Ambush

by Bernard Wilkerson

Unable to sleep, Stanley paced his ornate bedroom in Casa del Monte, one of the houses in the Hearst Castle complex. House of the Mountain in English, it sat on the north side of the grounds, facing the mountains. Someone had described to him the significance of the gold leaf symbols covering the ceiling, but Stanley hadn’t been paying attention and the decoration simply disturbed him now. However, the view out the window made up for the over the top decor. Formerly dry California mountains greening up during the cool summer, the ocean in the distance, the rising and falling of the waves providing a serene background, a sense of calm and stability belying the deadly force it had exhibited just weeks earlier.

  A man could grow complacent here.

  Stanley didn’t want to grow complacent. He didn’t want to be in Casa del Monte, either, despite the view and the outrageously expensive ceiling. He wanted to be in Casa Grande, the main building, the building where the Lord Admiral and his key staff resided. Even the idiot girl with the Lord Admiral was there, up in a bedroom in one of the towers.

  How did she rate that?

  He missed having someone he could talk to. Of all people, even Irina had been someone he could sound out ideas with, even if she hated all of them and resented him most of the time, but at least he could judge the idea by how she reacted.

  For the hundredth time he wondered why she had attacked him.

  He wanted to do a good thing. Hadn’t she seen that? Hadn’t she seen that all he wanted was to bring Hrwang and Human together, to help humans develop interstellar travel and gain access to all the other technology the Hrwang brought with them?

  Things weren’t going the way he’d envisioned them, yet that still didn’t justify Irina’s actions.

  Maybe she had gone a little crazy.

  Maybe she’d gotten hit on the head or something when the building had been attacked. Some primal, military instinct may have kicked in. Military types weren’t the brightest in the world.

  But they were obedient. He’d learned that when he ordered Irina to do something with the right tone of voice, she did it. He needed to use that ability to his advantage now. He needed to surround himself with the right sort of people, people who would do what he wanted them to do, when he wanted them to do it. Then things would be easier.

  How to start?

  A knock on his door interrupted him. He opened the door, letting the irritation at the disturbance show on his face. A young Hrwang soldier stood there. He handed Stanley an envelope, saluted, and left.

  Stanley watched him walk away. Life was so much easier when you were young. Just do what you’re told. No thought to it, no responsibility, no worries. The burden of the world not yet resting on your shoulders. He almost envied the young soldier.

  He opened the envelope and read the brief message.

  Breakfast in the main ballroom. 7 a.m.

  He hoped whoever wrote the message had translated the time from Hrwang correctly. He didn’t want to be late. He’d better go over early, just in case.

  The Lord Admiral had been gracious and friendly at breakfast, smiling at the Ambassador, not making any comments about the discussion from the previous day’s staff meeting, acting like there wasn’t a problem in the world. He even suggested that he and Eva should go for another swim. He grinned evilly and Eva grinned back. She had to admit the swim had been fun. Despite her mission, despite what she knew he was guilty of, she couldn’t help that she enjoyed being with him.

  It made some things easier.

  The Lieutenant Grenadier, on the other hand, had been cold to her when she had said, “Good morning,” after she’d returned from her run. She continued to worry that if she did anything to give herself away, he’d be the one to catch her.

  The Ambassador simply ate his meal silently and glared at Eva when the Lord Admiral wasn’t looking.

  She’d kept up her running schedule, morning and evening, and the Lord Admiral approved, running with her about once in every four times. He made no apologies for wanting her to stay trim and athletic, which offended Eva a little, but it gave her the perfect cover for trying to make contact with Juan. Only she’d had no more contact since the three orchids and the exchange of the message in the cigarette box and her pills.

  When she had put out the four potted plants, she’d hoped that by letting Juan know which room she slept in, someone from the Agency could make contact with her. She didn’t know what she expected. A dart with a message shot into her room, laser lights beamed into it, spelling out letters on the wall. Even a paper airplane thrown through the open window would have been welcome.

  There was nothing.

  Nor was there a protocol. Moles usually had some sort of prearranged contact mechanism, like a blind drop, but she had nothing, had had no time to establish anything. It frustrated her and she usually ran quickly back to Hearst Castle, trying to burn off pent up adrenaline.

  The drones no longer followed her; she didn’t ask why. On foggy days, of which there were more than a few, she expected Juan or someone to take advantage of the cloud cover and make contact, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  What if the drones had infrared?

  That had probably occurred to someone and perhaps that’s why no one had attempted contact during cloud cover or even at night. So many Hrwang craft came and went that it would be difficult to sneak up on the compound, and every reasonable trail was monitored by guards and surveillance equipment.

  She’d become friends with the soldiers who normally manned the guard station she passed on her way out to run into the hills. She even flirted with them a little to keep them from questioning or doubting her. She hoped they were smart enough to keep information about her flirtations away from the Lord Admiral, and given how his men feared him, she wasn’t especially concerned.

  After breakfast, the Lord Admiral held an impromptu staff meeting filled with more hand wringing by the Hrwang officers. No one mentioned the incident that Under General Third Assault had been assigned to take care of.

  The Ambassador appeared to grow more and more desperate during the discussion. Eva didn’t know how the aliens could be so helpless, which made her continue to be suspicious. Surely they had a plan, or had at least had had a plan at one point in time. Were humans really putting up that much of a fight? Maybe the information she’d learned wasn’t necessary. Maybe the government, or someone, was rebuilding and effectively dealing with the aliens.

  Regardless, she had a mission and she had to get the things she learned to the Agency. Somehow.

  The staff meeting ended and Eva went up to her room to continue her studies of Est. The Lord Admiral had been true to his word and had provided her a tablet with limited capabilities to help her learn. She felt good about learning her enemy’s language.

  The Lord Admiral appreciated her efforts to speak Est and it made it simple when what was in her and Earth’s best interest was also in his. It made it easier for her to keep her cover.

  Stanley didn’t enjoy breakfast, didn’t enjoy the attention the Lord Admiral lavished upon the human girl, didn’t enjoy hearing his obvious innuendoes, and certainly didn’t enjoy the staff meeting afterward. It was as if everyone blamed everything on him.

  And he felt that responsibility.

  He needed to do more. He needed to find a bridge, something, some way to convince people to listen to the Hrwang, to let them help rebuild Earth. He needed to think.

  He returned to his room to stare out the window and ponder solutions, but ended up brooding instead until he fell asleep.

  “He’s breaking, don’t you think?” the Lord Admiral asked the Lieutenant Grenadier alone in his office. The Lord Admiral had converted one of the libraries in the main building for his personal use. Only the Lieutenant Grenadier came in unannounced and the last time he had done so he had discovered the Lord Admiral with another woman. No one had seen the woman come in and the Lieutenant Grenadier had been tas
ked with smuggling her back out. He never went in unannounced again.

  He also knew he hated his commander now. He was a soldier. Not someone who eavesdropped on his commander while he swam naked with the enemy. Not someone who smuggled women out of buildings hidden under blankets, taking them away, dropping them off in the middle of the wilderness. He doubted the woman had survived.

  He kept all of his flippant answers to himself and merely replied, “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t approve?”

  The Lieutenant Grenadier sensed danger in the question. He needed to watch himself. He needed to get himself transferred to a real combat unit, but his specialty was security, not combat, so he knew there was little chance of that. A combat unit would never trust a security officer.

  So what to say?

  “I’m worried about the Lady. I believe she is smarter than the Ambassador. She understands strategy and probably has guessed we aren’t as helpless as we are trying to appear,” he offered.

  “Are you concerned about her being in the staff meetings?”

  “I’m concerned about her and the Ambassador talking,” the Lieutenant Grenadier replied.

  “Then keep them apart.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Lord Admiral leaned back in the large leather chair he sat in and picked up a book.

  “Have you been reading any of their works?”

  “No, sir. I don’t have time.”

  “Pity. You’re missing out.” He put the book back down. “They have wonderful military strategists. Much superior to ours.”

  The Lord Admiral paused for effect. And it had an effect. The Lieutenant Grenadier was surprised at his commander’s words. The Hrwang had easily defeated this planet. How could its strategists be superior to theirs?

  “If the tables were turned, Lieutenant, and they had arrived on Hrwang with the technical capability we possess, I believe they would have bombarded our planet into complete submission. I doubt they would have had rules to follow as I must. They believe in total war.”

  “But that could cause extinction,” the Lieutenant Grenadier protested. Dropping meteors on a planet was a risky proposition. Too small and they don’t do anything. Too large and the entire planet’s population dies. Their experience with the Yalj taught them that.

  The Lord Admiral shrugged and tapped on the cover of the book lying open, but facedown, on his desk. “Total war.”

  How do you fight such a people? the Lieutenant Grenadier wondered.

  “The book I’m reading right now is by an ancient strategist named Sun Tzu.” The Lord Admiral had a hard time pronouncing the ‘tz’ sound, saying ‘Tizoo’. “He wrote about a Chinese general with an interesting idea. When the general attacked his enemy, his soldiers had to cross several bridges over impassable rivers. Those bridges were their only avenue of retreat from the foreign land. Do you know what this general did?”

  “Defend them with his best soldiers?” It’s what the Lieutenant Grenadier would have done.

  “No!” The Lord Admiral almost came out of his chair. “He didn’t. That’s the brilliance of his idea. He didn’t defend the bridges. He burned them. Burned them completely.”

  Ludicrous. You never cut off your avenue of retreat. That was basic military doctrine.

  “Why do you think he did that?” the Lord Admiral asked.

  “I don’t know,” the Lieutenant Grenadier replied. He almost pulled the tablet out of his uniform pocket to look up the answer but thought better of it. He waited for the Lord Admiral to say something instead.

  “I want you to think about it. You come back when you’ve figured it out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Lord Admiral breathed deeply, relaxing himself.

  “Do you think plans need to change, Lieutenant?”

  “Of course, sir. Basic doctrine. Plans change on first contact with the enemy.”

  “Sun Tizoo would agree with you. And so do I.” The Lord Admiral stared at him until he grew uncomfortable, then looked away.

  “I have nothing else for you,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant Grenadier replied and nodded. When the Lord Admiral nodded in reply, the Lieutenant Grenadier turned and left, wondering how he was going to figure out why some Chinese general burned his bridges.

  Eva almost ran to the door of her bedroom when someone knocked on it. She was tired of studying.

  She knew how critical study was. James Bond knew everything he did in the movies because some writer put it into the script. But real agents had to study to know all of those things, and now Eva studied the thing that could save her life, or at least aid her mission. Her enemy’s language.

  But it was slow going. She could read simple words now, but she had to sound out the letters, looking them up repeatedly on the tablet she’d been given. The symbols were so different than anything she was familiar with.

  The knock was a welcome relief.

  It surprised her, though, to find the Lieutenant Grenadier standing at her door. Normally only the Lord Admiral came to her room, or some junior soldier dispatched to deliver a message. The Lord Admiral’s chief of security was too busy for her, which was actually a relief. It meant he trusted her a bit now.

  “I, we, the Lord Admiral, I mean, promised you self-defense lessons. I’ve been busy and haven’t had time until now. Are you available?”

  “Uh, I guess. I’ll need to change.”

  Alarms went off in Eva’s mind, but she had to go along.

  The Lieutenant Grenadier was already dressed in something for working out, something that looked a bit like a wrestling unitard but more modest.

  “I’ll wait,” he said.

  Eva shut the door and ran to change.

  She reviewed the pitfalls of the activity, reminding herself that she couldn’t give away her combat skills. She was just a girl who’d been taught to hit and kick a punching bag, nothing else. She tried to think of any other concerns, couldn’t, and took a deep breath, trying not to let herself get too worried. But if the soldier at her door suspected anything, it could be bad. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

  They went to the large gym that had been set up in the north wing of the second floor. It contained punching bags, free weights, wrestling mats, and even a mirror with a ballet barre. She chuckled at that, wondering if the aliens had simply copied an earth design without understanding the purpose.

  But the Lieutenant Grenadier used it to help him stretch out. He was more limber than Eva, which challenged her competitive impulses. She had to control those.

  They got ready. Eva got into a boxing stance. The Lieutenant Grenadier laughed.

  “People are not those,” he said, pointing at the punching bags. “You cannot fight a bigger and larger opponent that way. On Hrwang, we only punch when we are the same weight.”

  “Same here,” Eva said.

  “Let me show you what to do. Simple defense.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come at me like you are bigger than me.”

  Eva smiled and shook her head, trying to get the Lieutenant to relax a little. He grinned back. She stood tall and rushed clumsily at him. One hand went to her face, the other to her throat, and she felt herself bent backward until she fell to the mat.

  “Do it again. I’ll go slower.”

  Eva pretended to attack clumsily again and the Lieutenant explained as he pushed his hand in her face, controlling her head backwards.

  “Once your head is back, you have to fall. Your body has no choice and you cannot hit me.” He set her down on the mat gently.

  “You try.”

  Eva was actually familiar with the tactic, had used it often in sparring to humble male trainees, but she’d had to do it wrong the first time. The Lieutenant Grenadier charged her and she punched him weakly in the stomach and he knocked her down, his fist raise
d over her head.

  “You’re not paying attention. If you hit me, I hit you back. Push your hand in my face, push my head backwards.”

  “But you’re taller.” Which was the point of the defense. Eva hated playing dumb.

  “Trust me.”

  He helped her up, she got in her boxing stance and he shook his head and attacked again. This time she went inside his arms, got one hand on his chin, pushing up, and punched him in the stomach again, harder this time. She heard the wind get knocked out of him, but then he was all over her, knocking her back to the mat again. She’d known that would be the outcome, but she’d enjoyed the body check.

  Once he could breathe, he told her to attack him again and he would show her one more time.

  “Pay attention,” he added. He did everything in slow motion, his hand on her face, his other gently on her throat, and he lowered her softly to the mat, lingering just a moment over her. She had the fleeting thought that this was a good man, just a soldier in his country’s service, and he genuinely cared about her safety.

  She’d been concerned about the security chief and had always perceived him as a threat. Now that she suddenly saw him in a different light, it made her think.

  “Are you ready? Do it right,” he told her after he picked her back up.

  If you say so, Eva thought.

  He attacked and Eva immediately ducked inside his grasp, her hands clawing the Lieutenant’s face, shoving his head back hard. She kneed him in the groin as he went down. He doubled up in pain, not looking at her.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry,” she said, sounding as worried as she could but inwardly pleased at her skill.

  He waved her off. No man wanted a woman helping him out when he’d taken a shot to the privates.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, knowing that made men more embarrassed.

  “I’m fine,” he said hoarsely. “That was good.”

  He stood shakily. “That was really good, but don’t hit me there again, please. We’re just practicing.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said and rested her hand on his arm. She looked up at him with as much pity as she could muster, and she genuinely felt sorry at that moment. She hadn’t needed to knee the man.

  She did it wrong the next two times, letting him take her down, but then did it right a few times in a row, putting him down without the body or groin shots.

  “Good. You are a fast learner.”

  “You’re a good teacher,” she said and smiled.

  He taught her a few more basic moves for dealing with a wrist grab and with being choked from behind. She knew all of them, which mostly dealt with getting a lower center of gravity, turning so as not to be choked, and getting back in the attackers face while his hands were occupied.

  She “learned” as the session went on and they were hot and sweaty after an hour. She wished she could really spar with him, comparing the training she’d had with his Hrwang training. Instead, she said she was tired and asked if they could review the moves again tomorrow.

  “I’ll try to make time,” he said. He handed Eva a towel and she wiped her face with it.

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  He seemed to want to say something else to her, so Eva waited while she toweled off her face and arms and drank water from her plastic bottle.

  His head bobbled, then he just asked his question.

  “Why would a general burn bridges behind his army?”

  Eva remembered the story from a military history class. It was such an anti-logical thing to do that no one who’d heard it would forget it.

  “By cutting off their retreat, the general’s men understood that failure was not an option. They had to win or die.”

  “Hmm.” He thought for a moment. Eva kicked herself mentally for being a show-off. She shouldn’t have known the answer so readily. She should have just responded, “I have no clue.”

  “I wonder what his men really thought when the flames rose high in the sky, burning their only avenue of escape,” he said.

  Eva thought of several crude responses that the men had probably been thinking, but kept them to herself. When she considered it, she also wondered what those ancient Chinese soldiers had thought.

  “Thank you again,” she said and smiled at the Lieutenant Grenadier, hoping he was content with their sparring session. He seemed lost in thought, so she left to get a shower. She hoped he wouldn’t grow suspicious again because she’d answered his question, but she felt like she’d made a real connection with the man. That could be useful.

  She made another useful connection on her next evening run.

  65