The Lotus Eaters

Highway InterColombiana, Nata, Balboa, Terra Nova

Randy Whitley replaced the hotel room phone on the receiver. He then stood, picked up a small satchel that had been resting on the bed, and went to collect his people.

Had he but known it, Mr. Keith had a former comrade on the other side. He probably would not have been surprised. The drug lords had recruited a number of foreign-born mercenaries, or, as they preferred to think of themselves, "contract professionals." Like most mercenaries in the modern age, these were veterans of various nation's special operations units. Generally speaking, such men were attracted by the money available from contract work, that and the excitement.

For a dozen times more than he had ever made as a Sea Lion or a Legionnaire with the Gallic armed forces, former Petty Officer 2nd Class Whitley had attempted to train a group of former thugs to something roughly analogous to Sea Lion tactical standards. Neither tactics nor training, however, were actually Sea Lion strong suits. Whitley, himself, was a walking advertisement for what really were Sea Lion strong suits. He had muscles on his muscles, arms the size of legs and legs the size of trees.

Five of the men he had trained, plus Whitley himself, had waited in and around this sleepy town bisected by the Pan-American Highway for over a week. Two, including Whitley, now sat in a rented automobile. Two others pretended to pray in the small Nata Catholic church; the same church, so said a bronze plaque on the white painted wall, where Belisario Carrera had once prayed for victory in his war with Old Earth.

To the man with him in the car Whitley said, "Go across the street to the telephone booth. Pretend to make a call."

The Santandern nodded and left, crossing the street nervously, carrying his weapon in a small black satchel. He'd free the firearm once he was in the telephone booth.

The remaining two men crouched by the road to either side of the town, east and west, to warn Whitely of Carrera's approach.

* * *

Trees whizzed by as the big Phaeton 560 ESL tore up the highway, east toward Ciudad Cervantes. Carrera sat up in the front of the big auto, rolling his hands together, chewing his lip, and fuming. The news had come from his brother in law, David Carrera, via cell phone just as the Phaeton crossed over the Bridge of the Colombias. One of the dead had turned out to be a cousin of his late wife. A nice girl, he remembered. Bastards! He was in a killing rage.

There were two guards in back. Mitchell drove. He'd seen his chief in this kind of mood before. No sense in chatting to distract him, Mitchell thought, not when he's like this.

Both men, driver and passenger, glanced to the side frequently and regularly. Likewise did the guards. Even so, their attention tended to stay on the road to their front and the buildings and trees to either side. Thus, they missed the man who watched them pass, stepped out, and said something into a radio.

* * *

Randy Whitley, former Federated States Navy Sea Lion, Gallic Legionnaire, and current private contractor, said, "Roger," into the small radio and tucked it back into a shirt pocket. Whitley than returned his right hand to the pistol grip of the RGL, Rocket Grenade Launcher, he carried and whistled at the Santandern across the street, who pretended to be talking into the telephone of a booth. Another whistle alerted two similarly armed, olive skinned, assassins at the front of the church.

Whitley sighed. Damned shitty work for someone who set out to do good in the world. But a man's got to eat and, ever since the drawdown under the progressives, contract work's been the only way to do that.

Sure wish I'd had more time to work with these assholes. Nobody understands; it ain't all just knowing how to shoot.

* * *

Farther on by half a kilometer a lone man stepped out of a telephone booth and into the road. He raised a weapon. Mitchell saw it before Carrera did.

"Oh, fuck!" Mitchell said. He reached an arm over and pushed Carrera down onto the seat. Then, ducking low himself and screaming something mindless, he aimed the car at the gunman and floored the gas.

* * *

You fucking idiot, Whitley cursed to himself as one of his men—the one in the phone booth—stepped into the roadway and raised his PM-6 to a hip firing position.

Buy 'em books, send 'em to school, and what do they show for it? Nothin'.

The submachine gun was silenced. Whitley saw rather than heard the muzzle rise and flash as a stream of bullets tore out of it toward the Phaeton. Many of the bullets impacted on the radiator. Others smashed the windshield. At the last split second the gunman jumped out of the way. The car clipped his leg at about mid thigh, snapping it, and threw him, spinning while screaming, some distance away.

* * *

The Phaeton careened out of control and smashed into a telephone pole. Carrera was thrown forward into the dash. He gasped aloud—"ahhh, Gggoddd!"—at an awful pain he felt in his right shoulder. Briefly stunned, he shook his head to clear it. That hurt, too. Pain or not, he then reached under the seat and pulled out one of the weapons kept there, a Pound submachine gun, along with several magazines. Shouting something to Mitchell and the guards, Carrera opened the door and rolled out, then crawled to a position in front of the caved in grill and next to the telephone pole.

Whitley aimed his RGL at the car and let fly. The backblast smashed shop and home windows behind him. The rocket impacted on the rear passenger door, killing the two guards and causing the rear of the Phaeton to explode in flames. Whitley dropped the rocket launcher, drew a pistol, and walked forward to finish the job. Two men by the church, who hadn't so far done anything to help Whitley's ambush, ran up the street to join him. The original gunman lay screaming in the road. The two lookout men had their own transportation. They were only to fire if Carrera's vehicle had made it through the main ambush and tried to exit town. Since it hadn't, they followed their instructions and rode off separately.

"Keep both sides of the street covered," Whitley ordered. The two unused gunman complied.

Carrera heard the order and thought, I'm so dead.

* * *

Private Hector Pitti, 6th Mechanized Tercio, was new to the Legion, and only a militiaman to boot. His rank was as low as it got without being an outright recruit. Still, he was proud of his military status, proud enough that his F-26 rifle hung over his lorica in a place of honor in his living-cum-dining room cum kitchen. A full magazine sat on a narrow shelf right underneath the firearm.

Pitti heard no shots. Moreover, the sound of a crashing auto was nothing remarkable anywhere along the InterColombiana. But when the rocket grenade launcher fired, and its backblast shattered the windows over the kitchen sink, Pitti thought that it was about time to take his rifle from the pegs that held it. There was no time to don his body armor, the lorica.

With hands still shaking from the blast, he did so. He held the rifle in one hand while the other fumbled with the protective tape that sealed the ammunition in the magazine. That wasn't working too well until Pitti swung the magazine under one armpit to hold it. Cursing, he fumbled with the tape until thumb and forefinger managed to grasp it. A quick pull and the tape came off of the mouth of the magazine. He dropped the tape, then lifted his arm, releasing the magazine and catching it with his hand. Slamming it into the F-26's magazine well, he was already jacking the bolt as his feet carried him to the shattered window.

* * *

Carrera would probably have been dead, too, had not one of the reservists of the town—Got to get that man's name!—stuck his issue rifle out of his front window to fire at Whitley. It was a hurried shot. The militiaman missed.

Still, shocked at the unexpected fire and the bullets cracking the air nearby, the former Sea Lion dove to his belly. "Motherfucker! Where did that come from?" Whitley slithered around on the gravel as he scanned for the source of the fire.

That distraction was all Carrera needed. Rolling over from his covered position next to the car, Carrera winced as his right shoulder temporarily took the weight of his torso. He fired two short bursts at Whitley, the bolt chattering and the bullets making little sonic booms, lower in pitch than those from the F-26. One or—more likely, given Whitley's size—several of the Pound's bullets connected; Whitley spun and then fell to his rear end, torso still upright. He made no sound beyond a surprised 'oomph.' The assassin seemed confused when he looked down at his red stained, ruined midsection.

Rising to a crouch and aiming over the Phaeton's hood, using it to support his aim, Carrera turned on the other two. These were just now rising from where they'd taken cover at the unexpected shots. Surprised anyone was left from the Phaeton after the RGL had struck it, they fired from the hip. Carrera, conversely, took the time to aim. His metal-shrouded pin sight lined up on the upper torso of one of the gunmen. He stroked the trigger, lightly, and was rewarded by the image of the gunman's chest rippling under the impact. A late round, driven high by muzzle climb, hit the assassin's head, exploding it like an overripe melon.

Good thing the Pound is low recoil, Carrera thought absently, as his sight traversed to the last remaining assassin. Otherwise, I wouldn't hit shit. Ouch.

The bullets from the still spraying, and last standing, assassin struck the hood of the Phaeton, as well as the tires. Air rushed even as metal gave way and chips of paint flew.

Again Carrera's finger stroked the trigger, then twice again in rapid succession. The last assassin fell with satisfying screams of pain.

Carrera rose to a crouch and duckwalked forward, stopping once to change magazines. He donated another burst each to the two olive skinned gunmen, then turned back to the white one.

Still looking dazed and confused, the ex-Seal Lion tried to focus his eyes on the uniformed man in front of him.

"It was just business," Randy Whitley said, in English, as if that explained everything.

"So is this," Carrera answered, placing the smoking muzzle against Whitley's forehead. He squeezed the trigger again, causing the contract professional's head to disintegrate in a spray of blood and bits of brain and skull.

The militiaman who had spontaneously fired in Carrera's support ran out with his rifle at port arms. That he looked like a soldier, despite his workingman's clothes, was all that kept Carrera from firing on him as well.

"Señor, you are bleeding," the militiaman said.

Carrera ignored that. Pointing to the broken legged gunman laying on the ground, he said, "Guard him, soldier!" Then Carrera ran to the driver's side of the Phaeton to see to Mitchell and his guards. It was not pretty. Flames licked around the guards' bodies, as hair and uniform material added their stench to the smell of cooking pork.

Carrera's heart sank as his bile rose. "Oh, hell. Ah, shit, Mitch! What am I going to tell your wife and kids?" Carrera looked only once to be sure. Mitchell was dead, the back of his head missing where a bullet had forced his brain out of it. He put a hand on Mitchell's blood stained shirt and began quietly to cry, even as he pulled his friend's corpse away from the fire. The people who had begun to gather now that the shooting was over looked wonderingly at the soldier who stood leaning against the car, head hung in sorrow.

He stood that way, weeping, for only a few minutes before hurt changed to a cold, inhuman fury. Carrera turned around and walked to the broken legged gunman. By the sub-machine gun lying several meters away, Carrera knew that the militiaman had searched and disarmed the gunman. He told the militiaman "Get me an iron bar or a big stick."

"Si, Señor, I have a crowbar in my house."

"Perfect."

When the militiaman returned with the crowbar, Carrera turned over his Pound SMG, took the crowbar and slapped his left palm several times. He ignored the pain emanating from his injured shoulder. Some pains can overwhelm others. He said to the gunman, "You killed my friend."

Two swings and the Santandern's knees shattered. Carrera then bent down and, putting the crowbar on the ground, grabbed each leg in turn and twisted it. The gunman arched his back and shrieked. When he tried to bend over to reach his crushed knees, Carrera let him. Then he picked up the crowbar and broke each forearm. Several distinct blows so destroyed the Santandern's arms that his hands flopped uselessly in the breeze. The Santandern fainted. Carrera sent the militiaman for smelling salts.

While he waited, Carrera lit a cigarette. Two police in a squad car arrived on the scene, followed by an ambulance. The policemen took a fire extinguisher to smother the flames, while one of them hauled out the bodies of the two guards in the back seat. When the ambulance crew went for the Santandern lying motionless on the road, Carrera waived them away. "See what you can do for my men," he said, even though he knew there was nothing that could be done.

The stretcher bearers looked at Carrera's uniform and insignia of rank. They left the Santandern where he lay.

The smelling salts not arriving quickly, Carrera borrowed two ampoules from the ambulance. These he crushed and held under the Santandern's nose. The gunman choked and sputtered, then began to moan. The militiaman returned without the salts.

With a kindly voice, Carrera told the militiaman, "Thank you. It's all right. I don't need them anymore. And thank you, too, for saving my life. That was quick thinking, Private . . . ?"

"Pitti, Señor. Private Hector. 6th Mechanized Infantry Tercio."

"Again, thank you, Corporal Pitti," Carrera said. Pitti's eyes widened.

Once the Santandern was again wide awake and shrieking, Carrera placed himself on the man's left side and methodically broke all of right side ribs, moving each blow up a bit higher than the one before. Some took more than one blow before he felt the rib give way. Then Carrera walked around to the gunman's right side. The militiaman and the police winced with each blow, but could not leave until dismissed. As a practical matter, given who and what Carrera was in Balboa, they couldn't object either. Most of the eyewitnesses left when the first of the gunman's bones was driven through his skin, blood spurting across the asphalt, and he began to scream like a young girl. Once, when the Santandern almost stopped reacting to the pain, Carrera took the crowbar by the hooked end, jammed the other end into the assassin's abdomen, dug around, twisted twice, and pulled. At the sight of the greasy-looking, bluish intestine, the older of the two policemen promptly threw up next to the yellow painted squad car. The Santandern screamed anew, then turned his head to one side and vomited as well. Flies began to settle on the loop of intestine almost as soon as it appeared.

It took the Santandern almost thirty agonized minutes to die. When Carrera finally grew tired, and became aware once more of the pain in his shoulder, he stood over the Santandern, took a last look as Mitchell, still laying beside the smoldering Phaeton, and brought his crowbar down, again and again, until the man's head was a shapeless lump, brains leaking out onto the roadway for the ants.

When the beating was done, Carrera walked over to Whitley's body and pulled out his own penis to urinate on the corpse.

That done, he reclothed himself and turned to the policemen. "See if there's any ID on the Gringo-looking one. Photograph his corpse and print him. Get a blood sample. Then feed them all to the dogs!" he ordered, in a voice that permitted no questioning. Turning, he asked of the ambulance crew, "Could you do something about my shoulder? I think it's broken."

* * *

Crouching under a table at a small roadside café about a hundred and fifty meters down the road, Endara witnessed the entire incident, including the beating. He left the scene before he could be questioned by the police. Thereafter, telling his uncle, the rump president, that he was seriously underestimating the nature of the opposition, Endara began to make arrangements to leave Balboa for healthier climes. When he arrived in Santa Josefina, a week later, he claimed to be a political refugee.

Raul Parilla never found out why his receptionist left for parts unknown following the attempt on Carrera's life. However, she and Endara were often seen together in the nightclubs and restaurants of the capital of Santa Josefina.

Mitchell was buried with honors in a small part of the Casa Linda grounds Carrera set aside as a cemetery. His wife, Chica, great with child, and Lourdes held each other and wept while the priest went through the ceremony. Carrera just stood with one of his hands clenched behind his back in pain and fury. The other arm was immobilized by the cast that held the shoulder. The Sergeant Major and the rest of Carrera's personal staff made up the pallbearer detail and firing squad.

Within three days of Mitchell's murder a diplomatic pouch containing weapons and munitions, along with some fifteen new Embassy personnel, arrived in the Balboan Embassy in Santander. Within a few days of that, three Balboans of the 14th Tercio (Operaciones Especiales) were dead, as were eleven bodyguards of various Cartel members in Belalcázar.

No drug lords were killed, unfortunately. However, all took to their most suburban palaces for protection. The remaining nine unwounded 14th Tercio men began gathering intelligence on those same palaces. They also, with the replacements for the wounded and dead, undertook some more sanguine operations.

As the drug war spread to Santander, it waned somewhat in Balboa. Although Carrera's marksmanship and rage had made certain that no useful intelligence would be forthcoming from those who had tried to kill him, there were still the two bombers captured by Alvarez.

Cut off from support by Endara's desertion, the remaining six Santanderns hid out in a pensión in Balboa City. There they might have remained in safety had not one of them used the word chumbo to indicate his male appendage to a visiting whore, along with instructions as to what he wanted her to do with it. In Balboan slang chumbo meant a black man. In Santander it meant penis.

Looking for the substantial reward offered for information leading to the capture of the bombers and assassins, the de la Plata-born hooker had recognized the word as one used by the more numerous Santandern hookers in Balboa. She had gone straight to the police after collecting her earnings. In the ensuing firefight, four policemen were hit, three mortally, and all but one of the Santanderns shot to death. That one, after being delivered to Fernandez, had cause to regret not being killed.