A Desert Called Peace (43 page)

"You mean this was all bullshit from a lunatic, this 'legion' he claims to have?"

Rivers laughed, white teeth shining in a café au lait face. "Oh, no, Mr. Secretary. If he says something is so, bet your last drachma that it
is
so. He's not crazy
that
way. He sees reality perfectly well and is annoyingly honest and irritatingly precise to boot. But he interprets it differently. It means something different than it does to the rest of us." Rivers' face grew contemplative for a moment. "That; or the rest of us are just idiots. I've sometimes wondered about that."

Campos, who was quite certain that
he
was the most intelligent man who ever lived, bridled a bit at the thought that anyone could see
him
as an idiot. "So how is he insane?" he asked.

"He's uncontrollable," Rivers answered without hesitation. "By that I mean there is nothing,
nothing,
you can do to him to deter him from something he decides is right and proper to do. Worse, his version of right and wrong come straight out of ancient history. I've never been entirely sure if it's a case of the civilized man holding the barbarian in check or if the barbarian puts the civilized man out as a cover and controls even that from behind the scenes. Of course, it could be a case of symbiosis, too.

"I have also heard him say to his own commander, and this is exactly what he said, 'You fat-fucking-pig-eyed toad, you incarnate insult to the military profession, you can't make
me
do anything. You just don't have the balls for it.' I treasured that, actually. And Pat pegged the piece of shit pretty well, too." Rivers
tsked
. "It was a shame about the relief for cause."

"Insubordinate then, is he?"

Rivers shook his head, more or less ruefully. "Oh, Mr. Secretary, you have no idea. Pat Hennessey hasn't the tiniest inkling of a clue about subordination. Mind you, he'll take any mission you give him and perform it superbly, even artistically. Any mission. But he will never let anyone else have a say in
how
he goes about performing it. He'll tell you to your face that it's none of your business. And he doesn't care what your rank is.

"By the way, if I can ask, Mr. Secretary, just what is the deal he's offering?"

"A large brigade, roughly equivalent to four Army or two and a half Marine battalions, for five point three billion drachma a month for a mid-intensity campaign and five point five to six billion a year for counterinsurgency. For that price we have to provide all medical support to include long-term care and medical evacuation, to the same standards we provide our own. We also must provide a suitable log base at no greater distance from the front than his own transportation assets can support, about one hundred miles. And we can deduct the cost of air and artillery support
he
asks for—munitions only, not wear and tear—from the base figure. Fucker bargains hard."

Rivers whistled but not for the expected reason. "That
is
a bargain, you know, sir. I've been intimately involved with the figures and it could represent a savings of about seven and a half to eight billion for either the active campaign or for a year of pacification if we need that, or both, not even counting the number of our own killed and wounded we'd save."

"Yeah, Virg, I know. But how do I hide that much money?"

Rivers, who had a sneaky creative streak, answered, "Generally speaking, funnel some of it through his government in the form of foreign aid. Some can be purely black. And some can be paid up front . . . say, on a cost-plus basis."

"Yeah . . . maybe. Tell me, Virg, if you were in command of the operation and this Hennessey person came to you, knowing him as you do, and making this offer, would you take it?"

"Sir, I gave you the bad side up front. It isn't all bad. For one thing, within certain limits, he's much the most intelligent human being I've ever met, excepting only my wife and I confess I may be prejudiced there. Pat's very loyal to anyone who deserves loyalty. Loyalty . . ." Rivers began to laugh.

"What's so funny, Virgil?"

"Well . . . he
is
very loyal. Just because he's an insubordinate son of a bitch doesn't mean he's disloyal. There was one occasion, where that same commander tried to get at Pat by busting one of his NCOs from staff sergeant to sergeant. The man . . . his name was Morse or something like that . . . anyway, he came out on the promotion list for platoon sergeant a couple of days later. Pat sat on the paperwork to bust him until that commander left command. He then talked the next guy into suspending the bust. Was that illegal? Probably. But it was right.

"And he really can do amazing—if I hadn't seen them I would say impossible—things with regard to training troops. I've got stories I could tell you . . . ah, never mind, too complex. He is tactically and operationally . . .  well . . .  'deft' is not a strong enough term.

"So, yes, Mr. Secretary. If it were at all possible, I'd take him up on it."

"What do you suppose his motivation is, Rivers? Megalomania? A desire to show up the army that cast him out?"

Rivers cocked his head back in surprise. "Didn't he tell you, sir? It's much simpler than that. The bastards killed his wife and kids."

The phone rang at Hennessey's Federal District hotel, an upscale but small establishment just off of Embassy Row. He answered.

"Hennessey, this is Ron Campos. This is the deal; take it or pound sand. I'm going to cover your operational and training expenses on a cost plus basis, cost plus ten percent, for the next six months. That amount will be deducted from your final bill IF we decide your group can do the job. I am sending down an officer who doesn't know you and whom you don't know—that's right, boyo, not one of your fans; Virgil Rivers warned me about that—to judge whether your legion is worth hiring. If he decides you are, you have a contract at the figures and with the provisos we discussed. If he nixes you, tough shit."

Carrera's respect for Campos went up a notch. "Done, Mr. Secretary."

A year's worth of decent feeding had returned Marjorie Billings- Rajamana to her normal state, exotic beauty. She was a natural.

The studio, however, was something of a sham, a living room- looking arrangement on one side, which the cameras faced, and a maze of snaking cables and dividers on the other. The interviewer was at least as much of a sham, his only real talent being the ability to project an air of interest and intelligence onto a face that, while
pretty
, sat in front of a fundamentally dead mind.

"It actually started on Earth," Marjorie began in explanation, her upper class British accent lending considerable dignity to her words. "We didn't know it at the time, but it started here, during the training program."

"What started here?" the interviewer asked. Well, that wasn't a mind-straining question, after all.

"A love affair," Marjorie sighed. "A
teenaged
love affair."

"Love destroyed the
Cheng Ho
?"

God, where did they get this idiot? Coming here was a mistake. Oh, well . . . stiff upper lip and all.

"Love started the chain of events that led to the troubles on the ship, yes. Then it continued to work its way to destroy it." Marjorie answered. "One of our colonists, Dr. Akbar al Damer, had a very lovely daughter, you see. Another, Dr. Immanuel Schweiz, had a handsome son. Without anyone here on Earth knowing it, those two fell in love. Touching, is it not?"

"Surely, yes," the talking head agreed, "but I hardly think—"

"On Earth, al Damer had to endure it," Marjorie plowed on. "In space, once his daughter, Besma, came up pregnant, he could not. He killed the boy and his daughter, too. Oh, there was no proof he did it. Otherwise, the captain would have spaced him. But al Damer did it, even so. Even if he had not it wouldn't have mattered. Everyone
believed
he had.

"But that was only the first incident. We'd made a great effort to integrate the passengers. That began to unravel when the first Buddhist girl married the first Buddhist guy. She moved in with his parents. Then they had a baby and there was no room. Actually, there was hardly room even to make a baby in our quarters but love will find a way." Marjorie smiled and thought,
Especially in low gravity.

"So a Hindu family, very sweetly, offered to vacate their nearby quarters if others could be found for them. The captain had a storage chamber cleaned out, not too far from another Hindu family. And everyone lived happily ever after.

"Not. Suddenly, without anyone ever thinking about it, we had two ethnic or religious centers of gravity. Marriages continued, and people kept shifting around. Within a year and a half there were Moslem sections, Mormon sections, Buddhist and Hindu sections, Catholic sections, Protestant sections . . . often separated by open spaces, sections of quarters left empty during the shifting. One real problem was that Moslem girls, given the chance, often preferred non-Moslem boys and would leave their sections to find husbands and, often enough, lovers among the non-Moslems.

"There was surprisingly little conflict at first, considering what came later," she said. "And then Dr. al Damer was found stuffed into the recycling bin. The dead boy's father probably did it. Within hours the Moslem section was off limits to anyone but themselves, and parties of Moslem 'youths'"—one could hear the quotations as she said it—"were rampaging and the girls were being dragged back.

"And then we had the Great Cartoon, Pig and Cow War . . ."

The soldiers like training provided it is carried out sensibly.

—Alexander Suvarov

Carrera coolly regarded the Federated States Army officer standing in front of his desk, wearing the battle dress of the FSA. The officer was so incredibly average looking as to nearly defy description: average height, average build, average hair loss for a man of about forty. He wore his glasses averagely and his uniform bore an average number of the merit badges the FSA had always seemed addicted to.

"Virgil Rivers sends his best, Legate," the officer, John Ridenhour, said.

That brought a smile to Carrera's face. "How is old Virg?"

"He's fine," Ridenhour answered. "He's been selected for his first star, you know. He said to remind you, 'Who needs nukes?' If you don't mind my asking, and it seemed a damned odd thing to say, what the hell does that mean?"

"You had to be there," Carrera answered.

"He also said to tell you that I am the 'Imperial Spy,' and that you should take very good care of me." It was Ridenhour's turn to smile.

"You look the part," Carrera answered. "John, I'd set you up in a penthouse or mansion, with hot and cold running bimbos, a fast convertible and a big fishing boat with a perpetually full beer cooler if that would get me the recommendation I need from you to get my legion to the war," Carrera admitted. "On the other hand, that would be a pretty serious insult so I am
not
offering those things. Even so, do you have a place to stay?"

"The Julio Caesare," Ridenhour answered.

Carrera considered. "That's a good choice. If you're not married check out the Disco Stelaris down by the casino. If you
are
married then take my advice and
don't
check out the disco. How about a—"

From the next room Lourdes piped in, "Sergeant major has already assigned Mitchell to drive for Coronel Ridenhour, Patricio."

God, she's such a treasure.

"Okay," Carrera said. "That settles that. Mitchell has pretty decent Spanish, too, now. And he'll be armed so you needn't worry overmuch about personal security."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Ridenhour agreed. "Besides, my Spanish is actually fairly good."

"All right then. Basically you can go anywhere, look at anything, and talk to anybody. No restrictions. Mitchell will have copies of the master training schedule and map overlay with him at all times. You need a helicopter lift somewhere, let him know in advance. I don't really recommend using our helicopters, though, because the pilots are damned near brand new and really won't be ready until just before we deploy, if we do."

"Ground trans should be fine," Ridenhour answered. "If I really need a chopper my budget can cover hiring a civilian one. I'll pass it through your man Mitchell to clear it with you if I have to do that."

"That's fair," Carrera agreed. "All I can tell you is have fun and that I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Money was less of a problem now; Campos' offer—while less than generous—had helped a
lot
. Moreover, the interest payments on the loan Carrera had personally made to the legion were being rolled into the operating cost, multiplied by the cost-plus factor, and charged to the Federated States. Thus, Carrera still retained control of the thing, notionally and nominally under Parilla, and would for the foreseeable future. While he had that control, he trained the men.

One major problem was that they were heading to the northern Sumerian desert: dusty, almost treeless, waterless away from the River Buranun, and open outside the cities. Balboa, on the other hand, was about two thirds jungle, much of that being mountainous, and most of the rest either city or valuable farm and ranch land. He could hardly use good farmland for maneuvers or, at least, not for serious ones.

Fort Cameron was about used up. It had never been large enough to train anything as large as the LdC for any purpose higher than initial training for individuals. The Imperial Range Complex, too, was overstrained as were the local training areas attached to the old Federated States military installations, most of which the legion had no access to anyway.

There
was
a useful open training area at the
Lago Sombrero
, about fifty miles down the coastal highway east of
Ciudad
Balboa. This was an old Federated States military base built to defend Balboa from attack during the Great Global War. In time, it had been returned to the Republic. Architecturally it wasn't much, a dozen barracks suitable for housing perhaps one thousand officers, centurions and men, and a large ammunition storage facility. More important was the airstrip that sat astride the main highway that paralleled the northern coast and connected Balboa with Atzlan and the Federated States to the south and east. Most important were the fifteen square kilometers of training land. Even this wasn't really enough though. Neither did it match well enough the damned desert the legion was going to fight in,
Inshallah.