilla focused one eye on Hennessey. "Could you trust them to be discreet?"

"They are my friends. Yes, I would trust them." The ones I will pick? Oh, yes.

Parilla asked, "How much would this cost?"

Hennessey didn't need quick calculations. Those were long since made. "For the first year a fair figure might be about one point eight million FSD"-Federated States Drachma, also legal tender in Balboa and much of the rest of the planet-"not more than two point two million; plus perhaps a lump sum of about four million to start up. The annual figure could go as high as three million or even four but I really don't think it will cost that much, not before we start to recruit and expand."

Parilla took a deep breath before telling Hennessey, "Patricio, I would like you to take charge of this project, to make all possible preparations for Balboa to have its own armed force again, in truth as well as in name. Will you do it?"

"I'm sure I can't afford the whole thing on my own. My uncle's estate is tied up for now. I have an income, and it's comfortable, but it wouldn't pay for anything like this, not even with the insurance from my family." But what I have, this project has.

Parilla answered, "You won't have to. I never thought you should." He shrugged his shoulders and looked heavenward in mock shame. "We do have certain sources of funds…not always aboveboard but also not often traceable." Parilla's hands spread in helplessness at the wickedness of mankind. "Pina wasn't, sad to say, the only ruler of the country ever to have a foreign bank account. I can have a reasonable down payment on the start up amount-say, FSD 450,000-tomorrow. The rest will take a couple of weeks. As for greater amounts for actually recreating a force? Well, Pina took two hundred and seventy- five million a year in unofficial taxes from the Cristobal Free Trade Zone. Most went to line his pockets; his and his cronies. But we could raise probably four hundred million per year now without hurting trade overmuch. And we are not that poor a country. Our gross domestic product runs nearly twelve billion. A couple of hundred million more could be squeezed out of government revenues. That's not small change. That all assumes, of course, that the government can be made to see reason."

Even while thinking, I don't want the government to pay for it. I want to pay for it, to maintain control of it, and to use it to destroy my enemies, Hennessey nodded agreement. "Then I will go back to the Federated States in two days to begin."

Saulterstown, Shelby, FSC, 5/8/459 AC

Military installations bred military towns. Saulterstown, right outside of and dominated by Fort William Bowen, was typical, from "Sarge's Used Auto" to "Post Pawn Shop." Typically also, the military town was full of ex-soldiers. Hennessey had come here to find and recruit one in particular.

He knew couldn't make his plan work alone, that he would need help. So he had drawn up several lists of people that had worked with or for him over the years who might be available. Most of these he eliminated as unsuitable. Forty-nine remained. He stood now outside a firearms store owned by one of them. It looked depressed. A few posters of guns decorated the walls. Through the windows he could see rifles and pistols in glass cases. Still, this was much the most bedraggled looking gun store he had ever seen. He walked in.

"Is Terry Johnson here?" he asked the sole clerk on duty.

The crop-haired, wiry man behind the sales desk put down the rifle he was inspecting and instead looked at Hennessey. Something about the civilian clad man in front of him suggested, rank… serious rank; dunno why he's in mufti but it shines through in civvies or not.

He answered, "Nah, sir, Terry's not here. He's supposed to be in later, sir."

"Do you know where I can find him, Sergeant?" The sergeant- that was as obvious to Hennessey as his own, former, status had been to the other-serving as a salesman didn't know that either. He returned his attention to the rifle.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll just wait." Hennessey amused himself by walking around the store, examining some of the guns on display, reading the few posters on the walls. As he walked and looked, he tapped impatient fingers on the glass cases.

One of the items on wall display caught Hennessey's eye. It was apparently a plaque from Terry's former Direct Action team in the 5th Special Service Group. The plaque showed a picture of Terry's team members behind a burning red smoke grenade. It was inscribed: "To Captain Terrence-'Terry the Torch'-Johnson From his Team Mates of Det 3, Co B, 3rd Bn, 5th SSG." Hennessey looked at the men in the picture and realized that the sales clerk was one of them.

"Did you leave Group, too?" he asked, pointing to the picture.

Again the clerk, laying the rifle aside, returned his attention to Hennessey. "No, sir, I'm still with Group. We all-all the old team, that is-pitch in from time to time to help Terry make a go of this. Doesn't seem to be working though."

Won't do to have an active member listening in when I talk to Terry. We'll go elsewhere. Even if the kid would keep quiet, no sense putting him in a conflict of interest. Sure, the FS is likely to approve what I'm planning in the long run, but in the short they might be… difficult about it. Especially might those assholes at State be difficult about it.

He continued to pace about the shop. Asking to examine a Zhong Guo-made copy of a Samsonov assault rifle with a folding triangular bayonet, Hennessey filled the time with small talk about weapons. The sergeant-clerk was a particular fan, Hennessey learned, of some unusual calibers -. 410 Kiowa,. 34 Suomi, and 6.5mm Jotun.

Terry Johnson muttered a curse as he yanked the wheel of his decrepit pickup truck to avoid a newly loosened piece of the road fronting his shop. He turned into what passed for a parking lot, all gravel and mud, turned again and rolled to a stop beside the blank brick that made the place's southern wall.

He noticed first a high-end rental car parked outside. This suggested a well-heeled customer inside, a rare enough event. Hell, it's a unique event. Even so, Johnson went first to check the mailbox that stood by the juncture of the highway and the concrete walkway leading to the front door.

"Bills," he muttered with disgust. He flipped through the little stack quickly. Overdue, past due, past due, overdue, overdue, cancellation… shut off notice… Fuck! FEB- the Firearms and Explosive Bureau- wants to inspect me? Fuck.

Life used to be a lot better than this. It used to even be worth living.

Shaking his head, Johnson walked to the door, opened it, and stepped in. The customer inside turned around. He was wearing a smile and what looked like an expensive suit.

Johnson stopped and looked at Hennessey. It had been years since last they had met and Hennessey had aged a great deal since. For a few moments he puzzled over the familiarity.

Recognition dawned. Johnson wrapped Hennessey in a bear hug, planting a sloppy kiss on his forehead. "Pat! How the hell are you?"

"Lemme go, you nasty fuck!"

Disentangling himself, Hennessey calmed immediately and answered, not quite truthfully, "It could be worse, Terry. Yourself?"

Johnson lifted and dropped one shoulder. "A long story. It could be better. What the hell are you doing here in Saulterstown?"

"I came to see you, Terry. Let's go have a little chat."

The two left Johnson's gun store in his beat-up old truck and drove to a nearby restaurant. They spoke of old times in Balboa and traded information on every mutual acquaintance they could think of. This continued throughout lunch and on into the drinks that followed. Then Hennessey began to probe Johnson for his own history since he had left Balboa in 447.

"Well, I got married. That was a really big mistake. We did not get along. We got divorced about eighteen months ago." Johnson raised his beer in a unilateral toast. "Free at last; free at last; praise God Almighty…"

Hennessey was unsurprised. Johnson had never had any real sense when it came to women. That Johnson had been married, Hennessey knew through the grapevine. That he was now divorced was a plus.

Hennessey asked, "Is that how you ended up out of the army?"

"No. I know what you're thinking. 'Bad woman drives good man to drink' or something like that. Actually the divorce didn't bother me all that much." Johnson paused. A painful memory caused him to scratch at the tabletop. "Pat, do you remember how you told me to stay away from SSG?"

Hennessey nodded and shrugged. He couldn't see any sense in bringing up that whole thing again.

Johnson continued. "I should have taken your advice. It was everything you warned me about, only worse. 'Good people in a shit matrix'; wasn't that what you said? In short, my battalion commander lied to me, then screwed me for following the order he gave me himself."

This sounds interesting, Hennessey thought. He made a hand motioncome on- for Johnson to continue.

Johnson raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You really want to hear this? Okay. My team and I were on a deployment to the Yithrab Peninsula, one of those trivial but rich little oil kingdoms. Exactly where doesn't matter; it's secret anyway. I got orders from my motherfucking, sonof-a-bitch battalion commander to do a blank fire attack on a police fort. It was a training mission so I didn't think anything of it at the time. When I went to the police fort to recon it, however, it did not, repeat not, look like a good place for a blank fire raid."

Johnson put up his right hand and raised one finger for each reason he had thought the raid a bad idea. "These guys had serious security out; machine gun bunkers, even a few anti-tank weapons, all live ammunition so far as I could see. They did not look to me like they were planning to take part in any blank exercises. They did look like they were expecting the Army of Zion to roll over the ridge at any moment.

"Anyway, I got on the SATCOM and told my battalion commander that I didn't think this exercise was a good idea and why I thought so. He went ballistic on me over the radio. Insisted that it was all laid on and coordinated, etc., etc, et-fucking-cetera. That, and that he wouldn't come in my mouth. I said I still didn't want to do it. He ordered me to." Again Johnson clenched a fist at a memory that still rankled.

"So we did the raid. I couldn't use live ammo on the cops and I didn't want them to have a chance to use live ball on my guys. So I improvised. We attacked with more pyrotechnics than you have probably ever seen used in one place. We had hundreds and hundreds of grenade and artillery simulators. Smokepots, signals. The works. The attack went just fine. God, it was pretty." Johnson sighed with pleasure, then frowned. "Only thing was… the police fort sort of… uh… burned down. To the ground. Must have been more wood in the place than I'd thought."

Hennessey laughed. He could just see it. "You and Kennison and fire. It just doesn't mix."

"Anyway, it turned into a big international stink. I claimed I was following orders, which is not a bad defense if you haven't committed a war crime. My battalion CO denied ever giving me any orders, the cocksucker. My word against his, and he was an SSG 'good old boy.' I had a choice of resignation or court-martial. I resigned. I should have listened to you," Johnson summed up.

"So, Terry, since you don't owe much to the army anymore what are you going to do with yourself for the rest of your life?"

Johnson shrugged. "I don't really have any plans. I get about ten thousand a year from a family trust fund. I'm a part-time sheriff for this burgeoning metropolis. I load a bread truck three days a week. I had really hoped to make something of the gun store but it's costing me more than it's bringing in. That's even with free help from my old team. There are a surprising number of obstacles the government throws in your way if you want to run a gun store. I really don't know what I'm going to do, Pat."

Hennessey nodded with understanding. Toss the bait… plunk. "Would you like to get back into uniform again, Terry?"

Johnson shook his head vigorously. "With the army? No thanks. Sure, I miss the army… or I miss the old days in the army, anyway. I thought about joining the Territorial Militia but they're as fucked up as can be. I don't think I could stand it. In any case, no, I don't think there's a place for me there anymore."

And good bait must wriggle, must never stop being bait. "Answer the precise question, Terry. Would you like to get back into uniform?"

In the open question there was an implied one; Hennessey's tone said as much. Just what was being implied…

Johnson thought about the implications for a moment before answering, "Okay. You win. Like I said, I miss the service something awful. Yes, I'd like to soldier again."

"Can you follow orders; my orders?"

"You've always been senior to me, Pat. You taught me more about training and fighting than all the military courses I've ever had… in less time, too, come to think of it. Why do you ask?"

Set the hook. "Remember, Terry, how we used to bullshit from time to time about having our own army; what we would do to make it a great one? Well, there is a chance we can do just that over the next few years. I have come into a large amount of money recently." Which was true; even if his cousin Eugene prevailed in court, Hennessey still owned a huge chunk of the family business-"It's enough to get the ball rolling and keep it going for a while. It could be parlayed into an army with time and a little luck." Reel him in.

Johnson didn't hesitate. "I want in."

"We'll be going back to Balboa."

" Balboa? Girls? Booze? Never being fucking cold? Be still my heart. I want in even more than I did before. It will be great to see Linda and your kids again. By the way, how many do you two have now?"

" We don't have any, Terry…Linda and the kids are dead. I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind. Terra Nova Trade Organization… that's all." Hennessey forced the pain from his voice as he forced it from his conscious mind.

That's a lot worse than a divorce. Poor Linda… poor kids… poor Pat. Johnson turned his eyes toward the table. "Okay, Pat. There're no words I can say except… I'm sorry."

"Thanks. Me, too. But getting back to business; I will be in charge. I am a dick, remember."

"Yeah… but you're at least a competent dick. And you've always been in charge; you know that. Now please quit tormenting me and tell me the plan."

Hennessey looked up for a moment, unconsciously rubbed his hands together, then answered. "For now the plan is to recruit a small staff. Half of that will be your job, the recruiting I mean. Carl Kennison-you remember him?-is going to do some of it too. I'm going to go look us up an old friend to be our sergeant major. His name's McNamara. You don't know him. Good man, though; you'll be impressed, trust me. I'll also be going to First Landing, Anglia and Sachsen for a few other people I've worked with over the years.

"Mac and I will go on ahead to Balboa to set up a headquarters. You and Carl will recruit and round up the rest of our group. Most of them you don't know either. I'll give you a list of names, addresses, and personal histories when we get back to the car. The list also has the pay scale I'm willing to offer."

Johnson interrupted. "Speaking of that, what is the pay?"

"In your case it's forty-eight hundred a month, tax free, plus room and board. Is that acceptable?"

"Very. Please continue."

Hennessey pulled out a checkbook. "I'll be turning forty thousand over to you. With that, you'll need to get around to where these people are, swear them to secrecy, sign them up, and get them, and yourself, flown to Balboa. I'll expect an accounting except for five thousand, which is your personal flat rate for expenses. You want to live like shit and save some of it, go ahead and live like shit.

"I don't expect you to make any sales pitches. I'll be giving you a personal letter for each man you're to recruit. The letter will explain the deal generally. I've noted on the list the duty positions I'm offering, with the priority of assignment for each one. By the way, you are to keep control of the letters. Let them read them, then get them back.

"There are twenty-two people on your list and as many for Carl. I don't need or want that many. They are prioritized, also. As soon as you have filled all the duty positions I've assigned you to fill, stop looking."

Hennessey paused again. "Do you have a decent car, Terry?"

"No, not really. I had one but I had to get rid of it when I left the army. I just have the beat-up old pickup we drove here in."

Hennessey tapped a finger against his nose a few times, thinking. "That's just as well. You won't have a lot of time to drive from place to place. I'll tell you what; I'll add eight thousand to that forty thousand. I want you to fly to each city or the nearest city you can get to with an airport or airship field. Use rental cars to get around once you get in the right general location."

"Might be cheaper to buy a beater"-a beat up, used automobile"and have it flown or carried along with me by airship, barge or train," Johnson observed.

"Mmm… no, Terry. I don't think you'll have time. Just fly and rent if that's at all possible."

"Your drachma."

Desperation Bay, Lansing, FSC, 7/8/459 AC

The city had partially taken its name from a disaster that had overtaken an early group of settlers to this part of Terra Nova. The broad freshwater bay that provided the other part could be seen from the airport control tower. The monument placed at the spot where most of the settlers had, ultimately, died could not be seen for the city that had grown up along the forty miles of shore.

In an uncomfortable chair overlooking the airship arrival gate, Dan Kuralski waited impatiently for the stranger who had spoken to him over the telephone two days prior. The stranger had identified himself as Terry Johnson. Johnson had said that he would be arriving today and was carrying with him an employment proposal from a mutual friend, Pat Hennessey. At first, Kuralski had been only mildly interested in the proposal. He was doing well enough financially as a computer programmer. He didn't really need the work. But then the stranger had said that the work would be soldierly. Kuralski was reminded of Kipling's words; the lines that went, "The sound of the men what drill. An' I says to me fluttering heartstrings, I says to 'em Peace! Be still."

Okay, OKAY. I make decent money as a programmer; let's not pretend that I like it, though.

That was why Kuralski was at the airport today to meet a total stranger. He had heard the sound and it had made his heartstrings flutter. Kuralski flat hated being a civilian.

From the window of the waiting area, off in the distance, Kuralski caught sight of a huge cigar shape turning nose first to the terminal. From the dirigible fell, almost as if thrown, six heavy cables. These swung freely below until each was caught by one of six special trucks, each with a grasping crane mounted above it. Even as the six trucks took command of the cables, the motors-forward, after and center-rotated as if to push the ship broadside into the wind. Their combined pushing was enough, apparently, to hold the ship fairly steady while the trucks carted the cables off to mules-super heavy locomotives-that sat on twin tracks leading to the terminal. The dual tracks ran in a wide figure eight so that the mules could be positioned wherever the dirigible might find minimal cross wind.

At the mules the cables were transferred, with each mule taking one. These were then tightened. Kuralski couldn't see it but knew from experience that the airship did the tightening, not the mules. Slowly, the dirigible inched down until it hung not more than twenty meters above the concrete of the field. At that point the mules, centrally controlled by a computer, began to roll the ship slowly forward in a long curving arc. After some forward travel, a switchback guided the mules off the figure eight and onto a twin track that descended and then ended at a concrete cigar shape hollowed out into the ground, just in front of the terminal.

At the terminal the ship winched itself down the rest of the way, easing its belly into the artificial depression. As the ship descended, from each side of the depression emerged a dozen or fourteen steel pillars, erecting themselves in a closing curve and dragging behind them what amounted to windbreaks-though their official term was "sail"-that, coupled with the reduction in cross area and change in aspect, enabled the airship to sit quite safely on the ground.

Shortly after the ship was safely moored, Kuralski saw in the crowd of debarking passengers someone matching the description Terry Johnson had given of himself. He went up to meet the man.

Johnson was the first to speak. "Dan Kuralski?" he asked, putting out a hand.

Kuralski nodded. "And you would be Terry?"

"Yes, Terry Johnson. Pleased to meet you."

The two men shook their introductions. Kuralski gestured toward the door and the parking lot beyond. "Come on. We can use my car."

Both men were graduates of the Federated States Military Academy at River Watch, though of different classes. They didn't know each other. They did tend to know a number of the same people, though. During the drive they traded information on mutual friends and acquaintances just as Hennessey and Johnson had done a few days before. The fact that their classes were three years apart and they had never served in the same location limited their conversation. They drove in silence a while before Kuralski asked, "Where do you know Pat from?"

"He was my Company XO when I was a platoon leader in Balboa. And you?"

Kuralski smiled at a half-forgotten memory. "We've never actually served in the same unit. The way the school schedule worked out we always seemed to end up going to school together. The Basic Course at Fort Henry was where we first met." Dan laughed aloud.

At Terry's quizzical look he elaborated, "My first acquaintance with our friend Pat was when he chewed me out for not keeping my foot in the same fixed position and my mouth shut while standing at ease. You would have thought that in four years at the academy someone would have taught me the proper position for standing at ease. I thought they had. We argued about it, which amused everyone but Pat and myself. Finally he just told me to shut up and do what I was told. It was kind of funny, one shavetail chewing out another. I was more shocked than anything, shocked enough to shut up anyway. You know: rank among lieutenants, virtue among whores? After he fell the formation out I went up to complain. He told me to go look it up. I did. Unfortunately for my self-esteem, he was right. That, and a few other occasions where other people doubted him, convinced me that when he insists something is right; it's right… or he wouldn't have insisted."

Johnson chuckled. "That sounds like him; he's an anal bastard, all right. Where else did you go to school together?"

"Ranger School. The Advanced Course at Fort Henry again. Then the Combined Arms Center for the short course."

Johnson said, "You know, Pat taught me a lot about being a combat leader. When he was XO he used to just dog all the platoon leaders out trying to teach us everything from the proper employment of barbed wire obstacles to how to conduct a raid to understanding, and, more importantly, ignoring when required, the principles of war."

Kuralski agreed, "Oh, he's good. At least as near as you can tell from peacetime operations."

"Wartime, too," Johnson answered. Seeing the look on Kuralski's face he half-explained, "Oh, you didn't know about him taking leave from Balboa to go to San Vicente with a Vicentinian pal of his to fight the Arenistas? Big stink, that one. And then, because he knew the country, his mech infantry company from Fort Leonidas was tapped to deploy to Balboa for the invasion. I understand they did quite well."

"I didn't know about those," Kuralski answered.

"He can be pretty closemouthed about such things," Johnson agreed.

Abruptly turning off the road they were on, Kuralski pulled into his driveway. Johnson followed him into the split-level house that stood next to that driveway. Once inside Terry noticed a number of pictures of a woman. Crap. A married man might not go.

Kuralski motioned for Johnson to take a seat in the living room. Johnson placed a briefcase on the couch beside him and took out an envelope. He handed the envelope to Kuralski.

Kuralski opened the envelope, took out the letter inside, and began to read:

2/8/459 Dear Dan:

The bearer of this letter, Terrence Johnson, is representing me. He is well known to me, trustworthy and loyal. You may speak with him as if you were speaking to me. I am writing to offer you a job, working for me, as a military planner and consultant. The job will be performed in another country. You do not need to know at this time which country. Suffice to say that it is a pleasant, hot and wet but otherwise comfortable place, with a large city and an active nightlife. Do not expect, if you accept this offer, to have overmuch time to enjoy the nightlife. Your particular job will be as chief of a small staff I am assembling. You will be second in rank after myself. The pay is initially 4,800 FSD per month, plus room and board. All of that amount is tax free. Life and medical insurance will be provided. Terry will arrange transportation. You may assume that nothing I will ask of you is illegal, likely to be of interest to the Federated States in the near term, or harmful to the Federated States in any way in any term. If you decide to join up, let Terry know immediately. I would give you time to decide if I could. I can't. I must ask you not to repeat any of this. Terry will collect this letter, and your decision, now. I hope you will join me. It's not like I couldn't find someone else to do the job, but I really want it to be you.

Sincerely, Patrick Hennessey

Kuralski felt a small flush of warmth at that last sentence. He looked up from the letter, toward Johnson. "He doesn't allow much time to decide, does he?"

Johnson answered, "If you think about it, if someone needs a long time to decide something like this, then he probably doesn't need to go. Have you decided?"

Kuralski looked around at the interior of his house. Fading memories, painful ones as often as not. There was nothing there to hold him. "I'll go. Can I have a few days to get my house on the market?"

"You can take fourteen days from today. I'll send you tickets as soon as I finish making arrangements. You'll have to take care of your own passport, if you don't have one." Johnson offered his hand a second time. "For Pat, let me say 'Welcome Aboard.' Ah, what about your wife?" he asked, pointing at a picture.

"Dead. Cancer. It's why I'm not in the army anymore. I had to take care of her and so I missed my chance to command a company. No command; no chance."

"Oh. Sorry. Pat didn't know."

"Thanks. No reason he or you should have. Anyway, it would be worth the trip just to see Linda."

"She's dead, too. Pat said it was on seven-one-one in ^ the TNTO."

Kuralski bowed his head and began to fight back tears.

"You loved her too, didn't you?" Johnson asked.

Kuralski just nodded and said, "Yeah… yeah, I did. But, then, who didn't? What a woman."

Johnson smiled grimly. "I know. And pity the poor bastards who murdered the family of Pat Hennessey."

Interlude

31 December, 2049, Brussels, Belgium, European Union

Margot Tebaf's chauffeured limousine passed row upon row of empty, boarded-up shops and unmaintained apartment buildings. It seems like only yesterday, she thought, when those shops were open and vibrant, when there were flower boxes at the windows of the apartments, when the streets were clear. Has it been thirty years?

The driver cursed as one of the front tires slipped into a pothole. Nobody was maintaining the cobblestones anymore. He muttered something unintelligible but ugly sounding as he maneuvered around a pile of uncollected trash, then cut the wheel hard to avoid the charred and rusted ruins of a burned and ancient automobile, parked-if that was the word-so as to jut out into the street and make passage for those still able to afford private transportation more difficult.

Perhaps it was an ambush point; the city's crime rate was so high now that the police hardly bothered taking reports. Outside of the neighborhoods dominated by the European Union's bureaucracy, they didn't bother with enforcing the law even when it was violated before their eyes.

Margot's gaze avoided the street-too ugly-and looked instead at the little towers above, each ringed with green neon lights.

To a viewer of even twenty years before, the streets would have appeared remarkably clear of motor traffic. Instead young, unemployed men wandered aimlessly, followed often enough by black-clad women trailing masses of children. The men glared at the passing limo. Margot might have feared attack except that her auto was armored. It was also preceded and trailed by armed police escort vehicles.

The one-way glass of the limousine's windows allowed Margot to see out without anyone seeing in. Thus, no one saw her shiver when she considered what things might be like if Europe were a democracy in anything but name and merest appearances.

Thank the god that doesn't exist that my ancestors were wise enough to destroy democracy before we had a barbarian majority in our midst, she thought.

That was only one of the many depressing thoughts impinging on Margot's consciousness. Looming even greater than the barbarization of Europe was the continuing, annoying, infuriating prosperity of the United States.

Americans; I hate those bastards. And there are nearly five hundred million of the swine now. While my poor Europe is dying out. And the reason there are so many of the damned Yankees? Not only do their women bear children, just like the Moslems, in unsustainable numbers, but most of the young Euro women willing to have kids went there… or to Ontario, or the Republic of Western Canada, or Australia. Others fled east to Poland and Russia.

All our most talented young people left for other climes, leaving what remained to pay for the pensions for the old, the welfare for the immigrants, or the absolutely necessary government that runs things and keeps the peace, that ensures the people are cared for, cradle to grave.

Except that we can't care for them anymore, even with over ninety percent of conscripted youngsters devoted to social issues instead of the military. We have hardly anything to export now, except retired "workers" and Moslem children. And no one wants to buy, or even accept, those.

The limo turned to the right and began to slow. Ahead, the leading police escort pulled off to one side of a guarded steel gate. A guard emerged and questioned the driver of the police escort. Apparently satisfied, the guard turned and signaled to someone inside the small armored shack in front of the gate and to one side. Magically-Margot wondered how long it would be before such things were explained away as the work of magic or of the Jinn- the gate slid out of the way. She wondered, too, how long before the gate, all the security systems, all the technology of Europe broke down, never to be replaced.

She pushed such thoughts aside as the limousine began to move forward through the gate and toward the imposing glass and steel building surrounded by still meticulously maintained grounds that was the Headquarters for the European Union.

Chapter Seven Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth. -Archimedes

I'll make my own goddamned lever. -Patricio Carrera

Air Balboa Flight 717, 9/8/459 AC

Hennessey was a smoky wraith hidden in a wreath of smoke. He did not recognize anything around him. Somehow, though, it felt very high in the air. There was a floor beneath him above which he floated. Though floating, he felt the heat emanating from the floor.

He was drawn forward by laughter. The smoke parted as his shade moved on and through its swirling screen.

The laughter came from a swarthy man. "Infidels," cried the man, "see the judgment of Allah."

A voice he recognized shouted back, "Allah will send you to hell, you miserable wog bastard!"

He was drawn forward by the voice and away from the hyenalike laughter. "Uncle Bob?" he asked. There was no answer. The shade could not see the wraith, though the wraith could see the shade as it shook its fist. "Uncle Bob?" the wraith repeated.

The shade turned and knelt by a small group. Hennessey recognized his wife, his children. Others were there too, none of whom he recognized.

"Daddy will make them pay, Mom, the men who did this!" Hennessey saw his son, Julio, looking at his mother with certainty in his eyes.

"He will, my son," Linda answered, "and terribly."

"Terribly," echoed Julio.

"I will. I swear it. I will!" whispered the unheard wraith. "Their great-great-great-grandchildren will have nightmares."

Linda looked at the rising flames behind her. "It is time to go, children. Pray now." Linda began to pray, the children joining. Even Hennessey's uncle joined in, as did many others.

The prayer over, Linda began to sing. Hennessey recognized the song, "Abide with Me." Linda had always loved that one, the wraith remembered. He was not surprised that she had chosen it for the last canto. The singing grew in volume as more people crawled over and joined in.

The wraith saw Linda and Uncle Bob stand, along with the others. They held the children in their arms as they began to walk forward, still singing. Linda's hair billowed in the wind from the smashed out window.

"God, even now she is so beautiful," whispered her husband's shadow.

Then Linda squeezed her children tightly to her, waited to feel their answering hugs… and took a single step. As Linda, Bob and the children fell forward, others shuffling up to take their places, Hennessey heard, "Help of the helpless, O Abide with me… "

High above the ground, in a first class seat toward the front of the airplane, his sergeant major seated beside him, Patrick Hennessey awakened, pulled a medium weight blue blanket over his head, and- as silently as possible-wept.

Herrera Airport, Ciudad Balboa, 9/8/459 AC

"Ahhh. Smell t'e flowers! T'ere's no place like Balboa!"

Hennessey smiled indulgently at the tall, razor-thin, gray-haired black man walking at his left side. They moved quickly through Balboan immigration and into the baggage area. At the Aduana a senior customs agent recognized Hennessey from his previous trip and waved him, the other two whites, and the sole black man forward to the front of the line. With a conspiratorial smile, the Aduana agent fell over himself to make the group's transit through the terminal as trouble free as possible. Within mere minutes Hennessey and his companions, John McNamara, Command Sergeant Major (retired), Matthias Esterhazy, late of the Sachsen Reichswehr's Fallschirmstuermpioniere, or Airborne Assault Engineers, and Her Anglic Majesty's former Royal Sapper, Gary Clean, were standing at the counter to pick up their rental car.

"Where are we goin' first, sir?" asked McNamara in a melodious Maiden Islands accent. Esterhazy and Clean kept silent, looking around with curiosity.

Hennessey answered, loudly enough for all three of his companions to hear, "First, Sergeant Major, we're going to check in at the Julio Caesare. We've got reservations already. An acquaintance of mine-nice girl, 'Lourdes'-has reserved rooms for us. Then we'll need food, I think. This afternoon, after lunch, we'll go look at buying a headquarters. I want you there for that. It may take us a couple of days to find something appropriate."

The CSM nodded. "I've given t'e set up some t'ought. Once we find t'e right place, just leave it to me."

"As always, Sergeant Major."

As the rental car pulled up, Hennessey thought to ask: "You were never stationed on the Ciudad side, were you?"

"No, sir. I've been here, of course, but only to pass t'rough."

"Okay, I'd better drive. I know the way. I'm also more used to the… shall we say… elan with which they drive here."

The drive from the airport to the Julio Caesare was uneventful. Check-in, too, at the hotel went smoothly, as expected. The rooms proved more than adequate. As Hennessey was unpacking, the room telephone rang. "A young lady to see you, sir. 'Lourdes,' she says her name is."

"Yes, fine. Please have her escorted to my room."

"I am here to see one of your guests," Lourdes told the man at the registry counter. "Patrick Hennessey."

The man looked her over briefly and came to a rapid conclusionHooker. A high-end model, I suspect.

Lourdes' already huge brown eyes widened further still. He can't really think… oh, no… I don't look… I don't dress… I hardly even wear any make up… he can't really. Dammit I'm a good girl!

She said nothing except to sigh as the man picked up the telephone and announced her, then signaled for a bellhop. The bellhop came up to stand beside her, a wide smirk on his face. He thinks so, too?

Lourdes followed the bellhop to the elevator, embarrassment- and not a little anger-growing inside her with each step. She stewed in simmering juices while waiting for the elevator doors to open. She thought, I should have just asked for the room number and told them I could find it myself. But then… no… if I knew my way around the hotel they would probably be certain instead of just guessing.

Lourdes and the bellhop rode up past several floors before the bell chimed, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. She let herself be led to Hennessey's room quietly, like a sheep to slaughter.

Hennessey opened his door, a few minutes later, in answer to the bellhop's knock. Tipping the man a tetradrachma and dismissing him, he gestured for Lourdes Nunez-Cordoba to enter. She hesitated, automatically. Helping find a house for someone you barely knew was one thing; being alone in a hotel room with a near stranger was something a Balboan girl of good upbringing just didn't do. The thought of what the hotel staff had assumed about her made her skin crawl.

Overcoming her rearing, Lourdes walked in. "It's very nice to see you again, Patricio."

"And you, too. Have you been well?"

"I'm all right, but my work has closed because of the world's economy since the First Landing attacks. I know after all you've suffered that's small beans, but I'm out of a job. My family has been supporting me. With business so depressed, and so many people out of work, I doubt I will find another job soon."

"You already have one, working for me, if you want to and are willing to put up with some conditions."

Lourdes immediately raised a suspicious eyebrow. "What conditions?" she asked. I am a good girl dammit! You may be good looking, but you are not THAT good looking.

Understanding, in part at least, Hennessey chuckled slightly. "Probably not what you're thinking. First, your job will be general clerical, with some supervisory responsibilities, work gangs and such, and some teaching. Second, the pay is twelve hundred per month plus room and board. You'll earn your pay, believe me. I am not easy to work for." Twelve hundred per month was good pay, very good, by the standards of the Republica de Balboa.

"I don't believe that."

"Believe it, Lourdes. I'm not a nice man."

"I don't believe that, either." The woman thought for a while. This is the best offer I've had lately. Reaching a decision, she answered, "I'll take it."

"Good. I'd hoped you would. You're on the payroll as of the beginning of the eighth month. I'll have your first monthly paycheck for you tomorrow. Oh, yes, there is one other thing before you commit yourself. I expect absolute loyalty, discretion, and obedience from those who work for me. You must also never tell anyone, not your boyfriend, your parents, or your priest-no one-what you do for me or what I do. Can you do that?"

"I don't have a boyfriend right now. I'm a Baptist, so I don't have a priest. I can keep quiet." She hesitated. "Are you planning something illegal? I don't want anything to do with drugs… or guns."

"No drugs. And we won't be running guns, if that's what you're worried about."

"All right then. What's my first job?"

"For now, you're going to lunch with me and a few close friends. Then we'll meet the real estate agent you found for me."

Chorrera Province, Republic of Balboa, 13/8/459 AC

" Senor, I am certain this will fit your needs," announced the fat, greasy-looking real estate agent. He may have been fat and greasy looking, but Lourdes had checked and he had an enviable reputation for fair dealing.

It had taken four days, and fourteen houses and ranches, before the agent had finally brought them to something appropriate. Lourdes had not understood what was wrong with the others they had seen. Hennessey hadn't bothered to explain. The one in front of which Hennessey, McNamara, the realtor, the two engineers and Lourdes stood seemed close to fitting the bill. It was some eighteen or twenty miles east of Balboa City, on a promontory overlooking the ocean, a mansion of sorts, old and built of stone, with a high stone retaining wall fronting the highway to the south and east. It had the "haunted house" look that said it hadn't been occupied or properly cared for for some years.

"What do you think, Sergeant Major?"

McNamara's head leaned a bit to the side, contemplating. "Security potential is good, very good. We've got cliffs on t'ree sides. Hard for someone to get in directly. A little wire would make it even harder. T'en t'ere's t'e wall around it. T'at can be improved a bit, too; wire… broken glass… watchposts or security cameras… t'at sort of t'ing. I figure an easy one hundred and fifty meter clear zone inside t'e wall, twice t'at on t'e side facin' t'e road. It's t'e best we've seen so far. And, you know, sir, it's actually a perfect place to control t'e highway from t'e city to t'e interior, if we ever needed to. I'd like to see it from t'e air before you buy it t'ough."

"Good thought." Hennessey considered for a moment, then said, "Lourdes, please take the car and the sergeant major back to the city. Go to La Punta Airport. Rent an airplane or a helicopter, if you can, with a pilot. Then, Sergeant Major, I want you to check this place out from above. The agent can drive the rest of us back after we look over the inside. We'll meet you back at the hotel."

Restraining the impulse to salute-barely-McNamara contented himself with a nod and left. Lourdes turned and followed McNamara quietly as Hennessey and his engineers, Esterhazy and Clean, walked forward to inspect the mansion.

"Where do you know Patricio from, Sergeant Major?" Lourdes kept her eyes on the road as she and the CSM chatted.

"T'e old man? We go back a few years. Have kind of a mutual admiration society. He t'inks I'm about t'e best sergeant major he ever met." McNamara chuckled and flashed a smile brilliant in his homely black face. "And I am. I know he's about t'e best commander I ever met…at any rank."

"What makes him so special?" Besides that he's cute… and I don't think you care about that.

"If you were a soldier it would be easier to explain. I don't know how to explain it to a civvie."

"Try."

"He's a warrior; t'e real article, no fake. He's afraid of absolutely not'ing. A lot of people aren't afraid of deat', and neit'er is he. But it's rare not to fear even disgrace… and he don't. Why, when our brigade commander once told him to stop training to fight or get relieved… but never mind t'at. Long story. Sad one, too." McNamara sighed despondently.

"He wasn't always well liked in t'e army. As a matter of fact he was sometimes hated. Smart as hell; too smart for some. Too… aggressive. Also he's t'e best trainer of infantry, any soldiers really, t'at I've ever seen. I've never met anyone who even came close, and I've worked for t'e big boys. He can take a group of nice clean-cut kids and make t'em into fanatics in about six mont's. And he loves soldiers. We tend to reciprocate when we get a boss like t'at. After a few months' acquaintance troops'll die for him."

"I find it hard to believe that," Lourdes commented.

McNamara gave her a look that was half pitying.

Seeing the look, Lourdes said, "He told me that he wasn't a very nice man."

The sergeant major laughed aloud. "T'at's a crock. If you're one of his t'ere's no battle he won't fight for you; not'in' he won't do. Take me, for example. I was slowly dyin' from sheer lack of purpose. T'en he came about two t'ousand miles to find me and give me a reason to go on living, to make my last years good ones. No, he is a very nice man. Besides, you should see him some time, when t'e bullets are flying and the mortar rounds going crump. Eyes glowing from inside, I swear to it."

"And what are the two of you going to do?"

"I don't know all of t'e details yet. What I do know is t'at we're goin' to work to make an army for Balboa to help in t'is war… and to make it a good one. He's bringin' in anot'er eighteen or twenty people, specialists sort of, to help wit' t'e work."

Lourdes thought about that as she drove. A "good" army? My country has never had a "good" army. Whatever army we have had has typically been just an instrument of oppression, corruption, or-more usually-both. But those problems are out of my ability to influence in any case. Who knows, maybe here I might be able to do some good.

Hotel Julio Caesare, Ciudad Balboa

"Another drink, Top?"

McNamara thought it over briefly. "No, sir, enough for me already." He refrained from saying, "enough for you, too." Not his place, so the sergeant major felt. Besides, Patrick Hennessey drunk is still a better commander than ninety-nine out of one hundred are stone sober. Even so, Hennessey sober is better than Hennessey drunk. Mac's tone betrayed his thoughts.

Hennessey understood the tone. He even agreed. Sometimes he worried that the alcohol was becoming too much of a crutch. He signaled the waitress for one more, not a double this time. Contented, McNamara let it pass.

Over drinks in the hotel's bar, the sergeant major, Hennessey, and the engineers discussed the potential, and potential liabilities, of the latest house they had inspected. The agent had said FSD 1,435,000 was the asking price. Hennessey had shamelessly whittled him down to $1,185,000, even so, but still without firmly committing to buying the place. He wasn't entirely sure. The house was a little run down, despite its setting and architecture.

"The place needs work, Sergeant Major: painting and floor refinishing inside, some new windows, some plumbing and electrical work… phones, computer links."

Esterhazy interrupted, "More zan zat. Ve'll have to pour concrete to make a basement floor and finish ze valls if ve're going to get any use out of ze basement. Zat's important, nicht wahr?"

Hennessey and the engineers had discussed probable interior setups on their inspection. The house, though huge, would be hard pressed to hold everyone and all the needed offices and other spaces. Once the wives arrived with the children…?

"But it can be done," insisted Clean, in a properly middle-class Anglian accent. "Take some bloody time, though."

"T'at's not a problem, sir," Mac added. "When t'e troops get here, I'll put 'em to work so you wouldn't recognize t'e place."

Hennessey shook his head. "No. I appreciate the money saved, Sergeant Major, but I wanted the place to be ready for them when they arrive. First impressions and all. Then, too, some of the troops aren't going to be staying in the headquarters indefinitely. When the married men's wives arrive, those men will be moving out. It wouldn't be like they were doing the work for themselves."

"Sir, don't be dumb about t'is. You're payin' t'em yourself. T'at makes it all right to have t'em do work for you. Besides, what t'ey make t'emselves? T'at t'ey'll appreciate."

"Okay. Conceded. But I need some of the rooms ready as soon as possible anyway. Okay," he said, making a final decision, "we'll take the place; finish off the individual areas later. The common areas, my quarters and yours, Lourdes' and Gary's, and the basement floor I need done now. Gary, it's your project, yours and Lourdes'. We'll also need a domestic staff, one or two cooks, a housekeeper. I've got one of my in-laws looking for some suitable women. Those, and a groundskeeper."

The CSM started to say that the troops incoming could take care of that too when Hennessey cut him off. "Sergeant Major, when they get here I've got too much for them to do for them to be polishing brass. And you'll have too much to do yourself to spend a great deal of time supervising them polishing brass. Besides, you know you hate that shit."

McNamara shrugged.

Hennessey and McNamara discussed a few details about setting up the headquarters. Then Hennessey turned over to Clean a large bundle of cash, FSD 40,000 in fifties, to fund the initial work he wanted done. "There's more available when you need it," he said to the sapper. "I'll want receipts."

Giving the CSM the keys to their rental car, he said, "Sergeant Major, in the morning I'll be heading up to Valle de las Lunas for a few days to see some people. I'll rent another car at the hotel desk. Check us out of the hotel when the house is minimally fit to move into." He reached into his pocket, pulled out his checkbook, opened it and began to write. "Here's a check for the full price plus closing costs for the headquarters. I'm turning in. Oh. And Gary? Put up a sign on the front. We'll call the place 'Casa Linda.'"

Ciudad Cervantes, 14/8/459 AC

After a seven-hour drive to Linda's family's city residence, Hennessey was ready for the cold beer her brother, David, handed him at the door. The beer was Nacional. It was not good beer. Hennessey recalled that Linda had done a television commercial for that company in the mid forties, the family owning some stock in the enterprise.

Hennessey asked, "Do you have the list?"

David nodded, "Yes, Patricio. Seven hundred and thirty-eight names and addresses of the parents, wives and children of the soldiers who were killed in the invasion twelve years ago, and those reserve troops of the Sovereignty Battalions who fought and were killed, too. I also have the list of the two hundred and fifteen soldiers and SB troops who were permanently disabled. It has taken me almost all this time to finish compiling it. Why did you need it?"

Hennessey didn't answer directly. "Has the government started paying support to any of them yet?"

"No. Did you expect they would? Crippled and unsupported, those men and their families are walking advertisements for antimilitarism. Much more likely they'd throw the disabled troops in jail than give them money."

"I suppose I didn't expect them to help, not really. Never mind, we'll take care of them for a while, thanks to my Uncle Bob. I want you to find a lawyer here in Cervantes. Your family keeps one on retainer, don't they?" Seeing David nod, Hennessey continued, "Good. Set up a trust fund. I'll give you a check to start it off. Then I want every wife and set of parents on that list to get two hundred drachma per month. Send an additional hundred for each kid. If there is a particularly needy case let me know. We'll try to cover that too."

"There is one case I'm aware of, over in Las Mesas Province. One of our mid-rank NCOs who was killed, a Sergeant Cordoba, had a very young daughter named Marqueli. His parents are dead. His wife just died." David saw that Hennessey flinched.

"The mother was working to send the girl to school. I'm afraid a hundred drachma won't cover that. Two-fifty might, if she's very careful and can work, too."

"Fine. Put her down for two hundred and fifty a month. Any others?"

"I'll have to check. It would have been easier if you had told me why you needed to know."

"I know. Sorry. I wasn't sure myself until about a week ago. Let's just say that I'm buying good public relations. Do you have my domestic staff?"

"I have the two cooks you wanted, plus a groundskeeper. And Lucinda has agreed to take the new job. My mother will send one of her girls over to keep up your old place. All three women are noted for keeping quiet. The groundskeeper is one of our workers. They also don't have any great grudge against gringos. That's important, isn't it?"

"Very. Now, tell me, have you arranged to move yourself to Balboa City?"

"Yes. I start the beginning of next month."

"Good. I'll want you to make as many connections as you can. Will you be stationed right in the city?"

"Yes, with DEBI, the Balboa Department of Investigations. I'll be working for a Major Fernandez. Which thought doesn't thrill me… Fernandez has a reputation for extreme measures."

Hennessey shrugged. "Too bad. It's still a useful posting."

"I don't see what difference it makes, Patricio. The government is not going to let us rebuild an army."

"Well… I need to talk to Parilla about that in a couple of days."

Ciudad Balboa City, 16/8/459 AC

They met at Parilla's house, a well-furnished and sprawling twostory colonial mansion in the city's Old Cuirass district. They spent no time inside, but retired upstairs to converse in the privacy of a patio overlooking the tranquil waters of the Bahia de Balboa.

"Not a chance, Patricio," Parilla said, with finality. He'd really thought he could do better. It was a sickening and frustrating defeat that he hadn't been able to. "I can raise maybe eighty-five percent of the votes we need in the legislature. The rest? They're shitting in their pants at the thought of resurrecting the Defense Corps."

"Bribes?" Hennessey asked.

"Still not enough. And we can't just bribe those who are opposed to us. In fairness, we'd have to bribe the entire crew that would vote our way or they'd vote against us out of spite. That's more money than my little fund has in it. Millions more. Many millions."

Hennessey sighed. "And I've had worse news. I'm afraid my pussy cousin in First Landing is going to tie up my uncle's estate for some years, too, so I don't have all that much to help with; just my personal bequest. Less now, really, what with the market down. I've sent one of my people, Matthias Esterhazy, to First Landing to see what he can do."

"But I thought you said that your Uncle's will would cut-what was his name? Eugene?-cut him out of the will if he contested it."

"Yes, so my uncle's lawyer told me. But apparently, from Eugene's point of view it's a good bet. He gets a lifetime income, a comfortable one, if he keeps quiet, true. But he's filthy fucking rich if he sues and wins. And, apparently, an 'in terrorem' clause, with a videotaped codicil to a will, under unusually stressful circumstances, is just weak enough that he might win. So says the lawyer now, anyway. He's advising that I settle."

"Are you willing to settle?" Parilla asked.

"Willing? Up to a point. If I could keep enough to fund our little enterprise, I would settle. Problem is, Eugene hates my guts. Can't say I blame him, either. We've loathed each other since we were kids. He would never settle on any terms that were acceptable to me, anyway. Besides, even though the Salafis would chop Eugene's head off in a heartbeat, he still supports them. I don't want to see that much money going into the other side's coffers. Even if he gave it to charity, that only frees up a different pile of money for war and terrorism."

"So. I see," answered Parilla. "Well, in any case, I just can't deliver the votes, Patricio. Not enough; not at a price we can afford."

Hennessey scowled. "Hmmm. More than one way to skin a cat. Raul, do you know any good propagandists?"

Drama Department, University of Balboa, 18/8/459 AC

The campus really should have been moved. Sitting, really sprawling, as it did between the financial district, the high-end shopping district, and the hotel and casino district, the land on which the university sat was not only too valuable for its current use, it wasn't even convenient any longer to the bulk of its students.

Leaving Soult to guard the Phaeton, Hennessey walked to the drama department. Rather, he searched for it on foot. It was only with difficulty that he finally managed to find it. When he did find it, a secretary showed him to the office of Professor Ruiz, with whom he had an appointment. Hennessey had gotten Ruiz's name from Parilla along with an introduction. The professor had a reputation of being a nationalist to a degree even greater than the university norm. When Hennessey had made the appointment, he had given his name as Patricio Carrera. Under Balboan law, he'd become Hennessey de Carrera at the same time Linda had become Carrera de Hennessey.

Ruiz's office was shabby and rundown, as was much of the university. Books, papers, and binders littered it in the universal academic decor. The professor was not run down but his glasses were dirty and his tie-less shirt wrinkled.

Ruiz made a place for Hennessey to sit by moving some books from a chair to the floor. Once Hennessey had sat down, Ruiz asked, "And so how may I help you, Senor Carrera?"

"Professor, I want to fund a series of projects, one of them a movie. Your name was given to me by General Parilla as someone who might be inclined to make the kind of movie and oversee the kind of projects I want."

"And what kind of movie would that be?" Ruiz asked.

"Frankly, I want a propaganda movie. I want-"

Hennessey stopped speaking when Ruiz's secretary brought in two cups of coffee. Ruiz passed over the sugar and waited for Hennessey to continue.

"As I was saying, I want to make a propaganda movie… about the 447 invasion. I am told you might be able to make such a movie, given funding."

Ruiz brightened immediately. He began to wax about the terrible atrocities-largely fictional-committed by the Federated States, the suffering of the people, the destruction of the economy. Ruiz paused. "But aren't you a gringo, yourself?" he asked, doubtfully.

"I am. And I am not remotely interested in an anti-FSC movie. Oh, don't misunderstand; the Federated States is going to have to be the enemy. But I need them to be an honorable enemy. As for atrocities; that's not the message I wish this movie to send. Perhaps later we'll do another… on a different kind of atrocity." Hennessey smiled before continuing, "The kind of film you are thinking of tells about the evil of the Federated States. What good would that do, even if true? We have bigger enemies. Worse ones, too, now. Enemies of our entire civilization. So, really, Professor, what good?"

"It would help rally the people against this puppet government. That is quite a bit, don't you think?"

Hennessey shrugged. "Up to a point. But I don't want to demoralize the people. I have a different idea. Let's not spend our effort showing the Federated States as bad. Anyone here in Balboa who believes that already doesn't need further convincing. Instead, let's work on showing Balboa and Balboans as good. With, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the glaring exception of General Pina, of course."

Ruiz looked confused and uncertain. "But everyone in the country would agree even more on that. What's the point?"

Hennessey thought that Ruiz was perhaps overoptimistic. Few in Colombia Latina, Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Columbia had any real faith in their own governments and societies.

He answered, "That depends on how we go about it. I want a film about Balboan soldiers doing their duty unto death. I want you to write a script, or have one written, about the last stand of the BDC in the Estado Mayor. I want the film to give three main messages. First, I want the movie to show that the BDC troops in the Estado Mayor fought as well as any troops ever have, as well as the gringos did… or better. Since I was there at the time, I can assure you that this is the truth. This will tell the people that they are not inferior, not helpless. Second, and without going to the level of the ridiculous, I want the movie to show that the only reason the BDC lost was because they were outnumbered and outgunned, not outfought. Third, and this will probably require the greatest artistry on your part, I want the message sent that while the battle was physically lost, morally it must be seen as a victory."

"There were so few survivors-at the Estado Mayor, I mean-that it will be difficult to be accurate."

Hennessey smiled grimly. "So much the better. Without witnesses there will be few to criticize what the story shows if we're broadly and generally realistic. Get copies of some of the movies made by all sides during the Great Global War, The Fighting O'Rourkes, maybe. Maybe Kohlstadt, too. You'll see what I mean."

Ruiz hesitated. "I would like to do the script myself, but I don't know anything about soldiers or fighting."

"Don't worry about that, Professor. I have several first-class technical experts coming who can assist you. In addition," Hennessey handed over the draft of the history he had been working on with Jimenez, "here's an accurate version of the truth as seen by both sides."

Ruiz flipped through the draft quickly. His English was acceptable for the purpose. "How quickly do you need this done, Mr. Carrera?"

"In the GGW films like this were turned out in as little as three months. I'll give a little more time than that; five months, say. At the end of that time I want to see a rough cut. Can you do the job on five hundred thousand?"

"If I start today, and can keep costs low, which is a very big if , then yes."

"Then start today, Professor Ruiz. I'll be in touch."

"You mentioned other projects."

Hennessey nodded. "Ah. Yes. Several, assuming the movie makes a reasonable profit. I need radio and TV propaganda. I need newspaper propaganda. I will want a series of soap operas; ' Novellas,' you call them. I am thinking of six."

"Concerning?"

"Well, for the first use as a working title El Rasul- the Prophet. I want it to be on the oppression and betrayal of Christians under Mohammed when Islam first reared its head on Old Earth. Historical accuracy is unimportant. I want to plant the thought in Balboa that Islam is evil and false in its very roots. For the second, Los Esclabos, a romance of Christian lovers torn apart by Moslem slavers. He goes to a galley, she to a harem, to rape, and then to a brothel. For the third, El Martillo, I want the turning back of the Moslem tide of conquest at Tours, on Old Earth. Also a romance…"

"Why so many romances?" asked the professor.

"Because I want the women of Balboa enraged at the very thought of sharing a planet with Salafis. For the fourth, Lepanto…"

Casa Linda, 22/8/459 AC

With a substantial expenditure of cash, Lourdes, Clean and McNamara had worked a miracle or ten in getting as much of the house ready as they had. All of the floors had been redone, the walls of the common areas on the first floor painted or papered, barring only those that were already paneled. The paneling was old mahogany, individual planks of fine wood, and far too nice to cover. Lourdes was given the task of furnishing the place.

"Use your own judgment," Hennessey told her. "You dress well. I trust your taste. Besides, the people I have coming are used to army furniture: often poor quality, almost always tasteless. They'll be impressed if the stuff isn't outright ugly. Hmmm… try to stay within budget, Okay?"

Lourdes was warmed slightly. He likes the way I dress. He thinks I have good taste. He… he trusts me. She flashed him a brilliant smile, which quickly turned to a frown when he failed even to notice.

Hennessey's own quarters, and some of the common areas, had been filled with some of his own, or rather his and Linda's, furnishings. David had taken some leave from his job and overseen the move. Hennessey now sat on one of those chairs, sipping a scotch on ice. Among other things the CSM had done to prepare the place was to furnish a bar. Hennessey swirled the ice and sniffed, savoring the peaty aroma.

The CSM and Lourdes were currently at the airport picking up the troops. Hennessey thought they might even be on their way back by now; David would see the troops through the Aduana. He was filled with a curious sense of-almost-happiness such as he hadn't known in some time. Whether this was because he was soon to see many old friends, because it heralded the start of real work again, or because he was an imperceptible measure closer to his goals, he couldn't have said.

Johnson and Kennison had wired ahead with the names of those they had recruited, the names encoded by prearranged numbers. The list had pleased Hennessey immensely; twenty-four good men-including himself, McNamara, Esterhazy and Clean-were all anyone needed for the early stage of a job like the one he planned. He had them… plus Lourdes. Lourdes? Pretty girl. Nice girl. In another time… another life… oh, well. He pushed her from his mind.

Hennessey had wanted to go to the airport but McNamara had talked him out of it. In retrospect, he had realized, the sergeant major was right. It was better for McNamara himself to get the troops, billet them, put out the rules of the house, and then have Hennessey make the grand entrance. The troops had signed on for a military enterprise; the more like a military enterprise this looked, the happier they would be. Stage management? Not my forte. So I will, for once, listen to someone like Mac who understands it.

There had been some discussion, too, as to whether or not the troops should come in separately. Ultimately, McNamara had nixed that.

"Too much bot'er. Besides, if t'ey come in openly an toget'er, lookin' like t'ey're supposed to, soldiers, t'e customs and immigration people will be too afraid to say anyt'ing about it… for now. But if t'ey come in separately, t'ey would look like a bunch of criminals- damned suspicious, anyway-to anyone who can add t'eir names, origins, and destinations up and come up wit' us!"

Hennessey had, eventually, agreed.

From the upper back porch of Hennessey's quarters he could see for some dozens of miles out over the Mar Furioso. The smell of Balboan cooking wafted up from the kitchen below and on the other side of the house. It reminded him of Linda, painfully so. He continued to gaze out over the ocean, mulling his plans over in his mind.

Hennessey sat there, just staring at the distant waves and thinking, for perhaps an hour. Then came from below the sound of moving vehicles, two vans and a step van hired for the occasion, grinding up the gravel of the front drive. This pulled him from his reveries. The sergeant major's melodic Maiden Islands voice, loud but not shouting, and the opening and closing of automobile doors, told Hennessey that his new command had arrived.

Inside the first floor foyer, the sergeant major had the troops pile their bags against the wall by the stairs. He then brought them into the living room opposite what even Lourdes was beginning to call "the mess."

Mac said, "Welcome, gentlemen, to your new home. Later, I'll be showin' you to your quarters. For now I want to give you t'e rules of the house and t'e organization. First off, t'e house rules. You are expected to keep your own quarters clean; t'at goes for both officers and noncoms. It ain't because t'e boss can't afford more maids. It's because we want as few outside ears listening in as possible. T'is might change, later.

"Meal times are 0800 to 0900, 1130 to 1230, and 1800 to 1900. T'e kitchen is t'e province of t'e chief cook. She's a tough old bitch, so no snackin'. If you miss a meal, other t'an in t'e line of duty, tough shit. If it's in line o' duty, she can maybe be persuaded.

"Second is t'e schedule. Physical training will be conducted from 0600 to 0715, Monday t'rough Saturday. I will lead it, initially. Starting next week we will begin to rotate leadership of t'e PT sessions. T'e CO has ordered weights. T'ey should be here in a couple of weeks… or maybe a bit less. T'ere's a room down in t'e basement we've set aside as a weight room.

"Blendin' in. For t'ose who don't speak Spanish, Miss Lourdes here will be giving lessons from 1930 to 2100 nightly, Mondays t'rough T'ursdays, until you do. T'e rest of t'e time you work on t'e CO's project.

"Saturday afternoons and Sundays are off unless you have duty. Two men, one officer and one NCO, will be on duty during t'e weekend days. One NCO will pull duty from 1800 to 0600 on weekdays. T'e CO and I will not be pulling t'e watch. T'ose who pull t'e weekend duty will have the followin' Monday off. Check t'e schedule on t'e bulletin board, which, as you can see," McNamara jerked his thumb to the rear, "is right behind me. If you are not on duty or workin' you are off and can do what you want. Now, how many of you are married?"

McNamara raised an eyebrow. "Still married, Daugher? Your wife is a saint." Seeing five other hands raised the CSM said, "T'at will be fine. T'e CO is going to have t'e outbuilding, I suppose it used to be servants' quarters, converted as soon as possible to make married quarters. He's also going to put up a few houses for t'e spillover and, eventually, some bachelor quarters. He's going to hire an English speakin' teacher from t'e locals for your kids. T'e school will be in t'e old stables down the hill, once it's ready. Your families are invited to t'e eat in t'e mess when t'ey arrive. Your wives will be expected to help out wit' social occasions at need."

No one objected to that. The few who were married had wives who were used to the unremunerated obligations the military laid upon them.

"T'ere is no rule against drinkin' when not on duty. If you want to have a bottle in your room t'at's no problem. I've set up a bar. Drink prices are posted behind it. If you want to use t'e bar just check off what you took and it will be deducted from your pay. Beer wit' lunch and dinner are free."

That raised a cheer, and not a small one.

One of the men, Siegel, interjected, "Oh, crap. If Hennessey's giving out free beer you know this is just gonna suck."

"Quite correct, Sig," McNamara agreed. "T'ere ain't no such t'ing as a free lunch… or free beer."

"We will not be wearin' uniforms for t'e next several months," the sergeant major continued. "Frankly, we're not even sure yet what t'ose uniforms would look like, t'ough I am pushing t'e CO to go for Tan Tropical Worsted. You are required to look presentable. Haircuts are not optional. If you can stand t'em in t'is heat, mustaches and neatly trimmed beards are encouraged.

"T'e maid will take care of your laundry on days I'll post on t'e board. You are expected to bring it to t'e laundry room yourself.

"Some time next week we'll have t'ree cars and a light truck you can sign out. T'e Phaeton sedan is t'e CO's; leave it alone. If you take a car on personal business you will sign it out from t'e duty NCO and return it wit' a full tank.

"We have no medical personnel. T'e sick will go to Balboa City for treatment. T'ere's a small, first class hospital t'ere used to dealing with FSC types. English speakin' an' everyt'ing."

One man, Daugher, raised a hand. "Weapons, Sergeant Major?"

"Our weapons are limited to two pistols, mine and t'e CO's, and a couple of Samsonov rifles. We'll be gettin' more in a few days. Among other t'ings, we will all be goin' to town tomorrow to apply for permits to carry a weapon concealed. T'e CO is payin'. His brot'er in law will… facilitate. T'e CO will also be payin' for your personal sidearms. T'ey will all be forty-fives."

That elicited smiles from everyone. There wasn't a man present who didn't believe that most any pistol was good enough… as long as its caliber began with a "four."

"Lastly, t'is. You are to avoid any contact wit' anyone here in Balboa except in line of duty. You may not discuss any aspect of what we do wit' anyone. You will report any attempt to get information about our activities to me. Any questions before I send for t'e CO?"

Seeing there were none, the CSM asked, "Miss Lourdes, would you go get t'e boss, please?"

After Lourdes left, the sergeant major added, "One ot'er t'ing. I don't know if t'e CO has any interest in t'at one. Keep your fuckin' hands off, anyway. T'at means, among ot'ers, you, Daugher."

"Oh, Sergeant Major…" Daugher began, plaintively.

"Hands off, boyo."

Lourdes shivered as she left the foyer. Those men. They look so dangerous there in a group, not at all like Patricio and the sergeant major; they're civilized men even if a bit rough. And the way that tall blond one kept looking at me? I don't think I like him.

Reaching the door to the porch just off of Hennessey's private quarters, she knocked politely. "Patricio? The sergeant major says he's ready for you now."

Hennessey looked up and gave a friendly smile, friendly and no more than that. "Thank you, Lourdes. I'll take it from here but I would appreciate your checking on dinner, if you would."

"Certainly. Will you need me for anything before dinner?"

"No. No, thank you. Everything should be fine." "Hmmm. Attend anyway."

A mildly uncomfortable few minutes were spent between Lourdes' departure and the moment McNamara saw Hennessey about to enter the conference room. He announced, "Gentlemen, t'e commander."

Everyone rose to attention as Hennessey walked to the center of the room in front of them. Yes, he thought, this will be a good crew. The most talent I've ever had working for me at any one time, I think. Before beginning to speak he looked over the assembled men recently arrived. He ordered, "At ease. As you were." Those who had risen resumed their seats.

By the door stood Johnson and Daugher. Tall, blond, strong as an ox, and disgustingly Aryan looking, Daugher had personally killedwith his bare hands alone-almost as many people as were in the room and always in "self defense." Johnson was at least as strong, but more restrained.

Framing those two were Soult and Mitchell, more like younger brothers to Hennessey than subordinates. Years before they had been Hennessey's drivers at different times in different units. They looked nothing alike, Soult being rail thin, sharp featured and clean shaven while Mitchell was something of a mustached human fireplug.

Beside Mitchell, short, balding, and wearing glasses, Dan Kuralski's looks were deceiving. However much he might have looked like an aging professor at some small university, his heart and mind were those of a soldier.

Must see about getting Dan remarried while he's here, Hennessey thought. I wonder if Lourdes can be any help there.

Next was Carl Kennison. Irwin Rommel, Robert E. Lee, Heinz Guderian and Ulysses S. Grant could probably not have passed a body fat test. Huang? Zhukov? Tamashita? No way. Welcome to you, too, my chubby little genius.

However pudgy he looked, Carl could bench press almost three times his body weight. He had also run Hennessey into the dirt on more than a few occasions. Carl had not been picked for either his appearance or his physical strength. Hennessey remembered that in Carl's unusually long time as a second lieutenant he had had the distinction of having received a letter of reprimand once a week for a three-month period from a full colonel or higher-without even once repeating reprimanders. Little things: kicking his company commander in the groin (he had argued "accident" but no one believed it had been anything other than perfectly deliberate), burning down a Federated States Militia brigade headquarters ("Hey, who thought that tent would be so flammable?"), loading forty-six men on a single (stolen) quarter-ton vehicle with trailer and taking them for a drive (two letters from that one).

I like a man who can break the rules.

On a chair behind the table sat Aaron Brown, a diminutive tanker-and one of only three blacks in the group. Brown's tank company had been the normal attachment for Hennessey's infantry battalion some years before. Seeing Hennessey's eyes on him, Brown said aloud, "Es braust unser panzer, sir."

"Im stuermwind, dahin," Hennessey finished. Our tanks roar through the stormwind.

Next to Brown was Michael Morse, a former squad leader for Hennessey. Okay, so Morse isn't the brightest soldier who ever lived. I'll take an honest man with a good heart who tries really hard before I'll take some glib shithead looking out for Number One. Hennessey was well pleased that Morse had joined his group.

There was no smile for the next man, just a nod of respect. Hennessey had wanted Michael Bowman in the crew despite the fact that he was a borderline psychotic.

Have to keep that one busy; not give him time to start contemplating his navel. Bowman was as capable as Morse, considerably smarter, but not quite so reliable. A dangerous man. Well, so are we all.

Esterhazy-here for only a few days before he had to return to First Landing where he was watching out for Hennessey's interests-and Clean stood in the back of the room along with several others. Hennessey nodded in turn to "Dutch" Rudel, a chemical officer but also an FS Army Ranger; Greg Harrington, the only other tanker in the group, besides Brown, but much more valuable for his logistics skill than his ability to order a charge; Lawrence Triste, a first rate intelligence officer; and Tom Christian, infantry, but with long experience in personnel administration.

Hennessey was especially pleased to see the men in the last group: "Sig" Siegal, looking like a koala bear in mufti; Fletcher, serious as always; Prince who knew Hennessey's training methods and could be counted on to see them through, and Clinton, whose happy smile belied a fine mind and a meticulous sense of order.

Siegal's brains, linguistic ability-he spoke Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and Tagalog-and knowledge of weapons, organizations, and the undeveloped world in general would be indispensable. "Fletch" was a communications man. Prince was an 'expeditor.' Warren Clinton was as conniving a supply man as ever doctored a property book.

Fletcher, Clinton and Siegal were the only new arrivals to have stayed in the army long enough to have retired.

Hennessey looked each one in the eyes before beginning to speak.

"Gentlemen, you smell bad and you're ugly. Jesus, it's good to see you."

That earned a small laugh.

"You've all heard my introductory speech at one time or another. I don't see the need to give it again. I won't ask you why you decided to come. Your reasons are your own so long as you follow the rules and do your jobs.

"You probably won't get rich here working for me. I think I can promise you that we're going to have a lot of fun over the next several years. Military fun, the only kind worth having for people like us.

"Ranks? Don't worry about mine. Officers retain the ranks and seniority they had in the FS Army. The sergeant major is the Sergeant Major. Don't fuck with him. Fletch, you were a first sergeant, I believe. You will hold WO4. Former sergeants first class are three's. Former sergeants and staffs are WO1's and 2's respectively. When the time comes to wear insignia that is what you will wear… assuming we finally decide on a set of insignia. For now it doesn't matter.

"The mission: We are going to recreate a real army for Balboa, to plan the foundation of something that can be of use to the Federated States at need. The first part of that will be pretty dull. Later, it should get a lot more exciting… when we actually can start building and training; better still, when we can deploy and fight. Still, don't expect too much right off. Don't worry about who's paying the bills.

"Organization. We are a staff. I intend for us to set up under something close to the old Sachsen model, not the one the Federated States inherited, if you dig deep enough, from the Frogs of Old Earth. That means that personnel administration, instead of being the 'One,' is the 'Two,' Roman numeral two. The Roman numeral 'One' shop is the Operations, Logistics, and Intelligence office-Ia, Ib, and Ic, respectively.

"Assignments are as follows. Dan, you are the Chief of Staff. Carl, you are the 'One.' Larry and Sig, you have the Ic, Intel. Harrington has the Ib, Logistics. Mr. Clinton will assist you, Greg. You're also in charge of the household."

Hennessey turned his gaze to Johnson. "Terrence, you are Ia, Operations and Training. Morse, Bowman, Fletcher, Daugher, Prince, and Brown are all in your shop. Likewise you have-and let me introduce-Gary Clean, late of Her Anglic Majesty's engineers and 'Dutch' Rudel, late of the 39th Parachute Division.

"Tom Christian has the II, personnel. Mitchell assists you, Tom. Matthias Esterhazy has some considerable experience in banking. He's our comptroller. The sergeant major is, as stated, the Sergeant Major. Sergeant Major, Soult will assist when he's not working for me directly. Lourdes, although normally you would work for Captain Johnson as our Spanish teacher, for now you work for the sergeant major and myself.

"That is all for now. This evening, after chow, I'll give you your immediate work priorities. If you have questions, hold them until then. The sergeant major will show you to your rooms and offices. They're a mess but at least they're furnished. You can thank Lourdes for that. You'll also be doubling up until I can have quarters prepared for the married folks. When you figure out what you need to fix your rooms up, drop a request with Mr. Clinton."

It was a festive time. After all, how often do a group of men get together with a real prospect of renewing their wonderfully misspent youth?

Lourdes and the domestic staff had done a fine job. The dining room- Why did Patricio insist on calling it the mess? she had wondered. It's not a mess at all.- was bedecked with flowers and wreaths. Candles burned unnecessarily in sconces.

Table space had been a problem. Hennessey's old dining room table, his and Linda's, had been large enough for twelve with chairs to match. Lourdes had brought in a card table suitable for four, and moved in another one from the kitchen that could handle eight or even ten in a pinch. Crystal, silver and china had had to be a mix of three different sets each.

Still, as Hennessey admitted to himself, the girl has done wonders. Note, though, we need to knock out a wall, expand the mess, and get regular seating for thirty-six to forty-eight.

Daugher took one look at the tables and announced what they all thought. "This is some good shit."

The table was garlanded with tranzitree flowers the women had picked from a patch growing halfway from the house to the sea to the north. The flowers were harmless. Bluegum wax candles burned in sconces in three spots along the walls, centered and at both ends. Many people liked the smell of bluegum candles. The aroma they gave off was something like, although milder than, myrrh.

This being an occasion of some celebration, dinner centered on a frightfully large turkey, roasted and stuffed, an equally large prime rib from the Finca Carrera, and an impressive ham from the same source. To the usual trimmings for these were added some typical Balboan dishes: empanadas, a sort of meat turnover, fried yuca, a fibrous tuber, poisonous if not properly prepared but superior in taste to potato, and maiz rojo, which was not corn though it was red.

From the market the cook had obtained half a dozen steaks from a freshly caught baby carcharodon megalodon. These she'd soaked in milk and then broiled with butter and garlic. Next to the meg steaks sat a tureen of sancocho, or stew. The meat in the stew was a mix of normal beef with several kinds of reptile not to be found on Old Earth and becoming rare on Terra Nova.

The bread was made from a seed taken from a plant that resembled an orange-colored sunflower, except that unlike the sunflower it never grew above two feet in height. The plant, like the maiz rojo, the tranzitree and the bluegum, was one of those that were either native to Terra Nova or had also been transplanted by the Noahs from somewhere besides Old Earth. Before being ground the seed resembled nothing so much as very tiny corn kernels. Once ground they made quite a good bread though, because of the flour's high gluten content, nothing that resembled cornbread. The bread tended to a buttery yellow color. The plant and its flour were called "Chorley."

As it was a sort of Thanksgiving for people who had never again expected to be able to do the work they felt they were born to, wine was served, along with the beer. When dessert was finished, and plates cleared away, the sergeant major lit a candle, the "smoking lamp." The cook brought in a tray of single malt scotch with glasses just as the smoke began to curl to the ceiling.

Standing, Hennessey began to speak:

"Everybody moved in, all right?" he asked. Seeing the general assent, he continued. "Notebooks ready?" He paused to allow the men to get out writing materials. For the few who pulled out electronic ones, he said, "No E-Slates. Security. Take a notebook and pen."

He waited until they had and began, "Good. We have two initial tasks, one minor, and one major. The minor one is ourselves. You've all had a chance to see what your quarters and offices need. You'll fix them yourselves on your own 'copious free time.'"

That was a joke that spanned solar systems and centuries. It received the laugh it deserved.

"A little more complex is the question of arms, equipment, and uniforms. Uniforms will have to wait. We couldn't wear them for a while yet, anyway. Sorry. For arms, we need enough to defend ourselves against minor threats and possibly to take out a minor target ourselves. Let me make clear here that, no, I have no one and nothing in particular in mind. It just pays to be prepared."

Hennessey focused his attention on Bowman and Daugher. "So, no, you two, it is extremely unlikely I will be asking you to kill anyone any time soon. Calm down."

Hennessey turned his gaze to Harrington. "Greg, I'm going to put you in touch with my brother-in-law, the guy who eased your way through customs. He's in the Civil Force. Good kid. Have him put you in touch with a black market supplier. I believe he knows at least one. I want two antiarmor weapons and a fair supply of ammunition. Get us two light machine guns, it doesn't matter which, and a dozen and a half rifles, Samsonovs would do but don't feel bound. Make sure that the rifles match the LMGs, whatever you buy. Get starlight scopes for each. Also get four or so pair of night vision goggles. Don't buy Volgan for those. I also want two sniper rifles, Dracos, M-12s, or even bolt-action hunting rifles. Oh, yes, get us a machine gun the caliber of which matches the sniper rifles. Don't buy a Federated States MG-6, no matter how cheap it is; the odds of it being just plain worn out are too good to risk. Get a forty-five and shoulder holster for each man. If the dealer has silencers for the pistols, get one for each and have the pistols threaded.

"Also, the day after tomorrow I'll give you a check to go to town and get a pickup and three passenger cars. You'll also need to pick up the Phaeton I ordered a few days ago. Task the One shop as needed for drivers.

"When you're downtown it should be possible to buy twenty-four sets of body armor… hmmm… make it twenty-five; get a slender one for Lourdes, too. Don't scrimp on those. Get the best available. Gentlemen, Lourdes, give Captain Harrington your sizes before going to sleep tonight.

"Greg, I also want you to look into the possibility of buying a boat, forty or so feet and fast. Don't commit to it yet, though. Look around a bit. As a matter of fact, we are probably-no, certainly-going to need merchant ships as well. Look into it.

"The maid could probably use another washer and dryer. See about getting a big freezer for the kitchen. It's got to be cheaper than paying someone to do a daily grocery run the way you fuckers are bound to overeat."

Harrington looked mildly distracted as he scratched notes on a pad. "Can I borrow Miss Lourdes for a translator?"

"Sure."

Hennessey turned to Johnson.

"Terrence, you are tasked to help with the making of a propaganda cum recruiting film. We'll discuss that in more detail later.

"So much for ourselves, for now."

Hennessey began to pace around the room as he spoke to the group as a whole. "The major task, however, is to design an army for Balboa for the future. That is what will consume most of our efforts for the next few months. Dan, as chief of staff I want you to direct that. Start with the assumption Balboa could, were the funding available, raise and sustain a force of about thirty thousand regulars, maybe ninety thousand reservists and perhaps three times that in militia. Assume that between Balboa and the rest of Colombia del Norte we can find as many as thirty thousand volunteers a year. The reservists and militia are critical because you just can't politically trust professional Latin soldiers. Eventually, given the fantastic degree of governmental corruption, they will overthrow their governments. The reservists and militia are to counter that.

"That size force is the illogical and unreasonable extreme," Hennessey continued. "Start there anyway. Once you have done that, shrink it to what is possible; a single corps of about fifty or sixty thousand that is capable of deploying one division of eleven to fourteen thousand in support of the Federated States in the war now ongoing. Match the huge force to the smaller corps so that if it ever did become necessary the corps could be expanded with minimal confusion, battalions expanding to regiments, regiments becoming divisions, and so on. Again, that's just in case the illogical and unreasonable come to pass."

Everyone present, with the exception of McNamara, Esterhazy and Clean who had heard Hennessey thinking out loud for some time, was a little shocked. Not a few wondered if their boss had flipped. He had, of course, but not in the way they were thinking.

"The corps is the important thing," Hennessey said. "Note carefully, however, that I can't pay for it now and neither can Balboa."

Okay, so he hasn't quite flipped completely… in the way they had been thinking.

"What I want you to do, Dan and the I-Shop, with a big assist from the II, is design it carefully and completely. Then further shrink that. I don't know what I can pay for, not yet anyway. So shrink it in four forms: to a division of about eleven to fourteen thousand, to a large brigade of about eight thousand, to a regular sized brigade of about four or five thousand, and to a combat team of around two thousand. Which we decide to go with will depend on funding."

Okay, that's reasonable… but a frightful amount of work.

"I would have told you to optimize this first force for Pashtia. But I think that is going to kick off within a couple of weeks-"

Triste interrupted. "My sources say three, Pat."

"Fine, three then. It will in any case be too soon for us to have anything to offer to the FS. So the question is, 'Who's next?' Larry?"

Triste didn't have to think. He already knew. "Sumer," he announced with absolute certainty in his voice. "Sumer… but not soon. I am thinking maybe early in 461. In theory it could be summer of 460 but the heat…" Triste's voice trailed off.

"I concur," Hennessey said. "Sumer in early 461. It will take at least that long for the Federated States to build up the logistics in al Jahara for a-what do you think, Larry?-a four division invasion."

"About that," Triste agreed. "Or maybe only three plus maybe two Anglian brigades or possibly even a full division of the Royal Army along with some odds and ends from other contributors. All will, I am sure, be most welcome to help out and there is hardly a country on industrialized Terra Nova that hasn't lost some people to the TNTO attacks. For poorer allies the Federated States will gladly foot the bill, I am sure."

"Mmm… yeah," Hennessey half agreed. "The FS will be happy to pay the operational costs for anyone joining in the fight. I don't want them to pay for us, or not yet anyway. I think our bargaining position, for later on, will be much better if we-if I-can pay the initial costs."

Esterhazy interjected, "You are right about zat, Pat. But have you considered just vhat a fair price would be for the FS to pay for a… oh, say… a full division of Balboan troops?"

Hennessey pulled out a cigarette and lit it. McNamara, and not for the first time, thought that his chief would kill himself young if he didn't cut down.

"I've thought about it and made a few inquiries, Matthias, yes. For the FS to maintain one full division overseas in action, even low intensity action, requires them to keep three divisions on the books. So one division deployed costs three divisions worth of normal pay and operating expenses. That's about fourteen billion drachma a year. The cost of one division at war at low intensity is maybe- frankly no one I spoke to was quite sure-sixteen or seventeen billion a year more. Annuitized retirements, long-term medical care, disability payments to the badly wounded, etcetera, would probably add another four billion to that. I think the total cost is about thirty-five billion per committed division, per year. And that says nothing about the political costs of combat casualties or the benefit, propaganda- wise, that comes from having a strong ally in the fight."

"We won't have to charge them anything like their own cost," Hennessey said as he flicked an ash onto his plate. "We can pay the Balboans maybe forty percent of what a soldier from the FS gets and they would still consider it princely. Lourdes?"

"I don't know," she answered. "What is the pay for a soldier in the FS?"

"A new private receives about twelve hundred drachma a month," Hennessey answered. "Plus room and board."

The girl did some quick calculations in her agile mind then said, "We have unemployment here that fluctuates between fifteen and twenty percent, and most of that is concentrated among young men. Their unemployment rate is over fifty percent. Four hundred and eighty drachma a month would be considered, along with room and board, very good, yes. And those boys are not unemployed because they are lazy or untalented. In fact, our literacy rate is almost one hundred percent, considerably higher than in the FS," she added, not without some pride. "People here are unemployed because they lack connections, not because they lack ability."

"I know. So, gentlemen, we can pay a lot less and still be considered generous. Food is cheap here, too," Hennessey added, pointing to the remains of the bird. "That turkey you just massacred cost about a third of what it would have in the FS. Moreover, our troops will not have the expectation of the best, most cutting edge, equipment. In all, I think we can pay for a corps of fifty or sixty thousand, with a division deployed and fighting, for about four to four and a half billion a year."

"If that's true, Pat," observed Esterhazy, "then you could charge the FS nothing more than the cost of one of their divisions deployed, say sixty percent of their total cost, and still make a fortune."

"Even at half," Hennessey corrected, "we can make a fortune."

"Where's all that money going to go, Boss?" Daugher asked.

"Mostly we'll plow it back into Balboa," he answered. "This war will last a very long time. Ideally, I would like, before I die, to set things up so that the force we build can continue that war indefinitely and independently, without having to ask for help from anyone.

"Anyway, enough about fuzzy finances. Back to the concrete. Dan, do the whole Table of Organization: numbers, equipment, ranks, individual gear, training base, et cetera. Maximize ground combat forces. Design, to the extent that is possible, for things the FS Army is either not good at or lacks the capability for. For example, they are always short infantry, so design for primarily infantry missions: counterinsurgency, city fighting, reduction of complex fortifications. Plan for a very austere logistic and admin tail. I have a preference for Volgan equipment, where it will do. With them having gone about half belly up I think there will be a lot of useful military equipment for sale in the near future for cheaps. Nonetheless, consider a mix of Volgan, FS and Tauran Union equipment. Zion may have some useful stuff, too."

Kuralski looked up from note taking and asked: "What kind of fire support? What kind of control system? ATADS?" This, the Advanced Tactical Artillery Data System, was a digitalized system for controlling and massing artillery fire. No one entirely trusted it.

"No, Dan," Hennessey answered. "How's the quote go: 'Real soldiers don't trust ATADS'? Number of guns and throw weight are the semi-developed world's solution to the artillery battle. Now that you mention it, though, put the forward observers in the combat support/ weapons company of the maneuver battalions. I've never liked the idea of people who have to fight together being strangers to one another."

Hennessey continued. "Assume that we will never be able to afford a high tech battlefield communications system. No microwaves, few or no frequency hopping radios. Regular radios and wire are what they need."

Kuralski observed, "I'll need a computer to keep track of all of this. It will save months of work."

"Fine. Have the log shop get you one, the best available. And don't scrimp on computer security. On second thought, Greg, better make it about six. This isn't our only concern."

Hennessey turned to Rudel. "Dutch, don't worry about NBC"nuclear, biological and chemical-"warfare beyond defense, individual protective masks and suits, recon, and some decontamination capability. This isn't that kind of country. Worry about defensive training.

"Nauseating as the thought is, I half expect to have to call whatever force we build 'Military Police.' Don't let the name fool you. It's to be a combat organization, having within it all arms and services. And it has to be ready to deploy and to fight by early 461."

Everybody looked doubtful about that. A mere year and a half to go from a standing start to something resembling an army in battle? Ridiculous! Absurd! Impossible!

Except they'd seen Hennessey do impossible things before.

Hennessey paused briefly, then added, "In the back of your minds, I want you to keep the concept of a 'nation in arms'… just in case.

"A last word before we adjourn for the evening. For various reasons I have found it useful to go by my wife's maiden name, 'Carrera.' It's a name of some local importance. It also became one of mine- here, at least-the day I married her. Mostly it may help to allay suspicions about our obviously gringo origin. Force yourselves to think of me that way from now on: Carrera. "

Hennessey tossed off the dregs of his drink, then grinned evilly. "The fucking wogs are going to remember it, I promise you."

Casa Linda, 5/9/459 AC

"Sir, there are four Civil Force officers and an NCO here to see you."

Jamey Soult stood at a respectful attention, a habit Carrera had never succeeded in breaking him of. "Shall I have the rest of the boys stand to?"

"Quietly, Jamey. Have Sergeant Major collect up five or six of them. Silenced pistols. You stay with them. Have them keep out of sight and earshot. I'll call if I need you."

Soult left quickly to summon aid. Those people go after the boss and there'll be hell to pay; I promise.

Carrera walked down the stairs to meet the men who were very likely there to arrest him. Why the hell didn't David let me know this was coming? He should be in a position to know.

When Carrera entered the living room where the Balboans waited, he relaxed immediately. They all had the look of men with no intention of arresting anyone. They stood up when he entered the room.

Taking the Balboans in with a single glance, Carrera saw that they were a major, about as high a rank as existed in the Civil Force that had replaced the BDC, two captains, a lieutenant and a sergeant major. He knew none of them by sight, however their uniforms all bore name tags that identified them.

The major's name was Fernandez. He was small, slight and mildly stoop shouldered. Withal, he looked like nothing so much as a pharmacist. Certainly, his appearance gave no hint of the frightful reputation of which David Carrera had warned.

After shaking hands, Fernandez asked, " Senor, are you the same Carrera that has been supporting the families of those killed in the 447 Invasion?"

"I am."

"May we ask why you are providing for them out of your own pocket? And why now, rather than before?"

"Now," Carrera answered, "because I only recently acquired the wherewithal to help them. As to why, for no reason than that I thought it wrong for the parents, wives, sons, and daughters of brave men to go in want if I could do something about it."

Besides, it may be that I am to blame for their loss. In part, anyway.

"I see," said the major. "An unusual generosity. You are from the FSC, are you not?"

"I am, though I make my home here."

Fernandez began a staccato interrogation, pausing to bite on his lower lip between questions. "Why should you do that? Why should you come here now? What do you intend here? We know that you have a small army here on the premises with you. We also know that you were once a military officer, that you were part of the invasion force, and that you lost your family in the Terra Nova Trade Organization attack. I have investigated. And no, I have not yet informed the government."

Hennessey-no, "Carrera" now-said simply, "Revenge."

Major Fernandez smiled. "That is a worthy goal. It was also worthy to plant your brother-in-law in my department. However, though your brother-in-law is a nice kid, he has no business in intelligence… so please get him moved."

"I don't know where else to send him."

"Major Valdez, from 5th Company of the Civil Force, will take him. He said to me, just a few days ago, 'I'm down one platoon leader, anyway, as soon as I fire the stupid son of a rabiblanco bitch who's wrecking my chingada third platoon now."

The other officers with Fernandez tried to control smiles. They failed. Everyone in the Civil Force knew about Valdez, his general loathing of pure whites (though he loathed pure indians, too), and his foul mouth.

Patricio Carrera agreed, "Okay. Fine. David should be glad of the change. I hadn't intended to offend anyone. I just wanted to keep tabs on things."

"You didn't offend me. It is impossible to offend me. Unless you're a Pina or someone riding on his coattails or some gringo trying to run our country. That would offend me."

"You do not care for your former 'Supreme Leader'?"

Fernandez gave an evil, angry laugh. "No. Not me. Not my men. Not anyone in my department. Pina? When the going got tough that cowardly son of a bitch got going."

"Oh. I see your point. Major Fernandez… I will not run out on you. But I will tell you that in the course of avenging myself on the stinking wogs I am going to help make Balboa free, really free, for the first time in centuries. That… and I know what I'm doing."

Carrera paused, then made a decision. "Follow me, please. Just you. Say nothing."

With a shrug, Fernandez motioned for his men to remain while he followed Carrera downstairs to the staff area. It was empty at the time, as McNamara and the other on duty were currently upstairs checking pistols and ammunition.

Carrera flicked on a light. Fernandez saw three entire walls each covered with an intricate diagram of lines, circles, boxes and numbers. There were many gaps in the diagram.

" This is why I'm here. I don't want to 'run your country.' I just want to help it build an army; like any other country has. This is part of that, though it's a long way from complete. Tell me, Major Fernandez, have you ever even been in a real army? No, I thought not. Not your fault. But you do not, cannot, know what goes into creating one. Do you know what schools you need? What equipment? How many spare parts of what type? Ammunition? How many trucks to operate at a given distance from a port? How many drivers and mechanics? How much does it all cost? How long will it take to do X? Is Y what you should really be doing?

"I do know. And I'm here to show you… you and the rest of the old Defense Corps."

Fernandez moved closer and looked over one of the diagrams. He noted that there were many blank spaces. This Carrera doesn't have all the answers then. But I didn't even know the questions. He considered this. At length he nodded his head slowly. "Perhaps you do know. Perhaps you do, indeed. How can I help?"

"In many ways, Major. Notably by keeping the government off my ass and out of my business. And by giving me whatever you can to make them support this effort."

"My department can help with this."

"Then viva Balboa, Major. Will you and your men join me for a drink?"

"Thank you, sir, no. My men are still on duty and I need to get home to my daughter. I am a widower, you see, and I'm all she has."

Interlude

1 January, 2050, Brussels, Belgium, European Union

Margot Tebaf awakened in a strange bed. There was nothing particularly unusual in this; she and her husband had an understanding.

She risked a glance at the other form in the bed. It was hidden by the covers. Hmmm. Large, so probably male. But who was it?

Margot wracked her brain frantically. There had been a lot of champagne, stronger drink as well. Well, it was New Years, after all. She'd been talking to someone… some expert in demographics and migration patterns. What had he said?

Oh, yes. It's coming back now. He said that this new planet may be the answer to all our problems. And not just the EU's problems, but the UN's, the progressive movement's. Everything.

We are losing talented and fertile young people to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They produce there, in the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog competition of the capitalist system. That makes our system look bad by comparison-never mind that it is much the fairest and most gentle system in the history of the world-and pulls even more young people away.

But if the new planet can be used to attract those tired of Europe and, better still, if it can also be used to attract a number of those stinking Americans out of their own stolen homeland, the drain on us will lessen and they will begin to lose some of their power and their arrogance.

Margot muttered aloud, "Oh, how I hate those bastards."

The body next to her stirred. "What's that?"

"I was thinking about what you said last night…" She found, to her consternation, that she couldn't produce a name to go with the body she had spent the night with.

"Dominique, Margot. It's Dominique," the body answered, apparently unperturbed.

"Ah, yes. Dominique. Explain to me again, please-I had so much to drink last night-how we can use the new planet to hurt the United States and save ourselves and the Earth?"

"Well, it would take a lot," Dominique admitted. "We would need… oh… call it one hundred ships, more or less, each capable of carrying fifty or so thousand colonists."

"Ships, yes, but how big?"

"I've asked someone in the navy about that. He told me to think of the size of the United States' supercarriers or the very large ships that carry crude oil. Built in space because otherwise we would never get them off the Earth."

"We couldn't afford that," Margot said, suddenly looking very glum.

"No, no, of course not," Dominique admitted. "Certainly we could not ourselves. But we, China, Japan and the United States could, collectively."

"Why should they participate in a project that ultimately hurts them?" Margot asked.

"Because in the short term it helps them," the other answered, reasonably. "Have you ever known an elected politician who really thinks long term? No. Long-term thinking requires what we have here in Europe, an elite that cannot be turned out of office over the latest blip in the economic forecast.

"It's more than that though, too, Margot. If we can get some substantial numbers of the more extreme Moslems to leave Earth- though I confess I have no good idea yet how to do that-the more moderate ones will make life uncomfortable for the extremists who remain. Then they'll leave, too."

"Wouldn't that be wonderful," she mused aloud.

"Indeed," Dominique agreed.

Margot admired such clear thinking. She pulled the covers down and bent her head over to show how much she admired it.

Chapter Eight If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? -William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Zabol, Pashtia, Terra Nova, 7/9/459 AC

Even through fifty meters of rock and soil the men below could still feel the bombs going off overhead. They shook the ground, making the lights flicker and raising dust to fill the narrow cramped corridors and rooms. No matter, the cave was deep and safe. Even at its entrance, where the FS Air Force could toss bombs with frightening precision, strong baffles prevented any harm from reaching those lower. Besides, there were dozens of false entrances for each real one, though they were tolerably hard to see. Even the FS had some limits on their ability to bomb.

Feeling quite safe from the bombing, Abdul Aziz ibn Kalb still withered under the glare of his chief. Not that the glare was directed at him personally; no, not at all. The glare was directed at a report just received from the organization's cell in, of all places, Balboa. Interference on the part of the Ikhwan 's great adversary had delayed receipt for some time.

"How dare they? How dare they? By the nine and ninety beautiful names of Allah how damned dare they shoot down five believers and beat a sixth to death? How dare they even think of joining this new 'crusade' against us? Little pissants!"

Aziz forced himself to stand tall and corrected, " They didn't. Just one man killed six Salafis in an outlying town. "Self defense," the local police said. Maybe it was, too."

"No matter; the lives of any number of infidels are as nothing compared to the life of even one of the true believers. And then there's this other swine trying to raise political support for aiding the Columbians. Well, we'll just have to put a stop to that."

The chief rubbed worry beads between thumb and forefinger. "What cells do we have in Balboa?" he asked.

Aziz had an answer ready, of course. He'd expected the question. "We have one 'expeditor' cell, one informational cell, three direct action cells and one command cell. Twenty-three people total."

"The direct action cells? What are their missions?"

Again, Aziz had the answers ready to hand. "One of them is trained for ship seizure and pilotage. They were intended to be able to grab a ship and ram the locks of the Balboa Transitway. But it has to be a special ship, one carrying explosives or LNG, or perhaps fertilizer, to really do damage."

"Any such ship coming through the Transitway soon?" the chief asked.

"No, Sheik, we really weren't thinking about attacking Balboa for a few years. The other cells are directed at, in the one case, the trans- Isthmian pipeline that sends oil from the State of McKinley to the Shimmering Sea for shipment to the Federated States' west coast. Heating oil mostly. In the others, they are bombers. Their status report says they are capable of detonating two to four truck bombs."

The chief mulled a bit. "Pipelines and truck bombs. Hmmm… "

Casa Linda, 21/9/459 AC

"Don't sweat it, Dan. You and the boys have worked miracles."

Despite the words, Carrera could not keep the disappointment out of his voice. It was true; the staff had worked miracles. They knew the required personnel and equipment strength down to the last item. By dint of sixteen hour days-eighteen hours, some days-they had designed tables of organization and equipment for every required formation. They had devised detailed programs of instruction for officers, senior noncoms, and enlisted men. They had charted out training areas, ranges, and had at least a tentative plan for barracks. They had the sketch of an adequate recruiting organization. Working with Jimenez, Parilla and Fernandez, they had most of the core cadre sketched out as well: mostly good people with only a few politically necessary hacks.

What they could not do was take that cadre of officers and senior noncoms, having only the most limited of combat arms experience, with no background in armored warfare, artillery, combat engineering, chemical warfare, mountain operations, counter-guerilla warfare, complex staff planning, a host of esoteric military skills and attributes, and make them competent overnight.

Apologetically, Kuralski answered, "Three years, Pat… or maybe four at the outside. That we could do ourselves. But not in fifteen months. Not in time for the spring, 461 campaign." Kuralski hesitated, then said, "Pat, outside of a couple of us we don't even speak enough Spanish yet to train them."

"I understand. Not your fault." Carrera sighed. "Go hit the rack, Dan. Maybe something will turn up."

Carrera closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, elbows resting on the kitchen table.

Before leaving, Kuralski turned and said, "Pat, Daugher had a death in his family in Dragonback Pass. He's asked if he can take a couple of weeks' leave. Bowman wanted to go with him, said he'd never been to Dragonback. Any problem?"

Carrera, despondent, said, "Sure. Let them go. No problem."

Satisfied, Kuralski left Carrera alone with his troubles.

Lourdes found him there like that, unmoving, head still in his hands. She padded in on bare feet, silently. At least, if Carrera had heard he gave no sign. She thought, How very sad and tired he looks. Poor man.

She reached a hand to pat him lightly on the back. The hand never touched; when it was a bare inch from him she drew it back. He had never invited her to touch him in any way. She didn't feel right doing so now.

Instead, Lourdes backed off, walked around the wooden table and took a chair opposite her boss.

That, Carrera heard. Though his eyes remained closed he recognized her familiar sounds. He said, "Hello, Lourdes. What's keeping you awake so late?"

"Nothing, really," the girl answered. "I came down for a glass of milk and found you here. What's wrong, Patricio?"

Eyes still shut, chin resting on steepled fingers, he answered, "Everything."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Want? No. Need? Maybe so. I am trying to build a force to avenge my family. You know this. We have made some pretty good strides in that regard, too. But I have three problems… and they appear insurmountable."

Lourdes made an inquisitive sound. Carrera continued.

"First off, no matter what we have planned, the staff informs meand I believe them-that there is no way for us to put a useful force into the war in a timely fashion. 'Three years,' they tell me, 'maybe four.' Then there's Parilla. He thought he could swing the government around to supporting us. He can't. He's pulled every string, called in every favor, and we're still short the votes we need. Lastly, my damned cousin. I could afford to bribe enough politicians if I had control of my Uncle Bob's estate. I do not. Cuz found a lawyer who would… at least I guess he would… support him for an estate fight. So it looks like everything we have done so far is wasted."

Eyes still shut tight Carrera moved his right hand to massage both sides of his nose with index finger and thumb.

"It looks pretty hopeless."

Lourdes chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "I can't think of anything to do about the will or the government, Patricio, but… oh what's that word in English?"

"Try Spanish," Carrera suggested.

"No, no," Lourdes insisted. "I don't think we have a similar word. I'll remember it. I'll… outsourcing?"

Carrera's eyes flew wide. The irises swiveled like twin turrets to focus on the girl. "Say that again."

"Outsourcing. You know, where you hire outside…"

"I know what it means." A trace of excitement crept into his voice, along with some self-contempt. "I have many flaws, Lourdes. One of these is pride. One of the effects of that pride is a tendency not to look outside myself or whatever group I control for help when I need it. Lourdes, go wake Dan, would you? Then call the airport and get me a flight for ummm… where the hell did I read Abogado had settled down to? Ah, I recall. I need a flight for Phoenix Rising, in the Federated States. Hmmm. For the day after tomorrow, I think. Lastly, make me an appointment for tomorrow afternoon with a corporate law firm in Ciudad Balboa."

Lourdes nodded and got up to go.

Carrera held up a hand to stop her. "And Lourdes? Neither I nor all my damned geniuses could come up with that trick. But you did. Thank you."

Unsure as to quite why, Lourdes felt a bounce in her step and happiness in her heart as she left the kitchen.

City Recycling Plant,

Phoenix Rising,

Oglethorpe, FSC, 23/9/459 AC

Some things in human civilization are eternal. Among these is the tedious, tiresome and, above all, odiferous task of waste disposal. Carrera could smell the plant from five miles away. Worse, the speed of the auto was greater than olfactory fatigue could deal with. The stink only grew worse.

Nor had it ended by the time he was invited into the office of Major General (Retired) Kenneth Abogado.

"It was good of you to see me, General, on such short notice," Carrera said, "and especially right after Thanksgiving."

General Abogado merely smiled. (Though perhaps "shit-eating grin" described the smile better.) He smiled first because it pleased him to be remembered as a soldier and as a general officer; not everyone with whom he came in contact had the good manners to do so. He smiled second that an offer had been made to him-better said, suggested to him-that might, just might, help him escape from the constant smell of human shit being recycled. Life had been hard for Abogado since leaving the army-hard, disappointing and degrading.

"My name is Pat Hennessey, though I go by Carrera now. I doubt you remember me, but we've met."

Abogado frowned in concentration. He stared for a moment at Carrera's eyes.

"I remember now," he said. "You're the one who lectured me when you were a lieutenant on the problems with subcaliber ranges; how the other full scale things that visible ruined the training effect.

"And you had the beautiful wife," he announced, remembering a single dance at a single officers' event with the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"Yes. The general has a good memory. As for my wife… 'had' is the word," Carrera said bitterly. "In a way that's why I am here."

Abogado started to open a desk drawer where he kept a pistol. Then he remembered he had never even considered trying to sleep with this man's wife. He closed the drawer and relaxed.

Carrera explained to Abogado, coldly-no tears now, no emotion showing through his armor-what had happened to his family.

"Son, that's a tough break," was all Abogado could say.

"Very tough," Carrera agreed, nodding. "Nor am I going to just take it. But I seem to have hit a wall." In a few sentences he explained what he had done to date in Balboa and what he was trying to do.

"I have several problems, but only one of those can you help me with."

"Help? How?"

"You are familiar with Professional Military Personnel Resources and what they do?"

"I know about them," Abogado spat out bitterly. "They shut me out. Just shut me out. And me the best trainer of infantry in the goddamned army, too."

"I'm not a huge fan of PMPR, either, General. And yes, you were very good," Carrera agreed. "Would you like the chance to train soldiers again?"

Ordinarily Abogado would have played a little hard to get, to sweeten the deal, whatever it was. However, at about that time the wind outside shifted and an overpowering whiff of recycled and recycling human feces assaulted his nose. "Where do I sign?"

"Not so simple," Carrera cautioned. "You haven't even heard what I need."

"Seems obvious. You need someone to train and lead an expeditionary force."

Carrera sighed. He hated to disappoint the old man. A bastard Abogado may have been, but he'd been very kind and patient with up-and-coming lieutenants. Yet… Abogado was old. He might have been quite something in his younger days. Indeed, he had been quite something. But he could never stand that kind of pace again.

Carrera sighed and shook his head again. "No, sir. We have a commander already. And a deputy. And a staff. What I need is a school. You have done that, and done it very well. That's why I am here; to offer to let you do so again."

Abogado kept the disappointment off of his face and out of his voice. Yet, I am not too old, a part of his mind insisted. I am not!

"Details?" he asked resignedly.

"In the big picture," Carrera said, "I am having a lawyer down there form a corporation. It will be called FMTGRB: 'Foreign Military Training Group, Republic of Balboa.' Inc., of course. Or, rather 'S.A.' Means the same thing.

"If you accept my offer, the day-to-day running of this corporation will be yours, within certain guidelines my people in Balboa are working on."

"And this corporation is to do precisely what?"

"Well, I am willing to listen to reason on this but basically I need a group to train officers, warrants and senior noncoms. I need one shortened Command and General Staff College course for about one hundred officers. Then I need that CGSC to morph itself into a general purpose, all-arms advanced course for about another hundred. Then I need it to morph again into a combined Officer Candidate School and Officer Basic Course. After that, this group is to change back into a small CGSC, a small Advanced Course, and a continuing OCS."

"Clear enough. I would need maybe twenty… oh, possibly twenty-four good men for that. I could find them, I'm sure."

Carrera nodded. This was close enough to his own estimate. "Second, I need a Noncommissioned Officers Academy. We will need to take Senior NCOs and bring them into the real military world, take middle and junior NCOs and prep them to be platoon leaders and platoon sergeants-"

Abogado interrupted, "You mean send them to OCS?"

Carrera shook his head in an emphatic no. "They'll need much of the same training, yes, but I intend to follow the Sachsen model in this and keep a very small officer corps, about three percent of strength. Most platoons will be led by NCOs. Anyway, call this Group Two of FMTG; the officer group being Group One.

"Then I need something like FS Army Ranger School-call it, 'Cazador School'-to take the best of new privates and select from them those who have that… oh… certain something that makes for a really good officer or senior NCO.

"The last groups are a little fuzzy right now. My staff is still working on requirements. Basically, though, we'll need a center for training and testing of large battalions or small regiments, a service support training group that will also train specialists and warrant officers, a small naval school, a flight school for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, and you will need a small headquarters yourself."

Abogado whistled. "Tall order."

"Yes. Very. Can you do it?" Carrera asked.

The old general raised one quizzical eyebrow. "Can you fund it?"

"Not yet," Carrera conceded. "Rather, I can fund part of it now, but not all, not just yet. That must await developments."

"You mean, 'Don't quit my day job,' right?" Abogado's voice was heavy with disappointment.

Carrera pondered for a moment. "No. Quit your day job. Get away from the smell of shit and come back to the land of flowers. You, at least, I can support for a term of years."

"Let me make a few calls, first. Is that all right?"

"Surely, General. But, to be fair, I ought to tell you I have appointments over the next two days with Generals Schneider at the Catlett Foundation and Friesland on the other side of Phoenix Rising."

Abogado scowled. "Cancel 'em. I'll take the job. By the way, what does it pay?"

Carrera smiled broadly despite the smell of sewage. "Enough."

First Landing, Hudson, FSC, 23/9/459 AC

"I have had about enough of this place," announced Bowman. Daugher muttered agreement under his breath.

The two had flown to Dragonback. There they'd met some of Daugher's old motorcycle gang and borrowed a car. Then they'd driven to First Landing in an all-nighter.

Daugher and Bowman hated the city, hated the stink, hated the noise. They hated the silly disguises they felt called upon to wearyuppie glasses and false mustaches, a slight amount of stage makeup, and practiced walks. Likewise they hated Hennessey's nasty little cousin for putting in jeopardy their own best hopes for the life they wanted to lead.

(For they still could not think of him as Carrera. For too many years had he been "that motherfucker, Hennessey" for them to change easily.)

They were following Eugene now. He hadn't been hard to find and he was not hard to follow as he walked from his upscale apartment to some unknown destination. Though the streets were dark, there was just about enough light to make out Eugene's dainty mince.

They almost lost Eugene when he turned a street corner. Racing to catch up they saw no sign of him when they had made the same corner. Music blasted from somewhere. The two raced to the next corner. Nothing, no sign.

"Shit!" said Bowman. "Lost the little bastard."

The two turned back, frustration seething within them. After a few minutes' walk, Daugher tapped Bowman on the shoulder before pointing upward to the opposite side of the street.

"The Peeled Banana?" Bowman could hardly believe it. "You think?"

"I think it's worth looking, " said Daugher.

Bowman shrugged, "Maybe so. After you."

With a similar shrug Daugher led the way. The interior was not so bad. Oh yes, it was full of more homosexuals than Daugher had seen since being let out of prison on an overturned conviction for murder. But they seemed not the terribly aggressive type. He began to relax… slightly. Then he saw two men, neither of them Eugene, kissing in a corner and a flood of unpleasant memories returned.

"I hate queers," he whispered, too softly to be heard.

Daugher and Bowman went to an open spot at the bar, one where they could see the-no pun intended-comings and goings of the clientele. There they sat, nursing their drinks and avoiding mixing, for nigh upon two hours.

"Not a sign," observed Daugher. "Might as well hit the road; try again tomorrow."

Bowman nodded agreement, then said he had to visit the men's room. Daugher thought about counseling against that, then decided the joke was too good to spoil.

Thus it was a very surprised Bowman who entered the men's room and saw a kneeling Eugene, servicing what was almost certainly a very new acquaintance. Ignoring his intended victim, Bowman did his business and left. Before he left, however, he had cause to note a window, about head-high, that ventilated the men's room.

"Bastard's in there," he told Daugher when he returned, "blowing somebody. One window, big enough to stuff a body out of. You'll have to be quick."

"Then he's been in there since we arrived," whispered Daugher. "Must be 'ladies night out.' Anyone else inside?"

"Just the blowee."

Daugher did a few quick mental calculations. "Okay, you can't go in there again. That might draw suspicion. I'll…" he stopped speaking as the bartender passed within earshot… "I'll wait until the guy with him comes out, do the job, stuff him out the window and come back. Then we can leave."

Eugene, apparently, either had great talent for the enterprise in which he was engaged or lacked any at all. It was quite some time before the man Bowman had seen with him emerged. By that time another had gone in and stayed. Then another. It was past ten PM before they knew Eugene was alone.

"And… we're off," Daugher whispered, tapping his fingers on the bar.

"Oh, aren't you a big one," Eugene observed as Daugher undid himself to urinate in the trough. "Want me to take care of that for you?"

"Sure, brother," Daugher agreed as he turned around.

The last thing Eugene ever felt was the blow from above that rendered him unconscious. He never felt the hands that gripped shoulder and chin and twisted his neck in a way human necks were not intended to go. He never heard the crack of his own neck breaking. When his wallet was removed from a back pocket- Well, thought Daugher, there needs to be some better motive for the killing- Eugene's body was already beginning to cool. He was thus spared the embarrassment of shit filling his trousers. Likewise he never knew that his bladder had let go. He felt neither the scraping as he was lifted up and pushed out of the small ventilation window nor the noisy impact on the trash cans below that window.

Daugher did up his trousers and left an empty men's room behind him.

"Done?" Bowman asked.

"Very done."

"You realize, right, that if they connect us to the murder the boss is screwed?"

Daugher thought on that. "Yeah… but's what to connect us? By the time I did it, the bartender had changed, so he can't connect the time the queer was in there with the time I went in there." He showed Eugene's wallet. "Motive: money. What connects us to a need for money? Nothing. Did the boss have a reason to want the fucker dead? Yes. Would we have killed him if the boss had asked? Clearly. But we weren't here; as my old motorcycle gang will swear on a stack of bibles, we were in Dragonback Pass. So they've got nothing, even if they suspect the boss."

Bowman considered that as the two walked. After a few contemplative moments he agreed.

First Landing, Hudson, FSC, 27/9/459 AC

Lourdes had passed on the news when Carrera had called in to the Casa Linda from his hotel in Phoenix Rising. He was shocked, at first. Then, secretly, he was pleased. That made him feel terribly guilty. Still, try as he might, he had not been able to shake the pleasure of Eugene's most timely demise. His shame grew with that failure, warring with his joy.

I am a low-down, no good, bastard. I should be ashamed, he thought, and I am. But even so, I am glad the piece of shit is out of the way.

Having flown up for the funeral, Pat had listened patiently to the Jewish branch of the family's rabbi droning on and on about Eugene's many virtues; his love of animals, his support for equal rights, his staunch activism. All true enough, I suppose, provided you add in "eager support to terrorist organizations."

Now, standing in bright winter sunshine at the graveside, with Eugene's heart-broken mother weeping into her third husband's arms… Aunt Sarah was always good to me. Always. Too bad she has to suffer. She deserves better.

Cousin Annie, smelling more than a little of strong drink, leaned against Pat Hennessey for support. His arm helped her stand as she shook with great shuddering sobs. She whispered, over and over, "Poor Eugene. Oh, the terrible things I've said to him."

As the funeral began to break up, Pat half carried Annie to Aunt Sarah's side. The two women fell upon each other with weeping. Pat and Sarah's current husband held back.

Finally, Annie backed off and Pat took Sarah in his arms, cradling her aged head with one hand. "I am sorry," he whispered to her. "For you, I am sorry. I know what it's like."

Excursus

From: Legio del Cid: to Build an Army (reprinted here with permission of the Army War College, Army of the Federated States of Columbia, Slaughter Ravine, Plains, FSC)

If there were any attribute that perhaps could be applied to all Moslems, and especially the more radical Salafis, everywhere, it would have to be their exquisite sense of timing.

True, of course, self-deception was nearly universal-witness their continuing, and apparently groundless, belief that they could somehow defeat the Zion Defense Force and drive the Jews into the sea. Witness, too, the steady frequency with which the Jews drove the Moslems farther into the desert instead. Yet many Moslems knew better. Indeed, it was precisely those who did know better who made some of the most fertile ground for terrorist recruiting and joined the Salafi Ikhwan.

Bombast, too, was something of a cultural characteristic, one closely related to self-deception. And even among the terrorist crew, those who had given up on victory through real strength, bombast was quite unremarkable. Yet, even here, there were exceptions.

But the sense of timing, that inner light that tells one the precisely wrong time to take an action-if not all Moslems enjoyed it, then certainly the culture was pervaded with it, they all received the dubious benefits of it… and in a sense, all had come to expect it.

Has a young Federated States just ended a war with a great maritime power? Obviously this was the best of all possible times to begin piratical attacks on FSC shipping. Was an older and much more powerful Federated States about to show a little more evenhandedness in Zionic-Moslem relations? That was the surest sign possible that a planeload of handicapped orphans on their way to a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Fantasy World was about to be blown from the sky. Has Zion's prime minister announced he is willing to trade a modicum of security for some chance at peace? Pay that man's life insurance premium because as certain as daylight he'll be dead at Salafi hands before the month is over. Is the Federated States about to engage in a great military enterprise to free one Moslem state from another oppressing it? Be certain that both the Moslem adversary and its friends will do everything possible to insure that the timing of their predictable defeat is perfect… for the Federated States. It was as if an entire culture was locked onto one of those decision-making diagrams, one where every block is labeled, "make serious mistake here," and that culture must always, always, always choose the "yes" arrow… and at the worst possible time.

So it happened that in the Republic of Balboa in the fall of 459…

The first sign of the attack came at a pumping station in El Toro, Balboa. An oil tanker was being refilled with crude from the McKinley oil fields when, suddenly, the station ceased pumping oil and began to spurt air. The puzzled pumping crew immediately called the sending point at the small oil port, Puerto Armados, on the northern side and was informed that pressure was down all along the system.

No one was injured directly by the explosion of the pipeline. Several hours later a small family of sharecroppers downhill by several miles drowned-husband, wife, and two small children-in a flood of silently moving McKinley crude.

The next attack, coming only minutes later, was much more noticeable. A parade celebrating the adoption of Balboa's first constitution passed by a step van loaded with several tons of ammonium nitrate based fertilizer, soaked with fuel, and containing also a number of propane tanks. The thin, sheet-metal walls of the van had been reinforced with thick glass originally intended for one of Ciudad Balboa's newest high rises. As it happened the nearest object to the van was a float carrying a bevy of young high school girls. When the bomb detonated, the glass shattered into shards and flew outward. Without warning the little flock of dark-eyed Balboan beauties was turned into a red paste obscenity in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of bystanders were killed or injured.

Within seconds, another explosion rocked the city, this one in the busy shopping district of Via Hispanica. Windows to small shops and exclusive boutiques were driven inward to tear and rend shoppers and store clerks alike. Several dozen people, those in the immediate vicinity of the blast, simply ceased to exist, blown to atoms. Among these were some numbers of children as well.

Unlike the first two, the third and fourth attacks in the city were suicide bombs. The third detonated at the very peak of the stately Bridge of the Columbias. Twenty-one cars were blown completely off of the bridge on both sides. Some dozens more were destroyed or damaged depending on both distance from the blast and luck. The pavement was blasted entirely through at the spot where the bomb detonated. The enormous steel arches holding up the bridge, however, withstood the blast fairly well.

The last bomb was crashed into the presidential palace, a lightly guarded mansion. It being a national holiday, the president was at home.

Her body was never found.