A Desert Called Peace (24 page)

"Outsourcing. You know, where you hire outside . . ."

"I know what it means." A trace of excitement crept into his voice, along with some self-contempt. "I have many flaws, Lourdes. One of these is pride. One of the effects of that pride is a tendency not to look outside myself or whatever group I control for help when I need it. Lourdes, go wake Dan, would you? Then call the airport and get me a flight for ummm . . . where the hell did I read Abogado had settled down to? Ah, I recall. I need a flight for Phoenix Rising, in the Federated States. Hmmm. For the day after tomorrow, I think. Lastly, make me an appointment for tomorrow afternoon with a corporate law firm in Ciudad Balboa."

Lourdes nodded and got up to go.

Carrera held up a hand to stop her. "And Lourdes? Neither I nor all my damned geniuses could come up with that trick. But you did. Thank you."

Unsure as to quite why, Lourdes felt a bounce in her step and happiness in her heart as she left the kitchen.

Some things in human civilization are eternal. Among these is the tedious, tiresome and, above all, odiferous task of waste disposal. Carrera could smell the plant from five miles away. Worse, the speed of the auto was greater than olfactory fatigue could deal with. The stink only grew worse.

Nor had it ended by the time he was invited into the office of Major General (Retired) Kenneth Abogado.

"It was good of you to see me, General, on such short notice," Carrera said, "and especially right after Thanksgiving."

General Abogado merely smiled. (Though perhaps "shit-eating grin" described the smile better.) He smiled first because it pleased him to be remembered as a soldier and as a general officer; not everyone with whom he came in contact had the good manners to do so. He smiled second that an offer had been made to him—better said, suggested to him—that might, just might, help him escape from the constant smell of human shit being recycled. Life had been hard for Abogado since leaving the army—hard, disappointing and degrading.

"My name is Pat Hennessey, though I go by Carrera now. I doubt you remember me, but we've met."

Abogado frowned in concentration. He stared for a moment at Carrera's eyes.

"I remember now," he said. "You're the one who lectured me when you were a lieutenant on the problems with subcaliber ranges; how the other full scale things that visible ruined the training effect.

"And you had the beautiful wife," he announced, remembering a single dance at a single officers' event with the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"Yes. The general has a good memory. As for my wife . . . 'had' is the word," Carrera said bitterly. "In a way that's why I am here."

Abogado started to open a desk drawer where he kept a pistol. Then he remembered he had never even considered trying to sleep with this man's wife. He closed the drawer and relaxed.

Carrera explained to Abogado, coldly—no tears now, no emotion showing through his armor—what had happened to his family.

"Son, that's a tough break," was all Abogado could say.

"Very tough," Carrera agreed, nodding. "Nor am I going to just take it. But I seem to have hit a wall." In a few sentences he explained what he had done to date in Balboa and what he was trying to do.

"I have several problems, but only one of those can you help me with."

"Help? How?"

"You are familiar with Professional Military Personnel Resources and what they do?"

"I know about them," Abogado spat out bitterly. "They shut me out. Just shut me out. And me the best trainer of infantry in the goddamned army, too."

"I'm not a huge fan of PMPR, either, General. And yes, you were very good," Carrera agreed. "Would you like the chance to train soldiers again?"

Ordinarily Abogado would have played a little hard to get, to sweeten the deal, whatever it was. However, at about that time the wind outside shifted and an overpowering whiff of recycled and recycling human feces assaulted his nose. "Where do I sign?"

"Not so simple," Carrera cautioned. "You haven't even heard what I need."

"Seems obvious. You need someone to train and lead an expeditionary force."

Carrera sighed. He hated to disappoint the old man. A bastard Abogado may have been, but he'd been very kind and patient with up-and-coming lieutenants. Yet . . . Abogado
was
old. He might have been quite something in his younger days. Indeed, he had been quite something. But he could never stand that kind of pace again.

Carrera sighed and shook his head again. "No, sir. We have a commander already. And a deputy. And a staff. What I need is a school. You have done that, and done it very well. That's why I am here; to offer to let you do so again."

Abogado kept the disappointment off of his face and out of his voice. Yet,
I am not too old,
a part of his mind insisted.
I am not!

"Details?" he asked resignedly.

"In the big picture," Carrera said, "I am having a lawyer down there form a corporation. It will be called FMTGRB: 'Foreign Military Training Group, Republic of Balboa.' Inc., of course. Or, rather 'S.A.' Means the same thing.

"If you accept my offer, the day-to-day running of this corporation will be yours, within certain guidelines my people in Balboa are working on."

"And this corporation is to do precisely what?"

"Well, I am willing to listen to reason on this but basically I need a group to train officers, warrants and senior noncoms. I need one shortened Command and General Staff College course for about one hundred officers. Then I need that CGSC to morph itself into a general purpose, all-arms advanced course for about another hundred. Then I need it to morph again into a combined Officer Candidate School and Officer Basic Course. After that, this group is to change back into a small CGSC, a small Advanced Course, and a continuing OCS."

"Clear enough. I would need maybe twenty . . . oh, possibly twenty-four good men for that. I could find them, I'm sure."

Carrera nodded. This was close enough to his own estimate. "Second, I need a Noncommissioned Officers Academy. We will need to take Senior NCOs and bring them into the real military world, take middle and junior NCOs and prep them to be platoon leaders and platoon sergeants—"

Abogado interrupted, "You mean send them to OCS?"

Carrera shook his head in an emphatic
no
. "They'll need much of the same training, yes, but I intend to follow the Sachsen model in this and keep a very small officer corps, about three percent of strength. Most platoons will be led by NCOs. Anyway, call this Group Two of FMTG; the officer group being Group One.

"Then I need something like FS Army Ranger School—call it, 'Cazador School'—to take the best of new privates and select from them those who have that . . .  oh . . .  certain something that makes for a really good officer or senior NCO.

"The last groups are a little fuzzy right now. My staff is still working on requirements. Basically, though, we'll need a center for training and testing of large battalions or small regiments, a service support training group that will also train specialists and warrant officers, a small naval school, a flight school for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, and you will need a small headquarters yourself."

Abogado whistled. "Tall order."

"Yes. Very. Can you do it?" Carrera asked.

The old general raised one quizzical eyebrow. "Can you fund it?"

"Not yet," Carrera conceded. "Rather, I can fund part of it now, but not all, not just yet. That must await developments."

"You mean, 'Don't quit my day job,' right?" Abogado's voice was heavy with disappointment.

Carrera pondered for a moment. "No. Quit your day job. Get away from the smell of shit and come back to the land of flowers. You, at least, I can support for a term of years."

"Let me make a few calls, first. Is that all right?"

"Surely, General. But, to be fair, I ought to tell you I have appointments over the next two days with Generals Schneider at the Catlett Foundation and Friesland on the other side of Phoenix Rising."

Abogado scowled. "Cancel 'em. I'll take the job. By the way, what does it pay?"

Carrera smiled broadly despite the smell of sewage. "Enough."

"I have had about enough of this place," announced Bowman. Daugher muttered agreement under his breath.

The two
had
flown to Dragonback. There they'd met some of Daugher's old motorcycle gang and borrowed a car. Then they'd driven to First Landing in an all-nighter.

Daugher and Bowman hated the city, hated the stink, hated the noise. They hated the silly disguises they felt called upon to wear— yuppie glasses and false mustaches, a slight amount of stage makeup, and practiced walks. Likewise they hated Hennessey's nasty little cousin for putting in jeopardy their own best hopes for the life they wanted to lead.

(For they still could not think of him as Carrera. For too many years had he been "that motherfucker, Hennessey" for them to change easily.)

They were following Eugene now. He hadn't been hard to find and he was not hard to follow as he walked from his upscale apartment to some unknown destination. Though the streets were dark, there was just about enough light to make out Eugene's dainty mince.

They almost lost Eugene when he turned a street corner. Racing to catch up they saw no sign of him when they had made the same corner. Music blasted from somewhere. The two raced to the next corner. Nothing, no sign.

"Shit!" said Bowman. "Lost the little bastard."

The two turned back, frustration seething within them. After a few minutes' walk, Daugher tapped Bowman on the shoulder before pointing upward to the opposite side of the street.

"The Peeled Banana?" Bowman could hardly believe it. "You think?"

"I think it's worth
looking,
" said Daugher.

Bowman shrugged, "Maybe so. After you."

With a similar shrug Daugher led the way. The interior was not so bad. Oh yes, it was full of more homosexuals than Daugher had seen since being let out of prison on an overturned conviction for murder. But they seemed not the terribly aggressive type. He began to relax . . . slightly. Then he saw two men, neither of them Eugene, kissing in a corner and a flood of unpleasant memories returned.

"I hate queers," he whispered, too softly to be heard.

Daugher and Bowman went to an open spot at the bar, one where they could see the—no pun intended—comings and goings of the clientele. There they sat, nursing their drinks and avoiding mixing, for nigh upon two hours.

"Not a sign," observed Daugher. "Might as well hit the road; try again tomorrow."

Bowman nodded agreement, then said he had to visit the men's room. Daugher thought about counseling against that, then decided the joke was too good to spoil.

Thus it was a very surprised Bowman who entered the men's room and saw a kneeling Eugene, servicing what was almost certainly a very new acquaintance. Ignoring his intended victim, Bowman did his business and left. Before he left, however, he had cause to note a window, about head-high, that ventilated the men's room.

"Bastard's in there," he told Daugher when he returned, "blowing somebody. One window, big enough to stuff a body out of. You'll have to be quick."

"Then he's been in there since we arrived," whispered Daugher. "Must be 'ladies night out.' Anyone else inside?"

"Just the blowee."

Daugher did a few quick mental calculations. "Okay, you can't go in there again. That might draw suspicion. I'll . . ." he stopped speaking as the bartender passed within earshot . . . "I'll wait until the guy with him comes out, do the job, stuff him out the window and come back. Then we can leave."

Eugene, apparently, either had great talent for the enterprise in which he was engaged or lacked any at all. It was quite some time before the man Bowman had seen with him emerged. By that time another had gone in and stayed. Then another. It was past ten PM before they knew Eugene was alone.

"And . . . we're off," Daugher whispered, tapping his fingers on the bar.

"Oh, aren't you a big one," Eugene observed as Daugher undid himself to urinate in the trough. "Want me to take care of that for you?"

"Sure, brother," Daugher agreed as he turned around.

The last thing Eugene ever felt was the blow from above that rendered him unconscious. He never felt the hands that gripped shoulder and chin and twisted his neck in a way human necks were not intended to go. He never heard the crack of his own neck breaking. When his wallet was removed from a back pocket—
Well,
thought Daugher,
there needs to be some better motive for the killing—
Eugene's body was already beginning to cool. He was thus spared the embarrassment of shit filling his trousers. Likewise he never knew that his bladder had let go. He felt neither the scraping as he was lifted up and pushed out of the small ventilation window nor the noisy impact on the trash cans below that window.

Daugher did up his trousers and left an empty men's room behind him.

"Done?" Bowman asked.

"Very done."

"You realize, right, that if they connect us to the murder the boss is screwed?"

Daugher thought on that. "Yeah . . . but's what to connect us? By the time I did it, the bartender had changed, so he can't connect the time the queer was in there with the time I went in there." He showed Eugene's wallet. "Motive: money. What connects us to a need for money? Nothing. Did the boss have a reason to want the fucker dead? Yes. Would we have killed him if the boss had asked? Clearly. But we weren't here; as my old motorcycle gang will swear on a stack of bibles, we were in Dragonback Pass. So they've got nothing, even if they suspect the boss."

Bowman considered that as the two walked. After a few contemplative moments he agreed.

Lourdes had passed on the news when Carrera had called in to the
Casa
Linda from his hotel in Phoenix Rising. He was shocked, at first. Then, secretly, he was pleased. That made him feel terribly guilty. Still, try as he might, he had not been able to shake the pleasure of Eugene's most timely demise. His shame grew with that failure, warring with his joy.