by Tom Kratman
The President's nephew, Arnulfo, another Rocaberti and cousin of that same Manuel Rocaberti who had been shot for cowardice in Sumer six years before, answered, "Sex sells, Uncle. And Artemisia Jimenez is about as sexy as it gets. Clever of them to use her. Cleverer of them to have supported her ambitions early on. Why didn't we think of that, Uncle?"
"We didn't think of it, Arnulfo, because politics in this country had always been the province of the good families, of those with the dignity of position and wealth. Who ever thought we'd actually have to fight an election rather than simply coming up with an agreement among those who mattered as to which clan would have the honors this time around?"
"Parilla and his pet gringo thought so," Arnulfo answered. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have brought in the Taurans, after all. I doubt that either of them, Parilla or Carrera—"
"And that's another damned thing," the President interrupted. "What goddamned business is it of this fucking imported maniac how we run our country? He's not even a citizen."
Arnulfo shrugged. At heart he was an honest and fair-minded sort, or as honest and fair-minded as someone raised to care for family above all could hope to be. "His blood's buried here, whatever could be found of it. He's remarried back into us. All his friends are here. Nearly everything he owns, and apparently he owns a lot, Uncle, is here. As I was about to say, when you brought in the Taurans, you threatened all that."
"Spilled milk," the President retorted. "And you don't know that we wouldn't have had to face an election, anyway, a real election. Parilla has wanted to be President for decades and was only kept from the office by the machinations of Piña. Besides, all the money they have gained using our citizens as cannon fodder is rightfully ours."
"They seem to have redistributed quite a bit of that money, Uncle, a lot more than we would have in their shoes. Have you any idea how much they've plowed back in to the Republic? It's in the billions; schools, clinics, factories, banks, parks, job training. The list goes on. They even put some into producing a real competitor for Miss Terra Nova, and, let me tell you, that earned them a lot more in good will than they paid for it."
"And how many sons were lost in earning that money, would you tell me that?" the President asked, huffily.
"It seems that a hundred-thousand-drachma death gratuity and lifetime pension and care for wives and parents, plus education for younger siblings and children, go a long way toward stifling resentment for lost sons, Uncle. Especially when our families are large, and jobs and farmland quite limited."
The President bit back an answer, then sighed. His face assumed a hopeless look. "You mean we are going to lose the election, don't you?"
"As things stand now, Uncle? Stinking. We haven't a prayer. We'll lose the presidency. We'll lose the legislature; both houses, mind you. And a few months after that we'll lose the Supreme Court. And right after that, you can be sure the investigations will start."
"Investigations?"
Arnulfo pointed at the television against one wall. "Listen for yourself, Uncle."
* * *
Parilla scowled and pointed directly into the battery of TV camera's facing the stand. "Tell us where, Presidente Rocaberti, tell us where. Where is the money from the cable television deal? Tell us where."
Led by legionaries scattered among them and dressed in mufti, the crowd chanted, "TELL US WHERRRE."
"How much was the bribe to your family that turned management of the Transitway over to the Zhong? Presidente Rocaberti, tell us how much."
"HOW MUUUCHCHCH?"
"Where are the donatives the boys of the Legion del Cid earned and turned over to the government, Mr. President?"
"WHERRRE?"
"How much have the Taurans paid you to let us become their colony?"
"HOW MUUUCHCHCH?"
Parilla stopped speaking briefly, to allow the crowd to compose itself. After all, this was a speech to announce candidacy, not an incitement to riot.
He smiled broadly, then joked, "For the answers to these and a hundred other questions on how the old families have robbed the Republic and the people, stay tuned for election night results, my friends, because today, now, this minute, I, Raul Parilla, am announcing my candidacy for the office of Presidente de le Republica. And I promise you that when I am elected we SHALL HAVE ANSWERS. I promise you, as well, a better, a more honest, tomorrow. So help me, God."
That was the cue for both the band and Artemisia. After a drum roll, and the playing of the first bars, she began to sing,
"El sol del verano
Es renacido
Libre es el bosque
Por mi . . .
* * *
"O' Patria, Patria, enseña nos;
Tus hijos esperan por ti.
El dia viene quando se levantas
Mañana sera mejor!"
The President's hand lanced to the remote, to cut off the images shown on the screen as the camera panned along the galleries. They were all singing, all fifty thousand plus of them.
His nephew stopped him. "No, Uncle, we need to see this."
"O Patria, Patria, enseña nos;
Tus hijos esperan por ti."
"We're screwed," he said.
"We're screwed without some desperate measures," Arnulfo agreed. He didn't add, but thought, Though sometimes desperate measures might include just coming clean and giving back some of what we've stolen.
"Mañana sera,
Mañana sera,
Mañana sera mejor!"
32/6/467 AC, Panshir Base, Pashtia
Every day got a little worse. What had begun with directed terrorism and the distant siege of ambush of roads and blowing of bridges had grown to the point that most of the Tauran Union troops were confined to their bases, under frequent if not quite constant mortar and rocket attack. The Anglians and Secordians fought to keep the roads open, to rebuild the bridges, even to combat the terrorism on behalf of the TU troops that were forbidden by their governments from actively seeking battle.
In the larger sense, though, those English-speaking men and women were fighting to let the Progressive administration in Hamilton keeps it promise not to commit further Federated States troops to the war, but to rely on their "allies." In the largest sense, they were all fighting to prevent what their governments considered the ultimate disaster.
That ultimate disaster? It was not that the Salafis should regain control of Pashtia, nor even that they might use it for further attacks. No; the TU leadership—though many around the globe considered that expression to the ultimate oxymoron—lived in desperate fear that the fickle populace of the Federated States might once again elect an administration that quite simply considered the TU, indeed the rest of the world, to be largely voiceless and irrelevant.
"And even that's not enough to get the bastards to let us fight," fumed Claudio Marciano, as a large caliber mortar round detonated inside his camp, a few hundred meters to the east of his sandbagged command post. Following on the heels of the explosion he heard the cry "Medic!" and the scream of an ambulance siren.
"'Fighting never settled anything,' Generale," quoted Stefano del Collea, his eyes turned Heavenward in mock piety.
"Tell it to the city fathers of Carthage," Marciano retorted. "You know what bugs me about it, Stefano?"
"No, sir. I mean, other than the unnerving blasts, the wounded troopers, the sheer frustration of being here and not allowed to do our fucking jobs, sir, what could possibly be troublesome?"
Barely, Marciano restrained the urge to slap his cynical aide with his helmet. Instead, he said, "What bothers me is that they're able to keep this up at all. I mean, without the roads—which our masters made us give away—we can still get enough to eat. Our enemies are not only apparently eating; they've got the logistic wherewithal to bring in shells by the ton-load."
Del Collea sighed. "I know, sir."
* * *
About five thousand meters to the southwest, in a small village the Tauran command had made
into a no-fire zone, Noorzad looked on approvingly as one of his newer recruits, Ashraf al Islamiya, strained to carry forty kilograms worth of heavy mortar shells to the guns. He ported them—two at a time, one over each shoulder—from a small cave in which they had been painstakingly secreted over the last several months, to the firing position in the town square. There, two 120mm mortars chunked out their twenty-kilogram cargos toward the infidel base.
Noorzad had chosen this firing position precisely because it was an absolute no-fire zone, a place where all fire, even in self defense, was forbidden to the Taurans. Had some other village in range been a no-fire zone he'd have used that. If there had been no no-fire zones, he'd have forced all the villagers to squat around the mortars anyway. That, he had learned, would stop the Taurans from shooting back no matter what he did.
Still, the patent idiocy of the Taurans was not Noorzad's reason for approval. Rather, it was the spirited way in which Ashraf put his whole body and will into carrying the shells. It showed Noorzad the power and the truth of Islam. It reinforced in a most satisfying way that of which he was convinced anyway; that his way of life, his religion, and his truth—which was the eternal truth—would triumph.
* * *
With a grunt, Ashraf flipped one shell off his shoulder to be caught by an assistant gunner. The assistant likewise grunted as he took the shell, but paused to pat Ashraf lightly on the arm and smile encouragement. Then the assistant turned, took the shell in both hands, and eased the finned base of the thing into the mortar tube. He released it to slide down, ducking while covering his ears with his hands.
When he turned back to Ashraf, he saw that the new man was shaken with the muzzle blast. The assistant tapped him, still lightly, on the face and twisted to show him how to deal with the blast while carrying a shell. This involved hunching one shoulder and pressing the ear on that side into it, while reaching across the head with the free arm to place a hand over the other ear.
The assistant took the next shell from Ashraf, who trotted back to the mouth of the small storage cave to get more. As Ashraf took the next pair he realized that he felt . . . What an odd sensation. I am . . . more than pleased . . . perhaps, even, I'm a bit happy. Why? Well . . . that someone had cared enough to show me even this one tiny thread of the ropes that went into serving a mortar. Whatever I was told about the Salafis was a lie; once you are one of them you are one of them.
He could not remember a time in the army of Haarlem when any of his then comrades had really cared much.
* * *
The shells were expended and the mortar crew breaking their gun down to hide it in the cave from which it had been drawn. They would camouflage it just before splitting up and pulling out. Ashraf, once known as Verdonk, helped with the disassembly, insofar as he could. Mostly, he was in the way of an otherwise expert crew.
"Ashraf," Noorzad called out in the English he shared with ex-Haarlemer. "Stop for a few minutes and come over here." He then said much the same thing in Pashtun, "Send the new one over."
The assistant gestured with his hands and his face, Go to the leader. We'll make do without your help for a bit. He was careful not to add, by voice, gesture or expression, Besides, you're just in the way.
What the hell; the ex-infidel kid is trying.
Ashraf turned and walked to Noorzad, who gestured for him to sit.
Feeling distinctly uneasy—after all, it was not so long ago he'd been given the choice of accepting Islam or having his throat cut—Ashraf sat.
"You're learning your duties well, Ashraf," the guerilla chief said. "All your fellow mujahadin say so."
The former Haarlemer breathed a small sigh of relief. Apparently this little meeting was not to announce that leaving his throat unslashed had been a fixable mistake.
"Thank you, Noorzad. I've tried."
"Yes, yes," Noorzad agreed. "You've tried very hard and succeeded rather well. Soon you will be a fine crewman for the mortars. It's not enough though."
Ashraf almost felt the bite of a razor's keen blade drawing across his throat. He stiffened. "Not enough?"
Noorzad effected not to notice the nervousness in Ashraf's body's stiffening and in the convert's wavering voice.
"We are simple fighting men. To fight we can teach you. But the reason why we fight, the advancement of God's way? This we are not really quite up to."
"No?" The Haarlemer had never met such a bunch of religious fanatics in his life. He'd never even imagined such. They weren't up to his religious instruction?
"No," Noorzad said. "I am sending you and your other Haarlemer reverts"—"reverts" because one did not convert to the natural faith of Islam; one reverted to it—"on to a madrassa, a school, in Kashmir. It is safe there and there you will receive more and better instruction in the faith."
Ashraf felt a small surge of relief. They weren't going to cut his throat. And he was going to get out of action for a while. It would feel odd though, leaving the first home in which he'd felt comfortable, for certain values of comfortable, in years.
2/7/467 AC, Hovercraft pads, Main Cantonment, Isla Real
In contrast to Cara's happy smile, Cruz's face was a stone mask, a study in "Man, hiding his misery." While Cara played with the kids, he just looked longingly in the general direction of his tercio's camp, a few miles up the coast.
Their household goods were long since packed up; the 3 bedroom bungalow they'd shared turned back over to LHD, the Legionary Housing Directorate. They had a place waiting in the city now, while Cruz attended university. He'd met the new neighbors and found he had nothing in common with any of them. Maybe his classmates at the university would be better.
Maybe, but I doubt it.
Somewhere in his personal bag Cruz had the orders assigning him to Seventh Cohort (Reserve) of the First Tercio (Principe Eugenio). At least he'd be able to soldier one long weekend a month and a month over the summer. The three month's pay he'd earn would come in handy, too, since a legionary veteran's student stipend, even for a centurion, was something less than generous for a married man with two children. Really, it wouldn't be enough to live on, but for the guaranteed loans. And those came with strings.
Cara never thought about that. She was happy enough that her man would be home and out of danger. She never seemed to have considered how miserable he was going to be without that danger, and always stuck at home.
Cruz heard a growing whine and looked out to sea. Yes, there it was; the huge, Volgan-built hovercraft that would take them from the island to the landing point in the City. From there they'd take a taxi to their new apartment, their new "home."
Home? Cruz thought. What is home? It's not just the place you live; it's not just the place your woman is. I think . . . maybe . . . it's the place you're happiest. And I'm leaving home.
2/7/467 AC, Hamilton, FD, FSC
Dating from early in the history of the colonization of Terra Nova, the Federated States' Executive Mansion looked less a home and more a fortress. Within it, in an office marked by golds and greens and tasteful old woods, the President of the FSC conferred with his secretary of war.
"Cut the bullshit, James," said the President of the FSC to his secretary of war. "The war in Pashtia is not going swimmingly. Our 'allies' are not doing their part, despite what you promised me, they promised you, and I promised the people who elected me and the newspapers and television stations that supported me. Right now, the Office of Strategic Intelligence is convinced that Pashtia will fall about two months before mid-term elections. That, my advisors assure me, will cost us both the House and the Senate. Losing those will stymie the social programs we counted on getting passed to be re-elected. All of which means that, unless the Pashtian situation is turned around, we'll all be looking for jobs after that election."
"But Mr. President . . . " Malcolm began.
"Can it, James. No bullshit. We're in trouble and no two ways about it. Now how are you going to fix this and save our skins? And, please, spare me the nonsen
se about massive formation of TU troops to turn the tide. They're not coming, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. And if they did come they still wouldn't fight."
Malcolm hung his head. He'd been so sure that troops would be forthcoming. He'd been convinced that with the right platitudes, the proper kowtowing to the Tauran Union, the World League, the humanitarian activist NGOs and the world press, he could persuade the Tauros to really commit to the war. He'd been absolutely certain that the Gauls and the Sachsens would really help if only they were approached the right way. He'd been equally certain he had that way.
Bah! I couldn't even talk them into providing what they promised, let alone more. I couldn't talk them into allowing what little they have sent to actually go out of their bases and fight.
This was too uncomfortable a train of thought. Malcolm quickly added the mental amendment, If only the previous administration hadn't so thoroughly poisoned the waters.
He never considered that maybe the water was poisoned to begin with.
2/7/467 AC, First Landing, Federated States of Columbia
Although the local virus had the effect of substantially reducing the harmful effects of some of the things found in tobacco, they had done nothing to make its nicotine less of a poison in sufficient dosage. Indeed, in the form of nicotine sulfate, it was one of the better insecticides and lethal to humans in dosages of as little as fifty or sixty milligrams. It was even more useful since it was readily absorbed through the skin.
Khalid could have purchased simple cigarettes or cigars to prepare his mixture. There was, however, a simpler way, taught to him by his Volgan instructors. This was to purchase a commercial insecticide and distill out the impurities, leaving fairly pure nicotine sulfate. This he had done, achieving a highly concentrated and extremely deadly form of the stuff, with only enough liquid to make it free flowing.
In his hotel room he attached a baby's snot sucker to some clear, flexible tubing cut to the length of an umbrella. With the squeeze bottle at the end of the snot sucker, he vacuumed an appreciable quantity of the nicotine sulfate solution into the tube. This he plugged with a small cork, very tightly. The entire assembly he then taped to the cane of the umbrella, making a small slash in the material to allow the corked tube to protrude through slightly.