Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

  Payments, rather large payments, were already en route to the next of kin of the dead the force had suffered, carried by the two retired general officers who had had a place in planning the operation, back in San Antonio, but were too old, and knew it, for taking a more active role. In Galkin's case, for his next of kin-his mother, living in Saint Petersburg-the money had been sent through Father Pavel, in Paldiski, along with a small contribution to his church. Sure, Galkin hadn't really been part of the force, had never signed an enlistment contract, but, Stauer thought, Let's be big about this. What's a little piece of paper with a signature, anyway?

  "Gentlemen, ladies, couple of things," Stauer began. "First off, to announce a wedding: Chaplain Wilson will be officiating over a marriage between Miss Potter and myself in three days. You're all invited-Lana Mendes and the Romanian nurses' aides are required-to attend. Ladies, I am informed that the bride will be perfectly happy to have you serve as her bridesmaids in the same attire she'll be wearing, battle dress.

  "Gordo, you have the logistics down on that?"

  Harry Gordon looked up from a clipboard. "Yes, sir. There's still half a container of booze we stashed away for the victory celebration. Even these reprobates couldn't kill it all off. And, while Sergeant Island says that the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks doesn't have anything specifically about weddings, he can improvise. He also says that, since the manual does not cover the subject matter, perhaps it's a bad idea. However, you being the boss and the manual giving great deference to command, he says he'll play along."

  The sergeant major harrumphed. "Sergeant Island is a wise man, sir, and I think you should give his counsel serious weight."

  That earned him a dirty look from Phillie until she realized he was smiling-What? Joshua never smiles! Though, of course, he sometimes did-and wasn't remotely serious.

  "And," Gordo continued, "Phillie doesn't have to wear battle dress. It seems that Doctor Lin not only sews guts, she sews as a hobby. Or maybe it was a necessity in China. Dunno. Anyway, there is enough white material in sick bay that she is sure she and her own people can come up with a proper dress. Silk, no. White, yes.

  Reilly cast a sidewise glance at Lana. Should I ask about a second dress? Nah, I haven't even asked her. And besides, she'll want her poor nose fixed before she consents to having her picture taken. And she'll want pictures. If she agrees. Which, of course, she might not.

  "It'll still be battle dress for the bridesmaids, though." Gordo looked personally affronted that he didn't have a solution to that minor problem.

  "Fair enough," Stauer agreed. "That work for you, Phillie?"

  She nodded, speechless. The whole idea that Wes was actually going to follow through, especially after the fight they'd had . . . Thank you, God. Will You forgive me if I don't have any more sexual sins to confess, since none of the deliciously wet and sloppy stuff I intend to indulge in to excess will be a sin anymore?

  "Speaking more generally, and toward the future," Stauer added, "We really need to do some thinking, some planning, and some talking.

  "How many of you guys have any idea of how much money we have?" Stauer looked around. No, from the faces only a few do.

  "All right." He pointed at a thin middle aged Ophiri, standing against the rear bulkhead, and said, "Courtesy of the ‘late' Mr. Dayid, also late of Gutaale's accounting service, we have . . . billions. A couple, anyway. Not counting the assets we got from this job. If you check your enlistment contracts, you'll note that I get to control and dispose of any property seized. Sorry, Reilly, that means I own those tanks you filched.

  "What that means, though, is that we can afford to stay together, doing what we do best, until we're finally just too old to walk anymore." Stauer looked around at the small sea of mostly gray-headed, men, with weather- and care-worn faces, and added, "In other words, until sometime next year, anyway."

  That drew a hearty and good-natured laugh from the company.

  "Or, we can split up the money and each of you will be a millionaire. For about ten minutes until the tax bite hits. And good luck explaining to the IRS where the money came from.

  "Before I ask you to decide, I want Boxer to talk to you about life, the universe, and everything. Ralph?" Stauer stepped off center as Ralph took his place.

  "Lights. Camera," said Boxer. Immediately the lights dimmed to nothing, to be partially replaced by a somewhat blurry rectangle projected against the wall behind him.

  "He wasn't joking, you know," Boxer said, conversationally. "I mean about that tax bite. For the American majority among us, the top marginal rate-and we'll all be in it-is now forty-two percent, and the Social Security and Medicare rate-which is flat-comes in at a little over eighteen percent. And with the cap lifted, you'll pay that on every dollar. The Euro's will pay even more. If you come from a state like California, New York, Illinois, or one or the New England states, you can add anything up to twelve percent to that. And there's no guarantee that that won't go up, even retroactively, because the rates are driving people to flee both high tax states, and the high tax United States, for better climes, rather than being driven into the lower class by being taxed on behalf of the lower class.

  "Unfortunately, in the long run, there are no better climes. First slide."

  A map of the world appreared, showing sea lanes interrupted by markers of explosions off the coast of Somalia, both coasts of Panama, the Straits of Mallaca, and some few other places.

  "Those markers you see," Boxer explained, "were piratical attacks on shipping ten years ago. Next slide." The map remained, but the number of markers dropped roughly in half. "That's this year's. Looks better, no? Well . . . as a matter of fact . . . no. Because . . . next slide." The map disappeared, to be replaced by a chart showing the number of merchant vessels actually in operation carrying goods, and their average tonnage. More precisely, it showed the severe drop in both.

  "That's right," Boxer said. "There are fewer piratical attacks only because the volume of international trade by sea has dropped through the floor. Next slide."

  The map returned, this time showing explosive markers on land. There were a lot of them. Everywhere. "That's terrorist incidents, ten years ago. Next slide.

  "That's last year's. Note how many fewer there were. Good thing, right?

  "Wrong. Most of the areas that don't have any terrorism now-Afhanistan, Iraq, Egypt, for example-don't have it because they've fallen to Sharia law, and a) the imans and mullahs don't put up with that shit while b) why engage in terror; they've got what they want. In places that haven't yet fallen-Europe, notably, but also Africa, Latin America, and Asia-and which have large Moslem minorites, terrorist incidents are way up. Moreover, ethnically, culturally, or religiously motivated crimes-robbery, rape, arson, murder-have been going up at an average increase of six percent a year for the last ten years. As far as crime goes, sometimes the Moslems are the culprits, sometimes the victims, and sometimes they've got nothing to do with it at all. It's not altogether clear that anybody, or any group, respects law much anymore.

  "Terrrorism, by the way, would certainly have gone up even more except that money is tight. Why is money tight? Next slide."

  Boxer went silent for a moment, giving his audience the chance to digest the information. This one concerned the price of oil. On the face of it, the information was good. Oil had been dropping irregularly but generally for ten years.

  "This is why money is tight and part of why terrorism is down. The oil states, and especially Arab and other Islamic oil states, don't have any to give away. Their governments are barely hanging on, and to do so they're having to liquidate assets held in other countries to keep up their massive welfare systems and the security forces that try to keep a lid on things. In the long run, of course, this is death to them. It's only a matter of time before there's armed revolution in the streets of Riyadh and Kuwait City of a size and power they can't put down.

  "No bad thing, you think. Fuck ‘em, you think. But why is the price of oil down
? Next slide."

  This one showed industrial output from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It was all bad news. All of it.

  "Next."

  That one showed the growth in budgets of various trans- and supranational organization, ranging from the United Way to the European Union to the United Nations.

  "Interesting, isn't it, how while everything else is sinking into the sewer, the budgets of the transnational progressive organizations, fed by ‘contributions' from the developed world, and various frauds like ‘cap and trade,' keep rising? As domestic taxes keep rising? As the governments of the world prove ever less capable of ‘soaking the rich' and ever more adept at soaking the working class under the guise of soaking the rich? I'd suggest that that's not entirely a coincidence.

  "No more slides," Boxer said. "But remember, those were just a taste of what's going on. Remember, too, that all the really measureable things aren't very important, and all the really important things aren't very measureable. Worse than all that material shit is this: people in our civilization don't have any hope any more. They don't have any faith. They've stopped believing things can be fixed.

  "Some years ago, a German attempted to list all the reasons for the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. He stopped when he reached two hundred. There were probably more. I imagine that, in our more complex world, we could come up with five hundred, or a thousand. No matter. We don't need to. The pattern is clear, as clear as anything has ever been. To quote a wise old man of my acquaintance, ‘Civilization is on the ropes.' And that's even without a plague or new ice age. And I wouldn't bet against those, either."

  Boxer went silent and looked over at Stauer. Stauer nodded, and began to walk to center stage, as Boxer walked off to the side. "Lights," Stauer called, and once again the bay was brightly lit. That is, it was brightly lit except for the dark looks on hundreds of faces following Boxer's little briefing.

  "So what are we going to do about it?" Stauer asked. "More pointedly, what can we do about it?"

  He let the men and women, and the few girls, think about that in silence for a moment, then said, "We can fight it! It's probably the only thing we're good for, but by God, we are good at it. Old and decrepit as we may be, we are still goddamned good at it.

  "I don't know about you, but for me, I don't want my grandchildren-maybe my great-great-great grandchildren, someday, sitting in the burned out, washed out, crumbling ruins of my civilization-to say, ‘Oh, if only old man Wes had had the balls to fight it, back when it could still be fought.' No, sir. I'll fight it."

  He looked over at Reilly, who had an unaccountable smile on his face. "Something funny?" Stauer asked.

  "Not funny, exactly," Reilly answered. "But it made me remember something I had to memorize when I was in high school:

  ‘Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.'

  "Odd, the things one remembers," Reilly finished.

  "Maybe not so odd," Stauer replied. "Maybe just right."

  "Maybe," Reilly half agreed. "So what have you got in mind, boss?"

  "I've been thinking that the best way to do that just might be to open a military school somewhere. Nothing else is going to give us the excuse to have a base and be armed to the teeth on that base."

  "Back to Brazil, sir?" Cazz asked.

  "No," Stauer shook his head, "I don't think so. The Brazilians couldn't, or at least wouldn't, pay well enough for having their troops attend a school to keep it running on its own. That takes Oil Arabs, America, or Europe . . . or Japan, I suppose. And, being properly patriotic sorts, the Brazilians are unlikely to simply acquiesce in our flying in a new foreign infantry battalion, regiment, or brigade once a month so that we can train them. They've also got some issues with arms in private hands. I figure they'll really balk at tanks. Not to mention what an awkward position we'd be in if they ever discovered what we prepared to do while in their country."

  "We'll keep that Rhode Island sized chunk of land that Khalid thought he owned, mind you. But we'll keep it as an investment, nothing more, and we'll be extracting what we left behind as we can."

  "You're thinking a new jungle school, Colonel?" Joshua asked. The U. S. Army had closed its jungle school, the Jungle Operations Training Center, at Fort Sherman, Panama, many years before. "Sure be nice to spend my sunset years kicking tail in Panama."

  "Ah, yes, I almost forgot; you used to be a lane walker there at JOTC, weren't you? Anyway, Sherman's an option, Sergeant Major, yes," Stauer agreed. "It's even for sale, most of it, and has all the facilities we'd need, to include an airstrip, bunkerage, barracks, married housing-some anyway, offices, ranges, an impact area, and dock space for the landing craft and the Bastard. It's also on the Canal which would make slipping a unit out at need and discretely fairly easy. But, Bridges has checked; it is not going cheap."

  "Does this include us?" Konstantin asked. He knew about the payment being sent to Galkin's mother and thought, Now this is a group with a great Russian kind of heart, the kind of group we could be proud to be in.

  "If you and your men wish it to, Major, yes. Your pilots and ground crew, too, since, while we own the helicopters, we can't fly them. The other non-Americans, too, naturally."

  "If we stay," Konstantin thought about Yusuf's laptop, and again of a payment sent to the mother of one of his men, "we may have a contribution to make worth having. And, you understand, it is our civilization, too, that is falling."

  "I understand," Stauer said, thought he really didn't. And the way the Russian had said "contribution" didn't sound like he meant their own mortal selves.

  "Ummm . . . Sir, if I may?" Gary Trim interrupted, his words distinguished by quite a pleasant British accent.

  "Go ahead, sapper."

  "Sergeant Babcock-Moore and I discovered that Guyana actually has some . . . pretty suitable land. For . . . well, for dirt, sir. Couple of dollars an acre, or less."

  "Facilities?"

  "No," Trim admitted, shaking his head. "No, those we'd have to build ourselves or have built. Still, just doing that, providing jobs, would probably endear us to the locals. And I am, after all, an engineer and, arguably, so is that Hun, Nagy."

  "I found that chunk when we were first looking," Gordon added. "It's got potential."

  Seated in a wheel chair, one leg up and cast, Vic Babcock-Moore thought, And there is one local, anyway, I wouldn't mind being ‘endeared' to. And, this time, I've gotten her number.

  "It's an option to consider," Stauer said. "Great tracts of land, eh?"

  This last caused Vic to startle. How the hell did he know what I was thinking?

  Stauer rubbed his hands together. "Now, not that I'll consider myself bound by it, but let me get a feeling for who would like us to stay together and who would like us to set up a school. Also who would like us to stay in this business? For the first, show of hands."

  Stauer didn't bother to count. Some people probably hadn't raised their hands. Most had.

  "And for the second?" This told much the same story, as did the third poll.

  "Resolved then," Stauer said, in his most formal voice, "that this organization, name to be designated, shall find a place to establish a base, and set up a school to train First World armies in operating in Third World places, and that all present shall have a place at that school, salaries and other benefits to be determined. Further resolved, that said organization shall retain the ability to conduct such operations as it has in the past, and to conduct them, as and when appropriate, to save our civilization, if we can, but at least to fight for it."

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to my wife, Yoli,

  and editrix, Toni Weisskopf.

  And to the barflies, friends, and general helpers:

  Rob Hampson, Charlie Prael, Barry Sentinel,

  Victor Sargent, the Forgotten Soldiers Bike Club,

  Roger Ross, Mo Kirby, Su
e Kerr, Peter Gold,

  Steve St. Onge, Ori Pomerantz, Neil Frandsen,

  Dick Evans, Tom Wallis, Francis Turner,

  Mickey zvi Maor, Tim Arthur, Bill Swears, Steve Yee,

  Alen Ostanek, Chris French, Justin Watson,

  Chris Nuttall, Av'andira, Harry Russell,

  Keith Robertsson, Thomas Price, Lahela Corrigan,

  Scott Connors, Paul Howard, John Cristiano,

  and all the rest of the friends and ‘flies who've

  helped with the planning, execution, and test reading.

  If I've forgotten anyone, chalk it up to premature senility.