A Desert Called Peace (27 page)

Lourdes glanced down at the newspaper, then back to her boss. "But you and General Parilla have an appointment with the acting president in just three days, Patricio. Isn't that about getting all those things?"

"Yes. But Parilla and I both have our doubts about how easy it will be. Even after this," he said as his hand gestured towards the paper.

"I have faith in you, Patricio. You will get what you need."

He sighed. Maybe the girl was right. "Lourdes . . . you're a reasonable girl, as reasonable as anyone in the country. Do you believe we . . . Balboa should go to war over this?"

Lourdes' eyes flashed pure Castilian fire, glowing hot with rage and hate. This fire would have been commonplace during the
Reconquista
, the centuries-long drive to rid Spain of the hated Moslem. On Cortez's march to Tenochtitlan to conquer the Mexica a similar flame had lit the eyes of his conquistadors. Aboard the ships of the Holy League the night before the bloody naval battle at Lepanto, Don John's sailors' and marines' eyes had shone so. It was the very fire that had once made Spain "the nation with the bloody footprint."

"Oh, very much, yes. Yes, yes,
yes
." Her foot stamped. "You must make them
pay
for this!"

Carrera nodded, satisfied. A hand reached out for a cigarette. "Lourdes, would you get Professor Ruiz on the phone for me? Then call Parilla's secretary and see when he will be available."

Smoke curled up from half a dozen vile Volgan cigarettes to gather and congeal along the ceiling and walls of the room. A small buffet— and that was
not
vile at all—sat pillaged on a table near the room's only door. Inside, men no longer young argued over their state's future.

"Stefan Ilyanovich, I tell you for the last time there is no more foreign exchange to be had." The speaker, Pavel Timoshenko, a sub- minister of finance for economically moribund Volga, spoke, on behalf of his chief, to an assistant to an industrial minister.

A note of something like hysteria crept into Ilyanovich's voice. "Our factories are crumbling. We are losing even the ability to extract our own oil. We are in desperate need of the technology that only the East, the FSC and the TU, or Yamato can supply us. And you tell me we cannot even buy it." Ilyanovich looked despondent, almost crushed. He hung his head in despair.

Timoshenko, not wanting to appear unsympathetic, said, "My friend, it is not that we would not buy it if we could. It is not even that the East will not sell to us. Since the Reds"—for the tsar who had instituted Tsarist-Marxism in Volga had, like his philosophical predecessors, chosen that color to symbolize his social revolution— "have been gone, the East, most of them at least, are quite willing to sell. But they will
not
give it away. Welcome to the free marketplace." He reached over to squeeze Ilyanovich's shoulder.

Ilyanovich looked up. "Then sell something, before we have nothing left to sell."

Timoshenko shook his head sadly. "That's just the point. We have nothing but the very raw materials to sell. And no one wants to buy. The world is glutted. Even the price of gold is down, what with all the precious metal the UEPF has dumped, or we would sell that."

"Weapons?" Ilyanovich held out his hands in plea.

Timoshenko shook his head, shrugged. "Ordinarily we could sell our weapons. But all of our former clients deserted us as fast as we deserted them. It doesn't matter; they have no money. And those who can buy don't want what we have. They want newer, more modern, Columbian or Tauran arms."

The men present looked to the representative of the ministry of defense. After finishing off the caviar-laden cracker in his fingers, and wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin, Vladimir Rostov answered the unspoken question.

"We make good weapons," he said. "Yes, they're different from the East's but, in the main, about as good—in some cases better, used properly—and always much,
much
cheaper. How could they not be when we pay the workers who produce them about ten percent of what their western equivalents earn? But after decades of selling "chimp models"—they look the same as the best equipment but have all of the really good features taken out—no one wants to buy who can afford better. Forty years of our arms, in Moslem hands, being bested by Zion and the FSC hasn't helped matters. We have managed to sell some heavy rocket launchers to al Jahara, true, but that is all. When they wanted tanks they went for FS models. When they wanted infantry vehicles they bought Anglian. They could have good, top of the line, T-38s—hell, I would sell them T-48s!—for what they can afford to pay. But they aren't even asking."

This was a bad sign indeed. For forty years the old empire had bartered its weapons for hard currency, needed raw materials, and political influence. Now its successor, the Republic of Volga, couldn't sell them even without the political strings. And weapons were about all it had to offer. Millions upon millions of tons of finished arms and munitions sat rusting, unused and unwanted, in military storage yards all over the country. The times were bleak.

Rostov tapped the table top in anger. "It is worse, even, than the picture I have painted. The FSC are already beating the Salafi fanatics in Pashtia like they own them. As soon as that is done they'll be going after the next state on their list; quite possibly Sumer again. Then they'll go after another. Then another. In a few years, not more than six the General Staff thinks, most of our former ex-clients are going to get the living shit kicked out of them by the Federated States-Kingdom of Anglia Alliance. The Sumeris still have almost exclusively Volgan heavy equipment. Even what we didn't build ourselves is mostly based on our systems; closely enough that few can tell the difference from the outside. They're almost all "chimp models," but who will care about that? When the FSC and the Anglians are through, our reputation for making arms will be destroyed for a century. Two centuries!"

Rostov rubbed a chin perplexedly. "Hmmm. I wonder if . . . no, I suppose not."

Ilyanovich reached for a glass of hot, overly sweet Volgan tea. "Is there no way to save that reputation? We have the arms, thirty thousand tanks in storage or more, enough possibly to see us through some of the hard times ahead if we could sell them for even a fraction of their value, at something better than scrap metal value anyway."

Timoshenko held up his hand to silence the others. He had studied and traveled in the East, even during Imperial days. During that time he had picked up a few decidedly un-Volgan ideas. One such was coming to him now.

"Comrades, it occurs to me that there is one chance. If we can somehow show that our arms are second to none—okay,
okay
 . . . at least good
enough—
we can sell them in the future. The money we get from that will give us the ability to buy some high technology, enough to continue getting our oil and other minerals out of the ground. That will bring more hard currency and a favorable, or at least less unfavorable, trade balance. We must have positive advertising. Can we not get our forces to Pashtia?"

It was the representative of the Foreign Ministry's turn. "Forget it, Pavel. We are definitely not invited in any major way. Border and convoy guard maybe. Probably not even that."

"Not even that." The one soldier in the group added, "It wouldn't make much difference even if we sent in the Guards. Since we left Pashtia and since the breakdown of the government, our army is a wreck, good soldiers—some of them anyway—in a broken organization. Besides, the point Pavel wants us to make is, I think, that our weapons are good in rich undeveloped world hands. This point cannot be made if they are in Volgan hands."

Timoshenko ended the discussion by suggesting, "Comrades, let us await developments a bit, shall we? Perhaps the horse will learn to sing after all."

Las Mesas
, Republic of Balboa, 30/9/459 AC

Young Ricardo Cruz looked into and past the television screen. It cannot be said he really even saw the images. He had no need to. He had seen them before, or others much like them, over and over, perhaps one hundred times in two days.

Cruz's girlfriend, Caridad, sat next to him. He had his arm around her. Unlike more usual occasions, now she had to make no effort to keep his pawing teenaged hands away. She really liked Ricardo so she didn't always fight very hard. But even token gestures were important and she was a little disturbed that she needn't make any.

He was a good looking boy, was Ricardo, his appearance marred only by somewhat unevenly prominent ears. Olive of skin and brown of eye; at five feet, seven inches, Cruz was a bit taller than the national norm. He towered over Cara's five, one.

"Ricardo," Cara insisted, "stop fretting so. You are only seventeen. There's nothing you can do to help. Only the gringos can avenge us."

Cruz said nothing, but his mind seethed and stomach churned at the harm done his country and his people. The idea of some other country doing the job that he felt deep inside was his own didn't sit well either. He'd always been a boy to take personal responsibility for things.

A fourteen year old Ricardo heard the girl crying. He heard, too, the predatory laughter of what had to be at least three or four boys. Neither the laughter, nor the jeers, nor the numbers much affected him. The crying, however, did.

He began to walk briskly to the door of the three-bedroom adobe house he shared with his parents and three siblings. On the way he paused to consider taking with him the machete he used to help with the harvest in season. It was a good tool, strong, flexible, very sharp and not too heavy. But was it the right tool?

Better to have it and not need it,
he thought,
than to need it and not have it.

He took the machete.

On the front porch of the house he saw them standing in the road. There were four, plus the girl. They were well-dressed,
rabiblanco-
dressed.

Money,
he thought.
Money come to have a little fun with the farm girls.

He didn't recognize any of the four boys but he'd seen the girl before in a class a grade behind him. He thought her name was Cara and that she lived a couple of miles down the road farther away from town. There were books lying in the dirt of the road, a cheap orange backpack, as well. He thought they must be hers since none of the boys looked the type to care much for schoolbooks.

One of the boys held the girl—
yes, Cara's her name—
from behind while another unbuttoned her white, schoolgirl's blouse and felt inside. The last two stood to either side until one of them bent down to grab her legs and pick them up. She struggled and cried for help as they began to carry her off to the woods abutting the road.

"I don't think so,
maricones."

The three carrying Cara stopped and looked. The fourth member of their party lay face down on the road, blood pouring from his scalp to mix with the reddish dirt of the road. Some lunatic stood over that one, with a bared machete one hand, the scabbard in the other, and a remarkably serene look on his face. The punk with the machete was considerably younger, they thought, and considerably smaller, they could see. This didn't seem to bother him any more than did the fact that they were still three to his one.

"Keep hold of the meat," said the leader of the boys to the one holding Cara's arms. "Come on, Manuel, let's show this
campesino
piece of shit who he can and can't fuck with."

"
Si
, Eduardo," answered Manuel.

Little Cruz might have been. But his young arms had been strengthened by many seasons' hard labor with the machete. What work had the
rabiblancos
ever done much harder than lifting a poor maid's skirt? Young Cruz stood his ground as Eduardo and Manuel advanced on him.

And stopped dead when he didn't run. In that moment's hesitation Cruz sprang forward like a panther. Eduardo was the nearer. Cruz feinted high, then swung the machete around Eduardo's upflung arms and cut inward, below the ribs. The
rabiblanco
gasped and looked down at where his blood welled out from his deeply sliced side, pouring over the silver metal blade. Eduardo screamed and promptly fainted.

Cursing, Cruz tugged at the machete.
Crap, it's caught on the ribs. Shoulda cut even lower.
While he was worrying at the machete, Manuel's fist—he was perhaps made of tougher stuff than his chief, Eduardo—struck Cruz beside the head, knocking him to the dirt and causing him to see stars.

With Cruz apparently out of commission, Manuel bent low to see to Eduardo's wound. This was found to be rather a bad mistake as Cruz, stars or not, launched himself directly from the road to crash into Manuel's side. The two went tumbling over in a flurry of punches and kicks, a mix of Manuel's punches to the farm boy's face and Cruz-delivered knees to the groin. Two or three such were one or two more than Manuel's gonads could take. Cruz left him puking in the dirt and walked— staggered, really—to where Eduardo and the machete lay joined.

Using two hands, Cruz roughly pulled the machete from the now moaning Eduardo's side, bringing forth another scream and a renewed flood of bright red blood. Bloody machete in hand, still staggering, Cruz began to close on the last member of the rape party, the one holding the girl. This one lacked Manuel's sense of determination. Having seen three of his friends—all older, bigger and stronger than the little demon who'd attacked them—the last of the would-be rapists simply took to his heels, leaving Cara alone.

She ran to Cruz. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou for saving me!"

"You're welcome," he answered. "But now could you lead me home? My eyes have swollen so badly I really can't see."

Cara shuddered, remembering the way she and Ricardo had met.
He's the bravest boy I've ever met,
she thought.
If he goes to war, he'll surely be killed.