The Lotus Eaters

Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova

Nine policemen sufficed to take down the President. It was thought, not without reason, that Carrera would make a harder target. More than twice as many men, and three vans, plus the only other helicopter still under Rocaberti's control, were assigned to his capture and evacuation.

Of course, the casa was considerably less hard a target that it once had been, what with Hamilcar's Pashtun Guards gone, and security the responsibility of rotating sections from the Mechanized Legion at Lago Sombrero. Moreover, most of the original staff had moved out and moved on as they'd found wives or better housing elsewhere. Perhaps worst of all, with Sergeant Major McNamara living elsewhere with his young bride and growing brood of children, there was no one single person charged with security and paranoid enough to see it done properly.

Though McNamara and Artemisia were still very frequent guests at the place.

* * *

The children, Lourdes' and Artemisia's, both, were playing upstairs, minus only Lourdes' youngest, Little Linda, who was not only too young to really be willfully difficult but also on the "Lourdes Diet," and would be for some time yet. The others had been impossible at dinner—they always were when they got together—and had been sent away early. In theory, this meant they hadn't eaten much. In practice, it meant the cook smuggled dinner in to them.

Mac leaned back in his chair, stretched, and belched. "Damned fine feed, Miss Lourdes. My compliments to t'e chef." As if to punctuate that, the sergeant major broke of a piece of chorley bread, dipped it in some "Joan of Arc" sauce, and popped it into his mouth, chewing gustily. "Could use a little more 'Satan Triumphant,' though," Mac said. "Just a tad, not enough to take the skin off the tongue."

Artemisia shot him a dirty look, not over the belch, but over the sheer volume of food he'd managed to tuck away. "It just isn't right. I have to diet, exercise, and practically kill myself after I have a baby, and this tall bastard can eat enough for ten men and stay slim. It's not fair."

"High metabolism," the sergeant major answered, in Spanish. "And you must admit, love, that this has its advantages in an old man."

"Some advantage," Arti agreed, "though I end up paying the price for that in the form of a distended abdomen, and eventual rigid dieting."

"Good wit' t'e bad; good wit' t'e bad. It's pretty good, still, ain't it?"

"As a matter of fact . . ."

Lourdes sighed. "If you two are going back to teenage games, I've had a metal plate installed between the headboard and the wall in the number one guest room, so you can pound away. Alternatively, we can move a mattress down to the concrete floor in the basement, though I shudder to think of the damage to the foundations of the house."

"I'm getting a little old for t'at, high metabolism or no," Mac said.

"Not so old," Arti corrected. "Not yet, anyway."

* * *

"Time," announced Moises Rocaberti, nephew to the soon to be full president and younger brother to that Rocaberti who had been shot for cowardice years before, in Sumer.

Moises was, his uncle thought, a happy choice. He was, indeed all the Rocabertis were, effectively barred from higher office in the Legion by Carrera. Given that, and given a military bent, the younger Rocaberti had joined his uncle's police force. He was bright, handsome, ruthless, loyal to his blood, and had—best of all—an abiding hatred of Carrera and Parilla, which hatred had festered in the long years since his older brother's execution.

"What are you going to do after we take down the prick?" his driver asked of Moises as he started the first of three vans parked in the nearby town of Bejuco, Balboa.

"Fuck his wife in all three holes and then turn her over to you bastards."

"Works for me. Especially if the rest of us get to fuck the former Miss Balboa." He started the car.

"Nah. She's off limits, Mrs. Artemisia Calderon-Jimenez de McNamara. Too many people care about her. And neither she nor her husband have ever harmed anybody. But Carrera's tall, skinny whore? She's getting stuffed. To punish her bastard gringo husband. Those were my uncle's orders."

* * *

Though it really wasn't needed, indeed it was wasteful competition with the air conditioning, there was a fire blazing in the fireplace. The light from that reflected of the living room's mirrors, and then again from the ancient sword hung over the mantle.

"So this fucker," Carrera told Lourdes and Arti, pointing at McNamara with the glass of scotch in his hand, "jumps in the back of one of my squad's tracks and proceeds to spend the day with them. Observing. Teaching. The next day it was different squad, and then a different squad after that. For nine days."

He sighed. "If every sergeant major in the Federated States Army was like that, they'd be unbeatable."

McNamara, embarrassed, sipped at his own drink, then said, "It ain't t'e sergeant majors t'at won't do it. It's t'e system t'at keeps t'em chained to a desk. T'at, and t'e spare parts t'eory of personnel management."

"You didn't let the system chain you," Carrera said.

"I was so freakin' senior, t'ey couldn't make me do anyt'ing. Hell, t'ey tried to make me division sergeant major and I told 'em to stuff it. Hard to control someone who got no ambition for anything t'ey can give."

Outside, Jinfeng the trixie gave off a loud warning screech.

"Even so . . . what the fuck was that?"

* * *

"Now!" Moises Rocaberti ordered, lowering his submachine gun and firing a burst into the bird whose screeching head stuck up above one of the bushes flanking the main entrance. Immediately four of his men, standing under windows, propelled two more through those windows and into the house. The distant sound of crashing glass told of similar maneuvers around the back. Two men standing by Moises pulled back the door knocker—a welded steel battering ram—and slammed it into the door, once—cachang—twice—cachang—thrice . . . and the door burst open.

By twos a mass of men flooded through the door, each careful to avoid the cooling bodies of guards silently slain when the attackers had first left the first van. This mass split off, some turning into the living room, some ascending the steps, and some racing for the back part of the house.

Resistance was over before it could be said to have begun.

* * *

Lourdes screamed.

"Shut up, whore!" Moises ordered, his gaze lingering for a moment on Lourdes' milk-swollen breasts. "Patricio Carrera, aka, Patrick Hennessey, you are under arrest for . . . hmmm . . . do we have the evidence?"

"Outside in the van," one of the policemen reported. "I didn't see the point of bothering to bring it into the house."

"Very good. You are under arrest for war crimes, crimes against humanity, election fraud, and narcotrafficking. All over the country forces are moving to get rid of your people. You're finished."

"Piece of shit!" Carrera twisted in the arms of the men cuffing him and received a cuff in turn for his troubles. To two other of his men the younger Rocaberti said, "Escort the puta upstairs. Make sure her kids are accounted for." He pointed at Artemisia and said, "And take this one to a different room."

"Fuck you, you bastard," Arti sneered. Moises slapped her to the floor. That was too much for McNamara. He'd been standing with his hands up, in front of the fireplace. He turned immediately and grabbed the old sword Lourdes had purchased for Carrera. Before he could well turn around, one of the police fired a burst into his midsection, tossing him forward and into the fireplace.

Lourdes pulled away from the hands gripping her and ran to pull Mac away from the fire, kneeling on the floor and keening besides him.

"Never mind, Lourdes," Mac said, weakly. "This is a better end than any I'd hoped for."

What can I DO? Her eyes pleaded.

Whatever you must, his own answered back. Anything. Then McNamara closed his eyes. He could feel the life pouring out of him. "Take care of Arti for me, Miss Lourdes," he said, at the end.

"Get this twat upstairs," Moises repeated. "And carry the new widow off, too." To Lourdes he added, "Get into something more comfortable and easier to get out of."