The Lotus Eaters cl-3

by Tom Kratman

"And I told you the truth, son," Carrera answered. "But the mere fact that it is their own fault has very little to do with whether they accept that it's their own fault. They don't. They won't. Maybe, even, they can't. I don't think they can, anyway."

  Carrera sneered. "After all, how can they blame the innocent, rich, white stock broker who feeds several thousand drachma a week up his nose when there's a guilty, brown, and dirt-poor huánuco grower iniquitously cultivating the stuff to feed his starving family?"

  "Huh?"

  Carrera laughed, bitterly. "Never mind. Just accept that people often not only don't think logically, they often can't, and that certain forms of government often make this worse. Accept it, because it's our reality. Just as it's our reality that we are the most powerful of tiny states on this planet, but are still tiny for all that."

  "All right," the boy agreed. "So you accepted that some of our people would be killed?"

  "Acceptance is perhaps not the right word, son, implying it was a happy compromise. Let's say I understood it would happen, or at least could, and I was prepared to fight it, mitigate it, and retaliate for it."

  Hamilcar's eyes narrowed. "That's bullshit, Dad," he said.

  "All right then," Carrera said. "Call it 'acceptance,' if you insist, so that we could prevail in an inevitable war—at least I think it's inevitable—to recapture all of our country."

  "Hard on the people who were killed, Dad," the boy observed. "Some of them were my age . . . or even younger."

  "How many would be killed to no purpose if we fight the war that is coming and lose?"

  "More, I suppose."

  "More and to no good," Carrera said. "And on the subject of people your age being killed, your mother and I are agreed; you are leaving the country sooner than we'd planned."

  The boy's eyes narrowed again, even as his little shoulders stiffened. "It's wrong to send your own family out of a danger you've helped bring on everyone else, Dad."

  The father nodded slowly and deeply, agreeing, "Yes, it would be wrong. But I'm not sending you away to protect my son. I'm sending you away to preserve my replacement."

  Hamilcar thought about that for a moment. It made sense and was possibly even the right thing to do. "Where are you sending me?" he asked.

  "You, and your Pashtun guards, and Alena, and her husband, Tribune Cano, are heading back to Alena's people. They will preserve you. And possibly teach you some things you need to know."

  "All right then," the boy agreed. While his mother would cheerfully have sent him out of harm's way because he was her son, his father, he knew, would never shame him that way. "Since you're heading east tomorrow, Dad," Hamilcar asked, "and since I'm leaving soon, can I go with you?"

  "I wish," Carrera said. "But no, I have to preserve my replacement. Besides, the first part of the day I have to meet with Parilla. You'd be bored to death."

  The boy looked crestfallen, enough so that Carrera added, "But in a few days there is a ceremony of sorts I want you to undertake before you go."

  Carrera Family Cemetery, Cochea, Balboa

  Flames arose from torches on the green. The flickering flames cast shadows across the grass. The torches were there partly for their light, partly for the smoke that helped drive off the mosquitoes. Mostly, though, they used torches for the sense of visual drama they lent the proceedings.

  Lourdes had not been invited. "Love, in this one thing, you cannot be witness," Carrera had told her.

  Her eldest was there, the boy Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez. The boy was wide eyed, half at the spectacle and half at being led kindly by the hand by his father. They walked along a path marked with the flaming torches towards the marble obelisk that marked the grave—though it was more memorial than grave, really—of his dead half-siblings and their mother, Linda.

  Before moving to the memorial Carrera had shown the boy pictures of Linda and their children, explaining their names and telling him stories about them in life. He'd also told the boy how they'd been murdered.

  "That's why I spent so much time away from home, Son," the father explained, "hunting down the men responsible."

  "I understand, Dad," the boy said.

  Perhaps he did, too. He was a bright lad, extremely so. Carrera expected great things of him. Kid will likely be tall, too, given that his mother's 5'10."

  Around the obelisk were several close friends: Kuralski, Soult and Mitchell, as well as Parilla. Jimenez, McNamara and Fernandez were in Pashtia. Those present were uniformed and stood at parade rest as Carrera led the boy forward by the hand.

  Soult brought out a bible, which he handed to Carrera. Releasing Hamilcar's little hand, the father knelt down beside him, holding out the book and saying, "Place your left hand on this and raise your right. Now repeat after me."

  "I, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez . . ."

  "I, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez . . ."

  ". . . swear upon the altar of Almighty God . . ."

  ". . . swear upon the altar of Almighty God . . ."

  ". . . undying enmity and hate . . . to the murderers of my brother and sisters . . . and the murderers of their mother, my countrywoman . . . and to the murderers of all my country folk . . . and to those that have aided them . . . and those that have hidden them . . . and those who have made excuses for them . . . and those that have funded them . . . and those who have lied for them . . . wherever and whoever they may be . . . and whoever may arise to take their places. I swear that I will not rest until my fallen blood is avenged and my future blood is safe. So help me, God."

  "Very good, Son," Carrera said, handing the bible back to Soult and ruffling Hamilcar's hair affectionately. "Now we are going to have dinner with my friends, back at the house. The day after tomorrow we go back to getting ready for the next war."

  Executive Mansion, Hamilton, FD, Federated States of Columbia

  "God," muttered the President. "God, but I would like to teach those people a lesson."

  About a couple of hundred slaughtered Balboans the Progressive Party, currently in power in the Federated States, cared not very much. Half a dozen murdered citizens, however, and their friends and relatives, to say nothing of a fickle press baying for blood, were of considerable concern.

  The President of the Federated States of Columbia, Karl Schumann, was sufficiently concerned with that problem that he hardly paid any attention to the zaftig intern kneeling between his legs with her raven-tressed head bobbing. Ordinarily, the President would not have been able to think clearly while the intern was so engaged. Under the circumstances, he had no trouble thinking but considerable trouble concentrating on her efforts.

  The Office of Strategic Intelligence, Justice and State tell me the Santanderns are responsible. The Joint Chiefs are not so certain some radical group in Balboa didn't do it. Me; I think it was the Santanderns, the drug running Santanderns.

  What do I do? Tell the Army to go after the drug lords with special operations people? We don't know which one to go after, which one gave the orders. We don't even know which cartel. Bomb them? Same problem. And if they are this ruthless outside of Santander, what's to stop them from coming after me. The Secret Service reminds me daily, in word and deed, that I am vulnerable. And the drug lords' resources are certainly adequate to get me if I provoked them.

  In that last it was possible that Schumann was giving the cartels too much credit. Then again, possibly he wasn't, either.

  No. I'll just let make a statement. People will forget in time. They always forget in time. It was only six of our own killed. Hell, they were probably Federalists, anyway.

  Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket; ride it out. And thinking of riding it out.

  "Honey," the President of the Federated States said, "head's nice and all, but I'd rather you shuck out of your skirt and panties and get on all fours."

  Executive Complex, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Parilla's secretary, Luci, turned her office chair and crossed her legs to reveal as much thigh as possible. It was an automati
c gesture, as well as a needless one. Few men bothered to look at her legs when there was such a bounty of breast to catch the eye.

  Carrera forced his own eyes away, sighing as he often did when passing through the President's door. I wonder if she even thinks about it, or if it's all genetic autopilot. Hmmm . . . I wonder if Parilla's fucking her. He's an awfully young old man and a man is, after all, only as old as the woman he feels.

  Mitchell stayed behind in the anteroom as his chief went in to consult with the President, the door clicking shut behind him. It was one of the perks of driving or guarding Carrera; flirting with the President's secretary.

  Just flirting though, Mitchell thought. Chica's enough woman for me.

  Even so, Mitchell sat on the corner of Luci's desk, making small talk and taking in as much of two of Balboa's greatest natural wonders as possible.

  "Were to today, Mitch?" Luci asked, with a friendly but not necessarily inviting smile. Not that she'd have minded having a go of it with the stocky aide, but he'd shown long since that he wasn't available for anything but admiring the scenery.

  * * *

  "Enough admiring the scenery," Carrera said, his face mock serious. Mitchell was only slightly less mocking when he braced to attention and sounded off with a "Yessir" that would have been loud in a much larger space than the anteroom.

  Luci rolled her eyes. She knew that the display was as a much a show as she routinely put on herself. Carrera waved goodbye casually as he and Mitchell headed out the door and toward the elevators. Luci then stood, closed the door behind them, and turned to make sure Parilla's door was shut as well. Only then did she pick up the telephone.

  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 fu
ll 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.