Come and Take Them-eARC (25 page)
Read Come and Take Them-eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Military, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction
“Seats, gentlemen,” Carrera began. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to our problems with the Tauran Union. Every day, it seems, there is some new incident. We’ve done a few things to make them back off—on those occasion when we’ve had enough warning to be in position to make them back off. And you people shooting down their helicopter may pay dividends.
“Still, I wonder if it isn’t time to increase the stakes a bit. We…none of us, I think, want to fight if we don’t have to. The Tauran Union is powerful, not an enemy to treat with contempt. But, given their overarching political and philosophical outlook, they’re a power much given to delusion. They may not realize, yet, that they could face a serious fight here. We should show them, I think.”
Suarez grew grim-visaged. “Take them on the next time they come near our borders?” he asked.
Carrera shook his head. “No, we don’t fight…yet. Let’s play some more games back, though, shall we? How hard is it,” he asked Suarez, “to come up with forty or fifty really beautiful girls in Second Corps’ area? I mean here
stunners,
the kind of women who don’t just suck all the oxygen out of a room when they enter it, but can leave entire city blocks gasping for air as they pass by. Being photogenic counts.”
“Not so hard,” Suarez answered. “Even without going to the foreign help in the bordellos. Though a small budget for clothing, make up, and make-up artists might be a good idea. Most of our grid area”—the seven layered complex of grids that drove Balboan recruiting—“is fairly poor, after all.”
Carrera thought of the poor girl, Alma’s mother, and said, “I’ll cover it myself. How much?”
Suarez, after a moment’s thought, answered, “Fifty girls? A hundred thousand drachma. Maybe not even that much.”
“Fine. Make it two hundred thousand and have polleras made for them, too.
Nice ones.
With lavish silver for their hair.” The Balboan national dress, the
pollera
, or “bird cage,” included, indeed derived its name from, the ornate arrangements of silver ornaments in a Balboan girl’s hair.
“Might even let ’em keep the silver if they do a good job.”
“Pay them?” asked Suarez.
“Yeah, sure. Standard, not drilling reservist or militiamen’s, daily pay, to include when they’re on alert.”
“On alert?”
“Oh,
yeah,
” said Carrera, and his voice was full of malicious mischief. “After the girls are ready I want parties of them on continuous alert, whenever the Taurans roll out, to meet them at their assault positions…with coffee, and doughnuts and other pastries, maybe empanadas if it’s mid-day or early evening. Cold drinks, too, at noon. Whatever’s appropriate.
“And I want cameras there to record the whole fucking thing. And prominent banners that say, ‘
Balboa es Soberana en la Area del
Transitway,’ and, ‘Taurans out of
Our
Country,’ just in case anyone thinks those girls are out there in support of, rather than to undermine, the Tauran Union.”
“Ooooh…that’s evil,” said Suarez. “I
like
it.”
“Me too, but I don’t trust the Taurans, so trailing along after the girls, just in case, I want fully armed maniples…or cohorts, if you think it’s necessary. And police, of course, to chaperone the girls.”
“How old?” asked Suarez. “Is there a bottom age?”
Carrera thought about the Balboan notion of the
quinceñera
, a girl’s fifteenth birthday party, the time when she was officially available for (escorted) courting. “Fifteen on up, provided they look
exquisite
.
“Oh, and Suarez?”
“Sir?”
“Tell the girls, from me, that everyone who is a patriot fights for their country in the best way available to them.”
“Sir.”
“Note, also, gentlemen, that I’m going to be giving a similar mission to Third Corps. I trust the girls of Second will not be content with second place.
“One last thing, Suarez. I’m having the propaganda department print up copies of
Historia y Filosofia Moral
in every language present among the Taurans here. I’d like it if the girls could get the Tauran troops to take copies.”
Alfaro’s Tomb,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
News stations’ video cameras whirred, taking in the aspect of lovely olive skinned Balboan women, in ornately frilled, colorful, dresses, pouring coffee, passing out doughnuts, and chatting amiably with befuddled Tauran soldiers, most of whom had already picked up the minimum of Spanish since that was, after all,
what the local women spoke
. The women’s smooth and rounded sleekness stood in stark contrast to the angular, squat, ugly lines of the armored cars they surrounded. A hastily erected banner proclaimed, “Balboa is sovereign in the Transitway Area.”
Politely refusing a gracefully proffered cup of coffee from an angelic faced girl, the frustrated Tauran company commander spoke into his radio handset. “No, sir. I tried to pull out. Four of these women, with six TV cameras to watch, blocked the way.… Sir, I think the little bitches would have let us run them over before they moved. I had to stop my tracks. And now there are police passing out tickets to my squad leaders.… Oh shit; they’re hooking up a wrecker to one of my tracks!”
The captain stormed over to where a crew of wrecker operators were attaching the last cables needed to drag the armored vehicle away. The captain unholstered his pistol. Immediately, two Balboan policemen drew their own, pointing the firearms to the captain’s chest. Women stiffened—a few suppressed cries—as vehicle turrets swiveled to cover the policemen. Two trios of the girls moved—they shook with fright but they still moved—to stand beside and behind their police. Their chins lifted, defiant and proud. At the moral reinforcement, the policemen cocked their pistols. The cameras caught that, as well.
Shit,
thought the captain.
I can’t start anything. If I do, the police will shoot. I might survive that, but my boys will fire at the police. Then we’ll hurt these innocent girls. With the cameras watching…the whole world watching. And two cops with pistols against what everyone will say are tanks. Shit!
Casa
Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
Carrera held his sides and rocked, he was laughing so hard at the afternoon news. It was especially delicious since, many years before, during preparations for the FSC’s invasion of Balboa, he had, for all practical purposes,
been
that Tauran
Panzergrenadier
captain.
“That dipshit, Piña,” he said. “If he’d had two brain cells to rub together, he could have done that to us, and wouldn’t that have frosted the old Northern Command’s collective balls?”
Lourdes, sitting beside him, didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until Carrera had been able to bring his own laughter under control that he’d been able to feel through the structure of the sofa that she was shuddering.
He turned his head and looked at his wife, who was almost as tall as he was. She was crying, tears running down her face and chin lifted in defiant pride—an unconscious imitation of the girls, perhaps. She stood and began to walk out of the room, in the general direction of the front door.
“Where are you going?” he shouted after her.
She sniffled, then sniffled again. Turning, she answered, “To find Suarez and volunteer myself. I’ll be damned if my countrywomen will stand against armored vehicles without me there to stand with them.”
Chapter Twenty-four
With the press there is no “off the record.”
The Tunnel, Tauran Union Security Force-Balboa,
Cerro Mina
, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
Janier, plus his C-2 and C-3, watched the very same news film as had Carrera and Lourdes. The difference was that theirs was beamed in via satellite from a channel in the Tauran Union. It was also, unlike the ones broadcast in Balboa, accompanied by shots of a series of, so far, small protests across the capitals of the Tauran Union.
“And I wonder whose idea that was,” said Janier.
His intel chief, de Villepin, shrugged. “The protests back home? Might have been spontaneous, for all I know. For that matter, the use of the—let us admit it—lovely girls here might have been spontaneous or, at least, low level.”
“No…no,” Janier disagreed. “There’s organization there. Otherwise, no police, no military backup just behind the girls. And I would not be the least surprised to discover there’s some organization back home behind those protests.”
“It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Carrera would do,” de Villepin said. “For all his myriad faults, he’s always struck me as a pretty unsubtle man and up front soldier. If I’ve been wrong about that…”
“You mean if he’s as much an unprincipled hypocrite as we are?” Janier asked.
“Exactly.”
“It requires thought,” Janier said. “But what I want to know is how have the bastards been keeping such good track of us. How do they know every time we make a move?”
“They don’t,” de Villepin said. “Yes, I had the same impression as you, sir. But I’ve counted the numbers and tallied the incidents; they’ve intercepted less than a third of the probes we’ve made. I think if they knew more they’d have intercepted more.
“And yes, they have their spies in our ranks, as we have some in theirs. It’s tougher for us, by the way. If we catch one of ours spying for them, we have to send them home where their home countries never have the moral fortitude to do much about it. When the Balboan, Fernandez, catches one of his people spying for us, the fate of that man or woman is grim, indeed.”
The C-3 interjected, “Sir…no one knew in advance…except for you, me, and the C-2. And sure as shit we didn’t tell the locals. No, sir. The early Mosquitoes warned them. And they set up an ambush—a public relations ambush—for this last one. And they are watching us. As de Villepin said, they have a few spies here, but this has all been too close hold and short notice for that to work. They’re just using recon, all kinds of recon, to get warning, then reacting only to those they have sufficient time to react to.”
“
D’accord,
” said de Villepin.
A messenger knocked on the door to Janier’s office, then hurried over to hand a message to the C-2. De Villepin’s face went ashen as he read.
“Sir…it seems the Balboans are mobilizing and moving towards our facilities.”
Janier blanched. “Who? Where?”
De Villepin looked down at the paper in his hand. His first glance had been at the headline paragraph. Now he began to read in more depth. “The information is incomplete, General. However, indications are that two tercios
are forming up just north of here…it looks like they intend to assault this hill. That’s probably Second Legion’s Second and Tenth
Tercios
. Third Corps’ Third Legion is not making offensive moves, but to be taking positions to defend Herrera Airport. Fourth Mechanized Tercio is moving—in dribs and drabs—toward the City. On the Shimmering Sea side there is a tercio—Eighth Marines would be my guess—inflating rubber rafts in Cristobal opposite Fort Tecumseh. Another is moving on the locks on that side. And, sir…there is artillery setting up all over the place.”
Janier ran to the door to his office. “Get me the goddamned Air Force!” he shrieked, near panic.
“Sir,” an airman piped in, “Radar at Arnold reports numerous previously unidentified radar sources blanketing the Transitway. They say these are air defense radars, sir.”
“Get me the Air Force!” Janier demanded again.
Before anyone could respond to his double demand, a French-speaking Anglian Army private walked up with a portable phone. The private hesitated, then held the phone out. “Sir…the enemy commander,
Duque
Carrera, wants to speak with you.”
Janier took the phone. “Janier here.” He struggled to keep his voice calm.
From the other end Carrera spoke calmly. “General Janier? This is Carrera. How good to speak with you again.… Yes, General, we are engaged in harmless maneuvers as well. It would be a pity though, don’t you think, if someday I neglected to give my boys a limit of advance? Why…they could overrun the Transitway area before I could order them to stop.… Well, of fucking
course
they have ammunition, General.… Oh, yes; we’ll return your armored vehicle to you as soon as the Tauran Union pays off the fines for that infantry company that trespassed onto our territory. The fines will be heavy. Good day to you, General.”
After sober reflection, much reflection, Janier went to his office and took out the communications device Marguerite had given him. He suggested very strongly to her, and said he would be going to the Security Council for the Tauran Union as well, that it might be better to let things cool down in Balboa for a while.
“But what if,” asked de Villepin, “they do this to us someday and don’t give us an early indication that they won’t go past a certain point? Things could easily spin out of control.”
Casa
Linda, Republic of Balboa, Terra Nova
Between the shot down helicopter, the pretty girl ambush, and the dramatic increase in tensions brought about by Carrera’s policy of active confrontation, Balboa suddenly found itself once again newsworthy in the Tauran Union, and for something other than being denounced for war crimes. Accordingly, a popular Tauran television news “magazine” asked permission to interview Patricio Carrera and Raul Parilla. Parilla declined the invitation as his English was wretched enough to make a bad impression on the viewers of Tauran television. Carrera, however, was tempted.
Fernandez, bound to his wheel chair, had objected strenuously. “Sir, you cannot trust them. They will twist what you say. They will
lie,
they will make you appear to be a liar. They will edit and splice to put words in your mouth that you never said. When it is shown on television you will find yourself answering questions that were never asked. Please don’t do this.”
After reflection, Carrera had overridden his chief of intelligence and security, even after Fernandez brought in Professor Ruiz, chief of propaganda, and Maya Delgado, a distant relation of Cadet Delgado and the CEO of the largest national news service in the country, to plead his case.
“It’s up to you gentlemen,” Carrera had said, “and you, too, Mrs. Delgado, to protect me and the country from that kind of journalism. So do it.”
As part of that, Fernandez insisted on making separate tapes, from three hidden cameras that could see both participants to the interview. Also he had the furniture moved around a bit. Then he, Mrs. Delgado, the Balboan newsie, and Ruiz had drilled Carrera numb on some of the tricks the press could and would use.
Wally Barber, the interviewer sent out by the TNN, was a black Anglo-Secordian news correspondent with fierce white whiskers. The maid met him and the camera crew at the door, then showed them into the living room where he and Carrera shook hands amiably. From there they went to the office where a single camera was set up facing Carrera only. Behind Carrera stood a flag of Balboa in a stand, plus the golden eagle of all the legions, temporarily removed from its secure cage at the
Estado Mayor
, in the City. There was no flag behind Barber, though there was a bookcase with many distinctive titles contained on its shelves. The Balboan newsie, Mrs. Delgado, sat slightly behind and to the left of Barber.
A red light started blinking on the camera. The cameraman said, “Damn. I’m sorry, Mr. Barber, the tape’s run out on this one. It was those shots we took of the City and the countryside on our way here. It’ll just be a minute while I run down to the van and get a new tape.”
“That’s all right, Phil.
Duque
Carrera and I can use the time to get acquainted, off the record. Would that be all right with you,
Duque
?”
From behind Barber, Mrs. Delgado shook her head violently. What she knew, along with Barber and the cameraman—but not Carrera, some things in the prep they’d missed—was that the video camera had a built-in fifteen minutes’ worth of recording time. This was an old trick for the unwary; get the subject of the interview to chat without thinking for fifteen minutes so that the unwitting answers could be used for questions that had never been asked. Carrera told Barber, “I think it might be better if we wait for your assistant to return with the tape.”
Hiding a snarl, Barber answered, “As you wish,
Duque
.”
You may avoid that trap. But I’m a professional while you’re just an amateur with a second rate newsie as a handler. I’ll still make you look a fool.
When the cameraman had returned, and the tape had been installed, Barber began his questioning. The camera stayed focused on Carrera, as it would throughout the interview. “
Duque
Carrera, people in the Tauran Union are…well, frankly, worried. They’re worried over the growth of Balboa’s armed forces, over the increasing tension you have created by your violent provocations of Tauran forces here in Balboa, over the trade in illegal drugs which passes through Balboa. What would you tell them to calm their fears?”
“In the first place, Wally,” Carrera replied, “to the best of my knowledge and belief, no drugs are passing through Balboa. I know you find that hard to believe, because you still have a drug problem in the Tauran Union, but that’s
your
problem, not ours. As came out during the coup launched with Tauran Union aid against the democratically elected government of Raul Parilla, we fought a mostly secret and very bloody war with the drug lords of Santander and broke them.
“In the second place, I join in grieving with the families of those two pilots killed recently. They did not have to die. None of my people wanted to kill them. It was, sadly, just an accident of the kind anyone could predict when Tauran forces are continuously sent to impinge our borders and threaten our troops. And lastly, Balboa’s regular armed forces are, as a percentage of our population, no larger than those the Tauran Union maintains. Also, in absolute numbers, you outnumber us by about one hundred to one in regular forces.”
Barber made a strong effort to keep a supportive and friendly look on his face as he said, “And yet,
Duque
, Santa Josefina—your eastern neighbor—has no armed forces. Don’t you think they have a right to feel threatened. You have—after all—soldiers, tanks, artillery, a reasonably modern air force.”
Carrera shook his head, “Perhaps…if we had anything but friendship and kinship for Santa Josefina, they might have cause to fear. Although, if you were to ask one of your own military, they would tell you, I’m sure, that Balboa hasn’t the logistic capability, the ability to move supplies, to support any operations in Santa Josefina. Certainly not against Tauran interference.
“Moreover, whatever the government of Santa Josefina might say, the people there don’t fear us. After all, they send us their sons to serve in our legions by the tens of thousands.”
“Can you conceive,” asked Barber, “of any circumstances under which you would send Balboan troops to Santa Josefina?”
“No.” Which was not entirely honest of Carrera. He fully intended to send troops into Balboa’s eastern neighbor, as soon as politically practical. He intended, though, to send Santa Josefinan troops.
“Back to the world trade in drugs, for a moment,” said Barber. “It is said that you have financed this huge army for Balboa by taking control of the drug trade. Your wife, during the attempted restoration of democracy to Balboa some years ago certainly admitted that you took money from the drug lords. Isn’t it true that you do, in fact, take money from known drug criminals?”
“Yes. Or rather demand it, war reparations so to speak. They fought us in a dirty campaign of terror for the right to move drugs though Balboa. They lost, and that was part of the price they had to pay for peace. And I might add that I’ve done something which neither your drug enforcement agencies nor that of the Federated States has never succeeded in doing. Balboa’s actions have measurably raised the street price of those drugs in the Tauran Union. You should thank Balboa for that.
“As for an attempt to restore democracy?” Carrera guffawed. “You don’t really believe that that cabal of old, corrupt oligarchs the Tauran Union tried to foist back on us was a democracy, do you? That’s
preposterous.
”
The interview continued for hours, interrupted by lunch in the kitchen. The redundancy of the questions sometimes strained Carrera’s patience, which was most—not all—of the reason for the redundant questions.
* * *
This was not, however, the way the tape was aired, a few days later.
“This is Walley Barber, for One Hundred Minutes, speaking to you from the
Casa
Linda, Balboa’s labyrinthine and secret military headquarters.”
Curiously, although the camera had been focused on Carrera the entire interview, Barber appeared as a face, not just a voice. There was also a blue Tauran Union flag behind him, although none had been present at the interview.
“General Carrera, people in the Tauran Union are…well, frankly, worried. They’re concerned that you have the ability and the will to attack Tauran interests, even to conquer your neighbors. Do Taurans have reasons for these fears?”
Carrera’s image answered, “They might have.”
That camera’s view cut back to Barber’s flag-framed face. “Can you conceive of circumstances under which Balboa would attack…say, Santa Josefina, the Transitway Area, or even the Tauran Union?”
