A Desert Called Peace (80 page)

Notwithstanding any of this, however, he had his domestic opponents who were sure to take advantage of his discomfiture whichever way he rolled. And roll he would; there was no doubt about that. The only question was the direction of the roll and the degree of spin that would be needed. And there really wasn't much question about the direction, either.

Of course, the Sachsen chancellor
did
release Mahmoudi. There really had never been much question about that. Whatever physical harm the terrorist might do in the future was unimportant compared to the damage that would be done to the chancellor's domestic political power in the present were Westplatz to be killed. This release of the terrorist had to be made public though every effort was made, largely unsuccessfully, not to link the two as having been the subjects of a trade.

The trade couldn't be hidden, really. What could be, and was, hidden was the amount of ransom money paid over. This was the full five million Tauros that had been demanded. Even with the obvious linkage between Westplatz and Mahmoudi, the chancellor was a believer in Abraham Lincoln's truth: you
can
fool all of the people some of the time.

Of course,
thought the Chancellor,
it's much easier when all of the people desperately
want
to be fooled.

The money went to a number of useful places. Some purchased influence in Sumer and elsewhere. Some went to arms inside the country and out. A fair amount went to explosives, detonators, the odd book bag and backpack, and living expenses for certain persons inhabiting various parts of the continent of Taurus.

It was amazing how far a few million Tauros could go when overhead was low, arms and explosives cheap, and with most of Salafis within Taurus already being supported by the generous doles provided by the Tauran Union's member states and some lesser amounts from Yithrabi-funded madrassas and mosques.

Some small percentage went to fund a critically important operation in Castilla.

The operation had cost less, far less, than holding a Kosmo conference at a five star hotel on the picturesque island of Melosia concerning the dreadful problem of forced assimilation of migrant widget pickers in Eastern Westfuckistan. (Or perhaps it was Western Eastfuckistan. No matter; the point was never really to solve the problem, so much as it was to have a lovely conference by a lovely beach at someone else's expense. Why, if the problems were actually to be solved the free luxury conferences might end. That would never do.)

In any case, Fadeel's organization was able to plant fewer than a dozen bombs, kill under two hundred Castillanos, and drive that country completely out of the coalition in Sumer. Rarely in history had such a significant strategic objective been achieved at so little cost, though the Salafis would remember when it had, if anyone would. Westplatz agreed that the lives lost, while regrettable, had been well spent. Even so, she slept poorly for three entire nights over it, she felt so badly, and felt very virtuous at her own suffering thereafter.

UEPF
Spirit of Peace
,
Earth Date 19 September, 2515

"I've got to confess, my dear Captain, that your plan was brilliant,
brilliant,
I say!"

"Why thank you, Martin," Wallenstein answered, preening. "It gets better, too. Our collaborators down below have rounded up dozens of people willing to be 'kidnapped.' We've got news reporters, humanitarian aid workers, international lawyers, priests and ministers. There are even two rabbis and as many homosexuals as one could imagine. I never thought that would happen. I really don't see us ever running out of people, actually. And every one taken means five or ten million transferred to the resistance in Sumer and even in Pashtia. Of course, some of it will go to Taurus, too, and while I don't expect anyone to fold as readily as Castilla did, governments
will
fall, alliances will be weakened."

"I've been thinking a bit myself," the high admiral said. "I think the best way to handle the success the Balboans have been having is to split the effort in the media, with half comparing them to the FSC to the latter's detriment and half insisting that the FSC boot them out of the country and arrest their leaders for war crimes."

Wallenstein sipped at her drink. "Not sure I follow."

"The people down below who support us engage in a very interesting form of double think," Robinson answered. "They seem to have these little mental compartments in which they store their hatreds. The compartments let in or reject evidence, but seem never to objectively analyze it. They accept anything they hear that fits their world view or supports the ends they believe in, and reject what does not, logical consistency be damned. Thus, they're perfectly capable of believing both things as true at the same time, provided they hear them from different sources.

"It's like those homosexuals you mentioned who are willing to be kidnapped as hostages. They're going to help people who would string them up by their necks in a heartbeat. Why? It can only be mental compartmentalization amounting to insanity."

Wallenstein thought that very witty. She added to the high admiral's thought, "Well, our ancestors, the ones who took over Old Earth, didn't compartmentalize. Like us, however, they were very capable of using those who did."

"Quite," Robinson agreed. "In any case, I do intend to push their Cosmopolitan Criminal Court into having the Balboan leaders arrested, if possible, but it has to be at the right time. That time is not quite yet. I
am
, however, working on the Balboan government. Apparently the agreement under which they agreed to sponsor the forces in Sumer allowed them a total of one thousand FSD per man per month from the profits. This is about twice what an individual private in that force is paid, by the way. It's also become a substantial portion of the government's revenues, about seven percent and rising. The government, however, sees no reason anymore that they shouldn't be receiving
all
of it, which would increase their total funding several times over."

"So what stops them from simply issuing a decree and taking over?" Wallenstein asked, confused.

"Fear, I think. They've only got a few thousand under-equipped police in country. The mercenaries match that fully with their secondary formations of soldiers, damned well-armed soldiers, too, being raised under the government's nose. Still, let's let the ambassador see what he can do. No need to tell him in advance how unlikely success is."

Embassy of United Earth,
Ciudad
Balboa, 1/10/461 AC

"What you ask is, sadly, impossible," President Rocaberti insisted. "Yes, Mr. Ambassador, I would very much like to see those two bastards out of the way. I lack the power even to get at the one that's in this country. If I tried, I'd soon find myself decorating a lamppost."

The ambassador of United Earth to the Republic of Balboa was nonplussed. A small man, very dapper and precise, he found it hard to imagine a semi-private military force able to ignore a genuine government, though he understood that nonmilitary nongovernmental organizations did so with impunity all the time. That was
different
though.

"I really don't understand," the ambassador admitted.

"It's like this," the president explained. "I have about eleven thousand police, most of them civil rather than military. Of the military police there are about four thousand, a quarter of which are brand new. They lack heavy weapons and training for combat. Moreover, those most suitable for combat were let go to join this "legion" Parilla and Carrera—that's not his real name, did you know that?—set up. We've since made up the numbers, but not the . . . oh, I suppose 'quality' is the best word. Worse, there are strong ties of affection between the Civil Force and the
Legio del Cid
. My police are, frankly, unreliable to me.

"In Balboa now, there is a second legion forming. My people tell me this legion is about half strength in the units—call it twenty-five hundred soldiers—and has about as many still in training. They are led by what are now rather experienced and rather good combat commanders; so I'm told. They're frighteningly well armed, too. They'd go through my skeleton of a military police force in days . . . maybe hours. If the police didn't just go ahead and join them.

"So you see, I can neither arrest them, not even the ones in country, nor do a damned thing to force them to pay a fair share of their revenues."

The ambassador almost asked whether it might not be possible to have the FSC, the ultimate guarantor of Balboan democracy, or what passed for it, force the change in receipts and likewise reinforce the police to make the arrests. He started, and then realized that there was no chance—zero, zip, zilch, nada—that the FSC would do a blessed thing to undermine their real allies in the conflict that currently mattered. Still, there was
something,
something just at the edge of conscious thought.

Rocaberti saw and understood the fleeting look that crossed the ambassador's face. "Yes, that's exactly right. Under the circumstances of this war, with the Balboan legion being the third, soon to be second, largest contingent, there is no chance of any support from the gringos. My best hope is to keep the legion for the most part out of the country."

The ambassador half closed one eye, cocking his head and twisting it on his neck as he struggled for that something which seemed to be eluding him.
Aha
.

"Mr. President," he asked, "what if Tauran Union troops came to secure your government?"

UEPF
Spirit of Peace
, Earth Date 13 October, 2515

"Now isn't
that
an interesting idea?" muttered Robinson as he considered the ambassador's proposal. "It would never work on its own, of course. But if there were to be another attack on Balboa, then the legion they have overseas would have to be sent home
or
other security forces would have to be brought in."

"Which security forces, Martin?" the captain asked. "The FSC can't, they're already overstretched in the first place but in the second place, after a century of occupation and an invasion, the people there would not welcome their troops."

"After I looked over the file on this Hennessey or Carrera person, I also looked into the country he's recruiting from. I doubt their president could politically stand the uproar if he invited the FSC back."

"I know," Robinson agreed genially. "That's why the ambassador suggested that Tauran Union or other coalition troops be used."

"You would have to be careful," she cautioned. "The Yamatans are notable for being dicks when overseas. The Sachsen
Army
, whatever its government might feel, is still at heart a staunch ally of the FS. The Anglians? I'm not sure why but the Balboans seem to not much like the Anglians. What's that leave? Gauls and Castilians?"

"Yes," Robinson agreed happily. "And some few others. Precisely those who are no friends of the FSC and those who are most friendly to us and our aspirations. But there will need to be an incident to justify calling for help. And if it kills some civilians down below, it's still better than people of our classes being killed, eventually, back home."

Ciudad
Balboa, 25/10/461 AC

Not every asset available to Mustafa had been used in the attacks of two years prior. He still had his command and control team which had never been used and was perfectly capable of easing the arrival of other, operational, teams.

Those teams, two of them of three men each, came in on a single large yacht that anchored at one of the country's many yacht clubs, debarking their hidden passengers at night.

Moreover, the passengers fit right in once they were ashore. It was elegant, really. There were a dozen good Salafis from Castilla who spoke Spanish and needed to get out of the country. There was a job for half that many men skilled with explosives in a country where one needed to speak Spanish. Sometimes problems had a way of solving each other.

The men had escaped from Castilla barely ahead of the police and hidden out in Bilad al Sham for some weeks. From there they'd flown via that nation's national airline service to Farsia. Once in Farsia they'd languished for a bit, their informal leader, Mohammad Ouled Nail, doing his best to keep their spirits up after the ecstatic excitement of the attacks.

While they'd languished, however, the Farsian intelligence service had been very busy, preparing identification and passports. Properly documented, the six chosen reboarded an airplane, the first of a series that ultimately saw them arrive in San Vicente, not far from Balboa. There they were met by a representative of some local import-export business known locally as M-31. This business imported money and exported illegal drugs. They imported a bit more money, some small portion of what was paid for Senta Westplatz, for seeing the six by sea to Balboa and providing them with certain useful materials and implements. Business was business, after all.

Kaboom! Kakakakakaboomoomoomoomoom!

Carrera found Fernandez weeping quietly and staring at the photo of his daughter. A faxed message sat, crumpled on the desk, alongside a color newspaper page from home showing the carnage.

Beautiful girl,
Carrera thought.
She must have resembled her mother. What a goddamned fucking waste.

He placed one hand on his intel chief's shoulder, in sympathy. "I just heard, Omar. There are no words . . ."

Fernandez looked up, not trying to hide his tears. "She was all I had after her mother died. And then these . . ."

". . . bastards," Carrera supplied. "We'll get them, if we can, Omar. I wish I could promise you—"

"It's for me to promise you, Legate. We'll get them, all of them, no matter what it takes."

Of all men, Patricio Carrera probably best understood Fernandez's suffering. And one had to be impressed with the conviction behind his promise.