The Lotus Eaters (67 page)

"What are you going to do after we take down the prick?" his driver asked of Moises as he started the first of three vans parked in the nearby town of Bejuco, Balboa.

"Fuck his wife in all three holes and then turn her over to you bastards."

"Works for me. Especially if the rest of us get to fuck the former Miss Balboa." He started the car.

"Nah. She's off limits, Mrs. Artemisia Calderon-Jimenez de McNamara. Too many people care about her. And neither she nor her husband have ever harmed anybody. But Carrera's tall, skinny whore? She's getting stuffed. To punish her bastard gringo husband. Those were my uncle's orders."

* * *

Though it really wasn't needed, indeed it was wasteful competition with the air conditioning, there was a fire blazing in the fireplace. The light from that reflected of the living room's mirrors, and then again from the ancient sword hung over the mantle.

"So this fucker," Carrera told Lourdes and Arti, pointing at McNamara with the glass of scotch in his hand, "jumps in the back of one of my squad's tracks and proceeds to spend the day with them. Observing. Teaching. The next day it was different squad, and then a different squad after that. For nine days."

He sighed. "If every sergeant major in the Federated States Army was like that, they'd be unbeatable."

McNamara, embarrassed, sipped at his own drink, then said, "It ain't t'e sergeant majors t'at won't do it. It's t'e system t'at keeps t'em chained to a desk. T'at, and t'e spare parts t'eory of personnel management."

"You didn't let the system chain you," Carrera said.

"I was so freakin' senior, t'ey couldn't make me do anyt'ing. Hell, t'ey tried to make me division sergeant major and I told 'em to stuff it. Hard to control someone who got no ambition for anything t'ey can give."

Outside, Jinfeng the trixie gave off a loud warning screech.

"Even so . . . what the fuck was that?"

* * *

"Now!" Moises Rocaberti ordered, lowering his submachine gun and firing a burst into the bird whose screeching head stuck up above one of the bushes flanking the main entrance. Immediately four of his men, standing under windows, propelled two more through those windows and into the house. The distant sound of crashing glass told of similar maneuvers around the back. Two men standing by Moises pulled back the door knocker—a welded steel battering ram—and slammed it into the door, once—
cachang
—twice—
cachang
—thrice . . . and the door burst open.

By twos a mass of men flooded through the door, each careful to avoid the cooling bodies of guards silently slain when the attackers had first left the first van. This mass split off, some turning into the living room, some ascending the steps, and some racing for the back part of the house.

Resistance was over before it could be said to have begun.

* * *

Lourdes screamed.

"Shut up, whore!" Moises ordered, his gaze lingering for a moment on Lourdes' milk-swollen breasts. "Patricio Carrera, aka, Patrick Hennessey, you are under arrest for . . . hmmm . . . do we have the evidence?"

"Outside in the van," one of the policemen reported. "I didn't see the point of bothering to bring it into the house."

"Very good. You are under arrest for war crimes, crimes against humanity, election fraud, and narcotrafficking. All over the country forces are moving to get rid of your people. You're finished."

"Piece of shit!" Carrera twisted in the arms of the men cuffing him and received a cuff in turn for his troubles. To two other of his men the younger Rocaberti said, "Escort the
puta
upstairs. Make sure her kids are accounted for." He pointed at Artemisia and said, "And take this one to a different room."

"Fuck you, you bastard," Arti sneered. Moises slapped her to the floor. That was too much for McNamara. He'd been standing with his hands up, in front of the fireplace. He turned immediately and grabbed the old sword Lourdes had purchased for Carrera. Before he could well turn around, one of the police fired a burst into his midsection, tossing him forward and into the fireplace.

Lourdes pulled away from the hands gripping her and ran to pull Mac away from the fire, kneeling on the floor and keening besides him.

"Never mind, Lourdes," Mac said, weakly. "This is a better end than any I'd hoped for."

What can I DO
? Her eyes pleaded.

Whatever you must
, his own answered back.
Anything.
Then McNamara closed his eyes. He could feel the life pouring out of him. "Take care of Arti for me, Miss Lourdes," he said, at the end.

"Get this twat upstairs," Moises repeated. "And carry the new widow off, too." To Lourdes he added, "Get into something more comfortable and easier to get out of."

In his analysis of the problem, Pigna had come to the conclusion that there was only one force really capable of intervening in the city. All the others—barring only the troops in the jungles of La Palma—would take from hours to days to mobilize and move against his 7th Legion. The troops in the jungle would take even longer.

But the Volgans . . . they're the only real threat to my operations. They're here; they're trained; they're organized. Let them loose and my legion would collapse like a house of cards as soon as any of them came to understand what is happening, beyond the handful I brought into the plan last night. Most of them are just following orders to secure the city and do certain things that they think come from Carrera.

Got to neutralize the Volgans.

With that in mind, he got out of his mule and walked the fifty odd concrete steps to the Volgan commander's quarters, the two moons cancelling out his shadow. He mounted the stairs and knocked. A somewhat plump Volgan woman answered the door, then turned and called something in a language he assumed was Russian. The man he recognized as Samsonov came to the door quickly.

"Legate Samsonov," Pigna began.

"Legate Pigna."

"I just wanted to let you know I've received orders from Carrera to do some very odd things in the city. My legion is already moving, by vehicle and on foot, to secure certain vital assets and critical facilities."

"War with the Taurans?" Samsonov asked. The prospect didn't seem to worry him overmuch.

"No," Pigna shook his head in negation. "At least I don't think so. Frankly, I'm not sure what Carrera has in mind. Though he insisted we break out and issue our basic load of ammunition."

"Damned strange. I would have expected him to have told me."

Pigna shrugged. "He did say that this was a test of readiness, so perhaps that's why you were not informed."

"Maybe. I hope no blood is spilled by mistake because people were not informed."

"Oh, I understand that he or someone will be speaking tomorrow morning. It should be all right."

Lourdes never noticed that her knees were covered in McNamara's blood. Perhaps she avoided looking down instinctively. Instead, she paced frantically about the room she shared with Patricio. She heard her children and Arti's crying in the room next door. She went to the adjoining door and opened it, only to be met by a grim faced guard who pointed her back to her own room. Behind that guard, two others were laying Artemisia down on one of the children's single beds.

What am I going to do? What am I going to do? "Anything" Mac's eyes told me. Anything. What is "anything."

Calm, Lourdes, calm. You have to think clearly if ever you did. For your own sake, for your husband's, for your children: Think.

She picked up the phone.
Dead. They must have cut the lines. Aha: My mobile . . .
She grabbed the phone and flipped it open . . .
is dead. Has no signal, anyway. They must have taken control of the wireless system. Damn it! Think, Lourdes, think.

Who is behind this? Not the legions, or not most of them. But maybe some. Who can I trust? Not the police. Who . . . who . . . the Volgans! But how do I get to them?

So far as he was aware, Colonel Muñoz-Infantes didn't have a single reason to worry about much of anything. Oh, yes, that skinny frog, Janier, had it in for him, but no more than he, the Castilian, had it in for the frog and the Tauran Union. Yes, he was passing information to the other side, but that was an old Tauran tradition, and something the bureaucrats who ran the place would be loathe to curtail. Besides, he
was
Castilian, and the frogs had no real authority over him. This phenomenon was one of the reasons that the Tauran Union was so militarily ineffective, even though its individual armies were generally quite capable in battle when allowed to be. Though there were rumors, persistent rumors, of a change to this that would create a unified armed forces with a unified chain of command and legal code.

"I can't see that happening, though," the colonel told Victor Chapayev. "We're Taurans; we all hate each other, deep down. I mean . . . maybe if we had an outside enemy threatening us. Maybe."

Maria, the colonel's daughter, hadn't yet stalked off as she usually did. Instead she sat quietly on a chair opposite her father and Victor. Her father had had a very long and not particularly pleasant chat with her on the subjects of rudeness, honor, and the duties owed to one's father and one's guests. She still thought that the work Victor was engaged in was vile, even if he seemed nice enough.

"On the other hand," the colonel continued, "we've got an inside enemy—the bureaucrats of the TU—and that hasn't brought us together."

"The Tauran Union is
not
the enemy, father," Maria said, heat in her voice. "It's all that's kept us at peace since the Great Global War."

"So say the schools that propagandized you since you were a girl," her father answered, calmly. "Personally, I think it was a combination of Federated States occupation troops and the external threat of the Red Tsar that kept us from each others' throats and that the TU was a beneficiary of that but had absolutely nothing to do with causation."

Best not to take sides, Victor
, Chapayev told himself,
though the colonel is clearly right.

"And then there's the corruption that permeates . . ."

"I'll get it, father," Maria said, rising to answer a knock at the door.
Anything to cut off another of these TU rows
, she thought.

"No, never mind," Muñoz-Infantes insisted, likewise rising. "I'll get it. It's probably business anyway."

He walked to the door and undid the latch. As soon as he had, the door swung open
hard
, knocking the colonel to the floor. Victor stood and Maria screamed. Both stopped, the one in caution and the other in deer-in-the-headlights panic when presented with an armed group of men in Castilian battle dress pushing into the living room, and the muzzles of pistols pointed in their direction.

"Colonel Muñoz-Infantes," said one of the
pistoleros
, "you are under arrest for . . ."

At that, Maria fainted.

* * *

The colonel was being dragged down the walkway when Maria came to. Chapayev made sure she was all right, then reached under his uniform tunic to take his service pistol in hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Didn't you notice that those men were in your country's uniform but had the local accent? That was no legitimate arrest."

"Bu . . . but
why
?"

"That I don't know, but I do know your father's been a good friend to me and I'm not going to see him dragged off by fakes." Victor looked around and ordered, "Get into the kitchen, behind the refrigerator. I'm going to go get your father."

"But there were three of them, and there's only one of you."

"There are probably four of them. So? Trust me; they're toast." Chapayev stood and ran for the side door.

I get to the Volgans by killing at least one of my guards
, Lourdes thought, then amended,
No, be honest. I get to them by killing the one who obviously intends to rape me. But . . . how?

She looked around the bedroom.
Patricio keeps a pistol under the mattress, but it will make noise . . . a LOT of noise. That will put an end to any escape. Knives? No . . . no, no knives here. But . . . aha!

`She kept a small desk in the bedroom, since by common, if unspoken, agreement with her husband that room was hers and he was just an invited guest. And on the desk was a large brass letter opener with an onyx handle.

I can't kill for beans with this
, she thought,
unless I can get it into his heart or his brain. And I'm not sure I'm strong enough to push it through the muscles on his chest. So brain it will have to be.

She suddenly felt nauseous at the thought of the thin, dull point driving through eye and bone. And then she considered how she was going get him into a position to drive the blow home. That made her more nauseous still.

But still . . ."Anything," Mac said. And . . . if this is what I think it is Patricio is a dead man and my girls orphans—assuming they're allowed to live—unless I act. So . . ."anything." Forgive me, Patricio.

Quickly, Lourdes began to undress. As she tugged at her clothing with one hand, the other took up the letter opener.
Now where to put this? What piece of furniture am I going to defile?

The facility had been a school once, with the classrooms built atop a hill and the gymnasium down at the base, both connected by a covered walkway. Later on, after it had lost that function and been abandoned, it had served as a training facility for city fighting for the very first incarnation of the
Legion del Cid
. This function it had lost once better facilities were built. Now the upper level school served as temporary barracks while the lower level held Parilla. The helicopter bearing a bound Carrera from his home touched down by the upper level. President Rocaberti was waiting to meet it when it landed, along with a couple of his larger and beefier presidential guards.