by Tom Kratman
Rolling his eyes, Janier punched a finger at a flashing light on his phone. The handset was already nestled between his ear and his shoulder.
“Janier… Yes, monsieur, I know she is a close personal friend of your wife’s, sir… Yes, sir, I’m sure she is terribly upset…” Janier lied, “No, sir, I haven’t spoken to the Balboans yet. I will contact the Balboan authorities as soon as we have concluded, sir.”
“Mr. President, the problem is this. Right about now, I would suspect, the Balboan government and military are probably having fits. They will, they must, suspect we will use this as an excuse to attack them. So they’ll mobilize. And when they’re mobilized we will have to prepare to attack them, or defend ourselves, just in case. They’ll see that; they keep eyes on a number of our bases here and there both. And, Mr. President, whether our preparations are offensive or defensive they’ll look much the same to an observer. Then they’ll have to consider: let us get in the first licks or take their initial advantage in numbers and kick us out of the country. I know what my choice under those circumstances would be.”
Malcoeur placed a message on Janier’s desk where he could see it. “Sir, let me get back to you directly. The President of Balboa is on another line.”
Post Exchange, Calle MacKinley, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
A white van pulled into a parking lot near the Main Exchange for Tauran forces stationed in Balboa. A nondescript sedan followed. The living occupants of the van exited. By the light turned on by the opening of the door one could see five bodies, stacked like cordwood, naked, the skin of the corpses unnaturally pale except where leakage from slashed throats had stained it red. A closer examination would show other damage: to skin, to sexual organs, to teeth, nails, tongues, and eyes. Indeed, the list of horrors inflicted on the women read like an inventory from every snuff and horror film ever made. Teeth drilled. Check. Skin partially flayed? Check. Nipples removed? Some by slicing, some by burning, check. Blinded? Check. Vaginas and anuses, hot pokers applied to? Check. Broken bones in hands and feet? Check, too many to list.
In three of the five the shoulders were totally dislocated, probably from application of the strappado.
One of the men threw on the passenger chair a bundle of digital recordings covering the vicious treatment the women had received.
The two men from the van climbed into the back seat of the sedan. The next stop was to drop off a copy of the recordings on the doorstep of a local office of a major international news organization. Then a few more to the Tauran embassy. After that, they could see to getting out of the country. Once out they’d download a copy to the global net.
Estado Mayor, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
“You’ve got to give me more to go with than this,” demanded Fernandez of his assistant. The assistant was a replacement for the late and unlamented executive who had shot and paralyzed Fernandez. The new man was more trustworthy, but not so effective an intelligence officer. Not that his predecessor had been much. It was one of the weaknesses of Fernandez’s organization that it was so dependent upon him, personally.
“I’m sorry, Legate,” said the assistant. “That is it. We have a report of a stolen van which just might possibly have been repainted and used to take the women. We have no eyewitnesses who can help us make a composite sketch. We are still checking out the whereabouts of anybody who might have access to police uniforms.”
“How about the uniform stores?”
“We’re checking into that as well.”
“Have we tried the criminal photo albums on any of the witnesses?”
“Yes, sir. But we’ve drawn a blank there as well.”
“Chingada!”
Hospital, Cerro Mina, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
As soon as they’d been found, and the finder had stopped vomiting, he’d called the military police. The location was close enough to their barracks, atop Cerro Mina, that the MPs had barely beaten the ambulance to the van. Hauptmann Lang, accompanied by Gefreiter Czauderna and Private Brickley took one look each and joined the original finder in decorating the pavement in bright Technicolor.
Even the ambulance crews, a bit more hardened than the MPs, found that accidental death and dismemberment was not so upsetting as the willful and deliberate infliction of horror.
The first ambulance driver pretty much summed up the feelings of all the Taurans present, as well as those still to learn of the atrocity: “Somebody’s got to pay for this.”
The stiffened and stinking bodies of the women were then taken to the Cerro Mina Hospital. Not that there was anything to be done for them, but medical and administrative formalities had to be followed. The tapes found with the van were impounded by the military police who made the initial investigation of the murders.
The first viewing commenced at about nine in the morning. Six hours later, the viewing was still not complete, as nobody was able to take what the recording showed for more than a few minutes at a time.
The tapes were copied then, and the copies sent to everyone with both an interest and a clearance. The clearance was needed because Janier, trying to keep a lid on things, had declared them Ultra Plus Top Secret. This was not actually a level of classification. What it was, was a statement from Janier that if anyone military leaked one of the tapes that person was soon going to be counting vanishing megafauna at the worst embassy in Uhuru that the Tauran diplomatic corps had to offer.
Janier, himself, watched the tape with a degree of detachment even he found unnatural. The scenes were disjointed. The men in the camera’s view wore Balboan police uniforms but with doctors’ masks and light green aprons. They said nothing. Janier studied whatever of the men’s faces could be seen around the masks. I wonder if a competent policeman could identify those bastards from the partial view?
Janier saw each of the women raped, Ms. Britain anally, the camera getting a close up of her tear-streaked, anguished face. He saw pliers and drills applied to fingers and teeth. One poor girl had her eyes burned out with a lit cigar for the camera. Another had an electric stun gun played over her nipples and genitals. She bit partway through her own tongue at the pain, her chin flowing crimson. The soles of the feet of each were burned with a propane torch.
Though the general completely despised Marine Mors du Char, he thought it a bit much when a red hot poker was slid into her vagina.
Then came the confessions. Each sobbing woman was forced to verbally confess to participation in some bizarre plot to overthrow the government of Balboa. (Even as he had taped those confessions, Arias had thought it a nice touch. After all, it was precisely what an out of control nationalist maniac might demand.)
Next, again for the camera, each handcuffed woman was forced to her knees and her throat was cut as the tape caught her begging for her life. The blinded one was too far gone to beg until the stun gun was used to make her react. She said “Please. Oh, please,” but that was it. Her throat was laid open last of all.
Last was a scene of the bodies being unceremoniously dumped in the white van.
Janier watched the tape again. He found the second viewing more disturbing than the first. But something nagged at him. Then he realized what it was that he found…wrong. The legion tortures; it’s common knowledge despite the trap they set for that stupid cunt, Irene Temujin. But they surely wouldn’t paint a torture chamber in military colors. And why wear their uniforms? They’re not cheap. A man wouldn’t want to have them covered in blood and shit. But those men didn’t seem to care about that. No, this stinks.
Janier hit the intercom. “Malcoeur, you toad, get me Monsieur Gaymard, the president pro tem.”
Tauran News Network, Headline News Studios, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova
Right up to the last minute, TNN’s chiefs had argued about showing the tapes. It wasn’t that they weren’t newsworthy. It wasn’t even that they were of questionable veracity—the news media cared no more about the truth than libel laws required. Rather,
it was thought, the horrid content of the tapes might offend people’s sensibilities. So it was decided to air a highly edited version, one with most of the actual rape and torture excised. Britain’s face, for example, was left in, but the rear entry was cut out. The scenes of throats being slashed were cut out, but the piling of the bodies in the vans was left in. The blowtorch roasting feet was left uncut. In all the edited version showed just under five sickening minutes. The inconsistencies Janier had noticed were far less noticeable in what was finally shown to the world. Literally tens of millions of people around the world saw the edited tape in its first public showing.
And then people started looking on line for the unedited version. It wasn’t hard to find. Once found, it spread like a virus.
The demonstrations for action began almost immediately.
Parilla’s Office, Palacio de las Trixies, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Carrera looked at the TV screen in Parilla’s office and felt something he hadn’t in a while, the mental click that said he was tossing away whatever civilized constraints and limitations he had in favor of “hard-favour’d rage.”
“Well, that’s that,” he said. “Once the mob is in the street the Tauran Union is going to hit us. They’re in the street. The invasion is coming.”
There was a secure phone on Parilla’s desk. It ran, basically, to the Estado Mayor, the Senate House, the Casa Linda, the Isla Real, and nowhere else. It began to flash. When he picked it up it was Fernandez.
“My people in Taurus,” said the intel chief, “tell me they’re coming. Or, at least, everybody but Castile is. ‘Free beer’ is being sounded at Wye, Anglia. Contracts are being let for aircraft, both heavier than air and lighter than air. Leaves are being cancelled. Even some mobilization of reservists seems to be taking place.”
“What about your connection in the office of the Tauran commander, here?” Carrera asked.
“Isabel? She says she’s had no contact with Janier’s replacement in the last couple of days, but that the headquarters is all abustle.
“They’re coming, Mr. President. Patricio, they’re coming.”
After Fernandez rang off, Parilla asked, “Is there anything we can do? Anything to prevent a war, I mean.”
“No,” said Carrera. “None. We’re set up to win a countrywide ambush. I can mobilize without ordering that ambush into position. That will just convince them we mean to attack. I can not mobilize and they will sense the weakness and attack. I can partially mobilize and they will still attack.”
“You know,” said the president, “it’s disheartening. We took some real risks for peace. We paid some high prices, too. And it’s all for naught. Was Machiavelli right about all that, after all? That there’s really no avoiding wars? What do you recommend, Patricio?”
“Urraca 2000.” Carrera spoke of an annually updated plan for secret, partial mobilization, using every military asset the legion had available. Less than a fifteen people in Balboa even knew of its name.
“But you’ve told me that that is a one-time only operation, that we can’t pull it off twice. We’ve never even practiced it for real.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Carrera said. “And, because it is our one best chance—maybe our only chance—of defeating an invasion, if you approve it then we must have that invasion. Even if we have to provoke it.”
“Let me think. Let me think.”
“Sure, Raul. But there isn’t a lot of time. We could already be too late.”
“What can we do to start the thing along without raising the temperature or giving the plan away?”
Carrera had considered that question on his own many times. “I can start the twenty-seven prime supply ships moving closer without anyone noticing…probably. I can issue sealed orders with messenger guards to some key commanders; the plans not to be opened without my orders. I can have the equipment hides reinventoried, though I don’t think that’s necessary. Beyond that…the meat of the operation…I can’t do much without doing it all.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
“A partial and obvious mobilization, reservist level only, no militia. That will be enough to convince the Taurans we intend to attack. It will also cause them to feel that they absolutely must commit more than what they have here. That will take time, a week or so; they are very slow, strategically.”
“And the other mobilization?” Parilla asked. He was one of those fifteen people who knew the name. He was one of only nine who knew all the details.
Carrera answered, “That goes forward.”
“It’s a heavy burden on your soul, my friend. And on mine. Start Urraca 2000.”
Chapter Thirty-five
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
—Winston Churchill
High Admiral’s Conference Room, UEPF Spirit of Peace, in orbit over Terra Nova
In her silverwood paneled conference room were gathered the high admiral, the two Khans, husband and wife, Richard, earl of Care, and Richard’s lover and the high admiral’s cabin girl, Esmeralda.
“What the fuck is going on down there?” demanded Wallenstein.
Both Khans, husband and wife, shook their heads. Even so, Khan, male, offered, “We’re very unclear on the details, but there’s been some kind of an atrocity. I’ve got someone digging those details up, but for the nonce let’s just say it looks bad. Based on what’s making the rounds, I’d have to say it looks like war. War between Balboa and the Tauran Union, I mean.”
After all my efforts to get a war going, thought Marguerite, it happens by a fluke? The elder gods, how many or how few they be, are batshit insane.
“Right,” she said. “Maximum feasible sensing capability focused on Balboa. Esmeralda?”
“Yes, High Admiral.”
“Arrange a direct flight to Balboa. We need to reestablish some of the links we let lapse with Janier’s departure. Who is their new commander there?”
“An Anglian,” said Khan, male. “A Major General Solomon McQueeg-Gordon. We’ve never bothered to reestablish contact since Janier left.”
“Right. Tell him I’m coming and that if I am unhappy I will arrange to have him removed to…oh…one of the moons, I suppose.”
Carretera InterColombiana, Balboa, Terra Nova
Only moving by moonlight had been a pain for Pililak. At first, paralleling the highway, she’d made good progress. Then she’d discovered that every passing car caused her to have to hide, since she couldn’t know if her lord’s father had sent people to bring her back. Worse, the headlights destroyed her night vision for a quarter or an hour or so, every time one had passed. And then, something else she hadn’t anticipated, the jungle wasn’t thin near the road. Rather, it was even thicker because of the abundance of light.
Young, strong, and fit, Pililak had estimated one day to get to the turn-off point she planned. It had taken three.
Now she stood on the southern edge of the roadway, right where she planned to strike out across country to go farther south. The jungle in front of her looked not so much like flora, in the country’s wet gloom, as it looked like fauna, a great beast waiting to consume her.
But her lord was waiting. And Alena the witch had said he would need her. With her compass in her left hand, as the guards had shown her how to hold it, Pililak clenched her teeth against her fear and struck out toward the point where the southernmost tip of the Transitway met the man-made lake in the center. There she would have the best chance of making a crossing without being run down by one of the great ships that plied the waters there.
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova.
Lourdes normally wouldn’t call her husband when he was on duty. He’d said it set a bad precedent. This, however, was more in the realm of an emergency, especially since she hadn’t heard from him in several days.
A younger Carrera, then known as Hennessey, might have lashed out at the interruption. The older one took it more
in stride. “Yes, Lourdes,” he asked, “what’s up?”
“It’s Ant,” his wife said. “She’s missing. I just figured it out; the other girls, including Alena and our two oldest daughters, were covering for her. Though, to be sure, none of them will admit it. And Ham’s rifle is missing. She’s heading for him, bringing him his rifle.”
“Fuck!” Carrera exclaimed. “With everything else going on this…this… Words fail. But, Jesus I am going to personally paddle that girl. Do we know how long she’s been gone?”
“I’m guessing three days, though her accomplices will admit to nothing.”
“Right, three days.” Carrera knew the local jungle a lot better than the Pashtun girl did. “She’s going to be somewhere near”—he mentally pulled up a map of the country—“mmm…somewhere near Arraijan. I could ordinarily send a maniple to cut her off. Under the circumstances, though, that might be tough. Any chance she’d respond if we had a loudspeaker-equipped helicopter overfly her?”
Lourdes laughed. “That little fanatic? Maybe, just maybe, if you put her lord and master, Iskandr, in the helicopter. Otherwise, she’d ignore a thunderbolt from on high.”
“Yeah…let me think about that. This might be tougher than you would think. In any case, hon, don’t bug me for a while. We’ve got a serious emergency going on.”
“Those Tauran women?”
“Yeah.”
“Awful shit,” Lourdes said, which surprised Carrera, and she almost never engaged in vulgarity of any kind.