A Desert Called Peace (91 page)

"Didn't say it wasn't," Campos conceded easily. "It's a great bargain.
But
 . . ."

"But?"

"We need to adjust your sector from what we originally agreed to."

I should have seen this coming,
Carrera thought.

"Show me."

Campos led him over to map spread across his desk.

"Going to cost you another one point two billion," Carrera announced when he had seen the border shift Campos wanted.

"We're already paying you the agreed rate," Campos insisted, growing heated.

"Let me point out that our current contract is not for major conventional operations," Carrera pointed out. He stuck his finger to the map, resting it on the midsized city of Pumbadeta, Sumer. "Your people lost control of that town months ago. To get it back . . . and . . ." Carrera thought for a moment before his face lit in a broad smile. "Ohhh, I see. You're having an election soon, aren't you? You need the town reduced before then, but you don't want to take any serious casualties before then, either."

Campos scowled but admitted the charge.

"Yes . . . well, our contract is for low intensity operations. This is something different. It's going to take a shitpot of ammunition, fuel, food, air movement. It's also likely to cost me a thousand men dead or wounded. For that matter, I really don't have the force yet. In another year I would . . ."

"We can't wait—"

". . . another year," Carrera finished. "Yes, I can understand that you can't wait. Even so, I don't have the forces myself."

"We can give you control of three or four battalions of ours, provided
you
do the bulk of the actual clearing," Campos conceded.

"No, you can't," Carrera contradicted. "I fight my way. The old way. The
true
law of war way. You either can't or won't."

"I don't see . . ."

Carrera clasped his hands behind his back, turned from the map, and began to pace. "Do you know how I'd take that place?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he continued, "I'll surround it. I'll cut off the food. I'll announce what I'm doing and let leave only those I am required to allow out: the very sick, pregnant and nursing women, and such. I
will
check for actual pregnancy and actual illness. And I'll take my time about just when they'll be allowed to leave, too. After that, if any civilians try to escape I'll engage them and drive them back so that they help eat up the food. I will do my damnedest to destroy any food stocks I can identify, too. Any humanitarian effort to bring food in by ground will be stopped and the food confiscated. Any aerial attempt will be shot down; I do have that one maniple of air defense troops I've been using for checkpoints, after all."

He stopped his pacing and turned back to the map. One finger made a rotating motion over the spot of the city of Pumbadeta. "About a week or two after aerial reconnaissance informs me there isn't a dog or cat left walking the streets of the town—in other words when I am
sure
they've been eaten because the people are starving— I'll let the civilians out. The women and children, that is. No men will be allowed to leave, period. Then I'll let them starve some more. They'll attack, of course; it's a quicker death than starving. But I still won't let any out. And I will refuse to recognize any emissaries that try to surrender as lacking authority. Individual attempts at surrender will be treated as the civilians were. After all, if I can engage civilians and use them as a weapon to eat up the food, then the law of war, despite what it seems to say about there being an absolute right to surrender, makes no sense if it requires that I let men, potentially armed men, go. Anyway, no surrender will be accepted until I am very nearly ready to assault. Then I'll go in and kill damned near everything.

"Now, Mr. Secretary, are you suggesting that FSA and FSMC troops will stand for that? That they'll be willing to shoot up women and kids to drive them back to starve? I don't think so. What's more, you don't want them to. Remember me? I'm supposed to be the heavy in this play."

"But in any case, I can't do it. Not counting the river, the place has a perimeter of nearly thirteen kilometers or about eight miles. That's too much for me alone while still clearing the place and holding the ZOR I already have, even with the Sumeris that
I
, at least, was smart enough to keep under arms."

"Well," Campos answered. He didn't even want to
think
about the disaster of letting all the Sumeri ex-soldiers go. "Maybe you can and maybe you can't. But I am allowed, by our
contract
, to adjust your boundaries in accordance with your combat strength and what we pay you for it. And remember that the penalty clauses run both ways. So, Bubba, you own Pumbadeta anyway. How you deal with it is your problem."

Lourdes had expressed an interest in shopping and, since they had a couple of days before they had to return to Sumer and since Carrera knew the city—"I hate this fucking place!"—and she didn't, he took her on a shopping expedition.

He'd hired a car and driver from a limousine service, though he'd expressly insisted that they not be driven in a limo. "No damned tacky, nouveau riche, limousine bullshit," was the way he'd expressed it to the company. He'd also taken on three guards, fairly expensive, high-end guards, from a security company that was recommended to him by a friend in the War Department. A perusal of resumes led Carrera to call McNamara, who vouched for one bodyguard. That one vouched for the others.

Good as it's going to get, I suppose.

Lourdes had wanted to see the city as well, so the shopping trip began with a tour. For that, Carrera didn't need to hire anybody, though he took the guards along. He'd spent a few of the most miserable years of his life in Hamilton and knew where the monuments and museums were.

As they drove through the crowded streets, Lourdes looked out at the people. "The women all look so . . . desperate," she observed.

"They are," Carrera agreed. "This place not only has the greatest population, per capita, of young, unattached women in the world, most of them working for the FS government or companies that do business with the FS government, the women themselves tend to come here looking for husbands. And they're not just looking for any old husband. They want movers and shakers; rich and powerful men, preferably not too old. They have a hard time finding any and so their lives are lonely, and given the cost of living in this place and the need to dress for success the women here tend to become bitter and, yes, desperate very quickly."

The driver parked the car not very far from the War Department, in a multistory parking garage that attached to one of the major department stores.

Carrera expected Lourdes to head for "Ladies Fashions" immediately. He was surprised then, when instead she headed to "Children's."

Actually, surprised wasn't quite the word. Shocked silly? That came close.

"You're
what
?"

"About two months along, Patricio. You had so much on your mind I didn't want you to worry. Besides, I wasn't really
sure
until two weeks ago." She looked, unaccountably, shamefaced when she asked, "Do you mind?"

"Mind? Are you insane? It's . . . wonderful. But . . ."

"But?" the woman stiffened, waiting for the hammer to fall.

"What about your parents? We're not married."

Lourdes sighed. "Marriage would be . . . more proper, yes. But, in all the time you've lived among us you still haven't figured it out, have you? As long as I am your woman and you recognize the child as yours then marriage doesn't mean all that much extra. It's nice . . . it would be nice. But you don't have to marry me."

Carrera nodded. Yes, he'd known that at some level. He turned and asked a shop girl if the store had a jewelry department.

"No, sir. Sorry," had been the answer. "But there is a very nice one in the building next door."

"Let's try to do this as properly as we can, under the circumstances," he said to Lourdes, taking her hand and leading her to an elevator. "First the proposal: will you marry me?"

Her eyes lit up happily as she answered, "Yes, of course."

"Good. Be awkward otherwise. Now let's go find a ring.
Then
we go shopping for the baby."

It was after looking at the thirty-fourth ring that it hit him.
Crap . . . two-edged sword. Now the enemy has something to use against
me
, if I go after their families. Note to self, security detail for Lourdes, soonest. Obstetrician, soonest. Bunker the living hell out of our quarters at Camp Balboa, soonest.

Later, in the hotel where he'd rented a suite, Carrera mentally kicked himself for not having noticed her breasts had, in fact, swollen noticeably already. She actually looked better than she ever had. Where she'd once been rather girlishly slender, now hips and breasts had both filled out a bit, making her look more womanly. Also more desirable, if that were possible.

He looked at her nipples, lovely pert things, and said, "If I sucked those as hard as I liked, I'm afraid I'd hurt you. And your breasts have got to be tender now. If I did hurt you by playing with them too roughly, I apologize."

She just smiled as she gathered his head to her chest. She had him now and she knew it.

"Suck them as hard as you want," she said in a husky voice. "Play with them as roughly as you want. I'll tell you if it ever gets too hard or too rough. Bu t . . . I
like
it . . . and they're there for
you
."

Ciudad
Balboa, 23/5/462 AC

From Hamilton Lourdes and Carrera had flown north to Balboa. After the endless dun color of the Sumeri desert and the mud brick of both city and base, followed by the barren stone of Hamilton, the country that passed beneath the airplane windows looked almost shockingly green.

"I'd almost forgotten . . ." Lourdes whispered.

"There are reasons green is the more or less sacred color of Islam," Carrera observed. "It is very beautiful, though, isn't it? It'll be good to be home for a week."

The charter jet had landed and taxied to the military terminal on the other side of the airfield from the civilian one. Parilla, Jimenez, most of the staff and Esterhazy were there to greet Carrera and Lourdes. Carrera was unsurprised at being met by a band of pipes and drums. He was more than a little surprised that he was also met by what appeared to be a full infantry cohort, supported by tanks, and with aircraft circling overhead.

"It's the Taurans," Parilla explained, when Carrera's surprise became obvious. "Remember, there's a warrant for your arrest from the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court. The government is being openly ambivalent about it, but there's no doubt they'd like to see you and me both gone. And since the Taurans are here the civil government has started to use the police and military police to push us a bit. They've sacked some of our friends in the Civil Force and most of the rest are running scared. I can't go anywhere anymore without an armed guard. Neither can most of our higher commanders. I'll be glad when the base on the
Isla Real
is finished and we can move our enterprise there completely."

"The sale is going through then?" Carrera asked. With everything else on his mind in Sumer he hadn't really followed developments in Balboa as closely as he might have wished to.

Esterhazy answered, "Oh, yes. Ve haff already bought vell ofer half ze island, plus
Isla
San Juan and
Isla
Santa Paloma. Ve haff options on most of ze rest.

"Some of the gringos who built houses along the beaches didn't want to sell," Parilla added with a smile. "But we opened up about twelve square kilometers as an artillery and mortar impact area and, once their sleep started being interrupted nightly by exploding shells, they dropped their opposition and became, oh, ever so much more cooperative.

"For now," Parilla continued, "we have about half the casernes about half built. Sitnikov is over there supervising. In a year, or maybe a year and a half, we'll be able to move most of the enterprise to the island."

"Speaking of Sitnikov and his projects, how is the boys' school going?" Carrera asked.

"First stop on the tour that begins tomorrow," Parilla answered. "For now, we're heading to the
Casa
Linda where you and Lourdes can rest. We're having a big dinner for you two, the staff, and key commanders."

Puerto Lindo,
Balboa, 24/5/462 AC

Balboa had free and compulsory education. Sort of. Between the need for parents, often poor parents, to buy school uniforms for their children, along with books, paper, writing implements . . . well, it was actually a fairly expensive proposition. That the country still had, despite this, one of the highest literacy rates on Terra Nova was testament to the value the people placed on education.

Still, it
was
an expense. So when a new school, the
Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui,
had been created promising not only free uniforms, but free everything including room and board, many parents had jumped at it. The kids even received a small stipend. Not that it was open to everyone. Prospective students had to be male, of the right age, in perfect health, and pass what amounted to an IQ test. Only about one in five of the applicants had been accepted.

The academy was sited at an old stone fortress from the second century after colonization. The fortress looked out over an almost perfectly rectangular bay and had been intended to defend the bay from the Anglian and Gallic pirates that had once infested the Shimmering Sea.

A mix of Volgan, Balboan and FSC instructors and cadre manned the school. These, bright and early, were out with the boys on the fortress' broad green parade ground. The school commandant, Carrera, and Sitnikov stood atop a covered reviewing stand on one side of the parade field.

"They have academics four days a week," Sitnikov explained, leaning over to speak into Carrera's ear. He'd flown in the night before from the
Isla Real
expressly to show off his handiwork. "Two days are devoted to more military subjects. On the last day they rest, as the Bible insists. This summer will be their first. Half of it will be spent in a military course. The other half will be vacation at home . . . if they want vacation."