A Desert Called Peace (42 page)

Carrera stood up, walked to the railing of the porch, turned and leaned against it. He continued. "The first project involves the
Isla Real
. That's the big island in the Bay of Balboa. I want you, personally, to work out how to turn it into a major Initial Entry Training establishment capable of turning out up to thirty thousand trained privates a year, as well as the needed number of specialists, officers and noncoms to lead an army of about three hundred and fifty to three hundred and eighty thousand. I'll send someone over with the table of organization, equipment, and manning to guide you in your planning."

"I've already seen it in rough terms," Sitnikov said. "One of your people showed me. You really think you can turn this place into a nation-in-arms?"

"Maybe not," Carrera answered. "And maybe I won't need to. But it is certain that unless I plan for it, I won't be able to."

Sitnikov's head rocked from side to side, considering.
It's true enough, I suppose.

"Don't, repeat
don't,
try to build anything along those lines," Carrera continued. "I will want you to build, as the money becomes available, a less ambitious facility capable of turning out seventy-five hundred to eight thousand trained privates a year, with other specialty and leadership schools as required.

"Remember, though, all you can do is plan for now. Even to buy the island, or to get the government to condemn it through eminent domain, would cost about half a billion FSD, maybe more. I don't expect to have that kind of money until and unless I can work out a deal with the Feds to hire the legion.

"In any case, let me make this clear: the planning for the building of the smaller training facility is to be open, once we own the island. The plan for expanding it to the larger capacity is to be very close hold. Even more close hold, I want you to plan for turning the island into a genuine fortress, one capable of enduring air attack and defeating amphibious attack by
any
possible enemy."

Sitnikov brushed a hand through thinning hair.
Any enemy?
he wondered.
Even the FSC? The Taurans? I wouldn't enjoy taking on the FSC, were it my fortress to command. But killing Sachsen and Gauls? Zhong? Be still, my heart.

Sitnikov asked, "You think the others might report back even though they gave their words they will not?"

Carrera lowered his chin slightly, his eyes boring into Sitnikov as if the latter were a very dull schoolboy.

"Yes," Sitnikov admitted. "Well . . . I suppose so."

Carrera nodded and continued, "The next project is to plan to set up a major unit training center at Fort Cameron, something capable of training and testing units up to regimental size. We're going to cut you orders and get you a visa to visit the Federated States. I will also get the local FS attaché to get you permission to visit their combat training centers in the states of Arcadia and Sequoia. I'll give you more guidance on this later. For now, just go and see how the FS Army does it. And be skeptical."

Carrera paused while Sitnikov wrote this down. He began to walk from one side of the porch to the other.

"Lastly, I want—and in some ways this will be the most delicate work of all—I want a plan for organizing six junior military academies in six locations I will give you later. I will get you a professor from the University of Balboa to help with the academic requirements. The purpose of these schools will be to provide the preliminary training for recruits to the legions—yes I said, 'legions'— as and when we can expand. I also want—and this is critical—for these schools to be able to defend themselves at need and attack within fifty kilometers or so of their positions. They must be able to exit the academies and move to attack positions without being detected.

"Aleksandr . . . whatever I said to those who decided against citizenship . . . I want you to arrange things so
no one
can put together a picture of what we're doing from the bits and pieces those men will work on. Not if the KVD and OSI each had a thousand years to question every one of those men."

"That will not be easy, sir. I will have to do everything but the most mundane things myself."

"So? Lourdes will be remaining here. She can be of great assistance to you. She's a very impressive woman, actually. Now, what are your questions?"

As if on cue, Lourdes—smiling rather happily now—stuck her head out the folding glass door to the rear porch and announced, "Patricio, I've got Senator Rodman on the phone as you requested."

"Excuse me for a moment, would you, Aleksandr?" Carrera asked as he stood to go to his office.

"Patrick, dear boy, how can I help you today?" Harriet Rodman asked brightly.

Carrera went right to it. "I need an appointment, two hours or so, with Ron Campos, SecWar."

"
That
asshole? Whatever for? And why come to me?"

"I came to you because you can do it and because you are an honest politician." They both knew what Carrera meant by that.
Once bought you stay bought. And I'm keeping up the mortgage my uncle and grandfather placed on you and your antecedents.

He continued, "As for why him; I need his help with something. Actually, Harriet, come to think of it I really should bring you into it. You, after all, are concerned with loss of Federated States citizens' and soldiers' lives. You are pretty tight with a defense drachma. Yes . . . tell you what; I'll come up a day early and brief you. At dinner, say? Perhaps at the Army and Navy Club."

"No," Rodman answered. "Too public for both our purposes. Dinner at my place, okay? Use the back door. If we're conspiring, Patrick, let's
conspire.
"

"You've been doing
what
?" Rodman asked incredulously.

"Not 'been doing,' Harriet. Done. I have a large brigade,
el Legio del Cid,
a nongovernmental organization set up under the sponsorship of the government of the Republic of Balboa, organized, equipped and,
almost
, trained to fight."

"You aren't serious," she insisted. "You think these people can actually fight? Come on."

Carrera resisted, almost successfully, the outrage that he naturally felt at anyone casting even the slightest aspersion on a unit
he—
practically speaking—commanded.

Harriet knew she had overstepped her bounds when Carrera's fingers began drumming the table rhythmically.
His uncle used to do that when he was really annoyed,
she thought.

"For your information, Senator," Carrera said in an icy voice, "The legion is fully equipped. It is not equipped up to FS standards but it is still very well equipped. The core of the leadership cadres have experience of combat; many of them have much experience of combat. Moreover the bulk of the legion's leaders have been brought up to speed for modern, combined arms warfare. The younger ones have as well. The troops . . ." and the iciness left his voice as he began to describe his men.

"Ah . . . they're just
great.
The minimum IQ is 110. There is no army in the world that can boast that. The average is above 115 . . . closer to 120. In a place like Balboa, with fifty percent unemployment among young men, we could pick and choose, you see. There were about a hundred and eighty thousand unemployed young men. We only needed four thousand for now. They have been through courses of individual qualification as thorough and as rough as any in the world. They are almost frighteningly fit and healthy. They have been trained, the troops and leadership both, by some of the most combat experienced and capable trainers in the world. All they need is an extensive period of unit training, more for the commanders and staff than for the men. And that period is beginning even as we speak.

"So yes, Senator, they'll be able to fight . . . by the end of the year. They can be deployed in al Jahara before the campaign begins."

Rodman shrugged. "All right. Suppose I buy that this legion of yours can or at least will be able to fight? What do you want with Campos?"

"I want him to hire us."

The War Department gave Carrera the willies. He had always hated the place, from his first guided tour as an officer cadet to the last time he had set foot in it to tender his resignation. Everything about the comlex irked him, from the bloated staffs to the arrogant civilians to the military retirees who had sold their souls to defense contractors and made the place dangerous to walk with the slime trails they left behind them.

He loathed the décor. He loathed the special corridors set aside to pander to allies, most of whom had transformed themselves into albatrosses. He loathed the coffee shops and the pizza stands, the fast food malls and the shopping mall.

It was to him
everything
a military ought not be; an oversized, overstuffed monument to corporate bureaucracy.

"Secretary Campos will see you now, Mr. Hennessey."

As Pat stood to walk into the
sanctum sanctorum,
the holy of holies, he thought,
Hennessey . . . Carrera . . . shitbird and motherfucker. I have so many names now.

Campos was polite, at least. He stood, walked around his desk and offered his hand in welcome to the man he thought of as Patrick Hennessey, and more importantly thought of as the heir to the Chatham, Hennessey, and Schmied empire.

Hennessey took it while, at the same time, taking the measure of Campos.
Tall man. Old but not worn. Good bearing and good health. I wish he didn't have the face of a technocrat.

Campos began the chat. "Mr. Hennessey, how can I help you? Senator Rodman thought it imperative that we speak and, since she is on the Defense Appropriation Committee, I thought it wise to listen."

"Mr. Secretary, it's more a question of how we can help each other," Hennessey replied, in what had to be the oldest intro to a confidence game ever played. Campos took it as such but, in his line of work, expected no less.

"Please call me Ron."

"Pat, then . . . Ron. Look, I
know
that sounded like bullshit. But it's the truth. I have something
you
need. You have something
I
need."

"And those would be?" Campos enquired, innocently.

"I have an ally for you. I have an infantry brigade to assist you. I have people who will bleed and die so that fewer kids from the Federated States need to. I have people who will do so for less, much less, than it would cost you to have your own do it.

"But I need money, a
lot
of money, though less money than you would need for you own forces."

"Oh, really." Campos sounded, at best, skeptical.

"Yes, really. Shall I tell you?"

Campos consulted the watch on his wrist.
Oh, what the hell? I cleared my slate for two hours at that twat, Harriet's, insistence. I can at least hear the man out.

"All right," he said. "You have my undivided attention for the next thirty minutes. If you can engage my genuine interest in that time you can have more."

"Fair enough," Hennessey answered. Then he began to explain what he had on offer, and a portion of why he had it. Thirty minutes stretched to an hour, to an hour and a half, to two hours, to . . . "Mildred, clear my calendar for this afternoon. I'll be busy until this evening."

That led to, "And how much is this going to cost me?"

Hennessey inhaled deeply, then sighed. "As I said, a
lot
. But less than it might.

"We believe, my people and I, that the cost for you to use one brigade in full up combat for one month is approximately twelve billion drachma. To have that brigade in action over a longer term requires you to maintain a full division. That costs an additional four hundred million per month, base. That, you'll agree, is chickenfeed compared to the cost for actual combat."

"Whenever someone talks about that kind of money," Campos corrected, "it's
never
chickenfeed."

"All right," Hennessey conceded, smiling. "It's
not
chickenfeed. That also means that it wouldn't be chickenfeed if you could save that much, doesn't it."

Quick bastard, isn't he?
Campos mused.

"Further," Carrera said, "I will deploy my legion to al Jahara in time for the upcoming campaign. I will participate in that campaign. I will undertake any mission you or your commander in the field should care to assign us that does not involve going up against masses of heavy armor or which requires that we operate more than one hundred miles from a logistics base. We're not equipped for that and frankly you don't need us for that; you need us for clearing fortifications and built-up areas. I will do so for sixty percent of the cost to you, per month, of using FS troops. That is to say, it will cost you seven point two billion FSD per month of active operations. Neither my staff nor, might I add,
yours
expects active operations to last past six weeks. Later on, if there needs to be a pacification and stabilization phase, we can also be hired. I estimate the cost to you of that to be on the order of six billion, per year, for our one brigade . . . or legion, as we call it. Since that saves you billions, you'll agree that you will not be saving 'chickenfeed,' yes?"

Campos sighed. The leathery face grew a tad weary. "And there you had me going for a while. We can't afford that. I'd have to hide it and frankly I couldn't hide that much."

"You can't afford not to . . . Ron. And you can hide enough of it."

Campos pointed out, "We've already been helping you, you know. Harriet saw to that. Can't you come down on the price a little?"

Hennessey smiled, thinking,
We've already established what you are, young lady. Now we are merely negotiating your price.

The next morning Campos sent for an officer stationed there in the War Department who knew Patrick Hennessey from long years' service together.

"Is this guy Hennessey on the level, Virg?"

The officer addressed, one Colonel Virgil Rivers, shrugged, sighed, looked up and finally answered, "Pat Hennessey? Well, Mr. Secretary, the first thing you have to understand about Pat is . . . well . . . he's insane. I don't mean a little odd; I mean clinically insane. Great guy, actually, but nuttier than a fruitcake."