Starfist: FlashFire (19 page)

“Hope it don’t blow while we’re still in here,” Brack whispered, spitting a brown stream across the tunnel. It splattered on the opposite wall. In the dim light, he grinned ferociously at Sparks, revealing the discolored stumps of his front teeth.

“Cut it out!” a soldier behind them whispered. Brack turned and gave the man a rigid middle finger.

“Well, if he swallows that chaw in the excitement, we’re gonna have to carry him out.”

“Shut up!” their platoon leader whispered as he walked down the line of crouching infantrymen. “Noise discipline! Gen’rel Lyons is gonna be here in a minute. He wants to talk to us.”

“Hee, hee, hee, somebody give the old boy a bullhorn!” Brack stage-whispered. The lieutenant glared at him as he passed on down the line and Brack self-consciously lapsed into silence.

“Gawdam,” someone muttered, “the Gen’rel comin’ in here to talk to us? Man, that’s bad luck.” Someone else cursed the man into silence.

These men were eager for the attack to begin. They had practiced it intensively over the last hours, studied the maps of the fortress, memorized every detail, each knew his assignment. Brack’s team was to break through into a specific bunker, if they could, and kill or capture the men in there; if time—ten minutes inside at the most, and then back into the tunnel—and circumstances permitted, they would infiltrate neighboring positions through the communications tunnels the engineers assumed branched off from every bunker, connecting them all into an integrated defensive system. It was really a very simple operation with the exception that they would have to run all the way back through the tunnel with their prisoners—if they got any—and wounded, which they definitely would have.

Brack had never seen General Davis Lyons up close. That morning the general passed within inches of where they crouched, speaking quiet words of encouragement to each man, shaking hands with some, pausing to talk in whispers briefly with others. “I’m counting on you,” he said directly to Brack and making eye contact. He passed on, then turned around and came back. “Is that a chaw in your cheek, soldier?” he asked.

“Um, yessir,” Brack mumbled, his lips stained dark with tobacco juice that was visible even in the poor light. He began to get to his feet to assume the position of attention but Lyons motioned for him to stay down.

Lyons shook his head as Brack’s platoon commander, who was following the general, began to say something. “Well, soldier, make sure you don’t swallow the damn thing,” Lyons said and, still shaking his head, passed on down the line. Brack gave Sparks a huge, vindicated grin and spit carefully but victoriously, onto the wall behind him. On his way out General Lyons paused before Brack again, laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. Brack was astonished and enormously flattered that the general remembered him, but most invigorating of all, he realized, he had just had his brush with history and if he lived through this war, he’d have a story to tell the rest of his life.

A few minutes later the lieutenant came back down the line whispering, “Forward! Forward! The engineers are ready!”

“My name is Andantina Metzger,” the interrogator introduced herself, taking the chair opposite Ennis Shovell. “Smoke?” she asked, offering an open pack of cigarettes to Shovell, who shook his head. She shrugged. “You don’t mind if I have one then?” She lighted up, leaned back, and smiled. “So, Private Shovel, how’s things?”

Ennis Shovell’s head was still bandaged from the blow that had knocked him unconscious and saved his life. He did not know what happened to his companions, Livny and Quimper, whom he presumed were killed in the raid. “I’ve been worse,” Shovell answered. He sized up Metzger warily, the way she sucked the smoke into her lungs and expelled it to one side, to avoid blowing it into his face; her posture in the chair; the way she looked at him; her hair, the bones in her face. She did not look at all threatening. He estimated her age as several years younger than himself, but no spring chicken. Ordinarily she might have been rather attractive to him but under these circumstances Shovell had other things to think about. “When do you start pulling out my fingernails?” he asked.

“Oh, dear boy, don’t be so crude!” Metzger smiled slightly, revealing a set of good teeth, “we do so much hate crudity. Ah, hum,” she was silent for a moment, regarding Shovell in her turn. She knew something about him from the information contained in the standard-issue army ID bracelet he’d been wearing when captured. She saw a well-built man in his forties, probably, one side of his head covered with a field dressing, his tunic bloodstained. Her training was as a psychologist. In civilian life she conducted interviews with criminal suspects for the police and was considered good at obtaining confessions. “You’re from New Genesee? I’ve never been there. What’s it like? What’d you do there? How’s your family?”

“At its worst, it’s much nicer than this place,” Shovell answered.

“Ah, yes,” Metzger smiled. She wouldn’t get much from this man, she knew, at least not the standard information like troop strength, defensive dispositions, that sort of thing. She nodded. “I come from a place called Trinkatat, ever heard of it?”

“Yeah,” Shovell responded, “all the women there are whores, I hear.”

“Ennis, be nice. You don’t mind if I call you Ennis, do you? How long have you been in the army?”

“All my life.”

“Do you like it?”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Shovell almost shouted.

Metzger nodded. “Sorry. Dumb question, Ennis. I’d like to be home myself, drinking a beer right now. Would you like a beer, Ennis?”

Shovell shook his head. “You married?” Shovell asked. He did not see any rings on her fingers. Her nails were cut short but they were clean, he observed.

Metzger smiled. “Please. I ask the questions here, okay?” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Look, Ennis, let’s cut the crap and get down to cases. I need to know some things about your army, nothing vital, because you don’t know anything vital, you’re only an infantry private. But tell me about your unit, what you know about the other units in your army, how things are out there. That’s not important information. You won’t be betraying your comrades! Other guys we captured during that raid have told us a lot, so you wouldn’t be the only one to cooperate. Come on, you cooperate with me,” she shrugged, “and in a little while you’ll be in a comfortable bed or, if you like, way in the rear, sucking on a beer. Ennis, this war is over for you. Make your stay with us easy on yourself.”

“Why don’t you make things easy on me? Let’s fuck.” Private Ennis Shovell, New Genesee National Guard, now a prisoner of war, instantly regretted making that remark and his face reddened. Metzger only smiled, as if used to such comments, and this increased Shovell’s embarrassment so he rushed on, “All right, all right, I do have some vital information that you need to know.”

Metzger nodded, the smile still on her face, but she said nothing.

“You can’t crack us, the Marines are on their way, and when they get here, we are going to kick your motherfucking asses into next year.”

Metzger had what she wanted.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lieutenant General Jason Billie, Director of Operations for the Confederation Combined Chiefs of Staff, had risen far, thanks to his abilities as the consummate staff officer and a schemer. At the military academy his fellow cadets had dubbed him “Jason the Janus”; they realized even then Billie’s aptitude for duplicity. The name had stuck throughout his career.

General Billie never attacked anyone directly, always through insinuation. A master of innuendo and irony, he demolished his enemies and competitors over time by dropping casual remarks about their shortcomings in the presence of their superiors. He did this in the utmost good humor, pretending an innocent joke at the other person’s expense. And when those superiors would defend the person Billie was attacking, he would chuckle and instantly agree with them, in fact deny that he bore them any ill will, but the remarks so casually dropped had a tendency to stick.

So in a meeting where Major General Alistair Cazombi suggested maybe the quarantine on the transfer of Marines of 34th FIST might be removed, Billie had immediately replied, “Alistair, have you ever known a twenty-three-year-old with a snout full of beer to keep his mouth shut?” Admiral Porter, the Chairman of the Combined Chiefs, laughed along with the other officers in that meeting, but Billie had inserted a seed in the admiral’s mind that eventually grew into the confrontation between him and Cazombi that had resulted in the latter’s transfer to Ravenette. That’s how Billie got Cazombi out of the way for good, or so he thought. He hated the plainspoken, laconic Cazombi because behind that stoic facade that had earned him the nickname “Cazombi the Zombie,” dwelt a superior intelligence that saw right through Jason Billie.

But not even two-faced Lieutenant General Billie could have anticipated the role Fate was to play in regard to Alistair Cazombi when it thrust him into the position of defending the besieged garrison at Fort Seymour and subsequently brought him to the attention of the President herself, who compared him with the heroic Jonathan Wainwright of Corregidor fame. That was the sort of attention that did Cazombi no harm. Billie either, because Admiral Porter had to take the heat for transferring Cazombi, once the word got out how that brilliant and brave officer had been treated by the Chairman of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. That was how ingeniously Billie planned his moves. But Cazombi’s fame did not help Jason Billie, who was hankering badly for his next star. It was the army’s turn next to contribute a general officer to be Chairman, since that position rotated among the services periodically. Another star for Billie and the new Chairman could very well be—Full General Jason Billie. And that fourth star could not be denied him if he could get command of the field army the Confederation was raising to go to the relief of Cazombi.

So Lieutenant General Jason Billie broached the subject with Admiral Porter in private after a meeting of the full staff. That meeting had been held to update Porter on Billie’s plan to deploy the troops needed for the field army. As usual, Billie had handled the planning brilliantly. He’d dubbed it “Operation MacArthur.”

“What’s on your mind, Jason?” Porter leaned back comfortably and regarded his operations director frankly, almost affectionately. He was very satisfied with the way the meeting had gone and was thinking ahead to the briefing he would soon give the President. He anticipated a very successful briefing that would restore his luminescence among the civilians. He had moved quickly and decisively, in large part due to Billie’s expertise as a planner and organizer. But the President would never know anything about Jason Billie’s role in Operation MacArthur, only that Admiral Joseph K. C.

B. Porter was responsible for it.

“I want command of that field army, sir.”

Porter sat up quickly, clearly surprised. “Ah?” was all he could say at first. “Jason, would you have a cigar?” he offered, to give him time to think of a reply. He already had someone in mind for that command, someone he wanted to get rid of but someone whose selection was sure to please the President.

“Sir, let me be frank.”

“Please do.” Porter lighted the cigar for Billie.

“I personally organized the force you will dispatch to Ravenette. I know it from the top down, except there’s nobody at the top just now. Who better to command it than the man who designed it?”

“Well, ahem,” Porter was dithering, as Billie knew very well he would. He even knew who it was Porter had in mind for the command. He would have picked the same officer, were he the chairman, to please the President and get rid of a pain in the ass. But Billie would demolish that officer in a few moments. “I can hardly spare you here, Jason—” Porter gestured vaguely.

“Sir, my deputy can take over as Director. She’s fully competent and more than ready for a three-star slot. I never stand in the way of competent subordinates, as you know. But let me point out something. Your sending Cazombi to Ravenette was a brilliant decision! He is just the man for a delaying action, even though we didn’t know at the time that this role would fall to him. But the situation on Ravenette was in turmoil when he was sent there. You needed a man with rank and experience on the scene in case the situation deteriorated—”

Porter nodded and grunted; he hadn’t thought of that explanation.

“Rumors have been flying around in high places, mostly inspired by the Marine Commandant, Aguinaldo, that Cazombi was sent there by you to settle a grudge you had against him.” He made a dismissive gesture, as if he, Billie, didn’t believe that was the reason, which he knew full well it was. “In fact, Cazombi is your Horatius at the Bridge, you might say, sir, holding off the hordes. But to win this war you need someone with far greater organizational ability and insight. You need a Caesar. I am that Caesar, sir, you know it, so does everyone. Give me that command and you will have to your credit two brilliant decisions and victory in this war. You can point all this out when you nominate me for the job.”

Billie hated General Aguinaldo, the bluff, straight-talking Marine commandant. He had tried never to let this hatred show, always treating Aguinaldo with cool courtesy and deference at meetings, but their relationship had never been warmer than frosty because Aguinaldo saw through Billie as clearly as Cazombi did, and knew him for the sinuous schemer that he really was. Billie knew very well that Aguinaldo despised him and had supported Cazombi’s arguments for lifting the quarantine on 34th FIST, and he also knew about Cazombi’s long-standing friendliness toward the Marines, which he considered downright disloyalty to the army. Now Cazombi’s balls were in a vise and he had called for Marines, an insult to every self-respecting soldier. That had to be corrected and he, Jason Billie, was the man to restore order in the world of military affairs.

“Well—” Porter was impressed. So it was Aguinaldo who told the President about his falling out with Cazombi. And to think he had been going to propose that very same Aguinaldo for command of the army! So far he had only gotten icy stares from Chang-Sturdevant when the subject of Cazombi had come up but he’d not been asked outright to explain why he was on Ravenette to begin with. Now he had that explanation. A brilliant face-saver. Oh, he might have to embellish the facts a bit, not tell an outright lie to make the explanation go down smoothly, but every military man who had to deal with politicians knew how to do that as second nature. “Well, well.” Porter relaxed and sat back in his chair. “General,” he gestured at a side table, “would you join me in a bourbon?”