A Desert Called Peace

by Tom Kratman

  Carrera lowered his chin slightly, his eyes boring into Sitnikov as if the latter were a very dull schoolboy.

  "Yes," Sitnikov admitted. "Well . . . I suppose so."

  Carrera nodded and continued, "The next project is to plan to set up a major unit training center at Fort Cameron, something capable of training and testing units up to regimental size. We're going to cut you orders and get you a visa to visit the Federated States. I will also get the local FS attaché to get you permission to visit their combat training centers in the states of Arcadia and Sequoia. I'll give you more guidance on this later. For now, just go and see how the FS Army does it. And be skeptical."

  Carrera paused while Sitnikov wrote this down. He began to walk from one side of the porch to the other.

  "Lastly, I want—and in some ways this will be the most delicate work of all—I want a plan for organizing six junior military academies in six locations I will give you later. I will get you a professor from the University of Balboa to help with the academic requirements. The purpose of these schools will be to provide the preliminary training for recruits to the legions—yes I said, 'legions'— as and when we can expand. I also want—and this is critical—for these schools to be able to defend themselves at need and attack within fifty kilometers or so of their positions. They must be able to exit the academies and move to attack positions without being detected.

  "Aleksandr . . . whatever I said to those who decided against citizenship . . . I want you to arrange things so no one can put together a picture of what we're doing from the bits and pieces those men will work on. Not if the KVD and OSI each had a thousand years to question every one of those men."

  "That will not be easy, sir. I will have to do everything but the most mundane things myself."

  "So? Lourdes will be remaining here. She can be of great assistance to you. She's a very impressive woman, actually. Now, what are your questions?"

  As if on cue, Lourdes—smiling rather happily now—stuck her head out the folding glass door to the rear porch and announced, "Patricio, I've got Senator Rodman on the phone as you requested."

  "Excuse me for a moment, would you, Aleksandr?" Carrera asked as he stood to go to his office.

  "Patrick, dear boy, how can I help you today?" Harriet Rodman asked brightly.

  Carrera went right to it. "I need an appointment, two hours or so, with Ron Campos, SecWar."

  "That asshole? Whatever for? And why come to me?"

  "I came to you because you can do it and because you are an honest politician." They both knew what Carrera meant by that. Once bought you stay bought. And I'm keeping up the mortgage my uncle and grandfather placed on you and your antecedents.

  He continued, "As for why him; I need his help with something. Actually, Harriet, come to think of it I really should bring you into it. You, after all, are concerned with loss of Federated States citizens' and soldiers' lives. You are pretty tight with a defense drachma. Yes . . . tell you what; I'll come up a day early and brief you. At dinner, say? Perhaps at the Army and Navy Club."

  "No," Rodman answered. "Too public for both our purposes. Dinner at my place, okay? Use the back door. If we're conspiring, Patrick, let's conspire."

  Hamilton, FD, 32/6/460 AC

  "You've been doing what?" Rodman asked incredulously.

  "Not 'been doing,' Harriet. Done. I have a large brigade, el Legio del Cid, a nongovernmental organization set up under the sponsorship of the government of the Republic of Balboa, organized, equipped and, almost, trained to fight."

  "You aren't serious," she insisted. "You think these people can actually fight? Come on."

  Carrera resisted, almost successfully, the outrage that he naturally felt at anyone casting even the slightest aspersion on a unit he— practically speaking—commanded.

  Harriet knew she had overstepped her bounds when Carrera's fingers began drumming the table rhythmically. His uncle used to do that when he was really annoyed, she thought.

  "For your information, Senator," Carrera said in an icy voice, "The legion is fully equipped. It is not equipped up to FS standards but it is still very well equipped. The core of the leadership cadres have experience of combat; many of them have much experience of combat. Moreover the bulk of the legion's leaders have been brought up to speed for modern, combined arms warfare. The younger ones have as well. The troops . . ." and the iciness left his voice as he began to describe his men.

  "Ah . . . they're just great. The minimum IQ is 110. There is no army in the world that can boast that. The average is above 115 . . . closer to 120. In a place like Balboa, with fifty percent unemployment among young men, we could pick and choose, you see. There were about a hundred and eighty thousand unemployed young men. We only needed four thousand for now. They have been through courses of individual qualification as thorough and as rough as any in the world. They are almost frighteningly fit and healthy. They have been trained, the troops and leadership both, by some of the most combat experienced and capable trainers in the world. All they need is an extensive period of unit training, more for the commanders and staff than for the men. And that period is beginning even as we speak.

  "So yes, Senator, they'll be able to fight . . . by the end of the year. They can be deployed in al Jahara before the campaign begins."

  Rodman shrugged. "All right. Suppose I buy that this legion of yours can or at least will be able to fight? What do you want with Campos?"

  "I want him to hire us."

  The War Department gave Carrera the willies. He had always hated the place, from his first guided tour as an officer cadet to the last time he had set foot in it to tender his resignation. Everything about the comlex irked him, from the bloated staffs to the arrogant civilians to the military retirees who had sold their souls to defense contractors and made the place dangerous to walk with the slime trails they left behind them.

  He loathed the décor. He loathed the special corridors set aside to pander to allies, most of whom had transformed themselves into albatrosses. He loathed the coffee shops and the pizza stands, the fast food malls and the shopping mall.

  It was to him everything a military ought not be; an oversized, overstuffed monument to corporate bureaucracy.

  "Secretary Campos will see you now, Mr. Hennessey."

  As Pat stood to walk into the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, he thought, Hennessey . . . Carrera . . . shitbird and motherfucker. I have so many names now.

  Campos was polite, at least. He stood, walked around his desk and offered his hand in welcome to the man he thought of as Patrick Hennessey, and more importantly thought of as the heir to the Chatham, Hennessey, and Schmied empire.

  Hennessey took it while, at the same time, taking the measure of Campos. Tall man. Old but not worn. Good bearing and good health. I wish he didn't have the face of a technocrat.

  Campos began the chat. "Mr. Hennessey, how can I help you? Senator Rodman thought it imperative that we speak and, since she is on the Defense Appropriation Committee, I thought it wise to listen."

  "Mr. Secretary, it's more a question of how we can help each other," Hennessey replied, in what had to be the oldest intro to a confidence game ever played. Campos took it as such but, in his line of work, expected no less.

  "Please call me Ron."

  "Pat, then . . . Ron. Look, I know that sounded like bullshit. But it's the truth. I have something you need. You have something I need."

  "And those would be?" Campos enquired, innocently.

  "I have an ally for you. I have an infantry brigade to assist you. I have people who will bleed and die so that fewer kids from the Federated States need to. I have people who will do so for less, much less, than it would cost you to have your own do it.

  "But I need money, a lot of money, though less money than you would need for you own forces."

  "Oh, really." Campos sounded, at best, skeptical.

  "Yes, really. Shall I tell you?"

  Campos consulted the watch on his wrist. Oh,
what the hell? I cleared my slate for two hours at that twat, Harriet's, insistence. I can at least hear the man out.

  "All right," he said. "You have my undivided attention for the next thirty minutes. If you can engage my genuine interest in that time you can have more."

  "Fair enough," Hennessey answered. Then he began to explain what he had on offer, and a portion of why he had it. Thirty minutes stretched to an hour, to an hour and a half, to two hours, to . . . "Mildred, clear my calendar for this afternoon. I'll be busy until this evening."

  That led to, "And how much is this going to cost me?"

  Hennessey inhaled deeply, then sighed. "As I said, a lot. But less than it might.

  "We believe, my people and I, that the cost for you to use one brigade in full up combat for one month is approximately twelve billion drachma. To have that brigade in action over a longer term requires you to maintain a full division. That costs an additional four hundred million per month, base. That, you'll agree, is chickenfeed compared to the cost for actual combat."

  "Whenever someone talks about that kind of money," Campos corrected, "it's never chickenfeed."

  "All right," Hennessey conceded, smiling. "It's not chickenfeed. That also means that it wouldn't be chickenfeed if you could save that much, doesn't it."

  Quick bastard, isn't he? Campos mused.

  "Further," Carrera said, "I will deploy my legion to al Jahara in time for the upcoming campaign. I will participate in that campaign. I will undertake any mission you or your commander in the field should care to assign us that does not involve going up against masses of heavy armor or which requires that we operate more than one hundred miles from a logistics base. We're not equipped for that and frankly you don't need us for that; you need us for clearing fortifications and built-up areas. I will do so for sixty percent of the cost to you, per month, of using FS troops. That is to say, it will cost you seven point two billion FSD per month of active operations. Neither my staff nor, might I add, yours expects active operations to last past six weeks. Later on, if there needs to be a pacification and stabilization phase, we can also be hired. I estimate the cost to you of that to be on the order of six billion, per year, for our one brigade . . . or legion, as we call it. Since that saves you billions, you'll agree that you will not be saving 'chickenfeed,' yes?"

  Campos sighed. The leathery face grew a tad weary. "And there you had me going for a while. We can't afford that. I'd have to hide it and frankly I couldn't hide that much."

  "You can't afford not to . . . Ron. And you can hide enough of it."

  Campos pointed out, "We've already been helping you, you know. Harriet saw to that. Can't you come down on the price a little?"

  Hennessey smiled, thinking, We've already established what you are, young lady. Now we are merely negotiating your price.

  The next morning Campos sent for an officer stationed there in the War Department who knew Patrick Hennessey from long years' service together.

  "Is this guy Hennessey on the level, Virg?"

  The officer addressed, one Colonel Virgil Rivers, shrugged, sighed, looked up and finally answered, "Pat Hennessey? Well, Mr. Secretary, the first thing you have to understand about Pat is . . . well . . . he's insane. I don't mean a little odd; I mean clinically insane. Great guy, actually, but nuttier than a fruitcake."

  "You mean this was all bullshit from a lunatic, this 'legion' he claims to have?"

  Rivers laughed, white teeth shining in a café au lait face. "Oh, no, Mr. Secretary. If he says something is so, bet your last drachma that it is so. He's not crazy that way. He sees reality perfectly well and is annoyingly honest and irritatingly precise to boot. But he interprets it differently. It means something different than it does to the rest of us." Rivers' face grew contemplative for a moment. "That; or the rest of us are just idiots. I've sometimes wondered about that."

  Campos, who was quite certain that he was the most intelligent man who ever lived, bridled a bit at the thought that anyone could see him as an idiot. "So how is he insane?" he asked.

  "He's uncontrollable," Rivers answered without hesitation. "By that I mean there is nothing, nothing, you can do to him to deter him from something he decides is right and proper to do. Worse, his version of right and wrong come straight out of ancient history. I've never been entirely sure if it's a case of the civilized man holding the barbarian in check or if the barbarian puts the civilized man out as a cover and controls even that from behind the scenes. Of course, it could be a case of symbiosis, too.

  "I have also heard him say to his own commander, and this is exactly what he said, 'You fat-fucking-pig-eyed toad, you incarnate insult to the military profession, you can't make me do anything. You just don't have the balls for it.' I treasured that, actually. And Pat pegged the piece of shit pretty well, too." Rivers tsked. "It was a shame about the relief for cause."

  "Insubordinate then, is he?"

  Rivers shook his head, more or less ruefully. "Oh, Mr. Secretary, you have no idea. Pat Hennessey hasn't the tiniest inkling of a clue about subordination. Mind you, he'll take any mission you give him and perform it superbly, even artistically. Any mission. But he will never let anyone else have a say in how he goes about performing it. He'll tell you to your face that it's none of your business. And he doesn't care what your rank is.

  "By the way, if I can ask, Mr. Secretary, just what is the deal he's offering?"

  "A large brigade, roughly equivalent to four Army or two and a half Marine battalions, for five point three billion drachma a month for a mid-intensity campaign and five point five to six billion a year for counterinsurgency. For that price we have to provide all medical support to include long-term care and medical evacuation, to the same standards we provide our own. We also must provide a suitable log base at no greater distance from the front than his own transportation assets can support, about one hundred miles. And we can deduct the cost of air and artillery support he asks for—munitions only, not wear and tear—from the base figure. Fucker bargains hard."

  Rivers whistled but not for the expected reason. "That is a bargain, you know, sir. I've been intimately involved with the figures and it could represent a savings of about seven and a half to eight billion for either the active campaign or for a year of pacification if we need that, or both, not even counting the number of our own killed and wounded we'd save."

  "Yeah, Virg, I know. But how do I hide that much money?"

  Rivers, who had a sneaky creative streak, answered, "Generally speaking, funnel some of it through his government in the form of foreign aid. Some can be purely black. And some can be paid up front . . . say, on a cost-plus basis."

  "Yeah . . . maybe. Tell me, Virg, if you were in command of the operation and this Hennessey person came to you, knowing him as you do, and making this offer, would you take it?"

  "Sir, I gave you the bad side up front. It isn't all bad. For one thing, within certain limits, he's much the most intelligent human being I've ever met, excepting only my wife and I confess I may be prejudiced there. Pat's very loyal to anyone who deserves loyalty. Loyalty . . ." Rivers began to laugh.

  "What's so funny, Virgil?"

  "Well . . . he is very loyal. Just because he's an insubordinate son of a bitch doesn't mean he's disloyal. There was one occasion, where that same commander tried to get at Pat by busting one of his NCOs from staff sergeant to sergeant. The man . . . his name was Morse or something like that . . . anyway, he came out on the promotion list for platoon sergeant a couple of days later. Pat sat on the paperwork to bust him until that commander left command. He then talked the next guy into suspending the bust. Was that illegal? Probably. But it was right.

  "And he really can do amazing—if I hadn't seen them I would say impossible—things with regard to training troops. I've got stories I could tell you . . . ah, never mind, too complex. He is tactically and operationally . . . well . . . 'deft' is not a strong enough term.

  "So, yes, Mr. Secretary. If it were at all possible, I
'd take him up on it."

  "What do you suppose his motivation is, Rivers? Megalomania? A desire to show up the army that cast him out?"

  Rivers cocked his head back in surprise. "Didn't he tell you, sir? It's much simpler than that. The bastards killed his wife and kids."

  V.

  The phone rang at Hennessey's Federal District hotel, an upscale but small establishment just off of Embassy Row. He answered.

  "Hennessey, this is Ron Campos. This is the deal; take it or pound sand. I'm going to cover your operational and training expenses on a cost plus basis, cost plus ten percent, for the next six months. That amount will be deducted from your final bill IF we decide your group can do the job. I am sending down an officer who doesn't know you and whom you don't know—that's right, boyo, not one of your fans; Virgil Rivers warned me about that—to judge whether your legion is worth hiring. If he decides you are, you have a contract at the figures and with the provisos we discussed. If he nixes you, tough shit."

  Carrera's respect for Campos went up a notch. "Done, Mr. Secretary."

  Interlude

  5 May, 2068, CNN Studios,

  Atlanta, Georgia, USA

  A year's worth of decent feeding had returned Marjorie Billings- Rajamana to her normal state, exotic beauty. She was a natural.

  The studio, however, was something of a sham, a living room- looking arrangement on one side, which the cameras faced, and a maze of snaking cables and dividers on the other. The interviewer was at least as much of a sham, his only real talent being the ability to project an air of interest and intelligence onto a face that, while pretty, sat in front of a fundamentally dead mind.

  "It actually started on Earth," Marjorie began in explanation, her upper class British accent lending considerable dignity to her words. "We didn't know it at the time, but it started here, during the training program."

  "What started here?" the interviewer asked. Well, that wasn't a mind-straining question, after all.