Come and Take Them

by Tom Kratman

  La Comandancia, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  When Soult and Carrera arrived on the scene, the wreck of the helicopter gunship still smoked slightly. A substantial crowd of civilians looked on from a distance. Carrera gazed—not quite dispassionately—at the charred bodies of its two Tauran crewmen. The Balboans had been unable to recover the corpses until long after they had been burned beyond recognition. Despite the constraints in their helicopter, fire had twisted the bodies into fetal positions. Did I know you once, I wonder? After all, you were allies for many years. Were we comrades? Have we ever talked shop in the O Club over a friendly beer? Did your teachers and mine ever share a friendly beer? Might you even have been one of mine once? If so, I’m sorry, Friends. Even if not, I’m sorry. For your families most of all.

  An ambulance pulled up. The medics on board assembled two litters and roughly placed the corpses on them. The arm of one of the Taurans came loose and fell to the ground, burnt splinters of bone and fragments of flesh sloughing off, at the coarse handling. Carrera flew into a rage. Barely restraining himself from soundly slapping one of the medics, he shouted, “Those were brave men, good soldiers, and you will treat their remains with respect. Understood?”

  The medics cowered, mumbling apologies. Carrera turned away to walk to where the gun crew, and Signifer Torres, waited.

  Torres stood the crew to attention and reported. Carrera returned the salute and asked what had happened.

  Reluctantly, half-ashamed, Torres admitted, “Sir, it was a mistake. My fault. For whatever it’s worth, sir, the men did well. They just were following what they thought were my orders. My fault, sir.”

  Carrera exhaled. “No it wasn’t, son. And who knows? Maybe it will turn out to have been a good thing, for us if not for those pilots.” He clasped a hand on the officer’s shoulder. Torres bowed his head slightly, in thanks.

  Carrera continued, “But, with orders or without, these men did their jobs well. And that deserves to be rewarded.”

  Carrera motioned an aide to his side. The aide drew five badges from a satchel. One by one, Carrera decorated the crew with antiaircraft “kill” badges, shaking each man’s hand after pinning on the award. These were only the second crew in the entire legion ever to receive the badges, the first having been the crew that had shot down a Federated States Air Force jet during the war in Sumer.

  As Carrera walked back to his automobile a little Balboan girl of perhaps five or six broke from the crowd. Before her mother could restrain her she rushed across the street to Carrera’s car. When she reached it she stood, silent and suddenly gone very shy, by the door. The girl kept her hands behind her back.

  Carrera looked down and smiled at the child. So like my little Milagro. Are you going to end up like those poor pilots, little one? If you are, it’s going to be my fault, too. Then who will avenge you? Who will be left to avenge you? Who will the revenge be against? I know who it should be.

  The child, still silent, pulled her hands from behind her back and presented Carrera with a bouquet of flowers such as any child might pick from among the weeds found in a still downtrodden part of the city. Her own sweet smile answered Carrera’s.

  Carrera picked the girl up in one arm, taking the bouquet in the other. He walked in the direction from which she had come, speaking so softly to the child that no one could hear but she.

  Seeing the young woman who, from her fretful face, had to be the little girl’s mother, he passed the girl over with as much grace as a man could be expected to. He’d guessed from the lack of a ring on the woman’s hand that she wasn’t married.

  “I take it this is your little girl, Miss . . . ?”

  “Fuentes, señor. Maria Fuentes.”

  Carrera consulted his watch. “Well, Miss Fuentes, little Alma here has brightened up my day considerably. Would you do me a big favor and let me take the both of you to lunch?”

  One does not refuse an invitation from someone who is not only the second most powerful man in one’s country, but also has a reputation Attila the Hun would have been proud to own. Still, it was the strangest thing to Maria, walking through the streets of the City, Carrera carrying her daughter, and all of them surrounded by big men carrying guns.

  The owner of ice cream shop and delicatessen blanched. Of all the people he never expected to see enter his establishment, Carrera was probably the last.

  Carrera bought Alma a sandwich and then an ice cream cone. It was painful to watch, actually, a beautiful little girl who just possibly had never had ice cream in her life before.

  Maria tried to refuse out of sheer pride but Carrera was having none of that.

  “I insist,” he said, “at least a sandwich.”

  He, conversely, settled for coffee. Patting his stomach he said, “My wife overfeeds me. And I don’t get out as much as I used to. If I didn’t watch myself, I’d get fat.”

  Carrera asked Maria a little bit about herself. She told him as little as possible, consistent with that pride.

  “You know,” he said, “I never get a chance anymore to just sit down with someone and talk. Where do you work?”

  At that point Maria was certain he was going to offer her a job as a mattress. He was old enough to be her father but in Balboa that was not such an obstacle.

  “Well . . . I’m sort of between jobs right now,” she admitted.

  He asked Maria about her future plans but she didn’t have any beyond seeing Alma grow up to a better life. “For myself,” she said, “I have no hope for the future.”

  After a while, she asked a question of her own. “Sir,” she asked, “why did you and Presidente Parilla exterminate the opposition government?”

  He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, his eyes staring into space. At length he answered, “Self-defense, I suppose; they were trying to exterminate us.”

  Seeing she didn’t understand, he elaborated, “The old, rump government tried to get rid of us on some trumped up drug charges. Many of my friends were killed; my new family threatened. My wife, Lourdes . . .” He stopped talking for a moment, his eyes filling with pure hate. Maria had never seen that much hate, not even her own after some particularly bad days.

  “Anyway,” Carrera continued, “Lourdes saved us. You probably knew that; it’s become the stuff of national legend. When our side had won out, Parilla and I determined never to let anything like that happen again. We stamped out the oligarchs to let the country start over fresh.

  “Mostly, it’s working,” he said. Then he looked at her threadbare clothing, looked at Alma’s too thin frame. He looked at Maria’s face and sighed. “Unfortunately,” he added, “a lot of decent people have been cut out. We only have so much money to go around, despite some help from some friends who have the same enemies we do. There’s only so much we can do. By concentrating only on those with military power, we’ve left a lot of folks—people like yourself—without any recourse at all. This seems to be especially true of the women of the country. I’m sorry. There’s only so much to go around,” he repeated.

  “God knows,” she told him, “I could use some help. One decent break, that’s all I need.” He was impressed that she didn’t cry, though clearly her voice was breaking and ready to.

  He looked at her very intently, then he asked her, if it were possible for Alma to be cared for, if she would be interested in joining up. He said he couldn’t do more for her than that. “The benefits of society are for those who benefit society.”

  Maria hesitated. Carrera reached over and pulled Alma onto his lap. She immediately settled in nicely, still intent on her ice cream. He asked her, “Don’t you think this beautiful little girl deserves every chance you can give her?”

  “I might be interested,” Maria admitted.

  Carrera reached into a pocket, pulled out a business card and wrote something on it, signing “C.”

  “Call that number if you think you would like to try.”

  Before leaving he reached in
to a pocket and pulled out some money, saying, “Buy her a birthday present from me.” He turned his body, too, so no one could see the money.

  Then he set Alma back down, paid the bill and left, his entourage of guards following in his wake.

  He stopped, turned, and then waved to Alma from the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

  —Saint Augustine

  Iglesia de Nuestra Señora, Via Hispanica, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  A noonday sun beat down on the city with its customary lack of mercy. The only shadows were under the many trees lining the boulevard. Even there, sun reflecting off of red tile roof and white stucco reflected painfully to the eyes. From that the only shelter was indoors or behind sunglasses or tinted automobile windows.

  Carrera consulted the calendar on his watch, then pointed, ordering, “Over there, Jamey.” His finger was aimed down a side street that paralleled a large, gossamery church, mostly in white, and more particularly at a reserved parking spot, marked with a yellow sign, next to a lacelike projection from that church.

  Nuestra Señora was not the largest church in Balboa, nor remotely the oldest; there was one still in use in Valle de las Lunas that claimed—right out front on a bronze plaque—that Belisario Carrera had laid its cornerstone. It was, however, the grandest, the prettiest, and the one where, when he found time for services, he preferred to go.

  “Sure you don’t want to swim the Tiber?” Carrera asked, with a smile.

  “Eh?” Warrant Officer Soult shrugged, with a mirroring grin. “All you bloody papists are doomed to hellfire.”

  “Well,” Carrera half agreed, his smile disappearing, “surely some of us are.”

  Dammit, Jamey, thought Soult to himself. You dipshit, you know how freaking sensitive he’s been about some things ever since he nuked Hajar.

  Not that he doesn’t have some reason.

  Carrera let himself out of the armored sedan—today, in the city, he was using an unmarked one, and had dispensed with his usual armored car escort, in favor of a team of bodyguards—then closed the door behind him. The heat struck him like a blow, except uniformly all over his body.

  Note to self: tell Jamey not to run the air conditioning in the car quite so cold. The transition is too tough.

  Under the shadow of the projection, the door was closed. Air conditioning for something so large was not, after all, especially cheap. The door was not, however, locked nor did he expect it would be. He slid inside, as a welcome bath of cool, dry air washed over him.

  He dipped three fingers in holy water, then made the sign of the cross. A half-dozen steps along the tiles, under the vaulted arches above, a left-hand turn, and a few more steps, and he took a seat outside one of the confessional booths. There were a couple of well-shaped, well-coiffed, well-dressed, and rather pretty women of about ten years less than his own age there ahead of them.

  Carrera was most flattered when the women checked him out. Surely they recognized him—no one in Balboa could fail to—but they might not have been aware he was married. They might not have cared, either. So, to spare both them and himself any embarrassment, he began nonchalantly playing with his wedding band with the fingers of his right hand.

  Best I can do under the circumstances.

  The women took the hint with good grace. They were still, after all, quite attractive and they knew it. Plenty more fish in the sea . . . even if . . . none quite so replete with such a thrilling air of infinite menace.

  And then it was Carrera’s turn at bat. He entered the confessional, knelt, and began, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned grievously. It has been . . . oh . . . lemme think . . . nine weeks? Yes, that long . . . since my last confession. My theology was unsound then; it is unsound now; but there are sins on my soul I cannot confess.”

  Recognizing the surcolombiano accent, the priest, a Spanish-speaking expatriot named Murphy, asked, “It is Duque Carrera, is it not?”

  “Yes, Father; Carrera.” Not to be outdone, Carrera asked, “And you would be Warrant Officer Father Murphy of the Tenth Infantry Tercio, would you not?”

  “I would,” the priest admitted, “though why you won’t commission men of the cloth . . . never mind, never mind. That’s for another time and place. What sins have you committed that are not common knowledge, my son?”

  “The sins that are common knowledge, Father, I feel no repentance for, and cannot, in good faith, ask for forgiveness for them. There are other sins for which I am truly sorry but which I do not have the right to confess, even to a priest. There are sins of mine that innocent people might pay for, were I to confess them.”

  “You don’t feel repentant for the murders, the torture, the overthrow of the government?”

  “No, Father. And, speaking of torture, that’s why I cannot confess them. If the Gauls got their hands on you, say, and put you in the hands of a skilled and ruthless interrogator, there is nothing you would hold back. As for the old government—getting rid of them has worked out well for the people, and so I will take my chances that God will count the benefits against the harm and forgive me anyway. I am sorry for the innocents that suffered—I know there were some—but when I can forgive myself, I’ll ask God to forgive me.”

  “Then what sin do you seek forgiveness for?”

  “I’ve caused a great war, Father.”

  Misunderstanding, the priest said, “There is no war here. Yes, I heard on the news about the Tauran helicopter. But that was not a war . . . a skirmish perhaps, even an accident of sorts, so I’ve heard.”

  “An accident only in its details, Father. I shot down that helicopter as surely as if I’d pulled the trigger. It was inevitable the day I returned to Balboa. The day I let my pride—and my anger and hate—set me on the road I’m on . . . the road I’ve forced Balboa down. It’s a one-way road with no going back.”

  “How could you force this country to war? You’re just one man.”

  “No, Father, I’m not just one man. I wish I were. Then I could not have done what I’ve done. You could not know all the details—no one but myself does—but I’ve given Balboa the means to fight the Tauran Union and even more, very likely with success. And I have arranged things so that fighting is inevitable. I knew what I was doing from the beginning, at least from the time when Parilla recruited me. Almost every step, and every important one. Even when the old government tried to get rid of me—it was not my plan, but it was certainly within my intent to get rid of it, eventually, so the Taurans and the internationals would back Balboa into a corner from which it had to fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hate them. Because I detest their decadent society. I despise their arrogant, ignorant view of the world. I have nothing but contempt for their whining self-pity, their glorification of the worthless. I detest their preference for form and appearance over truth and substance.

  “I hate them for giving aid and comfort to the people who murdered my last family. Even then, though, I think that—deep down—I may have hated them even before that.

  “But maybe not . . . It’s hard to remember now what I felt back then.”

  “And what has changed?” asked the priest.

  Carrera sighed, “Hate pales, Father. It grows old and stale. Bitter on the tongue. And . . . then, too . . . I don’t want my people, my real people, hurt anymore. It just isn’t worth it. There was a little girl this morning, Father. Not far from where the helicopter was shot down. A sweet little child. I don’t want her hurt. I don’t want my new family hurt. I don’t want any more of my soldiers hurt. I don’t even want any more of their soldiers hurt.”

  “‘Th’ unconquerable will and study of revenge, immortal hate and courage never to submit or yield’?” asked the priest.

  “Yes . . . well, Father, hate may have paled, but back when it was fresh and new I studied well, planned well. And so, in my pride, I laid all the groundwork needed to e
nsure revenge. Even if I don’t want it, or don’t want it enough, anymore.”

  “Can you not stop the war?”

  “How? If I leave Balboa, I leave behind me a fine little army of citizen soldiers; well trained, well led and brave . . . and patriotic, too. Their patriotism will make them stand firm to the time of fighting, their training and courage will make them fight hard. Although they’ll lose . . . without me.”

  “And with you?”

  “They could win. I’ve planned for them to win. But it will be costly; bloody beyond even what they can believe.”

  “And you were ready to let them bleed for your revenge?”

  “I was. No more. I’m sorry. But it’s too late to stop now.”

  “Could you go back to the old government? Would that make the Taurans back off?”

  “I actually didn’t plan for this. I didn’t because I knew it would happen; the soldiers will not permit us to go back to the old ways. Why should they? They run the country now, or will when their time of service is up. They benefit from the arrangements I have made. They’ll follow me as long as I lead where they want to go. But they won’t willingly go back to the way things used to be.”

  The priest went silent for a moment, on his side of the darkened cubicle. Carrera could barely make out the shadow through the mesh that separated them. When the priest spoke again, he said, “There is pride in your voice. More perhaps than you know. You said Balboa can win. What I think you mean is that you believe they will win. Is that so?”

  “Yes, Father. Balboa will win, if I lead.”

  “Can’t you convince the Taurans States of that? It seems to me the only hope for peace, for them to back off since you . . . we . . . cannot.”

  In the darkness of the confessional, Carrera shook his head. “No. Not without revealing things that, if revealed, would ensure that Balboa cannot win. I’ve tried certain things but . . . no, they don’t seem to want to believe.”