A Desert Called Peace cl-1

by Tom Kratman

  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 al
ong 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.

  PART II

  Chapter Nine