A Desert Called Peace (70 page)

At the reviewing stand Carrera saluted Parilla, reporting, "Al Sada Brigade, present and accounted for and ready to surrender after a gallant defense." The pipes and drums automatically cut out.

Parilla returned the salute and answered, "Continue with the ceremony."

Carrera turned and nodded at Sada. Sada, in turn, gave the orders in Arabic for his colors to follow him. They marched in time, pipes silent and drums only beating a slow march. There Sada once again unbuckled his sword belt and gave it to Parilla, who took it and passed it to Sergeant Major McNamara. Parilla then, followed by McNamara, walked gingerly down some rickety steps that led to the flat below the stand.

Sada turned and took the brigade colors from their bearer.
Oh, this hurts.
He turned once again, in place, and offered these to Parilla who took them as well. Parilla held them in his hand, momentarily, savoring the ultimate battlefield commander's high, the capture of the enemy's soul. Then, smiling, he gave them back to Sada.

"I don't understand," the Sumeri said, in English.

McNamara translated to Parilla who answered, through him, "You've earned t'e right to keep t'em."

Sada felt unmanly tears begin to form. He bit his upper lip and, nodding gratefully, returned the colors to their bearer. He saw Qabaash the Fierce suddenly lose his dejected demeanor and stand tall. By the time Sada turned again, Parilla had retrieved his sword from McNamara and was offering that back as well.

The tears began to course then in truth. Sada hung his head in embarrassment. Parilla just smiled broadly and slapped the Sumeri's shoulder, saying something in Spanish that Sada had no clue to.

McNamara handed a small hinged box to Parilla, who took from it a medal on a ribbon. This Parilla hung about Sada's neck while his head was bowed.

"
What?
" the surprised Sumeri asked.

"Can you identify forty or fifty men—officers, noncoms or enlisted, makes no difference, except I'd prefer some of each—who just did a really good, really courageous job here?" Carrera had asked. "I mean soldiers that everyone in your brigade would recognize as being number one fighters, first-class men?"

"Forty or fifty? I could probably give you four or five hundred." Sada had answered with pride, standing there on the green strip as the two worked out the final details of surrender.

"No . . . let's not be too ostentatious. Forty or fifty will do, for now."

"Follow t'e commander," McNamara said to Sada, as Parilla walked to the group of fifty Sumeris who had followed just behind the colors and were centered in middle of the remnants of the brigade. Sada did so, with the sergeant major following. Another legionary followed the sergeant major, bearing a scrounged metal tray on which were laid out fifty Steel Crosses.

"What the hell is he doing?" Sada asked of the sergeant major.

"T'ere is no bar in our regulations," McNamara answered, "to decorating for bravery an enemy who has fought well. As a matter of fact, if you read t'em t'e right way, it is required, at least where possible."

"No shit?" Sada asked.

"No shit . . . sir."

Well, this was certainly something different. With a very odd mix of feelings, Sada followed Parilla as he walked down the five ranks of ten and hung a medal around the necks of each of the Sumeris Sada had identified as particularly worthy. At each man Parilla shook hands and said a few words, technically incomprehensible but in practice quite clear. "Good man . . . brave soldier . . . it was an honor to fight you . . . wear it with pride."

With the presentation of the last award, Parilla again shook Sada's hand. Again they exchanged salutes. Sada walked back to his position in front of his staff while Parilla went back to the reviewing stand.

Carrera gave the order to Sada, "Have your soldiers ground arms."

Unit by unit, starting from the right of the line as they faced, the remnants of the Sumeri units grounded their rifles and machine guns on the grass strip, the men bending at the waist to carefully lay the weapons down before recovering to attention.

When the last unit had disarmed, Carrera ordered, "Have your brigade follow me." With another head nod, the pipes and drums picked back up again. The Sumeris began to march, first marking time in place and then, as the way cleared, wheeling left or right and moving forward behind the colors following their commander who, in turn, followed Carrera.

The honor guard from 1st Cohort stepped out to stand beneath the reviewing stand, between the eagles and the boulevard. When Carrera reached the stand he turned his eyes to the right and saluted the
Dux
and the Eagles. The sergeant major ordered, "Present . . . arms."

Carrera dropped the salute and continued on.

Taking the hint, Sada gave the command, "Eyes . . . right," and rendered "Present Arms" with his clan's sword. The colors of his brigade dropped to a forty-five degree angle until he ordered, "Ready . . . front." The silver eagles likewise lowered but to a lesser degree.

As the group of Sumeris Parilla had just decorated reached the stand they, too, executed an eyes right. Parilla saluted and dropped it. Then Parilla began to applaud. The staff on the stand joined him, holding the applause until the Sumeri honorees had passed.

That night, Sada met with Parilla and Carrera in a large and tacky office in one of the local municipal buildings that had been mostly spared in the fighting. The cheap but ostentatiously gilded furniture glinted in the now dim and then flaring kerosene lamps.

Fahad was in attendance in case translation should be needed.

"Your men? Settled in? Fed? Watered?" Parilla asked in his marginal English.

"Yes, sir," Sada answered. He was still in mild shock at the decent, even gallant, treatment he and his men had been accorded. Indeed, back in the wire-ringed temporary camp in which he and his troops were housed under first class Misrani tents his staff was still scratching their collective head.

"I have to apologize for the food," Parilla said, through Carrera. "Frankly, we're not eating all that well, either. We're supposed to have a somewhat improved supply situation in a few days."

"That's fine," Sada said. "After a week of boiled camel and rice, and not much of that, the men are happy just to be full."

"Drink?" Carrera offered, indicating a mostly full bottle and some mostly clean glasses.

"Please. We Sumeris are not, generally speaking, Salafi fanatics, you know."

Fahad poured for the four. There was no ice so it was scotch, neat.

They sipped, in silence and contemplatively, for a few minutes before Carrera began to speak.

"The FSC-led coalition has ordered your entire army to disband, the fucking idiots," he said heatedly. "Allegedly they'll provide a month's severance pay, at least to the officers."

Sada laughed, low and deprecatingly. "I can't even begin to tell you what a bad idea that is. You're going to suddenly
un
employ several hundred thousand young men, all trained to arms, and—my brigade excepted—with every reason to hate your guts. Oh, my. Saleh, wherever he's hiding, must just be coming in his pants over
that
one."

"Not us," Carrera corrected, "the FSC. Seems some civilian, never- heard-a-shot-fired-in-anger-idiot there, decided for the military that troops who had run away and surrendered were just not worth keeping around. Mind you, the money was all allocated to keep them under arms and employ them. But, no, this dipshit civilian with never a day in uniform thinks he knows better."

Sada shrugged. "Well," he admitted, "they're mostly
not
worth keeping around for the good they can do the FSC. At least not any immediate good. They're worth keeping around for the
harm
they might do if left to their own devices."

"We agree," Carrera said. "That's why we don't want to let your brigade go."

Seeing Sada bridle at the thought of his men spending some uncountable amount of time locked up behind wire, Carrera hastened to add, "Wait. I don't mean we want to keep them as prisoners past the time we must. I mean
we
want to hire them. And you."

Well . . . that was different. "So that's what all that pageantry was about."

"Partly," Carrera admitted. "But only partly. You and your men deserved it, too. What we have in mind, what we need, is three things. We want to hire about one hundred and fifty of your men as auxiliaries. They'll go to school to learn Spanish for about four months. Then they'll be assigned right down to century level to act as guides and interpreters for our units."

"That's . . . do-able," Sada agreed. One hundred and fifty men was only a fraction of the men he had who would need employment.

"The second thing we want is for you to reform a regular brigade of three or four infantry battalions. Call it two to three thousand men. You and they will fall under command of the legion and, frankly, be used."

"I don't have that many men," Sada objected, "not unhurt anyway."

"We expect you to recruit. We expect you to recruit very carefully because this brigade
must
be really first rate."

"Assuming you're paying, I suppose I can recruit. But I'll have to be very careful
who
I recruit."

"We know," Carrera agreed. "We expect you to take your time about it. It's going to be a few months before the insurgency we expect to come about can really kick off. You have to be ready by then."

"The insurgency is in place," Sada answered. "It's been in place. And with the FSC letting all those soldiers go, it's going to grow fast."

"Yes, but not
here,
not in our area."

"Maybe not," Sada said, noncommittally. "But it will spill over even so."

"That's the third thing we need. After you subtract for the translator-guides and the cadre for your new brigade, we want . . . watchers."

"In the towns?" Sada asked. "To spy and report?"

"And assassinate," Carrera added. "And to terrorize, if and when that becomes necessary. But the whole thing has to fall under your command. For any number of reasons, but mostly financial, we can't do some of the necessary dirty work. Some of that dirty work involves . . . well . . . let's say it involves information control."

Sada held out his glass to Fahad, who automatically refilled it. "
Shokran, ya
Fahad," he said, while using the moment to think.

"You realize, then, that no one can rule this place except through fear. I always despised the dictator except for one thing; he was able to hold us together. No one else could have. Carrot and stick is all well and good, but the donkey has to be able to see the stick."

"We understand that," Carrera answered.

"Pay?" Sada asked, more curious about whether it would be enough to keep his men and their families fed than out of any sense of greed.

Carrera handed over a sheet with pay scales. "It's about half what we pay our own, and about thirty or thirty-five percent more than the pay rates under the dictator. Plus there are some bonuses and extra pay for translators and the watchers. And we can work out special event bonuses for some utterly necessary but distasteful actions."

Sada put the sheet down. It was enough not to need to quibble over. More importantly, "How many of my wounded are expected to recover?"

"About six hundred," Carrera answered. "Maybe a few more."

"So . . . two thousand men to be your translators, form a secret police network, and cadre for a brigade. It's . . . possible, but only just possible."

"Best start now then," Parilla said, after Carrera had translated. "Pay starts as soon as you begin."

Sada was leaving, under escort, when Fernandez stopped him in the corridor. He introduced himself and explained, "I'm the military intelligence section. Rather, I'm the dirty part of it. I know what Carrera and Parilla asked you for. I need something, too."

"Yes?"

"You won't have any of what I need in your brigade," Fernandez began to explain. "But, given your former position, you'll have connections to what I need."

"And that would be, Tribune?"

"Interrogators," Fernandez answered simply. "And I have my own budget. I'll pay better than normal rates for what I have in mind."

It was hard, if not quite as hard as the decision to surrender his command had been.
What do I do?
Sada asked himself.
What do I do about the special . . . packages. I don't have a use for the weapons. I don't even want my country to
have
the filthy things. The funds? I can see better uses for them than they're likely to receive if Saleh's people get control of them. And what about if they get control of the weapons? Allah, that's a horrible thought.

But to turn them over to the enemies who just conquered us? Is it treason? Is it treason when the government that I swore an oath to has ceased to exist?

On the other hand, the Balboans have hired me. Wouldn't it be treason to my new bosses to fail to give them the weapons? God, I don't know.

After two days of thinking about it, Sada asked to see Carrera and Parilla again. Standing orders were that he was to be given every possible leeway and privilege. The MPs guarding the camp accordingly escorted him to headquarters, which had been moved to the fairly undamaged university. The gate guard had apprised Carrera that Sada was coming.

"There is a reason I was here," Sada announced without fanfare.

"Well, of course . . ."

"No. Another reason. Your men wouldn't have found it, not yet. Can you assemble a guard, a very reliable guard, quickly? They'll need flashlights."

That took a bit, perhaps an hour. When the guard was assembled Sada told Carrera, "Follow me, please."

He led the party to a building in an isolated part of the university compound, almost at the surrounding wall. There, he continued on down into the basement by way of a wide staircase. At the base of the stairs Sada opened what looked to be a gray metal circuit breaker box. He flicked a few switches and a hidden door opened up in the wall, moving out of the way with an irritating screech.